The Mega Millions lottery, which is available in a whole lot of states, is up to half a holy fucking shit dollars. Tonight at 11 pm in Atlanta (for which I'm too lazy to figure out the time zone), they're going to draw a number and someone's going to get half a billion dollars.

This morning on the radio the djs were talking about what you should do if you won. Really key stuff like getting kidnapping insurance and immediately hiding your loved ones, who would become immediate targets.

There is a lottery ticket hanging on our refrigerator door. 

That's sobering, isn't it? Money means so many things to people, but though I've often thought it has the power to corrupt, I never thought about it having the power to endanger before. Then again, it's hard to even think about the word "lottery" without thinking of Shirley Jackson's amazing short story.

I'm up again to answer a BlogHer.com Life Well Lived question. This one is pretty great.

How do you put yourself first? How does taking time for yourself help make you happier? 

I don't know what the outside perception of me putting myself first is, but I think I do it a lot. I didn't used to -- I used to do whatever I was asked to do, and then a bunch of stuff I thought I was supposed to do and then maybe at the end something I actually wanted to do. 

About five years ago, I started really examining what I could do to better manage my anxiety. I realized that excercise really helped amp down the adrenaline I can get unexpectedly and for no good reason. Now that I work from home, it's not unusual for me to turn to the jump rope or a short workout DVD or even push-ups if I start to feel my emotions spinning and I need to focus. So after spending nearly twenty years exercising for weight management, suddenly I was exercising to access some good dopamine -- which totally changed my attitude about doing it. I stopped resenting it as something I had to do and started looking forward to the feeling I'd get after working out -- something I wanted to feel, so exericise became something I wanted to do. I now look at that time as me time and putting my good feelings first.

I put a lot of time into my writing, in all its formats. I write fiction, here, and on BlogHer.com. Part of it is my job, but there's such a fuzzy line between work and play when you have a job you really love.

I love to sleep. I sleep as long as I can, whenever I can. Other moms are shocked at how late I will sleep on weekend mornings when Beloved and the little angel let me, and they often do. I make no apologies for this sleeping. It helps me rejuvinate from throwing everything at my work week, and I'm a much more fun person when I'm not tired. We've all made peace with that.

I have one child on purpose. When we first made the decision to have a small family, a lot of people got all up in our grill about it, as though not having multiple offspring was somehow selfish or cruel to our daughter. I felt really insecure about it for a long time, but now I'm as unapologetic about having an only as I am about sleeping. Our family of three is extremely loving and extremely agile, and I relish taking off for the zoo spontaneously and without anything but a wallet. I don't like chaos, and it's easier to avoid chaos without lots of kids. There, I've said it. My daughter has voiced both her love of being an only and her regret that she doesn't have brothers or sisters. I'm sure she'll vascillate on her opinion of it from day to day for the rest of her life, but she'll always know we love her unconditionally. I can't do much more: I've tried brainwashing her that my every decision is perfect, and it's not taking very well.

I don't have a dog. The little angel desperately wants a dog. But even if my mother weren't deathly terrified of all dogs, I still would not have a dog. I don't like barking or licking. Aren't I painting an awesome picture of myself? I adore other people's dogs, but like those who don't want children, I really don't want a dog that will need to be walked and have his poop picked up by me on a daily or weekly basis. It interferes with that agility I so treasure in our little family. Thus we have Petunia the cat, who cuddles and then wanders off to reorganize the library without remark when we leave town for a weekend. 

In the past, when I've thought about taking time for myself or putting myself first, I thought about things like getting a pedicure or going to the library alone. Those things are awesome, awesome, awesome, but anything can be putting yourself first if you're thinking about it that way. Every little thing you do to make your environment more comfortable for your particular needs is putting yourself first. I also think to some extent making your family more comfortable is putting yourself first, because the happier they are, probably the happier you are. Nothing makes me happier than my daughter's joy, so I really like having adventures and introducing her to new things. It might look like I'm doing something for her, but in the end, it's for me, too. I get to see the smile.

What do you do for yourself? Dr. Aymee has some tips over at Live Well Lived on BlogHer.com. Or you can skip straight to commenting to win a Kindle Fire, because I will not rest until everyone has an ereader.

