Little Southern Girl

Blah

2010-05-10T14:22:00.002-04:00

I did not win ScriptFrenzy, though I am almost finished with my original sitcom and I have a good outline (except for the end) for a Modern Family spec. Things got accomplished, just not all the things I wanted. I try to do too much because I think I can and when I don't, I feel as if I've failed. But if I hadn't had the goal I had, I wouldn't have gotten as much done as I did. Thanks to everyone who wrote or called and encouraged me.

I'm not feeling very good today. As if I'm aging right before my eyes, I'm beset with a series of complaints. The muscles around my sciatic nerve contract at least once weekly in the past few weeks to make me nearly lame, my shoulder hurts so bad sometimes it makes me want to throw up, my lower back gives me problems all the time. My advice: Don't be in car accidents after the age of 30. Well, I'm still alive and for that I'm grateful. This is the accident that happened in December of 08, so don't get too worried.

I have a book idea in mind. Not necessarily a good one, but an idea nonetheless. I never thought about writing a book (this one would be sort of non-fiction, though creative non-fiction - and no, not a memoir). I've always only wanted to either do short stories or write for television. Frankly, the idea of writing long fiction frightens me. I've done it. I won NaNoWriMo one year with a completely horrible 57,000 word piece of crap. I'm proud I completed, but not proud it exists.

Right now, I'm tired. I wish I weren't. This is when I feel old age, when I would rather just sit around than do the things I know I want to do. Maybe when I start my book idea, it will bolster my other efforts because working on the book will also give me stories for my articles and maybe the interesting characters I meet will provide comedic fodder for my other ventures.

I know I complain a lot (as the Honey says, I'm the Queen of Complaining), but I do know that I have a goal and I will achieve it, whether I do it in inches or in miles.

Trivia Nerd

2010-04-08T10:32:00.003-04:00

I have a friend who comes down from Alabama to visit his family and when he does, we make plans to meet on Wednesday for Trivia. The last two times he was in town, we won overall, which is a $20 bar tab.

So I head to the bar and run into a couple of friends on the way, one of which decides that she will join me for trivia. I expected my friend to be late, so the two of us are answering the questions by ourselves until he arrives.

The first round of questions ends with us winning. The winner of each round gets a pitcher of beer, which is a nice, free way to get your drinking done when you are as poor as we are right now. Of course, 2 glasses of beer later, we find ourselves the surprise winners of round 2. We guessed on at least 3 questions and didn't think we got the 30pt questions correct, but we did. Total guessing. That's another pitcher of beer for us and my friend has yet to show. Because we are so anal about not looking as if we're cheating, we usually leave our phones alone, but I check to see if he's left a text. He has. He's going to be much later. It's the final round, how much later is he gonna be?

He got there for the final jeopardy style question, well after the 3rd round. We got it wrong, but if we'd listened to him, we would have won it all! I only had one more free drink after that because that was all I needed, but it turned into a hell of a party, even with the dj being as lame as he always is.

I like drinking beer and having fun with my friends, but I have the most fun when I'm playing trivia. Maybe it's because it reminds me of being in college, when we would go to the Red Dog Pub in Cambridge and play NTN trivia. A bunch of us would walk over from Boston, grab a booth and a drink and we would try to outnerd all the other nerds in the place. The trivia I play now is similar, but we've all developed a camaraderie that is nice. Friendly and competitive, we talk smack but are okay if the other person wins. It's almost a family in a way. We expect to see each other every week, we complain about the questions, but we always enjoy getting together every week and trying to be the biggest nerds in the room.

Catch Up

2010-04-06T14:25:00.002-04:00

I'm about to head to the A to visit a friend and while talking on the phone with said friend last night, I realize that I had not really met my obligations for writing, obligations I'd promised myself and in turn you guys - since you're the ones that are supposed to be holding me accountable. If I don't do this every day, it won't become the habit I want and need it to become. I've been out of practice of everyday writing. I need to get back in practice... so I practice...

Today's prompt:
"What do you take? You have ten minutes to evacuate your house forever! All family and pets have already escaped. Write about what you'd imagine yourself taking with you with only the limited time you have."

The first stop is the bedroom where I will scoop up my stuffed animals. They are all unique little animals that have a story behind them. Bear, my big stuffed brown teddy bear, has been with me since I was a senior in high school and has traveled with me everywhere (though he didn't make it to Africa because I was afraid I might lose him), Bayer, my little brown stuffed Teddy Bear that I got as a gift from a pen pal, Bunkey, who is a monkey dressed in a bunny suit that my husband bought me for Easter the year I demanded the Easter Basket my parents never gave me. It also included bubbles and chocolates, which has already been blown and eaten, as well as Porkchop, a pink pig that somehow has an expression when I take pictures of it.

The second stop would be my hard drive, which has ever episode from Doctor Who that has been released since 1963. Every episode from 63- now. I couldn't bear to have to try to get them all again.

While I'm in the office, where the hard drive resides, I will also try to find the David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Beatles and John Schneider albums. I will give myself to the count of 15 to put my hands on these. In fact, I'm going to go organize the pile of records so that the pile on the right are the albums I want to keep.

Next, I will stop by my bar area to get the glasses Little Sister bought from me, then run to the living room. In the hallway is a photo of my husband and myself with the date of our wedding. I will pull that picture from the wall. I would grab every elephant from my mantle piece (there happens to be a lot, even though I don't collect them), the small box of photos that are also on the mantle piece, the wedding photos on the coffee table and the art that is hanging on the living room wall, a wedding gift from my husband's best friend to us.

If I had to leave anything off the list, it would be elephants.

The thing that has bothered me for most of my life is that I don't have photos. Our photographic memories were lost in a fire nearly 15 years ago. It is not one of my happiest thoughts. To know that there is no photographic reference to myself before the age of 19 is a bit depressing, although my grandparents have one of me giving Santa the decidedly evil eye and a little pendant picture of me as a child in overalls, flashing nip. I like taking that walk though the life of the people you know, seeing them as they were then, maybe coming to understand a bit about who they were and how that plays into how they are. It's an interesting tale, something that shines a light and obscures at the same time. So pictures are precious to me and would be the main thing worth saving.

Writing Prompt #2
"Who told you that you couldn't, and you really wanted to prove them wrong? Write about it."
I am not a bad student. Some people might actually say I'm a very good student. I don't go that far because learning once came very easy to me. I don't have a photographic memory, but I had a very good reference memory. If I could remember the clues, I could always find the answer. And the writing I had to do in high school... well, let's just say I was good enough that I could write a paper in homeroom for my first period class and get an A.

But math, that was another story.

I wouldn't have disliked math so much if it hadn't made me cry. Math made me cry huge, angry tears of frustration and represented the first C grade I was every presented with. Well, let me take that back. It's not math's fault. It's Algebra 2/Trig's fault. Algebra 2/Trig and my math teacher who hated me.

Now, when a student says a teacher hated them, they usually are instigators who have angered the authority figure in the classroom. I was not that person. I said yessir and yesma'am with a contriteness that would make my mother's traditional heart swell with pride. I turned in my school work, I asked questions, I tried to understand, I worked into the wee hours of the night and I never gave up. Yet at every turn, my teacher would ridicule my inability to understand the numbers because they were so different from the words I'd grown to know and love.

I remember one time in particular when we learned to do three dimensional graphing. I was working out the problem, graphing the solution and I saw that it formed a box. From that point on, I would plot the answer and if it didn't form a box, I would know that one of my equations was incorrect. It was my eureka moment! Filled with the enthusiasm of someone who knows something without any doubt, I walked around the class saying, "It forms a box! It forms a box!" Of course, my classmates did not pick up on this, nor did they understand what the hell I was talking about. So I picked the guy who eventually became our co-valedictorian and showed him what I was talking about. Suddenly, the light was in his eyes. We both went around the class bringing our fellow students into the light and our teacher came up to D and asked him how he'd figured it out. He pointed at me. She turned to look at me with more surprise than should have been in her face and said, "M figured it out? Well would you look at that!" (M is my maiden name). I could feel my face turning red, but I stood my ground. "Well, why don't you explain it to the whole class then," she said. I did. Everyone got it. It made me feel awesome.

Yeah, that was the only time.

At the end of the school year, when she was advising me on my classes for the next year, she recommended I take Statistics. I asked what she recommended for the other students. Pre-Calculus.

Damn. Pre-Calculus. I had to swallow hard on that one because I knew that Algebra 2/Trig had basically kicked my ass, but I wasn't going to be the only AP/Honor student not in Pre-Calculus.

So I told her I was going to take Pre-Calculus. She basically said, "It's your funeral." I passed Algebra 2/Trig with a C. I passed Pre-Calculus with an A and got a B in Calculus my 12th grad year. If any of you have ever taken calculus, you know they rely on letters and words much more than any other math. That, a pretty stellar teacher and someone behind me not believing in me pushed me to achieve more than I ever thought I would.

Sometimes I want to thank her for not liking me so much. I don't give her credit for pushing me in a reverse psychology kind of way. I don't have that kind of faith in her.

Pondering

2010-04-05T22:29:00.002-04:00

I visited my grandmother tonight. My father's mother, who is not my grandmother, but is. I wanted to talk to her about searching for my family, but the same thing that stopped me telling my dad that I knew he wasn't my biological dad stopped me from mentioning anything to her.

I just wasn't sure if she wouldn't see it as an insult.

It wouldn't be an insult, of course, but it could easily be misconstrued as such. I know that my grandmother knows that she is not my grandmother, even though she is. I can't spend 34 years with her and her not feel something for me. I wonder if, since I've pulled away from her and my family (my fault, not there's - other than the vague feeling I've always, that I don't belong with them, even before my knowledge was complete), she believes that I've discovered the truth and she has begun the process of anticipating my rejection.

I've always felt a lot different from my family. I wonder if it was noticeable even then. Yes, I get picked on by my white husband that I enjoy more things from Stuff White People Like than he does, what with me not being white and all, but stick that in the ghetto and you get someone not only different from their family, but also from the community they were brought up in. That must come from somewhere. I've never let myself wonder where because what if I didn't find out the answers? What if I asked the questions and never got the answers? The questions (maybe even the answers) would be floating in the nether forever. It's been nearly 10 years since the death of my bio-dad. I've never seen a picture. I've been forced to subtract my mother's features from my face (and I am very like my mother) and try to put a face to the remaining features. What if I get unanswerable questions? What then?

I'm just gonna stop promising you things. You really do hold me accountable when I don't complete them.

Marriage

2010-04-05T08:44:00.004-04:00

Today, I'm going to teach my students about marriage. To that end, I'm going to watch a Tyler Perry movie called, "Why Did I Get Married", which I know my students have seen. I want to be able to pull from that.

So, yes, I'm watching a movie at work. On days like today, I like my job.

I will do a writing prompt later on today. Comments about previous writing prompts (especially since you know what I'm trying to accomplish) would be welcome. Constructive criticism as well. I will try not to take it personally :)

I have a little more than half the number of pages I need to have and by the end of the day, if I haven't written, it will be less than half. Anyway, I'm writing and working. I will finish my scripts and you all will be responsible for helping me change dreck into gold.

Because you love me.

Weekend Blogging

2010-04-04T11:39:00.002-04:00

I'm rubbish at it.

Writing Prompt:

Write about the fastest ride you ever had, but describe only a few seconds of it...as though it was happening to slow motion."

I could feel my insides shifting and the soft hair of my pigtails moving across my neck. I could feel myself lifted from my seat on the soft cushion of the back seat of the ancient cadillac. I was too young to know to lift my hands as we careened down the steep hill. It was a once a year pleasure, a street my mother had found long ago, like a roller coaster, with hardly any life on it. It was a road, absent of homes, that lead to somewhere, but the where was not important.

We felt a bit like daredevils, my brother and I, as we raged down the road. If I were to remind my mother of this now, she would say it never happened. She's not the reckless kind anymore. As we came to the end of the dip and made our way up, my insides came crashing down, our bodies pushed down into the ugly green felt, our fingers gripping the edge of the seat. There were no true g-forces, but I could feel my face shifting ever so slightly on the upward momentum. My mom did not look back to see our fun. Our squeals of joy spoke for us.

Ooops!

2010-04-02T17:47:00.002-04:00

Dear Everybody,

I'm not in my right frame of mind today. We got to leave work early today and when I got home, I fell right to sleep. And now i'm about to go out to First Friday. I will owe you two posts tomorrow as well as two writing prompts. Do you forgive me internets?

Love,

ThisGirlTV

Here We Go!

2010-04-01T14:53:00.003-04:00

Day one of ScriptFrenzy and I am restless. I haven't written anything, don't even really have an outline, but I do have a goal. I'm not supposed to worry about that at this time of day, but I do. Oh well, getting home will tell the tale. If I write my four pages today, I will indeed be doing something great!

Today I was driving with the windows down. You don't always get to do that in Georgia. Right now, it's the right kind of hot, not the stifling heat that will be upon us in the next 4 weeks. While I can drive with the windows down, I will.

So, every day this month, I will do at least one writing prompt on Little Southern Girl. It will be unedited and maybe not make sense, but it will be done. I'm going to try for mornings, but some days, it will be afternoon. Anyway, if you have anything you'd like me to write about, write it in the comments.

Today's Writing prompt: It's time for you and Writer's Block to part ways. Write a letter breaking up with Writer's Block, starting out with, "Dear Writer's Block, it's not you, it's me ... ."

