so good that it's no good

Home sweet home. Far too indulgent a place where the kitchen, bed, HBO On Demand and veg-out couch are all within a 20 foot vicinity of each other, not to mention my parents roaming about asking if I'm hungry again. You can probably deduce that I don't get much work done here but I ain't complainin', a full and happy camper I am, I am!

[The cute 'n' fuzzy version of me!]

At some point in the day you'll find mother, father, and daughter sitting in the family room, each with a mac lappy watching youtube videos. Dad's subscribed to the itunes podcasts of "The Best of Youtube" so that's definitely been a major source of time suck since I came home.

This was an academically dismal quarter, but I realized that we, on the West coast, do have something to be grateful for--we will never really understand the phrase (and variations of) "a cold, lonely winter." Mom and I were discussing this since she'd attended Hamilton in upstate NY and much of my family, including dad, has experienced the East coast for extended periods of time. I really can't imagine going through a true winter, one that's painfully cold, dark and gloomy, lonely...the suicide rate in Seattle made more sense to me now. Over here in sunny Cali, the winter is never that bleak and the relaxed L.A. atmosphere makes it more difficult to just sink into a depression. Given all this, I still want to experience life on the other end. I've only visited a few times, but I think I need to live and breathe the dynamic, four seasons of NY at some point in my life to 1. have a change of scenery and 2. out of fear that I have/will become too complacent and cozy with myself here.

Anywho, I am one Wednesday 11:30-2:30pm final away from freedom. I have one full day left to be a responsible student and study for it, so I'm gonna. I did find some brain food to chew on after I am free:

"Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Basics of Creative Writing

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that."

I'd encountered and been taught most of these in some form at some point, but Vonnegut lays it out conveniently in eight simple tips. I don't know exactly what I'll do with these pearls of wisdom, but hopefully I'll do something.