Bringing Truth to my Blog Title

Wow, it's been about 2.5 months since I've last written here.  I guess it just goes to show that I gave my blog a completely appropriate name.  To be fair to myself, however, I have done a lot of writing with my book.  I have gone from chapter 8 to chapter 15!  I'm a little stuck again, but I feel like I've made great strides toward getting this book done.

Other than that, my life has been moving along rather steadily.  Sure, things can get a little boring at times when one works at a library (at night). But, lucky for me, I've always been able to make my own fun.  At the moment I'm reading the novelization of the Assassin's Creed game series.  I've been enjoying the storyline, and I'm happy to note that even though I haven't really played the games, I'm still able to follow along pretty well.  I find that I only feel slightly nerdy for reading this series.  Given that many of my friends are geeking out over the release of AC III, it makes me feel a little better about me.

When I'm not reading...or, you know, working...I've also begun to play a game called ShufflePuck Cantina.  I'm fully addicted.  It's like air hockey on your phone, and it's in space.  It has a very Star Wars vibe--one of the characters reminds me of Han Solo.  I'm getting pretty good at it, and I'm all about unlocking achievements.  Believe me when I say that I'm completely aware of the fact that this makes me 10x nerdier than when I admitted to reading the AC series.

Hmm, I think I've killed enough e-space with my awesomeness.  Gee, and I wonder why it's been more than two months since I last bored people with my natterings.  Then again, it's not like I have a large fan base, so at the very least I'm only boring a few people ;)

Well, I will sign off now.  It may be another couple of months before I write again, and hopefully I will be far more entertaining by that point.  Then again, I'm working under the assumption that I was entertaining before this.  Please feel free to not disabuse me of that notion.  I prefer to live in my own fantasy world where I'm fabulously entertaining, and dang your opinions otherwise!

Ok, bye now :P

Twitter Here I (Don't Yet) Come

I just got done reading Goodnight, Tweetheart, by Teresa Medeiros.  I've always been a big fan of hers, but wasn't sure how I'd like her contemporary work since she's a historical romance writer.  However, I absolutely loved this book.  I almost skipped lunch with my family to keep reading it.  Those of you who know how much I love a free meal will understand why this is such a good example for how amazing that makes this book.  Told almost entirely in tweets and direct messages between two strangers, it was a modern love story, biting comedy and nerd's dream all rolled into one.

Now that I'm done giving my review, I'll move on.  Like any good book, this one was thought-provoking.  Mostly, it made me wonder if I should start my own Twitter account.  It only took me a few moments to realize that I would be only nominally worse at keeping up on my tweets as I am with this blog.  I'm not giving up hope completely, however.  I may still someday make the leap into the Twitter pool.  For now though, I will share with you, my adoring audience, some thoughts I had about some other possible tweets.

You see, I began to wonder what it would be like if a (non-famous) geriatric began to use Twitter.  I'm sure that in the infinite expanse of the Internet, there may be one or two octogenarians who tweet to their little hearts' content.  However, my logic circuits indicate this is the exception rather than the rule.  To that, here are some things that I think would be found in your typical 80-year-old's Twitter feed:

@ThoseDamnKids get off my lawn!

Had a good BM today. Didn't feel like I was having a stroke.

Mixed Monday and Tuesday. #HighasF*ck

Asked the teller to repeat herself five times. Heard her every time. Who says old people don't have fun?

My wife told me about her day. Heard the whole damn thing. #HearingAidFail

That's about as far as I've gotten.  Obviously, not being in my 80s, or even close for that matter, these tweets may not be all that accurate.  Given that I enjoyed writing them, however, I don't much care about accuracy.  Makes me feel like a FOX News reporter :P

Anyway, I'm keeping this one short and sweet today.  If anyone has any other tweets they think would be appropriate for an octogenarian's Twitter feed, please feel free to post below to your little heart's content.  Otherwise, hope you got a giggle out of it.

