Anybody's Blog Could Kick my Blog's Butt

Hello everyone who has read my work in [A cappella Zoo, Toasted Cheese, Hawk & Handsaw, Pif Magazine, Cheek Teeth, or other].

If you're wondering why you've clicked on the link to my blog - because it obviously has been abandoned by its addict/roadhog mother - here I am again.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. Recently I've moved from my mom's house to my very first "room of my own" apartment! I am drunk on freedom and devoid of a computer with internet.

As I've been striving to acquire a 5th day on my work schedule for the cinema that employs me, and as I prefer to spend several hours with my fiance on Sundays and Wednesdays, and when I sit down to write I work on "The Good Samaritan Drives us to San Jose" and "Maps in the Back of Bibles" (coming soon!) my blogging days have been mercilessly slashed.

I did not die - though, admittedly, that would have been pretty cool. I am alive. I've just finished the Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude and began reading Snow Country by Yusanari Kawabata today. I'm receiving rejection letter after letter. Ergo sum.

More to come, stay tuned, yada yada. Good night.

Answers for Are Muffin Tops Collapsible?

Busy!

A cappella Zoo began accepting submissions today and I've been reading and reviewing ever since my David went home.

New discovery: I love being an editor! It's what I want as my career. Throughout high school and college I thought: I'll teach creative writing or I'll be a librarian. Editor was a fallback. Not anymore.

In a different part of the forest, Pif Magazine has published my story "Answers for Are Muffin Tops Collapsible?"!

The Legs Come Off Easily

My short story about Barbie-breaking, the hate of cuteness, and the horror of one-dimensional existence, The Legs Come Off Easily, is now online at A cappella Zoo's website!


I more than merely reccomend you read the remainder of the issue, I implore you (sets spinning her red and white hyptnotist's wheel) from my benevolent heart,

read A cappella Zoo, read A cappella Zoo,

listen to my words,

it's good for you...

Now I will snap my fingers and you will buy me a caramel Frappe.

Can You Spell Tourettes?

Soundtrack, cause you know you want one, by Blind Pilot.

David and I have been threshing out a new song (which actually mentions a threshing room floor) called "A Bad Year for Small Animals".

** Please see next post for more details.**

This venture has sent me to Rhymezone a few times and this reminded me of an important rule for writers that I've enforced in my own work, whether for short stories or song lyrics.

First, a lovely anecdote from sixth grade.

One Geography class a fellow student asked my teacher Mr. King if he had Tourette syndrome.

I don't know why you would ask someone who has regular conniptions (who ripped a very expensive atlas from the wall and threw it into the hallway for a forgotten reason) if he had Tourettes, but my classmate was just that stupid.

Mr. King stared at him and said,

"Can you spell Tourettes? Because I don't think you should use words that you don't know how to spell. So for you, that leaves: ooh, uh, and duh."

Tip: don't use words you don't know.

If you have a general idea what it mean, click onto Dictionary.com and familiarize yourself until you can employ it confidently. This rule is especially vital for college students. Every professor and editor can identify thesaurus-driven work. Be smart.

Also, consider this: if you don't know a word, readers will not be affected by it.

Bedwetting Science

"You pee yourself?"

exclaimed the bed-wetter, his piteous suicide ruined.


I'm a little early, but I wrote this a few days ago and I'm not waiting until midnight to post it.

A conundrum has poked his furry head out of the closet. A literary magazine I adore is accepting readers. However, I just started Moleperson Magazine and applied for a second job.

I believe that we here in internetland would say:  >.<

Putting on my Digger Hat

I have become the founding editor of Moleperson Magazine.

We launched this evening and my heart won't let my breath back out - I'm so excited/terrified/slightlyproud!

If you are a fiction writer, an artist who likes drawing/photographing molepeople, or an indie musician (David will be monitoring music submissions) with a love for the weird, I refer you to Moleperson Magazine.

To celebrate, a good song by Last Dinosaurs.

This Song's Trapped in My Head, Kumbaya!

Strangely, there are songs that get stuck in my head only when I'm at work. There's nothing I can find that initiates these repetative concerts. (Except for one of the songs; there's a circus game in the arcade. When it comes on, everybody ends up humming along.)

