Review: My Artist's Way Toolkit
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, is offering a new online service that can prove invaluable to a writer/artist -- especially those that might have trouble with motivation from time to time. (Not that I know anyone like that, of course.)
With My Artist's Way Toolkit, you login to the site and are met with weekly artist's dates (like going on a long walk), writing prompts as well as motivational quotes and inspiration.
One of Julia Cameron's musts is also morning pages in which one sits down to write anything that comes to mind until three long-hand pages are full of words.
As a writer, I sometimes have trouble with accountability. Without a deadline or a writer's group/partner, it can be very easy to put off my personal writing projects/work in the name of paying work, laundry or even a nap. However, My Artist's Way Toolkit provides a service to which I feel accountable. I want to complete my morning pages because I'm part of a program. I also really appreciate the artist's dates and writing prompts. I found myself tackling new topics and acomplishing more writing on a daily basis.
In what can be a solitary pursuit, My Artist's Way Toolkit helped me to feel supported, nurtured and pushed in my endeavors. I would recommend the service to any writer, especially those looking for a little extra push.
I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.
Book Review: You Have No Idea
You Have No Idea by Vanessa Williams and Helen Williams is an intriguing and honest look into the world of celebrity, tabloid scandal and family. While chronicling Vanessa Williams’ life, beginning with her discovery of the nude photo scandal that would end her reign as Miss America, and leading up the present, as she ponders an empty nest after years of child-rearing, the book also explores Vanessa and Helen’s feelings about the course their lives have taken and the love they share.
While I enjoyed reading the behind-the-scenes take on Vanessa Williams’ life in the spotlight, it was Helen’s character that I found most fascinating. Raised away from her biological mother and often beaten by her adoptive parents, Helen’s life was not easy. Despite these formidable beginnings, Helen earned a place in college, met and married Vanessa’s father Milton, raised two children and enjoyed a decades long career as a school teacher.
Helen admittedly had trouble expressing affection for her children because of the stark contrast to her own childhood, but her support and love for Vanessa, from scandal to failed marriages, is unwavering. I believe she refers to herself as a force to be reckoned with in the book, and I have no doubt it’s true.
I imagine most people have a Helen somewhere in their family, even if she doesn’t resemble your mother. Her no-nonsense, take-it-on-the-chin approach to life, loss and all of the in between is frank and familiar. Helen is a woman you would want in your corner. (You have to check out her list, and if I was any of the ladies from The View, I’d watch my back.)
If you want to peek into the world of celebrity and family, You Have No Idea is a good read.
* This is a paid review for Blogher, but the opinions expressed are my own.
When I Grow Up, I Want To Be Like My Dogs*
I absolutely believe that the dog is man’s best friend. (Or any pet for that matter. I know that not everyone is a dog person.) Pets offer unconditional love. They are cute. They can’t speak, so they can’t whine or complain. They can be loyal to a fault.
I love almost everything about my dogs. (I use the plural because I had a dog, and the SO had a dog when we met. By now, I think of myself as having two dogs.) I also know they can be much better to me than I am to them.
This might be a little too All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, but if I could do it (and I’m trying), I would adopt these three traits from my dogs.
1. Every morning and evening, we feed the dogs. We don’t buy expensive or fancy dog food. (It’s Purina. You can find it at Wal-Mart.) Carat and Cassidy have never even had wet dog food. We buy the exact same dog food every time we go to the store. There is the same dry kibble waiting for the dogs every day, and still, whenever it’s time to eat, Carat is just as excited as she would be the first time she was ever given a meal.
All you have to do is say, “Carat, are you hungry? Do you want to eat?” and she literally runs circles around herself with joy.
Carat doesn’t get in ruts. She’s not dissatisfied with what she has. She doesn’t get bored or take things for granted. Every morning and evening is just as wonderful as any other for the sheer fact that she gets to eat.
2. Cassidy is kind of like my little bodyguard. She goes everywhere that I go. Every morning (or, every other morning, whatever), when I get in the shower, she sits on the end of the bed and waits for me to get out. Before she eats her breakfast, she checks to see where I am to make sure that I’m OK. If I’m particularly upset, she senses it and sleeps on the floor right below me. She gives up her bed to be near me.
I, on the other hand, go out when I want to. I take trips and leave her with friends. I forget to buy dog food on the way home from work or have to wait for my next paycheck to take her to the vet for her shots.
She would have me watch her every time she eats, but I don’t.
It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do, Cassidy is the same good-hearted, adorable companion she’s always been. She doesn’t hold grudges. (She peed on my foot once when we moved, and I was working a lot, but that was years ago.) She doesn’t operate on a score system or tit for tat. She doesn’t expect to get as much as she gets. She just gives and seems perfectly content to do so.
3. If dogs really are smiling when they wag their tails, my dogs spend most of their waking hours smiling. Sometimes it’s a huge grin over a treat (even their generic brand biscuits – again, they don’t’ care about labels). Other times it’s a big smile when you say one of their names. Mostly, it’s just a consistent wag/smile because we’re there. What do they need? Food, a warm place to rest and us.
They are so happy just to be, and they express it in the only way they know how – by wagging their tails.
I wish I remembered to smile as much.
Feel free to call this my cheesy post of the month. I’m sure I deserve it, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I really love me some animals.
* I'm also sure I opened myself up to a lot of jokes with this title, but can we avoid any comments with the word "bitch" in them? Thank you in advance.
Book Review: Born Wicked
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood is the first installment in the new Cahill Witch Chronicles. Set in an alternate 19th century, the novel takes place 120 years after witches have been run out of New England (or forced into hiding) by the Brotherhood, a patriarchal religious order whose mission is to maintain control by preventing witches from rising to power again. Young girls are often accused of practicing magic and sent to labor camps or Harwood, an institution.
Cate Cahill and her two younger sisters, Maura and Tess, are witches capable of powerful magic. With a deceased mother and largely absentee father, the primary responsibility of caring for the family and protecting the sisters’ secret falls to Cate, a headstrong but cautious young woman.
