The Day After Today

Better known as tomorrow there sure will be things going on that are causing me a bit of panic. First and biggest news to talk about is the storm, Sandy, that’s currently only a couple hundred miles off the shore of the northeast United States. She’s huge, evil looking and apparently going to bring so much surge with her as she makes landfall that the southern coast of Connecticut and north shore of Long Island could see eleven foot swells.

For places that are already at sea level (or below like marshes) an eleven foot sea is going to be like a nor’eastern tsunami. To all my friends and family up and down the coast, but especially those in the northeast which looks to be the hardest hit, please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. Get to higher ground if you’re right on the water. And for those who do flood it will suck but its only stuff. The most important thing is that you are safe.

For those who do stay home but experience a healthy storm with all the fixin’s there’s a few things you can do:

1. Pull out the board games (Remember those? Some of us do.)

2. Charge your electronic devices & only use when necessary (This does not include playing Angry Birds all day because some Governors declared your day off before the storm even approached your area, be smart!)

3. Cook some meals in advance (Especially if you’re Ann.)

4. Fill your bathtub - in case of water issues you can use it to flush toilets or boil to drink if things get really bad (this one is serious)

5. Be safe with candles (And only burn books if you absolutely have to in order to survive.)

6. Pull out extra blankets in case the power goes out & it gets dark/cold (Which is totally different than it is most of the time in mid-fall in the northeast of course.)

7. Stay the heck off the roads, crews already have enough going on, they don't need to deal with stupid motorists (another serious request)

8. Change your name if it’s Sandy (Who wants to be called a bitch for the next few days, weeks, months?)

9. Build an ark and get the hell out of there (But watch out for those tall waves, we all know what happened to Marky Mark and Clooney. That was a disaster!)

I joke but this shit is serious people! The most serious of all of course is #2 above. I mean, if your device isn’t charged how on earth are you going to be able to download and read my brand spanking new novella, Reckless Abandon, when it comes out tomorrow?

(Nice segue huh? Like I’ve said a million times, I’m a shameless self-promoter. This means that, yes, I will use a hurricane to promote my work. Good thing you all love me.)

Reckless Abandon, my Romantic Suspense novella, is on my website for preview. I’ve posted a synopsis and a short excerpt. What do you think? I’m so very proud of this book and I’m panicking a teensy bit over it being released (all joking aside, the hurricane has nothing to do with it other than I feel Sandy took up residence in my head and is swirling around non-stop leading up to this release!). This is my first attempt self-publishing a suspense genre of any sort. The book is short, only 30,000 words, so you can read it in a couple hours.

Or during one day curled under a blanket on your sofa by the light of your fully charged electronic device while you ride out a hurricane. Just sayin’.

I’ll be posting the link to purchase over on my Writesy Blog as well as my website tomorrow once it goes live on Amazon for Kindle. My first eBook!

For those who pre-ordered my first title, Ripple the Twine, when I released it this past April be on the lookout for an email to arrive a little later today or first thing tomorrow morning. I have a surprise for all of you!

And in all seriousness, please family and friends, if you live in the northeast stay safe and check in somewhere as soon as this thing passes by – blog, FB, twitter, email, text, phone – because we’re all crossing our fingers that you stay warm and dry and that you kick Sandy’s ass!

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

I am not sure about other places in the country but here in Massachusetts where I grew up one of the most anticipated rites of passage was fifth grade camp. Every class from every school in our general neck of the woods were put onto busses during various weeks throughout that school year, with suitcases and bug spray, and shipped off to Caribou, Maine for seven days; for many of us it would be our first trip away without our parents and we were psyched.

The main theory of getting that many different schools together at camp was that we were supposed to bond, to make new friends and to learn “survival” skills from our camp counselors. The week our group made the seven hour journey up to the literal and figurative middle of nowhere Maine the only thing any of us really learned was fortitude in the rain; that is unless of course treading water suddenly became one of the basic skills of woodsmen everywhere.

We arrived fresh faced and excited to try new things. We learned that while we were there we would all have the opportunity to canoe, take part in other fun water sports, learn to properly use a jackknife, sleep in rustic cabins, light fires and on the last day we would be making the trek through a swamp -- this was considered to be the pinnacle and most looked forward to (as well as most talked about) part of camp. All of us were jazzed.

The lake at twilight the first night was a peaceful and tranquil stillness of periwinkle, sapphire and dusty blue plus a healthy dose of pink and purple from the reflected, setting sun of the night sky. Huge birds flew low over it just as the sun was going down and we inquired as to what they were. We were told that the birds were loons. They were majestic and looked magical to me. Having this scene burned into my memory is a special gift because it was the last time I saw sun until returning home.