Dear Writer's Block,

It's not you, it's me. We've met so many times, it seems like we were destined to be together. Do you remember the first time we met, when I was trying to write that romantic short story about two people who thought they hated each other but in the end fell in love? You were right to try to stop me, but wrong for doubting my dreams. I remember you stepping in just when I thought things were going great. With one fell swoop, you took every word that I had in my head from me. You demanded my time, my thoughts, and my attention, as if I didn't have writing I needed to get done. I expected you to be my rock, not my block, and you never had my back. Do you remember when I applied for that screenwriting class in California and I almost didn't make it because you decided to make an appearance and took my focus from what I was doing? I think that's when I knew it was over, even though I didn't want it to be. You're comfortable. Hypnotic. Like staring at a blank white screen, cursor blinking. You knew the end was coming. I saw you less and less. Maybe you went to talk to that guy writing a cookbook - maybe that girl trying to finish her thesis. I know you thought she was cute. But I didn't get jealous and maybe it's better to not get jealous, but when I don't miss you, you know it's time to part ways. So, Writer's Block, I hope you can find someone who will love you like I once did, who won't use you as a crutch, but word of advice: try being a little more supportive of the people you get with. That makes all the difference.

Yours truly,
ThisGirl

Pieces of Me

2010-03-29T12:08:00.002-04:00

Some of you know about the complicated relationship I have with my family.

My father, whom I had known my whole life, turned out not to be my biological father. Oh, and I hated him with a cold, emotional hatred for more than 12 years of my life, a hatred I've never been able to resurrect for anyone. Which is a good thing.

I am the alien child in my family. I have never been like them. I have acted as if I were one of them, but I am not. I do like my family, but they don't like the real me, so I have to be another me to them. It's just the way the world works, sometimes. Not that they wouldn't love me, it's just not satisfactory for them.

But then again, that family is not my own. They belong to my non-biological dad. Ahhh, see then, it begins to make sense.

My mother and I are exactly like each other in many ways. We both have a similar sense of humour and anger, although I think I'm a little more explosive than she is. We are both very stubborn. We are both very arrogant. The things that irritate me about her are things that I find irritating in myself.

I don't see my family often, even though I feel like I should see them more. I saw my grandmother (my non-bio dad's mom) the other day and she has lost a lot of weight. We may be going to her funeral soon. But that's morbid.

Yes, I have a complicated relationship with the family I know, but today, something made me consider looking up the family I don't know.

One of the girls in my office learned a couple of years ago that the man she'd been taught to believe was her dad was, in fact, not her dad. She also learned that the man who was her dad had only died a few months before she was told of his existence. Robbed of the ability to get to know him, she set out to know of him through talking to his (and by blood, her) relatives, visiting his grave site, etc. She walked away from that encounter fulfilled. Knowing about her father has helped her answer some of the pesky questions in her life, like why she was so different from the rest of her family.

I'm a big believer in nature vs. nurture, but from all accounts, my bio-dad was not a great guy. Of course, I did spend more than 12 years hating the man who reared me as his own and died never knowing that I knew he wasn't. But what questions do I have about myself that could be answered by knowing a family that has no idea I exist.

Is it an adventure I want to go on? Is it worth examining? I feel like I've filled in the gaps of my difference with being as me-like as possible. I owe my personality to accepting and rejecting things that other people think I should do. Do I have questions? Can they be answered? I don't know.

For years, my uncle was like my father. He asked about my schooling, he kept up with my awards, he watched a particular news because I worked for it at one time, he read all of my writing... Maybe my dad did the same thing, but he never told me, never talked about it. My bio-dad died in 2000, many miles from the city, from the state, in which I live. I want nothing to do with the personality of a man who, from all accounts, was an abusive, drug dealing thug. But I hear that his brother, my uncle, is a stand up guy. Why is it that I can't find the right father? Why is it always someone else who is willing to invest in me like a daughter?

So, I'm asking the questions now. What do you think? Should I try to find out about these people? Should I risk having another set of people that are disappointed because I'm not what they thought I would be after all the work they put into making me that way? Can I deal with another disappointing family? Is it worth it as a person? As a writer? What do y'all think?

Month of Discipline

2010-03-28T23:18:00.003-04:00

Ahhh, it's that time of year. I would say again, but I can't remember the last time I was actually disciplined.

So, the game plan. This year, I'm doing ScriptFrenzy, hopefully getting a first episode of an original spec and writing a spec for a current show. So, getting disciplined about my writing.

Start walking for 30 minutes - 1 hour a day. Disciplined about my health.

Stop going out nearly every night. Pick nights and times and stick to them. Disciplined about my time.

Stop drinking as much, which goes back to my health. Not cutting out drinking, just not drinking as much.

Get a little more organized and set up a schedule I can (and will) follow.

I'm hoping the month of "practice" will give me the impetus to follow this discipline for the rest of the year. I will add more socializing, but I kind of want to start from nearly zero and go up from there. I also want to get some of these projects I've had in my mind for a while and put the down on paper, finally. That's my problem. I don't get everything on paper like I want.

Maybe it will work, maybe not, but at least you will get to hear me complain about it. That's right, one of the disciplinary things I'm adding is to write about my day on this blog. I may also post my entries for my writing prompts. I need to write everyday, not just on my scripts for ScriptFrenzy, but also on the other things I want to write. So yeah, writing prompts, and story research, and grant finding, and all the like...

Only a few of you know how badly I want to be able to leave my job and just write. My job isn't bad, it's just no longer satisfying. My job is frustrating and uninspiring. Writing is frustrating, but when you break through and have a finished piece that you're even partially satisfied with, that is something. I want to do work and feel like that. My students adore me and listen to me and talk to me and that is satisfying, but they don't agree with me and that's the hard part, seeing them after I've taught them and having them say they wish they'd listened to me. It's hard and that part is not satisfying. Of course, I've talked to one student who said that they're glad they listened to me. That is satisfying, but it doesn't keep me going and striving for the ends I strive for when I teach.

Anyway, that's another story and one not thankfully told. I have other thoughts that reside outside of this post. I'm just challenging myself by letting you know. At least two people who read this page will keep me accountable (you know who you are) and maybe, just maybe, I can emerge from the month of April with some new habits for becoming a more successful writer.

St. Paddy's

2010-03-21T10:30:00.003-04:00

Wednesday nights are trivia nights, and occasionally - or maybe a little more than occasionallly - followed by Ladies Night. Ladies Night is the night when ladies drink for free at a local bar.

Ladies Night fell on a St. Patrick's Day this year. Double Trouble.

Not only were there ladies getting drunk as hell, but the drink specials convinced the fellas to do the same. Normally, this isn't a problem, but there must have been a full moon or something that night.

The music was the same. Lame. We usually sit through the music for the free drinks, but 2 gin and tonics and a couple of 12 oz beers later, I knew I was gonna get on the dance floor, even if I also knew I wasn't going to have any real dancing fun.

My thing is dancing. Oh, I dabble in televison (and I know a lot about television) and I knit and spin yarn, and I love to write, but give me a good dj, some music made for dancing, and my feet will hit the floor and I won't sit down. I start dancing as soon as the music is up and won't sit down until it's over. I don't need alcohol to dance, like some people do, but it never hurts to have it.

The time on the dance floor started out like any other with this particular DJ. Dance for 2 minutes, stand on the dance floor holding my drink for the last 3 minutes of a song he'd decided not to change. During the second song, however, I was joined by a friend. By friend, I mean some drunk frat guy, a little taller than me with about 50 lbs. on me, who decided that instead of dancing, he would simply back into me. Putting my hand in the middle of his back, I gently, but firmly, pushed him away from me. He didn't acknowledge me nor did he do that thing that most people do when they bump into someone on the dance floor. Apologize. Even though it's unnecessary, it's a common courtesy thing that is welcomed. Rudeness aside (and he was pretty drunk), I kept dancing. The next thing I know, that same dude is backing into me again. I push him away again and this time I give him a dirty look. His friends get him off the floor.

Cut to about 20 minutes later. Little Sister is swing dancing with a guy we know when our friend from earlier decides he needs the dance floor, and he needs the space where Little Sister is. She pushes him away, but this time, he turns around and tries to start something with the guy. Little Sister steps in front of the guy to confront our friend. Usually, that makes a guy back down. Who yells at girls?

Drunk ass frat boys, that's who.

Of course, with this idiot yelling at my sister, I drew myself up to my full 5ft11in height, moved Little Sister out of the way and politely screamed that if he loved life, he'd better not get in my sister's face again. He then proceeded to tell me he was a man and that I couldn't talk to him that way. I told him that as long as he kept yelling at my sister, I was gonna talk to him however the fuck I pleased. We continued our repartee nose to nose for nearly two minutes before his friends pulled him away while I stared him down. He resisted, hoping to fight me I assume, and to be honest, I wanted to punch him myself, but I did the responsible thing. I watched him until he was pulled away then searched for the owners. They were nowhere to be found. So, on a cocktail napkin, I wrote, "There is a guy, blue shirt, khaki trousers, who is drunk as hell and bumping into girls on the dance floor. I just thought you'd want to know just in case I need to kick his ass." I passed the note when I got my drink and two seconds after I got on the dance floor, the bartender I'd passed it to was there to make sure that asshole didn't mess with another girl.

I avoided the guy, but Little Sister said that our friend kept staring at us for a bit. She said it looked like he considered coming back to start something, and while he started towards us a couple of times, he always thought better of it.

Both my maiden name and my married name is Irish. It's always been a joke that I'm more Irish than my husband, who has the most Irish name I know. A "black" Irish joke is usually imminent. Wednesday night, I almost got into a drunken brawl, and it's the most stereotypically Irish I've felt since the last time I wore my Kiss Me, I'm Irish t-shirt. Which was a long time ago.

Trying Not to Revert

2010-03-16T10:28:00.003-04:00

Remembering to write is not as easy as you might think, even for someone that's a writer.

I mean, I'll eventually get words onto paper or finish a story at deadline, but remembering to visit this site to put down a few words... yeah, sometimes I forget.

Also, I've been a bit morose of late. Things get you down and it's hard to come back up from that. So you take part in pursuits that have no enduring value to the things you want to do just so that you're not reminded of life's shortcomings. I just have to remember, I'm not the first going through this, nor the last, and others are right there with me right now.

I can see why people become mommy bloggers. Kids do crazy things all the time. I've been fighting the urge to write about the cats - well, at least not write much. We have two cats. One is sweet and just wants to be cuddled. One is into everything and just want to know what "that" is. Oh yeah, "that" is everything. I want to get good video of her playing with her toys. It's the funniest thing that you will never care about.

Even though I have scaled back on some social activities to concentrate on writing, I'm still going out an awful lot. Well, this week, little sister is visiting, so I'll be out. That means I have to finish my articles because she's going to be taking up my non work times. Even though I'm going out a lot, most of the activities I engage in are nerd activities. Trivia on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at different bars. Cocktail Hour at different houses on Thursday nights. This week, a free concert Friday celebrating Anti-Valentine's Day (oh how I love this!), a friend is putting out a free album Wednesday, another friend is playing a small concert at a local bookstore on Tuesday - Not sure what is going on Saturday, but I'm pretty sure friends will try to get me to go out Thursday night to a college bar that I feel too old to even look at and Saturday night to sit in a smoke filled room drinking and listening to somebody's southern rock and screaming over the noise. I hope somebody brings a banjo.

The street I live on is putting on a block party and I think the Honey and his friends are going to play it. I don't think they're going to be the main form of entertainment, but it will be interesting to see him performing in front of a live audience. He's been in bands before. I know he doesn't have anxiety about it - I mean, no more than normal - and he must like the work or he wouldn't have let anyone else hear it. To me, it's fantastic. I already have the melodies of some of the songs in my head. I wish I could remember the words. He hasn't given me a copy, but then again, I haven't asked.

I got into a long conversation with a friend about our connection to Africa. She said she grew up feeling an emptiness that she felt might be filled with knowing her African roots. I said I never felt that calling, as if a part of myself were missing. If, by some miracle of records keeping I were to be able to actually trace my roots to country of origin, I would definitely want to see where I would have grown up should I have survived birth, but I think the complete me is what I am today. Even knowing my bio-dad's family wouldn't offer any form of completion for me. But I remember being on the Zambezi River with the wind flowing through my hair and being very touched by where I was, but also very satisfied with what I'd seen. Not too satisfied, mind you, but enough.

I had my tarot read the other day by a friend who's been dying to do so. The cards think we'll be okay. And who can't trust the cards?

Location, Location, Location

2010-03-10T10:23:00.004-05:00

I live near the downtown area of my city. That is enough to take away the suckiness that is my hometown.

I spent the majority of my life dreaming about getting away. I lived in the ghetto, or damn near it if you want to get technical, and as you might imagine, that does not instill a sense of wonder and awe. I wanted to go to there, there being anywhere that was not here. Whether it was Victorian England in the crappy (and not so crappy) romance novels I read, or to the stark northern environment that served as the non sci-fi backdrop of Madeleine L'Engle stories, I always wanted to be somewhere else. I read, I watched tv (when I was allowed to watch tv), I talked to old people at my grandfather's nursing home, people who were more than willing to share about times when they had been someplace other than there, all in an attempt to escape.

Finally, it was my time. I got into the plane without so much as a backwards glance to my home state and swept myself and my stuff up the eastern seaboard to my new home of Boston, MA. Pearl Jam's "Rearview Mirror" was my theme song and the line "I gather speed from you fucking with me" echoed in my head. I was there for two years. When I returned home, which fires and other misfortunes generally make you do, I realized I knew more about my adopted city of Boston, and the surrounding area of Cambridge, than I did about the place in which I lived for more than 17 years.

Actually, first I mourned. Six months in my pajamas, teaching our new dog to love the music of Korn, Pantera, and The Doors, roaming my boring neighborhood freely without knowing that my brother ran interference with every thug he played ball with so that I would be "looked after" but not sexually accosted by said gang members on my runs. I stayed up late, slept long, and ate little until one day my mom told me I was going to have to do something, get a job, volunteer, something(!) if I was gonna stay at her new, not burned down house.

So I got out, volunteered at a nearby school, realized I needed money, got a job, wanted to go back to school, met some nice people who introduced me to Downtown.

