FYI: BRB

So, loyal readers, the time has come for me to say goodbye. For a few days.

Don't worry, I'll be back. I'm just taking a few days to wrap up school, start Christmas, and get myself home to begin Family Time. Also, I'll be working out content for a 44 page travel guide during the next three weeks, so my writing reserves are gonna be pretty tapped for the time being.

I'm still finished Megan Hart's romance novel Deeper, in between all my finals, papers, etc., so a review will be forthcoming (as promised). Check for it in a few weeks--I'll post up an alert first so we're all on the same page.

On that note, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and I'll be back before you know it!!

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Ok, so since I've moved away from home and signed a lease, etc, I've beeen learning some of life's lessons the hard way. And I'm willing to bet I'm on the same page as many of my fellow college students and twentysomethings when I say: this sucks.

There are bills to pay and snow to shovel, papers to write and tests to take and roommate and relationship drama to work out, part-time jobs to live through, dinner to make and laundry to do and while you may have figured this out awhile ago, it really hits you around this point that there's no one there to do it for you.

If you're a child of the 90s (like me), this might help bring you back to simpler times when life gets way too stressful:



Try not to freak out when you realize they're younger here than your baby cousin is now. You still have a few years before midlife crisis becomes legit.

With all the hype over Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Taylor from (2) seasons of the Vh1 reality show Tough Love, and You-Tube craze over a certain airline's mistreatment of one musician's Taylor guitar, it's nice to bring it back to earth with a little Taylor Hanson (though he is now, by the way, somebody's dad).

(video via YouTube.com)

Liveblogging: The Office!

9:01 pm: Can I just say that I love The Office? I've been to Scranton, Pennsylvania (sadly), but even that bad experience can't take away from my love for the show. Oh, and Andy's wearing a pink shirt!

9:06: Oh, shit. Michael Scott just offered to pay for the college education of a whole group of disadvantaged high school kids-- and he can't. They're cheering for him. God Help Him.

9:10 What's not cool is that Dwight is trying to get Jim fired. I know Dwight is freaky and funny and all that, but c'mon, writers-- if you get rid of Jim, you get rid of half your fan base. Dwight, you a--hole! Stop setting him up!

9:15: They're called Scott's Tots, and they are rapping, "whatcha gonna do when their dreams come true?" The teacher has named him a DreamMaker. There are speeches occurring about guardian angels and President Obama. This can only go downhill...

9:20 "I've done something stupid and I'd like to share... tuition is very vaulable, but so is intuition! Does anyone out there have intuition? You know what's gonna happen next? No? You're gonna make me say it? I'm so proud of you!...Well, Zion, I'm not going to be paying for your tuition. And that brings me to my main point: that I'm not going to be paying for anybody's tuition. I am so, so sorry."

9:25: They better not be firing Jim. Just because there's a cake with his face on it and a big scandal going on around him. Dwight is doing some good impressions of his coworkers on the phone while he complains to corporate, yeah, but I'm hating Dwight more and more by the minute. Yes, he started employee of the month. And he won it. And his wife was in second place. But it was not his doing. God!

9:30: Phew, okay. Michael Scott destroyed 15 young lives today, Dunder Mifflin might be going under, but Dwight didn't destroy Jim's life, so I guess it's okay.

May I Have Your Attention Please

I stated in a previous post that my neighbors and/or the neighborhood crack addict had stolen my copy of Deeper by Megan Hart before I had a chance to snatch it from my mailbox. This was an incorrect assessment. I found the package fully intact in the mail today, and a review will be forthcoming just as soon as I can give the book its deserved attention.

Thank you for your time and keep an eye out for the post later this week.

Reese's Links: Things That Made Me Smile This Week

Here there are the top things that made me smile this week, as decided by me. In no particular order. Enjoy :)

Thanksgiving. I know I complain about it, but any excuse to drink beer and eat pie is actually just fine by me. Yes, beer. Not wine. That's how the Pilgrims did it, after all.

And I found a recipe for a twist on the thing I whine most about: lasagna on every holiday. Mexican food + lasagna? These are a few of my favorite things!

How about some positive energy? I got my hands on a copy of an Abraham Hicks lecture on CD this weekend. It's a little floaty and hard to take at first, but it goes along the same lines as the bestselling book The Secret, which I reviewed earlier in this blog. Appropriate, methinks.

Along those lines-- how about some good news for a change? The Happy News is glad to offer it. We could probably use that, don't you think?

Yeah, well, I can't stay shiny and happy for too long. So let's talk about Twilight. I find it as obnoxious as everyone else who is not 14 and rabidly obsessed with it. But seeing a new Facebook page pop up, entitled: "Team Edward? Team Jacob? How About Team Shut The Fuck Up?" warmed my still-beating heart.

Where Have I Been?

I know this hasn't been a post-heavy week for me. But I do care about all you readers, so in the nature of full disclosure, I'll share with you all the Top Five Reasons I've Been Absent This Week. Ready?

5. Thanksgiving. It was only one day, I know. Well, it's Saturday and I'm still in a turkey-induced coma, on my fourth day of family togetherness and have one last Thanksgiving Extravaganza to attend starting in about fifteen minutes from RIGHT NOW.

4. Final Exams. Three ten-page papers, a 50-minute presentation, and two final exams in the next week and a half= my first priorities.

3. Personal Chaos. My car was towed, I dropped a hammer on my foot and broke my toe, and my year-and-half-old fish died all in the same 24 hours. Raging, medicating and mourning are about the only things I've been doing.

2. Lack of Interesting Material. Originally I was planning on taking a leaf of out Lizzie's book (the WalMart Novels), putting my money where my mouth is and reviewing a certain romance novel this week. But it appears either my neighbors or the hobo that wanders my street and tries to beat my door down on a biweekly basis stole it off my doorstep, so this process is taking a little longer than usual.

