Slate’s “Write Like Sarah Palin” results

The result of Slate’s “Write Like Sarah Palin” contest.  Compilation, compliments of Slate.

Runner-up: “In the soft periwinkle glow of the proud Alaskan morning, I awoke from my sweet slumber and sauntered over to the window to gaze longingly at that mysterious, mystical land in the distance that is Russia.” — Jessica Bonness

Runner-up: “Todd’s phosphorescent smile, his manly physique like Alaska’s majestic mountains resplendent in white birch and gentian in the springtime, reassured me as I swiped the McCain campaign credit card through the reader at Macy’s—I winked at my very own Joe Sixpack, anticipating that on my watch, his new silk boxer shorts would soon be more endangered than the leatherback sea turtle.” — Lisa Patterson

Runner-up: “The campaign path once led me into the homey kitchen of June Asbel, where the aroma of toasted almonds and nutmeg mixed with a sense of American perseverance and optimism.” — Edward Dixon

Runner-up: “Willow at my side, we squeezed among the smiling folks to watch the race, the sitka spruce shaking off its winter dress of snow as the dogs whipped by; they go so fast, so impatient—that’s the way I am, I smiled to myself, impatient with politics.” — Benjamin S. Buckland

Runner-up: “I brushed aside the pussy willow and cockscomb and jettisoned myself blithely to the still-warm throat of the fecund moose, all the while listening the far-off mewgull calling me, the very sound of America.” — Amberly Timperio

Runner-up: “It was only then, after I had removed the saddle from the moose, that I noticed the sweet sound of the warblers singing while perched on the fence post reminding me that unlike New York, Wasilla would always have my heart which not only pumps red, but also white and blue.” — Brian Breighner

Runner-up: “The snow machine pummeled through the white-dusted plain like a jubilant beaver; snow spewing out from both sides, building its dam of snow like a beaver builds one of wood as Todd rode gallantly upon it.” — Brooke Adams

Runner-up: “Nothing inspired me more on the campaign trail than the metaphoric people who tended it—the mighty logger who cleared the brush, the farmer who planted rows of golden corn alongside it, the hunters in the misty distance who kept the wildlife at bay—all hardworking, loyal Americans who, woven together like the fabric of our flag, shone a light that illuminated the darkest shadows on that harrowing trail.” — Mary Daniel

Runner-up: “The minute I was on that stage in Florida with all those lights in my eyes and the smell of Alaska still on my fingertips and my family, too, all around out there, I was where I dreamed of all those years on the basketball court and in Alaskas’s God given beauty which we must cherish and use as God gave it us to use and in honor of the troops, also.” — Kaylyn Munro

Third place: “Reaching the peak of Igikpak, that majestic mount, feeling the smooth Alaskan wind rustle against my cheeks, watching over this vast yet tender land that epitomized so much of America’s resplendent pulchritude, and slowly squeezing the trigger on the wolf cub I’d been tracking through my crosshairs, I suddenly felt in my heart something I had always known to be true: the capital-gains tax must be eliminated.” — Aryeh Cohen-Wade

Second place: “Here’s a little news flash for your Department of Media: Superman’s parents chose life and he was adopted in small-town USA by real Americans who run our factories, harvest our meat-bearing animals, and wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and the churches, not in Washington D.C. by cynical power-brokers and liberal scientists.” — Steve Aydt

First place: “One night after a long day of campaigning, when the haters had made my spirits reach a nadir, I looked into Todd’s eyes, which were as blue as the stripes on Old Glory, and too representing truth and loyalty, and he looked back at me with a twinkle of determination which I hadn’t seen since I told him my goal of having another baby in my fifties and naming it Tron, then did I know for sure that I could carry on, like he, and we, have done together all of these years on this long, Iron Dog race of a marriage that is at once grueling and celestial, onerous and majestic.” — Ann Sensenbrenner

Talk Thursday: We are glass

Maybe that image of glass being so delicate and fragile stays with us from our childhood, becoming part of our collective experience the first time we drop a glass or break a window.  When we’re cut we overlook the fact that glass is strong because we’re bleeding and the glass shards are intact.  Maybe we’re that perfect contradiction of strong and fragile.  Our lives are a constant pressure of contractions and expansions, and because we break we are stronger.  We know being delicate and fragile does not mean we’re weak, and we care even more because of our vulnerabilities.  I believe we, as humans, are resilient and remarkable.  Our sandy collection of memories are fired by life experience and growth.  We melt and stretch to span and fill the shape of ourselves.  The pigments of our unique memories are streaks and shades of whirling color.  Here, an iridescent star, there a glass darkly.  The ripples, etchings, and cracks are testaments to our passage of time.  Our spirits light the darkness within and the darkness without.  We are glass, for glass we are and to glass we will return.

