So...I got this Email....

So. I have this Blackberry phone that I got last week after leaving my nice LG Chocolate phone on a Delta aeroplane. I'm an audio person. I like to have my phone make different noises when I get messages and phone calls. I have this little 'chirp' that it does when someone Instant Messages me. At 3:02 a.m. I heard that chirp. I'm a light sleeper, it woke me up.

I do have a point. Bear with me.

I had gone to bed fairly early. I haven't been sleeping well and I was tired. I had spent the evening watching House and 24 and resolutely tried not to be glued to my email and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award message boards. You see, yesterday was the date they were notifying the quarterfinalists. I had made a vow that I would be ok with the outcome because just the fact I had enough novels finished and edited that I could choose which one to submit was an accomplishment. I felt pretty good.

By the time I went to bed at 11 p.m. EST, ABNA administration had still not notified us. I decided that I'd wait until the morning. Then, at 3:02 a.m., I woke up to check because of my Blackberry chirping. It turned out that it was a spammer. At least I think it was; I didn't recognize the weird number attached to the request and anyone who knows me should know that at 3:02 a.m. I'm not really in the mood to chat on my Blackberry because, you know, I'm sleeping. It's quite a common thing to do at that time of night, believe it or not.

However, while I was groggily looking at my Blackberry, I decided to check my email. I had an email from ABNA. I skimmed it, thinking it was a rejection. Then after I'd closed it, it occurred to me that the word "happy' had been used. I was pretty certain that the ABNA administration wasn't sadistic enough to say they were happy to reject me so I read it again. Yes, ABNA administration is pleased to inform me I MADE THE TOP 500 quarterfinalists! Even if the 10,000 entry limit hadn't been reached, I had managed to get through on my pitch and then, when given to reviewers to read, they liked it. They even compared me to Neil Gaiman. If you read my blog regularly, you'll know I love Neil Gaiman's writing. He's my favourite writer aside from J.K. Rowling.

Needless to say, at the moment, I'm on cloud 9. I didn't expect this. My optimist glass is worn a little thin these days and I find myself relying on the pessimist glass instead. I think this means I get to throw that one away for a while and get a new half-full one. I actually submitted under a pseudonym as an experiment. I'm going by Sam Hoffmann, and my book is a fantasy entitled "Sleep". It's open to customer reviews so if you get a chance, pop on and read my excerpt. You can view it here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3CFS .

I don't think I have to tell you I'm in shock. I am. I'm also ridiculously happy. I am sad for those that didn't make the cut though; from what I read, there was some tremendous competition and I'm honestly flattered and honoured that my entry was selected. I'm sure there were some great entries that slipped through the cracks. I was one of those last year and I know that feeling of deflated disappointment. I refuse to be superior and say I'm better. I'm not. More than anything, I feel like I won a raffle; my number was picked and I won a prize. I think good writing is involved but one thing I've learned since I started seriously writing and trying to get published is that I'm one of millions of good writers who are struggling to get read.

I will say that it really is about perseverence. I've whined about giving up writing a few times in this blog but when it comes down to it, I don't think I can. It's such a rollercoaster of highs and lows. I never like rollercoasters until I'm on one. I usually panic, kick up a stink and make myself nervous the whole way through the line waiting to ride. Then, as soon as it starts moving, I realize I do like that adrenaline rush a lot; it makes me feel alive

For me, this is my very first success with fiction. Even if I don't go further, I got this far. I got a review of a book I wrote that made me feel like a real writer. I got compared to Neil Gaiman. To me, that's a success in itself. I won't lie and say I don't want to make the next round, I do. Badly. Yet if I don't, I have something to boost me when I'm down. I've said all along that when success does comes for me, I'll appreciate more because of my struggle to get it. It's true. At the moment, I can't figure out who to thank at the moment, God, my mum, my sister, my friends and the strangers who've read my blog and offered me words of support. So I'll thank all of them/you. It's that kind of day.

Happy Tuesday.

Signs of Spring

It's a gloomy, dark Monday morning. I've already complained about not liking the earlier Daylight Savings Time. All I'll say is that it's been a week since the clocks moved forward and it's not any easier to get out of bed.