In this alternate history, girls must declare their intentions at 16 to either marry or join the Sisterhood, a religious order for women. With a deadline fast approaching, Cate must decide what to do with her future. All of this is complicated by a marriage proposal from a family friend, unexpected feelings for the town bookseller’s son and secrets revealed by a cryptic note from the godmother Cate never knew she had.
When Elena, a governess from the Sisterhood, arrives to help the Cahill sisters with their education and better enter society, Cate is wary. Her suspicions are confirmed as Elena’s presence seems to drive a further wedge between the sisters – particularly Maura and Cate.
Born Wicked is a fun and intriguing read. It took awhile for me to get into the book, primarily because so much information is needed to set up the world of witches as well as its rules and regulations. However, the last 150 pages of the story move at an incredible pace. The plots twists and reveals offer everything one could want, and I ended the book anxious to see what would happen in Book Two.
This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
My Sinister Side
The universe does not want me to exercise (or perhaps even leave my house). How do I know this? A few weeks ago, on a day when all I did was walk, sit on a stool and do some deep breathing (I’ve gotten into some new relaxation techniques), I woke up at 5:30 a.m. with horrible pain in my left knee. I have a floating knee cap there, but I still never saw two Aleve and an ice pack coming from that day.
Who injures themselves walking and breathing? Apparently, me.
Perhaps more disturbing is that this latest “injury” goes to support my theory that the left side of my body might be evil.
Not evil in a possessed, does-amoral-things-when-I’m-asleep way or anything, but still just a little off. Maybe I just have a difficult left side? I could call it ornery?
On top of the floating left knee cap, I’ve broken my left wrist twice, and yes, when it rains, my wrist hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot. I have a special brace, like all the cool kids do.
Even the left side of my mouth has issues. I have two crowns and need a third on that side of my mouth. During my senior year of high school, when I had the two root canals that led to the crowns, I was in so much pain before the root canals that I stopped chewing with that side of my mouth. To this day, I still can’t seem to break the habit and most often use the right side of my mouth to eat. (If you thought I was weird before...)
I even think I broke my left toe once, too.
While I like to joke that the left side of my body is evil, I’ve learned that not everyone appreciates this humor. Especially people in the health care field.
On my first visit to a new dentist, he and I were going over the results of my X-rays.
“You have a little decay in some of your molars,” he said. “But I think we can just keep an eye on it for now.”
“Are they on the left side of my mouth?” I said.
“They are,” he said. “How did you know that?”
“I just figured,” I said. “That’s the evil side of my mouth.”
My dentist didn’t laugh. He cocked his head to one side and stared at me in a way that clearly said, “I’m not sure this is a patient I should have given nitrous oxide.”
Little did he know, that was probably the most coherent I’d been during the whole visit. These are just the kinds of things I say. But when I walked into a wall on the way out of the office, I didn’t exactly help my case.*
* That last part was due to the nitrous.
My First Drink
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you might have picked up that I have some proficiency with alcoholic beverages. At one time, my shot vocabulary was more impressive that what I knew about geometry. (The ingredients for a surfer on acid? Yes. Which is one is the isosceles triangle? No.)
And while this might come as quite a surprise, it wasn’t always this way. I didn’t drink in high school – as in ever, at all.
I was terrified of getting in trouble and convinced that drinking would destroy my chances at going to a good college, but I decided that my senior trip to Europe would be a great time to have that long-awaited first drink. (College applications were done, and it was Europe. The legal trouble aspect was gone.)
Since I was in Italy, you’d think my logical choice would be wine. Even without wine, you’d think I’d go for a beer, but after having a sip of beer at 13, I decided that it was one of the most foul-tasting liquids I had ever put in my body and wanted nothing to do with it. (Nothing to do with it until I was a sophomore in college that is, but bygones.)
Surrounded by all the choices in the world at an Irish bar in Italy (I might have already been starting off on the wrong foot, but I think it was close to our hotel), I ordered a margarita.
“A margarita?” the bartender said.
“Yeah, a margarita.” I’d seen my parents order them enough, and it seemed like a perfectly lovely choice for me.
Of course, there were two major problems with this plan:
- No one in Italy does girly drinks. Traveling abroad, especially in the country of the world’s finest wines, is not the time to order a Midori Sour or Peach Schnappes unless you also want to wear a large neon sign that says “Ignorant American” with an arrow pointing at your head.
- There is no ice in Europe. Ice is kind of important when it comes to a margarita. “Frozen” or “on the rocks,” you’re going to need ice.
Giving me yet another of her confused/disgusted looks, the bartender pulled a martini glass off the shelf, filled it nearly to the rim with straight tequila and squeezed a lime in it.
Not knowing much better, and not wanting to seem like a wimp on my first drinking excursion, I took a swig.
If I thought beer was foul before, I had an entirely new standard.
Still, I couldn’t give up, and I had to keep going with my “margarita.”
I made it through one and a half drinks. (Yes, I was stupid enough to order another one.)
That’s when a friend of mine who knew the potential disaster of what I was actually drinking too my glass away from me.
“You’d have to be very tipsy to want more of that,” he said.
This was more than fine with me because by now, I was feeling very giggly and really needed to use the restroom. A couple girlfriends and I walked back to our hotel, and I was asleep soon after.
When I did have my first real margarita as a freshman in college, I figured the difference in drinks was just another cultural difference – like berets to baseball caps.
It took one re-telling of the story of my first drink in Italy, to a friend whose family was from Italy, for me to realize how innocent (nice word?) I had been. And that maybe picking up a guide book or two wouldn’t have been a terrible choice before heading abroad.
Either way, I can’t say that I recommend straight tequila for the inexperienced drinker. It might not improve your street cred, but a Midori Sour is a lot easier to choke down.
* Obviously, the margarita pictured looks nothing like what I ended up with in Europe.
In Which Laurel Learns A Very Valuable Lesson
Until Tuesday, I had assumptions about certain aspects of the world -- mainly cemeteries.
