Laurie's 30 Days of Write

September 3, 2009 My Journey

2009-09-03T23:58:00.001-05:00

OK, so this isn’t quite on the expository topics, but this is just where my brain went. Sorry.

The first step is always the hardest. I clamp my palm around the cold brass of the doorknob, its five friends closing in closely behind, offering both physical and moral support. Their grip manages to squeeze tight, if only just for a moment, turning the handle just enough to release the mechanism that holds in place the barrier between my safe, cozy world, and whatever it is that is out there. The slab of wood, shaped and placed by the hands of my grandfather, falls to the side, and I look out into darkness. I step out into the corridor, pressing my prepubescent butt cheeks against the back wall. Cue the hall scene from The Shining. Which one? Who cares, they’re all fucking scary as hell-riding the big wheel, the Alice in Wonderland twins, and of course that elevator full of blood. Cue them all-at once.

The first step is always the hardest. The real first step. The one where your sole notices the subtle, yet distinct difference between the warm carpet that kept you safe in your room and the warm carpet that may ultimately betray you to the hall monsters. Wall to wall Judas. Cue the stereotypical shot where our antagonist perches on the starting line of a lane of hot coals, ready to take a quick, yet transformative journey, if only she can gather enough courage.

If not for the small, beige nightlight sticking out of the wood paneling, beaming eerie orange echoes of light out toward my nemesis, these second, third, fourth steps would not be happening. If not for this 79 cent beacon, I would never have made it from under the covers in the first place. One step follows the other in such a rapid fashion that even the quickest of sneezes would make one miss witnessing the entire, frightening escapade. Cue the scene of our hero, racing across a failing, wooden bridge, over a river of jaw-snapping crocodiles.

I made it to the end of the hall, and with the skill and grace unbeknownst to our viewers thus far, I slide into my final destination. I shut the door behind me, careful to not let any light out. Old people need their sleep. I find relief here, in so many more ways than one. But now it’s time to do it all over again. I step back into the hallway, my eyes completely shocked by the dramatic shift from bright to dark. Cue the narrowing hallway set to the sound of shrill violins- this is very likely a Hitchcock device, so it fits perfectly here.

Cue the end. I’m back in bed, safe from the hall monster, and safe from the shame that would befall me the next day had I not actually made it to the toilet. This journey is not one that I will soon forget.

Lights dim.
Credits roll.

September 2, 2009 My other car is a pair of skinny jeans

2009-09-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

I hate hipsters. I won’t tell you why-you know why. Sinclair has a theory that we (our group of friends) are all hipsters to some degree. I have to disagree. I like us too much. But, if we are, to some degree, that most sanctimonious of subcultures, then here are a few reasons why it’s ok:

Hipsters aren’t afraid to stand out against historical persecution: It seems to me that, for hipsters, the reclaiming of ugly clothes, like boat shoes and leotards, as their own, is their way of retaliating against “the man,” much as African-Americans reclaimed the ‘n’ word, and post-feminists reclaimed the ‘c’ word. They really are the pinnacle of modern day social activists.

Hipsters are living up to the saying on those plaques you can get at the mall: (not they would ever shop at the mall, unless it was for the sake of irony)-I’m particularly thinking of the ones that say “Dance as if no one is watching.” Because, yeah, that’s how they dance-unfortunately, we are watching…

Hipsters are helping the environment: Well, most likely inadvertently, but still! That whole not bathing or washing hair frequently has to be saving some serious water. And again, recycled clothing definitely keeps waste out of the landfill, and out of the hands of very low income people who really should not be trying to pay $2 for an old Coca-Cola shirt-they really just can’t pull the look off.

Lonely Island: enough said.

Irony: If it weren’t for hipsters, the general public might still think that irony is defined by that ridiculous list that Alanis Morrisette read off in the late 90’s. If it weren’t for hipsters, comedy just wouldn’t be as funny, Tina Fey might still just be that chick with the scar who shows up in the background on some SNL sketches, and we sure as hell wouldn’t have Stephen Colbert making amazing political satire. I honestly don’t think I could exist without irony. Wait, shit, does that make me a hipster?

i just found out about this website, today-have fun! www.latfh.com

I'm usually full of bad intentions...

2009-09-01T18:53:00.003-05:00

I'm totally cheating!

Complete: I plan to complete this month by creating interesting and engaging writing topics, and actually writing about the topics that I post.

Accountability: Since my position in this group is a little different, I am placing accountability at the top of my intention. First, I have to be accountable to all of you, because if I do not do my part, then it is much more difficult for all of you to be successful. I also have to be accountable to myself: if I get all of the topics written and posted ahead of time, then I get to actually participate in the group, too.

Consistency: That goes without saying. I think I made it two weeks last time, and as long as I keep up with the accountability part, this should hopefully fall right into place.

Dialogue: I think I want one of my focuses this go ‘round to be specifically on dialogue. Considering most of my classy insults consist of “your face” and “your mama,” Gossip Girl has inspired me to work on better dialogue.

So, a little about my life as a writer. Well, I started in a Journalism class my Freshman year of high school, then gradually moved up in the ranks on the newspaper from Feature Editor to Editor-in-Chief (well, technically co-Editor-I had all the duties but not full title due to an incident the previous year; apparently shoplifting on a school field trip is not a good idea-funny story, though). I did the UIL business and all that, oddly enough winning First Place for a Sports Feature article, then applied to the UT School of Journalism. I so didn’t get in. Boo. So, I went the Liberal Arts route and kind of gave up on my Journalism dream.

After lots of fun American Studies classes with tremendous writing components (seriously, throw out a topic and there is a 47% chance that I will say “oh, I wrote a paper on that”), I ended up picking up little writing jobs here and there, even writing a bit of porn on the side (even though I wasn’t having sex at the time-my porn totally sucked-if only I had that job, now…) Two years ago I got a job with go2.com, writing text-message alerts about local events, and eventually horoscopes, a fairly lucrative side job that has definitely contributed to my drinking budget. Not long after that was the Club Gossip debacle, wherein I was the Editor of an attempted up-start magazine; it was a lot of fun, and I don’t regret it, but ultimately resulted in a giant mess. Finally, last summer I started writing for Austin.com, doing event previews, SXSW coverage, Weekend Picks, and more. I don’t get paid at Austin.com, but I do get lots of perks that pretty much outweigh a paycheck.

So, after a conversation with my BFF while visiting her in the Bay Area last fall, I came up with the idea for this group. My background, obviously, is mostly journalism, and I had never done much creative writing. I figured I would try my hand at it some, and bring a few friends along. This is our fourth go at our little project, and I am still loving it. Eventually, I hope to pitch this as a book to Chronicle Books, and to have all of you join me.

June 5, 2009 My bad

2009-06-06T13:29:00.001-05:00

omg, how did i manage to not write yesterday? i am definitely going to come back to this topic, however, i am still in the game because i wrote a page of horoscopes yesterday-which totally counts as writing, woo hoo!

