Halloween, aaaaaaaah!

Happy Halloween!
















What do you have going on for Halloween tonight? I'm looking forward to reading some chapters for Elisabeth, watching scary movies, eating candy, scaring trick or treaters and dressing my puppy up in her princess dress costume (payback for eating my books).

I'm also hoping to get to some of my own editing if the mood strikes. Tomorrow is day one of NaNoWriMo. I'm panicking quite a bit, but once I get in the groove things will go ok. Especially since my writing chapter has a weekend writing retreat. Hopefully I'll pump out a lot of words next weekend.

Well I'm going to go shake my booty to Time Warp and the rest of the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. "It's just a jump to the left..."

Happy Halloween!

Weed out the fib

I've been tagged by Erin! :-)

Among the 5 items listed below, one is a lie. You get to try to determine which it is, and post your answer in the comments.

1. I once worked at Walt Disney World
2. I have a large collection of yellow things with smiley faces on them
3. I've never been out of the country even though I live only 6 hours from the Canadian border
4. I did calligraphy on my own wedding invitations
5. When I was about 7 years old I laughed so hard I peed my pants

I tag Elisabeth, Piper, Paty, Bethany, Lillian, S William and Princess in Golashes. Muhahahaha!

Ass Flasher R-Us

The weekend was fun. I'll tell the story with pictures.

Saturday morning I headed south to Eugene for the Duck game. There was an accident on I-5 so we sat in traffic for a while. Luckily we were surrounded by Duck fans, and some poor Beaver fans who were going to miss Kick-Off because of the traffic (their game was 3.5 hours earlier than ours).

This guy has a great get-up on his car. As you can see, on the left of the bumper hangs a Beaver and a Husky hangs from the right. Boy, I love college football!



After the game, we stopped at my house so I could get ready for the Halloween party. I went everywhere the night before to try and find a black short-hair wig, but I only found a pink one. You may be surprised to know I didn't want to wear the pink one. I thought black would have completed the costume better and toned it down a bit. Oh well.



I would like to report that my push-up bra was a success. My mom took a picture of my cleavage on her camera phone and began sending it around. At that point I had had a good amount of everclear, so I didn't stop her.

The party was a lot of fun. I was happy to two of my favorite men, Chris and Adam (in pics below Chris has the Harley rag and Adam is giving a solid impression of Zoolander's Blue Steel look).





Unfortunately they didn't have the Everclear jungle juice I had hoped for. So I drank a half dozen Smirnoff Black Cherry drinks before I thought I'd die of over-sweetness. I took a couple swigs of a keg tap filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon, but I went back to Smirnoff. PBR is disgusting. And I should mentioned that there wasn't a keg at the party, a guy showed up in a keg costume and his hat was filled with beer and it had a tap on it. I failed to take a picture. Dammit.

I tried to do a little swing dancing, but I kept yanking my dress down to avoid any Ass Flashing incidents. But in the inebriated state I was in, I yanked much too hard and made numerous tears in my costume (not to mention a couple of incidents of ass flashing when I was swung too hard dancing - thank God for the black tights). When I returned to my parent's house after my dad picking me up (he's so awesome, he drove me so I could drink), my mom said "you look like someone threw you in a haystack and molested you." I should have taken an after-picture with all the holes. It was a sight to see. Hopefully I can patch them up and sell the costume on ebay next year.

My dad drove me back to Salem yesterday (isn't that cute with Roxy sitting in his lap?) and he worked on fixing one side of my fence so my dog can't get between the front and back yard. I want to keep her in the backyard when I'm in the house, otherwise she barks like crazy at the passing cars in the front.



He patched the gap with chicken wire, but Houdini still almost made it through, as you can see. He had to make it like a prison fence, with wire tilting at an angle to prevent climbing.



While he was working on that, Roxy drug a branch bigger than her and played in my pile of leaves.





And I'll leave you with this photo that I find beautiful - an Oregon autumn. It's hard to tell, but each of those trees have leaves of different colors. Red, orange and yellow-orange from left to right. Bea-uuuuu-ti-ful.



All in all it was a great weekend. How was your weekend?

Wardrobe malfunction

A couple months ago I posted about being excited for my first ever costume Halloween party (my friends in college were anti-costume). And it's already arrived, the schindig is tomorrow night. I bought the pink fairy costume. It's really cute and it's PINK! Yeah, baby.

So I tried it on. The black part around the middle is an over skirt. The pink tulle crap below the black is an under skirt. The over and under skirts are NOT connected. Meaning - the underskirt is see-through since it's tulle, and doesn't start until 4 inches below the bottom of my butt, which is barely covered by the black.

