Monthly Archives: November 2005

king, cows and grammar


I’ve spent today trolling the Writer’s Market. Nothing new there. I’ve been flipping through the tome for the past two months. I prefer the online version but an ill-funded penchant for expensive handbags finds me, more often than not, at the virtual home of Nordies and Saks, when I should be studying the professional directory.

what i saw. hathaway cottage.


Anne Hathaway Cottage, Stratford Stratford-upon-Avon. I’ve been before, but not on a proper tour. Shakespeare’s birthplace is easy, because it’s on the high street. More or less. You have to take a wee bit of a drive if you want to visit the Hathaway Cottage. Home of the lovely Anne, before she became The Bard’s

ten things i hate about me


1. My right eyebrow has no arch. 2. I’m tone deaf. 3. Procrastination is my drug. 4. I think my teeth are too small. 5. I can’t stop eating hummus. (That’s hummus. Not humans.) 6. I like Britney Spears. 7. I get distracted. Easily. 8. I’m indecisive. 9. I talk too much. 10. I’m afraid

300 year old cakes


It seems a great pity they allowed her to die a natural death. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. – Mark Twain I’ve walked by a museum dedicated to the authoress a good umpteen times, but have never

you’ve been eating retard sandwiches again


Before life separated us I had four friends. Earl, Flynn, Jo and Chris. Earl was a tall slim blonde who belched like a trucker and had a flowery feminine name that didn’t suit her. She had brains but wanted brawn. Her hobby was men. Get ‘er done. I bet she loves Larry. She once went

its not that she’s obnoxious


Furla, I’ll call her Furla. I use to work with her. Imagine Sideshow Bob and Kyle’s Mom rolled into one big ball of fun. She breathed on me yesterday. I thought my hair was going to fall out. She never closes her legs. Ughh. Sits with ’em wide open all day – in her shabby

why i write


I always fancied myself a writer – the way most scribblers of teen-angst poetry and cheesy romance stories do. A dozen vinyl trapper-keepers, full of short stories and novellas, are stored at my mothers. They’re awful, but I cant bring myself to throw them away. Just in case I do something good one day and,

no, i dont mean utterly


I never noticed adverbs until this year. I knew what they were – I diagramed as many stupid sentences as the next third grader – but I never paid any attention to them. It was the adjectives I loved…..Big…Blue…Boisterous….And used to excess….. Ugly….Uglier….Ugliest. Ughh. I lost a writing contest at nine. Being the incumbent, and

the shortbus conspiracy


When I was 10 and my brother was 8, we rode a ‘regular school bus’ to our local elementary school. My brother stayed behind as I climbed aboard a more compact version of the vehicle and headed to a smaller school in the county seat. Though I had a good idea where my second-leg-busmates ended