10 Things: Unchained

The inspiration for today’s 10 Things came out of the Tim Horton’s coffee can, so it’s a little bit coffee flavored.  I’m itching to make a snarky comment, but I don’t want to influence YOUR 10 Things with my witty banter.  

Join me and play with some words.  

I’m going to prompt you.  You’re going to write down the first ten things that pop into your head when I give you the prompt.  Then you’re going to scroll down to read MY 10 Things, as well as adding yours to the comments, so we can steal story ideas from each other.  Uh, I mean, you know, so we can be INSPIRED by each other.  Yeah, that’s the one.  

Today’s prompt is UNCHAINED. 10 Things. Now.

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MY 10 Things, in no particular order.  

1. My high-school best friend and I calling the oldies radio station over and over, trying to get the DJ to play “Unchained Melody.” Then recording it and singing along with it at the top of our lungs.

2. A monster breaking free of chains in a video game or movie or something. Yeah, vague, I know.

3. Unchained > unhinged > undone > let loose > free > removed from bondage > released

4. A horror movie sequel: “Famous-horror-movie franchise UNCHAINED.” As if it wasn’t bad enough the first ten times.

5. Chains pulling a car, loose and crazy-dangerous looking.  If it came unchained, without steering or brakes, it would careen crazily and crash.

6. Chains in a dungeon.  That scene in Aladdin where he’s held prisoner alongside an ancient man and escapes with the help of Abu the monkey. Chi chi chi chi chichichi

7. The Tale of Despereaux.  Isn’t someone chained down in the castle dungeon in that one?

8. A crochet chain, slowly popping each stitch loose, one-by-one to unchain the yarn.

9. When a necklace or bracelet breaks, it becomes unchained.  The pieces and charms fall free, lost or jumbled.

10. The ball and chain.  An unlinking of things connected.  Distance, divorce, death, dismemberment.  The fracture of the weakest link sundering the connections between otherwise strong parts.  

Whuddya got?  

FAQ: What is the point of those stupid 10 Things exercises?

Some people have been clamoring for answers.  Ok, that’s a lie.  None of you clamor.  But you could.  I would totally listen.  If you were clamoring, I imagine that one of you in that restless mob of readers might ask, What the heck is the point of these 10 Things posts you do?  I’m going to pretend you asked and give you an answer.  You’ll like it too.  If you don’t, try clamoring in the comments.

A couple of years ago at my fabulous local library, I came across Lynda Barry’s beautiful book What It Is.  Part memoir, part guidebook for developing a creative practice, this book is illustrated cover-to-cover with doodles, quips, squiggles, noodles, and blots.  Anyone familiar with Barry’s work as a cartoonist will recognize several of her archetypal characters, including the giant squid and the monkey on the cover.  Barry writes about how she developed her own creative practice, getting herself to write, generating ideas for her writing and her drawing.  She is a strong proponent of writing with a pen (not surprising, perhaps, for a cartoonist), arguing that the physical act of moving the hand is part of the creative process.  She also finds that her ideas are better, and more abundant, when she allows them to come to her rather than trying to think up things.  So, she moves her pen, in doodles or squiggles or by writing the alphabet, until words and ideas come to her.  She keeps the pen moving, and when the ideas get stuck, she simply moves the pen over to a scratch pad, making continuous lines and marks until the ideas start to flow again.  

One section of the book is a sort of workbook, wherein Barry encourages her readers, step-by-step, in developing their own creative practice.  She provides some exercises and guidelines (always keep the pen moving! Use a timer.  Use two timers. Don’t stop the pen.)  The basic unit of Barry’s creative process is to take some prompt (a word, a photograph, a scene from a magazine) and by using a timer for a few minutes and never stopping the pen, to write down the first ten ideas that come to you when you contemplate that prompt.  So you see, my 10 Things exercises are shamelessly stolen from Ms. Barry.  No, not shamelessly.  Proudly.  Whenever I feel stuck, I browse that book, take out a clean sheet of paper and write down ten things.  The exercises don’t stop there, but you’ll have to go read her book to find out what to do next.  

The 10 Things exercise is about shaking loose the cobwebs, getting the ideas moving.  And we don’t have to use random prompts.  Say you’re working on a character, and you’re stuck for ideas about the character’s motivation.  Blank sheet of paper, timer, pen.  Write the first ten things that come to you as you contemplate what your character wants.  It’s ok if they’re absurd (sometimes those end up being the best ideas).  It’s ok if they’re boring.  You don’t have to use them in your story.  You’re just trying to see what floats out of the ether.  Your brain is always composting everything you see and hear and do.  You’d be surprised at the good stuff that bubbles up when you stop and listen.  This shaking-it-loose exercise can work for action or plot or any other level of story development.  OR. And this is a good OR.  Or, it can just be about you, writing down the ideas that are sticking in your brain.  Just to write them down.  Not for a story.  Not for a purpose.  Just like a sort of pen and paper pensieve, to put your ideas down and let you take a look at them. 

