Every time I log in to write a new blog post (all both times a month?), I’m greeted by a sea of draft posts.

Some of them are ones that I am still working on, or that I’m waiting to be in the right headspace to finish.

Some of them I stopped because I realized it was coming out all wrong – judgy, or mean, or the tone of it was annoying me, and crossing the line from funny into obnoxious.

Most of them?

Most of them I started writing, and then life called me away and I have absolutely no idea where I was going with the story. You’d think that I would remember, since it happened to me in real life, but most of my blog posts I sit down and type out an hour after they happened, proof read it once, and then hit post. If I have to come back to it days later, I don’t really remember most of the details.

Since I have a Dothraki Horde of children (Thanks, Tony, for the suggestion), life tears me away from the computer more often than I would want, and thus I have a sea of barely-begun blog posts.

In a normal, sane world, I would erase them all and not be bothered by their existence every time I log in….

But…. But I birthed those words. ? I plucked them from my brain and forced them through the sieve of “does this sound good” and then released them through my fingertips. I’m attached to those words. I can’t just destroy them – that would be bad, and wrong.

On the other hand, I don’t want to sit there and have those words stare at me accusingly, so I’ve decided to do a couple of blog-cleaning-draft-post-dumps.

After 10+ years of writing this blog, I figure you guys can put up with a little housecleaning. I’m not going to do any editing of these excerpts, because I’ll get all dragged down into details and never finish.

Also, it’s really important for me to say this: Some of these are over 10 years old, and I was writing when I was single, and in college. They… they’re definitely Baby Becky writings, and that’s part of why I can’t bear to get rid of them… but they remind me of the crappy poetry I used to write. I loved it when I wrote it, but they embarrass me nowadays.

Still, they’re part of my history, and I can’t bear to just have them all disappear, so here goes nothing:

***********************

Eragon, Last Modified: 12/17/06

I have been waiting for the theatrical debut of Eragon for months. I’ve been a closet sci-fi fan for years. When I was younger, I read every book in the library that had a dragon on the cover. In fact, I’ll even let you in a little secret: I used to spend HOURS (and I do mean HOURS) every single day, playing an online RPG game that involved dragons. Ahhh, Anne McCaffrey, your world of Pern was so much more interesting to live in than my mundane world of chores and homework. I finally had to stop when I realized that I didn’t have ANY friends outside of this little online world that I’d created. It’s sad, but true. On the other hand… I was a junior weyrwoman, with a really cool gold dragon, and we laid lots of eggs (well, she did most of the hard work), and we were responsible for helping to select the candidates, and, and, and….

You see? That’s why I had to stop. Because nobody–I repeat, NOBODY–cares about what you accomplish in an online RPG. You can’t exactly go to school the next day and start bragging.

“So, Billy-Bob, guess what I did this weekend? I learned how to use a flamethrower!”

“Really, Becky? That’s so friggin’ awesome! Tell me about it!”

“Well, since my gold dragon can’t eat any firestone, or else she won’t be able to lay viable eggs…” Here’s where I would have leaned across the table on my elbow, and said in a know-it-all-tone– “Of course, everyone knows that firestone makes dragons infertile. Anyways, so, I strapped this flamethrower over my shoulder—you really should have seen the outfit I was wearing!!— and then my weyrling leader started..”

“Wait a second, Becky. Dragons? You’re talking about that stupid online game you play, aren’t you? You’re such a geek.”

At this point the imaginary Billy-Bob would have walked over and eaten lunch with a much cooler group of people, and left me to my geeky weirdness.

And that is the reason I stopped playing online RPG games.

And that is what brings us to the movie, Eragon. So, after being a closet dragon-lover for all these years, imagine my surprise when I realized that they were coming out with a bona-fide dragon movie. Suh-WEET! I stalked the movie website for months, scouring the websites for cool picture of what Saphira the dragon was going to look like. The day I found out that it was opening on December 15th was the day that I made my plans to go see it. I bought my movie ticket ahead of time, just to make certain that I wouldn’t miss opening night due to it being sold out. Man, I was *ready*. I even checked the two books out of the library and spent a couple of days re-reading them, so I would be all brushed-up on my Eragon vocabulary.

Friday night came, and off to the theater I dragged my semi-willing boyfriend and my unsuspecting stepdad. I got there early; almost thirty minutes early, which is a near-record for me, as I’m always late. By the time the movie started, I was in such a state of excitement, I could barely sit still in my seat. Finally! A dragon movie that was worth something!

