Night Thoughts

April, 2007

I was getting my hair done yesterday, chatting with the stylist, when she mentioned she and some of her co-workers were going out to dinner that night.

“But I have to sit next to Sarah,” she whispered, “because she’s a pig like me and no one else here really eats.”

The first thought that popped into my head was, of course, wondering why they were going to a restaurant if no one was into eating. The second was how someone who is MAYBE a size 6 (probably a 4) could possibly be a pig. I didn’t ask for clarification because I was afraid her definition of pig might make me, what, a cow? An elephant? A dinosaur?

Yes, I like food and I’m not afraid to admit it. I clean my plate AND I have dessert sometimes. Not worrying about what people think of my eating habits (I am healthy and I exercise, but still...) is on my “things I don’t care about now that I’m 40” list. That list also includes: what I wear to the grocery store, what brand of sunglasses I have, and engaging in meaningless small talk. The list is growing by the minute (I’ve only been 40 for less than two months, after all).

But back to food — I’m turning into a foodie. I always thought foodies were persnickety people who ate things like monkey brains and eel guts. But I’m coming to realize “foodie” really means someone who’s just interested in food and can take a chance occasionally to branch out from the tried and true.

Rich was a meat and potatoes guy when I met him, but as I’ve been dragging him to little neighborhood haunts he’s come to realize he’s a foodie, too. We love the place that makes their own sausages and pairs them with interesting beers and wines. They also do a cheese plate paired with flavorful sides that make your taste buds stand up and take notice. Another restaurant we like does Italian tapas (small plates) that are interesting and yummy. A white guy who’s way into Oaxacan culture opened a cafe in walking distance of our house that serves grilled chicken, beef or fish tacos in an artful setting he created with his own iron-art skills. Across the street from him is a new concept — a gastropub — that is a British take on the French brasserie.

And that’s not the end of the list. Within two miles we have some of the most reasonably priced, appealing food in San Diego. No wonder we’re both overweight — who could resist?

What we really like, though, is supporting these local places. In fact, we try to limit ourselves to non-chain, locally owned restaurants because we want to give our money to our neighbors (all of the owners live near their restaurants) and back the notion of local establishments. It is fun to go into these places and not only recognize the staff and have them recognize us, but also run into people we know from the community. Tables are pulled together and glasses are clinked in a toast to good times.

The Bible talks a lot about people coming together over food and drinks. I think that’s because it causes people to stop, sit and face each other. You can’t help but talk while you wait on your food. You can’t help but smile when a delicious plate is set in front of you. You can’t help but pat each other on the back on the way out and say, “We should do this more often.”

And we should.

P.S. If you are in San Diego, here are some great restaurants to try in my North Park ’hood:
Cantina Mayahuel, Adams @ 30th — tacos and more in artful setting
Jayne’s Gastropub, 30th @ Adams (next to AC lounge) — British and American food
Apertivo, 30th @ University — Italian tapas
The Linkery, 30th @ Upas — housemade sausages and every-changing market menu
Alexander”s, 30th @ Upas — casual Italian and wood-fired pizzas
Lei Back Cafe, 30th @ Beech — superb sandwiches and incredible garlic Parmesan fries

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April 19, 2007 | 0 Comments | View or add comments

A Question of Questions

Inference is an interesting thing, especially when it comes to e-mails. I’m not a beat-around-the-bush type of e-mailer. I state my issue and get out -- not much chit-chat or fluff. But it has come to my attention recently that some people are made to “feel bad” by these types of e-mails. When I re-read the e-mails in question (love that e-mail “paper” trail!), I could not figure out where these people felt that the e-mails were hurtful. But then I figured it out: the e-mails were questioning the quality of the job these people, who were assisting me, were doing. Even though my e-mails were not hurtful in their tone as was suggested, they probably did sting the recipients because they pointed out those people’s ineffectiveness.

Which makes me wonder, how often do we infer something that just isn’t there because it’s easier to shoot the messenger than digest the message? Also, is it wrong to be straightforward and not couch a communication in a bunch of positive words even though the message is negative? Isn’t that sort of passive-aggressive?

I’m a big fan of confrontation. Not the knock someone over the head kind of confrontation, but the clear the air type. Too much internalizing and taking the path of least resistance leads to built-up anxieties and, frankly, is a waste of time and energy for all involved. But some people can’t handle confrontation. Rather than cut to the chase, they want to ease into a situation and drag it out forever. Sometimes that might be the best way to handle a situation, but most of the time I think it’s ineffective.

After looking at the e-mails that had a bad tone (or so I was told), I realized it wasn’t the tone at all; it was the content. The people I was e-mailing weren’t used to being questioned about their work. They seemingly hadn’t been held to accountability too often. Questions about why a task was not done when the person said it would be (or done at all in some cases) were new to these folks. My curiosity about why they weren’t being more proactive and thinking outside the box about their jobs -- with plenty of my own ideas and help thrown in to spur them -- were viewed as judgmental.

