Lizz Huerta, Mind Of

31 days

2012-01-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of my fast/cleanse/project. I'm pretty damn proud of my myself for following through. So much has slowed. Work is slow. My social life is practically non-existant. I sit in my office daily, drinking tea, reading, contemplating. I usually falter when it comes to committing to myself.

I miss red wine. I miss beer. I miss stinky cheese and smoked wild salmon. Tomorrow, maybe.

Last night I pulled the novel manuscript out of the drawer beside my bed and began looking it over with as critical an eye I could manage. I took a knife to it and began cutting, butchering. Ouch. I have so much to do that needs to be done. The statue inside the block of marble. This time it won't be a waste of time. What helps: looking at the shelves upon shelves I have of books. If they could do it, so can I. Commitment, I has it.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want the novel to be about, the heart of it. I'm pretty sure I know now. It will be a tricky balance telling the story, the mythology without getting too dolphin worship-y, but I can do it.

dragons

2012-01-30T08:21:00.000-08:00

The readings went well. Thursday night was fun, Cecil's piece was crazy. I read a couple of newer poems on Friday night. Funny, I don't write as much poetry anymore. I'm more interested in prose. I've written every day this month. I have a ringed notebook with at least one page for every day filled out. Interesting how much anger I have on those pages. I consider myself a pretty level person, calm under pressure and whatnot; patient to a fault. But there is rage in me. There are dragons.

I feel as though this month has been one of the longest months of my life. Maybe because every day has been clear, no alcohol. Maybe because every day I have been hyper-aware of the food I have been putting into my body. Maybe the meditation. Whatever the case, I'm ready for the month to be over. Not that I'm diving into a jug of booze tomorrow at midnight while I eat a steak slathered in cheesecake, but will have passed the test. I did it and I'm done with it. Little victories. I'l drink less, and my diet will be more plant-based in general. I'm keeping the meditation and daily writing. I'm keeping the limited social life.

Yesterday I participated in a little neighborhood clean-up. Six of us, bags, gloves and tons of cigarette butts and garbage. It was disheartening to see how much trash is on the streets of our city. It was lovely to be a part of something, a small group of people who decided to make a change. And we celebrated with vegan donuts.

a month of mornings

2012-01-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

Not blogging this month so much because I have so much else taking up my mornings. Because of the vegan choice this month, I've had to eat breakfast every day. I have been writing every morning, which has been good for, real, honest journaling. Not that I am dishonest in my journaling practice but realize I have spent a lot of time writing and contemplating the external over the internal.

Not drinking these last 21 days has been interesting , quieting. M social life has come to a standstill. I wake up awake and alert every morning. It isn't that I drink a lot, I like a glass of wine in the evening and I have drinks on the weekends when I go out. But when I do have 2 drinks or more I don't sleep as well and my mornings are crankier. I've lost some weight without alcohol, and with the vegan experiment too, I'm sure. I have to remind myself to eat constantly; dates, nuts, hummus, avocados, to keep my blood sugar up or I get dizzy and black spots in my vision when I get up. It has been a learning process.

This whole month has been interesting, introspective. I have been spending a lot of time alone. I'm rearranging furniture, getting rid of things I don't need or want anymore. Making space, clearing space.

I went rock climbing last week with REI Outdoor School. It was something I've been wanting to try for a long time. Knowing you want to do something and actually trying to do it are pretty different. I went to the class brash, eager to get up on some rocks and see what I could do. As soon as I was on the cliff, harnessed, clipped in and hanging fifty feet in the air, my feet pressed into the stone, fingers grasping at tiny crevices for purchase, I was singing a different tune. I remember the first two ascents I was yelling at myself in my mind: Damn it Lizz! What were you thinking? You could have signed up for sea kayaking! But NO! You had to be brave and climb a fucking cliff face! My legs were shaking and I thought I was going to pee myself and ruin the belayer's day. But then, I got over it and loved it. As soon as I stopped bitching at myself I started having a great time. My arms and fingertips ached for days but it was a good ache, the pain of accomplishment.

I have so much I want to accomplish this weekend. I want to reorganize my bookshelves and office. I want to clear out my kitchen cupboards. I want and need to finish editing my piece for VAMP on Thursday and prepare for my reading Friday. But it is raining. And I have 2 books I want to read. I think I'll make the books little rewards. Clear one cupboard, read one chapter, Etc. Baby steps.

ten days in

2012-01-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

Ten days into 2012. Lovely so far, really. No drinking, no meat or animal products and daily meditation. (I say all this at the risk of sounding like Latina Gwyneth, according to Cecil.) I've been active almost every day. The first couple of days were a little rough as I also gave up morning coffee and I was a raging, crying beast until the caffeine headache wore off. I've had a couple of afternoon cups of coffee since then without any problem. My biggest challenge has been fat, but I've been eating avocados and nuts daily.

New Year's Eve was many, many things. I'm still not sure what to make of it. I was less sober than I have been in years. My hangover the next day was one of the most brutal ever but I was actually happy to be suffering so, as it gave me impetus to not drink the month of January.

Vegan has been good as well. Im' a great cook so I haven't been suffering at all. I don't really eat that much meat to begin with. I eat a lot of fish and some dairy. A few times I've had cravings for something hearty to sink my teeth into, I've chosen eggplants over meat. Not drinking coffee automatically killed my number one dairy consumption of the day, cream in my coffee.

I'm trying new things this month. I went with Cecil to Tijuana on Friday night, on our bicycles and we rode Paseo de Todos, a monthly community bicycle ride. I had a great time. We rode around in a group for hours. We rode home around 1am. Tijuana has changed so much since my younger days of partying there. It holds little allure for me now, though I've heard there is a great nightlife still.

The meditation, as always, is wonderful. I love the silence. I'm on a clutter-clearing path, clearing out old things in my home. I've cleaned my apartment beautifully. Next I'll clean out my closets and cupboards. Onwards, upwards. I have too much junk holding me back.

A couple of readings this month. I'l be reading with So Say We All again on Thursday January 27 at the Whistlestop Bar for V.A.M.P. My piece is short. The phenomenal Cecil will be reading as well. I'm also reading the next evening at Voz Alta. I'm reading with Bonafide Rojas, a poet I've known since 2002, he's from a New York, a very cool guy. I'm also reading with a couple of local writers, Ted Washington and Stacy Dyson. It will be a good night I look forward to reading poetry, it has been too long. Tomorrow I'm sending out my full-length poetry manuscript to a contest.

2011

2011-12-31T09:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of the year.

My highlights:

Getting healthy. This last year I made a commitment to my health that has changed everything. I exercise regularly which has changed everything. My body is strong and healthy. I've gotten over insomnia for the most part and am happy with how I feel physically.

Meditating. Going into silence in the morning has centered me.

Starting and finishing the first draft of a novel that I've wanted to write has been a great accomplishment.

Work. I love what I do for a living and I've become more dedicated to it and have really built a name for myself and the unique skill set I have.

My favorite moments of the year:

My sister Deanna's engagement to a wonderful man who makes her happy. I am overjoyed for her joy. I love the man she is going to marry, he has a great family, he and his family fit right in to ours.

A night last Winter when Love and I were still together. We went out to a bar with a friend of his and on the way home we were singing loudly in the car to Stevie Wonder. It was silly and beautiful and one of the best moments of our relationship. Despite how things ended I am happy I was able to share brilliant little moments like that with someone I loved deeply.

The first wave I ever surfed. Feeling the ocean beneath me as I rode in was exhilarating beyond belief.

There were hard parts of the year, lots of grief but you can't have the good without the bad.

I look forward to 2012. I have no idea what it will bring but I look forward to looking back.

the spoils of a year

2011-12-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

The end of the year is almost here and I always, most likely like everyone else, go into a period of contemplation. Actually, I lie. I've been in a period of contemplation for a while now. I go into myself, often broodingly but I enjoy the brooding. I consider it a hibernation, the incubation before a period of growth.

Looking back on the year I have much to be proud of. My body is strong, stronger than it has ever been before. I enjoy my regiment of exercise and training. I finished the first draft of my novel, something I've been wanting to do my entire life. I sent out my poetry manuscript consistently. I began teaching. I have a meditation practice, something that I haven't been able to maintain in the past. I'm more centered than I have been in a long while. I have good friends who challenge me intellectually and who make me laugh. My life is not at all boring. I have a phenomenal family, I love them more than anything and I live in constant state of gratitude for them; they are at the center of me, my everything, my base.

My challenges were not easy challenges this last year but for the most part I handled them with grace, I think. There were a few moments I am not proud of but looking back I can honestly say I was driven to my rage by actions that were not at all honorable, my reactions were honest and valid; the situations that enraged me were ones wherein I discovered dishonesty. Lessons learned; my gut feeling, intuition, doesn't lie.

I don't have big plans to bring in the New Year. I don't really care about the false celebration. Amateur night. Forced joy. Looking at the weather report for the weekend I see it is supposed to be 80 degrees on New Year's Day. I'd rather go to sleep at a decent hour then wake up early and ride my bike through the streets of what will surely be a deserted city. I don't want to waste a day of sunshine on sleep, or waste an evening of sleep on jostling and crowds. Solitude may be in order, as much as I know that will disappoint a few people who want to go out with me. I enjoy choosing solitude.

I am planning on not drinking the entire month of January. Not that I am an imbiber, but I do usually have a glass of red wine nightly. I want a month of no booze on my system. I also intend to do a vegan month. We'll see. I'm sure I can do it. I have the cooking skills to eat well whenever I want and sacrifice is a good practice, especially where health is concerned.

All in all, moving forward.

at hardest angle

2011-12-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

Oh Winter solstice! Hurry up and come! The darker days get me in the doldrums but I'm managing it rather well with exercise and meditation with year. Still, malaise has been showing up and dumping on my head. 'Tis the season.

This week will be very interesting, no doubt. My cousin gets married on Friday so the entire family is in town. The last time we were all together was in May 2010 when my grandfather died. My favorite cousins are all in town. And my good friend Andy is in town, sleeping in my guest room as I write this. I will have no home solitude until for at least a week. Kind of chaotic but I don't mind. I love my family. I love my friends.

I've decided to start the New Year off clean. No drinking for one month and I also will have a vegan month. And lots of working out. We will see. I haven't taken a break from drinking since early 2008. I sound like a have a problem but really I'm a weekend drinker. But I want to give my body a break. Just to see what happens.

Big plans coming up. I'm pretty damn happy with all that's going on with my writing and my creative life. I am surrounded these days by invigorating people.

to obsess, ripen

2011-12-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

Once, a long time ago, a nutritionist called me a mono-eater. A mono-eater makes a meal out of just one food at a time. For example: just apples, or just kale, or a just hunk of cheese. I do tend to mono-eat at times, I have a weird bit of obsessiveness to me. I'l also listen to the same song over and over again, or read the same book. These days in my meditations I am obsessed with Rilke. Of course, anyone who knows me or had read my blog for any length at time knows I have been and probably always while be a Rilke-fanatic. (Just realized that ex-Love has my copy of Rilke's letter to Lou. Shit. Shit. Shit.) Anyway, lately the poems collected in the Book of Hours are just screaming to me. I had a night of very intense dreams last night. I felt as if though I were awake and watching myself go through a series of challenges. Very odd. I actually sent away some recurring dream characters and told them not to come back. This morning when I woke up, before I meditated I opened up The Book of Hours and this was the poem on the page:

I am, you anxious one.

Don't you sense me, ready to break

into being at your touch?

My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.

Can't you see me standing before you

cloaked in stillness?

Hasn't my longing ripened in you

from the beginning

as fruit ripens on a branch?

I am the dream you are dreaming.

When you want to awaken, I am that wanting.

I grow strong in the beauty you behold.

And with the silence of stars I enfold

your cities make by time.

I,19

Exquisite. This whole process of being a writer and going into my writing practice with more seriousness is an intense one. Rilke's images and ideas of "ripening" really do resonate. Everything is there. I am the fruit. I am part of the tree. I am ripening. Can't rush fruit, green fruit is almost always inedible and bad for digestion. My book is very much green fruit at this stage but the elements are there. I've been slowly reading through it, letting it soak through me. There is a lot of pruning to be done, lots of shaping and fertilizing. So it goes.

The weather has been unseasonably cold. It gets down to the thirties at night, which is pretty damn frigid for San Diego. I had to cover my orchids last night so the frost wouldn't kill them. I'm a wuss about the cold. I bundle up in layers and try not to leave the house. I have plans tonight with the boys so I'm already planning what I'm going to wear. I'm happy I never got rid of the thick winter coat I bought during my winter in Switzerland.

I love mornings.

the knowing comes

2011-12-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

Insomnia returned to me last night for the first time in months but it wasn't a roving, anxious sleeplessness. No, it was more a contemplative one wherein I got up, poured myself a glass of red wine (these days for casual imbibing I am enamored of Cocobon), and took Rilke off the shelf for meditation. And as always, I read what I needed to read. This is what I opened to, from The Book of Monastic Life, in Rilke's Book of Hours:

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that's wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a gravesite

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots

embrace:

a dream once lost

among sorrow and songs.

I,5

The first stanza is the one that resonated. The end falls flat for me but whatever, I still love the punch of the piece.

Anyway, I stayed up readying Rilke and another poem shot out at me and will find itself in a key part of my novel, or more appropriately described, it is the epitaph of an emotion, whether it appears in the pages or not. It is an old emotion, an old story, retold. Interesting how in my recent study of mythology I'm seeing how many stories are the same, just re-imagined and reshaped. I'm taking from these stories: selecting fruit from one, a rib from another, forming from dust, breathing life into.

Write, delete. Write, delete. I write so much more in my drafts of these blog posts than I allow myself to admit or publish.

Things are moving along. I want to shout: Look at me! I'm healthy! I am. I have a busy week ahead of me. My days have become so busy. Late last night I found out I have friends coming to town later this week and I offered thme my guest room. I'm looking forward to their smiling faces. Teaching tomorrow night, I am looking forward to the kids, I love them. My life is lovely.

Also, one of the funniest, BEST compliments ever this weekend. You smile like a jaguar.

fulfill your destiny

2011-12-03T09:15:00.001-08:00

I could quote Star Wars all day long. It was on last weekend but for the first time in many many moons I chose not to watch it. Take from that what you will, only one of you will be right.

I finished NaNoWriMo. First draft of novel: complete. I ended on a really tense note, so tense in fact, that while I was writing it Cecil called and I jumped and screamed when the phone rang. I love the book, I do. Now I'm going to rewrite it completely because that is what writers do. I learned a lot about the world I was writing about, er, creating. I have notes for myself all over the place, next to my bed, in my purse, in my car. I was (and am) constantly working out the way the world began, the development of characters, political history, plot points. What a process. I trust myself. I trust myself.

I have been dreaming my book a lot, which is very strange and wonderful. I dream about one of the worlds I created, though really, I believe I based the world off of the place I consistently visit when I dream. I was there again last night, looking out the window of a room I was staying in and I saw one of the places I wrote into my novel and one of the creatures as well.

Last night I went to see Luis Urrea read at Warwicks in La Jolla. I met Luis and his awesome wife Cindy a couple of years ago at a Writer's Conference and we all hit it off. We tweet back and forth at each other consistently. I'm pretty damn excited to read his new book Queen of America as I loved The Hummingbird's Daughter. I did 't get to chat much with Luis as he was super busy but I had some time with his wife who is pretty much a super-smart, ass-kicking woman. I love super-smart, ass-kicking women. I think they are the best women ever.

