One Line Wednesday: The Official Debut

While out the other day on my morning run, I witnessed a hammer wielding man giving his right rear tire a hearty lasagna treatment.

Don’t you just want to read on? Aren’t you wondering what, exactly, constitutes a lasagna treatment and what hammers and tires could possibly have to do with Italian food, anyway?

If this were a typical post, I’d have to give a blow by blow of the video I happened to catch sometime last week, in which an intense man pummeled a frozen lasagna nearly beyond recognition. A normal post would, likewise, require a description of the local tool toting gentleman and his teetering tire. Most tediously, an ordinary post would call upon me to tie the two vignettes together with some witty wisdom or insightful observations about life.

But not today. Not on One Line Wednesday. No, on One Line Wednesday, vagueness, brevity, and misdirection are the order of the day. One Line Wednesday is a simple celebration of the single good line. No pressure of further explanation. No need to worry if your words are “going anywhere.” None of the tricky transitions or epic endings one might expect in traditional prose.

Here’s the lowdown: Each week, I’ll get things started with the single best line I’ve managed to craft in the intervening seven days –maybe I’ll include the story behind it, but I likely won’t, what with it being One Line Wednesday, and all. Each week there’ll also be one of those cool Mr. Linky widgits that you see below...yeah, there it is, at the very bottom. Just give it a little click, and we'll hope it works :) That’s where you leave a link to your one line post (if you’re an overachiever, feel free to include the story behind your line, but that’s never necessary). Your line can be about anything, as clear or cryptic as you’d like, and who knows—maybe even be true!

If you have no blog, feel free to participate by just commenting as you would for a normal post. If you do have a blog, however, please mention that you are participating in One Line Wednesday, and add a hyperlink to this post. Feel free, also, to copy the official One Line Wednesday image at the opening of this post to illustrate yours, but that’s optional.

But don’t forget the most important thing—have a little low stress fun with the written word. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

A Running With Letters News Extra

As promised yesterday, today's post is all about keeping my readers posted. Let's start with a Running With Letters Event Reminder: One Line Wednesday debuts tomorrow! To get the gist of how it'll work, check out last Wednesday's post and get your one-liners all polished up and ready to post! I can't wait to read what my talented, creative readership comes up with!

Our next notable nugget comes in the form of this nice blog award that was passed on to me from Vicki at Frugal Mom Knows Best. Vicki is all about kids and crafts and inexpensive ways to connect the two! Thanks, Vicki, for passing along the virtual accolades!


Some of you have mentioned the increased "traffic" here, and it is exciting to see that there are people out there reading. During my two years in grad school, this blog was an outlet for me to keep writing. I wanted to develop a stronger readership, but lacked the time to to connect with other bloggers and develop online relationships. One of the best parts about my recent rediscovery of my pre-grad school life has been the opportunity to pack my virtual bags and make frequent forays into cyberspace. Along with accepting the above award comes the privilege of passing the honor on to other bloggers. So without further ado, Here's are the links to handful of bloggers who have made me feel welcome in my travels:


The Animator's Wife
Elizabeth@Finding Him Bigger
Lorena@lorenablog
Kirsten@Living in a Girl's World
Jade@Tasting Grace
I Wonder Wye
Holly@504 Main (This one is kind of a cheat, because Holly already received this award a couple days before me...but she's great, and you should totally check her out!)

(For the above named recipients: The rules of the "One Lovely Blog Award" are accept the award, post it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award--in this case, me!-- and his or her blog link. Pass the award along to several other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.)

Today's final news update is really a no-news item, for those of you who have asked about my husband. There's really nothing new to report. He has to wait another week for an MRI, unless he improves enough in the interim that it's not necessary. So the waiting game continues.

See you all tomorrow for One Line Wednesday!

One Line Wednesdays

Today I had a botched meet-up with a Dirty Chai, ran long and hard, and eventually turned myself in at the police station for fingerprinting.



