I ♥ Jamie's Blog

I'm Occupied.

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:19:00 -0400

Keeping Myself Honest

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:11:00 -0400

I’ve decided to publicly share my daily word count. Hopefully it will serve to keep me motivated on days when the going gets rough (you managed 750 words last Tuesday, surely you can do it again!!!) and give me a kick in the rear when I start to get too lazy. I’ve only populated it with the last few days of data (anything else would be embarrassing) but I plan to keep it updated from here on out.

If you want to join me in my daily battle to put words on the page—or just point and laugh—there will be a link to the chart under the Me Elsewhere bar. You know, whenever I get around to it…

Completely on point. (via sleep time….)

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:01:05 -0400

Completely on point.

(via sleep time….)

LOL at the 10% who voted for Ben & Jerry’s. A pint of...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:37:16 -0400

LOL at the 10% who voted for Ben & Jerry’s. A pint of Cherry Garcia in every fridge.

Vanity Fair:August Issue

via

Thinking of you and sending all the positive energy in the...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:57:00 -0400

Thinking of you and sending all the positive energy in the world.

Ira Glass lays down the the truth about the creative process....

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:32:43 -0400

Ira Glass lays down the the truth about the creative process. And what a very difficult truth it is.

Ira Glass on Storytelling (by David Shiyang Liu)

Amy Winehouse would have been 28 today had she lived. It’s not...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:35:00 -0400

Amy Winehouse would have been 28 today had she lived. It’s not October yet, but this song seems appropriate.

“I don’t want to be ungrateful. I know I’m...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0400

“I don’t want to be ungrateful. I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it’s not where it begins and ends.”

What I'm Reading:

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:05:00 -0400

The One Hundred by Nina Garcia

If you’ve seen Project Runway, then you know who Nina Garcia is. If you haven’t…just know she spends a lot of time doing this:

Yes. She’s quick with a barb. But I think my favorite put down of hers has to be her “taste level” line. I really starting to question his taste level she might say to Michael Kors of some poor designer. It’s subtle, but it’s good. She neatly sidesteps the whole good taste/bad taste dichotomy and instead creates a hierarchy that places her at the top and the striving aspirant waa-hay down at the bottom of a deep abyss filled with 80s shoulder pads and 2 inch sequins.

Well, enough about Project Runway. The point of this post is that she wrote a book.

Several, in fact, according to the jacket copy. Though wrote might be a bit of a strong word in this case. But since I haven’t finished my own book, perhaps I shouldn’t be throwing stones n’est-ce pas?

Like the subtitle states it is a guide to the pieces every woman should own, all one hundred of them. If this were a review, and it’s not, I might quibble with that number. I read the book cover to cover and most people get along just fine with no more than 5-15 of these items. So instead of recommending this as a guide to things you must own I’d call it a two hundred and eighty-four page reminder of all the things you’re “supposed” to own but have neither the time/money/energy/inclination to acquire.

And when you’re out there just going about your business and pushing through the shoulder pads, you might stop and remember that way on high is a high priestess of fashion with a closet to die for.

Recipes from Hell: Cheddar and Apple Quesadillas

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:05:00 -0400

So you know that feeling where you know something’s going to go wrong but you go ahead and do it anyway? That’s the feeling I had when I encountered this recipe. Always true to form, I went ahead anyway. I copied the recipe down from the Whole Foods website…I know what you’re thinking…Whole Foods? But they were the only ones who had their act together when I googled OMG-what-am-I-gonna-cook-with-nothing-in-the-fridge-but-apples-and-cheese!

[Sidebar: Don’t actually google that. The first result is not for the easily nauseated.]

Said apples. Said cheese.

Now obviously I had other things in the fridge. I’m just exaggerating for the purposes of drama.

Can you feel it? The added tension? The suspense? The AN. TI-CA. PATION?

Okay. I just got a little too theater nerd for a second. I’m back.

Anyway. Like I was saying. Got the recipe from here. Made it. You know what I got for my trouble?

This. Beige on beige. It tasted almost delicious.

Fortunately I had a backup plan. I threw a pair of raspberry crumbles into the oven and they baked up all ooey-gooey, crunchy and delicious.

Before.

After.

Husband dissed the WF quesadillas, but finished mine. Then he gobbled down his crumble and finished mine as well.

I guess the moral of the story is that Whole Foods is a grocery store, not a recipe book. Oh, and don’t go googling all willy-nilly. Pun intended. Be warned.

Deep Thoughts: Gay Best Friend

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:05:06 -0400

I know this ship has sailed so far out that it’s barely a speck on the horizon, but I still wish more than anything that it would come back to shore and allow all the stereotypes and caricatures onboard to disembark.

