Hey, there. I'm leaving tomorrow for BlogHer '13. If you are there, I'm speaking on Friday and Saturday on turning your blog post into publishable essays -- if you come to either session, please come up and say hi and be patient with me if I look at you all glassy-eyed because presenting takes a lot out of me but I really like to meet people. Also, I may have met you thirty-five times before but will still ask you your name or your blog because I have the recall of a tree frog.

If you're not there (or you are there and seriously have time to read blogs) and you want to enter for a chance to win a copy of THE OBVIOUS GAME, my latest Goodreads giveaway has another two-ish weeks on it.

And my daughter has pneumonia and I have to leave her, so send good vibes toward Kansas City, okay? And also me, because I went to test the thermometer by taking my own temperature and either there is something wrong with the thermometer or I have a low-grade fever, too. I bought three bottles of Purell yesterday and will not touch anyone without disinfecting them afterward.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Obvious Game

by Rita Arens

Giveaway ends August 06, 2013.

See the giveaway detailsat Goodreads.

Enter to win

Next week, the girl (who will hopefully be better) and I are headed to Iowa to hang out with my original nuclear, so posting may be light. I'll try to get some fun pictures from BlogHer for those who can't make it -- it's always a little surreal.

More soon!

There was a day last week when I thought I might crack in two. Something happened with the girl, something happened with me, and I was so stressed out I found myself in my garage with tears coursing down my face, knowing my husband and my daughter and my neighbors were waiting for me in their SUV, ready to take us out on their boat in a beautiful invitation to frolic on Blue Springs Lake.

I'm trying to pretend I am mentally healthy.

I'm trying to model a mother who knows how to deal.

Earlier that day, my girl dissolved into tears on the way to summer camp, and here I was, dissolving in tears in the garage. I wanted very badly to model self-control.

I forced myself into the neighbors' SUV wearing my sunglasses. Tears still streamed down my face, uncontrollable, but I just assumed no one would see because of my sunglasses. In my experience, most people don't actually pay attention unless you draw their attention to you.

At one point, my neighbor woman asked me a question, and I just nodded, too upset to speak.

I wanted to model someone under control, though, so I just sat there.

It was awkward, I admit.

My neighbors are wonderful human beings. They invited us out on the lake on a Tuesday night, and they had every intention of taking us, despite my obvious awkwardness. We got to the lake and backed the speedboat into the water, and upon seeing the expanse of blue I started to feel the tension ebb, just a bit.

"Rita, all you need is some HYDROTHERAPY," my neighbor man said. And he dropped in the boat.

For three hours, we played. We tubed, the little angel and I knocking against each other in two separate tubes, her face alight with glee. I waterskiied. The little angel and my husband got up on skis gripping the boom, their eyes wide, finally understanding what it feels like to flit like a waterbug across the surface of the water at high speeds. 

It feels like flying.

We swam, and we saw the two parent eagles and the two baby eagles calling SCREE SCREE SCREE across the sky to their nest. 

"Do we have time?" my daughter asked, looking to the water. 

"Yes, it's 8:15. Sunset's at 8:41," said my neighbor lady.

And as we pulled the boat back out of the water, I felt like a new person. "Thank you," I said. "Thank you for letting me shake off my mood. I almost didn't come because I didn't want to subject you to me tonight. Thank you, it worked, the hydrotherapy."

My neighbors grinned. They are happy, wonderful people. They are my parents' age. I want to be them when I grow up, logging their time on the water in a little notebook, telling stories of when they learned to barefoot ski.

I saw the sun set that night over the water. It was summertime, and none of the things I thought were so important mattered.

Kelly said she's leaning in, waiting to hear. She might not have been talking straight to me, but since Kelly is my race red pill, I heard her, anyway. I didn't want to. It's a week from BlogHer '13 and I had trouble with my daughter today and I have a million other excuses for why I don't want to talk about Trayvon Martin, but I hear you, Kelly, sometimes you have to talk about things that just piss you off because they are important.

I had just left a soccer match on Saturday night and was standing in line for the shuttle when I heard about the Trayvon Martin verdict. The older couple behind me were clearly trial junkies, as the woman started in on everyone from O.J. to Casey Anthony, and apparently she'd been following Trayvon, too. "Not enough evidence," she said. "I knew they wouldn't convict him."

