Goodbye to a legend...

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
- Kurt Vonnegut

November 11 1922 - April 11 2007

Word of the Day for Friday, April 13, 2007

spoonerism \SPOO-nuh-riz-uhm\, noun:

The transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words.

Some examples:

• We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish ["half-formed wish"] inside us.

· The Lord is a shoving leopard ["loving shepherd"].

· It is kisstomary to cuss ["customary to kiss"] the bride.

· Is the bean dizzy ["dean busy"]?

· When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out ["flags hung out"]!

· Let me sew you to your sheet ["show you to your seat"].

Spoonerism comes from the name of the Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), a kindly but nervous Anglican clergyman and educationalist. All the above examples were committed by (or attributed to) him.

Happy Passover

To our Jewish brethren out there... happy passover and a tasty seder

Don't mess with these kids today

Young carjacking heroine shines on TV

BY KATHLEEN McGRORY

The Allapattah girl who swatted a carjacker with a schoolbook and saved her little brother can now add another line to her résumé: TV star

Six-year-old Briana Castillo and her mother, Atheysha Diaz, were featured Tuesday afternoon on the nationally syndicated daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. At the end of the show, DeGeneres surprised the family with a new car.

''I can't believe it,'' said Briana, twirling around her family's new wheels on national television.

Briana made headlines last month when a carjacker tried to swipe the family's old car, which was running in the driveway. Diaz had just locked the house and was walking to the vehicle. Briana and her 2-year-old brother, Jose, were already in the back seat.

When the stranger appeared, he shoved Diaz out of the way and took the wheel. She tried to fight back, but the man put the car in reverse and sped away.

That's when Briana stepped in. She flailed away at the carjacker's back with her fists and her schoolbook until he had enough. He stopped the car and ordered the kids out. Briana helped her brother out of his safety seat and walked him home.

When the story ran in The Miami Herald, the producers at The Ellen DeGeneres Show took note. About two weeks later, they flew Briana and her mother out to Los Angeles to be guests on the show.

On national television, DeGeneres honored Briana for her courage.

''That was really brave of you to hit him over the head,'' DeGeneres told her. ``That was smart thinking.''

Briana just giggled.

''She was giving him attitude,'' her mother chimed in.

Near the end of the segment, DeGeneres surprised Briana with a stash of toys and a new copy of Sarah's Unicorn, the library book she used to whack the carjacker.

The talk show host saved the big surprise for last: a shiny, white Chrysler Sebring adorned with an oversized red bow. There were already two safety seats installed in the back -- one for Briana, one for her little brother.

''Look, there's even a place for your book,'' DeGeneres said, drawing laughs from the audience.

Briana and Diaz returned to Miami Tuesday, where the case remains unsolved.

Although investigators found the family's old car just a few blocks from their home, the suspect is still at large.

words are fun to say

i spent the afternoon babysitting a charming 1 1/2 yr old girl.

at lunch time I served her mac & cheese, peas, cantaloupe, tofu and milk.

it's fun to say cantaloupe-cantaloupe-cantaloupe-cantaloupe-loupe-loupe-loupe.

and toe-foooo. go on, say it...toe-fooooo.

and then peas - peas - peas peas.

and mmm-mmmm Milk.

cantaloupe-cantaloupe-cantaloupe-cantaloupe-loupe-loupe-loupe

art school lemonade

the happy doctor and i talked about my writing (what i write about, how i write, where the inspiration comes from)

I realized that although I write fiction, generally through my writing I'm working something out in life.

He said, so that's how writing fits in your life.

and I thought about it, and said, I think of it as how I use my life in my writing.

lemons to lemonade.

life into art.

a bad day turns into a short story.

art school lemonade.

why i haven't been blogging

1. this is my last semester
2. I'm worried about having enough for my thesis
3. I'm working on two (maybe a third?) story ...see previous post (word of the day) also, was working on a screenplay with another hilarious friend from school - although we haven't gotten together to write in a couple weeks
   
4. I've started reading for just good fun again (sounds contradictory - I'm a writer after all - oh for this one - see the post where i was overheard in Chicago) during school i tend to read for school not for fun ..right now i'm reading Amy & Isabelle
5. I am seeing the happy doctor twice a week ... while my mental health is looking up ... it's quite time consuming.
6. I feel like I'm busy all the time and yet, I don't know what I'm busy doing ...
   