1. Building Excitement. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, no? And I WILL be liveblogging The Office this week, so I'm trying to put you all in a holding pattern of anticipation. Is it working?

Not to worry, dear readers. I should be back in action within a day or two-- with detailed explanations of the aforementioned activities. Until then, enjoy your leftovers and don't forget about me!

Get Excited, People

Announcement for all fans of NBC's hit television series The Office!

I will be liveblogging the show on Thursday, December 3rd from the comfort of my living room.

How many of us watch the show and find ourselves commenting out loud to everyone else in the room? Well, now you get to hear what I have to say (because I know that's really thrilling).

So get excited, people!

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving

In an earlier post, I talked about how the Thanksgiving gatherings in my family can get a little out of hand. And everyone (or at least most people) can share similar stories: family feuds around the table, disputes over who is preparing the sweet potatoes, disappearing cranberry bread, off-color dinner conversation. But this weekend I went home to see my family for a little pre-Turkey Day bonding, and I realized I might have been a little hasty in my judgment of the holiday.

After all, my family is pretty freakin cool.

My presentation of the holiday as a fiasco that required me to hunker down secretly on the back porch with a bootlegged six pack and a bag of ice was unfair. The truth is, I thrive on what I like to call "family insanity"; that is, the circus that ensues when my large extended family (my mom is one of 7 kids) descends upon my parents' house for a weekend of food, fun, and free-for-all. I love nothing more than having everyone I care about stuffed into one house, eating and laughing and making fun of one another. It's my favorite type of party. I even enjoy the good-natured feuding over the obituaries and the second amendment.

My sense of humor is such that I find all that stuff hilarious, but sometimes I don't realize in the retelling that that doesn't constitute someone else's idea of a good time. I do cherish my family holiday. True, turkey doesn't do it for me. I'm much more a fan of Christmas and my grandma's lasagna. And no, November doesn't thrill me either. But having everyone all together, kids charging through the house, dogs running under feet, grandparents competing over one another to be heard?

Yeah. That is something to be thankful for.

Heeere's Johnny!

Hey kiddies! I'm back from my stay at the Wal-Mart Novels--and what a stay it was! I've never become quite so intimately involved with the dirty details of the romance world, and boy did I dig up some... controversial stuff. A quick sampling:

Discovered a "spray-on condom" that promises "a snug fit for all sizes". Wtf? Yeah. Check it out.

Posted on the language of the romance novel, using a novel called "Deeper" as an example. Got the attention of the book's author, and will be receiving a copy in the mail to review here, on Reese In Pieces, this week. Should be fun!

Browsed quite a selection of romances-related sites, including Cosmopolitan, Men's Health (always good to get both sides of the story, I say) and a few dating blogs, which may or may not be relevant to the topic. Just things that popped up as I scoured the internet for the best in smut.

And finally, some insight on romance novel writers. Turns out many writers have similar stories, no matter what they produce. Interesting.

Farewell (By Heather)

My week as a guest blogger here at Reese In Pieces has come to a close. I'll be heading back over to my own blog, The Art of Adaptation which explores my experience living with cerebral palsy. I've had fun expressing the side of myself that is a writer, and taking a break from disability for a bit. So come on over to The Art of Adaptation and check out my blog!

"Have You No Shame?": A Review (By Heather)

I came upon Rachel Shukert's book Have You No Shame? at a reading in which she read a section of her memoir entitled "A Nice Girl Like You." The section chronicles the difficulty of finding a job in New York City after not having had a job in the city before. Shukert gets a job in a vintage-esque thrift store but finds it much more difficult to secure a job she actually likes.

The first time I got to read the book from start to finish was on a spring break trip to Maine with my grandparents. I was reading it on my kindle with its text-to-speech feature on, headphones in, when I got to chapter six. In this chapter, Shukert recalls a time in which she is a rebellious teenager, away from her parent's watchful eyes at a Jewish youth group, dodging her chaperones and having a lot of oral sex. Up until that point, I was very much entertained and laughing often, but for one thing, it just didn't feel right reading this in the back seat of my grandparent's Buick. I suppose that the environment in which I read it somewhat colored my interpretation in that I am more conservative and therefore, a bit prudish around my grandparents. However, having read the book since then, that is still my least favorite chapter. There is a lot of entertainment to be had in Rachel Shukert's book in which she invites the reader into some very private moments through different stages of her life.

"I Was Told There'd Be Cake": A Review (By Heather)

Sloane Crosley is author of a collection of essays entitled I Was Told There'd Be Cake, a New York Times best seller. She writes with a certain wit and humor. I've read the book several times. Each time different things stick out to me but I allways come away having laughed and been quite entertained. Also, as a result of reading this book, I have promised myself never to be in the wedding of someone I went to high school with whom I have not spoken to in the last decade, for fear of an equally hideous version of a baby pink plaid bridesmaids dress. I can't wait to read Crosley's next collection of essays entitled How Did You Get This Number? due to be released in June of 2010.

Reading her essays made me remember some of my own lesser idiosyncrasies such as my own "pony problem," however at a much younger age. And how if I go back to volunteering, I would probably much rather work with troubled youth instead of in a museum with butterflies and one, very large moth. I have an irrational fear of moths in particular as well as other winged creatures. Perhaps I am jealous that I cannot fly? My own pony problem consisted of many variations of the plastic My Little Pony collection. However, instead of living in the kitchen, they would reside in my sister's antique nightstand which originally held a chamber pot. So I guess if one has a pony problem, you're bound to stash them in a weird place.

Beginning, Middle, And End (By Heather)

This video stars a writer by the name of Meg Cabot, author of Big Boned and The Princess Diaries. She has a few tips on how to write a novel, if you wish to look to youtube in its infinite wisdom. Cabot seems to be obsessed with cats that are more or less in one piece, most of the time in three pieces anyway.

