VFOB Funtimes

The good people of the Virginia Festival of the Book have invited me once again to blog for the festival. I love the bookfest and I feel lucky to be involved. This year I'll be covering a few health/mind/body sessions. I'll be reading the books and going to the sessions and blogging about them. I'll keep you posted as I begin my reading, it is to be hoped, next week.

I need to rant

I need to rant about something that is in large part my own fault. My driver's license expired on my birthday and SINCE I HAD MAJOR SURGERY THAT DAY it kind of slipped my mind, until I was reminded by a supercilious police officer yesterday, on my way home from the longest week of my life in which I was exhausted and just living for the weekend. Don't delay me on a Friday night, man. I fully admit that this is my fault, I never should have let it happen, but could we also agree that it is a technicality, this $32 license fee, and that I am the same driver today that I would have been had I renewed my license on time? And can we furthermore agree that I am the same US citizen that I have always been? Because they would not renew my license at the DMV without my birth certificate, which of course I have shown them several times before now but which I couldn't find this morning.

Ironically, I was then able to renew my license online without proving who I am. I didn't even need a PIN number! And I didn't need to prove my legal right to existence or whatever they call it at the DMV. Unfortunately now I have to wait for them to mail my license to me.

I'm just frustrated with the system. I'm sure the system's frustrated with me as well. It just wasn't a very good day.

Suppose that...

...you think you made a pretty big mistake. Or really, you don't know whether it's a mistake but it seems like it might be one because you suddenly discover you're not as talented at something as you thought you were and your good feeling about your skill turned out to be mostly bravado. Or maybe not *mostly* bravado, maybe just some of it is bravado. Anyway, your choice is between not relying on this skill and realizing that you're not as good as you thought you were, or actually taking steps to improve the skill so that you (possibly) become as good as you thought you were. How do you decide? And yes, I'm being intentionally vague.

In other news, I am achy as all get-out and feeling unmotivated. But I'm making myself write anyway.

I wish I could live my life without regret.

So...

I was sitting in my enormous rocking chair, reading Kavalier and Clay, finally after all these years because I bought it -- I was unable to check it out of the library for what seemed like decades -- when I started to think about my job situation and how it's not going so well and how I'll probably be doing something else pretty soon. This made me think of an editorial job I had wanted very much but didn't get and that made me think of writing. And that, for reasons which remain shrouded in my checkered past, reminded me of gin and tonics. I don't have any gin though, or tonic for that matter, so I am now sitting here typing with a Malibu rum and Fresca, a drink of my own invention and don't laugh until you've tried it. And no, I'm not using the drink to type with -- you know what I mean!

I thought about successful bloggers I know who write every single day and it occurred to me that I could write every single day if I gave myself time and space to do it. And I remembered that I was always a good writer in school, lo these many years ago, but that I decided I didn't like writing. And yet I keep a blog for fun. And I love email. I just don't like being forced to write things, and indeed there's a writing task on my work desk that is currently kicking my ass.

Which is all just to say, maybe I should be writing more.

This just in

Let's file this under "things I've always suspected":

The toxin in Botox products may spread to distant parts of the body, with potentially fatal consequences, Health Canada said Tuesday in announcing new labelling information for the drugs.

--via Feministing

Weird news o' the day

Hold out your hand. If you are a woman whose index finger is shorter than your ring finger – even by just a few millimeters – you may be more likely to develop knee osteoarthritis (OA), according to a new study. --Arthritis Today

Seriously? But of course my index fingers are shorter than my ring fingers.

Not sharing

I've always been bad at sharing. I'm known for it in my family. Monday evenings we would go to the Julia L. Butterfield Memorial Library and afterward we would get a quarter to spend on candy at the Julia L.Butterfield pharmacy. Do not ask me who Julia B. was; I should know, but I don't. Back in the car, my brothers and I would be munching on our candy when something like this would transpire:

Mikey (spontaneously): Dad, would you like some of my candy?
Dad: No, thank you.
Chris: Dad, would you like some of *my* candy?
Dad: No, thank you.
[Loooong pause]
Me: Dad, you don't want any of my candy, do you....?
Dad: Yes, thank you, I'll have a piece.

Usually he wound up not taking any of my candy, but you can see why I got teased a lot. By the time grad school rolled around, I was refusing to share popcorn in movie theaters. I had to have my own.

This all came up as I was considering updating my blog and realized that I didn't want to share. Maybe some other time.