Category Archives: Uncategorized

Retreat!

I have been enjoying a South Dakota Writer’s Retreat in Brookings. Enjoying, as in working very hard to find good images and words and ideas, while also eating the best ice cream in the world and Nick’s hamburgers. South Dakota Writer’s Retreat, as in Kelly and I hashing out blog issues, reviewing each other’s manuscripts-in-process, and holding teeny-tiny ad hoc support groups around what it is we are trying to accomplish and how we might do that. A little bit blind leading the blind, but we are marginally educated and dangerously optimistic and grimly determined. And we love adverbs, which is not in our favor. We spent hours today slogging through technical issues alone, and there were some breathtaking moments, like the one in which I was certain we had managed to delete Wordtabulous. Note: when I am panicking but trying very hard not to display my panic, due to my superstitious belief that revealing panic will seal my doom, my voice becomes thin and high. Also I kick out a lot of heat. I may have actually burned the inside of my skin. I tell you this so you will recognize the symptoms in case we are together when I succumb to stealth hysteria. Chocolate helps, as does finding out my blog is fine. See? Still here.

Thinking?

1 Reply

We took a driving trip to Yellowstone this summer, which means we crossed Minnesota, North Dakota and most of Montana. It was more beautiful than I had expected. The flooding Missouri River was alarming, the North Dakota Badlands were amazing and the Montana landscapes were breathtaking, too. At one point after we’d entered Montana, I noted that the horizon ahead of us was marked by jagged rock formations. I looked around and realized the the interstate bisected a large circular area completely ringed by tooth-like rock monoliths. Then I thought, what if we were inside the mouth of giant predatory geographic structure that would snap shut upon us like a stone-and-earth Venus Flytrap? That’s what I think about on long trips. What do you think about?

365?! Plus, Hollywood University part 2

1 Reply

My sister Kerin suggested that I write a daily blog for a year, and rather than be incredibly flattered that she would even think such a thing would be desirable I said something like, “You are so demanding!” But it is flattering. I was worried that I would wear out readers by posting even twice a week. It is also an interesting challenge. I have been fond of saying that one sure way for me to give up a good and wholesome activity is to commit to making it part of my life. I buy vitamins but I don’t take them. I exercise, but refuse to put it on my calendar. I clean my entire house, then let it become knee-deep in projects, junk mail, and laundry in all stages before cleaning again rather than apply regular maintenance to keep the clutter to a manageable level. Daily writing has been a goal of mine numerous times and just as often has been abandoned. One of the louder voices in my head (what, you don’t have voices in your head? Weird.) absolutely jeers at me whenever I sit down for a daily writing session. It is off-putting so I stop, because writing daily on my own is just a deal I make with myself. If I break that deal, who cares?. But the idea of committing to writing to you daily puts a different spin on things. More like making a commitment to exercise with a friend which is then harder to cancel because she is expecting you to show up and suffer with her. Yeah, it is a lot like that. So, let’s do this thing! Yikes. I kind of feel like we are going steady now, but this doesn’t mean you have to give up reading other blogs. If you are subscribing to this blog, you are getting updates every time I post. If you find daily is too much of me (and trust me, I get it–there are days when I feel I get too much of me,) you should be able to adjust your subscription to only notify you once a week if there is something new here to see. Thank you for joining me in this growth experience; I hope you and I both find value in it.

On another note, I am adding a new section to Hollywood University, and you are invited to check it out. (Click on Hollywood University at the top of this page.) For people who have already read the first part, the new section begins with the word Origins, and takes the reader back to where Darlington begins his story. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, tell a friend or two to check it out–and if you know an agent or publisher interested in multi-cultural memoirs, definitely tell them you are a fan and how to find me!

I Bet I Can

3 Replies

I peeled my dining room ceiling like a carrot today. The popcorn finish has been bugging me forever in that room, which has a weird octagonal inset in the middle of the otherwise dropped ceiling. I believe the dropped ceiling is to accommodate the plumbing for the whirlpool tub in the master bath which is directly above. We never use the whirlpool jets because the last time I did, there was a leak in the pump and it rained in the dining room from at least ten places. This interior downpour was very exciting and messy, leaving brownish stains and bubbled paint on the ceiling and giving me cause to use every profane word I know as I tried to save the wooden table, the wooden floor, the computer, the business documents and everything else left laying around. I turned off the whirlpool jets almost immediately, but it took thirty minutes for the storm to diminish to a sprinkle. It took twenty-four more hours to get rid of the nervous tic beneath my right eye.

