Open water

~ EMM

I raced in a lake this weekend!

Here I am, passing someone at the finish… That’s me on the inside, closest to the camera…

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And here I am crossing the finish line… you can see my time on the clock that is over by the “crowd” of swimming fans cheering at the finish…

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This was the finish of the mile race. Originally I registered for only the 500 meter race, but when we arrived and I realized that 500 is sort of a warm-up and I was being a chicken, I decided I’d do both races. I finished squarely middle of the pack in both races, but I wasn’t really paying much attention to my times.

The water was much warmer than I’d expected (~ 72 deg F). And I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. I was really nervous about racing in a lake. I did a Danskin triathlon almost ten years ago (wow! can’t believe it’s been that long!). The swimming leg of that triathlon was really short (< 500m, I think), and the water was end-of-summer warm. As far as US Masters is concerned (and as far as I’m concerned), this was my first open water race.

After I finished the mile swim I kind of wanted to get back in and do it again (“Coach Greg” would say I didn’t push myself hard enough…). Instead, I have to wait two weeks for my next open water race — another mile swim in a potentially colder lake.

Something about “racing” in a lake feels more like fun than serious racing. It was hard for me to get too worked up about my time or how I finished (at least before the race… after was a different story…). It reminded me of vacations at Wallowa Lake, or in the Adirondacks. And it was all over too quickly.

I think I could get used to this as a summer diversion… it’s a nice break from “serious racing…”

Endings, beginnings

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

It’s my birthday-eve! 

Last night I finished my fourth UC Berkeley extension writing class. Four down and three more to go for the certificate in creative writing! I’m really excited to not have class after work anymore — but I also really liked this class and the group of students in it. I’m going to see if any of them want to keep things going and start a writing group, but so far only one person has taken me up on the idea… 

So, now that I have all this time back, what do I choose to do with it? Enroll in two more classes, of course! I decided to do my literature electives over the summer. I am taking “Mystery Fiction” as an online class. I have six months to finish it. I finished the first of eleven modules tonight. For this class I am going to read about four or five mystery novels, and a bunch more short stories. As far as online classes go, it is really well structured and I think I’m going to learn a lot about mystery fiction. I’m pretty excited about that because, even though I’m not an avid reader of detective stories, I do like a good mystery mixed into a plot… A couple of the stories I’m writing right now have mystery elements in them, so I’m interested to learn more about how mysteries work and more about the history of the genre. I mean, I get to read Sherlock Holmes for class! How can you not like that?

The other class I’m taking is called “Vampires and Steampunk” — it’s a new class offering and only 5 weeks instead of the usual 10 weeks. It’s taught by the same professor as the Mystery Fiction class, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting this class since I first saw it listed as “coming soon” on the course list. I’m not a big fan of vampires, and I’ve read almost no steampunk, but the blurb says the class will also focus on sci-fi and “urban fantasy” (aka dystopian fiction?). This is another one where I’m interested in a more in depth study of and discussion of a genre I am gravitating toward in my writing. 

And, of course, here I am biting off more side-projects when work is crazy busy, and I’m planning on taking a summer vacation. But we already know, I’m most productive (and happy) when I’m busy.

So, bring on year 36! Let’s do this! I mean, it is my year after all (year of the Snake!)…

Writing break to write about writing

~ EMM

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there! Hope you are all enjoying your day and getting all the pampering you deserve.

Since my mom is over 2k miles away, I’ve been spending the weekend on writing-related activities rather than mom-related activities. Yesterday I participated in the UC Berkeley Student Readings at Books, Inc. on Van Ness in the city. I read the first three pages of the story that I’ve been working on that started off as a writing exercise that I posted here back in March. That was a thrilling experience that I hope I get to repeat!

The story, which I am tentatively calling “Bridge Beat,” isn’t done yet. I am on about my third revision (not counting the exercise). When I submitted one of the first versions to my workshop class, they all seemed to think that it deserved to be even longer… I don’t think there is enough there for a novel, even if I did create a moderately interesting world. So, I am still attempting to fit it into a short story sized box… Novella at most.

