You may refer to me as Guru Dana

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I took the Perception Personality Image Test today and this was the result:  

 Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test …

NFPS – The Guru

Nature, Foreground, Big Picture, and Shape

NFPS - The Guru

 

You perceive the world with particular attention to nature. You focus on what’s in front of you (the foreground) and how that fits into the larger picture. You are also particularly drawn towards the shapes around you. Because of the value you place on nature, you tend to find comfort in more subdued settings and find energy in solitude. You like to deal directly with whatever comes your way without dealing with speculating possibilities or outcomes you can’t control. You are in tune with all that is around you and understand your life as part of a larger whole. You prefer a structured environment within which to live and you like things to be predictable.

(I haven’t decided if I agree with this or not…or why this would make me a Guru…but it was a fun test to take!)

 

The Perception Personality Types:

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To take this test and find out if you too are a Guru, go:

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-perception-personality-image-test

Times, They Have Changed…

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I got an email from my best friend today, a very chipper email about decorating for Autumn, books, food…and how she got up at ‘the butt-crack of dawn’ for the purpose of signing up one her two charges (my friend is a nanny) in the school play.  See, at this particular school in this particular affluent section of San Diego County, it’s not as simple as it was when WE were kids.  Her charge (who we’ll call S) is seven.  Or eight.  I lose track.  At any rate, when I was that age, school plays found a place for everyone who wanted a part.  Oh well.

ANYway, my pal got there at 7am, figuring this would be plenty early enough.  She found and found a long line of parents sitting in beach chairs who’d been there since five thirty in the morning.  The sign-up officially started at eight.  They ended up 9th on the waiting list.  So, to quote my pal, ‘it looks like S’s dream of being a baby rat in “Charlotte’s Web” probably won’t happen.’

But that’s not the real kicker.

Each child who gets in the play will pay (or rather their parents will pay) $250 for the privilege of participating, no matter what their part.

Is is just me, or is this sending a really negative and dysfunctional message to these kids?   It’s not like this school needs the money to put on their play.  This is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in SD County and if my podunk school in Lakeside or the slightly more ritzy Cabrillo Elementary could afford to put on a play without charging the actors a fee, so can La…er…this community.

I shakes my head, I does…

Trader Joe’s Wine Alert

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If you’re a wine lover, you’ll know that the more you taste, especially as you taste better wines, the more difficult it is to find a truly satisfying wine for a bargain price.  By ‘bargain’ I’m talking under 10 bucks, although it’s easier to find a nine dollar wine with some complexity than, say, a five dollar wine.  I miss the days when a bottle of Black Mountain Fat Cat Cabernet from TJ’s was all I needed to make my tastebuds happy.  I still have a deep sentimental attachment to that particular wine…but it doesn’t quite do it for me the way it used to.  So when I find a really good wine for under 10 bucks these days, let alone five bucks, it’s a gift from the gods…specifically Bacchus.  And I found one today.   Dave and I were doing a quick TJ’s run before the monthly Sisters in Crime Nor Cal meeting and…

Hmmm.  I shouldn’t be sharing this information.  I should be hoarding it like Smaug horded his gold before those nasty little hobbits (we hates them, we do, yessssss, preciousssss) showed up and ruined his mellow dragon lifestyle.  I should keep my mouth shut and insure that the supply of my new grapey love will be at my local TJs for a few months.

And yet…

I find an unsuspected spark of nobility within my dragonish soul and even a bit of guilt at the thought of NOT sharing this new wine find. So…here it goes.

2005 Chariot Gypsy.  The label shows a woman in a red head scarf astride a chariot, very much in the vein of a Major Arcana tarot card.  The back only says it was bottled by Jim Neal wines in St. Helena, California.  Nothing about varietals.  I have no idea what grapes were used in the making of this wine (although its rich, spicy characteristics lead me to suspect a zinfandel or syrah in the blend).  The price tag?  $4.99.  The placard in the store said One Time Buy.  When it’s gone, it’s gone.  So I had to try it.  We took it to the SinC meeting and cracked it open aong with an inexpensive Spanish cava.  The cava was okay.  The Chariot?

