It's that time of year when I drag myself out of bed every morning by 4:00 or 4:30am and go out to the family room, turn on two lamps and the TV, then settle down on the couch to watch live matches from Wimbledon. Usually I fall back asleep and dream about tennis. (During the warmup tournament this year, I actually had an erotic dream about Andy Murray during his final.)

I'm just hoping this year's men's final won't end up routine, like the women's is going to be (another Williams sisters match, hopefully a good one). Maybe this year the Queen will actually be in the royal box!

Puhleeze, Andy, win tomorrow. I mean, Andy, lose tomorrow. (Andy Murray and Andy Roddick . . .) I'll be listening on Radio Wimbledon. Because as is routine for us on the West Coast, we won't get the match live on TV.

The subject for July's NanoBloMo is Routine.

I hope to make blogging part of my routine again. Starting now.

So, it's Bruce Wayne's birthday (Earth 2, 'member?) and Russell Crowe turns 45 today.

And, speaking of birthdays, mine just started. This year I have to work, but I did take a three-day weekend beforehand. And what did I do to celebrate?

I got my oil changed and a headlight replaced.
I got my driver's license renewed. (Thank God Charlie had my birth certificate.)
I closed a checking account that was nothing but a pain in the (overdraft) ass.
I got my taxes done.

Yes, finding time for real life is hard to do sometimes. And real life is so full of mundane shit. But at least I managed to get some of that dull stuff done. (Now if only I could get through tomorrow without having to suffer through anyone singing--shudder--'Happy Birthday'!)

But best of all, delorita wrote me a Prestige story as a b-day present. Fantastic! (And hot.)

Hard to believe it's the first day of one of my favorite months. It was so ugly today, so damn penetrating cold, I could barely stand to go outside.

And let's say today put my patience to the test, and it was one big FAIL.

Tomorrow is going to be a better day. I've got to get my shit together on several things, and in the meantime, I'm thanking God for Ashley, who was definitely sent by some higher power.

Andy Roddick played fantastic in Miami tonight and lost to Federer by a lapse in belief or concentration or both. I was actually impressed by how aggressive he was. Still, he lost.

(Michael Caine's on Jay Leno, and while he still sounds lively, I have to agree with Sue . . . it might take Viagra to get the guy aroused.)

So much of the country is still experiencing crazy climactic events, like floods and blizzards and tornadoes. Yeesh. And we're still bitching about how cold it is, with April just a heartbeat away.

Sometimes it seems like spring will never come, much less summer.

Still, it will come. It is coming. And before we know it, we'll be angsty over how fast it's all happening.

On the cusp of life moving on, after spending a couple hours watching 15 young women and their families learning just a little information about how they're going to fit into local history in the next two months, it seems appropriate to pause for one small second.

. . . fini.

Time to move on.

I need a new profile page. I need new icons. I need more time.

March is almost over now. I still can't smell, but my appetite is coming back. (WTF?!) After all these years, I'm finally posting my 600th entry here, and I have absolutely nothing to say.

I need to go send out a reminder about our writing group, but that just seems like work to me. I finished the board update today, and that was definitely work. I only got one of my budget forecasts done. Work and more work.

But while I was down sick, I finished Stephen King's On Writing and Christopher Priest's masterpiece, The Prestige. More reasons to keep on trying. Oh, and I also finished my first 3:10 To Yuma fic, inspired by seeing the movie on cable a jillion times recently. Those two subjects do not belong together at all, but this paragraph is proof that I'm actually reading, along with a little writing. All is not lost, even less than two months from the festival!

I have no inspiration for my April writing group story, based on our prompt, Riches to Rages, but I'm starting to imagine my next fanfic, something featuring Bruce and his daddy. Oh my.

I got two random feedbacks to an old Bruce/Harvey drabble . . . I'm wondering if it was rec'd at some unknown place . . .

(So a giant, rock-like creature, wounded by phaser fire, backs away from the slab of slate where it's been gently vibrating for several seconds, leaving behind the strange words, "No Smell I.")

