Travelocity(not)the_bomb

Ok - I had a request for the Travelocity story and why they suck.  It's not terribly interesting, really.  But - here goes!!  Ok - so I've always thought it would be awesome to go to New England in the Fall.  I love the Autumn.  No, I mean LOVE it!  It's beautiful.  I wrote a poem about the fall in college and it was one of the only ones I managed to get published in their creative writing journal.

Anyhoo!  Off track a little, but finding my way back on.... so.  I have a timeshare that I've been trading out for the past few years - to go to other places (you can really only go to Mesquite so many times before you want to rip your 105 degree hot hair out).  You can also buy bonus weeks.  And that's what I did.  I bought a bonus week at a resort in The Berkshires, MA.  Vermont or Maine would have been my first/second choices...but, alas - time share owners only tend to free up their lamer properties (again, I'm trading out Mesquite, NV here, people!!)  I booked waaaaay in advance.  And the flights I originally booked had me landing in Albany, NY (the closest airport to Lee, MA) by 5pm.  I figured 5 was a good time, check in, still have time for dinner and looking around and what not.  My flight home, I scheduled for 3pm.  We'd get home late, but we also wouldn't be rushed that day to get to the airport and I just thought that'd be perfect.

So - I'm set!!  Or so I think.  A few months down the road I get a notice from Travelocity that the airline has changed the flights and to please call them.  I call and they tell me that one of my connections won't work, so they're switching it to something else, but that I'll be arriving in Albany around the same time.  I think it was like an hour later or something.  No big.  I check a week or so later on "My trips" on Travelocity.com and see that they are still showing my old flight there.  I try e-mailing them to see if they can update my account.  They send me some blanket, lame-o response e-mail and basically tell me that they can only help if I call.  Any guesses on the average wait time to Travelocity customer service??  Well, it's long.  Ridiculously so.  I waited over an hour one time, just to talk to a human, on a previous reservation....I won't go there...missed my flight on that one, but anyhow!  (and why did I book another flight with them...short term memory loss?)

I hear my mother telling me, "In ten words or less, Donea!"  Well, to make a long story longer - I called and e-mailed them A LOT just to get my records updated.  How can I keep track if they don't have the correct flight info on file?  Well, they just kept telling me that it was right.  They had Delta send me a copy of the itin, which was different than my file with Travelocity.  But...at some point that "correct" file got lost in the shuffle and when I called AGAIN the only out-going flight they could accommodate me with left at 8:30am, landed at JFK at 3:00pm and flew out to Albany at 9:48pm...landing after 11pm.  11-frickin' PM!!

We got to our resort at almost 1am.  Security had to let us in.  To the wrong room, btw.  I'd bought a 2 bedroom for 6 people.  They had us in a 1 bedroom....anyhow, different drama.

Also - when I went to Delta.com to check-in 24 hours before I left...I still had not e-ticket.  I had to call Travelocity again!!  And I also found out at that time that there was a problem with our return flight as well, that they never ever bothered to contact me about.  They had to re-accommodate me again - and my return flight went from a 3pm departure to 7:05AM.  Ummm...seriously?

Not to mention that I also checked on that flight the day before we came home and found that it ALSO did NOT have an e-ticket attached to the reservation.  The lady with Continental airlines told me this on the phone.  I called Travelocity and talked to one rep who told me that she saw the reservation just fine and that the reason I couldn't find the e-ticket on Continental.com was because I was flying out with Continental connect...or some crap like that.  I told her what the Continental rep had said and she just told me everything was fine, fixed, blah.  So - I went back onto Continental.com and just tried to find the reservation with the e-ticket # that should have worked.  Still - nothing.  I called Travelocity AGAIN and told some other rep the same thing and he treated me like I was crazy.

I show up at the airport early, early in the morning and guess what?  No tickets.  It took another continental rep at the check-in desk nearly an hour to try to get it fixed for us, with NO help from Travelocity!!  I tried calling them, while she was trying to help us and he just put us on hold the whole time.  When he finally did come back on - he told me, "Sorry - can't help.  You'll have to deal with the airlines."

