Devotees (both of you) may recall that in March of last year, I set a goal of being published within a year. All of you probably know that come March of this year, I had still not been published. Well, you win some and you lose some.
And some, you just have to wait a month or so for.
A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from David Taylor, Faculty Advisor to Currents Literary Magazine at St. Louis Community College at Meramec, informing me that my submission had been selected for publication in the magazine. Which was all well and good, but that was a year ago that I submitted to that thing. Wow. And going back and reading it, I have to admit, my writing has matured. Like, vastly. Not that what got published is terrible, in fact I've been told it's rather good (except one person who shall remain nameless thinks that it ends all weak and wistful and is therefore self-contradictory and ultimately utter crap...I may be putting words in this person's mouth, though), but what I write now seems to reflect a change, a more grown up feeling inside that comes out on paper.
So, yes, it has been almost a month since I got published, you would think that I would have jumped right on that and told everybody, but, to be perfectly honest, I've just been so freaking busy and stressed that it almost completely slipped my mind. Plus, now I kept everybody in suspense. Somehow.
For reference, I have been published in the Currents Literary Magazine of the St. Louis Community College, Meramec Branch. It is Volume 41 (so close), and the story I wrote is titled "How to Write a Three Day Novel." It's on page 33. You can pick it up on any of the tables randomly placed throughout the Communications North building on the campus, or I can get one for you if you so choose. Supplies are not unlimited, but close. I only have two left at the moment, both of which are spoken for by a Bostonite and a friend in Middle Earth (New Zealand). But I will be getting more by the middle of next week.
Question of the day:
If there's a New Zealand, then somewhere there is a Zealand. Where is it?
Music to Blog by:
Tripping Daisy - Halo Comb
Discussed in this post:
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
What Tuesdays Are For Now
As I am not in school for the summer, and I do not work on Tuesdays (for the time being, and won't work Tuesdays at Target as long as I have anything to say about it), I have been trying to decide what to do with my Tuesdays.
Well, I'm going to set up a weekly feature on the blog. That's right...structure and organization will emerge as I stick to my ambitions to actually get the ball rolling on becoming a real writer. That means writing every day, which I guess could mean blogging every day. But it doesn't mean that. As I said, I will blog every other day at the very least. But, Tuesdays will be the day when I post some of my actual writing, that being, some of my non-blog material. Like this, and the previous paragraph, that's blog material. But I will always end with out of blog material.
So, for my first Tuesday Excerpt (which is what I am going to call it now), I will take a bit from my Decomposition book I carry everywhere with me now.
This little bit is something I started sketching out the other day during a break at work, so it's either a work in progress or something that may go nowhere, but we'll see. The point is, I wrote it in some down time, which is what I need to be doing. And from now on, you won't get this long winded introduction on Tuesdays. Just a short description of what the excerpt is, and then right into it. So let's finally get right into it.
===
from "It's Complicated" may 2007
My facebook relationship status changed and suddenly, people I hadn't talked to in months, some of them years rushed to my cyber side. My in-box, my virtual wall were each flooded with variations of "What happened?" "Are you okay?" "Did you get a divorce?" "I'm here for you." "Call me if you need to talk."
It happened one night in August when we had The Fight, and I slept on the couch in the basement, our three years of marriage coming to a head with The Fight, the glow of my computer screen displaying "It's Complicated" illuminating our wedding pictures. We smiled at our complication from the past.
A week later and a total of eight nights sleeping apart, she told me she was leaving, going to her company's Chicago office because that's where her department-which consisted of her and one person in New Jersey-was being relocated to. I asked her, "What about us?" and she said "You'll be hearing from me."
===
So, there you have it, my first Tuesday Excerpt. I am not sure where to go with it, if it's a short story or (I'm leaning this way) perhaps a novel, or if I should just abandon it altogether at this point, but I think it's got some potential. The style is a bit off from what I normally dish out, mostly because I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, but he is a topic for another day.
"I'm not telling lies, I'm writing fiction with my mouth!" -Homer Simpson
Discussed in this post:
Well, I'm going to set up a weekly feature on the blog. That's right...structure and organization will emerge as I stick to my ambitions to actually get the ball rolling on becoming a real writer. That means writing every day, which I guess could mean blogging every day. But it doesn't mean that. As I said, I will blog every other day at the very least. But, Tuesdays will be the day when I post some of my actual writing, that being, some of my non-blog material. Like this, and the previous paragraph, that's blog material. But I will always end with out of blog material.
So, for my first Tuesday Excerpt (which is what I am going to call it now), I will take a bit from my Decomposition book I carry everywhere with me now.
This little bit is something I started sketching out the other day during a break at work, so it's either a work in progress or something that may go nowhere, but we'll see. The point is, I wrote it in some down time, which is what I need to be doing. And from now on, you won't get this long winded introduction on Tuesdays. Just a short description of what the excerpt is, and then right into it. So let's finally get right into it.
===
from "It's Complicated" may 2007
My facebook relationship status changed and suddenly, people I hadn't talked to in months, some of them years rushed to my cyber side. My in-box, my virtual wall were each flooded with variations of "What happened?" "Are you okay?" "Did you get a divorce?" "I'm here for you." "Call me if you need to talk."
It happened one night in August when we had The Fight, and I slept on the couch in the basement, our three years of marriage coming to a head with The Fight, the glow of my computer screen displaying "It's Complicated" illuminating our wedding pictures. We smiled at our complication from the past.
A week later and a total of eight nights sleeping apart, she told me she was leaving, going to her company's Chicago office because that's where her department-which consisted of her and one person in New Jersey-was being relocated to. I asked her, "What about us?" and she said "You'll be hearing from me."
===
So, there you have it, my first Tuesday Excerpt. I am not sure where to go with it, if it's a short story or (I'm leaning this way) perhaps a novel, or if I should just abandon it altogether at this point, but I think it's got some potential. The style is a bit off from what I normally dish out, mostly because I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, but he is a topic for another day.
"I'm not telling lies, I'm writing fiction with my mouth!" -Homer Simpson
Discussed in this post:
Monday, May 14, 2007
My Car
Has anybody ever seen the movie Breaking Away? Aside from being a dorky bicycling movie, and the movie that made Chase Korte and I friends, it has a bearing on this post which is, as you may have guessed from the title, about my car.
There is a scene in the movie in which the main character Dave Stoller's father Raymond is working at his used car lot. The cars are all decrepit pieces of crap, but they have special names painted on their windshields. It's set in Bloomington, Indiana, which is of course a big college town, and since Dave and his friends are all "Cutters" (locals) all the college kids hate them. But, Ray obviously sees them as a potential market for shitty used cars, and so he sells them with clever names like "Homecoming Special" or "Graduation Deluxe." Or, my personal favorite, "English Major."
Now, "Homecoming Special" is actually not a bad looking car; it's a red, two door convertible of the MG type. The "Graduation Deluxe" is not as nice, because it's a tan sedan, but it is in respectable condition. The "English Major" is by far the worst car on the lot. It is gray with rust coloration (most likely from, I don't know, the rust), and looks as if it had been saved at the last minute from being thrown into the quarry where all the Cutters like to swim.
Being an English Major myself, I would take issue with this. But, looking out of my front window at my car sitting in front of my house, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind scrawling "English Major" across it and selling it cheap, or possibly even throwing it into a quarry. From the cracked windshield, to the bent antenna, to the white paint and small dent from where I drove it into the workbench in the garage, it's certainly seen better days. In a year, my car will be old enough to get a license and drive itself. By the time I graduate from school, it will be worrying about who to vote for in the next presidential election. If some unforeseen future event holds up my school one more year (Knock on Wood and God Forbid), then at some point my car will be older than the freshman class.
What's worse is, before when something went wrong with my car, it was a big thing, something that stood out and made it impossible to drive without fixing.
There was the famous debacle with the CO2 filter being clogged, and thus the car just dying if I let it idle. When this happened, you had to wait 45 minutes to two hours to get it to start again, and then if you stopped, you just had to keep your foot on the gas to keep the RPMs up. Then there was the massive oil leak. At one point, I remember getting my oil changed in the morning, and by the following evening, my oil light came on. I had already lost a quart and a half. After that, the infamous unplanned road trip to Davenport, resulting in my third timing belt since I bought the car in 2003 and the dire need for a new water pump. These things, while hassles, were all easy enough to manage...just take it to the repair shop, fork over a bunch of money five days later and wait for the next thing to go horribly wrong.
But nothing has gone horribly wrong. Just little things. Now my car (which used to be a stubborn and whiny teenager) is now a cantankerous old man. There's the crack in the windshield, which I still haven't figured out how that happened. The bent antenna I think came from going through a car wash without first retracting the antenna. The knob that controls the fan speed fell off; you can rest it on there in either the "off" or "full blast" positions, but any of the others you have to turn it and then take it off and put it under the parking break if you don't want to lose it. Once, about a year ago, I opened my driver's side door from inside and part of the plastic handle came off. Last fall, the same door started needing a special flick and angle to unlock with the key, with the (I can only guess) following consequence of the key not being able to start the car anymore. Funny thing is, the key that I had made (from the original master, which is broken and can't go on a key chain) does not unlock any of the doors because the metal is too flimsy and will twist if trying to unlock, except for the trunk, it still does that one okay. Last summer, I noticed fluff coming out of the vents, and found out that all the seals around the AC unit had disintegrated and were being blown up to the vents themselves, thus rendering my AC useless because the seals can't keep the hot air from the engine from mixing with the cold air from the cooling unit. The front passenger door, no matter how much WD40 I apply, creaks loud enough to echo off of the neighbors' houses. At a certain RPM, right about 1700 or so, the engine makes a sickly metal-grating-on-metal noise, no matter what gear I'm in, but only when the RPMs are coming down, not going up. A year ago there was a hole in the brake line that meant leaking brake fluid, which of course didn't start until after I had it inspected but it was a relatively cheap fix, and now, to top it off, it's losing about a quart of oil in between oil changes.
This is the car of the English Major. It was once stylish, economical, the car that everybody wanted not because it was nice and flashy but because it was a Toyota Camry, and it was inexpensive and got great mileage and was a nice family car while still being stylish enough to not look like you were the boring practical type, just the practical practical type. In essence, it is the car, or at least it was back in 1992 when it was new. But when I bought it for $3,000 in 2003, it was a good buy to last me a couple years. It is now 2007. I have owned the car for four years, almost to the day now, and all these little things are starting to grate on me a little. But, it is an English Major's car, and more specifically my car, which makes it a Writer's car. And, like all things in a writer's life, it acts if nothing more than to be the impetus for an exercise in creativity, an expression of one's frustration with modern life and its unattainable cars.
Fun Fact of the Day: If it were up to me, I would own two cars, and neither of them would be the one I currently own. One would be a Volkswagen Golf TDI, with the new bio-diesel engine that the German companies are using to answer the Hybrid surge. The other would be a Scion tC in the dark blue color, with the moon roof and spoiler. They would both be sticks. The Golf could be any color but white or purple, although if we could find one in yellow that would be great. They would also both have some way for me to play mp3's in them. And I would never drive either one of them into the workbench. Ever.
There is a scene in the movie in which the main character Dave Stoller's father Raymond is working at his used car lot. The cars are all decrepit pieces of crap, but they have special names painted on their windshields. It's set in Bloomington, Indiana, which is of course a big college town, and since Dave and his friends are all "Cutters" (locals) all the college kids hate them. But, Ray obviously sees them as a potential market for shitty used cars, and so he sells them with clever names like "Homecoming Special" or "Graduation Deluxe." Or, my personal favorite, "English Major."
Now, "Homecoming Special" is actually not a bad looking car; it's a red, two door convertible of the MG type. The "Graduation Deluxe" is not as nice, because it's a tan sedan, but it is in respectable condition. The "English Major" is by far the worst car on the lot. It is gray with rust coloration (most likely from, I don't know, the rust), and looks as if it had been saved at the last minute from being thrown into the quarry where all the Cutters like to swim.
Being an English Major myself, I would take issue with this. But, looking out of my front window at my car sitting in front of my house, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind scrawling "English Major" across it and selling it cheap, or possibly even throwing it into a quarry. From the cracked windshield, to the bent antenna, to the white paint and small dent from where I drove it into the workbench in the garage, it's certainly seen better days. In a year, my car will be old enough to get a license and drive itself. By the time I graduate from school, it will be worrying about who to vote for in the next presidential election. If some unforeseen future event holds up my school one more year (Knock on Wood and God Forbid), then at some point my car will be older than the freshman class.
What's worse is, before when something went wrong with my car, it was a big thing, something that stood out and made it impossible to drive without fixing.
There was the famous debacle with the CO2 filter being clogged, and thus the car just dying if I let it idle. When this happened, you had to wait 45 minutes to two hours to get it to start again, and then if you stopped, you just had to keep your foot on the gas to keep the RPMs up. Then there was the massive oil leak. At one point, I remember getting my oil changed in the morning, and by the following evening, my oil light came on. I had already lost a quart and a half. After that, the infamous unplanned road trip to Davenport, resulting in my third timing belt since I bought the car in 2003 and the dire need for a new water pump. These things, while hassles, were all easy enough to manage...just take it to the repair shop, fork over a bunch of money five days later and wait for the next thing to go horribly wrong.
But nothing has gone horribly wrong. Just little things. Now my car (which used to be a stubborn and whiny teenager) is now a cantankerous old man. There's the crack in the windshield, which I still haven't figured out how that happened. The bent antenna I think came from going through a car wash without first retracting the antenna. The knob that controls the fan speed fell off; you can rest it on there in either the "off" or "full blast" positions, but any of the others you have to turn it and then take it off and put it under the parking break if you don't want to lose it. Once, about a year ago, I opened my driver's side door from inside and part of the plastic handle came off. Last fall, the same door started needing a special flick and angle to unlock with the key, with the (I can only guess) following consequence of the key not being able to start the car anymore. Funny thing is, the key that I had made (from the original master, which is broken and can't go on a key chain) does not unlock any of the doors because the metal is too flimsy and will twist if trying to unlock, except for the trunk, it still does that one okay. Last summer, I noticed fluff coming out of the vents, and found out that all the seals around the AC unit had disintegrated and were being blown up to the vents themselves, thus rendering my AC useless because the seals can't keep the hot air from the engine from mixing with the cold air from the cooling unit. The front passenger door, no matter how much WD40 I apply, creaks loud enough to echo off of the neighbors' houses. At a certain RPM, right about 1700 or so, the engine makes a sickly metal-grating-on-metal noise, no matter what gear I'm in, but only when the RPMs are coming down, not going up. A year ago there was a hole in the brake line that meant leaking brake fluid, which of course didn't start until after I had it inspected but it was a relatively cheap fix, and now, to top it off, it's losing about a quart of oil in between oil changes.
This is the car of the English Major. It was once stylish, economical, the car that everybody wanted not because it was nice and flashy but because it was a Toyota Camry, and it was inexpensive and got great mileage and was a nice family car while still being stylish enough to not look like you were the boring practical type, just the practical practical type. In essence, it is the car, or at least it was back in 1992 when it was new. But when I bought it for $3,000 in 2003, it was a good buy to last me a couple years. It is now 2007. I have owned the car for four years, almost to the day now, and all these little things are starting to grate on me a little. But, it is an English Major's car, and more specifically my car, which makes it a Writer's car. And, like all things in a writer's life, it acts if nothing more than to be the impetus for an exercise in creativity, an expression of one's frustration with modern life and its unattainable cars.
