Guest (Movie)

Wake Up Cat.

Not mine, nothing to do with me. Except that it's very familiar. Thought you'd enjoy.

Foothills

This is the last small count. Tomorrow, the foothills to

fifty thousand words of a novel. A couple dozen stories

and perspectives on the novel coughed out last year. I

think two years to bring it to reality is reasonable.

Hopeful. Like, I might actually make it to real Authorship.

I've dug out some old photos, scanned them, cleaned them

up, To show you this month, so that you don't

feel neglected. I'll list all I know doing Nablopomo here,

lots of wonderful voices, harmonics untried, changes being rung. Write-ins

at The City Library. Wearing my (temporary) Nanowrimo 2006 tattoo .

Stare (Photo)

Whoops

I wrote an essay yesterday, but was so exhausted when

I got home, I forgot to post it. As for

the one hundred word a day challenge, I did mention.

No way I'm going to continue this. Way too, well,

hard, artificial, rather unsatisfying. Maybe once in a while. C'mon

people, I expect you to remember every detail, it will

be on the test. I overheard a discussion yesterday, one woman took it

as given that in order to be a good person,

one had to be religious. And religious people had to be

good. I never use humor or sarcasm around her.

Quandary

I am in a quandary, knee deep and sinking fast.

My gut has been unsettled for well over a week.

It is with morbid preoccupation that I mull moving within a year,

To another apartment, to another job, fearful of other changes looming.

We are not moving, I can't change jobs yet, and yet.

We have changed from a life too hard, to one too prickly.

Fussy us. Anger over a haircut done not to request

Months ago. Anger over an incident with putting taps on my

dance shoes, over 25 years ago, when I should have said,

No, make it right.

Sell

I never drank around my older brother, not despite his

urgings, his express wish to see me drunk, ostensibly to

see me more relaxed, more myself. But because. He tried

to sell me on inebriation. I resist all hard sells,

as selling me the proverbial bill of goods. High pressure

is only needed for such terribly wrong ideas. I have

other people in my life that I will never drink around.

Because I do not trust them to be responsible. Others, well,

I would never feel a need to hide any corner of my soul from.

Trustworthy people don't ask to be trusted, no need to.

Steps

I am not a good singer, but

I have a very good ear, I am in

tune and on time. I cannot read music to save

my life, although I try. Shape notes are vaguely intelligible

to me, rather like picking out the general meaning of

a bit of Latin when it is liturgy I am

familiar with. My feet move in good time to music,

though I would never call myself a great dancer,

and I am no good with choreography.

I have the feel, not the discipline.

Uke-babe.

Making a little progress on Wade Hemsworth's The Blackfly Song.

Bugs

Box elder bugs mass on our southbound screen, shadow movement.

Entrancing the cat, who is smart enough not to eat the little buggers.

We got him grass, always a delight, as his eyes light,

In a happy startle, and a bound to appreciate,

Rub his face in the sprouting wheat he'll be

hawking up later, which is part of the pleasure,

Not that pleasure can be partitioned and broken.

D and I are feeling icky, venturing out for gas

and a handful of groceries, we walked out of the store,

leaving refueling for tomorrow, in our malaise and fatigue.

Damp (Photo)

Small

Every state, every country, should have real police enforcing humane

law - Federal legislation. Even today, some see this as

sad, but not all that serious, compared to so much more serious crime.

Just an animal. But when people take in a critter,

confine it, then do not feed it, provide no shelter,

affection, medical care or kindness, or use the animal

for status, or as a victim, they are bullies, torturers.

No one is safe around them. Not to be trusted

in small matters. How we treat the lowest, weakest, speaks

most eloquently to our true character. The least matters most.

Sharp

I actually considered, for a moment, snitching a flu shot

to bring home to D. Highly unethical, quite illegal. But

the really personally disturbing part, is that I have no

real qualms about shoving a needle in his arm. I

have never done so before, but it took me a

little while to really think, "wow, this is not normal

human behaviour." I stick sharp things into people. To help

them. Medical folks throughout time have hurt to help, bled,

injected, cut. A moment of pain now, to save further

pain, infection, suffering, death. Not enjoyment, a kind of rightness.

Mission

Missionaries knock. I peek out, and tell them it's not

a good time. They force their spiel on me. I

stop them, with a nurse voice, mother voice, teacher voice,

sergeant voice, "I said. This. Is. Not a Good Time."

And mutter as I shut the door firmly, no slamming,

"You get polite once, then you get rude." What I

want to say is, "There is no God, open your

eyes." But, this is their path. They have to find

their own way, or not. As I have chosen mine.

Lick (Movie)

Music from: Icebound Stream Laura Veirs Carbon Glacier

Call

Dear friends, lurkers, commenters, dippers,

I need some suggestions. I honestly do not have a plot for the story I've been writing for the past year. I cannot draw myself away from it. I want to use Nanowrimo as a tool to get it moving again, but I'm more at the polishing than the gross cutting out stage. Which may be the problem, and I should simply re-write the whole thing.

Suggestions?

Extra points if you can identify the rules behind my recent pseudo poems.

I admit, I missed yesterday. Challenging days at work. Exhausting. Stretched to my limits.

Counting

I work with a nurse name of Vicky
Whose humor has never been picky
She writes limericks well
She's sassy and swell
Her tongue-sense is really quite tricky.


Hot tea in my mug
Warm bread on my plate
Good hot chili,
Yams a'baking
Snow on the mountains.