June 4, 2009 One last mistake

2009-06-05T00:16:00.000-05:00

“Do you want to know what it would feel like if my fingertips touched yours?

What it would feel like if my lips, the slightest bit desiccated by the winter wind, explored the depths of your warm neck?

What it would feel like as we fought our way into the most intimate embrace?”

…

“Excuse me, what was that?”

“Hmm? Oh, uh, I said ‘you might want to cover your drink before you leave it. A lot of sickos out there, y’know?’”

“Oh yes, thanks.”

That smile. Enchanting.
Yeah, she wants to know…

June 3, 2009 It's just another word

2009-06-03T00:16:00.000-05:00

WORK IN PROGRESS-i wrote this part at Ozomatli show to get my one paragraph done :)

Wow.

The foyer is bigger than our old apartment. Gold. It adorns things. Everything is all shiny. It's all I've ever wanted and all I've ever despised in one instance. But shit, it's free.

If free means giving up my freedom. If free means never seeing the rest of my family again. I'm living my own micro-version of The Patriot Act. Trading freedom for safety. Trading privacy for safety. Trading identity. For safety.

Am I really living if it's not my life? Is it worth being alive if I am experiencing a pre-death reincarnation? Where does that leave me on the karmic ladder? Closer to the Brahmans or do I get knocked back down with the Untouchables?

I could lie on my new California King and let my greay matter swim around in an existentialist mind-fuck all day.

June 2-Was Not Was was way ahead of their time

2009-06-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

Note: I went to see Land of the Lost tonight. Just in case you were wondering where this was coming from.

Dinosaurs are soooo the new ish.

Ninjas? Fucking stomped. Pirates? Pushed the fuck back out to sea. Zombies? Those brittle teeth inside those mushy gums can’t even think about penetrating that badass prehistoric skin.

Now let’s talk merchandise. I’m thinking jackets with T-Rex teeth for zippers. Gloves with fake raptor claws. I’m seeing Betsey Johnson going totally avant-garde with her fall collection, Pterodactyl wings perched where 80’s power suit shoulder pads once lay.

Basically, you do not want to step to dinosaurs. The only thing they fear is Blair Waldorf. They know not to step foot on the Upper East Side.

June 1-Pieces of What

2009-06-01T22:57:00.001-05:00

Topic du jour: Alrighty kids, it's back to Day 1-tabula rasa time. April was our best month so far, and I think June can be even better! So, this time around, day 1 is going to be a tiny bit tougher, so...

Part 1: Set your writing intention for the month. Pick 3-5 words on what you want to get out of this, where you want to go with your writing, etc, and elaborate on them.

Part 2: Since our group is growing and we no longer all know each other, give us a little bio of your life as a writer.

Accountability: Since my position in this group is a little different, I am placing accountability at the top of my intention. First, I have to be accountable to all of you, because if I do not do my part, then it is much more difficult for all of you to be successful. I also have to be accountable to myself: if I get all of the topics written and posted ahead of time, then I get to actually participate in the group, too.

Consistency: That goes without saying. I think I made it two weeks last time, and as long as I keep up with the accountability part, this should hopefully fall right into place.

Dialogue: I think I want one of my focuses this go ‘round to be specifically on dialogue. Considering most of my classy insults consist of “your face” and “your mama,” Gossip Girl has inspired me to work on better dialogue.

So, a little about my life as a writer. Well, I started in a Journalism class my Freshman year of high school, then gradually moved up in the ranks on the newspaper from Feature Editor to Editor-in-Chief (well, technically co-Editor-I had all the duties but not full title due to an incident the previous year; apparently shoplifting on a school field trip is not a good idea-funny story, though). I did the UIL business and all that, oddly enough winning First Place for a Sports Feature article, then applied to the UT School of Journalism. I so didn’t get in. Boo. So, I went the Liberal Arts route and kind of gave up on my Journalism dream.

After lots of fun American Studies classes with tremendous writing components (seriously, throw out a topic and there is a 47% chance that I will say “oh, I wrote a paper on that”), I ended up picking up little writing jobs here and there, even writing a bit of porn on the side (even though I wasn’t having sex at the time-my porn totally sucked-if only I had that job, now…) Two years ago I got a job with go2.com, writing text-message alerts about local events, and eventually horoscopes, a fairly lucrative side job that has definitely contributed to my drinking budget. Not long after that was the Club Gossip debacle, wherein I was the Editor of an attempted up-start magazine; it was a lot of fun, and I don’t regret it, but ultimately resulted in a giant mess. Finally, last summer I started writing for Austin.com, doing event previews, SXSW coverage, Weekend Picks, and more. I don’t get paid at Austin.com, but I do get lots of perks that pretty much outweigh a paycheck.

So, after a conversation with my BFF while visiting her in the Bay Area last fall, I came up with the idea for this group. My background, obviously, is mostly journalism, and I had never done much creative writing. I figured I would try my hand at it some, and bring a few friends along. This is our fourth go at our little project, and I am still loving it. Eventually, I hope to pitch this as a book to Chronicle Books, and to have all of you join me.

p.s. after reading this, if you have not taken my “How well do you know Laurie” Facebook quiz, I just gave you two answers. Go for it.

Dog Bed

2009-04-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

Oh my bed. My bed so desperately wants to be my place of solace. Every now and then it manages that distinction, like last Saturday when I spent the day underneath the covers watching movies and playing on the internets. For the most part, however, my bed is a fairly gross place that no one wants to visit.

I originally purchased my bed to be this wonderful haven. I was so super excited to pick out the fancy bed from IKEA, one with a headboard, of course, then head down the hall to test out mattresses. I got the cutest sheet and comforter set, all Moroccan-inspired like the rest of my room décor intended to be. After many laborious attempts to put the damned thing together, and much assistance from Susanna, my cheap version of a craft-o-matic adjustable bed was finally done. And for a while, it was my sanctuary.

Then Ginger came.

I held my ground for a long time on the dog-in-bed situation, until Russell came along and guilted me into letting her sleep with us. It was over after that. Now, my bed is a pit of despair, covered in mud and hair. Gross? Yeah, I totally know. Don’t judge me.

The dogs always come first in my world. Even in my bed. I go to sleep every night, taking up less than 1/3 of my bed, with one dog on top of me, one dog in between my knees, and one dog next to my foot. My appreciation for beds in other establishments has grown exponentially, and nights that I get to stay at the Omni or Intercontinental (best beds in the world) or even when I crash with friends who snore a lot, I relish their comfy, clean, dog-free zones.

Hmm. Reminds me. I need to get the sheets in the wash.

Damnit!

2009-04-11T11:41:00.001-05:00

So yesterday was my first day to not write about the 30DOW topic, and I am totally bummed about that. So, rather than throw something down, I am going to get back to it when I have time.

However, I did do some other writing: 12 horoscopes and a David Sedaris write-up, so I still met the writing criteria, so I'm gonna cut myself some slack on this one.

