You Should (Do Something With That)

I managed to terrify myself on Twitter today. I know what you’re thinking: that’s not that hard. But bear with me for a second and I’ll explain why this Squarespace ad had me spiraling down into a pretty dark place. 

If you live for your passion, you should share it with the world. Create a beautiful website for your photography. https://t.co/rL6xyZZKNs

— Squarespace (@squarespace) May 11, 2016

​On the surface, it’s a gorgeous ad. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s pretty freaking sweet graphic design. Take an awesome vista, in wide view, and frame the center of it with just the implication of a web browser (Squarespace is, after all, trying to sell you on making a website on their platform), coupled with the words, “You should.”

The design captured and captivated me. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been nearly so disturbed by the message.

The Kale and the Fury

Detox shakes. Health shakes. Drink your veggies courtesy of your blender. Sounds good in theory. Sounds so damn healthy that you can't completely ignore the possibility that the effort might be worthwhile--the effort of hording said veggies, blending them, and holding your nose as you choke them down.

I'm not a big fad dieter, but I've been known to dip my toes into a fad or two, maybe even wade in knee-deep.

That "Sacred Heart Diet" was one of the longest weeks of my life and it didn't even do that much in spite of the pounds my sorority sister claimed to have lost while eating only the prescribed veggie soup.

And I'm not EVER going to gulp down a raw egg, blended or otherwise. But the concept of a fresh, good for you, homemade beverage can lure me in like the glowy antenna of some deep water predator.

I chose the least scary detox shake recipe I could find on the internet. Okay, the second least scary as the one that called for dark chocolate powder and coconut milk I couldn't finish because I didn't have any strawberries . . . or coconut milk, actually.

So here I am blending frozen blueberries and soy milk and a bit o cucumber with water and probably something else, and I'm thinking how hard can it be? It's not like I'm doing a freaking kale infusion here.

So wrong. I was so wrong.

Read the rest of "The Kale and the Fury" #HiddenKaleFTW . . .

Hibernation 2015 - wherein I discuss stashing food supplies and what I achieved of my pre-hibernation goals, and perhaps, the dreams I will dream during said winter incubation period

I recently got asked to do a Thing in another city, and I very seriously replied that I was, in fact, in hibernation until the end of February. A conservative estimate. In truth, the end of hibernation depends on the end of Snow Season, which is different from the end of Winter. Although the two are not wholly unrelated.

Northern Michigan winters are not something I take lightly. Yes, there are places where winter is worse and/or more persistent. But this is nothing to be sneezed at. Unless you have the flu on top of being trapped in your own house and really we all should have just gotten flu shots. No, I'm not completely cut off from civilization -- see, I have the internet, I have all the civilization I need -- but when your means of getting to the grocery store or anywhere else in town is a tiny compact car, you reevaluate your ability to fight the terror in white.

And damn if road slush didn't nearly do me in the other day. It wasn't even snow! Or ice! Just the goofy slush! Argh.

So I don't travel between Christmas and the start of March. Not if I can help it and certainly not for any distance.

The cupboard shall not run bare.

I have a December through March worry, which becomes a full on January and February neurotic maxim, to always have several days worth of food on hand -- food that can be turned into meals, not just a box of Cheerios and a pound of butter. Shudder. Because we never know when the next big snow is going to hit.

Last year the weather forecasts were dead on. Then again it seemed like we got 2-5" every day last winter, so I guess it's not that hard to predict. But this year they predict 3" we get none. They predict 6" we get none. They predict 5" we get 12." Sigh. And even when a mild 5" fell earlier this week, and I had diligently shoveled out all the requisite paths -- clear sidewalk for school kids, clear steps for mail man, clear driveway for me to get the car out -- I slipped and slid all over the place courtesy of aforementioned slush. So I try to stay off the roads the day of snowfall if I can. (A home office is a brilliant thing.) But if it snows for three days . . . I'm screwed. Or at least stranded.

Which is fine. Because I prepare.

I like to have enough on hand that I could, if needed, wait it out for a week until a clear day afforded me passage to the market that did not land me in the ditch or making new friends and acquaintances of the let's trade insurance information variety. At the very least I can stretch things out by eating rice and kimchi until I realize that I'm not Korean enough -- even in my own mind -- to eat kimchi with every meal. (It should be noted that technically I'm not Korean at all, I just watch too much K-drama and it's been rubbing off on me.)

Read the rest of this post...

