Blogger Blather

Friday night I went with a fellow writer to a drag queen beauty pageant. My friend has a secondary character in her new novel who performs in drag and she wanted to do a little research. I tagged along because it sounded like fun (and it was!). I don’t think anything I could write would do the event justice, so I’ll let the photographs do the talking. Enjoy!

Photos taken Friday, March 28, 2008 at the Miss Splash America pageant. This is a preliminary event for Miss Gay Louisiana America. The winner of which competes in Miss Gay America. Trust me, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

I apologize to anyone who might become sight impaired after viewing these photographs. But, my whole bathing suit experience earlier today was just too funny and I had to blog about it. Of course, just telling you what I did isn’t as funny as showing you what I did. Thus, the TMI pictures.

Okay, here’s the set-up. My friend Hollis wants to take a vacation; and let me tell you, this girl is the vacation queen. She is a former Delta Airlines employee and still has her flight benefits so she’s been all over the world multiple times.

Yesterday we’re talking on the phone about her visiting Baton Rouge for a couple of days so we can discuss her website redesign. Her third book is coming out later this year and she really needs a whole new look and new content (which equals several weeks of work for me). Since this is a KITTYBOY Creations freebie I need to get a plan in place asap so I can fit the work in when I have downtime in my paying gigs.

So we have it all planned that she’s going to come in town next week. And then she says, “Why don’t we go on a working vacation instead?”

I don’t know about you, but I like to keep my work separate from my vacations. So, at first I kind of skirted the issue, but then she started throwing out crazy foreign destinations. And I start to think, “I really would like a vacation… it’s just the ‘working’ part that doesn’t sound too good.” So then I tell her my passport is expired and she says, “What about a cruise!? You don’t need a passport for a cruise. Let’s go to Cozumel.”

She’s researching our trip now and has already sent me a bunch of different cruise ship options.

What am I doing to contribute to the process? Digging out my 12-year-old bathing suit to see if it still fits.

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve realized that mirrors lie. I’ll think I look great and then I’ll go somewhere and someone will take photographs (gawd, with digital cameras, and camera phones isn’t someone always taking a picture now?!) and when I see the photographs I look bloated and terrible. So, I decided instead of just looking at my bathing suit clad body in a deceptively sliming mirror I would take photos to see how I looked.

Of course, I couldn’t figure out how to use the delayed timer, so I had to either (a) hold the camera out as far as possible from me and snap the photo, or (b) put it on a table and while the red eye reduction was blink, blink, blinking, run away from the camera and get into position.

So, what did I learn? Most importantly, I learned boy shorts are not attractive and cause camel toe. I wish I had realized this 12 years ago.

Last night I tore up a book.

I ripped out pages. Glued parts of it together. And made the original work by the author indistinguishable.

I feel so guilty!

How can I, a wannabe published author, destroy another writer’s work?!

The only excuse I have is that in the arts & crafts world this is considered “altering” not desecration. Tearing up the book was a requirement at my first “Altered Book” class. Yes, that’s how bored I am in Baton Rouge, I’m breaking out the hot glue gun and taking a continuing education class at LSU.

So, Maida Silverman, I’m sorry I tore up your book “The Glass Menorah,” may Yahweh forgive me.

Example of an altered book by Jeanne Minnix. From www.alteredbookartists.com

A week and a half ago a tornado went through the downtown area of Atlanta.  My friend Grant (aka Sister Louisa) sent me an email a few days ago with a link to a bunch of photographs taken of the destruction to CabbageTown — a neighborhood next to the one I lived in. Check the pictures out here: http://ctownt.tripod.com/. I had no idea it was this bad.

I wrote Grant back and asked if our friend Susan was okay. She owns a house and a rental duplex in that neighborhood. He wrote back and said No! Susan’s car was totaled and the roof blew off both her houses! I immediately contacted her and she was actually very grounded about the situation. She’s driving her delivery truck until she can get a new car, and she said she needed new roofs anyway.

I don’t know if I would have the strength to have a reasonable attitude about such a bad situation. But, I guess you don’t learn what you’re capable of surviving until you’re faced with the challenge.

Image by Von Taylor. Sampled from http://ctownt.tripod.com/

Have you ever had a problem you couldn’t figure out how to solve, no matter how much of a top priority you made it? Then the minute you relaxed and forgot about the problem, the solution popped into your head. I had an “Aha!” moment like that today.