My daughter and husband and I had to sit by strangers on the way home because the end result only got us seats on the plane, but not together...

Do you know the Travelocity motto?  (or "guarantee" as they like to call it)  "We'll get with our partners to make your trip right, right now!"  Ummm- I'm calling Bull Sh*t!  I must have called and e-mailed them twenty or more times...they still never got the right reservation info on "my trips" online and they offered no sort of apologies or compensation for all their screw-ups.  They suck, suck, suck, suck, suck.

I found this doofus picture of Travelocity's roaming gnome:



I thought it was a good representation of the customer service reps he advertises for.  Or falsly so... I wonder where his chipper little English accent is supposed to come from.  Because that's not at all what I hear when I call...... out-sourcing at it's worst.

"Depranky"

Ok - so I came up with a new word to describe my latest mood:  "Depranky".  Will it catch like wild fire?  I think not.  Unless the one of two people who read my blog on occasion decide to spread it and they both have some serious connections.  :)  So - really, this word is just for me.  Which is ok.  It's basically "cranky depression", where I can be down and out about something and pissed off about that fact all at the same time.  I tried out "Cranpression", but it just doesn't have the right ring to it.  Agreed?  So - I came up with this word and had it all worked out to beyotch and moan for a few paragraphs or so, when I realized that I do that an awful lot.  Man - if you could peruse through the pages of my off-line diary...POOR PITY ME FEST!  Is anyone else like this?  Do you tend to chronicle the not so good days more than the good days?  I worry that my future generations are going to get their little hands on my journals and be like, "Yo, Great Grandma D was wack!"  Ok - that lingo probably won't fly in 2050...I guess you never know.  We've got the 70's/80's clothing experiment in style in 2010, after all.  Still....I'm going to make a conscious effort to write about more positive experiences.  So, my next blog (with pictures!!! woot, woot!) will be about the GOOD things that happened on my recent trip to MA.  I won't bore you with the airport nightmare royale (Travelocity can bite me), so no worries.  Coming soon....my high recommendations for fall fun in New England.  Stay tuned....

Sisterrrrrs....Sisterrrrrs (think Bing! and White Christmas)

I felt inspired to write a little something about sisters.  My little Caitie-bug, in particular.  Why?  Because I FREAKING LOVE HER!!!  She's my mini-me, except nice.  :)  She's also my biggest (if only) fan.  And one of the few people (I'm counting on one hand here) that reads my blog.  So, Cat-lick - this one's for you!!!

Caitlyn Colby is 11 years younger than me.  The way I see it, my mom spat out me (the oldest) and my next two younger sisters, 2 years by 2 years, and we all gave her so much trouble that 7 1/2 years later she decided to try it all over again...starting with mini-me, of course.  But, 4 girls was enough apparently.  There is no mini-Lindsay, no mini-Kelly.  And, of course - I love all my sisters, but Cait and I just seem to have a special bond.

We like a LOT of the same things.  She's the only one I could ever coax into going to the theater with me.  I miss our trips and my season tickets to the Grand Theater on State St. in SLC.  I treasure our trip to the Shakespearean Festival (I maintain, we need to start making that annual!)  Our spur-of-the-moment trip to Grand Junction - lol.  Good times, good times.  Remember - she was so much younger than me that she was single for a bit, while I was married and bored easily.  She was my go-to girl for spontaneous, spend-my-money frivolously trips.  And I know that someday we'll get back to that.  Marriage and kids - it changes a dynamic sometimes.

But, besides that "special bond" - I don't think that anyone could not like Cait. She's a genuine "sweet spirit" - a kindred spirit, really. (I sooo need to re-watch Anne of Green Gables, now...) She's creative and smart and completely modest about all her many talents. She's got the most beautiful smile. A perfect smile. I'll show it to you:

(Don't kill me for posting this one!!  It's the first one I found!!!)  Ok - so, I guess I have to now post the corresponding picture of myself:

That soooo makes us EVEN!!

