Getting off ass – Day 1

Today I returned to yoga practice.  I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy yoga as the lazy person’s way of getting exercise, but unfortunately, it doesn’t really work unless you go, and my attendance has been a wee sporadic.

A good friend of mine turned me on to yoga years ago (again, thanks to T!) and in those days I went once a week.  We tried several different types, but eventually settled on Hatha and Vinyasa as our favorites.  (Kundalini was by far the strangest to me – maybe other people feel peaceful and energized by walking around in a circle, bent completely over with hands grabbing your ankles and chanting.  I am not one of those people.)  That once a week was like a recharge for me, kinda like a human control-alt-delete.  Eventually though, I wandered away from regular practice.

Last August I did a little research on yoga.  Accepting of my severe case of lazy ass, yet knowing that if I didn’t get into some kind of regular exercise groove I’d be on a rascal in adult diapers before long, I wondered if yoga alone could be enough exercise to keep me healthy.  Because of it’s calm, non-jarring, and most importantly, non-jiggling nature (important when about 9% of your body weight is sitting on your chest), it doesn’t seem like it really does anything besides relax you and make you more flexible.  In my research, I came across this article:

http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/739?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=editorspicks

For those who aren’t interested enough to go through the entire long-ass article, the gist of it is that studies done on yoga show that if practiced for more than an hour 2-4 days a week, flexibility, strength, and stamina – the three building blocks of fitness – all constantly increase.  Basically, you’re not just increasing flexibility in arms and legs but in all the muscles of your core and specifically around your chest, which increases lung capacity, hence increasing stamina.  The poses not only encourage flexibility, but build strength, especially in balancing poses.  Yoga, if practiced for a long enough period, and regularly, results in general fitness, hurrah!

For those who don’t give a crap about scientific studies, check out photographic evidence of the benefits of yoga:

This is actress Diane Lane, whose only form of exercise is purported to be yoga.  This picture was taken last fall.  This woman is 46 people!  Sold!  (Note, yoga does not replace expensive spa treatments, skincare products, or airbrushing.)

Anyway, after conducting all that research, I signed up for unlimited yoga so I could practice at my goal rate of 3 days a week.  Being in my last semester of college, the monthly rate about killed me and I again left yoga practice, but not before humiliating myself in front of an entire class by being chosen to demonstrate a move and then jumping up, running around the room, and hopping up and down halfway through to work out the excruciating foot cramp that resulted.  Chanting loudly may have been a part of it, but it was nothing taught in any yoga class.

So today was my triumphant return to the mat.  9 o’clock on a Sunday morning is a fairly tricky proposition to begin with, but with Harry leaving for Louisiana early, I had an excuse to be up.  Off I went, carrying my little mat, hopeful for invigoration and that happy little cup of tea they give you when you’re finished with nap time.  (The last ten minutes of class is for savasana, where you lay on your mat with your eyes closed to clear your mind and meditate.  I choose to nap, especially on a friggin’ Sunday morning.)

My hips popped loudly like Orville Redenbacher twice during a couple of poses.  She says we’re opening our hips.  I say I’m opening a bottle of ibuprofen and having a cocktail when I get home.  Now we need our straps.  Yoga can be a little sadistic folks.  We apparently need it to loop around one foot, pull that leg straight out in front of us, and then out to the side, all whilst balancing on the other leg.  A yogi I was not.  More like a baby colt trying to stay upright.  Up went the leg, shake-shake-shake, foot cramp!  Down goes the leg.  Up again with the leg, don’t fall on the guy next to you!  Down goes the leg.  You get the idea.  We’re told that focusing on one spot helps to keep balance.  I’m choosing to focus on the brown smudge on the wall that’s surely dried blood left from the last guy who tried this and smashed his head when he fell over.

“Place two blocks in a V-shape, pull the flesh from your ‘sit bones’ and seat yourself cross-legged on the blocks.”  I don’t know about y’all, but any class in which I’m instructed to separate my ass cheeks leaves me a tad suspect.  And nervous.

