All this to say, there’s no time for blogging right now, or tweeting, or goofing around online. There’s no time for anything except for the bare essentials–writing and playing with my family.

But my pal Brené has a new book that’s just come out, and this week she’s inspired me to join her protest against perfection.  Of the many, many wise things that Brené says about life, her take on perfectionism–and how it isolates us from each other–really sticks with me. She talked about it in her first book, which I devoured.  Especially since I’m kind of the opposite of perfect.  My house is strewn with toys, my car hasn’t been washed in months, and it’s a good bet I’ll be driving the carpool line in my pajamas today.

I just don’t have the time.  Or the interest.  I’d much rather be writing this novel than doing my hair.  I’d much rather goof around with my kids than clean the house.  And Brené says that’s a good thing.  Which is one of the many reasons I love her.

SO!  My first blog post in months!!  And my first giveaway ever!  If you want a chance to win a copy of her new book, leave a comment below.

But down here in Houston, it’s hot.  Summer is mostly about coping for me.  Going out in the steamy, hot, mosquito-ridden out of doors as seldom as possible.  Keeping the a/c set at 74.

And it’s rained a lot this summer.  Great for plants.  Less great for stir-crazy children.

We’ve had to get creative.

Like on the day my daughter realized that her piece of popcorn looked like a bug’s face.  And so we got out the watercolors and painted it. And then we made a whole family of bugs-on-toothpicks and then stuck the toothpicks–why not?–in an apple core that was still on the cutting board.  And then took photos.

Which all just reconfirms what I already know about art.  And about life.  That necessity is the mother of invention.

Here’s what it is:  My friends at Mondo Beyondo want to inspire folks to create guerilla goodness in the world–acts of kindness or love that help make the world a better place.

There are some great examples of guerilla goodness.  Hope Notes.  The You Are Beautiful project.  It’s people putting a loving message out into the world.

I’ve always wanted to do something like that.  In college, I made metal signs with bits of poetry on them and put them up around campus.  I love private things said in public ways, intimate things said to strangers–I’m fascinated by it all.  I also love signs.  And letters.  And words.  And hope.

And so, the Secret Mission.  How could I resist?

I decided I’d paint some big, red letters–and in the process, just for fun, I’d make a stop-motion movie using my camera.

And that turned out to be my favorite part of the whole thing.

Here’s the video.  It was the perfect way for me to send the world a hope note.  I’m amazed at how I never end up where I think I’m going to.  But I always seem to wind up in the right spot.

I’m taking the month off from the Web.

It’s a radical thing to do, but there it is. I’ve got a novel to write–one that is coming to find me at all sorts of crazy hours, one that is waiting on the edges of daily life for me to turn around and give it some attention.

And it’s not just waiting–more and more, it’s talking to me.  In dreams.  At the kitchen sink washing dishes.  Driving carpool.  It’s almost like having flashes of memory, and the flashes definitely feel like magic, and the story is ready.  I’ve been holding off until I’d finished most of my events for Get Lucky.  And now, it’s time.

I really do love to blog, and take photos, and make videos, and Tweet.  It’s amazing the people you can find through all those channels.  But it’s also very distracting.  You’re typing a blog post, and your email dings, and there’s a link in the message, and then you have to Tweet about the link, and then suddenly it’s 3 hours later.

I have some fun online projects coming up in July, so I’ll be back then. I hope you won’t totally forget about me.  It feels a little risky, just disappearing for a month.  But it’s so appealing, as well, to just go back to a quieter, more personal, less out there kind of existence.

And getting to go into the story and watch it come to life?  I can hardly wait.

In Get Lucky, the main character makes a “comfort list” of things that are soothing.  Here it is:

“Things that are comforting:

Tea.

Warm water on your skin.

Thick socks.

Humming.

Laughter.

Fireplaces.

Having someone arrange your fruit in a smiley face.

Having someone refuse to examine your imaginary tumors.

Watching old movies with Mackie.”

And while I’ve never actually made a list like this, myself, I’ve been thinking lately that I maybe should.

