Monday, May 30, 2011

Growth


In times of struggle in my life I’ve often sought out the written word.  Not necessarily in reading, but rather in writing it myself which is normally uncharacteristic of who I am.  What I mean by that is when my life chugging along, I don’t stop to think about how things are progressing and what little changes should be made along the way.  I like to keep myself busy probably because then I don’t have to think about those ideas on an everyday basis. 

In the past two years I’ve really learned a lot about how the world works, how I fit into it, and what I need to consider myself fulfilled.  Throughout my time in grad school I had a nagging feeling while living in paradise about what if it doesn’t work out.  Well looking for the third job in two years pretty much counts as things not working out, but you know what?  I’m still alive.  And better for the experience.  We always have those moments where we wish we could go back to a younger version of oneself and say that things will work out.  Instead of aching for that ability to do just that, I’m just grateful I’ve learned what I have so far and can start seeing how lessons from the past and present and fit into whatever possible future lies ahead.

I heard recently a saying that says something like a new seedling grows from the shell of the old.  I vividly remember as a child bringing cooking beans into school, putting them into a cup with a damp paper town, and in a couple days roots have started growing into a whole new plant.  I don’t want to look at this time as a passage from childhood to adulthood (forget the fact that I’m almost thirty), but I do see it as the starting of a new phase in my life. 

A great aunt that recently died explained to me ten years ago when she turned eighty that any extra years she had from that point she considered bonus years, so she could eat whatever she wanted, do whatever she wanted, and enjoy life however she could.  At some level I look at her as a role model, even if I was never really close to her.  She was always a giving person, even until the day she passed she was helping people at church and would entertain guests too often for her own good.  Maybe I’m destined to be like her once I turn eighty and refuse to slow down.  It’s a nice thought to have.

During previous times that were rough, I was constantly reminding myself of the amazing group of people I have around me.  It’s a little different this time, more introspective.  That is to say I’m not exorbitantly grateful for those around me, but I’m really doing it myself this time.  Well that, and since I’ve been here before I know what to expect.  I know that looking for work is an obscene rollercoaster ride of emotions: some days you feel like as prepared and capable for a particular position and that you’re the obvious choice, and then there days when you wonder if you’ll ever find a job that pays well and that you can see yourself getting up for the rest of your career to go to.  I know I’m capable of waking up and going to a job, and I feel that search won’t take a ridiculous time to unfold given my background and abilities.  I’m just thankful that I can see that endpoint, even when there’s no explicit endpoint in site. 

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Day 14: Moving

“Moving from one place to another, and one house to another, is a big task.  Write about one of your most memorable house moves.”

This kind of prompt really gets me thinking about the amazing life I have lived thus far, and by that I mean I’ve made some amazing moves in my lifetime.  From crossing the Atlantic Ocean multiple times to driving cross-country from one coast to the other, it’s been a wild ride.  I think the biggest eye opener move for me was moving to Germany after spending five years in North Carolina when I was in middle school.  I say that mostly because I had become rather entrenched in the school and friends I knew, though I was excited for the adventure.  I just didn’t know what to expect.

My Dad had left something like a month before we did so he could figure out living quarters and start getting acclimated to a new life on a new continent.  He had been doing this whole career, so Mom and the kids waited until school was out during the summer after 6th grade for me and 9th grade for my sister.  I was just coming into my own as a person, meaning I was truly becoming aware of social interactions, the fact that my face was covered with acne, and I’d have to make new friends looking and feeling about as awkward as anyone ever looks.

Long plane rides had never been a big deal for me since I’ve been doing them since before I can remember.  Once we arrived at Frankfurt’s airport, Dad met us with an Army van and his NCOIC (that’s Noncommissioned Officer in Charge to you non-military speaking folk).  Getting off a transatlantic flight means arriving at the beginning of the day right when your body is screaming at you to sleep.  I remember it was raining when drove the hour or so back to our new home town, and I remember that I was excited because we were going to live on Hamburger Street!  Close, but it really was Hamburg Straße. 

Beyond the funny looking “b” in the German word for street, the kids in my neighborhood were American.  I met a couple kids pretty soon after settling into the new house and found the local community swimming pool, which is a lot bigger thing in Germany that the States for some reason.  The most exciting thing I discovered that summer, however, were blackberries!  Just off a walking path that led downtown from our neighborhood were these trails that were covered in blackberry brambles, and man did I pig out! 