In all, my return to yoga was a good experience.  My muscles were sore at the end of class (still are), I got my nap time and cup of tea, and did the yoga zombie wander to the lobby to retrieve my shoes and leave.  If you’ve ever passed by a yoga studio as a class is letting out, take a good look at the folks leaving.  Zombies all of them!  You leave a yoga class with this strangely calm, floaty feeling that is radiated from your face and heavy-shuffling feet.  It looks like these people should be moaning, “brains!” but more accurately many of them are probably thinking, “veggie stir-fry!!!”  Hmmm, actually that sounds pretty good.  That and a pork chop.  Excuse me, I must go grocery shopping.

I leave with a song I’m digging a lot right now.  Clearly, I don’t think Young the Giant had a yoga noob in mind when they wrote this, but the refrain is humorously appropriate.

The leaf-blower man is my nemesis.

You laugh, but I assure you, he is.

Every morning when I come to work, he’s there – during my school days, my schedule fluctuated and I came in an varying times: 7am, 7:30, 8 – he’d still be there.  I’m convinced he’d be there if I came in at 2 in the afternoon, just for touch-ups.  And to piss me off.

A cyclone of dead leaves, debris, and exhaust fumes, he shuffles along stoically herding his ward.  The problem is, he seems especially focused on his task whenever I walk by.  Note the “I” in italics.  I’ve noticed he will stop his cleaning and turn down the damned thing when other people venture near him (particularly ladies in short skirts), but when I ultimately have to pass by him, I do not receive the same courtesy.  No, when I mosey by him, he remains in detritus-collecting oblivion.  Walking into work with leaves and shit in your hair is not a good look.  The look is completed by a set of red, watery eyes and runny schnoz, created by the direct facial power blast of pollen and random nastiness.

What to do?  Accept defeat and take an alternate route into the tower?  Or do I stand my ground and hope that enough stink-eye will scare him away from my general vicinity, knowing that until I am successful, I will continue to pick crap out of my hair and off my clothes day after day?  Either way, NOT WINNING.

Ah well, such is life, which for me is quite contented these days.  After much transition, I seem to have settled into a happy spot.  I finally graduated with my bachelor’s degree in English from The University of Texas at Austin, yay!  I actually walked the stage with the kids and did not trip and fall, neither on my ass nor my face.  It’s the little things in life really…

And now that I’ve finally accomplished this goal, I can look at my diploma with pride and say, “Goddamn, that’s a lot of money for one piece of paper!  I could’ve gone down to Office Depot, bought some fancy paper and made my own one of these for a hell of a lot less!  I don’t feel any smarter but I sure as hell feel a lot poorer!”

Ah well, in the end, I’m glad I did it.  I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them – projects, jobs, relationships, sentences…  I used to be fairly flaky.  Ok, a lot flaky.  Honestly, the greatest benefit of going back to school and seeing it through to the end was to start the “completing things” ball rolling.  Observe:

• I’ve taken up sewing and completed nearly every project I’ve started.  (I say nearly – dresses are giving me difficulties, but I haven’t given up!  They’re the reason I started learning to sew in the first place, the dresses out there these days are not to my liking.)
• I am still in a committed and happy relationship with a wonderful fella for nearly four years now – previous to this my record was 10 months.  (Shut up.)
• My part-time job through college has happily translated into a full-time job within the same department.  I have planted some roots here at UT, and I’m jazzed to watch them grow.
• After ages of puzzling over which car should be worthy of replacing Ol’ Scarlet – and I thought I REALLY wanted at least 10 different automobiles, but never made a move towards any of them – in January of this year I finally purchased a 2008 Toyota Prius.  (Shut up.  Yes, I know it’s an uncool, pretentious, Brian Griffin yuppie-mobile that’s couldn’t hold a candle to a REAL car.  I get 50 miles per absurdly priced gallon, suck on that!)

So yeah, things are going fairly well for me these days.  Hallelujah.  It took a lot of kicking and screaming, poor decisions, screwing up, more poor decisions, hitting bottom, and then picking myself up again to get here.  Now that we have attained cruising altitude, my posts will hopefully be a bit more regular and less existential crisis-oriented.  (read: more entertaining)  I’m glad it’s the weekend, time to unwind, enjoy a new sewing class, and have some beers.

And on the weekends, there is no leaf-blower man.

I leave with an odd little song that I love – it makes me smile, yet verges on irritating.  Music is pleasure and pain folks.

