AUTHOR’s NOTE: Wrote this a couple years ago, think you’ll like it. Hugs for the New Year from me to all of you!

The first thing I was going to do this morning was go work out at the gym. Then I noticed the date. January 2. I quickly abandoned my plans. The second of January is the biggest gym day ever. This is the day when hundreds of thousands of people wake up and realize that they are fat. They realize that January 2 is the first official day of their New Year’s Resolution when they aren’t too hungover to do something about it. So they grab the phone book, look up the address for their local fitness club and head off towards their future of buff skinniness. Poor deluded fools.

I, for one, hate New Year’s and all the dumb resolutions that go along with it. I think it’s appropriate that we call them New Year’s Resolutions because they don’t last past New Year’s Day. All those tubby repenters will be at my gym today and today only. The very dedicated will be there until about January 15. That’s when most people forget about all their resolutions and go back to normal. It’s also when Krispy Kreme feels free to ramp up their production schedule.

I am hereby calling for the revoking of the New Year’s Resolution. Let’s abolish this sucker. Because it’s really the New Year’s Lie. All we’re doing is setting ourselves up for failure. When we’re at a party with a lampshade on our heads—making out with some guy who looks just like Antonio Banderas—it’s easy to make a bunch of fantastical plans. We promise ourselves that in the New Year we’ll lose weight, work out, quit smoking, drink less, see our parents more. Because in that moment, it’s not the next year. It’s the moment when you’re throwing caution to the wind. Your last hurrah before the cold light of January dawns. You’re shoving finger foods in your mouth, having a grand old time with Antonio, drinking magnums upon magnums of champagne, and in that moment, sure, losing weight sounds easy. Antonio might even stick around after New Year’s if you’re skinnier. Then comes January 1. You wake up and try to move your head, but it weighs a hundred pounds. You try to speak but your tongue feels like a huge wad of sandpaper. You try to move off the bed, but it’s spinning so fast you feel like you’re on a merry-go-round. Then you realize that you’re not alone. You vaguely remember sleeping with Antonio Banderas the night before. You finally manage to move your head to see if Tony is still there. You scream. Somehow during the night, Antonio transformed into Pauly Shore. On the way home, you remember your resolution. You also realize that you need to add “giving up champagne and New Year’s altogether” to your other resolutions. And then you kick yourself for making the stupid promise in the first place. Then on January 2nd, you wake up guilt-ridden and drag yourself to the gym with the secret hope that the real Antonio will leave Melanie for you if you lose that fat pad around your tummy.

I think what we need to do is get rid of the entire holiday season. It’s Christmas that prompts this whole resolution cycle of sinning and repenting. We pig out on Grandma’s fudge, Mom’s cookies and Dad’s turkey stuffing because we’re so stressed out about the holidays, food is our only source of pleasure. We consume massive amounts of alcohol to combat the urges to strangle nasty family members that we’re forced to visit. We spend money we don’t have buying stuff for people that they don’t need. Then for all our hard work, we reward ourselves by overindulging yet again on New Year’s Eve. Five, four, three, two, one—all the top buttons of our collective pants burst at once. And then, on January 2, we dutifully file to the gym and sign up for a whole year—when in actuality we’ll be done with this gym nonsense before the membership fees show up on our credit card bill. It’s amazing what effect tight clothes and a couple bottles of booze has on the human brain.

I have to say, however, that its very entertaining watching the unbridled enthusiasm of the fledgling gym attendees on their first (and usually last) day at the gym. They arrive in their new workout clothes feeling great about themselves. They already feel thinner because they’ve put on track pants which have elastic waistbands. Then with all this wonderful motivation, they set about their workout. They are so excited that they’ve finally forced themselves to a gym that they’re going to make up for an entire year of sitting on the couch and stuffing their faces with Big Macs. All at once. They attack all the new machines; the Pec Deck, the Thigh Killer, the Ab Murderer, the Butt Terminator. They sweat and grunt and by the end of their two-hour workout, they are feeling omnipotent. They walk out of the gym feeling invincible. They are the new Superpeople. The next morning the Superpeople wake up feeling like they overdosed on Kryptonite. First, they can’t get out of bed unassisted. They discover muscles they didn’t even know they had. And all of them hurt. None of them will be able to lift their arms high enough to grab their latte off the counter at Starbucks. Walking will be agony, sitting even worse. Finally, they give up moving entirely and settle in on the couch. Because they’re stuck on the couch, they have to order out for food. Because they started working out, they feel entitled to eating a bit more, so they order Domino’s special two-for-one deal on large pepperoni pizzas. And thus the cycle of sinning and repentance continues.