Our sleeping quarters were small cabins with bunk beds and we shared with a bunch of other kids, many if not all were kids I had never met before. I was a shy kid who embarrassed easily and meeting new kids was not easy for me. Not to mention that fifth grade was probably one of the worst school years of my life since it was the year our teacher told us there was no Santa Claus. I was looking forward to getting out of the cabin and hopefully spending time with my friends but they set it up so activities were done by cabin; I was stuck like glue to these people until free time.

During free time we were allowed to do anything we wanted from exploring the campgrounds to swimming or, what quickly became my favorite, learning how to whittle. As the daughter of a Carpenter wood totally fascinated me and I was excited to learn how to manipulate it. Because it was constantly raining I never had the chance to take my swimsuit out of my suitcase anyway and since I was a shy girl I found it much easier to chat with the grownups on the big porch while I shaped and carved my way through this wet week of hell.

I grew up as a Catholic and it was beat into our brains by every single boring priest and Sunday school teacher that God made it very clear “he” would not destroy the Earth again through either fire or flood. I never fully identified with this particular religious sect but as each day passed and I watched the swamp and puddles everywhere rise like the Red Sea I prayed that the no flood thing was factual. All my letters home probably sounded just like an Allan Sherman song. I tried to conceive of how I could just disappear instead of having to do the swamp walk; would they even miss the girl who rarely ever spoke? I was almost out of clothes already and it wasn’t like they were drying by slinging them over the end of our beds. It seemed like they just became breeding grounds for larger and larger mosquitoes. I was in full on panic mode as we came to the last day.

The morning of the swamp walk it was still raining but it had slightly let up from the downpours of early in the week. I was so grateful for that little reprieve. Our group got there and we started out no more than ankle deep, I was elated to think this was the walk! I had been so worried about having to walk through a pond of water that could hold anything from snakes to, well, snakes. Then we kept going.

We trudged on and the swamp kept getting deeper and deeper. I immediately patted myself on the back for putting already wet clothes on to do the walk; I had somehow managed to save one dry outfit for the ride home. The water level had risen so high that the top of the swamp was hovering somewhere just under my chin. Now my greatest fears involved something having to do with swallowing swamp water or drowning at camp. Even the counselors made a note that it was unusually high and typically only came up to our waist.

They laughed it off. I was not so much finding the humor in my soggy fears. We emerged from the other side of our walk and then everything is a fuzzy blur until we are on our way out. I can only imagine that the endorphin crash caused me to black out as I packed 100 pounds of wet clothes into my suitcase and ran to the bus. But there was no bus to get on. We had actually been rained in; the road was impassable and they were trying to figure out a way to safely get us out of there.

After what felt like the longest day of my life I stood with fellow classmates and other sodden kids as we waited for a solution to the ‘how do we get these kids out of here now’ problem. I have no idea how long we waited but I do remember we were very late getting back home because they had to truck in a flatbed tractor that could traverse the moat that had built around our little campsite. In very small groups and at painfully slow speed we were driven out of camp.

It was like a Barry Manilow song when we emerged on the other side. I ‘kept myself protected’ by sitting on the inside of the tractor’s flatbed. After being poured on and having to walk through a swamp when I was down to my last semi-dry outfit, the last thing I wanted was to fall back in as we bounced along as if riding the rapids. The water level was within inches of the top of the tractor. It was quite wild and a fitting end to a week I was happy to see come to an end for so many more reasons than a week’s worth of rain.

The bus ride home seemed to fly by despite the complete lack of comfort from being waterlogged. I believe I read a Nancy Drew book and enjoyed checking out the whittled carvings I brought home. Once we were back in our comfy homes the rumors started to fly. Seems that the group of kids slated to go up the week after us had to be cancelled due to the rain. Those kids got to go to sixth grade camp instead. I simultaneously felt bad for them and wished I was one of them. I bet those kids had the chance to get wet in the preferred method -- in a swimsuit on the lake as they watched loons fly by overhead.

Broken Thought Process Used To Be On Thursday

It’s a long weekend (Matt has today off) and I am so ready for some geographical space. In fact last night we even looked at hotels in Virginia Beach and considered making the 8 hour drive down there but decided to play Rock Band instead.

With the advent of so many things that bring us together across such large lines it makes me wonder what constitutes community these days. In addition to my local community where I physically reside, there are other areas where it seems community is key -- Facebook, blogger, anywhere that a group of individuals makes up a larger, like minded group. Is it possible to give to all of them? Or better yet, is it necessary?

So I’m lurking around Facebook the other day (which I really shouldn’t do because I’m still on borrowed time) and a friend asked where her best friend was. I knew she wasn’t talking about me but I responded anyway that ‘I was trying to type but my damn life raft just kept floating down the street’. She responded that she was in fact laughing her ass off, although she used the much shortened version of the expression -- lmao. In turn I came close to responding that I had nothing left but humor since my sanity had washed away weeks ago but I thought maybe it would have been a rain joke overkill moment so I just chuckled to myself and decided to use it as a broken thought for today’s post instead.