April 10, 2009 ROLB

2009-04-10T22:15:00.000-05:00

(unfinished post)

Hmmm. Guilty pleasures, there’s really no better kind. I think the problem with the pleasures from which I partake, is that I have no guilt over them. Maybe I have transcended the plane of existence in which guilt and pleasure intermingle. Maybe I no longer fear a thrashing by the Bible belt (or maybe I would really enjoy it). Or maybe I just fully embrace one of my life’s most profound mottos: “I just don’t give a fuck.” Either way, you will find me hard-pressed to feel guilty about my Love of Lady Gaga, my aptitude for picking up strange men in a bar, or my willingness to laugh when someone hurts themselves. It doesn’t make me a bad person. Well, maybe a little…

So, the one thing that is closest to a guilty pleasure on my plate is VH1 Celebreality TV. Sure, many people can claim that Reality TV is their biggest guilty pleasure, but other than Fox, no one can take the cake on this genre the way VH1 does. The combination of washed-up child stars, drugged-out porn stars, and watered-down idiots who gained fame by wanting to date shriveled up members of the California Raisins all form the perfect storm of fucking train wreck television. And I find it masterful. Scrumtrulescent if you will.

There’s the herpes-infested contest for hair metal “hottie” Bret Michaels: Rock of Love and the follow-up Rock of Love Bus.

Gross

2009-04-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

OK, so I haven't much time tonight to write, but I have yet to miss a day, so you get a little bit. I am a little sad that I am lacking time with such a great topic. I will definitely be going back to this one..

So, I am in the car, trying to think about some good words. I like the word 'smeg' as a scifi curse word. More like an insult. Like smog and egg together. Like "you're such smeg." But then I started thinking that I was pretty sure that there was already the word 'smegma.' So, I looked it up. And, um, ew. Am I stupid for not knowing what this was? Probably. Whatever.

p.s. that link is NSFW

Nerds will no Longer Live Long and Prosper

2009-04-08T23:32:00.003-05:00

Austin, Tx-Leonard Nimoy, famous for playing Mr. Spock on the Star Trek television series and in the subsequent movies of the same name, is now famous not only for his acting work, but for a medical condition. After 43 years of constantly flashing the famous “Live long and prosper” hand sign for cameras and fans, Nimoy has developed digit-specific arthritis, with symptoms and treatment different enough from other types of arthritis that the condition has warranted its own name. He won’t die from it, but his Nimoynian arthritis will have major repercussions in his everyday life.

Nimoy recently appeared in Austin, Tx for a surprise appearance and screening of the new version of Star Trek, where he reprises his famous role. After sharing an evening with shocked and elated fans, and throwing a few of the standard nerd gang signs, Nimoy headed to a late dinner with his hosts. At dinner, he noticed that his hand was a bit shaky and that he didn’t have as much control of it as usual. The next morning, after flying home to California, he went to see his personal physician, Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy. After many expensive tests, lots of poking and prodding, and consultations with other top physicians, McCoy had to reveal the bad news that his patient would have to find some other way to convey the universal phrase of peace and geekiness.

Nimoy’s former co-star and close, personal friend William Shatner came to be by his side while going through all of the procedures. Shatner was outraged at the prognosis that his friend would never be able to manipulate his hand to the famous crab-like symbol, and could not believe that his doctors could not do anything with plastic surgery to repair his condition. His outburst elicited Dr. McCoy’s retort, “Damnit, Bill, I’m a doctor, not a…oh, wait, I should totally be able to fix this.”

After undergoing treatments with steroids and other medications, Nimoy will face extensive physical therapy just to be able to utilize his right hand for daily tasks that require more localized use of his fingers, like buttoning shirts and handling writing implements. He can, however, look forward to the fact that he continues to receive a lifetime supply of Aleve, the arthritis pain medication after doing a commercial for them in 2006.

Nimoy’s current predecessor, Zachary Quinto, doesn’t seem too concerned about developing Nimoynian arthritis because “I do this other thing with my fingers in my role as Sylar on Heroes. I figure if I just make sure to not keep my fingers doing the same thing over and over again, and, you know, changing it up, I should be ok. If anything, I was worried about developing a little of the Sylaritis, if you know what I mean!” Quinto said.

Nimoy will be spending time healing with his family, and watching the finale of Fringe on May 12, where he will be playing a key character.

Sidebar: Among Mr. Nimoy’s crowning achievements in life, he lists making some babies, being an awesome Jew, donating the maximum amount allowable to Obama’s campaign, and sharing the birthday of March 26 with the almighty and awesome Laurie Lyons.
(haha, I didn’t know that til I was looking at his imdb profile)

Writer’s note: so, I had the idea for this “story” after Nimoy’s recent visit to Austin. While it is a fucking hilarious idea, I am apparently not the only one to have it, as Aleve actually paid him for a similar idea in 2006. I did not find this out until I was finishing up the article. Thanks for ruining my fun, Wikipedia.

This video cracked my shit up! Somebody REALLY loves Spock.

To Crystal

2009-04-07T23:59:00.003-05:00

As I am sitting here, about to write about the animals in my life, I have four of the most amazing four-legged creatures I have ever met, lounging around me. Maggie, my cat is curled up on the table, her own version of a throne, as she looks down upon the rest of us. My two pups, Kyoko and Penelope, the silliest, cutest, oddest little dogs you will probably ever meet are curled around my right side, excessive heat being exchanged between all of our bodies. And Ginger, possibly the sweetest dog in the world, is lying at my feet, and oop, she just got a little belly scratch action…

If you know me at all, it is not at all surprising that I share my house not only with a human roommate, but four companion animals whom I am fortunate enough to get to care for. These girls are my world. I often sit in traffic, super anxious to get home, just so that I can hug them all. Yeah, kinda lame, but whatever.

I care for my girls and give them all of my heart, most of my lap (and the rest of my body at bedtime), and as much of my time and money as I possibly can. I do it because I love them and they love me (I do not subscribe to the notion that animals do not feel emotions similar to ours. I’m not a fool-I read books). However, in all of the years that we have had family pets, including ferrets, birds, cats, dogs, hamster, guinea pigs, etc., I haven’t always been that great to them. I can blame it on the fact that I was young and didn’t really know better, but what it comes down to, in all honesty, is that I was lazy. I was lazy then and I am lazy still, but then my sloth often led to my sweet, sweet English Springer Spaniel, Crystal, not getting as much quality care from me as she deserved. I didn’t pay attention to her as much as I should have. I didn’t bring her inside when it got a little cold out like I should have. I flat out did not treat her like such a special dog deserved. I often remember her and feel tremendous guilt about that.

I can never make any of that up to her. I can never make it up to the roosters that I amusingly and ignorantly watched fight to the death in the dusty sheds of South Louisiana. I can never give the lives back to all of the animals that I ate before 1998. All I can do is remember the harm that I caused or contributed to and do my very best to make sure that I never make those mistakes again.

