Write. Read. Live.

A Month of Fundays: Day 30 – Attend a State Fair, County Fair or Renaissance Festival

2011-09-03T21:18:00.000-05:00

Woo Hoo! It’s State Fair time. I see the MN State Fair as the great equalizer. Suddenly everyone from that kid who flips burgers at McDonalds to your doctor goes to the fair. It’s when we all hop on public transportation (seriously, if you still drive and try to park, you’re crazier than I am), all eat copious amounts of ridiculous food on a stick, enjoy sculptures made of butter like they were sculpted by Michelangelo, and prize farmers and horticulturists above all other occupations. It IS "the great Minnesota get together".

Overcrowded Fun Day
I enjoyed watching people more than anything else at the fair today. I felt like I was sharing my funday activity with 100,000 Minnesotans (I think that’s the average daily attendance at the fair). To my friends who work at the fair: I saw none of you today, where were you?! 100,000 people and I didn’t see a single person I knew. Actually, it didn’t seem too crowded; possibly because it was Steely Dan night at the Grandstand. The first time I took Chris to the fair I thought he was going to run screaming, but he enjoyed it a good deal and has since submitted pieces of his own art for exhibition in the Fine Arts building. We don’t go every year – only about once every 5 years because I think you can definitely have too much of a good time when it comes to the fair. But the fair still screams MN to me. I bet this opinion exists at other state fairs too.

In fact, here’s Hank Green (Yes, another vlogbrothers video) describing this year’s Western Montana Fair:

See, the great equalizer!

The Path to Fun

For me there is only one way to get through the fair. It is a particular path that includes the French Fry Stand, the Kare11 Barn, the Lumberjacks, the Fine Arts Building, Sweet Martha’s Cookies, the Grandstand, Fried Green Peppers, and the Skyride. Once this is over – anything else is up for grabs. Oh, and the Giant Slide – Yes, the Giant Slide! Do you really need to do anything but go down the slide? Come on, a burlap sack is a magic carpet slide rider! Oh, you crazy place of fun and overindulgence. If you don’t go home with too much sun, too much food and not enough liquids then you obviously haven’t done the fair justice.

Random Thought That’s Only Kind of Fair Related
I use YouTube every day to illustrate my point and for highlighting songs. I’ve embedded more than enough vlogbrother videos in these blog posts. In fact, how many of you Hank & John followers didn’t know they vlogged before I told you? If I can promote people I don’t know on this forum, why to I feel awkward promoting people I do know? That’s stupid.

In other words: I left you with a vlogbrother vlog up there to illustrate the state fair point – when I know there’s another video that does it better. And also – inserting promotional plug here – you should follow chriscopeful on YouTube. Chris & Jenn usually do daily vlog posts from Wales, but Chris recently visited friends and family in MN and – of course – went to the fair:

See. MN State Fair funtimes!

Picture: Your favorite fair ride or exhibit. The most crazily dressed, over the top Renaissance person you can find. There is so much fodder for pictures at any fair – it’s like “Peoples of Wal-Mart” but somehow worse.

Song: Since the MN State Fair marks the end of those endless summer nights each year, I’m going with Richard Marx’s “Endless Summer Nights”. Ah, 1988 – the middle of the mullet craze. Ah, MN State Fair 2011 – the middle of the mullet craze. Also, here is Gaelic Storm’s “The Night I Punched Russell Crowe” because the MN State Fair is the first place I heard Gaelic Storm and this song reminds me of the entire over indulging fair experience. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy!

Tomorrow: Write a Short Story, Song or Poem on Something You See Outside Right Now

A Month of Fundays: Day 29 – Go Someplace in Your Town/City You’ve Never Been Before

2011-09-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

This was a funday activity originally suggested by my friend Matt. I instantly thought it was a good idea, but since I’ve lived in the same town for most of my life I also thought it might not work for me.

I’ve been everywhere in Bloomington, MN, haven’t I?
We moved to Bloomington at the end of my first grade year of elementary school; I’m guessing May of 1982. I’ve lived in five different locations in Bloomington since then – but always the same city. To be fair, this town isn’t small. It fights with Duluth on a regular basis for bragging rights at the third largest city in MN (after Minneapolis and St. Paul – the Twin Cities) and usually wins (says the girl from Bloomington). It also has a large land area and encompasses MN landmarks like The Mall of America and the Minneapolis / St Paul International Airport (MSP) as well as the only IKEA in the state – all locations I’ve been to more times than I can count.

Maybe I haven’t been to EVERY place; there are a lot of places to go here. I made a list and came up with a number of local businesses I haven’t been too because they are new and quickly planned to go to one of these. I think this might be cheating. It’s not really surprising that I haven’t been to Poor Richard’s Commonhouse or Cowboy Jack’s because they’ve both only been open a year or less. And then I realized I have been to both – at least in the buildings, they were just known as Major’s (Ah, crappy hour: Lots of memories there.) and Steak & Ale then.

I thought about some older locations and pondered the living in the same place for nearly thirty years dilemma one more time. I think I need to move. But then Stacy and Amy and their families are both back in Bloomington now and I can walk to the part-time job-hobby and I like it – Chris and I are quite happy here. Maybe I’ll stay for a little longer then...

In the end I did cheat, but only a little. I went to two places in Bloomington. One I’ve never been to before and the other I’ve been too, but not for at least 25 years.

Where did we go today?

Scoops Ice Cream & More
This place is almost as much a Bloomington icon as the Mall of America and it’s only been open since 1994 – the year I graduated from high school. Granted the Mall of America has only been open since 1992, but who’s counting. What in the world did we do in Bloomington before MOA and Scoops? Wow, I would hate to think that these two institutions put us on the map…that probably didn’t happen until IKEA in 2004. Regardless, ice cream was the chosen venue today.

Scoops is small but homey: A sort of ma & pop location with a candy store type display on one wall and two counters of ice cream from local creameries to choose from. They have a wall (Well, I counted three walls.) of signed photos from celebrities – local and international stars of sports, acting, music and politics all made out to ‘Scoops’ with lots of love and ice cream. I’m guessing about 10 people standing fit into the store front, but there are four tables nonetheless: two more table out in the hallway and two more Adirondack-type chairs outside and across the boulevard with ‘Scoops’ written on them. Chris and I both had waffle cones – I had “Pirates Booty” and Chris had “Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake” – and yes, the ice cream was scrumptious. IT’S ICE CREAM!

What astounded me was how similar the entire experience was to the going-for-ice-cream-funday in Duluth. That Malt Shop – the one in Duluth, a good two hour drive from Scoops – which is possibly 2 miles from my house, give or take a bit. I’ve been to that Malt Shop in Duluth at least 12 times in my life. Why do we constantly look outside of our own home-sphere to find these experiences? Maybe we don’t, maybe it’s just me. I just said I’ve lived in the same place for almost 30 years – but if you add up all of the time I spend traveling, including studying and living in London, you could easily shave two years off of that total – maybe more. Maybe all of you have been everywhere in your towns; in which case this is a ridiculous blog post and you should stop reading it. This IS a ridiculous blog post because I’m wondering these big, huge things after going to get ice cream at a place down the street I’ve never been to before – but there it is.

Also, I really don’t think I’m alone in this. We all get trapped in our paths and routines. I’m all about breaking the routine frequently. You see and experience so much more when you look up every once in a while. I’m nearing the end of this month of fundays which has been a self discovery journey as much as a writing/blogging journey and a having fun journey. In the end I had to come away with something, didn’t I? Otherwise why are you all reading this?

Normandale College’s Japanese Garden

With ice cream in hand Chris and I drove over to Normandale Community College and walked around the Japanese Garden. Yes, of course I’ve been to the Japanese Garden. It’s like 6 blocks from my house. I mean that would be crazy not to go in a place I drive, walk, bike or bus past at least twice everyday. Actually, I haven’t been since like 1984 and Chris – who went to college at Normandale when he moved to this country because he was still too young to go anywhere else – hasn’t been since he graduated in 1995 (The year we started living together). Oh, those Japanese Gardens.

The garden was dedicated in 1976 – so no newness there. My opinion of the garden: Lovely, but much smaller than it seemed when I was six-years-old. There’s huge koi and Japanese maple and mugo pine – some of my favorite things. Seriously, what is wrong with me? Do I have blinders on! A garden and an ice cream shop – neither is a stretch for my lifestyle or anything. I spend many a day writing in, walking around or listening to an outdoor concert in gardens. I could – and would – eat ice cream everyday if it had the same calorie intake as tea. I mean yummy things and sunshiny nature places are all I’ve been blogging about this entire month; and yet here are two places literally in my backyard, both going unnoticed by me.

It does sound like my day was more aggravating than fun, but I promise it was a good day with new experiences in it. Try it. No, really. I would like other people to have as much as fun as I did today while also being annoyed with themselves and their own short sidedness. Please…

Picture: Where did you go today? A picture of yourself at the place you’ve never been before.

Song: R.E.M’s “Stand” and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s (because, really when is there not an MCC song for one of my blog posts) “I am a Town”.

Tomorrow: Attend a State Fair, County Fair or Renaissance Festival

A Month of Fundays: Day 28 – Wander around a Museum

2011-09-01T22:49:00.001-05:00

I realize some people think they are boring, but I’ve always loved a good museum. Art, history, science, tin, Barbie, MoMA…whatever – museums are high up on my list of fun things. Sometimes randomness is fun and it’s amazing what people collect.

Whilst traveling, Chris and I have made a habit of going to museums. I’m not exactly sure when this started – maybe we always have; he is an artist after all. I think my favorite trip was Chicago a couple years ago when we ended up at 5 different museums and spent a good two hours in The Thorne Miniature Room exhibit. Who knew how fun tiny things could be?

Today we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the King Tut exhibit before it ends. The Science Museum was a favorite school field trip when I was little. There’s lots of hands-on for children and I’ve always enjoyed their collection of old-school medical/quackery devices. I think the Science Museum is where I discovered how gullible people can be. And they have musical stairs – musical stairs are cool!

I honestly don’t know if I liked the Tut exhibit or not. I’m guessing most of the antiquities are replicas because they weren’t in cases and I didn’t see a lot of temperature and humidity gauges; but nothing said it was a replica in print anywhere in the plague copy. Well, except for Tutankhamen – he was a replica. On the other hand, the cartouches were cool and the size and amount of stuff was impressive. Not over-stimulating, I’ll-never-be-able-to-see-it-all like the Egyptian collection at The British Museum, which I think was the last museum I was at this summer. Today was still enjoyable and fun.

My favorite part of museum wandering is the scope of imagination just sitting there in a palpable state waiting to be discovered. I started bringing a notebook to write down story ideas because I’m always inspired by something on exhibit. Today’s story idea came from a video about finding King Tut’s sarcophagus. Apparently a local, unnamed water boy helping out at the dig was the first person to come across the steps leading down and into the burial site. I think a mid-grade or picture book version from the boy’s perspective would be good. Naming the Water Boy: See how I already have a title and everything – by ‘everything’ I mean all but the actual writing, plot or characterization.

Museums: Educational, inspirational but mostly FUN.

Picture: The exhibit you are looking at or museum you decided to go to. What’s your favorite item on display?

Song: Barnaked Ladies’ “If I had a Million Dollars” if only for the art comments and a real green dress is cruel. Also Indigo Girls’ “Galileo”, a man who seems very museum-y to me...OK, this song also reminds me of all the artists, musicians and scientists who try to enlighten out human existence through their genius. And those things all end up in museums.

Tomorrow: Go Someplace in Your Town/City You’ve Never Been Before

A Month of Fundays: Day 27 – Garden Party or Barbeque

2011-08-31T21:48:00.000-05:00

I had visions of making this the last blog post for my fundays and filling it with pictures of a great big garden party in my backyard with lots of homemade Mexican food a la Rick Bayless; including a river of Sangria and a mountain of fresh salsa. All of my friends would be gathered around and we’d talk for hours – but honestly, that was my wedding and this is normal, every day life. Oh, and we had Italian at the wedding.

Then I wrote this post and realized it was the same as the dinner party and the hanging out with friends and also, possibly I have a social eating problem – my really fun, relaxing times tend to deal with food. Because when I’m at home by myself I have things like tea with toast and grapes with cheese as a meal. I deleted that post and will try again.

No fancy garden party – tonight we did a Matt & Mara dinner night – but with BBQ! Actually, that’s not unheard of because Matt makes the best hamburgers on the grill and we ask for them repeatedly. There was quite a crew tonight – Matt & Mara with their baby Xander, and also Chris & I and my mom, and then both Shane and Amy made it as well. Full house of fun times – especially when you toss in the two Labradors – Kayleigh and Riley.

There IS something about eating outside – it makes the food taste better or something. Plus the bunnies and squirrels become much more interested in you when there’s food around. But really, in the end my fun day activity revolves around boring you with how lucky I am some days. I complain about money, and the part-time job-hobby, and the lack of being published and the economy and politics and my country and the world and SO MANY things. I complain a lot, trust me. And then for 31 days I decide to do something fun – not expensive or really that out of the ordinary for me – and discover that I am one lucky girl when I DO stop and think about it. What exactly am I complaining about? Today I got to spend the evening chatting, eating, looking at baby pictures, petting cuddly dogs and playing with a baby and all while spending time with some of my favorite people in the entire world - people whom genuinely care about me. Before I wrote it down I never realized how many of those people I’ve included in my day to day life. SO LUCKY!

The BBQ was fun – a garden party would be cool too – but mostly, tonight, I’m just happy to be me and spend time with those people embracing everything fun I’ve done this month. I’m even lucky to be old, yo – because it takes a while to collect those people into your life and even longer to enjoy having them there.

Picture: What are you serving at the garden party/BBQ? How are you decorating? What music are you playing – yes, that’s not a picture; it’s a question though…feel free to answer.

Song: I’m obvious again: Going with Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party”; and also leaving you with Nelson’s version – which is more like a memorial for their dad, but still quite good. I think I might have underrated Nelson.

Tomorrow: Wander around a Museum

PS – I know the month is over, but I’m still a few days behind so you’ll get blog posts musing for the next few days to finish up. I did the things, I might as well write about them!

A Month of Fundays: Day 26 – Boating, Tubing, Paddle Boating, Kayaking, Canoeing, or a Water Sport

2011-08-30T22:01:00.001-05:00

Yes, Minnesota is a land-locked state somewhere near the middle and top of the country; and yet, we are “The Land of 10,000 Lakes”, as I’ve mentioned before. So for a place without any seashore, we certainly have a lot of shoreline. All sorts of activities in and around the lakes during the summer are a must for fun – in fact, there are too many to count. There must be something fun for everyone to do today.

That being said: I spent 6 years on my high school synchronized swim team and 1 year student coaching the thing – I know how to swim; and I grew up fishing with my grandpa off of his pontoon attached to the house’s dock; yet I still think canoes and kayaks are too tippy and I’m not a water skier at all. I’m way too klutzy. This leaves me with paddle boating or tubing down the Apple River. I can’t think of a better summertime experience then lazing down a river with a book, some lemonade and nothing but time. The Apple River is a little too crowded and … lover’s lane for my taste, though. Yes, I am old.

Leaving me with the funday activity of paddle boating. No fast speedboats here with the wind in my hair and the music from the boat next to me thrumming through my veins. Nope, lackadaisical is my modus operandi this month and the paddle boat wins hands down.

Picture something like this:

Sorry, once the Disney is uncorked, there’s no telling what may appear on the blog.

Yay, fun with the paddle boats! Again, I couldn’t stop smiling…and laughing. I discovered I’m not very good at steering a paddle boat – but it’s not like I’m going to hit someone, right? Well, possibly the birds around the fountain thing in the middle of Centennial Lakes. And I was worried about the old men with their radio controlled sail boats – they looked expensive and I didn’t want to break one (an old man or a boat). But once you get over the fear of paddle boat hit and run, the happy times are bountiful. Embrace your inner geekiness – I’m sure I looked utterly ridiculous out there. It was AWESOME!

We topped off the paddle boat excursion with a Jamba Juice and a round of mini-golf so not a bad day at all, at all.

If you live near water and you haven’t been out on it this summer, then go, play. Have fun. What are you waiting for?

Picture: So many choices. Make sure your picture includes water.

Song: This was hard today. I ended up with Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” and The Beach Boys’ “Catch a Wave”.

Tomorrow: Garden Party or Barbeque

A Month of Fundays: Day 25 – Fly a Kite

2011-08-29T22:06:00.000-05:00

The last day at the corporate office job TM in 2009 was peculiar. I was the last one in my department to leave that day as I was trying to get everything sorted out and ready to move on for the takeover company (Yes, I blame my mother for instilling me with this work ethic). Maybe my day was peculiar because I didn’t take the lay-off like most people do. I was kind of relieved to be done with the stress and office hours and take-home work.

By the time I reached my house that night I was a mixed bag of emotions. I had a goodbye happy hour the next night for separation and closure, but that first night I felt a little un-tethered. And yes, no matter how many people are sad to see you go; no matter how many emails, cards and phone messages you get wishing you luck in the future; no matter how much you know it is not your own work performance – it is hard not to feel at least a little rejected. So I was the last one to leave the office that day and my husband had to work that night; I knew I’d have four or five hours to think about my rejection once I got home.

I should really know Chris better than that by now – two years later and I finally do. There were balloons waiting for me when I got home and a card. This is something I would maybe think about doing – not totally surprising or out of the ordinary. The extraordinary: Beside the balloons and card was a basket of stuff.

The stuff in the basket:
- A movie, a puzzle book and a paperback to be lazy with.
- A bag of m&ms and a four pack of Woodpecker cider in case I wanted to indulge in food and drink.
- Some scratch off lottery tickets and a Power Ball for my windfall (I won $5)
- A blank journal, a pen and a jump drive to pursue my writing.
- Finally, there was a cheap, tiny kite with a picture of Snow White on it and a 20 ft tail made of red cellophane.

I know, right?! He’s mine; you can’t have him.

I remember instantly taking a shower and changing into yoga pants and a tank top and going out on our deck to test out the kite. It was kind of like the official end: Washing off the corporate job, taking off the uniform and becoming me – not some girl who writes copy in an office. You can define me as a writer, but I never really wanted to be a writer of copy. I’m sure the kite flying was somehow symbolic of my soul taking flight or something obnoxious but meaningful like that. I just thought it was great fun! I can’t remember the last time I went kite flying. It was brilliant.

It’s hard, getting that kite up in the air. Inevitably I will run it into the only tree for miles or get the tail all twisted up in itself. This diminutive kite was a little simpler to get up in the air – although I’m surprised it didn’t rip apart on the first go. It was a lot too windy out that May day to fly such a tiny thing, but it put a smile on my face quicker than anything else would have. And that’s the thing – as hard as it is to get into the air, once it is up there soaring through the clouds – for a short span of time, the weight of the world is lifted right off your shoulders.

That little kite from Chris’ basket has made a few trips into the air since then, and not just by me. I mail, give or pass that kite out to people when they loose their jobs and if it comes back to me, I send it out again. Only I would create a loosing-your-job tradition, but putting a smile on a friend’s face is totally worth it!

Say it with me now: Let’s go fly a kite.

Picture: The kite you are flying or where you are flying said kite.

Song: Yes, I am that obvious. Come on, how could I not. “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” from Mary Poppins. Sorry, you just can’t take the Disney out of this girl.

Tomorrow: Boating, Tubing, Paddle Boating, Kayaking, Canoeing, or a Water Sport.

A Month of Fundays: Day 24 – Re-watch a Favorite Movie from Your Childhood

2011-08-29T00:38:00.000-05:00

Re-watching a childhood movie is fun if you are a writer of YA and mid-grade stuff and your husband is a computer animator who produces TV commercials. It’s probably fun for everyone else too, so you should try it. Movies have always been the great equalizer for Chris and me. Plot is important in both of our day jobs and therefore, movies fill the gap between painting a picture with words and painting a picture with a computer program…or paint…or lighting, scene and set design. He wins again, doesn’t he? I have words!

I had a tough decision today: Annie or The Goonies. The look Chris shot me when I showed him the case for Annie made me put it back in the movie cupboard and pop The Goonies into the blue-ray. But not before I sang my rendition of “It’s a Hard-Knock Life”. It’s been stuck in my head for three hours now, but since I just watched that other movie; the song in my head has become a mash-up of “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Good Enough”. It’s awesome (insert a bucket full of sarcasm here).

Let the fun begin. Who doesn’t like The Goonies? I mean, The Truffle-Shuffle transcends all race, creed and religion.

Questions to Ponder While Watching Your Movie:
Does the movie hold up?
Do you like it as an adult?
What the hell were they wearing?
Who decided that was a good hair style?
Oh wow, is that _________________ (Joey “Pants” Pantoliano/Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman/JT Walsh. One of these four men is in every movie ever made. I checked.)?
What makes the movie hold up?
What do you like/dislike about the dialogue? OK, maybe that is just a me question; I hate writing dialogue so I tend to pick apart dialogue I really like. This may be why I can quote my favorite movies verbatim.

I feel like I just assigned you homework. Don’t answer or think about any of those questions. Just sit down and watch/share a favorite childhood movie today.

I DID answer the questions and many more while watching The Goonies today. Sure, some of it was nostalgic. Like, I’m pretty sure I decided to take Spanish in school because Mouth could speak it and Mouth was cool. Yes, Sean Astin was my first celebrity crush – followed quickly (and still currently) by John Cusack. But also, I noticed more YA language and themes then I did as a kid – go figure. The Goonies is one of those family movies adults won’t be bored with. More importantly, it doesn’t talk down to kids – SO MANY movies and books do that now. It’s like we think the younger generations coming up will be stupider than their predecessors; self-fulfilling prophecy I don’t plan to partake in as a writer, or person. Kids are smart if you let them be dammit.

Moving away from the rant – I really liked today. It wasn’t as nostalgic as I thought it might be. I feel a little bit like I cheated with my funday activity because it made me think about and work on my own writing. Cross-checking with the movie when it came to the group self-discovery concept and young/teenage boy dialogue (which is quite possibly the worst, most stunted dialogue I’ve ever had the pleasure to write. Thank you goon squad for showing me my boy characters don’t have to be obsessed with sports or cookie-cutter like in their emotions to have witty dialogue.

Much like bow-ties, pirates and treasure maps are always going to be cool! The Goonies remains one of my childhood favorites on the re-watch, and also a fun way to spend a lazy afternoon with the British man.

Picture: Um, how about you just tell me what your favorite childhood movie is.

Song: They're both still in my head..."It's a Hard-Knock Life" from Annie and "Goonies 'R' Good Enough" from The Goonies. Although, Annie also has "Let's Go to the Movies" which is fairly spot on for this blog post.

Tomorrow: Fly a Kite

A Month of Fundays: Day 23 – Go for a Bike Ride

2011-08-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

I promise: going for a bike ride is nothing like going for a walk. Well, maybe a little. I think you have to be more aware while riding a bicycle. Yes, you have to be aware while walking, but even more so on a bike. I don’t listen to music when I go for the bike ride – a bike helmet is a must though. And honestly, no matter how much walking you do riding a bike uses completely different muscles and takes some getting used to.

Biking for Transportation
I could bike to and from the part-time job-hobby and probably be there in 5 minutes, but I like the unwinding quality of a walk. I do bike around my city – Bloomington – on occasion for short shopping excursions or reaching appointments like the dentist. In general, I’m glad to see biking as a mode of transportation resurging in popularity. It used to be for kids and college students only. Minneapolis (and soon St. Paul!) has started the rent-a-bike “Nice Ride” service from April to November every year. I love this! You subscribe for $5 a day (24 hr time if you are visiting the city) or month ($30) or year ($60) and then you take a bike from one of the many (95) locations around town and drop it off at any of the many locations when you are done. Bikes are available 24/7 during the provided months and off you go.

Biking for Fun
I’m fairly certain I didn’t think about bicycles at all for at least a decade between college and 2008. Then, on our honeymoon in the Bahamas, Chris and I rented bikes on Castaway Cay. AWESOME! When I first got back on the bicycle I thought the idiom had it wrong and I HAD forgotten how to ride one. Once I figured it out though the bike ride was one of the highlights of our cruise. The next Christmas we decided to buy bicycles for each other as presents and forgo all other presents. The gift of bike rides together in the spring and summer was present enough. Wow, that is quite possibly the cheesiest thing I’ve ever written. Bleh. I’m really not that sentimental. But yeah, the bike rides are fun. You should try it again if you haven’t in a while. Like today possibly…

This year we added to our bike-riding paraphernalia by attaching a bike rack to the car. Now we can travel with our bicycles and go bike riding anywhere the car can get too. I’m still getting used to this feature. Mostly, we still just ride our bikes from the house over to the Hyland Lake Park Preserve; ride around on their bike paths; and then loop our way back home. There is something very pleasing about having nature within striking distance of your own home, easily accessible everyday there’s sunshine and a little bit of time to ride. I think our circuit ends up being about 6 miles – a decent outing for the day. Hyland lets you rent tandem bikes too – maybe in another 35 years I’ll be ready for that. Apparently I can learn to play bocce ball and rent a bocce ball set there as well. Who knew?

Picture: A scene from your bike ride. Or, a strange place you can rent a bike from. Also, if anyone under the age of 65 DOES go tandem bike riding – no the pedal pub doesn’t count (Dana, I’m talking to you. And I say that because I’m pretty sure you are in one of the pictures on the website) – nothing with alcohol involved counts! Although, a pedal pub crawl totally works as a “go for a bike ride” funday activity; that sounds both awesome and amazing.

Song: I’ve got two today…are you surprised? Neither is from this decade; still not surprised? Neither is “Ticket to Ride”. Surprised yet? I didn’t think so. I’m going with Blood, Sweat and Tears’ “Spinning Wheel” and B-52s’ “Roam”. Oh, those crazy 80s music videos – that’s a fun day all on its own.

Tomorrow: Re-watch a Favorite Movie from Your Childhood

A Month of Fundays: Day 22 – Go Play in a Playground

2011-08-26T20:40:00.000-05:00

If you want to do something that will make you grin until your face hurts and laugh uncontrollably, then go play in a playground today. Swing on a swing set, climb a jungle gym, teeter on a teeter-totter, or dangle on the monkey-bars – any of these things will make your day. I still can’t stop smiling.

Again, this is one of those nostalgic funday things. I’ve decided I must be taking the month to get into that childlike innocence mindset for my own book writing. There’s one school playground on my walk home from the part-time job-hobby and then another two playgrounds within a 5 minute walk from my house. I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to notice just how prolific the playground is in my neighborhood. Is it that way in every neighborhood? How many of you live by run-down playgrounds – which are very sad things but also eerily evocative for some reason.

What else have I noticed?

