Ramblings By Rhianna

April 27, 2008

How’s my week been? “Meh.”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 4:16 am

 

I am ready to write about something fun, how about you?   

Okay, who watches Torchwood on the BBC America? I love this show. It’s one of a couple of Dr. Who spin offs. It’s like the Star Trek franchise gone bi/metro sexual with the little blue pill. Did I mention that I love this show? Just when you think it is totally over the top, they do an episode that really touches you emotionally. What the hell are they doing with that season finale?

It has totally screwed up my DVR recording issues for Saturday nights. The last show of the season was last week and now I am forced to watch amazingly bad sci fi channel made for TV movies. Okay, I could be watching HBO or Showtime, but it amuses me to see how long I can watch a movie that sucks.

Why aren’t you reading? Yes, ask me that!

Because…I can’t right now.

I’ve spent the last week home from work because my head was spinning. My inner ear is wreaking havoc with my ability to read and walk. ~I hate that when it happens.~  It doesn’t happen very often, thankfully. So, I’m on day four of my steroid pack and I can finally watch a bit of TV without feeling like I’m going to puke. Who knew it would not be a stellar night in TV viewing. Sometimes things just aren’t the good time they should be.

So, my niece replies to questions with “Meh.”

How are you? “Meh.”

Anything interesting happening? “Meh”

It cracks me up everytime she does it.  She shares these words, little gems that are perfect to express her mind.  Yes, our conversations are much longer than your usually one syllable word.

Just sharing a bit.

Rhianna

April 21, 2008

Making Changes

Filed under: My Life — Administrator @ 3:02 am

On Thursday and Friday of last week, I moved into a new office. Not spanking brand new, but new to being my office. For the last two years or so, I’ve been sharing an office with a great woman, who has taught me a lot about niceness. I try to tell myself that I didn’t need the lessons, but I suspect it didn’t hurt me to learn.  About 18 months ago, I outgrew the small desk and minimal space for my job and when the office next door came open, well I went to my boss and asked for it. They had to consider it for three months before they decided.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep that office before someone comes along that is bigger than I am on the work food chain. I am about guppie sized, but I have been working the same department for a lot of years and they do give me a fair amount of respect for what I do.

Your question in all this is: Yea, so what?

It’s all about change and how we go with it, or try to fight it. I asked for this change and for me it is positive. I now have a large desk, more file space and the ability to fix it how I want…to some extent. I know longer feel like I am the messy one, falling out of her desk in the corner, which is how I felt much of the time.

My office mate for the last two years was gone all last week. She became someone new…a grandmother. It has been a time of great new beginnings for her. A part of me wanted to get the move done while she was gone, just do it and be done. (This is going to date me…) The vibe has been different for a while. Moving to another office wasn’t the beginning of the change, it has been a result of change that gave me this feeling of restless movement. It began as personnel changed and I realized I needed space.

Over the years I’ve always tried to go with the flow of change. It is part of my adventurous nature. In my twenties I traveled the country and changed jobs a lot. I was looking for something intangible with the certain knowledge that I would know what it was when I found it. I didn’t find it, what ever it was. I was chasing change. To catch up I metaphorically bought a boat. I learned most cities are what you make them and stopped moving about so much.

As I got older I let myself be swept up and away in whatever life had to show me. I neither embraced change nor fought it. Instead I sat upon my boat and chose not to bring sails or place a motor or paddles upon it, and often weathered waters that were unsafe. At some point along the way I didn’t like being lost and found my way well enough to buy a motor, paddles and sails. I tried using them each, depending on my whim.

I still listen to breeze, feel the water with my hands and feet and when the wind is out of my sails, I use the motor much more often then paddles. I often wonder where I’m going, but damn the scenery is fine and I haven’t gotten sea sick in years. I don’t have a clear vision of my future, glimpses of sitting on patios and watching the sky at sunset or as the dawn breaks.  I wish I were physic and was certain where I am going. I don’t want to quietly fade away, lost at sea. At some point I hope to embrace a time and settle there. Maybe it is that patio that I can only glimpse.

Change is inevitable. Do you hate it or love it or just go with it?

