I'm back. No really, this time I mean it.

Many hilarities and hijinx have occurred over the past year -- all of them quite fantastically good -- and for now, at least, I seem to be back in the land of narrative writing. This time, I'm focusing on science writing, which means I've got an assignment (a print precursor to a blog I'm launching, www.ordinarywondeful.com) and am both remembering how to be a journalist and teaching myself to be a semi-rigorous writer of things science at the same time. What hasn't changed after all these years is how messy the process seems to be, how time-consuming it is, and how much joy it gives me, all at the same time.
Since I'm back to writing, hopefully, I'll be back to posting here, too, detailing things like if an apparent journal article reads too much like commercial copy, chances are that's exactly what it is.
With writing science, too, I'm getting the additional benefit of reading primary research in a quest to sort it out for my readers. Sort of like being in school studying my very favorite things for free or even for pay. In short, life is pretty good in Ericaland.

Until the next time and to quote my newly acquired editor, five words and a comma,

Erica.

GTD the Erica way

I've been sharpening up my systems for getting stuff done lately and thought I'd share a little bit of the latest iteration of my productivity system because I think it's cool, especially for people who, like me, have lots of thoughts and ideas and only a little teeny bit of RAM those thoughts in at any given second.

I like the bucket approach of GTD - essentially one bucket to rule all thoughts. That bucket, in my case, is a handy dandy voice recorder that avoids the little slips of paper that are a/my bane and b/my utter downfall. The voice recorder captures everything: phone numbers, ideas, books to read, grocery items, even the atta-girls I file in a list I refer to when I need a pick-me-up (lots of writers keep those lists. It can be a lonely, thankless profession). To make the voice recorder capture system work well, I download the notes every morning as I'm planning my day.

My to-dos (sorted by tags like @computer, @errands, @house) and someday/maybes live in .txt documents on my computer which I can open or reactivate with hotkeys. To that list, I've added, on a 'Let's see how this goes basis', a gotta-do list, which essentially holds the stuff that needs to happen today. Items on the gotta-do list need to have time-limits to a/create urgency and b/avoid the pitfalls of  Parkinson's Law which states that any task will expand to fill whatever time's allotted to it. Leave it open ended and you can find yourself spending all day on one stinking 300-word profile. For me, the most important attribute of the gotta-do list is that I actually plan it for the next day so I can hit the ground running, ideally with a writing project, before delving into email or other web-based delights.

The one challenge I'm finding right now is syncing my lists from my laptop to netbook and back. So far, I'm just being strict with myself and sticking to one computer or the other rather than moving back and forth. An online solution would fix this, but it wouldn't be as fast as calling up my .txt docs and I don't always have online access and am not anxious for my system to break down when I lack it.

For projects, I use system I developed while working at the South County Spotlight: a flip steno pad with the name of the project highlighted in the upper left corner of the page. The power of paper is that I can easily scan through projects for next tasks and write down ancillary notes and tasks and put x's next to the tasks I've completed and o's next to what I couldn't accomplish for whatever reason, , creating a record of what has and hasn't happened. When the project's done, I just tear out the paper, and stash it with whatever notes and paper the project generated. On my computer, meanwhile, I use the same project name on the associated folder so all project collateral is easy to locate for later reference.

What's your system? Drop a line/comment/tweet and let me know.

Learning to love myself, one plate at a time

It's an August Sunday morning and I'm in a strange house – the kind that was built in the 1800's but remodeled in the 1970's to bring in more of the blue Portland light through wood-framed skylights and bay windows. There's a pot of steel-cut oats bubbling on the stove, hot tea steeping and a pan of eggs getting ready to be an omelet. I text my friend Kyle, who's upstairs, "Hungry?".

This is me now. Six months ago, I couldn't really have fathomed cooking well in my own kitchen, much less taking the show on the road.

For years, I've known my diet was out of control. I'm a skinny, active bitch, so the only implications were internal - mood, health, aging. But even if no one could see it really, it was there, this thing where I knew what was good for me and not and I wasn't remotely acting on it.