But, my current revision clearly ends at what is just the beginning of something that is presumably a much longer story. Either that, or I have completely missed the point and need to circle back and short circuit this before it gets entirely out of hand. The last thing I need is another in-progress novel. I swear this thing could be a short story if I could only see the story with fresh eyes…

But there’s the rub — it’s really hard to see a story objectively when you are writing it. The story is in your head. You know all the bits and pieces (even if there are also bits and pieces you are totally making up as you go along). So it’s hard to know how the story is appearing to the reader. Are you giving away too much too soon? Or are you being so vague that the reader is left guessing at too much?

Still, plot, character, and scene are my favorite bits of storytelling. I really like creating worlds and characters and setting them in motion. For me that’s the most fun part of story writing. The things I end up struggling with are “theme” and “meaning.” As in, “what’s the point?” and “what does it all mean?” Since I hate it when stories have heavy-handed “messages,” I tell myself I’m just writing to entertain, so it doesn’t matter.

As usual, Mark Twain probably said it best:

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

However, if I’m honest with myself, I know that the stories that I love the most make me feel something. That may be because they mean something or have a theme. So, if I want to create stories that people love, I probably need to get real about this “theme” thing. It also might help me figure out how to know when I’m “done.”

This afternoon I’ve been mostly banging my head against the wall and repeating, “what does it mean? what does it mean?” and hoping that will help. Spoiler: it’s not helping.

This is where writing groups and workshops come in handy. Other writers (or avid readers) that know how stories work, can look at what you have, break it down, and help you see what’s needed. This kind of feedback from my writing workshop classmates has been invaluable, and I’m going to miss it when this class ends. (Sounds like it’s time to find myself a more permanent writing group…)

I did send my current revision to a handful of my classmates and to my teacher to get some fresh eyes on it. But, in the meantime, I think I need to take a step back and let it rest for a bit before I have another go at it. I feel like I’m so close… but to what, I’m not exactly sure. A breakthrough, definitely. But possibly one that involves scaling a mountain rather than skipping across a crack in the sidewalk.

(If you are a sympathetic human who knows me IRL and is absolutely dying to provide feedback on an early draft of this story, send me an email. I’ll send you a PDF.)

By the Numbers: April 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read: 8 of 36 (target was ~12)

  • Sassinak (re-read) — This is one of my favorite books, but it’s been in a box for years along with all my other books. I finally unpacked those boxes a few months ago when we moved into this apartment, and I immediately wanted to re-read this, but didn’t have time. Then I found out they released it on Kindle and that was it. I had to buy it and re-read it. I have to say, I still love this story. Sassinak may be the best heroine ever. She would definitely make a “top five fictional heroine (from a book)” list were I to put one together… (future blog post idea!)
  • Beautiful Creatures — basically I read this because I saw the preview for the movie and decided I had to read the book first. I will say it was much better than the Twilight series (which I didn’t like), but not as good as some of the other YA fantasy / sci-fi that I’ve read recently. I’m not sure it’s worth continuing in the series. I am just not that interested in what happens next.

I have also been reading lots of short stories for my writing class, and I purchased quite a few new books for my Kindle this month that have now been added to my rapidly growing “to read” pile. Besides Sassinak, I purchased:

All this focus on short stories in my writing class must be paying off… I think I might finally be learning to enjoy / appreciate short stories… Hard to believe I purchased TWO volumes of short stories this month…

Writing

Only three blog posts, but lots of progress on other writing fronts… You might be interested to know that I took that writing exercise that I posted here and turned it into a short story. I submitted it to my workshop class and got some great feedback. I’m making revisions now and will find a way to publish / post / share with anyone interested once it’s complete. Everyone in my class seems to think it should be a novel, but I’m trying very hard to cram it into a box labeled “short story” because I can’t see a full novel story arch here…

I also completed another “just for fun” exercise for class which I think I will post here today or tomorrow, just for fun…

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 13 of 30 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 21.14 miles (target was ~30 miles)

I was a bit of a swimming slacker this month. I intended to only take one week off after the Pacific Masters SCY Championships. One week turned into two. Then when I tried to go back, forces conspired against me. So, I swam just over half the number of days I intended to swim this month. However, I seriously kicked up my mileage and am not trying to swim 2800 – 3200 yards (1.7 – 1.9 miles) per session (this takes me about an hour).

