Mood:  don't ask

I can't stand Sarah Palin. I didn't think I could despise a politician as much as I did George Bush, but leave it to the Republicans to replace the outgoing president in my (lack of) affections.

Fortunately, a good portion of the country is coming to its senses, realizing that giving the secret bomb codes to a woman who has to bone up on foreign policy and believes that the world was created 4,000 years ago is not such a good idea. And perhaps, we've all grown a bit weary of her line "And I told Congress, 'Thanks but no thanks' on that Bridge To Nowhere." Especially since it's been made quite clear that she was very much in favor of that bridge before she was against it. Not to mention that she didn't actually say "no thanks" to Congress. Alaska kept the money.

But perhaps what irks me the most about her candidacy is that all those conservatives who talk about family values and like to quote the bible passage "Wives submit to your husbands" are now calling people sexist who dare say anything about who will be taking care of her children while she's running the country.

She presents herself as being just like us--a working mom who takes pride in doing it all. Sure, she'd be able to take care of her family and govern the country without missing a beat. No problem.  Lots of women have demanding careers and family and who are we to say they can't?

But it's not just a demanding job, she'll be a heartbeat away from being Leader of the Free World. And it's not just a normal happy family, it's a son in Iraq, a pregnant teen aged girl and a little boy with Down Syndrome who needs more than just a caregiver. He needs special intervention to make sure he reaches his full potential. Can she just put all that out of her mind and deal with the problems of the presidency? 

I would like to go on record saying that I don't want people who are "just like us" running the country. For the last eight years, we've had the Guy We'd Most Like To Have A Beer With  as president and look where we are now--up to our necks in disaster. God help us with the Hockey Mom In Chief.

I'm taking comfort in quotes from Geraldine Ferraro. Remember her? She was Walter Mondale's running mate when he ran against Ronald Reagan in 1984. She said she drew crowds wherever she went. People wanted to see her and they looked like they adored her, but that didn't translate into votes in November. Reagan won with a landslide.

But what's really restored my confidence in Obama is the way he's handled everything. He rises above the jibes and attacks, answering them all calmly and sagely, then saying "Let's get back to the issues here." He looks like he's in charge of his own campaign, as opposed to McCain, who's so obviously being handled, along with his running mate, who's probably not allowed out of the house without a chaperone. (I expect a Sarah Palin "Macaca" moment any day now)

Anyway, I sure hope at the end of all this, Sarah Palin and her brood will disappear from the radar and go back to Alaska.  I like to believe that McCain and Palin made a secret deal--she runs for the vice presidency, shoring up the base for him, then after winning in November, she resigns, saying she needs to spend more time with her family, thus giving President McCain the chance to appoint Joe Lieberman vice president.

Pretty cool strategy. And it would be the first time a politician cited "wanting to spend more time with my family" as a reason for quitting and we'd really believe them.

Posted by judy5cents at 1:46 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:21 AM EDT

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Along with about a billion or so other people, I watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, and I can't help feeling amazed. We've finally done it, a major party has nominated a man of color as its candidate for President of the United States.

African Americans have run for the office before, but they were always long shots, with no real expectation of winning the nomination. They were there mostly to express a point of view rather than compete. The country is not ready to elect a black man as president, we were always told.

Well, I think we're ready now.

Polls are showing McCain and Obama in a dead heat. The talking heads say there are too many people out there who believe Obama is too liberal, too young, too inexperienced and a closet Muslim with ties to Arab terrorists. (Not because he's black, no one's going to admit to being a racist even to an anonymous pollster)

Years ago, my high school history teacher talked about the polls taken in 1940 when Franklin Roosevelt ran against Wendell Wilkie. The results showed that Wilkie had a substantial margin over FDR and was expected to win. But here was something the pollsters did not consider. People who couldn't afford telephones supported Roosevelt. And they came out in droves to vote for him, re-electing him to a third term.

The same could be true of Obama. Polls are conducted on landlines. A good many of Obama's supporters communicate soley through cell phones. They will certainly come out in droves to vote for him, even though their views never appear in the polling results we see every night on the news.

Of course, the only poll that counts is the one taken on November 4th. Can't wait to see how that one turns out.

Posted by judy5cents at 7:44 AM EDT

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Last month I turned 52 and I bought myself a tiara. I've always wanted to wear a tiara ever since the first time my mother let me stay up to watch the Miss America Pageant. I'm pretty sure that no one's going to give me a tiara, so I figured it was a good time to go buy one.

