These days, a green inflatable dinosaur is the only objet d’art in my foyer.

I’m about to redecorate the first room in my house, or foyer. The entrance to my home. But I’m kind of stumped on what to do with it.

It used to be a living room, and then an office, but when the kids arrived it was too hard to keep baby-proofed so I just stripped it of most things. I moved my office furniture into my bedroom, and I use another room for the living room. Now I have a mostly empty room, containing only cheap barren bookshelves, and other crap I’ve outgrown. Baby-proofing will not be much of an issue soon, but kid-friendly will be necessary (ie: paintings and books on the wall – ok, but glass sculptures teetering on skinny end tables – NOT OK).

So, NOW what do I do with the room?

I’ve pondered making a library out of it, but since I’m minimizing my book collection now, that option is out. Then I thought office again, but I’m not sure I want my desk right by the front door where the incoming can molest my paperwork. Hey, I’m neat ok! Then I considered just leaving it looking shitty and I could park my bikes in it and hang a gun-rack on the wall like a little garage. But not even *I* am that tomboyish regarding a foyer.

Then I thought about going minimalist and hanging art in it, perhaps putting a chaise lounge under the window. Alas, I know nothing about art. Yes, yes, I know, I live in Nola, lots of great artists, etc. But I’m a photography person. My walls are either covered in prints of my photography, or maps. I love maps too. But I’m trying to be a grown-up and diversify a bit. Still, if I’m going to hang art on my wall it better mean something to me.

So now I’m wondering where to start. Where does one find quality (middle class affordable) art in Nola? I’ll need a few pieces of a decent size. Aren’t those White Linen and Dirty Linen nights coming up soon? They any good? I’ve never been to one. I’m such a cavegirl. Somebody needs to blog a local beginner’s guide to buying art in Nola. The last thing I want to do is buy tourist art.

Anyway, I’m off to sketch out ideas.

When I was a kid I wanted to live in a library. Like the cramped gothic ones you see in Harry Potter movies, except I dreamt of those before she wrote about it. I remember the first time I went to Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris when I was 24. I saw a guy sleeping in fetal position on a red velvet cushion near the window – surrounded by books. That was my dream home.

Today my real house is a humble New Orleans version of that. I have high distressed shelving filled with books (and the dust they collect). Though now the bottom three shelves are filled with baby books for my toddlers to ‘read’. I’m pretty minimalist when it comes to material things. Most of the stuff I value would fit in a backpack. But books have always been my hoarding holdout. I buy them without thought. If I want to read, I read. To me there can never be too much money spent on continuing education. And even if you’re reading pop or smut, this pleasure costs a pittance compared to most hobbies, or even addictions. I rarely throw any away, and I still have some paperbacks from high school on the shelves, underlined with what I thought was important 20 years ago.

But about seven months ago my philosophy began to change. I was running out of places to put books because of the baby-proofing, and I knew the kids would have to be a few years old before I could put any valuables back out on display. So I looked into eReaders and bought a B&N Nook in January. My intention was to eliminate all paperbacks and replace them with eBooks, and then only purchasing harcover books in titles I deemed worthy. I’ve kept at this plan for most of the year, but my response has been different from what I expected…

I thought I’d have to force myself to use the eReader over paper books, not the other way around. But after the initial techno-glitches and learning one’s way around a new gadget, I was hooked. In fact, now, when I find a title worthy of being put on the hardcover shelf I grumble because it’s too heavy and hard to hold while snuggled in the bed compared to the eReader. Plus, I can have any book, at any moment, anywhere. Kinda hard to beat that. The thing does have a few drawbacks but I suspect the next version will fix it.

So this has me rethinking if I need paper books at all. Which paper books do I want to keep? Definitely no more paperbacks, mainly because they don’t last. Reference? Why bother, since we use the internet to look everything up. And yet, the idea of having no paper books makes me very sad. This item, the portable written word, which has been with the human race since its first civilization thousands of years ago, and one of the few common objects we share with our ancient ancestors – now destroyed by Amazon.com?

I don’t fucking think so.

But how to rescue quality paper books and still be practical? Once technology is on a roll there is no stopping it. The eReader, and whatever comes after it, will destroy the book as we know it. Which leaves us with only one option to saving the paper book from extinction.

The paper book must now be considered collectible art.