Rate Your Festive Feelings on a Scale of 1 to 10

Last year, my relations expressed their upset that I had no plans to erect a Christmas tree in my living room. I was finally living someplace that had the space for a tree. Actually, I had the space for an ungodly monster tree. And having the space meant I should do it, of course. But I couldn't justify the expense of it, even for a small tree that would look like a ridiculous toy tree in said monster-sized space. See, if you've never put up a tree there are start up costs; at the very least you have to get a tree-stand even if you get super creative with your decorations and string popcorn like Laura Ingalls Wilder and hang cat toys on the boughs.

But I wasn't hosting any parties or celebrations that year, and more importantly, I didn't have kids. Trees are for people who have kids. Little kids, grown kids, kids at home, kids coming to visit, grandkids. Not only does tree trimming take an army or a ton of patience, it's a bit like cooking a whole turkey -- even if you get the small one, what's the point if there's only one or two people to enjoy it?

I still decorated. I hung garlands in the windows and ran some strategic strings of lights, stuck a couple nutcrackers on a shelf where the cat almost couldn't knock them down.

This year, not so much.

I asked my also-not-living-with-kids girlfriend if she had decorated:

Me: I have done zero decorating
Friend: Me too.
Me: And have only slightly more than zero impulse to do it.
Friend: I'm kind of pretending Christmas isn't happening. If I got a tree I think my cats would destroy it. Plus, what, I'm going to decorate a tree myself and then just look at it? what's the point?
Me: That's what I tried to tell my relations last year: trees are for people with offspring. I did get festive last year. Put up decorations. No tree, but knickknacks.
Friend: I have a cute wooden advent calendar up.
Me: Oh!!! I have a festive jar of candy canes! #TakeThatMarthaStewart Friend: LOL! Not just a jar of candy canes, a FESTIVE jar of candy canes!

Read the rest of this post...

Army o Sun, action stations!

I think there's a smoke detector chirping ... somewhere. Probably upstairs. Or else one of the neighbors is doing something chirpy-squeaky. I'm disinclined to find out which. 

Right now, what I have on the brain is SUNFLOWERS! and my plans to plant a wall of them the entire length of the fence next spring. Especially since the Relatives and I have spent the past few weekends working on the backyard, leveling overgrown flowerbeds, cutting down the trees that were growing into the fence, and otherwise reclaiming the backyard in a way that makes the yard look truly huge. Truly huge and with a big old fence line that needs some insta-sunflower privacy screen action. Army o Sun, action stations!

... and speaking of action stations:


I could totally rewatch that show and not be bored for a single moment.

Life Lesson #2049

Earlier this morning ... in a dire race against time, Eileen must dismantle a doorknob and break IN to her own bathroom, knowing it's only a matter of time before she feels the sudden urge to pee. ... The usual unlocking mechanism doesn't work -- oh no!

But what's this? The knob has been put on backwards, with the screws facing out! At last, our heroine scores a break in her hour of need!

---

Seriously. Most ridiculous moment all week. I must have pushed the button lock at some point before stepping outside and closing it and the rickety old knob just wouldn't release the lock. Good news is that it finally prompted the installation of the replacement knob (which was bought three weeks ago, ha).

February Is the Longest Month of the Year

There it is, the conundrum wrapped in a paradox that I really wish was wrapped in bacon: February is both the shortest and the longest month of the year. A short, painful 28 days that lasts forever. February begins when winter has gotten old and oppressive, and doesn't end until spring arrives. It's still February in my world. Never mind that it's already mid-March.

Seasonal affective disorder? Perhaps. Perhaps I just miss all the people whom I've loss contact with because the general ick-feeling produced by the weather has separated us since Christmas. Perhaps I'm just sick of the people with whom I'm forced to have regular contact in spite of the weather. (Teachers of the world, is it just me or do classes that begin in second semester always have lower morale than those that begin at Labor Day?) Many of my colleagues are citing Spring Fever or perhaps that no man's land between the Known Drinking Holidays of Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day as the reason for students checking out. But how many of them every really "checked in" this semester? I see moments like this from Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares, and -- while I constantly see similar issues, never have they been so pyrotechnic -- it makes me wonder if the answer isn't just to raise one of your own and don't let them get away with shit like that.

Perhaps the past six weeks have seen the pendulum swing too drastically, too fast. Great news followed by devastating news. Again and again. Sometimes within hours of one another. Including the loss of my grandmother and putting some tough questions to myself, the answers to which would drastically change my day-to-day life.