Well, since it is the summer, I’ve noticed mostly teenagers and adults using the playground equipment. Yes, some of them brought their children or are chaperoning, but I think this is just an excuse to have a swing or a teeter. I did feel a little self conscious without a child and seriously thought about seeing if my niece wanted to come over so we could go play in the playground together. Maybe that sharing the playground experience is part of the nostalgia. When I walk home with school in session, the playground is full of kids at recess and teachers with megaphones watching over them – even then, the teachers seem a little wistful.

Surprisingly, the playground is a good date night with your husband/significant other. We had a blast. And again with the never-ending laughter and goofy grins, we couldn’t stop. However, be careful of the merry-go-round thing. Chris is notorious for fast-spinning until I get nauseous. DO NOT go on the Mad-Hatter Tea Cups at Disney World with anyone in his family. You are asking for trouble and at least two hours of dizziness afterwards.

Picture: Your favorite playground apparatus. Your smile after a little bit of play time. My face still hurts.

Song: I’m going to have to go with a guilty pleasure song; one that makes me smile goofy just like swinging on a swing: Len’s “Steal my Sunshine”. Also, for some reason Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me” is stuck in my head - the some reason is the “swing, swing, swing the spinning step” lyric. Oh, and also the “swing me upon its hanging tire” lyric. See, it totally makes sense.

Tomorrow: Go for a Bike Ride

A Month of Fundays: Day 21 – Find Shapes in the Clouds

2011-08-25T15:40:00.000-05:00

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Clouds are cool.

And that’s my blog post for today. Bye.

OK, fine. I guess it can be longer. I planned on doing the cloud thing with Chris, but he’s all work, work, paint, paint, pull up carpet, pull up carpet today. So after helping for a little while and then just being in the way, I walked outside myself and looked up into the heavens.

I’d like to tell you I had some great spiritual revelation – or at least that I hashed some stuff out; but really, I just stared at some clouds. Yes, I promise I was wearing sunglasses and did not look directly into the sun. The sky is really blue and if you stare at the white puffy things long enough, you can see almost anything.

One cosmic Rorschach test coming your way:
I saw a butterfly, a witch on a broomstick, a bunny, glasses, cotton candy, and a VW beetle looking car. I also saw lots of Simpson’s clouds that looked more animated than actual, real life objects. But mostly I saw clouds. Yep, just clouds. Still, it’s a beautiful day; I can’t complain about sunshine, green grass, blue skies or white, puffy clouds at all.

Is there a cloud deciphering book yet? You know like those unraveling-your-dreams books? I’d write one but I’ve had absolutely no psychology training of any kind – or any mental health classes I can recall…nope. Wait, I did take a domestic abuse class during undergrad work when I was still pre-law. Yeah, that’s probably not going to help me unlock the secrets of the clouds now though. No demystifying-cloud books for me then. I guess I really don’t know clouds at all.

Was cloud watching fun?
Yes. More than fun, it was relaxing and a little detoxifying – which was honestly surprising. I enjoyed the alone time, but then I fell asleep outside. This is only dangerous because I’m pale and easily sunburn-able. At least it wasn’t like high school and the marching band trip where I fell asleep in the sun wearing a swimsuit while laying on top of a metal box. Then I had to wear a 7 lb wool uniform over the second-degree burns. I really am special, good times. I’ve actually blocked that pain and blistering out of my head enough to fall asleep outside again. Great! On the plus side, I didn’t burn at all this time because I was fully clothed and in the shade for the most part. The cicadas woke me up – they are loud and sound like electrical live wire this year.

Go, sunshine and puffy clouds! Boo, red and puffy skin. Don’t have THAT much fun today.

Picture: Your cloud and what you think it looks like. Ask others what they see; I bet it will be different.

Song: I was going to play Enya’s “Caribbean Blue”, but then Sherri suggested Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”. A song I own (unless you meant the Judy Collins rendition – or the Hayley Westenra cover – I don’t have those) and of course, duh. That is the song to play. I will also add Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now”, because Enya and Joni Mitchell together in one post seems a little heavy.

Tomorrow: Go Play in a Playground. Yes, [insert fist pump] an excuse to swing on a swing-set, yippee!

A Month of Fundays: Day 20 – Play a Round of Miniature Golf or Some Other Lawn Sport

2011-08-24T20:37:00.000-05:00

I’m not very motivated today. Currently, I’m watching a crow chase a squirrel around the water tower. No, that’s not code or a euphemism – it’s an actual crow chasing an actual squirrel in actual circles around and around the water tower in my back garden. Are there any good birds? Crows are the bullies of the avian world – or more – since one is currently chasing a squirrel – which the last time I checked, is not a bird. The squirrel seems a little bit stupid too; I don’t know if a tree is really where you want to go when being chased by something with wings who nests in that same tree. Yes, that is what’s currently keeping me from writing today’s blog post.

Onto the topic at hand: I don’t want to take away from your croquet, lawn bowling, cricket, badminton and bocce ball experiences – so post in the comments about any of those lawn games if you prefer. I’m sticking with mini-golf. Although, I have no idea how to play bocce ball so it could be the best sport ever and I’m missing out. This also means I must understand croquet, badminton, lawn bowling and cricket on some level. It’s true – all of those things do make sense to me…scary thought.

Again though, I’m wondering what makes mini-golf fun?
I feel like I’m doing a lot of nostalgic things this month and wondering why those are fun – or why I feel the need to do them right now. Before I get too esoteric, let’s just stick with the art of golf. A sport I find boring to watch, difficult to play, but for some reason can’t help liking. Mini-golf is absolutely more my speed when it comes to participating. And no, I don’t think the two have a lot in common – well, except for the course we like to play at Centennial Lakes which is really just 18 holes of putting greens.

Think about it: Have you ever had a bad time playing mini-golf?

I haven’t. It’s like Christmas, the game changes as you grow up; it starts to mean different things. Did I say I wasn’t going to be obscure? Yes, I guess I could say the same thing about cupcakes and red wagons and bicycles even; but you know what I mean. I hope. Do you?

Mini-golf is kind of iconic: The windmill, the clown face, the chemically enhanced blue water. When you’re little, the putt-putt is magical, family fun; like going to Disney World without the airplane flight. Then you go to Disney World and realize that’s not at all true; but, to a 5-year-old imagination, they are similar (Side note: One of my favorite mini-golf courses is Fantasia Gardens at Disney World – that has to pertain somehow, right?).

Then mini-golf is that thing you do in junior high on your “first date” with a boy you like and a group of your friends. The date your parents let you go on because there’s a gaggle of you and a parent around at all times. The date you think you’re on with one boy and then half-way through the course, whilst trying to sink your ball into a hole on the other side of the castle (Yeah, that’s not a euphemism either; although I can see why you’re confused.) you find yourself holding hands with a different boy.

As an adult, you may take your own children to the putt-putt course to teach them hand/eye coordination and good sportsmanship. I haven’t reached this stage yet but some of my friends have. For Chris and me it’s always been something to do in the summer when we don’t want to go for a walk or bike ride. We’re competitive to a point – the point where he’s better at everything than I am so always wins; I feel successful if I get within 10 strokes of his score.

Part of that childhood magic still must exist for me; I’ve used a run-down mini-golf course as the setting for one of my books. A mid-grade novel where the golf course holes come to life and the three children trapped in the mini-golf world have to figure out how to play through each hole before exiting – as a mid-grade book there are some life lessons about trust and strength and choices. Huh, maybe I have reached that adult stage.

Nostalgia, life lessons or budding romance – whichever it is – enjoy.

Picture: Your favorite hole. Wow, it is hard to take this post seriously; I keep snickering. The hole in my book that was the most fun to write has to be the pirate ship. Now, if someone could tell me where there is a mini-golf course with a pirate ship, I would be grateful.

Song: I’ve got nothing today. When I think of golf type words: green, ball, hole, club, ball rolling - I end up with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”. That seems not so very golfy but can you really go wrong with Adele? I will juxtapose Adele with this Whose Line is it Any Way? video of a golf song compilation…just to mess with you. Really, I think the squirrel brings this post full circle.

Tomorrow: Finding Shapes in the Clouds

A Month of Fundays: Day 19 – Hanging Out With Good Friends

2011-08-23T18:15:00.000-05:00

At this point you’re thinking, Duh, Mariah. Of course it is fun to hang out with friends. You may also be thinking that a lot of the activities I’ve already talked about I did with friends or can be done with friends; and you are not wrong. I think I’m trying to get at the very heart of being human – or enjoying life. Surrounded by people who love you, or at least people who like you a good deal; you know – those people:

It’s habit alone keeps you turning from home, even though your home is right here, where the people who love you are gathered under the wise wishing tree…’Cause the people who love you are waiting and they’ll wait just as long as needs be.
--Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Jubilee”

Yes, those people. The ones who don’t judge you until you’ve delivered all of the facts and even then, they love you just the same. There, that sounds slightly less sappy then whatever it is I wrote up above.

I know the simple act of hanging out with those people is hard for some, due to distance or time or what have you, but try today. Call them up, Skpe, chat on-line, whatever; our world is becoming increasingly smaller – it’s just not that hard to stay in contact anymore. Of course, in person is somehow always more soul-fulfilling and I recommend that if at all possible.

Today was a rough day. No longer shrouded in my little cocoon of mini-break euphoria with only my husband and lots of nature; I had to go back to the part-time job-hobby this morning and then deal with DIY home improvements at the house. Why am I a packrat? What do I think will happen if I don’t have that one thing from that one time lying in a box somewhere in the bowels of my home? We DID get to toss and donate about 70% of the things living in our downstairs area. Which, yes, IS fun at the end of the project but I can’t even make myself believe cleaning, sorting, re-carpeting, painting and minor carpentry is a funday activity.

I was actually beginning to wonder where the funday activity would come in when the phone rang. It was Amy wondering if we were still on for dinner with Stacy. Then 30 minutes of back and forth phoning/laughing began and our plans were set in motion. It is amazing how indecisive best friends for 25 years can be when we try to coordinate a date, time and place to see each other. Many years ago we decided T.G.I Fridays would be our designated place of congregation. Not because it’s so great or anything – simply because it’s centrally located and we can hear ourselves talking. Oh, just to be in the presence of my two best friends for a couple of hours restored my soul and lifted my spirits. I often feel sorry for the wait-staff at Friday’s – they rarely serve us alcohol but I think they still wonder if they should cut us off or kick us out. We are loud and obnoxious whilst together. Amy, you totally need to be cut off from the diet soda – SERIOUSLY! There, try to figure out how to comment on this post now – bwa ha ha ha.

The take away today: My life would be lacking many things, my laughs and smiles would be far less, and my human connections would be stunted if I did not get to hang out with those people now and again.

However you choose to hang out, have fun today.

Picture: Your friends – then or now or both. Or a picture of one of the many inside jokes you share with those people. You know, something only they'd understand. I would, of course, never do that in a blog post. Nope, not at all.

Song: You’d think the song I already quoted earlier in the post, but no, YouTube doesn’t have that song. Instead I leave you with Violent Femmes, “Blister in the Sun” and Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl" (Sue). I don’t really expect this choice to make sense to anyone except Amy and Stacy. Here’s to us, ladies!

Tomorrow: Play a Round of Miniature Golf or Some Other Lawn Sport

A Month of Fundays: Day 18 – Going to the Zoo on Borrowed Time

2011-08-23T13:37:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite childhood memories:
My mom came to get me at school one day during those elementary school years. I don’t think I’d been there long that day when I got called down to the principal’s office and there she was talking about a doctor’s appointment she didn’t want to be late for. I was six, what did I know? I remember driving for awhile before noticing the brown zoo signs along the road. I wished I was going to the zoo instead of the doctor’s. And then, miraculously my mom pulled into a place and all I saw was the giant wooden moose in the shape of an “M” and my mom grinning at me from ear to ear. No doctor’s, no work and no school that day. We spent all day with the animals and each other. It was a good day, a fun day: A memory making day.

This is a lesson my mother instilled in me at an early age: It’s OK to borrow some time every once in a while – take a day off, do something fun at the last minute. I’ve noticed sometimes spontaneity works out better than a strategic plan.

Another borrowed-time memory:
My senior year of high school I was car pooling (well, she was driving) with my friend Angie. Side note to Angela if you are reading this: I hope it is OK to share this story now; I know you got creative at your wedding gift opening when you found that Indiana Jones CD strapped to whatever-it-is-we-got-you from your registry. We entered the school through the band doors one day, turned to each other, said, “I don’t think so!” at the same time, and promptly left the building. Yep, no school that day. We went back to my place where my mom called me in – because she’s always been that way – and either Angie or I pretended to be her mom and called her in as well. The rest of the day was spent on the living room furniture watching all three (yes, there were only three then) Indiana Jones movies and talking. Wow, we were rebels. Still, I don’t remember a lot about high school but I remember that day. It was more than fun; it too was a memory making day.

The memory-making present:
So for the last four days (or whenever it is I publish these posts) I’ve been talking about my 4 day mini-break with Chris. And now we are on day 5. Well see, that’s the thing. I didn’t expect day 5. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I took 4 days off of the part-time job-hobby and knew that was all it could be. But then I was gifted a 5th day from the part-time job-hobby. A borrowed day entirely unplanned for! Of course we went to the zoo. The Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth: Because neither Chris nor I have actually been there and because they have kangaroos. Kangaroos. To be honest, the state parks we spent time in during the mini-break let us down on the animal front. I saw a deer – something I see in my yard in Bloomington on a weekly basis – standing underneath a deer crossing sign, but that was about it. Alas, I don’t have a picture of the deer waiting to cross at the deer crossing sign; it made me laugh for at least 5 miles though. Chris was driving, so he didn’t even see a deer on our trip. The zoo has animals though, right?

Why is the zoo fun?
I don’t know. I don’t have kids, so that’s not it. Maybe it is just the story of the gifted day from my childhood, maybe I just like to look at animals, who knows. I enjoy people watching a good deal too, so maybe I’m just a voyeur. Not a creepy Rear Window one, though. I always ask questions without answering anything. It’s just fun, OK. Go look at some animals already.

The Lake Superior Zoo is much smaller than I thought it would be. There were advertisements all over the place going up to Duluth and even more signs further north. I was expecting something like the MN Zoo and ended up with something more like Como Zoo – but not for free ($2 donation. Those old lady volunteers outside Como are scary. Do not cross them by attempting to avoid “donating”). Duluth zoo: small but nice. We saw a lot of animals: Kangaroos!, a polar bear, lions and tigers and bears. There was a great horned owl stretching in some weird yoga/cat pose and then schooling me with his owl eyes for watching said stretching. We saw tamarinds and lemurs; lots of frogs, crazy bats, tiger kitties, a black swan and kookaburras (who – thank you elementary school music classes – will always sit in the old gum tree) were all in residence. We didn’t see the grey wolves even though their exhibit is new, the bald eagle seemed to be missing and I had the most fun watching Cletus the slack-jawed yokel and his family of ten wandering off the path constantly while jabbering about the bad animal smell and lack of high fences. Cletus found a peacock feather on the ground, told his young’uns, “We aren’t here for no mountain climbing” and then promptly chased a peacock through the zoo. Really, you can’t ask for more fun than that; or a better way to spend our borrowed day.

Picture: Your favorite animal at the zoo.

Song: It’s not at all original but I’m going to have to go with The Troggs’ “Wild Thing” or the Jimi Hendrix version if you prefer.

Tomorrow: Hanging Out With Good Friends

A Month of Fundays: Day 17 – Discovering Waterfalls by Day and Searching Stars by Night

2011-08-22T15:12:00.000-05:00

Today almost entirely consisted of hiking up and down the Northern shoreline. I’m not sure why I think I need to be so active when I’m on vacation. I’m a much lazier person in my own home. Besides each other, I think Chris and I talked to a total of five people today; the day was really just about us and the scenery. Why do I love MN? This is why!

I talked to a park ranger at Cascade River State Park today. She was incredible. I went into the park ranger station to ask for a trail map; it always helps to not get lost when you are tromping through the woodsy wilderness. She highlighted a four mile loop she liked and then told us where to go for a picnic lunch and a cool down after the hike. Sweet fancy Scottish Jesus in a kilt was she helpful! She also mentioned the blue “hiking club” signs posted along the route – something that came in handy on the backside of the loop which was much more like a deer path than a hiking trail.

Yes! We didn’t get lost, poison-ivied or mauled by a bear because of stupendous park ranger lady.

When asked the question: Beach or mountains? I will ALWAYS choose mountains. I’m a sucker for the forest, lake, mountain trail type of thing. The woods are lovely, dark and deep! Rock scrambles? FUN! Mountain biking? FUN! Swimming in a giant lake? FUN! Reading on a big pile of rocks or cliff top? FUN! Talking to only my husband all day about who-even-remembers-anymore? FUN! So, you get the idea now. Today was FUN!

What’s more, tonight was also fun! Our lodge has a camp fire circle and free S’mores fixings, our room has a hot tub and Aurora-Borealis was paying a visit to the mountain top. SO COOL! We spent some time stargazing from the balcony of our room. Stars are much bigger and brighter if you can get out from the city lights.

And can I just say the North Woods of MN smell like nothing else in the entire world. I want to bottle their aroma; it is pine and lake and campfire and something that reminds me of rain through a screen and the first snowfall of the year all rolled up into one. I quite possibly used up the rest of the month’s fun quota today, but I’m willing to keep trying to have fun every day through August.

No, it wasn’t a snowy evening, but this poem was in my head all day whilst walking through the woods. I’m quite the Robert Frost fan during my month of fundays.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Picture: Perhaps I overdid it on the pictures today. Whatever you’d like: You’re favorite painting (PS – Starry Night is one of mine), a waterfall, tree-scape, or night sky picture.

Song: My first thought is Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” but I also have Don McLean’s “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)” stuck in my head. I’m beginning to wonder what’s wrong with me in the music selection-sphere. I must not listen to anything new. “Vincent” makes me think of one of my favorite artists and what beauty “insanity” can create. Also, it makes me think of that one Doctor Who episode from season 5. SO GOOD! Yes, my TV show choices do rank right up there with my music selections. This is me, people. This is me.

Tomorrow: We’re Going to the Zoo

A Month of Fundays: Day 16 – Celebrating My Wedding Anniversary by Taking Time for Tea

2011-08-21T21:33:00.001-05:00

Perhaps I should explain the idea of the mini-break in August is to celebrate our wedding anniversary – August 16th. I have a horrible (read: super-fantastic awesome) husband who wants to go somewhere every year, just us, to celebrate. Really, I don’t know how I cope with him sometimes. Last year we did a similar road trip, but headed to The Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, then straight through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Mackinac Island and finally down to Door County, WI. We met a couple celebrating their 45th anniversary on Mackinac last year and the woman pulled me aside to give me some advice:

Keep a journal, or at least a list, of where you go on your anniversary trips. Write in it each year and then remember to read through it after your entry for that year.

Well, you’ve probably figured out how I feel about journaling by now. Of course, I haven’t actually started said journal because I also have strong feelings about procrastination, but here’s a perfect place to record honeymoon and the first three anniversary mini-breaks. I’ll put them in a journal at some point. Promise.

A List of Trips:
2008 – Honeymoon: Land and sea Disney World trip included 4 nights in the parks and 3 nights aboard a Disney cruise ship in the Bahamas. It was hurricane season, but we lucked out with the hurricane/tropical storm occurring during our land stay and beautiful blue, calm seas during the cruise.

2009 – A long weekend in Chicago by Millennium Park and The Art Institute.

2010 – The road trip I mentioned above through WI and Michigan.

2011 – Another road trip. Well, last year was fun so why not. Also, in the many years Chris has resided in America, he hasn’t seen much of it; mostly stemming from my constant need to travel outside of the US. But since my husband is actually interested in seeing the country he’s chosen to live in, USA travel is on the agenda. Oh, and his passport expired at the end of July. It takes a really long time to get a new one when you don’t reside in the country it’s issued in. A really long time.

So here we are, anniversary mini-break, hiking to a waterfall and lazily wasting time. We began with a two mile hike into Jay Cooke State Park over the swinging bridge, to a waterfall and beyond. I’m not sure what we chatted about, but we walked and talked and enjoyed each other and our surroundings and set precedence. The rest of the mini-break could be coined: “Waterfalls of MN”.

After the day’s morning hike, we decided to go to Grand Marais and poke around with the tourist collective. I don’t know what else to call the meandering tourists who inevitably congregate in Grand Marais during their North Shore trip. You will congregate like the seagulls on the shazam (I don’t know the actual name of the bank, but “shazam” was printed on the ATM receipt) bank – the only building I could see with poky, anti-seagull structures on the roof. It’s unavoidable; you can’t fight it; just give in, drive down Highway 61 to Grand Marais and join your peers. We walked into a bunch of shops, skipped rocks on the lake, perused Drury Lane Bookstore, visited the artist colony – looked at pottery, jewelry and quilts, then debated where to eat lunch: Sven & Ole’s or The Angry Trout. In the end it was too late for lunch and we wound up at Chez Jude for Afternoon Tea.

I would like to blame this on the British man, but I can find tea anywhere; even Grand Marais, MN. If you would like to hear me expound on tea and why I love it so, go here.

While we were sitting on the porch of Chez Jude sipping tea and eating an amazing scone with even more amazing homemade lemon curd, it dawned on me that afternoon tea is an anniversary trip tradition. We’ve made a tradition without realizing it! No seriously, on our honeymoon we had tea at The Grand Floridian in WDW, the next year we had tea at The Drake in Chicago, and last year we had tea at The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island (That’s right, they don’t have cars but they do have afternoon tea).

Apparently I’m a 60-year-old English woman from 1955. Who says reincarnation doesn’t exist?! So yes; thankfully I married Chris who doesn’t mind the occasional tea outing. And also that I have friends like Tera and Megan who love it as much as I do. And also that I have friends like Matt, Mara, Shane and now Anna who willingly partake in tea rituals and the cornucopia of yumminess when we travel.

Back to our anniversary and the afternoon tea at Chez Jude in Grand Marais; well, I feel I’ve used awesome a little too much during the month of funday blogs, but that’s exactly what it was: AWESOME! After the mouthwatering scones came a delightful turkey cranberry concoction on a cibatta roll, followed by a delectable chocolate cake and a luscious lemon cake.

I hope you find time for a nice cuppa today – or a scone, or tiny sandwiches, or even a cup of coffee with a friend or two. We don’t take enough time to sit down and actually hear our friends and family – or be heard, for that matter. Yes, it turns out my fun activity for today is active listening. Apparently you just can’t take the customer service trainer out of me.

Picture: Tea pot, coffee cup, afternoon tea table setting, who you’re sharing this extra bit of time with.

Song: Chris and I had a string quartet at our wedding and I made them play two contemporary songs. Or, I found sheet music for them so they could play two songs during the recessional. We’re going with those today: Enya’s “Wild Child” and U2’s “Beautiful Day”.

Tomorrow: Discovering Waterfalls by Day and Searching Stars by Night

A Month of Fundays: Day 15 – Go for Ice Cream

2011-08-20T21:19:00.000-05:00

A mini-break should be about lazily wasting time; letting it spool out around you like golden thread. It’s about long walks and sipping lemonade on porches and swimming and sun bathing and also ice cream. On our way out of Duluth we hit some rush hour traffic, so Chris and I decided to go down near the Lake Walk again and uncoil a little more time before heading toward points north.

I’m not sure what it is about ice cream exactly, but it makes me think of summer fun-times more than almost anything else. In elementary school, we used to walk over to Bridgeman’s on one of the last days of school for ice cream. I remember I couldn’t wait for these walks and the ice cream. The Dairy Queen Dilly Bar treat day was a favorite at the corporate office job, and you can’t possibly visit Italy without stopping for gelato every two hours or so. Going for ice cream is something everyone likes (except the lactose intolerant. I’m glad I don’t have that allergy!) and it brings an instant smile. Who doesn’t scream for ice cream?

There’s this tiny little hole-in-the-wall malt shop in Duluth and I love it. Chris and I walked up to it and then back down as a farewell to Duluth. To start our walk, Chris pointed out the Cold Stone Creamery practically on top of where we parked the car. I shook my head at him disgustedly; we were going to enjoy a nice long walk to a ma & pop Duluth icon, dammit! Walking along the boardwalk watching the Lake Superior shoreline go by is really quite something. It was another beautiful day and since the seagulls were already busy harassing those people with mini-donuts, we got away with strolling while eating ice cream. Maybe their tiny bird brains get brain freeze? Remind me to force feed a seagull ice cream one day… As we were walking, we rounded a corner and saw the smoke stack for Fitger’s on the Lake; I was a little concerned. They have a Bridgeman’s stand on their deck and it seemed to be fairly popular. I like Bridgeman’s ice cream and everything, but don’t take away my malt shop. I shouldn’t have worried; we climbed the steps up towards the malt shop and found a plethora of ice cream fanatics standing by the little stone building, patiently waiting for their turn to order something sweet, cold and scrumptious. I ordered a Caramel Caribou shake – caramel ice cream with caramel swirls and caramel filled chocolate cups the ice cream people called truffles. Chris ordered the same but in a waffle cone. SO GOOD!!

The malt shop highlight: An inane conversation between the girl behind the counter and a man ordering for his family of four. Something about no vanilla flavoring just vanilla ice cream so he couldn’t order a vanilla malt with strawberry ice cream. He would just have to order a strawberry malt. I really thought we were in a Kafka novel for a bit. The next lady, from some central European country by her accent, wanted a float with coffee and the women behind the counter was really confused. Once she told the EU lady what a float was, she said, “Eww!” and made a disgusted face; then she asked for a double chocolate waffle cone instead – again proving the ice cream float can only be consumed by peoples of North America. We’re the only ones who can eat pickles too for some reason. I haven’t figured out why this is…if you have hard facts and truthfulness on the subject (root beer too. What’s wrong with you peoples not of North America?!) let me know in the comments!

We ambled back along the boardwalk and only felt guilty when the marathon runner ran past us obviously smelling our ice cream as he went. No, you don’t need a seaside/lake-shore view, seagulls or any scenery to go out for ice cream. I suggest picking a flavor that is new or strange to you. Getting a single scoop vanilla cone is NOT going out for ice cream. Enjoy summer in a cone, float, bowl or shake!

Picture: What flavor did you choose? Who are eating ice cream with? What are you looking at? Where did you go? The creepy ice cream truck in your neighborhood…these are all good choices.

Song: It doesn’t fit the picture I just painted, but Ani DiFranco’s “32 Flavors” works for me.

Tomorrow: Taking Time for Tea (and also celebrating my wedding anniversary)

A Month of Fundays: Day 14 – Road Trip To…Minnesota’s North Shore

2011-08-20T16:52:00.001-05:00

Road trip day! Yes, I’m typing this up in a hotel room in Carlton, MN. The first leg of the journey left Chris and I near Duluth at the Black Bear Casino – super cheap, yet clean rooms about 18 miles outside of Duluth if you need that information. We meant to start extra early, but that’s the thing about road trips, it takes 4 hours to pack the car. I repacked my suitcase twice; it’s a 4 day mini-break and not a four week tour and yet I have enough baggage (personal and literal) in the car to run away for at least a month. I remember when a road trip meant piling in the car and just going. I’m not that girl anymore; this road trip had to be planned out and repacked. Of course, if your road trip is last minute and spontaneous – that’s great, and also, I’m a little jealous.

