Stuff I Did and Stuff I'm Doing

It's Tuesday again! My favorite day of the week because it means I at least have every intention of getting everything done I ever hoped to. And since I woke up later than I had planned today (more on that later), let's keep this post short and sweet so I can get back to my ever-mounting to-do list.

Here's some stuff I did the past few days:

- Worked ALLLLLL day Saturday. Started early, didn't take a break, got out later than expected. But, it's ok because my first customer of the day was a professional CLOWN and made my co-workers and me BALLOON ANIMALS.

 

You made my day, sir

Bear with balloons, Harley motorcycle
and a wiener dog with a meatball in his belly

Crystal was pleased as well

 

 

- Sunday was a more productive day than I prefer my day of rest to be. So, I finished the day with a Spa Sunday relax session. Did my nails, put on a face mask and did that thing with the cucumbers over your eyes. What does that do anyway?

 

Tom was excited to photograph this moment



 

 

- After yesterday's work, Tom and I went for a very nice, but very windy run at the Farm Park. It's pretty this time of year with all the corn grown in. It's like a corn maze, although, as Tom pointed out, one that is difficult to get lost it. I don't know about that...

 

Days like this make running bearable



 

- After our run and a relaxing evening of dinner and reading, we watched Outsourced, at the recommendation of our good friends, Ric and Mirabai. A pretty entertaining fish out of water story, we are always reeled in by stories about Americans bumbling around in Asia. As with most romantic comedies, the love story was the least interesting part, but we will forgive it.

 

Whoever could have predicted this unlikely romance
between two attractive, intelligent and witty main characters?

 

 

 

- And, finally, last night I stayed up until one in the morning finishing The Fault in Our Stars, that Amber so graciously leant me. It was a fun read, or as fun as you can get when talking about teenagers with terminal cancer. Since Tom had just finished 100 Years of Solitude last night, I was eager to have the same thrill of finishing a book so I sacrificed some beauty rest to fulfill my desires. The extra sleep came out of this morning's productivity time, but what can you do? 

Thanks again for the book, Amber!

 

Now, at only 10 o'clock in the morning, I am ready to tackle the day's to-dos. What's on the agenda today?

 

- enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee (in progress)

- research how to build a website

- read the next essay in the philosophy anthology

- start reading 100 Years of Solitude so Tom and I can have lively literature discussions

- send out some resumes

- stalk e-lance

- meet up with Josh to do some dinner eating and nature walking

- first, find a good nearby park for nature walking

- go for a run

- clean my apartment? if there's time...

 

As always, I will leave you with one item to add to your to-do list. Tell me, what is your "productive" day. I mean, hopefully most days are pretty productive, but what day of the week is your I'm-going-to-get-so-much-stuff-done-today day? Do you to-do list? How much of your list ever gets done? I aim for about 75%.

 

Until next time, faithful readers and to-do-listers, I will leave you with a picture of my morning coffee. Perhaps the idea of the caffeine contained within the pages of the interweb will get you amped and ready for the day ahead.

 

Zooooooooom!!!!!

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Bookshelf Challenge and Other Bookworm Problems

This is my book shelf. It was purchased at Office Max or one of those office supply stores that I love so much. It's cheap, portable and I've had it since high school. I would say it holds roughly a tenth of my books. Maybe. I have a lot of books.

I love to read! I've spent nearly the last ten years of my life paying West Chester University thousands of dollars for two pieces of paper that show the world just how much I love reading and writing and analyzing reading and writing.

And yet, I get into reading slumps occasionally. I don't know what it is, but I just get distracted. I'm not into the books I try to read. I set them down and forget about them. I read magazines with too many pictures. I watch TV. The horror!


Well, no more of that. I genuinely enjoy reading far too much to not make a concentrated effort to do more of it. Not to mention, it does go hand in hand with writing. A few summers ago, Tom and I went to see one of my favorite authors, Junot Diaz, speak at a book festival in Washington, D.C. Very entertaining speaker as well as writer, if you ever have the chance to see him or read any of his stuff. Anyway, he fielded some questions from the audience and a budding young writer of about twelve asked him what to do when faced with writer's block. His answer? Go read ten books. If you have no ideas what to write about after reading ten books, read ten more. This may have sounded a little daunting to her, but it sounds like sage advice to me.

Back to the bookshelf. The books on there are quite a mishmash of subjects and genres. This is because when choosing what books to put on there (as I said, I have a lot more than that little thing will hold) I decided to mainly stock it with books I haven't yet read. And a few that I have, but just like having around. I later entered myself in a contest of my own design: The Great Bookshelf Challenge. You can guess the parameters. Read ALL the books. That's why I put them there, right?

