Read My Story…A Shameless Plug

I am legit! Well as a writer. I just had a short story published with a literary group. Although the pay is what I am used to, the notch added to my writing resume is, to me huge.  Its also a huge boost to my ego. So before I send you to where you can read this story, let me send a few thanks out.

To Tammy Stokes, who gave me the place to send this story, Arthur MacMaster who gave me great lessons in dialog, and to Susan Tekulve who encouraged me to think outside the box as a writer, you have my eternal gratitude. This story was born in part from your help.

The great Stephen King gets credit as well. This is the second story I’ve written where I’ve taken an ordinary idea and turned the ordinary into something else. His memoir helped me consider doing such a thing. For any aspiring or established writer, I highly recommend his book On Writing. If you need to borrow a copy, I think I now own two.

Now to the story itself. It can be found at Dead Mule of Southern Literature. I will be having a couple of poems published there as well, later this Spring. The title is Fields White With Harvest, and is a somewhat unique twist to a concept popular in certain circles. Please read my story and the pieces submitted by other authors. Let me know what you think.

Booking It

A little over ten years ago,  small print publication began where I used to live. The editor was looking for content writers, and I decided to take a gamble and submit an essay. It was about head lice and the parasitic fondness for my two daughters’ long blond locks. That story, as badly written as it was, was the birth of my “well paid” writing career. I was hooked on writing. I have written consistently ever since, for about the same amount of financial gain.

I’ve had some marginal success, mostly when I wrote my Miss Mom Column at the original Spartanburg Spark. But it was there that I feel that I grew as a writer and I began to experiment with genres other then opinion pieces, anecdotal stories, and informative journalistic articles. I began to dabble in poetry and fiction as well. Still where I was the most comfortable was in the stories of my life.

So why do I write in my preferred genre? I have long found writing to be therapeutic, and a hell of a lot cheaper then a licensed therapist. I discovered the satirical blackness of my humor when stressed, yet I still could temper it when I wrote a funny story about an event in my life. I have attempted to dig down into my soul and just pour out what is there, twice. I found the experiences exhausting, but yet it helped me recognize what all I had hidden from myself and others emotionally.

Yet it was because of two essays that I wrote for a Creative non-fiction class last year, that I decided that I needed to do something more then the odd short story or poem, and be content with adding content to my blog. More then one person has told me to do a book. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized that I had enough material built up over the years to do just that. It is just a daunting task to consider.

I’ve pretty much decided to keep on the same genre where I tend to spend the most creative time. Stories about the lunacy that is my life. Lord knows I have enough material that I don’t have to write anything new, just edit, expand and compile. It’s just picking which ones to use, finding a good theme, and making it work. I just don’ t have a clue where to begin. But then I wonder if I should do something more serious…I don’t know yet. I am still trying to figure out the what, as I ponder the how.

Ok, I do actually, I am just a bit overwhelmed at how to start it, as well as possessing a healthy case of procrastination where it is concerned. The task is to finally organize everything that I have written into some sort of cohesive organizational format. There is a fair amount of purging to do, some serious categorizing, and then there is the continual state of disorder that is my office.  Then I can more easily make decisions on what the book will contain.

In the meantime I am asking for a volunteer or two. As I begin this project, I will need someone who can edit better then I can. Trust me I am the world’s worst self editor. I discover all my errors ten seconds AFTER I submit a work somewhere. I will need some help picking and choosing what to use, what to chuck, and what new to consider. I am going to be realistic and try to get this done by the end of the year. I’ve been sitting on this idea for well over a year already and haven’t gone anywhere with it. Part of it is not my fault as a new job, personal life changes and a lack of actual time have made it near impossible to do a lot creatively. The rest is, as I have continued to put this off until next week, the next and the next.

It’s time to start. But first I need to clean off the surface of my desk…again.