Because having a book come out is exhilarating and thrilling and amazing.  And it has the dream-come-true quality that so many things do for me now that I make my living as a novelist.  But the truth is, having your dreams come true — though truly, indescribably awesome — can also, at times, be a little stressful.

So here is my own comfort list for this month.  (And for the record, even just making the list is comforting.)

• Reading to my kids. (About to start Harry Potter 7!)
• Watering the garden.
• Watching at the garden–and all its butterflies, bugs, bees, lizards, and caterpillars.
• Cooking dinner.
• Listening to NPR.  (Oh, NPR! I love you!)
• Writing the next novel.
• Daydreaming about the next novel.
• Researching the next novel.
• Taking a shower.
• Curling up next to my sweetie at the end of the day.
• Watching my kids do dance contests.
• Watching 30 Rock.  (So good!! MMMPH!)
• Reading.  (Right now it’s Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project–along with a book about whales.)
• Napping.
• Snuggling.
• The sound of the dishwasher.
• Gabbing on the phone.
• Cracking jokes in the kitchen with my husband while he makes tea.
• Making coffee.  (Even if I never get a chance to drink it.)
• Boogieing to 70s stations on our WiFi radio.
• Imagining how I’d like to redecorate the house.
• Date night.  (Eating Ethiopian food until we’re so full we can barely walk and then going to the movies.)

So: There’s a start.  Actually, the more comforts I think of, the more I think of.  Which is, of course, comforting in itself.

After I made this video lots of other fun projects came my way.

One of those projects was to make a video for the Texas Conference for Women, Massachusetts Conference for Women, and Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women.   They sent me their theme and asked if I’d like to try to bring it to life in a video.

I instantly knew what I wanted to do.  I wanted to see if my dear friend Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks would let me use some of her hauntingly beautiful portraits of women.  Karen and I have many overlapping interests, and one of them is articulating what’s beautiful about real women.  Here are some stills from the video of Karen’s portraits.  Many of these photos are for her book The Beauty of Different.

from the top: Maggy, Leah, Thalia, Maggie

Karen tells a great version of how we met, by the way, and how that common interest (along with many others) brought us together.

I also happen to know many other amazing photographers, and two who came to mind were Tracey Clark and Andrea Scher of Superhero Journal.  (I also thought right away of Andrea Jenkins of HulaSeventy, but she had already agreed to let me use photos for this video.)

I got to work choosing photos and writing an essay around the theme.

photo by Tracey

Here’s how I wrote the essay:  I pulled words out of the theme that resonated for me, and then wrote something that felt meaningful and true  to me around those words.

They will be opening their conferences with the video, and I will speak about the videos at each conference in a “keynote cameo.”  I spoke at the Texas Conference for Women 2 years ago, and, I swear, you have never seen so many brave and amazing women in one place.

So if you’re in TX, PA, or MA, come register!  I need someone out in the audience to start the wave.

photo by Andrea

I love how hard these conferences work to make a difference in women’s lives.  It’s an honor to try to articulate what makes me feel hopeful, what inspires me to rise above circumstance, and what women can do to take care of each other.

Here’s a typical day for me:

6:30

Haul myself* out of sleep like some abandoned wreck pulled from the bottom of the sea.

*Sweet husband has pointed out that he does most of the hauling.

6:35-8:15

Wake kids, gather up their school clothes, make breakfast, make lunches*, deposit kids in carpool cars.

*Trying to make fresh, healthy lunches every day–inspired, in part, by Jamie Oliver.

8:15-8:30

Make coffee.*  Call my mom and make her chat with me while it’s brewing.

*I usually forget to drink it.

8:30-11:00

Back in bed.  To work on laptop, or, if the coffee’s not working and I am beyond all possible human exhaustion, take a nap.  Usually, I work.  Because this is it!  Once I pick up my 4 year old from preschool, my working day is over.  The pressure’s on! The clock is ticking!*  I do a blog post, or answer emails.  I Tweet a little bit, maybe.  Sometimes I go to coffee with somebody.  Sometimes I take a walk if I’m feeling super-ambitious.