So even though I feel bad that they feel bad, and I've told them that, I’m not sure what the answer is. Don’t question? Couch questions in jokes? Don’t expect so much?

Sorry, but none of those alternatives works for me. There is no way I can sit back and allow fruitful projects to languish because those involved can’t handle being questioned. And if that makes me a mean e-mailer, then so be it. At least they can’t say I don’t care!

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April 17, 2007 | 0 Comments | View or add comments

Ginger, Catherine Crier and Me

Here we are with Catherine Crier right after we appeared on her show. She was very nice, and so skinny! After seeing my chubby mug on screen -- and her in real life -- I see why these celebs have to be size 2!

crier

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April 14, 2007 | 0 Comments | View or add comments

Gotham Girls

Ginger and I are going to New York on April 11. We will be on the Thursday, April 12, edition of Catherine Crier’s Court TV news show, which airs at 5 p.m. We will be talking about the Mary Winkler trial and the plight of pastors’ wives in general. We also hope to do some other media while we’re there. And maybe hit a few great restaurants!

As we were booking this appearance, yet another PW burst into the news. Mary Byrne Smith disappeared from a church conference in Louisiana. News reports say there is some evidence that her disappearance is voluntary. Read more about her here.

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April 6, 2007 | 0 Comments | View or add comments

Devo, Chrissie Hynde, … and us?

A lot of people have asked how Ginger and I came together to write this series, and what it’s like writing as a team. So here’s the deal.

Ginger and I were born exactly ten months apart (Feb. 28 and Dec. 28). We were both “only” children who were raised in Akron, Ohio. We grew up in the same small church denomination, although we did not attend the same church (Ginger’s dad was the pastor at her church). Then we both attended and graduated from the same, small Christian college. She was a year behind me, and we knew “of” each other because she was a theater standout and I was editor of the college newspaper. But even with all of that in common, we were not even acquaintances.

Fast forward to around 1999. Ginger was working for a Christian magazine, and I was working for a Christian book publisher. We were both on staff at the Florida Christian Writers conference, and when we saw each other we did the “aren’t you…” questioning and found we were indeed those campus co-eds from the late eighties. During that conference, we enjoyed finally getting acquainted and reminiscing about our college years. As we parted, we exchanged contact info.

Well, as it turns out there were many more of those Christian writers conferences in our future, because that’s where editors go to find writers to edit. At most of the conferences, the staff has to share rooms due to tight quarters, so Ginger and I chose to pre-select each other as roomies. Over the next few years, we grew to be great friends during our little junkets.

In 2005, we were back in Florida for that same conference where we originally met. By that time, we had started coming into the conference towns early so we could have dinner and catch up before our duties began. It was at this dinner in Tampa that we started talking about writing a book together. Neither of us really remembers how the topic of pastors’ wives came up, except that we knew we needed to write about something that hadn’t been done a million times. And the plight of pastors' wives is fascinating and heart-wrenching. First we tossed around a non-fiction treatment, but then we decided fiction might be more fun (neither of us had written it before) and allow us liberties that non-fiction wouldn’t.

The title — Desperate Pastors’ Wives — was just a natural for what we were proposing. I don’t know which of us came up with it, but we knew right away that it would be our marketing tool.

At the conference, we met with an agent who liked our idea and said to mail him the proposal. Encouraged, we stayed up every night of that conference outlining our characters and plot (I apologize to whomever was rooming next to us for all the giggling!). We also devised a way to split up the writing.

When we returned to our respective homes (she in Chicago and me in Southern Cal), we e-mailed and phoned until we had the book figured out. Excited, we mailed our proposal to the agent. He was thankfully quick to get back to us.

Thanks, but no thanks, he said.

We were crumpled but not crushed. We knew we had a good idea — we just needed someone to help us finesse it a bit.

That same week, Ginger was having lunch with a fiction editor friend, and Ginger mentioned our floundering proposal. The editor loved the idea and said she would take a look at it and let us know how we might “fix” it. She also said Howard Books, a publisher for whom she freelanced, was looking for a new fiction series, and they might be interested in ours.

She did, we did, and they were. Within weeks, we had a contract not only for one book, but the three-book series we proposed. We were floored that a publisher was taking a chance on unpublished fiction authors and agreeing to three books.

And then we realized we had to write them!

So … I don’t want to over spiritualize this, but can you really chalk up our meeting and working together to coincidence? Our backgrounds, the way we met, how the idea popped into our heads so suddenly — I think there was a good dose of divine intervention in that turn of events.

Since this post is turning into a book of its own, I will write about our collaboration in a following post.

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April 1, 2007 | 0 Comments | View or add comments

Night Thoughts

April, 2007

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