2011? Really, I've been gone for that long?

I’ve been neglecting this blog like it’s the gym and I’m an out of shape membership holder who can’t seem to make it to there. I have good reason. I’ve been a writing machine. Like a crazy, spends all her free time doing it, writing machine.  And in the process I think I lost my funny, witty, blog writing skills. ß oh yeah I think I’m all kinds of awesome in the blog writing genre.

Anyway, I plan to spend some more time here, so my two followers can know what’s up with my hatred of people who don’t use blinkers on the interstate and my many stories of how random weirdos just can’t stop trying to be my friends.

C-Dub

My Kindle Is Smarter Than I Am

When I first got my iPhone the only apps I’d download were things like CNN & NASA & NASDAQ. Now with a Kindle I find that I’m downloading the New Yorker, The Atlantic and Smithsonian magazines along with books like Mansfield Park and Slaughter House Five.

Don't get me wrong, I like all these things.

The downloaded magazines are being read religiously, I’m by no means a dummy. I like learning and expanding my world views. However, when I get these new contraptions I kind of go into overdrive trying to convince the electronic monitoring Gods that I only like the caviar of apps and literature. That my palate is sophisticated and only dines on article featuring Cesar Cuevas and the economic downturn.

But there is this other side of me - the bigger, darker side. The side that has a bookshelf of vampire books, a collection of Sci-fi DVD’s. It's the side that has read the Hunger Games multiple times, has a DVR clogged with shows like the Real World-Road Rules Challenge, ABC Family series' and Big Brother After Dark which I watch mostly on fast forward (okay, okay I watch it).

I don’t go around reciting ancient prose or Shakespeare. I don’t quote New York Times articles, I quote Karate Kid and Talladega Nights. I read Wil Wheaton’s twitter feed as if it was breaking news catching myself before I direct message him as if we are old friends.

In a nutshell - I'm a dork! So why do I feel the need to make sure my electronic are clutter free of items that may seem to put me more in tune with the population of Idiocracy than that of the Nobel Peace Prize winners? Is it in the vain hope that if found dead (at a very old age mind you) that those finding me will see my electronic downloads and deem me as a smart person?

Truth be told, it won’t help because I’m pretty sure at my wake (many, many years from now) my brother will do a eulogy that starts with “Wax On.”

CW

Do Not Murder

There comes a time in everyone's life when they need to embrace new things. It doesn't matter what those things are the scope can be large, the larger the better. Now I'm not saying those new things should be illegal, I would not recommend murder for instance. Murder would be bad. Don't do murder.

I'm in the search of something new, something to embrace. April is script frenzy month at NANOWRIMO maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll finally embrace all those poems I've written and see about forming some kind of book for them. Maybe I'll finish that kid's story for Chloe. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Sometimes I feel lost in myself, feelings of being less than whole consume me. I'm at a roadblock. I either need to peel back my layers and expose myself or forever be lost in a maze of work-home-work-home-work-home.

CW

Yearly Goal Update: Goals 5; Christy 0

So Little Time to Blog. To Be Honest, I Just Watch Too Much TV

Lent is coming. Starting Wednesday, March 9th this non-practicing Catholic will honor Lent like she always does. I will give up something, two somethings this year actual.

I will also eat no meat, red or white but fish is okay, on Fridays. However, I will not be attending Mass on Ash Wednesday {random side note: I was born on an Ash Wednesday} or the following Sundays or Good Friday or Holy Saturday.

Yes this is a 40 day period that is meant for fasting (can't do this, I get the shakes); praying (can't do this, I get the shakes); abstinence (sure, why not); and confession. I confess I haven't been in a chruch since Ireland and that wasn't for Mass.

Drum roll please...

1. I will give up chocolate
2. I will give up watching TV Monday - Friday
3. I will write a blog a week because I need to complain about no chocolate on a platform that is not Facebook, plus what else will I have to do weeknights?

As for a birthday goal update: Goals 5; Christy 0. It's only been a week and a half since my birthday and I still have 350 days to accomplish my five goals.

CW

Holy Shit … I researched the banned books list

Holy Shit … I researched the banned books list and I can not believe how much Judy Blume is on here, and don’t worry I’m not picking the books I’ve already read {which are in pink} on this list to count as my 5 books for the year, but I’m increasing my books to read to 10. I will not read Stephen King. The one is blue are books I've downloaded on my Kindle or own & will read before my year is up.

1. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess


2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle


3. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden


4. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner


5. Blubber by Judy Blume


6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley


7. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson


8. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer


9. Carrie by Stephen King


10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller


11. Christine by Stephen King


12. Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau


13. Cujo by Stephen King


14. Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen


15. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite


16. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck


17. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller


18. Decameron by Boccaccio


19. East of Eden by John Steinbeck


20. Fallen Angels by Walter Myers


21. Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland


22. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes


23. Forever by Judy Blume


24. Grendel by John Champlin Gardner


25. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam


26. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling


27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling


28. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling


29. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling


30. Have to Go by Robert Munsch


31. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman


32. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell


33. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


34. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou


35. Impressions edited by Jack Booth


36. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak


37. It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein


38. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl


39. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence


40. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman


41. Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm


42. Lord of the Flies by William Golding


43. Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein


44. Lysistrata by Aristophanes


45. More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz


46. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier


47. My House by Nikki Giovanni


48. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara


49. Night Chills by Dean Koontz


50. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck


51. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer


52. One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn


53. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey


54. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez


55. Ordinary People by Judith Guest


56. Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective


57. Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy


58. Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl


59. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz


60. Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz


61. Separate Peace by John Knowles


62. Silas Marner by George Eliot


63. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


64. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs


65. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


66. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain


67. The Bastard by John Jakes


68. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger


69. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier


70. The Color Purple by Alice Walker


71. The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth


72. The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs


73. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck


74. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson


75. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood


76. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder


77. The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks


78. The Living Bible by William C. Bower


79. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare


80. The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman


81. The Pigman by Paul Zindel


82. The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders


83. The Shining by Stephen King


84. The Witches by Roald Dahl


85. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder


86. Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume


87. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee


88. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare


89. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff


90. Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Also my dearest friends expect to receive one of these books for your upcoming birthday. Consider that my Fuck you to the banning book people.

CW

My birthday is coming up and it’s a big one

As years go this one was pretty good with me making the big move to Seattle since I finally found and purchases a condo that was to my liking. This was a 3 to 4 year journey with my mother and me touring some of the worse dwellings known to man. I mean I will forever remember “cat box” the condo used as a litter box and how that smell punched me in the face and instantly had me gagging.

Being a vacation traveling type of girl this year didn’t really allow me a lot of travel considering that work was down many, many people but I still got in some trips. There was the family RV camping trip in early May, which was a miserable family bonding experience that had my normally patient sister-in-law threatening my brother and I’s life if we didn’t stop bitching. There was the weekend trip to Forks with my mom and Shannon where Shan and I were unwillingly dragged into a class picture. However, we still had a blast and my mom introduced me to my now favorite wine.

Then there was my one huge goal – finish my book and I accomplished it thanks to NANRAMO in November. So overall not a bad year of my life, but not filled with all the excitement I normal try to pack in, so as I celebrate another year (February 24 and remember that I like books) I’m once again listing my goals… lofty one’s at that.

1. Take the stinky out of the now finished novel
2. Take two to three trips this year
3. Spend more time with those awesome friends of mine
4. Paint my bathroom (sounds stupid but for six months I have neglected this task)
5. Read 5 novels off the banded books list

CW

On tonight's agenda - wine - computer and more wine

I needed a creative outlet - badly. All my energy has been going towards work, freelance gigs and volunteer projects. And although all those things are fulfilling I needed something that would allow me to do something that would stretch me creatively, but I also needed to be held accountable for finishing the project.

HELLO National Novel Writing Month!!! Thank you November for providing somthing for this weary soul to throw herself into and look I'm blogging again too. The novel is going to be a stinker because really I'm a poetry and short story writer, but damn it I will make my 50,000 word count goal by November 30th - even if it kills me.

The December will turn into editing month, January might be sharing month (if in December I don't cut out all but a couple of hundred of the 50,000 words November inspired, then February is put it in a draw for a while to see if after the glory of finishing wears off I still think it's a good book.

Oh the things I do to myself. But at least I've stop talking about stabbing myself in the eye.

CW

Christy, 0 … Chipmunk, 5

Before you dive too far into this story let me set the stage. Close your eyes and think of the movie Jurassic Park and its jungle. Think of the scene where the poor worker is surrounded my Velociraptor. Do you see it? Two are flanking him; one is to the front of him. Now replace him with me at a picnic table. Do you see me? Now replace the Velociraptor with chipmunks, big fat ones, more Dale than Chip-like.

They are sneaking up at me; one has even crawled up onto the picnic table. He scurries over to me and puts his little paws on my book and peered over it at me. I scream, flip my book and the little guy goes flying those suckers are scary little rodents. I spent most of the trip inside the RV protecting myself.

Stupid chipmunks.

CW