Improper Poll: Television Tribulations

For some time now, I’ve been forced to deal with television providers who seem to have decided that the way to deal with the bad economy is to trick money out of their customers.

I dealt with a company I’ll call Charmer Noncommunications, who not only boosted its prices every year while their packages shrank, but they overcharged my bill for eight—yes, EIGHT—months in a row. Every month they’d give me a convoluted excuse for why my bill was wrong—which essentially meant,“your bill is wrong this month because it was wrong last month.” One young customer service rep even sighed that…tsk…DUH!…if I’d just pay the wrong bill, I would straighten it all out!

Now I have one I’ll call Dish It Out Netword. Last night I saw a commercial where Dish It Out Netword was making fun of Charmer Noncommunications. Are you kidding me? They taught them everything they know. Because even though Dish It Out's salesman told me they “haven’t had a price increase” in just ages, my price went up after a year. Now they tell me what the salesman neglected to mention: It was a one-year deal only. So they’re not raising their prices! They’ll give me a new package! According to this salesman, the new package includes taking away CNN, A&E, and ABC Family (etc.) and replacing them with Hunting Channel, Country and Western Channel, and Gospel Channel.*

Nothing against folks who’d like those channels, but this caused me to try to think of

TEN CHANNELS I WOULD WATCH EVEN LESS THAN THE ONES DISH IT OUT NETWORD IS OFFERING ME (I have to say this was hard, because, although I’m not a big TV watcher, I will watch almost anything):

1. Animal Abuse Planet
2. Colicky Baby Wars: The Loudest Screamer
3. Hell’s Bathroom
4. Ice Loves Cocoa Krispies Way Too Much
5. Stuart Loves His Goat, Ester (Okay, I would watch this once but wouldn't admit it)
6. Grooming for Old Folks TV
7. Say Yes to the Pajama Jeans (This one’s for my critique group)
8. Shopping for Dickeys (Ditto)
9. Taxidermy TV
10. Nothing But Boils

What channels would you refuse to watch?

*Post note:  I contacted the BBB, and within two business days, Dish It Out Netword remedied the situation by giving me my agreed-upon package back.  Hooray for the Better Business Bureau!

Book Blurb Friday #54

Hooray for Book Blurb Friday! Every week, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff presents us with a picture for a pretend book jacket. Our challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or fewer to go with it. I hope Sandra Davies will forgive me for the liberties I took with her beautiful and inspiring picture. My blurb has 150 words.

~The Upstairs Window~

1812: It seemed so long that she had dreamed of his return. Daily she watched for him, but all she saw was people who looked so strange. Occasionally they shouted and pointed up at her until she hid.

If he didn’t come back, she would jump.

2012: It seemed he had dreamed of her so long. Now he was looking for his first house. And when he looked at the upstairs window, there she was looking down at him. He turned to the Realtor. Someone was up there! A beautiful woman. Had she seen?

Oh, there’s a legend that the place is haunted, she said. A woman named Georgiana had supposedly waited in vain for her true love to come home and then threw herself out the window. Silliness, of course. What did he think—was he home?

“Home,” he whispered, looking up.

“Home,” Georgiana gasped, tears in her eyes.

"Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Improper Poll: Evolution of The Purse

I just switched purses…which means I cleaned out the old one. I had to announce this because it is, in fact, that big a deal.

When I got my first purse in junior high, I had nothing to put in it. So I stuffed it with tissues the way I’d heard some girls stuffed their bras. (Which I never did, by the way—only because I can think of too many potential disasters created by tissues-gone-awry.  And let's face it, I just seem to attract that type of disaster.)

In high school and college, The Purse became a place of sanctuary. Mysterious things may or may not have hung out in there, but I wasn’t willing to let anyone else see it. Except my female friends, of course, because theirs were just as bad.

When I had children, my stuff disappeared and the children’s took over. The Purse morphed into a diaper bag. It was huge—a mini suitcase, really—and contained all of the provisions necessary to sustain a toddler for one day while preventing as many tantrums as possible. It contained clothing items and snacks and toys. The only thing I carried for myself was money, and even then I can remember forgetting my checkbook once because I was so concerned with loading in emergency backup Nuk-Nuks. I still remember flailing madly in my purse with one hand as I drove because one of my children needed a tissue NOW—and it turned out that the emergency was that Barbie was cold and needed a blanket.

