Hippychick

I found a nifty little site while on my search for the elusive song "Hippychick" by Soho. Try searching lyrics sites for "hippie chick" and you won't even graze this one... Oh well, here's the video so you don't have to do your OWN search (be patient - there's a short commercial before the song):

Soho - Hippychick
Music Video Codes By Music Video Code

Workaday World Blues

I dislike some things about the way the working world works... Hmmm, that's pretty mild and a fairly generic statement to make. I strongly dislike the fact that when business sucks, especially in a small business, the people who are responsible for shouldering the heaviest load are the first to be "cut" from the budget. Little errors, the kind that are par for the course, are treated as major infractions and simply fuel the fire of "bottomline" thinking.

It's never reflected upon that, for example, if sales was doing the things they needed to, we wouldn't be having discussions about who might be "let go". We would be working so hard the days would fly by (still making minor mistakes, mind you) and they would be talking about hiring more folks.

That's the real trouble - companies would rather let go of a decent employee than fire a bad one and they'd rather train someone new after a round of layoffs when they could have just hung on to another through a drought. I realize I'm being vague and I hope to goodness the "talk" will be over soon. It's just the sands through which we must slog until then that get to me.

Some Things Happen...

And you don't always know the reason for them right away. It takes time to integrate the experience into your concept of life and the world and then some day it just dawns on you, "Wow! That's why I saw/learned/dreamed/felt that!" It's a refreshing experience when the epiphany finally comes and you can take a deep breath.

I know life works cyclically, too - Sometimes you're in an up cycle and sometimes it's the other direction. While most people who aren't cynical, depressed or masochistic prefer the up, it's definitely valuable to have them both: for regeneration, rebirth, learning and just to have the sense of peace that accompanies reaching the top of the long climb up the hill and seeing the beautiful landscape beyond.

"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone..."

I'm DIZZY!

Ok - So I was mildly chastised (thanks for the push, though, Kit) for having neglected my lonely little blog... Good thing they let your account stand unused indefinitely (I think)!

I am working my way into a new venture, a new stage of my evolution as it were. I'm working on developing a modest website dedicated to healing the tumultuous relationship so many of us have with my favorite four-letter word: FOOD.

It's important to me to start working on my goal and a wise person suggested a website because of the possibility for a more instantaneous type of gratification than might be avilable through other methods. I hope to use the contacts I make through the site to extend my abilities to share with people the struggles I (and so many others) have had with food - and show them that there is hope for healing.

One way I hope to accomplish this is through a book of recipes accompanied by the stories of those who gifted the recipes to me. Another is the development of a program I can personally teach to people who want to learn more about food as a way to nourish more than just their bodies; it's about so much more than mere physical sustenance.

I understand that baby steps (with an occasional leap off a cliff) are probably the best way to approach my new venture. There is so much for me to learn! But with each thing I learn, whether about nutrition, business or web development, I put myself that much closer to my goal of having a truly meaningful career - a "lifestyle" that I have designed myself, not just allowed to "happen" to me.

This post is a bit stream of consciousness, eh? Yeah, well, my mind traveling in so many directions at once tends to make my writing that way, too. Go figure!

Thanks for stopping by!

I have that CD already?!?

Ok, here's a bizarre phenomenon - I was upstairs in my Craft Room rummaging for some CDs I like to load into my laptop. (That would be so that I can block out the sounds of my little person's Signing Times DVDs while I write.) So I'm going through a big bin of them and I see a CD in there that I didn't know I had. This was a good thing because recently I had contemplated buying said CD, but hadn't wanted to spend the money.

I took the CD downstairs and loaded it in iTunes. Then the songs started playing once they were all imported. I recognized the first song and thought, "Oh, I must've heard that one on the radio." The second song began and I thought, "Oh, they must've played that one on the radio, too." By the time the third came around and the fourth and I recognized them all, I started to realize that I (apparently) had listened to this particular CD several times and knew all the songs rather well... Yet I'd somehow forgotten I even owned the blasted thing...

I'm sure any number of things contributed to my memory loss (lack of sleep, no exercise, poor diet - oh, two-year-old son). Still, it was disconcerting. I was truly shocked when I saw the CD in my bin and truly had no memory of it until I started playing the songs.

I think that falls under the heading of having way too much stuff - eBay, here I come!

Getting Started on a Story

I am so excited. I have just been doing some research for a story idea I had and I think it's all going to work out well. I started writing the story a couple days ago after reading an article about Grain Amaranth early last week. It's amazing where story ideas find their genesis!

I will be posting the story in chapters on storywrite.com and hope I can get at least a few people hooked to help me along during its development. The plan right now is to write it from the points of view of two different characters, one in first person and the other in third person. It's not a new concept (see the Bartimaeus Trilogy and Anne Rice's Beauty series), but I think I might be able to pull it off.

I don't want to give too much away (just in case anyone actually reads this post), but two distant cousins inherit property from an elderly uncle and find friendship, a new purpose in life and some old family secrets in the process. There's a lot of ground to cover and I think I might have found an idea that's actually long enough to translate into a book.

Tentative/Working Title: Raising Amaranth

Here's me wishing me luck!

Completely Crass!

