I totally forgot about this. You're welcome.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
I Have Lost That Fighting Feeling
My cat is contorting herself in order to lick the salt out of an empty seaweed container. She has her rear paws on my bed and her forepaws on the night stand, her face buried in the rigid plastic. There is nothing I want as badly as she wants those salty remnants. I think this is my problem.
When I was younger I wanted to become an established, respected grip in the New York film industry. I called people I barely knew on holidays to find work. I dragged my weary body through two and three feet of snow for $100 a day for weeks on end. I worked for free for as many as 14 or 16 hours. I would start work at 2 in the afternoon and get home at 6 in the morning or start work at 2 in the morning and get home around 4 in the afternoon, sometimes though, it would be for $150 a day. I lived in a building with rats and roaches, then with a crazed, drunken Australian and a guy who kept a 3ft square meat freezer in his bedroom. I did all of this because I had a goal, an honorable pursuit.
Now that I have mostly achieved this goal (I say "mostly" because I am unsure how respected I am, I figure people think I am an okay technician) I feel I have gotten soft. I live in a pretty nice apartment (albeit with roommates) and don't really have to worry about my bills or whether I can afford a new book or not (most of the time). Because I have all these things, I have stopped pushing myself. The fight has gone out of me, and the idea of a new fight is wearisome. The biggest difficulty I have had so far with writing has really been disciplining myself and actually doing the typing, but I know the hard part is to come. The mailings, the rejections, the revisions, and possibly failure. What if I can't get the fight back when I need it? What if I need it now, just to finish the thing?
When I was younger I wanted to become an established, respected grip in the New York film industry. I called people I barely knew on holidays to find work. I dragged my weary body through two and three feet of snow for $100 a day for weeks on end. I worked for free for as many as 14 or 16 hours. I would start work at 2 in the afternoon and get home at 6 in the morning or start work at 2 in the morning and get home around 4 in the afternoon, sometimes though, it would be for $150 a day. I lived in a building with rats and roaches, then with a crazed, drunken Australian and a guy who kept a 3ft square meat freezer in his bedroom. I did all of this because I had a goal, an honorable pursuit.
Now that I have mostly achieved this goal (I say "mostly" because I am unsure how respected I am, I figure people think I am an okay technician) I feel I have gotten soft. I live in a pretty nice apartment (albeit with roommates) and don't really have to worry about my bills or whether I can afford a new book or not (most of the time). Because I have all these things, I have stopped pushing myself. The fight has gone out of me, and the idea of a new fight is wearisome. The biggest difficulty I have had so far with writing has really been disciplining myself and actually doing the typing, but I know the hard part is to come. The mailings, the rejections, the revisions, and possibly failure. What if I can't get the fight back when I need it? What if I need it now, just to finish the thing?
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Sun Walking Time
It is sun walking time again. Sun walking time is when it is too chilly to walk in the shade. Shade walking time is when the sun is oppressive and even the slightly darker areas from street signs and lamp posts give welcome relief. While the sun has stopped bludgeoning us about the forehead and shoulders time has become a force resting heavily upon my just healed sunburns. The turning seasons, and start of school has reminded me again that I am getting older and the death of a friend on Sunday has made me wary of the metaphoric dark patches on the sidewalks and streets.
I am a little afraid of the real shady patches as well. On Friday morning, before the sun was up, when the city was all in shadow, I hit a pedestrian wearing all black who had walked into the middle of the street. He is relatively fine, a swollen foot and I assume quite a bit of pain, but otherwise unscathed. Wearing all black is something one is taught not to do when there isn't daylight, and I have had a very visceral reminder why.
Despite being superstitious, I do not think the universe is telling me to "walk in the light" or any other heavy handed, cliched drivel, but the anxiety in my chest is a reminder of my fears. I fear the regret of lost opportunities, and I afraid of how easy it is to close oneself off from the pains and rigors of life.