After a week of lying around reading, when I wasn't lying around moaning, I finally went back to work and to the damn doctor today. Yes, I've broken down and starting taking a dreaded antibiotic. Why? Because I have the worst sinus infection of my life, and several days ago I realized I had completely lost the sense of smell.

Seriously.

No, I'm not sneezing or plugged up anymore. I just can't smell anything. Not anything bad, not anything good. Food has absolutely no taste. And I can actually claim that my shit doesn't stink.

After several alarming stories on line and from folks I know (Mack's wife didn't get her sense of smell back for seven months!), I called the doctor. He scoffed at the idea the loss could be permanent or even semi-permanent and told me to stop surfing the net about it. I've chosen to take it as a sign from a higher power that I have to stop obsessing about food.

Life's a beach, but at the current time I can't smell the ocean.

Is this really only the third post I've made this month? How can that be?

I'm just sitting downstairs, finishing up a '3:10 to Yuma' fanfic that I unexpectedly started last night, watching the last ten minutes of that excellent film. I've been home sick for two days, suddenly stricken at the end of Wednesday, feeling like shit and annoyed at Circumstances. If I had the strength, I'd be mad as hell. But I don't, dammit.

I need a shower and something decent to eat (not Fritos, in other words). And I can smell potatoes baking upstairs.

Hope the folks on my flist are doing better than I am. I don't think I'll get through my friends' view tonight.

ETA: I'm making a note here that I could smell potatoes baking upstairs just in case I never do again!

Well, we'll see if it snows tonight or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we have our advanced clown workshop, and we'll have to go for 'moral support' and to take some photos. And, on Friday, we finally got a title sponsor for the clowns! Woohoo!

I've been in a bitchy mood this week. (Could it be I need a little more Lidocaine?) I think it's because I'm horny, actually.

Yes, we finally got the Facebook thing done. Wow, that thing is a resource hog. I can only put up with it for so long, but it does seem like a good way to stay in contact with old pals (and new ones).

Speaking of new friends, I got two new flisters from my Alfred/Lucius story. It really turned out to be a great experience, and I also got a lot of nice feedback. It just proves a small community (like gd_alfredlucius) can offer a lot of opportunities for positive interaction. I highly recommend it.

So, the subject of this post is going to become a code phrase for me, referring to something that's a ridiculous attempt to keep something from hurting really bad. My visit to the gynecologist yesterday (Tuesday, actually) was . . . unpleasant . . . to say the least.

Ladies, if your gynecologist comes at you with a Q-tip covered with Lidocaine, watch out!

The good news is, I won't need emergency corrective surgery, because the doc 'fixed things' in his office. The bad news is, he 'fixed things' in his office.

Um . . . ouch.

On the list of things to do, no Facebook account yet (!!), and I still have to send out the stories from Monday (no, mine was not the last one in, but it was probably the last one finished).

I can check the Alfred/Lucius story off the list. (Thanks, Charlie, for the nice Lucius icon.) And now I just need to finish my story for our Writers Group, set up my Facebook page and do a bunch of work work.

So, time for a game of Zuma!

The past two weeks could be used to teach a class on public relations. It's probably been the most successful time in my entire career when it comes to doing everything I do, strategizing, messaging, manipulating, planning and executing. If we sat back and wrote out the desired scenario, we couldn't improve on the result. The only thing I didn't really do was any speaking of my own. (I just enjoyed putting words in other people's mouths, which really sums up both my vocation as a professional and my aspiration as a writer.)

So rarely do you come away from any sort of media event and/or campaign with true satisfaction. I hope I can get a lot out of this and it keeps me energized throughout the next three months. Because I feel so far behind in the rest of my life, like blogging and writing and trying to get back into shape. It's been a week since I posted here, and I feel like I'm losing touch with my flist and my communities (dammit).

I need to:
Finish my Alfred/Lucius story. (I'm working on that when I finish this.)
Start and finish my story for our writers group. (I'll probably do that this weekend.)
Write an entry for Writer's Digest Your Story contest (due March 10). (I am uninspired by the new prompt.)
Get my FaceBook set up!
Scope out what I need to do for the big contests coming up (the ones that will fall during my hell season).
Can I squeak out a drabble or two?
(and what ever happened to that novel I was writing?)