Now, at this point, the late 90s, the Downtown area was coming off of an all time low. Prostitution had once been so rampant, there was a city law that stated you couldn't walk down Cherry Street in red heels. I love that that's the sign of a prostitute. Anyway, drug deals and only a few businesses made it supposedly scary to be around Downtown at night, which meant no one was, especially once the drug dealers and prostitutes left from lack of business. Most had deserted this once beautiful area, but not all.

The place was a little nothing of a spot with a beautiful bay window, right next to this elegant, old hotel that had been turned into low income housing for old people. Inside, little cafe tables were spread haphazardly around the floor with clear line to the counter at the back of the store. On the inside of the bay window was a stage where you could get up and read your poetry or play music. It was not my first experience with a coffee house, but it is my most enduring coffee house memory. I went there with friends, some I've lost touch with, some who have died, and others who still remember those days. AOL disks as coasters, the best tea I've ever had in Macon, and delicious deserts, not to mention the bad poems and easy laughs we were always so willing to share, come flooding back when I think of J and the CC.

A few years later, I was invited by a comic book artist to share his creative space and write with him. Weeks later, he left town and I stayed in that creative art space as a writer for nearly 5 years. That was when I knew that my heart would belong to downtown. I walked constantly, never needing to fear for my life, although some lost possessions and one person lost their life just by being downtown. But couldn't it happen anywhere? I met people, I've seen establishments come and go. Even when I got married, I dreamed of the moment when my husband was as assured of my ability to take care of myself as I was so we could make the move downtown. For nearly three years, I lived and worked away from downtown, but as soon as I saw the opening, I pounced.

I ran into someone at the grocery story yesterday, an old friend from school. She asked me if I saw myself and my Honey moving any time soon. I told her we were going with the winds of grad school when that time came, but for now, I was content to be here because I lived downtown.

Don't get me wrong. The allure of being other places still haunts me. I dream of Africa weekly. I imagine Asia, going to China and Japan, going back to Paris and Barcelona and the want of those places weakens my knees. I think about our last trip to Boston and how walking around Cambridge made me long to be back in that area again. Also, since we drove from California back to Georgia, both the Honey and I have kind of kept Albuquerque in mind as a "someday, maybe" place. There are definitely other places I would like to be, but the friends I've made, the home I've made, and the connections I've made makes me not mind it if I have to stay right where I am for a long, long time.

Sorry for the Silence

2010-03-08T10:56:00.002-05:00

I was working on an article that was due last week. Took a lot out of me. But now I'm better.

I've started knitting again. I decided, however, to teach myself to knit in the continental method. I was doing the English method, with is characterized by throwing the yarn (your hands move in much larger swoops) while the continental methods is characterized by picking up the yarn with your needles. The movements are much more efficient.

I mean, it will be once I figure the damn thing out. It's like learning to knit all over again. I'm not awesome at knitting, I have to watch every knit to make sure I'm doing the right thing, whether it be purling or knitting. I'm following a pattern, so you can see it if I mess up... It's completely ridiculous and completely fun.

I need another rotator thingy for my spinning wheel so I can combine to strands of yarn I've already spun. I made the strands super thin so that I could spin them together. I guess I could wind each one separately and use it as sock yarn, but I wanted to maybe put together a shawl or something for my mom. Maybe I will just make it something lacy and use the thin strands. Actually, I just want to get these strands off of my spindles so that I can work on this other yarn I've been itching to spin. It's got tinsel in it. I was thinking of doing it with some thin pieces and some thick pieces so that it would make an interesting looking scarf. I have enough to do that and I wouldn't have to worry about the strands being so thin.

When I told my mom I was spinning my own yarn, she said I was becoming the Proverbs 31 wife. I loved to cook, I had a garden, I was "making" our own clothes and some people have said I could sell my knitting, and if I'm spinning my own fiber, it would not be cost prohibitive. She doesn't think that any more, about me being a Proverbs 31 wife, even though I still do all that stuff. I think the belief in Jesus Christ as Lord has to be present for me to be that, although, technically, that was written without the concept of Christ being introduced to the readers. Also, I don't have a city gate at which I could sell my stuff.

I have a lot of work to do now that I have a rough idea of where I want my writing to go. I'm hoping I get to sit down with this other freelance writer and learn what my further options are. I also need to find a way to take classes. With The Honey going to a better, but private, college, fundage has been $0 at best, -$ at worst. Keeping up with my other website (the one I have to pay for) and taking classes to help me become a better writer is on the agenda, but is rapidly being pushed down past the top 10, even though it is what I need. I'm being positive though. If this next article is a cover story and I can pitch a couple more, I will be rapidly moving towards increasing my income, growing my writing career, and putting myself in a better position to get the further education I need.

Yay!

But the work must begin in earnest. I did neglect a few things to finish, but I didn't really put aside the unnecessary things of life this past week. I did my fair share of going out and I didn't watch enough tv for my tv blog, although I did a little catching up this weekend. I am not as tired as I usually am at this time of day, but I certainly did not want to get up and go to work today. But I do have a job that I can enjoy and that is a good thing.

Get Back

2010-03-02T13:35:00.002-05:00

I've been up since 6:30am. I don't like getting up that early. I have a lot of writing to try to do today before 6pm - maybe even until midnight if it comes down to it, so I will be brief in this format.

I was so ready to go home yesterday and when I got home, I was so glad to be there that I didn't ever want to leave. For those of you who pray and for those of you who ask things of the universe, my one request is that this year I am successful. Ask that for me.

I'm not talking success as in my name is known worldwide - although that would be nice. I'm not even talking big publications in big... publications. I'm talking about able to support myself and my college captured husband solely on writing. We're working on him supporting me in the future. But now, let's work on me for support.

We knew when we took this step, it was going to be hard. We knew there would be times when we wouldn't have any money. But now we are looking at bills we didn't even know existed (poor record keeping. My bad) and having no money once all the monthly stuff is paid. I wish we could get a break. The thing that put us over was switching to a new school. Extra money we weren't expecting to pay... they waited until it was too late to make the switch back to the old school which wouldn't have been as expensive, although it would be a waste of time because nothing else he took would transfer... and we would have lost the "hold" money we had to pay once they accepted him into the school. It feels like a racket.

And as much as I talk about wanting to do something else, I'm so grateful for my job. I could be without a job. I know several people who are. I could have to try to do this all on half of my salary, which is what almost any other job would pay. I'm glad that I am coming up with ideas that may help us in the future, but I wish that those ideas could be paying for us now.

Can you see how much our financial woes are affecting me? So I worry and my hair doesn't grow and my skin gets dry and the area behind my eyes are tired and I find myself slipping into despair (yeah, that bad). And then I remember we've been able to survive with the help of friends and neighbors and occasionally, my mom. At least when my dad was alive, before the end, I could count on an infusion of $80 every couple of weeks because he'd won somebody's lottery. I'd buy an orange soda and sit in the car with him as if these were old times. They were not. Our landlord is awesome too. Not enough can be said about his generosity and kindness to us in our hard times.

Financially, the thing I miss the most is eating out. I need to start writing food reviews again. Maybe I can do them on my own and take them out of taxes next year. I still haven't tried the brunch at a couple of places. I hear there's a Bloody Mary bar (Make your own Bloody Mary's? Heaven. With lots of hot sauce) and they put hollandaise sauce on the omelets.

Oh well, eventually, we will get out of this hole and be the better for it. Maybe we will learn to be frugal people and will become people who learn to save our abundance.

This Morning

2010-03-01T08:26:00.002-05:00

It's cold, I waited in the cold for my ride, and when I walked into my office, I had a bunch of work piled in my seat. Fortunately, I've been a better record keeper than I had been before, so it was all good, but still, no little break of relaxation to ease me into work.

My desk is also a mess, play-doh strewn about as if some invisible kids have been living in my office, though it was really an object lesson for my 9th graders that put the 'doh on my desk.

My head has been hurting for the last 3-4 days, my eyes have been hot, like my body is trying to come down with something but also refusing to do so at the same time.

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. It was warm and relaxing, despite the kittys fighting at our feet. My husband finally caught the smallest one and threw her out of the room. The older kitty walked out, tail and head down, although I know she will dig up the carpet in protest. The smaller one also knocked bottles off of my desk to check out what were making the bird sounds outside our window. To her delight, it was birds. When my alarm sounded, I hit the snooze button and snuggled closer for 9 more minutes.

I hate facing the world. I wish I could start it off slowly, a pot of coffee with a tv show before finally opening Google Docs and getting to whatever story I've chosen to work on. Then, maybe around noon head out to somewhere for lunch and a table that will welcome my papers and books as I write or read to my hearts content because eventually, it will net me a profit. Then I would head home to be with The Honey when he comes home from school with amazing stories from philosophy of mind or philosophy of literature or art history or European history or poetry class. Then I would cook dinner because I miss getting my hands into food or getting the beautiful apron Little Sister made for me dirty.

Deciding to do something and actually doing something are two different things. As the sheer magnitude of work involved in a proposed project comes to mind, I realize that though it will be something that could be awesome, it is also something that could be time intensive and I'm not sure if my writing can handle me doing one more thing.

I could really use a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts right now...

Like Bringing Down a Skyscraper

2010-01-29T12:53:00.002-05:00

We now own two cats. The first cat was a mutual decision. The second cat was a surprise to The Honey, a bit unwelcomed at first, as unasked for surprises often are, but now is part of the family.

KitKat and Twix. We love our candy bars.

KitKat is a beautiful Siamese, the sweetest cat in our house. She's very talkative (which is crazy cat lady speak for meows a lot), very snuggly and so very, very sweet. Twix, on the other hand, is very young. She can't sit still. She bounds around the house, her nails clicking on the wood parts. I've heard her hit her head on the metal part of our bed while running into our room. She can play with anything. Shiny crinkly things, balls with bells inside, dryer sheets, that spot on the floor. It's comical to watch her play with any of these objects, batting it around, jumping around it. We have so much fun watching her playing.

She was so little when we got her. Too old to be without her mom, but with the mom dead, someone had to take care of her and she was just too cute. Even now, more than a month after she came to the house, she is still so tiny, though her legs are really shooting out.

Last night, after we had gotten into bed, nice and cozy, we heard a loud crash. In the room. Only one culprit. We jump out of the bed. Our dresser is face down on the floor. We panic. We hope that Twix is not underneath it all. I'm pretty sure that's the most panicked I've even been. Luckily, she'd run free of the falling behemoth. Mike found her in the office, staring at our bedroom. Not just looking. Staring with deep concentration. It took her a while to come up to Mike. She didn't start crowding me in bed until much, much later that night. She's still very jumpy.

Once we realized that she was fine, we started laughing. How could that tiny, tiny kitten bring down our dresser. The Honey was incredulous. Twix is so small, he equated her taking down the dresser to the two of us knocking over a skyscraper. We laughed really hard because the imagery was funny and because we were really relieved that we hadn't lost our feline baby.

The Hills Are Alive

2010-01-18T20:41:00.002-05:00

I'm learning how to play guitar.

It is an ugly, ugly thing. My fingers are sore. No. Sore is an understatement.

They hurt like hell. Even as I type. Particularly because I'm typing.

I can play Smoke on the Water in the wrong key and one string at a time, which is an accomplishment. A major accomplishment.

The Honey asked me why I wanted to learn to play guitar... As I watched him go through song after song, doing with several notes what I can barely do with one finger on one fret. It's interesting, learning how to play. I haven't quite figured out what this will mean for me. Will I learn to be better and bust out the guitar when my musician friends start playing around? Will I start my own band? Will I just fiddle with the guitar in home only and around close friends? I don't know. Is this my third life crisis? I started knitting when I was 28. I start guitar now that I'm 34. What will I start 6 years from now?

Is there something about getting old that leads us to reinventing ourselves? I know that I'm not always happy with who I am. I want to change. My hair, the languages I know, my sense of style, my "fount" of knowledge, etc. There is almost an aching need to know more, to move past the old boundaries that existed in my mind. I sang karaoke for the first time, although sing might not quite be the word. I'd like to convince myself that my cold was to blame, but who am I kidding? The thing is, I did it. I embarrassed myself in front of a room full of children and it was liberating. I felt invincible. Now, another goal is before me and I can only respond to the sound of music.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I actually know what fret means now.

Where Do I Stand?

2010-01-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

This is a topic I've been avoiding for about 3 years now, but it is something that is becoming very important since I've been communicating with my mom much more in the past few months.

Where do I stand with God.

Frankly, I have nothing against God. I kinda like the guy. Jesus is alright too. What I don't like is religion and unfortunately, love of God has to be tied up with some kind of religion in everyone's mind.

I told my mom about my financial problems and she asked me if I've prayed. I wanted to say, Well, duh! because I'm one of those people who actually like prayer. Where it goes, I don't know. What the results of the prayers are has been me in the straits I'm in, but I've never fallen through the gaps. It's definitely not my doing, though I do work hard to keep control of the strings I have my hands on, but so much is out of my control that I feel the prayer helps.

That's my mind, though. After 10 years of loving God but following religion, I finally had to throw off the shroud of religion. When I hear my mom telling me that if I follow God's teaching and if I do what He says in His Book (that's right, capital B), then I don't have to worry about my finances.

I already knew I didn't have to worry about my finances. We are two intelligent human beings that see what we are doing wrong and right and it is only in continuing the right and quelling the wrong that we have sustained ourselves. I think prayer is a comfort for me and in my head, I have this little thought that if there IS someone (something) listening and helping, they have grown used to my voice for the last 15 years and are offering some help. But it is a comfort and a superstition I'm okay with having.

I have a few books that I want to read that let me hold on to my belief in God while giving me the out to not have to go to church. It's a relief, actually, to not have to go to church. Though there are some things that having a church family could help. If I hadn't had a church family, I would never have gotten my first car for a dollar. Support for my writing endeavors also came from my church family, despite the curse words at times, because we were in the same family.

But what I do not miss is the recriminations and the "the only way it can be done, He can be followed, is the way I say it". If I were to ask my mom which "Book" she thought I should get my wisdom of God from, she would think it sacrilege to look anywhere but the Bible yet would firmly agree that the wisdom of God is in anything wise.

