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¡A Tu Salud!

Français : Adèle of Champagne (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy New Year, Fringelings!

I was looking for an appropriate quote to inspire me for the coming year–or at least inspire me for a New Year’s post, and I found this:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”–Theodore Roosevelt

I think that’s what I did over the course of 2013. Not a banner year, but hell, those don’t really exist for those of us on the fringe, do they? Still, not a bad year. Bad moments, scary moments, disappointments? Oh yes, plenty of those. But also some lovely moments, and I find myself further along on the path of acceptance, a là Theodore Roosevelt. I did what I could with what I had, where I was.

I wrote. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I wrote a few new short stories, two of which I’m pleased with. I held my breath and closed my eyes and posted one of my stories for all to see here on Mrs Fringe. I finished a WIP, Wanna Bees. I edited, I revised. I wrote a query letter for it, and did some half-hearted querying of it. It’s a light, romancey magical realism/urban fantasyish piece. I participated in a twitter pitch contest with it. Lesson learned, twitter pitching is not for me. And then I stopped querying it. Another lesson learned. I want to be that light hearted, romancey love conquers all woman who believes I can and will have it all. But I’m not. I’m a quirky old gal who will do anything for the people I love, adores each of my children so much it makes my heart ache, prone to the blues when I don’t get enough sunlight, with a tendency to think too much while wondering why, how can it be, and what if.

I want to write what (I think, I hope) I’m best at. So I put Wanna Bees to the side, and began a new WIP: Astonishing. I wish I had the magical combination of freedom, discipline, and a decent night’s sleep every night to produce a reasonable word count every single day. But I don’t. I’m more than 3/4 of the way through the first draft, and at the moment, I’m stuck. Pondering, as my friend Buzzie says. I swing between thinking I’ve really got something here and being convinced this is the suckiest suckage I’ve ever committed to paper (or keyboard) and I’m completely delusional to think any agent will ever be interested, let alone a publisher willing to put money towards it. Literary fiction, for God’s sake–something a good number of people don’t believe is a real thing, and assume anything categorized as such is code for pretentious, bloated, navel gazing prose. Still, I haven’t given up, and don’t plan to. A few people I respect and value who’ve seen excerpts have been very encouraging. They like it. Ask if it’s finished–because they want to read the rest. Completely cool, and completely terrifying.

I kept blogging, through times when necessity dictated more sporadic posts, I doubted anyone was reading, doubted whether any of my words should be out in cyberspace. Through Mrs Fringe I raged, I railed, I giggled. I’m glad I did, I’m glad you’re here, and have no plans to stop blathering any time soon. I made and deepened several friendships through blogging and through the writer’s forum.

All three of my kiddos are doing well. Moments of breath holding, nerves, fear, yup. But no out and out medical crises this year for them or Husband, woot!!

I will never be happy living hand to mouth in a cramped apartment, will never stop dreaming of a beach house, will never be blasé when faced with a mountain of medical bills, will never stop wishing I could do more and be more for my kids, will never stop wishing I could be more productive with the hours in my day, will never stop questioning the worth of myself and my words without the validation of a dollar; will keep dreaming of a dishwasher, a yard and garden, my own washer and dryer, a pert nose and perky boobs. But somehow in the year 2013, I did what I could, with what I had, where I am.

I hope to say the same in 2014, and I wish the same for all of you; my followers, my Fringelings, my friends.

Flags around the rink at Rockefeller Center, 2013

Your Call Cannot be Completed as Dialed

Phones are dead. (Photo credit: nicadlr)

Between Husband and I, we have spent oh, I don’t know…4000 hours on the phone and in the store over the past few days, trying to clear up our cell phone account. I think I mentioned in my last post, but maybe not, someone somehow used our account to purchase 4 new iPhones and add 6 lines to our account. Oh, the joys of technology, it makes life so much easier, doesn’t it?