What we all seem to forget is that last year’s New Year is this year’s Old Year. We all made and promptly abandoned the same stupid resolutions last year. So, here’s my advice: Skip the gym. If you want to feel thinner, keep the workout clothes. Not only will you feel thin, you will present the image of someone athletic. And if you continue to gain weight, you won’t notice and neither will anyone else—track pants have become the new muu-muu. If you’re serious about losing weight and exercising, don’t wait until you’re drunk and desperate to make the decision. Drunk desperation is best left to more important decisions, like at which party you have the best chance of meeting Antonio Banderas.

©2006, Janet Periat

I deal with Christmas the same way most people deal with death. I go through the same five stages. Firstly comes Denial. I can’t believe Christmas is here again. Then Anger. Stupid Christmas, why do the holidays have to exist? Then comes the Bargaining stage. Well, maybe I can skip parts of it and cheap out on gifts. Then Depression. It’s inevitable. There’s no way out. Bummer. Then the final stage, Acceptance. Well, I do like the reruns of Rudolph and The Grinch, maybe it won’t be so bad.

But it is. It’s always both good and bad. The holidays are always a double edged sword with me. The good? Seeing relatives I rarely see throughout the year, the fresh baked cookies, the endless Christmas parties. The bad? Seeing relatives I rarely see throughout the year, the fresh baked cookies and the endless Christmas parties.

It’s a vicious cycle. I love eating rich foods, I hate gaining weight. I love trimming the tree, I hate taking it down. I love buying gifts for people, I hate what it does to my budget. I love the holiday cheer, I hate the weather. I love people in my house, I hate cleaning. It’s always a mixed bag.

When I was a kid, I had no such mixed feelings, the holidays were spectacular. Period. Mom and Dad went through special effort to make sure our Christmases were glorious. Presents were plentiful, our morning routine had just the right amount of suspense and anticipation. We were not allowed into the living room in the morning until we had all eaten breakfast (read: choked down some toast in three seconds flat). Then we were made to line up according to age (me first—one of the only benefits I could see to being the youngest). Then once we were all lined up, Mom let us into the living room. And there the tree would be, lit up and surrounded by a cornucopia of incredible gifts. Some were left unwrapped, some wrapped, our living room always looked like a Christmas display in a store window. Absolutely magical.

Now I have to buy the gifts, wrap them, fix the food, and make everyone else in the family happy. Used to be I only had to focus on myself. So? Do I want a return to those days? No. I love thinking up special gifts for everyone, wrapping them and anticipating how much they will enjoy them when Christmas day arrives. I love baking cookies. I love helping out and making Christmas run smoothly. But it’s still a job. A big job. A big ol’ honkin’ job that I start dreading around late July when Hallmark first puts out their annoying Christmas ornaments.

So, every year around August, my husband and I start making elaborate escape plans. Hawaii? Yosemite? New Mexico? We soon realize that we don’t want to travel around the holidays, so we start thinking of other ways to relieve the stress. Mainly the monetary stress. I have a big family, one that has repeatedly rejected the name drawing method of reducing the gift giving burden. So, we start planning on only giving wine and candy. But then of course, my sister doesn’t have a significant other or kids, so she needs an extra gift. And so does my aunt, can’t compromise on hers. Or my mother’s gift. How many more Christmases will she be here? I want to get her something really nice. Oh, yeah and my niece just got married, she needs a new cappuccino maker. You see where this is going. We just can’t seem to find our way out.

Which brings me to the Depression/Acceptance part of my holiday cycle. I know what’s going to happen. It happens every year. But that doesn’t stop my husband and I from planning like mad to avoid the stress and the financial impact of the holiday season. Will we be able to achieve our goals this year?

I just hope Visa will have that special interest rate this January.

©2000, Janet Periat

I’m tired. And not just because I had Apocalyptic dreams all night. I’m tired because modern living is exhausting me.

We were not meant to live like this. We started in small tribes. Our main concern was the same as it is today. Survival. However, a hundred plus thousand years ago, survival meant getting enough food and shelter. That was it. We killed animals, we picked fruit, we argued with our relatives. When we got too old to kill things, we hung out around the camp, taking care of the children and telling the younger generations that they were doing everything wrong. The younger ones rolled their eyes, fed us and cared for us until we died. And that was it.

Ogg and Mrs. Ogg didn’t have to buy insurance for an exorbitant price only to find out when their hut got wiped out, the policy didn’t cover hut repair. Nor did the hut get red-tagged. After a fire, if he mistakenly took down the last wall of his hut, he could still rebuild, he didn’t have to worry about new zoning laws. Or eminent domain.

