Sometimes, Melissa runs her legs. Sometimes, she runs her mouth.

Month: April 2009 (Page 1 of 2)

news tidbits.

A criminal defense lawyer who had sex with a client and reduced the fee $200 each time she had sex with him was ordered disbarred in Florida today. (via law of criminal defense)

Antidepressants make your brain grow? Psychology today says “YES THEY DO!”

The University of Arkansas is prepared for the Swine Flu.

How to annoy someone if you’re a lawyer? Put a big billboard of your office right beside their office. Aw petty yet amusing.

I look up the swine flu and tweet about how it doesn’t seem so bad. Wake up feeling tired and have a sore throat. FEAR THE SWINE! FEAR THE SWINE!

Local produce porn.

Strawberries

The best thing about living in the country is the access to local produce. This guy sold the box of strawberries above for 25 dollars. It’s some guy that lives in town. Don’t they look yummy?

bucket of blueberries

My Dad’s BFF (who, unfortunately, died about three weeks ago) raised blueberries. Every summer, my Dad would come home with buckets of blueberries. He eats a bunch and freezes a bunch. The frozen ones go great with smoothies and warmed up to make compote.

potato

Here’s a bucket of potatoes. I think those are from my Grandma’s house.

Pecan closeup.

Every Christmas season, my grandma sells shelled pecans by the pound to raise money for Christmas gifts. I don’t think she’s actually spent beyond “pecan money” for Christmas in years.

Thank you for being a friend, Bea

Bea Arthur, star of Golden Girls and Maude, died over the weekend.

Here is the controversial episode of Maude, where Maude debates whether or not to have an abortion at 47.

weirdest dream

I dreamed that I went to the screen door of my house and let my cats in. Unfortunately, there were three cats and I only had two. The third cat made it in the house and for whatever reason, I let it stay in. I then lied down to take a nap. Tuffy likes to sleep on an ottoman in the living room. Tiny likes to sleep with me. This other cat wanted to sleep on the bed too. They proceeded to get in a fight across my stomach. The other cat ended up scratching me on the face. I cursed and threw him outside.

Apparently, throwing this particular cat was the wrong thing to do because the next thing I know there is a multitude of hissing cats clawing their way through the screen door.

I try to scream but can’t.

Then there is a break and I’m asleep alone in another bed that isn’t mine. I’m in an appartment and I’m not on the first floor. Someone breaks in the window. I try to scream but can’t. This guy comes in my apartment. He then tries to smother me with my own pillow. I keep trying to scream but can’t.

I managed to wake myself up at the freakiness of it.

And now I am procrastinating going back to bed by farting around on the internet.

TV angst, running, and mishmash.

I had a feeling from watching Chuck that the producers were pushing the show in a position where if it was canceled that it would be seen as tying up some loose ends. Of course, my gut was right and there is talk about the show being canceled. .

What the? Chuck is a hilarious show. It has better ratings than Gossip Girl.

So runners. I have noticed the trend of skirts. I found these from OldNavy. Are they helpful? One of my problems as an overweight runner trying to become regular weight through running is that my thighs rubbing together produces this awful friction type burn. It seems similar to carpet burn but it’s your own skin rubbing against each other. It’s horrible. There is Body Glide which is amazing for this problem. There’s also Vaseline but that’s sticky.

Leggings or bicycle pants type capris have always been an alternative that takes care of that problem but then you have the problem of your butt feeling all exposed to the world and if you’re a larger person, you’re not exactly wanting your butt doing that. I’m wondering if these would be a good purchase.

I haven’t kept track of my running. I know I do it and my nikeipod thing keeps track of it but I couldn’t tell you how often I run. I have an idea how far I go each time but past that I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m getting health benefits. l? Hcdoing that

Arkansas Literary Festival

I like books. I think reading is a great thing to do and I think reading is important. So when there is an event in Arkansas that focuses on reading or books that I am interested in. I am there.

Needless to say after that introduction, I am in a complete lather over the Arkansas Literary Festival. This is the first year I have had time to go. I didn’t attend any Friday day activities because I don’t live in Little Rock and had some work duties I needed to complete. I did, however, go to the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater fundraiser at the Starving Artist Cafe.

I think I was the only non friend of the theater group there. It was a very small group there. I was a little sad. I did see some former college classmates. I saw some good music, some Shakespearean acting, and got some cake. Cake makes everything better.

The next day, I ended up attending three workshops. ( think they were called workshops): (1) blog.diary.journal; (2) Writing about Music Panel; and (3) Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons with Johnathan Rosenbaum.

The first panel was intended for people who were newer to online blogging and journal writing. They explained the different formats such as WordPress; blogger and livejournal, among others. They explained that there is no privacy on the internet and to “pretend your mother is reading this.”

