Dear Bobby,

You might have noticed that I bought a bunch of new underwear today. But I’m sorry — it’s not for you.

I have to share a hotel room with a few other ladies in a few weeks. I couldn’t go in my old stuff.

I’ll probably shave my legs more, too.

But at least you get to reap the benefits of my insecurity!

Love you,
Me

This morning, while driving my husband and my daughter to school (this isn’t a weird confessional; he’s a teacher), my husband announced that he was going to copy all our daughter’s pictures onto our new computer, so that we could have them all in one place and backed up.

That sounded reasonable, so I said, okay. Then our conversation went something like this:

Bobby: Then I’m going to e-mail them to myself one at a time.
Me: …whuh?
Bobby: So that they won’t ever be lost.
Me: …you realize how many pictures and how many MBs that is, right?
Bobby: Yes.
Me: Even if you don’t explode our ISP connection, you’ll explode your inbox.
Bobby: So I’ll make up a new gmail, just for the pictures.
Me: You know how long that’s going to take? Why not just get another flash drive?
Bobby: We might lose that or it might become corrupted.
Me: …you’re a freaking nutcase.
Bobby: But if our apartment burns down, I’ll be a nutcase with pictures.

On one level, I really understand this: We upgrade our computers every few years, and more than once we’ve had computer mishaps where we lost everything on the hard drives. But although I could say, “Hey, maybe we should go back to using film,” it’s not really an argument against digital pictures. If we had a scanner, I know that we’d probably back up our print-pictures digitally, too.

But HOLY CRAP that’s a lot of pictures.

Also, okay -- when she's a 14 year old who hates me, I'll want to look back at 14 months old and try not to cry.

…and five bucks says that, within a year, he forgets the password to the new e-mail account.

…when I will sit down at the in-laws to see (part) of a Bollywood film, and it will not star Shahrukh Khan.

*For those interested, this is Mohabbatein (which, translated, means “love stories” (I think)) . Yes, I couldn’t help but laugh at the musical hallelujahs that sounded when we were introduced to each of the six lovers, but the part I saw (it’s three and a half hours long, and I wasn’t at my in-laws that amount of time (thank god)) was pretty enjoyable. A good intro to Bollywood, if you were interested at all in watching the movies.

This one is kind of like Dead Poets’ Society. Um, kind of. Very superficially, only in the sense that a suicide is involved, and an unorthodox teacher comes into a private, strict educational institution and teaches everyone the meaning of love and life. And superficially, because there is no homoerotic/sexual subtext. And instead of covering Ethan Hawke’s eyes and making him compose a poem, they all dance and sing.

So, as part of my purging, I decided to have tomato soup today (but without a grilled cheese sandwich, *sob*).

Except, the tomato soup was made when I realized: no crackers.

It’s not just because I am one — I simply can’t eat tomato soup without crackers. Saltines, preferably. So that started me on a search through my cupboards, searching for anything — croutons (out), Ritz crackers (out), Keebler’s club crackers (out), until I finally spied something that might work. I debated for a while, because it seemed so trashy wrong. But in the end, I did it.

Dear Reader, I used Cheez-Its.

And it’s not half-bad, although I’d prefer a Saltine.

In other news, Jane at DearAuthor.com is my hero. She’s everything I wish I could be. And I could fly higher than an eagle … if I could ever respond as well as she does. See: her latest opinion piece.

Thursday, January 8. Weather: Cold but Clear. Meljean is still “woot”ing. (See previous entry. She really likes peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches — and thanks to everyone for their comments and congratulations!)

The phone rings. It is the FIL, reminding Meljean that she was driving him to the U-Haul place after she drops the tot off at pre-school. Meljean says, “Oh yeah, I didn’t forget” and hangs up and says “shit!”

The e-mail chimes. Editor’s wonderful assistant asks, “Did you send your page proofs for WILD THING?” and Meljean writes back “Of course…” while checking the tracking number and sees that although the express package was sent to NY on Feb 2nd, it hasn’t arrived. Meljean says, “motherfucking shit!”

Meljean calls the USPS. Yells at automated voice recognition system. Hopes it never becomes a self-aware AI that will crush her to pieces. Talks to a nice lady, who gives her the number for a nice lady in NY. They will look for it.

Sure.

Editor’s wonderful assistant says, “Did you make copies?” and Meljean sobs because it is the ONE TIME she didn’t, because she finished them up early and already entered the changes into her Word document, and on the day she sent them she was running late anyway and since she’s NEVER had a problem with a package getting there before (on time is a different story, but it always arrived) she thinks, “Okay, I’ll just send them out.” Now, Meljean thinks: I’m such a stupid shit. But! at least the Track Changes function was on when she made the changes, and those are dated, so she can make a list of changes and send … even though she doesn’t have page numbers (which would be really great for proofs.)

Meljean goes to pick up U-Haul, has to be the one who backs the huge freaking van up to the front porch stairs because she’s white and from a redneck area of Oregon, and we all know they’re good at backing huge shit up. She only hits the porch once.

Meljean realizes that NOTHING IS READY TO BE MOVED. OVER HALF THE PACKING STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE.

Meljean and Bobby start packing shit.

Into the U-Haul!

Midnight: all stuff moved, U-Haul returned.

FIL says, “can you still drive me to the airport at 4:30 am tomorrow?”

Meljean says, “Oh, sure.” Inside, she cries. Then she realizes that although the pages with the corrections written on them are gone, she still has all of the OTHER pages, so she just has to look for the missing page numbers, figure out what changes needed to be made in that little section by matching it to the changes in the Word document, and make up the list.

Luckily, there were very few typos in the original corrected pages, so mostly it’s just a matter of word choice updates. The few pages without corresponding changes in the Word document likely had typos, and Meljean has just had a shot of coffee, so she remembers most of them pretty well, and the ones she doesn’t remember she can make a note like: there was a typo on page 164.

At one point, Meljean must have laid (lain?) down to rest, because she wakes up at 4:15 on the floor behind the sofa.

At 4:30, Meljean drives FIL to the airport. He tells her that she needs to replace her windshield wipers. Meljean had just thought her contacts were blurry.

Meljean buys coffee at airport, and remembers why she NEVER buys coffee at Coffee People when after one sip the mocha leaves the taste of ass in her mouth. Dumps out coffee, sobbing. Drives home, singing at top of lungs to stay awake. Ironically, one of the songs is Rage Against the Machine’s Wake Up (see note above about AI gone rogue).

Meljean finishes list of corrections. Sends it out. Taste of ass coffee still in mouth, even after brushing teeth. Meljean is oddly reminded of Mr. Bear, her sophomore English teacher who always had an insulated coffee mug in his hand and the worst coffee breath she’d ever smelled. It strikes her now that Mr. Bear is the reason she resisted coffee for so long.

Meljean still associates GREAT EXPECTATIONS with coffee breath.

Hours later, Meljean wakes back up, and gets to work. After writing a blog entry.