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Re-imaging Myself

I bought a new cell phone today.

I shut my old flip phone in the car door a while back. I didn’t kill it completely. I just maimed it a bit. It was tricky. I let it drop in that dark, unreachable space near the seat. Then, I slammed the door.

The outside LED screen morphed from informational to artistic. I never knew who was calling, but I always had an interesting leaf-like blob to view. Still, every time the phone rang I broke out in a sweat. I hated ignoring anyone trying to reach me. But I didn’t like the unknown. I needed caller ID.

So, I walked into the store today and said I’d like a new phone. The saleswoman mentioned I might be eligible for an upgrade.

“Great!” I smiled. Something fancy, I hoped.

I put my phone on her desk. She looked at the phone. She looked at me. She checked the computer.

“Oh, yeah,” she huffed. “You’re definitely eligible.”

I aged several years right then and there. Am I that out of date?

She guided me to the wall of phones. I saw one flip and ignored it completely. I will not be mocked twice, I thought.

I picked a slide.

A sleek, green, cosmopolitan slide. Sort of like the way I feel, minus the green.

They’re good, those cell phone companies. All I needed was a new phone to upgrade my self-image. So smooth. So simple. So 21st century.


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Soon to be out.

Alltopia Antholozine will release their Summer/Harvest issue soon. Very soon.

I’m thrilled.

Thrilled my work will be included in this issue.

Thrilled to be invited to the peer group reading and press release.

But Portland is more than a day’s drive from my house. And my favorite airline only goes as far as Seattle, for a pretty penny these days.

So, come the end of August, I’ll be at the press release in spirit only (unless I come into some money real quick). I think I’ll still get dressed up that night. Maybe force my husband to sit down and listen to me read my piece out loud. Give him an autographed copy, for fun.

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May I present…me.

As a gift, I received an old, but sturdy copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette from a good friend (Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1922, in case you’re wondering).

For “helpful advice (and lots of blog fodder),” she said.

The chapter titles alone are worth studying:

Chapter One. What is Best Society?

Depends on who you ask, I say.

Chapter Fifteen. Dinner-Giving with Limited Equipment.

Sounds like communal cups and shared steak knives.

Chapter Twenty-Six. The House Party in Camp.

Could be etiquette rules for a frat party, could be proper yet discreet ways to filibuster the health care bill.

On the subject of introductions, Ms. Post discusses several do’s and don’ts, which brings me to my entry today.

I’m new here. I want to introduce myself, give you a good reason to come back and read again, fill you in on all my positives. But Ms. Post reminds me on page 8 that “Saccharine chirpings should be classed with crooked little fingers, high hand-shaking and other affectations.”

I thought saccharine just applied to Sweet’N Low. I have a lot to learn.

So, to avoid leaving you with a bitter aftertaste, here are the basics. I love to write. Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, ten minute blog posts. My words are in print in a few places, in the slush pile on the desk of one editor, in postal transit to another. But I work outside of writing, and I’m a mom. My time is limited. Pressured. Thus the title.

Now I’ve said too much, a breach of etiquette perhaps.

I hope you’ll visit again anyway.