I really dislike the term “Gay Best Friend”. Like really.What does it even mean? Why qualify a friendship in that way? I just really want to march people who talk that way to their local LGTBQI chapter.

Do I have to explain why this is not okay? Really? Let’s question and answer this to the finish line. Did I miss the spate of folks going around introducing their besties as my “Black Best Friend”, my “Adopted Best Friend”, my “Currently-taking-medication-to-treat-lifelong-depression Best Friend”, my “Broke Best Friend” or my “Disabled Best Friend”?

Usually, isties¹ of all stripes not withstanding, we recognize that it’s ridiculous to reduce people to labels. Labels are lazy and, sometimes, just plain harmful. Aside from the obvious, what does being gay entail? Being sassy, social and sympathetic to a female confidant’s neverending stretch of ultimately pointless dramas? That’s what Hollywood thinks, but you don’t have to look very far to find a gay person who is none of those things.

Is your friend into fashion or pop culture? Well then say that. It’s far more informative than saying a person is gay. Being gay doesn’t mean you’re into fashion, anymore than being female means you love…oh I don’t know…children and fruity drinks and bikinis.

The only other reason for refering to someone you supposedly love in this way is that the label has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you. “Oh this is James, my gay best friend.”

[Aren’t I so progressive/sophisticated/worldly/cool/hip?]

If that’s the case, then I’ve got a word for you: tokenism. It’s never cute…especially when it’s done by someone close to you.

And that’s my quota for the week.

¹Isties

Definition: Plural of -ist, the suffix at the ending of the words: sexist, racist, sizeist, classist etc.

Origin: Coined during a huffy Tumblr post without the coiner stopping to think of good words like novelist, or humanist that completely defy her definition.

*This definition is 100 percent made-up, just btw.

This is the very first song I can remember hearing. Ever. Even...

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:36:28 -0400

This is the very first song I can remember hearing. Ever. Even after all these years—and even paired with this cheeztastic lipdub—it still makes me smile.

Happy Birthday MJ!

Sidebar:

Is anyone as embittered as I am about fair-weather Michael Jackson fans? Scrolling through #HappyBirthdayMichael is like dunking myself into a cauldron of conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, I’m sure MJ would have been touched to see the outpouring of affection from fans from all over the world…AND it does make life thismuch easier when you no longer get a side eye for saying MJ is your favorite musician. On the other hand…I’m scorched. Where were you during the lean “Wacko Jacko”, musically-arid years?

Where were you when I showed up at Lake Grove Mall immediately after school to purchase the red limited-edition version of Invincible? Probably off listening to Jah Rule.

Did you even bother voting for the video on TRL? Nope. You didn’t.

I rest my case.

Go: Raspberry Picking

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:06 -0400

So we went raspberry picking. It was in no way as romantic and bucolic as you would think it might be. That is if you think driving for a few hours and paying a farmer to harvest his crops is romantic in the first place. But that isn’t what we did anyway.

One of Husbandparents’ neighbors was on vacation, leaving his raspberry bushes loaded with ripe fruit with no one to pick them. After being given permission to “pick all you want I cna’t keep up” by another neigbor who had been left in charge of said raspberry bushes, we ambled up the street with our bowls in hand.

We were beaten there by some kind of wild animal that left its …erm…how should I put this?…inimitable musk behind. Husbandfather thought it might have been a deer. If so, that deer needs to re-calibrate its diet STAT, because the stink was about five clicks past where I feel a deer should be. But we held our noses and carried on.

It soon became clear, however, that these raspberry bushes were some kind of mutants that had never been pruned. To get further than the berries on the edge (that had already been picked over and slathered in Deerfunk) you had to plunge into the waist-high bushes and allow yourself to be scratched and gouged. Like I said earlier, not so romantic.

And just when we got the hang of it we got company. Another neighbor, carrying a gigantic piece of Tupperware that made her intentions very clear, showed up. She said the homeowner was worried about his berries going to waste and so had sent her an e-mail encouraging her to go pick them. Unfortunately for her, we’d already stripped the bushes of most of the easy to reach berries. Two minutes of very uncomfortable small talk, during which I sidled off, (with ninja stealth I hope) followed. As I sidled, I did hear Husbandfather suggesting, bold as brass, that the woman should send her young daughter, who she’d brought along, deep into the bushes where her small size might give her an advantage. I certainly hope for that little’s girl sake that that did not happen.

To sum up:

Funk

Mutant Bushes

Uncomfortable small talk

But the reward was oh so worth it…

Eat Out: Cupcake Royale

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:56:00 -0400

Even before we moved to our new neighborhood we were already hearing buzz. Husbandmother shot us an email letting us know that we would be less than a mile away from Cupcake Royale. Now Cupcake Royale is a cupcake shop and Husbandmother has Celiac disease, (which means she can’t have any wheat products, among other things) so you do the math.

