A Writer Without Words?

I teach public speaking workshops. Love doing it. Love showing people that public speaking doesn't mean you have to be this robot clone who never falters or makes a mistake, but that it's more about being a real person with real ideas and just talking to people like you were having coffee with a friend.

Which is a long route to saying that I'm comfortable speaking in public, I'm pretty quick on my feet, questions don't bother me and, if I may tout my own horn, I'm a pretty funny person. Just ask my husband. (As if he'd dare to say otherwise).

When I decided to sign up for a 4-week improv comedy workshop, I thought it would be fun.  I'd step a teensy bit outside my comfort zone, learn some new skills, maybe find new material to bring to my public speaking classes. Cool.

So it was nothing short of a full-blown ego-jolt to discover that not only am I not funny at improv, I completely and totally no-holds-barred suck at it.

I am okay with the sucking and will continue the classes regardless. But get this. One of the first exercises we had to do was a simply rhyming game. Rhymes. I'm a writer. I work with words for a living. This should not present a challenge.

HA! The game was you had to sing--very fast--the da-do-run-run song. I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still. Da-do-da-run-run, da-do-run-run.

Only you inserted a one syllable name . I met him on a Monday and his name was Ted. Da-do-da-run-run, da-do-run-run. Now you kept rhyming. He had a cold so he went to bed. da-do-da-run-run, da-do-run-run.

Then, if it was your turn in line, you were screwed b/c you had to come up with 3 rhymes right in a row (again, singing at breakneck speed). So the group would say, manamana, and then you'd have to come up with the rhymes. So it looks like this:

Group: Manamana

You: His face turned red

Group: Manamana

You: And his fingers bled

Group: Manamana

You: So we left him for dead

Everyone: da-do-da-run-run, da-do-run-run

Then the next person goes and you keep going until people can't come up with any more rhymes.

I know what you're thinking. It looks easy (and very classy). IT'S NOT. But still, I can't even believe that when my turn came I blanked on any word in the English language that might rhyme with "Bill." Pill, chill, thrill, frill, dill, kill, mill, ....see, I can do it now. But apparently my brain goes into lockdown under pressure. But how heartening to see that the stoned-out druggie performing next to me can come up with eighty rhymes to go with "Ann" and I can't think of one. Makes me want to go home and fling my laptop out the window.

But first I need to get ready for next week's class. I'm looking up all words that rhyme with one syllable names - Ed, Ann, Pam, Ted, Bill, Trish...

Who said comedy was fun?

Manamana.

I Pee Alone

No way. Just no...friggin'...way.

Ever had a day that wakes you up to the unpleasant realities of life?
We went house hunting yesterday. We're considering moving out of the rural town where we live (pop. 2,500) and flinging ourselves at the mercy of the humming metropolis we like to call "Winston-Salem."

So we drove around some neighborhoods. Found one very nice area where we decided we could live. Never mind that it's way out of our price range. As Scarlett says, "I can't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow."

One of the homes was having an open house so we went in. Downstairs okay, nothing great. House is older and needs work...bad carpet, no closet space, paneled (God save us) living room. Bad but, you know, salvageable.

Then we entered the master bedroom. My husband I took one look and just burst out laughing, regardless of the realtor below (who I now feel really, really sorry for) and the other people touring the house. "Good luck moving this one," was our response.

Here's the deal. The master bedroom and master bath shared a wall. Only instead of a solid wall, there was a huge arch cut out of 3/4 of the wall next to the garden tub. I suppose the romantic ideal of the genius who envisioned this set-up was that the lady of the home would soak in sweet-smelling bubble baths while keeping the man of the house, as seen snuggled in bed through the huge arch in the wall, happy.

Fine. EXCEPT, you could see more than the tub. In fact, anyone actually in any portion of the master bedroom would have front row seats to observe anyone using the toilet and accompanying bidet.

It was the most God-awful set-up I've ever seen. Because the thing was, the toilet and bidet were in the center of the bathroom! Picture a rectangular room. On one long wall is the tub and the other long wall is empty. A door is one of the short walls and the other short wall is empty. The toilet and bidet are several feet in from the short wall and basically cozy up next to the tub. I don't think so.

Here's the best part. This relationship nightmare of a house was listed at $600,000. Please. You couldn't pay me $20k to take it off your hands.

