For my last entry of the 2015 edition of the Dog Days of Podcasting, my good friend Debra Smouse turns the tables and asks me the same questions I’ve asked everyone else.
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
Writer, poet, crafter, and purveyor of awesome body projects – we’ve never met in person, but she’s a friend nevertheless.
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
Late night ramblings on nostalgia, stories and why everyone should tell theirs.
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
Debra Smouse: Writer, life coach, detangler, and one of my first friends in Texas, Debra and I talk about writing, and how everything comes back to STORY. What’s your story?
(This interview is rambly and unedited. May contain adult language. You’ve been warned.)
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
In 2004, my husband and I moved from California to Texas.
In 2005, I turned the story of our trip into a creative writing piece called “Crossing the Mojave” and won a contest with it.
Excerpt
Fuzzy has gone the entire trip guzzling root beer and orange soda, but I am being good and sticking to water as much as possible, partly because it’s cheaper but mostly because it isn’t quite so vile when it is no longer throat-numbingly cold. I open my mouth to urge him to drink water, but he has a closed expression, so instead I mutter something about how the word “Mojave” changed to “Mohave” when we crossed the state line. He has no response.
I keep seeing signs for the Grand Canyon, which I have not seen since a school field trip when I was a child living in Colorado, but my husband reminds me that the dogs cannot eat until we stop for the night, and that as much as I seem to want to pretend this is just a road trip, it is not a true vacation. Instead, it’s a one-way trek halfway across the United States, to an apartment we have never seen that will be filled with furniture we do not own. I don’t tell him that I have to keep pretending we’re just exploring so I don’t get overwhelmed at the journey we’re making—not the physical trip, though that is grueling enough—but the uprooting of our lives.
Intellectually we both understand that this decision is the right one, that we were caught in a never-ending loop of bills and emergencies, that my company was failing, and that the cost of living in the Bay Area was increasing. Our ultimate destination, Dallas, Texas, isn’t the first choice for either of us, but it is the best we could agree on, and sometimes that has to be enough. Nevertheless, the knowledge that there is nothing familiar waiting for us at the end of the road is more than a little daunting.
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
In which the Bathtub Mermaid shares her theory about caffeination.
Credits
Music
Music for this episode was provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. Visit them at music.mevio.com. Opening: “Soap in a Bathtub” by Stoney Closing Music: “You Can Use My Bathtub” by Little Thom
It marinates, really, soaking up some of your flavor, sharing some of its own. Then you make a connection with someone else entirely, and the first thing suddenly bubbles up from the back of your brain, and you present it to the new person, and suddenly, connections are formed, substantive questions are answered, information and appreciation are shared.
The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app.
Music for The Bathtub Mermaid is provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. The standard opening song is “Soap in a Bathtub,” by Stoney. The standard closing song is “You Can Use My Bathtub, by Little Thom. Additional music used for the Holidailies project is “A Podcast Christmas Theme” by Tom Shad, and “Village Song” composed by David Popper and performed by Cello Journey.
But something wonderful has been happening as I’ve been reading my friend’s published words. I’ve been feeling, to use my own word, really writey. In fact, instead of reading her book straight through, the way I typically read EVERYTHING, I’m having to stop, and walk away and dash out notes or phrases or write a paragraph…
The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app.
Music for The Bathtub Mermaid is provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. The standard opening song is “Soap in a Bathtub,” by Stoney. The standard closing song is “You Can Use My Bathtub, by Little Thom. Additional music used for the Holidailies project is “A Podcast Christmas Theme” by Tom Shad, and “Village Song” composed by David Popper and performed by Cello Journey.
But daily blogging, in many ways, was my version of skating school figures. They’re not particularly pretty to the uninformed, but they teach discipline, help you hone technique, give you stamina…and sometimes you do something when practicing a basic figure that informs or inspires a larger piece – leads you to your long program.
The Bathtub Mermaid, Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock
Music for The Bathtub Mermaid is provided by Mevio’s Music Alley, a great resource for podsafe music. The opening song is “Soap in a Bathtub,” by Stoney. The closing song is “You Can Use My Bathtub, by Little Thom.
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