I only had one race this month. You can check out my race times on the US Masters Swimming website here. But if you’re lazy and you just want to see my times / events from the Pacific Short Course Yards (SCY) Championship swim meet I participated in this month, see below:

Date Event Time Age Group Place
 2013-04-05  50 Breast 38.27 2
 2013-04-05  100 Breast  1:20.59 2
 2013-04-05  200 Breast  2:51.81 2
 2013-04-05  100 IM  1:17.11 2

As of right now, I have the 16th fastest time in my age group (35-39) for the 200 yard breast stroke, and I have the 25th fastest time in my age group for the 100 breast stroke. Not bad for about three months of training. Of course, the Nationals are next weekend and I’ll probably slip a bit in the rankings before they finalize the 2013 SCY season best times at the end of May. Until then, I will enjoy the fact that I achieved two of my three swimming goals for this season (Nationals qualifying times and top twenty times). Next year I’ll get that stretch goal — top ten times here I come!

Besides all my “season best” swims this month, I did achieve one additional swimming milestone… as of today’s practice, I have swum just over 100 miles since January first! Yay me!

Movies

We averaged about one movie and two TV show episodes a week this month… that means we probably watched almost four hours a week of entertainment. Not bad. Still WAY below the national average…

The movies of April:

  • Total Recall (the new one) — People told us this wasn’t as good as the original, but I actually liked it better than the orignal. The conclusion I came to was that action / sci-fi movies really benefit from a special effects refresh… and better acting… 
  • Argo — How did I miss this one when it came out? This movie was so good. I absolutely loved it. And now that I’m thinking about it, I want to watch it again.
  • The Hobbit — I really liked Lord of the Rings, but this… this was SLOW, almost nothing happens, and it made me think of this addendum to the submission guidelines for an online sci-fi / fantasy magazine that I read recently:

Stories that start in an inn are usually out.

Ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn.

Ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn and being hired to do a job by a mysterious individual who is clearly a sorcerer (or vampire, or sorcerer/vampire).

Double ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn and being hired to do a job by a mysterious man who is clearly a sorcerer (or vampire, or sorcerer/vampire) who then turns on the very adventurers he/she/it hired only to be thwarted by the one dwarf in the party.  In fact, toss us a dwarf curveball.  So far we’ve never seen a story with a dwarf character where that character doesn’t kick ass from beginning to end.

  • No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (part 1) — Greg says we watched this already, but I don’t remember watching it. So we watched it (again?). I love Bob Dylan. He is so full of shit. And he is such a talented artist. Watching this I was struck by the similarities between being a musician / artist in “the Village” when he was up and coming, and the start-up scene in Silicon Valley today. He was like the Mark Zuckerburg of his age / industry. So many parallels… someone should write about that…

Besides movies, we’ve been enjoying Sunday night Game of Thrones, season 3, episodes on HBOGo (thanks, @MagMarCat!) and we finally finished season three (the final season) of Lie to Me on Netflix. We really liked Lie to Me and are very sad it’s over. At least we have Game of Thrones…

And that was April…

And tomorrow is the first day of the best month of the year… my birthday month!

Friday Fun

~ EMM

Yesterday was filled with little awesome, happy things. Here are two captured on Twitter:

First, Seth Green and co. visited Twitter to talk about their show, Robot Chicken (which I have actually never seen, but will now have to…). I was always a big fan of Oz on Buffy, and his other appearances in the “Whedonverse“…

Then, inspired by this awesomeness, I tweeted my “top five” list of people who I would love to see visit Twitter, and @neilhimself (Neil Gaiman) responded! Twitter is magic. My tweet and his response, generated a lot of responses and favorites.