Fun Fact of the Day: If it were up to me, I would own two cars, and neither of them would be the one I currently own. One would be a Volkswagen Golf TDI, with the new bio-diesel engine that the German companies are using to answer the Hybrid surge. The other would be a Scion tC in the dark blue color, with the moon roof and spoiler. They would both be sticks. The Golf could be any color but white or purple, although if we could find one in yellow that would be great. They would also both have some way for me to play mp3's in them. And I would never drive either one of them into the workbench. Ever.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Yes, Yes, I know...
All the trash talk I throw at my aunt Nora, at Mo and Kevin, and at Will-er-Alan, and all the trash talk I threw at Jerry before he decided to deblog himself, and here it's been about two months since my last post. Well, yeah. Sorry.
Lots happened. Won't go into it all. My sister had her baby, run over to her blog to see pictures. I finished up the semester (no pictures there), went to NYC for Spring Break and had a good time running around and all, met up with Joanna and Koushik, got inspired to write a play, wrote the play, added a Journalism minor to my studies, and generally had an okay time running down the clock to May where I now face a summer of drudgery at work with no school to break up the monotony.
But I pledge myself anew at this! I am about to embark on a very rigid search. Soul searching, perhaps. Perhaps a bit of job-searching as well. Somebody asked me a question last night, and it's going to stick with me until I can truthfully and one hundred percent actually answer it. "What do you want to happen?" I have to find that out, then take the steps to make it happen. I need to make it happen.
With that being said, you will be seeing a lot more of me in the Blogniverse (I know that the popular term is Blogisphere, but damn it all, I came up with Blogniverse and that is what I am sticking with!), at least in this realm...probably not so much on the bike side. Frankly, I'm embarassed to even have it exist at this point, because I am a bad cyclist. A good cyclist is one who actually rides his bike. I am not one of those.
So, this is just a "Hey, yes, I know I've been a deadbeat blogger, but I promise to be better, honest!" kind of a post. Upcoming highlights include:
Ruminations on Professor Overmann's comments on my Media Literacy paper.
Commentary on why hiding from your true self is a bad thing (and it is).
Ruminations on Sheila Hwang's grade of A given on my second to last paper of the semester, and why I think it means she wants to do bad things to me in the dark.
Excerpts from works in progress.
Explanations of my preparations for the Three Day Novel contest (in which I will be participating this year, come Hell, High Water or organized Bike Ride).
And, of course, in a month or so, another long-winded explanation of why it's been a month since I posted anything despite my insistince right now, at this moment, that I will post at least every other day the whole summer.
Music to Blog By:
Elliott Smith - Needle in the Hay
Discussed in this post:
Lots happened. Won't go into it all. My sister had her baby, run over to her blog to see pictures. I finished up the semester (no pictures there), went to NYC for Spring Break and had a good time running around and all, met up with Joanna and Koushik, got inspired to write a play, wrote the play, added a Journalism minor to my studies, and generally had an okay time running down the clock to May where I now face a summer of drudgery at work with no school to break up the monotony.
But I pledge myself anew at this! I am about to embark on a very rigid search. Soul searching, perhaps. Perhaps a bit of job-searching as well. Somebody asked me a question last night, and it's going to stick with me until I can truthfully and one hundred percent actually answer it. "What do you want to happen?" I have to find that out, then take the steps to make it happen. I need to make it happen.
With that being said, you will be seeing a lot more of me in the Blogniverse (I know that the popular term is Blogisphere, but damn it all, I came up with Blogniverse and that is what I am sticking with!), at least in this realm...probably not so much on the bike side. Frankly, I'm embarassed to even have it exist at this point, because I am a bad cyclist. A good cyclist is one who actually rides his bike. I am not one of those.
So, this is just a "Hey, yes, I know I've been a deadbeat blogger, but I promise to be better, honest!" kind of a post. Upcoming highlights include:
Ruminations on Professor Overmann's comments on my Media Literacy paper.
Commentary on why hiding from your true self is a bad thing (and it is).
Ruminations on Sheila Hwang's grade of A given on my second to last paper of the semester, and why I think it means she wants to do bad things to me in the dark.
Excerpts from works in progress.
Explanations of my preparations for the Three Day Novel contest (in which I will be participating this year, come Hell, High Water or organized Bike Ride).
And, of course, in a month or so, another long-winded explanation of why it's been a month since I posted anything despite my insistince right now, at this moment, that I will post at least every other day the whole summer.
Music to Blog By:
Elliott Smith - Needle in the Hay
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Where Does All That Money Go, and What Does Elliot Do at School?
You wanted answers, and now you've got them...aside from the weird color effects and credits which were added without my consent, and even though my name does not appear anywhere on this...I will fill you in. Yes, directed by Sean Crowder, fine, but written by Elliot Rauscher, Carrie Shmick and Sean Crowder, Camera by Chaday Barnes, starring Elliot Rauscher and Carrie Shmick. Without further ado, I give you...
The Shoe Thief
The Shoe Thief
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Hang it on the wall anyway...art is art, right?
When I was younger, and in grade school, or, rather, when I was young and in grade school...no, no, younger is correct, because let's face it, as old as I feel sometimes (going to bed at 9 on a Friday night? Having a quiet Saturday at home during Mardi Gras?), I am still rather young and shouldn't be saying things like "When I was young..." because then it sounds like I'm missing teeth and have my mortgage paid off which, I assure you, I most certainly do not. So, with that in mind...
When I was younger, and in grade school, I used to try and draw. Everybody drew. The cool kids drew, the quiet kids drew, even the bullies were known to turn out some stunning Art Smart Award* winning masterpieces so, in an effort to fit in and distance myself from those other five or six kids who couldn't draw, I at least tried to draw.
Now, my mother, being the consummate politician, adored all of my drawings that I brought home from my art class and I, being ever-ready for validation of my (seemingly) limited number of skills, brought each and every one of them home, laminated, with the expectation that she would display them on the wall of our dining room with with the help of sticky-tack putty. She put some horrid drawings, paintings, colorings and sketches up there. I think I only passed art classes in grade school because we were graded on effort, not on degree of skill or quality of masterpiece. Masterpieces, well, that was a stretch for anything I ever turned out in those classes...with the exception of some of the more abstract modernist styled art projects we were assigned (I can't remember, I could ask my wife she'd know...or it's in one of her art books downstairs and I don't feel like going down there because I am blogging/cooking dinner...), such as the one where there were a series of black, straight lines, and wherever they made a shape (triangle, rectangle, some sort of polygon) I filled in the shape with a primary color. They were all there the bad and the worse, on the dining room wall, alongside my sister's much more polished efforts (however, she did the same art projects three years ahead of me, so by the end of fifth grade we had some very suspiciously similar works of art. I promise I never once intentionally copied one of hers).
Strangely enough, as bad as I was I did not limit my drawing skills(?) to the confines of the arts annex** but instead flexed my puny art muscle during free period or indoor rainy-day recess. This did not improve my drawing to say the least, and it just made those cool/quiet/bully kids laugh at me because I thought I could draw. This did not deter me (and I did suffer for this, amongst other things, but suffering is part of being an artist, is it not?), and in 4th grade I began reading Calvin and Hobbes and also The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I had become a writer (to a point) as well, because I enjoyed writing assignments so much that I had started writing along with my drawings...I had turned my childhood stuffed animals into comic strip characters. I'm older and not afraid or ashamed to admit that (I was, for a time, too old and ashamed to admit such a thing had ever happened, but that was middle school and that is a chapter of my life that shall happily remain closed for the time being). The drawings were crude. I mean, they were awful. I mean...they were possibly the worst drawings to ever have been labelled as a comic strip (with the possible exception of Ziggy, but it's not my job to be a comic page critic, unfortunately). But what kept them interesting to those I showed them to, including not only my best friend Jesse Fournier*** but also my parents (again, they were obliged to like them but something about the way my mom liked them suggested she wasn't just being nice) and my teacher was not the crappy drawing but the story lines and the dialogue that drove them. There was the easter series, where Ricky the cat got a white chocolate easter bunny in his basket, and it was the envy of all the others. In the middle of the night, Sneaky Feak, the mischevious yellow rabbit of the bunch, snuck into the kitchen to steal the white chocolate bunny from the refrigerator, only to find that it was not being kept in there. Concluding that it must have been stowed in the basement refrigerator, Sneaky Feak turns to see the refrigerator door close, his world plunged into darkness and he unable to reopen the door (this was a relatively easy panel to draw). The very next line of panels told of Furry Guy's pursuit of Ricky's coveted white chocolate easter bunny (Furry Guy being Ricky's older-by-seven-seconds brother). Furry Guy, like Sneaky Feak, searched in the main refrigerator and what does he find? He finds it! So, he takes it out and sinks his teeth into the bunny's ears. And a loud howl emits from the rabbit's mouth. The next set of panels shows a room full of animals (Ricky, Furry Guy, Sneaky Feak along with Octoplus the Octopus, Snowy the white cat, Sneaky Feak's mother who's name I can not for the life of me remember anymore, and Mr. Guy Man, a microscopic alien with the strength of thirty men, who was often indicated only by a tiny dot on the page from which a dialogue bubble seemed to pop out of). Sneaky Feak is being attended to by his mother, who is bandaging his wounds. Ricky is furious with both Sneaky Feak and Furry Guy, and Snowy, Octoplus and Mr. Guy Man want to know how Furry Guy could have made such a mistake. His excuse? "Hey, come on, I'm a cat, how am I supposed to know white from yellow? I'm colorblind."
A rudimentary joke, perhaps, but one that intrigued my teacher, Mrs. McFadden**** to the point that she encourage me to write more...and implied that I should draw less.
Cut to the present, I am now a writer, unpublished yes, but nonetheless a writer of sorts and I am married to an artist who has, in her lifetime, had work displayed in galleries and won contests and such. She can draw. I still can't. I can, however, work a camera, which is the only way I get to hang anything I had a hand in creating on our walls. You see, we have some of her drawings, skethes and paintings about the house, and they're not laminated or held on with sticky-tack putty either, but I mean they are framed and hung on nails we've pounded into our walls. This is a way of displaying her talent to any who visit our home. "What's this?" They'll ask, pointing to a particular block of wood with a rose burnt into it that hangs in our bedroom. "Oh, that," I'll say nonchalantly, "That's just one of Kathy's pieces of artwork. Like this other one, this drawing of a rose, and over in this other room, this sketch of the baby elephant and this one of the child with his hands on his cheeks. Yeah, Kathy did them all."
Just once, I want Kathy to point to a series of, say, fifteen frames, all containing 8 1/2" by 11" sheets of paper, in a specific order left to right, and say, "This is one of my favorites; a short story Elliot wrote about two years ago about a twenty-something spending the night in jail with an old friend.***** It's quite good, I'll leave you to read it."
Now if only I could find a long, bare enough wall in our house that gets plenty of light.
______________________________________________
Notes:
*An Art Smart Award was a small piece of paper the grade school's art teacher would tape to the back of your piece of art. Your artwork would also be displayed in the hallway. I earned very few of these in my grade school academic career.
**A temporary classroom trailer dropped off on my school's blacktop playground for temporary use in 1989 which is, of course, still there to this day. It contained the art classroom and music classroom. What had been the art classroom in the building became a first grade classroom and, to my knowledge, there had not been a music classroom for some years as the music teacher used to go from individual classroom to individual classroom with a portable electronic keyboard.
***Pronounced Four-Knee-A, I later attended an intro to psychology class with his younger sister, Valerie at St. Louis Community College at Meramec. While I was in 4th grade, I was the tender age of ten and Valerie was the even more tender age of eight. Having fallen out of best-friendship with Jesse round about two years later, Valerie remained permanently eight or nine in my mind, even when she cropped up in high school my junior year, so it was very hard for me to reconcile little Valerie Fournier with this scantily-clad college freshmen none of the other twenty guys in my psych class could keep their eyes off of. Aside from being engaged to Kathy at the time, I just couldn't stare at her. She was, like, a little kid. Ew. And my best friend's off-limits sister. And I'm sorry, but once you are diagnosed with weird-little-sister cooties, they do not ever go away. Ever.
****Mrs. McFadden had in fact been Miss Derby just three short years before when she was my sister's fourth grade teacher. She was my sister's most favorite teacher at Avery Elementary and mine too. It was she who taught my sister...well, some things, I'm sure, you'd actually have to ask her, but the main point is, it was she who first introduced me to Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and for that, I am forever in her debt.
*****This particular piece is called "Headlight" and is based on two separate incidents, one in which I was pulled over twice in the same night, five minutes apart, for having a headlight out and one in which a very smart old friend of mine confided in me that he had been fired from my current employer for stealing close to four thousand dollars worth of electronics.
Discussed in this post:
When I was younger, and in grade school, I used to try and draw. Everybody drew. The cool kids drew, the quiet kids drew, even the bullies were known to turn out some stunning Art Smart Award* winning masterpieces so, in an effort to fit in and distance myself from those other five or six kids who couldn't draw, I at least tried to draw.
Now, my mother, being the consummate politician, adored all of my drawings that I brought home from my art class and I, being ever-ready for validation of my (seemingly) limited number of skills, brought each and every one of them home, laminated, with the expectation that she would display them on the wall of our dining room with with the help of sticky-tack putty. She put some horrid drawings, paintings, colorings and sketches up there. I think I only passed art classes in grade school because we were graded on effort, not on degree of skill or quality of masterpiece. Masterpieces, well, that was a stretch for anything I ever turned out in those classes...with the exception of some of the more abstract modernist styled art projects we were assigned (I can't remember, I could ask my wife she'd know...or it's in one of her art books downstairs and I don't feel like going down there because I am blogging/cooking dinner...), such as the one where there were a series of black, straight lines, and wherever they made a shape (triangle, rectangle, some sort of polygon) I filled in the shape with a primary color. They were all there the bad and the worse, on the dining room wall, alongside my sister's much more polished efforts (however, she did the same art projects three years ahead of me, so by the end of fifth grade we had some very suspiciously similar works of art. I promise I never once intentionally copied one of hers).
Strangely enough, as bad as I was I did not limit my drawing skills(?) to the confines of the arts annex** but instead flexed my puny art muscle during free period or indoor rainy-day recess. This did not improve my drawing to say the least, and it just made those cool/quiet/bully kids laugh at me because I thought I could draw. This did not deter me (and I did suffer for this, amongst other things, but suffering is part of being an artist, is it not?), and in 4th grade I began reading Calvin and Hobbes and also The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I had become a writer (to a point) as well, because I enjoyed writing assignments so much that I had started writing along with my drawings...I had turned my childhood stuffed animals into comic strip characters. I'm older and not afraid or ashamed to admit that (I was, for a time, too old and ashamed to admit such a thing had ever happened, but that was middle school and that is a chapter of my life that shall happily remain closed for the time being). The drawings were crude. I mean, they were awful. I mean...they were possibly the worst drawings to ever have been labelled as a comic strip (with the possible exception of Ziggy, but it's not my job to be a comic page critic, unfortunately). But what kept them interesting to those I showed them to, including not only my best friend Jesse Fournier*** but also my parents (again, they were obliged to like them but something about the way my mom liked them suggested she wasn't just being nice) and my teacher was not the crappy drawing but the story lines and the dialogue that drove them. There was the easter series, where Ricky the cat got a white chocolate easter bunny in his basket, and it was the envy of all the others. In the middle of the night, Sneaky Feak, the mischevious yellow rabbit of the bunch, snuck into the kitchen to steal the white chocolate bunny from the refrigerator, only to find that it was not being kept in there. Concluding that it must have been stowed in the basement refrigerator, Sneaky Feak turns to see the refrigerator door close, his world plunged into darkness and he unable to reopen the door (this was a relatively easy panel to draw). The very next line of panels told of Furry Guy's pursuit of Ricky's coveted white chocolate easter bunny (Furry Guy being Ricky's older-by-seven-seconds brother). Furry Guy, like Sneaky Feak, searched in the main refrigerator and what does he find? He finds it! So, he takes it out and sinks his teeth into the bunny's ears. And a loud howl emits from the rabbit's mouth. The next set of panels shows a room full of animals (Ricky, Furry Guy, Sneaky Feak along with Octoplus the Octopus, Snowy the white cat, Sneaky Feak's mother who's name I can not for the life of me remember anymore, and Mr. Guy Man, a microscopic alien with the strength of thirty men, who was often indicated only by a tiny dot on the page from which a dialogue bubble seemed to pop out of). Sneaky Feak is being attended to by his mother, who is bandaging his wounds. Ricky is furious with both Sneaky Feak and Furry Guy, and Snowy, Octoplus and Mr. Guy Man want to know how Furry Guy could have made such a mistake. His excuse? "Hey, come on, I'm a cat, how am I supposed to know white from yellow? I'm colorblind."