- Grave robbing was a 19th century problem. You know, something that ended with Dickens. I’d imagined grave robbing in the same age as street urchins, chimney sweeps and people who said, “Blimey, I’d like to get my hands on that ring.”
- Cemeteries were like parks. They closed at dark, and while it was encouraged that you leave at sunset, there was no one to really enforce that rule. All horror movies (not exactly the best source I guess, considering that I don’t want to be beheaded by a ghost) and Supernatural have led me to believe that you can always get into -- and out of -- a cemetery.
- Other than teenagers wanting to drink, fool around or mess with urban legends, no one goes into a cemetery after dark anyway, right, so again, probably not too much security.
Based on these assumptions, I didn’t pay too much attention when I went to Elmwood, Birmingham’s main cemetery. Without getting too deep into this, I went to put some flowers on my great-grandmother’s grave. She lived until I was 13. My paternal grandparents passed away before I was born.
Anyway, I had no idea how many rules cemeteries had. (I mean, really, other than those beheading ghosts, I couldn’t think of much that could go wrong there.) I was very wrong.
First, there are rules about flowers. I’d tell you what those rules are, but the list was so long (10 different points!) that I got lazy. As per usual, I just did what I wanted to do.
I also suppose that when I got distracted by the many, many flower rules – and let’s not even get into regulations about other acceptable mementos – I didn’t see that the cemetery had hours.
It never occurred to me that a cemetery would have hours of business. (Please refer to point #2 at the top. I really kind of thought I was at a park.)
You can imagine my surprise/abject fear when I decided to leave the cemetery only to see large, locked gates in front of me.
Next to the locked gates was a sign that said, “Gates close promptly at 5:30.”
“Now you tell me,” I thought. It was 5:45.
There were no cars around. The office closed at 4:30 (that I did see when I arrived). I grabbed the map that I had gotten and decided to drive around to all of the other exits figuring that at least one would be open in case of emergency or have a really lackluster lock.
This was not the case.
Around this time, I might have been driving around like a mad woman wondering how I would explain to anyone that I had locked myself in a cemetery without ending up in even more therapy. Would I call my mom, have her pick me up, scale the fence and come back for my car in the morning? Would the SO even believe me when I told him where I was? Would I actually have to sleep in my car here?
Anxiety at this point: 11 on a scale of 1-10.
I was circling back towards the main office when I saw a car at the gate. I pulled directly behind him like there was nothing at all odd about the two of us heading out just before 6:00 p.m.
It turns out that I was behind the security guard, so while I escaped the cemetery, I also got a very stern lecture about reading signs and obeying rules.
I was so glad to be out of there, I would have taken an hour-long tongue-lashing. Fortunately, elderly security guards from cemeteries just want to go home, too.
And now I know – grave-robbing is still a very real concern so cemeteries have hours. (I might be the only person who didn't know this considering that when I tried to recount my harrowing evening to the SO, he said, "I mean, I knew cemeteries closed.")
This is one of the few mistakes I plan to never, ever make again. Maybe, just maybe, doing what I want to do without reading all the way to the end of the pamphlet isn’t always going to work out.
My Shortest Job Yet
In all of this thinking about my various jobs (which if anyone is still counting include babysitter, grocery store clerk, card store employee, hostess and server at four different restaurants, NHL hockey hospitality, substitute teacher and bank teller – and all of this is before my professional career began), I’ve remembered more and more about the items that never made my resume.
I’ve also become extremely grateful for the fact that I’m my own boss now. Who would want to put any training in to this job hopper?
Anyway, I originally thought that my shortest tenure with any employer was my infamous four-day job that I made my sister quit for me. But then I remembered yet another job, and this is one that I held for all of six hours.
Right after I graduated college, and for some reason the six-figure job offers weren’t rolling in, I signed up with a temp agency to keep up with my social and shopping habits.
The temp agency never really took a liking to me. They liked to call really early in the morning – like 9:30 a.m. early – and always wanted to talk about receptionist positions.
“One of your responsibilities would include taking in the mail. How are you with mail?” they’d say.
“I really like mail,” I said, which is true, I do love checking the mail. “But I think I’m going to pass on this one.”
The temp agency did not appreciate it when I passed on job interviews.
“Pass on this one? Again?”
“Again,” I’d say.
Now, I’m in no way knocking receptionists, I’d just made it very clear to them that I wanted to work in non-profits, and seeing as D.C. has a few thousand of those, I was hoping to at least be a receptionist at a non-profit.
“This is a really good vet’s office,” they’d say.
“I’m sure it is,” I said. “I just don’t think this is right for me.”
“Are you worried about the phones?”
“It’s not that exactly.”
“Fine then.”
Two months after graduation, I found a job on my own, but when the agency called with an actual temp job, which is what I’d been hoping for all along to fill in the gaps, I decided to take it since I still had a few weeks until I started work.
“This one’s in education,” the temp agency said, sounding a little snooty. “We thought it’d be more up your alley. You’ll need to be at Catholic University by eight in the morning.”
I agreed to be there, and told them I’d found a job, so they could take me off their call list after that. They also didn’t seem very happy that I’d found a job without them, and when I told them I was going to be the Assistant Director of Development and Marketing at a non-profit, the only response I got was a, “Well then.”
When I arrived at Catholic University, I met up with an older woman and a group of about eight to ten people ranging in age from myself to my mom in the university’s student union. The woman in charge explained that there was some sort of teacher exchange program going on, and we were going to help the teachers prepare to leave the United States. They were swapping classes for a year with teachers in other countries who would arrive later in the week.
This is what that preparation entailed: “Now, if you see here,” the woman in charge said, “we have a line made of masking tape. When the teachers arrive, you’re going to take their luggage from them at this line. Then, you’re going to take their luggage to this line.” That’s when she showed us another line of masking tape in the corner of the room.
“You’ll also notice more masking tape on the floor so you can line up the luggage in orderly rows.”
We had a group of at least eight people to move luggage fifteen feet. I was also pretty sure that since rolling luggage had caught on, it wasn’t going to require more than one person to move bags, but for once I decided not to point out the design flaws.