Now I’m embarrassed to admit that The Purse is becoming a traveling pharmacy. Granted, I’ve been sick lately, but I have medications to manage almost any imaginable illness, discomfort, upset, or eruption. I have glasses that make up for the fact that I can’t see close up and ones that help me see farther away. I have little note pads for jotting what I can’t remember, because, although my phone probably has an app for that, I'd have to mess with finding my glasses in order to see it.

But weirdest of all is the pens. I can never find a pen. I will dig, flail, and rattle around—nothing. Yet…guess how many pens I found? Just guess! Five? Ten?! NO!! FIFTEEN pens I found in there. I found them in crevices, under flaps, and in pouches I didn’t even realize were in there. I’d find some and think it was a lot and then discover another hidden cache of them. It was like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat—impossibly large numbers of rabbits that just keep going and going. There were disposable pens and rhinestone ones and flowered ones and cheap and expensive pens and ones that attach somehow and little ones designed just for purses.

So I dumped all fifteen into the new purse where they magically submerged and disappeared, only to reappear the next time I switch purses.

What weird things do you carry with you?

Book Blurb Friday #53

Book Blurb Friday is a wonderful meme from our Southern Hostess-with-the-Mostest, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff. The challenge is to use the picture provided in order to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” I am late this week because the storms that passed through were not exactly kind, and the resulting power loss left me without a computer. Or a backyard fence.

But others have it much, much worse, so am sending my best to all those who’ve suffered as a result of those storms.

Today’s blurb has 150 words.

~Tea with Miss Nabbity~

Lunden Tate was in trouble. At 18, she’d crossed the country in order to follow a man who promised to make her a famous model. Now here she was with nothing.

Miss Florence Nabbity of Wildwood Bed and Breakfast had a place for her to live and work…if Lunden could stand to live in the middle of nowhere with a woman in her sixties. Lunden had been searching for excitement. What on earth did she have in common with this woman?

Not much, it turned out. Because Miss Nabbity’s life had been far beyond anything Lunden ever could have imagined. She began looking forward to her afternoon tea with Miss Nabbity.

“Is this you in the picture, Miss Nabbity? Dancing topless?”

“Well…yes, sweetie,” she shrugged, sipping her Pomegranate Antioxidant. “I never should have done that.”

“Taken your shirt off?”

“No, dropped that much acid. But that’s how Woodstock was….”

And maybe one day, when the kids go to college and I get a divorce, I’ll embark on a journey someplace to which JetBlue does not fly. I will get a job as a foreign correspondent, wear hiking boots and a tan vest with many pockets. There will be others of my kind, smart-talking women, and probably, hopefully, men with English accents, and we will sit up at night in foreign hotel bars, drinking whiskey and trading outrageous anecdotes. Oh, the stories I’ll tell. ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

Sub Notes: Metamorphosis

I was subbing with mentally retarded high school kids. He fixed me with his winning smile and pointed in the direction of the book, asking me if I’d read it to him.

The other teachers and aides smiled. His favorite, they all said. He asked everyone to read it. So I got it out of the backpack he indicated at the back of his wheelchair.

It was a book about a happy puppy dog. The reading level was maybe first or second grade.

When I finished, he grinned, “Guess what? I was on TV once!”

“Wow!” I said. “How come?” I thought I was going to hear about Special Olympics.

“I was in a car accident!” he smiled. He might have been telling me about the toys Santa had brought him. “I used to be smart,” he said. “I got a 32 on my A.C.T.! But I got a head injury and got in this wheelchair. They did a whole special about me on TV!”

“Wow!” I said again. I mumbled something about what a great attitude he had and how he sure had reason to be proud. Then I busied myself with putting the book back in the carrier attached to his wheelchair. It took me a long time to put away.

It was a book about a happy puppy dog.

Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them—these are the bet guides for man. ~Albert Einstein

Improper Poll: Wave Away

Years ago, an elderly man used to stand next to a busy street near here and hold up a sign advertising roses. He’d wave as people drove by. It was quaint. It was sweet. And it was so impressive that a man his age could withstand the elements—not to mention holding his arm up all day—that he was a bit of a legend in my area. The local paper even did an article on him. We always waved back. He was our friend even though we’d never met him. He was affectionately known as The Rose Man.

I haven’t seen The Rose Man in many years, but apparently before he left, he went forth and populated our town with waving, sign-holding Progeny-from-Hell. They are everywhere.

Yesterday I drove down that same busy street, which is admittedly even busier. We passed dueling, dancing rival pizza slices on either side of the street, some tax people, the person holding up a sign advertising “We Buy Gold,” someone in a gorilla suit (no idea why), somebody holding up a sign that might have been for birth control services or possibly against them, I couldn’t tell which, and someone else whose sign was much too small for me to read and might have been picketing something. All of them were dancing around and/or waving.

At the risk of sounding crotchety, all that leaping and gyrating and sign holding and waving annoyed the hell out of me and made it hard to drive. It was like having a bunch of little kids scream at the top of their lungs at the same time, “Look at me! No, me! Me me me!!!”

The worst was one I saw the other day. I don’t know what she was advertising, but I got a good look at her from behind while waiting for my light to change. She was obviously so cold and so tired that she’d hold her sign up a while and then let it drop, then stumble out what might have been a half-hearted little jig or possibly a foot that had fallen asleep. Either way, it looked painful. And it made me hate the company she works for, honestly, for making a person suffer through that.

So my improper questions for today are, do you have those waving, sign holding people in your area? And if so, do you feel obligated to wave back? Do they really get your business, or do they drive it away? Do you wave at little kids going by on amusement park trains, and why do we pretend that’s a parade when it isn’t?

Improper Poll: You Might Call Him Mr. America

As a substitute teacher, I often find myself wandering around classrooms while kids work. School posters are frequent contributors to my beloved quote collection.

But often my mind wanders, and some things should never wander too far or they will just get lost. For example, when you look at a poster of all of our presidents, some of them were kind of cute. I know JFK was known for being adorable, and a lot of people think Clinton and Obama are good looking. And both Bushes weren’t too bad in their younger years. But if we’re talking about younger years, Google “Gerald Ford football” sometime. Oh, gracious!

I have to say, though, when judged at the time they served as president—James K. Polk wasn’t too bad if one is able to ignore his precursor-to-the-mullet-hairdo. And Franklin Pierce had almost an aged Johnny Depp look in some of his portraits. And really Thomas Jefferson was pretty cute in a distinguished way. But by far my favorite president either on currency or not is Andrew Jackson. Yes, he has that long face, but even the $20 bill captures that sort of rock star quality—a gentlemanly rock star quality. It’s almost as if someone off camera just said something of such great concern that he is readying himself to take flight via his enormous, winged eyebrows.

Today's Improper Poll question is, of course, should the presidential race have a swimsuit competition phase? And who do you think was our cutest president?

Book Blurb Friday #51

Book Blurb Friday is a great meme hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff . The weekly challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 145 words.

~Wieners and Losers: the Adventures of Special Agent McGee~

Special Agent McGee was Chicago P.D.’s greatest enigma. An absolutely legendary undercover officer, he was rumored to be, in civilian life, a Great Dane. Others whispered that he was really a wolf. Still others had heard he was a 46-year-old former marine from Milwaukee.

One other thing they didn’t know: who had murdered Oscar Meyer and dumped the body in Lake Michigan, and why. Was it notorious thug, Jimmie Dean, over an ongoing rivalry? Or was Mrs. Butterworth not nearly as sweet as she appeared to be?

And what about Mr. Meyer’s life partner, Colonel Mustard? True, the two seemed like the perfect pair, but they had supposedly engaged in quite an altercation in the library the night before Oscar’s death.

One thing was certain: Special Agent McGee, under the guise of a lovable wiener dog, was sure to sniff out the real killer.

