October. That pink month of football.

 A whole month of men in pink? From football stadium to football stadium? This is what I have to say.
ENOUGH.

We get it. You want us to think you care about women, are socially aware and are behind the movement to find a cure for breast cancer, to provide medical care, and the resources needed, to encourage early diagnosis... blah blah blah.
 According to the article by Amanda Hess that ran in Slate four days ago,

"A Crucial Catch’s annual effort includes stenciling football fields with breast cancer ribbons, recruiting star athletes to don baby pink in commercials supporting the effort, and selling fans on rose-tinted team-branded gear. Some of the proceeds of those sales are donated to the American Cancer Society, but “the league declines to say” the percentage it’s actually forking over—and either way, the apparel conveniently promotes the Giants and the Cowboys (and specifically encourages female investment in those brands) alongside women’s health. One particularly grim stat: Ticketmaster capped its 2012 A Crucial Catch donation at $40,000. That’s just $1 for every woman who died of breast cancer in 2012; one study found that patients with metastatic breast cancer cost the U.S. a combined $12.2 billion annually in direct and indirect costs.

  Read that again, The league decline to say the percentage it's actually forking over.... really??
Truth is- YOU ARE HOGGING THE MONTH, stealing limelight for other charities, lining pockets that, hell, are mink fur and gold lined already.
 And more than that. The pink is annoying, and bothersome. How many plays were missed when we thought that flag was someone's dropped towel?
  My thought is this. Pink does not equal a breast. What about pale hairy men with breast cancer? African American women? Don't make me list all the different kinds, colors, shapes of tits out there. Please, please, email me one if it is hot pink.
 I know, I know. I read all about the ribbon, the color choice, the background ((you can read it here) but what about the other choices how the fashion industry wanted to make a bull's-eye, how someone else suggested the upside down purple ribbon with the tear shape?  You want men to promote and back breast cancer awareness? Maybe we need to have a beautiful healthy breast be the symbol. Hats shaped like boobs. Make your own shirt. Wear your bra on the outside of your blouse. Have men see what a mammogram looks like, how it feels. Send around self- check cards, posters, post the HOW TO in a humorous way. These shirts are better than the ribbons.

 Come on. 

 More than early diagnosis, is the need to educate women on prevention. Healthy eating, exercise and maintaining a low BMI, plus reducing the daily intake of alcohol all play a part in reducing the risk of breast cancer. Europeans have been promoting this type of frontal attack on the disease for years. ( They have a single day of BREAST AWARENESS.)

 I learned more about breast cancer prevention and statistics in a European 3 minute video than I gathered from 16 convoluted pages of American medical literature, where blame was placed on genetics, cigarettes, hormone therapy, radiation in the work place, birth control pills, oh yeah, and some non-conclusive dietary and physical activity habits.

 Give back the pink. 1980 is calling.

 Step up to reality. We want to be taught, not accessorized. 

I'd listen more if one football player told one story each Sunday about his experience with breast cancer.

Especially if he was wearing these.

Hungry? Eat your clothes. Not kidding.

Just ran across this bizarre site.
Edible clothing.
yep.

Like this hat.

Okay, you might be saying, Linda, be serious that is just a chick with a cinnamon bun in her head. Oh yeah? Well, what about this from a recent fashion show where all of the

 elements were made of chocolate?

 I am thinking it could be the next Project Runway challenge.

Sure, we have all seen candy underwear. Those sheets of nasty green stick to your teeth "candy" and even some made of the strung candy necklaces or Smarties. But what about knitting up a pair yourself, with licorice laces?

   
Oh, what the heck. Let's go all the way. Give me a meal. Give me a spaghetti dress with a meatball necklace.  In the words of Tim Gunn, "Designers!??! Make it work."

One Thing That Didn't happen This Weekend

Writers and Books and Things That Might Go Bump In The Night

 

Posts about that stuff and all sorts of ideas over here.

Sure, you can go home again. But will you want to leave?

There is a sweet part of our youth that we hold onto.

