Saturday, May 31, 2008

givin' some lovin'

thanks to the bundle of sweetness that is suzanne, i am now the proud winner of a shiny, new blogger award.



i'm blushing about the same colour as my hair when i read her post. i don't even know if i have 10 'bliends' i can acknowledge for how much i love them & reading their daily thoughts. i know i don't have 10 that haven't already been cool enough to receive this award from someone else. i guess i'm just gonna have to double up. here goes, in no order whatsoever:

1. cuss i read daily because suzanne's wit & wisdom is just too blunt & funny to go without. and meeting her was definitely the highlight of my first 'real' visit to nyc.
2. des is another kickass woman, who i can't wait to meet irl because she certainly doesn't mince words either.
3. suebob of redstapler always, always makes me think and more often than not splort any beverage on my computer screen with her anecdotes. she is simply awesomeness personified.
4. mdog is another some time snarky woman whose posts i enjoy & am glad to have met through the love of a musician's, now defunct, messageboard. (well the ol' beboard is defunct; i'm sure there's one that's operating now, but it'll never be the same as the old gang.) and through her blog i've been introduced to people i read regularly, even though they have no clue who i am lurking about reading their thoughts. (how creepy am i!?!?)
5. meegs, another former beboarder, has a wonderful grasp of sarcasm & thought-provoking social commentary. i only wish that my mind worked so logically.
6. can't forget amo & her blog, although with the new job it's going on two months since her last post. she's always encouraging & articulate. something about chicago & something about the beboard i guess. 3 former boardies & 3 chicago-ans.
7. i'm running out of steam, but that doesn't mean that jonniker is any less of a fascinating read. her stream of consciousness style & brilliant commenters always makes me wish i could respond to every topic. i find myself nodding & laughing in agreement with all of her posts.
8. this is one of those lurky ones i stole from mdog, formerly b109. it's now mostly a photoblog, and i love it just as much as when she posted more wordy blogs. i've been reading for a couple years & her god-given talent as a photographer astounds me. really incredible.
9. another one i've read for probably 3 years via mdog, lemonscarlet. because she has no comments enabled, i feel like a creepy stalker reading about her life & her amusing take on things.
10. this is a cheap shot because it's a joint blog i'm on, but missingtupperware is the way i keep in touch with my rl friends, a & j, both of whom used to live in the ol' apartment complex. they may have moved on, but at least i can keep up to date on their lives since i'm a terrible phone-o-phobe.

hope i didn't forget anyone or freak anyone out by mentioning how often i read. i neglected some friends' myspace blogs since they're private listings.
lotsa love!

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

task list

a coupla things i've gotta do in the semi-near future, in no particular order:

revise 25k words
set up chapter breaks
chapter titles
research relevant publishers
find a critique group
request submission requirements
format manuscript
query letters

oh, and maybe come up with a title for the d@mn thing!

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Monday, May 26, 2008

in memoriam

today is memorial day & as suebob pointed out, it's not really appropriate to say 'happy memorial day!' considering the reason for the holiday.
growing up, i never had much of an association with the military. one of my cousins joined the navy when he was 18 & was always off on some ship or other, but even my older relatives didn't have too much military experience that i knew about. yeah, my parents' older brothers both served in korea, but nothing was ever really made of it. and my grandfathers weren't able to serve (paternal g-pa lost an eye when he was young & maternal g-pa was needed as a farmer). my dad's number was up next for the draft just before vietnam wrapped up.
now with this war, i dealt with my brother placed in harm's way. i know that some of his brothers in arms lost their lives. and i have held s in the middle of the night remembering the terror of insurgent attacks on his battalion & the losses they suffered. for those who have lost a loved one and those who will in the future, any loss is too much.

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what goes around?

so i walked up to my apartment this morning (was at s' for the evening because after i finished writing & tried to go to sleep upstairs jerk started stomping around like crazy & i needed rest). as i headed to the door, a mustang convertible pulled into the lot. i'd seen it before & was pretty sure it was a friend of the neighbor. meh, whatever.
just seconds ago while i was sitting on the couch about to start revising, i hear this horrific crunching noise that sounds so familiar. i was in the living room when the girl neighbor's bf smashed into my car 3 years ago. i peer out the blinds & see the mustang sitting next to the concrete stoop opposite my door. apparently he'd cut it too close & smashed the passenger side front bumper right into it. and it's one of those low-riding cars too. over a year ago s & i had walked into the lot only to see another neighbor drive his station wagon right over top of the foot high step. the car nearly pulled a dukes of hazzard move riding on two tires. good times.
i have to admit that i had a little giggle at their expense & immediately called s, but i do feel bad about all the damage. to the stoop.