I've embedded the videoes so they can get stuck in your head, too! Aren't I nice?

These songs include:

Kumbaya

Drunken Sailor

Theme from the Odd Couple, which I've never seen, but they sang in Friends

Magnetic Valentine's Poem

Close to my house there is a used bookstore called The Book Nook. Its children's section had a set of magnetic words on a metal file cabinet. David and I walked over to the mall to play with the words all the time; it was one of our favorite dates. But, unfortunately, The Book Nook recently relocated to another space in the mall and with its renovation, the magnetic words were somehow taken away.
But! Happy ending! David bought me a Magnetic Poetry set (along with the expansion pack: Happiness) for Valentine's Day!

His clue was "something we used to do all the time but can't anymore." Isn't that cute? <3

So, to repay him for one of my favorite gifts ever, I've "written" this belated Valentine's poem.
(Punctuation added, of course.)

Let the petals of peaches dress your head
Together beneath the summer blue sky
the sun's wax smelling sweet,
we fiddle with tiny pictures of happiness.
My friend, love, ache & giggle!
The rust of sunshine full on you
brings me mad!
In light's pink gown I am not as warm
as in your arms.

It was a bit messier on the board. I had to stack an "an" on "warmth" and an "s" on top of that.

Puzzles aren't Just for Mall Walkers

(A while ago, in my hometown, an elderly man was featured in the paper because of his faithful puzzle breaks in the Book Nook while mall walking.)

When I get sick, like I was this past week, I find my mind turning from the artful and creative and getting stuck on games. Spider solitaire, mahjong, etc.

This time, it was jigsaw puzzles.

Not cardboard ones. Those are too much trouble. No; my mom introduced me to JigZone.com.

It's a nice website. I've been doing dozens of 48-classic piece puzzles and drinking my bottles of purified water. Woo-hoo for youth!

Music to piece-together to.

((The Sound of a Tongue Indicating Death))

I haven't had many battles with that wire-snipping fiend, writer's block. Not that I'm always as prolific with my writing that I wish to be. Ideas are well-stocked up there and I've been too busy to run into writer's block very often.

However, I am not without adversary.

This past week I've had a very bad cold. I didn't write anything. I didn't want to, either.

Sickness is a writer's worst enemy. When the body is drained, it becomes a limp noodle and the balloon of creativity tied on the other end is kaput. All week my creativity has been croaking.

Had I written, it would have doubtlessly come out with all the pride of sputtering tongue.

That's not all. Now that my body is upright and I went to work, my brain is still deflated. I have to pump more life into it. Exercise time!

I have no instant cures for writers suffering colds. All I have is some instant oatmeal. Maybe some brown sugar.

However, for recovering writers, I can tell you: read. Reading will help you build back up

Also, list making and some writing exercises like the one below:

Choose a news headline. Without reading the article, write a story that explains the headline.

The Transformation of a Wallpaper Baby

Soundtrack.

Tuesday night a volunteer (with a pretty voice) from my university's Alumni office called to check up on my productive life. I felt embarrassed by instinct, as one who self-consciously calls herself a bum.

A bum in the fact that I'm 23 years old and have yet to rent a room of my own, drive on the interstate without a fire-breathing driving instructor, or have a desk with my name on it, or at least my own stack of Post-its.

However, this Pirate who Doesn't Do Anything has been busy lately.

I've published three articles on Examiner.com, one on Howcast. Six stories and my name are being printed or typed into six different creative publications, two of which are up to read. I'm excited about my free contributor's copy for Relief which hits the press in Febuary.

Plus! David and I polished off our song, "Surprise Paper Bag", last Sunday and he wants to preform it at Paramount!

I'm not bragging on myself. One fact of proof is that these are not monumental accomplishments and I have a long way to go. Secondly, because I know something about myself that you may not. I am so small.

I brag in God as a little girl who couldn't leave her house or mother a few years ago. As one who entertained thoughts of giving up. As one who probably will take antipsychotics for the rest of my life. As one who knows just how much I need help and strength from the Lord.

I'm a wallpaper baby, not able to join the game of musical chairs for the sticky glue on my back, unless my hand is gripped by an able and loving friend.

