Fun With Analytics.

Did I mention that I have been writing 1000 words a day for the last month or so? I have. With moderate success (if by moderate you understand that the middle ground between super great and unbelievably horrible is just that).

Actually, I have been tremendously successful at the actual writing of 1000 or more words every day. I've only missed one night since I committed to the daily activity. Ass in chair, blah blah blah. This does not mean that I have been writing 1000 GOOD words or strings of words each day. But whatever, it's a start.

The very first day of writing these grand or so words, I wrote something to read at my writing group, about the process of committing to the page and all the shit that floats up for writers sitting down to write. Well, all the stuff that floats up for ME sitting down to write, anyway. Not surprisingly (because apparently we writers are nothing if not unoriginal in all the shit that floats up around the process, the act, the desire, the actuating, the ass-sitting, etc etc), it was some pretty familiar stuff for my fellow wordsmitheons: I got plenty of positive feedback, and a lot of head-nodding and amens around the table.

Afterward, a gal that I particularly like (the instigator of the nerdy ladies board game fun) grabbed my paper and a red pen and bracketed six or seven sentences or segments that she felt particularly stood out. Right on. When I got home and did the casual math, I was running about 10% good, stand out stuff, to the remaining 90% comme ci comme ca stuff. Honestly, I'm fine with that. And if 10,000 monkeys pounding on 10,000 keyboards will come up with Hamlet in 10,000 years (um, isn't that how that goes?) then surely one girl, at one keyboard, in 10,000 nights can come up with something usable in 10% of all that scattertyped text, right?

So here's the problem: Procastination. It's insane to me how very much I resist the task at hand. I can sit in this fercockt (probably not the correct yiddish spelling of this, my favorite Grandpa word) chair all night long, and read all y'alls blogs like 18 times over, ignoring my real-life to-do-lists and the blank page in front of me, read read read and catch up on CNN and Buzzflash, and write a few words, and head over to Facebook for some Scramble and some spying on my friends and family, and then tap out a few more words, and then go scare the crap out of myself with stuff about the environment and warming and the war and the conspiracies (oy fucking vey, the conspiracies of those that are conspiring and not yet geting caught, holy hell) and the sea of plastic in the Pacific and the damage done and doing and gonna do, and then go write a few more bits (in a decidedly lower tone) and then back all y'alls blogs, and then internet-stalk people like Julia Kernochan from Junior High (she's a Yale-educated lawyer on Senator Schumer's team, if you must know) and back to Buzzflash and on and on and on. (I can imagine one or more of you sitting there with your wee one in your lap as you try to read my overly long post here, in the few spare moments you have to catchup on web bizness, thinking that clearly I need a child in order to stop having infinite time to not focus on the thing that I sat down to accomplish, right? Right. Sorry.)

My ultimate point here, however, is not about my fierce and ridiculous need and ability to procrastinate, but rather to talk about my latest good time in the avoidance realm. Bex treated me to a lovely procrasty show of her own (oh Veronica, oh Logan, how I miss you so) and then I thought about how much I feel that her blog is written just for me (by the way, writers are apparently giant narcissists, so look out) and then I started thinking about what others might think in stopping by her site and then I thought "hey I wish there was a way to find out who was visiting a site, that would be funny" and then I immediately recovered my brain and remembered the miracle thing known as Google Analytics.

I signed up with the old Analytics tool back when I created this little vanity project. And I couldn't figure out if I'd inserted the tracking code correctly (it did not seem as though I had), got super annoyed and then gave up on the effort (shocking, I know). I've not logged in since that day. But hey man, what a perfect procrastination tool!

And indeed it was a sweet little surprise treasure trove of goodness. So much information! More than you could ever need/want/take in/make use of in a million years. But lots of helpful bits and bytes and bites. Here, my friends, is the tastiest morsel:

The top ten (er, eleven) searched keywords/phrases that have led people to This (Amberican) Life this week-

11) anna beth chao.
10) Important stuff to know in life.
9) I'm going to ride my bicycles and roller skates.
8) 3 month old drool.
7) momby porn. (that is not a typo. momBy porn. someone should really spellcheck their blog, am I right?)
6) Sun chips flying pig. (nice)
5) scurvy more tests and diagnosis. (wow, sorry dude, that sucks)
4) Chastity-belt. (hahahahahahaha)
3) sucktastic. (um, ha).
2) 1950's aprons.
1) momboob. *

God I loves me some interwebs, I really do.