A Bibliophile Asks: Is The Book Dying Out? (By Heather)

I love my Kindle. It is the latest in e-text technology that I have come across. Kindle is highly convenient; one can have access to many books at once without being in a bookstore or library.  Of course there are conveniences and luxuries that come along with a traditionally bound book as well. You will never have to be concerned about the battery life of the traditional book.

Is the book dying out? A question which has been asked at least once in each of my upper level English classes.  I certainly hope not. If the book is indeed a dying art, are Kindle and other technologies like it to blame? Maybe, but I don't think so.  I believe that e-text can work side-by-side traditional text.  I am a bibliophile, so I certainly hope that people keep buying hard copies of books.  I love everything about books! The smell of the paper. Turning the page. The moment when you place the bookmark in its place before returning to the real world.  I simply can't imagine a world without books.  Regardless of being a writer as that may make me biased, books have been an integral part of society for centuries.

Stop and imagine a world without books for a moment and how that would impact your life. Are you cringing yet? I am. Regardless of your apsirations, unless you live under a rock, you have read a book. Imagine trying to write a paper without the use of books, especially when Wikipedia is frowned upon by teachers.

Okay, I understand that not everyone loves the smell of paper. Maybe a couple of my fellow bibliophiles can relate? But really, an integral part of being a writer is reading until your eyes can't stay open anymore.  Writing is a craft that should be observed, studied and practiced.

A Roundup: On Writers (By Heather)

Garrison Keillor (August 7, 1942 -- ) is a story teller, radio host, writer and fellow English major. I have grown up with his voice in my living room, telling stories every Saturday night on NPR's Prairie Home Companion.

Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was a very prolific American poet who in her lifetime was not known for her poetry but rather her introverted personality and love of white clothing.

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was a British-American poet who is too often remembered for the way she died and not her life's work.

Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -- ) who's writing has a fun-loving and easy spirit, is one of my favorite poets whenever the need to unwind arises.

Sloane Crosley (August 3, 1978 -- ) is a witty, young essayist with her own writing style. She is someone who's talents I aspire to.

Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 -- ) is best known for her novel To Kill A Mockingbird. In 2007 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Since the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird, she has only published a few short essays. She assisted Truman Capote in his research for his book In Cold Blood.

Daniel Murlin Nester (February 29, 1968 -- ), a man who knows "How to be Inappropriate" as well as all you may or may not want to know about Queen.

Let Me Introduce Myself (By Heather)

Hello, my name is Heather. Reese is a friend of mine, and we are both aspiring writers. I will be taking over the helm of this blog for a week. Writing is one of my main passions in life. I prefer to write in the creative non fiction, and poetry genres. I also have been working on and off in the past year to write some semblance of a memoir. However,  I consistently find it to be quite the challenge.

Unlike Reese who is more serious and consistent in her commitment towards journalism, my attempts at this particular type of writing are more sporadic and feel a little more like random acts of journalism. I hope to get a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing-non fiction, or poetry. I'll be lucky if I get into an MFA program the first time I apply because the approximate age of those who are in MFA programs is 28, and I will be 23 when I graduate with my BA in English and writing.

This week I will be doing some book reviews on the works of Sloane Crosley and Rachel Shukert. Simultaneously I will discuss my own life as a writer. and provide some advice on the MFA program in writing.

Thanksgiving Disaster: What's Next?

We've all had a holiday-related family disaster or two in our pasts. After some consideration, I decided to write about mine, as another sort of jump-start (see: Most Embarrassing Childhood Moments) for my memoir. This year's festivities are quickly approaching, and I think it's important to get into the groove, so to speak, before I even try to cover the upcoming holiday mayhem.

So here it is: Thanksgiving 2008, timestamped and told from the most honest point of view I could muster. Walk with me through this experience as I recall it to the best of my ability.

It’s 11 o’clock on Thanksgiving morning. My car is parked half on the grass, half on the gravel and when I step out, my grandmother is picking her way from the house through the frozen stones toward me. I’m shocked, because dinner’s not till 3, and Grandma has a reputation for getting sick of our antics and bailing out early. It’s strange to me that she would voluntarily arrive four and a half hours early, especially when mom is still in her robe and the sweet potatoes aren’t even cooking yet.

Grandma flags me down as I topple out of the car, stops for a quick embrace, and quickly retreats to her own vehicle. “I’ll be back later. I’ll be back at 3,” she says in passing. “I just stopped by after church. I thought you’d be having brunch!”

We are not having brunch. We are only just arriving from a half an hour shopping trip; we are out of milk, out of coffee, and someone ate all the cranberry bread between 8 o’clock last night at 9 o’clock this morning. My sisters are still passed out upstairs, and nobody has even considered going to church. I haven’t had my morning cup of coffee, so my reaction time is slow. And the bird is nowhere near in the oven; in fact, I’m not even sure it is a bird, because last year the turkey spoiled and no one could stomach the smell so we ate roast beef instead.

That’s fine with me. I believe that every holiday is an occasion for lasagna and that’s it.

This is the classic Thanksgiving at my house. We’ll have a relatively calm family dinner in a few hours, during which my uncle and I will sit together and pepper the conversation with talks about guns, hunting, and home defense via shotgun. My grandparents, each deaf in one ear, will compete to hear and be heard over the chatter and chewing and tales of six-point bucks, misinterpret the conversation at various points, and eventually (though inadvertently) change the subject to death, heart failure, and the relationship between their high school classmates and the local paper’s obituary section.

Traditionally, my sisters and I place bets on how long it’ll take the conversation to turn firmly to death and stay there. The trick to this game is not to let my grandmother know that we’re actually placing bets, because then she’ll make a point not to talk about it. The game becomes significantly more complex in that case.

