I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all together today.

I need you, my Board of Directors, to help determine the future of ValancyJane Enterprises, Inc.

And yes, I have decided to return to the name Valancy Jane. For a while I used Sarah Smile, because it was closer to my real name and I wanted to prove that I wasn't afraid to put my name on what I wrote, and also for the sentimental reason that My Nick calls me Sarah, which made me like my given name for pretty much the first time ever.
Both excellent points but I feel they've been made.
For personal branding reasons, and also personal preference, I am returning to Valancy Jane.

But on to more pressing matters.

As you all by now probably know, on Friday at 12:30pm, Google "disabled" my account. To be shut out of both my gmail and blogger accounts without so much as a warning was a bit like coming home to find that your longtime lover had locked you out and wouldn't let you see your kids. I over-dramatize here, but only a little.

Five days later, Google, again with no explanation, simply a form letter apology, has reopened the doors.

But where did I go for those five days?

Most of you know, most of you found my comment on the post below (commenting on your own blog feels like ringing your own doorbell) that I, in my dire loneliness, had gone to Wordpress. And preceded to get very comfy there.
Go look. My shoes are definitely off. My toothbrush is next to the sink.
See, I had no idea if Google would EVER let me back.

But it has, so now I feel like Kate Bekinsale in that Pearl Harbor movie.
Like a nurse in the war and my fiancee is supposedly dead so I start dating Josh Hartnett and have that great sex scene amidst the hanging parachutes, and then Ben Affleck comes back because he was never really dead and now who do I marry?
As you can see, it's been an emotional five days.
And it's not a choice between Josh and Ben, because that would be easy (hellooooooooo, Ben, duh). It's a choice between my two blogs.
Ignore my little wordpress blog like a pregnancy I aborted ("I just wasn't prepared to raise another blog! It's my choice!") or move out of the blogger blog I've built up and worked on, like a sad old victorian house that you walk past and wonder about, while it's porch sags and it's corners fill up with spam comments?
(Again, I over-dramatize, but only a smidge.)

I need your advice.

To help, I present the following -

Reasons to stay with Google/Blogger -
Logical - more leeway with the layouts, nobody has to update their links to me, no 'old blog - new blog' confusion when googled.
Emotional - we have history together, up until five days ago it's been very good to me, it's comfortable.

Reasons to stay with Wordpress -
Logical - It's better (no really, technologically speaking, it's more advanced and easy to use), I can import all my old posts so it all stays together, and I can have 'valancyjane' as the address instead of 'vjgreetings' which only made sense back when the title of the blog was 'greetings from the lobby.'
Emotional - It never kicked me to the curb, in fact it took me in when I had nowhere to post.


You now have the floor, ladies and gentlemen.

So then I said ....

.... *gestures to her christmas-in-the-trailer-park-with-festive-flamingo pajamas*
In this competition, in most contests here at work, in life in general, really, I'm competing in the catagory of "Most Unique."

I love being a turtle.

Last night I went to see the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with my friend JPD.
JPD and I have known each other since we were born, really. Since TMNT was popular the first time around.
And you know what they say, you can't make old friends. Well, sometimes, but it only happens once upon 200 lifetimes.

The movie was exactly what it should be, silly and delicious. I think my favorite part was when April O'Neil is expressing shock that a 3,000 year old Mayan curse could be true, that there could be such a thing as monsters, and she's saying this to a giant, nun-chuck-wielding mutant turtle.
Without a hint of irony.

I loved it.

Afterwards JPD (I love that his initials make him sound like a police department) and got a cup of tea and he sweetly let me monopolize the conversation.

We talked about how, growing up, Jesse was the closest thing JPD had as brother, and Bug (JPD's sister) was the closest thing I knew to having a sister.


And what I wanted to say, what I couldn't find the words to say, what I've always wondered if they knew, was that I had always thought of JPD and Bug in the same way that I thought of Jesse. That link, that bond, that knowledge that there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for them, that in this crazy thing called life, we passed or failed together, like boot camp, that they were my responsibility as much as one person is to another, that we were a team, and if it came right down to it, it would be us versus the world.
That in short, we ARE the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


Cowabunga!
(Hee.)

I can't decide.

This one?


Or this one?


Perhaps the obvious answer is BOTH, and let them hang in a closet next to each other like cigarette girl and a glamorous actress meeting in a speakeasy in 1923.

My castle in Spain

When I was a little girl, we had an exchange student from Spain one summer. I wanna say his name was Ivan, and my brother broke his arm that summer. Or wait. Was that Ivan who broke his arm? Poor Ivan, I think it was him.
Anyway.

