Rana introduced me to this nifty site called TUMBLR which is part of the new microblogging phenomenon. We discussed it, and determined that it’s lack of comment features is a good thing, as it forces tumblr sites to act as aggregators, or indices, rather than stand-along sites.

Many of you know that I have this blog, my book blog, livejournal, and a new blogger account, as well as twitter and flickr. Driving content to any one of those sites is difficult. Giving family members who may not be net-savvy a location where they can find all my stuff is even trickier. And notice, even I forget my own sites – I didn’t mention my fiction blog at all.

So, here’s the deal: please add Commonplace.MissMeliss.com to your bookmarks. When you visit that site, you’ll be able to see headlines from ALL my various blogs, and then some.

As to the name…a commonplace was a sort of notebook used for jotting down notes, thoughts, quotes, etc, for later remembrance. Sort of half-way between a datebook and a journal. Because tumblr is designed for quick posts, and headlines brought in via RSS, it makes an excellent digital commonplace.

I’m not doing Friday’s Feast this week because the questions didn’t inspire anything in me. Anyway, I have something else I’d rather write about.

This weekend – technically Saturday – is my 12th anniversary. Our 12th anniversary. Fuzzy’s and mine. We’re celebrating tomorrow by playing hooky and going to the Zoo. Not the usual idea of a romantic day, perhaps, but romance is in the details: holding hands as we walk, the fact that he still flirts with me, flowers when we go grocery shopping, rearranging my office furniture after a twelve-hour work-day…the list goes on.

Anyway, we want to see the tigers.
We both like tigers.
Especially Fuzzy.

As for presents – I told him not to go crazy this year, that all I wanted was flowers, and I even enlisted my mother so that he’d get something simple and not a fussy bouquet, but I saw the debit card payments and he spent more on flowers than I spent on his gift, though I have to say, his is way cooler. He almost never reads my blog, but if I tell you what I bought, it’ll be the one time he DOES read it without me saying, “Hey, go read what I wrote.”

12 years. It seems like nothing, and forever. Some days I love the whole marriage thing. Others, I still wish we had separate apartments with a communicating door. As I get closer to 40 (a little over three years), I’m becoming more torn about the whole breeding thing. I mean, there’s a part of me that whispers about having a child, and then there’s a part of me that whispers back about how I can’t even share an OFFICE with the man I’m married to, and I don’t even particularly LIKE children, but then the first part whispers back AGAIN that it’s different when it’s your own.

But back to the romance.
Romance is way more fun.

After 12 years of having to specify brands on the grocery list because he still has no clue what brands we buy of certain things, and having to always be the one who puts the toilet paper on the roller and walks the two feet from the counter to the recycling bag with HIS empty soda cans, and remembers to call HIS mother, and is in charge of all bill paying and letter writing, the obvious question, half in jest, is “are you renewing the contract for another year?”

But how could I not? How could I not be totally in love with this man who let me take the leap into freelancing even though it cut our income by a third, because he couldn’t stand to see me come home from BigFinancialCompany in tears, who tells me I’m smart and talented, even when I feel like it’s a struggle to write a single sentence, who comes with me to CSz every weekend because he’s that supportive, and who gave up his bonus last year so I could have a new laptop?

Okay, he doesn’t buy me jewelry, but if there’s something I want, he just smiles and says, “if you think we can afford it, get it,” and when we were in Spring, TX, a few weeks ago, he held up a beach towel so I could change clothes in the parking lot without flashing everyone, and he buys Ruffles because I like them, even though he prefers Pringles.

Changing your preferred brand of potato chip is real love.

And after twelve years – I should know.

My friend Elana is doing the Walk for Hunger to help support Project Bread. She’s asking for sponsors, so go visit her walk site, and give her some money!

