Tag Archives: Studio 30 Plus

Jun
7
2012
If I Wanted to Read, I’d Go to School

Yesterday, I was the featured writer on the Studio30 Plus community blog. It’s a great community of writers that used to be for people 30 and older, but now is open to anyone who wants to connect with other writers. As promised, here is my featured post.

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Writing advice often includes a recommendation to read more. But these days…

It wasn’t always this way. I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. In kindergarten my classmates and I sat in a circle on the floor. We took turns reading aloud from a Dick and Jane book.  When some students struggled to sound out the words, I blinked in confusion. The words somehow made sense to me already.

I read so quickly I had to rifle through my Mom’s bookshelves for reading material. As an innocent 12-year old attending Catholic school, reading The Thorn Birds was an ironic way to learn about sex.

So what happened to my love of reading? I’d like to take a moment to thank my high school. They took my youthful love of reading and stomped it into the ground, set it on fire, pissed on it, then buried it while it still had a slight pulse so it could suffocate and die a more painful death.

Here’s a helpful hint for any educators out there: there is such a thing as too much required reading. Maybe I shouldn’t complain about the volume of reading I had to do in high school. It exposed me to so many classic books I probably would not have chosen to read on my own.

But my teachers were more interested in trying to verify we’d read every word in the books than whether we understood them. That is the only way I can explain the bizarre questions on our tests.

Take this question about The Red Badge of Courage, for example: “How many pairs of socks did Henry have in his bag?”

Dude, seriously? Presumably the teacher asked us this question because we couldn’t answer it having read only the Cliffs Notes. But no one needs to know this detail. I resent the space the answer (eight) takes up in my brain.

In addition to random details, they also liked asking us to reproduce entire quotes. One teacher tested us on the number of lines we could remember from The Merchant of Venice. I still laugh over trying to get her to count “My daughter!” “O my ducats!” as two quotes.

This type of testing required committing as much of the text to memory as possible. In response, I forced my eyes to stop racing ahead, sometimes using a sheet of paper to isolate the lines as I read. If I thought I hadn’t really absorbed something, I’d go back and read it out loud. My speed plummeted, but I aced the tests.

Soon I could read no other way. Whether I read Moby-Dick or an article in Cosmo, I read it laboriously.

If high school killed my love of reading, my job hammers nails into its coffin. I get paid to read and edit a lot of stiff research writing, which doesn’t motivate me to look at more words in my free time. Other people seek me out to read yet still more technical writing because of my attention to detail…ironically, the same attention to detail that made reading so maddening for me in high school.

I’ve tried several things to reignite my love of reading. Years ago, I joined several book clubs. Now I have one rule about book clubs:  I don’t like book clubs. Reading books that other people select (does any book club use a democratic process?) is too much like school, thank you very much.

I’ve tried carrying books with me everywhere I go, including taking seven to the beach last year. During my week-long vacation, I read about seven percent of them. I had trouble absorbing the words. Watching the waves crash onto the shore was much more soothing.

Starting my blog has helped me more than anything else I’ve tried. Through writing, I’ve pinpointed what I’m most interested in reading. I’m giving myself permission to read what I want.

There’s nothing wrong with my preference for non-fiction (take that high school and ex-book clubs!). Not everything I read has to be “literary,” or even a book. I love reading blogs. I’ve found exquisite examples of memoir, poetry, and fiction, as well as writing that makes me laugh out loud. Blogs are worth reading.

So much of what I’ve read during my life has been chosen for me. Now it’s my turn.

By the way, I do still occasionally finish a book. Sometimes I even read fiction…taking it back full circle to my childhood days…

Yes, I read this. Shockingly, it wasn't very good.

How have your reading habits changed throughout your life?

Jun
6
2012
First Symptom of Rabbititis

Today is a banner day.

For one, I’m the featured writer at Studio30 Plus, a great online community of writers. You have to be a member to access their Community Blog (and my post), so tomorrow I will repost my Featured Blog here. But do consider joining, it’s a great way to connect with other bloggers/writers.

For another, as you may have gathered from the spots you are now seeing, this here blog has finally been redesigned. I hope you like the nod to the days of dot matrix printers (my penchant for nostalgia made me want to honor the first incarnation of Logy Express–a humor newspaper my friend and I created in high school…on my Apple IIe). This new design also serves as an important new Rabbititis diagnostic tool.

I am sure there are some kinks to be worked out, and I’m already aware of some. If you come across anything that’s not working (broken links, video embeds, etc…), please let me know via comments or email (logyexpress AT gmail.com).