People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do. ~ Stephen King, On Writing

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #21: The Old Boyfriend

The name was so familiar, it didn’t seem at all out of place in my inbox. Yet when I thought about it, I realized I haven’t seen that name in—could it be?—thirty years?! And when you figure how long I’ve known him, we go back even further than that.

He lived on the other side of my neighborhood, so we were practically children together. A friend of Joe’s, I think. What was I—15, 16 when we first met? I know I thought he was cute. But he had a girlfriend. Later, after they’d broken up, we dated off and on for years.

And now here he was emailing me. Did I remember him? Ha. To me, he looks exactly the same, right down to that scar I loved because it somehow added a slightly rugged defiance to those almost-too-pretty features. And how I loved his conspiratorial grin, the way he leaned in as if we alone got the joke….

What I remember most for some reason is the time he picked me up for a date and I asked him what he’d done all day. He told me he’d been mowing lawns after work. I guess I asked him if it was a job. His mother was widowed and I knew he mowed his own family’s grass. He answered that he always mowed his neighbors’, too. Wasn’t that a job, I asked? I still remember the way he said it. “No,” he shrugged. “They’re old.” As if that explained it. And it did. I believe I fell in love with him just a little bit at that moment.

After we emailed a few times, I sent him my number so we could catch up. He is recently divorced. Although neither of us is from this city, we both live surprisingly close now. And I could no longer use the excuse that I’m not ready to date someone new. Technically this isn’t someone new, is it?

It was really nice when I started to explain a situation with someone we both used to know…and I didn’t have to explain. Not only does he already know the people involved, but he went through something similar himself. He understood my feelings exactly, and from more than one perspective. It’s a situation not many people understand. He’s experienced his own losses, and they’ve given him depth and character. Wisdom.

Once again, it’s the scars I’m drawn to. What an unexpected comfort it is, this intimacy, like something we alone get. I believe I fell in love with him just a little bit. All over again.

My friends are my estate. ~Emily Dickinson

Sub Notes: Gallery of Youth

Homely little statue of the goddess Laurel, who is supposed to represent poetic inspiration

 I subbed in a high school library recently, which means I got to stand behind a desk sometimes and just watch them.

The librarian was watching them, too. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked, echoing exactly what I was thinking.

I was recently discussing this with a friend. “Even the not-so-pretty ones are still pretty,” she’d said.

Yes. They have fat, glossy hair and thin, glossy bodies. They are tall and strong and new and gorgeous.

They are works of art, these children, captured through the centuries, through eons even, firm in that age-old conviction that they are the first ever to be young. They are, and possess, every sense of the word, “ideal.” They are the infamous Waterhouse model and Queen Hatshepsut and sculptures of Roman gods riding off to war and Lord Leighton’s titian-haired princesses and Aztec sun gods.

“They have no idea how beautiful they are,” the librarian said. I think she was right. Youth has such irony to it. They know youth creates idols, worshiped in part because of its brevity, but they are still insecure in their newness.

Which is a good thing, I guess. And of course the not-so-new among us have beauties of our own that these children won’t discover until it’s their turn. And somebody else’s turn—for the briefest of moments, anyway—to make youth eternal.

High school boy asking me for a restroom pass: "Can I go number...." (Turns to friend and shouts across room), “ Which one is pee? One or two?”

Me: "That’s okay. You don’t need to specify. Really."

Improper Poll: Halleluiah

The sun is out, and I don’t get to see sun much during the work week these days. So I’m taking a break from true impropriety today…and maybe for the next couple of weeks. There’s a scene in Eat Pray Love (the book; haven’t seen the movie) where Elizabeth Gilbert describes a few hours when the pleasure she’s been seeking just seems to settle on her during the sweetest, simplest times.

That very thing unexpectedly happens to me from time to time. I don’t mean ordinary, run of the mill happiness, but an overwhelming thrill that threatens to bring tears to my eyes. I used to try to capture life in art. Now I’m starting to see life as art. What’s more, I used to think the goal in art was to channel the divine. Now I think the goal in life is to channel the divine.