I started this close to a year ago. The first book I read from the shelf was On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. Just a little light reading to get me started. (That's sarcasm in case you aren't familiar with the dense and wordy essay) I've knocked a few books off the list, but I can't say I've been diligent with it. One problem is that most of the books are not novels. They are text books or other non-fiction type books. I like those, but I need some fiction in there to give my creative mind a chance to relax, too.

Here are a few books from my bookshelf I am currently reading.

Another light read

The revolutionary before he was a revolutionary.
Just a kid on a bike.



Not actually part of the challenge,
 but recently added to the bookshelf anyway.
Because why not?

 

I will list my bookshelf challenge at the bottom of this post. It's long, about 54 books / magazines. I had read a few of them before the challenge started, but they are listed on there anyway. One of the most fun things of any to-do list is the things that are either super easy to do and check off OR, even better, a few things you already did and get to check off at the outset. You may call that cheating, but I don't. I call it motivation.

 

In addition to trying to get through some of my bookshelf, I am reading a few other books. But to be honest, they just aren't doing it for me. They are good, don't get me wrong. I'm just not as absorbed in the stories as I'd like to be.

 



A wedding gift from my in-laws.
Red-hatted ladies and wedding drama.
Definitely a new genre for me



Best nerd magazine ever.



If you are looking for some uplifting short stories,
do not read Hemingway



When I read a really great book, I lose sleep. I lose valuable time in my day because I can't put the thing down. Yet, I also try to slow myself down. Because I know how sad I am going to be when I get to the end. And I will re-read books. My copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (by Junot Diaz, who we discussed earlier) is literally falling apart from me reading it, and insisting others read it, so much. I now have it signed by Mr. Diaz and have therefore contemplated buying a new copy to read and lend out, thereby preserving what little integrity is left in that poor binding. This is how you know you are a book nerd.

Excited to start reading The Fault in Our Stars.
More excited than Amber was about having her picture taken.

So, here's where you come in. Since I know you, reader, have at least some appreciation for the written word, I am assuming you have some favorite books. What are they? What should I read? What books moved you? What books made you laugh out loud? Or cry? Or get angry? Anything that draws out that kind of emotional response I consider a successful piece of writing in one way or another.

I love recommending books to people. Feel free to ask. I didn't want to turn this into a book review, but I'm always happy to lend and recommend and discuss books. Way happier than I probably should be. But I want recommendations, too.

Thanks again for joining in to my ever growing to-do list. One of these days I will get to start reporting on stuff I've gotten done. Eventually.


The Bookshelf Challenge: (in no particular order)

- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
- Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
- Be the Man by Chris Easter
- One by Richard Bach *
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami *
- The World's Religions by Huston Smith *
- This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz *
- The Cider House Rules by John Irving *
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami *
- Discipline and Punishment by Michel Foucault
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
- How to Avoid Lawyers by Edward Siegel (kind of a joke, this is actually a hollowed out book, which we used to carry our wedding rings in for our ceremony!)
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda *
- If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways by Daniel Quinn
- A Million Little Pieces by James Frey *
- Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr *
- Modoc by Ralph Helfer
- Short Novels of the Masters ed. Charles Neider
- Foundations of Capitalism (another hollowed out book)
- The Living Sky by Ray A. Williamson
- What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Me Through Fire by Charles Bukowski
- Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling *
- Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl *
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut *
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill *
- The Stranger by Albert Camus *
- Gross Limericks by Julius Alvin
- Siddartha by Herman Hesse *
- The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara
- Great Dialogues of Plato tr. W.H.D. Rouse
- The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mohandis Ghandi
- Western Philosophy: An Anthology ed. John Cottingham
- On Writing by Stephen King *
- Teach Yourself Calculus (that's a bold statement for someone who barely got out of Algebra 2 unscathed)
- The Cannabis Companion by Steven Wishnia *
- The Journal of Economic Perspectives Spring '93
- Cross-talk In Comp Theory ed. Victor Villanueva
- Writer's Market 2011
- Incognito by David Eagleman
- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
- Falling Into Theory by David H. Richter
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism for Beginners by Donald D. Palmer * (bonus section on Deconstruction! Score!)
- The Postmodern Turn by Steven Best and Douglas Kelner
- Waiting for Superman ed. Karl Weber
- National Geographic - August / September 2012 and June / July 2012
- Pizza Today 2012 (May, July, August, October, December) *
- The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 2nd Edition
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
- Nutrition for Dummies by Carol Ann Rinzler

Titles with an * have been read in their entirety.

