Gratefull

What am I thankful for on the one day designated to give thanks? Which, by the way, seems a bit silly to me. Why can't we be thankful every day?

Anywho...

I have so much to be thankful for, I'm thankful for my friends and family and good health, but I think all of that is a given. If you aren't thankful for your family and friends, something ain't right.

In nearly no particular order...
1. My mom. I wouldn't be able to get through anything without her. She was literally the driving force that got me back to Minneapolis to start fresh in my life and she has supported me every step of the way. She is my rock, my heart, my friend. Everyone should be so lucky to have a mom like mine. Thanks Mom! I love you!
2. My yoga class. It is the best thing I do for myself every week.
3. The fact that I have chosen to take public transportation. I am less stressed, more active, and get to engage with strangers in little tid bits of their life every day.
4. My girlfriend Kerstin. She is the girlfriend I have been looking for for years. I seemed to get dropped by fair-weather friends and Kerstin is a friend to the end. I can call her up when I'm bored or in tears and she will chat with me. And she is game for anything!
5. A job that I enjoy and that I can leave at work. I know so many people who take work home with them and I am so glad I don't have to do that.
6. My apartment. It's mine, all mine.
7. My writing class. I didn't think I had the ability to express myself with words as well as I have found I can through this class.
8. Water. Man, is that stuff good.
9. Laughter. "I love to laugh. Loud and long and clear." (from Mary Poppins)
10. Sleep. Warm and cozy under the covers. Napping with the sun coming through the windows. Cuddling. Ahhh sleep.

The feel of completion

I think I really do work well under pressure. I used to say that in college while I was procrastinating writing a paper, I was really "giving myself the chance to work well under pressure." What a load of crap it was back then. I was just lazy and didn't want to put in the effort. Oddly enough though, on papers I really cared about I still got a B or better.

But now, I do think I work well under pressure. I just finished my latest writing assignment, and just in time too. I've been rewriting for the last 10 days or so and not really feeling it. I sent it to my mom for her view on things and she helped a lot. Thanks Mom!

In theatre I was great under pressure. Most of the time. I used to tell fellow crew members and cast mates "The show is going to open whether we are ready or not. So lets stop freaking out and just do our job." And sure enough, we were ready opening night because we had to be.

And my assignments due date was creeping up on me whether my piece was done or not. So I HAD to finish it.

I really am my own worst critic. When I think it sucks, I let fresh eyes read it and I suddenly have a new view. With a few tweaks here and many punctuation fixes there, I had a completed article.

And man, does that feel good. It always feels nice to finish something that you've started. But when it's something creative and to know that the finished piece is your thoughts, emotions, heart is even better.

Riding the bus for research

I really do like people. Even though I piss and moan about dumb customers, don't do well with others who have no common sense, but mostly I tend to enjoy being around others. I think everyone has a story to tell, and each story is just as important as the next.

My latest piece for my writing class is due in a week and a I took today to do some hands-on research. I rode several different bus lines and asked fellow bus riders their thoughts about riding the bus. I met one woman who definitely does not like riding the bus, but her car is in storage and has been for several years thanks to drinking and driving. So riding the bus is all she's got. I met another woman who said she has never had a drivers license and would "rather feed her child than feed a car." Just about everyone I talked to said they mostly enjoy using public transportation and their main complaint had nothing to do with the bus system itself. It had to do with every other rider. Someone voiced it perfectly when she said "I don't like the people who didn't learn anything from their mamas." Manners and poor self-awareness were the biggest complaints.

Out of all the people I spoke to, only 2 of them had a car. But neither of them drove it for one reasons or another. And they both did say that Minneapolis does have one of the best public transportation systems in the country. Three cheers for us!

This piece became an idea for me from a conversation I had with a man from the suburbs. I wanted to uncover stereotypes and how we judge others. But it has since turned into a piece about how we all have more in common in than we thought. Everyone wants to get from point A to point B without too much hassle. In both the literal sense and the figurative sense. We all want to get from work to home, or from a doctor's appointment to a friends. But we all also want to get achieve one goal and then the next. Go from one life dream to the next. Achieving the best life we can.

Now I just need to sit down and out these ideas into a structured format, an article with a beginning, middle and end.

Crazy Happy

The sunlight is peeking through
baby, can't you see the way the water stains have left my face?

So drop a line or two on occasion
just let me know how you've been
know that I am thinking of you
and I know you're doing all that you can

So don't fear that I'm lonely
don't dear I'm just wasting away
I hope you're as happy as I am
in that we're both better off this way

The sunlight is peeking through
baby, can't you see the way the water stains have left my face?

In the morning I awaken
I pull the covers up tight
in the morning I discover
I fell crazy happy overnight

Thank you Brenda Weiler. Check her out here I discovered her folksy, rock acoustic sound in college when she came down to play. I only own one of her albums but this song is surely in my top 15. It's off the album Crazy Happy (hence the title of this post) and the song is called In The Morning. Every time I hear it I sing it with a huge smile on my face, and it reminds me that I am happy. I am right where I should be.

