It’s been since debated on Facebook, but hey! It makes a pretty good blog post, too, for those who are not my Facebook friends.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I am not Christian. I am not really anything one could put a name to, really. I’m just … me. Atheist and agnostic aren’t proper terms. I think pagan would probably cover it, but the general sense, not anything specific like Wiccan. I believe in some sort of great spirit or energy. I believe the universe has a sort of harmony and everything is connected. I believe humans, animals, even plants to a degree, have souls and live on after death — whether that’s in some kind of afterlife heaven or hell or if we’re reborn on earth or some other planet or both or something entirely different, I don’t know. But I don’t think a soul dies with a body.

What someone else believes, so long as it doesn’t involve harming others in some way, I just couldn’t care less. If you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or worship garbanzo beans, it’s just plain none of my business.

I’ll even discuss it with you. I’m fascinated by the history or religions, how they evolved, the similarities — many might be surprised at how closely the lives of Jesus and Hercules resemble each other — why you believe what you do and I believe what I do, you name it. I respect your beliefs. I want you to respect mine.

What I won’t tolerate is someone pushing his or her beliefs. It’s not OK if you knock on my door to try to convince me to join your religion and it’s not OK for a coworker (especially anonymously!) to leave literature on my desk. And it certainly is not going to turn me in the direction that person wants me to turn. In fact, my general inclination is to turn in the opposite direction. The more you want me to be Christian, the more I’m going to dig in my heals and insist on being anything but.

Some people on Facebook mentioned going to human resources (I do have an idea who may have left it). I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think anyone deserves to get in trouble over such an incident. I’m not unreasonable.

I did, however, visit one of the local New Age stores and bought this to hang in my cubicle in a rather conspicuous spot:

That board still hangs above my desk at work, though I think it’s time to take it down. I attended the same retreat the next year, though a different person led and it wasn’t the same. I never hung that board. The following year, my friend Leslee hosted one of her own since the price had gone up and the quality of that original retreat (where I met Leslee) had gone down. I was out of town and didn’t attend either event.

This year, Leslee hosted again — as I wrote about on Wednesday. It was a renewal. I felt as energized as I did the first time, four years ago. I actually cut out so many images that I ended up with two boards and I’ve spent the last several days analyzing them.

I’ve already discussed the Ernest Hemingway phenomenon, so I won’t get into that again. But there were other interesting things about this year’s board.

The very first board I did contains, in the lower left not quite corner the question, “Where do YOU want to be?” If I remember correctly, it came from an article about travel. This year, I found exactly that question in an advertisement. I didn’t remember right away that I’d included it on my first board, but this time it went in the upper left corner, kind of a title and lead-in to everything else.

I found a lot of references to England, which is, really, exactly where I want to be. I’m very strongly drawn to that country, though I’ve never set foot in it. British accents to me just sound like the way people are supposed to talk. I adore British television shows, British books, every photograph I’ve ever seen of the British Isles causes my stomach to do flip-flops. I can’t explain it. I don’t feel that way about any other part of the world, whether I’ve been there or not. And it found its way to my board this year.

My first board has Tuscany and a lot of outer space imagery. Tuscany is beautiful (from what I can tell), but there are no stomach flip-flops.

I’ve been thinking a lot of New York City, as well. My second novel (assuming I ever write the first) is set there and I would like to live there while writing it. I found the name of that city in a magazine. It’s interesting because I like New York City, but have always said I could never live there.

I tried very hard this year to let my spirit lead me rather than just choosing images and words I liked or felt should be there. That’s difficult to do while conscious. I tried my best, though. And it seems like it worked well. I found a lot of images and words about really living life. I feel like both my boards are talking to me in a way the previous two didn’t. Still, some of the repeating themes are difficult to ignore.

Nature is a trend I see from year to year and of course books and writing and even dance appears on more than one of my vision boards. Those things are pretty obvious. Then there are the waterfalls, which are on all three of my boards and a major theme on my Pinterest page.

I find it funny, though, that I wrote a blog post last week about saying no more often in order to concentrate on achieving goals that have eluded me for too long and in one of the magazines, I found the admonishment to “just say no.”

“Whirling through the centuries” popped out at me, as the plot of my first novel (if it ever gets finished) ties strongly to that idea.