The Hard Way

You know there are people out there where things just seem to fall right into place for them. Everything they own is in great working order, they can go on a diet and actually lose weight, they always look wonderful, their home is immaculate, when they do a project, they have all the tools handy. There is never the need to utter a single word of profanity because you just lost your contact lens while on an moving escalator. To top it all off, the bills are paid and they actually have money left over each paycheck.

Part of me is jealous of people like that, that is if they actually exist. Then I realize how boring and useless that kind of life could be.

I’m one of those people who wake up each morning and know with complete certainty that something is going to happen to make my day a little more bumpy. The daily question is, as I stumble towards my first cup of coffee , is exactly what will be hitting the fan today.

Today is of course no different.

This morning I went to a new dentist. I have dental insurance for the first time in two years, so I figured it was high time to get some plaque removed from my molars. I called my insurance carrier and discovered that there was a dental group about five minutes from my house. The only catch was that they took mostly kids. I didn’t really care, as dentists don’t generally make any money off of my mouth.

I get there, sign in and sit down to wait. I got out the romance novel I had picked up at the library. Why did I get such a book? They are always light on plot, heavy on throbbing. Oh, I know, the title caught my attention. I’m a sucker for catchy titles. So there I sat, flipping quickly through the unrealistic sex scenes in search of some decent dialog when my name was called.

“Ms. Galloway,” The desk attendant said. “There is a problem with your insurance.”

Crap. After a discussion with the insurance company, it was discovered that my policy had been cancelled, essentially the day it was supposed to be enacted. Double crap. I knew they had needed to make a change because of availability, but I had assumed (silly me) that everything had been arranged successfully. After all I’d been paying for the stuff all month long. So I rescheduled my appointment, then went home to email my HR department in hopes of solving my dental insurance mystery.

All that, just because I wanted clean teeth and gums. Why should have I expected anything different?

I remember being asked repeatedly as a child why I tended to do things the “hard way”. To me it wasn’t harder then another, it was just the way I saw worked for me. As I got older that doing things the “hard way” also taught me that life isn’t necessary easy. Just about every single day, something is going to happen to ensure my best laid plans going awry. I’m actually quite used to things happening “the hard way”.

For me, and I suspect for many of us, life done “the hard way” is rather ordinary.  In fact for most of us it has its very difficult periods. I certainly have lived through enough of those..and I wasn’t even trying. We get moments where things are wonderful, everything lines up perfectly in all aspects of our lives…then normalcy returns.

If I let it, things like the insurance coverage problem could cause me to fall into a deep funk. But I know it is a minor problem that will be resolved in a few days. I’ve lived through worse, much worse. Having it all, all the time, would be nice, but what is there to gain from it? What could I strive for, overcome, learn from if everything fell into my lap? How would I grow as a person if everything was easy? How could I have compassion for the hurting, a desire to help others need, a sense of sorrow for other’s loss if I myself never experienced it?

Those bumps, that doing the “hard way”, the unexpected turns of the day is what makes life interesting. I don’t talk much about my personal religious beliefs, as they are just that, personal, and is about as unique as I am. But I do know that my faith, my beliefs help me get through that grand quest that is called Sylvie’s Life. It took me awhile to grow into the role of seeker of the purpose of my life. However I think I may have an inkling of what that purpose is, and a glimmer of the how to accomplish it. But then, I may not.

It is in the living of life that seems to matter, with all its bumps, warts and impending pitfalls. It is the figuring things out, regrouping, trying another way, the successes that keep us interested in continuing on. It is in the living where we grow, we share, we encourage, we help, we heal. It is in the living where we learn how not to do things, maybe not for our own benefit, but for those that observe us. It is in the living, with all that life has to throw at us, good or bad, that makes it anything but boring or worse purposeless.

One of my favorite old movies is Auntie Mame starring Rosalyn Russell. In the film Mame tells her assistant, “Live, Live Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

While the main character in that film took life a little to firmly by the horns, she lived her motto to the fullest. She looked at obstacles as opportunities. She learned from her mistakes, and she impacted the lives of everyone she met. Yes Mame Dennis was a fictional character, but the theme of her life has tempered the theme of mine.  I have no intention of starving.

