Today, I am Dr. Meredith Grey

Awww.

“If there’s a crisis, you don’t freeze, you move forward. You get the rest of us to move forward. Because you’ve seen worse. You’ve survived worse, and you know we’ll survive too. You say you’re all dark and twisty. It’s not a flaw, it’s a strength. It makes you who you are.”— Derek Shepherd (McDreamy)

Since I dressed up as Dr. Meredith Grey today, does that mean I get a McDreamy too?  No?  Darn it.

I didn’t start watching Grey’s Anatomy when it first aired.  It took a while.  I remember watching an episode of it at my grandparents’ house on Camano Island.  It was the Christina-Ricci-as-the-paramedic-with-her hand-in-somebody-squeezing-a-bomb episode.  Yes, I know the episodes all have titles.  I just wanted to make sure you get the plot of this particular one.  The title, by the way, is, “It’s the End of the World.”  Ooooh, and the lives of everyone in the OR were threatened!  If the paramedic let go, the bomb would go off, instantly killing everyone in the vicinity.  She ends up getting scared and runs out of the OR, and the very instant she lets go, Meredith grabs the bomb.  She was that quick.

Yep.  Edge-of-your-seat drama.

After that, of course, I got the dvds from season one from Netflix and watched it from the beginning.  I absolutely loved it!  My sister got sucked into it as well.  Haha.  It quickly became one of my favorite shows.  I started saying, “Seriously” a lot.  Seriously?  Seriously.  Seriously.  The show is in its eighth season now.  In the middle of this past summer, I started thinking about this show and quickly came to the decision that a) I wanted a pair of hospital scrubs and b) I wanted to be Dr. Meredith Grey for Halloween.  So I got some and I am.  With glasses.  Nothing I can do about the glasses.

Channeling Dr. Meredith Grey:  I am now a hardcore blogger – I  have completed the Ultimate Blog Challenge!  Oh, yeah.  I cannot be a hardcore surgeon but I CAN be a hardcore writer.  And everyday, from now on, I will be.

Dr. Cristina Yang (Meredith’s best friend) quote

It wouldn’t be Halloween tomorrow without this…

It’s Thriller time!  Years ago when I had cancer and was sick with chemo, I was the biggest little Michael Jackson fan.  I had a little Fisher Price tape player always by my side, and MJ’s Thriller tape was always in it.  My mom once told me that when the nurses woke me up in the middle of the night to take my vitals and everything, I would start crying, and would continue to cry until my mom or dad switched MJ on.  Only then would I calm down and go back to sleep.  When I lost my hair, someone sent me a curly wig and I would put that on, get a microphone, and sing along with MJ.  Of course, I don’t think I even got half the words right!

I was 9 or 10 when my mom first let me watch the Thriller music video.  Maybe it was around Halloween.  I don’t remember.  I was fascinated by it, and it spiraled into my interest in R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series – which led to my obsession with the horror genre, leading me to authors like Christopher Pike and Stephen King.  I started watching horror movies soon after.  I remember once my cousin Carol and I (She was 13 and I was 14) were visiting my grandparents on Camano Island in the summer for a week, and my grandpa asked us if we wanted to watch a movie.  They had satellite tv, which, to us, was huge (neither of us  had it at home yet).  Movies galore.  Anyway, we found one that was about a babysitter who calls up her friend after the kid she was watching went to bed.  They made prank calls to random people in the phone book, saying, “I know who you are and I know what you did” and then hanging up.  They actually end up calling a man who had just committed murder, and so naturally he goes after the girls.  Eeeee!  It scares me just thinking about it.  Anyway, as the movie credits were starting, Carol chickened out and said she didn’t want to watch it anymore.  She babysat often back home.  Now I understand that, and wish I had gone along with her and just gone to sleep.  But no.  I had to get mad at her and storm upstairs, where my grandparents put me in another guest room.  I watched it all by myself and was completely freaked out.

Lesson learned, right?  Do not watch horror movies by myself.  In fact, avoid them altogether!  Wrong.  It took another decade or so for me to swear off the major horror movies.  Every now and then, like last week, I like to torture myself by watching creepy Lifetime movies.  I watched two of them on Tuesday.  Scared myself out of my mind.  Is that possible?  Yes, I think so.  Because I was scared out of my mind that night.  Good thing I had Buffy with me.  Buffy the Shih Tzu and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  If I just think, what would BtVS do? I feel better.  A little bit.  She would have kicked ghostly and evil twin butt, is what she would have done!

Do not like ghosts.  Do not like evil twins.  Hate insane serial killers.  What’s left?  Inspirational movies with messages.  Romantic-comedies.  Yes, please.  Sometimes, a little suspense.  But not out-and-out-horror.  I’ve watched the first 3 Scream movies years ago.  I refuse to see the fourth.  I constantly add scary movies to my netflix queue only to take them off later.  So I am insane.  What else is new?

Ewok? Check. Darth Vador Princess Costume? Why not?