Perhaps I just wish you were a dragon.

Like the above cartoon from exocomics.com says, Sometimes I look at you and I'm sad because you're not a dragon. I want you to be a dragon. I want  you to be fabulous and fascinating. Bring a little bit of danger and a whole lot of wonder into my life.

Displace my desire for change onto someone else? Gladly!

Perhaps sometimes I look at myself and I'm sad because I'm not a dragon. After all, isn't that the basic life goal for all of us? Not power or money or an ass-kicking 401K. What we really want: to be awesome. Like a dragon. Dude. That's it. Be a dragon.

(Oh, and just in case you found this post too sad, I give you the top canines of sci-fi. Puppies!)

Pick Yourself Up and Start Again

This essay (article, post, whatever you may call it) is going to be about writer's hope, direction, perhaps even the implementation of  some self-discipline. It's about embarking on a new project -- or more precisely, embarking on the finishing of a project, the project itself isn't exactly new just the stirring desire to finish -- with positive, patient persistence. (For hopefulness about writing, read on...)

How I'm going to convey that feeling isn't something I've planned out. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that I've not much planned my project -- all I have is a feeling to spur me on. But I try to think of these posts as short essays (blog posts are always better when they draw some sort of conclusion that echos the opening, no?), and as I try to implore my writing students, essays are nothing more lofty than an attempt to communicate your personal thinking on some subject, the term "essay" coming from the French essayer (v), to try. Or essai (n) a try.

An essay is an attempt at expression. It may meander, it may be cut and edited, but it shouldn't be overly rigid in construction and planning, otherwise how can you make great discoveries of self and thought while you essay? Save your structure and fact and organization for editing, well after you've essayed your way to some truths.

And so I am trying.

At this precise moment, I'm trying to stay positive, not sick to my stomach as I watch the pest control guy spray just part of the nearby apartment building. Just part? I understand how that's cost effective, but not how that's get-rid-of-the-pest effective. Ug. Another great reason to keep cats: they find the pests before you do and, usually, eat it before you're the wiser.

But the man with a can of pressurized chemical spray isn't the only thing which should be dragging on my sense of direction and hope, yet isn't. For starters, the Attack of the Back has devastated my past week.

The non-compliance of my body to respond to my commands in a useful manner meant that on this past Saturday it took me twenty minutes to go from reclining to standing, unassisted. And then once I was standing it was less than twenty minutes before Attack of the Back protested so loudly that I was forced back into the previous, reclined posture. I am currently on the mend. Mend-ish. I may actually have to give in and go see a chiropractor. You know, get over that aversion/advice I was previously given that once you start going to a chiropractor you can't ever stop. Because hey, isn't that also true for dentists? And because hey, these Attacks of the Back are painful and they don't look like they're ever gonna stop coming to visit me either.

So I'm upright again. Sorta. I had big 2013 dreams of punching out a lot of words starting on January 1 and not stopping until ... okay, just not stopping. But the reality is that the punching out hasn't started. Half-way through the month and I'm still working to get my feet under me (figuratively) from the whirlwind end of 2012 and (literally) from the Attack of the Back. Newyness aside, there's no reason that my self-discipline and goals have to be pegged to calendar start and end points. So sally forth! I say. And tallyho! Cowabunga! And other similar cries which indicate a rush of activity!

No, no, that's not what I want.

If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I am prone to manic writing. Followed by furloughs of no writing. Some of which is deadline driven -- oh baby, there ain't nothing like the sound of a deadline whooshing past to get me on task! -- but some of it is an intensity issue. Frenzied activity in general is easy  to get on board with. It's Day One of the exercise routine/diet where you're super good, followed by week two when you can't even remember that you're on a routine/diet because you just can't take the super good intensity anymore. You're like, dude, chill out with this craziness and get me a cupcake. I need moderation and discipline. Not a celery stick and ice cream pendulum. Not the frenzy that follows the cry of tallyho, but the deliberate fox-stalking which precedes it.

Instead, a gentle push to get me started:

Today I received a lovely, personal letter from a magazine which I respect telling me that my story was well written and interesting, and then telling me all the reasons why it wasn't going to be published by them. What a great big happy-sad feeling that produces. I adore the fact that they took the time to talk to me about the story. I'm pleased with their compliments. But I'm sad to have failed in the endeavor of getting them to publish the story.