So much to do. I found this quote on a notecard while cleaning my desk. From Rilke, of course. I wonder what it meant to me when I wrote it down. My writing is cramped and I was pressing the tip of the pen hard into the paper. Finding old writing, notes and such is a practice in emotional archeology.

Be modest now, like a thing

ripened until it is real,

so that he who began it all

can feel you when he reaches for you.

II, I.

magnificent beast

2011-11-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

There is a character in my novel who hasn't made an appearance yet but he is pivotal to everything. I've been trying to figure out how to introduce him and I've been procrastinating on how to best get him into the action. He has decided he is sick of waiting for me and therefore has stared showing up in my dreams every night. What a magnificent beast. This may sound incredibly cheesy but I see him and I get chills. He is awesome. He made his first appearance in my dreams a few nights ago. He's showed up again, peripherally, but wow.

Almost done with 50,000 words. I will get there between today and tomorrow. My week is busy with work, distractions, obligations and friends. I've gotten up early the last two days to have a couple of solid hours to myself to meditate and write before the phone starts ringing and the day gets her claws into me. I love mornings. I love that as I write this the sun hasn't come up but when I look out the East-facing window next my desk, there are clouds whose backs are gray with pink bellies as we turn toward the sun for the day. The weather has been gorgeous lately.

The interesting thing about the draft of this novel is that it is nothing like the story I will end up telling. I'm exploring my characters and the world they inhabit. But more and more the plot keeps shifting in my head to something else, the world keeps transforming and I have to make notes to myself about what makes sense. (HOLY SHIT! The Eastern sky is fuchsia with electric blue trails of clouds bisecting it. I have to stop and watch the sunrise before I can write anymore. . . I'm back, no wonder so many culture worshipped the sun, with entrances like that it is almost impossible to believe the sun isn't a divine being. ) Anyway, my story is evolving. I have to make some difficult choices about the belief system of the world I'm in and see how dark I want to go. In theory, this is an young adult novel and I have to weigh in my heart what is and isn't appropriate. I'm not writing with the intention of wondering if what I have is publishable, but I want a story that is good, without too many elements of the horrific that have been threatening to creep in.

What a strange life I have at times. I'm not complaining but at times I'm baffled. Whatever, I'll ride it and enjoy it.

I woke up with this song in my head.

the sun is my enemy

2011-11-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

Oh me! Today is supposed to be a writing day. I've spent the last two days cooking. Wednesday night I had a dinner party with friends and I cooked all day that day and did a lot of prepping for my cooking yesterday. I wrote a little because I was so busy. Wednesday night ended rather well, if you count four very drunk people dancing to Prince as a good way to end a night. But yesterday was a hangover day. And I was cooking a lot. I wrote not a word. I ate well, had a blast with family and slept early.

I want to write today but the sun is out and it is fucking gorgeous outside. Not that it isn't usually beautiful here in San Diego but today the sun is calling me. I know Sunday is supposed to be sunny and warm too but I want sunshine todaaay!! Novel or sunshine? Sunshine may win but I'll take a notebook.

themes, considerations

2011-11-22T07:44:00.001-08:00

I have so many ideas for this damn novel and the trilogy it is a part of. My mind is constantly on it, thinking, wondering about what my characters are going through. I have a couple of characters I'm not sure about. I think they have the wrong intentions and may end up not as bad people, but as people who think they're right and blindly act, which is often worse than being just "bad."

I've made the choice not to read or listen to any fiction while working on the first draft of the book so that I'm not subconsciously taking ideas or plots from whatever I'm reading. But of course my lifelong reading habit is informing my work. I have so many traces of legend, fairy tale, moral story and personal history already tied up in it. I'm struggling with the mythology, the specific mythology of the world I've created. I've been listening to an audiobook on mythology and have many thoughts but am still struggling. It will happen. I think the biggest thing I've learned through this process is that I have to trust myself. I've been writing and reading my entire life. Even if I don't know where the story is going right now, I know where it ends and I have a lifetime of stories in me and imagining to help me get there.

In other news, pretty fucking healthy these days. I wouldn't say I'm a gym rat, but I love exercising. I think I may be addicted to the endorphins and even more addicted to how my legs looks in the very tiny mini skirts I've started wearing.

the writing comes in waves

2011-11-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

I am still writing my novel. Kind of impressed. Kind of shocked. I see now how long this project is going to be. The book won't end at 50,000 words but I'm happy with what I have so far. I contradict myself all over the place as the plot keeps shifting and changing as I write. Evolution is good. Yesterday I was rereading my old chapbook Half Life of Memory and I was reminded of the language I love. I've been so interested in story and character that I've abandoned language. So it goes, there will be other drafts, I'm sure. I would never show anyone this draft. Ugh.

The book should be a nice salve against the holidays. Gloom! Get thee away! I'll go shopping today for what I will cook for Thursday. Cecil will join the Huertas. It will be a small affair compared to last year. And then I will come back to my book and write.

This week has one of my favorite nights of the year, Wednesday night at the Whistle Stop is wonderful. Everyone who has come to town for Thanksgiving shows up there and there is a huge reunion of sorts.

I've been spending time with writer friends who are completely invigorating. And hilarious, brilliant and wild. I've needed this for such a long time. Creative, intelligent people without any pretension or bullshit. We eat. We drink. We go on adventures. No judgement or drama. Pretty fucking awesome. I feel like a kid again at time, that wild abandon taking me over and propelling me forward but I enjoy it more as an adult because I'm over deconstructing my joy in my mind. Joy is rare enough in life without having to break it down and interrogate it.

This weekend I met up with some friends and a woman said "Oh look, I'm wearing the Lizz Huerta look, tight pants and knee-high boots!" And I've converted quite a few people to drinking "my drink." Tequila reposado, usually Corralejo, with three olives. Perfect amount of salt to it. Try it. You may love it.

I want to be as ass-kicking as P.J. Harvey in this video. She has the dream swagger.

the mind, undressed, redressed

2011-11-17T07:58:00.001-08:00

I've been experimenting with my own form of Mind Hacking; using tricks to make my brain work harder for me. I'm pretty damn impressed with the results. I know the subconscious is powerful, dangerously so and for years I've worked on unraveling old, unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors. Meditation helps, as do affirmations and the like. Setting intentions for myself. I've had a lot of conversations lately about the power of our minds. Setting small goals then rewarding myself.

As I've been working on the novel I've decided to try a different approach. The novel takes place in a fantasy world very loosely based on a time period in world history, a civilization I'm slightly fascinated with. I don't want the book to be about the civilization but the architecture, art and the spiritual practices of some of the characters are indeed informed by it. Before I go to bed at night I've been watching documentaries on said civilization. I've actually watched a couple more than once. I do that so those images and ideas are the last things I see before I go to sleep. I know my brain is processing the ideas and life and then they transform and show up in my writing in the morning! They actually show up in my dreams too.

Since they've been showing up in my dreams I've decided to try something different as well. I'm a big fan of Glenn Harrold's hyponosis recordings. I've been listening to them for years. They work. Don't judge me. I downloaded a hypnosis on Lucid Dreaming and have been listening to it as I fall asleep. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Hear ye, oh skeptics, this shit works. I am kind of in shock. I listen before I go to sleep, with the intention of figuring out plot points and such for the novel. My mind is blown. Ideas and plots just show up,literally. In this particular hypnosis (I think of more as a guided meditation), there is a part wherein the listener is guided to a garden. In that garden my characters are waiting for me, telling me what's happening to them, their histories and what they're feeling. I know it sounds like I've turned into a hocus-pocus, dolphin-worshipping, crystal gazing, wide-eyed talker but those of you who know me know I'm not. I'm still an ass-kicker. With awesome dreams.

This song is on my novel-writing playlist.

writing, living, the rest

2011-11-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

Deep in the novel. At a point where I have to make a choice and he choice hasn't come to me yet so I've been dancing around it. So it goes, it will come.

Lovely weekend. Yesterday Cecil and I hiked into the Laguna Mountains to see the Tree Ring play. Pictures posted.

eleven eleven

2011-11-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

A little raw this morning. I watched the football game last night with friends at a bar down the street from where I live and I had three beers and a shot of bourbon and ouuuuch. I haven't been drinking anything but wine and beer lately. And I didn't eat last night so all around bad news. I'm a little bummed at myself, I wanted to get up and write today but the hammers in my head won't let me.

Listening to 11:11 by Rufus Wainwright on repeat this morning, his voice and this song open me up a little where I've been closing up. Today I imagine grief as a body of water, most of me has come out of it but my feet are still wet. I don't notice most of the times but then I do and yeah, fucking grief.

Having a song on repeat reminds me of something I witnessed and was a part of a couple of months ago. Love and I were at the end of things, tensions were high and we were both emotionally exhausted. We went to get a slice of pizza at a local spot, next door to a flower shop. The flower shop is one I've bought flowers from for years, run by really nice Mexican guys. Love and I were sitting outside eating pizza and I noticed whoever was working at the flower shop had the same song no repeat, Paloma Negra, an absolutely heartbreaking song about the singer trying to get over a broken heart. I tried to explain the lyrics to Love but couldn't translate them correctly, they were hitting a little too close to home and I couldn't even eat my pizza. When we got up to leave I dipped my head into the flower shop to say hello to whoever was working and I saw the man inside was crying his eyes out in silence. He saw me and was embarrassed, I was embarrassed that I had walked in on such an emotionally raw moment for him. We stammered through fake pleasantries and then I rejoined Love and we went home, our own grief making our attempts at conversation awkward and obtuse. I thought about that poor man crying in the flower shop all night. How no matter how we are wounded in love and life we always go back for more.

Oh hangover philosophy, thou art a bastard. I have high hopes for writing this weekend. My novel is dragging at some points but the point is that I am on point in writing. I like my main character a lot, she has so much to learn, most of all to trust herself. I'm teaching her that as I am learning it for myself.

the watchers

2011-11-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

I've been working on my novel every day. I love this. I wake up between 4am and 5am, make a cup of coffee and sit at the computer. I've realized this is the only time of day I'm not disturbed by the phone ringing or by the details of my day pressing in on me. I love watching the sky outside the window go from dark blue to the pale white of morning. And, I love my book. CRAZY! This is a story that has been inside of me for a while, I haven't even been aware of how much I was carrying until I began to set it on to to the page. I have so much learning to do, just like my character. I have so much creating to do but I'm doing it and doing it well. I come to the blank page very morning with confidence. I look to the right of my desk where there are hundreds of books on the bookshelves and think to myself If they could do it so can I.

Over and around my desk I have a collection of dolls and masks. Not creepy dolls that you buy on home shopping networks, but hand-sewn dolls I bought in Mexico about ten years ago. There are several masks from different places in my travels and a few other pieces of art that speak to me This morning as I was struggling with words I looked up and it was almost as if all these dolls and masks were watching me, and I was noticing for the first time. Kind of creepy, but also inspiring. Everything above my desk was made by creative hands, painters, artists, carvers, those who had a gift they wanted to share and I have their gifts over me as I work on mine. I especially love an Aboriginal painting my -boyfriend brought me from Australia. It is of a creation myth, something the artist learned in Dreaming, about the creation of women. And HELLO! Writing about that just helped me figure out a plot point I've been chewing on. Man, I am fucking brilliant sometimes.

My life is quiet these days, routine and lovely. I wake up early, write then go to work. In the afternoons I exercise, make dinner and in the evening I sit around in quiet contemplation, with a glass of red wine and dark chocolate. I go to bed early, thinking about my novel and the characters, the myths they are a part of. I dream deeply, no insomnia or tension in me and when the alarm goes off I'm ready to write.

Last night in my dreams I revisited my recent past and saw had I continued on the same trajectory nothing would have changed and the unclaimed, un-named pain in me would still be manifesting itself through insomnia, eczema, TMJ; all the ways my body was telling me I was suffering needlessly. And yet, nostalgia is a beast and there is one little beast in particular I miss. But, onwards and upwards, and strangely enough, joyfully.

I've started teaching creative writing to teenagers with a couple of friends. Wow. I want to cry after each class because the students are so amazing. They're smart, sharp, funny and they slay me with what they write. Last night I had them write love letters to themselves. Then, if they wanted to, they could read them aloud. Some of the things the kids wrote floored me, I had to admonish myself not to cry, remind myself that I'm not some cheesy teacher in a made-for-tv movie who is saving their lives. But, wow. We're teaching in a homeless shelter downtown, all of the students live there. They are so fucking cool, these kids. So smart. When I leave I'm high from their energy and my face hurts from smiling. As tired as I am after work I can't wait to get to them and see what they have to share.

Loving Andrea Echeverri's new album, Dos. I've always loved her and silly as this may sound, I feel like I've been growing up along with her. In my earlier years of listening to her music, both she and the music and I had sharp edges, were a little aggressive but fun. Now we've all mellowed out and are more in a state of peace with ourselves.

writing it out

2011-11-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

Today is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. I signed up and this morning I woke up at 5am and wrote 1,817 words. Not a bad start! I'm working on the fantasy novel. I have a shit-ton outlined but this morning I just let it go and let my mind take me where it wanted to go. My opening scene is different from what I thought it would be but I'm just going to let it happen. Im going to try to write more when I get home from work, get a jump-start on the word count.

Halloween weekend was good. I went to a party Saturday night and had a lovely time. I had a few great conversations, not just drunk banter/small talk. Good conversations are refreshing and necessary for me, for any sort of friendship.

the water table

2011-10-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

I found another poem this morning. I wrote it in April. Not too shabby. I love finding old pieces of writing that I've lost emotional attachment to; not to say emotion isn't there, but the drive or push to write it has disappeared and I'm left with the artifact of emotion. Oh beloved little scratches on a page! I love you, sweet detritus.

Keeping extraordinarily busy. Being an adult. Kind of weird. I'm living well these days. (I wish you could see the sky from my window right now and how the undersides of the clouds are a peachy-pink and the tops gloomy., Fucking beautiful.) I'm moved quickly into my old self, social. Stepping into the swagger.

Here is the piece I read at V.A.M.P. for Say Say We All last month, "The Game." And another song I dig.

I fill my mouth with water

2011-10-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Last night before bed I was digging around under my bed and I found a handwritten poem. I don't remember writing it but I must have, in the last year and a half or so. I remember one line, I remember writing the one line and immediately after I started crying and cried a good, hard cry. Reading the poem last night I had forgotten the why or how of it came to me but the emotion is there, the duende. Next to the first few lines I annotated the meter, which is very strange since I rarely ever count out the meter. I must have gone into the writing with the intention of form, the first few lines are in iambic pentameter; maybe an attempt at a sonnet? Regardless, there are parts of the poem that are fucking gorgeous, getting my mouth around them is sweet. It makes me want to write more. The ending is a lament, I almost want to go to my knees when I read it. I kind of don't want to edit it, but I will. There is a part in the middle I don't at all like but it was the gate to getting to the line I love, to the end.

I had dreams last night that left me contemplative. I suppose this is called turning the corner, seeing the light; all those cliches that attempt to assuage the mucky walk that is moving on. I am somehow reminded of the different sacrifices in the bible and ways of penance. Sackcloth and ashes. Blood offerings. Burnt offerings. How different animals were opened for different sins. I can make lists of what I have sacrificed, maybe I will. Could be the basis for some poems. Perhaps, perhaps.

