Here is Chapter Seventeen…

Chapter Word Count: 3831

Monthly Word Count: 27,015

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Here is Chapter Sixteen…

Chapter Word Count: 3640

Monthly Word Count: 23,184

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Here is Chapter Fifteen…

Chapter Word Count: 4109

Monthly Word Count: 19,544

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Here is Chapter Fourteen…

Chapter Word Count: 2748

Monthly Word Count: 15,435

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Yesterday, I was feeling hopeless. I felt like it was too much to do in a month. I told myself that I started four days late and I missed out on all that time. I told myself that I was feeling tired and that this deadline that I have set is self-imposed. I was feeling like failure was inevitable. When I was typing my personal journal pages, trying to get myself out of this funk, I wrote the words, “Who is the patron saint of writers?”

Thirty seconds later, I found the list of the many patron saints for writers, but the only woman was St. Lucia of Syracuse. I’ve talked about the strange idolatry and pagan basis that attracts me with the saints in the past. As I looked at the picture of St. Lucia, I told her, “Help me through this month and I will donate 20 hours of my time to you.” She is also the patron saint of eye afflictions (her eyes were plucked out during torture, but her eyesight was restored before her martyrdom). I didn’t know what I would do for her, but I was willing to do some charity work in exchange for the strength and determination needed to write 50,000 words in a month.

I printed the picture of her to place by my computer (with Buddha and St. Jude). As I laminated the picture (I’m a messy girl), he walked up to me. He’s a technician who knows as much as an engineer, but he doesn’t get the benefit of it. He lives the life of the devout Mormon man, which runs so very contrary to my atheist beliefs. We’re not the best of friends. We are certainly not the sort to exchange music. Yet he walked up to me with a CD.

“Do you listen to Acoustic Alchemy?” I was very confused. “Is it a radio show?” “No. It’s a band.” I’ve never heard of them. “Are they an LDS band?” “No. They’re smooth jazz. If you like Blue Man Group, you might like them.” He handled his CD awkwardly. I could tell this conversation wasn’t going as well as he expected. “I love the Blue Man Group.” I hold out my hand. The CD reads Acoustic Alchemy MP3s. “That’s all of their albums except a couple. I thought you’d like it. You can keep the CD.” I am sincerely grateful for the gift. “Thank you. I’ll put it on my computer right now. Thank you very much.”

I was still very confused. I had no idea why this man who rarely has any words for me suddenly showed up with music for me. I love music, but I really wouldn’t think he’d know it. I put the CD and transfer it to my hard drive. I read the items into MusicMatch and tell myself that it is a sign. I needed some mellow jazz to write by, I told myself. I pulled up the albums that had been read into my computer. I was going to start with the “Best of” album, but a different album caught my eye. It was called, “Sounds of St.Lucia.”

A chill ran down my spine. The deal was sealed. I loaded up the album and did a Google search. I printed up the PDF and faxed the Application for Volunteer Service for the Utah State Library for the Blind and Disabled. I also emailed it with the following note: “My name is Laura Moncur. I am able to start volunteering in December for approximately 20 hours over the course of that month. Please review my attached Application for Volunteer Service.”

St. Lucia is going to help me through the 50,000 pages. Every time I feel as if I can’t make it, her face is right there to console me. If you would like to give me a show of support during this month, please donate one dollar to The American Foundation for the Blind and leave me a supportive comment here.

Here is Chapter Thirteen…

Chapter Word Count: 3061

Monthly Word Count: 12,687

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Here is Chapter Twelve…

Chapter Word Count: 2118

Monthly Word Count: 9626

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Here is Chapter Eleven…

Chapter Word Count: 3032

Monthly Word Count: 7508

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Here is Chapter Ten…

Chapter Word Count: 4476

Monthly Word Count: 4476

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There is a contest that started on the first of November called National Novel Writing Month. I just heard about it yesterday. Write a 175 page, 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I believe it can be done. It might not be a good novel, but I could write a novel in that amount of time. If I knew that I would be dead in 30 days, you can be damn sure that I would finish my novel before the deadline.

I’m not participating, even though it seems right up my alley. If I did away with all my other writing, (the blog, the web comic in progress, the personal journal pages) I could devote all my time into writing a chapter a day. It really seems like something that I should be attracted to, but I’m scared of it.

It looks easy enough to sign up. All I have to do is sign up, complete my personal information and log my word counts and book excerpts into the website. It works out to 2,000 words a day if I start right now. Why am I scared?

Maybe I’m scared that I can’t do it or that I’m too lazy to do it. Maybe I’m scared that I will fail. Yeah, I’m scared I’ll fail. Fuck that. I’m signing up right now and I’m going to write at least 2,000 words a day. Even if they suck, it’s better than nothing at all. That’s what you guys have been seeing of my book for the last month: Nothing at all. This is just what I need to get my juices flowing again.

When I said Halloween was fabulous this year, I don’t think I fully was able to describe the true fabulousness of all the costumes. Here are the pictures from this year’s party!

Thank you to everyone who came to the party and spent so much time making the party wonderful!

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There is a highly distracting spider living on my computer monitor right now. I saw him there yesterday and my first instinct was to kill him. He was so cute, though, with his long legs and delicate movements, so I just let him stay on the monitor. We just put away all of our Halloween stuff, part of which is a large array of adorable black spiders who laugh at you when you are a little too loud. This spider is brown and tiny and would never deign to laugh at me if I fell while I was playing DDR. I just didn’t have the heart to kill him and I didn’t have the heart to put him outside, where he’d die because of the cold.

So, I have been cohabitating with this spider for two days now. I pretty much expected him to hide away or leave the monitor, but he’s still here. He takes periodic turns about the top of the monitor every few hours, but mostly he stays near the middle of the screen at the top. Right now, he’s facing the screen, watching my words appear magically. Maybe he’s interested because I’m writing about him.

I guess I’m just surprised that he isn’t dead yet. I have no idea what the lifespan of a tiny brown spider is. I have no idea what he could possibly eat here in my pristine office. There are no bugs or mites or any tasty bits for him. He hasn’t built a web to capture anything. What is he doing here and how is he surviving?

I tried to take a picture of him, but the camera won’t focus on his minute body. He let me hold a ruler up to him. Including legs, he’s almost half an inch long, but his body is just a sixteenth of an inch. I guess I should be measuring him in millimeters to be more accurate, but he has been gracious enough to hold still for me, so I’m not pushing it.

It’s Ebenezer Scrooge cold here in the office, so I suspect he likes my monitor because it’s warm. I wish that it was warm enough for me to heat up hands by it. My fingers are having a hard time typing well today because they are stiff with the cold. I’m just wearing my coat to heat myself up, but it’s hard to type with gloves.

Yesterday, when I was eating my lunch at my desk, he surprised me. I had left my Bombay Potatoes cooling in front of the monitor. I saw him move and for an instant, I imagined him lowering himself into my food. I moved the dish to the side. I definitely don’t want to eat my new diminutive friend.

He hadn’t moved for so long that I was starting to worry that he was coming to my nice, warm monitor to die. If that’s the case, he’s not dead yet. I blew a gentle breath of air on him and he fidgeted enough to prove his state of animation.

