Her Namesake

She had a reputation for her brilliance, so the first day she did her best to scare as many of us off as she could. That way, only the best would stay.

I knew instantly that I liked her, would eat up every word she taught, would learn more than I’d ever learned in my young life thus far.  She was the quintessential feminist hippie, in her broom skirts, long hair wavy hair, and large glasses. She used words like specious and tremulous and prescient in her everyday speech. She had a laugh that filled the room and infected all within. I was smitten.
Turned out, she had the same name as me, Andrea.

I’d landed in community college heaven.

I knew she’d challenge how I thought, what I knew, but she’d also challenge my skills, my words, my writing. Over the next two years, I took every class of hers I could, from literature to writing courses. She’d joke that soon I’d have a degree in her.

She began calling me her namesake.

In her rhetoric class, I sponged up every morsel of argumentative writing and debate technique. My own ideals were challenged fiercely as I learned to sway others to my side with a well constructed argument. I relished loud classroom debates despite to whom victory went. She pushed me to learn the rules of writing so that I could properly break them. On a piece about Indian gaming, she gave me the third perfect score she’d given out in her teaching career. I was over the moon.

I began calling myself a writer.

She convinced me to be a writing tutor.

I was devastated when her World Literature 1 class conflicted with a class I needed to graduate. Math, I think. But the next semester, my last at the college, I was the first to sign up for World Literature 2, which would be my introduction to some of the most powerful pieces of literature and began my love of writers like Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, and Borges.

As a graduation gift, she gave me her personal copy of a world literature anthology which she used to teach her World Literature 1 class, the one which I had missed. It was full of her own notes and dog-eared pages, which I read voraciously and lovingly.

For two years, I was nurtured and stretched, pushed to the limits of my abilities and then pushed to grow even more. I was praised and rewarded and learned to appreciate my talents.

I was changed wholly and irreversibly.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Everyone remembers that first inspiration or mentor in their lives that made them want to be or do something in their lives, whether you actually followed through with it or not. Tell us about that inspiration/mentor. How did they affect or change your life!

This Week at Sprocket Ink

What a whirlwind week! *whew*

I tackled some doozies this week at Sprocket Ink, lemmetellya.

Zees veek, go read:

The Parent of a Mass Murderer
Father of the man accused in the Norway attacks says he wishes his son committed suicide. I wonder what that must be like.

Spanx at the Gym? Pshaw!
NOW you too can look skinny while you sweat your disgusting pounds away. Don't worry if you're not perfect and can't look like all those better people ...

Stopping to write just for me

I’m a firm believer in setting up some ground rules for yourself when you blog. There are certain things I deem inappropriate for my own blog and I do my damned hardest to stick to those. And by inappropriate, I don’t mean vaginas and sex stories and cursing like a pirate terrorist on death row. We all know I specialize in such. For me, it’s about not using my blog as a weapon.

I am always conscious to never use my blog as a tool to hurt people in my life. Sure, I blog about certain people who are important to me or who feature in my stories, but I’ll never blog about them maliciously. Will never use that forum to hurt them.

Oh sure, I’ll snark away at the world around moi, the idiots I encounter, how asinine society behaves. But that kind of snarking, I think, is healthy. I think it’s good to let that stuff out. Helps you to not take it out on the people whose feelings matter (or should matter at any rate).

I used to have a friend who believed I did just that, used my blog to passive-aggressively attack said friend. Which, at the end of the day, I just didn’t and there was no proving that. So c’est la vie as they say. “They” being the French. Duh. Keep up.

But some bloggers blog just to bitch about those folks they can’t deal with in their lives and you know? That’s their right. I would hope they’re doing it anonymously because there could be some serious repercussions there, but I’m not here to judge. For me, I won’t use my blog for that. I’m also not great at being anonymous, because I share my writing with everyone I know.

None to the less, I’m a writer, yes? And writing out whatever is broiling in me has always been the best way for me to get perspective, let off steam, and also let whatever it is out in the universe where it just dissipates and becomes separate of me. It’s all very Foucault.

Or think of it like barfing. I have to get it out to feel better. Like word vomit, only with better grammar and punctuation.

And often what I have to express, what is broiling around in my insane little head happens to be something I deem inappropriate for le blog. So I’ll usually write it elsewhere. Maybe in a notebook, which I have entirely too many of and which if anyone tried to read in order, they’d have a hell of a time making any sort of sense out of (let alone decipher my hideous handwriting). Or sometimes I’ll type it up and sometimes save it, sometimes not. It’s all very unorganized and haphazard, but since I don’t ever plan on anyone else seeing it or even reminding myself of how angry or upset or stressed or what have you (lest I revisit that emotion again), I don’t much worry about keeping it all together.

