Category Archives: Writing

Scorecard from 2017 Vision Statement

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Art, Music, Parenting, Travel, Writing, Yoga

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“Coastline”  watercolor on paper, 2012

I was able to get Quip to cooperate and found my 2017 Vision Statement. I had written it as an essay but found it easier to evaluate in spreadsheet form, so here’s how it went. I used color-coding to indicate whether or not I felt I met the goal, kinda met it, or missed:

Goals from 2017 Vision Statement Notes
Family
We took a fun family vacation together to Europe and a couple of long weekend trips to Carmel and Hawaii. Spent spring break in Oahu and did a summer trip to London and Venice. Didn’t make it to Carmel, though.
During the weeks they’re with me, I am able to leave the office in time to pick them up from school and we cook dinner together a couple of times a week. Getting handy with the InstaPot!
We welcomed a dog into our family. Got a cat – close enough!
I finally met the partner I’d hoped for and we are building a life together. He’s appreciative of all the thoughtful things I do for him, and he delights in and encourages my personal growth. Lots of dates but no serious prospects yet.
Friends
I’ve been able to finish furnishing and decorating my house and have hosted parties for my friends. Finally finished the built-in bookshelves and decorated the walls.
We did a get-away together and celebrated our friendship. Mexico fell through because of weather, but we “got away” to the east bay!
We went to several concerts together this summer RetroFutura concert, Green Day and Paula Cole
My friends helped me ring in my milestone birthday this year and I am grateful to have them in my life. Had an awesome birthday party thrown by my parents and my kids, with family and so many dear friends in attendance. #grateful
Community
I continued my involvement in veteran support groups. Advisor for VetsinTech, spoke at NPower graduation
Helped host a VetsinTech hackathon at Facebook.
I volunteered at both of my kids’ schools. Helped with the 8th grade graduation celebration.
Me
Painting: I set up my art studio and completed 20 paintings, enough to sign up for Open Studios in 2018. I  have posted my paintings to my art website, encautech.com, and have sold a few. I’ve begun talking with Facebook about doing an encaustic installation on one of the walls at work. Got my supplies in the garage but it’s a mess. Attended several workshops this year, but haven’t organized my own studio and made it functional yet.
Web Dev: I completed a web development course and was able to use what I learned to redesign encaustech.com, which I am now using to both exhibit and sell my artwork. This completely dropped. I was able to get back the url for encaustech.com and that’s now active again.
Writing: Speaking of blogs, I am regularly posting on rendipi.com and stretching my writing muscles. Wouldn’t consider posting 5x a year “regular.” 🙂
Writing: I finally completed the first draft of my first novel. Wrote a screenplay instead of a novel.
Music: I continued my guitar lessons and sang at an open mic night. Practiced guitar for a while but it fell off. No open mic nights yet, other than some karaoke.
Fitness: I got serious about yoga and am practicing at least 3X a week. In 2018, I will get my 200-hour teaching certificate and will start volunteering to teach yoga at the VA. Practicing yoga fairly regularly but need to carve out more time for it.
Travel: I enjoyed a solo vacation and visited some places I’ve never been to (Montreal, Vancouver, Prague, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Costa Rica are candidates) Visited Amsterdam and Barcelona. Loved both.

Tomorrow I’ll share my 2018 Vision Statement. There are lots of similarities – things I really wanted to get to this year but didn’t have time or other priorities occurred. And there are some new things! I’ll try to trim the list to something more manageable. Looking back, there was a lot here, and I didn’t even include my work goals.

Onward and upward!

Happy New Year, 2018

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Art, Fearless, Flying, Inspiration, love, Parenting, Writing

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fearless

As we often do at the end of a year, yesterday I reflected on my vision statement from 2017 and how much I was able to accomplish and what didn’t get done.

While I was able to achieve more things than I believe I would have if I hadn’t written a vision statement, it occurred to me that despite a shit-ton of therapy introspection over the past few years, I am still letting fear guide too much of my life.

