Mystery Callers

Before I get to the main topic of today's post, a few updates:

1) I deem my Weekend of Straightening Up to be about 80% successful. To my surprise, it was really hard for me to stop myself from fully cleaning each area I tackled -- I chalk that up to being the daughter of the engineer and always hearing, "There's a Right Way to do everything!" in the back of my mind. The beast that is the mess on my kitchen table is still not totally tamed, but it's getting there. The good news is that the rest of my main floor is the tidiest it's been in years, and I'm thrilled that when I look around, I no longer have pure chaos staring back at me. I feel like I'm kind of on a roll with all this cleaning over the past few days, so perhaps I'll be able to finish off the kitchen table clutter little by little throughout the week.

2) My husband was not a fan of my I'm Going to Stay Up an Hour Later sleep plan. He countered by suggesting I go to bed when he does, and then he'll force me to get up earlier. His theory is that within a few days to a week, I'll be so tired from getting up when he does that I will fall asleep easily at his normal time every night. I don't think it's going to work. Especially if -- like this morning -- he chooses to sleep in himself and then doesn't wake me up as promised! So the insomnia battle rages on. (I should also note that about 15 minutes after I published yesterday's post, I came across this crazy CNN.com article about people with a genetic mutation that enables them to thrive on only four hours of sleep. Talk about salt in the wound.)

OK -- on to the real topic of this post. It's a short and sweet one: Who in the hell are cab drivers always talking to? I seriously can't remember the last time I took a taxi and the driver wasn't on his cell phone. Half the time I think he's mumbling something to me and I'm like, "What?" until I realize he's got a headset on.

Now, I'm not going to go off about how dangerous I think it is to drive in a city like Chicago or New York while also attempting to hold a phone conversation, even with the help of a hands-free device. That's a rant for another time. Today I just want to see if anyone out there has any idea who's on the other end of EVERY SINGLE CAB DRIVER'S CALL. Are they talking to each other? Are they talking to family members? What could there possibly be to talk about for that long? And what kind of phone plan do these guys have, anyway?

I tend to think that cab drivers are talking to each other. Who else would have that much time to chat? On several instances I've noticed long, long, multi-minute gaps in the conversations, and so I can only figure that the drivers have each other on the line and just pipe up when there's something interesting to report on traffic patterns or whatever. But I really wish I knew FOR SURE. I guess this will have to remain one of those Great Mysteries of Life for now, though.

ZZZs Please

I've had trouble falling asleep for as long as I can remember. Once I'm in the land of Nod I usually stay there, it's just the winding down and actually drifting off to slumber that's the tough part. I hoped that on top of helping out with my winter grouchiness the SAD lamp I bought might help my insomnia situation as well, but it didn't. And the fact is that I've always had just as tough a time going to sleep in the summer, so the issue isn't season-related.

I know my problem is that I'm a Type A Freakazoid Stressball whose made a habit of equating bedtime with worry time. I lie awake every night, fretting about everything under the sun, rehearsing conversations I'm dreading (that there's a 99% likelihood I'll never even have), making mental lists of what I must tick off my ever-growing To Do List in the coming days and weeks, and generally getting myself so worked up that there's no way I could rest.

Many nights I continue to be caught in this "worry cycle" 90 minutes after the lights go out. How do I know? Because my husband has his iPod hooked to our alarm clock, and it plays a track of ocean waves (to help drown out noise from our neighbors and the back alley, etc) for that long. My husband is usually asleep by Minute #2. (Grrr.) If I'm still conscious when the waves switch off, I know I'm in for an especially long night.

And yes, I've tried Ambien, Lunesta, and all of those types of "sleep-enablers." But I hate the way they make me feel the next day... and I also don't really want to rely on drugs for anything. So I continue to suffer. My husband shared a trick he uses on the rare occasions he doesn't drift off within minutes: he holds his breath for as long as he can. HUH?!?! How exactly is that relaxing? He swears that once he exhales he's in a blissful state of peace. I figure he's just about cut off his oxygen or something. Needless to say, that trick is not for me.

But the past few days I've been doing something that seems to have worked. It is, in fact, so simple that it's totally stupid. Here it is: I do not lie down until I'm at the point where I can barely keep my eyes open. Then I fall asleep almost immediately -- and it's a good, deep sleep. I wake up about 7 hours or so later (on my own), refreshed.

I was able to try this because my husband's been on a ski trip with his friends for the past four nights, so I don't have to work around his schedule. The problem is I've been staying up much later than we normally do when he's home (since he has to go to an office in the morning and I don't). But the time I've been waking up is the same time I normally get up every day. Which leads me to believe that I really shouldn't even attempt to go to sleep until one to one-and-a-half hours after I normally do. This little experiment reminded me that I actually learned this about myself a full decade ago. My husband (then boyfriend) and I backpacked around Southeast Asia for two months and never used an alarm clock. I would always glance at the clock when I went to sleep and then got up every morning, and I swear to you the time elapsed was ALWAYS EXACTLY SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS. To the minute. It was amazing.