Every now and then, out of nowhere that almost overwhelming happiness just seems to appear and flutter down and nest into my soul, and while it’s there, my heart just soars. This time of year, it’s the way the sun angles through the tree limbs and sends blue stripes of shadow on the road. Or it’s the sculpture of bare trees against a cobalt sky.

Or maybe it’s the little vase of hyacinths on my kitchen table. Or the damp-earth smell of early spring.

What do you see as art? What makes your soul soar?

Book Blurb Friday #49

It’s Book Blurb Friday! Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff hosts this fun meme in which the weekly challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 147 words at last count.

~Trials of a Salem Witch~

They had the technology, however top secret it was, to obtain proof. Pharmeceutical toxicologist Ivy Wilson was one of a team of researchers testing the theory that the events of the Salem Witch Trials occurred as a result of hallucinations brought on by ergot poisoning of rye crops. Ivy’s job was to go back to 1692 in order to collect grain samples for testing.

All she had to worry a bout was being seen.

But an error in calculations sent her back into the farmer’s home instead of his field. Not only was she seen, but a startled observer was nearly killed. So Ivy did the unthinkable: she brought him into the future to save his life.

And now what? Had she just changed the course of human history? Or was Ivy the original “witch” who had set into motion the deaths of more than nineteen innocents?

“For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.” ~Jennifer Donnelly in Revolution

Improper Poll: Way Past Prime Numbers

 

My daughter is a renowned expert on expiration dates. So when she isn’t here, I am defenseless against those little stamped numbers which are often hard for me to read even if I can distinguish them from mysterious product codes. Does 022012 mean February 20th of 2012 or just February in general? Usually I only remember to check during canned food drives, because I wouldn’t want to give someone else expired food.

Here is a confession: The other day I knowingly drank expired coffee. It was a powdered instant mix, and really, how much could powder degrade? Still, I was worried enough that I warned my daughter ahead of time in case that special, relaxing “me” time from the commercial became non-relaxing rush-me-to-the-hospital-time and she needed to know what to tell the paramedics. It smelled and tasted fine, though. And I lived. Oh, and the expiration date was a year ago.

I was going to have a contest to see who could locate the Most Expired Food Item in their pantry, but I was afraid no one would want to participate.

Or that I would lose.

You’ll be pleased to know I’m not going to tell you what’s in the back of my refrigerator. In fact, I am not even going to look! Instead, I’ll ask this: do you have expired food, or am I the only one?

Book Blurb Friday #48

Not only is it Book Blurb Friday, but gracious Southern hostess and Belle-of-the-Blurb herself, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, has chosen my picture to use as this week’s cover! It’s an extreme close-up of ‘Miami Rose’ plumeria that bloomed for the first time this fall and has been brightening up my sunroom ever since, so it’s been fun to play with possible plots for it. The weekly BBF challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 150 words.

~It Also Means Goodbye~

They couldn’t have been more different. But Connecticut accountant Charlotte Wilder and Hawaii nursery owner Mimi Rose Ebert began their internet friendship with a similar passion for plumerias.

Perhaps because they felt safe at such a distance, the unlikely friends began to share more than plumeria cuttings with each other. Mimi knew how much Charlotte hated her job…and Charlotte knew that Mimi was planning to leave her controlling husband.

When Mimi unexpectedly killed herself, Charlotte was shocked to find her friend had willed her a gift: a one-way ticket to Maui. Mimi’s grieving husband insisted it was Mimi’s last wish to have Charlotte come to the funeral and choose a plumeria to plant near her grave.

But when Charlotte arrived and met Mimi’s handsome brother Scott, she learned she wasn’t alone in thinking that Mimi’s death was suspicious.

Now that she was in paradise, was her life in danger, too?

Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends. ~Euripides

Sub Notes: Science of Scary Hair*

Tarzan, or Newton's Untamed Descendant?

*Or:  Why English Majors Should Never Be Allowed to Teach Science

Today's Improper Poll evolved. Perhaps it's because I’ve been teaching science lately, so nothing has been normal for me.  But teaching science also means I am occasionally bombarded with pictures of various scientists from the past. I've developed a theory that science does weird things to your hair. 