Yes, I'm small, but I'm growing! Growing, growing, I'm growing.

Our Own Myths, which taste like sour gummy worms

Soundtrack by Paul Macefiled (Love this song!!!)

I remember as a child, toddling around with spoons of Fruity Pebbles, my brother and I made up magic. The red fruity flakes, if you eat them, you fall in love with the first thing you see. We probably swiped this from an Aladdin episode (remember the TV series?) or some other show we watched.

We spent breakfast "falling in love" with items around the room.

Right now, I'm actually in love with a food processor I lost, and imagining the Oreos and vanilla ice cream I used to whip up on slow afternoons.

I also remember a necklace I got from Bingo at the nursing home my dad ran. The charm was the size of my palm, I thought it was too big. It was just from another time. An oval turquoise stone encircled by braided metal on a chain.

It transported me to the Land of the Black Sand, where I was an acrobatic "street rat", which I definitely stole from Aladdin.

I've traded in my curls and 101 Dalmatians pants but I still find myself with a palmful of myths. The most abundant of these are Happy Token myths.

Happy tokens are little things you find that make that moment special. For instance, coins run flat by a train are happy tokens, as is a piece of hair (or any other thing) in the shape of a heart, or a splatter of paint that looks like a little girl with duck hair, you know, that old cutesy haircut a lot of Precious Moments girls have, or if there are an usual number of blue/pink gummy worms in the box.

Which means, you can make a wish.

David and my favorite little legend is, if you find an eyelash on your true love, you can make a wish, and blow, it will come true.

Do you have one? Something that feels special that you stumble upon in life? Leave me a comment so I can join in on the happiness.

Hector and the Search for Happiness and something about a crocodile?

I examine books now... That's a strange sentence to say. So is: Excuse me madam but that crocodile is nibbling the motor; please thwack him on the nose for me so we can carry on with our expedition.

I may or may not be extremely tired right now.

I am Book Examiner for my hometown on Examiner.com and my first article, a book review of Francois Lelord's small novel, Hector and the Search for Happiness, was published today!

No, I won't tell you how the book is. You'll have to read my review! And when you're done, try Hector and the Search for Happiness.

Today Begins My 23rd Year

Yes, today is my birthday.

It's been twenty-three years and two weeks since the Christmas Eve I decided it was too cold to be born. I might add that today is still too cold for my taste. David doesn't seem to mind, but he's a penguin.

And penguins even go out in the snow barefoot. But pandas like me praise God for our big coats. That's why I eat so much.

Eating Cities... Cities Eating.

Today I heard a melody in the drain. Sheathed in showered bliss, the bliss of warm skin after washing, I was toweling off when I heard it. It was jumpy and light. You see, our house is in a virtual earth bowl into which the rain, or in this case, the melted snow, runs. Therefore, our drains are always drowned and clogged.  Today, as our bathtub drained, the bathroom sink's pipes bubbled a song. I thought how whimsical God's sense of humor was.

This is a random note I wanted to share. My real news reminds me of the drinking drain. Ironically, on the day I switch from soda pop to a diet of orange juice and water, my review of Darrin Doyle's The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo was published on Literary Laundry's website.

This is ironic because of the theme of consumption. The Girl who ate Kalamazoo, Audrey Mapes, is a portrait of grotesque consumption. But don't take my word for it.

Please read the review and try to understand my train of thought; meanwhile I'm attempting to write a review of the Japanese film Nobody Knows for my next blog post.

Have You Seen Ladybugs be Cute Before?

If you want a "daww" moment for today, watch this:

Ladybug Plays with Sprinkles

Personally, ever since Ball State unleashed thousands of frightening orange ladybugs, the fear of these little ladies has grown.  If you didn't know, the orange ones bite.  This oddly specific phobia is rooted in the house of Summitville, my childhood home.

It was infested every summer with literally hundreds of ladybugs.  They died in our window sills; I had to swipe their corpses in a fuzzy cloth and when I folded it, they would fall on me with the light but chilling touch of a fleck of dried leaf.  They floated in our bathtub, toilet, dishpans.  Littered our Little Tikes kitchen and car.  The vacuum would grumble as it routed their bodies, the consistency of dust, from the carpet.