Someone, at some point, has to try and get me to admit that I like the turkey, since I spent the other 11 months of the year complaining about the fact that we’re not having lasagna like we do for Christmas. If we are, in fact, consuming a bird rather than a beast, I will have to agree that the turkey is good, evading the point that I don’t like turkey at all regardless of how skillfully it is prepared.

After dinner the requisite talk about death and heart failure mellows into easier topics like diabetes and other less-threatening health problems, and we put out dessert even though we all ate with abandon no more than hour ago. Everyone is asking me about school and work and I am leaving out most of the sordid details, but I do admit my tendency to charge what I like to call "bullshit tax" to the most obnoxious of grocery store customers and receive a nice swatting and ten-minute speech from my grandmother.

This pisses me off so that when my phone starts ringing at the dinner table I am all too happy to duck onto the freezing porch and hunker into the corner, next to the pan of turkey fat that no one wanted to look at, in my socks while I plan my escape to the casino later that night with a bunch of my friends.

Traditionally, my aunt will show up around 7 with a jug of wine and most of the family will partake, some openly and some with coffee mugs as if they're just drinking water and ran out of cups. This year she can’t make it and we are clearing out when the door opens and my other aunt arrives, unannounced, packing two kids and a box of cheesecake bars. Everyone sucks back into the house as if by vortex and resumes their positions for a few more hours.

There is no wine whatsoever. My casino plans fall apart. My grandma mistakes them for "clubbing" plans and I receive another speech.

As everyone’s heading out, I escape to my sister’s room (my room was absorbed by other family members when I left for college) with a ziplock bag of ice to chill my remaining beer, which has survived the trip home in a sock at the bottom of my backpack.

No one may be the wiser, but I need it.

Research Can Be Fun: The Kayaking Articles

In preparation for an article (or series of articles, depending on how things go) about kayaking around New York State, I'm drawing on my own experiences as an outdoors-woman, my older articles on the subject and some research for the newest asepcts I'm looking into, like information on buying kayaks and figuring out which one is right for you, to produce the best story I possibly can. And I just found something interesting.

I bet you've never thought much about the importance of kayak color. Seems silly, but there are legitimate pros and cons to what shade your boat is (NOTE: 'boat' does not necesarily mean "speedboat"; in this industry, any on-water craft, like canoe or kayak, is considered a boat).

Consider: this guy prefers his sand-colored boat to the brightly-colored counterparts because it's easier to hide it during overnight camping trips. Other people feel you should stick to a brightly-colored boat for high visibility on heavily trafficked waters, but warn you to choose wisely, as red boats fade faster and show wear more quickly than others.

It seems, though, that dark-blue boats are the most universally dangerous color of kayak available. They blend a lot more readily with the water than other colors, making the person in the boat nearly invisible unless they have brightly colored paddles, PFD or other accessories to help them stand out. This is not to say that blue boats should never be purchased; just that it's something to consider when shopping, especially for those who buy gear, boat and accessories at the same time. Most sources seem to agree the the best bet is a boat in the brighter part of the color range (red, orange, yellow) or a lime-green or robin's-egg-blue boat.

This might seem a little out of left field, but considering that Travel and Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the country and that outdoor recreation is one of the biggest subdivisions of that; that pretty much anyone can paddle, from small children to elderly people to those with some physical restrictions or limited mobility; and that purchasing and using a mid-range kayak is, in the long run, one of the most cost-effective investments in the realm of vacation activity, kayaking is actually one of the most broadly relevant topics I'm currently writing about.

Guest Blogging: The Preview

So next week a few bloggers will be switching up and guest blogging for each other. I'll be taking the helm at "The Wal-Mart Novels", a hilarious and fittingly sarcastic blog that chronicles my dear friend Lizzie's adventures through the trashy romance section of Wal-Mart as well as other smut-related topics. To get a better look into her world and prepare to write in her place, I interviewed her (she returns the favor here). This is the result.

(Note the short answers: these are her words, not mine.Read her blog and you'll understand).

Q: What is your favorite TV show?
A: I don't watch TV. I can't afford cable.

Q: Pepsi or Coke? Why?
A: I don't drink brown colas. I only eat white food.

Q: Why did you choose to blog about your topic?
A: I want to connect to a baser level of humanity.

Q: Favorite outside-of-class activity?
A: I'm not at liberty to discuss that.

Q: First book or movie that changed your life.
A: I don't let material things affect me.

Q: First car you ever owned?
A: I don't drive.

Q: What inanimate object are you most afraid of?
A: Bad literature.

Q: What was your favorite childhood tv show or cartoon?
A: Jeopardy. My grandmother used to come over and watch it with me on Friday nights.

Q: Favorite pre-college memory?
A: I put a mental block on my entire past, so I'm not really sure.

Q: What website do you visit most often?
A:  Google.

(Please note that Lizzie and I aren't trading blogs; Heather from The Art Of Adaptation will be taking over here for me while I'm out exploring the world of lit trash and oversexed housewives).

Enjoy.

The Fun Way Around Writer's Block

I'm currently writing a (stalled) memoir, chronicling my experiences as an awkward, clumsy, socially inept, obsessive-compulsive child all the way up to my experiences as a clumsy, more socially capable but still obesessive-compulsive young woman. I haven't written anything substatial in weeks, mostly for lack of clarity on a topic, but my other projects are starting to suffer from lack of balance. So I've decided to remedy this with a jump-start on writing. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

My Six Most Embarrassing Childhood Memories

(in order of ascending horror)

6. Riding my bike straight into a large oak tree in my parents' front yard whilst trying to impress the neighbors on my first day without training wheels (age 6).