A rudimentary joke, perhaps, but one that intrigued my teacher, Mrs. McFadden**** to the point that she encourage me to write more...and implied that I should draw less.
Cut to the present, I am now a writer, unpublished yes, but nonetheless a writer of sorts and I am married to an artist who has, in her lifetime, had work displayed in galleries and won contests and such. She can draw. I still can't. I can, however, work a camera, which is the only way I get to hang anything I had a hand in creating on our walls. You see, we have some of her drawings, skethes and paintings about the house, and they're not laminated or held on with sticky-tack putty either, but I mean they are framed and hung on nails we've pounded into our walls. This is a way of displaying her talent to any who visit our home. "What's this?" They'll ask, pointing to a particular block of wood with a rose burnt into it that hangs in our bedroom. "Oh, that," I'll say nonchalantly, "That's just one of Kathy's pieces of artwork. Like this other one, this drawing of a rose, and over in this other room, this sketch of the baby elephant and this one of the child with his hands on his cheeks. Yeah, Kathy did them all."
Just once, I want Kathy to point to a series of, say, fifteen frames, all containing 8 1/2" by 11" sheets of paper, in a specific order left to right, and say, "This is one of my favorites; a short story Elliot wrote about two years ago about a twenty-something spending the night in jail with an old friend.***** It's quite good, I'll leave you to read it."
Now if only I could find a long, bare enough wall in our house that gets plenty of light.
______________________________________________
Notes:
*An Art Smart Award was a small piece of paper the grade school's art teacher would tape to the back of your piece of art. Your artwork would also be displayed in the hallway. I earned very few of these in my grade school academic career.
**A temporary classroom trailer dropped off on my school's blacktop playground for temporary use in 1989 which is, of course, still there to this day. It contained the art classroom and music classroom. What had been the art classroom in the building became a first grade classroom and, to my knowledge, there had not been a music classroom for some years as the music teacher used to go from individual classroom to individual classroom with a portable electronic keyboard.
***Pronounced Four-Knee-A, I later attended an intro to psychology class with his younger sister, Valerie at St. Louis Community College at Meramec. While I was in 4th grade, I was the tender age of ten and Valerie was the even more tender age of eight. Having fallen out of best-friendship with Jesse round about two years later, Valerie remained permanently eight or nine in my mind, even when she cropped up in high school my junior year, so it was very hard for me to reconcile little Valerie Fournier with this scantily-clad college freshmen none of the other twenty guys in my psych class could keep their eyes off of. Aside from being engaged to Kathy at the time, I just couldn't stare at her. She was, like, a little kid. Ew. And my best friend's off-limits sister. And I'm sorry, but once you are diagnosed with weird-little-sister cooties, they do not ever go away. Ever.
****Mrs. McFadden had in fact been Miss Derby just three short years before when she was my sister's fourth grade teacher. She was my sister's most favorite teacher at Avery Elementary and mine too. It was she who taught my sister...well, some things, I'm sure, you'd actually have to ask her, but the main point is, it was she who first introduced me to Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and for that, I am forever in her debt.
*****This particular piece is called "Headlight" and is based on two separate incidents, one in which I was pulled over twice in the same night, five minutes apart, for having a headlight out and one in which a very smart old friend of mine confided in me that he had been fired from my current employer for stealing close to four thousand dollars worth of electronics.
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Playwright
With an e-mail, I found today that while my friend Chris' play got selected for Surfacing One Act Festival, and an as-of-yet unwritten play also got slected (commissioned by the artistic director, to be written by a guy I know will do a good job and all, but still...), my one act was not selected. I could gripe about this but...
I wrote it very quickly. I wrote it for the deadline, not for the play. It's rough. It's got some major flaws. It's better than "In 500 Words Or Less..." was, but it's not yet as good as "500 Words..." could have been if I had crafted it better. Nevermind that they're both about students who are using almost superhuman powers of slack to not write papers. This is something I am good at. See, I wrote for the deadline.
Unfortunately, if I want to be serious, and be taken seriously, I can't submit shit like that. People expect a crafted product. I'm handing them a work in progress. It might be bold, awesome and impressive as a work in progress, but they assume I've done all the work I could on it, or that if it took me a long time to get it where it is it's probably not worth the hassle, and so forth, so they pass. I'm a master of the awesome first draft I've decided, and for years I had teachers who were willing to accept an awesome first draft as a finished product. I've never been happy with that, but it worked so I let it work. Angela tried to help me with that. No, scratch that; Angela did help me with that. I am sure my writing instructors at Webster will be equally as helpful. I just need to help myself.
And so it comes to this; I have turned in a play with potential, but have failed to unlock it enough for the reading committee to accept the challenge of unlocking it more. I obviously need to do more work on it. The e-mail said they won't give criticism on the works that were not selected due to the sheer volume of work submitted, which could give me false hope (and it has given me a small amount of this) that mine would have been good enough if not for one or two slightly stronger candidates. But I have to be pessimistic, which goes against my earlier New Year's resolutions. But, I have to be a better writer, which means I have to believe I can always do better than I have done.
I have to start writing another play now. This one for class. And I was without an idea, until I idly clicked on Memory Machine's blog over in my links (Urban Exploration). I figured it out. My uncle Dennis is in town. I could e-mail this guy. I don't want to go Urban Exploring, I just want to know what it's like. What is it like to go to one of these places? What kind of thing could happen there? The amunition plant interests me; my father once worked there. What could I do with that?
A lot.
Music to Blog By:
The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt
Discussed in this post:
I wrote it very quickly. I wrote it for the deadline, not for the play. It's rough. It's got some major flaws. It's better than "In 500 Words Or Less..." was, but it's not yet as good as "500 Words..." could have been if I had crafted it better. Nevermind that they're both about students who are using almost superhuman powers of slack to not write papers. This is something I am good at. See, I wrote for the deadline.
Unfortunately, if I want to be serious, and be taken seriously, I can't submit shit like that. People expect a crafted product. I'm handing them a work in progress. It might be bold, awesome and impressive as a work in progress, but they assume I've done all the work I could on it, or that if it took me a long time to get it where it is it's probably not worth the hassle, and so forth, so they pass. I'm a master of the awesome first draft I've decided, and for years I had teachers who were willing to accept an awesome first draft as a finished product. I've never been happy with that, but it worked so I let it work. Angela tried to help me with that. No, scratch that; Angela did help me with that. I am sure my writing instructors at Webster will be equally as helpful. I just need to help myself.
And so it comes to this; I have turned in a play with potential, but have failed to unlock it enough for the reading committee to accept the challenge of unlocking it more. I obviously need to do more work on it. The e-mail said they won't give criticism on the works that were not selected due to the sheer volume of work submitted, which could give me false hope (and it has given me a small amount of this) that mine would have been good enough if not for one or two slightly stronger candidates. But I have to be pessimistic, which goes against my earlier New Year's resolutions. But, I have to be a better writer, which means I have to believe I can always do better than I have done.
I have to start writing another play now. This one for class. And I was without an idea, until I idly clicked on Memory Machine's blog over in my links (Urban Exploration). I figured it out. My uncle Dennis is in town. I could e-mail this guy. I don't want to go Urban Exploring, I just want to know what it's like. What is it like to go to one of these places? What kind of thing could happen there? The amunition plant interests me; my father once worked there. What could I do with that?
A lot.
Music to Blog By:
The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt
Discussed in this post:
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Yes, You Heard Me, My Cousin Chris Farley
I was using "cousin" in a very loose (I almost said "relative" but thought that might be too much of a pun) sense. You see, my mother's sister Nora is married to Chris Farley's actual familial first cousin. Thus, though not by blood and many times removed, Chris Farley was indeed my cousin.
There are cultures that value family so much, that even if you're four times removed from both sides of the family and once removed from society at large, family is family, and family deserves respect, affection, and recognition. And no, family is not a one way street, and no, Chris Farley never actually got around to respecting/recognizing me as a member of his (far-removed) extended family, but I am confident that he would have gotten around to it at some point in the future if his future had not been so unexpectedly and unfortunately taken away from him. I like to think that Chris Farley would have liked the idea of having somebody like me claiming to be related to him.
So, to those few who have suggested that I am out of line with my particular portrait of my family tree, I say this: I am aware of just how far removed Chris Farley and I were from each other. But, I feel like I know him better than I know some of my more geographically (and mentally) distant cousins to whom I am actually blood-related (sadly). Or, to make a better point...I am often told that I share much in common with my great-grandfather, whom I never met and thus have nothing but family stories told through the ever-thickening haze of history, while I have documented (and often re-run on Comedy Central) footage of Cousin Chris (as I fondly refer to him). Should I just leave my great-grandfather out of my family tree because he is just a handful of obscure stories? Of course not!
So, why would I leave Cousin Chris out?
Music to Blog By:
Red Right Hand - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Discussed in this post:
There are cultures that value family so much, that even if you're four times removed from both sides of the family and once removed from society at large, family is family, and family deserves respect, affection, and recognition. And no, family is not a one way street, and no, Chris Farley never actually got around to respecting/recognizing me as a member of his (far-removed) extended family, but I am confident that he would have gotten around to it at some point in the future if his future had not been so unexpectedly and unfortunately taken away from him. I like to think that Chris Farley would have liked the idea of having somebody like me claiming to be related to him.
So, to those few who have suggested that I am out of line with my particular portrait of my family tree, I say this: I am aware of just how far removed Chris Farley and I were from each other. But, I feel like I know him better than I know some of my more geographically (and mentally) distant cousins to whom I am actually blood-related (sadly). Or, to make a better point...I am often told that I share much in common with my great-grandfather, whom I never met and thus have nothing but family stories told through the ever-thickening haze of history, while I have documented (and often re-run on Comedy Central) footage of Cousin Chris (as I fondly refer to him). Should I just leave my great-grandfather out of my family tree because he is just a handful of obscure stories? Of course not!
So, why would I leave Cousin Chris out?
Music to Blog By:
Red Right Hand - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Discussed in this post:
Saturday, January 20, 2007
SNL's Golden Age...Remember That?
Of course, the first few seasons are out of reach. The cast, the writers...everything they were doing was fresh. They were inventing a genre which has yet to be truly rivaled. It enjoyed a great run through the 80's, and a cast in the early nineties (including Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers, my cousin Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and Kevin Nealon to name a few) that came a close second to the legendary early cast members. But nowadays...
The problem isn't with the cast, so much as it is with the writers. Being a creative writing major, I can't really criticize too much I suppose, but...comedy writers learn what works in sitcoms and dramas and movies, and so they write what works. They don't invent. They're not on the cutting edge, because the cutting edge doesn't pay the bills.
You see that a lot these days. I'll go ahead and be a total dork and play into the hands of everybody who knows where I'm going with this...
Take, for example, a television show like Arrested Development. For anybody who hasn't seen it that is too bad. If you have seen The Office, and you enjoy it, well...that's too bad. NBC is in a great position these days when it comes to their weeknight programming. As NBC is near the bottom as far as ratings go, they're less afraid to give something new a chance. The Office, Studio 60, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, and Heroes are all shows that a network like ABC or CBS may have considered but passed on, or given a small chance but given up before it really caught. Fox is great at giving a chance to something new, but bad at retention. Arrested Development...think The Office but with a narrator and about a disfunctional family instead of just an office. Great writers on both shows, but Fox killed AD after two and a half seasons.
A show like SNL endurs because it has a legendary past. It can get away with being sub-par because viewers still cling to the glory days...but not forever. It needs to get better soon, or it will start losing viewers. How can it get better? Get better writers. I'm not saying they need to hire writers off the street, but they have got to hire some writers who aren't afraid to think. Right now, even if the skits begin well, they drag on and end abruptly, as if the writers realized it's a sketch show and they've got to keep it under a certain amount, and the people in charge say, "Well, if it's all we've got..." It's just bad comedy to lose your audience halfway through a sketch. Make it punchy. Bring back the slapstick of Belushi and Chase. The ridiculous dialogue of Wayne and Garth. SOMETHING!
It's sad to think that the world writers my age are entering is one in which you have to prepackage your work...suddenly, you shouldn't write manuscripts, but McManuscripts. Everything is homogenized, sterilized, and easily consumable. The George Lopez show is King of Queens for the Latino market. Break out. Do something different.
On a side note, I completed my play for the one act festival, printed it out, took it to the office to turn it in...and nobody was there to take it. The door was locked. So...it didn't get turned in. So what the hell am I supposed to do now? The student in charge of Surfacing hasn't answered me. My friend Kathleen, who is affiliated with the contest, suggested that the deadline may have been extended to Wednesday, but I haven't received confirmation. CRAP!
Music to blog by:
Miss Murder (with bad sound mixing) - AFI
(because I was watching SNL and they were the guest, silly)
Discussed in this post:
The problem isn't with the cast, so much as it is with the writers. Being a creative writing major, I can't really criticize too much I suppose, but...comedy writers learn what works in sitcoms and dramas and movies, and so they write what works. They don't invent. They're not on the cutting edge, because the cutting edge doesn't pay the bills.
You see that a lot these days. I'll go ahead and be a total dork and play into the hands of everybody who knows where I'm going with this...
Take, for example, a television show like Arrested Development. For anybody who hasn't seen it that is too bad. If you have seen The Office, and you enjoy it, well...that's too bad. NBC is in a great position these days when it comes to their weeknight programming. As NBC is near the bottom as far as ratings go, they're less afraid to give something new a chance. The Office, Studio 60, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, and Heroes are all shows that a network like ABC or CBS may have considered but passed on, or given a small chance but given up before it really caught. Fox is great at giving a chance to something new, but bad at retention. Arrested Development...think The Office but with a narrator and about a disfunctional family instead of just an office. Great writers on both shows, but Fox killed AD after two and a half seasons.
A show like SNL endurs because it has a legendary past. It can get away with being sub-par because viewers still cling to the glory days...but not forever. It needs to get better soon, or it will start losing viewers. How can it get better? Get better writers. I'm not saying they need to hire writers off the street, but they have got to hire some writers who aren't afraid to think. Right now, even if the skits begin well, they drag on and end abruptly, as if the writers realized it's a sketch show and they've got to keep it under a certain amount, and the people in charge say, "Well, if it's all we've got..." It's just bad comedy to lose your audience halfway through a sketch. Make it punchy. Bring back the slapstick of Belushi and Chase. The ridiculous dialogue of Wayne and Garth. SOMETHING!
It's sad to think that the world writers my age are entering is one in which you have to prepackage your work...suddenly, you shouldn't write manuscripts, but McManuscripts. Everything is homogenized, sterilized, and easily consumable. The George Lopez show is King of Queens for the Latino market. Break out. Do something different.
On a side note, I completed my play for the one act festival, printed it out, took it to the office to turn it in...and nobody was there to take it. The door was locked. So...it didn't get turned in. So what the hell am I supposed to do now? The student in charge of Surfacing hasn't answered me. My friend Kathleen, who is affiliated with the contest, suggested that the deadline may have been extended to Wednesday, but I haven't received confirmation. CRAP!
