13 posts tagged “qotd”
How do you beat writer's block?
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.
I'm not really sure I believe in Writer's Block. There is "I don't really feel like writing, but admitting that doesn't sound as dramatic and serious as 'I'm suffering from writer's block.'" And there's "I really want to write. In fact, that's all I want to do. I don't want to go outside or do a damned thing worth writing about, and unfortunately - for the moment - I've run out of things to say, so that every drop of ink wrung from my pen looks like something the cat barfed up while walking across the keyboard. In fact, the cat wrote a whole novel last night and is currently tying up the phone line, talking to his agent. I wonder if Fluffy needs a manager?" There are other manifestations, of course, but most are variations on a theme. Some involve intense fear: Fear of failure, or fear of success. A good walk to clear the head, or time spent on an unrelated hobby (photography, drawing, playing a sport, building model ships and shoving them into bottles - whatever floats your boat) may help. Some involve a lack of skill or talent that can only be cured, really, through training and practice. Apply butt to chair. Write. Repeat. Enroll in a class, if necessary. Or find other things to do with your time. Maybe you don't really want to write, but someone's sold you on the notion that you must, in order to be a true citizen of the new Millennium. And if you just really feel a need to wear a beret and a turtleneck and sip black coffee in a coffee shop and scribble notes on napkins so as to be mistaken for a writer, go ahead; I won't tell.
You're not a failure in life if you're not a writer.
Some of us can't really do anything else competently, and rely on our words to support us and help build our retirement funds. But we have days when we don't feel like writing, too. We have days when we feel we've run out of things to say - or rather, things we think anyone cares to read. Amazingly, I earn a pretty decent income writing things I know only about three people on the planet want to read. Product manuals. Technical documentation. Next time you sneer and curse at the nameless author of a user's guide, you'll have a face to imagine behind it. Mind you, if it sucks eggs, I didn't write it; I don't do tech support, so don't call me when your toaster starts speaking in tongues and turns your bread into oatmeal.
It's hard to be "blocked" when writing instructions for using a piece of equipment. But that's my day job. By night, I'm an intrepid storyteller and poet (when I'm not cooking dinner for five; helping my 5th Grader with his homework, refereeing fights between him and his sister, or getting into one myself; writing in my blog; or walking, taking photos, engaging in other creative pursuits, and telling myself I don't believe in writer's block).
We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us*
I do believe in the evil inner critic. Sometimes, she masquerades as my evil inner Muse. Sometimes, giving her a good, swift kick in the teeth will jump-start a stalled brain, spur my itchy fingers into action, and result in a pretty decent yarn. Sometimes, it just results in my throwing myself across the living room couch, popcorn in hand, with no more resolve or strength of will than what's required to flip through channels and see what's on the telly.
Never mind all that. Facing down the evil inner critic - nay, making him or her the object of ridicule and creatively imagined torment - is a great way to forcibly shove aside this thing called "writer's block," because nine times out of ten, either you just don't want to write for whatever reason, or you're falling victim to the voice of the evil inner critic. She says, "You're not good enough. What do you think you're doing, mucking around with this 'writing' thing?" Or he berates you, "What a load of insipid tripe! You're really going to commit that to paper and let the world know what a fool you are?" Hogwash, all of it.
Well all have one. Perhaps you're due for a little chat with yours. If nothing else, it's great practice in creating characters and writing dialogue, so some good ought to come of it. Here's a flashback from 2004, my fourth attempt at that Marathon novel-writing session known as "National Novel Writing Month," or "NaNoWriMo" (which still sounds a lot like something a tired novelist says on November 29th: "Naaaah, no wri' mo'...me sleep now"). Ironically, the only novel I ever attempted and completed was my first, in 2001. Doesn't matter...I had a lot more fun with this one.
Prologue
I seriously thought about quitting.
Then I recaptured the true spirit of NaNoWriMo. I remembered what it was all about: to write a truly hideous novel of 50,000 words in 30 days.
"Nobody said nothin' about 'publishable.' Nobody ever suggested that a 30-day novel should be 'great lit-rah-chure' (Gesundheit!)" my Muse snickered.
"What was I thinking, to put such expectations on myself at a time like this, when all the world's gone mad around me?" I cried, throwing a forearm dramatically over my forehead and letting out a piteous wail.
"That's the spirit."
My Inner Editor foamed at the mouth. Only, the foam came out the bitch's nose, since my Muse had had the foresight to bind up her mouth with duct tape.
"Look, you're an overachiever, but you're a burnt-out overachiever seriously in danger of looking like she's got a bug up her ass. So write this one just for fun. And if you must compete, consider it your entry into the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest next year." The Muse shrugged.
"That's just supposed to be one sentence," I said. I was pouting. I had my heart set on writing great lit-rah-chure.
"So write a novel that gives you nothing but hard choices as to which sentence you should enter."
"There are multiple categories," I said, warming to the idea. "I could have 'em all covered, by the time I'm done."
"There you go. Enter in every category. Just be sure to win a 'Dishonorable Mention' for me."
"I'll do it!" I sprang to my feet, energized. It took less than a NaNoSecond for reality to sink in. "Oh, God, I'm so far behind. All I have so far is three death scenes and an aborted suicide."
