Perfect Type Casting

Took the progeny to see Rock of Ages last night (and learned that my movie theater has $5 movies on Wednesday nights, yee hah!).  What a fun movie.  No surprises, really--well, there was one little twist involving Russel Brand and Alec Baldwin that had me rolling in the aisle--but still...a very fun movie.

I'm kind of in love with Tom Cruise again a little bit.  What a perfect roll for him to redeem himself from his "You don't know anything about Neuropharmacology, Matt Lauer, I do" idiocy.  There is nothing I love more than a celebrity who doesn't take him/herself too seriously.  At least, I hope Tommy Boy was trying to be ironic. 

There are several intertwining story lines, which fit the "Save the Cat" template pretty nicely, thank you Hollywood.  Tom Cruise was perfect as the narcissistic, scotch swilling, anti-sage.  Axel Rose couldn't have played Axel Rose any better.  If you go to see it, pay special attention to the codpiece in the first Stacee Jaxx scene.  Hil-Air-Ee-Us.  And the tatoos.  And for an old fart, the physique was pretty impressive. 

The boy-meets-girl love story was pretty cheesy, corny, over-the-top, but I think that worked, too.  Cutie Patootie Blue Eyed Sweetie Pie diving into the underbelly of the LA metal scene, and all that. 

Anyway, it was pretty fun.  And next on the movie-viewing-then-reviewing agenda: Magic Mike.  Grrroowwwwl! See you in a week or so...

Just Call Me a Rebel

I am not what one would call a dangerous person.  I don't text and drive (thought I have been known to use my Kindle App in stopped traffic moments). I have a hands-free phone deal in my car.  I have been known to knock over a mail box or two, and I have had a couple of garage doors replaced because I didn't check that the door was up all the way before pulling in, but those were victimless crimes. 

I am especially conscientious in the parking garage.  I HATE having to go up an extra level to find a parking spot when there WOULD have been one on a lower level, except some selfish A%$#*e couldn't be bothered to park straight.




But I have been on some sort of a weird adrenaline-junkie impending peri-menopausal kick lately that has inspired me to learn to shoot, rapel, kayak, zipline...  stuff like that.  And this morning, when I got out of my car and looked at how I'd parked, I saw that I was a little closer to the left line than the right.  Totally unbalanced. 

Not my car.  This is an unpaid actor. Do not attempt this parking style without wildly fluctuating levels of progesterone and estrogen.

And I left it that way. 

How 'bout you?  Anything new and rebellious in your life?



Oh, Deer!

My family is big on the running gag, especially with puns.  Just as I love a good book series, we love a good inside joke that runs through a story.  I wonder why that is?I kind of think that I like inside jokes because it makes me feel like I'm a part of what's going on, I'm "in the know", so to speak.  And I've probably passed this on to my kids.

Of course this comes from my terrible childhood, in which I was that annoying smart kid who probably wasn't really excluded by anyone except the really elite popular kids, all of whom are now living in trailers or are guests of the state.  But I FELT excluded. 

So when I got a little older and started to get a little bit of a sense of humor, I latched on to any thread that I could carry through the day.  Now I'm that annoying not-as-smart woman who tells the same amusing anectdote until she's pretty sure everyone has heard it at least twice. 

So here is the latest in the Stanley Family lexicon of experiences:

Last night, the Big Guy out of town, me home alone in bed, I was about to settle into Still Into You,  the new release by Roni Loren, when my phone rang. It was number two son.  Phone calls from any teenager that come after 10 p.m. are always answered with trepidation.  Phone calls after 10 p.m. when mom is reading smut are met with trepidation and irritation, but that's another post. 

Me: "Hi, Sam"
The Sam Stanley Experience:  "Mom, I hit a deer."

Me, rapidly readjusting my plans for the next hour: "Are you okay, blah blah blah"
TSSE: "I'm fine, but the deer's pretty messed up.  His leg is all flopping around."

Me:  "Call the police, they'll come deal with the deer."

I dragged The Bearded Wonder (AKA number one son) out of bed to come along, because I know he'll remember the name of the towing company that we have a contract with  (Note:  this is not because we have THAT many accidents.  It's because we own a tire and auto repair shop), and he'll be able to assess the damage to TSSE's vehicle. 