Music to blog by:
Miss Murder (with bad sound mixing) - AFI
(because I was watching SNL and they were the guest, silly)
Discussed in this post:
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Year in Review, and Resolutions
Well, 2006 was an interesting year. Work: I started out shaky at work, getting pulled into the office and being put on counseling, then turning things around to the point that I was Great Team Hero for the entire group (which happened in July but didn't get into the magazine until November), only to end the year pissed off and stepping down from my position because of school schedule conflicts. I went through three team leads and two ETLs, made some new friends (some of which promptly left...Natascha I'm looking in your direction...), said goodbye to many people who took off for bigger and better things including Jerry, Colleen and Beth, and decided that listening to your employee's concerns and actually doing something to address them are a lot farther apart than some people think.
As far as cycling goes...well, let's not talk about that. Check out my Cycling Blog for more info on that...
2006 was a productive year for my writing. I have a nice stack of work, including my one-act that I completed prior to Christmas. I'm not done editing it, but I am counting that amongst last year's output. Though I was happy with having written outside of my Colin/William/James group in 2005 with "Momentum," and then again this year with two stories in that same timeline called "Kissing Girls" and "Look at How Ugly the Stars Are," I did start writing a story that connects Colin, William and James with Banning and Cameron. School certainly helped with the output, and so...
School is awesome. Yes, I could have done better this past semester with being on top of deadlines and such, but nonetheless I am happy at Webster University. Good times had by me. At school. But let's not forget that I started the year still enrolled at Meramec, which I hated my first semester as friends will recall. But with the summer 2005 session, I found a teacher I really enjoyed. And then I made friends fall 2005 (including a great writing instructor), and in the spring 2006 semester I made some friends that, though I haven't seen or even communicated with them for months, I will always remember them and count them as my peers and great friends.
All in all, a good enough year to forget for the most part.
And so to resolutions for 2007.
Write more.
Ride more.
Stress less.
Love more.
Save more.
Enjoy more.
Live more.
Drive less.
Workout more.
Spend more [time with friends and family].
Reconnect with life.
Dance with my wife more.
Watch more Star Trek.
Smile more.
Laugh more.
Be the best Elliot M. Rauscher I can be.
Try to walk in my mother's vibrating slippers.
And I just did two of those. Let's see who can guess which two!
Music to blog by:
Frank Sinatra - As Time Goes By
Discussed in this post:
As far as cycling goes...well, let's not talk about that. Check out my Cycling Blog for more info on that...
2006 was a productive year for my writing. I have a nice stack of work, including my one-act that I completed prior to Christmas. I'm not done editing it, but I am counting that amongst last year's output. Though I was happy with having written outside of my Colin/William/James group in 2005 with "Momentum," and then again this year with two stories in that same timeline called "Kissing Girls" and "Look at How Ugly the Stars Are," I did start writing a story that connects Colin, William and James with Banning and Cameron. School certainly helped with the output, and so...
School is awesome. Yes, I could have done better this past semester with being on top of deadlines and such, but nonetheless I am happy at Webster University. Good times had by me. At school. But let's not forget that I started the year still enrolled at Meramec, which I hated my first semester as friends will recall. But with the summer 2005 session, I found a teacher I really enjoyed. And then I made friends fall 2005 (including a great writing instructor), and in the spring 2006 semester I made some friends that, though I haven't seen or even communicated with them for months, I will always remember them and count them as my peers and great friends.
All in all, a good enough year to forget for the most part.
And so to resolutions for 2007.
Write more.
Ride more.
Stress less.
Love more.
Save more.
Enjoy more.
Live more.
Drive less.
Workout more.
Spend more [time with friends and family].
Reconnect with life.
Dance with my wife more.
Watch more Star Trek.
Smile more.
Laugh more.
Be the best Elliot M. Rauscher I can be.
Try to walk in my mother's vibrating slippers.
And I just did two of those. Let's see who can guess which two!
Music to blog by:
Frank Sinatra - As Time Goes By
Discussed in this post:
Sunday, December 17, 2006
And...We're Back.
Sorry all, my computer went into the shop and when I got it back, it had been so long since I had logged in that my blogger password needed to be re-entered, and I couldn't remember it, and I was too busy with school to care enough to set it back up. So...I just got to it. Just now. Right now.
Let's see...I finished the semester, I have no idea what kind of grades I got except that I'm sure they're okay, although I'm afraid my group project might not have turned out well...I'm not sure that anybody turned in our analysis paper for A Streetcar Named Desire, but I did turn in the biography for Tennessee Williams. Hmm. But I know I got a good grade in my Human Rights class, and I already know I got an A in my Film Noir class and a B+ in math. Possibly a B of some kind in Modern Drama (thank my group project to counter-balance my final paper), but again, the group project grade for US Writers might bring me down a bit. Hopefully not, though.
Spent a weekend in Vegas. Did the usual Vegas things, you know, all-you-can-eat buffets, all-you-can-drink bars, fountain at the Bellagio, puked on Wayne Newton, won a fortune at the tables, got chased by gangsters, lost a fortune at the slots, married a floosie, and danced with the Chippendales on the Hoover Dam. Although, now that I come to think of it, that may have been a vodka-tonic induced dream.
I wrote a new play! It's short, needs a bit of work, but with the Surfacing deadline coming up, I should totally get on that and finish it. Plus, the Green Fuse deadline is coming up, so I need to either polish off an old story from Meramec or write something new...I guess, though, that I can either edit a play and a story or write a new story, and since I want to submit to both, I should focus on revisions.
For those of you unaware, Surfacing is the student written-directed-acted-in festival at Webster, and the Green Fuse is the student literary magazine. Oh, I forgot...I've also got a submission into Currents from last spring. Currents is the Meramec student literary magazine. I could be published twice and produced once in the same calender year! That would be awesome! Let's aim for that...although, all I can really do is submit, after that it's out of my hands.
Oh, speaking of things being out of my hands, I stepped down from my specialist position at Target. Most of this has to do with school scheduling, classes and workstudy you know, but part of it has to do with (to use Will Wilcox's famous New Year's 1997 quote) "large amounts of bullshit" that I have put up with recently, the most recent being the reaction of my executive team leader when I told her the news. She lacks tact. She lacks compassion. She lacks the capacity to be a decent person. Just for the record, it has nothing to do with me "bailing out" on my department or the store. Jerry will be leaving, and they need somebody to take over ad prep, and preferrably somebody who knows how to do it, so no, I am not bailing out on the store. I have offered my services to do the early morning return scans for the Entertainment department and help out with street date when it is needed, so I am not bailing out on my department. I feel awful that I am stepping down because Melissa will have trouble without me. It will be hard to train a new specialist, even if it is who we think it's going to be. I even offered to train my replacement. I feel a little bit like I am letting down Melissa, Cleo, my old ETL Katie who battled so hard for me, and Jackie and Shelly who always listened, and Jeff who I'm pretty sure wouldn't have let me step down a year ago when I was first thinking about it. But I think the only way to let my current ETL down would be to continue in my position. This way, it's like I'm playing into her hands.
Except that I'm not playing into her hands, I'm stepping down because my academic career depends on it. But try telling her that. She won't hear it because she doesn't listen to me, and never has. And that is one of the reasons I am stepping down. Not the main reason, but it certainly played a role.
So there we go.
Music to Blog By:
Christmas Music because it is December 17th after all.
Discussed in this post:
Let's see...I finished the semester, I have no idea what kind of grades I got except that I'm sure they're okay, although I'm afraid my group project might not have turned out well...I'm not sure that anybody turned in our analysis paper for A Streetcar Named Desire, but I did turn in the biography for Tennessee Williams. Hmm. But I know I got a good grade in my Human Rights class, and I already know I got an A in my Film Noir class and a B+ in math. Possibly a B of some kind in Modern Drama (thank my group project to counter-balance my final paper), but again, the group project grade for US Writers might bring me down a bit. Hopefully not, though.
Spent a weekend in Vegas. Did the usual Vegas things, you know, all-you-can-eat buffets, all-you-can-drink bars, fountain at the Bellagio, puked on Wayne Newton, won a fortune at the tables, got chased by gangsters, lost a fortune at the slots, married a floosie, and danced with the Chippendales on the Hoover Dam. Although, now that I come to think of it, that may have been a vodka-tonic induced dream.
I wrote a new play! It's short, needs a bit of work, but with the Surfacing deadline coming up, I should totally get on that and finish it. Plus, the Green Fuse deadline is coming up, so I need to either polish off an old story from Meramec or write something new...I guess, though, that I can either edit a play and a story or write a new story, and since I want to submit to both, I should focus on revisions.
For those of you unaware, Surfacing is the student written-directed-acted-in festival at Webster, and the Green Fuse is the student literary magazine. Oh, I forgot...I've also got a submission into Currents from last spring. Currents is the Meramec student literary magazine. I could be published twice and produced once in the same calender year! That would be awesome! Let's aim for that...although, all I can really do is submit, after that it's out of my hands.
Oh, speaking of things being out of my hands, I stepped down from my specialist position at Target. Most of this has to do with school scheduling, classes and workstudy you know, but part of it has to do with (to use Will Wilcox's famous New Year's 1997 quote) "large amounts of bullshit" that I have put up with recently, the most recent being the reaction of my executive team leader when I told her the news. She lacks tact. She lacks compassion. She lacks the capacity to be a decent person. Just for the record, it has nothing to do with me "bailing out" on my department or the store. Jerry will be leaving, and they need somebody to take over ad prep, and preferrably somebody who knows how to do it, so no, I am not bailing out on the store. I have offered my services to do the early morning return scans for the Entertainment department and help out with street date when it is needed, so I am not bailing out on my department. I feel awful that I am stepping down because Melissa will have trouble without me. It will be hard to train a new specialist, even if it is who we think it's going to be. I even offered to train my replacement. I feel a little bit like I am letting down Melissa, Cleo, my old ETL Katie who battled so hard for me, and Jackie and Shelly who always listened, and Jeff who I'm pretty sure wouldn't have let me step down a year ago when I was first thinking about it. But I think the only way to let my current ETL down would be to continue in my position. This way, it's like I'm playing into her hands.
Except that I'm not playing into her hands, I'm stepping down because my academic career depends on it. But try telling her that. She won't hear it because she doesn't listen to me, and never has. And that is one of the reasons I am stepping down. Not the main reason, but it certainly played a role.
So there we go.
Music to Blog By:
Christmas Music because it is December 17th after all.
Discussed in this post:
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Why Math has Ruined My Life
Because Math loves adding.
Because Math loves adding activities and obligations to my days.
Because Math loves adding everything to my days.
Except.
Math has never added a single extra second to my days.
When Math has subtracted something from my day, Math has then added something twice as time consuming, so it feels like all that has actually been subtracted is seconds, minutes, or hours.
This is why Math has ruined my life.
That, and I have to spend my Tuesday nights getting accosted by horny fourteen year old Webster Groves High School freshmen girls. Which, of course, I may have liked back in 1997 when I was a fourteen year old Webster Groves High School freshman boy, but now that I'm married and quite a bit older and rather cognizant of statutory rape laws, I am less inclined to be amused by or interested in the attentions of said females.
Which brings me to another reason I hate Math.
Because doing Math homework takes time away from Writing, or riding, or doing other homeworks.
Stupid Math.
Music to Blog By: Blind Melon - Three is the Magic Number
(you've got to be kidding me...that's really what's playing...)
Discussed in this post:
Because Math loves adding activities and obligations to my days.
Because Math loves adding everything to my days.
Except.
Math has never added a single extra second to my days.
When Math has subtracted something from my day, Math has then added something twice as time consuming, so it feels like all that has actually been subtracted is seconds, minutes, or hours.
This is why Math has ruined my life.
That, and I have to spend my Tuesday nights getting accosted by horny fourteen year old Webster Groves High School freshmen girls. Which, of course, I may have liked back in 1997 when I was a fourteen year old Webster Groves High School freshman boy, but now that I'm married and quite a bit older and rather cognizant of statutory rape laws, I am less inclined to be amused by or interested in the attentions of said females.
Which brings me to another reason I hate Math.
Because doing Math homework takes time away from Writing, or riding, or doing other homeworks.
Stupid Math.
Music to Blog By: Blind Melon - Three is the Magic Number
(you've got to be kidding me...that's really what's playing...)
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Urban Exploration
Check out the last link over on my links section. I just found this site about Urban Exploration of abandoned buildings, while I was looking for information about the River Roads Mall in Jennings, MO. Also, check out the host site, because it's got more blogs about urban exploration.
I think this is something I would like to know more about. I'm not sure I'm cut out for actually being an explorer myself, not just because I'm a weenie little lanky girly man, but also because I don't really have time. However, it's an interesting idea, and something that I find fascinating. I can remember my uncle Dennis telling me of his college-days Urban Exploration, not only in Lawrence, KS where he went to school, but also in Kansas City and here in St. Louis; particularly the Continental Life Insurance Building in Grand Center. This building is, of course, now a set of very upscale condos, so any exploration I wanted to do there would hinge on me knowing somebody that lives there. Oh well. Perhaps we'll see a story involving this sort of thing...perhaps not, I'm going to do more research on it.
So, no blogitty for weeks and weeks and all of a sudden, THREE blogs in two days.
I guess there's got to be a break in the monotony, but Jesus when it rains how it pours.
Music to Blog By: OK Go - Here It Goes Again
Discussed in this post:
I think this is something I would like to know more about. I'm not sure I'm cut out for actually being an explorer myself, not just because I'm a weenie little lanky girly man, but also because I don't really have time. However, it's an interesting idea, and something that I find fascinating. I can remember my uncle Dennis telling me of his college-days Urban Exploration, not only in Lawrence, KS where he went to school, but also in Kansas City and here in St. Louis; particularly the Continental Life Insurance Building in Grand Center. This building is, of course, now a set of very upscale condos, so any exploration I wanted to do there would hinge on me knowing somebody that lives there. Oh well. Perhaps we'll see a story involving this sort of thing...perhaps not, I'm going to do more research on it.
So, no blogitty for weeks and weeks and all of a sudden, THREE blogs in two days.
I guess there's got to be a break in the monotony, but Jesus when it rains how it pours.
Music to Blog By: OK Go - Here It Goes Again
Discussed in this post:
Are We Dogs, or Are We Men?
Just saw an ad for Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal. Aside from the overall affront to my hope for Americans that we can beat obesity without resulting to gimmicks (I mean, come on, people, it's not that hard to take a ten minute walk once a week and hold off on seconds at dinner time every so often), I noticed something oddly familiar about the font used for the words Weight Control on the boxes. This nagged at me for several minutes.
It wasn't until later, when I went back to the Pet Care department at work, that I noticed that the font and color for the text was the exact same for the same words on the Purina Farms Weight Control Dog Chow. Coincidence?
My friends out there in the Blogniverse (it's a new word, don't try and look it up, but give Webster's a few years and then, when they find out I'm the first one that used it, my repuation as a writer will be etched in stone for all eternity), let us not bow to the condescension enforced upon us by the joint evil that is the Quaker/Purina alliance (Quakers/Purina...Quakers and Puritans?). Let us rise above, excercise, eat right, and above all, don't let Corporate America turn you into a dog.
If you stand with me, and fight, a mighty blow will be struck in the name of Freedom and Liberty (Liberty = Liberal = Not a Bad Word, You Bastard Conservatives, plus with all your spending on cutting down trees, digging up oil and destroying other countries, just what is it you're Conserving?). If you choose to ignore this, and let The Quakers and The Puritans take you down a whole peg, well...then, the Terrorists win.