I’m very pleased with the way the redesign turned out. It’s bright and colorful and whimsical and meets my need to honor the past while pushing forward into the future. Stephen at the Company of H rocked like no one has ever rocked before in doing the web development for me. He helped me select an appropriate theme and then customized it. His calm demeanor kept me from losing my mind too, which is always helpful. I still can’t believe how quickly he got all this done once we started working together.

The Logy Express logo was designed by Ryan Salinetti. I will post more soon on working with her on the graphic design, but if you need logo/graphic design assistance, run (don’t walk) to her website.

Jan
14
2012
It’s Good to Be Matt Damon

Two nights before Christmas, I stayed up late to wrap gifts alone. I kept the TV on for company and groaned when Charlie Rose came on with Matt Damon and Cameron Crowe. I expected shameless plugging of their movie We Bought A Zoo and perhaps some vapid discussion of their “craft.” But about 10 minutes in, the interview took a surprising turn that resonated in a bordering-on-creepy way with the two biggest themes I’ve wrestled with over the last year:  career fulfillment and friendships.

Matt Damon is very articulate. And also one lucky son of a bitch.

Phase 1 (in which Matt Damon and Cameron Crowe Confirm My Biggest Fear about Career)

Matt Damon pointed out how Cameron Crowe’s movies center on a main character doing something in the first act that everyone around him thinks is crazy. They do this because “it’s something they need to do…their inner voice is telling them to do it.” You know, just like we all do to choose our path…Oops. 

Amazingly, just as I was thinking, I have no inner voice, and what the hell does an inner voice say anyway, Charlie Rose said, “an inner voice that told you?…”

Matt Damon: “I gotta do that.”

Cameron Crowe said, “Exactly.” Then they both proceeded to rub it in. Their inner voices. That they both had from their earliest memories (Matt Damon’s Mom knew he’d take this path when he was two). That were encouraged by their parents (both of their mothers worked in education). That they reached the pinnacle of success by listening to and actively pursuing (Cameron Crowe wrote a Rolling Stone cover article at 16.). But I’m not jealous or anything.

Cameron Crowe: “Someone told me…if you don’t listen to that little voice it goes away…”

Me: “Yep.”

Matt Damon: “Boy that’s a terrifying thought.”

Cameron Crowe: …”pay attention because to be out there with no instinct guiding you, that’s truly scary.”

Me: “Welcome to my world. Not sure if I ever had the voice, but if I did it’s gone now. Terrifying? Maybe. But definitely overwhelming and frustrating.”

Charlie Rose: “Do you think that everyone if they listened carefully would find it, would hear it? Is it easily unheard?

Me: “No and YES!”

Cameron Crowe just looked confused (“I loved writing, loved the written word, I just had to follow that path.”). Matt Damon: “it probably depends on who you are…for some people it’s pouring out of them, and for others it might be a softer kind of voice.”

Sitting on my Mom’s living room floor, I alternated between cutting, wrapping, taping and staring at the screen in disbelief. How did they get onto this topic? Had they read my blog? Why did I have to be the second kind of person?

I closed my eyes and tried to hear my inner voice. My inner voice was so faint I could barely make it out. It said…

your life would be a lot easier if you were Matt Damon.

Phase 1 post script: I saw this billboard off the Pennsylvania Turnpike coming home after Christmas. Even Kermit the Frog has an inner voice.

Even Kermit has an inner voice.

Phase 2 (in which Matt Damon Confirms My Biggest Fear about Friendship)

The conversation turned to Matt Damon’s early days in the film industry with his best friend Ben Affleck. Just when I thought this interview couldn’t get any more surreal for me, Charlie Rose asked, “what is it that makes a great friendship?”

Me: “No way they are going to dissect friendship now too.”

Matt Damon: “For one thing, when it starts.”

Me: “Uh-oh.”

He and Ben met in high school and had the same goals. Charlie Rose summarized as follows, “the point is that you started early, the bond came early.”

Me: “Whoops!”

Thanks to Matt Damon for tackling two of my big life questions and pretty much taunting me.

I’d been meaning to write about this so thanks to Studio30 Plus for throwing out a writing prompt that fit: The Big Question.


Nov
21
2011
Cupcake Maker, Thy Name is Oven

The future of the corner bakery is at risk. The cupcake craze, in particular, has peaked. Baking at home will never be the same.

You may be curious how I know these things. Well, Sunday I saw this George Foreman cupcake grill at Wegmans and then I knew.

This is a game changer, people. Cupcake-making technology is now available to the home baker!

As you may know, I really enjoy a good cupcake. But who can be bothered to make cupcakes at home? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of time.

But now, we have a machine that easily molds batter into cupcake shape. Come on, we’ve all been there…you prepare your cupcake batter and painstakingly hand-mold it into a cupcake shape only to have the batter ooze all over your counter when you let go to form the next one. There had to be a better way!

