read it and weep (tears of laughter)

this column got me lots of kudo-esque comments…and one critical review. guess which was stickiest.

no matter.

here it is in all it’s glory for my biggest fans to enjoy.

Marriage and Other Difficult Situations (or…Wedded Bliss(ters)

One day I will write a memoir about life with my husband titled, “There’s No Such Thing as a Good Marriage, Only a Long One.”

I write that with my tongue in my cheek hiding behind a crooked smile.

My husband and I have been in (and out of) love for many years. Our good days out number the days when I want to throw him off the roof, so I consider us good for now.

With Valentines Day right around the corner and a family member newly engaged, marriage has been on my mind — not so much my marriage, but just the institution of it.

i stay up all night..i go to sleep watching dragnet

it’s 10:26 p.m. and i’m drinking coffee and listening to my beastie boys pandora channel (thus the title) because i’ve been given the strictest of orders to decide and then set my intentions.

it started with my favorite seer telling me in the most clearest of terms: either do it or don’t do it, but whatever you do, it’s your choice. here are his exact words:

what will it be leo? a time of rampaging ids and slamming doors and lost opportunities? of strange smells and sweeping views of other people’s hells? or will this be the week you finally slip into the magic sanctuary and track down the secret formula? will this be the breakthrough moment when you outmanueuver the “dragon” (his quotes not mine) with that non-violent “weapon” (again, his quotes) you’ve been saving for when it was absolutely necessary? it is really up to you. either scenario could unfold. you have to decide which one you prefer, and then set your intention.

WOW! right? sweeping views of other people’s hell…i mean come on. he may as well have hit me in the chest with a  volkswagon bug.

i’ve been reading that paragraph over and over all day. i printed it out and now have a copy hanging above my monitor. outmanuevering my “dragon” with a non-violent “weapon”?

i called upon my friend joseph to help me better interpret this dragon in quotes. here’s what he told bill when they were discussing the hero’s journey:

“Psychologically, the dragon is one’s own binding of oneself to one’s ego. We’re captured in our own dragon cage.”

HA! That’s it. It’s my freaking ego that’s pulling on my reins a little too tight. i’m to be slaying my dragon with a sword only the sword is a pen and my dragon is my ego. (that damn ego, i say with my jaw clenched in frustration and my fist shaking in anger.)

my ego is my most severe critic and most powerful censor.Don’t write about that. Don’t finish this. Don’t go hang out in your office, watch TV. Eat this. Sleep in. You’re too overwhelmed to give time to superfluous things like a novel that may or may not ever get published or even read by more than three people.

It’s time for my freaking e-go to-go. So this is it. I’m moving past the ridiculous theories my ego has dreamed up about how I am supposed to be (and who I am supposed to be) and what I am supposed to write about. My intention is to live my dreams to the utmost edges of this beautifully grand universe. My intention is to write my story. stories. i can’t control or predict or be overly consumed with how others will take what i write. i just need to write. that’s the one thing i got right off the bat when i read that paragraph early today–my nonviolent weapon is my writing. it has been the one tool that has kept me safe from myself for many many years.

so here we go—let’s hope you’re still reading as this ride i’m on dips a little deeper into the depths of whatever is lurking behind my ego.

Something funny I wrote about my husband

…and me.

it’s about us.

it’s called: Marriage and Other Difficult Situations.

(the peculiar detail i failed to see when i wrote this piece is the numerous food references involved in our fights…you would think i had food issues…)

Come Do The Artist’s Way with me…please!!!

Hi all.

I know, I know. I’ve been less than prolific lately, but I’ve got a plan to get my get-up-and-go back to full speed. I’m going to work through Julia Cameron’s breakthrough creative workbook, The Artist’s Way.

I can’t say (write) enough good stuff about this book. It has impacted my writing life (really, all of my life) more than any other book I have ever read. It’s been over ten years since I first worked my way from beginning to end of the 12-chapter book full of all kinds of writing exercises meant to open up the artistic soul in all of us.

Not only am I working through it, but I’m going to work through it by leading The Artist’s Way continuing education class at IUS. And it’s a deal. I agreed to lead the class for a minimal instructor fee as long as the continuing education department would offer the class for a low-low rate that included the book as well.

It’s only $49 for the first session which is seven weeks long and the $49 includes the book. (Since it’s twelve chapters, the course will spread out over two semesters. ) It’s a Thursday night class scheduled from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

You can register online now at: The Artist’s Way Continuing Education Course

Come on…you know you want to do it! See you Thursday night.

The App that Broke My Iphones Back

Way back in the dark ages when the Iphone was just a rumor spreading around the world wide web, I became fascinated with it. As it got closer to its launch date, I couldn’t read enough about it.

I was watching demos, reading tech blogs, hanging out in chat rooms with people who thought about cell phones a lot more often than I usually did.

And then the day came when I finally made the jump and joined the future.

In the beginning I was enamored with my iphone, like Patrick Dempsey in Can’t Buy Me Love when he finally got the girl of his dreams (even though it was a scheme for her to get money to replace her mom’s leather miniskirt outfit that she had stained with a glass of wine…but, I digress).

