List Lover- Kelli

No conscience... let's see...

1. Rob a bank. (my husband is reading over my shoulder and is saying he's always wanted to redo the Great Stagecoach Robbery and wants to not only rob a bank, but do it wearing a cowboy outfit complete with chaps. I can't stop laughing.)

2. Tell my daycare parents when I disagree with their parenting styles, and really go off on them about what a disservice they're doing and how they should just let me raise the kid if this is the way they plan to be. (not everyday, and really they don't do any worse of a job than I'm doing, but you know. No conscience? One day it would bust out.)

3. Something dirty involving Mark Harmon. The NCIS Mark, not the Summer School Mark.

4. Compulsively lie, even about things that don't matter, just to see what I can get away with.

5. Never mention the diapers, coke, or water on the bottom of the shopping cart and see if I can steal them every time I'm at the grocery store.

6. Tell people I don't know that they really should pop that zit because it grosses me out to look at it.

7. Spit over the railing of the mall onto people's heads.

8. Pee in the pool and then get out. Better yet, get in JUST to pee.

9. Create a website to sell my used panties to kinky men.

10. Lie around eating Cheetos while the kids run amok. All day.

This has sat in draft for a week already. It's harder than I thought! I can't come up with 20. I'll keep working on it though. My over-developed conscience doesn't want me to even admit the things I'm capable of....

List Lover-Charity

Hehe this is going to be good. Gee I hope this doesn't make you all think I am a horrible person...

1. Actually sleep with a person on my list of five ppl that DH and I have agreed to if the opportunity arose...
2. Tell my sexy history professor that it isn't his mind that I am interested in...
3. Forget said professor is gay so that I can keep my fantasy...
4. Drink...constantly just because
5. Tell the people in my life that only call when they need something to go to hell and stop calling you leaches!!!
6. Write about said horrible ppl on my blog for all of the two people out there that read it to find amusement at other people's expense...oh wait been there and done it!
7. To be able to walk away from people (or animals) that need me because I will be late for something if I stop...I am late often...
8. Pay someone to write my term paper because I am such a procrastinator.
9. Only go see my husband right before lights out at the barracks just to watch all the male soldiers taking off their shirts with the blinds open...
10. Become a phone sex operator...$2.99 a minute could really add up and pay for my book addiction.
11. Take one of those stripper classes...the ones for weight loss (yeah right)
12. Show DH what I learned in that class...
13. Write a blog that is wildly popular, even if it for all the wrong reasons because one day the attention could lead to a book deal...hey it happens
14. Write a nasty letter to the Dixie Chicks and tell them exaticaly the reasons that they should be patriotic and learn to keep their mouths shut...
15. Let my kids eat PB&J sandwiches all day long...
16. Steal the weekly free employment listing paper that is in all of our driveways from my neighbor so I can have two of the Michael's coupons that are tucked inside...
17. Leave my kids at daycare for the entire day instead of picking them up right after class...I just can't do it.
18. Dance naked under the moon...why no clue but I am running out of things here.
19. Eat an entire roll of cookie dough...
20. Delete all of Dh's DVR'd episodes of Law and Order reruns...I have to be nice he has kept my scrapbooking ones...

Whew that was fun up until the very end when I wasn't able to really come up with anything...

For ALL YOU LIST LOVERS out there...

Assignment: 20 Things You'd Do If You Didn't Have a Conscience-
You get bonus points if you HAVE actually done something on someone else's list and publicly proclaim it. HA! FUN to be had by all!!! Here's MINE:

