Category: Writing

Categories
"Other people" Writing

English major annoyances…

…I know I’m not alone in such things.

There’s this commercial on the radio right now. It begins with a woman’s voice:

“Saying the holidays are ‘a little stressful’ is like saying Kim [Kardashian] and Kris [Humphries] were ‘a match made in heaven.'”

Then crazy radio sound effects, then they tell you how you can win a trip to Disneyland which will alleviate some of your holiday stress and give you a much-needed vacation.

My major problem with this is that the two are not compared correctly. The implication is that saying the holidays are “a little stressful” is an understatement. But saying that Kim and Kris were a match made in heaven is not an understatement…it’s just flat-out wrong. (For anyone who doesn’t know – a) I’m jealous of you for avoiding this knowledge, and b) they were married for 72 days before filing for a divorce.)

I have heard this commercial a bunch of times – they’re pushing this Disney giveaway right now – and it’s getting annoying. One of the writers was asleep on the job. There are other ways to sneak in a Kardashian (or any pop culture) reference, if that’s your main goal.

Also, I’m jealous and want to win a Disney vacation.

Categories
Awesome Books Dreams Drew Family Friends Love Memoir Sentiment Theatre Work Writing

Thanksgiving

Categories
Awesome Memoir Religion Self improvement Sentiment Theatre Writing

How to Write a New Book for the Bible

Yesterday, Drew and I went to see How to Write a New Book for the Bible, by Bill Cain, at Berkeley Rep. I worked with Bill on two shows at Marin Theatre Company – Equivocation and 9 Circles. (Kent Nicholson, who directed How to Write a New Book…, also directed 9 Circles. Kent and Bill are great together – I think that this play wouldn’t have been as good under another director’s hand.) 

Bill was a very active part of both of MTC’s rehearsal processes, and consequently we spent a lot of time together. He is a very sweet and very quirky guy, and was always willing to talk to me about whatever – writing, theatre, etc – and after one conversation about self-editing, he showed me a draft copy of How to Write a New Book…, and the ridiculous amounts of notes he scribbles on every single page. I really liked working with him.

I don’t know what I was expecting from How to Write a New Book…, really – I knew the show was about the death of his mother and that it was highly autobiographical. Bill is a Jesuit priest, and religion is always a main character in his shows.

I’ve never seen a show at Berkeley Rep before. First of all, I loved the theatre – it was their thrust stage, which is a really interesting space. At about 5 minutes til curtain, the house manager (?) came in and announced the whole space, “Feel free to scoot inwards for a better seat,” and then Drew and I watched a bunch more people come in, and we decided that that announcement was the worst idea ever.

As for the show itself…it was about the death of his mother, and it was highly autobiographical. It created a lot of feelings in me. Feelings about writing, about religion, about family, about theatre, about God, about life, about being in rehearsal with Bill and hearing pieces of these anecdotes. I sort of loved the use of the small set, and the staging. The actors (2 playing themselves through the whole thing, and 2 playing multiple characters) were stellar.

There was a Bible passage that was repeated several times throughout the play – I’m not sure of the speaker or the location. But I believe it’s Peter or Paul, and it’s along the lines that “All things come together for the greater good.” (Uncle Pastor, help with this? Book of Acts, maybe?) In the play, Bill (the character – but also sort of the writer) repudiates this. I personally tend to think that all things do work together and work out – but I know that Bill would argue with me on that, and have lots of good examples and probably Bible verses to back it up. So I probably wouldn’t start that argument.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible is only playing through Nov 20th. I fully recommend it to anyone who can go in the next week.

We’ve seen a lot of theatre over the last 6 weeks. I probably walked out of this one with the most residual feelings at the end. Highest commendation?

Categories
Drew Nonfiction Work Writing

Don’t think of it as quitting

On Sunday afternoon, I sat down to finally start my Nanowrimo 2011.

For those who don’t know, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month – it’s November of every year and you can find more info here. Basically, you write 50,000 words in the month of November, and it’s a great bonding experience (if you can find someone else who’s doing it), and fun, and you feel so accomplished at the end.

But this year has just been kind of crazy. We were busy every evening last week, and then I was in Lodi for Liz’s wedding Friday and Saturday. And in the past years that I’ve done it (2003, 2006, 2010), I’ve written during the day, while at work – well, last year I was working backstage, so I did a lot of writing in the dark with a flashlight during the show – and right now, work is really busy so I can’t fall back on that.

So Sunday was the first day that I could begin this year’s novel. I had an idea for it and everything. I was ready.

But then I started writing…got through 500 words…just 7500 more to go to catch up with my projected word count for Nov 6th…and I thought, There are so many other things I want to be doing right now. Books to read and time to spend with Drew and I have to bake a cake tonight. And this weekend is our 2-year anniversary, and I want to be able to relax and have fun and not be feeling guilty the whole time that I’m not writing.

So I decided: not this year. Which is weird, because I haven’t actually ever quit once I’ve started. I feel weird about it. And like I have to defend my decision. But whatever.

There are some other word-related activities I want to get done this month:

  • Blog more often (I still have a Sleep No More blog post to write…right?).
  • Submit to the paper again. 
  • Work on that musical that Jonathan and I keep saying we’re going to write.

And if I do all that, I guess I don’t have to feel guilty about quitting Nanowrimo. So…I should get on that.

I mean, right after this game of Super Scrabble.

Categories
Books Drew Not awesome Writing

Where I criticize a published writer, but by what right?

So, this is the first time in 2011 that I went over 7 days without posting. It’s been busy here, y’all.

I’ve been reading, among other books, this book that I got at the Palo Alto Borders at like 90% off right before they closed. It’s a paperback thriller by an author that I have been reading for years. I have about half a dozen of his books that I adore, and have read over and over again. I would definitely admit to liking this author.

I bought this 90% off book because it’s from the early 90s (I like his late 80s-early 90s stuff the best), and I thought it sounded promising. But it’s like, in 1992, something weird happened in this guy’s head and everything just got super purple.

Here are a couple passages to make my point:

“When Redlow regained consciousness, his assorted pains were so bad, they took one hundred percent of his attention. He had a violent headache to which he could have testified with such feeling in a television commercial that they would have been forced to open new aspirin factories to meet the consumer response.” WTF.

“Later, on their way from the Haunted House to an attraction called Swamp Creature, they stopped at a stand sellling blocks of ice cream dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed nuts.” You mean an ice cream bar? Why not just say “ice cream bars”?

“Well, if she did cry, her treacherous sinuses would kick in, and the old snot-faucet would start gushing, whcih would surely make her even more appealing. He’d give up the idea of a leisurely drive, and head for home at such tremendous speed that he’d have to stand on the brakes a mile from the house to avoid shooting straight through the back of the garage.” Puuuuurple!

I mean, what is going on here? This doesn’t even feel like the same guy. Maybe someone else did this one for him? Or maybe, as Drew suggested, he had a word quota to meet? Despite all that, I’m still reading it eagerly and I have no idea what’s going to happen in the end, so that’s fun.

NaNoWriMo starts next week, and I am getting a little anxious. I knew that Oct 1 – Nov 15 was going to be a crazy busy time. I’m just glad that we’re nearing the end of it.

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Dreams Drew Friends Love Memoir Writing

To Megan and Dennis and Their Nuptials

Think of this as the toast I meant to write for Megan’s wedding, but then I double-checked the division of labor between me (the matron) and the maid of honor, and saw that she was meant to give a speech about Megan, and I was meant to give a speech about marriage.

I debated just writing a speech about whatever I wanted – after all, what bride even remembers anything from her own wedding? – but Drew was adament that I shouldn’t talk about myself AT ALL. No one wanted to listen to me ramble on about in-jokes and cliche platitudes.

So I listened to him, because he’s always right (right?), and I’m very happy with the way my 45-second toast ended up.

But think of this as the toast I would have written, if I didn’t have someone around to direct me straight (and tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk for 10 minutes).

Hi, I’m Syche, Megan’s matron of honor, and I want to talk about Facebook.

Megan and I were college roommates in our freshman year at UC Davis. This was actually before Facebook. We did have AIM though. I have a million great memories from the dorms: Riding our bikes to the Great Wall of China with our 2 guy friends for every single birthday or “special” dinner (we always got the same family meal). Hanging out with just the Christmas lights on. Trying to make cookies in the sparse dorm kitchen. A road trip to San Francisco. Megan’s taping up vocab words all over the walls (this was back when she was still an English major, before she abandoned me for a real career). The Merry Wives of Windsor. Biking to Baskin-Robbins to buy ice cream cakes for people’s birthdays. Megan’s weird butterfly chair, and the blanket with the stars all over it. How annoying it must have been for her when I insisted on completely changing the layout of my half of the room for every quarter.

We accomplished a lot without Facebook to distract us.

We sort of drifted apart for the next three years, and would only run into each other sometimes on campus and say hi. Then we graduated and I moved to New York and she started law school, and we really lost touch. At some point, we became Facebook friends though. And this is where it gets really romantic.

In late fall/early winter of 2008, I was moonlighting as a “room monitor” at an NYC theatre company near Union Square. “Room monitoring” basically meant unlocking the room, turning on the lights, and then reading or messing around on the internet while whatever outside group used the awesome rehearsal space, then turning off the lights and locking the room. I’m pretty sure one time, I actually took a nap. (Shh)

It was during one such shift that I was Facebook stalking Megan, and saw that she had written this huge FB note called “Musings of a Christian “No on 8″ Voter.” It was (is) super long, and I read the entire thing. She talked about people calling themselves Christians but doing un-Christian things, and how difficult it was for her that the people who raised her and with whom she had already aligned herself – were on the other side of the “Prop 8” debate. And she talked about how it was breaking her heart.

I couldn’t believe the things she was saying – they were so much like the things I thought, and so different from what I would have expected from my old roomie. I emailed her immediately telling her that I agreed, and talking some more about some different interpretations of those good old Bible passages.

She didn’t get back to me right away, but a few weeks later she emailed me a massive email (I have since gotten used to Megan’s massive emails!). From then on it was a downhill slide into one of the best friendships that I’ve ever had. She moved to New York that spring and we spent a glorious few months together until I moved back to California – walking and shopping and eating and talking and commiserating and drinking and cementing our friendship. And that brings me back to my main point, which is that we have Facebook (and, I suppose, Prop 8, in a weird way) to thank for all this.

It’s funny, because I believe – unless I am remembering this wrong – Facebook is the way Megan got in touch with Dennis in 2009, years after they interned together in DC, to ask if she could crash on his couch for a couple days – and then she just never left. So they also have Facebook to thank for this entire thing. And we all have Facebook to thank for the incredible wedding and party that they threw.

Megan, I adore you, and I hope you know that. Remember when we met Julia across the hall from us, and we both thought, “Um, it’s not fair that she’s super pretty AND super smart”?  Well, that’s you too – you’re brilliant and beautiful, and I am so happy that we’re friends. I was completely honored to stand next to you at your wedding. Love you!!

Ooh! This happens to be my 250th post ever! A very special post indeed!

Categories
Being a girl Dreams Sentiment Theatre Writing

gambling debt / running from

I found this in some stuff from college. My sophomore year, I think? I’m not sure what it is. Maybe some kind of half-dreamed idea for a play? I like that my handwriting hasn’t really changed though.

Categories
Awesome Endings Memoir Sentiment Technology Writing

My Relationship Status: “It’s Complicated” With “Technology”

I might hate CDs. I feel like they multiply, and they are everywhere in our apartment. But when do I play CDs? Occasionally, in the car. But why play a CD when I have all my music on my ipod? The CD in my car player right now is disc 1 of the PBS “Broadway – The American Musical” 5-disc series. It’s been there for months. I never listen to it. Not sure why I even picked disc 1 and stuck it in there. I should switch to a different one. (For a full listing of all the songs on each disc, click here.)

The down side of going through all your childhood stuff is that, if you’re a child of the same time period that I am, you have collected a lot of CDs. A lot of factory CDs, but also, a lot of CDs with unfamiliar handwriting – The Rocky Horror Show, or Poe’s Haunted, or even non-music CDs, like Mario’s Into The Woods Pics. It’s actually a relief when I flip a disc over and discover that it’s scratched beyond repair, and I can just toss it. Otherwise, I have to sit and think about whether I need a CD version of Poe’s Haunted, when I have the entire thing in digital form.

When I Google “recycled CDs,” I find this website telling me ways I can use old CDs for fun crafts. Here is an excerpt from that site:

Others have used old CDs to make disco balls, sun catchers, wreaths, mosaics, mobiles, party invitations and even bird treats — just coat the disc with peanut butter or bacon grease, dip it in bird seed, attach it to a tree with yarn and watch the birds flock to your yard.

Um, yuck. For some reason, the idea of using a CD for a bird feeder – covered in bacon grease, no less! – just grosses me out. What’s wrong with the good old-fashioned bird feeder, using a pine cone coated in peanut butter and seed?

Anyway. For now I’ve just been kind of stockpiling the CDs that I can’t bring myself to throw away, and chucking the ones that I can justify.

