Page Six, Class, Boredom and Plans



I Survived the Arizona Blizzard of 2013



This will be the first thing I’ve written in almost a week. I’m completely bored with my new book ventures at the moment and every time I sit down to work on them everything I write just feels forced. So I prefer to do anything else because forced fiction is painful and I won’t put out something that feels like I had to write it just to appease people waiting for a sequel. Sorry folks, Guess you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer.

But in the meantime I feel like a complete and utter space filler right now. Kind of the same way baseball started taking over the sports section. One day there was a blurb on page three about how spring training would be starting soon and suddenly today any talk of hockey ends up all the way in the back of the section on page six so baseball can have the first five pages. Sorry hockey, guess I’m the last desert rat who gives a rat’s ass about this sport.

We had a good run though didn’t we? Since February 3, right after the Super Bowl came to a close, the Coyotes were featured on the first couple pages of the (sports section of the) paper every day. Because let’s face it, they’re playing better than the Suns. And you all know my team is the Bruins but if you think it’s tough getting Coyotes info, try getting something about a team that’s on the other side of the country and in a different conference. That’s what NHL Network and Android Apps are for.

But now that the snow has melted off Salt River Field and all of the tobacco chewing, over paid guys are back in town, hockey in the desert will become a fading memory. In the paper at least, I’ll still be watching my four games a week until July when the Cup finals will likely take place.

Oh, speaking of a fading memory, I’m going to regurgitate one right now. How great was Ben Affleck at the Oscars when Argo won best picture? He was so classy in fact he squarely put the attention of the entire audience on his Jennifer and took it off another Jennifer - Lawrence - who wore a dress so bulky it caused her to fall down on her way to pick up her Best Actress statue. Eek.

Of course, she was funny about her fall, which I also found quite classy, but Affleck saying things like ‘there’s no one else I’d rather work with’ to Jennifer Garner, knowing they’ve only made one Hollywood movie together, and seeing Garner’s reaction read ‘oh god honey, I thought we talked about you making speeches off the cuff after the Globes’ made all of that falling down business seem less clumsy. Good for you Ben, you took care of two Jen’s with one awkward speech.

Which brings me to my pet peeve of the Oscar evening. Let me first say that I don’t have an Oscar – the golden statue or a de la Renta – and I’ve never been to the proverbial Super Bowl of Hollywood nights. I don’t personally know anyone who has and I don’t think I’ll be getting an invite anytime soon. But I’d like to think if I did go I could look a little excited to be there.

I get it Hollywood you’re like the baseball players in this situation, taking over everywhere. Or me in my current state in life, bored off your ass. You’ve been to so many stupid award shows over the past couple months, put on so many pairs of constricting Spanx and four inch heels, dresses you have to return the next day, and copious gallons of hair product that you’re just over it.

But that shouldn’t be our problem. We watch the Oscars not because we really care who wins but to see all the other stuff – like who falls down, who has the ugliest dress, or who made a speech so right on we Writers are happy to have him in our corner. What we don’t want is the camera doing the quick cut away into the crowd only to see you practically rolling your eyes then taking a nap in your seat.

You’re freaking actors for goodness sake! Can’t you play the role of the interested and excited person for four bloody hours? I mean we don’t follow you home so feel free to lambaste the person winning later while you toss your Spanx into a corner of your closet and let the true you out. I know it’s constricting to pretend but give it a try and I’m sure you can pull it off.

And if they can’t pull it off, I want to institute new rules. 1) If the camera pans to you and you look bored you don’t get invited next time. 2) If the camera pans to you and the viewing audience can just tell you hate the winner because you’re either a) not clapping or b) giggling with the person next to you instead of paying attention you will be summarily dismissed from the show and someone more deserving of sitting inside the glitzy arena will take over your seat.

I’m willing to volunteer.

Maybe doing something new would help me get past my own sense of boredom.

Which is exactly what I had in mind this week when I started drawing up plans for our house. I needed a shift in creativity, pronto.

In May we’re going to refinance our home loan so we can get rid of mortgage insurance (something I find even more useless than bored actors) and in the process we’ll take a bit of cash. Our plan is to put it right back into the house – all new windows (ours are currently single pane and doing nothing for energy efficiency), new flooring and possibly renovating the kitchen.

Which is why I’m doing up plans and pricing spreadsheets. Finally my Interior Design schooling can come into good use. I’m budgeting down to the penny for this one and if we can’t afford it by even $100 we’re waiting until that $100 is in our hand.

Luckily we’re planning to stick around this time so we won’t be looking at another Labor of Love situation, regardless. Sometimes you learn your lesson. This is one of those times.

Anyway, part of what we’ll be doing is opening up our living room and kitchen to one big great room space and I got the before and after plans drawn up yesterday. What do you think?



Fireplace & corner walls that are freestanding in the middle of the space as well as all upper cabinets and the wall above the stove will come down to open up to a great room concept.

 

Breakfast bar replaces upper cabinets, countertop extended, pantry cabinets and desk fill the void on the north wall. Open shelving on the south wall. Window on the west wall, north most, will reduce in size to match the other window on the same wall & make way for the laundry coming in from the garage.



If nothing else this bout with creativity in a realm other than words has caused me to get a little spark back inside my brain. Maybe my next murder will take place in a design center or something. I can have Shaw out shopping for a new refrigerator and when she opens it there’s a body inside. She’ll call Agent Harris right away. It could be JJ’s cousin. Then the gang will all be back together and Shaw will be hot on the trail of a murderer, gathering fodder for her next novel.

The good news, it looks like if I keep working on dream plans for our house perhaps you won’t have to wait all that long for a sequel after all. Maybe even by the end of hockey season.