On the I'm proud I actually accomplished something front, I got to my new doctor (I love him!) and found out I needed to go to a specialist, and I made that appointment for next week. I managed to survive a marathon seven-day-in-a-row week and even get my office cleaned up while I listened to the Academy Awards (yes, Heath!). I attended another author series event, and this was a great one. I was at our promotional appearance by 5:00am this morning, and then I lasted for 12 hours today, plus I managed to get over and have lunch with Jess finally.

You've got to celebrate the small successes.

And now that Fat Tuesday is past, I'm giving up the goddamn carb binging for a while and getting my physical act together. I'm planning on big successes on this front.

ETA: The City Council voted today on our new office space, and it's a done deal. I wish I had been there, and Jeff felt bad that he didn't invite me. He just didn't realize that today would be the day, which is certainly worth noting. (And I don't think I've ever written an entry with so much indiscriminate use of bold and italics. You'd think I'd been reading too much fanfic or something.)

So, tomorrow is our press conference, and it's ruled my life the last couple days. I need to go wash my hair, then get ready to go downtown in the middle of the night and use the signs and cones Peter got ready for me to block off parking spaces for TV trucks. And I need to put a stake in the ground where we want the rose planted. (I can't wait to see the huge banner I had made up on our new building: "Future Home of ~" The water bureau was supposed to hang it today.)

Oh, yes, my job is completely whack some of the time. (Did I say "some"?)

I just read the article on line, and it's not that bad (at least the on line version). Hopefully giving the story to the newspaper won't discourage the electronic media, but that's always a possibility.

And then tomorrow I have New Director Orientation in the late afternoon, and we're 'auditioning' a color guard for the parade at 7:30pm. (I've managed not to mention that in four months this whole thing will be over . . . hopefully not permanently, but one never knows.)

On the personal front, I have an appointment with my new doctor on Friday. Finally! I'm so proud of myself for getting this scheduled.

Did I mention I had PASTA for dinner?! This after eating baked potatoes twice this week. I am officially fucked up. (This is a good time for neo_prodigy's post about full figured women. Thanks, dude. I'm really resembling that, so I might as well feel good about it.)

Last night we went to the Oregon Celebration Ball. It was a huge event, held on two floors of the conference center in Salem. We had three tables, and the amazing Sue had gone early enough to decorate and put gifts and nametags at all our place settings. We had chosen to sit on the 'history' floor, with the 1859 recreation band and dancers. (We had our own living history characters with us.)

The politicos and military were on the floor above us. That's where the speechifying took place, the governor and such, and they put it on a big screen for us to watch. Someone would give a toast, and we'd all raise our glasses and reply.

Peter drove, so I didn't have to worry about anything, driving or parking, which was great. Still, my feet felt like boils at the end of the night, from wandering around and walking up and down stairs. I managed to 'win' a glass vase that Charlie wanted in the silent auction. It will be a nice memory of the evening.

It was actually a buffet (!!), but it worked pretty well, even with all those people. I stood in line for the food with John McLoughlin (the 'father of Oregon'), and he was amazing, tall and stern, with a lovely brogue. And I did have my photo taken with Abigail Scott Duniway, the famous suffragette and the first woman to register to vote in Multnomah County. She's a longtime heroine of mine, and early in the evening she invited me to write on the paper with her. ( Abigail and me )

Being a history buff and a great lover of costumes and of parties, it was just perfect. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

(But, no, we didn't dance. My feet couldn't have stood the strain.)

So, for some reason last night we ended up watching the Heath Ledger film 'Candy,' where he was a struggling heroin addict. He looked so much like the Joker, I could almost imagine that this was a younger version of that character.

I got about an hour's sleep, then got up and went to work and felt like I was trying to keep from drifting off into a catatonic state. I actually sat for an hour and struggled with a Word document, wishing we still had a crack admin who could take it over, but partially wanting to prove I could do it myself. I ended up leaving work with three phone calls to return and a day of steering committee and media training facing me tomorrow. And all I wanted to do was make a handbook in Word.