Goodnight, Tweetheart! ;)

Some Thoughts for the Evening

I suppose I shouldn’t admit this, ever, but there have been many occasions where I have eaten, watched a movie or just gone out alone.  Usually it’s just a feeling of wanting to get out of my apartment after having a couple of days off and completely wasting every second of those two or three days.  I’m one of those extremely rare people who has almost no problem with being the sad strange individual who has probably been the inspiration for some of those forever alone comics.  Tonight, however, I admit to feeling a little weird sitting in Buffalo Wild Wings and having dinner by myself.  This is partly due to the fact that I’m visiting my parents and they both have something else to do.  In all fairness to them, however, my dad is farming and while I’m not exactly sure what my mom is doing, I have been here for almost two weeks, so I’m not exactly feeling neglected.  The real reason, as it turns out, stems from my reasoning behind choosing BWW as my dinner destination.  I have been trying to download an episode of “Bones” from iTunes for the last couple of days and I needed a solid Wi-Fi connection to get this done.  I feel this, more than anything, is what is causing me to think of myself in slightly sadder terms.  At least every other time I could have sited others being busy as to why I might enjoy some activity or another alone, but I think my addiction to TV shows might be getting a bit out of hand.  Really, I could have waited until I got back to my apartment tomorrow to finish downloading my episode, but I figured that would defeat the purpose of having bought the episode in the first place and also put me another week behind.  The real problem comes when I have to decide: Now that I have finished my meal, how long can I sit here typing as though I have something important I must finish while I’m really trying to hold out until the whole episode is downloaded.  I’ve left my waitress a very nice tip to compensate for the fact that I’m taking up her table for only God knows what she thinks I’m doing here.  So, at the very least I don’t feel horrible for her sake.  I suppose I shouldn’t care what some complete strangers might think of me tip-tap-typing away, but given my propensity for judging complete strangers, I suppose I know how cruel others can be when they know the object of their derision will never know how virulent they’ve been.  Mostly, I think I’m using the writing of this blog as an excuse to do that waiting.  Ok, I fully admit I don’t really care what those strangers are thinking of me.  Frankly, they’re never going to say it to my face, and if they did, I’d probably write it off as someone having too much to drink or that they are, in fact, a complete douche whose opinion matters about as much as rabbit poop.  Really, I guess what I should be wondering is how long I can type out inane nothings in this blog before I decide that another hour of watching the little blue bar on my download progress at the pace of a flash-frozen zombie really isn’t worth it.  Then again, now I’m wondering just how slow a flash-frozen zombie can shuffle along, so I suppose now I have to decide just how many people would keep reading if I begin to debate with myself the merits of living in an incredibly cold or incredibly hot environment if the zombie apocalypse really does occur.

No, no, I’ll restrain my innate ability to ramble and take the next logical step.  The only way to solve the problem of having strangers judge me as I sit here alone is to admit defeat and leave the restaurant.  However, I will not give up waiting for my episode to load.  The real irony of the situation is that I came to BWW for the Wi-Fi, and ended up using that of a nearby restaurant instead.  As it turns out, BWW has three options for Wi-Fi use, and none of them would work on my MacBook.  I will therefore post this (incredibly stupid) blog, leave BWW and wait in my car until the episode is done downloading.  The nice thing about this plan is that my car is closer to the neighboring restaurant, so my signal strength may improve, which will hopefully result in a faster download. 

With that, I bid all of those who stuck with me throughout my inane tirade a fond adieu.  For those of you who skipped to this last paragraph, you may go fornicate with yourself and be mauled by a rapid porcupine.

