My sister Leah is a real pain. Thank goodness I love her, but still. Outside of Mom, she’s the one who nags me the most about this whole “being an author” thing.

“What are you wearing to the conference?” I pull out the brown slacks. “No,” she summarily dismisses my best pants. “That’s not the story you want to create. What do you want your clothes to say?”

That sort of thing – good for me, but still makes my eyes roll back in my head.

And one of the things she harps on the most is this blog. What usually happens is I tell her what I’m going to write on for the week, and she says, “But that’s not showing any romance. You’ve got to create a tale that proves you know romance.”

And I roll my eyes.

She’s really good at this – she teaches drama and could set a scene in her sleep. So today I’m going to do what she says. Again.

Everyone’s got a story. This is mine.

My dear friend Becca was marrying another good friend, Jim. Black tie formal, interfaith ceremony. And I had a date.

Oh, not a date. Erik is one of my oldest guy friends going back to a marathon floor hockey game, and we were all good college buddies. But still, I wasn’t going to my first big social outing in Chicago – my first big outing in over a year – alone. I had a date.

And then I didn’t. Erik got himself a girlfriend, and I was escortless.

I knew exactly two people in Chicago, and they were marrying each other. I had only been at my first post-grad school job for 2 months, and the office was mostly populated by women and Mike, the married accounting manager.

I did not want to go to a black tie wedding alone. I had had exactly two almost dates in grad school – including one with a bouncer named Creature, but that’s another blog – and both had ended in a handshake.

I believe desperate is the word to use here.

In a fit of despair, I found myself explaining this to Mike and his assistant, a lovely older woman named Robin, in the kitchen. I was whining, sure. But Mike – with a mouth like a sailor – was actually listening – to a woman who wasn’t his wife complain about men.

Even then, I knew it was odd.

And then he said the magic words:

“I know a guy you could take.”

Huh?

Mike went on to explain that there was a guy who used to work there who was single. Nice guy, Mike says.

And Robin got that excited look on her face and said the best line I’ve ever heard:

And I quote – “You mean Jason?” She turned to me and said, “Oh, he’s perfect for you! He’s blind!”

Let that sink in a bit. He’s perfect for you! He’s blind! Okay, ready to move on? Good.

Mike hissed, “I wasn’t gonna tell her that!” as I whimpered, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Robin quickly backpedaled as she blushed so hard I thought she might faint. “I didn’t mean that – I could barely tell he was blind at all – he can see and stuff – I just meant -“

Mike interrupted. “I’ll give you his number. He’s a great guy. Not that blind.”

Not that blind? What the hell??

A blind blind date. My dad still thinks this is the best joke he’s ever heard.

I sat on the number for a week. My mom called, and I told her about the whole pitiful story. “Are you going to call him?” No, Mom, I’m not going to call up a strange man who may or may not be blind and ask him to my best friends’ wedding. And Mom, God bless her, said, “But honey, when was the last time you had a date?” This from a woman who wouldn’t let me call boys I already knew in high school.

But she had a point. So, pitifully desperate, I called. And hung up on his snarky answering machine. Same thing next night.

The third time, still getting the machine, I gave up. “Hi, my name is Sarah, Mike gave me your number. I’m sorry I’ve been hanging up on your machine, but if you want to call me back, here’s my number.” And then I went shopping for supportive undergarments for my dress for the wedding.

I got home an hour later to find that he’d called me back 10 minutes later. He’d been screening his calls, and my number came up as unlisted, he explained. And he promised he’d pick up if I called him again.

So I spent several long minutes taking deep breaths while trying not to hyperventilate. And I called.

We agreed to meet at a small coffee house, and I would drive us to dinner – he knew a nice Chinese restaurant. “Would it be okay if you drove me home afterward?” he asked, sounding a little nervous.

The big white blind elephant in the room.

“Not a problem,” I replied.

I spent the rest of the week spazing out about my closet. I had a very interesting conversation with my sister Hannah, who insisted I clean my apartment, just in case I brought him home with me. And Leah, as usual, told me what to wear.

Friday rolled around. I got no work done. I went to the coffee shop feeling like I was going to throw up at any second.

He was already there. Taller than I am, with close cropped dark brown hair. Slim, with a nice striped shirt. And his eyes moved a little funny, but he held the door for me. No cane, no dog. I directed him towards my little red car, and he found the door without feeling around or anything.

Not that blind, apparently.

After we made it to the restaurant, he read the menu and asked for chopsticks. Once the tea got on the table, things began to flow.