Instead, I happily ate crap. Or I spurned eating because I felt like I needed to work and the idea of stopping made me anxious. The idea of self-care seemed indulgent. And while I didn't want to take care of myself, give me people to cook for and everything changed - garden feasts for 30? No problemo. I've always been able to do for others, to dote on them and to nurture them in ways I'd couldn't do for myself.

But then, back in July, everything changed. My doctor told me that I had to take some pills and spend six weeks eating a certain way to get rid of a candida infection. I took the prescription and filled it. And then decided to wait, wait for the cake we had in honor of my mother, wait past a couple of weeks of meals out that I didn't want to have to manage so closely.

One day, though, I didn't have any excuses left. I still wasn't ready but I had the bottle of pills - a 21-day course - and I popped the first one and thought to myself "Well, here goes."

Three weeks later, maybe I should be feeling different. I couldn't maintain the diet in the carb-free mode required because I was losing too much weight, so suddenly I went from the ultra-strict candida diet to a version where I merely was eating sanely and conscientiously. And that struck me as fine, too, even if the initial purpose of the diet was somewhat mitigated. After all, I reasoned, maybe a sane diet is just as good as a crash diet for restoring health.

Probably, I figure, it's better.

I keep eating this way because it's healthy - lots of vegetables, meat, whole grains and no preservatives or processed food to speak of — and because it intrigues me. Mostly I do it because it feels like a superpower to pass up the sugar and cheese that I always assumed I could never live without. Without them, I get to experience the subtlety of the food I eat, the textures and the colors. I get to notice what it's like to feel my feelings when I don't grab a slice of cake or cheese dip or a vat of macaroni and cheese to drown my sorrows. And I have to eat even when my grief tells me it's not hungry.

I'm investing time and money into myself to eat well. I'm no longer eating as an afterthought, cobbling together calories by the seat of my pants when it occurs to me that I'm on the edge of another round of low blood sugar, but rather having to think my meal plans through, early in the day. I have to eat more than just once or twice because my meals are no longer as calorically dense as they once were. The salads I eat are as big as my head and a project to eat. But I find myself looking forward to that project.

It is, I admit, a weird hobby.

I ran across a book at the store today: Women Food and God. Not anything too special, but its thesis intrigued me - that how we relate to life and what we believe about the nature of God is mirrored by how we relate to the food on our plates.

How I relate to food has changed radically in the last few weeks. It shifted more or less easily. And that makes me wonder: what changed in me or my life that made it possible to relate to food with more care, to love myself through what's on my plate? What made it possible for me to start taking time to nurture myself after years of refusing to do so?

How and why have I changed?

So I'm gonna try something different with this blog. For the last couple of years I've been posting article commentary via Facebook, and from the feedback I've been getting, a lot of my FB friends have enjoyed it. Which is great. It's fun being all witty and snarky and throwing out my take on things, but the problem is that the content I've been creating is helping Mark Zuckerberg sell those friends' eyeballs to advertisers (for an apparently pretty damned healthy amount).

I stuck with it anyway because I figured my reading base was more on Facebook than anywhere else. I did, anyway, until a coupla weeks ago when I decided to deactivate my Facebook account to see if life was any better without it. And lo, I discovered it was.

Posting to Blogger is a little more of a pain in the ass than posting to Facebook, but what's life if not one grand experiment, eh?

Mountain passes and the blackened nose

“I crossed so many rivers in search of crystal fountains,
I found the truest paths always lead through mountains.” - Kate Wolf

“Choose the best pain.”

“Be bold and feel the wind on your skin.”

Been struggling with the blog lately. You can tell from the fact that 2009 has seen no posts. Had one rolling around in my head like a rock, but it came out flat. Something about how problems and challenges can elicit a 'Why me?' sentiment or, perhaps better, more of a 'I'm climbing a great big mountain and it's cold up here and my nose is half-off from frostbite and that's why it hurts so bad' sentiment.