I wish I had a picture of Crystal to put here. I think I have an actual photo somewhere, but no scanner. Instead you get pics of my girls now.

The little ones aren't actually demons, they just appear that way in this picture.

My pretty, pretty princess

Senryu

2009-04-06T19:57:00.000-05:00

Poisoned on a Bus

Fake nails, fake tits, short skirts, and weaves
Two skanks left
Which will he choose?

Kiddo

Five fingered assassin
Cut through your former brethren
Your cub awaits

Damnit, this totally doesn’t fit the “less than 17 syllables” but I am posting it anyway

Saul Tigh-my BSG Counterpart

It’s not the eye of the tiger you lack
Just the eye of a man
Drunken robot, eternal Adama fan

The Plight of the Half-Gray/Half-Red Strand of Hair

2009-04-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

disclaimer: this is off topic and not intended to be anything near good work. it is just some therapy that i needed right now.

I’ve always had a weird fascination with plucking gray hairs from their homes atop an aging head. I did it to my mother when I was younger, before she got smart and starting getting help from a box. She would always point to one and say “that’s from the time that you did such and such” (at this point I could fill in the blanks with so many options from the time she caught my boyfriend camping out in my closet to the time I got caught shoplifting). We would always laugh, her blaming her stress and aging on me, both of us knowing that her attempts to raise me alone were only part of the reason she was going gray.

I remember the day I got my first gray hair. Or at least the first day I noticed it. I was sitting on a bench outside, when my boss pointed one out. I immediately screamed and ran inside. Yep. There it was, attempting to hide amongst the sea of darkness to which it used to belong. I immediately yanked it from my head. It could hide at the bottom of the trashcan. I was only 22.

The women in my family are very lucky that we age very well. If you looked at my mom, you wouldn’t guess that she is 57. Our sprits probably play a decent role in this, but our genes definitely play an even bigger role. Our hair, however, tends to betray us in that area. Luckily, this is an inexpensive fix. I didn’t start dying my hair as a fix to me getting a few grays, but now I know that I can never stop dying my hair. Luckily, my best friend is a hair stylist.

I feel sorry for them, though. As I was standing in the mirror, tweezers in hand just a few minutes ago, I was staring at the tiny shaft in my grasp, and it told me a story. A sad story. The last time that I had my hair colored was a few weeks ago. My hair grows pretty quickly, and this piece of hair was half-gray and half-red. This tiny, dead piece of me reminded me of another dead piece of me. It reminded me of the night a few weeks ago and the unhappy events that occurred then, and following that night. Of the loss of something that I treasured and can never get back. It reminded me that just as my hair was losing the pigment that made it who it once was, I also lost something that made me who I once was.

I realized that part of the reason that I have been so down lately is that there are quite a few things changing in my life, one affecting the other, creating layers too thick for me to find their true center. They’ve all smashed into each other so much that I can’t figure out where the root of it all lies, but I have a good idea. But knowing the why and the where doesn’t really help. I can’t color over the problem with a simple dye job.

Technology

2009-04-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

I began to stir as the sunlight streamed through the slits in the curtains. ‘Good,’ I thought to myself. ‘If I am waking up before the alarm, that means I get to go back to sleep.’ I stretched my arm out across the bed to grab the clock, and noticed that it wasn’t there.

‘Huh. That’s a little weird.’

There wasn’t enough light coming in through the heavy curtains to be able to do any real detective work regarding my most needed but most hated nemesis, so I got up to turn on the light. A blast of cold air hit me as I pulled back the covers, and I wondered why the heater hadn’t kicked in. I shuffled across the cold floor, my hands rummaging through the air and along the walls in search of a light switch. They found nothing but more air and bumpy wall patterns, and I quickly began to feel a welling of fear and frustration inside me. I felt like I was in a cave, cold, lumpy, dark. I finally summoned my courage and moved my way across the room toward the small shaft of light peeking from behind the curtain. I quickly threw the piece of material to the side, and what I saw horrified me.

As my eyes adjusted to the penetrating light, I saw…nothing. Nothing that seemed familiar, nothing that told me that this was my home, that this was where I belonged. It was almost like waking up in bed with a stranger after a long night of binge drinking, but way, way scarier. I looked around for something that seemed like it was part of my life, but the rickety desk and half-empty ink well only mustered a vague remembrance that I was a writer. But those aren’t a writer’s tools. Those are archaic and uncomfortable. Where was my IKEA chair with lumbar support, my laptop with spellcheck?

Furthermore, where was my TV to tell me what the weather was going to be like today? My beloved cell phone so that I could send out a mass text to try to find out what the hell was going on? Hell, I would even settle for something as archaic as a land line right now!

I stumbled through the rest of the house, and found only the same confusing relics. Oil lamps. Wood stoves. Dried meats. (where the fuck were my veggie burgers?!?!)

I could only come to one conclusion.

In the feverish haze that helped me float off to sleep the night before, I had transitioned into a world of horrific nightmares. The only way that I could see to save myself was to climb back into bed. The plump down comforter was the only solace I could find in that entire house, and I realized that if this was not, in fact, an illness-induced nightmare, likely brought on by a double dosing of Tylenol PM, that I would rather just curl up and die under here.

My Dream House

2009-04-03T16:07:00.000-05:00

My house. Is a very, very, very fine house. It doesn’t have much in common with most of the houses you see in the movies. Although, the one from Twilight is pretty awesome. The only thing my house has in common is that it is settled in somewhere that’s green. Though the rest of her house is pretty gaudy, Audrey got that part right.

My house is not a monster. It doesn’t have marble countertops and stained glass ceilings. It isn’t a picture of decadence. It is energy efficient and nestled in the middle of a lush forest that is just far enough off the beaten path, but still allows me access to the fast pace of a nearby city. I’m thinking California.

I have no particular plan as far as shape, size, or layout go. I just know that I have to have the following amenities:

-a very large theater room
-a garden tub and a magic shower; but, like the biggest garden tub ever built, in front of a bay window so that I can watch the sun rise from it
-plenty of guest bedrooms for when my friends come to visit
-a giant library, most definitely with those large, rolling ladders (I totally stole this from you JBee)
-a reading room that is more like an open-air garden; if it is nice outside, I want to be able to open the ceiling-if not I still want to be able to read surrounded by plants and nature
-a huge playroom for my cat and an even bigger playroom for my dogs
-a gym
-enormous, enormous closets
-a huge kitchen-but no marble countertops

OK, so maybe it’s bordering a but on monsterdom, but hey-it’s my dreamhouse-why skimp?

Pain is not Gneiss

2009-04-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

He sped up, pushing and pushing, wobbling as the two-wheeled machine intermittently became a three-wheeled machine, tottering between the bent training wheels. She chased after him, in the fastest way she possibly could. Her gait was more like that of the “zombies” in those silly English language movies that she avoided. There were no scenes of romance or drama in those types of movies, but she knew that her grandsons liked them, so she would occasionally rent them from the Blockbuster on the corner (it was only a 6 minute walk from her house).