7. I'm looking for a new job ...(my contract ended at the greatest-company-ever-to-work-for i had the option to go full time but need to focus on school and all that)

on Wednesday I'm headed to AWP.... maybe I'll blog about that crazy experience.

also, it's too cold and yucky out there. Where is Spring?!?!

and for no reason except that i love the pic ... this is sascha...

Word of the Day... idee fixe

This is what happens to me sometimes when I’m writing a story….

idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:

An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.

The reality of obsession -- its incessant return to the same few themes, scenarios and questions; its meticulous examination and re-examination of banal minutiae for hidden meanings that simply aren't there; the cancerous way an idee fixe usurps other, more interesting thoughts -- is that it is confining, not rebellious, and not fascinating but maddeningly dull.
-- Laura Miller, "The Streetwalkers of San Francisco", New York Times, August 20, 2000

It became an idee fixe that he stubbornly adhered to in spite of the plain evidence . . . that obviously contradicts it.
-- Edwin G. Pulleyblank, "Prosody or pharyngealization in old Chinese?", The Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 12, 1996

Getting back to the idee fixe, let me say that it's what produces strong men and madmen.
-- Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (translated by Gregory Rabassa)

Idee fixe is from the French idée, "idea" + fixe, "fixed."

On the Road Again

I'm in New York this weekend to say Happy travels and all that to a dear friend who is moving with her husband to Singapore. Since I am unemployed again and still a grad student ... I took the shuttle bus from LGA to the Port Authority. On the bus was a young girl from Sarasota with her friend and what I gather is her Uncle David, who lives in New York. The girl was here to audition for colleges, i think for musical theater.

They couldn't have been more excited about New York. The whole ride from Queens she kept saying, Is THIS Manhattan? and when we finally come out of the tunnel into Manhattan, she couldn't contain her glee. "Look at them, those New Yorkers, they LIVE here!" Every thing she passed she pointed it out (everthing from grand central to the Target Billboard in Times Square) she also mocked her excitement while enjoying it.

It was fun to hear. It reminded me of when I lived here, and even after being here for years and having days (usually in the morning fighting for a seat on the subway) when i would hate it, I'd still have those moments when I would think, "I live in New York" and every time it was a bit awesome (in the dictionary sense - not in the vally girl sense)

Still, I love this city

Today's Horoscope for Libra

You could be quite productive today, but your accomplishments may be more creative than practical. Everything you touch now has the potential of turning into an artistic project. Although this could be lots of fun, you must be careful not to spread yourself too thin or you will end up more frustrated than fulfilled.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Go Long...

It's a new semester. And I had my first meeting with my adviser (well, one of my advisers) and we talked about the work that I've done in the past and what I am working on now. She's thinks I have miscategorized myself as a short fiction writer ... she thinks I have larger projects in me...that I have global views on my stories and my characters ...and in her words there are "neighborhoods inside" me.

Is it just me, or does that sound a tad dirty?

Either way ... I'm bit by bit working on something. Maybe it will be long instead of short. Or maybe it will be short. But that's what brand new semesters are all about ... starting something new.

The Happiest Depressed Person You Know

That was a how a friend described me when I told I told her I was going to start therapy. But as my Happy Doctor put it, I've had a complicated life and there's a lot going on. Apparently I'm so crazy, I need to meet with him twice a week.

It's a strange experience talking about yourself for an hour and not have the other person reciprocate, well not really reciprocate so much as just ask you more questions about yourself. And I wonder, on the bus on the way to my appointment, what could I possibly talk about for fifty minutes? But then I'm sitting on his couch and he sits across from me looking at me, not saying anything and then the words come.

