Category Archives: Essays

Musings and personal thoughts on life, family, memories, and events.

Calvin & Hobbes – (Day 13)

finished

Today’s assignment is to write about a favorite comic strip.  Calvin and Hobbes has been my favorite for many many years, since my own son was about that age.  His sense of imagination, spirit of adventure, and stubborn attitude were my own boy spilled out in ink.  My son hated school.

bath time Calvin

My son had his own ideas about what to do with his time that usually did not include cleaning, bathing, or doing homework.  He also hated bedtime and loved to be outside.  I guess most of that is every little boy, but especially saw my boy in Calvin.

calvin3

My boy turns 20 this week.  I am having a hard time with the transition.

Fears…(Day 9)

Today’s assignment is to write down everything I’m afraid of:

my children or grandchildren dying, being able to support myself financially, having to move in with family if I lose my home, not existing after death, my husband leaving me, never making it as a writer, becoming debilitated by pain, getting fatter, losing the ability to orgasm, never being able to Salsa again, going to jail, spiraling into alcoholism, moving away from my family, losing my Mema, depression, my ex-husband, not being able to pay my taxes, being taken to court, house fires, dental work, giant machinery, traveling to dangerous countries, being alone in the dark in an unfamiliar place

Then I am supposed to strike through  each phrase with a pen as though slaying a dragon.  I’m not sure how to do that on this program, so I’m picturing it in my mind.

dragon slayer

Mix Tape – Day 4

mix tape

Today’s assignment is to create a mix tape for someone who doesn’t know me.

Side A – Honesty (Billy Joel), West End Girls (The Petshop Boys), Hungry Eyes (Eric Carmen), Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ (Michael Jackson), Footloose (Kenny Loggins), Sussudio (Phil Collins), Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears), Little Red Corvette (Prince)

Side B – Book of Love (Book of Love), Vogue (Madonna), Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve), Stand By Me (Prince Royce), Nature Boy (Nat King Cole), Fortress Around Your Heart (Sting), Save the Last Dance for me (Michael Buble), All You Need is Love (Beatles)

Barista Tip Jar Wars

This exercise is about maximizing tips by setting up rivalries that will get support from people.  I dance Salsa, so the only bar-type environment I’ve ever experienced is Salsa night.  Here are some rivalries that might get some people voting with their tips:

hunger gamess

On-1 Vs. On-2

Old School Vs. New Guys

Salseros Vs. Bachateros

Live Music Vs. DJ’s

tippinng for

I always tip well, even if all I get is a soda.  On each of these, I would put my money in On-1, Old School, Salseros, and DJ’s.

miley tips

Theft Welding

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.  The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.” – T.S. Eliot

I am at my WriteHers’ Group at Monkey Nest in Austin, TX.  My exercise for the night is to create captions for circles.

circle

  1.  Moon   moon
  2. Balance   yin yang2
  3. Absence   black hole
  4. Charlotte’s pupil      Charlotte's Eye
  5. Mistakes   paper
  6. Money    quarter
  7. Home    earth

“Art is Theft” – Pablo Picasso

Picasso Painting

The journal I’m reading highlights the artist’s way of looking at the world as though always “casing the joint”, finding inspiration everywhere, using ideas from unlikely places, and creating new art from all those great ingredients.

Today’s activities ask me to make 8 captions for a triangle.     triangle

  1. Recycle     recycle symbol
  2. Ancient Egypt    pyramid
  3. Mountain climbing  mountain climbing
  4. Black Diamond Ski Trail  black diamond
  5. Balance  balance
  6. Treasure  treasure pyramid
  7. Omniscience  all seeing eye
  8. Salt  ssalt

I’m not sure the real purpose of this exercise, except to maybe get the brain thinking a bit more globally, but there it is.  Tomorrow is circles.  By the way, I thought of the words, then went and found images for them afterwards.  I don’t think it would be cheating, though, to scroll through images for ideas, especially since this whole book is about stealing for artistic use.