(Can you just get through the plan without bogging it down with other little comments and criticisms to and of yourself?)
The Writerly Workout:
You, the participant in this program guaranteed to make you become a better writer in less than a lifetime, will spend at one hour a day focusing on writerly concerns. Just one hour a day has seen proven results in increased muscularity of your writing and will tone and define your reading and language skills. Participants have gained 4-5 new vocabulary words each week with just a bare minimum of one hour a day of concentrated, focused reading or organized, thoughtful writing. Our simple, easy-to-use equipment – the sharpened pencil with dual precise inscription and clean erase technology, stylish spiral notebook for both quick note taking or intense compositional sessions, and a great selection of intellectual, informative, and fun! reading materials – create a system that insure your desired writerly prowess.
But wait, there’s more! For those days when those synapses are just snapping with intellectual energy to burn, you can supplement your regiment with an extra hour of writerly workout. Choose from any one of our additional programs that will stimulate the mind and keep those compositional skill in perfect shape:
- Attend a reading!
- Have a literary discussion with friends, family, even your cat!
- Read news articles, book reviews, obituaries!
- And so much more!
Other plans are hard to follow with their stringent rules, complicated equipment, and overwhelming time commitment. With our easy to use system, you’ll be a real published writer at least by your 40s!
8.25.2009
8.22.2009
Christmas Elves
Because I haven't learned well enough the lesson of not living with english department superstars, my future roommate, current friend, and now former essay writing peer has landed herself a reading at one of the bookstores in Lawrence, and my happiness for her is completely consumed by my overwhelming feelings of total failure as a writer and, as such, a human being.
I always felt like we had always started off from the same point - we lived next door to each other in the dorms, both honors students, took similar classes, and even worked at the paper the same semester - and she has blossomed throughout college into this incredibly put together, polished, highly esteemed member of the english department society, and i - i am signing on to take another year of college partially because I really genuinely want to get another degree, and partially because I still have no direction in life whatsoever.
But at least i made sure to quit IHOP in good standing, a feat rare amongst former wearers of the blue apron, so I always have that to fall back on. And if i keep repeating to myself that David Rakoff and David Sedaris both worked as christmas elves before they ever became writers, I can pretend like i still have some sort of a chance.
I always felt like we had always started off from the same point - we lived next door to each other in the dorms, both honors students, took similar classes, and even worked at the paper the same semester - and she has blossomed throughout college into this incredibly put together, polished, highly esteemed member of the english department society, and i - i am signing on to take another year of college partially because I really genuinely want to get another degree, and partially because I still have no direction in life whatsoever.
But at least i made sure to quit IHOP in good standing, a feat rare amongst former wearers of the blue apron, so I always have that to fall back on. And if i keep repeating to myself that David Rakoff and David Sedaris both worked as christmas elves before they ever became writers, I can pretend like i still have some sort of a chance.
8.02.2009
Driving to North Carolina, A.I.
After an already emotionally trying day of driving 12 hours in the car with my mother (fights about: my car, how i drive my car, Sarah Palin, if you would save in a house fire a paraplegic or a box of fetuses - and you can't put the box of fetuses in the lap of the wheelchair bound person and also why is there a box of fetuses in a house anyway - and of course the obligatory "no i don't want to discuss your sexuality issues right now, i've instantly got a raging headache that will only get worse with increased awareness about your lady-dating") i get "home" to North Carolina to find my dad watching the end of Steven Spielberg's A.I., the movie that made me fall madly in love with Jude Law and also the most over the top depressing film that i've ever seen.
A summary of the end of A.I., also known as the four unnecessary levels of depression:
Level One: David and hotsexygoddamn Jude Law arrive in the dream land Man-Hattan to find that the whole place in underwater and basically completely destroyed. David then finds out that the one thing that he's had to hold on to his whole life, the idea that he's special and unique, is totally false, and there is a million other Davids in boxes just waiting to live out lives of soul-crushing sadness just like he has. His only freaking semi-human friend is sucked up into the air randomly, probably to be dismembered in front of David's eyes in a scene cut from the movie to save time for significantly more horrifically sad events. David then jumps in the neosubmarine, plunges himself into the ocean, an ocean of his tears, where he finally finds the blue fairy, and then prays to her until HE and the ENTIRE WORLD FREEZES TO DEATH IN SORROW.
This is where a normal movie might end, But Steven Speilburg, that gosh-darn sadist, does not want to leave any cringe-worthy weeping-willow-type leaf left unturned.