I don’t know what it means to purposefully cohabit with a spider. I come from a big family of people who either kill them on sight or put them outside. Letting them live with me isn’t a new experience. I remember the lecture from my dad when I was about four years old admonishing spiders and I remember the polar opposite lecture when I stomped on a spider out of mindless instinct at age seven. After that, I decided that my dad was nuts and I was going to kill the scary ones and cohabitate with the not so scary ones. Sometimes I put them out of the house so that the cats don’t eat them, but I mostly just let them be.

Get out there and vote! Wouldn’t you just die if it was down to one state again? Wouldn’t you just die if it went to the bad guy and you would have voted for the good guy? Wouldn’t you just die if it was down to one vote?

This is the kind of election that is down to one vote. Make sure yours counts.

This Saturday at Weight Watchers, my leader, Janece had a discussion about being positive. She wants us all to be an inspiration to those around us. For homework, she gave us the following items:

1. Only watch television shows that are inspirational.
2. Only listen to music that is inspirational.
3. Inundate ourselves with motivational things (positive magazine articles, books, etc.)
4. Only say positive things. Not one negative word out of our mouths all week.
5. Be positive at the scale, no matter what it reads.

For years, I have monitored what went into my head. I went on a news fast and I have rarely looked at a paper, watched the television news or even allowed the radio headlines to blast through my stereo. It didn’t stop me from hearing about 9-11. It didn’t stop me from hearing about Lori Hacking’s disappearance. It didn’t stop me from hearing about all the election silliness. People are so willing to tell me the news that I really don’t need to fill my mind up with that mess.

Lately, however, I haven’t been monitoring all the things that have gone into my head. I read blogs that could be considered negative. They are all about what’s wrong with this country. I know we need whistle-blowers, but hearing about the things that are horrible in our country makes me forget the good things in our country. I’m swearing off the negative blogs this week.

I have allowed depressing music to fill my life. Sometimes it is enjoyable to have a good wallow, but if I want to be an inspiration to the people of the world, I need to feed myself some happy trumpets in addition to the sappy saxophones. This week, I’m listening to happy music only. Hello, Herb Alpert.

Since web comics make me feel so happy, even when they don’t make me laugh, I’m going to keep reading all of my favorite web comics. I’m going to keep filling myself up with happy thoughts and inspirational magazines.

Watching my mouth has been the most challenging aspect of this week’s homework. Just looking over my previous blog entries, I’m shocked to find how much negativity I direct at myself. Some of it is an effort to sound humble. I don’t want to seem conceited, so I say some negative things, but when things go well, I should just let myself be happy in things going well. I have found that I qualify so many of the things that I say about the good in my life that I could end up sounding negative. This week, I am very conscious of everything that I say.

I feel so much happier after only two days of watching my mouth and monitoring my intake of gloom. I wonder how I’ll feel at the end of the week. I’m excited to find out.

The Halloween Party was a blast! Everything was so spectacular! My costume worked well, as you can see. All the costumes were imaginative and interesting. The people were fun and talkative. The movies were enjoyed. The food was tasty and a good time was had by all. A big and public thank you to Stacey, Dan and Mike for making this year the best party ever. How will we ever top it next year?

There’s a new game out on Xbox called Fable and it looked really cool. They were talking about it on Queen of Wands and it sounded like fun to play, so I looked at it at EB Games and Game Stop and Circuit City. Each time I fell short of buying it, even though it looked so cool. The package said that decisions that I make with my character would affect the story and how my character develops. Even though it was a fantasy game, it looked so cool.

I didn’t buy it, though. Shannon in Queen of Wands said that she had to make her character marry the girl that she had been courting. When I looked at the box, all of the characters shown were male. It was looking like I would have to be a boy if I played that game. I didn’t want that. If I’m going to play a fantasy game where I have to be one character, she sure as hell better be a girl. I decided I needed to research more.

As it turned out, Mike did the research for me. Be a girl? No way. The character can be gay. He can marry a man. He can marry women. He can marry and divorce as often as you want him to. He can wear women’s clothing, but he can’t be a woman.

I find this incredibly disturbing that they would forget that one feature. ZAP! There goes half the world. Half of your audience is suddenly alienated. If I want to play your game, I’ll just have to play with the wrong gender.

Poor Mike tried to defend the game programmers and I bit his head off and spit it out at CompUSA. How dare he defend these companies? They cut out half the population of the world with their design skills! Mike tried to tell me that it was through incompetence, and I agree, but it seems like a pathetic way to run a company.

Sims was a fluke. Sims was a mistake. They accidentally made a game that appealed to women and the best they can do to keep up with it is to make more Sims games. Instead of creating focus groups, they just churn out interesting clothes for the Sims to wear and the ability to change their appearance.

Here’s a tip, video game developers… include us. Don’t put women in your game to start the race (Need for Speed). Let us drive the damn cars. Don’t put women in your game to be courted (Fable). Let us live the life of a hero (or slacker as the case may be). Don’t put women in your game to take over when Harry Potter faints (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Let us be Hermoine and let us relive her adventure. Don’t even get me started talking about Lara Croft.

I’m just glad I didn’t spend the fifty bucks on that game. You think I’m mad now? I would have hunted down the programming fools who didn’t even think about adding a female character and kicked them square in the balls. How’s that for a decision that I make that affects the story and how my character develops?

Today is my Halloween Party. We think about this party all year long. I got the dress for my costume during the summer this year. It took me months to think how to use a green 1960’s dress to make a really cool costume, but at the end of September, I was browsing the movies and saw a review for The Birds.

The lead actress is wearing a green dress almost exactly like mine, so I’m going to be Tippi Hedren. I have the dress, the false eyelashes and most importantly, the birds. You’ll just have to see the post party pictures to understand the greatness of this costume. The only thing I’m worried about is the blonde wig. It’s the perfect color. It looks just like Tippi Hedren’s hair, but I am just a horrible blonde.

How does Gwen Stefani pull it off? She is just as dark as I am, but she looks absolutely fabulous as a platinum blonde and I look washed out. I need to get her stylist on the phone. Of course, Mike says that the problem is that I only spent $35 on the wig. If I spent twice that on a dye job, I would probably look better.

When I called Alina, my hair dresser, about dyeing my hair, she said, “Oh no, sweetie, don’t do that.” I love it when my hair dresser has distinct opinions about what I should and shouldn’t do with my hair. She’s got my back. She won’t let me do something phenomenally stupid like dye my hair platinum blonde for a Halloween costume. After seeing myself in the wig, I’m so glad I didn’t dye my hair.

I’ve been so sick that getting ready for this party has been very difficult. Stacey and Dan have helped me, so I feel so much better about that. If I wasn’t so excited about the party, I would have canceled it. I’m so glad that I didn’t because I’m finally feeling better and I think I’ll be able to completely enjoy the party.

When you were a child…

1. What did you want to be when you grew up and why?

I wanted to be a writer. So, I saved my money and went to college and majored in Mathematics with a second major in Education. What the?! What’s the matter? It made perfect sense to me…

2. Who was your favorite person to do things with (excluding your parents)?

Yeah right… like I was going to choose my parents. Sceverenia Kubota was my favorite friend to do things with from Sixth Grade on up to High School. She always had the coolest toys and her parents let us have wild crazy parties when we were teens. When you see those teen movies where there is a huge party, Scev’s parties were just like that, sans the music and dancing. We tended to watch videos instead of listen to music.

3. Did you love school or did you hate it? Why? Did that change as you got older?

I loved school. I loved it from the moment that I started until the day I graduated. I still miss it and it’s hard for me to go cold turkey on the school supply shopping in September. I have nothing to shop for, yet I buy school supplies anyway.

