Lake or Field?

April just started yesterday, I swear, and suddenly it’s almost over and I haven’t posted what I intended to post.

A couple of weeks ago, the family headed to North and South Dakota on a multi-purpose trip. Along the way, Eldest Son got happy with the camera, taking pictures of the scenery, which was decidedly flat in North Dakota and slightly more rolling in South Dakota. (Not that it takes much to be more rolling than North Dakota.)

We had heard the reports of flooding along the Red River (our nephew helped with sandbagging), but were surprised to see evidence of flooding in other areas of the two states. All along the roadways, water covered the fields, so much so in some places that it appeared as though the fields had become lakes. Photographic proof of the South Dakota leg of the trip from Eldest Son below. Forgive the blurriness. He shot these as we were driving.

Flooding, South Dakota, April 2009

Flooding, South Dakota, April 2009

Flooding, South Dakota, April 2009

Flooding, South Dakota, April 2009

Flooding, South Dakota, April 2009

In order to prove that South Dakota is more than flooded fields, here are a couple of photos of interesting buildings in Aberdeen:

Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota, April 2009

House, Aberdeen, South Dakota, April 2009

Fluke by Christopher Moore

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the eighth book I’ve read by Christopher Moore. I should know what to expect. The general zaniness was there. So was the potty humor. But Moore set me up, had me thinking this was a slightly skewed scientific mystery about whales. Then, he took a left turn at Albuquerque and the story became even more Moore than it had started. Thing is, I didn’t see it coming, which gives me great respect for Moore. He got me to suspend my previous knowledge of his work long enough for him to hoodwink me.

Moore also showed a keen, if offbeat, sense of character description, with one of my favorite characterizations being on page 20:

“There was pot and steel drums in his voice, bemusement and youth and two joints’ worth of separation from the rest of reality.”

I can see this kid.

Marvelous book.

View all my reviews.

Never Tell Your Car When You’ve Come Into Money

I have to preface the above piece of advice with a little story.

This past Saturday, Hubby, Eldest Son and I decided to attend a pow-wow that’s held every year at St. Cloud State University. The costuming and native dances are fascinating and hypnotic and another bonus of the event is that a free meal is served, complete with traditional American Indian foods. Last year we were served venison. This year, we got buffalo, walleye and wild rice. Yum! But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

As we arrived in St. Cloud, I had a thought. Hmm, I thought, our car hasn’t had any mechanical problems lately. That’s nice. About a mile later, as we were approaching Hallenbeck Hall, where the pow-wow was being held, Eldest Son said, “I smell syrup,” and Hubby and I did, too. By the time we drove into the parking lot, our engine was sputtering great clouds of steam through the hood, seriously overheating. Crap.

I told Hubby and Eldest Son about the thought I had on the way in and they both said, “You jinxed it.” Welcome to my psychokinesis.

We went into the pow-wow, caught the dance of the veterans, and then dinner was announced. We intended to stay and watch the performances following dinner, but we had a car to deal with. It was a Saturday evening and we knew no garage would be open. We were able to get some water for the radiator from a used bookstore/deli next to Hallenbeck Hall, thanks to the guys working there. We went to a nearby garage and, no surpise here, it was closed. With a little thought, we decided to try to drive home, hobbling over to Target to buy several gallons of water for the trip. We were prepared to stop periodically to let the engine cool.  Somehow, we managed to get home without stopping once. The car didn’t overheat again.

The car is now at a local garage being fixed. There was a hole in one of the hoses, which let the coolant leak out, which is why the engine overheated.

But that’s not the end of the story. After we relayed our saga to my sister-in-law, she said she has a friend who has given her a piece of advice borne out of experience. When you’ve come into extra money, don’t ever mention it around your car because your car will find a way to make you spend that money on it. How very true.

And I’m going to add another piece of advice. Don’t ever think about how wonderfully your car is operating. Your car is determined to prove you wrong on this point and it will find a way to make you spend money on it.

Darned psychokinesis!

Twinkie!