1. Totally stalk Chad Michael Murray.
2. Sneak into movies.
3. Keep the change when it's 20 bucks over.
4. Fake 'it'.
5. Steal a Mazda RX-8.
6. Not give the cool pen back to the checkout girl, and slip it in my purse instead.
7. Steal an ice cream truck.
8. Pen a really slutty romance novel with ten-page love-scenes and overuse of "throbbing manhood'.
9. Say someone else's name in bed just to see how he'd react.
10. "Oh Chad!" Just kidding, not a real entry.
11. Call my ex just to see how he's doing. (Which, yes, BTW is WRONG on so many levels.)
12. Put Kaluha in every cup of coffee I drink.
13. Get a boob job and liposuction. (not that these things are morally corrupt, but my conscience tells me God made me this way so...)
14. Find a metrosexual to adopt.
15. Make my kids fix their own damn Mac N Cheese.
16. Completely plagiarize Jerry Maguire into a heartfelt novel. "You had me at hello!"
17. Just flush that stinkin' Beta fish down the toilet even though I can't remember to feed him and he refuses to die. Fish Euthanasia. I know he can't be happy living like this.
18. Would totally find some good dirt on a Schwann's guy and extort him into a lifetime of free Apple Pie a La Modes.
19. Purposefully not file my tax return, or better yet, name the Immortal Beta as another child so I can get another credit. Ohh, and the dog too. And maybe one of my kid's stuffed animals.

Ah, that was fun!

Update

I finally found out, the other day, that I received Honorable Mention in the first novel contest I had entered. They usually only give out First and Second Place awards, so I guess what I received is a good thing.

I really hadn't expected anything from it, originally, because I did it in such a rush. It wasn't completely edited, and I ended up changing the first few pages, which cleaned up the story quite a bit.

All in all, I'm happy about it. And they did give me a certificate and a letter I can send out when querying agents, so that's a plus, too!

My Florida Vacation

We took many family trips to Florida when I was younger. My maternal grandparents spent the summer there every year, with some of my grandfather's family. We did the obligatory Disneyworld trips (which I am not going to write about!), but one of my favorite times was spent in St Pete's.

I don't remember all of the details, seeing as I was only about 6 years old, but I have a ton of pictures that my parents took, and every time I look at them, it jogs my memory.

There was a family that lived somewhere in the vicinity of my grandparents' condo, and they had a little girl around my age. I vaguely remember her boasting that she was older, but it was only by a few months. As we played the day away, on the lawn by the docks, someone in her family asked us if we would like to have our faces painted.

Would we? But of course!

I was under the impression we were getting a face painting like they did at fairs - a couple of balloons on your cheek, a shaky rainbow with only 3 colors, or simple yellow and black smiley face. Boy was I wrong!

By the time we were done, our hair was pulled back in ponytails, we had scarves wrapped around our heads to keep the little fly away hairs off our faces, and we looked like we just walked out of a circus. And not the Ringling Bros. Circus - oh no! More like an old French circus (whatever they might actually have been like), with our faces completely done up like old Harlequin (sp?) clowns.

It was amazing!

We spent the rest of the day running around with our painted faces, wearing our little polka dotted bikinis (yes we sang the song), catching itty-bitty fish off the dock, which our grandfathers helped us to hold up while we had our pictures taken.

It was truly magical.

Valedictorian

I'll be back to do the official exercise BUT I had to tell you that I graduated 3rd in my class and JUST missed writing one for real! HA!

Sure to be Scandalous-Vacation Memories

And don't think I haven't noticed that no one has partaken in the Valedictorian Exercise.

Sixteen.

Our parents weren't the kind to keep us apart, knowing that we would both just be that much more hungry for each other's company. Disapproval would have been disaster. If you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, then you keep your teenager's significant other right under your nose.

My brother and his girlfriend had signed up for an Outward Bound trek in the alps, and though I was jealous that they would be 'alone together', I didn't make a big deal about it. I was going to Corfu, Greece.

Four days, three nights...

Four days in a glorious warm sunshine on pebbly beaches blanketed by water so crystalline you could lose yourself in it. Three nights waiting for just the right moment to sneak away from the watchful eyes of his parents...

They understood young love, and to tell the truth, I barely remember them at all when I recall my favorite spot on the face of the earth. I remember him- and holding on to him on the back of a Vespa, taking switchbacks up the mountains, eating real Greek gyros... walking through the market, flying high together on a parasail...