*I never feel like I’ve made proper use of this time.

11:30-2:45

Pick up son, make the carpool rounds, make lunch, build bridges and magical castles out of blocks, water garden, go to grocery store, and generally goof around.  Somewhere in there, I steal away for a shower.

3:00

Pick up carpool #2!

3:30

Come home, make snacks, read to kids, check email in front yard on laptop while kids ride scooters up and down sidewalk.  After a while, we go inside and dance around the living room.  Then they swing in the backyard while I fuss in the garden.

4:45

Daddy comes home from school.  (He’s a teacher.)  Much rejoicing all around.

5:00-6:00

I make dinner and listen to NPR–oh, how I love NPR!–while children wrestle their dad in the living room.

Jamie Oliver recipe for a lovely supper-picnic.

7:00-9:00

Lengthy, unweildy, and unbelievably prolonged bedtime routine for children involving bubble baths, requests for water and snacks, bed-jumping, picture books, subtraction flashcards, and reading Harry Potter aloud.*

*Reading Harry Potter aloud is one of my favorite things to do.

9:00-2:00 am*

Work. (Also: visit with husband, read a little, catch up on 30 Rock, and search for vintage Airstreams on Craigslist.)  On a good night, I write.  These days, most of my work relates to my new book that just came out. Or other stuff:  blogging, making videos, answering emails, answering questionnaires, writing essays for anthologies.  I am taking a break from writing the novel that’s due to Random House next January because writing a novel requires a singular kind of focus that’s hard to accomplish when you’re multi-tasking to promote a new book.

*“But that’s only 4.5 hours of sleep a night!?” Correct.

NOTES:

1. That’s a typical day–but not, actually, these days.  April and May are also full of book promotion activities–traveling, reading at bookstores, speaking at luncheons, visiting with book clubs, Skyping with far away book clubs.  It is, as we call it, my “busy season,” and my husband and mom are both working overtime to pick up my slack and make sure that everyone is taken care of.

Signing Get Lucky at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston.

2. Looking over this list, I feel a happy buzz of gratitude for all the fun things I get to do–especially playing with my kids.

3. It is worrisome that I’m not getting enough sleep.  I’m living on coffee right now, but it’s not really the same thing.  And if the circles under my eyes could talk, they’d agree.  I think when my little one’s in Kindergarten, I’ll be able to get more rest.  In the meantime, feel free to send me those articles about how lack of sleep turns you into apsychopath.

4.  You know how they say “Don’t quit your day job”?  I think of myself as having a “day job.” (Raising my kids–though they’re less a “job” than a “calling.”)  And I actually think it’s better for productivity if you DO have a day job.  In college and graduate school, when I didn’t have much to do, I was far less productive than I am today.  (Unless, of course, if your day job totally annihilates you and makes it impossible to do anything else.)  I’m not sure that wide stretches of nothingness are actually good for creativity.  I think creative people actually do BETTER with limitations.  Necessity is totally the mother of invention.

6. How do I get through moments of self-doubt?  By writing. No matter what, the writing is always a good thing.

And that is the upside to doing what you love.  The fact that you love it.

And last week, when my mom and I drove out to Lockhart, Texas, for a book event, we asked around for the best BBQ and got many different opinions.  Finally, since most places around Lockhart seem to close down around six, we had an easy choice–we went to one that didn’t close ’til 8.

And, man, were we glad we did.

Because these people? They are NOT kidding around.  This is serious food.

The place is big enough to house the whole town, first of all.

And then there are the fire pits smoking the meat.  And the enormous chopping blocks, slick and black from years of smoke and melted fat.  And then there’s the fact that they will not give you a fork.  Or BBQ sauce.  Because it’s a “no fork, no sauce” kind of place.

No hiding that brisket in barbecue sauce.  No cutting it with utensils.  You have to tear it with your bare hands and eat it like a man.

Which feels deliciously naughty, totally exhilarating, and a tiny bit traumatizing.  Especially if you’re a lapsed vegetarian.