You can imagine the withering look my Muse gave me.
"I know that, Dear. It's pretty fucking pathetic, if you ask me." She picked up my daughter's TI-83 calculator and pushed some buttons at random. "Don't think of it as 'behind.' Think of it as an adjustment, from 1667 words a day to 2800 words a day. You can do that, can't you? I mean...if you're enjoying yourself."
"Can I use this conversation?" I asked. I was reluctant to admit it; it seemed so...puerile. But I was beginning to enjoy myself. Guilty pleasures are always the best kind.
"No."
"Will you take that thing away?" I asked, pointing at the Inner Editor. The IE growled and struggled against the ropes that bound her to her ergonomically-correct office chair. Gleefully, I smacked her over the head with an ergonomic keyboard, breaking the device in two. I dumped it into her lap.
"Absolutely." My Muse poured two glasses of cheap cream sherry and we raised them in a toast. "To fingering Bulwer-Lytton's proboscis in April!"
"Here, here."
"Isn't that 'hear, hear'?" squeaked the Inner Editor, who had managed to bite through the duct tape with her jagged fangs.
"Good God. Does 'anal-retentive' have a hyphen?" sneered my Muse. Grabbing She-Who-Inspires-Writers-to-Write-Heinous-Scenes-of-Gruesome-Torture by the neck, my Muse saluted me and disappeared. The Evil One vanished, too, and I could breathe again.
I sat down to write...and this is what my pen barfed up.
Excerpt: The Muse and the Critic
Bob grabbed his laptop from the back room, and plugged it in. He settled into a comfy armchair and began to cogitate. The harder he thought, the fewer ideas occurred to him.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Bob looked up from the laptop. “Hey! Your hair’s on fire!” He started to jump up from his chair, but she pushed him back into it. “Lady, your hair is on fire!”
“It’s always like this, Bob.” She laughed.
Bob looked around frantically. Some crazy woman had set her hair on fire. With a little bad luck, she’d take Rayne’s shop with her - probably burning Rayne and Bob in the process. And yet, she was alarmingly calm about her flaming hair. Where the hell was Rayne?
“Relax, Bob. She can’t see or hear me. Only you can.”
The woman was insane. Either that, or Bob was insane. Had to be one or the other, he mused. Had to be. And that’s when he noticed that the hot-headed, almond-eyed stranger was a cross between Angelina Jolie and Pele, Goddess of Fire, dressed in a sleek black, skin-tight, flame-retardant bodysuit. Bob couldn’t help but lick his lips. She was the woman of his adolescent fantasies. She laughed. Bob concluded that he was the one losing his marbles. The woman didn’t exist. “Damn,” he muttered. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am!” said the woman, laughing. “I’m your so-called Muse. I’ve been looking over your shoulder since you were fourteen.”
“You’ve been what?” Bob looked up in horror. When he was fourteen, he’d figured out an easy way to forestall the urges that threatened to overcome him each time he laid eyes on a girl. It was a solitary pleasure, one he knew better than to do where others could watch. The thought of this creature looking over his shoulder…” He shuddered.
“Oh, Christ, Bob… I’m talking about your writing, idiot.” She ruffled his hair.
Bob groaned. She may not have watched over his shoulder constantly, but she could read his mind. That was just as bad.
“You created me, remember?” Her voice sounded smooth as silk and burned like whiskey. Bob felt dizzy.
Bob vaguely remembered doodling sketches of this woman - his supposed Muse - on his History spiral back in high school. Implausibly large boobs, curvaceous hips, a dancer’s legs, stiletto heels…but he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember flames for hair. Took some getting used to, but the warmth her tresses gave off was helping to dispel the tremors in his hands.
“Bob, you’re shaking like you’ve got the DTs.”
“I’m, um, wow. Yeah. Yeah,” Bob looked stupidly at his hands. The tremors spread up his shoulders and down his spine. He was ice-cold, and yet his skin burned.
“Bob, get a grip.”
Bob did just that. He gripped the armrests of the chair in which he was sitting. He gripped the faux hide of nauga until his knuckles turned a ghastly shade of white. “Could you - not - do that?” he asked, prying one hand loose long enough to point at the Muse’s hair.
“Whatever floats your boat, Bob.” Suddenly, an auburn-haired Angelina Jolie sat in the chair opposite Bob, and looked far less threatening than the incandescent goddess who’d stood before him a moment earlier. “Is this better?”
Bob nodded. “What’s your name?” It felt bizarre, having a conversation with what had to be a hallucination, albeit a gorgeous one.
“Fred.”
“Fred?”
“You named me Fred, Bob. It’s not my job to explain why you named me Fred.”
Given the thoughts Bob was having about the illusory Fred, this was disconcerting news, to say the least. He scratched his head, trying to remember why in the name of God he would have named this woman “Fred.”
“Frederica?” he asked, voice full of hope.
“No, Bob. Fred. Just plain Fred.”
“Sorry. You don’t look like a Fred.”
“Never did, Bob.”
Bob cringed. “And I was fourteen, you say?”
“That’s right, Bob. Fourteen.” Fred shook her head and looked down at her well-endowed chest. “Gads, I wish you’d learned to write when you were ten, or waited until you were twenty-something.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Fred hefted her breasts with both hands. “Only a fourteen-year-old boy would endow his Muse with such…gifts.”