The boy is long gone and there's nothing left but memories of one of the greatest adventures of my life. And though I love my life and the way it all worked out, I will always and forever have a spot in my heart where I miss being young and in love, in Greece.

Family in Florida

I didn't bother to edit for typos, grammar, spelling etc. you said to just get up and write!!!! So forgive any typos! ;)

I will never forget my first real family vacation, especially since we only went on 4 family vacations throughout my childhood.... and well, the first holds many fun and vivid memories for me...

The year is 1984. I remember two weeks before the trip, my mom took my sister and I to Montgomery Ward to pick out swimsuits and towels. I had no idea what was really going on; just that we were going to Florida. It just so happened that Montgomery Ward was on Florida Blvd. in Baton Rouge, so I remember hearing my mom telling my dad "It's on Florida!" and thinking, "Yay, we're already on vacation."

Two weeks later, we're in the car, a 1980 powder blue Pontiac Bonneville, and it's early. I'm still drowsy with sleep and so is my older sister. (who is 9 years older than me, in high school and demands all things revolve around her) pushes me off the backseat and makes me lay on the floor of the car. I didn't mind all that much, because I rest my head on the hump and the lull of the tires on the road puts me back to sleep. Eventually, after a while, I wake up as the car stops.

Now, this wasn't just ANY bathroom break. We stopped at the Alabama Welcome Center... and it was so cool, or so it seemed at the time. After using the restroom and washing up, my dad took me (just me, not my sister) into the Welcome Center, where they gave out free Cokes! With that awesome crushed ice. And they gave me a sticker! I thought that place was so awesome! I kept that sticker on the inside of my Little Golden Book, The Pokey Little Puppy, for years after that trip.

Another hour or two passes, and we finally get to our destination... sunny and warm Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. We check into our hotel, the Holiday Inn, and it turns out all of my cousins and aunts and uncles from my dad's side of the family are there! My parents didn't tell me that! That means I'll have lots and lots of cousins to play with on this trip...

(Footnote: My dad has 6 brothers and sisters, and they all have at least 3 or more kids each, two of my aunts have 6 kids each)

We get into our room and immediately change into our suits and my dad takes me out to the pool! I'm so excited to put on my new blue suit with the white stripes! I just jump in and start playing with my pop. Meanwhile, my sister heads off to the beach, magazine and Hawaiian Tropic in tow. I'll never forget asking my dad, "Can I go with Vickie?" and seeing her turn from behind making that scowling face to my dad, like "DAAAAD, don't make me babysit while I'm laying out looking at guys!" So my dad tells me he'll take me later...

My mom is laid out on a chaise lounge, drinking a pina colada with my Aunt Louise while my dad keeps on playing with me and my cousins in the pool. The day was just perfect in the eyes of a 7 year old! As the day got closer to the night, my Uncle Stewart gave each of us kids a $10 bill to play in the hotel arcade and get slices of pizza while the grown ups went to eat dinner, leaving the younger ones in the care of the older teen cousins.

The next few days are a blur of swimming, hunting for seashells, tasting my mom's pina colada (which was non alcoholic) and riding the giant beach Four Wheeler. This thing was fascinating to a kid like me. It looked like a giant Four Wheeler, but you had to pedal it through the water on the beach. My dad took me for a ride on it, and boy did it wear him out!

That vacation will always remain my favorite of my childhood. I don't know if it was because it was my first trip or if because all of my cousins were there, but I had such a great time!

Exercise # Whatever...

Freewrite about your favorite vacation spot as a child, and if you choose Disneyworld, I'm going to have to beat you up...

Spend the next seven minutes writing, and don't edit, don't stop... I know you have the time because you're all just screwing around on blogs and procrastinating, and if you stopped by here, you MUST WANNA WRITE...

SO GO!

Childhood House-Charity

Considering I have been meaning to get over here and post SOMETHING I have had time to think about my childhood house. Instead of one particular house sticking out in my mind (I am an army brat...there have been many) I keep picturing this house that I have dreamt about for most of my life...there hasn't been an age that I can remember when I haven't dreamt about this house, and this task is weird because once again I have been dreaming of this house...ooohhhh spooky!!!

