and-the-beat-goes-on « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘and-the-beat-goes-on’

Cue the Circus Music

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

I ended up needing more work done on my car and they couldn’t do it on a weekend or after I was done at the Evil Day Job, so I brought it in Monday night and received a loaner car. A Ford Focus.

When the guy brought it around and got out, I waited for the rest of the circus to climb out behind him. Yep, it was so tiny, it looked like a clown car! Fortunately, there was more room inside the car than there appeared to be from outside, but it still rode low to the ground compared to my SUV.

My worries about them not having it done before I left work on Tuesday turned out to be unfounded. They called me at 7:23 in the morning to tell me it was done. Um, if it was that quick a job, why did I have to leave my car overnight? Why couldn’t they just do it right away and let me leave? Heck, they were faster replacing the tie rod end linky things than they were changing my oil!

Anyway, I swung by after work, returned the circus car to them and picked up my SUV. Here’s one the great unponderables of my day: Why does it always feel as if the seat is wrong when I pick up my car from being serviced? It just didn’t seem to be right, so I messed around with the buttons until I decided the seat hadn’t been moved and that I should have just left it alone. Do you think it’s because I got used to the loaner’s seat that quickly? That’s my only theory at this point.

I’m so hoping I’m done with car stuff for a while now. I’ve had enough!

On the writing front, I’m trying to think how to end the scene I’m working on now. Usually, I have a clear idea of what I need and/or want to do, but I don’t with this particular one. That’s usually a sign that maybe I don’t need it and I should see about combining it with another, but that’s not the case this time. This particular scene is vital to the book.

I’m totally blaming this problem on the characters. They aren’t sharing stuff from the part of the book I’m working on. Later stuff, or stuff that happens off stage–that they’re showing me. Sigh. My only consolation is that I know other authors have recalitrant heroes and heroines.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, WIP
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The Excitement Just Doesn’t Stop

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

There’s nothing quite like waking up at 2:30 in the morning and not being able to fall back asleep. That’s what happened to me yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. I finally got up an hour later and did some work on my holiday cards. I’m nearly finished with those now. I also had time to write and made progress on a synopsis thing for one idea I want to work on. It was really frustrating, though, to have to log off to get ready for the Evil Day Job when I wanted to keep going.

It all would have been good except for one thing–I couldn’t keep my eyes open after I made it to work. By afternoon, I was really dragging. You can imagine how much fun I had proofreading the galleys, right? I probably missed a ton of stuff.

Then there was the nap I took when I got home. That would be the three hour nap. Sigh. It is such a vicious circle.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on
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Off Kilter

Friday, December 7th, 2007

Did you ever have one of those days where you didn’t feel exactly right? Not sick, just not able to really click all day. I had one of those days yesterday. I had a bunch of stuff to do, but I couldn’t work up enough steam to accomplish anything. I even nearly fell asleep in at the dentist, and since I have a huge phobia, that’s saying a lot!

So nothing was accomplished yesterday. Not my worksheet for the online class I’m taking, not answering email, not holiday cards. Nada. I’m hoping for a higher productivity day today.

Did I mention the dream I had after I added all my winter blankets to my bed? The one about someone sitting on me? Last night, I added a fifth blanket to my bed–a goose down comforter that my mom gave me–because I’ve been cold at night. I woke up about an hour after I went to bed and I felt like I was suffocating!

I was warm, but I’m not certain it was worth it since it took more than an hour to fall back asleep, and even then, I had to fold back the new comforter so that it wasn’t over my chest. Isn’t the human mind strange? Or maybe it’s just mine.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, annoyances
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Yes, It’s Characters–Again

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

I’m completely moved into my new cube at work! Yea! It’s already so much nicer than where I was sitting before, it’s like a paradise. Well, okay, as close to paradise as I can get at the Evil Day Job (EDJ). The only drawback is it’s going to be sneaking on the internet. I have a little less privacy where I’m at now.

My issues with my heroine continue. It’s so weird because she is talking to me. I know what kind of vehicle she drives, I know where she works, I know her family situation, I’ve even found a picture of what she looks like. In fact, she’s been more forthcoming about details than a lot of my characters have been. Except for one critical piece of information–her name. Yep, the saga goes on. And on and on. Sigh.

I guess the argument could be made that with everything I know about her and with the fact that I have a picture, that I should know enough to start writing scenes from her point of view. After all, what’s in a name? For me, I guess, quite a lot. It provides nuances into the character, just like the picture does and I think those shades are important.

I’ve had a few people emailing me name suggestions and I’ve liked a few of them so I’m going to try them out in my head and see how it goes. At this point, I’m getting pretty desperate. The prologue is written, I’ve tinkered with it, now it is time to move forward.