Fred’s hair burst into flame, sending Bob burrowing deeper into his armchair. “I’m sorry?”
“No, I can see that you’re not,” said Fred, her hair still smoldering. “So let’s cut the crap, Bob. You have a novel to write.”
“I do?”
“You see the problem with being a Muse created by a fourteen-year-old boy? It’s distracting, Bob. It’s keeping me from being all I’m meant to be.” Fred looked mildly annoyed, but at least her hair didn’t burst into flames. Bob was relieved.
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. You’re just all fascinated because you can actually see me, and I look like some prepubescent fantasy doll…”
“No, no - I understand how that could be a hindrance. I’m sorry. I - I think I’ve matured since then.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Have to!” Bob was not about to sit here and be insulted by his own Muse. “Why, I--“
“Bob, get real. That deal you made with the cops, earlier? That was real mature.” Fred rolled her eyes.
“Oh, Rayne’s a good sport, she’ll--“
“Bob, do you have any idea how many guys are on the force? Rayne won’t be able to walk for a week if she makes good on her end of the deal.”
Bob snickered. Fred’s hair began to crackle and spark. He quickly tried to look contrite.
“Sir? Sir!”
Bob woke with a start. A little old lady was leaning over him, smelling of lavender and potato chips. “Wha--?”
“Your laptop’s about to slip off your lap. I think you dozed off. Didn’t want it to fall on the floor, you know.”
Bob grabbed his laptop computer just in time to save it sliding off his thighs and onto the ceramic tile floor, where it would surely have broken into tiny bits. Although that might have saved Bob considerable trouble, it was an expensive toy he could hardly afford to replace, given his and Rayne’s recently precarious financial position. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Very kind of you.” He blinked a few times and rubbed the sleep sand from his eyes with his knuckles.
“No problem, son. No problem at all. Say, I couldn’t help but wonder what you were working on that put you so soundly to sleep. I suffer insomnia, you see. I’d love to learn your secret.” The old biddy chuckled.
Bob yawned. With his hands firmly grasping his prized possession, Bob was unable to stifle himself. His mouth opened wide. The only difference between Bob and a yawning cat was the cat’s needle-sharp fangs. And claws. And tail. But the yawn was similar, and from the look on the old lady’s face, she was a cat fancier. “Sorry. I was working on my, er, book. I’m a writer. Sort of a writer. I’m working on a novel. In my spare time, you know.”
“Ahhh. Yes, a writer. How nice for you, dear. And what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I, uh, my wife and I, we run this shop.”
“Looks to me like she’s doing all the running. I’m Edna, by the way. And you would be…?”
“Bob. Very nice to meet you, Edna.”
“Really? That’s a first. Most people aren’t pleased. Not pleased at all.” Edna sat down in the chair across from Bob, a chair warmed, just moments before, by the enigmatic Fred.
“I can’t imagine that, Edna. You seem like such a kind soul.”
“Not at all, Bob,” said Edna. Her expression hardened as she pulled out her knitting. Her fingers moved deftly as the needles clicked and clacked. Knit and perl, perl and knit…Edna seemed hell-bent to burn her name into the Guinness Book of World Records by knitting what appeared to be a dingy gray and red woolen scarf in under three point two seconds.
“Why’s that, Edna?”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Should I?” Bob squinted to get a better look at Edna. Five foot two, maybe one hundred thirty pounds, Edna looked like somebody’s grandmother. A third grade teacher, perhaps, with her tightly-curled indigo hair. Bob had never understood why elderly schoolmarms insisted on dying perfectly good white or gray hair a hideous shade of blue that never would have occurred to Mother Nature to create from scratch. That’s it! Third grade teacher… Of course! Edna must have been one of Bob’s teachers.
“Oh, worse than that, Bob,” said Edna, as if reading his mind. “Your third grade teacher was a dear, sweet old woman. She didn’t have the heart to give you the D you deserved on that science report, so she gave you a C and package of crayons to soften the blow.”
Bob swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
“Edna Jacobi Pringleheimer-Smith. I’m your worst nightmare,” hissed Edna. Her eyes were dark and beady, but they smoldered with hate. “I’m your inner critic, Bob. I am a part of you.”
Bob suddenly had an urge to hum, but he felt his blood run cold. “Can Rayne see you?”
“Only if I want her to, Bob. You wouldn’t like that, would you? You’d like for her to think that you were a capable, talented man…”
“I suppose,” said Bob, trying to stifle another yawn. “What the hell is that?” Bob reached for the woolen scarf that was growing, in faster, tighter rows.
“It’s an afghan, Bob.”
“It looks like--oh, Good Christ, woman! That’s my third-grade report card.”
“Tsk, tsk. Says here you got a big fat F in English. Bob, English is your native language. You’d have to be dumb as a rock to flunk English.”
“Mrs. Denhameyer didn’t like me.”
“Didn’t like you? Didn’t like you? What sort of asinine excuse is that, Bob? Ranks right up there with ‘my mother beat me and my father drank,’ in my opinion. Cut the crap.”
“It’s true! She hated me.”