Which I did, along with a matching rhinestone necklace. And thus a birthday tradition was born. It has now become the Coveted Birthday Tiara and Matching Precious Sklinkles of Joy Necklace.

I was photographed wearing them and then wrote down what little wisdom I've gained in 52 years. Then I boxed it up and sent it to my mother, who will do the same, then box it up and send it to my sister Nancy. And so on. We will start our own little blog so we can all see each other's answers.

Here's what it's taken me 52 years to learn:

1) When a torrential downpour accompanied by a cold North wind during a camping trip to the Outer Banks forced me to spend 36 hours in a wet sleeping bag, I've learned to always appreciate being warm and dry.

2) Old habits die hard and even then, there are some that have amazing recuperative powers.

3) Having found myself at a point where I have nothing to worry about, I spend an awful lot of time worrying about nothing.

4) Money can't buy happiness and poverty doesn't necessarily bring despair, but you sure do sleep better when you are debt free with money in the bank.

5) Like it or not, you will turn into your mother sooner or later. And you won't mind it nearly as much as you thought you would.

6) A lot of things you've always wanted are over-rated. But having a baby isn't.

7) As a lifelong cat person, I have since learned to treasure the love and loyalty of a good dog. Unlike husbands and surly 12 year olds, dogs are always glad to see you no matter how bad their own day has been.

8) Getting a book published does not change your life nearly as much as you expect it to.

9) It's good to feel useful, and there's nothing more useful than helping people who really need your help.

10) Bad things will happen to you or people you love for no reason. But there will always be family, friends and even strangers who will get you through.

11) Marriage is not like dating. It's like going into business with a drinking buddy. You still get to have a beer together once in a while, but you have to work together to make sure the bills are paid, the kids are fed, the laundry done and the house cleaned at least once in a while. The purpose of dating is to have fun and impress the other person. Once you're married, you find having fun becomes a low priority and nobody's impressed any more.

12) On a cold winter night, it's nice to have a familiar warm body to snuggle up to. Even if he snores. Even if you snore.

Posted by judy5cents at 1:09 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:22 AM EDT

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I'm still on a runner's high. Instead of sleeping in on Saturday, I ran the Tri-Span 5K/10K along with a few hundred other folks.  Seeing as how I'm pretty sure my 52 year old knees can't handle 6.4 miles off running, I opted for the 5K.

I finished the race with a time of 37:53. My goal was 1) to run the entire race without stopping to walk, which I did, and 2) not to come in last, which I also managed to pull off, finishing 72nd out of 92 females, not to mention second in the 50-54 age group Only 16 seconds separated me from the first place finisher, so if I'd pushed a little harder, I could have won. How about that?

What's so cool, is that I was one of those non-athletic lumps who was always chosen last for team sports and avoided exercise like the plague. Funny how age has a way of leveling things out. Now I'm the fit one, and all those 1970s gym class heroes are all probably sitting on the couch, eating chips and watching cable.

So a shout-out to all you fifty-somethings, get off the couch and move. It doesn't take that long to get up to running a 5K (3.2 miles) and you're a winner just by showing up and finishing.

Posted by judy5cents at 1:35 PM EDT

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Mood:  don't ask

Sometimes I think authors (myself included) can be pretty dense when it comes to marketing, at least in our efforts on social networking websites. It seems like whenever I get a friend request it's from another writer. When I get a comment, it's from a writer talking up his or her latest release. On Goodreads, when I get a book recommendation, more often than not, it was sent by the book's author.

I've never bought any of their books. I've never even gone to the library and borrowed their books. There are so many requests for my attention, it's like the junk mail I barely glance at before throwing in the recycling bin.

Why do authors seek out other authors when trying to promote themselves? We're all far more interested in selling our own books than buying someone else's. Granted, there is a benefit in networking with other authors, but sending out announcements of book signings and favorable reviews is not networking. It's little more than an annoyance.

Even though I'm doing it sporadically and ineptly, my goal is to seek out and interest readers. I'm looking for the people who were smart enough never to start that book that everyone has lurking within them, the ones who are content to read other people's stories rather than write their own.

If you're a writer who's discovered a new way to get in touch with readers, please let me know. If you're just letting me know that the latest book in your paranormal romance vampire detective series has just been released, go ahead and delete me.

Posted by judy5cents at 6:51 AM EDT

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At this moment my 12 year old daughter is sweating through the EOG tests, otherwise known as the dreaded End Of Grade tests. She's been taking them since she was in the third grade and it seems like every year the pressure increases.