Her feet were an outcropping hanging over the side of her chanclas like a West Texas igneous rock formation, craggy and dry. She could barely reach her own toes anymore, no matter how she attempted to contort her body, to try to make any effort at keeping them tidy. And the $40 that she would have to pay some Oriental lady at one of those shops was just not part of her monthly budget. Her disability check only came once a month, and there were so many other things that she had to do with it. So, she stuck with her weekly pedicure from her granddaughter who liked to paint her toes various shades of pink and red, but who could do absolutely nothing about the growth next to her big toe that only kept getting bigger.

She had so much more in common with those igneous rocks than just their resemblance to her feet. She, too, had gone through the tumults and processes in her life that made her blood boil, for both the good and the bad. She, too, had undergone outbursts, explosions, transformations. And now, it seemed, all of those things were gone. She had cooled to a point that life no longer flowed in her, out of her, or around her.

Don’t misunderstand. Those grandchildren of hers were everything in her world. She would do absolutely anything for them, but their lives weren’t hers. Their lives were just beginning. They were still full of the fire and passion and warmth that she longed to have inside her. But she had cooled. And she was a rock. She was their rock.

As she tried to quicken her pace, her robe came open a little, so that she could feel the heat of the passing bus float to the tops of her legs. She was just noticing this sensation when the horrible message travelled from her eyes to her (cerebellum). She saw it all happen right in front of her and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get there quickly enough to stop it. She watched as the cheap piece of aluminum attached to his bike bent, then buckled, because it just couldn’t hang on anymore. She watched as he tumbled, his body rolling onto the street and heard the horns from the cars begin to wail. She heard her own noises, mournful, shrieking, coming from her body in a way that she couldn’t control.

Her body took on a new life then. It remembered its old ways. What it was like to have fire, to have something ignite within. She changed then from a zombie to a superhero, pushing her body beyond any capacity it actually had as she swooped in to spirit him away before that car with the squealing breaks could touch him. She rolled onto the sidewalk with him in her arms, his face and hands scratched, but no broken bones, no split skulls, no pieces of him remaining behind. She held him and she rocked. And she rocked. And she rocked.

She looked down at herself through the muddy tears that had filled her eyes and she saw that she was bleeding. She had lost one of her flip flops in her heroic endeavor, and her sole had split open and bled, completely exposed. She couldn’t feel anything, though. Maybe the cut was just too deep and the location too old. Or maybe it was just because superheroes don’t feel pain.

April 1, 2009

2009-04-01T00:10:00.002-05:00

Setting my intention...

The last time we did 30dow, my writing intention focused on making money. I still hope to do that now and in the future, but I realize that it can't be my sole pursuit.

So, my intention this time is to actually follow through with the point of this project and write every single day. I learned during SXSW that writing is not something that I have to do begrudgingly. I can get things written on a deadline, I can write them well, and I can enjoy them. So that is what I am going to do. I am going to see this as an opportunity and something fun to do. I am also going to get all of the topic posts written and posted ahead of time so that I don't let down the group and so that I don't end up resenting my duties.

Wish me luck!

(p.s. i tried to go to sleep after the internets ate my last attempt at this post, but damnit I had to get up and get it in!!)

Acrostic Name Poem

2009-01-10T23:17:00.000-06:00

L ovely lady lumps
A dores most things with 4 legs
U nfortunately No Longer a Virgin (bahaha. Yeah right. Who names a band that?)
R eally, really loves her friends
I s pretty sure that boys are dumb
E ats too much. But food is so yummy…

L ives for the weekend. And being cliché.
Y awns too much
O nly wants to be with you
N ot ashamed to admit how much she loves Britney
S till sleeps with a stuffed animal

K uddly
O h how I was to kiss you
A lifetime of bamboo you would get from me
L ove your little ears and nose and toes
A wwww

Horoscopes

2009-01-09T23:36:00.001-06:00

Cancer- Relying on another to reflect how you see yourself may seem like a place that you can find comfort right now, but just remember that one way of looking at something isn’t always the right way. Value the opinions of those close to you and make sure you look through multiple peoples’ mirrors, not just one.

Pisces-.Delaying gratification may seem like the best idea most of the time, but if it turns out that the reward at the end of the wait was not what you expected, a lot of time ends up wasted. Go for the immediate gratification next time.

Capricorn- Though the road that you travelled to get where you are may have been really rough, your triumphs along those bumps are something to be celebrated. Be sure to take some time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Single Mom

2009-01-07T00:22:00.000-06:00

Fuck. That fucking sound. It’s really that time again? I swear I just did this a day ago. Ooh, it looks like the puppies didn’t notice it this time. I’m going for another 15.

Then it comes again. This time, the puppies fucking notice. This time, I am not only assaulted by the screeching, honking, blaring sounds shooting out of my clock radio, but I am now being molested by tiny puppy tongues and paws, eagerly attempting to excavate the holes in my face. I manage to make it out with no scratches to my cheeks this morning.

I make my way out of bed to survey the damage from the night. Only one pile of poo? Awesome. And most of it made it onto the newspaper. Even better. I grab the girls’ water bowl and fill it up halfway. I place it on the floor as they look at it with disdain. Their little pug butts start shaking as they see me go for the yellow bag that they love so much. Penelope lets me know I need to hurry the fuck up by barking and growling at me. Yeah, cuz that’s going to help. I place the bowls of food on the ground, and watch them do their dance-half a second at one bowl, then a half circle around to the other as they suck them dry. Now it’s Ginger’s turn and I make my way to the garage to fill her bowl.

After dropping her food off, I head to my room to pick out my outfit and brush my teeth. I listen to the weather from News 8 to make sure my clothing choice was correct, and as I stand there, mid-stroke, foamy white stuff dribbling down my chin, the girls all come galloping into my room to let me know it’s time to go out. I walk them to the back door as they dart past me. I piddle around another few minutes, packing up my laptop, getting my lunch ready, and then come Ginger’s scratches at the door. I let her in and check on the pups, doing god-knows-what in the backyard, then head off to the shower.

Now it’s my turn to start getting ready.

Never: A Letter

2009-01-05T22:36:00.001-06:00

Note: this is totally not for anyone in particular. The two men in my life who did me the worst have since apologized as they had time as adults to reflect on their behavior. Kinda funny, huh? Anyway, the only other two people who I would write to would probably actually be reading this, so I choose to not air all of my business to everyone (or them) in this manner.

You will never again run your hand down the soft, warm skin on the small of my back. You will never again press your eager lips against mine, knowing that mine have been waiting all day for this encounter. You will never again get to smell the tiny hint of coconut and lime that floats around my hair. Never again. But that was your choice. And now you have to live with it.

