Thank you to those who have been following my writing on this blog.
My non-fiction story, “Shruti Loves Kit Kats” has been published in Snapdragon: a Journal of Art and Healing !
Please check out the fall issue here.
I love this literary journal because it celebrates emerging and existing writers, and it shows how words can be both beautiful and therapeutic.
Enjoy!
*This was originally published 5 years ago,but the message remains the same: go ahead and lie*
Today is Valentine’s Day. This is the one day of the year that it’s okay to lie to your loved one.
That’s right, I said it’s okay to LIE. We do it all the time. Check it out –
First, we lie to each other in the cards we give. The bestselling cards are not the ones that speak the truths. For example, here are honest greeting cards that didn’t make the cut for Valentine’s Day 2017:
1. I love it when you pick the socks up on the floor without me asking.
2. I love how we still have that spark – even if it only lasts 5 minutes at a time..
3. You’re everything I ever dreamed of. Of course, these days I can’t remember my dreams…
4. I wish I could find the words to tell you how much I love you, but I’m tired from trying to come up with words to beat my coworkers at Words with Friends…
5. (And from the male perspective). I love you just the way you are, even if you wear yoga pants 90% of the time..
Second, women lie to their men to CHALLENGE them. Some common lies she will utter:
1. “Don’t get me flowers because they die”.
Yes, flowers die. This is a trick. She doesn’t want generic red roses in a cheap vase with a big bow. She wants you to put more thought into it. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does have to be creative.
2. “Oh, we don’t have to do anything for Valentine’s Day. It’s just another day.”
True, it is another day. So is her birthday, your anniversary and Mother’s Day.
3. “Don’t buy me lingerie.”
This is actually not a lie. She means, don’t buy some sleazy lacy thing. She does mean that a nice set of pajamas or loungwear would be lovely.
4. “This is just a holiday invented by the greeting card industry.”
Once again, this may not be a lie. She means, tell me you love me in YOUR OWN WORDS. No pressure…at least write additional words into the greeting card.
Third, we lie to ourselves.
1. We use February 14th as an excuse to eat excessively rich foods because we think that’s romantic.
Eating a lot of chocolate fondue is not romantic. The only thing hot and steamy after 10 forkfuls of strawberries dipped in chocolate will be your bowels…
So it’s your decision on how much truthiness you want in your Valentine’s Day. While I don’t think it’s sensible to lie, there may be a few exceptions…at least when it comes to the greeting card situation.
P.S. If you think you’ve missed your chance to do something really special, think again. You can be thoughtful and sensible by buying 50% off candy the day AFTER Valentine’s Day. If your woman is still insisting that she can’t eat chocolate, then break the candy up into pieces so all the calories fall out….
Traveling for the long weekend? Anticipate waiting in traffic or to board a plane? Why not take a break from staring into your mobile device or tablet and find your entertainment in the actual world and try playing a game of “Backstory”. It’s a game that requires no batteries and is appropriate for all ages. You can play it by yourself or even better, with your family.
We started playing “Backstory” when we were young and unmarried hanging out in NYC (mostly in restaurants and bars). We were always on the lookout for celebrities, but often let down. However, there were some fake-out moments.
When we saw celebrity look-alikes, we deemed them “Fake (celebrity name)”. For example, ultra-skinny, long-faced girl with girly hair was “Fake Sarah Jessica Parker” or middle-aged man who looked like a scraggly drunk with blond hair was “Fake Nick Nolte” – actually, I think that was just Gary Busey that time…
Anyway, even in stylish NYC not everyone looks like a celebrity, so when we didn’t spot a celebrity or a fake celebrity, we wouldn’t let the fun end. We came up with the “Backstory”for these ordinary folks, gave them names, developed a small plot line and in 5 or 10 minutes would create a story nearly as compelling as the average sitcom.
You, too, can get in on the fun. Why not try playing “Backstory” on this Memorial Day weekend?