I am reading a silly book that seems to have been written to tap into all that money that is pouring into what Jasper Fforde (look him up, he is awesome) the "Urban Vampire Market." It was an accident, I thought it was going to be about witches in the sense that Thornyhold by Mary Stewart is about witches. Stewart's book is about a regular girl who inherits Thornyhold and the witchcraft that comes with it, but it is just herbs and dreams, nothing truly fantastic. (Other than the book, which is a wonderful book and makes me feel better about loneliness.) This book falls into the "Fantasy" genre, and while I love genre, sometimes it is just silly. Especially when there are vampires and secret fantastical creature policing agencies and conspiracies and stuff. It is really silly, and not very inventive. It is pretty much a better structured Twilight with a lot of the same abilities and plot points, just spread around a little differently. Oh, and there is time travel.
So here we are again, talking about time. I am worried about how I pass my time, which is to say, how I spend my life. So much of my time is taken up with work, which I must do to live. I do have to earn a living. Then I feel like the next largest portion is taken up with chores. Cleaning, food shopping, and endless amounts of laundry. I have been dealing with a bed bug issue as well, so the process of laundry involves so much more than it used to. In the end I feel as if the things I must do to live are not leaving me enough time to live. Granted, I have to sleep. I have to sleep more than a lot of people, and cutting into that would be the best way to carve out life, but it is hard to enjoy things when feeling like a cranky bitch.
I don't know what to do about this. The best I could come up with now is taking a mental health day. I am too sad and too stressed to deal with work and I need to find my patience again. There were too many times yesterday where I was ready to remind my coworkers that we are just making a stupid movie by throwing something large and breakable and pitching a fit. That is not the best way to deal with one's frustrations, really.
So, I have to work. I usually like my job, and I figured out where I can do my job without working too many hours. Now I have to relearn how to make time for living, and stop hanging out in the shadows.
I am a little afraid of the real shady patches as well. On Friday morning, before the sun was up, when the city was all in shadow, I hit a pedestrian wearing all black who had walked into the middle of the street. He is relatively fine, a swollen foot and I assume quite a bit of pain, but otherwise unscathed. Wearing all black is something one is taught not to do when there isn't daylight, and I have had a very visceral reminder why.
Despite being superstitious, I do not think the universe is telling me to "walk in the light" or any other heavy handed, cliched drivel, but the anxiety in my chest is a reminder of my fears. I fear the regret of lost opportunities, and I afraid of how easy it is to close oneself off from the pains and rigors of life.
I am reading a silly book that seems to have been written to tap into all that money that is pouring into what Jasper Fforde (look him up, he is awesome) the "Urban Vampire Market." It was an accident, I thought it was going to be about witches in the sense that Thornyhold by Mary Stewart is about witches. Stewart's book is about a regular girl who inherits Thornyhold and the witchcraft that comes with it, but it is just herbs and dreams, nothing truly fantastic. (Other than the book, which is a wonderful book and makes me feel better about loneliness.) This book falls into the "Fantasy" genre, and while I love genre, sometimes it is just silly. Especially when there are vampires and secret fantastical creature policing agencies and conspiracies and stuff. It is really silly, and not very inventive. It is pretty much a better structured Twilight with a lot of the same abilities and plot points, just spread around a little differently. Oh, and there is time travel.
So here we are again, talking about time. I am worried about how I pass my time, which is to say, how I spend my life. So much of my time is taken up with work, which I must do to live. I do have to earn a living. Then I feel like the next largest portion is taken up with chores. Cleaning, food shopping, and endless amounts of laundry. I have been dealing with a bed bug issue as well, so the process of laundry involves so much more than it used to. In the end I feel as if the things I must do to live are not leaving me enough time to live. Granted, I have to sleep. I have to sleep more than a lot of people, and cutting into that would be the best way to carve out life, but it is hard to enjoy things when feeling like a cranky bitch.