Dance Across Texas

Today I had a productive day at work, yoga kicked my butt, I walked the dawg, and got myself a full, happy tummy.  Now, I’m sitting on the couch, champagne of beers (lite) at my side, and a Patriots game (pre-season) in front of me.  A content monkey am I.  However, it being just a pre-season game, I feel only a minor smidgen of guilt knowing that I will be changing the channel at 8 to watch Project Runway and checking the game on commercial breaks.  Hee hee.  The duality of the dude-chick.

After a rather hectic start to the summer, I’ve had some time to relax in the second half.  It’s been a lot busier at work lately, and being out of school, I’ve been putting in extra hours there, though I’ve gotten to slip away from Austin a couple of times and even get back to some happy extracurricular activities like that yoga.  I’m a fan of exercise that gets results without having to hop around like a mad person or sweat for an hour a day, five days a week.  One hour and fifteen minutes, three days a week, and that’s it.  I even get a five minute nap and tea at the end of class! (Ok, ok, I know savasana is not a nap, but I am lying there with my eyes closed and not doing a damn thing but breathing and relaxing.  Pretty dern close.)  And the best part, after only a few weeks, I’m already noticing a difference.  Thanks Teresa, for introducing this stuff to me years ago.  It’s good to get back to it.

A couple of weekends ago, Harry and I packed up the Tahoe and headed out west.  WAY out west.  My friend Sarah invited us out to her Dad’s cabin in the town of Pandale, Texas.  If you’re not familiar with the location of this town, observe:

We were almost to Mexico y'all.

For those of you looking at this map and thinking to yourselves, “Aw hell, that town don’t look all that far from Austin,” lemme tell you, that right there is a good 5-6 hour drive.  For those up north, think about that drive from Greenville to Boston.  Ack.  McDonald’s breakfast, beef jerky, and beautiful scenery = good.  Numb ass and scary gas station rest rooms = bad.

You also know you’re way out in the middle of nowhere when your host’s directions include language like, “Turn left over bridge over highway.  Drive ~36 miles.  Then you hit dirt road.  Stay straight.  Do not make any hard right or hard left turns.  Go over several cattle guards.  Watch for animals.  About 14 mi. later you will pass small patch of tarmac.  Then it goes back to dirt road.  If you get lost, tell people you are looking for the Pandale Crossing.”  As soon as we hit the dirt road, Harry thought we were just about there.  I can only imagine the painful disappointment his bladder felt as I informed him we were still about a half hour away. The only sign of life we could make out was the humongous moving cloud of dust kicked up by some vehicle miles ahead of us.  At least I believe it was a vehicle.  Could’ve been the Tasmanian Devil or Pig Pen from Peanuts.

When we finally arrived at our destination, it was absolutely gorgeous.  Bill’s cabin was nestled between rising desert ridges – just beyond which lay Mexico – and a rushing, spring-fed Pecos River.  It was a little oasis in a very arid environment.  We spent most of the day soaking in the river and also soaking in a fair amount of cerveza.  Later on, we grilled up some grub and sat on the upper deck looking at the stars.  When you’re out in B.F.E. Texas there are NO lights to interfere with star peeping – you could see the clouds of the Milky Way across the inky sky.  It was stunning.

The next morning Harry got up early and headed up the ridge for a hike.  “Going walkabout” is one of his favorite things to do when in an area that does not include concrete.  Rusty Jones spent the weekend with Uncle Porter because the beautiful scenery out west is studded with the most demonic plant life I’ve ever encountered called Dog Cactus.  Behold:

"Hi! My whole purpose in life is to stab you repeatedly should you have managed to escape the homicidal maniacs in your locale."

Harry had a couple of these lovelies stuck in his shoe and jeans after his hike.  He concurred that leaving Rusty in the city was a good idea.  Sarah cooked us up the most delicious breakfast, and back to Austin we went.  Ahhhh…  The most gorgeous thing about going out to the Pecos was the intense relaxed feeling that comes from finally getting used to the absolute silence of the area.  The most gorgeous thing about coming home is being surrounded by all the familiar sounds of the city – traffic, trains, sirens, ahhhh.  I used to hate nature, and only love the city, but I’m starting to warm to more rustic areas and I can definitely appreciate the beauty of both places now.  Here’s a happy snap of us out there:

Can't you just hear him saying, "Respect mah authoritah!"

Not one week later, we were again packing up the Tahoe for yet another adventure!  This time we were headed to Surfside, Texas for some beach therapy.  In case you don’t know where Surfside is, observe:

No, there was no oil on the beach.