Newton

Because have you ever noticed that scientists from a few centuries ago appear to have discovered interesting ways to sprout hair? Sir Isaac Newton, whom I suspect was a model for the cartoon Tarzan, has always reminded me of 80s hair bands or else 60s go-go dancers. His head is proof of Newton’s little-known discovery that a large mass of hair can actually defy gravity and therefore expand within the universe (m=1,000,000xhair²).

Copernicus

Copernicus, on the other hand, whose buoyant bob appears to have fallen in bouncy body-liciousness, spent many hours working on the hypothesis that the universe, in fact, revolves around his hair (otherwise known as the Hairiocentric Theory).






On the opposite pole is Charles Darwin, who was actually cute in the years before survival of the hairiest evolved him into Santa Clause’s scarier brother.

Darwin Before

Darwin After

And don’t get me started on Einstein. Discover a middle ground, people!

When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

~Mark Twain

Improper Poll: I have a dream

This morning I awoke with an extra weekend day. It is glorious, this beloved freebie plunked down right in the middle of January just when I need it most. It’s like a snow day, only planned, so that I can do things like make dentist appointments and not have to worry that I’ll get there at the end of the day when the dentist might be so sick of looking at nasty mouths that she’s grown hardened and insensitive to my worn enamel and tooth sensitivity.

I will accomplish so much! I will organize my photographs left over from March…of 2010! I will make helpful financial charts using Excel. I will learn how to use Excel! I will paint, glue and decoupage my old encyclopedias into attractive furniture items! I will clean out my underwear drawers and throw out the really comfortable underwear I’ve dubbed the “crotchless (but not in a good way) panties.”

I will read entire novels while lounging in the sunroom with a fat-free iced cappuccino. I will clean out my entire basement. I will see if my treadmill still works and then go out and buy a whole collection of Zumba dvds, and then come home and work till I lose maybe a pound or two. I will diagnose and fix the phantom flushing problem in my toilet rather than blaming it on ghosts. I will select, iron, color code and arrange clothing for the upcoming work week.

I will write a short story for a contest, revise and then submit those essays I’ve been meaning to get to and start my novel. And I’ll do this right after I finish putting down the mulch I’ve been meaning to finish since last fall. But first I’ll go to the hardware store and buy it. And replace the wheelbarrow tire while I’m at it. Maybe pick up a few paint chips because I’m thinking about repainting the hall. And then I’ll cook a whole gourmet dinner where not one single item came from a box, and only a few came from bags.

What I will NOT do is hang out in pjs all day reading blogs. No sir!

What is your dream?

Book Blurb Friday #46

It’s finally Book Blurb Friday again! This is due to Thursday’s snow day. Well, really it’s due to BBF’s talented and illustrious hostess, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, but the snow day was welcome and beautiful for those of us who could stay home and get caught up without having to drive. There were times when it snowed with the sun shining so that the flakes looked just like glitter. One of many times I wish I were better with a camera. Anyhoo! The weekly BBF challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week is 149 words.

~The Summer of Twilah Moon~

Summer at Lake Obochobi came alive for Kari and Brian the year that Twilah Moon moved into the next cabin. Not content to sit for long, Twilah explored everything. The reason, she confessed, was a secret alien microchip implanted in her brain that was designed to transport information about Earth back to her home planet, Nevaeh. Someday soon, her native people would be calling her home.

Kari and Brian weren’t sure how much they really believed, but life beside Twilah came alive with diversions they’d never known, from the things that happened in other galaxies to the Nevaehan scanners that had been placed under the pier. And there was no denying that Twilah was sent away for days at a time and came back looking awful. Was she really getting microchip placement scans that left her drained from the Cytoxian radiation, or did she have a more frightening secret?

Problems are the soul’s invitation to transform. ~Lynne Forrest

They Also Wield Blog Awards

Thank you to Lynn of Present Letters for the lovely and coveted Versatile Blogger Award!! Lynn’s epistolary writing, addressed to the mother she lost when she was young, is moving and inspiring in so many ways. Lynn is also a fellow W.W.W.P. (Wild Women Wielding Pens), described in more detail below.

