yourwords

I’m wasting time till my step dad brings home my step sister from the airport. The maximum of my boredness right now will only be balanced out by the maximum oddity that will be the rest of the day. I haven’t seen my steop sister since 2004 when she graduated from highschool and moved to Canada. Since then, she’s visited our parents at times when I’ve been off visiting other people. I’ve seen all of my siblings, including my step sister and step brother, since I’ve seen her- and me and Vicki (the one coming in today) used to go to highschool together, and live down the hall from eachother! It’s very insane, and the lapsed time between meetings wasn’t planned at all, I assure you. At least I didn’t plan it.

What’s more, is that on Friday I move into a house twenty minutes away to house sit for a family that’s in Africa for the holidays. Not only haven’t we seen eachother in 4 years, we also wont see much of eachother now. Weird! I’m thinking about all the holiday plans I have with friends and I’m wondering if I should invite her or not. I’ll invite her anyway, because I don’t want to be rude, I wonder if she’ll feel awkward or not. Hmm. Happy Week Before Christmas!

Its raining in southern Cali. That doesn’t happen very often, especailly not the storm that’s raging right now. I’ve already gone outside and expirienced the exquisite bitingly cold wind and icey drops attacking from all sides. I used to run around when it rained in Texas, let it soak me to the bone, play in puddles, basically look insane out in the cold wet air by myself, giggling and skipping like a mad woman. Today I didn’t necessarily try to do that, but I felt nostalgic for those seemingly carefree days as I was scrambling around, trying to get the garbage cans put away as fast as possible. I don’t think it’s much colder here than it was in Texas, and I don’t have anything to occupy myself with the rest of the afternoon and evening, so it really wouldn’t hurt to go have a run in the cold ass rain. But apparently those carefree days are over. I’ve wizened up. It’s not even that I care what the neighbors think of me, I already walk around the neighborhood in boxer shorts and sometimes a robe when I really need to be on the phone (I have bad service inside my house) and happen to have just left the shower. They already think I’m a white trash crazy hoe-bag. So why can’t I go frolick in the rain? I’ll ponder that while I wrap up in a blanket on a big over stuffed couch.

Prompt:

What about the gray bleakness of rain is appealing? Why is it that misery can be so exquisite, to the point that you’d rather listen to a mournfully passionate song than a happy jingle? Is it because we’re all secretly afraid of being happy? Do we want to feel sorrow so that we have the excuse to seek pity? I’ll ponder this too as I go curl up and hide away from the world :) 

It’s no secret that writers have to be readers as well, or that an avid reader is a potentially great writer. What a writer reads greatly influences what they will later write. It’s got to be subconscious, if it weren’t I would try to avoid it for the simple purpose of keeping my work original. That’s not possible, because I learn that you have to find your own voice, which has o be built on something- it doesn’t fall from the sky one day.

Anywhoopers, now that I know I’m reading basically for the purpose of research into the competition (lol, not really, I still read for entertainment.) As I’m reading though, I can’t help but scrutinizing the plot and characters. Recently I picked up the House of Night series. I’ve read them all except the fourth book. All of them have the same problem: it’s all action all the time. No room to breath. That means it also is an easy, addictive read. I love and hate the books for that same reason. I need the easy entertainment, but crave deeper meaning and plot development. They also all revolve around the same movements. She needs to be alone, goes wandering, accidentally runs into a plot key. And the main character has a Bella Swan complex; she thinks she’s all weird and unlikeable, when everyone adores her openly and she’s quite popular despite her shunning it. Atleast Bella Swan could somewhat stick to one guy, Zoey Redbird of the house of night series has a new boyfriend every page, without breaking up with any of them. 

Where I’m going with this is that I put down the last book the other day, having finished it, and decided that I liked the book simply because it showed me what not to do in my books. Most importantly, people need space to breath. Zoey stumbles into things every minute of the day, even solutions to her problems. She’s a victim of fate. I much prefer a character that makes their own destiny, even if it goes wrong. And with a character that makes their own decisions, rather than tripping blindly, they do take time to think about things, deciding what is best to do. Thence, their thought process is bare and open for the reader to agree with or disagree with, but atleast they understand and feel like there IS a process. I understand that not everyone likes that kind of thing, but I do so that’s how I write. :P

Prompt: Can you choose your influences?

