Yes, I'm still alive

...but I'm barely living. I haven't written anything in two weeks! It's not that my muse has deserted me, I'm just being lazy! I need to get over myself because I want to write for a living, but it's never gonna happen if I keep getting in my own way. How do I keep myself away from me?

Why, hello there

Had a great start today, worked out, wrote (not much), watched a movie w/the parental units, overall I feel like I had a successful, productive day. Now, I'm going to do a second work out (I love you, cardio!) and then hunker down and try to get some real writing done. My mind's kinda been all over the place, so I'm hoping after the second work out, I'll be able to focus and get a good three to four pages written in the novel and pick up the last short story I was writing (months ago, now, eek) and see what that's looking like. Then get some reading done (I'm trying for two books this week) and then sleep, hopefully to do it all over again tommorrow, just much more efficiently!

Hello, Me

So, I guess I'm still me. Still hibernating, still not trying anything to get me out of my comfort zone. I would really love to not disappoint myself, but how does one get out of oneself? I'm tired of being afraid. How does one outrun fear of themselves?

Wherefore art thou, absent muse?

I haven't written anything in two weeks. I feel like I'm all out of words. How can I get out of this funk? I miss the very act of writing, being creative. How does one go about actively looking for inspiration? Do I watch my favorite movies? Listen to my favorite music? Re-read my favorite books? I don't know, but tommorrow, I'm going to actively work on figuring it out!

New month, new beginnings

I've decided that December is going to be the month of, wait for it, AWESOME (why yes, I have been obsessively watching 'How I Met Your Mother'). Meaning, that I'm going to try and be adventurous, do things that I've always been too scared to do. And that pretty much means every and anything. It's a strange business, stepping out your front door (thanks, Bilbo!) and I intend on getting caught up in life! I'm tired of being afraid to put myself out there, I'm just going to have to get a new way of dealing with rejection, because avoiding it has meant that I've avoided living the life I was meant to have. So, here's to new things, new people, new sights, a new life. I'm excited, I haven't felt this way in a long time.

The Working Writer

So today marks the second week of NaNoWriMo and the first week was ROUGH. I barely wrote three pages, inspiration not coming easily. I had spent weeks excited at the prospect of starting my novel, I felt I finally had an idea that I could see to the end, but I had a frustrating first day (thanks for that world) that I just couldn't seem to recover from last week. But I feel rejuvenated and I spent all afternoon working on "the novel" (I do have a title that I absolutely love, simple and to the point) and I hit the daily goal I set for myself and that feels remarkably good. There are things I know I want to change already, but I'm trying something different this go around, instead of editing as I write, I'm just gonna go with the words that end up on my page until the bitter end. I've never truly had a rough draft, when I felt I was finished with a piece that ended up being the only draft because of the major overhauls I'd made during the writing of it, but I want to see if this way of writing will allow me to be easier on myself during the actual work of writing. Here's to a new way of doing an old endeavour!

New World Order

It is the third week of my layoff and I feel I have acquitted myself well. Oh, there has been lots of lazing about and eating, but I feel like I've made real in-roads on my writing. I can see my collection of short stories really taking shape and I'm going to participate in NanoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which starts November first, and I'm extremely excited about that. I have an idea that I love and I feel I can sustain for 50,000 words (the goal) and I'm actually itching to start but I'm going to wait until the first, so it won't feel like I'm cheating. I feel excited and rejuvenated, so much to the point that I'm trying to plot a way I can do this until I'm finished with my collection of stories (ideally I'd like ten) and my novel is finished and ready to be published. How do writers get paid to write? That's the dream, the dream I've been too scared to fully pursue, because what if I failed? What if I found out I wasn't good enough? What if I was good enough and still no one was interested? But enough with that, I'm ready to take a risk, ready to finally live. I never knew that having a purpose felt quite like this. I feel amazing and I hope it transfers to how I treat other people because I want everyone to feel as good as I do. This moment is beautiful, this moment is all I have.

It's Me again!