Like book collectors do with their first editions and inspections of book bindings. Perhaps eReaders may rescue the art of exquisite book-crafting from the tacky “mass market paperback”. So instead of the rooms I have filled with books right now, I will have one or two bookshelves filled with quality editions of books that resonate with me. Book that shaped my life, and continue to inspire me. Books that I will read over and over. Books I wish to pass onto my children. Books that will teach me how to stitch a wound when the power is out (hey, I live in New Orleans, a survivalist shelf couldn’t hurt).

But seriously, whether we like it or not, the book, like recorded music, will be almost entirely digital at some point. And the bookshelf, like the shelf you had made to fit compact dics and DVDs, will soon be obsolete. But that doesn’t mean it has to die. My husband Q, for instance, still collects a small amount of vinyl music albums because he likes the sound quality. Perhaps I will follow his lead and buy books this way too. Because sometimes you just like to live in the non-digital world, and remember what it’s like to be human, and really feel things.

“The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy, one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots. He looks in the mirror and sees GI Joe. Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods, the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility. It purges pride and preciousness.” -Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

My favorite book on the craft of writing, by far, is Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. It’s really intended for anyone in a creative field, but Pressfield is a writer. It’s so like me to gravitate to a book that kicks you in the ass. Pressfield does not sugar coat anything, and you get the impression he’s trying to scare you into quitting – to separate the hardcore from the pussies (he is a former marine who writes war fiction).

He is mean to me. And I love him for it. Because in this field (or any creative field), there’s no room for whiners. I dare you to not be a puddle or tears or a determined hard-ass after you read this book. If I didn’t know better I’d swear I was related to the guy.

The entire book is quotable to me, but here’s some of my faves:

“If you’re paralyzed with fear, it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.”

“The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.”

“What are we trying to heal anyway. The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt.”

“The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior, or a dread-free artist.”

“It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, then to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify, seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer, or jam a nine millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying, and always full of shit”

“You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement, but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.”

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own” -Bruce Lee

I’m a busy person. Writing, property managing, parenting, and hobbies upon hobbies… The way I get it all done is through a radical devotion to calendars and to-do lists. It’s not a perfect system, as anything that involves a human never is. But my productivity level is higher than average, so I thought I’d share some of the technical tricks I use. Even if you only use some of these it will probably help you get organized, and even better, less stressed out! It wasn’t until I had children that I realized how much time I wasted before. Now I get more done with two toddlers than I did back when I was a childless professional… and party animal. Embrace the planning!

1. Google Calendar: There have been a million posts on how awesome gCalendar is so I won’t dwell on this topic too long. It IS the best. Not only can you check it online, but it sync’s with your smartphone so you can refer to it anywhere. For me, the huge draw is sending ‘invites’ to my husband who forgets everything. So many websites use gCal now that all you have to do is click the “Add To My Calendar” button and you’re all set up. Get one!

2. Google Documents: People can use this for all different applications, but I use it for to-do lists. Mainly one document, which I have titled “BRAIN DUMP”. Brain Dump is where I write all kinds of disorganized thoughts like: throw out the leftovers in the fridge, pay the kids’ tuition, write that article you’ve been putting off, burn your fucking house down, call so-and-so to meet-up for coffee, or re-do all the front landscaping. It’s important to get all of this stuff out somewhere – a purgatory for thoughts waiting to be judged before they can go to calendar heaven. Seriously, not every thought you have is ready to be on a calendar yet. Sometimes you don’t know WHEN you can do something, but you still HAVE to do it. This means you store it in your cluttered head and unknowingly stress about it because you know you have something to do, but you can’t quite put a finger on it. Anyway, you need a physical place to put all this crap, and that’s why I created Brain Dump. The great thing about Google Docs is that you can also check it/add to it on the go if you have a smartphone. If you have an iPhone I found a great app called Notemaster that replaces the useless “Notes” app and actually syncs with your Google Docs. Now I can add to Brain Dump wherever I am so my head can stay clear. Finally, every evening, when I’m reviewing my gCal for the next day, I open up Brain Dump to see if I’m ready to transfer any of the items on it yet. No fleeting thoughts left behind!