However, Spring is almost here. In fact, on Saturday, it will be the official first day of Spring. While I've enjoyed my first winter back in the Midwest after eight years, I am now looking forward to Spring. I went to my parents' house this weekend. They live out in the country and have a lovely big yard to walk around. The weather was mild enough that I got to take a few walks around it. Whereas a few weeks ago, the landscape was a bleached, muted sea of yellows and greys, there is definite signs of Spring creeping through.

I noticed that the grass is starting to subtly start to green up. It's hard to see unless you're looking for it but under the surface of dried winter-worn grass, there is a flash of green beginning to push through. Soon enough the lawn will be a fresh new green but its happening so covertly it's hard to notice unless you're looking for it.

The flower beds are starting to renew themselves too. Green shoots of daffodils are pushing up through the dirt, getting ready to bloom just in time for Easter. Crocuses and hyacinths are also getting ready to add their purples, whites and oranges to the sea of yellow daffodils. I love daffodils, their happy yellows a promise that warm days lies ahead. Soon the garden will be completely alive. I especially love my parent's garden in spring and summer. There's always something to eat. My absolute favourite is picking tomatoes from the garden and eating them when they're still warm from the sun. They always taste so much better than the ones you buy at supermarkets.

The birds are starting to build their nests. I watched one intrepid sparrow fly to the same spot at least eight times, a different piece of construction material for her nest in his mouth each time. It's nice to see them build their nests somewhere safe from the brutal wind. Too often I've come across nests that have been victims of strong gusty windstorms and the eggs lie broken on the ground.

I also almost got divebombed by some sparrows yesterday. My parents have this little shed in which they store their flowerpots and statuary during the winter. One year, we went in there only to discover the corpses of at least 12 sparrows. It was a little eerie. This year, I went in there to see what type of pots my parents had and discovered several sparrows frantically trapped in there. They seemed a little giddy from panic and thus, they flew at my head. It was, naturally, rather alarming. They didn't seem to know what to do to free themselves. The poor things kept throwing themselves at the same window, the 'clunk' as their heads hit the glass quite heartbreaking. I finally tried to herd them towards the open door and after one last kamikaze mission to fly into the window, two of the three birds found the open door.

That left one sparrow. This one seemed to have flown into the window one too many times or it wasn't that bright to begin with. It didn't want to leave. I felt bad for it, knowing that the safety of the shed was probably quite comforting to a little tiny bewildered creature but I also knew that if it didn't get out, it would die. I spent ages trying to herd that bird out. Finally, when I had my back turned, I think it found the open door. I didn't actually see it leave but I couldn't hear its thin, reedy chirp anymore and I think that means it had been freed. The thing is, we don't even know how the birds got in there in the first place. I've resolved to check that shed every time I'm home, just in case more birds get trapped.

It was nice to be able to walk outside. It's very muddy at the moment, boglike in some places but being able to survey the garden and not be freezing while you're doing it is a treat. I know we can still have some more winter weather; around here the danger of frost doesn't pass until early may. Yet even if we do have snow, it won't stick around. Spring is on its way, there's no doubt about it. Even if it is still pitch black in the mornings, the days are getting longer, the nights just a little shorter. Once the daffodils bloom, Spring is here.

I'm looking forward to it.

Happy Monday.

Three Days to ABNA Quarterfinals

It's Friday, a Friday the 13th to be exact. I didn't realize that it was Friday the 13th until I heard it on the radio. We had one of those last month. It turned out to be a rather lucky day because that was the day I found out that I wasn't going to lose my job as I had feared.

I'm hoping that today might be a lucky day too though I'll have to wait to see how the day unfolds. I know on Monday I'm going to try to focus greatly on not stressing about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The semi-finalists are supposed to be notified on Monday. I don't want to care, I don't want to stress and yet a teeny-tiny part of me is hoping that I at least made the quarter-final rounds.

I hadn't been on the forums on the ABNA site for a while so I went on yesterday, just to see what was happening. One of the entrants in the contest is also an Amazon reviewer (known as Vine reviewers) and though she can't review any of the ABNA entries this year because of conflict of interest, she still has access to the reviewer forums. Yesterday, she was kind enough to post just a few of the comments that had been made by the Vine reviewers who are judging the ABNA entries. I thought it was nice of her. She made a point of saying it was only about 10% of the reviewer's opinions but the forum exploded in a mess of stress and panic anyway. Apparently, the Vine reviewers were fed up of first-person narratives and stories, women finding themselves after a midlife crisis and stories that were filled with profanity and bad language.