I would change this theme to Broken Thought Process Friday, since I always seem to post it on Friday, but then I know it wouldn’t get posted until Saturday.

It has been cloudy since June 11; our last day with any recorded sunshine. It is strange how much my inner self needs to see the sun during the day and the moon at night. Now I’m even happier I didn’t let Matt convince me we should live on that houseboat.

Target is the best for inexpensive DVD’s. I’m working on replacing all our videos to DVD and target had a whole bunch of movies at $4.75 and $5.00. Score! My Keanu Reeves collection is just about fully replaced.

By not having cable I discovered the coolest station -- RTV. Every night at 6:00 is The Hulk followed by Knight Rider, The A Team and Magnum P.I.. I’m just waiting to discover what time Hawaii Five-0 is on so I can come full circle.

I raised the height of my drums a little bit and it made such a difference in how I play. Last night I hit a 1313 note streak on a song I had never played before. Yeah-ya.

Recently I have been going through another very uninspired period with my writing. It really drives me crazy when this happens since it is what I am supposed to be doing all day, so when I don’t work on the books it makes me feel like I am not really working at all. In my head I feel like I’m not contributing to the family and I really despise that. Sure I blog or maybe write a HubPages article but those things are not why I stay home to work, they are not my goal. Blogs and articles I can whip out in a very short period of time with minimal edits and post them online, but the novels are completely different animals. They are living and breathing things and if I don’t feed them once in a while they will just wither away. I feel like it’s been far too long since I’ve tossed them any scraps. It is time to get my head back into those characters and complete their journeys.

Too much to do this weekend now that we’re sticking around close to home and not enough time to do it all if I keep writing so catch you all on the flip side home skillitz. Sorry, just bought (& watched again) Juno.

Um, yeah I totally forgot to link up to the other BTPT gurus...not cool man, not cool.
Ginger, Bridgete, Bree, KC, Kate

Who Needs Shelter?

“Good day sunlight. I’d like to say how truly bright you are. You don’t know me but I know you. See, you’re my favorite star.”

That is the opening to the song title which is being borrowed as my blog title. I am using it as my mantra now. I have to. Thanks Jason.

As the moat around my new apartment grows, I am taking some time to put together an iTunes playlist which includes only songs that have lyrics about the sun, summer, good weather or the word sun in the title. Oh summer, how I will try to encourage you to show up by playing this wonderful collection of awesomeness at top volume.

It is also imperative that I follow the old adage ‘Jesus Saves’ and depress that little icon here in the upper left corner of my Word doc every so often. Normally a little rain (OK, a lot of rain) would not have me paranoid about losing power but earlier this morning I actually heard a sizzling sound outside the window and as my head reacted so my eyes could see what it was, I turned in just enough time to watch lightning brighten up the entire sky. Simultaneously thunder clapped and a car alarm only a few houses away went off. Fuck. That one even scared me a little and I love storms. Ever since that happened the lights have been dimming every five or so minutes, even though the lightning has, for now, moved on.

So for the rest of you who are also enjoying the throes of SAD, I present you with my ultimate “kick rain’s ass” playlist! Rock it with the windows down, it’s probably time to wash the inside of your car anyway and why not take advantage of all this free water right? Now if only I could figure out where to pick up some free soap…

Sunshine Day -- The Brady Bunch

Who Loves the Sun -- Velvet Underground

Summertime -- DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

Summer Wind -- Frank Sinatra

It’s Magic -- The Cars (“Summer. It turns me upside down. Summer, summer, summer, it’s like a merry go round.)

Ain’t No Sunshine -- Bill Withers

Black Hole Sun -- Soundgarden

Summer of ’69 -- Bryan Adams

Staring At the Sun -- The Offspring

Cruel Summer -- Bananarama

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me -- Elton John

All for Me -- Melissa Ferrick (Standin’ on my front porch, sun in my eyes. Perfect iced coffee, smilin’ all over my insides.)

Sunshine on My Shoulder -- John Denver

You Are My Sunshine -- Elizabeth Mitchell (Might be original)

Ray of Sunshine -- Jason Mraz

Stay (Wasting Time) -- Dave Matthews Band (And it was so hot outside, oh, you could fry an egg)

Under the Boardwalk -- The Drifters (Where the sun beats down and melts the tar up on the roof)

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

Margaritaville -- Jimmy Buffett (This song is summer!)

