Back on the Wagon

I have not written much nor published anything new in the last couple of weeks. I have been consumed by work and worry. I should instead be happy, enjoying my life and of course writing. I have “fallen off the wagon” of writing daily. How do I get back on that wagon?

A writer friend of mine, that I also work with, stopped by my office the other day and gave me a nudge. Thank you Todd!!

My dad called the other day and also gave me a poke! Thank you Dad!

I have gotten some of my favorite writers advise books out and am getting inspired.

I am swinging my leg back up on that wagon tonight, look for something new this weekend!

How do you reignite your passion when the flame has flickered?

Bookcrossing Booty Has Finally Arrived

Bookcrossing Tools

My book-plates and other BookCrossing tools finally arrived and I am so excited to release my first book. I couldn’t understand why it was taking so long, until the package arrived from BookCrossing Europe in the Netherlands. I thought it was coming from Sandpoint, Idaho where the site was started and runs.

I am now trying to decide which book should get the honor of my first release. I am considering “A Girl Named Zippy” one of my favorite books and the first one I reviewed here at Random & Rhyme but there are so many others that I love too.

Do you have a suggestion for the book that I should release first?

Pre-checked at Sea-Tac

OK – I don’t know how I was pre-checked at Sea-Tac airport this weekend. But please, please let it happen to me again.

No shoe removal, no liquids out of my bag, didn’t have to take off my coat or my belt. It was freaking awesome!!!!

But I have no idea how I became “Pre-Checked”! It was like being the most beautiful girl in highschool or at least what I imagined that was like; gliding through life without a hassle.

I checked out the Sea-Tac airport website, it seems “Pre-Check” is available for frequent flyers of certain airlines. I love you Alaska Airlines!

Well, I sort of love you Alaska Airlines. Why no pre-check status on my flight home from Walla Walla? I don’t know what it is at that airport, but for some reason, I get screened more there than I do at Heathrow after a security scare. This time they did a chemical analysis of my hands; at least it was something new. I am guessing they get a little bored there and just like to practice.

I love to travel, visit new places, learn something new and just get out of the day-to-day monotony of my daily life. I get to travel a bit these next few weeks; some for work, some for fun and some for family events. This pre-check perk will certainly make the getting there part a bit more enjoyable; as it is, getting through the security at the airport is such a pain in the butt it almost makes you not want to travel at all.

Do you have a travel tip that you always use to make it easier to get from point A to point B?

A Nasty Comment From A Reader

I received my first nasty comment from a reader.

I started writing on a site, that I actually discovered back in 2011, it’s called Smith, and they have a section on their site where you can write 6 Word Memoirs. I posted my little story and picture about the Samba VW Van that I found on the SambaVW site – the pretty green and white one – under Need, Want, Desire, Isn’t She Beautiful. I included the part about donating to my dream at Paypal like I did here. Well that got me a nasty comment: You can read it on the site if you are interested.

The commenter schooled me on the rules of the site, called me tacky, told me no one owes me a damn thing and to get a job.

So, of course, first I needed to check out the “Terms of Use” on the site;

“SMITH Comments and Discussion Terms of Use

In order to make our Comments interesting and informative for our users, the following guidelines must be adhered to by all users posting and/or viewing comments:

– If a comment is made using your identity it will be deemed to have been posted by you.
– Do not post abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libelous, offensive or sexually explicit material.
– Do not intentionally make, false or misleading statements.
– Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service.
– Do not post material that infringes copyright.
– Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law.
– Keep all comments relevant and ‘on topic’ to the particular SMITH posting open for comments.
– SMITH will not accept responsibility for information posted in the Comments.

If SMITH receives notice that any posting is not in keeping with these terms and conditions or the intended use of the Comments, SMITH may remove that posting and/or any other related postings.

Please note that unless SMITH is notified of a posting that is not in keeping with these terms and conditions then we will not remove it, furthermore we do not exercise any form of editorial control or censorship of Comments other than the above stated procedure.”

I assume the commenter is referring to the item I have bolded in the list above: “Do not offer to buy or sell any product or service“. Now I posted that memoir and link to Paypal with as a “tongue-in-cheek” joke and figured one of my friends would send me $0.26 and tell me they have helped me achieve 1/1,000,000th of my dream and say good luck. But now the commenter made me mad with their snarky comments and it has kind of become the principle of the thing. I am neither buying nor selling with that post and do not think it violates these terms of use.

Second, no where in that post did I say or even imply that someone owed me a VW Van.

Third, why in the world would this commenter think I do not have a job. That part was just to add to the snarky meanness of their comment?

So I am keeping the memoir and the paypal information, not because I was really interested in a donation, but because if the commenter had politely mentioned the “Terms of Use” I would have said, oh my mistake and apologies, and removed that part of the post. But because they lacked class and manners the “tacky” post stays. Tacky apparently begets tacky!!

Do you think this violates their terms of use or was the commenter right? What do you think of donation solicitations on blogs or other sites?

I Want It, I Need It – Does Anyone Have an Extra $26,000 to Send My Way?

I found the girl of my dreams a 1966 Camper Bus in Velvet Green! Isn’t she beautiful?!!!

TheSamba.com :: VW Classifieds – 1966 Camper Bus in Velvet Green, Solid Driver.

Oh the trips we could take and the fun we would have cruising the highways with the windows down, Tom Petty blaring on the radio, stopping in beautiful places along the way and meeting interesting people.