[Quick LifeLesson: A person who is best served by staying as far as possible away from a type of food is usually the most knowledgeable about that very thing. Craving fried chicken? Someone with good-sized thighs of their own will never steer you wrong. Looking for good coffee? Consult the most irritable, beige-toothed person you can find. Wait…who said that? ::whistles innocently::]

Anyways

As it turns out, we’re much less than a mile away. More like 4 blocks…and these are not NYC blocks.

Obviously we hot-tailed it over to CR as soon as it was humanly possible. So a day after we landed, we found ourselves perusing the menu. If you’ve been in one cupcake place, you’ve been in them all. The question is a simple one: exactly how much sugar should you consume at this point in time? We usually split desserts, but Husband started pretending he didn’t know who I was so I took the hint. I had a Strawberry Shortcake cupcake while Husband tested out their Red Velvet Cake. We paired it with a bottle of juice that didn’t even bother with listing nutritional information. If you have to ask, then you probably shouldn’t be drinking it.

Husband really enjoyed his cupcake and I barely had time to snap this before he hoovered it down.

My cupcake was a bit too sweet and I couldn’t finish it. This made Husband veeerry happy.

What made me happy was the art hanging on the walls.

Who knows who the chick is…I’m getting Chelsea Clinton vibes from her, but I’m pretty sure that she must be some 70s singer-songwriter. The gentleman on the left needs no introduction. They scored major points for having good taste, but …ALAS…it turns out that they feature a new artist each month on their walls and that installation was merely the flavor of the month…July, specifically. By the time we actually moved in, MJ was long gone. Cool points rescinded.

ffoodd: elephants (by Elizabeth /...

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:04:01 -0400

ffoodd:

elephants (by Elizabeth / LoneStarsandStripes)

Should make these for my niece. She loves elephants.

Radio Silence

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:10:39 -0400

The last two weeks have been super hectic. We:

1) moved across the country

2) leased an apartment

3) bought a car from a neighboring state

4) got auto/renter’s insurance

5) got titles, licenses, registration all squared away [this involved lots of white-knuckled, when-was-the-last-time-I-did-this? driving on my part which prompted an assessment of “things got a little scary out there” from my driving examiner…but I still passed so YAY!]

6) scoped out Crate and Barrel, found a bed frame that we liked, and then went back to Husband’s parents’ carport and built that sucker. Not to toot our horn, but those Chinese factories that made NIKE knockoffs in the 90s have got nothing on us. Mad skillz were displayed by everyone involved.

And this all happened in the course of one week. Needless to say, we’re pooped.

So if you’re one of the three people (hi Mom) who follow this blog, that’s my pretty valid excuse for why there’s been nothing but tumbleweeds around these parts. But now I’m settled, (or at least choosing to ignore the ten boxes that have yet to be unpacked) and I can while away the hours cruising around the internet. Which I plan on doing. Now that the big stuff is out of the way, it’s safe to procrastinate. In spades. Work justenough to keep self-loathing at bay, procrastinate hard. That’s my personal motto.

But what does this mean for you? I think it’s safe to say that in the coming weeks my blog will be bumped up from Abandoned Digital Property to Sporadic Sightings. I’m excited. You should be too. Get excited.

Washington State in one image: Rain on the back of a pickup...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:02:51 -0400

Washington State in one image: Rain on the back of a pickup truck.

ffoodd: Twilight Cake - ruffled tulip (by...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:29:06 -0400

ffoodd:

Twilight Cake - ruffled tulip (by artofdessert)

I’m not a Twihard by any means, but this I can get behind. Celebrate your love for fiction and eat cake.

This song perfectly encapsulates, in the space of a few minutes,...

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:54:00 -0400

This song perfectly encapsulates, in the space of a few minutes, what it took me several chapters to flesh out in the book.

You got me caught in all this mess.
I guess we can blame it on the rain.
My pain is knowing I can’t have you.
I can’t have you.
Tell me.
Does she look at you the way I do?
Try to understand the words you say
And the way you move?
Does she get the same big rush?
When you go in for a hug and your cheeks brush?
Tell me am I crazy?
Am I crazy?

Once Upon a Time Writing: How to Get Your Book Reviewed

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:58:33 -0400

Once Upon a Time Writing: How to Get Your Book Reviewed:

onceuponatimewriting:

One way to generate publicity for your book is to get it reviewed. But how exactly does one go about it? The obvious answer seems to be to simply mail out copies of your book, but chances are good that your potential reviewers are already being inundated with books and review requests. I recently…