That was at least six weeks ago, and as I said, the popcorn had been bugging me for much longer than that, but I didn’t do anything about it. Why? I wasn’t sure I could. I thought maybe there was a right way to do it, that I needed a professional with knowledge and skill and maybe some useful products. I didn’t know any professional popcorn removers, so I hesitated and tried not to look at the brown circles and stripes on the gross bumpy ceiling, imagining instead a clean painted surface with maybe some white crown molding. Fancy. Then, today, a thunderstorm derailed our plans to work on our deck and so Mr. Wordtabulous and I started watching Yard Crashers and House Crashers on HGTV. We are highly susceptible to the DIY influence in our home and soon my husband was up and installing the new light fixtures I’d recently purchased in our upstairs bedrooms. (The old ones were deteriorating in a scary and oddly smelly way–I never knew corroded wire covering could smell like decaying mouse, but it does.) And I thought, I bet I could just scrape that popcorn ceiling off by myself. And I did. I wore a filtered mask and goggles. I spritzed water on the popcorn then scraped it off with a ten inch taping knife (think wide spatula.) The first two-thirds was easy, the last third was a chore, but I did it. I made a huge mess, which was contained to the dining room because I had put plastic drop cloths over the doorways into the kitchen and living room. I was pretty impressed with myself until my husband looked in and all he said was, “You didn’t put down a drop cloth?” Men. That wasn’t even a question. Obviously I had not put down a drop cloth. Which was fine, because dragging a drop cloth loaded with four pounds of ceiling popcorn and dust through the rest of the house wasn’t going to work better than just cleaning up the mess where it was. I then cleaned up, and with a few touch-ups I think we are looking good. I’ve got a nice rustic look with some texture and some flat spots. Now it is time to start thinking about paint colors for the ceiling and the walls.

The point is that I’m moving forward on something I thought I needed help with and was a little afraid of. Self-doubt is a drain on energy, opportunity, fun and momentum. My mom says that when people used to say to my grandma that they didn’t think she could do something, she’d give them a bright and challenging look and say, “I bet I can.” I get messages from the world and my own brain all the time that say, “You can’t.” I have considered this carefully and I am positive that listening to this message has hurt me by limiting possibilities many, many more times than it has helped me avoid stupid endeavors. It is (way past) time to stop always being a good little girl and to look fate, the odds, my own warped fears or whoever is standing in my way straight in the eye and say, “I bet I can.”

Insomnia Nibbles

5 Replies

Insomnia nibbles away the minutes of what should be my good night’s sleep. My head crowds with unwritten words, snatches of song, to-do lists and the recurrent montage of embarrassing moments past. Ghostly tickles play across my ribcage, my ankle, my neck. There is nothing there when I brush my hand against my skin. The tickle fades whether I scratch at it or not, but I can’t help myself—what if it is a bug? It isn’t a bug. Lying on my right side, my underwear bunches uncomfortably. Lying on my left gives rise to a breathless panicky feeling, what is that about? Lying on my back feels pointless. My husband is restless in the same bed but in a different universe. His sleeplessness is a dual problem: he needs to rest both in order to function and to be fit to live with. I get up so I don’t contribute to his issue. Minnesota’s fever has broken and the temp outside has dropped to 71 degrees. The moonlight makes the world bright but a little blurry; the houses are softened in a way I remember from the pre-Lasik days. I turn on my computer and am blinded by the screen. Maybe if I write my lists down I can turn off my brain for awhile: write a blog post, contact sources for next month’s article, respond to messages from the last blog post, check younger son’s summer reading, edit some short stories, look for a market for short stories, what is good enough to go out? Write something new, plan menus for the rest of the week, work out to counter all the recent indulgences, book a flight to visit mom, force the kids to clean the xbox room.

This isn’t helping. I hear the creak of the bed upstairs as my husband struggles to find repose. When he rolls over in bed, it shifts violently, like a raft riding waves in a storm.

I am grateful this doesn’t happen more often. For me it is a rare lingering visit to the surreal grey zone between daytime normal and nighttime unconscious. For my friend Kelly, this would be a normal night. She would scoff at my wimpy loss of a few hours. Call me some night when you’ve had a solid week like that, she might say. Seriously, call me, I’ll be up. I won’t call her tonight, though. That would be rude, and I’d have to get up and find my phone. I’m just sleepless, not energetic.