In the past year I’ve started and abandoned both a novel and a screenplay. It’s not like me to give up on my work, but somehow I lost faith in myself and a “can’t do it” mentality has been pushing out the “why can’t I do it?” motto I usually possess.

I’ve had friends offer suggestions on different filmmaking routes I should take or writing tips to get me going again, but it all seemed forced and like I was just trying too hard.

Somehow the mix of reading Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair coupled with the Harlequin iTunes podcasts I’ve been listening to jarred loose a great idea. Keep your fingers crossed that this holds my attention because I’ll be a lot less grumpy if I have something creative to work on.

I am on a diet. My sister Sharon is on a diet. My friend Tom is on a diet. My friend Hollis in on a diet. My friend Julie is on a diet. I could go on…

It seems everyone is trying to lose weight, but where we differ is that we are all using a different method.

Hollis tried Nutrisystem (or as she dubbed it, Nutrishit) and then ditched it after a month for a “moderation” plan.

Tom is on a banana and popcorn diet. He lost 10 pounds in a week. (Bastard!)

I’ve been doing my reliable “low fat” diet. It’s going well, especially since I started walking 3-4 miles a day a couple of weeks ago. My formerly hot bod is starting to resurface. Now if I only had someone to show it to… but that’s a whole other blog post.

When I told Mother not to make me any dishes for Easter Sunday dinner since I was on a diet she said, “I never dieted a day in my life. When I was younger I had to go to the Doctor to gain weight and he told me to drink a beer a day.” Don’t you love old school medicine? Drink a beer. Now that’s my kind of prescription.

My father died a few years ago; today would be his 83rd birthday.  He was born on St. Patrick’s Day and named “Louis Patrick” — he went by “Pat.”  I didn’t even realize what day it was until I went for a routine stop by Mother’s to see what she was doing.  She mentioned today was Daddy’s birthday – and I felt terrible I was oblivious to the event.  So I don’t seem like a horrible person, I want you to know I didn’t realize it was St. Patrick’s Day either.  Being self-employed makes the days run into each other and I often have no idea what week of the month we are in.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Daddy.  The writing on the back of the below photograph indicates that the picture was taken on January 5, 1946 in Yokosuka, Japan while he was in the Marines during World War II.

I’m almost finished reading The Spellman Files, a novel by Lisa Lutz. I discovered it when I was browsing Amazon.com’s “Best of 2007” list.

One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed reading it is because the structure is unique. It’s mostly composed of short chapters and the story doesn’t feel linear. Instead, it’s almost like reading someone’s blog. With each chapter you learn more about the characters, but the writing doesn’t necessarily seem headed in a clear direction. Somehow it works and I’m compelled to keep reading.

Writing a traditional novel didn’t work for me. After years of writing “short” I found it impossible to write “long.” I kept getting lost in the story even though I had a full outline, and I felt overwhelmed with the number of pages that I needed to churn out to meet my goals. So, I have been thinking about crafting a collection of short stories that, when read together, tell a complete narrative. Kind of like Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.

While not exactly the same idea, the success of The Spellman Files gives me hope that readers are open to books with non-traditional structures.

Next up in my reading queue: Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair. Sounds like my kind of story!

I used to contribute a lot of articles to local and regional magazines when I lived in Atlanta. It doesn’t pay that well, but it’s nice to be published. Since I moved to Baton Rouge I haven’t pursued publication, but back in December one of my former Atlanta editors contacted me to write a couple of pieces for him. The cool thing about it was that he needed content for publications in Charleston and Destin, so I got to expose my work into new areas.

The articles just came out in print. You can check them out here:

This one is about restaurateur brothers in Charleston (by way of Cambodia)

My Destin article profiles a high-end beachfront real estate specialist

Yes, they’re pretty much fluff pieces, but I enjoy doing them.

Last summer I finally said hello to the year 2003 and bought an iPod. This was right before they came out with the new models, so as usual I had great timing.

The one I bought is now obsolete. It doesn’t include video and just holds audio and photos. Which is fine, because I bought it to listen to audiobooks. I know, how senior citizen of me to use my iPod to listen to books.

I’ve never loaded a single song on it and I’ve never bought anything from iTunes. Instead, I’ve been downloading free books from Librivox — a volunteer organization that records and publishes audiobooks using public domain works. Items in the public domain are usually at least 80 years old, so I’ve been listening to a lot of “the classics.”

Last week Apple opened a retail store in Baton Rouge. In addition to selling products, the store offers a number of free workshops. I’m a PC gal, so most of the classes aren’t of interest to me, but I saw they had an iPod/iTunes class and thought I’d attend and finally learn how to use my talking book (that’s an iPod to you youngsters). The class was yesterday and it was pretty basic, but I did learn a few things.