Friends, let me let you guys in on a little secret. Eragon is one of the WORST movies I’ve EVER seen. It’s one of those movies that you just KNOW is going to suck, within the first five minutes.

Lunar Eclipse, Last Modified: 08/28/07

So, there was a full moon lunar eclipse last night. As disconnected from reality as I am, the event caught me by surprise. Since the burning of my car a couple of weeks ago (did I mention my car burned to death?) I’ve found myself in the not-so-unique position of reliving my high-school days. Namely, I spend the vast majority of my days following people around, whining “C’n I have a ride? Please?” in endless variations. I figure if I spice it up and never ask the same way twice, then people won’t get annoyed as quickly. I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of my twenties in this position. It’s really rather degrading, and I’m not really sure how I keep managing to find myself here.

So, there I was, accepting a ride from a much younger coworker who actually managed to maintain a functioning car (oh, the humiliation!) when both she and I suddenly noticed the lunar eclipse. On average, by the time I usually manage to settle my food tabs and get out of work, it’s usually about 3 in the morning. This time, through one bit of procrastination or another, it was almost four in the morning. The eclipse was in full-swing by that point, and almost complete. My coworker and I both decided that it would be an absolute shame to not share it with each other, so we headed over to one of her friend’s house to watch it.

After an appropriate amount of time oohing and aaahing over the spectacle, we went inside to chat for a bit. The friend, who I shall now dub “Star” was a handsome somewhat androgynous skater dude in his mid twenties. I’m sure he was extremely handsome when he was younger, but the fact that he was covered in strange tattoos really made it hard for me to take him seriously. I mean, if he’d been covered in big, scary tattoos not only would I have taken him seriously, I probably would have been a little afraid of him. His problem was that he had chosen some of the most strangely feminine, almost ubiquitously average tattoos I’ve ever seen… and then he’d chosen to paste them all over really strange parts of his body. No, no, I didn’t see anything inappropriate…. just what kind of a hussy do you think I am? It’s just….

Well, for instance, he had the “Mom” tattoo. You know the one I’m talking about! It’s the word “Mom” written on a flaming heart, and EVERYONE knows that it belongs on the shoulder of an overweight, mid-forties biker guy. It does NOT belong on the inside wrist of a skinny skater dude. I’m not against tattoos (even though I probably should be)… but c’mon! Get something with a little imagination… And if you’re not going to have any imagination, at least put the darn thing where it belongs!

He also had a variety of other strange tattoos. There was a buddhist gate thingie… and a tribal design (of course!) and two knives, and a spider web, and a couple of rather large orchids (which looked completely out-of-place). The best one, of course, was the large, pastel star that took up almost his entire chest. He was wearing a deeply-plunging v-necked shirt which showed most of the star, as well as a carefully knit beanie.

Anyhow, moving past Mr. Metrosexual and his pomegranate-citrus Bath and Body works hand soap…. Let me get to how much he got on my nerves.

I have a bit of a raw spot when it comes to wanna-be Buddhists. for reasons I won’t go into, they tend to get on my nerves. Following Buddhism with a

***********************

Baby Theorems, Last Modified 11/12/08

**************

Night Feeding, Last Modified 12/04/08

It all starts with a quiet, frustrated grunting…

Usually I can tell that the DragonMonkey’s waking up even before he can. I keep my cell phone right beside me so that I can tell what time it is when he starts his angry little snorts. If it’s been anywhere close to two hours then I try to pick him up and feed him before he gains full consciousness. If it’s only been thirty or forty minutes then I lay really, really, really still so that my movements don’t wake him up.

No matter how still I am, it’s usually futile. Once he starts the angry, snorty breathing, the Ray Charles side-to-side head whipping is on its way; once he starts his Ray Charles impersonation, the crying is only minutes away.

So

**********************

Dear Immune System: I Hate You, Last Modified 5/5/10

Seriously.

How stupid can you really get? Look, I know you do a pretty good job warding off colds, and creating T-cells and eating stuff with neutrophils and what not… but it’s become obvious to me that you’re not exactly the brightest crayon in the box.

Look, I’m sorry if my honesty hurts, but it’s the truth.

IT’S A KNEE. THOSE ARE KNEEEEEEEES. They’ve always been there. They probably always will be there, although that kind of depends on you.

Haven’t you noticed them before? They’re the weird little knobby hinges that make my legs bend.

