“Verbal Vomit”

Recently, a blocked writer sent this request for help…

“I’m a self-employed writer with serious writer’s block.  I have tried chocolate, long talks with my dog analyzing the situation, multiple games of web sudoku, and staring dreamily out the window.  I’m seriously afraid I may even resort to housework.  HELP ME PLEASE!”

Not GettingitWrite

Dear Not Gettingit…

Oh – how I feel your pain.  Rest assured you are not alone!  I would like to offer a spin on an often heard phrase – “Less is More”…My spin is that “More (and More) is Better”…More Chocolate, More visits with your dog, More visits with your neighbor’s dog, More daydreaming!  Housework is a great way to free your inner creativity, as well. So do not think of it as a last resort. The more tedious the housework – the better your creative flow. 

There have been times in the past when I began to feel the onset of  Writer’s Block – or, as some call it – The Creative Clog.  I found a really great clog-mover in a little writing exercise I call “Verbal Vomit”.  Not a delicate way to describe it – but if you sit down and pound away at the keyboard, putting to cyber paper (or real paper-your choice) any and ALL ideas, words, sentences, phrases that come to mind – no matter how disconnected,lackluster, or pathetic they seem, before you know it – the clog begins to loosen, the block cleared and your flow is restored!  In essence – the Verbal Vomit removes the stupid, inane, trite and otherwise vacuous Lexicon-toxins that are Blocking the Flow!

Don’t fight Verbal Vomit…it can be a writer’s best tool!

Laundreah Line

Dear Laundreah…

June 3, 2010

Dear Laundreah,

Recently I became unemployed and after a few days of sitting around feeling lost and sorry for myself – I began to throw myself into work around the house and the yard. After two weeks of back-breaking work, sore joints, stiff back, mosquito bites, grass-stained knees, dishwashing hands and a house that smells like a municipal swimming pool, you’d think I’d slow down a little. But Laundreah – I can’t seem to stop!  What is wrong with me? 

“Crazed” in Cattletown

Dear Crazed,

The Art of Cheering

After another  weekend of baseball tournament hustle and bustle, I have given thought to the “Art of Cheering”.

That’s what it seems like it is. An Art.  One in which I do not excel. In all honesty, as embarrassing as it is for me to admit this – I think I am pretty lacking in that area of motherhood, no matter how sincere I am.  I mean – what IS  cheering really supposed to accomplish?

Per my usual, I turn to the Dictionary to check out the origin of what I am obsessing about.

Here is what the trusty Merriam Webster’s dictionary says:

Main Entry: ²cheer

Function: verb

Date: 14th century  transitive verb

1 a : to instill with hope or courage : comfort —usually used with up b : to make glad or happy —usually used with up
2 : to urge on or encourage especially by shouts <cheered the team on>
3 : to applaud with shouts

Ahhh. I can encourage my son!  Haven’t I spent a lifetime doing that?  But instilling courage and hope?  That sounds like a job for a professional or a saint…

Aren’t they all Talented and Gifted?

I have decided that the title “Talented and Gifted”, used to label accelerated programs in school and the students who take them, really bothers me.  This realization came to me last night as my 7th grader and I were discussing our days.  I was bemoaning the fact that I was trying to learn Adobe Flash by taking an on-line tutorial and I was getting frustrated.  My son commented that it was too bad I couldn’t get some of the ‘gifted kids’ at his school to help me, because they knew how to do those kinds of presentations. It wasn’t “what”  he said – it was the “way” he said it. Almost ruefully. Like those kids were really something – while he was just something else…not quite as….well…gifted. I think this is quite a message…

 I understand the need to challenge kids who want/need more. But I wish pro

Blind Ordeal

Today, I decided I was going to forge ahead and install some blinds that I had ordered myself, and that had been sitting in a box in my hallway for a week. Why wait for my husband to have time to do it?  How difficult could it really be?

Originally, the blinds had arrived with the wrong brackets enclosed. Inside versus outside mounting-something like that.  So, after several days (okay, a week) of ‘forgetting’ to call the company, I found the number and called.  I was on hold long enough to forget who I was calling.  Then, when the woman came on the line, for a nanosecond, I forgot why I was calling them.  Sigh.  I explained the situation and was assured the correct brackets would arrive shortly.  Notice I said “brackets” – plural.

