Writing–Essay Conclusion

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

a Prince Consort Essay

When we last left our hero, the first draft of the personal essay I was working on, I wasn’t happy with it. I couldn’t get the emotions working the way I wanted them to. I was struggling because I was too hesitant and couldn’t stop myself from holding back. The solution was rewriting the first draft from scratch and then working with the new draft.

The good news is that this approach worked. I rewrote the draft in my journal where my emotions are free to roam without judgment, and then typed up the result. Subsequent revisions from this new draft worked well and I’m pretty happy with the end result. I think I fixed the problems that plagued it in the beginning.

The bad news is that I really don’t have the confidence to submit it to the contest. I like it, but I’m not sure it’s good enough. And with money tight, spending 25 bucks on something I’m not sure of doesn’t make sense. I feel like I could benefit from more practice before I think about submitting again.

I know that I submitted one piece to a contest before, but that was just to do it. It was an opportunity to try something new. However, if I’m going to pursue this seriously, then I’m definitely going to have to get more practice and build up my confidence before I submit again.

I don’t mind taking my time in this case.

Active Sleeper

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment
Tile mosaic in sidewalk on Broad Street, Mid-C...
Tile mosaic in sidewalk on Broad Street, Mid-City New Orleans. "Sand. For Restful Sleep". Remainder of the long gone Crescent City Bed Company factory which was formerly at this location. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m an active sleeper.

What does that mean?

It means that when I go to sleep there’s no guarantee that all of me goes to sleep. There’s a spot in my brain that doesn’t always sleep and it has the ability to keep my body awake without the rest of my sleeping brain knowing it. As such, I’ve done some weird things in my sleep.

I’ve always known I was a talker. My mother once came in to yell at my sister and I for talking when we should have been sleeping only to find out that we were both talking in our sleep. Mom said it sounded like we were having a conversation but when she really listened, we were talking about two completely different things.

I had a couple of sleepwalking incidents as a kid, but nothing serious. For the most part I keep my activity contained to my own bed.

That I know of.

My roommate Carrie once walked by room on her way to the bathroom and heard me calling her name. She stopped and responded. I apparently asked her about something, but she couldn’t understand it. She said yes anyway and said that I told her okay and then she heard me get back in bed. I sounded like I was right on the other side of the door. I have no memory of any of it.

I’ve woken up sitting up in bed unsure of how long I’ve been sleeping that way. I’ve woken up completely turned around in bed with my pillow and head in the open window. I’ve woken myself up screaming, yelling, gesturing, laughing, and spitting in my sleep.

I once dreamed that someone punched me in the nose and woke up to my own fist hitting me, resulting in a nosebleed.

It’s always interesting when I close my eyes.

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason or pattern that I can discern. I’ll go through a quiet period and then one night wake up sleeping half on my bed or wake up one morning with the sheets off the bed, but the blankets intact.

It’s a little disturbing sometimes. Obviously, punching yourself in the face in your sleep is bound to be disturbing. But the freakiest thing for me (so far) has been waking up to find that I had been sleeping sitting up. I tend to wake up a little bit when I roll over or otherwise move, so to find that I’m sitting up and have no memory of moving into that position is really bizarre. When I have an active sleeping period, I wait for that particular incident to happen again.

Being an active sleeper, it makes me wonder what will happen should I ever acquire a human to sleep with full-time. I already refuse to sleep with my cats, not because I’m active sleeper, but because I’m convinced there’s no bed big enough for me and a cat and I currently sleep in a twin.

But I’m open to sleeping with someone else and I wonder how that will work out during active periods. Will they stop because I’ll subconsciously know that there’s someone in the bed with me? Or will we be able to find a bed big enough to accommodate those active periods? Or will I have to sleep on the couch?

Those are questions that I won’t be able to answer until I’m actually put in the situation, so there’s no sense in worrying about it now. I’m in no immediate danger and neither is anyone else.

Until then, I’ll go to sleep wondering how I’m going to wake up in the morning.

Writing–Reading Goals Update

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Bookshelf

I said sometime close to the beginning of the year (the exact date of the post eludes me) that one of my goals for the year was to read. I needed to change the way I thought about reading and to do that I set the goal for myself to read twelve books this year, at least one a month. Six had to be non-fiction, six had to be fiction, and only one could be a re-read.