Lately though, I sort of forgot to do that. I was so wrapped up in the demands of blogging and then I took my blog hiatus, which was absolutely necessary, that I forgot to write for me. Forgot to let the words out into the ether.

Not that I’ve even been upset or angry or stressed (well about a couple things I am) or whatever. And lest my friends and family who read this blog get concerned, I'm not angry or whatever at someone right now. I'm not secretly ranting about someone so none of you need worry. It's more about issues that were popping up about my past and affecting my behavior in the present. Which does affect others I care about and who I don't want to hurt.

But it’s like exercise, I suppose. You gots ta keep it up to stay healthy. And the truth is some stuff about my past and has been popping up here and there and I wasn’t exactly dealing with it. I was shoving it aside, pretending it wasn’t there (Like that one annoying coworker you’d love to smother in duct tape. Just kidding. Or am I?).

In other words: no bueno.

Also: I highly miss therapy. Once I go full time at work (read: benefits, baby), I’m so finding a new therapist.

Sose (It should be a word. Shut up.) all those thoughts were just doing their worst to me and bringing back my insomnia and really doing no good at all. Yet I didn’t really figure it out. How is it that we have these great things we do for ourselves, but when we really need to do them, we forget? How is that productive?

But Monday I figured it out. Like an anvil from heaven, it hit me. I needed to write. Just write. Just free write all those words until I found some truth and could let the rest go.

What’s funny is I’m still writing. I took a break to write this post (I guess because I had to share SOME of it with you) and then I’m sure I’ll write a ton more. It feels fucking great. So great I can’t believe I ever stopped.

Random Thoughts of a Crazy Lady

I love Oregon. I do. I love it here.

Except for one thing. Merging. As in, on the the road. You know?

Like merging onto a freeway. Or from one road to another where you don't have a stop sign and are meant to simply merge.

Not too hard right? Wrong.

Because Oregonians can't merge. They can't do it. They stop and they freak out and pretty much drive me batshit crazy.

If you did that in LA, you'd be dragged from your car and beaten.

And that would be reasonable.

FUCKING MERGE! That's what you can hear me screaming from my car at any given point whilst I am driving.

Fucking merge.

~~~~~~~~~~

I have always worked with people. Whether in retail or with clients or whatever, people. People's files, people's names.

And what I have discovered after all these years of seeing people's names? I am a 12 year old.

I can't see the name Warren without thinking, His name isn't Warren? I thought his name was Warren. My name isn't fucking Warren!

Name that movie.

If I see a name that happens to be a character in a film or a famous person (or even sounds close), I can't help myself. I start quoting (or just giggling most annoyingly). I once met a customer named Jake Ryan. Jake Ryan! As in, "Is your dad a big man, Jake?" And, "No more yanky my wanky. The Donger need food!" Yeah. You know what movie I mean. If you don't, I'm not sure we can be friends. I'll have to really rethink things.

Sigh.

The other day I saw a client file (which are labeled last name comma first name comma the type of file) and this file had the guy's last name and his first name was Tu and the type of file was PAC. So it said Tu PAC. I swear. Tu PAC.

Like I said, 12.

~~~~~~~~~~

Soooo remember when I went kinda gluten free? I'm pretty much all gluten free now. Except I don't go so far as to check what kind of barrel my wine was fermented in or anything. But for the most part? Gluten fucking free.

And it's fucking fantastic.

I feel so amazingly better you wouldn't believe. I'll never go back. For me, it's all about realizing my body wasn't processing the gluten and not about a health choice. BUT, because I feel so much healthier, it's just win-win.

Yeah, certain things were hard to give up and I still crave occasionally. Namely, bread. I have found a couple of decent gluten breads, though there's just no replacement for a good French bread or flour tortilla. But I don't miss that stuff much most days anymore.

And since I discovered gluten-free beer and ciders? I've gained all the weight back that I lost going gluten free.

It's awesome.

~~~~~~~~~~

So I'm dealing with a leetle drama with my old landlords, which I suspect I can't even discuss in case we go to court (for reals! to motherfucking court!), but the assholes are trying to screw us the fuck over and it's a stressball of epic proportions.

I am trying my best to just do what needs to be done and not freak out until I need to freak out. But DUDE! this  totally completely utterly supremely sucks hairy monkey balls. I exaggerate not.

Please send us all your good anti-asshole landlord vibes because if I have to pay these people, I'm gonna cut a bitch. 