5. Spilling an entire carton of chocolate milk down my shirt after trying to run away from the fourth grade boy who asked if, during my sleepover at my grandmother's house that weekend, he might "come over and sleep in the same bed" with me (age 9).
4. Accidentally flushing my own overall-straps down the toilet while I was still wearing said overalls; being discovered by my teacher as I tried to blot off the straps with toilet paper afterward (age 6).

3. Making my best friend "ask out" my sixth-grade crush on my behalf while I waited in the bathroom; his response was hysterical laughter and a "hell no" (age 11).

2. Having the "1-800-Jenny" Jenny Craig Weight Loss Program theme song sung to me by a chorus of sixth grade boys in the back of the school bus (age 7).

1. Being visited by "Aunt Flo" on the first day of seventh grade, when I was wearing the palest jeans I owned, could not wrestle open my own locker, got lost, missed the bus and through it all had nothing but toilet paper to work with (age 12).


Yes, they're cringe-worthy and horrific. You may feel embarrassed just reading about these exploits. But that's exactly it: I'm exploiting my humiliating past. For the entertainment of myself and whoever else stumbles along and finds it. So please, don't worry about the psychological impact of all this--I'm all the wiser (and hopefully, will be all the richer) for it.

Top Three Things To Avoid When Sick

This one's for all my friends who have been struck down by the stomach bug this week (not me, thankfully). When you're that sick, you don't have a lot of tolerance for long ranting, so here's my best advice in 15 words or less:

When Sick, Avoid:
1. Milk products
2. Seafood products
3. Products with inherent toxins (cigarettes, alcohol, other drugs)

Good luck and good night.

The Daily Beast!!

Just found some super-cool linkage: the Daily Beast quoted me and linked back to my Saint Rose Chronicle article on Dan Nester's How To Be Inappropriate. Here's the full story.

Top 12 Photos I Love (you guessed it), Texas Edition!

All photos copyright Teresa Farrell 2009

I Might Be Jumping The Gun, But...

I've barely gotten in the door from Austin and set my bags down and I'm already forming a diabolical plan to get myself to another city and another media convention. This time it's the 26th Annual Associated Collegiate Press National College Journalism Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, February 25-28, 2010. 

Of course, I'm obligated to do some research of my own. Like figuring out the 15 Best Things to Do In Phoenix. Even after my research, I basically wandered around Austin without any real plan or purpose (except to find cowboy boots and BBQ), but having a few things to base the exploration on definitely helped.

Rockstar Alice Cooper is from Phoenix, and has a restaurant there I'm dying to visit.

From a journalistic standpoint, I find it helpful to look into local media: newspapers and magazines, mostly.

To get the flavor of any new place, combine three simple ingredients: time management skills, a map and an open mind. You'll find all sorts of wild, fun, unique stuff to do.

And it never hurts to find out about points of interest: festivals, historical sites, and things like restaurants, nightlife, art, music, and special attractions are all good to know about and can help max out even a few days in a new city.

And, of course, logistics: having some idea of a city's public transportation, what parts of town to avoid, and local traffic tips will benefit you in the long run.

My Top Ten Favorite Moments in Austin

My Top Ten Favorite Moments in Austin

(image via HelloAustin.com)

10. Watching the drunks wander around town on Halloween-- the party's so big, they shut down blocks of the city for it.

9. The editor's conference I was actually there for!  From 9-5 on Friday, I learned a lot.
8. Getting yelled at not once, but twice for acting like an uncultured ass at an Austin Museum of Art exhibit.
7. Stubb's BBQ. The food's top-notch (Smoked Duck Quesadillas, anyone?) and so is the heritage: the place has a history of hosting famous blues artists. Much more my scene than the museum-y stuff.
6. Souvenir shopping at some of the coolest live-music inspired shops in town.
5. Lounging on the grass outside the State Capitol Building and learning to tell time using only my hand and the sun.
4. Watching the bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. An Austin tradition-- on Halloween none the less.
3. Nachos and Knock Out Punch from Bikinis Bar and Grill on 6th Street-- 6 hours later, we were all happy campers.
2. 6th Street and the chaos that comes with it-- especially the Musicians Only parking signs.
1. Exploring Austin: 11 hours, over 200 pictures, and over five miles traveled. Sites seen: the Congress Avenue Bridge, the Texas State Capitol Building, the Warehouse District, and South Congress District.

22 Things To Do Instead of Sleep Before My 3 a.m. Flight To Austin

1. Procrastinate
2. Discuss, with one friend, the Pros and Cons of Romantic Relationships, while shopping for her roommate's birthday present
3. Discuss pros and cons of friendships in general over Mini Tacos from Bomber's Burrito Bar
4. Venture to Target to buy tomato sauce, camera batteries and Clorox wipes for the house
5. Play with adorable Dachshund puppy named Jameson and decide to volunteer at animal shelter
6. Go to a meeting
7. Purchase Red Bull
8. Make two pizzas with my freshman roommate
9. Drive her little brother's friend back to UAlbany so he could let his roommate in after a lockout and pick himself up some cheap rum
10. Steal the tootsie rolls that they were going to give to kids on Halloween
11. Ask my roommate to wash my pants because I'm still not home; fail to identify which pants
12. Give Up
13. Have the contents of friend's wastebasket wiped on my sleeve
14. Go home and begin laundry
15. Help pick out a new motorcycle from 250 miles away
16. Lose MP3 player
17. Find MP3 player
18. Shower
19. Move car back and forth obsessively to find a parking spot where it can stay for 4 days
20. Harass professor via AIM in ALL CAPS!!!!!
21. Pack
22. Write this post

Reese's Links: Rodeo-Style Roundup

So I'm leaving for Texas in about two days. Less than two days. All-expense paid writer/editors conference in Austin over Halloween weekend (Halloween is on a Saturday this year!)= excuse to leave town. And no one can argue with that.

Obviously though, as any good little journalist will tell you, you need to do some research before you head off into these things. So I present to you, Reese's Links: Texas Edition.