We made it out of the driveway by 9:30 and promptly pulled into the grocery store a block from the house to purchase things we’d forgotten and also for cash at the ATM. We really were on the road by 10:00 – actually pulling out of Bloomington and everything.

I asked what we were going to listen too. Actually I said, “Do we have anything voyage-like?”
Chris replied, “Journey”, and popped in a Journey CD.

Over the next two and a half hours:

- I got carsick
- I rolled the window all the way down for air and promptly got hit by a pebble from the highway.
- It was too hot then too cold and then too hot again.
- I spilled Chris’ soda in the back of the car.
- We had to listen to that stupid Journey CD three times in a row. As Trip Navigator, I was just too lazy to switch out the CD.
- I fell asleep; leaving Chris to fend for himself on the open road for at least 3/4 of the actual car trip. He woke me up around Cloquet. The car ride knocks me out every time.

We did Duluth-y things for the day.

We walked around downtown and by the lake trying to decide if we wanted to do anything touristy like the aquarium or Glensheen or the William A. Irving. Decided to sit down in Canal Park and watch the ships come in and the Aerial Lift Bridge move up and down. We also watched seagulls terrorize pedestrians, kids jumping off the big concrete block of mystery along the shore and counted how many of Crabby Bill’s mini-donuts made it into seagull beaks. I’d say at least 25%; seagulls are lazy harbingers of filth, but definitely not stupid.

Classic Bits of Americana Sightings:

- Bald eagle in flight
- Giant random stuffed buffalo sculpture along the road
- Frank Lloyd Wright service station in Cloquet, MN
- Corn stands every 10 yards along the freeway
- Scenic View pullover with no actual view of anything – scenic or otherwise
- Two giant turbine propellers coming down the highway each on their own flat bed trucks with police escorts and “wide load” flashing lights.

Things I Learned Today:
- The car windshield does not keep out the UV rays.
- Cloquet, MN is entirely peopled with hockey players.
- The Red-tailed Hawk likes to sit on the ground and the wild turkey can often be found in trees.
- Taco John’s & Steak Escape coexist as one franchise restaurant in Cloquet. This is my new favorite, ultimate American treat: A Hambrosia sandwich with Potato Oles! Awesome sprinkled with awesome next to a side of awesome.

Apparently today’s blog post is all about lists.

Picture: Anything you want to take a picture of along the way. I have many pictures of the dashboard I could share, and some of whizzing by trees and abstract construction workers (bits of blurry orange, yellow and gravel).

Song: I’ve decided I don’t like Journey very much so nothing by them. Two songs stuck in my head while traveling today: Lady Gaga’s “Americano” and The Proclaimers' “I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)”. No, that’s not at all stealing from How I met Your Mother they stole it from me…or anyone else going on college road trips in the 90s.

Tomorrow (or later today if I get it formatted into Blogger quickly): Go for Ice Cream

A Month of Fundays: Day 13 – Putting Together a Jigsaw Puzzle

2011-08-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

puz•zle

Noun
1. A game, toy or problem designed to test ingenuity or knowledge.

Verb
1. Solve or understand something by thinking hard.

Apparently I am eighty. Seriously, my weekend fun day activity is putting together a puzzle with my husband. Wow, I’m lame. And we had a really good time: I’m old, lame and crazy. But really, when’s the last time you put together a puzzle? Or did some other brain game like Sudoku or a crossword puzzle? Sometimes we need to slow down and concentrate on a mind working project so we don’t get old.

Chris and I sat down to do a 500 piece Thomas Kincade puzzle, which I received as a gift at least a year ago. I like puzzles, but it’s just not something you think about doing with all of the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. Yet, most of us think about sitting down in front of the TV every night. Puzzles equal more brain work than TV – go, do a puzzle.

What Makes the Puzzling Fun
That’s a puzzle. I am so cliché tonight. But I don’t really know. I mean we sat down and then Chris went to go get his puzzle mat – yes, he has a puzzle mat. He is clearly older, lamer and crazier than I. Then we spent some time turning all of the pieces over and sorting out the edge pieces. Side note: Before he met me Chris never sorted the edge pieces out. He always sorted by color alone and then just began putting pieces together willy-nilly. (Yep, I just used ‘willy-nilly’.) Now, he still sorts by color, but also by edge. Then I get the edge pieces and put them together because it makes me feel smart. By this time, Chris has sorted by color and then grouped by bit of picture on each piece. Not surprisingly, he’s better at this whole puzzle putting together thing than I am. Then we break for tea and stare at our little piles of color and completed border. (Ooh! Ahh!) Next, I complain about the glare from the dinning room light fixture because it makes the pieces really hard to see.

After tea has been consumed, we return to the puzzle-at-hand. (I really am on a roll.) This is when we get lost in the minutia of puzzle piece placement. You try a piece, it doesn’t fit. You try it again, it doesn’t fit. Everything about the piece matches, so you try for a third time. The puzzle piece has forgiven whatever crime you obviously perpetrated and is now willing to lay down in accordance. You fists of fury (or possibly just swirling finger of disdain; it is only a puzzle after all) the puzzle piece and then do the whole experiment over again. Time passes. At some point you start to feel the exhilaration of many puzzle pieces falling into place at the same time. You are nearly there and the thing in front of you isn’t just a heap of pieces anymore; it’s a pretty picture on bits of cardboard all stuck together without glue. There are a lot of cracks though – they kind of obscure the way the picture looks on the box.

Almost there now, your heart is getting lighter; just a couple more pieces to go. This is when the puzzle making world comes crashing down all around you. Why? How did you go from completion euphoria to the depths of despair? (By this time, I just have to keep throwing the clichés out there.) The problem is simple: You are one piece short. ALWAYS!

Now it’s fists of fury time. If you are lucky like me, you have a saner, calmer person puzzling with you. That person will look around and notice the puzzle piece lying on the floor – possibly under your cat. He or she will pick up said piece, dust it off and hand it over as an offering of good faith. You will take this piece, promptly smash it down into the final open spot and then do your happy dance with extra fist pumps. Who doesn’t want to do that for their fun day activity! Don't forget, you get to destroy the puzzle afterwards - very therapeutic.

Picture: A picture of your frustrated face when you too can’t find the last piece. That doesn’t sound fun, but now you’ll laugh when it happens to you. Before and After puzzle creation pictures are always good too.

Song: I was trying to think of something newer, but puzzles made me think of the Rubik’s Cube and that makes me think of the 80s; I’m afraid it’s going to be the most 80s song I can think of: Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round”. I already told you I was old, lame and crazy; I think this may actually prove it. Please feel free to comment on that video too. Wow. There are heavy metal covers by Dope and Marilyn Manson if you want an update – and of course Flo Rida w/ Ke$ha. That one’s new-ish.

Tomorrow: Road Trip To…
And here’s where I tell you all that I’ll be out of town for a few days with my husband on a little mini-break for our wedding anniversary. We’re going Up North or to The North Shore for those of you from MN. For everyone else, we’re headed up towards the Canadian border and hiking/biking/swimming along the Lake Superior shoreline. We’re staying at a ski lodge resort so my Month of Fundays will not include camping…s’mores and campfires are still on the table though. I’m telling you this now because it may mean I don’t have access to the internets for blog post uploading. I promise to write about each fun day and post when I get back, if needs be.

A Month of Fundays: Day 12 – Go to a Sporting Event

2011-08-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

I love the idea of summer baseball games outside, so I can imagine this is a fun activity for most. If my facebook news feed has anything to say about it, it’s a fun activity for pretty much all of my facebook friends. I want to like it, I really do. I just don’t. When I first drew up my list of funday ideas, I thought: Huh, that sounds fun. Peanuts and Cracker Jacks and MN’s still new ball field for the Twins. I should go to a game.

And then I realized that I don’t like peanuts or Cracker Jacks…or hot dogs…or beer…or the game of baseball. So maybe it wouldn’t be fun for me, but it still sounds so happy and…American. The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd…sorry, I went to a NewsRadio place there.

I love YouTube. Yes, that episode. And valuable writing lessons too: You do have to take away some of those wonderful words now and again.

I think for a fun day activity any sport is up for grabs – watching it or playing it. In the last blog post I mentioned I’m not a team sport kind of girl. I think that goes for both watching and playing sports. The exception is ice hockey – I’m from MN after all. I get it though, the whole sports fandom. If you don’t know how fanatical I am about tennis, then look no further. I’m pretty sure I kept the sports themed activity in the mix because the US Open starts on August 29. But as much fun as me watching tennis on my TV screen – or iPod and computer as I don’t have cable – would be, I’ve decided to play the sports card early and talk about my niece’s swim meet.

My niece likes to swim! That’s awesome all on its own – because swimming is something I get; it’s a sport I can watch, enjoy and actually discuss with her. Also, I think it is more fun to participate in the sporting event for your fun day activity. I don’t know why participating as a fan in the crowd is better than participating as a fan at home, watching or listening to something far away; it just is. Back to the swim meet. Kayla is going into the 3rd grade next year and I think she’s only been taking lessons for 3 or 4 years. She’s a natural – and that’s not just the proud aunt in me talking; she is a joy to watch. Move over Michael Phelps. I’m holding out for the 2016 Olympics, especially after her dad told me it was too late for the 2012 Olympics.

Sitting in the humid and chlorine-filled Apple Valley Middle School pool today, I had feelings of nostalgia – remembering sights, sounds and smells will do that – followed by feelings of maternal pride. I’m not sure I’ve ever realized – if I have kids – I’m going to be one of THOSE mothers. At one point during her final race – the 50m freestyle – I found myself screaming, “Swim Kayla! Take out those 6th grade girls; you’re better than them!” She did, she is and she won. But I should probably not be screaming that at a family friendly event with the parents of those same 6th grade girls sitting near me. It’s really not my fault. She was in the middle lane; it was exciting!

Having fun and learning a little something about yourself – that’s really what this Month of Fundays project is all about. Go, me! Go, all of you! (Said in my best cheerleader voice with hand clap and raised fist move.)

Picture: The sporting event you’re attending. A picture of your favorite sport, or a sport you play.

Song: Um, it’s a blog about sports so I’m going to have to leave you with a little classic Queen: “We are the Champions”. One day my song choices might break into this decade…or the last decade even.

Tomorrow: Putting Together a Jigsaw Puzzle

A Month of Fundays: Day 11 – Practice Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates or Meditation

2011-08-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

Here’s the thing. I’m not a team sport type of girl. I don’t like to exercise with a crowd (although I have gotten better at this). The most aerobic thing I enjoy doing is dancing like a fool in my kitchen, which is NOT something I do in front of other people. Yes, I think we should all move and exercise. Yes, I think calorie consumption and calorie burning should happen on a daily basis and that some of those – if not all – calories should be healthy, appropriate calories. In a nutshell, I’m a yoga practicing, hiking, swimming, bicycle riding type girl who could sit around for hours on end reading or writing. Today as you read this blog post, remember I am a girl living in MN who has strong religious and political beliefs I don’t like to share in this forum. I practice yoga, Pilates, tai chi sun and meditation on a regular basis but I’m not trying to make a religious or political statement by doing so – I’m telling you how much fun it can be to practice one of these disciplines. As with the Origami blog-post, I’m unclear about the cultural ramifications of practicing someone else’s religious and ceremonial beliefs as a form of entertainment. If you practice tai chi, yoga or meditate long enough, you will eventually figure out some of the ancient purposes for the discipline – when something makes me feel this peaceful and at one with my inner workings, I’m likely to do a little research on the subject. I still think this is a good thing – the wanting to know about other cultures and even practice some of their rituals, but I realize a lot of people don’t feel this way. I’d also still like to know what you all think on that subject – it keeps popping up during this month of fundays…

First a little basic info on the four disciplines I mentioned above:

Mediation – The simplest/most generic of the lot. To mediate you just need to think deeply or focus your mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation.

Yoga – From the religious standpoint, I understand it is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. Most Westerners practice Hatha or Sivananda yoga as a system of exercises practiced as part of a daily discipline to promote control of the body and mind. Hatha is the strength building exercise, physical poses and Sivananda usually includes the poses plus focus on breathing, meditation, diet and positive thinking – healthy living through the disciplines of yoga.

Pilates – a system of gentle exercise performed lying down that stretches and lengthens the muscles, designed to improve posture, flexibility, and general health. It was developed by Joseph Pilates, who essentially urbanized many yoga poses whilst creating his core-strength building regimen. In other words not religious or ceremonial at all, but developed specifically as a core strength exercise systems. Think professional dancers. Trust me; they all follow a strict Pilates routine.

Tai Chi – Is a type of ancient Chinese internal martial arts. Westerners practice two kinds: Tai Chi Chuan – the more martial arts related version literally meaning Supreme Ultimate Boxing; and Tai Chi Sun – meditative exercise with 97 postures and 73 forms. The forms are all done in the same order around the world; if you know and practice them enough, it is easy to follow along in a half meditative state.

NOTICE: They are all variations on a theme.

How I Practice & Why It’s Fun:
I tell myself often I can skip the yoga because I did something more aerobic already, or I’m sick, or tired, or a million other excuses constantly running through my head making me so crazy sometimes I get nothing done at all. I think Netflix and Nothing have made a deal to keep me emotionally and physically stagnant. This is when I most need to ground myself and re-center. For me, yoga is about trying to bring different things into balance; yoga is a tool I sue to unblock my writer’s dam. If I can’t find my words, then I’ve been sitting here at the computer too long. I’ll stop, pull out the yoga matt or simply stand in tree pose for a while.

If you’ve never done anything like this before and you want to try today, then 10 minutes is all you need to begin a regimen of practice. Breathing is the best way to start any of these activities and it’s amazing how quickly you can pick it up. Just stand – or sit, or lie down – and regulate your breathing. In and out through your nose in a pattern: inhale for 5 counts, hold for 3 counts and then exhale for 10 counts. I place the tip of my tongue behind my upper teeth, but you don’t have to. Use music to motivate; experiment with different types of music for different types of practice. I know you’re thinking inspirational chanting or soft instrumentals, but try jazz, rock, country, whatever feels right.

I often stop practicing altogether for months at a time; then the first time I take the me time to relax and center - I feel 100% better. It’s so much fun; you think I would have learned that lesson by now!

Picture: A maze or Zen garden. A place you have practiced, or would like to practice yoga / tai chi or Pilates

Song: I’m already back around to Mary Chapin Carpenter again. Here’s one I use for yoga frequently: “Why Walk When You Can Fly?” Fine, I’ll give you two today. I also use Sophie Zelmani’s “Always You”.

Tomorrow: Go to a Sporting Event – I really want this to read: Take Me Out to The Ballgame; but you have probably already figured out my opinion of baseball – it wouldn’t be fun at all. I realize for most people it IS fun, so by all means, catch a game for your fun day activity!

A Month of Fundays: Day 10 – Tending, Planting or Sitting in a Garden

2011-08-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

Day 2 of my lackadaisical self. Well, I had to work the part-time job-hobby this morning, but after that I was lazy-to-the-extreme again. Today’s fun activity is the garden. Whether you tend the garden (said in my best dystopian propagandist voice), plant something, or just sit in one if you’re as sluggish as I am, gardens are a sort of peaceful get away right at your backdoor.

I like all types of gardens from formal to secret, rock, water or vegetable. Working in the garden is rewarding. Picking out what to plant and then watching your plants grow is satisfying.

I do have a smallish vegetable garden – this year it boasts tomatoes, peppers, basil and berries (strawberry, raspberry and blueberry – although that blueberry bush has yet, in its four years of existence, to yield any fruit. It seems happy and healthy, so I keep hoping). My veggie garden is just a hodge-podge of containers on the deck, so I don’t think you need a lot of space to garden. Try it!

Today I went to Centennial Lakes and read in the garden (I didn’t finish This Rough Magic yesterday due to the four hour nap in the middle of the afternoon. Seriously, I’m worse than a cat when I have a cold). Reading in the garden is one of my favorite activities, topped only by writing in one. Honestly, I use the garden as my office space in the spring, summer and fall and often think I have the best life ever when I do. It could be all of the vitamin D I get when I read in the garden, but I think it goes beyond that. Nature is awesome! Until a bird poops on you or the mosquitoes attack. Alas, the price I pay for my daily dose of fun each day.

There: Gardens are therapeutic. You can’t help being serene and a little bit regal whilst hanging out in one. Can we take a moment to contemplate just how many times I use the word ‘whilst’ in my blog? Damn British husband rubbing off on me with his good and proper English nonsense. I should explain: Chris doesn’t read the blog, but I keep telling him I mention him in each one. Now, if he ever does look, he can easily find himself – he’ll be tagged and everything. Chris also frequently tells me I only married him because he’s British – this is emphatically not true, but I like to perpetuate the myth. He does have many other fine qualities as seen in his picture painting & paper folding skills of two blog posts ago. Back to the garden – at some point in my illustrious work history, I spent a few years as a florist. Maybe this is where I get my love of gardens. They sure do smell good…and look pretty…and calm the nerves. I’m reaching here for actual blog-worthy material; I’m pretty sure I’ve scrapped the bottom of the barrel. Maybe today is one of those days I just let a bunch of pictures I took do the talking for me:

I’ve lost you all now with my cold medicine and sun induced ramblings haven’t I? In other fun day news, the book I’m reading is almost done, it’s getting suspenseful – even if it is the umpteenth time I’ve read it. I’m off to finish it now; no more writing tonight. Have a fun day in which ever garden you choose to be in – we need a little peace and serenity in our lives right now, no matter where we are on this big wide globe.

Picture: A garden. What you planted, what you will plant, your garden’s yield. Your favorite garden, (I abstained from putting in another picture of the Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace. Aren’t you proud of me? It remains my favorite though. Best. Writing. Place. Ever.) or just one you visited today.

Song: Bach’s “Cello Suite No.1 Prelude in G Minor” because it was playing at Centennial Lakes today and made me happy and peaceful. Possibly part of the serenity is the piped in music sweeping through and filling up the garden’s quiet corners today.

Tomorrow: Practice Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates or Meditation

A Month of Fundays: Day 9 – Reread a Favorite Book

2011-08-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

I’m so lazy today. I’ve spent most of the day in bed trying to shake the cold with rest and tea. And also reread a favorite book, that’s why we’re here after all. By 1:00 I’d managed to make it into the living room, shower and put on some actual clothes – it’s yoga/lounge attire, so comfy-I’m-running-errands-at-best clothes, but still I was slightly more presentable. The weather is cooperating with me; no humidity to speak of and the temperature dropped to about 65 or 70 degrees. This means I can snuggle in the big comfy chair with a blanket, tea, chicken noodle soup and my book. The comfy chair is REALLY big to accommodate all of my cold accoutrements.

If you are playing along, any sort of reading is good. I know people who will never reread a book or re-watch a movie. I’m not those people, if I like something I keep going back to it. If you don’t read at all, then by all means just take some time out of your day to enjoy a new book. It took me a little bit of time to come up with a book to reread. I thought about childhood favorites like Anne of Green Gables or more recent favorites like The Hunger Games, but in the end I went with Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic. If you don’t know who Mary Stewart is, she’s a mystery/romance/fiction writer who was quite popular in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in the UK. You may know her (Mara, I mean you) as the Arthurian historical/fantasy writer because she also wrote the critically acclaimed Merlin Chronicles – 5 books (originally a trilogy) published between 1970 and 1995.

My mother first introduced me to Mary Stewart – she did so shortly after I started reading on my own. And here’s where re-reading comes in handy. When I was little and reading – and Mary Stewart’s descriptions made me want to read, and to travel – I enjoyed the general plot of books like This Rough Magic. There’s a dolphin and sailing, a love story and murder and it’s also magical because it’s wrapped up in a neat little package that is Corfu, Greece. On each subsequent reread I pick up something new, my age and life events help me see new things and focus on different parts.

What I’ve Learned As A Reader:
- Mary Stewart gave me the travel bug. Sure, I’d probably have figured it out on my own the first time I went anywhere – but her descriptions made me want to go see places in the first place.

- Mary Stewart gave me my first Shakespearian stirrings. Again, I’d probably have fallen in love with the Bard once we started reading and seeing his plays in school, but this book in particular with the quote from The Tempest at the beginning of each chapter and the themes from the play running throughout.

- Mary Stewart is the reason I first went to Edinburgh, Scotland. It is one of my very favorite cities in the world, it is strikingly gorgeous, the people are amazing, and I first stopped in the city in 1998 because I knew Mary Stewart was living there. That 1998 trip was when I discovered Harry Potter, so as a literary city I find it superior to most.

What I’ve Learned As A Writer:
- Setting things in a different location. I spent a few nights in the Isle of Skye on my first trip to Scotland. Once I knew I was going, I remembered Mary Stewart had written a novel set on the island. I was living in London at the time, and I wanted to read the book so I spent a week searching used bookstores until I found an early printing. While on Skye I walked around and looked at my surroundings, looking for settings from the book. I found them; I also found a boathouse set on the coast below a cliff with a tree lined path. I have no doubt that boathouse inspired Mary Stewart to write the scene in the book I’m rereading today; a scene set in Greece. It’s a really simple thing, but the thought had never crossed my mind. Using things you’ve seen in a new location, remembering that one thing and placing it here, in this other place. I sat there looking at that boathouse for 15 minutes participating in my own setting master class.

- Mary Stewart taught me to write about what I want to read. If I don’t see it out there it is my job to create it. It’s OK to mix genres and create your own category. The publishing world may not be a fan at first, but if you write well it will get published. When she was first published, Mary Stewart was considered a romance writer – but there’s not a lot of romance in her books. I think she categorized herself more as a mystery/suspense writer, but at the time mystery and suspense didn’t leave a lot of room for romantic entanglements. She wrote a cross-breed because those are the stories she wanted to tell and created a new genre by doing so.

- Good dialogue can be read out loud. Actually, good dialogue should be read out loud. The dialogue in This Rough Magic reads like a play at times. It is a story about two London theatre actors and interwoven with both Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing. Mary Stewart taught me to stop reaching for my dialogue – to let the dialogue fit the plot.

Books can become good friends, rereading them is a tangible, joyful experience!

While getting the song clip for the day, I tried typing in "Mary Stewart" to see what YouTube would have. They had this AMAZING interview from the early 1990s. It made me cry - that could be the cold medicine, too. It's still AMAZING and everything I think about being a writer myself (Not at all surprising, really). And also 25 minutes long, so be warned if you click on it.

Picture: A picture of where you would choose to read for an entire day if you could. You can also just tell me the name of the book and author. What makes a book re-readable anyway? Maybe I should have put that above in the body of this post…except I have no good answer. You tell me in the comments.

Song: Well the book I’m reading was written in 1964 and the 60s make me think of The Beatles, so I’m going with “Paperback Writer” because that seems fitting today! Also, when we were little, Stacy always used to think it was “Burn the Bag Brighter” which is funnier and endlessly amusing. This is why we don’t let her forget it!

Tomorrow: The Garden – Tending, Planting or Sitting in One

A Month of Fundays: Day 8 – Origami – Learning to Make Something Out of Paper

2011-08-08T19:45:00.001-05:00

I think I’m getting a cold. This is dumb, because I’ve staved off two colds in June and July with the help of Zicam, but when I felt the sore throat coming on yesterday I decided to ignore it and skip the Zicam. I took some today, but I think it might be too late. I think this because I can’t swallow, I have a headache the size of Montana & I just sneezed for 15 minutes straight. This is also dumb because we are in the middle of the hottest summer months when colds should not attack.

This is dumb yet again because I know I hate to write when I’m sick, my brain gets all fuddled and I just sit in front of the computer wishing for my pillow and more tea. Well, I always wish for more tea, but even-more-than-that-tea! Trust me: That’s a lot of tea. So writing a blog post – let alone doing a fun day activity – is making me cranky. Hello, fun day activities are supposed to be FUN – hence the name.

Now that my complaining is out of the way, I’ll try to write a cohesive fun day post about paper folding – specifically Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. My husband, the artist, likes creating things with his hands (not really a shock). I’ve been living with a very talented artist for more years than I can count…or, I’m counting it out now…I hate math…Um…Wow, cold brain, really…16 years. Yes, I’ve been living with a very talented artist for 16 years and I’m intimidated by his perfection. We sat down to fold things with paper and he has, like, six books on Origami in the middle of the living room; I’m folding a crane while he’s creating a hydra. Ah-huh, that’s right; the Greek mythology monster with many heads. I made a fish and a bird today, yay! Surprisingly still fun because I realize I don’t have to be the best at everything…or anything, really. What am I the best at? I can write better than my husband; although he’s quite deft with the English language too. I usually win in an argument and I think we’re both equal on the cooking/baking front – although his food looks prettier. I have an easier time talking to people; but is that a good quality? Let’s just say Chris wins in the creativity department!

Let’s Face It

He did this.

And I did this.

Another Example:
This painting hangs in our living room.

And this napkin holder I made in the seventh grade sits on our dining room table, because I have to have some homemade thing in the house too.

...I think we may be going to IKEA to purchase a cheap napkin holder soon...

We still had a good time, nay, a fun time! I read a couple things from those Origami books while Chris worked out his complicated, paper folding prowess on the hydra, and learned that most children in Japan play with paper folding; I’m assuming like I played with Silly Putty as a child. Yet, Western adults (including yours truly) are fascinated with this child’s play. Japanese adults also perform Origami, but it tends to be for religious and ceremonial functions. I’m getting my facts out of a craft book published in the UK in 1987 so take that info with a grain of salt, but I do think it’s amusing that child’s play in Japan prepares you for an actual adult function whilst playing with Silly Putty as a child has prepared me for sod all. I know we – the Westerners – use Origami as a teaching tool: Geometry and other mathematics, as well as dexterity and rehabilitation/therapy purposes. Heck, I’m using it as a fun day activity and consider it creative art. As a culture, we tend to take things from other cultures and lessen their worth; I’m not sure I like that about my culture, but I know I do it too. In fact, I’ve recently had a few dinner party discussions about the same sort of thing and I still have no forgone conclusion. I’m enjoying my paper crane folding activity and I do know the crane itself has ceremonial purpose; in fact, I’ve folded cranes for a friend’s wedding in the past. Does knowing the religious and ceremonial purpose behind something make it OK to do it, even if you are not of that culture or religion? Can you believe that something as simple as folding a little paper animal is making me question this? I have no answers. I know from previous conversations that I’d personally rather know and learn about other cultures religious and ceremonial beliefs. As a writer I think it is OK to write about them as well. I won’t have the same perspective, but as a reader you should know my opinions about Origami are not the same as someone who grew up in Japan learning this ancient art form.