I have to add an explanation here - because I don't really wear my hair or makeup like this.  No, really.  We were doing "'80's makeover night" and these are the results.  Awesome, right??  Of course, once we started taking pictures, we thought that we might look like something other than '80's flash back chicks.  Here's another picture - remind you of anything?

Yep - that's me, Madame D and my...ummm..."girls".  From left to right - Caitie-bug, Amy (cousin), Karen (cousin), Kelly (sister), and Lindsay (sister).  Aren't we beautiful?  We went to Wal-Mart shortly after this picture was taken.  It was late.  One of the (female) cashiers hit on Kelly.  It was pretty cool.  "Love Shack" at the top of our lungs on the way home with my sun-roof open.....ahhh...memories.

Anyhow - about sisters.  They're GREAT!  Even the ones that aren't related to you.  And my sister Cait - she's one in a million.  Love you, love you!!  Yours - Dog-lick

Impatience is the Fun Killer

Ok - so I drove an hour and a half to the Sundance resort on Friday to check out the Full Moon Lift Ride, the last of the season.  I had my twelve-going-on-twenty-five year old with me...husband's out of town, so this would be a fun little mother/daughter outing, right?  It was a beautiful night, perfect weather, clear sky and a fricking A** load of people!!!!

I swear, Sundance must have been the only date destination in Utah County on Sept. 24th!!  Here I am thinking (and I don't even know why) that I'd found this off-the-beaten-path little adventure to go on and no big deal.  Well, it's a big deal, people.  The place was packed, jumping, hot, hot, hot, and all that.

We had to wait to get in the parking lot to start.  We were directed to the "upper parking lot".  A few hundred twists and turns up the mountain road, past a mish-mash of people walking down the road to where the fun actually was, and I just couldn't do it.  For one...I'm not a fan of hiking.  Downhill's ok, but then to get back from where you started you have to go...UP hill.  Ummm...no.  There was a bus taking people back and forth, which would have been cool.  Except that the bus was the size of a mini-van and the group of people waiting to get on the bus was the size of a (wow - nothing coming to mind here so "insert metaphor" and read on).

I don't like to wait.  And I'm really good at talking myself out of things.  And then justifying it later.  For example...they were selling tickets from 9pm to 11pm only and by the time I'd walked my big butt down that hill ("walk" is being generous...I likely would have tripped on a pebble and rolled downhill) it would have been past 9:30pm and I was pretty convinced I would have been turned away at the ticket window.

So...we left.  Our big adventure that night was walking around Winco.  Neither of us had been in one in Utah.  I bought some Spinach dip.  Awesome....

Things to do in Utah when you're dead. Ummm...dead bored, that is!

Ok - so I started this puppy in 2007 and I only have 21 posts.  You did see the "procrastination" title, didn't you?  Lucky for me nobody follows this thing, anyhow.  Or is it...?  So - I posted a link to my so-called "blog" on my FB account.  I guess I'll see shortly if anyone pays attention.  I did have an inkling to look through my posts to make sure I haven't written anything that I don't want other people to see.  I guess that's the positive thing about having a blog than nobody reads.  I can write whatever I want and get away with it.  Well, NO MORE!!  :)

Btw - I decided to leave everything as is...so if you do happen to peruse past posts...I apologize in advance.

But - I'm going to try to get better at posting things on a regular basis.  I'm going to try even harder to make it interesting.  Because, let's face it.  My life is one slow ride on the lame train.  Hmm..."One Slow Ride on the Lame Train."  That could be an interesting title for a book....   I digress.

Oh!  Also - I'm going to (at some point) integrate pictures into my post.  That makes it more interesting, right?  Pictures?  And if I'm really in a crazy mood some night - I might even mess around with the design!!!

But, for now - I'll just blog about tonight's title.  Because - even if I procrastinate doing any of things - there's still fun to be had for people who actually pre-plan and get their butts out of the house on the weekends.

