There are times when searching for inspiration and post-worthy moments feel impossible.  Although, having very limited time outside my career ambitions seems to pose the main blogosphere threat, I’m thinking.  There’s always so much to do, to see, to write, to learn, to revise, to submit, and photograph (etcetera) that suddenly I’m glancing sidelong at the clock and the day is nearly over with and gone.  

But for the first time in a long time, the temperature dropped drastically, and lucky for me… this meant gallivanting about random locations while adhering to the Holy Grail decree of the autumn season… faux fur.  There must be something in the air, because I own at least half a dozen of these retro coats and moments preceding this post, became legal guardian of one more orphaned on eBay. 

What’s the deal… I mean, have I caught some sort of communicable faux fur addiction?  Or have I always needed Shopaholics Anonymous?

As I write this…  I’m likely to spill my cappuccino, scream audibly, ecstatically jump up and down, initiate a seriously infantile happy dance, or perhaps all of the above…  I’m officially an award-winning author!

The other afternoon, as I pushed through the workforce while guzzling Diet Pepsi as if it were going out of style, I took a minute to check the proverbial inbox… and much to my surprise had received a letter from The Editors of Writers Digest.  As I fixated in some hybrid form of unadulterated satisfaction, my eyes scanned quickly over the glowing computer screen. 

A paragraph of black letters and a millisecond later, I was a finalist in the 77^th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.  A week later, still unsure of my respective category, the certificate finally arrived… and as if by some serendipitous act from the writing otherworld, I’d been one of the lucky chosen (from more than 17000 entries) to receive an Honorable Mention in the Children’s/Young Adult Fiction category!

Insert celebratory dance!

It was a smoldering 85 degrees outside… sunshine, breezy, good company, and without a hint of tetchiness, I sat passenger while sipping a grande non fat/no whip/white mocha, reading The Way I See It #17. 

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough.  On occasion, some may be correct.  But do not do their work for them.  Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal.  Don’t take it personally when they say “no” - they may not be smart enough to say “yes.”  - Keith Olbermann 

The clock just chimed, reminding me of the late midnight hour.  I revisit the quote, and I’m thinking…. now I can triumph over the new day, the universe, or just the mounting stack of papers to my right side, whichever comes first!

I mentioned feeling the creepy urge to DIY… do it yourself, in case those reading are somehow craft incompetent, and I admit… once I begin these cathartic little projects, I just can’t stop.  I stand there for hours, generally hovering (though not literally) over the kitchen island while being nearly intoxicated by the incessant happy dance going on inside my head, in lieu of this fluid individuality.  (Ha) It’s like some craft recreational drug, I’m thinking!  

The artistic voice beckons as ideas flow like water, and by the end…  I’m completely befuddled by the Holy Grail of stuff that I’ve somehow managed to create.  Not that I’m braggadocios, this is just how it is.  So there I am, standing in the kitchen with an exacto knife in one hand and an uber-sharp pair of scissors in the other, and whilst this celebratory craft-climax, the lacerated result (of that once basic Hanes T-shirt) looks as though Freddy Krueger had a field day.   

At a snail’s pace, I’m meandering about the domicile on this cloud-infested Tuesday morning, attempting an escape route from this hellish cold while appearing something of the near human.  

What better to do while living in a sick-girl bubble than to obscure myself in a pile of blankets, watch movies, and happily couch potato my way through the evening.  I hate to say it but You Don’t Mess with the Zohan was horrifically ridiculous (no suprise really) and while I usually enjoy Adam Sandler, especially in Spanglish… not so much this film.  There were one or two chuckles, but no cartwheels, albeit my current Sniffleupagus condition, blahbarianism, and downtrodden frame of mind could have something to do with it.  I admit. 

Enough movies, I’m thinking I have some DIY projects on the storefront… anything that doesn’t require actual physical labor or an iota of brainpower.  Obviously, it’s all I’m capable of doing at this particular juncture.

After an obscenely long conversation that had nothing to do with anything, actually…. my family and I (at a one of our many social gatherings) started thinking about the twists and turns of verbal communication.  Shocker.  It’s one of those few times when one too many cocktails leads to mindless rantings, but of course, this got me thinking with a strange amount of off-kilter curiosity. 

Oxymoron was the topic of conversation.  It’s the believable fallacy, clear as mud, good morning, the palest night, bittersweet, refreshingly unattractive, clearly confused, and the wickedly pleasant that my mind wraps around while trying to decode the illogical compatibility within such deliberately structured phrases.  I’m babbling but when someone, (who shall remain nameless) blurted out, “He was useful in a helpless sort of way, ya know.” 