***

There it is – I’m too close to it for an opinion.  I wanted something slightly affirming and positive.  I avoided reference to the inspiration, which was a song of the same name by Gary Numan.  So many different places I could have gone with this topic.  I could have extended the metaphor, or a similar metaphor without the woo-woo/fuzzy/new-agy schtuff.  This could have been a Confessional or image involving a mirror or glass.  It could have been a continuation of “Mirror” (the Leo story) or an extended conversation about who we are and our own truths.  I didn’t know where I was going until I was there.  As JA pointed out, I think too much (and don’t write enough).

Catching Up and Double-Post

TWO Talk Thursdays

Today was my writing catch-up day, and it didn’t happen as planned because I was unpacking boxes of holiday decorations and putting lights around the rim of the house.  Me, on the roof via ladder, all by myself, because I’m a stubborn bastard and slightly impatient as well.  I could have (should have) waited until Scott was back from the store, but no, I hauled out the ladder and climbed up on the roof with a large bag of lights in tow.

I don’t like heights.  Better said, I have this thing called “fear of falling,” which is funny, given my tempetuous relationship with gravity.  I thought about writing while I was up there – topics, not actually WRITING up there.  I thought about the Talk Thursday topics wherein I’ve been… absent… as I sat a few inches from the edge.  “Sex and Tattoos” was one week’s topic where I’d kicked around several irrelevant drafts and annoyed myself.  I refrained from reading TT participants’ comments as well.  I may have refrained from commenting.  Cele’s recent topic of “Appreciate, Validate, Communicate” came to mind and I was chagrined at how skillfully I’d done none of the above.  With those two topics in mind, I thought I could 1) post two-topics in one entry, 2) catch-up on topics, 3) somewhat cheat and write a lot without saying anything, and 4) include pictures.  While I was thinking these things, I attached scores of holiday lights to the edge of the house.  Up there for a little while, I forgot to be afraid.

A rare few musical artists have that sex appeal factor, that impossible attractiveness, that “look” that makes me want to do them.  Their music (pardon the pun here) strikes a deep chord in me.  There’s a vicarious ownership of these musical talents through stereo or video.  Two artists of the last 20 years do it for me:  Michael Hutchence of INXS, and Adam Levine of Maroon 5 fame.

Michael Hutchence

Adam Levine

INXS was a big part of my growing up and coming out.  When I was dancing at the old Bay with my straight/Mormon friends and any of the INXS songs came on, my feet moved me to the dance floor before my brain knew what I was doing.  The song “Need You Tonight” came out the year after I graduated high school and at the time I was hanging out with my favorite cousin’s ex-boyfriend who got dumped by her while he was on his mission.  The club would often follow “Need You Tonight” with “Mediate” – a song that segmented the sentiments to appreciate, validate, and communicate.  I was thrilled, and more than slightly turned on, when cousin’s ex-boyfriend would gesture and mouth “masturbate” during parts of the song.  I hung out with him because 1) he was familiar, 2) he knew I was gay but accepted me for me, and 3) he had really really nice arms, abs, and package.  Up there on the roof, I remembered how strongly devout he became and how he was less than accepting of me.  I try and remember the hot guy dancing and I can hear his voice and he has faded to me, but when I hear INXS I can see and hear him perfectly.

Adam Levine.  Up on the roof, I remember how stubbornly I held off listening to Maroon 5.  A fellow blogger, LA, gave me their CD (“Songs About Jane”) when she was visiting several years ago and I put it away for several months before I finally gave it a listen.  Understand, I’m not big on television, and I can go months without hearing anything new on the radio.  It’s only been the last few years, from Pandora and streaming music on Second Life, that my musical world has expanded outside the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.  The more I listened to this Maroon 5 group, the more I liked them – particularly “This Love.”  I was enjoying their older hits while the new ones off their newer CD were blazing the airwaves.  I was online, checking lyrics, when I followed links and found an image of the group, particularly of Adam.  I was smitten, I was consumed, I was undone by him, his sex and tattoos.  I was not so undone that I didn’t finish placing those Christmas lights, and I did manage to climb down safely – even with the loss of blood flow to my bigger brain.