We thought we cleared it up the day before Christmas. Then we thought we cleared it up the day after Christmas. Then we were certain we cleared it up yesterday. Our contract is up, Man Child and I are due for upgrades. Perfect timing, because the week between Christmas and New Year’s is when the cell phone stores push the sales. Yay! This was the first time in years that my cell phone didn’t completely die before Christmas in the time frame when our contract was up. Because no, I will not replace my phone until and unless I’m due for an upgrade. The full retail prices on these things are ridiculous, I don’t care if I spend 8 months with the phone held together by duct tape.

Man Child and I went into the store yesterday, ready to get new phones and downgrade our plan. We’ve been paying a ludicrous monthly bill for what we use. Woo hoo, I’m psyched, I’m finally going to get the phone I’ve been wanting for years, at the price I’m willing to pay. Which, for the record, is free. (Once I get my rebate.) It isn’t the most current model, but groovy enough for me. Only we couldn’t, because the cell phone carrier is now on the case, making sure no fraud occurs. Isn’t there an expression about that, something about a barn door, free milk, escaped horse, something?

An open door (Photo credit: Juha Riissanen)

Even though the extra lines and charges had been removed from our account, as far as the carrier was concerned, we already re-upped our plan and got new phones. I couldn’t take care of it in the store, because the account is under Husband’s name. Grrrrr. Fine. We leave, Husband calls and spends another 3 hours on the phone with the carrier this morning to clear it all up and make sure I’m an authorized something or other to make decisions and handle problems. For the record, Husband doesn’t even use this carrier anymore, because of their exorbitant prices and previous bullshit over the years. Man Child and I still use them/the plan, along with Mother-in-Law. M-i-L because it’s easier for her, Man Child because they have the best signal at and near his school, and me because they have the best overall coverage in the country, and there have been several times already when we’re out of town and Husband’s phone doesn’t work but mine does. One of us has to have a working phone all the time. Two kiddos away at school, another one with medical needs, someone has to be reachable, no?

So, Man Child and I went back to the store this morning. Picked out our phones–again–go through a thing with the salesman. He was pleasant, but of course, trying to make the best sale he could. I get it, this is how he pays his bills. But no, I’m sure we can and are going to downgrade our plan, and no, $350 worth of protection plans aren’t worth two free cases. Really. I’m sure. M-i-L doesn’t need or want a smart phone. I need a lower phone bill each month. OK, we establish what info we need transferred from our old phones to the new ones, and the salesman begins to process the order. But wait!

A stopped press (Photo credit: slambo_42)

First, I get a phone call on my cell from the fraud department requesting permission to process the order because our account is now flagged. Thumbs up. Surprise! Order still can’t go through. There’s a mysterious something pending on our account. A mysterious something we didn’t authorize or pay for. Ummm, get rid of it? The salesman, who started out so smooth and friendly when I first met him on Saturday afternoon, is now growling into the phone with whatever department is supposed to take care of this, stabbing the digit keys with his index finger as he dials. Again. and Again. Apparently, they’re just as quick to disconnect calls from store employees as they are customers. Seems to me if you’re a phone company you should be able to transfer a call without disconnecting it, but perhaps I set the bar too high.

While he’s on hold, I try to convince him he should give us free phone cases for our troubles, while he looks me straight in the eye and explains it doesn’t work that way, how it isn’t really our loss or trouble, it’s the phone company who took this huge hit, so there’s no reason to expect any courtesy/compensation. Really? This is my fault that someone, somewhere, didn’t make an effort to confirm it was truly Husband making these HUGE purchases and changes to our account; an account we’ve had with them for ten years now–for phones they charge hundreds of dollars for, that cost them about 10 cents to make? No reason for a major phone carrier to extend courtesies despite the fact we’ve now wasted many, many hours on this? Heh.

At this point, I’m losing it. This is too much like shopping, and I’m starting to look and feel like a 9 year old with a serious case of ADHD who didn’t take her meds. I should be home. Sleeping. Playing with Flower Child. Writing. Reading. Listening to Nerd Child tell me about his most recent research on something serious and intense that I don’t understand but love hearing his passion. Anything but standing in the middle of this fucking store getting absolutely nowhere.