Ogg didn’t have to worry about sacrificing his entire wealth to buy a house, either. When huts didn’t work out, he and his wife just wandered around with the rest of the tribe until they found a suitable cave. And they didn’t have to pay property taxes on the cave, furnish it with granite countertops, a Jacuzzi and the latest high def TV and surround sound.

Ogg didn’t worry about 401K plans, about the stock market tanking. He didn’t work 80 hours a week so that his boss could buy himself a private island in the Pacific. He didn’t have to worry about registering his car, insuring it and making sure to get a smog check by a certain date. Ogg didn’t have to worry about filing his income tax forms or umbrella policies, lawsuits or jury duty.

Mrs. Ogg didn’t take care of the kids by shuttling them manically between Chinese language lessons, soccer practice and Scout meetings. She didn’t worry about trans fatty acids or if her kids would go to an Ivy League school. The only thing she worried about was feeding them and keeping them safe from large animals.

Mrs. Ogg also had a whole tribe helping her take care of her kids. Children in tribes were never alone. Because Mr. and Mrs. Ogg never had to work late at the office to afford the McMansion, the Beemer and the timeshare at the lake. Ogg and his wife and their friends and parents were all together all the time. They didn’t need cell phones, Facebook and text messages to keep in touch. They were all close enough to actually talk to face-to-face.

I don’t wonder why we’re all so unhappy. We are meant to live simple lives in tribes. We are meant to work in groups with everyone’s focus on the overall, rather than the individual—not in a corporation where Ogg the Boss is making 600 times more than Worker Ogg. We were meant to watch each other’s backs and help each other.

People are so disconnected from one another today, if we see someone get attacked in a city street, more often than not, we don’t come to the person’s aid. We walk by derelicts in the gutter and avert our eyes. He isn’t any relation to me. I don’t know him. Yet, he is our neighbor. We’re all neighbors. If you haven’t noticed, we’re the only planet around for freakin’ miles and miles.

Yet, today, it is rare that we even know our neighbors. We live apart, plugged into iPods, iPhones, Bluetooth headsets, Gameboys and laptops. We don’t say hi when we meet on the street. Pubs are dying, cities are spreading out. Suburban and city living promotes isolation. We’re all so alone, we think others don’t like us. We’re afraid of others. We huddle in small, narrow groups, afraid of the differences in the other groups.

None of this makes any sense. We all have the exact same goals. We all want the same things. To be loved and respected for who we are and what we do, to have purpose and to be validated for the energy we put out. We want good sex, good food, a nice warm place to sleep and some laughs. That’s it. Humans are simple creatures. So how did our world become this unwieldy matrix of laws and rules and conditions and requirements?

Because somewhere along the way, the Oggs did so well, their tribe got really big. Which put someone in the position of managing the group. Which led to an agrarian society. Once we transitioned to an agrarian society, the Oggs in charge quickly realized that they didn’t have to toil in the soil any longer, they could sit in the shade and “manage” the others. Since they weren’t actually doing anything, they became disconnected from their underlings. The money coming in was so good, they began keeping more and more for themselves. Then they hung out with other managers and got even further disconnected. They became their own little tribe within a tribe with a new pecking order. Which prompted the Manager Oggs to cut the fieldworkers benefits and increase their hours to get even more money to impress their managerial friends.

And that’s where we are today. Still. After umpteen thousand years. You’d think we’d have all caught on a bit sooner.

I’m sick of it. Yet, the only solutions I can come up with are self-employment and spending more time with my friends. I’m still stuck with the taxes, building codes and smog checks. I’m also stuck sharing this wonderful planet with a bunch of power-hungry, greedy banker Oggs who just took ALL our money for themselves and left us with nothing. And with all those military Oggs who want to bomb everyone and everything to “make us safer”.

Which makes me sorely tempted to leave modern society and go cave-hunting. Well, with some differences from Ogg’s cave. I mean, I need my computer. So I’ll need a landline to the cave or a satellite dish outside. Caves are kinda drafty by nature, so I’ll have to build an enclosure inside with insulation. Might as well plumb it. And a fridge and a stove would come in handy. Maybe I can find a cave within walking distance of a city. Close enough for pizza delivery would be good, but not essential.

If you pass a woman on the street wearing animal skins carrying a pizza and heading out of town, please wave and say hi. Maybe join me if we get along. Don’t be afraid. I’m just like you.

