Friday Night Madness

And the Winner Is…

Bingo! (Photo credit: jadensmommy)

Hey Artist, Got a Dollar?

Submitted to the Reader’s Choice blog 5 minutes ago. Thanks to all who played along and cast a vote! I have wonderful friends, both online and off.

It’s 7PM on Friday of a three day weekend, woo hoo! I’m getting ready to meet Fatigue for Friday Night Madness in a little while, and I am more than ready. Ready to go be a grown up for an hour, and ready to happydance. Don’t worry, kids! I’ll limit my dance to a squirm in my seat, it’s so upsetting to the 20 somethings when they see a middle aged woman get excited. I’m lowering my cholesterol through exercise–and then I’ll raise it back up with an order of nachos. I know there’s a pint of beer waiting for me, I hope it doesn’t go flat before I get there. I’m certain it won’t be warm, because it’s about 2 degrees here in New York tonight.

Why am I happy? Because today, for the first time in a long time, I felt my rhythm while I was writing. Not just tweaking, editing, revising, not just forcing my butt to stay still and write, but really felt it. This WIP is a romance, but the setting was one I originally conceived of a few years back for a magic(al) realism short story. I’m going to try to graft the two seeds, growing them into something new for me. Will it work? I’m really not sure, but I’m very, very excited, in that way that only a woman who likes to play with characters inside her head can be.

WTF? (Photo credit: mayhem)

Jumped the Gun or Getting a Head Start?

Skizze zur Radierung „Sprint“ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw Fatigue last night for Friday Night Madness, and we both talked about renewed efforts to pursue our respective arts. We talked about being flexible. Sort of, we talked about me being flexible. I think I can be, fiction, short fiction, romance, essays, blogging–though I’ve got limits. I cannot write erotica. Really, I tried, it didn’t flow. Or moan, or anything else it should do. Fatigue suggested writing reviews as a potential money maker. I’m not sure how that would work, with me never going to the movies, or the theater, and usually reading books looong after their original copyright dates, but I’m not opposed to the idea.

I woke up at 5 am today, and spent the next 6 hours researching e-publishing vs self publishing. Again. I’ve done this many times before. Once Man Child and Nerd Child were awake and in the living room, I forced them to listen to me debate which path to try first. I’m pretty sure Nerd Child slipped his ear buds back in halfway through, but he appeared attentive at appropriate intervals.

And then, I did it. Please, dear Fringelings, don’t think I knocked off query and synopsis inside of an hour, both were already long written, edited, re-written and re-edited, waiting in my files. I submitted my short contemporary romance to an e-publisher, including query, synopsis, and pseudonym, following submission guidelines.

For this first stab at e-publishing, I went with the e-division of one of the big houses. I know, I know, this means less likely acceptance, but it’s a shot.

Do any of you have experience with submitting to/ publishing with any of the e-publishers? Words of wisdom? Voices of experience? Cautionary tales?

I am determined to get back on track with my writing and submitting this year, and take control of whatever I can.

022. (Photo credit: angela larose)

Big Senile Dog Asplodes

Big Senile Dog in better days

He’s getting up there in age. Accelerated due to an unfortunate incident several years ago, when he drank the saltwater from the sump of our tank. With age, comes more illness and accidents, just like people. Guess what I’ve been doing for the past 18 hours?

They’re still predicting this storm is going to hit New York. OK, I can be a good mommy and start getting prepared. Made sure we have plenty of meds, food, distilled water for the tank, gumbo for the ~~beasts~~ dogs, and I figured I’d buy some stuff to make cookies or some kind of treat with Flower Child this weekend. So, one of the things I bought was a small bag of sugar. Really, I try to remember to have all food put away if and when I leave the house, I know Big Senile Dog is a counter surfer. Silly me didn’t think he would decide to go after an unopened bag of sugar. In plastic, so not even like it was one of the paper bags so he’d smell it easily. Heh.

