Category Archives: me-me-me

A Quickie Writing Prompt for the Writers!

Posted on April 17, 2011 by wendy| Comments Off

Hey, gang! Because I went to the Field’s End Writers’ Conference this past weekend, you get to benefit!

I went to a breakout session conducted by playwright Elizabeth Heffron, and she offered a four line, two character (potentially three) writing prompt with about five minutes to write.

Amazing, the different directions people went with it. I hope you’ll use it and put your own amazing results in a comment here (or post on your own site with a link here so we can share)!

Here’s the prompt:

A: Hey.
B: Shhhh, he’s (or she’s) sleeping.
A: Who is that?
B: What do you mean?

Here’s my scene from that starting point:
A: Hey.
B: Shhh, he’s sleeping.
A: Who is that?
B: What do you mean?
A: Who is back there? I hear snoring.
B: Well…
A: Is that your boyfriend? Are you with someone?
B: I never asked you to come over.
A: I wanted to see you.
B: Maybe we can meet somewhere, later.
A: Let’s go now. I need to talk.
B: Now’s not a good time. Maybe…?
A: No. Just come with me. I wanted to tell you. I left my wife.
B: What?
A: I said I would.
B: I never expected–
A: But I love you!
B: Shhh!
A: Marie, I mean it! I left her! I’m sure we can work out a good joint custody arrangement. I’m yours!
B: Oh.
A: I even called a lawyer.
B: Really?
A: Yes, Frank Carls.
B: Frank? You called Frank?
A: Oh, you know Frank? I’ve heard he’s the best around.
B: Yes, he’s very successful.
C: Hey, Hon, who’re you talking to out there?
B: Oh, no one, Frank. Wrong house. Someone lost.
A: Marie!
B: G’bye, Joe.
A: But I–!
(Door shuts.)

Now, you out there (yes, you) get writing!

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Posted in brilliant ideas, creativity, education, events, growth, me-me-me, writing

Contact Lens Fugitive

Posted on April 8, 2011 by wendy| 2 Comments

Just about once every year, I wish I had gone for Lasik surgery to stop poking my eyes every day have normal eyesight again.

Today was that day.

Where the f#ck can a contact lens go when it pops out of your eyeball in the bathroom? There’s one foot of space between my eyeball/finger and the mirror, over the counter. And yet, that contact lens finds the black hole.

Imagine the power this country would have if it too could make things completely disappear in a nano second.

Seems like I should gain admittance to Magic Castle for this trick.

I looked myself over, the counters, the mirror, and only hours later from that par excellent vantage point known as the crapper commode, I caught glimpse of that sneaky little devil, crispy and curled over for his nap, on the edge of the counter. At least four feet away from where I lost him.

Little booger, he was crunchy from being out in the air all day. I wasn’t about to try to revive him after his poorly executed escape. Be careful what you wish for, lenses of the world. Freedom may not actually taste so sweet.

If you’re a contact lens.

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Posted in health, me-me-me, scratchings, weirdo

Rhymes R Us: My Limericks Survey

Posted on February 28, 2011 by wendy| 2 Comments

Put on your best thinking caps, Dear Readers! It’s time again for our lovely local bookstore Eagle Harbor’s annual limericks competition.

Which means, yes, more terrible limericks from me because I value your opinion so much and the Hubs doesn’t like any, I am offering a few samples to see what you can stand like the best!

Oh, and unlike prior times where they had Bainbridge Island as the theme, this year’s theme is books!

Please tell me your fave in the comments!

1. A book can help with balance as you walk,
Or guide you to parler, sprechen and talk.
Worlds open wide,
And from life, you can hide.
So unite, bookworms, and never be mocked!

2. A book is the best kind of friend,
Loyal and constant, unlike the wind.
Fulfills all your needs
From laughs to chicken feed,
And props your table leg in the end.

3. I love shopping for books on a Sunday,
While churchgoers seek Grace for their stray.
Nothing leaps from the shelves
Like color spreads of nude elves,
Which I’ll lewdly drool on while they pray.

Please be honest in your comments, and realize I spent ten minutes valuable writing time on these and put my heart into them!

Thanks again for your valuable reading time!

Warning: all copyrights of the above material, and any and all other material contained herein, are reserved to me because we all can see this is incredibly valuable intellectual property, and I do mean intellectual!