I’m beginning to feel like an echo, constantly talking about this, but this is my writing news right now. I’ve never, ever been in this situation before. I’ve always had characters volunteering their names. I’ve toyed with the idea that maybe it isn’t time to write this book, but I think it is–both characters are talking, both of them are showing me future scenes and that doesn’t happen if it’s not the right time.

And the beat goes on…..

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, characters, EDJ, names, writing
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Paper Folding

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

I’m still folding envelopes. Gah! Why did I think this was a good idea? I’m so ready to get these things done and move onto something (ANYTHING!) else. I was so busy folding, I even forgot to go out and check on my lilies. I’ll have to do that this afternoon when I get home from the EDJ.

The last box is now off the counter next to my stove. It’s been about 6 weeks since I’ve had that clear because that’s where I had my boxes of flower bulbs to be planted and the last box was a solar-powered bug zapper for my deck. My dad and mom came over last night and he put it together for me. Now, all I need to do is clean off the lounge chair and get it up on the deck–then it will officially be summer.

I think I’m finally starting to recover from my brain drain because this morning, I had a flash of an idea for my Light Warriors series. Just like old times. The downside was that it had nothing to do with the book I want to write next in this world. I need to start working on that and getting things planned out.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, life, light-warriors
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Hitting the Ground Running

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

Sorry, no movie review today. Yesterday was another one of those days where I was going full tilt from the time I got up until nearly the time I went to bed. I had an appointment to get a new muffler/tailpipe installed which gave me another early and rushed morning. It took a couple of hours, but now the urban assault vehicle is back in stealth mode. In other words, you can’t hear me coming a mile away.

Then there were chores and more chores. Sigh. I closed the day by picking up my dad from the airport and by then I was beat. Today, I’d like to plant my flowers, but it rained during the night and it’s still wet and overcast, so I don’t know if I’ll get those planted. Unfortunately, I still have enough indoors to keep me busy all day.

I saw the final episode of Shear Genius and the stylist I was rooting for won! Hurrah! I wish I could have seen the episodes that I’d missed, though, before the grand finale. I also saw that HGTV is going to do Design Star again starting in July. That was fun last year when I watched it.

Right now, I’m watching a show about shark attacks and the ten hottest spots where they happen. Florida ranked number one, BTW, but most of their bites are apparently by baby sharks and haven’t caused the kind of damage that bigger sharks cause. Of course, there have been shark attacks by bigger ones, too. I remember those bull shark attacks where that girl died and that boy was seriously injured. Bull sharks are aggressive and big enough to be deadly. They’re also capable of going from salt water to fresh water and back again. The only shark that can do this. And they’ve been found as far north as Illinois in the Mississippi River. Yikes!

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, life, TV
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The World Is a Scary Place

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Sometimes the world scares me. Last night while I was taking a break, I flipped through the stations and saw that Nancy Grace was still devoting an entire show to Anna Nicole Smith. In a headline across the bottom, it said “DNA Tests Due Back Tomorrow!” And yes, they used an exclamation mark.

I do admit to some curiosity as to who fathered the baby because men were coming out of the woodwork to claim her, but I don’t need a whole eve-of-the-results show. Just a one or two minute update after the results are in is good enough. Are there people who really are sitting down and watching hour after hour of coverage after all this time? I guess they must be. I’ll confess, I’m totally not a fan of CNN Headline News’s evening programming. I’d rather have the news every half hour than these people like Glenn Beck (whose logo looks so much like Garth Brooks’ logo that I was like, wow, Garth is getting a show?) and Nancy Grace. Of course, I’m still lamenting the fact that neither MTV nor VH1 play videos any longer.

Then there was QVC this morning. I know, I shouldn’t be watching, but I had to have something on while I had coffee. There’s no baseball at 9am (I want 24 hour coverage!) and The Weather Channel is way too depressing. (3-6 inches of snow possible starting tonight and going into Wednesday.) I look up from email and they’ve got a wall mounted fish tank that looked maybe an inch wide and the guy is showing a baby’s picture behind it. Look, see what you can do? You can have fish on your wall with your grandbaby’s picture. Gah! Who’s buying this stuff?

Um, no offense if you’re one of the people who think nothing could be cooler than a fish tank/picture frame.