The first kiss.

A secret spot in the woods that no one knows about.

A success that is a stepping stone for your future.

 There are things in our past we wish we could forget forever.

 That hurtful exchange.

 Driving after too many beers.

 Oversleeping the day of the big test.

 The feeling of heartbreak or disappointment.

And then, there are the regrets for things you wish you'd done.

Studied harder.

Chased that boy.

Told that girl exactly how cool you thought she was, or how cruel.

Thanked that teacher.

Helped more- in so many ways.

Sang in the chorus.

Gone to band camp.

Ran for President... well. maybe not that, but you know what I mean.

No one should ever have regrets, and maybe at such a young age they are more thoughts of "What if?" or "Why not?" than anything else, and as we age, we can look back on those moments, those choices and see them more clearly.

Thanks to class reunions and family members that stayed put, we are offered an opportunity to visit our past and hang out with people who knew us BACK THEN. We may be forced to face all the good, bad and ugly pieces of ourselves. And certainly, we tend to be our worst critics when on most days, we should be our best champions.

Sometimes, we might need some liquid courage, or at the very least, a short trek back through our yearbooks, looking at scrapbook pages and journals, to see how far we've come... or more appropriately, to simply do the "pre-meeting oh, so that's who that is re-con."

 I tried to stick to the whole plan but don't plan thing, for fear solid planning would ruin whatever Mr. Spontaneity might want to add to the occasion.  ( yes, he's a dude.)

Plan one was to attend the first evening's meet and greet. And that was where the planning ended.   (ASIDE: I did notice, that a bunch of people wore black at my thirty year reunion. Either it's the notion of slimming fabric color choice, or they liken this gathering to attending a funeral.)

That's me on the right, in the front row in white with the beer, trying to figure out what I snagged my heel on before I fall off the lap of a girl who's on another lap. Sigh... so, highschoolish, aren't we?

 I lived in my hometown for at least fifteen years, but I still was glad for the GPS built into my phone, as the memory isn't what it used to be— as proved by the "remember when/this/that/those/them.." posts about our small village that appeared on a group posting this past week—a village my husband calls "Leave it to Beaverville, " which makes me wonder if there really is a place called Beaverville somewhere, and if there is, is there a Hooters in the center of that town, and if so, on Wednesdays, do people...

All right. I digress.

And I bend backward... sort of like some other people at 2am, after too many vodka tonics, who try to defy gravity while forming a right angle with their body, leading with the hips, then say, "Lin, my back really hurts!" These same people will hear the words, "Oh, there she goes. I knew that was coming," and then wake up with strange bruises.

I had my own share of skinned elbows and scrapes, apparently acquired a strange scratch on the rental car and returned home with a scuffed and damaged shoe that I had to drop at the cobbler's.

But that's not important. What is important is that we ate hummus. We told stories. We visited the old diner. We said hello to people we had not seen in a long, long time and we remembered the best and the funniest parts of high school. We paid for events we didn't attend and we might have missed some old friends that were in the shadows .. or the other end of the bar. We wore mustaches, but we don't need no steenkin' badges.

We drank weird shots and lots of wine.  We played cards and old record albums and watched it rain. We wore moustaches.

We swam in a lake.

We spilled - wine and secrets and we shared a moment that was better than all of high school combined.

And to the stranger at the first bar who thanked me for talking to him? No. Thank you, for that story.

 Something I thought about on the airplane ride home, where I slept the whole way- and probably drooled on myself, much to the chagrin of my seat mate.

But, unlike the high school me, I've finally figured out that I will never see you again, and your opinion won't change who I am or tarnish the smile I choose to wear today.
Thanks for reminding me I grew up just fine.

A little interruption in the current broadcast...

Okay People

Let's talk 

We are approaching the Labor Day craziness of Atlanta.

A huge independent book festival with all sorts of literary fun, art, cooking, drinking, music, drinking, writers, parades, kids, art, drinking, books, magazines, lectures, readings and drinking.