"Bittersweet" doesn't really begin to describe the conflicting emotions this particular letter invokes. "Bittersweet" describes previous such letters I've received -- letters which I usually don't blog about because I don't usually feel the desire to make such things public. This time I'm far too happy and far too sad, simultaneously, to reconcile the two into any nameable emotion.

It is however a spur. A gentle push to get me started. Along with all the things the letter said, I take away this: they're eager to see what I send them next. So on to the next. A brilliant nudge to get me to complete edits on a short story I've let languish for eighteen months. And get it done now. Using the short goal to achieve a sense of action and purpose, to garner momentum, enough to pick myself up and start again.

---

Note: I couldn't find a way to work it into the above essay, though I did try, but I wanted to point out another lovely post on writer's hope, direction, and discipline that I read today. Rebecca Enzor's "Give Them a Chance to Say Yes" inspired by a beautiful tweet by Amalia Dillin. Her direction is more focused on submissions than creation, but still terribly hopeful. Autumn MacArthur's blog is also great for these sort of inner-looking hopeful-writer-rants which I love.
Top photo credit: "by Stik" By Feral78 via Flickr.

Muppet Lessons

This week I caught on TV a Muppet Christmas special that I hadn't seen before, the 2010, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. It follows the pattern of many other Muppet plots, the theater is in trouble ... again! With a fun mirroring of It's a Wonderful Life and -- best part -- many, many, many pop culture movie references thrown in. Those little references made my night. As did that deep voice meep meep from a muscled up Beaker.

The Muppets are the perpetual underdogs. They're continuously in jeopardy of losing that theater, whether it's to Scooter's uncle, big oil men who want to drill beneath the theater, or evil bank mavens. But of course, they always pull through. Lovably, harried Kermit dreams big and makes things work. Of course, hitting their themes this hard for going on fifty years, really hammers home the Muppet lessons.

Muppet Lesson One: There's great value in the arts ... even though the arts are filled with weirdos. Whether it's actors putting on a stage show, the members of the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the avant guard performance artistes, or the stage managers and the set-costume-props guys -- artists are eccentric and frequently outrageous enough to worry an average mild mannered joe frog. But while your mother might despair that  you're hanging out with googly eyed blue-faced weirdos, the Muppets teach us that the arts are important. They are filled with heart and soul. Being a part of the arts community may seem strange to the main stream communities, but it's the arts community that can bring so much joy, wonder, hope, happiness, and beauty to the world.

Over the half-century of Muppets, belief in the value of the arts and acceptance of arts weirdos has grown phenomenally. If you look at the courses of study American students take in college, we're churning out many more arts, English, creative, and humanities majors than we are math, science, and engineering majors. Have we moved too far away from valuing industry such as factory jobs, or valuing science and technology? The Muppets don't have anything to say on that argument, not thematically at least.

Muppet Lesson Two: There's no money in the arts. If there was, the main crisis of so many Muppet movies would not be the potential loss of the theater or the breaking up of the show. Kermit would not work as a buss boy in Muppets Take Manhattan. The gang wouldn't constantly be at the mercy of swindlers and thieves preying on their dreams and meager funds. Of course, there's always talk of getting the much needed "big break." But the Muppets are much more likely to do it for friendship, or because they love what they're doing too much not to do it. Perhaps that is the more important lesson: There's limited money in the arts, so you better love the act of doing it more than the act of getting paid to do it.

Muppet Lesson Three: Beware big banks, big business, and people in powersuits who are only concerned with the bottom line. This is why Fox News decries the Muppets as un-American. However, there's something innately American about embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and starting a small business. And given the predatorial lending practices which left so many Americans in foreclosure and bankruptcy, which in turn led to the Great Recession, it's hard to argue that this Muppet Lesson is misguided.

Not that I need to stick up for the Muppets, they're perfectly capable of doing that themselves. Miss Piggy, a push-over? Puh-leez.


Muppet Lesson Four: Dream big. The biggest and most important lesson the Muppets taught us is that dreaming is inherent to the human condition. Everybody dreams, but not everybody dreams big. And fewer still have the courage to act on their dreams. Sure, I might just be a shrimp or a frog, a pig, a bear, a whatever -- but that doesn't make me any less entitled to having dreams than anyone else. And you don't have to have money or celebrity or political sway to see those dreams become reality. The only capital you need is strength of character and determination -- the rest will come.