I felt my color rising. I wished I'd watched the trial so I could speak intelligently, but I've felt this entire time like I didn't have to watch the trial to be pissed off. Trayvon Martin was walking home unarmed with candy and a nonalcoholic drink. George Zimmerman was packing heat and disregarded 911 telling him to stay away. The fact that he called 911 on a kid carrying candy is troubling enough. That he followed Trayvon with a gun? Where did this all go so badly off the rails?

With the law. 

I've thought and thought about this since it all went down, and the problem is with the culture that writes the laws. The laws are too vague. The laws may ignore common sense and ethics. And the laws and the court of public opinion have always been against the black man. (I am aware that George Zimmerman isn't white. Don't care.)

Think I'm wrong? Watch the local news in any city for five nights and tell me how many times an assailant or thief was described as a black man, then tell me how many black men actually live in that city. I don't watch the Kansas City news that often, but every damn time I SWEAR that I watch the news, a black man has gotten away with something! How many black PEOPLE are there in Kansas City?

White alone, percent, 2010 (a)	59.2%	82.8%
	Black or African American alone, percent, 2010 (a)	29.9%	11.6%
	American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent, 2010 (a)	0.5%	0.5%
	Asian alone, percent, 2010 (a)	2.5%	1.6%
	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent, 2010 (a)	0.2%	0.1%
	Two or More Races, percent, 2010	3.2%	2.1%
	Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2010 (b)	10.0%	3.5%
	White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2010	54.9%	81.0%

I'm guessing about half of those black people are female. Those black people sure are busy!

Or are we just more worried about what they are doing than what all the other people are doing when it comes to crime? Other people commit crimes -- they just don't get covered as often on the news. 

Now, on the flip side, how often do we hear about white people who have been kidnapped versus black people? 

In all my reading, the person who has summed up my malcontent best is Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic:

We have spent much of this year outlining the ways in which American policy has placed black people outside of the law. We are now being told that after having pursued such policies for 200 years, after codifying violence in slavery, after a people conceived in mass rape, after permitting the disenfranchisement of black people through violence, after Draft riots, after white-lines, white leagues, and red shirts, after terrorism, after standing aside for the better reduction of Rosewoodand the improvement of Tulsa, after the coup d'etat in Wilmington, after Airport Homes and Cicero, after Ossian Sweet, after Arthur Lee McDuffie, after Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo and Eleanor Bumpers, after Kathryn Johnston and the Danziger Bridge, that there are no ill effects, that we are pure, that we are just, that we are clean. Our sense of self is incredible. We believe ourselves to have inherited all of Jefferson's love of freedom, but none of his affection for white supremacy.

You should not be troubled that George Zimmerman "got away" with the killing of Trayvon Martin, you should be troubled that you live in a country that ensures that Trayvon Martin will happen. 

And, so, Kelly, that's where this white lady stands. Am I pissed at George Zimmerman? Yeah, I am. But I'm more pissed that anyone could feel comfortable stalking an unarmed minor because he was black and wearing a hoodie.  (Emphasis mine)

Zimmerman

He's got his hand in his waistband. And he's a black male.

Dispatcher

How old would you say he looks?

Zimmerman

He's got button on his shirt, late teens.

Dispatcher

Late teens. Ok.

Zimmerman

Somethings wrong with him. Yup, he's coming to check me out, he's got something in his hands, I don't know what his deal is.

Dispatcher

Just let me know if he does anything, ok?

Zimmerman

(unclear) See if you can get an officer over here.

Dispatcher

Yeah we've got someone on the way, just let me know if this guy does anything else.

Zimmerman

Okay. These (expletive) they always get away. Yep. When you come to the clubhouse you come straight in and make a left. Actually you would go past the clubhouse.

To me that "and he's a black male" sounds a lot like Paula Deen's "of course" when asked if she'd ever used the n-word before. "And he's a black male" -- as though that's all it takes to be a criminal. "Of course" -- as though using a racial epithet is a normal and acceptable thing to do. "It doesn't violate the law" -- once covered slavery. Listen, the law is just what's written down at the time. People write the laws, and society dictates whether those laws are left to stand or rewritten. 

Clearly there's a huge gap between the law and right/wrong in the Trayvon Martin case, and that really sucks. It's a problem so huge I don't know where to start. Unlike women's health rights, there's no concrete one law to point to, to say "change this and we'll be safe." The overarching climate that made it defensible somehow in a Florida court of law to clearly single out a kid because he's a black male who's staring is the thing that needs to change, and it's so nebulous it's hard to know where to start. 

