Linda Sands » men

Habits of Famous Writers

Linda — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:33:14 +0000

Stephen King

“There are certain things I do if I sit down to write,” he said. “I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a certain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, somewhere within that half hour every morning,” he explained. “I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places. The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.

“It’s not any different than a bedtime routine,” he continued. “Do you go to bed a different way every night? Is there a certain side you sleep on? I mean I brush my teeth, I wash my hands. Why would anybody wash their hands before they go to bed? I don’t know. And the pillows are supposed to be pointed a certain way. The open side of the pillowcase is supposed to be pointed in toward the other side of the bed. I don’t know why.”

Lisa Rogak, Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King

(Thanks to St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books.)

Words to the wise.

Linda — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:36:00 +0000

“Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.”…

This is why I speed.

Linda — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Tom says it’s a testicular pleasure. And while, as a woman, I can’t quite get on board with that reason, I cannot deny the sexual reference, nor my need for speed. Maybe it’s the pleasure it brings me, when the driving fast is combined with the illegality of it. It’s like sex- but not like this kind of sex. It’s like all the best parts of sex: the power, the control, the excitement, the pleasure, the adrenaline rush, the possibility of getting caught, the newness every time, the rise in blood pressure, the release, the chance to do it all over again.
Just please don’t tell the 15 yr old who is vying for his learner’s permit this week.

On my FACEBOOK page, I linked an small speeding article written by the talented and amazing Tom Chiarella from Esquire in a section about minor violations… why we do them and what’s the cost? Read it, read the whole magazine, for good ness sake and sure, if you want? Friend me.

Frankly, I know I speed more than is necessary. I’m usually not doing it because I’m late, except for that time my pedicure ran over and I almost missed my plane to London, and then I compounded the speeding indiscretion with driving solo in the HOV lane. What the hell.. in for a dime, in for a dozen, I say. I wasn’t stopped for either. And they held the plane for me.

I used to drive according to whatever was on the radio. Even now, I find myself cruising along minding all regulations when the Spa channel is on, but when I twist the dial to garage rock or alternative and hair band satellite stations.. all bets are off.

I have my favorite speed spots. I know where the potholes are and where the Sheriff tucks his long white car in the bushes. I know a nice long stretch of smooth blacktop from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach where 110 feels like 40 and a curving road on the way south where I can pass car after car after car even if the lines look like doubled yellow.
I have learned to turn the music down and appreciate instead the growl of the engine, the whine and shudder of downshifting gears, the blast of air in my face and the whipping of hair against bare shoulders as I’m slammed back in my seat.

3 Death Cards in my Tarot Today=Obituary Post

Linda — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:21:00 +0000

Another person I wished I’d had the pleasure of meeting.

From the NYT 3-20-09 By WILLIAM GRIMES (read complete here)

“We are not after all intended to be consumed.”
So begins Lionel Ziprin’s “Sentential Metaphrastic,” a “poem in progress” of more than a thousand pages. “I reduced it to 785 pages,” Mr. Ziprin told The Jewish Quarterly in 2006. “I call it the longest and most boring poem since Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost.’ ”

Mr. Ziprin, a brilliant, baffling, beguiling voice of the Lower East Side and the East Village in all its phases — Jewish, hipster and hippie — died last Sunday in Manhattan. He was 84. The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his daughter Zia Ziprin said.

For decades, Mr. Ziprin, a self-created planet, exerted a powerful gravitational attraction for poets, artists, experimental filmmakers, would-be philosophers and spiritual seekers. He ran his apartment, on Seventh Street in the East Village, as a bohemian salon, attracting a loose collective that included the ethnomusicologist Harry Smith, the photographer Robert Frank and the jazz musician Thelonious Monk, who would drop by for meals between sets at the Five Spot. Bob Dylan paid the occasional visit.

“He was larger than life and so far beyond a certain kind of description that I am bamboozled,” said Ira Cohen, a longtime friend. “He was much larger than a poet, though that’s hard for me to say, as a poet. He was one of the big secret heroes of the time.”

