4 posts tagged “obama”

So I decided I was going to write this morning. Here's how this usually goes: I wake up and immediately put on a pot of coffee. I stand near the coffee machine and tap my slippered toe while the pot gurgles to life. I take a glance in the cutlery drawer because it is easier to clean up exploded bugs when I am only half awake. No bugs. This is a good morning. Then sugar goes into the cup, coffee goes into the cup and I walk over to my laptop. First I turn on CNN, telling myself that the problems of the world are more important than my writing. I hear Sarah Palin talking about Obama paling around with terrorists. I turn off the TV and turn my attention to the computer. More sips of coffee. Then I pull up my novel on the computer and immediately think that I cannot possibly write directly into the computer. I have to begin longhand, get the ole joints involved. So I pull out my hard copy of my novel that has my notes on it in ten different colors of ink. I sigh. Some of the notes have exclamation points at the end of them. I put it down. What kind of asshole writes notes with exclamation points to themselves? I wonder. At this point I am almost defeated. I should have gone for a run, I think. At least get some exercise.  No, it's too late to go for a run, I have to get something down. So I look at my hard copy and I turn to page two. This is where I need to plant the seed that I've been thinking about. Right here on page two. I make a note to myself on the yellow legal pad next to me: "Pg. 2, first paragraph:" and I'm off and running. I start writing and all of a sudden I'm writing as fast as I can and the words are flowing and I can feel it - this pin prick that I've started is actually drawing blood. This is the good stuff, this is what I need to say. This is what this novel is really about.

I've spent a week since I figured out what I needed to do with this novel I've been at work, or lying in bed or on the subway and I'll remember a scene from the novel and I'll understand what I need to change to make this thing make sense. I don't mean to glorify this or to brag about it, it just feels really good to know where this thing is going... I feel like I've tried to swing this novel in two different directions - one where it's really really heavy and I'm so lost in that that I can't even move. And then one that's so light that it doesn't hold my interest, it's all plot and fluff. I feel like I know how to make this one novel now. 

This was a great weekend, Friday night before I left work I had a good talk with a coworker. I'm working at a really large company right now and still trying to navigate the politics of that and figuring out how to be successful there and how to do my job the best way I can. My coworker is a great ally, one of those people who will answer any question you have and go out of their way to talk you through things. He even offered to sit down with me on my next project and help me figure out how to really make it my own. It started the weekend off well, even though I was still panicking about the project that was happening on Saturday in London.

I didn't have too much time to dwell on the project, my boyfriend and I had to get up and head into the city - we were meeting two friends of his and driving upstate to go to the garlic festival. Holy crap. The garlic festival was amazing. I'm not usually one for festivals - I don't like the swarms of people eating and pushing and talking on their cell phones about guys named "Fred" or couches they plan on buying. But once I got past that the festival was great - we had deep fried roasted garlic which was more wonderful than I can even express. We had mushrooms with garlic, we even sampled raw garlic, which I've never had before. The only weird thing was that somehow I ended up spending a lot of money on Saturday. One might ask themselves how one spends $80 at a garlic festival... yeah, one might ask that...

Then hockey today. Ah, hockey. I haven't really written that much about hockey, it's one of those things that's really hard to explain. It's a large group of people, about 300, co-ed, none of whom you would peg as athletes. Mostly you would think they are hipsters. In fact a lot of them do wear terrycloth. Mostly you would think they are alcoholics. In fact this might be true, we usually tend to play hockey for an hour and then go out drinking for about 4 hours to celebrate our athleticism.  One way I've described it to someone is that it's like you're watching a movie that you didn't know was a musical and all of a sudden people start singing. That's the feeling when all of a sudden you see these hipsters in their American Apparel t-shirts with cute nicknames on the back put on hockey gloves and pick up their sticks and paly really competitive, intense, games of hockey.  We have this awesome team that we started three years ago and we play really well together, but we're still only about 5th ranked. This is not a bad ranking, especially when you consider there's 18 teams, but today we beat the number one team and it was really really sweet. It was a great game and a great day for upsets in general - another team, one of the lowest ranked teams almost beat one of the other high ranking teams - a team that is full of so many assholes that it's just pretty much evil, but like funny evil. Like if Darth Vader had a hockey team, THIS would be his team. Anyway, they didn't lose, but it was fun to watch them ALMOST lose.

I got a little writing done - I started the outline about the screenplay that I want to rough out before I confront the monumental task of revising and sending out my novel... This should be a pretty fun week, there's a lot I have planned, but in a good way... I'm definitely looking forward to watching the Palin/Biden debate. I'm going to a friend's house to see that insanity... I thought Obama totally kicked ass on Friday.  I loved when he said, "John, you like to pretend that the war started in 2007..." Amazing. Way to nail it, Obama!

I ordered an Obama t-shirt today online. Ok, fine, I ordered two... and yes, I am supposed to be on a budget, but I just can't help myself. I've got Obama fever. I'm entranced. And partly I'm entranced with being entranced. I can't remember the last time I felt this way about a political candidate and damn it feels good. I mean, can you imagine going around with a t-shirt with John Kerry's face on it? I can't hardly. But Obama makes me want to get a tatoo. He makes me want to read the papers every day for the first time in a long time, he makes me care. 

Wohoo! Good thing I decided to leave for work at 10 am today... I was just about to leave when the UPS guy rang my bell. I've never been so happy to see one of those guys. I'm going away for a wedding this weekend and was worried I would miss the delivery... The UPS guy was in a great mood too. I hate it when you're really excited about a package and then you open the door and the guy basically drop kicks it to you. Not this guy. If this had been a musical we would have started dancing and singing or something. The bugs from my apartment would even have joined in, like the kitchen scene from "The Muppets Take Manhattan."