Write about how ideas and hobbies are formed. By nature or nurture? Pick a habit of yours, and attempt to trace it to it’s foundations. Smokin, for instance, isn’t a habit of mine. If I had ever smoked though, one of the reasons why would be watching Audrey Hepburn smoke in Charades. She looked so suave and sophisticated- smoking at a cafe in Paris. There would be many other reasons, though, that I wouldn’t ever be able to conjur up here in two seconds. That’s why I ask you to take a few minutes, and write anything that comes to mind when you think of that particular habit.

Today is my last day of being an omnivore. I’ve decided that tomorrow I start a vegetarian diet, by visiting my nutritionist friend and having her devise me meal plans to ease the process. It’s a big step, and I’m not counting on a dedicated follow through. Honestly, if someone offers me pepperoni pizza when I’m supposed to be munching on a carrot, I wont be much for resisting temptaion, I know that right now.

See, I’ve never been much for commitment. In my creative writing class, I introduced myself by telling everyone that I don’t like writing short stories, only long novels. Commitment, commitment, commitment. Unless it’s relationships, exercise programs, diets, jobs… Basically I only commit to writing. Then again, when the irrational reasons for me to love and hold onto things outweigh the rational reasons, I tend to commit whole-heartedly even if I don’t want to.

We’ll see how vegetarianism goes. Logical reasons: health, and compassion towards my fellow animals. Illogical reasons: a strange mixture between the two. When I eat meat I can’t help picture the poor animal who provided the meal. Then I take a bite, and can taste an image of how it looked when butchered (metaphorically speaking). I eventually swallow it down, but I lose my appetite faster than a squealing pig tied to a tread mill.  Then I get kept awake at night with a grumbly stomach. If vegetarianism is the way to heal that, then maybe pepperoni pizza wont be such a vice for me in later months. Hell, I could lose some weight!

Prompt:

We have different reasons for commiting, and different reasons for giving up. The last time I gave up, I had a hell of a time convincing myself it was the right thing to do. A blog helped me to collect my thoughts on the issue. What I wanted to do was give up, and that’s what I ended up doing because that’s what my gut told me to do. The older I get, the more I feel the need to logically explain why I do the things I do. Also, the older I get, the more I realize that my intuition always wins. If my gut tells me to quit, I quit on the dot. However, if I had the kind of brain in which I had to explain myself to inorder to get things done, I wonder if I would have allowed myself to give up as much.

Does logic dictate your reactions, or does intuition?

Last week I had a little phone accident. I was at a choir event in a Lutheran church, and it began to rain. It hardly ever rains in San Diego, and by that time it had been raining on and off for a day. Unheard of! But there it was, heavy raindrops pouring down on the stained glass windows. Or, it would be more accurate to say that it didn’t begin to rain until punch and cookies were served in a building even further from our car than the church was. I cursed the heavens, and my decision to wear suede boots, that would surely be destroyed if I ventured out. Luckilly my heroic step dad took it upon himself to save the womenfolk, and opted to bring the car to us.

In the meantime, waiting his return, my phone rings and it’s a friend I haven’t spoken to in months. I leave the noisy outer threshold of the communion hall to stand and converseunder a relatively dry canopy. I can’t say the conversation was particularly life-changing. Apparently Val was calling to tel me that he’d taken up pipe smoking. It’s dignified, and doesn’t yellow your fingers. Well, I oo-ed and awed appropriately, but kept my eye on the street for my get away vehicle.

When it came I politely ended the conversation with a promise to hang out with him on Friday. This happened as I ran out from under the canopy. With the phone shut off, and my boots in jeopardy, I attempted a running leap to vault myself along with my belongings into the warm and safe backseat. Everything made it, except my phone.

It wasn’t two seconds after I’d dropped it that I leaped to rescue the fallen comrade, only to find it unrescuable. My only fact sustained theory is that the phone clattered, of which I heard, and then bounced into the small river by the curb. This river took my phone, assumingly, down the street, and right into a lovely gaping sewer drain. The only proof of this that I have is that the phone was no where to be found. :(

However! All is not lost. Black Friday rolled around, with sales low, and spirits high. Needless to say, I found a much better, much newer phone on sale for free, kind of. And there’s my thanksgiving adventure.