I joked with another friend that of course he wants to see me twice a week because I've got juicy soap opera stuff to tell, what with multiple divorces in my family, a former spy father (I'd like to add here, that I was referred to this doctor by a family member who is also seeing him, which I think helps in my credibility as actually having a father who is retired from the CIA, not just another delusional crazy person), an alcoholic sister and a recently widowed best friend. It feels like the Days-of-Our-One-Life-to-Live instead of therapy as he tries to keep track of which sibling of mine is from which of my parent's marriages. And even when I say, "I don't know how to handle..." whatever this or that, he never answers my questions, just agrees with my confusion. It's a bit frustrating that he never tells me what to do ... but, this is what I've learned so far from our sessions...

at a young (according to my happy doctor at a way too young) age I took on feelings of responsibility for the happiness of people in my life and felt torn by divided loyalties. I try to take care of everyone around me before I take care of myself because one, I feel responsible for everyone else's happiness and two then I don't have to or can avoid taking care of myself.

And what I realized today, in talking both about my sister ... and relaying a conversation I had with my best friend's brother, that we can't make them happy (my sister or my best friend) that only they can make themselves happy and that the only that I can do, the only thing that is my responsibility and within my power is to let her( my sister and my best friend) know that I'm there for her. It was a bit of a freeing moment when I realized that.

That was this weeks revelation.

So, on that note, I'm the happiest depressed person you know...

words...glorious words

Imprecation:

~noun

1. act of imprecating; cursing
2. a curse; malediction

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006

Me Overheard in Chicago

I'm a bit sarcastic at times. And self deprecating. and often times I talk in a fake valley girl voice whilst mocking myself. But I always assume my friends know when I'm kidding... I never think about what other people on the el might be thinking...

he's a bit dumb, in my opinion

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1824

A virtual Musical world

This site was recommended to me by a friend. I have only just signed up. So my testimonial is by proxy. But I trust her. Apparently this is set up kind of like netflix, it reads the music you listen to and compares your music preferences to other users prefrences and makes recommendations. You can also link to friends and it shows you what your neighbors are listening to ... it's another virtual community.

Happy Listening ...

if you do try it out, let me know and we can be last.fm friends.

Oxymoron

The Word of the Day for January 09 is:

oxymoron \ahk-sih-MOR-ahn\ noun

: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words

Example sentence:
"That's an oxymoron!" said Joanne, when she heard the DJ describe the song as an "instant classic."

Did you know?
The Greeks exhaustively classified the elements of rhetoric, or effective speech and writing, and gave the name "oxymoron," literally "pointed foolishness," to the deliberate juxtaposing of seemingly contradictory words. The roots of "oxymoron" "oxys," meaning "sharp" or "keen," and "moros," meaning "foolish" — are nearly antonyms themselves, making "oxymoron" nicely self-descriptive. "Oxymoron" originally applied to a meaningful paradox condensed into a couple of words, as in "precious bane," "lonely crowd," or "sweet sorrow." Today, however, "oxymoron" can also refer to unintentional contradictions, like "a plastic glass."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

iPod ennui no more

Apparently this happens to quite a few people, but my love for my iPod (and my music) is cyclical. When it was new and unscratched and ready for downloads, I was a like a crack addict, always on the hunt for new songs. It was during my move from New York to Chicago, and while I was surrounded by half packed boxes, I would spend more time than I had to waste downloading music. I was obsessed. There are songs on my iPod that I have no memory of downloading and no idea where I found the song or why I paid $0.99 for the song. My ears were never without headphones, and I made playlists for everything.

Then it happened.

I got tired of my music. Who knew that thousands of songs could get tiring? And my iPod sat lonely and forgotten on my desk.

Then I discovered Limewire. And it was back. My love, my obsession. I clogged Internet time with searching songs and downloading.

And of course, again I got bored.

iPod ennui is so sad.

but .... part of my christmas loot was an iTunes gift card.

