I'm good at this........right?

For anyone who has ever said they love my writing and asked me why I have not had my book published yet; for those who have told me I am one of the best singers they ever heard and wondered aloud why I never became Reba McIntyre – I have the answer.


I am an idiot.

When it comes to marketing myself, I am absolutely incompetent.

Case in point, my guru.com profile. They asked for a tag line to post on my page. This threw me into total panic. I’d just written several chapters for the current manuscript I’m working on. I’d blogged, written a snail mail letter and had been writing all over facebook. You know – I was good and warmed up. The engines were revving and I almost broke my nose hitting that creative wall.

After 30 agonizing minutes of staring out the window, this is what I came up with.

“If you need it written, I’ve got the pen.”

Oh. My. God.

Yeah, that’s like, when I sat down with an agent at a writer’s conference in September and she said tell me about your book. My opening line was, “uhhhhhhhhhhh……”

I’ve always had a problem with any kind of self-promotion and I’m not entirely sure why.

I remember being on a lunch date in high school with a kid named Steve Ingalls. I was fine with him in class, could say hello in the halls and had the wherewithal to get a girl I knew to help set the date up. We got in the car and I was paralyzed.

“Where do you want to go for lunch,” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

“What are you hungry for?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you want to eat?”

“Don’t know.” I did elaborate at that point. “No.”

I don’t think another word was uttered the entire hour. Needless to say, Steve lost interest quickly. Though I managed dates over the ensuing years, I always had this sort of trouble – speaking. I consider it somewhat of a miracle I managed to find a man who would stay around long enough for me to form an actual sentence.

When people heard me sing over the years, they loved it. I knew I had a gift, wanted to – and did – perform professionally, to an extent. In order to take things to another level, however, I needed to be able to promote myself.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….

People lost interest quickly.

I have recently gone back to work for a company I was employed with a few years back. I’m very good at what I do there and enjoy it immensely. However, when a new opportunity within the company came up and I was offered said opportunity because, in the words of those offering it, I am, “very good at what I do and highly skilled,” my first response wasn’t, “sure, great, thanks.” It was, “I’m highly skilled?”

Because I didn’t know?

I knew! I did! Honestly, with that response I’m probably lucky they didn’t just move on down the line to someone else.

If you can’t convince someone that your product is unique and they need it more than they need the next person’s, they lose interest quickly.

Mark thinks I’m actually afraid someone will say yes to my books or my voice. I’d like to believe that’s true, because it makes me sound tortured and artistic. The truth is closer to my incompetent theory.

However, I will keep trying. Even though everyone and their brother’s cousins’ maid’s hairdresser is a singer and you can’t swing a dead cat without smacking a writer, I believe what I have to say/sing needs to be heard and people will love listening.

Is that too long for a tag line?

In Honor of an American Holiday

Because I can add nothing of any eloquence, sincerity or spirituality, I give you this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with love and hope for our world, for humankind.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.......  Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that."

I'm young. I'm hip. Or I need a younger hip........

In the last couple of years of his life, my Grampa Elmer was very ill much of the time. A sweet, articulate man, who, as his body broke down, seemed compelled to share the details with anyone who was around. I managed to escape the most graphic descriptions, but my cousin and aunt were not so fortunate. The episode that always left me gasping for breath from, first, laughter, second, dry heaving, had Grampa holding out a Dixie cup full of lung butter for color inspection. My cousin beat a hasty retreat at a full gallop before viewing said specimen. Auntie, however, felt, somehow, bad about the idea of running screaming from the room. She stayed. She looked. She earned her place in Heaven.


The upshot of hearing about/living through this and other such occurrences was that I vowed, out loud, more than once, to keep my shit to myself as I grew older and aches and pains became an issue. And, let’s be clear. By, “older,” I meant 80. At least.

What I did not count on were the complications pre-menopause can cause, not to mention the genetic stomach issues I inherited from my father and grandfather. Ones I was sure they either exaggerated or brought on themselves. The results of the aforementioned afflictions have had me sick and/or bitching about feeling sick for close to a year now.

I didn’t think too much about it – much less equate it with Grampa’s ill-health epilogues - till last night when I found myself telling my 25-year-old nephew about my goddamned gallbladder attacks.

WTF

I am still a vital woman. I still have many active years ahead of me and I’m as young as I’m ever going to be. Those are only some of my positive mantras and let me tell you, I believe them. I live them.

I hiked 2/3’s of the way up a mountain last week, for God’s sake, slowed only by that raw place in my abdomen. It would have been fine had I not tried to sneak a Texas Hot (for those who’ve never had the pleasure, it’s the best thing that ever happened to a hot dog and the real ones are sold only in Wellsville, NY), bacon and baby back ribs past it in a 24 hour period. Unhealthy for anyone – masochistic for someone like me, who has a testy gallbladder and intestinal tract.

And, honestly, that’s basically everything I said to Casey, my nephew. Plus he’s a doctor, though not that kind of doctor. He was either thinking, yuck, overshare – or maybe nothing, really, because he’s known me his whole life and realizes that, post-glass of wine, thought vomit is just one of my charming (?) habits.

It was a brick over the head to me, however.

“Just call me Elmer,” I thought. Minus the sweetness, charm and loving gratitude displayed to those caring for him during his illness. Not to mention the 30 years he had on me before he started complaining.

At least I realize, right? I now know what to avoid. No more stomach soliloquys. No more speeches to my daughters about what they have to look forward to in the female department when they get to my age and how fortunate they are that I’m giving them a heads up.

I’ll go forward and live my life.

As soon as I can get up.

I strained a muscle in my hip and it’s been difficult to get around the last few days………

God, where’s the tequila?