Author: Katie L. Carroll (Page 125 of 143)

An Anniversary Trip Down Memory Lane

October 22, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

The hubby and I had our five-year anniversary this past weekend. To celebrate we went to dinner at the restaurant where we got married (it was the first time we had been there since we found out it was haunted), spent the night in a hotel, and got massages.

When it comes to massages, I find that sounds have a big impact on the overall experience. Hands down the best massage I ever had was in Tahiti. If you’ve never been to French Polynesia (and really, you should make a point of going there at least once in your life…trust me, it’s worth the insanely long travel time), basically everything good thing you can imagine about a tropical paradise, that’s Tahiti.

It was pouring the day we got our massages. The rain was relentless, and even though we got soaked walking to the massage place, the weather created the perfect atmosphere. The massage hut is kind of an outdoor/indoor building (like most of the structures in French Polynesia). So there are doors and a roof, but instead of regular floors, it has raised walkways and below is dirt and flowers, and, well, nature. Not all of the rooms have walls, and the ones that do often have walls that end halfway up. No rain gets in, though, because the thatched roof hangs far enough over the edge to keep the water away.

(This is what the island of Moorea looks like in the rain.)

The ladies gave us our pareos, which are basically small sheets that can be worn in a million different ways by both guys and ladies. Then we drank little shot glasses full of some kind of wheat grass drink, which tasted terrible, but is supposedly really good for you. Then the massage ladies brought us to our room.

My masseuse got started right on my feet, which were freezing from walking in the rain with sandals. As I got rubbed down with special Polynesian oil, the only sounds were the pattering of rain and the occasional rumble of thunder.

In addition to the ever-important sounds, was the awesome smell of of island. French Polynesia smells like flowers, but not sticky, sweet, perfumy flowers (I can’t stand that); it has a subtle scent that permeates the island and becomes a part of what Tahiti is. For me, there’s no other place that I so closely identify with by smell. The whole experience of my Polynesian massage was just incredible.

The strangest (I won’t say worst because things are never bad when your getting a massage) one I ever had was by a guy who either had a cold or was a mouth-breather. The only time I didn’t notice his heavy panting was when this really bizarre music started. Most massage places have that relaxing, new-age music, but the song that came on was what could only be described as creepy clown music. I kept imagining I was at a demented circus and scary clowns were stalking me (and I don’t even have a fear of clowns).

And wouldn’t you know, my massage this weekend started off with odd music. It was one of those nature tracks, which is usually fine, but these ducks kept quacking during it. I wanted to laugh along with the ducks every time I heard one cackle “quack, quack, quack.”

Towards the end of the massage, the music turned scary. The best word I could find to describe it was diminuendo because it was like a soundtrack to someone falling down the stairs. Only in my imagination, the person was pushed down the stairs and the evil guy (maybe one of those demented clowns) who did it stood at the top, maniacally laughing. And this scene played over and over again in slow motion until the music changed and I remembered I was supposed to be relaxing and not letting my imagination run away with me.

Forgotten English Calls Me a Connecticutie

October 9, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

I have this page-a-day calendar called Jeffrey Kacirk’s Forgotten English (although you can never tell what day it is based solely on looking at it because I’m always falling behind on my day-by-day reading). It has all kinds of interesting tidbits not only about old words and how they were used back in the day, but also about holidays and customs of the past.

My favorite entry was from early in the year. On Thursday, January 14th, the word was “Connecticutisian,” which was, as you might have guessed, is a Connecticut resident. This entry also mentions the term “Connecticuties,” which according to the calendar, was coined by American linguist Allen Walker Read and was “reserved for pretty girls.” I like to think of myself as a Connecticutie.

A recent entry noted that the first Sunday of September was once Grandfather’s Day, which referenced C.E. Humphry’s Manners for Women. In this book, it states “It used to be considered rude to conclude a letter on the first or second page. If our grandfathers or grandmothers did so, they almost invariably apologised for a brevity that in those days had the effect of curtness.”

The entry also notes that Samuel Johnson once wrote, “A short letter…is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation…”

I can hardly imagine a time when brevity was rude. Today, time is money. In a world of 140-character tweets, 160-character text messages, and 15-minutes of fame, it seems the opposite is true: longevity is rude and a waste of time.