My husband's back tonight, so I'm going to see how I can possibly make my preferred schedule work without disturbing him too much -- he seems to need about an hour more than I do. But if I succeed in getting a good night's sleep every night, then we both win because I won't constantly be complaining about how tired I am. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

(On an unrelated note, if you're wondering how my Day of Straightening Up went yesterday... there's good news and bad news. I didn't get much done because I was sucked into actually cleaning the areas I started with -- my front closet, the front room, etc. So the biggest issue -- the kitchen table -- still suffers. But I'm hoping to get to it today... and so with that, I'm signing off!)

Now or Never

Yesterday the latest issue of Real Simple (one of my favorite magazines) arrived in the mail and I took its cover (to the left) as a sign: I must clean my condo this weekend.

How bad is the situation? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, I'd say it's about a 9. Since the fall of 2009 when I learned that my book was going to be published (but I'd have to write it first), I have pretty much only tended to urgent or otherwise in-your-face household duties. The trash gets taken out once it's starting to overflow. I keep up with the laundry because I have no choice. The bills get paid. When I'm on the phone I'll multitask by Swiffering up the dog hair that seems to constantly cover our hardwood floors. Everything else has been neglected for over 1.5 years. But today is the day. TODAY IS THE DAY. I'm going to clean this freakin' place if it kills me.

OK, perhaps "clean" is the wrong word. A more appropriate description of what I intend to do this weekend is "straighten up all visible areas on the main floor." In fact, I actually got kind of depressed after reading Real Simple cover-to-cover last night, because even their "quick cleaning guidelines" were waaaaaayyyy more intense than anything I plan to do. There will be no rug beating or curtain vacuuming or under-the-fridge coil-sweeping. There will be no disinfecting or scrubbing down of anything. I basically just need to toss out/organize/file/find another place for about 5,000 random papers/Post-Its/knickknacks that have piled up on my long kitchen table/writing desk, as well as on my kitchen counter and bedroom chest of drawers, over the course of about nineteen months.

I figure once the main areas I spend 99% of my time in look tidy, then I can actually clean surfaces and whatnot in the near future (and I'll be motivated not to let things accumulate again). But first things first. Wish me luck -- I'm not sure a task 1.5 years in the making can be accomplished in a weekend!

Perspective

Although I know this probably isn't a very healthy ritual, every morning when I wake up -- before I'm even out of bed -- I grab my iPhone and scroll through new email and Facebook messages, as well as scan my Twitter feed. I just want to know if anything urgent is awaiting me... and if it isn't, maybe I can justify stealing a few more minutes of rest!

This morning I got a sinking feeling as I started looking through messages -- I could immediately tell that something bad had happened in the world overnight. My Twitter stream was filled with thoughts and prayers for those in Japan, talk of earthquakes and tsunamis, and worry about what might lie ahead for Hawaii and much of the western coast of the U.S. I got my behind out of bed, reviewed a few news sites, and watched a couple of the incredible videos that were taken from helicopters flying over Japan.

This sort of tragedy always smacks me upside the head and forces me to put my "problems" in perspective. All of the little worries that run through my mind on a daily basis are forgotten in a heartbeat whenever something awful happens. I just wish it was easier for me to keep that perspective as time goes on. It seems to be human nature (or is it just me?) to try and shut out memories of sad events and return as quickly as possible to our daily routines and silly anxieties. I guess that's a better option than walking around constantly wondering whether your time could be up at any second -- but I'm hoping there's some sort of happy medium I can arrive at with a little effort. As in, not living in fear that a catastrophe is lurking around the corner, but still being mindful that in the whole scheme of things, I -- and probably anyone who has an internet connection and a device through which they can read a blog (that would be you) -- have it pretty good.

So the earthquake in Japan reminded me to stop and smell the roses a bit more, but it also helped me realize that Twitter is NOT always a reliable source of information. (Duh, right?) Since, thanks to LOST, I've become friends with a bunch of people in Hawaii, I knew that nothing much was going on there this morning. Yet I still read tweets from some of the biggest global news organizations reporting that "waves were sweeping through the islands" and all sorts of other ominous tales that WERE NOT TRUE. ?!?! I mean, it's one thing when ridiculous celebrity rumors run rampant across the Internet -- most intelligent people can smell those hoaxes coming from a mile away. But when the Associated Press (among others) is tweeting false information that seems like it could've been verified or denied in, oh, I don't know -- two minutes by a call to anyone in Hawaii -- that's pretty shameful.

It's a nice sunny day here in Chicago, so I'm going to do my best to start appreciating the little things by finishing up my writing duties and then getting outside to enjoy some fresh air. But before I do that, I will definitely be donating to the American Red Cross to help those in Asia and the Pacific region affected by Mother Nature's wrath. If you'd like to do the same, here's how.

