Melissa Lemon Does WHAT?

So on Friday I handed over about 20 chapters of my forthcoming novel, Blowing Sunshine, to Mom for her birthday. The lovely woman (hi Mom! told you I'd write this!) randomly flipped through my precious pages and landed on page #42.

This is what she read (not out loud!)

In the twenty one years they had been together, John and Marilu had never gone more than two days without sex.

Babymaking sex, relaxing sex, shut-up-about-the-bills sex, whatever.

Not that she wanted it that much, not that she really ever felt like she needed it, but it was part of their routine. Most of the time it was OK.

John’s cussing, pouting, clumsiness and general slovenliness didn’t do a single thing to make him more attractive to her.

Every now and then she came, but the rest of the time she didn’t come anywhere near the top of the mountain.

On those occasions, Marilu had the good sense to clamp down her kegel muscles and pretend to come.

JOHN! Oh! Feel that?

Oh! I’m coming !

Oh JOHN! Oh!

Then, convinced of his prowess, skill and desirability, he would leave her alone.

OK. So the my dear mother slammed the book shut and said "I hope you're going to publish this as Melissa Lemon. Don't use Soldani."

Don't use SOLDANI?

That's my name! Isn't it?

I mean, it is, right?

So here we go again. The whole "what's my last name? who am I?" thing.

When I married Chuck 11 years and 11 months ago, we didn't discuss a lot of things.

I could list them all for you, but I have papers to grade, OK? A

nyway, on that loooong list of things we didn't discuss was last names. He assumed I would change my name, and I kinda-sorta-didn't want to, so I hyphenated.

That didn't make him happy back then, and it's been the cause of countless sharp words and dirty glances since then.

I am not Melissa Lemon.

I don't call myself Melissa Lemon
That name is too damn happy for me.
It sounds cheerful, sweet.
Too easy to pronounce.

It sounds very American. Blonde. Friendly. Enthusiastic.

Melissa Lemon would join the PTA and help decorate bulletin boards at her daughter's school while wearing a long jeans skirt, espadrilles and a headband.

She wouldn't wear an iPod while doing it.

And I bet the woman doesn't curse like a sailor, either. Bitch.

I want to know this Melissa Lemon a bit better....

So I googled her (me?) --- guess what????

This Site says Melissa Lemon is a sedative, especially good for eczema, bacterial and fungal infections

This one says Melissa Lemon cures herpes (and WHY am I not rich??)

This site pretty much says Melissa Lemon cures everything except tensions in the Middle East.

Alright.

So the decision is made.

Melissa Soldani is a college professor, a columnist, a sharp-tongued devils advocate.

Melissa Lemon, my alter-ego, publishes books.

Ones that have fake orgasms, money laundering, more drugs than you can imagine, a porn shop that sells Russian brides, a crazy anorexic who thinks all mirrors are 2-way and the CIA is watching her.... and more good stuff like that.

I'd better get back to writing that book, huh?

Happy Tuesday!

Hanging By a Moment.

So as you've noticed, lately my energy has been going toward writing.

Pretty much if you only see me online or in class, you might think that all I do is I write & talk.


But not at home.

Home is a crazy place, part retreat, part battlefield (it's the friendly fire that kills you, eh?).

Home is where I think about writing, stare out the windows, turn down the tv's, sweep up doritos and, well, do everything but write books and teach college.

So last night I was sitting at the table (daydreaming) while Zoe colored a rainbow-inspired piece of art.

She wrote across the top "Happy Days are the Best Days in My Life Full of Rainbows" without asking me to spell any of those words.

I'm not easily impressed.

People write sentences every day, right?

Good sentence Zoe.

Oh MOM! I'm in the FOUR sentence club at school.

What's that?

It means I can write stories that are four sentences long.

Why not five?

Because then there isn't room on the paper to draw the picture.

(Duh!)

Done daydreaming, temporarily, I decided to teach Zoe something.

Wanna play a new game?

SURE!

I took her marker, found a clean sheet of construction paper & I drew a hangman.

