Time To Revive The Blog!!

I blow off steam by gardening and writing silly things like this blog
The willow tree on my property decided to blow off steam on
November 1 by falling over and crushing my husband's Jeep.
We all have our ways, dont we?

I've had a long hiatus from this here blog thingy because I just got too busy. I know that sounds like an excuse, and it is, but there you go.  Hard to believe the last post here was on July 4.

It's been an active few months, both with work and lots of stuff to do outside of work.  It involves lots of garden work, lots of extra time spent at my other job as we went through a systems upgrade, fun things like Jeff's retirement, parties to honor that and a hot air balloon trip.  

There were a few minor disasters along the way, like a storm a few weeks back that toppled my beloved willow tree onto Jeff's Jeep, crushing that vehicle beyond repair. The same storm cut off electrical and cable service, and heat to our house, briefly, so there's that.

Now that winter has set in early, it's time to jump in the saddle again. I don't know where this will lead, and frankly, I do this blog just as a release, because I like to write, even if I'm sometimes not good at it. And to vent. And to expose both really good and really bad ideas to whoever reads this.

Good ideas need to be celebrated, and bad ideas need to see the light of day so that maybe people won't repeat them.  I know that humans have an unlimited capacity to be dumb, so I am a bit of a pollyanna when it comes to trying to shame people into stop being stupid. Besides, I'm perfectly capable of being totally idiotic, too. That's life, I guess.

Sometimes, while watching the news over the past few months while I was blowing off this blog, I sort of missed blowing off steam here in this blog thingy. But for most of my hiatus, the weather was warm and pleasant. I have lots of gardens to enjoy. So I would always cool off, both physically and mentally, among the flowers, plants, shrubs and other plants I'm lucky enough to have on my property.

Sometimes, when I am writing, I can do a quick throwaway piece that just shows off a social media meme, a funny video, or one of the zillions of quirky people this good Earth holds. Sometimes, when I have the time, especially on a cold winter day when all I want to do is hibernate inside, I do a deeper dive, which has its own pleasures.

I'm not a great writer. My brain is weird, though, which is actually a benefit.  I do hope some people get a bit of pleasure, or at least some type of emotion when I write something and you see it, like here.  If not, thanks for indulging me and allowing me to blow off steam.

Tale Of Rabid Raccoon And Murderous Vegetarian Jogger Wows Journalism World.

A Bangor, Maine Daily News article about a rabid
raccoon attacking a jogger is a literary masterpiece.

By all accounts Bangor (Maine) Daily News reporter Alex Acquisto hit it out of the ballpark recently when she wrote a local story about a jogger being attacked by a rabid raccoon.

Rabid raccoons happen all the time but the first two paragraphs of Acquisto's excellently-written piece is something I will always cherish:  

Here it is:

HOPE, Maine - While jogging on a familiar, overgrown wooded trail near her home on a recent warm afternoon, Rachel Borch thought to herself, 'what a beautiful day.'

Little did she know she was about to be attacked by a rabid raccoon she would end up killing with her bare hands."

The story goes on to tell us about our normally mild-mannered vegetarian jogger drowning the offending raccoon in a puddle.

It's a grim but absolutely glorious read, so you ought to get past the survey you have to answer at the Bangor Daily News and read Acquisto's article.

Bangor Daily News reporter Alex Acquisto proved herself
as one of the best writers and journalists out there.

The raccoon bit Borch on the thumb and wouldn't let go. "Imagine the Tasmanian devil," Borch told Acquisto.

Acquisto's article has sentences like this: "Connecting the dots quickly, Borch, then on her knees, dragged the still biting raccoon, which was scratching frantically at her hands and arms, into the puddle."

In any event, Acquisto's story went viral. Esquire magazine called it "a literary masterpiece."  Someone else tweeted that the lede of her story belongs in every journalism textbook.

By the way, Esquire's analysis of Acquisto's piece is also very much worth a read.

For the record, Acquisto tells us Borch has had rabies and tetanus shots and is doing well.

Even better, a journalistic, literary star is born.

I Love The Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest

Every year about this time, I look forward to the results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

I know, it sounds stuffy and boring, but it might be the only writing contest out there that's a hoot.

Edmond George Bulwer-Lytton, for
whom the bad writing contest
is named

Sponsored by San Jose State University, the contestants vie to write the worst first sentence of a novel they can think of.   The awards are given to writers in several genres, including romance novels, westerns, you name it.

According to contest organizers, the award is named after Edmond George Bulwer-Lytton, who had that famous opening line of a novel: "It was a dark and stormy night."

You probably recognize that line as the work of the Peanuts character Snoopy, when the dog goes into novelist mode.

The 2012 awards just came out, and here are some of the best examples.

"As he told her that he loved her, she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny dead deodicide burrowiing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are the  windows of the soul and if so, his soul needs regrouting,"... overall winner Cathy Bryant of Manchester, England.