3. Life Binder: Regardless of your lifestyle you can benefit from one of these – an actual physical place to ponder your life/goals/plans. I know in our high tech times it seems silly to put together a paper system at all, but I find that getting away from the distracting glowy screen and sitting thoughtfully with this binder is very inspiring and helpful. Electronics are not totally reliable, and you should have a backup like this to refer to in case your phone and laptop die. And sometimes, when you’re feeling overwhelmed and cluttered, this binder will bring you back to a nice peaceful center, beautifully displaying the order in your life, and spreading it all out before you (not hidden or nested in computer files). So yeah, go to the office supply store and get a full size binder that zips up (they look like grown-up Trapper Keepers), and a bunch of divider tabs with labels. Now sit down and think of all the major categories of your life. Everyone’s should have sections labeled Calendars & Planning (printouts of monthly gCalendar, handwritten notes) and Contacts & Info (printouts of all emergency/important phone numbers and addresses), but after that they can be a mixture of things, for example: Home Maintenance Projects, Career (college goals, side-projects, general ambitions), Finances (budget, goals for investing or debt killing, insurance/tax info, etc), Food (grocery lists, cooking menu, diet goals), Children (school schedules, parent volunteering), Hobbies (obligations to groups you’re in, personal goals, time you have to dedicate to it), or Exercise (workout routine, goals/plans for body/weight). Some people can do even more specialized sections like Music Band (schedule of upcoming gigs, sloppy notes for new songs), or personally I have a Gardening section where I keep a list/journal of all the plants I’ve tried to grow and accidentally murdered (so I won’t make the same mistakes again). Tailor it to your own needs.

So that’s the basics. The only hard part is setting it up because it takes a chunk of time. But after that it saves you time. I don’t even have to think about it anymore. The moment I have a thought that requires later attention I pull out my iPhone and jot it down. Stress all GONE.

Tip: Try not to get wrapped up in “features”. Just because software CAN do something doesn’t mean you should use it. Keep it simple. Notemaster can suck you in with all its bells and whistles, but I just use it to dump notes and sync to my Google Documents.

Today is the first day of hurricane season and I’ve just about finished up my preparations. This year I put together supplies for both options: a) pack and evac or b) stay and pray.

Ok, so I don’t pray. But I freak out pretty well.

The hurricane season forecast was just released and the verdict is “Worst season ever!” This cracks me up. They say that EVERY year. Nothing sells news like panic. You never hear them say “Sheesh! This year is gonna be weak!” My take is, prep for the worst, and hope for the best. That way, all of these predictions are irrelevant. You just go about your life and when a major storm becomes an actual threat, then you can make up your mind – because you prepared beforehand.

That said, I don’t normally prep quite this much for hurricane season, but now that I have two toddlers I thought a more specific plan was necessary. This week I bought the rest of my supplies and wrote up lists for both options. This way I can decide whether to stay or go based on the magnitude of the storm rather than if I have the supplies or not. The lists simply tell me what items to gather and what things to do so I don’t have to stress about it when a storm is approaching the Gulf of Mexico (which will likely shove a big wall of crude oil into the state too, but that’s another story).

Initially when I made the lists I laughed out loud. I thought leaving would be so much more complicated, you know, imagine the horror – two (agitated, bored, tired) babies on the highway for 20 hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic, gas stations empty, food scarce, hotels booked across the entire south, your most precious few belongings stuffed in the trunk. Yes, this scenario I would like to avoid at all costs – until I looked a the ‘stay’ list.

The list for riding out the storm at home was far longer and more complex. Even for a minor hurricane in this city you can guarantee the power will be out; definitely hours, likely days, possibly weeks. This becomes a challenge with little kids. When we rode out Hurricane Gustav back in 2008 we had one six month-old baby. But babies that young don’t move around much so I just stocked up on Gerber and she sat on the floor and played in one spot all day. But now I have two toddlers. And they MOVE. A lot. I’m not sure how they’ll react to very scary weather followed by extreme heat, not being able to play outside (we’ll have a generator in the yard), and not being able to leave the house for days (we’ll be under curfew). And all this will take place in an unpredictably violent city where I can’t tell if my neighbors will knock on the door to ask how I’m doing or to kill me for my supplies. Suddenly the road trip from hell is not looking so bad.

Of course none of this matters right now. I’ve prepped, I can relax. And so the waiting game begins. From now until October we’ll wonder if our number is up again (especially in Aug/Sept when New Orleans traditionally gets hit).

