It’s beginning to look a lot like some random version of my favorite holiday season.  But as the dynamics of nostalgia and annual traditions aide the recovery of food comas everywhere, it’s coming on that time of year when so-called private lives become public record to every relative in tow.  Let’s be honest, society begins to experience a gamut of emotions, and unexpectedly this quasi-arousing bedlam transforms into psychotic yuletide bliss, depression, or face it… they just don’t give a crap because they stopped believing in Santa Claus 20 years ago.   

The universal rift, otherwise known as the holidays, sparks an extravagant bankrupting forte while jingles bells merrily cheers each credit card (debt) swipe.  Seriously, every cart pusher, window peeker, road rager, and zany bargain seeker apparently conforms to the same spending Christmas rules.

So while a mass of strangers nearly pulverized one another over ‘it’ items, I couldn’t help wondering when giant conglomerates replaced the spirit of Christmas.

I couldn’t resist these images…

Lounging around the domicile after a fruitful and mildly eventful yesterday, my mind went into overdrive as I pounded the keys of the laptop beside my mounting manuscript garnish.  Thanksgiving is looming and while my nephews incessantly remind me of their own obligatory lists (Christmas lists that is), I can’t help wondering who officially bogarted the year.  An enthusiast of the season, everywhere I turn, twinkling lights and funky plastic reindeer festoon the lawns of suburbia, but as I barely stumble out of a semi-candy coma from Halloween… I’ve yet another fabulous reminder that time is melting away as if some true-to-life Salvador Dali rendition. 

 Hmmm, if only I had a pause button…  

While I posted these images on my other blog, circumstance has created a slight negligence as I realize I’ve been delinquent with my posts… but I wanted to shed a little spotlight on the alpha dog of my wardrobe. Fulfilling all my Carrie Bradshaw fashion fantasies, the tulle conception seemed a sublime manifesto as animate as any fairy tale turned true-to-life moment.  While it may have taken 12 gruesome hours, numerous sewing machine slanders, and a little 3am delirium to conquer, the finality was more than even I could have imagined… and honey let’s be honest, that sea is wide indeed. 

But several cartwheels later and a standing ovation worthy of any red carpet, I couldn’t help but to parade about like some schoolgirl gone naughty.  And despite all the blatant onlooker stares and unpleasantly cold ambiance, my Sex and the City Ballerocker turned out even better and even bigger than Mr. Big.

Metaphorical titles, well-thought covers, and secret lives, alongside that omniscient kingdom of words… somehow, someday. 

I keep reminding myself that rejection (such a hideous word) is not only inevitable, as is my surly façade glowering back at those damn SASE, but it’s also purely subjective, or so they claim.  Then again, I always wonder why it feels so critical… terminal… palpable.  But in light of the proverbial rejection fact, it means I’m still in the game, I’m fully exposed.  And with a few things on the vanguard, I’m determined that one day I’ll get there and finally have my cake and eat it too.    

Right now, I’ll have to suffice with cookies.

Halloween has come and gone, and as we shuffle through the various holidays of 2008…  I can’t believe the year is chiseling out another ending.  But after several phone calls, connecting flights, and the logistical chaos of travel, I was finally able to reunite in the interim, with my long-distant other half for a seriously spooktacular weekend of trickery, costumes, late night misadventures, and yes… love.

Some things are definitely worth waiting for, and while our time together had us clowning around as Carrie Bradshaw and the Zombie from Hell… the hoopla and ongoing shenanigans were over before I’d realized it’d even started.  In lieu of Halloween and the righteous after party my sister and brother-n-law spent a small fortunate on, here are a few photographs definitely worth sharing. 

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.