Basically, I felt like I’d gotten out of bed and done my hair for work that a well-placed sign could have accomplished.
As our “job” was being explained, I made eye contact with the only male in the group, and a guy who was clearly about my age. We’ll call him Dude from here on out.
Until a certain age, I had a very distinct physical type. My roommate at the time said he could walk in to any room and pick out who I would be attracted to within about three minutes. He was right. At the time, it was also a pretty good bet that you could put me in a room with 300 young professionals, and I’d end up spending all night chatting with the bartender who lived in his van.
Dude was definitely my type. He also thought this job was absurd.
As we were waiting for teachers to arrive, I said, “You think there’s a liquor store near here?”
“I wish,” he said.
Since there’s always someone with too much gusto in any group, two women were most definitely vying to be the best at luggage rearrangement, and Dude and I decided to take that opportunity to eat lunch. At 10:30 a.m.
Just as I was fully into the fantasy that involved Dude and I telling people at cocktail parties how we met on the strangest temp job ever, he said, “I really need to make some money to move to be with my girlfriend in Chicago, but this is ridiculous.”
For the next few hours, we talked and had a good time, debated the liquor store idea some more and sat on desks watching women spend way too much time making sure the masking tape borders were respected.
I knew I had a job lined up, and $8.00/hour just wasn’t enough for this. I can handle a lot of things fairly well, but boredom isn’t one of them.
Around 2:00, when Dude and I were told we could take another “break,” he looked at me and said, “Should we make a run for it?”
As irresponsible and terrible as it may be, I wanted to, and I did. (Catholic University has a really convenient Metro stop, so escaping from their campus is really easy to do.) So, while Dude and I did not turn out to be love matches, we were complete soul mates when it came to slacking off.
Almost more amazingly, the temp agency never got on to me for running off the job site. I think someone thought I was on campus all day, doing all that I could for those teachers.
That, or they finally had the evidence to back up why they despised me so for those two months.
“I knew there was something wrong with that one from the beginning.”
Book Review: Diary Of A Mad Fat Girl
Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee recounts the story of Ace Jones, a loud-mouthed, pizza-loving, Chiweenie owner who works as an art teacher at the high school she once attended in Bugtussle, Mississippi.
Ace spends most of her time with her two best female friends, Lilly and Chloe, college friends who also teach at the school, as well as Coach Tanner and Ethan Allen, another former classmate who now operates the town’s favorite watering hole. When her plans for a trip to the Redneck Riviera go awry, it seems that most everything else in Ace’s life goes downhill from there as well.
Diary of Mad Fat Girl is largely plot-driven. A lot happens between the opening of the book and the ending – from accusations of sexual harassment at school and a domestic violence attack to a stake out at a strip club and encounters with a mysterious and wealthy older woman who seems to know anything and everything that happens in Bugtussle. Some story lines are fun and interesting to follow, while others seem hastily tossed into the narrative and don’t necessarily resolve themselves in a satisfactory manner.
It took me about 30 or 40 pages to like the protagonist in the book, but once I did, I enjoyed her shenanigans. The book was also laugh-out-loud funny at times. While I wouldn’t ordinarily read something like Diary of Mad Fat Girl, I enjoyed the novel, and I think it’s a perfect beach read. If you have a Spring Break trip planned, I’d grab a daiquiri, a copy of Diary of Mad Fat Girl and head for the nearest chaise lounge.
This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
My 5 Favorite Shows Of The New Season
I’ve found the last few television seasons to be, well, rough. I’m still struggling with the end of Lost (I know it's been 2 years), they put Community on a temporary hiatus (March 15 cannot get here fast enough), they cancelled Ghost Whisperer and Medium, and just when I thought Criminal Minds had been put back together after a lackluster sixth season, Paget Brewster announces that she’s leaving the show – again. While I’m on a roll, How I Met Your Mother killed 2011. 2012, not so much. I need ghosts, time travel or sexual tension – pick your poison – and I need them ASAP.
Luckily, this year, I have a few shows to hold onto. Unfortunately, just by saying this, I’m probably dooming them all to cancellation.
1. Ringer
All that really had to happen was for the CW to put Sarah Michelle Geller back on the air. That they did, in a double your pleasure, double your fun kind of way. As a Buffy fan, I love some Ringer. Then Logan from Veronica Mars showed up. All around awesomeness. I also appreciate that at 18, I modeled all of my outfits around Buffy’s. Now at 32, after years without guidance, I have her back as a style icon. Double the role, double the outfits – even though they are still way out of my price range.
2. Once Upon a Time
Admittedly, this one has to do with another one of my girl crushes. I adore Jennifer Morrison. She is enough to make me question my hair color. (My desire to be blonde can go a little off the rails at times.) I still miss the sexual tension between her and House. Throw in my love of the dark side of fairy tales and an excellent supporting cast, and I can’t help myself on this one. Plus, it seems to be the closest I’m getting to time travel this year.
3. Up All Night
Basically, Maya Rudolph opens her mouth, and I laugh. Christina Applegate and Will Arnett rock, too, but it’s Maya playing a version of her infamous Oprah character that has me tuning in week after week.
4. The New Girl
For some reason that I’m not sure I understand, I know that Zooey Deschanel and “adorkable” have created a divide in the pop culture community. Whether it’s cool, not cool or trying to be cool, I love The New Girl. It’s just funny, and I’m fully prepared to watch the will-they/won’t-they sexual tension between Jess and roommate Nick for years to come.
5. Awake
I may be calling this one early, but I loved the pilot. (This also seems to be the only show I like without a strong female lead. Did you know Netflix actually suggests shows for me with strong female leads? You do now.) There’s crime solving, a very likable lead and Wilder Valderama is playing this role without an accent. Plus, there’s a chance of conspiracy (another fave). So, whether I’ve got a guy talking to ghosts, a hole in the time-space continuum or a big-time cover-up, it seems like a win all the way around.