The top five, in case you can’t decipher their Twitter handles, are:

  1. @NathanFillion = Nathan Fillion, another star of the Whedon-verse, known mostly for his role as Captain Malcolm Reynolds (aka “Captain Tightpants”) in Firefly / Serenity, and his current role as Richard Castle on the ABC TV show Castle (which I’ve only seen a few episodes of because it’s not on Netflix streaming…)
  2. @rebsoni = Rebecca Soni, Olympic swimmer and gold medalist in the 100 and 200 breast stroke
  3. @neilhimself = Neil Gaiman, author of some of my favorite books including Neverwhere and American Gods
  4. @ActuallyNPH = Neil Patrick Harris, actor first known for his role as Doogie Howser in the TV show Doogie Howser, M.D., more recently known for his role as Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, but also for his appearance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
  5. @feliciaday = all around amazing actress and writer / producer, frequently appearing in the Whedonverse (Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible, etc.), but recently better known for a web series called The Guild.

Of course there are many other actors, actresses, and famous people that I could have listed here (like J.K. Rowling, for example). But, part of the reason I picked these five is that they are all very active on Twitter and use Twitter to interact with their fans and fellow famous people. I feel like they are getting a lot out of the product, and I’d love to hear them talk about  how they’re using Twitter and what they love, or what they’d love to see, in the product.

If any of these folks ever do make an appearance at the Twitter office, it will be difficult to contain my levels of extreme excitement, and hold back my inner fan-girl “squeeeee…”

Ode to Google Reader

~ EMM

Google Reader is dying, but increasingly it appears that I am still going to be there, holding its hand, pleading with it not to leave me, until it takes its final breath and they find me staring at my laptop screen hitting refresh and quietly sobbing, or until I finally have to press my finger to the app icon and hold it there until I can bring myself to drag the app to the little “x remove” at the top of the home screen on my phone (Android, people, deal with it).

Melodramatic much? Fine. Maybe. But this is Google Reader! How am I going to get all of the many blogs I lovingly read and obsess over to deliver their contents to the same place where I can easily read, file, tag, email, and share articles on my phone or on my laptop?

Google Reader is how I keep up with my long-distance friends’ mommy / daddy blogs. It’s how I make sure I never miss an XKCD comic. It’s how I keep up with what’s going on in the wide world of technology. And it’s where I read about and draw inspiration from the blogs of several authors and one editor I admire.

Yes I know there are a bunch of alternatives, but none seem to give me the same mix of basic functionality (everything you need to have and nothing you don’t), with a clean UI. And of course, how do I know they won’t just up and leave me someday? After all, when I gave all my feeds to Google Reader, I would never have expected (the Spanish Inquisition…) the Googles to just shut it down one day.

I’ve tried paring down the blogs I follow to a bare minimum. I’ve loaded everything that’s left into “The Old Reader.” I’ve tried (when I’m on my laptop… I’m not sure Ye Ol’ Reader has an app, so I haven’t figured out how to use it on my phone…) to break my Google Reader habit by deleting the bookmark and adding one for the Reader in its place. After a few days I dug through the “more” menu on Google trying to find a link to Google Reader and finally resorted to Googling for the link. Then I just left the Google Reader browser tab open. I’m such a cheater.

This whole drama (as exaggerated as I’m making it out to be) is forcing me to think more about two topics that, in my line of work especially, you generally don’t spend much time thinking about… 1) who owns the content I create and curate, and what right do apps have to hand that content over when they decide to close their doors? … and 2) is consuming all this information (drinking from the information highway fire hose…) really that good for me?

Maybe the information-age haters are right and “News is bad for you.” According to them I would be more creative and more productive if I stopped reading “news flashes” (like Twitter) and stuck to reading only things folks today would consider #LongForm or “tl;dr” (Note to Mom: that stands for “too long, didn’t read”). I don’t exactly know if the contents of my Google Reader fall into the long-form category, or if they are more “news flashes” that are just supplying me with a steady stream of information that I wouldn’t really miss if I didn’t know it was there. Maybe losing Google Reader is actually going to be good for me.

