Three Things Thursday: Whatcha Watch

This week's theme is:

Three Things About What You Watch.

Now, this theme is primarily about things you watch on the TV, but I'm afraid I am going to have to deviate from that just slightly.

Ahem.

1.) I don't really watch TV. Apart from the occasional event-oriented show where the watching is in conjunction with a regular get-together (a-la American Idol with my parents), I find I simply can't make time for it. BUT if I did have time, I would watch The Office and Arrested Development, because they are both hilarious. I can sometimes make room for shows on DVD, which was how I watched LOST in college, and also how I fell in love with Flight of the Conchords and, yes, Sex & the City.

(photo source)

2.) I do, however, try to make time for movies. Because I love them. I tend toward the epic ones (see Teenage Three Things Thursday for more embarrassing information), the fairy tales, the artful ones, and the book-to-movie translations. The ones I can watch over and over are: The Princess Bride, LOTR, Pride & Prejudice, Harry Potter, Stardust, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Pink Panther (Peter Sellers), O Brother, Where Art Thou?, You've Got Mail, Finding Neverland, and Peter Pan.

(I have also been known to publicly sacrifice my dignity in order to gaze at Robert Pattinson's face for two hour stints in movie theaters and at home.)

3.) One of the primary reasons I don't make time for TV is because I spend so much time watching live home entertainment. Ophelia (my Muse Dog) and Severus (her cat) were both deposited on this earth by aliens because they were too weird for Outer Space, and therefore they tend to do very entertaining things.

Here are some:

This was a failed attempt to take a picture with Ophelia about two years ago. Last year I made matters worse by adding Severus to the mix.

He likes to dance. We're thinking of trying out for Dancing With Cats:

(In case you can't tell, that's us on the right. We're almost as good as the professionals on the left, though. Never you mind that I'm actually holding a ribbon to get him to dance...)

Frequently, these two wackos combine their oddities and go rocketing around the apartment in a frenzy of madness. As you might expect, there is very little need for television in the face of such entertainment. And then, of course, there are books the TV would have to contend with...

Your turn! Share what you watch. Do you prefer movies or TV, or maybe just the birds out the window? Or is reading and writing your mental TV? Let us know in the comments.

Teenage Three Things Thursday

Today's Three Things Thursday is a great one for those of us who write YA and Teen lit.  The theme is: Three Things About Your Teenage Years.

(Go see Amie at i AM alive to join the fun.)

I was a pretty dorky teenager.  I mean, I'm a pretty dorky 24 year-old, but my teenage years were full of me bumbling around trying to figure out a.) who I was, and b.) who I wanted to be.  So.  Here are my three things.

1.  I was obsessed--and I mean OBSESSED--with The Lord of the Rings.  The first movie got me hooked, and soon I was reading and re-reading the books, blaring the soundtracks nonstop, writing fanfiction (yeah, I did), doing Tolkien-themed English projects with gusto, scrap-booking, and even occasionally dressing up like an elf.  IN HIGH SCHOOL.  Like I said, huge dork.  The Return of the King film came out right around my birthday, and my best friend and I made shirts to go to the midnight showing.  I cried so hard at the end--no, WEPT so hard--that my little rocking movie chair was swinging like a carnival ride, and made it difficult for the poor souls behind me to exit the theater.

2. I played softball from elementary school up until my junior year of high school, which really throws people for a loop if they didn't know me at that time.  (I don't strike most people as being terribly athletic.)  But I was a pitcher, which worked well because I have these long, skinny arms which can be used as a kind of trebuchet or windmill, giving me all kinds of leverage.  By the time I quit playing, I was throwing that ball at sixty miles per hour.  Pretty good for an un-athletic clumsy girl.

3.  More pertinently, sixteen was the age I first started writing in earnest.  I remember sitting with my best friend in one of our new (old, junky) cars, telling her about all the stories I had in my head, and how I would play them out like movies as I was falling asleep at night, and daydream about them in class. 

Instead of calling me crazy, she looked at me and said, "Why don't you write them down?"

I think I laughed.  Me?  Write books?  Of course, I'd done that in elementary school, but that was different.  This would be trying to write a real book.  Well, I tried it.  I wrote in notebooks until I could afford a laptop, and then transcribed and edited all the way up through my freshman year of college.  That book, naturally, will never see the light of day, but it was my tricycle.  It was what taught me to write, and showed me how much I loved it.    

What about you?  What things stand out to you from your teenage years?  How did they shape the person you are now?

Three Things Thursday: The Pet Edition

Amie McCracken at i AM alive hosts a weekly funfest called Three Things Thursday, in which she and everyone fabulous that she knows posts three things about themselves on a certain topic.

(I'm sneakily lumping myself into the category of Fabulous People that Amie Knows. Bahaha.)

Today's theme is three things about the pets you've had. I hope you'll go on over and participate, because this is a fun subject.

1.) My first "My Very Own" pet was a beagle named Maggie. She was my eighth birthday present, and I thought she summed up everything that was good and beautiful in the world. (I should add here that I was unreasonably obsessed with dogs as a child. As in, I had a sweatshirt featuring a picture of every well-known breed which I wore every day, as well as pink shoelaces that read, I ♥ MY BEAGLE.) Maggie was the protagonist of every story I wrote between the ages of eight and twelve--believe me, there were a lot--and she lived until I was twenty-two.

2.) I once had a hermit crab named Janie. Her story is a tragedy. She was a dear little crab, and so cooperative and resilient that she suffered a family road-trip all the way to Florida and back. But not long after said road-trip, Janie molted. And since the crab she shared a tank with was somewhat unfriendly, I assumed the worst: I thought he'd ripped her limb from limb. Carefully, tearfully, I placed her in a ziplock baggie and buried her outside. Several months later, though, I found the severed limbs of the murderous crab... and he was the only one in the tank. Upon closer inspection of these "severed limbs," I discovered that they were merely shed skins. I realized then that I was the murderer.

3.) My current pets are, I think, extraterrestrials. That isn't to say that I'm not weird myself, but Ophelia and Severus require new measuring techniques to gauge their strangeness. Let me explain.

Ophelia was a stray, which might account for her tendency to eat things that aren't meant to be gobbled down. Like zinc tablets, and quilts, and my favorite purses, and bottles of paint. However, being a stray does not explain her love of swinging a heavy combination bike-lock around in circles like some kind of deadly lasso, or her tendency to approach the water-dish at a run and plunge both feet into the water rather than her mouth. Nor, in fact, does it shed light on her penchant for affectionate (and painful) wrist-bites, or her desire to be draped over person's neck like a mink stole. I could go on, but I'll spare you.

Severus's weirdness probably goes back to the fact that I got him for Ophelia. (Like I said, I have no shortage of weirdness, myself.) But he was confused from the start because, not only was he being raised by a dog, but his name kept changing. Because for some reason, I just couldn't stop calling him Catten. (As in, not quite a cat, not really a kitten anymore...) So now he is Severus sometimes, and Catten most of the time. And his way of dealing with this identity-crisis is to sit around on his back with his legs splayed like an exhibitionist, or in the worst-case-scenario, to fall one story from my balcony and land in a holly bush. Or, as you can see, to be a total ham for the camera.

Now that you know more than you ever wanted to know about my pets, I hope you'll go visit Amie and participate yourself! Or, if you feel so inclined, I'd love to see your weird pet stories in the comments.

(Also, the Mockingjay discussion is still open, so feel free to join in if you've read the book.)

Happy Thursday!

1 gold flake, 3 Things Thursday, & 1 Hot Dog

Last week, I promised gold nuggets.

But since today is Three Things Thursday (hosted by Amie at i AM alive), today's gold nugget will be more like a gold flake; a teaser, if you will. I promise I'll share more about all the fabulous things I learned at Chautauqua really, really soon. But in the mean-time, let this little kernel of glittery goldness sparkle in your palm for a while:

(This came from writer/editor Patricia Lee Gauch during a general session on Tuesday, July 20.)

"Transcending [in writing] is rising through a mischief of words and hitting your mark."

Isn't that glorious? There's oodles more where that came from. Stay tuned, Dear Reader, because we'll have more golden writerly goodness coming your way before you can say California Prospector. For now, though, let's join Amie in celebrating Three Things Thursday. Today's theme is: three things about your childhood that make you who you are. (If you'd like to participate, go visit Amie's blog and jump in!)

Here are my three things:

1. My imaginary friend was a red squirrel called Chippy. He ran alongside the car everywhere my family went, and entertained me in math class when I was too frustrated with my numerical ineptitude to pay attention anymore. To this day--despite knowing that they are overpopulated, diseased vermin--I have a soft-spot for squirrels.

2. My favorite thing to do in the back-yard was to wander around through our evergreen trees and pick the small, frosty-blue berries so I could combine them with mud, leaves, and crape-myrtle buds in an old bowl to make a magical stew. This gave way to a penchant for weird Celtic mythology.

3. I once led my neighbor friends to the doorstep of an old house that I thought was abandoned, planning to introduce an exciting new place to play. As I reached for the doorknob, the door swung open to reveal a livid old woman I would later swear was a witch, who screeched after us about calling the police even as we sprinted for our lives back down the street. Now, when I walk Ophelia, I hate tiptoeing into people's lawns to pick up after her because I'm afraid they'll come running out, bellowing threats.

That's my three! And speaking of Ophelia, my roommate's friend Adri (who is a fab photographer) took this photo of my little spotty-dotty the other night. Ophie's usually not very photogenic, but I like this one.