There you have it, The Great Bookshelf Challenge. Daunting, but I like it. The hardest parts are those anthologies of Literary theory and criticism. They are NOT quick reads, not for me anyway. But, they are some of the ones I am most interested in reading. Or rather, finish reading as they are mainly from college and grad school, so I have read sections of them in the past.

I will keep you all updated as I check off books. Now with my blog for some accountability maybe I will feel more motivated to work harder on this. Maybe.

 

 



Stuff I Did Over the Weekend: Dim sum and drag queens and midtown, oh my!

Waiting (im)patiently for Hedwig

Ahh, New York. I don't visit as often as I should. I'm not super romantic about the city and it's history and culture and this and that. Still, I always have such a good time when I visit.

This visit in particular was pretty epic. Not only did we get to have our first NYC dim sum experience and visit friends that we don't get to see so often, but I saw my first Broadway musical. Starring Neil Patrick Harris. In drag. So epic.

Anyway, let me recount for you the stuff I did over the weekend.


- before getting to leave for New York, I wrote my entry for the 24-Hour Short Story Contest. It would have been nice to actually use the whole twenty four hours to edit it, but at only 900 words, I think I cranked out a decent little piece. We shall see how the judges feel in roughly six weeks.



Green smoothie + laptop = getting stuff done

- after a long day at work, two hours of trying to get showered, eat a measly dinner, write a short story and stop at my parent's house, we were on our way to New York! The good thing about driving into the city later than you want to is that there was no traffic.

Carrying precious cargo to Justin and Ava; some delicious treat from Talluto's Italian Market

- luckily, when we arrived at Justin and Ava's Washington Heights apartment, they treated us to some amazing Caribbean spiced rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes from a local restaurant. I was too busy devouring said food to remember to take a picture of it, but I did get this photo of someone else's take-out... avocado?




Your guess is as good as mine

- after our lovely dinner and relaxing conversation, Justin played us sweet lullabies on the banjo

He was a bluegrass player in another lifetime, I'm sure

- once it was time for bed, Tom and I stayed up just a little longer, regaling each other with tales from Justin's Izakaya cookbook (Japanese tapas, sort of). We had to put it away because the delicious pictures were making us hungry.

Just some light bedtime reading

- the next day we met with Ric and Mirabai, this time on their turf! Actually, we met them in Chinatown for dim sum at Jing Fong, a traditional Chinese dim sum hall that promises delicious food stuff and... long waits. We waited over forty minutes and lost Ava in the process as she had to get to a reading. Le sigh.

Part of the line waiting for Jing Fong

And more of the line...

Luckily, we got Ava a little "wife cake" to hold her over

- FINALLY, we were called to take our place in the massive dining hall upstairs. Seriously, this place was HUGE. It makes you wonder how there could possibly be such a long line when the room the meal is served in has to hold upwards of 200 people.

For those who don't know the foodgasmness that is dim sum, it consists of small plates of food, ranging from a wide array of dumplings, to interestingly pickled and steamed vegetables and jello-y dessert things, to other completely unrecognizable food (to me, anyway). The novelty of dim sum at a place like Jing Fong is the abundance of carts being wheeled around, delivering the food to you. A little lady comes up with carts teeming with steamer baskets and plates of food and starts shoving them under your nose until you can't resist the delicious smells and sights any more and just start taking everything she offers you. Well, that's what we did any way. It was excessive and heavenly.


So hungry. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into



Escalator to heaven



Only just the beginning

Slowing down, but we made a valiant effort on all the food

 

 

 

- After brunch it was time to wander tourist-style around Times Square while we waited for our Broadway debut. Also, time for a photo shoot in my very Hedwig appropriate outfit.

 

Trying to look cool and uninterested. Failing.

Obligatory Times Square picture



Finally!

Just hanging out on the stoop like a real New Yorker



 - once in line, it was clear that I was the only one in the theater who took the time to ask myself WWHW? What Would Hedwig Wear? Naturally, I looked fabulous and I know NPH would have been proud, but I did receive some interesting looks from the more "conservatively" dressed folks in the audience. Maybe it would have gone over better at the night show.

My souvenir: The Shroud of Hedwig

Obligatory bathroom selfie

Looking smug and fabulous

 - the show was completely awe-inspiring. Essentially a one man (woman) act, Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig regales us with tales of him growing up as a boy in East Berlin, being courted by an older American military sergeant, suffering a botched sex change surgery, being left again and again by the men she loves and touring with her band named for the remnants of her past, The Angry Inch. It was funny, entertaining and even a little heart wrenching. What more could you ask for? There was even a sing along! Of course, I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but I snuck one anyway.