Grinding Honeymoon

2009-01-04T23:33:00.001-06:00

It’s dawn again. Time to wake up. I’m so glad that my internal clock allows me to forego the use of an alarm clock. That shrill, shrieking noise jumping across the room at me makes my stomach drop just thinking about it. Even worse, though, is the thought of those eyes peering up at me from below the covers. Those eyes that are either filled with hatred or longing, sadness or disgust, but rarely, these days, with love. It’s not like when it first started. Not like the early days when I would wake up and offer her a gentle kiss on her forehead, and be rewarded with a back scratch and a hug around the waist, her exceedingly warm and sheet-marked breasts gently pressing against my back. Those days are sadly gone. After we got back from Costa Rica, after what happened those few days following our blessed nuptials, things just weren’t the same. Once that honeymoon was over, I never felt that warmth on my back, or anywhere else for that matter, again.

I crawled out of bed, careful to not wake her as I pulled on my long johns, suspenders, and flannel shirt. I knew that if she woke, even at this asscrack hour of dawn, she would want to talk, to air grievances, to discuss all of the things that were wrong with us. I certainly wasn’t sticking around for that. Shit, I had too much work to do. I had an ax to grind before I could even get started. Damn dull blade makes the cold seem like it wanted to rape me even more than it already did.

(to be continued)

(working title)

2009-01-03T14:46:00.000-06:00

I checked the window one last time to see the sky still shrouded in dark ash, with the quickly fading border between sun and moon turning the sky to a haunting orange. If I believed in God (well, maybe now was the time to start reconsidering my lack of faith), I would have thought he was busy decorating for a global Halloween party, the way the orange and wet grey intermingled with one another.

I looked down to the bowl of the crater, a cauldron bubbling sans Shakespeare’s Three Witches, but horrifying just the same. I watched as another bus came through the narrow streets, transporting more of the citizens of our sad excuse for a town to higher ground, the only defense we had. This was no New Orleans, I thought to myself. When our crater levees burst, there will be no chance of surviving by swimming, boating, floating your way to safety in contaminated water. The second that crater overflowed, you were fucked if you were anywhere under a mile close to it. That Anakin Skywalker bullshit where just some of his pieces burned up, resulting in his need for a shiny black suit and personalized vocoder? That’s all it was-Hollywood bullshit. In real life you get incinerated. You die. And as a bonus, you get cremated for free. There is no body for your loved ones to mourn over, no teeth for the coroner to match to your post-braces dental records. Poof.

My train of thought was quickly derailed as it started. I could see globs of the stuff start to plop up into the air, then heave themselves back down into the massive pot of scalding tomato soup. The ground began to tremble and I watched as the massive T-Rex and Stegosaurus that I had grown up climbing all over at Dino Park fell past the lip of the crater and into their own extinction. That’s when it began to spill over. That’s when the horror really, really set in.

We all rushed into the bedroom. The high pitched screaming of all of those little voices is a sound I will never forget. I imagine it’s what a slaughterhouse sounds like, which is exactly where we were. We, the adults, the smart ones who just so had our shit together, began scooping the little ones under the bed and into the bathtub. Sounds completely insane, right? I mean how in the fuck is hiding under a bed going to keep you safe from 1,250 degrees of molten earth? The same way that hiding under an elementary school desk protects you from radiation. The only power that we had was keeping these kids from panicking too, too much, thus avoiding a few years of therapy if we made it out alive.

I lie on the outermost spot under the bed, making me first to go if the lava seeped in. I thought I was being noble, but looking back, maybe I was being selfish. It’s all relative, as we would’ve all been gone within milliseconds of one another had it come. But it didn’t. And I’m here. And they’re here. And when it was all said and done, we all went out for banana milkshakes.

Year of the Ox

2009-01-03T03:11:00.000-06:00

Oh, ox.
Mick Jagger may not want to be you,
As you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.
I hate that you are burdened so, dear beast.
Unlike your verbose cousin, you never talk back,
But I wish you would.

Setting my Intention

2009-01-02T00:24:00.000-06:00

My writing intention:

Committed: This is my number one word, because it’s my number one priority. I have to find a way to invest more time and attention to my writing, both personally and professionally.

Entertaining: Well, it’s me, so obviously hilarity is going to be part of anything that I do. I hope to also be moving, provocative, and interesting.

Natural: I told Sinclair today that I love her writing so much because it is so natural and wonderful, and I want to be able to write like that. I want to find a way for my words to flow out of me, rather than having to find a way to pull them out like a loose tooth.

Lucrative: I hope to really be able to make some things happen this year when it comes to some writing projects.

Awesome

Ode to the OED

2008-11-15T00:21:00.000-06:00

"the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense - which sense I propose to develop in myself and in others whenever I have the chance."

When I first read this passage from Nobokov in an English class at UT, I immediately circled, underlined, and highlighted the entire thing. I knew that it would have some profound impact on me at some point. Seven years later, I still remember that passage and eagerly sought it out to share.

Since reading that, I have always kept a dictionary nearby. And when I don’t have one, I just circle and dog-ear the hell out of the page. To me, unless they are some hard-back, signed, first edition of Survivor, locked in the glass cabinet at Half Price Books, books themselves are not sacred. As long as I can read the words and enjoy the gift that they are giving me, the books themselves are nothing but vessels. But I digress.

Memory? Sure. We all need memories. Most of what you read in my blogs are nothing but memories, jazzed up to be a little shinier than I actually recollect them. But I know some people who have the memory of an amnesia patient and can write very beautiful things. I myself have bouts of absolute emptiness in my head. Moments where a word I want to reach is playing hide and seek with me, sometimes hiding behind my left eye, other times laying low in that back part of my brain where I get tension headaches. There is only one thing that can help me when the words start teasing me so.

Imagination and artistic sense? Of course. How can you expect to create anything without those two? Well, I guess you could create a baby. That’s pretty primal and I’ve seen some babies created in very unimaginative ways….But I digress. Yeah, these are very important. But this leads me to another point:

Not everyone was popped out of their mom’s vagina, probably conceived in some unimaginative way, with a head and heart and soul full of the ability to create things beautiful. Sure, there are lots of people who are inherently artistic and capable of creating masterpieces on a whim, but most of us aren’t. Most of us who want to add our mark, splash some beauty, stir up trouble and feelings and thoughts, we need a little help. We need our dictionaries, our thesauri, our writers workshops to get us going, to get our juices flowing to somewhere besides our pants.

So, thank you O.E.D. Thank you Merriam and Webster. Thank you dictionary.com. Without you, I would’ve written the word ‘consummate’ earlier instead of ‘conceived’ because it’s 12:15 and my brain is now mush. Thanks.

P.S. for a great read, check out The Professor and the Madman: a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Oddly enough, I pulled it off my shelf to find that it is wonderfully warped by something that was spilled on it. But I can still read the words.