Weird. It was like having a flashback, remembering the satisfaction I used to get from doing good admin work.

Then another carb-loading glutton-fest after work (Candy's spaghetti pie, for godsake), and a long winter's nap. (It's been ridiculously cold, and I'm sick of it.) We were supposed to go tan tonight to get ready for the ball on Saturday, and now we'll have to do that tomorrow night. And I have to give myself a damn pedicure, because I'll be wearing open-toed shoes. (Still not sure what else I'll be wearing, but I guess I'll wait and panic on Saturday, like Charlie is predicting.)

This weekend: Yes, the ball; and yes, we'll have to go down and work at the new office site for at least a couple hours. But the rest is going to be about writing. It just has to be.

Okay, I'm going to have to filter out some of my communities in order to keep up with my flist. As things get busier and busier, it's going to get tougher and tougher. (Charlie will have to show me how.)

I missed a whole prompt at the new Batman drabble community. And I have to get my Alfred/Lucius thing done this weekend. (Thank God Monday's a holiday.)

The last two days have been crazy, today because of the schedule, yesterday because of our Writers Group. But the group went very well last night, and I actually did get make some progress on a couple work projects today. Despite the ridiculous snow and at least one annoying meeting, I didn't feel despair as I drifted to sleep after dinner. This is a good thing.

I can't believe I completely missed Westminster this year! I saw the winning dog before I had a chance to even watch the Best in Show competition on my DVR. And I know I would have loved seeing the oldest dog in Westminster history take the prize.

There's just not enough time.

So next month I need to time the reviewers during our Writers Group. There were a couple who went loooong. And I need to emphasize the need to write down the comments in advance. Now that I've decided to just run the group the way I run committee and/or meetings at work, it's much less stressful for me. I do better at dictatorship than democracy. Anyone who doesn't like it can defect. And the reaction I got from almost everybody was GRATITUDE. Nice.

Is it really only four days until the Oregon Celebration Ball? Holy shit. Our state is about to turn 150!

I gotta keep from getting into this work-without-a-break and then come-home-and-collapse lifestyle. Yes, it's only another five months of this terrible pace, but gimme a break, that's another five months out of my life. I'm tired of living like 'this will all pass in four or five months.' I could hardly sit up by 3:00pm this afternoon, and by the time I got home at 6:00, I was dead meat.

Last year during our season I didn't blog for six months, I didn't write any fanfic, I didn't do anything but work and work out, not to mention stress out.

Now I'm not even working out.

At least I'm still going to writing-related sessions, as mediocre as some of those are. And Monday night is our Writing Group meeting, so this weekend I have to read and comment and prepare for it. (Wish it wasn't so much work on my part as the leader.)

So, the Christian Bale rant rap came in handy yesterday in my two-hour parade meeting. I had our leader (and fellow hiphop fan) listen to the rap on my iPod both before and then after the meeting. Then we just emailed each other with our new code: WDYFU. ("What don't you fuckin' understand?") There will always be people who just don't get it. This thing has been cranked in my car for the last 48 hours.

We made a lot of progress this week on programming stuff at work, even though on Monday we have to cut another $40,000 out of the budget. (!!) And today we had our first walk-thru of the new 'office space.' It's hard to picture how it will work, but I'm not going to worry about it. Everything always works out and in the scheme of life it's a smallish matter.

Sorry to hear Jess pb_n_jam is sick and her internet is down. Missed her at today's parade meeting. And Monday I'm having coffee with Rachel for the first time in ages, which will be a shot in the arm in many ways. We'll laugh our asses off, I'm sure.

Christian Bale is now my favorite rap star.

I want to be in a club, banging my ass against people I don't know and passing an ice cube to some of the ones I do, all the while listening to the Christian Bale rant song.

I LOVE IT.

(And the Christian Bale shitstorm continues . . . bring it, bitches.)

So, I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the bawling Roger Federer after he lost the five-set final at the Australian Open to a surprisingly effective Rafa Nadal. (Nadal really has Federer's number, and he always has had. He would have been more threatened by Andy Murray, I think.) But, I digress, and I want to stick to the subject:

The song goes, "I love winners when they cry, losers when they try ~"

So, what about losers when they cry?

