Hurts so good

I'm going to let you in on a little secret about me: I love pain. I'm not talking about the strap-me-in leather-and-tie-me-up kind of pain*, but the kind that slowly chinks away at your ego. Yup, you got it: I play Scrabble. 98 letter tiles, 2 blanks, millions of combinations that somehow I can just never find. Limitless self-loathing.

My friend, Ed, keeps starting up Scrabble games with me on Facebook, and like a good little Bottom, I keep accepting. His first word usually tops 40 or so points. And I counter with something like "made" - 12 points [not actual score. I don't know if I mentioned I am also the foremost expert in creative scoring. See also, golf]. Currently, Ed and I are 4 words each into our latest game. And I'm about to reveal the humiliating truth: Ed, 110; me: 67.

Yesterday I logged back on to the game to put my word in. And as I moved the tiles to the board (IS, AM, JAM???), my hand suddenly released the mouse and my eyes moved to the table listing my and Ed's stats. Finally all the games, all the losses, the ranking that places me somewhere between a drooling parasite and Dubya. In response my hand goes back to the mouse, shaking I realize how Ed has systematically been destroying my very being. And I click PLAY WORD. 6 points. I stand poised and ready to be whipped again.

*Which reminds me of that time I treated my own cavity with a red-hot needle, but that's another story.

Writer's blargh

Writing is not hard. I mean, everybody does it - they have their blogs, tweets, Facebook updates. So why do I have to wrestle with words everytime I try to write anything. Case in point - I wrote that first sentence an hour ago. See? Once I start it's easy, but words and I have a very contentious relationship. For one, I don't like what I write. Ever. Well, I do at first. Start to think I'm the next Hemingway... until I go back and read it and think it's a steaming pile of overly ponderous poo.

You know, Words. We don't have to fight all the time. I will ease my stranglehold on you if you just try to relax a bit more. See, we CAN work together.

Now if we can both ease up, I can go on to my next point: Total avoidance. This is the third or fourth time I've checked up on my blog in the last several months. I've thought several times about adding a new post, then I (a) find something - anything - better to do or (b) is that a squirrel? And yet nothing has been updated. Turns out no one is going to write it for me. So what's the point of it? I'm starting to see how my job as an editor has turned me into a desconstructor of writing, not the creator. So now it's time to get creating again.

Thus I present my 2010 this-time-I-won't-be-a-slacker declaration of self-blogging: You'll see me again. Soon. Or later. But I'll be back.

Resurrection of the five star

More than 4 years have passed since my last post, which, let's be honest, was not that stellar or scintillating. Still, re-reading the entries gave me some great memories of a couple of past lives - when did I ever live in southern France? In that sprawling garden specked with palm trees and hugged by a 6-foot stucco wall that Oliver seemed to scale without the least bit of effort. The barbecue terrace roofed by a criss-crossing of grape vines and a twinkling string of dragonfly lights. The images are in my mind, the photos filed deep somewhere in a folder called 2005. How was it that I lived there? And how is it that I'm now stuck in this most pedestrian of a life, back in the U.S., a 9-5 temp job, most of my French forgotten?
Which brings me to the resurrection - the revival of the five star. My inspiration for "Wanna be a five star" is here, but now, in the middle stretch of my early 30s (please can we just stop counting birthdays now??) my five stars have taken on a whole new meaning. My five stars are not about languages, they are not five countries or the five office days a week that lie as an obstacle between me and the weekends. Five stars, my friends, continues to be the setting of goals, the personal challenge I always meant it to be, but now that challenge is much different, much more profound -- at the moment, the challenges are not entirely known to me, the outcome even less certain.
I have my Master's degree, I have a vague idea of what I want to do, I have no idea where I want to be, or where I will end up. But for the moment, the challenge lies ahead. The 9-5 drudgery or the infinity of possibilities? Only the stars know for sure.

Lost inspiration

I found this incomplete entry under "drafts," and since this is the first time in 4 years I've even logged onto my blog account, I had no idea it was here. I'm so intrigued, I wonder what great, cold-medicine induced thought inspired me to write this post. It was called simply: "Frenadol Inspiration", dated 8/23/05.

I got one of those nasty summer colds which are always blamed on 1. air-conditioning or 2. "change in air pressure". Wherever it came from, I'd like it and all of its brain-filling mucus to go away -though it did allow me to take a 1/2 off from work and yet another excuse to not go to the gym (I've now put going to the gym off for 23 days, the last effort was foiled by my forgetting to bring workout pants. argh). Anyway, I am taking Frenadol, which is the worst-tasting cold medicine you can find, and may have no effect whatsoever on the actual cold symptoms. It does have paracetamol (acetominophen) and caffeine, which makes my headache go away and makes sure I'm awake to enjoy it. Last night I couldn't go to sleep, so I blame it on Frenadol. But while I was laying there, I started thinking about