* For the sake of the SO’s dignity, I should share that refuses to be in the room when Ringer or Once Upon a Time is on.
In Which I Audition For A Reality Show
I don’t know why I get the e-mails that I get. Some of them seem too good to be true – secret shopper opportunities and large Target gift cards included. Others are press releases that have little to do with me (“U.S. Prepares Secret Charges Against Dictator X”). Some are entirely in Arabic.
However, when a little e-mail popped up in my inbox a few months ago asking if my home was cluttered and I needed help, I decided to respond.
I disdain clutter. I am a neat person. We have known some hoarders, so my mother is the anti-hoarder. This is a trait she has passed on to me. For everything that comes in, something goes out, and the only thing I’m sentimental about is cards and letters. If you come over and don’t see something you gave me, save yourself the pain and don’t ask, but know I appreciated the thought.
Unfortunately, someone I care very much about doesn’t worry about clutter as much as I do. When you throw in the fact that we both work from a home that’s less than 1,000 square feet, well, there can be issues.
I wrote a couple of sentences back to the e-mail. The sender wanted pictures. Within five minutes of sending the photos, this e-mail arrived, “We want to talk to you.”
We chatted on the phone, I sent more photos and I got another e-mail reading, “We’d like to send a producer to your house. Does tomorrow work?”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to be thrilled (free stuff for the house!) or ashamed (I’m a reality TV producer’s dream).
Also, I’d done all of this while the SO was out of town for work, so I had to call him and tell him what I’d been up to. You know that phone call, when you tell your SO that you’ve been scheming to have his house made over (TV crew included) while he went away for the weekend? Pretty standard stuff.
“Have you heard of the Style Network, honey?”
“I guess,” he said.
“How do you feel about being on it?”
When the producer came over to do our interview and take a tour of the house, she and I had a 45-minute interview. She and the SO talked for 10 minutes.
Beyond the “how do you feel about the clutter?” questions, there was “Is this the man you want to family with?” “How would you feel about someone else coming in and telling you what to do with your space?” and “Is this a deal breaker for you?”
That’s when I had another realization: I was the source of drama for this television production. They either expected me to argue with the SO about the house or argue with the organizing team about my house. I was their Omarosa.
I could complain, but whom are we kidding? If someone is going to bring drama to a housing renovation, it’s going to be me. I can bring drama to a lunch for the mute. I like to think of it as passion, but I could be wrong.
We took two and a half hours of footage, I sent more photos and there were lots of phone conversations, but unfortunately, we didn’t make the cut. In some ways, it’s nice to know people need more help than I do. In other ways, I really, really wanted free stuff.
Also on the plus side, I appreciate that the SO continues to put up with my shenanigans, and on the negative one, there’s a tape out there somewhere with a whole lot of me bitching about binders and photo equipment.
* This is not one of the photos I sent of my house. I don't do plants.
"Exercise" -- The Laurel Way
In what might not have been one of the wisest decisions, I went in search of fitness programs to go with the Wii on Monday. The SO loves his Mario brothers, but since I prefer games where you don’t die (because what’s the fun in that – especially when you lack good hand-eye coordination), our Wii games are an odd mix of action-packed games that require You Tube video walk-throughs for secret level access and those designed for five-year-olds.
It’s pretty easy to figure out my games – Family Feud, Haunted House, Mickey Paints, and my favorite, Guilty Party. I had “The Malgrave Incident,” which is a puzzle and hidden objects game, but after solving it twice, I decided to trade it in.
In case you’re wondering, Guilty Party allows me to solve mysteries about a missing walrus by questioning witnesses, gathering cards and completing tasks like following the suspect’s eyes with a flashlight. I can play for hours. (Plus, until L.A. Noir comes out for Wii, this is the closest I can get to cracking cases from my sofa.)
We also have the Wii fit game, but due to an unfortunate reading of the E-bay listing, we don’t have the board to go with it.
After eating half a sackful of Krystals on Monday and watching three episodes of Supernatural in a row, I thought that it might not be the worst idea to add some kind of fitness element to the Wii.
I started at Walmart, where I learned that balance boards are $100. That’s a big investment for something that I might only use once, so I moved on to Game Stop in the hopes of finding a pre-owned one.
As an aside, my favorite part of going to Game Stop is that the staff there never knows what to do with me. I’m usually in my yoga clothes that I don’t practice yoga in, and they always ask if I’m looking for my kid first. When they learn that I’m shopping for myself, they tend to get really confused and leave me alone. After the “I want to solve crimes with my Wii” conversation from a few months ago, there’s one guy who avoids me like the plague.
There were no pre-owned balance boards, so I started digging through the used products bin and discovered Personal Trainer 2. At $40, it seemed reasonable, and I went to check out.
While I was at the register, I asked about whether or not pre-owned balance boards ever came in. That’s when the Game Stop employee pointed out, “You know this game is for Playstation, right?”
I did not. (This might be another reason the Game stop staff hates me.)
He and I went back to the bin, but all I could find was a used copy of Personal Trainer Version One for Wii. It was really beat up, and now that I knew Personal Trainer 2 was $40, why would I pay $40 for Version 1?
All of this is to explain how I ended up bringing home the UFC Trainer game. Do I know anything about the UFC? No. However, the game was brand new, promised a work out and cost $30. I figured, “What they hey?”
The SO was confused, to say the least.
So far, in my two attempts to play the game, I barely made it through the four-minute fitness test, and I’ve been yelled at by some guy named Chase or Tito for not getting my jabs in fast enough.
It’s not looking good.
In a few months, I could be able to take you in any fight. More likely, I will be trying to pawn off my “awesome” game at a “great price.”
The lesson: This is why I only spend $30 on my impulse purchases – especially when there’s a Zaxby’s on the way home from Game Stop.
Book Review: The Rules Of Inheritance
The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith is an insightful and beautifully written memoir that recounts the author’s adolescence and young adulthood as she struggles with the deaths of her parents. Told in a non-linear fashion using the stages of grief as a frame, Smith bounces back and forth in time adding a great level of interest and intrigue to the narrative. The author’s life unfolds for the reader through the moments that define her – from a rocky relationship begun in a bar at 18 to a trip to Europe with her father to uncover more about his World War II experience.