Man Child goes out and gets us coffee. While the salesman on the phone is dealing with the vortex of the fraud department, we chat with another salesman who had helped me the last time I got a phone, over two years ago. Seems like a genuinely friendly young man, we chat about New York and life while pretending the other salesman isn’t about to have a stroke on the phone with fraud and my head isn’t about to explode from this ridiculous level of bullshit. I take the opportunity to do some shameless self promotion and plug Mrs Fringe, Man Child goes out and brings back breakfast. Our salesman, still on the phone.

We’re now back home, with one very costly migraine, but no new cell phones. Why? Because now the fraud department is being extra cautious, and even though I was added as an authorized user/decision maker/bill payer this morning, they decided I can’t exercise my glorious power of handing over my debit card, with my name, and my identification, without Husband either there in person or on one of the cell phones from this plan. Husband is at work. With his cell phone, which is not one of the ones from this overpriced quagmire of a cell phone company.

Thirty minutes. I’m willing to give thirty more minutes to this tomorrow, before I tell this company and their fraud department to kiss my rapidly spreading middle aged butt (not the individual store or salesmen, because they were quite nice and did what they could from their end) and go buy a phone elsewhere, with a month to month contract. In case of emergency, send smoke signals.

Can You Hear Me Now? (Photo credit: jeffsmallwood)

Life, Blogging, and Nelson Mandela

The Pen and Sword (Photo credit: DavidR_

Mrs Fringe is not a blog about blogging. It is not a blog about writing. It is not a blog that tells readers how to save the world, raise perfect children, or make the perfect soufflé. Really, it isn’t, check out the “About” page, I claim no expertise and never have.

I touched on this in July, but I’m a little mushy today, so I’m going to write about it again. I began blogging to have a space to be honest and in the hopes of getting myself back into a regular writing schedule–without undue or unrealistic pressure. In navel gazing mode while I grocery shopped this morning, I realized I have achieved these goals, and hope to continue to do so for a long time. The blog isn’t huge, I don’t earn a dollar from it, no agents have sent me sekrit coded messages promising me contracts, but I feel pretty darned good about it.

I get upset by things. I probably shouldn’t because I’m a grown-up and a realist but I do, because I’m a human being with a vivid imagination. Like the complaints going around the building and the neighborhood again, about the local homeless shelters. It’s absolutely true, these buildings, programs, and the people who utilize them are far from ideal neighbors. They need more staffing, support, mental health and drug treatment services. Many of the residents of my building and immediate neighborhood are older people who marched for equal rights, civil rights, against war and nukes and in support of love and peace. Hell, half of them comprised the Occupy Wall Street gatherings. So how come they’re banding together now to close down the local halfway houses, block the homeless shelters? All these years, all this awareness, and still, too few are willing to acknowledge the homeless as more than a nuisance. Definitely not to acknowledge these are human beings, only wanting to hurry up and call them someoneelse’sproblem.

Those pesky homeless guys, the woman staggering down the street? This wasn’t their dream. But this is their neighborhood, and for many it has been since long before Rudy Giuliani cracked down on “quality of life” crimes, Disney took over Broadway and Times Square, and small business owners were squeezed out in favor of 8 gazillion chain drug stores. I’m not glossing over the-way-it-used-to-be; the dirt, the crack vials and shared needles, the squeegee guys hammering on car windows when the bridge and tunnel crowd was trying to get home, the Girls! Girls! Girls! you had to walk through to get to the library.

Description unavailable (Photo credit: Runs With Scissors)

Yeah, it was dirty, sometimes it was scary. Rents were always crazy here, I remember hearing about 8 girls sharing a 5th floor walk up when I was a kid 40,000 years ago. Now the rents have shot from crazy to obscene. The real estate bubble didn’t actually burst here, just sagged a bit. Firm as ever now.

How can it be that I read posts the other day from more than one privileged young American toting the value of sweat shops as opportunities for poor kids?

