MissMeliss: Escribition

Sometimes, there can be much joy in helping someone else…and since my own prompt at CafeWriting for May and June called on me to list seven ways I’ve helped another person, I thought I’d get this down for those times when I’m feeling useless and stupid.

1. My Mother: She went back to school in her thirties, and I used to help her by editing her essays, and suggesting stronger word choices. Later, when she had to learn a 100-page flip-chart presentation, I helped her with that as well. I think I can still recite it in my sleep. And she helped me, and continues to help me, all through my life.
2. Various friends, and Fuzzy: I’ve helped them re-write or tweak their resumes. They’ve helped in return by critiquing my work.
3. My grandmother: While I never learned to knit, I helped straighten her knitting bag, untangling yarn, and matching pairs of needles, more than once. She helped me by teaching me that a gift of the hand is a gift of the heart.
4. My friend J. in Colorado: I held her hand when she came out, answered her three AM calls when she first began dating women, and stood by when one of her relationships became abusive. She returned the favor, letting me agonize about Fuzzy, answering MY three AM calls, and always offering a safe haven when I needed to escape.
5. My friend G who sometimes drops in here. We helped each other survive high school, which sounds petty but really isn’t.
6. Zorro Dog: He isn’t a person, in the literal sense, but he means the world to me, and we gave him a home and love, and in his name, we’ve driven partial journeys to help other small dogs find their “forever homes” as well.
7. My grandfather: I baked bread, went fishing, and gardened with him. He helped me with everything from the concept of leverage to understanding negative numbers.

Of course, I’ve also taken friends to lunch, helped them move, sent letters to soldiers overseas, and any number of other supportive things, all of which have been returned many times over.

It’s just…nice to remember, sometimes.

…are finally up at Cafe Writing.
This month’s theme is Shakespeare.

All are welcome.

For CafeWriting, this month’s Seven Things is to write about Influential People:

Please note that this is a sampling of the influential folks in my life, and not the entire list. Also, please note that people who influence me NOW may not be quite so important tomorrow.

1. My Mother: We call her hurricane Susan but it’s meant with a healthy blend of irony and affection. She can be brittle, judgmental, moody, stubborn, bitchy. She is also funny, fragile, brilliant, generous, and supportive. She encouraged me to find my own path, and while hers is vastly different, we come to crossroads fairly often, and exchange stories.
2. Ray: Preschool teacher, mentor, recently resurfaced, all around cool guy. He really deserves his own post, or own series of posts. I’m enjoying getting to know him as an adult, in small doses.
3. Clay: Because it’s all about rhyming games you know? Seriously, while he’s relatively recent in my life (2003, I think?) he’s become muse, sounding board, sage adviser, fellow dreamer, and source of inspiration. Two seconds of phone time with him, and my creative juices are always recharged.
4. Ben and Julia: Two people, but they’re a couple so I get to cheat because, hey, my blog, my rules. Ben gives me an alternate male perspective. Julia brings out my girly side. And did I mention they have dogs? Dogs rock.
5. Ira: My stepfather. We’re good friends now, though we weren’t always. I think I provide a release for him - someone he can vent to about my mother. He does the tech-picking on a lot of my SF work, and also sends me nifty science snippets. Also, he makes the best orange juice ever, and it completely balances his unhealthy attraction to recreational math.
6. Fuzzy: Not as much an influence in the traditional sense, as a balancing force. He’s the string to my kite, the grounding wire on my plug. I go off on tangents and he pulls me back to earth, but slowly, and with great love. Probably the only person on earth who can really put up with me 24/7.
7. Natalie: My hair stylist. She’s the one who helped me embrace the pink, and continually encourages me to play. We share the same philosophy: “It’s hair. It grows back.” Also, she’s very zen.

New prompts have been posted at Cafe Writing. Have at it.

It may be 2:23 in the morning, but it’s still Friday night til I go to bed.

Today, I:
- wrote a thousand word article about health spending accounts for work, and didn’t even go batty from citing IRS codes.
- ate half of a mandarin chicken salad from Wendy’s, and then couldn’t eat any more, while watching the season two episode of Angel called “Darla.”
- wrote a 700+-word piece of flash-fiction and submitted it to the current writing contest at TheNovelette. I can’t post it anywhere public, but if you really want to read it, I’ll email the word doc.
- whined a lot about my head and ear hurting, took a long nap in the afternoon, and had a medicinal cinnamon dolce latte.
- spent a pleasant hour playing “fetch” with Fuzzy and Miss Cleo, who told us very clearly she wanted to play with the Special Toy in the Closet.
- watched the movie “Suburban Girl,” with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin. It was quirky, and charming, but not stellar.
- cuddled Zorro dog for twenty minutes, then accused him of smelling like an animal and threatened to bathe him.
- posted the new prompts for Cafe Writing.

So, what did YOU do today?

The February Project is open for submission at Cafe Writing. Follow this link to play along.

All are welcome.

Please go here for a mid-month question.

Thank you.