It’s interesting what you remember and what you don’t.  Sure this adventure was more than fifteen years ago, but there are things I remember crystal clearly and others that I can’t put my finger around.  One example is the friends that I had my first year after moving to Germany.  I remember a couple of the kids because they lived on my street or were in a lot of my classes, but I’m sure there were others.  I remember having a hard time settling in mostly because my band skills were, relatively speaking, pretty awful.  Granted the school band (I played trumpet) wasn’t anything to write home about, but it took me that first year to really get to be good enough to feel I could continue playing.  Regardless, I’m sure not an easy move but it’s definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had yet.

Day 13: Work Adventures

“Write about a weird day in your workplace.” 

Wow, what a prompt!  I mean, I could write about the day when I called in sick to work to <cough cough> drink champagne on Pebble Beach or where I needed to take a mental health day and sit my apartment building’s lovely pool during the summer.  But no, I think we’ll talk about the day where the New Yorker met the Indian (as in South Asian, not Native American). 

My first job out of college was working for Oracle Corporation, the computer software people who bought out Sun Microsystems and PeopleSoft.  I was in their federal contracts administration department, which meant I was a glorified paper pusher.  Sure I stamped my name on official documents, but mostly it was sitting around waiting for someone to get a specific approval or piece of paper with some specific language on it so I could then send off my stack of papers to someone else.  That someone else was our revenue accounting department which was located in southern India at the time.  I quickly learned that the best method of communication for us was through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) because their English wasn’t exactly amazing and if I needed to get a quick answer from one of their team, this was just the best way.  It worked for me, but apparently not for everyone on my team.

Meet Sharon, the resident den mother for our team of ten or so.  She had teenage daughters, so she was already used to screaming/loving on her brood at the same time, so it really didn’t change much when she came to work.  She also had had an accounting background in a former life, so she was already used to looking at numbers/figures/details and the like so she was generally a good person to go to when you had a question outside your realm of knowledge.  Sharon was from Long Island, which I figured out pretty quickly because she liked to yell at people.  Not yell in the sense that she was screaming, but yell in the sense that she wanted to make sure her point-of-view was heard and that you knew she was going to do it her way.  Unfortunately, our Indian friends in Revenue Accounting didn’t really get it.

One day Sharon is yelling at “Christina” on the phone (as in “hello, my name is “Bob,” how can I help you with your technical problem?)  Christina, in my opinion, was a lovely and capable girl—she just didn’t need some New Yorker screaming at her to get her job done.  Because I was an International Affairs major as an undergrad, this generally meant that I had worked with people from different cultures before.  Essentially, I became the liaison between Christina and Sharon because they had both gotten so worked up that they couldn’t calmly talk to each other on the phone.

Sharon worked with different people than I did, so I didn’t know exactly what the issue was.  I ultimately called Christina on my phone, asked her what she needed from Sharon (and vice versa), and got the problem resolved.  Because I spoke both parties’ languages, so to speak, we were able to rather easily resolve the issue.  What made is so weird is that it was perfectly natural to talk to both of them, yet they couldn’t talk to each other.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Day 12: Economics

“Write about a brief but scary encounter with one of your old professors.”

Anthony Yezer was the first economics professor I ever had, and he still scares the bejeezus out of me.  He’s one of those stereotypical professors in that he’s so aptly lost in academia and has no real ability to express the simplest of economic ideas to a novice like I was my first semester freshman year of college.  He’d start lecturing to a group of something like 200 students and prattle on for a solid 90-minute period about God knows what.  The first few weeks I tried to follow along, the next few weeks I simply glazed over when he started talking, and finally I just stopped going to the class because I learned that I could at least read the book (or sleep with it under my pillow) and at least glean something from that exercise.  It was truly one of those excruciating classes that people talk about, though I hadn’t yet experienced the true horror until Introduction to Microeconomics with Professor Yezer.

Because he was so lost in his own world of academia, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a true interaction with him besides turning in a problem set for exam.  God, the problem sets!  A friend and I would meet the weekend before they were due and try to knock them out.  The first time we met I was helplessly lost and I was hoping she’d give me some sort of idea of where to look.  Can you believe she was just as lost as I was??  Great!  Something like fifty word problems that we had to solve and neither of us had any idea what we were doing! 