So where is the compassion? How does someone reconcile “not in my backyard” liberalism with the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the death of Nelson Mandela? I’ve read many, many lovely quotes from Mandela over the last 18 hours. Read many heart warming tributes about what incredible contributions he made to our world. 95% of those tributes include qualifiers, “he wasn’t perfect.” No shit. He was a human being. An incredibly strong, impassioned, brave, fallible human being. But it seems we shouldn’t be human. Not if we’re living on the streets, not if we’re fighting for social justice, not if we’re regular old gals.

I’m the first to admit, I’m not that brave. Or that motivated. Or that strong or that smart. I am not a revolutionary, don’t feel John Lennon’s “Imagine” is my personal anthem.

Mrs Fringe is, however, my little ragged thread of the world. A thread for patching, a thread for connecting. I received a beautiful message this morning from someone who recently found Fringeland. One of my stories made her happy, she connected with it. Over the time I’ve been blogging, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive quite a few notes along those lines. Recently a friend who is also somewhat of a mentor even said that she believes Mrs Fringe has allowed me to hone my voice in my fiction. Nail it. Well, she didn’t say nail it, because she’s way more elegant and eloquent than I will ever be, but that was the gist. I think she’s right, and I wanted to take today’s post to say thank you to everyone who reads, comments, follows, and encourages.

I haven’t written a bestselling novel that opens my nation’s consciousness. I haven’t ended apartheid or led a nation, I haven’t built a homeless shelter or washed the feet of those who walk the streets without shoes. I haven’t even occupied Wall Street. I’m not likely to do any of those things. I do try to be thought-full, to share a smile with others who are living on the Fringe, offer a voice, and more than anything else, remember that I’m a human being, and so is everyone else around me. Thank you for giving me a space to do this, and responses that let me know we do all affect each other.

English: Crystal structure of human DNA polymerase lambda (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wednesday is Self Pity Day!

Red Wine Cheese Plate @ Artisan Wine & Cheese Cellars (Photo credit: Lehigh Valley, PA)

Yesterday I had a decent writing day. 1000 words added to Astonishing, 400 probably salvageable. I intended to have another decent day today. Derailed.

First, I have to mull. And think. And obsess. I’m debating whether or not to include a seksy time scene in the chapter after this next one, which will influence what and how I write this one. Make sense? Obviously, this makes playing online the best use of my time. Plus, there’s the whole Nerd Child left to go back to school this morning and I’m going to miss him terribly. Yes, yes, he’ll be back in under three weeks, but still.

I was on the writer’s forum, and there was an interesting discussion thread going. The OP (original poster) is someone whose posts I always enjoy, sometimes thought provoking and often funny. A master of self deprecating humor, and hey, I’m a New Yawkah, no one appreciates self deprecating humor as much as we do. Add in the tortured writer thing, perfection.

I don’t often participate in these serious discussion threads. Everyone, including me, gets all touchy–or worse, touchy feely–and then I sniffle because someone on the internetz hurt my feelings, sniffling leads to crying, crying leads to a headache. I now have a fucking migraine roughly the size of Detroit.

English: A bottle of Excedrin’s migraine formula. Taken by myself today with a FinePix S700. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The discussion was about luck and how it factors into writing success, prompted by an interview with Alice Cooper having to do with luck and music. The usual forum thread commenced, some saying yes luck is a factor, others saying no, luck has nothing to do with it, cream rises to the top blahblahblah.

What do “we” want as writers? Readers, fame, glory, acclaim, money, contracts? The list can be long when using the royal we, but for individuals it varies. I’ve been vocal here in Fringeland about my desires, I’d like readers and a dollar.

Why did I post on that thread? Clearly I haven’t felt shitty enough about myself and my writing this week, and after all it is self-pity day, so I chimed in with a thoughtful and eloquent whine speaking for myself and using supporting details and anecdotes about how I call bullshit on the idea that luck isn’t a factor. Not the only factor, but certainly a factor. If you include timing as part of luck, it becomes that much greater.

In my opinion it is both dismissive and disrespectful to state otherwise.

Don’t even think of acknowledging the rest of life, and any responsibilities that may sometimes need to take precedence. Heh. If you’re a real writer, you write, read, and submit every single day no matter what. Screw those kids wanting to eat. Or needing medical care. You’re a writer. But not a writ-ah, because that would be pretentious.