It's a bit calm 'round here

It's Friday night and I'm doing laundry, making yummy spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner, drinking Cheap White Wine (seriously all caps, cause that's what it's called), listening to music with candles burning. And I couldn't be more content.

I plan on reading later with some lyric-less jazz playing in the background.

Contentedness is in the eye of the beholder. And tonight is exactly what I wanted.

On other notes, I've been fairly bla lately. No exciting dates in the last month, no celebrities in my store for me to yap my mouth to, no crazy nights out on the town. Except Halloween although it wasn't that crazy. I didn't fall in the bar, no one took my number, had just the right amount of beers, but I did see some awesome costumes.

I'm kind of hoping for something exciting. Something fantastic and new in my personal life would be preferred. Like oh I dunno, say a cute boy to think I'm fabulous and I think the same and we laugh and enjoy the here and now together. But offered a large sum of money or a book deal would be nice too.

A week or so ago I went and got Lee-Ann Chin take out (all you food critics, don't judge me. I love that stuff.) And I got two fortunes in one cookie! That was the extent of exciting for me. It did make my day. And they were both fortunes, not facts, like "You are surrounded by friends." That is a big ol' duh. But these were actual fortunes. I framed them. I've framed many uplifting quotes. It's nice to look over and see words that make you smile.

Seeing as how I want something exciting to happen I find it ironic that I choose to sit in on a Friday night and enjoy some genuine ME time. Ahhhh well. To each his own.

NaNoWriMo

So November is National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo to the folks that speak the lingo. There is a website, a contest, all sorts of stuff that go along with this. I signed up on the website before I realized that it is really official. You get a profile, a place to sum up your novel, your word count, your title.

And I have to say I haven't written squat.

For a few reasons. One, I'm trying to finish up my next, and might I add, second to last assignment for my class. (I'm ready to be done with this class. I just want to write and send out my stuff.) And two, I have the hardest time with fiction. So much so that I don't even want to attempt it.

I get great ideas, cool snipets of a scene, a few fantastic lines of dialogue but I can never get them to go anywhere.

Perhaps this is why I took the class, you ask??? Well, yes and no. I find I am very good and enjoy writing personal essays and don't think I have enough gumption to stick with fiction.

Or I'm just lazy.

The one story that has been roaming in my head for several years I started as a play. But I found after the first 2 scenes it was all stage direction and not dialogue. And talking between characters is what keeps a play afloat. So I shelved the play idea. And a few years later I picked it up again to turn it into a story. I have an idea of who the main character is, and why she has done what she has done, but I am unsure of the rest, or how she gets back to where she needs to be.

All very fuzzy and unclear, I know.

Hence why I haven't written anything. Nada. Zilch.

I did try writing about the story. Sort of talking it out to myself on paper/micorsoft word. Basically writing about what I want to happen and why. Just to see if that got any creative something flowing. And perhaps a trickle started. I'm not sure.

Needless to say I am not fully participating in NaNoWriMo. But I started on something in a way that maybe worked for me.

My next assignment, however I think is going to be a good one. Bus riding, stereotypes, human interaction, the nature of judgment. I might even interview some fellow bus riders. Which could turn into a story all it's own.

I like to read but this...

So I've been reading Fahrenheit 451 and am thoroughly confused and not at all enjoying the book. I've tried it before and couldn't get into it. But I gave it another whirl. And got over half way and finally said "Not into it. And don't care." And put it down.

There is not enough time in the world to waste on books that I'm not enjoying.

I've found that with many books written during the Cold War. Animal Farm, 1984, Catch 22, this Fahrenheit book, I just don't care. And I feel like I should. Kids read them in high school, they were supposed to be very socially forward, and yet I couldn't care less.

There are no interesting characters, the plot doesn't really seem to go anywhere except to Crazyville, the descriptions are flat and dull. And Ray Bradbury could really use a class called "Sentence Structure 101." He had the most run-on sentences, a 3/4 page paragraph with 2 sentences. So annoying!

So I'm moving on. I'll try Catch 22 again and 1984 again. Some day. Maybe. But now I'm picking up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It was on our best-seller list nearly all summer and everyone I know who has read it loved it.

Here's to a new good read!

:-)

"The book is a perfect form, a physical thing that you can carry with you, that survives power outages and doesn't need batteries. It's simple, it's aesthetically pleasing, and you can use it again and again." ----Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News

How fantastic is that?!

Another writing first

There is a lady who comes into my work every now and then. I was talking to her about memoirs a while back. They are my favorite books to read, I think everyone has a story to tell and I like to read other peoples stories. I'm a literary rear window. And on Friday I was walking around work after I had finished my shift, looking for a book to read and she stopped me.

Her name is Mary and she is writing her memoir. She says shes been working on it for years and she thinks it's nearly done. And she asked me to read it and give her my feedback. She knows that I'm writing and that I like to read memoirs, so she says that she thinks I'll have some good insight.

I was honored. One, as an avid reader to have someone want me to read their book before it's even a book, and two, as a fellow writer I think it's a great request to ask of someone.

I told her I would love to. Whenever she is ready, she said she'll bring it to me. I know nothing of her, besides her name and the fact that she is writing. I wonder what kind of story she has to tell...