But of all the empowering and inspiring words and images I found, the most profound thing that jumped off the page and onto my board was something else, something that expressed perfectly my biggest fear, the thing that holds me back, the thought that’s always mulling around the back of my mind:

Somewhere deep inside, you think it’s a matter of time before you stumble and ‘they’ discover the truth: ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

I write. I’m pretty good at it, I think. Sometimes I stumble across something I wrote years or months or weeks ago and it takes my breath away that it’s so good, because I know that at the time I wrote it, I didn’t think so. But deep down, I think that my first impulse was correct.

I write. But I am not a writer.

I have to fight against that.

This second collage is a little more vague and I’m not sure what I think of it, except I like how it looks. I cut out that blue couch in the lower right because the color blue seemed to be hovering around me for a few days. It wasn’t a sad blue. It was just blue.

The rest mostly symbolizes my wanderlust and love of books and cooking and general creativity. The photo in the upper left is the now famous “Hemingway Collection.”

I suppose only time will reveal if this collage is more than just a pretty picture.

Ernest Hemingway 1957 by Yousuf Karsh

He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!

I never got much into Ernest Hemingway’s writing. He was never one to interest me. I’ve been to his house. Well, outside of his house. The line was long and I had limited time, so the tour did not happen. I was not disappointed.

Now I think  I should have gone in. Mr. Hemingway is stalking me this week. I’m sure it must mean something. It started on Sunday, New Year’s Day. My friend Leslee, to raise money for her church youth group and to share in a yearly ritual, hosted a vision-boarding and meditation retreat. I’d done this twice before, though not with Leslee leading. I’ll write more about that later this week, but this part could not wait.

A vision board, in short, is a collage. The one done on New Years Day is supposed to intuitively inform the year to come. One begins by flipping through magazines and finding photos and words that jump out and ask to be included on the board. I went through probably twenty magazines. Out of one, I pulled a furniture advertisement in which the featured room looked like a place I would be very happy. From another, I pulled a photograph of a grey tabby cat. As most of my readers know, I do love cats. There’s something spiritual about them.

I set these images aside as I continued searching magazines and finally, when I was ready to start putting my collage together, I went back to my images to trim them up pretty and arrange them on the board.

Hemingway with one of his famous six-toed cats.

That’s when I noticed.

At first, it was just that in the upper right corner of the furniture ad, it said, “The Earnest Hemingway Collection.” I thought nothing of it as I snipped that off. It wasn’t the part of the photo that I wanted for my board. I didn’t throw it away right away because I wasn’t near a trash can. Good thing.

I came to the photo of the cat, which was attached to a photo of a butterfly that I’d also liked. The caption for both photos was in the corner of the butterfly photo. I was about to snip that off, but then I read it. The cat was one of the famous six-toed cats that live on the Hemingway Estate in Key West.

I decided to cut his name out of both photos and glue them onto my vision board. Then I decided to just wait and see what the following year holds and what the significance is of coming across his name twice like that without even realizing in the moment that I had.

And then yesterday he struck again. I went to Pinterest and began looking through the varied and really cool things the people I follow posted since I’d last looked. About halfway down the main page, I found that someone had pinned a 1957 photographic portrait of … Ernest Hemingway.

I repinned it to my own board. I didn’t even have a category under which it fit properly, but I knew I had to have it. I pinned it under “Book Ideas.” I couldn’t think of anywhere else even remotely close.

It was sign number three. And I still don’t know what it means.

This year is different. There’s something I’ve been intending to do for a while now that should help me with other goals and I just haven’t been able to do it. That thing is making time for myself.

I had a four-day weekend for Christmas. I spent Friday grocery shopping for the food I planned to make for the holiday and also food to get us through the rest of the week, then met C’s parents for dinner. Saturday I spent doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and wrapping and then cooked. All day. We had friends over for Christmas Eve dinner. Sunday I spent cooking our Christmas dinner (including a second apple pie because I thought a friend was coming by for dinner, but she canceled). Monday was my birthday. I met friends for a short walk at 10:30, followed by Greek for lunch, home for a few hours then Zumba and cake with some other friends. Interspersed through all those days was housework.

There was barely a moment in there during which I could just relax. Four days of no work and barely a moment to myself. There’s something wrong with that.

