Bay Area

That’s the night that the lights went out at the ‘Stick

Posted on December 20, 2011
by Karen Fayeth
2 Comments

Our poor beleaguered Candlestick Park. The windy old jewel is really starting to show her age.

Well, not starting, really. Rapidly declining is more like it.

Last night she had a show to deliver: A contending team vs a contending team and an audience on the big stage of Monday Night Football.

Then this happened:

That blue light you see off to the left is a power transformer blowing up.

In a packed stadium in a hotly contested game with rafters full of fans from the opposing team out at Candlestick point…that’s not exactly where you want to be when the lights go out.

After some waiting around, the lights did come back on and the 49ers did prevail over the Pittsburgh Steelers, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.

But what a sad state of affairs for the ‘Stick.

Transformer blowin’ gif found here.

What’s That Twinkly Light Up There?

Posted on December 6, 2011December 6, 2011
by Karen Fayeth
2 Comments

Is that Santa?

No, dear, that’s the work train that just a’ran me over today.

Wave as it mangles your sense of joy!

Back to my regularly scheduled blog insanity tomorrow.

Hopefully.

Photo taken with iPhone4s using the Hipstamatic app and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.

Cheap Metaphors and Good Ice Cream

Posted on November 28, 2011
by Karen Fayeth
1 Comment

Despite the yoga, the muscle pain, the ooooohming and the visualizing, I’m still massively creatively blocked when it comes to writing, especially of the fiction variety. This is the most painful and prolonged period of writer’s blockage I’ve ever experienced, and I can see why some of the greats like Hemingway would drink themselves into a stupor over a situation just such as this.

It’s brutal.

Amazingly, I’m still able to crank out blog posts. That’s probably because my blog posts are mostly whatever random weirdness happens to be on my mind on any given day. To me, writing a blog post is like I’m having a conversation with you, the reader.

I always was a good talker.

I imagine if you knew me in real life, you’d find I talk much like the way I write here on the ol’ blogarino. I’m quite grateful that I am able to keep these blog posts going. They are a lifeline. Proof that I’m not completely over, left with a life of envying somebody else’s art and not making any of my own.

As I often do when the ol’ noggin is backed up, I’m going to the random word generator to help boost me along today.

I clicked and it presented me with the word: Phoenix.

Should I get all literary and talk about the bird that bursts into flames then rises from the ashes?

Nah. Too metaphorical. And a cheap one at that.

Let’s talk about that wacky town, shall we? A place I tend to refer to as “The Surface of the Sun” when discussing it amongst friends.

Phoenix and I have a weird relationship. There are things about the town that I absolutely adore. Attending a Spring Training game at Scottsdale Stadium is chief among them.

Watching baseball on an 80 degree day while wearing shorts and knowing it is rainy and bone chilling cold back home in the Bay Area is something I truly, madly, and deeply love.

But then there are times like, oh say…August, when there is really very little to love about Phoenix. Now, I am a desert girl, but I come from high desert where when the sun goes down, the heat becomes tolerable. 100 degrees at midnight isn’t cute and it isn’t funny.

Sometimes when I visit Phoenix, I feel like I am in my groove.

Sometimes I visit Phoenix and I feel like I couldn’t be more out of place.

Phoenix confuses me. It’s an incredibly large conglomeration of mini-neighborhoods trying to be just like Los Angeles when it grows up. This makes me mad at Phoenix, because parts of that town have their own personality, and it’s a good personality.

But then I turn a corner and there is another adobe colored stucco’d strip mall gone up and I think “Really, Phoenix? You’re better than that.”

Or as my dad would say, be yourself fer chrissakes!

I’d bet that there are Phoenix denizens who would take umbrage to what I’ve just said. I’m not here to offend, just trying to understand why a town with so much going for it is so confusing sometimes too.

Well, I’ll love it for the good stuff like baseball, visiting my Mom, and the occasional visit to the Sugar Bowl. And I’ll leave the overly stucco’d strip malls for someone else to love.

That seems fair.

If you haven’t been to the Sugar Bowl, you are missing out.

Photo by Patricia Drury and found on Flickr.

Ow Yoga Ow

Posted on November 21, 2011
by Karen Fayeth
4 Comments

“Show me on the doll where Yoga touched you in a bad way…”

Here…and here….and over there….oh yeah, and that place too.

In the early afternoon hours of this past Saturday, I traveled up to the city of San Francisco to take what promised to be a really wonderful yoga class. Entitled “Yoga for Writers” it was taught by a gentleman who is both a well known local columnist and avid Yoga practitioner.

I like his writing style and the price was right, so I signed up. I arrived in time for class with my brand new yoga mat firmly in hand and a lot of hope.

This class promised that through Yoga, through getting out of your head and into your body and tapping into your inner self, you might be able to write more smoothly, easily, and with lots of verve. (ok, I made up the verve part, but it sounds good).

While I’ve been doing a good job keep up with my blog, mostly, the fiction side of my writing life is suffering in a big way.

I have a confession to make. I have a scant 3,500 words on my goal of 50,000 for the month of November.

Um. There are only nine days left? Right? I’m utterly failing. I stare at the screen and I got nuthin’ to write. It’s very bad.

My writer’s block has become immense. Intense. It depresses me. So I really did rather hope that the yoga class would help free up the ol’ Muse and get her dancing.

I was in a TERRIBLE mood after having a god awful week at work, and so I was actually scared and nervous going into this thing. Would the class be chock full of hipsters? Would it be chock full of tiny yoga girls in tiny yoga pants?

Answer was yes on both counts.

I entered the yoga room and immediately wanted to pass out. Why is it so *hot* in there? Ok, yeah, I know, they keep yoga rooms warm, even if you aren’t doing the kind of yoga (Bikram) where you sweat your holymarymotherofgod off while you stretch.

Sitting there on my little mat waiting for class to start, I was already pitted out.

*sigh*

The class description said “not for absolute yoga beginners. Assumes moderate level of physical ability and yoga experience.”

Ok. That’s me. I’ve done quite a bit of yoga in my life, though not recently. I know my Tree of Life from my Warrior pose. I walk three to four miles a day.

I’m not an athlete but I certainly have a moderate level of physical ability.

My lard ass was actually NOT prepared for what lay ahead.

I thought this would be a writing class interspersed with yoga. This was instead a hardcore not-for-sissies yoga class with an occasional writing exercise.

In the three hour class there were three 15 minute writing exercises and one 15 minute stint of sharing some of what we wrote.

The other two hours were intense, almost brutal yoga.

Yoga never hurt me before. Why, overly large statue of Shiva in the front of the room, WHY?!?!?!

My god. This isn’t peace, love and butterflies. It’s agony served up on a rubber mat!

I hurt. I can hardly use the restroom because while sitting down goes ok, I can’t get back up off the toilet. I can’t be still for more than a few minutes at a time or I yelp in pain when I move again.

Look. I’m a writer! We’re notoriously pasty and out of shape!

When did yoga start hurting people?

I found this article titled When Yoga Hurts from several years ago (2007) with concerns that Yoga was being taken a wee bit too seriously (i.e. competitively) in the local health clubs.

I’ll say!

Ow.

(To be fair, the instructor was actually really good, just incredibly hard core. He’s that kind of guy who can balance a handstand on one pinky at the rocky tip of a mountain and hold it for an hour while thinking pure and spiritual thoughts. Whatevs. I’ll meditate on a bag of chips and feel just fine.)