Japanese-American/Hawaiian Crane Tradition
It is believed that if you have a special wish, fold one thousand origami cranes. By the time you finish this task, your wish will be granted. This is called Sembazuru, or the folding of one thousand cranes.

In ancient Japan, a bride-to-be would fold sembazuru to wish for a long and prosperous marriage. The crane is not only a symbol for luck, but for longevity as it is believed that the crane lives one thousand years. The crane also mates for life, thus folding sembazuru ensures a bride her good fortune.

In the 1960's, Japanese-Americans in Hawaii started to create artwork with sembazuru for weddings, with one exception: 1,001 cranes were used. It is believed that the one extra crane brings extra luck, and in Japan, an odd number is considered lucky. The cranes were folded out of gold foil, arranged in the shape of a family crest, and then framed as artwork. The art would be displayed at the wedding reception, then in the couple's new home for continued good luck. Folding 1,001 cranes was a way for many Sansei (third-generation Japanese-Americans) to celebrate their culture and acknowledge their ancestors.

The art of 1,000 cranes is tradition that continues today, not only with Japanese-Americans but with couples from all ethnic backgrounds. Thus, the art of one thousand cranes has become a true American art form.
--origamihara.com

I have to interject here that the wedding I was talking about – Yes, Karen & Brian, your wedding – was still one of the most memorable and culturally woven ceremonies I’ve ever witnessed. It was beautiful. The crane folding parties were fun; I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I think K&B’s wedding also embodied what it is to be American – the Scottish and Japanese traditions and the Friends Meeting ceremony threw a little freedom of religion into the mix – it was more than fun, it was educational and matched K&B both so well! Years later, I used some Origami touches in my own wedding. No, not the cranes, but paper lanterns and parasols in red, yellow and orange. I know my 25 guest, outdoor affair fit me and Chris just as much; and I don’t feel like I intruded on another cultures traditions to accomplish it.

Picture: Whatever it is that you made, of course. Feel free to tell me what you did with your paper creations. Were they airplanes, did you fly them? Maybe an Origami creature play of some sort? My crane made little cawing sounds and flapped one of its wings (apparently I did it wrong, the other wing seems to be unflappable) as it flew around my husband’s head. No, I’m not sure why he loves me either – most days I act like a petulant child. In retaliation, Chris threw a pillow at me head. OK, that was me too. Chris just made tea and sliced strawberries to serve with it. Mmm…strawberries…

Song: The Bangles “Manic Monday”, which has nothing at all to do with this post, but it is Monday.

Tomorrow: Reread a Favorite Book

A Month of Fundays: Day 7 – Movie in the Park

2011-08-07T21:30:00.001-05:00

Text message to Amy: You don’t want a peanut. Boo!
Response message: I suck! Were there rocks ahead?

At the time I sent today’s text (Last night’s message, OK. Now you all know I write about the fun thing the day after I do it. Magic spoiled!), Chris and I were sitting on blankets in the middle of Victory Memorial Drive Park (which is just some green space in the boulevard of said Drive) waiting for The Princess Bride to appear on screen. Amy was supposed to be there. Matt & Mara and Stacy & Elliott were trying to find babysitters so they could join us, but in the end it was just the two of us - Date Night. Chris was a good sport about the whole thing. He doesn’t much go in for sitting on the ground for that length of time and I swear one of the reasons I married him is because the mosquitoes don’t attack me when he’s around. But, The Princess Bride! I can’t quantify my favorite movie (or book, or song), but this one ranks in the top 10. About 15 minuets before the movie was due to start, the man inflating the portable movie screen walked up to the crowd – including 20 girls between the ages of 6 and 10 celebrating a birthday – and told us the movie was canceled for the night due to a storm front coming through. I had to feel sorry for the poor man because 20 girls at a birthday party, hyped up on sugar and the possibility of staying up late, can be a feral, angry mob. Luckily he was met with mostly shouts of, “NO!” and angry foot stomping…from me, at least. The girls attacked like wild dogs. And that was my fun day!

Or, disappointment abounded – except from my husband – whose legs were cramping up already) but we all managed to leave the park without incident or injury. The birthday party was wrangled with hopes of Red Box and pizza dancing in their heads, Chris had everything packed and in the car before I could stand up, and we returned home without my funday activity for the day.

Rolling with the punches, we made it home and laid our blankets out again on the living room floor, grabbed the kettle corn and m&ms and popped The Princess Bride into the blu-ray. It wasn’t quite the same as a movie in the park or on a rooftop, but we still managed to have fun and enjoy a favorite movie. As a side note: Chris told me it was a good thing we didn’t see the movie in the park because I’m pretty sure I can recite it verbatim and apparently, I was speak/whispering along during most of it. Oops.

I would like to point out that had Amy and Stacy joined us in the park and the movie was a go, then I would not be alone in the speak/whispering. In fact, I’m guessing we would have been quite obnoxious. This is the problem with having the same two friends since the first grade – you’ve sat around many a sleepover watching The Princess Bride whilst reciting all of the lines. Or, even better: Your first year of college – when you’re all discombobulated and the new-fangled internets are actually both new and fangled – you receive an email with an attachment from one of your best friends. The attachment is a transcript of the screenplay to The Princess Bride. It becomes lame when you sit in the computer room at your college wasting valuable computer time by reading the entire transcript; but somewhere inside you know this growing up thing isn’t all about change. You do get to keep some friends and some habits from before.

Movie in the park or movie in your living room, as long as the movie and the company are good, I’d say it’s a fun day!

I think it’s quite possible to do one of those everything-I-need-to-know-about-life-I-learned-from things – Princess Bride-style. It would look something like this:

Good, then pour the wine – I do not envy the headache you’ll have when you wake, but in the meantime: dream of large women – I do not think it means what you think it means – If there are rocks ahead, we really will all be dead – Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato are all morons – My way is not very civilized – Life is pain; anyone who tells you different is selling something – We have already succeeded – Get some rest. If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything – Clearly, you have a dizzying intellect – Now, was that so terrible? – Lies do not become us – There's not a lot of money in revenge - Always count the wheelbarrow and the holocaust cloak amongst your list of assets – Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line – The Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners – Stand your ground – You mocked me once, never do it again – When I say you're a coward, that is only because you are the slimiest weakling to ever crawl the earth - Have fun storming the castle – I am never wrong – You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles - Marriage is a blessed arrangement; a dream within a dream – Death cannot stop true love; all it can do is delay it a while – Someday you may not mind the kissing parts so much – As you wish

Picture: Um. You’re picnic spread, the people watching whatever movie you see outside (free movies bring out all types and kinds), your favorite childhood birthday party. Or, just tell me about your favorite birthday party. What movie did you go see?

Song: The Foundation’s “Build Me Up, Buttercup”

Apparently Morgan Burke, McFly and Busted do covers of the song in this clip.

Tomorrow: Origami – Learning to Make Something Out of Paper

A Month of Fundays: Day 6 – Going for a Walk

2011-08-06T17:16:00.000-05:00

Hello, blog people! Today is a walking kind of day. It’s absolutely gorgeous out – a little too humid still, but I’m not going to complain about the sunshine. If you read this blog at all, you already know I live close enough to the part-time job-hobby to walk most days. You may not know that my normal means of transportation are walking, biking & public transit (MN has a crap bus system but a wonderful lightrail – LRT – system they are slowly, but surely expanding). I’m also the passenger in many a motor vehicle; I don’t drive at all, at all. This is 1-part laziness, 1-part lack of special relations and 1-part pure phobia from a horrific car accident in my early, wee years. Possibly, if it were just one of these three things I’d have my license, but the trifecta of bad driving karma makes me think my driving status is never really likely to change. Regardless, walking isn’t something new I’m trying out this month, it’s what I do. Yes, I guess another part of the not driving thing stems from my lack of interest in it. I like to walk, I enjoy bicycling, and I think public transportation causes fewer headaches for me and less stress on out planet.

For a fun day activity, there’s no better time than summertime strolling. Walking, like many things I’m writing about this month, is an excellent group activity and also a brilliant solitary journey. You can walk fast or slow and get different things out of each pace. You can walk to music, quiet, laughter or good conversation. You can have a definite destination or just meander where your feet take you. You can walk from point A to point B or walk in a circle, starting and stopping at the same location. I live in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” and each one has a walking trail around it. When I go for a walk with Chris, we tend to walk around one of these – or stroll through a garden. We live near here, lucky us! Walking with others is a good way to digest your day, calm down or discuss something important. If this is the walk you choose to do today, enjoy it!

The walking I did today was routine – it’s the walk I take every day to the part-time job-hobby. I really have no idea how long the walk is. I’ve done it in 12 minutes and I’ve done it in 40 minutes. I think whatever music I happen to be listening too sets my walking pace and tempo. The solitary walk is something else entirely. Yes, it’s also calming or refreshing, but the walk always helps me find myself, think through difficult things and really, just be. Time stops while I’m walking – no wonder my walking times are so sporadic. My walk takes me through old neighborhoods and right in between my old junior high and high school. Ah, the nostalgia of living and working where you grew up. I cross a couple of decently busy roads and then weave through a number of residential streets. I pass other walkers and bikers each day; people I know by sight, but not by name or acquaintance. There’s a blind woman who lives down the street, a lady who dog sits for her grown up son everyday, a man who lost his son on 9/11 aboard flight 93, a school principal who buys flowers for his wife once a week, and a curmudgeon who is constantly taking picture of his torn up lawn on the corner (he sits in town hall meetings on a regular basis to beg for a bike lane on 102nd St to avoid further lawn damage). I know all of these things about the people on my walk, but I don’t know any of their names! It’s an odd sort of feeling of belonging and sometimes I wonder what they know about me. There’s that girl who doesn’t drive, walking home from her part-time job-hobby. She has another bottle of Diet Dr.Pepper; she must drink a gallon of that every day…

If you choose the daily walk for your day of fun, look around and enjoy it. Try to find something you’ve never seen before; attempt to walk down the other side of the street. Sometimes I think we forget we’re having fun when it’s shrouded in the routine. I went for walks before, but I started my ritual of daily walking when I moved to London. My mom – and her sage advice – told me once you can’t belong to a place until you go out and explore it, so that’s what I did that first day in London.

I had this plan to video that walk during my recent trip to the UK, but alas, the best laid plans. I didn’t get to go on the walk – there just wasn’t enough time and we weren’t nearby when free time presented itself. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever learned to use a video recorder, flip camera or anything like that. So instead of literally walking you down memory lane, I will leave you with those vlogbrothers AGAIN – specifically John leaving NYC.

I can’t even describe in words how accurate that is – or how emotional this video leaves me. Enjoy your walk today – wherever it takes you!

What, I’m a writer and a reader. I’m going to leave you without some Robert Frost? I don’t think so!

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost

Picture: Something you see along the walk. If it’s a walk you frequently take, try for something new or different. When I really look around during my daily amble, I’m always surprised at what I find and what I never even noticed before. And extra points if you get to walk in the rain, which is a more-than-fun activity!

Song: Norah Jones “Sunrise” is about my walking speed today.

Tomorrow: Movie in the Park

A Month of Fundays: Day 5 – The Intimate Dinner Party

2011-08-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

It’s hard, this blogging everyday. I feel like my words are coming out trite and ambiguous. And I know I complain a lot about lack of comments, but this week I’ve heard something from someone everyday about the blog – even if they aren’t commenting here, so I can live with that. Seriously though, this is more difficult than writing articles for weekly publication or daily quippy copywriting blurbs that all start to sound the same because really, there are only so many ways to describe a headband. I can only imagine how horrible the grammar and sentence structure looks like once posted. I’m sure if I put on my proofing/copy editing cap and started reading through the published posts I’d find a plethora of extraneous commas and silly punctuation strewn about. This is exactly why I choose not to look back once published – except the checking for comments thing, of course. Yeah, I’m still not over that.

Also, a blog is so much more personal than other forms of writing. I’m putting myself out there this month – it’s an odd experience. Although, once I do this for an entire month, I can’t imagine having any querying qualms ever again. Reject me agent and editor, go ahead! You really don’t have to reject me at all, feel free to publish me any time you’d like.

Now that my faulty logic rant is over, let’s move onto the fun activity for the day: The Intimate Dinner Party. You might consider being a guest at a dinner party instead of hosting it for your fun day. Hosting is always a little stressful, but usually ends up being both gratifying and rewarding. If you have my sense of humor, then even if it’s horrible you can still have a laugh and a story to share later. I did a sort of half-way hosting/guesting thing today. The dinner party at my house included my husband, my mom and her uncle; a small family gathering. My great uncle is a rather picky eater so he decided to cook for us. We had veggie omelets, bakery fresh toast and fruit salad; simple but extremely tasty.

The thing that really makes a dinner party worth having is the conversation; it is the truly fun part. I couldn’t wait to grow up and be a part of conversations like those at dinner parties. It is one of the best parts of being an adult – picking friends who you can have scintillating conversations with and then talking to them for hours over food and drink. Tonight, discussion quickly turned to family stories. My poor husband got an earful, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. My great uncle is intrigued by genealogy right now; on this trip to MN he brought a recorder to tape the family in mini interviews of our life, marriages, occupations, etc. All for posterity and infinitely entertaining! I heard new stories and found fresh correlations and discoveries. We went through old census records and traced a history out tonight, I felt like I was on an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?”

I’m not saying every dinner party has to revolve around family, or be that historical. Your funday dinner party can be a backyard barbecue or group restaurant outing. For over 10 years our friends Matt & Mara have had dinner with us twice a month – that’s over 260 dinner parties. It’s what makes them more like family now, but also it makes me one of the luckiest girls in the world. People want to sit around my house (or theirs), eat my food (or theirs) and listen to my opinions. Not only does this make me fell like I belong somewhere, but it’s…wait for it…FUN!

Picture: The motley crew, the set table, or the board game (Always a good dinner party idea. When’s the last time you played a board game?) you played.

Song: Today, I have Crash Test Dummies’ “When I Go Out with Artists” stuck in my head. Although, at our last Matt & Mara dinner party we broke out in a rendition of They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul” – you get two songs today!

Tomorrow: Going for a Walk

Month of Fundays: Day 4 – Spa Day! A Day of Relaxation

2011-08-04T23:32:00.000-05:00

First off, Sherri reads my blog! She reads it and likes it! I found this out today at the part-time job-hobby and it made me feel like a celebrity!

Now that I got that out of my system – today’s fun event is the beauty salon and spa; really anything pampering and relaxing if you are playing along. I spent six years writing about beauty and hair trends at the corporate job, so some of that had to rub off on me. Statistically, little luxury expenses like shampoo and eyebrow waxing – also like fancy coffees – are the last things Americans give up during economic crisis. You may sell the boat and house, but a good pedicure still makes you feel pampered and just a little bit special.

I am no exception to this rule. I always try to schedule a pedicure the morning of a long-flight travel day, and ever since the corporate office job, I participate in a waxing party every 8 weeks. What’s a waxing party, exactly? Well, during the office job it was three or four of us going to the local Regis salon during our lunch break to have our eyebrows waxed over a shampoo bowl. Now, it’s one of those fellow colleagues and I going to the local Cole’s salon and having our eyebrows waxed in an uber-comfy spa room. We follow this spa activity up with chai tea at the local Starbucks: Just a little girly time to spice up my not-so-girly lifestyle.

Yes, I just said someone ripping hair out of my eyebrows constituted today’s fun activity. Clearly, I am both insane and boring. I also said this act of tortuous tweezing was a party that I do every eight weeks. I like my pampering to occur as a group outing, I know others prefer a solitary environment – but I think pampering is more fun with glittering conversation and yes, a little gossip now and then. The Ancient Romans have been doing it for years! Alone time or group bonding, either way works as long as you get to the relaxation part. I think my waxing companion uses the appointment as a way to escape her household, husband and kids for an evening every 8 weeks. Escape, pamper, relaxation – what is not fun about that?

I think part of the spa day is self discovery…and I don’t just mean the Kelly Clarkson scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin. A good spa day isn’t a complete makeover – changing the outside won’t change the inside; a good spa day is about doing something small or simple to improve your outlook on life. A hair color change, foot soak, hand massage or facial hair removal is a fresh way to make you feel good. Yeah, it’s a total coping mechanism, but I think that’s why people are willing to spend money on the spa luxury. It’s just so simple. Also, now I have beautifully sculpted eyebrows and not bushman eyebrows slowly growing together (I shouldn’t joke about the uni-brown, but I DO fear it).

Picture: Take a picture of a beauty or hair care product you can’t live without. I didn’t take a picture, but I’d have to go with DevaCurl AnGEL – I’m fairly certain my hair would be twice its normal size during regular weather and at least 4 times the size during these humid months without it!

Song: Spa music has waves crashing on a beach and water falling and one reed flute being all fluty. Maybe a cello too. I’ve got nothing? Maybe the entire soundtrack from the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice; here’s song from that soundtrack: “Stars and Butterflies”. It’s kind of floaty.

Tomorrow: The Dinner Party

Month of Fundays: Day 3 – Cook or Bake Something YUMMY

2011-08-03T23:20:00.000-05:00

At this point you think I’m the most boring person alive, don’t you? Or, I’m working under some dystopian-type propaganda where I tell you work is fun and you believe me and go along doing it; helping society come back from some sort of fall-out, life-as-we-know-it-ending type thing. Seriously, when I get to the point where I tell you mowing the lawn and doing laundry is the fun activity for the day, you should stop reading these. Neither of those things is remotely fun. Ever. No matter what I might say.

But cooking and baking…All types of fun to be had there. No? Maybe you’re just not doing it right?! I have the tiniest kitchen known to man – it’s a galley style, miniscule thing. I get cranky and angry when other people enter the kitchen while I’m creating (read: destroying the cleanliness) yummy masterpieces. This really is my fun activity for the day. And here’s how I roll:

Cooking – Today’s recipe is a potato & leek soup concoction. The recipe comes from my friend Catherine. Catherine is very green and a little hippy-like in a Wiccan sort of way. In other words: perfectly lovely. She and her husband – and their two kids – grow a lot of their own vegetables. They have a green house as well as earth boxes all along their deck. I’m not sure what any of that has to do with me cooking, but usually I come home from their house with an arm full of fresh veg! The local Farmer’s Market is also a good place to get things like leeks and potatoes at a low, low price. Growing your own vegetables and buying local produce are also fun activities…no, really! That’s not just my propaganda speaking.

Potato & Leek Soup
4 to 5 baking potatoes – baked and cubed
1 to 2 bunches of leeks (base this on taste preference or the size of the leeks themselves) – cleaned and sliced
1 to 2 tbsp of sauté liquid (like bacon grease, butter or olive oil)
14 oz of chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you want a vegetarian recipe)
1 can of evaporated milk (a vegetarian recipe where the veg-eaters in question also eat dairy. Boy, are you screwed if you’re lactose intolerant.)
Optional (read: don’t do this step, herbivores): Some pre-cooked meat – such as ham, bacon, or chicken/turkey. I use bacon (hence the bacon grease for the sauté liquid).

NOTE: for every 14 oz of stock, use 1 can of evaporated milk. There’s some (read: oh, my god – so much) starch in this soup, so I tend to always use double the liquid to get the final consistency I’m looking for.

BEFORE PREP:
-Bake the potatoes (I always forget this part and then get angry with myself, because the recipe clearly says “baked and cubed”. Tack on an hour or so if you’ve forgotten to bake the potatoes before you get to the soup making part).

-Clean and slice the leeks. If you’ve never worked with these, they are very dirty and have lots of layers; I promise they are easy to work with. Here’s a video on how to clean leeks.
-Cook the optional meat – only if you are using it though. It’s just a time-waster otherwise.

SOUP MAKING:
Saute leeks until well sweated and slightly browned. I use a small stock pot. Add stock and evaporated milk. Mix well. Add baked and cubed potatoes and optional meat. Mix again. Cook on medium low heat. Stir as needed. Once the potatoes are thoroughly cooked (Yes, I know. They’ve already been baked, so they are cooked thoroughly. Just use your best judgment. It doesn’t take long.) and soup has reached the desired consistency; serve with your favorite carb vehicle (sourdough, biscuits, brown n’ serve rolls, baguette).

PS – once everything has stewed/heated up for a while, take a potato masher to it for smaller pieces and really, just to release more starch. This makes the soup easier to eat; it has an amazing texture your taste buds will love.

…Yes, soup in the summer. I don’t know why, but I always find myself craving a hearty cup of soup or stew when it’s hot out…

Baking – I thought about making cupcakes, but I just did that and scones sound much more appetizing today. Perfect paired with tea or coffee, this is not the recipe I’d use for added fresh fruit. For that, I use another recipe that looks and acts more like the big, triangular scones you find in most American coffee shops. The one below is just a nice, sturdy scone that holds up to clotted cream, jam, marmalade, lemon curd or even, just butter if eaten fresh from the oven.

Basic Tea Scones
Don’t let the name fool you; these are not basic at all. The recipe has been tweaked and tried numerous times. Most scone recipes are similar with the best ones having only a few basic ingredients. Here is the result of many a scone baking. To be fair it is about 75% Harrods scone recipe. It’s not like I went into Harrods and asked them for their recipe – so most likely it came out of a cook book or off that new-fangled internets-thingy. It tastes like the scones I’ve had at Harrods though.

3 cups (15 oz / 470 g) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp baking powder
6 tbsp (3 oz / 90 g) cold unsalted butter (seriously, DO NOT take this out and get it to room temperature) – cut into small pieces
3/4 cup (6 oz / 180 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a medium bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together, and then stir until well blended. At this point you should brew a nice of cup of tea. Using your fingers, rub the butter in until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drink your cuppa tea and then remember you are making something to eat whilst drinking tea. Fists of fury. Then stir the sugar into the butter / flour / baking powder mixture and mix well. Quickly stir in the milk to make a firm dough. Yes, it is too sticky and there’s lots of flour not incorporated into the mixture yet. At this point you should swear because you’ve forgotten to flour a work surface, prepare the baking pan and/or remove the biscuit cutter and rolling pin from the drawer you keep them in. Un-goo your hands with lots of soap and water and do all of the forgotten things. Have another cup of tea to calm your nerves.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead until smooth. You can make a well and add all of those crumbly bits that didn’t adhere to the big ball of dough at this point. Roll out (I hate to say use a rolling pin, because you can almost pat this out with your hands. If you have a small rolling pin left over from an Easy Bake Oven or something; that would be your best bet.) to a 1 cm thickness (I eye-ball this, so 1 cm is probably more like 3 cm for me) and cut into 2 inch rounds with a pastry/biscuit cutter.

Place the scones 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet (Yes, the parchment paper is mocking you. It will roll up onto itself and be cut at an awkward angle no matter what you do. You can win! You will show it who’s boss!), brush with milk and dust with super fine (castor) sugar. Bake in the oven for 14 – 16 minutes, or until lightly golden, remove from oven and let them cool on a wire rack. I use the matching tiny spatula from my Easy Bake Oven set to remove the scones from the pan. Or your hands work too. Makes 12 – 16 scones.

These scones are really versatile. If you must add golden raisins, regular raisins, currants or other dried fruit, go ahead. I also make these in the fall with a can of Libby’s pumpkin added for a rustic flavor.

To eat: Brew another cup of tea and then slice open – putting clotted cream then jam on each half. Or, if you are my husband, slather with butter and lemon curd and smash both halves together, you Crazy British Man.

The point is to have fun baking, cooking. Enjoy your time in the kitchen, put in your earphones and dance around the kitchen while cooking. Creating something yummy to eat is one of those endorphin-infused moments you can be proud of. If you have kids, cook and bake with them. These are the moments I remember from my childhood. Kitchen time with mom was always a good day in my book.

Picture: Look! I took pictures today. You should take a picture of whatever it is you’re making.

Song: Not surprisingly, I tend to listen to music while I’m in the kitchen. Today was a Mary Chapin Carpenter day (also not surprising). I’m going with “Passionate Kisses”.

Tomorrow: Relaxation. Spa Day!

A Month of Fundays: Day 2 – Dance Like No One is Watching

2011-08-02T17:13:00.000-05:00

Here’s the entire quote – and feel free to do each of these things as a funday activity; although, love as though you’ve never been hurt may not be a try-that-out-today-for-fun kind of thing.

Dance as though no one is watching
Love as though you've never been hurt
Sing as though no one can hear you
Live as though heaven is on earth. – Souza

Honestly, whenever I hear or read dance like no one is watching, I think of Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister in Love Actually dancing around 10 Downing in his stocking feet to the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump for My Love”. I’m not sure if this is because my cousins and I always used to dance-like-no-one-was-watching to that song whenever I slept over as a child; or because one thing I really miss about the office job is Ben’s reenacting of this dance every Christmas. Either way though – I can’t help but smile.

I look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm when I dance, so I’m often surprised at how much dancing means to me. Actually, I don’t know when I made this analogy. Maybe it’s because I’m not a good clubber. I just don’t get it. The hot and the sweaty and the meat market, ear bursting, public humping just doesn’t do it for me. Wow, I really AM old. So maybe that’s when I look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm – when I’m in a dance club with a techno beat really not enjoying the dancing. Essentially, I think dance is a wonderful expression of music and personal journey; it is joy or pain when words just aren’t enough (says the writer). As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I grew up with a healthy love for ballroom dancing. One of my happier childhood memories is watching dancing competitions with my mom in the living room with plenty of room to try out any moves I was inspired to recreate. I’m extremely klutzy – even in my adulthood – so how I didn’t break a leg, I’ll never know. Now I watch shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance because they are fun, and for me – nostalgic.

I’m not saying for this month of fundays you should choreograph a professional routine and go dance it somewhere. This is more of a happy dance sort of thing. You know, your happy dance. That thing you do when something amazing happens. Jump up and down, wave your hands in the air, fall to the floor and look like you’re having a seizure, whatever it is you do, I want you to do that today. My happy dance looks like an Irish jig gone way wrong; yes, like a dying duck in a thunderstorm performing an Irish jig before finally keeling (hah!) over. It’s awesome; I did it in the kitchen while waiting for my cup of tea to brew. I was really excited about my tea break today.

I will now give you a moment to go perform your happy dance. While your dancing around like no one is watching, feel free to watch the video below. It is Hank and John Green again…how perceptive of you. Here is their Happy Dance Project from three or four years ago. I dare you to watch this and not smile.

Last weekend we had a family reunion at Lake Independence – the BBQ, swimming, chatting type of reunion. My great-uncle Marston and great-aunt Margaret came over from the east coast for the event; I haven’t seen either one since my teenage years. Old family stories always surface during these things and I found out Marston taught dance at the famed Arthur Murray School of Dance after high school (late 30s or early 40s possibly?). The late afternoon saw Marston and I doing a jitterbug in the grass, near the beach of Lake Independence. I have to say for a while there I forgot that I looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, I forgot it was 90 degrees out, I forgot anyone was watching me dance and I forgot my great-uncle is 84 years old. But what I won’t ever forget is the dance itself.