 

Primary Conundrum

It’s here, if the television ads and the spammed emails are any indication.  The presidential primary has finally hit my state. Ok its actually next week, but the candidates are pulling out all the stops to try to convince voters what a travesty of misjudgment it would be to vote for any of the other candidates in the field, all while attempting to paint the man they’d like to replace as something even worse.

In other words, their attempts to get me to consider voting for them just reeks in abject positiveness.

That of course leaves me with a choice. I can simply opt out of the upcoming primary election deciding that the whole mess is simply too distasteful, try to decide which is the most palatable out of a group I find almost zero connection with when it comes to ideological ideals, or find someone to write in as an alternative.

Joy!

Now I am sure all the people who are vying for my attention and my vote are nice people, who want to do a job that, in all honesty, none of us really want. Of course all of us really like criticizing the poor sucker unlucky enough to get elected. Everything they do will be scrutinized, and commented about how wrong it is. What they wear, what they eat, what their families wear or eat, what they say, who they invite or don’t invite to dinner if they happen to burp during said dinner will be criticized, given plenty of satirical air time by pundits and comics, and for the most part be considered in poor taste by someone.

And people still want the position.

Their decisions as an administrator will be blamed as horrific by someone, seen as unamerican, and detrimental to the future of the nation. Everything they do will be considered either not going far enough on the policy, or going too far. They will be compared against past administrators, usually not favorably, and just three years into the job, will have to not only do that job, but actively work quite hard to keep it a few more years.

And yet, people want that position.

What I don’t understand however is, why candidates spitefully and with full malice tell potential voters how horrible an incumbent is at their job, or that the others also looking for the job are at best incompetent. What ever happened to being respectful of the person or at least the position?

What I don’t understand is why candidates don’t spend more time on the positives, what they hope to do if they do get the position. I think most of political pundits would be in utter shock if a candidate actually had something nice to say about another candidate or the guy they are wanting to replace, or to act remotely grateful that the person currently sitting in office hasn’t said “the hell with it all” burned the place down in frustration.

So all you candidates, if you are listening to voters, or at least this one, let me clue you in.

If I see or hear an advertisement that says unsavory things about another candidate or the person you hope to replace, expect me to turn the tv or radio to a different channel. Don’t expect me to care about debates where most of what is said is merely you attempting to belittle the other guy. Those marketing strategies have me prompt me to consider voting for the anyone else but you. As all candidates seemed to have decided to use the same strategy, you see my delimma. I am so turned off by the temperment that is this election that I am looking into alternative candidates.

So far what I have found is the guy who wears a boot on his hat,  http://www.verminsupreme.com/and a street performer. http://www.love22.com/ At least their wardrobes and platforms are entertaining.

But back to the ones who seem to be the more serious in all this.

I vote on what you plan to do while in office. I vote based on not only what I feel is best plan of action for the job, but also what I hope would be with consideration for all the people you plan on working for. I vote on things that you can actually do something about, not those social debates that will likely still be raging when your memoir finds itself languishing in the cheap book bin at the local Goodwill. Your personal moral compass and what guides it, who you consider friends, where you went to school or the size of your stock portfolio are of little relevance to me (or at least as relevant as mine is to you). What do YOU hope to accomplish? What do you hope people can say about the job you held in ten years?

I know who gets the job will have to work well with others, have to make tough and often unpopular decisions, get little sleep, and worry all the time if they have royally screwed things up. I would like a person in office who recognizes that, who understands the concept of humility, respect for all people regardless of culture, color, religion or any other social configuration and who is concerned enough with the well being those people to desire that all of us are free, are healthy, and are working together towards a bright future.

Now is there anyone out there who can do it?

I sure hope so.