The stage, not that you can tell anything from this picture

The amazing Hedwig! (picture not taken by me)

 

 

- to top off an amazing show, our friend Justin just happened to be working the sound mixing that day and gave us a backstage tour! We got to go on the stage that NPH had just finished spitting and grinding on, walk around where they get ready and where Justin works, making sure all the sound for the show is perfect (an important job, I would think, for a musical) and getting to stand somewhat next to NPH's dressing room. We even saw a couple of the "band" members! Naturally instead of telling them what a fabulous job they did on stage, Tom and I just grinned in their direction, completely mute by the awe of seeing Broadway actors right next to us. They smiled back at us, though, so I will take that.

 

We also got to exit through the stage door, where fans were gathered in hopes of getting an autograph or picture with the actors. I regret now not bursting through the doors with a flourish and taking a bow, but even so someone in the crowd applauded and shouted to us "I love your work!" For my Broadway debut, I would call it a success.

 



Justin's Office

 - although we would have loved to stay in New York for longer than a single day, it was, alas, time to head home. Luckily, we didn't hit any bad traffic and got home just in time to collapse, exhausted but fulfilled, in bed and start this new week fresh. New York with friends, dim sum and Broadway? This is the stuff Sundays are made for.

Driving home music in honor of Justin's new favorite musical



Leaving NY via the George Washington bridge



 

 

 

Today's To-Do List is short. Just hanging out, writing, researching writing and maybe sending out a resume or two.

 

Your to-do list item this week, tell me about your favorite Broadway (or off-Broadway) show! Although I don't see how anything could compare to the fabulousness of Hedwig, I just might be a convert to the theater crowd. So, what should be on my list of must-sees?

 

 

This might make the list...

Until next time, strange rock n' rollers, just know you're doing alright! 

Write on...

I think most writers will tell you the hardest part of writing is... writing. It's true. It's easy to muse on ideas and themes and motifs and hidden meanings and whatnot, but it is much harder to sit down and actually make those lofty ideas make sense on the page. Why can't I just screenshot the thoughts in my brain and publish them? I guess that is probably for the best...




Million dollar thoughts in there

As an English major, both undergrad and graduate, a common question I, and many others, have fielded is, so you want to be a writer? Well, sure! In fact, I AM a writer already. Just not one that gets paid. Aye, there's the rub. Making the transition from part-time blogger, part-time story writer, part-time muser of lofty ideas, to someone who gets paid for putting their words on paper. Hell, I'm still working on transitioning to someone who actually submits writing to anywhere but school.

I'm a big excuse-haver, so the last couple years I milked the grad school thing. I was too busy working on my classes, my thesis, my excuses to polish anything for submission. Even now, three months after completing my thesis, a polished piece of writing that received good reviews from my professors, all of whose opinions I respect, I still haven't sent it out anywhere. Why? Well, it's an odd length at just under 15,000 words. A little long for a short story, too short for a novella. And where would I submit it? Sure, it was good enough for school, but an academic audience is a much different thing than a real world editor or publisher.

It's all YOUR fault I'm not published yet!

Excuse my french, but that's bullshit. It IS an odd length for a lot of publications, but who cares? There are some (I know, I saw one) that take submissions up to 15,000 words. And if they don't, the cool thing about writing something is you can change it. It could be shorter! I'm not so attached to every single word and paragraph and passage that some couldn't be cut to streamline it. That would be hard, though. Writing is hard! Especially the writing part!

So, in an effort to stop kidding myself about my writing somehow magically showing up in print with me doing nothing to help it, I finally started researching where I can send stuff. Or write new stuff. I'm actually better, in my opinion, with assignments. I have my own ideas, but it is so much easier if someone says this is your topic, be creative. I like guidelines. I like to break them, too. That's the fun part.

My first attempt at a writing assignment is a little contest I signed up for. It's a cool idea. You get twenty-four hours to write a short story. The topic and length requirements are posted tomorrow at noon and submissions must be in by Sunday at 11:59 am. The length shouldn't exceed 2,500 words (or as little as 500 words!), which is an easy length to do in one sitting. I will be at work when they post the topic, so I will have to sneak in the back to check it out on my cellphone and start the fun musing part of the project.

 

http://www.writersweekly.com/misc/contest.php

Of course this had to fall on a weekend when we actually have big plans. Tom got me tickets to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway! We are going up to New York tomorrow night to visit friends and then all get brunch in the morning, so writing time is time. But, even if it's not my best submission, it's better to do than not. Another one will be coming up in three months, besides a few other contests I found that I am interested in entering.