Smith’s writing is lovely and her observations on grief will resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.
“Grief is like another country, I realize. It’s a place,” (94) Smith writes. This is how I often felt after losing my cousin in 2007, like I had crossed a border into another land I had no idea existed before and with rules and norms that seemed so drastically different from what I had thought of the world only hours before.
After my cousin’s daughter passed away at the age of five last year, I began to feel like I was in an even smaller part of that country – the place for those who have loved a child that died.
I still sometimes think of myself as living in that different country, and the isolation that comes with that can be overwhelming – until you find people to talk to. As Smith also points out, you never know what’s going on behind the door of any given house on any given street, and the pain others are holding in.
Smith’s words give definition to so many of the feelings that accompany grief, these being only a few of those I took with me, with incredible honesty.
I realize that this book review is more of a personal response to Smith’s work than an editorial one, but this particular memoir resonated with me on that level, and I can’t necessarily separate my feelings about the tragedies in my own family over the last five years with Smith’s re-telling of her own.
Overall, The Rules of Inheritance is a beautiful memoir that I believe will leave an impact on all readers. I’m glad I found Smith’s work, and her captivating and touching story is well worth the journey.
This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.
The Hidden Dangers Of Seasonal Paper Products
The summer I was 17, I took a job at a greeting card store. (I know, I know. As one co-worked once said, “How many jobs have you had?” I’ve never counted, but let’s just go with “a lot.”) I won’t name the store, but I will add that if you turned over one of our cards, you would not be greeted with the special gold crown that lets you know someone cares.
For a place that was supposed to specialize in spreading joy and sentiment, it was an unusually tense environment. Our manager cried a lot. I think it had to do with a boyfriend, but after a week, I wanted to spend most of my days crying, too.
I blame this weepiness on two unfortunate aspects of the job:
- I actually had to spend two days inventorying Precious Moments figurines. Even if I liked Precious Moment figurines, going down a three page list and counting statuettes like “Bobby Fishes,” “Bobby and Ellen Down by the Lake” and “Susie’s Goodnight Prayer,” would nearly bore anyone to death.
2. We sold those nature sounds CDs that were very popular in the mid-‘90s, and they were housed in a special display that ran samples of each soundtrack over and over again in an hour-long loop. No human being is meant to hear laughing dolphins at 15 minutes past the hour, every hour, and maintain his or her sanity. I finally understood what drove Noriega out.
As a card store, we also carried a lot of seasonal merchandise, and according to the employee handbook (the very long employee handbook, I might add), seasonal merchandise that did not sell on clearance had to be destroyed after a certain point. Employees couldn’t take it home, it couldn’t be donated – it had to be thrown away. (It makes no sense to me either.)
As the lowest member on the card store totem pole, I was also on trash duty. One mid-August day, it was finally time for me to tote the St. Patrick’s Day napkins up to the dumpster.
(If you have never worked in a mall, you do not know the joy of going to the dumpster through the maze of hallways that runs through the back of your shopping center. This is not a job you want to do after dark.)
Anyway, as I was toting my boxes of St. Patrick’s day table décor through the back of the mall to the dumpster, I ran into one of the security guards.
“Those new napkins?” he said.
“I don’t know about new,” I said, “but they haven’t been opened.”
“Where you going with those?”
“The trash.”
“Really?” he said.
“Really,” I said. “Store Policy.”
“That’s a shame,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
When we got to his floor, he looked back over at me and said, “Oh s&%$,” and grabbed all of my seasonal décor before exiting the elevator. I continued my ride up to the dumpsters.
What he was going to do with all of those St. Patrick’s Day table decorations, I don’t know. Why he would take them from a 17-year-old girl, I really don’t know. I can only imagine that he really disdained waste, or for an older black man, loved March 17th with a passion few can understand.
However, knowing our store policy, I wasn’t really into the idea of getting fired from the poor man’s version of Hallmark for “stealing” plastic shamrock tablecloths. With cameras being everywhere and all, and the products never making it to the trash, I thought I should report the incident to my always-tense manager.
“What happened to the paper plates?” she said, her tears turning to an odd form of rage.
I repeated my story.
“I’m calling security,” she said.
Since a security guard committed “the crime,” this did not seem like a good idea to me, but what was a girl to do?
Another security guard showed up to take my report. (All of this over six-month-old paper products, by the way.)
This created a terrible conundrum in my teenage brain: If I really reported the security guard, I might get a guy fired over napkins. If I said next-to-nothing, I’d have a security guard that really hated me wandering the mall. After all, it’s not like there were going to be a ton of suspects for who reported the theft that happened with two people in an elevator, and I was sure my story would be the focus of some mall-wide security meeting.
I ended up giving a ridiculously vague description of the security guard. “He was average?”
It felt like enough to seem like I was trying, but not nearly enough to get anyone fired. It was not, however, good for assuaging my manager’s rage. “I don’t think you’re anywhere close to being ready for cash register duty.”
The next week, I went on a planned vacation. There was some trouble with my return flight, so I asked my mom to call the card store and ask about my schedule. I’d done so much not to get fired, I didn’t really want to get in trouble for missing a shift over a late plane.
When my mom called back, she said, “They said you weren’t anywhere on the schedule. I think they forgot you work there.”
“I think we should just keep it that way.”
And there you have the illustrious story of my two-week career in retail, as well as the reason I prefer to buy all of my greeting cards at Target.
Squatting: What All The Cool Kids Are Doing
There are many titles that I’ve strived for and continue to strive for in life, as well as titles I hope to achieve one day: good daughter, excellent student, editor, best-selling author, good partner, hot chick, best friend, good mom. The list goes on.
Squatter was never on that list, but that’s exactly what I became this past weekend in, of all places, Oxford, Mississippi.
The SO and I were traveling for a film festival. He needed to lead a meeting, so he left me with the primary responsibility of checking in to the hotel. (He might call this his first mistake.)
