some days the galaxy conspires with me.

either that, or i’m so self-absorbed i see whatever i’m looking for.

whichever way it is, i’ll enjoy it, appreciate it, and tell you about it . . .

to sneak up on the day, i opened the book An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor who captured my attention and affection with just the title of her first book, Leaving Church. anyway, the book fell open to page xvii where barbara writes about being asked to go speak to a church in alabama. when she asked the priest what he wanted her to preach about, he said “come tell us what is saving your life now.” well, that must’ve ignited something cause when i sat down to write in my journal about 30 minutes later, i pitched a written hissy fit. a good, old-fashioned out-and-out hissy fit. then i tweeted about it, and wound up twalking to some gals i’ve either never twalked to before or don’t get to talk to that much. @happinessinside twasked what my plans were for the day, and when i told her i did have plans for the day, but i just didn’t know what they were, she asked if i was perhaps on the cusp of writing my story today. which tells me she was lurking closeby.

~|~

@efloraross, asked if i felt better to which i said that starting the day off with a hissy fit gives a whole new meaning to the term morning constitutional. then later i gave her advce on dressing for preschool interviews:

@efloraross: Taking DD to tour another preschool today. Guess I’d better brush my teeth and put on some makeup, huh?

@whollyjeanne: for preschool: yes. for high school: no.

@efloraross: A bra would probably be in order, too.

@whollyjeanne: ditto for what i said about makeup.

she’ll no doubt be consulting me daily about what to wear.

~|~

@mrsmediocrity said she has volumes filled with her hissy fits. (she’s usually much pithier, but she had trouble waking up this morning.)

~|~

@nicholebernier said: “Venting 301. The FDA recommends it.” now i want you to click on and visit her web site. go ahead. i’ll wait. did you see that she’s working on a book about a woman who leaves behind a diary? well, naturally, i couldn’t let that slip by, so i asked her if elizabeth d ever had hissy fits in her journals to which she replied: “There’s nothing good about a journal unless you can pitch a few fits & tell where the bodies are buried. Probably early 2012.” (you’ll note that she didn’t answer my question about elizabeth d recording her hissy fits, but in answer to my question about when her book would be out, she did tell me that i’m gonna’ have to wait over a year on her book. which is okay cause i’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. i mean go back and read about it. and look at those pictures while you’re there.

~|~

@abccreativity told me: “i love starting my days like that! those hissy fits sparked big life changes for me.” and that got me remembering a tweet from my friend @angelakelsey the other day when i showed a picture of my still-new zafu made of brocade with dragons spitting fire and said i got it on account of wanting to sit on my dragons. “@wholllyjeanne,” she said, “the best part about dragons is the fire.” then she said, “write, speak, paint, photograph, quilt, sing the fire.”

now that made good sense then, and it made good sense to remember it today cause we all know that throwing a hissy fit is a lot like exhaling fire.

~|~

before long, i spied a tweet from @Wendy_Tokunaga mentioning a new lit review called The Sharp-Tongued Woman’s Review, and since i seem well on my way to becoming a class-a sharp-tongued woman, i visited the site and helped spread the word a bit cause i sure liked what i found there. (you oughta’ take about 5 minutes and read meg’s schneewittchen.)

~|~

the morning was capped off with a tweet from @elizabeth_stark with a link here. i once again copied my friend @angelakelsey and took down the sticky note on my computer saying “comma” and replaced it with one saying “write like a mf.” which is what i really want to do anyway, you know.

Second helpin's:

1. different branches? trees? forests?
2. will all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s women be up to it this time?
3. the road to self-actualization is paved with potholes

today, instead of straining myself to make complete sentences, i’m going to just share a (blessedly) little word jewelry. little sparklies i’ve picked up here and there along the way. feel free to bauble amongst yourselves . . .

itinerant: nomadic, wayfaring, roaming. (un huh. yep.)

vug: small cavity in a rock. often lined with crystals of a different material. (the meaning sounds better than the word sounds, don’t you think?)

upsilamba: from Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading (which is something i’ve been thinking about doing a lot lately.) (beheading, i mean.) (with or without an invitation.) a fanciful word meaning “a bird or catapult with wondrous consequences.” (which is what we would be enjoying right about now were i not so self-disciplined.)

gnostical turpitude: also from Invitation to a Beheading. a vague crime that apparently has something to do with a disregard for matter. the only reason for invoking this decree is to force conformity. it is a crime committed by those who insist on being different, who refuse to assimilate. (yes, i have already paid my fine.) (okay: fines.)