©2008, Janet Periat

JIM LEHRER: Senator Obama, can you outline your approach to solving the current financial disaster?

OBAMA: This country’s been gutted like a trout by rich corporate robbers and the morons in the White House. John McCain is so stupid, he thinks that running this country exactly the way George Bush is will solve all our problems.

McCAIN: (red-faced and shaking) See? He’s an elitist! He thinks he’s better than you! Are you honestly going to vote for a black man? Especially one who thinks he’s more important and smarter than you!? Not only is he black, he’s a Muslim-loving, gun-hating, baby-killing machine! Why do you think there’s such a close resemblance to his name and Osama Bin Laden’s? They are the same person! Have you ever noticed how dark Osama Bin Laden is, or should I call him, Obama Bin Laden?

OBAMA: (glowering at McCAIN) John, you f**kin’ crazy old man, shut the f**k up. You belong in a nursing home, not the Oval Office. I mean, look at you, I’m worried you won’t live long enough to complete this debate.

McCAIN: (purple-faced) I’m experienced, not old! I’ve been there! I’ve done it all!

OBAMA: I am so sick of your crap. You’ve changed your mind so much and been so many different people in the past months, we’re gonna have to start calling you Senator Sybil. I think if someone said they’d trade you the presidency for your wife, you’d take the deal.

McCAIN calms, narrows eyes, rubs chin. Appears to be thinking. Coming alive, he glares at OBAMA.

McCAIN: Oh, Christ, you take the graft too, don’t give me that crap. I’m not the only whore in the Capitol. You’d bend over for ten grand just like I would.

OBAMA: Sure, I suck the same corporate genitalia as you do, but goddamn it, at least I know when to make concessions between what the corporations want and what I give them. It’s like you rich old white men know your days are numbered so you’re looting the place and leaving nothing for us. You took all the money from the middle class—the only idiots without the lawyer power to fight our Byzantine tax structure. Instead of bleeding them slowly, you freakin’ popped their aortas and let all the blood out. AND you ruined it for the rest of us by stealing so obviously your theft could be seen from space. Oh, and by the way, tell your oil buddies, the next time they stage an invasion of another country, make sure they know the history of the place BEFORE they invade. You guys weren’t just greedy, you were more ignorant than a graduate from one of our underfunded public schools.

McCAIN: (eyes unfocussed, gesturing wildly) Look here, you, I paid my dues. You owe me this presidency. I suffered seven f**king years of torture for this country. And you idiots abandoned me and made the mission I suffered for irrelevant. I want payback! You owe me winning in Iraq and you owe me this presidency! It’s mine, you hear me, MINE!!!

OBAMA: (shaking head) John you need therapy, not the presidency.

McCAIN’s head spins around on his shoulders, foam appears on the corners of his mouth.

McCAIN: You’re a pussy! You’re going to get us all killed! Al Qaida is going to kill us all! We need to bomb Iran! You don’t understand! The Russians are going to kill us! The North Koreans are going to kill us! We need to get them before they get us! We need to bomb the hell out of Iraq, then Iran, then Russia, then North Korea! Bomb them, I tell you, bomb them or we’ll never be safe!

OBAMA: (frowning) Now you’re channeling the spirit of Dick Cheney. We don’t need a therapist, we need an exorcist.

LEHRER: Shut the f**k up the both of you. Goddamn, did you even hear my question, Senator Obama? And Senator McCain, put in your damned hearing aids. Hell, you two are so stuck in your rhetoric, you don’t even listen anymore. Let me make myself a bit clearer. How the hell are you going to solve this goddamned financial crisis?

OBAMA: Damn, are all old white men this bitchy? Is this a side effect of Viagra? Look, I don’t know how the hell I’m going to solve this problem, no one does, okay? We’re all bought by the same jerks that just took all the money and created all these scams! We can’t afford to piss them off or we’ll never get the money to pay for the advertising that wins us elections! I mean, this system is hosed. It would take years to untie this financial knot. All we can do is throw some more money at the problem and hope it goes away. What? What do you want to me to say? I’ll sprinkle some fairy dust over the problem and sixty years of greed and corruption will automatically disappear? No. They won’t. We‘re screwed right now and I think everyone knows it.

McCAIN: I can solve the problem! We bomb Iraq! We win in Iraq! Then we bomb Russia! Yeah, Russia! I long for the good old days of the Cold War. Nothing is more fun than hating those f**king commies! We should have kept bombing Viet Nam until nothing was left! They tortured me for seven years! I was in—

OBAMA and McCAIN: —prison for seven years!

