I'm going down to Alphabet Street
SHUT UP AND LISTEN TUESDAYLesson #2:
Yeah, yeah, yeah ... sometimes social events can be painful and you've got to knock back a drink or five to get through them. Don't worry. Should you ever find yourself in a fancy-shmancy restaurant or at a round dinner table at a wedding with confusing place settings galore, you can still find your bread plate and your water if you are sober enough to remember the alphabet. First, rest your hands in your lap, fingers straight and parallel to your thighs at a 90 degree angle. Your pinky should be touching your thighs and your thumbs pointed upward. It kinda looks like you are doing a karate chop to your thighs. Then, touch your pointer finger (your second finger) to your thumb on each hand. The fingers on your left hand will make a lower case "b", and the fingers on your right will form a lower case "d." B stands for your bread plate, which will be on your left and d stands for your drink, which will be on your right. Just remember to not do this with your hands up. You don't want other diners to think you are flashing gang symbols.
I should have known better
Marin is the land of rich tie-dyed wearung BMW driving hippie liberals, so I should have known better than to wish for a yoga class without chanting and chakras. Yesterday, at my first session of "Ashtanga challenge" at the gym, I knew that I'd be subject to some third eyeing when the instructor started the class by lighting some incense. After sitting with our legs crossed and chanting OM a few times, the teacher started saying prayer in a foreign tongue. When I found myself following her along and saying the words in my head, I realized where I had learned it. Thank you,
Madonna. I never know when the useless talent of knowing all lyrics will come in handy. At the end of the class I had to envision "a thousand petals of light float from my chakras" and then I had to "transmit my chi". Yup. At least the class kicked my ass, and at least it wasn't STINKY GYM YOGA, thanks to the incense. I'm also sore, which is good. Next time I go I will just have to find a way to not laugh to myself when I'm asked to perform chi transmission.
I'm up to date on my query writing schedule, hooray. I finished two queries this weekend, and sending out five today. The way that freelance writing works is that you send out query letters to magazines. The letters are one pagers that essentially say, "Here 's a great story about fill-in-the-blank and why I should write it for you." Because editors get so many queries every day you have to do everything that you can to make the sale succinct, interesting, and irresistible. Newbies like me start out from the bottom - you expect to get rejected a significant number of times. First your rejections are form letters. Then, as you continue to pummel the editor with story ideas he/she begins to recognize your name, and will maybe write a one or two sentence comment on the form rejection letter. Then, you move further up the rejection totem when the editor writes you a handwritten rejection with some suggestions. Eventually, you get what's called a "go ahead", which means that the magazine likes your idea and will pay you to write it. All you really need, says TBF (who once got a go ahead from Cosmopolitan!), is just one go ahead from one big magazine. Once you write one story for a large publication like Self, Glamour, or Parade, the doors open up for you to write for others. *Sigh* And then ... you kiss cubicle life good bye, as you quit your day job and prance off into the sunset to write full time. WOO HOO!
You came in the breeze, like Sunday morning
This morning's NY Times magazine and coffee setlist:
1. Maroon 5/Sunday Morning
2. Ben Folds Five/Kate
3. Justin Timberlake/Seniorita
4. JoJo/Get out
5. Ben Folds Five/Annie Waits
6. Weezer/Island in the Sun
7. Cake/Meanwhile, Rick James
8. Jon B/Don't talk
9. Culture Club/Time
10. Nelly/Hot in Here
11. Beatles/A little help from my friends
12. Cake/Love you madly
13. Dinah Washington/ But not for me
14. Kanye West/ All falls Down
15. Erykah Badu/Love of my life
16. Dinah Washington/Blue skies
17. Beach Boys/God only knows
19. Cake/Shadown stabbing
20. Cibo Matto/King of silence
Talked to Cuckoo last night; her date with Mr. Mystery was "okay". He was nice, but no sparks from her end. Nothing disasterous happened, although when she told him she had to leave and he walked her to her car he kept talking and chatting and Cuckoo had to tell him, Um, I'm leaving now, so I'm going to get in my car. And then he'd chat a little more. Awww ... Mr. Mystery wanted to give her a smooch but was too nervous. Too precious!
Finished a query letter yesterday, so I plan on sending that out today and then writing another one to get back on schedule. Also going to go to REI to buy a yoga mat so I can once again participate in STINKY GYM YOGA tonight. I hate it when the instructor says, "Tale a deeeeeep breath" and all I can smell is feet. Puke. Well, it's all I can afford right now; I'm not about to throw down 20 dollars for a single yoga class so the gym will have to do, as the uber trip to Europe is just around the corner.
This will my first time trying out this class so I am hoping that she doesn't ask me to chant or look into my third eye or align my chakras or any of that crap. I did a class once where the instructor started reading a poem about crystals and then she started banging this mini gong. After the third or fourth banging of the mini gong I just could not handle it so I got up and left in the middle of the verse about "staring through the crystal to look into my inner light."