I can't win, so in my family, I'm not a Christian, just to make it easier. But one day I'm going to have to sit down and figure out where I actually stand, just for me.

2010

2010-01-05T09:48:00.003-05:00

Where the hell did the time go???

I started this website nearly a year and a half ago because I thought that things were going to change. I was going to be a new person and that the horizons that were opening up because of my travels would be the flipped switch I needed.

I was wrong. Well, not very wrong. A lot of interesting things came out in those travels. The year I traveled, I wrote more than I ever had. I completed NaNoWriMo, writing a syrupy romance novel about three sisters, one of which went to Africa to find herself, which will never see the light of day. I discovered how much I love my friends because that's who I went with and I discovered how much I love my husband who would sacrifice just to see me happy.

Every year, I usually complain about getting older, but at the end of 2009, I didn't dwell on the upcoming 34th birthday or scramble to get my New Year Resolutions down. I just blew my nose (I had a terrible cold), but on my flour length brown dress with blue-ish green sparkles (yes, Big Ben, sparkles), threw on some flip flops, put my heels in my hands and walked down to my NYE event. I drank, I danced, I sang, I shouted, I screamed, I took pictures and I had a blast.

I'm not going to live every day like it's my last. I'm looking forward to the future. But I'm also taking it one day at a time, hoping that those around me will look favourably upon me, that my words will expand from this tiny metro to the world around me, that my thoughts will become solidified and tangible, that my heart will grow in love for others (because I stinkin' hate people right now), that I get my priorities in order and that I just shut the fuck up and write.

Of all the things I've become lax on, being lax on my work ethic has hurt me the most. There was a time where I was writing every day, reading every day and being productive. I'm learning so much now that the old work ethic would have resulted in at least two completed short stories in the last year and a half. Life experiences have increased as well and my once fiercely held beliefs are crumpled in a puzzle at my feet, waiting for me to put them together in a way that makes sense to the life I've lived. I've got to get that back, that missing piece that I didn't notice at first, but that grows bigger with each step I take towards making my dream of living as a working writer a reality.

I can't say that this year will be any better. I can't say that I will regain the work ethic or the insight or even grow from the lessons I've learned, but I can say I will try to shut the fuck up and write and take each day one at a time.

National Novel Writer Month Has Begun

2009-11-09T08:01:00.004-05:00

... and I am behind. Of course.

Why do I always do this? I know it is my bad habit of procrastination and that feeling I always get at the beginning of November that I can't finish the 50,000 words before the end of the month. I did it last year and I start each year's NaNoWriMo with such heady optimism, I am always afraid, by the end of week one, that I can not hold on to it.

But by the end of the month, I will have my 50,000 words and more. I know I will because I have a husband who's disappointment is as big as my own, except it's on his face. When it's on my face, I can ignore it. Just avoid mirrors. But when it is on his face, when I give him my word count at the end of the day, I see it and I know that I have to do better and stop sabotaging myself.

Still working at the same place. I keep reminding myself of the sacrifices we are both making for a better future. Still, I wish I could spend more time on writing. But I'm going to kill this teaching thing so that there will be no doubt that, despite wanting to leave, I can do a hell of a job doing my job.

Anyway, just a few thoughts to tide me over and so that whoever it is that checks this site once a day will have something to read.

Tomorrow

2009-09-25T00:04:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow looms brightly. It is big and full of potential. As the day fades, after working for most of it, when the white screen sits empty before me and the little black line in the left hand corner of the page blinks, I look longingly at tomorrow because I know that is when I will have the energy and the creative energy to do all of these things I feel I have the potential for.

I can feel tired seeping into me. I've watched my shows and now, all I have to do is right. That's all. Just write. But the longer I sit here, the longer it takes my fingers to move over the keys. I glance at the clock and it shows me that night has become the next day. Tomorrow is only a day away.

I wish I would do the things now that I imagine for tomorrow.

Free Falling

2009-09-17T01:05:00.002-04:00

This is harder than it used to be, getting my thoughts out. Back then, I didn't have anyone to embarrass but myself. I still remember the url - http://publictrust.blogspot.com. I got the name from a poster on the wall about the constitution at a former place of employment. Back then, I didn't know that you wanted a url that people could remember and go back to.

Those days were a bit more carefree - I had time, a job that didn't require a full 8 hours, no one was paying me to come up with articles on a monthly basis. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's harder to get in the creative stuff. Or just to get stuff off of my chest.

I had lunch with a freelance writer a few years ago. She told me that if I started writing for a living that writing creatively would be much harder and that I would even begin to hate the act of sitting down in front of the computer to do something. I'm definitely not at that point, but I do resent the time that my body requires for sleep and for friends and all the other things I want to do. I like those outlets: trivia night, movies, hanging out, staying in. But it all takes time. Just like I have to come to a realization about my weight (despite the magic office mirror in which I look fantastic), I have to come to some sort of realization with my writing.

The Honey is sick of hearing me talk about this. In his mind, if I wanted it, I would do it. And really, in my mind, that's how I feel too. But then I try to imagine a future where I just teach and don't go after writing and my fingers begin to itch, like I've already cut the computers away from their tips and they feel the phantom pains.

So, yes, I want to do this and yes, I will whine, and yes, I need your encouragement (and sometimes ass kicking) and maybe a deadline or two that has nothing to do with the writing I get paid for. While I'm going to apologize to you now for what you may have to put up with in the future, I'll thank you kindly for the encouragement.

Just a Little Something to Think About

2009-09-16T01:06:00.002-04:00

If you insist on going at least 10 miles under the speed limit, you don't deserve to have flames on your vehicle.

Starting Somewhere

2009-09-15T01:14:00.003-04:00

Every morning, I wake up wanting the day to go differently. This morning, with the foggy, sunless morning, I just wanted to get back in bed, wake up an hour later, then read my book for an hour or so before getting to the page, electronic and otherwise. I imagine this life as I step into my red All Stars and put on a blue shirt that complements my skin tone and I imagine that I'm excited because I have a job that can support me and my husband as he goes to school. I appreciate my job for that. But I long for something different (better?) and I feel it just beyond my periphery every day. So if I am able to do the things I've set my mind and heart ondoing, even as I let other things get in the way, I feel there is hope that I will find the new pathe I want to be on and still be financially stable.

That the dream, right? Write, work hard, and eventually you will be writing from home. I see the dream, kitten in my lap, laptop humming, coffee cup rings on my desk marking the time, looking forward to my husband coming home to tell me about his day.

Yeah, this is a bit wistful, but we all have to start somewhere, right?

This Post Fueled by Beefeater Gin and Tonic

2009-08-11T23:30:00.002-04:00

In the case of perception, I am fully female.

I look in one mirror and I am a fat fuck. I mean, just humongous. I look like I'm a stretched out dwarf or a baseball player on an HDTV when it's not programmed correctly for widescreen.

In other mirrors, I am okay. I have more weight on me than I did 5 years ago, but it's proportionate because I am nearly 6ft tall and my fat distributes in an hourglass fashion. Which mirror is correct?

Sometimes I assume the first mirror is correct because I imagine I jiggle when I walk and The Honey is afraid I'm gonna die if I don't stop eating sugary, cheesy, greasy foods. Sometimes I imagine that the latter is true and that I look cute in my clothes that I love but that I realize are a little tighter than when I bought them.

So, would you trust a person who doesn't even know who they are when they look in the mirror? I find it hard to trust myself based on that information. I am the one that is supposed to be in control of my future. But my decision making of late is crap, not in regular life, but with my writing future. I can't see clearly what I want. It's like trying to determine which image of me is real? The one I see when I'm optimistic or the one I see the other times. The writing dream I see when I'm optimistic or the one I see the other times.

I know what I want. I want to wake up at 10am. I want to work out in the mornings. I want to come home, take a shower, relax with a cup of coffee and then I want to write until 6pm. I want to be able to take breaks and be at home with my cat and be able to greet my husband and start cooking again, start tasting foods in my head and putting them together, for better or for worse. I want to watch television at night and write about them by the morning. Then I want to go to sleep and do it all over again. I want to go to the library whenever I want to. I want to make middle of the day plans, have lunch dates, write at night too.

I don’t know how to get there. Just write is the easy answer, but is it “the” answer? I don’t know. There are a few of you who have started getting on to me about writing (or not writing) and I know you’re right, but but but...

There are things that I am changing. I hope those changes help me have a better outlook on writing. And I’m working to stop being so fat, so that there is only one image in the mirror.

75% is Better than Nothing

2009-05-17T14:17:00.001-04:00

After being sick for a couple of days, I am finally at 75%.

The last time I got myself up to 75% of something, I ended up tearing cartilage in my knee.

The going rate for healthy little southern girls is going down, but then again, that's just the economy. We cook, we clean, we fix things, we work, we help put our husbands through college, we plant two rows of gardens, we try to write, to watch hours of television, to go out and have fun, and still try to stay sane.

It doesn't always work, as usually happens.

It all came to a head Wednesday when, after meeting up with my little sister/best friend, watching Star Trek 2 times in less than 24 hours, watching/helping a grieving best friend get drunk, taking it all down the street to another friend's home, bringing it all back to my home, planting two rows of fruits and vegetables (8 hours of gardening in less than 24 hours), working, meeting up at a local bar for some PBR and steak (that's right, we get to eat at our local bar, which may, in retrospect, have been a bad thing) then going out to another local bar for Star Wars (yes, I got to nerd out this past week), I woke up Wednesday morning not feeling my usual, cheerful, sunny, top 'o the mornin' self. I dragged myself out of bed because it was LS's last day, so we were going to go to the coffee shop just up the street for our last cuppa before she headed home.

We drove because I didn't feel like walking and two sips into my cuppa I knew things were going to come back up. They didn't... then. I sat down, started feeling worse. She left, I tried to sit and write, but decided my best course would be to go back home. I walked the .001 miles back to my house slowly, taking the steps carefully. I'm pretty sure I looked like Jason. The creepy, slow walking killer Jason. I check on my plants first and then walk towards home. By the time I make it up the steps, I'm so winded and starting to sweat.

Yeah, that's when the fever kicked in.

I just flop in the bed and for the first time in more years than I care to say, I fell asleep.

Before midnight.

Over the course of the next couple of days, all I did was sleep. It should have been refreshing, but it was really, really annoying.

I hate sleep. Sleeping. I never thought I was one of those people who lived by it, but the "sleep when you die" adage seems to hold true for me. I want to be out doing and then I want to come home and write until I have to go to bed because my eyes won't stay open anymore. But no. I have to be wise and go to bed at appropriate times so that I can function the next day.

What I need is a job that lets me use my natural sleep schedule. If I could wake at about 10am and stay up until about 3 or 4... that would be perfect.

Of course, it's thinking like that that brought me to my Wednesday predicament. So here I am, Sunday, waiting for LS to come back down and only at 75%.

However, I did watch Star Trek for a third time. And that sort of makes everything alright.

Neighborhood #1

2009-04-15T21:50:00.005-04:00

At one end of Curd Street was a yard, encircled with chain link fencing and attached to a small church. In the fenced yard lived two German Shepherds, then the scourge of the dog world. These two worked in concert, like Cerebus, their two heads barking in every direction, their bodies close and quivering with anger.

If I remember correctly, I was fascinated by the dogs. I was all of ten years old, 5ft2in of legs, arms, knees and elbows. We didn't have much in those days. We lived in what could only be described, looking back, as slums. The drive through the neighborhood is almost unrecognizable, except for that feeling in the pit of your stomach that lets you know you have been here before. The fenced in church yard is still there, so are the apartments, red brick that stand to this day, although now they are overrun with vegetation.

I would walk to school, down my little street, turn left past the dogs, feed them a little piece of my breakfast, peanut butter toast, let them sniff my hands before they began to bark like mad, turn right at the end of the street, walk for about 4 blocks, turn left, scramble over hills that later became the base of the west side's Macon Housing Authority. Back then, the giant mounds of dirt that separated us from school were the biggest challenge of our day. The walk home would be the reverse, with some dry bits taken from lunch and furtively stuffed in pockets for the demon dogs I affectionately called King (yes, that was both of their names). They sniff my fingers, their noses wet. One King even ventured to lick my fingers before they both stepped back and started barking furiously. I let them know, by my voice, that they didn't scare me. When I talked about school, they stopped barking and listened. King would sometimes come closer. I talked as I walked around the fence and then headed home.

Our street was hilly and on the top of the hill was a two story blue house. The windows on the house were like a face and the dilapidated look of the house gave it a creepy feel. We always claimed that it was a witches' house. It was the kind of house you felt sure living next too would also brand you a witch and since I was already a vampire, well, I didn't need any more trouble. She hated animals and would complain about the infernal digging of our dog, Pearlie. I'm sure she hated the shepherds. You could hear King barking all the way to Jefferson Davis Road, the other end of the street, and I would stay awake wondering how I could charm the dogs.

We had our own dog who would dig holes into the hill. She would slink, fox like, into one of the many holes she created. She had puppies in one of them once and let me and my brother crawl through them to watch her feeding the puppies. Thank god for the knees and elbows.

It took several weeks before I tamed the dogs. Eventually, they were waiting for me in my walk. They stopped barking after a while and would perk up at the sound of my voice. The lady from the church was amazed. I'm sure she was afraid the dogs would turn on me, but they never did. For the four years the dogs and I lived in the neighborhood, we were friends.

I drove through the neighborhood the other day, my curiosity stronger than my need to hold on to memories that may not even be true. Everything was so different, though the chain link fence was still there. It was all so small. I couldn't imagine living there now. Of course, there are no dogs anymore. It's been more than 20 years. So much has changed, but the memories, faulty though they be, stay the same. I'm sure the dogs are playing to their heart's content out in the country somewhere.

I've Grown So Morbid - Why Don't I Cheer the Hell Up?