As Frau Gruber (neiiighhh) pointed out, it’s sometimes harder than it looks to let the ideas flow.  It takes practice.  But if you’re like me, and you have a million ideas cluttering up your brain, but you can’t always pull out a good one when you need it, this is a good method to add to your writing toolbox.

10 Things: Towel

Apropos of nothing, I just noticed that a surprising number of these 10 Things posts begin with the letter S.  

Rock with me.  Name the first 10 Things that come to mind when I stand on the table and yell TOWEL!  Post those in the comments and then read my 10 Things. Goooooooooooo!

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My 10 Things from TOWEL!

1. DON’T PANIC

2. The soft green TOWELs given to me by the folks at my last high school job, where I worked as a courier.  Still have them.  They get softer every year. 

3. The pile of flowery TOWELs my neighbor gave us when she cleaned up the family hunting cabin.  Use them for everything.

4. The PURPLE TOWEL.  This is my favorite TOWEL of all time.  It’s just so PURPLE.  I think it came from my mother-in-law and it matches nothing, but that makes it even more fabulous.

5. The Terrible TOWEL of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

6. Throw in the TOWEL, if you’re a quitter.

7. Moist TOWELettes.  These make me think of cheap barbecue joints, grandma’s purse, and urine specimens. 

8. Those blue and white, semi-disposable TOWELs.  What are they called?  Jiffy-wipes?  Anyone?

9.  The little TOWELs that hang from football players so they can wipe the sweat from their hands for improved ball handling.  (Read that one with your mind in the glitter, folks, it’s much more exciting)

10. Drying a car w/an old TOWEL after a carwash.  That is, if you don’t happen to have a soft, old, cloth diaper lying around to rub the car.  

What are your TOWEL gems?  Don’t leave me here, crying in my TOWEL wondering. 

Meme: 15 in 15, albums that stick with you

EDITED BY THE EDITOR TO INCLUDE THIS EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a VERY long and self-indulgent post.  Read it only if you are procrastinating. Thank you. -Ed.

Over on Facebook, Cab posted a meme recently.  Usually I resist the memes (and the games), but this one had impeccable timing and I couldn't pass it up.  This one was too much like my 10 Things Game.

15 in 15, Albums

"The rules: Don't take too long to think about it - choose fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. (These aren't favorite albums, necessarily, just the fifteen that will always stick with you.)"

Please play along.  Leave your own list or a link or observations in the comments down below.  

I couldn’t stop at fifteen, and it's my blog so you can’t make me.  Annotating the list turned into a lovely reflection on my 37th birthday.  I present the albums to you in the order they occurred to me.

 Jeff Buckley - Grace (Legacy Ed.)

A few years ago I saw a video of Buckley singing Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah," and it moved me.  I vaguely remembered Buckley, especially “So Real,” and went hunting for more songs by him.  This naturally led me to stories about his death.  I read the biography about Buckley and his dad, Dream Brother.  Inspired by the potential for myth surrounding his death, and by several of his songs, I wrote my first screenplay.  My story is not about Buckley, but questions about Buckley at the tenth anniversary of his death motivate the main character, and Buckley is present as a shadowy/imagined figure in several brief scenes.

Fastball - Painting the Corners

The year after I graduated from college I drifted a bit and spent several months working as a retail chick in a souvenir gift shop.  When I got myself together, I applied to graduate school and ended up in Pennsylvania.  That year in San Antonio, the first year Partner and I were married, I spent a lot of time in motivational limbo, wandering and wondering about different paths I might take.  Hearing “The Way,” the most popular song by Austin band Fastball, always makes me think of that year.  “You’re An Ocean” and “Fire Escape” are two of my favorite love songs.  “I believe I’d buy whatever you would sell to me” indeed.

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

When Partner and I first started dating, we spent a fair amount of time drinking and dancing.  In Las Cruces at that time, our favorite local band was Ulcer, made up mainly of engineering geeks.  Their music started out on the computer, and live instruments came later.  NIN influences were heavy.  When we weren’t out with Ulcer, we sometimes went to a club in El Paso.  (NM Aggies, what was the name of that club? Had a number in it? 101?)  One rainy night, the club was fairly empty and the bartender took an interest in us.  He kept us drinking and moving on the dance floor, and I think he’d have taken us both home if we’d let him.  He had the DJ play “Closer” for us several times that night.

Erasure - The Innocents

A good friend in high school gave me this album on cassette.  I still have that cassette, and I think of him anytime I hear a song from the album.  I often listen to this one (on the computer now, not the cassette player) when I’m in an upbeat mood, or at least trying to get myself into an upbeat mood.