The Movie Theater Is Not Your Living Room, People

As you all know, since 2008 I've been a film critic and movie blogger for DVD retailer redbox over at redblog. With this gig comes the opportunity to attend advanced screenings of pretty much every film that will ever hit theaters. Some of these screenings are held during the day, and only critics or other members of the press can attend. But when it comes to movies backed by the major Hollywood studios, most of those screenings are held in the evening at large cineplexes, where the majority of theater seats go to "normal people" who've won passes through the radio, or a web site, or what have you. In those screenings, there are a few rows reserved for critics.

I've come to dread attending movies where I have to sit near anyone from the general public. Yes, this sounds snobby, but I have a good reason for feeling this way. Over the course of the past three years, I've grown increasingly astonished and enraged by how rude so many people are when they're in a theater. It's like they forget they don't own the place and that they're no longer in the privacy of their own home.

Take last night, for example. I was at a screening for the upcoming film Limitless, and a security guard made a five-minute speech before things got going about how anyone caught with a cell/smart phone on during the show would be kicked out. They make this speech because of piracy concerns, of course, but there's a more practical reason for keeping one's phone off during a film: IT EMITS A GLOWING NEON LIGHT THAT IS VERY DISTRACTING IN A PITCH-BLACK THEATER! So wouldn't you know it, a woman sitting two seats down from me (in the press row, even though she was definitely not a fellow critic) turned on her phone and started scrolling through messages when there were still about fifteen minutes left in the film.

Now, if the security guard had been anywhere near us, I would've waved him over. But he was nowhere to be found. The guy next to me held up his hand to block the glow of the phone... but the clueless chick just kept on doing her thing. Finally I reached over and swatted at her, and the guy next to me upped his game a bit as well, and then she got the hint. What's depressing is that I find myself having to do something like this on a weekly basis. Once I leaned over the row behind me and nearly smacked two teenagers who were PLAYING A VIDEO GAME WITH THE SOUND ON during a film. Another time there were two young women who talked to each other at normal volume throughout an entire movie -- they were just having a conversation together in their own little world. And don't even get me started on parents who bring their toddlers to R-rated films -- like I witnessed earlier this week in a screening for Paul -- and then walk up and down the aisle with their sobbing kids (or worse, let them run around on their own, unattended) while the rest of us are trying to hear.

I have less and less patience for this sort of thing, but since I don't foresee the masses magically growing into polite and respectful lovers of cinema any time soon, it's probably only a matter of months before I completely lose it one night, attack a rude moviegoer and then get hauled off to jail. So if one day I just totally drop off the face of the earth, you'll know what happened.

Here Comes the (Artificial) Sun

In mid-December I went to the doctor because for weeks prior I had just been feeling off. I was falling asleep during daytime movie screenings (and not because the movies were boring!), my hair was falling out, my nails were cracking down the middle, and I was having a hard time getting motivated to do much of anything (even though I was more swamped than ever before between my film-blogging gig and book promotion duties). I've always been a high-strung stressball, but this was different -- I worried I was nearing my breaking point. If I had to sum up how I felt in one word, that word would be overwhelmed. Another good choice would be exhausted.

Around that time I had read an interview with Tina Fey (30 Rock) in which she said that whenever she got extremely stressed out, her body's defense mechanism seemed to be to bring on such a profound tiredness that she had no other choice but to go to sleep rather than be productive. Which of course just leads to more stress as the To Do list continues to pile up while you're napping. Since there had been a few days where I found myself heading to bed in the middle of the afternoon because I could no longer keep my eyes awake, I started wondering if I was the same way.

So I went to my doctor, who is this awesome German woman known for telling it like it is. I vented to her about everything I had on my plate and how I couldn't afford to continue being so out of it. She took blood to run some tests, but immediately recommended that I seek out a SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) lamp.

She confirmed what I had already suspected for years: I am pretty much just a monster during the winter months. I've always felt like I literally become a different person when the temperatures start dropping and the skies go gray -- a person who's more cynical, pessimistic, unmotivated, and easily depressed. My doctor said to make sure I got a lamp with at least "10,000 lux," and made a comment about how "there's a reason most of these lamps come from companies in places like Canada." I decided I would order a SAD lamp that very day because I really had nothing to lose and was totally desperate for help. As it turns out, both the city where I grew up and the city in which I now live are on the "Lowest Average Sunlight" list. Way to go, Midwest!

I went on Amazon and decided to get this lamp, pictured to the right. I wanted one that could sit next to my laptop on my writing desk/kitchen table. It's not like you're supposed to stare into this thing directly -- its light just needs to be shining on your face in order to replicate the effect of sunlight. And no, it's not using the same kind of rays that can cause skin cancer.

There's a lot more I want to write about what I now believe to be a Miracle Lamp, as well as the other things I learned about what a lack of sunshine can do to you, the power of vitamin B12, etc., etc., but all that will have to be tabled for future posts as this one's already getting too long. For now let me say that I do think the SAD lamp has helped my overall mood. The first few times I used it I got a teeny headache, but haven't had one since and I've used it daily once it arrived right before the holidays. You only need to use it 20 minutes a day for it to be effective, but I have it on for an hour because I'm already sitting here for hours anyway.