It is a tall house, almost Victorian in design. It is a pale yellow with scalloped trim, and different shaped windows letting the sun filter into the rooms, each in their own way.

My Grandma is there and she doesn't know that there is a secret passage way. It is a small tunnel that runs through the walls and there are levels that you can climb up on, and you have to go through an opening in the wall that is pretty close to the ceiling, so it isn't easy to access the opening, but worth the effort. And you have to make sure before you climb up there that you aren't leaving anything that looks like a ladder to get up there, because it will lose the magic if anyone else knows about it.

After you climb up on the desk you have to jump slightly to get into the opening. After climbing into the narrow tunnel, there are several ways to go. But there is only one RIGHT way, as you turn towards the right there is going to be a chamber of sorts. And here is where during the years this place has changed. When I first started dreaming of this place the inner chamber was very princess like, so many toys, dress up clothes, and sweets. As I grew older the chamber changed to fit my personality. Recently there is a comfy cozy Victorian like atmosphere and an extra door way that leads to a garden and a swimming pool surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees. It has become a quiet place for reading, writing, or just reconnecting. There is a HUGE bed that when you lay down on it, you sink into the bed...it reminds of a hug really.

I know I know this is absolutely the strangest ever, but I am so ok with that! LOL The really cool thing is there is a house near the college that fits into my dream, and everyday when I pass buy this house it completely takes my breath away...I want to so badly to knock on the door and ask if I could take pictures of their house because I love it that much.

A poem for your consideration

I hope it's all right that I posted this. It's not from an exercise we did here, but you mentioned posting some of my poetry and this is a mommy poem, for sure. Can I ask for feedback? I'd like to publish it somewhere. Thanks. If it's not ok to post other stuff, let me know!


The New Mother Searches For but Does Not Find Spirit, of Mother,
in the Index of Dr. Spock’s Guide to a Well-Baby

These days my spirit is an empty slate
a tabula rosa, as vacant as the gaze
of a newborn drifting to sleep in your arms.

Behind these blue eyes chaos reigns
like two radios playing two songs
(not necessarily Barney)
and you’re breastfeeding in the room between.

If spirit were as simple
as, say, becoming a tree,
I would hollow out a solid old birch
fit my arms
in the white sleeves of its branches
and be still.
Its rings would wrap around my bones
and finally I would learn
how to hold it all together.

Would that I could send away for spirit,
order something celestial
something holy and divine
from a witty catalogue printed on recycled paper.
In just three to five working days
without ever leaving home
I could be whole and centered,
breathing freely, ultimately serene.
Words would flow from my lips
lemon grass scented.
The flutes and violins of my lyrical speech
would soothe and refresh -- hymns for all.

These days the soul of the mauled mourning dove
rescued in my garage, silent and resigned
to his sad fate
among untouched bowls of water and food
is spirit enough for me.

Unless the pizza delivery guy
took my order seriously:
one large harmony pie
extra soul
extra spirit.

Peaks: My offensive valedictorian speech

Hello, fellow classmates, parents, granparents and everyone else dumb enough to sit in the scorching desert sun on this beautiful day in May. It's hot, so I'll try to be quick. Knowing that I am without a doubt the smartest kid in the class of 1996, hell, in ANY class that Alamogordo High School has ever seen, I've had a lot of time to plan this speech. I'd like to talk to you all today about peaks.

A peak is the time in one's life where they might believe they 'have arrived'. That it'll never get better than it is at that very moment. That they'll never have more friends, feel more loved, or be more successful than right then. I feel it is my duty to help the graduates of 1996 plan their peak.