And guess what? 947 words, suckers, yeah!

But now I need to wrap it up and go watch last week's BSG cause apparently the 5th Cylon is revealed and it's bugging me that I've gone this long without seeing it but Josh grabbed a crap copy and then he grabbed a super nice, super huge copy that wouldn't play on the computer we've got hooked up to the projector (have you heard the expression "the cobbler's wife wears no shoes?") and then the final copy was just right, but Sunday I babysat* and Monday I procrastinated too long into the evening to allow for viewing and now tonight I'm coming dangerously close to same. So au revoir, mon amies. I hope you enjoyed this last segment of rambling smack wherein I tried to up my word count to make up for all the numericals above, which really shouldn't count toward the sum word total, don't you agree?

1097 give or take.

It counts.

*As it's related to the otherwise baffling search term "momboob" and the aforementioned babysitting, this might be a convenient time to tell you about a mortifying thing that happened while babysitting the wee Watsons on Sunday. Except I just wrote it and it's a million miles long, so I'll make it a separate post, backdated, and thus appearing below. Enjoy.

This One's For You (NSFW).

Someone is turning in the following cover art (um, "art") for a final project today:

The assignment, I am told, was to create a magazine cover and related topical content (headlines, not actual content, thank you Jesus, although there really is a "How To" article to be included titled: "How to Steal Another Woman's Man and Suffer No Guilt").

It came down to a choice between this, The Journal Of Inappropriate Humor (featuring AR ad* campaigns, of course), Evil Overlording Weekly or the controversial Self-Hating Jew (a magazine for Jews questioning the policies of Israel's current government).

But Whoring Monthly, that's A + right? Especially since the students are to submit a document that demonstrates their own grade in one format or another. This student chose a Press Release, highlighting the simultaneous win of both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, featuring the factoid that she (or he, you know, the anonymous student) received a BA from Cal, an A in Dangerous Words, and will be donating the proceeds of the unprecedented prize win to her (or his) International charity, Bitterroots.

*If you don't already know what this is, I'm pretty sure you don't want to, so please don't ask.

Why write?

I neglected to explain the random writing piece from a while back, "The Application." Perhaps I should.

I wrote it for a class, called (strangely) "Dangerous Words" and the prompt was to write a letter of application. The professor is pretty funny in the way he "assigns" things, and this was the first assignment (he calls them "5 finger exercises, as we're not supposed to spend a ton of time on them, and they should be short enough to read aloud in class). He basically said:

"Write a letter of application. For the class. As if I were going to select you based on the letter to be in the class. Which I won't, of course. But I will. So it's a letter of application. But you've made a mistake of some kind. In your letter, you are applying to something else. Like to be a slave working on the pyramids. Or something. So you've made a mistake. And you are applying. Okay?"

Ooookay.

So I came up with the idea of applying to be a scapegoat because I had recently dreamed a really wretched but cathartic dream about being made a scapegoat by my lovely and charming parental units (Portland contingent). It was originally much longer, with specific examples of my stellar skills as a bleeting heart (bwah ha ha, sorry, couldn't resist).

Anyway, that's what that's all about.

Now here's another assignment. Dashed off and unedited. In list format (we talk a lot about formats... this could have been an obituary or a letter to god, or Dear Abbey, or a want ad or any one of a million methods of delivery).

Why be a writer? Why write?

Top 10 Reasons To Write:

10) For truth. To get to the bottom of things, peel back the layers, find the ugly and the pretty. Or the nothingness, if that's what yields.

9) To lie. There's usually a nicer looking truth out there somewhere, an alternate ending.

8) To mortify and/or make proud a family of narcissists*, whose crowded stages scarcely leave room to register a speaking part, let alone a punchline.

7) For closure. To bury the myriad hatchets that have been slugged around for decades.

6) For revenge. Against those hatchet-throwers whose bloodied blades will never be granted burial.