4. Was your family close? What were your favorite family traditions?

Mom, Carol, Stacey and I were very close. I would get ready for school every morning in the bathroom with Mom and Stacey. My mom was so cool because she would let us listen to whatever music that we wanted. Mom and I were both morning people and we loved to torture Stacey by singing songs to her. Heh, heh… I’m laughing just thinking about it.

5. Did you think that being an adult would be cool?

No. I was totally scared of growing up because everyone always says, “These are the best years of your life…” I wish I could find every pathetic adult who said that to me and punch them right in the gut. Things just keep getting better the older I get. Sure, there are hard times, but I don’t care about those temporary setbacks. On the whole, being an adult totally rocks compared to the gut-wrenching agony of being a kid and teen.

Speaking of the test of a true artist, major props to Something Positive and Queen of Wands. Since I’ve been sick, I have been reading web comics obsessively. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else when I was at home or work. I have read the entire archive of Something Positive, Queen of Wands, The Red String, and Questionable Content. All of them just make me want to start a web comic of my own.

Being completely unschooled in Manga or comic drawing in general doesn’t daunt me. The fact that I haven’t finished Looking for Christ does, though. So, I have an additional incentive to get cracking on the book because as soon as I finish it, I can start a web comic.

It doesn’t help that Cory Storm is thinking of starting a comic of his own with Chuck Perkins. Cory has major artistic talent and Chuck has intriguing sci-fi ideas, so whatever they produce will be totally cool. They haven’t done anything about it just yet, but it is all in the works.

More importantly, web comics are few and difficult to find. Typing romantic web comics into Google doesn’t produce any worthwhile results and I’ve only been able to find what I have by following links and adverts. I want there to be more web comics in the world, so I feel it is my duty to create one, even if it sucks.

Of course, all of that is on hold right now. I’m sick. I can’t even keep up on my weblog, much less add further commitments to my schedule. First, I’m going to get well. Then, I’m going to host the best Halloween party EVAR. Then, I’m going to finish my book. After I’ve got all that past me, I’m going to start a web comic. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve spent every extra ounce of energy today on the Halloween Party. We throw only one party a year and it’s the best damn Halloween Party you’ve ever been to in your life. This year, though, I’ve been sick, so getting things ready has been harder in that respect.

It has been easier in some respects. I’ve planned all year. I got the horror movies months in advance. They’ll be no last minute runs to Blockbuster, hoping they will have something classic to play in the background. I got Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Birds, and The Masque of the Red Death to play silently on the television.

I’ve automated so many of the processes. Last year’s slide show of Costumes of Halloween Past is still saved on the hard drive. All I had to do was add last year’s to the mix and now it’s ready to go.

Last year’s invitation, CD sleeves, CD labels and Prize Tags were carefully saved. This year, all I needed to do was change the dates and the theme picture and they were ready to go.

Mike took care of me this year. He hooked me up. He put a super fast DVDR/CDR burner in my computer, so when it came time to burn the CDs (I give them away as party favors), it took one evening instead of four days.

All of the Halloween decorations are still in storage, so I have a lot of decorating to do to get our house up to party level. I also have a lot of cleaning to do to get it up to company level.

Of course, the food is left up to fate (potluck). I’ll bring a vegetable tray and Mike is planning on preparing a licorice tray. Other than that, the food is a mystery to me and that’s a good thing. I release the worry of food to the Party Gods. Even when they play a practical joke on me, it’s still funny.

The attendees are a sort of mystery to my also. Some have definitely responded with positive or negative responses, but there are always the multitude that don’t respond and show up, adding spice and interest to the evening. I’m excited to see who shows up. The people who are coming to the party are the ones that I’m pushing myself for. I’m so excited to see their costumes and their potluck dishes and their happy party faces.

Now, I just need to hang the birds from my halo for my costume. You’ll never guess in a million years what I’m going to be!

I’m sorry I’ve gone AWOL. I’m still sick and exhausted. I’ll write when I’m able to think clearly. Thanks for continuing to check every day.

I’ve seen pictures of Jesus in the clouds and Jesus in the wood grain of a wall. I know that they are just the human mind trying to create order out of chaos. It’s the instinct that has helped us climb to the top of the food chain. The opposable thumb is nothing compared to the ability to see the cheetah in the shadows and the rabbit in the field. I know this. The logic of it leaves me incapable of enjoying a “miracle.”

Friday morning, as I sat on the toilet, I looked at my shower curtain. It’s a simple curtain made of white material that is easily washable when the mildew starts to grow. The bottom of it is starting to turn brown and I will probably wash it this weekend to bring it back to the sparkling white that it was when I bought it. The way my shower water hit it on Friday, it left the impression of the face of Jesus, much like the Shroud of Turin.

Did I rush to get a camera? Nope. I didn’t really care. I calmly noticed the ability of my mind to find patterns and images where there are none. I was in awe at the way my eyes had noticed the thin drawn out face and immediately labeled it as Jesus instead of any other long-faced icon. There was no thorny crown. There was only a hint of a beard. My mind had immediately seen Jesus in my shower curtain.

The funny thing is that I went from the logical scientist to the divinatory goddess within a few seconds. My scientist said, “That’s interesting. My mind has found the image of Jesus in my shower curtain.” My gypsy said, “Why Jesus? Why not John Kerry? Why not Herman Munster?”

The guilt swept over me. Since I’ve been sick, I haven’t touched Chapter 10 of Looking For Christ. It has been four sentences sitting on my Palm for weeks now. My gypsy asked, “Why Jesus?” My writer replied, “Because I should be Looking For Christ.” She chuckled and the writer started to laugh. Only my scientist stayed stoic. “Bloody Hippies…” she cursed under her breath.

Last Wednesday, a yellow Prowler passed me on the left when I was driving to work. He was going far too fast for the rainy conditions. My Palm was playing “My Little Beautiful” by mu-Ziq. The techno music was blaring and for a split second I felt like I was in Project Gotham Racing. That yellow Prowler just passed me and I was yet another car behind the lot. I noticed the water hitting the windshield and marveled at the programming detail.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t in a video game. I wasn’t racing. It didn’t matter if the Prowler passed me. And, if I had crashed it would have been the big “Game Over, Man.” After that moment, I consciously concentrated on the road, watching every other car around me as if they were weapons of mass destruction.

I’m going to blame it on the kidney infection. I was still really sick that day and I ended up going home not long after getting to work. Still, I feel the line between fantasy and reality blurring all the time. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I’m sure it won’t be the last. If Morpheus came to me and told me that this world is not real, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Of course, I’d take the blue pill. I kind of like this crazy mixed-up world, even if it is melding with my fantasy world.

1. What was the last dream that you had about?

Last Thursday night, I dreamt that I was sick with a kidney infection (just like in real life), except that I lived in my old West Valley home with my mom and Carol and my sister Stacey. I was feeling sick, so all I wanted to do was sleep. I had visitors coming in the middle of the night and instead of my mom telling them to shove off, she forced me to be sociable with them. She even gave me hints about what I should and shouldn’t do with the visitors by writing them on my throat and arms.

By the time I got the visitors to go away, it was eight in the morning and I should have been to work. I needed to take a shower to wash off all the marker writing on my body. I couldn’t get anyone to tell me the correct time.