A Day of Farming

Today my dad woke me up at the ass crack of dawn to help him out at the farm. Usually when this happens, he asks me to drive him to one field or another so he can drive a tractor or some other piece of machinery back to the farm. To my utter dismay this was not to be the case today. That's right folks, my dad woke me up at 7 in the a.m., when I would have rather slept for another 4 or so hours, and expected me to work until almost sundown. I mean really, just because I'm spending my two weeks off from work at my parents' house, eating their food, and using their gas; does that mean I should be subjected to a full day of manual labor?
Yes?!
Well who asked you anyway?
Oh...right. Well, anyway, on with my tale. My friends usually make fun of me for being a farm girl who never really worked on the farm, so I sent them a picture as evidence that it does happen on occasion. Today I was responsible for running the Kabota (the brand name of a tractor company-all you really need to know is that it's a small tractor that I only learned how to drive for one summer several years ago). I got to lay down a line of tile (which is actually a kind of thick plastic tubing) from one side of the field to the other. That's a lot of bouncing around in my day.
I met a man named Frank who sometimes works for my dad. He told me that he needed to call his wife to bring him some water because otherwise his mouth would become "as dry as a popcorn fart." He then proceeded to tell me why he had a perpetual case of cotton mouth: "I had throat cancer and when they give me the radiation-the chemo-I got an awful case of dry mouth. Water works best but girl scout cookies and bacon can get it going too."
Imagine my surprise when this cancer survivor-who put in a hard day's work I might add-was lighting up later this morning. I swear by the end of the day he had gone through at least one pack. My dad told me later that Frank's philosophy on life was that, "We've all gotta die from something."
By the end of my impromptu work day I had driven back and forth across that field and to the farm and back several times. The biggest bit of excitement came when someone put the tile on the spool wrong and when we tried to put the whole thing on the other way, we had a clusterf*** of tile trying to unspool itself onto the ground. Three farmers, my cousin (a sometimes lineman) and me (a former theater manager). Were all trying to figure out how to fix things without making it worse. As it turned out, the whole thing looked like a film wrap to me. I tried to explain to my dad how I thought we could fix it, but he's a stubborn man (don't think I can't see some of you nodding your head and muttering to yourselves, "So that's where she gets it.") and he didn't want to listen to me. Eventually, after much cajoling, I got him to listen to my idea. I won't say it was the best, but it got the job done. Of course, one of the other guys added to it, but the main thing was that we got it figured out and got it done.
My day ended at 6:00 p.m. So I had an 11 hour day, 10 of which were spent actually working. While I thought I and my father deserved a good rest, he had a weekly ritual of shooing at clay targets that he did not want to miss. He convinced me to take up a shotgun and join him on at least a couple of runs. I shot 50 shells during two 25 shell practice rounds and hit a total of 20 targets. I haven't actually handled a firearm in almost ten years, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself :)
So, all in all, I have had a well rounded redneck day. Now, I'm so tired I think I really may pass out at any second, so I'm going to crash. Have a good night y'all ;)

A Short Story to End the World On

Hello!  I am sitting at home, bored and letting my mind wander.  This is, of course, dangerous territory for me.  However, I got to thinking about the end of the world, as I'm sure most of you are doing...what? You're not?  Well, let's change that, shall we?  Anyway, I was thinking about the Mayan calendar and how we're all heading towards the end in only a few short months.  To be fair to my own twisted mind, I feel I should at least say that the strangely warm weather we've been having here in Illinois has definitely pushed me to thinking more and more that we're not quite as safe from dire predictions as I once thought.  On Feb 2, it was in the 60s.  Around this time last year we had one of the worst snowstorms we've seen in quite awhile.  So, I decided to write about what I think will be the end of us.  I hope you all enjoy!!

               -----------------------------------------------------------------

Many thousands of years ago, there lived a young Mayan boy, whom we shall call Joe.  Now, Joe was fascinated with the night sky and would spend hours each night watching the stars.  Many of the stars already had names, but as Joe watched the sky night after night, week after week, month after month and year after year, he began to assign names to more of them.  He also began to notice that the stars followed a pattern that was repeated every year.  He also watched the moon travel across the heavens, periodically hiding its face from view.  And so, working from his observations, Joe began to calculate and create a calendar that could last into the eons.  For decades, Joe would write down the next few months and then chisel away at his round stone.  Joe only took enough time away from his project to go his wedding, which his parents arranged, and each night work diligently to get her with child.  However, he never took enough interest in his children, nor they in his work, to consider passing on his knowledge of the calendar.  So it was that when he was a very old man, at least in his fifties, his health began to rapidly decline and his sight, which had begun to fade from his years of staring at the symbols he had carved into the stone, finally left him.  Now, he was in a bit of a pickle.  He had finished his written calculations up until the winter solstice of the year we now call 2012, but there was no way to finish even this much.  So, he begged his oldest son, whom we’ll call Paul, to finish his project, at least insofar as his last calculations.  At first, Paul wanted to refuse, having a bad case of daddy issues and all, but his mother and wife made him reconsider.  This was, after all, his father’s last wish, and the gods would most likely be angry at Paul for disrespecting his elder more than they would be angry at Joe’s many, many years of neglect.  So, Paul relented and, over the course of many years, put the last few symbols on the stone.  There was plenty of room left for more years, but Paul didn’t know how to calculate them, and Joe had died, happy in the knowledge that his son would carry out his final wish.

And so, the millennia passed.  The knowledge of the calendar, what little there had been to begin with, was lost.  When the first person stumbled upon the calendar, he wasn’t exactly sure what it was.  Then, the Mayan’s written language was deciphered and someone realized it was a calendar.  When yet another person realized the last date on that calendar translated to December 21, 2012, he didn’t think much of it.  His research assistant, given to wild flights of fantasy, went a bit squiffy and determined for himself that this was a sign that the world would end on this particular date.  Although he knew he would be long dead when the calendar ran out, he still felt it was his mission to let everyone know that their descendents would have nothing but death to look forward to.  He was a particularly cheerful fellow, was he not?

Scientists, theologians, fiction novelists and scriptwriters, and people who are just plain off their rocker have bandied about many theories on how the world will end on this particular date.  Some would say, “They can’t all be right!”  But I ask, “Why not?”  It is my theory that the world will end as a direct result of Santa Claus.  I can see that you are confused, but that’s okay.  As it turns out, you aren’t aware of the real story of Santa Claus, but rather the crap you have been spoon-fed throughout your life.  Once again, not your fault, Santa has his hand in that, because misinformation is his bread and butter.  I, however, have seen past the candy cane façade and discovered the truth.  It was a dangerous mission, but I was up for the challenge. 

Santa Claus is actually an alien from the planet Elifan.  This is indeed why he is referred to as a “jolly old elf.”  But, more than that, he is a political refugee from that planet.  Thousands of years ago, he crashed at the North Pole.  He was accompanied by many of his most faithful servants and friends.  Santa is, in fact, a prince of his planet whose throne was taken by the evil—okay, I never actually learned his name, so I’m going to call him Steve.  Santa decided that since he was going to be stuck on our planet for the foreseeable future, and because he was pretty much immortal, he might as well stay busy, which is where the whole gift-giving thing came in. 

Anyway, this is what will happen:  Steve, having finally figured out where Santa is hiding, will descend upon the earth.  He will pick the 21^st of December for two reasons:

1-It’s a Friday, and given that he knows most Earthlings look forward to this day and he believes we’ve been hiding his foe for the last thousand-plus years, Steve believes this would be the best time to destroy our world.  Therefore ruining Friday for one and all.

2-It’s the Friday before Christmas.  Knowing that this is Santa’s big day, Steve will want to ruin that as well.  He figures—rightly so—that by Christmas day the world will be pretty well screwed.  Or, at the very least, upset by what happened on the weekend that not even people who celebrate Christmas would be looking forward to that day.

So, Steve flies his ship over the North Pole and Santa’s secret base and unleash all kinds of alien hell upon it.  (Don’t worry kiddies, Santa will escape—it’s kinda his shtick).  This bombardment will crack the polar ice caps, beginning the slow process of melting the ice as we have so long feared.  The governments of the world will try to figure out how to save as many people as possible, but let’s face it; they’ll mostly be worried about themselves and their family, so the rest of us are rather screwed.

In the midst of all this, there is a terrorist in eastern Fuckukistan who has decided that now is the perfect time to bomb the U.S. and get himself his 72 virgins.  No one will ever really know this guy’s name, so we will call him Bob.  Come on folks, we all know the end would come at the hands of a guy named Bob, we just never really voiced that opinion.  Any who, Bob will hijack the nearest plane strapped with sundry explosives and head for the middle of the U.S.  Now is not the time for big gestures, just maximum destruction.  As an Illinois resident, I figure this will be the part where most of my state will bow out of this little drama.  So from here on out, the rest of you are welcome to the crap that is about to really hit the fan.  Because Bob will not stop at merely strapping explosives to his chest—he will also pack a goodly amount of known and unknown pathogens, making himself a flying chemical bomb.  These chemicals will cause a small percentage of the leftover population to turn into raving mad, flesh hungry, death-proof creatures.  That’s right folks, I’m calling zombie apocalypse.  Of course, there will be at least one rich American who will try to escape by flying to Europe, but that’s just going to spread the chaos because there is always at least one infected individual waiting to ruin it for everyone else.  So, after aliens attack, the polar ice caps begin to melt and a terrorist bombs the crap out of the U.S., the final battle for human life will be between the living and the undead.