I've had at least five friends order this lamp (or similar ones) since I started singing its praises, so I figured I should share my experience since I'm probably not the only one living in an area that doesn't see Mr. Sun for months on end. I think the SAD lamp is the next best thing -- so Let the (Man-made) Sunshine In!

The Junk Drawer

Raise your hand if you have a "junk drawer."

Don't know what I'm talking about? Then you don't have one. Here's mine -- it's in my kitchen:


Would you look at all the crap in there? Tape, checkbooks (both current and retired), random cords, chargers from gadgets long gone, ear phones, ear plugs, paper clips, mysterious keys, white-out, pens, markers, Post-Its... just tons of stuff that doesn't seem to have any other place to live.

We had a junk drawer at my parents' house growing up, too. I guess I just always assumed that everyone had one. I've actually got multiple junk drawers in my condo -- there's one in my bathroom with hair accessories, Q-tips, sample sizes of lotions, old make-up, brushes, etc., etc.

You might be thinking, "Well, all of that stuff seems to go together in a way -- why is that so weird?" I'll tell you: What makes a junk drawer a junk drawer is its utter and complete lack of organization. Check out the one in our laundry room -- it's probably the worst we have:



Impressive, huh? Tape, flashlights, various household tools -- all sorts of random stuff. Until a few weeks ago there was actually a huge SAW laying across it all, but then I realized that was not only dangerous, but it was also preventing the drawer from closing smoothly, so I put it on a shelf underneath.

Do these messy drawers mean I'm a total slob? Maybe. I'll admit that the rest of my condo has suffered immensely since the fall of '09 when I found out that my book was going to be published... which meant that I of course had to write it. Everything else fell by the wayside, with "household upkeep" becoming the most neglected. One day soon I hope to FINALLY clean my kitchen table/writing desk at the very least, and then do a big "before and after" post.

But for now things are stayin' messy. Somehow I always seem to still be able to find everything I need. One day it would be great to go through these drawers, chuck whatever we never use and put the remaining contents into little organizational doohickeys (great excuse for a trip to The Container Store!), but I think that day is probably still months, if not years away. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I wanna know if you, too, are the proud owner of an untamed junk drawer!

This Little Piggy Cried "Wee Wee Wee"

Last night I was out and about running errands, and the flyer below -- which was taped to the side of a newspaper-vending machine near a big neighborhood gym -- caught my eye.



I loved the "No, I'm not kidding" part. Immediately I pictured poor "Brian" to be a distraught father whose kid had misplaced his/her favorite stuffed animal... and now his entire household was suffering as a result. Crying fits, sleepless nights, and inconsolable grief are all Brian's to deal with until this situation is remedied. I mean, a $100 reward for something that clearly didn't even cost that much in the first place says to me that this guy is SERIOUS. He needs this toy back, dammit!

It reminded me of a time when I was young -- not sure how young, but I know I was still in elementary school -- when my beloved owl stuffed animal went missing after a sleepover my class (or maybe it was my Brownie (young Girl Scouts) troop?) had at a museum. My family and I were pretty sure that another little girl I knew had swiped my owl. Anyway, I was extremely upset by this, because -- as the Toy Story franchise has now proven -- I knew that my stuffed animals and toys actually came to life when no one was looking, and I couldn't bear the thought of my owl not being with her rightful family. (I don't think my owl was meant to be the one from the Winnie the Pooh crew, but if it was then that's doubly strange, considering the current "lost Piglet" situation. Maybe Pooh-related toys have a higher risk of being stolen? Somebody look into this, please.)

My parents and aunt went so far as to buy another owl stuff animal, make it look like someone had cut part of the fluffs of hair by its ears (this was to keep me from doubting that it was really MY owl), and then write an apologetic note from the anonymous thief. The note and the owl were left in a box on our front porch. In my heart I always knew it wasn't my owl, but back then I think I let myself believe that it was just so I could make peace with the situation. Recently on Facebook I have reconnected with the person I believe really stole the owl (no, I never confronted her), so clearly I'm over it. I think. I bet my mom and aunt would still like to read her the riot act, though!

I sincerely hope that Brian finds his kid's Piglet and is saved from concocting a far-fetched story to accompany its replacement. He's obviously a great dad, so I'm positive he's going to do whatever it takes to make his kid feel better. Let's hope this particular little piggy does indeed find his way home.

Just Do It.

I think too much.

For months now, I've been wanting to get back to some sort of regular writing routine. As in, writing a post for this site each morning, finishing or or two pieces for redbox's redblog every day, and then perhaps cranking out a Lost-related post over at Long Live Locke once a month... in addition to starting to work on another book in whatever spare time I might find.

But none of this has happened. Why? Because I think too much. I start worrying that the topic I'm mulling over in my head for this site is dumb, or that the post would be too short, or that not enough people will be able to relate to it... and on and on. I can come up with tons of excuses to talk myself out of the writing routine I am supposedly so desperate to return to.

