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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| I've finally noted some of the blogs around me that intrigue and inspire me from day-to-day. It is not an exhaustive list of the blogs I've peeked into. I started giving a damn about the new activity when I happened across mavismoog's Whose Desktop contest last month. I did the handiest job of detective work on it, and surprisingly (at getting 10 out 15 right, I'd say barely) won the top prize. I need to go find tor sometime and shake his hand because he correctly identified 9 out of the 15. It's all serendipitous, because if I hadn't put my neck out there, doing something foolish, I might not have crossed paths with some of these fine people. I need to remember to come back and tell about another recent act of "sticking my neck out." Singing solo at church. But not today, not today...the chariot calls for the night's work (From that comment, you'd think I was a character in a "Sims" game - hahahah) |
| One of these days I will feel like I am not counting the hours when working. Right now, I am counting down the hours until I have to show up at work again (a week off, with little accomplished) I can get into my proofreading as long as I feel in control of the work flow. Who knows what next Monday will feel like, however, I will be showing up even later to my usual shift to accommodate my husband's late Monday class. Forgive me for rushing a blog entry in here that has little substance. This "Emily Rose" commercial that keeps airing is bugging me. It keeps making me think of "Audrey Rose" which was an early 70's novel and movie that I never saw, except to get creeped out by the book cover imagery. I feel pretty numb over making payment arrangements on my credit card. I wanted to put it off until tomorrow (thought I'd feel more in control if I worked out the numbers first), but I guess that'll get paid and something else will slip. I think my left temple is only going to stop throbbing if I quit writing on the computer now, eat some dinner and get going to work. **sigh** |
| So, I've done a lot of wandering in the past few days. I did not miss the whine of my trusty beige Think-box. Despite the high gas prices (and I saw some that were ridiculous), I had places to go and things to see before my last few vacation days became a memory. By Sunday, I can probably write about anything worth recording, but for now, I'm thinking about something else. Something that draws me away already from the thoughts that came to me as I enjoyed the freedom of the open road. I've decided to miss my high school reunion. My sister's was apparently cancelled. I assume it was a lack of interest. I believe high school reunions, just like many other things based almost entirely on tradition, are being discarded. Is this a good thing, or not? What does it really indicate? My grandmother's small town high school was still hosting a reunion sixty years after her class' graduation. Now, we are in the twenty-first century and my mother's forty year reunion, my twenty year reunion and my sister's ten year reunion are potential question marks. A deep need I have (and have always had, probably) is the bond of friendship. I could clinically be a stalker; it's a little overpowering sometimes to crave knowledge about someone else's life. What I hold in common with another person, and maintaining that connection can be very important to me. It seems like a hollow statement even as I write it, however - I do not pick up the phone often enough or write a simple letter to keep my side of a friendship up. Despite this, I sense that I harbor an entitlement to having a friend. I'm sure that's the same square on the game board that stalkers start at. I don't really believe I'm a danger to anyone. Certainly no one ever sees me as a danger. It probably helps that I'm married with children. I can still imagine how easy it is for a person to march off the path and make a bee line for a favorite celebrity. When I discovered this topic in my head this morning, I thought, "Ah, I finally have something to plop into my blog." The energy behind the thought is already ebbing, however. Yes, it is two in the morning, but this is supposed to be my normal time to be awake. It may be a little hard to flip back to the work schedule today. |
| This is going to be a quick entry as I still haven't eaten dinner. I have dinner here with me at my desk, but the mashed potatoes in this TV Dinner are like molten lava straight out of the microwave. So, despite how hungry I am for this Marie Callender's dinner, I am chilling like Goldilocks until the dinner reaches a reasonable temperature. I just noticed that The Brothers Grimm movie is directed by Terry Gilliam. Damn fine director, I believe. Some of his stuff just can't exit my brain - and I'm probably talking about some of the movies nearly no one else saw. Baron von Munchausen (I'm on vacation, don't you dare tell me to verify that spelling!) or Time Bandits I'm talkin' here. Yes, yes, there's Twelve Monkeys and Brazil and all the load of Monty Python, but perhaps you'll get a better feel for what I like when you realize those first two are the one's that stand out for me. I mean, I like fairy tales, and three wish kinda stuff. Heck, I like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (but mostly for the novelty of knowing that I basically live in the city of San Dimas' backyard and the quirk factor of having George Carlin in the movie). Anyway, gotta see that movie now - I thought my pocketbook was safe from theater distributor rape at least until December. |