Ick!

I've always gotten sick when I feel my arm hairs distubed by scratchy insect legs.  It may have all started in the Ladybug House in Summitville.

Caution: this video does not redeem ladybugs, but it is cute to watch.

Ask a Stupid Question

In this exciting post I will provide answers for some of the stupidest, most ignorant or misinformed questions posed in my general proximity, following the maxim: ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.  Yes, most of them I heard at work.  Providing the soundtrack for this post are the All New Adventures of Us.


This Edition: From the Theatre
Can I use this coupon more than once?
Yes! It's a magic coupon genie!

What is 3D?
Well... One day 1D and 2D got married and nine months later, 3D was born.  (The number of adults who don't know what 3D movies are is unbelievable.)

What does 2D mean?
2D = 1D + 1D
(This is slightly more understandable but still sad.  Obviously these people were playing hooky that day in 5th grade science.)

Some of my favorite questions are a form of what I call "permission questions."  Coming from adults, these can be hilarious.

"Can I go to the bathroom and come back and buy a bag of popcorn?"

"My movie doesn't start for an hour; can I leave and come back if I keep my ticket?"

"Do I need to pay for my baby? I know she'll watch the movie, but..."

Or, after their movie: "Can I still get a refill?"

Three Artist Challenge Chapter Two: Iron and Wine

My second step in the snowy footprints of a greater artist is in the steel-toed boots (speculation) of Iron and Wine.  Here's a song to listen to during this post.

This was not my plan.  To be honest, my second artist was going to be the great John K. Samson who was the first indie musician other than my David to entrall my little jelly heart.  And yet, the track spinning in my head the day I sat down to write my newest song "Small Planes" was not "My Favorite Chords" or "New Name for Everything" or even "Elegy for Elsabet".

It was "Jesus the Mexican Boy" by Iron and Wine.

Recently, David and I came home on one of our days together and David just wilted.  We'd been out in the snow, running to the church so David could practice with the music directors for two pieces they were to perform that Sunday.  He had a fever.

Not wanting to go home, wanting to stay with me, he rested the remainder of the day while I gave him some fever reducer, a cool washcloth for his neck, and checked his temperature every so often.  I loved taking care of him and I feel badly about saying that because he was so sick.

While he rested, I watched his face.

That was the beginning of this song.

"Small Planes"
Half-Hearted Elephant

Ezra’s fever is spiking.
Sees hanging paper planes over his bed.
His face like pennies he rubs with ketchup to burnish
In pain, but he finds solace,
Like small planes find love in the angel tread
Because the Carmex on his nose smells like Mommy’s purse.

On the small paper airplane away he goes.
And the wind that blows him is warm and smooth.
No snow angels gave him this sickness, he knows.
In the wind’s hands… “If anything, I love you!”

Ezra’s mommy is smoking
Over a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops. Lets
The embers douse in the milk but Ezra fears ashes
Will burn baby sister’s lashes,
Car seat on the table where all day she‘s left.
For their health, her yo-yo promise to quit rehashes.

When the carton of Camels
Is dumped out the window, there’s hope, and yet,
The next withdrawal comes before they’re happy again
A half-hour later she says
“Fish them from the snow. Don’t care if they’re wet.
Don’t care if it’s cold, and death draws plans on your skin.”

On the small paper airplane away he goes.
And the wind that blows him is warm and smooth.
No snow angels gave him this sickness, he knows.
In the wind’s hands… “If anything, I love you!”

Ezra’s fever is growing.
Stands on his bed, picks the plane, broken string.
His room falls away as the paper plane takes wing
Glorious red Exit sign
“Mistreatment you’ve known, but!” the Father sings:
“If anything, I love you! I love you, if anything!”

My Dancing Heels will Feel the Love

(Soundtrack: "Darling I Do" by Lucy Schwartz and Landon Pigg.)
December 9th on my calendar has a highlighter trim.  It marks fourteen months since the night David sang "Heaven's Light" and I kissed him at his front door.  The first sweet kiss of my life, but not the last.

