Today I had a few of my fifteen minutes of fame, as I was interviewed online by Women on Writing for having been a finalist in a flash fiction contest earlier in the year.
Rather than blogging about it, I’m sending you to the link where you can read my bio and my interview for yourself. You can also read the entry that got me the interview in the first place.
It started in May: an effort to make our home more in tune with our current lifestyle rather than move to a new home that might work. Or not. Either way, it would send our lives into upheaval.
So in the past few months, we’ve created a guest bedroom from my former office, made our own bedroom more user friendly (i.e., Earl got his king sized bed.), and had a built-in office area created in what was formerly called the Piano Room. This was the final renovation.
The credenza and office tower arrived today along with the builder who helped put everything together. This included the Internet functions as well.
My caveat with him was that my grand piano would still be front and center stage in the Piano Room. I didn’t want his furniture to overwhelm it, even though I knew a master craftsman might feel otherwise.
Keith Royal arrived today with his work of art and installed it in an hour’s time. And while he might have wanted his creation to be a showpiece unto itself, he certainly heard me. His credenza and desk are the perfect compliments to my piano . . . and the room itself.
Thank you, Keith.
I am slowly returning home from a long weekend in Fargo, ND, and am currently waiting for my next connection in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
I’ve never particularly liked O’Hare; it’s big and dirty and impersonal. It’s filled with high carb, low nutrition food options and high cost, low number-of-ounces beverage choices. Perhaps it is what purgatory is like . . .
There is one bright spot, however; and it’s called Wicker Park. I was introduced to it by my son Kevin on a trip we took together to Rome a couple years ago. He’d discovered it a while before that.
Wicker Park is one of the best seafood and sushi restaurants I’ve ever been to, and if the layover is long enough I always try to eat there. Today is no exception. I stow my luggage under the table and sigh. Even before the server arrives, I text Kevin: “Settled in Wicker Park and thinking of the great weekend.” It’s part of the ritual.
I spend the next forty-five minutes enjoying the Rainbow Roll, a combination “platter” of various types of sushi. It avoids making a hard decision, because the menu is extensive. Kevin texts back: “Reminiscing as well.” I smile.
I don’t know why it’s called Wicker Park, since it isn’t a park at all and that is one of the names of a Chicago neighborhood that isn’t anywhere near the airport. Perhaps the name helps keep it a secret, so that the ambience is restful and unrushed. So, should you love sushi and have a layover at O’Hare, visit Terminal 2 just before it segues into the corridor that leads to Terminal 1. You won’t be disappointed.
I’m working with an illustrator in New York City to create a children’s book. It’s about a young boy, Philip, who feels threatened when his younger sister, Phoebe, shows up on the scene.
I wrote this story years ago, but the idea of hiring an illustrator to bring it to life is new. Still I’m enjoying working with Annie and find her input invaluable.
For instance, we’re looking for synonyms for the word ‘silly.’ She thinks Philip would be complimented for being silly, while I think it’s a criticism. Goes to show what different generations see.
So for the sentence, “And whenever he laughed, someone said, ‘My, but you are silly,’”
I’ve come up with pesty, annoying, foolish, stupid, mindless, small, trivial, childish, and immature. After all, Philip is only four or five years old.
Any thoughts?
My son’s forty-seventh birthday is today, and I am sharing it with him in Fargo, ND, along with other family members. My longest friend, Carol, also shares this date; and I’m wishing her the best too.
In a way, September 11 was hijacked not only in 2001 but also for the rest of our lives. It’s Pearl Harbor. It’s dropping the bomb on Japan. It’s Kennedy’s assassination. You remember where you were when you heard the news. Everything else recedes. Which is why I always make an extra effort to remember Kevin and Carol on their shared birthday date.
I hope everyone whose birthday is September 11 is remembered. It’s one way of paying respect.
I found a large rock and hid under it in terms of the news, rants and raves, and the political process. I guess those are three ways of saying the same thing.
Through hearsay, I learned there were more than twenty candidates running for office on the Republican side. I guess half of them appeared in a debate. And that The Donald is surging ahead by appealing to angry constituents.
I learned that Hillary’s email issues are a problem. And, on a quiz I took on Facebook, it turns out that Bernie Sanders and I are politically aligned.