This weekend isn’t much better. I committed to an evening out tonight with friends — some of whom live out of town, so I have to go. Tomorrow night is a New Year’s Eve party (albeit laid back, but I still have to get dressed and leave my house) and Sunday I promised another friend I’d attend a collaging fundraiser for her church youth group. I’ll also have to do laundry, vacuum, wash dishes and grocery shop and whatever else comes up.

I should stop wondering why I can never seem to get into a good, secure place of creativity and write. Those few moments I have I want to not have to think or work or do anything but lay on my couch and stare at the television.

Yes, much of what I listed is social and that’s not a bad thing. I have friends, a network, people who want to spend time with me. I’m grateful for that. But I also have to learn to say no to things. I have to learn to shut myself away for long periods of time so I can accomplish my life goals.

That is what the next year is going to be about. I’m going to become a semi-hermit. I’m going to commit to one or two social obligations a month. I’ll continue my writing group because, frankly, that is the one social endeavor that kicks my butt in the right direction. The creative energy emanating from that group of people is necessary in my life right now. And I’m going to say no a lot. I’m going to make a schedule and plan around it. There is no other way.

And I’m going to follow-through with an idea I had a few weeks ago. I suggested to my fabulous and talented writer friend, Mrs. Thor that we make a weekly phone date to talk about writing. Every time I actually have a live conversation with her, I walk away energized and inspired. It’s time to rev that up for both of us.

I agree they are different styles. I disagree that I “can’t” compare them. Because, when it comes right down to it, storytelling is storytelling. A movie may be more limited than a book and therefore, certain details must be changed or left out. And nine times out of ten, the book will be better than the movie for that simple reason. But that doesn’t mean the movie is always bad. The movie is bad when it not only changes the story of the book but does not change it well.

When I was about twelve years old, I discovered a book called The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper and fell instantly in love. In some aspects Cooper was an early J.K. Rowling. Many consider her books, Dark is the second in a series of five, classics, but they don’t seem to have enjoyed the kind of popularity and fame the Harry Potter books have. But then again, they came out in the 1970s — a very different time in entertainment — and are only about two-hundred pages long, each. The entire series is shorter than The Order of the Phoenix.

I haven’t read that book in at least twenty years. Probably more. I only had a vague recollection of the story, though a clear memory of how I felt when I read it. So when I turned on the television the morning of my birthday, I was super excited to see the 2007 movie version (which I’d never seen) on FX and decided to watch it.

I knew from the get-go, though, that something was wrong. Cooper is British and her main character, Will Stanton, was British. The movie made Will an American living in England and aged him three years. Even after all these years, the movie was so different from the book that I could tell which details were wrong without remembering exactly how they occurred in the book.

The people who made the movie also took a very well-written, well-developed, amazing story and ruined it. It was simply bad story-telling. It did prompt me to pick the book up again (it’s only slightly more than two-hundred pages, so there was really no need to make such drastic changes). I had to know if my memory was rose-coloring the book or if it was as good as I remembered. It is.

And this isn’t the only example I’ve come across recently. When Sherlock Holmes came out in theaters (with Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.) I hadn’t read enough Holmes to compare the stories to the movie. Still, I hated the movie. It was dreadful. Beyond dreadful. Still, I punished myself by going to see the sequel — Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows — last weekend. By then, I’d read all the stories and novels that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote.

What I’ve noticed about the movies that I hate in comparison to the books is that whoever makes these movies decides that he or she likes the concept of the books, but thinks he or she can tell the story better than the author. In the examples above (and also The Help), the screenwriters stripped the books down to the skeleton of a story and then put their own spin on the stories. And their spin was not better than the book. Their spin, in a word, sucked.

I waited to read the Harry Potter books because I almost always hate the movies if I’ve read the books. So, I watched all the movies and then read the books. And then watched the movies again. Now, the movies are slightly different. The books are very long, very detailed and there’s much about the books that just can’t be re-created in a movie studio. So there had to be subtle changes and details (and sometimes entire subplots) left out. But still, the movies are very good. They still tell the story Rowling intended. In some cases, I prefer the movie version of events to the books, although in the end, the books are better. The movies are still good.

Other examples: The Notebook was much better in its movie form than the book and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie version of Angels and Demons. Both movies told a great story and didn’t cheese it up or dumb it down.

So, you see, I can tell the difference between a movie and a book and even look at the two objectively. But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it can’t be as good. It’s a copout to say otherwise. And it does a disservice to authors and readers alike to ruin a good book by making a subpar movie.