Recently we've strayed away from having dates, real dates, when we go somewhere, do something special.  Like married folk, I guess, we've fallen into a routine: pick up a Little Ceasar's pizza, go home, watch a movie, kiss, hold, David plays and we sing, dance, and just hang out.

But today David asked me what I'd like to do for our next month-a-versary.  My eyes swept over the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.  "Why don't we eat at Panera Bread?" was my first suggestion.

Then, I felt the warm sensation, the desire to dance, melt over me.

We dance every so often on our regular days together and I wanted it to be more special, befitting the celebration of fourteen months.  I wanted to go on more dates.  To do special things together like we used to.

Baking an apple  Picnicking at our fountain.  Leaving encouraging notes at the library.  The Terrible Movie Marathon.  Finding the best smelling candle at Hallmark Gift Shop.  Our air hockey match.  (Which I lost, but not for lack of spirit.)

In my Facebook notes I have plans for dates never done.  Spend a day in the park, pretending to be an elderly couple, costumes and everything.  Make caramel corn.  Play on a swing set in the moonlight.  Yell funny things from the top of tall buildings.

What hinders the special time couples spend together? Is it only becoming complacent? Does time sap away our enthusiasm for such things? It seems that time wears down the greatest delights in life.  Going on dates and making love become things for which a couple must learn to make time.

Bill Cosby says in Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy that there are certain loving acts you do for your loved one at the beginning of the relationship that somewhere along the way you stop doing.  It's not because you don't want to do it, he says.  Or because you can't do it.  You just don't anymore.

Maybe this isn't bad.  Maybe it's just life.  However, David and I are young.  Our relationship is a fledgling.  And I am greedy.  For my fourteenth months spent with David, I want to dance and I want it to be special.

So.  We're going to drive to random places, find a nice floor, envelope one other, and dance to music he murmurs in my ear.  And I'll sing back... when I'm not kissing him.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.  You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.  They won't take my sunshine away."

Big Girls in Indie Dress

(For our listening pleasure, Peggy Sue, formerly, Peggy Sue and the Pirates, begins the soundtrack for this post.)

Shopping depresses me.  In the dressing room mirror, I always look pastier, doughier, and misshapen.  My deep belly button becomes a sucking black hole over which the cloth of my shirt/dress stretches.  It appears to be dressing a doughnut.

David likes my doughnuts, those flabby pouches of flesh and fat.  No matter the chins and cottage cheese that makes up me, he sings beautiful, beautiful.  And that's why he doesn't understand how tragic the shortage of plus size indie clothing is!

Crimes of Indie Clothing:

Manufacturers comprehend just how many big girls love indie clothing

Plus size models for indie clothing are not actually plus sized

I know it requires many inches of material, but $200 for a skirt is outrageous!

The number of thin girls dressed in indie clothing.  Making us want it.  Cruel joke.

(Interlude by Laura Marling.)

However, as I type, I am wearing an outfit I just bought for only 7 dollars!

The key, big girls who love indie clothing, is Goodwill, ribbons, imagination, and a sewing machine.  I didn't need the sewing machine this time, but I have a couple projects in mind for the future.

I found and gorgeous lavender skirt - a pixie skirt, fun to twirl in! I already owned a white blouse with lace trimming at the bottom.  I bought light gold flats and dove gray leggings.  The leggings were footed, which wouldn't go with the flats, but I took scissors and opened the seam at the toes.  Yay!

David and I have a date tomorrow.  Gigglepies and longkiss cookies... He's excited to see my outfit.  His exact text message was:

"GAH! [Buying a skirt is] a huge deal! That's my favorite thing on you! I can't wait to see my beautiful panda!"

"Panda" is his pet name for me, by the way.

(Now we switch to Lucy Rose.)

Want to see his Christmas present to me? I asked for a pretty dress.  This is what we found.  It's from a very nice, if not small, website of indie clothes for big girls, B&Lu.

Dear Santa,

This is Emily in America.  Please use your influence to augment the production of plus size indie, vintage, and artsy clothing! I especially like dresses, skirts, and blouses; cute floral prints; pearls; lace; and ribbons.

Sincerely,
A big girl who loves indie dress