As is natural, the commentors on the forum began defending their own use of first-person narrative. They began to argue whether it was ok to use bad language in writing. They began to offer up examples of successful novels that defied what the Vine reviewers had said. I can't say I can't relate: The first thing I did when I read the Vine reviewer's comments was to mentally run through my novel and remind myself that I tend to write in third-person as a rule. I hadn't written a book about a women in a midlife crisis. I probably used a little profanity but only because that's how my character's talk. They're 20-30 something males who've had rather unhappy lives, they're going to say some bad words once in a while.

However, had I chosen to do any of those things in my novel that the Vine reviewers hadn't liked, I'm not sure that I would be one of those people stressing and getting defensive in the forums. Firstly, I tend to lurk and not post because of the constant thread hijacking, because I'm not fond of cliques because I find them a tad off-putting and intimidating and mostly because after my humbling experience last year, I am a little shy because there are some semi-professional writers in there who are way more experienced than me. Yet the main reason is as the initial generous poster said, it was only about 10% of the reviewers. For all we know, the other 90% of those Vine reviewers might have hated third person narratives, fantasy books, romances....any of the myriad of other things that weren't mentioned in the original post.

But I can't make fun of those people because I do understand them. We're getting close to the wire. It's like when you're waiting for an event to start, something you're so excited about that you've barely been able to wait. It's like you're waiting for something, anything to happen on that stage in front of you so that the waiting is over. A backstage worker comes out to adjust something and the whole house goes quiet for a second wondering if things are finally going to start. Warm-up music filters over the waiting audience and for a moment, you wonder if it means things have begun. Everything is something to get excited about because it's the only way to deal with the waiting. Yet it has been my experience that the event is always worth waiting for and when the lights finally do go down and the band or show begins to play, you'll know when it's happening and suddenly all that tension and excitement seems so worth it.

At least that's what I'm hoping on Monday evening. If not, well, I'll keep trying. One thing I've learned after my last brush with rejection is that I need to stop dwelling on those and write anyway. Whether short story, helping with a research paper on Machiavelli or a new idea for a novel, as long as I can find enjoyment from putting down words on paper, I think that means I've already won. When those words start flowing and I don't have to think, there's nothing like it in the world. Maybe it's not really about winning contests or getting published. Maybe the big event is the excitement of letting my passion for writing out, to weave the stories they find as they leave my brain and hit the paper. Whether it is or not, I like the idea anyway so that's what I'm going to believe, no matter what happens with the ABNA contest.

Happy Friday!

Daylight Savings Time: Wintering Forward

It's a gloomy Thursday outside, cold and grey. There was a magnificant sunrise starting to happen on the horizon. It was still dark when I got up. I hate when Daylight Savings Time happens. I had got used to the dawn twilight peeking in my window at 6:45 a.m. as if urging me to get up. As it got lighter, I became more awake. When I'd get home from work, it would be getting dark around 6:30 p.m. so that by the time I ate dinner, I could pull the blinds and settle in for the night.

Daylight Savings Time has ruined that pattern. Now when I wake up, it's still completely dark. When I woke up Monday morning, I seriously couldn't figure out why my alarm clock was going off. It seemed so early that I almost turned off the music that was trying to wake me up. Then I groggily realized that it was, in fact, time to get up. My body was not fooled. It knew that it was really only 5:45 a.m. but thanks to the conspirators of the universe, I had to go along with their sadistic plot to pretend it was an hour later.

I know that recently, they've moved the dates around as to when Daylight Savings Time begins and ends. It used to be a little later in the Spring and a little earlier in the Autumn. That made a little more sense. It gave the earth a little more time to spin so that it was not quite so dramatic a change to us. It also used to let us say "Spring Forward", "Fall Back" to remember which way to move the hour on the clock. Naturally, I find it necessary to point out that when move Daylight Savings Time up to WINTER, that nice little adage doesn't really help. Yes, it is still winter. Spring begins on March 21 (or 22, depending where you are). Daylight Savings Time happened on March 8th. Yes, people, we are now Wintering Forward but still Falling Back. That's a bit odd really, isn't it?

