National Poetry Day

Sometime ago I made a post about my favorite poems which is located here.

Also a lithe while ago I picked up Bo Burnham’s poetry book called ‘Egghead.’ If the name Bo Burnham sounds familiar it is because he is also a comedian. A lot of his poems are a bit raunchy but also have a Seussical rhythm to it.

One of the poems is called Perfect, and it is really, really sweet.

Behold:

Perfect by Bo Burnham

If you click the picture it will also take you to his Tumblr page which features more of his work.

Do you also know what is poetry? Music.

My favorite artist, Gerard Way, formerly the frontman of disintegrated band My Chemical Romance, just came out with his first solo album ‘Hesitant Alien.’ He’s going on tour and I will be seeing him on Oct. 20.

The whole album is on Spotify and I think he has them all up on Soundcloud too. Notables: Brother, How It’s Going to Be, and No Shows.

And…

I just noticed my layout isn’t working properly so I will have to find a new one! Hold tight with this awful looking one. The graphics/pictures don’t seem to be loading.

Phew

I’m really glad I made it into work today, it was such a struggle. We were once again pelted with another snowstorm. These legendary Nor-Easters bring the region to a halt. Yesterday we were sent home early from work because the conditions were so bad.

I planned to drive in to work today because I figure the roads would be plowed, but my family talked me out of it. I also live 30 miles from my job. I shoveled my driveway and was warming up my car when my mom intervened. Instead my dad dropped me off at the train station, but I was a minute late for the train, and we pulled up as it chugged out of station. Bummer. The next train wasn’t until an hour later, but I had no choice, and stuck it out in the freezing temperature. Since the trains were running on their weekend schedules I had to transfer and wait twenty minutes for my transfer train. When I finally got to my station I hopped in a cab and made it to work. Only about five other people in my department made it in today.

I’m feeling a bit under the weather, unfortunately. I wore two pairs of socks and plastic bags in my snow boots, fleece leggings underneath my work pants, thermals, a t-shirt, and a a faux-fur lined sweater and I was still cold underneath my winter coat, scarf, gloves, etc. Water must have seeped into my boots when I had shoveled snow because my feet were wet the whole time I was waiting for the train. I cannot wait to take a hot shower/bath when I get home tonight. My commute home will be a pain in the neck too, no doubt.

But I like my job, and it’s important. I just wished the transportation worked out better…

Definitely cannot wait any longer for spring.

Still excited….

I’m still excited over NaNoWriMo, so I decided I just need to share my Facebook photo/cover photo. This is on my personal account. If you’d like to follow me, please follow on my professional public page, Laura T. Cerrone.

 

fbthing

 

Look how glorious this is! I have a crown! And the infamous British wartime motivational saying fine-tuned to feed the needs of a NaNoWriMo-er (that is getting to be a doozy typing out constantly, haha).

 

And now, back to the story!!

What I’ve been up too.

I’ve been busy, and then not-so-busy. I’ve been playing catch-up with personal business but am finally seeing the light of it and I’m able to balance my private and public matters better.

 

As of late I have been freelancing for a chain of local papers. It’s been great learning town codes and the ways towns work.

To see some of my work visit here.

On top of that I’ve just started writing for a digital music zine called Deep in the Music Media. My first album review was just posted and you can check it on on their Tumblr. This is the website and this is a direct link to my album. Be sure to follow them on Twitter and Instagram too! I haven’t written an album review in a very long time so it was nice to stretch those muscles out!

I’ve also been scribbling some non-fiction and fiction pieces, nothing is cohesive enough to post yet but I may crack one out in a few days. This warm weather is inspiring me to write, just got to remember to write it down and not store it in my head.

Hope you are all doing well and healthy!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ready to start this year off with a BANG!

I have some big plans that I want to get started on, just need to figure out my scheduling issues and then you will surely see me carpe dieming this year!

This year has so far felt better than any other year I’ve been alive, and I am excited.

Here’s to a happy and successful New Year everyone!

Date a girl who writes.

Saw this on my Tumblr dashboard and had to share it here. I am posting the link to it so it is given proper credit, but am also posting the full story. So good, love the language used.

http://www.1000notes.com/post/34295256647

Date a girl who writes.

Date a girl who may never wear completely clean clothes, because of coffee stains and ink spills. She’ll have many problems with her closet space, and her laptop is never boring because there are so many words, so many worlds that she’s cluttered amidst the space. Tabs open filled with obscure and popular music. Interesting factoids about Catherine the Great, and the immortality of jellyfish. Laugh it off when she tells you that she forgot to clean her room, that her clothes are lost among the binders so it’ll take her longer to get ready, that her shoes hidden under the mountain of broken Bic pens and the refurbished laptop that she’s saved for ever since she was twelve.

Kiss her under the lamppost, when it’s raining. Tell her your definition of love.

Find a girl who writes. You’ll know that she has a sense of humor, a sense of empathy and kindness, and that she will dream up worlds, universes for you. She’s the one with the faintest of shadows underneath her eyelids, the one who smells of coffee and Coca-cola and jasmine green tea. You see that girl hunched over a notebook. That’s the writer. With her fingers occasionally smudged with charcoal, with ink that will travel onto your hands when you interlock your fingers with her’s. She will never stop, churning out adventures, of traitors and heroes. Darkness and light. Fear and love. That’s the writer. She can never resist filling a blank page with words, whatever the color of the page is.