"She slinked through the door wearing a dress that looked like it had been painted on. Not with good paint, like Behr or Sherwin-Williams, but with that watered down stuff that bubbles up right away if you don't prime the surface before you slap it on and - just like the cheap paint -the dress needed two more coats to cover her." --Sue Fondrie, Appleton, Wisconsin, winner of the crime catagory.

"Corinne considered the colors (palest green, gray and lavender) and texture (downy as the finest velvet), and wondered, "How long have these cold cuts been in the refrigerator,"  Linda Boatright, Omaha, Nebraska, runner up in the purple prose catagory.

"He got down from his horse, which seemed strange to him as he had always believed that you got down from a duck or a goose," Terry L. Johnson, Tularusa, New Mexico, runner up in the bad pun category.

"Ronald left the world as he entered it: On a frigid winter night, amid frantic screams and blood soaked linens, while relatives stood nearby and muttered furious promises to find and punish the man responsible," Rebecca Oas, Atlanta, Georgia.

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Shooting Self for Publicity?

Ray Dolin, 39, decided to write a memoir called "Kindness in America" about how people are nice to him as he hitchhikes across the Grand Old USA.

Last week, he reported he'd been shot, unprovoked by a passerby somewhere in the wilds of Montana. Nice irony. I was going to blog about it last week, but something didn't smell right. It was too ironic. Too perfect.

No, Ray Dolin, you shot yourself. It wasn't a random assailant.

Sure enough, As the Missoulian reported in the past couple of days, Dolin shot himself in an apparent bid for publicity. I guess if you need to call attention to your work, your writing, you have to do something dramatic.

I guess that means I'll never gain success as a writer. I'm clearly bad at publicity.  I'm totally unwilling to shoot myself to let people know what a great writer I am. . And now, I'd have to outdo Dolin, by being even more ironic, and shooting myself somewhere on my body that's more dangerous. Or destructive. Maybe I'm expected to blow my hands off with a Glock 9 mm. then write my stories.

I don't have the stomach for that. Plus I don't want to shoot myself in the stomach.

Or maybe Dolin shot himself by accident and tried to cover up his stupidity.  Maybe he wasn't too confident in the kindness of strangers if he was carrying a gun for protection.

A poor schmuck, Lloyd Christopher Danielson III, was initially charged in the shooting, but apparently the local sheriff was able to figure out that Danielson's story held up but Dolin's story didn't, according to the Missoulan.

Worked out kind of like a Montana version of CSI, didn't it?

Details are still sparse on exactly how Dolin concocted his story, exactly what he expected to happen and what charges he might face, according to the Missoulin article.

Charlotte, Vt. Writer Wows 'em at NPR

Big congratulations go out to one Carrie MacKillop of Charlotte, here in Vermont, for winning an NPR contest called Three Minute Fiction.



Carrie MacKillop. Photo by King Milne
for NPR

Contestants wrote a short story, that if read aloud would last no more than three minutes. The story had to start with the sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on a table, and finally decided to walk through the door."
Novelist Luis Albert Urrea picked MacKillop's story from about 6,000 entries. (He didn't read them all. Staffers went through them, and forwarded the best ones to him.)

Urrea said of MacKillop's story: "Sometimes you read a piece of literature that you realize you will never forget."

Before we go on, read MacKillop's story on this link. It's so well worth it, but be warned, it packs an emotional whallop:

As you might have read, just now, the story concerns a five year old, terminally ill boy. He'll never experience life's journey: School, college, career, marriage.

So his mother walks him through the life he'll never have, the one she'll never see. In the story, his mother describes the son's wedding, on a very rainy day during the wettest spring ever.

What's brilliant about MacKillop's story, at least in my view, is the layers she packs into her simple, straightforward prose. In other words, she performs miracles with no bells and whistles.

The rain in the wedding could be the tears she'll shed. The rain in the story telegraphs how the mother knows she will have to make adjustments to go on living after her son dies. The son worries about the rain as he's being told the story. Is that a worry about what he'll miss?

You can't read the story without wanting to cry. I about lost it when the the boy interrupts his mother as she's describing the wedding to remark about his bride.: '"She's awesome, isn't she," he said gleefully. "I'm really lucky, aren't I, mom,?"' MacKillop writes.

Again, those layers. He's lucky to be able to imagine his wedding. Lucky to have a mother like his. Lucky to be able to imagine a life, even if he can't live it. Ironic in that he's so unlucky.

We're all lucky to have writers like MacKillop. As Urrea says, keep writing, Carrie!

Bad Analogies Delight

I stumbled on this list of bad analogies, from an old Washington Post article, just for chuckles and as a nice time waster. I especially like the one that references the Hefty Bag, just because I have a sick sense of humor:

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. Joseph Romm, Washington She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. Russell Beland, Springfield McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. Roy Ashley, Washington Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. Chuck Smith, Woodbridge Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. Russell Beland, Springfield Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. Unknown He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. Jack Bross, Chevy Chase The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." Russell Beland, Springfield Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. Jennifer Hart, Arlington The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. Russell Beland, Springfield The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free Chuck Smith, Woodbridge The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. Unknown