5) For freedom. Free to embrace crazy like an accessory, instead of an illness, and live a stimulating life of euphoric highs and cavernous lows in the constant peaks and troughs of The Artist's thought waves.

4) To make trouble. As truth-tellers so often seem to. IF they are at all good at what they do.

3) To get better and better (hopefully) instead of just older and older.

2) To matter. Because we will all die one day.

1) To self-satisfy. Because it feels good to write. A singular, self-directed, pleasurable activity. Like masturbation. Or yoga.

And of course the follow up to this, again from the Prof: What do we avoid by writing, being a writer? (He said it a little fancier than that, and with a more ominous tone).

Top 10 Things to Avoid by Choosing Writing as a Career:

10) Mind-numbing day jobs and slippery corporate ladders.

9) The wretched and painful requirements that come along with having to answer to a higher-up boss type person on a daily basis.

8) Having to get dressed everyday.

7) Legitimacy in society as a "productive member" of same.

6) The boredom of a steady paycheck.

5) Health insurance and any illusion of security.

4) Predictability and the ability to plan for anything, ever.

3) Responsibilities of so-called "adulthood."

2) Expectation.

1) Human interaction.

Next up: How do I want to die?

Not looking forward to that one, I must admit.

Very truly yours,
Ass-in-Chair Amby

*No, not YOU. Of course not you.

The Application.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Though you have not yet advertised a current opening for the very important position that I am proposing to fill, I am certain that you will eventually have need of someone in this timeless role. I would like you to consider that – as history has proven - it is better to have but not need someone in this capacity, than to find yourself in need and not have a stand-in readily available.

I'm sure we can agree that it is terribly inconvenient to find yourself with acute blame on your hands. Perhaps for some action (or possibly inaction as often happens to be the case) that could have been avoided with better tools, or forethought, but lacking these, responsibility seems - quite unexpectedly - to be heading squarely for your shoulders. I must tell you: There is no need for you to accept blame or responsibility for any of your actions (or inactions) under any circumstances, ever. Even if it was your very finger on the proverbial button that brought everything crashing down around you, this was surely not your intended outcome. Therefor, why should you jeopardize your reputation, your standing in the community, your own self-conception of who you are and what you are about, in order to bear the burden of the resulting consequence? It is never truly your fault, it must never be so -- and that is where I come in.

I am strong: I can hold at least ten times my weight in the heavy, the irksome, the burdensome responsibility of bad choices and missteps (that, of course, you never intended to make) and I can do so without breaking a sweat, as I am in no way an insubstantial girl. Plus, I used to swim, and not to boast, but Atlas has nothing on these shoulders.

I am loyal - to a fault, perhaps - compassionate, idealistic, hopeful. No matter how many times betrayed, I am able to survive, dragging along with me the certainty that absolutely nothing that has occurred is anyone's fault but my own, and that next time, next time the outcome will most certainly be different. Some say I am naive, but I know I am fierce, tenacious, unfaltering.

I would carry your mistakes, your lies, your ropes of broken promises, to my very grave. I am to blame. Period. It is a truth I know in my heart of hearts, always. I would die again and again, never letting go, to see my commitment through, to carry your troubles to the bitterest of ends. I don't know the meaning of the word quit and I don't have the sense God gave me to shrink back from pain, to protect myself...

Look no further, I am your perfect Scapegoat.

Not only am I strong and thick-skinned, I am Jewish and as you may know, my people invented the very concept of strapping all the guilt, the blame, the terrible sins of the community to a lowly goat and sending it off into the wilderness or over a cliff in a ritual renewal during Yom Kippur (but why wait for atonement, absolution, until the High Holy Days, I say?). Also, I was born to a teenage mother, conceived, she once said, in order to save her life. So let me be very clear: you will not find a candidate for this job more bound to others and to this earth by the twin leather straps of guilt and responsibility, anywhere on the planet.

I would consider it an honor to bear your grievances, carry your burdens as my own, walk through each day wrapped in conflicts not of my creation. I hope you will see that I am an excellent candidate and I urge you to consider me for the position. You will not regret it (nor anything else, ever again).