antevasin: sanskrit word meaning one who lives at the border. (if you happen to go there and if you happen to spot my brain, tell it i said hey and maybe point in my direction, will ya?)

opsimath: one who begins learning later in life. (i’m still waiting to be an opsimath.) (or should i say, i’m still waiting to opsimath?)

tiferet: hebrew meaning beauty, a reconciliation of opposing forces. (check back tomorrow to see it used in a sentence or fourteen.) can represent the place where spiritual and physical realms meet. (it’ll be used in a different context tomorrow, i assure you.)

eu: good. (i tell you what: when we say ewwww around here, we do NOT mean good.)

koru: the unfurling as of a fern; new beginnings; good things. (here’s hoping we’ll see a post filled with a little more koru here tomorrow.)

Second helpin's:

1. my day, in 1 (well, 5 actually) sense(s) of the word
2. costume jewelry
3. the graveyard shift

show me a “hello my name is” sticker, and i’ll show you a full-blown panic attack.

call it fear of commitment.

call it fear of pigeon-holing.

call it fear of too much revelation.

whatever you call it, i loathe creating my own nametags. loathe it, i tell you.

i recently (during blogher 2010, to be more specific) decided to go to blogher 2011. so there i was minding my own business, filling in the blanks when up came the dreaded what-do-you-want-on-your-nametag question. stopped me dead in the water. for 45 angst-filled minutes, i labored over whether to use my first name (jeanne), my twitter name (@whollyjeanne) or my full name (jeanne hewell-chambers or just jeanne hewell, depending). (no, not impending or even considered divorce, just a stage in the evolution of moi.)

well, i eventually hammered out something – and i’d tell you what i decided, but i can’t remember and it wasn’t included on the receipt, so i’ll be just as surprised as you are when i see you in san diego next august.

now let’s zoom forward to last night when i was roaming around in the blogfield and stumbled onto this recap of blogher 2010. notice anything? there, just under the chocolate and above the whipped cream. i’ll give you a hint: her nametag has HER PICTURE on it.

true: she’s the bloggess, and everybody knows that she’s a rock star while i’m a forming-pebble, but geez. i’d have those 45 minutes of my life back to spend angsting about something else if i’d've known i could include a picture of my blogging self.

i’m over it now. have already made my diy nametag packing list and am resigned to schlepping an extra suitcase for my portable printer, ink cartridges, markers, glitter, rhinestones, synonym finder, baby name book, and various other creative supplies. so hey, if you get there and want a nametag makeover, look me up. i’ll be the one wearing a red carnation . . . which, with my luck, will wilt just enough to cover up my specially-created handmade nametag.

Second helpin's:

1. made some new friends on the twitter playground today & you can, too
2. denver or bust (aka: best road trip)

to repay andy for his kind assistance,
i started today by tidying up his shop.