That's the Decatur Book Festival. 

 and then, 

there is Dragon*Con

which is... well, kind of hard to explain

most of time, wandering around there, my face looks like this.. see, I'm even pointing to my own face in incredulity. Also, I'm talking to a banana.

It is mandatory to have your picture taken with half-naked men.

 Extra points are scored if you tell a joke to a policeman, and manage to NOT get arrested.

  
and Hell to the YES, it is scary fun. I am actually looking more forward to this than the book festival this year. Because, you know, the freaks will always be with us. Books? Not so sure.

Do I Have It All Backward? Or Am I Just a Planner?

Growing up, my parents didn't use the word, "planner." They used the word "dreamer."

After quite a few years of seeing my plans come halfway true (there is this thing about you wanting something to happen.. more than you actually trying to make that thing happen.)
 And there's the whole, not now, later part of the equation.
But, it's true. I am a dreamer.

It's not a bad thing. It's another good thing.

 I have a room in my house that is all blues and whites, along with three crates of accessories in the attic on the same theme, because one month a long time ago, I had the idea that I would decorate an entire house in just hues of blues and whites one day.
( I still believe I will.)

I have a file drawer dedicated to torn-out design mag pages, brochures from flooring, tile and paint stores, my own sketches and even three designer house plans. Whenever we'd buy a new house, I'd start a notebook on all changes needed to make each room perfect. I kept the pages as I accomplished each update.
( In the current house, a place I have the lived the longest EVER as an adult, each room has been done over twice- some three times.)
That means... I need a project.

Beach property. Preferably low maintenance: condo or townhome.

Fits the blue and white theme, right?
I already found some cool ideas- like this:

and this- which is the same porch couch my Grandma had

 Of course, I like some crazy stuff too, like garage door walls:

and a hanging bed..

 but with a smaller space, and all that time outside doing all the things I love... am thinking the most important things I will be concentrating on are:

 and buying a toy like this to drive around and enjoy it all:

go ahead, call me a dreamer. I dare you.

If they still had hangings, do you think there would be less crime?

In St. Augustine,  Florida, the oldest city in the USA, you can take a tour of the old jail and see the reconstructed gallows. They will tell you stories of local hangings, deplorable prison conditions and scare you at night with tales of ghosts stuck in those cement walls.

I'm thinking that erecting gallows in the center of most cities in the US might deter crime, or make for great photo ops.

Well, heck yeah, THAT was fun.

 Details on the way.
 a photo to hold you over.

those are ghostly orbs, my friends

Am I too slutty for Badminton?

Apparently there is a proper dress code for badminton. 
 I know.
You thought since it started with B.A.D. you could just run out and smack some birdies wearing your Def Leppard tee and cut-off jeans. Uh-uh, not happenin' sista.


According to this article, women players must now wear skirts... to appear more "womanly."
That's what it says.


Later they say something, blah blah blah about wanting to increase the waning viewership... so, why not put them in bikinis? It worked for women's beach volleyball. I bet some men in the stands don't even know the score at those events, unless they're counting how many times a butt cheek is flashed or a boob slip happens.


Badminton guys can wear this

or this

but the girls need to wear this from now on

which is causing problems with female players in Muslim countries... but that's a whole different story.


I say put the BAD back in badminton. Let the players choose.
we might see something like this:

or this:

which, I can pretty much assure you would do a helluva lot for the men's sport of competitive birdie swatting.

Asking to be liked, feels like middle school all over again.

 Facebook has its glitches, we know this. One of which is the LIKE button, which looks more like a gray/blue thumbs up.

There are certain features that unlock if you have 30 likes, others at 50, some at 100. I really don't understand any of it, especially the way that I cannot LIKE my own page, as the error message tells me I have to dump friends and/or other pages I like. This means I can't send any friends to my page, by suggesting it.
 In a way to circumvent the problem, it was suggested we post private messages to the friend list, a chunk at a time... of course, what this really meant was, a bunch of people got a bunch of notices, emails, replies and generally were harassed- all in the name of Linda wanting to be liked.
 sigh
 Now, like middle school, I am out there apologizing and apologizing, explaining what I think happened, though I'm not really sure and asking for second chances.
 Does it ever end?

