I have bad eBay luck.
My boyfriend manages to buy tons of awesome stuff on eBay at 50%, 75%, 90% off, right? And then there I am, searching fruitlessly for hours for one necklace pendant or one blouse that isn’t ugly or overpriced. Searching for stuff on eBay makes me frustrated and tired.
Then again, I have good parking luck, so I’ll accept that as my trade-off and stop complaining.
My hobby is “beading.”
After selling all my beading supplies a year ago, I decided to start it up again. Why? I don’t know. I need a hobby. Also, I blame my kids. They were getting into wire sculpting for a while, so it seemed like a good flimsy excuse for me to buy a bunch of beads and pretend those beads were for my kids.
I made a cool necklace that broke the second time I wore it. (Beading wire broke under the crimp.) It took me several months, but I finally found the time to restring it this past weekend. (This time I used tiger tail.) I’m wearing it now, and it makes me happy. See, I’m always looking at necklaces at the mall and telling myself, “I could make that.” And, hey, I finally made one, right? It’s hard to find the same materials that they use to make the mall necklaces, though. Sewing used to be the same way for me, too. If you can’t find good material, you can’t sew anything nice.
The saddest part of the beading was watching my kids make rather ugly earrings for me. They’re really good – better than me – at shaping the wires, but they have no color-coordination skills, unfortunately. So I have a bunch of ugly earrings in the bead box. I didn’t want to lie to my children, or wear the ugly earrings, so I said, “These are very well made, but I can’t wear these colors. Let’s save these as models for the next earrings you’ll make.”
Over the weekend, as I was restringing my one pretty necklace, my eight-year-old son, Rory, begged to be allowed to bead, too. He and his brothers have already made all the manly leather cord necklaces they can wear. “I want to make you a bracelet, Mom!” Okay, okay. For once, I had a moment of smartness. I picked out six kinds of coordinating beads (pink, clear, green, pink/green) and let him load them up onto the bead tray thingie. Then, I gave him an appropriate length of memory wire. We had a short discussion about patterns and ratios. (You can’t make every other bead green if only one fifth of your beads are green.) Then, I told him he had free rein to string whatever he wanted. And he did. He came up with his own pattern, choosing not to use some of the bead types we’d put in the tray. And, I swear, he made me the most beautiful bracelet I’ve ever owned. It’s way prettier than my precious, twice-strung necklace. I’m gonna try to take a picture of it to show y’all, later this week.
So, when I tell you my hobby is beading, what I mean is that my hobby is running a slave-labor camp in which little kids make me jewelry. Fun for everyone. You should try it.
Taking care of business.
I got a lot done this weekend. I find that I’m happiest when I’m getting a lot done. Last week I finished my revisions for Warner, and this week I finished another kids’ book. Please cross your fingers for me that they (Arte Publico Press) likes this one and buys it from me.
I’m really enjoying writing the kids’ books. Not to brag, but I think I have a knack for them. I’m good at making up crazy stuff*, one. Two, I have a good memory of what it’s like to be a little kid, and I’m good at seeing little kids’ points of view. (Maybe that can be summed up by saying, “I’m immature.”) Three, I read aloud to my own brats all the time, so I have a good ear for what kids will and won’t hang with. For instance, no little kids would be able to listen to this blog entry, or any other that I’ve written. However, any little kid would love the little story I’ve written about the good Project Runway designer and his trials and tribulations with the bad Project Runway designer.
I’m just kidding. Of course that’s not what the story is about. I’ll tell you what it’s about if/when it gets sold. Very, very, very soon, I’ll update this web site to show what all the upcoming stories are about, so I don’t have to keep mentioning them here, where we prefer to have stories about my child support and my sex life. (Just kidding, ha, ha.)
The sad part, lately, about getting so much stuff done is that it sometimes serves to highlight how little the people around me are willing to get done. Like, say, my kids. They’re lying around the couch, playing video games. Or else eating ham sandwiches and staring into space. I say, “Look. If you aren’t going to spend your spare time writing books or making me jewelry, could you at least get your homework done?”
And they say, “But, Mom, I have to use the computer, and you’re on the computer.”
And I say, “Didn’t I buy you a computer for that very reason?”
And they say, “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” And then they go to their computer and type their papers very, very slowly. Like, one word per minute. And while they do this, they keep coughing or making weird squeaking noises so that I’ll go into their room and see what the matter is. The matter is that they’re typing too slow. “Give me that damned thing,” I say. And my kids lie on their beds and languidly punch each other while I type their papers 75 words per minute and change their POVs and switch their passive voices to active.
And then I say, “Y’all have to quit being so lazy. Why are y’all so lazy?”
And they say, “Because we didn’t grow up poor and struggling like you, so we don’t know the value of what we have, and we don’t understand that we have to work hard to preserve it.”
And I say, “Oh, so you’re saying it’s my fault?”
And they just shrug. And then I go to get the big stick with nails that I use to spank them. But then they go make me some earrings or draw a picture of me that says, “I LOVE MY MOM BECUASE SHES NOT ALWAYS A BITCH ONLY SOME TIMES.” And then I let it go.
Okay, that’s it. That’s all I can reasonably type on these subjects today. If you only skimmed over everything else, please just cross your fingers for my latest book. (And for my kids’ futures, too, if you have time.)
* See, whereas adults might say, “What in the hell is wrong with you that you wrote a story about giant ants harvesting human lubricants?” I can count on little kids to be more like, “So this story is about twin brother-and-sister graham crackers who wish for joint death in the mouth of a dog? Okay, I’m with you. What happens next?”