So yeah. It's cold up here. But maybe not as steep and weird as it has been. I say that despite the fact that I'm caught up in the trappings of that latest economic craze, the Great American Layoff. In three days, I'm taking off up north to seek my fortunes as a writer. Figure it's time to finally get into a newsroom and cement some honest-to-god feature writing chops. Got the wind at my back, too, what with how thrivy the newspaper business has been lately. The powers that be are doubting the mighty Murdoch for his love of print. But whatever. The long and the short of it is that a clear cut adventure beats the hell out of a flagging job any day.

So I'm off. More posts forthcoming, no doubt.

Girling up at the close of the millenium's first decade.

Sometimes I'm so full of sh!t it hurts a little. Yep. Like f'rinstance, contrary to what I claimed in an earlier post, I'm back on Facebook. Not as bad though. Maybe a break's all that I needed to redirect my focus.

Been feeling a little melancholy - probably a holiday thing, or an end of the year thing, or a making my way through my mid-30's and losing the only currency that society openly values thing. You know what I mean.

Got my cat with me, a pile of books, tea always close by. All the collateral native to a full-fledged spinstery. They give me comfort. I need it, too. Long relationship that hurt my soul (not because it was bad - because it was good, great even, but not what the old vital principle was calling for). Short rebound that did it in. And now back at it. With something like the OCD drive that makes me shop and shop and shop for a stereo till I find a really good one for a really good price. Except stereos don't take time and work and either make you happy or rob you blind.

Regardless, I need to sit down and catch up on the journal that I've been keeping all year, the one I record the events of every day that passes. Haven't written much since before Christmas. During that time, the old tinsel wrapped elephant in the living room, Christmas, damn near trampled me and my debit card to death. One friend slipped away to Flagstaff and another to Phoenix. Danced alone in my room to activist rap and a Tears for Fears cover. Frenzied around the house getting it back in shape for my dear roomate to come home to. Hiked, watched sunsets and climbed a steep hill in horizontal rain without a hat.

All that, I'll write down before I sleep tonight. It's important. It keeps me from being too full of sh!t, from re-writing my own history as my memories drift and reform themselves. No. With my journals, I can look back and trace the blood spilled, the cries I've kept to myself, the ones I've shared and shared loudly. Honestly, those journals would be the only things besides my ugly little cat that I'd take with me if the house were fixing to explode. Not that I know any of the signs of a house fixing to explode. But still, if I smelled gas, I'd grab my cat and journals and run.

So yeah. Melancholy. Time of year, boatload of stress, too much going on maybe. God only knows and she's not telling. Blogging helps me girl up, so expect to hear from me a little bit more often for a while.

And in the meantime, make it a Happy Chrismahannakwanzstice and a Merry New Year.

Living life out of buckets: Notes from the skinny front

A little over a year ago, I attended Money Camp in Santa Barbara. My stated goal was to be as savvy with one dollar (which was roughly what I had in my possession at the time) as I would be with a million.

The whole premise was that lottery-winners, inheritors, bubble home sellers and the like don't automatically know how to manage their money, and as a result often lose it. I figured if I knew how to manage my money like a true millionaire, I might by default end up there.

What I came away with, in part, was the idea of putting my money (at the time it was of the low-quality, sporadic variety) into buckets. No matter what comes in, it gets divided into the following accounts:

IRA/Healthcare Savings: 7.5 percent
I'm not saving a lot for retirement right now because my priority is paying down a few dollars of debt from my adventures with the magazine formerly known as Read It Here.

Giving: 5 percent
There's some serious happy happy to knowing that, no matter what your financial situation, you have something to give. My favorite place to give right now? Q2 Youth. By knowing there would always be money coming in my account, I was able to pledge $500 to their 2 to 1 matching grant. Which means I was able to give a leadership organization for a segment of at-risk youth the equivalent of $1,500. Bodacious.