It took me back to my senior year of high school where I somehow thought it’d be a good idea to take AP Physics from another equally awful teacher.  When we had labs, I’d start scribbling things down and at the end the physics teacher wanted us to do something called a t-test, which apparently would somehow measure a percentage of how far off your lab results were from the real answer.  When I started getting numbers like 1300% I knew I was a lost cause.

Okay, back to Yezer…<shudder>.  My friend and I would scribble some cock-and-bull answers to the questions Yezer would give us on the problem set and then laugh about how ridiculously awful our answers were, yet they were solved to the best of our ability.  I would literally giggle under my breath when I turned in my homework for that class because some pour grad student would be grading some truly atrocious work.  Sadly, that wasn’t the worst work I ever turned in during my undergraduate years. 

I’m not sure the babbling I’ve been doing for this entry really satisfies the ‘assignment,’ yet that’s the beauty of creative writing—you just start writing and whatever comes out is really what you were meant to say from the beginning.  It’s rather rewarding in that sense, you can interpret the prompt any way you’d like and then share some random memory or thought.  I will leave the reader with this last thought: Professor Yezer is to me as the Dementors are to Harry Potter.  They suck the living soul out of you and literally feed on that energy.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Day 11: Stories

“Below are three sets of words.  Use all the words in each to write mini stories in 300 words or less.

Set 1: paper clips, principal, lunchbox, swing, girl with a pink ribbon
Set 2: biology, class card, foreign student, leaf, blood sample
Set 3: typewriter, filing cabinet, puncher, clerk, carbon paper, janitor”

Story 1
Harry was sent to the principal’s office one day because he was being a nuisance during lunch.  The slip the teacher had used to write him up said that he had been throwing paper clips at the other tables for no apparent reason.  According to eye witnesses, Harry was keeping a box of paper clips in his lunchbox that he had bought at an office supply store the other day.

While waiting to speak with the assistant principal in charge of discipline, Harry noticed a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair also waiting inside the principal’s office.  “What on Earth could this sweet young thing be doing here?” thought Harry.  The girl was invited into the office and the door closed.  Apparently that sweet little thing had set fire to a tire swing during recess.

Story 2
Bing Su is getting ready to fly to America and, for the first time in his life, be a foreign student in an American classroom.  While looking at a leaf under a microscope in his Biology class in preparation for curriculum in the States, Bing receives a class card from the principal’s office of his current school.  Not really knowing what to with it, he makes an appointment to see the principal for an explanation.  It turns out all he needs to complete his study abroad application is to give the local clinic a blood sample and he’ll be ready to start his adventure!

Story 3
In the back office of crime fighting detective extraordinaire Private Dick, the typewriter was a-clanging creating a summary of the last caper solved.  The clerk was using the hole puncher and slamming drawers from the filing cabinet to make sure all of the paperwork had been filed.  It’s one thing to file a police report, but what happens if the criminal from an unsolved case breaks into your office and steals your carbon paper copies?  That’s when you get a safe for the storage of your personal and professional belongings.

What the office of Private Dick didn’t know was that it was the janitor all along that had been leaking the crime scene information to the press.  This behind-the-scenes information had allowed the bad guy to get away, but what the public didn’t know was that the bad guy was also that janitor’s brother!  Oh, heavens to Betsy!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Day 10: Ninja Star

“For this prompt, you’ll come up with a poem about an object that describes you.  First, choose an object.  Next, list down the reasons you think the object you chose represents you.  From your list of reasons, which one is the most powerful?  Which one conveys the strongest image of you?  Once you’ve chosen your main image, list down things that support this main image.  Build your poem from there.”


Of all the things you can come up with that represent you, for some reason an origami ‘ninja star’ was the first to pop into my mind.  I used to make these things for friends and myself all the time in Middle School, and it’s got this great, powerful yet simple design to with.  Ultimately, I think it’s the fact that it requires to separate pieces put together to make into one complete package that really attracts me to it, kind of like a yin yang balance that we all subconsciously strive for.  So the object I’ve chosen to represent me is an origami ninja star and the quality I feel the strongest about is its duality.

Noel
Interacts with others
Nonchalantly in order for them to let their guard down,
Just as one does when meeting an
Animal or baby for the first time.

Sometimes
Those encounters turn out
All right, though there are always
Risks and rewards when meeting new people.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Day 9: Mother's Day

“Describe what you feel right now using your sense of smell.  If you feel frustrated, write about what your frustration smells like.  Use vivid words.  Don’t skimp on adjectives.”