Let me tell you why this is a problem. If I were to sit down or be shakin' my booty (it is a dance party, after all) enough for the black part to shimmy up it's fullness (yeah, I got a ghetto booty) - then my ass is on display. Elisabeth has dubbed me the Ass Flasher.

So I must find a way to cover my bum from any potential ass-flashiness. Particularly since I will be enjoying a healthy amount of jungle juice. Which, by the way, I will spiking my cup with my flask of Everclear because the boys who make this jungle juice are softies and make it weak. They use one bottle of Everclear for an entire Coleman cooler of juice. That's like 1/10 of an ounce per plastic cup. But the fact I could drink those boys under the table is neither here nor there.

I found a pair of knee high boots for $3.25 at a second hand store. Hoorah! I really wanted to wear fishnet stockings. I never have and why not whore it up a little? It's Halloween. But, if the Ass Flashing happens then the fishnets will do nothing to cover. So I may have to get black tights. LAME-O. Ugh. At least if my bum escapes the black pleather while I'm dancing and I'm too inebriated to notice, I won't blind the other party-goers.

But now I have to find tights. Double ugh. And the black and pink wig I got for the costume ain't cuttin' it so I have to try and scour the remaining Halloween costume items in stores, elbow grabby moms in my way and trip annoying kids running around my ankles, to find a solid black wig. Triple ugh. I need to remember to fill my pink 6 oz. flask with Everclear. I better make a list!

And the Duck football game tomorrow (Go Ducks!) got moved from 12:30 to 4pm start time (that games are usually 4 hours). The game is an hour south of me (with football traffic on top of that) and the party is an hour north of me (start time of 9pm). Hopefully I can sleep in the car after the game on the way back to my house then hall balls trying to get ready.

I totally forgot the point of this post because I rambled and whined. Oh well. It's Friday. What do you have going on this weekend? Are you dressing up for Halloween or going to any parties?

And if I don't look like a giant, pink freak - I'll post a picture of me in my get-up.

Thursday Thirteen

I already posted today, but I forgot it's Thursday Thirteen. So I'm posting twice.

Thirteen Things about Lisa Pulliam 13 men on my "list" (you know, the ones who don't count as cheating if you're in a relationship) 1. Johnny Depp (there are no words to describe this man) 2. Gerard Butler (if feels really warm in my office all of a sudden) 3. Howie Dorough (of the Backstreet Boys, he's been on my list since before I knew what sex was) 4. Ethan Embry (the only blonde on my list) 5. Jake Gyllenhaal (he stole my heart in Bubble Boy and has kept it ever since) 6. David Burns (he was in Real World: Seattle - too bad the red eye doesn't show you he has two different colored eyes) 7. Rufus Sewell (he makes such a great bad guy) 8. Criss Angel (his eyes, oh his eyes) 9. Stuart Townsend (he played a good Vampire Lestat, but I loved him as Dorian Gray) 10. Jesse Bradford (he's the inspiration for my WIP hero) 11. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (so scruffy and adorable like a big teddy bear) 12. Zsadist (ok, I know he's in a book but if he were real he'd be this guy) 13. Joaquin Phoenix (I love his lip scar)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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I have 69 years left

According to three sites that predict your day of death, I have 69 years left. That puts me at 93 years old when I die. That's a long ass time to live. Each site predicted my death within a couple months of each other in the summer of 2075. I've always disliked the summer, it makes sense I would die during one.

That seems like such a long ways away, but yet it creeps up fast. I remember my 13th birthday party like it was last year.

Speaking of birthday parties and traditions. An odd thing happened to me when I was 11 years old (men, stop reading - this story is about a woman's monthly visitor). It was the fall of when I was 11, my 12th birthday was the next spring, in April.

I remember my mom asking me about my birthday party, just idle chit chat to amuse a kid. I told her "mommy, my period is going to start on my birthday." Of course, she thought I was silly. I was only 11! And predicting the Day of Doom? No way.

Well, guess what happened on my 12th birthday party? Yup, the Bleeding Beast arrived. You can ask my mom, she was freaked out. It was fun being the only fifth grader on my period.

What's your death prediction? Gotta be spooky for Halloween :-)

My personal Hell

I've seen this on a couple blogs lately, so I decided to join in the fun. Welcome to my Hell.

OSU Beaver fans
Circle I Limbo

General asshats
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Drivers who go 55 in a 55, but 60 in a 50
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Militant Vegans
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

DMV Employees
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

People on motocycles who drive in the shoulder during traffic jams
Circle VII Burning Sands

Osama bin Laden
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Saddam Hussein
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

What would you add? I may steal your ideas and make a new one.

Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now (Music Video)

Last, but no least. I guess this song speaks to the romantic in me ;-)

The one thing I just realized is that I must really be a child of the 80s. Yikes.

What are your all-time favorite songs?

Escape Club - Wild Wild West

My dad and I used to rock it in the car when this song came on. Isn't the arm/leg thing rad?

Take On Me

My all-time favorite song. How can you not love this?

Video day

I'm blogging at the Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapter blog today - stop by and say hi. But before you go, I'm going to be sharing my three favorite songs in the whole wide world. Thank GOD for youtube because up until now I've only had these videos in my head.

And honestly, I play these songs in my head. They're kind of the soundtrack to my life. Do I scare you? I think the youtube stuff comes up as seperate posts, sorry for that in advance.

Huge pink pen!

One of my co-workers gave me a gift today. She fully supports my pink habit and I love her for it.

As you can see by looking at my normal-sized hand, this is a giant, pink pen. I think I may write my next novel longhand.

Link

I have some links to brighten up your Monday.

First, courtesy of Michelle Rowen please check out the Cleaning Hunk. I got dibs on Jason in the cowboy hat!

Second, Piper Lee sent me a link to a wonderful video about the smartest dog in the world. I need to get Skidboot to spend some time with my dog...

Third, my dear friend Kelli Matthews sent me a link on 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work. She's trying to stop the insanity of my watching Laguna Beach. Thank you, Kelli. Thank you.

You'll be happy to know that I redeemed my Laguna Beach watching with a couple hours of Scrubs thanks to my new best friend, scrubsfan26 on YouTube. He has a lot of Scrubs episodes on his site for our viewing pleasure.

Avoidance behavior

As you all know, I'm in editing mode right now. I'm struggling to know at what point I've edited enough. It seems so subjective.

So I've got the day off, all by myself, my parents are taking my dog for a couple of days so I can focus. What am I doing? I watched season 3 of Laguna Beach on MTV. Laguna Beach people! That is a new low for avoidance behavior.

I always thought that show was sooooooooo stupid. So what do I do? Watch 10 episodes of it on my day off. Good lord.

I need to get to work.

P.S. Kyndra and Cami are not nice people. Cameron is so not hot. Alex doesn't know what he's missing with Raquel and Tessa is a doll.

Love story of my generation

Romeo and Juliet. Darcy and Elizabeth. Rhett and Scarlet.

Jim and Pam.













Yes, that's Jim and Pam from NBC's The Office - remake of the British comedy. They love each other. They laugh together. But they can't seem to simply get together.

Pam, o Pam. Don't you see how wonderful Jim is? He's the perfect man! He's kind, sweet, cute, funny. And he really knows how to pull pranks on Dwight.

Jim, don't give up on her. You need to be patient because she just got out of a bad relationship. If you love her, give her time. You deserve the best and she's great for you.

Sigh. We all need a Jim.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things about Lisa Pulliam 13 places I'd like to visit that I've never been before (in no particular order except for #1) 1. Scotland - all of it. The castles, the Highlands, everything. I'd love to drink a bottle of Catto Whisky (made in Scotland, in my ancestrage) while planting my butt in the middle of Aberdeen (where my family is from). 2. England - lots of places; London, Bath, Stonehenge, Oxford, Whitby (where Bram Stoker wrote most of Dracula) and more. 3. Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. All sorts of cool creepy human body stuff. 4. Transylvania. They're building a Dracula theme park. A DRACULA THEME PARK. How can I not go? 5. Some really cool museum I saw on the travel channel (in Germany or England) with creepy cool stuff in it. 6. Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany 7. Greece. ALL OF IT. All of the ruins. 8. Rome and Venice, Italy 9. British Columbia, Canada 10. Salem, Mass 11. Hershey, PA. Mmmmm, chocolate everywhere. 12. New Orleans 13. Gold Hill, Oregon to the house with the cool magnetic stuff going on.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

More editing

I feel like I've been posting a lot about editing lately. But it has been my main focus so I guess it makes sense.

I'm trying to put together a master checklist for revisions, things I need to remember to look for and fix while I'm editing. Most of this relates to language use and the actual writing mechanics, not the storytelling.