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Posted in Bainbridge Island, WA, brilliant ideas, creativity, me-me-me, quizland

friendship, mom-style

Posted on June 13, 2010 by wendy| 4 Comments

Let’s talk a moment about friends, shall we?
friend
No one warns you that starting your own family may snuff out friendships. If not snuff out, at least dampen them a bit.

Okay, to be honest, someone did warn me. But I didn’t believe him. I figured like so many married men who were “suffering” to one extent or another, this was standard b.s. offered to a single woman. Naturally, I scoffed.

Now, I see.

The Mom life is a busy life, with many demands and pressures. Mom friendship consists of “being friends” along with some other “function,” such as airing out kids at the park, walking, or if you’re lucky, getting drunk at karaoke. Kind of like Bret Michaels lately, these relationships are more “busy” than “deep.”

Is it difficult for you moms to find friends you can truly confide in? Someone who actually wants you to confide in them, unlike the hubs who’d prefer to hear the dog’s grievance (as if any dog of ours has a grievance! what? more pillows for her on our bed?)?

I can’t blame the hubs. Men, we love you, but you are just different. Your friendships have always consisted of someone to get drunk with, shoot birds or mammals hoops the shit with. You don’t get it.

Finding a good friend when you’re an adult is like that awkward hell of blind dates. You meet someone, you sniff them out, their attire, their cultural references, their sense of humor. You wonder if you’d “mesh.” You may suggest a coffee date, a shopping date, perhaps a playdate with kids if you’re not too sure about the whole scene (yes, adding toddlers always improves things!).

You’re never sure if they liked you or if you could trust them with important personal information, like who your latest TV crush is.

And with kid pressures in the mix, you’re never sure if they intentionally hung up on you or if their kid really was drinking glue at that very moment. Glue is quite a popular beverage.

Overall, I find it’s a slow and complicated scene (longer than me knitting that damn hat), this making new friends as a mom.

More people are involved in the selection process; more people add their own obstacles and complications. More people are drinking glue.
friends

Do you find it easy or hard to make new friends? And “friending” on Facebook doesn’t count!

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Posted in aging, me-me-me

buddy, can you spare a story?

Posted on May 10, 2010 by wendy| 3 Comments

Hot news for you children’s lit writers out there. Have you heard about the Bedtime Stories Project going on at SleepBetter.org? They are looking for bedtime stories submissions; there is no cost to enter. You can read and rate all the submitted stories, including the one by *ahem* yours truly. The top stories may be read by the one and only Betty White at an event with SleepBetter.org.

The grand prize winner will have her work illustrated by award-winning artist Bill Nelson. Here is his gorgeous Goldilocks illustration:
Sb-org-SleepyTales-Goldilocks-rs-72DPI

Here is another, the Princess and the Pea:
princess and the pea

I’m visualizing my story with his art….. But you should definitely not enter the contest, too! Or at least go check out the stories for grins!

* * * * * * * * * * * *
Other Bidness:

1. For the first time ever one of my posts is up on blogher.com! Yes, I’m virtually a three-year, overnight sensation! Here is the link. Please click over and make a girl feel special by commenting! :)

2. I have a new post up at the Mom Squad on mothers in the movies (I know, I’m like Steven King prolific lately! *snort*). Come check it out and share what moms in movies you like!

I know, you’re tired, it’s a lot of clicking and such, but just give a try, for me, pretty pleeeeeease.

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Posted in events, me-me-me, scratchings

7 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being a Woman in Her 40′s

Posted on March 21, 2010 by wendy| 9 Comments

[Okay, I'm 29, not really, 39 43 and not waaaaaay into my 40's, so I may need to amend this list in a few years to add more data for you young'uns.]

This is my Public Service Announcement for women out there younger than I am.
See, I give back but no, you can’t have my old tea kettle. I might possibly need it.

Without further ramblings ado, I present to you, My 7 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being a Woman in Her 40′s, a.k.a, Cougars Still Get Hangnails:

1. Your libido went to Fiji without you. Sure, you were lusty in your 30′s, just like they said you would be, but if, like me, you married in the middle of that decade, things change. I mean, honey, if you offer me Super Fudge Chunk ice cream every night, even I’m going to be not so interested anymore. Maybe if I had to hunt for that dessert pint in bars, office parties and churches, then….

Corollary: you want your husband to go to Fiji, too, and leave you, in the words of Nancy Wilson, another old broad, A-LONE.