Rent/Credit Cards/Extra Money Fund: 60 percent
I keep $1000 in an account at Arizona State Savings and Credit Union that pays 5% on up to $1000. Once I've funded that $1000 (if I've had to dip into it for necessary expenses, like shattered bones, car repair, etc) and I've covered rent, the rest goes to pay those tiny, little, infinitesimal credit card balances accrued by buying entire print runs for my diaphanous formerly-in-print magazine.

Daily Needs/Spending Money: 20 percent
Groceries, shampoo, cat food, $40/week walking around money. The basics we all need.

Sunny Day Fund (Mad Money): 7.5 percent
This was originally my savings fund for a motorcycle, but I decided that small treats like a decent stereo, beautiful original art, and of course, some new clothes (Yay!) might make my life a happier place to be than 8 months of enforced austerity so I could buy a dirt bike. But that bad boy's still in my future - just a matter of time.

If you feel yourself blanching at the thought of discussing money, you're not alone. Most parents would rather talk with their children about sex than money. I, however, am utterly fascinated with the dynamics of money, and sometimes run my budget through my head for self-entertainment. I'm so much into money these days, in fact, that I have been marketing a mutual fund and last week, scored my Series 65 license.

Oh so yay.

A new passion is eating the corners of my brain.

It's pushing 11 pm on a work night and my blogging ideas have been running a bit low lately.

So how about a status update instead?

These days, I'm feeling wicked interested in learning how to write better fiction - which makes reading it both more exciting and more of a pain in the ass.

'How finely formed that paragraph!' I say to myself. 'How the hell does he know to do that?'

So, today being "I do nothing unless I feel like it" Sunday, I went to fellow writer Susan McElheran's Old Sage Bookshop (in the St. Mike's Alley - 928-776-1136) and picked up a copy of Raymond Carver's short stories. Might make for good WC reading next to Good to Great and Emotional Intelligence. And yes, it may possibly serve as inspiration to eventually create a decent short story.

Started working on one tonight, focusing on creating scene and on telling through action rather than description. It's mysterious stuff at this point.

Despite the tens of thousands of words of fiction I've scrawled out in bits and bytes, each of my efforts still feel nascent and tentative. I guess I just need to focus on the journey right now.

One exciting development is my acquisition of a new micro-cabin (I'm now renting just slightly less house than I need) and the certain introduction of a writing desk into said millieu. Perhaps I can work fiction back into my early morning schedule or into my evening unwind.

In any case, leave your bright ideas in the comment section regarding how to create well-formed fiction. I'd be grateful.

The Impulse Factor: Hacking the novelty-seeking brain

Maybe you can relate. I was raised by aliens and so I know little of social norms. I usually guess and then I beat myself up rather than consider that my equipment is more or less normal.

Or at least I assumed it was normal.

But then I ran across a book, The Impulse Factor, which posits that about a quarter of us naked monkeys process dopamine poorly. That poor processing causes us to misbehave in search of the dopamine jolt we sorely need in order to feel normal. The book's author says the mutation behind the dopamine problem coincided with the diaspora of homo sapiens from Africa; in doing so, he joins a legion of non-fiction authors who claimed to find the one 'it' that drove the formation of human civilization. Earlier 'its' include coal and salt, so I'll let that pass.

What's especially intriguing for me, a poster child for those who bear the mutation (witness: can't sit through a meeting, pedalled cross country by myself, will try anything but heroin and meth once) is that short deadlines make our faulty little brains work really, really well. So all that procrastinating was actually just me biding time until my smart brain kicked in.

So now I'm toying with how to use the power of the smart brain without screwing myself on short deadline. There's a great essay on Structured Procrastination that meditates on how to use said downtime for good rather than for evil. Last night, I experimented with deliberate, structured procrastination by reading 200 pages of a friend's manuscript. I think the approach might be a winner. Instead of watching crappy ol' TV, or trying to play keyboard in my freezing garage apartment (don't ask) I could find inspiration by reading another human's work of art, rest my brain and prepare for a productive next day.

And the next day, when I did sit down to write, I knocked out 3,000 words of—get this—pleasurable prose. Incredible.

