AfricanKelli

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The Case of the Missing Ponytail

It took me three years to complete a rough draft of my first novel, much of which I wrote under duress during a wicked breakup. Hot off the press, I sent the first copy to my father. {My dad has always been my writing inspiration, my biggest literary cheerleader. While I love my mom, to this day she hasn’t read the book. “I read a couple pages and keep falling asleep!” Unless I’m planning on marketing this to insomniacs, let’s hope for better reviews.}
I’ve since sent it to many other friends and it was resoundingly decided that the ending “sucked.” And there was a character no one understood. And what about that one guy in the hospital and where did he end up going?
There were holes in the plot and in this fragile time of life I wasn’t ready for criticism. My skin was thin and I just wanted everyone to tell me how I was a literary genius at the ripe age of 25! No dice.
Like everything else in life, success in writing was going to come from heaps of work and dedication. I re-read the story, made a few minor changes — insisting my ending was realistic and perfect! — and sent it off to agents far and wide. The rejection letters promptly started arriving and I cried. Oh, how I cried.
Then I found an agent who was willing to read it. Better yet, he wanted to talk about it. Bob talked for hours — two hours actually. I listened, taking detailed notes for the first hour. I cleaned the house during the second. He hated the ending too, but he loved the characters. We’d never met, he hadn’t read my blog, he didn’t know my story. Yet, as he spoke, I felt like he truly understood my vision. He knew me because he knew my art and that was a powerful feeling I’d never before experienced. It made me more optimistic and hopeful than I’d been in a long time. With a list of edits, and a much better ending, he said this could be published.
Six months later, I pulled out those notes and began the tedious process of changing significant characters and part of the plot. I am about a quarter of the way finished and I find this work exhausting in the best sense. It pushes me creatively and I look forward to the hour here and there I can grab to write, edit and read. That said, holy moly do I wish this book was ready for print. I really want to start writing the next story. I’m doubly motivated because it dawned on me this week — what if I’ve let so much time pass Bob no longer wants to help? Then what?
Oprah, now is the time to delurk.

~K

Community dinner #3 went off last night without a hitch. Actually, I think it was the most fun yet. I set up a create-your-own pizza and salad buffet and everyone made their own plate on their own schedule. It took a couple hours to prep the plates and bake yet another batch of gingersnaps, but it was well worth the effort.

BBQ chicken pizza, made at home with spices Finny brought me from Rome. Add a bit of pineapple and I’m in pizza heaven.

The only hitch is my home is too small to accommodate the growing crowd. I had two offers last night to bring more chairs next week and my friend Carl even suggested we have the dinner at his house. {A sneaky way to get me to make him dinner without him having to drive over, me thinks.} Yet another fun night shared with friends.

I am living a sweet life.

~K

Eggs:
Not Even a Glimpse of Hillary Pie

Ingredients:
4 eggs, whisked in a large bowl
1 cup milk
1 cup of cheese — I used a mix of feta and cheddar
veggies of your liking — I used asparagas, broccoli and spinach that I steamed beforehand and a tomato for garnish
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
dash of salt, pepper
Pie crust of your liking. For the pie I used frozen phyllo I had in the freezer. For the mini quiche, I used a pie crust I made at Christmas and had lfrozen, left-over.

Directions:
Heat the oven to 375. Grease your pie plate or cupcake tin. Make sure your pie crust is thawed and place in plate. If you are using a basic pie crust recipe for the mini quiche, take a small ball of pastry and smush it into the bottom of the greased tin.

In a saucepan, heat your oil and add your minced garlic and onion. Cook 7-10 minutes, until translucent. Add other vegetables and 1/2 of cheese, until thoroughly mixed. Add your milk to the whisked eggs. Add a dash of salt and pepper to the egg/milk mixture. Then pour veggies into this bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour into pie crust. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top and add a tomato for garnish, if so desired. Bake 40-50 minutes — until eggs are golden and your kitchen smells like breakfast nirvana.