Ever heard of hangman? It's a guessing game with letters.

I told her the rules. She got them.

We played hangman with two letter words (TV is the hardest 2 letter word ever), three letter words, four letter words, five letter words (she stumped me on apple) and six letter words (she got sister after three letters).

Then, after over an hour of this, I was getting tired so I thought to move the game backwards to five letter words, then four letter words, then three letter words, two letter words, then... to.... BED.

We were on the four letter round when she got stumped.

The drawing looked something like this......

W O R _

What is it Mommy? Give me a CLUE!

It's alive.

Oh. OH! Word.

Word? Nope. Not that.

Mommy! Words.... Are. ....Alive..... You KNOW that!

She rolled her eyes at me, crossed her arms, and leaned back as though she were getting ready to give me a stern lecture.

For just a moment I felt kinda stupid and shallow for picking WORM as a word in our little hangman game.

Wonderful Wonderful Day

One of the greatest things in my little wonderful world is coming to work and not knowing exactly what's going to happen.

Sometimes the phone rings and SURPRISE that's my wonderful thing for the day.

Sometimes a student comes to office hours and begs for the answers to big questions like "Where does confidence even come from?" and "How do you know you're not messing your entire life up?" and *that* will fill my brain for hours.

A full brain is a happy brain, right?

I have already came across today's surprise.

When I went to the faculty room (to check my mail, not for bagels or donuts. Seriously! Stop laughing! Do I look like I've been eating bagels??? nooooooooooo ----) I saw a beautiful beautiful sight.

Dr. Benedicks standing by a cappuccino machine.

Not the flimsy plastic one.

Not a Mr. Coffee One.

A big coffee-house style one with brass and pressure-dials and large internal water reservior.

I danced all the way back to my office (I have dancing jeans on today, long story, ask later, OK?) grabbed my can of Cafe Pilon and.... oh.

I'm drinking it now.

It's soooo good.

I love my job.

Enough! Here is Chapter 18

OK, one week without blogging and I'm up to HERE with emails asking me if I've fallen off a cliff.

No, no I haven't....

Well, to be completely honest, on Friday afternoon I was *thinking*about jumping off a cliff, but that's another story. For another blog.
I *have* been wroking hard, doing the book-writing stuff.

click here to read Chapter 18 -- it's about 1/4 into the book.

Enjoy!

Time Share, Anyone?

I've been dogsitting for less than an hour and I am dying to say this to the world -- DOGS ARE SO FREAKING EASY!!

Imagine flying off the Vegas, unmarried couple, old enough to have Vegas-style fun and come back without tatoos.

So that's what Zac and Marie are. Young. But smart.

And they're letting us dogsit Amber Bock the Wonder Dog this weekend.

I picked Amber up at their home, and the dog jumped right into my car.

Just like that. Like she knew me, understood the rules, was just happy.

There were no promises of Chuck-e-Cheese, no screaming for Mooommeeeeeee, no bending over in a skirt to strap a kicking fiend into the sweltering back seat.

We get home, she checks out the place. Found some crumbs, took care of them (Wonder Dog, thank you!), slurped up a few gulps of water, then crashed next to me while I wrote.

Now she's outside in our fenced yard, chasing butterflies.

Can you imagine doing this with kids?

Just borrowing them and enjoying them?

Well, if so, we're willing to timeshare.

We'll send the kids, you send your dog.

I promise to pack a bunch of Barney DVDs for you.

You let me know what kind of bone she likes and if you have to stand by her in order for her to poop.

Oh, and we'd charge you like a deposit on the kids. $10,000 or so.

Just enough to run to Vegas.

Dear Students,

Need to talk about your project?
Get help with IDs?
Just check in and ask questions about picking a major or transfer requirements?

I've got an office hour appointment schedule posted outside my door.

Even though I mostly only write and talk about things that happen off campus, the truth is that teaching college is the most wonderful I do each day.

It's a great priveledge, one that I worked hard to earn, and it's not something I take lightly.

