Day: June 14, 2018

Road Trips and Friendships

I love a road trip with the right people. I’m lucky enough to have the right people in my life.

On a recent journey, the driver had picked up several music CDs from the library. One of them was Awesome Mix Volume 1 from the Guardians of the Galaxy  movie. While singing along and chatting, we learned that one of our foursome had never seen the movie. We always watch movies in the evening, and had we known she’d never seen the movie, one of us would have packed it. Someone else had never seen the second movie.

OK. Double feature time.

Out came the cell phones. Two of us were checking availability at the Best Buys, Targets, Barnes & Nobles, and even Red Boxes in the various towns ahead of us. “Target in This Town has the second one.” “Best Buy in That Town has the first one…damn, it’s Blu Ray. Forget it.” “Oh! Maybe we can order it from Amazon and get free shipping.” Except the place we stay is in the woods and doesn’t have a delivery or mailing address.

We eventually tracked down the movie at a Wal-Mart near our final destination. The next day, the Driver made not one, but two trips to get both DVDs.

That night we laughed until our sides ached as we watched the movies back-to-back.

Recalling our on-the-road antics with the Internet still makes me smile. These are the very best kind of friends to have. Kind of like Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

 

#UpbeatAuthors: Next Step on the Ladder

I am currently in a strange state of waiting. Or maybe it’s a holding pattern.

I’m facing retirement from my day job within the next five to ten years. Hard to believe the time has come to start thinking about that, but there you have it. Another rung on the ladder of my life. I have taken steps–many–to make this happen comfortably. But I like my day job. I like my co-workers. So I’ll hold out until I’m truly ready to retire.  Or the job is no longer there. That happens, you know. I’ve survived vanishing jobs before. If it should happen again, I’m in better shape. I’m ready for that next rung.

One of my publishers just closed its doors. I had five titles with them. I want to self-publish those books.  Self-publishing is the next rung on my author career ladder. There are steps I need to take to make this happen. More treads to climb. But the outcome will be worth the effort. 

It’s a good feeling to have career plans in place, along with the knowledge that I’m flexible enough to handle whatever comes my way. Too bad the rest of life isn’t as secure.

I’m In the Wrong Body

I am a short woman. And, like the famous teapot, I am also stout. I’m built like a fireplug. A keg.

I purchase most of my clothes on line or from catalogs, for a variety of reasons (but that’s another blog post). But many plus-size catalogs are meant for Amazon women, not teapots.

My sense of style is more suited to C3PO‘s body type than to that of R2D2, which I more closely resemble.

Every article of clothing I absolutely love and adore is designed for tall people. Capes. Fabulous hats. Clothes that drape.

And few things are proportioned using common sense: The cuffs on the sleeves of the rain coat I purchased are at knee level. Just because I’m big around doesn’t give me gorilla arms.

Most plus-sized clothing designed for short women resembles furniture upholstery. Yes, I love going to Day Job dressed like granny’s favorite overstuffed chair. It’s a wonder no one has sat on me.

But then, what should a tea pot wear except a tea cozy?

Old-Fashioned Words

When my son was either in Kindergarten or first grade, his teacher told him to put on his rain coat. He asked, “Do you mean my slicker?”  His teacher explained to him that “slicker” was an old-fashioned word for rain coat.

I once referred to a meal my husband particularly likes as a “larder” meal. He said, “huh?” I said, “You know. Made from food I keep in the larder.” He had no idea what I meant. (A larder is a room or large cupboard for storing food.)

I recently used the word “wench” in my current work in progress. My critique partners suggested I change the word because it was more historical and the story I’m writing is set in the near future. But I like the word wench. And it means exactly what I wanted to convey in the passage. But my crit partners were right: the word is imprisoned by its past.

English is a marvelous language, fluid and adaptable. We add new words every year. But I sometimes wish we didn’t stop using many of the older ones.

A Book from Long Ago

I inherited my reading habit from my mom and my grandmother. I actually inherited my grandmother’s library when she passed. I can’t think of a single thing I wanted more.

My mom used to belong to a book club, so there were lots of hardcover books around. One, a favorite of us all, was For Time and All Eternity. (We used to reread books all the time. Books were expensive. Hard to come by.) Although the story was fiction, it took place in years leading up to, during, and after the US war on Mormon polygamy. The heroine was Mormon, and the tale is told from her point of view, sort of. Mom leant the book to someone, and that was the last any of us saw of it.

I searched for this book many times over the years. A few months ago, I finally located a used copy online for an extremely reasonable price. Of course I bought it.

First of all, I never realized it was written by a man. For some reason, this annoys me. The story is about a Mormon woman who loathes polygamy, but lives with it. How can a man possibly understand her emotions? But then, the writing style doesn’t contain a lot of emotion. The copyright is 1964, and writing styles have changed drastically since then.

The first couple of chapters of the book seriously irritated me because the women cackled, gobbled, screeched, and made other barnyard noises instead of conversing. Again, I blame the male author for the way he portrayed the women.

That said, I am truly enjoying getting to know these characters again; to read the story with the eyes of an adult instead of a young teenager. The historical aspect is also fascinating.

Have you ever revisited a book from your youth?