BYOO

A week and a half ago, my mini-me made invitations to a tea party she was going to host in her bedroom. She consulted a calendar and printed neatly on construction paper the details of her party before delivering one to me and one to her brother.

At the top of the invitation she printed in marker BYOO. I knew she couldn’t possibly be asking for us to bring our own liquor. I’ve never printed this on any party invitation, so I immediately thought now what was she learning in school. After I questioned her, it turned out she was asking us to bring our own outfit. She began planning her outfit days in advance, and even tried on several to see what fit her best. She added that she didn’t want us coming naked for sure. I’m not sure where she gets this stuff.

Leading up the party, she verified every detail, making cookie and milk requests and reminding Andrew and I that we needed to be ready for her party. She dressed all of the dolls that would be in attendance and counted all the teacups and saucers. She retrieved the fancy teapot from the china cabinet and made cards as gifts.

When tea party time arrived, she had everyone sit in their places before requesting that I serve the milk and Andrew serve the cookies. I must add that though Andrew attended willingly, it came after several incidents. One of those incidents involved his punching his sister in the nose and being punished and only allowed out of his room to attend the tea party, which of course was also the only way he’d receive cookies and milk. He was a good sport though. He even at one point pulled out the largest cookie from the bowl and put it on his sister’s plate saying she could have it.

She began her party by singing happy birthday to her new Build-A-Bear named Princess. She received a gift certificate for Christmas and we journeyed to Build-A-Bear Saturday for her to pick out her new stuffed animal to add to the already plentiful stash in her room.

The lady showed her everything that she could do. The lady began by showing her the bears along the wall, indicating that they began at ten dollars and ran to thirty dollars. Cara immediately went toward the cheaper end and said, “It looks like ten dollars is the cheapest.” She knew she had a $25 gift card and she wanted the whole package: bear, outfit, and accessories. Somewhere in there when she realized that she wouldn’t have enough money, I told her that I would cover the few extra dollars. Somehow that translated to my doubling the gift card.

My lesson was that she’s cheap when it is her money, but not when it’s mine.

So the tea party ended up being a birthday party for the new addition to the million dolls and animals she has accumulated. She closed her party by dancing and cleaning up all of her mess, and then exclaimed that it was the best tea party ever.

She grows so fast. It shows in her creations, her thoughts, and her speaking. Every time I look at her, it is as if she’s grown more in size as well as maturity. The little person with the big personality amazes me. When she returns to me after only a few days, it’s as if she’s learned a million things in my absence.  I know this will not end, but I do wish it would slow down. For now she wants me at her tea parties, but I’m sure soon I will blink and all of this will end.  She will want me to stay out of her room, and I can forget about being invited to her parties.

So though I have a million things to do, and I don’t even like cookies, I will attend every party she hosts, enjoying each one because I don’t know when she will grow out of them.  At least next time I don’t have to ask what BYOO means.

Blues, Cards, and Margaritas

In early 1920’s Paris, Ernest Hemingway and other creative types all gathered at Gertrude Stein’s Salon to celebrate life, to exchange ideas, and to be inspired. Among the numerous ways I don’t match Hemingway, two of the important ones in that scenario are that I’ve never been to Paris or to a Salon, but I can certainly hold my own party in my hometown. And though I don’t have many writer friends, I do have an eclectic group of friends who supply plenty of inspiration, not to mention good times.

As I work on my next book, I search through my daily life for inspiration, so I decided to celebrate everything that is going right at the moment with a little blues music and card games (Learning how to play a Card game was on my list this year since I have to admit that I haven’t played cards since I was about twelve.) And what’s better than blues music playing in the background as you discuss and laugh at each other’s attempt to play cards?

The first card game of the night was pass or stick. Since we didn’t start playing until well into the party and margaritas and wine had been flowing for a while, the easiness of this simple game was necessary. The analogy to explain the game was "Pass and Stick is like life, you don't have to be first, you just can't be last." We all found this to be true, but maybe that was the wine speaking. I actually ended up winning that game, but not much skill was involved so I won’t be bragging about the win.