You know I came home to find sugar e-ver-y-where. We have pseudo-wood floors, many places where the seams between the boards are a little too big. Get the picture? Sweep, wash, sweep, wash. I had to go back out at this point, so I’m sure I’m being clever by giving the dogs an extra walk first. I’m not that dumb, I know Big Senile Dog will be sick from the sugar he ate. Ummm hmm. I’m out with Husband and Flower Child, maybe 45 minutes, come home to find the freaking dog has puked. E-ver-y-where. To make it perfect, copious amounts of drool were mixed with the puke, and both dogs had walked through the puddles.

O-Ceder – Sponge Mop (Photo credit: Mid-Century Pretty)

Wipe, wipe, wipe. Begin washing again.

Now that this is the third time I’m washing, not only am I cleaning dog drool and puke, but the sugar that had fallen into the cracks of the floorboards is starting to come up, forming a lovely, slippery glaze.

I want to kill the dogs. Not just kill them, but reach my hand down their respective throats and rip their intestines out. No intestines=no puke, no diarrhea, no problem. Oh, calm your jets, any lunatic animal activists who might be reading; I said I wanted to do this, not that I did. I’m a loon who actually cooks for my dogs.

Obviously, the woman in that ad didn’t actually own any pets. Or sugar. Actually, I don’t own a mop. They take up space and smell foul after you use them a few times. So all this washing the floor was done with a sponge. When I thought it was reasonably clean, I gave up.

All the time I’m wiping and washing, I’m thinking of the bottle of Bailey’s tucked behind the vinegars at the back of the fridge. I deserve a shot, right? Not a perfect Friday Night Madness, but I can make do. Only now I open the fridge, moving the yogurts, the soy milk, the vinegars. I’m ready to join Big Senile Dog and start crying, errr, drooling. Guess what? No Bailey’s.

“Husband, did you drink my Bailey’s?”

“What Bailey’s? We don’t have any.”

Steam is now starting to escape from my shriveled fingertips. “The bottle in the back of the fridge.”

“Oh. I drank that a long time ago.”

“You don’t even like Bailey’s. That’s why I buy it for me.”

“But it was in there for a long time. If you wanted it you should have drank it.”

I’m now entertaining visions of ripping out Husband’s intestines. This is the point where Mrs Fringe’s head asplodes.

Got up this morning, took the dogs for a walk, came back into the apartment to realize the floor didn’t look or smell clean yet. Anyone have stock in Murphy’s Oil Soap? You’re welcome.

Sugar and Spice (Madness song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Splitting Hairs

I need a haircut. In my mind, I look like this:

Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But the mirror shows more like this:

The famous tongue image (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been thinking (read, moaning and groaning to Husband) I need a haircut for about a month now. I know it’s true, because when I walked into Mother-In-Law’s apartment yesterday afternoon, she asked if Flower Child had done my hair for me.

I like to look presentable but I run into several obstacles. 1) I hate looking in the mirror. Truly, I’d rather have the Evil Queen’s mirror (Snow White) than the bitch harping on me from mine.

2) I don’t enjoy going for haircuts, or anything else that involves strangers touching me. Yes, I’m uptight. Accept it, I have.

3) The ever-looming budget. I can get my hair cut next week, but that means I have to skip Friday Night Madness this week. Not a tragedy or a hardship, but a bummer. Even in my broke and Fringe life, I recognize this as a first world obstacle.

4) I haven’t had a haircut in five years that wasn’t interrupted by the school nurse, calling to tell me Flower Child was sick or seizing or both. I haven’t received a phone call from the nurse yet this year, I’d like to stretch this as long as I can.

I don’t dye my hair, it’s salt and pepper and yes, I like it this way. But thanks for giving your best guesstimate on how much younger I’d look and you’d feel if I dyed it. I spend about two weeks googling hairstyles for gray hair before I go. Why? I see the same three images, regardless of year, season, or current styles.

English: Actress Jamie Lee Curtis autographs her books for children in Building 150 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, April 1, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paula Deen holds court (Photo credit: Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway)

Cruella (Photo credit: KerriNikolePhotography)

Ok, I made up the Cruella one, Emmylou Harris is usually the third photo to pop up. Maybe I should go for Cruella this year. It might just satisfy Mirror.

Where’s My Union Rep?