So we had a good laugh. But it does show that location is key. The house will probably sell close to that just because it's in the best part of Winston, convenient to everything.

I wish we could pick our house up and move it. We will never, ever, ever come close to matching its size and beauty and I hyperventilate at the thought of leaving my newly remodeled kitchen (We don't cook, but it's fun to stand in there and pretend that we do).

So we're slowly easing into the idea of downsizing. But I draw the line at an open border bathroom.

I pee alone.

Look At Me & My Big Bad Self

A little background.

I'm not a night person. Staying up until midnight on New Year's is a real stretch and I have been known, on occasion, to brag to people on the nights I make it up past 10.

So when my best friend Trisha came for a visit this weekend, she took me off guard when she suggested we eat dinner out not before the 7:30 pm comedy show we were going to see, but after.

"But...the show may not end until 9," I said.

"Exactly," she said.

"But...I usually eat at 6."

"Today you'll eat at 9."

"Are restaurants even open that late around here?" I asked.

She stopped talking to me for awhile after that.

I wasn't always this way. Trisha and I were in fact reminiscing about our college years where one didn't start thinking about showering and getting ready to go out for the evening until around 10pm, and we wouldn't be caught dead leaving the apartment before 11.

I am proud to report though, that my husband and I, both "Can you read in the other room instead of here in bed? It's 9:30 and I'm trying to sleep" type people, not only made it out past 10, we were the 2nd to last group to leave the restaurant, which I think should count as closing the place. (Amazingly enough, a number of restaurants are open past 8pm. The things you learn).

We had fun too. Not just I'm-doing-this-to-prove-I'm-a-good-sport fun, but real, actual fun.

I hope this doesn't get out of hand. We may just turn into wild people and rent a movie tonight and stay up until midnight watching it.

Call the police. The college party-animal is back.

A jury of my peers?

I've written a manuscript (you're not allowed to call it a book until it's published) for middle-graders (8-12 year olds) titled "Millicent Powers Picks A Pet."

I like it, and I can't say that about all my writing. But I'm on pins and needles at the moment. I met Ed, a writer friend of mine yesterday for lunch (http://www.freewebs.com/edmundrschubert/index.htm) and gave him the manuscript to read and critique. Actually, Ed has an 8 year old daughter who offered to read the manuscript, which is even better. (Sorry, Ed)

The reason I'm anxious though, is that after our lunch, Ed was heading to his daughters school to teach a workshop on creative writing to fourth and fifth graders. "Hey," he said, "If there's time, I'll read them the first couple chapters of your manuscript and see what they think."

YIKES!

Sending manuscripts and query letters to agents and publishers is hard, but having a group of 9 and 10 year olds critique my work may be brutal. I'm psyched he offered to do it, but I don't know that tact and constructive criticism is at the top of the list with this age group. So I'm waiting to hear back from him.

Small ice-storm here today. A friend is coming to visit and I'm picking her up from the airport later this morning. I've been burning candles and potpourri all morning, trying to make the house smell inviting. I want the scent to last as we won't be home for several hours after I blow everything out. So right now the cats are walking around gagging on the, I admit, overpowering stench of honeysuckle that's permeating the house.

I'm a big fan of scents. I love things that smell good. I apply either perfume or scented lotion to the pulse points on my wrists at night because I like curling up with my hands under my cheeks and smelling a light lavender scent. Other smells I really like:

• Fires
• Obsession for Men cologne (I will attack any man wearing it. Yum! I love it!)
• Chocolate chip cookies or apple pies, while they're baking
• Garlic (I know, but I still love it)
• Musty basements. Just b/c it triggers the memory of the musty basement we had as a kid where I rode my tricycle around while Mom did the laundry.
• The first sniff from a jar or bag of just-opened coffee
• This lavender-pine kitchen soap and handlotion set we found
• The smell of laundry fresh from the dryer
• Babies. They have almost an absence of smell which is so pure and fresh. They haven't hit the years of lotions and creams and perfumes and hairspray and all the other crap we put on our bodies. They just have that newborn smell.
• Citrus

Things other people like the smell of which I can't stand:

• Newly cut grass
• The smell right after a rainstorm
• Pine-sol (Ha! That's a shout-out to my hubby)