Novel Nymph

2010-07-05T08:54:00.005-05:00

There's A New Girl In Town

...and I am feeling good! What conjured the theme from Alice I am not even sure but it has been in my head for the past week. Then it occurred to me that maybe it is relevant to my life--I am sort of "new." When I started blogging here I was focused on my first NaNo novel and poetry. Since I started the blog my mother died, I blogged less and the usual ups and downs that are part of a human life. Recently, I changed my diet and started doing more yoga so my outward body started to change, but it is the inside that I am more excited about than anything else. I am very body and soul, very concerned about who I am on the inside and the things that surround me. I am spending part of the day working on the house--haven't been around very much and it needs a really good cleaning. I am seriously thinking about a home yoga practice to supplement the outside yoga practice that I do, I think that yoga should be an every minute thing. This summer I am set to do more yoga and writing, I am intent on focusing which is something that I do not seem to do a lot of...I have a very fast mind which I love, but sometimes if I do not pay attention I lose things. Slow yoga seems to be the way that I want to go. I had a really great Iyengar yoga class, we worked very slowly toward a pose that I did not even think that I was going to be able to do, but I did it. I liked the slowness that led me there.
Had dinner with a writer friend last week and she told me how much she liked my writing--it really meant a lot to me since I have rarely thought about how my writing touches anyone lately. Not that it has become robotic by any means, but I have been doing it so sparsely I forgot its power and I am glad that she centered me.
Another writer friend helped me to open my eyes so to speak, to realize that everywhere I go and everything I do can be fodder for the next story. In the past few days, it has been not friends, but strangers and new experiences that have inspired me. The connections that we make with other people and the things that we learn from them never cease to amaze and evolve me. Every day I feel like a new girl and it feels good!

2010-05-28T09:11:00.006-05:00

Happy Snapshot

I am sitting in front of my MacBook and I just felt happy. Maybe it is my morning Yogi Pure Green Tea and lemon with maple syrup. Maybe it is the bellydancing class I am going to have, maybe it is the article I was reading on Care2.com, I do not know but I felt so happy and grounded and immediately found myself here where I have not been for such a while--here. I have been on Twitter a lot, I am a big fan of Twitter, there are so many bits of information there. I am a Gemini after all (my birthday was Sunday), and that is our trademark--to want to know a little bit about everything!!! I am an information junkie, my e-mail is half e-mail alerts and info and a portion coming from friends... No it is pretty even, but there is a lot of information in my box and I love it that way.
I feel happy and it is a great thing. I kind of really believe that happiness is like a snapshot. I am usually in a good mood, but at the same time I do not think that one can exist in a persistent happy state. It's too hard, but if you are happy enough it comes over you like waves continuously. You feel it come over you even when you are not having a happy moment and it makes you smile and it puts everything into perspective.
Ahhhh!!!!!!!

2010-04-03T10:39:00.002-05:00

My Dark Place

A rat just went by on the platform where I am standing waiting for the
train, and I was less scared than usual. Maybe because I know that this
post is about just that...said rat was just on the tracks in front of
me, looking for food, looking hungry, crossed an oncoming train without
getting killed. The thing with rats is they just understand they
are hungry, it is not being fearless but an instinct for
survival that eclipses fear...
I started working on very dark pieces of fiction. My first writing
endeavor was a haunted romance and now I am writing the same sort of
thing now but from a very different perspective. I was very young writing the first
endeavor, and innocent--I am still innocent I like to say
but aware of things that are not. I described the plots to
some of the things I have been working on to friends and since they know
me to be a romantic for the most part, they were astonished at the
ideas brewing inside me. Even I wondered where the darkness
comes from, but if I am writing I really do not care what
manifests, it is something that needs to be expressed, something
that drives me and that is good enough for me. I was in enough writing
classes in my life to know that if it is coming from me there is
nothing wrong with it and there is a market for it somewhere.
I like darkness, I was having a conversation with a man who was
telling me he would never tell his wife something that might put in
her mind anything that would make her betray him. He said
even after as long as they had been married and living together, that
he could not trust her one hundred percent and I said that you cannot
trust yourself one hundred percent. You can surprise yourself with your thoughts, your
actions. What I have been writing has surprised me, pleasured me. I
embrace my dark place...

2010-02-07T10:31:00.004-05:00

Happy Sunday

One of my friends inspired me to a brilliant writer's challenge and I am excited about the endeavor for this morning. Then I thought about the blog which always feel natural and organic to me, easy as a Sunday morning. Sipping decaf green tea with lavender and rose petals feeling very happy and elated, nerves not even slightly elevated with the impending Super Bowl.
Better really start loving the tea because it almost that time of the year for me to give up coffee for Lent which is in a week and a half. Friends know how much I love coffee and were trying to inspire me to give up something else. It is almost as hard for everyone else for me to give up coffee as it is for me, but there is a secret...As much as I LOVE coffee there is something freeing in giving it up, in embracing other things. I kind of consider myself a culinary adventurer and am willing to try anything so I have discovered that you can find love in foods you previously did not like. If you keep having the same things how do you find that out?
It can even be like that with writing. I used to chain write poems when I was younger and then I started becoming obsessed with fiction and the poems started to go south, but now I write them again almost daily the way I used to. Feels good to exercise the muscle, and to write fiction as well the way that my friend told me to. I was with my writer's group yesterday and I was listening to the other writers and that is the thing about writing...I am not sure if it is an art or a form of release or self therapy or expression but it is something that you do and you need to do it. I am thinking after this post that I am going to do my daily freewrite which I love to do now inspired by one of the other writers even though I am unorthodox about it, but I do not think you can really be unorthodox about writing, otherwise I would have stopped this blog a long time ago if I had thought that I had to have rules about it. I never like rules if they do not serve a purpose. There is no purpose in writing to me other than to get the words down on the page, the expression, the release, the transformation.
Okay a lot of writing to do before I leave the city for the day! I love day trips out of the city, I think they make me appreciate it more. New Jersey and Connecticut are as rural as I have been though and I am not sure that that is really rural but it is a different mindset. You have to be in a car everywhere and as a New Yorker I am always on foot, and according to my pedometer I take 1 to 2 mile walks almost daily which I think is a very good thing because the temptation to take a bus or a train is a constant thing. But like with writing, when you are done walking and you reach your destination, you feel very good.

2010-01-01T10:43:00.002-05:00

Happy and New

Alone last night, the way I like it on New Year's Eve. I like to be by myself before the end of the year, be reflective. I do not believe in resolutions, I think everyday is a powerful tool for change and resolutions if you need to make them, and I think that we all do because there is always something that has to change or I feel I am not growing, not evolving.

I liked the comments on my last post about food and the changing of my eating habits. I was on one of the food communities I belong to and I told someone who was trying to give up sugar that if you eat different types of foods, you start to crave different sorts of things. I do not believe in taking anything out of your diet, but I also do not believe in eating the same things all of the time. I am constantly changing it up which is easy for me as a Gemini!

Just finished an AMAZING cup of decaf organic green tea with lavender and red roses. I feel very alive and very vital. Have been reading a lot about passion and desire. On the cover of New York Spirit, there is an article about how passion and desire can keep your stomach flat detailing how you can keep your belly flat by how you feel about what you eat. There was once a really great article in that magazine that I read years ago and lost the issue (weep) about when you have feelings for another person that you should pay attention to where you feel the emotion: you heart, your head, your pelvis, stomach--which chakra? By paying attention to that it is a giveaway about what you needed from that person. Maybe I can Google that? If I find it I will post the link here the next time I blog. You can Google anything, right???

2009-12-20T09:19:00.007-05:00

Reflections on a Snow Day

I decided not to leave the house today there is a lot of snow out there which I knew as soon as I looked out of the window and saw I could not see anything but snow. What does an adult do on a day off? Blog--my beloved blog I think of even when I am not blogging--troll the Internet like I do not have anything to do while I sip tea with fresh organic lavender. Smells so good I almost do not want to drink it!

Part of my scrolling online has been looking at sites with vegan and vegetarian recipes because one of my new passions. I have been eating my veggies for sure these days, am always looking for new and exciting ways to incorporate them. When I was younger I think if someone told me that I would be cooking like this I would have thought they were crazy! I remember the one girl in my high school class who drank Eden soy and but I always thought the box was gorgeous, and now I am not even drinking as much soy milk--I mix it up: almond, oat, hazelnut, rice--so much so that I had 1% percent milk and it startled me! I saw the skin on top (which I have always hated) and forgot what it was for a second.

I go out to dinner with friends and explore vegan and vegetarian options. I swear that cheese could be the new meat, I had cheese enchiladas in mole sauce and am pretty sure I had a spiritual epiphany! But I could get in trouble for having too much cheese so I am working on keeping it to a minimum although there is a piece of truffle infused cheese in my fridge that is going to be my lunch. Yum!

Even before I started to eat less meat--I am not a vegetarian by any means. I am much like the host of Bizarre Foods, if it looks good I will eat it for sure. I am not quite so bizarre as him. I have reduced my meat intake to one meal a day if I even bother to have it. It's easy enough to not have any meat if there is cheese involved! I am not on a diet which people seem to think I am just because I want to eat more vegetables. At a holiday party, someone looked at my plate which had every type of meat that was offered, but also had a tower of salad since that was the only unseasoned or creamed vegetable that was offered, looks at my plate and says I am always eating field greens. I have friends that are vegan or vegetarian or who are open to eating lots of vegetables (I guess that is why they are my friends), but there are a lot of people who seem disturbed that I changed my diet. Maybe they are like me before I changed my eating habits and think that it is strange if they are not doing it. I am the type of person that never smirks at what someone else does whatever it is that they do, so it is weird to me that people would judge me about what I eat. It is such a personal and individual thing but I am happy to share on the blog. I love to eat and I am enthusiastic about it, I am thinking about my next meal already!

When I am not thinking about food, I am writing. Someone said to me post NaNo that I must be passionate about writing if I wanted to do it with the hectic schedule that I had last month, and I am but it is intriguing how sometimes I never feed that passion...

2009-11-29T08:16:00.005-05:00

Done

I am always busy, and then NaNo on top of my already hectic lifestyle but it is a seasonal favorite for me no matter what is going on. Friends and family said all kinds of things to me: that it did not seem like I was having fun writing the story--well to a degree it is hard to write with the quantitative aspect so prevalent--others were sure that I was going to get it done even when I was woefully behind on my count...

I knew I could do it, I knew I would.

NaNo is a complicated thing, you love to do it but it is not easy, even if you are making up the story without an outline a la me--outlines are against my religion. The story wrote itself, I was just the medium. The thing about me as a writer is that I am very prolific--not patting myself on the back--I am weak with editing.This year after a very long time, I did edit a story, and sent it out--it was rejected twice but I am not deterred. I was inspired--I am going to edit a fragment of a previous NaNo story for consideration of publication. It seems like I am a writer after all. I can even freewrite this morning because NaNo is done. Everything was about NaNo for me, it is like what do I do now?

Keep writing, even though the tips of my fingers hurt...

...and start blogging again.

2009-10-01T05:56:00.004-05:00

This Artist's Way

When I am not blogging, I am thinking about blogging. I finally got to the understanding that I do not have to be in front of my MacBook to blog. I have truly become mobile and created this post on the train going to work. I think I was sedentary about blog posts. I cannot look at the blogs I follow on the train, but at least I can post something new. The saddest thing in the world I think is to look at a blog and see nothing new has been written for a long time--even my own.

I have been busy in my non blogger existence and happily so! I have been very happy lately--I never question happiness. I finally embarked upon several writing endeavors, and people around me are happy. I am one of the most beautiful writers in theory. I do my morning pages every morning-- the only thing that I liked about The Artist's Way or I should say that I took away from it. I think I did not feel as challenged creatively as the audience that it was intended for, or maybe that was the way I felt about it. I write poems, fragments of stories, blog, but there is nothing really to show for my effort except smatterings here and there. Oh, and my delightful talent for trying to make writers out of people who never desired to be writers. One man I know is one of the most perceptive people I know, every time I talk to him he shows me something I have not seen before or gives me some thought I never had before. I asked him if he ever wanted to write and he asked me why would I ask him that--I am the designated writer in our rapport--I said because he is the most perceptive person I know and that is all a writer is. He said it is very different to get the words on paper. I think he can do it, I will keep nudging him...

What about me then? I think I have been doing it to some degree, but now I am trying to be more focused. A friend said to me that she could see me in Paris (where I want to go!) and that someone would take my picture because I would look so akin to the cafe atmosphere. If that picture is taken, my only hope would be that I am writing at the cafe with a latte on a very pretty stained doily...

2009-09-06T09:01:00.004-05:00

Notions

I saw the movie Adam, and there was a scene where the woman that he is involved with has a conflict because he has Asperger's Syndrome. She says that she will never be able to look in his eyes and know what that they both know what the other is thinking. Right there in the movie theater, I thought that that did not really matter and I am pretty sure that it does not really matter.
When I read Cosmopolitan years ago, there was once an article questioning how important was it to be told by the man that you are with "I love you?" One woman said that her husband never said that he loved her but the things that he did for her (which she detailed but I cannot remember it was about 20 years ago that I read that article!) did not leave a doubt in her mind that he did. In Shere Hite's Women and Love, there were men who performed mind blowing acts of romance, but they were the same men who in other parts of the book were emotionally so withholding they left the woman that they were with cold.
My thought is that a man needs to show that he loves me more than say it. Words are hollow, and the only thing good hollow is chocolate. Even when if I bite into a hollow chocolate I feel a little disappointed...
I need to be with someone who makes me feel like he cares about me--flowers, romance, chocolate are not enough. His knowing what I am feeling is not enough either if he steps all over it. If a man knows I am upset and it does not alter how he is with me then what good is it knowing that he knows that? If he knows something seems wrong with me and he is not brave enough to ask me what it is, so what? A man that I really thought I wanted to be with, when my mother died he was so inept and did not know what to say. He thought he was a magician with me otherwise and was always telling me what I was thinking all of the other time, but he was full of it.
Romantic notions are not enough for me--I need concrete things that I can see. Gazing into someone's eyes is great. Not talking and "knowing" is lovely, but it is the things that you each do with that knowledge that make the difference to me.

2009-08-22T20:14:00.004-05:00

Posting

I saw this post from my blogger friend Anna-Lys, I always gain perspective when I read her posts. I was so happy to see her again--it reiterated to me that we post as we like to and should not think we are or are not posting enough.

There has been a decline of my posts over almost three years, but it is fine with me. I still love blogging. My life became very different since I started blogging which is undefinable--change is good. But I am still for the most part the same, a span of life is undefinable.

This painting by Kramskoi was interpreted in the novel I am reading as a woman being alone in a carriage being such a bad thing for the time that it was done. I see this painting as a beautiful woman staring at the viewer defiantly--it is all the way that we see things is it not?

This blog is still my Clark Kent going in a phone booth. I see myself through several mirrors, those of people who know me and those of people who know me a little less and the eyes of people who read these posts who know my words. All of those reflections are me, every variation, all the similarities are me.

2009-08-09T09:13:00.000-05:00

Aorta

I just dashed through two moments that caused people to know who I am because of writing and literature. I have always known I am a very private person, but I really know it now. I do not mind people knowing me--knowing of me--but at the same time I do not handle well people either asking me was that you? or how cool that was what you did! I am a writer, yes and I want stuff out there, of course. But I rather stay behind a screen and just produce the work...

Today I was planning on leaving the house and now I am not. I am here writing and really liking the idea that that is what I want to do. I have been writing since I was a child--it is my blood, it is my everything but sometimes it is the hardest thing for me to do. I am glad I still want to even. When my mother died over two years ago, the thing that I did for the entire day--when I was not catatonic--was write. I knew that it was the thing I had to do. If I did not write that day I am not sure that it was going to be like a bike. I am not sure that I was going to be able to get back to it the way that I did so immediately that day.

Writing has always been my savior, it has always been my veins--the thing that leads to my heart most directly. I just "taught" someone about poetry, he was telling me why he could not write even though he has. Words so passionate, so sensual that he shared with me, and I told him that poetry is your heart. He thought that was beautiful, but I am not sure he is going to write anymore and that is sad. He kept making excuses why he could not...I am familiar with those...

But not today.

2009-06-27T17:11:00.000-05:00

Happening

In New York, the weather is unpredictable--hot and cold. A lot of rain. Last night I was walking in the kind of thunderstorm that there were flashes in the sky before even I suspected there was going to be the rain to come. For a second I was confused because coming out of the train station, where there was filming for the movie Remember Me on the platform which spilled down the stairs and onto the street--I thought the flashes were a special effect! Another reminder that all of my friends tell me I need to read Twilight, and honestly I am not a vampire lady. Though I did manage to read Eclipse over my neighbor on the train's shoulder (discreetly), and it was passionate. But I am not running to have a copy, I am reading this.

I need inspiration. I am in the midst of writing. This time I am serious about trying to work on a piece to be submitted. Everything happens when you need it too. So now I hope it is "happening." New York is the city to be in for that all of the time, is it overload? I love it, I am inspired and actually did write today some of the story--went with an passing thought--and here.

Joy.

2009-05-09T17:15:00.004-05:00

Late, or Sunday Scribblings #162 "Healing"

I just out up the calendar that I bought at the beginning of the year in my house, which is odd. Maybe because May is my birthday month, maybe I think that is when the year begins? I blog with stunning infrequency, but every time I come back I see stunning things and that makes me keep doing it. I just saw this site, with this amazing woman on Twitter. I do not even twitter in my parallel life, but as a blogger I do and it is necessary to see what everyone is doing.
Parallel worlds, only a Gemini would come up with such a concept, right? My parallel life is so hectic that I barely have time to sleep, but I managed to get home to be in a vegetative state, and got in front of my MacBook and was driven to come here, to this lovely place. Blogging is almost therapeutic for me. It demands nothing from me and it lets me express myself. Even though the way I am expressing myself was not nearly as eloquent as Devil and Vesper expressed themselves in recent posts.
A man I know who is not even that close to me told me to focus. And it was so startingly because I always need to focus. I am sometimes so in the moment that I am not able to have existed before or to proceed. But this same psyche of mine is the reason why I am able to fall in love like I am falling in love for the first time every time because I rarely have baggage, my mother told me that. I was able to get over my mother dying because I am never in that moment. Even at the moment my mother died, I was already light years away from the dead body that was in front of me which was probably the most awful thing that I have ever experienced in my life. To see my mother was not breathing, I never go there. I am light years ahead of the moment even while basking in it. People ask me what I am doing for Mother's Day? I am not a mother and I do not have one, but I am not sad. I do not like sad places. I do not go to them, or if I do I try not to linger...
I am so ahead of myself sometimes it is hard to follow me, but I manage to hold onto the tip of my own elbow, a bit of my heel like a ballerina in flight.
I only hold onto me.
The last time I did Sunday Scribblings? It was still only in the double digits I think!

2009-04-25T21:09:00.002-05:00

Levitation

you your eyes your hands your mouth
i am levitated from the
suggestion of you
on my knees gathering asphalt
hoping you will make it roses
for me
hoping you will provide something
beautiful for me
this love that
stains like glass
when there is no light there is nothing to be
seen
i love you it means nothing
to you
to me
but it is
i am float up beside the clouds
you below me
walking away

2009-04-11T19:00:00.004-05:00

Gem of Procrastination

Listening to Dionne Warwick, in front of my beloved MacBook where I was thinking that I was going to work on a the story that I was recently started and yet I am not. I am blogging about why I have not. I have no reason, I cannot make excuses--I am not there yet. I sent a short story out a few weeks ago and have not heard back, but just saw the editor write online that you should wait awhile before following up and I am glad that I did not write him. Maybe he might like me just for not being a nag! That was an accomplishment and I want to do it again--I will get there I am sure. And if this blog post that I am writing is a distraction, well then so be it. It is nice to be back, the thing I have always liked about my blog is that all of my blogger friends are people who read my blog because they liked the blog. None of my friends know about it, so everyone here is someone that I only know here. It makes here a sacred place for me, sacred and amazing. I can kneel in the purity of it.

Chapel courtesy of FreeRange

2009-04-08T22:08:00.005-05:00

Go North, South, East or West Young Woman

I want to go away, anywhere. No one hearts New York more than me, but I want to go somewhere. Another state, another country--to be somewhere else, get new perspective. People in my immediate circle have gone to London, Paris and Italy. I want to go to North Carolina, I got an urge to learn to drive and that was one of the things that I love about being a native New Yorker that I do not need to know how to drive! But I would like to drive along the coast. Maybe cross country. I am not sure where this desire to travel comes from, but I really want to. Go.

2009-04-06T05:52:00.004-05:00

Poem for Devil

Devil, a poem for you. Thanks for your comment!

miss you when i am not with you think of nothing else
the air that surrounds you like a halo
that i need to get into
the air that surrounds you like a bubble filled with
the air i need to live
you are vital
your eyes your eyelashes your fingers
loved like those on a baby
except you give me
life
love
the world

2009-04-03T05:56:00.003-05:00

Here I Am

I decided to write poems for every day of the month this month and I will actually finish yesterday's poem today and write one for today this morning going to work. I had a conversation with someone who does not think they can write poems, but our conversations with are poems. In not being able to make them see who they are as a poet, the poet in me stirred. Writing the a poem last night on the bus going home, stops from my house I thought of my blog, and so here I am...not to make any promises, but to just be...

2008-11-30T21:30:00.001-05:00

Emerging from the Cocoon

2008-11-05T23:06:00.002-05:00

Personal Entertainment

I am the sort of person who never buys a newspaper, I discreetly read over my neighbor's shoulder. I decide what books to read from things I see people read on the train, and have discreetly observed what people are listening to on their iPods or MP3 players. Obscure music I have never heard and music I have not heard in forever, in combination with current songs tends to fill people's ears.

On my own iPod Touch, there are--hang on let me unlock it--artists like Aimee Mann, Charlotte Martin, Alicia Keys, BoA, Cheap Trick, Keren Ann, Sarah Cracknell, George Michael, Tori Amos and the Pussycat Dolls. There are also podcasts for practicing foreign languages and yoga. Plus an amazing bubble game that works like bubble wrap, which my neighbor not so discreetly watched me play--karma.

I can keep myself entertained for hours with this little gadget, and am on the lookout for inspiration on other things to put on it. Please feel free to share what you are listening to, or how you are otherwise utilizing your portable entertainment.

2008-11-04T22:20:00.002-05:00

Just Vote

I do not care who people vote for, but they have to vote. I have had passionate conversations with people about politics and this election in particular, which has generated more passion than I have ever seen and it is not like four years ago people were indifferent. But this election the days past and coming, garner so much passion on both sides.

I say whatever you believe, vote. You cannot be indifferent and not make your way to vote. It was crowded in the morning when I went--and I got up early which I never do--I bypassed that line, and voted to vote in the evening which I did. I was so cheerful, I was asked if I was happy about something. Well the place where I vote is a few blocks from my house, so I was almost home which was pleasurable enough...

...but there was no small pleasure in voting, I always feel better after.

Additionally, I feel better that I have finished my blog post, and can work on the NaNo novel that has gone in such a different direction than I was planning it to. I am ecstatic, I never outline stories, believe in a very organic approach.

What a day it has been, voting and writing.

2008-11-03T23:13:00.002-05:00

Justification

I did not write today, not nearly enough but you cannot--I cannot--really beat myself up about it because I did write and quite a good bit the last two days. But justification--we always need to justify. I started justifying why my characters did what they did, why they will do what they will do. Why I did or did not write, why I will or will not do anything.

I do not need to justify anything. I just need to keep writing! Finishing this post makes me feel proud. Even if I wrote maybe 100 words for NaNo today...maybe 100 I said...

2008-11-02T22:44:00.003-05:00

Very Tired, But...

My eyes are barely open, but I am writing my post and excited to do so! I have over 4000 words already and if there is anything left of me today, I am going to try to write more. The most exciting part of NaNo is when you reach the 5 digit mark.

The thing about writing fiction that intrigues me, is that no matter how much you plan to write a story about a particular thing, once you get pen to paper you never know what is going to come beneath your fingers. Like a Ouija board directs you when you ask it, fiction is even more unpredictable than that. Maybe I am too terrible of a romantic to let my story be as dark as I was planning it. I identify with my two day old characters, and am excited to see where they will go...

...where I will go. What parts of myself I will discover, which parts of myself I did not even know were there. Writing is therapeutic: fiction or poetry, every time I write I feel myself healed.

Ouija board courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-11-01T19:55:00.004-05:00

In the Mood for Nano Everything

As always, I have embarked upon NaNoWriMo, the darkest story ever that I am writing this year. Last year was a dark adventure for me, and this year promises to be even darker...Not at all because I am also concurrently doing NaBloPoMo either.

I am going from not writing at all to being in and wanting to be in the mood to write all the time, and I feel it throughout my entire body better than electricity, and it revs me faster than any motor.

And I need to get my widgets in place on the blog--but a least I am posting!

2008-10-12T21:24:00.006-05:00

Time and Chastisement

Apparently, there is an update I should have added to my blog on Blogger, that I did not know I even could have done.

Do not think I am ready to look different.

Have not been blogging for awhile, and have not even been getting any sleep. Have not been doing yoga, but I am not chastising myself. Not a chance. There is never a reason for me to doubt myself, just follow why I do the things I do or don't do.

Trying to get into NaNo mode, which is going to be interesting since I have not been writing at ALL in the way I need to for that. But I promise you, only death will mean me not finishing it! Pretty determined as far as that goes. This year I am not even sure what I am going to write about--just going to wait for the Day of the Dead, and let inspiration hit me. Hard.

Whip and books courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-09-13T11:15:00.005-05:00

Tea and Writing

During the week, I love coffee and perhaps I would on the weekend too but I am never home so I avoid perishables. Spoiled soymilk is never a good thing...I have come to really adore tea (two teabags) and honey. I love it best while I am writing.

I write so much these days, it is the blog which I am very happy to have resumed. I get so inspired. I have been writing more, and even resumed my morning pages which even though some mornings it is challenging, I still do it to see what is on my mind, what is coming out of me early in the morning.

I woke up filled with inspiration, and it is afternoon, and I am still inspired. Although I just finished my cup of tea.

There will be more writing, there will be more tea.

Tea and biscuits courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-09-07T09:37:00.005-05:00

Habit

One habit that I have been developing is posting my new posts on Sunday, most often over a cup of tea while watching the Sunday morning political shows. It is soothing, relaxing, makes me feel happy and connected. I just started reading The First Circle by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who died earlier this year. I have always been something of a Russophile, so I am trying. An open secret about me that people know: I do not always finish every book I endeavor. I am trying very hard with this book--I am on page 100 and it is compelling, it is the only thing I want to do on the train to work. I have not even been doing my freewriting on the train in the morning (well also because I was carrying a lot of things on the train this week, and it was hard to manage my bulbous freewriting journal, but I digress), to read this novel. I hope I can finish it, I hope I do not give up. There are fragments of it that are delectable. Then there are long tedious parts, there is also the fear in me that things will happen to characters I like as it sadly the nature of the time. That breaks my heart.

I am always reading whether I finish the book or not--habit. Also I write all of the time and never try to publish anything. It is habit and my blood. I read so I can be inspired to write. I think that the time spent in college classes writing, pales in comparison to the lesson learned in how someone else pursued the dream and you hold it in your hands as a novel. It is magical, it is transcendent--I cannot break the habit. I hope to develop the habit of writing and trying to publish soon.

Habit courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-09-01T12:54:00.003-05:00

The Utter Joy of a Four Day Weekend

It started Friday, and was amazing. A day in Connecticut to go to the Yale Gallery of Art to see Starry Night which usually makes a home at my beloved MoMA. I went to MoMA the next day, and was trolling around Brooklyn Heights Sunday. Found a lovely book called Office Yoga, which I will be practicing since I have been lazy about going to actual yoga classes. I bought books as if I needed more, but when you are an addict you are not able to tell if you have enough. They were on sale and from Housing Works Thrift Store, which I love to support. I bought a book called The Scent of God, but was not able to find the book The Taste of a Man because I could not remember the name of the author for the love of God, and was very saddened that the girl in the bookstore was not able to find the author which I was able to do it on my own in less than five minutes at home. Even with the obscure title S. Made me remember I wanted to be a librarian, I have had dreams of it, and I keep forgetting them but clearly I have the skills--the familiarity with books and the ability to find the information. I saw A Work in Progress, and I was inspired beyond inspiration.

Inspiration is everywhere, around the corner, or looking you right in the face. Sometimes you dodge it, but it remains...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

2008-08-19T19:13:00.004-05:00

Karma

I have a program on my MacBook called Karma. It puts your good deeds in a “jar” and gives you quotes and poems. Today’s deed got me this:

Just live that life. It doesn’t matter whether it is life or hell, life of the hungry ghost, life of the animal, it’s okay; just live that life, see. Where you stand, where you are, that’s what your life is right there, regardless of how painful it is or how enjoyable it is. That’s what it is.
Taizan Maezumi

This post is also posted @ novelnymph.tumblr.com.

2008-08-17T20:32:00.005-05:00

I'll Tumble For You

I just created a Tumblr blog. I post everything I do on Flock, which is a social browser and such an addiction! Until I got my MacBook, and became a junkie courtesy of Mac Life and MacWorld, I never even knew it existed. Now I am a wannabe Mac geek, and a Flock addict.

My Sunday afternoon walk through Brooklyn Heights, and my Anais Nin addiction inspired my post here and at Tumblr. You can find me there if you like!

Retro tumble courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-08-10T18:12:00.004-05:00

The Two Novels

I hadn't blogged in so long that it is almost overwhelming to do it but the fire is there, struck and hot. I am still in the process of catching up on Gmail--now I am also on Facebook and Twitter, both addictive, but both cool ways to stay in touch with my blogger and new friends.

That is the first novel--me.

This is the second novel--found it wandering in Brooklyn Heights, and having read Darts of Cupid, I immeadiately purchased it. Read it on the platform waiting for the G train that was masquerading as a F train (weekends in New York City all trains are part of the masquerade ball). I sat on the bench on the platform reading, waiting out the hard rainstorm and I am pretty sure I am going to devour this book the same way Gordon devoured Louisa before even the end of the first chapter...

Open novel courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-08-02T19:26:00.003-05:00

Cell

I went to the Louise Bourgeois show at the Guggenheim, and looking into one of her cells where "art is the guarantee of sanity" was embroidered on a pillow. It is true, writing is my art, and I was just told someone that if I did not write I would not be as sane as I am.

It is true.

I watched all of the things that Bourgeois worked through her work with her life, and in one of her cells, she has Shalimar bottles and I was crying this morning in the hysterical fits that I have like a child that only last for a few minutes but they are intense because I miss my mom so much that I cannot stand it and am bent over in tears. Women are prone to hysterics according to misogynist doctors in the nineteenth century.

My mother wore Shalimar and I knew that that was a sign that she was saying I am not completely gone--I am here with you--just not the way you want right now.

Realized that writing is my salvation. That I should be able to use all the mediums of it like Bourgeois uses marble, latex, plastic, wood and bone. This thought was a blog post.

My hands reach from out of my cell, and here I am.

2008-04-27T08:35:00.005-05:00

There Are No Words

I have been away for a bit, non blogger life has called me like a loud siren, but I am back. Sad I did not write a poem a day here. Really sad, but I have learned my life is not to condemn myself for what I have or have not done but to do. So I am doing now...

there are no words
to put on a screen
to come from me
to you
but you know
i know
when we are together
the way you look at me
the way you don't look at me sometimes
the way our bodies are drawn together
even though we do not touch
the energy
there
what is there to say
we want to be together
we want to be close
i always want to be close to you
am close to you when you are away
am close to you in my dreams
might be close to you in death
there is nothing
nothing
nothing
no words to
illustrate
this

2008-04-09T19:38:00.004-05:00

I Fell Off But I Am Back On

if i lose you nothing will break
i am unbreakable too much has been lost
i am not afraid to fall off
the feeling of being close to you
of looking into your eyes
seeing the way you see me
your words
you are a poet maybe
better than you think
the things you feed me
like a baby or animal who cannot feed itself
the need
nourishment fulfilled
i am not sure if it is right
to fill me like you do
but you do
your words almost paternal
but you know me as a woman
you know more of me than anyone has for
a long time
i know you feel the same way about me
we are creatures this dirt road called life
crossed our paths
like stars we might cross away
nothing will be broken
i cannot be broken
anymore

2008-04-03T20:44:00.006-05:00

You

broke my heart
in such way that i could not even
speak think it
i just had to move away from it
from you
with imagined or real
grace
i still love you
i might always love you
you broke things in me
i rattle when you
manipulate me
but i am in one piece
you are too in love with the
sound of you
to hear anything of me
you never even really knew
when you asked me if i
wanted more
more than you will ever know
more than i will ever show you
it is later than
late

The song of the day is "The Dance" by Charlotte Martin

Dancer's lower parts courtesy of Getty Images

2008-04-02T21:54:00.004-05:00

Tonight I Wore A Boa...

...it is late, but I am here to knock out today's poem. I am thankful to Kimananda, and her making me even more compelled to research Ted Hughes, who was married to Sylvia Plath and lived with his lover, Assia Wevill. Indeed, he lived with both until they committed suicide in the same fashion more or less. I respect right now, his daughter's feelings about her father saying he was always there for her. We are never inside someone else's relationship. What an unfortunate coincidence for this man in any case to lose two women like this.

Birthday Letters, his book of poems is AMAZING...

My poem now:

do not know if you are the
devil come up to
tempt me
your eyes when you look at me
but you are not really looking at me
you eyes when you look at me and your look lingers
and i have no idea what you are thinking
your eyes
hypnotism
magnetism
what you make me feel
unearthly
outside of myself
indescribable
drawn to you so violently
i cannot sit still
i cannot be
you look at me
you don't look at me i am
driven crazy
to be with you i am ready to do
almost anything
the devil makes me do it
the devil is you

2008-04-01T18:26:00.003-05:00

Some Words

I have not been blogging, but I have been writing. Working heavily on the novel to be, getting to the point where I think I am really creating, really getting something done manuscript wise. I am not doing Script Frenzy this year, but definitely still in support of it as a former winner. What I am doing is blogging a poem a day since April is National Poetry Month...

...I am thankful for the waves of creativity washing over me in the form of art, life and love.

started simply enough
a need for your words
the flow from your mouth
things i knew things i did not know
things i needed or needed to
hear
seduction
you know what you are doing
present yourself like
ted hughes in another language
my black marauder
i ran ran
far from the storm cloud of desire
before it poured
before it was so clear
you
but the sun cannot shine on us
curled on my side without you
wondering why you cannot
be with me
the way i need you to be even though i
know
i know everything
you said i am talented
you said i have so much potential
your words are past tense i haven't died
i am dying

Liebe courtesy of Getty Images

Not At All Moldy

2008-03-24T16:36:00.005-05:00

I am still loving this...a real post soon. Promise.

2008-03-22T06:19:00.002-05:00

Relax

I was at Starbuck's yesterday during lunch. It has become a bit of a habit of mine since I gave up coffee for Lent. My new addiction is to go there with my beloved MacBook--which I just discovered has a chip on the keyboard! I am going to take it to the Apple Store and see if they can make her all better...

But I digress.

One day at Starbuck's, I met an actress while I was working on my novel to be, and we were comparing crafts. Yesterday, I was rushing to my chair--unattended chairs can be a problem to maintain if you do not stake your claim! My neighbor told me while I was in a rush to get my iced green tea soy latte without ice and get to my seat, he said don't run--you are supposed to relax here.

He was right. I needed to relax--I need to relax. Sometimes you think you are relaxed, but you are not. I was not. Maybe I was while I was sitting in front of my MacBook where I have been writing anywhere between 500-2000 words a day. At one point to think I could barely write a sentence a day. I am making progress...

I am thankful for coffee tomorrow! Easter has come. It is odd because I was talking to a co-worker of mine who is a Pisces, and she has been recommending the same books to me that another Pisces woman friend of mine has been recommending to me, and they both like yoga... Is it a Pisces thing--must consult Devil. I have Pisces in Jupiter which I understand puts my spirituality in an emotional and exploratory place. I went to Catholic School, but I am not so devout. Lent is the only thing I do--I ate red meat yesterday and am not going to mass tomorrow--I am taking an anusara yoga class. I am not sure how to measure my spirituality...except to say I can be emotional and exploratory about it. And change it up a lot--I am a double Gemini!

Dharma, words! I have written. You inspire me...

Easy chair with hung up hat courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-02-29T01:46:00.003-05:00

A Novel Poem

Inspired by Devil and Dharmabum, I realized I have not written a poem on the blog for a bit.

BTW is anyone an expert on Asian emoticons? I know ^^ is a smile, and I found more via a Google search, but I thought I would check with the international community!

Alas my poem:

so close
a kiss almost
you know
so close
you know i cannot
to see myself the way you
see me
close enough to kiss
you know i
cannot
i cannot
how long to
know you
to be with you
filled with
life love passion
so much passion
your eyes their color
burns
you know this
the way you look at me
come whisper close like a lover
you know i cannot
your scent memorized
a waft of it when you are long gone
we were so close
close enough to kiss
you know i cannot
you would not
you pretend you want to
be close to me
you do not
this close enough
almost a kiss
i cannot
you will not
we are in a fairy tale
as much as you condemn them
we are a fairy tale
we are not children
we are nothing

2008-02-18T20:29:00.000-05:00

If There Is Something to Desire

If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.

This Vera Pavlova poem translated from the Russian is one of my favorite Poetry in Motion poems EVER. I found a photo of it here. You can find three more of her poems here.

Subway in motion courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-02-16T18:56:00.005-05:00

Art and Lies

I went to the Museum of Art and Design, and as part of their Pricked: Extreme Embroidery exhibition , there was a screen which directed you to participate in The Lies Project. Behind a lovely see through curtain with lies embroidered on it in script...yes, I submitted a lie...