I find myself falling into this trap, often apologizing to the recipient of an e-mail that runs longer than a couple of paragraphs. But really, what is wrong with a nice, long letter? Doesn’t that show that you care enough about the recipient to think that she might actually care to hear what you have to say? Or maybe it is selfish to expect someone to spend more than a few seconds reading your words?

What do you think? Does longevity show that you care? Or should I apologize for blathering on for too long?

Draping Myself in Books for Banned Books Week

September 30, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

In honor of Banned Books Week, I decided to scour my shelves and see how many banned/challenged books I actually own. Turns out it was enough to bury myself.

(That’s me covered in books…ahem, in nothing but books!!!)

This doesn’t even include the banned books I’ve read that I don’t own, or ones that I’ve lent out, or ones that are part of my parent’s collection of books, or ones that are on my Nook. And there’s probably some on my shelves that have been banned but didn’t come up on any lists I referenced or haven’t made it to any list. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom actually believes that as many as four out of five challenged books goes unreported.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like without having read these banned books. They have sparked my imagination, informed me, and entertained me. Lois Lowry’s The Giver (which surprisingly I don’t seem to own) in particular made a huge impression on me when I first read it. I’ll never forget how shocked I was when I realized the weirdness Jonas was seeing on the apple is the color red.

What banned books have had an impact on you?

Using Technology for New Perspective in the Editing Process

September 22, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

I got a NO OK for Christmas last year (and cleverly named it Alcove instead of Cranny). No, it hasn’t replaced books for me, but I love it, especially for travel because it’s so portable. And I recently found a new use for it when I uploaded some of my own writing onto it.

It took some playing around to convert my Word document into a form that looked nice on the NOOK screen (for my first attempt, every two lines ended up on their own paragraph…readable, but a little wacky to look at), but it was worth it. I now have a way to see my writing with fresh eyes.

For all you nonwriters out there, let me explain. I’ve probably spent hundreds (no exaggeration) of hours staring at the manuscript I’m currently revising. And on my laptop screen, it pretty much always looks the same, no matter how many textual changes I make. Even when I got a new version of Word, the visual feel of the manuscript didn’t change much. And printing it out doesn’t really change the look of it much either.

(See, I still love a good ol’ book…and these are just the signed ones!)

As soon as I put those very same words in a different medium, the whole feel of the piece changed. It was more like I was reading someone else’s book because it didn’t look like the same old thing I had stared at for a million hours (maybe some exaggeration there).

I can’t make any changes directly on the NOOK version (I have to keep my Word version next to me for that), but I caught a bunch of little proofreading mistakes that I had missed on the Word version. And it’s not always a bad thing to not be able to immediately make changes because it forced me to just keep reading. That really allowed me to get a feel for how the story flowed as a whole, instead of considering each separate piece of it.

I think I’ll add this overview-type revision into my rotation of more hardcore revision/rewriting work. For one, it helped me catch those little mistakes. For two, it forced me to read without making changes. And for three, I got a little patter of excitement in my chest when I saw my humble little manuscript on the NOOK, just like all those real big published books!

Party Magnetic Poetry

September 14, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

We had a little cookout and backyard fire over Labor Day weekend. My refrigerator is now kind of famous at these little shindigs because of the magnetic poetry kit.

(So this picture isn’t really from my backyard (you think!). That’s way more fires and way more people than would fit on my .2 acres. It’s from a recent trip to the WaterFire Providence.)

The party-goers were in rare form, and there was one line of poetry I’m not going to include in full…just to give you an idea of its flavor, the poet put the tiles “an” and “al” together and it also contained the tiles “long,” “green,” “pickle,” and “spurt” (somehow it always turn dirty…that’s what she said!).

i am an old bald devil dog who has a free soul and love s to eat (nice to see the old bald devil dog is enjoying life)

speak wrong mind but think from heart (ahhh…very wise, grasshopper)

pour some wine and soon you must table dance as hot as a random spider genius (the “a” tile is actually “at” with the t covered…I have such clever–and demented/drunk–guests)

if i vacuum a precious monkey chicken it will release a black bosom tremendous ly naked (well, you better not vacuum the precious monkey chicken then)

sweet night whisper e d her light poet r y to my howl ing brain (I hope the night’s poetry was better than the magnetic poetry…really, I kid because I do love it when people make poetry on my refrigerator)

Thanks to all who created a little fun on the fridge!