“Backstory” works like this:
It can be really fun, but there are some rules:
Together we decided that she was a woman named “Marjorie” who had been married to “Phil” for 35 years. They lived in Canada and had a mutual love for all things fruity. In fact, Phil was a well-known fruit distributor in their hometown. They had saved a small portion of Phil’s bonus every year for the last 20 so they could take a fabulous trip with their family. However, when their son, Tyler, got fired again for looking at dirty pictures at work, they decided to ditch the family, buy some fabulous resort clothing and fly first class to Tahiti. So far, they were very pleased with their change in vacation plans. Marjorie was looking forward to shopping for black pearls in the town square tomorrow. Phil was looking forward to the nightly show at the hotel and watching those half-dressed Polynesian women shake it again…
By the way, “Backstory” can also be an ongoing game. It can make an otherwise dull daily commute into a quick and fun little ride. I see the same commuters everyday on my 40 minute train ride and actually know very few of them. They have no idea that I know each one of their “Backstories”…
It would be awesome to hear what kind of “Backstory” games you all come up with? Please share!
Perhaps I have been accused in the past of being pessimistic, but I think I am practical – sensible, really.
I hate when people tell me to think positive or that things will always work out. How do they know? Last time I checked, there are always thousands of reasons why plans get derailed or goals don’t get achieved. There’s a whole list of phrases that really bother me:
My husband has been telling me to think positive. My coworker tells me, if you wake up and think things are going to happen they will. And the books!! Don’t get me started on the plethora of books….
You mean all I have to do is just wake up think “I’m going to positive now! Things will happen!”?? Let me tell you, my negative sensible thinking has been going on for a while. I have proof.
Yesterday was Earth Day. You see, over twenty years ago I wrote on this topic. The essay was dire and dark enough for the local paper to run it. So to prove how far I have to go from myself to becoming a super-positive person, I’m sharing with you my “Mother Earth” essay I wrote as a 12-year-old. See below:
Greensboro News & Record, Sunday, Nov 11, 1990
What will our Mother Earth look like 100 years from now? She’ll be very, very ill, for one thing. Her surface probably will be very dried out and her beautiful features will be dead or dying. Don’t expect all her limbs to be there. She and her children will be tired and worn. Her children will be wearing gas masks and oxygen tanks because of all the chemicals in the air. All clothing will be cool and light since the ozone layer has vanished and it has let extreme heat come in. This is also a cause for wearing sunglasses. Her children will have to wear sunscreen to protect their skin. Food will be scarce because all of the crops will have died. In 100 years don’t expect life to be fun or comfortable, we’ll be living dead. So be kind to Earth, our mother.
Susan
Grade 7
Believe it or not, I was a happy kid. I really don’t know where these dark thoughts from, and I can assure you that if I ever laid awake at night worrying it was about boys and gossip – not the environment.
So far, almost 22 years have gone by, and I think a lot of Mother Earth’s beautiful features are thriving and most people are surviving just fine without gas masks and oxygen tanks. Although goofy weather events, including an incredible warm winter here in the Northeast, seem to be telling us something…
My concern for the next 78 years has less to do with the ozone layer and more to do with the economic environment – but that’s a different post…
So, 22 years later, I’m trying to be more positive – really, I am.
I’m trying to be sunny. In fact, someone awarded my the Sunshine Award a couple of weeks ago by TrishaDM.
The blogging award comes with some rules about sharing some information about yourself and mentioning/nominating other blogs. I’ll get to all that soon. Right now, I’ve taken this Sunshine award as a directive – so, yes, I will add more sunshine. And, I vow, that my next published writing will be more upbeat and at least written in a consistent tense (I can’t overlook all flaws now…).
By the way, I do believe there is some merit to these self-help books I mentioned above. It would be hypocritical of me to eschew double negatives in writing and then permit myself to be doubly negative about positive-thinking books….
Full disclosure – the only book of the bunch I read was “The Power of Now”, which was a gift from my Aunt Sherry who was a generous and fun-loving woman bright enough to light up any room. She is truly missed. So I think it’s about time I reread that book, which is available free as a PDF here. I’m positively overdue for rereading it….
March 7th, 2010, a day forever marked by two little guys both starting with “O”: Oscar, the little gold Academy Award in my hand below and Owen, the little miracle I just learned was coming into the world.