I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that are not included in my blog. So here goes (and if I’ve mentioned any before, sorry):

1.  My mother used to put our Great Pyrenees puppy in the playpen with me, so I literally grew up with dogs. In fact, if I speak a language, it would have to be a very small amount of Doggish. But only if my teacher is very patient with me.

2.  Am not originally from Missouri. We moved around a lot due to my former husband’s job, and this was the place we lived the longest. A few years ago I chose to move back to the St. Louis area. It’s not just the “Gateway to the West.” To me it possesses a sampling of nearly every part of the United States, and I love that. St. Louis has so much variety, there is something for everyone—culture, history, sports, children’s activities, outdoor activities, scenery, weather (ha!—maybe a little too much weather variety, but I’ve definitely lived in much worse) etc. And it’s affordable. Love it.

3. When I was a kid, I used to play Cowboys and Indians with a little boy on the next block named Stevie. Stevie and I got along well because he wanted to grow up to be a cowboy and I wanted to grow up to be an Indian.

4. I spent every possible moment of my childhood without shoes and have always felt fortunate that my mother let me.

5.  Also when I was a little kid, I thought clowns were a race. People still used the phrase “colored people” then, and let’s face it, clowns are colored.

6.  I have Hannibal Lecter’s sense of smell (without his sense of taste—ha!) and collect fragrant plants. Below is a picture of one of the delightfully fragrant viburnums that’s been blooming out of season since December because our weather’s been so warm.  This one is burkwoodii 'Mohawk.'

 And below is plumeria ‘Miami Rose’ that’s been blooming in my sun room all winter, followed by the orchid that a dear friend sent me for my birthday over two months ago. Not only is it stunningly beautiful, it’s still blooming!

7.  I once attended something called Laughter Therapy. The idea is that laughter causes wonderful things to happen in the body and the brain, so you laugh without reason if necessary. It was supposed to provide the body with the equivalent of several hours of exercise and leave you feeling refreshed. The small critique group I joined last year is like laughter therapy, but way better because the laugher (and the people) are genuine. Although our senses of humor range from the naughty to the nice—sometimes all in the same person—those brilliant, witty, talented, spiritual, raunchy, silly, wise, genuinely fun women provide the reason for the laughter in addition to first-rate writing advice. And sometimes, they even provide chocolate…which is another thing we all have in common. So thank you again to Lynn, a fellow W.W.W.P.

I believe I am supposed to pass this award to four awesomely versatile bloggers. The problem is that not only are all of you awesomely versatile, but some people don’t like awards. So I've chosen two who've given me awards in the past and are also awesome and versatile, too.  I'm hoping two others will consider it passed to them as well.

I love Trying to Get Over the Rainbow  because Jules leaves me feeling uplifted and refreshed by her amazingly unique—not to mention hysterically funny—perspective.

Donna’s Book Pub always has advice, opportunities, contests, interviews and other wonderful tidbits for writers. I'm always glad I stopped in.

Enjoy!

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ~Ed Cunningham

Improper Poll: Switching Channels

I’m not a big television watcher, but over the holidays I watched a bit more than usual while wrapping Christmas presents. And I am surprised at what’s out there.

There’s “Ghost Adventures,” an oxymoronic show if I ever saw one, because, really, how adventurous can dead people be? But the show must be incredibly popular since it seems to be on all the time every evening. In this case, grown men appear to walk around shouting insults at dark buildings. Don’t get me wrong—I grew up in a haunted house, which makes it hard not to believe in ghosts, but these particular ghosts just never seem very lively. I watch, though, because I keep hoping at least one of them will show up for their television debut.

Then I discovered that there is such a thing as “Barbie Channel.”  Channel.  'Nuff said there.  

Weirdest of all was something called “Nighttime Programs for Baby.” Apparently television sets are now a staple of baby’s layette, and we must start training little crib potatoes as soon as they are just this side of the womb. I actually watched Nighttime Programs for Baby until the music made me feel colicky. It wasn’t too strong on plot, but it appeared to be made up of trippy little vignettes that were sort of artistically appealing in some cases. On the whole, though, I thought it insulted babies’ intelligence.