It just made me laugh.

“Usefully helpless?”  I asked, quizzically.

“Yeah, because if he had actually done anything–the forty-second time I’d asked him–then I’d be forced to call him helpfully useless.”      

Hmmm.  

While reading this lunatic post please be advised that it’s just good humor!  Do I even have to say it, please, he knows…  I like totally forewarned him.

Dear Keeper of the Heathen Blogosphere, 

You’re giving me a complex (insert bullshit mirth)… no seriously, you are!  Thanks a lot my cyber-commenting friend!  But for this particular blogosphere snippet, I promise not to use any enormously gigantical, difficult to understand words like profligacy, transmogrifying, aberrance, female, or probability density function.  I’ll jargonize the whole damn thing and write only random crap and useless rants.  I mean, if it weren’t for this seductive little minibar cradled lovingly beside me…  I might not have the gumption to write this blahbarian rubbish at all!  

So what if I have an extensive vocabulary!  I know, I know… you prefer more colorful terminology, unadulterated (um) sketches, and (gasp) football.  But I confess that your slighty cocky/mannish perceptions, quite comparable to ohhh I don’t know, Napoleon (and I don’t mean Dynamite), seem to cause quite the unruly fascination.   

Damn it!  Apparently, you are bringing sexy back, double damn it!  But seriously, I’m about to blog-punch you in the face for this definition: Batshit crazy lunatic person for no good reason.

So you dance with brooms and vlog it to the masses… what’s next… America’s Best Dance Crew?  Dancing With The Stars? 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! 

Being the semi-hopeless romantic that I am, I’ve impulsively decided that I, without exception, must own Nights in Rodanthe, based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks.  

I’m convinced that Slick is reading this with rigorous amounts of grumbling undertone… albeit I just can’t help believing in second chances.  Besides, a girl needs some romance remedies in her life (they can’t all be about stilettos), and it’s not as if I’m lolling around in a state of love-stupor while reading mushy novels with Fabio smeared across the cover of each (no offense), while plucking tissues from an oversized box as my face clouds behind a pillow of white! 

I do come from a little land called reality, but in the end, it’s just one of those things…

 (Photo for betchai … see, I do have those shoes!) LOL

With that said, let me rewind in reference to my latter post (being parts one and two of my rambling Carrie Bradshaw brigade), and pose this simple question.  What have we learned from this Sex and the City savage style haven of fashion pornography? 

I have no f@%!king clue. 

Albeit relationships happen whether you’re prepared or not… the ups and downs, the side-winding curves, jilting somersaults, and I can’t believe you blackouts… no matter what designer you’ve managed to douse yourself in.  And a great pair of savage kicks always seems to fit, seeing as their fated holy grail-grandeur is the only practical solution to severe bouts of melancholy-ness.  I’m stretching it a bit, but who cares.    

Naturally, this hardly theoretical premise got me thinking.  They say life is what happens when your busy making other plans… but I’m wondering if life is what happens when you forget the damn agenda altogether.  Okay, for some the notional assumption of life is that the soul searching boulevard can and will better aid these wanderlusts moments if accompanied by a pair of Louboutins (when all you have are converse).  Albeit for others the mere mention springs a tearful reality to the hardcore truth, (there it is again) in that we all just need a Carrie Bradshaw breather.  Even if it is reduced to only 145 minutes of film…     

Because finding the perfect life, love, middle, beginning, or end to our realities/fairytales is like finding the perfect pair of ankle boots… sometimes, a girl has to try them on repeatedly until she finally gets it right.  Now that’s love at first sight.

All the things we’ve ever been told about love and life are in some cases, probably true.

Love is blind.

Love hurts.

Love holds no grievances.

Love and life sets without boundaries. 

Life is what we make it… and love generally happens when you least expect it, as much this is true about life, or so the disciples say.  Tough love, on the other hand, is an entirely different story, possibly. 

But when all these romance antics fall apart at the seams, when it’s not one thing… it’s six others, and your love life takes you from blissful to blasé… we being the clever women of the world, seek out truth, not merely versions of it.  For some ungodly reason, we’ve become desirous for that cold, hard, brutal honesty… well, most of the time anyway. 

And one begins to wonder…

What do the clever women of the world do in this paramount, mission provoking, and slightly unadulterated pursuit of love, sex, and practicality… we buy shoes.