One of the things Ivan brought us from Spain was one of those large coffee table books, of pictures of Spain. It captured my childish imagination. Since the book was in spanish, I understood very little of the photo captions.

One image in particular stayed in my mind, long after the book was lost or given away. It was of a hall of arches, arches that looked like brick candy canes. The light was warm and dim. And it looked endless. The floor was some sort of marble. I remember the picture, right down to the dust on the lens of the camera that took it.

And I would lose myself in daydreams of dancing there. I always knew that if I could have a castle someday, I would have a room of just arches, like that. Nothing else. And I would dance in it.

And this daydream stayed with me into adulthood. A place I could conjure at will, as I was driving or falling asleep. A "castle in spain." It was all very Blue Castle (my favorite book). By the time it occurred to me to find where this place I remembered actually was, I had no idea where the book had gone.

I always hoped that someday, I'd find it while backpacking in Spain, quite unexpectedly, on a hot afternoon.







Instead, a picture of it came up on my daily Photos of Sacred Places box on my Google homepage. Turns out my castle in Spain is actually a church in Spain.


I actually said, "That's it!" rather loudly, and looked around the lobby to see if anyone was around to share it with. (Sadly no.) And then I actually cried a bit, with joy.


So many of the things we remember from our childhood lose their magic over the years, or seem smaller than we remember. But not so with my hall of arches.
And now I know that someday, some hot afternoon, I WILL go there.
And dance.
Of all the gods that have been worshiped there over the years, I'm certain none will mind. Because a part of me has always worshiped there.

Colsy says I should blog about trees.

More specifically, my favorite tree.

When she asked, it was very easy to think of my favorite tree.
While I have had many love affairs with different trees in my life, (and one love affair in a tree, but that's another story) there is one tree I can still sketch (badly) from memory.

My favorite tree is an avocado tree. And no, it's not my favorite because avocados are my favorite food group. Although partly.
It was in the orchard in our yard, growing up, at what is now Bunny's house.
Avocado trees in general kick ass as climbing trees for a couple of reasons.
One, they grow really strong and unique main limbs.
Two, they're like a tent. All the small branches and leaves are out at the ends of the tree. It's like a natural treehouse.

Of all the trees in the orchard, this tree was my favorite.
A was like a natural little hammock. I could (and often did) lounge there for hours with a book and an apple.
B was low enough that I could coax my dogs to jump up and hang out with me for awhile.
Sometimes I could even get them to walk out to the end of C with me, and lie in wait for some to walk past.

That tree was my clubhouse, my pirate ship, my deserted island, my castle, my lair.
And sometimes when I'm at Bunny's, I climb it again, always expecting to run into a skinny, skinned-knee, apple-clutching, 11-year-old version of myself up there.

Why I have so many Mexican flags.

My friend Nick (not to be confused with My Nick) always has fascinating stories. Like the times he babysat the Olsen twins or when a drunken Lisa Loeb tried to stick her tongue down his throat. Stories you would totally doubt unless you knew him. Nick is the sort of person to whom things happen. Happen with a capital H.
And he's had some of the oddest odd jobs imaginable. Like chef, or bicycle thief.

For a while, he was temping for a company that outsourced trash pickup along freeways. He told me that the two most common things he'd find were Mexican flags, and bottle of pee.

Which made me nervous every time he'd tell me he had "found me a present."

Today has been a good day.

Our 'Rhymes with Bentel' Rep brought me a big bag 'o swag, including a candy, a magnetic dart game and a lightup pen. And who doesn't like a lightup pen?

"Oooooooooooooooo, I can do crossword puzzles in the dark now."

*blank look*

"I'm excited about that."

*blank look* "Ok. So that's good then."

He likes me, even if he never really understands me.


A childhood friend looked me up on myspace! I'd actually tried to find her a few months ago, with no luck, and now she found me!
After 17 years, I recognized her instantly.



This morning one of the engineers called me "Poet of his heart." I have no idea what that means, really, but it's sweet.


And I'm eating leftover chicken wings from On The Border.
All's right with the world.

CousinFest '07!!!

The last time I saw all my cousins together at one time .......
....... wait. I've never seen them all at once.

On my mother's side, my uncle has one son, Shawn. (Not to be confused with my other cousin Shawn, on my father's side, who is now deceased.)
And my aunt has seven kids, Julie, Bekah, Caleb, Lizzie, Jordan, Kimmy and Matilda.

Somehow, fate has conspired that I don't think we've EVER all been in the same room together.