He’d left the company in April, two days after he got his MBA. He had a good job as an financial analyst with a big company I had heard of. He was impressed about my MA (I did leave out the porn part, just so you know).

He was funny. Intelligent. Nice. And seemingly not that blind.

The date went well enough that we hit a Starbucks to talk some more until they closed. On the drive down to his apartment (My brain swirling – my first time driving in any of these places – how the hell was I going to get home? And was he going to try and kiss me? I am NOT going into his place – you never know – what am I going to wear on the next date? Will there be a next date? How blind is he?), we drove past a billboard for Unbreakable – that Bruce Willis movie.

“If you want, we could see that next time,” Jason said.

A second date! Let me tell you, I hadn’t had a second date in damn near three years. “Okay,” I replied, trying not to giggle. We shook hands and he got out of the car. Didn’t even try to convince me to come in. Nice guy.

I went home and called everyone. The order for every single person was, Did you have fun? Are you going out again? How blind is he? Yes, yes, and I don’t know. He read the menu.

Next morning at work, I looked up the movie – and it didn’t open for another month and a half. AIEE! Does that mean we aren’t going out again until November? AIEE! Massive brain panic in full swing just as Mike walks back. He’d just gotten off the phone with Jason – and had the exact same panicked conversation.

“He wants to know if you want to go out again and see another movie.”

And just like that, I’m back in junior high. So I pass on the news that I do want to go out and will see any other movie.

We saw Legend of the Drunken Master II. Jackie Chan rules! Only once, during a fight in the dark factory, did he ask me what happened. Awkward hug at the door of his apartment. No kiss.

Same phone conversations. Did you have fun? Are you going out again? How blind is he? Same answers. Yes, yes, and I don’t know. He watched the movie.

Third date – the week before the wedding. Sunday morning, he wants to go to the Art Institute and see the Japanese scroll exhibit. I’m game. This is it, though. Third date in three weekends. Big wedding next weekend. My brain is spazing big time.

We went to the Institute, where he showed off by reading some of the Japanese scrolls to me. And I was impressed. We had dinner at a diner, and that night I kissed him. While Jimmy Buffet sang in the background.

Did you have fun? Are you going to take him to the wedding? How blind is he? Yes, I don’t know, and I don’t know. He reads Japanese!

I decided I liked him. A lot. And I decided that I didn’t want to take him to the wedding. A loaded setting, taking a guy you are just getting to know and throwing him into a commitment-laden environment. I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on him. If I had thought it was a doomed relationship, I would have taken him and then dumped him. But I didn’t. I went stag and had a great time.

And a year and a half later, I married him. I knew I would after the third date.

And he’s not that blind. Just so you know.

Before I get going on rust and duct tape (and no, this is not a how-to repair your beat-up ’67 Chevy), I have to share the darned good news.

No, no word from the editor. Not that good.

But, as I lamented back in Housekeeping!, I needed someone who speaks Lakota and has an Internet connection. And lo, the clouds have parted, the ray of light has shined down, and Jan Ullrich at the Lakota Language Consortium has agreed to translate my dialogue!

So, let me just say a big ol’ THANKS to Jan and the entire LLC for all their hard work and friendly helpfulness! I am going to sleep a whole lot better tonight knowing that I won’t be honking off a whole tribe of Lakotas for brutalizing their language. And feel free to check out the link to their site and share the love. They’re busy people trying to preserve a language. All help is appreciated!

Now, onto rust and duct tape. I don’t generally like to talk about real personal stuff, like my health, on this blog because (a) once I get going, I get whiny and (b) no one else cares, unless you’re a medical professional being paid to at least pretend you care or you’re my mother (Hi, Mom!).

I tell the myriad of medical professionals in my life that I’m being held together by rust and duct tape. They laugh – it’s a little funny – and give me that look that says, You aren’t old enough to be held together by duct tape.

Then the litany of pounding aches, nagging pains, and problems we won’t even go into because some people read this during lunch begins. Maybe I’m a little bit of a hypochondriac, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with me.

Hmmm, they all say, their brows furrowed. Hmmm.

The medical history part usually takes about 45 minutes – starting with the fractured knees in middle school, dancing up to the difficult pregnancy, and then finishing off with what’s wrong NOW – leaving no time to actually try to fix anything. Relief deferred, again. And when we’re done, they almost always go, Well. (scratch head). Hmmm.

I like to challenge my medical professionals. I’m sure they get tired of the same old, same old. I like to make them reach way back in their medical training while sending them scurrying to the Internet to look up the latest treatments not yet available in my area.

You don’t even want to know.