Daughter has a game she likes to play while we are on long car rides (okay, on any car ride). Whenever she sees a yellow vehicle, she says, “Twinkie!” She’ll be conversing with us, she’ll see a Twinkie, say, “Twinkie!” and then be right back to the conversation as though she hadn’t interrupted the flow.

Last weekend, Hubby, Eldest Son and I went to Fargo, North Dakota. From there we were heading to Aberdeen, South Dakota. We eventually hooked up with Hubby’s parents and our other children in South Dakota. Before we got there, we decided to do a little something for Daughter. We thought she needed some Twinkies, so we bagged some with the camera.

Twinkie!

Twinkie!

Twinkie!

Twinkie!

Twinkie!

Twinkies!

When we met up with Daughter, we handed her the camera and said, “Twinkie!” and let her look through the photos. Hubby couldn’t resist setting up the last picture, although, in the interest of full disclosure, those aren’t actually Hostess Twinkies, but an off-brand of sponge cakes with creamy filling.

The Human Propensity for Fiction

When you go online and meet new people, whether through blog posts or tweets or some other social media application, don’t you start to wonder? We are being given snippets of people’s lives (some of us providing bigger snippets than others), getting to know people through their words and avatar photos, yet, without having met someone, it’s difficult to form a true picture of that particular someone. We can’t read the physical vibe they are sending.

Instead, we look for clues, attempting to flesh out the true nature of a person using the information that’s been provided. It seems that human beings have a natural propensity for creating fiction, because that’s exactly what we do when we form opinions about others without experiencing the fullness of their being. (Not that we can ever really experience the fullness of someone else’s being without actually being that other person, but that would fling my point into another existential realm altogether.)

If we observe a person continually sounding off about environmental issues, we may conclude that this is the only thing he cares about, perhaps enhancing our thought by picturing the person wearing khaki pants, a crinkled button-down shirt, hiking shoes, and a safari hat, hugging a tree for good measure.   If we observe a person exhibiting trollish behavior, we may imagine that she carries a perpetual scowl and is a lonely, unloved person because why else would she be acting the way she is?

Our mental fictions about others aren’t limited to online interactions. Our habit of fictionalizing the people we’ve encountered online is merely an extension of  the fictionalizing we do in the physical realm, even with people we’ve met and interact with on a daily basis. I dare say, we even fictionalize about the people closest to us, our family members and friends.  A couple of examples may help prove my point.

When I was in high school, I studied the Holocaust extensively, reading books and watching documentaries on the subject. While I have moved away from this interest, having explored it as fully as I wanted to at the time, my mom continues to suggest resources on the topic to me … over twenty years later. In her mind, I’m still in that place, but in my mind, I’m long gone.

Another example. Eldest Son had to prepare for an art show and he wanted to build an arch that would hang on a wall to showcase his work. We bought him approximately $70 worth of supplies for his project. Due to a minor emergency** at school, he lost two days during which he could have built the arch, so it didn’t get done. He called me (he rarely calls, so this was a big deal) and, with worry in his voice, he told me that he didn’t get the arch built. In his mind, he was imagining that Hubby and I would be mad because we had wasted our money on the project. After assuring him that the money wasn’t an issue, that we knew he could use the supplies on something else, that we understood there were extenuating circumstances that kept him from completing the project, he felt relieved. We had replaced the fiction in his mind with the fact that was in ours.

I used to think that writing fiction was difficult because I had more experience with writing factual pieces.  However, having made this observation about humanity’s natural propensity for fiction and noting how constantly we indulge in it, it appears that this ability is hardwired, perhaps encoded into our DNA.* The vast majority of us are really good at making shit up. The difficult part is in translating the fictions of our minds into a cohesive piece of writing. 

*I’m fictionalizing about our fictionalizing being encoded into our DNA. Maybe it’s in our synapses instead. Or in our little toes.

** Were you fictionalizing about the minor emergency at school? If so, put your mind at ease. It was an electrical transformer issue and everyone was evacuated for safety’s sake. All’s well now.

[April 25, 2009: Note - This post has been completely rewritten.]

Cree….per!