I don't know what to do about this. The best I could come up with now is taking a mental health day. I am too sad and too stressed to deal with work and I need to find my patience again. There were too many times yesterday where I was ready to remind my coworkers that we are just making a stupid movie by throwing something large and breakable and pitching a fit. That is not the best way to deal with one's frustrations, really.
So, I have to work. I usually like my job, and I figured out where I can do my job without working too many hours. Now I have to relearn how to make time for living, and stop hanging out in the shadows.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Allentown
Well, I have not posted in almost two months, and I don't have a fantastic reason, except I didn't want to write a bunch of posts unworthy of publication, most of my posts are mediocre already. I have been writing, not as much as I should be, but I have actually sat down and put words to a digital representation of a piece of paper, so good for me. The character "Beanie" has popped up again, so it will be interesting to see how he drives the plot. I know how I want the scene to end, but the intricacies of the plot progression are less detailed in my mind, so I think it will be an interesting revelation to see how the scene pans out. While I didn't set out to write a Cinderella story, and my character is certainly not oppressed by a mother figure or hiding a secret, poverty struck identity, there is most certainly the rags to riches subplot so I have decided to go on a tramp through romance retellings of fairy tales. I haven't started yet, but I am warning you that this might further distract me from my blogging activities.
While I am sure that brief summary of my two months of not really writing was fascinating and greatly edifying, I actually have a personal life event that I think bears consideration, and I am going to use this very public and impersonal space to do so. As the ten of you who read my blog may, or may not know, I have been seeing a very fine gentleman for a couple of months now, and last week we drove to Pennsylvania to visit an elderly uncle laid up by a stroke. Of course the trip was somewhat awkward as my gentleman caller was meeting my grandparents and my uncle for the first time, and it was in a hospital room, complete with the heightened anxiety that comes with meeting the family and family illness. Just when everyone was starting to become comfortable with each other with my grammy and my dude looking at his iPad together, Uncle Joe napping away and Grandpop deciding to trot off for a hot dog, the WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN besides cancer, terrorist attacks, biological warfare, nuclear detonation, etc. HAPPENED.
Almost my entire extended family rolled up in there (literally rolled, Aunt Annie came rolling in, sitting on the seat of her rolling walker) and all of a sudden I thought I was in a sitcom. Uncle Joe was being ambushed and my boyfriend was caught in the crossfire. I couldn't have written something more embarrassing. My grammy pinched his cheek, my demented aunt yelled at him that he "picked a good one" without actually having a clear idea as to who I am or how I am related to her, and my cousin very loudly and insistently couldn't fathom how it only took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get there from Brooklyn when it took her an hour and half to get to Allentown from Trenton. Of course, on paper, none of this seems so terrible. But imagine yourself in a room, with the first guy or girl you have ever introduced to your family, and think about how you would feel if your grammy PINCHED HIS CHEEK. My boyfriend is a 33 year old grown ass man.
The rest of the embarrassing behavior is particular to the family, you know stories that your family insists on telling to all and sundry, regardless of polite requests to stop. They also kept asking why we weren't going to Jenean's for dinner, because saying that we had to get back to the city for work was not, apparently, a real reason? "Because, Jenean's cooking, ya' know. Oh, we're all goin' back to Jenean's. Why don'tcha come back to Jenean's with us for dinner?" In the light, lilting singsong of the Northeast Pennsylvania accent. It has the tones of a Minnesota accent with the cadence of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
So, the next time you see "Home for the Holidays" or any sitcom where a girl is embarrassed by her family when she brings a partner home for the first time, know that it is real. That happened to someone, it wasn't invented on the digital representation of the page. Then, remind yourself to never introduce Your Boo to your grandma. She will pinch his cheek.
