It's not as refined as works you'd see in a museum, but ... It actually amazed me how much work I did to get this! I was talking to Lille at lunch today about what my undirected creativity and complained about my lack of talent. She said to practice! It seems so simple! ah well ...
KWW

Argh! roars my restless muse

I have so much I want to do with my life, I can't focus on ANY of it!
My life's path is not yet paved, so I keep exploring new avenues.
I want to write. My dad says, "If you want to be a writer, then write!" But finishing a novel and asking the public to read it? Am I really ready to open myself to that scrutiny? I'm too fragile yet.
I want to be an artist. OK, part of what's stopping me here is that I'm not really talented. Images will flash themselves on the screen in my brain and I want to create them, but I lack the training to post them. Also, hasn't everything already been done?
I want to be a photographer. In my family, I'm the designated photographer, which means that my candid shots (taken with a legitimate 35mm SLR camera, a nice one) get a great reaction, and that I have wonderful pictures that really show my relatives' personalities (my personal favorite is the picture of my parents, my dad sticking his tongue out at my mom with mischief, practically licking her cheek, and she's laughing, mouth open wide, eyes sparkling -- I should post it on this site, in fact). But there are so many photographers in the world, I don't even begin to imagine that I can compete.
I want to be a standup comedian. I make people I hang out with at work and in bars and, y'know, AROUND laugh, and that's great. But maybe I'm not funny! (Don't judge me by my posts! I actually do have a discernable sense of humor. Also, I'm in a particularly contemplative mood right now.)
I want to be a musician. I want to be a director, a screenwriter, an actress ...
My muse must have attention deficit disorder.

Odd shirt

A friend and I went to a convenience store that has a really delish Mexican restaurant today for lunch. Outside the store, a tan polo shirt on a wire hanger was hanging on a concrete post.
Just hanging there, like in a closet.
Only outside a convenience store.

Fugue state

Sometimes, I wish I could just disappear.
No direction, no boss, no worries ... just my money, my car and myself.
It seems like it would be so liberating: No history to speak of, you begin when you wake up and end when you go to sleep.
You don't have to listen to a boss, you don't have to be responsible for other people's jobs, you don't have to second-guess every decision you make because, well, you start over fresh every morning.
There's no history.
Would it be easy to start over?
People can't really disappear anymore. There's too much paperwork to even get a job anonymously, let alone an apartment.
Maybe small towns would offer anonymity. If you're born in a small town, every single person there knows your business until you and every single member of your family leaves. But if you move to a small town, rumors swirl and gossip follows you, but no one KNOWS you.
How marvelous to just reinvent myself -- or to never stay anywhere long enough to allow people to get to know me.
I imagine I'd think I was on a great adventure. Every morning, I'd wake up with a thrill in my stomach, waiting to see what the day would bring me; every evening, I'd sleep with the satisfaction of the new experiences behind me.
But between my boyfriend and my family, my cats and my stuff, my job and the guilt I'd have over leaving unexpectedly -- I think I'm stuck where I am.
I won't be staging a disappearing act any time soon.
So I try to find something to delight in every day.
Today, it was the joy of seeing my cats -- they're brothers -- sleeping wrapped in each other's front legs. They were kittens the last time they actually wrapped their legs around each other.
It's no open road, but it'll do.

Weird dream 3

So, I'm interviewing Hugh Hefner for something and he decides to make me his protege. But that seems to involve playing video games and talking about the meaning of life. 'Cause that's pretty much all the rest of the dream was about.

Rain, rain, rain

I LOVE the rain.
Living in Southern California, I don't often get to indulge my precipitation ya-yas, but it's been raining a lot this year.
There's something about the sound, nature's white noise.
There's something about the feel, big bloppy drops plopping a moist mosaic on my skin, or sharp precise pencil points of the cold water.
And the smell! The world smells fresh, reborn, after a good rain. My apartment complex is surrounded by trees, a novelty in SoCal (not in the Midwest, my home!), and the rain uncovers scents I thought I'd forgotten.
There's novelty to watching the rain create ripple after overlapping ripple in puddles.
I even love driving in the rain (a dangerous activity out here -- see my post from awhile back about crazy drivers). When I'm in my car, the rain seems to seal me in. I'm in a bubble!
What I love best, though?
It's an excuse to stay inside, pet my cats and read a book.
It's supposed to rain the rest of this week.
At this rate, my soul should be years lighter by the end of the month!

Weird dream 2

So, last night I had a dream that I was married to U2's Bono.
We lived in a grain silo in the middle of a field in Montana. He explained that we lived there to show that we felt the pain of starving people all over the world.
I was a teutonic blonde, my hair so light in color that it was practically see-through, and it defied gravity, creating a diaphanous cloud around my head.
Even my eyelashes and eyebrows were light. We paid a makeup manufacturer (animal friendly, of course) to develop a kind of white mascara just for me and other uber-blondies.
So I'm getting ready for an event or something and I'm putting on my mascara when Bono shows up in a suit and tie with his "buddies" from "the office."
And all I can do is yell at him for bringing them home when I wasn't prepared for guests.
He stood in the doorway of our bedroom hanging his head.