If you understand this feeling, if you see the corn in the poo, if you get what I'm throwing down please, LIKE ME HERE because, I just can't stand not knowing what happens at magic number 1000.

It's just like high school, or is it?

A woman said to me today, "This is ridiculous, isn't it? It's just like high school."
 I laughed, and wondered what she'd been like in high school and if she realized even speaking to me about the issue made her seem the most immature of all the involved parties.

For many women, high school was a horrible experience that they would never choose to re-live-- as seen on a recent Glee episode, where the OCD Ginger chick felt ostracized, the powerful bitch wanted even more power and the fame hungry talented girl just wanted her recognition.

 Reality check. That's not just a high school mentality. That's corporate world positioning. That's teachers vying for tenure. That's a political fight between Democrats and Republicans. That was me trying to make a point a few weeks ago in a room of print happy writers.
And strangely, that's probably the same thing this broad has to deal with on her job with men and women all day long.

To tell me I can't mention the people in the story by name- ever... is fun. Really thanks for the story idea. To say something is high-schoolish is to say it won't matter in another four years... but doesn't EVERYTHING matter?

 Every time we hurt someone's feelings, every time we act out of impulse or anger, every time we made a bad decision about a friendship or a lover, every time we lie. These decisions - made as a high school aged person, or an adult will not only matter in the here and now- but in the future.

Of course, in the moment, I listened. (while taking notes - call it character study for the novel). I tried to tell the woman that I was sorry she'd felt it necessary to waste her time and mine, that if she would take the time to read through the lines, ask the right questions and actually make a committed decision, she could have laid the problem to rest long ago.
When she'd let me, I told her the truth, I inserted my opinion, and mostly I chuckled to myself, that A. she didn't want to hear any other sides of a story, except the one she was choosing to believe and that B. some ass- backward uneducated people in the world feel like it's their right to abuse authority, in any shape or form.

Don't you hate the guy who drives up in the Mercedes to collect the free turkey at Thanksgiving, the woman who sues for the hot coffee she spilled on her lap at the fast food drive-thru. Don't you despise corruption at any level and those people who imagine they are above it all?

Mostly, I guess I am disappointed in mankind. That the idea of freedom of expression, of personal communication and private interaction and even, a good old-fashioned tossing down of the gauntlet in the most polite way ever to say,"Oh yeah. Bring it!" has been pushed to the wayside in favor of some dumb-assed sophomoric life approach wherein one feels abdicated by saying "you tell him that she told her that I said that to them and now, I don't want to talk about it any more, so it's over."

All that says to us, the wiser ones is .....you're a fucking moron.

It's a forest out there, Mr. Gump, said Chris Brown on GMA.

Sometimes, do you find the internet a confusing mass of misinformation, instead of the answers to all your trivial questions about THAT song or THAT show or THAT girl?

 I know I rely on it too much for research, but really, there are no reasons to go to the library anymore. Unless you want to catch a virus or eavesdrop on necking teenagers.

But here's the thing. When I'm bopping around looking for one quick answer to a - insert air finger quotes here- research question, I may spend another two hours putzing around on the links the question sends me to, or the blog of the person quoted in the answer, or  shopping for shoes because an ad popped up and man, those are some cute shoes!

You feel me?

I have multiple blogs, multiple facebook pages and multiple personalities- nah, not really. I just like stringing examples in sets of threes.

AT any rate, here's me today, effectively enacting my PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION. I woke up today to an email from my ebook  publisher telling me they had finally honored my request to drop the cost of my ebook, Simple Intent, for a short while- as a "marketing test."
 He asked me to post a few notices to my facebook pages and my facebook friends' pages. Sure. great idea. I check the clock and give myself a set stopping time.