Hayes Carll - Trouble in Mind

This album is my Now album.  I’m finding the humor and honest emotion of several songs inspirational. “Drunken Poet’s Dream” and “It’s a Shame” are my absolute favorites here, though I would never pass up a chance to listen to “I Got a Gig.”

The Beatles - The White Album, CD2 and Queen’s Greatest Hits, CD1

One of our birthday rituals is to play “Birthday” (very loud) for the birthday person, but we always leave the album playing while we have cake.  Queen is in the big CD player right after The Beatles, so the two albums go hand-in-hand for family celebrations.

The Commitments Soundtrack

When you’ve spent fifteen years with a person, a lot of albums will be remind you of that person.  This one goes back to those pre-married, having-sex-all-the-time days, but this one isn’t about sex.  Partner and I often watched movies with friends from the lab.  The Commitments was a repeat favorite, and I used to know Jimmy’s “interview” speeches in the bathtub by heart.  Besides, it's a great collection of music.  Harvey Keitel theme-nights were also popular.  Imagine watching Taxi Driver, Bad Lieutenant and The Piano in the same night.

Golden Earring - The Continuing Story of Radar Love

Once upon a time, when this band came on the radio, there would be a quiz.  Partner would ask anyone in earshot to 1. name the band, 2. name their other hit, and 3. name the number of years between the hits (answers at the bottom of the post).  He did it so much, that several people we knew would automatically answer the questions without prompting when the songs came on the radio.

Cake - Fashion Nugget

I just love this album. Quick poll, are all Cake songs about sex?  Yay or nay?

No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

I want to be Gwen Stefani when I grow up. Ok, no. This is another college album that I associate with empowerment and independence and a particular time of change in my life.

Deep Blue Something - Home

Deep Blue Something is a Denton, Texas college band and Home is a quintessential college album.  After about a year of dating and hedonism, Partner and I separated for several months.  No, separated makes it sound like we didn’t see each other.  Let’s just say we moved apart and spent a few dark months being stupid.  I saw Deep Blue Something at the NMSU Student Union by myself.  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” made me cry.  I’m not sure what woke us up to (my) our stupidity, but a few months later we decided to move to San Antonio together.  On a whim, we got married first.

Prince - 1999

When I was about twelve or thirteen, my aunt gave me a bootleg cassette of Prince albums.  I was horrified and thrilled to find a track called “Irresistible Bitch” and thought my aunt was THE coolest person in the world.  She is still rad and I have loved Prince ever since.  1999 is my favorite Prince album.  Purple Rain is a close second, and in middle school I could frequently be found reciting the Dearly Beloved speech from the beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” to my bathroom mirror.

The Best of ZZ Top, or perhaps Deguello

ZZ Top is all about Dr. Hoffman and his organic chemistry lab at the end of the hall at NMSU.  I worked in there with Caleb, another undergrad who was trouble then but a dentist now, and Naresh, a post-doc who thought we were crazy, lazy, spoiled American kids.  All true.  I had a pair of cheap sunglasses at the time.  But never a Pearl Necklace.

Paul Simon - Graceland

This album always makes me feel good.  “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” is one of my favorite songs.  I think it’s the resonant sound of the guitar on the whole album that gets me.

Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle and Dave Matthews Band - Crash

 On Facebook I listed Under the Table and Dreaming, but I switched albums because the songs on Crash remind me of the great group of people I worked with at Blockbuster Video and WaldenSoftware. Together with the Rock Spectacle, these songs remind me of the best parts of those months of darkness and stupidity.  Brian, Erin, Tony, Hector, Cab, Steve, Jason, and several others I can picture but whose names are not coming to me.

Melissa Etheridge - Your Little Secret

This one reminds me all about Partner and the first apartment we lived in together.  And our roommate who had a nervous breakdown.

INXS - Kick

In middle school, my favorite media included this album and Top Gun (the movie and its soundtrack).  Michael Hutchence may or may not have been involved in my earliest sexual fantasies.  But I’ll never tell.

G Love and Special Sauce - Philadelphonic

I discovered G Love in graduate school in Pennsylvania.  I love the mellow, groovy, funk and the playful lyrics.  I used “Rodeo Clown” to demonstrate a rhetorical analysis activity with some college freshmen once.

Joe Ely - Letters to Laredo (or anything by the Flatlanders)

Ely grew up in the Texas panhandle, and much of his music and that of his other band The Flatlanders is evocative of the wide open spaces and the cultural flair of New Mexico.

Spin Doctors - Pocket Full of Kryptonite

“Jimmy Olsen Blues” is a sexy song.  "Two Princes" reminds me Dave.