I’ve also mentioned my friend Mitzi on this blog before. She was a WAVE during WWII. Mitzi lost her battle with cancer last year, but her memory lives on. It lives on in an article currently in the hands of a certain unnamed magazine who has yet to decide on whether they will print it or not, but I digress – freelance writing sometimes means your words are legally not your own. To sum up: Mitzi loved to dance. She spent much of the war on the west coast in Navy hospitals rehabilitating amputee victims. She rehabilitated through dance; because you don’t need to stand on two feet or have two arms to move to the music. I can’t think about dancing without thinking about her New Year’s Eve wartime story: She spent the evening dancing at a USO Club with Gene Kelly! The light in her eyes while recanting the tale makes this another dance I will never forget; even without seeing the original.

What are you waiting for, go dance already!

Picture: One of you dancing your happy dance. Or, film yourself dancing like no one is watching. You may laugh at yourself, but again, it will make you smile every time you see it!

Song: There’s lots of big band songs going through my head right now, but my iPod was playing JET’s “Are You Gonna be My Girl” when I performed my happy dance today.

Tomorrow: Cook or Bake Something YUMMY

A Month of Fundays: Day 1 – Hot Sun and Cool Drinks on the Patio

2011-08-01T22:14:00.000-05:00

Here’s how we’re playing this and yes, feedback is always good. I’ll tell you what fun activity I did today and encourage you all to play along; we all need a little bit of fun in our lives. Some of these things will be small and simple things while others may be bigger, all day events. I’m old, yo – so you won’t think all of them are fun; but I do and I’m the one doing them. Each day I’ll write up what I did the day before and tell you what I’m planning on doing tomorrow. I say planning, because let’s face it things rarely work out exactly according to plan – at least in my experience. Also, fun is sometimes about spontaneity; I’m leaving room for surprise fun. If you don’t want to do my fun thing, do another fun thing of your own and leave a comment telling me what that was. I’m going to try and leave you with a related song and picture each day. I would love to see pictures of your own fun activities…I’m not computer savvy enough to know if you can leave those in the comments. I know I don’t know how to do that. Feel free to leave pictures on my email or facebook page if you know those things about me. Or, leave them on your own website / blog and let me know in the comments.

Fun Day 1: I had drinks with the girls today, on the patio of Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge. If you’re in MN I recommend. It’s kitschy in a good way. Who else combines the Mississippi River with tiki cocktails and pickle roll-ups! And no, I don’t think you have to have an alcoholic beverage for a funday – I’m really just going for a long cold drink on a hot, hot day. Lemonade, mint juleps or sweet teas are all good options; heck a smoothie at Jamba Juice and a walk around a lake works too. The conversation with Tera and Megan is what made today fun. Yes, part of it is the fact that I feel my college education amounted to something because my tiki drinking friends include an editor and a book buyer. But also because our conversation easily flows and people watching is infinitely more fun in the humid summer sun. I feel like there should be some kernel of knowledge in each post during this month of fun days, but honestly, sometimes it’s just nice to kick back, relax and have a laugh. The thatch looking umbrellas and “waterhole” help-yourself-plastic-container-of-water (which tasted suspiciously of an over chlorinated pool) only added to the ambiance. And what was that conversation you ask? Um, I don’t remember. There was some recent book reading chatter and drunk-people-at-the-next-table discussion. We talked about a large book signing and my recent trip to the UK. There was some debate about marriage, family homes and the water levels in North Dakota. First time boyfriends and lasting relationships wound down the afternoon. You know – all very serious fluff. Huh, my month of fundays may be very boring for some of you. On the other hand, I spent the afternoon in the sun drinking something called a Psycho Zombie…and it tasted like paradise.

Picture: There are kinks to work out. I’m not used to carrying a camera with me, but the scene at the top could have easily been from the afternoon. Take a picture of the drink, cocktail umbrella, the friends or the place you choose to have your long cool beverage on a hot, hot day.

Song: You’d think something Polynesian with a good drum beat with my surroundings, but I couldn’t get Enya’s “Lazy Days” out of my head. Apparently I’m both old and quirky; you’ve probably already suspected as much.

Tomorrow: Dance Like No One is Watching

The Remarkable Patriotism of Coca-Cola

2011-07-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

This whole Month of Fundays thing is more difficult then I originally thought. I think I need to be more organized, with more ideas. So today’s post is what I want A Month of Fundays to be like, but I’m not actually doing that month of blogging yet. I’m taking a Month of Fundays out for a test drive because I can’t get my mind around the logistics of it all.

For now, I’m just going to write about today – 4th of July (because I won’t be posting this until the 5th). It’s the Fourth of July! That’s fun in and of itself. Go, America!

Back to the grind after vacation, I woke up bright and early this holiday morning because I had to be at the part-time job hobby by 7:00. I’m married to a British man and I wasn’t sure how long the part-time job hobby would keep me, so although we had a few backyard BBQ invitations, nothing was set in stone. In the end, Chris and I went to the MN Landscape Arboretum in the afternoon. For those of you in MN: the arboretum IS open even with the State Government Shutdown. For those of you not in MN: the government is shutdown because the lovely politicians can not come to an agreement about the state of our state debt/budget and how to get money to pay for it. I have EXTREMELY STRONG OPINIONS about this, but as I’m not blogging about my political stance right now, I won’t bore you with those details. However, I would like to point out that although the general populace in MN doesn’t much seem to care whether we are shut down or not; I really think we all need to wake up and have extremely strong opinions about failing governments in general…and not just stomp our feet because the State Lottery is not playable during a shutdown (Seriously random guy in the line at the gas station doing the foot stomping: What the hell is wrong with you?!)

MN Landscape Arboretum, that’s where I was. It’s open, very nature-like, and pretty much just awesome…It may seem a little odd that my fun day had me thinking about America, since I was just lamenting my return to the country, my state government is shut down, and I have EXTREMELY STRONG OPINIONS about the cons of socialism and my country in general. But here’s the thing: It’s my country! And I get to have all of these feelings because my country – for the most part – is FREE. Men and women died – and are still dying – to make it so. There’s a lot wrong, but there’s a lot right too. And I can write about it, rant about it, and tell you what I really think – without fear of imprisonment or death. So yes, celebrating America is a fun day in my book.

Celebrating it with a British man may seem odd; but he chose this country over his own even before he chose me. One of my favorite Fourth of July memories happened just two years ago – the first year Chris and I were married and his mum came for a visit. We had a big family picnic/firework watching at Normandale Lake’s annual Bloomington Summer Fete. The irony of sitting on blankets outside in the middle of a MN summer, celebrating my country while completely surrounded by British citizens (Chris, his brother and his mother) was not lost on me. But I was mostly impressed by their awe and excitement, and also those familiar Fourth of July things: The smell of corn on the cob and tang of bug spray, sunscreen and sweat in the air; the fireflies dancing in the reeds around the lake – outshone by the red, white and blue light-up jewelry around children’s necks, wrists and ankles. The sound of fireworks exploding into the thick, humid night sky followed; the sky growing increasingly thicker by the smoke screen and burnt powdery, sulfur fire smell. It’s really hard to beat the fun-ness of The Fourth. Go, America! I say again.

Did I mention the MN Landscape Arboretum? Chris and I headed out to that giant garden in Chanhassen. We stopped for cash and water at the shops, and I picked up a coke, too. It was hot today, like Amazon HOT. For those of you who think of MN as snow and cold, July & August are mostly filled with 90 degree days and lots of sticky humidity. I don’t drink a lot of sugar soda, but when it’s really hot and I know I’ll be spending most of the day walking, I grab a Coca-Cola. It’s not frequent at all, but as I was watching two idiots drag-race down 494, sipping my coke and musing about the flowers I’d be seeing shortly; it dawned on me that my last Coca-Cola happened just a week ago on a very hot day in London. That day found me being quite touristy at the Tower of London and The British Museum. I grabbed the coke after viewing an over-whelming and over-stimulating plethora of Egyptian mummies and Ancient Greek architecture (British Museum, you are amazing but you have too much – give some antiquities back already – but not The Rosetta Stone, you should always keep that so I can view it frequently.) but before hitting up the massive gift shop. I remember thinking, this coke doesn’t taste right. I don’t mean how coke always tastes wrong, like the sugar forms strings and then those strings grow on your teeth like fur and you feel like you should shave your teeth after consumption. No, it still tasted like that, but more like it tasted off. I’d forgotten these thoughts until my highway trek on this Independence Day. I realize now the coke didn’t taste off at all, I was just drinking it in the wrong location: Coca-Cola tastes like America. Forget your apple pie, watermelon and hot dogs – Coca-Cola is America in a bottle! Other things taste like London ¬– things like a Snakebite and a Pimms Cup. Lilt tastes like the UK and Stella too, but Coca-Cola is decidedly America.

The arboretum was beautiful, peaceful and summery. Although there were plenty of families around enjoying their Fourth, I still felt calm, relaxed and secluded. Chris took pictures, I smelled flowers and we chatted about nothing but everything; a perfect way to celebrate our Independence Day. Tonight, while I’m writing this we are watching the neighbors grill in their front garden in a fire pit; we’ll join them for s’mores later – and fireworks of course. I’ll turn on the TV and watch some of the Boston Pops celebration and probably not for the last time wonder what it would be like to get on a plane at dusk in New York and fly to Los Angeles low enough to see the fireworks sprout up all over the nation. I bet that’s amazing!

I’m not sure what my Month of Funday question/thing is today? Possibly: How do you celebrate? Or: Think of and drink a beverage that embodies your town, state, region, country. Watch some fireworks. Eat outside. BBQ. Walk through a garden. Apparently I had an entire month of fundays in just this one day. Feel free to answer/comment with any of those things. Or, more ideas for The Month of Fundays project!

Oh, and I'm thinking about adding a related song for every Month of Fundays post. Simon & Garfunkel's America seems appropriate for today.

Haste Ye Back

2011-07-01T17:26:00.001-05:00

It’s entirely my own fault; realizing that fact doesn’t make it any better though. When you love travel and you have no money, you inevitably get super excited when you get to go on a trip…pretty much anywhere. When you travel to an unknown place, everything is so new and intriguing; it’s overwhelming and tiring, but usually rather lovely. In such cases, six or seven days are very much enough time. In such cases home is a welcome reprieve and a panacea to the travel bug – for a while at least. But, when you travel to a well known place you once lived in; a place your soul sings for, your eyes yearn for, your emotional and physical person craves…well then – 14, 15, even 20 days are never enough. Returning home feels a bit like being stuck in a box, sealed and posted to a place you don’t want to go to.

So it’s my own fault for taking most of June to wander through the UK and Ireland – stopping at all of my favorite places including Dublin, Giant’s Causeway, Belfast, Edinburgh, Skye, The Highlands, and of course, my London. Really, what was I thinking? June in London. With Wimbledon and the year before the Olympics – It’s like being on the highest high of your life and then crashing straight to your lowest low. Yes, apparently I’m equating traveling to meth – maybe it’s not quite that bad. The realities of my daily life are just encroaching in on me right now. Probably because I’m typing this while watching Wimbledon – when just a couple of days ago I was there; or the seven loads of laundry, paid bills & rent, grocery shopping and general house cleaning I’ve done today. Whichever, I’m in a melancholy mood that’s been hard to shake.

Don’t get me wrong, it was brilliant and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat; over and over and then over again. I was just hoping for a little respite from the travel bug. It really is a problem when you are a broke and unpublished writer. The month of June, as it goes out and is replaced by a sticky hot Minnesota July, was as perfectly golden as I thought it might be months ago when I realized I would get to go on said trip. A trip I took with some of my closest friends and favorite people; and also a number of blog followers I did not know before (Hi, Anna, Michelle and Brooke!). And those blog followers are amazing and exactly the sort of people I want following my blog. I journaled every day and therefore improved my capacity for writing well. There is something about a travel journal full of notes, ideas and thoughts; it’s very organic in its execution. I made an effort not to engage too much in the outside world: The cell phone was left at home, the net book as well. I grabbed pen, pencil, journal and half a manuscript – set mostly in Dublin and London – I needed some fact checking on.

And I really am happy to spend July – October in MN. Really, there’s a reason I live here. I’m not sure if there’s any place better during these months. Look, I’ve talked myself around. Yay, I’m home…OK, fine, I’m mostly home. Here’s where travelling becomes a pain. Because my heart and soul are often in two places; and although I’m in the one I chose to reside in, I just left that other place – which grows more enticing on each visit because I don’t have to deal with the mundane while I’m there. It’s all happy fun no work time; a place I spend money but don’t have to worry about earning it. Really, is there something wrong with me? I already miss the London black? And Scotland - all purple, brown and green while simultaneously shrouded in mist and rain with bursts of the most glorious sunshine in the world. See what I’m up against here.

I set out on a much needed vacation and ended up on a pilgrimage of sorts. The problem started with the manuscript – which on a re-read is a detailed description of how much the writer loves the places she’s talking about – oh, I manage to fit in a plot around these descriptions, but really I’m all about the beauty and deepness and warm people and I’m extolling again; make me stop that. The next problem, chaperoning a group of high school and college-aged students who’ve either never travelled before, or never thought about the journey they take each time they step outside their comfort zone. As a YA writer, just watching the travel-transformation is about six months worth of library research. I am constantly amazed and moved by their zest for life and child-like awe. It’s why I write dammit! Finally, there is the simple realization that living in the UK all of those years ago is one of those profound life moments that made me who I am. I’ve discussed this before, so it wasn’t a new realization, but it always manages to smack me right in between the eyes each and every time I go back. This time, I realized both my British husband and I live with one-foot in both worlds at all times. This is what makes us so compatible. I’m not sure either of us belongs to either country anymore – we’ve chosen the US as home but the UK has a strong pull. It means we constantly question the practices and policies of both countries and can find an equal amount of pros and cons for each: It’s a unique but nerve-racking place to be.

So what’s that great moment of self-awareness? Why a pilgrimage? I’ve got nothing but Enya song lyrics for you:

Will you find the answer
In all you say and do?
Will you find the answer in you?
Each heart is a pilgrim,
Each one wants to know
The reason why the winds die
And where the stories go.
Pilgrim, in your journey
You may travel far,
For pilgrim it’s a long way
To find out who you are…
-Pilgrim

I’m one step further to finding out who I am. And sweet lord, I’m complicated! So, UK I will miss you, US I’m glad to be home and Scotland you are a magnificent wonderful place and I will heed your road signs which all say – “Haste Ye Back” on the back side.

Also, I’m getting over myself, spanking my inner moppet and moving on to A Month of Fun Days and Harry Potter next week! That is for reals and not for play, play (Fists of fury, Matt!).

Anticipating Perfection

2011-06-04T22:36:00.000-05:00

I’m giddy with tennis fanaticism tonight, I just have to write a post about it. Now that I’ve said that many of you will stop reading this post. I’m actually writing this post for the non-tennis fan – or any one who doesn’t really get the craziness of sports fandom. Usually, I’d side with you. I’m not a big sports fan (obviously with the exception of tennis and the Olympics – two things I do go a bit gaga over). I don’t really follow any professional local teams and I can’t tell you the last time I went to a Superbowl party. But what I do get is natural talent. I don’t have to like basketball to appreciate the literal flight of players like Michael Jordan. I believe there are athletes who are good at being athletes: They train, they practice; they eat, sleep and breathe their sport and therefore, make a living playing well. Then there are those athletes with natural talent (they really don’t have to be athletes – you know what I mean. Someone who doesn’t really have to try but manages to be amazing at their chosen gift) the ability to completely embody their sport and not only make it look effortless, but create magic and grace simultaneously. These are the people that make their sport beautiful; they also remind us why the ancient Greeks were so caught up in the athletic human form – glorious is not a strong enough word. This is why I’m so giddy tonight.

Witnessing said natural talent in action is incredible. If you follow a sport, there’s always that one game, that one athlete, that one perfectly aligned moment of supreme awesomeness that epitomizes said sport. Hopefully you get to be around to see it – usually you don’t. I’d watch Babe Ruth play baseball any day of the week even though I’m not a fan of the game; I understand just how organically magnificent it must have been to see him in action. If I were a baseball fan, I’d lament the fact that I’d never see the game I love at its moment of perfection. I’m not saying baseball will never have another moment of perfection or there isn’t a player out there who has the potential to be even better than The Great Bambino. This is one of the reasons we have sports heroes; to inspire the potentials and put the passion in their hearts. What I’m saying is that the moment of perfection, the star aligned moment of sports awesomeness isn’t easy to predict. The game changing athletes are truly few and far between.

So why am I joyously fanatical this evening? Because tomorrow morning at 8:00 am central time one of those moments will unfold on my living room television: The 2011 French Open Men's Final. Seriously, if at any point tomorrow or later on YouTube you want to see poetry in motion (wow, I really just said that) watch 5 or 10 minutes of this final. Why do I know it will be amazing? How can I already tell it will go down in tennis history? Because both players involved in the match are seasoned and chock full of actual natural talent. Seriously, you just don’t get any better than Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. The mind boggling concept that they are both playing in the same lifetime is simply ridiculous. It’s so rare and there are so many clichés…I’m going with one in a million (wow, I said that too). Every single time the tennis world gets to see these two play each other is a miraculous gift; a gift I get to witness and appreciate while it’s happening! I can’t even apologize for this rant, I’m that excited. Who do I think will win? I have no idea. I’m not even sure who I want to win. I do know that it will be a roller-coaster of emotions for the players and fans alike and at the end one of them will be crying bitter tears while the other will be screaming, primally.

It’s history in the making; I’m SO anticipating the perfection!

HP Tuesday - The Eyes Have It

2011-05-24T23:03:00.000-05:00

Last time I left you all in the midst of book 7, a rather large, dense novel. I could continue on with mothers because they appear more and more as time passes in the book, their importance becoming stronger and more fleshed out. But I have other things to discuss, so I’m moving on. Eyes. Yep, I’m going to focus on one body part today; an important part – the windows to the soul and all. Other eye imagery? I keep thinking of writers like Fitzgerald and Orwell – using eyes to watch and see; Big Brother/billboard-esque type imagery. Bespectacled eyes – like Harry’s, James’, and Dumbeledore’s – usually mean wisdom. They also mean God, but I don’t think Harry or James or even Dumbledore is supposed to represent God in this series. Harry is an everyman character, to the extent that we champion him BECAUSE of his lack of knowledge, pig-headedness and general teen-angsty self. Sure, he figures it out in the end; but because of his entire supporting cast (do I sound like Voldemort there?). His sacrifice is only his own, which is why he succeeds, but the figuring out comes from a lot of different people. I think the only God-because-of-his-disembodied-eyes character in the novel is Aberforth Dumbledore – what the heck does that mean? (PS – That link back there is one of my very favorite vlogbrothers – yes, them again – videos ever!) I haven’t figured out what it means. But Aberfoth’s piercing blue eyes – the same eyes as Dumbledore – look at Harry at the beginning of this last quest, they continue to look out of the mirror each time Harry needs egging on – forward motion. I love that this disembodied eye is in a mirror and always turns back into Harry’s own, green eye – the same eyes as Lily. There are so many eye-like parallels here.

Some Thoughts on Imagery
Thinking about imagery, I started thinking about Shakespeare. Truth be told, I think about Shakespeare a lot – rat bastard. It’s because of him I care so much about symbolism and imagery in the first place. Shakespeare finally made me stop asking, “Does every writer mean to add these things to their works or are we just critiquing to sound smart?” and start asking, “What is this author saying about the human condition when she adds symbolism and imagery?” So Shakespeare and eyes; he does it a lot but HP 7 makes me think of King Lear the most. King Lear could not see what was right in front of him and literally lost his eyes. (Side note: This also makes me think of season 7 of Buffy; add Joss Whedon to my growing list of rat bastards who make me think too much…and for making me use the phrase rat bastard come to think of it.) Who’s the sightless character in HP 7? It is Voldemort, who can not possibly win because he doesn’t see what is right in front of him; so many things that are right in front of him. And where are his human, Tom Riddle eyes – his windows to the soul? They’re literally a piece of his soul. One he cut off and discarded in an attempt to seek eternal life. His eyes are a bit of soul, shielded by a window in a locket that belonged to his greatest descendent; it’s become a horcrux. Voldemort gave up his sight and soul and replaced them with snake-like slit-pupil, red eyes. And in the end, the last thing we read of Voldemort are his scarlet pupils rolling upwards as he dies. In the next sentence, Rowling gives the lifeless body lying on the floor Tom Riddle’s name once again. Neither Tom nor Voldemort can cheat death.

Some Thoughts on Symbolism
Thinking about symbolism, I started thinking about the symbol on the spine of my book (British edition) and also the name of this book, the deathly hallows symbol. When first mentioned, at the wedding, as worn by Xenophilius Lovegood, it is rather like a triangular eye. Actually, the exact sentences – just in case you didn’t get that eyes were important in this novel – read, “Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.” (Huh, apparently color is also important in this book – maybe we can discuss yellow, gold, red, green and blue next week?!) This symbol, much like the swastika – which once stood for life, sun, power and good luck – changes over centuries from something good to something inherently evil. The mark of the hallows is a clue that must be followed throughout its history, understood but not conquered; the hallows must not be wielded for power or for eternal life. In other words, the only way to truly understand and use the hallows is to know; wisdom and strength, but also a healthy dose of humility. Harry has the strength to break-up and scatter the hallows; only keeping the invisibility cloak passed down to him.

Lily’s Eyes
Throughout all seven books we’ve been bombarded constantly with the knowledge that Harry has his mother’s eyes. Her soul and his are intertwined. Not just because they are son and mother, but because she sacrificed herself for him; that great, mother-protecting magic coursing through the very soul of these novels. Whether we mean to read into this or not, every ounce of good Harry does seems to generate from this connection with his mum. Lily’s eyes, reappearing in her son’s visage, are what ultimately makes Snape turn toward the light and what keeps him from straying back into the dark. Even at his end, Snape asks Harry to look at him – not because he’s the boy who lived – but because dying is easier when looking into Lily’s eyes. Nineteen years later, who is the only child of Harry’s to inherit Lily’s eyes? Albus Severus Potter – eyes really are the windows to the soul.

A Month of Fun Days

2011-05-17T22:37:00.000-05:00

I have a plan! Well, I have a project that I’ve been pondering for about 6 months now. It’s taken on many forms but now I just want to get on with it already. At first I thought about pitching it as an article idea, and then I thought I’d pitch it to a company like Disney as a blog idea, but I never quite figured out how either would work. Possibly just doing this thing on my own blog would make it easier to earn money on another blog or article in the future. For this to work though, I’ll need your help and lots of suggestions.

Concept
A month of daily blogs about fun stuff I’m doing. Now, who doesn’t want to read that?! OK, there’s more to it than that. I want to stalk wonder and I want you, blog readers, to join me in the pursuit of fun. I’d also like you to *gasp* comment about it right here on the blog…

Why?
Well, because it’s fun! No, seriously. I’m an unpublished writer and therefore, I spend much of my time depressed about this fact – and the lack of money, or running out of money (I did bills today and realized my savings is dwindling and I haven’t done any freelance stuff in a little while and the part-time job hobby is great, but not really meant for me to live off of without other sources of income). And yes, I do realize I rant about all of these things more than I should on a blog; however, there is a silver lining. Most of the time I am a happier, healthier person than when I had more money and a 40-hour a week office job; I realize this and want to share the fun with others. I think we pretty much live in a craptastic-economy-driven world but there is still fun to be had. We just have to embrace that fun!

When?
Well, I was thinking the month of June, because June is a month with decent outdoor weather for most of the globe. Then again, maybe June already has plenty of fun in it and doesn’t need my help. Also – if I haven’t already beaten this into your heads by constantly talking about it – I will be traveling in the UK and Ireland for the better part of June. One, this is a good thing because traveling lends itself to spontaneous fun times; but two, I may not be able to get to the internet everyday and I may not have time to write a blog post everyday. I think a month of fun days can, and should occur wherever you happen to be and with whomever you happen to be with; but maybe for easier navigation I will wait until July to begin.

In the Meantime…
Feel free to offer suggestions on any of this. I am looking for 30 fun things to do. I do think a lot of fun things happen spontaneously, so that can always be a factor; but if I leave at least a week’s worth of fun activities – people will be able to do them and comment on them on the actual days I do these fun things too. (That was an incredibly awkward sentence.) I also believe some of the fun things I do won’t be remotely fun for some of you; in which case, you would comment with something else fun that you did that day. Yes, this is why I’ve been mulling it over for 6 months now. I think I may have mulled too much at this point.

Fun thing ex: Find a crazy or unique sign and take a picture of it for the blog.
Fun thing ex: Go on a road trip to a little piece of Americana (i.e. Giant ball of twine or that ketchup shaped water tower) and experience its cheesy awesomeness.
Fun thing ex: See a movie on a rooftop with a group of friends.
Fun thing ex: Go to dinner with a group of friends and pretend it’s someone’s birthday. Extra points for best birthday song and best free-birthday treat.

You get the picture; and no, after 6 months of thinking about this, these are NOT my best examples…where would the fun be in that!

Harry Potter Friday – Book 7: Deconstructing Mother Love

2011-05-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

I started this Harry Potter book club idea on my blog two years ago for multi-faceted reasons. First, it was a good excuse to re-read a series that has some staying power in a genre I choose to write in. Second, it was a good excuse to build a YA platform for myself (I’m selfish this way but then hey, it’s my blog). Third, the book to movie conundrum is one that hits close to my own heart; I love books and my husband loves movies but we both make an effort to enjoy the other medium so we have something to do together. Fourth, originally I thought the writing got better while the plot went down hill in the series and I wanted to see if on re-reading my opinion stayed the same. Finally, I noticed people have severely strong opinions about this series – from writing fan songs to book burning and everything in between; I just wanted to figure out why people have these strong ties. Selfishly again, if I can somehow harness these reasons I could be a world famous author…or really, I’d settle for a published author.

I think trying to resolve all of these reasons may be why it’s taken me so long to write about this last book. What amazes me the most about the re-read is just how my opinions have changed. I may keep harping on how concise JK Rowling is; but that’s only because I’m completely surprised that my opinions of her writing prowess are so different then on the first read. Seriously! This is exciting stuff for me, and probably only me.

On that note, I’m ready to have some serious discussions about HP 7. Yes, really! Let’s do this thing. Many of you have showed some interest in a feminine read of HP; more precisely the lack of a good, strong female character. I realized something about myself while trying to souse out the great feminist character in Harry Potter: I’m really not a feminist. I’m all about women power and dig me some Buffy and Veronica Mars; I want to write fiction for young adults because of literary characters like Nancy Drew and Anne Shirley; but as a literary critique, I’m crap at the feminine mystique. I’m really more of a deconstructionist. So, try as I might, I don’t see anything wrong with Hermione, Ginny, or Tonks. Considering just how many characters exist and have reoccurring roles in the Potter-verse, I think most are well developed. I have actual feelings about Mrs. Malfoy at the beginning of this book – and who is she really? I mean all of these characters have a first and last name, which you remember. I can’t imagine the notes Rowling must have kept to keep the continuity going through 7 books.

