Ski Lifts Don't Like Me

Good gray morning to everyone, to all my (five) fans, to the academy...

Thanks to Shel for her suggestion of a good book about blogging to use for my blogging class! I bought it from InsertNameofGiantEtailer here right away.

If anyone else has suggestions they'd like to share, share away. Here are some things I'm looking for:

As an aspiring writer, if you were to take a blogging class, what would you want to know?

If you are a blogger who has lots of readers, what did you do to promote your blog?

What makes a good or a bad blog?

Do you get paid to blog? If so, who do you blog for and how did you land that gig?

In other news...I'm off to try to ski 30 kilometers this weekend in that world-famous death-defying ski race known as the Hog Loppet. Actually it is not a race and it is not death defying in any way unless of course you fall off the ski lift on the way to the top of Mission Ridge, which is where the non-race starts. I don't get along well with ski lifts so this is always a possiblity.

In fact, a couple weeks ago when I went skiing up at Olympic National Park's beautiful Hurricane Ridge, I managed to fall off both the so-called ski lifts there, one a rope tow and one a Poma lift (a metal bar with a tiny seat that you "sit" on while you leave your skis on the ground.) At least I had the sense to let go of the Poma lift before it dragged me all the way up the stupid mountain. Yeah, cause I'm cool like that.

I did manage to find a bit of corn snow on the south side of Hurricane Ridge where there were no barbaric ski lifts and no people, except for the jealous snowshoers at the top who watched us swoop [ski slowly] down the sixty-degree [20-degree] slope. Ah, yes. Beautiful views, sun, snow, and solitude. You can see my "ski instructor" (aka a famous rock star going incognito), making his way back up the slope here.

Anyway, so back to this weekend. I'll be out there at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, attempting not to fall off a ski lift and to ski farther than I ever have in my life.

xo
Rebecca

Careers Suck

Hmm, yeah, hey.

Funny that since I can hardly call myself a blogger these days that Richard Hugo House has asked me to teach a blogging class this summer.

This is very cool because I've been wanting to dip my toes (back into) teaching for a while now and it's nice that that I didn't have to do a damn thing to get the job. Although now I actually gotta come up with something to *teach* but I can put that off for a while.

The thing is, though I desperately need a career change, I am rather lacking in energy to make it all happen. I am, in fact, seeing a career counselor, who is quite helpful but she actually wants me to do *work*. Like you know, go out and research stuff. Talk to people. Figure out how to make my dreams a reality, yadda yadda.

Hello! All I feel like doing is sleeping, eating, reading, and skiing. Oh yeah, and taking piano lessons and a writing class and making out with that cute new boy and trying to stay on top of the mess in my house, and you know, all that stuff.

But here's what's got to happen. Eventually. Me less in corporate world more in arts world. Me no 9-5 job anymore. Me write teach travel for living. Me no more technical editor. Me hope write other novel but me can do depend on that.

Speaking of the no 9-5 thing, my fabulous writer friend Michelle has just published a book about how to get out of the 9-5 grind. She also has a really helpful, career-oriented blog.I haven't read her book yet but I plan to very soon and I'm sure it's good!

Now I'm going to eat chocolate cake and put off doing stuff about my career. So there.

P.S. I blogged at my author site last week.

Ready to Rock

Hello darlings, long time, no see.

Life has been eventful as usual. I am getting nowhere on the book but other areas of my life are scooting along.

I have a new piano teacher who is helping me in my quest to rock, and this one, unlike my teachers of the recent past, is 1)not insane 2)has social skills and 3)doesn't light up a spliff as soon as I arrive.

There is also a rather cute and adoring boy in the picture. Someone I have known for a while and whom, up until recently, did not consider boyfriend material. When we first met, I had a big crush on him which then faded into the background as I dated someone else, and calculated the weight of his emotional baggage. But we became friends, and we got closer, and...after he confessed having all sorts of feelings for me, I opened my heart up to him.

After all, a girl is susceptible to being told she is the most amazing, beautiful person in the world.

That in itself is a lovely but frightening thing. Why it was Loser himself who used to tell me repeatedly I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met; who put me on a pedestal and kowtowed to me because he had no backbone, and then ended up resenting me and treating me like dirt. I've experienced men who are infatuated with me, their eyes all a-sparkle, whose infatuation disappears as soon as the feelings are reciprocated and an actual relationship threatens to develop.

I have plenty of baggage myself.

But my heart is open and my head too -- I am open-minded to a fault. I look past the external and practical -- which, at my age, I should probably be focused on -- to the way a person makes me feel. To the way they look inside. I've gotten myself involved with a very loving, kind, open, super-sensitive sweetheart who is imbued with much (too much?) soul. If we truly hit it off, I can look past all the stuff that might scare other women away. If we don't, well, it's all gonna be a big, huge mess in many ways.

In other words, it's either going to be great or a total f*cking disaster. My seatbelt is firmly fastened, my seat is in its upright position, and all my electronic devices are put away.

Flight attendants, please be seated for takeoff.