Which may lead you to believe that it’s been a notable day, until I tell you that the events didn’t occur quite in that order and that the Dirty Chai was just a wonderful brew on which I missed out at my local coffee house, the run was just my morning loop around the neighborhood (which I’ll typically file underlong and hard) and that the fingerprinting was just the last of a tedious list of routine in-processing items required by my employer. But it kind of sounded pretty intense there for a moment, didn’t it?

The opening line came to me early on, and it cheered me considerably to be able to think about my average day in such epic terms. My first thought was that I might finally be ready to get on Twitter, a social networking feat of which I’ve largely considered myself incapable due to the required brevity. I find the prospect of consistently expressing my thoughts in an engaging manner using no more than 140 characters frankly intimidating. Because, let’s face it, no one really wants to read tweets about actual, real-time events in the spirit of: “teaching yellow and blue makes green today!’ or “fridge empty—looks like pasta for dinner again!” But I think it would be a relief, every so often, to be able to craft a good line and put it out there without the pressure of further explanation a good blog post requires. Problem is, I figure I’m good for about one of those a week, not the constant stream effective tweeting would require.

Which got me to thinking that it might be fun to host “One Line Wednesdays” here at Running With Letters. I see it working kind of like this: I’ll get us started with a post each Wednesday with the single best line I’ve managed to craft in the intervening seven days –maybe I’ll include the story behind it, but I likely won’t, what with it being One Line Wednesday, and all. I’ll also include one of those cool Mr. Linky widgits that will let you leave a link to your one line post of the week (where you can include the story behind your line, or not—you choose!) Your line can be about anything, as clear or cryptic as you’d like, and who knows—maybe even be true! I may as well just put it out there that I’m not-so-secretly hoping that by setting the bar sort of low-ish, at a single line, I might be able to get my sister, husband, and maybe even Jen blogging again, but that may be too much to expect. It would also just make my week if a whole lot of other bloggers got into the fun and joined us!

In the meantime, keep a pencil and paper handy and jot down that witty one liner that pops into your head this week, post it to your blog on Wednesday, and zip back over here with your link. What do you think? Are you in?

Sound Check

Work, for me, is a noisy place. Oh, I’m not talking the jackhammer/heavy equipment/industrial kind of noisy of which experts tell us to be on alert for aural health purposes. It’s just the sort of noisy one can’t avoid with a job description that calls for extended interaction with 70 elementary children--45 before lunch— all wielding scissors, glue bottles, and an alarming number of coloring implements.

During my brief time with my new students, I’ve discovered that they aren’t appreciatively different from my former ones. Just like the students that populated my old classroom, these children came with a built in propensity to say my name in a repeated loop, complete with audible exclamation marks as each syllable leaves their lips. As is apparently customary, each child arrives fully equipped with an artistic emergency requiring my immediate and complete attention. And, just like in my previous classroom, I’ve had to amend my class rules with a “no singing” clause. Because, really, I absolutely CAN NOT have 70 kids singing jingles from TV commercials, theme songs from popular shows, and the inappropriate lyrics of assorted rap and R&B artists--even if we weren’t dealing with all of the other auditory stimulus.

Due to the realities of my working environment, I find myself seeking some good silence for an hour or so after I arrive home. I say Good Silence, because it’s occurred to me that there are, really, two types of silence. Good Silence is the sort in which I basked on my front step after work on Tuesday. Soaking in the warm afternoon sun, I closed my eyes and focused on the chirping of the neighborhood crickets. With a little mental editing, I deleted extraneous traffic noise and briefly transported myself to the deep country acreage where I spent the long, lazy afternoons of my childhood.

And it was Good Silence that allowed my husband to detect the call of a great horned owl—an owl--and urban owl! Who knew?—one evening earlier this week after the kids were in bed, the computers off, and our own creatures at rest. That night, I feel asleep near my open bedroom window to the lullaby of a distant song. That silence was very good, indeed.

Good Silence energizes, restores, refreshes. Good Silence is an incubator for ideas and creativity, and it’s as essential to my well-being as the noise is on my work days.