First, though, about half of you can stop listening. I say that because in this class of 500, approximately one-hundred of you peaked in kindergarten. Or worse, at birth. For you unfortunate souls, and you know who you are, it's all downhill from here, am I right?? For another hundred, you peaked somewhere in the eighth grade when you grew boobs or got the lead in the school play or learned to drive your daddy's tractor. High school was just something to occupy your day and to keep you out of your mom's hair. Now you'll be running the cash register at their store and you'll bail out of community college on the first semester. Then for about fifty of you, prom night was your peak. I'm talking to you football stars- the ones talented enough to play first string but nothing to write home to a quad A school scout about. And you cheerleaders, not the sweet, bubbly, smart ones who befriended every kid at the outkast table- but you vindictive sluts that stole boyfriends and wrote nasty things on the bathroom walls with a Sharpie. Which, by the way is a good indicator that even though you'll have a few successes in life, your dabbling in vandalism will ultimately lead to a life of crime.

For the rest of you, the other half- high school was torture. I know, because I was there with you. You wanted nothing more than to see this day arrive, and now that you're eighteen and 'all growed up', life can finally begin. Your peak is out there somewhere, just waiting for you to start climbing. You, my friends, are the ones who will return to the ten year reunion with trophy wives and stories about your stint on reality T.V. You'll be the ones to leave town, have adventures, and ultimately live an existence in this small town only when people from the other half of the group run into each other at Wal-Mart and, after reminiscing about the finest days of their lives when they still had washboard stomachs and no need for a real job, say, "Whatever happened to so-and-so?".

You'll hear the whispers from high above, at your peak. Then, you too will have a mid-life crisis, sleep with a hooker, or worse, a member of a boy-band, and you'll know you're on the downhill slide as well.

Happy Graduation, Kiss My A***!!!!!!!

#1 the list-getting caught up

I think this blopg may be magic. Until today, I have been complaining about never having time to write. Since I joined last night, my son had a playdate, and my baby took two, count 'em two, naps! So, I've had some writing time. I love lists, and I love fiction about women who leave! So: After ten years of marriage, a woman empties her bank account and vanishes into the night, leaving two small kids and a loving husband. Why?

1. He is SO not loving.
2. She can't give out one more phony smile to the playground moms, and this morning she accidentally delivered moldy muffins to the bake sale.
3. She found an old diary from her days as an escort, along with a deposit slip for more money than her husband pulls in in a month. She's following the money!
4. Her husband is not really as nice as he seems, her son is growing up to be just like him and her daughter adores her mother-in-law.
5. She accidentally left the neighbor kid in her car after bringing home groceries, he's in the hospital with heat stroke, and she's sure the neighbors are going to press charges.
6. She really wants follow her dream of being a Rockette.
7. The mysterious man she dated before she met her husband resurfaced and convinced her to follow him on a spiritual quest.
8. No-one appreciates her.
9. After her first night out alone in months, just a trip to the library, she just doesn't go home. She also takes two canvas bags of book aloong with her and she's NEVER returning them!
10. She was kidnbapped.
11. Her mother is unhappy in her marriage and she asks her daughter, who would do anything for her, to go away with her to think things through, in secret, of course.
12. She is a terrorist.
13. Motherhood is too much for her, she can't take one more day of it.
14. While getting ready for bed one night she notices her image in the mirror is fading, anxiety to find herself drives her to hop in the car and drive.
15. A woman who wants the life she has, including hubby and kids, has our heroine kidnapped.
16. All of a sudden she remembers she has a whole other family clear across the country.
17. After she is gone her husband discovers a secret bookshelf full of travel books, exotic destinations, and travel memoirs.
18. She is writing a book about women who leave so she decides to become a woman who left and see what it feels like.
19. She has cancer.
20. A woman who looks just like her has been coming to her in her dreams telling her to go to Utah.

Third person exercise

The young butcher just gave her the eye. Not the eye of round, the eye. The eye! Hey, did you notice the kids, she thinks. Did you notice the tummy roll left over from baby number two? Did you notice baby number two, sitting pretty in the cart, front and center? How about number one, pleading, "Mommy, mommy, can I have Lucky Charms? Can I have blue juice? Can I have this rocket?" And by the way, young butcher, she thinks, could you speak to your manager about putting foamy rockets in the grocery store? But wait, she thinks, and mind you this is all in her head, did the cute young, yes, young, exactly how young, I wonder, butcher just give me the eye?

