That's My Bix!

Hello! How are you? Is that a new haircut? Damned you are looking good!

Somehow it’s fall. I’m not sure how that happened – the last several months have gone by incredibly quickly and now we’ve got a limited number of weekends before everything kind of shuts down for the winter.

Please indulge me in some whining for a moment: I’d really like to paint the front door.

Part of the hold up here is that I have no idea what kind of cool and quirky color will look good with our dark red brick house. Painting the front door will be at least a day’s worth of work, start to finish. Oh and hey, I never actually finished painting the laundry room – but I can finish the trim work when the snow starts flying, in theory. Before snow happens, however, my office is going to be dismantled because the skylights that the previous owner SWORE weren’t leaking? Guess what. They were leaking. So we’re getting them replaced, the trim fixed and with that, I have to paint my office – but by “I” I mean “I will pay someone” since I’m not really in the mood to fuck up the exposed brick, the 18 feet of French doors/windows on one wall and the entire wall of windows on the other wall, and the angled 20 foot ceiling. So again it comes down to picking a color – something that fills me with absolute anguish. It’s so permanent! Okay, I know it’s not really permanent, but let’s be realistic, painting is a PITA and I’ve never painted over something I painted in my entire life – once I pick it, it pretty much stays that way until we sell the house and the new buyers hate my color palette.

Complicating things: I got a job. I mean, I had a job before but now I no longer run my own business and have devoted myself to one company full time. That company is extremely fancy. I still work from home – because the office is in San Francisco – but I now work all the hours that ever were. To complicate things some more? I also agreed to teach one section of community college again this fall. Why? Because I’m stupid, that’s why. Okay, because I really like teaching, it turns out. It’s fun. Even with the plagiarists and the people who write like 7^th graders yet are somehow in college and the people who are great except they never get their shit done in time and want exceptions to the rules. I especially like teaching in person, which they offered me this semester. I am probably going to have to make a decision about this, though, because I can’t maintain the kind of cadence required for grading – I spent probably 13 hours this weekend working through this week’s grading and I’m still only 2/3s done. That’s time I could have spent painting my front door (or at least sitting in the paint store whining about color choices).

Complicating things some more: Did you know that I’m an author? It’s true. In theory, it’s true. I have two novels, real actual novel drafts, that need second drafting. One is closer to the finish point, but there’s still miles to go before I sleep. I have friends who have completed full books – one, two or three books in some cases – during the time I’ve been sitting on my more-or-less-almost-there novel and my “I haven’t even looked at this” romcom treatment. And now I’m writing another one for NaNoWriMo — and I’m volunteering for them as well as Coldington’s been given its very own region, a thing I started bugging Sarah Janet about forever ago. File this under “Ways Wendy Is Her Own Worst Enemy.”

Maybe I just really love being up to my eyeballs in projects? Because clearly I need to sit down with myself and have a serious one to one chat.

Esteban frequently points out that I am afraid of something and that I keep filling my hours with things that matter less (like working 70 hours a week for my day job and then teaching community college kids that the period goes inside the quotation marks for quotes, for the love of god). Maybe he’s right. Or maybe working and teaching is just more fun than editing (this is true) or painting (so really fucking true).

Also, Weetacon 2016 is coming up! Okay, it’s not until March 4-6, 2016 but registration is open now! Right now! Check it out. I love Weetacon so damned much and every time I start to wonder about whether it’s worth all the volunteer time, I get feedback like this and remember that it actually changes lives. It is doing exactly the thing I try to do every damned day: Making the world a better place. So? Worth it.

Also! I am coordinating a holiday card exchange! Oh did you make it this far through the entry? This is your reward – the That’s My Bix! 2016 Holiday Card Exchange! If you want to join, sign up right here. Sign ups are ongoing until November 26^th (Thanksgiving) at 12 noon CST because I plan to spend my morning on December 5^th finishing my cards. Bwahahahaha, no I don’t, we have a holiday party that night and probably house guests too. Well, I’ll figure it all out.

Also, clearly I should blog more. In my minutes of free time, perhaps. This post has been in the works for about a month – pathetic. But at least it’s here now. Showing up — I’m finding that it’s 90% of the battle to doing everything that you want to do in half the time you’re allowed.

Dear Target,

No one “loves a good poncho.” There are exactly nine women on the planet that look good in a poncho — 7 of them are supermodels, one is a nine year old ice skating protege and one is Mimi from the Drew Carey show (and let me tell you, she looks FABULOUS).

The rest of us look like we are either like A) we fell getting out of bed and gave ourselves a concussion before attempting to get dressed in our duvet, B)Martha Stewart so happy to be out of prison that she’ll wear something she knitted to keep from going insane, or C) the misguided outlaw in a spaghetti western who gets shot by Clint Eastwood for stealing from the collection plate.

Stop trying to make ponchos happen. Ponchos will never happen.

Sincerely,

Bix