Now I'll be the first to admit that all these lifehacks work sort of OK some of the time. Productivity and flow, for me at least, are moving targets. Sometimes it's the bottom of the hour hack, sometimes it's the avoiding of all the evil timesucking web sites hack, and sometimes it's just reading late into the night and filling the proverbial well.

My Last 15 Minute Lifehack

I've found something that works for the ever-common, ever-insidious Internet-itis. It's the Last 15 Minute Lifehack, wherein you wait till the bottom of the hour to succumb to such follies as Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, MyYahoo! and Nerve Scanner. And even then, you try to keep working if you can.

The way I see it, if you only really suck for a quarter hour every hour, you're doing pretty damned well.

Now the challenge is to set up a system to create targets during the other 45 so that I'm definitively rolling forward with my myriad writing projects. Call these targets artificial deadlines; they're still a work in progress.

Jumping into the cold, deep water on command

Greetings from the land of the great, cold lakes. I'm not talking about Minnesota. I'm talking about the land of writing on command. When you're not into it. Not feeling it. When all you're feeling is the hot, fetid breath of the deadline on your neck and the sweet lure of what you'd prefer to be doing calling to you.

I was on the last leg of my roadtrip driving towards Flagstaff, when sweet anchor client lady called and said can I do one little thing today, can I, can I? I tell her I'm going through Albuquerque and of course I can stop off at a little coffee shop and whip it out.

Which is where I am right now, creating an essay on unity, the spirit of oneness and the elephant in the living room (a concept I grabbed on a high hurry from here of all places).

Writing on demand works. But it hurts. The question I sometimes ask is why do I do it? Why can't I just climb out of the deep end and live a normal life like nearly everyone else?

Moab and the illogic of friends

Made it to Moab, spent a couple of hours working on a commercial project at a coffee shop and proceeded to the Amasa Back Trail for some true slick-rock riding. I can't explain why I feel this way, but I will never, never again ride Moab by myself. I mean, it's not like my bailing off a cliff is going to hurt less — or be any less fatal - if there's someone friendly there to watch it happen. But there you are.

Stayed the night in Moab and woke up with the burning desire to get some miles behind me. And so, after a couple of days in Utah, I rolled into Denver where I've been working on commercial projects in my friend Bill's sensory deprivation tank/apartment ever since.

I think that after several months of romance crazy, moving crazy, and what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life crazy, I just needed a quiet place to crash and be isolated.

But tomorrow I head back into my life and into the great wide open. I'll keep you posted.

Mountain biking is a laboratory for life process

In June, I told everyone that I was going on a roadtrip. Then I house-sat for three weeks and forgot I told everyone I was leaving. Fast forward through a bunch of surprised reactions at Prescott's coffee shops, stores and pubs and I've finally hit the road.

The framework: An open-ended (anywhere from a week until I draw my last breath) driving trip aimed at places I can ride my mountain bike.

I rode the Rocky Ridge trail in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Unlike the lonely trails of Prescott, this trail swarmed with people. I saw an 8-year-old kid going over technical terrain on a bmx. Impressive.

In any case, for a while now, I've pondered the similarities between mountain biking and navigating my way through life. Or at least the lessons mountain biking offers.

Disclaimer: Mountain biking, while fun, is a singularly selfish, self-serving sport, so don't imagine that I'm trying to elevate it in any way shape or form.

That being said, it comes down to this. When you mountain bike, you MUST look where you want to go. Choose to look where you don't want to go and you go there, typically with painful results. Even if you want to go elsewhere, you'll always go to the exact spot where you put your attention. I'm pretty sure this holds true in life as well, but it's less noticeable because you don't break a collar bone every time you focus on what you don't want.

Also, sometimes when you get into a hairy spot, the only way to avoid disaster is to not only keep pedaling, but pedal HARDER. Do that, and you often surprise yourself by getting over something you would earlier have told yourself was impossible.

I'm in Moab today, so I'll keep you posted on the life lessons of slickrock.