Life would probably be just about perfect, then, if it were simply an even balance of noise and Good Silence. But alas, Good Silence has an evil twin. Bad Silence is the sort one encounters after an ominous crash. It invariably speaks of distress, disaster, and/or destruction. Bad Silence means something is broken. Although the wreckage may be admittedly be minimal, but it is real nonetheless.

Bad Silence has, unfortunately, crept quietly (can it arrive any other way?) into little corners of my life, upsetting the otherwise happy Noise/Good Silence Combo I have going. Bad Silence is hovering on the periphery, taking the usual-yet–still-disappointing forms: those prayers that can’t seem to get past the ceiling, the empty inbox when a reply to an important email is expected instead, the *cough* blank comment section on a faithfully updated blog.

I’m not sure, yet, of the role Bad Silence plays in life. I don’t know why some prayers offered in complete confidence are obviously answered, while others seem lost in cyberspace. I don’t know why friends sometimes aren’t there when we need them. And on the comments…well, I choose not to comment, except to say that for reasons likely related to those aforementioned, Bad Silence feels kind of lonely.

Feel free to grab a violin at any time, here— in fact, someone please do! The sound would do dual duty by breaking the Bad Silence spell and preventing this post from ending on a sour note.

In other news....

Yesterday was marked a momentous occasion: I sent off my first magazine submission in, well, a couple of years! It felt good: like life is on the right track.

I made reservations to return--just with my husband--to the site of The Great Migration. We toot a fall trip there last year and I found myself craving the beauty of the fall leaves, the camp restaurant's warm cobbler and cracking fires to ward of the mountain chill. T-34 days until departure.

Although my posts have been more reflective than humorous lately, that fact is not intended to signal a change in format--I just happen to feel reflective lately. Not always a bad thing :)

New Business; or RWL Gets a Facelift

With yesterday's Old Business behind us, I'm pleased to announce that today's news at Running With Letters is our new look, designed by young technological mastermind, Brian Tucker. The look went live this afternoon, although we are aware-- and working on--a couple minor bugs.

Of special note: see the RWL "button" in the panel on the left? How about that code underneath? I'm inviting all of my loyal readers cut and paste that code into your own blogs and websites so you can let YOUR readers know that you read Running With Letters and together we can help grow our strange and wonderful online community.

Let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Not On the Record and Got Off the Press

“Putting it that way makes me sound like a septuagenarian,” I said to my sister, upon citing random fear of rain among possible reasons not to travel.

“Well, even my mother-in-law doesn’t make decisions like that," my sister countered. “She always says life is for living.”

In an effort to salvage a couple of days of fun and togetherness dubbed Sister Camp--a moniker we may or may not have ripped from my friend Jen-—my sister was trying to sell me on a reasonably complicated last ditch measure culminating in a four hour plus solo jaunt across two states. At the risk of damaging my reputation as an adventurer, I find it necessary to admit that I am not especially keen on driving. I’ll pretty much go anywhere, anytime, but I’d just as soon leave the driving to others. I have no sense of direction, for one thing—isn’t north always straight ahead?—and rely heavily on landmark data, a situation making post-sundown driving a nightmare. And did I mention my feelings on rain?

“Well,” my sister’s voice lost a degree of confidence, “Maybe that’s not exactly what she said, but I’m sure it’s her philosophy.” My sister disappeared from the conversation to conference with her mother-in-law who, coincidentally, happened to be both a septuagenarian and in the room. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mom, that life is for living?”

I could hear a lot of murmuring on the other end of the line as my sister’s MIL consulted with assembled advisers. “It depends what you’re living for,” she said, carefully.

“For?” my sister queried.

“Yes, life is worth living if it’s for the right things,” came the guarded reply.

“Not worth living, Mom, for living,” my sister said. More murmuring ensured.

“What’s this for?” MIL halted the conversation to address my sister.

“My sister might not come because she doesn’t know if it will rain next week, and I told her that life is for living and she should come. Do you not agree with me?”
The room exploded in laughter. “I thought she was quoting me for a book,” MIL replied. “Of course she should come, don’t be silly.”