Level Two: After being frozen for 2000 fucking years in an ice cube meant to represent the coldness of a mother's heart, a mother who is willing to leave her robot son out in the cold to be raped and robot-murdered by dirty carnies of the future, David is rescued by beautiful aliens that only a 15 year old nerd could imagine, aliens made of computers with the bodies of anorexic models. Oh but first, David's new god, the blue fairy statue, CRUMBLES IN FRONT OF HIS FREAKING TEAR-ICICLED EYES. David is not programed for this level of sadness and has a freaking mini-seizure.
But wait, there's more.
Level Three: The aliens, who have magic greater than the coolest wizards, tell David that they can totally bring his mom back, who, even though she's a syphilis-ridden soulless whore who doesn't deserve any love, even the love of a machine wearing a cute little boy suit, is all that David ever really wants in his sad, wretched nightmare of a thing he calls a life. David cries such wonderful tears that they turn into diamonds, which the aliens collect in a secret side plan where they want to enslave him to bring them riches. They'll just bring him to the cusp of finally having one good thing happen to him in life, and then steal the diamonds and lock him in a box for later. As such, after he's cried his beautiful diamond tears, they throw him back in his empty house, where some sucker alien who clearly drew the shortest straw (or maybe the longest, those sick fucks) mimics his mother's voice to lure David in, and then tells him his mother is DEAD FOREVER. EXCEPT MAYBE FOR ONE DAY. BUT REALLY FOREVER.
Then Teddy, in his one minute of glory, whips out a wad of mom-hair that he'd been holding onto for "special keeping" and David finally wins something, a few beautiful hours with his mom, who is suddenly an angel and not one step above Andrea Yates. Make that one step below.
Level Four: We get to watch David live out the one happy day in his entire freaking life, the highlights of which include making coffee like a good little slave and hiding in the closet, which i guess is slightly better than coming out to a world where everyone likes to kill children. Then, much like Our Town, the audience must be put back in their place and reminded the life can never be good, ever, not even for sweet little traumatized half-children, not even for cherubs like Haley Joel Osment. At the end of the day, his mother, just like him, is not special, and she dies, and then HE dies, and then, once you think it's all over and the sad music is about to play for, i shit you not, ten minutes just to make sure you dehydrate your whole body, right down to your toenails, you see that TEDDY IS STILL ALIVE, and EVEN THOUGH HE SAVED THE FREAKING DAY, HE IS NOW STUCK ALONE IN THE HOUSE WITH TWO DEAD DEPRESSASAURUSES FOR THE REST. OF. TIME.
And then i got up and found out that toilet bowl cleaner had spilled all over the stuff packed in my car.
What a day.
A summary of the end of A.I., also known as the four unnecessary levels of depression:
Level One: David and hotsexygoddamn Jude Law arrive in the dream land Man-Hattan to find that the whole place in underwater and basically completely destroyed. David then finds out that the one thing that he's had to hold on to his whole life, the idea that he's special and unique, is totally false, and there is a million other Davids in boxes just waiting to live out lives of soul-crushing sadness just like he has. His only freaking semi-human friend is sucked up into the air randomly, probably to be dismembered in front of David's eyes in a scene cut from the movie to save time for significantly more horrifically sad events. David then jumps in the neosubmarine, plunges himself into the ocean, an ocean of his tears, where he finally finds the blue fairy, and then prays to her until HE and the ENTIRE WORLD FREEZES TO DEATH IN SORROW.
This is where a normal movie might end, But Steven Speilburg, that gosh-darn sadist, does not want to leave any cringe-worthy weeping-willow-type leaf left unturned.
Level Two: After being frozen for 2000 fucking years in an ice cube meant to represent the coldness of a mother's heart, a mother who is willing to leave her robot son out in the cold to be raped and robot-murdered by dirty carnies of the future, David is rescued by beautiful aliens that only a 15 year old nerd could imagine, aliens made of computers with the bodies of anorexic models. Oh but first, David's new god, the blue fairy statue, CRUMBLES IN FRONT OF HIS FREAKING TEAR-ICICLED EYES. David is not programed for this level of sadness and has a freaking mini-seizure.
But wait, there's more.