Ok - so here's my FUN thing for today:  Full Moon Tram Rides at Sundance Resort!!!!  Totally awesome, right??  Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks that would just be the coolest thing ever??!  The last one they are doing for the summer is actually this weekend - 9/23 thru 9/25.  The lift goes up at 9pm.  Here's a link to more information:  http://www.sundanceresort.com/explore/sum_lift_rides_fm.html

I don't know about you, but I have this little secret love affair with the moon.  I know popular mythology deems the moon female, but I've always thought it was a "he".  I don't know why.  But - for a chance to get up close and personal.  Plus...umm...BEAUTIFUL!!!  This one I actually am going to do - so if anyone would like to come along - I'm thinking Friday or Saturday night might be good.

I do have 1 or 2 or 3 more suggestions for fun this weekend:

1 - Don't pass up the opportunity to hit a Farmer's Market before they end!  The one in Ogden on 25th Street is always good.

2 - Oktoberfest at Snowbird!!!  This is another one I've been wanting to go to.  End on Oct. 5th.  Here's a link to more info on this one: www.snowbird.com/events/concertsnfestivals/oktoberfest.html

3 - Do you like crafts?  I somehow stumbled across this event last year - the Simple Treasures Craft Boutique at the Davis County Fairgrounds Legacy Center.  This sucker was massive!!!  So many crafts, it made my head spin!  But, very cool.  It starts this Wednesday, 9/22 thru Saturday.  Here's a link for info and time:  http://www.daviscountyutah.gov/calendar_item.cfm?calendar_item_id=5085

4 - And then of course there is Witchapalooza and Witches Night out at Gardner Village.  SOOOO much fun.  The Witchapalooza dinner theater is totally worth the $$$  You sing, you dance, you eat, you dress up, you LAUGH!  This is a must.  Seriously.  Check it out.  And Witches Night Out?  Awesome!  Linky link: http://www.gardnervillage.com/

5 - Let's see, let's see....ahh, yes.  "Thriller"  I'm going to see it at Tuacahn this year.  I'll have to post pics.  Soooo excited!!!

I'm sure there's something I'm missing, but this is a good start, right?  Of course - there's always the haunted houses to go to.  A fun GNO!!

But - I'm sleepy and I have to work in the morning, so I'd better sign off.  So - plan fun things and I'll check in later!  Sweet dreams - :)

Spewing...Good Day, Bad Day? You decide...

Ok - so, I think I just have to keep true to myself.  I really am the Queen of Procrastination.  I think I'm going to have to ditch the whole spontaneous daily writing project, because - as you can see - the last "daily" was 3 months ago.  Basically, I suck.  So - that's out the window.  Oh well.  I move on.  Not necessarily forward, but...on.

And if you're not in the mood for a serious bitchfest - I'd pass on reading the rest of this right now.  It's basically a sad, pathetic, lonely, midnight spewing.  Self-deprecating blah, blah, blahs.  A demonstration of complete and utter idiocy.  You know, that sort of thing.

Ok - so, here goes.  I decided a few months ago that it's high time I actually got really, really serious about my writing and trying to get published.  So, I joined back up with the League of UT Writers (LUW).  I'd joined a year or so ago, but the few times I tried to find the "group" session on the designated night in the designated area...no one was ever there.  I was supposed to be getting a newsletter, which I never received (found out later they had my e-mail add wrong...)  so, when it came time to renew my membership, I passed.  Well, I decided to give it another try.  So, I looked up the website - realized I was right in time for the annual Fall Roundup workshops, so I signed up for that.  I renewed/restarted my membership.  I picked a new chapter of the league from the one I previously tried to go to and could never find.  I was drawn to this chapter by their info page.  They seemed really involved and organized and stuff.  And it really seems that they are.  I've only been to one session so far - but, there were lots of (what seemed) dedicated writers there.  The problem is this...they seemed really close knit.  Every one there knew every one else, except for me, of course. 