A few blocks away, I went to Christie's and saw such amazing photographs--Horst P. Horst, Brassai, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and so many images of Marilyn Monroe. Across the street from Christie's is La Maison du Chocolat, where I got what is believed to be the most expensive in the city, but oh so good semi sweet hot chocolate with whipped cream. Well if I cannot have coffee, I have to have good replacements!

Have I said how much I heart New York lately, and how grateful I am to be a native New Yorker?! That I can wander out of MoMA, and the adventure is not over?

Canvas courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-02-15T00:01:00.002-05:00

Lucky Number 7

Have you ever done this personality test--I am a 7--let me know what you are!

Number 7 courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-02-13T02:23:00.003-05:00

Snow, Snow Go Away

I am too old to get snow days, so please...go..away...

...even though the snowflakes were as big as cornflakes as they were falling down, it gets ugly after they are down! And I have to trudge my way to work anyhow pink cheeked and all...

...well there will be yoga tonight, that is a plus...

Snowflake courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-02-10T09:02:00.000-05:00

Sunday Morning Love

Yet another reason I heart New York, it indulges a romantic like me every Sunday morning with Modern Love. It was actually my non blogger friend who lived in New York who pointed it out to me after she moved to California.

Personally, I always just liked Vows and still do.

BTW, if you look on my sidebar under "Follow Me," you can find via Twitter. And I have just enabled my blog to be available for RSS and e-mail subscriptions via FeedBurner. I am so grateful that people read my posts and that I keep discovering new and old friends that way.

Putting the newspaper down--well closing the tab on my screen really. I am off to visit some of my blogger friends...

2008-02-06T23:45:00.000-05:00

It's That Time of the Year Again...

For some reason I never know when Lent is going to start. I am always alerted by Mardi Gras, and then it is like no more coffee! It is sad because I really want a Spanish latte, and suppose I die before I can have another cup of coffee?!

Ahhhh!

I am at least grateful for Alice's Tea Cup--with three locations in the city and scones to die for. With clotted cream and preserves no less. I think I might survive the drought...

He's A Magic Man

2008-02-05T00:51:00.001-05:00

This is the song of the day, and video too--enjoy!

2008-02-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

Ahh, Now I Am A Bit Wordless...

First, thank you Kimananda, as I pass along the honors:

back to Kimananda, the blog is called House of Fortune come on!
Daisies, simply because she is beautiful and her photographs and words...amazing...
Inconsequential--who is anything but...
Anna-Lys, for the sheer beauty of her blog

and

Aggie, because she is after my own heart!

2008-02-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

Another Reason to Drink Pepsi

My last post inspired Inconsequential to write a poem in my comments.

2008-02-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

Reason to Drink Pepsi

The free Pepsi Stuff MP3 downloads they were giving out at Times Square, allowed me to download this entire out of print album.

Cola courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-01-31T23:47:00.000-05:00

Hot Heaven

I had a peanut butter hot chocolate here today--with whipped cream!

2008-01-31T04:44:00.001-05:00

Kreutzer Sonata

Violin Sonata No. 9, also known as The Kruetzer Sonata impassioned the characters in the short story I am reading of the same name by Tolstoy so much. I mean fairly, is there any Beethoven that is not beautiful? But does this movement hypnotize you? Or make you feel that you have lost control?

2008-01-29T23:34:00.001-05:00

Damage

This is one of my favorite novels, and one of my favorite movies.

2008-01-28T23:35:00.001-05:00

Same Song

Still listening to the same song on repeat, and when I lift my head it is from this short story.

2008-01-27T22:29:00.001-05:00

Lesson Learned

I am listening to this song on repeat on iTunes.

2008-01-26T15:39:00.000-05:00

Might Not Be Lolita But...

...you cannot destroy an unfinished draft of Nabokov's and not look at it!

2008-01-25T19:34:00.000-05:00

Passing Along The Knowledge

"A writer is someone who has written today," quoted from J. A. Jance in a supplement to The Writer magazine.

Woman with a pad courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-01-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

Paraphrasing

So Dharmabum paraphrased a quote, so I am paraphrasing him. That all your thoughts should be such that you can tell anyone what you are thinking at anytime. I am not evolved sadly!

2008-01-22T23:43:00.000-05:00

Matilda Rose

That is the saddest part of Heath Ledger's death, that his little girl has lost her father. I still miss my mommy, and they said on the news that she was always with him. She will miss him...my heart goes out to her...

Grief courtesy of Getty Images

2008-01-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

Read More Please, New York

New York City needs to read more--I am grateful I am a literary New Yorker.

Stack of books courtesy of Getty Images.

2008-01-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

Sit Still

A non blogger friend of mine IMed me--why don't you still still! Well I am right now, was visiting blogger friends' sites and was amazed and inspired! Knowing I need to make more time for blogging, and knowing it is okay also to blog as it comes to me. To give only the best and truest part of me here and not try to force it. I am a passionate woman and I cannot force anything...

It is Sunday, I am not at church. I cannot remember the last time I was at church. On the sitting still front, I cannot remember resting as much as I have been on Sundays. I have been so go go go--I am taking time to just go. Just me and my MacBook, my creativity unleashed. What a powerful tool it is to do that.

Yesterday, I went on a writer's date here--was hard to find a seat for my friend and I but we did. I had a Spanish Latte, which is a latte sweetened with condensed milk. You know how the best part of hot chocolate is where the chocolate settles? Well the best part of this latte was where the condensed milk settled. Ahhhh! I wrote with my friend--forced her out because she wants to write more. I wrote well over a thousand words of my own story, and I will be working on it today as well as watching football. I have a new commitment to write every day--even if it is a sentence to this story. One of my friends said that must be some sentence!

You know...maybe...I hate when I come back to the blog and I see I have not written for a while. Maybe if I just write one sentence to keep it fresh. Like when I remember to Twitter! You know that is something I am going to implement. At least a sentence a day. I miss blogging every time I am away from it--this will be a yoga of blogging for me.

I am thankful for my MacBook, my blogger and non blogger friends who inspire me and for writing being my blood.

My song of the day is Yoga Radio found on Yogamates. As well as Charlotte Martin's "Redeemed."

PS Notice the BWO logo in my sidebar. I was just reading Daisies' last post, and I LOVE her. She inspires me in her absence, and I send all my love and good energy to her right now...

Still up for my sentence a day though--let's see how it goes!

2008-01-13T15:58:00.000-05:00

Hearting New York

Last week was spent getting back into my routine, not doing yoga even though a non blogger friend of mine said I seem very spiritual now...maybe. I am not even sure my yoga is a manifestation of that.

Met up with a friend last week in Queens, and we went here. I had some of my friend's pork belly which she described like thick bacon and she was not wrong! We also had delightful coffee with condensed milk which I ate plain what I did not pour in the coffee! It was not on the menu, but I know how Thai coffee is done so I made a decision since I was fairly sure they would not have soy milk which is what I put in my coffee. Our flan had cherries on top! It was luscious, and the train ride on the 7 train is so scenic...

Yesterday, I had Turkish in Brooklyn here. Have leftover Iskender Kebab for dinner tonight. My friend ordered the same thing I had because it looked so good the last time. I would have eaten it for breakfast I swear--but then it would be done and I could not look forward to it for dinner in a few hours! After we walked down the block to Gulluoglu. The baklava there is heaven, as is the Turkish coffee. I wish I could read the grounds, I dumped too much on my saucer and could not even ask if anyone could read for me.

So a moment to look up from my international plate, and blog! Well before I went to the Taci's Beyti, I did walk into a Russian bookstore and saw books by Anna Ahkmatova which I could recognize even in Cyrillic. Alas I could not understand anymore than that... My song of the day was whatever was playing in that store though...

I am thankful to be a native New Yorker, because in a matter of days--within a day I can be exposed to endless cultures and languages. It never ceases to make me heart my city. My city, because it is the world's city.

Heart carved into apple courtesy of Getty Images

2008-01-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

Tried to Stay Up All Night

I am on vacation from work, but found myself tired in the middle of a 2 AM IM, and had to bail. Got up like I have work today, which I do not and am very happy not to. I have not had time off in a long time. It is the next vacation I am looking forward to however, I want to go to Paris this year. Paris is my new MacBook, when I wanted the MacBook I was fixated until I had it. My posts continue to be courtesy of the lovely MacBook!

I did not do any yoga yesterday--no WoYoPraMo for me! Dharmabum was very supportive--but I would expect nothing less from him. Here is the complete story: I left my house to do yoga, and it was raining in New York for New Year's Day. Realized I did not have my yoga mat, then even worse discovered I had left the house without a pen which is the lowest depth of misery for me--especially since there was a poem I wanted to write. I have never had an inclination to rent a mat. Figured since I wanted to go home--as I wondered why I had woken up--it was time to have a Novel adventure. Went to the Apple Store, and then went to Balthazar which I had always wanted to go to. Had steak frites and chocolate pot au creme. This is why I want to go to Paris! My eye fell on the 8.5 x 11 calendar page at the bar: Mardi, 1, Janvier. I felt a great deal of joy. I am always amazed I can feel such intense joy since my mother died, which the thought always sobers me or leaves me empty...

I know she would approve of all the joy, she told me in a dream once to remember all the good things. I try to remember and create good things.

I am thankful to feel joy and goodness.

The song of the day is "Up All Night" by Charlotte Martin--even though I did not do it!

Sun over the road courtesy of Getty Images.

2007-12-31T08:25:00.000-05:00

The End of the Year Meme

I found this amazing meme on Bleeding Espresso's blog where I always expect to find amazing things. Love the Vettriano there! I tag anyone who reads this. It's good to be retrospective. This is sort of my pre morning pages--I stopped doing The Artist's Way after week two, but kept doing the morning pages. And honestly, sometimes the morning pages are not in the morning...