Then there's the thousands (not an exaggeration) of emails I have yet to respond to, on top of the Facebook wall posts and messages and tweets awaiting replies... and the books I want to read, and the movies I have to watch (for my job), and the workout schedule I really need to get back to, and all of life's other daily distractions that eat up time -- and provide more excuses.

Those things aren't ever going to go away -- so why did I finally get off my behind and fire up the long-neglected "A to e" today? Because I was reminded of a quote -- one that, if I actually had a home office, I would frame and hang right above my head -- that simply states, "Writers write."

That's it. Writers write. So I need to get writing again -- a lot more than I do now (which is still quite a bit, considering my redbox gig) -- come hell or high water. I'm going to try (cue Yoda: "Do or do not. There is no try!") and dedicate twenty minutes a day to just blabbering on about whatever pops into my head when I sit down and log in to Blogger. Twenty minutes that will hopefully be pulled from time wasted scrolling through Twitter updates (I sense an "I hate Twitter... so why am I on it?" post brewing...) or other useless/unproductive things I catch myself falling victim to over the course of a typical morning, afternoon and night.

So that's my plan. Whether or not I'll be able to follow through with it is anyone's guess, and judging from the activity on this site over the past few years, I know the odds are against me. But I have to start somewhere, and for those of you still out there, I hope you're ready for a REALLY random assortment of post topics!

- e

I'm Sending Out Personalized Bookplates...

... to any awesome-cool people out there who bought my book for themselves or are buying it for someone else as a gift. There's no expiration date on this offer, either!

Details on how to get one are over on the Zero-Sum Game blog.

I really appreciate the support of those who've purchased the book. And I'd also like to thank everyone who's read it and subsequently written me with their reactions -- I am so, so pleased when I hear from people who are outside the financial services world but still got a kick out of my story. Since I never actually explained what my book was about on this site, if you're curious you can read this post over on Long Live Locke where I spill the details.

I still intend to finish recapping my publishing journey (which I started doing back in August here), it's just that the promotional part of the book launch process has turned out to be much, much more time-consuming than I ever dreamed. So stay tuned, there's more to come on "A to e" in the future. I also plan to write about my recent "vacation" (quote marks because it was NOT restful in the slightest) to Belize sometime soon as well.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season so far!

- e

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

The situation is grim and the mood is dark in the penultimate Potter film. Perhaps some fans of the series will enjoy tagging along on Harry, Ron and Hermione's slow, tedious search to find the remaining Horcruxes (until they're distracted with the Hallows), but most will find themselves checking their watches and wondering when something's actually going to happen.

You all know that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. You might remember when I went to the midnight release party for the final book. When I was still in grad school, I camped out for midnight screenings of the first few movies. And I've enjoyed most of the novels' accompanying film adaptations thus far (with Azkaban being my favorite). But I was not pleased with director David Yates' take on Hallows: Part I. I need to give it more time to sink in, but right now it's my least favorite of all of the movies. Even though I read the book, I still found myself lost by the overabundance of characters (who ARE all these bad guys?) and thrown by the disjointed narrative. Worst of all, I was bored stiff and left the theater feeling like I'd just wasted 2.5 hours of my life.

It was certainly wonderful to see the characters we love so much back on the big screen -- but where was the action? Is this what happens when source material is split in half in order to make more moola from two films? Even two of the most tension-filled parts of the story were pretty lifeless (one's a battle in the sky right at the beginning, and the other is the capture and torture of one of the good guys (you'll get no spoilers from me!))... and these scenes were over before they even got going. When I read these same sequences a few years ago, I remember being tense -- thoroughly scared about what might happen. While watching the film I felt no such emotions. So if Yates couldn't get the best parts of the first half of the book right, then you can imagine what the rest of the adaptation was like. Because no one can deny that much of the final Harry Potter book wasn't that compelling to begin with.

Yates kicks the movie off by reminding viewers of how horrible the state of the world is because of You Know Who's return. Muggles are being killed left and right, and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) watches as pseudo-brother Dudley and his parents leave town. Hermione (Emma Watson) erases her parents' memories of her to spare them the pain of her upcoming disappearance, which she knows might end in her death. Ron (Rupert Grint) stares out at the burned field behind his house -- the field the Death Eater Bellatrix (Helena Bonham Carter) torched in the last film. The trio is aware that the situation is going to get much worse before it gets better, and they have to find the remaining Horcruxes (pieces of You Know Who's soul) in order to put things right. So they've dropped out of Hogwarts to do just that.

What transpires over the next two and a half hours is the search for the Horcruxes. There's a burst of excitement here and there, but mostly there's just a lot of wandering around, bickering, and waiting. This is exactly what happened in the novel, and my disappointment with the film closely mirrors my disappointment with Rowling's final installment of the series (I'll spare you a repeat of my frustration with specific plot points... it's all there in my book review). Perhaps, then, it's really not Yates' fault that the adaptation is so slowly paced. When you take the kids out of Hogwarts, the school's charm -- or, if I wanted to be corny, I might say the school's magic -- disappears, and at this late point in the series, the plot is too convoluted and the action too spread out to keep viewers' attention.