And if you know anything about me....well, I get mistaken for stuck-up and intimidating and crap like that all the time.  The truth is - I'm deathly shy.  I'm not embellishing here.  Put in the wrong type of social situation, I'm convinced I could seriously have a heart attack and die.  I've been this way since childhood, for as long as I can remember.  I mean, I'm so frickin' scared of strangers that I'd rather do really stupid things, like walk home on a busy road in the dark, not knowing if I'm going the wrong way or not, miles and miles away from home when I'm dropped off for a class I later find is cancelled, because I'm too terrified to ask a stranger if I can use the phone to call my parents up.  I was younger, of course.  This was pre-cell phone era.  But, what I'm saying here is that my social anxiety has been a constant.  I'm side-tracking...ok, so new group - no one really pays attention to me.  That's that.

I go to the roundup a month later by myself.  I guess I should be "net-working" and I was nice and I did try to talk to people.  But, they generally politely answer me back and then go their separate ways.  But, anyhow - I decide to just focus on the classes I want to go to.  I sit by myself.  I take it all in.  I make mental notes about what I'm learning to help me with a one-on-one I have towards the end of the workshop sessions. 

I think I'm pretty prepared for the one-on-one pitch.  Until I go to a panel with the agents and some others earlier in the day.  They mention that part of them accepting a book is also accepting the person who wrote it - in terms of marketing.  Basically, I have to be marketable.  Ok - shit!  Cue panic!  I can't even sell myself to myself!  But, I try to stay calm.  Rub the lucky ring on my finger.  Go over my thoughts and preparations in my head.  I'm good, I tell myself.  I'm calm.  I'll do just fine.  I'll make a joke.  Yeah - it's all good.

My one-on-one with the agent was a holy freaking nightmare.  I was a complete spaz.  I walked in prepared to give my one-liner "hook", to intro myself really well, to mention I'd read a few on-line interviews she'd given, to explain my book really well, but not give too much away, to be cool, calm, collected - tell my prepared joke.  Well, folks - I can tell you that NONE of that came out of my big, fat mouth.  NONE of it.  Not one SINGLE thing I had planned.  We spent the majority of the time with me trying again and again to explain what my book was about.  She was completely confused (all my fault).  I didn't even tell her the title of the damn thing up front!!  I gave EVERYTHING away - no mystery.  No cliffhangers.  No wittiness.   No jokes.  No mention of my (small) writing credentials.  No evidence at all that I'd done some research about her (which I had).  Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, done.  Basically, I was a freak.  She even told me how to submit (I think this was a courtesy to everyone who'd paid to meet with her, because - what does she care.  She gets thousands of unsolicited queries all the time and all she has to do is tell an assistant to watch for Donea's dumb-ass query and "No, no, no!!") and I questioned the process.  I know it was just a courtesy anyways because at no time did she say that "Oh, I really like your idea."  "Oh, this is perfect for me!"  After the initial confusion, her words were general and vague and could apply to any old writer off the street.  I blew it.  Big time.  I left right after it was over and cried all the way home.

AND this meeting interrupted one of the few workshops I went to that I really enjoyed and would have been really beneficial and was presented by an up and coming author and established blogger (Elana Johnson) who I immediately identified with and thought was totally hilarious and really knew what she was talking about and thought that maybe she was someone I could approach and talk to.  I never got the chance.

I don't know.  I learned some really helpful things.  But, at the same time I also learned some hard truths about today's market and marketability of the author and if it comes down to trying to sell me along with my writing than I'm pretty convinced that I will never, ever be published.  Unless, of course, I self-publish.  Which, I suppose, is an option.  But, the dream was to do it the traditional way.  But "me-in-person" is going to screw that up every time.  I know it.  I've never been good with strangers, public speaking, blah.  It doesn't matter how prepared I am...I get in front of someone I don't know and my heart races, my mouth drys out, my voice shakes, my hands shake, my eyes go wide, and my mind goes completely blank.  Or incoherent.  It happens this way every single time.  I don't know...maybe I need medication for this or something.  I think if people gave me a chance - were patient with me and really got to know me - they'd like me, and I wouldn't come off as such an idiotic psycho.  Sadly, in today's world...and in the writing world - if you don't "hook" right away - you're left in the slush....