I've never put much faith in standardized testing.  In another lifetime, I trained to be a teacher and one of the things I learned is that tests are only as good as the people who put them together.  Coming up with test questions that measure the required skills and knowledge of any given grade level is a difficult task. 

For example, back when she was in third grade, my daughter brought home an EOG practice test to work on. She was stumped by this question:

Where would you go to find Treasure Island in the library?

The answer was the card catalog.

Now, my daughter was born in 1995. She's never seen a card catalog as they were all replaced by computers before she was born. I pointed this out to her teacher, who thanked me and said that I shouldn't worry, this question wouldn't be on the real test. Since the test is kept secret, I have no way of knowing that there aren't more questions to which the children of the 21st century can't possibly answer.

The whole idea of holding schools "accountable" by measuring students' progress with a one-size-fits-all test is ludicrous. Treating schools like corporations where the best organizations survive and the low performers fall by the wayside is also ludicrous.

When I saw presidential candidate Barack Obama last month, he said that holding schools accountable was a good idea, but instead of punishing the low performing schools, we needed to give them whatever they needed to improve.

My daughter will be glad when the tests are over, as will I. Someday I hope we'll come up with a system for measuring progress that doesn't involve number 2 pencils and filling in grids. 

Posted by judy5cents at 8:03 AM EDT

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Have you ever bought anything simply because someone sent you a postcard?

Hardly a day goes buy that I don’t get some kind of promotional postcard in the mail, offering me everything from pizza to carpet cleaning to the services of a competent, experienced realtor. These cards go directly to the recycling bin, destined for the Mixed Paper section of the local recycling station.

But they must work, otherwise people wouldn’t send them to me.

Postcards are a favorite topic of authors. I don’t know why they’re considered such an effective marketing tool. Even using a reasonably priced service like Vistaprint, it will cost around $120 to send out two hundred postcards. If you’re lucky and you get a 2.6 % response rate, you sell four books, not nearly enough to cover the cost of the mailings. Of course, response is a relative term. Most likely, the response means that 2.6% of those people will go to your website, say "Oh, isn’t that interesting?" and not buy anything.

I’ve received a number of postcards announcing upcoming books by authors I’ve never heard of, and I’ve never bought a single one. Like most people, I will read a book because I heard something good about it. Either someone I know recommended it or I heard a review of it on the radio. Hearing or reading interviews with the author also has motivated me to buy a book.

Marketing is a pretty tricky business. I can’t begin to say what works and what’s a waste of time and money. I have heard that whatever you do,only ten percent of it pays off. The problem is, you never know which ten percent. I know that to sell my book, I need to somehow bring it to the attention of prospective readers in a way that’s interesting and not irritating. The trick is finding out what among the millions of marketing strategies out there accomplishes that feat.

Anyway, I’m prety sure it’s not the postcards.

Posted by judy5cents at 11:22 AM EDT

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A bit of background here. I belong to an online community called Goodreads which is place where readers discuss books. We have some lively conversations, especially in the group called "Books I Loathed."

One of the books that came up was a children's book by Shel Silverstein called The Giving Tree.  Depending on your point of view, it's a poignant parable of unconditional love, or the toxic relationship between a narcissistic male and a pathetic self-destructive female.

Here's the story. Once there was a tree who loved a little boy. He would come and play in her branches and sleep under her shade. Then he began taking. He wants to buy a car and she gives him her apples to sell. He wants a house and she gives him her trunk and branches for wood. At the end of the book, he's an old man, she's a stump. All he wants to do is sit and rest and she offers herself to sit on. And she's happy.

The first time I heard it, I thought "My God, the tree dies! She's reduced to nothing but a stump and she's happy that the boy is sitting on her!" I've always seen it as the relationship between a selfish man and a compulsively giving woman, but one member of the group saw it as a mother and child relationship.

Now Shel Silverstein has written some wonderful stuff for children, like his poetry books Where The Sidewalk Ends and A Light In The Attic. I love the poem "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout" about the disatrous results of not taking the garbage out. A far more practical moral than giving so much that you're not even you any more.

I never read this book to my daughter. I much preferred Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are where Max escapes his time-out by going to the land of the Wild Things where he's made King of The Wild Things and stays until he gets hungry and decides to go back where someone loved him best of all.

And his supper was still hot.

Posted by judy5cents at 10:55 AM EST

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