anniegirl1138

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Posts Tagged ‘YWBB’

Weekend Update: Movie, Organization and Ike

Posted by anniegirl1138 on September 14, 2008

The weekend has flown by once again. Even without a 9 to 5 job, I still lament the relative shortness of the weekend in comparison to the rest of the week. I don’t get as much done of course in terms of my fiction writing but it’s a worthwhile trade-off because I have my husband around. There is much to be said for even the drive-by smooches and snuggles as we go about the domestic routine.

So this weekend’s Friday Night Flick was Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal with David Duchovny, Julia Roberts, Catherine Keener, David Hyde-Pierce and that guy who was the photographer on Just Shoot Me

Just a quick aside, has Duchovny ever starred in a motion picture (aside from his neutered alter-ego Mulder) where he didn’t play a sexual deviant of some kind?

Full Frontal is not one of Soderbergh’s recognized triumphs. It’s a film within a film that is ultimately within yet another film. It took a while but I eventually realized that the film within was written using elements of the life of the screenwriter whose life and that of those connected to him are being explored via pseudo-documentary and character interviews. The reviews complained the that film doesn’t go anywhere but it’s really about how life influences art and artists, and about the small worlds we all really live in.

We were better than half-way through the movie when Rob realized he’d seen it before thanks to a plastic sack and David Duchovny’s penis. Which you don’t see. Although you do see the plastic bag and wonder once again what attracts this man to characters like this, but the penis is prominent – I assure you. Even though I missed it the first time and Rob had to “rewind” for me.

But anyway, two hours of life – gone – when we could have had sex instead. But it is not an awful movie (Rob will beg to differ) just one that makes you work hard to figure it out. We in North America are not into thinking while movie watching.

Saturday was organizing. Rob is determined to have a garage sale in two weeks. In admiration of his sorting and purging zeal, I tackled my side of the pigsty office because it would be nice to write at my desk again instead of the dining room table (which is hell on my posture).

I nearly pitched my high school yearbooks but Rob thought they should rest in the basement for a bit until I am sure. 

I am sure I don’t know what to do with them. I haven’t cracked one open in BabyD’s lifetime and since I was too mousy and unpopular to rate much of an inclusion in them aside from a head-shot and the newspaper group photo, I can’t think why I should keep them. It’s full of people I can’t remember or have no fond memories of. And they take up shelf space.

I found Will’s old Sunday bible group bible too. Another space hog that holds no personal value for me, so I am thinking about sending it to his mother. She has been less her nasty self in cards and letters of late, and I have been thinking that it might be safe to cultivate a correspondence type relationship now. She found God after Will died – or so she claims* – and the bible has memories for her.

Now I have a clean desk and a surprisingly small pile of papers to assign to folders. I even have my calendar updated and all pertinent dates marked for the next little while. So why am I still writing at the dining room table?

I also began a rewrite of Kumari because what I am trying to do isn’t clear to readers yet, judging from a new review I received yesterday. I am liking it, so the reviews have been a plus. I wish, though, that the site was more like a message board because single reviews are only so helpful. I really need a give and take forum.

I also ventured over to the widda board and signed on. Something I haven’t done since February. I noticed that I was getting referrals from my profile there – something that has never happened. It made me curious. To my surprise I had a message waiting from a board member who’d found this blog through a google and traced me back there. She wanted to talk about remarriage/recoupling because she thought I might have something valid to say. That I can understand if the only sounding board she’s had is the widda board. There are probably only a handful or better of people there who don’t have an agenda when it comes to this topic and will listen/share their experiences without spouting absolutes. The board is really a singles haven and that is what is pushed – mostly by people who haven’t found a new partner despite their efforts or those too frightened or traumatized to try.

I did find one interesting thing in the short perusal I made of the active topics. Someone who used to jump all over me with both feet about my opinions of moving on and remarriage requested a new forum for remarried widowed – because she got married again recently. Funny how that can swing a person 180, eh?

Although the remarried thought this was a great idea, the other vintage widows nixed it. Remarrieds, in the general opinion of the board, have a duty to grieve for the edification (and probably entertainment) of everyone else. End of discussion.

And finally, Rob and I took great interest in watching the reports on Ike. If Rob hadn’t turned that transfer down last spring, we would have been losing our hurricane virginity this weekend in our new home somewhere in the Houston area. Actually, Rob would have been doing this most likely with me worrying at my folks in Iowa. We are not so attached to stuff (and honestly are well enough off financially that we don’t have to be) to ride out a hurricane. 

I will take a Canadian winter over the balmy, hurricane prone Gulf coast any day.

*And it might be true. She was nastier than she had ever been while spouting religion at me in the aftermath, but I have found that “coming to Jesus” brings out a rather substantial amount of bile and intolerance in some people.

Posted in Movies, YWBB, blogging, remarriage of widowed people, writing skills/profession, young widowhood | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

T-Shirt Friday: Rob

Posted by anniegirl1138 on September 12, 2008

When Rob and I were first corresponding via email, I didn’t know what he looked like or he me. It wasn’t important. We were friends although looking back we both realize that the intent changed sooner than either of us realized until much later.