(*later comment...but, will I do it all over again?  You bet!  Glutton for punishment?  Maybe.  But - truly sad is the person who gives up on their dream completely, so... humiliations galore?  Bring it on!)

MMH - Chapter 1:Part 3

Or maybe it was just Holly that these sorts of humiliating things happened to.  She was never really good with speaking her mind out loud.  So Holly would jot it down instead.  She felt she expressed herself better in written words.  What she probably meant to say is that it was easier for her to spew a bunch of crap through pen on a piece of paper than out of her mouth.  So, rather than telling Mike that she thought he was a smoking hot babe, she wrote him a note.  Take that one step further?  An anonymous little love note from a "secret admirer".  She kept this up for a few weeks before she garnered enough courage to ask for "the meeting".

Well, he knew it was her all along, apparently.  And he wasn't interested.  And he didn't show up.  And - he sort of tormented her for the rest of junior high.  But, we're getting ahead of the story a bit. 

It made Holly a little gun-shy around boys.

Still - at the moment, she really wished he had come to the party anyways.  The group gathered in some of the first few rows in the theater - loud, full of pop and popcorn, heels kicked up on the seats in front of them and laughing out loud.  They settled a bit when the movie started, but Holly was restless.  Amy and Hill couldn't seem to sit still either, despite Corey's on-screen appeal.

"Cherry, we'll be right back," Holly whispered to her friend.

The strange boy, Chuck, was on Cherry's left and he seemed to be tickling her side.  Cherry giggled and non-chalantly shooed Holly and the other two girls away.

"Worried about missing the movie?" Amy asked.

"Nah.  We can always come back next weekend or something."

The theater lobby was pretty deserted, except for a girl or a boy here and there entering and exiting the restrooms.  Even the concession stand was closed.

"I kind of just want to walk," Holly said. 

"Around the lobby?" Hill asked.

"Outside.  Just for a second.  What do you think?"

But, "just for a second", wasn't a possibility once the girls were on the outside and the doors clicked locked behind them.

Molly-Mo Holly - Chapter 1: Part 2

Yes, Holly was a pretty good girl, by most standards.

And most of her friends were pretty "good", too.  Any parties they ever had or invited eachother to featured root beer and licorice and truth-or-dare.  Or trips to the mall, which was where Holly was headed tonight.  Her friend Cherry was having a birthday party at the theater in the Newgate Mall.  The movie?  License to Drive.  Corey Haim was so cute!  Holly was totally psyched.

She picked her curly hair into a full-bodied bob and lined her eyes in black.  She brushed on seafoam green eyeshadow to match her top and paired the look with her favorite pair of light blue denim cutoff shorts.  Modest cutoffs, of course.  They had to be just an inch above the knee.  White sandals and a pink gloss to her lips finished the look off just right.

Her mom drove, picking up one of Holly's best friends along the way.  Amy Callahan was the kind of girl that made up for her chubby figure with an infectious personality.  She was possibly even a little over the top at times.  But Holly loved it.  Amy was so fun and full of life and you couldn't help laughing when she laughed, which was pretty much all the time.  She was adorable - Holly wouldn't think otherwise.  But, she was a big girl and boys were petty.  Not to mention she had reddish hair, braces and freckles to boot.

"Corey Haim will totally be my boyfriend," Amy predicted, her head snaked back and forth as she said this with a click, click of her fingers.  "You know he wants him a little of this."

Holly smiled over the terrible thought in her head - "I don't even have a boyfriend.  What chance has she got, really?"

Holly hid her hands behind her back and dug her nails into her palm.  She didn't enjoy the judgemental, rude, and thoroughly uncalled for thoughts that would pop up in her brain sometimes.  Who was she to judge, anyhow?  It didn't matter if her friend Milly had vomit breath or that Jeni had a big butt.  They were her friends.  "Bad Holly," she thought.

"You girls have fun.  Be good," her mom said as she dropped them off.

"Always," the two of them said in unison and giggled.

