Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Math

Ari goes to a Jewish school. They are obvs God-fearing, but there are many advantages, and they seem cool with our atheism, lesbianism, and um. Well, they don't know about the house guests.

It was Purim a couple of months ago--beginning on sundown, March 15th--which I know because I received 28,521 messages every seven seconds on March 14th telling me it was the last day to purchase Purim greetings, which are $3 each and DON'T EVEN EXIST. As in: are virtual. I am not a cheap Jew. Truly. My ping pong table cost an exorbitant amount. The damn paddle was $100. I pay for dinner, mostly, and I buy far too many clothes. But I have my limits, and I have no desire to pay $3 times 17 (16 now--one moved back to Israel) to have an auto-generated Purim greeting emailed to my son's classmates, who, by the way, cannot read. Just: no.

I didn't do it. They have an option for reciprocity, too, which means you will automatically send a greeting to anyone who sends you one. Didn't do that either. It may have secretly been because I didn't get it together and was too lazy to log on to the damn site, which sounds easy but requires an actual computer, a login and password I have (I think) lost, and the ability to identify which class Ari is in, based on some kind of unfathomable signifier. As anyone anywhere knows, the acquisition of this kind of information is far beyond me. Semiotics, no problem. Which class is my child in? Tilt! Even if all of Ari's classmates and their parents think I am mean and stingy, I do not care. Having to do nothing is worth it. I know what you are all thinking: sing it. Thanks for your support.

I'm blogging again because my hiatus was unsuccessful. I'd decided to focus on my book, which is not even supposed to be funny. As in: both that phrase (focus on my book) and the book itself. Not funny. Neither one. However, it is hard to try to write a book when one has as much disgust for serious writers as I do. I am disgusted because I am jealous, of course. And by "disgusted" I mean adore and love. All of my writer friends. Srsly, you are my fave peops. Just also, you make me sick. This is normal, no? I just assume everyone feels this way about all their loved ones who have agents and book deals and published things with pages you can buy.

Of course, most of the writers I know have written exactly what I am trying to write (queer YA sci fi with lots of sex), which has no market whatsoever and a bajillion people trying to write it. Not good math, there. Here is some more bad math, regarding my unsuccessful hiatus. I believe I have somehow managed to write a negative number of pages since I stopped blogging. My colleagues who teach math and science assure me that's not possible, but I am skeptical. I had pages before, and now I have decided they are not worthy and deleted them! So, I had 30. I now have two. How is that not writing a negative number of pages?! What else could it be? Aliens ate them? Absurd. These math people do not understand my tempestuous, artistic self; I shan't be discussing my book with them again!

I know that semicolon use just now was quite risqué. But, bear with me. It gets a lot more mundane from here on out, especially since this post is almost over.

I have one more math solution for you. I am not really here because I failed at my book. I wrote negative pages, but have positive plot creation and outline. A few good sentences I will fight for, if I ever am so lucky as to have an editor to try to get me to take them out. Overall, not bad. However, I am back by popular demand, bitches! Four entire people insisted. That's not a lot of people to most of you, but to an introvert like me, it is. Some of them have polite children, even. Raising a polite child has the same degree of difficulty as consuming (like, with one's mouth) a navy submarine, so these are impressive people. They said their lives were not complete without me. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite those words. What they actually said was much better: that they missed my blog because they used to set aside time to read it and laugh in bed together once the kids were asleep. A parent knows this is high praise. Those hours that feel like seconds between his/her/their bedtime and yours, especially if you have some early rising job, are holy. Thanks, guys. You know who you are.