Tag: words

feelings

SPAM! or i’m going through twitter withdrawal

abby mumford

i haven’t been addicted to many things in life, besides coca cola, coffee, chocolate, reading, and twitter, and thus far, i’ve only had to cut myself off from one, coffee, and that was because it was physically making me sick. it’s easy to cut something out when the NOT having of it outweighs the having of it.

’tis not so with twitter, even though it was self imposed.

friends, i’m going through withdrawal.

i find myself thinking in 140 characters. copying links and then pasting them into bit.ly so they’re shareable. wondering what everyone’s up to. pondering what uproarious conversations i’m missing. flailing in the real world without the digital world for a compass. wondering who can hear me now?

however, i must remind myself this is what i wanted. not forever, OH HECK NO, but for now until i can establish better boundaries and stronger writing habits. i need to think first in people characters, not 140 characters.

and thus, my banishment continues.

BUT since it’s only been a week and change since i cut out my heart closed twitter and my bad habits are slow to diminish, i had to find a new way to procrastinate. what did i do? i cleared out my blog’s spam filter. i found that someone or something hawking cheap laptop batteries had made it their mission to flood my blog with comments about the band mumford and sons. i get it. my last name is mumford. i’ve written about the band. but why write multiple unrelated comments about the weather and the band on a post where i’m talking about going dark/offline for awhile? and what does that have to do with cheap laptop batteries?

seeing all those spam entries one after the other got me thinking because with this departure from twitter, i find myself without a platform to talk, *cough* she says while writing a public blog post *cough*. what i mean is that with twitter, it’s instant gratification. you pop on, type up a quick thought and BOOM, instant audience. BUT THEN i realized, all those times where i’m sharing a link or trying to be funny or weighing in on writing or blabbing about books and hoping someone will join in on the conversation, it’s THEN that I’M NO BETTER THAN A SPAM BOT. well, okay, that’s a little drastic. i am better than that, but you know, twitter encourages and even exacerbates this behavior because unless it’s an @ reply, all of what we write is offered up for the whole internet to read. of course i don’t write each tweet 25x or incorporate offensive swear words or talk about cheap laptop batteries until someone responds, but i guess what i’m saying is i understand the spam.

perhaps, though, it’s a good thing i’m taking a break because i don’t like having this as my reflection:

feelings

something old. something new.

abby mumford

the smell of a candle after it’s been blown out is one of my most favorite smells, probably because i associate it with candles from a birthday cake and once the candles are out that means the eating of the cake is close behind.

it also smells like a fresh start.

it’s a good thing i like the smell so much because january is a big birthday month in the mumford household. yes, all of my siblings and i were born in january. i start off the party on the 8th. sister J is the 10th. brother G is the 17th. and sister E is the 28th. (technically, only J was due in january, so you can stop with the jokes about my parents’ amorous nature in april.)

and so the SOMETHING OLD of the blog post title is sister J. HA HA HA. just kidding. you’re not old. you’re wise. and really good at nertz and motherhood and sisterhood and listening and loving and calling and chatting and giggling and playing and living and learning and standing in my corner and sending letters and doing all the things big sisters are supposed to do and then some. i hope your happy day yesterday is just the start of an even more amazing year to follow. here’s to even numbered ages!

so speaking of fresh starts and SOMETHING NEW, i tried acupuncture for the first (and second and soon to be third) time. it was interesting and weird and ultimately, helpful. there’s nothing like a 7 month old stiff neck that has radiated down into your arm so that it hangs lifeless at your side to make you want to try something radically different. i had gone with a friend to one of her appointments, so i know what it looked like, but this was the first time i was on the receiving end of it.

side one: the first pin pricked my foot, but that was the worst of it. all of the others (in my feet, legs, hands, arms, ears, face) went in rather harmlessly. as i lay there in the dimly lit room, the sensation of the needles in my skin disappeared and took with it the pain from my neck (well, momentarily). it was fascinating and at the same time, discouraging, because if this is the only time i felt relief that means i’m going to have to walk around with pins in me all the time and unfortunately, that’s not socially acceptable.

side two: i had to lay my stomach. painful! my neck felt like it had to hold up too much weight (my brain is huge!) and that hurt. while on this side, she had to “manipulate” the needles (in my neck, head, shoulder, back), i.e. wiggle them around until they could release the stressed, angry, naughty, pent up qi from my body. ouch. and by the time the relaxation period was halfway over, my bladder had reached its capacity, which, as you could guess, is not so conducive to a calm psyche.

after the procedure was over, i admit it, i didn’t feel much relief. i hopped over to cambridge naturals and bought one of the microwaveable heating pads, stopped at CVS to pick up some bengay sticky “relief patches”, and walked home. i’m sure the walk in the wind and cold didn’t do much to relieve tension in my neck muscles, but it sure made the contrast between that and the heating pad drastic. i heart that heating pad. and then i managed coerce roommate into working my neck muscles for a little bit, so after that, things were starting to look up. and so could i. woohoo!

the day after, though, that’s the ticket! that’s when the relief started to kick in. even though it is a slow healing process, i am a fan of this thing called acupuncture.

and that’s my something old and something new. now i just have to figured out my something borrowed and something blue. wait, this is a blog post, not a wedding ceremony.

phew.

feelings

reconnecting

abby mumford

i had a gloriously long christmas vacation, but an unintentional side effect of being at my parents’ house and not being at my apartment or at work was that i rarely interacted with technology.

ok, that’s a lie.

obviously, i still used my phone and watched TV and took pictures and checked email and turned on lights and the oven and the stove top and the microwave, but i didn’t spend all day in front of a computer like i do on a normal workday. the hours flew by as we read and ate and entertained baby mac and played games and read and ate and napped and walked and ran errands and talked and ate and played games. it was grand.

i feel energized.

now it’s a new year and work has resumed and thus (after a few minor mishaps with email and voicemail and accidentally closing out of a database), i’ve replugged myself back into the interwebs.

