Wordless Wednesday - My Book Jacket!!!

"And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal..."

Lately, the days have been going by way too fast. I swear it should be last Wednesday instead of this Monday. And I've been meaning to write to you about oh so many things, so here's one of my big messy list posts.

• STAY sold in Poland! It's so amazingly cool to think that something I wrote will be published in four languages other than English. I'm not sure I can quite get my head around it. (Mrs. X can suck it!)
• I have a Facebook page for the book now, and have some event dates up!
• Shanna convinced me that when I do book events, I should actually, you know, wear decent clothes. AND she helped me pick out said decent clothes AND helped me talk through different options for wearing said decent clothes beyond the dressing room. So it's possible that if you come to one of my book events, you might see me wearing accessories in addition to clothes that aren't yoga pants. Shanna is brilliant (and not afraid to tell someone when the dress is wearing them). I actually enjoyed shopping, which is a monumental feat.
• Argo had two cysts biopsied last week, but they came back clear. They're just cysts. I tried to put it out of my head completely while we waited for the results. As soon as I knew he was okay, I realized how worried I'd been, and had that whole overwhelmed after the fact feeling. Goodness, I love that dog. And goodness, our vet is awesome! She rushed the results along and called me herself to let me know he was okay.
• Taking Argo and Stella to the vet at the same time is not for the faint of heart. Argo wants to say hi to everyone. Stella wants all dogs to stay away from Argo and her people, and is VERY verbal about it. Argo wants to jump on the exam table (even when it's not his turn) and Stella just wants to go home.
• He may look tough, but our boy Argo SCREAMS when the vet tech even gets near his toenails with a clipper. I thought she'd cut his toe off, but she'd barely even cut the nail. It's embarrassing.
• I question the wisdom of men who will comment loudly on the posterior of a woman walking a one-hundred and five pound German Shepherd (even if he's a baby about his toenails, because they don't know that). Don't you?
• We got our bikes tuned up and had an amazing time riding on the canal path this weekend.
• I get the Erie Canal song stuck in my head every time we ride on the canal path. Low bridge, everybody down . . . It's a growing up in New York State thing.
• J and I are on a Buffy kick. Well, more accurately, I'm on a Buffy kick, and J loves me enough to tolerate it. I'd seen an episode here and there, but never watched them all in order. Makes much more sense this way. You can see how Buffy was a step in the process to writing one of the best scifi shows ever (and you can see how I'm incapable of doing anything without thinking about how writing figures in).
• I read somewhere that the guy who plays Zander was supposed to play Malcom Reynolds. And Nathan Fillion had been considered for the role of Angel. It's interesting to think about how different those shows would have been.
• I was going to tell you about how J and I briefly considered making margaritas out of lime popsicles this weekend, but it is apparently past W-A-L-K time and someone isn't letting me forget it.

Spring Cleaning

I am so touched by all the kind words about last week's post left in comments, e-mailed and tweeted. I can't thank you enough! It's such an incredible reminder of the amazing kindness of people and the power of sharing our experiences with each other. There's something so comforting and heartbreaking and beautiful in hearing the words, 'you aren't alone,' or, 'I understand, that happened to me too.' Thank you!

In the past few weeks, taxes, car troubles, a plumbing disaster, and all the chores and tasks that make up every day life have left me feeling a little out of breath and out of step. So, I've promised myself that this week I'm going to take the time to put some sense of order back into our house. The goal is to make our house feel like a home again, instead of a three-bedroom junk drawer/laundry pile, and I have this crazy idea about seeing the surface of our kitchen table again someday. But, since this will involve doing laundry, filing papers, and possibly using one of those vacuum things I've been hearing so much about, I need to bribe myself.

Candy is often my go-to bribe for unpleasant chores, but I'm pretty sure I have single-handedly caused a jelly bean shortage in Western New York over the past few weeks, so I've resolved to call it quits on the sweets for awhile. Luckily, my dear friend, Shanna Murray, launched her line of hand-drawn wall decals today, and they make the perfect bribe!

Not only do Shanna's designs (and Shanna herself) lift my spirits, but the decals give me the perfect motivation to get the house in order, so when they arrive I have the space and time to enjoy them.

I ordered this one for our living room.

And this one for my office.

Because, who doesn't need a reminder now and then?

Do you have any good motivation tricks?

ADD, Of Mice and Men, and Mrs. X

In high school, my English teacher accused me of cheating on a test on Of Mice and Men. Obviously, my memories of this are tainted by emotion, but the gist of her accusation was that she didn't think I was smart enough to get all the answers right on the test by myself.