Level Three: The aliens, who have magic greater than the coolest wizards, tell David that they can totally bring his mom back, who, even though she's a syphilis-ridden soulless whore who doesn't deserve any love, even the love of a machine wearing a cute little boy suit, is all that David ever really wants in his sad, wretched nightmare of a thing he calls a life. David cries such wonderful tears that they turn into diamonds, which the aliens collect in a secret side plan where they want to enslave him to bring them riches. They'll just bring him to the cusp of finally having one good thing happen to him in life, and then steal the diamonds and lock him in a box for later. As such, after he's cried his beautiful diamond tears, they throw him back in his empty house, where some sucker alien who clearly drew the shortest straw (or maybe the longest, those sick fucks) mimics his mother's voice to lure David in, and then tells him his mother is DEAD FOREVER. EXCEPT MAYBE FOR ONE DAY. BUT REALLY FOREVER.
Then Teddy, in his one minute of glory, whips out a wad of mom-hair that he'd been holding onto for "special keeping" and David finally wins something, a few beautiful hours with his mom, who is suddenly an angel and not one step above Andrea Yates. Make that one step below.
Level Four: We get to watch David live out the one happy day in his entire freaking life, the highlights of which include making coffee like a good little slave and hiding in the closet, which i guess is slightly better than coming out to a world where everyone likes to kill children. Then, much like Our Town, the audience must be put back in their place and reminded the life can never be good, ever, not even for sweet little traumatized half-children, not even for cherubs like Haley Joel Osment. At the end of the day, his mother, just like him, is not special, and she dies, and then HE dies, and then, once you think it's all over and the sad music is about to play for, i shit you not, ten minutes just to make sure you dehydrate your whole body, right down to your toenails, you see that TEDDY IS STILL ALIVE, and EVEN THOUGH HE SAVED THE FREAKING DAY, HE IS NOW STUCK ALONE IN THE HOUSE WITH TWO DEAD DEPRESSASAURUSES FOR THE REST. OF. TIME.
And then i got up and found out that toilet bowl cleaner had spilled all over the stuff packed in my car.
What a day.
5.29.2009
Streaking
I can't seem to find the right balance between spending a significant amount of time by myself and spending enough time with friends to develop a close enough camaraderie to go streaking. I have all this pent up energy from not being crazy in love with the wrong people and from the homemade margaritas that make up the top part of my food pyramid, and i just need to do something with it.
Books i've read this summer thus far: 2
What the hell do non-recluses do for fun anyway?
Books i've read this summer thus far: 2
What the hell do non-recluses do for fun anyway?
5.23.2009
Cats
I'm ready to admit that if I had a cat, i'd be significantly more satisfied with my life. I tend to think that "cat lady" is a rung above "hermit girl" on the social stigma ladder because at least you're socializing with something.
10.08.2008
Things i did while not starting my 1500 word english paper:
- Made a depressing trip to the grocery store; bought seven different kinds of ramen, other assorted fucked-up processed foods
- Watched 2.5 episodes of The L Word
- Tried to cook some potatoes, ended up filling the entire house with gas, spent a large amount of time trying to figure out how to resolve said gas problem, and wondered what exactly i'd do if my entire body was on fire
- Ate some Vanilla Honey Bee Haagen Dazs ice cream, twice (divine)
- Got yelled at by Rachel for not finding someone to housesit pet mouse while house is rid of guest mice
- Felt sick, probably from ice cream/salsa dinner
- Reread about four pages of one of the stories i'm suppose to write about
- Realized how lonely it is living in my house
- Played with blogger while pulled out stray leg hairs with tweezers
- Watched 2.5 episodes of The L Word
- Tried to cook some potatoes, ended up filling the entire house with gas, spent a large amount of time trying to figure out how to resolve said gas problem, and wondered what exactly i'd do if my entire body was on fire
- Ate some Vanilla Honey Bee Haagen Dazs ice cream, twice (divine)
- Got yelled at by Rachel for not finding someone to housesit pet mouse while house is rid of guest mice
- Felt sick, probably from ice cream/salsa dinner
- Reread about four pages of one of the stories i'm suppose to write about
- Realized how lonely it is living in my house
- Played with blogger while pulled out stray leg hairs with tweezers
10.02.2008
My Thursdays are packed, sorry.
I'd love to go to your geology lecture, but, have you heard, it's at 9:30 am? I've got "be passed out hardcore in bed" for just about then.
Followed by "eat a free vegetarian lunch" and "play music for other slackers."
Followed by "eat a free vegetarian lunch" and "play music for other slackers."
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