I’ll admit it, I am an information junkie. I love to read, and I love to collect information. You never know when that information is going to come in handy, or give you inspiration for a piece of writing. Tools like Twitter and Google Reader allow me to plow through mountains of information in a small amount of time, and flag anything that looks especially promising to read in more depth later, or forward on to someone I know would benefit from (or enjoy) the information.

But like any good junkie, maybe I’m just in denial about my addiction. And, like any good junkie, I’m not going to let the death of Google Reader slow me down.

Red ribbon season

~ EMM

The US Masters short course yards (SCY) season is over (for me). Registration for the Nationals meet in Indianapolis closed mid-week last week, and I decided not to go (even though I swam qualifying times in all three breaststroke events). I decided I didn’t need to go to Indianapolis to have my butt kicked by people much faster than me.

I am only slightly regretting that decision after my races this weekend. I really wish I had one more chance to swim the 200 breast to see if I could squeak into the top ten times for my age group in that event. As it is I think I’ll probably be in the top fifteen. Which is good, but I’m so close to breaking into the top ten… if only I had one more race… 

This weekend was the Pacific Zone’s SCY Championship swim meet. I swam four events: 200 breast, 100 IM, 50 breast, and 100 breast. I swam season best times in all but the 50 breast (where I was only a few hundredths of a second off my season best time). I placed second in my age group in every single one of those events.

Why second in every single one? Because, you know who else swam every single one of those events (and some others as well, just to make it look that easy…)? This woman named Andee Bell who is hella fast. She is, I think, two years older than me, and faster than anyone I ever swam with in high school. She was busy racing this 22 year old, fresh out of college swimming, and probably didn’t even notice me. We were never in the same heat, and she was busy setting Pacific Masters records. 

I’d seen her name in the “top ten times” before, and she was listed as swimming in the heat sheets for one of the meets I swam in earlier this year, but she never showed. I was wondering if she was still swimming, and sort of hoping she wasn’t because I have no chance of ever beating her… I mean, did you see those times? 

Honestly, I should be focusing on how well I did this season after just getting serious about swimming again in January. I’ve really only had about three months of training. And I didn’t get close to the yardage that other masters swimmers do daily at practice (them: upwards of 3k yrds per practice, me: between 2k and 3k for the last month or so — less before that).

I’m sad it’s over so quickly, and now I have to wait another eight months before next season starts. In the meantime, I think I’m going to try some open water swims this summer, and definitely a long course meters meet or two, if there are any in the Bay Area. And, I am pretty sure that short course meters season coming up in the fall will give me something to look forward to… 

I also have eight months to train, train, train and get fast, fast, fast (still, probably never as fast as Andee Bell, but I’ll take what I can get… like faster than high school would be nice…).

Here is what I learned over the past three months:

  • Swimming is awesome. I love swimming. (Why in the hell did I wait so long to get back in the pool?)
  • I had terrible endurance in high school (glad I kept such good records of my times so I can compare to now…).
  • You can swim FOREVER! (and some of the older women are faster than me!)
  • Competing makes me so much more excited about training. I am actually excited about getting out of bed early and going to the pool.
  • I am better at endurance races than sprints (bring on the 200s! …maybe even the LONG distance stuff…)
  • My best event is the 200 breaststroke — I am pretty sure I’ll end up with a “top 20” time, maybe even “top 15” in my age group, and I finished 5th overall at the Pacific Masters SCY Championships. (Plus I’ve only raced it twice!)

So, for all of you that are sick of me talking about swimming, you can be happy that my main racing season is over, and you’ll likely not have to read a bunch more swimming related blog posts for a while. Of course, I’ll still provide updates in my monthly “by the numbers” posts.

Thanks for bearing with me while I’ve obsessed about swimming for the last three months, and thanks for cheering me on! 