This Blog has been brought to you by the joint venture Iams Science Diet/Nabisco Corporations.
It wasn't until later, when I went back to the Pet Care department at work, that I noticed that the font and color for the text was the exact same for the same words on the Purina Farms Weight Control Dog Chow. Coincidence?
My friends out there in the Blogniverse (it's a new word, don't try and look it up, but give Webster's a few years and then, when they find out I'm the first one that used it, my repuation as a writer will be etched in stone for all eternity), let us not bow to the condescension enforced upon us by the joint evil that is the Quaker/Purina alliance (Quakers/Purina...Quakers and Puritans?). Let us rise above, excercise, eat right, and above all, don't let Corporate America turn you into a dog.
If you stand with me, and fight, a mighty blow will be struck in the name of Freedom and Liberty (Liberty = Liberal = Not a Bad Word, You Bastard Conservatives, plus with all your spending on cutting down trees, digging up oil and destroying other countries, just what is it you're Conserving?). If you choose to ignore this, and let The Quakers and The Puritans take you down a whole peg, well...then, the Terrorists win.
This Blog has been brought to you by the joint venture Iams Science Diet/Nabisco Corporations.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Oops, I Pulled a Jerry...
Had to be done.
So, sorry to all, here's an update:
I started school at the end of August, new school, Webster University. The classes are fantastic but the business office can lick my nutpick (also been listening to the Weekly Puzzle on NPR's Weekend Edition). Things I have learned so far in my classes are; Christopher Columbus receives the distinction of being the first emo-kid in the New World (just read his letters to Isabelle and Ferdinand in 1502); Henrik Ibsen is not too cool for school, in fact he is not cool enough for school; WGHS Room 251 harbors bad karma for me, even now, five years after I graduated and seven years after I had a class in that room; Fred McMurray is creepy when he tries to be smooth with the ladies.
Things I have learned outside of class; Parking is a bitch, no matter how many new parking lots they open; workstudy is a lot more study than work it seems; going to school full time and working full time and having workstudy and trying to take care of a house is not as easy as it sounds; Kathleen Weber is not to be trusted with your film noir book; I'm still at least as good at Improv as I was in high school; as much as I miss the dorm experience, I wouldn't want to live with the freshmen; Allegra Grazanti (who went to my high school no less) severely underestimates the appeal the words "Free Pizza" have on a flyer, even if the flyer is advertising something as mundane as Literature Club; Chris Richards must not go to school there, because I find it hard to believe that we are in the same year, same major, and the same emphasis even, and yet have never seen each other on campus; reading Freud or Emerson at work makes you look like the biggest geek ever.
Also, I did not partake in the three day novel contest. Nor did I participate in the Gateway Cup. I did homework, Tour de Judy, went to a bar with some friends, and hung out with my family.
And today, I overslept due to the inordinate amount of homework I have (which I am neglecting to do right now, actually), had a slow-onset panic attack that reached full blown proportions around 10:45 this morning, and so I had to go home. Boo.
I really want to step down. Maybe even find a new job closer to campus. Hmm.
Anybody have any ideas?
So, sorry to all, here's an update:
I started school at the end of August, new school, Webster University. The classes are fantastic but the business office can lick my nutpick (also been listening to the Weekly Puzzle on NPR's Weekend Edition). Things I have learned so far in my classes are; Christopher Columbus receives the distinction of being the first emo-kid in the New World (just read his letters to Isabelle and Ferdinand in 1502); Henrik Ibsen is not too cool for school, in fact he is not cool enough for school; WGHS Room 251 harbors bad karma for me, even now, five years after I graduated and seven years after I had a class in that room; Fred McMurray is creepy when he tries to be smooth with the ladies.
Things I have learned outside of class; Parking is a bitch, no matter how many new parking lots they open; workstudy is a lot more study than work it seems; going to school full time and working full time and having workstudy and trying to take care of a house is not as easy as it sounds; Kathleen Weber is not to be trusted with your film noir book; I'm still at least as good at Improv as I was in high school; as much as I miss the dorm experience, I wouldn't want to live with the freshmen; Allegra Grazanti (who went to my high school no less) severely underestimates the appeal the words "Free Pizza" have on a flyer, even if the flyer is advertising something as mundane as Literature Club; Chris Richards must not go to school there, because I find it hard to believe that we are in the same year, same major, and the same emphasis even, and yet have never seen each other on campus; reading Freud or Emerson at work makes you look like the biggest geek ever.
Also, I did not partake in the three day novel contest. Nor did I participate in the Gateway Cup. I did homework, Tour de Judy, went to a bar with some friends, and hung out with my family.
And today, I overslept due to the inordinate amount of homework I have (which I am neglecting to do right now, actually), had a slow-onset panic attack that reached full blown proportions around 10:45 this morning, and so I had to go home. Boo.
I really want to step down. Maybe even find a new job closer to campus. Hmm.
Anybody have any ideas?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Cry Sadness Right Now
Haha, that's the first line of a Haiku I wrote Monday, titled "Haiku, Emo Style." Ask Rich about it. But really, the reason I am crying sadness (though not really, 'tis just a saying) is that I don't think enough people read my cycling blog, which is sad because it's exceedingly clever and insightful. Well, no, but it's a nice bit of writing that's not written about writing, but rather about riding, and so it's much less cumbersome to read (at least for me) than this blog is. That having been said, I think I should be writing more than just in blog form, but I am glad I started my cycling blog as it gives me a reason to sit down several times a week and flex my creative muscle. So, if for nothing else, go read it because you're my friend and don't want to piss me off.
And so, for bringing me here, Bill Gates Must Die!
Music to Blog By: John Vanderslice - Bill Gates Must Die!
Discussed in this post:
And so, for bringing me here, Bill Gates Must Die!
Music to Blog By: John Vanderslice - Bill Gates Must Die!
Discussed in this post:
Saturday, July 08, 2006
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Writer
How clever am I?
Unfortunately, being that it's July, and I already have a limited amount of free time, that free time has not been spent writing since July First, but rather catching up on le Tour de France, or ranting about it on my cycling blog, or watching it, or playing with my bike. Add to that the fact my cat is kinda sick (kinda = lots), that means I haven't been writing.
Now, I have the germ of an idea in my head. It involves (of course) cycling. But instead of being about Banning Jacobs (my resident semi-pro cyclist) it's probably going to be about James, Will and Colin's friend from Karlston, MO who went to college with them. He's one of my rarely used characters, the only major problem he's ever encountered was that his high school girlfriend broke up with him for some troglodyte-19-year-old-sophomore-type, and that problem was gracefully overshadowed by William's college application essay dilemma. So, I think it's time to add depth to him, instead of just have him being this comic foil, someone to further the plot without disrupting it. You may recall, he played a key role in setting up Michael Rose with Brooke Fairman, and then promptly vanished from the story line.
So, what's going on with James? Well, after college, he met Brooke's friend Cynthia, and finally attempting to get his feet wet after a particularly tragic break-up, he acquiesced to Colin and Brooke's urging and took Cynthia out on a date. Four months later, they were married. And this is where we jump into the new story, after the marriage, after Brooke leaves Minnesota for Honolulu, after Colin, Tom and Michael get bested by her as she's leaving, and just as James rides his bike through Minnehaha park.
Music to Blog By: Brewer - One Toke Over the Line
Discussed in this post:
Unfortunately, being that it's July, and I already have a limited amount of free time, that free time has not been spent writing since July First, but rather catching up on le Tour de France, or ranting about it on my cycling blog, or watching it, or playing with my bike. Add to that the fact my cat is kinda sick (kinda = lots), that means I haven't been writing.
Now, I have the germ of an idea in my head. It involves (of course) cycling. But instead of being about Banning Jacobs (my resident semi-pro cyclist) it's probably going to be about James, Will and Colin's friend from Karlston, MO who went to college with them. He's one of my rarely used characters, the only major problem he's ever encountered was that his high school girlfriend broke up with him for some troglodyte-19-year-old-sophomore-type, and that problem was gracefully overshadowed by William's college application essay dilemma. So, I think it's time to add depth to him, instead of just have him being this comic foil, someone to further the plot without disrupting it. You may recall, he played a key role in setting up Michael Rose with Brooke Fairman, and then promptly vanished from the story line.
So, what's going on with James? Well, after college, he met Brooke's friend Cynthia, and finally attempting to get his feet wet after a particularly tragic break-up, he acquiesced to Colin and Brooke's urging and took Cynthia out on a date. Four months later, they were married. And this is where we jump into the new story, after the marriage, after Brooke leaves Minnesota for Honolulu, after Colin, Tom and Michael get bested by her as she's leaving, and just as James rides his bike through Minnehaha park.
Music to Blog By: Brewer - One Toke Over the Line
Discussed in this post:
Monday, June 26, 2006
AHEM...TO THOSE INTERESTED IN A WRITING GROUP...
Alright, folks, well, I went through some careful planning, e-mailed a bunch of people, got a handful of responses, set the first meeting for June 25th, and one person showed up. Well, no, okay, two people, Angelic and her other half, Joe, but for the love of all things good and decent, why didn't anybody else come? You see, it would have been nice to have at least one other person there, so we could maybe discuss some things. Oh well...ridiculous. I know that a few people who had wanted to come couldn't make it, and they had told me they couldn't make it, but there were several who just didn't show. Okay. Maybe we should try this again. Two weeks from yesterday, I say we have another go. Anybody want to host it?
Thursday, May 25, 2006
To Those Interested In A Writing Group...
Hello everybody. I really meant to post this right away, after the semester ended, but my father-in-law had a heart attack the day we got our portfolios back, so, that sort of drove everything from my mind. Anyway, this is about the writing group I mentioned before. Is everybody still game? Here's my idea: we get a bunch of people together (all of us writers, so feel free to invite others if you think they'll enjoy it) maybe once a month, not always at the same place (take turns hosting or something, I don't know), and do a workshop sort of thing. I discussed this (briefly) with Chris, because she had asked if it was going to be strictly fiction or if other styles would be okay (poetry, non-fiction, et al). I don't want this to be too specific, as far as saying it has to be short stories or it has to be this or that or whatever, but instead leave it up to the writer to decide what to write, and the only thing the rest of us need to worry about is the workshop aspect of it.
The reasoning behind this is, to me anyway, that the workshop helps me understand my own writing better, and I guess it does the same for the rest of you. As writers, we're always striving for something, wether it be the perfect story or the perfect moment in the story, or the perfect line of poetry, or capturing the way you felt when your uncle tossed you into the pool though you couldn't swim and you were wearing cuordoroy pants and spiderman boots (not that that ever happened to me...), or whatever. I ramble, sorry. See, I think our first workshop could be done solely on this e-mail alone. Anyway, if people are still interested, e-mail me back, and we'll try to work out some details somehow. I would love to maybe get some better way of getting in touch with people, something more instantaneous and interactive (oh god, I sound like a technofile all of a sudden...I'm talking about a group message board, ack!). We'll think of something. Right now, I am thinking maybe one Sunday a month, get together, have some food, some drinks, some readings and lively discussions, and of course only the occasional throwing of something breakable to the ground accompanied by screams of "You just don't get my writing, nobody does! I'm the next f*cking Faulkner and you're all just too blind to see!"
Also, as I said, if you have any friends you think may be interested not from class, feel free to invite them along. And, in addition, um, Mark and Angelic...I seem to have misplaced everybody's e-mail from fall semester. Well, except for you two. Bad e-managment on my part. Anyway, yes. So, an almost carbon-copy of this e-mail is going into my blog and on my myspace profile (there's that technofile thing again) and hopefully that gets the word out a bit more.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Music to Blog By: The Stranglers - Golden Brown
The reasoning behind this is, to me anyway, that the workshop helps me understand my own writing better, and I guess it does the same for the rest of you. As writers, we're always striving for something, wether it be the perfect story or the perfect moment in the story, or the perfect line of poetry, or capturing the way you felt when your uncle tossed you into the pool though you couldn't swim and you were wearing cuordoroy pants and spiderman boots (not that that ever happened to me...), or whatever. I ramble, sorry. See, I think our first workshop could be done solely on this e-mail alone. Anyway, if people are still interested, e-mail me back, and we'll try to work out some details somehow. I would love to maybe get some better way of getting in touch with people, something more instantaneous and interactive (oh god, I sound like a technofile all of a sudden...I'm talking about a group message board, ack!). We'll think of something. Right now, I am thinking maybe one Sunday a month, get together, have some food, some drinks, some readings and lively discussions, and of course only the occasional throwing of something breakable to the ground accompanied by screams of "You just don't get my writing, nobody does! I'm the next f*cking Faulkner and you're all just too blind to see!"
Also, as I said, if you have any friends you think may be interested not from class, feel free to invite them along. And, in addition, um, Mark and Angelic...I seem to have misplaced everybody's e-mail from fall semester. Well, except for you two. Bad e-managment on my part. Anyway, yes. So, an almost carbon-copy of this e-mail is going into my blog and on my myspace profile (there's that technofile thing again) and hopefully that gets the word out a bit more.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Music to Blog By: The Stranglers - Golden Brown
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Norfolk, NE
This seems to be a recurring theme, huh? I write a post and the title is, enigmatically at first, just the name of a city and a state. And so, the pondering begins. Is Elliot visiting relatives? Is he imagining another town for his fiction?
My father-in-law went in for surgery on Tuesday. This was planned, because he had bone spurs on his spine that had to be removed, because they were causing him a lot of pain. He was unable to walk or lie flat. So, on Tuesday evening, just as they were finishing the surgery (which went well except for the fact that his bones were tougher than expected), he had a heart attack. Terrifying, yes, but right place and right time. They were able to respond instantaneously. My mother-in-law began the calls around 7:30, going down the list of her ten children, so Kathy was number 7 (but got told 8th because Dan lives in Norfolk) and we were called close to 8. We made plans to leave immediately.
I would like to, at this point, thank Target. I called to let them know I had to go out of town for a few days, and that I would miss my Thursday and Friday shifts. I was told that family is important and that it would be no problem.
We left first thing Wednesday morning, arrived just as they were removing his breathing tube, so he could talk. All ten kids are here now (well, the two youngest are back home, because they have school in the morning but they were here) and everything is looking up, but still. What a harrowing experience for everybody. It's nice to see how much this family cares and it's great that we can smile and laugh and act so normal in the face of things. It's great, it's fantastic, and I think, down the road, I may have a story to write about it.
Greetings from Nebraska.
My father-in-law went in for surgery on Tuesday. This was planned, because he had bone spurs on his spine that had to be removed, because they were causing him a lot of pain. He was unable to walk or lie flat. So, on Tuesday evening, just as they were finishing the surgery (which went well except for the fact that his bones were tougher than expected), he had a heart attack. Terrifying, yes, but right place and right time. They were able to respond instantaneously. My mother-in-law began the calls around 7:30, going down the list of her ten children, so Kathy was number 7 (but got told 8th because Dan lives in Norfolk) and we were called close to 8. We made plans to leave immediately.
I would like to, at this point, thank Target. I called to let them know I had to go out of town for a few days, and that I would miss my Thursday and Friday shifts. I was told that family is important and that it would be no problem.
We left first thing Wednesday morning, arrived just as they were removing his breathing tube, so he could talk. All ten kids are here now (well, the two youngest are back home, because they have school in the morning but they were here) and everything is looking up, but still. What a harrowing experience for everybody. It's nice to see how much this family cares and it's great that we can smile and laugh and act so normal in the face of things. It's great, it's fantastic, and I think, down the road, I may have a story to write about it.