Better now.

On Christmas Day, I burned my arm on the oven (there are always casualties when I cook).

Finally, yesterday I sat on the couch with a 16-ounce mug of steaming peppermint tea. As I waited for it to cool enough to drink, the mug slipped out of my hand, burning my poor dog (who yelped and ran to hide under the couch) and myself and soaking the couch cushion.

There it is. I should make this a monthly report.

1. I was turning right and a woman coming the other direction and turning left (no arrow) decided it was perfectly reasonable to turn in front of me. We nearly collided. She was on a cell phone.
2. I was on the next stretch of road behind an SUV. The driver was going below the speed limit. The car in front of him was a good football field away. He kept breaking (there were no cross roads, so he wasn’t looking for his turn). I passed him and looked over. He was on a cell phone.

Later, on the way home, I came up to my left turn. The light was green and there was a green arrow. The car in front of me came to a dead stop at the green arrow. She was on (you guessed it) a cell phone.

Clearly, if you think you can talk on your phone and drive safely, there’s a very good chance you’re mistaken. Of course, this being Tallahassee, there’s a good chance that if you live here you’re a lousy driver regardless of any distractions, so there’s that …

And just to add insult to injury, the illegal left-turner was holding her phone to her ear with her right hand and twirling her hair with her left hand. She was steering with her elbow.

I’m amazed I make it anywhere in this town without dying.

A place I'd like to visit.

You all may have heard (or at least some of you) of the new phenomenon sweeping the Interwebs. It’s called Pinterest and “everyone” seems to be doing it. My friends have been posting on Facebook quite a bit about this new obsession/addiction. I didn’t understand what the big deal was.

Basically, you find photos of things around the Interwebs that look interesting to you and “pin” them to virtual bulletin boards, separated into categories. Examples are movies, books, home decor, fashion and pretty much anything else in the world that can be photographed.

People use it to plan weddings, decorate their houses, keep track of crafts they want to do.

Last week, I had an epiphany about Pinterest. I was working on The Novel (now in its one millionth iteration, pared down from 32,000 words to about 2,000 and starting over) and was describing an outfit my main character was wearing. I did some googling (not as dirty as it sounds!) and found some clothing and jewelry photos to use as my base for description. I then saved those photos to my jump drive so I could refer back to them if needed.

Then I realized there’s a better tool for that. I finagled (well, just simply asked) my friend — The Other Renee — for an invitation (you need to be invited to the site, something that kind of annoys me about it, but I’ll still use it, anyway) and started pinning.

The idea is to have a place to keep photos of the inspirations behind things — houses, clothing, hairstyles — I describe, but also to create an online space that inspires me to write. I try to surround myself with decorations, at home and at work, that make me feel creative and cozy (they go together in my mind), so why not have an online place for the same?

A comfortable spot.

So, I’ve been Pinteresting and I’m enjoying it. I even have a couple ideas I can use in the real world. It’s also a neat little window into my friends’ and family members’ (if any of them are on there. I haven’t seen any yet) creative minds.

I’m hoping this will be a wonderful tool that sparks my creative mind and makes me less likely to trash myself so much.

Then the new governor decided to pull the office I work for out of its parent agency, which turned into a need for us to move to a new building. That new building does not include an office for me. No more cocoon.

I’m making the best of it. I decorated nice and pretty. I tried to make it friendly to creativity. I think I succeeded. It’s difficult to get a decent photo that really shows what the full effect is, but here is an idea:

I’m not really sure why hell is funny, but it is. I supposed making fun of Satan is equivalent to making fun of Adolf Hitler or Osama Bin Laden. It’s always open season on evil. And of course, the laughter makes the unknown less frightening. I mean, how can one be afraid of Satan when looking at a cartoon depiction of his wife yelling at him to clean up his mess?

Certainly not me.

So I leave you with this Irish saying I read years ago in Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly’s autobiography:

There are only two things to worry about: Either you are well or you are sick.

If you are well, there is nothing to worry about. If you are sick, there are only two things to worry about: Either you will get well or you will die.

If you get well, there is nothing to worry about. If you die, there are only two things to worry about: Either you will go to heaven or you will go to hell.

If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about. And if you go to hell, you’ll be so busy shaking hands with friends, you won’t have time to worry.

So, why worry?