Island in the Sun -- Weezer

Summer Nights -- John Travolta & Olivia Newton John

I Can See Clearly Now -- Jimmy Cliff (It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day)

Walkin’ On Sunshine -- Katrina and the Waves

Saturday In the Park -- Chicago (I think it was the fourth of July)

Boys of Summer -- Don Henley

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer -- Nat King Cole

Endless Summer Nights -- Richard Marx

Summer in the City -- The Lovin’ Spoonfull

Here Comes the Sun -- The Beatles

Blister in the Sun -- Violent Femmes

I could go on for about sixteen hours with everything I have in my collection within these criteria. Never mind the fact that I have a CD called ‘The Sounds of Hawaii’, tons of ukulele music and a library of other music that screams summer to me (think Brown Eyed Girl, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, etc). Funny, since I started writing this the rain has stopped and it looks like it could even get a bit bright outside.

Here is to the power of positive music! What are your favorite summer songs? I want to add them and up the chances of that season making an appearance this year.

Broken Thought Process Thursday, Er, Friday. Yeah that’s it…

Here we go again, running late to the party. Sorry to make everyone wait out in line for the past day, shivering cold and damp in this freaking rain that never seems to end in Boston. Correct me if I am wrong but it is June right? Oh and it is just nine days until summer right? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Nine days until I quit smoking for good. Ya-flipping-hoo!

A few nights ago my mom and I went to the Arlington Cultural Council Artist’s Summit here in town and holy wow Batman, what a completely productive and fantastic time! I met up with some totally groovy people and we exchanged digits (actually more like characters since no one calls anyone anymore right?) so we can try to get together and possibly help each other out with our artwork , form some collaborations, and just generally connect with other like minded cats. How great is that?

Who knows where this will lead but it has certainly sparked a renewed interest in the collaboration my mom and I are already working on and I have started hatching some good stuff for it. Plus I found out there is a social networking site just for Arlington residents called famboogle. This town has always felt so very small to me (and with every connection I make on Facebook, see who has married each other, who is hanging out now, it is further confirmed). It never occurred to me that our town might need something like this, but it is pretty new and already has over 1000 members so I guess we do.

Tomorrow we are attending a birthday party for a friend who is turning forty. We only get together at best once a year but always have such a great time when we do so I’m definitely looking forward to it.

Unfortunately we will not be partying the night away there because I had picked up tickets to go catch They Might Be Giants. I have no idea who this band is, unless Matt sneaked something on and I did not know it then I have never heard their tunes but he loves them so it should be enjoyable. Especially because it is in a small-ish venue and I somehow managed to score like fourteenth row center. I guess it was either luck or that place is going to be totally empty.

Then Sunday we help my dad and Wicked Stepmother move again. The little place they got into had just a few issues -- for example the house is still on fuses & not a circuit breaker, there are single pane windows everywhere and it is heated with oil. Outside of New England that might not sound like much but their heating bill in the winter would likely have hovered around the $800 range. Ouch. So now they are heading to a much nicer single family a little further west and at least this place is fairly modern. Put it this way, they shouldn’t have to ask each other if they are using an electronic device before turning on the toaster oven.

What I really can not believe, and get even more excited about with the passing of each moment, is that we are moving so soon too. Just sixteen days until we can officially move in. Bring it on!

Lately I have been having some seriously wacky dreams. I really can’t share the extent of them because it would take days but suffice to say I wake up every morning asking myself ‘what just happened there’? A good example would be last night’s.

I am in an outdoor market type place; it reminds me of somewhere in Europe (which is not surprising as I was just talking to someone about the architecture in Amsterdam the other night). There are columns in stone that lead up to huge open archway doors which begin long corridors that border an open courtyard. So there are shops and restaurants on one side and an open wall on the other. There are lots of people everywhere. I am with someone but never see their face. Some apparently well known artist is singing for the crowd in the middle of this courtyard area and he sits down to get eye to eye with a belly dancer in an all white costume who has moved up to the front of the little platform type stage. I see my sister across the crowd but then she disappears and the singer tries to catch my eye but I will not look their way, as if I am shy or something. Suddenly the singer disappears but I have this feeling I am supposed to go after him so I do and end up hustling through one of the arches, down a couple stairs and start quickly making my way down a corridor full of people where I see a restaurant and ask my companion why we did not eat there. I have asked everyone if they have seen the singer and all along the way they are pointing in the same direction toward a door out. (I am using their name when I ask people if they have seen him but I can not remember what I was saying so let’s just call him Fred) I head out the door and spy Fred coming back towards the building across a long parking lot, walking a bicycle. He is out of stage clothes now and wearing a navy blue hoodie and jeans. Fred and I fall in step and the person I was with is now gone. We head into this open wall room that no one else can find and he pulls out a bag of weed and proceeds to ask if I would like to smoke a joint. I say sure and we continue to talk for a few minutes but then I wake up.

I guess that one is less freaky than the one where Bruce Springstein was my opening act but I am still thinking maybe I should stop drinking that glass of wine with dinner.

If April showers bring May flowers then what does June downpour bring?