Wow, what a great creative writing assignment for Mother’s Day!  What I mean is today has been something of an emotional rollercoaster for me in that it started with having to get up earlier than I wanted to because I was staying at my grandmother’s house and she’s a morning person.  (Actually, truth be told, it was my cousin turning on the shower which was next to the room was sleeping in that woke me up.)  So I started the day feeling grumpy, groggy, and generally ill-content, though I’m supposed to describe those feelings in smell.  So let’s see, the coffee was brewing when I woke up, so there’s that earthy, bitter, and spicy smell that everyone knows of that’s coffee brewing.  God, I love that smell.

After breakfast we needed to go to a hardware store because my dad wanted to get a cable splicer for my grandmother’s second TV.  Knowing my family, I wasn’t allowed out of the house until I had a bath.  So then there’s the smells of the bathroom: hand soap that’s floral yet synthetic at the same time, the minty freshness of toothpaste, and then the mixture of softness and freshness that can only be found in a freshly laundered bath towel.  Because my grandmother’s such a clean person, when you turn on the piping hot water in the bathroom, the stem permeates the room with the smell of vapor and cleaning products that tell you it’s really okay to sit down and soak in the tub if you need to.

Leaving my grandmother’s house this afternoon my cousin and I stopped at Bojangles to get some fresh-made biscuits.  You know that smell of fried anything?  Yeah, that’s pretty much the only smell you need to imagine to get the idea of what a Bojangles smells like.  And there’s the ride back home, which doesn’t smell like much of anything because the highway is pretty devoid of any kind of personality whatsoever.  Coming home is always nice because you feel like you belong, though my room is pretty messy at the moment so there’s definitely a little bit of funk in the air when entering my bedroom.  Granted it’s my funk, so I’m perfectly at home in it because I did make the bed I sleep in.

I’m recounting all of these things not only to make the ‘assignment’ a little easier to access, but also because it helps to demonstrate what I’m feeling at the moment.  I had a crazy 24-hour journey to visit my extended family, but more importantly it was an opportunity to honor moms.  I didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with my mom on this trip, but we had a great experience helping prepare dinner last night together (something she’s been doing longer than I’ve known her), but at least now I’m able to pick up some of the smaller nuances in the kitchen when I’m with her.  Last time I was home I was reminded that she hums in the kitchen when making food—something I’ve always heard but never really connected with my mom’s spirit—and last night I was able to see her in full glory commanding a kitchen and organizing a house full of hungry people.  Although providing for one’s family is one of those great, intangible measures that moms give us, being able to bask in that glory and be part of it is really one of the best experiences in my life.  Happy Mother’s Day to all moms!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Day 8: What Happened

“Make a list of 40 things that happened to you this month.  They can be funny, embarrassing, happy, or infuriating.  Then pick from your list and write about it.”

It’s really the simple pleasures in life.  I bought myself a Kindle to read on my commutes to and from work during the workweek.  Because anything that’s no longer copyrighted is essentially free to download on that thing, I had been reading some classics, such as Moby Dick.  But reading Capt. Ahab’s story was a little too dense for me to start reading at the beginning of my day, so I switched over to something a little lighter and definitely in the realm of pleasure reading.  The book that I picked up at some random trip to the bookstore (maybe when Borders was shutting down its stores?) and decided to read now is called “Living in a Foreign Language” http://www.amazon.com/Living-Foreign-Language-Memoir-Italy/dp/B002EQ9LJY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304770112&sr=8-1 which tells the story of an American couple moving to Central Italy to start a new chapter in their lives once their youngest kid has gone off to school.  Anyone want to move to Umbria with me?  I’m serious.

The fact that I read a travel book isn’t exactly noteworthy, since it’s kind of my go-to genre when I need some armchair adventures.  But it was just one of those perfect reads at the perfect time when I truly needed it that made it special.  It also incorporated my family quite well.  What I mean is my mom’s half Sicilian, and she and my dad spent a good five years in Italy not knowing if they were going to come back stateside.  They ultimately did, but there’s always been this part of them that speaks of their time there longingly.  I’m sure they wonder “what if” they had stayed.  So this book mostly talks about the aspects of Italy the couple find magical: the people, the history, the topography, and saving the best for last the food.