“Congratulations!” they said as they handed me the gold statuette. It felt both cool and warm in my hands – probably because it was metal and people had been manhandling it for the last hour. I kept my acceptance speech short, but of course started with “I would like to thank the Academy”.
In case you can’t tell, the cheap gold drapery and Bush league podium were not actually from the Academy Awards. Kodak sponsored the event at the Time Warner Center, which happened to be located across the street from my doctor’s office.
Tonight I will be tuning in again to watch the Academy Awards where the Hollywood elite will bring the glitz and the glam, and, I suspect, a lot of politically-charged speeches. I know, cue the eye-roll. After feigning shock that they won and proclaiming it’s an honor to work with so-and-so, who is “such a genius”, the stars will likely make a comment about our current administration and the freedoms that are dangling before us. If I had a podium and that audience, I hope I’d say something, too, joining in the effort to preserve free speech.
Even though these stars aren’t like us regular people, we rely on them to bring stories – thought-provoking or adrenaline-packed stories to help us escape and help us relate. We rely on them to help create worlds that we find just believable enough. We rely on these stories to give us hope and let us live, however briefly, in another world. And we hold these people to high standards of authenticity.
Look at last year’s Best Picture nominee, The Martian, starring Matt Damon. The movie was based on a book written by Andy Weir, who wanted to tell a story of an astronaut stranded on Mars and what it would take for him to figure out how to survive. Mr. Weir offered his story in installments on his own website – for free. He was so precise in his storytelling that he wrote computer programming, solved mathematical problems and researched how to grow potatoes just to make the story more believable.
His research for the book was so detailed that teachers begged for him to remove the profanity and create a textbook to teach students about physics and mathematics. See the New York Time’s article from Saturday that explains more: here.
That’s the power of good storytelling.
So my acceptance speech would go something like this:
I would like to thank the Academy for giving me an award show that takes me away from my average life for at least 4 hours one Sunday night each year. I would like to thank the E! news channel for providing great guilty pleasure entertainment. I would like to thank my husband for permitting me to make this Sunday my Super Bowl Sunday – a day that is planned around a lengthy television program complete with I-shouldn’t-eat-that food and extra imbibing (yay Champagne!). I would like to encourage those in power to protect free speech, continue funding for the arts and to think out side of the box in terms of teaching our children. Also, I’d like to see more awards shows for actual geniuses in all sorts of fields: Best Plumber, Best IT Support Team, Best Researcher, Best Teacher, Best Stay-at-Home Mom, etc. I am grateful for storytellers and hope we all continue to share our voices and look for ways to connect.
Cheers!
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I wrote a while ago about my love of books. I claimed it started with the Nancy Drew series, but maybe it really started with Golden Books.
They were colorful and had this beautiful gold strip lining the binding. I am told they occupied quite a bit of my time when I was little.
Another childhood favorite was the Do Bee Books.
I loved these, as well. They were guideline books telling little ones how to be good little girls and boys or “Do Bees”. I wanted to be a “Do Bee” and not be a “Don’t Bee”.
I think these books largely did their job. I grew up a fairly considerate kid and, I think, a well-mannered and diligent adult. Even today I think of trying to be “Do Bee”.
More seriously, I try to be like the best “Do Bee” I ever knew, my father. My father’s name was Richard, but everyone called him Dick. It’s not a very popular nickname now. In fact the derogatory nature of that nickname is something I encounter on a regular basis. I work on Wall Street. I encounter Dicks everywhere I turn and very few of them are actually named Richard.
When we were little my cousins wondered what they should call their uncle. And so they asked my mother, Aunt Helen, if it was okay to call their uncle, Uncle Dick. She said yes.
My father, Dick was a very practical, well-read and economical man. I always admired him, and when said with the right tone, I am flattered to be called “Little Dick”.
Unfortunately, my father is no longer here, but his legacy remains. I find myself constantly trying to be a “Little Dick”. I think Big Dick would love that I created a website about sensible things. Sensibility is one of the many traits we had in common. I think if I had to write my own children’s book of manners I might entertain the idea of using the title “Do Bee a Dick”…then I might come to my sense and rework that title…
Perhaps a better way to honor him is to start another category on this site – “Do Bee a Dick”.
Susan Van Sciver 