Greetings from Nebraska.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Portfolio
So, I turned in my Fiction Writing portfolio today. Of course, having turned it in, I wish I had it back so I could do a little bit more work, but Angela (that's my teacher, Angela Hamilton. That is her name and she is my teacher) will just have to deal with it as is. Or rather, I will have to deal with it as is.
I apologize, Mark (that's my friend, Mark Baier. That is his name and he is my friend) for volunteering you to read today when you didn't have the right glasses. You did a great job of 700 Club Bashing. That aside, I look forward to reading the rest of your stories, all that you have to write from now on.
And now, an ode to those others who read today (should they ever find my blog):
Ryan, your writing is vivid and visual, and I'm glad I sat next to you, because your doodling kept me usefully entertained.
Monique, of course now I want to read the whole thing. I know you weren't thrilled with story two, but I sure did like it, and story three was no different.
Caroline, even moreso with the revisions, your writing (of that particular story) holds a wonderful tone of a child's innocence, which I am sure I could probably not pull off in my writing anymore. I applaud and admire you for that.
Matt S., your writing jumps off the page. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to read more of your work. Thanks for pouring my soda, too. Nice form.
Jeff, keep working, you will continue to improve. I was impressed with the progress on story one from our first workshop.
Chris, as always your writing invites me to close my eyes and watch. You make it play across the mind's eye, and it's because you are such a strong poet that makes you such a strong fiction writer.
Music to Blog by: Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
and...
Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
and...
Planet Smashers - Life of the Party
Discussed in this post:
I apologize, Mark (that's my friend, Mark Baier. That is his name and he is my friend) for volunteering you to read today when you didn't have the right glasses. You did a great job of 700 Club Bashing. That aside, I look forward to reading the rest of your stories, all that you have to write from now on.
And now, an ode to those others who read today (should they ever find my blog):
Ryan, your writing is vivid and visual, and I'm glad I sat next to you, because your doodling kept me usefully entertained.
Monique, of course now I want to read the whole thing. I know you weren't thrilled with story two, but I sure did like it, and story three was no different.
Caroline, even moreso with the revisions, your writing (of that particular story) holds a wonderful tone of a child's innocence, which I am sure I could probably not pull off in my writing anymore. I applaud and admire you for that.
Matt S., your writing jumps off the page. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to read more of your work. Thanks for pouring my soda, too. Nice form.
Jeff, keep working, you will continue to improve. I was impressed with the progress on story one from our first workshop.
Chris, as always your writing invites me to close my eyes and watch. You make it play across the mind's eye, and it's because you are such a strong poet that makes you such a strong fiction writer.
Music to Blog by: Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
and...
Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
and...
Planet Smashers - Life of the Party
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, April 27, 2006
An out-of-topic Rant...
...then I promise, right back to writing.
Obligations are obligations, let's be clear on that. Yes, it is nice to have the exact same schedule every week, because it's predictable, and even those of us who adore a last-minute change of plans--say, taking off to the Bahamas instead of spending the weekend doing yardwork--like our lives to be, for the most part, ordered and predictable. But, obligations are obligations, and you are obliged, as a human being who works to earn money to survive, to check and make sure that the status quo for this week has not experienced any changes. What am I driving at here? I'll tell you.
Check your work schedule, Robb.
I haven't slept in a day and a half. With my fiction portfolio due on Tuesday (with complete revisions on "How to Write a Three Day Novel," "Look At How Ugly the Stars Are," "Kissing Girls, Here and There," and a completely new, never-before-seen story (which I haven't started, really, because every time I start I get stuck and revise "Kissing" some more, a long process I won't bore you with details of at the moment), the refinance on the house, the ever-worsening bath tub caulk fiasco, and (of course) the 4 am to 12:30 pm entertainment scan shift at work this morning, (oh, and also the all-day preparation of dinner yesterday, which, in reality, I won't complain about because I love grilling, even if it is at 11:45 in the morning, and I can still smell the porksteak and the bbq marinade it cooked in for five hours), I just sort of depended on the schedule, hoping that I had built in enough time to do work, homework, sleep, house duties. I also depended on other people's scheduling abilities, which time has tried to teach me again and again is useless, but this time I think I really got it. So, five employees scheduled 4-12:30. Let's call the four that were not me Rich, Cleo, David and Robb. That is, actually, their names, so that will make it easier. Rich and Cleo were no problem at all. Fantastic as always. David called at 4:30 to ask if he was still needed. Problem? Yes. Still needed. Mostly, still needed because Robb hadn't shown up. At least David had the decency to call. Whatever, though. This just means that I was right in February when I said to myself, "Robb isn't really, uh, he's not so good." Now, on top of being two hours late on Tuesday, he should get into some real trouble maybe. This will get the ball sssssssssllllllllllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllllllllyyyyyyy rolling (that's meant to mean it will roll very slowly as it always does at the big red bullseye) on his going bye-bye.
Okay, that's enough, no more work-related rants, I intend for this blog to be a haven from such drivel, but really, I just had to vent a little bit.
Music to Blog By:
Come Find Yourself by The Fun Lovin' Criminals
(It's on my Essentials playlist. Do you have an Essentials playlist? You should.)
Discussed in this post:
Obligations are obligations, let's be clear on that. Yes, it is nice to have the exact same schedule every week, because it's predictable, and even those of us who adore a last-minute change of plans--say, taking off to the Bahamas instead of spending the weekend doing yardwork--like our lives to be, for the most part, ordered and predictable. But, obligations are obligations, and you are obliged, as a human being who works to earn money to survive, to check and make sure that the status quo for this week has not experienced any changes. What am I driving at here? I'll tell you.
Check your work schedule, Robb.
I haven't slept in a day and a half. With my fiction portfolio due on Tuesday (with complete revisions on "How to Write a Three Day Novel," "Look At How Ugly the Stars Are," "Kissing Girls, Here and There," and a completely new, never-before-seen story (which I haven't started, really, because every time I start I get stuck and revise "Kissing" some more, a long process I won't bore you with details of at the moment), the refinance on the house, the ever-worsening bath tub caulk fiasco, and (of course) the 4 am to 12:30 pm entertainment scan shift at work this morning, (oh, and also the all-day preparation of dinner yesterday, which, in reality, I won't complain about because I love grilling, even if it is at 11:45 in the morning, and I can still smell the porksteak and the bbq marinade it cooked in for five hours), I just sort of depended on the schedule, hoping that I had built in enough time to do work, homework, sleep, house duties. I also depended on other people's scheduling abilities, which time has tried to teach me again and again is useless, but this time I think I really got it. So, five employees scheduled 4-12:30. Let's call the four that were not me Rich, Cleo, David and Robb. That is, actually, their names, so that will make it easier. Rich and Cleo were no problem at all. Fantastic as always. David called at 4:30 to ask if he was still needed. Problem? Yes. Still needed. Mostly, still needed because Robb hadn't shown up. At least David had the decency to call. Whatever, though. This just means that I was right in February when I said to myself, "Robb isn't really, uh, he's not so good." Now, on top of being two hours late on Tuesday, he should get into some real trouble maybe. This will get the ball sssssssssllllllllllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllllllllyyyyyyy rolling (that's meant to mean it will roll very slowly as it always does at the big red bullseye) on his going bye-bye.
Okay, that's enough, no more work-related rants, I intend for this blog to be a haven from such drivel, but really, I just had to vent a little bit.
Music to Blog By:
Come Find Yourself by The Fun Lovin' Criminals
(It's on my Essentials playlist. Do you have an Essentials playlist? You should.)
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Writing Exercise, and Advice *UPDATED*
*In the grand tradition of giving credit where credit is due, I have this disclaimer to add:
The following writing exercise was suggested to me by Pam Garvey, a Creative Writing instructor at St. Louis Community College at Meramec.*
Sometimes, as a writer, I get bogged down in a certain narrative style, point of view, tone, or language (use of language, not, you know, stuck using Czechoslovakian). Here is a handy exercise that really has helped me figure out how I am going to go about fixing my latest short story (the twenty-one page epic "Kissing Girls, Here and There"). I had gotten only as far as this exercise gets, and I wasn't sure where else to take it, so I rewrote the beginning a different way. I ultimately stuck with the original way, but the second way helped so much in that it let me see my main character through eyes that were not his. I even thought about going back and rewriting it from yet another perspective, and in fact I am considering taking the whole story and writing it in four different ways (having already written the "other side of the story" with "Look At How God Damn Ugly the Stars Are") just to see how else my characters can surprise me.
Without further ado, the exercise:
Take a passage from a longer short story you have written or are in the process of writing, or take an entire piece of shorter, flash-style fiction (say, 500 words or less) and rewrite it either from another narrative perspective (i.e. third person instead of first person, second person instead of third, or go more subtle and write it in third person limited perspective if it's written third person omniscient) or rewrite it using another character as the conduit through which we see the world you have created. If you are feeling ambitious (like I was), try doing both; if you've originally written it in third person omniscient with Character A as the main conduit through which we see the world, maybe try writing it in first person with Character B or even Character C as the narrator.
I have taken an excerpt from my WiP (work in progress, from now on I won't remind you of that) titled "Kissing Girls, Here and There" and rewritten it. The original text (in third person limited) is first, then following is the exercise, written in first person through a different character:
Cameron decided to become a math tutor, because he didn’t have a job, didn’t need one anyway, but was bored and wanted something to do. So, he talked to his first semester math teacher and that’s how he met Amanda; the week before Valentine’s Day she knocked on his door and Banning opened it.
“Hello, what can I do for you?” he asked, barely looking at her as he kicked a foot-shaped doorstop into place and wandered back to the middle of the room where his bicycle sat, dismantled.
“Bike trouble?” she asked, picking her way to a chair, stepping daintily around sprockets and other unidentifiable bits of bicycle. Cameron was lying on the bottom bunk of the beds, reading an electronics magazine. Peering from behind the pages, he watched her walk with grace, a dangerous span of four feet, the floor littered with his roommate’s perpetual junk, but she didn’t seem to be looking down; her large, soft blue eyes never wavered from their mark; the plush easy chair near the head of the bed. Cameron sat up, folded the magazine over his right leg, and immediately wished he had showered after his run. She sat in the chair and, for the first time, made eye contact with him. “Which one of you is Cameron?” she asked.
“That’s him,” Banning said, pointing at Cameron, who smiled at her. She smiled back, her lips easily moving into place, her eyes growing and, he thought, glowing.
“I’m your math student,” she said. “Amanda Abrahms. Doctor Macke said you could help anybody get an ‘A’ in his class. I’ll take a ‘B’ so you won’t have to work as hard, though.” He smiled at this, let out a little bit of a laugh. She laughed out loud, so loud it shook Cameron’s chest. “We’re going to have a problem if you don’t start talking.” She gave him a coy look.
“Fantastic shirt,” he finally said, though there was nothing spectacular about the shirt. She was wearing a UC Boulder t-shirt over a pink long sleeve tee. He swung his legs to the ground and the magazine fell to the floor. He bent over to pick it up, but it had slid close to her foot and she was reaching down to get it, too. They bumped heads, and both came up after exchanging “ohs” and a “sorry” or two.
New Text:
My roommate Cameron never did anything but go to class and take these long walks with his camera. He came to a bike race I did the third week of first semester and took some pictures, but that was the extent of our sharing anything more than living space. It must be nice, I thought, to have enough money coming from home that you don’t need to have a job, but he seemed bored and restless anyway so I was glad when he announced he was going to be tutoring second semester.
It took until the first week of February to find somebody to tutor. Racing season was getting ready to start, so I had my racing bike disassembled in our dorm room on Wednesday that week when somebody knocked on our door. “That’s probably my student,” he said from behind his magazine, or catalogue, whatever it was. He was laying on his bed, and despite the fact that I had grease all over my hands, he didn’t show even the slightest movement towards answering the door.
“I’ll get it,” I said after a minute. I opened the door and noticed a girl, briefly, before I pushed our doorstop into place to keep the door opened. “Hello, what can I do for you?” I asked. I walked back to my spot to continue cleaning my bike.
She started walking to this chair in our room that Cameron brought back with him from winter break and said, “Bike trouble?” I didn’t answer, just kept cleaning. I heard her sit down and sigh. “Which one of you is Cameron?” she asked.
When Cameron didn’t respond, I pointed and said, “That’s him.”
“I’m your math student,” she said. “Amanda Abrahms. Doctor Macke said you could help anybody get an ‘A’ in his class. I’ll take a ‘B’ so you won’t have to work as hard, though.” I continued cleaning, wiping away dirt from the crankcase, and I heard her laugh out loud. “We’re going to have a problem if you don’t start talking.”
Cameron’s response was, “Fantastic shirt.” I looked over at him as he dropped his magazine. The two of them bent down to pick it up and bumped heads, giggling like children. I glanced over at Cameron’s desk where, out of view from either of them, a picture of his girlfriend smiled at me.
As you can see, the story comes out much differently through Banning's eyes, and we have some immediate sources of conflict not prevelant in the first excerpt, though these later come out in the continuation of Cameron's story.
Hopefully, somebody out there stumbled upon this who was stuck with writer's block and this helped. Most likely, though, Jerry, Colleen, Kathy, Mo, Kevin, Alan, Mom, Bridget, Mark, and various other hangers-on (fellow Targeteers, any of you in my creative writing class who know how to find the blog, anyone from Art Conspiracy who may have somehow managed to find my ancient profile and gallery in the sea of new postings there, old friends clicking on AIM profile links, and anybody else that stumbled blindly here--welcome, by the way--plus anyone I forgot about) will read it and say, "Good Lord, the boy does ramble. Let's see what our dumb president is up to."
Use this advice and this exercise wisely. In the wrong hands, it could wreak a havoc so dangerous, so destructive, so powerfully dangerous, that children everywhere will, um, eventually peter out and mumble incoherently when they can't think of a good way to finish what they started to say...
Music to Blog By: Blood, Sweat and Tears - Forty Thousand Head Men
(I like me some B,S,&T, so S,B,&L*)
*Shut it, Bite it, and Leave
Discussed in this post:
The following writing exercise was suggested to me by Pam Garvey, a Creative Writing instructor at St. Louis Community College at Meramec.*
Sometimes, as a writer, I get bogged down in a certain narrative style, point of view, tone, or language (use of language, not, you know, stuck using Czechoslovakian). Here is a handy exercise that really has helped me figure out how I am going to go about fixing my latest short story (the twenty-one page epic "Kissing Girls, Here and There"). I had gotten only as far as this exercise gets, and I wasn't sure where else to take it, so I rewrote the beginning a different way. I ultimately stuck with the original way, but the second way helped so much in that it let me see my main character through eyes that were not his. I even thought about going back and rewriting it from yet another perspective, and in fact I am considering taking the whole story and writing it in four different ways (having already written the "other side of the story" with "Look At How God Damn Ugly the Stars Are") just to see how else my characters can surprise me.
Without further ado, the exercise:
Take a passage from a longer short story you have written or are in the process of writing, or take an entire piece of shorter, flash-style fiction (say, 500 words or less) and rewrite it either from another narrative perspective (i.e. third person instead of first person, second person instead of third, or go more subtle and write it in third person limited perspective if it's written third person omniscient) or rewrite it using another character as the conduit through which we see the world you have created. If you are feeling ambitious (like I was), try doing both; if you've originally written it in third person omniscient with Character A as the main conduit through which we see the world, maybe try writing it in first person with Character B or even Character C as the narrator.
I have taken an excerpt from my WiP (work in progress, from now on I won't remind you of that) titled "Kissing Girls, Here and There" and rewritten it. The original text (in third person limited) is first, then following is the exercise, written in first person through a different character:
Cameron decided to become a math tutor, because he didn’t have a job, didn’t need one anyway, but was bored and wanted something to do. So, he talked to his first semester math teacher and that’s how he met Amanda; the week before Valentine’s Day she knocked on his door and Banning opened it.