We decided to attempt Blackjack when pass and stick wore out its thrill. Apparently, counting to 21 is difficult. We had a table full of educators but none of us were the math people. Lara said at the beginning of the game that you can’t expect English teachers to do math.

That may be true, but we certainly tried. Billy suggested Trivial Pursuit instead. So after figuring out that we would be the ones losing all our money at the card tables in the casino, we decided to try our luck at trivia, a game that made us feel as if our IQs were double digits lower than they actually were. Not to mention the game was the 1984 edition. (We’ll just say that‘s the reason we couldn’t answer any of the questions.) Thankfully, we ended that misery and moved onto Catch Phrase.

Since Catch Phrase came after several empty bottles of wine and margaritas, the music changed to 80s upbeat music, and the room filled with shouts and cheers, and my dining room table took a beating, literally. It was girls against guys, and I’m just going to give Danielle credit for being an awesome team member.

The night ended with Tom strumming Pink Floyd on my guitar as a few sang along. Everyone left reluctantly, and only because it was nearly three in the morning. The one request was that we start earlier next time.

The conversation was lively and ranged from traveling to Hemingway to personal experiences. Dare I say it, but it was an inspiring evening to propel me through the time I sit in front of a computer typing up line after line that I will only delete later.  I think Hemingway would have been a happy guest, even if it wasn’t 1920s Paris.

Guitar Lessons

In the infinite wisdom of family, my children each received a guitar for Christmas. Not from me, of course. I did of course subtly hint about one of my presents needing to be earplugs. No such present under my Christmas tree though.

Though he received an acoustic guitar for Christmas, my son wants an electric guitar. He’s even searched online to find exactly which one he wants. I can’t say he hasn’t been persistent. He has always been the child that is only pleased with exactly what he wants. Since the only thing that seems to be a permanent form of entertainment in his life has been video games, it’s understandable that I’m not rushing out to buy this electric guitar and that big box of ear plugs they should throw in as a gift with purchase.

Under duress, I did make the agreement with him that if he learned how to play the acoustic guitar that was his present (i.e. free) before his birthday in July, I would buy the electric guitar as his birthday present. He’s taken to strumming the guitar at any time of the day it catches his attention.

So of course, wanting to be the good mother, I decided he’d probably need some lessons if he were to learn to play. (The bad side’s first thought was that the ear plugs would be unnecessary if I just sat by quietly and let July pass by.)

At this point in the story, I should probably confess to having purchased my own guitar last year as it was supposed to be one of my experiences. I never had the time to learn though so it sat in its case. I figured if my son was going to learn, I might as well pull my guitar out and try and see if I have any musical ability since my brief stint in middle school band.

My friend Donna’s husband plays the guitar and is in a band so I figured we’d start there to see how serious Andrew was. We were in luck though because Donna’s stepson, who teaches music, was at the guitar lesson and ended up giving Andrew his beginning instructions.

As I watched Andrew attempt to follow their instructions, I was struck with the quietness he approached it. I actually expected him to say he didn’t want to do it anymore at any moment during the lesson. He doesn’t like people, especially people he doesn’t know, telling him what to do. Like every other kid, he thinks he already knows everything. From his expression I could tell he wasn’t happy about any of it, but he remained quiet, attempting whatever note they taught him to strum.
I helped my daughter attempt the chords, but once she’d strummed it once she was content to go back to strumming whatever chord she felt like. As far as my learning the guitar, what I learned is that it’s another one of those tasks that swallows chunks of time I don’t have right now. There’s a book to write, Spanish to learn, and a copyeditor’s certification to complete. I wanted it as something I could do just to relax from all the things I’m trying to accomplish. The relaxation would probably come after the learning part. My lesson was pacing. I need to learn to pace myself this year.

The verdict is still out on Andrew. I did find him practicing today. I may have to buy an electric guitar after all. I won’t forget to buy those ear plugs.