While I am sure that brief summary of my two months of not really writing was fascinating and greatly edifying, I actually have a personal life event that I think bears consideration, and I am going to use this very public and impersonal space to do so. As the ten of you who read my blog may, or may not know, I have been seeing a very fine gentleman for a couple of months now, and last week we drove to Pennsylvania to visit an elderly uncle laid up by a stroke. Of course the trip was somewhat awkward as my gentleman caller was meeting my grandparents and my uncle for the first time, and it was in a hospital room, complete with the heightened anxiety that comes with meeting the family and family illness. Just when everyone was starting to become comfortable with each other with my grammy and my dude looking at his iPad together, Uncle Joe napping away and Grandpop deciding to trot off for a hot dog, the WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN besides cancer, terrorist attacks, biological warfare, nuclear detonation, etc. HAPPENED.
Almost my entire extended family rolled up in there (literally rolled, Aunt Annie came rolling in, sitting on the seat of her rolling walker) and all of a sudden I thought I was in a sitcom. Uncle Joe was being ambushed and my boyfriend was caught in the crossfire. I couldn't have written something more embarrassing. My grammy pinched his cheek, my demented aunt yelled at him that he "picked a good one" without actually having a clear idea as to who I am or how I am related to her, and my cousin very loudly and insistently couldn't fathom how it only took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get there from Brooklyn when it took her an hour and half to get to Allentown from Trenton. Of course, on paper, none of this seems so terrible. But imagine yourself in a room, with the first guy or girl you have ever introduced to your family, and think about how you would feel if your grammy PINCHED HIS CHEEK. My boyfriend is a 33 year old grown ass man.
The rest of the embarrassing behavior is particular to the family, you know stories that your family insists on telling to all and sundry, regardless of polite requests to stop. They also kept asking why we weren't going to Jenean's for dinner, because saying that we had to get back to the city for work was not, apparently, a real reason? "Because, Jenean's cooking, ya' know. Oh, we're all goin' back to Jenean's. Why don'tcha come back to Jenean's with us for dinner?" In the light, lilting singsong of the Northeast Pennsylvania accent. It has the tones of a Minnesota accent with the cadence of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
So, the next time you see "Home for the Holidays" or any sitcom where a girl is embarrassed by her family when she brings a partner home for the first time, know that it is real. That happened to someone, it wasn't invented on the digital representation of the page. Then, remind yourself to never introduce Your Boo to your grandma. She will pinch his cheek.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
I Just Have to Share
Hey guys, I reached 33%! This means I have written one third of a romance novel. GO ME! To celebrate I thought I would share this with you! Click on the squirrel, make sure you scroll through all the images, it is my gift to you.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
A compendium of DIY
So, here we go! Make your own Whatnot.
I found this site, the problem with this one is that every component comes from the creator, which can stymy creativity, since the perimeters are not set.
Here is what I created:
Those are my cats. That is my bedspread.
If you are an environmentalist I found this for you.
Here is another nifty thing I found!
I found this site, the problem with this one is that every component comes from the creator, which can stymy creativity, since the perimeters are not set.
Here is what I created:
If you are an environmentalist I found this for you.
Here is another nifty thing I found!
I Made This For You
I N T E R N E T R W R G K P K B K S O G Q H V L G R U Q B Y D I E R B B O O A L I E N U F N O V E Q G R F V C B F I F I L H M O W I S M T T P I N H E H N F F O E T L G Y K D G A V J N S L P J R T W D Q T K U R I X S S N Z N W O N H V E I Y E J B A L P C V E N Q W W Y B C U M K B C N G N F S H X U D Y C N G P E E Z O O B O B D V H E D E Z R L F I T H C Q J E Q R K E O J R Z V V X L K T O M O S P S E R C V R O H D R K S G E P W I V C I N P V L L A B M E N U P E V O S T J Z P H F C U L D B P W L V S P D T E L J L D Q A U V C Z D P I Y D C I M B X K A M V C K Z V A C X Y N U X W V Q R V J C G G A R D C D L A U Q L H J A L W Y E T V C U T M G G U I E I K D Z R Q O T M I I A Q L T U D H I X K X O F O I O O Y J A H X J X L L T D R C W Y F A A D Z Y R F Z I O S I H D V A G B N I W F V K R N Y D K X N M M N J Z E E C N M S B R R I U Q J P D L W T D I P J U Z Z O S E A O D D P R I H K E O R F R L F F B H X W G M G G K N V S I U W Q X J M A J F F R H E A R T Z B U W D N P E Z N M A L K L N V S G O B L M J Q F R M I D D S H L V V O D I M N T E F H U Z U S Q A Y Z B W H V D B W E N I T N E L A V T T K T L O V E J T V M N D H I I Y O R D J D U O U Y A P O U B W K W I R G T R H Y I D D T B U B T A C A G U F T A W G D P K Y J F P G N I T I D E H
ADORE
AUTHOR
BLOG
BOOKS
BOOZE
CATS
CHARACTER
DATING
EDITING
GENRE
GROUNDHOG
HEART
INTERNET
ITALY
KISS
LOVE
MANCHILD
MOVIES
NOVEL
OUTLINE
PERU
REFERENCE
ROMANCE
VALENTINE
WRITING
I hope you print this out and enjoy it! I made it blog, valentine, and romance novel appropriate!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Groundhog Day
I know I promised more "make your own" things. Maybe I will get to this tomorrow?