*waves hello*

general

not my words

abby mumford

i’m not feeling very wordy today, so instead of bugging you with unimportant jibber jabber of my own, here are some others’ words, images, idea that entertain me…

patrick ness talking about the CHAOS WALKING series.

a holiday creature was stirring by bats langley.

top 10 DAMN YOU AUTO CORRECTs from november.

great article on nailing the teen voice by lydia sharp.

a serious article by carrie harris on the lure of the paranormal. and yes, her serious is as profound as her funny.

a funny tweet by @FakeEditor: “Dear Author: Best of luck in your “writing career.” Yes, I’d love fries with that.”

a seasonal picture from things organized neatly. gorgeous!

a post on how and why her life is changing by kristen munson. GAH. i want to write like this. or, well, have something like this to write about!

a picture i hope i emulate someday from ally condie’s blog.

an interesting viewpoint from kiersten white on why authors shouldn’t read reviews of their work. the irony is, of course, that in order to write the post kiersten had to read reviews!

another beautiful seasonal photograph from ann finkelstein. it looks like something charlotte would have left over wilbur’s pen.

an important writing point wrapped up in a heart meltingly cute picture from (again) kiersten white.

the most hilarious take on what stress and expectations can do to a person from hyperbole and a half.

veronica roth on how sometimes NOT WRITING is a good idea.

a stunning, not seasonally correct picture from things organized neatly. mmm, summer.

the beginning of a cool writing experiment by kelly breakey and karla nellenbach.

instant haiku, just add water by adriana kirilova.

a post from linda grimes that at first glance is all silliness, but is really a love letter in disguise. I WANTS.

hands down the best post i’ve ever read on SHOW DON’T TELL by tawna fenske. a must read even if you’re not a writer.

a coworker: “a book is never complete until it’s read. please read.” (subliminal plug for my current job + my [haven’t yet achieved] dream job.)

see, aren’t their words, ideas, images brilliant?

book club

BOOK HUNGRY: the host

abby mumford

who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is:

THE HOST by stephenie meyer

a quick synopsis from amazon: Stephenie Meyer, creator of the phenomenal teen-vamp Twilight series, takes paranormal romance into alien territory in her first adult novel. Those wary of sci-fi or teen angst will be pleasantly surprised by this mature and imaginative thriller, propelled by equal parts action and emotion. A species of altruistic parasites has peacefully assumed control of the minds and bodies of most humans, but feisty Melanie Stryder won’t surrender her mind to the alien soul called Wanderer. Overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories of fellow resistor Jared, Wanderer yields to her body’s longing and sets off into the desert to find him. Likely the first love triangle involving just two bodies, it’s unabashedly romantic, and the characters (human and alien) genuinely endearing.

i’ve now read this book twice. once, when it first came out and second, just before i wrote this review. i will say this for meyer, she sure knows how to create memorable characters. as with the TWILIGHT series, her writing isn’t the most luxurious or profound, but her characters jump off the page and nestle into your brain and you’ll find yourself thinking about them long after you’ve put the book down.

the first time i read this, i read it right after i had finished the TWILIGHT series. in that series (this won’t be spoilery, promise), there is a lot of talk about souls and who has them and who doesn’t, so when i went from that discussion to THE HOST, where the main character is an alien called a soul and well, the juxtaposition was fascinating. from no soul to all soul. the second time i read this, i seemed to focus more on the alien, sci-fi feel of the soul. i read it as more similar to ET than a heavenly being and that left quite a different flavor in my mouth. or my brain. or umm, yeah, you know what i mean.

the first time i read this, i (unintentionally) focused on the author. it was her first book that wasn’t part of her massively successful series and i wanted to see how she fared. it’s a hefty book at 656 pages and i felt like i was reading for weeks. that’s a really long time to be more aware of the author instead of the story. the second time i read this, i got lost in the story. i zipped through the book in a couple of days and yet the characters, their choices, their actions, their environment stuck with me. i couldn’t stop thinking about them and what it all meant and what would i do if i was them (aliens or humans) and where can i get some of their medicine and how do the aliens really work and why is Wanderer considered bad ass when she’s so gentle and caring and is it because of Melanie’s body or because of her (Wanderer) having lived on seven other planets and what are intersecting love triangles called and are these aliens really making Earth a better place and is that really an ethical decision?  THIS was what i was expecting that first read.

the first and second times i read this, i thought, man this is long. where were the scissors? i think a lot of passages could be cut out trimming this book down to a more manageable size without jeopardizing the integrity of the story. but, silver lining, i could multitask while reading because it doubled as a dumbbell. bicep curls, anyone?

the first time i read this, i read it to see where the story ended up. the second time i read this, i was able to look around at the scenery, stop and smell the caves, and get to know the secondary characters in addition to the primary ones. the second read was much more fulfilling and a lot more fun. as i read, i’d stop and think “what if” which in the context of this book is a very scary and, surprisingly, exhilarating question.

in short, give this book a read. an intriguing journey awaits. it’d be a shame to miss it.

p.s. see you next month when we read NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro.

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