Tennis is about leaving it all on the court. Show us you'll bleed, because the rewards are certainly worth the blood, sweat and tears. And maybe the tears are the blood of the spirit.

If so, Roger Federer needs a transfusion about now. He wept for three minutes, according to the folks running the clock. (And in tennis you put the clock on EVERYTHING.) And he was still sobbing when he finally left the court. ( I'm not kidding. )

Now, I love the thought of a man choking back tears. And I love hurt/comfort fanfic, if done well. And I love to imagine a tennis player in the locker room, inconsolable (like Nadal after the 2007 Wimbledon final, where he should have won but just didn't believe). But do I really want to watch one of the world's great champions bawling because he lost?

I think what got to Roger was the support of the crowd, and the presence of the great (Laver, I guess). And he definitely showed us how much he wanted this one.

But yeesh. I come from the generation who adored Jackie Kennedy because she sucked it up during JFK's funeral, who actually practiced doing the same. I absolutely DESPISE ever showing my emotion in public, and I trained for years not to cry in the boss's office.

I'm just slightly skeeved by Roger's display.

So, instead of crowing about Rafa's win, I'm offering the Great Big Box of Kleenex trophy to Mr. Federer. This is an awards ceremony for the record books.

The most significant half hour I spent today was with Dan, the manager of the club that was the focus of our downtown shooting on Saturday night. Eight kids who were on their way to his underage nightclub to celebrate a birthday were gunned down in the street by a random shooter who seemingly wanted company on his quest for suicide. Two died that night, and the shooter himself died yesterday.

Dan's been through many major and life-shaking events in his life, including the death of a scout on an overnight trip where he was one of the chaperones. Today I saw a man struggling to make sense of the senseless and to serve as a touchstone for his staff and his own kids (who are now afraid to go downtown).

He was shaken.

He was resolute.

He made the time to come to a meeting at our office during a time when he's slept a couple hours in four days.

He believes there's a higher plan to his being in the middle of a crisis like this. And his heart is bleeding for the kids who work at his club and witnessed death and horror in front of their eyes. He saw it himself, and it's not the first time he's seen it.

I've always liked Dan because he knows music and the entertainment industry and he operates my favorite club downtown (not the underage one, needless to say). And he's always got advice about the hottest spots in Vegas, and if I ask he'll get me into concert after-parties, like Kid Rock's several years ago. ("Marilyn, you should have been here for Tommy Lee!") But today I learned why I really like Dan.

He has amazing and inspiring courage.

On an entirely different note (or, on second thought, maybe not), shout out to my friends who cannot read this because they are stuck in this nation's deep freeze and have no electricity right now. I feel blessed to live where I do, so I am not about to bitch about a little fog and/or rain. Bring it on!

Sometimes it take actual courage to face the world and to get through the day. It takes courage for some people to drive in the dark . . . or in the snow. Sometimes it actually takes courage to check your friends list at LJ.

Courage comes in all shapes and sizes; it's not just about the men and women at war or the police officers in the line and fire.

It takes courage to face your critics, to face your friends after you fuck up, to face yourself in the mirror when you know you're not at your best. It takes courage to face facts.

It takes courage to finish your goddamned tennis match when millions of people are watching you wilt in the sun and you know you'll probably lose.

Sometimes it takes courage to speak up and tell the truth.

Is it a surprise that I often feel something close to contempt for the wimpish? Yes, compassion often intervenes, and I usually forgive both moral and physical cowardice. But I just love to get a whiff of guts, even in the most unexpected places. I can be a hard-hearted bitch sometimes, and I'm the first to admit it. But I love the sight ~ even the most subtle sight ~ of intestinal fortitude.

Good lord, I haven't made an entry for several days. It's almost hard to decide what to say, there's so much going on. And it would be trivial to talk about what's going in my own little world. My head throbbed for much of Thursday and Friday, after a week that started on a hopeful note, with the Inauguration of a new President.