I mean, it doesn’t really look like an accident that my knees are bending, right? I’ve been doing it for quite some time. I mean… I’ve been bending my knees since before I was born. This isn’t exactly a startling news flash.

And yet, to you it is. You’re like one of those annoying ratdogs that here’s a car door slam in the distance and then spends the rest of the night yapping about it.

“It’s a knee! It’s a knee! It bent! Get it! Get it! Getitgetitgetitgetit! Attack! It’s doing that bending thing again! Make it swell up in a grotesque fashion! That’ll teach it!”

You. Are. An. Idiot.

**********************

This is obviously going to be a multi-part series. So, there you go. Part 1 of…. 4? 5?

2006 Becky had no idea she’d soon have four kids and sofa goats.

It’s International Women’s Day.

According to what Google said about this year’s theme, I’m supposed to be wishing for empowerment via social protection and sustainable infrastructure, or something like that…..

But I’m not.

I know that sounds kind of mean and unsupportive, and I really don’t mean it that way.  It’s just….sustainable infrastructure is not very much fun to daydream about, no matter how hard I try.

Here is a list of stuff I actually want instead:

1. A pause/erase/do-over on all voicemails – Yes, I know some voicemails offer that option, but why the heck is this not a standard thing? There is nothing worse than being halfway through a voicemail and realizing you said the wrong thing and sound like an idiot, or you gave them your cell phone number instead of your work number, or, or, or…..… but it’s too late, you can’t fix it because you’ve already started talking and now you’re being recorded, LIVE, and every single thing you say could conceivably be saved forever, or be turned into a viral video, and maybe if you get lucky you can figure out a way to talk into the judgy silence of the voicemail recorder and save this situation….but no.No, you’re not that lucky, and now it’s too late.Now you’re sounding weird and rambly, and you don’t sound professional or coherent at all.  In fact, you passed the line from too-talkative into “hey listen to this weird voicemail I got” about five or six sentences ago, and oh geez, you just keep hoping that you’ll find the right combo of sentences to make you seem like a functioning, intelligent adult who represents your company with pride, but you can’t, you just sound like a freak,  and it’s 2019 and technology is nearly limitless and WHY CAN’T I DELETE THIS VOICEMAIL AND START OVER?!
2. Sarcasm font- How hard can this be?! It’s such a simple fix. You could use italics for emphasis, and then you could use backwards italics (slanting to the left instead of the right) for sarcasm.Do you know how many arguments and hurt feelings could be avoided by letting people text as sarcastically as they speak?
3. A giant plastic/wooden model of a horse that I could use to practice mounting, posting, dismounting, and maybe even trick riding – You could set it up in your backyard, and not only could the kids could play on it, but it would be a great workout, too. Forget squats, or Pilates, or CrossFit – just practice mounting without cinching up the saddle very tight, ten times in a row. Could you imagine the workout you could get, and how much happier a horse would be if you could practice this sort of stuff without having to flop around on their backs? I could practice trotting without stirrups and build my leg muscles without worrying about whether my crookedness is going to make a horse chiropractor necessary. Plus, I could slowly but surely teach myself to swing up bareback onto a horse, or how to do that “run at them from behind and vault over their butt” without worrying about getting kicked.  I’d get so much use out of one
4. Wireless/Bluetooth Video Game Edition Of The Giant Fake Horse – Once someone invents the fake horse from the last daydream, I want to have an indoor, electronic version that pairs with my TV/Video game console.  It would be like Wii Dance, or Wii Sports, but with horses.

   Kind of like this, but full size and a bajillion times awesomer.

   You could “compete” against friends in a cross-country jumping edition, or practice “riding the fence” in a reined cowhorse competition, or just practice your two-point on a virtual ride in Mongolia… ALSO,  DUDE, JUST THINK HOW COOL THE NEW RED DEAD REDEMPTION WOULD BE IF YOU COULD ACTUALLY RIDE INSTEAD OF JUST USING A CONTROLLER!

   I think I remember seeing somewhere that this technically exists in some “just for Olympics level” riders, but I want one in my living room.

   Also, I want my giant fake horse to have hinges so it can fold down small enough to slip under the couch when I am not actually using it.

