Writing Exercise #15
October 15th, 2007Write about an ordinary ritual in which something goes terribly wrong.
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Writing Exercise #14
October 14th, 2007What is the longest time you ever waited for someone or something? Why did you wait?
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Another Night of Juxtaposition (Writing Exercise #13)
October 14th, 2007I really meant blog entries to be the exception to the 301 rule, not the norm. and I’m still qualifying this as exercise #12, because I haven’t been to bed yet, dammit.
This was another night of juxtaposition for me. I danced at Artopium with my troupe this evening. It was wonderful — the weather was perfect and it was a great group of people So we danced outside in the fresh air, and there was a breeze that blew the veils all around so they danced as much as the women wielding them. And Kelly pulled rugs and pillows up to the very edge of the dancing space and encouraged the whole crowd to come to the front to be a part of the dancing. It was such an appreciative audience, and I loved dancing so close to them. The energy was phenomenal. I did a full-on 7-minute drum solo and didn’t appear to lose anyone, so I’ll call it a success.
The juxtaposition came with my other major project today. Okay, well, two major projects. Firstly, I finally finished the damned curtains. They’re officially hemmed and hanging in the dining room! YAY!
Second, Stv’s hard drive went kablooie today. As in, won’t boot. So we made a mad scramble to Fry’s to get an external HDD case, a new hard drive for his laptop, and a back up HDD which we should have bought a long time ago but never did. So now we’re stuck trying to figure out how to get the data off his old disk if at all possible. So far we haven’t had any luck getting a computer to register the disk’s existence. Uh-oh.
So anyway, I’ve spent the last, oh, three and a half hours after my show and some food installing and formatting his new hard drive and getting some basic software up and running. Stv has managed to lose his Windows install disks, so for now I have him running Ubuntu, which is a Linux-based open source OS. I’m not that great with Linux, but I managed, and I’m pretty proud. However, watching me figure out how to get software onto the machine has rendered Stv afraid to touch it, I think…
Domesticity (Writing Exercise #12)
October 12th, 2007What happened to exercise 11, you ask? Well, I spent yesterday evening working on a character synopsis for the next RPG I’m playing in. She’s terribly enigmatic and not an entirely nice person. But that is part of what makes her interesting. Anyway, I didn’t see a reason to post it here, but I will if anyone is interested.
Now then. I have never considered myself to be a particularly domestic person, but I’m slowly coming to the realization that I am. It is a strange progression that we go through. One day you’re a crazy liberated partying college kid, the next you’re a go-getter, career-minded, fully modern woman. Then you get married and while you lose serious Cool Points, you still firmly believe that you are DIFFERENT from all those other extremely uncool married people. And then, one Tuesday morning, you wake up and realize that in your spare time you’re knitting scarves and making tablescapes and sewing curtains for your kitchen. Not that you aren’t still all the other things, but just that this habit of priding oneself on your lack of domesticity, which I would argue is typical of my generation, is total self-delusion. You have become a Domestic. And I’m not talking beer.
I suppose from the outside looking in, the thoroughly modern domestic career-woman is quite humorous. Tonight, if you peeped in my kitchen windows (which I hope you didn’t do), you would see a blond bent over a sewing machine on the kitchen counter, with a set of carefully pinned, open-weave curtains strewn all over between last week’s mail and her glowing laptop. She is slowly, painfully sewing channels in the fabric panels for the curtain rods on the sewing machine she’s used maybe twice since she got it. This woman is also biting her lip and swearing under her breath in the most colorful language imaginable while she tries to avoid sticking herself with the needle or any of the pins sticking out of the slippery fabric at odd angles. Add into the picture the blinking bluetooth headset hooked over her ear and the command prompt on the laptop and you can begin to get the full picture …
Writing Exercise #10
October 10th, 2007Leg Waxing: The Saga Continues (Writing Exercise #9)
October 9th, 2007So based on the wise comment from Ginger on my previous post about waxing my legs, I decided that rather than attempt it again myself, I would defer to an expert. Going into this, I realized that I know next to nothing about professional leg waxing, so I decided it would be a good topic for tonight’s writing exercise.
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Writing Exercise #8
October 8th, 2007Writing Exercise #7
October 7th, 2007Write about a roll of film that has been obtained surreptitiously.
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Med Fest (Writing Exercise #6)
October 6th, 2007So I’m supposed to write my words today as well, but I am out of time and haven’t pulled an exercise together, so for now, I’m declaring that plain old blogging about my day, as long as I share a few interesting insights, should count.
The Mediterranean festival was a huge crush of people. There were far more attendees that I have ever seen there, and the church volunteers weren’t really prepared for it, poor things. The air was absolutely steamy with sweat and humidity. The main stage at the entrance had heavy base, and played Mediterranean dance music all night. It was an almost irresistible draw for me, and my friend Zanj and I spent much of the evening dancing in our chairs. The good news was that after a series of long lines, we did manage to find said chairs. There was the line to get in, the line for the food tickets, the line for the wine after we had the food tickets, the line for the food after we had wine. Wow. We got a few nibbles and sat down, and the focus turned to fine conversation over the rumpled tablecloths. The festival had long rows of folding tables lined up end to end, in classic church dinner fashion. Appropriate I guess, given that the whole amazing event is a benefit for St. Elias orthodox church, and has been for the past 75 years.
After a few hours the crowds began to thin out, and having finished our bottle of wine, we made for the dance floor. Zanj and I hopped and shimmied like madwomen while our other girlfriend sat in the front row and watched the little girls spin and twirl and stomp their feet. Unfortunately we caught the dancing when the band was on break, but everyone was still caught up in the piped in songs. What is it about dancing in the street that is so liberating?
Writing Exercise #5
October 5th, 2007Today’s horoscope: COMPANY FROM OUT OF TOWN. COULD MEAN TROUBLE.
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