“No one hates a third grader, Bob. You’re delusional, to boot. But never mind that. Why aren’t you working on that stupid novel of yours? I mean, it’s not like you’re helping your wife out, there.”
* Walt Kelly, in the comic strip Pogo (1971).
You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit?
Submitted by Tina.
It wasn't my fault my mom refused to let me wear knee socks and insisted on dressing me in cute clothes and little white ankle socks. I took a lot of teasing for that. Ironically, little white ankle socks were all the rage when my daughter was in school. I cringed to buy them for her, but she insisted. Those damned socks haunt me to this day.
Okay, I'll admit to making a few "whoopses" on my own. This might be considered one:
I thought it was cute.
Damn. My eighteen-year-old just looked over my shoulder and told me how pretty I was. She thinks it's a good look. Guess I'll have to search harder...
Oh, I know - how about the time my hair exploded? Does exploding hair count as a fashion disaster?
It should. Glad I found this; K. was wondering why she shouldn't get her hair permed. I think I just made my point, don't you?
Hmm...
Can't find any pictures of me wiggling my toes in toe socks. Besides, I'll never admit those were a "fashion disaster." Quirky fashion statement or expression of herd-animal individuality, perhaps. Whatever they were, those rainbow striped toe socks just need to come back. Now.
Can't find any pictures of me in little white ankle socks and I'm admittedly not lookin' real hard to find pictures of me in my middle-school uniforms. Most of these albums are full of pictures of my kids. I spent way too much time hiding behind the camera, on the wrong side of the lens, here. There are whole years of my evolution as a less-than-fashionable woman missing. Oh, here we go! WTF is this?
This, folks, is what happens when you start focusing on the kids, and forget to do a reality check in the mirror. Remember "Units"? Well, that's what's on the bottom half, anyway. The top half is a cute little striped maternity shirt. Yes, that baby's about four months old, right there - so why in the name of all that's holy am I wearing a maternity shirt with Units? Because it struck me funny that the shirt perfectly matched a striped onesie (not pictured here) that someone bought for my daughter, that's why. If you ever needed a reason to eschew mothers and daughters dressing alike, here you go. I suppose my excuse for wearing the Units pants and cummerbund is that I wanted to prove something, to someone (posterity?) that I had, in fact, lost most of the baby weight and regained my waist. Sadly, there's still that weird bulge on my right thigh...
And I've got the weird hair thing going on, again.
I don't think it was but a year or so later when my long-suffering hairstylist said to me, "Play with your hair color. Get highlights. Get a whole new cut. But if you get one more perm, I swear to G-d I'm not your hairstylist anymore." I finally learned my lesson. Straight hair is good. Straight hair is sexy. Straight hair is a whole lot less likely to leave you feeling like your hair exploded.
Here you go - here's the only excuse good enough to excuse that fashion disaster:
I guess that excuses a lot of things. Sorry, Baby. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
You're trapped in a (temporarily) out of order elevator - who would you like to be trapped with?
Submitted by tbtissimus.
I'm not the least bit claustrophobic in the classic sense. The only things that will trigger an urge to bloody my hands clawing my way out are a stuffy nose, crowds, and traffic. Elevator's stuck? I see that as an excuse for a few minutes' peace and quiet. Preferably alone.
People have a tendency to panic in stuck elevators. Ever been stuck on a crowded one? Ever panicked in one? With me? It ain't pretty. Prepare to be knocked out cold for your own good. Where's that little trap door in the ceiling they're always showing us in the movies? It's not there; I've looked. On the other hand, if I'm alone on the stuck elevator, I laugh. I pick up the phone - provided there is a phone. (Funny how there's often nothing but a cord and a few bare wires - makes you wonder about the last person who got stuck on there, doesn't it?) I call to report the malfunction. I settle in to wait.
These days, an elevator malfunction rarely takes more than five or ten minutes to fix. That's not even time to get comfy with a good book. I prefer to be stuck in an elevator with windows. No Muzak, please. For the love of all that's holy, no. Just silence, and a window, and a good book.
I was stuck on an elevator at work, once, with my dad an another coworker. That's okay - the elevator was built to carry fifteen, so three's not a crowd and I liked these three. One of us was feeling silly and jumped, hard. Much to our mutual surprise, it worked. The elevator descended about an inch. My dad was on the phone with security and the elevator repairman. They were down in the lobby, ten floors below us. Waiting. We jumped. All three of us. We jumped again. With each jump, we inched our way down ten floors. We sounded like a small herd of circus elephants practicing tricks in the elevator. Boom! Boom! Ba-boom! (We were out of synch that time.) "Okay, on three: one, two, three..." Boom! By the time we reached the bottom, we were all giggling our fool heads off. So were the security guards, who knew us well. The elevator repairman was just shaking his head in disbelief; I don't think he'd ever seen three people in suits bring a stuck elevator to the ground floor quite that way before. And the puzzled looks from people who had heard all the commotion, but had no clue what was going on...well, we were laughing too hard to explain it to them. Coworkers later asked, "Wasn't that dangerous? Weren't you afraid?" Beats me. Nope.
