Taylor Swift and the understatement of the year.

I was watching Oprah today because I saw Taylor Swift was gonna be on. This 11 yr. old girl who was part of an earlier Oprah show on talented children was on too because she had interviewed Taylor and they showed the segment today. They were in Taylor's bedroom and she pointed to the spot on the floor where she wrote "Love Story." Then says (brace for understatement here)

"That song changed my life. It was a really productive 20 minutes."

That was followed later by Oprah asking her if she felt her life was normal. I was thinking "Yeah, 19 yr old girl being interviewed by Oprah. That sounds like your typical Wednesday for a 19 yr old." LOL

It's scary how normal this girl is considering how huge she is. I hope that never changes. She should be the hero every girl wants to be like, and we can let all the bipolar addicts fall by the wayside. Which I think they already have. Ahh there is hope yet.

Backstory Done

No, that is not the title of some 70s avant garde film. It's true. I'm practically done with my initial backstory at the beginning of Stay Of Execution.

Now....onward and upward.

Cellulitis and Levaquin Dreams

Well I had a great beginning of the month. By the way, this is an old story, meaning beginning of Sept. I woke up Wed Sept. 2 sick as a dog. My entire body ached BAD and I was freezing so bad my arms and legs were shaking. I should have gone to the hospital, but knew I wouldn't be able to drive and didn't want to call an ambulance. The next day I was a bit better but noticed the red sploches on my right shin and calf. Well I had cellulitis last year so I knew that's what it was. I also knew I had to go to get it fixed fast because cellulitis literally gets worse by the hour. So I worked midnite Thurs and called my doctor Friday morning. They said they couldn't take me till the 25th. Sorry, that ain't gonna happen. I'd be lucky to still have a leg by then lol. So I went to bed (I'd just got off a double) and went to the ER Friday evening. It's funny because I was thinking I could go in, get a scrip, get it filled and go eat. Nope. And by the way, unless you want to not go anywhere for a long time, NEVER tell a triage nurse at an ER that you have pain in your chest. I told him that when I took a deep breath it hurt. They went nuts. Did an EKG. Wanted to test me to see if I had a blood clot since the cellulitis was in 3 different spots and they were worried I might have one that was moving to my lung. So they admitted me to give me IV antibiotics. THEN they tell me there is a glitch on my EKG that could have meant I had heart damage possibly from a prior heart attack. That lead to a great moment when I talked to this cardiologist. He asked me "So how long ago did you have a heart attack?" My response: "Well until yesterday when I heard there was something wrong with my EKG, I never knew anything could be wrong with my heart." Got a REAL interesting look from that lol. So they did an Echo cardiagram and a stress and found nothing wrong. THANK GOD!. So my quick trip to the ER ended up with a 3 day stay. I finally got released Monday afternoon.

Then the IV they gave me was Levaquin. Which worked great I might add. But Levaquin can cause nitemares and hallucinations in less than 1% of people taking it. Guess who was in that less than 1%? The entire time I was there I kept hearing this constant primal screaming in my head. Every time I'd close my eyes or fall asleep I'd see these scenes where people in other rooms were being slaughtered. Or I'd see another bed in my room where someone was getting killed. It was like that point where you had just fallen asleep and have a whacked dream but you are kinda floating between being asleep and awake. Three days straight of this! It was driving me crazy lol. Pun intended. The upside to that is that I have this great image of this dead decaying lady getting pulled out of her bed by a demon. I'm gonna try to draw/paint that one. If it comes out even close to what I'd seen, it's gonna be a real trip.

Buckling Down a.k.a Writing is like moving.

I think I spelled that wrong. Whatever the -ing version of buckle is. I need to do it. I have 4 or 5 stories I've NOT been working on. Weird thing is, I have them completely thought out from beginning to end in my head. I only have the beginnings of them actually written down though.

There are a couple reasons for this:
1. the whole 2 jobs thing.
2. I'm now dating someone so my spare time has been spent "not writing." lol.
3. I'm lazy. and the most important and problematic reason
4. I have this "why bother? this is all pipe dream stuff, you should just try to do a REAL job instead of this dreaming."

That last one really bothers me. I keep telling myself that I should just do writing as a hobby instead of actually trying to pursue anything. Then I think that if it is just a hobby, I can put it off and do it at my leisure. THEN I never have any real leisure time, so I never do anything with it. Then....then....you get the point. I don't know. Not sure how that's gonna resolve itself. I guess I need to know it's worth it when deep down I know it can be. I need to know it on the surface too so I actually do something about it instead of just thinking ideas and never doing anything about them.

This gets to the whole "writing is like moving." That's a Dave Zarlengo original by the way. I'll explain. When you decide you want to move it sounds great in theory. Going somewhere better, moving on with your life etc. Then there is the actual "moving" part. The actual grabbing every single piece of stuff in your place, packing it, carrying it to the car or moving van, unpacking every single piece and putting every single piece in the new place.

Writing is exactly the same. You come up with an idea. You're excited. Have the entire thing thought out. But you have to actually WRITE it. Every single word, sentence, paragraph etc from beginning to end. It's a lot like cleaning out a closet and packing all the stuff in it one at a time. Real easy to get bogged down in the particulars.