I am still afraid of…

making bad decisions.
looking stupid.
hurting someone.
falling in love again.
hurting myself physically.
failing the people I love.
and probably several other things I haven’t listed. Blockchain technology, for example.

So, while I did write another vision statement for 2018 (which I will have to post separately because Quip is being uncooperative at the moment – shocker), I want to also commit to a guiding word for the year.

Over the past few years, I’ve used Explore, Stretch, Mindful, Forgive and Create. But for some unexplained reason, this year I feel I need to up-level the bad-assery of my inspirational word-of-the-year. Maybe it’s because I turned 50 a few months ago and so my mortality is more top-of-mind. Perhaps it’s because I find that the older I get, the fewer fucks I give about a LOT of stuff. Like my potty mouth, for example. During my years in the navy, my creativity in the fine usage of colorful metaphors approached artisanal mastery but has since degenerated to the point now where I can barely manage to drop an f-bomb when I need my teenage son to take.the.fucking.garbage.out.NOW.

But I digress.

For me, 2018 is about being FEARLESS.

  • It’s about stepping up for challenges at work that scare me, because I know I will figure shit out, somehow, and I’ll be supported by the best team I’ve ever had the honor of working with.
  • It’s about engaging more with friends, instead of using my INFJ-ness as an excuse to not comment on a post, or go to a party or take a stand on an issue.
  • It’s about encouraging myself to be vulnerable and open, hopeful that I will meet someone I can trust and find a partner whom I adore and who feels the same about me. Or maybe I won’t, and I’m okay with that. #dontsettle
  • It’s about getting back behind the stick of an airplane (a stick, not a goddamn yoke. Fuck that shit.) because I love flying and I miss having my head literally in the clouds.
  • It’s about continuing to loosen the grip on the two people I love the most, who are pulling slowly away from me (as they should) as they look toward that beacon of adulthood beckoning to them more brightly, while still supporting them and loving them every day. Even when they don’t take out the fucking trash.
  • It’s about sharing my writing, rather than worrying about what people will think, or how they’ll judge me. Ditto for my encaustic painting work.
  • It’s about getting stronger physically. After years of recovering from a fat childhood, I’m no longer afraid to own this. Sorry, Mom and Dad, this might be the year I take up pole dancing.

So there it is. My first fearless act is to share this publicly and ask you, my friends and family, to remind me that in exactly one year I’m going to have to answer up to myself about whether or not I followed through on being fearless. Hopefully you will at least have received an airplane ride out of it with me somewhere along the way.

Happy New Year, everyone! Except you, Fear. You can fuck off.

 

 

 

Choose wisely in 2017

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Inspiration, Writing

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I’m reading a book called Presence, by Amy Cuddy – a gift from my manager (thanks, Giselle!). I was inspired by reading about Cuddy’s discussion of power. I used to think of power in the same way I thought about sales…in a negative way. I felt that power was only sought by those who wanted it in order to dominate or take advantage of others. Her book helped me realize that what I used to think of as power is social power, but there’s an inner version, called personal power, that is about self-confidence. Personal power is limitless, unlike social power, which is gained at the expense of others.

If you think of power as being binary, then not feeling powerful means you feel powerless. Cuddy discusses how the feeling of powerlessness causes people to physically withdraw. She cites several studies about subjects who physically collapse into themselves when they don’t feel like they have any power, vs. powerful people, who stand tall, with their chins lifted and chests puffed out.

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I’ve had too many moments this past year of feeling powerless. I’ve felt socially withdrawn. I was often quieter than I should be at work and chalked it up to being new in my role. I know that powerlessness is not doing me any favors.