Toxic

We all like things that aren't good for us if we indulge too often: chocolate, TV, video games, etc.
And, of course, some friends.
Many of us probably pride ourselves on not liking people who are bad for us. We counsel our friends who are in bad relationships to get out of them. We avoid the lazy co-worker who gets no respect from the bosses lest we're tainted. We treat people who treat us poorly as though they are plague patients.
But disconnecting from a friend you've just realized is toxic?
At first, it was a kick (bordering on novelty) hanging out with her: going to bars at the last minute, talking to guys, staying at bars till the last minute, etc.
It was bizarre yet interesting to hear her talk about her conquests, man after man after married man (and dear lord, were there ever a lot).
But she slowly started burning her currency with us.
We noticed that every story she told was about herself (unless it was wildly blown-out-of-proportion gossip). She hijacked stories we tried to share about what was going on in our lives to tell stories about herself.
She would call us only when she needed something.
We never really talked when we went out. My friends and I were merely the audience for her one-woman show apparently titled "MLS Wants to Get Laid."
And when she was dating a man all of us told her to dump because he treated her like dirt, she kept dating him, all the while complaining about how poorly he treated her, because she'd "invested too much time in it."
A valid concern, and a common excuse used by people afraid to be alone.
But having us call him for you when he didn't call you for three days in a row? And when he didn't show up the evening the two of you were supposed to take a pregnancy test because you thought you were knocked up with his spawn?
I just didn't want to hang out with her anymore.
So I didn't.
One of the luxuries of getting older/more mature is that you become less concerned with what people think of you and more concerned with having as much fun as you can with the time you have left.
Last night, she called me for the first time in months.
She: What are you doing?
Me: Playing a game, and waiting for a friend to call. We're going out.
She: Oh.
And after some inconsequential conversation, we hang up.
This morning, she comes into work complaining about how everybody's being mean to her.
(One Stop Weird Shoppe note: It turns out she'd called another friend who, seeing that it was she, didn't answer his phone. He works in the same office she works in, so he tired of her even before I did.)
(One Stop Weird Shoppe note 2: It also turns out she had gone out of her way to be rude to another friend just this morning, asking her how she was doing, then turning and walking away before the friend could answer. So, consider the source.)
Then, she sends me a self-pitying e-mail saying she was sorry to interrupt me last night, that she'd only called to get directions to this place in Hollywood.
Guess what, you're not really making a case for being a good friend. Calling just because you want something is still just plain ol' selfish.
We all like a little drama in our lives. Used sparingly, it can spice up life and get your blood pumping, making you look forward to the next twist in the road.
But this girl craves the damage chaos creates.
And I'm staying out of the path of destruction.

Driven to hatred

You know what I hate?
Bad drivers.
Not that I think that there are there are those among us who like the people who plague the asphalt like chiggers in a Kansas field in July, but I think I'm haunted by bad drivers:
*Oct. 1999: An 18-year-old driver runs a red light at about 20 miles over the speed limit, hitting and totalling my beloved green 1993 Ford Tempo.
*Jan. 2000: An accident at an intersection pushes a car into my 1999 Ford Contour, the car I had to buy because my Tempo had been totalled.
*April 2000: A kid pissed that a ticket salesgirl at a movie theater wouldn't sell him a ticket to an R-rated movie spins out in the parking lot, loses control of his pickup truck and hits my car. (This is the only one of the three accidents I wasn't in the car to experience. The theater manager had to interrupt my viewing "The Skulls" with my fabulous friend Howard to tell me my car had been hit. Howard came with me and once we hit the hall, the first words out of his mouth were, "God, that movie is so shitty." Oh, Howard, how I love you!)
And that's not even counting the endless role call of drivers who must be trying to use their cars to crawl up my ass using their cars.
So I'm uniquely qualified to pass judgment on bad drivers.
Last night, I was driving home from the store on a road that has several stop signs. I was coming up at an intersection at which two cars were already stopped when a car comes rocketing up behind me (also, it was well past dusk and the guy didn't have his signals on -- don't EVEN get me started on that gem).
Where did he think he was going? It's a stop SIGN, not a LIGHT. It's not like there's a green to catch. Even if he had a clear shot to the intersection, he still has to stop.
And once we got past the obstacle of the stop sign, he started swerving back and forth. If it was to check how the traffic was in front of him, I have a simple word problem for him:
Q: If there are three cars in front of you when you stop at a stop sign, and none have turned off the road, how many cars are in front of you?
A: Three.
That's not a question you're going to find on the new and improved (?) SAT.
I know the answer and I'm not even that great at math.
There are THREE CARS in front of you. Deal with it.
At the next stop sign, he speeds up the left turn lane (again, he has to stop 'cause it's a STOP SIGN!).
And blessedly makes the friggin' turn, allowing me to quit worrying about getting a car grill up my ass.
It's funny, 'cause bad drivers have irritated me for years. I just don't see the point in driving badly. If you're late somewhere, most people will wait. Besides, you should have left earlier. If you forget a turn you needed to make, turn around and catch it. If you're in the far left lane and need to make a right-hand turn, backtrack.
A friend of mine once said that her trick to handling bad drivers was to imagine that they're doctors on their way to a life-or-death situation.
Funny, though, that all the drivers behind me seem to be proctologists.

