JW Says: Monday, Nov 19 2007
Writing 5:39 pm
“Happiness writes white.”
The Explanation You’ve Been Waiting For Wednesday, Sep 12 2007
Blogging and Relationships and Writing 1:53 am
My makeup looks better smeared. Ok from nervous hands, better from happy tears.
So I’ve been MIA for quite a while. I have good reasons, so for all you hanging on pins and needles for my every word, don’t get angry just yet. Both of my reasons are lovely and favorable, by the way.
Reason number one: “And now, now, I have a boyfriend!” (Kelly from The Office. Watch it, love it.) I have a fantastic boyfriend who is, somehow, incredibly kind and funny and cute and pretty much just overall glorious. He digs me being a writer, so it’s not like he’s stopping me from entering LuckyRenee Land (ah, that there were such a place) but our work schedules allow us to hang out all the time, so it’s hard to squeeze in a post when I can be making out.
Your work schedule, Renee?
And BAM, reason number two: I got a job. A kick ass job, actually. Where I use my exact degree and everyone is extremely smart. (That’s all I ask, really. I just want to use my talents and not be surrounded by dumbasses.) I won’t tell you which company exactly, but let’s just say I spend my tremendously flexible working hours (yayfer sending emails in my pjs!) writing, researching and being creative. Hello perfection. This also means, however, that when I spend hours writing for work everyday, I don’t especially want to come here and write more for fun.
Unfortunately (for you) and fortunately (for me) the summary goes like this: great guy, great job, no posting in favor of making out and working. But I beg you, dear readers, to not abandon me just yet. The fall (my favorite season of all time) brings out the best in me so you can rest assured that I’ll continue in full force soon enough. Until then, I promise to make an appearance more than once every trillion years.
JW Sunday, Aug 12 2007
Writing 9:59 pm
I just wanted to publicly thank my friend JW for constructing the mixed CD that has been the background music to every significant thing I have written in the past few years, including college work and many entries on this very blog. His concoction of Bright Eyes, Elliot Smith, Modest Mouse, The Postal Service, Rilo Kiley, The Shins and Stereophonics has inspired my mind to find the perfect word and assemble the perfect sentence more times than I could ever dare to count. Thank you, friend, for this and your many, many other positive contributions to my life.
Screams Friday, Jun 29 2007
i scream from the inside
these words, they save me
and your touch
distracts me
- RM
“Confront me if I don’t ask for help.” Monday, May 28 2007
Do any of you have any advice on writing a book? I have been a writer as long as I can remember, but have never dared to attempt an honest-to-Zeus real book. And now that I am, I could really benefit from the advice of others. Please help!!!
On Being A Writer Saturday, Apr 21 2007
I always wanted to be passionate about something that coincidentally made me beautiful or unique in an obvious way. Like soccer players. All they care about is soccer and it’s just a gorgeous fluke of luck that it also makes them have tight abs and the ability to run 10 miles without becoming short of breath. Artists (that is, sketchers and painters) are the same way. Their clothes are inventive and their hands are always smudged with charcoal or acrylic paint and they are somehow more beautiful. “This is my girlfriend,” their significant others say. “Can’t you see how her inner passion makes her noticeably lovely?”
I’m a writer. There is nothing glamorous or striking about being a writer. It’s all inward. I can attempt brilliance sitting alone at my computer with a slice of cheese pizza in my hand. My hair is one solid color (brown, not peculiar pink or unusual orange) and I choose clothes largely based on comfort. I’m not svelte or tall or lean.
I wish my passion required a strict diet of lettuce and orange juice. I wish I wanted to run everyday and that my arms were as toned as Sarah Jessica Parker’s. Sometimes I wish I ordered my mocha with low-fat milk and politely passed when my friends ordered Taco Bell. But I don’t. Running clears my head, you know, just like writing does, though in a somehow more organic way. If I ran, I’d have nothing to write about, because when I returned all sweaty and skinny, I’d just pass out in my bed and not have a thing in the world to bitch about or comment on. Except maybe how I’d just run 20 miles for fun and DAMN I feel good, but no one wants to read that. I don’t even want to write that.
But alas, I don’t run. I don’t diet. And I can’t paint for shit. I guess I’m stuck being cursed with a passion for prose. God save my soul.
Little Miss Sunshine Elaboration (& Spoiler) Saturday, Apr 14 2007
Writing 12:48 pm
If you haven’t seen Little Miss Sunshine, I recommend it. Not because it’s amazing or will change your life, but because it will make you uncomfortable and sometimes people need that.
The movie involves a family and each of the members are profoundly screwed up. There’s the motivational speaker-wannabe father, the heroin snorting grandfather, the son that took a vow of silence, the daughter that just wants to be a beauty queen, the uncle that tried to commit suicide, and of course the mother who is trying to keep it all together.
The part of the movie that was most riveting to me started out simple then resulted in pure chaos. While riding in their large VW van, the young daughter (Olive) gives the son (Dwayne) a simple eye test that she had found. He of course passed the vision one, proving he has 20/20 vision. But the next test was unexpected: a colorblind test. He realizes he is colorblind, and then is informed by his uncle that being colorblind makes you ineligible to be a fighter pilot, which was his life dream. (He had taken a vow of silence to prove his dedication to achieving this goal, and also because, well, he hated everyone and no one was really worth talking to.) Dwayne has a nervous breakdown. After being completely silent the entire movie, we hear him utter his first words out of agony and despair and he crumbles in a ball on the ground.
At this point, tears begin to fall from my eyes. I’m an emotional person, sure, but I couldn’t help but put myself in his position. What if there were something profound that prevented me from becoming a writer, or rather, that just stopped me from writing altogether? My life’s passion, what I live for, the behavior that is most intrinsic, would all be lost and I would have nothing. Without these words that clutter my brain and soul being able to subsequently escape from my fingertips, my very being would overflow and I would likely be destroyed from being so overwhelmed.
The movie followed this very theme of life passions: the daughter wanted more than anything to be a beauty pageant queen, her father wanted more than anything to be a motivational speaker, the uncle wanted to be recognized for his academic brilliance, etc. None of them achieved their dreams in the movie and I found that heartbreaking. However, I was only comforted by this dialogue between the son and the uncle:
Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all of this, high school, everything.
Frank: [explains about how Proust believed your suffering makes you who you are] So if you go to sleep until you’re 18…? Think of all the suffering you’re gonna miss! High school’s your prime suffering years! You don’t get better suffering than that!
Dwayne: Life is one fuckin’ beauty contest after another. You know what? Fuck beauty contests. School, then college, then work… Fuck that. And fuck the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I’ll find a way to fly. Do what you love. Fuck everything else.
I agree. So yeah, the movie was kind of weird. I was a bit uncomfortable when they steal the dead grandfather’s body and when the young daughter does a striptease dance at the end. But discomfort puts us out of our element, which is vital to our growth. And of course, I never miss an opportunity to be reminded how much I love to write.