Jordan told me that five of The Seven are going to be in Vegas next month, and wanted to know if I wanted to come.

Hellsssss, yeah!

I invited Shawn and Jesse and Bethany.

Oh, the mischief, the adventure, the complete takeover of the McIlhenney Clan! Watch out Vegas!
CousinFest '07 is coming!

Wherein I sound morbid, but am not.

I do think about my funeral sometimes. Not my death, mind you. I don't think about that much, and when I do, all I think about it is that it will probably be in some stupidly hilarious fashion that those who are mourning over me will be slow to speak of it, because then both the teller and the listener will have to choke back the giggles. And if I'm correct in this prediction, I give you all leave right now to go ahead and laugh. If I get pulled halfway through my paper shredder, or manage to hang myself upside down while trying put up a new shower curtain, it's ok. Laugh. You have both my permission and my blessing.

But anyway. I don't think it's ever to early to think about your own funeral. I've already buried two of my dearest friends, so I know. And because nobody, not them, not their families, expected to have to throw a them a funeral, the ceremony held as little of their personality as the body being buried.

I don't think that thinking about it is morbid either, because it involves thinking about my life more than anything else. What my life is about, what it means, and how I'd like it to be remembered.

And what I think about is a place I've loved to hike to ever since I was a teenager. A short, leisurely ramble out from the old Sweetwater bridge in Jamul is a place I've written about before. Someone started to build a rock footbridge over the river, and I know I'm not the only one who tends and rebuilds it after rains. I've never seen my fellow workers, but we see each other's work. And it makes me think about life, about how what we do could be part of something bigger, putting our rock in the bridge that brings worlds together, never knowing who it will inspire or affect, and that no bridge is so perfect or permanent that it doesn't need to be tended to survive.

And so when I rule out having my ashes put in fireworks and lit off as being too expensive, or having my ashes mixed with glitter and scattered from a hot air balloon as un-eco-friendly, I think I'd like my ashes scattered there.

Just carry my ashes out there, in that round brightly colored tin in my kitchen (you'll know it when you see it), down the path where the wild grass grows, green for just a few weeks in the spring, then turns gold and waves lightly in the hot dry air. Odds are it will be a sunny day. It's pretty hard to be sad while walking, especially in the sun. So don't fight it. Don't feel like you have to be completely sad. Take some deep breaths. Then when you get to the bridge, put a rock in it yourself. Let your eyes adjust to the shade and look for crawdads. Stand on the bridge and pour my ashes out into the creek.



Leave me there with the crawdads and hummingbirds and herons, and go out for breakfast and talk smack about me. I'm not a saint, and I don't expect to be spoken about as one when I'm dead. Laugh, cry, neither, both, both at once, whatever you want. No rules, no guilt.
Because that's how I try to live.

The thing about Myspace ...

....... is that it allows you to see exactly how many of your ex-boyfriends have since come out.

Quick, someone tell me that this has nothing to do with me being a poor representative of the female gender, or my fate as a Jewish woman, but rather something along the lines of me being the sort of person who makes people feel safe in themselves, and that our time together inspires them to be who they really are.

Hmmm. Actually, I buy that.

No really.

Ok, nevermind, I'm good now.

Thank you!

I'd have a lot more of 'em if she'd come visit more. Or MOVE HERE. *eyes widen* Oh. Wow. Think of the mischief.

Dillon - "Tell me your favorite, no wait. Your second favorite Jordan story."

Sarah Smile - "I think my second favorite Jordan story is the one where we tried to steal a shopping cart.* But I'd rather tell my favorite, which is the one where we were driving through Minnesota, and she had a backscratcher, which she pushed down her sleeve so it looked as if it was her hand. Jordan has this incredible gift for physical comedy, and I won't attempt to explain exactly HOW it was funny, just take my word for it that it WAS. And she started to entertain the other cars on the road with this routine. The truck driver behind us was really enjoying it, until he started laughing so hard he ran a jetta off the road."

Dillon - "Wow."

Sarah Smile - "Yeah, we didn't know if we should stop or something, but we just kept on."

Dillon - ".........."

Sarah Smile - "Oh, I should clarify. When I say, 'ran off the road,' I mean there was a lot of swerving and dust from being half on the road and half in a field. The truck and the jetta never made contact and nobody was hurt. If they had, it definately would have clarified the whole, 'stop or don't stop' question. The truck and the jetta kept driving as well, after exchanging some rather understandable gestures. I meant, we didn't know if Jordan should, like, stop entertaining the other drivers."



* In hindsight, my second favorite Jordan story was the one where we bought presents for people we didn't know and got terribly tied up in the ribbon, but you kinda had to be there for that one.

