Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

My friend Liz has her short story out in this anthology, The Best of Every Day Fiction Two.

May this be the first of many, many more publications!

I have been, finally, getting around to putting away Christmas. Pulling out the (cat) playing cards, putting away the (cat) ornaments and finding the (cat) note cards and Christmas cards sent to me. And it’s hit me recently that Cat Ladies are not born that way. I mean, most ladies with cats don’t think, “when I grow up I want nothing but cats and cat things.” Unless of course, you’re someone who would play with this action figure:

…..

No, most of us (and I do lump myself into that category even though I only have one cat and not the request nine) came to be that way by happenstance, no matter what you might think.

Consider these factors:

Most cat ladies are intelligent, creative, independent, quirky loners. We don’t have time for pets. We’ve got things to do. Mostly things to think or make or create. We don’t have TIME for critters.

In wanders this four footed feline. Curious, warm, loner, independent, who doesn’t care that your whiskers could rival his (or hers) and knows the value of fresh cream and a good nap.

Well, you think, as long as they promise not to take up too much room.  Or food. And maybe just a trip to the vet once a year or so. Well, that’s okay. They can stay. But you mostly ignore them.

But then, they feel so good when they purr. And they’re so much fun when they want to play. And they understand the need to just stare out the window for hours and think. They remind you when it’s time to eat and get up from the computer. And you can talk to them and they think what you have to say is perfectly reasonable. They don’t brush it aside as so much nonsense.

And so suddenly you have this life that you share with this other being. And when people ask you about your day, you find, since you’re a private loner, that’s it’s easier to talk to people because NOW you have something to share. You don’t have to sidestep questions about your personal life or share what to some seem a pathetic loner’s existence (but to you seems to be a full and complete internal life that’s too intimate to share).  You can now talk about your cat. That is something safe to talk about at dinner that will not have people staring at you as if you were a crazy person.

So, you talk about your cat. You share stories about your cat the way others share stories about their kids or students. It’s a polite, safe way to make conversation about yourself without revealing too much about yourself. And your friends, who were never sure what to get their quirky, sensitive, loner friend, now latch onto something they can comprehend: “Cat.”

So, while you might have other interests, such as gardening, writing, Joan of Arc, travel, movies, or even knitting leggings, you suddenly find that every birthday and holiday you end up with more and more cat paraphernalia: Cat ornaments, cat cards, cat figurines, cat pictures. Every other email you get is someone sending you, “aren’t these too cute” pictures of kittens and puppies. And anytime anyone hears of a cat or kitten who needs a home, you’re the first on their contact list.

And while you still have only one cat (or maybe by now you’ve got a collection since you’ve become the easy mark on everyone’s cat adoption list), you have now become the “cat lady” where before you were simply the “eccentric”.

And you didn’t get there on your own. And as you look around, surrounded by all the cat gifts your friends and family gave you, you realize you were helped there by all your friends and family.

You were not born that way, you were made.

I forgot I have a new poem up at Everyday Weirdness for January 17, 2010. You can check it out here.

My cousin, Simon:

Or as he calls himself on his blog, ScriptSimon.

Not just a blogger, though. He’s a writer, editor type person as well, and if you happen to be on the other side of the Pond, or on this side even (and I’m not available for your writing/editing, etc needs or you need someone with more of a film bent) then I encourage you to give him a try. And then, while you’re at it, check out his band, the Peanut Albinos (he’s the drummer).

I’m lucky if I get 20 people to come by this blog, but I thought I would see if I could drive more traffic by his.

Now, if I could just get Sarah to put up a website of her art stuff…

Just because a book or story isn’t serious and is actually fun and funny doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. In fact, it probably takes MORE work and talent to write something fun and witty than it does to write something that’s dark and takes itself too seriously! Jeez!

The earthquake in Haiti is only one of several catastrophes that occurs around the world on a regular basis. And when we hear about the quake in Haiti or the quake in Humboldt County or the tsunami in the south Pacific or how Katrina hit Mississipi and Louisiana or anything else, we want to help. Most people hear the stories and see the pictures and have a visceral kick in the gut and the need to help. We might not always have the wherewithal, but we do want to. So, if you feel the need to help or give back to the world somehow, here are some ideas and pointers:

1) Be careful. Make sure the organization you’re donating to is a reliable and well-known nonprofit and not some fly-by-night venture that might just take the money and run. Some reliable disaster relief and nongovernment organizations include: Doctors without Borders, the American Red Cross, Children’s Disaster Services, International Red Cross/Red Crescent, and the World Health Organization. Also check out disaster relief websites which regularly list organizations, as well as contacting your church, synagogue or other place of worship as several denominations and religious organizations also have disaster relief organizations attached to them.