I know it's all about saving electricity and all that but some of us humans are already just a few steps away from wanting to hibernate in the winter (and yes, mum, I am actually talking about you). Thus, like a big fuzzy bear who is planning on sleeping until late March but is rudely awoken while it's still pitch black and freezing outside and then isn't allowed to sleep anymore, the new, earlier Daylight Savings Time is a little intrusive. There real sign of spring outside except for the fact that it no longer looks like Siberia but, rather, a grey soggy version of it and so it's a little unfair to expect us to instantly accept the change in time. It might not be so bad in places like California where their season exist of "Sunny with a chance of heavy rain", "Sunny with a less chance of rain but it's still possible," "Sunny and hot with no chance of rain whatsoever unless it's that weird drizzle that's just wet enough to make the cars look dirty" and "Sunny with a rare chance of rain but since it's Autumn, it could happen." Yet here, in the Midwest, it's still completely dark in the mornings. Also, I like it to get dark earlier at night. In the summer, it's nice to have long days. In the winter, it's nice to be able to cosily settle in the evenings and enjoy the glow of an electric fireplace.

I can still do that but I've been cheated. I have less time with my fireplace in the evenings and instead, that useful darkness is being forced on me in the mornings making it extremely hard to wake up. I'd like to be able to keep that darkness in the evenings a little longer, the way it used to be. I didn't like the change in time much then but at least it wasn't so dramatic, it evened out day and night a little better, rather like balancing just right on a see-saw so that it remains perfectly still rather.

I know in a week, darkness in the morning and light in the evenings will seem normal. Then the days will start to lengthen more noticeably and I'll wonder what I was complaining about. Then we'll have to move the clocks back and I'll complain about it not being dark in the mornings any more and have short the day feels because of the earlier night.

Yet, for now, I'm grousing about this side of the see-saw, the side that leaves my bedroom dark and inviting in the mornings when I have to leave my warm bed for the coldness of the late winter day. It's hard enough to get up in the mornings but when it's still dark, it can be nearly impossible. Of course, if I went to bed earlier, that might help but what fun would complaining be then?

Happy Thursday.

Watching the Watchmen

I lived in the Midwest for quite a number of years before I moved to L.A. Yet somehow, in the eight year period of time that I lived in California, I managed to forget that just because you have a nice day in March doesn't mean that Spring is here. Yesterday, it was 75 degrees. It wasn't terribly sunny but the air had that balmy feel that made you want to stand outside and let the breeze wash over you. I stood on my balcony last night and had a glass of wine and it was as warm in the dark as it had been in the day.

This morning, it's freezing. My temperature gauge on my car read 39 degrees. That's a big difference. Instead of strolling from my car and enjoying the warmth, I scuttled, trying to stop my nose from getting cold. My nose gets really cold and I hate it. Just one of those odd quirks I have.

Yet in a way, it's quite nice to have variety. There's something quite nice about unpredicability. It's always there to surprise and sometimes you need that. Same goes for variety. It'd be nice if it were Spring but I'm still not quite ready to relinquish winter. I've missed it too much.

I tend to be a creature of habit. I have my comfort zones and I rarely like to stroll out of them. Yet, occasionally, I will try something new just to see if I like it. For example, this weekend, while I was flying on my oh-so-relaxing trip, I read a borrowed copy of the graphic novel, Watchmen. It's not the first graphic novel I've read. I wouldn't be much of a Neil Gaiman fan if I hadn't read his Sandman graphic novels which are amazing. I've read a few others too just because I'm fascinated by how great writing can be combined with great art. I knew Watchmen was highly regarded yet I wasn't sure what to expect. I figured it'd be a quick read but as soon as I encountered the first text-heavy excerpt from the fictional Behind the Hood novel, I realized it was going to take a while. I did still manage to read it on the plane but, by the time I was done, my head was spinning. It wasn't like anything I've really read before.