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve been living up to the challenge I set for myself. Not quite four months into the year I’ve read seven books, four fiction, three non-fiction, one re-read. I admit that the book I’m reading now, a non-fiction book, is also a re-read, but I think I can make up for that seeing as I’m over half-way to my goal and I still have a little over eight months left in the year.

I’m glad to say that the challenge is doing exactly what I’d hoped it would do. Because I have this goal hanging over my head, I’m making time in my day to read, even just a little bit, because I don’t want to fail. I’m conditioning myself to read every day as part of my job. I’m getting it out of my head that I don’t have time to do it and instead, I’m making time to do it.

As it should be.

Kiki’s Guide To Being a Bad Fan

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments
Photo of a Bad Fan.

During Opening Day, I tweeted that my new Cubs fan followers made a poor choice because I would piss them off, to which one of my old Cubs fan followers added, “Kiki enjoys losing baseball. Beware.”

There’s a point in this statement that I have to argue. I don’t enjoy watching my team lose. I enjoy watching them win. I’d like them to win. I root for them to win. I do, however, enjoy my team despite a loss. It drives people mad (which I enjoy).

And it makes me a bad fan.

There are a lot of perks to being a bad fan. First of all, my day isn’t wrecked by a Cubs loss. I get bummed out, sure, but the boys losing 2-1 isn’t a disaster of epic proportions that results in me needing to drink. Hell, the guys losing 13-1 isn’t enough to make me require alcohol. They lost. Bummer. I guess I’d better get dinner started. Put on The Monkees.

Man, that pisses people off.

It drives them insane that I can enjoy a team that’s not very good. I’m from the school of “dance with the one what you brought”. This isn’t fantasy baseball. I have no input in who ends up on the Cubs this year, last year, or next year. These are the players I’ve got. I’m going to get to know them, cheer for them, praise them when they do well, and enjoy whatever they can bring to the table, even if it’s just a cute face.

Lunacy!

Now, sports fans, don’t think that this sort of attitude means I can’t have an intelligent discussion about baseball and about the Cubs, that I don’t like such things. I do. I’m as realistic as the next fan when it comes to assessing my teams talent in the form of statistics. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know just how well I interpret the implication of David DeJesus’s OBP and James Russell’s flyball/grounder ratio. I can dig discussions about what the Cubs need, what trades they should make, the best use of a player, etc.

What I can’t stand is the gloom and doom whining about a team YOU predicted to be a 100-game loser back in January. What is the sense in that? Why bother punishing yourself by watching the games of a team that you don’t even like? It’s akin to watching a TV show you despise and then complaining about how terrible it is. There’s just no logic in it. No one will think any less of you for checking out fewer games in a crappy season. Consider it. It might improve your health.

Or you could be a bad fan like me.

The trick is to not attach so much of your ego to your team and to change your point of view. If all that matters is winning, that your team isn’t worth shit unless they win it all, then I’m afraid you’re going to have make due with a lot of disappointment. However, if you enjoy the game, and the winning that comes with and is hopefully the end result of it, then your season dramatically improves even when the team is garbage. Call me a Pollyana, but even in a blow-out loss, I can find something to be glad about (and usually in blow-out losses, that’s Len and Bob and their ramblings).

In addition to detaching the ego, it also serves you to get over yourself. I don’t think this team owes me anything. They don’t owe me a World Series championship. I would love for them to win one. But they’re not winning it for me, I don’t care what they say. They’re winning it for themselves and they should. When I pay my money to see a game, they don’t owe me a win. They owe me a good game. And so far, at least for me, they’ve come through on that.

Of course, if they happen to shirk on their end of the deal, I can still find a way to have a good time in spite.

Pisses you off doesn’t?

It pays to be a bad fan.

Playing What If

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Question mark

As should be evident if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, I didn’t take the traditional, expected life path. Instead, I veered off into the woods, sometimes cutting my own path, sometimes following one that I found.

Naturally, walking a road like this in the midst of many friends took the paved freeway (which is in no way an insult; they did it their ways and I’m doing it mine and together we fight crime, or something), I think about what if. I wonder if my family and friends ever think about what if when it comes to my life. I have a sneaking suspicion they have more regrets about my existence than I do.

But let’s play what if for a second, shall we?

What if I went to proper college right out of high school? What if I’d gone to another state to study? Or even stayed in IL, but lived on campus. What would I have studied? What degree would I have ended up with? Would I have ended up with a degree? Would I have stayed all four years? Would I have gone for a Masters? A PhD?