However, I asked a bunch of questions about submitting podcasts to iTunes, but the 18 year-old teaching the class didn’t know the answers since this wasn’t covered in her company-approved script.

I’m about to start re-designing a site for author Hollis Gillespie. Her third book is coming out later this year and I want to record and distribute video podcasts of her. Anyone have any experience in adding content to iTunes? If so, drop me a note. I realize I could just make her a YouTube channel and put video there, but YouTube is so overbloated by crappy content I’d rather not associate my clients with them. What do you think?

Mother saves me her newspapers and when I visit I catch up on the local news in one sitting. On Sunday I was flipping through a few days of papers and saw a write-up on Kona Grill which just opened in the new Perkins Rowe development. I had to read The Advocate’s review twice because parts of it were so ridiculous.

First, the reviewer had to define bok choy as “a Chinese cabbage” — are people in Baton Rouge really that unknowledgeable? They do sell it in the grocery store here, I’ve seen it. To me this was like writing “ketchup (a pureed tomato product).”

Then the reviewer goes on to define wasabi as “spicy green putty.” Let me write that again “spicy green putty.” He wasn’t trying to be funny. I guess if you just told folks in Baton Rouge that something was served with wasabi they wouldn’t know what it was. But call it “spicy green putty” and they go, “Aw yeah, that hot shit.”

I’ve never been to a Kona Grill, so I’m looking forward to trying it out – and getting me some of that Chinese cabbage and spicy green putty.

I spent a couple of hours at Barnes & Noble on Friday flipping through the latest issues of Inc., Money, Entrepreneur, etc. My new mantra of “Don’t Give Up on Yourself” was reinforced by several of the articles I read. One website I regularly visit is mediabistro.com, and Inc. contained an article about Media Bistro’s founder, Laurel Touby. She was a freelance writer in NYC and started the online site as a way for her to network and meet people. Last year she sold the company for $23 million. Check out the article here: Laurel Touby, Mediabistro: From poor, lonely writer to hostess with the mostest.

Another article I found interesting profiled a couple who recently switched careers and opened their own winery. One of the things they did when they were contemplating the move was to take a Vocation Vacation. Yes, there is actually a company that sells vacations where you spend a day or two tagging along with someone who has your dream job. The vacation seems pricey — they range from 1k – 3k — for just a day or two of mentoring (no travel or accommodations provided). The reason it resonated with me was because I checked out the available dream job holidays and I saw a lot of gaps that some of my talented friends could fill. Click here to check out how you can apply to mentor someone (and make a few extra dollars while you go about your normal routine).

On an unrelated topic, I got stood up this morning. Tom and I were supposed to go roller skating, but girlfriend wouldn’t answer the phone. The graphic to the right has nothing to do with this blog post, it just reminds me of Tom getting his “swerve” on. Go Sistah!

Some of you may know that I’ve been having email issues for weeks. After spending 10 unsuccessful hours on the phone with my (former) ISP trying to get the problem resolved, I finally ditched them and moved my web sites, domain names and email account to GoDaddy.

Unfortunately, in this process, all my old blog posts and comments were dumped. But, not to worry, here is the short attention span version of what has now been lost in cyberspace:

I spent August in a funk because I realized I had no talent as a novelist. On top of that, Kittyboy died from kidney failure just shy of his 16th birthday. Not a good month.

I spent September fighting with Tom about lipstick colors.

In October I shed the long hair I’d been clinging to for too many years. When I get new headshots, I’ll swap out the photo at the top of the page.

November was spent worrying about my career. As the end of the year approached I realized I needed to focus on securing new clients in 2008.

I spent December with family.

In January I discovered the secret to weight loss: eat spoiled food. I call it the Toxic Detox Diet. Also, I adopted a stray cat Mother had been feeding for the past year. Now he’s indoors living large (and getting large).

In February I traveled to Atlanta and lived in a Holiday Inn while I worked on reconnecting with my clients. It was a good trip.

Since we’re only a week into March, I’m not sure what the memorable episode for this month will be. But, I think having to re-program this blog because I (an Internet consultant) had never backed it up, might be number one.

Tune in tomorrow when we return to our regular programming…

Yes, my blog has been down for 2 weeks. I’ll fill you in over the weekend. I think the old posts have been vaporized. Oh well, there’s more pithy commentary ahead…