I will be at the polls, maybe, for the SC Presidential primary. No I am not going to tell you who I will pick. I’ll hold my nose and make a selection. Then, if my primary voting record is true to form, that candidate will shortly withdraw from the race; unless its a write-in candidate, where the poor guy will simply fade into obscurity. After that I will do all I can to ignore the influx of marketing that will be flooding the airways, in increasing increments well, until November when Americans who are secretly sick of it all will vote, if only to make the ads go away.  Meanwhile  I suspect that more then one of us will be wishing they’d spend all that “campaign” money on something actually meaningful. If anyone asks, I can provide a list of options.

Smell Me Later

This morning I was feeling a little extra energetic so I decided to mop my kitchen floor before I left for work. I swept the floor then filled the sink with hot water. Then I got out the bottle of Mop and Glo. I had forgotten I’d had that particular floor cleaner product. It had been relegated to the back of the cabinet under my kitchen sink. It took having the garbage disposal replaced for it to be brought to the front row of the cabinet.

And before you ask, no, I did not get brave OR stupid enough to attempt the task myself. I know my limits when it comes to home improvement projects, as any of you regular readers, OR my family can attest. Replacing a small appliance that was hooked up to a source of electricity was well beyond my skills. Instead my sweet boyfriend and his uncle took on the task. It only took them a few hours. I would have a deconstructed sink, electrical burns, and a flooded kitchen if I had attempted the task. The replacement disposal would be sitting on the counter mocking me, one still hanging by  a thread under my sink would be snickering. That’s why I am glad I had help from people with skills, tools and testosterone.

The floor cleaner I used to mop my floor had lost its lid some time ago, and there wasn’t much left in the bottle, so using what was left should prove perfect to give my floor a shiny clean up.  Within ten minutes my floor was damp, and gleaming. Within 12 minutes I was wheezing. Goody!

One of the things about being asthmatic, having no sense of smell AND chemical sensitivities is that I never know what will trigger symptoms. One thing I have noticed however is that since I left my job at the salon, asthmatic episodes have been reduced in frequency and severity. I suspected that might happen, so it was pleasant realization to discover how true that turned out to be. In the past month, I’ve had only one other major chemical sensitivity episode. That was with my brand new, expensive, professional brand shampoo and conditioner. Apparently it had a very strong scent. I didn’t know that. I have no sense of smell. I bought it for what I hoped it would do for my hair. I used it and within five minutes I was in a full blown attack. It now resided in the guest bathroom and I bought some cheap shampoo, but only after letting someone else smell it for me first.

I know that I am not alone with this problem of chemical sensitivity. It is simply amazing how many products there are on the market that have a wide variety of purposes that have a chemical component contained within it to provide a “pleasant” smell. As I am discovering, I can react negatively to more then someone’s cologne or what hair product they are using.  I am also beginning to experiment with different toiletries to see what my skin likes better.  Switching from a traditional foundation to a simple tinted moisturizer helped with a dry skin issue I’ve been fighting for years.

Cleaning products are starting to have me  much more aware of what my lungs really hate. The MopNGlo incident reminded me that I just can’t always assume that just because I’ve used it before with no trouble, it means that any future uses will have the same respiratory results.
The problem I now see is one that many like myself are noticing. It is not always easy to find products free of irritating scents (at least to us), that work as we’d like them to and are not more expensive then their aromatic counter-parts. It is often an exercise in trial and error. When one also lacks a sense of smell, like me, it makes that experimentation that much tougher. I have to rely on others to do that all important smell test for me, and then its still a gamble.

I will try something else next time to use when I mop my floors. I’ve used those liquid pine or lemon based general cleaners with no ill effects (so far) but they don’t tend to add a lot of shine to my vinyl floor. My floor has a bit of age to it, so putting a little shine to it, does make it look better.

So here’s where you come in. I’d like your help, your input, or even your free samples. I am looking for things that I can use in my home or on my person that is scent free or scent reduced, that isn’t over priced, can be found without a trip to a special store or only available by mail order, and that does what it is intended. If it is something that can be easily made, I’m game for it as well. Just remember it needs to be EASY and CHEAP.

I will be the test dummy, and share my results. If nothing else I will have a list of dos and don’ts for my own personal benefit. Maybe, that list will help others who are on the hunt for that product that doesn’t irritate as well.