I was a mischievous kid. We lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, from the time I was thirteen until I was sixteen. My grandparents would come visit, and they would stay a month or two at a time. Sometimes they'd stay longer. They'd rent a room at the La Playa hotel, right on the beach. I'd visit, use the pool, play on the beach (never mind that we lived just a block away, on the beach, ourselves - it was more fun to hang out with my grandparents). One day, I discovered that the wind coming up from the beach entrance would whoosh up the elevator shaft strong enough to push against the doors and cause the elevator to stop between floors. You could take your hands and gently push the elevator doors together, and it would start again. Good safety device, but it was a bit odd when nothing but wind coming up the shaft triggered it. Like...ghosts.
And being thirteen, the limitless possibilities for using and abusing this knowledge immediately played out in my imagination. I'd wait until there was a whole elevator full of sand-covered tourists dripping saltwater on the elevator floor. (This is why the hotel plumbing clogs.) I'd stand near the door, with my back to it, chattering as inanely as any thirteen year old in a bikini is wont to do. "Where are you from? Oh, cool. Having fun?" Meanwhile, I'd slip my thumb between the elevator doors, and ka-thunk! The elevator would thud to a stop. Whoooosh! The doors would pop open. On our side. Of course, I'd time it so we were between floors, and trapped. Nothing scarier to the claustrophobic than staring at the inside of the wrong side of the outside elevator doors.
"Oh, my gosh!"
"Oh, NO! We're stuck!"
"I hate elevators."
"Oh, don't worry," I'd say. "It happens. I think I can get it going again, maybe. Saw this once in a movie. Stand back--" And I would reach out, place my palms flat against the metal surface of the doors, and PUSH - it was a Herculean effort, I tell you, taking nothing short of an awe-inspiring, adrenaline surge of effort from a willowy child of thirteen or fourteen - I'd push them together, and seconds later, the mechanism would restart and we would be on the move again.
It didn't take much to entertain me, those days.
"Thank you so much!" The relief was palpable. Even from the big, burly guys. People are such wienies.
"Glad I could help. Have a great vacation!" Y'all come back again soon, too, y'hear?
-------------------------
"What's the matter? Don't you want to get on the elevator with me? There's plenty of room."
Muahahahahahahahah!
How many bones have you broken? Yours or someone else's?
None. But back in Third Grade, I did reduce the class bully to tears by telling him he'd broken my finger back in First Grade. See, I'm "double jointed." No, that doesn't mean I can roll two joints with one hand, or be in two seedy dives at once. It means I have loose, overly flexible ligaments. In grade school, I could bend my index fingers backwards almost 90 degrees at the middle joint. Like this:
Only...more. Anyway, back in First Grade, Wes had grabbed my finger and pulled it backwards, towards my wrist, making me howl in pain. He and his friends thought it hilarious. I decided, then and there, that boys were mean. By Third Grade, we were all in for a lesson.
Wes saw my funny, flexible finger one day. He'd forgotten all about me and all about tormenting me in First Grade. I hadn't forgotten - the memory of that wrenching pain and humiliation was still fresh in my mind. "How do you do that?" he asked, staring at my rubbery finger with a mixture of horror and fascination.
"Well, it's not like I do it on purpose, Wesley," I said, mustering a tone that was both dejected and scornful. "You remember back in First Grade, when you grabbed my finger and bent it backwards? You broke it, Wes."
"I did?"
"Yes. And it never healed right. My family couldn't afford the doctor's bills, so my dad set it with an old pencil and some duct tape, but it healed crooked. See?" I held it up in front of Wesley's nose.
He stared at my finger. He looked at me. He looked back at my finger. "I'm so sorry!" he wailed. And suddenly, there were big tears spilling down Wesley's cheeks. Oh my G-d... Suddenly I knew what it was to bully the class bully, and I did not like it. You'd think I would enjoy the satisfaction of revenge, after all this time - making Wes cry right there in the middle of class, in front of his friends, making him suffer some of the guilt for some of the pain he'd caused me in First Grade, but I was the one who felt the full burden of guilt that day.
"Oh, forget it, Wes. My finger's fine." I showed him what I could do with the other nine fingers:
Wes sniffled. "Wow. Cool." He called some of his friends over. This was just gross enough that the boys found it fascinating. I was no longer an icky girl. I had talents they could respect and admire.
"I'm sorry, Wes."
"For what?"
"For lying. For making you think you broke my finger."
"Oh. Yeah, that was pretty mean," he said, smiling. Like he wished he'd thought of it first. "I'm sorry I bent your finger backwards in First Grade."
"Okay. I forgive you."
What word(s) do you always make a typo in?
Funny you should ask. I was just typing up a comment on someone else's blog, when I turned to my husband and said, "I hate, hate, hate this fucking word! How the Hell do you spell 'broccoli'?" Ironically, English is his second language and my first; I majored in English - "Rhetoric and Writing," if you want to sound snotty about it - and he majored in Chemical Engineering. Damn it, though - he can usually finish the New York Times crossword puzzle faster than I can, unless there are a whole slew of French and Latin words to fill in.
"B - R - O - C - C - O - L - I," he said.
"Two C's, one L?" I asked. It no longer looks "right" to me either way.
"Yep. I remember it by thinking of it as 'brock collie.'"