So, today was the first workday of my lay-off and...it was a bit weird. The weather was mystifyingly beautiful so I was grateful that I wasn't cooped up in the office not enjoying it, but I feel I struggled in finding things to keep me occupied. I'm a person that doesn't do well with free time, I idle and I eat. I have to find ways to occupy my time so that I don't resort to old habits, oh, and I have to fight against my natural inclinations of gluttony and sloth for three months. This should be interesting. I know I should probably fill my time with museums, art galleries, bike rides, but I most likely won't. I would love to be that person who gets up in the morning and decides to go for a five mile hike, or to get on the train and visit the Art Institute downtown, but I love my creature comforts and it is like pulling teeth to get me to do something outside of my normal routine and if someone tells me I need to try something different? I roll my eyes and proceed to not listen to them as hard as I can. How does one fight against their nature? I want to be awesome active person, but it's so much easier to just read a book or watch a television show. How does one fake it till they make it?

Hi World!

I recently weighed myself and I am now at the highest weight I've ever been at. I don't know how to process this. This number means that I have to change. Everything. Here's the catch; I don't want to. I know I'm not active enough, but I enjoy my sedantary life. I enjoy all the complex carbohydrates and empty calories I scarf down when I'm sitting in front of the tv. I enjoy my life the way it's set up and I know to change the way I eat, the way I move, I have to change the way I think, the way I enjoy myself and I'm simply not ready for that. But when will I be? How can I go through a seismic change and end up on the other side of it trimmer and healthier? What has to happen? Diabetes? A stroke? A heart attack? I don't want to get to that point, but there is still that stupid part of me that thinks I never will. I haven't shaken the invincible fallacy yet, even at thirty years of age I think I will live forever. I need help but I'm not the type to ask for it, what has to happen for me to finally see? How do you change everything you are?

Hi World!

I've had a revelation of sorts since starting this blog and it is this: I'm not an interesting person. Don't get me wrong, I love my life, well, the part of it that isn't spent at work, but I don't have varied interests nor am I the person who has a mass amount of knowledge about various arcane subjects, I'm not outdoorsy, etc, etc, etc. I am a homebody. I enjoy spending my free time watching movies and tv, or reading a good book or perusing the internet. And those aren't activities to turn your nose up at, they're a hell of a lot of fun, but they aren't conducive to being with the ones you love or meeting new people. And that is what I'm missing out on, connections strengthened and connections made.

So how does one go out and live the good life? And what is the definition of the good life? I know I want to meet more people, make new friends, try things I've always been too afraid to do, but how does one get the strength to do that? Is it something you build with your hands or is that seed already inside of you? Like I said before, I am naturally inclined to stay in, behind and out of view, so how do I change who I am fundamentally? Would it be worth it to try? And what would be the reward? Just knowing that I went out on a Saturday night? Whenever I have ventured out to clubs or bars, I usually spend my time wishing I was back at home on my couch.

I don't know, this is all so confusing. I'm gonna go watch Star Trek 2009 and worry about it later.

Drive-by Review

Busy life is busy, but have a quick review:

Janice Y.K. Lee's The Piano Teacher isn't just a novel; it's a fever dream. The colors and smells of wartime Hong Kong burst off the page, as vivid as any firecracker display on the fourth of July. The beauty of Lee's skill is the complete absence of the reader's awareness of it; you feel completely integrated into the world of the monied Hong Kong Chinese and the ex-patriat British with their unfounded superiority complexes. You feel completely surrounded by a world you never knew existed; Lee has delivered a magical debut that establishes her as an expert world builder and a plush, emotional storyteller.

The Piano Teacher is a frame story, simply, a story within a story. Our conduit into this strange new world is Claire Pendleton, a young British ex-patriat following her new husband after he's landed a job overseeing the building of the Tai Lam Cheung reservoir. Immediately she lands her own work as a piano teacher to the well-to-do Chinese family, the Chens. Claire gets the first of many life lessons working for the Chens; she sees for the first time that affluence and class aren't just the providence of the British. She is now a part of the servant class. While Clair and her struggle to self-aware womanhood is filled with milestones most women are uncomfortably familiar with, the story truly comes alive when she meets Will Truesdale and we're transported to 1942 Hong Kong and we meet the real heartbeat of the novel, Trudy Liang.