In spite of the brutal heat here, summer can actually be nice if you know what you’re doing. The tourists are mostly gone so we have the place to ourselves for a change, and we can revel in things like cold watermelon and even colder beer, an overabundance of creole tomatoes in the garden, boating in the lakes and bayous, crab season, afternoon thunderstorms, mint juleps, squishing cockroaches with our flip flops (ok, I derailed a bit), and basically one long BBQ and swimming pool party until Labor Day the first “cold front” brings the frigid 70 degree temps sometime in October. These autumn fronts are usually a good sign that the Gulf Coast doesn’t have to worry about hurricanes anymore. Usually.

Anyway, I’m off to stash my Evac Pack and the rest of the supplies into the closet, and then I’ll be making some Strawberries Romanoff!

May is hurricane season preparedness month, so I’m checking my stock and planning ahead. I’ll be doing a few blog posts explaining how I prep every year. The first one here is about my evacuation bag or “evac pack”.

People everywhere have (non-apocalyptic) disasters that require you to leave your home or workplace unexpectedly (likely for a place untouched by the disaster). For us coastal folks it’s hurricanes and other huge storms, but elsewhere there’s also tornadoes, wildfires, landslides, flash floods, and volcanoes, plus human-made events like factory explosions, bomb scares, building fires, (and now even freakin’ oil spills! – thanks, British Petroleum). Not trying to scare you, but it’s better to be prepared. You don’t have to experience something like we did to see the benefits of having the most important items ready to go with you in minutes. Whether I decide to ride out a hurricane, or run from it, I prep this stuff (sometimes you have to evacuate after the fact).

The concept of fitting everything I could possibly need into one bag or ‘evac pack’ as I call it, is one I developed after Hurricane Katrina. We all basically ran out of here thinking we’d be gone 3 days only to return weeks or months later, and some not at all. During that time many people were without vital paperwork they needed to move on and restart their lives. For instance, some had trouble accessing bank accounts without the numbers, or continuing business practice without a license, and kids had trouble enrolling in new schools with no birth certificates. My point is…

Plan like you might never return.

Obviously a person can’t fit their entire life into one backpack, but when you don’t know what situation you may end up in, I think it’s important to bring only what you can carry. Another rule is to make it ready to go in under 5 minutes. I aim for less since things like fires don’t give you that much time. I keep a checklist of the items below inside the evac pack, and the most important items are listed first (in case I run out of time to finish). It goes without saying that you should mentally note where these things are at all times so you can pack faster. As for the bag itself, I’d recommend a large cross country or mountaineering size backpack because they’re lightweight, and they provide back and hip support (like the one pictured here). You can buy a fancy new one for $200 or a used one for $20. Either one does the job.

Everyone’s idea of what goes into this bag will be different. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s what YOU need to move on in life, and it fits in ONE bag. Here is an example of what I put in my evac pack to give you an idea and help you get started…

My Evac Pack

Using a large (cross country or mountaineering size) backpack, I load up the following items:

1. Laptop: Almost everything I need to manage my work and my family’s life from any location is on this laptop. It’s regularly backed up on external hard drives, AND saved to an online backup system called Mozy (so even if the laptop died and my backup drives perished in my home I would still be able to load a new laptop with all my stuff). I have gone to a fully paperless office, which means all bills and other documents are e-mailed to me and saved electronically, not in a paper file cabinet. All of my family photos, music collection,  and many movies and TV shows are also on it. If you have a desktop computer I’d seriously recommend ditching it for the more portable, practical laptop. *Alert! Don’t forget the power cord and earphones.

2. Wallet: Including driver’s license, a wad of cash (You might have to bribe road pirates. Just kiddin’. Well, maybe.), all your credit cards (Painfully, you might have to max them to survive, depending on if your bank lived).

This is my work bag, and all of its contents come along. I just transfer everything to the evac pack, or grab it and go as-is (hey, I'm a woman, I like the bag!)

3. Important Papers File: Birth certificates, passports, social security cards, proof of insurances, proof of ownership (houses, cars,), financial info – you get the idea. Wherever you keep these items, make sure they’re all together in one place, preferably inside one of those expandable, closable, waterproof filers, like this one. Mine only takes up an inch of space (for a family of four) inside the evac pack.

