Blogging difficulty

It's hard to blog when you don't have your own internet access. Getting to the library is a pain, but it is nothing compared to the agony I feel at not being able to check out more than three items at a time until I get a real residential address. There are books out there, people. Books that need to be read. By me.

I had my first actual story published yesterday (I don't count the Fair story because, well, everybody has to write about the fair). It was about the local gospel mission looking to raise money to fix itself up. You would not believe the amount of stuff to be stored in their building. The tour I took just made this anti-clutterbug freak out a little, to the point where the woman giving me a tour commented how overwhelmed I looked (today, at the women's facility nearby, which isn't quite as packed but also has lots of stuff in it). At any rate, I heard today that I got an ovation for the story from a local group that was getting a presentation about the mission's fundraising. Best of all, my editor/publisher was there.

I feel markedly unproductive compared to some of my coworkers, notable Steven F., who puts out copy like it was going out of style. He had three stories on the fair on his day to go and managed to crank out four or some ridiculous number today. I know I've only been there a week, but sheesh, I feel like a slug.

But I don't like to talk too much about work on my blog. It's inside baseball to you guys.

Instead, to the tragedy of forwarded mail. Apparently it takes two weeks for the Post office to collect, then, in one big bunch, forward your mail. And I have a Netflix DVD in there, so this is a money-wasting proposition for me. Especially since I won't have cable until next month. I also have a bank statement and a $50+ discrepancy between my checkbook and Quicken registers that is making me bonkers. I never have that big a discrepancy. And with all my free time I've had, what with no TV, I still can't parse where I have messed up. I am a little anal-retentive, so this is causing me a little distress. Not as much as the frozen enchiladas in green sauce I had the other night (they were much more like tamales, in my estimation, and the salt just about knocked me out), but some none the less.

I also found another NPR low-talker that enrages me. Public Radio International, anyway: Sarah Fishko. An occassional commentator for "On The Media," her low, un-enunciated to the extreme voice tends to forget that there are such things as consonents and vowels that are not pronounced as schwas. My iTunes will only turn up so loud, Sarah. You have to do some of the work here for me. I have an auditory processing learning disability, for pete's sake. It's very hard to go from the joys of enthusiastic but appropriate Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone to "the fish. Ko." (and yes, Meegan, I do feel an extra affection for Ann Taylor knowing that she makes her clothes in such a way that they fit me well and I can get them cheap at the Supermall).

Any more gripes? Anyone who got an email from my mom saying that I "razz"ed her about her weight should be aware that that is not totally true. I was supportive. Up to a point. People, I can only give you loving care and tender words that you poop on for so long before I start trying another tack. Negativity is the enemy of fitness, physical or mental.

Speaking of not accepting or understanding one's body and its potential, in this month's issue of Vanity Fair (sorry, no link to the story) there is a really deluded article about plastic surgery by Alex Kucinsky (sp? of the NYT). It's deluded because although it purports to be her talking about how she was such an addict to it (and hence not deluded anymore) there's this veneer of rich-white-person priviledge just oozing out of every sentence. Like it was cool to go for weekly microdermabrasion and laser treatments, but getting fat sucked out of her butt was really transgressive or not part and parcel of the same ridiculous, expensive trap of the Beauty Myth of the fountain of youth. And then she moans how she had to work from home for a couple of days after an (illegal!) injection of Restylane made her lip swell up. See, without "Reno 911" I end up buying magazines that disturb me (don't even get me started on "Real Simple." That is the apogee of American consumer faux-minimalism cognitive dissonance, and for a teensy example, it has a recipe for a "rustic peach tart" that includes a frozen pie crust!! This is supposed to be about the good life, food porn! Why the pre-made pie crust? And I'm not even going into why they offer up $500 "storage solution" bookshelves when they're allegedly promoting a simple lifestyle). I need cable. I need Jon Stewart and Louis Black. I need little, plucky Veronica Mars. I need those crazy Cylons. TV makes so much more sense than magazines, you have to be the stupidest snob ever to read magazines and ditch the TV.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I was trying to be positive.

Went to a sandwich shop in a year-round farmer's market today. I can get fresh-baked pies for $10 with farm-grown rhubarb, strawberries and other NW berries. I cannot be positive enough about carbs. Luscious, sweet carbs.

Also, the Hoquiam library is a gorgeous old building courtesy of Andrew Carnegie, tiny Scots-born robber baron. It is packed with Elton Bennet screens, and artist I really dig who hails from Hoquiam.

At any rate, more pics and grumbles (and maybe some nice things to say) later.