I have this bad habit. It’s an urge to find something — anything — “productive” that I can do instead of what I should be doing. Usually I try to resist this urge, but that’s when things start popping out at me. Things that need doing. Things that can be done quickly — so quickly! — that it’s silly to put them off for even another second, despite the fact that I have that other thing (WRITING) that I should be doing.

So I do the quick thing. And the other quick thing. And the third quick thing that, I know I know, is the third, but really, it’s quicker than the other two!

Suddenly my whole day has flown by, lost to quick things.

Today was just such a day. I started off well, putting in several hours of writing-related work this morning. Then I got the munchies. Then I needed to do dishes. Then I had to make lunch. Then I had to take out the trash. Then I had to go to the bank. And then… I had to redesign my blog!

So there you have it. I’m a compulsive cleaner, room-rearranger, and blog-redesigner. It’s sad — oh so sad — but true. And as the Borg say, “resistance is futile.”

But I did accomplish a few things I’ve been hankering to do:

• SIMPLIFY. I want the pictures and the words to stand out. I think they do now. Also, there are less crazy colors, so Albert will stop telling me something is pink, or yellow, when it is clearly orange, or tan. White looks white on every screen.

• Strong “branding.” This is probably because I’ve now been brainwashed by worked at a design firm for over a year. PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW MY NAME, gosh darn it.

• LINKS! Thanks to the Better Blogroll plugin for WordPress, I can now feature five random links in my sidebar. Meaning I’m not responsible for the order in which they appear, nor who’s on or off the list at any given time — i.e., I CAN’T HURT ANYONE’S FEELINGS. God forbid.

Since I wasted much of my afternoon but can now cross all those things off my to-do list, I’m going to call today a wash. Maybe tonight will be more productive. Or maybe I’ll just watch TV until our flag football game…

Note: Foto Fridays will resume next week.

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Remember yesterday when I was mocking Andy for being a 12-year-old boy and wanting to do the African safari twice? Well, um, on the last day of our Disney World vacation, I asked if we could go back to Hollywood Studios and play Midway Mania. FOUR more times.

Proof of his love: he said yes.

We also tried to win one of the three-eyed aliens during our lunch at Pizza Planet, but the game was somewhat rigged. We spent most of our quarters playing air hockey instead.

And yes, Andy wore the unnecessarily warm Posluszny jersey all day. To his credit, he did not whine about his accidentally scheduling our vacation on the first Sunday of pro football. (I made him get all that out of the way before we left for Florida.)

And last but not least, we took a backlot tour of Hollywood Studios, where we saw Walt Disney’s private plane, the Mickey Mouse-eared water tower, and this beautiful, beautiful sign.

Beautiful mostly because the people ON it are so attractive. From what I’ve heard, I may be disappointed in Grey’s moving forward. But you know what? Meredith and Derek are back together. So if needed, I can pretend the show ended last year with their reunion. Just like I pretend that Vaughn never died (AND THEN CAME BACK TO LIFE WTH) on Alias.

Anyway, that was the end of our lovely vacation. I have to say, Andy did a superb job planning it out — and making sure I was fed at proper intervals throughout the day — so I think it’s my turn to organize our next vacation. Unfortunately I am both averse to and bad at planning things, and Andy is both averse to and bad at flying by the seat of his pants. So stayed tuned, friends, because next year, our vacation recap may contain a whole lot more CRAZY and whole lot less “magic.” :P

Yes, believe it or not, there are more days from Disney that I have not discussed. But only two. And I’ll go fast, because Animal Kingdom is mostly about the visuals anyway.

This is the Tree of Life, the centerpiece of Animal Kingdom. It’s pretty sweet, what with the ANIMALS CARVED INTO THE TRUNK and all. There is also a sweet Bug’s Life-inspired 3D show inside it. Yes, INSIDE the tree.

First thing we did was the African safari, because we wanted to catch all the critters before it got hot and they wanted to nap. Of course, we forgot that they are critters and therefore like to nap ALL THE TIME. Fortunately we still got to see some.

King of the Jungle.

Baby elephant + baobab tree.

Antelope-like things.

We also did the walking safari of Asia, i.e., saw more animals napping. Like these tigers.

The meerkats were pretty alert, though. As was the bunny in the habitat with them. Said bunny obviously does not realize he is in ASIA.

We also got to meet a few animals in person. Like Tarzan’s friend Turk, and Andy’s favorite Disney character, JC aka Jiminy Cricket.

