Counting Down

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I’m participating, this year, in three simultaneous daily projects related to the holiday season.

On Twitter, I’m doing #MusicAdvent, which involves sharing a youtube music video every day for the first 25 days of December. Every year there’s a theme, and this year it’s super-easy, just covers. I’ve been participating for years, but for some reason, this is the first time it occurred to me to create my playlist before the first day, which has made my life a lot easier.

On my blog, MissMeliss.com (where you’re reading this) I’m participating in Holidailies, which involves writing every day from December 1st – January 1st. I’m two days behind at the moment, though I will catch up, because what I thought was a severe sinus infection turned out to be pneumonia with a side of pleurisy. I have a z-pack and steroids, but steroids really mess me up – I haven’t been sleeping, I’m edgy, and when I took the pill on Friday, it sent me from zero to acute migraine with no aura in about ten minutes (the weather didn’t help) and then I had to take Imitrex, which basically flattens me. There was no way I was going to write. I didn’t have enough brain.

That leads to my third project this month, which is happening on my podcast – you can find out about that at BathtubMermaid.com  the Dog Days of Advent, which is flexible, in that some people do twenty-four or twenty-five episodes, some people do twelve, some people count down to Christmas, and some people span it. It’s from the same community as the Dog Days of Podcast that I’ve been doing every August for several years now. Earlier in the week, before I knew how sick I was, I’d lost my voice, and another participant offered to read for me, but I didn’t have enough pre-written to get an episode in on Saturday.

My doctor told me that even writing and recording in bed was more than she wanted me to do, but except for chills and a fever than comes and goes, I’ve mostly just been off-kilter, but Saturday was spent rearranging furniture in four rooms of our house, and between the pneumonia, which has left me too winded to exercise, and the physical work, I managed to push my recently-reconstructed knee too hard. It’s hurting in a way it hasn’t since right after surgery, but it feels stable. I suspect today, Sunday, will be spent in extremely sedentary activities like watching Hallmark Christmas movies in bed.

But enough whining.

The cleaning and rearranging, the various December projects, even the medications I’m on, all share a common theme: counting down. The cleaning is part of counting down to my mother’s arrival in about ten days. The pills are me counting down until I feel better. And the projects are counting down to Christmas, which still and always sends me into a mood of childlike delight, and the end of the year.

And in the midst of all of it, I open doors on my advent calendar – a tradition my godmother has been sharing with me for as long as I can remember. We don’t do chocolate or cheese or tea in our calendars. Nor do we have cool treasure boxes of toys and trinkets for each day. Sometimes I wish we did that, but mostly, I like the simplicity of the oversized greeting card with the tiny doors on the front.

Counting down seems to be a human need. We cross off days, check completed items off our to-do lists, and feel the every-present ticking of time.

 

It’s that time…

Mermaid Lounge It’s that time again. That time of year when I join the insanity known as The Dog Days of Podcasting, and commit to doing a podcast a day for thirty consecutive days.

This year’s project began on Tuesday (which, coincidentally, was my last day of The 100 Day Project), and continues through September 4th, and you can find my stuff at The Bathtub Mermaid, but I’m also in iTunes. (There should be an itunes link in the collection of social media icons in my sidebar.)

In previous years I’ve had oodles of essays and flash fiction to share, but I’ve been busy on other projects this year, so I’m mixing it up with interviews, creative non-fiction pieces written earlier this summer, and pieces inspired by the 100 notecards currently adorning the front and sides of my refrigerator.

The things is, my creativity always wanes in July, but my birthday is in August, and as soon as the calendar page flipped, I was inspired again.

So watch out – and listen to my Tales from the Tub – you might be pleasantly surprised.

DDoP: Fairy Dust

Originally Written: June, 2008
Inspiration Word: fairy dust (I think)
Inspired By: Becca Rowan

She stopped in the village square, intrigued by the array of market stalls, all offering things never seen for sale in her own home town.

“Inspiration, just five dollars!” one of the peddlers called, holding up a glass bottle adorned with vines and flowers.

She was tempted, but was fairly certain that it was just an empty jar, however beautiful.

Booths offering warm nuts brushed shoulders with other booths offering half measures of imagination and ambition.