Meanwhile, Australia will be down there like “WTF, mate?”

THE END!!

                  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah, now don't you feel better?  No?  Oh well, at least I had fun ;)  For those of you who have not wasted their lives on the Internet, that last line was stolen from a flash video that came out when I was in high school.  Here's the link for those of you who have not yet experienced the awesome: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end

Well, that's all for now.  Have a good rest of the week!  Oh yeah, and COPYRIGHT.  So now if you steal any part of this I can hunt you down and feed you to those zombies Bob created :)

This is Why I Don't Make Resolutions

We are almost done with the first month of 2012, and I'm not doing a great job of keeping up with my resolutions.  I'm not exactly shocked by this, but it is a little disconcerting to know that even with the perception of people watching (that would be you, oh faithful readers i.e. my parents and sister), I am still not exactly motivated to keep on truckin'.  I suppose I should cut myself at least a little bit of slack and acknowledge that I was on vacation for at least part of this month, so a few of my resolutions weren't really possible.  I went to the Caribbean, by the way.  It was amazing, though surprisingly cold for the first couple of days.  I was very good and only bought a few souvenirs.  It was a cruise, so I was a little worried about getting seasick, but I ended up doing pretty well--though the boat did have its moments of trying to get me to toss my cookies.   Cruising was especially interesting because of the incident with the ship in Italy.  I've got to say it is certainly an interesting experience when your mother comes into your hotel room the day you're supposed to sail and says: "I've got good news and bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"
"Gimme the bad news."
"A ship in Italy ran into a sandbar and there are at least four dead."
Let me just say, I've forgotten what the good news was.  Luckily, our ship didn't encounter much besides some heavy waves, for which I am eternally grateful.

Now that I have been firmly sidetracked, I suppose I'll try to get back to my original point.  As it turns out, I am more than capable of distracting myself (case in point, detouring into a short description of my vacation).  At the moment I am ignoring my novel twice over.  First, I have started a second novel that has absolutely nothing to do with the original.  Second, I am writing this post.  And, I suppose I should add my second distraction - Words With Friends.  Damn you Scrabble knock-off for being so addictive!  No wonder Alec Baldwin got kicked off of that plane.

I choose to place the blame for my third distraction on the addictive quality of board games.  For the second, I fully blame my sister.  She taunted me (taunted I say!!) about being a hypocrite and only writing two blog entries when I promised I would write more.  See, sis, now I have five!  *Sigh*  That's not going to fly with anyone, is it?  Fine!  At least allow me to blame her for planting the idea in my head.  Otherwise I'll have to admit to even more character flaws and, really, a girl can only take so much self-deprecation.

As for my first distraction, I intend to blame my own over-active imagination.  While attending a conference for work, I got bored and began to write the first thing that popped into my head.  I will admit to just one more character flaw and say that I do tend to get bored easily, which is really how I started most of my writing projects.  That same tendency gets me into trouble, however, when I get bored with whatever project I happen to be working on.  So, I have decided that, as I have the next week off, I will get at least ten chapters out of this newest novel idea.  Then I can at least say I got distracted for a good reason.  Who knows, maybe I'll really get into this one and finish it.  Or I've just jinxed myself horribly and won't get beyond my last stopping point.  Either way, I'm sure I'll learn some kind of valuable life lesson.  That kind of maudlin stuff happens all the time...right?

Happy New Years!