This distinction should come with a trophy!

I am the 11th search result under "batteries taste like happiness."

I must be friends with the person who did this search.

It totally sounds like something I would say. It sounds like a good title to my autobiography, really.

I'm also the 3rd search result for "'my little valley' cleavage" but ew. That does NOT sound like something I would say.

Even their names rock.

My great-grandparent's names were Claire and Raleigh.

Well, they were sorta my step-great-grandparents. Previously. By marriage. To people who are now deceased.
Basically, they're not related to me and my great-grandparents aren't my great-grandparents at all.

My great-grandmother, who's name I don't recall, and never met, died. So my great-grandfather, who's name I don't recall and who I also never met, married Claire, and then he died. Claire married Raleigh.

So when the dust settled, Claire and Raleigh had amassed a great fortune of step-relatives. I say fortune, because they were sweet enough to see us that way. They sent me animal posters and long letters (even though Claire had arthritis in her hands and the only thing that was easy to make out in the letters was her sweet and thoughtful nature) and a Christmas card that said, "the stockings were hung by the chimney with Claire" with a drawing of an old woman hung with the stockings (by the apron strings, not by her neck, it wasn't THAT demented), and they invited us to their house in the desert once when they got a thin layer of snow, and let me muss up their whole front yard by scraping it all into one rather dirty snowman.

So all that to say that I wish they were still alive because they were my kind of people.

"It's a cat, Dad."

About a year ago, my father called me, and was talking about Rose's cats. He was complaining that they were skittish and shy and wanted nothing to do with him. Glad to find a safe topic, I gave him some tips on bonding with shy cats. He went on to complain that it was hard to give them their flea drops. I agreed, that if you couldn't surprise them and get it done within a few seconds, you just had to give up and try again later. He said he would continue to chase them and hold them down, because "no cat was going to get the better of me."

At which point there was nothing to do but bang my head, slowly and softly, into the wall.

"It's ....... it's a cat, Dad."

Sometimes I think that phrase sums up my relationship with my father. This is the same man who, when he drifted into my line of sight just as I was giggling to myself over something that was funny in my 8 year old imagination, spanked me for about a half an hour until I would tell him what I had been laughing about. (Ironically, what I had been thinking about was a way to surprise him and make him smile.)

And so what I wanted to say that day on the phone, "It's a cat, Dad. Who on earth is it going to impress when you win?" I've wanted to say many times in my life to people, to whom I am usually the cat, metaphorically speaking. (But occasionally even to myself, because when it comes to my faults I am my father's daughter in many ways. I'm not immune to getting caught up making my point in conflicts with people who matter very little to me.)

Lately I seem to be the cat in a few people's lives. Situations where they feel they have to "win" in some way that matters to them, even thought I play a very small, and frankly powerless, role in their lives. Who cares what I think anyway? If you think I'll oppose you in some why, you've over estimated my power. Not that many people listen to me. I don't even listen to half of what I say. If you want a sympathetic listener to your bullshit, the world is REALLY BIG, with LOTS of OTHER PEOPLE. If you want a friend, remember, friends don't have to agree with each other. I don't demand that of anyone.

And it's sad, but also annoying, to be pounced on, and have some one's bitter false reality shoved down my throat, when I was just minding my own business, sitting in the sun, not hurting anybody.

You can't treat me like the cat, and then wonder why I'm skittish and have claws.

Dad, I don't think you were Father of the Year, and I won't revise that statement no matter how hard you try to charm/lean/bully me. I don't want to go to lunch with someone who tries to rewrite my memory, who pretends he has no idea why I don't like him. Even if it's a free lunch. And who the hell cares what I think, anyway. I'm not your boss. I'm not the President of the United States. I'm not even your neighbor. I'm just little ole me, minding my own business. You might say it matters because I'm your daughter, but believe me, if that fact had mattered more to you when I was young, the fact that you're my father would matter more to me now. I'm not unforgiving, but I won't rewrite. I won't play anyone but myself in the pageant of your memory.

Dufel, yeah, your technical voodoo is stronger than my technical voodoo. I can't block you from contacting me. I'm the cat of the technical world. Dear god man, find something else to do besides contacting me. Take on a bigger challenge. I found better things to do than contact you, and I'm telling ya, I'm having a great time. Seriously, why the persistence? Do you really think that winning the battle of Don't Contact Me will win you the war of Let's Be Friends Again? You cannot be that delusional. Besides, I'm not that pretty, or that witty or that fun. I have my charms, sure, but you know what? SO DO A LOT OF OTHER WOMEN, AND FRANKLY, IT'S THEIR TURN.

