Inspiration

New in life?

1. I got in a car accident

2. I got my license

3. I am in serious need of inspiration.

So, if you're like me in one out of those three items, here's two of my favorite quotes from Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. This novel is so beautifully and creatively written that it'll make you want to devise your own artsy sayings and colorful metaphors. You'll want to taste the words as they come pouring onto the page. I swear, it's an amazing tale.

pg. 15 "The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better."

pg. 16 "When I was a real girl, my mother fed me her glass dreams one spoonful at a time."

As the story continued the writing was just more and more inspiring, however I had a hard time tearing myself away from the novel in order to jot the quotes down. But still, these are two of my favorites.

Two of my favorite characters are named Max

What if they're wrong

What if there isn't talent tattooed

under my fingerprints?

What if inspiration doesn't lie

in my veins

but lies from their mouths instead?

What's the truth but a fabrication

with collaborating

witnesses and pictures

construed to deceive you further

and branch your mind

pushing those hopes high.

Mistakes are made when you lose yourself

in daydreams

and future plans.

Mistakes are made when you're made to believe

rather than conceive.

Make it on your own-follow your own path-walk to the beat of your own drum

yet sheep walk among us

and threaten us to fit

in. Don't dare to achieve

don't dare to succeed.

Climb that ladder

and they'll cut the rungs

and leave you at the top

with nothing but your DNA.

How's that for humanity?

I've been re-watching Dark Angel lately and it got me thinking about how DNA makes you "all you can be." Which reminds me of my favorite character from Roswell: Max Evans. Besides the fact that he's extremely hot, he also had a different genetic makeup. I wonder if there's anything special in my genes to make me all I can be in life. I wonder if this is it for me. I wonder if I'll ever accomplish my dreams, or even what they are anymore. It's gotten harder and harder to dream in the past few years. I feel like I know what life is like and I can't ever get past the initial conception. If there's more for me I hope I can motivate myself to half-dream it and half-earn it. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Stay warm; put those Artvoice paper copies in the fire and turn to www.artvoice.com for all your Buffalo information.

Buffalo, I Love You

I can't officially announce the winner here of course, but I can tell you that there was a clear winner. Why? Because hardly anyone submitted and those that did barely could follow the rules. It was sad to see and frustrating that we couldn't do much about it since the deadline had already been extended.

I've run into this problem before as President of the English Club at SUNY Brockport. Either people really just don't care, they got too busy, or the prizes weren't good enough. I'm not sure what was the case here but I think Artvoice.com did plenty of marketing for the event from one of their hard copy issues, to a link on their website, to constant mentions in their Facebook and Myspace statuses. I'm not really sure if they just weren't hitting the target audience or if those who truly wanted to submit just got lazy or busy.

I was thinking about submitting because I wanted to show my love for Buffalo from my new city of Rochester. I wanted to show that I wasn't a complete traitor and that no city makes me feel like B-Lo. There's a kind of pride there that just can't be replicated. We know Football, Baseball, Lacrosse. We know the arts. We know snow. We know how to drink and party. We know music and disappointment. We know how to fight for what we want and continue our loyalty even when someone screws it all up. We can handle loss but we're still proud to say we're from Buffalo.

So here's a few pictures of what I wanted to incorporate into my video in an attempt to show my love for Buffalo:Here's my collection of playbills and some tickets from all the shows I've seen at Shea's. Amazing performance every time.

Here's 2 of my Bisons bobbleheads. I love when they give these out at the games!

This is my 716 shirt to show my pride of my area code/hometown. :]

This is a Buffalo pin I have so I can always carry a little piece of my hometown with me.



**Shea's Playbills:
The King and I
The Nutcracker
The Wizard of Oz
Grease
Stomp
Mamma Mia
Les Miserables
The Producers
Beauty and the Beast
Phantom of the Opera
Wicked
Rent
Radio City: Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes
The Lion King
The Color Purple
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Thanks mom for taking the time and money to show me all of these wonderful productions!

Hello and Welcome Back!

I think I'd like to start out by saying, wow, this isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. Or maybe nanananana to all the people who told me living on your own is difficult and all that. Really? Were you just trying to scare me? Granted, it's been two months now in the apartment in Rochester, so I guess I haven't been out that long, but I would think the first two months would be the hardest, right? The first two to four weeks were actually hard, but not financially. Just emotionally. Getting used to being away from my family and pets was really upsetting. I think I cried a lot then (although don't let that mean much since I also cried a lot at home, ironic, I know). Also, the whole living-with-the-boyfriend thing took some getting used to. There's always the argument over who is going to do the dishes, or who has the ugly furniture, or why I don't have my license so he has to wake up at 6am to drive me to work. Although, if you see it from my side, I bought the car, why do I have to drive it too? I mean, seriously, that was a lot of sacrifice on my part. There was the car, the insurance, the registration, getting some work done on it, mainly doing all the gas payments, getting the oil changed and all that jazz. My work here is done!

Not really, my road test is on October 19th. There was a prior road test that I didn't get to take due to unforeseen circumstances (i.e. someone's carelessness that shall not be mentioned since he's been punished enough).

But back to the main issue: the apartment thing? Not that hard. I turn off the lights and unplug cords when I'm not using them. I wake up and go to work. I eat lunch, I nap, I knit, I go to the other job. I make dinner, do dishes, sweep, shower, do laundry, go grocery shopping, get more gas, read ... I think the biggest problem I have is deciding what to make for dinner. So no complaints. I'm trying to get back into the working out mode since I was focusing on everything else for so long. Now that I know I can do the daily stuff and make rent, I think I can get back to focusing on me. I have to write this book! Besides the fact that my mom keeps pestering me to get back to writing, I need it out of my system. I need to feel accomplished. I need the satisfaction and to finally do something with my life. I guess I feel like I'm floating through it. Or maybe it's passing me by. Either way, I feel like I could do this whole day-to-day, going through the motions forever and not ever make myself proud to have achieved something.

So I'm going to go now and try to write some of Chapter Two of Shaken, Not Stirred.

I wrote this little poem to go at the beginning of the book. I'm still not sure if I like it or not ...

This isn't Disneyland

Darling little toenails

painted Flamingo pink burn

like a candle in the dark. "Every

day is a discovery," she says as they wiggle

onto the flaming coals.

It's figurative foreshadowing to the discoveries the main character makes about herself and the major hurdle that she has to face during the climax of the novel. (Wow, look at all those English major terms I used!)

'Till next time, get out there and read!