I also never understood how the professionals got that baked consistency. No matter how long I let my cupcake batter sit, the cupcakes never had the freshly baked quality I love so much in a cupcake. Obviously the professionals knew something I didn’t.

Enter the innovative manufacturing company, Select Brands Inc.

They produce small appliances that allow us to “bring the corner bakery into our own kitchen.” Good news for us, bad news for the corner bakery.

I know what you’re thinking. “OK, so the cupcake maker solves my cupcake making needs. But what if I need to make 4 tiny pies?”

Oh yeah, baby.

Surely they can’t have figured out the pie pop?

Think again! Also, pie pop? Huh?  

While Select Brands is working hard to solve all of the most difficult challenges faced by home bakers (one self-contained, kitchen-cluttering baked-good maker at a time), they are being left behind in one area. Are you interested in making eight, and only eight, pre-cut brownies, in a machine that does nothing else? Well, Select Brands can’t help you.

But Bella Cucina offers this problem-solving innovation…because pouring brownie batter in a 9×13 pan and then having to cut them into squares ourselves is beyond most of us.

I love the one Amazon review of this product so, so much. Kelli provides a thorough review of this little uni-tasking machine and concludes, “After trying this device, I could just as easily have turned on the oven & baked a full batch in a pan faster. Frosted them when cool & cut them.”

Whoa! What is this oven thing of which she writes?

Kelli also laments the difficulty of cleaning her brownie maker. Pshaw! As a happy customer rhapsodized in a review of the revolutionary whoopie pie maker, “Are you kidding? For the price this is fabulous.” At these prices ($29.99, but currently on sale at Amazon for $19.99!), why clean them? They’re practically disposable, just buy a new one for each batch!

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This post was inspired by this week’s Studio 30 Plus prompt:

“And then I knew…”

I made two batter, everything but the kitchen sink brownies (I threw Twix bars in them!) over the weekend for National Family Pajama Night. Recipe, photos, and review coming soon. If only I’d had the brownie maker (then I could have wasted over half of the batter! A picture of me, Dave, and (poor tortured) Chuck in our PJs will be this week’s Photo Friday.

Jul
20
2011
Law and Order: Birthday Party Unit

There should be a special place in hell for people who commit the especially heinous offense of ruining your birthday party.

My earliest birthday memory is the party during which my cousin Craig pushed me down our back stairs.

I don’t remember ever speaking to him again. Cousin Craig and his family moved away a few years later, so he crystallized in my memory as the little demon who pushed me down the stairs at my own birthday party. He is nothing more, nothing less.

My Mom sometimes tries to tell me what the adult cousin Craig is doing now, but adult, wife-marrying, kid-fathering cousin Craig is a phantom. Whenever she brings him up, I just say: “you mean, the kid who pushed me down the stairs at my birthday party?”

Then she argues with me about the veracity of my memory.

Mom may have said adult cousin Craig is a lawyer, but I can’t be sure since I don’t give a shit. But it figures he’d be a lawyer.

Because he’s a jerk.

Who pushes little girls down stairs.

At their own birthday parties.

My Mom claims ignorance of this incident. She might have a vague recollection of my falling down the stairs at one of my parties, clumsy me, but doesn’t remember that cousin Craig clearly “helped” me down to the hard concrete.

All I know is this:

One minute I was a step away from grabbing the back door handle to go inside, the next minute cousin Craig was crowding me on the stairs, and I ended up unceremoniously deposited onto the concrete slab three stairs down. Cousin Craig was smiling. Cousin Craig is the epitome of evil.

Open and shut case, he had means, motive and opportunity. He had been standing inches from me, trying to get to the same place I was going and pushing past me to get there first. And he was clearly jealous because it was my party.

But even with my sharp eye-witness testimony, and my brilliant summation of the facts, the perp got off scot-free.

What else happened at this party? Was this the year the “Dream Whip” frosting finally switched from a pink tint to my beloved green? What did I get? Hell if I know. What is burned into my brain is cousin Craig’s feigned innocence, his smug lack of remorse, the very literal pain in my ass, and the angry tears about crashing down the stairs to the pavement.

Just look at him…

Clearly a criminal master mind.

My Mom will likely have a cow when she read this. “What if he finds this?”

I say let him find it. This is my own brand of vigilante justice, just like the resolution of every episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” (elite squad my ass, they’re always letting the victim commit suicide or missing the clear signs that the victim or one of their loved ones is going to shoot the perp, often at the police station) in which they can’t get the bad guy.

Maybe he’ll apologize, the twerp.

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I wrote this post in response to this week’s writing prompt from Studio 30 Plus, which was: “Your earliest memory of your own birthday party.”