I’ve been thinking for a while I’d like to have a blog that looked sort of like the pages of an InStyle magazine. I think this one comes close.

I’m a little worried, though, that I’ve already said everything I have to say. Motherhood rocks, I heart Hollywood, I really love the Anne books, and I get all philosophical about life over breakfast cereal and pancakes. Really, every time I write I wonder if that’s the last thing I’ll ever have to say. Every time I find a unique way to say something common I figure that’s the last time I’ll manage that trick again.

It’s pretty cool when inspiration strikes again and I realize I was wrong and then I’m all – That wasn’t the last thing I ever had to say! This is.

So, anyway, here’s the new decor, and I promise to try and fill it with new words now and then. If you’re just tuning in, you might need to know these things about me.

I’m not cool. I use way too many paper towels to be green. I like music, movies, and reading, but I’m not so well-versed in any of it that you’ll be amazed in any way. I love my kids and I usually find that being a part of their lives is the best part of mine. I periodically burst into song, movie quotes, Friends lines, or Things I Learned on LOST. You’ll probably never see a recipe here. And all of my tips about pursuing publication boil down to two words: Keep trying.

My name is Serenity Bohon. And this is Serenity Now.

Guess what happened at work a couple weeks ago? I got mail. Real live mail with my name on top and the company address beneath. The day after that? My first phone call. Having only worked from home until last fall, I didn’t exactly have an established presence at work. Even once I started going to the office, I barely had a desk. I took one artificial bouquet from home so that it sort of felt like mine. But I’m only there two hours; so each morning I would come in and find the flowers shifted and boxes and things dumped onto the desk like that table in the storage room where you put things for which you don’t have any other place.

I’ve since moved to a more permanent desk, and I got a project that involves people outside of the company and thus the mail and the phone call. Receiving my first phone call of course necessitated the recording of an actual voice mail message, which quickly snowballed into assigning me an extension, adding my name to the company directory, and conducting a Google search that now qualifies me to find my way in and out of the system administration on a Norstar company phone in like ten seconds flat. I can even tell you how to change the digital display so it actually says your name. Though, I’m probably going to have to Google it again if you ask.

Do you see this pretty picture? This is the kind of stuff I do at work. I write about places like that. It’s why on a bad day once, my twitter/facebook status read, “I’m writing about places I’d rather be.” It’s not that I’d rather be there than at home so much as I’d rather be there than be writing about it. That’s not always true, either. Some days it thrills me right to my toes that I can write about the white church on this hill in Paris while Jake runs between the dinosaurs in his very own bedroom and my chair where he asks me to turn various and sundry costumes right side out before he puts them on. And if I was actually on the hill, Montmartre, which I’m not even sure how to pronounce, then I wouldn’t be able to pick up the other two at 3 either, and I do like that 3 o’clock return to everything right with the world.

But I think this is what I like: If at this time last year there were people at work who didn’t even know I was an actual coworker instead of some stock video the IT guy uploaded onto the homepage and now I have my own extension, voice mail, and digital name display…then who knows what could change by this time next year. Just the thought that something within my job or outside of it could one day necessitate a reason to brush up my eighth grade French, makes me happy.

I don’t know for sure when I switched from a girl who never wanted to go anywhere or experience any change at all to this girl who kind of craves it. But I’m thinking it was somewhere between getting to marry my childhood sweetheart and the day I enjoyed learning the Norstar code for logging into the System Administration so I could change “Shane” to “Serenity”. And it might also have been after The Year when I wondered if I’d never get to see anything change again.

In eighth grade my French name, by the way, was Nicole.

(Photo by http2007 on Flickr.)

The shoulder. By Tattooist Andrew Bohon.

Because I like for you to have a new post on Monday morning, but it’s Sunday night as I write this and I’m totally strapped for a brilliant blogging idea, I’m going to pretend I get emails all the time with questions that I could compile into a Frequently Asked Questions section and now I’m pulling a couple of them out at random. So remember, these questions are made up. But I’m answering them like you actually care. (P.S. I blame the post-idea-drought on a funny saying Michael found online the other day:

Blogging: Never have so many with so little to say said so much to so few.