The very next post after mine offered a lovely statement, “getting readers is easy.” Really? Well then, perhaps it’s time for Mrs Fringe to pack it in. Since it’s so easy and all, and I’ve been doing it for a long. fucking. time. at this point I should have thousands of followers for the blog, and gazillions more reading my fiction. And with all those readers and followers, both agents and editors should be begging me to sign contracts. Hrrumph.

I want to be clear, I don’t believe all is up to luck, or chance, or the rabbit’s foot I ran over with my banana seat bike. A factor, though? Yes.

Crying.. (Photo credit: Anders Ljungberg)

Mrs Fringe Gets Nekkid!

Exposed, and Overdue for a Pedicure

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the idea of posting one of my short stories, asking for thoughts from the Fringelings. The majority opinion was do eeeeet. I thought about it, and I’m doing it.

This certainly feels like I’ve stripped and opened the bedroom blinds. Foolish, maybe. But maybe some fresh air will do me good.

I’ve created a separate page here where the story is, and where any future stories might go, in an attempt to keep this house of Fringe clean and tidy. Perma-link to the page says “Fiction” on top of the home page, next to “About Me” and “Favorites.”

My short stories usually come into my head kind of fully realized as a brief scene, or a snapshot. No muse, no magic, all the fabulous ideas and mental pictures don’t mean shit without that picture being followed up by BiC. Butt in Chair (or in my case, couch) and doing the work of writing. Otherwise, I assure you, my imagination is vivid and fabulous, I’d have been on the New York Times Bestseller list three times over already, with at least one Pushcart Prize under my belt.

One afternoon last year I was out walking a dog through Central Park. I had a moment, in my mind I saw the picture of an old, broken down Brooklyn fisherman talking to a young girl by the water in the 1980’s, saying the word miserosion, the miseries of life translating into eroding body parts. At the time I was working on Wanna Bees, so when I got home I wrote down the word, a couple of notes, and left it to be written when I was done with the romance/magical realism of Wanna Bees.

But the idea morphed, as these things sometimes do. What if the story was hers, the young girl, long after meeting the fisherman, as an adult who has had years of broken souls drawn to her, a lifetime of if-it-wasn’t-for-bad-luck magical realism? And so started Astonishing, my current WIP.

“Miserosion” is Tommy’s story, back in the 80’s, a snapshot leading up to his meeting with Christina, the young girl who becomes the broken woman of Astonishing. Yes, it is magical realism.

Fringelings, I hope you read it, I hope you comment. Most of all, I hope you feel something, whether it’s your kind of story or not. It’s dark, and won’t be for everyone.

I hope you don’t mind, I left my socks on. Now I’m getting a draft!

Window half open (Photo credit: shinealight)

And Mrs Fringe Obsesses, doesn’t get much spookier!

smoke (Photo credit: DaleKav)

Yup, that’s me thinking.

Not that I’m thinking clearly or productively–overslept again this morning,–but still. I had a solid, productive day on the WIP yesterday, so I’m good.

You’ve all read my rambles about why I write, what I hope for, what I dream of. Bottom line for those who skip my angsty posts; I write to be read, to tell a story that will resonate with readers, in hopes of earning a dollar.

Over time, as my income and standards have dropped and my age has increased, I have fewer expectations, a more fractious relationship with hope. But whatever principles I’ve got left are still strong. Most of my writing related plans have remained the same. Write, edit, write, edit, edit, query. I added the blog–which has been fabulous–queries have changed from snail mail to email–also fabulous. I don’t get quite as excited as I used to with every query, have a much better understanding of how to not read too much into every little comment I receive.