LEHRER: That’s enough out of the both of you. Please don’t excite him this much, Senator Obama, his heart can’t take it. While an onstage heart attack would be great for the ratings, we’d have to go off script and that gets messy. Okay, Senator McCain, other than bombing the world, how do you intend to fix the current financial situation?

McCAIN: We bomb Iraq! We win in Iraq! That will boost morale! When I was with General Petraeus, over there in Iraq, I saw how—

LEHRER: I didn’t ask about Iraq, you idiot, I want to know how you’re going to fix the economy.

McCAIN: (calms immediately, seems stunned) The economy is sound. Well, not really. God, I don’t know how to fix the goddamned thing any more than my BLACK opponent does. But I don’t care about that. (waves arms wildly with a crazy look in his eye) I want to win in Iraq! We have to! You owe me! This country owes me!

LEHRER: I’d let you rebut, Senator Obama, but it’s clear you don’t know how to fix the economy, either. Well, folks, God help us all on the economy because neither of these guys has a clue how to fix it. As for me, I wish something could be done about the corruption of our system before we become a Third World country. But by the tone and content of tonight’s debate, that won’t be happening anytime soon. Good night and good luck.

©2008, Janet Periat

My sister moved out of my house this week and my parents went into a retirement home. I cannot grasp the enormity of these events. All I know is that I’m bloody tired.

I took care of my parents for the past twenty years. In late May my sister arrived on my doorstep. “I have a brain tumor.” June 10 she endured eight hours of surgery. June 11 she had a stroke, rendering her unable to speak or move. When she left the hospital and arrived at my house on July 4, she could feed herself but couldn’t brush her teeth or walk. She is now dancing. Literally. Not only that, she is cooking for herself, cleaning her house and caring for her cats and yard. Her speech is lagging some, she has a long road in front of her, but in the end she will be healthy. She’s made a miraculous recovery.

For me, they were the shortest, most intense and worst months of my life to date. Hell one minute. Hope the next. A rollercoaster ride neither my sister nor I want to repeat.

In addition to that atom bomb of health drama, my parents finally realized that being blind and confused without the ability to drive while living out in the middle of nowhere was putting a bit of a damper on their lives. Especially given their best two helpers were out of commission. So they moved in a retirement home in Santa Cruz with their best friends.

Suddenly, all the people I was trying to keep alive are now doing fine without me. Which has left me with a few big questions. Where do I go from here? What are the lessons I learned?

Number One: Worrying Is Stupid. We all know this, but most of us still spend countless units of our personal energy fretting over stupid crap. What has twenty years of worrying about my parents done for me? Earned me some gray hairs and many sleepless nights. Did it help take care of them? Did it help take care of me? No and no. All it did was make me drink more than I should and give me a stomachache. So I’ve decided to fire the Worrier in my head… Or at least give it a good try.

Number Two: Vacations and Breaks From Routine Are Imperative To Good Mental Health. Even in the midst of crises. Three weeks after Judy arrived at my house from the hospital, I was completely crazy. Thankfully, I had a Romance Writer’s of America Conference in San Francisco. The day I packed and left was one of the most insane days at the house. My parents, sister-in-law, niece, sister and caregiver all were having lunch in my kitchen, Judy’s occupational therapist dropped by with her supervisor and I was running around trying to remember what the hell I needed to pack while people bombarded me with questions and demands. By the time I got in the car, I was genuinely concerned for my mental safety. I prayed the hotel didn’t have any issues with my reservation because I’d go nuclear (reservation was fine). After I got into my hotel room, I bought a nine-dollar beer from the mini-bar (probably the best nine bucks I ever spent). Ten minutes after that, surrounded by silence, I finally realized that I was alone. No one was asking me for anything. I started to relax. By the next morning, I felt myself center. I was finally me again. By the time I returned to the house, all the problems that seemed insurmountable were reduced to minor distractions. I had no idea how therapeutic a few days away would be. I was able to handle the rest of Judy’s stay with my head on straight.

