writing

A Mini Writing Retreat

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Never make plans. They never work out. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I planned a mini-retreat for this week. Take some time for myself to get my head on straight and my spirit centered before the kids are home for the summer. I planned for the part of the week after Memorial Day since there was only one appointment on my calendar and no school obligations after everyone went back to school and work after the Memorial Day holiday. Our house has been pretty clutter-free for the past couple of weeks, so I enjoy being there again. I mentioned to my husband last week while I was sitting in my corner office that I didn’t want to leave the house. I really liked being there. But let’s be real, if I stay home to write, I’d end up watching Supernatural or The Walking Dead reruns on Netflix. I have the rest of the month for that.

I started thinking about what I wanted to do this week and separately what I wanted to accomplish. I’d attend Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ve been missing the daily masses both by not attending and also missing them deeply. I’d start my day with G-d, leaving the house at 8:30 and planning to return by 3 when the kids came home from school. It sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?


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Six Degrees of Social Media

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I have come to the social media phenomenon slowly, kicking and screaming the whole way, but go I do. My first social media was Live Journal before I really knew what social media was. The only one I didn’t question was Tumblr, I think. I don’t know. Maybe it was something else. I can’t remember. I’ve always followed my friend, Andy and as the months went by and turned into years – is it really eight years since I’ve joined the online revolution?! – I’ve refined what I do with my social media. I’ve gotten rid of some, and increased my usage of others. I’ve connected some and I love Instagram more than I think I should.

While my Facebook is primarily for family and personal things, I do follow pages and in follwoing certain pages, I’ve been exposed and introduced to others and so on.

And that is how I come to you to recommend seeing the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. It’s not typically my thing. I never read the comic  books, watched the animated shows or any of the other movies.

I followed Jared Padalecki because he’s on the CW’s Supernatural and he’s an all around good guy with a smile that is warm and inviting. I love his whole family. Whenever I’d see him or Gen or the boys on social media or in photos of conventions, it would make me smile. It would uplift my mood. I can’t explain why. It just is. All of the Supernatural cast & crew are very much like a family, and I love that and am drawn to that.

Well, he’s friends with Stephen Amell who is on Arrow, also on the CW. So I followed Stephen Amell. He spoke his mind and this got him into trouble sometimes. He’d apologize, sometimes, and this down-to-earthiness of his personality was what kept me following his Facebook.

I listened to his live chats and I loved seeing him with his daughter.

He posted the trailer to TMNT, a movie I have no interest in seeing. I watched the trailer to support Stephen’s Facebook.

I liked it.

It made me interested in something because I watched the trailer.

I watched the trailer because I follow Stephen Amell. I follow Stephen Amell because I follow Jared Padalecki. And now I actually want to see this movie.

This is how social media works.

At least how it’s supposed to.

My Top 5 Social Media Personalities
In addition to Jared and Stephen:
1. Misha Collins
2. William Shatner
3. Wil Wheaton
4. John Barrowman
5. George Takei

My Top 5 Political Pundits
1. Ezra Klein (Vox)
2. Connie Schultz
3. Chris Cilizza
4. Planned Parenthood Action
5. Chuck Todd

My Top 5 Writers
In addition to any on the other lists above:
1. Lin-Manuel Miranda
2. Danai Gurira
3. Adam Glass
4. Robert Behrens
5. Neil Gaiman

Others that I Love
1. Norman Reedus
2. Greg Nicotero
3. Kim Rhodes & Briana Buckmaster
4. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
5. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Choices

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As Lin-Manuel [Miranda] said in his commencement address at UPenn this past weekend, “we choose the stories we tell.” That is wholly true, but those stories are shaped by what we choose to do in our lives.

I will tell you about my life this week. It is a ridiculously busy week. Even the calendar is cluttered.  I made a list of everything on my calendar from Sunday the 15th until Saturday the 21st.  Assuming I wrote everything down, that’s twenty-five things. Although I forgot to  include the Target run for household goods and grocery shopping plus two trips this week to The Fresh Market for their specials that are only available on certain days. I also didn’t include my son’s girlfriend visiting us this weekend for the first time. Oh crap! What are we going to make for dinner?!

All but one of the television shows on that list are for the entire family’s viewing. It’s season finales for many of them this week and next. Not listed are writing group assignments, three greeting cards that need to be written out and sent and my journal submission for one class. I also need to clean my house.

So I guess that makes it thirty-four in actuality.

As of this writing, I’ve accomplished the first nine, skipped three and will complete two more tonight plus start another one. I’ve crossed five out as conflicts with more important things that either need to be done or that I would rather do. [Watch my son get a scholarship award at his college and meet a friend of my husband’s visiting from Amsterdam for instance. My daughter also has a concert with her school’s chorus.] All on Thursday.

We will postpone Thursday’s TV until Friday, on demand, or on the CW app.

We will be late to my daughter’s concert and I kind of invited my son’s girlfriend over this weekend without telling anyone, thinking that my son would postpone it until next week. As I said earlier, it’s happening this week.

The Yartzeit for my Dad was a day late, and I didn’t go to mass this morning.

Did I forget to list that I need a couple (or more) of showers on that list?

So, we choose.

And we choose and we adjust our lives and whether through facebook or writing class or the stories we tell our friends, we are constantly making choices.

To pick the best one; the funniest one, the one with the lesson learned or the embarrassing one that we finally find funny.

Whichever one we choose they are our stories; your stories.

Choose them well.

Rundown and Reviews

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When last week started I thought I had all the time in the world. The first half of the week was an empty calendar, and I tried to set up the incredibly busy weekend, not only for us to participate in, but for me to write about. I have a long list of ideas and WIPs and I thought the early part of last week was perfect timing to get a few things started. And then it was Thursday. Ascension mass, catch up on Supernatural, writing class, get ready for the weekend. Sleepover, Free Comic Book Day, Lunch at Dairy Queen, mass for the anniversary of my friend’s death, seeing Captain America: Civil War, meeting my son’s new girlfriend, and Sunday for Mother’s Day and Fear the Walking Dead. This week started the same way.  Nice and quiet, time to write and yet still unused. Damn. Next week isn’t going to be much different. It’s feast or famine, isn’t it? Feast or famine.

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Hope

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I hope I can get home tonight in time for our television show. I hope the toilet doesn’t overflow before we get paid and call a plumber. I hope Glenn is alive on The Walking Dead. I hope and pray that I will, but today I am still just a bill.

Hope is the pleading in a child’s eyes when the ice cream truck goes by.

Hope is waiting outside the surgery or for the tests to come back.

Hope is the light at the end of a tunnel, and coming over the mountain top.

Hope is the line in the sand between destiny and despair.

Hope is the potential in a baby’s tiny fingers and wiggling toes.

Hope is getting on the right train, but being okay if it’s the wrong one. Nothing wrong with riding it for a couple of stops and taking in the newness of someone else’s something.

Hope is not reading ahead even if it kills you.

Hope is knowing the end of the story, but still thinking it might be different the second time.

Hope (no one’s watching) is licking the barbeque sauce off your fingers.

Hope is a rainbow at Niagara and a pink sheep defying gravity.

Hope is the smell of rain on stone and the tinkling sound of rain on water.

Hope is mist and a thin layer of fog.

Hope is an empty gas tank close enough to the gas station to not run out.

Hope is this close to the finish line and that far from the meadow.

Hope is a waterfall and a stream and a rock all apart and not.

Hope is communion and community and the sun coming up every morning.

Hope is a compass rose and a triquetra.

Hope is a butterfly wing and an endless supply of pen and paper.

Hope is the missing puzzle piece.

Life is hope.