4. Home Organizer Binder: Not everyone needs this, but if you’re a neat freak or simply a parent I’d recommend a having one and taking it with you in an emergency. It’s basically a big closable binder, like a grown-up version of ye olde trapper keeper. Inside you keep everything to do with, duh… managing your home (I’m going to do another post about this later because it rocks!). Roughly the binder includes: calendars, home maintenance projects/plans, weekly cooking menu, gardening notes, family budget, printout of family/friends/doctor/accountant/lawyer info, preschool schedule, and much more. If an emergency does strike and you have to leave your home for an undetermined period, something like this greatly reduces the stress. The best part is that you keep it in a central location like the kitchen, so the whole family can reference it. I use a black leather full-size planner with zip-closure (so loose papers don’t fall out) and a collapsible handle (I carry it with my pinky while I juggle coffee and the iPhone). It looks like this one. So why would you need this if you’re about to potentially lose your home? Well, I think it’s invaluable when your life is turned upside down to be able to pick up your normal routine. Makes the babies feel safe and all (ok, and the mommies too!).

5. Smartphone (or cell phone): As we’ve discovered here through numerous hurricane evacuations, cellular towers can’t keep up with a crisis when everyone is frantically calling loved ones. Don’t depend on it, but have it nearby. You may eventually get a call through in the hysteria. But don’t expect mobile Twitter or Facebook to work any better. Currently, the coverage among all providers is spotty during a crisis, regardless of your location in America. *Alert! Don’t forget the power cord and earphones.

6. Gun: Or two guns (Hey, TINO – this is New Orleans. We might have to shoot our way out. If not, then later for the road pirates.) *Alert! Don’t forget the spare clips.

7. Nikon dSLR Camera: This is important to ME, and it’s small. It’s invited on my ark. A musician may strap her favorite guitar to the evac pack, and a carpenter may cram in his favorite tools. Some professions and crafts require exceptions. It just depends on what you love to do. *Alert! Don’t forget the battery charger and usb cable.

8. eReader (B&N Nook, Kindle, etc): It’s the size of a paperback and holds over 1000 books. Perfect for escaping the hours when you don’t want to watch your city collapse on 24-hour cable news. *Alert! Don’t forget the power cord.

9. Recipe Binder: I keep my recipes in a 2” binder where I constantly scribble notes in the margins and staple in additions. I’ve yet to find a computer based alternative that can withstand being splashed with boiling olive oil. This binder would be hard to replace. It’s coming with me.

10. Backup Hard Drives: If you can fit them, then take them. *Alert! Don’t forget the power cord.

11. Three Days of Clothing/Toiletries: Running out with only “the clothes on my back” seemed like a good feminine excuse to buy a new wardrobe when I got to wherever, and this worked great when I only had to think of myself. I could easily fit a few shirts and jeans in the bottom of the evac pack to cushion all those electronics! But now that I have a family, an extra pre-prepared weekender bag sounds like a good idea. So this is my new hurricane season 2010 addition – Evac pack #2, the weekender clothing bag. In one large backpack or rolling suitcase I’ll now keep clothing and toiletries for all four family members for a potential 3 day-long evacuation. I still think this is impressive considering I have two babies aged one and two. Hell, now that I think of it… damn, that’s scary. Maybe I’ll pack some Cheerios… and, crap. Maybe we should just stay home. How bad could a Cat 5 hurricane be with kids that age? With no power or water or… Dammit. Ok, I’m making evac pack #3 – the ice chest. Kidding! Maybe not.

Jokes aside, that’s it. 11 major items all in one bag. If you’re not this ambitious then plan something. You’ll regret it if you don’t poke your inner survivalist at least a wee bit.

Geez. Now the Go Diego, Go! Rescue Pack song is stuck in my head. Freakin’ kids.

Heading to work at dawn, New Orleans, 2007.

For most of my adult life I was a night person. Between grad school, my TV news jobs, and my goth inclinations, staying up late was required. But oh how I love shaking up life, and now that I have a home office, and do writing and property managing while juggling an 11 month-old and a 2 year-old, I’ve come to embrace mornings. And I’m not talking about 7am you nocturnal panises, I’m talking about a brutal militaristic 4:30am!