Hablar Espanol?

Learning another language is difficult. Every company that makes learning software wants to cash in on this difficulty, and each has its own method it believes will leave you speaking the language fluently.

I should know. I’ve tried a multitude of different methods in the past week to find one that will work. This year I’ve decided to learn Spanish. So that this new skill has an incentive, I’ve also decided to visit a Spanish speaking country this year (details will come later, naturally).

In the past week, I’ve exposed myself to Spanish through CDs, DVDs, books, flashcards on my phone, and even dictionaries. The problem with all of these methods is that when we first learn to speak our own language, everyone around us speaks that language. We hear it every waking moment, and if we don’t learn it, we are unable to communicate. I don’t come into contact with Spanish speaking people during the course of my day. I do have a Spanish speaking television station that I plan on checking out this week. That will have to suffice at this time.

I have learned what doesn’t work though. I can repeat nouns and verbs all I want, but I will not recall but maybe one word out of a hundred when the repetition is done. What is working so far is the Pimsleur method which teaches conversational Spanish. So now when I arrive in the Spanish speaking country, I can tell them non hablar espanol (I don’t speak Spanish), or hopefully by the time of the trip I can say hablar un poco espanol ( I speak a little Spanish). The drawback to this method is that I’ve learned how to speak a little Spanish, but I can’t read or write the words. I’ve had to look them up to add them to this writing.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know I will learn the language this year. I’ve always wanted to be able to speak a different language and in keeping with my list of discoveries for the year, I am going to jump right in and be at least somewhat bilingual.

Endings and Beginnings

It is that time of the year where we say goodbye to the old and make new resolutions for the New Year. This past year has certainly been a good year for me. I spent the entire year working my way slowly through my thirty-three list of experiences all the way until the last few days of 2011 where I accomplished something I never thought I’d be able to. I installed ceramic tile on my kitchen wall. This kind of task was the kind of job two years ago I would have hired someone or convinced someone else to do it for me. Two thousand eleven meant many changes though, so I found myself ending my year by grouting tile (translation: making a huge mess that I then had to clean up), and  in this task I also found myself reflecting on what I have learned this year.

The year has had its highlights. My list of experiences, including the tattoo, the psychic, my trip to New York City, and all the great entertainment I experienced this year certainly made the year a memorable one. Every one of my experiences has taught me about myself, whether it has been my strengths or my limitations. When I talked about my experiences with people, they immediately referenced a bucket list. I always referred to it as my divorce list, but why should we wait until we are near death or divorced to do all the things in life that make it truly worth living?

My list, after all, didn’t really ever pertain to my divorce. I always came back to that moment sitting in the police van where it sank completely through my conscious that my life could have and maybe should have ended that day. I have difficulty putting that moment into words even though I deal with words all the time. Not that I couldn’t do it I suppose if I sat and thought about it long enough. How to explain the feeling that I’d experienced knowing that if my life would have ended that moment when the bullet projected upward instead of into me that I would have wasted the time given me. I had put off doing anything worthy of living because I was too busy dwelling on everything that made me unhappy, and someone came along and nearly took any chance I had of changing that away from me.

As any true optimist though, I prefer to view it as an epiphany. A clicking of fate telling me that life is not about waiting around, it is about living in the moments you are given. So living in the moment was the lesson of the year. I’ve learned that happiness is stringing those moments together, and the string of those moments is the story of a person’s life. I enjoyed each of my experiences, most of which taught me that sometimes the only person holding us back is ourselves, whether it is our fears or our inability to change or just by letting day to day life itself get in the way.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I still feel like something is missing though. I feel as though I would not have survived that day if there wasn’t something else I was supposed to do. I suppose it feels as if I’m not supposed to be selfish with a second chance to change things. I’m not saying that I believe I need to change the world now, but I do feel as if I’m supposed to help others in some kind of way.