2009-04-14T19:11:00.002-04:00

I have a lot to work on. But it has come to my attention that I've been a bit morbid.

It doesn't surprise me. Although I am pretty clean for a writer (no true abuse, but there is a hint of the emotional abuse here and there, no drugs, no sex before marriage, no rock and roll), I do have my traumas. Even though I wish those traumas played a better part in my writing, I find that when I write, I gloss over things, but when I think and then spew them on this blog, they come out a bit more morbid that I actually am in real life.

I like to laugh. I like to dance. I like tv shows and talking about them. I like sitting on porches drinking gin and tonics from mason jars and talking about everything from the meaning of life to the latest House episode (which, not surprisingly, has been dealing with the meaning of life) or Thomas the Train. I like hanging out with people and knitting and spinning yarn and even if I don't finish things, the very act of those things relax me. I've been much to morbid of late and I want it to end.

It's up to me, I know. I'm not deluded about that. So I am making the conscious decision to add things back into my busy schedule that I let work and writing push out. Truth be told, I can't write without the reading. I miss the reading. I miss actually finishing novels. I have about 5 books going right now. My goal is to finish one a week. I went to the yarn store Saturday and sat and knit with the older ladies and let their conversations wash over me as my fingers moved of their own merit and I allowed my mind to wander, perhaps for the first time in so many months. I want to add parts of those things back into my life so that I don't just see the cart I'm trying to pull, but I see the carrot that I get to eat when the cart gets to its destination.

I need to structure and organize my life and then stick to it. Because I like having fun, not regretting what I didn't do the day before. I'll try to laugh more, not just in deed, but in words as well.

Getting Old Has to be a Bitch

2009-04-02T01:19:00.005-04:00

The old lady two people ahead of me in line moved much too slowly for the guy in front of me. He was annoying in his youth. I say that, knowing that he probably had about 5 years on me, but the waqy he fidgeted made me want to be like, "calm the fuck down, dude." As the old woman slowly pulled herself away from the counter, the guy surges forward, but I continue to watch her as she grabs her cart and pulls it towards her. It knocks into the sign, but she succeeds in getting her cart safely into her hands and away from things that could fall. I watch her walk, painfully, away and I think about the fact that I'm getting old.

I think about getting old a lot. Actually, I think about dying, but to get to the dying part, you have to get old. At least, that's what I tell myself. I am frightfully afraid of dying. Something to do with not knowing what's on the other side, what happens when you are no longer breathing. It scares the hell out of me. I don't want to think about death, but it has finally hit home to me. My dad and uncle dying has done a lot to make death a concrete matter, not an abstract thought.

I don't want to die. It is a plaintive wail that I hear inside myself every day, a wail that grows in ways that I never imagined.

And frankly, I hate imagining.

PS - something that makes this all the more heartwrenching is I've had a friend die, someone who is a friend on Facebook and whenever I see her in my friends list, it makes me sad. Yet somehow, the thought of deleting her from my friends is preposterous. It's a quandry I find myself in every few months. Death frakkin' sucks.

I've Got It All Figured Out

2009-03-29T01:33:00.004-04:00

Really early Sunday morning, I sit at my desk, watching the latest television that I missed last week, hoping I can get through about 14 hours of television before it starts all over again. I don't have time to do everything I want to do.

Writing isn't going to be the hard thing. The hard thing is going to be trying to do everything I need to do in the next few weeks. For about the next three weeks, I will be working more than 40 hours a week because my second program is taking effect. Next week, there is spring break, so no classes, but the week after that, I work 12 hours Monday, 9 hours Tuesday, 10 hours Wednesday with no actual lunch, 11 hours Thursday, 10 hours Friday, 2 hours Saturday = 54 hours = 14 hours off the next week... EXCEPT... I still have to work with the other program the next week and despite having a day off on the calendar, I still have the crazy work schedule for that week.

Why is all of that happening? Because it is time for Script Frenzy. My life wouldn't be interesting if my life went normally, if I had the same time. But it will be interesting to see what my time off will look like when I get over these next few weeks.

I'm just tired. Don't mind my bitching, incoherency, or anything else below the pale.

Script Frenzy: Another Attempt At Craziness

2009-03-25T10:39:00.003-04:00

So, I follow up my NaNoWriMo win (50, 781 words in 30 days) with a shot at something even harder, but exactly what I want to do ScriptFrenzy. ScriptFrenzy is the script writing arm of NaNoWriMo. This will be writing 100 pages in 30 days. Starting April 1, I will be hunkering down for hours per day trying to coax at least 4 pages a day our of myself.

It's harder than it sounds, thank you very much.

I will be writing two 30 minute specs - I'm not sure which now... Maybe you guys get to vote. Tomorrow or later today, I will put up the choices with a brief synopsis and you guys get to pick the two that I do. They will either be specs of show already on television or specs of my own original ideas. I want to do at least one that is already on and one that is my own. The one that is my own is the one I want to work on creating and completing in my hometown. The other one is the one I want to perfect and send to my contacts in Los Angeles and enter into contests.

I'm striving because I need to work for myself (I chafe under the rules of others) and still make enough money to keep us from being evicted while The Honey finishes school. I think it's time to get started!

PS, If you want to join me, go to ScriptFrenzy.org

Where the Hell Have You Been?

2009-03-25T10:23:00.004-04:00

Let me start by saying that I didn't mean to be gone this long. It started out with needing to take a break as I re-evaluated my writing, hoping to come up with a way to write consistently on all of my sites. It began as a stop, turned into procrastination and then slid into inertia.

I'm good at that.

But, just as I'm surrounded by a great cloud of troublemakers ready to take up for my cause, I'm also surrounded by a great cloud of encouragers who push me to be the best writer I can be.

If you guys don't know it, it means a lot.

My husband has decided to help me up my game by buying me webhosting and a url. I will be writing about television at http://tvforbreakfast.com. It's a chance for me to hone the television writing part of myself and hopefully move me into either being paid to write for someone else or making money on my site. If nothing else, I will learn to be a webmaster, a promoter, a comedic writer and hopefully a short film director. This isn't the end all of what I want to do, but it's a beginning and a direction that I've always wanted to take my writing.

I have to thank Carey at Hey!Media! for getting me started. I'll still be writing there, just about things other than television. I just have to wrap my head around those other things, since I love television so much. I'm watching more movies, reading more books and soon, you'll be hearing from me on those things as well as music, comics, and video games.

How have I been? Tired, sad, slightly inebriated, overcoming, overwhelmed, overjoyed, encouraged... I love the people I have around me, both near and far, new and old. It's been so long... how have YOU been?

Sheer Exhaustion

2009-01-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

I had a party Saturday night, a birthday party to make up for my actual birthday, which was spent driving back from Boston. It was a blast and a half. It was supposed to start at 8, but it kind of started at 6pm with my first guests arriving at 8:30. Of course, all it took was for one specific guest to turn the evening around.

I have a friend, let's call him BigBen. He's the kind of person that tells these stories and you wonder how he came up with what seems like these great whopper of a tale until you realize he lived them. Lived them all. When I talk about him doing contract killings, I'm only halfway joking. If you need property destroyed or a way to make someone start paying, I'm pretty sure I know the guy. The criminal element in my life, the weapons loving, multi-knife carrying, "pull a gun on a muthafucker that pulls a gun on me", tank stealing element that sits at my party table, plays bass for my fake Rock Band, drinks up all the gin punch and makes sure no one lays a hand on my pretty little head - yeah, I met them all through BigBen. And if I somehow met them through other means, they all just so happen to know him. Heaven help any fool that tries to mess with me because the beloved criminal element type that's got my back (I'm surrounded by a great cloud of them starting with my husband, sandwiched by BigBen's, topped by my uncle and cousin) would kill them. In that, I'm not joking. But I digress.

BigBen is this giant Nordic looking person with an innocent-ish face who is, most times, pretty laid back. That's a facade. Inside, he's seething with energy and scams. Don't get me wrong. He's a good guy. He protects the weak and innocent (sorta), he looks out for other people (kinda), and he always protects family (the one he claims, not necessarily the ones he was born with). He has a high moral code - it's just a little left of center in concept. Yes, BigBen came to the party and it took a turn.

It all started out innocently enough. Shots with the birthday girls, that's me and A., who's actual birthday was the previous Tuesday. They were harmless, sweet shots of irish cream and butterscotch schnapps. We were having fun. A friend gave us a gift of moonshine* and when BigBen learned this, he made us take a birthday shot with him. Those of us who took that shot were hit pretty hard, but we didn't feel the effects until about an hour later, when we had forgotten all about taking the shot and were in the middle of our Rock Band 2 World Tour. I was on drums because I'm oh so good at them* when suddenly, I was really very good at them. I look over at the others and BigBen is slowly sinking between the couch cushions. A. quickly lets us know that the bathroom was calling her name now. Now. RIGHT NOW. I think we almost broke our television and I'm not sure, but I think someone killed a bird. Someone tried to smoke the lit filter on their cigarette, I broke at least one cigarette because NOBODY should smoke, and passed out in near exhaustion once everyone was on their merry way. Don't worry, those who weren't staying over had designated drivers and those who were staying kept themselves from puking in our apartment. Well, on our apartment.

Now, three days past this weekend, I am still exhausted. I've been getting by on less than 5 hours of sleep a night for the last two weeks. That, with this party, has created one tired little southern girl.

Funerals Suck

2009-01-15T15:45:00.003-05:00

I buried my dad Wednesday. I even cried. Understand, my relationship with my father was rocky at best, hate-filled at worst. It's a long story, filled with many things that will stay buried with him, but the turn around came when I introduced him to my husband.

Relationships are hard. Interracial relationships are even harder. Interracial relationships in the south... well, you get the picture. My father was not the most open-minded man in my younger days, so I didn't expect the meeting between him and my intended to go well. My dad met him, heard the news that we were engaged, and gave him a real handshake, talked to him a little and never changed a thing about who he was or how he acted. Many people in my family did change because of my husband's race, but the first person I expected to shun him did no such thing. For that, I will always honor my father.

Do you remember those Oreo cookie commercials where the dad feels like his adult daughter doesn't need him anymore? Then she lets him open her cookie for her to symbolize that she will never stop needing him... do you remember that? That was not my life. I stopped needing my father when I was about 10. I mean, c'mon, I needed him. I just got used to the fact that he wasn't going to be around. While I thought I was so tough and self reliant, I usually ended up with guy friends who just wanted to protect me, who would do anything for me. In a way, my friends became my family because what I needed as a child, as a person, I never got from my family but I always got from my friends - whether it was tough talk, laughs, hugs, enjoyment, validation, or forgiveness. I used to cry at those Oreo commercials because I wanted that relationship with my father. I wanted to need him.

When I found out he had cancer... well, I've already written about that. And when I heard he died, I was blank. Nothing. I wanted to cry and I wanted to feel nothing at the same time. When I was 19, I found out that the man I'd hated for 9 years was not my real father. While I should have felt relief, I suddenly realized what he had done for 19 years. Good or bad, he had made me feel like I was his child. It was the first grown up thought I'd ever had. In my mind, when I wished I was adopted, I'd come up with scenarios of how I would push my non-relation to him in his face, but when faced with the actuality of not being related to him, I found that I didn't want to do it. I struggled through 3 more years of trying to forgive him, never fully understanding why I felt I should. In that time, while seemingly being hit on by a much older man, I met someone who knew my biological father, who told me when he died a couple of years later. I'd already decided I wouldn't search for him and the possible half siblings I might have. Yet for a brief moment, when I heard the news, I felt sorrow. It was a sorrow for all the things that would never be possible.

Maybe that was what I felt this Wednesday as I looked down at his body for the last time, but surely something more. Surely more than what I felt for a man I never knew, I hope. And despite never knowing the man that brought me up and accepted me as his own, there is a piece of him that will always be a part of me. Maybe that is why I never told him that I knew. Maybe it is because I was a sucker for that daddy/daughter moment and I couldn't take it away from me by letting him know I knew the truth. Even as we looked at each other, knowing the truth until the day he died, we both kept quiet. Whatever the why, I did stand at his grave, watching them lower him down, and said goodbye. I am sad in ways I don't fully understand, maybe won't for a while. I cry when I remember, in strange places, like getting my battery replaced or on aisle 3 at Kroger. No reason, just crying. But I'll be okay.

He and my uncle are together again, only space separating them. And God bless the poor soul that has to lay between them for eternity.

Porch Sitting MoFos

2009-01-07T23:32:00.003-05:00

My husband and I chose to live on a street that has a bit of a reputation. The people who live there and hang out often are called the Magnolia Street Mafia. I'm not sure how the reputation evolved, and maybe one day I will ask the Don, but as it is, when you walk down the street, and people are on the porch where the Don abides, you want to stop to pay your respects.

The Don is not a benignly menacing king, like Corleone. He's so laid back, it would almost be a joke that he's the Don, but there is something commanding about him that tells you to give him that respect because he will give it back to you, two-fold. His house is open to you, his porch is your port of call and on those days when you just want to sit and talk to somebody, anybody, there he is, he and his mafia, ready to parlay.

Normally, I don't get to see the Don's wife, but tonight, she was out and I took the opportunity to sit and talk. There is something very arresting about her, the tilt of her head, the way she moves her hands, and when she speaks, her voice moves in and out of sound. I know, it's weird. You continue to hear everything she said, but it is almost rhythmic, like she's singing an Irish tune, the lilt almost imperceptible, but just there, in earshot. She speaks as if she loves everything she's saying, like she treasures each word she chooses. Each crafted story is her child, which she introduces to the world and she doesn't care if you think it's an ugly baby or not, she just cares that you got to see her precious bundles of joy.

I'm sure I'm making it all up, but as we sat on the porch, drinking our wine out of mason jars, talking about cell phones and trees blowing onto power lines, talking about birthday parties and CD release parties, the chill settling into our bones, I realized that there might be a few more things about the south that I like.