Money cash (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

One principle that hasn’t changed for me–if anything, gotten firmer–is that writing is work, and therefore I want to be paid for anything published. Not that anything’s been published, but this means I’m a) still searching for an agent (publishing houses that accept unagented manuscripts tend to also not pay advances) and b) I don’t submit short stories to mags that don’t pay at least a nominal fee on acceptance. I’ve heard odds of having a piece accepted by one of the “big,” known literary mags are smaller than the odds of winning the lottery. I think I’m a good writer, but let’s face it, Mrs Fringe doesn’t have quite the draw of oh, say, Margaret Atwood or Salman Rushdie.

First publication rights are what most literary magazines want on acceptance, means the piece hasn’t been published anywhere else. Without those rights, they don’t want the piece. Why am I rambling about this crap again today? Well, I was thinking…what if I said fine, I’m willing to burn first publication rights on a story. Or two. Or three. Posting a story here on the blog counts as published when it comes to rights. So…what? If I post a story here, it won’t earn me a dollar. But it would get a story read by at least two of my five readers. I think. Maybe that story would resonate with one of the two. Maybe that would give me some affirmation. Maybe both would say wow Mrs Fringe really is full of suckage, I’m never going to buy anything of hers if she’s ever published. Maybe two of the three that didn’t read the story will say screw that pretentious Fringe, I’m going to unfollow her.

What do you think, Fringelings? I’m seriously asking your opinions and would love to hear your thoughts on this subject–whether you’re a writer, reader, or fellow wannabe.

I just don’t know. Seems like I don’t really have a lot to lose, and I could gain something. Maybe.

Happy Halloween Fringelings!

Shhh, Chasing Sanity

English: Hide an seek Spotted amongst the hedgerow beside a footpath (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well here we are. Fall, again. Nerd Child is back to school, Flower Child goes back on Monday, and Man Child is fully immersed in his year up North. Yeah, yeah, technically the season doesn’t begin until the 21st, but I needed a jacket when I walked the beasts last night, and it isn’t much warmer this morning.

Today was my last day to sleep in. Luckily, Big Senile Dog was on the case and woke me up early. Just because. Fine. Got up, made coffee, went to sit on my terrace with my WIP, and he began barking again. This time to let me know Little Incredibly Stupid Dog had peed all over the floor. Out of paper towels. FYI for the fringelings, it takes an entire box of tissues to clean up the pee of an 11 pound dog.

I’d like to say my posts have been sporadic over the past couple of months because I’ve been busy having a fabulous time and upgrading my life. Nope.

I’d like to say posts will be more regular now that it’s back to school season in Fringeland. Probably not.

The WIP I’ve been talking about, Astonishing? To work on it, I have to tap into my inner muck. The stuff I like to stomp down and pretend isn’t there. You know, so I get out of bed in the morning and do things like make coffee and clean up dog pee. Despite the slow progress, I think I’ve got the bones of a good book. Honest. Distorted for maximum impact, wrapped up in fiction, and tied with the bow of story, of course.

Amuse Bouche (Photo credit: ulterior epicure)

Honest in a different way than Mrs Fringe, where I try to serve each platter of honesty spiced with enough humor to make it palatable for the amuse-bouches that equal blog reading.

Switching gears between the two is hard as hell.

When this summer began I was feeling, dare I say it? hopeful. This was not going to be a summer of death, I was going to relax, destress, and take concrete steps to make changes in my life. Let myself feel and plan. What the fuck was I thinking? I want my layer of numb back, please.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been poked by that little thing I like to call reality. I’ve been grateful to have Astonishing. For me, it is a refuge, my pretend world where I can take the shit that is too often life and manipulate it, tweak the character’s actions, reactions, and responses until I get a result I’m ok with. Something satisfying.

Tricky, this. This tapping into enough real to create honest fiction, while trying to get back a nice fat layer of numb.

Maybe tonight while I’m out at Friday Night Madness they’ll have some numb on tap.

How Do You Measure A Year?

I knew it was coming, knew it was coming, and now, WHAM! My blogoversary has snuck up on me. Yup, today is one year since the “birth” of Mrs Fringe.

I’m in the midst of a dental emergency, and whatever they gave me at the dentist this morning is wearing off, so I’m going to keep this short. Also without all of the links I had intended to post. Just go ahead and check out my blog roll. Really. Every single blogger on my roll is someone whose words I read, someone I respect, someone with something to say, through words or images, that touches my heart.

