Seriously, this is a Flash Blog because who in September has time to write anything longer? For someone who has no children and is not currently registered in any classes back to school has been inexplicably fraught this year. Maybe because I work at a school. Oh and I do have my guitar lessons, that makes me a student of something I suppose. So all I've got for you today is one of the essential questions of the Cocoverse, which from time to time we are all called upon to ponder. How is it that I have two working opposable thumbs - opposable is your word for the week which the spell checker on this blog site doesn't like very much and yet it is spelled correctly. Any way, back to the question of the day - How is it that I have two opposable thumbs and a good blodge of higher education on my resume and yet can't figure out how to operate the new fangled lid on the take-out coffee cup? Serves me right for not remembering my travel mug I guess.
Here's hoping you all have a more successful morning than I in terms of imbibing your wake-the-hell-up beverage of choice.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Goodby Early Adopter, Hello Later Learner
Another birthday in the books and ruminating on the passage of time, as per usual at this time of year. And I'm looking at my old iPhone - without the 3S or 3G whatever that means - and my aging MacAir - the lack of a built in disc drive is really starting to bug me - upgrades are in order, but truthfully I can't be bothered. And my head hurts at the idea that i need to migrate my on-line social life from Facebook to Google+ and I feel guilty for not tweeting and blogging regularly and so I started to play the new Sims on-line game to relax until I had this huge Ah HAH moment...
...as my Sim was cleaning her fake toilet and heating up food in her microwave - something I highly object to in the real world btw and then she headed to her fake computer to write a fake blog post and then the fake guitar where in order to learn life points and simoleaons she had to practice a Flamenco piece.
Imagine if you will, the now, the entire movement of my cosmos screeching to a halt as I look over at my real guitar with my real flamenco music on the stand and I realize the real flower pots on the real balcony need attention more than the fake flowers on the computer screen. What am I doing! I have a life to live and here I am playing at a shadow version of it? Albeit my Sim looks better in skinny jeans and a corset top than I do, but come on! So I powered down the computer and picked up up the real guitar. Tonight I will make my favorite 2.5 hour Baja Beans and clean my real toilet. Then the only thing I'll touch the computer for is to research gluten and egg free recipes so that I can have my real friends over for a real dinner.
So there. It takes me awile to learn things sometime but I got there in the end. If I'm going to have a fake life it is going to have aliens and superpowers and hot guys with six pack abs who sing to me all day and make me sing all night!
...as my Sim was cleaning her fake toilet and heating up food in her microwave - something I highly object to in the real world btw and then she headed to her fake computer to write a fake blog post and then the fake guitar where in order to learn life points and simoleaons she had to practice a Flamenco piece.
Imagine if you will, the now, the entire movement of my cosmos screeching to a halt as I look over at my real guitar with my real flamenco music on the stand and I realize the real flower pots on the real balcony need attention more than the fake flowers on the computer screen. What am I doing! I have a life to live and here I am playing at a shadow version of it? Albeit my Sim looks better in skinny jeans and a corset top than I do, but come on! So I powered down the computer and picked up up the real guitar. Tonight I will make my favorite 2.5 hour Baja Beans and clean my real toilet. Then the only thing I'll touch the computer for is to research gluten and egg free recipes so that I can have my real friends over for a real dinner.
So there. It takes me awile to learn things sometime but I got there in the end. If I'm going to have a fake life it is going to have aliens and superpowers and hot guys with six pack abs who sing to me all day and make me sing all night!
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sing from your heart
I have just watched a bunch of wonderful music videos of amazing BC talent and I am so proud, but...
Okay beautiful young people, lean in and listen well, for I was once one of you and pissed it away with self doubt and pretensions - lose ‘em! The pretensions I mean. Look it up if you don’t know the word. KISS, and not the rock band your parents knew and loved. Keep it simple schmoooes. Trim the beard precisely, forget the feathers unless you can prove First Nations heritage, and a short tight mini skirt as you sit on a bale of hay in the middle of a field is just not the thing chica!