Trudy looms as large as Hong Kong in The Piano Teacher. She is its beauty, sophistication, confusion and broken heart personified. As a Eurasian, Trudy is neither fully accepted by the Chinese nor the Europeans and this is a metaphor for Hong Kong's culture; stuck between its ancient Chinese roots and the British imperialism bleeding into every aspect of Hong Kong life. As we follow Trudy and Will's love affair through its heady asccension and its tragic but inevitable end, we see a country reach a crescendo of of decadence and revelry, only to be brought low by war and it's utter destruction.

As Lee toggles between the ex-patriats in interment camps run by the conquering Japanese and Claire stuck in her own emotional prison, Lee evokes both horror and pathos with her words, daring the reader to judge these characters, most of them doing anything they can just to survive. The Piano Teacher is grand, lush, evocative and haunting just like the land it so lovingly describes.

Work is driving me crazy

Work is currently WORK!@! and I have no idea how to handle it. This is the first job that I've had that's ever required MORE from me and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I ran away from responsibility for a LONG time and I know that it's no longer an option, but on my run, I didn't exactly equip myself with the skills to separate my professional life from my personal life. How does one find an acceptable work/life balance?

I've seen the beautiful 2009 movie "UP in the Air" and I do not want to mimic George Clooney's character's life, where work was number one and interfered with his personal relationships. I'm not a workaholic but this job is essentially making me one and I do not want to put it first. But...I can't remember the last time I hung out with my friends. When I'm done with work on Saturday afternoon, I just want to collapse on my couch and not move until Monday morning, and that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last three months.

How does one put work in prospective? How do you overcome extreme tiredness when you do want to go out? Do you sacrifice sleep and rest to have a social life? Simply, how does one handle an adult working life?

Another Instant Review

Have another review:


Carriers uses the well-worn tropes of zombie movies to give us something that goes much deeper than your typical Friday night frightfest. Chris Pine (Star Trek) stars as Brian, older brother to Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) and de facto leader of the ragtag team of four driving across America trying to outrun the virus that's decimated the human population that includes Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) and Emily VanCamp (Everwood). The landscape is bare, and when they do run into other uninfected humans, the trouble is much more visceral and insidious than any zombie could ever hope to inflict. The supplies are becoming much harder to procure and the desperation is eating away at the bonds of the ragtag team.

To lay all my cards on the table, I am a sucker for zombie movies. They are far and away my favorite movie monster because zombie movies, if they're done right, are never about the zombies. The zombies are symbols, allergories for what the director truly wants to talk about. Romero's Dawn of the Dead had zombies attacking survivors in a mall, not because it would be fun to see a zombie eating someone in the food court, but the director wanted the audience to examine the effect our rampant, mindless consumerism was having on our abilities to think for ourselves. And in Carriers, the point isn't how fast we can run from the zombies (in fact, there's nary a zombie to be seen in the movie), but to ask who are we at the core of ourselves?
The movie posits that how we react in a crisis is who we really are, no tricks, no everyday niceties to blur the face we try to keep only to ourselves. We get two brothers who embody to very different reactions and the directors, Alex and David Pastor asks us, which one do we relate to? Pine's Brian is the isolationist; he has decided that compassion and mercy will only get you infected and you must, at all costs, look out for yourself. The younger brother, Danny, is obviously the soft touch, hesitating in tense moments because he can't decide whether the idea of looking out for only yourself is justifiable even in such an extreme situation as he finds himself in, or if compassion should always win out, no matter what's going on around you. I found myself identifying with both brothers; I understood why Brian hardened himself to the plight of others, he cared about ensuring the survival of his loved ones and if you don't look out for yourself, someone other ruthless jerk will certainly take advantage of you. But I cannot turn my back on the concepts of empathy, compassion and mercy. How can I see someone I can help and turn my back?

Carriers doesn't have much in the way of jump out of your seat frights, but what it does have in spades are intelligent questions that challenge the viewer to think, exactly, what would I do in that situation? How would I respond to such an epic call to arms? I think anyone looking for not only a good time, but an intelligent thriller should definetly give Carriers a try.