This fabulous picture was taken at Yosemite National Park in California. I LOVE my little digitial camera! It's remarkably easy to use and makes me truly think about getting one of those super-huge professional digital cameras. And this after years of being a luddite in camera stuff! (I still think 35 mm gives a crisper image once blown up ... but digital definitely makes pictures easier to play with!) After I downloaded the photos from it, I turned it black and white and that's all she wrote! I feel so Ansel Adams-y!
KWW

Weird dream

Last night, I dreamed that I'd gone to the airport and parked in short-term parking. But once I got in the airport, I had to go on a trip. When I got back, my car had been towed.

Target markets

I work for a newspaper, and it's an interesting job to have in this era of 24-hour news and all-access news Web sites.
This is not a diatribe on the death of newspapers, or an essay on the excellence of print journalism.
No, let's discuss target markets.
Our bosses tell us to try to "spin" stories to attract young (age 18-34) male readers, or to make sure to include stories that will draw these readers to our paper. Our story budgets are inspected for stories that can be marketed to these readers. Newspaper groups even host seminars on studies of young readers and what they want.
Two problems:
1) They don't really mean they want young male readers. They actually mean they want young male skateboard and punk music enthuthiasts. As older white people (mostly men), they have this specific image of youth culture and anything outside that male skateboarding, punk rocking stereotype doesn't fit, and certainly won't be addressed in our paper. A story about, say, the beat spots to photograph this year's brilliant crop of wildflowers (we've had a rainy spring thus far) is dismissed as "not target market." Young male photographers simply aren't part of the equation. One co-worker said any story can be attractive to any target market, it just has to be spun a certain way. But as long as we have such a myopic view of youth culture, we won't be seeing stories that will appeal to a wider youth market.
2) They want us to remain a wholesome family newspaper. Not every story needs to be peppered with "damn" and "hell" (neither of which we can use in our paper, by the way), but there's a freedom to the writing and topics in the alternative publications that DO attract the youth market our bosses say we want. Our editorial board is conservative, meaning you'll never find a pro-Democrat slant on our opinion page. Stories about bands or bars to which the target market may be attracted go unwritten lest they turn off older readers. (One Stop Weird Shoppe note: I realize the irony in saying the bosses have a specific stereotype of young male readers, then implying that all young male readers are liberal bar hounds.)
But I guess newspapers aren't the only business grappling with the target market issue.
A sushi restaurant we frequent has a sign posted inside the bar, facing the cash register, where the waitresses can see it every time they ring up a bill: "Play old people music ONLY!"

I love playing with photos. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm good at it. But I look forward to sharing my work! I took this at Downtown Disney in December 2004.
KWW

Relatively famous

I saw pictures today of Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek at Morrison's grave on what would have been the Lizard King's 60th birthday.
How would you feel if you were the members of the Doors who weren't Jim Morrison? At first, it's cool. But all of a sudden, he's the one getting the choicest groupies and the best drugs.
Do you get jealous? Or are you happy for the leftovers and content to bask in the glow?
How does that affect your self-esteem?
The law of averages and common sense (and a healthy knowledge of history) would seem to tell us that for every Jim Morrison, there are Robby Kriegers and Ray Manzareks.
There simply can't be enough fame to go around for everyone, can there? The lightning flash of fame strikes once, and in the case of the Doors, it struck Jim Morrison.
If your cousin is Tom Cruise, for example, maybe you should just give up acting. Go and be the best artist in your family, or maybe the best teacher, but you will never be the most successful actor in your family. (One Stop Weird Shoppe note: We actually enjoy and appreciate the work of William Mapother, especially in "Lost," "In the Bedroom" and "The Grudge." But last year, Cruise was ranked the fourth most powerful celebrity by Forbes.)
I want to be a successful writer. But according to my theory, if my friends get famous, it decreases my chances.
What does that say about me that I wonder about things like that?!

First entry

My friend Kyle had to come help me start this. I'm such a wimp. I feel like I'm afraid to start anything on my own!