“Hello, what can I do for you?” he asked, barely looking at her as he kicked a foot-shaped doorstop into place and wandered back to the middle of the room where his bicycle sat, dismantled.
“Bike trouble?” she asked, picking her way to a chair, stepping daintily around sprockets and other unidentifiable bits of bicycle. Cameron was lying on the bottom bunk of the beds, reading an electronics magazine. Peering from behind the pages, he watched her walk with grace, a dangerous span of four feet, the floor littered with his roommate’s perpetual junk, but she didn’t seem to be looking down; her large, soft blue eyes never wavered from their mark; the plush easy chair near the head of the bed. Cameron sat up, folded the magazine over his right leg, and immediately wished he had showered after his run. She sat in the chair and, for the first time, made eye contact with him. “Which one of you is Cameron?” she asked.
“That’s him,” Banning said, pointing at Cameron, who smiled at her. She smiled back, her lips easily moving into place, her eyes growing and, he thought, glowing.
“I’m your math student,” she said. “Amanda Abrahms. Doctor Macke said you could help anybody get an ‘A’ in his class. I’ll take a ‘B’ so you won’t have to work as hard, though.” He smiled at this, let out a little bit of a laugh. She laughed out loud, so loud it shook Cameron’s chest. “We’re going to have a problem if you don’t start talking.” She gave him a coy look.
“Fantastic shirt,” he finally said, though there was nothing spectacular about the shirt. She was wearing a UC Boulder t-shirt over a pink long sleeve tee. He swung his legs to the ground and the magazine fell to the floor. He bent over to pick it up, but it had slid close to her foot and she was reaching down to get it, too. They bumped heads, and both came up after exchanging “ohs” and a “sorry” or two.
New Text:
My roommate Cameron never did anything but go to class and take these long walks with his camera. He came to a bike race I did the third week of first semester and took some pictures, but that was the extent of our sharing anything more than living space. It must be nice, I thought, to have enough money coming from home that you don’t need to have a job, but he seemed bored and restless anyway so I was glad when he announced he was going to be tutoring second semester.
It took until the first week of February to find somebody to tutor. Racing season was getting ready to start, so I had my racing bike disassembled in our dorm room on Wednesday that week when somebody knocked on our door. “That’s probably my student,” he said from behind his magazine, or catalogue, whatever it was. He was laying on his bed, and despite the fact that I had grease all over my hands, he didn’t show even the slightest movement towards answering the door.
“I’ll get it,” I said after a minute. I opened the door and noticed a girl, briefly, before I pushed our doorstop into place to keep the door opened. “Hello, what can I do for you?” I asked. I walked back to my spot to continue cleaning my bike.
She started walking to this chair in our room that Cameron brought back with him from winter break and said, “Bike trouble?” I didn’t answer, just kept cleaning. I heard her sit down and sigh. “Which one of you is Cameron?” she asked.
When Cameron didn’t respond, I pointed and said, “That’s him.”
“I’m your math student,” she said. “Amanda Abrahms. Doctor Macke said you could help anybody get an ‘A’ in his class. I’ll take a ‘B’ so you won’t have to work as hard, though.” I continued cleaning, wiping away dirt from the crankcase, and I heard her laugh out loud. “We’re going to have a problem if you don’t start talking.”
Cameron’s response was, “Fantastic shirt.” I looked over at him as he dropped his magazine. The two of them bent down to pick it up and bumped heads, giggling like children. I glanced over at Cameron’s desk where, out of view from either of them, a picture of his girlfriend smiled at me.
As you can see, the story comes out much differently through Banning's eyes, and we have some immediate sources of conflict not prevelant in the first excerpt, though these later come out in the continuation of Cameron's story.
Hopefully, somebody out there stumbled upon this who was stuck with writer's block and this helped. Most likely, though, Jerry, Colleen, Kathy, Mo, Kevin, Alan, Mom, Bridget, Mark, and various other hangers-on (fellow Targeteers, any of you in my creative writing class who know how to find the blog, anyone from Art Conspiracy who may have somehow managed to find my ancient profile and gallery in the sea of new postings there, old friends clicking on AIM profile links, and anybody else that stumbled blindly here--welcome, by the way--plus anyone I forgot about) will read it and say, "Good Lord, the boy does ramble. Let's see what our dumb president is up to."
Use this advice and this exercise wisely. In the wrong hands, it could wreak a havoc so dangerous, so destructive, so powerfully dangerous, that children everywhere will, um, eventually peter out and mumble incoherently when they can't think of a good way to finish what they started to say...
Music to Blog By: Blood, Sweat and Tears - Forty Thousand Head Men
(I like me some B,S,&T, so S,B,&L*)
*Shut it, Bite it, and Leave
Discussed in this post:
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Back Again, Back Again, Jiggety Jig
I got my computer back, and I could not get it online. For some reason, it would connect to the wireless network, but I couldn't go anywhere. Aha! When Best Buy had my computer, they manually configured my IP address to connect it to their wireless network, no doubt to download copious amounts of porn. Anyway, they did not reset it, and that was the problem. Well, problem solved.
My last "short" story for class ended up being 21 pages long.
Oops.
My last "short" story for class ended up being 21 pages long.
Oops.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Downed
As if leaching off the parents (and random neighbors who leave their wireless networks un-secured and on all night) wasn't already an impediment to my internet usage, now I have the extra roadblock of no longer having my laptop. My left speaker has been out for a few months and on Tuesday, the right speaker went kaputski as well. So, as it is still under its three year service plan, I took it up to Best Buy, to the Geek Squad, and they took it from me for at the very least three weeks. That's three weeks no wireless theft, three weeks without some of my most recent mp3 acquisitions, and, most importantly, three weeks of writing using Kathy's desktop computer. Do you know how long it's been since I wrote using a desktop? I mean, really actually wrote? The last piece of any relevance that I wrote using a desktop computer was my three day novel, and if you haven't read that consider yourself lucky because it's crap, and I think that's got something to do with the computer being a desktop.
Boo hiss.
New story first draft due on Tuesday, possibly an excerpt up here for discussion.
Music to Blog By: Pink Floyd - Hey You
(I watched The Squid and the Whale last night. Not sure about it yet, give me a couple days to let it sink in.)
Discussed in this post:
Boo hiss.
New story first draft due on Tuesday, possibly an excerpt up here for discussion.
Music to Blog By: Pink Floyd - Hey You
(I watched The Squid and the Whale last night. Not sure about it yet, give me a couple days to let it sink in.)
Discussed in this post:
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Lunch
I'm supposed to want to eat lunch with my characters, which is fine, because for most of them this is true. But...
I wouldn't want to live with Banning. He's worse than my best friend Zach when it comes to anti-social bicycle maintenance.
I wouldn't want to date Brooke. She steals t-shirts.
I wouldn't trust Cameron with my sister or a close female friend, because he's so into cheating, he cheats on girls he's cheating on other girls with. If that makes sense.
Hanging out with William would ultimately depress me.
I wouldn't want to go anywhere with Amanda driving, because she seems like the type to apply make-up while on the interstate.
I would hope Stefanie would never have a crush on me; she has horrible timing when it comes to letting her true feelings out.
Les DePaul deserved to get fired, no matter how cool his name is.
James is underdeveloped, so I think even lunch with him would be boring for the time being.
Okay, so, I've figured out what I'm doing with this blog (for those of you who haven't figured it out yourselves). This is more than just a place to rant and rave for me; it's about working through writer's block, talking about stuff nobody else really cares about so that I can put it down and get some use out of my thoughts. It's about Karlston, MO, the inhabitants, that lovable bunch of high school students I created in 1999, and the lives they are touching now that they're away, at school, elsewhere, wherever, it doesn't matter. Okay, so they've lived some soap opera moments, and suffered a bit of soap opera time frame (they were all my age in 1999, but they're a good deal younger now, say, only nineteen or twenty in 2005), but I'm used to most of them and the new ones (Banning, Stefanie, Grogan, Amanda, Cameron) are fitting in nicely. I also like the expanded roles of James and Brooke I've inserted, including a history of Brooke (she just showed up one day in Minnesota without a history and now she dated Cameron in high school), and I feel like it's really coming together now. Plus, the blog is being helpful. In my newest story (tentatively titled Interim), Cameron's blog shows up, as does IM conversations and some of Brooke's blog, too, because they can't see each other. It happens after Look at how Goddamn Ugly the Stars Are, but actually starts the week before that story ends. It's told from Cameron's side, living with a roommate he can't stand, tutoring a very intriguing girl, and falling apart at the seams over his devotion to Brooke and her insistence on placing a wedge in their relationship, which will ultimately lead to...well, you'll just have to read the story and stop reading my blog.
Music To Blog By: Mest - Kiss Me, Kill Me
(I know I know, it was on Channel Red, but only for a month and I liked the video)
Discussed in this post:
I wouldn't want to live with Banning. He's worse than my best friend Zach when it comes to anti-social bicycle maintenance.
I wouldn't want to date Brooke. She steals t-shirts.
I wouldn't trust Cameron with my sister or a close female friend, because he's so into cheating, he cheats on girls he's cheating on other girls with. If that makes sense.
Hanging out with William would ultimately depress me.
I wouldn't want to go anywhere with Amanda driving, because she seems like the type to apply make-up while on the interstate.
I would hope Stefanie would never have a crush on me; she has horrible timing when it comes to letting her true feelings out.
Les DePaul deserved to get fired, no matter how cool his name is.
James is underdeveloped, so I think even lunch with him would be boring for the time being.
Okay, so, I've figured out what I'm doing with this blog (for those of you who haven't figured it out yourselves). This is more than just a place to rant and rave for me; it's about working through writer's block, talking about stuff nobody else really cares about so that I can put it down and get some use out of my thoughts. It's about Karlston, MO, the inhabitants, that lovable bunch of high school students I created in 1999, and the lives they are touching now that they're away, at school, elsewhere, wherever, it doesn't matter. Okay, so they've lived some soap opera moments, and suffered a bit of soap opera time frame (they were all my age in 1999, but they're a good deal younger now, say, only nineteen or twenty in 2005), but I'm used to most of them and the new ones (Banning, Stefanie, Grogan, Amanda, Cameron) are fitting in nicely. I also like the expanded roles of James and Brooke I've inserted, including a history of Brooke (she just showed up one day in Minnesota without a history and now she dated Cameron in high school), and I feel like it's really coming together now. Plus, the blog is being helpful. In my newest story (tentatively titled Interim), Cameron's blog shows up, as does IM conversations and some of Brooke's blog, too, because they can't see each other. It happens after Look at how Goddamn Ugly the Stars Are, but actually starts the week before that story ends. It's told from Cameron's side, living with a roommate he can't stand, tutoring a very intriguing girl, and falling apart at the seams over his devotion to Brooke and her insistence on placing a wedge in their relationship, which will ultimately lead to...well, you'll just have to read the story and stop reading my blog.
Music To Blog By: Mest - Kiss Me, Kill Me
(I know I know, it was on Channel Red, but only for a month and I liked the video)
Discussed in this post:
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Karlston, MO
I created a fictional town. I had to draw a map for class, and give the town a name, a history, and indicate landmarks as they pertain to fictional stories I may or may not write (or have written). I'm not going to show you the map, partly because it's embarassing that I can't even draw a two-dimensional map without it looking like my 3 year old neice drew it, but mostly because I don't have a scanner. For those of you who have read my fiction, screenplay, one-act (or if you saw my one-act/acted in it my senior year of high school), you probably know a lot about my John Hughes-esque (I like to think of it as Faulkner-esque but perhaps I should wait to get published before I start inflating my ego beyond its natural bounds) style. You've got Colin and William and James, Zach, Zack, Xavier, Tom (there are two of them, one from fictional St. Louis suburb and another from Minnesota), Kristen, Peter, Kelly, et al, plus Brooke, Amy, Mike Rose, Banning, Cameron, Matt Grogan, Stefanie, Les DePaul, anyway, you get the picture...I like my people. Anyway, I finally gave those from the fictional St. Louis suburb (sort of a hybrid Webster Groves, Kirkwood/Glendale and Shrewsbury) a home. And since nothing is given away in the description (and yes, you do need the map to get the real good visual, but too bad), here is the description I handed in with my map.
Karlston, MO is your standard suburb of St. Louis. It’s named after one of the former mayors, Karl Odell, who was mayor for eleven years, elected in 1958 and planning his 1970 run when he died of a heart attack. The high school, built in 1965 (built using tax money he campaigned against initiating) is seemingly named after JFK, which is what the stonework over the front door proclaims, but around the area it’s known as Karlson High. Across Vernon Street from the high school is a large park named after Karl Odell’s father, Vernon Odell. Karl’s son’s namesake belongs to the middle school on Elm.
Long before the town was renamed, it was known as Evans, MO, named for the pioneer who first planted the magnolias that grow in Vernon Park, lining the creek and turning the ground pink, yellow and white in late spring. The Evans family still lives in Karlston, but has long been politically dormant. The only remaining trace of the lineage comes in the small elementary school on Greenwood Avenue and the restaurant next to Fairmount Books.
Appropriately enough, at the intersection of Greenwood and Church Road, there is one church on each corner. There is a Baptist church on the northeast corner, a Unitarian chapel on the northwest, a Lutheran church on the southeast corner and a Catholic church, elementary school and junior high on the southwest corner. On Greenwood, there’s a Straubs Marker, an Ace Hardware and an empty storefront that used to be a Starbucks, but couldn’t compete with Segue Coffee, which is on the next block across Elm. Segue Coffee is owned by the Evans family, who are close friends of the Fairmount family. The Fairmount family has lived in Karlston longer than the Odells, but have assigned themselves as the booksellers of town since the late 1970’s. Their bookstore, known simply as Fairmount Books, is adjoined to Segue Coffee. The Evans Steakhouse is on the other side of Fairmount Books, but is not connected in the same way Segue and Fairmount are. Evans Steakhouse is actually owned by the Applebees Corporation, which has decided to keep the name and menu but the restaurant now benefits from the buying power of the larger corporation.
Across the street from Segue, Fairmount and Evans Steakhouse is the Karlston Library and City Hall.
Consult the map for further references:
1. William Loudermilk lived here, before moving to California for school. He and his friends James Evans, Colin Fairmount, Tom Eagleston and Xavier Houston once had a band that practiced here. William attempted to write his college application essays here but James brought his girlfriend troubles over, which erupted in a fist-fight between James and his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, Peter Lawrence, great-grandson of Karl Odell.
2. The Evans family lives here. Segue Coffee has been open since the early 1980’s, and though Starbucks moved into the new shopping center across the street in 1998. The Starbucks only remained for three years before admitting defeat. The people of Karlston, and especially the high school students, appreciated Segue for the atmosphere, the familiarity of the photos and decorations, and the fact that it was connected via a set of glass doors to a bookstore. James worked at the coffee shop starting at age twelve. At the age of 18, James became a very enthusiastic bicycle racer, and it’s here at the house that he started a bicycle team run out of a shed in his backyard that he and his father converted into a clubhouse, complete with air-conditioning, heating, a couple of beds, refrigerator, computer, and enough bike tools for everybody on the team. The team included James, William, Colin, Xavier, Zachary Houston (Xavier’s twin brother) and Zack Cohen. Together, James and Colin found jobs at Big Shark Bicycles in University City, Missouri after starting the team, and they continued to work there summers in between school years. James went to college at the University of Minnesota (along with Colin and, for one year, William) and, after managing a bike shop in St. Paul for three years, moved back to Karlston and leased the former Starbucks, where he opened his own bike shop, Blue Peach Cyclery.