So if you get a chance, stop by.

Say Hi.
Make sure I know your name.
Quiz me.
Heck, teach me something from one of your other classes.


If you haven't been to my office, it's upstairs in the same building that our class meets.
Go upstairs and head to the left.
The first doorway on the long hallway of classrooms is 256.
Open that door and you'll see four offices.
Mine is the one at the end of the hall.

You'll probably hear music coming from my door.

Or some laughing.

Come in.

A Splendid Little Trial (Draft #1)

So last week I finished lecturing on the Spanish American War (A Splendid Little War) and spent four long days watching a Splendid Little Trial (A Splendid Trial, indeed, unless you were the plaintiff...)

I was the jury foreperson and we rendered a verdict.

The problem with the verdict is that we were only asked to rule on one thing: Was Dr. OB negligent?

Our answer NO.

BUT we ruled a whole bunch of OTHER things that weren't asked by the Court.

Interested?

Good.

This is my FIRST DRAFT, so it's not going to be as linear as the final draft.
Bear with me, or come back later.
***********************************************************************

FINDING #1: Plaintiff's Counsel Was a Distracting Side Show

First of all, Plaintiff's counsel shocked and amazed most of the pool of potential jurors on jury selection day with her THREE HOURS of questions.

She apparently had a very very long and specific list of questions apparently downloaded from some "impress your friends with attorney tricks" website.
Kinda like those poker sites.
Free but cheesy.

A few of the questions might have been intelligent, but the only ones we (and by WE I mean the ones who were actually selected...) remember were the crazy ones.

She wanted ALL twenty-something jurors to list all the surgeries we've ever had.

She wanted us to tell her if we had any "attorneys in the family or as close friends."

I crossed my arms, cocked my head and tried not to laugh.
Please.

The worst thing she did was to repeatedly call each of us by our last names. That might be a good ploy, in theory, if 1) the names on the list were the correct names and 2) she pronounced them correctly.
She must have called me "Miss Lemon" about 20 times that day.
Each time, I wanted to kick her.
Not in a mean way.

Of course.

On the first day of trial, Plaintiff's counsel let me down with her uninspired visuals, handwritten "argument" on a posterboard. This wouldn't win at a high school debate contest, and it failed miserably in reality.

Handwriting your argument says a few things....
1) You didn't finish it until 10 minutes before trial, and didn't have the time to have it printed.
2) You couldn't afford to have it printed.
3) You need to see the argument YOURSELF or you might forget it.

Plaintiff's counsel relied on a script throughout the trial. She had every questions listed, typed, printed and 3-hole punched into a binder.

Which means, of course, she wasn't very good at thinking on her feet.

Father Nicoll, my Jesuit mentor, taught a history class at 8am every semester.

Usually it started out with 60-80 students, but the numbers thinned out quickly because he never lectured. Instead, each class meeting was oral quizzes.

No notes, no time to stammer.

Students were expected to memorize, think, prepare and be ready to (as he put it) analyze, analogize, synthesize, concretize and get it all right.

Plaintiff's counsel would have dropped Father Nicoll's 1000-level history course.

She simply didn't have the skill to stop witnesses when their rambling responses kept proving (without an exception here, people...) the defense's case.

FINDING #2
One of the Defense Witnesses Might Be a Jerk

Which one? The one who offered us an explanation that his neck injury came from "high school football" and looked all soft-eyed and self-proud when he confided he spends two days a month working for free at a clinic for indigent women in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Indigent women? In Jackson Hole? How convenient! I bet that's a GREAT tax write off.

I'd have been more impressed if he just walked into the courtroom with "SkiBum: Will Testify for Lift Tickets" on his hat.

(to be continued)

Coochi Trial Giggles and Alternate Juror Dreams

(edited a tiny bit after trial -- still in progress)

It isn't that I think I'm superhuman, it's that I USUALLY behave. And overall, at jury duty this week, I've been behaving.