So I start in my neighborhood. I start with my daughter. I start with the people I know. I started with the older couple in line behind me at the soccer match. I told them I thought the law and what was right were two completely different things. The older couple didn't see the forest for the trees, or maybe it wasn't a Saturday-night conversation. But I'll keep trying. I don't know how much influence I have on my blog or my social media, but I'll keep trying. I'm not ignoring it. I'm trying to figure out where the fuck to start.

But I'm leaning in. And you know what? I think the fact the Trayvon Martin case got as covered as it did in the media is maybe a good thing. How many trials do we see on the national news for black kids getting shot? Let's keep the conversation going.

I remember a stopwatch in my childhood. I think it belonged to my father, though I'm not actually sure. I got ahold of it one day and started timing how long it took me to do things I normally did. I was shocked to find most of my daily activities took a number of seconds, maybe a minute or two. That knowledge was heavy.

If you think about all the tasks of everyday life in terms of individual actions that take merely seconds each, the day seems to stretch on forever in a ridiculously overwhelming fashion. It takes so many seconds to type each sentence in this blog post, to get a glass of water, to put away the dishes from lunch in the dishwasher. 

Knowing that, too, can be a little intimidating. If it really only takes a few seconds to do things, what the hell am I doing all day?

I thought about that sort of thing last night when I really wanted myself to work on PARKER CLEAVES but I was really tired from a full weekend and doing some work for my job already. I set the stopwatch on my phone for fifteen minutes. I wrote until it went off. I haven't read it over yet. I don't know if it's good. Doesn't have to be -- it's a rough draft. It just has to exist so I can fix it. Thinking about all the little fifteen-minuteses, though, is as overwhelming as the first full day of a new job or a new baby -- wondering how you're ever going to get through so many seconds to the end of the day. That's what writing the rough draft feels like to me. 

I could accomplish so much more if I spent more time realizing how little time it actually takes to do almost anything.

Do you ever look at all the people making sexy fish-faces on The Facebook and wonder how we got here?

Then, in the midst of my judginess, I look at my own damn profile picture, which is one of the only pictures I've ever taken in which I'm not smiling, because I was trying to be serious and authorial and not giddy. Totally no different than The Facebook. I'm guilty.

Sometimes I get so tired of myself and trying to promote my writing and trying to be, just, well, MORE. More as a writer, more as an employee, more as a mother, better, faster, more.

I have plenty of friends who ask me why I feel compelled to write books on top of all the other things I do in my life, and I think the real answer is that I take myself too seriously. When I'm honest with myself, I know there are almost 300,000 books coming out every year and it's a bloody miracle if anyone finds mine, reads it AND likes it, so sometimes it seems very silly to keep trying. And here I am, writing another one, not knowing if this next one will be bigger, faster, more or not.

Then I think, well, if I didn't try, then what point is there in doing anything? I was commenting on a post this week about a woman who doesn't like to make her bed because she doesn't see the point, but I always make my bed and the point is to have a made bed because I take myself and my bed very, very seriously. I take everything seriously, except for The Facebook, because The Facebook depresses the shit out of me and every time I go over there I find myself feeling bad that I'm not doing everything better, faster, more, and I hate feeling like that, like just living without hurting anyone else isn't enough.

I think I might need a vacation. 

Last year and this year, we've let my daughter stay home one day a week from summer camp provided she doesn't interfere with my work (well, more than making her lunch and things that can't be avoided). It saves us around $130 a month and it lets her get bored. Remember getting bored? And having to do something about it yourself? I think it's very important for her to learn to putter around the house so she doesn't follow her roommates around like a sad puppy in college.

On most summer Mondays, she watches way too much television, doesn't get dressed until five pm and folds her own laundry. I don't worry too much about her spending a day watching television, because it's one day and then she goes to camp the rest of the week and swims and bowls and makes stuff out of beads and does science experiments. Plus, watching TV all morning on a lazy summer day is fun. I'm jealous. 

And every once in a while, I walk into the living room to check on her and find an intricately constructed story hour so cute I can't even believe it.

She has way too many stuffed animals, too. But I don't care any more. Life's short.

The actual upper and lower scope didn't take long at all. They took all the biopsies they needed this time and told me about my innards. Some more medicines.

They gave me something to dry out my throat that hasn't worn off yet, but I'm otherwise fine. I finished FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK and thought about how important it is for teens to have trusted adults in their lives, how the presence of that can make all the difference in eventual psychological scarring.