Anyway, I’m downloading tropical beach scenes to use as wallpaper on my computer and whining pretty heavily. It’s April and they’re talking about snow. Snow! They also said that we won’t see normal temperatures for another 10-12 days. That’s after a week already below normal. You know, I could handle a couple of days of cold, but nearly 3 weeks? Sigh.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, life, spring, TV, weather
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Waiting for the Warm Up

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

I canceled my order for the Cricut machine that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. My former coworker who said she was going to order it, had canceled her order too after she talked to some people at her local scrapbook store. Then she mentioned the Wishblade. This is a die cutter that you can hook right up to your computer and it will cut out any true type font. Now since I’m a font whore, I have a ton of these! This sounded like the better way to go and less expensive in the long run because the fonts would be virtually unlimited and there are so many free ones available that it would be more cost effective in the long run. I did a search, found some reviews and a Yahoo group for the Wishblade. I joined that, but they have like hundreds upon hundreds of messages a day, so I’m web only–with no time to really read up on what people are saying about the product.

Tomorrow is the last day in the department for one of my tech writers. He got a management position. Of course, it’s not Mr. Congeniality, AKA the coworker from hell, who’s going. He, I’m certain, will be there forever. Why is it that the people we want to stay, leave and those we hope will leave, don’t?

I also lost one of my engineers. I knew that was going to happen. The minute our new manager was named, he began looking. At least he’s not leaving the company, only moving to a different fleet of airplanes, but again, why is it the ones you like to work with are the ones who leave?

I’ve had a couple of particularly boring projects at the EDJ (Evil Day Job). (I should probably put a glossary over on the right with all the acronyms I use. WIP, EDJ, EN, TACV, TPOT, RF, etc.) One of them is for the 787 which is mildly interesting in theory because it’s a brand new, not-even-built airplane. Unfortunately, it’s just proofreading. And because I have to pay attention to the words, I can’t listen to any of the workshops from RWA Atlanta. I’ve been doing that to keep myself entertained.

BTW, it’s a hugely sad thing when a temperature of 20 looks like nirvana. We might reach that by next Tuesday. If we’re lucky. Gah!

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, EDJ, scrapbooking
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Here I go Again

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

I did it again. Hugely overslept. Gah! This all goes back to a bad decision I made at bedtime. I always turn my heat down to 64 degrees for the night, but it’s so cold here and I was freezing last night! I decided to leave the thermostat at 68 degrees instead. I know I get warmer as I sleep and I have a down blanket, but I figured if I woke up, I’d just turn down the heat then and go right back to sleep. I was half right.

About 1:15 this morning, I did wake up because I was hot. I did get up and turn down the heat. I then laid in bed trying to fall asleep for hours. I didn’t hear the alarm for a really long time.

I also dreamed about a shark attack. Sigh. I used to have shark dreams all the time, but now they’re rare. I wish I’d skipped this one. The only plus is that it was in kind of a past tense way, so I wasn’t actually seeing the attack, just the results of it.

It was interesting to see what Super Bowl commercials received the public’s votes as favorites. I was really surprised to see the Sierra Mist commercial with the beard comb over was in the top 5. I could practically hear crickets chirping when it was over, that’s how lame I thought it was and a guy at work commented on how that spot bombed. I’d assumed he’d seen feedback already and I hadn’t at that point. I also so bits and pieces on the local news of commercials I’d missed, like Oprah and David Letterman. That one wasn’t listed on MySpace, but I did rewatch the fake dalmatian spot for Budweiser. That dog was just so cute!

Gotta run. Again.

Tags: advertising, and-the-beat-goes-on, dreams
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Patti Unplugged

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

My dad waited for the television repair guy yesterday while I was at the day job (EDJ). I’ve been having an issue with sound on all the channels except for the 4 local ones that the cable company left on their original station. My dad said the guy came first thing in the morning (yea!) and tested everything. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong so he got on the phone to RCA, and for half an hour, they ran through all kinds of stuff. Nothing worked. Finally, the TV guy said he was going to try one more thing.

He unplugged the television, let it sit for a minute and plugged it back in.

It worked perfectly.

The guy told my dad that RCA is having problems with compatibility with some cable systems and that weird stuff like this happens because of it. He said if the sound goes out again, to do the unplug thing, and if that didn’t work, that we should call again.

I just have to laugh. For more than 2 weeks, if I’ve wanted to watch television, I’ve had to do it in my bedroom. I’ve even watched the movies I reviewed here on my smaller TV. The cable company has been out. Now TV repair. And all this time, all I needed to do was unplug it and plug it back in again. Amazing.

And also in the amazing column. I started to subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine (although I’m running into the problem I feared: no time to read it). They spelled my last name wrong, so I corrected that and sent it back. Yesterday, my next issue arrived with my last name spelled exactly right. The problem? My first name is wrong. It wasn’t before. Just call me Oattu. Sigh.

Tags: and-the-beat-goes-on, TV
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