“I thought I was living in the Bible,” Mr. Ziprin said in a documentary produced by Jon Kalish for public radio in 2006. “ My grandparents were like biblical people. The only problem I had as a child, I looked outside, and there were automobiles. There’s a big contradiction.”

While undergoing a tonsillectomy, young Lionel — called Leibel or Leibele by his family — was badly overanesthetized. After emerging from a 10-day coma he developed St. Vitus’s Dance and epilepsy. He was seized by fits of uncontrollable laughter and experienced hallucinations. For the rest of his life, he saw visions and conversed with the spirit world.

A man of many words, he managed to write his self-portrait in just a few:

I have never been arrested. I

have never been institutionalized.

I have four children. I am in

receipt of social security benefits.

I am not an artist. I am not an

outsider. I am a citizen of the

republic and I have remained

anonymous all the time by choice.

Because March is Women's History Month…or Life Tips from Thelma and Louise

Linda — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:10:00 +0000

I should talk about the role of women in history- how we have changed the world both with our own actions and voices and also by our encouragement and support of those weak-kneed bumbling idiots ruled by two heads, yes… men.

I could send you HERE to test your knowledge of the role of women in our history.
or link you to historical books and films that toot the feminine and not so feminine horn of achievement…
or I could just offer this:

13 Life Tips From Thelma and Louise

1. You get what you settle for. “I still have to ask Darryl if I can go,” Thelma said. “He never lets me do a g-d damned thing. “You get what you settle for,” said Louise. Darryl treated Thelma like crap – but the thing is, she let him. She took everything he dished out without speaking up for herself, and that’s now way to achieve your life goals.

2. Stay connected to your friends. Women need each other. We need to talk, gossip, laugh, cry, pray, exercise, eat, and vent together. And, like Thelma and Louise, we need to get out of town together….not that I’m saying you need to drive cross country, kill a guy in self-defense, or run from the police to bond with your girlfriends! But, you do need support when you’re setting and achieving goals.

3. Celebrate your differences. This life tip from the Thelma and Louise movie involves not just tolerating your friends’ differences, but celebrating them. Thelma was a married stay-at-home housewife with a domineering, annoying husband. She wasn’t as mature or jaded as Louise, who worked as a waitress in a coffee shop and had a lot more life experience (including being raped in “past life”).

4. Take care of yourself. Always, always watch your back, even when you’re having fun, even when you’re surrounded by people you trust. At the bar a few hours after their road trip, Thelma drank too much and ended up in the parking lot with a guy – Harlan. Louise stopped him from raping her. “We’re just having a little fun,” Harlan said. “In the future, when a woman’s crying like that, she ain’t having any fun,” Louise said, voice trembling. “I should’ve f-ked her,” said Harlan. “Suck my —.” So Louise shot him. “You watch your mouth, buddy,” she said. Louise knew not only how to take care of herself, she knew how to take care of Thelma, too. And Harlan.

5. Keep a cushion of money in your account. You probably won’t need it because you’ve just murdered a rapist, but it’s still a great life tip from the Thelma and Louise movie. Always have three months of “mad money” that you can easily access, just in case you lose your job, run into health problems, or decide to take an extended vacation. Not having a fluffy cushion of money is a common financial mistake many women make – and it’ll stop you from achieving your life goals.

6. Trust your gut. Louise did not want to pick up that hottie hitchhiker (Brad Pitt); her gut instinct told her to stay away. Thelma, who doesn’t seem to have much of a gut instinct to trust, wanted to give him a ride and wouldn’t stop talking about it. So, they ended up giving him a ride, and it was the second biggest mistake they made.

7. Pick your battles. “He is an asshole,” Thelma said about her husband. “Most of the time I just let it slide.” This life tip from the Thelma and Louise movie isn’t about letting things slide; it’s about knowing where to draw the line. Setting your boundaries is about self-respect. People will treat you the way you let them – in fact, you teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself and what you’ll take from others. To achieve your life goals, be aware of how you let people treat you…and how you treat them.