God, the food!  This is the kind of place where you have to ‘settle’ for white truffles in the summer, even though everyone knows the black winter truffles are the best.  And the author details going to numerous trips to different butcher shops that made me drooling like Pavlov’s dog by the time he finished—prosciutto so finely sliced it’s translucent, pizzas and gelato made better than you’ve ever had just waiting there on the streets of Rome, and copious amounts of wine beyond anyone’s imagination.  Okay, let’s not kid ourselves, I can imagine a lot.  Let’s just say the story my parents told me of the neighbors coming over with three bottles of wine for the two of them and then asking the next day which one they liked the best is dead on in this culture.  Wine, carbs, and pork products, what’s not to love??

The way the author writes really reminds me of how my dad recounts trips he takes.  One example: they go up to Quebec during Spring Break a couple years back.  Mom loves Quebec City because of the cobblestoned streets and European flavor of everything, while Dad’s memory focuses on the food.  “We had this amazing salmon dinner one night, and then these éclairs another day…”  It’s quite amusing to hear because I’m not quite sure they were on the same trip after hearing their two sides.  Okay, I’ve babbled enough.  Go read a book and get lost in your own adventure.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Day 7: Electricity

“Electricity is a recent discovery.  Think of 12 things to do when there’s no power.”

1)      Just because I was raised on Beavis and Butthead (against the expressed wishes of my parents, I might add), the first thing that pops into my mind is fornication.  You don’t need any light to do a little fornicatin’—be it with yourself or with anyone else—and it’s a good way to stay warm if the heat’s also out.
2)      For some reason, I always equate building a fire with a power outage.  Maybe it’s just that primeval security blanket thing, but I always want to build a fire.
3)      And if there’s a fire, what better thing to do that requires no energy at all but tell ghost stories?  Seriously, this is when you can get your creative juices flowing.  A favorite ghost story of mine comes from http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/02/scariest-story.html.  Like, this is poop your pants scary.
4)      Another way to get your creative juices flowing is to make a meal…out of only things that are in the pantry.  It can be as creative as roasting marshmallows over a candle to making a meal of pop-tarts and trail mix.  In a pinch, your pantry’s got some real treasures.
5)      I remember having a power outage a work one time.  We all just sat there staring blankly at our darkened computer screens still trying to click our mice when I got up to wander around to talk to people.  So that’s another thing you can do with no power: babble with co-workers.
6)      And speaking of wandering around, regardless of the time of day, if there’s no power you can go for a walk.  Walks are nice because you can let your mind wander, but it’s also fun in the dead of the night and there aren’t any streetlights.  It makes the scene quite eerie. 
7)      Playing board games don’t generally require power, unless you have some fancy new version of Trivial Pursuit I’m not aware of.
8)      Reading a book also doesn’t require any power, though the whole lighting situation may be tricky.  I really should just keep some candles around just in case.
9)      In this day of mobile telephonic devices, your cell phone doesn’t require external power immediately.  Call the power company to see what the crap is going on.
10)  Organize something.  This may not sound too exciting, but you know that project you’ve had about redoing your closet for the longest time?  Well without the Real Housewives of wherever-the-hell blaring from you TV, you could potentially tackle that project.
11)  I’m sure you’ve got something in your house that’s not electrically operated that you can use to occupy your mind.  For example, I’ve got a Lego pirate ship (yes, I’m that awesome).  I could EASILY see myself making the fair maiden walk the plank, or have the pirate crew set off on some wild adventure for hours if I felt the need.  Reconnect with your inner child and play.
12)  And finally, if your area doesn’t have any power, that may just be a localized thing.  Get in someone’s car and drive to another area of town—that area may not even realize that others are without power!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Day 6: More Poetry

"List down all the clichés you can think of, then choose one you’re most familiar with, or the one that strikes your fancy.  Make that the first line of your poem.  You can take the cliché literally or figuratively.”

Editor’s note: as one can probably imagine from my last entry, poetry isn’t exactly my forte.  Half of this whole experiment is to stretch those creative muscles a little more than they’re used to, so I suppose my whole poetic side needs a workout from time to time too.  Let’s see how this one works out.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
by: Noel Oakes

Nothing ventured, nothing gained
Something that’s been engrained into my head by now.
But what do we mean by venturing—
Out your door in the morning?  Trying something new?  Competing in the rat race?
It’s really just a question of finding what makes You.