Last night right before bed I had this horrible fear something would go wrong and I would die during a routine outpatient surgery. It took me a while to stop the intrusive thoughts. I laid down on my daughter's bed and prayed I'd be able to at least shepherd her to adulthood. Then I started to cry from the anxiety and exhaustion and hunger and stimulative laxatives, and then she rolled over in her sleep and punched me in the head.

I'm waiting for them to come home with glow sticks for the holiday and my fears seem silly now, but they were so very real last night.

My plan worked. Slept until an hour before check-in. They are delighted with how long it's been since I had liquid. I'm delighted I got here before the appointment before me and got bumped up.

Thirsty.

*updated whenever I remember*

I have my colonoscopy tomorrow. This is the second colonoscopy I've had, so unfortunately, this time I know what to expect. I'll spare you the details of the gross parts, but in case anyone's wondering what it's like to prep for a procedure like this, I thought I'd liveblog it. I promise I will not talk about my plumbing.

8 am: Coffee. No milk. I poured water into it out of a water bottle to try to fool my mind with the ritual. My mind was fooled. My tastebuds were not. I had two cups and yet somehow still do not feel awake.

8:30 am: Notice I am hungry. Drink lemonade and eat some lemon-lime Jell-o. 

10 am: Make a tasty cup of chicken broth. (Note: chicken broth is a really good thing to drink because it at least tastes like food, whereas Jell-o just tastes like the dregs of childhood and church potlucks.) Decide to pretend I am at a fancy spa having a colonic or juice cleanse instead of sitting around my dirty house trying to work while I mainline clear liquids. Maybe a little soothing music would help. 

10:41 am: Why can't I wake up? Also, I looked up colonics. Why anyone would do that to themselves voluntarily is beyond me. 

Noon: Fed the cat. Jealous of the cat. Looked at my "supplies" and realized I'm going to have way bigger problems in a few hours. 

12:28 pm: Realizing I'm not going to really eat anything today, I check with the nurse and decide to start the cleanse part of the clear liquid diet early so I can go to bed early -- if I want -- without fear. My plan is actually to stay up late and sleep until the last possible minute before my 12:30 Wednesday check-in so I don't have to sit around all morning thinking about how hungry I am. Mix 15 doses of Miralax with Gatorade and take two Dulcolax. Stare at bottle of Miralax and think I can't possibly be taking this much at once, then remember the point of this entire exercise. Stir into large water bottle with chopstick and down the hatch. It will take me forever to drink all this stuff, anyway. Not hungry at this phase because so much liquid going down. Feel bloated and lightheaded.

2 pm: I can tell I'm not going to need the second round of supplies, which is good. Also, I feel totally sick.

2:11 pm: HUNGRY! SO HUNGRY! 

2:29 pm: Hunger's gone. Now I'm depressed. WILL THIS DAY EVER END?

3 pm: Developing a hunger headache. Call nurse to ask if I can take Advil. HUNGER PANG WHILE ON HOLD. No Advil. Only Tylenol. Panic because I never take Tylenol, but I find a bottle in the medicine bin. 

3:22 pm: Hitting refresh on Calming Manatee.

3:42 pm: I don't know why people fast for clarity. There is no clarity, only bad flashbacks to the million things I used to do to distract myself from being hungry. 

4:08 pm: Starting to fantasize about being sedated tomorrow. It would be nice to be asleep right now.

5:33 pm: Fed the cat again. Currently hate the cat.

5:44 pm: I HAZ THE SADS.

9:04 pm: I sent Beloved and the little angel away for dinner because I couldn't stand to smell food. They were gone for an hour and a half, which I spent reading FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK and becoming convinced of the awesomeness of author Matthew Quick. Writerly appreciation blinded me to my hunger pangs, but then when they came home, I stood up too fast and nearly blacked out. I decided I needed a distraction, so I watered flowers (it's raining now), took out the garbage and put away laundry while listening to the sounds of my innards. The worst of the cleaning process is over now, so at least there's that, but the hunger is really mounting right now, and I hate to go to bed hungry, so I'm going to try to stay up as long as possible so I'll sleep right up until noon tomorrow. I check in at 12:30 and the procedure is at 1:30, and the nurse said it should be all done by 3 at the very latest. I want to think about all the food I'll eat on the deck tomorrow night watching the neighbor kids and the little angel set off fireworks (remember, kids, I live in Missouri), but that is too depressing as I realized just a little bit ago that I still have eighteen hours to go. How long can I sleep? 

9:10 pm: I swore I would not have any more chicken broth as the cubes have a zillion grams of sodium in them, but I suppose retaining water isn't really a problem at present, is it?