Drunk Texting in a Pub in the New Year

2009-01-06T17:26:00.006-05:00

So we drove to Boston for New Year's Eve, which is a sight further than driving to Atlanta to hang out with BigBen and watching a concert. Because I thought he'd be killing someone up in South Boston, I didn't invite him to come along because I swore we would meet up, but his contract killing got cancelled. Sorry, BigBen.

Instead, we all piled into the rental car and did the 19 hour drive in 18 hours 59 minutes. It was a thing of beauty. By the time we got through all the boring parts of the south (we mapped ourselves away from toll roads and thus, big, beautiful cities), it was too dark to see if we were driving through scenic beauty or boring, Texas-like, stretches of flat emptiness. It didn't matter. All we really wanted to do was go to sleep, but we only had a few days in the city to do it all.

It began to snow as soon as we got into Quincy, MA. It was beautiful, a blanket of white to welcome us. We drove in the first fresh fall of it, before it became a hazard, at the point when you are still thinking maybe you should try to do a snow angel, before the chemical salt goes down and it is a dirty mass of ice scooped to the side of the road. Of course, we didn't reach our goal of doing it all in the city. We went into Boston and ended up shopping because I forgot that canvas shoes are no good in the snow. By the time we made it to Prudential Center, the back of my heels were frozen and I was sure I would never feel my feet again. I ended up buying rubber shoes in a high gloss grey, shoes I will never wear until I'm once again back in Boston.

We headed back to Quincy to eat and drink, to drink and eat, to drink and drink. We went to a bar where we listened to true Irish accents and a cover band that wasn't bad, but wasn't good either. They had several Sam Adams on tap, but no other stout beers to speak of outside of Guinness, whose flavour has been reducing for the last few years. We ran over to a sports bar, fighting the biting wind, where we found blueberry beer that was like drinking a spring day and a clam chowder that we forced the girl allergic to seafood to try. Because it was that good. Whatever happened would be worth it. She agreed, even after whatever happened. We tried to go to another bar, just a bar, but it was too full for what we wanted, a quiet place to sit and talk and drink as we ushered in the New Year in a different city. We left that bar quickly and decided to brave the alleyway to check out places on a different street and came to a bar that was just what we were looking for. We ordered shots, played pool and as midnight crept up on us, the management passed out hats and tiaras and noise makers and offered us meatballs and sausage to snack on. Apparently, people will eat anything when they've been drinking. After Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark brought in the New Year, champagne was passed around and both our table companion and the guys a table over went crazy with the noise makers, we called a cab to drive us the two miles back in the snow to our hotel. It cost $10.

And the drunk message I typed to all and sundry with cell phone and texting capabilities? Happy time wasting New Year! You all are great and I love you all, from a bar in Boston. Don't ask me about the champagne. I didn't get any.

This went to many people, some who didn't have my number anymore and one of the messages even crossed over into Africa. It was nice to wake up to a ton of message either wishing me the same or asking who I was.

It was a good NYE, a good night of food and drinks and camraderie. An excellent road trip and a brilliant start to the new year. Drunk texting and all.

Car Accidents Suck

2008-12-09T23:17:00.002-05:00

I was in one. A car accident. One of those ones where you're just driving along, minding your own business, yelling at the car in front of you in your head when BAM! out of nowhere, your car has moved forward into another car and you're wondering WTF???

The worst part is the whole going to the hospital. They strapped me onto the board, taped my head down and then made me stay on the straight board for about an hour. It sucked and my massive headache was aided by one hour with my head taped down to that straight board. In fact, when I finally got to the part where they could unstrap me, I received an impromptu brow wax, sans the wax. For about 10 minutes after that, the only pain I could report was the back of my head and my eyebrow. My doctor found it hilarious.

I'm okay though. No head injuries or spinal injuries. Just a crazy hardcore eyebrow waxing and neck and shoulder pain. The cop who talked to me said that the guy who hit me blew three times the legal limit into the breathalyzer. He said I was lucky. I don't feel it now, but the fact that I feel makes me lucky indeed.

I'm a Winner!

2008-12-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

If you follow me anywhere else and if you just take a look at my front page, you'll realize that I participated in National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo for short), and that I wrote my 50,000 words in 30 days and though it was hard, it was SO satisfying.

My story was crap. It was supposed to be a young adult novel, but it turned into a romance novel combining some aspects of the YA novel I started. Once again, it was crap, so no one will be reading it. Yet that crap was the best thing I've written in a long time because it showed me something I've been trying to teach myself for some time now.

1. It showed me that the first step to good writing is crap writing. When I finished that draft, even though I didn't want to do anything with it, I immediately had ideas for what I would do to fix some of the more glaring errors. That's what I need to do for my script writing, just write the first draft and then figure work on the glaring errors later.

2. It taught me to sit at my desk at any point and be able to write, even if it's crap. It's the whole, if you do it for 30 days, it becomes a habit. Now that I'm not writing for this specific goal, I get to do more things out of the house, but sitting at my little desk in my chair is something I do every night now and doing that comes with some writing, even if there is more television watching going on.

3. If you tell people what your goals are, they force you to keep it. They push you when you need the push and poor the glass of wine when it's time to celebrate.

4. I can do more than I am doing, but I don't have to stress myself out trying to do it. My initial thought when I started the 50,000 words in 30 days quest was that I wouldn't be able to do anything other than write. Yet when I went out to drink, I was the nerd sitting in the corner writing, my glass of Guinness at hand. I went to live shows and hung out with friends with my phone's notepad application to catch every thought if I needed to jot something down. I was prepared to write at any given moment will still be able to enjoy myself. I buckled down when I needed to, but overall, I didn't stress myself out to do this.

This past November was exactly what I needed to further keep me on the road to becoming the writer I want to be. Yay me!

NaNoWriMo Files Part 3

2008-11-14T05:29:00.002-05:00

I've gotten stuck. I'm writing everything but my NaNo. Part of it is the same thing it was last week. In the middle of the week, I work both jobs, but at the beginning and end of the week, I have a little more free time. By the 15th, I need to be at 25,000 words. That's 10,000 more words in the next couple of days. But that's not going to happen. However, if I can get two days of 3,000 + words, I will be doing good. I did almost 6,000 words one day and almost 4,000 words another. The good thing is that I have the first three days off and I am also off on Friday that week. Friday has been a good writing day thus far.

In other news, I'm still writing at Hey! Media!, Snacking on Macon, and Dispatches from the Road. I guess this idea of writing every night, even if it isn't on my story, is a habit this month will help develop for me. Maybe if I get over word count, I can start making script writing a part of that instead of simply coming up with stories or just writing whatever happens to come out of my mind.

The NaNoWriMo Files Part 2

2008-11-13T05:33:00.002-05:00

I'm at 15,000 words, which is 5,000 more than I've ever gotten doing NaNoWriMo. I had a good spurt over the weekend, but I've hit sort of a wall. I will get back down to it. I sat and wrote several posts tonight, so even though I didn't get all my words, I stockpiled posts for tomorrow's Hey! Media! posts and I wrote about Africa at Dispatches from the Road. I'm trying to be better at all this posting. I may just combine it all, although I enjoy the freedom of being pieces of myself all over the internet.

Right now, it's 6 frakkin':20 and I haven't been to bed. I've been up since 9am and I have to work from 11am - 10pm. I should be in the bed, so that's where I'm going.

The NaNoWriMo Files Part 1

2008-10-27T11:32:00.007-04:00

I do it every year. I say I'm going to do NaNoWriMo because, when you think about it, 50,000 words spread out over 30 days with no self editor filter shouldn't be that hard. I know that I've written more than that in a shorter period of time, it's just words on a page.

But each year I've choked, getting no further than 6,000 words during the first two years and 10,000 words last year. I'm growing, but I'm choking.

This year, I'm having to re-evaluate some things and one of those things is the place writing has in my life. I'm getting paid to write. Everything I write for someone else is for pay. It may not be much, but it's something. I enjoy writing, but I have to train myself to use the pressure.

There is a pretty big group here in my hometown and they love to meet at my favourite little coffee stumping ground. It's a great place to go to write as long as you write. Unlimited coffee (well, limited by how much you want to pay), delicious desserts, and espresso based beverages - and even stuff for the non coffee drinker, like tea and sodas. Whatever you do, you will either be on a caffeine high or a sugar high so that you can get those daily word counts.

I thought about doing a daily word count, but I looked at my weekly schedule, which changes each week and from Monday - Wednesday, I'm working from 8am -10pm with two of my jobs and I decided to go by the weekly word count instead. I'm going to be so tired and I won't be able to get as much done on some days as I will on others, like this Thursday, on which I have a half day free) and Friday, which I took off completely. If NaNo started today, I could get my weekly word count on those two days and during the weekend.

So what am I looking at here? I have to write 1,667 words a day, 12,500 words a week. The daily count doesn't seem daunting. It's the weekly count that's doing it. This year, I'm doing something a bit different, creating a pre-writing outline. I have a couple of stories that could make the cut, but only if they look real pretty in their outline format. I like a good profile. Anyway, bad humour aside, I'm pretty excited about it, again, this year. I feel like I could really make it to the end of the month with 50,000 words of a story written out.

But I want to write for television, which, although it doesn't preclude being a novelist, does seem to ask why I push myself to do this. The simple answer is to accomplish some writing feat that I haven't accomplished before. The second simple answer is that all the ideas are original spec ideas and so if I can flesh out a good story with any of these ideas, I can put together a good script. And by the time I get to 30 days, the hardest part of writing my own original spec will be done. It's not rocket science, but it will take determination and I've got plenty of that.

Lovely

2008-10-21T20:36:00.003-04:00

So, when I say that my life is getting less stressful, what I really mean is the next three months will be very stressful as I try to write and what I accomplish in this period of time will prove that I continue to write or I just keep it as a hobby.

I hate putting that kind of pressure on me, but I can't keep living with this "one day" syndrome that I have. And the facts of my job gives me this brief window to concentrate on things that I haven't had the time to concentrate on in the last year.

When I say I hope I do this, what I mean is that I hope that I really invest in myself. There is no reason now for why I can't move forward. The only reason I wouldn't is because it isn't what I really want. But I see it and I know it's what I want. I just have to make this time work for me.

I just don't want to be whiny about it. But believe me, I will whine if it helps.

I Met Santa

2008-10-15T21:42:00.003-04:00

When he walked through the door, I swore I heard bells. He had on a bright red shirt, overall, and black boots that, when shined, would look good underneath a red suit. His hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and the underneath hair flowed white down his back. His beard was big and bushy and the mustache above his lip curled up in a cunning little imitation of the handlebar mustache.

I said hello, looking for the twinkle in his eyes. I almost added Santa, but I'm pretty sure he was incognito. He walked to towels before disappearing around the corner. When he finally came back to the counter, he had two bags of Lindt truffles and was talking on his bluetooth. I joked about the imaginary bluetooth of crazy people, then we had a short conversation about chocolate where I recommended the milk chocolate ones with the white chocolate centers that melt in your mouth. He bought his candy and left. A few seconds later, Santa comes back with one of the white chocolate truffles in his hand, which he gives me with a wink and a smile.

A few minutes later, my manager and another worker come up. "I just saw Santa," I say. "I saw him too!" L. says. "Good, I didn't think I was going crazy," I say. "Did he have a list?" T asks. "No, but he gave me candy."

Santa is awesome.

Muthafucking Cancer

2008-10-13T12:33:00.005-04:00

My dad has cancer. He has it because he drank and smoke most of his life. I have a conspiracy theory about his time in the Vietnam War, but we'll save that for another post.

I don't see him often. We were never really that close, but 2 years ago I lost my favourite uncle to cancer. It happened so fast that two months after I found out, he was dead. A year later, my dad was diagnosed. I didn't want the same thing to happen. So I started visiting my dad more often. The first visits were at the hospital, so depressing because he was sliding downhill while they delayed his chemotherapy to wait for insurance to cover him. He refused to talk because he thought talking might mess up his voicebox and the tracheotomy would be permanent. I believe he nearly died, but they started him on chemo and I got to see him doing well right before I left for Europe. I saw him a few more times and then right before and right after Africa in July/August, I saw him. He was thin, shockingly so. His voice rasped because he still had his trach. But he was getting better he was less morbid and his sense of humour was returning. I saw him one more time where he convinced me to take him to the store to play the lottery and he bought me a peach soda like I was his little girl.

I saw him again last night and he'd aged 30 years in a month's time. He sounded the same, he walked the same, but he looked like his dad, my grandfather - he looked like they were brothers and not father and son. I don't know what my face looked like when I saw him, but for any of you who know me, you know the emotion was plainly on my face.

I don't know how to be, but the resolve to visit my dad has grown. Which will make my grandmother happy, although she doesn't understand that my dad like people (especially people visiting) even less than my husband. So we'll see how it goes. I think, for the sake of the only good conversation my dad and I ever had, I will be there during the election to see if we will watch history together or if we will once again be disappointed.

Death makes me feel small. I feel it waiting, watching the proceedings. Death doesn't smile with glee, it just bides its time. It knows that this is inevitable. In a macabre sense, I know that my dad is ready, has been since he stopped being so morbid. He's been enjoying life, getting out, doing things that, I think, he always wanted to do. Being responsible for something when he was always afraid to before. Taking the time to get to know his children as people and not as, well, as children. We don't visit as much as my uncle's children did and still do because we didn't have the same kind of relationship. While my uncle's children were abandoned by divorce, my dad abandoned us while he was still there. Not all of it was his fault, but he is reaping the repercussions of not having a close relationship with any of us.

But we're growing and I hope we get to learn new things before Death decides it's time to go.

Working Half To Death

2008-10-11T13:07:00.004-04:00

I used to be able to have 2 or 3 jobs without blinking an eye. Bills need to be paid, money needs to be had, that sort of thing. But now that I'm getting older, I'm realizing that I need to be smarter, not just by doing something like budgeting, but even by doing things like job consolidation.