Please be the you are and not the you that you think you should be. I know that is a tall order when in your twenties, I do. Everyone around you is in full court press trying to make you into what they want you to be. But take a deep breath, and ask someone older, in the biz, whom you admire, their opinion before adding tambourines or back-combing your hair or assigning your creative future to your current boyfriend.
Sing from your heart not your ego, and surround yourself with images that mean something to you. Don’t worry about giving us a narrative and god knows you should punt your producer’s narrative, unless he is paying you big bales of cash for the privilege, which I very much doubt. Seriously, I bet if you asked Jan Arden or Sarah McLachlan for 1/2 an hour of advice they’d be thrilled to give it.
Okay, that’s my outburst for the month. Please just know that you are beautiful and genius. After that, it’s just hard work. Don’t forget that either. Push yourselves. It is at the edges of our comfort zone that real magic happens.
Okay beautiful young people, lean in and listen well, for I was once one of you and pissed it away with self doubt and pretensions - lose ‘em! The pretensions I mean. Look it up if you don’t know the word. KISS, and not the rock band your parents knew and loved. Keep it simple schmoooes. Trim the beard precisely, forget the feathers unless you can prove First Nations heritage, and a short tight mini skirt as you sit on a bale of hay in the middle of a field is just not the thing chica!
Please be the you are and not the you that you think you should be. I know that is a tall order when in your twenties, I do. Everyone around you is in full court press trying to make you into what they want you to be. But take a deep breath, and ask someone older, in the biz, whom you admire, their opinion before adding tambourines or back-combing your hair or assigning your creative future to your current boyfriend.
Sing from your heart not your ego, and surround yourself with images that mean something to you. Don’t worry about giving us a narrative and god knows you should punt your producer’s narrative, unless he is paying you big bales of cash for the privilege, which I very much doubt. Seriously, I bet if you asked Jan Arden or Sarah McLachlan for 1/2 an hour of advice they’d be thrilled to give it.
Okay, that’s my outburst for the month. Please just know that you are beautiful and genius. After that, it’s just hard work. Don’t forget that either. Push yourselves. It is at the edges of our comfort zone that real magic happens.
Friday, August 5, 2011
6 minutes in my head
Here's a six minute writing exercise from my Writing Maestro Deb Norton who blogs at partwild.wordpress.com
You have six minutes to answer the prompt - If I dig deeper...
Here's where I went.
If I dig deeper I wonder if I’ll strike gold or open up a cess pit? Which will it be? A little of both mayhap or neither. Maybe I’ll just uncover deep dark rich earth that goes on and on underneath my little spade. The kind of earth that must be paired with the word rich. Rich earth ready and willing to receive the seeds of dreams. Ready earth rich with secrets and spells. Earth ready and rich, able to cherish and feed and nurture and infuse the life that turns a dream into a story. If I dig deeper.
You have six minutes to answer the prompt - If I dig deeper...
Here's where I went.
If I dig deeper I wonder if I’ll strike gold or open up a cess pit? Which will it be? A little of both mayhap or neither. Maybe I’ll just uncover deep dark rich earth that goes on and on underneath my little spade. The kind of earth that must be paired with the word rich. Rich earth ready and willing to receive the seeds of dreams. Ready earth rich with secrets and spells. Earth ready and rich, able to cherish and feed and nurture and infuse the life that turns a dream into a story. If I dig deeper.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Oh, to be in Paris, or at Comic Con, whatever
Alright. So what is a middle-aged girl with a head cold to do on an unseasonably cool summer night. I know! Write a blog post! Strangely the sun is threatening to shine tomorrow maybe if I sit out on the balcony I can get it to burn the sore throat away. But no, no complaining for me tonight, not moi. It has been an interesting sort of week.
