I got over it. Eventually.

Flash forward to now. Bloggers have been playing eleven-question tag–answering questions, passing along the game to another list of bloggers…sort of like choosing a team.  But thanks to Greta, at Not Enough Patience and Never Enough Jewelry, I’m not on the sidelines! I got tagged!  Yay Greta!

My seven-year old self can go slinking back into the deep recesses of my subconscious while I play the game.

Here are the rules:

You must post these rules. Each per­son must post 11 things about them­selves on their blog. Answer the ques­tions the “tag­ger” listed for you in his/her post, and cre­ate 11 new ques­tions for the peo­ple you tag to answer. Choose 11 peo­ple to tag and link to them in the post. Let each blog­ger know that you have tagged them.

Greta’s questions:

1. What kids’ show do you detest, and which one do you secretly watch when your kids aren’t around?

I pretty much hate all of it, but particularly iCarly and her ilk.  I love “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and was furious at the hash that M. Night Shamalamadingdong made of the movie. Luckily most US kids’ TV shows aren’t on here (or else we haven’t found those channels yet). There is an Arabic language show called “Freej” that was inspired by “South Park,” of all things, and it cracks me up: four old ladies cackling about the state of the world.

2.  If you had to wear one outfit for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Oh gadzooks. Um…the outfit I wear here almost every day: a knee-length jersey knit skirt and a t-shirt, purple birkenstocks. No one has ever accused me of being fashion-forward.

3. If you could start over completely with a brand new Facebook account and ditch the one you have, would you have the same number of friends, fewer friends, or more friends?

Waaay fewer. There are people from my past who are, due to FB, now in my present. And they should’ve stayed in the past.

4. If you could retire tomorrow (or if all of your kids were in school), what would you do with your days?

Write and be outside. So I guess if I could have a house with a big porch that would be ideal: I could write outside.

5. What toy from your childhood do you secretly wish you could still play with?

I wish it were still all right for me to sit and read for hours at a time. That and play with my Sasha dolls. Best. Doll. Ever.

6. What is your favorite movie of all time?

I should probably come up with something witty and intellectual but at the moment, all that comes to mind are the “Thin Man” movies with Myrna Loy and William Powell, or maybe “Bull Durham,” which is probably the last time I was able to watch Kevin Costner in a movie. Or else it would have to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.  Those movies show me that an adaptation doesn’t always have to diminish the original. Plus there’s that whole Viggo-pre-Russian-mobster thing.

7. If you could spend a week with any celebrity and couldn’t leave his/her side the whole time, who would you want to spend it with?

Brangelina.

8. What is the first thing you would say to that celebrity?

Is it hard to walk around in the world and look at the rest of us? Or rather, what’s it like to be inside those cheekbones looking out at the pudgy wrinkly spotty world?

9. Do you have any major regrets in your life?

Probably… I mean, sure. But then again, if you believe that everything we’ve done in the past leads us to where we are, then I can’t regret anything or else I wouldn’t be where and who I am now. And mostly that “now” space is okay.

10. If you could choose any (other) profession, what would it be?

Heiress? Philanthropist (that would be contingent on choice A happening, however). Person-who-makes-her-living-from-writing?

11. What song do you crank up the loudest in your car and sing along to?

I’m not sure we can call it “singing” (bellowing might be more accurate), but I do know all the words to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by heart…and then of course, there’s the wild emoting that comes along with anything on the album “Tapestry.” Have also lately been wailing along with Adele and with the Black Keys.

And now my questions (some of which have been cribbed from others):

1. What is in your refrigerator?

2. What chore do you most loathe?

3. If you could be anywhere else, where would you be?

4. What is your favorite book?

5. What’s in your purse (or pockets or satchel?)

6. What’s the title for your autobiography?

7. Do you have any physical scars? What’s the story of one scar?

8. If you had to have a car, and could have any kind of car you wanted (someone else will do the grocery shopping and kid/pet/horse/goat shlepping, this one is just for you), what would it be?

9. Are you a dog person or a cat person?

10. What are you most proud of that has only to do with you (can’t be kids, partner, well-trained pet)?

Tag!

Lady Jennie

Squashed Mom

Random Handprints

Adelaide from Adelaide

Schmutzie

I Love You More Than Carrots

Kvetch Mom

YaMaamaa

Mommy’s Little Monster Blake

Mamabird Diaries

Well obviously, once we get to Abu Dhabi and I start blogging from there, I will become an international celebrity, perhaps get arrested for my outspoken and totally perceptive comments about women in the Middle East, my case will become a cause celebre, and I will be inundated with book and movie deals (after I get out of prison, of course, where I will be underfed just enough to finally kick that last bit of postpartum weight [um yes, my youngest child is seven, so what?]), and then Angelina Jolie will battle with Sandra Bullock to see who plays me in the movie. Viggo Mortensen or Johnny Depp (or maybe Taylor Kitsch) will play my husband and in the course of filming he (whichever one, I’m not choosy) and I will engage in a torrid affair, which I will end for the sake of our children. Bittersweet, we part, pledging our troth but knowing it’s best for our families. The movie wins all kinds of awards, makes beaucoup euros, and I retire to the south of France where I write brilliant essays in many languages for all the important journals.

Oh.

Um. Sorry. Did I actually write all that down? I was just sort of daydreaming there for a minute.

Let’s try again, now that I’m done mopping up the spilled chicken noodle soup (from a can) that my squabbling children just ate for dinner.  With potato chips on the side (counts as veg, right?)

In six months, I’ll be writing this blog from Abu Dhabi. I suppose that on some level, I’ll keep writing about the same stuff I always do: education, my kids, politics, books. What I’m hoping will happen–what I will have to work to make happen–is that I use my writing to explore a part of the world that way too many people in the West (including me) don’t know anything about other than what we read in the newspapers.