By the Numbers: March 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read: 6 of 36 (target was ~9)

I haven’t had much time to read anything that wasn’t assigned for my writing classes (mostly short stories). In March I finished:

  • Blue Remembered Earth — Space odyssey that is part mystery, part family drama, part environmental politics, part technology politics, and part adventure quest. The multiple “themes” at work here remind me a little of Frank Herbert and Dune. The Descrutinized Zone and the hacker / maker culture reminds me of Cory Doctorow and Little Brother.
  • Little Brother — Read almost all of this in one sitting. Definitely YA and definitely geeky, but in a good way. Doctorow is ever the activist, and his writing is very “message-y.” I wonder how this book actually goes over with teens (if they love it or if they find it too preachy). Even though I agree with his ideals, I worry that this is more propaganda than literature. Still… if you are a fan of freedom of speech, technology (esp. Linux), and security, you should check out this book.

I also noticed that Amazon (finally) added one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi novels (Sassinak) to Kindle. So I had to buy it and start re-reading. Anne McCaffrey rocks.

Writing

Most of my writing this month has been part of one of my two writing classes. This was the month where my two classes overlap. So I’ve been writing all sorts of exercises and impressions of stories I’ve read, and working on my own stuff. It’s been a good month for producing content.

On Tuesday I turn in my final “portfolio” from my Craft of Writing Workshop. It will include two poems, one short story, and one personal essay. After that, I get to focus 100% on short stories (fiction) for another month plus. I’ve determined that it’s way easier for me to write fiction than to write personal essays or poetry. Most of the people in my class found writing non-fiction easier, which surprised me.

As much as I prefer writing fiction to writing non-fiction, I seem to be keeping up with the blogging. I posted six times this month (if you include this post). I seem to keep coming up with new ideas for blog posts, I just never seem to have time to write them. Maybe next month I’ll finally get around to those “learning to code” posts I promised.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 20 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 29.09 miles (target was ~30 miles)

That includes three swim meets this month where I swam US Masters Swimming Nationals qualifying times in all three breaststroke events. You can check out my race times on the US Masters Swimming website here. But if you’re lazy and you just want to see my times / events from the various swim meets I participated in this month, see below:

 Date  Event  Time  Age Group Place
3/10/13 (CAL)  50 Free 32.92 4
3/10/13 (CAL)  50 Breast 38.79 2
3/23/13 (USF)  50 Breast 38.16 1
3/10/13 (CAL)  100 Breast  1:21.65 2
3/16/13 (RINC)  100 Breast  1:22.28 2
3/23/13 (USF)  100 Breast  1:21.57 1
3/16/13 (RINC)  200 Breast  2:55.23 1
3/23/13 (USF)  100 IM  DQ  —

The two events I swam that weren’t breaststroke were disappointing. I almost missed the wall on the flip turn in my 50 free sprint at the CAL Masters meet, and then I got disqualified in my 100 IM at the USF Masters meet. The DQ was a stupid mistake. I thought backstroke turns were legal going from back to breast, but they’re not. Oops. I am now practicing touch turns in preparation for the Pacific Masters Short Course Yards Championship meet next weekend. I’m swimming all three breaststroke events and the 100 IM. It’s a two day meet. So, that’s actually a reasonable number of races — two on each day.

Movies

In addition to my usual busy schedule, Greg was out of town for a week this month and I was sick. So this ended up being a big movie watching month.

  • Total Recall — The original. I hadn’t ever seen it and Greg hadn’t seen it recently. Hello totally 80s! We’ve come such a long way in both special effects and… acting!
  • Ted — Funny. Mostly. A nice evening distraction. Also, I’m a sucker for Mila Kunis. Pretty sure she plays the same part in every movie, though…
  • Anna Karenina — Started watching this with Greg who lasted about 10 min and kept saying “is this a musical?” It’s not a musical, but it is “interpretive” in a way. Greg couldn’t handle “Anna” and her hysterical screeching. I watched to get a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the story and to admire what the Russian classics do with character and narrative. Also because I’m a sucker for Keira Knightly… who also pretty much plays the same part in every movie… huh.
  • Pretty in Pink — saw that Netflix added this to Instant and couldn’t resist re-watching. This was one of my absolute favorite movies as a teen. This was for me what War Games was for Greg. Now they are both on streaming, so we’re both happy.
  • First Position — Ballet documentary? Yes please. Of course. Watched this the night before my USF Masters swim meet to get a little inspiring athletic kick-ass drama.
  • LOL — I could just say I’m a sucker for Miley Cyrus and leave it at that, but that’s embarrassing… true, but embarrassing. Miley Cyrus may have been the hook, but this movie surprised me a bit… better than I expected. I will admit, the emo-boy love interests all kinda looked alike, but whatever.
  • Mona Lisa Smile — I remembered liking this one and was looking for something to watch while I was sick. Also I’ve been thinking a lot about gender issues / sexism lately. There are aspects of this movie I really like, especially the part where the teacher has to realize that part of feminism is that everyone gets to choose what’s right for them. Sheryl Sandberg, as inspirational as she is to many, takes a lot of flack for making a similar mistake… (Also, I’m a sucker for Julia Stiles…)