Toast:

Holy hell. I saw “There Will Be Blood” last night and it is really good. The acting is superb. Daniel Day Lewis is so creepy and enchanting. Paul Dano, the icky brother from “Little Miss Sunshine,” is absurdly believeable. It is a violent, but great flick. I liked the storyline of “No Country for Old Men” better; it was more intriguing. However, the acting in “There Will Be Blood” is unreal. Five out of five bananas, absoloodle.

Cup of Joe:

Need a great book? Pick up, A Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. If I could jump into this book and live with the characters, I would in a heartbeat. Sweet, charming, great read. Four out of five bananas.

~K

Last night I decided to drive to Ceasar Chavez High School to hear Hillary speak.The high school is only a 12 mile straight shot west from my house, but with the rally traffic it took more than an hour to get there. Finally fed up with yet another hour of my life wasted behind the wheel, I pulled over and decided to walk the rest of the way. I could see the high school football stadium lights; I guessed I was within a mile.
This high school sits in an odd area of Phoenix. Plopped at the northern base of South Mountain, nearby flower fields and farms were recently razed and giant stucco monstrosities were planted in their place. This new suburbia crashes into the pre-existing rough neighborhood once you cross Central Ave. Then, oddly enough, the high school is surrounded by large dairy farms that have fought back developers and keep on a planting in the midst of a sprawling city.
As I got out of my car to walk toward the rally, a man parked his car at the same time and got my attention.
“You going to hear Hillary speak?”
“Yes,” I replied, noticing the full moon was the only light on an otherwise dark side street. The dairies’ thick earthy perfume clung to the night air and I tried not to look at the graffiti surrounding me. “Do you want to walk together?” I asked a bit more meekly, thinking even walking with a total stranger would be safer. “It would probably be a better move.”
By now “Charlie” was out of his car. Dressed in a red, white and blue tracksuit, he looked me up one side and down the other and said, “Honey, I’d be fine out here. But someone’d want a piece of you.”
Gulp.
As we walked, Charlie told me about how he didn’t care for Obama, even though as a black man he thought he should. He also told me how he was a Bush supporter and he was just attending the rally for the historical context. I started to argue with him, but caught my breath when we walked under a street light and I realized Charlie was wearing lipstick. Bright pink lipstick. I hadn’t seen his face clearly until now and I had to stifle a laugh.
I walked into a Hillary rally with the only known transvestite Bush supporter on earth. The fact I didn’t even get to see Hillary because — as the traffic predicted — I was way too late to get a seat, didn’t matter. Meeting a republican tranny was worth all the driving. When we walked back to our cars, he shook my hand and said, “See you around Kelli!” I thought, “Where? The Lancome counter?”

In other news, today is National Pie Day. Why do I know this? Because I subscribe to Country Living and hunt out opportunities to have any reason to bake. I took the opportunity to make veggie quiche in phyllo dough for my staff and mini quiche for friends.

Here’s hoping you get a slice of something sweet today too!

~K

*Inspired by Waitress.

Yesterday, we celebrated the life of Martin Luther King Jr., one of our country’s greatest leaders. I’m in no way a civil right scholar, but I would say if Dr. King were alive today, his dreams would probably include the following:

~ A dream of looking past gender and race when discussing candidates in any election, especially the presidency.

~ A dream that Americans wake up to the world’s needs — we need to take a good look around the globe to see how our insatiable hunger for oil and consumable goods is putting millions of lives in peril.

~ A dream that we extend a hand in peace and try to be gracious and kind always.

~ A dream that we rekindle our relationship with faith and in turn, treat our bodies, our land and our communities with greater respect.

~A dream that we work together to prevent these sorts of tragedies from continuing.

Call me naive, stupid to the world’s ways, silly or whatever you’d like — but I believe I will help see some of these issues through. Happily, I’m a dreamer.
~K