If anyone has ideas about how to work this expat thing, I’d love to hear ‘em.  I already got some great tips from Eli/Rose Social Media (thanks!) but I’d be delighted to hear what others have to say.

Because, you know, Angelina’s going to be calling just about any day now.

This post is part of a week-long virtual blogging conference started by Liz, at a belle, a bean, and a chicago dog, and Jessica, at four plus an angel.  Their idea was to create a blogging conference that didn’t require the participants to change out of their ratty gym shorts and oh-my-god-it’s-so-freaking-hot tank tops.  And for that, bless them.

Those of you not interested in reading about blogs–a kind of meta-blog blogging, as it were–might want to skip over the Summer Blog Social posts.  Or you could dig into the inner psyche of bloggers and read through all the posts on the site.

The topic for today is “before I blogged, I wish I’d known…”  It’s sort of a funny question, actually, because I think if I’d known anything about what it meant to maintain a blog, I probably wouldn’t have started.  A friend of mine who used to climb mountains on a regular basis (complete with ice picks, lots of ropes, and frequent instances of potentially plummeting to his death) said that he kept going on these death-defying journeys to “feed the rat,” by which he meant fueling the adrenaline rush he got with each climb.

Writing a blog creates another version of feeding the rat: you can’t stop or the blog atrophies and the six people who read it, other than your mom, will give up and go elsewhere. So you have to keep writing and thinking about writing and making notes about writing, and maybe waking up in the middle of the night to worry about the fact that you haven’t posted in a few days.

Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe other bloggers don’t do that.

So on second thought, I’m glad I didn’t know that blogging would become such a big part of my creative life; I think that I would’ve been afraid to embark on such a full-scale adventure. Instead, I started writing as a lark, and as a way to train my writing muscles.

I’m also glad I didn’t realize how many talented, funny, insightful, thoughtful, interesting people are writing online: I would’ve been petrified to dip my digital tootsies into these waters. Now that I’m swimming in the bloggy water, however, it’s delightful to look around at all the other blogfish in the sea and realize that, with a comment or two, you can actually talk to these elegant, talented fish as they swim by.

Hmm.  I seem to have answered this question by talking about what I’m glad I didn’t know.  If I’d known more, I think I might be still polishing that first-ever post, trying to make it perfect before I launched it into deep water.  So let me take one last stab at answering this question in its proper form: before I started blogging, I wish I’d known… how much fun it would be.

So here I am: NaBloMoPo, I just can’t quit you.

Luckily, the marvelous mind behind NaBloPoMo offers prompts, for the faint of heart and exhausted, and today’s prompt is great: what’s your favorite word?

Isn’t that a great question?

I love words. When I was little and my mom would drag us off to church on Sundays, I would sit in the back seat and say “episcopalian, episcopalian, episcopalian.” The way it clicked off the tongue–similar to the way Humbert Humbert likes to say “Lolita, Lolita, Lolita”  Try it.  They feel really good in the mouth, don’t they?

There’s a long ago book from the 1940s, Cress Delahanty, by Jessamyn West, in which Cress–who is of course an aspiring writer–reads through words in the dictionary, writing down her favorites: pilgarlic, rapscallion,verdigris, vermilion.  Those are good words too, because they’re so unexpected.

I over-use the word fabulous (I live in New York, the word is practically a medical necessity) and I’m also too fond of the word fuck, which I find really pretty much always appropriate, unless I’m in class (and even then I’ve been known to drop the occasional f-bomb–mostly to see if my students are still awake. Usually they’re not.)

Words like nostril and mucilage and mutton make my toes curl in disgust, but I’m a fan of bog, and muck, and smush.

But the best word? My favorite word? I’m going to go with Henry James on this one: “summer afternoon, summer afternoon…the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

I’m behind on reverbs. Far enough behind that I thought about quitting but then the Puritan in my head spoke to me sternly (do Puritans ever say anything not sternly?) “you made a commitment to this project, so you have to stick with it.”

Not, of course, that anyone in reverb-land would know or miss my posts, but still. That Puritan is up there keeping score.

So here’s the prompt for Dec 6 (I told you I was behind): Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

This one kills me.  I make stuff all the time: I make dinner, make lunchboxes, make snacks, make the bed. I make blog posts, I make Halloween costumes (sort of), I make bedtime stories.

None of it – with the exception of this blog – is really what I want to be making.  What I want is to sink into a writing project the way I did two summers ago, when I was finishing revisions on a novel (unpublished, natch). Every day, five and six hours a day, I got my butt in the chair, as Stephen King says in his fabulous book on writing (yes, seriously, that Stephen King).  I love having a big mass of paper to shove around, mark up, draw arrows and circles; revision, for me, looks a lot like a pre-school art project.

It’s creating that big mass of paper that’s the problem at the moment, however, which is why this question about “making” really hits home. I’ve got some notes, a few pages about this and that, but nothing solid…just random beginnings. The idea of trying to weave these ideas into a substantive whole feels daunting, utterly impossible.  Are there are people out there who think that starting something new is exciting and challenging and filled with opportunity?

I hate being at the beginning; I like to already have written, to be already in the middle of whatever it is.  Which is, of course, impossible. And so I spend untold hours (days, weeks) procrastinating, throat-clearing, doodling—and listening to that damn Puritan muttering that I’m just wasting time and I should be doing something professional or at least something useful, like cleaning the closets.

So yes, oh reverbers, there is something I want to make and “all” I need to do is clear the time. “Just say no,” as they say, to all that other crap that gets in the way? Put the Puritan in the (disorganized) closet, get my butt in the chair, and teach the boys how to call the Thai food place for dinner?

Sounds like a plan.