I’ve also had moments when I felt more powerful than I have ever felt before. I’m at a new company in a job that I absolutely love and that I’m great at. I love my team and they inspire me to be the best manager possible. My kids are healthy and happy. I bought a home all by myself thanks to years of working hard and saving money (and a fairy godmother of a real estate agent who found an awesome property off-market). I’m healthy. I am so fortunate and I fully appreciate that. Yet sometimes, I still let fear creep in. I don’t let it stay for long, and I am much better at recognizing it when it approaches. As much as I can, I choose to push past the fear.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about choices, especially the choices in how I live my life. Last month at work, I wrote a vision statement for 2017 to delineate what I want to accomplish over the next 12 months. It was helpful because it gave me a reality check about how much I can actually do in that time period, and I had to prioritize what was most important for me to accomplish in 2017. I’ve come to realize that I feel better and more productive, accomplished, etc. when I schedule my time and make a plan. And what better time to make a plan than on January 1st?

Many times last year, I’d think about getting up early and practicing yoga or going to the gym, but then I’d stay up too late, looking at social media or reading, and then when the alarm went off at 6am, it was too easy to hit snooze. This year, I’m going to get to bed by 10am so I have a little buffer for reading (but not online!) and I know (through months of sleep tracking) that I need 6.5-7.5 hours of sleep a night. So, if I can get to sleep by 10:30pm, I can get up at 5:30am and feel rested. My body naturally wakes early, often before my alarm goes off, so now I just need that impetus to get out of bed. I need to choose to get out of bed rather than going back to sleep. I will help myself make that choice by putting my alarm on the other side of my bedroom. 🙂

I feel motivated to get it right this year. I’m celebrating a milestone birthday and so I’m re-evaluating how I’m living my life.  I’m pretty happy overall, but I do feel like I could be doing more, especially more for others. Last year, I made too many excuses for myself, instead of realizing the power I have to make better choices. In 2017, I’m going to kick some vision statement ass.

Here’s what I’ll be writing on December 31, 2017:

Work
My team continued to have great impact. We ended the year with a new Help Center, where customers can go to easily get information about our products, find support and become more successful. Our new support experience has been recognized externally and the team has been invited to speak at industry conferences.
We deflected a record number of cases from 1:1 teams and are considered a strong partner to our sales and support teams. We’ve delivered many insights to our product and marketing partners, who also view us as a valuable feedback mechanism, and we’re included in more upstream conversations. The team is happy and feeling fulfilled.
I am leading leadership development training for women at our company and continue to coach co-workers.
I am considered a leader in our company and a valued contributor to my org’s leadership team.
I visited our remote teams once a quarter to help them feel supported and connected.

Family
My kids are now both teenagers! We took a fun family vacation together to Europe and a couple of long weekend trips to Carmel and Hawaii. During the weeks they’re with me, I am able to leave the office in time to pick them up from school and we cook dinner together a couple of times a week.
We welcomed a dog into our family.
I finally met the partner I’d hoped for and we are building a life together. He’s appreciative of all the thoughtful things I do for him, and he delights in and encourages my personal growth.

Friends
I’ve been able to finish furnishing and decorating my house and have hosted get-togethers for my friends.
We did a get-away together trip and celebrated our friendship. And of course, we went to several concerts together this summer. My friends helped me ring in my milestone birthday this year and I am grateful to have them in my life.

Community
I continued my involvement in veteran support groups and helped host a VetsinTech hackathon at my company.
I volunteered at my kids’ schools.

Me
I continued my hobbies in 2017 but stretched myself a little more this year.
Painting: I set up my art studio and completed 20 paintings, enough to sign up for Open Studios in 2018. I have posted my paintings to my art website, encaustech.com, and have sold a few. I’ve begun talking with my company about doing an encaustic installation on one of the walls at work.
Design: I completed a web development course and was able to use what I learned to redesign encaustech.com, which I am now using to both exhibit and sell my artwork.
Writing: Speaking of blogs, I am regularly posting on rendipi.com and stretching my writing muscles. I signed up for the 500words a day challenge and I finally completed the first draft of my first novel.
Music: I continued my guitar lessons and sang at an open mic night.
Fitness: I got serious about yoga and am practicing at least 3X a week. In 2018, I will get my 200-hour teaching certificate and will start volunteering to teach yoga at the VA (both are stretch goals for 2017).
Travel: I enjoyed a solo vacation and visited some places I’ve never been to (Montreal, Vancouver, Prague, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Costa Rica are candidates)
Half-year bonus goal: If I’m progressing well on my vision statement by the end of June, I will get current in a Cessna 172 so I can take my kids and friends flying.