My 12 Days of Christmas

A couple of years ago, when I was still writing the Miss Mom column for the Spartanburg Spark, I took a popular Christmas theme and rewrote it to reflect what my Xmas season was like at the time. Hence forth afterwards, I decided I preferred spending the holiday in hermit mode.

Anyhoo, I did enjoy the redo, and may try again to mangle a popular holiday tune…when I don’t feel like a hermit. So in the spirit of the season and my laziness I have pulled those lyrics out of the archives to share with all of you.

My twelve days of Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone.

 

On the first day of Christmas I had just left to do

Set up my big artificial tree

 

On the second day of Christmas I had just left to do

Making out my list

And fixing the lights on my tree

 

On the third day of Christmas I had just left to do

Hours of choir rehearsal

I can’t find my list

And get the baby out the tree

 

On the fourth day of Christmas I had just left to do

Where to hide the presents

gotta go to practice

one thing off the list

and fix the garland on that darn tree

 

On the fifth day of Christmas I had just left to do

Leave the Mall parking lot

Wrap another gift

Practice yet again

Wow that list is long

And keep the cats from killing the tree.

 

On the sixth day of Christmas I had just left to do

buy some more scotch tape

Leave the Mall parking lot

Wrap another gift

practice yet again

three things off that list

and Ignore the sad state of my tree

 

One the seventh day of Christmas I had just left to do

eat a Christmas cookie

out of tape again?

I hate the Mall right now

Wrap another gift

practice Christmas songs

two more off my list

And regret putting up a Christmas tree

 

On the eighth day of Christmas I had just left to do

Ship to distant family

Eat a plate of cookies

use up all the tape

Move cars, oh please just move

Wrap another gift

Yes I’m gonna sing

list is getting small

And notice the lack of branches on the tree

 

On the ninth day of Christmas I had just left to do

Pose for Christmas pictures

Ship to distant family

bake more yummy cookies

why can’t I keep tape

I give up, I’ll sleep in my car

Wrap another gift

La, la, la, la, la

list is almost done

and ignore the cats sleeping in the tree

 

On the tenth day of Christmas I had just left to do

Oh, no, my pants are too small

Pose for Christmas pictures

Ship to distant family

eat up all the cookies

use glue instead of  tape

Avoid the shopping mall

wrap a few more gifts

hear carols in my sleep

lost that list again

and pick the tree topper off  the floor

 

On the eleventh day of Christmas I had just left to do

cook for all my in laws

break out the stretchy pants

ship to distant family

no cookies? Where’s the fudge

use string, out of glue

Shop on line next year!

Wrap up the last gift

gonna sing again

list is finally done

And decide that tree looks fine almost naked

 

On the twelfth day of Christmas I had just left to do

love the ones I hold dear

eat with all the family

lounge in comfy pj’s

call that distant family

Share some home made goodies

plan to buy more scotch tape

No mall until there’s a sale

Open all the gifts

Go to Christmas concert

start a brand new list

And take down that poor, Christmas tree.

 

Change, change, change

Wow! I just looked at the date when I last posted anything here, and its been a month! My sincere apologies but there has been some major changes in my life recently.  I’ve been so busy, I’ve barely had time to even make sure this place still exists, much less, write anything creative. I’ve missed the creative aspect of my life when it comes to writing. Hopefully, once things settle down a bit, I can get the two short stories that are rattling in my head down onto paper, and finish a rewrite I set aside on a third.

However all is not lost. I do have news in that regard. I have had three pieces accepted for publication. It’s a small web-based literary group. They liked a short fiction that I wrote along with two poems. The acceptance of the poems surprised me, verse is hardly my strength. The publication times are pending, probably no later than Spring of next year, which is soon. As soon as I get finalized details, I’ll post the information here.