First things first: the professional aspect. Here is the reason I  (and the other editors) are actually going to Austin to begin with. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 88th Annual ACP/CMA National College Media Convention.

Top Texas Halloween Festivals gives great insight on exactly what I'm in for, being in a town that shuts down streets (!) to celebrate All Hallows Eve. Although these aren't necessarily happening in Austin, I'm still excited to see how Texans get down.

I love nothing more than a good show, and this is the Live Music Capital of the World we're talking about, so I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

This directory shows the best happy hours in Austin. No ma'am, I certainly will not be disappointed.

And then there's this.

And, of course, I need to eat while I'm there. Tex-Mex or BBQ anyone?

I might be obligated to keep with a family tradition of visiting historical sites in every city across the country.

Really cool website: austinist.com tells me about halloween themed dance parties I might want to visit. Oh heck yeah.

That's it for now. More to come!

"This is What One in a Million Looks Like"

i know this seems unrelated, but as a journalist it's my job to look into stuff like this, not to mention inform everyone I can about it. It looks like a hoax, but it's 100% true. And to the idea of government- or school-mandated flu shots? I have only this to say.

It Has Been Thirteen Years Since My Last Holy Confession...

Holy or not, I think it's time for a confession here, in this space. I've had some trouble deciding exactly who I want to be and how I want to present myself to you people (the world), and I doubt I'm alone. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll share the letter I wrote to my professor last night, detailing my struggle with this blog.

Dear Professor Nester,

I admit that before this class, blogging was just another word for venting any and all of my feelings (which probably should have been kept to myself) to the entire freaking world via Myspace. Yeah. I had a myspace blog and I knew how to use it. So during my angst-y teenage years, the whole world was exposed to The Volatile and Somewhat Insane Ranting of One More Heartbroken Teenaged Girl, and that’s what blogging meant to me. An open diary of way too much information. Which is ironic because I was always trying to hide that information from my mother (oh well).

Anyway, I admit that it was and is hard for me to draw a line with a professional blog, between TMI in a good way and TMI in a crazy, scary I-will-never-get-a-job way. But it seems like I’ve been getting closer to figuring out how exactly to strike that balance, though I’m still bumbling a little bit. I like the posts I’ve been working on and putting up, even though it’s sort of like flying blind in some cases because I’m not entirely comfortable with this yet, I think I can say I’m heading in the right direction.

We’ve talked about my technical problems and I know I need to pay closer attention to grammar and punctuation, as well as do some work on the overarching style of my writing, but I think that’s developing pretty nicely. I haven’t been as vocal and present in this class as I was last semester in your Creative Nonfiction class, mostly because I’m not as sure of myself in this area as I was in that one. Writing long pieces about things that should embarrass any normal person and putting them out to be judged by a group of people I barely knew was fun for me. None of the people in that class were going to drag out a manuscript in a few years and tell me I can’t have a job because of it. I was comfortable because I had no limits. I could talk about underage drinking and blowing stuff up and my inability to hold onto a roommate, all personal problems of varying degrees of severity, and feel totally comfortable knowing that it wasn’t the sole way I was going to present myself to the world.

And that’s what makes this so difficult to me. The people that read my blog don’t know me in real life. They may very well hold a job over my head someday. And I find it difficult to present to them a legitimate representation of me, as a person and as a writer, because my interests are so scattered. I’m all crazy and zany but I’m professional and serious too, and especially in a place where my personal life meets something professional, that’s hard to reconcile. I don’t want to be uptight and I don’t want to be insane. And I’m still struggling with that.

That said, I think if/when I figure out that balance, it’ll be beautiful. I mean, really, if I can actually legitimize my personal/professional balance online and make a site about me, the definite collection, then that would be dynamite. I could expand on it, show it to people and use it to introduce myself, and maybe I could make it something more than the sum of its parts. A launching pad for a career, instead of something to hide lest it be destroyed. That would be wild. It still seems a long way off, though.

I know I need to do some more building on this project and I know that I need some more guidance to do it, which is why for potentially the first time in my entire academic career (including preschool) I’ll say that I’m hoping for structure as the semester goes on. Not fascism, but an outline, inspiration, guiding light type of thing. Because at this point, left to my own devices, I would probably sit dumbly at the computer screen with my mouth hanging open because I don’t quite have my footing yet. I mean, I wouldn’t sit like that all day; I’d figure it out in a little while. But until I know that I can fire off posts in my sleep, I like the idea of having a little more structure, a template to base things off of so I can keep this going the way it needs to go.

So that's where I stand, the whole story. Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,

Reese

Reese's Links: Things That Made Me Laugh This Week

I've been sick and stressed out for approaching two weeks now. After suffering a minor nervous breakdown the other day, I decided I should do something to lighten my mood--like Chicken Soup for the Insane. So I scoured the internet for things I find hilarious and I am now sharing them with all you good people.

WARNING: They are probably considered "rude," "mean" and "politically incorrect." It is what it is.

"For the fisherman or cook in your life": The WunderBoner. Definitely not for the faint-of-stomach, as it involves some gut-turning dead fish action, but undeniably hilarious.

The best thing on this list is a graphic list called "caring for baby". Don't be alarmed. It's not gruesome or sick. Just funny.

Thank God, the creepy Burger King "King" mascot is on his way out. Yes, hovering over people's beds in a huge plastic mask and grabbing their genitals during football-themed commercials DOES qualify you as a sexual predator.

I received this in an email attachment. It's a hoax, but it's hilarious. Scroll down.

Watching people I know prank people I don't really know is always a good time.

Zombieland was actually funny; I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, slightly less so, but Tucker Max's website is wildly inappropriate and therefore entertaining.

I saw The Hangover this summer, but watching it again makes me feel less like shit.

