Slamming Open the Door

On my Walk for Fitness this morning (I love to call it that, as if it's a charitable event... which in a way, it is - the charity receiving the benefit is my ass), I listened to Fresh Air on NPR. The guest was poet Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, who recently published her first book, a collection of poems that record her reactions to her daughter's murder and its aftermath.

Her daughter, Leidy, was only 21 years old and a recent nursing school graduate about to embark on her career when she was strangled with a telephone cord by her estranged boyfriend.

The collection, entitled Slamming Open the Door, was awarded the Beatrice Hawley Award and two of its poems were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Its content reveals an honest, and at times shocking, exploration of the range of emotions experienced by the poet, beginning with the moment her phone call to her daughter went unanswered and including her reactions to coming face to face with the mother of her daughter's murderer.

If you have a chance, check out the podcast here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111218053

The poems are compelling and beautifully written; Sheeder Bonanno is a high school English and Creative Writing teacher in Pennsylvania.

F My Life

I am not going to go into detail about the major stress and litany of disappointments we have encountered during our engagement, but let me just say that today's news is truly on the verge of putting me over the edge.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-07-30-voa25.cfm

There is a scene from the film Sliding Doors where Gwyneth Paltrow's character Helen is standing on a bridge in the pouring down rain, having just discovered that her boyfriend is married, and she is about to have a psychotic break. She turns to him and says something to the effect of "NO, you listen to me: I've had ENOUGH for one year".

That's exactly how I feel - I've had ENOUGH for one engagement!! Thank GOD I am marrying the most kick ass guy in the history of men because it's that knowledge alone that allows me to keep on keepin' on in the world of weddings... and now honeymoons.

Yep, that's right - we've booked our honeymoon in the new terrorist hot spot. Go us!

Wedding Videography

I'm not going to sugar coat it - I've always viewed wedding videography as LAME. Whenever I've been forced to re-live someone's wedding via film, I've been totally cheesed out; it's always been a huge green monster moment.

That is, until I saw this:

http://vimeo.com/2907628

and then this:

http://abryanphoto.blogspot.com/2009/05/megan-and-mihirs-8mm-may-2nd-2009.html

Needless to say, I've spent the past 24 hours scouring Scottish videographer websites and frantically searching British wedding boards for student film makers looking to make a buck.

I mean a pound.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

As curator of our local gallery of the National Gallery of Writing, The Writers of East Brunswick High School, I am pleased to announce a publishing opportunity for the students, faculty and alumn of East Brunswick High.

This gallery is dedicated to promoting works written by the students and teachers of East Brunswick High School, New Jersey. We invite works of traditional and contemporary poetry, flash fiction (under 1000 words), short-short stories (under 2500 words), personal essays (under 2500 words), and works of creative non-fiction (under 2500 words).

To submit to this gallery for consideration, use this link:

http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/55353

from The National Council of Teachers of English:

“Whether we call it texting, IMing, jotting a note, writing a letter, posting an email, blogging, making a video, building an electronic presentation, composing a memo, keeping a diary, or just pulling together a report, Americans are writing like never before. Recent research suggests that writing, in its many forms, has become a daily practice for millions of Americans. It may be the quintessential 21st century skill. By collecting a cross-section of everyday writing through a National Gallery of Writing, we will better understand what matters to writers today—and when writing really counts. Understanding who writes, when, how, to whom, and for what purposes will lead to production of improved resources for writers, better strategies to nurture and celebrate writers, and improved policy to support writing.

America's writing will be front and center on October 20, 2009—the National Day on Writing. On that day, writers from every walk of life will pause to share their work. Communities across the nation are planning events to celebrate local writing, and NCTE will open the virtual National Gallery of Writing for all to appreciate the rich variety of work on display (the National Gallery will remain open until June 2010). A celebratory gala will be hosted by the New Yorker magazine in Manhattan to mark the National Day on Writing and to honor winners of the Norman Mailer High School and College Writing Awards”.

Rain

Enjoying a rainy day is, to me, a foreign concept. My mother, on the other hand, has enjoyed many a rainy day; therefore I'm assuming that today's blog pic encompasses how a rainy day might appear in her mind's eye.

It is NOT how a rainy day appears in my mind's eye; I tried to find a picture that represents my view of a rainy day however I couldn't find a one that showed a dripping wet version of Dante's 9th ring of hell.

Rain would, after all, extinguish the ever burning hell fires. This conclusion has lead me to believe that rainy days are evidence that this life is, at times, hell on earth.

I hate rain and according to The Weather Channel, it's going to rain on 9 of the next 10 days.

Great. Just what I need.

You see, I'm someone who posseses a rather weak control of my emotions. I can not stop my inate reactions to the world around me from determining, at some level, my mood. It's quite simple: on sunny days, I am sunny. On dreary days, I am dreary.