Downtime is not a luxury, it is a necessity. And this applies to normal life, not just crises. Without rest and a break from the craziness of life, not only do you end up working too hard for too little results, most of your energy goes to mood control because you’re too tired to distance yourself from problems. Which brings me to Number Three, which is really a part of Two, but it was going on too long…

Number Three: Be Aware Of The Current Work Ethic. Distance yourself from the herd mentality and make sacrifices to get the downtime you need. Or the next downtime you get may be six feet underground. Our current culture is driving everyone into producing more than is humanly possible. Job burnout is at an all-time high. The falling dollar, recession, pressure from Wall Street to earn unreasonable and unsustainable profits is pushing business owners and their employees. For some reason it’s become a badge of honor to work eighty hours a week without vacations. People who get caught up in this dangerous game (including my sister—who was headed for a stroke even without the brain tumor) not only sacrifice their health, they sacrifice their relationships with others. If all your energy is going to your work, it’s not going to your friends and family. And these are the only people who care about you. If you get sick from overwork, is your boss or a customer of yours gonna come by the house and take care of you? No. Take care of yourself, friends and family first, then think about your work. If that’s not possible, get a new job or downsize your business. There are plenty of solutions out there if you have the courage to look.

I will leave you with this last piece of invaluable wisdom from a fortune cookie. The secret to happiness is to count your blessings while others add up their troubles.

There, now I feel better.

©2008, Janet Periat

So I just went to a Romance Writer’s of America conference. Lots of estrogen, breath mints and unmet need. And that was just me. But I would guess that 70% of the people there fit my category. Still, it was amazing amounts of fun. The main reason I attend the event is that I get to be around 2200 other romance writers: my sisters, my compatriots, my fellow lunatics.

You’d have to be a lunatic to do what we do. Most of us toil and sweat and swear for countless hours on a manuscript. Then we bravely show it to our critique partners who dissect it down to the syllable and make us believe we have created The Next Big Hit. Then we rewrite it to death. After much wringing of hands, we send it off into the world where editors and agents respond to our greatest hope, our greatest desire, our unbound passion, normally with a form letter: Dear Author, It was great meeting you at the RWA National Conference. I apologize for this form letter, but you can’t believe how much of this crap I have to sift through daily. You people freakin’ inundate me with this junk and I simply can’t respond to every goddamned one of you. Like what do you expect? I’d have to give up my family, my vacations and every spare moment of my life to respond to every query letter I get. I get five hundred submissions a week. This is an insane amount of paperwork. Not only that, most of your ideas aren’t worth my time. Most are either trite, bizarre, nonsensical, just plain bad or incoherent. Sometimes downright disturbing. So, I’m sorry but I could no more sell your work than I could sell a meat pie to a vegetarian. But thanks for thinking of me and please, never give up the dream.

And yet we feel compelled to move forward. An unknown force drives us. I believe it is misguided optimism. Or a terrible addiction, more like. I jones for my stories, to get lost in my other world like a heroin addict craves for the next fix. Worse I think. Because I’m more coherent when I’m getting my fix. More awake when I’m indulging my favorite drug. The power of creation is heady stuff. More fun than anything. Which is bad when the book is finally done. Saying good-bye to people you’ve spent more time with than your own husband is hard. Which brings me to my next point.

Writing is a form of insanity. You can’t call leaping from one reality to the next sane behavior. It splits you. You are your writing self, your mind completely dedicated to solving a problem like: How do I get my heroine in bed with the villain without making her seem brainless or immoral? I need the villain to attempt to make love to her, but the hero saves her at the very last minute. With a twist so it’s not trite. Making it funny is a bonus. But not too funny so the punch isn’t there. Something really original. Be clever! You allow yourself to journey there in your mind: you can see your created world, smell it and touch it. You try to quickly write down what you see. A millisecond later it’s dinnertime and we switch to our normal where’s-my-beer selves. What’s on the tube? Did we pay the taxes? Who ate the leftover beef, now I don’t have dinner. Very jarring, transporting back and forth. Most of the time, I can’t leave my created world. I cook, I clean, but in my head I’m running down some alley, a van stops in front of me, three dark, scary-looking guys dressed in black with scars and three-day-beards leap out and grab me and oh, goddamn it, I just burned the sauce.

Wait… how did I get on a diatribe about writing? Where was I? Oh, yes, the conference.

So I’m at the RWA conference. There’s the main organization, then chapters within the group. Some are regional, like most people belong to a local chapter, then there are the national chapters for various genres within romance. The ones I belong to are the Kiss of Death (KOD) for the romantic suspense authors and Passionate Ink for erotica writers. Mainly I joined those two chapters because they have great parties. KOD has a Death by Chocolate party where they give out their Daphne Du Maurier awards. Passionate Ink has their awards party (Sex by the Bay was this years theme), but it’s the raffle prizes and door prizes that kick ass with Passionate Ink. Plus they are some FUN people. Always know how to have a good time.