It’s really true, isn’t it? On with the Frequently Asked Questions:

What’s the deal with your writing these days? Well, I’ll tell ya. My memoir sits in publishing limbo. There was some interest but no offer. It was the ultimate not-personal-just-business sort of experience since I got a lot of encouragement about the writing, but the biggest no-factor was that unfortunately the cancer story isn’t all that unique and tragically, no one knows who you are (which in publishing terms is put in much kinder terms: You don’t have a strong enough platform.) In case you’re wondering, I’m totally cool about the whole thing. I still believe that book will be published someday. I just might have to accomplish some other things first.

Which brings me to book #2. I wrote a novel next. I’d always intended to pursue fiction. I would love to be in the great, beautiful world of storytelling. So that’s what I’m going for. That manuscript is in my agent’s corner now. She’ll tell me if the idea is marketable and, if so, then how much revision it will take to make the marketable idea actually ready for the market. I have no idea what will come of this book, if anything. And, weirdly, I’m cool with this too. It was my first, and there are lots and lots of published authors who didn’t get their first book published first, if ever. Yikes.

Which brings me to book #3. I’ve barely begun this one. It’s sort of in the outline stage. The think-about-it stage. And while it marinates I’m catching up on those InStyle magazines and watching a lot of 8 and 10-year-old basketball and playing a little Super Mario Brothers Wii. I’m going to kick it into gear soon and throw myself into the joy of writing another whole book, though. And you know what that makes me realize? I’m a writer. Published or no. And that’s deeply satisfying.

Hey, remember when you had cancer? Do you ever think about that?

I think about it all the time. I think about it when I look in the mirror, and my right shoulder looks a little smaller than my left. I think about it whenever my kids do anything that I’m glad I lived to see. I think about it whenever I laugh. Whenever I make plans and know that sometimes plans don’t work out and all we really have is today. Whenever I have a cold and realize I can totally take it, because I beat so much worse. Whenever I see a Livestrong bracelet. Whenever I think of July 13, 2010, when I’ll be five years cancer-free and cured. I love to think about it, because it changed me. And it was awful. And I survived it.

Did you paint your hallway yet?

No. Darn it.

What’s your favorite word? It’s so funny you should ask that, because I’ve been thinking about it lately. My favorite word is BRAVE. I think everyone pretty much has to define for oneself what being brave will mean for them. But whatever that thing is for each of us, I think it’s definitely something we should pursue.

If you could change one thing about yourself…

I think one of the most beautiful things about being human, is that we grow and change. And the biggest change I want to see in my life is how much I give. I want to  give money and time. I want to give myself. And I don’t know for sure how to do it. And it overwhelms me to think about how much the world needs. But I know I have a part to play in all the giving, and I really want to discover that part.

What’s Jake doing right this very second?

He’s pouncing around the house in a lion costume John Michael wore when he was 1. Never a boring moment, People, I’m tellin’ ya.

My cousin Tiffany said this week after a death in one of her friends’ lives, “My perspective came to a screeching halt.”

That’s just how I feel. After singing in my good friend Marjorie’s funeral, I was finally able to clean my kitchen. I’d been walking in and out of it lately only to throw away take-out wrappers. I couldn’t find time to work on my novel or the mental energy to do anything besides think of all that I would do once I got my groove back.

It’s not that I’ve been in despair. It’s just that I wanted to sit down and shut up for a while. If death doesn’t make you stop and think about life, I’m not sure you’re paying attention.

I was going to move on eventually. I was. But then, last night, another phone call – this time from Dad. Another old friend died yesterday. She had a house that stays in my memory as kind of miniature and magical. When we moved away from her, she used to write me letters and include the adventures of her cats, Minnie and Mitas, and other delightful things.