2) Be creative. It’s not an emergency, not a disaster, but you still feel like giving? If you’ve got the time, why not make it fun? Lots of places have a set up so you can donate money in someone else’s name and can then send them an ecard to let them know. So, next time you’re not sure what to get someone for their birthday or Christmas, try donating in their name. It will make you both feel good.

I also had a friend who had a blog donation contest. She said the winner of the contest would win something that she would knit – a hat, scarf, purse, socks, etc. It would be the winner’s choice. To enter her contest she had people send her verification that they had donated money to a particular charity (in this case Doctors Without Borders). Then, she put all the names of the donors into a hat, pulled out a name and the winner got a lovely piece of knitware. (In this case I happened to be the winner and got a lovely handbag!)

Maybe you don’t have the money to donate. So, donate time or something else you do have. Donate blood. Have a yard sale and donate the proceeds. Sell all your books and CDs on Amazon and donate what you earn from that. Volunteer. Go through your closet and pull out all those clothes you’ll never fit in again and drop them off at the local donation bin or maybe to Goodwill or Midnight Mission or Out of the Closet (to name some of the charities around here).

3) Be consistent. Many organizations that get contributions during a disaster need those same contributions year round. While you might be moved to give $100 after hearing about the earthquake in Haiti, it might actually do more good if you had donated $20 a month over 5 months.  In this climate it might be difficult to promise a consistent amount each month simply because you may not know your income from month to month, but consider trying it. Make it a “deal” where for every $25 you put in your savings, you send $25 to a charity.

4) Keep looking. It could be that none of the above charities floats your boat. You want to give, but you want it to be more local or you want to connect somehow. Maybe you were a Campfire Girl or your grandfather had Alzheimer’s or you’re thankful for what Planned Parenthood did for you when you didn’t have health care and needed an exam. Maybe you’d rather spend time and money through your local rotary or business association or teach someone to read. Maybe there’s an organization out there in your field that has a group of people who donate time and money to somehow make the world a better place. The point is keep looking until you find the charity that feels right for you.

Giving feels good for both the giver and the receiver. It expands our world, helps pull us out of our own problems and appreciate what we have. Don’t wait until the next disaster to find a way to help.

Yesterday at our writers group we were discussing topics we might like to cover next month and one possibility was books that inspire you, or favorite books that you fall in love with. It got me to thinking. What about those books that you don’t really think about often, but when you do pick them up or refer to them, they’re so worn the spines are broken, the pages are yellowed, corners have been dog-eared and you have to squint to read some of the words on the page? What about those books? So, I decided to go through my bookshelves and see what 5 books most fit that description. It was tougher than I thought, too. I had more of these types of books than I thought, but below are the 5 most worn books and below that some runner ups:

Five Most Worn Books in My Library:

The World of Christopher Robin by A.A. Milne

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Herb Book by John Lust

The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Han

Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Runner Ups:

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Esther by Emily Warn

Complete Poems of Robert Frost

Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The Two Towers and The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale

Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary

Several MZB Sword & Sorceress books (some more than others)

Several Catfantastic books (some more than others)

So, what are some of your worn out old favorites?

Still in a reflective mode, or maybe even nostalgic.

See, that’s me at 16 or 17, when I knew dipsquat, but maybe I knew more then than I do now? Hmmm. Who knows? I’ve been easily distracted lately by these nostalgic, reflective thoughts. So, I thought I would share some of them just because.

Where were we again?

M’s:

At my morning job I end up using a lot of skills that got left behind once I graduated from college, like using pencils and erasers and semi-neat handwriting and printing. I have to actually stop and notice how I write and whether or not someone else can read it. Lately, I’ve really been noticing how I make my capital M’s and then after the M’s there’s the V’s and the E’s and suddenly I’m in grade school again exchanging notes with my best friend Valerie.

Valerie transferred to our school in 4th grade. And she had this energy, even back then, where boys loved her and girls were jealous of her. She was the polar opposite of me. Where I would give in or just get quiet when I was fighting, she would push back and yell hard. Where I liked to sit and read a book, she wanted to go ride bikes and explore. Where I wanted to stay safe and not take chances, she was pulling me onto the roundup at the carnival or into the bar where the grownups were sitting. Yet somehow, and I’m not sure how, the popular new girl and I became best friends.

I used love the way she made her M’s, V’s, and E’s. She was a much neater printer than I was. So I would practice writing like Valerie, especially when we were exchanging those notes girls like to write to each other.