Two people I like a lot are both in France this week, one in Paris and the other lolling about near a pool by a chateau somewhere in the Gers, almost dead centre of the country. Another of those I adore is in San Diego at Comic Con and I am kicking myself a bit that I couldn’t work out how to be there too. I’m thinking of him especially tonight as Ron James is saluting the his home town of Lethbridge. I love me my Ron James he is one funny and brilliant comic poet. I wonder how our American neighbours would take him though, he is so very Canadian in all the funniest ways.
What else this week of note? Oh, yah, I got to be a hero tonight me with the jumper cables for a couple of my hotter guy neighbours best of all one of them walked right into one of my favourite cheeky lines of all time, “Wow, I guess it really does pay to be prepared,” says he. I get to smile and wink and fire back with, “Yes, well, you know though I’ve never been a Boy Scout, I’ve had a few.” That caught them by surprise. I was rewarded by two slightly choked barks of laughter and one of their girlfriends from the shadows saying, “Hah! I’ve had a few, that’s funny.” I told her to feel free to steal it anytime she likes. Then I had to beat a hasty retreat telling them to leave the jumper cables under the car when they finished. Always leave ‘em laughing and then make yourself scarce before you can screw it up. For those of you who, sadly still haven’t gotten the joke - Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” - get it?
Mind you I sort of hacked in the direction of one of the boys so I’m hoping he doesn’t catch my lurggy and remember me that way.
What else, hmm, not too much. Wait that’s a big fib. I had my self-esteem handed back to me on a silver platter this week. Can’t tell you how or why yet. Suffice it to say that I have awesome friends and a few of them got to share my relief as I received a big compliment from an important stranger.
Other then that. Still going to bed early, indeed signing off pretty much now as 6 AM comes early, even on a Saturday. But that early writing hour is proving to be very important to my health, and my page count.
Love you all, thanks for dropping by. I now have to tackle a writing assignment from the Artist’s Way - pretending to be my eight year old self writing me a letter at my current age. You can bet I won’t be running spell check.
Night’n’G’Bless.
Two people I like a lot are both in France this week, one in Paris and the other lolling about near a pool by a chateau somewhere in the Gers, almost dead centre of the country. Another of those I adore is in San Diego at Comic Con and I am kicking myself a bit that I couldn’t work out how to be there too. I’m thinking of him especially tonight as Ron James is saluting the his home town of Lethbridge. I love me my Ron James he is one funny and brilliant comic poet. I wonder how our American neighbours would take him though, he is so very Canadian in all the funniest ways.
What else this week of note? Oh, yah, I got to be a hero tonight me with the jumper cables for a couple of my hotter guy neighbours best of all one of them walked right into one of my favourite cheeky lines of all time, “Wow, I guess it really does pay to be prepared,” says he. I get to smile and wink and fire back with, “Yes, well, you know though I’ve never been a Boy Scout, I’ve had a few.” That caught them by surprise. I was rewarded by two slightly choked barks of laughter and one of their girlfriends from the shadows saying, “Hah! I’ve had a few, that’s funny.” I told her to feel free to steal it anytime she likes. Then I had to beat a hasty retreat telling them to leave the jumper cables under the car when they finished. Always leave ‘em laughing and then make yourself scarce before you can screw it up. For those of you who, sadly still haven’t gotten the joke - Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” - get it?
Mind you I sort of hacked in the direction of one of the boys so I’m hoping he doesn’t catch my lurggy and remember me that way.
What else, hmm, not too much. Wait that’s a big fib. I had my self-esteem handed back to me on a silver platter this week. Can’t tell you how or why yet. Suffice it to say that I have awesome friends and a few of them got to share my relief as I received a big compliment from an important stranger.
Other then that. Still going to bed early, indeed signing off pretty much now as 6 AM comes early, even on a Saturday. But that early writing hour is proving to be very important to my health, and my page count.
Love you all, thanks for dropping by. I now have to tackle a writing assignment from the Artist’s Way - pretending to be my eight year old self writing me a letter at my current age. You can bet I won’t be running spell check.
Night’n’G’Bless.