The movie didn't start until after 9pm so the group of girls gathered in the food court for big soft pretzels and diet coke.  Holly met Cherry Lerner when they were lumped together as locker partners in 7th grade.  Cherry, bless her soul, wasn't a very cute girl.  The meaner boys at school would say that she kind of looked like a man.  She always kept her hair neatly short and never wore one ounce of makeup.  And she always wore baggy jeans and big, boyish t-shirts or polos.  But, she was a nice girl.  A bit clingy, perhaps, but she made you feel like you were her bestest friend in the whole wide world.  It was kind of endearing.

None of the girls at Cherry's party were part of the "upper class".  They weren't popular.  But, they weren't unpopular, either.  They were sort of in the middle.  Aside from Cherry, Amy and Holly - Hillary, Millie and a boy named Chuck were at the mall for Cherry's birthday.  It was a decent gathering.  Holly had hoped that Cherry's cute neighbor and fellow almost 9th grader, Mike, had shown up.  Holly had had a crush on this boy since she first laid eyes on him on the first day of 7th grade French class.

Mike Lentel had to be the cutest boy at North Junior High.  And he knew that Holly had a crush on him.  And how did he find out?  Well, it was one of those epic humiliating moments that inevitably befalls every teenage girl.

Molly-Mo Holly Meets The Mountain Time Mob - Chapter 1

Holly Sinclair was a good girl, by most standards.  She hadn't liked it much when the term "Molly-Mo" was tagged to the front of her name by a jilted 9th-grader Jeno Monolith, whose crush she'd crushed at the end-of-year stomp last spring.  He'd secretly liked Holly for a year or two and had finally worked up the courage to ask her out.  The little love note he'd slipped her in Geometry class had been cute.  He'd drawn heart-shaped balloons on the front of it, with smily faces.  But the words inside the note seemed like they were written by a third-grader with a silly infatuation, more than a out-going 9th grader with a serious crush.  And Holly didn't go for the dumb ones.

Was that rude, she wondered?  And he wasn't that cute.  Although, her mom constantly told her that looks weren't everything.  Was he a nice boy, she'd ask?  Ok.  Well, yes.  He was nice enough, Holly thought.  But, it didn't matter one way or the other if he was nice, or smart, or really cute.  She was only fifteen and she couldn't date until she was sixteen.  Not necessarily couldn't, but certainly wouldn't.  And she let Jeno know this at the dance last year.  And he had deemed her a goody-two-shoe molly mormon girl, or molly-mo for short.  And though he'd be leaving to go to Highschool and she'd just be starting 9th grade at the start of the new school year, the name stuck.  And she hadn't liked it one bit.  Not until she realized that she really was essentially a "molly-mo" and quite proud of it!

She remembered how shocked she was to see the birth-control pills sitting on the top shelf of Kelly Wood's locker - the stuck-up rich girl who'd lockered next to her in seventh grade.  Rumor had it Kelly was even already getting lipo-suction and drinking beer at Matt Parkinson's big bash "folks-out-of-town" parties he seemed to have way too often.  Were his parents ever at home, she wondered?  Of course, Holly was never invited to any of these parties, so she couldn't say for sure what went on there.  But, it was her firm belief that every rumor was based on just a little bit of truth, no matter how far-fetched it seemed to be.  Plus, she really had seen the pills.  And Kelly totally seemed the type.

Try as she might, Holly tried really hard not to think these things about the "upper-class" at North Junior High.  It's not that she didn't fit in.  She was relatively thin and she was pretty cute.  She had nice hair.  At least, that's what her friends told her.  After the "i-looked-like-an-ugly-boy" 7th-grade yearbook picture debauckle of 1986, Holly had let her hair grow long and had it permed in long twisty curls.  And she was always complimented on her blue eyes.  Her grandma  had said they were almond-shaped "bedroom" eyes, and if Holly didn't know what that meant, to ask her mother. 

But, good physical attributes didn't seem to matter as much as good physical location to the students of North Junior High.  And the physical location of the home that Holly grew up in was towards the bottom of the social ladder.  "Wrong side of the tracks", it might have been deemed, if she'd lived by any railroad tracks.  She had her small group of friends and she was good at staying "under the social radar" at school.  But, there were no parties.  No invites to the crazy spring break trips that the upper class went on.  It kept her good, though - she'd convinced herself.  She'd much rather be a "Molly-Mo" than a "Holly-Ho".