I’m getting ahead of myself. For this blog post I mostly wanted to talk about mothers and how there is one in each opening scene. I’m not sure if this helps or hinders a feminist critique; I guess you could say Rowling only knows how to write one type of female and thinks that motherhood is the most important thing in each one’s life. Who knows, maybe it is? I’m not a mother, so I’d have to defer to those who are. From a deconstructionist standpoint, all of these mothers are intriguing and thought pondering: What does ‘mother’ even mean? Is Rowling trying to make every mother the same?

To start with, it’s amazing plot braiding to juxtapose Narcissa Malfoy, Petunia Dursley, Andromeda Tonks and Molly Weasley. Obviously some of it is foreshadowing, Narcissa Malfoy and Molly Weasley are both pivotal to the plot towards the end – and also again because they are mothers. I don’t just think it is foreshadowing or plot braiding though. It’s more because Rowling doesn’t need these mothers to create the scenes, but they are all pivotal to each, separate scene. Maybe pivotal isn’t the right word, they each advance the plot by defining the character of motherhood.

Narcissa Malfoy
Narcissa is clearly the one Malfoy with her senses intact in the first chapter. She stands out by looking downcast yet clearly being in charge of her household; she keeps her son and husband in line and alive with firm glances and nudges.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: The last we read of Narcissa in chapter one is, “Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was starring down into is own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.” She is showing her family exactly how to act and what to do; clearly she is already prepared to make her family survive by any means necessary.

Petunia Dursley
Petunia Dursley remains her steadfast self when it comes to her son Dudley; she’s in three or four pages of this massive novel, yet she still manages to call her son Diddy, Dudders and Popkin in that space. Her life is her family; and like Narcissa, she is quite single-minded in her protection of them.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: Rowling peppers Petunia’s exit from the series with these final words, “She gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out of the room after her husband and son.”

Andromeda Tonks
Harry could have gone straight to the Burrow when he leaves Privet Drive, but Rowling sends him to the Tonks’ first. Although she is talked about quite a bit, Andromeda Tonks hasn’t appeared before this book; we already know she is sister to Narcissa and Bellatrix. Here’s yet another mother, and also a sister (like Petunia and Lily); one who is going to extreme lengths for the sake of her daughter.
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: Although she’s talked about and referred to quite a bit in this book, she appears only once, briefly to ask, “What happened to our daughter? Hagrid said you were ambushed; where is Nymphadora?” We know she’s a pure-blood, a healer, a strong female who resembles her sister Bellatrix in many ways, but she only speaks one line – and it’s about concern for her daughter, the Auror who married a werewolf.

Molly Weasley
Molly is Harry’s surrogate mother – also mother of his best friend and his girlfriend. She is as worried about Harry as she is for the rest of her family; there really is no distinction anymore. Not once do you see her regret the friendship that’s sprung up between her family and Harry. The Weasleys (minus that prat Percy) are all loyal toward Harry and the Order. Molly is different from the other mothers we’ve seen so far – they are all worried about one child, she is worried about ten (counting Harry, Hermione, and Fleur too). We’ve seen Molly a lot in the series, she is the most complete, well-rounded mother character; she gets a full range of emotions including scatter-brained and sometimes ridiculous. I like this about Molly; it makes her into many mothers I’ve known, not just the outline of a mother-type character. And let’s be honest, at the end she gets the best line of the entire series!
MOTHER LOVE MOMENT: In the opening scene at the Burrow, Harry, already feeling horrible about putting others in danger, can’t quite figure out why she doesn’t hate him yet. “He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but –
‘Thank goodness you’re all right,’ she said, pulling him into a hug he did not feel he deserved.”

Kendra Dumbledore
Brilliant! No, seriously! Dumbledore is dead and now he gets a mother and more face-time than when he was alive. Why put Kendra in here now? I have no idea what kind of mother Kendra Dumbledore is. Through conjecture and hearsay she appears to be quite a bad one, but how do you explain the goodness of Albus and even Aberforth Dumbledore? At least some of it has to be nurture.

Lily Potter
The mother all other mothers must me compared to throughout the series. She’s here at the beginning…and in the middle…and at the end. I think Lily’s note to Sirius separates her from the Lily & James Potter duo in the scene at Grimmauld Place; stressing her ultimate sacrifice more than James’.

Appoline Delocour & Tonks
We also meet the mother of the bride, Appoline Delocour, who must be at least half Veela – a mythical creature and not just a wizard. And finally, we find out Tonks is pregnant with a baby who will also be more than a wizard – his dad being a werewolf and all. It’s sort of like tying up all the loose ends. We see mothers at very important, life moments and we get yet another dose of magical-creature-unity-and-equality vs. magic-is-might-dark-wizard mentality: A true good vs. evil moment.

I definitely think Rowling pulled the women into the foreground during the first quarter of the book. No, not necessarily in a feminist way, but in a sort of roto-scope, look-at-this sort of way to emphasize what’s coming, what’s been, what’s most important, and inevitably what’s dark magic conquering: LOVE. Yes, it’s so simple and obvious, but I really do admire the way in which it occurs.

I so want opinions in the comments on all of this. Also, feel free to add in your feminist reading – or any other literary theory you’d like to. Of course, coincidentally it is Mothers Day on Sunday. The picture attached to this blog is all my own. (Yay, no copyright infringement this week!) It’s a picture of me and my mom – she’s a much better person than I am, so I know all of my good parts are from her nurturing. Happy Moms Day to all of you mothers. And in case you don’t think I’m excited enough about the arrival next week: Mara Corey you are going to be an awe-inspiring, remarkable mother! Matt, you of course will be an amazing dad too!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

2011-04-26T22:48:00.001-05:00

This ego-centric rant is what comes of being holed up in bed sick for a week. I think I may have had too much time to think about me. Which, it turns out, is good, but now you have to read all about it.

I spent a good deal of last month reading Amanda Hocking, the whiz-bang self-publisher from my home state who has just signed a-very-healthy-dollar-amount-book-deal. Her books are entertaining; they need another edit or two and hopefully a book publisher will give her that. She sites on her blog that she wants to write; she doesn’t want to deal in the nitty-gritty business of writing. Kudos to her and anyone else who does self-publish, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I too hate promoting myself; heck, I don’t even always let my facebook page know when I have a new blog post. This is stupid; I should just get over myself and learn from Amanda Hocking, who has done an amazing job promoting herself. She’s not done with self promoting now that she has an agent, editor and publishing house though. In fact, I think she might be in for a little bit of a shock as she will, most likely, be working even harder now to meet deadlines while still promoting herself beyond what the publishing house is willing to do. But I get it Amanda; I too just want to write. Well, I want people to read what I write, and like it, and pay for it and support my writing habit – vicious circle!

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Amanda Hocking is someone I can relate to because her ideas and writing style are not that dissimilar to my own. It’s always a good thing when someone making a lot of money doing what you want to do is only as good as you are; or maybe you are even better. You feel slightly more confident in what you are doing then. Of course after I finished reading Amanda Hocking, I picked up HP 7 again and cried a little. JK, you are just so good at what you do. Amanda Hocking and JK Rowling are really not the same writer. They both write YA but there the similarities end. I’m always amazed at how clean cut and concise JK is. If I ever meet her I want to know how she managed to edit so precisely all the way through to the end with deadlines, movie set visits and publicity junkets. I realize I am already a decent writer when I read authors like Amanda and I strive to be a better writer when I read authors like JK; but never do I think I’m in the wrong profession or that I can really ever be anything besides a writer.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

This week I received an email from the Unemployment Insurance of MN office asking me to fill out a work survey and self assessment. Apparently, if you’ve ever been on unemployment and you did not report the finding of a full-time job, they will keep tabs on you and “help” you try to locate employment; whether they give you money or not. This is a good thing. I know that. This is why I always fill out the surveys and assessments. They, like myself, want me to be a productive member of society. Here’s the problem: The unemployment office doesn’t really take into account who I actually am; to them I’m merely a number or statistic. If/when I’m gainfully employed they can move my number over from the jobless to the job-full. Really, it just means the surveys and assessments try to push me out of my writing box and into any category of employment I can simply do. The silly thing is, I sometimes agree. I spend hours going over these surveys and then looking for and applying for jobs in any field I know I’m qualified for. A few weeks ago I spent 3.5 hours in an interview for a job that was identical to the one I left two years ago simply because they called and I thought I should re-enter the full time work world. I didn’t get the job, thank goodness! What would I have done then?

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I often get frustrated at the part-time job hobby – it’s not a bad job at all, but it’s not who I am. When people ask me what I do, I never think to mention the part-time job hobby unless in reference to researching for a novel. I don’t talk about it on facebook or think about it when I’m not there; I doubt I’ve mentioned it on this blog except in vague passing. And this may be what stops me from getting jobs in interviews. I have to talk about my current employment and in most cases it pertains – or I can make it pertain – to the job I’m interviewing for. I mean it’s not that far off from copywriting; I do all of the same things and bridge all of the same communication boundaries – just for one store instead of an entire corporation of stores. But ask me about my freelancing work, or The Loft, or the novel I’m working on, or this blog (all things at least mentioned on my resume) and I’m sure you can see the light shining in my eyes. All other jobs are just a stepping stone to my writing career. Honestly, if I can’t be a writer than what am I? Nothing.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Every year since I graduated from high school I talk to one particular friend on my birthday (mid February) and again on his birthday (beginning of March) without fail. These conversations used to be in person or by phone, but life often gets in the way; so for the last decade they’ve been via email. I hope you all have at least one friend like this. I’m borrowing from L.M. Montgomery here, but a real kindred spirit; someone in your life who honestly cares about the trivial information you are willing to part with on a not-so-frequent basis. Time seems not to matter for either of us; we always just pick up wherever it is that we left off the year before. I tend to confess things in these emails that I don’t to anyone else in the world. There are some things you just don’t want to – or need to – burden your nearest and dearest with…heck, on at least 360 days of the year I don’t even want to admit them to myself. Then there are those other days – days I need to spill it and tell someone how inadequate I sometimes feel. It helps that the return emails are similar in their pessimistic awkwardness. Oh, I don’t mean we dump on each other and then we’re both better humans until the next year – we share plenty of dreams and daily life happenings as well; I promise, usually the good does outweigh the bad. This year found us both complaining about work (my friend is a doctor in the middle of his residency and not so much liking the 80 hour work week on top of being a husband and a dad – with a second child on the way!!). I wrote back with some soul-searching comments about trying to make it as a writer when the rest of the world seems to be pushing me into a career in retail or office space. After I sent the email, it really hit home just how much I try to be these two different people. One who feels that looking for full-time employment, because she lost a job during economic-crisis-time, makes her a productive member of society; the other one is excited to have a decent part-time job hobby she doesn’t have to care about and gets to write for a good portion of each day. Why do I continue to tear myself apart like that? I know who I want to be, which one makes me happy and content.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I mean do you know that since college – about 12 years or so – I’ve weighed between 150 and 250 lbs. And I don’t just mean I started out at one end of those 100 lbs and slowly moved my way towards the other end; I mean I’ve yo-yoed up and down between them. That’s not healthy. Six months ago, so about a year after getting the boot at corporate job TM, I topped out at 227 and instantly had a small nervous breakdown. Once you see 250, you really, really don’t ever want to see it again. Truly, once you see 200, you really don’t ever want to see it again; and I’ve seen 200 about 4 times in the last five years. Every time I’m loosing weight I think, “This will be the last time!” I really hope this IS actually the last time, but here’s what I realized during this week of self discovery. The periods in my life where I’m loosing weight usually coincide with great feats in writing: A new job, a new project, heck even just a complete month of consistency in my writing regimen. So maybe it’s time to admit it to myself and stop trying to do all of this other stuff.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

I believe I’ve blogged plenty about living and studying in London at the end of my undergrad career. Many moments from that time – in part because I kept a decent journal while in London – seem crisp and clean in my memory. One of those moments stands out as a big dot on the Mariah timeline – marking crucial moments that are often not so momentous at the time. In this particular instance, Ruth, a lovely Irish woman who used random air quotes and rode her bicycle all around London town, simply asked me a question. She taught a British Drama course which mostly consisted of reading plays and seeing London Theatre productions that sometimes corresponded but often didn’t. During a lecture one day she stopped to ask us all what we planned on doing with our lives. At the time I was getting ready to graduate, take my LSAT and move far away from MN to attend law school. I mean this was a clear cut path, one I was not going to be deterred from. For some reason I didn’t give the answer already in my head; I said the first thing that came to my mind, “In a perfect world I’d be a playwright”. It didn’t happen overnight. I still graduated, took the LSAT, applied for law schools and got accepted to two of my top choices; but that random comment kept sneaking through my subconscious, laying its seeds of truth. I have no doubt that I could be practicing law in another state right now, making a lot more money than I do at the part-time job hobby – but would I be happy, content or less-stressed? No. Writing is in my blood; it’s who I am.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

You, blog reader, already know this about me. I’ve already hashed through most of this in similar blog posts. You know more than I do apparently, because I keep trying to do something else. I don’t even want to do anything else; I’ve never really wanted to do anything else. Writing is my identity and my purpose. It’s not the only thing I am, but it is how I want to be remembered. We all have such a small amount of time here and I often feel a sense of urgency coming through when I write, like I have to get it all down while I still can. I want you to read what I have to say, my take on the human condition and the stories that inspire me. Wow, does that sound like I have a god complex? I don’t. I don’t think you have to read what I write or like what I write; I just know I have to write it.

I.AM.A.WRITER.

Maybe all writers continue to go through this self-doubt stage. Maybe it’s a constant battle. Maybe the next time I sit down to work on my novel I won’t get up to wash clothes, scrub out the sinks and get caught up on my email correspondence. Maybe I’ll just sit down and write. More than likely I will have good and bad writing days; I will fill more blog posts with my needs and concerns about my lack of writing – or lack of putting down on paper all of the words and thoughts swirling around in my head, desperately trying to find their way out.

Writing isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am. And sometimes I need to remind myself by screaming it out loud…I.AM.A.WRITER!

On Being Ill…with a Few Brief HP Musings

2011-04-22T20:27:00.002-05:00

I’m sick with what I’m calling the MN Plague: It’s not quite the flu and not quite a cold and sometimes mimics strep throat or bronchitis – that’s what I have. And also, I threw my back out which means when the bronchitis symptoms arise I have to sit down or brace myself against a wall to stop the excruciating pain. I discovered quite some time ago that I hate writing when I’m sick – I just can’t do it. I can read and I can watch TV, but I usually just sleep a lot …and also eat popsicles and drink tea. The mere fact that I’m writing and posting this means I must be on the mend.

On the mending front, I haven’t wanted to sleep half as much today; but I’m also sad because I’m missing Irondale High School’s Harry Potter Club screening of HP 7.1. Irondale High School’s Harry Potter Club is a firm supporter of my blog, so I hope their event will be amazing! I believe they are also doing a Tri-Wizard Tournament in the spring (we’re in MN, spring is weeks away); hopefully I can be there for that. I’m with you in spirit – as I just put the movie in – and will lie here on the couch with ice on my back (and a very tolerant British husband) to watch it at roughly the same time.

In other related HP news, I met one of my blog followers and repeat commenter on Monday (Hi Anna!) so that was exciting and fun. Anna – and other people going on the Best of the British Isles tour I will help chaperon this summer (in MN that’s exactly 5 days after spring) – two months from today will find us visiting the birthplace of Harry Potter at the Elephant Coffee Shop in Edinburgh! As a writer this amuses me to no end. I can only hope one day people will tour the Barnes & Noble Cafe in the Galleria in Edina for similar reasons. Or make treks to the sunken gardens of Kensington Palace in London; not because it’s rumored Kate & Wills will make the palace their London home but because it is Mariah Whurr’s favorite place in the entire world to muse and write.

Really this entire brief post is to let you all know I haven’t forgotten about book number 7 and my lameness with the entire book/movie club blog. In fact, while I’ve been sick this week, I started reading book number 7 again in an attempt to get back into the swing of things. I propose that I really will…almost certainly…could actually be the truth this time…post an HP 7 blog sometime next week. Please note I did not say Monday – although I will try – because I don’t trust myself that much. Keep your fingers crossed…seriously, like all of them.

The Book List of Bragging Rights

2011-04-01T21:10:00.004-05:00

This is not new at all, but I had to add my two cents. There’s a list of 100 books from the BBC going around facebook. I’ve received the list about 6 times now from different friends, all in memo form all referencing the BBC saying the average person will only read 6 of these books in their lifetime. Basically you bold the books you’ve read, count them up and send the memo along to another group of friends.

My latent journalistic powers find a couple of things wrong with this. How did the BBC pick their 100 books and how did they decide who the average person was? And not just, is the average person British or an English speaker. Have these books all been translated into different languages; actually some of the books on the list weren’t written in English to begin with, so translations may be a moot point. But yeah, there’s a lot wrong with the general parameters of this list to begin with.

I’ve perused the list before, but from a reading standpoint I know I’m not average; heck, it’s right there in the title of my blog. This time I decided to play along and dutifully copied the list into a word document and went about bolding the books I’ve read and italicizing the books I’ve started but never finished. And I quickly came upon another problem, this time the list was missing # 23 & #26. Next, I wondered why The Narnia Chronicles and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were both on the list when all of Shakespeare’s works and all of the HP books were both considered just one book. Then I wondered why so many Hardy and Austen books were on the list as separates when some of each of their contemporaries were left off entirely. Finally, I decided I had to go do some research because the questions about the list were quickly outnumbering the books on the list.

A quick google search lead to a not surprising revelation (Is a revelation actually a revelation when it doesn’t surprise you? Maybe it was an ironic revelation?) The list going around facebook did not originate from the BBC at all. Oh, the BBC has a list of 100 books from 2003 that their readers chose. (At some point someone will explain to me how the BBC seems to be TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and whatever other medium it chooses. And I ask this knowing full well I’ve applied for three different jobs with BBC America and they send me recruiting emails fairly constantly. Move over Disney, there’s another media conglomerate trying to take over the world; they appear to be stealthier about it.) This 2003 list is still available on the BBC website (sigh) and is called the Big Read List. In all fairness, the lists are somewhat similar, but still different in a few ways. No where on the BBC list does it say that the average person reads only 6 of the books in their lifetime. On the contrary, this is a list of BBC readers’/watchers’/interfacers’ top/favorite books. Which still leads me to wonder where the only 6 books thing came from?

When I say this is not a new controversy, I’m not kidding. I typed “BBC 6 books” into the google search engine and it shot out 80,600,000 results. I read through/clicked on the first 20 results and all of them were related to this conundrum. It’s like facebook’s best kept-not-so-much secret. I know you all know everything you read on the new-fangled internets thingy shouldn’t be believed, that things like wikipedia aren’t the most reliable of sources, but this BBC thing did make me stop and ponder for a minute. I mean no where in the history of the BBC have they ever said that the average person only reads 6 books on a list and yet, 80,600,000 results link them together forever in the subconscious of our world culture. That is actually some kind of CRAZY!*!&!&#

It turns out people are somewhat passionate about their book lists – and the need to vent about other book lists and the authenticity of things they find online – especially on facebook. And it turns out I’m the same way. Venting about books should be a good thing, right? I mean that is one of the points of my own blog; I’ve said many times I want people to disagree with my opinion and comment with their own. So why did I find myself getting more and more disgruntled while reading the whims of other bibliophiles during this google search? I actually wanted to punch one blogger who said he would never read HP at all and thought the BBC list was more “low-brow”. (Here I would like to point out that HP has made it to both lists, just saying.) Yes, Princess Diaries is on that list, but since I’ve read it I say it’s not “low-brow”…Oh, come on. I write YA, of course I read “low-brow”. Books are a form of entertainment, and sometimes that means you read mindless quick things and sometimes you read more profound thought provoking things. I’m a firm believer in all literature, which kind of goes along with that whole freedom-of-speech-thing and no-book-burning-thing: Codes to live by.

And honestly if you are going to rant about something, then why not the facebook list that makes me out to be a Dickens lover – I’m SO not! I’m a British Literature major, there is a difference. I’ve been forced to study, read and endure through countless paragraphs of boring, serial length Dickens novels (and now, how many of you want to punch me?). I find Herman Melville and Steinbeck almost as boring, but I’m not condoning their right to be on the list. The Grapes of Wrath – although I’ve never been able to read it – reminds me of my junior year of high school. A year I spent in non-honors English because of a falling out with my 10th grade Honors English teacher. While my friends had to read The Grapes of Wrath in one evening, I spent 4 weeks reading Ethan Frome in class (It is 98 pages and less than novella length for those of you who are not familiar with the works of Edith Wharton). It was my own personal torture. I had English with my boyfriend at the time; since I was cheating on him with an exchange student from the opposing high school across town, I felt hideous every time I walked into the classroom and sat down next to him – living through another hour of “reading time” no one needed since we’d all finished the book on the first or second day. Ah, The Grapes of Wrath, my own personal reminder of bad adolescence and teenage angst. Ah, this blog, letting me relive and share with the world my past indiscretions and misdemeanors.

Back on track, at the end of all of my research (or an hour, which you may know from past blog posts is about the extent of my internet research tangents usually) it appears the facebook list comes from an article in The Guardian and also mentions nothing about only 6 of these books being read in a lifetime. In fact, The Guardian list comes from 2,000 people taking part in an online poll at worldbookday.com. The poll asked you to nominate the top 10 books you could not live without. Below I leave you with both lists. NOTE: Another oddity, Dante’s Inferno seemed to sneak into the facebook list at some point replacing Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar at #76. I’m not sure how or when, but it too is interesting if only because I’ve read The Bell Jar but have never read The Inferno so my number changed. I have no answer about the 6 books question. I’m guessing someone on facebook just made it up for some interactive, pass-along quality: Everyone feels good because they’ve read more than 6 books on the list; it’s all for bragging rights. Hey, at least there are now 80,600,001 results on google.

The Guardian/World Book Day/Facebook List (circa 2007):
1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
11. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
14. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
15. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
16. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein
17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch, George Eliot
21. Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace, Leo Tolstory
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
34. Emma, Jane Austen
35. Persuasion, Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm, George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Atonement, Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
52. Dune, Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
72. Dracula, Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses, James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath / The Inferno, Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal, Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
80. A Possession, A.S. Byatt
81. Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Album
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
94. Watership Down, Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

(PS - for bragging rights I've read 48 and started 11 others)

The BBC Great Book Read List (circa 2003):

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

What’s On My iPod

2011-03-18T20:54:00.004-05:00

Apparently this is a popular celebrity related question. I am not a celebrity, but music, and therefore my iPod, is a constant in my writing life. My iPod trumps the TV for background noise while I sit at my computer tappity typing away. My musical taste is fairly bizarre and abnormally eclectic, but after reaching the middle of my thirties this year I no longer care what you all think of my eccentricities (or lack thereof) in the musical realm.

I listen to a plethora of instrumental music while I’m writing. Not just classical and jazz, but big band and lots of orchestrations and full score soundtracks. This isn’t always the case – mostly because I listen to too many different types of music and yet not enough. I spent all of November listening to only Lady Gaga because her music played an important plot point in my current manuscript. Of course if I were to publish that particular ms and she didn’t give her permission, I’d have to come up with a fictional musician who had a similar repertoire. This is bothersome; the uniqueness of Lady Gaga is what makes the plot point important. It’s just another writing conundrum on the back burner slowly simmering, patiently waiting to become an actual publishing problem.

On-the-Go Playlist
I walk to and from the part-time job hobby most days. It’s often my favorite part of the day because it’s just me, the outdoors, the music and my castles in the sky. I’m lucky. The thing about walking 3 to 4 miles a day outside in MN all year long is that it’s ungodly cold a good portion of the time…and then Amazon hot and humid other times. This is when that little “on-the-go” playlist function on my iPod comes in handy. I can make a new playlist everyday, hit shuffle and go without the need of exposing bare skin to the elements when I don’t like, or want to listen to, a particular song.

As you’ve guessed, I’ve become an expert master at the on-the-go playlist – combining diverse rhythms, tempos, speeds and lyrics into a masterpiece of eclectic design in 45 minute spurts. There are lists that make me linger and ones designed to make me get from point A to point B in the quickest time. During the bitter cold walks I often put complicated and dense music on the list – hoping I can concentrate on unraveling the meaning behind the lyrics and forget about winter slowly ripping my face off with her cold burn. At other times I’m in a more completive mood and want easy music I can think around; music to flesh out a flat character or delete superfluous extra characters while I’m away from the computer and my words. And because I’m geekerrific and spent too much time in my formative years creating choreography for synchronized swimming routines, I often find myself thinking about different music that would work as dance or ice skating choreography: I’m still waiting for the “Caribbean Blue” waltz and the “Telephone” Paso Doble on DWTS. Come on, it would be awesome!

My on-the-go lists usually only last a day or two and then I try a different combination. Before now, the longest list lasted a week. Three weeks ago, when the weather here started thinking about maybe, possibly becoming springtime; I made a playlist to coincide with this wish for just a little bit warmer weather. It’s hard to figure out how to dress for outdoor activity during March and April in MN. There’s still snow and ice, but there’s also a lot of water and mud. In the morning a winter coat is needed but in the afternoon sometimes no coat at all is best. I wanted the playlist to take all of this into consideration, but mostly be hopeful and energetic. Something to brighten my mood and make me look around at all the changes spring brings with it. Three weeks later and I’m still quite content listening to this same playlist. Oh, I shuffle it everyday for a different combination and surprisingly, each new combination brings a different shade of spring into the light like an endless list of possibilities. And that’s what’s on my iPod right now.

The List
Here’s the list in alphabetical-by-title order. These aren’t all of my favorite songs or artists, but for some reason this playlist has intriguing staying power.

“Cecilia” – Gaelic Storm cover of Simon & Garfunkel
I listen to a lot of Irish bands in March; it’s my homage to St. Patrick’s Day. Plus, Gaelic Storm is one of my favorite bands and “Cecilia” has been on my list of favorite songs since 1994 when Torvill & Dean ice danced to it at the Olympics. I don’t think this version is better than the original, but doesn’t everything sound better with a bodhran drum?

“Charge” – Splendid
I have no idea why I like this song. I’m also not sure why it works so well here, but somehow it fits right in. There are those songs that may mean different things to you each time you listen, but you’re always going to love them. This is not one of those songs. At times I will go months – if not years – without hearing it; then when I do decide to listen, I need to hear it over and over again. This is one of those times. Plus, the line, “Confusion is a definite direction” is oddly gratifying.