After Katrina I changed careers and went into Public Relations. Work started at 7am and was located 40 miles from my house so I got a harsh lifestyle makeover. Hell, I used to stay up until that hour more than wake up for it! Suddenly I was too tired to, er, absorb culture in the French Quarter until 3am on a weekday. Even staying up until midnight for creative writing sessions was out. I was too tired to think. When the babies came along the deal was sealed. Young kids wake up with the sun. I’d either have to learn to love mornings or accept that I’d never get anything done. The latter is not acceptable to me.

So how do you convert? Well, it’s kind of a baphometic fire-baptism. Painful! But when you finally get through it’s very much worth it. The pre-dawn hours are very rewarding. No phones ringing, no inbox beeping, nobody at the door, no din of traffic nor noise of children. Just utter beautiful ear-ringing silence. You can get much more done in a shorter period when you don’t have distractions. It takes me an entire afternoon to write one article, but less than an hour to do the same project before dawn. More efficient. More simple.

So if you’ve decided the night is no longer working out for you and you want to convert to mornings, just stop your bitching and moaning and listen to the master…

1. Go to bed early. Yeah dumb-ass, go figure. If you want to wake up early you have to go to bed early. Most people need 8 hours, but some can escape with less. If you want to wake up at 5am then you have to be asleep by 9pm. Oh quit stuttering, I know that’s a granny or toddler bedtime, but now it’s also a kick-ass motivated person’s bedtime! I can function on 6 or 7 hours so I go to bed at 10-10:30 and wake up at 4:30-5am. On weekends let yourself sleep as late and long as you want. And quit whining that you can’t fall asleep! Take Sominex or another sleep drug to help until you get the hang of it. I’m drug-phobic, but if you only use it a few weeks until you reset your brain and accept your training then moderate use is fine. On the opposite side, only take stimulants like coffee, energy drinks, or caffeine pills before noon, never after that. Otherwise, you won’t fall asleep at your nighttime goal hour.

2. Accept your training. Would you believe there are people out there in their 30s and 40s who hate to go to bed/wake up early because it’s not cool?!?! They actually hate that other people make fun of them for not being able to go out late, and still pine about their college days when they could sleep until 2pm. They have an image to maintain, a subculture that expects a certain behavior. Oh wahhhh, ya big lemming. Screw what other people are doing. What do YOU want to accomplish, and how will mornings help you with it? If you’ve decided you’re over the nocturnal scene and you want to wake up to train for a marathon, or write computer code, a novel, or just save the damn world, then you have to accept this as a major lifestyle change or don’t even bother trying. No one lasts long staying up half the night and waking up early, trying to please both worlds. Incompatible. Choose. Nocturnal or diurnal. Obviously there’s room to negotiate from time to time. For instance, in spite of my rigid schedule I keep slots open 1 – 2 times a month for very nocturnal events (things running after midnight). I try to schedule them on weekends when I’m allowed to sleep in (but in New Orleans it’s common to have a great band start playing at midnight on a Wednesday *sigh*). The temptation here is greater than anywhere, but my will is a force to be feared. So stop romanticizing the damn night. The majority of accomplished people from the sciences to the arts had flings with the night, but married the mornings to pull off their master works.

3. Get up when the alarm goes off. It’s amazing what we can do if given no other options. What if there was no snooze alarm? Well, you’d just have to get up the first time it rang then, or lose your job, fail your test, etc. So stop hitting the procrastination button on your life. Stop lying there and concocting ridiculous reasons for why you should keep sleeping and can do your work later. As soon as that buzzer goes off, train yourself to think why you wanted to get up, and what had you energized about it. Remember how excited you were about your project the night before and all the ideas you had. Then use those ideas to get the brainstorm brewing and motivate your ass out of bed. If you can find an alarm clock without a snooze option then buy it. I promise, you’ll be impressed by what you can do when you limit your choices.

So that’s the start – the basic training version on how to convert from nocturnal to diurnal. And remember, no matter how bad it sucks to wake up, it does get easier with practice. And when you finally master it, you feel really fucking superior.

I’ve been playing with my Barnes & Noble Nook eReader for a week now, and I’ve written a little review of the experience.

