My friend Heather....

Back in college I was presented with the opportunity to spend a semester to study in Bath. I met some of the most amazing, talented people. People I've been able to recently re-connect with thanks to Facebook. What I miss the most about my trip was the accountability we provided one another as writers. We were writing EVERY DAY. Sometimes we'd be writing ALL DAY. We'd write in our personal journals, our travel writing journals, our letters home, required classwork essays, poetry, short stories...on and on. I hate to admit this but I was as home sick as a helicopter mom's pathetic kid on his first trip to summer camp. But the writing helped. The accountability helped. I haven't been through my old writings in some time and hope to pull it out now that I'm "nesting" and dig into it.

The point of bringing this up is to introduce a very talented friend who is also expecting her first baby any day now. I have so many vivid memories of Heather and our time in Bath, but one that sticks out includes our last week there. We had a group of about 25 students and 4 faculty members on the trip with us. Some English majors, some Theater majors and some just major idiots. Just kidding. Kind of.

Anyhow, I was never unaware of how unbelievably talented Heather was so I told her it would be a fun thing to write a poem for the final dinner to read in front of all of our colleagues and faculty. BUT, knowing full well how fantastic of a writer  she was, I told her we had to write it in 5 minutes and could only include what we came up with in that time frame.

Why you ask? Well, I figured if people knew that I only had 5 minutes to prepare something they would be much kinder and not hold the same level of accountability as if I had 5 hours. That's a big difference to a writer.

Anyhow, Heather liked the idea and came up with something amazing in 5 minutes but decided she wanted to craft it and turn it into something much more special. And it was. "Sometimes a Chard" is what it was called and all I can remember about it's contents is that I teared up and felt much too silly to read the something "fun" I had written in 5 minutes. It would be like Katy Perry following Pavarotti.

Blink
Blink
Blink

See I am self-conscious just like the rest of you.

Anyhow, today Heather has her own blog filled with many amazing posts. In fact anytime I visit her blog I am filled with calmness and always leave inspired. You can tell I've taken her idea of including images into my posts as she has in order to make my posts that much more "decorated". I hope the saying holds true: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and I hope she feels flattered to have me share her work with you. She has been on some amazing adventures including a recent BIG move from Patagonia to the States that I won't spoil for you here. She can be found at http://www.ameasureof.blogspot.com as well as on my "Can't Get Enough Of" blog roll. I've printed out her most recent post and carry it with me as a reminder.  I'm not sure any book I read will comfort me as much as her poem has.

If you ever read this Heather, thank you for the inspiration, accountability and I wish all the blessings for you, S and your soon to be family of 3.

Birds and Stones

Over the weekend I got to see my very dear friend Charla. You may remember her from many stories of fun, chaotic shenanigans. She lives in SoCal with her beautiful family and sassy mouth. She's the cousin of my BFF Tessy and loves me as much as I love her(or so I make up in my mind). Anyway, as we sat drinking our Bloody Marys recovering from the previous night's epic awesomeness, we began talking about the offense I took to something inconsequential someone said at work. Here's a snippet:

Cares: I mean it's not like I'm deeply offended. It's like when someone uses the phrase "Killing two birds with one stone. I don't necessarily become offended but c'mon! TOO VIOLENT!"
Char (looking at Tessy both beginning to laugh uncontrollably) "Whaddoyoumean?" she says between cackles. "I'll go shoot a bird right now! That offends you?" (tears forming in the corners of her eyes at this point.)

I tried to state my case but was fervently denied any words due to the hysterically laughing twosome sitting across from me. I don't think we were able to speak for an entire minute.

Reason 8,295 I love my friends: even when I have the most irrational of comments they just laugh and love me the more for it.

This would be Tessy "reprimanding" me and Char  for our combined sassy mouths. You can tell we're pretty apologetic! HA! (c.2008)

Sittin' here restin' my bones....

There are two things going on in today's IM-Conversation-Turned-Blog Entry:

1. Is a really great memory
2. Is a really funny description of a very common and simple term I forgot for a moment.

Bryan T: listening to Mr. Mayer
caroline.blackwood: I'm on to Ms. Bareilles
LOVE her
wish I had seen her at the Fillmore
her version of (Sittin on) The Dock of the Bay is probably my fave
but I have such a love for that song
Bryan T: i'll have to hear that
caroline.blackwood: when I was a little girl I found my mom's old records in this old green vinyl case with this really cool latch
and she had that record, the small kind that required one of those plastic adapters that goes in the middle of records
I listened to that song over and over and over imagining my mom listening to it
Bryan T: 45
caroline.blackwood: weird memory I know, but I love it
yes, a 45!
thanks
lol
duh
Bryan Taketa: that's a wonderful memory