“Sister, she agrees wholeheartedly with me,” my sister triumphed. “She just thought you were writing about her, and wanted to make sure she was properly portrayed.”

“Tell her I wasn’t writing anything before, but she may have just written herself into a blog post.”

“Mom, you’re going to be on the internet,” my sister called to her MIL. “And as far as you, Sister, you can come to Sister Camp or you can draw the curtains, grab your spectacles, and read the newspaper. Start with the obituaries.”

I have, subsequently, been enrolled at Sister Camp for the past five days. I travel home tomorrow. At last report, the forecast called for storms, but the internet has been on the blink so I may not be able to verify. There are absolutelt no newspapers at Sister Camp.

Let's Talk

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you hosted a gathering in your home—let’s, for the sake of discussion, assume it to be an eclectic mix of family, friends, acquaintances, and any number of complete strangers—and despite your best efforts to facilitate engaging conversation the entire assemblage sat inexplicably mute?

Or wouldn’t it just be completely freaky to know-- not unlike that family from Pennsylvania with the guy living in the attic around the holidays-- that you had guests, but never actually make contact with your covert visitors?

Blogging feels a little bit like both scenarios at times. Simply put, comments make my day. There’s nothing quite like coming back to the computer a few hours after a post and discovering that something I wrote made someone, somewhere laugh, or think, or reflect. I’m told that there are bloggers out there who just can’t handle the volume of responses to their posts, either practically, or in some cases even technologically, as the flood of commentary overflows inboxes and clogs servers. I can’t imagine having problems of such magnitude. I’m just a girl trying to host a cozy online space where we can sit back and laugh; maybe kick off our flip-flops and take life a little less seriously for a few minutes. A place where levity might dissolve into perspective, and from perspective, who knows?

So pull up a monitor, grab a coffee, or diet cola, or a sip from a nearby water fountain, if that’s all you’ve got, and let’s talk. If my recent posting history is any indicator, I’ll be in and out a few times each week. And as for you, just come when you can. I’ll be glad for your company whenever you can stop by.

And if it happens to be a quiet, just listening day, that’s OK. But maybe next visit you’ll have something to add to the conversation that will make this virtual space seem a little more like home—and that’s even better.

a note about today's illustration: I fully acknowledge that today's go-along-with the post photo in no way enhances or illuminates the subject matter at hand. I have, however, decided for the time being to make this controversial image the official default photo for blogs that would otherwise go unillustrated.

Mocha Monday: Madcap Mayhem and a Bloggy Backlash

“At most, it’s a misdemeanor. We wouldn’t get more than thirty days,” my son laughed, sucking down the remaining centimeter of his free iced mocha from a Popular Burger Establishment. “Besides, it would make a great post.”

We’d just calculated that it would take roughly four of the short, squat samples to equal a standard small. From there, it was a mental hop, skip, and a jump for my son to calculate that our pre-determined errand route would take us past an equal number of the same drink-distributing establishment. He shot me a look that basically confirmed my status as the coolest mom in the world if we could stop for a quick (free) sip at all four Establishments.

I wondered aloud if there were social or legal mores which would be violated by such a romp. My son gave the thirty days tops estimate, which we laughed off as improbable and commenced on some carefree summer hi-jinks.

“So, how do we get in on this Mocha Monday?” I found myself saying moments later, in the lobby of Similar Establishment #2.

“Iced or nonfat?” a jovial barista queried, already reaching for the sample sized cups.

We slurped our samples en route to the site of our java junket. The sugar rush kicked in before we hit our next site: what fun! This, my son assured me, is what summer’s all about.

Unfortunately, the good folks at site #3 had opted out of the free caffeine campaign, which we completely respect. We waved our thanks and headed back to our vehicle, where I documented my son’s gesture of mock disappointment.

That’s when Mocha Monday took on a dark, biting edge.