I was once again in a musical haze of downloading. Now when I walk down the street, headphones cradled into my ear drums (definitely doing permanent and dangerous damage to my hearing) I can't help but smile ... it's new again...

here's some of the music i have downloaded in the past week:

Dead Man, Undertaker, Poison Cup by M. Ward
A Man/Me/Then Jim, Capturing Moods by Rilo Kiley
Grand Canyon, Epitaph for My Heart, My Only Home, Long-Forgotten
Fairytale, I Think I Need a New Heart, Absolutely Cuckoo, It's Only
Time by The Magnetic Fields
Step Into My Office Baby, I'm a Cuckoo, If She Wants Me by Belle and Sebastian
Undecided, Love's A Game by The Magic Numbers
Secret Heart by Feist
Ode to Divorce, Chemo Limo by Regina Spektor
Usual Way by Super XX Man
Sunken Treasure, Jesus Etc..., Poor Places by Wilco
Hands in Pockets by Laura Gibson
Play that funky music white boy by wild cherry
Bittersweet symphony by the verve
PPale blue eyes, Take a Walk on, Stephanie Says by The Velvet Underground
It's not Unusual by Tom Jones
Bang a Gong Get It on by T- Rex
Give a Little Bit by Super Tramp
Mr. Roboto, Come Sail Away by the Styx
The Joker, Take the Money and Run, Gangster of Love, Fly like an Eagle by the Eagles
When I goosestep, Pressed in a book, Your Algebra, Girl Inform me, Kissing the Lipless by the Shins
What Do I do, Holding on to the Earth, Same Changes, I need love, I could write by Sam Phillips
What a Wonderful World, Tainted Love, Rock N Roll High School, I wanna be Sedated, Hey Ho, Let's Go, Do you wanna dance? What I like about you by the Ramones
She hates me by Puddle of Mud
Kiss, Purple Rain, Rasberry Beret by Prince
Lucky Star, Hey Mr. DJ by Madonna
Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake
Fins, If You like Pina Colada, Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy buffett
Afterglow by INXS
Forever Young, Say Hello to Angels, Direction by Interpol
Mona Lisa, Lily-a-passion by Grant Lee Phillips
Jubilee by Grant Lee Buffalo
Whip it by Devo
Brimful of Asha by Cornershop
Opps I did it Again by Britney Spears
Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys
Starcrossed by Ash
Hey Jack Kerouac by the 10,000 Maniacs.

Home again...In love again

I've done a lot of blogging about my writers block. The other day I came across something I wrote in the fall about my frustrations with my writing:

It’s like going from loving someone to not.

I was a writer then I wasn’t.

The words stopped.

They used to hang out inside my head.

Between meetings and phone calls, walking down the street, sentences knocked around with the rhythm of my steps.

How to say it best, new words, phrases, ideas; it was all bouncing around fighting for space in my thoughts until I finally spit them out either through ink and pen or tapped into my keyboard, letters cascading from the cursor.

Now there’s an opaque filter holding them back, waiting for liquid draino or is it that the words have been spilled and will no longer be refilled.

Whatever… I’ve slowly started writing. The obsession with words is, slowly, coming back…

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

It's like a spring day (or Fall) and I'm cleaning and running errands and getting things done. Sun makes for a whole new me.

Good Bye to 2006 ~ onward for a new year

2006 ~ it was the best of times it was a the worst of times.

a friend recently, when talking about a year he spent abroad during undergrad, commented that it was a great year and he could live it over and over again ~ groundhog day style. Which gave me pause, because, a whole year? I thought back over my life ... my, well, a few decades on this earth. And I can think of days, weeks, even months that I would love to go back to hang out and re-experience. But a whole year? Only if I could cut out certain months, weeks, days even moments.

This was a year that had some beautiful, blissful days ...and exceptionally crappy ones. I made a list of the great things and the bad things of 2006. It was, for every good thing there was a bad thing. It seems to me that my whole life is a balance of good and bad. The good things are always paid for by some pretty crappy things.

A friend in college, when going through a bad time would always say to herself, "Equal pleasure, equal pain" as a comforting mantra to get herself through it. I'm not sure that's so comforting. But, in looking back over the past year ...I would say there was some real crap.

But, some good...and some really great stuff too.

and so ... on to a new year.

2007, bring it on..