Author: Elle

My Rock-God hero

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Amidst the turmoil and stress of the last few weeks in the country and my personal life, I took a moment to try remembering things that make me happy.

As a child I used to stare at the night sky, attempting to draw shapes from the stars (disclaimer: I am not, and never was an artist. I was the kid who didn’t like to color and silently freaked out about other kids coloring outside the lines)

Inspired, my mother bought astronomy books for me, forever damning a part of me a nerd (or geek, if you prefer)

I loved the science, the stories created by ancient societies to explain the world, and thanks to H. A. Rey, on a clear night I can always find the North Star.

Fast forward, I succumbed to the same pitfalls of feminine puberty that so many girls do. Boys, “everyone’s boobs are bigger than mine” and “what do you mean EVERY month, this is normal?!” and other self degradations. Suddenly, science was no longer a thing that mattered.

Years later Neil deGrasse Tyson came into my life.

Where I saw him first is fuzzy. Maybe The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, maybe the “Pluto isn’t a planet” debacle, maybe I stumbled across Star Talk, the podcast he hosts with notable figures to talk science.

I follow his work with relish. His passion for science and for teaching is infectious.  Everything he does is funny and informative and makes it safe to nerd out

Well that (de)escalated quickly…

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I just finished one of the most difficult weeks of my life.  You know the kind where you think at first, “this is awesome!”  And then you think, “OMG, what have I done?”

And then you think, “maybe if I click my heels together 3 times…”

By the end of the week, full of ups (hahaha, “ups,” I crack myself up) and downs, the brain finally says “processor is currently in a stopped state…restarting, restarting, restarting…..please insert wine”

Ya know, change is good, but holy shit, change is hard.  I don’t care how good it might be: CHANGE IS FUCKING HARD.

But hey, “keep calm and keep buggering on,” right?

Trying something new

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Most of last month, I hemmed and hawed over whether to try this project.  I joined a group called “See Jane Write,” a website and community supporting and encouraging women who write.

Every November, the site posts the “Blog Like Crazy” challenge.  The site runner has said that she started the challenge because as a non fiction writer, November was always a lonely time while her fiction writer friends were off participating in Nanonwrimo, an event where participants start writing a new story on November 1, with the goal of hitting 50,000 words by the end of the month.  Doesn’t matter what you write, doesn’t matter if it’s good; just write.

I’ve done Nano in the past, but this November, change just feels right.

Here we go!

Founding Fathers…Singing

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A few weeks late, I finally got to indulge in one of my yearly pleasures. Every year on the the 4th of July, Turner Classic Movies airs one of my favorite movies, 1776.

As its title implies, the story is based on events leading to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Originally a Broadway production in 1969, the 1972 adaptation primarily set out to make an entertaining musical. Despite occasional poetic license or characters breaking into song, the final production is pretty accurate.

History was always one of my favorite subjects in school. This movie was my first clue that what I’d learned in K-12 about the American Revolution was slightly lacking. My childhood memories paint a picture of a bunch of guys getting together and saying, “OMG, you want to split from Great Britain too? YAY!”

Or, in John Adams’ own words to a lesser-known Benjamin:

“[Ben] Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington – fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them, Franklin, Washington and the horse, conducted the entire revolution all by themselves.”

At its heart, the movie is less about the signing and more about how men from different walks of life with VERY different agendas somehow agreed upon this radical document and ushered a fledgling country into the tumult of the next 242 years.