I may sound morose but really, I'm not. Contemplation is different from sadness. I think the two can be confused, and of course there are times when they are dancing a moribund waltz on one's heart, but it isn't always a bad thing. Aristotle said contemplation is the highest form of human activity. Get thee to thinking! And being.

And listen to this song. I love Andrea Echeverri.

whoa to the whoa

2011-10-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

In the swing of things, once again. I've been keeping myself social, spending time with those who stimulate my mind. I'm laughing a lot, singing a lot. I'm sleeping through the night and feel energized. My blues show up mostly in the morning, briefly, and sharply in the few moments before I fall asleep. But, out of a 24 hour day, that isn't bad at all.

Vermin on the Mount was awesome Saturday night. Great line-up of readers. I was pretty damn proud to be a part of the line-up. I left energized and full of awesome.

Last night was Literary Death Match. I competed in one a year and a half ago. Last night's readers were brilliant. I forget how many talented people there are, since they tend to stay home and write. The judges cracked me up, I laughed belly laughs. I met a couple of writers I look forward to getting to know better. I also started a conversation with a friend about a great plan for the near-ish future and we're both very excited about it. We're meeting tomorrow night to start on the details.

All in all, all is well.

Considering NaNoWriMo

homeward bound

2011-10-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last morning here in Sayulita. I spent a couple of hours on the beach early this morning, watching the surfers and beach dogs. The tide was high. A storm was out over the Pacific but the sky over the beach was clear.

Heading to the airport in about an hour for an afternoon flight. A part of me is ready to go home, to sleep in my own bed, see my family and get back into the rhythm of things. Another part of me dreads walking into my apartment. I did a lot of cleaning before I left so I'll go home to a clean place, washed sheets. Scrubbed of memory too. No food. Flowers dying in the vase.

In my dreams last night I was underwater. I kept waking up after intense dreams and looking out the window. My dreams were near the surface of my emotional consciousness, everything going on in my life appearing and mutating into strange visions. I didn't sleep well at all and I'm in a little bit of a daze this morning. A brick of sadness sat in my belly this morning. Part vacation ennui, part other.

I'm excited to read tomorrow night at Vermin on the Mount. Vermin readings are always awesome casts of great writers/readers. The audience is always engaging and smart. I know a lot of very cool people who will be there, a lot of the So Say We All Crowd. The host's wife Nuvia is a soul-mate-friend of mine.

The best part of this trip has been discovering that Cecil and I are great travel partners. I like to travel alone since I always have a hard time playing nice with others when I'm on the road. Cecil and I laugh a lot and talk a lot of shit to each other. We bicker and snap at each other but neither one of holds on to any of the little arguments. Now I know I have a travel partner, if I want one. Neither one of us sweat small things, nor do we feel the need to be spenders whilst traveling. A very good thing.

Coming home a little damaged. forgot to put sunscreen on my face yesterday for the first time ever, and I suffered a little sunburn on my nose and cheeks. It didn't hurt but I was red and am now a little toastier than before. Last night I also forgot to put on mosquito repellant and I was a feast for the bloodsuckers. And they alway go for the parts that are not so nice to scratch, knuckles, booty, elbows. The bastards.

doing fine

2011-10-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've settled into the rhythm here in Sayulita. It took a few days as we were concerned and slightly on edge about the hurricane, which never arrived. Yesterday the arms of the storm reached the town late in the day and we had a good drenching. Everything shut down, we stayed in the hotel, writing and reading in the inner courtyard, windows open. Now I'm just in the being, letting the day happen without expectation. I'll swim today, get sun, drink beer, read.

This morning we woke up early, got coffee and sat on a log the beach. The sun finally broke through the clouds and it was idyllic. I sat on a log on the beach late yesterday afternoon as well, watching the ocean. The sea calms me, always has. I try to lock the peace into me, hold on to the moment so that when I'm frenzied I can revisit it. In the breaking waves large fish were chasing smaller fish. Pelicans sailed over the waves, skimming the water for a meal. High overhead frigates circled. I love the shape of flying frigates, black angles turning on the currents. I was surprised how empty the beach was while we were there. Except for a few surfers and workers setting up beach chairs, it was empty. If I lived his close to the beach I would spend as much time there as possible.

I haven't brushed my hair since Monday and it has reverted to curls. I rarely let my hair go natural. It looks good, away from a hair brush and taming. Vanity is a strange thing. I don't think too much about how I look and feel awkward taking pictures. But I know later in life I'll want a record. I prefer to feel good. I look forward to getting back to the gym this weekend, challenging my body.

I haven't done much writing but I've done a lot of contemplating. Good and uncomfortable contemplating. I'm in the middle of a sea change, the waves come and go as I look to what's next in my life. I have to relearn the whole being in the moment. I think too much at times, get too wrapped up in what if. The questions, I have to remind myself, are more interesting than the answers.

My dreams have been more intense here in Mexico, as they always are. More vibrant and meaningful. I go again and again to the same place in my dreams, the same landscape but the emotions have been stronger.

Ex-pat towns are always odd. People who live in another country but choose to isolate themselves in a community that has little to do with immersing oneself in the culture. Why move to another country if you don't like the people and don't want to learn the language? Yesterday Cecil snapped at a man who didn't even know how to say the name of the town we're in.

I'm reading Saturday night at Vermin on the Mount. I've not decided what I'm going to read. I have options, and am leaning toward a short fiction piece. I'm billed as a poet, which I am but I haven't written much poetry the last year. I've tried to go into storytelling. I'm contemplating reading a short story I started on Mexico a year and ago. I started it because of a song I heard sung by a family member. I have an idea for a novella based on my favorite Mexican songs.

Tonight we'll be the only guests in the hotel. I don't think either of us mind as we have isolated ourselves. I don't feel particularly social and don't feel like engaging in vacation conversation. I haven't taken many pictures, I rarely do. I don't travel to being home souvenirs or photographs, I travel to get into myself away from what I'm used to. My experiences on this trip haven't been anything extraordinary but I'm enjoying the pace of it. The days are long and slow. Heading home tomorrow. I have a little acid in my stomach over it.

the storm that never was

2011-10-12T07:24:00.001-07:00

In Mexico, I've been here almost a week. Right now I'm in Sayulita, a beach town in Nayarit. A hurricane was supposed to hit last night but didn't. I waited up until I couldn't then slept. When I woke up the town was wet. I don't if the storm fizzled out or if it went somewhere else. I got the beginning of a poem out of it. Waiting for something that will change the landscape and it never arrives, or when it does, you don't notice.

I was coming to Mexico to spend some days (after another trip to the ranch) alone, on the beach, writing and getting back to myself. The day before I left my friend Cecil decided to come with me and I'm super glad he did. We've been friends for a long time. Our friendship has been through a lot, bad things I did back in the day, bad shit he did back in the day. I think that out of all of my friends he is the one I am able to be most honest with since we have no romantic history, no possibility of romantic future and we know way too much about each other. I think he knows more about me than anyone else alive on the planet and he regularly calls me out on my bullshit, which I appreciate. We don't judge each other. We have similar traveling styles and attitudes so the trip has been very laid back so far.

There have been adventures. We went to the ranch for the annual Festival de la Virgen. The village parties were lovely. This year the festival was slightly bigger, with carnival rides. There was more of a police presence than last year, probably because of the shooting last year but it was pretty calm. Great big crowds of men gather at the edge of the dance floor (basketball court) and swig beer after beer. Cecil and I set up lawn chairs in the back of my grandmother’s truck so that we could have a good view. The first night after we went to bed masked gunmen showed up and the entire town shut down rather quickly, not surprisingly.

Village life is pretty damn interesting, the relationships are complicated because everyone is very much related. Our family is especially complicated since my paternal grandfather had so many children. 52 live births with 38 of those still living. Three out of the six women he had all those children with live in the village, which isn’t very big. Fifty years after the fact those three women still don’t like to be near each other, but all of their kids are friends. People gossip non-stop. A women will walk by and my grandmother will tell me of how that women slighted her 60 years ago.

I love the pace of life at the ranch. Everything slows down. The first night is always rough, getting used to the constant flow of people, how laid back everything is. I always get a little frantic, wondering how I’m going to fill my days then at some point something in me turns off and I relax into the rhythm of it. The children in town are awesome, none of them are bratty. They all are independent, respectful and creative. They don’t have the distractions of television and computers. They don’t have schedules or strict rules about what they can or cannot do. There are no play dates. I worry that things are going to change quickly. Already everyone has cell phones. They have facebook accounts they access from school. Soon internet services will be available in town and the way of life will disappear.

The town we're in is a surf spot, filled with a lot of ex-pats. Having lived in an ex-pat Mexican town before I recognize certain archetypes, hustlers, escapees. The weather has limited our beach time but we swam in the ocean yesterday. Our hotel has a large patio outside our room where the other guests gather to chat and eat. I'm not feeling especially social these days so I haven't interacted much. We have two more days here before heading back and I'm not sure what we'll do. The outer arms of the storm have the sky clouded, rain comes and goes. I'll try to get some novel writing down, maybe. Or I'll just keep sitting on the balcony, watch the rain and think too much.

love, surprises, spnning

2011-10-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

Happy 30th birthday to my sweet sister Deanna. My earliest memory is being taken to the hospital to meet her. I was two and a half. I remember my aunt lifting me up to the nursery window and pointing the baby out and saying "That's your sister!" I couldn't figure out which baby she was. I remember my parents bringing her home and how excited I was for her to be old enough to play with me. I would ask my mom every day "Can she play with me today?" We grew up pretty close, even though we fought all of the time. I loved being a big sister and having someone I could experiment on. I was always making her eat weird concoctions I made. I always invented elaborate games for us to play, based on books I was reading. I specifically remember making her play Becky to my Sara while I was reading The Little Princess. Our youngest sister arrived six years after Deanna. We're all very close. I was able to spend a lot of time with both of them this weekend.

Saturday night we had a big surprise party planned for Deanna. We flew in a bunch of her close friends from the Bay Area and rented part of a ballroom on a harbor dinner cruise. All of us arrived at the boat to pre-board and waited on the top deck. Deanna her her boyfriend Matt boarded a while later and came up to the top deck where all of us shouted "Surprise!" She was super surprised and cried like a baby. he was especially thrilled to see all of her college friends as she rarely gets to see them and they''re really close.

During dinner my sister and Matt disappeared for a little while. When they came back to the ballroom they went to talk to my parents and the screaming started. Mat had taken Deanna to the top deck and proposed to her and she said yes. I cried my eyes out, I was so happy for her. (I also almost punched an elderly relative who came up to me excited and said "Oh Lizz, we thought you'd be the first one to get married!") It was awesome. After the cruise my sisters, Matt, some friends and I went to the Whistlestop to keep drinking and dancing. It was beautiful.

I am so happy for my sister. She has always wanted to get married and have her own family. She and her fiance recently bought a house a few blocks from where I live and I get to see them all of the time. Matt is a great guy, kind, generous and he makes her truly happy. I look forward to having him as a brother-in-law.

I drank too much this weekend. I went out three nights in a row and was not completely sober until yesterday morning. It was one of the strangest weekends I've ever had. The joy of my sister's engagement coupled with the grief of my very recent break-up had my mind all over of the place. My head was spinning. I was overjoyed for my sister then sadness would sucker-punch me in the heart. Life goes on.

done and done

2011-09-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

My reading last night went well. I was part of a line-up of great performers. My sister came out, I love when she comes out to readings. She gets so excited. After I read she came up to to tell me she thought it was the best prose piece she'd ever heard me read. Aww. The she said "It made me laugh, it made me sad, it made me think. Kind of like a Disney movie." Dork. But I was happy she liked it. Cecil showed up with a great piece of chocolate for me. Lizeth Santos of Smile Now Cry Later came by with her husband. I LOVE her music. Go buy her song.

I always get nervous after the fact. I'm fine before a performance. I'm fine during. But after I get the shakes. The weird throat palpitation isn't helping.

I danced a little. Drank a little. I knocked over a stool. I had conversations I didn't want to have. Around 11:30 I walked home alone. I was horribly sad. I slept deeply and had dreams that were comforting and odd.

ready

2011-09-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

My piece for tonight is finally ready. I edited it until right before my rehearsal yesterday and I'm pleased with it. It look many drafts, many line edits, lots of searching the help from a couple of writer friends but it is ready. I read it aloud yesterday for the first time since the first draft and realize there is a musicality to it that I wasn't aware of before. My performance coach asked if it was originally a poem but I said no. She said yes it is, whether you want it to be or not. Fair enough. I've been writing poetry long enough that certain rhythms and patterns are natural to me. I like the piece, a combination of dark and light. I'm going to submit it for publication when the performance is over. I just have to remember to breathe while I'm reading it. Hell, I have to remember to breathe all the time.

I like performing even though I don't do it as often as I should. I'm comfortable in front of a crowd, I'm comfortable sharing my work, intimately personal as it often is. I can honestly say I write for myself and on one else; that is a rare gift. I don't even expect or want to make a living out of writing. I've seen up close how writing for work can stifle an individual's own creative drive and passion. I don't want that to happen to me. I work for a living but I write for myself. Painting feeds my belly while writing feeds everything else.

The last few days a strange heartbeat has moved into my throat. It isn't constant, it comes and goes. It feels almost like panic even though I'm calm. I feel my heart aggressively in my throat, something moving in me.

This song is a heart-wrecker from the first piano chords.

"I fell in love with the burden holding me down."--Wilco

2011-09-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am head over heels for the Wilco song I'm posting at the end of the blog today. I've listened to it on repeat way too many times.

Reading tomorrow night. Working on the final edits for my piece. I'm struggling because I'm writing about something I've wanted to write about for a long time. It is dark but funny. But I don't want the humor to detract from the darkness, and I don't want to dwell on the darkness and forget to laugh. Honor thy shadow or whatever the fuck they say, whoever "they" are. I sent it to a friend yesterday who gave me some good feedback. I'm lucky to have good writer friends who aren't afraid to criticize.

I have an idea for another project, a short short film. I'm going to pitch it to a good friend and see what he thinks. We have a similar sense of humor and I think it could be hilarious. And it would provide a service to a certain segment of the population.

Tuesday and reading

2011-09-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Thursday night at the Whistlestop for V.A.M.P. Come by if you'd like.

This song slays me.

a little joy

2011-09-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

There have been changes in my life recently and I've been dealing with it. Not happily, not peacefully but with my jaw set and with my eyes on a horizon that that keeps receding into the distance. Whatever. I'm an adult, I've dealt with worse. I've been working myself exhausted and surrounding myself with hobbies, distractions and all the rest of the bullshit one delves into during change.

This weekend has been pretty phenomenal and I've been truly happy. Friday night I decided to treat myself to solitary dinner and drinks at Vagabond and lo and behold, someone paid for my meal and all of my drinks. After I went to the Whistlestop and they were playing cumbia. So I danced for hours. I haven't danced like that since I saw Nortec last October. And I love dancing.

Last night my wonderful, dear friend Cecil took me to the Suzie's Farm Autumnal Equinox dinner. Suzie's Far is an organic farm near the Mexican border. I've been there before and I buy their produce at the farmer's market. Pretty cool place run by awesome people. Half of Cecil's diet comes from the farm. They had an idea to make a sunflower maze and host a dinner in the center of it. Holy shit. It was awesome. We went around 5:30, just when the light was perfect and it was so damn beautiful I wanted to cry. Ren shouldered blackbirds were swooping around. Walking through the maze led us to different "rooms" where different drinks and appetizers were being served. Musicians played. At the center of the maze two long tables were set up under white string lights. It was magical, for lack of a better word. The food was good. We sat with a bunch of people from South Park and had pretty good conversations and lots of wine. I was so damn happy I thought my heart would explode and my face hurt from smiling. I forget how surprisingly beautiful the world can be. I forget to look around and appreciate the little things, plants, smiling strangers, birds.