…Drooool…

This is a winner, folks.  As mentioned, it’s rich and spicy, almost like a Sangiovese (hmmm…maybe…) and goes REALLY well with pizza.  It’s got a lot more complexity than most 4.99 wines and the bottle was quickly emptied by the attending Sisters who are into red wine.   We stopped at TJ’s on our way home and bought some more of it to make sure the one bottle hadn’t been a fluke.

It wasn’t.

So if you’re a wino and have a Trader Joe’s in your neighborhood — or know someone who willl ship it to you — hie yourself hence and get some of this wine!  You will not be sorry.

I will, though.  Because when it’s gone…it’s gone.

Now excuse me while I curl up on top of the remaining bottles

.

A Heart to Heart

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I am working on Champagne right now, a character-driven novel based on a short story I wrote.  It’s due January 1st and while I loved writing the story, the novel has been proving a bit more problematic.  See, I’m a genre writer.  Mysteries, horror, fantasy… where things blow up, people get killed, zombies munch on the living, dames wisecrack…y’know, there’s lots of action.  I’ve got 6 more genre erotica-romance books lined up after Champagne, all of which will involve all of the above and then some.  I’m particularly hyped up about a (wait for it) post-apocalyptic romance (Dave calls it my Cozy Catastrophe series) in which I plan on first destroying most of civilization with a nasty virus and then letting my hero and heroine have all the fun of living off the remnants while outrunning a crazy ex-surfer turned warlord who’s taken over La Jolla. 

I mean…c’mon!  This is fun stuff we’re talking! 

But…that’s two and two-thirds books down the line.  First I have to finish Champagne and then tackle a semi sword and sorcery project. 

During the drive to and from San Diego, however, my brain and creativity took a giant leap forward into Post Apocalypse land.  With Dave as a sounding board and co-enabler (he loves post apocalyptic books and movies as much as I do), I came up with a skeleton outline for the entire book, picked out locations along the road for my characters to hide in and/or run the gauntlet of unpleasant surprises hiding there, had chunks of dialogue and character quirks spring in entirety from my mind like Athena from Zeus’s forehead. I could almost waking dream myself into scenes and watch them unfold like a movie; something I haven’t been able to do since I was in my early teens.  It was amazing and inspiring…and just so much friggin’ fun figuring out just what symptoms the nasty disease would manifest in its victims, what horrors I could unleash on the survivors, and how much fun they’d still have shopping for free in abandoned stores.  And yes, sex all of this up ’cause this is genre erotica romance, after all!  

But first I have to finish Champagne.  So that’s what I’ve been working on. 

I had a mini-tantrum this afternoon after spending a half hour on one paragraph.  “I HATE these characters.  They’re boring.  No one gets eaten or blown up. They just talk and have sex in picturesque places.  Feh!”  

I then stomped around the house a bit, had a glass of mineral water and sulked.  Then I came back and sat down with my iBook, where my characters in Champagne were waiting for me with sad, hurt expressions.  “We’re interesting,” they told me.  “Just because we’re not being chased by zombies or being amateur sleuths doesn’t mean we can’t lead rich, full lives that other people will enjoy reading about.”  My lead character took me aside for a moment and said, “Why don’t we try THIS…” and whispered a few things in my ear, some ideas of where we could take the story.  “I’ll do my best to be entertaining if you remember that we’re from your imagination.  We’re your kids too…even if we don’t use crossbows or swordfight.”  

And she was right. I originally created these characters because I loved them, even the annoying ones.  And it’s not fair to them to shove them to the back of my mind just because a new toy is prettier and shinier (and lets me destroy most of civilization!).  So I made a bargain with the inhabitants of Champagne – that I would accord them the same attention and enthusiasm as other, more action packed projects.  And in return they would continue to work with me to create the most interesting and entertaining world possible for them to occupy. 

