Thursday, August 28, 2014

Doing Holly's Bucket List

By Steve Weddle

So, yesterday Holly West posted a list of things she had wanted to do. Getting a novel published was top of the list. And she'd done that. Heck, I read the novel and dug it. Grab MISTRESS here.

OK, so here's her list

Let's see how I've done.

1) Learn a foreign language.

I have a minor in German. Had a minor? How does that work? I had to take a bunch of German in college to go with the BA in English. So I think I took one extra class and ended up with a minor in German. But I don't speak German, nor have I ever used it. So, I guess I had a minor. It is nutzlos now.


2) Learn to play the guitar.

Ugh. What is it with all this learning? Speak another language and play the guitar? Holly wanted to host a telethon in Paris? Goodness, that sounds like so much work. 

I played the guitar, poorly, in college. I own a guitar. I play the banjo, though. I have three banjos. In fact, I just took the drone string off my clawback banjo and can now, uh, I feel like I just lost you. OK. Here's a song Frank Bill sent that's good. It's banjo.



3) Visit Africa.

OK, honestly. Host a telethon in Libya and you're covered. Africa would be a fun trip, especially if you got to shoot giraffes. Like Holly, I don't care much for flying. I mean, you're in this big metal tube sitting next to people who want to talk to you while you know you're falling through the air with people in a little room 10 feet behind you making poopoo or peepee or pornos and the waiters and waitresses are pulling water and ice out of some holding tank that hasn't been cleaned since the first Bush presidency. Here's some Replacements for Jay:



4) Be a graphic/web designer.

I was a graphic designer for a while, back in the 1990s. That was my first pro job in newspapers. It was too much work. Pagemaker and Photoshop and then QuarkXPress and then Illustrator and then Dreamweaver and a handbasket of other programs I now use as often as German. Why is it that Holly wanted everything to be so much work? All this learning? Are all you people like this? Why are you all so busy? Goodness. 




5) Learn how to dress myself stylishly.

Done.



Oh, hey, before I forget. I'm teaching a short story class over at LitReactor. If your bucket list contains "Hang out with cool folks and Steve Weddle and learn some fundamentals of short story writing," then you'll want to head over here.

And I swore off Facebook because of the timesuck, but I still have a work account over there which you're not allowed near and a very tiny Earl Withers account you're welcome to harass. Oh, and I've peeled off Twitter for the most part, except for the @SamBelacqua account and a few other accounts I'm in and out of. You know, I'm finding Tumblr to be better suited for my pop in and then run away method. If you need me on Tumblr, I'm under my actual real name over there at steveweddle.tumblr.com, though, as usual, I do keep a fair number of fake/anon accounts around.

Heck, was that on my bucket list? Snag 29 URLs, 14 Twitter accounts, 11 Facebook profiles, and five Tumblrs? If so, then, you know, BAM!

2 comments:

Lauren said...

I knew it. I KNEW you were the guy in those Most Interesting Man in the World commercials.

Steve Weddle said...

I've been in commercials, just not those. Back in the late 80s. Was a different world, then.