5. 19 Acres for dirt cheap: I would like my two next door neighbors to grow irritated with owning land, and decide to sell all their horse/hay pasture to me for a ridiculously low price.“Are you sure?  That’s so…. So cheap!” I would exclaim. “I would feel bad buying it from you for so little.”“Oh, seriously, don’t feel guilty.  We just don’t want the hassle of all this land ownership. Owning all this land is such a drag.  If you can just take all this rolling, treeless pasture off our hands, you’d be doing us a real favor.  We’ll even sweeten the deal by fencing all of it with brand new horse fencing before we sell it to you for .30 cents an acre.”“Well…. If you insist……”
6. A Robotic Perpetual Puppy – Sometimes you want snuggle a puppy, but you don’t actually want another dog and all the care that goes with it.  The Robotic Perpetual Puppy would have all the cuteness and fluffiness of a 7-week-old puppy, but when you don’t want to deal with it you could just turn it off and stuff it in the closet.I admit I daydream less of this now that I have the goats, because honestly, they’re kind of like puppies that I can legally lock away whenever I’m tired of playing with them. I cannot recommend baby goats highly enough.
7. An Indoor/Covered Arena: 200 x 100, please.  Also, if it could have a raised, covered area with a couch for the kids to hang out in, that’d be great, too.

   I would never leave. Ever. I would happily live on that couch the rest of my life. The Bean could take over the entire house as his man cave.

    

8. Jeans with shapewear sewn on the top, like maternity pants – I know some people hate pregnancy wear, but at the risk of sounding stuck up, dude, I rock maternity jeans. They’re the only jeans that I can wear down low around my hips, where the back pockets sit low enough to make my butt look good. I mean, I suppose I could wear all jeans like that, but maternity jeans are the only ones I can wear like that without worrying about bending over the wrong way and flashing the mom version of plumbers crack.With my imaginary shapewear jeans, the jeans portion would be completely normal, but then there would be a bit of shapewear sewn to the waistband. To keep it from rolling down you could make the shapewear kind of like a tank top (the shoulder straps would keep it in place). Not only would you never have to worry about plumber’s crack, but you’d also never have to worry about muffin top or sucking in your belly or wearing a belt to keep your pants from slipping down. Control top jeans. Why don’t these already exist?  I’d buy the heck out of them.
9. Stitch-Fix, but for broke people – It’d be exactly the same as Stitch-Fix, but they’d fill your monthly box with stuff from Goodwill so you could actually afford it. Who spends $40 on a single shirt?!  Are you high, Stitch-Fix?!
10. A minivan capable of hauling a horse trailer –  Wouldn’t that be amazing?  Then I wouldn’t have to choose between fitting all the kids in one vehicle and being able to haul horses places. Also, I’d really like it if it could get decent gas mileage. Also, also, it would be affordable, unlike those big SUVs that are still going for 30k when they have 100,000 miles on them.
11. Facial Recognition Glasses  – The glasses would have facial recognition software, and then you could program them to show you important information about the people you run into (only you could see what you programmed into it.) It could be something as simple as the person’s name, or as complex as where you met them and why you sort-of-but-not-quite remember them. I know this is verging into Black Mirror territory, but there’s nothing more frustrating than recognizing someone, starting to say hello, and then remembering too late that the reason I recognize them is that they were a total jerk to me (nobody goes to City Hall to be nice to the person behind the counter) and I don’t actually want to talk to them but now it’s too late to back out of the conversation because I was the one that waved at them, and Hiiiiii, how are youuuuuuuu?
12. Affordable Kids’ Summer Camps: The camps would be local, and affordable, and educational…. And the kids would think it was really, really, really fun.  I would send the kids to it for a week while I went on a catch-up-on-all-our-lost-sleep vacation with The Bean, and then when I came back I’d discover that my children had not only had a great time, but they had also they learned how to cook healthy meals, build a fire from scratch, how to change the oil in a car, and also maybe they accidentally learned how to do pre-algebra while playing nerf wars with the camp counselors.“Did you have a good time, boys?”“It was wonderful! We learned so much, thank you for sending us, Mom!”“I’m so glad you guys enjoyed it.  What was your favorite part?”

    “I think it was when they taught us how to be kind to others, and how to always be polite and well-spoken with adults so that other people think you’re an amazing parent!”

    “No, no, my favorite part was how they read to us every evening and now we are magically voracious readers completely in love with books, and they taught us the secret of how to persevere even when it’s difficult, and always be grateful for the small things, and make our beds, and eat salads even when offered a candy bar. Can we pretty please go again?”

    “Well, I dunno boys, it’s $25 a week with all your room and board included…. but okay, I suppose we could afford another week!”

    Look, we’re learning how to divide fractions and having a great time doing it!

    Shhhh. It could happen.

