Christmas is all about lists, isn’t it?
My friend Jennifer hit me with this a ways back at her space.
Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay,here’s what you’re supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Tag as many people as you want to….Tis the Season to be NICE!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Typically it depends on the gift, but usually bags. It’s not that I can’t wrap presents, but usually I’m too absent minded to get this done ahead of time and wind up doing things last minute.
2. Real tree or Artificial? artificial us all I’ve ever known.
3. When do you put up the tree? You imply I ever take it down. Typically when I was a kid it went up whenever mom thought about it, but usually not long after Thanksgiving.
4. When do you take the tree down? See above. So whenever I get around to it, I guess.
5. Do you like eggnog? Used to like it more than I do now. Typically I’ll do one glass before Christmas and that’s it. Spiked, natch.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I still remember my folks getting me an Atari 2600 as a kid and thinking that was the neatest thing ever. Had a blast playing Space Invaders co-op mode with my parents and my brothers.
7. Hardest person to buy for? The parental units. They literally have anything they could possibly want or need. Sad, but usually I wind up defaulting to gift cards from one of their favorite restaurants.
8. Easiest person to buy for? Honestly? It’s almost always been a snap shopping for the ex-wife. I still do pretty good on that front. Some people you just know.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No, though I have considered setting a bowl of pasta with meatballs under the tree and calling it an FSM Christmas.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? a slacker as charged. Neither.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can’t say as there’s ever been something so abominable that it burned into my memory. There was a pretty ugly comforter from Grandma China after the ex and I split, but to its credit, it was warm.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? You’ll think I’m nuts but…The Ref. Seriously funny movie. And I admit to enjoying Bad Santa. I’ll let you decide what that says about me.
13. When do you start shopping? Today’s what the 17th? So I’ve got a week left…
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? White elephants only.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Anyone who makes Christmas cookies is at the top of my list. Elizabeth also made zucchini bread when we were dating, and I came to really love that too. Made morning coffee so much better.
16 color lights on tree? multi-colored is the way to go
17. Favorite Christmas song? “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses, though I’ve also become fond on the recent discovery “Santa Claus Is Sometimes Brown” by El Vez. Oh, and “Christmas in Hollis” by Run DMC.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel to go back to Ft Worth.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? Yessum. Unrelated, a coworker loves this time of year because if I wander around her desk, she talks about how I am one of Santa’s reindeer. “On Dasher, On Dancer, En-rique…” 
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I’m partial to stars myself.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? My family is so non-traditional, sometimes it’s a surprise when there presents to unwrap on either because we’ve handed everything out in advance. That said, since I now have nephews and a niece, it’s been whenever my brothers and their families come over, which is usually Christmas Day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Commercialism, especially all the hoo-ha over Black Friday and what it might mean for the economic outlook. Also how much earlier it feels like they put up the Christmas decorations each year.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Way more involved than I get into it. No clue.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Mmm….ham….
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Honestly? A date before my birthday comes around, but that’s not the sort of thing you can put under the tree, and Santa has never struck me as the yenta type.
Becs, Brea, Kelly, Deanna, have at it.
Sweet 16
I was tagged to do this via Facebook, and figured it would be good to share here as well.
Jennifer, who used to work over at Apple with me, tagged me with this. I won’t be tagging 16 peeps in response, but I figure a few of my MySpace peeps might play along.
Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a note with 16 random things, shortcomings, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 16 people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them. You have to tag the person who tagged you.
1. Starting by recycling one from my blog, but figure it’s still good to share: when I was in grade school, I wore braces on my legs for a couple of years. I was apparently slightly pigeon toed as a child, and they thought it serious enough to warrant some corrective measures. They were awful heavy things as I recall, very tedious to get into and out of. Also had a special set of shoes I was supposed to wear while I slept that worked towards the same ends.
2. I have never seen Top Gun. This seems to amaze people to no end, and I admit being a child of the 80s, one would have thought there would be a time to sit and watch the damn thing. That said, I think I might enjoy it more with the You Tube video I posted here in Facebook in mind as I watched 
.