The guy behind the desk gave me the map of the hotel and directions as to how to drive around and park in front of our room. I took the keys and was off.
When I pulled up in front of our row of rooms, I saw what I thought was the first door. There was a maid in the room, but since we were checking in before noon, long before the regular check-in time of 3:00, I assumed she wasn’t expecting our arrival.
“Do you mind if I just sit here while you finish up?” I said.
“Not a problem,” she said.
I unpacked our bags and sat down at the desk in the room. Once the housekeeper was done, I texted the SO with the room number and plopped down on the bed with my laptop and started working.
Awhile later, my phone rang, “Why aren’t you answering the door?” the SO said.
“Because you aren’t knocking,” I said.
“I’ve been knocking for five minutes,” he said.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m going to the door.”
I went to the door, opened it and there was no SO.
Then, I looked down the corridor and saw the SO standing in front of the room next door. I turned around to look at the door to the room I was in and saw A120.
We were supposed to be in A119.
“I’m in the wrong room,” I said.
“You’re in the wrong room,” the SO said, emotionally somewhere between hang-my-head in confusion and bewilderment that this is my girlfriend and an extreme fit of laughter.
We quickly gathered up all of our things.
“Once this door locks,” he said, “remember that we can’t get back in. Make sure you get everything. Because our keys don’t go to this room.”
We made a beeline for our actual room, and I knew lots and lots of jokes were coming.
Sadly, at one point while I was in the wrong room, a hotel employee even came in, was surprised that I was there, said her sheet from management must be wrong, and it still didn’t occur to me that I might be in the wrong place.
For a good solid hour, I was a squatter, and while my part of me is embarrassed, the other part of me has to admit that getting away with even the smallest of illicit acts is the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in months.
As the SO now says, who needs Priceline anymore?; I just take the rooms I want.
Whitney, The Misuse Of Poison Lyrics And A Valentine
I was a big fan of Whitney Houston.
When I was 9, I sang “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” on a near-daily basis. I even performed her song in front of six grades during our school’s annual dance contest. (Long story short: We didn’t even get an honorable mention, and I was pissed. My hand motions were so descriptive.)
When I first opened the cassette tape holding “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and found the mass-produced, signed photo of Whitney at the back of the lyrics booklet, I thought I had Whitney’s actual autograph and carried it around with me for weeks.
(On another note, what do you call that thing that you unfold with all the song lyrics and info about the producers? Does it have a name? I considered it a study guide for learning my favorite songs for mirror performances, but I imagine any musician reading this is hanging his or her head in shame with such a description.)
When The Bodyguard came out, I was still carrying a torch for Kevin Costner. (I know, I know, but I thought Dances With Wolves was a really sensitive film.) I could not wait to see Whitney and Kevin together, and “I Will Always Love You” became my new ideal for romantic love.
Incidentally, at the time, I also thought the movie had a happy ending. When Whitney climbed off the plane to hug Kevin Costner on the tarmac, I thought they were getting back together. I think this is the same kind of wishful thinking/re-writing of history that made me want to be a writer, but I also just might not be that bright. Mulholland Falls is way beyond me, and I’ve also crafted my own ending to Beverly Hills, 90210 that has nothing to do with the finale or the current incarnation of the show. (In my mind, Brandon and Kelly got back together. I live on the precipice of fan fiction.)
At 20, I broke up with someone using Whitney Houston lyrics. The remix of “It’s Not Right But It’s OK,” was pretty popular at the time. Said boyfriend was explaining to me, after arguing that we should get back together, that he was going to continue dating me and another girl when we started back to school in the fall, and something finally clicked.
“It’s not right, but it’s OK,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s not right, but it’s OK.”
Then there was some staring.
“I’d rather be alone that unhappy,” I said. Then I stood up to leave. (I loved melodrama back in the day). “And I’d rather be alone,” I said.
(This same boyfriend once quoted Poison lyrics to me during one of our fights, so it seemed reasonable to me at the time. Plus, I think my choice was far more dignified than, “Instead of making love, we both made our separate ways.” I also stand by the sentiment – no relationship is worth constant misery. I would rather be alone than unhappy.)
In summation, I guess this cheesy, nerdy, completely lacking in rhythm and soul, tone deaf girl wants it known that she’ll miss Whitney Houston. She was a great talent, and she made some wonderful music. I’m also pretty appreciative for that break-up. Senior year of college was a lot more fun without a BF.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to let a certain someone know that I’d like to feel the heat with him* this Valentine’s Day.
*Mom and Dad -- that is not meant to be dirty.
Landlords Are Crazy
From the time I rented my first apartment at 19 until about six months ago, I operated under a basic assumption: all landlords are crazy.
Apartment landlords, or any complex run by a company or management firm, maybe not so much. However, when you rented a house, it seemed to me that all landlords were nuts.
The landlord of that apartment I rented at 19 had a house he divided into an upstairs apartment, a main level that was kept in tact “for the family to visit” and a basement apartment. We basically lived above a creepy museum, and my landlord liked to work on the house shirt-less (at 70), made snide comments about boys coming over and let his son-in-law use the back of the house for his “art” at any given time – which usually translated to the hours of 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
I did not like that man.
I had another landlord that tried to keep our security deposit because we didn’t clean the front of the garbage disposal.
Yet, none of these compared to the landlord I had to take to small claims court. He changed the lease after we signed it (not something to do to a lawyer’s daughter), and one of its new clauses included charging us tenants a $50 fee for any repair done on the house.
We discovered this on the day we asked him to send over a plumber because two out of the three toilets weren’t working. (Little known fact: I can fix most toilet issues. I have two sisters; you learn. Even in the 300-year old house where I shared one bathroom with four other girls, we only had one plumbing issue in a year.)
I was not pleased, and seeing how we had not approved the revised lease, my roommate and I decided to move out nine days after moving in. At the time, the landlord said he was fine with that and agreed to return our security deposit and 21 days worth of the first month’s rent.