Watchmen is not a superhero novel. It is, in fact, an anti-hero novel. The main characters are a second generation of a group of masked avengers who originally banded together to stop crime in a way that the police could not. This generation is not so naive. Except for two of the Watchmen who now work for the government, the rest have been forced to retire or go into hiding because of an amendment added by Nixon that outlawed masked heroes. Now these former superheroes are a group of bitter, nihilistic wanderers who can't quite let go of the past but are trying to find their place in a world that supposedly doesn't need them

My favourite character is the tragic Rorschach, a man who now believes the mask he wears is he real face. His mask is an Rorschach inkblot, seemingly alive as it changes shape constantly with the movement of his face muscles. He is the last true avenger, refusing to go into hiding and executing vigilante justice because he feels the world is a morally blank canvas and if he rids the earth of the scum, it might at least have a chance. He's called a sociopath yet he seems to feel so much that it's turned him inside out. He's violent and cruel but his moral compass will never let him betray the belief that the world is black and white and you are either against evil or against good. He's a fascinating man, the only one of the Watchmen who doesn't give up on trying to save the world one villain at a time.

I saw the movie last night in Imax. I wasn't sure what to expect. The graphic novel is so long and intense that I couldn't imagine how it'd be adapted. However, I must say, I was impressed and amazed at how well it was done. There were shots that were real-life exact replicas of panels from the novel. The nihilistic tone was there, the characters flesh and blood rather than inked figures on a page. I don't think it's a movie for anyone who doesn't like a dark and twisty story and definitely not for someone who is uncomfortable with violence because it is spectacularly violent, gory and slightly twisted. They left out a couple of the story lines which I think was to their credit. Yet they kept everything tight, respectful of the original material and added just a touch of humour with some of the music choices.

I read this weeks Entertainment Weekly review of the movie. I don't know why I do that, honestly. Rarely do I agree with the reviewers who seem to have put themselves on a pedestal and have lost complete touch with what makes a movie good. They have their own ideas but they seem to forget that movies are supposed to entertain and inspire thinking rather than to have thesaurus-heavy meanings. The Watchmen review was written by Owen Gleiberman who said at the end of the review:

[Director Zach Snyder] doesn't move the camera or let the scenes breathe. He crams the film with bits and pieces, trapping his actors like bugs wriggling in the frame...

...On the page, Watchmen was a paranoid, mind-tripping pastiche of everything from The Incredible Hulk to Naked Lunch. But when characters who are knowing throwbacks are literally brought to life on screen, they can seem more like half-hearted ripoffs. A no-future nihilism bled from the very grain of Moore and Gibbons' pop vision of the 20th century. But that's a real problem for the movie, since the Cold War nuclear fears of the '80s never did come to pass. Watchmen isn't boring, but as a fragmented sci-fi doomsday noir, it remains as detached from the viewer as it is from the zeitgeist.

Here's the thing: If Mr. Gleiberman really did read Watchmen, he should have felt the exact same way about the graphic novel. The novel doesn't let you breathe, it's so crammed with action, emotion, metaphor and horror that you feel like you need to put it down just to be able take a full gulp of air. And the entire time I was reading, I felt detached from it and I think that was the point. I loved it, I devoured it but I never felt like I was part of the story. Rather, I felt as though I were being warned. So what if the Cold War fear of the '80's never came to pass? It still could. It's not like nuclear weapons have become tame little puppies that just need a little love. They can still kill us in a second. It's not Russia anymore, it's the Middle East.

No, I think what Mr. Gleiberman fails to recognize is that Watchmen in movie or graphic novel format is not about the Cold War, it's about human nature. It is doomsday noir but that doomsday is a darkness that has spread through human nature until the American Dream realized has become the American Nightmare. It's a long-distance warning, something that doesn't seem possible because it's so other, so fictional that it doesn't seem plausible. Yet, like with every good work of fiction, if you peer closely, you'll see that the fibers that hold the story together are familiar, something that we see every day even if we don't want to.

If you're into fiction that is so dark that it sometimes makes your skin crawl, I highly recommend reading Watchmen. It will make you uncomfortable but, at the same time, it will make you think. Just because it has pictures doesn't make it one of the best contributions to literature that I've read in a while. Now I just need to buy my own copy.

Happy Wednesday.