"That could work. Nasty, stupid word. Like... E. Coli, only 'Brock Coli.'" Nasty, stupid word - killer bacteria. Works for me. Great mnemonic, there. I can spell mnemonic, by the way, but not broccoli. Doesn't get much dumber than that. Let's see if I can get this one without looking it up: floccinaucinihilipilification.
Yep. Spelled that right on the first try, too. B - R - O - C - C - O - L - I. Brock Coli. I refuse to be done in by a vegetable!
What's something that you're really proud of, which most people in your life don't know about?
Submitted by CosmicBabe.
The morning we started the walk, it was chilly - maybe 60 degrees - and I was dressed in jeans, thick socks, tennis shoes, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. I carried a lightweight backpack with a different pair of shoes, and hoped to be carrying the sweatshirt if the day got warmer.
Instead, less than 5 miles into the walk, it started to rain. By 7 miles, it was snowing. By 10 or 12 miles, it was snowing HARD, and another walker - a teenaged boy - and I huddled together in doorways of downtown Akron businesses for warmth. We couldn't see anyone walking ahead of us or behind us, and assumed that most had given up. We were tempted to give up, but neither of us were quitters and I guess we were full of adrenaline. One thing was certain, though - we had to get warm and dry, and I had to get a change of clothes, or we were going to die.
We looked down the side street; the only business that appeared to be open was the Chat Noir Lounge. We shuddered at the neon sign and decided that was no place for us - especially as it was about a block off the main route and no one was likely to find us there if we ran into trouble. Our only other choice was the no-tell motel nearby. The clerk was gay and openly so; he was also quite gracious about letting two sopping wet, half-frozen kids use the phone and sit in the lobby, dripping onto the vinyl chairs and linoleum floor.
We waited while my parents brought me a change of clothes; I dressed in the back seat of their car. My legs were blue from the dye on my jeans; the jeans had frozen stiff and stuck to my legs, cracking at the knees each time I bent them. My parents explained that the March of Dimes was giving the full 20 miles' credit to anyone who managed to make it to the 15 mile mark, in view of the horrible weather and hardship involved in making it that far.
The young man with me - I don't know that we ever exchanged names - and I decided that wouldn't be quite fair. My parents agreed, though they'd have preferred to take me home right then and there, and to heck with claiming 15 miles, let alone 20. So we trudged onward, though knee deep snow. We checked in at the 15 mile mark, and kept trudging. At 18 miles, the sun came out. I stopped at Wendy's for a burger; the young man went on, knowing that if he stopped again, his legs would quit working. I hurried to catch up, after wolfing down a double with cheese.
We both made it, and claimed our 20 miles. I saw him briefly, at the mall; we grinned at each other and hugged, as if we'd survived a war. I never saw him again. I was especially proud to collect on my pledges that year, knowing I'd really EARNED every penny. I was 12 years old at the time.
Consider the source
There's a little game I refuse to play. It's called, "You can't be friends with me if you're friends with [fill in the blank]!" My stock answer to that is, "Fine, I'm sorry you feel that way. I guess we can't be friends." I don't care if the person saying it is my best friend at the time, and [fill in the blank] is someone I hardly know.
I also learned, back in grade school, not to judge someone based on others' opinions. Oh, granted, others opinions hold some sway; I may be more cautious in getting to know someone if I've been given specific reasons to be, or I may be more open if people I trust and respect speak highly of the person. I can also be persuaded by facts - like rap sheets. But opinions and hearsay have no power.
The Witch
One Halloween, my friends and I dressed up and met on the road to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It was a small, close-knit village; my mom had grown up there, too, and many of my friends were children of her school friends. None of us could make a move without it getting back to our parents, so we were all pretty well behaved. And the neighborhood was safe; we were allowed to roam, mostly unsupervised, for several blocks at night, ringing doorbells and begging for candy, provided we only went to houses that had their porch lights on.
Just around the corner from my house, there was an older wooden home set back from the road, almost within reach of the railroad tracks. I'd never been there before, on Halloween, but the light was on so I started up the sidewalk. My best friend, Mary, and her sister, Val, stopped me.
"You can't go there!"
"Why not?"
"Because that woman's a witch. She hates kids. She's got a gun, and she'll shoot you. And she's got a guard dog. He's mean. He'll eat you."
I thought this was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, but they were quite serious, judging by their wide eyes and pale faces. They tugged at my sleeve and tried to drag me away from the house. "The light's on," I said.
"So?"
"Well, wouldn't the light be OFF if she didn't want us to come to the door?"
"She'll shoot you with her gun. She'll sic her dog on you."
I pulled free and marched right up to the front door. Val hung back, on the road, ready to run for help. Mary timidly joined me. I rang the bell.
The door opened, and the woman who answered it peered out at us through Coke-bottle glasses that made her eyes seem three times larger than normal. "Hello," she said. She looked like somebody's grandma.
"Trick or treat!" I said.
"Oh, do come in. You're the first trick-or-treaters I've had all night. I was afraid no one was coming!" Her dog, a tiny little bundle of energy and enthusiasm, pressed his nose to the door and wagged his tail. "I'm Mrs. Morgan. And you are…?" She opened the door and we introduced ourselves. We stepped into a well-lighted foyer, where card tables were covered with little cups full of apple cider and plastic bags filled with homemade cookies. There were enough treats, there, for all the neighborhood kids.