What if I had gotten married? Had kids? Would I still live in town? Would my hubby and I have moved to bigger cities looking for prosperity? How many kids would I have by now? Would I be a working mom? Would even still be married? Would I be divorced? Would I be looking for husband number two? Married to husband number two? Would I have step-kids? Would my kids have half-siblings? Or would I be struggling to make it alone as a single mom, the wounds from my divorce too deep to heal?

What if I had moved out at 18? At 21? Would I be stuck in some job I hate trying to make ends meet so I don’t have to move back home? Would I be putting up with being miserable for the sake of some notion of independence? Would I be forfeiting my dreams to be considered an adult?

What if I took the freeway of life? What if I did all of the things most other people do? Would I be here now? Would I be writing? Would I be blogging? Would I be published? Would I be hustling? Would I be wondering how to make the ends meet? Would I be annoyed by a rejection letter with my name misspelled? Would I be a best-selling novelist? Or would I have never written another word because I was too busy being a grown-up?

Like the Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.

Writing–Honors English

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Cover of "MLA Style Manual and Guide to S...

I took three years of honors English in high school. Freshman through junior year. It was expected that if you took three years of honors English that you’d take World Lit, where honors and A English came together as one, your senior year. I did not. I didn’t care for the teacher and frankly, my brain had had enough. I took Sci-Fi and Mythology classes instead.

Best choice I made considering I ended up working forty hours a week that year and between that, the only two hard classes I did have (physics and pre-calculus), and the extra work I put into our final play for theater arts class, I wouldn’t have had the time to devote to World Lit, though I doubt it could have been harder than honors English.

I don’t believe I’ll ever take a class harder than honors English. I could take quantum physics, not understand a damn word the teacher said, and still thing it was better than my freshman year final in honors English.

I’m not joking. My teacher was a taskmaster, an absolute tyrant when it came to honors English. Everything she did was to prepare us for college, she said, and in the three times I’ve been to community college, I never had anything come close to what she put us through. The class was so hard, the teacher so demanding that we never had more than eleven kids in our class. In fact, it was the biggest class. I think by junior year, we only had eight.

Brutal.

Don’t think so?

My freshman final was to write three five paragraph themes answering questions covering three of the four books we’d read that year. We had an hour and a half to get it done. The questions involved exploring themes, symbolism, and all that good literary junk. The books we read that year were Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mocking Bird, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Scarlet Letter.

Sophomore year we read a few Shakespeare plays, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth. In anticipation to the reading of two of these plays, we had to write a five paragraph theme pertaining to the play in question. In class. Fifty minutes. That’s all the time we got. One theme was on the word maturity. The other theme was on the word ambition. That’s right. We were expected to write a fully developed, edited, five paragraph theme in fifty minutes on a single word.

Good times.

Sophomore year also featured the required research paper all English classes had to write. Twenty pages on a controversial topic, presenting both sides without bias, in correct MLA format. And notecards! Fifty properly formatted research notecards had to be turned in as well. And to make sure that education stuck, we ended up doing a couple of ten page papers the same way our junior year.

We had ten vocabulary words to memorize a week for three years. The words were given to us on Monday. We had to present definitions on Tuesday. The test was on Friday.

We did independent grammar study on Mondays. That’s right. We were responsible for teaching ourselves and each other grammar (the teacher helped when needed, of course). We were then tested once a quarter. If everyone didn’t pass to her liking, we risked going back to having formal lessons.

It was like boot camp every day for three years.

And it was the best thing ever for me as a writer.

I didn’t realize it at the time when I was being put through my paces, but this hardcore teacher was doing more than prepping me for college. She gave me many of the tools I was going to need to survive a writing career. She taught me organization, attention to detail, how to revise (really gave me the best advice on that), the importance of word choice, the importance of doing it right, and how and when to settle for calling a piece done.

I hated it at the time, but I love that I went through it now.

I saw my honors English teacher in the post office the other day. I doubt she remembers me (it’s been 15 years since my last class with her), but I recognized her on site. Her beehive is still intact, though a little grayer. She still looks a bit like a bird, small and pointy. And I bet she’s still running kids through her honors English gauntlet with the same toughness she did when I was in her class.

I hope those kids eventually come to appreciate it as much as I do now.