When I woke up from this dream, the clock said 9:30. I couldn’t tell if it was am or pm. I was disoriented and mad at my dream mom for not letting me rest when I was sick. I had to find Mike and have him tell me the real time. It was 9:30 pm (I had gone to bed at 7 pm because I was sick).

2. Does it hold any significant meaning to you?

Whenever I dream about the house in West Valley, I know that I’ve been neglecting my inner child. I spent most of my childhood in that house (from age 7 to 21 when I got married) and it has come to represent my inner child to me. I had a good conversation with her and the next day, I showed up at work to turn in a time card and went right back home to rest. I also chose to tell them that I was going to take Monday off too so that I could fully heal from this kidney infection thing. My inner child was sick and she didn’t want to have to go to work not feeling well, especially when she didn’t get to sleep at all the night before. I haven’t been a very good mom to my inner child lately.

3. Do you dream in color or black and white?

I always dream in color. I don’t believe that people actually dream in black and white unless they spend a lot of time watching old movies. I’ve had dreams where I didn’t notice the color of things, but the only time I’ve dreamt in black in white was after a Twilight Zone binge (my mom had gotten the episodes on VHS and I had watched several episodes of it back to back).

4. What is the most frightening dream you ever had?

I used to have a recurring nightmare that was kind of like a game. I talked about it in another Friday Five. It was when The Friday Five was defunct and I was desperately scrambling for my own questions. You can read more about my dreams there.

5. Is there one dream that stays clear in your mind despite the fact it was more than a few years ago?

I already talked about this in that previous entry about sleeping and dreams. It’s not their fault that I thought of my own questions and they happened to correspond to theirs.

The test of a true artist is when they inspire others to join the art world. I’m not talking about the gut reaction that screams, “They got paid for that?! Hell, I could piss on a canvas and make a better painting!” There have been so many artists that have inspired that reaction in me in many different fields of art. Joan Miro’s scribbles and misshapen figures inspire me to pick up a brush. Sigue Sigue Sputnik inspired me to pick up the microphone and pen the words for our synth songs in the Eighties. Even Doctor Who inspired me to create better science fiction. This is not the inspiration that I’m talking about.

The test of a true artist is when they inspire others to join the art world. They are so moving that you can’t stop yourself from joining in. You want a moment approaching their greatness for yourself. The Blue Man Group inspires me to pick up a pair of drumsticks and pound on whatever is nearby. Billie Holiday inspires me to belt out the blues no matter what condition my singing voice is. Lois McMaster Bujold inspires me to write complicated science fiction about interesting characters and true heroes. Salvador Dali inspires me to paint images that are as disturbing as they are beautiful. Stomp inspired me to dance noisily with trash can lids. Despite all the hype around their lives, they inspire people for generations. That is the test of a true artist.

I used to think that musicians could only inspire musicians. Script writers could only inspire script writers. Sci-Fi writers could only inspire other sci-fi writers, but I’ve very quickly come to the conclusion that this assumption is wrong. I’ve been inspired to write prose by music, but I consider myself a musician inspired by another musician to write. I’ve been inspired by movies to write. I’ve been inspired by movies to write music. I’ve been inspired by music to dance. All of the arts are all mixed up for me and I have a hard time saying that I’m a writer because I’m so many other things too.

Last week, I was searching the Internet for something when I came across a random site. All it said was that Suzanne Vega was inspired by the films of Marlene Dietrich. I didn’t even click over to the site because it wasn’t what I was looking for at the time, but I logged that fact in my mind. “Oh yeah, Marlene on the Wall. Oh yeah, Freeze Tag. I will be Dietrich and you can be Dean. Nevermind that the two were never in a movie together.” Somehow that actress, that heroine, inspired Suzanne Vega to write music. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can crossover.

A big Thank You to all the various artists that have inspired me to write lately (Queen of Wands, The Postal Service, Something Positive, The Blue Man Group). You have passed The True Artist Test.

“This is The Postal Service. I have this album. You’d probably like it.” Mike was singing quietly along with the song on the overhead speakers at the store. I don’t remember the store. I don’t remember the song. I just remember that Mike recommended it to me. A couple days later, I put the album on my Palm so that I could listen to it at lunch in the park.

I’ve talked before about using The New Music Binge Test to decide whether an album is good or not, but there are some albums that I love from the second that I hear them. I can tell that there are no stinkers. I can tell that I could listen to this album a hundred times and just be learning the words and memorizing the bass lines.

That’s how Give Up by The Postal Service is. It’s the kind of album that leaves you playing it on repeat for days. You’ll forget all about all the other CDs in your changer and you’ll just keep starting it over and over. You can listen to clips on Amazon.com, but they are painfully short and don’t really convey all the beauty that the album has to offer.

My favorite of them all is Natural Anthem.

I’ll write you a song and it won’t be hard to sing It will be a natural anthem, familiar it will seem It will rally all the workers on strike for better pay And its chorus will resound and boost morale throughout the day

I’ll write you a song and I hope that you won’t mind Because all the names and places I have taken from real life So please don’t get upset at this portrait that I paint It may be a little biased, but at least I spelt your name right…

Posted here, the lyrics feel empty and stripped of their true meaning. I don’t know how it is that music adds so much more to the experience of poetry, but I’m left with the sense that poetry is not enough. The first time I heard Natural Anthem, I was weepy at the end. “Yes,” I thought to myself, “that’s what I want to do. I want my blog to boost morale throughout the day. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings sometimes, but at least I spelt your name right.”

When you click on the clip on Amazon.com to hear this song, they just play the music and you won’t hear any of the lyrics. You’ll just have to buy the album. It passes the New Music Binge Test, but more importantly, it passes the True Artist Test.

Well over a year ago, Mike and I went to see the Blue Man Group when they came to town on The Complex Tour. It was before I had a weblog. It was before I even knew about weblogs, so it might have been a couple of years ago. I could find out the exact date that it happened, because I’m sure I wrote about it in my personal journal and I could just do a search of the entries to find out when I mentioned it, but you don’t really care about the exact date and neither do I.

After the concert, I was so stoked. I wanted to tell everyone about the experience. I hadn’t written down any of the truly funny things that happened. I wanted a complete list of the Rock Concert Movements that were mentioned in the concert. The announcer explained to the Blue Men the exact movements that they had to master in order to be Rock Stars. They were given to us out of order and so quickly that there would have been no way for me to write them down, even if I knew that they were coming.

A couple of years later, I found myself at Fry’s in Las Vegas. They were selling the DVD to The Complex Tour. I picked it up and bought it without another thought. I would finally have the complete Rock Concert Movement List so that I, too, could become a Rock Star. Culled from the DVD, my memory and other websites on the subject here are the Rock Concert Movements:

Rock Concert Movement #1 The Basic Head Bob Rock Concert Movement #2 The One-Armed Fist Pump Rock Concert Movement #3 The Up and Down Jumping Motion Rock Concert Movement #4 The Behind the Head Leg Stretch Rock Concert Movement #6 Two Armed Upward Thrust with Yell Rock Concert Movement #8 The Black Out Rock Concert Movement #10 Getting a Closer Look at the Audience Rock Concert Movement #15 Bringing a Guest Vocalist Onstage Rock Concert Movement #23 Getting the Audience to Sing Along Rock Concert Movement #27 Saying Hello to the People in the Cheap Seats Rock Concert Movement #28 Getting an Audience Member Onstage to Dance Rock Concert Movement #48 Introducing the Band Rock Concert Movement #63 Bringing out Venus Hum Rock Concert Movement #78 The Fake Ending Rock Concert Movement #91 Enjoying the T-Shirt You Bought at The Complex Rock Tour Rock Concert Movement #237 Taking the audience on a Jungian journey into the collective unconscious by using the shadow as a metaphor for the primal self that gets repressed by the modern persona and also by using an underground setting and labyrinth office design to represent both the depths of the psyche and the dungeon-like isolation of our increasingly mechanistic society which prevents people from finding satisfying work or meaningful connections with others.