Then there were various immigrants from Syria and Iraq, some woman who refused to issue marriage licenses to gays, and a stock market that seems to be perched on the San Andreas Fault.
On the plus side, I spent time communing with my flowers, having coffee with friends, and not re-subscribing to the umpteen magazines that want me; I plan to read more books instead.
My large rock served me well.
It’s a teacher’s staple of the first week of school: Ask the students to either write or report on what they did for the summer. Here’s what I did.
Finished the sixty-hour course for my Michigan builder’s license and realized how amazing it is that houses or office buildings actually get built. It’s made me decide I’m too old to begin a career as a builder, but I’m certainly not too old to find a local one and drive him nuts.
However, to stave off my desire to move Earl and I have repurposed our current home. Upgraded our master bedroom with a gimongous (That’s even bigger than “King”) sleigh bed. Earl is in seventh heaven.
Made a guest bedroom from my former office, and turned half of my piano room into a smaller scaled version of a work area. Redid the garage (Don’t ask why. It’s an Earl thing.); added new carpeting and had the old one re-stretched. Painted, stained, and, in the end, touched up every room.
Okay, I don’t want to move at the moment. But, Earl, don’t discount the fact that I have gypsy feet.
Students all over Michigan return to the classroom today, while in neighboring states they’ve been back in school for a week or two. We can thank the Michigan legislature that passed a law in 2005 to prevent schools from opening before Labor Day.
According to a website called State of Opportunity (http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/who-gets-decide-when-school-year-starts-not-schools), “the main rationale behind the law was to allow families one last vacation weekend. The main promoters of the law came from the state’s tourism industry.” Presumably it needed teen workers for the final holiday of the summer, workers who might otherwise have already returned to the classroom.
There are those who think this is not the best way to set education policy. One concern is that lower income students or lower achieving students lose ground over the summer. Another concern is that some districts start early in August to have more days off during the school year.
When I was in school in a variety of different states, the contemporary wisdom was to go with the day after Labor Day. Personally I don’t have a problem with this, except that in Michigan not only is it mandatory but also that it was pushed through by the tourism industry. I wouldn’t say this is putting our children first.
I’m back. Back from a summer’s hiatus. And back with renewed purpose.
Doesn’t that sound lofty? As if I were revving my engine and ready to start the next race.
In one sense it’s true. I did rev my engine and am ready to begin again. But not how I’d been writing before.
I’ve spent the past nine months working with a consultant on updating my website, sending out stories with the hope of publication, and contacting agents with query letters ad nauseum. Yes, I’ve had some success; but what this has taught me is that the joy was lacking. I wasn’t writing with passion about what was important to me.
Instead I wrote by others’ marching orders. Do this if you want to be successful, commanded Writer’s Digest. Make that query letter sing, since it’s really your audition to the literary stage. “Give me paranormal with a twist,” said one agent; and all I could think of was that Laura Ingalls Wilder would turn in her grave at this request. She didn’t do paranormal, and neither do I.
I’m not giving up on finding that special agent or publisher, but if it doesn’t happen I won’t feel like a failure either. I will feel as if I’ve found my audience again. And that audience is me.
Autumn in her generosity has bestowed a gorgeous weekend on us. Even though the colors are past their prime, even though falling leaves are a nuisance and we all know what’s coming, it’s impossible not to acknowledge the weather.
“What a beautiful day,” I’ve exclaimed more than once, since waking.
It’s the last weekend before we turn clocks back, which means it’s also the last weekend when the sunset lingers until around seven o’clock. Next weekend we’ll be shocked into the realization that darkness comes swiftly and early. I know there’s a trade-off at the front end of the day, but somehow it never seems like much to me.
And why do we celebrate Daylight Savings Time anyway?
I’ve heard various reasons that have now become urban legends: That farmers need to set their schedules with the sun. That DST saves energy. That everybody does it (with the exception of Hawaii and Arizona in our country). That even the Romans had a version.
But I’ve never seen documentation for any of this. Have modern farmers been polled? What do they think? What amount of energy has been saved? And just exactly who is “Everybody”? But I digress.
For this weekend, I don’t want the pending time change to darken my mood, because . . . it truly is a beautiful day!