So this year the Passionate Ink Party preceded the Death By Chocolate Party. I went to the Passionate Ink Party at five. As I enter the room, one of the organizers points to a table in the back, “Make sure you get your goody bag—it’s got a silver bullet in it!” Yes, this year’s door prize was a vibrator. (I told you these people were fun.)

The night I got the vibrator was also the night I won a huge raffle basket at the Death By Chocolate Party (And my friends Ann and Linda won an award!) So I’m going up in the elevator with my huge basket and there are about five people in the elevator, mostly men in their mid-sixties, plus I think one woman. I don’t remember. I’d had a few. So a guy comments on the raffle prize and I tell him that I just won it at this RWA party. He asks about our conference (kinda hard to miss 2200 women in a hotel). I explain about the different chapters and mention the erotica chapter. One guy really liked this idea. So as the elevator stops and I walk out, I enthusiastically relate the information about the door prize. “No, really, a real vibrator! It was so awesome!”  I looked over my shoulder and five frozen, slightly horrified faces gaped back at me. Then the elevator doors closed on my audience, wiping away the montage of shocked expressions like a movie fade in a 50’s horror film. I couldn’t tell whether it was the information about the vibrators as door prizes or the enthusiasm with which I delivered the information that shocked them the most.

So the vibrator was the highlight of the swag I got at the conference. Coming in a close second was the five boxes of books. Yes, five. Full. Boxes. Of. Books. This year, I was a book whore. The big publishers sponsor book signings at the conference. The first year I went to a RWA conference, I avoided the first three book signings because I couldn’t afford to buy any more books. Then someone finally gave me the unbelievable news that the books were FREE. Your favorite authors signed their books and GAVE THEM to conference attendees FOR FREE. After that, I went at the free books like a mad woman, giggling uncontrollably while grabbing armloads of books. Well, until I remembered that I was in Atlanta and California was a long way away. That’s the trip I learned about overweight charges on luggage. I learned that paying the fee is actually a lesser cost overall than the damage one does to one’s back and shoulder when one carries sixty pounds of books in one’s carry-on backpack to avoid the aforementioned charges. A-hem.

The other highlights aside from the vibrator and books: Christina Dodd’s room was close to mine, we rode up in the elevator a couple times together. On the last trip, she pointed to me and said: “This is my favorite person at the conference!” I was floored. This woman is a freakin’ goddess-writer person and I am… well, me. Of course, I chat with everyone I meet because these people are my sisters and even if they’re famous-type people, we do the exact same job, they just get paid more than I do (at the moment). Still, it was flattering and went straight to my head.

Then I was at our Silicon Valley’s chapter’s workshop called Speed Dating With Agents and Editors, when a woman sat next to me and started asking me questions. Turns out she was with the FREAKIN’ SF CHRONICLE! Too cool. She interviewed me for about ten minutes and got all sorts of info about my work and website. Of course, I haven’t seen a story come out yet, the Chronicle probably nixed the story. Not sure how cool or important romance writers are to the capital of the Left Coast. At least the interview impressed my chapter buddies.

The only slightly bad news came from one of the most important reasons I attended the conference: to get face time with an agent and an editor. Attendees sign up online before the conference during this five-minute period where 2000 women are all trying to get appointments at the same time which normally crashes the RWA server. Somehow I managed to navigate the system and picked the editor from the house I thought most compatible with what I write and a hot New York agent.

I met with the editor first. I already had two packets for the same story, Tastes Like Chicken (a sci-fi romance), on his desk. He remembered the story and told me what was wrong with it and why he wasn’t going to buy it. But he liked my humor. He asked what else I had and I pitched a new series I’m doing: twisted fairy tales with no magic, just the main story arc (Cinderolda, Beauty and Mr. B. East and some variation of Sleeping Beauty). He liked the idea and wanted to see three chapters of Cinderolda and a synopsis.

Which overall was still good, he didn’t totally hate my work, but I was still bummed. I’ve already had many rejections on Chicken and I really think it could be The Next Big Thing.

So with this rejection in my mind, I now had to be super positive about the work because next I had to pitch it to the hot New York agent. This woman gets her authors such good deals and she’s so caring, all her clients rave about her. When we met, we hit it off, but it quickly became clear to her that my stuff was too fringey for her. I was bummed, but she could not have been more complimentary, nor more helpful. A tremendous person. She just doesn’t handle my flavor of work, she doesn’t represent “weird”.

So be it. Now I will sit down and finish Cinderolda and send the man his chapters. I can feel my delusional optimism returning. I am even more convinced that this next book will be My Big Breakout Book.

And if not, I still have my new vibrator.