Considering I get up at 4:30 am, do jury stuff all day ( DEFINITION OF JURY STUFF: sit quietly, take great notes, and lead competitive yoga sessions in the jury room, explain facebook to babyboomers, email and blog), then get home after 6pm and play supermom for a few hours.

I'm tired. I'm not GOOD at being tired.

Melissa, tired, is either cranky or giddy. So you can only guess where this is going.

I can't tell you ALL the details, but here is a generic overview. In trials there are exhibits, often blown-up at a place like Kinkos and affixed to posterboard.

Some of the exhibits are contracts, some are biological models of female anatomy.

We, the jury, have seen several exhibits. During the third day of the trial, after a long day of eating, listening and trying to keep a stoic face even I looked at one and just decided I couldn't look diagrams of female anatomy ANY more.
Not a single time.

When a witness asked for the exhibit, I just burst out giggling. Convulsively. And apparently, giggles are contagious.

I covered my face, covered my eyes, pinched myself, held my breathe --- but I could hear OTHER jurors coughing and choking on their giggles, which fed my giggles, which then caused me to almost pee on myself.

Back in the jury room we couldn't talk about the giggles, about the exhibit, about anything.

I got myself back together, and made it through the rest of the day's testimony without thinking about the Spanish American war, warm cookies, coochi's or pupusas.
All and all, the pressure is getting to me.

I miss my students, I miss my office, I miss a my regular days.

Jury duty is a priveledge and a responsibility, and as we get closer to the end of the case, it's growing clearer and clearer that a decision will have to be made.

A big decision that will lead to one side presiding.

I'm juror #8. There are 8 jurors in total, and we all are aware that two of us are alternates. They haven't told us WHICH two are alternates, but deep in my heart I'm starting seriously hope I'm one of them. I had a great time being Melissa.

I think I did my civic duty by explaining to another juror that there was NO prosecutor in this case.

I did my duty by keeping people upbeat, focused, and basically happy to be at jury duty.

If I am excused as an alternate I might make a sad face of regret, annoyance, disappointment, but don't be fooled.

This case is nothing to laugh at, and I'd be completely happy to sit in the back of the room and act surprised when the jury announces their verdict.

Then, probably, we'll go out (with or without the prevailing party ~) for some coochi martinis and have a good laugh about our wonderful experience at camp jury duty.

State of Florida vs. Melissa

(OK, I have to WRITE during these breaks. Check back in to see how it ends...)

CASE: State of Florida vs Melissa

Dr. Soldani, you are brought here today to be charged with INVOLUNTARY PHONESLAUGHTER.

How do you plea?

Not guilty, your honor!!! NOT GUILTY!

Prosecution, call your first witness.

I call JUROR #48 (he is sworn in)

Juror #48, where were you on the morning of Wednesday, October 4, 2006?

Was that the morning the guy jumped down a bunch of stories and had to be tazered?

No. That was Thursday. Do you recall your whereabouts on Wednesday morning?

Yes I do. I was waiting with the defendant on the benches in the courthouse.

And do you recall seeing her with her cellphone?

I do.

And could you please tell the jury what she was doing to the cellphone?

Yes. She took it apart and blew in it.

Blew in it?

Yes. She blew on the battery. She said that phones sometimes work after that. She also took off the faceplate and keyboard and told them to play nicely.

(JURY has been reconvened in a REAL trial.. so this is.....TO BE CONTINUED)

What I'm Learning from Jury Duty

Um, don't do anything that might get you in trouble.

It's not OK to make everyone laugh IN the courtroom, but if you stick your JUROR sticker on your butt as you exit the courtroom, that's kinda OK.

There's a lot of "hurry up and wait" involved in jury duty.
Usually you're told to bring a book.
Don't bother.
Bring food.
Crunchy food that you can shove into your mouth while you DON'T talk with the other jurors about what you just saw.

Don't plan on getting out at 5pm.
Don't plan on getting home in time for the FSU game.

And um, DON'T write about the trial while it's going on.
Even if you think you're going to be an alternate and you don't get to vote anyway.