Thirty minutes after the set stopping time, I look up from a page about Chris Brown doing his non-anger management thing again. I don't even know how I got there. It was like my brain was saying, post info. move forward. finish task. get back to novel page - scene in the building with Jojo, but my fingers had a totally different idea: who's doing who? What the hell is that? And really? A monkey and a bullfrog?

sigh.

Is there a name for Internet surfing ADD?

Multi Tasking like Lady Gaga meets Octo Mom

from TVB

 In the Spring, many of my neighbors clean out garages and sheds. They cut back hedges and rake up last Fall's leaves. I see kids finally old enough to push a mower out in the yard, see parents pointing more than doing. Trash cans fill up by the curb.

Out with the old. In with the new.

How does this work in your life?
 Is it a cycle, where you purge closets and attic space because you grew up doing the Spring cleaning/ wardrobe seasonal switch?

 Or does the "new season" make you grow in other ways, forcing the cleaning and purging because you've got a new job, a better house, the kids are growing up and don't need all that now that you're moving to Switzerland?

I find myself swamped every March. Mostly by self- imposed deadlines and calendar events the I SCHEDULED... yeah. me.
Can't help but wonder what the draw was? To complete everything so I can enjoy lazy summer days? Or to catch up after I farted around all Winter? Sigh.

How's this whole New Year thing working out for you?

So far so good on my end. Thanks for asking. 
Sure, there have been a few glitches. 


Like a surprise snow-ice debaucle in the sunny South that left most rednecks scritching thar haids and saying, "Why lookie there."


Then going back inside for 7 days.
 Nah. That was just me.

Like most people entering a new year, I made some determinations- not resolutions. I do realize the difference. ANd the best part is- I never told anyone. So if I don't do them? Who will ever know. God, that sounds psychopathic.


It turns out, my kids are pretty good at the parenting part, so in a role reversal, when my brain is fried, or I am just too worn down to say "no" one more time, I let them tell me what to do. Take me to the mall. Let me have a sleepover. Order pizza. Buy  this thing on the internet that I don't need but you will never have to leave your desk chair and I will  go away and not bug you for another twenty minutes at least so you can continue to troll facebook profile pictures of strangers who look interesting because of the things in the background of their shadowy image uploaded at 3 AM.


I started a new novel.


Yep. That's all I'm saying right now.


I blew off the MRI for the shoulder, afraid of what they would tell me...finished the Naproxin and now just winch alot all day long. I created my own rehab program, with elastic bands, trips to the gym, yoga stretches and shots of tequila. So far, so good.


I rearranged my closet. To make room for more shoes.


I bought my kid a 5 foot long bean bag that took 45 minutes to re-fluff upon vacuum packed arrival, and totally killed my shoulder to haul up the stairs.


I have only been reading ebooks- which is strange. And wonderful.

I realized I went almost 2 months without really eating vegetables. I'm embarrassed to admit that. Which is not half as bad as my friend who admitted he'd gone almost 3 months without drinking any water. How do you even DO that?


I went to a passion party which is really a sex toy party and came up with all these ways to be a better salesgirl than the salesgirl, even got roped into a drunken yes moment with a gal pal asking me to start a business venture with her, but in the end, I just wrote a check and decided to write a story about the whole thing.

I can honestly say that I may have my hand in too many pies, my spoon in too many broths, my mind in too many gutters- I mean directions- and that I really should try to limit my tentacular reach so I can focus more... I just made up that word- tentacular. 
Go ahead. you can use it.


I'm still thinking about the drop some things part. 
Maybe I was born to be tentacular.

Was it something I said? Or something I didn't say?

In the past two weeks I have been accused of:

1. spending too much time on my computer writing
2. not spending enough time with family
3. spending too much time away from computer
4. not being readily available
5. making too much time for friends and parties
6. not doing enough PR and web work
7. wasting time on the internet
8. not making time for myself
9. spending too long at the gym
10. not answering my phone
11. not getting off my phone
12. cooking too much
13.  not cooking enough
14.  writing too many words 
15. not finishing anything
16. complaining about poor communication
17. not listening
18. talking too much about things no one cares about
19. writing for smart people
20. working too hard for little return
21. thinking that anything I do really matters
22. believing in the best in everyone regardless of reality
23. being too optimistic
24. dragging things on
25. living in a bubble

It's not a Bathhouse, it a multi sauna facility with naked people

And we're going there tonight, in that spirit of companionship and comraderie... there are a few things my gal pals and I can do with supreme confidence and... a crapload of booze.