Cubs vs. Nationals 4/8/12 Recap

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My family has been in and out on Easter celebrations since my grandmother died. Last year, sitting at home, watching the Cubs play the Dodgers, I thought what would be a better way to spend Easter than at a ballgame? So this year, I made that happen. Well, actually Dad made that happen since he’s the one who bought me the tickets for my birthday, but still, dreams come true and all that.

I am one of those people that likes to get to a game in time for batting practice because that’s when the most interesting things happen.

For example, Sunday I watched Tom Gorzelanny and another Nationals player finally give into a woman’s demand for a batting practice ball, but on one condition: she had to catch it in her beer. She did. Then Gorzelanny and the other Nats player encouraged her to chug what was left of the beer (not a whole lot; she was now wearing most of it). She did. Never did I realize Gorzelanny had such a wicked streak in him when he was with the Cubs.

The Nationals pitchers were working out during most of Cubs batting practice. Gorzelanny chatted with Ryan Dempster, James Russell, and Shawn Camp before getting into his long toss. His former teammate Paul Maholm spent quite a bit of time chatting with him. That was kind of nice to see.

For those hoping that Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol were feeling like shit over their two blown performances, they surely didn’t show it during BP. Marmol was having a good time messing with Marlon Byrd, Alfonso Soriano, and Rafael Dolis. Kerry Wood showed off some agility shagging balls, making a couple of nice running catches, and using James Russell as a way to stop by chest bumping his shoulder and nearly knocking him over.

The boys were definitely in high spirits during BP.

The game started with Jeff Samardzija giving up a double and I figured that was just how the game was going to go. My hope was that he could go at least six innings and keep things close. I did not anticipate him getting within one out of a complete game and throwing 97 MPH in the 9th. Those thoughts weren’t even remotely near my brain.

But it all happened.

I’m not fond of Samardzija. I think he comes across as an arrogant, egotistical jackass with poor hairstyle choices, but I can’t deny that I was cheering for him on Sunday. Impressive performance to be sure.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of Marmol coming in to get the last out, either. I wasn’t one of the fans booing him, but I admit to groaning. I’m glad he got the out and the save. Despite the boos, the crowd was actually pretty behind Marmol. The bleachers did not like some of the ball calls on the Jayson Werth at bat that resulted in a walk. I have no idea what Bob said about them, but the bleachers definitely thought the ump was wrong.

I’m hoping that this successful outing will do what it did for him back in spring training after a couple of bad outings and get the Marmol Coaster back on the tracks.

I saw three fantastic diving catches, however the one made by Soriano was the most impressive because it was Soriano. A couple of years ago, he wouldn’t have even attempted it. He’s feeling good this year. I think that makes a big difference in how he plays.

The aggressive baserunning is a lot of fun to watch in person. It’s something Cubs fans are used to seeing. So when you see Starlin Castro steal second and then take third on a wild pitch, particularly in a tight game, it gets the adrenaline going. It feels like you’re watching a real live team that could win.

A few other random points from the game:

-People in the left field bleachers did the wave when the game was 2-1. Apparently, they thought that since we got Theo from Boston, they should behave like Red Sox fans.

-I sat behind the most well-behaved group of teenage boys I’ve ever seen. Not once did they get out of line or cause any trouble.

-I didn’t have to yell at anyone during the National Anthem. In fact, I watched one guy start to go get beer and when he heard “God Bless America” start, he came back out and waited until both songs were done.

-I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to spill beer while wearing a Mark Grace jersey. That said, Gracie was up and down the stairs forty times with at least two beers and I’m pretty sure he never made it to the front row with both of them full.

-Several of the people sitting around me in the bleachers were eating fruit. I thought I missed the memo on something. It’s weird to be sitting there and suddenly you smell orange along with beer.

-It was a gorgeous day for a game.

-Pictures coming Friday.

Thank you Easter Bunny for such a great day.

That Hustle

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Four coloured 6 sided dice arranged in an aest...

About 7 months ago, I chose to become a freelancer of sorts. I decided to earn my money through odd jobs and through selling jewelry, t-shirts, and a self-published book, all in the pursuit of allowing myself more time to write.

I think of it as being on the hustle. I’m hustling to get my money. And hustling ain’t easy.

If I think about it, I’ve been hustling most of my life. That’s how I made a lot of my money during junior high and high school. I worked in my mom’s daycare for twenty bucks a week. I worked in my cousin’s daycare for seventy-five bucks a week. I cleared junk off of lots for five bucks an hour. I saved what lunch money I didn’t spend. I collected change. I babysat. Hustling.