What makes up all the qualities that are You?
Is it Your hair color, shoe size, or the fact that You don’t like asparagus?
Or is it something more, something more akin to Your thoughts and personality?
All of this is true and so much more.
Sit down, take a deep breath, close your eyes, see listen for You to start talking.

It’s a quiet, little voice, nothing more than a whisper,
But it’s also the most powerful compass You have in Your toolkit.
No one can say if it’s right or wrong.
But if you’re listening to You and the message resonates to Your core,
Accept Your love and continue listening.

What can You do with the information that’s gained from simply listening?
In one word: everything.
It is your portal to the rest of the universe. 
And what happens when You direct that energy to benefit others?
Only You can find out if You decide to venture…

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Day 5: Poetry

“Choose a poem you like.  Take the last line and use that as the first line of your own poem.” 

The poem I chose is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”  For the full text of the poem and an audio clip of its reading, go to: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377.  The last line of the poem is, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Rage, rage against the dying of the night
For tomorrow you may not continue as part of Earth’s blight.
Mother Earth is scarred by we humans’ deadly touch,
And only by our hand has the Earth been marred so much.

The end is near, or so they say.
However it ends, humankind has answers for which to pay.
But fear not my sister and brother,
As we all do come from one eternal mother.

Let us sing loud and have every voice heard!
Allow all to say their peace regardless of how absurd.
If we recognize that no [wo]man is better than the next,
Then maybe at the end we will all be allowed to rest.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Day 4: Cinderella

“Fairy tales have happy endings.  All of us know what happened in that mushy fairy tale, Cinderella.  Yeah, it’s romantic, the prince actually finding Cinderella.  They lived happily ever after.  But happy endings can sometimes be, well…boring.  No zing.  So predictable.  What if the shoe fit one of the sisters?  What happens then?  Play with your imagination here.  Be funny if you like.  Or serious if you feel like it.  Or be an Alfred Hitchcock.  Whatever you are into, write your ending to the Cinderella story—but this time, make it so that the shoe fit one of the icky sisters.  What does Prince Charming do?  How does Cinderella cope with it?  And what about the Fairy Godmother?  Start your story here.”

So let’s recap: Prince Charming is trying to find the girl of his dreams and comes across a glass slipper that an enchanting woman left behind after leaving the royal ball.  He’s now out searching the countryside looking for that woman and comes across the house where Cinderella, her to stepsisters, and the wicked stepmother all live.  Miraculously, the glass slipper fits perfectly on one of the stepsister’s feet, so he proposes to her immediately and they ride off into the sunset together leaving Cinderella, the other stepsister, and the wicked stepmother together again for eternity.

We’re going to say that this story is set in France because one of the first written accounts of this story was penned by a Frenchman.  (Actually, the Wikipedia page for Cinderella has some great history on where the story came from, so check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella.)  Prince Charming decides to take his new bride to Normandy to show off the magnificent cliffs and the charming little towns in order to show her that he is as strong, strapping, and masculine as the Normans who invaded Great Britain from these same beaches so many years ago.

The honeymoon was all fine and dandy and both are happily in love with one another—until they get back to Prince Charming’s castle.  The raving bitch rears her head and a maelstrom of forces comes down on the poor prince.  To get away from his psychotic harpy of a wife, the prince walks the castle grounds and meets up with one of his favorite servants, Groundskeeper Henri.  Henri’s been outside working all day and has just come back to his cabin to take his shirt off and relax for a moment.  Just as the shirt is coming off is when Prince Charming knocks on the door and realizes how beautiful Henri really is.  Unbeknownst to the prince, Henri has always had a soft spot in his heart for the prince too.

The two wine and dine together for many a night, keeping a respectable distance from one another as to keep things proper, when one day the prince has an idea.  He goes over to Henri’s cabin in the afternoon to start making dinner for the two of them, and when Henri comes back from the day’s labors, the prince proceeds to shove glass after glass of wine at the poor boy.  Being a Frenchman Henri obliges the prince until the prince comes over, grab’s Henri’s crotch, gives it a little pat, smiles, and walks away.  This was the signal Henri had been waiting for after all these years.  The two make passionate man-love all evening long and run away together the next day to Bordeaux to drink wine and fornicate together for the rest of their lives.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Day 3

“The dictionary atop your shelf has more than 200,000 words defined.  Why don’t you blow off some of the dust on its cover and randomly pick out 10 words?  Don’t look at the meanings; just concentrate on the words.  Write down your chosen words on a (blank) sheet of paper.  Now, you’re going to have fun creating meanings for those words.  What do the words make you think of?  What do you think they should mean?”