“Come On Eileen” – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
The 80s at their best! You know you love it too. Not only is it frenetic and easy to walk to, but for me it is nostalgic. When I moved to London I was still young enough to listen to most things my mom warned me about, so I did not take any CDs or Discman with me (Remember I’m old and therefore my college years were spent pre-mp3). Week two found me inside a Tower Records purchasing a two tape compilation of 80s music from the sale bin. The entire collection became my London soundtrack (and not just mine, it was so popular we hooked up little travel speakers to my walkman and turned it into party music on a weekly basis) and this song was my anthem. Toora loora toora loo-rye-a, I could hum this tune forever.

“Free” – Zac Brown Band
This song puts a smile on my face every time I hear it. It so doesn’t mean that I’m a country music fan; it just means sometimes country music exactly puts your abstract thoughts and feelings into song and makes them seem easy and attainable. Also, damn you Chris for suggesting this one…and by that I mean thank you.

“Hallelujah” – Vitamin String Quartet cover of Paramore
Euphoria. That’s what I feel every time I hear this song. I’m fairly certain it was made to move to. I do like the cover better than the original. With music you don’t always need words. Sometimes they are essential, sometimes it’s a partnership, but often the music speaks for itself.

“Illusion & Dream” – Poets of the Fall
Truthfully, the lead singer’s voice of this Finnish alternative rock band makes me melt. I have no idea what he looks like, but it really doesn’t matter. Yep, you all know what I’m talking about. POTF are very easy to write to as a rule and apparently just as easy to walk or run to. This song is a little slower than some of their others; it gets under your skin and sinks into all your nerve endings in a hypnotic way that scares me a little – but mostly leaves me peaceful and smiling.

“Jubilee” – Mary Chapin Carpenter
No one is surprised by this at all, at all. I often find my soul in a Mary Chapin Carpenter or Ani DiFranco song; so inevitably, one of them usually appears on my on-the-go playlists. What I like about Miss Carpenter – and all singer/songwriter performers – is the variety: many different styles, many different moods. I don’t have a favorite song; rather, a different song lends itself to my state of mind on any given day. At this moment in time that song happens to be this one.

“Kelly’s Wellies” – Gaelic Storm
March and Gaelic Storm again. Also, there’s so much water right now, I really should invest in a pair of rain boots; the snow boots aren’t really doing the trick. I’m wading through my fair share of ankle deep water and jumping into lots and lots of puddles: Yes, I am 35 going on 5, thank you for asking. But really, traditional Irish music is actually tangible. Much like the African-American spiritual, “Trad” is a part of the people and the place it originates from – stories past down in an oral tradition. The music itself can be touched, sensed and felt. If you ever get a chance to hear it in person – a bunch of local Irish lads in a small pub somewhere in Ireland – DO IT!

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" – Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
Don’t judge me! Actually, feel free to judge me; I don’t mind. Seriously though, there is something about listening to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in spring. And the ukulele version is obviously the best, duh.

"Teeth" – Lady Gaga
I admit it, I am a little monster. I think all of Lady Gaga’s music is on my iPod - which must make me a fan. And for no reason at all this is my very favorite. The beat is so strong; I think high school marching bands should think about performing this one. That is if high school marching bands can perform something containing the lyric, “take a bite of my bad girl meat”…so perhaps not. I feel fierce while stomping around listening to this song, like I should be on a runway modeling clothes with Tyra Banks somewhere.

Learning to Love Disappointment

2011-02-07T17:02:00.004-06:00

My father-in-law is a businessman who travels a good deal; he’s a British expat living in North Carolina who works for a Swedish company. Global business isn’t as difficult as it used to be – what with that new-fangled internets thingy – but he still manages to travel quite frequently back and forth across the great, wide pond. Two weeks ago his travels took him all the way to Minneapolis where he visited two of his sons and their families. We bundled up in a great big group and went out to dinner Friday night. The restaurant we chose had a bar in the corner with a few televisions continuously broadcasting anything sports related. I believe the large screens were tuned to ESPN 8…or 28, whichever channel had the X-Games on. I have a habit of turning my own television off while I’m writing at home because it’s so gosh-darn distracting. Not surprisingly, our rather large group managed to stop conversing altogether by the time the extreme sport of snowmobile rally flashed up on the screen. In an attempt to reintroduce any form of conversation, I turned to my husband and said, “How do you even figure out you can do that?” This led to a discussion of all the crazy winter sports out there. Being from MN I get why people try most of these things and I really enjoy the snowboarding sports – the half-pipe is a particular favorite; nonetheless we all agreed the ski jump is the most ridiculous. Yes, even more ridiculous than snowmobile rally with moguls and jumps with flips. (Someone please tell me how you get away from the big, angry machine once you start to fall off of it during a flip? You’re in the air and it’s above you and it’s heavy. Gravity tells me what goes up must come down…and in this case a big, angry machine will inevitably come down on your head?!)

The ski jump is a literal leap of faith the first time you do it – and then again each consecutive time. How do you practice that? At this juncture in our conversation Chris’ dad commented on Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards while my husband and his brother both nodded perceptively.

“I’m sorry, who is this eagle person?” I asked.
“The great Olympic ski jumper,” was the immediate response from all three of them.

Now I pride myself on my Olympic sports knowledge, because as much as I dislike basketball, football and baseball – I love the Olympics! But “The Eagle” has somehow escaped my Olympic trivia collective. For the next ten minutes I listened to three British men tell me about their sports hero, Eddie the ski jumper from the UK who went to the Calgary Olympics in 1988 and came in last in both of his jumps. They were like giddy school children, stumbling over each other to tell me the tale.

“I don’t remember him at all.” I diplomatically remarked at the end of this lecture.
Steve (my brother-in-law) replied, “But you won’t forget him now. In fact you’ll go look him up when you get home.”

Well of course he was right and I did. I found out the Olympic committee changed the qualifying rules so that no one else could really be Eddie “The Eagle”; Eddie himself never qualified again although he would try for the next four Olympics. And this ladies and gentleman is British sports for you: An entire country (well four countries actually) – who don’t get along most of the time – continually pulling together to cheer for their underdog athletes in world competitions. The joint empire actually believes that these men and women will compete and will win against all odds. This blind faith fandom is a lesson my world-dominating sports country can not hope to glean; at least I’m doubtful we can learn it.

What makes one a sports fanatic…in the truest paint-yourself-blue-and-scream-till-you-loose-your-voice sense of the word?

My husband’s eyes lit up like a 200 watt light bulb during the Eddie “The Eagle” discussion. He’s not a ski jumping fan, but for the first time in our acquaintance, I believe he is fanatical about something sports related.

[Insert here the two pages of crazed tennis-obsessed babble I just deleted if you must. Fandom makes me sound all frenzied, wild and extreme. To sum up: my own fanatical tendencies lean towards tennis – a sport I discovered at the age of nine while stuck in bed with a dreaded summer cold. 1985 – Wimbledon Men’s final – Boris Becker – youngest Wimbledon champion and still talked about match – so, so much tennis later, I’m hooked beyond the telling.]

And now I return you to Eddie “The Eagle” and blind fan faith; a topic which just happens to relate to one of my own personal favorite tennis moments. In 2005 circumstances found me watching a first round Wimbledon match in my IKEA-esque hotel room in Belfast. After a quarter-century of tennis fandom, I promise I’ve watched matches from all corners of the world and some places slightly more peculiar than a hotel room. The winner of the match was one Andy Murray making his Wimbledon debut as a wild card – ranked 407 in the world – and British to boot. My travels found me leaving Belfast the next day on a ferry bound for possibly my favorite place in the entire world, Scotland. While trekking from Glasgow to Tomintoul in the highlands, I quickly bonded with Davey – the coach driver who always wore a ratty t-shirt reading “Old dudes really do rock” – over tennis and the Murray match in particular. Davey told me all about the young Murray, a Scotsmen who’d already found a strong fan base his first year as a pro and Britain’s greatest hope for that elusive Wimbledon championship.

On the day of Andy’s third round match I – along with the high school group I’d been chaperoning – journeyed from the highlands down into the lowlands, checking into our hotel right outside of Edinburgh. Davey meandered up, after the coach was unloaded and the kids were checking in, to tell me the match would start in two hours – just in time for dinner. I spent the match alternating between my group in the main dinning room and the tiny bar in front of the hotel playing the match on the telly. Davey and I took turns checking in on the match and reporting the score back to each other. The hotel bar was half full of entirely local residents who’d popped in to watch the tennis. Somewhere in the final set, when it was quite apparent that Andy would not be continuing on in this tournament, I shrugged my shoulders and turned to revisit attentions to my duties in the dinning room. Before I could quit the bar, I felt a tug on my arm as an elderly woman pulled me down into a chair at her fairly full table.

“You might as well sit down with us lass, it’s almost over and you’re making me nervous walking back and forth so often.” She said.
“I’m sorry,” I replied rather lamely.
“You’ll want to see all of this.” She said with a knowing smile on her face.
A few minutes later, and only moments away from the end of the match, Davey walked up behind me.
“Lass, our lad isn’t going to make it this time.” He said as he patted me on the shoulder, shaking his head in a decidedly comforting manner.

The match was over just like that. The BBC turned Andy Murray back into a Scotsmen in one sentence about his loss – he’d been British while he was winning. I scrunched up my face and made to rise from my precarious spot amongst a bunch of Scots, whom I assumed, would be morning their loss. They would not need or want me, the American girl, trespassing on their fanatical sorrow and I felt suddenly awkward and inappropriate. Instead, I found a proud group of British sports fans and even more importantly, brave Scots, comforting and consoling me.

My new friend patted my hand and leaned in to whisper, “It’s alright lass, you’ll see. Our lad will get there one day.” Including me in her inner-circle of Scottish love and pride; I somehow became a native and fellow blind faith participant just by being a nervous tennis fan.
Davey nodded his head sagely, took a seat on the other side of me and simply said, “Oh, aye!”

At some unseen cue, the entire bar toasted Andy Murray and his great (3rd round) run. The telly switched to a local broadcast and a waving Scottish flag filled the screen while “Flower of Scotland” played. St. Andrew's Cross was replaced by a picture of Andy Murray in a winning stance. At the end of this remarkable display Davey put down his glass, held my chair out for me, and led me back to the dinning room and my group of MN high school teenagers. See, I love tennis because it allows me to have so many moments of personal growth and worldly understanding!

Looking back, I now realize this was yet another glimpse of that Eddie "The Eagle" British blind faith. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Andy Murray would one day win. And the collective assurance emanating from that small group of Scots made me believe it too.

Currently, Mr. Murray has yet to win Wimbledon – or any other grand slam tennis tournament; he’s come a long way though - currently ranking number 5 in the world. Two weeks ago I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to listen to the men's final of the Australian Open on my iPod (thank you tennis app); a match starring Murray and number 3 in the world, Serbian Novak Djokovic. Andy lost in three straight sets, but I found myself inspired by the match and Murray’s progress. He WILL win a grand slam tournament one day and I’m sure that day is just around the corner. I actually found blind fan faith myself in this solitary early morning fanatical moment. I too have a healthy love for sports disappointment; perhaps I was mistaken and even my sports-centered, ridiculous country can learn humility and blind fan faith. Yes, I did catch a glimpse of the outlandish Super Bowl yesterday: I do realize I’m aiming high here.

Snow and Death – My Ruminations on Christmas Week

2010-12-28T20:32:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I started writing a frivolous blog about how much I was enjoying this winter and the snow – oh, so much snow!! I spent a few days in my own little snow bubble (globe even) happily wrapping Christmas presents and baking Christmas cookies; watching my favorite Christmas movies and listening to my favorite Christmas songs. Before I could post said snow day nostalgic meditations I received some bad news. My friend Jill lost her cancer battle – my second friend in a few short months to do so. Cancer is some kind of sick, twisted bastard. Not that this is news to anyone at all, but I feel it’s worth saying at this juncture: Cancer, you really do suck.

I’m crap at sympathy. I never know what to say. “I’m sorry” – although it’s true – seems insipid at best. What I’d really like to say is, “Wow, that blows!” Because it so does. Although this is also inappropriate; so mostly I remain awkwardly silent at funerals trying not to smile too much, but not staying completely somber at the same time. Jill, one of the most vivacious women it’s ever been my pleasure to acquaint, would probably laugh at my “that blows!” comment and agree whole heartedly. Jill, I will miss your smile and laugh most of all; but I am so much the better for having heard them. In an ironic twist of fate (and nothing at all like rain on your wedding day) I will be unable to attend Jill’s funeral tomorrow as I will be a pallbearer in my grandfather’s funeral; who, at 88, won his two battles with cancer but finally succumbed to time and age on Boxing Day this year. Yep, it’s been a rough week – but then again I feel like an idiot saying that, because it’s been a much rougher week for many other people in general and quite a few people that I specifically care about.

And where I think I’m actually a horrible human being is the pure joy I find in being alive and healthy this week: The air smells crisper, food tastes better and love is stronger. I’m not sure where this life euphoria comes from, but it mostly makes me feel hideous in between its bright bursts of sunshine. Maybe it’s because old age and cancer are both usually preceded by lots of pain and I am happy my loved ones are no longer suffering. Maybe it’s because death is inevitable, but it only conquers when we fear it. Hmm, that was a little too Hallmark for my usual blog musings…sorry. Maybe it’s because what I remember from Grandpa’s death bed is the beer he was drinking, his Navy tattoo, and his comment when we got up to leave for the day, “Shit! You just got here.” That’s my grandpa – all German, career Navy man – straight through to the end. My mother told him I was going to get his tattoo on my own arm before we left – which is odd, because I was thinking the very same thing. My mom has always been a little fey this way, so expect pictures of a tattoo before I turn 35 in a few short months. It won’t be his naval tattoo – I think that belongs to the men on his super carrier during WWII – but a Celtic something or other from the Book of Kells is high up there on my list of things I wouldn’t mind being inked with for the rest of my life.

I realize I learned to love the poems of Tennyson, Frost, Blake and Burns at my great grandfather’s knee, but I learned to love children’s poems at my grandfather’s. He loved limericks and easy rhymes most; often reading to me from an old book of read-out-loud children’s poems. My cousin and I have spent the last two days posting some of these poems back and forth on her facebook page, but the one I remember most is “The Duel” by Eugene Field. Yet one more a-ha moment for my need to write children’s literature – maybe we really are the sum of our parts after all.

THE DUEL
Eugene Field

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I was n't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)
The gingham dog went "Bow-wow-wow!"
And the calico cat replied "Mee-ow!"
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
(Now mind: I 'm only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)
The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
Employing every tooth and claw
In the awfullest way you ever saw---
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
(Don't fancy I exaggerate---
I got my news from the Chinese plate!)
Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)

Yes, I will post those Christmas nostalgic blog posts over the next week – because I really did enjoy December this year, and because both Jill and my grandpa would enjoy said posts. I also desperately want to hug everyone who reads my blog, all of my friends and family, and every single facebook friend I have…and I’m not a big hugger. I think I might be loosing it, because there is yet more snow on the way for my small corner of the world on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and I CAN’T WAIT for it.

It’s The Fire Inside Your Heart That’s Going to Lead You to The Light

2010-11-30T20:56:00.003-06:00

Today I read a blog post that literally made me cry. I’m a fixer. I want to fix things. My husband is sometimes exasperated by this fact and tells me to stop trying to find the solution in unsolvable issues. I can’t help it – I want to fix your problems. If you’re reading the blog and thinking I don’t want to fix your problem – you’d be wrong. I want everyone who’s ever read this blog to simply not have problems. I’m like a beauty pageant contestant that way: I want world peace for all. Unlike the beauty contestant I enjoy a fair amount of chaos and upheaval because that makes for the best solutions – why can’t everything be like the Chilean mine rescue? I don’t want to be the hero and I’m not searching for recognition – but damn it; bring on the conflict and resolution already.

How you ever gonna know if you never chase the dreams…

And that’s why today found me reading a blog post and crying. I can’t fix it. I totally get it, but responding to the post seems pointless and self-serving. Does it help to know that writing makes me feel that way too? I find myself constantly on the verge of greatness and then shying away from the edge to wallow in a comfortable, meaningless, part-time job-hobby. I’m not sure I would actually know how to react if I did get a book deal. I too build my castles and dreams in the sky and am afraid to build them here on earth; they might crumble and fall. Do I tell you that I know I’m “home” in every sense of the word - by your blog post standards - and yet still sometimes find myself pining for a time and a place that can’t ever exist for me again…a flat on the corner of Earl’s Court and Cromwell Rd and a stroll through the constantly damp streets and mews of Kensington? Do you want to know that my favorite writing place in the world is on a cold stone wall surrounding a sunken garden on the grounds of what is now known as the Enchanted Palace (seriously – that’s what their calling it now)? It doesn’t help you, find you a job or patch that hole in your soul.

How you ever gonna know what it's like when dreams become reality…

I’m left with one memory of two fourteen-year-old children walking home from school after just learning they made their high school marching band; gleefully chanting about going to Spain and Africa. I had help remembering – I recently read it in that blasted journal. But the euphoria of realized dreams is a sweet memory that leaves the tang of wanting more fulfilled dreams. It also makes me want to go to Spain and Africa since I’ve yet to see either. I’m not sure if that euphoric feeling is forever concealed in the wisps of childhood recollection – or if it’s possible to feel that happy and excited about any recognition of brilliance? I’m also not sure where this is going exactly. I said I didn’t post a comment because I knew it wouldn’t help – yet here I sit writing my own blog post with the small hope that it somehow will and knowing it can’t. Maybe what I need to say is simply this: I cried today and looked inside myself today and I wrote today; and I did all of those things because I read one blog post. Apparently words are power.

How you ever gonna know your potential if you never take a chance?

And on that note, it’s the last day of November and my NaNo novel is done – well not done, but at 50,000 words. 51,012 to be exact! As I don’t write sequentially – especially in November: where I tend to jump to the next big scene when I’m stuck so as to not slow down the pace – I will now begin the grueling editing, rearranging and expunging process. Alas, I love every minute of it. The computer and I are on speaking terms once more. For those of you participating, I hope you are able to cross the finish line by midnight and win a feeling of accomplishment, because that’s what you’ll win. Maybe this one will get published. Oh, I’m lying. And I promised to be completely honest in this particular blog post. It’s a load of twaddle – this year’s NaNo. It was excruciating and I’m fairly certain two-thirds of it will be deleted tomorrow and in the upcoming week. I have no hopes it will ever be published. On the optimistic side: I’m writing, the computer and I ARE friends again, and I will honestly try harder for publication. When you write, you tell everyone you know so they can constantly ask you about it; thus keeping you on track and embarrassing the crap out of you if you give up or stop looking for an agent/editor. Posting the information on your blog is ten times worse somehow. Knowing people will randomly check your blog for updates and progress reports. Well, I’d hate to disappoint you all but mostly I’m sick of disappointing myself and I’m really fed up with the fear. Fear should be no one’s constant companion, especially not mine. So I will try harder for me. I will try to recapture the joyful exhilaration of accomplishment and dream fulfillment I once had at the age of fourteen while chanting about Spain and Africa.

Listen not to the critics who put their own dreams on the shelf. If you want to get the truth to admit it, you gotta find out for yourself.

Oh, and in case you do not know – all bold words, and also the title of this post, come from a Garth Brooks song – “How You Ever Gonna Know”. Check it out – says the non-country music girl constantly toting Mary Chapin Carpenter, Alison Krauss and now Garth Brooks. Something else I need to admit to myself apparently.

HP Thursday – Harry Potter and the Teenage Angst on Grimmauld Place

2010-11-18T20:38:00.002-06:00

Oh, I really hope this is not how the first part of HP 7 goes…
I’ve tried writing this post a few times this week but it just wasn’t going anywhere. Since the movie is coming out in tomorrow, I thought I’d take time out of my novel writing schedule – currently 30, 012 words for those of you playing along – and actually do an HP post. Really I’m just concerned my 13 followers will go away if I don’t get back on track here. And who doesn’t want to chat briefly about movie 7.1? Yes, I am geeking out and going to a midnight showing shortly. I’m way too old for this, so I’ll have to see it when I’m awake at some point before you get a cohesive blog about it. And we do still have the rest of the book to get through too. Apparently the whole book club thing really doesn’t work for me – or anything else with a timeline come to think of it (says the girl who works by deadlines and is trying to write a 50,000 word rough draft by the end of this month).

Anyway, like I said: I’ve been trying to write this post all week. If I don’t publish it soon it will be too late. I started by telling you what I thought was going to be in this movie, what I hoped wasn’t going to be in this movie and where I thought it was going to end. This was all conjecture and bored me to tears – hence I couldn’t imagine any of you reading it. Also, if you go to IMDb or 500 other movie websites I’m sure you will find out all of these answers and much, much more.

So what am I blogging about the night before HP 7.1?

Today I watched movie 6 – which is always much smarter than reading a book a movie is based on before seeing the movie. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment then. Movie 6 helped clear my mind of conjecture. Instead I became nostalgic. Yes, nostalgic for a series of books and movies. But here’s the thing: It’s Harry Potter!

Fun fact: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of publication.

This is what every writer dreams about. Not just making it big, but creating their own world and then sharing it with A LOT of people. The created world doesn’t have to be a wizarding, made up world; just a world completely created by the writer. Yep, nostalgia. Where were you the first time you picked up a Harry Potter book?

Movie 7.1 – which I sincerely hope is not just teenage angst in a house where three friends are trapped – is part of that entire world. How cool is that. Can you imagine not just writing really good books, but also having movies made about said books. Sorry, I went to a happy writer place where fame and fortune follow me around in a bubbly sort of frenetic way. I’d like to think that if my books became movies I wouldn’t dwell on the differences as much as marvel at characters and places I created being thrown up on a big screen for all the world to see. I might decide the actress playing Teagan isn’t quite what I had in mind, but damn, SMug looks amazing! If you’re a fan of the books, the HP movies will add depth and embellish your experience.

Obviously as a creator of my own worlds, I’ve got a pretty good handle on my imagination; I don’t need a movie screen to thoroughly enjoy the book I’m reading. However, I’m always up for imagination enhancement. At this point the familiar strains of HP movie music themes are playing in my head. Yes, that IS just like visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I’m joyfully grateful the HP movies have been made – almost as pleased as I am about the books (Not quite. I’m still a writer at heart and anything – with the exception of sparkly vampires – that can get that many people to read ranks really high on my joyfully grateful list). I’m excited to see this first of the last movies. I can’t wait to see the halls of Hogwarts, that big, beautiful clock and the reconstructed (why did that burn down again) Burrow. It’s a transition movie and I’m all about transitions – bring it on already!

My Own Nostalgic HP Moments Timeline
Just how big of a geek am I? Oh, this much and more…
1998 – Pick up book 1 & 2 on a whim in London.2001 – The first movie comes out and my husband dresses like Harry Potter for Halloween. His handmade firebolt is better than any other I’ve seen and is still hanging above our cupboard under the stairs.

2004 – We have a Harry Potter film night when the third movie is released on DVD and I discover I have more friends who like HP than I thought.

2005 – On a trip to London we visit Platform 9 ¾. I’m chaperoning a school trip and the kids with me at the platform are so excited I try to picture what it must be like to be JK Rowling coming into London for the day and passing this sign and trolley! For those of you going on the Corey Best of the British Isles trip in 2011; I’ll be one of your chaperones and we can totally do this again.

2007 – I spend an hour in Rome perusing bookstores in search of HP 5 in Italian – the missing book in a friends’ collection. I distinctly remember sitting on the steps across from the Pantheon flipping through the pages. Thanks for sending me on this mission Tim.

2007 – I go to the midnight book party for the HP 7 release at my local Barnes & Nobles even though I’ve preordered my copy on amazon.co.uk. I spend at least an hour watching people of all ages buy books and just sit down and read them all over the store. One of my all time favorite book experiences and a memory I often conjure up when I get frustrated with my own writing.

2009 – I get laid off from my copywriting gig and decide I have too many pent up feelings about my crashing life so I must start a blog. Movie 6 comes out to mixed, yet passionate, reviews from friends and colleagues. My bright idea: Include HP Mondays in my blog to methodically discuss a great series and the art of writing for young adults. Great discussions and lots of inspiration ensue.

And although I’ve used far too many exclamation points in this blog…Enjoy the movie everyone!

A Lesson from My Eighth Grade Self

2010-11-10T19:52:00.001-06:00

I did that thing today where I stopped writing in frustration and decided I’d chosen the wrong profession. I’m fairly certain every writer goes through it, but I had extra qualms today when I thought about how much writing I actually did in my formative years. Yes, I was on the yearbook staff in high school, but that’s about it. No literary magazine, no newspaper, no file full of short stories and poems; in fact not much creative writing to speak of. I tried to have a Journalism minor in college, but hated the three courses I took in that department and quickly dropped the minor; ironically opting for pre-law only to later give up my free-ride to law school in order to write.

So here I sit during week two of November and I’m contemplating my choice of profession as well as why I’ve decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. In a moment of pure brilliance I went downstairs to stare at my bookshelves for inspiration. I’m not sure why – reading isn’t the same as writing. I can’t imagine being a writer without being a lover of books, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. What I found while staring at the bookshelves was a journal. In fact, not just one – I counted 30 journals. I do vaguely remember journaling as a child – keeping a diary under lock and key to keep it away from my imaginary little brother I guess. Since I keep them all on a shelf now, I must trust my real husband more than my imaginary little brother. I pulled a few journals down in an attempt to discover the writer-in-my-early-years. I assumed most of those journals would be empty because I remember leaving a lot of journaling undone. I expected gaps of months (much like this blog) or even years.

What I found was quite the opposite. Here’s my proof; here is my mind as a small child and adolescent always writing down observations, feelings and ideas. I have journals from elementary school, junior high and even high school. I have travel journals and S.A.M notebooks. Sure, not all of them were complete; sure, they weren’t full of made up tales, stories and teen-angst poetry – but they are still MY words.

The S.A.M. Notebook
What’s a S.A.M. you ask? S.A.M. is an acronym for Stacy, Amy and Mariah – we invented the acronym in the second or third grade and used it throughout school and beyond. How far beyond? Well Stacy’s eldest daughter is Samara or SAM for short (her youngest daughter’s name, Emily incorporates the first letter of all of our middle names as well).

Amy missed a lot of seventh grade – she was struck down with a severe case of mono and missed the last five months of the school year. She’s brilliant, so this didn’t really affect her learning curve or anything; we just missed having her around and in classes with us. Stacy and I started writing down our school experiences in a notebook and then we’d send it home with Amy’s homework assignments; she’d write down her illness experiences and send it back to us. The notebook stuck – even after Amy joined us again in the eighth grade. I think by this time we realized all three of us were heading down very different paths and may not have time to be friends in high school. I had band and synchro; Stacy had running and skiing; and Amy had theatre and all of those languages.
The three of us kept the notebook going throughout most of high school. Oh, the days before email, text messaging and facebook. So yes, I didn’t just want to write early on, I made my friends do it with me. I guess you can look at the notebook as practice for the type of fiction I find myself writing about now.