Finding Wonder in Modern Technology

I'm a little late blogging today. I took the opportunity to grab a couple of extra hours of sleep this morning to catch up from the weekend. I'm feeling a little more awake now and even managed to bring my phone to work today instead of forgetting it or mistaking it for an airline snack.

I was watching TV last night, my normal hour of Jack Bauer on a Monday night and I saw this advertisement for a car. I'm horrible about cars, to be honest. I know what I drive. I sort of know what my friends and family drive but when it comes to identifying, I tend to use terms like "it's blue," or, "it looks like a bar of soap" or "It's boxy". I don't know names of cars very much. So, I can't actually tell you what type of car it was I saw advertised.

I've probably seen this advertisement a few times before and other similar versions of it but last night, I actually watched it properly. This car is scary. Basically, you call out things to it and it does them. You tell it to play a certain CD and the car puts it on. You command it with your voice to do things like turn on the lights, turn up the heat, all kinds of fancy stuff like that.

Nowadays, it's really not that surprising. I mean, we now have technology on our phones or PDA's that allow us to pull up a map and see where we're standing and even to sync up with someone else to see their exact location on the same map.

Seeing this commercial got me thinking. We're living in the future, the shiny sci-fi future that people in the 1950's and earlier could only imagine. When I was watching that car commercial, I suddenly wondered how someone from the early 1950 would feel if they were flash-forwarded to 2009. Back then, they had those cute little cars with the wings on the sides and the most advanced thing you could do with them was step on the accelerator and try to go faster. It was a world in which teenagers used to pin one another with an ACTUAL pin, not some sexual metaphor that it would be today.

Sometimes, I think it would be nice to live in the 1950's. I'm sure there were problems then but I like the fact that it was slower world, one seemingly less jaded. Of course, if I were in the '50's, I'd be a lost cause. I wouldn't be a Bridget Jones-esque singleton searching for her Mr. Right, I'd be a spinster, written off as unmarriable and still living with my parents. Well, maybe. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have been so picky and I would have been married to my high school sweetheart. Maybe I actually would have had a high school sweetheart since I am sort of rewriting history.

Then I do stop and think about the components that make up our lives today. I'm an internet junkie. Living in the 1950's would seriously put a damper on that and if I tried to get someone to invent it, I'd probably be locked up for being crazy. Can you imagine trying to explain to somone in 1950 that in 50 years time we'll be driving around in cars that can do everything but steer themselves (and I'm sure THAT's not far behind)? Can you imagine telling them that everyone has cell phones, even children, that you can order pizza on a computer, that you can order pizza through your Tivo? Actually, can you imagine explaining Tivo? Because then you'd have to explain satellite TV and how you can pick up channels from around the world. I, for one, would rather like to sit Mr. 1950's down in front of, say, TFC (the Filipeno Channel) and the show WoWoWee. Now, talk about a surreal experience. It's a variety show and sometimes they play games. My favourite is "Coca Cola" where they compete for cash and prizes by calling out squares on a screen and seeing what's underneath. Contestants get so excited and they shout "Coca-Cola!" so enthusiastically, they make you want to grab a Coke and shout with them.

I digress. As usual. Anyway, what I'm saying is that in the space of 59 years, our world has evolved. I'm not talking monkey-to-human type evolution but, rather, evolution of life as we once would have known it. It makes me think of "Back to the Future" and the comic books that George McFly would read. They weren't so far off, not really. I'm not dignifying the sequel to that movie, it just wasn't worth it. Yet even since the 1980's, we've gone from super clunky home computers that needed cassette tapes and tape recorders to load games and programs and would crash if you so much as bumped the tape recorder during a load to sleek computers that boot up almost instantly and load everything automatically.

The world is changing constantly. In a few years, I'm sure the technology will exist to put a car on autopilot. After that, they'll figure out how to make cars fly or something like that. Now given my experience with flying over the past weekend, I could get behind that one. It doesn't really matter what the next development will be just that it makes even brand new gadgets obsolete. Technology is changing too quickly; it's an expensive hobby with which to keep up. My iPod mini can attest to that, once my believed music player, now relegated to a glorified external hard drive. What scares me most is the Kindle and other electronic book systems. As an avid reader, I can't get behind that one. I like the smell of a book too much, the feel of the pages, the thrill I get when I pull it off the library shelves. I like to hug a really good book when I'm done and I don't think it would be the same with the Kindle. I get that it means thousands of books at my fingertips but I don't want that. I want to be able to take my time and browse to find my next read in a bookstore or library and feel that excitement when I turn the pages and know that until I turn that last page, it's like I have a friend waiting patiently for me to find time to spend with it. I hope the Kindle isn't going to replace books, that's all I can say.