Mary and I looked at each other. How could we tell this sweet old lady that the other children wouldn't be coming? That the word on the street was, she was a mean old hag who liked to shoot kids and feed their bones to her dog? I bent down to pet the vicious mutt. He licked my hand.
We couldn't do it. We drank some cider, took a bag or two of cookies, and told Mrs. Morgan we had to go - but that we'd be back.
After knocking some sense into Val and goading her into walking up to Mrs. Morgan's house for cookies, herself, the three of us made the rounds and told everyone that they'd better go to the "witch's house" or be branded chickens and idiots for life. We showed them the cookies they'd be missing if they didn't. We told them all about the nice old lady and her yappy little furball "guard dog." I think we made her night.
Mary and I became frequent visitors at Mrs. Morgan's house after that, bringing her flowers from our gardens: bright yellow branches of forsythia, fragrant purple lilacs, red and pink tulips, and the occasional sticky, ant-covered peony bouquet. She always seemed delighted to see us, and spent hours telling us about herself, her family, her dog, and the history of the little town we were growing up in. She had an old-fashioned crank telephone and lots of antiques. Her house was one of the original resort homes back around the turn of the century, when the whole village was a resort and amusement park.
I finally confessed to my mom that I had befriended the woman everyone had said was a witch, despite worrying a little that my mom would be mad I'd spent so much time talking to a "stranger." She laughed, and told me she knew Mrs. Morgan - who, Mom said, seemed old back when she was a kid. The kids had called Mrs. Morgan a witch back then, too, and Mom was glad I'd discovered the truth for myself.
The Bitch
Each year, on the last day of school, we were told who our teacher would be the following year. I was delighted to be moving on to Second Grade, but terrified by the news that my teacher would be Mrs. Hansen.
"Oh, she's mean."
"She hates kids."
"You won't like her. She's strict."
I went home in tears and begged my mother to call the school. I just couldn't have the dreaded Mrs. Hansen next year - for a whole year. After all, she was mean. And I had worked myself into a state: my eyes were red and puffy, my cheeks stained with tears, my whole body heaving with sobs at the utter injustice of it all. I knew my mom would come to my aid and save me from a fate worse than death. After all, we had moved so that I wouldn't have my awful Kindergarten teacher in First Grade. (That's another story for another time; suffice it to say that the woman truly did dislike me and actively worked to make me miserable. Furthermore, she "kidnapped" our entire class - okay, not kidnapped, exactly, but she took us on an unauthorized field trip to the donut shop on the city bus, because for some unfathomable reason she decided a class full of Kindergarteners needed to learn how to use public transportation. So yeah, my parents had reason to move when they learned she'd been "promoted" to First Grade at the same time I was.)
This time, though, my mom just smiled. "Have you met this Mrs. Hansen?"
"No. But everyone says she's mean."
"How would you feel if everyone said horrible things about you, called you mean, and people believed them, without getting to know you first?"
This was a trick. I knew it. I just wasn't smart enough to avoid it. "Pretty bad, I guess."
"Would that be fair?"
"No."
"Isn't that what you're doing to Mrs. Hansen?"
"I guess." I sniffled.
"Do you think maybe you could just give it a try? Get to know her for yourself, see how it goes?"
"But Mom--"
"If it turns out that she's really as mean as everyone says she is, I'll call the school and insist they move you to a different class, okay?"
"Okay. I guess. You promise you'll get me out of her class if she's really mean?"
"I promise."
I tried not to spend my summer worrying about it. In fact, I pretty much forgot about it until the first day of school. I went to class wary. But the blue-haired old lady known as Mrs. Hansen didn't seem all that scary. She wasn't particularly mean; she simply laid out the rules and expected us to follow them. But she smiled, too. She might be okay.
A few weeks went by, and I don't remember much about them. They were unremarkable. Mrs. Hansen was just a teacher, like all the others, only older than most I'd had. Probably eighty, at least. And she had that funny, blue, curly hair.
One day, she gave us a worksheet. I don't know if I was bored or what, but I didn't bother to fill in any of the blanks. I hadn't been paying close attention, and didn't realize we'd be required to turn it in - or that we'd be getting a real grade on it. I turned it in blank.
And I got my first "F" the next day.
"F"? Oh, my God. My parents would be furious. I was horrified. Little Miss Smartypants got an "F." I grabbed my #2 pencil and proceeded to grind "I hate Hansen" into the margins of my paper, while my classmates corrected their errors. Apparently, I'd missed the part about correcting errors and turning the paper in again.
"Five minutes," called Mrs. Hansen. "You have five more minutes, then I want those papers on my desk."
I was screwed. I didn't know the word "screwed" back then, but I understood the concept, and knew I was screwed beyond redemption. I frantically tried to erase the hateful words. Not because I didn't mean them, but because now I'd added insult to "F" and that would surely mean a call home to my parents. They would not be amused.
Have you ever tried to erase ground-in pencil marks from manilla paper? Hmm? It can't be done.
I turned the paper in. I don't remember breathing, after that. The phone became a deadly snake, coiled and ready to strike. My adoring parents were going to kill me for this one.
The next day, Mrs. Hansen passed our papers back to us. I still had a big red "F," of course. But beside my horrible, half-erased sentiments, the woman had written - in bright red ink - "I'm sorry."