Writing Habit, Week 3

15 Friday May 2015

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This was a tough week at work, so I only managed to write two pieces, neither of which I’m thrilled with, but it’s better than nothing.

Day Eleven: Write a defining moment from childhood. I used this prompt to write for my novel.

Something was up. Mr. Pellett was not his normal effervescent self as we walked into the classroom. I had seen his temper flare before, but had never seen him sad. Or, “off.” He was sitting at his desk, looking down at the Honolulu Advertiser, maybe working on the crossword puzzle? But he did not look up once or greet us as we entered.

Some girls were deep into the conversations that had started by the lockers about the latest drama from the weekend’s school dance, and didn’t immediately notice his subdued demeanor, but I did. Moving around had taught me to be a keen observer of human behavior. It enabled me to adapt the local norms and fit in faster.

As we took our seats, I noticed the A/V cart at the front of the room, and understood that today would not be one of Mr. Pellett’s fine performances. He had brought in a recorded understudy. I pulled out my notebook and a pen and listened to the transition in the room, as my fellow students started quieting down, noticing his unusually calm demeanor. The discussions tapered off and we all sat in silence, pens at the ready, wondering what the hell was wrong with Mr. Pellett.

“We’re going to do something a little different today,” he said softly, never looking up from the paper. “Katherine, please play the tape.”

I rose from my seat, wondering if there was some teaching trick behind this, but he continued to look down at his paper as I pressed the play button on the VHS player.  I noticed the tape case: “Hamlet.” Ugh, I thought. I wasn’t sure what we had done to piss off Mr. Pellett last week that he would still be mad enough at us today to make us watch Shakespeare, and I started replaying last Friday’s class in my mind as the actor on the television started talking. I took my seat.

The actor (I assumed it was the name on the case, Derek Jacobi. I had no idea who he was) walked slowly, clearly thinking about something. He began the famous, “To be, or not to be” soliloquy that I had read for class and had heard of, but had never seen performed. Why would I watch Shakespeare when it was much more entertaining to watch Magnum PI? Plus, there were real life lessons from Magnum.

This was different, though. This was acting like I had never seen acting. This wasn’t recitation, like the way I had read Shakespeare in my mind; Mr. Jacobi was Hamlet. I could feel his struggle as he considered the pros and cons of life. I recognized the lines from the soliloquy, yet had never imagined they could be delivered with such authenticity and passion. I was entranced. He made it real. I finally understood all the fuss about Shakespeare. And then it hit me…the school plays I had been in, how I always wanted to read the parts with the most lines in class (I would quickly skim and see which name was mentioned most in a script), the way I could quickly pick up accents and behaviors from moving around so much…I was meant to be an actress. I had found my calling.

Day Twelve and Thirteen: nope.

Day Fourteen:Edible Memories  Write about a memory inspired by something you ate or cooked, good or bad.

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We fell in love over coffee.

I’d walk briskly from my car, through the cold, crisp morning air and open the double door to the coffeehouse, inhaling the wall of warm air that enveloped me in the heavy, sweet smells of roasting coffee. The deep red colors of the walls inspired passion, for both coffee and the handsome gentleman waiting for me at the counter, eyes smiling as soon as he caught sight of me through the window, emerging from my car.

We’d order our drinks together… a latté for me, a cappuccino for him (that he’d always pronounce “Cup”ooccino) and wait, standing next to each other, unable to separate ourselves from each other, always some part of our bodies touching as I’d lean in to him, breathing in his scent mixed with the rich coffee scent of espresso.