~~~~~~~~~

The Raw Photos Contest is in full swing! The theme is people, but we encourage you to get creative with it.

Speaking of which, I've been a phenomenal dork and keep telling folks to "go shoot some people!" Because it's awful and mildly disturbing and in poor taste and therefore funny. Right? Until someone I tweeted that right after the Oslo shootings (being completely innocent because I'd been so busy that I hadn't read the news or been on the Twitters!) and my friends told me I was being an asshole. Yeah, sometimes I just have bad timing. Extremely bad timing.

Anwayyyyyy,

Submissions close Saturday so make sure to get over there and submit and see the awesometastic submissions! Sun and I are gonna have a hellofa time choosing a winner.

Raw Photos Contest: People

The Raw Photos Contest is opening Sunday! What? Oh yes. I know you all have been shivering in anticipation.

Theme: PEOPLE

Be your most creative. This could be portraits, street photography, silhouettes, etc. Remember this is how YOU interpret the theme! We want to see you shoot some people (hehehe).

A review of the rules:


1. You have to have taken the photo [duh, don't be a jerk and enter someone else's photo. NOT COOL.]
2. The photo has to be a raw photo. What does that mean? That means NO PHOTOSHOPPING. You can screw around all you want with exposure and white balance on your camera, and we'll even let you crop the photo, but that's it. No changing hues. No intensifying colors. No adding aliens or unicorns. RAW PHOTOS, baby. That's what we're looking for. (Both digital and digital scans of film are okay)
3. You have one week to enter a photo. You can enter up to two [2] photos per contest.

Once all the photos have been entered, we'll take a few days to look them over. When we decide who the winner is, that winner's photo will be posted on our blogs Crazy with a side of Awesome Sauce or The Suniverse, our Twitter feeds @andygirl or @TheSuniverse, and on Flickr. Plus, the winner gets an AWESOME BADGE to post on their blog, showing the world that they have mad photography skills.

And if you have any questions, just ask:
awesomecrazylady@gmail.com
thesueniverse@gmail.com

Submit here.

Now go shoot some people!

GOOD LUCK!

This Week at Sprocket Ink

This was a fun week for me this week at Sprocket Ink. Wow, that sentence rhymed way too much to be deemed cool. Anywayyyyyy, hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoyed writing them!

This week, go read:

Nazi Singers Go Lib. Also: Pigs Fly.
Prussian Blue, the Nazi-themed pop band that created a media frenzy in the mid-2000s, have outgrown their White Nationalist phase and changed their tune to saccharine singsong. You read that right.


If Lesbians Can’t Hold Hands in San Fran, Where Can They?
Lesbian couple is kicked out of a San Francisco art museum for holding hands. I guess bigoted douchebags can live everywhere.

Thanks for reading! I love your comments like I love wearing nothing but sexy heels and eating ice cream (at the same time)!

Happy Anniversary to Me and Portlandia

I've just passed my year anniversary living in Portland. 

When I decided to leave California and then moved to Oregon, it began a long string of questions from every person I talked to. Why are you moving? Why did you move? For work? For a guy?

The guy was everyone's favorite assumption. No way any sane girl would quit her job and move to a new state for any reason other than a guy.

Of course it must be a guy! Of course!

No one can conceive that anyone would simply move because they just want to move.

That would be insane.

And, well, we all know my sanity is questionable at times.

But I think a move for my own reasons is perfectly reasonable. Why the hell not?

I moved for me. I moved because I wanted to be someone else. Because I was looking for a change. Because I wanted the things this new place would offer.

I moved to escape the heat, the smog, did I mention the heat? I moved to escape the confines of Southern California (which, don't get me wrong, I'm homesick for), the culture, the cities, the towns. I needed more. 

So at the end of the day, I guess I did move to Portland for love. I moved for the love of the city. Cheesy as it may be, 'tis true. I love this city. It makes me happy. Not every day, but isn't that love is about anyway?

Portland wasn't so sure about me at first. She sent me some harsh times, friendship drama, a stalker, cat cancer. But I think the Port Land, she finally warmed up to me. Now we're in lurve. I even put a bird on it.

Don't be jealous. Not everyone's city can be this cool.

She's so pretty