It’s something that I’ve thought about often, but I don’t know the answer to those questions I ask myself. I do believe I will know it when it comes to me. I learned this year though that nothing in life comes to you if you wait around for it; you must seek out life and pay attention to what it is telling you. So for 2012 I’ve created a list with a theme of discovery, a discovery of purpose. It’s not a year where I will forget the lessons of 2011, but rather a year to deepen my understanding of my journey.

Experience #33 Two Days of Firsts

There’s something about live entertainment that draws me in. I love the rising curtain and the anticipation of what will unfold on a stage where anything can happen. Pair that with my fascination of acrobatic feats, and it is no surprise that I wished to add Cirque’s Holidaze show to my list as a nice way to wrap up my experiences for the year.

The show was truly spectacular with my favorite act being the gingerbread boy who flipped endlessly through the air with the aid of the gingerbread man’s feet. When I thought he couldn’t possibly perform any more flips in the air, he’d return and complete even more than the time before.

From the balancing, to the jump roping, to the juggling, to the flying through the air, my date had me thinking about what I’d do if I were to perform in a show. I think I’d want to be the acrobat who twirled high above the audience on what appeared to be extra-long curtain sheers. Maybe it has something to do with my fear of heights and not being acrobatic in the least that attracts me to this particular performance. Who knows, maybe I’ll attempt it one day.

The trip to New Orleans was filled with firsts outside of seeing a Cirque performance though. For the first time I tried oysters. They were charbroiled (raw will never touch my lips. I draw the line there.), and I didn’t spit them out. That was a plus. I’m not saying I’m rushing back for more, but hey, I can at least say I tried them.

I also rode a streetcar for the first time. Even with all my excursions into New Orleans, I’ve never had occasion to ride one of the trolley cars. It’s much slower than the New York subway, but I suppose the South does do things at its own pace.

I also wandered into Faulkner House Books for the first time. It’s the smallest bookstore with the biggest reputation among authors. I’d love to be tucked away in a cozy bookstore like this one and sell people books all day. But for now, I couldn’t leave without adding books to my Louisiana books collection.

I also shared a cab with strangers, who ended up not being strangers. I walked through Santa’s Workshop and through Armstrong Park. It was certainly a great two days to wrap up an adventurous year. I look forward to what the rest of the year will bring.

Experience 31 and Unwanted Experience 32

Sometimes what I’ve learned from my experiences about myself has been more important than the actual experienced. Take for example this latest experience. With everything I’ve done with my children, I’ve never taken them to a live show outside of Disney World, so I figured it was about time.

Andrew saw the advertisement for the Phineas and Ferb Live show and asked if he could go. Andrew never asks to do anything, unlike his adventurous sister who constantly asks for things. I immediately purchased tickets to cash in on this rare occasion (Like the same day he asked; I didn’t want him to change his mind).

So Wednesday my two children and my godson piled into my car and headed toward Baton Rouge. (I will mention at this point that I’ve never actually driven to Baton Rouge. Usually someone else drives me. I promise this will become relevant at some point in this story.) From the moment we started down the road, I realized my complete inability to handle noise stimulation.

Two hours in a car with screaming kids, nearly two hours at a show where kids are encouraged to yell in participation, and two hours on a return car trip home plays havoc with my anxiety levels and makes me want to run towards an empty room in the middle of nowhere.

Surprisingly, my children remained quiet during the show as they watched attentively. It was the screaming kids around us this time causing the noise. I suppose my three had exhausted themselves in the car on the way to the show. Their one constant complaint was of wanting a snack, which they couldn’t eat in the River Center theatre. They sold the snacks, but you couldn’t bring them into the theatre, which didn’t make sense to me and definitely didn’t make sense to the three who kept asking for them. Cara’s only comment on the whole experience was that next time she wanted tickets in the front row because she wanted to be able to go on stage like the other kids that were able to dance with the characters. My first thought was how could my kids be so different? Andrew would have hid under the chair in mortification at the mere suggestion, and my daughter wanted to be onstage dancing so everyone could see her.