We’d sit so close I was almost in his lap, touching legs under the table, rubbing our feet together. When my hands weren’t surrounded by his, they’d gently warm themselves on the sides of my hot latté as the bitter, chocolaty aroma floated up to my nostrils and I closed my eyes and savored the scent and the warmth of his foot, caressing my calf. I’d take a sip of the bittersweet elixir, topped with chocolate sprinkles (his magic touch) and smile as the warm rich liquid flowed over my tongue and down my throat, intensifying the heat that my lover had ignited within. I’d yearn to taste the coffee on his lips, and we’d allow our magnetism to draw our heads together and touch our lips together, gently exploring the taste of coffee on each other’s tongue.

Sadly, the passion of our coffee encounters wasn’t enough to sustain our love outside the walls of the coffeehouse and we drifted apart, but that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying a daily cup of joe and thinking back every now and then to those mornings of soft kisses and deep conversations. One inhale of those rich, spicy beans from our favorite coffeehouse, and I am transported back to that time of anticipation, pleasure and love.

Day Fifteen: What if no.

Hope to re-motivate next week.

Writing Habit, Week 2

11 Monday May 2015

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Day Six: Using a tabloid headline for a prompt. This was a fun exercise, as we were encouraged to try poetry.

Alien Bible Found, They Worship Oprah

Here on planet KNBC we wondered if we were alone.
We sent multiple probes into outer space, searching for extraterrestrial life.
We need search no more,
For we have found proof of intelligent life, in the form of a lone bible, floating in space.
Our scientists and linguists examined the tome and here is what we know:
The inhabitants of planet Earth worship a being named Oprah.
Who can shape-shift from thin to fat.
She gives cars to the poor and wealthy, important people seek an audience with her.
Millions listen to her every day and make pilgrimages to Chicago to see her in person.
They shriek and cry when she touches them. One man jumped up and down on a couch.
If you would like to hear more about this incredible discovery,
Make sure to tune in at 3pm today to The Jesus Show.

Day Seven: More poetry, this time inspired by an amazing poem, “Bringing My Son To The Police Station To Be Fingerprinted,” by Shoshauna Shy. The goal is to write a poem where the title says everything, and the content of the poem seems to be totally unrelated except for one line pointing back to the title.

Being Bulimic

The chewy caramel mixed with crispy rice
And covered in fudge delights my tongue.
I switch to an oatmeal creme pie,
Soft, chewy cookies surrounding
A smooth, sweet layer of pleasure.
I crave more crunch so I begin eating
Wafer bars layered with peanut butter
And smothered with more fudge, of course.
I dislike the dark color
When it comes back up as amorphous sludge
But for now, it’s the icing on my heaven.

Day Eight: “Playing against expectations”: We watched this video and then were asked to write a character based on it.

Smash and stroll

Everyone in Rockport knew of Sylvia James.
The tall, lithesome beauty with cornsilk hair and
Lagoon eyes that would seize young men, who would do
Anything. To. Have. Her.
But she wouldn’t have them. Not for long, anyway.
She’d dote on one, stroke his arm, spend a few weeks at his side,
And right when everyone was thinking how lucky he was
To have attracted such beauty,
She’d drop out of sight, and reappear on the arm of another,
Leaving a trail of broken hearts, lined up at the local watering hole,
Wondering how they’d fallen short. Spilling their souls to the grizzled woman tending bar
Who’d pour another drink for them and think,
“Eat it up, Sylvia. While you can.”

Day Nine: no writing

Day Ten: Animals as inspirations, specifically, “Animals,” by Miller Williams. Think back to when things were different. There was an animal then. Use that animal, perhaps a pet, perhaps not, guide you back in time and shape your free write.

You were always so good with dogs,
because you liked control.
We had two labrador retrievers then.
Labs were your favorite.
You appreciated their devotion and willingness to endlessly
chase after the balls you threw for them.