The other news is bigger. I decided to make a career change. In fact it was something I decided some time ago, it just took me that long to find another position. Trust me to decide to go job hunting in one of the worst employment settings in a couple of decades. Yes, I have decided to stop running with scissors for good. It wasn’t an easy decision, as I have worked in the beauty field for a decade. However I was beginning to develop some health issues that were only getting worse. It’s hard to walk away from an occupation one has found rewarding and leaving behind clients who’ve made my job so enriching, but it was something I knew I had to do. I will also miss my former co-workers. We were almost like family. Lord knows we spent enough time together to know each other quite well. I consider myself extremely blessed to get to know the men and women I was fortunate to meet during my tenure as a hairdresser.

I am now back in the business world, and if I survive the training period should have a nice new career ahead of me, with opportunities for growth, (and the applicable raises as well). So far I am liking this new line of work, although right now I go home at the end of the day, certain that my brain is seeping out of my ears. The fact that I am also taking two short termed, online classes just adds to the cerebral tissue loss. I’ll survive it as I always have.

I can look back on the past 12 months and see how much has happened in my life. It’s been a momentous year, some of it hasn’t been great, but for the most part, what has happened has been for the best. There is more on the horizon for me ahead. I’ve spent the past couple of years in a transitional phase, and it’s still ongoing, but I think I am beginning to discover what it is I was looking for. Most of all I am really getting to know who I am, and the real Sylvie is really a bit different then what others have thought. In fact, I’ve surprised myself quite a bit.

I am actually looking forward to what the next few months have to offer. I can certainly guess some of the things my future holds, as I work and plan towards them, but there is no certainty when it comes to work, life or relationships. Whatever happens, and I hope for my sake, it’s all good, I have decided that life itself is the grand adventure we all dream about. I am taking a mindset form a character from one of my favorite movies, and try to follow her example.

The character is Mame Dennis from the movie Auntie Mame. If you’ve never seen it, find it, watch it. It’s an older film starring Rosalyn Russell. Mame grabbed life by the ear and dragged it along behind her, along with everyone she met. To her life was intended to live fully, exuberantly and without regrets. I admire this woman, her unique brand of courage, and, her ability to reinvent herself as the mood suited her. I may never be larger than life as Mame Dennis, but I do plan on taking a page from her book. I plan on being uniquely courageous, enjoy life and all it has to offer me, and to be willing to continue to reinvent myself as needed.

In fact I think I’ve already started.

Woman of a certain age.

I know I am not the only one who struggles mightily with the whole staying in shape thing. Ok, I have a shape, its lumpy, sagging a bit and it jiggles in all the wrong places.  It is not the ideal shape for a woman of my age and stature, or so all those advertisements for weight loss pills, skinny jeans, and exercise machines tell me.

In reality, I am 48, asthmatic and have some very unhappy discs in my lower back and my neck. I’ve also had three kids, and a hysterectomy, and this year alone I’ve had several rounds of pound accumulating Prednisone to combat the asthma. Try as I might, any will power to exercise, eat better, etc. just went right out the window. Knowing shedding a few of those pounds brought on by stress, one trip too many through a drive thru, medication and laziness needs to be addressed…again.

So once again I’m trying. I am in one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios right now. If I don’t try to get my body moving, more flexible and toned, then my health issues will just get slowly worse. But when I try to do something, it doesn’t take long for my back to scream in painful protest, or to trigger and asthma attack.

I’ve been trying a bit of yoga. I know the breathing techniques and stretches are helpful, and I enjoy that I feel less stressed when I do a few minutes. However, I am highly limited as to what my body will let me do. I have yet to find a routine I can do without having to stop because my back says “oh hell no! You ain’t doing that!”

Walking is out right now because, once again I have plantar fasciitis.  For those of you unfamiliar with the injury, it is essentially a strained tendon in the heel of your foot. People with high arches, who stand for long periods of time, are female and are overweight are prone. I meet four out of four requirements. The injury takes months to heal, and feels like someone is sawing off your foot with a chainsaw. Doing some stretches and other therapies help, but it still takes many painful months to go away, and for me it returns within a year.