Thirteen Things about MissMeliss 13 Songs Almost Always Stuck in My Head “Let Me Entertain You” – Robbie Williams – Heard it for the first time at a skating show, and it’s stuck in my brain ever since. It’s snarky and energizing. I like those features in a song. “Downtown” – Petula Clark – It’s retro enough to be funky, but it’s flirty and fun as well. Also, it sits perfectly in my range. “How Strong Do you Think I Am?” – Alexz Johnson – I like the imagery of the lyrics in this tune from the show Instant Star: “Am I a rock, or a rose, or a fist, or the breath at the end of a kiss?” “Stars and the Moon” – Jason Robert Brown – It’s no secret that JRB is my favorite composer of the modern era. This was my introduction to his music. I like that he tells stories in his tunes. “Lovers Concerto” – The Toys – This song is silly and fun, and always makes me smile. Plus, it’s based on Bach’s Minuet in G. “You’re So Vain” – Carly Simon – I learned this in the front seat of my Mom’s old Duster when I was too small to understand the lyrics, other than the line. “I had some dreams – they were clouds in my coffee.” That lyric still sticks out for me. “Joy to the World” – Three Dog Night – I think I first encountered this on the show ZOOM when I was a kid. It’s kicky and fun, and totally carefree. “Video Killed the Radio Star” – The Buggles – Another silly song. We use this in the show-opening mix at CSz, and I now associate it with the official start of an evening there – even though it comes on about half an hour before door. “Perfect Fingers” – Tami Greer – From the soundtrack of the movie Better than Chocolate. It’s folksy and bluesy, and completely seductive, but sweet, too. “Defying Gravity” – from the musical Wicked – It just speaks to me. “Unwritten” – Natasha Bedingfield – Anyone who’s ever stared at a blank page – literal or figurative – should understand why this song resonates with me. “A Little Bit in Love” – from the musical Wonderful Town – That Bernstein, he knew from music. This song is just so lyrical and happy – it makes me wish for a twirly skirt and a sunny day. “Bitch” – Meredith Brooks – Three days out of the month this is my anthem. The rest of the time, it’s…one of many.

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Tuesday zipped by. I swear five minutes ago it was only seven at night, and now it’s eleven and I’m sitting in bed writing this.

My day was actually pretty mellow. Slept til eight-ish, surfed the net in bed til nine, made coffee, wrote some stuff for work. Had more coffee. Answered email. Answered phone calls. Wrote more for work. Had IM conversation with SEO guru. Re-read info he sent. Uploaded articles to staging server. Chatted with Ms. Eclectic via Skype, and later, with my mother, via telephone. Made three-bean chili for dinner. There’s enough for lunch tomorrow. Fed dogs. Cuddled dogs. Ate dinner. Folded laundry.

Condensed like that it seems like I don’t do much, but really, a lot of those brief lines represent hours of work, hundreds of words committed to the screen, if not to the page.

My dogs were as quiet today as the weather was intense. Not a lot of rain, but a dramatic lightning storm just as afternoon morphed into evening, and all day incessant wind. I had my office windows open wide, and I sat and typed at my pink laptop and felt like Jo March in her garrett because my office is on the second floor, and with the desk angled across the room I feel like I’m perched in the trees.

After work hours, while the chili was bubbling on the stove, I sat on the deck and watched the grackles gathering to roost. Sometimes they seem like a flight of firelizards, with their swoops and dives high overhead. Other times, as they each perch on a separate branch, surrounding the neighborhood, they seem quite Hitchcock-ian.

I know that it is spring because the wind blows but has no bite beneath its bluster, and because the geckos are coming out at night. One of the older geckos, a coppery-orange one, got into some kind of scuffle and sacrificed his tail. I know it will grow back, but he looks so distorted without the extra couple of inches – and I feel sorry for him I wonder if geckos feel pain only in the moment, or the entire time they’re regrowing.

I had more to say but my thoughts are muzzy and I’m ready for sleep.
And so I shall.