Granted, I only have three jobs because I include writing in that, but the other two are sucking the life out of the writing job. Saturday, I got called into my second job and I had to turn them down, not because I didn't need the money, but because I needed to just sit down and write.

I found out I also needed to sleep. And that my feet were killing me.

I also need a new needle for my record player.

And although those things are beside the point, they are the point for the life I'm leading. I think I should replace "need" with "want" in my vocabulary - for most things. I definitely need more sleep. But I only want a new needle for my record player.

Oh well, want. need. In the end, we work for it because we feel like it's a necessity. But maybe when we get it is when we realize that we never needed or wanted it after all. Whether it is going back to school or eating a slice of chocolate cake from Market City - we do the things we want and we do whatever it takes to get there. So I'm sucking it up because I want to do the things I want to do, working my jobs, making that paper, and maybe when I've done what I need to do, the ends will have been justified by the means.

Other Changes

2008-10-10T00:20:00.002-04:00

I have an inner editor. She likes to be very precise. I, however, don't. This inner editor can get in the way because I'll want to write something and she'll think it's not perfect enough and so then I don't end up writing.

So I say screw the editor. If it makes you feel better, you can point out the errors. I may ridicule you publicly. I may take what you say under consideration. I will, however, not stop to edit myself. Well, I will change the occasional spelling errors and rewrite a sentence here or there that could be better, but I will send this stuff out the way it came out of my head.

You'll just have to deal with it.

Things Are Gonna Change

2008-10-09T14:57:00.004-04:00

While I'm at this thing, I am going to go back to that format of writing whatever's in my head. That could be short or long, depending on what I think about. It could also reference stuff that I talk about on my other blog, Hey!Media! I know, it's a bit weird to have a blog on two different sites, but that's how it is.

Anyway - Whenever the thought of Barack Obama being president comes into my head, I start to hyperventilate. I know it is hard for anyone to believe that a black person would vote for Obama for some reason other than him being black. However, no one who is black can't say that the impending sense of a black president doesn't cause some sense of accomplishment, validation, something that is a slap in the face of anyone who put any of us down. Oh, I don't want him in the office to validate me. Hell, he'll probably be just as disappointing as any other politician (well, not ANY other politician - I'm not pointing any fingers, Bush). But he's a great public speaker and he instills an sense of calm. I mean, I don't want to put McCain down. He went through a hell of a lot for this country. I just don't want to see someone who wants to "win" a war they don't even know what "winning" looks like get to the White House.

Anyway, this is by no means a political blog, but in a way, you can't help but be political with less than a month to go before the election.

Apologies

2008-10-09T14:29:00.002-04:00

I just discovered apples and peanut butter. My husband assures me that white people have known about for a while, which is appropriate because it was somebody white that told me about it. What a great sweet and salty snack.

Anyway, to the three people who read this site, or check their RSS feeds everyday hoping for something from me but getting nothing - or to the people who get led here searching for "lightest person"- I apologize for not writing as much as I would like or as I should to get regular readers.

Many things are going on, the least of which is work. I have a LOT of jobs right now. I need to downsize, even as I try to biggie size my finances. I'm looking at some sort of consolidation, we'll see what that is. For now, I am busy trying to get my writing act together. Getting a 3rd job has been hard on the others, especially the writing. Everybody that I've worked with as a writer, upon finding out that I had to get a 3rd job, have tried their best to get me in there, writing about something so that I can get some more money in. In truth, that's what I want to do. I just need to learn a little something about organization - things that I never taught myself. I've been getting by on charm and good looks all this time, I need to start using my brains. They're a little out of work.

So I still think about Africa nearly every day. I had to reset my phone, lost some pictures that I don't have anymore on my computer so I put our beautiful leopard from Xakanaxa as my background. I still feel Africa when I talk about it. I recall Europe with fondness. I still feel Africa.

I'm discovering so much, I can't wait to share. I just hope I make myself sit down and get it out while it's in my head, because I want you to know and because I want to tell it and maybe, in the telling, I can discover more about you, myself and this big, wide world I call my home.

Maudlin and Overly Dramatic

2008-08-19T19:22:00.006-04:00

I have to keep reminding myself why I am here - not some strange metaphysical answer to the big eternal "WHY???", but really, a firm, solid answer about why I am writing Little Southern Girl. I'm writing because I have a lot to learn and I want to have fun doing it.

Because I can get depressing as shit.

I have had a lot of things happen in life, but nothing nearly as life altering as the last 4 years. In the last four years, I've gotten married, traveled like I've always wanted to, lost friends I thought I would have forever, kept friends who probably should have let me go years ago, and realized that my faith journey was going to be one hell of a bumpy road.

I truly don't understand how to think about all these things without a little bit of drama. I'm supposed to like drama, I guess, being a girl - but being the type of girl I am, I can only stand it when someone else writes it. My own drama makes me want to smash my head against a wall and start all over again.

In the next life, I want to be an ant. The kind that rips people to shreds like in the Indiana Jones movie.

The Lightest Person in the Room

2008-08-13T04:53:00.005-04:00

"I've got that same thing," I say and everybody laughs. Hobbit has just shown us how white his stomach is compared to how dark his arm is from working in the sun. I take another swig of my margarita and give them all a look.
"I think you're going to have to prove that statement," he responds. I graciously decline. "Come on, show us!" my other friend H. says, joining in the fray. "Alright," I say and lift my shirt a little. I drop my arm to the exposed skin and show the room. Everyone is staring and amazed. To almost the same magnitude, my arm is as dark against the pale skin of my stomach as Hobbit's.

It's bothered me at times how fair I am. My awareness of my skin colour started when I was in elementary school, a first grader away from home for the first time. I can assure you I never thought of skin colour until that year, when I tried to make friends with other students and was shunned along with the other mixed kid at school, Marvin S. His mother worked at the school. He knew he was mixed. I didn't. My mom was a tad bit darker than me, but she was fair and my dad was dark. I remember being chased home by kids yelling "white child!" with the same vitriol that the citizens of Salem might have used when they called someone a witch. I would look through pictures for some kind of clue. I had a picture of my dad holding me and compared to him, I looked white. But there I was, a little baby in his arms, so I stuck to my guns and demanded the kids leave me alone because I was just as black as them and I had two black parents at home to prove it.

Over time, I stopped trying to prove myself to others, although I still longed for smooth ebony skin instead of the honey coloured skin that God had given me. I met other people whose ideals and philosophies helped me become more comfortable in my cafe au lait skin.

The summer of my 19th year, I discovered that my biological father was not the daddy that I'd lived with all my life. It was such a shock and came at a very stressful time in my life and my mother's life. Struggling with the lie she'd told all these years, her newfound salvation prompted her to become right with all mankind in the sight of God. Dazed by the information, I walked into my brother's room - half brother suddenly - and woke him, told him the story and went back to sleep. If it were all a dream, he wouldn't know this information in the morning.

My baby sister cried when mom told her. Granted, she also learned that Santa Claus didn't exist in the same sitting, but the shock was separate and distinct for each new revelation and when she ran out of the room yelling that my mom had lied to her (her 9 year old brain rattling with the new facts), I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

There was a sense of relief, though, to know that parts of me was something else. "Mixed" is a strange word. I am black. I claim black with pride. Where black people have come from is amazing. It isn't all set down in writing - from music to inventions, from architecture to zoology, we have had a hand in the creation of so many things. But as I learned to like me for me, I found that I was clinging to some things because I didn't want others to doubt my "blackness". It's a weird place to be and hard to explain, but I figure someone who does something they don't really want to do all in the name of "manhood" or "popularity" can sort of understand where I'm coming from. In a way, to others and eventually to myself, "mixed" became a form of freedom and acceptance. Freedom to dabble in other forms of expression and entertainment, freedom to move past the bonds that society likes to package around people of all persuasions, and the freedom to accept myself and my own singular idiosyncrasies. I can admit, at times, that I enjoy being weird and all the ways that happens with me.

After I proved the magnitude of colour difference between my arm and belly, Hobbit puts his arm up to mine. Though I am the only black person in the room, I am not the darkest person present.

I'm getting better and better with being okay with who I am and not fighting other people's stereotypes of me, good or bad. And slowly, I'm getting more used to being the lightest person in the room.

2008-08-08T22:10:00.007-04:00

I haven't had a drop to drink since I left Africa. Now, granted, that has only been five days as I write, so I feel sort of like an alcoholic saying that, but then, who doesn't feel like an alcoholic when they've spent nearly 41 hours in a state of inebriation because of the stress of traveling.

I may have mentioned once or twice about traveling surrounded by kids.

Okay, so I went to look in the fridge just now and was about to grab a glass of red wine, but something stopped me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it is the thought of tomorrow night's party. The word "copious" was used to describe the amount of alcohol and it's possible that my new favourite drink, Amarula (thanks, Ian), will be the drink of the day. Every time someone says it, they have to take a shot.

Drinking. My father was an alcoholic who smoke and as a result, followed numerous people down the chemotherapy path of throat cancer. It was not pretty, but in order to survive, he had to stop drinking. I remember thinking that I would never be like him.

My first taste of alcohol came as quite a surprise. Imagine a seven year old amidst the cast offs of her parents party. Finally able to come out of her room because the adults are gone, she goes in search of something to drink. Seeing a half full glass (to this day, she only sees half full) of clear liquid, she greedily grabs it and takes a big gulp. To her very unpleasant surprise, it was not the water she was expecting.

I never thought I would like gin after that. After that taste, I explored every bottle of alcohol until I smelled the bottle from which that monstrous drink had come. Seagrams Extra Dry Gin. I remember the small, heavy glass and the gleaming gold label to this day. I remembered because I wanted to avoid it. I never thought I would like gin, ever, until I was on the second leg of my flight, from London to Barcelona, and our British seatmate suggested a gin and tonic. We, wooed by her accent, ordered and our drinking life has not been the same since.

I know coffee. I savour coffee. I like trying to learn the tastes of beans from different regions. I have a friend who is not a coffee fan who is slowly learning the merits of coffee. In return, he is teaching me to appreciate liqour, which in many ways, I still don't. He poured a finger of Jameson's for me to taste and I could not think of any other way to describe it except olive oil. He was very disappointed.

Gin is the closest I've come to actually enjoying straight alcohol. For all my non-girl like tendencies, none of them extend to my drink. Yes, I like to taste the alcohol a bit - there is something about the flavour that other sweeter, more palatable liquids bring out - but for the most part, make my drink taste like anything but alcohol.

Which is why I like Amarula. I thought I'd seen it in the stores before going to Southern Africa, but I didn't know what it was and I'd already tried my fair share of Irish Creams liqeour, so I skipped it. However, as a pre dinner drink, it far exceeded my expectations on first taste. Silky, sweet, with just the right amount of bite. Mmmmmm.

I abstained from alcohol for many years past when I could have gotten some because of my father. He was an mean drunk or a self pitying drunk, neither of which is pretty on a Friday night. I won't ever become what he was, but I have to keep tabs on myself so that won't happen. It's not a matter of feeling I am better than him. It's a matter of being vigilant. I won't ever become what he was.

The party tonight will be interesting. If there is Amarula and the host has fallen under my persuasion powers, I will be able to enjoy amarula followed by a few gin and tonics. Just like in Africa.

Nice!

Planet Earth Everyday

2008-08-08T12:49:00.003-04:00

I've been telling tales of Africa since I got back, but really, it's to hold on to it for just a little bit longer.

You know how you'll have a fabulous dream, one that you wake from in complete pleasure and as you become more fully awake, your mind tries to hold to the leaking tendrils of the dream - but it escapes. It always escapes and by the time you've showered and gotten ready for work, all that remains is that feeling you had when you woke.

That's what it's been like for me. At 6pm, I have a vague notion that I should be looking to go to bed and when it is getting close to 11:00pm, my body doesn't want me to go to sleep because there is, once again, a vague notion that I need to be getting up. Even though I would like to sleep through the night, I let myself wake up at those odd wake up hours because I want to cling to Africa.

We have the BBC Planet Earth series at the house. The first full night I was home, I watched the disk that contained the Okavango Delta flooding. Our guide, Ian, told us about the slow flooding and it was interesting watching it happen. I'm taking bets on how many times I watch that video as the weeks go on.

Unfortunately, time has a funny way of blurring memories and eventually, all of my memories will be only notions of that time I was in Africa. I will stave it off as much as I can, but if the time comes where I can barely remember I had gone, I will be well on my way to that place once again.

Africa Sends Its Love

2008-08-07T07:45:00.003-04:00

25.5 hours in planes, 4 major cities and stepping in a box of disinfecting solution so you don't carry foot and mouth disease into the wilds, and we are in Botswana, ready to hop an 8 seater to Camp Xakanaxa. We don't know what to expect. We were just told to step into a box and by doing that, we had eradicated every bit of a disease I'm not even sure we had. And since I wanted the co-pilot seat, I had special instructions: If something happens to the pilot, push him out so that Ian can fly the plane.

I wonder if I shouldn't just let Ian ride shotgun now.

Ian is our photographer guide - or at least that is what we thought as we got onto the plane. We didn't know that in 5 days, we were going to miss him like we missed our own families. We didn't know what fun we were in for as he helped us take better pictures AND became part of one of the best guide duos I've ever seen.

But then again, every other guide I'd seen was showing me where war had taken place. Civil War, The Battle of I812, The French and Indian War, etc. American History is a bloody, fascinating thing.

When we land at the camp, we were greeted by our guide, Water, as baboons and impala watched us from the edge of the airstrip. He asked if we wanted to go straight to camp or if we wanted to drive around. Being the adventurous lot, we decided a drive sounded nice. So at 5:20pm on a Saturday evening - although it did feel more like a Tuesday - we set out on our first ever safari.