It’s not a goal of mine to watch movies, so you may wonder why I even bother including them in my monthly “by the numbers” post. I think it’s interesting to review the list of movies I watched in monthly snapshots. Movies are like little drama snacks for me. When I don’t have time to read a book, I watch a movie. Particular movies appeal to me more than others depending on my mood. I’ve been known to use both movies and music to “balance my brain chemicals” when I’m in a mad / sad / bad / whatever mood.

I definitely think these particular movies give some additional insight into my state of mind this month. Maybe the streaming ones more so than the ones I watched with Greg, but they all have some common threads. It would be an interesting exercise to trace the emotional / character / narrative links back to Pretty in Pink… maybe some other day.

Writing exercise

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

I have a little bit of writing I thought I might share with you… it’s short, so it’s easy for me to post here on the blog. It was generated from a writing exercise we were given in class. Our instructor, Dan Coshnear, gave us the following assignment:

Write a story based on one of the two scenarios below. story should look like 3 paragraphs with white space between them to signify a transition in time. Paragraph one is in the present tense, par. 2 is in the past tense, par.3 returns us to the present. Each of the paragrapghs begins with a line from either scenario A or B, in their respective order.
A – Par. 1 – (present) The Bonneville drifts over the double yellow line. “Stop it, Lyle,” she says. “Do you want to get us killed?”
     Par. 2 – (past) She’d met him six months ago at a retreat for community organizers. He was the hairiest man she’d ever seen, and he wouldn’t leave the hot tub.
     Par. 3 (present) – “It can’t be now all the time,” she says.
B – Par. 1 (present) We’re driving over the Golden Gate Bridge when I see something go over the side. A yellow flash.
     Par. 2 (past) I hadn’t had a vacation in over a year.
     Par. 3 (present) – “Do I know what day it is? What the hell kind of a question is that?”
As i said last night, if you’d like to edit or change any of the lead-in lines, I have no trouble with that. what’s important is that you try this simple structure, present, past, present and see what emerges.

So, I chose “scenario B” and wrote the following:

We’re driving over the Golden Gate and I see something go over the side like a yellow flash. “There. Pull over. Now.” Rex angles the car toward the pedestrian walkway and jams on the hazards. He parks the car in the midst of the northbound bridge traffic and we both jump out, leaving the doors open, and run for the guard rail. He gets there first and begins jogging back and forth along a ten foot span of bridge railing, pushing tourists out of the way, looking for the telltale shimmer we were told would be evident. I struggle to climb over the barrier, land on the concrete walkway, and sight a direct path to the point I haven’t taken my eyes off of since I saw the flash.

I hadn’t had a vacation in over a year. This was my beat, the Bridge beat. All we knew was that somewhere along this two mile stretch of concrete and steel was a portal. Folks on this side mostly didn’t know these portals existed. The folks I’d been working for knew about the portals, but didn’t know where they were. The did know that at some point someone from the other side was going to have to use this portal. So we were on stand-by, always ready, ever vigilant, as though the very survival of the species depended on us getting this right. One other thing they didn’t know: I’ve been to the other side and returned. Now I needed to make sure that I was the one who went back to warn them.