©2008, Janet Periat

On June 10, my sister went into surgery to remove a golf-ball-sized tumor in her head. On June 11, she had a stroke. These past weeks have been the hardest of my life (and obviously, Judy’s) so far. I’m Judy’s primary caregiver and have never dealt with anything like this before. I’ve been flailing my way through, doing my best. I’ve learned many things in this short time. Below are some of my first thoughts that might help others who find themselves in the same situation.

Number One: The Caregiver must take care of themselves and build a caregiving team. Be honest about what you can and can’t do. Don’t run yourself into the ground (like I did). You can’t be by your loved one’s side 24/7. Yes, you have to take care of them, but that does not mean exhausting yourself. If you get sick or falter, your loved one will suffer even more. But be careful about your team. There are many idiots disguised as helpers out there. Be brutal in your evaluations of the offers that come your way. You don’t want to add more work to your already over-filled plate.

Number Two: If you are the main caregiver, your only responsibility is to your loved one. Not to the four hundred people who freak out that something bad happened and want you to console them. I can’t believe some of the knuckleheads that have been plaguing me. Many have come up with more things for me to do. “You should start a Yahoo group and blog everyday about what’s going on with your sister.” WHAT???? When would I do that? I’m either paying Judy’s bills or driving to the hospital or filling out paperwork or going through scary what-if scenarios with nursing home administrators or trying to devote a few spare minutes to handle the four thousand details of my own life. Which brings me to Number Three.

Number Three: To the friends and extended family of the patient and main caregiver: be a help, not a hindrance. If you are coming from out-of-town, don’t expect to be put up at the main caregiver’s house. Stay with friends or rent a motel room. Don’t burden the caregivers with your needs. Don’t let your kids run all over the house and saddle the caregiver with more work. Ask how you can help. Clean, cook, water the yard, take the patient to a therapy appointment. In other words: DON’T BE AN IDIOT. The Main Caregiver is overwhelmed and is probably on the verge of losing their minds. I know I am. Which brings us to Number Four.

Number Four: Be nice to the Main Caregiver. You’d think this would be obvious, but I have endured more second-guessing and abuse by idiots than you can imagine. Think before you criticize the caregiver. Make sure the information you received is accurate before you call up and rant at someone who is doing their best and is already at the end of their rope. Or they may bite you.

Number Five: Don’t treat the patient like an idiot. Assume they can understand you. Assume they are in there. Treat them with respect. And please don’t shout at them. Just because someone can’t speak doesn’t mean they can’t hear. Keep your visits short. The wounded have very little energy, be careful with it.

Number Six: Beg, borrow or steal some health insurance if you don’t already have it. Get long-term health care insurance when you’re 65. You don’t want to know what happens to people without it. There are many fates worse than death. And yes, I’ve heard all the excuses. “Oh, that won’t happen to me. Strokes and accidents happen to other people.” Well, guess what? You are the “other people.” Another one I’ve heard from friends: “I can’t afford it.” Well, you can’t afford NOT to have health insurance. Most of my friends who’ve said they can’t afford insurance still manage to take vacations, buy concert tickets, iPods and new clothes. Skip the freakin’ extras, get the insurance. At least get catastrophic insurance. The money is not wasted. Without insurance, navigating our broken health care system is a nightmare and a potentially fatal experience. Even with insurance, it’s a nightmare. Basically, our health care system is a nightmare. Best to protect yourself with as much insurance as you can afford.

Number Seven: Eat right and exercise. If you are overweight, get on a freakin’ diet, NOW. This will prevent 70 percent of cancers and most illnesses. And if you do get sick, you’ll recover faster. My husband Frank works on medical magnetic imaging devices and sees the insides of people all the time. Basically, if you’re fat and unhealthy, your insides look just as bad as the outside. And sorry, but candy is not a food group.

The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned: Tragedies bring out the worst, but also the best in people. A core group of people has come through for me in extraordinary ways during this event. My life is completely changed because of it; my heart feels fifty times bigger. Sometimes your greatest lessons come from life’s most painful events. Be open to the lessons and the love, even when you’re in the middle of what seems to be the worst days of your life. You’ll be amazed at what’s there for you, if you only have the eyes to see it.

Author’s Note: When Judy had her stroke, the doctors told us it was so massive that she would be institutionalized for life. Lucky for us, Judy proved them wrong. She’s making a miraculous recovery and eventually she will regain what she has lost. By the time you read this, she will be living with me and healing. I’ve never felt more blessed.

P.S. A special thanks to the team watching Judy’s house and cats. You guys are the best!

©2008, Janet Periat