I began to depend on their unconditional love,
their big brown eyes fixed on mine,
stroking their velvet ears as they listened so intently to what I had to say
when you wouldn’t.

Your dog died first.
Six months later, we had to put mine to sleep, and we chose to do so in our living room.
You held his head in your lap, stroking his soft, grey muzzle as I sheepishly pet his back, dumbfounded in grief and not realizing
you had stolen my last chance to comfort him as we sent him on his final chase.

That was the beginning of our end.

8 things I noticed this morning before 8am

07 Monday Jan 2013

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1. Upon waking, the amazing way the morning light in the corners of my bedroom casts itself in different shades of beige and gold and begs to be painted.

2. How quiet my house is in contrast to the school mornings when my kids are with me.

3. On my walk to get my morning coffee, how the sky and clouds look like they were painted in watercolors.

4. The sparse berries left on the trees by the train station signal that we are definitely in the middle of winter, even though the few berries that are left are bright pink.

5. I don’t notice the train noise anymore.

6. I wanted to pick up a penny I spotted in a crosswalk, but there was a big truck coming and  even though he had the stop sign, I didn’t think tempting fate for a penny was worth it.

7. I had a 3-minute internal debate while in line about what coffee I should order this morning. The Vanilla Spice sounds really good but I need to lose the five pounds I gained over the holidays (thanks, Mom!). I should probably get a tall nonfat latté but I feel like kicking off my year with a little something extra. What to get, what to get…

8. I am excited for 2013. I am looking forward to the adventures that await me this year. I know they will make me stronger, just as last year’s did.

I love that this morning I felt the urge to write and I have the time to do so.

I ended up ordering a grandé peppermint latté. And I am savoring it.

I’ve been writing…I promise

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

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Wow, I just realized that I haven’t posted for a month. Yikes.

I have been writing for a screenplay class I’m taking at Stanford. I was really motivated after the first class last week, and I’m finalizing which idea I’m going to move forward with.

I also spent a week in Hawaii on vacation, which was wonderful. I did some research for my book while I was there, but now I feel like it’s time to get to work…with “work” being: writing more, learning to code, exploring my ideas for my own business, and deciding what to do next year.

Saint Francis

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

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More writing for my book. This is based on the first day the main character sees the school she’ll be attending in Hawaii.

I was dying to see my new school, and it would still be a couple of weeks before classes began, so once our car arrived from Virginia, we decided to do some island exploring, including an informal tour of our schools. We drove around the outskirts of the University of Hawaii, up towards the mountains, following the road as it became narrower and windier. The turn onto Manoa Road was marked by a large, white house covered in moss and ivy that looked like something out of a horror movie, set in the old south. My mother turned right as I continued to gaze at the large house, fascinated by its gothic presence. The road was not wide, and because of all the cars parked along the right side, drivers had to dart in and out to make enough room for two cars to pass each other. A Pinto shimmied through the narrow lane and the driver flashed us a “shaka” sign as she drove past, her window rolled all the way down. At the end of road, before it made a sharp left, there was a low wall that marked the entrance to the school. Behind it was a massive hill trying to be a mountain and I quickly realized that the nuns who had founded Saint Francis School for Girls had chosen this spot well to keep their young, virginal novitiates secluded from the rest of society.

My mother parked our station wagon and we walked up to the front entrance, marked by a life-sized statue of Saint Francis. One arm was extended out with his palm held up to the sky, as if to provide a small perch for a bird. Three desiccated leis hung around his neck. We continued up the stairs and could see a large courtyard that served as the center of the school. Two stories of classrooms surrounded the courtyard, and there appeared to be a large auditorium in the far right corner, where there were no windows. The courtyard had a one large tree in the middle, and sloped up toward the rear classrooms. All of the classrooms opened into this courtyard, which made the center of the school feel slightly vulnerable. Won’t we get wet when it rains?  My public high school in Virginia had been easily ten times as big as this place. Plus, it was only a year old and had boys. This school looked like it had been established not long after the missionaries had shown up on the islands. The nearest brother school was a 30 minute drive away. My parents had signed me up for a school with no modern amenities or men.

We walked from the courtyard to the right, through a hallway that led to another row of classrooms, with lockers outside. I had to admit, there was something peaceful about the school, mostly due to its hidden-away location, but also because of the tii leaves and flowers that grew abundantly throughout the campus…no, it was too small to call it a campus.

Another excerpt from the book I am writing

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

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One of my sabbatical goals is to write a novel based on my experience of attending high school in Hawaii. Here’s another excerpt (the first one I shared is here). I’m thinking about switching the narrative to first-person, so I’ve experimented with that today.

The military paid for 30 days of temporary lodging, so all 5 of us crammed into a hotel room with two queen beds and a pull-away, to await the arrival of our household goods. My two brothers shared a queen bed and, as, the only female child, I enjoyed the luxury of the sleeping on the pull-away. We spent the days on the beach and at night enjoyed the occasional treat of an in-room movie. Every day, my mother would call the phone number to ask if our stuff had yet arrived to the island only to be told, no word yet. After about a week of listening to, “Ok, thank you.” We heard, “Oh, wonderful! Thank you very much.” And we knew our things had arrived. It was time to move in.

The excitement of seeing our new home quickly dissipated when we visited military quarters and found that the house was full of mold and literally leaning to one side, as if after years on the island, it had adopted the relaxed, Hawaiian attitude of “Shaka-brah.” My mother refused to accept the quarters, so we were referred to the housing office at Camp Smith and the lady who staffed the desk helped us find a 4BR/3BA house in Hawaii Kai, on the south eastern tip of the island.  Walking in the front door was better (this house seemed to be straight) but we were greeted with orange shag carpet. It was a four-bedroom, one story house, about half the size of our home in Virginia and many years older. My parents had warned me and my brothers that the real estate in Hawaii was much more expensive than in Virginia and we would have to live in a smaller home, but I was unprepared for how small and intimate this house felt. At least my room felt somewhat private, as it was close to the garage and had its own bathroom. My brothers would have to share a bathroom, and my parents had their own bathroom within their master “suite,” meaning, it was open within their room, but at least the toilet was in a small closet-sized room with a door. As we toured the house, we chose our rooms like we always had…parents got the master bedroom, then I got to choose a room, then my middle brother, and then the youngest. Age had its privileges. I asked for the master bedroom even though I knew my parents would say no, but it was fun to be slightly annoying to them. I knew as soon as we walked through the house which room would be mine. I was curious, though, as to which room my brother Matthew would choose. His two options were 1) a room that was small but private, on the opposite side of the house from her, barely big enough to fit a twin bed and a dresser; and 2) the room that perhaps had served as an office and was in the strangest of locations. It was in the center of the house, between my room and the small bedroom. From the small bedroom side, one entered this pseudo-room through a door, but on the side where my room was, there were closet doors so you could push them to the sides and the room felt completely open. It was the larger of the two bedroom choices, so Matthew chose it, but for a moment I thought he might opt for the privacy of the smallest room.

Once room assignments had been decided, we each spent a few minutes visually placing our furniture in our rooms in preparation for the arrival of our physical goods. Then we quickly transitioned to exploring the house while there was still plenty of room to move about and open and shut doors. The big disappointment was the backyard. It was small with no grass, only tree roots and few flat areas for me to practice cheerleading.

To save money, we moved out of the hotel and into the house, sleeping on borrowed futons. I had never heard of a futon. I liked how the lady at the housing office who loaned the 5 futons to them pronounced it like a foreign word, fu-TAWN instead of FOO-tawn, which is how my parents had pronounced it. We moved in to the rental home two days before our household goods delivery date, which gave us enough time to fumigate the house after waking up the first morning with multiple flea bites. “It was supposed to be a no-pet house!” shrieked the real estate agent when my mother called to complain. “They (the former tenants) must have been hiding a small dog there whenever I came to visit.” The house had been vacant for four months, and apparently the fleas were ravenous by the time my family had arrived and set ourselves down on the fuTAWNs, like a 5-course bufFAY.

