Breast in, Breast Out

Let me make this clear: I do not enjoy writing about sex.

I do not include salacious slobbery sex scenes in my books because I’m trying to be whats-her-name James. I’m not writing erotica. I’m writing real life. In my real life there’s sex - just not in dungeons or sex clubs or tied up in a hayloft or whatever. It usually happens in my bed. Sometimes with candles if I’m lucky.

Once in the back of a car at a forest preserve because I’m soooooo experimental and thrive on risk-taking.

It would be much easier if I had some experience in this area. Well… clearly I have some experience, but not anything that doesn’t fall into the realm of the extremely ordinary. Writing about sex wouldn’t be so difficult if I cared for porn at all. Or if I wasn’t so backwards. 

So, I’m at the point in the sequel to Up the Hill where I have to write another sex scene. I’ve already written several of these passages with various supporting characters and I’ve run out of descriptors. I have reasonable experience to draw upon for this particular episode, but I do not have a large enough appropriate vocabulary.

Okay, that’s not altogether accurate. I do have the vocabulary. I just want to be tasteful. Not boring, you understand - I want the reader to get as much out of the scene as the ‘fictional’ couple ‘doing it,’ but I don’t want to be gross.

Why are all the words describing sex so gross? Sex isn’t gross. Sex is fun. Particularly with someone who knows what he (or she) is doing…  but the words used to describe body parts, certain.. um… activities…  it’s hard to - I mean it’s difficult to not sound like I’m writing a letter to the Penthouse forum.

I’m watching my son at Tae Kwon Do while I write this. The Korean master just said, “Breast In. Breast out.” Maybe I could use that.

I think he meant breath. Ooops.

Still….  I could maybe use that.

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert)

My Summer Vacation

It’s the end of my first week of summer vacation.

And it's the last week of it because summer school starts on Monday.

So I’m sitting here at noon, in my robe and slippers. My face feels gritty because it hasn’t been washed yet today and I want to go wash it, but I promised myself I’d write this blog post first.

And I’m writing because of the myriad things I told myself I’d get done this week, writing was the top priority.

That - and signing my divorce papers, but I did that unceremoniously last night at the bank in front of their notary public with a yellow Chase Bank pen that I thought about asking for afterwards to commemorate the occasion but I didn't. I signed the papers and she stamped them and then I drove them to my soon-to-be ex’s house and put them inside the Weber grill on the back patio as he requested. Not to burn them, you understand, but because he thought that was a safe place and he didn’t want them in the mailbox and he certainly didn’t want me in his house while he was gone. Or any other time.

So that’s done and now I’m writing. I wrote several pages in the sequel and went back and found some glaring chronological errors in the early chapters and fixed those and now I’m writing this blog post, which, so far, if you hadn’t noticed, is about nothing.

I was going to write about wine today because I haven’t written about wine for a while. Except on Twitter, where I mention wine about every third word. But I don’t really feel like writing about wine, believe it or not. I feel like drinking it, but it’s only noon, so I’ll wait a few more hours.

The new neighbors have a big dog that barks most of the day when they’re not home. It’s distracting. He’s barking now. Wooof.  (pause) Wooof. (pause) Wooof.  (ad infinitum)

On the table to my right is a stack of papers I have to fill out for my new part time job. To my left is a book about teaching yoga to children, which I have to do next week at summer school. The vacuum cleaner is behind me waiting ever so patiently. All of those things I can put off until after I wash my face.

But writing can’t wait.

There isn’t anything else. In the end, that’s all that’ll be left of me. My writing.

I’m going to go wash my face now.

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert) 

Read Between the Phones

I came home with a new phone yesterday. I wasn’t going to get a new phone yet, but my daughter needed a new one since she dropped her year-old slider into the toilet. She’s going off to camp and needs a phone. Kids didn’t take phones to camp in the olden days, but that’s beside the point.

I’m an Apple girl. I’ve had nothing but Apple computers for the last ten years. I was an early adopter of the iPad. I don’t run without my Nike+ app on my iPod. Of course I had an iPhone 4. Of course I wanted another iPhone.

Wait. There’s a backstory.

Flashback - 2008. Verizon, our wireless carrier, does not yet have the iPhone and everyone knows AT&T sucks, so I get a Blackberry Storm which the Verizon salesman assured me was everything the iPhone was and more.

It wasn’t. It was less.

I was happy at first to have the Storm. It made me feel like I’d caught up with everyone else and gotten a smart phone. For a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months, the Storm made me happy enough. Then it really started pissing me off. The shiny newness wore off quickly and it didn’t pull its telecommunications weight. I started to hate it. The more I saw how happy everyone else was with their iPhones, the more I hated the Storm. I think, if it’s possible, the Storm hated me just as much. I couldn’t wait until my contract was eligible for an upgrade.

The exact day of my upgrade eligibility I walked into the Verizon store and plunked down my money for the iPhone 4. The iPhone immediately did for me everything the Storm had never done. I was infatuated. “If I could marry it, I would,” I said. Over the life of the contract, it became a part of my everyday existence, but with time the shiny newness faded as it does with any long-term relationship and my iPhone became utilitarian. It met my basic needs but offered nothing more to engage my interest. Even so, I went about my days, never separated from my phone. I didn't know there was anything different.

But then my daughter’s slider slid into the toilet and I had a decision to make. I had to decide whether to let her go to camp phoneless or whether to give her what she needed. My only real choice was to give her my iPhone 4 and use my upgrade to go get the 5, even though the 6 is probably due out in a matter of weeks.

Flash forward to yesterday. I walk into the Verizon store and tell the two cheerful, helpful, and enthusiastic young men that I want the iPhone 5. They shake their heads at me. “Look at you,” they say. “You’re going places. You’re young. You’re smart. Why do you want to stick with a phone that can’t meet your needs?” They show me the Samsung Galaxy S4.

It’s love at first sight. I hadn't realized that my tech needs weren't being met but I do now. This phone does everything I want it to do. It takes beautiful pictures. It lets me know when it needs attention, but it’s not obnoxious about it like the Storm was. It plays nice with my other electronic friends better even than the iPhone. This phone is truly a smart phone. I’ve had the S4 for twenty-four hours and I know I’ve just scratched the surface of this happy relationship.

The boys at the store were right. I had outgrown the iPhone. Even though there was an iPhone 5 promising to keep me interested, there wasn’t enough there under the surface to convince me to stay.

I’ll take care of the S4 and I know it will take care of me. I know, however, that I’ll have to keep learning about this phone and how we can work together. I know from past experience that the shiny newness does wear off and sometimes it takes work to find new features to use and love. Otherwise, I may find myself itching for an upgrade long before the contract is up.

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert)