yawns

Dear Blog,

Imma let you finish. But Miss Mabel is too sleepy to stay up any longer. She's going to bed early.

[hands back microphone to computer]

[computer sits there in stunned silence]

Christmas Music Update: Don we now our gay apparel

* I bought the Tori Amos and am enjoying it. I think I like her original pieces better than the covers, but it's still early days.

* I only bought two Sting songs, because on the samples his voice sounds weird. Like someone put him on the wrong speed. He's allll sllllooooowwww. I only bought two songs, but they're good.
- The Burning Babe
-Soul Cake

* I bought three songs Sugarland Christmas songs, and they're all great.
- City of Silver Dreams
- Maybe Baby (New Year's Day)
- O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

I'm starting to like these Sugarlanders. I googled to see if the guy in the band is gay (after watching this ad), and discovered that--whether either of them is gay or not (or their third ex-member who used to roadie for the Indigo Girls)--they have a gay following. Coolio!

Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles is out and proud of her fans, no matter what their sexual orientation. When asked if she knows about her gay and lesbian fan base, the singer told ChicagoPride.com, "I've been aware even before Sugarland. I've actually performed at Gay Pride in Atlanta three times in my career. I've always had a large gay following, particularly in the lesbian community. I am grateful for that. To me, it means my music transcends categories. It also means that I'm a cute girl singing a rock song in an alto voice!"

Jennifer insists that she and singing partner Kristian Bush just set out to make music that "celebrates the human condition" -- no matter what age, race, sexual preference ... or hometown!

"I had a friend write me that our music was being played at Gay Pride in New York, which is a big compliment," she said. "In the biggest city in the country with the most culture and the most grit -- I love it." (article from here)

lovely

This is a beautiful blog. This artist reads "missed connections" ads in the paper, and then illustrates some of them. Absolutely lovely. You should pay a visit.

Monday, November 23, 2009
-m4w
You were wearing a green dress with white buttons. We made eye contact at least three times on the 6 train this morning. All of a sudden you gave a little smile, and looked down at your lap, as though at some secret joke. You never looked up again and I had to get off at Bleeker. I wish I could have seen inside your beautiful head.

Nano Lessons

There's a lot of chatter on the writing blogs I read when Nano rolls around--do you just end up with a bunch of crap? Is it actually useful? Etc. And now the blogs are asking: What did you learn this year from doing Nano?

The first year I did Nano I tried to create an actual complete story in 50 000 words. I didn't do that the next two times, because there are few books that are really that length--instead I write the first 50 000 words of a book and don't worry about getting to the end. I end up with something much more useful in the end--I end up with a dry run of my book.

The company I work for (like many) has a "pilot" period for any project it wants to roll out. I think they usually try the project in one or two stores first, and then roll it out to a larger group of pilot stores, and then roll in out in waves. And of course the point of being a pilot store is to find all the mistakes--because no matter how much you plan something out, there's no replacement for experience.

Nano is my pilot store. No matter how much I try to plot a book out, there are ideas I just can't come up with until I start writing. That's when I finally fill in the plotting holes, and try out my characters, and see who needs cutting, what scenes need revising, etc. For that reason I force myself to do zero editing on my Nano--it's a waste of time because the entire thing will get re-written.

So now I'm going to start up my "post-mortem" -- what worked, what didn't work, and how to fix. And hopefully I'll be ready for another draft in January or February.

Story of Me: In Memory

I just took a very short "Do you have ADD?" quiz, because I know someone who may have adult ADD and I'd like to learn more about it. This question made me laugh:


Because my foot was bouncing along to Sugarland as I was reading. And that happens even when there's no music on. (I also draw imaginary patterns with my feet.) Not saying this means I have ADD... I scored 27: "You appear to experiencing some type of attention and concentration problems which are often common amongst the general population, but border on the possibility of being more severe." There are a couple things on the list that are very me, and others that are very not me. But the ones that are Very Moi might help me understand this person I know better.

The main attention deficit I have is my poor short term memory. Someone will ask me for something at 4 in the afternoon, and I'll remember it at 3 AM. I've taken to carrying elastics around in my uniform pocket, and if someone asks me for something I put the elastic on my wrist til I do it. It works most of the time. I just wish I had a elastic with some code on it, so I could add a little info to the bracelet.


Something like this, but not for eating one's vegetables (though that's pretty clever.) It would have little symbols describing common requests I might forget: "Go to the cash office." "Edit the timesheet." "Call back Jane."

to the left to the left

I am loving this Sugarland live album. It includes a cover of my favourite Beyoncé song "Irreplaceable." It works well as a country song because it's full of country 'tude.

Keep talking that mess, that's fine
But could you walk and talk at the same time?
And it's my name that's on that Jag
So remove your bags let me call you a cab

Original


Sugarland

A Sesame Street Classic