And then it happens. This has been happening since she can remember. She doesn't want to offend, the librarian offering the book on starting an aquarium, the sales clerk offering the azure blue lycra gauchos, the guy in the doo-rag offering to marry her, as with all of them, she just says yes. Yes, I have a little glass bowl with three fancy goldfish, but why not aquarium care. Yes, I have post-partum thighs and tummy, but why not slip into some curve hugging number that reminds me of my third grade dance recital. Blue is my favorite color. Yes, you drink too much and lie about most everything, but yes, I'll marry you. So it is any surprise that she says yes to the eye? Yes, I need something. I'm just here for soy milk, but I'll have three pounds of your best meat. Wink, wink.

Favorite house from my childhood

Hi, I'm a new member, a mommy, a writer, and it has taken me over two hours bewtween breakfast, fights, diaper changes and fixing the X-box, to write this. I suppose I should try when everyone is asleep. Anyway, here it is. Thanks for letting me join!

My favorite childhood home was not a home, exactly, and it was not dappled in sunlight or wrapped in warm rich folds of breezy blue curtains and lighter than air robin’s egg shag carpeting. In fact, that was my childhood home, and while I could wax poetic for hours on the comfort of 49 Schuyler Street, the place I loved was the house my mother grew up in, a ramshackle bigger than life Victorian, alongside route 9N in a little valley of the Adirondack mountains. “The old house,” as my mom’s family called it, was set back from the road on a piece of Adirondack farmland that hadn’t been truly farmed since before I was born (think bellbottoms, Charlie’s Angels and Jimmy Carter). The 16 room house with brittle peeling no-color paint and dangling shutters my mother grew up ashamed of would be considered a fixer-upper these days, a majestic sprawling 1800s farmhouse in need of a little TLC, in realtor-speak.

The old house was like a poorly distant relative everyone likes well-enough, but is hesitant to hug because of the smell. Only the overgrown maples and oaks surrounding the house like sentries dared wrap their arms around the weathered structure, nearly swallowing it in their willowy embrace. No-one lived in the old house, my grandmother had moved into a trailer on the farm property long ago. You could smell the mold and age, the years and dirt and hidden treasure as you plowed through tall, ankle-scratching grass to get up on the sagging porch. Peeling paint and weathered flies crackled under your feet, but the hanging-at-an- angle wooden screen door made no noise as you opened it to push open the never locked heavy oak front door to step inside.

There was no electricity so we only visited in daytime, and it was only after my grandmother died that we went at all, to clean it out. Despite the dust and scent of rotting wood, the repeated warnings to watch your step, the floor is rotten (my oldest cousin Marren fell through one day), the ever present danger of ghosts in the upstairs guests’ quarters, and my cousin Jade’s greedy hands snatching up every colored marble and old doll I spotted, the old house was my favorite place to go the summer I was seven. I am still trying to figure out the irony of driving past the old house 20 years later with my current boyfriend, the man I might have married, just as the old house was struck by lightening and hours later burned to the ground.

ON TO #5- Great Posts, one and all!

I've been wanting to go back and comment on all of the entries for #4, the house. I think that this group will work a bit better if everyone gets lots of feedback. So in light of that I'll just say that the next exercise not only includes your own entry, but a thoughtful comment in which you must include the word "PROPITIOUS". Ha ha... vocabulary for the masses!!!

ANYWAY- #5 should you choose to take it:

(Disclaimer- if you did happen to be valedictorian at your high school, you are an overachiever and probably do not belong on GOYAW anyway, because you've already pubbed three novels, a dissertation and an expose on the fuzzy winter boots as fashion phenomenon US Weekly so go away.)

Pretend you were Valedictorian in High School. Give us your speech, as members of your graduating class.