Now, as you drive into Surfside, you may possibly be a bit concerned as your automobile passes by the vast expanse of the Dow Chemical plant.  This should not dissuade.  The beach is warm and inviting, and unlike more popular beach towns in Texas, it is actually possible to get a roomy house directly on the beach (which is chemical-free) without having to sell plasma for months previous.  Our gracious host Ginger has always had a knack for finding the perfect place to stay, and this time was no different.  She booked us a fun five-bedroom house with two decks.  It had an open kitchen with a great island/bar that kept everyone together and social.  It could not have been more perfect.

Before starting the arduous task of unpacking our wares, I had to just stand on the deck for a moment, look out at the waves, and inhale the salty air.  There is no experience in the world that equals what I feel at the beach.  I always say I get a little looney if I don’t get to the ocean at least once a year. (Hold your comments, please.)  Going to the ocean recharges me somehow.  It’s like my own personal reboot.  Check out the absolutely gorgeous view we had:

Ahhhhhhhh... Just. Ahhhhhhhhh...

So day one at the beach was a wee traumatic for me as I grilled chicken for a special 13-year-old’s birthday, but I wasn’t able to start until the sun was about going down and the light around the pit area was less than useful.  The crappy pit itself was less than useful.  So I ended up undercooking the dang chicken.  This doesn’t sound like a big deal to most normal, well-adjusted people, however, I tend to take my cooking a weeeeeee too seriously and well, girlfriend burst into tears in wretched disappointment at a job far less than well-done.  Far, far less than well-done.  Like, I think clucking may have been audible.  But the poultry went into the oven, I chilled on the beach and had a few beers and poof!  All was well with the world.  We all enjoyed some good music, the sea breeze, happy libations, and fabulous company.

The next day Mr. Porter, bbq master extraordinaire, spent all day cooking up some awesome carnivorous glory.  By afternoon, we had a spread of ribs, pork tenderloin, chicken, and beef roast.  It was much appreciated after a day of boogie boarding out in the waves.  The water was perfect and good girl put on her sunblock so was not lobsterized.  (Mmmmm…lobster…dammit, have to make it back up to Maine one of these Augusts…)  Anyhoo, grub was dammmmmmmmn good.  My compliments to our talented chef.  After dinner we busted out the 80′s Trivial Pursuit.  Now typically, I am one TP-playing machine.  But let me tell you after sun, water, beers, and food coma, my happy ass was zoning on the couch.  So unfortunately, I had to excuse myself to my nice cushy bed. (Yes I know, LOSER!)  Happily, I can report that my formidable team won the game, whooo hooo!

Next day we took a nice drive around, but soon had to head back home.  (Boo)  One of the nicest things about getting home from the beach is WASHING THE SAND OUT OF EVERYTHING.  Seriously, living at the beach seems like a nice idea, but damn, how do you keep the sand out???  If you had restless leg syndrome, you could catch your forty winks and exfoliate at the same time.

So that’s the end of our gallivanting for a while.  School starts back for me next week.  Yes I know!  That’s really soon!  I’m happy to say this is my final semester.  Yee to the motherfuckin’ haw.  Holy shit, I’m graduating in December!!!!  Glad I’m back in yoga, I have a feeling this last stretch is gonna be challenging.  Hee hee.

Ok, it’s now wayyyy past my bedtime, so I leave you with this little chuckle from lovely Lily Allen.  Adieu!

Handiwork abounds!

Hola everyone!  Been awhile, but here at the end, these classes are taking up so much of my time!  I’m excited to say that next Wednesday I will be registering for the LAST 5 CLASSES of my undergraduate career!  Whooo hoooo!  I’ll be taking 2 classes this summer and 3 in the fall, and my happy ass is graduating in December!  I can’t believe it.  It’s been so long since I started this journey it began to feel like I’d be doing this forever, sheesh!

In addition to classes at UT, I’ve also been doing some web design classes through Austin Community College.  It’s pretty interesting and as soon as I get a little more knowledge under my belt, I’ll start fooling around with this here site a bit more.  I warn you, it could get ugly.  I am only noob yet.