First, on eReaders in general, I’ve decided eBooks (in their current form) cannot replace books. Real books still have a place. You can’t “thumb through” an eBook, or scribble in it, or loan it out indefinitely. It’s a very cold, linear experience. And by that I mean, unlike a real book you can’t flip forward or backward easily without getting stuck in a quagmire of menu options or jumpy digital screen dramatics. Real books don’t run out of batteries, or crash on you and forget where you bookmarked. As I said in my previous book post on this topic, books have character.

That said, I think eBooks are great, and I’m glad I bought the Nook. I think you should use them along with, not in lieu of, real books. I love that I can cram my Nook with over a thousand books, take it on a vacation, and never have to worry about running out of reading material (or lugging several paperbacks). It’s great for portability because it’s so light – take it on the morning train commute and read the Times (newspaper and magazine subscriptions are available on it instantly via AT&T wireless). The eInk display is a pleasure to read. Very easy on the eyes in low or bright light environment. The eReader is also more private. If you want to read something like a kids book or a trashy novel, you don’t have to worry about hiding the telling cover (publishers are noting higher sales in these genres due to eReaders’ discretion).

The bottom line is, I think having both real books and eBooks is great, but for different purposes. Personally, I’ve decided to use the eReader for only disposable items – things I’d normally buy in paperback. Like pop science/social issues, crap novels, political/current events books, or anything that is hot today but will be in the $1 bin at the B&N store next year. It’s much cheaper to buy an eBook too, and you aren’t making planet mess by encouraging the tacky “mass market paperback”. My eReader is replacing my paperback collection, all of which are being sold off this month. I’m converting every book I love (and wish to keep and re-read) into hardcover. This means my home book collection will be fewer but higher quality books, and all the other junk I read will be neatly contained on the eTrash eDisposal eBook eReader.

As for the B&N Nook itself, I chose it over all the others based on the touchscreen function alone. I won’t lie, it’s glitchy and has already crashed a few times on me. But after using the iPhone I can’t help but need the touch function. My brain won’t think for buttons anymore. The Nook’s touchscreen is not nearly as intuitive as the iPhone’s, but I think it’s the best option out there, and I couldn’t imagine using that clunky Kindle device.

Speaking of Kindle, another reason I’m glad I chose the Nook is because it reads several different formats, whereas the Kindle only reads Amazon’s format so you can ONLY buy books from them. With my Nook I can buy eBooks from anyone – very democratic. I also played around with Google’s free eBook service, and it worked great, all loading onto Nook with no problems. I haven’t tried Nook’s lending feature or borrowing from libraries feature yet. I’ve read that there is a 14 day limit on how long you can lend to others, and from what I’ve researched there’s not much available to borrow from libraries yet (but that’s not Nook’s fault).

Basically, I’m glad I bought the Nook and recommend it. It does have problems, it’s not perfect, but I think it’s the best currently available and does the job good enough. If a new cooler device comes out, I’ll simply transfer my files to the new device. I expect I’ll replace the thing every 2-3 years (this probably makes it as eco-unfriendly a paperbacks, so don’t kid yourself about saving the planet). The Nook is on the AT&T 3G network and getting books and newspapers, anytime, anywhere, is instant and so beautifully simple. It’s tied to your B&N web account so your bills just go there (No tinkering with clunky checkouts on your device. One click and it’s yours.). Also I think the B&N website is infinitely prettier and easier to use than Amazon.com’s.

As for the Nook’s cons – It’s glitchy! I’ve never used a Kindle or Sony or any others so I can’t compare, but the Nook has crashed and gone back to the homescreen at least 3 times on me in one week. The upside is that it recovers fast, and you can just go back to the eBook and skip ahead to where you were reading. I know I sound too forgiving, but I think the touchscreen is that worth the trouble (plus, I think it’s kind of like when you drop a real book you’re reading and have to flip around to find the page you were on. It takes about that long). I suppose if you like buttons you might prefer another device. But I HATE buttons. If you’re patient you could wait for a more advanced model to arrive, but that could take a year or two. I hear they’re experimenting with color models, full touchscreen models, larger models, etc. Plus, Apple is rumored to be entering the competition soon. But I didn’t feel like waiting, so I bought Nook. And overall, I love it, and I’m happy with the choice.

The post-partum months can really unleash the hounds of hell on your mental stability. I’ve never been one to wallow, but these last few weeks have been a challenge – lethargy, exhaustion, disorientation, disorganization. None of which I’m okay with. So this week, the eighth post-pregnancy, while prostrate among the rotting cheerios and curdled baby formula, I thought of Teufelsdröckh.