Right now I want to talk about the weather. This past fall I was very anxious that I had ruined my fall by still being physically and emotionally involved with my ex-boyfriend. I spent the entirety of my favorite season being wracked with self doubt, low self esteem, and unhappiness. As the holidays neared, and passed, I waited in dread for the long snowbound days to commence, envisioning myself cold, alone, and worse, lonely. So, imagine my surprise and joy at the fantastic January weather with beautiful, balmy days, and outings almost every weekend night with friends and new dates. Now that I am moving in to February I have social engagements most nights and I am enjoying my time, happy both in the company I am keeping, and the weather.
Yesterday I walked to a beach on the East River with my wonderful friend Geoff whom I am seeing for the first time since he moved to Portland five years ago. Afterwards I went to a delicious oyster bar with a very nice gentleman chef, then attended my cousin's birthday comedy show. With such beautiful sunshine this morning I hightailed it to the coffee shop and sat outside, reading a novel. The windows are open in the apartment and I am actually debating shaving under my arms. What? It is still winter.
My point being, weather dominates atmosphere in novels. Jane Eyre can be told by the weather, never mind all the coach rides, gypsies, and (possibly) bastard children. The weather seems to be giving me a second chance to move on; it is giving me the space and atmosphere to explore the world as it unfolds in the (possibly) last year of the world. Just kidding, I don't believe in that stuff. Here is to a brave Punxsutawney Phil tomorrow.
Right now I want to talk about the weather. This past fall I was very anxious that I had ruined my fall by still being physically and emotionally involved with my ex-boyfriend. I spent the entirety of my favorite season being wracked with self doubt, low self esteem, and unhappiness. As the holidays neared, and passed, I waited in dread for the long snowbound days to commence, envisioning myself cold, alone, and worse, lonely. So, imagine my surprise and joy at the fantastic January weather with beautiful, balmy days, and outings almost every weekend night with friends and new dates. Now that I am moving in to February I have social engagements most nights and I am enjoying my time, happy both in the company I am keeping, and the weather.
Yesterday I walked to a beach on the East River with my wonderful friend Geoff whom I am seeing for the first time since he moved to Portland five years ago. Afterwards I went to a delicious oyster bar with a very nice gentleman chef, then attended my cousin's birthday comedy show. With such beautiful sunshine this morning I hightailed it to the coffee shop and sat outside, reading a novel. The windows are open in the apartment and I am actually debating shaving under my arms. What? It is still winter.
My point being, weather dominates atmosphere in novels. Jane Eyre can be told by the weather, never mind all the coach rides, gypsies, and (possibly) bastard children. The weather seems to be giving me a second chance to move on; it is giving me the space and atmosphere to explore the world as it unfolds in the (possibly) last year of the world. Just kidding, I don't believe in that stuff. Here is to a brave Punxsutawney Phil tomorrow.
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