Bad Process Analysis

2008-11-13T23:39:00.000-06:00

How to wrap a home-made Christmas present:

Step 1: You cut a hole in the box
Step 2: Put your junk in that box

:)

Ok, for realsies:

How to kill a man:

Step 1: First, demoralize him to the point that he is no longer connected to his friends or family, so that no one will notice when he’s gone
Step 2: Make sure all of his assets are in your name

Hmmm, I’ll try again.

How to avoid writing on a topic you just can’t seem to write about:

Step 1: Check your email. Since it’s been about 30 seconds since the last time you checked, quickly move on to step 2.

Step 2: Check various social networking sites, including, but not limited to: MySpace, Facebook, Tagged, Linked In, and Good Reads. After realizing that no one updates their pages on a Sunday evening move on to step 3.

Step 3: Say ‘fuck it’ and check your chat list to see who is online. End up chatting with a new boy and saying funny things like “awesome. I wish I could control satellites.”

Step 4: Either go back to writing, realizing that being smarmy and self-evident can be funny, at least to one person (i.e. me) or just go the fuck to bed.

It's a 4-Letter Word, of course...

2008-11-12T23:45:00.000-06:00

(btw I know that I Totally bite Chuck Palahniuk’s style in paragraph 4; imitation is the sincerest form of flattery)

My mom used to watch horror movies when I was a kid. Very loudly. We were poor, so we always lived in either a really small house, or a really big trailer with paper thin walls. I used to always go to sleep with a pillow over my head to keep the screams and growls and moans to a minimum, so that I could function at school the next day. Luckily, I made it out of that totally unscarred, and a huge horror movie fan myself. One movie, though, managed to have a more profound effect on me.

It was called Jagged Edge. It was from 1985 and starred Glen Close and Jeff Bridges. I never actually watched the movie, I was in the other room and never sought it out as an adult, but I know it was a murder mystery. When I was a kid, probably around 8 or so, I also knew, somehow, that the “jagged edge” in question referred to a knife. I also knew that there was a word in there that I didn’t understand. The word “rape.”

I can’t remember if it happened in this specific situation, but whenever I would ask my mom what something meant and she didn’t want to answer me, she’d say “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Looking back, I really wish I had written down all of those words. I would love to see those now.

Regardless, I did not get an answer to my query, so my young, yet insightful brain drew it’s own conclusions: knife + the screaming I could hear through my bedroom walls meant that rape = peeling off someone’s skin with a knife. Rape wasn’t the right word. But it did for then.
See also: flaying
See also: scalp
See also: excoriate

Obviously, I know what rape means now, and I really wasn’t all that far off…

That's with an 'a,' not an 'e'

2008-11-10T21:41:00.000-06:00

I was born in 1949, in Easton, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles Northwest of Philadelphia. When I was born, there weren’t much that preceded me. Our family was small, but proud. Only eight members in my parents’ generation, and that was both of their families. That changed pretty quickly, though. To say that they all got a little frisky around that “boom” time, well, that would be an understatement. I currently have 48 family members in my generation.

One of those other 47 is my brother, Blue. Blue may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, y’know, but he is the kindest, most loyal little brother a fella could have. He was born in 1958, and when mama got sick, he was the one to leave school early to help out. I was out trying to make a name in the fashion world in New York City around that time, in the 80s, and I just couldn’t see what was really important. Blue took that job at the factory that helped keep mama in our old house. That is, until they forced him to retire in August of 1990. Blue lives with me now. Blue helps me out, helps me take care of my little girl, Heather. Now that mama’s gone. Hers and mine.

I told ya we were simple, right? Well I left out the part that makes our family extra special. We actually had an Earl in our lineage. Of course, I never met the guy. He was born in the 1830s, so our introductions were off by about half a century or so. He seems to have left a big mark on the world, particularly in the culinary world. Maybe when I die, people will think I made a big mark on the world, too.

But that’s enough about me, little girl. Tell me about you. Oh, what? I told you all that about me, and never told you what to call me? The name’s Gray. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

source material

Questions about Questions

2008-11-09T21:13:00.000-06:00

note: i started this and totally hate it, but i really need to move on

p.s. I know that most of these are unreasonable trivia questions. I’m just having fun here, folks.

Q: In what 1995 movie did one, of many, villains say “Riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big, black bat?”
A: Batman Forever

Q: Hello Zeus. Hello Detective McClain. Sitting on this fountain you will find a 5 gallon jug and a 3 gallon jug. You have 30 seconds to place exactly 4 gallons on the scale, or a bomb will go off. Go.
A:
• Fill the 5-gallon jug.
• Empty the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug, leaving 2 gallons.
• Empty the 3-gallon jug.
• Pour the 2 gallons from the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug.
• Fill the 5-gallon jug and use it to fill the 3-gallon jug. That leaves 4 gallons in the 5-gallon jug.

Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A: About 700 pounds

Hi. I’m Laurie.

2008-11-08T22:59:00.000-06:00

My mom and I always moved around a lot. I was never really sure why, growing up, and I’m not really sure to this day. Regardless, I turned out alright. Every new town always meant a new house, new school, new friends. It also meant a new phone book.

Every time we got to a new town, I would take out the white pages, flip to the L’s, and look. I would look for his name: Allen Lyons. That’s all I knew of him. A name. His name. My name. He was never there, though. Not that I would’ve done anything if I had found this random person named Allen Lyons. Or maybe I would have, who knows?

The funny part about all those times I went flipping through those tissue thin sheets is it was all, ALL in vain. Allen Lyons was never a part of me. He was never who I thought he was.

One camping trip, about 10 years ago, my aunt spilled the beans. She didn’t just spill the beans, though. She spilled the beans and wiped them all over the white couch that was my mom’s entire . I never saw the fallout that inevitably came after my aunt told me that my entire backstory was a lie, but I know it was there. As it turns out, Allen Lyons was not my dad. As it turns out, Allen Lyons was a tall, skinny red-head who was verbally and emotionally abusive. As it turns out, my mom cheated on him during their eight month marriage.

My dad. The one that made me but doesn’t actually know he made me? He has no name. He has no face. All I know is he was the (hot) Puerto Rican gym coach at the high school in a town where I eventually spent time poring through a phone book, moving into a new house, checking in at a new school, and making new friends.

After my mom got married in 1997, I was no longer related to anyone named ‘Lyons.’ So yeah, my name is Laurie Lyons. And I fucking love it.

Bar Floor

2008-11-07T21:57:00.000-06:00

Ah, I finally get a little rest for a while.

It’s nice lying here on the cold, concrete floor. I’m tired of getting jostled and shaken and pawed at. Fingers wrapping around me, people taking off my cap. Just spending some time down here, next to the dribbles of urine, occasionally blessed with the company of a passing cockroach. I like it here. Here, people don’t waste what I have with futility and drivel and spiteful words that mean so little but can hurt so much. No string of badly rhyming prose, no piles of numbers stacked upon one another to the point that they actually have meaning.