English: Toothache 13th century corbel head on St.Andrew’s chancel arch http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/771085 suffering with toothache for around 750 years whilst his friend opposite grins unsympathetically http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/771095 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I began Mrs Fringe in the hopes of giving myself a safe place to navel gaze, vent, be honest, and get my writing synapses connecting again. It has fulfilled every one of these hopes and much, much more. I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in reading what I had to say, and that was ok. Did I hope my ramblings would reach a few people? Of course I did. Hell, I fantasized about one of those sensational “hit it” blogs that result in legions of followers and a book deal. I also fantasize about winning the lottery. But I don’t buy lottery tickets, I blog. So here we are, one year later. No legions, no book deal, but the reality is that I have more followers, made more friends, had more great conversations, met more interesting people than I ever thought could/would really happen.

I also completed a manuscript, Wanna Bees–that I’m now querying–and have begun another one. I submitted a few short stories, wrote a few more.

Mrs Fringe may not be an overnight sensation, but for me, it is a rip roaring success. Because of you, my readers, my Fringelings, who have stopped to check out a post and stayed to become a member of Fringeland. In my opinion, a blog is only as good as its community, and we’ve built a hell of a little community here together. Thank you, for visiting, for following, for joining in the conversation whether you agree with my opinion or not. All are respected, all have been respectful, and all are welcome.

I feel honored and humbled by each and every “follow,” each and every person who takes the time to comment. Very few of the people who have become a part of Mrs Fringe are people I know “in real life.” Hell, even among those few, most are people I’ve met online, through blogging, special needs moms communities, or writing.

In this year, I’ve written 177 posts

Gathered 234 followers

Received 3, 386 comments

Had 11, 675 views

from 91 countries

Been asked to guest blog by people who stumbled upon my blog.

Been Freshly Pressed once

Gotten more joy, support, laughs, tears, and warm fuzzies than I thought possible.

Remembered what it is to be a person, an individual, a woman thinking about the world with something to say.

Last August, one of my posts was chosen for Freshly Pressed. It was two days after I posted, and I had no clue why I suddenly had all these comments waiting for me. A new blogger, I had no clue what Freshly Pressed was. I don’t consider it one of my “best” posts, but being recognized among the WordPress community was, in an overused and abused word, awesome. I like to think that one day, with more posts under my keyboard and a greater understanding of what I’m doing here, it will happen again.

Confession. I am a bad blogger. Good bloggers have a posting schedule and stick to it. I don’t. Good bloggers show their readers they care about and respect them by paying for upgrades. I do care about and respect you, but I haven’t paid for upgrades. sorry. It’s a budgeting thing. Good bloggers have one very specific focus, so viewers/readers/followers know right away what type of blog it is, and what they’ll be reading about each time. Oops. Good bloggers don’t use expletives to get their point across, and certainly never in their titles. Shit.

Have I said thank you clearly enough? Muchas gracias.

And now, I’m going to see if I’ve got any pennies left in my bag after today’s shakedown at the dentist. Maybe someone still sells this.

English: “Cocaine toothache drops”, 1885 advertisement of cocaine for dental pain in children. United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Toll Road Ahead

Well, I haven’t gotten any further on Astonishing, and no beach days, but we’ve done a little exploring of the Northeast. And by exploring, I mean dropping off Nerd Child at his summer program and visiting Man Child and Miss Lovely Music. We went to eat at the restaurant where Man Child is working, and this picky picky Mama says without hesitation the food was delicious.

Much as I drool over the fantasy of a beach vacation, it’s been glorious to take a couple of opportunities to leave the city, and just breathe. The air really does smell different–and we weren’t on any farms, so no manure, just sweet. Bonus points for allowing myself to have time away from screens without guilt.

As a bonus while traveling, the dealership we bought the car through screwed up. We paid extra to have a navigation system and iPod thingie put in. The navigation system stopped working after two days. Then we discover the DVD player isn’t working anymore either. Turns out they disabled the DVD player in order to place the new GPS–but didn’t tell us. Nice business practice. So glad we went there, so we could feel confident we’d be treated decently by Husband’s relatives.