Around junior high we started growing apart. Valerie going the way of the drill team/cheerleader social group and me going the way of the orchestra/honor society/drama geek social group. By the time my family moved from Wenatchee to Bellingham at the end of my 9th grade year, we barely acknowledged each other in the hallways. On day during track practice, the spring before graduating from junior high, I remember telling her I was moving and she just shrugged.

Never saw or heard from her again after we moved and yet I still make my M’s the way she did in 6th grade.

Sugar packets:

There once was a boy who was really obnoxious. Even he says so. He loved nothing better than stating opinions as facts, being in charge, flirting with girls and marching in front of the band as band major. Then he graduated from high school, went to college and had to learn an entirely new form of survival. By the time I met Dean and we were having coffee together all the time at Denney’s or the college coffeeshop, he’d cut his hair, was working on using his debate skills for good not for ill, switched from clarinet to voice, and tried really hard not to flirt unless he really meant it.

Dean liked to have sugar in his coffee, 2-3 packets, each packet twisted neatly into a bowtie shape before he’d stir his coffee with his spoon and then put his spoon in his mouth to taste the sweetened coffee, placing said spoon neatly on a napkin.

I mostly drink my coffee black. Mostly. Unless I’ve been up all night and then I add cream and sugar for the extra bit of energy I can get from the fat/carb/sugar combination.  Back in college Dean and I spent a lot of time together. We logged hours at the coffeeshop “studying” whilst talking with each other and our friends. We never quite dated. We just spent a lot time together. We became buddies and really good friends. Then we both graduated from college and he went on to teach music, get married, have kids and I went on to work in offices by day and party up in Vancouver at the Gandy Dancer by night.

And yet, I still twist my sugar packets into bowtie shapes.

Plastic Spoons:

When I was hanging out with Dean in the coffeeshop I met Andy. Andy was not in the English or Music Dept. No, he was in technical engineering. He was someone else who logged hours at that Viking coffeeshop. And whilst doing so, he would spend some of the time explaining why a plastic spoon or something else at the table breaks or splits apart the way it does or seeing how long a pen could stand on end before it fell over or lecture on why styrofoam does not melt back down into it’s original form when heated.  I haven’t seen Andy in years and I still find myself going into lecture mode when I’ve been at a coffee shop and find myself breaking apart a spoon or trying to see if I can balance a pen on end.

“If I were a ___, where would I be?”

I had a roommate in college. Kate. She was also a bible study leader for a while. She anthropomorphized objects like a seasoned pro. Don’t get me wrong. I had been anthropomorphizing my stuffed animals since I was a kid. But she was in college and acted like an adult and anthropomorphized openly, in front of other people, out loud, unabashedly! She was fun and willingly and openly used childhood skills in service of being a better adult. From her I got the term “Montessori skills,” which I still use to this day when I’m asked to get out glue, scissors, tape, markers etc. and be creative at work. And whenever she was looking for something she couldn’t find she would say, “If I were a pair shoes where would I be?” or “If I were my car keys, where would I be?”  I haven’t seen Kate since before I moved down to California and I still ask myself that question when looking for something or try to remember to keep childlike sensibilities open and aware in an adult world that is used to crushing those instincts.

Lately, I guess, it’s hit me how much we learn from the people in our lives. We are a collection of experiences that includes influences from friends, family and even people we don’t like so much. We aren’t even aware of how much they’ve rubbed off on us until years down the road when we’re doing something innocuous like twisting a sugar packet or looking for a set of keys.

And since I’m in a thankful mode and thankful for where my life is right now, I guess I am thankful for all those past influences in my life.

The beginning of a new year is a time to reflect back on the old year, or one’s life in general and maybe see how you want to direct the future of your life in the year ahead. So, this evening I was going through some old blogs on another site and cleaning a few out that I didn’t think I wanted hanging around any more. I seriously considered just deleting everything except the most recent, but I was interested to read my journey.

I really like where my life is right now. There are things that could be better, sure, and some regrets I have. But I also have definite goals and ambitions I want to work on in the coming year, as well as goals and ambitions that I have accomplished this past year or so and can cross off the list. But, all in all, looking back at where I’ve been, I am very thankful for where I have arrived, even with all the pain and heartache and stupidity that I’ve gone through to get here. I just wanted to say that while still enjoying my Christmas tree and listening to music whilst working on a freelance job for a client I like, and knowing that tomorrow when I get up and go to work I will be going to a job that I really like, too.

Yeah. Still a long way to go climbing the mountain, but I’m really enjoying stopping and resting and enjoying the view from here right now.

Now watch. Next week something dramatic will happen to test my current serenity. Well, I should enjoy it while it lasts. Like this dude with his cat.