| first night of a week of vacation...this is the adjustment night and I have slept 5 hours plus an hour nap and several rest periods between cleaning bouts. and the need for punctuation capitalization and any other editing - I will fight this urge cuz i am on vacxation!!1 Se, that's very hard to do, pass a error by and just let the words flow as long as the idea really gets across then I'm not worried. And is there really anything to write a bout tonight? The scurry of cleaning may be due to my mom visiting Saturday, or just because I am actually awake and at home to see it - If you do not know my usual work schedule, then you have some catching up to do my friend. Reading is a good thing. I believe I have oh, six books I'm into now. Reading isn't really a thing I outlined as an accomplishment tonight or this week. Sometimes it's so much easier to go clean or cook or read (even looking for a recipe) That's reading too - all are ways to avoid the goal I've set out. One piece, I'd love it to be two, to submit. An article, a story, a contest entry. Love to complete one of my novels, but I'm not expecting that's going to pour out of me in one dramatic week. If you've been in my port, what would you most like me to continue or complete? I have my own ideas, but curious if anyone else is willing to speak up. (Even if you come across this entry many days, weeks, months after I've placed this query in the ether - PLEASE, go ahead, I might not have worked on the very thing that need to be finalized) |
| Well, my big ol' Arthurian depository of knowledge is a big bust! The folder has gotten 9 views in a month. While I can be happy that 1 visitor thought I did a marvelous job of research and gave me a 5 star rating, I'm not sure whether I want to continue trying to push my forum. No one seems interested in that. Ahh, I'm being hard on myself, maybe once school starts up again for many and there's a college English major desperate for conversation about the code of Chivalry and courtly love, sonnets and mythology (or any paper that is sure to be the need behind getting one's hands on the information), then things will brighten. Personally, I got to enrich my own inner depository by splurging on seven dollar nosebleed seats to the Hollywood Bowl's presentation of Camelot this past Sunday. My enjoyment was heightened by discovering just how rarely the Philharmonic tackles a musical production at the Bowl. A theatrical production is done one day only out of the year and only since the year 2000. Oh, to be the costume designer for a show that's only being performed once! The growl of a voice that is Jeremy Irons' made the depiction of Arthur so true to The Once and Future King retelling. I was impressed to have made a serendipitous connection for the friend I invited along. He'd never seen Camelot (and I think wondered why he'd agreed to see it). But as the performers were announced, he recognized the actress in Guenivere's role from his own Yale graduating class. Ah, see there is a reason things happen as they do. SPARKLE Follow Walkinbird When the final light is extinguished – Recognize the next available Source in the darkness ** Image ID #897589 Unavailable **  ** Image ID #924786 Unavailable ** |
| My husband and I had to have a knock-down drag-out nearly with our 5 year old late today. There was the freedom of hours of romping around with a posse of boys in a friend's yard while all the preparations for a teen's birthday celebration slowly advanced. She did not want to leave when her father and I stated that time had arrived. Yet she came to the car, suddenly taken with the idea that not riding in her car seat was a proposition to consider. I knew it was a mile trip through the residential streets we were so familiar with. Earlier in the day, on a trip of four blocks, I allowed her to take her brother's usual seat (wearing the seatbelt) in one last usurping of power she had achieved in the week he was away from home at camp. Our problem at this moment, she expected her request to be granted, but daddy would have none of it. He insisted she sit in her child safety seat. "I do not want to chance a ticket," he was reasoning this with her more than with me. She became completely mule-headed and bucked out of any wrangling to "assist" in getting the straps managed. She is fully aware that at age six (she is 3 mos. away from that age) she is no longer required by law to be strapped into the contraption. We stood around ignoring her demands until a ridiculous amount of time had passed. Standing outside the car, conferring, I finally concluded that I would walk the irreversable child down the street and allow daddy to drive the car away. She was surprised by this option and began to fret that she did not want to walk all the way home. I explained that her attempt to get her way left us only with that choice. I asked if she would get into the car should daddy bring it back - and she nodded - but I think she was perplexed about the idea of just how that was to happen. Down the street, and around the corner he parked the car in anticipation of our approach. She still struggled when I placed her in the seat at this point. I can admire her spirit, misguided and stubborn as it is. It makes me horrifyingly angry to be fought by her at every turn, yet that capability is certainly something I want my daughter to retain - not be trained out of her. We can't do enough to help our children know to fight and rebuke people trying to force them into vehicles, bathroom stalls, wherever abductions or predatory sexual encounters could be attempted. So, I feel so helpless and ineffectual as a parent when I can't get her to follow the necessary rules. Sometimes they're my rules, sometimes the government's. But when she won't listen to me at age five, to one of the only rules that applies to her at such an age, I worry about how I can possibly get her to acquiesse to my desires when she's a teen! Even after she apologized (which I stated was required for her continued use of being transported in the car) I cried my eyes out in huge levels of denial, disownment and outright frustration over the whole ordeal. Do I need medication, or what? |
