"But nobody's listening"*

Do you ever get the feeling that you are screaming in a crowded room and are just being ignored? That even you are ignoring yourself? How often do you really listen without once thinking of how to get your own two cents into a conversation? For that matter, do ever just listen to hear what's going on in the world?

Sometimes the noise pollution of music, television, trucks, cars, conversations, fluorescent light bulbs, even my own thoughts get so crowded in my head that I can't think anymore. I recently decided to embark on a daunting project in self-introspection and in preparation for that, I have taken a few quiet walks in an attempt to unplug my brain from the normal noise pollution and tune into some new sounds, namely, those of the beach in wintertime.

In winter, the beach whispers to you. It's miles away from the cacophony of the beach in summer. The subtlety is refreshing (as is the blustery wind). The more I listen, the more it's like a drug. I want to push the tolerance of my hearing further to hear deeper. Then I want to specifically identify each sound and search out its source, my head bobbing back and forth in an effort to catch each with my eyes (oh, how dependent we humans are on eyesight). Here's some of what I observed:

• My mouth smacking my gum (admittedly, it wasn't very smart to chew gum on a sound-seeking walk). Luckily that was one noise pollutant I could easily get rid of.
• At low tide, the soft lapping of the waves. Their gentle swooshing fading into the background. The bubbly fizz as algae and grass dry in the sun, like I can hear the water evaporating.
• At high tide, the louder breaking of slightly bigger waves (still not a crashing--it's only Long Island Sound after all). The slap of water against the concrete tide wall.
• A rush of wind in my ears, which fades and rises with the mood of the ocean. The sniffles of my own nose.
• The harsh squawk of a seagull. A cry of alarm at the approaching stranger (that would be me). Another seagull's high-pitched whine, sounding over and over again, maybe seeking attention from the stranger.
• The melodies of the songbirds, present even in winter. Their cheeps soft and sweet compared to the crude cries of the seagulls.
• The quiet tread of my sneakers on the sidewalk, the crunch a little louder when I walk over sand.
• Louder than the crunch of my sneakers is the crunch of car tires on asphalt. Some cars purr, other squeak and clank in protest.
• The swish, swish, swish as the sleeves of my coat brush up against the coat's body. A few minutes later, a new swish as a man in warm-up pants jogs by. Who knew clothing could be so loud?
• The rwor, rwor, rwor of an airplane (my head tilts to the sky to see it), distinct from the whir, whir, whir of a helicopter.
• The jingle of a dog collar, a muted cousin to the metallic plink of a flag flapping against its pole.
• A drip, drip, drip as ice and snow melts. Even more drips as a man takes advantage of the (relatively) warm day to wash his car. His low car radio, which would be common in the summer, foreign in this winter world.
• The diesel roar of an oil-spill response truck as it sucks someone's beach house clean. Its rumbling a blight on my experiment as it drowns out all other sounds.
• The quiet crunch, crunch of another person. Soft hellos exchanged by strangers bound by a mutual interest of walking on the beach.
• A carefree wak, wak, wak of a duck. Is it laughing? Another duck certainly not laughing as it quacks at a seagull that gets too close.
• The frantic chirps of songbirds taking off in fright. The rustle of dead leaves, almost imperceptible in the wind and waves.

There's more, but I'll leave you with that for now. It's amazing what you can hear when you're actually listening.

*Linkin Park

"Could you take my picture?"*

I've made it onto the web again! You may remember (or probably not) that I've blogged about appearing the web before (check out this post and this one). Unlike those other posts, though, this new one is ALL ABOUT ME! Check out a great--if I do say so myself--interview of yours truly on Kimberly Sabatini's blog.

I mentioned in the interview that one of the reasons I like to go to writing conferences is to meet authors and have them sign books for me. Here's my shelf of signed books:

I love all my signed books (call me a bibliophile if you must), but here's a few that hold a special place in my heart:

Lisa Yee is a great writer and a really fun person. I've only had the pleasure of meeting her in person once, but we occasionally chat via her blog. It's cut off in the picture, but she crossed out Stanford Wong and put in Katie!

I remember reading Bruce Coville's My Teacher is an Alien back in grade school and loving it, so it was a real honor to meet him in person. I saw him speak at the SCBWI LA Conference a few years ago, and it was great.

Sid Fleischman is one of the cutest men I've ever met. He was in a humor panel at the LA conference. He was one of the quieter contributors on the panel, but when he did speak, it was definitely worth listening to. I later told him that I enjoyed his subtlety, and he said to me, "I'm sure you have a great deal of subtlety as well."

As I was looking at my signed books, I realized that I have given away all my signed picture books, but there was some good ones. My favorite is How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Mark Teague (it's signed by Mark Teague), which I gave to my little nephew. When you read it with him, he turns to the title page and says, "It's signed by Mark (my nephew has a funny little accent like he's from Boston or something, so Mark sounds like Mak) Teague and he drew a picture of a dinosaur." Then he recites the whole book for you.

And because there can never be enough links in one post, here's one more for you. Agent Mary Kole is running another contest on her Kidlit blog, so check it out here.

*Filter

"It's all about the wordplay"*

Girls' Christmas (my "sisters" and I get together every year for a girls-and-kids-only Christmas party) was relocated to my house at the last minute, so I requested that my guests create a sentence with the magnetic poetry kit on my refrigerator. Here's what we came up with (as usual, I put a space in between each magnet to show the creative combinations):

• love people like they a r e obedient prostitute s (I would think any obedient prostitute is easy to love, so this could be a new logo for world peace or something!)
• experience perfect pleasure through bald chicken rhythm dance ing (I'd like to see bald chicken rhythm dancing...or on second thought, maybe I wouldn't.)
• spark random inspiration speak every thought investigate precious emotion (lather, rinse, repeat)
• electric transgress ion s will burn holy fire (That's what she said!)
• the devil s skeleton is suck ing seed y sweet & sour soup (Nice alliteration...who knew the devil's skeleton liked Chinese food?)

In other word news, my sister, niece, and nephews are trying to get the word "poink" into mainstream vocabulary. This started when my three-year-0ld nephew told my sister he didn't want to sit in one of the dining-room chairs because it had a "pionk." My sister asked, "What's a poink?" So he showed her a broken chair rung that was sticking into his back. They now use the word regularly.

Poink has actually turned out to be very versatile. It can be a noun, as in the original sense: That needle has a sharp poink. It can be a verb, literally: Ouch! That needle just poinked me. It can be a verb, figuratively: Oh, you just got poinked. It can be an adjective: That needle is very poinky.

I checked out the urban dictionary and found some interesting definitions for poink and poinky. I recommend everyone tries to use poink in a sentence today.

*Jason Mraz (Yup, I'm kind of obsessed with his music lately!)