3. The Fairmount family lives here, and owns a good six acres of land to the north and east of their house. They’ve got the land registered with the Missouri Conservation Department as a wildlife preserve. The Fairmount family fronted most of the money for James’ bike team, including sponsoring a race in town, which started at their bookstore, going west, turning north on Elm, running through the parking lot of Vernon Park, east on Varsity Road past the high school, south on Avery Boulevard and back to Greenwood, heading west. The Odell family, led by the current mayor Kurt Odell, opposed the race and nearly succeeded in getting it cancelled before the Fairmount family stepped in to pay for the race. Colin became the second-best rider on the team, only behind James.
4. Xavier and Zach live here with their grandmother. Their mother died shortly after they were born, and their father quickly remarried and left them in the care of their maternal grandmother. Xavier, in an attempt to confuse his friends, opted to go by the name Xak (pronounced Zach). Their grandmother was often away, and Zach and Xak became the party organizers for their friends. They would call their older brother Matt, who lived in the city, and he would bring them alcohol and marijuana and keep them supplied, until Xak woke one morning on the trampoline with a girl he didn’t know, pictures of him on his digital camera, drinking bong water, and put a stop to the parties.
5. The Odell Mansion, though not it’s official title. It is the Mayor’s home, but as the entire Odell family has lived there since it was built in 1967, everybody knows it by this misnomer. The Lawrence family, though technically part of the Odell family, does not live here.
6. Kristen Avery lives here. She is James’ ex-girlfriend, a year younger than James and not overly ambitious. Her goal is to go to business school and become an executive at Target in Kirkwood, MO, where she’s worked as a cashier since she was sixteen.
7. The Lawrence family lives here. Two years older than Kristen, during his second senior year at Karlston High, Peter Lawrence asked her to go swimming at the Odell mansion with him. She was dating James at the time, but Peter mixed her a drink which caused her to lose her balance and inhibitions, and so too her virginity. Shortly after Peter’s fist-fight with James, he broke up with her and set his sights on a freshman named Kelly. A long string of girls can tell the same kind of story about Peter Lawrence, but because he’s an Odell, hardly anybody believes them.
8. It was here, in the middle of the night in August under the Magnolias one summer, William began his habit of drinking alone.
9. Peter was tackled here his freshman year, playing football, and received a concussion which nearly killed him.
10. Kristen crashed her car here on a rainy night. She crashed into a retaining wall going forty miles an hour after Peter fucked her on St. Therese’s playground and broke up with her as she got into her car. She drove off without him and was on her way to James’ house to apologize. James passed by on his way home from the coffee shop, and waited with her for the ambulance. Aside from an airbag bruise and a sprained right ankle, she was okay.
11. As young kids, James and Colin threw rocks through the windows of this house, causing the owner, an elderly widower, to have a heart-attack. It was days before anybody discovered his body.
Karlston, MO is your standard suburb of St. Louis. It’s named after one of the former mayors, Karl Odell, who was mayor for eleven years, elected in 1958 and planning his 1970 run when he died of a heart attack. The high school, built in 1965 (built using tax money he campaigned against initiating) is seemingly named after JFK, which is what the stonework over the front door proclaims, but around the area it’s known as Karlson High. Across Vernon Street from the high school is a large park named after Karl Odell’s father, Vernon Odell. Karl’s son’s namesake belongs to the middle school on Elm.
Long before the town was renamed, it was known as Evans, MO, named for the pioneer who first planted the magnolias that grow in Vernon Park, lining the creek and turning the ground pink, yellow and white in late spring. The Evans family still lives in Karlston, but has long been politically dormant. The only remaining trace of the lineage comes in the small elementary school on Greenwood Avenue and the restaurant next to Fairmount Books.
Appropriately enough, at the intersection of Greenwood and Church Road, there is one church on each corner. There is a Baptist church on the northeast corner, a Unitarian chapel on the northwest, a Lutheran church on the southeast corner and a Catholic church, elementary school and junior high on the southwest corner. On Greenwood, there’s a Straubs Marker, an Ace Hardware and an empty storefront that used to be a Starbucks, but couldn’t compete with Segue Coffee, which is on the next block across Elm. Segue Coffee is owned by the Evans family, who are close friends of the Fairmount family. The Fairmount family has lived in Karlston longer than the Odells, but have assigned themselves as the booksellers of town since the late 1970’s. Their bookstore, known simply as Fairmount Books, is adjoined to Segue Coffee. The Evans Steakhouse is on the other side of Fairmount Books, but is not connected in the same way Segue and Fairmount are. Evans Steakhouse is actually owned by the Applebees Corporation, which has decided to keep the name and menu but the restaurant now benefits from the buying power of the larger corporation.
Across the street from Segue, Fairmount and Evans Steakhouse is the Karlston Library and City Hall.
Consult the map for further references:
1. William Loudermilk lived here, before moving to California for school. He and his friends James Evans, Colin Fairmount, Tom Eagleston and Xavier Houston once had a band that practiced here. William attempted to write his college application essays here but James brought his girlfriend troubles over, which erupted in a fist-fight between James and his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, Peter Lawrence, great-grandson of Karl Odell.
2. The Evans family lives here. Segue Coffee has been open since the early 1980’s, and though Starbucks moved into the new shopping center across the street in 1998. The Starbucks only remained for three years before admitting defeat. The people of Karlston, and especially the high school students, appreciated Segue for the atmosphere, the familiarity of the photos and decorations, and the fact that it was connected via a set of glass doors to a bookstore. James worked at the coffee shop starting at age twelve. At the age of 18, James became a very enthusiastic bicycle racer, and it’s here at the house that he started a bicycle team run out of a shed in his backyard that he and his father converted into a clubhouse, complete with air-conditioning, heating, a couple of beds, refrigerator, computer, and enough bike tools for everybody on the team. The team included James, William, Colin, Xavier, Zachary Houston (Xavier’s twin brother) and Zack Cohen. Together, James and Colin found jobs at Big Shark Bicycles in University City, Missouri after starting the team, and they continued to work there summers in between school years. James went to college at the University of Minnesota (along with Colin and, for one year, William) and, after managing a bike shop in St. Paul for three years, moved back to Karlston and leased the former Starbucks, where he opened his own bike shop, Blue Peach Cyclery.
3. The Fairmount family lives here, and owns a good six acres of land to the north and east of their house. They’ve got the land registered with the Missouri Conservation Department as a wildlife preserve. The Fairmount family fronted most of the money for James’ bike team, including sponsoring a race in town, which started at their bookstore, going west, turning north on Elm, running through the parking lot of Vernon Park, east on Varsity Road past the high school, south on Avery Boulevard and back to Greenwood, heading west. The Odell family, led by the current mayor Kurt Odell, opposed the race and nearly succeeded in getting it cancelled before the Fairmount family stepped in to pay for the race. Colin became the second-best rider on the team, only behind James.
4. Xavier and Zach live here with their grandmother. Their mother died shortly after they were born, and their father quickly remarried and left them in the care of their maternal grandmother. Xavier, in an attempt to confuse his friends, opted to go by the name Xak (pronounced Zach). Their grandmother was often away, and Zach and Xak became the party organizers for their friends. They would call their older brother Matt, who lived in the city, and he would bring them alcohol and marijuana and keep them supplied, until Xak woke one morning on the trampoline with a girl he didn’t know, pictures of him on his digital camera, drinking bong water, and put a stop to the parties.
5. The Odell Mansion, though not it’s official title. It is the Mayor’s home, but as the entire Odell family has lived there since it was built in 1967, everybody knows it by this misnomer. The Lawrence family, though technically part of the Odell family, does not live here.
6. Kristen Avery lives here. She is James’ ex-girlfriend, a year younger than James and not overly ambitious. Her goal is to go to business school and become an executive at Target in Kirkwood, MO, where she’s worked as a cashier since she was sixteen.
7. The Lawrence family lives here. Two years older than Kristen, during his second senior year at Karlston High, Peter Lawrence asked her to go swimming at the Odell mansion with him. She was dating James at the time, but Peter mixed her a drink which caused her to lose her balance and inhibitions, and so too her virginity. Shortly after Peter’s fist-fight with James, he broke up with her and set his sights on a freshman named Kelly. A long string of girls can tell the same kind of story about Peter Lawrence, but because he’s an Odell, hardly anybody believes them.
8. It was here, in the middle of the night in August under the Magnolias one summer, William began his habit of drinking alone.
9. Peter was tackled here his freshman year, playing football, and received a concussion which nearly killed him.
10. Kristen crashed her car here on a rainy night. She crashed into a retaining wall going forty miles an hour after Peter fucked her on St. Therese’s playground and broke up with her as she got into her car. She drove off without him and was on her way to James’ house to apologize. James passed by on his way home from the coffee shop, and waited with her for the ambulance. Aside from an airbag bruise and a sprained right ankle, she was okay.
11. As young kids, James and Colin threw rocks through the windows of this house, causing the owner, an elderly widower, to have a heart-attack. It was days before anybody discovered his body.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Stages
Like all kids, I grew up wanting to be a fireman or doctor or veterinarian (specializing in cats). Okay, so maybe not all kids wanted all of that. Anyway, that's not the point. In fourth grade, I decided I would become a writer and so, I started writing a book about a group of kids who get kidnapped by aliens because the aliens lived on a planet torn in two over the idea that there may be other life in the universe, and these particular aliens wanted to avoid civil war over the issue. It was some sort of theological thing, and anyway, I never finished it because that ancient DOS computer crashed and we could never recover anything from it.
Starting in sixth grade, I changed gears and wanted to be a music teacher, like my dad. I think the reasoning behind this was that for most of my life, my dad had not been a music teacher but had been a blue-collar grunt who installed fire systems in restaurants and recharged fire extinguishers at churches and schools. When he re-entered the world of music education, he became a different person. He was around more, he smiled more, he laughed more, we took vacations and as a family, we became closer than ever. So, music education seemed like a good gig to me.
In eighth grade, I switched gears yet again, and this time I wanted to be a rock star, with everything that came with it; not just the rock n' roll, but also the sex and the drugs. The drugs were easier to come by than the sex, let me tell you. This phase lasted until my sophomore year of high school, when I opted for rock stardom without the sex or drugs, though if either were available I decided I wouldn't turn up my nose. Still again, the drugs were plentiful, the sex was non-existent. Until my junior year, when my band broke up and I went back to wanting to be a music teacher. This time, it was because my new band director was a great mentor.
Now, junior year, though I had given up on rock n' roll, the drugs still flowed and the sex finally made a debut. Yeah, it was okay, I guess. Anyway, after the sex was no longer happening, I changed my mind again and wanted to be a jazz musician.
This lasted until about halfway through my senior year, when I didn't pass an audition at a school. And so, I turned back to fourth grade, and started writing (not that I had ever stopped, I just focused more on it this time). I decided journalism was nice and practical.
Journalism is not nice and practical. Well, it might be for those who have the patience and stomach for it, which, it turns out, I don't, because whatever I wrote got handed back with too much red on it, with comments like "This wouldn't read well in a newspaper" and "That's just your opinion; you're not telling the news." I guess all of that was true, but that's just not how I write, so I gave up on that.
But I didn't give up on writing. Having left drugs far behind me, pushing rock n' roll a little to the left (but still very much in reach, and I put my arm out and embrace it all of the time), and as far as the sex goes, well, I'm married now so that's none of your business, I am now focusing on writing pretty much exclusively, and with that being said, I am here to swear it to all who read this blog (both of you) that I will be published within a year. So there we go...with that, I will have realized only one of my goals, but goals are great no matter what...as long as you can keep attaining them, you can keep setting more and more and things just get better.
And now, a new feature to my blog, inspired by Turbonium...
Music to Blog By - Bloc Party, Helicopters
and - The Pixies, Where Is My Mind?
and - Sufjan Stevens - Vitto's Ordination Song
Discussed in this post:
Starting in sixth grade, I changed gears and wanted to be a music teacher, like my dad. I think the reasoning behind this was that for most of my life, my dad had not been a music teacher but had been a blue-collar grunt who installed fire systems in restaurants and recharged fire extinguishers at churches and schools. When he re-entered the world of music education, he became a different person. He was around more, he smiled more, he laughed more, we took vacations and as a family, we became closer than ever. So, music education seemed like a good gig to me.
In eighth grade, I switched gears yet again, and this time I wanted to be a rock star, with everything that came with it; not just the rock n' roll, but also the sex and the drugs. The drugs were easier to come by than the sex, let me tell you. This phase lasted until my sophomore year of high school, when I opted for rock stardom without the sex or drugs, though if either were available I decided I wouldn't turn up my nose. Still again, the drugs were plentiful, the sex was non-existent. Until my junior year, when my band broke up and I went back to wanting to be a music teacher. This time, it was because my new band director was a great mentor.
Now, junior year, though I had given up on rock n' roll, the drugs still flowed and the sex finally made a debut. Yeah, it was okay, I guess. Anyway, after the sex was no longer happening, I changed my mind again and wanted to be a jazz musician.
This lasted until about halfway through my senior year, when I didn't pass an audition at a school. And so, I turned back to fourth grade, and started writing (not that I had ever stopped, I just focused more on it this time). I decided journalism was nice and practical.
Journalism is not nice and practical. Well, it might be for those who have the patience and stomach for it, which, it turns out, I don't, because whatever I wrote got handed back with too much red on it, with comments like "This wouldn't read well in a newspaper" and "That's just your opinion; you're not telling the news." I guess all of that was true, but that's just not how I write, so I gave up on that.
But I didn't give up on writing. Having left drugs far behind me, pushing rock n' roll a little to the left (but still very much in reach, and I put my arm out and embrace it all of the time), and as far as the sex goes, well, I'm married now so that's none of your business, I am now focusing on writing pretty much exclusively, and with that being said, I am here to swear it to all who read this blog (both of you) that I will be published within a year. So there we go...with that, I will have realized only one of my goals, but goals are great no matter what...as long as you can keep attaining them, you can keep setting more and more and things just get better.
And now, a new feature to my blog, inspired by Turbonium...
Music to Blog By - Bloc Party, Helicopters
and - The Pixies, Where Is My Mind?
and - Sufjan Stevens - Vitto's Ordination Song
Discussed in this post:
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Spring Break
Remember when Spring Break meant something? I can remember when it meant an entire week with no obligations, responsibilities, or normal sleeping hours. I can remember spring breaks spent riding my bike, hanging out with friends, staying up late watching movies...
I can remember spring breaks where I spent days without coming home, over at various peoples' houses, playing music, video games, whatever we wanted.
Then, I remember working through spring break. Now, it's a relief because it's a week without one set of obligations or responsibilities. Still, normal sleeping hours (which I never keep anyway) and plenty of obligations and responsibilities.
Basically, I remember when Spring Break was a week off and not a week with fewer things to do but still about fifty million.
Growing up sure has it's price.
I can remember spring breaks where I spent days without coming home, over at various peoples' houses, playing music, video games, whatever we wanted.
Then, I remember working through spring break. Now, it's a relief because it's a week without one set of obligations or responsibilities. Still, normal sleeping hours (which I never keep anyway) and plenty of obligations and responsibilities.
Basically, I remember when Spring Break was a week off and not a week with fewer things to do but still about fifty million.
Growing up sure has it's price.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Screw You, Jerks! We won the gawdang POWERBALL!
That's right, not once but twice! We used the funds from our Wednesday win to buy one for the Saturday drawing and won again!
Oh, wait...we only won three dollars on Wednesday...and seven on Saturday...looks like I should go to work tomorrow, after all...
Oh, wait...we only won three dollars on Wednesday...and seven on Saturday...looks like I should go to work tomorrow, after all...
Thursday, March 02, 2006
That's right, Billy...
I made an instructional video on how to write flash fiction. It's supertastic!
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