Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Please Evacuate the Building...

Since I haven’t done a “Wrestling Wednesday” in a while, I decided to do one today!

One of my all time favorite memories happened on September 25, 2006. My BFF, Terrica, came into town for this one, which is always fun. Terrica, Yousef, and I went to the arena for RAW. A good friend of mine hooked us up with a special package and we were able to go ‘backstage’ for a meet-n-greet with some of the wrestlers as well as a small dinner. It also came with front row seats. We got to hang out with Randy Orton and the Spirit Squad.

The thing that stands out the most about this show, though, was when the opening pyros went off. For any of you reading this blog that has never watched wrestling, the first part of the show is kicked off with a massive pyro show, with exploding things and fireworks.

Unfortunately, the arena didn’t have a good ventilation system… and it set the fire alarms off. The lights dimmed and there was a VERY creepy automated voice saying, “Please evacuate the building. over and over.


This is all happening live, on TV by the way.

You never know what is going to happen at a live event, so we wondered if it was a part of the show… or maybe a new wrestler debuting. When we saw the camera operators and security guards starting to panic… well, we panicked as well.

Luckily, the arena was able to turn on the fans and get all of the smoke from the pyros to clear out. It was definitely scary for a while, lol. But that is how memories are made!


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine’s Day… also known as the Eve of My Birthday

Yes, dear readers, as the title suggests my birthday is tomorrow. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I LOVE my birthday. I start counting down months before. I get excited. I hypothetically wore a tiara one time… Hehe, I digress.

The one gripe I have with my birthday is that it is the day after Valentine’s Day. As a child, I would always get left over Valentine’s items as ‘birthday gifts’. People forgetting… even though I remind them (Haha). Not being able to have a party outside because it's cold. That sort of thing.

It’s not always bad, though. My family always made sure that I was able to have a great birthday party, which often ended up being at Celebration Station or Chuck-E Cheese. I also had a ton of wonderful parties at home. And to this day, we still do something as a family even if its just going out to eat.

I would say that my all-time favorite birthday memory would be when I turned six. My Dad woke me up early, like around 5am. He was a truck driver and would often be go before I even got up. I walked into the living room with blurry eyes.

Sitting on the side table was a bouquet of 6 pink roses. I was thrilled. I had always wanted to get flowers for my birthday. This was mostly because my older sister always got them for hers. Her birthday is in June and her middle name is Rose - so Roses for her birthday was an obvious choice. Anyway, I was so happy that I finally got roses for my birthday!

As the years went on, I realized just how special those roses were. When I was six, I didn’t understand that roses are in high demand around my birthday. I didn’t understand that the prices sky rocket this time of year, either.

When I look back on my birthdays, they are filled with so many good memories. But the roses definitely stand out.

 

 

 

Friday, February 10, 2012

Getting Raw (and for once I don’t mean wrestling!)

As a writer, I am expected to express things in such a way that you, the reader, can visualize exactly what is going on without having to stop and figure it out on your own.

For example, if I said something like: The hotel room I stayed in was nice; you might wonder what my definition of ‘nice’ might be. Was it a big room or small? Was there a window? See? So many questions.

But if I were to say: The hotel room screamed luxury. From the French doors that led out to the balcony, to the king size bed, and all the way down to the hand-stitched pillows on the bed, I knew that I had finally made it to the big time.

See, that was a little better. You know that the character is in awe of the room. You also know there is a balcony with a view. A nice, big bed. And hand sewn pillows. And that they are famous or whatnot.

Anyway, my point is that it is my job to make you see without knowing you are being made to look… if that makes sense.

But I discovered that when it comes to writing emotional things down… I am…not so good.

I decided to sit down a write a ‘letter’ to a friend that I don’t get to see very much. I am able to use this person as an outlet, even though said person will never see the letters.

Want to know what I discovered? I CAN write things that are emotional or have feeling behind them! I also discovered just how raw those emotions could be.

I let my friend, Yousef, read the very first letter. He called it ‘very Kelly Clarkson’, which meant he was able to notice the emotional aspects as well.
 

Since writing the first ‘letter’, I have wrote a few more. I find that sometimes I just need to sit down and hash everything out. And then I can go on with my normal writing with an open heart.

~ Sometimes, you just have to get raw and be honest with yourself ~