Well...there's got to be at least 1 post a year...

I profess to be a writer, but I am certainly not a blogger. Does that seem contradictory somehow? Perhaps this is the reason why I am not yet published. No follow through. No daily writing ethic. No focus. No....just no. I do happen to follow the blog of a the girl (woman, now - I guess) who is known as the bitty my first ever boyfriend dumped me for when I was 15. I freaked out when he tried to french kiss me and then he cheated on me with an older woman (she was 16 and apparently not freaked out by french kissing). They used to torture me a little (damned 3-way calling!!!) Some of the details blur with age, but I could swear she 3-way called me (I thought it was only "2-way") and gave me some crap story about how she and this boy broke up and what a jerk he was and got me to spill some stuff I'm sure I wouldn't have spilled otherwise and "let's be best friends now" and blah, blah, blah. I found out later of course that she was only messing with me and she and the boy were happy as clams, laughing the night away at my utter pathetic-ness (is that a word?)

Anyhow - to make a convoluted story have a point, I spied a wall post of hers through a mutual friend of ours and found that she had a blog. So, of course, I promptly looked it up hoping SOOO much that she was fat and losery. She wasn't. In fact, I'm rather envious of her life. She's an accomplished photographer. She and her husband have their own photography business, which he seems to run now so that she can be home to blog wonderfully, raise her kids, make all sorts of wonderful crafts, cook gourmet meals, garden in her very lovely back yard, travel, and live life to her very enjoyable and enviable fullest. And the thing is...she's witty, funny, a GREAT writer, immensly talented and I think, under different circumstances, we could have been friends. Is that crazy? I did comment on her blog and let her know who I am. She was quite nice about it, but I felt that if I pushed the communication she'd think I was some psycho, out-for-revenge, ex-girlfriend-of-my-ex-boyfriend stalker person. Or maybe it's all in my head?

I still don't know if I know what I'm getting at...anyhow! She's quite dedicated to her blog. It's humorous and real and fun and I'm still jealous. But, if anyone at all reads this darn thing (and I don't blame you if you don't...there's never much to read here) you should check it out: www.sansomfamily.com It's lovely.

And, it's really starting to get under my skin. In a good way (I think). I don't know that anyone will ever really read or follow my blog. Heck! I'm just some random nobody out there that wished she had something of value to write on a daily basis that might brighten the tiny world of some other random person. But, let's get real here. I'll likely be writing this for myself. And I'm ok with that. It's a good writing exercise for an aspiring writer - after all.

So - I think this also calls for a blog name change. Queen of Procrastination NO MORE!! I turned 36 recently and heck...JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book when she was 32. I'm running late! I don't even have a nibble from an agent yet. I need to go BALLS OUT at it and make my dream come true!! Or try my damndest!! (again - word?) I don't know if I have a good title for this new blog of mine or not. I'm thinking of writing an on-the-fly serial novel. What do you think? No edits, no re-writes, just spontaneous writing of some on-the-fly plot that comes as I sit here to write this blog. Something completely NEW! I have so many ideas in my head....works in progress...but, this will be something I come up with on the spot - like right now....ummm......a story about....a shy 15-year old girl who's the picture of propriety and crazy only in her head. Her friends may find her a little boring, but if they could just slip inside her brain for 5-minutes...wow. What a picture they would see. A look into the seedy, underbelly of junior high and high school, secret crushes, secret secrets, friendships won and friendships lost...through the eyes of a girl named Holly Sinclair. (that just came to me) She's a 9th grader...ok, now a (working) title....hmmm....."Molly-mo Holly meets the Mountain Time Mob". Seriously, folks. I'm making this stuff up as it comes along....

Shall I do a chapter 1? Maybe I'll start that in a new post....so, I hope anyone who stumbles across this enjoys it just a little? Wish me luck!!!! :) - D