A rather burly and decidedly angry manager approached my vehicle. Wow, I thought, that was quick. Some sort of McLert must have been issued. Burry images must have been distributed of us wiping the foam from Mocha one off our mouths as we sauntered in for our second round; still frames, possibly sound bites of my clever little, “How do we get in on this Mocha Monday” line. How long, exactly, is thirty days anyway? Would my boy make it out of juvie hall in time to start school?

I was prepared for just about anything to come from the manager’s lips. Anything but the booming question that actually met my ears. “Are you taking pictures of the property? Because you can’t be taking pictures of the property.”

“Ummm…I’m taking pictures of my son,” I responded. “And I absolutely can take pictures here,” I surprised myself by adding.

“No you can’t,” he insisted.

“Actually, I’ve studied the law, and I really can.”

At this point, things threatened to dissolve into a schoolyard battle of no-you-can’ts, yes-I-can’s, and the images were, after all, safely on my compact flash card, on my person, in my getaway car, so I didn’t press the issue. But I’m glad that this time, I spoke up. Because I spent a lot of time last summer feeling like a criminal for walking around with a camera, and putting up with a lot of harassment and general ill will and poor treatment: I was bounced from shops on site, snarled at for having a camera on my person in commerce sectors of tourist towns, and subsequently opted not to support the local economy by purchasing anything from these watchdog vendors.

Readers, discrimination against the innocent, camera-toting public is now an epidemic, and, in light of the number of photography-enhanced blog posts I read every day documenting the normal comings and goings of average citizens, bloggers must be prepared to defend themselves against the hysteria associated with the common camera.

I have printed off copies of the flyer The Photographer’s Right, by attorney Bert P. Krages II outlining my rights as a photographer and American citizen. The flyer will now be a permanent part of my camera gear. I have also educated myself further on the issue through reading The Legal Rights of Photographers, a document by photographer, reporter, and concerned citizen Andrew Kantor. I don’t intend to use the information to create further dissension between the camera and anti-camera factions—we photographers apparently have enough venomous sentiment coming our way anyway—but I do want to be armed with the facts I need to exercise my rights as an artist and an American.


Here’s the contested image—I’m publishing it here, because I can. The law says it’s mine.


Mocha Monday back on track, my son and I headed to location four, where we were promptly served. Iced brew, for the record. Do we have photographic evidence? You bet. And you know why?

Because the restaurant was ironically outfitted with an in-store, pre-fabbed photo op. We narrowly missed having to wait in line for our chance to snap our commemorative shot.

Post Post Postscript

It took me four days, but once again I’ve learned that there are reasons why I’ve established certain guidelines for general operation.
I don’t, for instance, eat chocolate in the car, because every time I do—no matter how cold the temperature or careful the consumption—I end up with brown stains in unfortunate places.

I never leave my camera bag open on a table or counter top, because I know the first time I do, one of my five furry creatures will manage to get a paw or a snout tangled in the handle and whatever lenses or gadgets happen to be in the bag will take a hard downward tumble.

After the unpleasant experience of arriving at a remote travel destination only to discover that my glasses case contained nothing but air, I’ve adopted the maxim my sister promotes to her bespectacled brood: “on your face, or in the case.”

And this morning—a full four days after my last post—I remembered why I don’t post at night. We’re all familiar with the disappointment of finding the perfect comeback or clever quip hours or days after it would have been witty. I get that feeling anew every time I post at night. I’ll wake up in the morning with the word I struggled to find the night before just hanging out in my head. The connecting link between two thoughts that I couldn’t quite articulate the night before suddenly appears obvious. Embarrassed, I’ll hop out of bed, hoping I can change the offending prose with my readers none the wiser—only to find a comment or two. I’ll still make the change—but now I know that members of my readership experienced draft-quality copy—all because I didn’t take advantage of the delay feature we’re denied in real –time communication, but should use in full online. The opportunity to sleep on your one-liners and retorts—what a deal! We’d all be such witty people if it were real life.