just kidding.

~~~

today i
fetched tools
(so many phillips-head screwdrivers
and nary a phillips-head screw in sight.)

and i made my first
surprise discovery:
this piano once
served as a cabinet
for a bar of
english leather
soap.

perhaps there
was once a little boy -
an adorable, enterprising little boy, no doubt
who
did not want to practice piano
any more than he wanted to
take his bath.

Second helpin's:

1. da capo: from the beginning
2. overture
3. diving in, at last

the sign on the elevator said the launch was scheduled for 6:30 this morning, but when we got to the tiki hut bar at 6:25, we saw that we’d arrived in time to see the shuttle traveling across the sky, but too late to see the actual launch. my daughter blamed the hotel, saying they should’ve posted the CORRECT time, dammit. (she’s not a morning person.)

my mother (bless her heart) was just thankful we caught her and redirected her to the tiki hut bar instead of letting her walk on to godknowswhere.

me, i spent the rest of the day thinking about authority. about our role and responsibility in being, recognizing, and following authority.

we’re here on holiday, as my friend karen would say. in hilton head, my mother, my daughter and me. enjoying a 3-g (3 generations) week of togetherness.

on the drive down yesterday, i just can’t tell you how thrilled we were to have been informed that the stoppers on aunt lucy’s salt and pepper shakers need to be replaced. fortunately mother brought the ancient, worn-out stoppers with her so we can spend the week looking for replacements. the launch and now this. and to think i wondered what on earth we would do with ourselves for 5 days on the beach.

Second helpin's:

1. the key to thanksgiving 2009
2. lines of engagement
3. gretel never had it so good

in her memoir, grand obsession, perri knize writes of her year-long search for The Perfect Piano. she eventually finds The Piano, refinances and remodels her house to accommodate it, but alas: when it arrives, the magical sound is gone. but the memory of that sound and the way she felt when she played that particular piano fuels her as she embarks on a journey that takes more than three years years, fills her with a plethora of knowledge about things she’d never heard of, and enlists an impressive cast of characters to “fix” her piano, to restore it to its rightful sound.

its rightful sound.

last friday, i started writing a post about the arts, and as so often happens when writing, i wound up writing something totally different. instead of a little ditty extolling some of the oft-overlooked benefits of participation in the performing arts, i crafted what i can only call a flapdoodle on what, exactly, constitutes power. is it letters after a name? a title? a hat? the number of people you have on staff? your appearance and how you carry your pocketbook?

perhaps it was the spring fever of writing that had me feeling near ready to explode, to break out, to lose the lid. in person, i’m, well, not to jinx it into dried-up dust, but i’m funny.* and a bit on the irreverent side. the things that other people are too nice to say have a way of parachuting right out of me. that’s when i’m audible. when i write, i’m ever cognizant of who might be reading this and how it might be received, so when i turn funny in writing, it kinda’ goes flat on account of over explaining every teensy little ole’ thing.

i like making people laugh, and i happen to believe there can be much important stuff like perspective and philosophy cloaked by humor. anyway, there i was, writing seriously serious about the often unseen value of performing arts when my fingers turned flapdoodle on me, and i have to tell you we had ourselves a big time, my fingers and me. then i up and mashed the “publish” button before i could talk myself out of it, and i smiled my way through the rest of the day.

see, usually i’m a little too tentative, too scared of smackdown to post anything i feel like isn’t going to be well received. but since being on twitter, i’ve met women who make me feel comfortable enough, safe enough to mash “send” because i know they’ll be patient and accepting . . . even though they might actually wonder if i’m in dire and immediate need of an exorcist.

still smiling and riding that wave of powerful confidence, i read julie daley’s post and cut loose with my heartfelt comment before i could stop myself from sharing a story that has chapped my butt since it happened. julie sure nailed it when she said it sounded like i was having a fireball day. fireball friday: yes, yes it was.

i rode the night out feeling this surge, wondering if it was really power i was enjoying, not caring what it’s called, just delighted to have it trespass. friday night i happened upon an upcoming writing workshop that required participants to submit some 20 pages of a memoir for discussion, and i – the one who consistently says “pass” when it’s my time to read, to share – i printed out the registration form, determined.

but then came saturday morning. oh lord.

i had to make a decision, and i made the wrong decision. wrong because i didn’t listen to myself. i heard that songbird of confidence – i even stopped the guy’s hand as he was going to note my selection – but i talked myself out of it, and let me tell you: i crashed and crashed hard. for 24 hours i replayed the scene over and over and over, knowing i could not undo it. it was nothing short of agony.

the good news is: it’s an inconsequential decision. totally, absolutely inconsequential as far as end results go.

the bad news is: that sweet surge of confidence is questioned, diminished, and bruised. the full-body smile is gone, dissolved into a vague memory. i listened to myself on friday and soared. didn’t listen to myself 24 hours later, and splat.

what went wrong? did i cross the line from confidence into cocky? i don’t think so. did i over-rate friday’s post? well, maybe it wasn’t my best writing – it reads a bit on the manufactured side in spots – but no. was it just the full moon? i certainly am positively affected by the full moon, but no, this was clear: i took a risk. i did something i wouldn’t normally do, and i was absolutely okay if it wasn’t well received. for the first time since becoming a word traveler, it was enough that i wrote and published it.

what do i do, i asked my manchild last night. the first paper i wrote in grad school cracked the faculty up – shoot, they asked me to submit it to literary journals for publication. (i didn’t.) do i forget funny and stick to serious, reflective tones? do i keep trying the funny, knowing that writing humor is different from doing humor? do i do both ’cause i am both?

can both humor and reflection be my rightful sound, or do i have to choose cause it’s now freshly documented: choosing is not something i’m ‘specially good at.

* now that i’ve called myself funny, we both know i’ll never again get so much as a smile. sigh.

Second helpin's:

1. da capo: from the beginning
2. coming to terms with our grips
3. overture