So what I am trying to do is start small and short, and mix it up a bit because I get bored easy. I have a bunch of videos featuring overly perky and completely toned people who just love the fact that they look good in spandex. Maybe that is why those videos have a tendency to sit on the shelf. There’s just something about a perfectly sculpted person with a smile plastered on their face saying “you can do it, now eight more times!”, all while upbeat music plays an easy rhythm to follow. First I have rhythm, but my body can’t produce it, second, I was done after the first eight reps, and lastly I have to wonder what those people are taking to look like that they are having fun. Maybe its just the knowledge that people like me look like utter idiots trying to follow along. Whatever it is, I hate them, hate them all!

I have a recumbent bike in my office, so I do get on it and watch a video from my computer now and then. One segment from something from The Daily Show, or another such video gives me a few minutes of cardio. I do tend to get bored doing that, but I have been doing it a little more and more. Its easy, painless, and dull. But it doesn’t hurt or trigger the need to grab my inhaler. Maybe someone can suggest some fund things to watch.

I have a Wii, and moved it to the bedroom. I can either Netflix a exercise video or try to do ten minutes of Zumba. Yeah I have it for the Wii. I can get through two routines, then want to die. I also am trying to do a little bit of yoga still, being very mindful of my limitations. Everything is in about 10 to fifteen minute increments and still sporadic in timing and consistency. It all depends on pain and breathing.

Still, fool that I am, will be trying to add exercise back into my life. I know I am going to have to take it slower then I’d like and work my way up to a good level. I also have to accept the fact that I may never regain the flexibility and stamina of my youth. I will also fight constantly the mindset that I LOATHE exercise, getting sweaty, being out of breath, pain, the whole package. I also loathe being lumpy, tired all the time and the pain that the extra pounds are contributing to. That is why I keep trying, well that and the fact I want to feel better in the long term scheme of things. I just don’t enjoy it.

A few weeks ago, I flipped through what I thought was a magazine on women’s health and fashion. What I discovered instead was that it was a publication filled with articles, advertisements and full color photographs championing the business of artificial body enhancement. There were pieces on botox, surgeries, skin care products all designed to help a woman achieve that “perfect look”. There was even a piece that criticized the facial work done on celebrities with suggestions how the article writer would have done it better. I was appalled and frankly offended.

I may be heading headlong to the day where my AARP card gets a 20 year anniversary party, (do they do that? not sure, not quite eligible for one), and I have a body that has stood the test of time and shows it some, but I have people try to guess my age and miss it all the time. I want to take care of myself because I know it healthy, and I would like to be around long enough to embarrass my great-grandchildren in public with my antics. I do not want to go the route of trying to cheat time and mother nature, or appear as someone I am not, a woman of a certain age. There’s really nothing wrong with that, lumpy jiggles or not.

Holy Macro Batman

After taking a couple of months off, I have once again dived back into the world of academia. I had come to the realization that my former educational route may not be the best one for my long-term needs, although I was enjoying my classes. The main reason for my return to school was to make a career change, and I needed more certainty that I could accomplish that with the degree I would obtain. I was also wearing down physically and had spent a good part of the summer fighting asthma symptoms and the fatigue that seems to accompany it. I needed a break and to rethink how I was going about things. That is why I made the jump to an online school and a different degree choice.

Switching to a college I loved to a school where I”d never sit beside other students was not a decision made lightly. I thought about it for several months, weighing the options and the possible outcome. In the meantime, I’ve had continued issues with my back, (it hurts all the time) and my asthma. My days as a hairdresser are numbered, and I need to make a change sooner then later. Online school offered me the chance to get a degree faster, and these days degrees make one more marketable; especially if one is no longer 24.

Depending on what transfers, and of course not everything will, I should complete a degree in about the same time frame as originally intended, maybe less. Time is a big factor for me, and trying to get something completed sooner rather than later is important.  Also I switched majors from a Creative Writing to a business major. That doesn’t mean that I will stop writing creatively. In fact I have been submitting some work for possible publication and currently have two short story ideas rattling around in my head and in snippets written down on paper. More on that at another time.