Editor’s note: The only dictionary I have after multiple moves across country is a French/German dictionary I picked up while studying abroad in Belgium.  Enjoy the selection!

1)      Écumoire:  one of those straw holders you see in diners that look not all dissimilar to the comb thermos things you see at barber shops.  Actual meaning: a skimming ladle, a skimmer.

2)      Frontalier: comes from the same word as “front,” as in All Quiet on the Western…which means the first wave of attack during a wartime movement.  Actual meaning: someone who lives near a border.

3)      Kippelig: literally translated I think this means “kibble-like,” so something that resembles dog food—something grainy, dry, and hard.  Actual meaning: wobbly.

4)      Mehlschwitze: I love that my German is so rusty because I used to know what these two separate words were, so I’m going to guess that “Mehl” is “mail,” as in the post, and “Schwitze” is something akin to a spinster.  So let’s call this a single, old mail carrier.  Actual meaning: a roux, as in a sauce of butter and flour, then with milk added.

5)      Morigéner: let’s see, this is something like a metamorphosis, specifically when a caterpillar changes from a pupa into a butterfly.  Actual meaning: to reprimand.

6)      Rapiécer: the action of rearranging furniture in a room.  Actual meaning: to patch.

7)      Rattrapage: all the soot and ash that’s collected under a fireplace.  Actual meaning: an economic (market) adjustment.

8)      Strapazierfähig: I know that “fähig” means “able,” so this word describes when one is able to get away with wearing a strapless bra.  Actual meaning: heavy duty.

9)      Unterkiefer: so literally this word means “under keeper,” so it’s got to be the opposite of an undertaker.  An underkeeper is someone who wipes your backside if you’re not able to do it yourself.  Actual meaning: the lower jaw, mandible.

10)  Verrenkung: is the quality in someone who’s naturally adept at climbing trees.  Actual meaning: a dislocation, as in to dislocate one’s shoulder.

A special thanks to http://www.wordreference.com/ and http://dict.leo.org/ for their lovely (and free) online dictionaries. 

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Day 2

“A picture is worth more than a blank page.  Take out those dusty photo albums.  Pick out photo #14.  Count however way you like, but make sure you stop at photo #14.  Look at the photo for 2-3 minutes.  Then for 10 minutes, write all the feelings that photograph made you feel.  Don’t censor yourself.  Just write.”

Let me just start this entry saying that looking at this photo made me giggle the minute I looked at it.  I had to go through a couple of different albums to find a picture I could (or wanted to) talk about.  Ultimately I came across a photo that just tells a story in my mind, which is ultimately what a picture is supposed to do, so it’s at the end of this entry for your viewing pleasure.

For a birthday a few years back, another friend had told me about a winter wine festival taking place in Sonoma County the very weekend of my birthday.  Because my birthday is in January, it’s typically colder than…well…anything I’d care to imagine, so we’ll just leave it at it’s usually REALLY cold.  That being said, this was my first winter in California where seasons don’t seem to work the same way as the rest of the world.  Wine country can get to the lower 90’s during the daytime and the evenings are cool and wonderful.  In other words, it’s pretty much heaven for someone like me because it stays like that all year round and you’re “forced” to explore the vine-covered countryside to look for your next tasting room.  I…er…hate when that happens?

In order to get back to the exercise at hand, I felt I needed to share a little back story about how this photo transpired.  The photo itself is of my two girlfriends—empty wine glass in hand—while posing for the camera after multiple tasting rooms.  I remember thinking (after multiple samples myself) how beautiful wine country really is.  Don’t get me wrong, another favorite place of mine from my childhood also revolves around vineyards, though not because of the wine itself, so I knew the power and beauty these kinds of places held on me.  But having wine IN wine country really completed the whole transcendental experience for me.  I was home, so I wanted to share this moment by capturing my two girls in this photo.