My point is that so many of the things we use we take for granted. Technology is just there. We forget to view it as a wonder. Taking a mental trip back in time and then attempting to look at what we have today is a great way to appreciate how far we've come, for better or for worse.

Happy Tuesday.

Why I Hate Flying by Captain Monkeypants

Firstly, I must apologize for the lack of blog on Friday. I didn't get a chance to post, unfortunately. However, I am back today after a bit of a crazy weekend. You see, I very recently decided to take a trip to L.A. For a weekend. At the time it seemed like a great idea. On paper, it seems so smart, fly in early Friday morning, fly out Sunday- plenty of time to hang out with friends. I'd also get to see "Rent" which is one of my all-time favourite musicals.

Except things never really turn out as planned, do they?

So, it started with the trip to the airport. I have a GPS that is sometimes possess by what sounds like the voice of satan. I'm not the only one who has heard this voice now. My poor mother was in the car a few weeks ago and we were driving in my car. I hadn't needed to enlist the aid of GPS because I knew where I was going. That didn't stop my GPS from interjecting with a rather scary sounding "BLEEUGH!" in the middle of a conversation between my mother. It sounded like "BLEEUGH!" anyway. For all I know, it could have been my GPS saying "I'm going to kill you and eat you." Who knows? It made my mother jump a little, that's for sure.

Anyway, so I asked my GPS to take me to the Cincinnati airport. Stupidly, I think I must have hit the "shortest distance" option rather than the "fastest route" option. I ended up going through all sorts of scary Kentucky woods, up hills that were almost vertical and being scared to death I was going to tumble down a ravine. That was a little alarming. By the time I got to the airport, I made a vow to always choose "fastest route" on my GPS because I don't like wondering if I'm going to end up murdered by a chainsaw in some backwards of Kentucky merely because I thought seeing "Rent" in L.A. with two of the original cast members was a good idea.

That should have been the first sign that the trip was not going to be smooth. Then my flight from Cincinnati was late leaving. Ok...as long as I landed with enough time to make my next flight. Except when we got to Minneapolis where I was supposed to hop on my connecting flight, we ended up circling the airport for at least 30 minutes. By the time we landed, my next plane was literally supposed to be taking off.

Here's where I add a strongly worded editorial note to Northwest Airlines and Delta.

Dear Delta and Northwest Airlines,

Congratulations on merging. I think that's lovely. One slight problem I have though: I booked a flight on Delta. You put me on one Delta Flight and one Northwest. You would not let me check in online because your computer said they were two different airlines. Also, because both of you are housed in completely different terminals at most of the airports, it makes getting from one flight to another virtually impossible. Also...at this moment in time, I despise both of your airlines. A lot. Please make sure I get my frequent flier miles.

Sincerely,

Captain Monkeypants.

Yes. I landed in Minnesota with the promise from Delta that there'd be carts standing by to take those of us with tight connections to our gates. There were no carts. None. I discovered my gate was seriously about a mile away. Picture an airport with a hub, each one having little sun-like rays coming off it. Now picture a gate at the end of one of those rays and the gate that would be opposite on the other side of the hub. Now try running from the first gate to the second gate with luggage. Yes, that was me. It was a very, very long run. I had heavy luggage. All I can say is thank goodness I've been working out. I was a big old wheezing, sweaty mess by the time I got to my second gate. They were about to close the door. I made it. Of course, I discovered my row had assumed I wasn't coming so the middle seat person and window person had shuffled. Middle-seat-lady had wanted to sit by the window. She was a big lady. It took a while for her to get to the aisle so the real window-seat-person could take his actual seat instead of mine. Middle-Seat-Lady was very angry at me and muttered in Spanish. I don't speak much Spanish. I think I was glad then. She spent the entire flight accidentally elbowing me as she tried to get comfortable. She had an enormous blanket that kept creeping into my space. I'm not usually mean but she was a big lady and she leaked a into my space rather a lot already. I ignored her and tried to sleep. It didn't work but at least I tried.