I'm proud to live in Portland, and most of the time I think it's the best city in the country in so many ways, open-minded and progressive. But at the current time our local media has turned into a lynch mob, calling for the resignation of our mayor, Sam Adams. And despite the fact he definitely screwed up, lying about his relationship with an 18-year-old during his campaign, he's still the best man for the job. But since he's an openly gay man, his sexual activities are even more salient and prurient, and it's left him with nearly no way to win.

But he has to find a way, because we need him as mayor. I've known him for more than 15 years, and he's an amazing leader, educated and experienced, trained to do this job. His election was one of the highlights of 2008.

I was disappointed in him, yes, but mostly because he didn't stick it out last week, didn't get to work on turning things around. He didn't even show up at City Hall Wednesday through Friday, and this gave his detractors time to muster their forces. One of the other City Council members said that his 'silence spoke volumes,' and the fact of the matter is, you can't let other people tell your story. They are going to get it wrong. You have to speak for yourself.

I stood outside City Hall Friday evening with pb_n_jam and a few hundred others calling for him to Get Back to Work, trying to show support among a crowd of people with varying degrees of normalcy. Portland is known for its diversity, a place where Weird is considered a virtue. I can only hope the unfortunate sign "18 Year Old Cock is Legal" didn't make it on TV.

Last night I was watching the late news to see if there was an update on whether Sam had made a decision on whether or not to resign, and I saw there was breaking news downtown. Shots had been fired, and at least two people were feared dead. It turns out that several people were shot near an underage nightclub, a longtime establishment owned and operated by one of our board members. Two of the people killed were teenage girls, one an exchange student. Several other Rotary Int'l exchange students were also shot.

And the shooter? Typical stuff. Quiet, unassuming, video-game fan. Didn't own a gun, they say. Friends and family are shocked.

This is a horrible incident, terrible for the kids, parents, patrons and police, not to mention for Portland overall. And since it happened on the streets of downtown, two blocks from the park that's a major venue for summer festivals, it will have an impact on all outdoor events, not just on the club scene.

Le sigh.

2009 is shaping up to be a very challenging year. And January isn't even over yet.

Yes, the reason I participate at fanfic communities is so I can regularly have my weewee slapped by the moderators for one reason or another.

I don't get enough criticism in RL, so I need to get more on line. Pride goeth before a fuck-up.

It's just me, riding my drabble chariot through the streets of LJ feeling triumphant about my 100-word masterpiece, a fanfic community moderator standing right behind me whispering in my ear, "Thou art just a (wo)man."

Thank the gods for these small favors!

Now back to our regular programming.

Being in the world of special events, you can't help sit back in awe when a whole city becomes one big venue. And while not every little thing went exactly according to plan (jeez, the oath of office, for cripe's sake!), it will probably go down as one of the most extravagant examples of hoopla in history!

And as I'm feeling a little contemplative, allow me to share one of my favorite poems, which I believe I wrote in someone's journal in the past few days, then coincidentally found as the subject of a drabble in one of the communities where I play. It seems fitting today (and probably every day), and it was written, of course, by the brilliant and aptly named Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

What a gorgeous weekend. Except for the inversion (and resulting air pollution), it could have been spring or summer. Amazing. I think my face got sunburned today from the glare of the window.

And like they say, time flies when you're having fun.

What did I write this weekend? A poem. Seriously. I wrote a parody of an old poem for Sue, and I spent quite some time obsessing over it.

Le sigh.

(It turned out well, though . . . and I thought I'd never be able to do it.)

I need to get a notice out to the Writing Circle, get something ready to wear to work this week and get to bed at a reasonable hour. And in the meantime, the Australian Open started yesterday without my even realizing. I thought we had another week to wait.

So, another year, another Australian Open that I'm *NOT* seeing in person.

Maybe next year.

And on an entirely different note, seems that Sam also lied about a sexual relationship. And he's someone I actually think has some character and judgment. (Admittedly he had many reasons to lie, especially when age and gender are figured in.)

So what is it about honesty? Charlie and I had a conversation about human qualities yesterday, and I said honesty was the first to go, to be jettisoned in order to salvage other qualities, like self respect or dignity. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense. But it seems to be true.

Le sigh, part deux.