The rest of you, and you know who you are, leave me alone or I'll call you on it. And if you're that concerned about what opinions I carry in the privacy of my own mind, I'm sure it worries you to think about what pretty unpleasant noises I can yowl on this backyard fence of a blog.

Cover Stories.

MK wants more interesting stories to tell than the truth about how she broke her ankle, and if anyone understands, it's me.
I always manage to injure myself in boring ways.
Ask me about the time I dislocated my knee at a football game. Sounds interesting, right? Nope. I was in the stands at the time. I just stood up wrong.


So, for MK, I suggest my favorite all-purpose lie.

"Shark attack."

Dear Jesse,

You're really good at being a brother.

And it's made a big difference in my life, having you.



Happy Birthday!

Love,
Sarah

Yesterday would have been his 26th birthday.

I think some cake is in order.
Roger would approve, and frankly I could use it.

I miss him.

I also still own records.

TV - "... now available on DVD and Blue Ray Disc."

Sarah Smile - "What is blue ray disc anyway?"

My Nick - "It's like a DVD, just better."*

*quiet for a moment*

Sarah Smile - "Can I rant for a minute, like an 80 year old woman, and you can nod and then promptly forget all about it, because I really am too young to be talking like this?"

My Nick - "Uh, sure?"

Sarah Smile - "When I was a little girl, I had an ancient projector and some old silent movies, Keystone Cops and stuff like that. On warm summer evenings, I would watch them on the side of the house, with my dog Jubilee for company. The quality was horrible, because the projector was on the ground everyone had wide shoulders and a big bobble head from the angle, and everyone's face had the texture of stucco. And you know what? It was perfect. I don't think I've ever enjoyed movies more than I did those. I don't understand why we need to keep making movies better and better quality. Does it really even matter after a certain point? I mean, if it matters to some people, then they can just rock on with that, whatever, whatever makes you happy. But how about a little acknowledge meant to those of us that are perfectly happy with their VHS collection? Sometimes "good enough" really is good enough! I don't even want to try to keep up with all the "improvements."

My Nick - *nods*

Sarah Smile - "I'm over it now. Thank you. Now lets go watch the Office Space DVD on your laptop in bed."



*He explains it this simply because he knows me and technical stuff. I not only just want the short version, the short version is about all I can usually understand anyway.

To me, we look exactly the same way as we did in high school.

But admittedly, every year I think high school age kids look younger and younger.

Today, the doors from the lobby to the new Executive Briefing Center were being frosted. (Unfortunately, not in the yummy way.) One of the technicians I recognized from high school. CHS alumni always greet each other in exactly the same way. It was a small high school, so everyone KNEW everyone, but naturally not everyone was necessarily close. Since it was a small school, we only had one of each stereotype. So we have this common experience, but often nothing else. Like plane wreck survivors, I suppose.
So we always look at each other, sing the one line of the alma mater that anybody ever knew, ("Oh Christian Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!") , cock our heads to the side, and then, "So .................... Whatcha been up to?" but in our heads we don't actually care a bit about what they're saying unless it contains a whiff of scandal.

While he was working, I said, "Jon, I tried to look you up on myspace just now, but with no luck, so I guess I'll have to find out what you're up to these days by asking you, you know, like, with words. So old fashioned. Bleck."

"Oh, you know me, I don't use a lot of words."

"And I do."

In unison, "Some things never change."

And this got me thinking. Am I really all that different from that girl I was ten years ago? My hair is shorter and my ass is wider, that's for sure. My first instinct is to say that I'm a very different girl.

My 16th birthday party.

Back then, I was known for my huge, heavy backpack. I had a locker in timbucktoo, and I was obsessively about always having my textbooks, even for classes were we used opened them twice a year. As a result, my backpack was so heavy that I made lunch money by arm wrestling the football players.

Today, I'm known for my giant purses. At the moment, my purse has three books in it. One play, one philosophy, and one crosswords.



Back then, I led my class in English and won awards in Journalism.


Today, I blog.



Back then I had on average about 30 pets.

Today, I have 41.




Back then I had a teddy bear backpack.

Today I keep on my desk a walrus shaped water bottle.


Back then I had an almost perfect attendance record.

Today I have an almost perfect attendance record.


Back then, I was a bit of an acquired taste. Nobody knew what to make of me at first, but they all liked me in the end.

Today, that still feels like a pretty apt description.


And so perhaps I really haven't changed much at all, but the only change is in how I expect to be perceived.