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Sunday, May 25, 2008

25k pyramid

i'm done! i finished writing my bip!
at least the story part is finished. i still have mucho revision to do, but i can't believe i did it. i wrote a book. whoa!
now comes the hard part, as suzanne pointed out.

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Friday, May 23, 2008

so tgif

i am so incredibly relieved that it's friday. it's been yet another long week. i still find myself exhausted from the all-day infusion on wednesday. doesn't help that i bashed my head into a metal shelf in the bathroom while i was there infusing. derrr...
long, long weekend with no plans. other than to write, that is. hopefully i can manage to get a big chunk done on these three days. over two thousand words written this past week. now if only this headache would go away...

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sleeping alone

yesterday i was so tired at the end of the day because of the infusion on wednesday. s called in the afternoon to ask a question & i asked if i could take a nap on his cushy bed right after work, before he went out gaming. sure, come right on over. i think i made the walk home the fastest i ever have without actually running. when i got there, he told me to lay down, so i cuddled into the soft, dark bliss of his mattress. a relaxing 25 minutes later i got up because he planned to leave at 6. instead he told me i could stay & offered me back his extra key. over a month ago he asked for it back because his mom needed to use it. i gladly took it.
yesterday he'd taken a 'mental health day' from work & when he told me i was struck by how much he needed someone there. i came back about 9.30pm and he was already home. i asked if i could stay for the night, just to sleep. yes, of course. when he finally came in to bed, i told him that i got the feeling he needed someone to hold him. he agreed.
i really hope he slept well last night. i know i did.

edit~last friday we had a really intense talk in which s explained that he has told me more than anyone else about what's going on in his life, emotionally, more than his best friend or his therapist even. tears were shed on both sides. i wish there was something more i could do to help him, but i can only be here, just like he's here for me whenever i need him.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

day's giggle

i stole this from green-eyed mama's site.

'Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, the day before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp.'
--Bob Ettinger

i solemnly agree. *snicker*

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hives again

so i'm breaking out in red blotches an hour into my infusion. not as bad as last time, but i knew to look for them. apparently they're just gonna give me more iv steroids and keep infusing, which means i'll be here the rest of the freakin' day! it's gorgeous outside. at least when i'm at work i don't have the tease of windows letting me see the lush green grass and bright sun bouncing off the bricks of my church across the street.
le sigh.

update-so i was in the chemo suite getting my infusion from 8.45am until 4.15pm today. at least i got over 800 words written & i am now surpassing the 1,000 word mark for the day. things are flowing quite nicely for the time being. i can see the end in sight! then what'll i do with myself.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

springtime bizarro

so the last time i posted on bizarro world was when some guys hit on me on the walk home. well, that happened again this afternoon. i walked downtown to the library to check on things & some guy started walking along beside me struck up a conversation: "are you from iowa? nice weather we're having. what do you think of this town?" admittedly i was looking pretty cute today. it's a real ego boost. not that i look for that, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
and yay, i got my stimulus check yesterday! time to pay off some bills. (paypal, des?)

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

msg + sodium nitrites + caffeine

equals unbearable migraine


ouch!

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

dream blob

no, i'm not going to share my dreams in detail. i've just been having a recurrent theme recently. no less than 3 times in as many weeks, last night included, i've dreamt that i was late getting back from my lunch break. and i don't mean 5, ten, fifteen minutes late either. some hijinks would ensue where i was halfway across town (i think for some reason last night i was standing in line to meet the pope & i'm not even catholic!) and have to explain why i was 3+ hours late to my boss. perhaps this has to do with the fact that i've been taking a late, but not long, lunch for the past couple weeks because of being short-staffed. or that i'm trying to sabotage myself & get fired or maybe just because i hate my job in general.

le sigh.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

um

er, i've got nothing. my focus for the past 10 days has been on writing more. i've definitely surpassed my daily hundred words, which is encouraging to me, but i want to finish it so badly! i mean, i want to know what happens! i don't know exactly how this is going to turn out, plotwise. i don't know if i can last the 10-12weeks i think it's going to take to finish it.
then there's the revision & the rejection from shopping it around, all after i've researched the market. gah!

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

frickin' frack!!

so i'm going along with life, just trying to get by and move forward. writing (surpassed 18,000 words last night!) and trying to take everyone's advice to sever s from my life, at least for a period of healing.
and now my stupid ex-bf has decided he wants to rekindle our friendship after more than 3 years. he's been incredibly apologetic for all the hurt he put me through (because he was getting over a past relationship himself, dulling his senses with alcohol, yada, yada). he wants us to have communication again. it's so much in my past that all it serves to do is remind me how painful things are right now & how much he hurt me was not even a tiny fraction of the agony i feel when i think about losing s.
i just want to look ahead to the future, not rehash the past. why is that so hard to understand?