I made a couple of birthday cards yesterday, one for my nephew, one for Daughter. Nephew’s was an abstract thing, brightly colored shapes and silver lines on a black background. When it came to making Daughter’s, I had this sudden urge to draw a Jack-in-the-Box. The image was quite clear in my mind. I envisioned a Jack-in-the-Box along the lines of Lady Elaine Fairchilde from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Here’s the result:

Jack in the Box Birthday Card

When I showed the card to Eldest Son, he said, “Well, isn’t that disturbing?” Young Son used Daughter’s favorite word, “Creeper,” to describe the image. Yes, Jack-in-the-Boxes have an inherent creepiness, just like Lady Elaine Fairchilde. I had apparently captured this creepiness and Daughter agreed, although she later said the only thing that made it really creepy was all the red I had used. Maybe that was what was so creepy about Lady Elaine.

Btw, the proper way to say “creeper” is to use a high-pitched voice and draw out the “cree” part of the word – “Creeeeeeeee-per!”

Mandatory Option

I ordered a cap, gown and tassel from Jostens for Eldest Son’s high school graduation today.  Within the order, I had to fill out Eldest Son’s height and weight. These were listed as “mandatory options.” Can you say oxymoron? Someone needs to explain to Jostens that if something is mandatory, it is not an option.

Consider it explained.

Sheesh!

Give Them a Sharpened Stake

Oh. My. God. I have come upon a truly SENSATIONAL writing quote. I have to share it.

The quote is on page 145 of the hardcover edition of Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. The story is told from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old English boy named Jason Taylor, who is both a stutterer and a poet and is trying to figure out how to fit in with the rest of his peers with these traits. His poetry has been published in a parish magazine under an assumed name. He meets the person responsible for helping to get it published, a Belgian woman named Madame Crommelynck who makes him light her cigarettes, in a chapter called Solarium.

Here’s the quote:

“I felt giddy with importance that my words’d captured the attention of this exotic woman. Fear, too. If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, “When you’re ready.”"

Yes, yes, YES! That is totally the feeling I have when my work goes to an audience.

Nine Inch Nails Nihilism

As I soaked in this Wired article concerning Nine Inch Nails’ (NIN) new iPhone app …

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2009/04/trent-reznor-wa.html

… and this YouTube video concerning NIN’s iPhone app …

(which, truthfully, I only watched a smidgen of because I’d already read the Wired article and I don’t own an iPhone)

… and this video of Trent Reznor’s Digg Dialogg (which is 40 minutes of excellence, by the way – Trent has good advice for musicians and astutely discusses the current climate in the music industry) …

http://digg.com/dialogg/Trent_Reznor (sorry, can’t get the blasted video to embed)

… I got to thinking, as I am wont to do (darn thoughts just won’t stop) …

What’s the point of me ever blogging about Nine Inch Nails again? NIN is building a media empire through its fans, with everyone contributing photos, art, music remixes, video, and discussions to its website, which is an interconnected, yet multi-tentacled PRESENCE. Trent Reznor & Company are creating a benevolent dictatorship, wherein everyone can share and be happy and blend into the PRESENCE.

And where all of us can disappear into an indistinguishable mass. My post title, “Nine Inch Nails Nihilism,” is a misnomer. NIN isn’t the nihilistic one, not with the PRESENCE. It is I who is doomed to nihilism in the context of the PRESENCE. A lowly fan. With no distinctive voice.

Depressing, isn’t it?

Time to turn this nihilistic car around because if I don’t, I’ll start wondering what use it is to be a fan at all.

Just because NIN is constructing a PRESENCE doesn’t mean that everyone must contribute. Nor does it mean that I can’t write about the band outside of its website. In fact, being on the outside gives me a certain objective distance. It also allows me to keep my own voice, to discuss the band as I like, to stand apart from the masses a little bit.

I dare say, writing about NIN on my own blog is really more about me than it is about the band anyway. My blog is about what I care about and how it filters through the being that is me. Me. Me. Me. I sound so self-centered, but it’s all I’ve got to work with. I can’t jump into someone else and experience life or NIN through their eyes.

As I prefer extropianism to nihilism, especially where I myself am concerned [ahem!], I think I’ll continue on with my independent streak and write about NIN here when the mood strikes. And if I want to contribute to the PRESENCE at some point, I’ll do that too.