Here is what I have so far:

• Senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting)
• Showing vs. telling
• Active vs. passive voice
• Tighten sentences
• Eliminate redundancies
• Info dump/too much backstory
• Emotion
• Body language and nonverbal communication
• Consistent details (hair and eye color, etc)
• Varied sentence structure (does every sentence in a paragraph start with "he said"?)
• Word repetition - I downloaded ywriter which gives you a list of the words you used and how often
• Setting
• Description
• Too many "ly," "ing" or adverbs
• Eliminate most dialogue tags
• Mixing tenses

Do you have anything to add?

Dogs rule part 2

A more in depth version of yesterday's story.

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying to help the cat still in the house. Jamie Hanson said the 13-yearold dog named Jesse brought the phone so she could call 911 and also brought her artificial leg.

"She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up there to get the cat and she wouldn't come back to me," Hanson, 49, said at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center where she was being treated for her injuries.

She received third-degree burns to an arm in the fire Sunday night at her home in the town of Rhine south of Elkhart Lake, the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said, adding that both

Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident three years ago, said she was on the couch watching television when the cat ran over the back of the couch.

"And he jumped onto a table that had a candle on it and tipped it over and lighted the artificial plants on fire," she said. Hanson said she fell off the couch and was unable to get her artificial leg from the table, "so my dog got my leg for me and went and got the phone and brought the phone to me so I could call 911."

She said she tried to put the prosthetic leg on, but it was too hot, and the dog, a golden retriever-German shepherd mix, came to her aid again before going back inside for the cat. When rescuers arrived, the house was fully engulfed in flames, the sheriff's department said.

Hanson was in the doorway and was assisted by a deputy.
She was no longer being treated at the hospital when The Associated Press called Monday evening for further comment.

Did you see that people, the dog DIED while trying to save the CAT. I rest my case. Loyal to the death. I know I've mentioned this before, but I read somewhere that if you died in your house, a cat would eventually turn on you for food, while a dog stands loyally by your side until it too died. Lastly, a good dog/cat joke. Now I rest my case (unless I find something else).

I jest, I like cats. I do. I just LOVE dogs.

Dogs rule

Yet another reason why I am a dog person:

RHINE, Wis. (AP) - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog rescued her by bringing a phone to call for help. Jamie Hanson, 49, received third-degree burns on her arm in the fire that killed both of her pets, Sheboygan County Sheriff's officials said Monday.

The fire started Sunday night when Hanson's cat knocked a candle onto a chair. Hanson's dog then brought her a phone, allowing her to call for help.

Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident, told the dispatcher she was disabled but would try to leave the house, Lt. Chad Broeren said. Firefighters found her standing in the doorway as flames engulfed the home, he said.

She was taken to Sheboygan Memorial Hospital. Her injuries are not life threatening, Broeren said.

I bet the cat started the fire on purpose (not for suicide, for homicide).

Moving on. I had a pretty good weekend of revisions. I did a lot of color-coded highlighting. Man, that really helps. I recommend that you give Margie Lawson's EDITS system a try. It really helps you see where you have too much internal thinking or description, and where you need more emotion.

How was your weekend?

Stupid utility company

It's noon on a Friday. I should be at work. Am I? No. I'm sitting in my house waiting for the local gas company to come and light my furnace.

The other day I filled out an online form to request service. I filled out all of the required fields marked by an asterisk, not filling out the unrequired ones. I chose an available service date of Wednesday (I filled out the form on Tuesday).

On Wednesday I got a call from said gas company requesting I complete the application. I guess the non-asterisk fields were actually required. Silly me for not being a psychic. Then she informed me that they couldn't come until Friday. Well why do they have a calendar that allows you to choose your service date?

I requested a time window of their visit, as every other utility company I've dealt with will give. She said they don't do that, it will be somewhere between 8 a.m. and midnight. Wow. Thanks. She said since I work, I should just leave a key somewhere for them.

Excuse me? Am I super paranoid or is it odd that it's completely acceptable for a stranger to have free access to my house for 9 hours? I told her that was unacceptable. And I have a dog. She told me I should leave my sweet, 12 pound Angel outside while at work. Umm, no. It's cold outside. She convulses with cold when I make her go to the bathroom outside in the mornings.

So, here I am waiting for the gas company to come. Not able to leave my house in case they come just because I didn't want to leave a key for them. Bastards.

On a brighter note. I just got a MySpace bulletin from the show Dexter. They have posted their second episode online for free! Woohoo! I don't have Showtime so I rely on the kindness of them. Here is a link for the first two episodes, but I'm not sure if you need a MySpace account.

A brief rundown of the show is it's based off a book. The main character is a serial killer who works for a police department studying blood spatter. He only kills other serial killers. Is that a cool concept or what? I'm off to watch episode 2.