Monday, July 18, 2011
A Blog About Nothing
It seems that I find myself with a little space of time and the inclination to blog, though I’m not certain what to blog about. The thing of it is, I find myself once again on a reading fast - this time for only a week - and thus need some mechanism to take a bit of a brain break from my day job. Eating lunch only took eleven minutes and I didn’t bring my guitar today nor do I have an inclination to walk in the rain so blogging it is. Though I could try and work on an actual script or story or hey, even play a game on my iPhone but no. Why am I looking for a justification for blogging? Can it be that often it seems to me that so many blog about so little?
Well at least you were forewarned about this blog from its title. I suppose I could tell you why I am once again without reading or TV or movies for a week given that I recently did a month without fiction and it turned out to be unproductive writing wise in that I spent my reading time watching DIY TV and House Hunters International. Love to be on that show some day. Or better yet, Fantasy Homes by the Sea, that’s the program to be on for sure.
This time I am working through the Artist’s Way and it is turn off the fiction week in order to make yourself face some of the things in your life that you’ve been avoiding facing. This week is all about finding integrity. I have been working through this course in creativity for the first time in about twenty years and am daily surprised by how much I’m getting out of it the second time around. Just doing the Morning Pages (3 pages or 750 words of free association) daily has affected a great sea change.
I am doing more creative writing on a daily basis. Gone seems to be the great plans for huge uninterrupted writing sessions. I write whenever I have a little space to write. Still early days yet so time will have to tell if this shift in creative activity will result in more finished product but I have high hopes and those hopes seem to have a good basis in reality.
The other thing of note is that I’m feeling, in general, a lot better about myself than I have been of late. It’s been a bit of a rocky year on the self-esteem front. This is another positive turn of events that I am claiming is all to do with the Morning Pages. Something about getting the day’s whining out on paper before 7 AM seems to help keep it out of the rest of the day.
Well at least you were forewarned about this blog from its title. I suppose I could tell you why I am once again without reading or TV or movies for a week given that I recently did a month without fiction and it turned out to be unproductive writing wise in that I spent my reading time watching DIY TV and House Hunters International. Love to be on that show some day. Or better yet, Fantasy Homes by the Sea, that’s the program to be on for sure.
This time I am working through the Artist’s Way and it is turn off the fiction week in order to make yourself face some of the things in your life that you’ve been avoiding facing. This week is all about finding integrity. I have been working through this course in creativity for the first time in about twenty years and am daily surprised by how much I’m getting out of it the second time around. Just doing the Morning Pages (3 pages or 750 words of free association) daily has affected a great sea change.
I am doing more creative writing on a daily basis. Gone seems to be the great plans for huge uninterrupted writing sessions. I write whenever I have a little space to write. Still early days yet so time will have to tell if this shift in creative activity will result in more finished product but I have high hopes and those hopes seem to have a good basis in reality.
The other thing of note is that I’m feeling, in general, a lot better about myself than I have been of late. It’s been a bit of a rocky year on the self-esteem front. This is another positive turn of events that I am claiming is all to do with the Morning Pages. Something about getting the day’s whining out on paper before 7 AM seems to help keep it out of the rest of the day.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Another Saturday Night
Now that I've checked up on the recent posts of all 82 of my Facebook friends...I know, hardly an epic number, bu I have this weird thing about accepting people that I actually know or like or have met on more than a single occasion. Call me crazy.
Just in the event that you might be interested on what I might be up to on a Saturday night, I am here to tell you. Other than checking everybody's latest on facebook, I have also been working on new songs on the guitar. Waltzing Matilda (don't ask), Pachbel's Canon (because at some point it must be learned, may as well be now) and Asturias (which my sometime substitute guitar teacher calls the "Stairway to Heaven" of classical guitar).
Just in the event that you might be interested on what I might be up to on a Saturday night, I am here to tell you. Other than checking everybody's latest on facebook, I have also been working on new songs on the guitar. Waltzing Matilda (don't ask), Pachbel's Canon (because at some point it must be learned, may as well be now) and Asturias (which my sometime substitute guitar teacher calls the "Stairway to Heaven" of classical guitar).
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