 Oh, who am I kidding? This is just too weird to NOT do. C'mon. You know me. The world is very big and I don't have a lot more time to do everything, so I am grabbing with handfuls.
 And whenI can experience all this novelty in a convenient location, under one of my assumed names... hell to the yeah, people.
 Hell to the yeah.

Will check back in tomorrow with the dirty details- appears you can actually spend 24 hours on site getting all sorts of... treatments.   hmmmm.

The Chicken Little Syndrome

Dear God,
It is not necessary for you to put leaks in structures over my head at the end of every year.
 I will not run outside and cry, "The sky is falling The sky is falling." You know me better than that.

 Instead, I will host martini matinees and shower in the other bathroom, for as long as it takes.

Love,
me

Shoe store Attraction, or I'm a Magnet, still.

It's probably happened to you. You were just shopping in that brand name department store, maybe bent over a rack of designer tees, trying to find that elusive size large... when someone said, "Do you work here?"

And you turned around, cell phone to ear, purse in hand, wearing no name tag, no where near the  I stand 11 hours a day kind of comfortable shoes... and yet?

 You looked like you belonged there, or they were so desperate for help, they were willing to ask a stranger.

This happens to me a lot.

People don't just ask me for help. They ask me for advice. ( They have no idea they picked the worst candidate possible.)

In the produce section, I get: "Excuse me, but which tomato is best?"

Seriously, dude? I have no clue. Buy the biggest reddest one.

In the home improvement store, I've been asked to weigh in on paint color choices.

White. You can never go wrong with white. Or off- white, more of a cream, really. Anything that has the word "wheat" in it. Yep. That's the one.

And always, always, I am asked for my opinion in the shoe store. I swear.. cross my heart and all of that.

 Every single time I step into ANY shoe store, I will be approached no less than two times by absolute strangers who think I am their answer.

Well, I am.

Last night, shopping with a gal pal, I was approached by a young girl who started the conversation with, "This is going to sound strange, but I..."

 I almost held up my hand to stop her there, but I let her continue.

 "... I have the same tights that you're wearing, and I want to see which of these shoes ( she holds up two black stillettos; one with a lace-up front, one traditional pump), would look better with them, would you mind..."

"Not a problem," I say and follow the girl back to where she and her friend have made a mess of the shoe aisle.. I then try on both pair, trot around in them, suggest the lace up ones, they agree and box up the others. I make my way back to my row.

 Within three minutes, a man wearing two different boots comes around the corner. A woman is sitting in front of a few open shoe boxes, texting on her phone. She barely looks up.

 The guy is tall, attractive and has that sort of good boy gone bad cowboyish adorable quality.

 "Excuse me, may I ask your opinion. I'm trying to decide..."

 He lifts his pant legs to show the mismatched boots.

 "Which one do you like better?"

The woman glances at me, the boots, the guy, then motions with her phone, and says,"The dark one-" just as I say, "The lighter one."

He smiles at me.

 I say, "Are you wearing them with jeans mostly?"

"Yeah."

"Turn around." I look at his ass.

He turns back around.

"Yeah, definitely," I say. "The lighter ones. I like the toe." (and then, shamelessly borrowing from Paris Hilton I add, "They're hot."

 He breaks out into a grin. "Thanks."

Moments later I see him at the checkout counter and think, "Man, they should hire me."

( see my pics of the shoes I bought on FACEBOOK.)

It's all about the hunt.

In a post that may have been written by her husband, or her therapist ( if she had one),
Linda realizes in a split second...
 her life has been all about the hunt.