And aside from all that, I’ve been learning to sew.  This little interest sprang up as a result of disillusionment with the current trends in fashion.  As I cruised local shops, malls, and the interwebby, I began to realize that I’m just not buying what they’re selling.  The waves of bubble mini-skirts and empire waist (babydoll) blouses and dresses out there were just not designed with my body in mind.  Or any body that’s above a size 10.  I gots me some big knockers, a decent waist, and sizable hips and thighs.  Add to that the fact that I’m a midget with short legs and finding flattering clothing becomes difficult.  The empire waist has become the bane of my existence.  If you have any kind of rack at all, this waistline makes you look like you’re about 6 months along.  It ain’t good.

Frustrated, I finally said to myself, “Self, you’re smart.  You’re literate.  You have the competence and ability to read and execute instructions.  Make the damn clothes you want.”  So that’s what I’m doing now.  I purchased a sewing machine, some supplies and fabric, and a simple skirt pattern and set to work.  Behold the results:

Back view

Front view

Skirt as worn by lovely model

Yes, I know it’s wrankly, don’t look at that.  Not bad eh?  Not bad at all for my very firstest-thing-I-ever-did-make!  Magnificent display of skill!

Um yeah… not quite.  On closer inspection:

Perhaps my hem stitch could be a tad straighter...

Zipper seams a bit janky, and notice the two sides don't quite wanna come together. This pattern also called for a button and hole. Hook and eye was less scary.

Uhhhhhh...this is actually the top edge of the skirt. I decided to play with the different stitches on my machine. Fail.

But if you put a longish shirt over the top stuff and no one stares at the hem, it’s totally wearable!  And such a lovely springtime color!  So yeah, Chrystal needed some help.  I remembered passing by the Stitch Lab in my travels and looked them up on the web.  Hallelujah, they offered classes!  I signed up for their Crash Course in the basics and learned about my machine, basic stitching, seams, corners, and such.  I made a nifty tote bag for my first class project which I now use to take my lunch to work.  Observe:

Cute, no? And with a handy little inner pocket!

Since that class, I’ve been pretty bogged down with homework, so I haven’t made anything else on my own, though I’ve tons of patterns just waiting for my skills to increase.  Today I had my first of three beginner’s series classes at Stitch Lab.  I learned more about different types of stitching, their purposes, different fabrics, and so forth.  Today we made little drawstring bags.  Check it out:

Think I'm gonna make a big version of this for a nifty beach bag.

With each class, I learn something new and my abilities improve.  Next Saturday I’ll be making a pillow with piping and I’m jazzed to learn about zippers.  I’m not really so much into this for home furnishings, but the learning is invaluable.  Got some great recommendations for apparel fabric stores as well.  The point of making clothes designed as I like is destroyed should I be forced to create with ol’ lady polyester.  Cotton, it’s the fabric of our lives after all.

Stay tuned for new projects!

Speaking of projects, Harry recently remodeled our bathroom.  Talk about skills, Harry got some mad DIY ones.  I feel like we now have a faincy hotel bathroom!  If you don’t recall what our master bath looked like before, allow me to remind you of where we were when I first moved in a little over a year ago:

No amount of scrubbing with various hazardous chemicals was successful in making this 1980′s bathtub appear to be clean.  I gave up baths.  (Just baths, not showers, gross you weirdo!)

So one morning, Harry looks around the bathroom and tells me he wants to rip the whole thing out and start over.  Whilst laboring at my desk at work that day, he did just that.  For one week, we had no shower.  I brushed my teeth in the half bath downstairs and my gym membership suddenly became invaluable.  Though I was very excited to have a nice new bathroom, you could say our house was a little chaotic:

I love a nice tub by the fire...

I gouged my knee on the metal pipe from our vanity twice. @#$@#!!!!

Harry made the cabinets out on our little patio.

The kids seem impressed by Harry's craftsmanship.

Though the construction zone was maddening, my enthusiasm jumped when I started to see our new bathroom emerge:

Shiny new tub!

Lovely new tile!

Pristine new vanity!

And finally, after a mere week of ripping, hammering, sawing, welding, grouting, hauling, and whatever the hell else the guy did, at last, we had a finished bathroom:

New shower - note, the old shower head came to just above my noggin. I'm 5'4". Harry raised it up so non-midgets can shower comfortably.

Oh, how I miss the cracked wooden seat of the old toilet...aahhhhahahahahaha!

Beeyooteefull handmade cabinets. Happy happy!