What is giving me pause is the realization that I wasn’t as up to speed on technology as I thought I was. For instance, I have a BlackBerry, and I have learned how to synch its calendar to my Google calendar. But here is the tricky part. This morning I wanted to put in all my lecture times for a class. I entered the information and told the Google calendar to repeat the information for a month. I have two lectures to view a week for the next four weeks.

So what does Google do? It puts down my Sunday lecture and my Thursday lecture down one time each. I’ve played with different ways of entering and STILL it’s what it gives me; a single entry on a Sunday, and then a single entry on a Thursday on a different week. AAAAGGH!

I’ll figure it out eventually, but not until much cursing and gnashing of teeth occur.

I also have a shiny new copy of Office 2010 thanks to the hefty tuition I am paying for this school. (thank you student loans and tiny Pell grant) I downloaded it easily enough and opened Word to write something. My first thought was “Holy Macro Batman!” It was so different from earlier versions of Word that I had used that I barely recognized it. Ok, I’ll admit it. My last version is 8 years old.

I’ve been using Open Office for several years. Its basic, it works and it doesn’t have 30,000 features. It was also quite free, which on my tiny budget is most welcome. It also closely resembled the Microsoft Office 2003 that I was used to. I have a lot to learn on the new version. I fear that there will be plenty of cursing and gnashing of teeth as I get up to speed with the new software.

If nothing else happens, at least the FFA will learn to meow like sailors, as I work to master all the new technology upgrades, try and fail repeatedly to organize my desk, and drink way too much coffee as I do homework.

Alas, Poor Violet

My last living houseplant is no more. I had noticed its increasingly dropping state for a couple of weeks, but knowing my talent with ailing plants I figured I’d best leave it be. The odds of its survival were higher that way.

But alas, any care, or lack of it was not enough to save the poor African Violet that had graced my window since I moved into this house. This plant holds the record for longevity under my care, having lasted over six years. Most plants last about six weeks.

I don’t know why the good Lord deemed it best to grant me thumbs that are black, but that is what I have, at least when it comes to house plants. For some reasons their fate is sealed upon crossing my threshold. My ex couldn’t understand why I could kill the hard to kill plants so easily. I just could never get it across to him that I was cursed with the  Philodendron Death Touch. I can imagine leaves and stems quivering in fear as I lovingly tried to care for them, all while blissfully spelling their doom.

Somehow my African Violet was immune to the curse. I had brought it down from NC when we moved here and I had even managed to pot an offspring into another pot. The two plants sat cheerfully on my kitchen windowsill, basking the morning sun and being quite content under my awful care. When one bloomed, the other lay dormant, so I always had pretty purple flowers year round.

About six weeks ago, I walked into the kitchen and found the younger African violet laying upside down in my kitchen sink, minus its pot and all related dirt. I immediately knew the cause. The two youngest members of the FFA had been housefly hunting the night before. As per their usual methodology, Rajah and his mini-me, Miko alternated between stalking and tearing through the house on their quest to vanquish the housefly stupid enough to enter a dwelling with four cats. I never saw what eventually happened to the fly, most likely digestion, but there was collateral damage. There usually is with those guys.

The remaining plant seemed to be just fine, but I noticed a slow but persistent loss of, well for lack of a better word, perkiness in violet’s appearance. Something seemed off. So I watered it, knowing full well that it is a task I often forget completely about for weeks and weeks. Still things didn’t look right. Then today I noticed that the dirt looked a little low. Figuring some fresh soil,or even a repot would benefit my plant, I picked the pot off the window sill. That  movement, gentle as it was, proved to much for the poor plant, and it toppled right out of the pot. Either my attempts to help it along had done something, or the hunting antics of the feline hellions had weakened the plant stem so that it was no longer getting enough nutrients. Whomever was the real culprit in the demise of poor violet will never be known.

My window sill looks rather empty now. I wonder if I should go buy a new plant? I can already imagine the fearful quivering.