I don't normally address topics like this in my writing terribly often, but this is something that's bothered me for years and I just have to have an outlet:

Public Restroom Etiquette

I work in an upscale-area of Atlanta, GA, in an up-scale building. The bathrooms have beautiful marble counters and tile floors. Everything is high-end (or at least upper-middle end) and the restrooms rarely even have an odor (unless the odiferous individual has only recently departed).

So how is it that, at least twice a week, some individual of the female persuasion flouts convention (and hygiene) by depositing liquid fecal matter on the back of the toilet seat, then has not even the courtesy to wipe it up?

Were I the offender, I believe that I would surely be aware of my propensity for projectile "poop". I find it highly unlikely that a functioning adult (presumably, as there are no daycares in our building) would fail to recognize that they had left behind a mess. That being assumed, this means only one thing: They are aware of their indiscretion and consciously CHOOSE to leave the stall without affecting a clean-up.

It is so beyond my comprehension and so utterly revolting, I wish desperately to type up a message and affix it in the stall where the offense most often occurs:

If you SHIT on the SEAT, please CLEAN it UP!

Simple, effective, to the point... and probably a quite pointless gesture. I have little doubt that it would be removed before anyone was properly motivated to correct their unfortunate habits!

Oh, Those Songs of Our Youth

I have had a thing lately for Fleetwood Mac. I'm not even that creative about it - I like all of their songs that were their biggest hits. I listen to a lot of satellite radio (Sirius at work and XM in my car) and I glom onto those songs like a thirsty baby on a boob whenever they come on. There seems to be something familiar about them that defies definition... But, I am afterall a writer, so of course I will try to define it!

I think the songs remind me of the pleasant times during my childhood. The reason why I like the top hits is no real mystery, I guess. They were simply the ones I heard most on the radio. There were no CD players, I don't think we really had an 8-track player that I remember and albums were not something my parents had a lot of extra money to go buying a bunch of. (There was always a copy of The White Album around, of course.)

The memories that rise to the surface are of our house in Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay called Pineview where I had a treehouse named Little Pineview. My father and grandfather built it over a long weekend in the rain and both got sick. I loved to go up there (because my sisters, both under the age of three) couldn't follow me there. I had a tree stump table and chairs, two windows on leather hinges and an unbounded imagination. I pretended to fight off indians and water moccasins, cure people (of what I don't know) with ground up tree bark, and just generally created as much made-up life as I could. I wasn't very fond of having to share my dad's time with my sisters, but up in my treehouse, I really didn't have to share with anyone. Perfect for a child of SIX!

I really don't know how those memories tie to the Fleetwood Mac songs - it's one of those organic things that just spawns an outpouring of memories that is hard to collect, hard to stem and just plain hard to express. I'll probably keep hunting for those songs for a good while - they're good for opening up a vein and finding story fodder!

Oh! And I want to post about Writer's Block, but it'll have to wait because I gotta get to work! Stay tuned!

Oh, but it's ME... a couple years ago!

Joining Up

I have joined Storywrite.com and am (cough) slighty appalled at what passes for storytelling. Their point system is also a bit confusing... Oh well, I have to start somewhere to regain my critical thinking skills.

I want to tell so many of these writers that just because you CAN post a story, doesn't mean you SHOULD. It's not that I don't wish for them to become writers - I certainly am not worried about any "spotlight sharing" - I just wish they had a better idea of what makes a good story. Oh, and why their story isn't good yet. I will always allow for the benefit of the doubt that they could improve.

Whew, apparently I needed to rant after spending two hours of my Sunday morning reading drivel that other people were praising with words I would reserve for much better writing. I just hope I can hunt out some pieces worth reading and commenting on in my next several trips there.

Favorite Words

It's been rather longer than I had intended since I first started this blog. (Please refer to my previous blog comment about serial passions keeping me from the laundry.)

I thought it funny last night as I read from Carolyn See's book "Making a Literary Life" that she would mention Favorite Words... and how to avoid them in your writing.

Every writer has a set of favorite words that s/he tends to overuse and I think I've found two of mine: copasetic and ostensibly. However, I will admit to verbal abuse of these two words rather than written overuse. As a matter of fact, I usually forget how to spell "copasetic" and have to rely on SpellCheck to help me out so I am very aware of my written usage of that particular word.

I have also cut down on "hopefully" because MSWord nails me on it every time with a little green underline.

Now that I've remembered that I HAVE a blog, "hopefully" you'll see me back here more often!

Weighing In

On Music: I prefer storytellers over bee-boppers.

It's not out of any particular animosity toward the performers themselves (unless they're acting in ways utterly unbecoming of role models), but I want to know the story through the song itself. Not the backstory, not the behind-the-scenes. I want to experience the whole gamut in one tidy package. Story-told songs can always take me back to the moment at which I first identified with the song.

"Old Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" by Pearl Jam or "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, "Under the Milkyway" by The Church and "32 Flavors" by Ani DiFranco, "Breathe (2 a.m.) by Anna Nalick.

Separate pieces of my soul resonate with each song.

Once Again Obsessed

OK, I admit, perhaps obsessed isn't the proper terminology. It's my serial passions - they overtake me and keep me from doing the laundry.

I began a creative writing class last night at a community school. It's not for credit but I hope it will be a new way to interact with authors again.

I've been formulating my own designs for both a writing business and a creative writing class of my own. It's my hope to chronicle some of that journey here.

Should anyone stop by, please feel free to comment on the contents of my gypsy world - I love feedback!