A crystal blue sky dolloped with a few fluffy white clouds, a cold Coke between my legs to cool me down from the heat of the desert we are winding through, a stop at a diner to fill my belly and the serendipity of finding the perfect camping spot under a tree so far from everyone that the silence the lets me hear the twinkling of the brightest stars I have ever seen in the night sky.

I’ll keep dreaming, but if anyone would like to make a donation big or small to help me realize my dream, your donation would be gratefully received in my paypal account: Sharireiter@gmail.com.

What’s your dream?

I’m A Band Geek

I was a band girl, went to band camp, marched in the band and played in a couple of bands.

I was so lucky to have such an amazing teacher, who was tough but fun and really seemed to enjoy teaching. He was one of those teachers that kept you motivated, made you want to perform well and make him proud.

If it wasn’t for the 3 or 4 music classes I had at school everyday I probably would have skipped a lot more school. That is one of the reasons I choose to support “Save The Music” as one of the places I send my charity dollars. They are dedicated to restoring music programs in public schools. From their website.

“The benefits of music education are astounding, and studies have consistently exposed the tremendously positive effect music education has on a child’s academic performance, sense of community, self-expression and self-esteem.

But as schools across the nation increasingly face budget cuts and pressures, music is often one of the first subject areas to be cut.

At VH1 Save The Music Foundation, we develop strategic partnerships with school districts to build sustainable instrumental music programs by providing grants of brand-new musical instruments to public elementary and middle schools.”

Having access to a musical education changed my life for the better and if I can help a few children get that same chance, I will be happy. Consider making a donation yourself if you feel music is important to a well rounded child.

And band camp is as fun as it is in the movies, although I never knew a girl that put her flute in her lady area ala American Pie. But there were weekend flings, healthy competition, a few beers and just a lot of hanging out with “my people”. Hanging out with people who get you and like some of the same things you like and are open to your “geekiness” is pretty rare as you get older. You have to have that whole professional persona going on once you are out in the work world and it usually does’t allow you to let your freak flag fly and be you.

Music is something from my youth that I dearly miss; it was such a huge part of my growing up. I played at least 5 days a week, 9 plus months out of the year for nearly 8 years. It is one of those passions I want to add back into my life somehow. I have no professional ambitions, just would like to find some of my people again and jam.

Is there something you did a lot when you were young that you miss now as an adult?

Top Ten

Nothing inflames the passions like a top ten list!

I heard an interesting NPR piece on All Things Considered about the American Scholars; 10 Best Sentences. They admit that the choices are subjective, but they usually have come from a “hey listen to this” conversation. I picked three of my favorites out of the ten below.

“In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor.” Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P. high and a great many articulate people seemed to have a sense of high social purpose and it might have been a spring of brave hopes and national promise, but it was not, and more and more people had the uneasy apprehension that it was not.” Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

However, what I enjoyed the most about both the NPR story and the ten best are the comments by readers on each story. People are picky, passionate, mean, loving, encouraging, snarky, funny and above all enthusiastic about their picks and their comments on the choices of others. Check them out, if you don’t enjoy them almost as much as the story I don’t want to know you.

Some of my favorite sentences in no particular order and without strict limit to one sentence only;

“She had walked close to him today, his am had brushed against hers and his roughness had caressed her softness. There had been a sensation akin to death and birth.” Amulya Malladi, Song of the Cuckoo Bird

And a passage I loved from one of my favorite books.

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.” Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Someone posted this quote in the comments section on NPR, I have never read Joseph Conrad, but this made me want to seek him out.

“Droll thing life is — that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself — that comes too late — a crop of unextinguishable regrets.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”

Words, sentences, quotes and songs all sound different to me depending of the variables of my life: my mood, the openness of my heart, the delivery, whether I’m hungry or full, whether I’m there in the moment or wasting this moment thinking of one off in the future. They all impact me in different ways too; soothing me when I’m angry or upset, welling the tears when I am sad, filling me with love and warmth when I am open and willing to be vulnerable or fueling my anger, building a hate and slamming a door when I am closed and not truly listening.

I want to listen, be open and live in the moment. No more wasted energy, life or love.

Do you have a favorite sentence, story, poem or song? Does it or do they make you feel something?

Geeking

Car geeks unite!

My husband is a Volkswagen car nut. I think we are on our 9th Volkswagen in nearly 30 years together. He has his favorite car dealer, Pignataro Volkswagen in Everett, Washington. That dealer is nearly a 2 hour drive from our current home, but used to be just a couple miles away from us. And he has remained loyal to them through the years, buying only one car from another dealer and swearing he would never buy from anyone but Pignataro again based on that experience.

This picture above is of my husband and a guy, who lived a few blocks down the street from us, who had just come home with a new VW. My husband had to stop the car, get out and check it out. He stood there talking about that car for 30 minutes with a man he never met before, both of them geeking out about that Volkswagen. The man moved away a few months later, I wonder if there is a correlation to his moving and my husbands stalking?

His face lights up, at even the thought of a new VW, a bit like mine does when I see a new tech gadget. The gadget story is for another time. He even drives to Everett for service on our Volkswagens. He is driving up there this morning and I haven’t seem him that happy in weeks, thrilled to be heading to his “mecca” and talk horsepower, mpg, navigation systems and sunroofs with his people.

Let the geeking begin!

Do you geek out about anything?