There is no more perfect garment than a plain white cotton t-shirt, except a plain white cotton t-shirt that has been liberated from a beloved male. It doesn’t matter if the man in question is a husband, lover, or boyfriend, or even a father, grandfather, or older brother. What matters is that the shirt has been worn and washed many times, so the cotton is broken in, and softer than the faintest spring breeze.

This is not the sort of t-shirt you wear to dinner. It has no fancy stitching, no pocket, no designer icon or label. It is not blended with polyester so that it never wrinkles. It may be less white than it was when it came out of the package. It has likely been warn beneath a button-down shirt, or tucked into belted khaki’s during lawn work. It has absorbed sweat and cologne, distinctly masculine scents, and then it has been soaked in hot sudsy water – maybe even bleached – and, ideally, line dried so that it smells of sunshine, though a clothes dryer result is acceptable if you live somewhere humid.

On rare occasions, a v-neck is allowed. Sleeves are a must. Fraying and holes? Completely revolting.

I developed my love of stolen cotton t-shirts as a small child of five, visiting my grandparents in New Jersey. Unwilling to unpack suitcases on my first day of being in their house, my grandmother would raid my grandfather’s underwear drawer for one of his oldest, softest t-shirts, and that would be my nightgown not just that night, but for the better part of the summer. At that age, I didn’t do my own packing, so the shirts were invariably returned at the end of the summer, but as I grew older, I would take them home with me. I often wonder if my grandfather realized his shirts were being depleted, or if my grandmother replaced those that I pilfered.

Today, working from home, I am five years old again, and though the sky outside is grey, and the wind is blustery, my heart is sun-warmed, because I am freshly showered and wearing an old white cotton t-shirt, and a pair of ratty cotton sweatpants. My grandmother would accuse me of being stolen from the gypsies, if she saw me dressed this way – bare feet, damp hair – but I’m treasuring the soft cotton against my skin, and the faint tang of grass and cologne that seems to waft from the fibers of my imagination, if not the shirt itself.

The stolen t-shirt: white cotton bliss.

I say… And you think…?

1. San Francisco :: Golden Gate
2. Sadness :: Desolation
3. Spirits :: Hauntings
4. Harriet :: the Spy
5. State :: Secrets
6. John :: Cleese
7. Offense :: Defense
8. Timeless :: Classic
9. Account :: Eye-witness
10. Refuse :: Deny

Like this meme? Play along here.

Inspiration. Do you wait for it? Do you court it? Do you flirt with it a little? Does it come in flashes or in trickles or in spurts? Does it never come? Are you inspired to begin something here? Do you love the word? Hate it? Can you write without it? Is it a small one-eyed creature who lives on your shoulder and whispers in your ear at strange times? Or has inspiration struck just reading the word and you now have something delicious to write for our reading pleasure?

I am inspired by water. Give me a rainy day, a steaming shower, a tub of bubbles, and I will give you back a poem, a multi-page letter, a short story, or a poignant essay. I may be a fire sign, but I’m a fire-sign who embraces the salt water in her blood, and revels in the feel of the sand between her toes. The first sound I remember is the foghorn at Sandy Hook, the first taste that of the sea-spray on my childish lips, and the scent I’m most drawn to is the sweaty ozone-tinged odor of post-beach sun-bronzed skin.

I am inspired by air. The same soft breeze that lifts my bangs or cools the back of my neck also breathes life into characters and stories. The sound of prairie wind is mournful, and speaks to me of loss and fear. The chattering of birds brings forth happy burbling phrases. The tortured twisting of trees introduces darker themes: vampires, moonlight, mystery, intrigue.

I am inspired by fire. A flickering candle leads to thoughts of those departed, and heartfelt words of memory and love. A glittering star gives me hope. A dancing flame burns red and orange: passion, vibrancy, humor, exhilaration. An hour in the sun makes my mind burn with new ideas.

