Barry is so damn cute...and i could really use some prozac

Just met the guy who sang I Write The Songs for his tickets...and the gal who sang Copa...we are family...la la la...

YES THERE ARE MEN HERE...BRAVE SOULS...PEOPLE OF ALL AGES...NO MOSH PIT...SO MUCH FOR BODY SURFING MY WAY TO BARRY...

On our way to The Well...holy crap...Barry Freakin' Manilow...oh, I'm such a Fanilow...

Operation Weekend In New England underway...in Stuart waiting for my bro in law to pick me and and my 15 concert outfits up and fly to Des Moines.

Gettin' my Manilow on...the local radio station honored my request for a Barry song to get all us Fanilows pumped for tonight! Copacabanna baby! WooHoo!

THOUGHTS BEFORE BARRY

'Twas the night before Barry
And all through the house
I was sorting thru laundry
To find the right blouse.

Oh, what to wear to tomorrow night's Barry Manilow concert!

Not that Barry's gonna care.

Wondering...will there be Barry Wannabes like there are Kenny Wannabes at Chesney concerts?

Doubt it.

I am a wee bit concerned that there are so many tickets still available, Barry's voice will be but an echo throughout  Wells-Fargo Arena.

"What if Wells-Fargo is empty?" I  asked my husband, John.

"It won't be after the nursing home buses pull up," he retorted.

Well! Spoken like like a true non-Fanilow (yes, Fanilow... the official name, apparently, for diehard Manilow fans like me).

OK, so  Barry is like 68 years old, possibly still a little stiff following his rather recent emergency hip surgery...yada, yada, yada.

But, hey...As long as his gorgeous voice isn't in a sling, I'm down with it.

Who opens for Barry Manilow?  Anybody? Cheap Trick, perhaps?

"I think having my toenails ripped out would be a better time than going to a Barry Manilow concert," joked my good buddy, Kerry Shirbroun, while I scanned his groceries earlier this evening.

Though, truth be told, I surmise Kerry wasn't joking.

Sniff.

Oh, ye of little Fanilow faith.

All pre-Barry concert jitters aside, I think the guy's gonna surprise us all and rock The Well!

Stay tuned...

WILL SING FOR BARRY MANILOW TICKETS

OK, so Weekend in New England never sounded so bad.

But hey, I just won two free tickets to next week's Barry Manilow concert in Des Moines by singing 15 seconds of my favorite Barry Manilow song for the good folks at KKRL, our local FM radio station.

Oh, yeah. I sounded like crap.  I was nervous as hell, and couldn't breathe...giggled in the midst of it.

There I was, standing outside my office building, crooning rather loudly and off key into my cell phone for all Coontown passersby to hear.

"Last night, I waved goodbye, now it seems years..."

Yup. Fifteen seconds worth.

Funny thing... the phone at the radio station rang about four times before it was answered...apparently there wasn't a long line of Barry Manilow fans dialing in from around our area...

I was recorded, and the whole thing was played back over the air about five minutes later, much to my co-workers' delight.

OMG!  I won!  I won!  I get to see my boyfriend from my misspent youth, BARRY MANILOW!

I know, I know! I have so many famous musical boyfriends from my misspent youth...Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers...

The list goes on and on.

Actually, truth be told, my college roommate, Tipper, was the bigger Barry fan. She had the poster of him in her dorm room, while  my dorm walls were covered with posters of, oh, I dunno...Kris Kristofferson. Go figure. But I loved Barry's songs...they were all so torturously depressing.

And that is exactly what I told the gal at KKRL.

"Of course I know the words to Weekend in New England...it's my all-time favorite most depressing Barry Manilow song."

OK, Mandy is probably even more depressing, but it's not my fave.

Now, I know not everyone is a Barry Manilow fan. I have, er, had a friend on the east coast who seriously scoffed at his very name.  Pfft.  Say what you will about Mr. Manilow, the guy can still sing.  Which, last time I checked, is more than I could ever really say about Kris Kristofferson.  But I bought all his albums, too...

Well, gotta go...off to my second job...they may want autographs...

"When will our eyes meet? When can I touch you? When will this strong yearning end? And when will I hold you  (long pause) again?"


Ahhh...

WORKS IN PROGRESS

Day 40.

Cannot believe it. But indeed, it is true.

The first 40 Days of Writing challenge concludes in less than an hour and as usual, I am writing like mad to get my daily submission posted before the clock strikes midnight.

Admittedly, I have not hit 100 percent.  I have not written every single day since our writing journey began in February.  But just about. And in the process of writing regularly and with relative frequency, my cyber penning muse has been reawakened. For that I am eternally grateful to the 40 Days of Writing gang o'mine.

At first -- in usual Ann Heise Kult fashion -- I silently berated myself for being some kind of quitter when, one night last week I plum ran out of emotional gas, physical energy and writing time. There I sat, all curled up nice and cozy in my bed -- in my attic writing room, no less -- hoping to punch out some witty, insightful  blog post in the late hours of the evening, when (with fingers posed at my laptop's keyboard) I fell sound asleep.

Yup. Snoresville, baby.

(Note to self: Ixnay on in-bed writing.)

I eeked out a post March 28 about wildly anticipating winning the Mega Millions lottery, and had every intention of writing every day since...but the cold, hard truth is, there are only so many hours in a day.

Alas, the past few days, I chose much-needed sleep and working outside in the abnormally-gorgeous early spring weather over writing. However, it was while raking up yet another pile of decaying brown leaves and yanking out dozens of dried fall sedum stalks to make way for new, green growth that I arrived at a reassuring truth about both my yard and my writing.

Both are works in progress. And that is perfectly OK.

Nothing to be ashamed of. A concept I need to embrace.

Yes, my yard and my writing have both taken a hit these past several years as I was knee-deep in raising my son, working, and just plain surviving the ever-hilly roller coaster called life. I fit in my blogging and my gardening between the inevitable ups and downs.

And, while Facebook and online political pontification had become a bit of a time-consuming obsession of late (a bit?), I must point out that if not for Facebook I would never have stumbled upon the 40 Days of Writing challenge.

Oh, the serendipitous beauty of never knowing how or when the seeds of creativity may be sown!

Anyway, as I look back at all I have written these past 40 days, and as I survey my weekend's worth of toiling in my yard, I see nothing but growth and progress. It is all coming together, slowly but surely.

Indeed, my garden and I, after a long, albeit unseasonably warm, winter's nap, are happily beginning to bloom where we are planted.

A big hug, smooch, pat on the back and heartfelt thanks to each of my fellow 40 Days of Writing companions who have also made this word-by-word, soul-awakening journey. It's been fun reading your stuff (all inspiring reads), getting to know you, and encouraging each other along the way.

And special thanks to my friends and family near and far who have been there rooting me on. Especially my husband, John -- a talented writer in his own right -- whose endless support of my writing is forever appreciated. Not to mention the fact that, without John's love of cooking and excellent laundry skills, both of us would have starved and gone to work naked these past 40 days.

Onward and upward!