2. You may want to “friend” Clairol a little sooner than planned. I realize now (yes, now that my totally gray head stares me in the face in a menacing, no-way-out way) that hair coloring is a little like miscarriage among the female community she did not just say that, oh, but she did: it’s happening all the time, all around us, but no one is discussing it. Granted, miscarriage is a terrible, terrible loss to experience, I know first hand, but for some, the thought of letting their gray hair grow out is possibly more traumatic since it’s SO VISIBLE, like, to the Calvin Klein underwear boys you may meet world.

With my gray hair getting even longer, I now get “Oh, I’d stop coloring my hair, if it’d grow out like yours… To which, I cough out “A-*bullshit*-hem!”

3. Regardless of color, your thickest, most lush hair will be in your nose. Or, possibly, the bathroom drain.
Or, if you’re lucky to have a great spouse like mine to point out such things, both.

4. Your eggs joined a nunnery 8 years ago, and any of them left fraternizing with cute, horndog spermy guys are not exactly “upstanding community members.” Really, thanks so much, Mr. Dr. Gyno, for never annually warning me of my ovarian expiration date and always not discussing how a hearty sneeze or a toilet seat or both at once! could impregnate a girl.

But I’m not bitter. Bitterness totally is is not part of this list.

5. You might be able jog, if you haven’t yet blown out your knee, but “ripple effect” will have new meaning. Let’s just say, there’s a reason, thank the Lord, full-length mirrors are stuck on walls and doors on the INSIDE of homes. Moving on…

6. Your period goes to one of two extremes, the house guest who’ll never leave and blares Wildfire at 2am, or a tiny, timid mouse who surprises you each month by still coming around for a small slice of munster. I can’t really elaborate much more on that without expanding beyond the “family blog” category that the Hubs likes to imagine declares this blog fits.
Still, I’m not bitter.

7. You may start blogging. Over and over again. Hey, you’ve been warned.

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Posted in aging, education, me-me-me, venting

Wicked joy

Posted on September 22, 2009 by wendy| 7 Comments

I had a birthday this past weekend and totally got my way all weekend long would like to first express gratitude for my dad who suffered trauma upside down and all around at the hands of our 6 year old whirling dervish provided overnight babysitting services.

That oughta teach him to offer up such a thing.

What did we do? Where did we go for our Kid-free, weekend overnighter?

My game plan was to stay in downtown Seattle and see Wicked, the Broadway musical about the untold story of the witches of the Wizard of Oz, nominated for 10 Tony Awards. Too bad the show was sold out.

Mid-week, I learned that Seattle’s hotels were also sold out.

But aren’t I like a pit bull with a toddler in its craw? did I let that deter me?

After visiting OCD-land and refreshing my search page every minute on 4 different travel websites and refusing to cook meals for the family and basically going on strike for two days, a room popped up and I snagged it!

Okay, a little trickier than planned, but as Dubya would say, mission accomplished!

And the hotel was a stone’s throw from the theehtah! I could see the marquee from our window. Like, literally, it was a sign.

Now if I only had tickets…. Craigslist listed some from actual people as well as Satan’s minions scalpers, but they were hard to grab.

I even posted on craigslist what tickets I wanted. And guess what? The good news is someone wrote to me right away that they had 2 tickets!

The bad news is their email went into my Junk mail folder and I didn’t find it for 24 hours. Tickets gone. Even when I emailed 15 minutes after another listing went up, tickets gone.

So, we were left with hoping for last minute tickets being sold outside at showtime or trying Lady Luck at the pre-show ticket lottery.

We started with the theater’s lottery, put our names in the hat and waited with about 75 people to see which 10 lucky people would get to buy 2 tickets at $25 each. Great odds, eh?

The drawing began. At first, a couple of people clapped politely for the winners. Later, still waiting for their names, they stopped.

Then, one person turned down her win because her friend had already won. That meant one extra name would get drawn.

With every stranger’s name called, I rode a flood of feelings, like a teenager in love with a vampire, nervousness, sadness, excitement, depression.

Finally, holding the last little piece of paper, the man said “Wendy Wallace!”

I screamed, pumped my fists and jumped in the air! YES!!

No one applauded. They might have even glared a toxic glare.

And I felt real bad for them, see?
photo1
We even had a drink in their honor, the ones who wouldn’t get to see a sold out, Saturday night show of Wicked.
photo-7
But that didn’t help. We were just so bummed for them.
photo-3
Did I mention it was my birthday?

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Posted in aging, Bainbridge Island, WA, brilliant ideas, life is good, me-me-me

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