“Do I know what day it is? What the hell kind of question is that?” The cop questioning me was blocking my path. They were quick on the scene, I’ll give them that. A parked car on the most iconic bridge in the country will have that effect, I guess. I have to find the portal before they march me off to the looney bin. Rex catches my eye and shrugs. He can’t find it. I tilt my head toward the cop and hope Rex will be able to interpret my look. He smiles, nods, turns around, and climbs up on the railing, drawing attention from the tourists. The commotion distracts the cop and I lunge past him. I spot the shimmer, fainter now, it will disappear soon. No time to think, I vault the rail and hurl myself over the side, angling my body toward the portal. Either I’m going home, or I’ll be dead when I hit the water. Either way, I’ve found my ticket out of this place.

I’m thinking about expanding it into a short story, but I’m not exactly sure about the plot… I may play with it a bit more this weekend, but thought I would throw it out here and see if anyone reading this has any thoughts…

So what do you think? Worth expanding on? As a short story? Something longer? Or do you think it’s complete as-is?

Busy

~ EMM

This has been a crazy busy week. Two writing classes this week, lots of end of quarter stuff at work, PyCon, a swim meet, and some family stuff. I feel like I’ve been going non-stop. PyCon deserves its own post, and it will get one, but not tonight…

While you’re waiting for that PyCon post (and more posts to come about my experiences learning to program), I’ll let you know that I qualified in another swimming event this weekend. I swam the 200 breaststroke for the first time ever (this is not a high school event). I always thought I might have made a good 200 breaststroker (it is a college event, I didn’t swim competitively in college) because I am not really a sprinter. I am pretty good at pushing a pace consistently over a medium-long distance. Or at least, that is what I discovered when I was running (post-college, and before I returned to swimming).

There was evidence of this in my high school swimming career. I could never manage to get my 50 breaststroke consistently under 38 seconds, either during my leg of a medley relay (the only time you swim 50 breast in high school), or on the first leg of my 100 breaststroke race. I thought I would get the opportunity to break 38 seconds this weekend, but it turns out this weekend the events were 200 and 100 breaststroke (no 50). So… next weekend…

But, the big news from this weekend: I dove in and swam a 2:55.23 for the 200 yrd breaststroke! That beats the qualifying time for my age group (2:58.03) and also beats the goal time I had posted on the side of my fridge (2:57.57).

So, having “blown away” my original goal times for both the 200 and the 100 breaststroke, I needed to come up with some new times… Here are my new goal times:

  • 50 breast — 37.55 (no change to this one… yet…)
  • 100 breast — 1:18.65 (was 1:22.57)
  • 200 breast  — 2:49.57 (was 2:57.57)

Those all seem like rather ambitious goal times, but so did the other ones when I made them, and I can rationalize these times (except for the hundredths, I just made those up). So, I’m just going to re-set the bar even higher and see what happens.

Next weekend is the March Madness swim meet at University of San Francisco. I’m registered to swim the 50 breast, the 100 breast, and the 100 IM. I have a secret hope (not so secret now, I guess…) that I will be able to swim a qualifying time in the 100 IM (1:14.27). But it’s my last race of the day, and I’m going to need to get my sprint on in the 50 if I want to get my time below 38 seconds. We’ll see what I have left…

The March Madness meet is my last meet before the Pacific region championship meet. So far I haven’t decided if it’s worth flying to Indy to swim in the Nationals. I can’t decide if I want to fly out there to get my butt kicked by crazy fast people. I got a taste of getting my butt kicked (or at least touched-out by) crazy fast people at the meet this weekend in Palo Alto. I was the youngest person in my heat, the “fast heat,” of the 100 breaststroke, and I finished 6th overall (2nd in my age group). At least in the 200 breast two of the five women who beat me were significantly younger than me (again I finished 6th overall, but this time 1st in my age group).

Note: these are just the crazy fast people that happen to live / compete in the Bay Area. Then again… If I race Nationals, it does give me one more month of training to help me get my times down… So maybe the crazy fast people will still beat me, just not by as much, and I may be able to sneak in to the top ten times…

Let’s just see how I do this weekend. Then I’ll decide. It’s not like I don’t have enough on my mind right now…. I’m just going to focus on what I have to get done tonight, and what I’m going to swim at practice tomorrow morning. And write that PyCon post…