I Would Like Some Cheese

to go with my whine. (Warning: No-Delete stream of consciousness therapy writing ahead. Sorry.)

No, seriously, I would like some cheese because eating cheese cheers me up and I'm in definite need of upcheering. Which I shouldn't even be writing about, since I don't like to use my blog as a platform of my minor woes. Yet here I am, platforming away.

This weekend is chockabloc with parties, which just doesn't seem right for February. This is not a month for parties. This is a month for staying at home and licking your wounds from Christmas while girding your loins for spring. This is not a month for punch and cookies and 2-litres of soda and cheeseball. Okay, scratch that. Any time is a good time for cheeseball.

My dog is as much of a whiner today as I am. Since he is a dog, however, actual whining comprises about 1/3rd of his vocabulary. This means that he throws his fits in unique ways. Right now he's over in the corner knocking pieces of kibble out of his dish in some form of protest. Exactly what he is upset about is lost on me. In a couple hours I imagine he'll be upset about having to eat his food off the floor, because that's what's gonna happen. I am NOT picking up his temper food.

A new burrito place opened in Providence/Mt. Juliet this Thursday. It's sort of indistinguishable from Qdoba and/or Baja Fresh, but I embrace it since it's not the kajillionth steak house within a 5 mile radius of Villa Gorilla. (That's the cute nickname I've given our house in honour of both Warren Zevon and monkeys, both of whom I love. Only Warren is dead. Not all monkeys are dead. ) Anyway, back to the burrito joint. Or "Salsarita's", as it says on the door, the napkins and the cups. They have these table tents scattered throughout the restaurant with this slogan:

Let us Stuff your Burrito. Then tell us to make it Wet.

I kid you not. Who knew that quasi-Mexican fast food joints were into soft porn advertisements? I swear it's like calling a 900-number.

When we went last night for dinner--yes, they stuffed my burrito and made it wet--we were behind one of Hubby's cycling buddies. I always have to be reintroduced to these men in public because they look different in regular clothes than they do in spandex. Yet I ALWAYS want to say "I've seen the outline of your junk", because if they've worn spandex in my presence I have. Not that I intentionally look. I don't. Yet some of these men seem to be kind of too proud of the whole thing. Anyway, we were behind this (fully dresed) man and his family. His daughter told us she was learning about bats in school. Of course I start going on and on about how I love bats and how the dog-faced bat is totally adorable. Then I realised once again that I am a wierdo who should never leave the house.

Which makes me question why I am going to a baby shower today. Of course there will be other wierdos there. In fact this is kind of the shower for the king of all wierdos, but still. it involves being out in public, which means I am bound to say something both stupid and socially awkward.

Speaking of stupid and socially awkward, how mad am I at my daily comic strip? My husband keeps insisting that it's just a comic strip and I should let it go. But I can't. I'm a writer who worked as the contracts manager for a publishing/gift firm for about two years. I know the drill. You have to:
--get an agent
--have your agent submit your work to the publisher's agent (usually an editor)
--let your agent dicker over the contract with someone like me for weeks on end
--get a check for around $2,500-$5,000

The whole process can take an author anywhere from 6 months to a year. Yet my comic strip plays into the huge publishing myth that hovers around professional writing. There's always someone out there who thinks they're the next million-dollar author. The fantasy is that you complete a book, send it to the publisher and get a letter back a week later saying how perfect the book is and enclosing a check for $25,000. Life doesn't work like that. I hate it when people advance that myth because it means that authors--already an introverted, magical-thinking class of people--feel twice the rejection and feel shamed at going through the real process of agent-hunting, legalese-dickering and advance checks that won't pay for 2 months' living expenses.

Well, okay, I guess I feel better. Thank you for letting me bang out my therapy right here on the blog.