The sky brightens to the east. When I think of the long dark winter nights, an edging toward dawn at 4:30 a.m. seems a profligate use of daylight. That’s nature for you. All bounteous overflowing abundance, then the backhand smack of privation and/or disaster. That sounds like a blog for another day. Which could be today, now that day is arriving…

Yep. I am going down the rabbit hole all right. It is time to let my laptop get some sleep at least. Thanks for keeping me company.

Update? Sure!

2 Replies

I was working on my article this morning and was really cracking away at nailing down some quotes from an interview when, for the third time in four days, everything dissolved on my screen. Microsoft Word faded away, icons on my desktop disappeared like the stars at dawn and then the desktop was replaced by a screen that informed me “Windows is configuring some updates (again) so whatever little unimportant thing you are working on is going to have to wait. And, honey, get me a cup of coffee while you’re just sitting around, okay?” I ignored the rude request for coffee and sat while it hummed, processed, shut down, started up, hummed and processed some more and finally returned me to my desktop, my icons, and my article which was, just like the last two times, completely saved and ready to go again. It was fine—annoying, but fine. But I worry. So I dug out my backup hard drive and hooked it up. I use this backup on both our family computer and my personal laptop, and when I use it on the family computer, it gets right to work, no problem, autorun everything. Whenever I plug it into my computer, I get a variety of conflicting options on the possibilities of how the backup could be run. It isn’t uncommon for me to have to have to trial and error my way through it all because it looks different every time, and then I have to give the devices a few minutes to get rolling to even know if what I tried was a winner so it is time-consuming which is NEVER frustrating at all. I got it running (yay!) and then found that there was an update for the backup hard drive that was waiting to be downloaded. Cripes, not again. I mean, yes, of course I’d love to download the update for the best possible security and performance. Download, unzip, water the plants, check, nothing is happening, click unzip again, agree to let the program change things on my hard drive, start install wizard, blindly agree to end-user license agreement (I sold my soul and all my children by blindly agreeing to iTunes EULAs years ago, what else have I got to lose?) start install (didn’t I already do that? No?) Huh, look at that. The backup ran while I was trying to download the update software. Now I can get back to…what was I doing again?

Dancing Before the Void

Cyclists: Smug but Balanced

3 Replies

I have been a cycling enthusiast for over ten years now, though I’ll admit I have been more enthusiastic some years than others. I have done the century rides (100 miles, yes, in a single day) and the multi-day rides, the triathlons and team triathlons, the fundraisers, the group rides and the solo rides. I love the bicycle and the road and the hills. Not so much the wind or the “rumble bumps” engraved into the shoulders of the pavement, but what can you do? Another cyclist friend of mine has a friend and a neighbor who despises cyclists on principle: we don’t belong on his roads. There is a statute in Minnesota <169.222> that says we actually do, but as far as he and his like-minded buddies are concerned, that is beside the point. I kind of get it. It can be nerve-racking sharing a lane with someone who has nothing but two narrow spinning wheels, a helmet and some Lycra between him/her and the road. Keeping an eye on the distance between the cyclist and yourself as well as the oncoming traffic also can be a little stressful as I know from my own experience, especially when some bikers (like some motorists) can be a little unpredictable. But I don’t think these valid concerns totally explain the hate.

Having hung out with and observed cyclists individually and in groups for years I say this with conviction: we can be a smug, self-righteous bunch. We are in love with our bikes, our gear, our numbers of miles, our average speed and our highest speed. We love our tight molded calves and our endorphin rushes. We even love the “ring tattoo” of black grease many of us wear on our right legs after a few stops and starts. We love drafting off each other, our front tires inches from the back wheel of the cyclist ahead of us giving us free speed until our turn at the front, and when we get fancy and whip out the rotating paceline, where two tightly packed lines of cyclists synchronize movements in an aerodynamic road ballet, well then, we are downright infatuated with ourselves. Because it is cool. And it’s challenging to work up the skills and the miles and the confidence to do it all. We like that we power our own rides. We like the sounds, sights and smells of the outdoors (most of the time.) We like how the stress of the office, the relationships, the future all falls away as we press forward—building speed on the flats, heaving up the hills, shooting down the other side and doing it again as we push our hearts, lungs and muscles to go farther, or faster or just to go. You have to have balance to stay upright on two wheels, but spending time on a bicycle brings balance to life. Life just looks different from a bicycle saddle.