And I promise to leave them alone when I destroy the world…  

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I am back from an all too brief vacation in San Diego and am about to dive into four days of jamming on CHAMPAGNE. I don’t want to lose the momentum gained from the August Blog Challenge and am happy I managed to finish that and also get up a post for September 1st, even if it was a cute photo op post. And I’m sure there will be more of those, but…three a week. That’s the goal.

I barely went near computers while in San Diego. I’m glued to them all day at work, then when I get home. I didn’t have time to see all the people I wanted to while down there, didn’t remember my phone book, and spent a large portion of the trip recovering from a 10 hour drive down Saturday through the evil hell that is the Central Valley. L.A. traffic was as horrid as I remember it being and instead of arriving late morning with several hours of kicking back, we had just enough time for a brief rinse and change of clothes before we were expected at Maureen’s for a dinner party that evening. Saw my brother and his wife, along with their perfect, adorable and above-average in all ways daughter (my niece), who has to be one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met. Pure sunshine nature. I dozed off listening to her burble happily while playing with an old Fisher-Price play castle. Got one very brief surf session in; it’s been long enough that my stamina was for sh*t. But it was fun. Realized I’d forgotten to call or email my friend Pam before coming down and didn’t have her phone number with me and felt (and still DO feel) idiotic about this. Pam, I owes ya big time.

Right. Time to get cracking on CHAMPAGNE. So a more detailed, thoughtful and witty post (I have high hopes for myself, don’t I?) later!

August 31st, The Final Day of the August Blogging Challenge

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I’m ending this challenge on a humorous note, along with a heartfelt statement of how much I’ve enjoyed participating in this challenge and what fun it’s been to get to know all of my fellow Blog Challengees. What a wonderful bunch of diverse, talented and inspirational writers! I look forward to continuing to get to know you via your blogs and wish you all nothing but good things!

This is something to think about when negative people are doing their
best to rain on your parade. So remember this story the next time
someone who knows nothing, and cares less, tries to make your life
miserable. A woman was at her hair dresser’s getting her hair styled for a trip to
Rome with her husband She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who
responded:

“Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty.
You’re crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?”

“We’re taking Continental,” was the reply. “We got a great rate!”“Continental?” exclaimed the hairdresser. “That’s a terrible airline.
Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they’re
always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?”

“We’ll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome’s Tiber River
called Teste.”

“Don’t go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be
something special and exclusive, but it’s really a dump, the worst hotel
in the city! The rooms are small, the service is surly, and
they’re overpriced. So, whatcha’ do ing when you get there?”

“We’re going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope.”

“That’s rich,” laughed the hairdresser. “You and a million other people
trying to see him. He’ll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You’re going to need it.”

A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser
asked her about her trip to Rome.

“It was wonderful,” explained the woman, “not only were we on time in
one of Continental’s brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they
bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had
a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.”

And the hotel was great! They’d just finished a $5 million remodeling
job, and now it’s a jewel, the finest hotel in the city They, too, were
overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner’s suite at no
extra charge!”

“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s all well and good, but I
know you didn’t get to see the Pope.”

“Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a
Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes
to meet some of the visitors, and if I’d be so kind as to step into his
private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.

Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and
shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.”

“Oh, really! What’d he say?”

“He said: ‘Where’d you get the shitty Hairdo?’ “

Saturday, Day 30th of The Great August Blogging Challenge

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Okay, the following made me laugh out loud:

Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything but they 
bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

 

Does this make me a bad person?

Excuse the brevity of this post.  It was not sent from my handheld, but it WAS sent from my parents’ house in San Diego where I’m on vacation and not inclined to spend much time on my computer.

Muni Pages – Day 29 (which means yesterday’s post was the 28th!)

