Saturday, May 24, 2008
Blogs I Want to Write
1. I want to write my personal credo. Someone told me to do that once. He said everybody should do it.
2. I want to share some of my recipes with you, and particularly, I would love to write a book for college students, or a cookbook about vegetarian recipes for the single person living below the poverty line. Thing is, the recipes aren't always the most nutritious, but they do get you more bang for your buck. Not sure who else would be interested, tho. The key is when you're poor you've got to at least take vitamins. If you can't always afford vegetables and fruit, that is.
3. I've been wanting to write an essay about what it is like to be a feminist in 2008: to participate in heated debates on women's work, the economy, pornography, sexuality, fashion, the portrayal of men and women in the media, the changing and stagnation of values in modern American society, and what it is like to come away from these arguments, or decades-old writings from Esquire, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice, and still feel much like you are trapped in the 60s or 70s, or tangled up in a backlash so many insist is over.
4. I would like to write a blog about some monumental lesson I've learned, except I always think of a) whom I will offend; b) how childish I could make myself out to be or c) what I am still learning, and d) that it would turn out trite, pointless, an oversimplification of a complex issue, or a combination of these.
5. I want to write a poem or a song or a story again.
6. I want to write something about reunions: either the ones I've had on Facebook; or this night out I had with an old friend weeks ago; or the wedding reception I went to last night after a friend I've known for 10 years got married, and seeing how much so many of us changed; or how an old classmate sent me an email off our reunion web site. I hadn't seen her in forever; all it said was, "You're beautiful."
7. I want to write something about music and relationships: like how I listened to this CD someone burned me several years ago after seeing this local Dallas band in concert, and how I hadn't listened to it much since then. How it's this relic from another point in time. Same for mixtapes. I want to write something about the song and the feeling and mixtapes. And write about what it would be like to see a track listing where someone had put one of your favorite songs on a mixtape he made for someone else, and how on the same CD he had put a song that someone had put on a CD for you several years ago as well, and how you then realized you even put one of the songs on a tape that even you had once made for someone else. Because that happened to me recently, and it stung as much as the music ever did on its own.
8. I want to write about what it's like to be equal parts determined as well as terrified about the future. To be shaking in your boots while smiling on the outside and making a laundry list of goals and feeling overwhelmed yet empowered, and asking yourself if you bite off more than you can chew, and then replying in wonder that you've ever been able to live any other way.
9. I want to write something about Katrina or Iraq, two very real and ongoing stories that seem often shut off by the press, in the way that we try to tie things up in neat little packages and not talk about them, not use dirty negative words, not acknowledge the crisis we still face as a nation. I met a woman last night who had been born and raised there, had cleaned out the sludge as she described it from her own home and reclaimed it, but how she doesn't really have any new neighbors yet because so many who lost everything are still rebuilding, slowly.
10. I want to write an ode to Nora Ephron's movies, and many other romantic comedies in general, and how I love them not only for their happy endings; I love them for their subtlety and intelligent humor, for their scenery, for their "alone in your room scenes," for the amazing three-dimensional characters, for the fact that they are hidden jewels under the dusty blanket of the whole "chick flick" genre. Then again, maybe other than blood, guts, explosions, and beautiful women, there's a man out there who wants to write an ode to dick flicks as well. Maybe.
1. I want to write my personal credo. Someone told me to do that once. He said everybody should do it.
2. I want to share some of my recipes with you, and particularly, I would love to write a book for college students, or a cookbook about vegetarian recipes for the single person living below the poverty line. Thing is, the recipes aren't always the most nutritious, but they do get you more bang for your buck. Not sure who else would be interested, tho. The key is when you're poor you've got to at least take vitamins. If you can't always afford vegetables and fruit, that is.
3. I've been wanting to write an essay about what it is like to be a feminist in 2008: to participate in heated debates on women's work, the economy, pornography, sexuality, fashion, the portrayal of men and women in the media, the changing and stagnation of values in modern American society, and what it is like to come away from these arguments, or decades-old writings from Esquire, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice, and still feel much like you are trapped in the 60s or 70s, or tangled up in a backlash so many insist is over.
4. I would like to write a blog about some monumental lesson I've learned, except I always think of a) whom I will offend; b) how childish I could make myself out to be or c) what I am still learning, and d) that it would turn out trite, pointless, an oversimplification of a complex issue, or a combination of these.
5. I want to write a poem or a song or a story again.
6. I want to write something about reunions: either the ones I've had on Facebook; or this night out I had with an old friend weeks ago; or the wedding reception I went to last night after a friend I've known for 10 years got married, and seeing how much so many of us changed; or how an old classmate sent me an email off our reunion web site. I hadn't seen her in forever; all it said was, "You're beautiful."
7. I want to write something about music and relationships: like how I listened to this CD someone burned me several years ago after seeing this local Dallas band in concert, and how I hadn't listened to it much since then. How it's this relic from another point in time. Same for mixtapes. I want to write something about the song and the feeling and mixtapes. And write about what it would be like to see a track listing where someone had put one of your favorite songs on a mixtape he made for someone else, and how on the same CD he had put a song that someone had put on a CD for you several years ago as well, and how you then realized you even put one of the songs on a tape that even you had once made for someone else. Because that happened to me recently, and it stung as much as the music ever did on its own.
8. I want to write about what it's like to be equal parts determined as well as terrified about the future. To be shaking in your boots while smiling on the outside and making a laundry list of goals and feeling overwhelmed yet empowered, and asking yourself if you bite off more than you can chew, and then replying in wonder that you've ever been able to live any other way.
9. I want to write something about Katrina or Iraq, two very real and ongoing stories that seem often shut off by the press, in the way that we try to tie things up in neat little packages and not talk about them, not use dirty negative words, not acknowledge the crisis we still face as a nation. I met a woman last night who had been born and raised there, had cleaned out the sludge as she described it from her own home and reclaimed it, but how she doesn't really have any new neighbors yet because so many who lost everything are still rebuilding, slowly.
10. I want to write an ode to Nora Ephron's movies, and many other romantic comedies in general, and how I love them not only for their happy endings; I love them for their subtlety and intelligent humor, for their scenery, for their "alone in your room scenes," for the amazing three-dimensional characters, for the fact that they are hidden jewels under the dusty blanket of the whole "chick flick" genre. Then again, maybe other than blood, guts, explosions, and beautiful women, there's a man out there who wants to write an ode to dick flicks as well. Maybe.
Labels: Movies, Nora Ephron, Relationships, Writing
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