I don't have time for dreary right now - I've too many things to do and I need the weather to cooperate. Perhaps I'll turn Wiccan so that I can summon the energizing rays of the sun to shine upon me and help me fight through my to-do list.

Even Angelica Pinkerton hates the rain; last week when it rained one day for the entire day, she hid in our box spring mattress until it stopped. While we were sleeping last night (correction: while I was trying to sleep last night), she happily played with her red twist tie for hours upon end, ripping and racing up and down the hallway in fits of sheer joy and boundless energy.

That lasted until the black night gave way to a gray morning. When I woke up, she stopped playing for just long enough to gobble down some of her Funky Chicken breakfast but was anxious to get back to her twist tie (which she had been amusing herself with by wrapping it around one of the straps of my Chacos). When she finished eating, she skipped back toward my sandal but stopped short as she approached the back door.

As I watched her peer through the screen, I could tell that she was noticing the beads of water that had formed on the deck and suddenly, her demeanor changed from Frisky Cat to Cat Ennui. She slowly turned and gave me an exasperated "oh no, not this again" look and immediately dropped her head onto the carpet and began to mope.

Poor Pinks - it's unfortunate that she didn't inherit more of her grandmother's sunny disposition. Remind me to take lots of Vitamin C if I ever get knocked up.

BFF Brainstorming

I had a great weekend home in PA - so much got done that I finally feel as though I'm moving in the right direction. I may need to come home one more time before I leave for Scotland - or maybe not, since I leave in 25 days!! - but for the most part, I feel things are taken care of and heading in the right direction in terms of planning for the PA reception and more importantly, my future as a novelist!

Yep - I had an awesome brainstorming session while sitting on a rocking chair and watching rainclouds burst wide open over a Pennsylvania cornfield. Sitting on the front porch of my BFF's house at twilight on a warm evening is my absolute favorite way to spend a summer's night. We sat there for hours workshopping Covenhaven and finally, after months of little plot progression, we had a break through moment and the plot is finally resolved!!

When we began this project in November, it was full steam ahead for the first two months and then we both hit walls - actually, that's a bad analogy. We didn't hit anything, in fact, Aym was socked by a vicious cycle of the flu that rotated through her three kids, one at a time, for months while I became mired in editing and revision perfectionism.

There were many moments when we both thought this project was out of our hands - at one point, we decided that I should continue forward on my own; at another point, I considered shelving it and even began a new, unrelated project in a separate genre - but neither of us could let it go, nor could we end our collaboration.

Covenhaven is a joint venture - it's half me and it's half Aym - and that's what is going to set it apart from other novels in its genre. We have A LOT of work to do but now that we are both re-invigorated, I have no doubt that it will be enoyable and will get done.

Yard Sale

Today my mother and I are having a good old fashioned Watsontown yard sale and I am selling a treasure trove of crap I’ve acquired over the past few years.

The last time I had a yard sale was before I left Highland Park. Well, actually that wasn’t a yard sale; it was a “tag” sale because instead of hauling the goods down a flight of stairs and displaying them proudly on folding tables in the back yard, I invited the potential buyers inside and directed them up the staircase where they could examine the items in their natural habitat. It was a great success, of course, although I was a bit freaked out by the some of the weirdos who came back several times over the course of the weekend, as if they were casing the joint. Luckily, the day after the sale ended I was on a plane to Scotland so if they did come back later on to rape and gut me, I wasn’t there to notice.

I like to get rid of stuff almost as much as I like to acquire it. Perhaps even more so, since not only does purging de-clutter my life and my mind, it also reminds that “things” are only valuable if value is attached to them.

For instance, I’m selling what I think is pretty close to a one of a kind Coach handbag. I purchased at an outlet store a few years ago for about 100 bucks and from what I have gathered, it was never released in stores - perhaps because the rabbit fur trim sheds like an annoying pet.

Now, some people might call me crazy for selling such a treasure at a yard sale for, like, $20.00 but those are probably the same people who collect Beanie Babies or who refuse to take Barbie Dolls out of the box. Some might label this ridiculous furry Coach handbag a “collector’s item” and try to sell it on Ebay or hold on to it for future greatness but I am not one of those people. Nope, to me it is just a bag that served its purpose and now needs to go serve that purpose somewhere other than in my basement storage unit.

Does it bother me that I paid $100.00 for it and it’s probably going to end up marked down to $5?

Nope, not a bit. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably end up giving it away if someone with the right look comes to our sale.

Money’s money and stuff is stuff and each comes and each goes and it’s just too damn hard to keep track of either - money or stuff - so why bother attaching one to the other? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

And before you think I’m insane, please know that when I say value, I mean $ value. I do recognize the difference between monetary value and sentimental value; sentimental value is a whole other story but I won’t go in to that today because it’s not relevant - I’m not selling pieces of myself today. I’m just selling stuff, so if you’re in the Watsontown area, come check it out.

Ps. this is not a pic of my yard sale, so don't expect to buy a lamp.