Of course, even that plot might just be better than the show called “Best Bra Ever,” but I can’t bring myself to watch that one, even as valuable blog research.

Last but not least of entertaining show names involved the Naughty Channels. I don’t subscribe to those, but apparently my satellite provider thinks it will tempt me by showing me the names. And I have to admit, some of them make me laugh myself silly. Problem is, I found very few I'd feel comfortable posting on my blog. Fortunately my personal favorite was the publishable “Naughty Golf Champ.” I imagine this one was specifically made for those men who wish to combine their passions, so to speak, much like the Seinfeld episode where George tries to combine sex and deli meats.

Have you discovered any weird TV programs lately?

Sub Notes: Noticed In Passing

The other day, Tom mentioned different aisle-blocking behaviors. He mentioned that women are the only ones who walk in a line, thus blocking those behind them from getting around.

I’ve been thinking, and that is not always a good thing. Because…I'm about to make poor Tom sorry for asking perfectly nice rhetorical questions.  Part of my job in high schools is preventing hallway blockages during passing periods. And those minutes add up. So I’ve begun to think of myself as somewhat of an anthropologist of adolescence. And what are schools but teenaged microcosms?

True, several males never travel in a straight line the way females do. I think it’s a dominance thing. A straight line is cooperative in nature.

Girls form cooperative packs. It’s what we do. Some girls do use those groups to dominate others. Movies like “Mean Girls” are legendary for portraying the negative aspect of girl groups. But I’m convinced that the tendency to form cooperative groups is hugely beneficial to women. It allows them an opportunity for mutual nurturing, protecting, and empowering of the members—and their children. No question those female groups encourage, in lots of different ways, successful child rearing. And anyone who doesn’t realize how vulnerable women can be on their own has never been sexually assaulted, groped, or harassed.

Girls and women will engage in cooperative behaviors that you’d never see boys and men do, like fix each other’s hair or whisper or apply each other’s makeup. They’ll also stand up for each other. Fiercely. And men know this.

Boys are just as legendary for tryng to establish dominance over other boys. When they stand together in a large group, their behavior is almost always competitive. They’ll give each other playful shoves. Or if a small group is sitting in the classroom in a casual mode, I’ve noticed one boy will often try to sit on the desk to raise himself higher than the others. (I never let them. Not only do I not want them breaking the desks, but I want to keep them in a psychologically cooperative group with myself as the one in charge.)

Mixed-gender groups have a whole different dynamic. Sometimes several boys will walk side by side if girls are in the group. I think it’s that they have to submit in a sense in order to join. If a girl tries to sit higher than a group of boys, sometimes I do let her for brief periods of time. I’m not trying to be unfair. I think there’s a weird little paradox going on that says she is accepting the boys by diffusing any threat. I don’t remember ever seeing a boy try to sit higher than a group of girls when no other boys are present. Groups of women are, as Tom mentioned, intimidating. And they are supposed to be. Groups wouldn’t give women a sense of safety if they weren’t.

Once I subbed in PE and a male teacher asked me to monitor the girls’ locker room “to make sure they don’t kill each other in there.” I laughed to myself. If a girl is mad enough at another girl to attack her, she won’t do anything as nice and simple as attack her. She’ll make her life absolutely miserable by attempting to ruin her social status and kicking her out of the group.

Anyway, Tom asked if those aisle-blocking women are trying to get attention or what. I think they’re just doing what comes naturally and are so focused on their little group that they just don’t think about the larger group out there. But what of those women who habitually block aisles on their own using just their grocery cart? I hate that! Or did, till I thought about it and realized I’ve caught myself doing the same thing—when I was so heavily focused on a small group that I was shutting out the rest of the world. That small group wasn’t even there, either. It’s called “family.”  Go figure.

“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.” ~Orson Scott Card in Ender’s Game

“We are no longer the knights who say ni! We are now the knights who say ekki-ekki-ekki-pitang-zoom-boing!” ~Monty Python