This video is from last night, The Tree Ring performing Dreams Where I Am Sleeping.

the hours they fly

2011-09-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

It often feels like I don't have enough hours in my day. I wake up early, write a bit, work all day, come home, exercise, eat then sleep. What about the me time? I suppose most of it is me time since I'm alone most of the day but I need to figure out who to squeeze in some time to do really nice things for myself.

This is a new goal. Do nice things for Lizz since I tend to do nice things for everyone else and neglect myself. Part of that doing nice things is spending more time submitting my work for publication. I'm a crappy submitter. Often I just have to shut my brain off and not read, not write, not watch television or listen to audiobooks. Usually I cook. Yesterday I crocheted for two hours. New temptations arise. I'm thinking about the ocean a lot and how I want to get back out there and go surfing. Then I look at my to-d0 list and know I should stay home and chip away at it. But the ocean calls.

One of my goals this weekend is to look over the manuscript of my novel. Not the novel of days of yore but the one I started earlier this year. My space above my desk is covered with notes for it and I want to see what it looks like after a couple of months of neglect.

I listened to an audiobook this week that bothered me. I was bothered by the writing, it wasn't very good but the story was compelling enough to keep me interested. And I didn't particularly like the protagonist or any of the characters, I found they fell flat and were more caricatures than fleshed out people I could connect with. But I kept listening. The story was predictable and at times tedious but something, something had me hooked. I don't know what exactly and am annoyed at myself. I think I may have been hooked by the interspersed history as it was a history I was previously unfamiliar with and curious about. I should have just read up on the history instead of wasting 12 hours listening to the hokey thing.

Currently I'm listening to Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Right up my cognitive psychology alley. I read and listen to so many books on the brain, cognitive, behavioral and evolutionary psychology that I may start referring to myself as an armchair neurologist. I'm also starting The Night Circus since reviewers are drooling on themselves over it. And oh! The pile of books on my nightstand is ridiculous to behold. If there is a devastating earthquake one night look for my body beneath the pile of books in my bedroom.

work, sleep, edit, return

2011-09-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

I've battled insomnia for a long time. I'm having the opposite of insomnia these days. I can't stay awake. The last few nights I've gone to bed before 9, last night I barely made it to 8. I sleep deeply, and wake up around 5. I don't really mind but I feel kind of like an old lady. I know my work is pretty physical and my body needs to recover but damn. I'd like to stay up at least until 10.

This week I'm working with an oil-based paint that can only be thinned with turpentine and the horrible acidic stink of it has imbedded itself into my nostrils. Ugh. I think the chemicals are burning brain cells, another reason I need to sleep so early. My brain says "waaaaahh!" I'm not particularly happy at the job site I'm working at this week, I'm actually pretty pissed at how things have transpired. I remind myself I only have to stay at this job site until my job is done. But I am pretty damn poopy pants pissed in the meantime.

I've been thinking about voice a lot and how I have several in my writing and can sway from one to another. In particular, the piece I'm working on now starts off with a particular voice, the darkly comedic narrator voice and evolves more into one of emotional introspection, with a little social justice finger-wagging thrown in. I don't know. I know what I want to say but translating that onto the page is challenging. And this, my friends, in why we have multiple drafts.

restoring

2011-09-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I woke up and decided I wanted to learn how to surf. I called Surf Diva, a surf school specializing in teaching women how to surf and signed up for their weekend clinic. I went to La Jolla Shores, got a board, wetsuit and started. And I loved it. There is something about the ocean that is completely restorative. Being in the water, whether the sea, a swimming pool or a bath, has always calmed me and brought me joy. I loved the weightlessness, the buoyancy, the feeling of at once being out of my element and completely immersed in it. I stood up on my first wave and was thrilled. I caught wave after wave. I crashed a lot and kept going out. I saw dolphins, sea lions and stingrays in the water. It was challenging but wonderful. My lessons lasted two days. At night when I went to bed I was exhausted in the best way. My body ached and I was bruised from where the surfboard had slammed into my body. I'm still bruised. When I was falling asleep those nights after being in the water the memory of the waves was in me and I slept dreaming I was still on the sea, floating. It was sublime. I can't wait to get back into the water.

Before waking this morning I had a dream I was a party. I was bored. I was surrounded by people I know but I had nothing to say to them. In the dream I came home and was sitting on my bed when a pregnant cat jumped through my window. I laid out old towels for her and she gave birth to twelve tiny kittens wrapped in their amniotic sacs. I'm retreating a bit from the world these days, from situations and conversations I'm tired of. Maybe the cat symbolized my creative self, my best self returning to me. Maybe I'm more philosophical before my morning coffee. I have so many stories and projects inside of me waiting to come out. The season is changing from Summer to Fall, I always get restless and nostalgic when the weather changes.

My old roommate and good friend, poet Geoff Bouvier is asleep in my guest room. He's in town for a few days and we had dinner last night. We had some conversations about writing and life that I needed. He reminds me of my best self, the creative, free-spirited artist who takes risks and is rewarded for her bravery. Geoff and I have had some great adventures, crazy shit I look back at and shake my head at, impressed at my bravery and willingness to let go. I'm lucky to have friends like him, soul-mates I don't see very often but when I do they reenergize me. And we laugh. He had me doubled over in laughter. I haven't laughed like that for a long time. I met Geoff when he was judging a poetry contest. I won first place and we met at the award ceremony and reading. I love that Geoff has always loudly supported me and he isn't afraid to yell at me when I need a little ass-kicking. I love friends like that.

I have a couple of readings coming up. Next Thursay, the 29th I'll read a short piece at So Say We All's V.A.M.P. at the Whistlestop. My piece is about a childhood game I played while growing up in Chula Vista. The piece is dark but funny. Something I've been wanting to write about for a long time. On October 15 I'll head up to L.A. to read at Vermin on the Mount. I've read at Vermin before and have always enjoyed the experience. I'm happy to be getting out there again, honing my performance skills and sharing my work. A couple of other things on the horizon for my writing. Some offers to do some writing for online publications. And, again, I'll attempt to be a better blogger.

at the end, ruminating, random memories

2011-09-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend is here and the end of summer. The end of summer is always hard for me. I think a lot of has to do with the fact that as a child I loved my months of freedom. All I had to do was read, swim, play. My world shrunk down and expanded. My skin darkened, I always smelled like chlorine and my body was indented with the lines of the hammock I read in. There was always a road trip somewhere with my family. My mom would pack the minivan at night and sometime before dawn my father would carry my sisters and me from our beds, still asleep, and put us in a nest of blankets and pillows in the backseats of the van. I would always wake up in time to watch the sunrise. My parents would be talking quietly and I would watch the day begin, always awed at the sight since it was something I rarely witnessed.

The beginning of the school year was always incredibly bittersweet. I loved learning, and still do. I loved how the classrooms smelled of glue and books. The water at the drinking fountains was slightly sweet with the fluoride they added. The desks were polished and I would arrive in some girly outfit my mom had picked out. She was old-school from New York. You dressed up for your first day of school, to make an impression on the teacher and everyone else. I think she wanted me to dress up all year long but I was exhausting when it came to clothes and probably still am. I was always nervous and excited. I couldn't wait to start learning again but I dreaded being around other kids my age.

It was the hellish beginning of nine months of social awkwardness and deep loneliness. Recess spent in the library because I had no one to play with. Having students whisper behind my back because I always had the answer and was proud to show it, they called me a "smack," whatever that means. I retreated into books. I retreated into fantasy. I longed for summer, the time of year I wasn't an awkward nerd, emotionally raw from wanting what wasn't being offered to me, friendship and acceptance. But even when I tried to talk to the kids my age, they bored me. Even then I wanted substance in conversation.

Summers now aren't anything special. It means I wear shorts to work. I don't use my oven as much. I always entertain these great ideas about what I'm going to do; go to the beach, go camping, take a road-trip, go hiking, and I do none of it. My work is tiring, especially in the heat of summer. I love it but I also love my rest. Yet here I am, super blue at the end of summer because I didn't do anything. I suppose that isn't true. I've done many things for myself, I've expanded my business. I've taken care of my body more than I ever have before. Forest, trees, blah blah blah.

Six year ago yesterday I was on a train from Paris to Madrid. It was one of the best days of my life. I look back on my adult life and I love the woman I was on that train. I had taken a crazy risk for an adventure and it had paid off. I was radiant, at the beginning of falling in love, I was traveling. It was on that train I first read my favorite Rilke essay on Worpswede. I remember sitting alone, practically inebriated on the ideas Rilke was offering me on the role of the artist. The train passed through fields of sunflowers, their heads were heavy with seed and as the train passed it was almost as if they were nodding in acknowledgement. Cheesy, yes. Also, I had never been as happy. I began writing, madly. The poems I started on that train eventually were the seeds for my chapbook, half life of memory.

When I got to Spain it was oven-hot. I went to Valencia to visit an old friend. We were at his parent's house, trying to cool off in the pool. His mother came out. She was beautiful in a faded glory kind of way, still voluptuous and sultry but with a sadness I saw as someone trying to hold on to a youth that wasn't there anymore. She was wearing a robe and when she came to the edge of the pool she tossed off, almost defiantly and stood naked in front of us. My friend was unfazed by her drama and I pretended there was nothing weird about seeing my friend's naked mom, wearing make-up that would have been more suited for an opera star. She stared at me and asked me how old I was. I told her, 26. She was surprised, she thought I was younger for some reason. She got into the pool and floated for a bit then said to me "You're a woman, not a young girl, don't forget that." Then she went into the house. Very dramatic but it was the reason that I started thinking of myself as a woman. That was my last really good summer.

busy, clenching, remembering

2011-08-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

My days are endlessly busy lately. I'm on the go from waking until my head hits the pillow. I'm up before the sun and soon to bed not so long after it goes down. I'm enjoying my sleep these days, insomnia has gone away for now. I credit the weight-lifting, my body requires recovery after pushing itself to the limit and sometimes past. The writing is in the wings, waiting for stillness and a part of me aching with the effort it takes not to abandon the other responsibilities I need to focus on. The language is thick inside of me, silly as that may sound. When finally I do sit with freedom to write I know it will be a great release.

One issue issue I've been dealing with is TMJ. Never had it before until recently. My jaw has been aching for weeks and the last few days it began to make horrible crunching noises whenever I opened my mouth past a certain point Yesterday the pain was so pronounced I went to get acupuncture. Getting needles inserted and manipulated in the muscles of the jaw and neck hurts. I was yelping and groaning the entire time but I slept without clenching my jaw and this morning though there is a little bit f residual tension, I feel much better. I know I clench my jaw with stress. I have stressors I choose not to face and deal with. This has always been an issue with me, holding onto things. Apparently I hold on with my jaw, biting down so as not to let whatever is inside of me go. Writing usually helps but, not doing too much of that these days beyond the journaling and annotating what I'm reading.

I was looking at pictures of a couple of friends last night. Friends I cared deeply about but I decided my life was healthier without them in it. Sometimes that is such a fucking hard decision to make. Letting go. Outwardly our friendship with each other was great, but the strange ties and underlying tensions were going to come to a head one day and I walked away. But I miss them. I miss how they made me feel, dizzy with living, en pointe on a fine, dangerous edge.

waxing poetic on food, movement, creativity, the brain

2011-08-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Bag blogger. Bad, bad, bad. Now get over it.

Very much loving Spark: The Revolutionary New Science on Exercise and the Brain. The research and findings John Ratey cites confirm oh-so-many ideas I've had brewing in my own mind for years. Exercise equals healthier everything. As much as I like what the weightlifting has done for my body, I'm always much more interested in my brain. I fucking love my brain. And apparently I'm improving my neuroplasticity and cognitive ability. This may be my favorite brain book after Jeff Warren's The Head Trip.

I recently had a conversation with Cecil about exercise and earning caloric intake. Both of us are fascinated by the research that points to why current levels of obesity and diabetes are staggering. In our evolutionary history, humans had to earn their caloric intake, in other words, you had to work for you food. You wanted a steak? You killed a cow. You wanted some tortillas? You grew, cultivated and harvested maiz, ground it into masa then you could make your tortillas. No one works for their calories anymore. I remember a good Michael Pollan essay, Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, from a few years ago in the NYT Magazine, on how food has become a spectator sport. People love watching cooking shows but don't really like cooking.

I love cooking. I love chopping, marinating, seasoning. The almost-alchemical reactions of oils, fat, proteins and spices interacting with whatever base I'm adding them to. I grew up in the kitchen, with my mother, aunts and grandmothers. My emotional connection to cooking is one that goes to the core of me. Cooking equals love, comfort, story-telling. The kitchen is where I learned who I was, the history of my family, lessons in womanhood and in nurturing. Cooking is the umbilicus that threads its way back God knows how many generations of women. And I write better after I cook. After spending hours in the kitchen, usually alone, I can come to my office and create, maybe because I've already been creating.

Funnily enough, eating isn't a big deal for me. (Anyone who has seen me knows I'm pretty skinny, except in the frontal area, some friends refer to me at "t*ts on a stick.) I eat very little but I like eating. I'll eat almost anything but I have very odd little habits. For instance, if I have several different things on a plate, I have to eat them one at a time. All the beans, then the meat, then the rice, then the veggies. Weird. I own it.

Creatively I'm been in lull. But I've been focusing on my business and I've been busy pouring my energy into building a solid base of designers and contractors. I'm happy that work is busy but I look forward to delving back into the novel. I also keep sending my poetry manuscript out. Socially I've been quiet, staying home a lot. I'm at the point (and I know it can sound snooty as fuck but whatever,) that if someone isn't extraordinary or enriches my life intellectually or spiritually, I'm not really interested in spending my time with them. I'm trying to keep myself surrounded by people who enhance my life, not detract from it. Why should I go out with someone and hear about new shoes or drama when I can stay home with the phenomenal company of Dura, Fuentes, Cernuda and Rilke? I love my solitude. I do, do.

I'll leave you with this poem by Jane Hirshfield.

Knowing Nothing

Love is not the reason.
Love is the lure,
the thin goat staked out in the clearing.

The lion has stalked
the village for a long time.
It does not want the goat,
who stands thin and bleating,
tied to its bit of wood.

The goat is not the reason.
The reason is the lion,
whose one desire is to enter—
Not the goat, which is
only the lure, only excuse,
but the one burning life
it has hunted for a long time
disguised as hunger. Disguised as love.
Which is not the reason.

Or would you think
that the bones of a lion reason?
Would you think that the tongue?
The lion does not want the goat,
it wants only to live. Alone if it must.
In pain if it must. Knowing nothing.
Like the goat, it wants only to live.
Like love. Or would you think that the heart?

"Praises" and reading

2011-06-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

A new poem of mine has been published at Toe Good Poetry. Not for prudes. I posted it to my Facebook page but had to customize the settings to hide it from family and some friends. Ahh. Funny how the most provocative work gets chosen. When the editor selected the poem he told me "It made me say HOLY SHIT!" Maybe it'll be the gateway poem to my collection, the way some drugs are supposedly gateway drugs to harder drugs, though in this case the rest of my work isn't as provocative. Or it is, in another way.