| August is rightly the month when people run off to enjoy simplified days, not necessarily in exotic lands, but cooler corners. The end of summer almost always finds me in a mood. It easily can transform into a funk, reminding me of past occasions when I didn't listen to myself, and by Fall, have lost all composure. None of it by then is internal, and people around me wonder what I could be stressing about? Running on "low batteries" seems normal to me by now. I think it contributes to not noticing the need for a vacation. The good news is, I have a week of vacation just around the corner. I may still set myself up for disappointment if I expect to get anything significant done. However, I can bump the happy-o-meter up a notch just by knowing it's a vacation day on the horizon. When you're the captain of your destiny, it's still good to get off the ship and gather coconuts with your mates... |
| I took the company's employee survey this morning. Corporate HQ is in Chicago and like most media conglomerates, I think they realized they have all these step-children but don't really know what's hip within their own brood. In hindsight, don't think I answered to the best of my capability. By the time the space was given to give written commentary, I was too numbed and disgusted by the multiple choice ranking type questions which were already categoried and homogenized for making easy use of the raw data for making the inevitable pie charts. It only underscores my feeling that I am yet again a cog. I am a conscientious worker and I put 110% into what I do. Partly due to my vampire shift, partly by being in an operations position rather than contributing content, I'm not in a job where I know the jobs of many other people in the company. I only have a general idea, an outsider's idea - which seems wrong. I lose out in having a view of the daily greatness that the paper contributes to the local community and society. Except in knowing the satisfaction and awe that it gets recreated every single day. I had a taste of Journalism in high school, I was a page editor of the monthly school paper, but I enjoyed designing the yearbook more. That "job," had the satisfaction of choosing photos from a proof sheet, marking and cropping with a bright orange grease pencil, drawing art by hand, even taking event pictures on film - never sure if the shot would come out. Heck, who knew if we'd even be granted the budget to develop all those pictures. Creating that yearbook twenty years ago, eventhough it was at the historical beginnings of computer-assisted layout, was not my last creative endeavor that involved real sweat and tears. But for me, it seems the computer had started that progression until "hard work" was replaced heart and soul by "hardly working." More and more it's the enabler to which all people move further away from the context and components which make all forms of work "working." I am by no means a technophobe, but it is perception I'm focusing on when I say that I have George Jetson's job. The Jetson's live in the future that has the flying cars and the vacations to other planets. This Hanna-Barbera cartoon program from the Sixties took the fantasy home life of television families and smashed it together with the working class reality and what-if issues of the future. George had plenty of home issues to focus on, but usually he was grumpy about his job and how hard he worked. But you see, his hard job simply involved flying into work on time, clocking in, and pushing a button routinely all day long to have part in making Spacely's Sproketts. Well, that's where I'm at too. Hah!  Trust me, I get a little eye strain, and a sore index finger all the time. Anybody else remember the cartoon finger of George Jetson all crooked and red, or swollen like it was hit by a cartoon sledge hammer? SPARKLE Follow Walkinbird When the final light is extinguished – Recognize the next available Source in the darkness ** Image ID #897589 Unavailable ** |
| There's about another twenty minutes of my shift left to ride out. I'd love to be up in Editorial to see if anyone's in to update the Shuttle landing coverage. The site's been moved to Edwards Air Force Base. I'm wondering if anyone's even upstairs to witness the change in flight plan. I applaud the paper for having front page stories at least twice during the two-week mission of Discovery and her crew. I was in my first month at the paper when Columbia disintegrated. Eventhough I wasn't in any area of the paper that handled the tragic story, I could feel the hard work that went into that edition which was laden with the coverage. This nervous excitement I get buzzing in me when there's newsworthy items waiting to be uncovered and written about and diseminated to the public at large, it's distracting. It may be a good thing that I still work in a fairly solitary area, monitoring the quality of our advertisement production - 'cause I just may be too crazy for the day shift. Actually, I won't know if I'm too crazy for them if I don't run up there and meet any them. So that's going to be all for today, friends. |
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