Was there anything I liked about Deathly Hallows: Part I? Of course. While it's a downright shame that the vast majority of great characters (Snape, Hagrid, Draco, etc.) got almost no screen time, the three leads have really come into their own (after rocky starts) and there were a few of their segments I absolutely loved. One involved Ron's increasing frustration with the mind-numbing pace of their journey (perhaps I liked this scene because I was feeling the same thing?) and his growing insecurities about Harry and Hermione's relationship. Grint is turning out to be a wonderful comedic talent, but HP7 proved he has some dramatic chops as well.

In another lovely scene, viewers were treated to a semi-awkward but 100% endearing moment of bonding between Harry and Hermione at the lowest point of their quest -- it actually brought a tear to my eye.

But for the most part, the film just limped along, going through the motions, trudging toward its completely random conclusion. I mentioned above that the narrative was disconnected -- scenes were pieced together in a way that would make non-Potterheads struggle to figure out what's going on, and even the look and feel of scenes differed dramatically, like they weren't all a part of the same movie -- but nothing epitomized this more than the ending. It was so bizarre and so out-of-nowhere, that when the credits started rolling afterward, the theater I was in was completely silent. No clapping, no reactions, no nothing. I can only assume everyone was in shock at the mess they'd just witnessed. Or they'd already been lulled to sleep an hour earlier.

I know some critics enjoyed Deathly Hallows: Part I, but I've heard from enough Potter fans and have read enough other negative reviews to know that the response is going to be very split on this one. So let me know what you thought! I truly hope you enjoyed the movie more than I did! And let's pray that next year, Part 2 gives the series the awesome conclusion it deserves.

- e

e's Favorite Things: The "Miraculous" Tea-Maker

There's a sushi place near my condo that my husband and I have been going to for years. Last fall they started bringing these mega-cool individual tea-makers to the tables of anyone who ordered tea, and I just had to have one. After I'd looked online and couldn't find the exact same brand anywhere else, I decided to order one for myself and one for a friend through the restaurant. (Actually, it was listed on Amazon, but never in stock.) I waited and waited and waited for this damn thing to arrive. It took something like three months, no lie. I've since learned that they're made in Taiwan and apparently very hard to get a hold of. But it was worth the $20 and the wait.

Here's why it's better than the other tea-makers I already own: because the tea strains directly into your mug -- you don't have to deal with one of those little strainer-ball thingies or anything else. What you do is heat up water, pour your designated amount of loose tea directly into the device, pour the water in over the tea, and let it brew. It's kind of cool because the tea leaves float around in the water and eventually rise up to the top -- it's like a tea-filled lava lamp or something. Absolutely mesmerizing to watch.

Here are pictures of each of the steps. Yes, I have a POUND-SIZED BAG of Harney Earl Grey tea. I've found that 1.5 teaspoons is the right amount for one large mug of tea.

Here's the tea brewing... ah, the anticipation! It's my favorite part of every day. This is not a joke.


Then I just set the tea-maker atop my mug and it strains the tea through a filter on the bottom of the device. The tea is always perfect. Then I just dump out the soggy tea leaves in the garbage, swirl some water and liquid dishwashing detergent around in the main compartment and it's ready to go again the next morning. Granted, as you can see, the sides of the brewer are seriously stained -- I need to give it a good scrubbing. But I'm lazy and it doesn't bother me, so stained it remains for now.

Do you see the little black circular stand thingy to the left? That's key, too -- other models I investigated didn't come with one of those. I like it because even though the tea-maker doesn't leak while it's brewing (that's why it's miraculous, perhaps?), after the tea has been strained out the bottom there are bound to be a few drops that end up on the stand. Better the stand than your counter or table, right?

I just realized that it was kind of mean for me to write this post extolling the virtues of Abid's Miraculous Coffee and Tea-Maker when it's basically impossible to get one. So ha ha, I have one and you don't! But if you're interested in something similar, here's another option. It may not be Miraculous, but it's still probably better than any other tea-maker on the market. If you get one, let me know how you like it.

My Book-Writing Timeline, Part 1: From Getting the Idea to Landing an Agent

I've been promising to share more about my book-writing experience, and now that I have one precious week off from juggling pre-publication deadlines, I thought I'd start fulfilling that promise by laying out everything that happened between the day I first came up with the idea for my book (some might call this moment "inception," ahem) and the day I signed with a literary agent.

Before I get into the details, please note that my book is nonfiction. Those who write fiction follow a drastically different process where they usually write the entire book first before trying to find an agent or publisher.

But that's not the case for nonfiction. So, here's what happened:

July 2006: I interviewed at the Chicago Board of Trade. At this point, the idea for a book was already percolating in my head, as it's always been my intention to write about every place I've ever worked.