 

 

Rhianna Samuels

April 13, 2008

Words of Love

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 8:19 pm

I’m unashamedly stealing a concept from Madame Butterfly’s. Her blog is about hearing and saying the “I love you” words.  It is not necessary in her life, because it is a given in her relationships. I would guess that is a cultural perspective that she has learned from many years in Japan. So, I am taking the theme and putting it through my POV.

 

I say “I love you” often to my family. Perhaps it is because my day job has taught me the lesson that you cannot let things go until next time. I have heard the words, “I didn’t get a chance to tell him/her how much I love them.” I have watched too many people die suddenly. It’s all living in the moment, which is a theme I have explored before on my blog. But, in most relationships, excluding family, applying those words is a very touchy point. It can scare off many if said to soon in a relationship and it may have very different meanings from one person to the next.

 

As a writer, it is important to let the reader see the progression of a relationship between the hero and heroine. Most books don’t allow you weeks and months to grow into love. In life, it is the small moments of normal activities upon which we build our lives and which seem to become more because we let somebody in on the experience. Like the shared cup of coffee in the morning; dressing and undressing with someone else there watching or waiting; or discussing something of interest in the paper or on the news. It is the ordinary made extraordinary, that we tuck away into our memories as we fall in love in segments of shared experiences.

 

Capturing the essence of small moments in a book or story becomes tedious for the reader. I love romance books because they move along and take them with me. They are bigger than life and have extraordinary themes beyond my simple life. I live vicariously through the heroine when I read a book and I want her to be someone I can relate to, but not have my boring problems to deal with. Give me the Greek tycoon or ancient Vampire King and I’m a pretty happy gal.  (Maybe I should write something geared to Harlequin.) The themes of a book are not as important as the words within. Quirky characters and hard core explicit sex are great if the story and plot make it plausible. It’s the difference between a XXX movie, that will get you cranked sexually, and a big production pride and prejudice that can feed the soul. I won’t remember the sex movie, but will never forget as Darcy crosses that field to stand before Elizabeth. I try to write about the experience of falling in to love, which includes it all…the sex and the large and small moments that get you there, but also the insecurites and frailty of love that can crumble so easily as it begins to coarse through our hearts and minds.

 

I am an insecure. It is my cultural upbringing, and my life lessons that have made me so. I need to hear in my relationships and from my lovers that I am indead loved and cherished. I want to know that I am a companion because I am more than convenient or comfortable. It is not necessary that those words be spoken often or with great passion. In fact I think a note or letter that says more than just I love you is perfect.

 

My baby brother, the youngest of six, died when he was twenty eight years old in a motorcycle accident. He was a good friend to me, as well as my brother. Although we were nine years apart, we hung out a lot when we were living in the same town for a while. Two years before he died he sent me a Christmas card with a hand written note attached. Spelling isn’t (wasn’t) his forte, that’s a family trait.

 

This card doesn’t really express how much I love you. You’ve been a friend when I needed one, a council, a devel’s advocate, etc.  You’re fun, witty and sometimes too smart for your own good. But most of all, you’re a great sister. I hope this day is a happy one for you, I’m sure I’ll find out when you call.
Love ya,
Andy
I keep that card out on my desk in a plastic frame. It reminds me of what a loving and sweet man my brother was, but it reminds me that we are something different to everyone, and sometimes the sweetest things in life are being told what we mean to someone else. It’s more than the words I love you, it’s the reasons behind those words that are eloquent and soul shattering. That is what I want to hear from those who love me and from the books I read and write.

 

Rhianna

April 7, 2008

I love it when a story comes together

Filed under: The writer, ER nurse — Administrator @ 12:34 am

I love it when a plan comes together.  That was one of my favorite lines from the A team TV series, in the way back when. It works for the writing process also. I love it when you decide on the threads that will intertwine through out your plot. Then you begin to weave with all the threads to create something unique and perhaps poignant.  I have two stories that have now reached that point in my mind and on the page.

 

When I start a story, it generally begins as a simple beginning and ending. There is one event that defines the middle. I lean towards being a panster for dialogue, but I usually have the image for action and characteration. As I consider the story and often before I actually start to write, I have to build the mythology, the details that color the world. I like the imagery of a tapestry. The first step is the story in outline form, or the simple design.

 

The mythology/details are when I decide on the colors. Do I want vivid or murky for this section, should I choose forest browns and greens or bright yellows, pale greens or reds. Will there be birds and angels in the sky or an austere church. It has to be read enough to fall into.