8. Figure out why you’re into the bad boys. Despite their different personalities, both Thelma and Louise were totally into bad boys! Thelma found hers on the road (J.D., the hottie hitchhiker who taught her how to rob a store). Louise’s bad boy boyfriend was hers all along. It’s cool to be into bad boys – as long as you don’t expect them to change.

9. Buckle up for the consequences. This life tip from the Thelma and Louise movie runs throughout the whole movie: If you’re hooked up with a bad boy or the most decent husband in the world, be prepared for the natural consequences. Like what? The possibility that you’ll get hurt – whether he’s never around when you need him or he’s around a little too much. Or, he could steal all your money…like J.D. did to Thelma and Louise. Don’t let this stop you from taking risks to achieve your life goals, but just be prepared for what happens next (both good and bad!).

10. Take turns being strong. Louise was the strong woman throughout most of the movie. Until J.D. stole their money; then, Thelma became strong. Sex with J.D. gave her the self-confidence she needed to take control of her life. By the end – when Thelma was putting the crying cop into the trunk of his police cruiser – Louise wasn’t the only strong woman in the movie. Thelma overcame her fear and grew into a strong, self-confident woman.

11. Take risks to get what you need. Thelma, in her new role as the strong woman, robbed the store to get the money that they needed to get to Mexico to start their lives over again. Now, I’m not advocating robbery. I’m stressing that this life tip from the Thelma and Louise movie is about taking risks despite your fears, and taking what you need to achieve your life goals.

12. Be open with your friends, because keeping secrets creates distance. Louise waited until the end of the movie to tell Thelma that she was raped in Texas, in her earlier life. Throughout their friendship, Thelma never really knew Louise – she didn’t know her motivations, fears, or past experiences.

13. Be comfortable with loose ends. The last life tip from Thelma and Louise has to be about the ending. Ah, that glorious, mysterious ending in which we really don’t know what happens next! Could they actually get away? Will there be a sequel? That’s exactly how life is. We don’t know for sure how it’s gonna end because it’s never really over…until it’s really over.

A non-traditional Christmas tale, which still might have a moral.

Linda — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:42:00 +0000

She had been dating him since college let out for the summer. She was calling him the summer boyfriend, the guy who was friends with her girlfriend’s boyfriend, a guy her own sister used to have the hots for. Convenience and revenge made for an interesting coupling.
He repaired speedboats, played basketball and could dance- well. For those things she could forgive his moodiness, his mumbling, his desire to spend more time with the guys than her. Summer turned to Fall, and they were still an item. She went to his family functions, hung out at his house, teased his dad about liking the WWF.
It seemed only natural that she would buy him a gift at Christmas. She’d listened to the dropped hints, checked his clothing sizes and splurged when a sale came up at a popular men’s store.
Two weeks before Christmas he broke up with her over the phone.
She unwrapped the clothes, tore up the boxes and returned everything to the store, telling the clerk her boyfriend has decided to ask for skis instead, what a crazy guy, huh?
Then she took the money, bought booze and drugs and went to an old high school girl’s holiday party, sharing a ride with her sister’s fiancee- a guy who had always been nice to her and now was even nicer that she had booze and drugs and was willing to share.
The ex-boyfriend turned up at the party with a bunch of loud mouthed guys and she left with her sister’s fiancee, a guy who touched her thigh in the back of the car and tried to kiss her- promising he’d never tell.
She slapped him and warned her sister, but six months later they were married. At the reception, the band played Bad Moon Rising and she made out with one of the groom’s brothers in the limo- a man who told her he was divorced.
By Christmas, the sister’s marriage was over, he’d left her a week after returning from the long honeymoon, leaving a goodbye note on the counter next to the garage door opener. He and his brother- the not really divorced at all one were going into business together, and his girlfriend wanted him to move in.
Merry Christmas.