---

The folks at Lego reached out to tell me about their new Build Together site. It has instructions for how to build different things with standard lego sets organized by how much time you have and how much skill you have. I thought that was pretty smart, so I'm sharing it with you. I wasn't compensated for that little ditty, I just like legos.

I slept like hell last night. We spent the weekend outside and yesterday working in the yard, and between the muscle exhaustion and the allergy infusion, I just couldn't stay comfortable. At about 5:45 this morning, I woke up and flopped around again (my poor husband). Petunia stirred from the foot of the bed and walked over my body until she got to my arm. Then she curled up in the circle of my arm, put her paws over my elbow and laid her head on my shoulder. And purred.

And then I fell back asleep. And to think she was months from being put down when we adopted her.

---

Other things I wrote last week:

• Plants toxic to cats and dogs
• Six tips for talking politics with your friends without a fight
• Parents sue school district over a blog and I can't figure out why

On Monday, I went to hear The Book Doctors (Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry) do their Pitchapalooza for the second year. Last year, I just went and watched, not really sure what was going on. This year, I took along my reframed novel pitch to see what they would say.

It was monsoon pouring that night, and the temperature inside Unity Temple ranged somewhere between moist and sauna. I am terrible at estimating crowds, but I'd say the auditorium was about half full -- and it appeared every one of those people had a book to pitch. I got lucky and was selected as one of the twenty-five people who got to read my pitch and get some feedback on it. (This was really, really lucky, because Arielle and David and the people they pick to be on their panel are always nice. I've been to pitching/querying sessions at writers' conferences in which the panel brought "vindictive" to a whole new level.)

As I waited to see if my name would be called, I studied my audience mates. I was there alone, so I had nothing to do but look around. I myself kept rewriting my pitch over and over in my notebook, changing a few words here and there. It wasn't fully baked and I knew it, but I hadn't had much time to spend on it and when you get a chance to get feedback on your writing, you take it. I saw the man in front of me had his pitch all typed out. He was staring a hole through it. The woman beside me was scribbling in a notebook.

If you could've bottled the collective angst in that room ...

I felt a tremendous sense of empathy toward every person in the room. Even though I got one book published, it doesn't get easier. I don't feel any less angsty about my current pitch than I did about my Sleep Is for the Weak pitch. One thing I am able to do better is recognize that the feedback you need is the feedback that sucks the worst to hear. Identifying the problems is their job, fixing them is mine. 

I hate fixing. I wish it would just come out right the first time.

Then again, if it did, I wouldn't know what to do the first time it came it wrong.

It's sort of a vicious circle.

Some of the other writers had shaky voices. One commented about how nervous she was. Even in such a friendly atmosphere, it's terrifying to say out loud what you've been typing and whispering over and over to yourself for weeks or months or years. 

I got the feedback I needed, went back to my seat and waited for my heart rate to return to normal. I looked over at the woman next to me, and she smiled. I smiled back.

I knew she knew exactly how I felt.

---

Speaking of authors, check out my review of longtime reader Shannon Hyland-Tassava's new book, The Essential Stay-at-Home Mom Manual on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

This morning I saw a post on BlogHer called "I've Never Had a Best Friend" by all.things.fadra. She wrote:

I used to get offended when I would meet people, especially people I really liked, and they would tell me about their “best friend back in Michigan” or the woman they’ve been friends with since the second grade.

I took it to mean: Hi. Nice to meet you. We can be friends but not that good of friends because that position has already been filled. And perhaps I stayed guarded in the friendship.

And I felt a pang, because I refer to my best friend in conversation as my best friend to people who don't know her and never mean to insinuate there's no more room in my heart for besties. 

In my case, I have a friend I've known since I was three years old. We've only not lived in the same metro area for two years of that 35-year period of time. When you know someone that long through so many phases of life, it's hard to compare it to any other friendship.

However.

It never occurred to me that my referring to her that way might drive away potential new friends. I've been blessed in my life to have had many friends who were the most active in my life at that moment and for whom I would go to great lengths to see or help. Some people -- whom I enjoy immensely -- I see in real life barely at all. Life at this juncture is so busy with the earning of money and the improving of still-clunky houses and the raising of children that it's a wonder I see anyone who doesn't live in my house or neighborhood ever. There are plenty of times when I'm free but they aren't or vice versa or it's just so dang hard to get off the ever-loving couch at the end of the day.

