Sunday Drivel

Last night a friend gave me a CD of Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine. It is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. This gentleman borrows a variety of popular songs from the 80s, 90s, and today and sings them lounge style with a big band feel to them. I thought his rendition of Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle" was the funniest thing ever until I heard "We Are the World," "Gin and Juice," "Baby Got Back," and "99 Luftballoons." Whew. Classic. It's an adults-only CD, as the language is a bit dicey because some of these songs are from the heavy metal and rap genres. However, in my opinion, it only makes them that much more ridiculous and fabulous.

I took the plunge and entered my first essay contest last year. I chose a topic regarding home ownership. There were over 13,000 entries, and they have been announcing monthly winners all year. The grand prize is $250,000 to go towards a new home or property. They are posting the winners on April Fool's Day. My chances of winning are slim, but it has been fun to dream all this time. According to National Geographic, my chances of winning are about the same as dying in hot weather (1 in 13,729) and better than being legally executed (1 in 62,648). Golly, that's good news! I'll miss the suspense of waiting, but a year is a really, really long time to wait for anything.

Yesterday I put together a submission for my first Pacific Northwest writing contest. I entered one of my poems this time. That was a little more difficult for me, since those tend to be gut-wrenchingly personal. It's sitting in an envelope downstairs, and I feel a little like I did when I was in my creative writing class in high school -- vulnerable. I'm getting braver when it comes to putting my writing out there, and I owe a lot of that to you. I haven't written in years before this blog. I'm hoping to get published somewhere eventually, and this is a good place to start. The only writing contest I ever entered before that I can remember was the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, a competition to pen the worst opening to a novel in various categories including "brown bag" (sexy stuff), "It was a dark and stormy night," science fiction, and many others. That was way fun. Now that I think about it, I should try again.

I'm hoping today is as beautiful as it was yesterday. It was over 70 degrees again. Erik was into everything yesterday. He is rebelling against his only nap now, which may disappear entirely, and threw handfuls of dirt from the planter on the landing twice yesterday, requiring me to haul the vacuum hose up the stairs. As cranky as this makes me, I can see he is a whole lot of typical 2-year-old these days. That's a good thing.

Off to shower. Have a wonderful day.