But now, my love has changed. My phone is one of the first generation Iphones and is not the speediest of its kin. Downloading email and getting online is more trouble than its worth. Plus, I just feel too connected too much of the time. Do I really need to see if I got any emails between the time it took me to drive from my house to my son’s daycare?

My decision of whether or not to upgrade to the newer, faster, better, more improved version or downgrade to a phone that simply lets me call and text people has me stumped. Do I jump farther into the future? Or do I simplify and read more Deepak Chopra?

I’ve been going back and forth with this for months…until two nights ago when Eric Clapton made my decision crystal clear. TMobile has paid him–what I’m sure is an outrageous amount of–money to peddle a new smartphone…and he has an app.

Eric Clapton has an app.

ENOUGH! Eric Clapton shouldn’t even have a cell phone. It feels wrong and against everything I like thinking about when I think about Mr. Clapton. The only thing I want him holding is a guitar…maybe a microphone…I’d even be okay seeing him sitting on a credenza with a coffee mug. But an app? Really? Before we know it, the pope is going to be tweeting and the Dalai Lama will be hosting webinars. Ugh.

To protest this Eric Clapton app (and apps in general and any commercial or any company or anyone who will ever again say, “there’s an app for that”) , I am going old-school and downgrading to the barest of minimums when it comes to my cell phone. If I didn’t have kids, I’d consider going cold turkey.

So, the next time you see me answer my cell phone, don’t be shocked when I pull out a 1998 blue samsung…I’m going to go hunt one down on eBay right now.

What I Write When I Don’t Know What to Write

Tonight’s news from Wake Forest University’s burn unit ICU caused many a dance party throughout the Southern Indiana area (and all of the Norman nation). It appears my cousin’s surgery exceeded all expectations. His recovery is moving along at God’s speed.

I want to write about the last week; about how we heard the news that our dear, sweet, loving, courageous Norman had been in a fire, but I don’t know how. It’s too soon—it feels exploitative and not my story to write. Even what I’ve written so far feels a bit too much.

But the flip side is that I am consumed by it. While it feels wrong to go on and on about it, it feels just as wrong to write about anything else—as if there’s anything as poignant or significant as what my family has experienced during the last seven days.

It even feels wrong to reference “what my family has experienced” when it is Norman who survived the experience and his parents, sisters, and fiancee who have had to keep front row seats (not that they would choose in a million and one eternities to be anywhere else).

I will say that as dire as the situation started seven days ago, the outpouring of love, of prayer, of connectivity between so very many of us has proven the miracle of it all to me.

Prayers for Norman Silva

My cousin Norman was in a fire in the early hours of Thursday, January 14. He suffered third degree burns on 70% of his body, and the latest news I received from his sister said that he will most likely be spending the next six months recovering in a hospital bed.

I do not say this lightly or for affect: Norman loves life more than anyone I have ever met. He is not scared of living. He has ridden a bike across Oregon, he has rode his motorcycle from the midwest to the west coast (and back again with his dad sitting behind him), he built his home with his OWN HANDS. This is no ordinary man I am speaking of.

Many of you who read this blog know Norman and have already started your prayers for him. For those of you who do not know him or are just now learning about what has happened, please include him in your prayers, positive thoughts, and well-wishes.

If you want to do more, go one-step further by leaving him a note at:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/normansilva/guestbook

all my thanks and love,

amyg

I got top billing for this one

In my current goal of getting more personal with my columns this year, my latest one is a snippet into my alcoholic years. How’s that for diving in head first?

Here’s the article: http://viewfromoverhereblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/45/

(i’m sending you to the blog i write for the tribune to read it because i want to up my stats there…last time they checked readership among their bloggers, i wasn’t first. of course, i don’t like being anything but the winner, so please read it there and up my reader numbers. just like with drinking, if i’m going to do it, i want to do it to the nth degree. and yes, it’s nth…google it, it’s the the maximum amount.)

What would happen…

If some took a deadly disease like eboli, made it as contagious as the common cold and released it?

This is the question I woke up to when I walked out of my bedroom to find my husband watching–surprise–a show on the History Channel called Last Days on Earth.

ugh. I hate shows like this almost as much as I hate any reality show set in Alaska (think Ice Road Truckers).

When I was young, way young, like still playing with my Cabbage Patch dolls and eating bologna and ketchup sandwiches after school young, I remember watching a made for TV movie called The Day After which was about the day after a nuclear war had happened. I was horrified. And then my parents rented a documentary about Nostradamus called The Man Who Saw Tomorrow which pretty much said that whatever happened in that fictional movie would happen…it still bothers me to think about.

Our reality is created by our actions which start with our thoughts. Right now I’m thinking about canceling cable so that my first thoughts of the day aren’t about a deadly disease spreading like a common cold.

on a side note

or sidebar

or, actually, side blog

i’m doing some more writing for the Tribune…yep, I’m blogging for them

check it out at: http://viewfromoverhereblog.wordpress.com/

the angle is living in southern indiana and working in louisville. if you got any topics that fit this niche, give ‘em to me.