Thursday, August 29, 2013

On a much different and lighter note...

I'm going for NaNoWriMo once more. 

I originally had an idea about a poetess going to space with astronauts, but I'm changing it to something I had a dream about: a deadly chemical accident in a small (and fictional) Texas town. I'll save the sci-fi story for another day.

To be honest, I'm gonna not post about it too much on the website and on here, mostly because I am concerned of people stealing my ideas (very rare, I know, but you just can't tell...). I'm already vague about writing projects anyway on here, so will continue that trend.

So here's to a story about a chemical accident.

Damn. That's morbid. :/

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Sorry for the long silence, I had a good reason...

I was busy applying for jobs. Mostly writing/editing ones. They sounded very promising, good pay and exciting environments. A chance to stretch my skills out and share them with others, doing something more than working on my stuff. We're talking big-leagues here. This ain't no indie publisher, this ain't no (insert whatever)...

And... nope.


I redid my resume (a tip from the alumni career counselor I visited a week ago), wrote nice cover letters that weren't canned, and honestly fit an eff-ton of the requirements. Perhaps I can do better (which is the case for a lot of things, really), but I'm kinda thunderstruck. Right now it's a matter of licking my wounds and pressing on. There are other chances. Perhaps I should stretch out beyond writing/editing. After all, many writers didn't work in publishing, some were far from that in fact. May not need that route, just accept what is offered to me and go for it.

I think I have to go outside the box for this one, y'all.

Wish me luck. And may the same good luck go for us all.

*meme does not belong to me*

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Wow...

This meme actually relates to me. Believe it or not, that was how I got my job at the nonprofit.

Too bad it isn't last very long. And that's just the way it is...

Friday, August 9, 2013

Please learn from me, everyone...

for God's sake, don't have yourself reading so many books at once. Here is the ENTIRE list of everything I'm reading right now:

  1. The Trouble with Magic by Madelyn Alt [library]
  2. Hiroshima in America by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell [personal]
  3. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys [bookstore borrow]
  4. The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis [personal]
  5. Storm Kings by Lee Sandin [personal]
  6. Tempest in the Tea Leaves by Katie Lee Townsend [e-reader]
  7. Walden by Henry David Thoreau [personal]
  8. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill [personal]
  9. Eight Girls Taking Pictures by Whitney Otto [e-reader]
  10. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis [personal]
  11. Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui [personal]
  12. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien [personal]
  13. A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates [personal]
  14. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl [e-reader]
  15. Night Film by Marisha Pessl (ARC) [personal/bookstore borrow]
  16. The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron [personal]
  17. What You Really Really Want by Jaclyn Friedman [personal]
  18. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings by Edgar Allan Poe
  19. What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles
  20. Living with Guns by Craig R. Whitney [library]
  21. Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung [e-reader]
  22. All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Smith [e-reader]
  23. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling [e-reader]
  24. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan [e-reader]
  25. The Magnolia League by Katie Crouch [e-reader]
  26. The Thirteen Hallows by Colette Freedman and Michael Scott [e-reader]
  27. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie [e-reader]
  28. Buddha by Deepak Chopra [e-reader]

Yeah, so what if I can pick up easily where I left off? Doesn't make it less anxiety-inducing. Good Lord.

Hey, let's play a game! How much of this list can I trim down before year's end? Will it be all 28 or am I screwed like whoa?

Stay tuned to learn if I dig out of this stupid hole!

Nostalgia Gut Punch

Finally, someone posted two Nanci Griffith performances I grew up with. My dad had these taped on a Betamax (holy crap, I just revealed my age) and used to play them for infant me when I couldn't get to sleep.

Hilariously enough, my dad only taped the first four songs of each performance. Nice timing, Dad. XD

Needless to say, she was the household chanteuse.

~~





~~

And no, I'm not crying. Bad allergies... I swear.

Ouch, my everything.
*meme does not belong to me*

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Four Songs I've Sang in Public (and Three I Want to Sing)

In honor of the release of Rob Sheffield's new book (which I'm digging into right now with gusto), I will list the four songs I've actually sang in public ala karaoke (although they were through the Rock Band video game during a series [read two] of parties. But I'm told this technically counts. Hot dog.) and the three I wish I can do.

"Girlfriend Is Better" by Talking Heads

"Nightwatchman" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

"Tom Sawyer" by Rush

"Kiss Them for Me" by Siouxsie and the Banshees


And for the three I want to do... (but Rock Band doesn't have em. Booooo.)

"Isn't It Midnight" by Fleetwood Mac

"Kodachrome" by Paul Simon

"Walking After Midnight" by Patsy Cline

Two songs with "midnight" in the title... hardy-har-har-hur-hur. Whatever.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

16 years ago today...

I lost my paternal grandfather to lung cancer.

It struck him down so quickly. It was a blink-and-miss-it time. Surreal with myriad of images and senses awakened: white walls of nursing homes and putting together hospital beds. The smell of antibacterial cleaners and the low mumbling of a distant TV on the wall. A barren peach tree suddenly full of fruit for my mom to make cobblers for my grandfather.