3. According to my friend Audrey, I apparently have more Madonna and Kylie Minogue in my iTunes library than any straight man has a right to.
4. Despite my well known fear/aversion to all things reptilian, I do think they’re neat critters.
5. If I had to hazard a guess, my first taste of beer probably would have been a sip of the Coors my maternal grandfather let me have when I was well in single digits of age (6 or 7 would be my guess). I so detested the stuff at that point, that even though I drank some underage as most everyone did, I never had another beer until well after I turned 21. Now I can’t fathom life without the wondrous stuff. That said, I’d sooner drink my own urine than drink Coors again.
6. I am officially seeking someone to host a ritual burning of all my Yankees branded t-shirts and the cap too if I still have it somewhere. I was a die hard Yankees fan for the longest time, but as a number of people know, the sport burned me out a few years back. When I heard that they petitioned the state leg for more money to finish their abomination of a new stadium the same week they offered more than $250 million to CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett pissed me off so righteously, that as soon as the burn ban I think we’re under is lifted, I want to set those things on fire as soon as possible. I feel genuine shame over having ever rooted for them before. Yes, I am aware we’re only talking about a baseball team here.
7. A slightly embarrassing story but a fun one I don’t know that I’ve shared with everyone. My ex-wife told me once that when she and I were still just dating/engaged, she came out of her room to get a drink of water during the night when we were staying with my parents. My youngest brother Nick was passed out on the love seat as I slept on the sofa, and with my parent’s room just off the living room. She revealed that apparently the men in my family are capable of snoring in rounds if the circumstances are right.
8. Every Christmas since I’ve had nephews and a niece, I’ve been insanely jealous of my brothers for having kids to watch open presents. Yes, I give them stuff too, and yes they love the gifts they get from their Uncle. But it’s not the same as having kids of your own, and I live in perpetual fear that that experience is never going to be a part of my future. This thought makes me tremendously sad.
9. I want to play in one World Series of Poker event before I die.
10. If I were to live anywhere else in the country besides Austin, it would be Portland, Oregon. If you told me I could leave tomorrow and have a job doing exactly what I was doing now in Portland, without having to worry about selling my house, I’d probably be up all night packing. That is probably less about being unhappy with Austin and more about feeling stagnant in my personal life.
11. I can not remember the last full 24 hour period I spent without being on the Internet. I’d say the cruise I took with my family two years ago, but I was even checking email on the boat back then. This scares me a little, even as it reminds me of how much technology has advanced since I was younger.
12. Even though I have family there, I can not fathom of going back to El Paso anymore. I haven’t been since my maternal Grandmother died. That feels very odd for some reason.
13. I used to dream as a kid of being the shortstop for the New York Yankees. The Yankees were the team I latched onto as a child, but I wanted to be a shortstop because that was the position Snoopy played on Charlie Brown’s team in the comic strip “Peanuts”.
14. I used to read books to my elementary school Principle, Ms. Duncan. Apparently when I was in school, I was so far ahead of the curve for my age group in reading that it became a ritual to go into her office every once in a while to just read whatever book caught my fancy from the library. I think this is why I enjoy reading aloud to people whenever I can.
15. I randomly Google the names of people I knew from grade school I haven’t thought about in forever just on the off chance they might still be out there and want to get back in touch. I also look for them on Facebook and MySpace.
16. There is only one woman who I’ve dated seriously that I am not still in touch with. Curiously enough, she is also the only Hispanic woman I’ve ever dated.
Jennifer, I tagged you to do this in Facebook, but wherever you decide to post it, have fun if you do. Becs, if you want to make a run, why don’t you as well.
Let’s do the time warp again
So I actually wrote the below LAST week with the intention of posting it late at home on Monday, and wound up forgetting I had the file on my work computer until today. So keep in mind the below was written then and not tonight. I’m a goon, what can I say?
Ok, this has been an interesting night all around.
Normally on Monday nights, I’m with my writer’s group at the original Austin Java, pecking away at the keyboard for something. Quirkee work used to get done there, a fair bit of the NaNo novel got pecked out there as well. I figured I might get settled in and write up Milk, which I saw this weekend (Cliff’s Notes review: good, if clichéd, but some exceptional acting in it from Penn, James Franco, and Josh Brolin).