I don't usually make New Years resolutions, but I've decided that 2012 will be a year of change for me, so it makes sense to write down some of the changes I want to make.  I would like to say I agonized for the many days I wasn't posting trying to come up with some of the best resolutions ever seen, but that would be lying and, really, what would be the point in that?  I did find it extremely difficult to come up with resolutions, however, because my mind has been filled with other thoughts.  I'm going on a trip soon, and my brain has been buzzing with all of the things I need to take with me and what I would like to do while I'm away.  I won't say when I'm going, mostly because my mother is paranoid (though not without good reason) about letting people know when she's not going to be home.  And yes, before you judge, I am going on this trip with my parents.  I'm one of those rare children who actually enjoys spending time with the people who spawned me.  Anyway, I digress--something with which I have a lot of practice.  On to my resolutions:

1)  To Finish My Novel--
I'm sure this first resolution comes at no shock to anyone; especially if you have actually read my blog before.  I am constantly frustrated with myself for not committing more time to this particular endeavor.  However, I am well aware of the fact that seeking out other activities, such as this blog, keep me from making that commitment.  The real point to this resolution is to finish my novel before 12-21-12.  It's not that I believe the world is actually in danger of ending; it's that I want to be able to say "See, now at least if the world had ended I could face St. Peter with a real accomplishment under my belt."  Sure, it would be nice to finish my novel and experience the same notoriety as J.K. Rowling, but so long as I finish it by next year, I figure I will have achieved something for myself.

2)  To Sell My Photography Online--
While I don't claim to be the next Ansel Adams, I do enjoy taking pictures of nature.  I've been told I'm pretty good, so I'm hoping to capitalize on that.  I've already posted a couple of products on zazzle.com, so I should, hopefully, get a couple of hits.  If not, then I can at least say I tried.  And, to start my shameless promotion, here's the website so you can all go and buy my crap :P  http://www.zazzle.com/moonstruckmotifs

3)  Learn to Cook--
This may not sound like a completely adventurous goal, but I've always regretted ignoring my mom when she asked if I wanted to help her cook meals.  Silly me, I was always more interested in the baked goods.  Now that I'm on my own, however, I find that my mom was correct when she said I would need to know how to cook someday.  Don't get me wrong, I can whip up a mean spaghetti, but past that and microwaving frozen dinners or canned soup, I'm pretty much worthless.  Luckily, I know enough to get by if someone tossed a recipe in front of me, but I wouldn't trust that meal as far as I could throw it.  I just need to learn to manage my time better (and there's a reason that's not a resolution, by the way) so I can cook these meals.

4)  Learn a New Language--
This is actually something I want to do most of the time anyway.  I always thought it would be incredibly cool to know multiple languages.  However, I only know English and some Spanish.  I've actually forgotten most of my Spanish skills because it's been so long since I've taken classes.  That and there isn't much call for speaking Spanish in my daily life.  It has come in handy though, so it makes me want to branch out into more languages.  Here are just a few that I wish to speak someday: Japanese, Mandarin (though I have actually taken a class for this, I've forgotten almost all of it), Russian, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Greek (this is mostly so I can no longer say "It's Greek to me"), Arabic (I'm aware there are several versions of this, I'm thinking whichever course I can find will work for me), and some kind of African dialect (mostly to say I know it).  I'm aware there are a lot of languages in this list, and even more left out.  Really, if it were at all possible, I would love to know every language and dialect and pidgin known to the world.

5)  To Finish the Things I Start--
For the first four resolutions, I gave those quite a bit of thought in the days between Christmas and New Years.  This one, however, occurred to me as I was writing this particular blog.  I actually started writing this about 24 hours ago, but I got distracted by my New Years plans.  The really sad thing about that is the fact that my plans consisted of watching two movies and getting out in time to ring in the new year with my friend, who was working (that lucky, lucky girl).  I then returned home to finish this, only to become distracted by movies at home.  I find that I am more than able to distract myself with the many bells and whistles of life...hence my trouble writing my novel, and now, finishing my blog.  However, this resolution also covers the fact that I have several unfinished projects that have nothing to do with writing lying about my apartment.  Add that to the fact that my living room looks like a tornado went through it and it all equals this fifth resolution.

That's all folks.  Sorry, you'll have to add Porky's stutter in for yourself, I'm not exactly sure how that would translate to the written word.  I admit that I have more resolutions than those five, but those are personal and I don't want this to get creepy ;)  So, now that I've finished, I'm thinking a movie.  Aren't you?  Sigh, fine, I'll work on my novel. 

I wish everyone a happy, prosperous, healthy and fun 2012.  See you at the pearly gates when the world ends in December :P