~ ~ ~

I remember the last time I saw him healthy. My dad and I were dropping him and my paternal grandmother off at the airport (they were going to visit my aunt in Maine), waving goodbye to him. The trip was cut short due to my grandfather's health taking a dramatic dive. It took little time for the doctors to discern the cause.

We visited the hospital as he got chemotherapy, brought him our company and comfort when gifts would've been a poor move. After the hospital, he briefly rested at his home with my family and I visiting often. My mom helped him shave his head for the chemo. She jokingly called him the white Michael Jordan.

He was moved to a nursing home when it got nasty again. My parents, especially my dad, wanted him back at his own home (I later discovered that my grandfather's death was imminent, more so than I realized at the time. There was no doubt, as my mom told me, that cancer kicked him down hard and was making him stay down for good.) They began the arduous process of setting up a hospital bed and other needed equipment in his trailer home. My grandmother wanted him in the nursing home. It was an element of tension between the son and mother. We never got the chance to get him settled comfortably at his home.

My last memory of my grandfather was at the nursing home, hooked up to a breathing tube and his eyes shut. He was napping. I didn't want to disturb him. I told him goodbye and kissed his shaved head.

~ ~ ~

Then August 7th, 1997 arrived. It was mid-afternoon. My sister and I were playing with our stuffed animals, having them on adventures far beyond the capacity of their polyester-filled bodies. We were called into the living room.  My mom was sitting on the couch, my dad nowhere to be seen. I asked her of his whereabouts and she said that he was out in the backyard. She began telling us the news, choking up at the reveal: "Papa died today". At that, she burst into tears.

My sister was stoic at the news, probably trying her damnest as an eight-year-old to understand the gravity of it all. As for my ten-year-old self... saying that I was sad is an understatement. I was f****ing inconsolable. I ran back to my room, with all the stuffed animals, and embraced my stuffed animal shark Chelsea.

~ ~ ~

There was a wake on the 12th, no casket or anything dramatic like that. He was cremated and his ashes spread somewhere in Texas. An old friend delivered the eulogy, a group of Army soldiers folded a flag and presented it to my uncle (the eldest son), and I sat next to my dad with Chelsea in a purse. 

We began to homeschool again, though it wasn't the same. Everything changes when someone dies, especially the only family member that actually supported the idea. The tree that bore so many peaches later perished after my grandfather's death. For a long time, it sat in our backyard, doing nothing other than remind us of that time. After a few years, my dad chopped it down. My mom cried as he did, unable to watch it finally come down. 

~ ~ ~

I never forget this day. I just can't. Every time August 7th passes by, I emotionally freeze up and remember. The tears, the peaches, the nursing home, the softness of Chelsea's dorsal fin against my face. The last time I saw my grandfather. His eyes shut. The foreshadowing of the sadness to come. The day reeks of sickness. Whenever people want to make plans with me and they end up on this day, I don't do it. It is bad luck. 

To say his death had an impact on me is putting it lightly. My stories are fraught with families devastated by an important family member's death, main characters who had a beloved relative (usually a grandparent) stolen away by disease, and these events are the equivalent of 9.0-scale earthquakes. 

For God's sakes, I even dedicated the novel project Invisible to him. I feel that this novel is so important to me, that it should be dedicated to someone just as equally important.

Nothing else needs to be said of today. Or of my grandfather. I have spent my words.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Quick note

It's gonna be a bit jarring to see this ecstatic celebration of Talking Heads' third album and right after that... a post about my grandfather's passing over sixteen years ago.

So here is the buffer between the two.

I actually wrote about my grandfather before the album. It made sense to do it that way. Get into the grief and then heal. It wouldn't be the first time the music of Talking Heads comforted me through a dark time.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

34 years ago today...

my all-time favorite album (full-stop) and by its band (Talking Heads); Fear of Music descended upon record stores. Oh, if only to go back in time and go to the local record store and do this:

OMG yeaaaaaaa!

It had a crazy-amazing radio ad. (You can hear a bit of it during the South Bank Show episode on the band, featured on the Chronology deluxe DVD.)

It inspired Jonathan Lethem to write one of the best 33 1/3 books. (Seriously, you need to read it if you haven't.)

It made Dadaist poetry a thing to adapt to song. ( "I Zimbra", best opening track ever!)

It actually got a Grammy nomination for its artwork. (sweet holy everything, Jerry Harrison almost got a Grammy*.)

Everyone kinda forgets this album exists, since it lives in the shadow of Remain In Light. (cue joke, har-har)

With songs like "Life During Wartime", "Heaven", and "I Zimbra", what's not to love? I even like "Animals", the only blah track. (Not a bad song on this fine circle of vinyl, y'all)

The opening track was the equivalent of this famous meme. (See the video for reference)

~~

Keep on going, Fear of Music. You're the one that made me fall in love hard with the band.

*Okay, I know Mr. Harrison wouldn't have gotten the Grammy, since it was another dude that was nominated... but I like to think he would've sorta spiritually got it since he did design the cover.

*meme does not belong to me*