Have you ever done anything wrong?

Really wrong, like hurting a friend? How do you climb back up out of it? Especially when you're in high school? That's something I've been wrangling with lately because I am writing a story about it.

I am also reading a story about it. And that story is putting my own story to shame. Eileen Cook has written the book What Would Emma Do and I started reading it last night and have barely stopped since.

She takes a horrible situation and treats it with humor and a cockeyed kind of dignity, and you know, if she were not also a beautiful human being, I would have to hate her. As it is, I just stand back and shake my head in admiration. But only for a minute or two, because I am hooked on this book and have to get back to reading it.

I am not the only one, either. Not only did Meg Cabot - mega-bestselling author - blurb the thing, but she chose it as one of her Christmas book picks.

If all that doesn't convince you, just look at this cover.

Is this not the funniest damn cover you have ever seen? With the girl stepping on the guy's foot? And them totally going at it in the bushes? I love it. I want to frame it, and it's not even my book. DAMN IT. EILEEN ALWAYS DOES EVERYTHING BETTER.

Including this book.

Go buy the book, friends. Trust me on this.

Flipper

http://rpattzadventures.blogspot.com/2008/10/twenty-three.html

I'm dying. This is awesome.

November's over

This one took a lot out of me. And I wish I could say I love the book; I don't. But at least I finished.

I heart Maggie

So I'm a day or so behind with my NaNo'ing, and after writing about 2500 words this morning - in a huge funk because in the 12,000 words I have written thus far, no one has left the cafe, all they're doing is sitting around talking and flirting and fighting and discovering that one of their number actually speaks in code, and another of their number is an asshole and Needs To Go --- but no one has actually stepped foot outside and DONE anything, really. Except the code-talker, who otherwise does not speak, and is basically chained to her barista stand.

so. There I am, in a funk even though the sun has broken through the crazy stormy weather here in Seattle, when I pop over to Maggie's blog and get what I always get when I go there: an instant shot in the arm.

Not to mention some really good writing advice: give people a past, with meaty scary irrevocable trajectories that are about midway through when the book starts.

Yeah, baby!

HK and Shanghai shots

The Bund in Shanghai (above)

Shanghai street scene

Shanghai market

The Huangpu River in Shanghai

The Huangpu again, shot from my hotel room, which was awesome

Above is my favorite shot from Shanghai - I love the contrast between sharp and blurred.

Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong

The view from the peak tram in Hong Kong - it's a long way down, and that's just the first level.

The view from the cab ride to Stanley Market (Stanley's a little beach town on the other side of the island)

Hong Kong, about 1/10 of the skyline

A longer view of the HK skyline, but this maybe gets 25-30% of it in frame. HK: Built on mountainsides, skyscraper canyons that run for miles.

I went to Asia

and all I brought back was this lousy case of SARS.

Just kidding. (Although no one laughs. What, SARS jokes aren't funny any more?) Have spent the last week coughing and moaning and clutching my sad sore throat, in between thrashing about fitfully while "asleep," mainly because each night I dream that I am still on the plane home from China.

Of course, I'm awake enough to realize that I'm naked, and asleep enough to think I'm sitting in between my boss and her boss, with whom I made the trip. This makes for some horribly disorienting moments at 2, 3, 4 a.m. Thankfully, that has started to taper off. More photos when I get a chance.

Kowloon at night

Breakfast in Hong Kong

The view from the breakfast room at my hotel:
I ordered pancakes. I thought they would be larger than silver dollars.

Morning commute in Hong Kong: Every bit as bad as 520 across Lake Washington, although with more bamboo and less BMWs.
To get to Hong Kong from Kowloon, you travel under the water. UNDER. THE. WATER. These are things that make one consider the differences between U.S. standards of construction and Chinese standards of construction.

But the view of Hong Kong in the distance - that's about 1/4 of the HK skyline - makes things considerably easier to take. HK itself is canyons of skyscrapers.
Victoria Harbour. There were plenty of modern boats, but there were also many many little wooden fishing boats too - like motorized junks, with old tires around the sides of the boats to keep them from smashing into one another. Mostly they just bounce off one another. Kowloon in the distance.