And those lovely medical professionals give it their best shot. Susan, Ruth, Theresa – everyone has a different answer – strengthen this group of muscles, try prolotherapy on those joints, have surgery on that knee, do more stretches (HA! I can’t even touch my shins, more or less my toes!), that sort of thing.

And you know what happens?

Something gets better. I have a 12 mm lift on my right shoe now. (I’m on a first name basis with the local cobbler these days.) (and don’t get me started on how unsexy it is to have a half-inch heel on a running shoe. Don’t.) And that helped my hips.

But for everything that gets better, something else gets worse. My hips leveled out – and the change in posture threw my upper back and neck into paralysis. Plus, the lifts change how I walk in my shoes. Blisters, anyone? (See? I told you. I get whiny.)

I had physical therapy on Tuesday and a dr. appointment. Today, Thursday? PT and two dr. appointments. My life, on health insurance. (And yes, I give thanks for having it. Every damn day.)

This all leads me to a series of inescapable conclusions.

1. I will never be what I once was. I could be better, but it will be a different better. Not the same. Get used to that fact, because it leads directly to:

2. I am getting old. This is just the beginning.

and 3. It beats the hell out of the alternative. Every morning I pick my toddler up and carry him downstairs is a morning I didn’t have yesterday. So what if it cricks my back? That 45 seconds of sleepy toddler love is worth it, because those days are short.

Some days are bad. Some days I hurt enough to sit and cry. But that’s still a day where my toddler ran to hug me when I picked him up at daycare. That’s still a day my hubby kissed me goodbye and said I love you when I drove him to work.

Some days, that’s all you need. Hugs, kisses, and another roll of duct tape.

I buy in bulk.

I rarely buy books. And I’m sure it’s killing my publishing karma.

I come from good, frugal German stock. Which is another way of saying “cheap” in polite company. I love thrift stores. The only time the toddler gets new clothes is when doting grandmothers buy them for him. And being that my own weight tends to fluctuate so widely, I rarely see the point of buying something expensive if I’m going to gain or lose enough to render it useless by the next season. Plus, I’m a klutz at heart – a problem exacerbated by raising a son – how many tops have been tossed with stains in the last three years? Therefore, I have a cheap disposable wardrobe. (Aside: This drives my hubby nuts. Absolutely nuts. But then, he’s been within five pounds of the same weight for about 15 or 20 years now.)

This carries over to books. I have a perfectly good library I support with my taxes – why should I spend money on books when the library has more than I’ll ever need? And children’s books? Oh, have you seen the barely touched books at yard sales? Given that the toddler invariably destroys them by reading them while playing trucks in the mud (yes, a bookworm in the making, but still a boy), what’s the point of plunking down hard-earned money? As Jack Johnson sings, “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”

But now, in this new incarnation, I’m at a moral crisis. Why would anyone open their wallets for my books (when they get here, God willing) if I won’t do the same? My mother-in-law (lovely woman) will walk into Sam’s Club and walk out with three or four books that sounded good to her, just because she was there (yes, the ideal buyer). I had to suck it up to buy Saadia Ali Aschermann’s lavish Lines/luscious Lines, even thought I a) love Saadia and b) love her poetry!

So I’m trying to look at this from my hubby’s point of view. Buying books is like buying well made clothing. It’s an investment – whether you look at it as a karmic investment or from his accounting point of view. If it’s something – the next book from Rebecca M. Hale or a really great pair of shoes THAT FITS – that I will read or use over and over, then the cost is amortized (hope I got that right) and it winds up evening out in the long run. (At least, this is how the hubby justifies his extravagances – although he still hasn’t talked me into that new TV yet . . . .)

So I’m trying a compromise. I’ll probably break down and buy How to Knit a Wild Bikini from Christine Ridgway because I’ve really enjoyed her chick lit romances (even though everyone who knows me finds that hard to believe). And I’ll get Saadia’s and Rebecca’s next books when they come out (in Sept. and next year, respectively). I like these authors. I like their writing. It’s not bad to spend a little money on stuff I like.

For other books – that Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer – I know that I’m never going to read it again. I want to know what happens, but not enough to justify buying all four books. So I requested it at the library. The end result is that an author still sells a book, and potentially builds a bigger reading audience. This works for things I’m just checking out – Blythe Gifford’s historicals are on my request list as well. I don’t know if I want to own them, but I do want to read them.

And that’s all I can ask of other people. Buy it if you like it. Request it at the library if you aren’t sure. And tell your friends what you think.

The Authorial Mom is busy doing more Mom things than Authorial things this Fourth of July weekend.

Look for a new blog next week, and thanks for stopping by!