It was on the way home that my noise threshold reached excess. My GPS and I have a love hate relationship- it loves to get me lost and I hate it. Anyway, I ended up lost. (I still don’t know exactly where I was.) The kind police officer who gave me my first ever speeding ticket was ever so kind when he explained how to return to a place that I was familiar with. The kids, sensing that I was moments from a breakdown, remained quiet for ten minutes, the first time of the entire journey. (Maybe that had more to do with the police officer than me though since my yelling for quiet hadn’t made much of an impact before.)

After dropping my godson off, my children sensed my stress and did what they always do in that situation. They decided it was about time I laughed. My son succeeded first, but then my daughter said, “Raise your hand if you want boobies when you’re older.” That was it; the car was filled with laughter instead of quiet tension.(She always manages to come up with something that I have to wonder what is going on in that little head of hers.)

My children are great, though the next time we go see a show, it will have to be a much shorter car ride. But I’ll have to pay for that unwanted ticket before there is a next show. Sigh.

Experience #30 Become a Published Author

When I was in fifth grade I discovered a book’s magical ability to swallow you into an entirely different world. I devoured book after book, reading my way through the public library’s stock. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I wanted to create those escapes instead of just read myself into them.

My first story was nothing more than white paper folded in half with a red and blue marker title. (Not unlike what my daughter comes up with today). After several such “books,” I wrote what I believed to be my masterpiece. In seventh grade, I received an ivory Brother typewriter for Christmas and then I commenced the slow, tedious task of typing my great story without typing lessons. I surrendered to the arduous process, and an aunt took pity on me and finished typing that first story, all 128 pages.

Thrilled when she handed me those three neat and bound manuscripts, I preceded to share the story with anyone and everyone, anxiously awaiting their feedback. Was it so horrible that I should give it up or was it the best thing they’d ever read and I was on my way to becoming the author I dreamed of becoming?

That manuscript truly had a long way to go before it would be considered good by my standards today, but the process isn’t so different than what I’m doing right now. My book, Muddy Bayou, is now available to the public, and I wait anxiously for people to read it, wondering if people will deem it good or horrible.

Except of course today the stakes are higher. I’m no longer the eleven-year-old that didn’t understand what it took to become an author. I’ve always been the storyteller though. Even before I knew to write the stories down, I’ve enjoyed entertaining people with stories.

And a storyteller isn’t a storyteller without an audience. For years, I’ve kept my audience confined to a small few, but if there was ever a time to go for that dream, this would be the year. This year when I crammed everything that I’ve put off doing my entire life into one year, including putting my book out there for a wider audience, is the perfect year to take such risks.

I anxiously await your opinions, but I’m already working on the next story I will tell. I won’t take so long to share this one with my audience though.

My new website has a special page for you to leave your opinions once you’ve finished reading the book. So let me know what you think by leaving me a message and sharing your opinions with others who may want to become an audience of my storytelling.

Experience #29 Dating Etiquette

"Can we still be friends?” I’d like money for every time I’ve heard that this year. Just how many friends does a girl need though?

When I made my list way back last December, I was newly single and not ready to change that status just yet, but I figured I would be at some point. Dating is a foreign concept for me. I started dating my ex-husband when I was seventeen years old, and at that time dating still meant asking my parent’s permission and being home before curfew. That time is a long way off, but some things have not changed. After a year of dating , I’ve decided I don’t care for it much. Why might you ask?

1.       Dating is a game of numbers. Apparently, the more people you date the better. One date told me, I needed to date as many people as possible to figure out what I wanted. In theory I suppose it’s not a  terrible idea if you’re not quite sure what you like. In practice though, I’d say differently. My cousin has about eight women he’s dating at any given time. It seems to be his number. He claims he’s looking for the right one, but he does admit that he can’t keep them straight sometimes. So after trying to keep the names of his dates straight, I constantly think on my own dates if I’m one of eight or whatever this guy’s magic number seems to be. I like to know my odds, and the guessing that goes along with the game does not work for me either. It’s difficult to impress someone who can’t even keep your name straight.