Looky at what I found on pinterest.com!  I am on a Star Wars kick (because of Buffy looking like an ewok), and I was looking at Star Wars costumes in hopes of getting an idea for next year.  Star Wars is sadly lacking in female characters – Princess Leia is cool and all, but gimme some variety, would you please?

I absolutely love the originality of this costume…  because anyone could and should be a princess and Darth Vador at the same time.  Anything goes in this world.  And what is Halloween, if not a day to dress up as someone you’re not – or as two somethings combined?  It excites me, because the possibilities are limitless!

The pink lightsaber is a BONUS, don’t you think?  You can’t miss the tiara on the Darth Vador mask either.  It makes me smile.  This kid is a rockstar, whoever she/he is.

Hopefully, this will spark some creativity in your costumes, those of you who are madly scrambling to find one suitable for Halloween 2011.  Halloween is a day when anything goes!

 

What I Wanna Be

I always knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.  When I was in first grade, somebody – I cannot remember who – asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I promptly answered, “A writer.”  I didn’t even have to think about it.  I loved books.  I loved paper.  I love pencils and pens.  I loved words.  Anything that had to do with writing, I loved.  Talking frustrated me.  Nobody understood what I was saying.  But when I wrote, everybody understood.  It was magic.

I remember when I was learning to write, my teacher was walking around the classroom, and she stopped at my desk, and watched me for a few minutes.  Then she said, “Good, but Danielle, your spaces are too big.  Try to write your words closer together.”  I thought, “Seriously? Who cares how big my spaces are?” Well, apparently, she did.  So I had to watch myself from then on.

I was quick to realize that I was living an interior life.  I was my own best secret.  I live my life inside of my head – which is why I choose solitude over company.  People don’t get it.  Some try – they come close – but I don’t think they really, truly get it.  I don’t see myself as disabled the way the outside world does.  I see my thoughts in my head, and those define me.  People aren’t their bodies.  They’re the souls inside the bodies.

So what do I want to be when I grow up?  The short, easy answer hasn’t changed in 23 years.  I still want to be a writer.  I AM A WRITER.  What I wanna be is published, not just on the internet, but in books.  But that is only part of it.  The rest lies in helping others, helping to find a cure for the horrible diseases that are lumped in the childhood cancer category.  The rest of who I am lies in my heart.  I want to love, to give, to help.  My absolute favorite Disney movie is “The Little Mermaid.”  I love that song “Part of Your World.”  Most of the time, I don’t feel part of this world – I want more than I have, because I know this body of mine isn’t me – it isn’t all of me.  I have God to thank for that.  He is the reason I am here today.  He is the reason I am who I am, and he is the reason why, tomorrow, I will be who I will be.

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired Halloween costumes (for pets)

Yep.  I am one of those freakish pet owners who love to dress up their pets, and not just for Halloween.  Maybe freakish isn’t the right word, though.  Does wacky sound better?  Weirdo?  Crazy?  Eh, it doesn’t matter.  My shih tzu Buffy has been a witch ever since her first Halloween 3 years ago.  She calmly allows me to put the costume on her – a little dress and hat – but then she acts like she doesn’t know me.  She tries to shake off the hat, but it won’t come off because it has a toggle fastener.

This year, though, I am going to give her a break, and dress myself up instead.  Buffy will just be an ewok, as she is the other 364 days a year, but she will wear her Halloween collar that my mom bought her a couple years ago.  For myself, I bought some blue hospital scrubs – I am going to dress up as Dr. Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy.

But here are some inspired Halloween costumes for pets.  The first one is, of course, my favorite.  Maybe next year, Buffy?

“You’re fired.”

Have you ever had to fire anyone?  I’m lucky I haven’t.  I imagine I would suck at it. To know that I was changing things for this person, taking away their security, well, let’s just say I would probably end up giving a pep talk than a “you’re fired” speech.  Like, “How can I help you be better at your job?  What do you need from me?”  And if the issue was money, I would see to it that they were taken care of – have job referrals,   I can’t imagine what I would do if I had a bad employee, for example, if someone was lazy or dishonest.

Actually, there are 10 reasons an employee can fire someone.   They are:

• high absenteeism/being late often
•  performing  tasks slowly and with errors
• a person is unable/unwilling to do assigned tasks
• inconsistent and unreliable work behaviors
• person is refusing to follow directions and orders
• person is unable to get along with others
• drug and alcohol abuse
• a person is dishonest – espionage and theft
• taking care of personal business at work
• lying on resumes (being found out

My dad is a business and marketing teacher at the local high school.  Maybe he would be willing to give how-to-be-a-model-employee” sessions every now and then, in his free time.  I would just write a “prescription” for his class and give it to the person, and tell him/her not to come back until they have their act together.  It would be an unpaid leave.  And if the problem is drug and alcohol abuse, I’d offer to pay for rehab, if money isn’t an issue.  I think this is good and fair.