I'm reading June 11 with Raquel Gutierrez at Voz Alta. I LOVE Raquel. We met a couple of years ago during rehearsals for ProClitvities, a show about Latinas and sexuality in Santa Monica. We bonded over our love of whiskey, dark chocolate and cigarettes. I've said goodbye to cigarettes and whiskey but am still in love with dark chocolate. I'm excited to have Raquel in town, to share a stage with her again. She is a wonderful human being and writer.

I started a new project this week. Pretty damn happy about it It has been a long time coming and after years of letting it percolate I finally put pen to page. My rule this time around is to give myself permission to write utter crap, just to get the story out. When I was working on the Novel (whole other sad story going on with that,) I edited constantly and became so obsessed with the minutiae that I forgot I was supposed to be writing a story. Now I'm just writing madly, knowing it isn't my best work but that I'm getting the story out. First drafts don't count anyway.

I received my first rejection for my manuscript this week. I'm sending it out again next month to a press I really like. It will happen, damn it. Eventually. The insomnia sometimes worries itself back into my life but then I remember this from Rilke:

In deep nights I dig for you like treasure.

For all I have seen

that clutters the surface of my world

is poor and paltry substitute

for the beauty of you

that has not happened yet. . .

I've been dancing around to this a lot. I don't want to bore you with it but I love you! I love you! I love you!

reading tomorrow

2011-05-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

blog neglect for sure

2011-05-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

But don't worry, kidlings, all happens for a reason. Yes I'm neglecting the blog but I'm getting lots of good living done in the interim. Interesting shift of perceptions happening in my mind. I'm more broke than I've ever been but in a strange juxtaposition I'm probably happier than I've been in a long while.

I'be been focused on physical health. Not that I've ever been particularly unhealthy but cigarettes are mainly a thing of the past (I've cheated on Saturday nights whilst out at bars, a few drinks in I'll have a smoke but barely smoke, I like the prop aspect of it.) I'm into a workout routine. I haven't worked out in years. It has effectively killed my insomnia. I'm meditating most mornings. Weekends I tend to stay in bed and choose snuggle over mindfulness when I wake up between Love and his dog. But all in all, health! A good thing too, since otherwise old patterns would be horsewhipping me emotionally right about now.

I have a reading coming up on Thursday at El Zarape. Reading with some great women. I had a reading a few days ago at Mesa College, my first in months. I had not read to instead focus on putting my manuscript together and sending it out. Reading was like taking a long drink of cold beer after getting settled on the beach in Mexico. Perfect. I was a tiny bit nervous because I hadn't expected so many people to how up. But they did and they were a fantastic audience, attentive, inquisitive and just cool. My tongue was a little clumsy, tripping over some phrases, but overall I was pleased. I had a lot of good feedback from the audience which makes the 3am roving hours of writing malaise worth it.

In other milestones Love and I have been dating for one year. It may not seem like a big deal but I dig having reached the point. I dig that after all those years single I learned how to be on my own and I was happy on my own; then out of nowhere this adoring man plopped into my lap and made it clear from the get he wanted me and only me. What a sea change from my past. I love the man and love the space between us.

My YA novel is on the forefront of my mind as of late. Incubating. Teasing. All these shifts are the precursor (I hope) to some serious writing time. My YA novel is calling. I'm getting ready to answer.

inner

2011-04-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Writing a ton of poems. Still not smoking. Working out. Meditating. The blog will most likely be neglected more this month as I work on other writing. But I'm happy.

writing, yo

2011-04-05T07:58:00.001-07:00

Not blogging so much because all of my intellectual energy is going into the poem a day challenge for April. I LOVE writing a poem a day. This year my work has moved away from my usual voice and I'm taking a few more risks, and the usual risks I take.

Working on other challenges as well. I'm on day 4 of not smoking. Not easy but I'm putting my all into it. I bought a pair of running shoes yesterday and went for a run. My lungs hurt after, more incentive to quit. But I had that great post-workout tiredness and endorphins. And I almost slept through the night. I only woke up once to get a glass of water.

I love this song.

loving and loving and loving

2011-03-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Had a night of precious solitude last night. I slept early, deeply, dreaming great dreams. I slept taking over the entire bed, framed by all the pillows. I woke up before the alarm and loved the silence of early morning. As I was falling asleep last night I heard the breathing of owls somewhere near, their cooing and soft hoots. Yesterday I saw birds of prey in their mating dance high above a canyon near where I was working. They clung to each other, cawing out and falling towards the earth; they flew apart before hitting the ground and arched back up into the sky and back together. A hawk circled, near them, at times diving at them. Lovely.

gearing up

2011-03-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

Getting my brain ready for National Poetry Month, for writing a poem a day. This will be the third year in a row I've done this. Last year it was cut short because I went to Mexico at the end of the month and didn't write the daily poems. This is my most productive time of the year. The first year I posted all of my poems but last year I kept the poems to myself, as I'll probably do this year.

April is almost here. April is always a strange month of beginnings and endings for me. Spring swings into step full-time and I begin shedding ideas, loves, old weights that hold me back. Last year I met a friend for ice cream in the middle of April and he laughed watching me dance around and told me he'd never seen me so happy. He had known me in the three other seasons but said that Spring suited me best. Maybe.

Oh, I have so much to say and so much holding me back from saying it. I need to learn how to un-censor myself. I'm practicing.

another blog!

2011-03-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! I'm blogging about what I do for a living as the Wrought Iron Maiden. Check it out.

I'm a little saturated this week. Lots of face time and not enough solo time. Lots on my mind.

"when the waters raged"

2011-03-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

I may have posted this poem on here before, Rainer Maria Rilke, my favorite poet. This poem is from Book of Hours. It is from the section The Book of Monastic Life and is identified only as I, 13.

I am too alone in the world, yet not enough alone

to make each hour holy.

I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough

to be simply in your presence, like a thing--

just as it is.

I want to know my will

and to move with it.

And I want, in the hushed moments

when the nameless draws near,

to be among the wise ones--

or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.

I want never to be too weak or too old

to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.

Let no place in me hold itself closed,

for where I am closed, I am false.

I want to stay near in your sight.

I would describe myself

like a landscape I've studied

at length, in detail;

like a word I'm coming to understand;

like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;

like my mother's face;

like a ship that carried me

when the waters raged.

I love this poem. I love pretty much anything Rilke ever wrote but this poem grabs me by the heart and won't let go. There is a long tradition in poetry of writing spiritual poetry, to a god, or higher being. My writing is very much grounded in the human body; when religion or spirituality appears it appears as homage to my religious upbringing or other mythologies that have influenced me. I wrote a poem to god maybe 11 years ago. It was the first poem I wrote after years of writing prose that made me want to be a poet again. All these years later I still think it's one of my strongest poems.

Even though I've moved away from religion in my life I still carry within my the residue of growing up with a looming invisible hand over my head. Religion to me was never about love, it was about becoming subversive before a malevolent, judgemental being who was constantly ready to smite me down. In my early twenties I fell in love with a very spiritual man who slowly pried me away from my apathy towards seeking a spiritual relationship with the world. He still influences how I think even though I have moved away from the practices I held onto back then. I study psychology for fun and know our thoughts effect how we live and perceive the world. Even thought I'm not Catholic or a theist I love this prayer, I love how it is set to music. It is, for a lack of a better term, a mantra I repeat to myself before I go to bed at night. If anything i reminds me to always try to be my best self.

the new morning

2011-03-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

Spring has arrived, in rain and angled sunshine breaking through. I keep my ears tuned to the natural work when I remember to; the birds have started calling to each other Every day I see birds carrying twigs and bits and pieces that are meant for nests. Flowers are opening their faces. The crows swoop louder, I can hear their wings when they pass over me, rustling like tissue. I love this season. Not that our winters are anything violent but I appreciate the birthing season, newness, the green, and songs.

Thinking a lot these days on solitude. My attitude towards solitude is healthy but sometimes can be perceived as selfish. I'm at the age where most of my friends are coupled up, getting married, moving in, having babies. I understand it happens, I understand it will only continue to happen. I don't require companionship, even if I do enjoy it when with the right person. I've been thinking about my life in terms of my solitude and my chosen isolation. I have very few friends, I don't see this as negative. I try to only surround myself with people who will enhance my life. I'm a snob, I'm okay with that. I'm not lonely, though for a long time I thought I was because I held on to the illusion that being around people was good for me. I tire easily of trite conversation, so much of what people talk about and are interested in doesn't interest me. I'd rather be alone, contemplating, writing.

I've been wanting to dance. I haven't danced in a long time. I'm picky about dancing. The greatest dancing, in my opinion, is celebratory, at weddings, parties, those little joyous confirmations of human connectivity. Ha! The isolationist wants to dace to celebrate human connectivity. So it goes. I am human and brilliant in my inconsistency.

workers

2011-03-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love this picture of my dad and me. He was coming home from work and I was excited to see him. I bet he never thought thirty years from when this picture was taken I would be working like him, covered in paint everyday. (I don't know why all of this is underlined, I can't figure out how to fix it.) I love working outside with my hands. I love that everyday I'm somewhere different. I love that at the beginning of my work day I get to look at an unfinished piece of iron and know that in a few hours it will be transformed. My work makes me happy.

My dad used to sing this to me when he got home from work when I was a little girl.

the mind at rest

2011-03-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've been steady in my meditation practice. I'm kind of impressed with myself, though the things I'm becoming aware of are probably not things I wanted to be aware of. Know thyself, huh? The dark was also lovely. But this is nice too. My insomnia is almost easing at times.

I recently came across a journal from 3 years ago. I read the thing cover to cover, crying at a lot of the parts, smiling hugely at others. 3 years ago I moved into this apartment and I was so ready for it. Over the course of the writing in the journal I decide I want a new apartment, I find this one, I move in and I paint it blue and prange. In-between the finding and moving and painting I had my heart broken and then began to pick up the pieces. B makes a heavy appearance towards the end of the journal, swooping in to save the day with movies and beer and the beginning of his phenomenal friendship. I wonder what kind of crazy state of mind I was in back then. In the journal I write how strange it is to have a man be nice to me, how unused to it I am and how much I love it. I still love it.

Writing some. National Poetry Month is coming up and I'm considering writing a poem a day again. We'll see. Maybe. I wrote about 20 last year and the full 30 the year before. I should do it, the practice is good.

I was planning on going to Mexico this week but couldn't afford it. I need a trip, something soon, something quiet and beautiful.

"Do only the screaming parrots remember?"

2011-03-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have a poem by Steve Kowit up on the bulletin board above my desk. The title of this post is the last line of that poem. It's from his collection of amorous poetry based on ancient Indian love poetry. I read it whenever I sit at this desk.

I've been writing every morning. One page, by hand in my favorite pen. I've given up journals for a minute and write on a single white page of paper. I start with whatever is on my mind, move on to what I have been dreaming and then move into more creative writing. Writing my concerns has eased my insomnia. I've been moving back into meditation as well, slowly. Five minutes my first day, then ten. I'm up to twelve minutes of contemplative silence. From past experience I know there is a peace I can maintain if I'm consistent in my practice. Practice. I'm practicing. My mind is usually a racing machine and I make myself crazy with imagined futures and drama. I can't live well when imagined insanity is playing out in my head.

I've been sick the last few days, a sinus infection. I've been sick a lot this last season. Mostly chest colds, which I prefer over the head cold. Head colds make my brain feel half-dead.

The song I'm posting today is a favorite. It reminds me of Spring, of sitting on a porch, drinking bourbon and smoking cigarettes with old friends then crawling off to sleep in a converted attic surrounded by books. I've been singing a lot lately and dancing around. I always sing when I'm happy and for a long while I haven't been letting myself sing. I don't have a great singing voice but I don't care. Singing is something that makes me happy, a little personal thing that lifts my spirits. I've been doing my best to get away from the inner negative voice that has been breathing heavily into my ear for far too long. It's working. I'm happier.

I read a story last night online, a short fiction piece that reminded me of the style of writing I try to write in. It felt forced, as if the writer was so concerned with maintaining the voice that the story got lost along the way. It reminded me of something I know to be true in my own writing practice: the story creates the voice. It can't be forced. The story I'm percolating now has challenges in voice but if I can execute it the way I want to, I know it'll enhance the narrative.

dig

2011-03-15T21:01:00.001-07:00

the crowding

2011-03-11T06:47:00.001-08:00

For years I've gone to the same place in my dreams, I call it my dream-world. I could draw you a map. I have a house there, and friends who only exists in that world. I have several places within that dream world that I visit, old cities, mountains, deserts. There are trains I ride, fields I roam in. I even know where my locker is at the gym I work out at. Strange since I don't work out in real life.

Lately things have changed in my dream-world (God, writing that makes me sound like I listen to Tori Amos and have faerie wallpaper.) It has become crowded. I noticed it a few weeks ago when one night I went to visit the desert hot springs I go to and all the pools were filled with people, and not people I liked. Last night I went to visit one of my favorite dream-cities, a city similar to Paris but with canals. It was horribly crowded, even the bathrooms were a disaster and people were peeing in corners. I got on the train to get out of town and discovered I was on the quarantine train for people with typhoid. The worst part is there is a cove I always visit. A little natural harbor where I always see dolphins and whales (I know, I know; Tori and faerie). The cove is my favorite part of my dream world, I always feel serene when I wake up after having visited it. A few nights ago I went to the cove and it had been turned into a marine park, all of the dolphins and whales were in shows.

I wonder how all this came to pass, what could be going on in my subconscious to have altered my dreaming so drastically. I've battled lots of insomnia lately. This morning I've been up since 3:30. I don't feel like there is a tremendous amount of stress on my head but there must be, somewhere. Or I just need to make space in my mind, meditate more. Something.

In brighter news I have a poem appearing in a new online journal within a month or so. I'll link to it when it happens. The funny part is that it's a poem I never thought would see the light of day. The content is strongly sexual, to the point of almost being ridiculously sexual, I'm sure some (mom) will say vulgar. I concentrated on the hyperbolic whilst writing it and I guess that made it a winner. Taking risks works.

Yesterday I was looking for something when I came across an old journal from 2008. I only had a few pages filled but one page was a poem. Over the top of the page I had scribbled something about giving myself permission to write utter crap. The poem is about 18 lines, rhyming couplets. The meter is actually good, and some of the lines aren't terrible. I like when I surprise myself.

The other evening I surprised myself just by being silly. I was sitting on my balcony, looking at the moon when I decided I would try to describe the night to myself in the most ridiculous way I could. I play games with myself, the remnants of a lonely childhood. I came up with a silly line about the way fish in a net shine and then a great idea hit me over the head. I've been stuck on a short story for months, I couldn't decide on the voice. Being silly saved me. Thank you, brain.

I heard this song in a bar last night. I agree.

prodding

2011-03-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

Had a few long, long discussions talks with B last night on several subjects. You know that someone is your best friend is they challenge you, prod you, and make you examine your choices. B is good at all of those, and he has a nurturing side that is unparalleled. B kicks my ass when I need it and he kicked it a little bit last night about my writing. We were playing cards, I read him a poem and he said You should be writing more things like that, you deny yourself passion. Ah sweet bestie, he knows. He's seen me through some times and knows quite well how much I don't live. I woke up at 1am thinking about what he said. I have a lot of thinking to do. And writing.

searching is the opposite of losing

2011-03-07T16:19:00.000-08:00

Or some other random bullshit I have scribbled on a post-it pasted to the wall above my writing desk. I took today as my day to specifically to finish one short story and to get my claws into the other. I started, as usual, with a free-write to get the blood moving through the right parts of my brain and let a deluge of brain sludge pour out instead, choking up the pipes for anything more creative. So it goes. I wrote how I feel trapped by own voice at times, that often when I try to write it comes out contrived. When I journal, tweet, blog or email I have no censor and can write my heart out. But there is something intimidating or who knows what about opening up a document and going into it with the intention of crafting something. I'm too hard on myself. I know I am. I have to give myself permission to write crap, as all the wide-eyed writing gurus say after they light purple candles and invoke the Goddess of whatever, but I can't help it. I'm hard on myself.