(note to self – the WordPress ‘gallery’ function is pretty damn cool)

Lady Gaga love

From her looks to her sounds – I love this woman’s music and over-the-top theatrics, immensely.  Several moments in this video grab me – the floating diamonds, the huge eyes, and the brief nod to Austin Power’s fembots.

 

Can’t Help Myself, part II

Care of Betty Bowers:  Less is Mormon!

“Being lectured about what constitutes a traditional marriage by a Mormon is a bit like being scolded for loitering — by a crack whore.”

Oopsie

Long ass day of all-work-related stuff.  I didn’t get my Talk Thursday topic done this evening because my one brain cell rebelled and said ’stop it, you’re hurting me.’

I did finish this day, though.

G’night!

 

One more wee little itsy bitsy bash

I loves me some Famous Dead Mormons.  I love the blog by-line:  “saved after death, whether willing or not.”

Karl Marx?

Lucille Balle?

Nat King Cole?

Vlad the Impaler?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Remember kids – it doesn’t matter what you do in this life, those Mormons are gonna dead dunk you and claim you as their own.

Life Altering Truths

When my high school BFF and I fought over the same girl, it wasn’t out of jealousy of him, it was jealousy for him.  It wasn’t about the girl, it was about him wanting the girl and not me.  This is the same guy I boinked all summer.  Physical fighting scared me only to the extent of the damage I could do to someone.  When he hit me with a right hook to my left cheek, I hit him back and threw him into the lockers.  He picked himself up and looked at me and in that moment I knew he hated me.  The look hurt worse than hundreds of right hooks.  I never did figure out the wisdom in avoiding the straight guys.

My grandpa was a Mormon bigot that never accepted me and my adopted brother because we weren’t “true blood” (we pre-date Potter by decades).  Mother, the soft-spoken yet implacably obstinate and incredibly stubborn protector to us, taught me that elders are not always right, nor should they automatically be granted respect.  At a family picnic, Grandpa once hit me for something my cousins had done with his sanction.  I didn’t even think about it – I hit him back.  His face turned red and he raised his hand to strike me and he stopped and stared: my mom was standing behind me.  He pointed at me and bellowed that I was an evil child and how dare I hit him back and that he was going to punish me.  My mother calmly asked if he was also going to punish my cousins for doing the same thing?  His face went even more red and he stood there with fists clenched until he turned around and walked away.  She squeezed my shoulder and gathered my dad and brother and we left the party.  I learned that we can’t choose our family, but we can choose the people we care about.

Online experiences of the internets have changed the last few weeks.  A cousin went born-again apeshit on me on Facebook, taking various posts personally and saying I was “so negative” and why did I “have to be so prideful about being gay,” wherein I had to respond that my status updates, or Yahoo or Second Life profiles weren’t about her.  All my posts or profiles were meant to entertain, provoke, satirize, and stir things up, and failing that, they were simply mine to express or not – if she took things personally that was her business, not mine.  This evidently was not good enough and she sent a long email to me – she wanted the cousin she knew of her youth back – the young and adorkable and closeted best friend/cousin that wasn’t gay or certainly wasn’t out.  I learned that people will read what they want and make assumptions, no matter how clear or unclear one’s writing is.  I learned that “‘goodbyes” are a bluff I’m willing to call because I have no time to be someone she expects but doesn’t see.  I’ve also learned to use filters on Facebook.

Congratulations to a fellow writer

I made a few friends at the Big Sur writing conference and I found out tonight that one of them got an agent with the Andrea Brown Literary team.  I’m so excited for her and her first young adult novel!  At the time of the conference I got to read the first five chapters and I was impressed with her writing.  She was one of several there who motivated me to do better with my own writing.  Keeping in touch via Facebook and email was a great way to check in with each other.

I know the path to publication is a long one, but it’s invaluable to see a writer at the start of their journey.  My own journey is still in the making, but it’s more like I’m at a rest stop than on the road.  I intentionally stayed away from the NaBloPoMo gig this year – I wasn’t going to commit to anything beyond work, Jennifer’s visit, and my masters program that starts on November 24th (delayed two weeks).  Creative writing isn’t a priority, but I still remember the blog and still get out a few times a week and post here, blathering or no – I do write daily, but not in any format or of any content that would be shared for the masses.

I’m glad for my writing friends who are writing, getting agents, and moving through publication.  I’m at the point of comfort and confidence with myself that I can appreciate their path without being jealous.  I could get used to this aging and maturity thing.  I could be mistaking it all for a sense of zen and the two glasses of wine, too.

On Healthcare

WWJD