Carriers was written and directed by Alex and David Postman and is now available on dvd.

What is inspiration?

I have been working on the short story I'm currently writing for MONTHS and it's frustrating me because it is not flowing. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. When I write, if it's not flowing, I put it away and go on to the story that is insisting on being told. I have put this one aside, and written one other story that sprang from my head fully formed, but I keep coming back to this story. I am intrigued by the people telling me their lives in whispers and half truths and I want to get to know them fully, but they are tricksy hobbits and won't give it to me straight. My beloved liars got me to thinking on inspiration. What is it? Where does it come from? Do we have to wait on it? Or can we access it at any time?

I am not the kind of writer who can get up and write from 6am to 2pm like it's a regular 9 to 5. I have to wait until the mood hits me, until the words are ready to pour out of me. Whenever I try to make myself sit down and write when I don't feel the magical "tingle" up and down my spine what comes out is stale and unworthy. But when I do feel the inspiration, I feel the work is beautiful and special, worthy of other's time and attention. I think this is mostly habit, and partly true. I have told this to myself over the years so many times that I believe it. I know if I just sat down every morning for an hour everyday, something wonderful would eventually come out of it. But I love that special "tingle" that I've divined as inspiration. If only I could bottle it up so I could access it whenever I wanted to write something lovely and amazing.

Drive-by Review

Here have a review:


I am not a big fan of Robin Thicke's 2007 breakout album The Evolution of Robin Thicke. I loved the slinky sexiness of "Lost Without U" and "Everything That I Can't Have" was a high-spirited cornucopia of fun and mischief that was irresistible. However, I found the remainder of the album bloated, overindulgent and just plain dull. Sex Therapy: The Session is the polar opposite. Fit, slimmed down, it's Robin Thicke in fighting shape. Sex Therapy: The Session is infinitely listenable.
Thicke is not a power vocalist, but rather has a sweet, soft, come-on of a voice and he expertly plays up to his strengths on Sex Therapy. "Sex Therapy" is the first single and works as an excellent bridge to the new album. It's sinuous melody slinks into your mind, winds itself around the pleasure center in your brain and causes paroxysms of ear joy for three minutes and thirty seconds. It might be difficult for a second single to gain traction on radio because "Sex Therapy" is a song that only gets better after repeated listenings.
Sex Therapy boasts several potential singles and two standouts are "It's In The Morning" featuring Snoop Dogg and "Shakin' It For Daddy" featuring hip hop's new go to girl (and for good reason) Nikki Minaj. "It's In The Morning" is the kind of song Thicke does best, and undulating groove with a falsetto bridge that makes you want to grab your significant other and remind them why they chose you in the first place. "Shakin' It For Daddy" is a loud, brash homage to avaricious strippers and the men that love them that skirts the line between misogyny and being a sexy call and answer between the sexes.
The latter half of Sex Therapy is much weaker than the hit-laden front end, but the first seven songs are so imminently listenable, Thicke is forgiven for tacking on throwaway songs like "RollerCoaster." The Evolution of Robin Thicke will most likely remain Thicke's most successful album, but it's Sex Therapy: The Session that's his masterwork.

Hi World!

Before I start spewing all my thoughts and feelings, here's a few things about me for my first post: I recently hit the big 3-0 and instead of this making me nervous, scared, depressed, I'm relieved to be out of my twenties. My twenties were, something else, to say the least. I am college-educated, but some days I feel as dumb as a post. Seriously, the other day, it took me five minutes to figure out how to send an e-mail from my home computer. I am perenially single (much more on that later) and the last of my friends to find a career, partner, life trajectory.

I'll be using this space mostly to practice my writing because I've FINALLY got the nerve to pursue a career in professional writing (see why I'm enjoying 30?) but I'll also be using this space to rant, talk about my passions, ask for opinions, pretty much the same reasons why everyone else blogs. Though I doubt I'll be talking much about politics, I don't have the stomach for it. I'm excited and nervous about blogging and hope that it turns out to be as much fun as it seems! Till the next time!