Here on this floor that probably hasn’t been mopped for days, I don’t have to worry that I am probably more bacteria-ridden and pathogen-perpetuating than a dollar bill. Covered in the saliva and fingerprints of strangers. Lying here I don’t have little bits of me scraped away and left for dead like dog shit flaking off your pissed off neighbor’s shoe.

If I could just find a way to change my name, to change my face, to change my shape. Maybe then these people wouldn’t involve me in their ridiculous games. Their ego trips, their retarded witicisms. If my name weren’t Sharpie, would that make it stop?

Sweat Lodge

2008-11-06T23:57:00.000-06:00

So maybe Nas doesn't hold a very high place in the view of most mainstream Americans. He is typically better known for the huge amounts of controversy that follow him than for his music. Nas has both made people sit up and listen, and shrink down and cover their eyes. But I don't care. When I went to see Nas at Emo's a few months ago, it was like a spiritual awakening.

I'm not a religious person. At all. That's not to say that I'm not a spiritual person, though. And oddly enough, when a hip-hop artist gets on stage and starts talking about God, I listen. I may not hear the message, but I hear the words, and at least those have the power to move me. Nas performed a couple of those types of songs that really did it for me, but it wasn't until I heard "Black President" that I really started to feel the earth shaking and my hands lifting to the sky.

On that ridiculously sweltering August evening in Austin, my spot in the dead center of the crowd, underneath the awning of the outside stage, I had a transcendental moment. The sweat, the heat, the couple of hits out of Donnie's pipe, and the man, Nas, there on the stage. I felt like I was in a Native American sweat lodge. If I had made the mistake of taking mushrooms before that show, I wouldn't be here right now. I would have attained Nirvana and chucked deuces at this world.

Nas, on stage, reflected on 2Pac's previous lyrics: "though it seems heaven-sent, we're ain't ready to have a black President," with a response that we all know and love: "yes we can...change the world..." Standing there, sweating to the point of tears, I let it all wash over me, because I knew Nas was right. I knew Barack was right. I knew my heart was right. And we were.

Yes we did.

1.20.09

You Can do Whatever you Like/Election Night

2008-11-05T21:38:00.000-06:00

Last night. Was Amazing.

I am not going to bore you with trying to do a post about how amazing the world is. How it’s a brand new day. First Black President and all. There are many other people doing that, and doing a much better job than I could.

I just have to say that I don’t know that I have ever or will ever feel the amazing power of love that was generated last night. Sam, JBee, I went to Side Bar to watch the results. Of course, we walked in at 10:02. Two minutes after the polls closed in California, but everyone was still on their feet, and we had heard the roars coming from the bars as we were walking.

I found an old friend from Waterloo and skeezed some seats from him after taking a shot of Hornitos at the bar. I immediately started crying as the camera panned through the crowd at Grant Park, then lingered over Jesse Jackson, looking like the Cowardly Lion as he finally got his heart from the Wizard. We all got our hearts back last night. And more than anything, we all got our pride back last night.

I had so much fun talking to strangers, hugging girls in the bathroom line, holding people as they sobbed, and putting my arm around one of my best friends as I see the tears of joy welling up in his eyes. Last night was one of the best nights of my life, and though I celebrated way too much (none of us had to work today, so we headed to Spill and drank some more), I remember (almost) every moment of it, and I will for the rest of my life.

Pro-Choice

2008-11-04T19:31:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to be the apple of his eye. I was supposed to fall asleep in his arms. I was supposed to bounce on his knee. But that just never happened.

I know nothing of this man. The one who inadvertently gave me life. The one who started it all. And he knows absolutely nothing of me.

If you know anything about me, a huge part of my driving nature is to always seek the truth. I have the curiosity of a cat, and though sometimes it has caused me pain, it has yet to kill me. I am a journalist and a truth seeker and liars are the bane of my existence.

The biggest decision I have ever made in my life is to not follow one of my strongest instincts, to not satiate my curiosity. The relationship that my mother and I have, though troubled and sometimes awful, is also wonderful and special. And no one can take that from us. Not even me. Her decision brought me here, and my decision will keep me with her.

Holiday in Cambodia

2008-11-04T00:18:00.000-06:00

**Note to readers: I started out planning for this to fit with today's topic about serial killers, but realized that it was way too deep and way too personal for me to just add a rushed, bullshit ending. I am probably going to combine it with some other similar stuff that I wrote to build a more comprehensive piece that will probably end up being pretty cathartic for me. So, this is just a tiny bit (but more than a paragraph!) and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and comments are still welcome...

She realized weeks earlier that being a bitch was way, way more fun than being the nice girl. She realized that being the one to get off first, then rolling over and falling asleep in a bed that wasn’t hers was a lot better than laying there, pretending to enjoy herself, only because she had had one too many vodka tonics at the bar where he found her.

The holes in her heart eventually began to resemble a Cambodian minefield. All the memories, tiny barbed contraptions scattered about causing destruction at any and every given moment. She never knew when she would be walking along and they would just pop up, causing her to lose yet another limb, have yet another breakdown, take yet another pill, all because she could never keep her feelings in check.

Haiku

2008-11-02T19:49:00.000-06:00

In this, my dead state
Can no longer masturbate
Nor coagulate

My cold hands, cold heart
Wrap her throat like a boa
Drawing her to me

Sylar opens brains
Taking power that’s not his
But he’s no zombie

Stars crossed and blood lost
An Angel and a devil
Or is he? Hmm, Buffy?

Lipton

2008-11-01T18:59:00.001-05:00

Southern gals love their iced tea. I mean really, really love their iced tea. I haven’t had an excellent glass of iced tea since I was fourteen. After my grandmother passed, the sugar to boiled water to steeping time ratio was never the same.

When we get together for the holidays now, my cousin always tries to make tea in her fancy machine, but it’s never quite the same. Tea machines don’t require the gentle pulling of the yellow and white Lipton paper tabs that then get stuck to your finger tips. Tea machines don’t require the finesse of the knot that holds all of those precious sacks together as they lay waiting to reach their full potential. Waiting for the done light on a tea machine is never as much fun as watching water change from glassy and still, to highly agitated by tiny bubbles rapidly maneuvering to the surface, to giant pockets of air rumbling and falling over themselves like thousands of salmon trying to spawn.

It really was all about the sugar, though. Mounds and mounds of beautiful, processed sugar that streamed into the pitcher without concerning itself with our family history of diabetes and weight problems. Ah the sugar-before we knew of things like Splenda and agave nectar and Fair Trade Turbinado Unrefined Cane Sugar from Central Market. It was just sugar. The clearest picture I have of my grandmother is her sitting in her brown recliner, waiting for me to come in to visit. She would see me, her face would light up, and she would take her huge, only slightly wrinkled hand and smooth it from the tip of her nose to the tip of her chin. I like to think that she was wiping her mouth in preparation for my kiss because her lips were too coated in sugar from all that yummy tea. The only thing in the world that was sweeter than that tea was her.