Of course, somewhere between Middle-Seat-Lady's 'tsk-ing' and me actually getting my breath back, I realized I'd lost my phone. Yes, my lovely little Verizon Chocolate phone had fallen out of my pocket somewhere between my bolting from one plane, dashing through the airport and making it to my second flight. This was my fault and pure stupidity. You see, Delta gives you these tasty Biscoff cookies. They quite a large packet and, if you're a little punchy and tired from flying and taking the scary way to the airport, they have about the same size and shape as an LG Chocolate phone. I was wearing a sweatshirt with a big pocket in the front. I put the cookies in this pocket because though I didn't want to eat them, I wanted to save them for later. During my mad dash to the second gate, I patted this pocket and thought those cookies were my phone. So I kept running, got on my flight and pulled out my 'phone' to text my friend who was picking me up from the airport.

Have you ever tried to text on a package of Biscoff cookies? Yeah, not easy. In fact, sadly, not possible.

It was then that I realized I had been prematurely parted from my Chocolate phone. I loved that phone. I knew I could attempt to track it down but given that Delta and I have rarely had a smooth flying experience together, I doubted that I'd get it back.

Thus, my first morning in L.A. was spent talking Verizon into letting me renew my contract a little early. Verizon does not like to do this. Fortunately, I managed to convince them that while I did, indeed, have one month left on my current contract it was only a month and wouldn't they rather lose a month of my contract that have me leave them for another phone company? They agreed. I now have a Blackberry Curve. I refuse to allow it to become a 'Crack'berry. I've seen 'Crack'berry addicts. While they have the world of the internet at their fingertips, they seem to forget that there's actual life going on around them and that sometimes, you just have to ignore the beeps and glow of the Blackberry's little red light that indicates yet another message is waiting. I am working on fighting this urge to check my new phone. It doesn't help that it no longer seperates my text messages from my emails and so whenever any type of message comes in, it alerts me. I think I need to figure out how to seperate the notifications. At the moment, it's got a lot of shiny icons and i don't really know what they do.

Once I had the phone, I felt better. I didn't have my address book which made it hard because I would have liked to have called a friend in L.A. to say hi but I didn't get a chance. However, the weekend was a whirlwind anyway. So many people, so little time. It was fun but I can safely say that next time, I need more time to not only recover from my rather horrid flying experience but to actually stop and have a vacation.

I will say that it was nice to see my old friends and haunts again, even briefly. Seeing "Rent" was nothing short of amazing. It's been a show I have loved for years but, I confess, as I grew older, I was a little worried I was losing touch with it and I wondered, just a little, why they didn't just pay their damn rent instead of singing about it. However, this production reminded me that "There's No Day but Today", the theme of the show. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp were unbelievable. It felt historic seeing those two 'legends of Rent' perform their roles as though they were brand new to them.

I did get to eat all the food I miss from Ohio: Vietnamese pho, Zankou chicken with taboule and hummus, and Filipeno palabok and chicken. Aside from my friends and my West Coast 'family', the food is probably what I miss most. Sad but true.

Naturally, flying home didn't prove to be easy. My first plane tried to land during a thunderstorm. I watch too much Lost on TV. I half expected a sudden flash of light and then finding myself stranded on a desert island. I like that outcome more than crashing to my doom, splintered into a hundred pieces on the ground. That flight was horribly bumpy and a bit hairy for a few minutes. The second flight got stuck because of a computer issue. We were almost an hour and a half late taking off. Thus, I arrived at my apartment at 1 a.m.

Lessons learned from this trip:

1) Biscoff cookies do not make good cell phones

2) Always sit at the front of the plane so that you don't have to run people over when trying to get off to make your next flight.

3) Travelling to a place that has a three-hour time difference during Daylight Savings weekend makes it really, really hard to get up for work on a Monday morning.

4) Wear tennis shoes to travel so that running is a little easier.

I'm sure there are more lessons there but this blog is already long enough for one day. Of course, I just realized that I left my stupid Blackberry at home but, at least I know where it is this time. I think.

Happy Monday.