I was a horrible student, but I wasn't a cheater. I read voraciously, but I read the books I chose, not the books that were assigned in school. I skimmed Frankenstein, but stayed up past bedtime with a flashlight to read Phantom of the Opera. I didn't make it past the second chapter of A Separate Piece, but I wore out the binding on my copy of The Lords of Discipline. The Scarlet Letter bored me to tears, but I had quotes I'd copied from My Antonia taped to my bedroom wall.

I did, however, love Of Mice and Men so much that I read it three times, even though it was an assigned book. I was already a huge Steinbeck fan. East of Eden and Travels With Charley were two of my favorite books. I hung on every little detail about Lennie and George and pictured the story in my head like it was a movie. When a question on the test asked what Curley's wife's dress looked like, I described it in full detail easily. I almost felt like I had seen it. That answer (which apparently, no one else got right), along with my perfect score, raised a big red flag to my English teacher, Mrs. X, who thought my performance on the test was well beyond my cognitive abilities.

I knew I didn't cheat, but Mrs. X was a grown-up and a teacher, and at fifteen years old, those credentials were strong enough to make me doubt myself. I was convinced that my perfect score was a fluke - a combination of good guesses and good luck - and deep down, I didn't really think I was smart enough either. Eighteen years later, I still remember so clearly how I felt, standing in Mrs. X's classroom, my face hot, my heart thumping. I dug my fingernails into my sweaty palm to try to keep myself from crying. It didn't work.

The rest of my high school career was full of flukes. Failed tests followed by 100%. An A+ paper followed by one that came back covered in angry red marks. I pulled it together at the end. I did okay on the SATs, wrote good application essays, and got in to every college I applied to. I worried that was a fluke too. When I got to Ithaca, I felt as if any minute someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, "Sweetie, there's been a mistake. You don't belong here."

Second semester freshman year, I started falling asleep in my biology class. The teacher talked like Ben Stein and stood in front of the screen when he wrote notes on the overhead projector, so we couldn't see what we were supposed to be writing down. I've never been the kind of person who can fall asleep in a public places, but ten minutes in to every biology class, I'd start to nod off. I went to my advisor and told him I thought I was narcoleptic (because I'd just watched a documentary on narcolepsy). He sent me to academic support services and soon after I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.

There's a book about Adult ADD called You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy? The title is such a perfect description of how I felt when I was diagnosed and started learning more about ADD. It took me many, many years and so much floundering to change my perception of myself - to neutralize Mrs. X's opinion of me (and all the other opinions like hers that I'd collected over the years).

J and I joked for the longest time that in place of a dedication in my book it should say, "To Mrs. X . . . Suck it." Don't worry. It doesn't. My book has a real dedication, and I decided to make a point of thanking the teachers who have helped and supported me in the acknowledgments section in the back. You won't find mention of Mrs. X in the book at all. But I will admit, that "Mrs. X can suck it!" is my version of shouting "Victory!"

When my amazing agent, (who works for the agency that represented John Steinbeck and sold Of Mice and Men), offered me representation, J and I walked around the house saying, "Mrs. X can suck it!" for days. When I called J at work with the news that STAY was sold to Dutton, that it would be an audio book, or that it sold in Germany, Italy, and Amsterdam, I shouted "Mrs. X can suck it!" into the phone. It's as good a war cry as any.

I spoke at a writing seminar at Hilton High School two weeks ago. One of the kids asked me if I'd known I wanted to be a writer when I was in high school. I told him that until I was diagnosed with ADD, I honestly didn't think I had all that much to offer. Back then, it wouldn't have even occurred to me that my life now was possible. I told the class not to let other people's ideas of who they are get in the way of the things they want for themselves. I had to dig my nails into my palm to keep myself from getting choked up.

I'd like to give Mrs. X the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to think that maybe she was trying to help me. Maybe she said the right words and in the mess of all my emotions I heard them wrong. Maybe she was just having a bad day. I really do believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Maybe if I hadn't had to fight as hard to get here, this wouldn't mean as much. Maybe I wouldn't even be a writer. Whatever Mrs. X's intentions, that day in her classroom is a part of who I am.

Last week, my publicist e-mailed me a blurb about STAY from Kirkus Reviews:

"A charming debut. . . . Smart and with emotional depth, this is a cut above."

J walked into my office just after I got the e-mail and found me in tears.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Mrs. X," I said, sobbing and laughing at the same time as I handed him my laptop, "can so totally suck it."