Lazy-ass blogger alert

I've been running around like crazy, getting ready for a spur-of-the-moment business trip to Parts Afar. This entailed flying my ass down to San Francisco late Monday to get a visa to Foreign Parts, and then dashing around having things translated and printed and packed. At times my head felt full of cotton.

But now I am ensconed in the comfort of the Northwest Airlines lounge in, of all places, Portland, Ore. Do you know they will give you free drinks here? And cheese and crackers? It's like they read my mind. I love traveling, I love the entire getting-on-a-plane gestalt.

But it unsettles me, too. For years I've thought, "When I'm on the plane, I'll use the entire time to write," but when I click that seatbelt shut, I'm in a different world. It's not a creating world; it's a looking out the window, accepting any beverage that comes my way, reclining kind of world. Cotton-brained. I am floating, in more ways than one. Plane time is rarely productive time for me, and I like it like that.

Anyway, posting may be scarce for the next 10 days; we'll just have to see whether Foreign Parts will let me blog.

I love November

http://www.nanowrimo.org

I kicked Jason Mraz's ass

For 5 days, that insanely peppy Jason Mraz song was stuck in my head. It was like my brain just kept hitting Replay, no matter what I did. I listened to the song on iTunes to show my brain that the song stops. I told my husband about it, hoping to transfer the ear worm, but he's never heard the song. (Which I would link to, but I'm too afraid it'll come back.)

I visualized. I listened to other music. I sat down and had a very stern talk with my brain. Nothing worked.

Nothing, that is, until I started screaming NO! in my head every time I heard the chorus. Now, my brain is afraid of me, but I slept the sleep of the innocent last night.

The sun will shine again

12 weeks ago I started that damn program. I've lost close to 20 pounds and found that I have a real intolerance for chatting with personal trainers at 7 a.m., no matter how nice the PT is, and that I also have a real stubborn streak about answering personal questions from nutrionists.

I can't say I would do it again, though. Despite the program's promises (reduce your stress! be happier!), I've spent the last 12 weeks hovering between anxiety and melancholy. The anxiety's from not drinking the program Kool-Aid. The melancholy, I have no idea about, other than the fact that PT sessions are just plain tedious.

It's something, though, to be told repeatedly that exercise will make you happy, and instead to just feel leaden inside. My writing shows it. Do you see any sunshine in these posts, this summer? I am hard pressed to find any. If there is a black hole in this world, its name is depression, and I am standing too close to it for comfort.

I have to keep reminding myself that I signed up for this program, knowing that I would have to open my life up to scrutiny from nutritionists, doctors, my PT, and the guy who does the blood work. I knew that going in, but I didn't realize how much I would dislike it, struggle against it. I don't like opening up my life for strangers, and I really don't like them asking me questions about why I eat the things I do, or what affect work stress has on me, or anything about my personal life, really.

In light of that, it seems so strange that I have a blog, doesn't it? And yet you guys only get about 3% of the straight dope. Not even that, these days. I should never have moved from an anonymous blog to this one; now too many people I know from real life read this. It makes it hard to let loose. Again: my own damn fault.

But back to the program. Initially, I intended to keep this shit up straight through December, but my tolerance for morning conversation is far too weak for that, and so we're coming down to the last few weeks. I could not be happier. I want control of my life back.

I have lost close to 20 pounds, which is delightful; I've also regained my cardiac endurance, which lets me do things like survive spinning classes and go for a run around the lake. I've gotten used to eating less, and to eating very healthy foods, and my body feels better for it. So all that is good.

But man, on mornings when I'm going to PT and the alarm goes off at 6, my mood takes a nose-dive. Mornings when I get up at 5:45 for spinning class, though, I'm just fine. When I realized that, I realized I needed to cut this program short and get back to living my life.

I just have one request

Whoever we elect president, can it be someone who pronounces the name of the capital without putting an R in it?

Honestly, Warshington? WTF?