This man was duct-taped to a flagpole outside a VFW in Rensselaer county a few weeks ago. He burned a flag outside of the post and was subsequently tied to the pole for public ridicule while a youth soccer picnic commenced across the street.

Men have finally come up with an equivalent to the push-up bra with Calvin Klein Padded Crotch Jeans. Now they can deceive us as easily as we deceive them! Hooray!

Admittedly mean, but hilarious enough to make up for it: ladies and gentlemen, I give you The People of WalMart. I heard it's going around via email now. Can't wait to find THAT in my inbox.

Talk about disrespect: you can now prank call people using Michael Jackson's voice. There's a list on the main page of all the OTHER famous people you can fraudulently impersonate, too.

The best thing you can do with the American dollar besides spend it.

An Open Letter to the Hobos, Creepers and Freaks Who Make My Life Hell

I recently ended a year-long employment with a grocery store in the ghetto of Albany, New York. So my hands (and tongue) are no longer tied by obligation to keep my seven-dollar-an-hour job.

And I have something to say.

Dear Homeless Bums, Sexual Predators, and Asylum Escapees of the Greater Albany Area:

Leave me the hell alone.

Now, I will give you this: you will make great characters for my books, as I try to tell myself whenever your slurred comments make me want to jump across the moving grocery belt and slap you with the large frozen halibut you just purchased.

But please, spare me your bullshit.

Spare me your smells, that certain combination of stale cigarettes, old beer, urine, dirt and unwashed body. They flash me back and I don't like it. Spare me your drug-addled rants about the price of bacon-- spare me your heated diatribes over the quality of American brown bread vs. German. Wipe your nose and stop trying to steal the M&Ms. I can see you. And even if I couldn't, you smell worse than 99% of the other hobos in here. Like skunks, your stench precedes you, and refuses to wane even after you are gone.

And the abuse doesn't end at work; you must follow me home too. Spare me your attempts to break into my house on a bi-monthly basis, searching for empty cans. Do you want to buy me all that beer? Then fine, take the cans. If not, move it along. Next time I'm calling the cops. I don't care that the people who lived here before me let you in at your own leisure. You're not welcome.

I understand that this may seem harsh. On paper, people will laugh at your antics. But in real life, you are scary. You are dangerous. You are like a wild animal: no matter how "cute" and "cuddly" you might look when you are chatting up my roommate on the way to her car, calling her "ma'am" and all this other bullshit, or trying to inform us that you run a business that collects recyclables: you are dangerous, can't be trusted, and may bite at any time.

You run a business? Then why are you wearing the same shirt you were wearing two weeks ago when you should up pounding on my door? There is already a business for can recycling. It's called the Bottle Return Area of your Friendly Neighborhood Price Chopper.

Give me a freaking break.

But especially and most importantly, spare me your unwanted and unsolicited sexual attentions.

This one's for you, Lazy-eyed, Mentally-Ill Truck Driver, for all those times you stalked me at the music store I used to hang out at until the male staff members started taking turns escorting me out the back door lest you rape me in the parking lot.

And you, Helmet Guy, as you give me possessed-looking full-body stares after I let you use coupons for all eight of your boxes of Cheerios at Price Chopper. You are insane; it's obvious that you, your wife and two children did not arrive here on a motorcycle, yet you stand holding the helmet under your arm with a manic look on your face as though you did.

And you, Butterscotch Pudding Man, for the special way you use your FoodStamp card to purchase copious amounts of said dessert while you make lame and scary sexual innuendos and inform me (or are you speaking to my boobs? I can't tell)that you are going to drive to California because all the girls there are prettier than the ones here--except for me, of course.

The list goes on and on, but the point is the same.

I will not join you in your life of can-grubbing and drunken and showerless forays into Price Chopper to buy more Natty Ice. Please stop staring at me like you would like to take me home to your cardboard box or padded cell and do dirty, horror-movie-esque things to me.

I'm not going anywhere with you, and certainly not to California.

Those who are unfamiliar with the realities of your kind are likely to misunderstand. There's a public image, definitely, of you people. That you get a bad rap. That you have just "fallen on hard times". That you are really very nice people and it's not your fault that your life has fallen apart like this.

They obviously have never spent any amount of time working face-to-face with you. They have not witnessed you buying only twinkies and cupcakes with your FoodStamp card and using your bottle returns to buy more beer. You're not that innocent, and I'm not sympathetic.

I challenge anyone who disagrees to go apply for my old job. Then we can talk.

People like you are the reason I carry pepper spray. The reason I'm terrified to walk three blocks at night in Albany and the reason I wear rings on my left hand, even though I don't believe in marriage. The reason I approach most strangers, upon meeting, with wary aloofness. I don't know when or from where the next one of your kind will approach. You might be an old man, you might be a fifteen year old boy who shows bizarre flares of temper at random times, reminiscent of a psychopathic episode.

It doesn't matter. You're all the same, and you all keep on coming.

So next time I let you buy your cheerios with coupons or patiently wait to ring you out until you finish your rant because it's my job, do me a favor and spare me the weird, awkward sexual advances.

I'm sure there's a nice girl waiting in her own ramshackle cardboard box for you. Well, probably not. But good luck finding her.

And even if you don't, don't come back looking for me.

Ever.

Sincerely,
Reese

Excerpt From As-Yet-Untitled-Memoir: The Nun Incident

So, as a writer and a person who seems to run into endless upsetting encounters with people and situations that seem flat-out ridiculous, I'm writing a book.

It's politically incorrect, and sure to offend people of most sensibilities, which to me is what makes it worth reading. But few people are willing to sit down and read excerpts that paint pictures so embarrassing of things in my life (religion, part-time employment, various aspects of my heritage, irrational fears of pregnancy, underage drinking) in front of me. Which is okay, but not helpful.