All of which got scuttled when I pulled into a completely empty parking lot before a dark, empty, closed building. Java is never that empty when it’s open, so I knew something was up. No notes on the door regarding the closure, and a peek in the windows doesn’t look like there’s anything amiss aside from the decided lack of people.
So after playing the phone/text message mambo with various parties in the group, we regrouped at The Flying Saucer, my new pub of choice when I’m in a beer sort of mood. It sucks because as of now, their internet connection is non-existant (we can see the network, but it’s not possible for any one of the five laptops in our little corner here to be able to connect). This is all going to get posted well after the fact, but it’s nice to be able to peck something out here in Word and at least have something to say to y’all, even if the words themselves are on the Internet version of tape delay.
It’s been a funky week since the NaNoWriMo marathon came to an end. I got the expected threat of bodily harm if I left the novel hanging at its present point, and full intend to actually bring this one to an end in the next week or two. That will be a major milestone for me, finally finishing one out. I’ve always intended to go back to Meta from two years ago and close out that story, one I was particularly fond of. I think there’s more potential with Meta to be something more than just a project for NaNoWriMo. But this year’s novel (working title was I’m Making It Up As I Go Along), is a complete story, at least in my head.
I’ve been battling the holiday blues something bad this year, something I expected and thought I was ready for but am still finding it a challenge to work through. The good Constance Reader and some of my other close friends have been kind enough to try and help me weather the emotional and mental storm, but it’s been a rough ride.
I know that being in a relationship or even just dating someone semi-regularly isn’t the panacea I sometimes make it out to be. Even if I were seeing someone, I am still frustrated by the ceiling I feel like I’ve hit with my present job in terms of personal growth. I still wonder if my writing has any impact beyond this meager space, though I have gotten a fair amount of reassurance from my personal circle on that front. Even if I never reach a soul beyond my circle of friends and family, it’s nice to know y’all listen to me here. That is a greater comfort than you might ever know.
It’s just frustrating to feel empty or like I have something positive to offer someone and instead I find myself spinning my wheels with nothing of any sort to show for the effort. The Yahoo Personals subscription I had I let go gently into that good night, with nary a contact to show for it. If I said anything in that venue worth hearing, it fell on deaf ears, but that’s their loss not mine. I know this in my head and heart, and I’m working on developing the faith in that judgment.
I don’t think I had ever mentioned it in this forum, but I figured I’d also mention for those who didn’t know that I’ve shelved the idea of graduate school, probably indefinitely. There were a lot of factors that played into that decision. There’s a concern about asking my family to help me cover that cost in such uncertain economic conditions. It’s Pop’s retirement, and he’s earned it. That he can afford it is secondary to the concern that I might incur a cost that could negatively impact how he enjoys this down time. That’s not a choice I want to make.
There’s also the cold reality that I simply don’t believe grad school will open any notable doors for me as far as potentially turning writing about film or whatever into a paying career for me. Even with the questions about the audience I might be reaching through Quirkee, I was closer to making it a reality through that channel than I would be writing papers for teachers in college. I really believe that’s true.
But that leaves a question of what do I do now, if not grad school, and that’s the thing that’s really driving me nuts. I think I might take a shot at Script Frenzy in April. It’s a screenplay equivalent to NaNoWriMo, trying to write a full screenplay in 30 days. I had an idea for a NaNo novel a couple of years ago that might be more viable in a screenplay format, and I figure maybe I can try to make some hay out of the idea going that route.
I know, or feel, like writing dialogue is one of the strongest points about my fiction. Some people can immediately envision characters or scenes and how they should look or act. I hear how they speak, what they would say and why. I think that is something that I should try to build on and make more of as I try to hone my abilities as a writer, because I think I have some real strengths in that arena. The question is what medium makes the most effective use of those skills? Short fiction? Novels? Screenplays? None of the above? Who knows.
