from long to short

I'm taking the main theme of my novel and I'm going to try rewriting/reworking it as a short story. It's sort of what my novel is worked around, but there have been several times that I think the pacing was sacrificed for length (since there's a standard length for first novels), and I'm wondering if it could be that much more powerful as a short story.

I never really thought of myself as a short story writer, even though there are obvious benefits to it. I wrote a few in high school, but usually I intended to keep those stories from creative writing class assignments and add to them to make novels since I thought the story could continue much more. I also used to not be a fan of short stories, though I'm not sure what it was about them I didn't like.

Last year my cousin gave me a collection and for Christmas I received Hemingway's The Snows of Kilamanjaro. So...wish me luck on this endeavor. I still have numerous pages to finish for my French homework. Is it sad that I'm already counting down the weeks? 9 more left. I wish I could just skip all that and go to the end and see how well my French comes back. I know. Patience is a virtue.

snow!

Yay! It's snowing. I hate when it's cold, but I love it when it snows. Ironic, maybe.

I went out to lunch with a friend because I wanted to go out in the snow, and cold weather calls for hot and spicey Thai food. It makes me so happy, I'm like a little girl again. This is what happens when you grow up in a place where you're lucky if you get snow for a few days each year.

habits

For about 7 or 8 months last year, a few of my friends and I met almost every Sunday to study Indonesian at a Starbucks not quite downtown. We stopped over the summer with people traveling and me deciding I wanted to refocus my language-time on the French that I could tell was slowly slipping away.

There was this...I don't know...family? that used to meet there every Sunday. I usually got there an hour before my friends to read and they were always there before me and almost stayed until we left if not later. They were only two men and a child, but maybe old friends with one who always brought his son or, more what it looked like, his grandson. I'm not sure what language they spoke, but whatever they said, you knew it was funny by how often they laughed.

After a few weeks, I admit that I would sometimes get slightly irritated, particularly when it was just me studying or reading. I know, I was voluntarily going to a public place to study, but almsot everyone else there was studying, reading or watching the close-captioned television. But at the same time, it was nice and my irritation usually diminished. When I was still in California, my friend and I used to go to the same Starbucks for the same drink at least once or twice a week to blow of mid-term and paper steam. I miss that.

So last weekend my friends and I decided to try meeting up again. I'd like to start class again, but will be taking French now on the same night. I walk in early and sit down, when I see a familiar looking kid run past me to the other end fo the Starbucks and then come running back. My first thought, to be honest, is "oh Lord, come on! My mother would have had a fit had I gone running throughout restaurants and cafes (assuming Starbucks was around 20 years ago)." (Side note: as an adult, I appreciate so much what my parents had to put up with...what any parent has to put up with).

When my eyes follow this kid, I see the two older men and recognition dawns. About eight months after I'd last seen them, there they were. Same time, same place, same people. I had to wonder, had they been coming here every Sunday since I was last there? Every Sunday for eight months? At the same time?

Doesn't that get boring? Even in California when I spent so much time studying in cafes, I had to vary it up slightly. Maybe sit outside one day, and then go to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf another day, then maybe over to Riverside for an evening, or to the only 2am Starbucks we knew of in the area. But maybe that's the only time they get a chance to get together and catch up during the week. Maybe that's the only time these old friends can chat in which case the surrounding doesn't matter.

I think they were there today, although I didn't get a chance to sit and study the other patrons. My Starbucks, alas, was packed and I just got my coffee and came home, my face going numb on the walk back. Even though I love walking in the cold with my steaming vanilla latte, and the warmth each sip provides as it sears the inside of my throat, I'm looking forward to it being warmer again and the outside patio is again an option.

Sunshine I miss you.

book recommendation

This morning I, somewhat hurriedly, finished Pride and Prejudice, and it was wonderful. I've never read any Austen before, and ironically because in my school's advanced placement English classes...we never read what we were suppposed to read. I picked it up to read because I actually highly enjoyed the latest film version with Kiera Knightly. Even knowing the ending, you're just agonizing about the process of getting there. Not in the writing, but just the story. How it seems like...missed opportunities. I'm trying not to say anything in case someone reading this hasn't read it, seen it, or seen Bridget Jones' Diary.

Maybe it's also because secretly we want someone tall, dark and handsome...and brooding to say they "ardently" love us (at least the ladies anyway). And that's also a word I think people should start using again: ardently.

Before seeing the movie, I was always hesitant to read Austen because I thought of her alongside the Bronte sisters, and I have to admit that I very much disliked Wuthering Heights, as much as I wanted to like it. I just couldn't stand Catherine and though she really needed to stand up for herself. It took a lot of effort to get through those pages.

I wish I could say more, but I'm afraid I'll give the story away. I highly recommend reading it, because then I think you'll like the characters in the films even more. Judi Dench does an incredible job of putting Lady Catherine together even though she's only in the film for ten minutes, maximum. Same with Donald Sutherland. He's in the film, but I almost wouldn't say very active, and yet...it's a wonderful performance. Seeing as how it looks like it's finally going to stay cold for some time now, this might be a good time to pick it up and stay inside and read something.

beautiful

Anyone reading this who lives in DC knows how incredibly beautiful it is today. I went out to run some errands and it's just...it's not how I remember last January. I hope this keeps up for a very important holiday coming up in a few weeks (well, important for me).

Unfortunately one of my errands was slightly unsuccessful. I wanted to go to the Container Store to pick up some organizational materials for...yes...one of my semi-resolutions. I don't usually make resolutions, but one of the ways I'm starting off this new year is cleaning/organizing and so...I guess that's a resolution. Anyway, the store's having their Elfa sale and I really didn't feel like waiting in line to purchase a couple of baskets and a container for dried pasta. I'll be back sometime during the week.

I made some delicious pasta yesterday that I may have to make again in a few days once I run out of the leftovers. I plan on cooking dinner for some friends in a few weeks, when I have some time. Tonight would be perfect though...have the windows open, lounge music playing, good conversation, theoretically tasty food and a slightly more organized living space.

But that's what happens when you live in a shoebox inside the confines of a relatively packed city. You eat on a coffeetable. I prefer to think of it as...oh, let's say bohemian. It's from my years as a Californian. I read this yoga article about trying to sit on the floor for some time every day to help open up your hip flexors. That's exactly what I'm doing. I've intended to do this.

Anyway, back to it being a beautiful day. If you live in DC, go outside and enjoy it. Because you know eventually the bitter cold will come and crush all these positive feelings. And then after the cold, the sweltering humidity. Why DC's founders couldn't move DC a little more South and not put it on swamp land is beyond me.

happy new year

Well...what'd I miss?

Sorry for the absence, but I've been on vacation for the past two weeks which has been incredibly wonderful. The only downside is that I come home around 6ish and the battery in my fire alarm is dying...so it's beeping...continually. Only every couple of minutes or so, but still. And it won't be changed until tomorrow morning, and of course, standing on my stool (even in my platform sandals) I'm much too short to even reach it and try to do anything about it.

Oh...tomorrow at work will be fun.

It's nice to be back in my own apartment, beeping fire alarm and all, but I did start missing Texas even before I got on the plane. I saw this book last night at Borders, titled something like "A Passionate Nation" or something like that, and was about Texas politics that have taken over Washington and about Texas' epic history, etc. I'd like to check it out.

More interesting notes later. Just wanted to say that I haven't dropped off the face of the planet. I was only pretending to do so.

Here's to a wonderful 2007!