I am inspired by earth. The scent of soil is the scent of life, and offers nourishment for creativity. Flowers and trees are the characters and settings, manmade features are the structure of worlds built only in my head. Roads become paths to imaginary places as well as real ones, and journeys are more than metaphors and less than just trips.

I am inspired by music – I think in songs – and laughter. I groove on the energy in others, and try to give back, though often the gifts are lost in translation. I find inspiration in the mundane – doing dishes is cheap psychotherapy, and washing away crumbs often washes away writer’s block as well. I find inspiration in nature: the shark is elegant, the dog is loyal, the bee persistent, the butterfly magical.

I find inspiration in your words, your thoughts. A blog entry from a person half a world away will first spark a “Me too,” which will then ignite into a whole post, an essay, a story…a dream.

Inspiration is breathing.
I breathe.
And I am inspired.

[WarriorPoet(2)] at OpenDiary tagged me for this.

Four Jobs I’ve Had: (aside from the one I currently hold)

1. Barista, but not at a $tarbucks.
2. Bookseller
3. Mortgage Loan Processor
4. Doggy Day-care Provider

Four Movies I Can Watch Over & Over:

1. Galaxy Quest
2. Finding Neverland
3. Jaws (but only the first one)
4. White Christmas (but only in December)

Four Places I’ve Lived:

1. Atlantic Highlands, NJ
2. Georgetown, CO
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Sioux Falls, SD

Four T.V. Shows I Love: (not necessarily still on the air)

1. Project Runway
2. Gilmore Girls
3. The West Wing
4. Heroes

Four Highly Regarded Television Shows I’ve Never Watched A Single Minute Of:

1. Deadwood
2. Rome
3. Grey’s Anatomy
4. Numb3rs

Four Places I’ve Vacationed:

1. Cape May, NJ
2. Pt. Reyes, CA
3. St. Thibery, France
4. Victoria, BC, Canada

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:

1. Unagi donburi
2. Aglia e olia
3. Cassoulet
4. Pad Thai

Four Sites I Visit Daily:

1. Weather.com
2. The ComedySportz players forum
3. BPAL.org
4. MissMeliss.com

Four Places I’d Rather Be Right Now:

1. Santa Cruz, CA
2. Nice, France
3. Mystic, CT
4. Portland, OR

Four People I’m Tagging To Do This Next:

I’m not tagging anyone, actually, because I hate tagging people (though I’ve no aversion to being tagged) but I invite anyone and everyone to play along.

Appetizer
Name two things that made you smile this week.
– I won a shiny pink iPod shuffle.
– Fuzzy didn’t grumble (much) about having to move furniture the other night.

Soup
Fill in the blank: Don’t you hate it when ________?
– The toilet paper is hung in a direction contrary to the one which you prefer? It’s such a little thing, but it drives me nuts. Fuzzy actually claimed that the reason he never puts new rolls ON the roller is that he thinks I’ll yell at him if it’s the wrong direction. (After 12 years of marriage, he should KNOW the right direction. Also, he should know how I like the towels folded by now.)

Salad
When you can’t go to sleep, what is your personal remedy to help yourself drift into Lullabyland?
– Sex helps, sometimes, but then other times it just wires me. Most nights, I get up and write, or read. James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness writing style is great for sending me into the sleepies. And if all else fails, Sleepytime tea works wonders.

Main Course
What is something about which you’ve always wondered but have not yet found a good answer?
– Well, I’m kind of curious about why organic milk has a longer expiration date than chemically enhanced milk, or, for that matter, how Horizon can make milk that does just fine at room temp (until opened). I used to wonder about how they make teflon stick to pans but Cecil cleared that up for me.

Dessert
What is your favorite pasta dish?
– Pasta e fagioli, made the way my grandmother did, and not the way Olive Garden butchers the recipe. It’s the ultimate comfort food. Really. All cheesy and garlicky and soupy and…I’m suddenly wondering if I have the ingredients.

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