I don’t hustle as much when I’ve got a “real” job, aka, steady, official paycheck. But I still look for ways to make a little extra money. It’s like a habit I can’t break. Always hustling, trying to get my dime.

Like I said, the hustle isn’t always easy. I made twelve bucks in sales last month. That’s it. I scrapped up about thirty bucks doing what I call “spare change work”, which is quite literally doing little things for change. On a good day, I’d make four bucks. Not a lot, but it’s four bucks I didn’t have and four bucks I needed because I only sold a couple of things on Etsy and didn’t sell anything on eBay.

Tough luck.

Those bad months can be killers. I had two in a row, only selling fourteen dollars worth of stuff in February. That’s rough. The tax return kept me afloat during that time, but it would have been nice to get ahead, you know? That’s how I look at it. Get the money for the bills this month, I can start working on next month. The more time I have, the more likely it is that I’ll make my bills. There is no surplus. It’s all about thinking ahead and paying the bills.

I live poor on the hustle. I couldn’t do this if I had “real” bills, I know that. I’d be forced to work a job I hate to make ends meet. That idea has never appealed to me and I’ve done what I can to avoid it. This doesn’t mean I don’t like working a “real” job. I like the regular paycheck, for sure. I like having co-workers, most of the time. In fact, I’m looking for a part-time gig right now because that regular paycheck would be a nice boost and frankly, I need to get the hell out of this house a little more.

But I would still be hustling. I’d still be selling on Etsy and eBay and Spreadshirt and Amazon and Lulu and Nook. I’d still be looking for odd jobs and taking extra gigs. I’d still be trying to sell my short stories.

I can’t help it.

The hustle is in my blood.

Rerun Junkie– Cannon

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My love of 70’s cop/detective shows is legend, but it wasn’t until my house acquired MeTV that I discovered the brilliance that is Cannon.

The opening features a lot of circles I’m assuming to be cannon balls.

Cannon stars William Conrad as private detective Frank Cannon, a former police detective that retired from the force after his wife and son were killed in a car accident, which wasn’t fully dealt with until the final season of the show, which ran five years. The opening features theme music, lots of colored dots and circle cropped pictures, and finally a voice over that tells you you’re watching Cannon starring William Conrad. It then goes on to list the guest stars and the title of the episode. I have no idea why, but I find this neat.

Anyway, the episodes are pretty much the same in the since that Cannon gets hired on a case or stumbles into a plot or is otherwise drawn into helping the needy and defeating the forces of evil, usually with karate chops. Really. The man used more karate chops than Bruce Lee.

Cannon took quite a bit of abuse in the course of his investigations. He’d get beaten, shot, hurt in car accidents. I don’t know how many shirts he ruined from blood due to head wounds. Or the blood of others. He engaged in quite a few fights and was rather agile for a big man.

Not your typical action hero.

Oh, yeah. When most people picture a hero, he’s not usually as wide as he is tall, but Cannon broke that stereotype. There were still plenty of fat jokes to go around, though, if not by others then little self-deprecating quips about himself. But to be fair, Cannon had to be big. He was a big personality that liked big things. Big cars. Big meals. Big paydays.

Guest stars on the show were a fun parade of all things 70’s, either people on the way out or on the way up. Clu Gulager, William Daniels, Willie Aames, Nick Nolte, Robert Loggia, Martin Sheen, Tina Louise, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul before they were Starksy and Hutch, Micky Dolenz, Joan Van Ark, Leslie Nielsen, Harold Gould, Shelley Duvall, Mike Farrell and Wayne Rogers before M*A*S*H, Lee Meriweather, Robert Hays, and Tom Skerritt all put in some face time on Cannon.

Oh, do you like Barnaby Jones? Thank Cannon. It’s a spin-off. Don’t know what Barnaby Jones is? It’s the show that helped people think of Buddy Ebsen as someone other than Jed Clampett. Maybe we’ll discuss it another day.

I admit that sometimes the show is a little unbelievable sometimes (KARATE CHOP), but Cannon is a fun character. He can be very serious, almost menacing at times. But with the people he likes, he’s quite funny and has a great smile.

Those end scene freeze frames at the end of a show were made for those chubby cheeks.

 

Where I Watch It