13. Human Kibble. I’m serious about this one.  If they can make a dog kibble that my dog gets excited about, and if they can make canned cat food that my cat will sprint across an entire field for, then they can come up with some kind of cereal that has all the protein and vitamins and whatever a human body needs, but also tastes like Reese’s Pieces or something.Dude, I’m so tired of cooking. Cooking all the time for four kids is exhausting, even if you liked cooking (which I never have.)Human kibble. We needs some.
14. Tinder For Writers: It’d be like an online dating service, except instead of swiping right and having to deal with STDs or marriage or whatever it is all those single people do with Tinder nowadays, you would find someone to coauthor a book with you. I used to play an online Pern-based RPG that was text based – it was called Dragonsfire Moo, I think? I always had a good time, but every once in a while I’d stumble across someone whose writing style just absolutely meshed with mine, and writing scenes with them was pure magic.I have absolutely no idea how this would work, and I’m sure in real life the paperwork involved would be a giant headache, and now that I’m really thinking about the practical aspects of it I imagine most people who used it would end up with more lawsuits than actual money, but I don’t care. This is my wish list, and I want a Tinder Writing Service to help me find a coauthor. In this scenario I could come up with the big picture ideas and the zany female characters and funny situations, and they would come up with the boring middle section of the book and the witty male dialogue, and we’d churn out, like, five books a year and live like royalty on the proceeds. We could totally be the next Ilona Andrews team, and end up with a bunch of giant movie deals, and then I could afford most of the stuff on my daydream list just by the money we brought in.
15. Alfalfa Candle: I want a candle I can burn in my house that makes the whole house smell like fresh cut alfalfa warming up in the summer sun.
16. The Forever Outfit: I’d like the ability to hire someone to come up with the perfect, wear-every-day-for-the-rest-of-my-entire-life outfit for me. This person would look at my skin tone, and coloring, and body type, and then they’d design the perfect outfit.  The jeans would fit me just perfectly and never need a belt to keep from sliding down my hips as they stretched out throughout the day… the shirt would be long enough that I would never have to worry about it riding up when I reached for something above my head.  It would be tailored at the waist so that I didn’t look like I was wearing a box with sleeves, but not so tight I felt uncomfortable. It would be layered, so that I could wear the outfit in both summer and winter…..And then I could just order that same exact outfit, forever and ever, and nobody would ever think it was weird.
17. The Everyday Cloak: Okay, so if nobody actually ever invents The Forever Outfit then I want to be able to wear whatever I want, whenever I want, and not have it be weird. I know I live in America so nobody really judges me on my clothes, and more specifically I live near Portland, so I really could wear whatever I wanted and short of it being a MAGA hat or literally  being on fire, nobody would judge me….  but I want to wear weird stuff and not have people stare at me, even if they’re just staring out of curiosity.Okay, if I’m actually being specific…. I want to be able to wear cloaks again. I just have a thing for cloaks, okay?I want to have an array of cloaks hanging up in my closet, and some kind of, I dunno, basic adventurers outfit beneath it, like a black tank top and a pair of jeans. It’d be like the Forever Outfit, only it’d be Awesome Cloak edition.

    She must be overwhelmed with the awesomeness of her cloak. That’s the only reason I can figure for her weird, blank expression. I don’t blame her. It’s a COMPLETELY awesome cloak.

    Every day I’d put on a pair of jeans, a tank top, my Ariat Fatbaby boots, and then I would just pick out my cloak depending on my mood that day, and stride down the street looking totally magnificent. I could swirl through the aisles of the grocery store, with my cloak flaring out in whirling, colorful splendor behind me.  I could use it to sit down on the grass at the park without worrying if my butt was gonna get wet.  I could pull up the hood whenever I was cold, or just didn’t want to talk to anyone.

    I know I could wear cloaks and maybe I’d be the person to help them make a comeback… but I don’t’ want to be a fashion trendsetter.  I want cloaks to be normal, the same as wearing a hoodie.

    Also, I want them to be easy to wash and dry and be wrinkle and stain-resistant.  If I’m going to daydream, I might as well daydream in a practical fashion.

18. Book On Demand Coffee Shop – I want a coffee shop that can print a book on demand. Like, you go into Starbucks and you sit down with your coffee, and enjoy it, and then you order your book on demand with an app, and 2-3 minutes later a kiosk spits it out, all warm and freshly printed and smelling deliciously of paper so you can sit with your coffee and read your new book.  It’s 2019.  Why is this not a thing?

So, there you have it.  That’s what I want.

What do you want?