natalieburg

January 27, 2014January 27, 2014General Life Whatnot Self-Employment Writing

A Fraud from the Beginning: A new adventure, page one

I started a new book last week. I mean, technically, I “started” a “book,” but all that means is I have a few scenes from a hypothetical story outlined in a notepad and sketched out on my computer. That’s not a book. That’s not really anything. In fact, I stumbled over the first line of this blog for some time, because even saying, “I started a new book” sounds like a fraudulent statement.

It’s funny how the tiny beginnings of major happenings can make you feel exactly like that, like a fraud, just pretending to be something you have far more fantasies about than experience. It’s like referring to yourself by a fancy new title on your first day of work, or commenting on your marriage the day after your wedding. The claims feel sort of contrived and uncomfortable. Technically, you are those things, but it still feels like you’re faking it.

January 23, 2014General Life Whatnot Self-Employment Uncategorized

The Jane Austen to-do list: Wait, wait, wait, something happens, wait….

When fretting about time, which often I do – whether or not I have enough time for all the tasks at hand, whether not I have enough tasks to fill the time, whether something I want or need will be found in time for a deadline or my own satisfaction – I think about Jane Austen.

In an Austen novel, every period of time – between visits, between news, between one activity and the next – is measured, not in minutes or hours, but in weeks. Weeks. From Pride & Prejudice:

January 22, 2014General Life Whatnot

The Worst Sheet: A case study in cutting the crap

There’s this fitted sheet in our linen collection that just doesn’t work right. It seems fine. It fits when you put it on, and then, in the middle of the night, instigated by who knows what, the corners snap up. My husband and I fall asleep in our normal, cozy bed, and wake up tangled in loose sheet with nothing but a scratchy mattress pad below us. It’s the worst.

To make matters worse (yes, there is more to this story), we can never remember which fitted sheet does this to us. We have four or five sheet sets, and they’re all various shades of blue, green and teal. So it’s always a surprise. When we wake up that random morning, all groggy and itchy and tangled and confused, we’re like, “Whelp. It’s this one. This is the horrible sheet.”