Sunday, November 24, 2013

Blog Thoughts: 11/18/13-11/24/13


 
So here’s this week’s randomness:

1.    I blame Shonda Rhimes for my Friday morning exhaustion.  #ScandalHangovers

2.    Perspective, in a nutshell:

a.    Pimple at age 14: End. Of. The. World.

b.    Pimple at age 40: Yup. Still got it.

3.    Most recent “reason to hate townhouse living”:  Next door neighbors who never say “No” to garlic.

4.    I think my dog Beckett is having some anxiety issues.  Or perhaps he is once again sublimating his rage by literally eating my home. Either way, this (below) used to be my upstairs carpet. (Note, if you are able, the plethora of chew toys, rawhide bones, and the long, blue unnamed rubber thing he has at his disposal all day.  And yet, he prefers the taste and texture that only a finely laid carpet can provide.)

5.    I've been trying like hell to fictionalize my memoir. Which was originally my MFA thesis. In general, memoirs just don't sell - not unless people already know who you are because you've either written a bunch of other stuff or achieved some kind of "celebrity" status or have managed to pull a well-timed Britney Spears in public. I don’t generally work in outlines, and I don’t generally prefer to work in outlines, but the truth is this: if how you work and how you generally prefer to work is getting you nowhere, then you may want to make a change. Unless Nowhere is the place you intend to hang your beret.

6.   
rs" could mean so many things. All of them bad, but all of them helpful in terms of publicity).

Anyway, I've been fighting the inevitable, and today -- I am choosing to embrace it. I. Am. Outlining. Chapter by chapter. Character by character. Plot point by plot point. The whole lot of it. It's not how I generally work, and not how I like to work, but the life lesson here is this: If how you generally work and how you like to work has gotten you nowehere, you may want to make a change. Unless Nowhere is the place you want to be.

Lesson learned. But just know this: I'm going in kicking and screaming and hoping to make it out alive.

My writing room wall is now covered with fresh, bare white poster board and I am armed with my index cards and highlighters and markers and post-its.

Bring it on, Left Brain.
I don’t believe in using words like “Never” and “Always.”  That said, I will never be a skilled user of emoticons.  And I will always rely too heavily on the “LOL” and the “Haha” in most of my electronic communications, just to make sure people don’t mistake my sarcasm for angrybitchy.  Even when angrybitchy is precisely what I’m going for.

7.    This morning, I saw a commercial ThiThis morning I saw a commercial for a drug whose name I can’t recall, but whose main side effect is Gynecomastia, which, loosely translated, means “the development of breasts in men.”  I don’t know what this drug is used to treat or what it’s other complications are, but I would like to order a year’s supply of the C-cup formula for myself. So $20 and my collection of training bras goes to the first person who can locate this medication by name and secure me a refillable prescription.

8.    It snowed last night. Not a lot.  I think there’s about an inch on the ground.  Even so, I hate it.  Or at least I did, until I watched Beckett frolic through it as if he’d never seen it before.  This is his third winter, but it doesn’t matter – everything with him is a new experience with a very simple message: I need to frolic more.

9.    I’ve started writing for a fantastic publication called Elephant Journal.  They posted one of my pieces yesterday and I have three more in the hopper waiting to go live. I write for the sake of writing. I am my own audience.  I have no aspirations to become a world famous novelist or a nonstop book touring, book signing phenomenon. That said, it’s nice to see my work existing outside the bowels of my own hard drive.

10. At some point in my life, I was told, or overheard, that a good way to “save” a really ripe banana was to peel and slice it, and then pop it in the freezer, where it would stop ripening and would last for a really long time.  Most people use the frozen slices in smoothies or breads. I just generally pop a few in my mouth when I want a quick bite of something sweet.  Problem is: at any given moment, my freezer is home to no less than ten ziplock baggies full of peeled banana slices. This is part of my selective hoarding condition that extends to a odd few food items (think: bananas, canisters of oatmeal, and cans of low sodium chick peas), several cleaning products, and, apparently, the multiple bottles of mouthwash taking up space on the bottom shelf of my bathroom closet.

That's all.

 

 

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