Comfort Zones.

A co-worker and I were talking about personal space and comfort zones a few weeks ago.  I don't remember why. 

I said, "If the bus is crowded, most often a person won't feel overly uncomfortable if a stranger sits beside them or stands close because they know the other person doesn't have anywhere else to go.  But if the bus isn't anywhere near full and a person takes the seat right beside you instead of in one of the dozens of empty ones, you'll probably feel claustrophobic.  Like they're invading your space."

Her response was, "That would never happen!  No one is going to sit next to someone when there are empty seats available!"

I felt like she was missing the point of my hypothetical scenario, but she also kind of proved my point.  If something like that happened, she wouldn't like it--she couldn't accept that such a situation could occur in real life!

Well, guess what. Today, it happened to me. 

My stop is the first in the route.  I took my seat.  Two stops later, there were six people on the bus.  Then a young man (mid-20s, maybe) stepped on.  He walked down the aisle.  And sat.  Right beside me.

I was perplexed.  There were SO MANY open seats.  Everywhere!  Rows and rows and rows of seats with no one in them.  

I remained outwardly calm while pondering what would make this person select THIS seat instead of any of the others.  Was he planning to get off at a nearby stop and wanted an aisle seat so he could exit with ease?  Does he get car sick in the other (lower) seats and now refuses to sit in them under any circumstances?  Is he perhaps from another culture where this isn't considered odd? Was he, like, attracted to me and wanted to be as close as possible? 

I never did learn the answer to my questions, except that he did not get off at a nearby stop.  I did find that I became more comfortable as the bus continued to fill.  Because, like I'd said back when it was all hypothetical, it doesn't cause as much anxiety when you know the person beside you has nowhere else to go.

The way you imagine it.

A few years ago, my husband told me that watching a Placebo video ruined his experience of the band.  He'd pictured them looking like this:

In reality, they look like this:

.

It isn't that there's anything wrong with the looks of the real Placebo necessarily; it just wasn't what he'd been imagining from having heard their music and lyrics. 

At the time that he told me that, I thought he was being weird.  Maybe even shallow.  But recently, I experienced something similar. 

Sometimes, I listen to Carolina Liar, and I'm pretty sure it's ONE TREE HILL's fault. There's this one, song "Last Night," which is about one-night stands.  This line just depresses me:  You can give her the world and then eight hours later, You can't even put a face to her name

A face to her name? That's like, whoa, right? It's so cynical and moody and sad.

To the best of my recollections, in my mind, the person singing these melancholy words (along with the totally upbeat music) looked something like this:

I discovered that he actually looks like this:

I don't know why it matters, but it does.  The line is still depressing when the lead singer looks more like Jesus than Zac Efron.  (Although, ZE is just a placeholder here because the person I'd imagined wasn't actually him.)  But somehow, it doesn't feel the same.  The image in my mind and the feelings that went along with it are gone forever, and I don't experience the song the same way anymore.

It's kind of like when I read a book and then they make a movie or TV show from it.  When I see the movie, everything I'd imagined before becomes erased from my memory.  I can't remember what my original Hogwarts and Hermione looked like, but I know they weren't like what I've seen in the films.   The kids from THE GOSSIP GIRL books now look like the actors from the TV show.  And I haven't even seen THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE movie, but the trailer was enough to make me forever forget whatever Henry and Clare used to look like to me.

It's a strange thing, having all of these missing pieces in my memory that I can't get back now matter how hard I try.  The images are so fragile and precarious.  So easily replaced.

(Weird.  I just realized that the actors in NICK & NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST movie have now replaced all of the characters as I'd imagined them in the book with the exception of Nick.  I guess because my brain doesn't accept Michael Cera as Nick, I'm still able to retain my original imagining.  I'm glad.  It would have been a shame to lose him.) 

I was unfaithful.

Today, I cheated on my hair stylist. 

I didn't want to!  It's just that my sister is getting married in Vegas in twelve days, I needed a trim before then, and I don't have time to go in next week.  So, I went to a stylist who happened to have an opening today... at, um, the same salon I always go to.