I don’t think the open mic nights around town would be much of a forum for some of my essays on film, which is disappointing. In addition to trying to write about film again, there’s a part of me that misses speaking in front of groups like I used to in high school with debate. During NaNoWriMo, for the second consecutive year, I was part of a group of local NaNo peeps who went to perform at Cold Towne Theater.
Last year, I and four others went on stage at Cold Towne and read a brief excerpt from our novel. Then the improv troop from Cold Town would spend 8-10 minutes riffing comic sketches spun off of what we read aloud. When the call came for volunteers this year, I offered to step up again, the only one of the lot from last year who came back for a return engagement.
Standing before the audience is terrifying in a really good way. I couldn’t see a soul that was looking at me, because the stagelights were right in my eyes as I read. And it was obvious I was nervous, but you know what? I got a serious kick out of doing it, and it’s something that I will probably do again next year, novel willing. Because part of me gets off on that adrenaline rush that comes with the nerves and being the focus of attention up there on the stage, something that I never would have really thought a part of myself, if I didn’t have this same experience two years running now.
That gets me to thinking about podcasting again and maybe seeing if I can make some hay that way. Given the reports about all the newspapers and magazines going belly up of late, I think the hope of being published regularly in a dead tree media outlet seems more remote not because of any limitation of my own, but because the medium itself seems destined for extinction. That’s a strange phenomenon to be aware of, but there is no other way to look at it practically speaking. The technology just moves too fast for the market to be able to compete.
Podcasting seems to be a way to be able to keep my hand in the film writing business, but in a way that is consistent with the current media picture. The few efforts I made were clumsy and scattershot, but that’s in no small part due to my lack of pre-planning. If I made a concerted effort to be more professional about the presentation, there’s no reason why I couldn’t make it work. I’ve listened to Filmspotting enough to understand the ins and outs of what they’re doing with each segment. I’ve got friends who are musicians who can help me work on the polish side of the recording and editing process.
It’s an idea.
Anyway, just wanted to share with the readership some of the scattered thoughts that have been in my head of late. I’m hoping to have more writing out for you before the week is out. Thanks for reading, for being supportive, and patient.
Y’all know I love my Rock Band2
But to borrow from Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons:
This could be…best…video game…ever!
I both love and hate this sort of thing
When I read something written so perfectly, such a perfect combination of information, perspective and unbridled snark that I so desperately wish I had the ability to have written. In a post-mortem on the McCain campaign that is in Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi has this particular passage describing American Presidential elections:
We’ve dumbed this process up so much over the years, in fact, that it had lately become hard to imagine an American presidential election being anything but an embarrassment to the very word “democracy.” By 2004, that once-cherished ideal of political freedom and self-governance that millions of young men and women gave their lives to protect as recently as WWII had been reduced to the level of absurdist comedy. You had a millionaire Yalie in an army jacket taking on a millionaire Yalie in a cowboy hat, fighting tooth and nail for the right to be named the man “middle America most wants to have a beer with” by a gang of Ivy League journalists — a group of people whose closest previous exposure to “middle America” was typically either an episode of Cops or a Von Dutch trucker hat they’d bought for $23 at Urban Outfitters.
That’s gold, right there my friends. As is the rest of it. Read the whole thing. (fez tip to Athenae at First Draft for bringing it to attention)
NaNoWriMo: Day 11 - The end, and yet not the end
Sorry, just savoring the fact that I got past the finish line as word count goes.
I think it’ll be fairly obvious by the time we get to the end of this chapter that I was pretty much in word padding mode, trying to fill things out to get over the hump on my count. I think I’d really played this story out the only way I could given the parameters I’d set with the previous segments. The ending is cliché in my opinion, but then again I thought that about most of this story.
You’ll also notice that this ends in a rather…unresolved way. I could conceivably end things here and consider the story complete, a rather unusual occurrence for me as NaNoWriMo goes. But the thing of it is, if I DO end it here, I’m going to wind up getting some heavy rocks hurled at my head from one reader in Albuquerque who has been keeping up with me this whole time. Even more amusing would be that I’d be ending things potentially unsatisfactorily in the chapter that started with the line she contributed. That would be particularly evil of me, and I’m not at that degree of evil at this point in my life.
Well, I’m not. Oh, shut up.