2.       Dating requires a certain flair for dishonesty. Is it so difficult to tell someone, hey I don’t see a future with you, but we can have a little fun tonight? Or how about I’m dating everyone who’ll tell me yes so I can figure out what I want? Or even better, I’m really not interested in a relationship right now but this was fun. I haven’t met too many people who enjoy being single, but the way this game is played, many will be single a very long time or otherwise they will settle for whoever comes along that doesn’t play by these rules. Which brings me the last reason I haven’t taken to dating.

3.       Patience. I have none. Zilch. I don’t like games where I have to follow someone else’s rules. I’m not impressed by messages that pop up on my screen that say hey beautiful or even worse, hey sexy by people I don’t even know. I don’t want married men approaching me when they have supposedly already found Mrs. Right. When I find Mr. Right, I don’t want him to have Mrs. Right waiting at home. If you want to get my attention, find out who I am first because none of those things impress me. (Someone actually told me he never read a book in his life after I told him I was a writer. Really? Was I supposed to be enthralled by this?) I don’t want to wait around for someone to tell me that they just aren’t interested at this time when they’ve clearly shown it through their behavior.

Because when it’s all said it done, I already know what I want. I’m not looking for a bunch of people to be small pieces of my life, I’m looking for someone to share my entire life. I know that may come as a shocker to those people who think I’m missing the romantic trait, but I do think love should be like a country song (The good love ones of course). I do think one conversation can decide whether you’re interested in a person or not. I don’t think I need to date eighty guys to figure out what I want; I just need to meet the one guy that figures out that I’m the one and he convinces me of that (or hey, it’s the twenty-first century, it can work the other way around, too).

I’m not saying I believe in the fairy tale version of love either. I think the reason why first marriages fail is because people learn the hard way that love actually takes work. Not the day to day compromise of living together but the actual love that comes so easy in the beginning requires effort to maintain.  I also believe that if you play love as a game and you win, you might not be satisfied with the prize forever if it was simply about the winning.

So I will do it like I do everything else,  my own way.  It does mean I go on fewer dates, but it also means that the ones that I do accept actually mean something.

Experience #27 Hello Web

It’s amazing how productive I can be when I tell myself I have to complete my list of 33 by the end of the month. In January I was worried that I wouldn’t get this far, and now the year is nearly over. I will admit that I’m worried that I won’t finish, but I haven’t entered into panic mode yet, so for right now, nothing crazy happening. (Notice the use of yet. I should probably not be left unsupervised if December 31 comes around and I haven’t accomplished 33. I am a perfectionist after all, and not completing a list will ruin perfection. You can’t mess with perfection.)

Back to being productive though. For the last few years I’ve said I wanted to have my own website. It’s what writers are supposed to do. At least that’s what I read in writer’s magazines and writers have told me at writer’s conferences. It’s one of the things that I didn’t place high on my list of priorities though, mostly because I know nothing about website creation. This goes along with one of my perfectionist strategies that has worked well for me: avoid what you don’t know to prevent a meltdown when you fail. Obviously, this strategy does not fit in well with the adventures of 2011. Along with this year’s adventurous spirit, I’ve also decided that I need to get serious with writing.

Hence, my very own website is born at jessicatastet.com.

I’d like to say it was easy or fun, but it was neither. I only confirmed that I know nothing about website creation, and lack of knowledge is not something I admit to easily. Not being website savvy meant spending hours reading about how to do the slightest adjustment, and many moments of frustration when it just wouldn’t do what I wanted. (I must add that I’ve come to the conclusion that this perfectionist personality trait may need to be left behind along with some other traits that just don’t work anymore.)

It’s all been worth it though. My site is up and running, and I’m quite proud of how it turned out. I’ve even posted a sample from my upcoming book, Muddy Bayou. To find out more about the book, keep checking my blog and website in the next coming week.