I loved move-in days. They were like a homecoming and Christmas wrapped into one.  I would get a glimpse of my mother’s leadership skills and organizational power, as she planned out where the various pieces of furniture would be placed and kindly managed the movers as they carried the boxes into the front door. This time, I was old enough to be put in charge of reviewing the boxes as they entered. My mother handed over three pages of numbers that corresponded to the stickers that had been placed on the boxes by the movers in Virginia. I quickly scanned the inventory and found my things, boxes 289 – 304, including items like #291 – “Girl’s bike” and #297 – “Girl’s Dresser” and the mysterious 300 – “Box – Books,” which was the default description the movers would write on a box when they didn’t want to get into details (my mother whispered out of the side of her mouth that it was better for security reasons to not say too much about the contents, lest thieves quickly pick out which boxes had the best contents for plucking in the storage units in between destinations).

The movers grunted out the number as they walked in, but I started playing a game of trying to find the number before they could vocalize it. As they rounded the corner, I quickly scanned the box, found the tag, and noted the number before they could say it. Then it was like a premonition-come-true when the mover would utter that exact number. Best were the pieces of large furniture, wrapped in brown moving paper, as I would place a private wager that this sofa was #123 – Living room sofa, blue rather than #267 Family room sofa, brown. I checked off the appropriate box on my sheets of paper and pointed the movers to the correct room. I relished the authority.

Making Something Ugly

09 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by in 15 Habits, Fiction, Writing

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[This was originally a draft post from the 15 Habits of Great Writers series that I never posted. I’ve added to it in order to check off my “write 500 words every day” goal. (I needed a little assistance because I am limited on time and inspiration this morning…I’m taking the kids to Monterey Bay Aquarium) ]

Day 7: Start something that you know will be difficult and thus have been avoiding. Doesn’t matter if it’s ugly, as all art starts out ugly before the artist finds the beauty in it.

I’ve always liked to think about what the world would be like if gender roles were reversed. What if long ago, there had been some event that established a maternalistic society? How differently would society have evolved? Or would it be more interesting from a creative writing perspective to just take the current world and flip gender roles in order to highlight the inequalities? I thought about this idea again while watching the movie Magic Mike last week. It was an odd blend of male stripping/dancing and character drama (thank you, Steven Soderbergh). I can’t help but think that if this had been a movie about a woman stripping and dancing in order to make money so she can pursue her real dream of “respectable” artistic work…oh, wait, that was Flashdance.  Anyway, this (ugly) piece of creative writing comes from that idea of a world ruled by woman:

I am tired of living this boring life, he thought, as he lifted the dining room chair and deftly manuevered the vacuum cleaner, sucking up the leftover flakes of the croissants he had baked for Jacinda. He found some fulfillment in managing their home and in his daily trips to the local Manifestival arena (Just last week he defeated Artemisas in wrestling. Jacinda seemed proud and pleased that her husband had established himself as the one of the strongest men in their town) but he felt something was missing. Why should the women be allowed to work outside the home and travel for business and earn their own paychecks, but not men? He had always loved doing the crossword puzzles in the newspaper and enjoyed writing letters for correspondence…he had once written a short story in school that had earned him high marks and he had been elated until the teacher remarked that it’s too bad that men don’t work in the arts., he would likely have been a good writer. Best to stick to mens’ work, using his natural strength. History had shown that women were smarter and better able to manage complex projects and large groups of people. Leave the easier work, like domestic engineering, to the men. He set the vacuum cleaner down and thought of the essay he had submitted to their city newspaper’s non-fiction contest, using his initials so the editor might assume it was a woman writing. The deadline was last week and he constantly checked his mailbox for some sort of notification. His daydream was interrupted by the sharp shrill ring of their kitchen phone.