I’m very sad. There’s been a lot of dying lately, and I just thought I’d go ahead and bring the blog to a screeching halt since that’s the way I feel.

I’ll be back next week. All full of perspective again. In the meantime, I’m thinking about I-Love-You lists today. People need to be appreciated while they’re here. In fact, you can use the comments section for that if you’d like. Just put it into the universe how much you love your grandma’s hand lotion or your nephew’s laugh. That would be the perfect thing to get life moving again.

Well, I was in Google’s Manhattan. I flew over it to get my bearings. Washington Square Park to Central Park – is far. And then I took it to the streets. Did you know you could do this with Google? I’m sure you do. You can walk right down Fifth Avenue. You can read the words on the buildings. You can see people and those little metal things that look like the You-Are-Here maps in a mall (what are those things?), and you can see trucks. Oh so many trucks. People must always be either getting something or sending something away from every other business in New York City all the time. I have to admit, the trucks sort of take away from the charm for me.

My visit is all because my main character is visiting there, and who knows, maybe I will visit there for real before this book sees the light of day. But between you, me, and Google – I am imagining up one heck of a reaction to this city just from my cyber walk.

But that’s not what I wanted to say really. I wanted to show you this:

This is my drive to work. I turn directly onto this road and follow that curve to work. And this picture isn’t thrilling, because – well, the pictures never are as good – and because it’s not yet the peak of fall, which should happen in the next week or so. But I’m telling you. When I drive through tree-covered hills like that to work and get all serenity-nowed before the day – I feel grateful. The only thing I can imagine that would make a Manhattan commute more satisfying is that I could probably read.

But that’s not all I wanted to show you either. Because even though I like my drive to work, and I’m pretty cool with work itself (though my cubicle seriously needs some pictures), I don’t like it nearly as well as the picture I get at eleven when all returns right with the world. Because although I feel happier in my work place than I remember feeling on the job in a very long time, there’s still this crazy-strong gravitational pull toward home and my children and the things I love the most.

I pick up Jake at eleven o’clock. I drive back through the tree-covered hills, all the way through town and to the school building where I dropped him off at 8. I go inside and hear them call his name, and he comes to me, so happy – like he’s just been to heaven itself only I’m still better than that. And I ask him about his day as we drive back home together from where I’ll work the rest of my hours while he watches Dragon Tales or plays an imaginary game. And that’s why this picture is the real serenity now.

I started a new adventure this week. I’ve been working from home for ten years now. And oh for the days when I only did the work part about three hours a day and the rest of the time I just cared for my house and my babies. I didn’t get the Sunday night blues even one time back then. But neither could we afford the food and clothing for three children on a schedule like that, so I’ve beefed up the hours since then. And occasionally on Sunday night, I’m blue.

Working from home has a few cons I won’t bore you with, but one tiny one is that occasionally you go completely insane from living only in your own head all day long. This laptop and my own brain – those have been my coworkers. The laptop  has lots to offer – cool blogs, tweetdeck, email accounts. But in that sense it’s like the coworker who never lets you get anything done. It’s always walking by with donuts and celebrity gossip and INSIGHTS INTO YOUR SOUL that you just can’t ignore. My own brain, on the other hand, is an emotional roller coaster that would really rather be writing a novel, you know, if she’s going to be hanging out at home anyway. And she is ridiculously self-absorbed.

So while Jake takes on the adventure of pre-school, I’m taking on the adventure of actually going to work. And I’ve discovered that at least for those almost-three hours, work can be cool. Everything I’m supposed to be writing about? It floats around me in conversations and telephone calls from these people we call coworkers, which is practically a new concept to me. And it’s one I can’t help but like. At least for now, because I can feel the insanity fading.

Now, go ahead, tell me in the comments section that the appreciation of coworkers goes out the window in, like, a week. I can take it. I’m used to huge climbs and then plummets in ecstasy. And if you warn me, than I might be able to fend off the effects for a couple weeks at least. And, also, buy an iPod.