I love the Blue Man Group. I love both of their albums. I loved watching the DVD last night. It wasn’t as good as the live concert because the show really is a audience participating cathartic experience. I should have bought this T-Shirt at the concert, but I don’t remember it being available. The only reason I wrote this entry is because I wanted a list of the Rock Concert Movements after I got out of the concert and it was nowhere to be seen online. Not even the Blue Man Group’s Official Website had anything about it. It’s not like the list spoils the beauty of the concert. It’s completely incomprehensible unless you’ve seen the concert.

If you get a chance to see the Blue Man Group (New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Berlin) check out their regular show. The Complex Tour ended in the fall of 2003, and they are not planning another rock concert tour right now. You’ll have to get your butt to one of these cool cities and see them for yourself. You can buy the CDs and DVD, but nothing can compare to the live experience.

1. What is something that you used to believe, but are glad you don’t believe anymore?

Armageddon

2. Is there something you wish you still believed? What?

I wish I could still believe in God or a higher power. It made life so easy. I saw Bruce Almighty last week when I was totally sick and there was a point where Bruce kneels down in the middle of the freeway and acquiesces to God’s Will. Yeah, if I met God in person, I’d do that too. Ok, I wouldn’t kneel down in the middle of the freeway during a rain storm. That’s just stupid.

3. What experience or person taught you the most about life?

I wish I could point fingers. That person. That incident. That place. Instead I find myself here with lots of tiny little lessons that have accumulated until I feel like the one to give the advice. Someone must want to know what I learned. Anyone?

4. What area of life would you like to know or understand more about?

I still haven’t mastered coveting yet. I look at the most beautiful girl and I want to trade. I look at the most successful man and I want to trade. I don’t care about their horrific childhood or current strife. I just want the good that I see in their life without consequences. I know the dangers of covetousness, yet it doesn’t stop me from wanting what they have.

5. What is your most valuable lesson about life so far?

Take a break. Relax. Quit worrying. Enjoy yourself. If I did more of this, I think my life might have gone smoother. Then again…

Malaise? You’ve hit writer’s block. All of us get it. Take a break. Back pain? It’s probably muscle soreness. Relax. Exhaustion? Sleeping all day? You’ve probably got the flu. Quit worrying. Blood in your urine? Kick back. Just enjoy yourself.

Sometimes, even good advice is bad advice.

It wasn’t the flu. You think I felt stupid when I thought I had the flu and didn’t notice? Man, I’m feeling a hundred times more stupid finding out that I had a kidney infection. All those “muscle aches” in my back? Yeah, those were my kidneys trying to tell me to drink some cranberry juice.

They’ve got me on meds, so I’ll be getting better.

I don’t mean to sound uncultured (anti-cultured? dis-cultured? unpasteurized?) but I hate Claude Debussy. One of his Interludes showed up on my random music mix and I listened to it like the dutiful music lover that I am. That’s what I get for ripping those damn classical CDs with the rest of my collection. Give me Grieg. Give me Beethoven. Give me Mozart. I know what to do with those guys. I’ll fight great battles. I mope and brood. I’ll dance and twirl. But Debussy…

Man, that music makes me want to sing to the birds. It makes me want to run away from the evil stepmother. It makes me long for that mysterious happy ending I was promised. It makes me wonder why I’m taking all these punches instead of living in a beautiful castle somewhere with hand-maidens to serve my every wish. Something about that music reminds me of Disney, and not in a good way.

The guy died in 1918. How could he remind me of Disney movies? Wasn’t Sleeping Beauty based on a Tchaikovsky ballet? Rumor has it that Claire de Lune was supposed to be in Fantasia, but it was cut. That still doesn’t explain why all of Debussy’s stuff makes me want to force wild animals to listen to me sing. (They like it… really…)

Maybe Debussy was in “style” when the Disney Imagineers were creating their Magic. Sometimes composers go in and out of style. Mozart was in style during the Eighties. His white wig was all we could see whether it was on Tom Hulce or Falco. Maybe Debussy and his style of orchestral pastorals were everywhere when Disney was king.

All I can say is I’d rather be trapped in the Haunted Mansion listening to Grim Grinning Ghosts for an hour than spend the same amount of time listening to Debussy. If I listen to too much of his stuff, I’ll just end up molesting innocent animals. No one wants to see that shit.

10-13-04 8:29 am: Unedited from my personal journal.

I am feeling so much better. I wish I had known that I was sick. I have worked so hard on writing consistently and suddenly, my writing was so difficult. It was hard just to type. I didn’t know that I was sick. It didn’t hit me fully until Sunday, but based on this last journal entry, I must have been sick. I wish I had known. I wouldn’t have been so panicked about it. I would have just written a quick entry that said, “By the way, I’m feeling sick and I’m going to take some time off. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

How can I be so out of touch with my body that I didn’t know I was sick until I couldn’t get out of bed? Sure, I got out of bed. I showered. I ate breakfast. I drank two cups of coffee. I prepared a lunch. I was so exhausted, that I called into the office, fully willing to go in if they said that they needed me. When they said that they didn’t need me, I went right back to bed and slept for four hours after drinking two cups of coffee. I’m angry at myself for being so out of touch with my body that I could be so sick and not even know it.

I guess I should give myself a bit of a break. Maybe this sickness was the kind that really sneaks up on you and you don’t really know you have it until you are knocked out in bed. That’s how it was for me. The only symptoms I had were exhaustion and a mondo sinus headache. I get tired all the time. I just work through it or sleep a little extra on the tired days. It has been a long time since I’ve had the kind of tired that doesn’t get better when I sleep. I slept all day Sunday and I still went right back to bed on Monday. When I couldn’t sleep, I just lay on the couch. I watched three movies on Monday and that was all I could do. I didn’t even crochet while watching. Sure, I held the needle and yarn, but not much crocheting was completed. All I needed to do to finish my afghan was crochet three squares. I think I’m on the third one right now.

I watched Bruce Almighty (really good! I have no idea why it didn’t take the theaters by storm), Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (so bad I had to watch another movie to get the taste of it out of my mouth) and School of Rock (Majorly good, but of course, it’s Jack Black, so it HAS to be good). I watched them in a dazed stupor and realized that all I was capable of was watching. I couldn’t do anything but lie on the couch and watch a movie.

Silly me, I had ordered DDR PC and paid the extra five bucks for next day delivery. When it arrived (three days later, those bastards owe me five bucks) I couldn’t bring myself to even install it on the computer until hours later. I had been so excited about the game because it had the mystical Lesson Mode that DDR UltraMix just doesn’t have. I wanted to learn those spins and crossovers that all the kids on the DDR forum were talking about, yet the game just sat unopened and uninstalled. I finally installed it in a sick haze and tried to play it using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Even then, I couldn’t get a higher grade than a C. Even playing on the keyboard was too much for me.