New Order - Substance

This album is wrapped up in memories of two high school boyfriends.  More one than the other since he was The First and I still have the mix-tape he made me that finishes with “Blue Monday.”  Great tape.  The Beatles, Dead Kennedys, Modern English…. Very eighties.

Smash Mouth - Fush Yu Mang

During my third year at NMSU, within a year of graduating with a B.S. in Biochemistry so I could go go medical school, I changed my mind.  My grandfather died.  My estrangement from my father escalated.  I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.  Blame grief.  Or blame my awesome Chaucer prof.  I finished the B.S., but took an extra year to finish the credits for a dual degree and earned a B.A. in English as well.  One of the best decisions I ever made, and I did it with “Walking on the Sun” playing on the radio over and over again.  Though the awesome prof once told me that Smash Mouth was too derivative for his taste.

Morrissey - Years of Refusal

This is another album about where I am Now, in this transition back into my own work, separate from my mothering identity.  I’ve written about this one before here.

They Might Be Giants - Flood

I will always think of my best friend in high school when I hear any song by They Might Be Giants.  These are the songs we shouted as we skipped arm-in-arm through high school.

Guns ‘n Roses - Appetite for Destruction

High school.  Driving too fast, being too loud.  The back of the band bus.  The drummers.  Yeah, the drummers.  And, grudgingly, the co-opting of “Welcome to the Jungle” for every major sporting event.

U2 - Joshua Tree

The summer when I was ten, I went to California with my sister and grandmother to visit my cousins, aunt and uncle.  My cousin, a few months older than me, was obsessed with this album and in the throes of his first major crush.  He played it non-stop the whole time we were there.  San Diego is “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

Everclear - Sparkle and Fade

If you’ve followed me on Twitter for any length of time, you might know that I’ll tell you that this one is about upbeat college nihilism, right?

Rick Springfield - Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet

I had a hardcore preteen crush on Rick Springfield, circa “Jesse’s Girl,” and this album is the first one I ever bought with my own money.  I made my dad take me to the mall so I could get it.

Ronco’s Funnybone Favorites

I played Rick Springfield and this album endlessly on my little red and white portable record player.  “Get out of here with that dun dun duh, and don’t come back no more!”  It includes novelty hits from the seventies, all of which I can still sing for you if you want (you don’t).  “Alley Oop,” “Stranded in the Jungle,” “DISCO DUCK”!!!!  Good times.

Observations and reflections:

1. More albums in this list remind me of college than of any other time in my life. 

2. I didn’t include a single mention of my children, unless you count The White Album.  If I added albums associated with my kids, I’d throw in Skip Ewing’s BKB, especially the song “Indian Elephant Tea,” or either album by Gnarls Barkley.  

3. Unsurprisingly, Dan, my Partner of fifteen years and Spouse for a lot of those, features in many entries. 

4. Music and sex belong together. 

5. I'm having a good life.  

Answers to the quiz: 1. Golden Earring, 2. Radar Love or Twilight Zone (there were only two), and 3. ten years.  

10 Things: Cheese (Bonus Thing!)

I’ve scraped an old 10 Things out of the notebook.  So you could say that today’s 10 Things is aged, moldy even.  I reproduce it here unedited, AS IS, with only one word corrected for spelling.  

If you’re new to 10 Things, here’s how it works.  I’ll give you a PROMPT, then you’ll write the first 10 THINGS that arrive in the forefront of your mind when you contemplate that prompt.  You can do it quickly or you can SAVOR the contemplation and take your time.  Either way, put YOUR 10 Things down there in the comments and then read what I came up with back in May.  I’ll leave a little no-spoiler space here, so that you aren’t accidentally influenced by MY 10 things.  

Why do I do this?  To stimulate the writing brain cells.  Call me a Fairy Inspiration-mother, but only if you mean it in a nice way.  

Ready for the PROMPT?

CHEESE!!  Go go go.

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1. Mouse, mousetrap, cheese, and peanut butter.

2. Pizza with stringy, melted mozzarella.

3.  String-cheese sticks. Is that even really cheese?  Seriously.  

4. Cheese and crackers!! (as a snack AND an exclamation)

5. Cheesy. As in campy or groan worthy.

6. Cheesy.  As in seedy, seamy, holey, or of low quality.

7. A child hamming it up for the camera, so much that it’s not just ham, but ham AND cheese.

8. Say cheese for the camera.  Or parrot.  That creepy school photographer trying to get you to smile.

9. Cheese, it’s what’s for dinner.  No, wait, that’s for Beef.  Ah. Behold! The power of cheese!

10. The man in the moon.

11. (Bonus Cheese!) “Do my hands smell like cheese?” A line from a forgotten sitcom with that actress, what’s her name, from Moonlighting? Oh yes, Cybill Shepherd.  

Your turn.  Spill your cheese!