Rita Arens's Blog, page 22

Watch Some of My Favorite Bloggy Friends Tell You What Blogging Is

"My blog is my spirit animal." OMG.

I Wrote This Post From a Firestone.

Today I had lunch plans for the second time in 2014. So exciting, this leaving the house during the workday thing. I hopped in Vicki, turned the ignition ... and nothing. Not even those little clicking noises that tell you all hope is not lost.

Pffft. My friend picked me up so we could still see each other and we talked about how like, yeah, I can handle this. (Beloved is out of town and has been during the week since basically the end of January). So FUCK YEAH WOMAN POWER.

Vicki was in the g...

Ten Long Years

So ... I'm never sure if anyone is still reading my new posts, but if you are ... next month is Surrender, Dorothy's ten- year anniversary. What would you like to see?

Why, Rosemary's Baby?

My girl and I were watching The Voice tonight when suddenly there are ads for all manner of terrifying television and movies. Ghosts, possessed mirrors and Rosemary's Fucking Baby.

Hold the phone.

Rosemary's Baby? The show? Episode six: Baby with Reflux Steals Souls.

In all seriousness, that was one terrifying movie. I saw parts of it as an adult and could barely bear the concept. I looked over at my daughter who was not even able to sit through the first twenty minutes of The Lord of the Rings...

About the Execution

The words have been coming hard lately. I reach for them, and they just blow away.

Sometimes there's no "there" there.

Stories need tension and conflict to survive. Good sentences aren't enough to carry a novel. Strength isn't enough to win a wrestling match.

It's all about the execution.

I practice and practice these sentences, pulling out the equivalent of four sweaters' worth of sentence threads in frustration. I just can't get it right, and that's such an exquisite pain.

I could scream, b...

YA Scavenger Hunt Blue Team: THE OBVIOUS GAME

Are you here for the Young Adult Scavenger Hunt? If so, welcome!

This tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors ... and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize -- one lucky winner will receive o...

Groupon Will Just Not Clean My House

I really want someone to come clean my house for me. I don't want to pay $100 for it. This is what leads me down the Groupon road, over and over, except this is what happens every single time.

1) Get email from Groupon that includes some half-price home cleaning service.

2) Buy Groupon. Think giddily about clean house with no effort on my part. Print Groupon out and stroke it lovingly.

3) Schedule cleaning. Always at least three months out, because whatever. Put appointment on calendar.

4) Da...

My Favorite Comment Ever

In the past week or so I've written on BlogHer about Gwyneth Paltrow telling us it's harder to be a movie-star parent than an office-worker parent, things you'll miss while spring cleaning, why I really didn't like The Muppets Most Wanted, whether I'd save Beloved or the little angel if they were both hanging off a cliff, and what Fred Phelps saw when he died -- but by far the best comment I got this week was on a post I wrote about struggling with Beloved's travel.

The post was shared on Blo...

On Beyond Subway Surf

My daughter steals my iPhone when she's bored. I keep taking all the games off, and she keeps putting them back on. I don't like to play video games, and they suck a ton of space.

Every time she grabs it, I think about how much she could learn about me if she wanted to.

How much of ourselves we carry around on these little machines. Not only whom we call but how we choose to name those people in our contact lists. I actually labeled Beloved as "husband" in my contact list because I am a paran...

Fred Phelps Died. I Have Some Thoughts.

Fred Phelps, Sr., former leader of the infamousWestboro Baptist Churchof Topeka, Kansas, is dead. Hedied on Wednesday night in hospice care. Phelps hit the international news scene when he and his church protestedMatthew Shepherd's funeralin 1998 bearing signs that reflect their website's URL: God Hates Fags.

I live in Kansas City. I had never heard of Fred Phelps until I went to a Lipizzaner horse show in Topeka with a friend and was shocked to see a group of people holding up signs saying i...