Future generations: You are so lucky (or, potentially, so unlucky in some way that I can’t even fathom) to have everything be digital. It’s so much easier, and you don’t constantly feel like you’re being wasteful. Although it makes me nervous to have everything just be floating around in cyberspace, I can usually tamp down the urge to print out everything and store it in a box for 12 years.

In a crossword puzzle yesterday, a clue was “a button on a cassette player” and the answer was “rewind.” Do you even know what that means, people who were born after 1995?? (A coworker suggested we call them “Generation Text.”)

PS. This is even crazier – I found this:


If I hadn’t already found the bound paper version of this Nanowrimo, that I had printed at Kinko’s back in 2003 (before it was Kinko’s/FedEx), the discovery of this floppy disk would have thrilled me, while also panicking me, as I have no idea where I could even put this thing.

As it is, I tossed it in the trash as well.

So long, past.

Categories
Beginnings Memoir Nonfiction Writing

Smartphone, Sweet Smartphone

I recently became the proud owner of a smartphone. Until that fateful day last week, I identified myself as a hardcore texter and an occasional phone conversationalist, but I didn’t have the luxury of Google-mapping my way out of being terribly lost, or being able to check the weather in any part of the world with a single swish of my finger (85 degrees and thunderstorms in New York!).

I’m one week into smartphone ownership, and I’m still deep in the honeymoon phase. That is to say, I like to have it on me at all times, in case someone asks how to say “grapefruit” in French (the answer: “pamplemousse,” although I can’t pronounce it), or someone needs a timer for a quick game of Charades.

Last weekend I used a Fandango gift card, purchased tickets online, and took my confirmation number to the box office. No cash involved; no printing of tickets. That is what I call: a miracle of the times. Super convenient. And yes, it’s fun to be that “linked in.”

One thing I haven’t yet conquered: my fear of taking this brand new, very-expensive-to-replace toy into the bathroom with me. I have heard a thousand stories of people dropping their iPhones and their Androids into the toilet. Why on earth would you take that risk, people? My phone stays on my desk, where it belongs, until I come back from the bathroom, hands clean, and resume playing Words with Friends. (Which, by the way, is completely addicting. I’m sychela. Feel free to start a game with me.)

I want to go on record as saying that I do also manage to accomplish work things on it: for instance, right now I’m involved in a big social networking push as part of my job, so it’s nice to be able to have Twitter and Facebook and “checking in” places at my fingertips…something I couldn’t do on my little old regular cell phone.

But – there’s always a but – but, at the same time, I worry about my newfound dependence on this. I hear of people importing their entire calendar into their phone, their contact lists, their lives. What happens if it disappears? The good folks in charge have provided us with a contingency plan if the phone happens to become lost or stolen: simply sign into your account online, lock the phone, leave a message asking for its safe return, or if all is lost, you can remotely wipe all your data and give up the thing for dead.

But what should happen if the entire world, grown reliant on our handheld devices that are really no more than grown-up GameBoys that can also make phone calls, was suddenly struck by some kind of disaster? Unrelated to phone ownership, I’ve been reading a lot of Young Adult, post-apocalyptic books lately, and they’re always finding themselves in situations with no electricity, or no connectivity, or worse.

For the time being I have to just keep crossing my fingers and praying that an EMP doesn’t explode over the United States. If it does, I assume I’ll have worse problems than not being able to download the latest Angry Birds app. In the meantime I’ll just enjoy this phone, which, by the way, takes better pictures than some of the cameras I have owned in my lifetime.

And there’s probably an app to locate the nearest Costco, so I can stock up on canned food, bottled water, and paper products, just in case.

7/1/11 in the Lake County Record-Bee, available here for a limited time!

Categories
Self improvement Writing

Post A Day May

Here’s what I’ve learned, from a month of blogging every day.

  • There is always something to talk about. (Even if it ends up being a private post for some reason.)
  • The more stuff you put out, the more likely that some of it will be good. (This is a lesson I am constantly relearning.)
  • Even if you’re not “promoting” yourself (via Facebook), updating more frequently will make people check more frequently. I noticed a major trend in my site stats, and I think it’s because instead of just waiting for me to post a link on Facebook, some people have started just checking in every day to see what’s up. I like that.

Hopefully I’ve trained these anonymous strangers to continue to check every day. Although if I’m not posting every day that probably won’t last very long. But you never know! There could be new updates at any moment! You’d better check a couple times a day, Anonymous.

Who knows, maybe I’ll update again later today…