But wait!  There’s more!  Had to have a workspace for my sewing projects, and my workspace at the time didn’t really cut it:

I could barely fit textbooks in this space. Rusty Jones expresses his feelings about my crappy desk.

So I turned to good ol’ Ikea to solve my problem.  And solve it at a reasonable price.  Behold my new homework, fuck around on the computer, crafty space desk!

Ooohhhh...ahhhhh...ohhhhhh... Yes, I have plants now. Fuck you, no they're not dying, they're doing very well thank you very much.

Lots of changes going on in the Keogh-Davidson household and within Davidson as well.  I know many of you are probably shocked that I could be into something as domestic as sewing.  I don’t see it so much as being domestic as I see a way to take some control of what would ordinarily seem an uncontrollable situation.  If the clothing industry won’t bring me the clothes I want, then Mohammad will go to the mountain.  You know what I mean.  Upward and onward!

Girlfriends, if you send me your measurements (bust-waist-hips), I’d love to tackle making the above skirt for other people.  I make no promise that they will materialize anywhere in the near future, but I’d like the practice.

Until next time, Chrystal out.  Please enjoy the musical stylings of The Ting Tings:

Avoidance

If ever you feel like subjecting yourself to a generous dose of humility, I recommend taking a Creative Writing course. In these types of classes, you pour out your heartfelt emotions and experiences onto paper and then distribute a copy to every person in your class. It is then the responsibility of class members to read their fellow students’ works and critique them. Whew…

It’s very sting-y and ouch-y to hear that your heartfelt emotions and experiences are trite and cliché. Ack, og, ick.

So far, we’ve only had to submit a single scene to the tribunal. I was “humorous, but overly wordy and confusing.” Understood. My heartfelt emotions will mean nothing to a reader if I bury them in crossword puzzles.

Most wanted to know more about a character with whom I didn’t really intend to instill any depth. If you read a scene, in which a douchebag guy brought his flavor-of-the-month-blonde-stripper-bimbo to a bar for Valentine’s Day, would you want to know more about her, or the narrating, sarcastic, chick bartender who just shakes her head and pours the drinks while observing the madness around her? Hmmm, I know which I’d choose, and what my intent was when I wrote it! (Apologies for the extremely deep and cerebral blonde strippers who are just working there way through college. BTW, “Kicking Ass” is not a real major, that frat boy at the club was just kidding.)

So tomorrow I have to turn in my first full short story. Yesterday we did a trial run with our rough drafts. We passed them to 3 other students along with a worksheet asking them if they’d read on based on the first paragraph. Choices for response are: Definitely, Not Sure, and Probably Not. Professor let us know that “Not Sure” was “Not Good Enough.” I received two “Not Sure’s” and one “Definitely.” (Thanks much to the kind soul who gave me a Definitely.) Ouch. If ya can’t hook them at the beginning, well, that’s pretty much it, isn’t it?

So, at the moment, I am revising this draft. (Yes, right this moment, I’m that cool I can screw around on my blog and do revisions simultaneously, go me.)

A mixture of emotions do I feel. (Yes, that is in Yoda voice.) I feel grateful for the knowledge I’ve learned so that my writing may become better and more accessible to more readers. I’m learning to be less thin-skinned and take creative criticism. I am learning that the very errors that are glaring to me in other peoples’ writing are the very ones I perpetrate myself and never realize it. At the same time, the class I’m in teaches literary writing and I have never been one to make people search for meaning in my writing. I like to lay it all out there on the table. (Check it, I used used another cliché. The horror!) I want readers to identify with the day to day experiences and feelings of an average day to day person. Hemingway I am not, nor do I care to be. No, I’d like to be more of a Rowling or Sedaris or Hornby or some other writer who doesn’t die penniless with a shit-ton of super-meaningful art. I just want to write something that made somebody laugh, say, “aw yeah, been there,” and that sells. Finis.

Ok, guess I gotta get back to revising my overly wordy, overly expository, trite work and make it more artsy fartsy. When I get done with this, I promise I will finally post about my wonderful newly renovated bathroom, complete with pictures.

Picture books are good, like dem picture books, mmmmm…

P.S., a bit of red wine helps the creative process. (read: a few tumblers of red wine is mandatory whilst executing angry revisions and feeling sorry for yourself. Bukowski would approve.)