Note the awesome souvenir Mickey ears we got as our SECOND Dream Come True!

Later we went BACK to the African safari, because Andy is really just a bigger version of a 12-year-old boy, and that was his favorite thing of the day. (Like I’m one to talk. Just see what we did on Day 5 when I post about it tomorrow…)

Speaking of faves, this is a baby giraffe. This “baby” is probably like five times my size. And all sorts of gangly and awkward. I heart giraffes.

Really big rhino.

Ostrich. Who was in the road. In front of our vehicle. And did not care.

Just before Animal Kingdom closed, we stopped into Tusker House for our dinner, and let me tell you, that African-influenced buffet was delicious! I particularly loved the passionfruit pastry they had for dessert. And the hummus. Mmm, hummus…

We ended the night by taking the ferryboat over to Disney’s Boardwalk resort, which is right across from the Swan and Dolphin resorts, where my parents and I stayed fifteen years ago. I know this because I still have in my possession MANY complimentary toiletries with swans on them.

This Day at Disney was brought to you by Capital Letters. ALL OF THEM. Because I know how much Angie loves them. (And I’m too lazy to hit Ctrl-I. Seriously, just holding Shift is so much easier.)

DO NOT GOOGLE “can i make a living as a fiction writer?”

YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW.

A blogger for the LA Times reflects on why writers have so much trouble with the Evil Internet. (I’m not the only one!)

What if typewriters had also been telephones? What if you could press the top of your legal pad and have today’s newspaper pop out? What if your fountain pen broadcast your favorite talk radio station? Today, when the tool of novel-writing is also the primary tool for all kinds of communication, it seems like a miracle that anybody ever gets anything (longer than a blog post) written.

I KNOW!

Anyway, from there I found this link to Freedom, which disables a Mac’s internet for a period of time specified by the user, and which I will TOTALLY use if when I get a Mac.

In the meantime, I have established a rule of no internet before noon, and I have set up a new Writing Nook in the living room. Previously I was working at the dining room table, which was fine, but now I no longer have to move ALL my things every night for dinner. I also got that awesome desk — elementary school, anyone? — from a woman on Craigslist, and I LOVE the cubbyhole!

It’s maybe not the most attractive setup, but it works. For now, that’s all I need.

Per Michael Griffith’s suggestion last month, I looked up Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library, and it turns out they were about to host a “Literary Evening with Lisa See.” The same Lisa See whose heritage and identity I had pondered a month ago. How could I resist?!

Answer: I could not. So I quickly read Peony in Love (free online courtesy of the Cincinnati Public Library system) in preparation.

Thursday night I made my way downtown for the event. In the parking lot I spotted a group of older women holding copies of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (See’s best novel, from what I’ve heard) and I asked if I could follow them. They were rather cute, as older people are wont to be, teasing each other and laughing like girls and chattering excitedly about meeting Lisa See. I was excited too, but I was also beginning to suspect that I might not, um, fit in.

This feeling was confirmed once we reached the reception area. I was one of two people under the age of 35, and the other was a daughter who had been roped into volunteering, I’m pretty sure. Soooo yeah. Awkward.

But actually, everyone was so friendly it didn’t matter. And Lisa See herself was mingling before her talk, munching on hors d’ouerves and catching up with her former Pilates instructor who had moved out here from LA. She noticed me hovering, waiting for my chance to talk to her, and welcomed me into their conversation. I told her why I was interested in her — Hi, I’m Miss Identity Crisis! Do you have one too? — and she told me to ask her about it during the Q&A session because she loves talking about it. She also recommended her (first?) book, On Gold Mountain, in which she discusses her family lineage and how she fits in (or doesn’t).

The Pilates instructor was a sweet, enthusiastic woman who invited me to sit next to her in the second row. From there we listened to Lisa explain how Peony in Love came to be, and I sort of wished I hadn’t read it until after I’d heard her talk, because I think knowing her ambitions and inspirations for the book would have added a very special layer to my reading and made the story more enjoyable.

Regardless, I was awed by her charm, her wit, her sincerity. She was very smooth and genuine. (And tiny!!) And she talked a lot with her hands.

When she was done speaking, we had the Q&A, and she said several things that stuck with me.

1. 1,000 words a day, no matter what. Or 2 hours of editing. That’s her work method/ethic, and I think it’s more than reasonable, even for a beginner like me.