September 1, 2006: I began my tenure at the Chicago Board of Trade.

October 6, 2006: I knew I was going to write a book about my experience at the Chicago Board of Trade.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to talk A LOT more about what exactly my book, Zero-Sum Game, entails, and then you'll understand what went down on October 6 to make me so sure that I was going to embark upon this endeavor. But for the purposes of this post, all that's important is that I remember the exact moment when I knew I was going to attempt to put things down on paper. October 6, 2006, was when the clock began ticking -- the true Start Date of this project.

August 17, 2007: My last day at the Chicago Board of Trade after its merger with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to form CME Group.

September, October and the first half of November 2007: I wrote the proposal for my book. For nonfiction, you don't write the entire book first. You write a proposal first. Think of a proposal as a sales pitch, or a business case, for a book idea. It includes sections like "Comparative Titles" and "Target Audiences" and "Marketing" and whatnot. It also includes a detailed outline of every chapter, as well as a sample chapter. I had written three sample chapters just to have something on hand in case an agent ended up being interested but wanted to get a better idea of my style. I wrote Chapters 1, 5 and 12 because I felt I kind of had to have the first chapter... and then 5 and 12 were various high points of "action," in my mind.

To learn how to write a proposal in the first place, I bought a few highly recommended "How to Write a Nonfiction Proposal" books and also took a class on this same topic from MediaBistro.com, which I found very helpful. (The class was like $50, lasted a few hours, and was taught by a literary agent in Chicago, but I signed up for it through MediaBistro.com.)

Last half of November - early December 2007: While my husband and I were sailing the high seas to Antarctica, I had a group of people (maybe 12 or so) review my proposal. Because of the nature of my book -- as in, it's a true story involving real people -- my proposal-critiquers were those I knew I could trust to keep things under wraps. Some of them were in the target demographic for the book, some were totally outside the target demographic (on purpose, because I wanted to make sure I was explaining certain concepts clearly), and some were chosen because they are total grammar nerds.

During my two-week vacation, while friends and family members were reading my proposal, I went through books dedicated to helping writers find literary agents (Guide to Literary Agents was one of them -- it's freakin' HUGE) and negotiate book contracts. By this point I had also signed up for a paid service ($20/month) from Publishers Marketplace. Through this service, I get an emailed list of all book deals closed every single day (nearly four years later, I'm still a customer). This, combined with the guide books, helped me figure out what agents represented projects like mine.

By the time I got back from my trip, I had A LOT of feedback to review. If I were to do it all over again, I would not have given my proposal out to quite so many people. This isn't because I didn't appreciate their feedback... it's because it was just really overwhelming to go through 12 sets of edits. Especially when I started realizing that there were two distinct camps emerging: those who liked the personal nature of my story, and those who thought I needed to drastically reposition things and rethink what I was trying to achieve with the book. (Spoiler alert: the latter group won out.)

Late December 2007 - early January 2008: I tweaked the proposal according to the feedback I agreed with from my friends. I also compiled a short list of agents I was going to contact based on extensive, extensive research. I looked at literary agencies' web sites, read gossip about agents on message boards, etc., etc. I wanted someone who not only had experience repping business books, but who also was around my age and could deal with email. Yep, peeps, you read that right. There are still a ton of literary agents who want everything mailed to them the old-fashioned way. And, well, they don't call me "e" for nuthin' -- paper-based communication is just not how I roll.

Mid-January 2008: I constructed personalized "query letters" for a small number of agents -- I think less than ten. Like I said, I'd done my research on everyone, and I wanted to show that I had valid reasons for reaching out to each of them. Apparently a lot of wannabe authors just mass-email agents... like in the same message. ?!?! People are on crack. ANYWHO... back to the query letter (or, in my case, "query email"). Its purpose is to tease the agent enough to get him or her to ask you for your full proposal. You're supposed to start off with an enticing hook, tell a little bit about the book and yourself, and -- ideally -- why you're contacting him or her in particular.

My funny story is that the agent I ended up with was NOT who I originally sent my query email to at his agency. This is because I am a rule-follower (well, most of the time) and on the agency's web site -- at that point in time -- The Guy Who Eventually Became My Agent indicated that he was not accepting any new clients. I was disappointed, because he had repped a business book and a few other books that weren't in my genre but that I liked and were bestsellers, he had an MBA like I do (a VERY rare background when you're talking about literary agents), and from his profile I could tell we had a few other things in common. I'd read nothing but good things about both him and the agency, AND he accepted email. But just not new clients. D'oh!

So... since I still felt the agency overall was a good fit, I sent my query email to another agent there. And wouldn't you know it, he wrote back within a day and said, "I think this is actually a better fit for The Guy Who Will Eventually Become Your Agent." Now I had the inside track, and within three days, my Target Agent asked me to send him my proposal. Score!