So as I finish chunks of this ill-conceived masterpiece, I'll submit them here, for public approval or berating, whichever one seems more appropriate at the time.

Episode One: The Nun Incident

Like any good Catholic girl, I went to Religious Education classes every Sunday after mass and sat in my straight-backed chair in the cold classroom of the building adjoining the Church while I tried to keep from falling asleep during the lectures about the Ten Commandments, one of which I was sure had something to do with Paying Attention to your Religious Ed Teacher unless you want your immortal soul to burn in hell for all eternity.

It was then that I met The Nun.

If you google "nun", you come up with mostly pornographic and drug-abusing nuns. This nun was not such. She was old, squat, and severe, like most nuns. I was seven the first time we crossed paths and deep in the throes of religious paranoia. My normal Religious Ed teacher was absent, and the Nun took over for the day.

“How many times do you think you have to go to mass in a week for God to let you into Heaven?” she quizzed, pacing back and forth before the room.

Every child was frozen to their seat in terror as she began the long and heinously disturbing process of explaining that even those of us that attended mass for the requisite one hour per week were damned, as were any of us that were ever intending to have children, as the devil apparently follows pregnant women and waits to strike them down.

It took me days to digest this information fully, and no matter how much my mother counseled me, I couldn’t let it go. My seven-year-old psyche was permanently and irreversibly damaged.

I was subsequently removed from Religious Education classes at Our Lady of the Rosary on the grounds that they were making me so paranoid and distraught that I could barely take two steps without becoming convinced that Satan was on my tail.

When I arrived four years later to my sixth grade confirmation class and found that Mr. Nunno (an ironic name for a religious teacher, and appropriate—he brought us pizza and made the Beatitudes into a game show) was gone and the Nun was his replacement, I began experiencing what I now understand is a panic attack.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I stammered, unable to breathe. My knees were weak and my heart was pounding. Nausea overcame me. I could feel cold sweat beginning to drip down my neck and bead up on my forehead. Full-body, all-consuming, abject terror, the likes of which I have rarely felt before or since.

If I didn’t get out, I was going to die. That I knew for certain.

The Nun sized me up and let me go, with a warning that I should be back in two minutes or she would come to find me. I tried to walk calmly to the door-less room at the end of the hall but I was nearing hysteria, so afraid was I of this she-beast. I felt the feelings that I can only imagine one must feel when kidnapped: the panic, the fear, the adrenaline, the desperate, rabid need to escape. I knew I had only precious seconds before the Nun would come to retrieve me.

I must act quickly.

The “bathroom” was in fact a storage room, with two bathroom stalls and a sink placed in one corner and a jumble of books, religious statues and other paraphernalia in the other. I picked past a small sculpture of a holy figure—the Virgin, perhaps? One can only hope; I needed her at this time!—and found my own personal Savior: a telephone.

I picked up the receiver and punched in my home phone number, only to hear scratchy air on the other end of the line. Hung up, tried again. Tears were in my eyes by this point; I was nearly paralyzed with fear. The only thing that kept me from collapsing inside the makeshift stall was the knowledge that she would find me. Escape was my only hope. I could not give up now.

Then I heard the footsteps. Slowly, like each footfall was suspended in time. I could see her shadow coming before she got there. Finally, mercifully, the phone connected.

“Hello?” my dad answered, but she was too close; if I raised my voice to full volume she would hear me. So I whispered, panicked, crying: “It’sTeresapleasecomegetmethenun’shereandi’mscaredandiwanttocomehome!”

“Who is this?” My father demanded loudly into the receiver. I tried again “Teresa! Come get me! The nun!”, but it was hopeless. My voice was far too soft and far too muddled with panic to be recognizable. “Who?” he asked again.

And then I heard the voice of the Nun, coming clearly down the hall. “I know you’re in here,” she said, and I slammed the phone down just as she appeared, glowering, in the doorway. “You come with me,” she said.

And I had no choice but to follow.

Thanks, Columbus

After an exhausting 6 weeks of school, during which time both of my roommates got sick and I went underground like a fugitive to avoid catching it, drowned myself in work, and spent an obscene amount of time hobo-proofing my home, there seems to be no energy left for writing.

Thank you, Columbus. I need this break.

Reese's Travel Updates-- March Thru October '09

Who says college kids can't go on vacation? It's just about how you coordinate. In the past year, for instance, I've been to:

Boston-- 7 months ago, spring break, March. Stayed for three days and saw the entire city, including the Boston Aquarium, Hard Rock Cafe, Quincy Market, Boston Commons and North End. Success.

Florida-- 6 months ago, April. Flew down during my sisters' spring break, when my family was at Disney world for the Last Family Vacation. Coordinated to miss only two days of classes and stay for five. Did Disney World, Daytona Beach and the entire two-day ride home.

Montana-- 4 months ago, June-July. Stayed with my aunt, went with my other aunt and cousin, and did the entire experience: three hikes, Yellowstone, two cliff jumps, a rodeo, homemade fireworks, tour of Montana State University, and the lifelong companionship of one very special chocolate lab.

Summer was split between the Adirondacks, Thousand Islands, and other remote camp locations throughout Upstate New York-- fishing, campfires, boat tours, kayak trips, and even a rescue from an island via rowboat (awesome).

Upcoming: Connecticut with my roommate, for the ocean, hot tub, kayaks and downtown club life! This weekend.

TEXAS! Halloween Weekend-- editor's conference in Austin for Saint Rose Chronicle, four days and three nights, totally paid for, in a town that shuts down for the Halloween party. Awesome.

Meet Me In Montana

So today I got a long-awaited package in the mail. A video, from my aunt in Montana, of my week-long trip last June. I was thrilled. Seven days, four planes, three mountains, one rodeo, and 360 degrees of fireworks later, this is what I have to show for it:




























(All photos copyright Teresa Farrell 2009)