1990: One Year of Journaling
When I sat down with my stack of journals today, I pulled out the most complete one. The year was 1990 and I received the journal as a Christmas present from my mom (so says the title page – complete with full name, address and phone number). Most of the other journals and diaries I leafed through were only half full at best – but apparently in 1990 I had a lot to say. Now you may call this procrastination, but I still read through the entire journal. I found out the end of my eighth grade year and the beginning of my high school career was a transitional time indeed. By December of 1990 my writing voice had changed dramatically, I’d even started to use the right form of it’s and its – as well as there/their/they’re (thank goodness!).

My eighth grade self taught me some valuable lessons today. It appears I spent most every waking moment I could find writing down observations and character sketches. Like most early teen girls I obsessed about boys – gushed when the boy I had a crush on told me I was beautiful in front of his girlfriend. I spent pages describing band concerts and all of the subtle nuances involved in close circuit interaction without words that can only happen when you share a stage with someone; how you become a part of the whole – a well-oiled machine working on some higher, almost telepathic level. I jotted down notes about swimming – my jubilation at making varsity in eighth grade and my foul response to finding myself in the group routine with my nemesis. Did you know eighth graders had arch-enemies? I felt a little like Sherlock Holmes while reading that segment. There was some lovely (read: sappy) lyrical stuff in there about how music filled every aspect of my life (I’ve always been quite the Romantic) and lovelier (read: sappier) material about taking the stage during my last junior high band concert, including shared moments with a truly kindred spirit (don’t worry, we’re facebook friends now) and my first summer 6 – 10 marching band practice. So many transitions!

Lesson Learned
I get it already: I’ve always been a writer. I spent years writing about awkward social interactions – no wonder I write YA in my adult life. My main characters tend to be eighteen & nineteen year-old girls transitioning between childhood and adulthood; apparently the transitional years affected me the most. I used to write about music and now I can’t write unless there is music. As an adult I’m so very different than my eighth grade self. I have different concerns – I hadn’t gone through those really life changing stages of my life yet – but I’m still so similar.

This is why I NaNo every year. It really is more than just 50,000 words; it’s a soul-searching, truth confronting sort of month – a transition all its own. Don’t worry about my novel word count: I’m currently at 12,245. What I’ve gained is a little more self-confidence and a long overdue chat with my eighth grade self. We had some things to sort out and some dreams to recreate. I’ve also gained a decent lesson plan for a journaling class at the Loft. I’ll have to type up a proposal and send it in. Hopefully some of you teenage students living in MN will be interested.

It’s November. What Else Would I Be Blogging About?

2010-11-03T21:11:00.003-05:00

Yes, it could also be about the new Harry Potter movie coming out, but it's not. Maybe next time.

I’ve been in a writing slump for a few months – as you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts. It’s November, and I usually participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo); this year I decided not to. I was even OK with this decision through all of August, September and most of the month of October. I’ve been finishing up a second draft of my current novel and writing blog posts (not publishing mind you, just writing them) sporadically when a decent topic reveals itself. As the second week of October hit, I stopped writing altogether. No words, nothing, nada. If you are my facebook friend, you may have noticed those short little status updates appearing more and more on my page. It’s like that’s all of the energy I was willing to divest in writing. I think this goes beyond my lazy self into new and unchartered territory. I’m not sure what’s up with me. Writing is still what I want to do and when I sit down at a computer I loose myself in words completely. But my voice has been missing for quite some time and everything turns out lackluster and boring.

A couple of weeks ago I did some freelance work. I’ve decided that being a freelance writer means you are perfectly willing to freelance anything-with-words-as-long-as-it-pays. This means I will proof your novel, mark your paper, SEO-itize your website, train your trainer, or write an article. So while I did this freelance work, I found a word that wasn’t an actual word. It may be a word one day like frenemy or unfriend, but for right now it’s simply not. I loved this non-word and kept thinking about it. I went for a walk a week later, and the non-word popped into my head again. Only this time I was listening to my iPod and Lady Gaga (Alas, I’m becoming quite obsessed recently) was playing. Walking, thinking, listening to music – this is where the best book ideas come from; isn’t it? Two miles later I had my main character and a general outline worked out in my head. I spent three hours on the computer working out the basics and getting some rough ideas down.

And that’s it really. That’s what NaNoWriMo IS. It’s a ridiculous goal – 50,000 words in 30 days. When I’m done it won’t be good. I’ll dump at least half of those words and a handful of characters, but I’ll have words on paper again. Some of those words are bound to stick; at this point I’m just looking for my voice. I do realize it’s not a panacea – writing a novel in one month won’t cure all of my writing issues. Hopefully it is a step in the right direction though. Heck, I may even start blogging again…

Wish me luck and if you too are participating in NaNoWriMo, I wish you words – lots and lots of words.

The Denseness Strikes Again

2010-07-27T13:43:00.005-05:00

No really, when did I become so dim-witted? On the heels of my Owl City man vs. group snafu I have yet more brainless news to report. I just figured out – seriously, there was a cartoon light bulb flashing on above my head and everything – that vlog brother John is in actuality John Green the YA author I’m much enamored with. How did I not figure this out before now?!

But you already knew that didn’t you, smart blog followers [insert deep sigh here].
Fine, I guess I’ll go lament my oldness and lameness by myself.

Meanwhile…
If you haven’t read John Green then I recommend Looking for Alaska or Will Grayson, Will Grayson because they are my favorites. If you haven’t seen the Vlog Bros. then you’re missing out.

Here is John’s most recent grammar rant:

HP Tuesday will follow here shortly.

What Do You Think of Fireflies?

2010-07-23T21:11:00.007-05:00

I’m curious. What do other people think of the group Owl City and their song “Fireflies”? You can tell me what you think about any of their songs, but I’m particularly intrigued with this one. It keeps popping up everywhere. Usually when this happens, I hate the song with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

For instance…Madonna’s “Frozen” still makes me shutter. It followed me around for about two years in the late 90s, culminating in Mariah actually screaming at some poor guy on the city bus because he started singing it while sitting next to me without prompt of a Discman, (late 90s was very pre-mp3 player in my universe) radio, or any other music-aide I could see. Moral of the story: If you’re going to go all crazy and yell at someone for no good reason you should do so on a city bus – the rest of the trip was quite peaceful; no one else bothered me at all that day.

But “Fireflies” is different and I’m not quite sure why...
- The words make no sense. It’s like a hodge-podge of random stream of consciousness.

- I’m not sure why I’d like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly, or why fireflies would leave teardrops, or why lightning bugs are hugging me or teaching me how to dance (dancing + Mariah = dying duck in a thunderstorm after all).

- Anyone can sing anything to this tune and sound like they are professional musicians. I mean that’s like magic more than a song, isn’t it?

- The song has gone viral in a major way. On YouTube alone, there’s a fan version of “Fireflies” for pretty much any TV show ever invented.

- Not ONLY can anyone sing the song and sound good but your creativity will be tested in new and intriguing ways. You can RANT about anything with “Fireflies”.

And here’s where I stop because I want to share some of these viral versions below. I was going to do a poll on which you think is the best, but since my followers are mostly here for HP Mondays. (Or HP-day-of-the-week-that-ends-in-Y-and-I-feel-like-posting…See. HP Monday is so much easier to say.) I have a feeling the poll would be biased. So here are a few of my favorites and yes I should have been writing instead of playing around on YouTube – but that’s what writing distractions are for.

The first one is the actual song – but the cartoon amuses me. And, if my British Husband reads this post, he will cringe and make me a prettier new version because he is such a wonderful artist and computer animator. (Alas, he tends not to read my blog posts and therefore misses out on some of my accolades.)

Next follows the Hermione/Ron HP version (Thank you Mara Corey for sending me this one) and is performed by that girl in the Parselmouths who also did that great NaNoWriMo song.

Then a geek fan version of Doctor Who but seriously the nanogenes totally look like fireflies

Finally, I couldn’t resist this brilliant IKEA one…I shop there and so I understand. Plus, arrows are just plain wrong.

Thanks for reading another faulty logic rant.

HP Wednesday – The Beginning of the End

2010-07-21T22:22:00.004-05:00

Yeah, that wasn’t the most original post title. Here we are at book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For those of you wondering (like with the Philosopher’s Stone) what exactly a hallow is, then let me begin by enlightening you with Webster’s definition – usually a verb (Do you think they actually added the “usually” when Rowling used it as a noun in the title of a book? Just think of the power?!) 1. to make holy or set apart for holy use, or 2. to respect greatly.

Book 7 is quite large, large enough to be a purse even. Like the last season or episode of a television series, I think the reader looks for certain things to happen when they know it is the last one. And I think a lot of those things do happen – including an epilogue wrap up to answer any questions – or as I like to believe, to make sure no one takes off where Rowling didn’t want her characters to go. But I digress and we will get to the end – or after the end – later on.

Back to the beginning – the wizarding world changes slowly and yet all at once in book 7. I’ve seen this happen in the real world too suddenly to think it isn’t realistic – and I’m not just talking about the metaphorical child/teen turning into an adult, although that happens too. It is however absolutely terrifying – again, both versions. I think we expect smooth transitions, which is ridiculous because it hardly ever happens that way. Time has always been a solid contributor to the series (maybe not as much as FIRE, but close) and I really like the way it works in book 7. There are hours that seem like days, days that seem like weeks and months that flash past in the blink of an eye. It spirals around itself and flashes backwards and forwards in amazing ways that I just can’t stop thinking about.

That being said, like book 3, book 7 has a lot of telling especially in the flashbacks. This isn’t something that should work – and even if it does I shouldn’t like it – but book 3 is still my favorite and book 7 is mesmerizing; so I guess I’m going to have to say: "I wish I could show in my writing like JK Rowling tells in hers". Because it all works for me and is integrated enough with showing to just add enticing seasoning to the story.

Chapter 1 – Yeah, the very beginning of the end…
From a writer's standpoint...and an editors...and probably even an agent's, chapter one is the be all, end all of a book. It's what grabs the reader (and editor and agent) and in reality sells your book. Obviously by the seventh HP book, JK Rowling could have written blah, blah, blippity blah Harry's our man. Look at him, he's great. and still sold out on the first run printing; but this chapter one still reads like a first time writer trying her hardest. As a reader and writer I appreciate that more than I thought I would.

At the beginning of the book I think we are in the darkest of dark places. Not even the cave with the Inferi is as cold and stark as this opening scene in the Malfoy household. Everyone is uncomfortable, jumpy and extremely apprehensive. Their time has arrived and yet none of the Death Eaters seem very enthusiastic about it. This may have something to do with the torture victim hanging upside down over the family eating area, but only partly. While reading chapter one, I felt like there were Dementors in the room around me – how appropriate the chapter ends with a mealtime for the snake in said family eating area – solidifying the transformation of family manor to evil dungeon and the transformation of children’s book to something that goes even beyond YA in its adult-themed complexity.

On a whole, the book is filled with strange juxtapositions, time shifts, and a myriad of symbols that all mean about three to five different things at the same time – why would I expect anything different?

What are your thoughts on the beginning of the end? When we first see Harry he’s already bleeding – is that foreshadowing or just a cheap trick by the author? He’s bleeding from the mirror shard which is yet another magical object with a purpose – like the cloak and Marauder’s Map. Are these objects twisted into the story line extremely useful or just more name dropping to make the reader nostalgic for the series? Yes, they all serve a purpose, but would other plot elements/objects have worked just as well?

Next week – four funerals and a wedding, death and dismemberment and Merlin’s pants!

Geek Chic Power

2010-07-14T20:20:00.002-05:00

I was told today that I am geek chic. If I didn’t call myself a geek 10 times a post on my blog here, I might have been offended. As it were – I’ve decided to embrace my geeky chic and feminist kick-fanny approach to life from here on out. Which is why I’m leaving you with this ultimate in geek chic videos (Thank you T – geek chic soul sister):

HP Monday – I know, really!

2010-07-12T16:52:00.002-05:00

I was reminded yesterday that I haven’t been on here again in a while. Also, I put that tracking widget (map thing at the bottom of the blog page) on here (Thank you Joe Conrad) and discovered that although I only have 12 wonderful and glorious followers, my blog had 99 hits last week. I’m thinking maybe more people would follow if I were to actually post stuff. Wild guess, I know. But still there it is.

Also those 12 aforementioned wonderful and glorious followers are patiently waiting for a discussion on HP movie 6 and book 7; and as it is Monday I should most likely oblige.

Movie 6:
Before we get started, I DID like it. That being said (And I’m pretty sure I say it every time we discuss an HP movie.) wow, it is not the same as the book.

What Works:
•The teenage angst-ridden love-capades. This movie is brilliant with complicated mismatched love themes. It’s like watching a Hogwarts school play rendition of A Mid Summer Night’s Dream.

•I don’t want to slap Harry as much as I do in the book. He’s not quite so all-obsessed (see point #1 & love-capades?!) with Malfoy in the movie. I know you’re telling me he’s correct in his Malfory-is-a-death-eater-theory in the end; but he spent so much time on it in the book he missed the much bigger picture.

•The Inferi creep me out. Which they should; but usually when you translate something that freaky onto the screen my imagination laughs at the feeble attempt. Not this time…CREEPY!

•Daniel Radcliffe in the luck potion scenes. Especially when he’s being the pincers of Aragog. The scene is quite surreal and many actors would have overplayed it. High marks to Mr. Radcliffe who usually is not quite as brilliant as I want him to be.

What Doesn’t Work:
•Burning down the Burrow. I know, that particular scene actually sponsors HP Mondays on my blog – really, it started the whole thing. But I still think it’s a load of…twollop. Whatever that is. Boo burning down the Burrow, boo!

•The entire ending. Really?! Death Eaters running willy-nilly through Hogwarts without anyone else raising a wand. I know Dumbledore’s dead but he is not the be all and end all of the wizarding world and I think it’s just plain rude to audiences and wizards/witches alike for the movie to pretend no one else would fight back in the slightest (breathe Mariah, breathe). Also the funeral – or severe lack thereof…And Harry not doing anything to stop Dumbledore’s death; so unlike him but easily explained in book format.

•Ginny/Dean and Ginny/Harry. You’ve done a wonderful job at love-capades movie version; but just one snog in the Three Broomsticks for Ginny/Dean and one snog (Can you even call it that?) in the room of requirement for Ginny/Harry…what now?

•Hermione’s wrath. I know I harp on this a lot and I guess they are following her movie character, but I love the birds attacking Ron in the book – it has such impact and…girl power; yes, I mostly miss Hermione’s gray-line walking.

What are your thoughts, ruminations and ponderings? This particular movie seems to have caused mass rioting on the streets; people either really liked it or really hated it. Why?

I will leave you with a newer trailer for the two HP 7 movies! Next week we will start book #7.

I Have a Secret to Tell

2010-06-23T11:05:00.000-05:00

This one is a self discovery post. I will lay it all out on the line and you the reader can either agree or disagree like always. Yes, it is self indulgent; but then again it is my blog. I’m wandering around Barnes & Noble (because where else would I be today) and for fifteen minutes all I did was read book cover titles. I originally thought this was an attempt to come up with a good title (Who am I kidding; at this point I’d settle for a decent title.) for the very first novel I tried to write. Well if you don’t count Koala Wood written in a notebook with pen and pencil at the age of 12 and never completed (because it is horrendous, but I still have that notebook – you know, for posterity or some such grand idea). In actuality, walking around a bookstore and looking at titles is just a way for my mind to wander to and fro and think what it will.

What it thought was how much this last year has affected me as a person. I know loosing my copywriter job was not personal – heck, I still have lunch on a regular basis with a lot of people from my old job. Just like I still see and talk to the 415 crew 10 years after the Disney Store closed (seriously!). I’ve always been fairly apt at separating my work life with my me life (more than my personal life, my me life is who I am and who I strive to be). But what I did not realize last April when I shed a stress-free sigh of relief and a what-am-I-going-to-do-now tear was how much leaving the corporate world would change my me life. I can honestly say I’m a very different person now with different priorities.

If you go back and read my very first blog post, you will realize that my subconscious was aware of this much more quickly then the rest of me, but today while reading book titles off a shelf I actually lost my breath when the force of that realization hit home. Alas, it was followed quickly by a self-flagellating notion of what am I waiting for?

See here’s the thing. I know who I am, I know what I want to accomplish and yet I still keep dragging my feet. I’m standing on the brink staring over the cliff and I absolutely refuse to jump. Over the past year I’ve often times described myself as lazy. I’ve looked for work and applied for jobs, but I’m mostly just happy working my measly part-time job 20 or so hours a week and spending the most of the time reading, writing and watching TV shows on Netflix and my wii (this is a brilliant concept by the by). See, lazy. My friends and family think I’m searching for something good or better – and most of the time I talk myself into believing that too. But if I break it down – I know I’ve found an agent I’d love to work with, a story that will sell and a career I can be proud of. And yet, I’m not taking the next step. I’ve talked other people into taking the next step, but have yet to take the plunge myself.

Although I’ve worked hard for some things, many other things have been thrown right into my lap and I’ve refused to go for them. Maybe I’m afraid of rejection as so many writers (and everyone else) are? No, I’ve come to accept rejection and not take it personally (thank you foray into corporate America during major recession). I know my self worth and I’m really not into letting other people tell me differently. So what’s left? A lot of ennui and sloth – but this is also not true. Yes, I figured this all out while looking at book covers in Barnes & Noble – I have no idea what my facial expressions must have looked like while I perused the shelves, but the B&N staff are looking at me warily as we speak, so probably not so good.

What exactly have I figured out? Something I’ve always known and yet constantly push away and down. I may have even admitted it before on this very blog; the difference is that this time I’m going to try very hard not to quell my fears again…I am absolutely terrified of success. Wow, that’s incredibly lame when I write it down. But there it is – I’m mind-numbingly, nerves akimbo, hand-shaking and stutteringly afraid to succeed. I’m awash in hideous images of being too happy with my me life. Apparently I should have been born in Ancient Greece when most people were afraid to be too happy because the gods would be jealous and take it all away.

So hear I sit letting you all know how silly and self-involved I am. Trying to come to terms with the fact that I can have a career I enjoy, write a blog without feeling guilty and pretty much just be me. Turning the page here, I’m going to start reaching for those things thrown my way and act on them. I promise to keep you all posted, if you promise to hound me when I don’t act. I could use the support. (And for those reading this that already give the support – THANK YOU! I probably don’t say that enough.)

Enough of the self indulgent blog posts. Next time will be something decidedly more literary and interesting!

HP 7 Part 1 Movie Trailer

2010-06-16T10:02:00.000-05:00

Because sometimes a link/clip is so much easier than writing a blog post...

Harry Potter 7 MTV Trailer

HP Monday: Walking the Line – Gray vs. Black and White

2010-05-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Let’s just pretend it hasn’t been almost two months since I posted a blog, admit that I suck beyond the telling, and move past it into an HP Monday post…

I keep harping on the shades of gray in HP – and usually those shades manifest in Hermione Granger. As I’ve said in the past, I like Hermione in book form (not so much in movie form where they only tend to show her girly, goody-goody side) when she realizes it isn’t all good and bad – there are definitely shades of gray in the wizarding world.

Book 6 is no exception: Hermione performs a Confundus charm on McLaggen so Ron ends up with more saves during Quidditch try outs and keeps his Keeper spot; she creates birds when she’s distraught about Wan-Wan and Lav and their budding relationship only to sic them on Ron in a fit of anger – um, I might point out that a) she created these weapons without a spell book and with a wand (Ms. Corey) and she attacks her best friend/love interest with them (kicking a little ass along the way and again by herself).

…but the birds attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.

In general Hermione often speaks outloud about the books she’s been reading from the restricted area section or different ways to get around the rules and regulations when others may be listening. She continues to walk a fine line in book 6. She’s not alone on the gray line path, others walk the walk as well; but Hermione’s appearance of goodness and her willingness to defy that goodness when justice is at stake makes her more of a vigilante than a do-gooder.

Yin and Yang of the Gray Line
I know I’m going to start babbling at any moment and words will flow onto this blog like three rivers meeting and swelling over the bank of one of the tributaries – I’m testing a hypothesis here so feel free to comment on my failed attempts and flawed logic at any point. I’ll take comments on my pure brilliancy as well; I’m not really that picky.

Hermione does her gray line walking for a decent or good purpose; conversely, Malfoy does many of the same things for a somewhat more dastardly purpose. Does this show off Hermione’s goodness, Malfoy’s badness or just that they are both the same?

I’m not sure we ever get a clear-cut¸ spelled out answer from Rowling – she (slightly) leaves it up to the ethics and moral code of her readers. Now you can argue her intended readers (mid-grade to begin with) are only just learning about moral code and ethics. As a young adult we start to realize adults aren’t the be all and end all in right and wrong – we’ve got a lot of gray in us as well. But what I do love about Rowling is her circumspect way of dealing with the issue. We know Hermione is a good character and Malfoy is a bad character (OK, actually I don’t know either of those things at all – but that’s the surface perception) and in book 6 there’s an “evil outcome” performed by Malfoy or another Death Eater for every gray line thing Hermione’s done in this book or other books. Rowling draws up a mirror parallel, a good idea/bad idea list as it were.

Good Idea (Hermione) – Confunding McClaggen during Quiddutch try outs so her friend Ron is made a member of the Gryfindor team.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Using the imperius curse on Rosmerta so he can know where Dumbledore is going when he’s not at Hogwarts – and so he can deliver things to people inconspicuously in an attempt to kill Dumbledore.

Good Idea (Hermione) – Putting a charm on the DA coins as a way of communication so the DA can continue to fight the man (in this case not just the governing Ministry of Magic but also Delores Umbridge, whose made gray¬-line walking an extreme sport, ultimately loosing all scruples and jumping off the dark, deep end.) and study/practice actual Defense against the Dark Arts in year 5.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Putting a charm on coins to keep in contact with the cursed Rosmerta as a way of communication whilst he is inside Hogwarts and she is inside Hogsmeade.

Good Idea (Hermione) – Uses a necklace (Time-Turner) so she can skirt the rules and still study all the subjects she’s registered for in year 3. Also uses it to go back and save Sirius from the Dementor’s Kiss – a fate worse than death in many ways.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Uses an opal necklace by cursing it and handing it off to Katie Bell in an attempt to skirt the rules and yet again smuggle something into Hogwarts to kill Dumbledore.

Good Idea (Harry) – Using Expelliarmus as a go-to incantation to in the end save the world.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Using Expelliarmus as a go-to incantation to in the end get rid of Dumbledore.

Good Idea (Harry & pretty much every DA member) – Using secret tunnels to get in and out of Hogwarts for early on hijinx and fun and later to again save the world.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Using the vanishing cabinets to get Death Eaters in and out of Hogwarts to pretty much end the world.

Good Idea (Harry & DA) – Using the Room of Requirement to secretly practice in and also hide things in.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Using the Room of Requirement to secretly fix things (and hide things) in and again get the Death Eaters in and out of Hogwarts in an attempt to end the world.

Good Idea (Hermione) – Recognizing and discussing Filch’s lack of potion recognition as a useful thing.

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Slipping poison past Filch after overhearing Hermione’s discussion in (what else?) another attempt to kill Dumbledore.

Good Idea (Hermione) – Creating and using polyjuice potion in year 2 with Ron and Harry to discover the real Heir of Slytherin.

Bad Idea (Malfoy & Barty Crouch jr.) ¬– Creating and using polyjuice potion to sneak in and out of the Room of Requirement without anyone suspecting – or in Barty’s case to impersonate a Hogwart’s teacher to gain Harry’s trust, make him Tri-Wizard champion and get him to help bring back Voldemort to full power.

Good Idea (Weasley Twins) – Sticking a Slytherin in an old broken vanishing cabinet as a joke on their way out of Hogwarts. (Yes, you can tell me this isn’t actually a good idea – especially if you are a high school teacher and really don’t like kids like those pesky Weasley Twins – but it was still a laugh riot.)

Bad Idea (Malfoy) – Listening to the plight of said Slytherin and realizing the other cabinet was in Borgin & Burkes and could be repaired as a way to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts (and you guessed it – END THE WORLD. Also, no “I told you so” from the aforementioned high school teachers).

The Choice
And with all of that going on, in book 6 Malfoy still has options. He’s done all of these bad idea things and yet he’s still walking the line. When we finally learn about Horcruxes, we learn that KILLING is what rips apart a soul – and I’d say ripping apart a soul is like the spring-board into the dark side (no more gray line for you). So Malfoy has a choice – his ethics and morals have been tested but he hasn’t jumped off the deep end yet. Dumbledore – as the beacon of light (oh, but he’s towing the gray line too!) is encouraging Malfoy toward the white-side of the line, “Come over to the right side Draco…you are not a killer…” and again he tells Malfoy it is Dumbledore’s strength and power that matters most in this scene – Dumbledore choosing when and how to die over Malfoy’s choosing to utter the killing curse, “No Draco,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It is my power, and not yours, that matters now.”

Thoughts, ruminations, word-babble? Have I jumped off the deep end in my nerdy HP obsessions? On that note – and because I would like to discuss the movie vs book next time – here’s something from the VlogBrothers (Yes, Ms. Corey strikes again. Except I think I clued her in to these guys in the first place – through Tera of course. I always try to cite my brilliant friends when they send me things I can use in a blog post!)

Stay tuned for more HP. Hey, maybe we’ll even get through book 7 before the first-part movie comes out.

I Keep Getting Side Tracked

2010-04-08T20:42:00.000-05:00

I think an HP blog is just not in the cards for me this week. So in the meantime, I'd like to leave Mara's facebook note as my guest HP blogger for the week. Because she's brilliant and most of you were copied into that note in the first place and most importantly the wonderful comments filling the page are what I hope for this blog. Apparently she was right and I should have dedicated a blog post to a Feminist Critique of Harry Potter long before now. Feel free to comment more.

If you don't have facebook and really want to read this then comment below and I will copy and paste.

I'll return on Monday with my original post for this week all fleshed out and almost as brilliant.

More TV - Sorry, but I had to!

2010-04-07T15:20:00.001-05:00

I promise HP is coming; most likely today even. But in other news AGAIN - the dancing gods did not listen to me or Tony and he and Kate made it through another week. I hope everyone watching noticed Tony's pained expression. Poor man.

I promise not to add my own running commentary about DWTS each week - a long ago friend from high school has a rather brilliant (and addicting) blog in which he writes full length critiques on the British version Strictly (as he is currently residing in Wales). He's funnier and wittier than I am, so go there if you need to read about dancing. That being said, I'm just leaving you with Tony and Kate's paso doble and Jimmy Fallon's reenactment. Thank you Jimmy - I almost didn't miss Conan "Coco" O'Brien on late night television for thirty whole seconds.