Anyway, I promise I will tie things off a bit more with one more segment, but I wouldn’t expect anything big dramatically. I just don’t have it in me for this story to try and spin things out in a fancy fashion. But I do resolve to actually complete this story, which is more than I can say about the previous NaNoWriMos I’ve won. Story below the cut. Read more
Pages tomorrow
But for the record:
Yay verbiage .
NaNoWriMo: Day 10 - been longer than that, but what the hell.
Yes, I still live. And if you’ve looked at the graphics from previous NaNo posts, you know that I’ve still been pecking away at the words.
This is, far and away, the longest chapter in this story, more than twice the length of any previous section at 9899 words. If I make my 50K, this one segment will account for almost 20% of the goal by itself.
Part of the function of the length is because where I’d thought I’d written myself into a corner with the previous segment, unaware of what kind of conflict I could create with Marc and Artie to cause the second falling out. The answer came to me, curiously enough, when I went to see a sneak preview of Twilight, this new vampire flick that came out last week. I can’t say I’m a fan of the movie, but I knew going in that I wasn’t the target audience for the story in the least. The descriptions of the book series the movie is based on always struck me as being one part Anne Rice, one part Judy Blume tossed into a blender on frappe.
That I even pulled Blume out of my ass as a frame of reference made me realize how long it has been since I was a teenager and why I think I have had trouble writing or coming up with ideas for the flashbacks. Thankfully, I endured the movie and got enough inspiration to realize what could have split Artie and Marc up like that. Just as Artie’s conflicted now because Marc’s involved with a girl (his sister), so it was back then a split over a girl. Cliche but it got me words.
I’ve got a goal for today to try and make that push to 45K before I have to leave to watch the UT game downtown at the Alamo. I’m still not enamored of the story, but I think I can make the push for the final 8.5K I need to make the goal, and potentially finish the story out. That’s all that matters to me at this point.
Story below the cut.
Well, not quite there
But not too bad.
34051. 956 short of what I need to be on pace, technically, but given that’s writing 2623 to get on pace tomorrow is 181 less than what I wrote today, I should be in good shape.
Dammit!
My math isn’t bad, I’m just smoking industrial grade crack. 3757 is what I need to write tonight to get on pace.
Not counting wasting my time here. So…yeah…I’m out.
NaNoWriMo: Day 9 - Three steps forward, two steps back
I’m a victim of math today.
See, I looked at this number yesterday and thought to myself, “Woohoo! Only 423 words short be on pace for the month! I’m doing great closing the gap!”
Which would have been true if yesterday had in fact been the 18th. It was actually the 19th as you know, and so instead of needing 2090 today to stay on pace, I need 3757.
Sigh.
Back to the present with the trio, and bringing a new character more into focus, though I’m not sure just how likely Christina will be a major player in this drama. Who knows, we’ll see. Read more
NaNoWriMo: Day 8 - Still truckin’
Still having trouble closing the gap on being a day behind, but it’s still a manageable margin. Hopefully I can narrow that in the next couple of days. I think tomorrow’s chapter may come a little bit easier, and if it does, then I might be able to get 3K cranked out and get to 30K on pace. 26467 should be what graphic shows my count at, but it’s not updated right now for some reason. Text below the cut. Flashing back again.
Read more
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thank you, TBogg.
NaNoWriMo: Day 7 - Cliche alert
In retrospect, where I went with the story at this point was pretty obvious given yesterday’s chapter, but it seemed like the only way to go with the story as I’ve got it set up now. I’m still thinking it’s going to be a bitch to get some of my remaining lines incorporated and keeping the flow of the story in sync, but who knows. I could surprise myself.
No flashback chapter here. We’re staying in the present day with Artie and Jordana at UT on their way, or rather AT, the house party mentioned yesterday. And I’m managing to keep myself only a day behind pace surprisingly enough. Looking at the graph:
You can see I’ve offset most of days short words with a corresponding productive day. I’m 1516 words short for pace today, but if I can get as much written tomorrow as I have today, I should be able to surpass the 25K I need to be at the halfway point by end of the day tomorrow. W00t!
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