Another thing that comes to mind when looking at this photo is the love I have for these two women.  Emily, the one of the left, has had multiple personal issues in the past.  After taking control of those, she’s one of those who somehow decided not only to conquer them but then to set out for a course in life that couldn’t possibly lead to riches, but rather give her the satisfaction that she’s helping special needs children try to come to grip with their own personal demons.  She’s an inspiration to me for finding something that works for her and sticking with it, which shown me that you’re the only one who can live your own life and no one is going to tell you how to do it otherwise.

My other friend, Seda, is also an amazing role model/friend of mine.  She left her native Turkey for college and then grad school in the States, found a guy who has proved that he’ll travel the world to be with her, and has ultimately moved back to Turkey so she can be closer to her elderly grandparents while she still has the opportunity.  Here I am worrying about these little, meaningless things in my life when I have friends around me that take like by the horns and ride off into the sunset looking for the next adventure.  I want to join them.


Emily and Seda in Sonoma County


Day 1

“Close your eyes briefly.  Think about one object that’s in the room and focus on it.  Without opening your eyes, recall as much detail as you can about it.  After three minutes or so, open your eyes and write about that object without looking at it.”

I have a painting in my room that a friend of mine did simply for the practice that I was enamored with since the first time I saw it.  It’s the picture of a Thai drag queen whose photo my friend saw in a National Geographic magazine some years ago.  She cut the picture out of the magazine, taped it onto the canvas on which she was going to be painting, and then replicated this photo of the drag queen while she was performing on stage.  I wish I still had the original photo attached to the canvas because my friend really got the essence of what the original photographer was trying to capture, in terms of the energy and excitement exuding from this amazing drag queen persona.

The picture was a full body shot of the drag queen in her bright sunshine yellow and peach outfit on stage.  My friend decided to do a close-up of the drag queen’s upper body to focus on the face and the way her hands were folded.  The drag queen—we’ll call her Ti (“tee”) for truth—has this equally radiant smile on her face.  A smile I can only equate to a performer on stage in her element.  Any performer who has gotten on stage will do, as they all have that same I’m-back-home-again smile that just let’s you know you’re going to have a good time in their presence.  I suppose it’s the same kind of a smile a child has either on Christmas morning when they receive that one thing they were really hoping for, or when a parent who’s been away comes back home.  Either way, Ti’s got that smile.

Ti’s clothes are a light and flowing linen or silk—because when the different seasons change from hot, hotter, or hottest you need something that won’t cling to you while you’re working it on stage.  The clothes kind of drape over her and would flow down to the ground and sway in the breeze to give her skinny little body some semblance of some curves.  Her hair is pulled back into a bun or ponytail so you can see all of the laboriously applied makeup she’s so diligently used to highlight her cheekbones and to set back the clock a few years.  The eye shadow is something reminiscent of the 70’s and for some reason ABBA come into mind as a frame a reference for this not-quite Thai hooker look she’s got going on.

The one hand we can see is turned up in mid pose that’s either been choreographed for the number she’s performing, or simply is that way because Ti knows the stage and how her body moves to maximize the effect of whatever she’s trying to show the audience.  Her hand’s turned up in a way you could put a tray of drinks on it and they’d stay level, though Ti is far too glamorous to ever be a cocktail waitress…again.  No, she’s here to entertain and her mostly local audience (her show’s done in Thai) adore her and she’s found her niche in life.  She’s always been an entertainer and on stage is the only place she feels like she’s home and at peace in the world. 

Introduction

My life seems to be in a state of constant flux right now, and I've found that during other times of upheaval journaling has helped me sort out the thoughts running through my head.  Although I don't consider this project a journal per se, I did want to share this particular experience with the world because it shows--I hope--that we can all reinvent ourselves at any given point.  I'm also curious to see what lessons I can learn from this whole project.

I found online the other day a website that gives out prompts for creative writing assignments.  Before I go any further, I want to make an explicit shout out to http://creativewritingprompts.com/ for planting the seed of this assignment in my head.  Because I have some new-found extra time on my hands, I'm hoping to write as many of these different prompts I can and see what stores pop up.  And because I haven't done any kind of creative writing in the past (except for those assignments in Middle and High School), I decided to simply start at prompt #1 and go down the list. 

This exercise isn't meant for final production, nor do I intend to do anything more with it than simply allowing those who wish to take a glimpse at the hopeful progress that I'm making throughout the length of the project.  This is just another outlet to express oneself and I hope the outcome is enlightening and pleasurable for both the reader and the author.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy your featured presentation!