Barbecue like that is the reason people love barbecue.  And it made the barbecue I’m used to seem pathetic and plastic and weak.  It made it seem like this barbecue was real, and everything else that called itself barbecue was false.

Kreuz’s market has been cooking barbecue for 110 years, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that something about eating there–food so foreign to me and yet so much a part of my own German-Texan heritage–made me feel like I was in the presence of something larger than myself.  Something that spanned generations.  Some lost part of my own history.

And that makes for a hell of a meal.

It was so amazing to get to stand in the library that had sparked so many ideas in my head and read from the book there.  Though the library in the book is shabbier than the well-cared-for library in Lockhart–had to be, for the plot.

Here’s the excerpt I read in Lockhart, standing in this library, in front a a stage where Willam Taft once spoke.

The truth is, by the end of the morning, I would be very grateful that I hadn’t beheld the building for the first time in a tiny picture on a page.  I don’t know how I had managed to grow up in this town and never once visit this library, but until that morning, when we all drove over together to visit, I had never seen it.  And as tired as I was after my late night, and as warm I already felt in the morning sun, I will never forget the moment I lifted my eyes up to that building for the very first time.

I must have been the only person in the group who hadn’t seen it before. Everyone else climbed out of the caravan of cars we’d driven, gathered up cell phones and blackberries and notepads, and headed in, heads down.  But me, I stopped still on the walkway.  I leaned my head back and my mouth fell a little open.  I felt a tickle, almost a shyness, in my chest, the way you might if you suddenly bumped into a movie star at a cocktail party—some mixture of surprise, and delight, and the self-consciousness that remarkable beauty inspires.

There is no question that the objects that surround us impact our experience of the world.  Right?  Sitting on the deck of an ocean liner is not the same experience as, say, taking a seat on the subway. Standing in a field of flowers is not the same thing as standing in line at the DMV.  Picnicking next to an enormous oak tree is not the same thing as picnicking next to a stump.   Sunlight is not the same thing as fluorescent.  Inside is not the same thing as outside.  Beautiful is not the same as ugly.  These statements aren’t just opinion, right?  They’re facts.

I’m not sure if I can describe the building.  I’m not sure a catalog of its details—the red brick, the balustrade, the limestone carvings, the stained glass—can do it justice.  Later, Howard would describe it to me as a Classical Revival Greek cross plan with vaulted pavilions forming the arms.  In fact, I’d collect all sorts of words to describe it, like pediments and entablature and pilasters.  But really, in the face of something as solid and as heroic and as real as that building, words are just a little thin.  It’s like trying to sum up the Parthenon.  What would you say? It has tall white columns, and lots of carvings, and it’s really, really big.

One thing I can say: seeing this library knocked the wind out of me.  The way the look of it created the feel of it:  The shine of that old wavy glass in the windows.  How the bricks and trim and stone all came together and made it more than just what it was.  The scale, which managed, impossibly, to tower over you and welcome you, to feel both enormous and cozy, both regal and kind.  It rose up out of the little park of St. Augustine that surrounded it:  Its feet so firmly on the earth, but its octagonal dome and widow’s walk railing brushing the sky.

That said, it did need some work.  The paint was peeling, the gutters were sagging, one of the massive stone ball finials had fallen off and was resting in two cracked pieces by the entrance.

Howard did not fail to notice me gaping.

“You’ve never even been here, have you?”

“Of course I have,” I lied, falling in line behind him.  And then, “A long, long time ago.  So long ago I can barely remember.”

Later, Howard would walk me through the photos we’d take that day and explain the architectural principles that made the building what it was.  How the shapes and angles all played off each other and made relationships that were pleasing to the eye and soothing to the soul, how the arrangement of windows and columns and doors could speak to primal human needs for safety and order and connection.  By the end of the day, I would be starting to understand the psychology of the architecture—not just that it was beautiful, but why.

But at the time, all I knew was that the experience of standing before this grand, slightly neglected building, somehow, in some way, made me want to be a better person.