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Friday, May 09, 2008

3 down, 3 to go

today it's been 3 months since the breakup. my friend chris promised me (when he was drunk, mind you) that it'd all be okay in 6 months. halfway through, i guess. the friendship part is going okay, but the physical attraction is practically killing me!
on the other hand, i've written more than 800 words this week, easily fulfilling my 100 word/day minimum. to the writers out there, 800 is nothing, but my friends seem to think that's an insanely unreachable goal. lots of the 'writing' thus far has been mere tweaks and twitches of the stuff i'd already written. this is good because i think it's actually making it better. i've never been a fan of the editing & proofreading process of my own work. soon i'll have to get back to the main meat of the story to move it along. halfway through that part too, i suppose.
best get back to it & do a bit more tonight. then maybe an early evening for a drink with a friend or two. have a lovely friday, all!

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

appreciation

so in very few posts on her new blog, sullivan has shown that she's wise beyond her 24 years. her comment about losing s's 'conditional affection' versus having his unconditional love sortof struck a chord. everyone has given me such good, thoughtful advice & i appreciate it so much.
thank you suz, des, amo, jackie, suebob, mdog & everyone else, lurking or otherwise in my life. despite this whinging getting me more comments than i've ever had, i really am doing my best to move beyond this & focus on other things. get my life in order, as much as anyone really can. s has to do that too & perhaps we'll be friends once we get to the other side. my new philosophy, & don't take this as a negative, is 'maybe, maybe not'.

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Monday, May 05, 2008

long time comin'

i just opened up a file on my zip drive and it said i had last accessed it on 5.3.2007. i can hardly believe that because it means i haven't worked on my bip (book-in-progress) in a whole year. how is that even possible? definitely a sign that the past year has passed me by. that doesn't mean that it wasn't a really excellent year (or at least the 9 months before the past three break-up months), but like suebob commented 'keep moving forward'
i'll try.

and without further ado here's the first paragraph of my bip for your consideration.

"Ambrose Dossel hurtled back against the wall from the force of the explosion. His headphones dangled precariously from around his neck, and he felt a little singed around the edges. Not really burnt, the way he liked his hotdogs. It was more of a warm tingly sensation, similar to standing too long in front of an open oven or campfire. Shaking his head to clear his ringing ears, Ambrose cautiously opened his eyes to seek the source of the blast. And then he rubbed them with the back of his hand in disbelief. Before him, in his very own bedroom, sat a strangely glowing object roughly the size and shape of a large soda bottle. It hovered in the midst of scattered books, CDs and the dirty laundry he had neglected to pick up the night before. The glowing shape bobbed a bit as it radiated a wide array of changing colors. Blues and greens, pinks and reds, turquoise and heliotrope flashed on the walls."

btw, if you hadn't noticed, this isn't the great american novel. it's a children's book.

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Sunday, May 04, 2008

why me? syndrome

so i know lately i've been pretty whiny. all why me? what did i do wrong to deserve this? the man i love fell out of love with me, i've been sick for the past nine years & will be for the rest of my life, finances are rarely on my side. i guess i never could be one of those people who stoically takes her lumps and asks for another, sir.
it's not like everyone hasn't been through some sort of tribulation that seems, whether real or exaggerated, a personal tragedy. the death of a loved one, your car needs repairs at the most inopportune time, illness, work troubles or worse.
tell me, dear (& few) readers, what do you do to pull yourself up by the bootstraps & (re)take control of your life?

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Saturday, May 03, 2008

he's (already) seeing someone else

oh g-d.

why does my life suck so much?

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Friday, May 02, 2008

who needs more carbs? i do!

for lunch today:
1 slice pineapple pizza from pizza hut
1 plain bagel w/ plain cream cheese
2 cucumber sandwiches (rye, cuke, cr. cheese)
1 (thin) slice cinnamonster roll

oh yeah, that helps stay in shape to fit in a bridesmaid's dress in a month!

on a side note, i had nightmares about s w/ multiple girls. and oh, my neighbor decided to walk aimlessly around his upstairs apartment from 3.12am until just before 6am. wtf are my landlords supposed to do about that?

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go for it?

so i think i've got a couple possible job options now. there's always the possibility that i'd end up moving to a new job & working with a bunch of jackasses, though. there are certain departments in the hospital that just seem to attract the boneheads.
but i think i'm all set to at least submit the application (if i can get it online by the deadline next wednesday. when i started working here, everyone applied with the same handwritten app.)
and one of my college friends offered to pass along my resume with her company. she's a junior business analyst & gets to travel quite a bit for her job. she's spent the past few weeks in montana (weekends they fly her home) & she'll be headed to reno, then salt lake city. i don't really know if that's for me, but it doesn't hurt to look into it.
guess the weekend will be spent updating my resume' for the first time in 3 years. thanks for all the encouragement, everyone.

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