So we can be a little obnoxious, drinking post-ride beers in our sweaty Lycra with our grease tattooed calves, laughing uproariously at endorphin-fueled stories of the guy who got off the route and had to be chased down and returned. Maybe the conversation turns to bike trips in Napa Valley, or Europe or to the newest, best bike tech with the absurd price tags. We might groan about our aching whatevers, but we feel good. That can be hard to be around, but don’t hate us because we are celebrating our good fortune to be cyclists. Come join us instead.

Coming soon: an excerpt from Hollywood University. We are looking for representation, so if you like it and know someone in the publishing world, let me know!

A Word on Unmentionables

4 Replies

Today is laundry day in the wordtabulous household. I scored $19.25 that I found in pockets which is absurdly cheering. I know it isn’t new money that fell from the sky just for me, but it still feels like a gift. Kind of like how weekends still give me a thrill even though they mean three more people around to challenge my already strained domestic skills. I decided to squeeze a kettlebell workout into my morning, and did a light-speed rotation of the laundry before I zipped out the door. When I returned the loads were done and I delved into the washer to move the wet stuff into the dryer, to find that I had thrown my two nicest Victoria’s Secret bras into the wash without their little mesh bags to contain them. As I struggled to free the other garments that were being strangled in the wound-up straps I almost felt like I needed to apologize to the bras for their ordeal. And then I thought, I hate these things. They are the most expensive ‘foundation garments’ I own and when I wear them it feels like they are biting me–and not in a naughty fun way, either. They look fabulous, but I sigh with resignation when I put one on and sigh with relief when it comes off. I am rather breast sensitive these days, and frankly I don’t think I need to deal with this anymore. Now instead of wanting to apologize I kind of felt like they deserved it. Take that, you rib-chomping, misogynistic, demon-inspired brassieres! Hah!

But, now what? There are all kinds of undergarments out there promising the perfect fit and ultimate comfort. I own some of them. They’re okay. They are certainly more comfortable, if less…substantial. There are even those that claim “one size fits all,” which is ludicrous. I once bought a bra that creaked when I moved, like a squeaky floorboard. I have a strapless that does some very unusual things to my figure after awhile without frequent intervention. I have two on which the cleavage sides of the cups curl out just enough to make ridges visible through my clothes. I guess they want attention. I have one that slips sideways just a hair, leaving a gap on the one side and a pillowy bulge on the other. Sigh. I suppose there is an outside possibility the grapple in the washer made my VS bras more comfortable instead of less. I wonder if an apology might help?

Re-Assembly Required

2 Replies

My sister, Kerin, and I were talking about the practice of writing when upset. Kerin blogged on the Caring Bridge website last year while she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and she told me that when she was angry or freaked out, writing on the blog helped her sort out her thinking and calmed her down. While I have also found that writing helps me find clarity, I have never once been happy that I’ve sent out something I’ve written when upset. Never. I rant like a crazy person when I’m angry and when I’m scared I’m a self-pitying mouse. Emotional strain is helpful to feed and inform my public writing, but when the heat of the moment is driving, I’d better be working in my diary. Journaling is like spewing out the bad stuff: depression, anger, and fear. Post-purge is where I can assemble the framework of the facts, the impressions and the appropriate level of emotional temperature. I just run blazing hot or icy cold initially and I have to let the tap run awhile before I have something I can work with.

This week things played out differently. It was a stressful week in general, which tends to lower my threshold for an emotional spike. Then my mom called with the news that she was just diagnosed with breast cancer, an invasive type that looks like the one my sister spent a year battling with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. We hope that Mom’s hasn’t spread as far as Kerin’s had but until her surgery, we don’t know. She’s 700 miles away. For three days I couldn’t write anything. I think I was so overwhelmed with helplessness and fear that I couldn’t work up a single thought even to scribble privately. As I am moving through the steps toward accepting all this I am feeling calmer. I am trying to temper the apprehension with hope and faith. I am seeking practical applications for my nervous energy. I am taking naps and trying to restrain myself from self-medicating with alcohol and carbs. The workouts continue. Significantly, I am ready to start putting words down on paper again. Because after the ground crumbles underfoot, it is time to climb out and start reassembling.

In the meantime, prayers for Mom’s full return to health are appreciated.