A Room of One’s Own

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on November 19, 2009 at 5:48 PM

Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay called “A Room of One’s Own,” in which she argues that women can be as exceptional as men in the writing of fiction if the playing field is leveled. She proposes that if Shakespeare had an equally talented sister, she still would not have been able to produce magnificent writing like his unless she had been allowed money and a room of her own in which to create art.

I personally think Shakespeare, like Elvis, is somewhat overrated (despite his skill), but I agree with what she argues in concept. In a time when women were not considered the equals of men in any field, she stepped up to argue that they should be. As far as writing fiction goes, I don’t think that stigma exists in quite the same way anymore. Perhaps, only, in literary fiction—such as would be studied in a classroom. Men still dominate that field, whether through chance, oppression, or skill, I’m not sure. I do think, though, that women can equal them if given an equal chance… money and a room of one’s own in which to write. Essentially: the luxury to take time away from everything else considered a woman’s duty and sit down to create a masterpiece.

That’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve been put in a circumstance in which I can knock out time for my goals, unlike so many people both male and female. I have the money needed to focus on writing, and I have a house with a room dedicated as my “office.” That’s so much more than most aspiring writers have, and in that way, I know that I am “lucky” or “blessed,” although these circumstances came about in an undesirable way.

To take advantage of the opportunity is harder than you might think. Even now, eighty years after Virginia Woolf’s essay, I still feel the societal pressures that dictate what I should do. And thankfully, they are not so much gender-driven as age-driven, and certainly not personal. But no matter how determined one may be, and how dedicated to one’s dreams, it’s hard to swim against the stream for so long. My fins are getting tired!

I’m going to keep chugging along, though, because in the end I know that’s the right thing for me to do. I would never be happy with myself if I didn’t take these chances, no matter the outcome. So I take a moment to acknowledge both the advantage and the struggle to use it, and keep on writing.

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Being Seduced

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on November 9, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Like the last blog, sometimes I have to go all out to lure the muse out of her hiding places. But sometimes, she approaches me with the sort of intolerant determinedness of a siren. No no’s, only yes. Only writing allowed. Sometimes, she does this at absurd, unforgivable hours, such as 3am. But with a muse like mine, you go with it.

How to describe that creative rush to someone who’s never felt it before? For me, it starts off as a disquietude. I feel unsatisfied and antsy, like I need to go work out or have sex. But it’s not that, although at times it feels almost physical. It’s more than that, and doing other things only delays it, not appeases it. This is the “percolating” process, where I have the seed of some idea but it hasn’t formed yet. I know it’s good, but it can’t be written. I let it grow in the back of my mind.

At some point the idea takes hold. I don’t usually do this part consciously. I imagine that this is why bards and writers of the olden days used to accredit things they produced to a muse or divine inspiration. It’s almost as if I don’t come up with the ideas. They sew themselves in the spongy matter of my brain without my doing. All I do is allow myself to be open and receptive to them, no matter how outrageous or bizarre they may seem.

Eventually, the idea is ready to go. Often, I don’t realize it right away. I’m busy with the rest of my life and don’t have time to sit down and write. Sometimes I do. But usually, the idea keeps growing, keeps gaining momentum like some impossible snowball in my head until it’s too big to fit. Until it give me headaches. Until I absolutely can’t ignore it or put it off. Usually at 3am. Or when I’ve just lain down to go to sleep.

Then it hits me. Undeniable. I try not to fight it anymore; I just sit up, tell Kyle to put on his blinder thingy, turn on the lamp, and go. I always keep a pen and notepad in my nightstand for this reason. You never know. If the muse is in the mood, I’ve got to be ready. In the past, I let that creative rush blossom in my head and think that there’s no way I’ll forget this. This is too good not to remember tomorrow. I’m too tired to get up and write. I never remember it the next day. That’s heartbreaking, let me tell you. So now I give in. Allow myself to be seduced, if you will.

Because as one of the folks in my critique group says, you never rewrite anything you write at 3am.