Rob had taken a long road trip through the U.S. just before he and I “met” courtesy of my rather flip/flirty reply to a post of his on the widow board. At the time I was just being cute. One of the social aspects of the board allowed for kidding that bordered (or completely crossed the line at times) on that kind of adult banter.

On his journey, he had sent periodic updates of his progress to the board and posted pictures of the places he’d stopped along the way. Many of the pictures featured him and he acquired quite the widda fan club. Women emailed/pm’d him with invitations to lunch or for coffee or dinner if he should happen to be “in their neighborhood”.

I hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t read about his travels or see the photos until after we’d started to write/IM.

He never knew what I looked like until after he told me that he had feelings for me.

Today’s tee is one that Rob was wearing in one of the first photos I saw of him that were not from the widow board collection. It was one that MidKid took of the two of them in the kitchen here in our home. She had it posted on her MySpace and Rob directed me to it.

Yes, I saw both MidKid and ElderD’s MySpace pages. Rob shared them with me because he is proud of them and wanted me to know them.

I still love this particular photo. It is one of my favorites Rob looks good in tight tee’s.

Posted in YWBB, love and relationships, marriage issues, remarriage of widowed people | Tagged: , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Stumbling Across Good Blogs

Posted by anniegirl1138 on March 4, 2008

I am not much for slogging through blogs in search of entertainment or good writing or both. The handful of blogs I read regularly belong to women I met through the YWBB and that I have listed on my Widow Blogroll. Anything that is evenly remotely entertaining, my husband Rob found using StumbleUpon and then went on to find others through the links he found on the worthwhile blogs he stumbled across. Stumble is a program that you can use to find specific topic oriented blogs or just randomly flip through like a couch potato with satellite. Through Stumble Rob discovered A Riot is an Ugly Thing along with its host, Uncle Keith. Uncle Keith, I should warn you, will not be everyone’s cup of tea. He is middle-age though he claims to be old. He is unapologetically incorrect and he likes to post pictures of scantily clad women who could be his (of legal age) daughters. But he can be funnier than hell while doing all of the above. Another pervert Rob discovered before the days of Stumble was the host of What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD) For you non-Fight Clubbers out there reading this from your IKEA-ized domains still in your khaki cubicle uniforms, Tyler Durden is the the name of the character played by Brad Pitt in the movie, Fight Club. It is one of my husband’s favorite movies and my step-daughter’s favorite books by her favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk. When I first began corresponding with Rob via email (because yes, where would two internet junkies meet but on the www), he told me I reminded him of Marla Singer. I was appalled (after I googled her up on Wikipedia) but in retrospect I can think of at least one area where she and I have some in common – though I am forbidden to go there (much) in my blogging. WWTDD is a celebrity eviscerating site, where the host skewers the flavors of the week and waxes pornographically about the current crop of famous tail. He may be Uncle Keith’s nephew. Tyler Durden came to us courtesy of The Gil Meche Experience. This is a cadre of writers there who claim to be law students somewhere on the East Coast of the U.S. The main blogger is a young man named Pulp who is on a mission (one of many) to expose David Brooks as a tepid writing talent. Nurse Myra of Gimcrack Hospital (PG) is someone Rob met through Uncle Keith who obviously enjoys her because on Friday she posts tastefully done pictures of herself in provacative clothing. She is a real nurse though in a real retirement home in the real place of Australia and she is a very talented writer. She writes with wit and style about the day to day of her job and the people she encounters. Rob discovered, inadvertently, that she was widowed as we are and thought at first that I should categorize her with the other widow blogs. While her “about me” states that she blogs to keep sane, she is not writing about her grief. Even if she were, I would still put her with the interesting blogs because she and it are that.The Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie is a Stumble find. He is not mad but he is a cabbie in the DC area and he blogs on all manner of things. He is funny. He is smart. And he is a very good writer. As is Johnny Virgil over at Fifteen Minute Lunch. I would do much to be that funny. His rantings on washrooms have earned him a place of honor in my esteem forever. Waiter Rant is just that, and apparently its author has written a book and was approached about turning it into a movie according to my oldest step-daughter. She is the original source of this blog and though my husband reads it – aloud to me – every so often, I don’t find it compelling enough to read on my own. It is well-written and others find it quite entertaining. And Rob likes it. He has much better taste in blogs as a source of leisure reading than I do. I am from the quaint old school of building community and friendships via the blogosphere. He does not believe that one can be friends with people who may or may not really exist at all. As one of my mommie friends from yore pointed out when she and the other women I now call friends met on BabyCenter – back in the days before we moved to a private group home – who knows who any of us really were. One of us could have really been a 55 year old man simply pretending to be a thirty-something pregnant woman or new mother. After all, you never know what some people will do to entertain themselves. Rob explains us, in case you are interested, as above average anomalies and exceptions to all rules.Blogging, in my opinion – ’cause that is the only one that counts around here, is a viable source of the written word as entertainment or information. One could do worse than to check out and become a daily reader of any of the blogs I have mentioned.

Posted in Bloggin, unpublished writers, writing skills/profession | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »