28 October 2005

You may call me Madame Highness


McBeth.

Of course these are mine and if I have to say this even one more time I think I'll faint. Fine. One last time: yes, they're compressed coal.

Let go of your skeptical, furrowed slitty-eyed ugliness. That look does not favor you.

I keep a red and blue velvet display case outside my home, lit by floodlights (specially ordered bulbs, naturally. The jewels can only be done fair justice to in the proper lighting). I post five very rough looking guards at all times of day to monitor the comings and goings of those who wish to gaze upon me and my gems.

Each day when it is postal delivery time I unlock the thirteen locks keeping my tiara safe. I have one of my henchpeople hold a mirror for me while I put on the earrings, the brooch, the necklace -- all my favorite sparkling baubles.

I walk to the cluster lockbox on the opposite side of the street waving to my townspeople and the grateful citizens who like to know where their taxes are going.

Elbow, elbow, wrist wrist wrist.

I have practiced this royal wave for many years - long before I was singing into the top of the Tickle deoderant container; I am adept and natural at looking as magnificent as my public expects me to appear.

Do not doubt for an instant that I have made note of your expression. Expect a visit from one of the henchpersons soon. We'll hastily remove the smirk from your face forthwith and forsooth.

27 October 2005

yet another stray


McBeth.

On Monday of this week a small pack of neighborhood children rang my doorbell.
As in the case of the headbanging red-headed sparrow and the storm-tossed hatchlings, they'd found a stray and as per their usual, they bring the hurt/sick/lost creature to my doorstep because - well, because they can. And because they know I have the same soft spot in me to ensure that the critters get the care they need.

This time we didn't need the emergency vet clinic, thank goodness. This little black kitten was healthy and loud and looking lovely, all his claws and his dangly bits still attached. Strangely enough, he had a narrow white strip of fabric safety pinned around his neck, but no other ID. Rather than taking him to the Humane Society (which is part of the usual 'here's where the critter needs to be' song and dance), I made him comfy in the laundry-1/2bath downstairs, safely away from the three of our cats.

That first night he stayed with us J. took little black cat into his Den of Iniquity (aka the computer room) to hang out with him. Little black kitten hopped right up on J.'s lap and shoulders, purring happily without moving for four continuous hours until J. put him back in the bathroom.

The not-so-happy ending to the story: when I called the Humane Society in search of little black cat's owner's who I was just certain would be frantic to find him, I learned that nobody had called to report his disappearance.
That made my heart break just a little bit.

The much-happier ending to the story: J's friend, also a J-name, had been talking with his mother about getting a pet recently, and the timing of this lost kitty perfectly coincided with their decision-making process. They came to our house two days ago to meet little black cat. He climbed up on J's mother's chest and promptly purred himself to sleep.

Little black cat went home that night -to stay - with them. Yay. : )

bright eyes


The tomato from my garden may have bright eyes, but my own eyes don't feel very wide today. I putzed my way through both classes, barely staying awake through the Greek mythology stories that usually hold my attention so tightly that I usually find myself closing the notebook and putting away my pen wondering how the hour could possibly have already passed. My 35mm class is frustrating - I'm doing something wrong, somehow, somewhere. My negative strips aren't developing properly and I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing in my shooting or if it is something I'm doing during the development process.
We're supposed to be purposefully overdeveloping light-on-light photos that have been bracketed ... shouldn't be hard, but I can't seem to get it to work quite right. I'm hoping to get back out either later today or early tomorrow to find more light-on-light images to shoot (with a roll of 24 exposures it's a matter of finding 8 images, since 8 images x 3 bracketed shots = 24). Tomorrow afternoon I may leave early from my digital photo course to go spend some time in the darkroom. I'm not sure my digital instructor will be thrilled with that choice but I'm only going to get further behind in the 35mm class if I can't manage to properly shoot, develop and print at least one full roll of that light/light project, and THEN do the whole thing again using a dark-on-dark theme.

Sigh.


Meanwhile, I'll go on anthropomorphizing the owl eyed tomatoes I'm growing or what I should probably say is "did grow" since a hard frost fell with a thud last night, leaving very little left to bloom or flower for the remainder of 2005. Hoot hoot.

25 October 2005

Drainage and haemorrhoea in need of a remedy

What I could read of the label:

Symptoms and Conditions for which Female Remedy is Recommended.
If you have chronic weakness, bearing down, or perversions incident to life-change.
If you have uterine catarrh, suppressed or painful periods or ovarian dropsy.
If you have suspicious growths, disposed to tumor or cancer, or hemmorhage.
If you have painful or irregular men{struation?}, haemorrhoea, or are unwell most of the time.
If you are suffering from retroversion or {something} of the womb, induration or enlargement , hyper{something}, ulceration or drainage, and the many unending evils that are present in {something} female complaints.

The Circle Game


And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game -Joni Mitchell


in the case of this particular carousel shot, there are no painted ponies; not a one. Lit with over 20,000 lights but no horses. There are all sorts of other oddities mounted on that profoundly large toy - allegedly the world's largest carousel, in fact. Unicorns and elephants and lions and mermaids and dragons and llama only knows what else, but no, no dappled geldings showing their frozen wooden teeth.

you ought to come visit the dairy state sometime; we'll hold your hand throughout the self-guided tour here at the House on the Rock, where you can walk for six hours through the spooky creative macabre collections of collections and then celebrate the completion at the confectioner's shop where they sell the best caramel apples (and taffy and fudge and mints and barks and and and...).

24 October 2005

the weekend of many surprises


A first anniversary weekend away from everything at a near but far-enough-away-to-feel-like-far-away B&B, a trip to the very very strange House on the Rock, and just after the clock struck midnight between Friday and Saturday - Saturday being the actual real true 1st anniversary of 10/22/04 when we first met for a cup of coffee and parted 3 hours later - my girlfriend bent down onto one knee and offered me both a ring (this ring, the ring, such a pretty ring) and a proposal.

My response to her double-whammy was immediate amazed wordless stupefication, followed by giggling, which lasted until I finally squeaked out 'yes'.

I'm at a temporary loss for an explanation ~ why this positive plague of goodness gracing my life? I feel full and oddly (for me, oddly) optimistic.

20 October 2005

licen(se)tiousness



Yes yes, I'll get to the story of the skunk that scared the bejezzus out of me (and likely I, she) as I stood outside in the nose-drippingly cool night earlier this evening while reading Blanche Passes Go (Barbara Neely) under the meager low-watt porchlight bulb. If it weren't for the fact that I was born into this world a jumper, already easily startled and long ago accustomed to eeps and acks and shrieks and starts of various strains well, I have new reason to be and yet one more reason to knock off the ole smoking wagon so I don't have to GO outside to light up and do my reading. But I digress.

But anyway.
Anyways.
Did you ever notice how some people say 'anyways'?
As in: 'We have 1 anyway + 1 anyway. How many do we get when we combine them?'

Two.
Anyways.

Good grief, that drives me bats.

Another thing I can hardly bear is to listen to people use incorrect grammar. Repeatedly use incorrect grammar, as though they're trying to push somebody - any one - until their buttons simply jam tight into nose bustin' position.

This comedian, he says with a poke in the air and an elbow nudge to the audience, he says ... my wife and I, he says. We have an open relationship. It's as open as the South Dakota plains, yessirreeebob. She's on the west side of the state open and waiting for me while I schtoink anyone displaying a vaginal opening here on the east side. Harharhar~

Ba dum bum!
tinny canned audience laughter follows

I like the comedian; he's got a generally funny routine and he's smart as hell. He can sit with each of the show hosts and chat without sounding like he's still got a cob up his ass. But cripes I have to admit that my imagination takes me places it ought not take me. I can't figure out if he is he making up that part of the schtick to get the laughs or if he's getting laughs at the expense of his marriage.

I guess famous dudes get all sorts of latitude that regular schmoes don't.
But what the hell is that about?! What, because someone has something I want means I get to fuck him and then! - somehow - I acquire his magical lucky charms? Whatever happened to the old-fashioned crush? Flames, remember them? When someone had charm and charisma and made you feel all gooey inside, back in the pterydactyl days, when holding hands, or pterydactyl wingclaws, was about all you could muster without bursting a blush out the tops of your earlobes?


I was once involved -'in a biblical way', as the kids say- with a married guy. Hooked up in South Bend, Indiana where an NFL charity event was taking place. I dragged a girlfriend along (and by that I mean female friend) since my Interest had a pal who also needed some cheering up. oh-Ho! Cheer them up we did.

Never mind getting used as a loaner fuck buddy to some retired NFL feller while his hotel roommate sat on the can taking a shit in their hotel bathroom with the door open, watching us in the mirror. And I can mostly forget about the things we did that caused me to bleed. The fact is, my Interest had a wife and kids at home.

Wife.
Kids.
Home.

I thought I was something special, oh yes I did.
Goddammit, I bled for him.
He was sharp and sly and he had such a sexy voice. I talked to him weekly, at least. If ever a wooer there was, he wooed with the best of them.
But even after that particularly strange weekend, the one I thought would be a changing event in some way, it just wasn't. He was still married, he still had a family and every single connection he had, legal and emotional and physical, was solidly to his own family, a place I came to understand that I clearly did not belong.

I found no solace in him or in my hopes of what might be if if if .... if maybe I just gave it a little more time.

I was an interloper.
I liked that for a while: I liked being bad, I liked being stealthy and young and sexy to someone I should not be involved with.

What I could not permit was, not unlike the comedic vaginal opening, I was a piece of tittilating female flesh - nothing more.
NOTHING more.

I may as well have been a squash sitting in the sun with a hole cut in it. And yes girls, the boys they do use veggies sometimes so don't go gettin' all oogie about it, just deal. That's life. It's nothing personal, just like fucking you and walking away with no sense of committment or future or --

see? it's easy.

It's easy, he says to the audience of canned meat on vacation from the midwest, seeing LA and cal-ih-forn-eye-ay for the first time, new babes not in the woods but out on the streets where they've never before been, that's what they are. Street meat. That's her. That was me.

It's easy to shut your eyes and pretend you don't have to wake up to see your own reflection in the morning. Just pretend you're not you, she's neither your wife nor herself. Pretend she's a squash! Harharhar.

Harharhar the canned meat laughs back.

All I can say is this: The price of my freedom was far less dear than the cost of my need for attachment.

*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*

Oh, and that picture up there? That's my brand spankin' new purse, if you can believe it. Made from two old license plates, it was oh yes it was. My sweetie knew I'd been creaming over several Very Expensive Handbags for sale at a local store that was closing a location. But lemmetellya, even at steep 'EVERYTHING MUST GO' discounts, those handbags with their felt storage bags were still huh-wayyyy out of this gal's price range. So I waited. and waited. And then I remembered another favorite shop that also sells adorableness and it so happened that K. had a coupon worth a great discount at that shop. I made a careful decision (advice: if you decide to get a license purse, be advised that the little oblong tictac looking sachels don't hold much more than maybe some $, a lipstick and keys. Pretty small.) and ordered the square. With the discount I could afford the purse.

Best of all, I can use my new handbag as a defensive tool when I walk in the dark cuz my-oh-my, it may be old and recycled but the reflector stuff on the plate still works!

LITTLEARTH makes some really great products so shimmy on over and take a gander or four. Their products are all recycled items; nobody had to sit in a sweat shop for low wages, no toddlers were put to work to make them, no new forestation was cut to make them ... just nifty new uses for old stuff.

And the canned meat rose and joined in, "Amen".

Manifest this.


Thanks to Capital B for living and breathing and sharing.
She's a rockin' chick with a proud pussy.

Manifest this motha fucka #1:
Every living thing comes from and returns to (get it?)

Manifest this Muddafucka #2:
Let Pussy speak to me through every living thing. As all creatures move and grow, let them bring forth the open ness and warm ness that flows in the energy of Pussy...the life force on which we all depend.

Manifest this Muthafucka #3:
I'm sick of my genitalia being used as an insult. Are you? It's time to let my labia rip and rearrange this. Here we go:
"That was so Pussy of you to help me move to my new place! Especially since I'm living on the 13th floor. You've really made this a Pussy move!"

Manifest this Motherfuckrr #4:
The power of Pussy could be blinding. Do not misinterpret its strength and fear it. Do not try to control it. It is light, rich and full of warmth. Use it wisely and with jeweled intentions.

Manifest this Muthefucka #5:
The Egg says, "Don't forget me, Muddafucka!"
The Egg must not be understated. Let the Egg be the symbol of all courage!
Here we go:
"Honey, that took Eggs for you to tell your customer off for not tipping you 20%!"
The Egg, like courage, is a delicate intricate shell surrounding ever-changing nutritious life!
Let the Egg be the teacher and the Pussy be its nest.

Manifest this Motherfuckrr #6:
Employ the Pussy!
*teacher
*whore
*philosopher
*president
Pay her well!

Manifest this Motherfuckrr #7:
The Pussy is a traveler! No matter where your Pussy energy leads you, let the Pussy be your clock.
Allow the 'ticking' to be measured by
gathered and dispersed
gathered and dispersed
gathered and dispersed
one should not outweigh the other...

Manifest this Mothafucker #8:
Let Pussy manifest and let freedom sing!

19 October 2005

Hallelujah


I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

*the Rufus Wainwright version is.the.best.

I know what kind of love this is



I know what kind of love this is
After all, I was there when we made it
And I know why I did what I did
To end a lifetime of wallflower shade
With Buster Brown
The big man in the town
When no one was around

I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is

The man in black said, "You won't mind
It'll be over before you know it
You can pretend that you are blind
If it will help you to get over it"
In my parents' bed
Pretending I am dead
Remember every word he said

I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is

And when I wake he will be gone
And I won't see him until the classroom
It's just a tale of right and wrong
That they will whisper inside the bathroom
How she lost the game
She'll never be the same
He doesn't even know her name

I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is
I know what kind of love this is

(Dar Williams, Cry Cry Cry -1998)

One in a million


There is nothing wrong your vision.
Even if you are the only white pumpkin in a patch of orange,
you are fine.
you are good.
you are pumpkin
also.

Not the largest?
Not the fanciest?
Tough to carve?

So what.


From whom did you get the idea that you are supposed to be
something different
than exactly who you are?

Are you not truly you?
Can you value the stem you grew on?
Has the ground supported your growth and
has the rain fed you?

Do not fret for the orange you are not, little white.
You are perfectly created.
You are whole.

17 October 2005

the stem of this meme: a heavenly sevenly.


Today's fun, a meme I'm borrowing from MercuryFern (and thank you Merc, for not tagging me, because that most definitely would have to go under 'things I can't do': respond appropriately and as though I'm in control of my alien brain when tagged with a pressure-drenched fun meme)

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
~travel internationally (again. more.)
~earn my college diploma
~write/photograph and publish a book
~own an unattached single-family home with a garage
~actively protest at least 25 reprehensible acts (does this count as 1?)
~forgive my mother
~get beyond the things from my past that won't change

Seven things I can do:
~map sore spots on people's backs using my hands, then mend.
~keep secrets
~make an out-of-this-world slow cooker chicken soup from scratch
~all of my own home improvement projects, so far.
~adore people with whom I disagree
~tie a cherry stem using only my tongue
~laugh so hard I either pee my pants or shoot something out my nose

Seven things I cannot do:
~run five miles without stopping
~multitask well unless manic
~stay on task with any project
~drive a motorcycle
~take the labels I made off the kitchen cabinets, even though they don't exactly describe the contents accurately anymore.
~be het
~keep up with house cleaning

Seven things I find attractive in others:
~dark humor
~forearms
~self-respect
~self-loathing
~potent sexuality
~a well-rounded belief system, regardless of absolute adherance
~their resistance against trying to save me, change me, make up my mind, fix me or otherwise act on a need to alter me in any way

Seven things I say most often:
~but why?
~this is another project I'm working on.
~because I asked you to.
~thank you
~"I'm a dirty hippie?" (sez my son, when asked what I say most often. Not true.)
~shit -or- damn (son and I aren't sure which I say more frequently)
~oojieboojiewoojie (to cats)

Seven celebrity crushes:
~Angelina Jolie
~Susan Werner
~Cap't. Jean-Luc Picard
~Robin Williams
~Juliette Marguiles
~Lyle Lovett
~Kate Winslett

Aerial Navigation


She thought it a good thing that there was still some practice time between now and All Hallows Eve since her skills had taken an unexpected downturn since last year's flight.

Amorous Elk


Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart. How hard thy yoke, how cruel thy dart. Those escape your anger who refuse your sway, and those are punished most, who most obey.
-Matthew Prior

12 October 2005

No thank you.


There are some people who consider a job related to matters of the heart and the of the psyche something they'd never in a million years want to try.

I happen not to be one of those people. I like the brain. I like the unpredictable nature of human beings. I favor matters of the heart.

But I'll tell you one thing ... the job you never need concern yourself with seeing me try to get? Dome walker.

Those little bug looking fellas up there in that picture were just hanging this side of living and breathing by one teeny rope yesterday morning. I was dropping KD off at her job after a reconnaissance mission to get her car dropped off/repaired/picked up and, because she works right up there near the capitol building, I noticed them dangling between life and death before kissing her off and wishing her a good day.

It made me wonder what those men (and, perhaps, women?) who tether themselves to little D-rings say to their loved ones in the morning before they head out to work to do who knows what. And what exactly DO they do up there? Dangle participles? Wave to passers-by? Wish they hadn't had so much orange juice with their breakfasts?

Watching them up there brought to mind one of a series of life-long nighmares that have followed me: The Falling. In this particular nighmare I fall. Fall and fall and tumble and roll and bounce off unseen hard things, spinning faster and harder and more out of control. I imagine that if a rope broke - okay, if the rope and the back up rope and the backup rope's backup rope broke -- well, the resulting fall from the top of the state capitol dome would effectively be my Falling Nightmare brought to life. And then fairly quickly, to death.

