Tag: rants

At last!

I have spent the last three hours searching for this freaking poem, going through scrapbooks and albums and journals and trying to find it online through the dimmest memories of certain words and phrases from it. Had the poem, in the book where I originally found it about twenty-six years ago, been titled “To Coleridge” instead of “To _________,” my search would have been made a lot easier.

Now that I’ve found it, I’m putting it here so at least the next time I want it, I’ll have a sensible place to look. Other than that, I have nothing to say about it, except this is one of my favorite poems of all time. Oh, and that if I could find that poem by Erica Jong that I barely remember, and my wooden lion pushpuppet from the fourth grade, and my friend Bobby, all the gears of my universe would be meshing properly.

To Coleridge
poem behind cut

Saturday

I was going to do a post about Saturday, which was today, and all the stuff I did, and even put a photo or two in here. But when I sat down at the computer, I saw a post from Lisa with a photo of her icy window. Then Mark wondered how her photo would look in black and white, and I had to be all, “Oh, me me me me” and photoshop the picture to black and white (well, after all, Lisa’s at work and she can’t use up generator power on LiveJournal photoshopping in the middle of an ice storm, so really, I was SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES by doing it myself). So then David saw the black and white photo and thought it looked creepy, and in his opinion, the only thing missing was a clown. So then I photoshopped in a clown, and the whole thing suddenly freaked me out so much that I couldn’t post it.

Now all I want to do is crawl under the covers and quiver like Margot when she’s imitating a chihuahua, because until tonight, I didn’t realize that clowns are, indeed, SCARY FUCKERS.

That’s all.

Stupid good intentions

I haven’t been to the gym since April. I promised myself I would start back to the gym on January 15. I didn’t. I can always find excuses. One of them has been that my tennis shoes were falling apart. Even though I generally only swim at the gym, and that doesn’t require shoes, it made a good excuse. I kept telling myself that in addition to swimming, I was going to get on the treadmill. So I needed shoes.

I’ve been shopping for tennis shoes twice now. (I call them tennis shoes. You may call them sneakers. I never play tennis in them. I don’t even buy tennis shoes; I buy cross trainers. Usually. But in BeckSpeak, they are all tennis shoes.) I hate every pair I’ve seen. The problem is, I only buy Nike. I don’t want to buy Nikes that are going to have the same problem as the falling-apart Nikes, but they are the only Nikes I like the look of.

So today I went to Target and refurbished my gym supplies (I shower there, too, so I always have to have a full supply of products) and got a new backpack, because my old one just wasn’t working. (I mean, you know, back in April, when I actually went to the gym. Whatever.)

Then I went to Academy to try again with the shoes. I sort of wanted black tennis shoes (as a backup pair), which means Reebok (don’t ask me why, but if they’re black, they have to be Reebok, not Nike). So I tried on shoe after shoe of white leather Nikes and black Reeboks.

And finally, I bought Nike hiking shoes because I STILL hated every pair of tennis shoes.

Then I went to my gym, which is downtown. We have access to a parking garage, and the gym validates parking so it’s cheap. But then I saw that there was some open metered parking right in front of the gym. I parked there. When I went to insert coins in the meter, it was jammed and out of order. So then I wondered… if you park at a defective meter, will you get a ticket? Deciding not to chance it, I drove another half block and parked in a different metered spot. I only had enough quarters for an hour and a half. So I could either swim and shower, do the treadmill and shower, or do the treadmill and swim then go home to shower. I figured I’d decide once I got inside and checked on how busy the pool was.

Then I walked up to the gym door and saw the sign. The gym was closed today because of weather and icy roads.

I took myself to lunch.

Because Mother Nature is…

…. Actually, I can’t complete the sentence that titled this entry, though I said it aloud to Tim yesterday. I mean, my mother-in-law could read here! The word I want to use to describe Mother Nature is nothing so mild as “bitch.”

It does include that word we used on Page 23 of IT HAD TO BE YOU, the one that I meant when I told my mother-in-law, “I didn’t write that line!” And I didn’t. Since then, I’ve gotten over my anxiety about what my families read in our novels. They’re grown-ups, and in any case, we don’t write smut. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and if I wrote it, I’d make it the best smut I could.)

Still, there’s no reason to let my mother-in-law know that I occasionally have the mouth of a sailor. Actually, in honor of my father, I suppose I should have the mouth of a soldier. By all accounts, he could let fly with the blue language. I never actually heard it, only heard about it from men I dated after they had a few beers with him. Heh.

In any case, Mother Nature has decided that this will be the week she inflicts me with the hormonal headache from hell. Ever tried to write through one of those? In between taking narcotics to help you sleep in spite of the pain? It’s a mean trick to play on me in the final days counting down to submission of a manuscript.

Here’s me… Mother Nature’s plaything. I pity my writing partners and my husband.

I am like Ginger the dog

Blah blah blah window…$$$… replace mechanized blah blah blah valve leak… $$$…blah..two leaks… $$$…ready two or three hours… blah blah blah…oops, found something else …$$$… gasket… $$$…exhaust… $$$ …stripped screws …$$$$… two or three hours… $$$$$$$$$$$$$

I hate fucking car repairs.

Anybody want to buy some paintings? (Hush, Shannon, I’ve painted over that canvas about eight times now trying to make myself happy with it. You WILL get it one day, I promise.)