I mini-panicked this weekend, reading a fantasy book by an author whose work I love but whose tweets lead me to believe she is kind of an idiot in real life. I panicked wondering if the grace and generosity I have in real life sucks the mojo out of my creative self. I don't know. I'm just in one of those creative frozen zones that come. They pass, I know they do. But telling myself that and believing it while I'm awake at 3am, eating sauerkraut out of the jar to try to ease the gnawing inside is a whole other story.

Reading PUTA: My Life in Sex by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez has made today bearable. That and walking the dog in the rain.

moving

2011-03-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

Much is moving in my life and I've been stuck in the eddies and whirlwinds that accompany change. I'm exhausted. My body is rebelling and not sleeping, needles have grown into my joints and I've been quietly morose. It'll pass. I haven't been very good to myself lately, too much drinking, smoking, late nights and giving. My generosity may be the death of me. On the other hand I'm selfish with the best parts of myself.

I was having a conversation a couple of nights ago with a good friend who is in mourning. My heart went out to him, knowing how devastation and heartbreak change the entire landscape of being. I told him, truthfully, that I feel I lost my best self years ago. I want to be that person but don't know if I ever can be. I've grown out of the numbness that accompanied my heartbreak, my hesitancy to love dissipated and I cautiously have been inching toward my ideal self.

32 came, a week ago. My birthday was a mixture of joy and chaos. I'm still recovering. I suppose it's fair to say the highs matched the lows. I'm left with an odd taste in my mouth. Looking forward. It was Love's birthday too and I think his birthday was rough as well.

I'm engrossed in A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I love fantasy books and this one has me dizzy. I wouldn't have started it had I known there would be a sequel only because I can't imagine we'll be getting the sequel for a while since this was just released last month. This book has made this week un-awful.

ride it on

2011-02-22T19:41:00.001-08:00

busy and yet

2011-02-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

I've been rather busy, not busy enough to have neglected writing, but I have. I edited some poems yesterday. I was rather in love with some lines, the phrase machete shaven.

Last night I started watching Roman Holiday, one of my favorite films. I have a thing for old cheesy films. Insomnia has been a companion of mine my entire life; when I was a little kid I used to watch AMC all night. I particularly loved anything with Danny Kaye. The romantic in me is enamored with the idyllic, the scenery, the ways things work out. I also love period pieces. Kind of a strange obsession but I have it, and I love it. I've been listening to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone too. A part of me thinks I was born in the wrong era but then I think about the rights (lack thereof) women had, and especially women of color and think I was born at exactly the right time.

Still, there is a hunger in me to give into some nostalgia that rings from a place I'm not sure exists. I've been remembering Paris and how each morning I'd wake up and go to the window, sit on the tiny balcony overlooking Rue San Jaques and how fucking happy I was. But maybe Paris is one of those cities that is better in memory. I want to travel somewhere old. I want to travel to a place that (forgive me for being so cheesy and un-strong) where I'd feel appreciated as a woman; for grace and femininity, for nurturing. Somewhere where hands are held, shoulders touched. I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm hungry for romance, or some semblance of it. I used to believe in it and sometimes even find it. But as one of my poems says, I was done so hard all of the romance fell out of my body. I want it back. But, then again I don't. To quote another line from one of my poems (is this narcissism Monday or what? Whatever, its my birthday week, I can do whatever I want.) I am appalled when I say follow and am followed.

bone tired

2011-02-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

Busy week, I'm tired but happy. Much moving forward, the momentum builds. Fragments of stories are percolating. I'm waking up early again, working hard, sleeping early. Today after work, after a romp in the sunshine I plan to take a long nap so that I can be rested for the weekend. I don't have much planned but look forward to rest, respite, sleep, comfort Maybe a bike ride with the new bicycle basket for the dog attached.

busy

2011-02-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

Happy that I'm busy. I forget that there is a joy in being bone-tired, how food tastes better and how the bed becomes the most wonderful place in the world. I went to bed before 10pm last night and slept deeply, with only a few odd dreams.

The manuscript goes out to three contests today.

years of this

2011-02-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

Last night insomnia took over, again. I went to bed fairly early, slept for half an hour then was awake, heart racing. I spent some time on the balcony. I concentrated on my breathing. I stretched. Nothing, sleep wanted nothing to do with me. It was almost four before I finally slept, then the dog crawled out from under the covers and scared me and I was awake again. So, a late start today. The entire time I had the Smiths "Asleep" in my head.

chill

2011-02-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

Cold this morning. I would be happy to stay in bed.

Hello, February

2011-02-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

February has always been special to me. Maybe because my birthday is this month, but it doesn't make too much sense since I ever celebrated my birthday growing up. I think I enjoyed all of the pink hearts and candy in the stores, all the Valentines, even if I wasn't allowed to participate in the exchange of cards. I liked that I turned another year older.

When I was a kid I loved getting older as I thought people would take me more seriously. I was a braniac as a child, ridiculously well-read and obsessed with science. I was often frustrated when I wasn't taken seriously because I was a kid. I didn't like being a child, I found other children childish and immature and preferred the company of adults. Looking back I feel sorry for my little girl self, I wasn't really allowed or encouraged to be a child. But I don't bemoan the past. I'm grateful the isolation turned me introspective, creative.

Last night I had drinks and dinner with my good friend A, the therapist. I love our conversations, we crack each other up. I love picking his brain about behavior, boundaries and other little human interactions that fascinate me. Sometimes I consider going back to school to get my MFT. I love unraveling behavior to the root, the rebuilding that comes from it. A had a great quote about action and thoughts. I can't remember what he said but I agreed with it. We talked for a long while about the benefits of meditation. I try, I struggle. I make myself feel better by listening to a guided hypnosis several times a week. Settle brain waves, settle.

I dreamt of boats. I'd like to be on a boat.

Looking forward to seeing the Decemberists in a couple of weeks, they're my favorite band. I've had a brain-crush on Colin Meloy since I discovered the narrative ass-kicking his lyrics deliver, and the music moves me too.

slow Monday, slow month

2011-01-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

January has crawled by. I'm not too sad to see it go. It started poorly and is ending well so I can't complain but it dragged, dawdled, dallied. I'm ready for February, which is always speeds by and culminates with my birthday. Love is three days younger than me so we should have a fun birthday weekend at the end of the month. March is always a strange month, weather wise. I hope Spring comes early this year. I know we need the rain and all that but after the devastatingly cold summer we had last, I want heat. Maybe I'm reptilian.

I need to catch up with old friends. Soon. I had brunch yesterday with old high school friends. Funny how we haven't changed much, maybe we knew who we were back then.

Writing. I need to do some this week. And send off the manuscript. And apply to two big conferences. I can do it.

self

2011-01-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Going through poems, culling, removing, rearranging. Soon it'll be time for a final printing, binding, addressing and sending; then the however long of waiting.

I'm in a roving mood again, pacing and desperate for something I can't put my finger on. The weather is tricky, a little Summer has come into our days and I'm trying not to be fooled by it. I'm trying not to get excited because I know sooner than later the clouds and cool will swoop back in and I'll have months of bundling left.

Last night I was reading through a collection of someone else's poems then went to my own and started reading through. I had a moment. I looked up at B who was sprawled on the sofa and said I'm a good poet. He laughed and agreed. But I forget or I worry sometimes. I spend a lot of time writing and reading. In my heart I have great ambitions to write more prose, to publish novels. But at the heart of it I'm a poet. What an art to have been chosen by. Hardly anyone reads poetry, except for poets. Poets make no money. They're rarely respected. I barely ever tell anyone I write poetry because I can almost imagine the eye roll, and annoyance. Everyone has known a terrible poet. But I'm not a terrible poet. I work hard. I'm learning to wear it well.

Still reading Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing. Some of the poems hit gut. I love that. What hit my gut is most likely different from what hits your gut but this poem, Looking Away, got me. The last two lines especially. Yes Leonard, I too attempt to leave the reader with bite marks.

hours of dreaming

2011-01-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first morning I've woken up in nearly a week without being in pain. I had some sort of horrendous viral infection that took me down. I slept most of the weekend away. I didn't leave the apartment. Saturday I spent a total of maybe 4 hours out of bed. Yesterday about 6. My dreams were crazy and surreal but I enjoyed them. (I think Love was sick of hearing about what I was halluci-dreaming about.) My entire body has been aching for days, every joint, the muscles in my face, even my eye sockets. My lungs hurt. This morning I woke up after a particularly strange dream about playing Spongebob Squarepants on Broadway to find that the illness has vacated my body; I'm weak but content. I'm a little sad face that my entire weekend was spent sleeping but so it goes. I have 3 days of New York Times to catch up on since my eyes hurt so bad all weekend I couldn't even read. The worst dream I had all weekend was that the Jacobins caught me during the Terror and buried me alive in the Catacombs.

aches and aches

2011-01-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

I've been under the weather. I wrote my first poem of the new year last night shortly before falling asleep (and shortly before almost calling B to take me to the emergency room because I was convinced I was dying, but it was just a mini-panic attack.) Sad fucking little poem. I'm glad I didn't die because the last poem I ever wrote would have made me look like my life is a tragedy when truly I have it pretty damn good and am just a whiner when sick.

I started a book yesterday that my friend Marco mentioned on his blog, Notes from Normalcy. Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing. I bawled my eyes out reading it. Maybe it was because I was sick, or because there was a full moon or maybe just because the writing struck bone. Writing rarely does that to me anymore.

I'm tired, tired tired. My body is fighting something. I'll let it fight while I sleep.

the world ends nightly

2011-01-18T09:09:00.001-08:00

B took this picture of Cecil and me at the dog park last week. We were discussing hypotheses for ripening Thai chilies for a fermented hot sauce I want to make.

My dreams have been of the the end of the world a lot lately. Not uncommon. I have a deep-seeded subconscious fear of the world ending because throughout my childhood it was drilled into my head almost daily that the world was about to end. Firestorms, floods, earthquakes, the whole disaster enchilada. Tsunami figure heavily into my dreams, they always have. I manage each time to outrun them, the waves splashing at my heels as I cling to the side of a cliff or I make it up the stairs at the last moment. The dreams used to terrify me but as I've grown older I know they're just an indelible part of who I am.

Waiting for a shipment of books. Looking forward to getting the second and third installments of a fantasy trilogy I started reading last week, as well as another YA book and a Leonard Cohen book. I'm eclectic as fuck.

brain jangling

2011-01-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

January morning. Clear sky, warm day coming. I have a few minor errands to run. A manuscript to submit to a chapbook contest. Buying new night cream with a scent that doesn't annoy my boyfriend. A bag to finish sewing for a baby shower. A trip to the dog park with the beautiful beast whose face reminds me of a kangaroo. Dinner. Beer. Live music. A few laughs with my baby sister and her contagious high laugh that starts with a loud peal and descends into a throaty, belly jiggling giggle. I've started meditating again and am slowly becoming accustomed to the silence, all the brain jangling is dissipating. I've been weaning myself off of cigarettes, at least during the week; weekends I am going to indulge. I'm experimenting with drinking unfiltered apple cider vinegar. I've pickled beets.

distractions

2011-01-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

I had the oddest dream that I was at Prince William's wedding and since his mother couldn't be there a crowd of male Princess Diana impersonators were there in her stead. I was there with 7 friends. After I went to the mountains to look at stars but a secret moon appeared and I couldn't see anything. I should have been excited by the secret moon but I was there to see stars.

I saw True Grit last night. I enjoyed the beginning and the ending but was bored in the middle.

I have a lot on my mind. Not writing anything creative but it will come. Twelve days into the year. It is already better than it was in the beginning. I hope this trend continues.

my thoughts are aimed inward

2011-01-11T09:02:00.001-08:00

In a good way.

going

2011-01-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

In my dreams I visited the strange dream-world that I've inhabited since I was very young. I was in one of the houses I stay in when I'm there. We were on the cusp on natural disaster and the only thing I could think of was that I wanted to be in bed. Odd odd odd.

A couple of nights ago I went with a friend to the monthly planetarium show in Balboa Park. We had happy hour appetizers and drinks at the Prado then geeked out learning about the winter constellations. Learning about the Crab Nebula thrilled me, I wish I could have seen the supernova 1000 years ago. After the planetarium show we peered through telescopes that were set up outside. I saw Saturn's rings and moons, nebula and other celestial bodies. It made me want to spend more time outside of the city, more time looking up.

Yesterday I went wine tasting with my mother, sister and my mom's friend. I don' drink white wine because for some odd reason it makes me crazy and gives me a horrendous hangover. I hadn't had any white wine in 2 years. But I figured a few sips during wine tasting wouldn't kill me. I was wrong. I was sick last night and had a headache that made me very regretful of my choice. Only red wine for me from now on. But it was a lovely day. I should get out of the city more, even if just for long drives.

I've been on the strange edge of panic for a while now. I talk myself down but can't find the heart of my fear. I've been trying to pinpoint where my irrational thoughts come from. Not a pretty process but a necessary one. I can't exorcise all my demons, what left would I have to write about? New demons would arrive, surely. Or old demons would stay, disguised to rise up when I least expect them.

january 5

2011-01-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

back into the pages, glacial

2011-01-03T09:23:00.001-08:00

I've started journaling again. On New Year's Day. I'm a snob when it comes to my journaling, I only want to write with certain pens, namely a Micron 05. I have beautiful penmanship and I don't like wasting it on ballpoint pens that aren't water resistant. I only journal on acid-free, archive quality paper. Maybe out of some strange arrogance, that my journals will outlast me. But I don't know if I want anyone reading my journals, ever. My honesty in them is a bit terrifying. I am unmasked. If ever there is a natural disaster my journals are the first thing I'll try to save. Followed by heirlooms. I often think I should make more sort if directive that when I die, my journals are to be buried or burned with me.

A year ago today I left for Key West and was there for the coldest weather they'd had since the 1880s. I was there for the literary seminar, all about poetry. I surrounded by poets; famous, soon to be famous and students like me. I was housed in an old house that was full of other scholarship students. At night we'd cook meals together, smoking on the balconies, talking late into the nights. One of my first evenings I met a woman at a garden party and we chatted for a long while, comfortably. I finally told her my name and she told me hers. Judy Blume. I almost peed myself.

In Key West I met one of my favorite human beings ever, T. I stayed with him the first few nights I was there. He lived in a trailer park on the island just north of KW. His modular home was customized beautifully and he was right on a canal. We'd sit on the dock he'd built, at night with bourbon, in the morning with coffee and talk endlessly. It was one of those rare, easy friendships that are life-changing. He had two sons, brilliant little twins who made me laugh every time we interacted. I miss all of them and waking up on the sofa to two little faces staring at me. I'd love to go back to KW. One day, when it isn't cold. And the first thing I'l eat is a soft-shell crab sandwich from Bo's Fish Wagon.

Working with my manuscript. Lovingly, carefully. I'm a glacier when it comes to change, but when I move I move the entire landscape with me. Also putting together some poems for a chapbook contest. 15 poems, easy. B wants to reprint my old chapbook since I have no more copies. Maybe. I want to move forward with my work this year.

oh manuscript, beloved little beast sucking me dry

2011-01-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

My poetry manuscript is resting on the floor by my feet, little bastard. We're still figuring each other out. I have the poems I'm pretty sure I want, but the order they go in is not yet clear. I've attempted to theme them together; family/self, sex/love, exterior. I missed submission deadlines to a couple of contests but I'm not worried. This process is the beginning of a process that will probably last a long time. I am submitting to one of my favorite presses, as their reading period is January.

Going through the poems of the last 10+ years has been pretty damn weird. Who needs a flux capacitor when you have poems to take you back in time?

Reading through the work I seem like I am given to being morose and depressed, or some people call it introspective. That or I rarely write poems when I'm happy. Probably a little of both. I'm reading a book on behavioral psychology (of course) and in self-diagnosing myself I think I have discovered one of the reason I've always written. When I was a child I was incredibly sensitive. I would cry at the smallest things or perceived slights. I tried to hold it back but my emotions were evident all of the time, crying a bubble in my throat always ready to burst. Of course, that had to be exhausting to the people around me. I would be told over and over again not to cry, not to show my feelings and I made a practice of not expressing myself. When I started writing I found a place I could put all of those ready-to-rear feelings on a page, where I could see them and honor them, without having to show everyone what I was feeling. Maybe I'm getting a little psychology 101 but it might make sense. Also, I was such a terribly lonely child, isolated by religion and books were I lived for. Thus, writing.

I have so much more to say but Love's dog just shit in my office and I have to take him outside. I think we both need a long walk.

watching the murders fly by

2010-12-30T06:56:00.001-08:00

I've been awake since around 4:40am. The moon was lovely outside my window, and Venus. I tossed and turned for a long while, my body achey. I've been trying to get the tension out of body with massages, chiropractic visits, stretching. I'm loosening slowly, the process is painful.

I went out with an old friend last night, had too much to drink and some old demons came back to piss me off. We were having a good time then something flipped and I went from being happy to morose. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the fact that after years I finally got to yell at my friend for old transgressions. He told me, among other things, that I'm too guarded and not trusting. Fair enough, in the context of our friendship. Or it was a jab to counter the ones I'd been sticking. I have a cruel streak. I know I do. Guarded, hmmm. I can agree with that, sober.

A poet I once studied with told me that in my writing I only allow myself vulnerability at the very end of a poem, just a peek of emotional insight. Maybe. I just looked at a poem I've been editing and I can see why someone would say that. I think there is a fine balance between being revelatory and mysterious. I want to dance that line. A character in a book I once read said something along the lines of a woman without mystery can never be truly beautiful. I think the same can be said about writing. Why read if there is nothing to be discovered? Why write if it isn't a way of exploring and learning oneself? Ugh. I hope I don't come off sounding like a guest on Oprah, all dazzled with my brilliance and shit. Once I have this damn poetry manuscript sorted out I'll read for vulnerability, see where it peeks out at me like one of those creepy/cute spirits in Miyazaki films. (see image above)

The morning is beautiful and clear. Outside the window crows are flying Northwest to wherever their daily hunting or playing grounds are. Every evening, before sunset, hundreds of crows fly Southeast. If you pay attention you can follow their line in the sky. I used to know where they roosted at night, it was terrifying and thrilling to be near. Thousands of crows cawing and flying. Murders upon murders of crows. The recent rains have made my balcony garden explode. Old seeds I didn't even know were hibernating have come life and my pots are rife with basil and dill, leaf lettuce. I love mornings and should spend more time in them.

To quote Seth in yesterday's Citybeat, "if (this video) doesn't make you laugh or cry you have no heart."

with a knife in my teeth

2010-12-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

I worked on a poem yesterday that had all the old bravura of my younger days with a bit of the pragmatism of these days. I dig it. I doubt I'll ever show it to anyone but I'm still pretty pleased with myself. I made myself place something almost cringe-worthy in the poem, an image that makes the (imagined) reader uncomfortable but not so that the reader stops reading. Plenty of hyperbole and a shot of plain ass sadness to ground it. Oh formula, how I'm getting to know you.

The holiday was good. Lots of family time, lots of alcohol. We stayed at my parent's house again Christmas night, again breaking the old rule of no daughter can share a room with a man without being married. I think my parents might be over the rule. We played drinking games again with my little sister and her friends. I'm too old to play drinking games but in the spirit of wanting to not be completely lame I did. I'd already spent a good part of Christmas night curled up in a chair in the corner, reading and annotating my brand new copies of The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. My family is really into games, Scrabble, Taboo, Smart Ass, Apples to Apples. Love is pretty competitive and fits right in with the yelling therein. Even in crowds of people I love I often choose solitude.

No plans too exciting for the New Year's celebration. We'll probably stay at my parent's house again, spend the evening with family, drink with my baby sister that night, watch football in the morning with my dad. There is a Mexican tradition of eating 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight, one grape for each tolling of the bell. Each grape is a wish pertaining to a month in the year. I haven't eaten the grapes for years, I've spent the last two years at a bar and two before that home alone. This year, silly as it seems, (and so many traditions are), I'm making wishes.

Yesterday afternoon I sat on my balcony, eating mint chip ice cream with a tiny spoon. I watched the insects on the bamboo and wondered how hard it would be to learn to play the accordion. I chided myself that I should have been writing but then I remembered that it's between the living and the stillness that the writing comes. And it did.

lunes en la noche

2010-12-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

merry merry

2010-12-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing to do with the holiday but I love this song.

ghosts of Christmas past

2010-12-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

Thinking of the holidays, for obvious reasons ,and how I've spent them during my life. I've been all over the place.

Growing up a Jehovah's Witness, we didn't celebrate anything. Christmas was a big, fat no-no since Jesus was born in April or October and it was really a pagan holiday dressed up for Christ or whatever other bullshit they fed us to keep us meek. I always got excited anyway, I couldn't help it. Beneath my disdain for the "worldy" people, I was jealous and eager to observe. I wished I could have believed in Santa. I remember being in the first grade, sitting at my desk in quiet disdain while the other kids told our teacher what Santa was going to bring them. In my head I was thinking your parents are a bunch of liars. Pretty sad, not to have been able to indulge in that childhood swell of fantasy and imagination. I secretly loved Christmas lights. I loved Christmas carols, despite not being able to sing them. I'd wake up early on Christmas morning, even though we didn't celebrate. I'd sit stewing in my jealousy, knowing that in the neighborhood around me and the world around that, kids were madcap wild with joy, opening presents. I would sit thinking yeah you have Santa now, but when the world ends in a firestorm you're going to die and I'm going to live forever.

After the Witness years my family celebrated in a half-assed kind of way. I was a teenager and atheist, full of goth (non)sensibilities and I still carried a deep guilt over celebrating a holiday I was raised to believe was evil. At the time my parents were struggling in their marriage, my dad wasn't living with us part of the time. Christmas was an attempt to be a big bandaid on the amputation leaving the religion had caused. We weren't unhappy to be out of the religion but we had no anchor as to what we were supposed to believe in anymore. Christmas was an awkward time of gift giving that had no sentimental value. It was different for my baby sister, she was raised almost completely outside of the religion and has always had birthdays and holidays. Her joy was a beautiful thing to watch, it still is.

In my early twenties it got somewhat better. I was in a relationship for years with a man who had a young daughter I adored and Christmas through her eyes was fucking magical. I also had outgrown a majority of the guilt I felt for celebrating.

I think of the oddest Christmases. Christmas in Mexico during my quasi-bohemian artist colony days, celebrating with a group of brilliant madmen, a chosen family. I remember walking through the cobblestone streets late at night around Christmas. It was during the posadas, the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Strangers would stand in their doorways, inviting me and anyone passing by into their homes for a slice of cake, spiced punch. They did it as an homage to Joseph and Mary who found little hospitality on their way to Bethlehem. My favorite memory is of walking home late one night and passing by a mechanic's shop; they had a junked out car on the roof decorated with singing Christmas lights. It was across the square from a church. Men had come in from the mountains with donkeys loaded with firewood. The men would sell the firewood then use the money to buy gifts for their families. The men slept on the stairs of the church while all the donkeys were tied up in the square. As I passed through the square I remember looking to my left at the car on the roof with singing lights then to the right at the donkeys and sleeping men. I had an overwhelming feeling of peace and joy. I don't know what about that scene struck me but I was elated.

The year after Mexico I was spending my winter in Switzerland. Christmas week we went sledding, snowboarding; warming our bodies after with fondue. I wrote a piece about it that is available online here. I've never watched the video. I'm pretty sure I was a little drunk when I performed. So it goes.

Then however many years later Christmas in the midwest. Kansas. My standout memory from that holiday is one of my favorites. We went to a Christmas Ever service at the Mennonite church. I remember liking the service, how unpretentious everything was. People came in their overalls and boots, nothing formal and the pastor spoke mainly of loving one another. At the end of the service everyone was given a candle and asked to gather in the front of the church in a circle. The lights were turned off and the pastor went around lighting everyone's candle with his. Then he led us in an a capella version of Silent Night. After he stood thanking everyone for coming. He then said I'd especially like to thank those of you who have joined us from foreign lands. His eyes landed on me and he smiled and gestured to me and asked And what foreign land are you from young lady? I smiled and said Southern California. I got a kick out of it.

Then the sad, wretched Christmas of getting dumped over Skype by the man I was madly in love with. The most horrible words ever spoken to me: I don't love you. I'll never love you. If I had the choice to love you I wouldn't. The gift of that experience is knowing that if I could recover from that wounding and devastation, I can recover from anything.

The last few holidays have been laid back. Here in town, family. We'll spend tonight at my aunt's house. My dad's side of the family and his six siblings and their families. It will be chaotic and loud. Everyone will bring their dog. I'm bringing Love and his dog. Tomorrow morning we'll spend with my parents and sisters. Nothing too exciting. Gifts, brunch then not much else.

I still don't really like the holidays but I'm getting better at not falling into a deep depression around them. I avoid the stores. I spend a lot of time alone, reading, writing. I spend a good amount of time thinking where was I last time this year? and the year before that? where am I now in comparison? I like where I am this year.

thursday

2010-12-23T16:26:00.001-08:00

a great listen in the rain

2010-12-22T08:45:00.001-08:00

My Funny Valentine

Nico

deluge

2010-12-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

This is some ark weather indeed. Find your match, get on the boat. The rain hasn't stopped and won't stop. The ground here is easily saturated, the roads not built to carry the water away. I hate driving in the rain around here, potholes galore, careening vehicles. I need to go out into the weather to buy a couple of gifts and to gather things. My dad has a bag of seeded pomegranates for us to juice, my mom has a bag of Puerto Rican food my grandma sent. I'm going to make my parents a pot of clam chowder. I may make a batch of tomato soup here at home later.

I slept early, happily last night after dinner at the Vag with Love. A couple of months ago we went down there on Saturday night for one drink. We saw a friend who was there and ended up meeting a group of really cool men. We ended up sitting with them on the patio until almost 2 in the morning. The restaurant closed but the owner was deep into the discussions we were wrapped up in and brought out bottles of unfinished wine. It was one of those rare instances wherein everyone meshed; the conversation was intelligent, witty and loud. It reminded me of my younger days among the drunk, hand-roving, intellectual ex-pats in Mexico. A late night of dialogue. We ran into one of the men from that night last night. We hope to all meet up again and have another one of those evenings, but with less alcohol as the next day was brutal.

I find I have such few intellectually dynamic conversations. So much of what is talked about is superficial. I have a couple of great friends I call when I want my mind blown but we don't interact regularly. I talk on the phone about once a week with my brilliant friend Eric, who is one of the most intelligent human beings I've veer met. We live about a mile away from each other but rarely get together; when we do I can barely sleep afterward because I can feel my brain stretching (for lack of a better description). I love the Eleanor Roosevelt quote Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. I should make an effort to group together the friends I love talking about ideas with, see if they mesh. I'm such an isolationist sometimes. Reading a book about personality types, I'm self-diagnosing. Ha! And rereading this paragraph I'm also kind of a snob.

in sleep

2010-12-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I went out with Love and friends of ours. We drank a lot and had a pretty fantastic time, including a heated moment wherein Love defended my honor against a creepy man who said something horribly disrespectful about me the last time we saw him out. I had many bourbons and slept heavily when we got home. I was going through my phone this afternoon and came across fragments of poems I wrote last night when I should have been sleeping. A lot of time as I'm in the half-awake state right before sleep lines come to me that I tell myself I'l remember but I never do. I've gotten into the habit of grabbing my phone off the nightstand jotting the lines down in a notepad application. I love going through the notes and looking at the lines, sometimes I use them and sometimes they just stay in my phone, reminding me the writing comes when it comes. The fragments of poems from last night are fragments I want to use. One beginning I called "Bed Weather." Another is an ode to bourbon which I'm sure has been done but there are a couple of lines I think will work.

Two days until the solstice. I'm so ready for the days to start to grow longer. I'm tired of hibernating.

I dig this poem. the jaws of lusty squirrels Beautiful.

Rain predicted heavily the next couple of days. Lots of indoor time for me, reading and writing. Naps. Making candy. We're not big into Christmas in the family but will spend it together, one of my favorite cousins in coming in to town and I'm excited to see him. I haven't eaten a candy cane yet. I should get on that.

reading to write

2010-12-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

I find myself turning to certain books when I need or want to start writing. Last night I was working on a draft of a short story. When I read it back to myself it felt cold and stilted, not at all the tone I was aiming for. And the story wasn't presenting itself the way I wanted it to. I turned to one of my favorite books The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. (I'm partial to the Sam Hileman translation.) When I read Fuentes I want to write. And I wrote. I have a new beginning to the story.

theft, ideas, muse

2010-12-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

As I was falling asleep a idea came to me for a series of vignettes based on a writing exercise I have assigned on the rare occasion I've been asked to teach. Maybe poems, maybe prose. Perhaps a little of both. I remembered a manuscript a friend sent me, how at first glance it was nothing special but after a second read I couldn't get the stories out of my head and to this day I think about them. My imagined project is similar in scope. I like it. Epistolary.

Last night B and I had dinner and talked for a long time about how ideas of ours have been taken from us. Stolen. I readily share ideas with loved one and don't mind inspiring or being muse. I believe the Picasso quote is Good artists borrow, great artists steal. An idea was taken from B recently and received a lot of good press and it bothers me. Recently I saw a line of mine used in another writer's work. It doesn't bother me but I wouldn't have minded at least an email sent my way in gratitude for the 3 words. The theft of B's idea is ugly, the theft of mine was mildly annoying.

Back in the claws of a short story I've been wrestling. I have the entire damn thing outlined and just need to get it out. A mentor told me earlier this year not to force my writing. But Jesus, I've been labor with this one forever.