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I was doing my morning pages on the Muni this morning.  Have any of you ever used this tool?  Morning pages, not Muni.  If you’re familiar with The Artist’s Way, you’ve heard of the practice of writing three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness first thing when you wake up.  It acts as a mental (and sometimes emotional) garbage dump, the theory being it clears out your mind of extraneous crap so it’s free and clear to focus on creative endeavors. It works too, at least for me.  I don’t always do it first thing in the morning – I have a habit of rolling out of bed with just enough time to get ready for work and catch my streetcar (or, if I give myself an extra 10 minutes, I walk 45 minutes to West Portal and catch the train there).  I like my sleep and love to dream and will stretch my ‘just five more minutes’ far past its 300-second allotment.  Plus, have you ever tried writing in bed with a pen and a curious feline (or 5) in attendance?  The pen is the best toy in the world and they KNOW you’re wiggling it around JUST for them.  10 minutes of morning pages becomes 20 minutes of entertaining the kids.  Fun, but not what the author of Artist’s Way intended. These days I do them first thing on the Muni or when I’m waiting for it to arrive.  I can’t read what I write, but that’s not the point of them.

I go through phases of not doing morning pages.  Sometimes months, sometimes years go by.  During these periods I go through frustrations, creative blocks, depressions and self-doubt.   I’m not saying that NOT doing the morning pages brings on these symptoms.  But I know from repeat experience doing the morning pages alleviates the symptoms and helps me gain perspective, figure out what’s blocking me up or causing the near suicidal moods.  And yet stubbornly I won’t renew the practice when the moods first hit. OH no, that would be too easy and reasonable. For whatever perverse reason, I wait until the last possible minute when it’s either go to my doctor’s for antidepressants (something I’ve avoided so far) drive my loved ones crazy, and then something finally snaps and I start doing them again.

So very simple.  I have to wonder at the way my brain is hardwired. I play observer a lot when I’m deliberately avoiding something I know would help – I am a big one for proactive behavior and taking personality responsibility.  Yet in this one area, I am a stubborn kid who won’t eat her vegetables, even though she’s had them before and KNOWS she like the way they taste.  Go figure.

So I reached that point a few weeks back and started doing morning pages again. I took a three-day break when I couldn’t use my right hand (the Dreaded Cat Bite Incident of August ’08), but picked them back up again as soon as I could hold a pen without excruciating pain (yeah, I’m still a drama queen).   Sometimes I write down my dreams, like yesterday when I woke up with a piece of a dream stuck in my brain.  I wrote it down and suddenly had a whole chunk of outline for one of my novels. I think that’s pretty cool.

Sometimes I write about the people around me on the Muni (they can’t read my writing even if they are looking over my shoulder).  This morning was one of those days because my nerve endings hadn’t sheathed yet (I need at least two hours after waking up before I’m ready for any social interaction beyond my bed) and I was surrounded by chattering boys, teenage girls on cell phones (can you say VAPID?), and someone with a cold who was a firm believer in the snort and spit cure.  Ugh.

I write out my frustrations with my job, my fears about my relationships, financial worries. I also write affirmations, intentions and remind myself I don’t have to lose 10 pounds to be attractive.  I just want to ’cause I have such cool clothes that currently don’t quite fit. I make ‘to do’ lists so I won’t repeat them in a circular thought loop the entire trip to work.  It pops into my head, it goes onto the pages.

When I’m finished with my three pages, I close the notebook, put my pen away and relax. Really relax. They’re an internal pressure valve release, those pages, and if there’s a more invaluable creative tool for me personally, I can’t think of one.  I’ve written more in the past month than I have in three years if we count both blog posts and fiction. Three cheers and a tiger for me!

The blog challenge this month also has its part in motivating my output, but I’m not sure I could have stuck with it if I hadn’t been doing my morning pages.  Or you might have read some scary posts all month…

Expression Lines? – Day 27

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I had a totally different post in mind for today’s post. I wrote the majority of it this morning on my Alpha, but something else crossed my path that I just had to share and see if everyone else finds it as amusing as I do.