At the booth where fairy dust was sold, she could not resist, and traded $20 for a heavy cut-velvet bag.

Deep inside, possibilities glittered.

Listen: Bathtub Mermaid: Fairy Dust

DDoP: Polyurethane

Transcript of yesterday’s entry for The Dog Days of Podcasting. Transcript may not match final recording.

Listen to the episode at The Bathtub Mermaid.

PolyurethaneThe first time I heard the word “polyurethane” I was nine years old, and begging my mother for new roller-skates – the kind that have the smooth wheels like the rental skates at the rink. It must have been around my birthday, or maybe Christmas.

Shortly afterward, I received a pair of roller-skates with white leather booties sporting blue stripes, and happy reddish-pinkish polyurethane wheels.

Every day after school, every Saturday after the usual cartoon hour (which I never watched), I would walk sideways down the three floors from our condo to the ground, holding onto the rail so I wouldn’t roll off the edge of a step. My daring friends and I would skate in the local park, racing down the steep hill and across the low bridge over the creek, and then up the gentle slope on the other side.

We never missed the sharp turn onto the bridge, or went careening off the unprotected edge, but sometimes we almost did.

Sometimes I think we secretly wanted to.

The most recent occurrence of the word “polyurethane” in my life was earlier today, when our hired contractors sanded our kitchen cabinets and painted them with a coating of the stuff.

I’m convinced the fumes have made me slightly high.

I’m also convinced nothing was as awesome as being nine years old, and roller-skating down a steep hill and across a bridge.

Polyurethane…it’s everywhere.

Fall in Love

couple-with-heart-smiling_by_laskvv-via-istockphoto

An excerpt from a letter to a friend’s daughter:

Fourth, fall in love. Fall in love hard. And often. Enjoy it, because love – real love – is messy and exciting and kinda scary. But don’t get married. At least, don’t get married until you’re over 25, have seen Europe, have lived on your own for at least a year, and have experienced at least one TRULY TRAGIC love affair.

You can hear the whole letter, and a wee bit more in today’s entry for the Dog Days of Podcasting.

Link: DDoP #16 – Unsolicited Advice.

Dog Days of Podcasting: Steeping

Steeping

I wrote a cafe vignette called “Steeping” yesterday, and recorded it for today’s entry into the Dog Days of Podcasting project.

Here’s an excerpt:

“I can’t believe you lingered here long enough to let espresso go cold, as busy as it is in here today,” Sarah ventured once they were alone again.

“I was working on a poem,” David confessed.

“I had no idea you were a poet. Are you published? Can I read your stuff?”
“I am, when I’m not wearing bike pants and delivering documents around town,” David answered, taking each of her questions in order. “I’ve published a couple pieces here and there,” he continued. “And as to reading it…the stuff I’m working on right now needs to steep a bit.”

“Poems steep?”

“Just like tea,” David said.

You can listen to the whole piece at SoundCloud or click play in the applet below:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/107408428″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Dog Days of Podcasting

Dog Days of Podcasting: Sunday Brunch – Mail Call

letterboxes-615

Is it technically Sunday Brunch if I record it at 6:30 PM? Do I really care? The answer to both questions is NO!

The piece itself is the Sunday Brunch piece from 26 August 2012. You can read it, listen to it on SoundCloud, or play it in the applet below.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/107216257″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Dog Days of Podcasting

Dog Days of Podcasting: Darmok and Dogs

Dog Days of Podcasting

This episode really should be called “Swimming with Morgan,” but it’s not. It’s just a ramble. I’m tired and my throat hurts, and it just struck me that if I’d finished any of the three things I had started to write, I would have had a much shorter entry.

Eleven minutes on Darmok and Dogs.

Accompanied by Teddy Bear on the Rawhide Chew, if you hear weird chewing sounds

Listen at SoundCloud or click below:
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/106974070″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Dog Days of Podcasting: 13 Minutes of Dog Babble

Dog Days of Podcasting

Tabz suggested I ramble about dogs. Hemingway suggested we should write drunk and edit sober. I’m NOT drunk, but I had a beer with dinner and a benadryl about half an hour ago, so I’m not really as together as I should be, and tonight’s DDoP entry proves it.

I’m skipping the “edit sober” part.

Listen at SoundCloud, or click below:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/106777526″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]