...but I digress--the meme as follows:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Spend even a day without my mother, kundalini, anusara and vinyasa yoga, wear a garter belt and stockings and a myriad of things I am sure are COMPLETELY escaping me now.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Don't make them. My life is a new resolution every day...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My mother, thus why I spent a day without her in question one of the meme.

5. What countries did you visit? None. Hoping for France next year, and once I get to Europe I am going to play leap frog to other countries!

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Less procrastination and more writing on the blog and on my fiction.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The day my mother died--self explanatory.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Becoming my own mother. I thought when my mother died I would not be able to function. I was wrong.

9. What was your biggest failure? To write more!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Does lovesickness count?

11. What was the best thing you bought? My beautiful MacBook, on which this meme is being completed!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My own and my MacBook's.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? A handful of non bloggers.

14. Where did most of your money go? On death and taxes.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Did I mention my MacBook?! And also the novel idea I plan to explore on it.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? Nothing really, but I listened to a lot of Charlotte Martin this year. A lot.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? I'm sad about my mother, but a lot happier than I expected to be. I'm thinner and I am ALWAYS rich mentally!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Yoga and fiction writing--which I did not even have to write over when I copied the meme!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Not writing.

20. How did you spend Christmas? With my family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? Maybe...

22. What was your favorite TV program? Did not have one, but watched Top Model until almost the end...

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I don't hate anyone, it is not worth the energy.

24. What was the best book you read? Two novels by Kristina Lloyd.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Charlotte Martin.

26. What did you want and get? My MacBook!!!

27. What did you want and not get? Personal on one count...and let's just say I have not seen my mother anywhere on the other.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Been watching a lot of foreign language romances on my MacBook, and just saw Juno yesterday, it was lovely.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 33, was with my mom. she watched me blow out my candles...

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? If my mother had not died.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Black for mourning, which ironically makes me party ready and gets lots of compliments!

32. What kept you sane? My writing and my friends--bloggers and not. And the fact I was afraid if I did not behave my mom would come back to reprimand me!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? None--everyone was someone I knew.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? The assassination of Bhutto.

35. Who did you miss? My mother.

36. Who was the best new person you met? A good friend I met through my volunteer work.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. You survive until you die.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. "All our days are numbered/Round and round we go," from "Cardboard Ladders" and "In all the black/In all the grief/Through all the pain/And unbelief/These are the words/That they all scream/I am redeemed" from "Redeemed" by Charlotte Martin.

Ironically though, my songs of the day which are part of my internal soundtrack, "Karma" and "Diary" by Alicia Keys.

I am thankful for another year as a blogger...

Exploding cork courtesy of Getty Images.

2007-12-27T01:03:00.000-05:00

31 Days in January

Visit WoYoPracMo

Am I serious about this?! I am not even sure that I am going to be able to do this, but I will try my damndest! I think this is going to be harder than NaNo--at least the finding the time, but I am excited!

Not Asleep

2007-12-24T04:04:00.001-05:00

Almost 4 in the morning New York time. I cannot seem to sleep even though I am sure if I put my had to the pillow I would sleep fast.

But I remain up.

I have no sense of the holiday. Tomorrow will be exactly seven months since my mother died, which is painful and surreal to me at the same time. We were not holiday people, but it seems unholy for me to be without her. There was a moment I wanted to give up on God thinking this could not be a good thing, but I know my mother would not like that so I still believe. Plus Catholic school scares the bejesus out of you, and you are afraid if you do not believe in God you will go to Hell for the thought and the action. I was thought the thought is as bad as the action. Well there are some thoughts I wish they had been actions if they are just as bad...

So I am up, a desire to blog hit me and I am here. I have spent a lot of time with my non blogger friends, my mother would be impressed that I am not alone. She always wanted me to be able to take care of myself if something happened to her, and have people around me who care about me.

I think I have both.

I am also up because I cannot keep my hands off of my MacBook. There is a story I am burning to write, in the same vein with my NaNo novel, but new characters. My NaNo novel was quite an awakening for me, for my psyche and my flow of creativity.

I took three yoga classes in a row, discovered I am meditation challenged. I cannot do it well. I have been advised by a woman I know to try a Buddhist center that does hour long meditation classes. It is an issue that I cannot sit still, that my thoughts are more intricate than constellations. I sit there in the yoga studio like I am in an agitated outer space. Yet I am evolving, I like to pose, I like to breathe, I should eventually complete the triad...

I am thankful for the desire to write a new story, to want to successfully meditate, for being able to fulfill my mother's dying wishes for me and of course to be here posting...

The video of the day is Charlotte Martin's "Every Time It Rains." Amazing lyrics in this song:"Every time it rains/I know it's good to be alive/Every time it rains/I know I am trying to survive."

Aren't I? You know whatever time I finally fall asleep I will get up when I want. I have nothing to do for once except to take care of me.

2007-12-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

Belle Du Jour

This morning, my garter came loose, I was on the train and could not fix it. I have arrived at my destination--still have not been able to attach stocking to garter belt. I am prone to wardrobe malfunctions--not of the catastrophic kind, but runs in stockings, stepping on hems...that sort of thing.

The garter belt and stockings occurred to me because I am wearing a skirt and I hate the way knee highs look with a skirt, even if the skirt is long like mine. I like to be barefoot for yoga class and have no desire to wear full hose--want my feet easily accessible...it seemed like a good plan but I keep thinking about the loose back garter on my right leg. I was thinking of the cover of my Henry & June. As you know Anais Nin is an inspiration of mine, from my not as provocative journaling to my sense of violent romanticism.

My inner romantic was bypassed in my NaNo novel, which explored the darker parts of love and sex that I usually do not explore. My non blogger friend was like "Novel's real name, you are such a romantic, be careful. You have my numbers..." It was an experience because I was writing scenes and being philosophical about the things my characters were doing. The novel became much more cerebral, than love and sex focused. My same lovely friend told me that certain types of alternate love and sexual situations will force you to be cerebral so I am on the right track. My other non blogger friend assured me I could not go wrong with love and especially sex--he is a guy so! He made me feel better about going on a bender.

I have not thought about my garters for a few moments, it is still loose though...

DVD of the day is Belle Du Jour.

I am thankful for my new MacBook where I shamefully minimize the screen to watch a DVD while e-mailing, IMing and gaming!

2007-12-02T21:39:00.000-05:00

Dreams

I never sleep sound. I wake up all night in intervals--maybe every hour and then go right back to sleep. I woke up twice this morning, from fitful dreams that I believed were reality and it was very slowly that I realized that I had dreamt it all.

My mother was in my dreams and I felt like I could touch her. It was amazing to me that I talk to her in dreams as though she is still there, and never realize that she is not alive and well until I wake up. She gave me guidance in my dreams that was so precious and valuable. I believe she in my dreams still mothering and not my imagination and I follow everything that she tells me in them.

The strength of my dreams was staggering, I was groggy with their meaning and I learned much from them. I am thankful for the lessons and contents provided by my dreams.

Dreaming courtesy of Getty Images

2007-11-30T23:39:00.000-05:00

Something Like A Novel

The icon speaks for itself.

This novel was especially hard to write, there were a lot of loose ends and it never became the story I wanted it to be, but it was 50000 words and that is good enough for me. I am thankful for the creative journey, and the things I discovered along the way about my craft and myself.

I have a new category, DVD of the day which goes to Charlotte Martin's Something Like A Hero.

2007-11-21T02:55:00.000-05:00

Back to the Blogging Board

So the NaNo novel is working out well. I am typing now from my brand new MacBook. I waited patiently for the new operating system Leopard, and with my rose desktop I can tell you I am nothing but happy!

It is just a matter of time before I reach 50000 (33000), as long as I am alive and well. And as long as I am alive and well, I am back to the blogging board...

A day before Thanksgiving I am thankful for my new MacBook!!!

I also am thankful that even though it is my first Thanksgiving without my mother, I am thankful she was my mother, I could not have had a better one...

The song of the day is "Something Like A Hero" by Charlotte Martin.

Soft leopard pose courtesy of Getty Images

2007-11-05T18:45:00.000-05:00

Out of Breath

The day after the New York marathon which I would never have the stamina to do, I am doing my own marathon of sorts with the screen...NaNo has begun and I am on my way to 8000 words...out of breath...but just wanted to let you know!

Sex. Violence. Men. Women. They're part of the brew I am stirring...

2007-10-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

Devil Tagged Me

Devil tagged me and I was delighted because I would love to be tagged and so for the first time I start with my gratitude. Thank you Devil...

I think that good writing does not have to be contained in a books or a novel. I have e-mails and IMs from friends that make me feel warm and happy, or to share in the pain that they feel so that it is tactile to me as well. Good writing has the ability to transport me to the next place. Yet I find since I am a reader of fiction, good writing makes me want to experience the things that I have read. I know when I read Nicholas Christopher's Veronica, I wanted to go to a Tibetan restaurant and have bocha which is tea flavored with butter and salt. I was not in love with the taste so I added sugar. Is there anything better in the world than the taste of butter and sugar?

But I digress...

I love to learn something new from what I read as well. Good writing is an absorption process. My whole head is the absorption of random bits of knowledge that have come to me from either experience or what I have read. I am reading a novel right now--a sexy one--and I am not sure what I am absorbing, maybe I am exploring more in this case. I am researching for the NaNo novel I am going to do. I have been reading and seeing a lot of dark and sexy pieces on paper and film. I think my novel will reflect that. Four more days--let's hope I have some of this good writing I have detailed in me to last the month!

2007-10-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

The Non Blogger Life

...has been overwhelming. I have not been blogging as much as I want to, but it is like Vesper's Anais Nin quote, "People living deeply have no fear of death." Since my mother died I have not been afraid of death. I have been living life deeply indeed, and there has been less time to blog. I am sad for that, but there will be more time to blog soon, I know.