Oh well, I'm losing my train of thought here. I'm at work and have been here since 4pm. (It's now 12:45am and I'll be here till 8.) And I'm the staff lol.

Writing Frenzy

Well I've been working on different parts of my newest story. The love story from my dream a little while ago. Last nite I worked a midnite shift and was working on it about 5am. You'd be surprised how the brain works at 5am. Interesting. As I was writing out this one scene it reminded me of another dream I had but completely forgot about. I'm really glad it came back though because it was WHACKED.

There is a knack to writing out dreams in order for them to be really effective. The thing about dreams is that certain emotions are extremely amplified. Humor, fear, love etc. Not all of them, but some are. The key, I think is that when you write out a scene from a dream, you need to convey that exaggarated emotion. Take fear for instance. If you have a dream where there is this feeling of extreme fear. When you write that scene, you have to do it in a way so that the reader experiences the same level of fear as you did when you experienced it in the dream.

Ok enough of Creative Writing 101. Point is, I've sort of opened a mini Pandora's box lately. It seems that if I think about certain stories or actually write parts of them, it triggers even other stuff creatively. I have to make sure to keep this going. Just let it come out. Lord knows it will make up for the periods when I do nothing. Wasn't I just in one of those? I think so.

A new story and trying to focus.

Well I drempt an entire love story from beginning to end last nite. It's basic. Nothing really major or out of the ordinary. The typical two people meet under weird circumstances. Don't really like each other at first but things grow blah blah blah. It was really weird because there was music playing in the background as the dream was ending. Music I never heard before, so I basically wrote the story and soundtrack all in my head LOL.

I made a decision years ago to turn my dreams into stories because they're usually so weird. The problem lately is that I usually forget them before I get a chance to write them down. That didn't happen today. As soon as I got up I wrote down the basic dream so I can remember it later when I try to write it all up.

As for focusing, I think I need meds to try to keep all of this together. I have like 5 different stories going right now. Only three I really know where I'm going. One of those I haven't even begun to write on though I do have it almost all in my head. The other one is probably the most likely to get done at the moment. I have a pretty good idea where it's going. And now this newest one as of last nite. Wait, there is another one too that is finished but really sketchy. It's definitely one I need to fill in a lot more. That one is done though except for the fleshing out parts.

I have to start sending my poetry out to different places. I'm still too afraid to do that for fear of it getting stolen etc. Yet I sit here with all of this stuff and nobody on earth ever knowing it exists. Yeah that was a great idea. I'll show them.

Ahhh the Irony

Well, last week I got my radio station booklet from Nielsen. They wanted me to mark down what stations I listen to and when for the last week. This is SO ironic I can almost taste the metal. Me...the guy who can't stand radio and what it has become because of monopolies (yes I said it...it's true), gets to have his viewpoint actually matter. The Nielsen Ratings group picked me to help determine the popularity of local radio. I honestly can't stop laughing over this one. So much for that whole armchair quarterback argument. I'm actually able to do something about it.

Being OCD Pays Off

Anyone who really knows me knows that I am completely obsessive/compulsive about coins. Yes me, the man who has over $300 in pennies. Well, today is proof that being OCD about coins can have its upside. I saw on my table that I had a wheat penny. These are pennies that were made between 1909-1959 and have two stalks of wheat on the reverse instead of the Lincoln Memorial. Usually they are only worth like 3 cents or what have you, but there are a few years and issues that are worth a lot.Today I found one. I now have a 1909 V.D.B. It's in really good shape. I didn't even realize it was a 1909 at first. Then I looked on the back just out of curiosity to see if it was a V.D.B. and it actually was lol.Now granted, I'm not gonna retire, but I looked it up online and found a site that said it's worth $9. Hey, that beats .03. And honestly, anyone who is a coin collector can appreciate this find. I'm happy. See, being obsessive can be worth it sometimes.

Heroin Chic - America's New Drug Policy

This blog is gonna be about a concern I have that to me seems like it could really be addressed at the source. Heroin. Afghanistan is responsible for most all of the opium and heroin in the world. Right now we have a government there that is ALLEGEDLY friendly to us. Also, we have about 30,000 troops and Pres. Obama is possibly going to double that.

Think about that. Most all of the world's heroin supply is sitting in a country where we have our military stationed. Now also keep in mind that the Taliban and al qaeda are using the profits of the opium trade for funding.

There has got to be SOMETHING we can do about this. I've read that we aren't destroying the poppy fields because it would basically destroy the Afghan economy, not to mention endangering the lives of their farmers. Valid point. But what about the destruction of our economy when we have to deal with millions of junkies and the drain they cause?

I don't have an answer to this. All I know is that it seems the ultimate lesson in futility to sit there (literally right there) and watch this country grow and export tons of a drug unabated then run around our own country like chickens with their heads cut off trying to catch the product in dimebag increments from hitting our streets. There is no part of that that makes any sense at all to me.

I'm not naive enough to think this is a simple solution. I really do hope though that the new administration at least addresses this. Like I said...we're RIGHT THERE.