People Do This? Really?

I didn't know writers could afford to go on vacation. They must have husbands at home, who work regular jobs. I haven't had anything that might count as a vacation in, what, 23 years, and even that was used for surgery. We went to Vienna and Salzburg in 2005, but I'd never count that as a vacation--we worked 15-18 hour days. Nope. I don't know any writers, personally, who can take vacations unless they have a spouse who has a day job. Anaïs Nin certainly had that luxury; her husband was a banker. That would do it.

Thanks to Excuse Editor for the laugh.

I'm Not Triskaidekaphobic, but...

So end 13 years of fear, despair, struggle, grief, and want. It's over. The nightmare is over. There was a light at the end of the tunnel just as I believed, and it wasn't a train! They were also 13 years of dedication, cooperation, hope, humor, and love, and that was what gave me the strength to get through. Thanks for hanging in there with me through the years. It means more than I can express.

My History of Fashion Model Poses

Please don't think I pay attention to fashion all that much, because I don't. You should know me better than that by now. But for the past two weeks I've been in bed with the worst bronchial flu in my personal history and I've spent some time in Pinterest. Oh, okay, I've spent a lot of time in there and believe me, if you spend any amount of time there, you quickly become knowledgeable about "repurposed" mason jars (why can't people just say used, second-hand, or recycled?), knitted anythings, 105 ways to use Nutella, "cute" resurrection terrariums for Easter (look Mommy, it's a tomb!), and fashion. Being a bit obsessive-compulsive, I notice things that repeat themselves. In fact, I notice them so much they start to really drive me a bit over the edge. Then I have to blog about them to get rid of the obsession. This is how it works, you see, and you're on the losing end, I'm afraid.

Anyway, fashion. Just take a look around Pinterest and you'll notice a lot of women's clothing. I don't see it all that much--what I see are the poses these models and others strike. But first, let's go back. Back, all the way back...

Here are the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s, respectively. I've grouped these decades together because the most obvious pose is what I'll call the Best Foot Forward. It's attractive, relaxed, lengthens the leg and gives the garment a bit of movement. There's a different one, however, in the '40s picture. The woman on the far left has introduced a pose that is known by some people as the I Have to Wee pose. In the '50s picture the woman on the far left has stretched her leg out as if to do the Hokey Pokey, adding an air of command that is rivaled only by the edifice behind the models. Still, the poses are pretty much alike; each of the women simply faces a different direction to add whatever interest they can. It's not working.

Here come the fun times and a lot of new poses, each of them a bit quirky: Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed, the Stork, the Lean, and again, the I Have to Wee. Well, the 1960s were quirky times. It was the beginning of the Youth Culture and the Sexual Revolution, and fashion represented everything that was young, energetic, and individualist, even if that individualism became conformist. Gone were the rigid shoulder pads of the 1940s and the dowdy grey flannel of the '50s. In their place stepped baby doll dresses, geometric angularity, and high-stepping knee boots. I suppose the poses had to reflect these qualities.

The 1970s arrived then, and with the advent of the Women's Movement, fashion poses took on a more in charge look. Mostly. We still saw the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed and the Stork poses. Oh, and look! We still had the I Have to Wee pose! We'd come a long way, baby. Well, maybe not. Let's moved on and see...

I can't speak with any real authority about the '80s and '90s because I wasn't there. I mean, I was there, but I was so busy working on my career in classical music that most of my wardrobe was your basic Concert Black. In 1983 I turned my back on the modern world and slipped into a worm hole that kept me pretty much in the 18th century until 2009. But I had friends who were younger then me, and they pulled me out from time-to-time to slip a nice little pill in my hand that kept me tethered to the present until it wore off. While here, I noticed that the '80s still had the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed pose, but in the '90s it seemed that everyone had taken Robert Palmer's 1986 "Addicted to Love" video seriously, resulting in a generic woman look. Still, in that photo I see the I Have to Wee, the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed, and an almost-Stork.

This brings us to today:

the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed pose

the Stork

the I Have to Wee, now being posed by everyone from models

and celebrities to everyday people.

and a new one I call the Bow-legged Huh? pose.

And coming full-circle, we have a variation of

the Best Foot Foward pose.

Maybe I spend too much time in Pinterest...

Six Writing Tips from John Steinbeck

From an interview in the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review.

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.

5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

Twelve years earlier—in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature—Steinbeck issued the following disclaimer to all such advice:

"If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story."

Source: The Atlantic.

"My God, it's full of stars!"

See those two huge stars in the western sky? They're actually planets—Jupiter (left) and Venus (right)—forming part of the Grand Trine in Earth, which peaks today as Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto are all at 9 degrees. Extraordinary!

Here's a visual.