I’m wondering how long I’m going to last today. I felt good this morning. I finally got to play my game, although I still haven’t tried the Lesson Mode yet. I ate a good breakfast. I drank two cups of coffee. I got the uneaten lunch from Monday out of the fridge. I got to work on time and I still feel pretty good. I’m worried that I’m going to just tucker out and be useless the last half of the day. I didn’t last at all yesterday. I would feel better, then I took a shower and I was tired again. I would feel better then Mike took me to a restaurant to eat and I was tired again. So far, I’ve lasted a lot longer than any time yesterday. I just hope I can make it through the day.

It’s not like my job is taxing right now. Today, all that has been asked of me is to answer the phone and buzz a visitor into the office. I’ve been here an hour and I’ve answered the phone and buzzed someone into the office. I think I can make it through the day. Now, if they actually need some real work from me, I might get worn out. I guess we’ll see how the day progresses.

The best thing is that I have tons of ideas for blog entries and my fingers actually work today. I think I’ll be able to write today if I just let myself. I have lots of ideas and my fingers are itching to write them. I just need to get my morning pages written and get out all the weirdness like talking about how tired I was a couple of days ago.

Man, I’m still feeling anger at myself for not noticing that I was sick. I like to think that I’m in touch with my body. I realize that I have eating issues and I’m completely out of touch with my sense of hunger, but I’m surprised that I didn’t notice that I was sick. I was tired. I had such a hard time writing. Writing my morning pages was like a chore. It hasn’t felt like that for years and I thought I was dealing with some major writer’s block. Instead, I had the flu and I didn’t even notice it.

It’s like those stories that you hear about people who go into the doctor’s office because they aren’t able to walk and it turns out they have a head injury. They forgot that they hit their head and they didn’t notice the nausea, the dizziness and the other symptoms of a head injury. They just went to the doctor when they couldn’t walk anymore. Am I so out of touch with my body that I can’t even notice when I have the flu? I only notice when I can’t write anymore. I couldn’t write more than one sentence at a time and it never occurred to me that I might be sick. When am I going to notice this mortal coil?

I keep telling myself that it’s ok because this sickness didn’t have any symptoms, but that’s a lie. This sickness DID have symptoms. I was tired, incredibly tired. I was so tired that caffeine didn’t affect me. I just told myself that I needed to stop drinking caffeinated beverages. I told myself that I was getting immune to the caffeine. I had a sinus headache, but it responded well to OTC meds. I told myself that I was just having a normal headache from allergies. I had the shakes. I just told myself that I needed to listen to my hunger more closely. I disregarded all of the symptoms or attributed them to something else. Never once did it occur to me that I might be sick until I was so sick that I slept all day.

Based on Thursday’s entry, I was sick on Thursday. It took me until Sunday to realize that I MIGHT be sick. It wasn’t until I slept for four hours on two cups of coffee on Monday that I actually acquiesced and admitted that I MUST be sick. There’s nothing else that could explain all of these symptoms. When I called in on Monday, I actually felt like I was playing hooky, even though I could barely drag my butt out of bed. I thought I was just being lazy. Man, I need to learn to listen to my body.

I’m down with the flu. I won’t be back until I’m feeling better.

1. You’re the opposite sex. Besides the obvious playing with the new parts, what would you do?

Man, this is not even a fantasy for me. I guess I’d try that peeing standing up thing, but that falls under the category of playing with new parts (although, not in the sense that the question seemed to imply). I enjoy being a woman so much that I don’t really have any fantasies about being a man.

2. You’re someone famous. Who and why?

I don’t want to be someone else who is famous. I want me to be famous. I would be the world-renowned Laura Moncur, famous writer and singer and painter and even a famous Dance Dance Revolution dancer. Writer first, though.

3. You’re the King (Queen) of the World (no, you’re not James Cameron). What edict would you pass?

Play Nice!

4. You’re no longer in Kansas (or this world) anymore. Where are you?

I think I’ll opt to stay on the planet (since the atmosphere is Class M). If I wasn’t here, I think I’d be in New Orleans in a jazz club, singing “Learnin’ the Blues” to an appreciative audience.

5. You have a clone standing next to you and it’s going to work/school for you while you get to play hooky. What are you going to do today?

I’m going to play Insaniquarium all day long. When I’m sick of feeding fishies, I’ll write another chapter and then play some DDR.

10-07-04: From my morning pages…edited only to preserve privacy.

10:30 am: I’ve got to write my pages so I can write some blog entries so I can write on my chapter. I have so much writing to do because I haven’t bothered to write while I’m at work. I’ve been reading comics online and just messing around. I guess I am just tired right now. Ok, that’s bullshit. The house is a mess, I’m worried about the Halloween party and I’m letting that stuff suck out my energy. Instead of just cleaning up the house and letting myself get some work done, I’m letting it drain my life force. I need to just spend all day tomorrow cleaning up the house and getting my costume ready for the year. Then I won’t have to worry about those things and I can just feel better.

I had a pretty busy morning yesterday. We got the books ready for the project and then there was nothing to do. I volunteered to go home so that I wouldn’t be bored all day at work. I thought that I could go home, enjoy some time with Mike and clean up the house. I did the first two on the list, but then I just slept. He went right back to work, but I just fell asleep. I made him dinner, which was a nice thing to do for him while he worked. I let myself have fun, too. I watched Mean Girls and crocheted. I never let myself watch the movies that I get. I really wanted to see that movie in the first run theater, then it was in the dollar theater and I wanted to see it, finally, I saw it at Blockbuster the other day, so I rented it. We went in to find the Babylon 5 pilot, but they didn’t have it. We ended up buying that one.

That’s another thing. I have spent all this time finding the Babylon 5 DVDs and I haven’t even seen any of them. We saw the pilot on Sunday and we plan to watch one every Sunday, so we’ll see how that works this weekend. I DID let myself have fun yesterday, but I think I should have cleaned the kitchen or tried to write a blog entry. I should have done a little bit of work yesterday. Should should should. I could should on myself all day. What I need to do is gonna.

Ok, I have tomorrow off, so I’m gonna start my day cleaning the house. I’m going to use that as my exercise time. I’m going to get the dishes and the laundry and clean the bathroom. I’m going to pick up the clutter on the table and at my desk. I’m going to burn DVDs all day that I’m going to pick up tonight. I have a ton of things on hold for me at the library, so I’m going to pick them up tonight. Maybe I’ll even go to the storage unit and pick up the decorations and take over some things that could be put away for the season. I guess I should make a list.

11:19 am: I didn’t make a list. I ate my snack instead. I don’t know what is the matter with me. I’m just not up to writing right now. Even writing my pages is like pulling teeth. I write a few sentences, send Mike an email. I write a few sentences and help with the toner. I write a few sentences and eat a pear. I am just having a hard time writing today. Usually writing my pages is enough to spark my creativity. I have things that I want to write about like the concept of infinite wishes and the Mean Girls movie that I just saw last night. I have things to write about, but I’m just not feeling like writing. It’s like the words don’t want to come out of my fingers.

I’m staring at my Halloween invitation. It’s sitting on my desk. I need to print about twenty or thirty more so that I can give them away at church this weekend and give them to the neighbors and such. I don’t know why I haven’t printed up more. I guess I am just waiting until things are slow and I can just sit and fold them without worrying about writing. It’s like the dishes in the sink at home. These unwritten chapters and blog entries are sapping the life out of my body, making everything else hard to complete. I need to get the petty things in my life fixed so that I can enjoy the fun fully. I had fun yesterday, but I felt guilty about not cleaning. Heck, I even felt guilty for not playing DDR. I feel guilty for not having all the fun that is possible to have sometimes. Isn’t fun just supposed to be fun? Can’t I just enjoy it and not think about the other fun that I could have.