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All Hallows’ Evening for a month

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on October 4, 2009 at 4:16 PM

Halloween is by far my favorite time of year. I know, it’s supposed to be Christmas or my birthday, but hey, that’s me. Some of the happiest times of my life were Halloweens when I was a kid with our best friends. And oh, the decorations. The costumes. The planning, the mischief. The candy! How could anyone NOT like Halloween?

Halloween stems from a meshing of cultural holidays and beliefs. Ancient Celts in Ireland used to have a festival called Samhain that celebrated the end of the harvest season. Wiccans celebrate a similar event, honoring the Harvest’s end. Celtics used this time to take stock of what crops and goods they’d gathered for the winter. Wiccans use this time, now, to acknowledge the things they’ve “harvested” in that year: success, love, money, goals achieved, etc. For both, it’s a time to step back and say, “Hey, look at all I’ve done. That’s pretty neat.” (Or, perhaps, “I need to try harder next year.” I think this is a wonderful thing for anyone to do, Wiccan or not.

Ancient Celts believed that on Halloween the dead could interact with the living again, providing the potential for danger and crop damage. This is where the traditions of bonfires, costumes, and masks come from. To ward off those harmful, evil dead. I would think that not all dead are evil, but perhaps since all dead can interact with the living, the evil ones do bad things while they can.

In mainland Europe, Halloween was for pagans until the popes stepped in, god bless them (haha), and decided to move the Christian All Saints Day to November 1. This was a very smart, sneaky way that Christians of yore had of reclaiming pagan celebrations for the church. Many of our current Christian holidays resulted from this practice, and thus many pagan traditions have been enveloped in US celebrations of holidays. Eventually, All Saints’ Day and Samhain blended, resulting in the generally Christian-friendly Halloween that we all know and love. Neat, huh?

This Halloween is a calm one, for me. An honest mix of melancholy and joy. To have a home, a fiancé, a kitten, and so many wonderful things makes me undeniably happy. Going through my Dad’s Halloween decorations makes me miss him, makes me sad, makes me nostalgic. I’m at the point in my life now that I don’t feel the need to put every Halloween decoration I own out. Just some favorites. It seems right that way, somehow. Maybe someday when we have kids they’ll want to go crazy with it. I certainly hope they like Halloween as much as I do.

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IN CASE OF DEATH (the logistics of preparing for the worst)

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on August 22, 2009 at 5:40 PM

When my dad died, it was like a nightmare. Obviously, grief isn’t easy on anyone. But the stress… the stress is harder, actually. If you’re the primary decision-maker, which I was, and you don’t have a clue, which I didn’t, you can become so stressed that you don’t allow time for grief. That’s what happened to me.

My mom and I have been talking about this. Anyone can die at any time. It’s not always expected. Kids can die. Parents can die. Spouses can die. If you want to help your loved ones by relieving the stress (to make room for grief), do this now. I have.

Make a word document on your computer and print out a copy. Label it “IN CASE OF DEATH.” Put the digital file in the large my documents folder and the hardcopy in its own file in your filing cabinet labeled the same. Here’s what it needs to have on it:

A simple list, bulleted, of every account, bill, and credit card you currently have. Include any automatic payments. I’m not saying you have to include all of the passwords–I know that people have varying degrees of paranoia about that sort of thing–just list the accounts. And don’t think, “Well I have everything in my filing cabinet anyway; they can just look through it,” because I guarantee you that there are old accounts in there that have been closed, changed, etc. It’s unimaginably confusing for someone else to come into your paper life and try to figure out what’s what. Trust me.

Here’s an example (this is not really mine):

IN CASE OF DEATH
last edited: 8/22/2009

  • Visa credit card/account through Bank of America (rewards program)
  • matching debit card/checking account (1 checkbook)
  • matching savings account
  • USAA credit card
  • Wells Fargo CDs: 2 (20,000 and 5,000)
  • stocks with Whachovia
  • Roth IRA with Wachovia
  • 401K with Wachovia
  • Bank of America safety deposit box (contains my current WILL and collector’s coins)
  • mortgage with Bank of America
  • car loan with Toyota company
  • life insurance through Amica (50,000)
  • auto insurance with Amica
  • house insurance with Amica
  • health insurance through Medco
  • electric, water, trash bills through City of Schmeh
  • gas bill through Atmos Energy (automatic monthly from B of A checking account)
  • Cable & internet through Verizon Fios
  • cell phone bill through Verizon (automatic monthly from B of A checking account)
  • pool cleaning maintenance monthly with Pools-R-Us
  • maid weekly- Susie McGee
  • magazine subscriptions
  • frequent flyer programs