But every time I meet someone new, I look at them closely to see if we will be friends. I adore making new friends, new close friends, because friends are like your children -- your heart can make enough love for all of them, don't you think? You may not have enough time to see all of them every day or even every year, but your heart ... it doesn't get full. 

At least I don't feel that way.

I've always been fascinated by the little angel's skill in balancing and arranging her toys in all manner of Norman-Rockwell-meets-The-Shining scenes: super cute when she's there and super creepy when she's not.

When I got out of bed this morning, I heard the steady cadence of her voice in the next room. I looked at Beloved. "You're missing Story Hour," he said.

But I was late getting up and went down to get coffee and then we scrambled for the bus, and I forgot all about the whole thing until I went upstairs to shower and her light was on.

This is what I found.

The whole gang. She sleeps every night with almost everyone you see pictured here.

Ski Bear (slumped in the middle) is getting plastic surgery over Easter because my girl thinks he looks unhappy and wants him to smile more. SCARY!

Alexandra and Erin and their many pets.

Luv Bear, Sophie and Benjamin

Pink Kitteh and company

Tanya, who is unfortunately always in that hospital bed with tuberculosis, which killed Louis Braille.

(That was her explanation. I don't ask questions any more.)

Totally the best part.

Ever have a writing project that's not moving as quickly as you want?

PAINT STUFF.

Wish you could take a three-week vacation to Europe?

PAINT STUFF.

Scared about how hot this summer's going to be if it's already 80 before St. Patrick's Day?

PAINT STUFF.

Tired after a conference followed by an intense workweek?

DON'T SLEEP. PAINT STUFF.

Painting stuff is awesome. It's the cheapest way I know to start over. In the 2011-2012 edition of The Transformation of Chateau Travolta, Beloved put in a doorway arch that I completely forgot to document and then he got a wild hair and painted the dark beams in the living room white. Once he did that, I realized how much I hated the Friendly Yellow on the living room walls even though I love it in the hall. 

So then we decided we needed white molding to go with the new white ceiling and if we were going to go to that much trouble, we might as well paint the whole room, because what the hell.

So that's coming soon. I hope we get it all done this weekend, because the molding's been sitting in the garage since February. (That last bit was for my mother, who thinks we work really fast. It's all relative, Ma.)

This is all part of dealing with the fact I really want to use the Corolla insurance money to buy a 1984 convertible with cash. I will paint stuff instead, because that would be foolish. 

Right?

A few miles from my house, there are palm trees. Palm trees are not native to Missouri. When I first saw them, I thought they were fake. Then I realized they were taller than the other, native-to-Missouri trees. That would have to be a pretty good fake. And they moved in the breeze the way real palm trees would.

And when winter came, they were wrapped. 

I drove past that house recently and saw they'd installed carved and painted wooden palm trees with their house number at the base of their driveway.

I also saw the fronds of the unwrapped palm trees. They were still green. It was a very mild winter in Kansas City, but still ... the palm trees made it through the winter.

As I continued on down the road, I saw some wild turkeys, which actually belong in Missouri, and I thought about the plants those same neighbors planted at the base of their driveway a few years ago -- they were palm-like, but they were planted straight into the ground, probably several hundred dollars worth of these palm plants, and in the blazing Missouri humidity, they lasted about three weeks before they dried up and died.

So these people went from a several-hundred dollar failed palm-like-plant experiment to five full-size palm trees and huge carved wood statues. I don't even know how much it would cost to transport a fully grown palm tree from wherever palm trees belong to Kansas City, let along FIVE OF THEM.

And you know what? I smile every single time I drive past that house due to the undying optimism of these transplanted beach lovers.

Optimism: Go hard or go home.

Today I wrote this post over on BlogHer:

Let's say you're walking around SXSW cursing the lack of wifi on 6th Street. And then, suddenly, salvation: You see a woman wearing a t-shirt that says, "I'm Susie, a 4G hotspot. SMS HH Susie to 25827 for access wwww.homelesshotspots.org."

Susie herself is a hotspot, complete with all the necessary equipment. A walking, talking hotspot. A homeless hotspot. Hot damn, aren't you in luck!

Want to read the rest?