Ms. Kearney was President Clinton’s diarist. She attended the senior staff meeting every morning and was given papers as well as computer copies of documents in order to compile a diary that would be useful to historians and regular folk alike. Phil Bildner is a children’s book author and blogger. Mary Anne Radmacher writes about journalling and teaches writing.

The second panel consisted of Kevin Brockmeier and Carol Ann Fitzgerald, managing Editor of the Oxford American reading excerpts from The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing.

Kevin Brockmeier read an excerpt about Iris DeMent and Carol Ann Fitzgerald’s excerpt was about Bessie Smith Brockmeier’s piece was more an analytical set about the music and how it affected him as a listener, describing the emotions felt as he listened, the approach he has to music, and the details of the singer’s voice and instrumentation. Fitzgerald’s piece was more confessional of both her life and Bessie Smith’s including tidbits about Fitzgerald’s friendship with the woman who introduced her to Bessie Smith and Bessie Smith’s legendary temper.

I’m not sure which tactic is best for writing about music and both can be effective. Music, as a aural medium, is almost impossible to explain visually so it seems to be that the best you can do is describe yourself enough so that the reader will find you as someone whose opinion to be valued and describe the experience of listening to the tune in a way that makes the reader decide whether or not he or she wants to experience the same thing as well. It’s a difficult thing to do and especially a difficult thing to do well.

Tidbit: Kevin Brockmeier is a fellow list maker and keeps a list of his 50 favorite books and albums. He carries them with him at events. I got copies of both. Full disclosure: I went to Arkansas Governor’s School with Kevin so I remember him and have watched him over the years. He remembers me as “Sam’s girlfriend” since they both were in the theater arts. No matter how smart you think your friends or people you know are, it’s still a little surreal to see them plastered on the national stage.

The third workshop was Jonathon Rosenbaum talking about Canons of movies. This sounds esoteric but basically this means that people clump movies into groups. They deny they do it but really they do. For example, most of the things you read in English class would be considered “English literature” –in that it’s original text is using the English language, not necessarily that it originated from England — canon.

Rosenbaum was an advocate that everybody gets the type of DVD players that enable you to watch DVDs from other countries (apparently they’re in different formats and aren’t viewable on the plain jane dvd player I got from Walmart for 30 bucks). With the DVD player in tow, you can then order DVDs from other countries like Germany and England.

I ended up buying a lot of books and managed to run out of money before Pub and Perish. I might regret that someday.

I wrote this in detail because my reading and movie loving friend Jennybee missed this due to family togetherness.

Since everybody and their mama has a blog, here’s what some others had to say about their trip to Arkansas.

Phil’s blog: one and two

Rosenbaum writes a snippet here. (our local paper gets some great publicity)

The Evening post (or bits to ponder)

Sometimes, life is amazing. My geometry teacher’s son won a Pulitzer prize. That’s just wild. Kudos.

The Arkansas Literary Festival was a lot of fun. I attended a fundraiser for the Arkansas Shakespeare theater Friday night which was also fun. It wasn’t nearly as well attended as I thought it would be. IN fact, it was spare but I did have a good time and am glad I went. I think the Arts are important and will continue to support them. I will write about this in more detail later. It deserves so much detail. Will I ever have the time?

Will gay marriage still work as a Republican wedge issue? A whole bunch of people including Jay Barth weigh in.

I rue the day I joined TweepMe

The Arkansas Project gives a round up of all the people who may or may not run against Blanche Lincoln for senate. The graphic at the top is hilarious enough to warrant a click. It’s very Jib Jab-y.

Going to watch Chuck. I love this show!

Calphalon deal and question

Calphalon Commercial Hard-Anodized 12-Inch Everyday Pan with Lid is on sale for a very low price.

What’s the quality of this brand of pots? I cook rarely but would like to start since it’s cheaper and all. Is this brand an “investment” brand?

Boondogs are coming.

concert

Who is excited? Just me? okay. I don’t care. I’ll do a happy dance by myself.

Okay that’s not true.

This is a fundraiser for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater and as such I must ask everybody and their Mama to come to help raise money for a good cause. Did I mention the Arkansas Literary Festival is in town as well?

la la la tax preparation break time links

If you waited until the last minute to do your taxes, don’t claw your eyes out. Read some these news links and then get back to work!

  • Arkansas is making the news again! A transgendered woman gets harassed at the rental car counter at Little Rock Airport. Statements included that the man behind the counter was going to “”take the head off the big motha fuckin faggot” Police were called. Nothing was done. Blogosphere goes crazy.
  • Be THAT LAWYER That’s some marketing help for the solo practitioners out there. Fascinating about how to find a niche, fill it, and publicize/market the hell out of yourself.
  • Because I’m always trying to improve myself, I have to share How to Live Life.
  • Oh and here’s a list of “WHY WE PROCRASTINATE” She probably meant to post this further away from tax day deadline but she put it off.
« Older posts

© 2024 Melissa Runs

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

WordPress Web Hosting