 Other important things that might be helpful:

  • lawyer’s name who drew up will
  • who has the safety deposit box key
  • who has keys to the house/apartment
  • who your primary doctor is
  • who your veterinarian is for any pets
  • if there is anything of importance in the house, and what your wishes are for them (guns, drugs, diaries, art…)
  • if you have any specific wishes that aren’t in your will that you’d like honored
  • or if you don’t have a will, what you want to happen. It won’t be legal, but if your loved ones love you back and respect you, hopefully they’ll honor your wishes.

And of course, you have to update it for it to remain useful. Try to remember to edit it as big changes come. Otherwise: update it on the first of every year or before every big life event (major surgeries, big trips, etc.).

All of these things are things that made my life harder when my dad died. I’m sure there are books and articles out there that say other things and more things, but I’m speaking from my own personal experience. The last thing you need at such a difficult time is more confusion, more decisions to make, more crap to sort through. It won’t be hard. Just copy-paste my list if you want, and change the bullets one by one to match your circumstances. In fact, don’t delete any; if you don’t have a mortgage, write “no mortgage.” That would make things easier too.

A morbid blog, I know, but an important thing to think about for the people you love. Here’s hoping you don’t need it for a long time to come.

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kayakeroos

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on September 7, 2009 at 10:14 PM

Kyle and I went kayaking this morning. Crazy, eh? He can get equipment rental from work, so we decided to take advantage of that. We went out to Lake Lewisville with them, which was amusing, because they aren’t lake kayaks. They’re actually white water models, which means they turn really, really easily because they’re a lot shorter. Good if you’re going down a really fast river. Bad if you’re out on a nearly still lake. We went in a lot of circles.

I’m much too small for those boats. The dry skirt that you put on over your torso is supposed to be skin-tight to not let water in, and then it stretches over the opening in the boat. Buttons could have easily fit in mine with me. Also, you’re supposed to sort of bow your legs out, and they press up against these pads at the top of the inside of the kayak. It should be a snug fit to balance you out. Well, I am too flexible for that, because I had to decide whether to hold my legs up against those pads with my muscles or let my knees drop six inches or so to the plastic sides of the boat. Kyle said his legs were pressing hard against his knee/leg-pads. Figures. The only thing that did fit was my life vest (or “PFD” as Kyle so officially calls it); that can be buckled really tight.

It was still fun though, because we knew that the rocking/turning debacle was going to happen. Kyle knows his canoes and kayaks, because my last summer at UT he lived with me and worked at Austin Canoe and Kayak. But in spite of his knowledge, neither of us has any kayaking experience to speak of, so we wanted to test them out on the lake before we took them to a river. Kyle says once you get in the river you have to commit to it, because it’s a lot harder to get out. I would have said lets go for it anyway, but he’s Mr. Safety with stuff like this.

But next time, we’re going to go on the Elm fork of the Trinity River. It’s the only river really close to here, and it’s not actually very fast either. It should be better than the lake though, and at least more exciting. Kyle wouldn’t let me paddle out past the little white buoys. *pouts* I paddled right up to them and touched them though.

It was funny. We got in, got used to them, turned in some circles. I paddled out to the buoy and poked it. Then we paddled over to the next one (these are pretty far out, by the way) and touched it too. Kyle tried his kayak-roll successfully… very impressive. And then we looked at each other and were like, “Now what?” What do you do on a near-still lake when you can’t go past the first line of buoys? “Wanna go back?” “Kind of.” “Me too.” So we left.

Totally worth it, though, because Kyle got to use his awesome new roof rack and his fancy rubber car mats. And we got practice with those particular boats. Next time: Niagra Falls, full-force!

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