T-shirt Friday

T-Shirt Friday: Rob


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.

Updates and T-shirts are Friday’s Offerings


Sadly, my short story lost the Dazzle contest. I didn’t bother to go and check for the winner yesterday because I knew I was out of the running after TenMile entered and the gushing began so I lost interest. However he did not win either. A late entry took the prize.

I am used to losing contests, but I still find it a bit annoying. I am still polishing up my own story and hope to send it off to Apex although it needs to be a shade darker. The last story I read in Apex was about a refugee scrounger on a displaced persons ship in the overcrowded future where the hopeless sell themselves to the ultra wealthy who get their kicks stuffing them with chestnut dressing, cooking them alive and then eating them. When I said “dark” I meant “ever so”.

Grade one is going well.

Reno is proceeding. Rob’s new plan is to break down tasks into small components and do a bit of as many as he can between supper and dark (which is coming far too early now).

MidKid claims to be moving out this coming weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

And as for T-shirt Friday…..

Nurse Myra claims no ownership, so I think I will adopt it into my rotation stable along with the Monday Meme and the Thursday Song Lyric.

Remembering what Silverstar had to say on the subject, t-shirts must have histories. Not just stains either. Although stains can have histories.

Today’s t-shirt comes to us via the beginning of the LDR days that made up the bulk of my pre-marriage relationship with Rob. He developed a habit of bringing a t-shirt along with him to leave behind for me. He would wear it until it smelled just like him and after he left, I would wear it until it just stunk too much for me not to wash.

MidKid gave Rob the shirt. She worked in a liquor store and was always acquiring tee’s from different label promotions. Canadian is Molson’s flagship and most popular brand. It’s probably one of the better beers up here, but any Canadian will tell you that the worst Canadian beer is kilometers better than the best American one. Americans, in the opinion of most non-Americans, drink swill for beer.

Anyway, one day Rob inquired after the shirt and I told him I wore it to bed. Then I whipped open my little Macbook, took this photo and sent it to him. Since this is kind of like a love letter, I had Rob crop out the disheveled come hitherness.

So there is my t-shirt and its story. Feel free to join in. Link or track back if you do.

this is low res and tiny but it's the best I got

Freedom: To Snuggle, Write and Change my Hair Color


 

 

The second day of the new school year and I am enjoying a quiet breakfast while catching up on my blog reading and commenting. BabyD is at school. Rob is at work. And as soon as the harsh rays of morning light pass, MidKid will emerge and finish packing for her move back to the city.

BabyD did not get her preferred teacher for grade one but assures me that as long as Mr.S doesn’t raise his voice to her specifically, she is fine with the outcome. It’s funny but, in a way, she is living her own life now that she is in school all day. Hundreds of things will happen in her life now on a daily basis that I will never know anything about. Amazing how quickly we become individual entities.

After I dropped her at school yesterday, I did a quick workout and then raced back home to spend some snuggle time with Rob. He stayed home yesterday morning with a bad headache but was sufficiently well enough for snuggling. Later I told him he will have to take the first morning of school off every year. A nice rite of passage for us to look forward to as we commence countdown to the day BabyD heads off to university.

I didn’t get any writing done yesterday between first day of school duties, snuggling and a hair appointment in the afternoon. A much needed appointment. My previous hairdresser was not to my personal liking. There was just no rapport. But between traveling and camp and mothering and reno work, I haven’t had the time this summer to search out a new salon.

The young lady who did my hair yesterday convinced me to go with brown lowlights and I think the results turned out quite well.

 

 

Not the best photo but good enough for illustration purposes.

Not the best photo but good enough for illustration purposes.

 

Yes, the curl is natural. I am actually a red-head but went blond at 18 and stayed that way for the most part since.

However, I am too old to do the bleach-blonde look now. When you first get grays, going lighter is a good way to hide them. Eventually you just start to look haggard and Madonna cartoonish and something has to be  done.

On a writing note, I read my Kumari story at writing group last night and they loved it. I received the best compliment on my writing I have ever received too when someone (Nate I think) said,

“I never have to work at suspending my disbelief with your stories.”

That sentiment was echoed and I was giddy. I just love reading my work and hearing the reaction.

I was invited to tag along to a writers’ conference in Surrey at the end of October. Though it sounds like fun and could be a great opportunity for meet/greet with agents/publisher’s, I don’t have anything really ready for that yet and the drive is nightmarish. And would be with people I only know through the group. 16ish hours in a car with people I only see once or twice a month? Plus sharing a hotel room?

Yeah, I am a bit too faint of heart for that despite the people in question being very good and dedicated writers.

My plan is to do writing conferences in the coming year and spend the rest of this one finishing up projects and preparing a portfolio of work and querying a few agents via email or letter.

Today, I have lunch in town with Rob after stopping by school to pay fees and hitting the post office – need to get some subscriptions sent off for work related journals. Then a nice workout and home to finish Kumari. I think I might submit it to Apex, but I am not sure if it is dark enough for them. They like their sci-fi/fantasy dark. Says so in their guidelines. But maybe I will let them be the judge of that, eh?

My t-shirt Friday post is still generating a lot of traffic. Perhaps tee’s should be a Friday theme? I don’t want to steal Nurse Myra’s idea out from under though she only does it on the last Friday of the month. I will await reader feedback (and Myra’s thoughts) before deciding.

No hump day hmmm. Julie was busy at the convention in Denver. Perhaps next week.