I toyed briefly with the idea of bringing along my .22 rifle, because if the police weren't there soon and the deer was in extreme distress, I wanted to be able to put it out of it's misery, but I'm not quite sure what the rules are about hunting still-living road-kill in residential areas.  I DO live in Kentucky, so those rules are a little blurry, but still. 

Anyway.  The Sheriff's deputies in all their extreme cuteness were there, as was the resident of the house with an injured deer and smooshed Honda in it's yard.  The homeowner said if it was colder out, he'd take the deer, but he was tired and didn't feel like gutting it, and his aunt would have a shit fit if she got up and there was a dead deer hanging from a tree in the yard (ya think?).  I have some hunter friends, too, but it was midnight, and didn't figure anyone would want to drag themselves out of bed for this...though I could be wrong.  I'll take a survey and note who goes on speed dial for the next deer collision. 

Anyway.  The car got towed, the report got filed, the cop promised that after we were all gone, he'd take care of Bambi.  I kinda wanted to stick around for that, given my newly discovered inner Bad Ass...not because I wanted to watch the deer die, I just wanted to check out the fire power Deputy Cuteness was carrying.  But we dutifully returned to our vehicle, which was parked in a driveway across the street.

And coming down that driveway was a woman in her late fifties, smoking a cigarette, bleach blonde hair a little bedheady. 

Me:  "Sorry for disturbing you.  My son hit a deer, the police are going to take care of it."
Smoking Lady:  "Where did it come from?"

Me:  "Huh?"
SL:  "Did it come from this direction?"
TSSE:  "Yeah, it came from right about here" (indicates the front yard of Smoking Lady)

SL:  "Oh, no. That was probably one of our babies."
All Three of the Stanleys:  "Uh..."
SL:  "Since they put that subdivision in, destroyed all their woods, they don't have nowhere to go.  So we feed 'em.  Put in a salt lick, too. This year we've got twins that come."

SSE: "It was an accident."
Bearded Wonder: "It was full grown, not a fawn."

SL:  "Well, I sure will miss it."

Oh. My. God.  Okay, yeah, deer are pretty.  I don't like to see them dead.  It's cool to see them when they aren't coming at your windshield,  in the headlights, literally.  But here in the midwest, we have a major over-population issue with deer.  There are more deer around now than there were in Daniel Boone's time.  The subdivision that went in did not reduce any deer numbers.  It gave them a golf course to cavort on, lots of hostas to chew on, but I don't think they're endangered.  And can I just say that if you live near a busy, windy thoroughfare, and you feed deer in your yard, you might be providing more opportunities for teenaged drivers to get in accidents?  ARGH!

Sorry.  I lost the amusing anectdote thread there for a minute. 

We Stanley's got in my car to go home, assuring TSSE that it was an accident, don't feel bad, Deer.  Bambi's with his dad now. 

But I think TSSE is still a little shaken up.  I could use some more deer puns...anyone got any to offer up? 

Whoa! Where the Heck Have I Been?

I can't believe the month of May is nearly over, and I have only blogged once!  I have an excuse...I've been writing my fingers to the bone.  I think I mentioned a while back that I finalled in the
NEORWA Cleveland Rocks Romance contest...well, guess what? 

I WON! 

I placed first in the Contemporary Series category.  Woo Hoo! 

So in between trying to decide what I'll wear for my first appearance on Good Morning America and what to spend my first million on, I've been busily working on that manuscript so I can submit it.  And can I just tell you something? 

It takes a lot of time and mental energy to write a book.  Who knew?  Since I've just been putzing along, writing in my "spare" time here and there, I wasn't really surprised that I hadn't gotten much done.  I just figured out that one day I'd wake up and my  manuscript would be done, and I'd casually spend a weekend editing it, then send it off to my crit partners, then lalalala, maybe submit it to...someone.

The committee in my head spends a lot of time telling me not to bother, I can write tomorrow, or just not to write at all because I suck.  But then I won this nutty contest, and the committee was speechless for a few minutes, and the Self Confidence member (who had been on sabattical) spoke up and suggested that it might be time to get to work and give this a shot. 

So, yeah.  I've been writing.  It is hard work, but it's fun work. 

I'm also slowly coming out of the closet about the writing thing.  Thinking about ditching the Teri Anne Stanley thing and just being Tracy.  But I'll think about that after I figure out what to wear for my first Oprah's Book Club appearance (because, yannoh, she'll have a special episode just for me).

Fly Like a Pig!

Yesterday was the 14th annual Flying Pig Marathon, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's my favorite athletic event in the universe. 

I do not compete.  I do not enter.  I have it on my bucket list, but it's going to go down with the ship. Hopefully not along with the "FINISH a novel" item on the list.  Maybe one day I'll walk the half, but no way in hell will I ever run it, and the full is just not going to happen.  But I love this race.

For one thing, who wouldn't love a marathon named for the fattiest of the fat? Here's a link to the history of the Flying Pig Marathon . It's kind of a funny story.  In brief,   Cincinnati has been referred to as Porkopolis, because of it's heritage involving slaughterhouses and sausage and bacon and stuff.  When other cities were having artists decorate fiberglass horses and cows and things, we did pigs. 

So then, someone had the great idea to have a marathon here, and someone said it should probably be named after pigs, and the Flying Pig Marathon was born. 

I am not one of these people, tho somewhere there exists a picture of me in a pig suit. 

And it's a riot.  It's just a fun, fun time.  I've been volunteering as a Grunt for the past six years. 
In the past, I've run a fluid station (water stop) for runners of the 10k portion of the race. This year I helped at a Party Pit Stop for spectators of the actual marathon.  So not only was I an official Grunt, I was  Squealer Support Personnel.  These are Squealers:

All kinds of famous people participate in the Pig:

 I saw Forest Gump yesterday, but the pictures from this year aren't up yet.  Oh well. 

 Okay, I really don't know who this is, but she kind of reminds me of Chelsea Clinton.

And now we've reached the Finish Swine of this post.  Have a great week, everyone!

Memoirs, Light the Corners of My Mind

A couple of weeks ago, surfing around on Amazon, I came across  Will Love for Crumbs, by Jonna Ivin. It had an intriguing blurb, so I downloaded it. It languished on my Kindle behind a few other things on my TBR pile.  I started it yesterday, and finished it this morning...all I can say is "Wow". 

You know how sometimes you go to a movie, or finish a book, and you can't watch TV or even listen to the radio for a while, because whatever you just experienced is banging around in your head so loudly that you can't hear anything else?  That's what this book is like.  Here's the blurb:

"Raised by an alcoholic mother and without a father, Jonna learned at a young age to put her needs on the back-burner. After her mother dies of cancer, she goes on a spiritual journey looking for enlightenment and a purpose for her life. Eventually, she ends up as a volunteer in the relief effort following Hurricane Ike. There she meets a man that will forever change her life.

 In the swamps of Louisiana and the hills of Arkansas, Jonna follows her heart to build a life with an American hero - a 20 year veteran of the Army Special Forces. Only after uprooting her whole life, leaving everything and everyone she knows behind, do the pieces of this fairytale start to unravel. Realizing the man of her dreams is actually the stuff of nightmares; Jonna must once again go within and discover why she is a woman willing to love for crumbs."

It's always amazing to me that smart, seemingly self-aware women get into situations that baffle them...us.  I have a great life, but it's not perfect (shocking, I know!).  And without dragging any skeletons out of the closet for public viewing, I can say that there were some observations that Ms. Ivins made in this book that really resonated with me. 

Another memoir I love is Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. I read it while I was trying to survive my first year of motherhood (the kid is 19 now, and I'm still not sure I've survived, but I still  contribute to his therapy fund on a regular basis). 

I think that people who can share the moments in their lives that shape them, and do it with humor, are people I want to be around...in real life, and in print. 

That's all! 

A Friday the 13th *SQUEE* for me!

I'm going to toot my own horn here, my friends.  I actually do, occassionally, actually write.  My crit partners, Mary and Dawn, encouraged me to start entering contests.  Which was kind of dumb of them, because that meant that I would be bugging them for more critiquing than usual.  So I have been whipping into shape the first couple of chapters of The Novel That Won't Get Itself Finished by Itself, aka Safe Harbor (which is not a great name, mostly because there are like 50 other romances with the same name out there).  
I entered the NEORWA Cleveland Rocks contest, and guess what?!  I'm a finalist in the Contemporary Series category.  How fun is that? 
I won't know if I'm the Supreme Writer of the Universe for a while, but really...it's an honor just to be nominated. Hey, I'm motivated to finish the next chapter now (really...all future editors and agents who might be reading this...I'm WAY farther along than chapter 3.  Like, I've almost got 4 done...really).