Well, I’ve written two paragraphs, so now I’m going to go cook my food and eat my lunch. 11:47 am: Lunch eaten I’m back. Thinking about putting the food I’ve eaten into my Palm, but feeling guilty for not finishing these damn pages and I want to know what the hell is the matter with me. Maybe I need to get back into The Artist’s Way. I never finished that book. I need something to jump start my creativity. It’s not like the ideas and words aren’t there. It’s like my fingers are tired of typing. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Maybe I’ll just finish my pages and post them unedited online. Ok, I named names, so I’ll have to edit them some. Editing itself sounds like a burden.

12:03 pm: I put my food into my Palm. I played a game of BeJeweled and got a high score. I played a game of Collapse and got a high score. I played a game of Nisqually and realized that I’m still figuring that game out. I am going to finish these pages if it kills me. I am just going to write about crap until I get to the end of the page and I’m not going to let anything else get in the way. I’m just going to type until I fill the page, even if I fill the page with, “I have nothing to say today,” over and over again. I am just going to keep typing until I’m finished.

I just feel so empty. I know I have ideas. I know I have things that I want to say. I know that I’m going to eventually write them down. I just don’t know why they don’t want to come out of my fingers right now. As I am typing this, I’m thinking about Chapter 10. I have ideas for it. I know what I want to do with it. I don’t have to worry about anything, yet I’m not writing them down. I’m not putting them into motion.

I’m not putting pen to paper either. It’s not like I’m writing in another medium. I’m not writing by hand. I’m not typing on the computer. I’m not tapping out on the Palm. I’m doing nothing. I’m not even being creative in a different art. There is an unfinished painting in the basement that just needs to be whitewashed to be finished. It hasn’t been touched for months. At first it was drying, but it has been dry for so long that it is technically forgotten right now. I haven’t sung with the choir this year. They started meeting again in August, but I haven’t attended once. I haven’t drawn anything for a long time.

I’m not dry. I have plenty of ideas. They just won’t come out of my fingers. Maybe I need to do some finger exercises. Maybe I need a finger massage. I just don’t know what I’m going to do about this. I guess I’ll just write my morning pages every day and just post them. That’s all I can do sometimes.

I wrote about a month ago when I was trying to learn the new version of Graffiti. I knew the old version of Graffiti like the back of my hand and I found it frustrating to write with the new one. Mike showed me how to pull up the keyboard on the Palm and I realized that I could plink out my thoughts on the keyboard faster than I could write. I think it was even faster than I was with my old Graffiti skills.

The only problem with the innate keyboard is that when I pull it up on my Tungsten E, it takes up half the screen and I have precious little space to see what I have typed. Additionally, I have to press an extra button to bring it up, so if I only need to type one or two letters, it’s a pain in the butt. For WWCalc, I have so many shortcuts programmed in, I usually only need to type a couple of letters for each entry. It would be silly to bring up the big keyboard just to type two letters.

Mike started playing with some different keyboard that he could install on his Tungsten T3. It replaced his typing area with this new keyboard that is specially arranged for a stylus. It was so cool, but my Palm doesn’t have an active writing area, so I thought it wouldn’t work for me. Mike said that they have stickers to put over your active area on the old-style Palms so that you can use this cool keyboard without using up all your screen space. They had a trial download and it included an Acrobat document to print onto a sticker to put on my Palm.

I printed the sticker up on normal paper and stuck it over my screen protector. I knew I would have to sacrifice a screen protector if I didn’t like the thing, but I thought it was worth that. I used it for about thirty minutes and had Mike pay the registration fee for the program. It was that great. Three days later, their really slick stickers came in the mail (they send you four) and now my Palm is the most efficient note taking device I have every owned outside of paper. I can officially take the Moleskine out of my purse and just pull out the Palm when inspiration hits me. I can type that fast.

I am still learning how to use it. I’ve put in a ton of custom slides for common suffixes and prefixes so that I don’t have to tap “i-n-g” or “t-i-o-n” over and over. I can use my own shortcuts for those common word combinations. The cool thing is that I get to decide what means what. If I don’t use a suffix very often, it doesn’t have to be on my list. I could program entire words for any letter I want. It’s entirely customizable.

My typing speed with the FITALY keyboard is about 28 wpm right now. I’ve tested as fast as 34 wpm, but it’s not consistently that fast yet. It is still substantially slower than typing on the computer. My speed on the computer is between 59 and 70 wpm. I’m sure that I will get faster with the FITALY keyboard as I practice. I know that I’m much faster than I could ever do with Graffiti. I tried testing my speed with Graffiti and I couldn’t get over 15 wpm. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get faster than that and my hands started getting a little sore after writing for so long. Tapping on the keyboard is a lot easier on my hands.

I totally recommend trying this keyboard out for yourself on your Palm. You can install it risk-free and use it for about five days. It only took me thirty minutes to know that I wanted to keep it. DO NOT stick a normal label or sticker on your Palm. If you are going to print yourself up the keyboard to stick on your machine, put it over a screen protector. You WILL NOT be able to remove it from your screen without damaging it. Try it out and see if you like it. It might make your little “toy” something much more useful.

Here is Chapter Nine…

(Continue Reading…)

From: gloria oden Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 5:38 AM To: Laura Moncur Subject: [Pick Me!] Comment: “Conversations with William Claire”

New comment on your post #2302 “Conversations with William Claire”

Author : gloria oden

Comment: I just purchased Claire’s book of Mark Van Doren’s essays for a talk I gave to my retirement community on the the Van Doren brothers. They are so wonderful I purchased the books that went with each (as far as I could.) Has he any plans to do the same for Carl? I particularly liked Carl’s final essay at the end of MANY MINDS.

From: Laura Moncur Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 10:03 AM To: William Claire Subject: FW: [Pick Me!] Comment: “Conversations with William Claire”

William,

Your fans are leaving comments on my weblog. She has a question that I can’t really answer. I’m not familiar with the Van Doren brothers.

I hope that you are well and happy. I have been filling my days with mindless activity. Sometimes I need a little bit of frivolity to recharge my batteries. Now that Halloween is coming, I’m back on track.

Hope to hear from you soon, Laura Moncur

From: William Claire Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 4:15 PM To: Laura Moncur Subject: Re: FW: [Pick Me!] Comment: “Conversations with William Claire”

My Laura,

What nice friends you have. Tell your wonderful correspondent that there is a Carl Van Doren Reader that was a fine compilation of his work, and that there should be copies on the used market, and that he also did a wonderful autobiography titled, Three Worlds. Mark’s autobiography was titled simply The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren. All are out of print, (which is true of 99 percent of all the books in the world, or thereabouts). I could probably find anything related to the Van Dorens if they wanted to get in touch with me directly. Or respond to any questions. There is nothing I would rather do….this is one of the great brother combinations in American literary or cultural history; it’s my pleasure and honor to talk or help anyone interested.

Would like to renew my ad on your network, but amazon.com does not respond if my middle initial is used. How strange, although my brilliant son (an astro-physicist) told me long ago the computer can’t think. Is that true?