Signs of Spring

There are certain irrefutable signs appearing that tell me spring is on its way. We had no real winter to speak of, which makes me sort of dread the upcoming tornado and mosquito seasons. Still, seeing the first daffodil in the bed that lines our drive is always exciting. Yesterday, the gardener came out for the first time this year to mow and pick up dead branches that the wind knocked from our old trees. Every morning this weekend there was a huge robin that splashed away in the bird bath outside the bedroom window. I was able to put the lighter blanket on the bed. The cat is spending more time outdoors. And poor Nettl is suffering with her yearly bout of allergies now that the Bradford Pears are beginning to bloom.

All signs of Spring.

Despite my health, Spring Fever has smacked me upside the head. I'm organizing cupboards, cleaning corners, filling mason jars with herbs and onions for the kitchen window ledge, and over the weekend I removed the upper cabinet doors, painted the inside back walls, and set the shelves neatly with our white pottery bowls, hand painted plates, and all sorts of things. It makes the kitchen look twice as wide. This picture does it absolutely no justice. It looks so much homier and sweet in 'real life'.

There are things I want to get done before my surgery because I'm liable to spend most of summer in a brace and won't be able to do much in the way of decorating, painting, and planting. Unfortunately, my project list will most likely have to be edited and shortened. The upside is that I'll probably get a lot of writing done.

Or else I'll get quite proficient at Angry Birds.

Out of Track

Now I've really seen it all. I received an email notification that a comment needed to be moderated. I do all of that from my Gmail account before I even sign in to Blogger, and this one really made me laugh; it's wrong on so many levels:


Hello, you used to write excellent, but the last several posts have been kinda boring… I miss your tremendous writings. Past several posts are just a little out of track! come on! cheap car insurance 

First of all, I receive a lot of spam on this blog and most of it (as well as the usual troll droppings) never get read. Leaving me what you might think is a cleverly-worded comment to make me think you actually read me, or leaving me a nasty comment telling me what a lowlife I am is a pointless exercise in futility because I delete those things without even opening them. For some reason I opened this one. Usually, these spam comments read something like this:

Great blog entry. I'm right with you!

And then there's the link they want you to click. You know what I mean. You get them too. I don't see how those things could fool anyone. Who would read that and take it for an actual comment, especially when it's from good old Anonymous? Well, this one used what I assume the writer thinks is reverse psychology. They probably felt quite brilliant when they came up with that one.

Secondly, "you used to write excellently." Lolly, lolly, lolly, Get your adverbs here...

Thirdly, my last several posts have been boring? Perhaps, but then they go on to say they miss my tremendous writings and that my latest posts are a little "out of track". Ah, I'm so sorry I've let you down! How will I ever live with myself? Besides, what the heck does "out of track" mean?

Finally, the command, "come on!"  kind of leaves me cold. I might have just as easily replied with, "Piss off!" which, of course, was my first inclination.

***

On the health front, I saw my doctor today. She gave me a prescription for some pretty heavy pain killers, orders for an MRI, and a jab in the bum (steroids). I'll probably go in for back surgery sometime this month or next month. And now, here I sit completely pain-free for the first time in eight years. Eight years! It's so unusual, this feeling, that it almost feels wrong. I got so used to being in pain 24/7 that the pain became part of me. Now that it's gone, well, I'm kind of pissed off that she didn't give me one of these shots back in October when I asked her for one.

Today's visit was different, however. Nettl went with me, and believe me when I tell you that when the doctor walked into the examination room and saw her, she actually looked frightened. LOL! The problem with my back is that I have two degenerated disks, bone spurs, and my spine has actually slipped apart into two sections, one section is jutting in on my spinal cord while the bone spurs are digging into the bundle of nerves that run up the spine. It's called spondylolisthesis, it's congenital, and this is what it looks like. The good news is that surgery will take care of these things. She said that I'm the perfect candidate for it. The truth of the matter is, if I don't get it, I could be paralyzed, and that just isn't who I am. No, sir.

Guess my posts aren't the only things that are "out of track".

UPDATE: After a few hours the pain has returned. Guess I'll refill that scrip tomorrow.

The Creative Itch

While waiting on my doctor to decide to treat me so that I can feel up to writing, I've decided it's time for a self-sanctioned pause. Spring is on its way and I've set aside a few projects. Small things, really, but fun and creative.

1. Make homemade laundry detergent
2. Make homemade Rosemary Mint fabric softener
3. Do something creative with our cobalt bottles
4. Make floating candle jars for the front porch
5. Fill suet feeder with bits of yarn for birds' nesting needs
6. Make homemade moisturizer
7. Make "fire fly" jars
8. Make hanging candle/plant jars for the front porch

The largest project, which isn't pictured, is to re-organize the kitchen's upper cabinets, paint the back wall, remove the doors, then display our cool dishes, mugs, bowls, teas, glasses, etc.

Since I joined Pinterest I've developed a creative itch. People are so inventive and resourceful--I'm inspired every day by something in there.

That's it, really. Nothing about writing this time.