We’ve never had a DVD player in a car before, wasn’t on our list of necessities–hell, it wasn’t even on our wish list. But it came in the car we bought, and I assume the cost was built into the price of the vehicle. Now they have to replace the whole navigation/iPod/radio unit, because the one they put in really isn’t working, it wasn’t that we hit a wrong button. And they tell us we can’t have the DVD player working anymore–unless we want to pay more to have them install a different DVD unit. WTF?!

I, of course, want my money back. Take the damn car somewhere else to have a system installed. Nope, they can’t/won’t give us a refund. So glad I spent a gajillion dollars for a car with a bazillion miles on it, so I can have all the little perks that make traveling more pleasant. Fuck!

We arrived home much later than expected after visiting Man Child, caught behind a s-l-o-w moving vehicle on a twisty two lane highway. I walked into the apartment holding my breath, and was unsurprised to see puddles on the floor. Hmmm, that’s an awfully big puddle for Little Incredibly Dumb Dog. Must have been Big Senile Dog. Wait, no, that isn’t his pee-in-the-house pattern. Cause, yanno, if he’s going to have an accident, he likes to dance around as he does so he can pretend it isn’t him–and leaving a trail everywhere. Both of them?!?! Nope, turned out my Swiffer mop sprang a leak, and it was all cleaning solution. I now have one very clean area of the living room floor, especially the undersides of the planks, where it all sank in. Lovely.

We plan to leave the city again for a couple of days next week, to do some further exploring and explore my Mrs Fringe wants to live in the country fantasies. Manhattan may be an island, but you can forget any thoughts of cool breezes. Asphalt and concrete traps every last bit of breathable air during a heat wave. Tar Beach, indeed. The heat wave is over now, though, and today is gray and cool. Really cool. No winning in the city this summer.

I used to be one of those moms who always meant to bring the camera, but would either forget to charge it or forget to bring it. Now, because of blogging, I bring the camera most times. Embarrassing to the boys, I get it, I look like a tourist. “But it’s for the blog!” has become my battle cry.

Photos…

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Mrs Fringe Wants a Do-Over

Against the rules. Cheating. Rupture in the time-space continuum. But isn’t that the true definition of being a grown up, when you comprehend you don’t get any do-overs?

Fine, how about some duck tape?

Fix everything (Photo credit: Anders Illum)

Duck tape for a cracked life. Because you can’t really undo what’s been done or start over. But there are people out there who seem as if they can fix just about anything, create just about anything, with a roll or ten of tape.

Others get stuck staring at the crack. First they pretend it isn’t there, then they can’t look away. They touch it, push on it a bit, whip out the tape measure and chart its progress, and finally, run their tongues over it and curse the fact that their tongue is bleeding. How about a little duck tape for use as a bandaid?

English: This is a tongue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the last year, I got tired of swallowing iron. Unfortunately, I hate the feel of sticky fingers. Seriously, even the thought of syrup on pancakes makes me shudder, because I hate the stick factor. Which leads me to think about my unnatural and unhealthy love of butter. It’s smooth, it’s comforting, it’s easy. But I’ve gained ten pounds this year, and it hasn’t fixed a damned thing.

My knee jerk avoidance reaction is to say I need spiritual duck tape. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Appropriately obscure, everyone can project whatever they’d like into it. I think Mrs Fringe has been this for me–and God knows I project whatever I want onto these pages. Soon enough I’ll be hitting my one year blogoversary. It’s been great, and I hope it will continue to be a cyberaddress of fun and navel gazing for a long time to come. Not enough though.

I think women, in particular mothers-of-a-certain-age, tend to stop right here. It’s ok, dear, a little spiritual crazy glue is all I want. And if it isn’t all I want that’s ok, it’s all I need. See? My fingers don’t move, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my lips are sealed shut.

It’s time to figure out how to use the damned duck tape for more than adhering myself to the same old shit.