All best, Bill

From: Laura Moncur Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 4:56 PM To: William Claire Cc: ‘Michael Moncur’ Subject: Our Computers…

William,

Sadly, our computers are only as smart as our programmers. I’m going to have Mike change your name in our database to match the way Amazon.com has it so that when our script does a search, it will bring up the books they have listed. It’s kind of inane of us to change your name to match Amazon.com, because they might not always be the most popular online purchasing company in the future. Right now they are, so we’ll bow to their version of your name and change it back when they get it right. We have no control over Amazon.com’s database, but we do control our own.

Once again, I’ve talked a lot more than I expected to. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Laura

I’ve seen a marked increase in unique visitors this month. It didn’t quite double, but it’s pretty close. Part of that (4.77%) are people from the DDR Forum checking out what I have to say, but most of the visitors (88.61%) come from direct request, meaning they’ve bookmarked me and are coming back or are typing my url in directly. That’s really cool. Thanks for coming back every day, folks. I really appreciate it.

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Who knew that there were so many different ways to say those words? So many variations of those same words have brought tons of people to my site with my entry about the Weight Watchers Core List. If you haven’t seen the comments that have shown up there, you might want to check out that entry again.

I really meant it when I said that there are no excuses. When you email telling me that you live too far away from a Weight Watchers place to go to the meetings, I’m going to send you to Weight Watchers Online. When you say you can’t afford it, we’re going to have a discussion about the simple things that you spend your money on every day that you can forego for Weight Watchers. That’s what commitment is about. It’s about doing whatever you have to do to get to your goal.

If you start throwing excuses at me, all it tells me is that you’re not ready to start this journey. If that’s the case, don’t bother. Enjoy yourself. Eat whatever you want without guilt. Give yourself permission to have whatever you want whenever you want it and stop beating yourself up about it. For some, that has also been the path to healthy eating. Read Margaret Cho’s blog entry about her road to sensible eating. Maybe the Fuck It Diet is your destiny.

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I guess late summer brings dragonflies into the lives of those who need to see them. Last year’s entry about Dragonflies has collected a number of visitors and a few comments that you might want to read. For every comment that says, “ur site sux,” I remind myself of the rare comments that come by that make me feel like I am here writing for a reason:

I am a very aggressive driver and am always speeding on the road. I had a fender bender last week while speeding out of my neiborhood. I was on my way to a weekend vacation and when I got to my destination I noticed a dead dragonfly on the front bumper. I knocked it off and forgot about it, but when I returned from my vacation, I noticed another one dead in basically the same spot. It was wierd so i looked it up. What i believe now according to your article is that speeding is a bad bad habit that I need to change or there is going to be some sad news. This may just be some strange belief, but i will take it as a sign. Thank you for your research.

Comment by Doretha — 9/21/2004 @ 10:45 pm

sabrina martin

Four people were looking for Sabrina Martin and found me talking smack. That was my fear. I worried that I had said something derogatory about Sabrina Martin. I write every day, so it’s really easy for me to forget what I have said. When I saw her name come up in the search strings, I worried that I had said something catty. Here’s what I said, “I wanted to be like Sabrina Martin in fifth grade. She wore really tight pants and the guys liked her a lot. I wanted to wear tennis shoes like hers so bad that I saved up the money to buy some. My mom was surprised that I would rather buy tennis shoes than Barbies and offered to buy them for me. They cost $9.95 at Gibson’s Discount Stores. They were blue and white.” So much for being catty.

I feel like I did a disservice to her. I know the blog entry wasn’t about her, but I didn’t really say enough about her for someone to really know what she was like. I feel like I should write a whole entry about her. She had this funny thing she could do with her eyes. They would move back and forth so quickly they looked like they were vibrating. She was funny as hell. I could always depend on her to crack me up. Her parents lived in the Academy Park neighborhood, just like Dylan. I could point at the house she used to live in today. It was a big, yellow split-level with a big M on the screen door.

Sophomore year, she was a cheerleader. Junior and Senior year, she was a Chate (drill team). She dated Kava Afu, the star football player that took Kearns to State. She hardly ever partied at Sceverenia’s house. It was very rare that I saw her there, even though she was so very popular that she was always invited. I guess she just preferred quiet time with Kava to the loud and potentially dangerous parties that Scev’s parties usually ended up being.

I saw her about five years ago when I was a real estate agent. At the time, she was married with five children. She had been a single mom for a long time and she seemed happy to be married. Later, I learned that she was divorced again. I hoped that she was happy.

Last time I saw her was about a year ago. She was on a blind date with her mechanic. He took her to Port O’Call. I don’t know whose idea it was, but she seemed to be having fun. She told me that I looked very thin and I was so grateful to her for being nice.

I wonder where she is now. She looked so healthy at Port O’Call that I suspected that single life might actually be better for her than married life. I touch her life so rarely now, that I truly feel that I couldn’t give a full account of her personality. Where are you, babe? I looked your name up in the phone book and there’s a Sabrina Martin in Kaysville. Is that you? I hope you’re happy and healthy. Sending good karma your way, if you believe in that sort of thing…

1. What is your opinion on karma?

I think karma is one of those things that we tell ourselves to make us feel better when bad things happen. We think, “He’ll get his in the end,” and that somehow makes us feel better as we think of all the ways that the universe could punish that ex-boyfriend.

Then again, I’ve seen it happen so many times that I should believe it. I can’t use my experience as proof for the belief in karma. I’ve noticed, however, that many people end up bringing to them the things that they do to others. They reap what they sow. They bring their evil wishes upon themselves threefold. Call it karma. Call it justice. I’ve seen it happen too many times to discount it.

In the end, however, I don’t believe in karma. I’ve seen it happen to people, but that is not proof. It takes a flawless proof to convince a mathematician. It takes a double-blind controlled study to convince a scientist. My life is not a double-blind controlled study.

2. If anything, do you think attitude makes any difference? If you believe the world and life are good, will good things radiate toward you? If you believe otherwise, will it all be a self fulfilling prophecy?

I do think that attitude make a difference if only because people like to be around people with a positive attitude. I don’t know about good things gravitating toward you, much less radiating. Self-fulfilling prophecies are literary devices used to foreshadow the plotline so that when it actually happens, the reader feels proud that they figured it out themselves. I don’t believe self-fulfilling prophecies exist in “real life,” but that won’t stop me from using them in fiction.

3. How has luck/chance/facts-of-life/God/karma/nature treated you so far?

I hate to think of myself as a play thing of the universe. I prefer to think that the good things that have happened in my life were a direct result of something that I did. Of course, the corollary to that belief is that the bad things that have happened in my life are entirely my fault also. That sucks when everything goes pear shaped.

4. What is your opinion of the concept of destinies?

I don’t believe in destiny. The only time I bring it up the concept of destiny is when I want to bug someone, when I’m manipulating their emotions, or when I use it as a literary device. Humans like to believe in destiny, so it is something that pleases the audience.

5. Are both bad and good things needed in order to truly live life? Can you have the bad without the good? The good without the bad?

This is one of those religious and philosophical concepts that is used to justify all manner of stupidity and violence. How can there be an all-knowing, all-powerful and ever-present being if there is suffering in the world? How can God exist if there is evil? The popular justification of evil is the concept that you need to have the bad in life to truly enjoy the good. I don’t know how I feel about this. Sometimes it makes me angry because it lets stupid people believe in God. Other times, I’ve found it to be true. Maybe I’ll talk about this in greater detail later. Maybe not.