Have I ever told you that I’m sometimes called “Mary, Quite Contrary?”

Workrave

Too much computer time is making me a slug. That’s no surprise. In an effort to be less slug-like, I decided I needed something to force me to get up and walk away from the computer for a little while. Enter Workrave.

Workrave is a little application that sits on your desktop and pops various screens on your computer at set intervals to remind you to take a break. There are three timer levels to Workrave: the micro-break, the rest break, and the daily limit. The micro-break is typically set for more frequent intervals than the rest break, but doesn’t last as long. The default setting is for a 30-second micro-break. The rest break is supposed to be longer, with the default setting at 10 minutes, and the screen that pops up shows various eye and stretching exercises to get you moving. The daily limit is supposed to help you set the maximum amount of time you want to be on the computer in a day.

The purpose of Workrave, according to its About Workrave screen, is to “[assist] in the prevention and recovery of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).”

All of the timer settings can be adjusted according to your needs. I’ve been fiddling with the settings for a week now, trying to get them to work with my rhythms. So far, I’ve determined that I need more frequent micro-breaks, but that they can be shorter than 30 seconds. I have them set for 20 seconds every 10 minutes. My rest breaks are scheduled for 5 minutes every hour. My daily limit is set at 6 hours, even though the default is 4 hours. I could set it for less time, but Daughter uses my computer, sometimes for a couple of hours in a day, and that eats into the time I have set.

The mere fact that I’ve put the program (oops, micro-break time!) (okay, I’m back) on my computer makes me more conscious of how much I tend to stare at the screen, which makes me take more frequent breaks on my own.

The only trouble is that when I’m on fire with writing and a rest break appears, I feel stymied, but Workrave has a solution for that. There are two buttons that appear with the rest break screen. One allows you to skip the break; the other allows you to postpone it for a bit.

Oh, and the Workrave icon is an adorable sheep that sits in your tool bar. Nothing like an adorable sheep to get you to use a program.

Wii Fit Regresses My Age

We (Hubby, Eldest Son, Daughter, Young Son #2 and I) went to visit my friend Jody the night before last. We hadn’t gotten together in ages. (Darn long Minnesota winters!) She invited us over for homemade pizza and gnocchi with asparagus alfredo sauce. Num! (More asparagus pee, too.)

While we were visiting, Jody thought it would be fun if we all tried her Wii Fit. The kids all had a go at it first. When starting, it helps to create a Mii, basically an avatar for yourself. Eldest Son and I have a similar appearance, which was really apparent in our avatars. I kept thinking Eldest Son’s avatar was mine.

Once you create a Mii, the Wii Fit asks you your height and birthdate and has you stand on the Wii Fit platform in order to determine your weight and Body Mass Index. Then it calculates your approximate physical age. Daughter’s physical age was calculated to be the same as her actual age. Young Son and Eldest Son had physical ages that were considerably older than their real ages. And my physical age … drumroll, please … came in at 33, eight years younger than my actual age, which surprises me because I’ve become quite the slug. The Wii Fit did suggest I build my muscle mass, especially after sensing that my Body Mass Index showed me as being underweight. That was good advice and has certainly been obvious to me for some time.

After a body analysis, the Wii Fit helps you to set a personal goal for improving your physical being, then it’s on to the activities. I tried ski jumping. The kids tried hitting soccer balls with their heads, ski jumping (Daughter creamed the slopes, getting the high score), strength training, and yoga. Daughter now thinks we NEED to get a Wii Fit.

I’m taking her *suggestion* under advisement.

American Spunk Catalog – the Sestina

I’ve added another piece of writing to my pages in the sidebar. It’s a sestina called American Spunk Catalog. I started writing it in March this year and finished it today.

The title came to me long ago, back in April 2007. I enjoy this particular combination of words because it primes the imagination. What might an American Spunk Catalog look like? What might be contained in its pages?

In working my way back to writing fiction, I decided to start with a sestina because it’s a highly structured poetic form, so it gives me some parameters to work within. I also appreciate that it’s short compared to a short story or novel, which gives me a chance to feel like I’m making progress in completing a work.