I met an old friend yesterday afternoon. We talked about writing. He is pretty damn established and has always pushed me to establish myself more. He's been trying to convince me to get into an MFA program as long as I've known him. Nope. No thanks. No way. There was a long article in Slate a couple of weeks ago on MFAs. I don't want one. I can't see myself wanting to teach in an MFA and take time away from writing. Why go into a career about writing that doesn't give the writer any time to write? I don't get it. Go work at the Home Depot, don't waste your intellectual energy on others. Come home revved, write.

the great communicator

2010-12-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

The dissatisfaction is rampant in me lately. A part of it is the season, the early darkness and how artificial the joy we're supposed to be feeling is. Jesus month, everything on the History Channel is about Jesus. Every Lifetime movie is about a lost love returning in time for the holiday. Christmas music on the radio. Tinsel in every window. Joy fucking joy fucking joy. Meanwhile I'm broke, workless, hungry for something real. It exhausts me. I can't wait until this time of year is over. January 2, I await you as the wife of a whaler standing on the widow's walk. And here I steal the beginning of one of my own poems: You will return. Drop to the deck from a passing night, return sinewy, lovely. You who drove my heart's head underground

I suppose this is the season to write poetry thought the poet in me is ragged and tired of poetry. But the prose writer in me isn't fully wake either. I wrote a poem for Julian Assange last week and read it at the ACLU Freedoms of Expression II event. It wasn't my best work but it was an honest. It was short and to the point. My performance was the shortest out of the entire line-up, which I like. Always leave them wanting more, my mantra.

I love the title of this song by Sufjan Stevens. Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day (Well You Deserved It)

ACLU Freedoms of Expression II

2010-12-10T09:12:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow night. Be there.

the stars like dust

2010-12-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

Last night I was sitting on the balcony late, looking at the skies. When I look at the sky at night an Issac Asimov quote always comes to me:

The stars like dust encircle me

in loving mists of light,

and all of space I seem to see

in one vast burst of sight.

I remember the quote because of a small encounter I had over ten years ago while I was waiting tables. I had a young, kind of nerdy man sitting in my section. He was awkward and a little tense so I made an effort to draw him out by asking him what he did, et al. He was an astronomy student, getting his PhD. At the time I was in an astronomy class so I chatted with him about nebula, gamma rays, breadth of galaxies. It was a short interaction. When he left I went to clear his table and he had left me an extraordinarily large tip. On the receipt he had written the Asimov quote and a short note thanking me for making his day with our conversation. I pinned the receipt to my wall at home and thus memorized the quote. I wonder if the young man remembers our conversation.

Insomnia again is monster. Late last night I watched Orion creep across the sky. I made myself take a sleeping pill. The effects wore off around 4am and I was wide awake and went to look at the pre-dawn constellations. If only I could write at the hours my mind roams. But I always think I'll be able to fall asleep again as soon as I wake up and I stare at the ceiling for hours, the light at the edges of the window changing.

Last night before I went to be bed I read a couple of old journals. Reading one was pretty wrenching. My heart was freshly broken, days maybe. Every pain was on the page, all of my anger, shock. I was boxing a little back then, I think now only that physical discipline kept me from completely unraveling. In the scope of the journal I dissect what went wrong in my relationship, the emotional shortcomings of the man I had been loving. The journal went with me to Cuba where I did my best to embrace the experience but my heart wasn't in it. The journal came home with me. B made his first appearance in my journal. Deciding to move out of my old place also was on the pages.

I haven't journaled in years. I looked at the last journal entry I made, August 19, 2009. I should, I know I should but so much of the same crap is in the pages. Reading through the pages I see my patterns, the same tired ruts I wheel myself through again and again in hopes that maybe the next go around the scenery will change. I should write about that.

manuscript, musings, ego, disappointment

2010-12-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

I've tentatively decided to to put together a manuscript for a poetry book and submit it to a first book contest. My old roommate and friend Geoff has been prodding me for years to submit more work and to take my self more seriously as a writer. What does taking myself seriously as a writer even mean? I write, I love writing. I read, I love reading. I contemplate my work and study it. I lose sleep over adverbs and pronouns. Last night as I waited for sleep to come I poured over poems in my head, wondering how they would speak together in a collection; what could be said about the writer. I've never given much consideration to being a writer for a living or making any money off of my art. I keep the money and the art separate because it allows me to keep my writing sacrosanct, holy. Writing is never a job or chore. It belongs to me and only me. Fame and recognition become less important to me the older I get. I am consecrated to my writing as my namesake in the bible was consecrated to her god. I write because I love it, because I have always been and will always be writer and crafter of stories. I'm proud of myself when I look at my folio of work and turn the pages. Even the old writings I would never these days consider sharing with the public make me happy because they were the base for what followed.

And yet. . .

There is a part of me that worries that I'll be an 80 year old woman, stiff of body and dissatisfied with what am about to leave behind. I was lamenting to a good friend last week my torpid ambition and he said to me Don't confuse lack of motivation for laziness. Ashé. I hope that is my ailment, lack of motivation. I read published writings at times and know I can do better. I know what I have to say and how to say it.

I look at what I've written about and it is all over the place. A lot of my earlier writing was about sex and sexuality, I had just come into what I call sexual ego and I was thrilled with it; my writing reflected the headiness that new power inspired, the prowess and inner growl. Then the writing went into the disappointment that followed the discovery of sexual ego, the failed relationships and discord of physical desire versus emotional needs. I dipped latently at times into identity. The writing of the last couple of years has been about narrative and myth since like Eve, I've discovered my own nudity and have known shame. Parable and allegory. Storytelling. Aren't all the great lessons told through story? Maybe this is why I've been more into prose than poetry the last couple of years. But poetry is the meaty heart, my diaphanous language, the love of cerebral music.

on desire, panic

2010-12-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

Thinking a lot about desire these days. Going through old poems and other writings, desire has been a theme I've touched on again and again. Not just carnal; lust, sexual, physical, but desire for emotional and, for lack of a better word, spiritual intimacy, connection. My work these days, and aspects of what has driven it, feel dried out. I read an old poem last week at Voz Alta with the line before she began drying up in protest against the end of desire,//before she knew the limits of luck. The poem wasn't a self-portrait or anything even close to one, it was an exercise that turned out a pretty good poem. But the line has been resonating in my head for a while now, did I fulfill my own prophecy? My former insouciance is gone. I don't know if I've outgrown that aspect of my life or if the last couple of years I've just stopped trying. Certainly heartbreak and disappointment figure heavily into how one reacts to external and intellectual stimuli. I tire so easily of people. I miss ideas.

Very little gets me excited these days. My life is fairly even keeled. I have little drama. I have companionship and close emotional ties but there are times, especially lately, when I can't sleep thinking that I'm wasting my life. My insomnia has been a beast the last couple of weeks. I fall asleep easily enough then the panic comes and I'm wide awake thinking of the places on this earth I haven't traveled to. I think of how much time I spend in the service of others without paying attention to my owns needs. I think of my body, aging each second. I think I've painted myself into a corner, a life free of threats and heartache but the other side of that bitter coin is a life free of passion and true joy. Then I remind myself I'm a writer, this may be common, sometimes panic is at the heart of creation.

I don't even have the desire to finish this blog entry.

body

2010-12-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

This week has been rough. Nothing has really gone as planned and I've been feeling the tension in my body. I've actually been feeling the tension in my body for months. Last night I went with my sister to the Casbah to see Nortec Collective. I met up with my friend Gerardo, aka Acamonchi and we ended up dancing the entire long Nortec set. I don't remember the last time I danced so un-selfconsciously. I completely let go, was sweaty, hair flying everywhere and the release I felt was so, so needed. I don't spend enough time in my body, if that makes any sense. I'm a pretty cerebral person. I'm always thinking or writing or reading. I feed my body, clothe it, wash it. but I never let it let loose and move. More movement is in my future, it has to be. I'm exhausted today but feel as if a weight has been released.

loving this song

2010-11-30T10:05:00.001-08:00

events and such

2010-11-29T15:33:00.001-08:00

I have a couple of events coming up. I'll be reading for the 2nd Annual ACLU Freedoms of Expression December 11. Another event too, December 18, more details as the dates approach.

My reading Friday night was lovely. It was nice to read with Stephanie Delatorre and David Tomas Martinez. All of us have very different writing and performing styles so the audience (packed house) had a good mix. I read poems I'd never read before and some very old pieces, including old audience favorite "Anthem." I really enjoy reading that poem. It makes me happy and people always love it.

My writing goal this week is to get a few thousand words down in a short story I've been chewing on for a while. The short story is really 9 short stories with characters who exist in each other's lives. I'm stealing and twisting family history for it.

Thanksgiving was lovely. My family loves S, especially my youngest sister. She convinced us to stay late and play drinking games and we ended up spending the night because the drinking games rendered us completely unable to drive. We stayed in the morning to help my mom get the house back in order. I think it was the best Thanksgiving ever.

gracias

2010-11-25T10:19:00.000-08:00

Battling insomnia again these days. Yesterday was a bit chaotic, lots of errands and food prepping for today's feast. Last night I went to the Whistlestop with a couple of cousins who are in town for the holiday. After, I came home with loverboy and we had a quiet evening of television watching and conversation. We went to bed around 2 but I stayed awake, tossing and turning for an hour. I finally dosed myself with a sleeping pill and earplugs to block out loverboy's snores and fell into a restless sleep filled with odd dreams. In one dream a woman spoke to me of dreaming and helped me recall a dream I had earlier in the week of horseback riding through marshlands with my deceased grandfather. The swamp grasses I dreamed we rode through were beautiful, one of the loveliest images I can remember ever dreaming.

I woke up this morning tired and have been in the kitchen ever since. I've made pate a choux dough and have the shells of creampuffs rising in the oven. In a few we'll start chopping green beans and brussel sprouts and mixing batches of sweet potato casserole. Today I introduce loverboy to the extended family which will be interesting. I haven't brought a love of mine around the extended family in at least 5 years and I'm a little bit nervous. I adore my family and sharing them with someone I love is very important to me. The last time a brought someone I loved around it was a disaster. He interacted poorly and was jealous of how close I was to my family. Several relatives took me aside and told me to kick him to the curb. I have a feeling they'll love the man I love and appreciate how happy he makes me.

Thinking a lot about my family and how grateful I am for them. I am truly blessed to have been born into such a dynamic and loving clan. We are hilarious and chaotic, passionate and opinionated. There will be lots of shit-talking, storytelling and joking. And drinking. It'll be our first major holiday without my grandfather and I know his absence will be noted. I hope someone remembers all his dirty jokes. We'll pour out a glass of wine for him.

I'm looking forward to my reading tomorrow night. I've been thinking about what I want to read and I think I'm going to concentrate on the work of passion and risk taking, perhaps to remind me of the me I love best. I may even be brave and read and wanton exhibitionist poem. You should come by, check it out.

reading this Friday night

2010-11-23T08:34:00.001-08:00

I have a reading this Friday night at Voz Alta, you should come I'll be reading with Stephanie Delatorre and David Tomas Martinez.

Working on the plot points and outline for the new novel is pretty interesting. I know there is a formula in young adult quest fantasy, especially with a female teenage protagonist and I'm loosely adhering to the dimensions of genre. But I feel I'm taking some chances with the types of relationships I've chosen to write about. Writing fantastical creatures is challenging, despite my being enamored of magical realism. Fantasy is a whole other ball game Maybe if I change "fantasy" to "mythology" in my head it'll be easier. Creating a world is no small feat, I don't envy the gods

Before I began working on this project I made a list of all the female protagonists I love and wrote little essays for myself on why I cared about them and then looked at the qualities they shared. Psychologically it was an interesting experiment just to see what my mind is drawn to in character; to see what I love and respect in character. I noticed that my close female friends in real life share the qualities that I find attractive in fiction.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving. I'm cooking quite a few dishes and am happy about it More and more I find comfort in cooking. I love projects that have a tangible culmination and cooking satisfies that need to see that my work has an outcome. I spend so much time in the kitchen these days, more than I ever used to before. I'm making an effort to write more but the kitchen is always calling.

reading and thoughts

2010-11-18T06:08:00.000-08:00

I'm one of three poets reading at Voz Alta next Friday. I look forward to it and hope you'll join me.

I've been chipping slowly away at the outline for a new novel. I think the first novel is abandoned. I just don't feel like writing it anymore. I've had the chapters for four years. I don't doubt I'll come back to it, but it isn't something I want to focus on now. The new novel idea is something I've thought of for a while and looking at the books I tend to gravitate toward, I'm surprised it took me so long to decide to try my hand at it. I've been doing character sketches and outlining chapters to see if writing to outline is something that works for me. I'm pretty in love with the writing program Scrivener.

darkening

2010-11-10T17:25:00.001-08:00

I seriously dislike this time of year. The nights are colder and longer, days shorter. The sun sets early and it depresses me. The holidays are approaching, my least favorite time of year. I want to punch people daily from Thanksgiving until January 2. I feel a jar closing in over my head around this time of year, suffocating and constraining me. Bulky clothing, long sleeves. My skin hates being covered. Fall is somehow worse than winter, especially this year as our summer was so short and cold. At least in winter we have rain and Spring around the corner. My bah humbug is starting early this year.

I'm writing some again, which is a good thing. It isn't easy, I'm struggling. I've lost momentum and most of all, passion. My life is devoid of passion. I cook a lot and bake but those are hobbies. Writing used to be a passion but I've lost it, for now. I truck along but I'm not excited. It'll return, I hope, it aways has before.

I love so many things about getting older. I love the confidence and awareness of who I am. I love that I have enough experiences that make me proud and a few that make me cringe. I know whatever happens I'll be okay. But I remember an exercise we did my my 11th grade English class. Our teacher asked us if we would prefer a short life composed of extreme highs and terrible lows or a long, even-keeled life. With the exception of one person, everyone wanted the short, exciting/devastating life. My twenties were that life, the amazing highs and horribles lows. Now that I'm a little bit older I get those swings less and less. Sure, I'm content and I have nothing truly to complain about but I often worry that I'm just kind of floating on, saying yes when it's easy and no when I have to. I'm more and more solitary, much of which is chosen but not any less lonely at the lonely moments. I miss my old brave self. I'm hoping to write her into existence, not only in the story I'm creating with a character with passions similar to the ones I used to have, but also hoping that in the act of writing a reawakening can begin.

long time

2010-11-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

I ignore my blog for no good reason. But in happy news I felt I had to share, I wrote a poem this morning. A very difficult poem to write, not for the form or anything else but for the content and I enjoyed how hard it was to write. Dipping into the dark places is something I've forgotten to do in my writing.

more and

2010-09-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

I love this song. I don't have much more to say.

No One's Gonna Love You

Ceel Lo Green

on 31 and what's next

2010-09-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Not really, I had a moment like night of existential crisis but it passed. As long as I ignore the moments, they don't get me down. The moon is in a phase where I know the anxiety in me is hormonal. I stretch out on the floor, listening to Miles or Billie or Nina and anything is tolerable. At one point I listened to a Maria Callas recording of Vissi d'arte and had a good bawl. Sometimes you need a good bawl.

I sewed all afternoon yesterday, until it got dark. I made two lovely bags out of material that was difficult to work with. They're not perfect but I'm getting better every day. I look forward to the day when I can attempt clothing. I have such a hard time finding things that fit me properly. I dislike cold weather because I feel so oddly shaped and bulky in sweaters and heavy material. But I get cold easily.

I was looking through some writing from a year ago and I was kind of impressed. I have a small collection of unsent letters I was very into last year; when I read them my heart constricts. I was in a place of language that was lovely. Mostly I am recollecting dreams. I wonder why I don't write like that all of the time. The voice in the letters is the voice in which I feel I express myself best. I'm not too good at expression in real life, I think, but on paper I am sometimes gorgeous.