She’s the girl reading while waiting for her coffee and tea. She’s the quiet girl with her music turned up loud (or impossibly quiet), separating the two of you by an ocean of crescendos and decrescendos as she’s thinking of the perfect words. If you take a peek at her cup, the tea or coffee’s already cold. She’s already forgotten it.

Use a pick-up line with her if she doesn’t look to busy.

If she raises her head, offer to buy her another cup of coffee. Or of tea. She’ll repay you with stories. If she closes her laptop, give her your critique of Tolstoy, and your best theories of Hannibal and the Crossing. Tell her your characters, your dreams, and ask if she gotten through her first novel.

It is hard to date a girl who writes. But be patient with her. Give her books for her birthday, pretty notebooks for Christmas and for anniversaries, moleskins and bookmarks and many, many books. Give her the gift of words, for writers are talkative people, and they are verbose in their thanks. Let her know that you’re behind her every step of the way, for the lines between fiction and reality are fluid.

She’ll give you a chance.

Don’t lie to her. She’ll understand the syntax behind your words. She’ll be disappointed by your lies, but a girl who writes will understand. She’ll understand that sometimes even the greatest heroes fail, and that happy endings take time, both in fiction and reality. She’s realistic. A girl who writes isn’t impatient; she will understand your flaws. She will cherish them, because a girl who writes will understand plot. She’ll understand that endings happen for better or for worst.

A girl who writes will not expect perfection from you. Her narratives are rich, her characters are multifaceted because of interesting flaws. She’ll understand that a good book does not have perfect characters; villains and tragic flaws are the salt of books. She’ll understand trouble, because it spices up her story. No author wants an invincible hero; the girl who writes will understand that you are only human.

Be her compatriot, be her darling, her love, her dream, her world.

If you find a girl who writes, keep her close. If you find her at two AM, typing furiously, the neon gaze of the light illuminating her furrowed forehead, place a blanket gently on her so that she does not catch a chill. Make her a pot of tea, and sit with her. You may lose her to her world for a few moments, but she will come back to you, brimming with treasure. You will believe in her every single time, the two of you illuminated only by the computer screen, but invincible in the darkness.

She is your Shahrazad. When you are afraid of the dark, she will guide you, her words turning into lanterns, turning into lights and stars and candles that will guide you through your darkest times. She’ll be the one to save you.

She’ll whisk you away on a hot air balloon, and you will be smitten with her. She’s mischievous, frisky, yet she’s quiet and when she has to kill off a lovely character, when she cries, hold her and tell her that it will be alright.

You will propose to her. Maybe on a boat in the ocean, maybe in a little cottage in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe in New York City. Maybe Chicago. Baltimore. Maybe outside her publisher’s office. Because she’s radiant, wherever she goes. Maybe even outside of a cinema where the two of you kiss in the rain. She’ll say that it is overused and clichéd, but the glint in her eyes will tell you that she appreciates it all the same.

You will smile hard as she talks a mile a second, and your heart will skip a beat when she holds your hand and she will write stories of your lives together. She’ll hold you close and whisper secrets into your ears. She’s lovely, remember that. She’s self made and she’s brilliant. Her names for the children might be terrible, but you’ll be okay with that. A girl who writes will tell your children fantastical stories.

Because that is the best part about a girl who writes. She has imagination and she has courage, and it will be enough. She’ll save you in the oceans of her dreams, and she’ll be your catharsis and your 11:11. She’ll be your firebird and she’ll be your knight, and she’ll become your world, in the curve of her smile, in the hazel of her eye the half-dimple on her face, the words that are pouring out of her, a torrent, a wave, a crescendo – so many sensations that you will be left breathless by a girl who writes.

Maybe she’s not the best at grammar, but that is okay.

Date a girl who writes because you deserve it. She’s witty, she’s empathetic, enigmatic at times and she’s lovely. She’s got the most colorful life. She may be living in NYC or she may be living in a small cottage. Date a girl who writes because a girl who writes reads.

A girl who writes will understand reality. She’ll be infuriating at times, and maybe sometimes you will hate her. Sometimes she will hate you too. But a girl who writes understands human nature, and she will understand that you are weak. She will not leave on the Midnight Train the first moment that things go sour. She will understand that real life isn’t like a story, because while she works in stories, she lives in reality.

Date a girl who writes.

Because there is nothing better then a girl who writes.

Why I love journalism.

It’s pretty much summed up in this one article called Obama’s Way by Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair.

Read it.

Read it if you’re Republican. Read it if you’re Independent. Read it if you’re Democrat. Read it if you don’t care.

It’s a long read, but it is dazzling and thought-provoking. The neurons in my brain are firing and I’m lit with ideas and clarity. Amazing.

Vacation!

Off to vacation tomorrow. Will be back on Wednesday!

Going to enjoy the wild and wonderful outdoors.

There’s discrimination for everything

So I have very curly hair and I recently cut it several inches.  In June, my hair reached the curve of my back, and now my hair just falls over my shoulders. It’s always a huge change when I chop off so many inches.

So why am I talking about my hair on a blog about journalism?

Apparently, having curly hair is unprofessional in the workplace.

Yes, on occasion I do straighten my hair, but that takes nearly an hour and standing with a hot iron for an hour is not something I want to do in the summer, and all the time.

I came across this post.

But, darn it. I love my curly hair. I feel confident and powerful with it. People love to talk about it and play with it. It’s exciting.

But it is not unprofessional. I’m appalled that an employer would tell someone they can’t do their job because of what their hair looks like.

My hair does not affect my writing, it does not affect my intelligence, and it sure as hell shouldn’t have any affect over what jobs I can get. That should all be based on my skill and intelligence.

/endrant.