1. She personally responds to her email. No assistants, no canned replies.

1. She often joins book clubs for their discussions via speakerphone.

1. And, in answer to my question, “I think for children, what we see in the world around us is our mirror. So when I looked out at my family, at my mirror, I saw Chinese faces.” By appearances, she doesn’t fit in with them, or in LA’s Chinatown (where her family is quite prominent), or in China, but that’s the community in which she was raised and where she feels most at home. On the other hand, here in Ohio, she looked just like everyone else, but that doesn’t mean she felt like she belonged. I found myself nodding (vigorously) the whole time she was answering.

(Note: Even though it’s in quotes, that’s actually a paraphrase of what she said. I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday; do you really think I could remember someone’s exact words?)

I hung around afterward, hoping to get a moment with her again — I’d even made a little booklet out of Ama, in case she asked what kinds of things I wrote — but the line for autographs was long and the library’s director mentioned he was planning to see if Lisa wanted to grab a bite to eat since they’d scheduled her to speak over dinner. So I took advantage of what I’d learned (see #2 above) and decided to let her be. I can always try her online.

I brought this red delicious into work the other day as a snack, and because I have limited room at my new desk, I had to set it on top of the Mac mini. Then I smiled at the irony and took a picture.

:)

But seriously, in the words of Usher, I’ve “got it bad.” I’m craving a new laptop, even though I don’t need one, and my heart is set on a Mac. We’ll see what the Macbooks and Macbook Airs look like in 1-2 years (when I can probably justify a new computer, hopefully because I will have just been awarded a publishing deal for my debut novel) but until then, I’ll just be trolling the Apple Web site and obsessively fantasizing…

Before Ike, there was Hannah. And before Hannah, there was Gustav. And in between Gustav and Hannah, there was Stan and Andy. In Florida. At Disney World.

Yes, we went during hurricane season because it’s cheaper. Andy’s a money saver (for a living!) and I’m a poor writer, so it made sense. And you know what? The weather rocked. It was sunny and upwards of 90 degrees for four of the five days of our trip. Only on Friday was there even a hint of gray in the skies. So we grabbed our umbrellas and headed for Epcot, also known as the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. There we…

Got a preview of our future at the Spaceship Earth.

(Apparently in the future I will wear my hair in a bun. How Asian of me!)

Experienced the ONLY rain of our whole trip, and lasted about fifteen minutes.

Visited China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Africa, Canada, Morocco, Great Britain, Scandinavia, and colonial America, via the World Showcase. (Not in that order, and only China is pictured below.)

Found Nemo.

Got dressed up for a lovely and DELICIOUS dinner at Artist’s Point in the Wilderness Lodge. Mmm buffalo. Mmm scallops.

AND BOUGHT MY CROCS AT DOWNTOWN DISNEY!!!

Ah what a good day…

After recently reading The Hundred Secret Senses and The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan, I’ve come to the realization that she is without question one of my favorite authors. And given that I’ve only read one or maybe two books by the other people I’d put in that category, she’s probably got the most legit claim. Her and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Anyway, I really liked and identified with what she had to say (in an interview in the Sonoma Independent) about why she writes.

“I think that the other reason that I’ve become a storyteller is that I was raised with so many different conflicting ideas that it posed many questions for me in life, and those questions became a filter for looking at all my experiences and seeing them from different angles. That’s what I think that a storyteller does, and underneath the surface of the story is a question or a perspective or a nagging little emotion, and then it grows.”

My whole life I’ve been able to sympathize with both the black and white of life. If I were a politician, I’d probably be accused of “flip-flopping,” but I prefer to think of it as exercising my prerogative as a woman to change my mind, or attributing it to my halved nature (Chinese and American, Scorpio and Sagittarius). Only in the past five years or so have I come to the conclusion that the truth usually lies in the gray. But wherever something sits on the spectrum, I think that my compulsion to empathize is part of what fuels my interest in so many different characters and stories, and that my inability to let something go until I’ve resolved it is what keeps me working and writing.

More from Tan:

“Conflicts. Tragedies in life,” she concludes, beginning to list her own biography. “Difficulties. A mother who was depressed. A father and a brother who died. Being the only Chinese girl in a school. Moving every year. Graduating from a private school in Switzerland among rich people and not being rich.

“You know, those are the things that make you either psychotic or a fiction writer.”

Exactly! Well, not exactly. But in other words, just be glad I’m not crazy.

dinner rolls and canned pineapple chunks. Because that’s what we had for dinner.