Three months and no check later, I filed papers at the D.C. courthouse.
I got my money back, but moving in and out of a house in the span of nine days isn’t something you get over quickly.
I had one landlord I adored. “This is my investment property,” Peter said. “Please keep it nice for me.”
When I signed the lease at his (gorgeous) house, and his dog lay down at my feet, we were both sold.
“She’s a very good judge of character,” he said, referring to the dog. “I think you’re supposed to be in this house.”
Based on the original Picassos in the house, I also don’t think he worried too much about money, so Peter tended not to get too involved in our affairs. He even helped me look for a job. When he sold the same house a year later for double what he paid, there were no security deposit issues. Everyone was happy.
Apart from my beloved Peter, I’ve had many other landlords over the years, and they all led me to the same conclusion, landlords = crazy.
He was the one shining exception to my rule.
So, you can imagine how difficult it was when I became a landlord this past August. By my own rules, I’m now in the ranks of the crazy. (This one’s a whole different kind of crazy than the weird, quirky, medicated categories I already fall into.)
In addition to sometimes staying up at night wondering how my hardwood floors are faring, I also worry that my tenants think I’m nuts. (Who worries about how their tenants feel about them? Crazy insecure people, I know.)
I understand a little more of the landlord crazy. I wonder how my new cast iron sink is doing without me. I hope the washing machine is being treated well. I think about chipping paint.
But I also try to give my tenants their space and recognize that they are paying for a place to live, after all.
Hopefully I’ll figure out the balance. But if you ever catch me complaining about the grime on the garbage disposal, I expect a friendly reminder about the small versus the big things in life.
In Which The Dogs Question That Whole "Pack Leader" Thing
Unfortunately, last night was another night for deadly storms in Alabama. My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones and homes.
You might think that you would eventually get used to the sound of weather sirens in the night, but I think most people who live in tornado alleys would second that it's always an unnerving and unsettling phenomenon.
Since I live in a house with a concrete slab foundation, our "place of safety" (the real term if you don't live in inclement-weather-prone parts of the country) is the only room in the house without windows -- otherwise known as the guest bathroom. It is also the only bathroom with a tub, so it's where the dogs get their baths. Whether it's claustrophobia or bad memories, neither pooch was too crazy about the idea of getting in there with a bunch of fleece blankets, pillows and the Kindle fire at 3:30 in the morning.
When they realized that they we would be sleeping in there until the tornado warning ended around 4:30, or I knew from local meteorologists that the worst part of the storm was out of Jefferson County, they did not seem pleased.
I might be projecting too much, but I do think my authority is in question now. There's just something in their eyes that seems to say, "The lady has finally lost it."
* Of course, I don't mean to make light of what anyone suffered last night. For those affected by last night's storms, the Salvation Army has announced feeding stations, and I'm sure that the Red Cross will be coordinating donations.
Don't Get Lost In The Music
In my opinion, most every major (and non-major) musical artist has written at least one song that only has one purpose -- talking someone into a one night stand.
(If you think about it, just the act of writing the song shows far more effort than your standard Jaeger bomb and "It's all really about living for the moment" line, so at least it's a step far above the person in the bar hoping they find someone before last call. Still sketchy though? Yes. Supportive of my sister's theory that most people learn to play the guitar to attract the opposite sex? Also yes. However, I'm not sure there's a ton we do as humans that isn't meant to attract the opposite sex. Moving on ...)
Let's look at the evidence:
Elvis Presley: "It's Now or Never"
Bob Seger: "We've Got Tonight" ("Who needs tomorrow?")
Eagle-Eye Cherry: "Save Tonight"
The Dave Matthews Band: "Say Goodbye" ("Tonight we'll be lovers, then go back to being friends.")
Heart: "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You"
Eve 6: "Here's to the Night"
This list doesn't even come close to the dozens of less-subtly titled songs just called "One Night Stand."
Now, of course, none of these compare to what I consider to be the creepiest song of all time: "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"
All people seem to remember from that song is, "Yes, I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain."
No one thinks about, "I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long," "I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean. But me and my old lady, had fallen into the same old dull routine," or "I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape. At a bar called O'Malley's, where we'll plan our escape."
By "red tape," I assume the dear Rupert Holmes means "talking." I also assume "escape" means "motel room."
This is a song about a man who decides to cheat on his partner, so he goes to the personal ads -- a 1979 personal ad keep in mind, so simply by being Disco-era, it's even ickier -- to meet someone new. Then, lo and behold, while he's waiting for the woman he plans to cheat on his "lady" with, he sees his own partner walk into the bar and realizes that she was planning to cheat on him, too.
Even Wikipedia refers to this song as ending on "an upbeat note."
I think we can all be honest here and admit that if this ever happened in real life, there'd be a lot more denial, anger, shame and possible shoving than heartfelt reconciliation. (Then again, two people like this probably deserve each other, and their other options for mates would most likely involve swinger's clubs and well, people who place 1970's era personal ads.)
This song is not romantic; it's creepy.
So, I must go back to my original message -- don't get lost in the music. Unless you're looking for that one night stand or trying to track down an unfaithful spouse. Then, I guess, you should save tonight with all the pina coladas and walks in the rain that you can.
And for all those girls out there dreaming of prom night, beware of the soundtrack.
No More Pretense
* A quick note: if you came to this site because you found my via Night Night Birmingham and are expecting child-friendly, appropriate stories, this is one of many posts that probably isn't for you.
Why do I love drugstore chains and Bed, Bath & Beyond? (Other than the coupons and massive supplies of pills, of course.) Because they offer "as seen on tv products" without the required patience of waiting for said products to arrive in the mail. I haven't gotten into cake pops yet, but I can't promise it won't happen.
It also offers a fun chance to observe stuff that's even weirder than what you see on late night infomercials. Massagers are a personal favorites, and I think we can all agree that the manufacturers have stopped trying to hide what they're really about over the last few years. For this particular product, the only slogan they even gave a shot was "relax." Is there anyone out there who would actually try the line that this is for tight shoulders?