Dumb it Down

Taysha pointed out that as far as the blog was concerned - I was still on Class 3 of Creative Writing.

Let's bring you up to speed then:

NON-FICTION/ESSAY:

Assignment 1: Pick an object out of the box and write what it leads you to write. I picked a Chinesy tassel thing and wrote about a diner in Chinatown in Boston. The goal was to give the teacher an idea of our style.

Assignment 2: Write a piece about an object of your choice that brings to mind a memory and try to use the object symbolically. Also try to play around with perspective. I wrote about a dog collar and putting my dog to sleep in 2nd Person.

Assignment 3: Write a description of a place using lots of descriptive adjectives and adverbs, invoking the senses, and as few "to be" verbs as possible. I wrote about my parent's backyard - describing it as a fantastic battlefield.

Essay Assignment 1: Write a 2000 word non-fiction essay of your choice involving memoir. There were several suggestions including writing about memories that aren't yours.. like your parents meeting... or something like that. Using quotes from my grandfather's journal I wrote an essay comparing my grandfather in his 20's to me in my 20's.

FICTION:

Assignment 4: Write a scene in which the weather is a force against two people or symbolic of the relationship between two people... generally - the weather affecting people in some way. I wrote about a gay couple living in a drought area... going through a sexual drought.

Assignment 5: Write a character description in a way that reveals the wants of a character and the forces or characters acting against them without stating it. I wrote a description of "Adam" told in the voice of "Lucifer" which serves to characteristically describe Lucifer and God.

WHICH IS WHERE WE ARE NOW (I don't know what number class it is anymore.)

So far the consensus is that I'm sometimes too vague and I'm getting the point that I should "dumb it down."

ALL of these pieces are still in a "workshop" draft - we're supposed to revise them all one last time for a final portfolio thingy later.

Excitable

Saturday Miriam came into the room and told me that she and Marci were planning on taking a walk to enjoy the nice day - did I want to come?

I looked at her confused thinking, "But its sunny out."

She saw my gloomy, cynical look and said, "You're coming! Get up!"

So the three of us walked to Starbucks (I squinted and furrowed the entire time). When we got there I ordered a Doppio Espresso con Panna (which is essentially a Starbucks "DoubleShot" but hot and not quite as sweet). Marci looked at my espresso and asked me, "Is that going to make you excited?"

"No, probably not."

"Is there anything that makes you excited?"

"I don't know."

So she looked to Miriam - "Miriam, does she get excited about anything??"

"No!"

So we spent the whole walk home trying to figure out if anything made me excited. (And by "excited" Marci meant something that makes one light up, act animatedly and smile.)

I came up with the following list of things that make me excited:

1) Talking about Disneyland (and other Disney parks)
2) Procurement of puppies

We concluded that the three of us needed to go to Disneyland because A) Marci claps and bounces and sings along with IT'S A SMALL WORLD and that should be fun to see AND B) Erin might get excited.

Payphone to 1-800-Cleo

So as T mentioned in her blog - we went to a psychic last Sunday. Carol (the psychic) told me, amongst other things, that I had a very long life-line and would likely live into my late 80's or 90's. This was BAD NEWS to me!! I'm supposed to die young!! This is my past-life pattern (determined by my several past-life regressions that I mostly did in high school with the assistance of a hypnotist on audio cassette) . (Strangely my mother brought this up the other day. After the psychic I took Marci over to meet Queen B. for the first time and I found them discussing it when I came back from the bathroom. Queen Barb is convinced that she bought the tapes for me. I was confused because I didn't even know she knew about the tapes! Hmmm... I suppose now I have to find them and lend them to her.)

ANYWAY... being the cynical-the-glass-is-not-only-half-empty-but-it-will-NEVER-be-full-again chick that I sometimes am... I've been thinking "Great! I'll live into 90 but I'll be crazy or homeless or in jail or stuck in a hospital with the nation battling over whether I can live or die!"

Poor Terri Schiavo! Can you belive the right-wingers or gonna vote MORE right-wing than Bush next time because of this... horrible news for us.

Yesterday I was getting my Smog Check at the new auto shop next to the mall and I got to browse in the Borders while I waited. I saw this book: http://www.sorryeverybody.com/
It was pretty funny...errr... or at least an interesting idea.

Dumb stupid!

After watching the strangely fulfilling Constantine movie with Marci last night... I returned home after my 10pm bedtime needing some dinner. I whipped up some Mac & Cheese with grilled and seasoned tuna and sat down in front of the telly to eat and watch something. The only thing on other than news was SPRING BREAK SHARK ATTACK and I figured... "Ahh what the hell! I have that whole morbid curiousity thing about it so I might as well check it out." SO I managed to catch the well-acted film right after Kathy Baker made some discovery about Mr. Bad Guy "chumming the reef" and the swarms of sharks were approaching.

Then they were there.... eating people in bikinis... panic ensued. But really... not enough panic people! A shark has just taken a chunk out of your gut - its not likely that you'll survive even though you've made it back to the beach. My favorite part was when the shark grabbed the kite-surfing guy out of the air!

I finished my Mac & Cheese by the commercial break and went to bed.

The eating before bed and the dumb stupid shark attack movie then caused me to have a disturbing dream about a child actor being interviewed on Jay Leno. Jay and the kid actor got into a pool of water with the Universal Studios jaws animatronic shark for some sort of bit. Then tragedy!! The kid got caught up in the workings and, ON LIVE TV, his head was pulled right off! Blood reddened the water and shot in the air. Mass confusion!

This woke me up somewhere in the middle of the night and the horrible image is still stuck in my head!