We were realistic. We were not in a zoo. Animals were not guaranteed. If we just saw nature, we would be happy. We were in fucking Africa for God's sake! There is no other way to say that, no other way to feel than that. We were in fucking Africa. The wind was crisp, it was still winter, and the air around us sang - starlings crying out, franklins and their chicks peeping, the low, hollow sound of the calling doves. And then we came upon the impala. Though they are a common sight, to us, that day, they were magnificent. We had questions: horns or antlers, why so many males, how do herds operate, what kind of bird is that, what, how, why? Every question was answered.

Then we are sitting, staring at a herd of elephants. It is a picture waiting to happen, baby elephants, the reflection in such clear water, the herd circling to protect the young from the approaching vehicle they drink, they watch, their ears flapping. They decide we are mostly harmless and then they move on.

I was not going to cry, but it was beautiful.

For me, that is it. What more can we see today, I think. And we saw more. Waterbuck, red lechwe, more birds, more impala and then, in a little hole away from it all, a leopard.

I am by no means a vegetarian, but I can be a bit of a softie (when I'm not being a bit of a bitch) and I mourn for dead things. Not trees. I like dead trees. But anything else, it is almost automatic. But one of the most beautiful sights was nature being nature, a leopard gnawing at the bones of an impala, a fresh kill, looking for the marrow. I've made stock, little leopard. I understand.

And we sit there for what feels like hours, watching him as he watched us. And a giraffe walked by, heedless of the leopard, feeding on the leaves overhead. Which picture should we take now?

I was in fucking Africa. She sends her love.

Getting the Show on the Road

2008-08-04T18:28:00.004-04:00

All I’ve seen is Airport – gleaming silver and various shades of grey and blue. It would have been depressing, more than a day of flying and sitting in airports, if Southern Africa wasn’t on the other end. Doing that kind of extensive traveling is almost a trial by fire as you’re at the mercy of airlines and the consideration and, most often, the inconsideration of other travelers.

There is almost no reward for doing good these days. Even that feeling of self satisfaction that once was abundant has become elusive. I think we all grudgingly do good because we know that the reward we once got for it, externally and internally, is elusive at best. And even when you help out a fellow traveler, it is often to your own detriment. For example, a couple with a child wanted our seats because the airline had bassinets that could hang from the wall. But it offered us leg room. We could fit in the seats with okay leg room, until the people in front of us lean their seats back. Then we are cramped tall people with knee problems sitting on a plane for 8 hours in pain because we wanted to be nice to a couple with a baby.
I did see two beautiful things. The sun rising over the horizon as we flew to Dubai (the end of a 12 hour straight flight after being on planes for 3 hours total and waiting in airports for 3 hours. The other beautiful thing were the mountains in Africa as we flew to Johannesburg.

Getting to Johannesburg is the beginning of our vacation. A day and a half in Josie before getting 7 days, 6 nights in Botswana divided between two camps and then a day and a half at Victoria Falls on the Zambia side.

The Southern Africa Series - as I'm going to call the next few posts - took place from July 24-August 3, 2008. I started this blog a bit early because I knew this trip would change me. Now I'm slowly adding my thoughts during the journey to this blog. Some will be straight from my journey journal, some will be understanding I came to as I thought on my travels later. Enjoy.

Conversations on Planes

2008-07-11T23:08:00.003-04:00

The plane from Houston was filled to capacity. We were on the very last row, the only time in my 14 year of flying that I have ever been at the very back. At the worse, I'm a few seats up from the bathroom, which isn't a bad place to be.

The seats in the back are small, even for small airplanes. I am 5ft11. A smaller guy gets to my seat and points to the window. We both hope (I know I did and I'm sure he did too) that no one sits with us.

Then we see him. He must be 6ft3 or 4 inches tall and he was healthy. He wasn't fat, but he was a big dude. We could see his face drop as he realized he had the middle seat in the smallest seats on the plane.

For a while, we exist in some sort of seat limbo, where we know we will be fine as long as we don't have to move. My entire shoulder is sticking out and I have to juke and jive like I'm playing some sort of plane sport - dodge the butts. But then, of course, the guy by the window breaks the limbo. Window seat needs to use the restroom. We try to get up without disrupting those around us trying to sleep, but that's impossible because the only handrails we could use were the backs of the seats used by sleeping passengers.

They loved us.

So there was no effing way we would sit down until after he comes back from the bathroom so me and big dude strike up a conversation - a conversation that lasted for the remaining hour or so it took to get home. We mainly talked about travel. I'm telling everyone I'm going to South Africa as if the telling will make it come quicker, with the hope that the person I tell may be from there and can tell me something that will make my visit there a different kind of poignant, that will make it hit close to home for me. In many ways, just being on the continent hits home. We'll see how it will be for me.

It's weird that when you are in such close proximity to someone you can either completely ignore them or become the best of friends. Though I had to sit sideways for nearly two hours, killing my back, this was one of the most enjoyable plane trips I've taken. (I can still complain, even when something makes me happy - now that's talent).

Or not.

Austin, Texas

2008-07-09T22:37:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, I wanted to leave my hometown. The only thing holding me here was nothing, so I thought, why not. I'll move. Everyone thought I should be afraid to do something like that, but my job wasn't all that lucrative (though it handled my needs at the time) and I figured I could have at least the same quality of living (lateral move) in a different place (which would be like getting a promotion).

I considered going back to Boston, but the quality of living would drop (Boston being more expensive than my poor little medium sized town) although going back has always been a dream. I thought about going down to Miami and hanging out with my college roommate. I'm pretty sure that Miami would have been the same as Boston as far as expense goes, but it would have been a bit better because I would have had someone that could help me out a bit. I thought about moving to Seattle. One word: Coffee. I mean, how could I not want to go to the home of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and coffee? Fuck the rain. I would get braid or 'locks if I had to.

Another place I looked at was Austin, Texas. At the time, I read that if you wanted to be around artists, Austin was the place to go. It looked like a good fit. Cost of living was similar and artists being starving and whatnot seemed to make this place very open to having someone like me in their midst.

In the end, I went to Los Angeles. There are many things I liked about Los Angeles. The church I was going to at the time, the weather (oh GOD, how I loved the weather), the beaches and the mountains right there, the people I became friends with. There were many things I disliked about Los Angeles: how fake it was, how much of your soul the city took from you, how hard it was to find a job, everything except what was named above. I admit that I was not ready to be there and in so many ways, I would not be ready to go back now.

This week, I am in Austin, Texas, the place I once considered going to. In so many ways, it is like my hometown - except it's a city and it wants to be. The fact that you can walk to so many of its places just makes it better.

I really like Austin. It is one of the places I would love to live. Jeremy, the Java Jive guy moved to Austin from Houston and belittled me for moving to Los Angeles instead. I understand. This is the first place where I don't feel weird. I was such a dogmatic Christian when I was in Los Angeles that I know I stood out for that. My weirdness was on my sleeve and no one else could match it. But here in Austin, my weirdness is on my sleeves and my shoes and my clothes and everybody loves it. It makes me feel that much more comfortable. I hope I have the chance to live here. I think that, in itself, will be interesting.

South Africa

2008-07-04T14:35:00.006-04:00

South Africa - So full of controversy and beauty, it is no wonder people want to visit and tourism is so big. The country has everything that someone traveling to another country could want: its own wildlife, its own wine, and its own coffee. I wish I could go there for all of the above, but I am going with a few friends on a safari.

I get the wildlife.

Which isn't so bad when you understand just how much I love elephants. I had never seen an elephant in person. When I got married, my husband surprised me with circus tickets. I'd never been to the circus, so I was really excited.

(What kind of childhood did I have that I didn't go to the circus???)

I was excited about the clowns, though I find them creepy up close. From a distance, they can be mildly humourous. This one had a dog, and the dog was really funny. I saw acrobatics, I saw contortionists, I saw beautiful ladies and muscular men and then finally, I saw the elephants.

My fascination with elephants started in the 3rd grade. It was my first trip ever to a library. I didn't even know such a thing existed. But there we were, in amongst the stacks. Except I towered over the stacks for 3rd grade readers. I wanted to be with the books on shelves that were taller than me. So I wandered away from my group and walked towards the books that had more words than pictures.

I didn't know what I was doing or how to tell if one book was better than another so I decided I would read whatever I found interesting. Yes, I was judging books by their covers and ended up picking out three books. One book had the most beautiful prints of knights in armour, one book was a book of Native American mythology, and the other book had the most beautifully painted men and women and these men and women rode elephants. I devoured the stories and as the years progressed, I forgot what I read, but I never forgot the image of the people on elephants and how majestic and huge the animals were, but how gentle and kind they seemed. How could I tell?

It was in the elephant's eyes.

Of course, it wasn't until I was in college, reading a book of verse that seemed vaguely familiar, that I connected one of my first read books to the actual words. The Bhagavad Gita will always hold a special place in my heart.

So, the circus elephant has come out and at first I am excited. But I watch how tired the elephant looks as it walks around, lead by his trainer. I see the elephant's eyes and it looks as if it has finally given up hope. Suddenly, I am sad for the elephant, ashamed that we tolerate this treatment for our entertainment, and angry that there is nothing I can do. My husband, who had hoped to be my knight in shining armour for bringing me to see the elephants is now upset because I'm upset.

This is not an elephant, but someone's very large animal, it's elephant soul trained out of it.

But I relish the little things because though this elephant was beaten down, it was not broken. It did its tricks, but with such a mean spirit, it made me laugh. "You did your mean laugh. What's happening?" my husband asked. I pointed out the things I imagined showed that the elephant was simply biding its time until the right time came. We laughed as the elephant refused to stand on the ball, or when it threw the ball, threw it just a little too far. The impatience of the trainer was evident and we knew that the elephant was going to pay for it later on that day.

At least, that's what we imagined.

So when I get to Africa, I want to see elephants. Herds of them. And baby ones too. Because I want to see what an elephant looks like when it has its soul.

Little Black Girl

2008-06-29T02:59:00.003-04:00

I was originally going to name this blog Little Black Girl, but this girl beat me to it.

I took a job in Monroe County to help pay for my trip to Europe last March. It was to clean the house of a friend, get it ready for sale, do some touch up work, etc.

While I worked, I had two visitors. One was a concerned woman who came to the door. She'd been neighbors with my friends for years and knew they'd moved out nearly 4 years ago. She wanted to make sure things were okay with their home. She knew me by face and was relieved to see that no one was breaking into their home. The other was also a neighbor for years, but they appeared in the driveway, poking around the house before I got there. The woman's face was so unfriendly, I found myself gripping the paint roller and watching for ambush. And when she questioned me, it felt more like an interrogation and one where I couldn't be my normal self and ignore her (I had the right to be on the property, she didn't), but where I felt that not answering may cost me the harassment I was trying to avoid. Her son was with her asking questions that were truly none of his beeswax yet I still found myself answering because of the particularly unpleasant, sour look on his mother's face. Even when he remembered me because he had also met me very briefly once, the look never left his mother's face. I was very glad to make it in the house.

After that I never wanted to go alone. It's weird. I am surrounded at all times by diversity. I add to the diversity of my surroundings and I am used to being the only black person in a place now. I don't even think about it anymore and because they are used to me, neither do my friends. But in this instance, I was hyper aware of my skin colour. Even more aware than the time someone came into Sears (where I used to work) and refused to buy a phone from me because I'm black. I don't care about that. That is borderline hilarious. Yes, take the box and pay for it at the nearest white station. Us blackards will sit over here out of your way. It was borderline hilarious in the bright lights of a busy mall. But deep in the woods of Monroe County*, that kind of sentiment does not bode well.

I told my father about working in Monroe County and he told me never to go alone again. I'd already made that decision. He described a situation where some guys came to harass him and a friend while they worked on a house (my dad used to do construction). If they wouldn't fear approaching two grown men, he said, what makes me think they will leave one little black girl alone.

I have come far, have many places to go as I find my place in this very big world. It just sucks, that after all that's happened in history, after everything I feel I've accomplished personally, after the safety that I've found in a group of friends that would have to think for a few seconds before they could even begin to name the ethnicity of everyone in the group, that in the eyes of some, I'm still just a little black girl.

*Not everyone in Monroe County is a racist. Maybe the mother just didn't like the cut of my jib.

Little Southern Girl

2008-06-27T01:54:00.003-04:00

In 2001, I turned 25. To some of you reading this, that doesn't seem old, but in reality, it was the oldest I'd ever been and I felt it. I felt that carefree feeling of early twenties slipping away from me and in my fear and loathing, I declared 2001 to be All About Me.

As I stood on the threshold of 30, only 5 years out - I looked back on the last five years and saw them slipping eagerly from me and knew the next 5 would do the same - I made a promise to myself: I would go to Europe for my 30th birthday.

Little did I know that I would be getting married. For some reason, I had this idea in my head that I would be in my early to mid 30s before someone found me attractive. Maybe after I'd traveled the globe and the air of having seen the world would surround me, I would be more attractive, more sought after, more worthy of love. But 3 short years after I felt my first flush of age I was walking down the aisle and forgetting about my dream to travel.

Well, not exactly forgetting, but postponing. In early 2008, at the age of 32, I saw my chance and I grabbed it. What I saw... well, let me put it this way. It was like that shot in movies and television when you get closer to the person, but everything around them pulls out - the way they do it is zoom in on the face will pulling the camera back at the same time. That is what the world did when I stepped out of the plane onto Spanish soil for the first time. As I walked around Barcelona, saw the Colosseum in Rome for the first time with my own eyes, walked under La Tour Eiffel in Paris, I saw all the world expand and close as I connected these beautiful cities with the ones I loved in the States.

And here is the necessary introduction: as I prepare to go to South Africa, in doing my homework, the heartbreaking beauty and the disagreeable past scar this land. Horrible atrocities were committed and great forgiveness was given and that makes me feel both big and small. As I walk that country, see it's beautiful animals, and breathtaking scenery, I will also become a part of it's history and gain respect for a country I only know through images of pride, hate, poverty and rage. In all of this, I'm just a little southern girl. Yes, I'm nearly 6ft and there is not much little about me, but when it comes to this world, it's bigger than I ever knew.