NPH in drag, what more could a girl ask for?

Tom asked yesterday if I had any particular approach to writing, like detailed outlines or anything. I don't usually. Sometimes I have an idea where I'd like things to go in a given story, but just as often the story and characters take over and my outcomes are moot. Perhaps I should try to work on a more structured approach, as I use when I write research or more professional papers. But part of the magic of writing, for me anyway, is letting the story and characters take over! Experimenting with different tactics is fun, too, I guess.

Just a little disclosure, I won't ever post any of my writing here. If you want to read anything, just ask and I will e-mail you. It's not that I don't want everyone reading my stuff. I do! It just compromises my chances of publishing things if I post them online.

Ready, set, write! Just don't spill that very green smoothie

My weekend to-do list seems too fun to post (pictures next week!), so here is my writing to-do list...

To-Do This Week in Writing:

- submit to 24 hour short story contest
- pick an August contest to enter and start polishing up a new or existing piece to submit
- find at least two not-contest places to submit writing
- finish one of the three short stories I am working on. Even if it's bad. Just finish it. You can always edit.
- write more on the blog. You guys like when I write on here, right? Right??
- learn some new words and use them in a story. Maybe start with the GRE book I stole from Tyler?
- try to write even a little bit every day

Your to-do list!

What are your favorite words? Mine is jawn, a Philly slang word that means... well, pretty much anything! Any noun, at least. So what is yours?

If you don't have a favorite word, think about it and get back to us. In the mean time, what is the thing that you want to do, but never seem to make the time to improve on? Playing an instrument? Learning a new language? Finding a better job? (A little secret, those are ALL on my list) Share with us AND make a little time for them this weekend!

Our "Less" Paul

Cheers and happy weekend everyone! I have off Saturday night so I can say that with conviction for once.

Stuff I Did This Week

It's another beautiful To-Do List Tuesday! Right in the middle of today's list is to update you on how this week went. Let's look at the pictures, shall we?

- Had a Sunday cook out at Gary and Susan's 

 

 

Summer food tastes better outside

- Got a pedicure

 

Purple toes!

So relaxing. So needed that.

 

- Met the infamous Sooki

 

I think she likes me. Or is it licks? I think she licks me

 

 

- Watched Tom and Anthony geek out with Magick Cards

 

Tom was not happy to have this documented



- Saw a run down, abandoned store with my name on it

Hard to see, but I swear it was named after me!

-Visited Ric and Mirabai for a some pool time



Great pool day



Ric just couldn't stay on that poor seal



-Stopped by a local dairy farm (by mistake) but got some amazing chocolate milk

It had cinnamon and chili in it

- Hand delivered a special gift all the way from beautiful Girona, Spain!

Thanks, Mireia!

Did he fall asleep under there?

- Watched Tom pour his heart and soul into my stubborn car

Typical Saturday...

 

 

- Smelled the pretty flowers in Brian's yard

 

 

 

 

- Broke a glass in my hand at work. Oops

It didn't hurt yet. That came later

All better!



 

 

- Had a late night date at one of my favorite restaurants!

 

All about the Skinnylicious menu

Salted caramel something something

- Followed a giant cow to some free ice cream at Wegman's

Tom wondering how to go about milking this guy

- Made our own banana ice cream with our new Dessert Bullet

With strawberries, nutella and whipped cream



 
- Watched Dark Side of Oz at Clark Park with Tom, Kira and Brodie. It was spectacular

Everyone applauded when the witch melted

- Concocted a new smoothie to delicious results

Apple, banana, strawberry, peanut butter, yogurt and celery

- Got some new stuff from Amazon. Including the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? which I am listening to now and the Pacific Rim prequel graphic novel, Tales From Year Zero, which I will be reading shortly.

I can't get this picture to go right side up. Thanks, Google.

 

- Got a new haircut from the awesome Kristie at Catarina's Salon in Lansdale.

 



- Ate a turkey club sandwich with my awesome potato salad

Can't touch this... cause it's gone

So that was my week in pictures. I did lots of other stuff, too, but it wasn't as fun to take pictures of.

As today is Tuesday, here is my to-do list:

- get a haircut (check!)
- go the bank (check!)
- clean and vacuum the living room
- rearrange the living room?
- clean and scrub the bathroom
- face mask
- gym
- apply to more jobs (ugh)
- learn how to cook swiss chard
- write on blog (check!)
- manicure
- pay Berkheimer (do I have to?)
- clear off desk (been working on this one for weeks)

How is your to-do list today going? Share with us!