I would have like to have had the entire morning to snap shots of those guys up there with their fantastic view. I would have liked to have found a way to ask them questions, maybe by passenger pigeon or two-way radios or something. I'd ask them if they could tell how many fingers I was holding up, I would have asked if they could see that dorky guy in the suit and the too-tight tie coming up the block and if please please pleeeeeeeze they could shine a pocket mirror from up there into his eyes, just to confuse him and maybe make him think it was the beginning of the end of the world.

Yeah. Probably best nobody lets me up there where the view is spectacular. I'd never want to come down.

10 October 2005

Mama and Scarlett


McBeth.

She's real.

She's real snuggly.

She's real pretty.

She's learning a variety of eating methods.

She smells good.

She cries very clearly.

Her parents swear the atoms they consist of will burst from amazement and from love.

I swear they are correct, and that they'll reassemble themselves, over and over and over.

07 October 2005

Time Prioritization


"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time" -John Lubbock

06 October 2005

Quiet, in black and white


"Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors."
-Charles de Lint

05 October 2005

Welcome, little one


Scarlet Aurora, I'd like to be the first one to tell you in such a webly way that I'm awfully glad you're here.

I don't know what you look like yet. Your daddy tells me that you're pink and healthy and fat and absolutely lovely. I think that's a very good start for a seven pounder. I think that says great things for someone who begins her life at nineteen inches. When you're 14 you'll probably roll your eyes and get embarrassed that your papa ever called you fat, but trust me, this is something wonderful and by the way he says it he means to hold you fast forever.

He'll hold you so tightly in his heart - always, always. From that very first moment he saw you emerge from your mama to the last time his eyes will one day cast their final gaze upon you - he is your father, you see. He will be engulfed with fear and love like he's never ever ever known before. He'll scream at people to protect you. He'll threaten bodily injury to scary people to protect you. And trust me, he's neither a screamer nor a fighter, but he's a good and loving man and now he's your daddy so if he senses a threat against you he will do all he can to protect you, little cub.

You are his from now on, child.

And you don't know this yet, but you'll have years to come to understand it: you are blessed. You are so lucky! The people you will call 'mama' and 'papa' (though probably not in the order they'd like, and surely not as quickly as they'll long to hear it) have anticipated you. They've dreamed about you. They've hoped for you. They've cried for you to be here. Sometimes they felt scared and hopeless; they wondered if they would be able to create you, to make you, to carry you, to birth you. They weren't always sure that things were going according to plan. (Here's a little heads-up for you, little one: your parents, they're much calmer about letting things be what they are than am I. I fiddle with stuff because I get antsy but your mama and papa? They're usually very calm and 'oh, things are good and we're waiting to see how this will turn out'. You'll probably get used to it; it still mystifies me.)

And now you're here! Imagine that!
You're here!

I am not sure you'll like me. I like to burp. Farting is fun too. Tho' the more I think about it, you and I ... we may have quite a few things in common here at least for the first few years of your life. I'm a big fan of naps.

I hope I'll be comfortable for you to snuggle with. If I'm not, you can just give me a little yowl and I'll be glad to wriggle you around until we've found a more comfortable position. I'm not delicate and small like your mama; I hope that'll be okay with you. I'm rather softly padded. Your cousins seem to think its okay thus far. You can compare notes with them later. You'll probably want to meet them all first.

Oh, and your oldest cousin is very excited to meet you. He's 16 years old and though you probably won't be playing together in the traditional sense of the word, he's going to make a GREAT climbing tower for you. He lets Audrey and Charlie climb all over him already, so he'll be well practiced and nearly broken-in by the time you're ready to climb him. He runs your other cousins around and around in circles until they fall over in exhausted panting giggles, and even when he's pooped out, he still plays with them. Because good grown-ups do that. And, well, he's still in training himself, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be a good grown-up when he's all done being a kid. J. is a good cuddler with your baby Theo cousin too, so I'm betting he'll be very quiet and gentle with you when we meet you for the first time this weekend. He just folds Theo over his shoulder, right up there next to his next all safe and snuggly and they hang out together.

I bet you and J. will have some fab hangin' out time.

And one more thing: if you tell him any of your secrets, they'll be kept safe. I know this. He's a very good secret-keeper.

Scarlet, I'm glad you're here.
Thanks for being in my family.
xo

Love,
Auntie

02 October 2005

Happy birthday, Sylvia





On the occasion of your 70th birthday, I'd like to offer my unending love and support in thanks for the safety net you provided to me by helping to connect me with others who experienced voices, visions and mood swings.

(and the next time you are in the midwestern U.S., please let's share a meal and conversation again)

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