Of course, I don’t know what the business would be or what I’d do with it.  Maybe I’d start a book-publishing company.  It’s fun to think about, but I don’t know that I have employee-stamina in me.  I do best working by myself – which is not to say that I won’t work with other people.  Eventually, I’ll have to, if my dreams are going to come true.

Patience

You know what they say:  Patience is a virtue.  I don’t think I know anybody who is really, really, really patient.  Other than God, of course.   When we are expecting something, we want it now, not two days from now, not next year, not in ten years.  It is human, but that is not to say that patience is inhumane.  I think patience is a godly virtue, and we need to practice it in order to achieve it.  Practice makes perfect, after all.

It is hard sometimes to write, because I do not have any clue if it’s ever going to get me anywhere.  But maybe it already is.  What I write is being read.  That is what matters most, right?  It is human to want more than what we have, though.  It would be nice if I could point my finger at my laptop and pages upon pages would type themselves.  I can see that as being the cure to my procrastination.  But alas!  I may be an idealist, but I also live in reality.  And most of reality is not magic.  Reality is hard to face sometimes, especially if you are bombarded with negativity on all sides.  I think that is where idealism comes in, to protect us.

I’m done waiting.  My future is not going to be everything I want it to be if I do nothing.  I have to make it happen.  And I will.  God and I will make it happen.  I refuse to be stuck forever.  I am going to write my heart out.  I am going to make myself even when it is the last thing I want to do. It will be exhausting, no doubt, but it will also be worth it, in the end.  Because then, I’ll know for sure that I gave my life all of me.  I don’t want people to sit around at my funeral shaking their heads, saying, “What a shame.  What a waste.  She had so much potential.”  I’m going to pour out all that potential.  Everything inside me, all that I am, is going to go out there in the world.  I know I have to be patient with myself.  It’s not all going to come out anytime soon.  It will take time.  But it will be a labor of love,  I am finally ready to be strong.

 

 

Playing with Autumn

The cold mists swirl in the air -

and, above, clouds sag heavy with rain,

and the golden leaves blanket the ground,

as nature readies herself for the winter to come.

 

It’s funny, isn’t it, how autumn can be so beautiful?  It is a time when the leaves fall from the trees.  It is a time when the bears and other wild animals store up food for the long winter ahead.  Winter will make all things new.  But knowing this does not make my heart warm towards it.  Whereas I love that snow insulates the earth and makes it silent and still, if only for a moment, I loathe the white stuff.  Seriously.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much.  I don’t have the words.

Anyway…

I don’t remember ever jumping in a pile of leaves when I was younger.  Maybe I didn’t.  Maybe I merrily sat in them, delighting in the crunching noises they made as they accepted my weight.  I remember collecting them for a school project.  I remember countless leaves of yesterday, here for a season, gone for a lifetime.  Are there leaves in heaven?  I imagine the leaves of autumn past hitchhiking to heaven with the souls of the deceased, coming to life again, turning green again, this time for all eternity.  God would put them back on trees.  Or maybe there is an area in heaven where there is a huge pile of leaves.  Children and pets romp there.  No more dying, no more pain, only eternal life and happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration for the Week

Risk

Years ago, probably in high school, I came across a short little poem that spoke volumes of truth to me.  It was called “Risk” and it was written by Anais Nin.  It goes:

And then the day came,

when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.

Those eight lines, short as they are, say so much.  It costs us to hide away, just as it costs us to live up to our potential. It costs in different ways.  In the former, we are denying ourselves the world, and denying the world the chance to get to know who we are.  When I don’t write, when I do nothing but procrastinate all day, I don’t get anywhere, as far as life goes.  Tomorrow comes, and I am still in the same place.  The good news is that I am no longer stuck.  I am no longer waiting for the perfect time.  The perfect time is now.  I am inspired.  Life has inspired me.  I have so many ideas and it is time for them to come out.  And they will.  My ideas will blossom and I will move from Procrastination Island to Productive City.

First on my list:  the short story, prompted from the image of the path I posted a week or so ago.  It’s dusk.  Shadows everywhere.  Main characters are teenagers, a boy and a girl.  They’re together.  Holding hands.  The boy is running, dragging the girl along behind him.  She protests.  Says she’s scared.  He promises he won’t let anything happen to her.  The girl stops, so the boy does too.  The girl looks to the sky.  She says they should go back, before it gets dark.  But the boy insists on continuing, and so they do.  The girl trusts the boy.  Where are they going?  Where does the path lead?

I do not yet know.  I have to listen to my muse.   It’s a risky thing, writing this story.  The story itself will be about risk, and it’ll be a risk for me to write it because I have never written anything like this before.  But if I don’t do it, I’ll be missing out.  Shying away from my true potential.  Staying in my safety zone.  The truth is, though, the life of a writer is all about taking risks.  Yes, I will be rejected more times than I care to imagine.  I will just do what Richard Castle did in the ABC show Castle:  frame my first rejection letter.  Staying positive is the only way I can see to live MY life.