The thing I am grateful for is that my mother's body is not accessible to me, but her spirit is so HUGE, she keeps talking to me from the grave and I LOVE her for it. You cannot sever a connection like ours. Death is meaningless. I am thankful for the life that fills me almost enough that I do not drown in sorrow.

I am grateful for the love that surrounds me...

2007-10-16T21:19:00.002-05:00

Twittering On Desire To Novel

Look under "Follow Me..." on my sidebar, and you will find my link for Twitter... I saw someone wearing an anti Twitter t-shirt, and decided it would be fun for the blog especially during NaNo. I am sure no one is that obsessed with my minutia, but curiosity killed the cat come on!

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Twitter \Twit"ter\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Twittered; p. pr. &
vb. n. Twittering.] [OE. twiteren; of imitative origin; cf.
G. zwitschern, OHG. zwizzir?n, D. kwetteren, Sw. qwitra, Dan.
quiddre. Cf. Titter.]
1. To make a succession of small, tremulous, intermitted
noises.

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.
--Gray.

2. To make the sound of a half-suppressed laugh; to titter;
to giggle. --J. Fletcher.

3. [Perhaps influenced by twitch.] To have a slight trembling
of the nerves; to be excited or agitated.

Twittering \Twit"ter*ing\, n.
1. The act of one who, or that which, twitters.

2. A slight nervous excitement or agitation, such as is
caused by desire, expectation, or suspense.

A widow, who had a twittering towards a second
husband, took a gossiping companion to manage the
job. --L'Estrange.

2007-10-14T19:04:00.000-05:00

Mental Note to Novel Self

Memorize the HTML, or stop OVERWRITING your posts!

Yes, I know I overwrote my last post, apologies...

2007-10-06T15:30:00.001-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #81, Dream Job

My dream job is to be a novelist. I have been working on a novel as all of you know and I am going to do NaNo for a second time. As a result, I might become a little sparse. But I will be here. I have been writing like a mad woman the manuscript I began after my mother died. November 1, I will detour from that to begin the NaNo novel, I have every intention of winning for a second year. As a result of dinner last night and an overheard a conversation, a lived situation and getting my coffee this morning to go to work, I penned three ideas that might be how the novel begins...

...tbd

Handwriting courtesy of Getty Images

For more jobs, click here.

2007-09-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #79, Powerful

I was talking to a very fabulous non blogger friend of mine who is very sexy, I am always teasing her about what a sexpot she is. She tells me I am sexy too. I am a novel girl--I cannot imagine myself like that. Clad in a long back skirt and black blouse that used to cling more she told me, but I am losing weight yet looking more defined with my yoga. I felt self conscious. She was like "(My real name), you have a sexiness about you, and you do not even realize it." I knew better than to argue with her, so I told her the one thing I think is sexy about me if I is that when I am talking and expressing myself I am never self conscious. I just communicate and not think about how I look--just let myself be taken over by the moment, who I am with, the emotion and surrender to it. Every conversation I have is like that. Every blog post. That's my sexy, how I communicate and it is powerful when I wield it right.

Ironically enough I could not sleep last night, and watched the episode of Sex and the City, "The Power of the Female Sex." And "Powerful" would be today's Sunday Scribblings prompt. I love when life is cyclic!

BTW I hate when I overwrite my posts!!!

Sexy pose courtesy of Getty Images

For more power, click here.

2007-09-27T16:48:00.000-05:00

A Slice of Mooncake

My life is poetic because it was lunchtime in my office, and a co worker introduced me to mooncake. He was giving someone else a tiny sliver (which I learned was because it is so ridiculously rich). Told me to put it in my mouth, and not chew it, just let it melt. It was heaven as it was melting, and he was impressed that even though I did not know about the tradition--to sit under the full moon and have this lush cake with tea--that I was infatuated with the moon. I kept thinking about my dear blogger friend, Elena. Elena, I know you must know more about this. Share with me!

The idea that I had lotus paste dissolving in my mouth was its own heaven. I was chatting with my friend online later and she agreed. She told me I was the most passionate person she knew.

Imagine, I am someone's Anais Nin! And thus I am grateful for Anais Nin today. And inspiring a friend to add Henry and June to his Netflix cue.

Mooncake courtesy of Getty Images

2007-09-25T16:58:00.000-05:00

Come

come bite into me
bite the core of my being
what comes will stain you

I am thankful for mooncake...

Peaches courtesy of Getty Images

More juiciness here.

2007-09-22T10:27:00.000-05:00

Flickering Lights

Been so busy, and lamented that I did not have a chance to post this on Thursday, but that is the reason why my life is so poetic! I did not know what I was going to do except for a few nights this week. Every night was a surprise! I don't like to live such a rigid life that if at the last minute I want to have a sushi dinner with my friend and ditch yoga (which I am taking tonight, I never ditch my practice), I can't do that. I am maybe becoming more disciplined about yoga than writing now that I mention it!

My life is a poem because:

I got mad at really bad service that I got a restaurant I went into, and I used a pranayama called Breath of Fire, so that I would concentrate on my breath and not the exchange that became meaningless as I walked away from it...

My non blogger friends have been giving me books to read. I am in the middle of reading one . For that matter the tote bag that I carry around every day is full of gifts from friends from all over the world that are now part of my everyday life.

The sun lit on my computer as I was working on the novel that I recently started working on. I managed to connect with an author I love through her blog. The blogsphere makes for magic, sheer magic.

Sometimes amazing things happen to me, and I am so tired I do not journal them, but that does not mean they are gone. Memories are like flickering lights. Sometimes I foget things I have journalled and marvel when I read what I wrote.

I am thankful that it just started to rain, and it was not in the forecast. Metaphor is luscious.

Light courtesy of Getty Images

2007-09-18T17:41:00.000-05:00

Recipe

you me together
pinch uncertain pinch inflamed
recipe for crush

I am thankful for butterflies today...

Monarch courtesy of Getty Images

More recipes here.

2007-09-15T11:53:00.000-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #77, Collector Personality

Have you ever had that feeling when you see a certain book, that you MUST have it? That nothing will be right in your life until you find it? You feel breathless, and you look up the book on Amazon to see what other people think of it. You run to Shelfari, Library Thing and Chain Reading to put the book on your virtual shelves. You go to at least one bookstore you are pretty sure will have it, and then you go to Strand (if you live in NYC, or maybe online if you don't), or if you are lucky like me and volunteer at a bookstore you can get it for even less!

Then once you have the book in your possession, you gasp loudly, clutch the book to your chest more than you would clutch a lover. You cannot keep your hands off of it on the trip back home, where you place it lovingly on top of the pile you already have and look at all the others that were once in its shoes. You become unsure which book to read next--you might not even finish the one you are reading. But it is better to have it and not know when you are going to read it, then not to have it at all...

Isn't everyone like this?! It is my everyday gratitude that I am...

Stack of books courtesy of Getty Images

For more collections, click here.

2007-09-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #76, Writing

Right now, I have the pleasure of chatting on Gmail with my dear blogger friend, Dharmabum. Writing truly is my blood. If it was not a constant flood through me, I am not sure how I would exist.

Anything I craft--an e-mail or a chat for me has to be very warm and a reflection of me. I do not take it lightly. With my posts, they are a representation of me. Everything I write on paper or computer is like blood smeared on the paper or the screen, that might sound graphic, but that is what I am giving of myself. Writing is a serious matter to me, it is me. I feel it all through my body and my head, it is a sensual experience. Have you ever seen Tori Amos play her Bosendorfer? That is what writing is like to me. An entire body experience and an amazing release.

I bow to it, and my gratitude to the art is prostrate right now...

Writing courtesy of Getty Images

For more writing, click here.

2007-09-06T16:59:00.000-05:00

Love in Every Language

First, I am thankful again to Daisies, and Carla for Sacred Life, and all the wonderful people that commented on my posts. I am tremendously happy I am blogging, underscore loving blogging again, before my mother died and right after I barely had the heart, but now I am in love with it again.

My life is poetic because:

I am going to a party tonight, but not before I post this post! I started this last week because of Poetry Thursday ending, Devil and my prose over poetry started with your tag Dharmabum! I have been thinking more prosesque.

Last week, I met a friend at a bookstore, and found an art box on Frida Kahlo. She was an amazing artist, but also a passionate writer. Have you ever read the things she wrote about her husband Diego Rivera? Apparently, she gave away pages of her journal to friends. I am not sure I am that giving!

I was in a Turkish cafe in Brooklyn, and learned how to say I love you in Turkish. I always learn how to say I love you in every language. Do you have a contribution?!

I bow to you all...

2007-09-05T17:53:00.000-05:00

I Love the Word Sin

My beloved Daisies, who inspires me more than anyone has been doing Carla's brainchild, Sacred Life. At this point in my life I can especially say that I am feeling more and more of the spiritual...

The yoga I do has come to dictate my life. I am taking kundalini and anusara classes to keep my chakras in check. I cannot remember the last time I went to church, but I feel more spiritual in pranayama or asana than I do having a priest tell me every thought I have outside and inside of the church is a sin. It makes sinning tempting to ruminate on it so. I love the word sin.

I believe that we all will have to deal with God (or whatever higher source you believe in, if you believe in) when that day comes. Personally, I believe there is a heaven or some afterlife where I will meet my mother. I cannot believe that we will never see each other again. I cannot believe that at all, so I know that somewhere exists that we will be together again and for that I believe in everything...

Have a sacred life here.

