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Tag: Naples

Saturday Show & Tell – 14th Edition

Welcome to this week’s Saturday Show & Tell This week’s blog carnival is actually being hosted by the talented Paul Puffer over at Don’t Be a Pickle Bump. Check it out! (As for me, by the time this publishes, I will be on my way to Venice!!!)

Do Drugs Make You More Creative?

Anne Wayman touched on one of my pet peaves about creativity today in her post, “Lady Gaga Gets High To Write – Will It Work For You?” over at her blog About Freelance Writing. In the post, Anne confesses that drugs and alcohol do not feed her particular muse. As she puts it, “I either got lazy and didn’t write at all, or, when I sobered up what I had written was just plain awful.” On the other hand, Lady Gaga recently confessed to Anderson Cooper that she smokes pot whilst penning her tunes. I am sure that this comes…

Reverb 10 prompt: Wisdom

The Reverb 10 prompt for December 10, 2010 comes from Susannah Conway, author of Unravelling Prompt: Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? For Lois Kelly, learning how to do nothing was her wisest move in 2010. Brooke Farmer realized this year that: Conventional wisdom is mostly bullshit and will not make you happy. Or, at least, it won’t make me happy. So this year I having been making lot’s of bad decisions and I am, so far, very happy with the progress I’ve made. Dev made a conscious choice to…

Confessions of a Recovering Barista

I often describe myself as a ‘recovering barista,’ because when you have brewed as many shots of espresso and steamed as many pitchers of milk as I have over the years, it alters you. Y’know how you can spot a former ballerina by her splayed feet? It’s kinda like that, except that the Zen-like discipline of making wonderful espresso leaves mental marks rather than anything physical. As a result, when I enter a coffeehouse, I can’t help but eavesdrop on the baristas. By ‘eavesdrop’ I mean listening to what they do, not what they say. I can tell by sound…

Hypothetical Pie

Back in my barista days, when I had an interesting idea, I’d quickly jot it down on a scrap of paper, then toss it in my tip jar. On days off, I’d sort through all this flotsam and see what I had. Yeah, that’s my idea of fun. At any rate, sometimes my shorthand is too cryptic. The first time this happened, the paper simply said, “Hypothetical Pie.” Sure, It was my handwriting, but I had no clue what I’d originally meant by that. Made me feel a little startled – and senile – actually. I still don’t know what…