Next July, I’ll be considered actually and completely CURED. My surgeon said he could write a note for a life insurance policy and everything. He said they might still give me trouble in which case I should just have them call him. I.e., Call my surgeon, Dude, my life is totally insurable, which means – I’m thinking – that it is more likely to last a long time, than NOT. Can I get a wahoo?

Now if I wanted to overanalyze, I’d recognize that as of July I’ll probably be closer to the next crisis than I am to the last one. And I would wonder if the survivor mode I’ve discovered only lives on this side of the five-year mark. And I would think about how thoroughly I adopted the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and I would worry that serenity won’t go with me through the July door.

But I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to wahoo. Life is so much better that way.

Shortly after my last glowing report about having written so much on my novel there was no turning back, I fuh-roze. I never even got to the blank page anymore. I was half way through a chapter for which I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I couldn’t go on. I lost my nerve. I kept reading and reading other people’s books. I kept wishing I’d be published one day. I kept thinking about my book and liking the idea of it. But I became more and more sure that this was one dive I would never fully make.

Do you know the sheer chutzpah it takes to open a blank document and think you’ve got words to put on it that other people will care enough about to buy? It doesn’t matter how many books I’d read and thought, “Surely I can write something this good.” Now I was staring at my own laptop thinking, Where did all those people find the chutzpah? A guy in college once told me that he’d heard I used to be audacious. Used to be. Well, some time this summer I lost my audacity again.

I can’t in good conscience tell you to go read them, because the premise behind both articles is that we tend to find way too many things demanding our attention in any given day. But if you haven’t learned how to escape it all – for at least a moment or so – or if you enjoy reading about other methods for escape – these articles are for you. My article is also for you, of course, if you’re my mother.

Felicity has the most cheer-provoking video on her site right now, so if you haven’t seen it – get thee to Rare Rocks immedioso.  It shall make you smile and, according to various responses, make you want to sing and/or dance, and/or organize a mass transit live show that looks like a spontaneous gathering of people proving the fact that Gloria Estefan is right and eventually the rhythm is going to getcha.

Since this is my new website, which I stare at several hours a day trying to decide how to make it just PERFECT, I thought I’d point out a couple of things like you’re taking a tour of my new house that you didn’t really want to take because you wish I’d just point the way to the bathroom already.  

See the pretty initials in the picture here?  You hopefully notice those beside my URL in the address bar too.  It’s called a favicon, and it makes me feel very special.  But despite my hard work finding the perfect font for those little letters and Dan the Man’s hard work turning them into the 16 x 16 little square you see, I wasn’t sure you could tell what it was exactly – and I wanted you to know, because it’s awesome.

If you’re new to the blog, you should check out the About tab, which now has links to a few classic Serenity Now posts, which means drama, traumas, hollywood, and the puzzling out of the meaning of life.  Somewhere in the midst of them, you should be able to see me.

The little subscribe paragraph at the top of the right hand column lets you get new posts through email or RSS feeds like Google Reader.  Google Reader, is my new favorite thing.  You see how my blog roll shows who has updated the most recently?  Google Reader is my own personal blog roll with all kinds of blogs I like to stay up on – but who can spend the time every day to check every single one?  Google Reader does it for you, which is so cool.

Finally, there’s the My Writing tab, where you’ll find the links to articles I’ve had published online.  There should be a new one added in a couple of months (I gotta get on that!).

I’m still tweaking – probably all the time for the REST OF MY LIFE – so don’t be surprised to see new things, new people in the blog roll, a sudden addition of a bright pink border along the sides, which will suddenly and inexplicably disappear because I SAW IT and Oh No, that was definitely the wrong pink, or perhaps a new header in the future – because oi vay, we’ve seen my face already!

I think that’s it for the notes and pointing-out-of-the-obvious.  Did you go watch Felic’s video yet?  GO!  It’s so happy.