Gene Juarez is a big place, so it isn't surprising that I saw my usual stylist just one time while I was there.  I don't think she noticed me at all.  That was good because I don't know what I would have done!  Waved and said, "Hi!  I would have come to you, but you didn't have any openings!"

No, no, no.  That would have made Stylist #2 feel bad, right?  Like I never wanted her in the first place!  Like she didn't need to bother impressing me because I was going to come back to Stylist #1 for my next visit no matter what!

That whole awkward potential crisis was avoided.  Phew.  But I'm having an issue now.  You see, Stylist #2 really worked to impress me.  She did this awesome scalp massage while shampooing my hair.  Stylist #1 doesn't do scalp massages.  She just, you know, washes and rinses my hair all regular like. 

Stylist #2 also spent a long time styling my hair to make look all glamorous.  Stylist #1 doesn't try to make me look glamorous.  She just blow dries and puts a few spritzes of hair spray on before sending me on my way.

When I went in today, it was with the idea that cheating on Stylist #1 would be a one-time thing.   Now I'm not sure what I'll do when it's time for another trim in three or four months.  Will I make my appointment with Stylist #1 because she's my girl and I've been going to her for years and we have a history and she loves TWILIGHT but I totally don't hold it against her because she's just so cute and funny?  Go to Stylist #2 because, well, you know, the massage/styling stuff I just mentioned.  Or tell the appointment-setting person who answers the phone to give me the next appointment for whichever of them has an opening that is most convenient for me, so that I see what happens?

Oh, dear.  I just don't know.

Anyway, here's what Stylist #2 did to my hair.  I took the picture myself, of course, and my arms aren't long enough to pull the camera back to show you all how long my hair really is.  It's way long, though.  Longer than it's been in all of my life.

I don't know.  I'm not positive that the volume on top is my best look.  Maybe it makes my forehead and/or face look too long or something?  Or maybe it's the turtleneck thingy doing all that?  Or maybe All The Glamour just takes getting used to?

I just made an amazing discovery!

A friend put a question out on her blog about with whom and at what stage other writers share their work. 

As I was typing up my response, I (re)realized something:   I write to please others.  If other people like what I've written, then I like what I've written.  If they don't, well, I still might like it, but it might have sort of a shadow over it for me.

My most inspired writing times have been when I was deep in a project and had my husband read every scene as soon as it was written and polished.  He was excited about my story.  He really liked spending time with the characters, especially Seth and Rosetta.  So, as I was writing each day, I always knew he'd be reading and offering his opinion within hours.  I had instant gratification, and I also had a high motivation to do a good job because I didn't want to let my first reader down.

For my last three manuscripts, I've been going it alone.  And I haven't finished them.  Is this a coincidence?  I'm thinking... probably not.

It sounds like what I need to do to finish a book is write one that my husband wants to read.  Maybe when he gets home, I'll ask him what that might be...

(I'm mostly kidding about that last part.  BUT NOT ENTIRELY.)

Edit:  He says he wants to read a story about  "a pregnant girl who makes a list."  It just so happens, I'm working on one of those, but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as he is...

It was only a dream, it was only a dream.

Last night/this morning, I had a dream that I got an email from my publisher containing my cover art.

Now, my awake self knows that it will be a long, long time before that really happens. Like, no sooner than the early months of 2010, right? Possibly much later than that even. My dreaming self knew this, too, and was very shocked to have received it already.

So, what they sent me was along these lines:

Photography from an unexpected angle, I mean.

The photo for mine was taken from just below the foot of a bed. There was a rumpled red blanket and cream sheet kind of haphazardly falling off to reveal part of a boy's foot. The majority of the foot was out of the frame.

So, in this dream, I stared at my cover on my monitor and was like, Well, that's interesting. I wonder, what is the significance of the bed and, especially, the foot?

I walked downstairs and called out to my husband, "My cover is here!"

Then realized with a  jolt that if I have a cover, I definitely have a title! I ran back upstairs to find out what it was.

Guess what! THE COVER ON MY COMPUTER SCREEN WAS TITLE-LESS! The only words to appear were my name in black lettering.

Yeah. So what you do you think? Am I having title anxiety or what here? ;-)