I won't bore you with details about the other agents who responded, since this post is already really long. And I'm not including the name of my agent because I don't want him to get bombarded by randoms who Googled something like "How to write a book" and came across my post. There are a lot of crazies out there, folks!

Anyway, five days after receiving my proposal, Target Agent wrote back and asked if I would be open to revising it. I was very open to revising it, and it just so happened that I was going to be in New York (where he was) in mid-March, so I asked if perhaps we could meet in person at that point so we could discuss his ideas. So that's what happened.

Mid-March 2008: I was in NYC staying with my Big Apple-based friend Miss M after she was nice enough to let me tag along on a trip to St. Martin/Maarten courtesy of her ten bazillion Westin points. On a semi-related side note, it was during this trip that redbox first contacted me to see if I'd be interested in doing a trial run for the movie blog they were thinking of launching. In retrospect, mid-March '08 was one for the record books! But anyway, once Miss M and I returned from the island (not THAT island), I met with Target Agent as planned, and he dropped the bomb that I was kind of expecting: I needed to drastically reposition my book. The whole proposal needed to be rewritten in a new light, and I needed to revise my sample chapters... and ideally write a few more, to boot.

What Target Agent said was not too different from what my husband and some of my friends (those in the target demographic for the book) had tried to tell me months earlier. My book was reading too much like a memoir. I had to take myself out of the action as much as possible, because I was getting in the way of an absolutely incredible story about companies that affect people's lives on a daily basis. I'm no diva (when it comes to my writing) -- I can definitely take criticism well. Blogging about Lost since 2004 gave me a much thicker skin than I had before, that's for damn sure. So I vowed to redo everything and get back to Target Agent with updated documents within a month.

Mid-April 2008: I sent Target Agent my revised proposal and a new chapter (Chapter 2).

Mid-May 2008: Target Agent had been traveling and was otherwise swamped, so a month after I sent the new proposal, he let me know that it still needed significant work. D'oh! But he gave me very, very specific guidance on what he was looking for, which helped immensely. He went through my chapters with Track Changes on in Word and wrote notes about what he thought should be changed... and more importantly, why. I went back to the drawing board.

End of June 2008: I sent him Take Three of my proposal.

July 1, 2008: He asked if I would like to become his client. Yahoo!

And so, my dear friends, you can see that I spent the better part of a full year getting my proposal just right and finding an agent. If you're asking why I didn't send my proposal straight to publishers, you missed a huge point of this post. I would've been rejected immediately, as almost everyone is who makes such a silly move. First off, agents know what publishers are looking for. My agent was right in that my book would NOT have been picked up had I not gone through all of those revisions. Further, agents get hundreds of queries a day... and publishers get even more. So publishers use -- nay, need -- agents to act as a filter and only bring forth the most promising projects. I don't care what kind of book you're trying to write: unless you are already extremely famous or your name is something like Stephen King or Nora Roberts or Tom Clancy, you need an agent.

OK, that's enough for now... because we still have two more years to cover!

More soon,
- e

I Have Faced My Ultimate Temptation

Those of you who've been hanging around this site for the past few years might remember that in the summer of 2007 I wrote about how I hardly ever go to the grocery store. Peapod delivers everything to me.

Now, this used to be because my husband and I didn't have a car. Here in Chicago, you don't really need one. If we didn't get groceries delivered, we'd have to haul our nerdy granny cart several blocks -- usually in either below-zero or above-ninety temps... there never seems to be an in-between anymore -- in order to get what we needed. But in February, someone from my husband's sales team left the firm and my husband was given his company car. Bonus! But guess what? We still don't go to the grocery store -- Peapod's just too convenient.

However, that doesn't mean that I don't LIKE roaming around in a supermarket when I get the rare chance to do so. That's the only way I can learn about the latest and greatest snack innovations that the food-marketing geniuses have come up with. Like yogurt with a little bowl of crushed Oreos included on top (defeating the entire purpose of yogurt, right? Isn't it supposed to be semi-healthy?). I couldn't believe this when I saw it in King Kullen out in Hampton Bays with Miss M a few weekends ago. I came across waaaay too many curious new items to mention in this post, though... especially since the point of this entry is something else entirely. I'm writing to let you know that I have faced what is perhaps the biggest temptation I could ever be faced with, and I have emerged victorious. Victorious... and stronger.

Here is my biggest temptation: an entire WALL OF ICE CREAM TOPPINGS.




Sure, I'm smiling and appear happy in the photo above. But inside, I am fraught with conflict. How could I face this Wall o' Toppings and NOT lose all self-control and break into one of the jars or bottles and dump it all over my face? Further, how could I calmly peruse the offerings and then walk away... with nothing in hand?

It was tough... but I did it. Maybe it's because I knew that the S'mores treats I wrote about yesterday loomed on the horizon -- I was confident there would be chocolate and marshmallows pumping through my system within a matter of hours. So I was able to take a deep breath and continue on to aisles that harbored no such siren calls. Aisles with stuff like, you know, butter or cold cuts.

Are you proud of me?