What?
She was sorry? Oh, God, no one could be sorrier than I was at that very moment. What did Mrs. Hansen have to be sorry for?
Then the worst happened. Those of us who had failed to raise our letter grade would have to come up to her desk for a private chat. I stood in line. My feet were made of lead. I wished God would just strike me dead. And then it was my turn.
Mrs. Hansen stood up. Our eyes met. And she did the strangest thing: she hugged me. "I'm so sorry," she said.
"So am I!" I said. We both cried. The rest of the kids thought we were crazy, but in that fraction of a second, I had found my favorite teacher ever.
Mrs. Hansen never did call my parents. About a year later, my grandparents were throwing a lawn party some twenty miles away, and who should be there but Mrs. Hansen and her husband. I was still afraid she might call - what teacher wouldn't? - but she hadn't. I didn't like her being there at that party at all.
"What is she doing here?" I asked my mom.
"Who? Mrs. Hansen? Oh, she and your grandmother have been friends for years. Didn't I ever tell you? Mrs. Hansen was my Eighth Grade teacher!"
Uh, no, Mom…you omitted that little detail.
Once again, my mother let me discover the truth on my own. And years later, when I 'fessed up to what I'd done back in Second Grade, my mother assured me that Mrs. Hansen had never betrayed me to her. "It was between the two of you. You resolved it, didn't you? That's all that mattered."
I kept in touch with Mrs. Hansen until the day she died, sometime when I was twenty-one. Her son wrote to me and told me how much my friendship and letters had meant to her over the years, but words were inadequate to describe how vitally important her teaching and friendship had been to me over the years.
I love you, Mrs. Hansen. I miss you, but you live on in my thoughts. You are a part of who I am today.
Would you rather go back in time or visit the future?
Submitted by Auds.
I'm just cynical enough to think the future would depress me, and just Pollyanna enough to want not to go there, in order to preserve the illusion that it wouldn't.
I think I'd rather go back in time; however, I'm not at all sure I'd survive it. Much as I love reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, I know I'm not as resourceful as her Claire. My idea of "roughing it" is a hotel without room service. So let's get real - chamberpots? Outhouses? Herbal poultices? No antibiotics? Please. Even the most pampered royals had to deal with things middle-class America would consider "hardships." But if I get to visit, and don't have to stay, I think it might be entertaining. (And we wonder why people in developing nations find tourists annoying.) Do I get to choose who I am and where I go and when? Do I get to do this only once, or do I have a time machine to use over and over again? If it's a one-time shot, I need to think more deeply on it. Oddly, that wouldn't apply to a visit to the future: it's all unknown, all a crapshoot. Let's just fire up the machine, spin the dial, and go! Not so with the past. We know enough about the past to have some preferences. We know what events throughout history to avoid, even if we don't know them so well as to prevent repeating them in the future.
Seeing a glimpse of the future, then returning to the present, would feel like "cheating." That said, it would also be cheating to take, to the past, our modern-day technology, like indoor plumbing. There, the temptation's a toss-up. What to pack, what to wear - how much empty space to leave in the suitcase for "hostesss gifts" or "souvenirs"?
Do you have any phobias?
Submitted by Amirul B Ruslan.
Of course I do. One of my phobias is writing about my fears in public, where random strangers can use it as a shopping list to exploit the weak spots in my mind...
No, seriously - phobias are irrational, disproportionate fears. It's okay to talk about them. Because in a rational world, they can't really hurt us (much). One of mine is spiders. Another is needles. None are so awful as to be crippling; it's more like, "Oh, geez, act your age, will ya?" said - or at least thought - by technicians for the Red Cross, or my ten-year-old son when he's squishing an eight-legged monster from Hell that's just ventured up the wall across the room. It's like, I'm not at all afraid of heights. Or falling. It's that sudden stop at the end, where your face meets the earth at terminal velocity - now that's scary.
But that's real and reasonable - that's not a phobia. It's the fear of heights that's phobic. If push comes to shove (do not stand within fifty feet of me on a cliff, 'kay?) it's not going to hurt for very long. I know that. But needles... c'mon, needles? What's the worst thing that's going to happen with a needle? Owie? No - when you're needlephobic, one itty-bitty little needle can grow to fifty feet. It is rusty and has teeth. Big, vicious, pointy teeth. And it's coming to get you...
Oh, yes, my dentist loves me. I have put two hygienists to sleep on just the nitrous that leaks out of the face mask before the tension leaves my shoulders and I stop trying to dig my nails through the skin on the back of my hand at the mere thought of a Novocaine shot. It takes about forty minutes of sniffing nitrous before I'll let the dentist walk into the room, even if he's not holding a hypodermic needle in his hand. Dentists are sneaky; you just never know when one's got a shot tucked up his sleeve. (One of these days, my dentist will read this and send the receptionist in to give me the @#%@! shot - "Surprise!") A smack on the head with a 2x4 would be quicker and more cost-effective. Probably less risky to nearby staff members, as well.
Strangely, the thought of being whacked over the head by a dental hygienist wielding a 2x4 doesn't scare me at all, though it probably should. Statistically, it's far more probable than being attacked by a herd of maniacal spiders holding hypodermic needles...