Women corset workers on strike walk down the street wearing undergarments (Photo credit: Kheel Center, Cornell University)

I’m going to join the ladies in the photo above and go on strike. Mrs Fringe needs a day off! I’m also going to digress for a moment.

In looking for an old photo of women on strike, I noticed something interesting. The women are smiling in these photos. Not so in photos of men on strike. Why? Is it so ingrained in women to smile and be polite, even when making a political statement and fighting for a living wage? Or did the photographers give women an alert and admonission, “Smile pretty for the camera!” that wasn’t offered to men? I can see it now, “Oh yeah, this is important, we’re gonna to a big story on you, front page. What’s that you say, your sister lost three fingers in the industrial sewing machine cause she worked 27 days in a row? C’mon girls, you have to smile, nobody’s gonna look at a photo of a bunch of sourpusses.” Then again, I have a vivid imagination, and my observation could mean nothing more than smiling women are the photos that caught my eye.

I like my coffee analogue, like my photography (Photo credit: futurowoman)

But mostly, my imagination has been taking me back to my youth, when a day off meant a day of nothing. Not a day of less, but a day where I could stay in my pjs, lie in bed and read all day, my biggest energy expenditure when I got up to make coffee. It isn’t a mystery why I can’t do this anymore. I live in the city with two dogs, they need to be walked three times a day. I have people, little and big, brought to life and brought into my life by choice, who depend on me for household supplies, clean laundry, meds, food, chaperoning, homework help, and a clean toilet.

Fatigue and I went out for Friday Night Madness this week. Due to life, we had missed the past few Fridays. He has arranged his finances so he’ll be able to take a few months off from his day job, beginning next month. This will mean tightening his already tight budget to a stranglehold. But I get it; he’s going to rest, regroup, and use the time to work on his art. I’m almost envious. Almost, because even my vivid imagination can’t quite imagine being in a position to do this.

One of the “tells” in writing as to whether or not a piece was written by a man or woman has to do with qualifiers. Women tend to write the way they speak; lots of almosts, quites, somewhats, sort-ofs, tend-tos,in-my-opinions. Many of us live that way, too. Almost a day off, not quite a day off, somewhat of a day off, sort of keeping it a light day.

Sunday, not a day off, not a day of rest, but I’m going to try to keep this to a day of less. How about you? Do you get days that are truly off?

Fringe Folks

In case you were wondering, my family and I aren’t the only peripheries left in the city–though it’s true, if you were making a hippie coat of Manhattanites, the fringe would look kind of moth eaten, sparse. This is a lonely place to be, but I do have a couple of friends here. Mostly, we’re all too busy getting by to get together.

Except for Friday nights. Sacred Friday Night Madness. I get together with my buddy, Fatigue. Sacred because we try to do this no matter what, more so because we miss as many weeks as we hit. One beer. I have one beer, while Fatigue downs his pretty but nasty Manhattan. Depending on how the week has gone for each of us, we might share a plate of nachos, a sandwich, or on a particularly flush week, each have our own sandwich.

We dream about leaving the city, me to a beach town, him to another city. We talk about our respective arts; my writing, his singing, depending on the year or month, explain why our dreams are dead/aren’t dead/on hiatus for the time being. We talk about our beasts, Big Senile Dog and Little Incredibly Dumb Dog, and his two, Enormous Skittish Dog and Teeny Yip. We talk about who’s left the neighborhood, who lost their job, their apartment, their life. He asks for updates on the Fringe kiddos and Husband, tells me about the other friends he’s seen and spoken with during the week. He tells me the histories of the old and mostly dead cabaret stars. We calculate the cost of the evening and talk about what we’ll cut during the week to make up for it. By now he’s done with his Manhattan, and is on to impersonations. Fatigue is a very talented guy, and can do a wicked impersonation of just about anyone. I polish the moment, to laugh and not have to think. Then the waitress comes over and asks if we want another round. Of course we do, but we can’t, just tell her everything was perfect and we’re so tired we need the check.

I don’t leave for the evening until I’ve given dinner to Flower Child, Nerd Child, and Man Child. I’m home in time to say Good Night, My Darling to Flower Child and walk the beasts.

Anyone else have a Friday Night Madness?