 

More then the skies, the back round of the characters are for texture, bringing them to the forefront, so our eyes are drawn to them. Should this story be made from a hand made loom or manufactured. My preference is hand made with yarn and thread of many thicknesses. There are so many choices to make.

 

I realized yesterday as I wrote on my current wip, that it was suddenly forming a picture that I had not fully realized. Threads that I believed were there for their bulky texture would now become more prominent and extend further, even beyond this story. I love it when a story comes together.

 

On a completely different topic, this last week we had a toddler come in to the ED, who was resuscitated on the scene and survived long enough to spend a day or two in the hospital before his death.  It was child abuse and neglect. The other children had already been removed from this family. The last custody hearing for this child, the judge was recommended to not return him by the social worker and child protective services, but the child was placed back into this home.  HIs death is now on that judge, who I suspect will now carry the burden of his judgement upon his soul.

 

We see child abuse from neglect, physical to sexual abuse come through our doors. Not every day, but enough to have very strong opinions about people who preform cruel acts upon the innocent. I don’t think there is a person male or female, amoung our staff that would consider the death penalty too extreme for any one who kills a child through abuse. The two nurses that performed his SANE came away in tears.  

 

This topic is a well developed discussion among the nurses, doctors and law enforcement officers. I can recall some years ago the 18 month old who came to us with a cervical 2 fracture. One that made her a quadraplegic for life. I was all for the death sentence for that, breaking the neck of a baby. Perhaps it is why in my writing I found some justice along the way for those who could not demand it or make it happen. If you have read Shaking Off the Dust, then you’ll know exactly what I am referring to.

 

Perhpas the oddest thing that you might not know about me is that I still tend to trust people, despite the unsafe world we live in, I still want to believe there are good people, willing to make our lives better.

 

Rhianna

 

 

April 2, 2008

April Fools and all the Foolish Things We Do

Filed under: My Life — Administrator @ 1:46 am

 

 

Were I to make a list of all the foolish things I’ve ever done, it would be impressive and that does not include the great majority which are forgotten. My foolishness began with my first breath and I suspect will only end upon the last gasp as I leave this world. 

 

 

In youth, we are taught right from wrong and safe from hazardous, but are genetically programmed to tempt fate in reckless attempts to prove we are smarter, faster or more stubborn than those around us. We thrill to the idea of cheating death. I, for one, have the scars of my adolescence upon my body, heart and conscious. What a fool I was, with no concept of mortality, not yet aware of how precious live was. 

 

I offer advice to my youngest family members as they weave through the emotional mind fields of two faced friends and unrequited love, searching for the words to lessen their confusion and pain. But mostly, I remember how I was thrown onto those rocky shores in a time gone, with no wish to ever relive that portion of my life. Which is more foolish in youth, that we offer out hearts to the boys who haven’t a care for how they handle them: or to survive bruised and sometimes broken and then hide our love away, afraid of reliving that pain. 

 

As each decade come we are offered new and unique ways to make fools of ourselves. There are the times we squander our time on silly games, instead of learning a lesson that you will need to survive intact in the far off future. There are the times we should have played with our friends and neighbors to establish the bonds that link us for a lifetime. 

 

Love and fools are inexplicably tied together. It doesn’t matter your age, gender or race; our hearts make decisions independently of the brain. As a consequence we are always made to look the fool. Did we learn nothing in our youth? 

 

The pragmatic will submit that any dream that is not substantiated with the sure knowledge of success is foolish. I need to believe that your dreams can come true, much like Pinocchio. My dream to become a published author came true because I put in the time and wrote a novel that was considered good enough to be published. That was not foolish, that was work. It was only part of the dream though, I want to be a writer able to live comfortable off the proceeds of my novels and devote myself to writing full time. What makes this a foolish dream is that I have tied my heart and ego into the mix and it requires luck and good fortune as much as the work I put forth. 

 

I believe that in old age we should be allowed to be foolish, to act out and do things that are bad for us. I will have paid all my dues to the next generation and the one that just past. I worked to make the world a better place. I want everyone to say, “what a foolish old woman, with her fan collection and Lord of the Rings chess sets. She’s so odd, but damn, she can make me laugh.” 

 

Tell me about foolish you. 

 

Rhianna 

Powered by WordPress