I work at a venture capital firm that invests in green and sustainable technology/beauty/cleaning supplies/etc., anything in the area of health and wellness. Which is kind of cool ’cause it’s really one of the first VC firms to venture into this area. I don’t want to be an office manager the rest of my life, but for the time being it’s a good job with good people. We do due diligence on products sent from potential investment companies and I swiped (with my managing director’s permission, of course!) a very expensive skin care kit to test out. It promises, among other things, to balance out all skin types, give you visibly firmer, younger-looking skin and ‘targets the causes of expression lines.’

‘Targets the causes of expression lines.’

Now is it just me, or does this bring to mind visions of faces super-glued into immobility, thus ensuring expressions do not occur and form those nasty expression lines. Botox in a bottle, maybe? It brought back to mind advice from a photographer friend of mine during my modeling days: he told me to always try and keep my face placid, with just the slight hint of a smile in my ‘cheekbones.’ It would prevent wrinkles from forming, he said.

I think it’s obvious I did not follow this advice.

I’m going to try out the product. It’s…well, let’s just say this kit has a retail price just short of $200. And I’m pretty confident whoever wrote that priceless piece of ad copy was referring to laugh lines (oooh, evil!!!) , crows feet and frown lines All of which are signs of aging, but also of our lives. Expression lines. So I’m not worried about becoming as waxy and immobile as Cher or Joan Rivers …but I’m not gonna be too disappointed if all the lines on my face are still there when I’m done with the due diligence. I’ve earned every one of them.

The Mystery of Mysteries

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Tonight I was part of a panel of mystery writers at the West Portal Library.  I actually instigated the panel when Jess Lourey and I were on the first leg of our Thelma and Louise book tour and hitting all the bookstores and libraries in the Bay Area that we could hit in one day.  Terri and Melissa were the librarians on duty and they were as friendly and receptive as any non-famous author could desire.  They were definitely interested in having a mystery themed panel at the library and I was up for putting one together.  The panel included:

Kelli Stanley, (Nox Dormienda, the first Roman Noir mystery.

Melanie West (Conflict of Interest),

Peter Gessner (The Big Hello and the Long Goodbye);

(this was the biggest jpg of Peter’s cover I could find);

and (bats eyelashes demurely) Yours Truly,

Dana Fredsti (Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon.)

(I had a BIG jpg on hand)

Dave Fitzgerald was the moderator at my request  – I knew he’d make sure all four of us had equal microphone time and keep things moving along.

See, depending on the personality of the authors, panels can be highly entertaining and informative, or great cures for insomnia.  Sometimes one panelist will monopolize the entire session, the alpha wolf in the author pack, snapping and snarling if another writer dares to get to close to the kill (i.e. audience attention). If they don’t snap and snarl, they just don’t. stop. talking.  And if the moderator can’t take control, things spiral out of control, less extroverted panelists get shut out and no one is happy except the narcissist who wouldn’t shut up.

I am pleased to announce that not only did Dave keep the panel moving after first giving each of us well researched introductions and a chance to say a little bit about ourselves, but all four writers understood the concept of give and take.  No one tried to monopolize the panel, answers to questions sparked comments from the rest of us, and the audience members (some of whom none of us had met before, always exciting) were responsive and had plenty of questions of their own.

The only glitch for me was having it held in the children’s room of the library and the only reason that was an issue was because a ‘bitch’ slipped out during one of my answers (why did you write your mystery in the first place?  Because I worked with a total bitch and wanted to kill her) and there were still a couple of kids squirreled away in a corner with the computers.  I quickly changed my reply rating from PG to G.

So my question to my fellow bloggers and authors: what’s the worst panel experience you’ve ever had?  The best?   And if you’ve never been on one, but attended as an audience member, same questions.  Add to that, what makes a panel enjoyable for you?  And what makes you want to throw bricks at the panelists?

Inquiring minds want to know.