Oh, and if you're sitting in the top row of the jury box and wearing a skirt, keep your knees closed.

Puzzle Pieces

No sleep all night. Not that I'm not tired.

Monday was an adventure.

When I was getting dressed, my pearl necklace broke.
OK, I tracked down the pearls from the bathroom floor and wiggled them back onto the string.
It'll probably break again, but until then, I will wear them every day and love every minute of it.

When I got to work, I found that my beloved cherished iPod was stuck, fast forwarded song to song without playing any of them.
I connected it to my computer, reformatted and debugged it, and it worked fine.

Then I found a flood in the hallway, ceiling tiles in a mushy mess on the soggy carpet floor.
This was right above HSS118, one of my lecture halls, so I checked it out.
Yep, a mess -- but not over the computer or any student chairs.
Fantastic. No need to cancel class.

During my first lecture, my voice started to crack.
By then end of the second lecture, my voice was almost gone.
Fine, OK, maybe I need to talk less, listen more.
I get the hint.

On the way home, my car died on the off ramp of I-10 and Thomasville.
I was almost rear ended a few times because it was so dead that I couldn't even get the flashers on.

Two and a half hours later (and a bunch of peanut M&Ms later, thank you Ricky), the car was finally fixed.
Total bill? $12.95

I'm a historian.
A story teller.
I lay out facts, events, people, ideas and try to find a picture, a pattern, an interesting way to see things.

And since I've had no sleep, I've been thinking alot about my yesterday, a day which blurs seamlessly into today.

Destruction, falling apart, rebuilding.

All day I was so constantly fixing things, I didn't get a chance to think about Fifi, to think about Cuba, to write any stories that would make sense out of life and death and love and murder.

That leads me to now, here, this morning.

It's two hours before the sun turns the black sky purple and orange.

Today I will sit as a juror, empaneled to hunt for the real story that might hide behind witnesses, tears, charts and numbers.

I've been hoping that the judge would let me take notes during the trial.
Sometimes jurors can, sometimes they can't.
I just know myself. If I dont' have a pen and paper, my eyes tend to wander.

I'll be looking at details that make a good story.

That's what I did during jury selection....

A blonde woman wearing an unflattering gray outfit with gray socks.

A man wearing a baggy suit and loose tie, looking like he borrowed his daddy's clothes.

Maroon rug with gray duct tape covering the wires.

A faint buzz of the air conditioner but no breeze.

The court reporters impassive stare toward a blank desk while her fingers silently choreograph a ticker tape dance.

The juror next to me lifts slightly, shifts her weight off her butt, impatient to stand and stretch.

I notice it all.

But even if I can't take notes, I'll be looking for the story, looking for the solution, trying my best to puzzle out the truth.

Melissa Lays Down Some Rules and Feeds Ducks

Just in case you think the ONLY thing I'm doing this weekend is moping, thinking and staring into space.... here are some pictures I took of the kids feeding the ducks this morning (Sunday) at Lake Ella.

It's illegal to feed the ducks, which makes it THAT MUCH more exciting.

We also painted. But this time, I don't know what to write on the tile. At first I just threw an old hand me down sheet on the table for the kids to paint, but after a few minutes I couldn't resist the lure of a tabula rasa.

I've only got the outline of the terracotta tile done - teal, cerulean, lime.

In the middle of the tileI need a quote, an image, an icon.

Something like break the rules, feed the ducks, laugh.

Actually, I know what to write.

I went to Publix with Zoe today and because we're on a really strict budget I reminded her of rule #1: no begging.

Then, because I'm just that wonderful of a mom, I added ---
Rule #2: Have Fun
Rule #3: Make Sure Everyone Else is Having fun.

So maybe I'll paint something about that.

Maybe not.

That's the thing about art. You can't fake it.

It's a permanent emblem of a temporary meditation.

And right now, writing about having fun feels fake, empty and shallow.

So, um, anyway -- enjoy the pictures!!

Feeding the Ducks at Lake Ella