Thursday, July 31, 2008

A non-editing exercise

This morning I am going to write without stopping or going back to edit. I have set the timer for 20 minutes and whatever I do I can't go back or read back on what I've written. So we'll be doing this together. Deal? Cool.

The narrarttor in my head has been getting louder and louder because I've been ignoring her the last couple of days. I've been cleaning, painting the girls' room, shopping for home improvement junk and all of those adult things that would drive a narrator crazy. She says, "You are ignoring me ME the diva in your head to fold laundry? Have you lost your mind you madball hooker? You corpulant tuna. See? When I write in a steady stream I don't make any sense. It's fun. It's like letting the child inside of me do cartwheels, even though in reality I've never been able to do a cartwheel.

I've never really been graceful. Tall and strong, but not, well maybe not graceful, but not rhythmic. I've always felt like an awkward giraffe. The night I met Chris a bunch of my friendas ended up at this bar called The Goldmine. He was shooting pool and my friends were dancing. He said, "I'm not keeping you am I? Did you want to dance?" I said no because I'm better at shooting pool than dancing and I wanted him to find me attractive. But maybe if I keep doing yoga I'll become more graceful

Sometimes in yoga class they say things that I find impossible not to laugh at. I dig all the talk about peace and love, but, as my friend Lauren pointed out after class he other night, sometimes they say the weirdest things. Like when our instructor was saying that eventually we'll get to a point in our practice where we'll be one with energy or something like that and he said, "You won't just do yoga. Yoga...will do you." For the last two days if I've found myself frustrated or depressed I thought, "Yoga will do you." and I luagh like a jackass. Then they say other things like, "Take a big, juicy breath." Juicy? What is breathing like for these people? They also say stuff that I can get behind to a certain point like, "reach over and sawy like a tree," and I'll think, "hell yeah, I can be a tree," and then he'll say "now move your upper ribs and lower pelvic bone forward and hold it for three minutes while panting" and I'll think "well, it's been a great class but I've got, uh, sod to plant so I'll be seeing ya and my ribs and pelvic bones wish all of you a good night."

Lauren did ruin one thing for me though. At the end while we were chanting, the instructor played some kindof instrument that sounds like a bitchin' accordian (seriously, that's the best way I can describe it), and when we got out of class Lauren said, "Did the end of that chant remind you of "The Safety Dance?" So now whenever Sean (our instructor chants) I will think, "'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of mine." Which, of course, will make me remember the Simpsons episode where Homer sings, "We can dance! We can dance! Everybody look at your pants!" And I will be that far away from acheiving enlighttenment.

I wonder how long it's been. Will this post go on and on? A,m I boring anyone? I suppose you can stop readin if it bores you. Or you can lie and tell me that you've reada it. For my next writing assignment, speaking of lauren who is in my writing group, she said for my next assignment she wants me to write about how I feel competitve whenever I meet another tall woman. This is an interesting topic because I don't really have a competitive nature, but whenever another tall woman appears I feel the need to be taller. It's as if she's marched into my turf. I'm six feet so if a woman walks in who, say, 6'2 I feel obligated to challenge her to a fight. I never have, b ut I wonder how another girl would react to this.

6'2" girl: It's A pleasure to meet you.

me (rolling up sleeves): You motherfucker.

I don't feel this way about men who are taller, I don't know why. Maybe it's a fiesty chick thing. Speaking of fiesty chicks

The timer just went off.

4 comments:

Thomas Peri said...

Damn timer! I was interested in the feisty chick tangent!

Liz Amason said...

Hi There!

Well, I'm a dispatcher for police/fire/ems in Eastern Oregon by day, and by night, I'm an Independent Shaklee Distributor.
I will be in NOLA next week for Shaklee's convention and wanted to tell folks about an event Shaklee is hosting to the community on Aug 7th.
Please go to my blog for the info on it, and if you'd like to attend and/or know more, just email me.
Thanks,
Liz Amason
www.goodngreen.org
P.S. I'm only 5'6"

biggearhead said...

I MUST know what the "bitchin' accordion" is! MUST! So ask. Find out. If it's related to the accordion it's a reed instrument. Harmonicas and accordions are similar in that respect - come from the same family, in fact. The harmonica was conceived of as a cheap alternative to families that could not afford their own accordions. I sh*t you not.

Maybe this "tall chick" thing is like the harmonica player thing. The joke goes, "What did one harmonica player say to the other? I don't want to talk to you." In worst-case scenarios it's an immediate face-off, which is idiotic. I prefer the "I'm going to ignore that you're acting like a jerk and just keep being pleasant" route. In the long run, this seems to work out great.

However, some guys:
Me: "Hey, good to meet you!" *sticks out hand to shake greeting*
Other guy: "Motherfucker." *grabs harmonica and rolls up sleeves*
Me: *internally rolls eyes*

Genevieve said...

Thomas - what is it about adding the word "tangent" to any term that makes it a little ridiculous.

Liz - Cool, welcome to the city.

Tom - I think you should write a personal essay on competitve harmonica players. It's original and just fascinating. Oh, and I looked it up. My instructor plays the harmonium.