My Eyes, My Eyes!*

*That’s usually Tim’s line, but I need it tonight. He’s good about letting me steal from him. In fact, I won’t say who, but someone complimented me on a particular line that’s in A Coventry Christmas. I didn’t confess that Tim actually suggested that line when he was proofing my novel before I submitted it. We’ll just keep that our little secret.

Since Live Journal was down much of Friday night and most of Saturday, and I’m stalled with what I can do on TJB5, I decided it was probably time to refresh my Web site a bit. I changed some things on the home page and replaced pictures and updated text on a few of the pages. There are still things I want to do, but my eyes are too tired to work on it further.

Just in case you’re wondering, I can do small things to my Web site, but I didn’t build it. Tim did. Usually I can figure out a few things, but inevitably I end up wailing, “Tim! Help!” And he always does. He is self-taught with all of this and does excellent work. In fact, people have paid him for that work in the past. So if you ever need help with your Web site or you want a Web site, he’s your man. But pay him. Please.

Tim never complains, but a lot of people ask him for help with their writing or hit him up for information about publishing or Web design. He’s really generous with his time, in spite of all his deadlines, and I admire that about him. I don’t blame people who can’t pay him; I totally understand that writers and artists usually have very little money. What irritates me is that they COULD thank him publicly. They COULD link to him from their blogs and journals and Web sites. They COULD talk about his/our novels and give us a little publicity in return.

Karma…

And to all of those who ARE so great about thanking him or talking him (and the rest of us) up, thank you so much. We get e-mail all the time saying, “I heard about you from X’s blog,” or “Z recommended your novel,” and that means so much to my writing partners and me. We frequently mention the artists and writers and other gifted people who inspire and entertain us, and we appreciate every time the same is done for us. I honestly believe that the more successful creative people are, the more it opens doors for other creative people.

A world without art—whether it’s visual, literary, musical—is a world without joy.

Talk about it

Today, October 11, marks the eighteenth annual National Coming Out Day. I’m going to make an admission here:

I get really, really tired of questions like, “Why must they talk about it all the time?” “Why are they always shoving it in my face?” and “Why must people label themselves, especially based on who they want to have sex with?”

I can’t advise gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people how or when to come out to their families, friends, and coworkers because I’ve never had that particular experience. But I’ve taken the journey from being an ignorant straight person to being a GLBT ally, so I will answer those questions every time I have the opportunity, even if I’m tired.

It’s unlikely that “they talk about it all the time.” Only that it jars you because it’s outside your norm. For example, you barely register every time your coworker Betty says, “Stan and I” when she tells you things about her weekend, family, holiday or vacation plans, kids, car repairs, garden, diet. But when discussing the same things, if your coworker Sam says, “Fred and I,” you hear it. Sam probably doesn’t talk about Fred any more or less than Betty talks about Stan, even if it seems that way to you. And really, if Sam feels comfortable enough to talk about Fred in front of you, feel honored. It means he trusts you enough to be honest about his life.

Shoving it in your face? What does that mean? Does Sam have a photo of Fred on his desk? Does he want to bring him to the company holiday party? Does he want him to be at family celebrations? Do they want to sit close in the theater and share a box of popcorn? Do they want to offer a comforting embrace to each other at a funeral? Do they want to hug goodbye or kiss hello at the airport? Aren’t these things straight people do and take for granted every day? Why does it have to be different for Sam and Fred?

Please don’t say you’re worried about the children. Seeing Sam and Fred act like every other couple won’t turn your kid gay. If that were possible, how could gay people ever be gay, since most gay people grow up in a world where they see straight people do those things? Didn’t turn them straight. No one can be “turned.” We are who we are. And what we should do is let other people be who they are meant to be without accusing them of shoving it in our faces.

Oh, you mean those parades. Here’s a suggestion. Don’t go to Pride parades if you don’t want to see gay people celebrating their existence. Simple enough? Don’t watch a gay-themed TV show or movie if it freaks you out that badly. (But sometime maybe you can explain to me why seeing actors as corpses who were murdered in the most heinous ways on all those prime time cop shows doesn’t bother you or make you scream, “Think of the children!” ‘Cause I think those shows are really creepy. That’s why I don’t watch them.)

If, however, there are times you feel like Sam is “oversharing,” just say so, the same way you’d tell Betty that you really don’t want to know intimate details about Stan. Everyone has different comfort levels, and there’s nothing wrong with politely asking someone to respect yours–just as you’d respect theirs by not deliberately telling them something that you know has an “ew” factor for them.

However, please don’t make the mistake of thinking sexual orientation is the same as sexual behavior. Do you think being straight is ONLY about who you have sex with? What about people who don’t have sex? What about people who can’t have sex? What about people who wish they could have sex but no one’s interested? Are they something else? Something “not straight” because they’re not having sex? No. They’re still heterosexual. Your sexual behavior is just one part of who you are as a straight person. Ditto for those who identity themselves as GLBT. They are who they are, and sexuality is only one aspect of their identity. Celebrate them as you should celebrate all people without regard for artificial distinctions. We’re all in this together, and we’re way more alike than we’re different.

Since I’m tired, I’m probably not saying all this as well as I should be. But I do want to thank every single gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered person who has ever trusted me enough to be who you are around me. You have enriched my life.

Here’s my sign, from the Human Rights Campaign’s Snapshot Project.