Confessional courtesy of Getty Images

2007-09-04T16:26:00.000-05:00

Love in Spanish

her love in spanish
fostered my love of culture
the gift of language

2007-09-01T15:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #75, The End

In my yoga class today, we did a pose called "sad pose," our chin tucked under and our shoulders hunched forward. I put my head down and in that pose there was nothing else I could do but cry. You know when everything around you is so bad that you cannot even try to be happy because the sad chatter in your head is so loud? I woke up this morning miserable--well I had went to sleep as such so that would make sense--and I went to my yoga class with the hope that it would purge or transform the sadness. I went to my yoga class a few weeks ago mad, but the class was so vigorous that I did not even think about what made me so mad after.

But today I was basically forced to sit in that sad place. Head down, shoulders hunched. Tears first on my fingers, then my yoga mat. After class one of the other students told me that she cried for the first few months of her yoga practice--for things she did not even know she was sad about.

I knew what I was sad about.

But the beautiful thing is that I am still able to be empowered with my sadness. To accept that I was sad, that I needed to cry and that I can still transform it by posting here. By articulating it, now it is something that I see in the rear view mirror. So today my gratitude is to my sadness--or what was my sadness! Yoga class was great, I feel good.

No matter how sad you get until you die it is NEVER the end...

The song of the day, is "rearviewmirror" by Pearl Jam.

BTW Will I ever stop overwriting my own posts?! I did it again and now I have old and new comments for this post and I am too lazy to fix it...

Rear View Mirror courtesy of Getty Images

For more ends, click here.

2007-08-30T16:46:00.001-05:00

An Open Window

My open window comes from a combination of this being the last Poetry Thursday (weep), and my lovely friend Devil. I am going to use this post to begin a new tradition. The things in my own life that make it poetic like:

Going to Jacques Torres in D.U.M.B.O. last night, the part of Brooklyn that is literally under two bridges and having a frozen hot chocolate. The kind of chocolate that hits that part of your tongue that makes you close your eyes and savor.

Having dinner at Hecho en Dumbo, having more chorizo than I needed, but so what it is chorizo! The decor is so stunning there, I could not stop staring at the lamp on the bar.

Not being able to open the door when I came home because my new friend sent me a care package from Korea. A book of Korean folktales.

Devil, you were right, I don't post much about me. I have to live the Anais Nin quote in the About Me section of my blog more. Writing the moment, and in retrospection. All lives are poems no? Mine is...

Open Window courtesy of Getty Images

For more open windows, click here.

2007-08-30T16:39:00.000-05:00

Not A Yoga Snob

I'm a Balanced Yogi!

A Balanced Yogi

You love your friends unconditionally and accept them for who they are no
matter what their yoga style preference, religious beliefs, or spending habits.
You focus on the good in people and would never try to change them. Almost
everyone feels comfortable in your presence. You live your yoga. You are an
inspiration to yoga students everywhere!

Take the Yoga Journal Yoga Snob Quiz!

2007-08-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

Not Blue

I start with every time I post gratitude that my lovely blogger friend Chloe is okay, albeit breathing in a lot of smoke and for the blogger universe that makes Greece ever more palpable to me right now. My thoughts are with Chloe and all of Greece...

I am additionally thankful for my blogger friends who played along with my meme--Daisies, Devil, you're it! Numero 5 was my untruth. I love blue, but black is my favorite color. Black is my tabula rasa. I can always project something onto it...

Pretty blue courtesy of Getty Images

2007-08-28T17:14:00.001-05:00

Swarm

tiny inside you
your actions like tiny hearts
swarming around me

Swarm of hearts courtesy of Getty Images

2007-08-27T16:36:00.000-05:00

Peepshow

My beloved Dharmabum tagged me, and I am always up for that. I am to tell nine things about myself, one must be an untruth...here goes.

1. My musical obsession du jour is Charlotte Martin, her new album Stromata (thus crowned album of the day) was part of my yoga practice last week. My instructor told us to think of a song we like and sing it as a mantra. I thought of Stromata in my head as I watched the sweat drip onto my mat.

2. My new favorite packed from home lunch is peanut butter and honey sandwiches with vanilla soy milk.

3. Looking for the perfect fragrance, I once lived off of samples for over a month from department stores. To be flirty with a guy I sort of liked, I thrust my wrist in his face and asked him how Ralph Lauren's Romance smelled on me. He liked it.

4. I always wear long skirts--at least to the middle of my calves. My friend calls them my Stevie Nicks skirts. If I get REALLY excited about something I am known to clutch my skirts tight and swing them up--a peepshow if you are REALLY quick!

5. My favorite color is blue. I once read that in color therapy blue soothes, and every time I see it I feel soothed. Sky, royal, and cornflower blues are my favorites.

6. I eat my food in the following order: vegetables first, side like rice or potatoes second. Meat last.

7. I just lost 10000 words of the novel I am working on, and until today had not written a word to replace one.

8. I do not hate anyone.

9. I love memes, more people should tag me!

Okay, so now you have to guess what is not true. I will let you know the next time I post. I will give that number 9 is very true! I did not like to play tag as a kid, but it is fun as a blogger.

I am grateful today for being a blogger, and for my non blogger friends who help me blog. And finally, I am grateful for you reading this because you are IT--send me a link to yours.

2007-08-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

Secret

the secret in not saying a word
you looked into my eyes the
things we were not saying
you know how i feel
i have no idea how you do
i'm not secure enough to
guess at you
you're not a game
i am not playing anything
you are playing me
an instrument of desire
lovely sounds
when you manipulate me
i don't say a word like a cat
surrender to you
then shrug it off
like i was never there
like you were never with me
the secret in my walk away
is you never see my fear
only my daring

Secret courtesy of Getty Images

For more poetry, click here.

2007-08-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

Day Has Broken

as day has broken
your lies have risen up top
my love has floated

Day courtesy of Getty Images

For more daybreak, click here.

2007-08-19T17:40:00.000-05:00

Sunday Scribblings #73, Dear Diary

Dear Diary...the quote that you see in my profile is the way I feel about diary writing. I have been a lot better of late in writing in my journal. I have been playing with the idea of how I experience things. I am a romantic, every journal entry has a romantic edge, whether it be about a person or an experience. There is something that is going on with me right now...but in a earlier Sunday Scribblings post, I don't tell my secrets.

This weekend has been one for losing things. I lost the oldest version of the novel I am working on, and just wrote over last week's Sunday's Scribblings post...

I am spent.

Anais Nin courtesy of a Google Images search

For dearer diary posts, click here.

2007-08-17T19:11:00.000-05:00

Lying on the Floor

How can Poetry Thursday come to an end? I am devastated, but because I saw celebration in the post, I know I will always write poems on Thursdays. I have to transform my grief--I have become talented at that...

Alright, a poem then--if a day late...

take my hand the
small of my back
you know how to soothe me
even when i do not ask i
know that you feel the way i
do care about
me the
way that i
you you
tore all of my emotion out of me
i did not want to but you made me
feel you like nothing i have ever felt before cannot live without know we will
find a way to have the what we need to have
our eyes scream like victims i know
you have had the same experience as me
need you to touch the
small of me make me
bigger make me
evolutionary emotionally
you have already you know
that everything about you you know that i am
captured you know that
hold me like in a net
you read my body with your eyes
read me like braille
you know me to well
the raised bumps tell you things that you
knew just by looking at me
touch me more than you have already
your heat is warmer than the sun outside
warmer than my own inside
love me however you can never stop
falling in love with me
i am lying on the floor

Lying on the floor courtesy of Getty Images

For more poetry, click here.

2007-08-14T16:29:00.000-05:00

Haiku Train: Supernova

First I thank Pixiedust for her lovely last haiku line...then I wrote:

stars shine upon me
of course your supernova
sheds the brightest light

Supernova courtesy of Getty Images

Get on the train, click here.

2007-08-09T16:42:00.000-05:00

In Your Fire

this time without you
is like not breathing
your fire has taken too much oxygen from me
even though you are earth
you beyond consume me
i cannot move i cannot
be
when i am not with you
when your eyes do not move over me
when you are not lulling me to life
with your voice
you overtook me the moment
you suggested
what can i do
but burn for you
you take up my air in swirls
it is so beautiful
to be engulfed
in your fire

Song of the day, "Here With Me" by Dido

Inferno courtesy of Getty Images

For more poetry, click here.

2007-08-07T17:13:00.000-05:00

Restless

evening falls down
restless desire for you
until the morning

Evening of light courtesy of Getty Images

For more evening, click here.

2007-08-05T15:25:00.000-05:00

Embracing Death

The ever beautiful Vesper left a comment on my last post about love, and her post today is partly about death which I am learning to embrace.

My mother was my hero, and if she could die I am not nearly as afraid of death as I was before. I went to my kundalini yoga class today, which was incredible. I have a creative need to work with my chakras, so I am exploring this kind of yoga. Even before I got to the class, I was reading the Yoga Journal, and there was an article about the author sitting along the Ganges watching funeral pyres. I do not want to get into specifics, but I watched my mother die even though I was not there at the moment she left this world. It was an incredible process, and even though it took her away from me (as a body because she will ALWAYS be with me), it is a process I know now and it does not frighten me like it used to. I'm going to die too, and I am looking forward to it because I am sure my mom is going to be sent to take me to the other side and I really want to see her agin.

But in embracing death, we really have to. I saw on a Starbuck's cup of all things a hospice chaplain saying we fight death when death is ultimately going to win. My grandmother told a story about a man who fought death along the beach, down to the ground and won. The minute he went to sleep, guess who the true victor was. There is a line in Tori Amos's song "The Beekeeper," that goes "I am just passing you by girl on my way...but don't be confused one day I'll be coming for you..."

I know...and I have not done a song of the day for awhile--let's pick "The Beekeeper" by Tori Amos.

Grim Reaper courtesy of Getty Images