Full of Empty

Full of Empty

Her heart was like the room in the basement

It looked striking, bright colors added, and yet

I still felt a lingering emptiness. Cold with filtered light.

Her anguish wrapped in crisp, cheerful paper, edges carefully folded,

Holding loneliness in a festive package.

She ate souls but was never full.

In her presence, I was both alone and drained, but always expectant.

She said by not saying, taught by omission.  Messages clear and unspoken.

White Azalea

Early summer morning

Warm sun, air still cool to breathe

Eyes closed, the smell of freshly cut damp grass

Lying on my back under the white azalea

Calm and alone

So quiet, except for the birds’ upbeat song

Bad dreams will not find me here

A poet friend

Vertigo

Scoffer: Beware
for I once stood
in your shoes
and came to know later that
there is little that divides us besides
the point of view from which we stand
and once you spin around
a few times
it all looks equal

LG

LOST & FOUND

Lost:  My youthful alacrity.  Last seen in the vicinity of my mid 40s.  Disappearance seems to coincide with move from hometown – Portland, Oregon and favorite job. If found, please return at once.  (It may be hanging out with my lost identity….)

Found:  Middle-aged body, Female. Seems a bit confused and often cranky, especially when driving.  If you know who this belongs to, please have them get out of the right-hand turning lane of the I-10 Frontage road and Where The Hell Am I.

(You will spot her easily: her car’s left-hand blinker is on, and she is muttering something about “F@**ing! Magellan”…)

Introducing a writer

Thanks to Facebook, I had lunch the other day with someone I went to grade school with. We also went to high school together, but I was a nobody in high school. Socially inept. Horrendously overprotected due to a near fatal illness that took four years of my childhood. Resentful of the “normal kids” and the shallowness of their romantic dalliances. And yet, the most engaging part of our getting reacquainted was the talk of who he had dated through most of high school.

“Why God Created Flies”

Good evening all…I am going to give blogging a try.

Has anyone read the piece called “Why God Created Flies”?  It is written by Richard Conniff and is only about 3,000 words. I ran a cross it today and am reading it. Great example of research written in a funny narrative style.  If more research was written this way…well, I’d be a research junkie! Let me know your thoughts!

Casey Roake Peddicord

Learning with your Eyes Closed

Think about it.  It could be interesting to try this experiment in Middle School.  So much of the distractions my students ’succumbed to’ were visual. Who was looking at whom? What is that classmate is wearing? Did he just look at me? Who just walked by our door? On and on. I am just trying to imagine what that would be like.  They would definitely need to LISTEN more….your thoughts?

Casey Roake Peddicord

The Parent Company

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Parent

Pronunciation: \ˈper-ənt\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin parent-, parens; akin to Latin parere to give birth to

Date: 15th century

1 a : one that begets or brings forth offspring b : a person who brings up and cares for another
2 a : an animal or plant that is regarded in relation to its offspring b : the material or source from which something is derived c : a group from which another arises and to which it usually remains subsidiary <a parent company>

So, I begot three offspring…they are derived from me.  They ‘arose’ from me and USUALLY remain subsidiary…

I brought, and am still, bringing them up…

I have been thinking a lot about how I have changed over the years through this gigantic process of parenting.

Sleepless in Spokane

Well at least TARA looks rested...

I distinctly remember one summer day in our house in Spokane, Washington.  Kirk was ‘on alert’ (B-52s, Fairchild AFB) and I was home alone with teething Tara.  A weekend. It was hotter than hell outside and our house was sans AC.  I realized just how dear sleep had become to me. 

“The Caged Monkey”

Introduction:

As I gripped my mother’s hand tightly, and the automatic doors of the grocery store swung open…I thought I saw a cage. Yes…right in the front of the store! As my mother pulled the metal cart loose from the others, and began strolling down the produce row,  I let go of her hand and  walked closer to the cage. Little did I know just how much I would regret my bold curiosity.  There was something brown moving in the cage.