I pulled Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored) off my bookshelf and began to laugh at all the places I’d underlined years before. Who’d have thought the perfect 21st century therapy was in 19th century satire? Well… me. I’ve always been a fan of the ‘shut the fuck up’ and ‘quit your bitching’ wisdom. Early Victorian writers and transcendentalists were good for this. A good smack across the face always brings things into perspective, and the whining and wallowing I’ve been doing lately is annoying the shit out of me. Some tried to convince me that it’s okay to feel like this after you have a baby (especially two in rapid succession), but I say fuck that, and no way. Perhaps the standards I hold for myself are outrageous, but c’est moi. I can NOT give up and sell my soul brain to the American pharma-mafia. No fucking way. If there’s pain to be had in this head of mine, I want to feel every piercing stab so I can figure it out on my own.

So here’s a bit of Carlyle through his character Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (translates as, God-born devil shit). All I can say is I really need to work the phrases “despicable biped” and “hot as Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace” into my everyday language.

“Full of such humor and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole French Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, after much perambulation, toiling along the dirty little Rue Saint Thomas de l’Enfer, among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace; whereby doubtless my spirits were little cheered; when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked myself: “What art thou afraid of?” Wherefore like a coward, dost thou for ever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! What is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee?”

“Ever from that time the temper of my misery was changed: not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim fire-eyed defiance.” -Thomas Carlyle, The Everlasting No

Is it necessary to emerge from maternity’s cave with such dramatic pretension?

If you’re me… hell yeah motherfucker. Now where’s my guns?

Originally published July 7, 2009.

“You’ve been living in a dreamworld, Neo.” -Morpheus

Between this article and this software program I’m pretty bummed about the amount of life I still waste online, and I’m determined to fix it somehow. And yes, I do think it is wasteful in spite of the article being titled: “In Defense of Distraction”. I think the author’s defense is horribly weak, and I was left feeling like multi-tasking and social networking are eating up our conscious moments so rapidly that we’re left wondering what the hell happened to our lives much more quickly than other generations have…

“We keep an average of eight windows open on our computer screens at one time and skip between them every twenty seconds. When we read online, we hardly even read at all—our eyes run down the page in an F pattern, scanning for keywords. When you add up all the leaks from these constant little switches, soon you’re hemorrhaging a dangerous amount of mental power. People who frequently check their e-mail have tested as less intelligent than people who are actually high on marijuana. Meyer guesses that the damage will take decades to understand, let alone fix. If Einstein were alive today, he says, he’d probably be forced to multitask so relentlessly in the Swiss patent office that he’d never get a chance to work out the theory of relativity.”

“As B.?F. Skinner’s army of lever-pressing rats and pigeons taught us, the most irresistible reward schedule is not, counterintuitively, the one in which we’re rewarded constantly but something called “variable ratio schedule,” in which the rewards arrive at random. And that randomness is practically the Internet’s defining feature: It dispenses its never-ending little shots of positivity—a life-changing e-mail here, a funny YouTube video there—in gloriously unpredictable cycles. It seems unrealistic to expect people to spend all day clicking reward bars—searching the web, scanning the relevant blogs, checking e-mail to see if a co-worker has updated a project—and then just leave those distractions behind, as soon as they’re not strictly required, to engage in “healthy” things like books and ab crunches and undistracted deep conversations with neighbors. It would be like requiring employees to take a few hits of opium throughout the day, then being surprised when it becomes a problem.”

The entire article is very good, but I doubt you’d have the attention span to read the whole thing unless you do what I did. I had to print it out and take it to bed with me, and make sure my iPhone was downstairs so I wouldn’t try to touch it. That’s awful! Anyway, last year I did an experiment to see if I could live without the internet for one whole week. Even though I was successful, and learned a lot, I easily fell back into the trap. I think I might try the experiment again soon, but it will probably be harder since I have a smartphone addiction now too. And with two very little children to take care of, sometimes I just want the mindless distraction of the internet. But I am not content with this. I like challenges, and I’d like to see if I could unplug again, possibly for longer. Besides, I’m convinced now that single-tasking is the only way to get anything done well, but that’s another story. I shall ponder more. Any thoughts?