I, of course, have given up on real-life wit and have tossed all of my metaphorical eggs in a single online shopping cart, so you’d think I’d take full advantage of the chance at a well-oiled delivery. But no, I put Monday’s post to bed with a snoozer of an ending simply because I was too tired to craft a real eye-popper.

I didn’t think about the post again until this morning, when I woke up with the post’s current and rightful ending just hanging out just below the surface of my consciousness, where I undoubtedly would have found it Tuesday morning, if I patiently reserved posting.

Having resolved the issues with my prior post (check out the better ending!), my concern now turns to the one you’re currently reading. I began it on Friday, but have just realized I typed straight though midnight into Saturday. I’m thinking of throwing caution to the wind and sending it off into cyberspace. Oh, I know if I do, I risk ending up with egg on my face when I read it later on, which would leave me just one indiscretion away from having chocolate on the back of my khakis as well. At that point, it’s anyone’s guess what kind of rebuttal you might find here by Wednesday.

Pots and Plans

Today I performed my penultimate act at The Office. Regular Readers may be shocked to learn that my days of jammed copiers, botched filing, and general clerical mayhem have run their course, effectively drawing to a close an entire subplot here at Running With Letters. Readers may also find it fitting that I spent my second-to- last shift building an office blog. Endless days of editing, formatting, and jury-rigging an online newsletter using a program no one in the office really knows-- and is meant for designing print publications, anyway--ended poorly when the communications department feigned a near total lack of knowledge of our department and said they couldn’t possibly convert our humble file into html in less than 4-6 weeks.

Dr. S. lamented that there must be a better way—and let’s face it, when you’re talking about posting 6-month-old news online, there’s ALWAYS a better way—which led to what may be my first, last, and only bona fide good Office Idea—why not blog? So I spent an hour or so making attractive little posts out of all our newsletter items. From now on, the new Graduate Assistants will be able to post news, hot off the press, in seconds flat. Tomorrow I’ll type up some instructions on how to keep it rolling—passwords and the like—and just like that, my days as a Graduate Assistant will be over.

Which doesn’t mean we’ll be lacking in material here on this blog—just as The Office subplot draws to a close, an exciting new possibility may be waiting in the wings. It seems--in what could prove to be the world’s shortest job search-- that I may have stumbled upon a part-time Art Job at a most desirable locale! I almost hesitate to even mention it at this early stage, but it’s hard to avoid the topic as this post finds me surrounded by a heap of application-esque paperwork…

…second only in mass to the potted plants huddled in sad little clusters around my property, following a foliage-buying binge last weekend. These plants—several purchased in a mini-binge the previous weekend and already languishing—were to have been planted on Sunday afternoon. However, in an Uncharacteristically Responsible decision I opted to spend an hour typing research before going out for a long, sunny stretch of gardening which I saw extending into the evening hours.

Unfortunately for a sad group of limp limas, teetering tomatoes, and peaked peppers, this hour of so-called responsibility may prove fatal, as that single hour I spent typing represented the final moments of stable weather we Virginians last saw. The skies went suddenly black and poured with a vengeance. The sun re-emerged, then dissolved into torrential rain, dark skies, and odd mists, which have persisted in a loop of continuous Instability. We lost a full quarter hour of a particularly intense episode of House on Monday, as our local weather man gave a street by street breakdown of various apparitions of hail, wind, and potential tornado activity. The weather man eventually stopped talking, although I saw no change in atmospheric conditions that should have prompted an end to his newscast.

Which leaves us waiting, the plants and I, to see what comes with the sun, or wind, or mist tomorrow.

Blog Imitates Art

Things have been a bit crazy lately, and I haven't done a very good job keeping this forum stocked with fresh, literary art for the past week or so. But thanks to the creative minds at http://www.wordle.net/ I'm pleased to bring you a remix of all the latest action here at Running With Letters in visual art form.

I'll be back later in the week, but in the meantime, why not turn all of your favorite online forums (including this one!) into printable art, suitable for framing,notebook ornamentation, or just good, old-fashioned chuckles. Just click on over to wordle with a handful of urls and check it out.