Where is my story?
I had it before.
Stuck in the mud,
Without a plot.
What am I writing?


Rain turns into snow
Winter seeps in the corners
Cools the burning pain.



New ukelele
wants me to play it
songs are waiting
fingers itching
tired brain objecting.



Great
Cats
Eat
Apes.

Division

A chair, a tall stand
My feet so sore, my head too
a long, hard, work day.

Make each word count out
loud, plain, one two three, each sound
make it spare and strong

teeth ache, knees whine, stop
I have had enough right now
two days work weigh down

He got me a uke
I try to strum, learn the chords
a sweet, small, joy tone.

Cat wants me to play
wants me to make the bird move
So sad, I'm a lump.

(What is the nearest, divisible, haiku, to one hundred? How to write 1/8th poem?

Nap

I fight tiredness, a side effect of travel, no doubt.

I'm not a good traveler. I'd much rather be places

than go places. Oh, and I did get my flu shot,

which drags me down a bit, insisting on a nap.

The couch beckoned, and I succumbed to it's lure. A

blanket bought years ago at Lava Hot Springs, one winter

trip to soak in hot water under snowy skies, covered

me. Moby decided that I was a wonderful spot to

fall asleep. Very unusual. He is not a lap cat,

as a rule. I think he may have missed me.

Soothe

It's one of those fake electric fires, nicer than a

space heater. With some coaxing, now a hit with Moby,

the Mobe-ster, Mobi-san, Mobius. There is an ease to watching

a cat relax. A comfort to purring. Friendship in their

presence. We both like that Moby seems to have a

life of his own, that he lives in our presence.

We joke that he only wants us for food, and

occasionally, play. But he reminds us, as a dog would

not, that we are not the most important species. We

are, however, worthy of his time and attention, healing, affection.

Weighty

After being the object of affection of cats weighing in

at over thirty pounds between them, and grateful for the

attention, I return to what was once, in my mind,

a large cat. He seems tiny, almost. Svelte, lithe

and precisely right for feline ideal form, the cat of

home. The weight and friendliness of Mau and Bear will

stay with me, friends, always. Moby is my home.

Who says video phones won't work? Being able to do video

chat with D eased much of our distress at being

apart. We are together now, and easier in ourselves for it.

(Photo of Bear, or part of him.)

California

Mau

Meet

I begin to feel like the last blogger picked for

the team, as blogger meetups, some where I lived

up until Spring, happen. I feel ostracized and neglected.

I do know this is irrational. I do know this is not

in any way personal. But I want to leave snotty little

comments on their meet-up posts. Yeah, yeah. Not going

to commit the sin most egregious in mine eye at the moment.

I know I am a hard friend to have, valued because, well,

when you need a tough friend, there I am. A friend to help you move.

Bully

My father was given more chances than he ever earned,

for my mother's sake, until, finally, I followed my deepest

urge, to remove the barb, and heal myself. Silence complete.

I knew when small, lived it out by ending friendships,

later escaping toxic people. I had no compunction against utterly

removing myself from those who treated me badly. Then I

tolerated nearly seven years of an abusive marriage, making it

work, when every habit and instinct told me to run

away, trying to be faithful and loyal. The instinct remains.

I know red flags. I will not be bullied here.

Disconnect

The strangeness lies in the lack of strangeness. My

deep sense of disconnectedness, homelessness, seems to result in an inability

to feel more displaced. My friend's cats have claimed me

for their own. They are huge and insistent. Photos later.

I miss D utterly, but being able to do a

video chat with him makes it much easier. Making him

laugh, seeing his face, this is more like normal.

I have had tea and cereal at seven. Yogurt and

tea at ten. Cookies at one, with small orange

juice. Chips and Squirt at about three. Long, long day.

Morbid

For the first time in many years, I will be

traveling without D. This is dismaying. I want to go,

want to spend the weekend with my beloved friend Moira,

after so long apart, while she has gone through such

high water. Moby knows the bags mean disruption, and he

had to touch his nose all over my face this

morning, has been intermittently disdainful of his food, moody, bothered.

I want make sure D knows to post here if I die

in a crash, or whatever. Yes, I am always morbid

when I travel. I want to sleep late, but cannot.

Flowers

Rachel Ruysch in 1708 painted as a woman should paint.

Barred from nudes and figurative allegory, limited by her gender,

she withdrew to flowers, like pretty little women should.

But in her heart, she was more than decorative, true artist

That she was, challenging, perverse, insistent on producing harsh truth.

Discontented with facile surfaces, she walked through safety to death.

Even as she apparently conformed and pandered to popular opinions.

Even as a court painter. She twisted her wry smile.

Bugs and reptiles, rot and botanical sex hid amid real blooms.

Bide

I bide. Unwilling to waste breath on those who think

the movie 300 was wonderful. Who gather at parties to

stamp cards or scrapbook. Who think Target is a dream

come true. Or who love Disney and all it's evil

works. Or treasure James Taylor and Billy Joel on their

iPods, that they share with the whole room for the

whole day. I want to scream, how about challenging your

small, smug, pale opinions? How about understanding that popular doesn't

mean tasteful? That variety and change and originality are positive,

that complacency is rot? Allow for broader ideas?

I bide.

Whinge

My first entry - though not my first essay, was a

simple list.  100 things about me.  Having now lost  my

impetus, I am drawn to the idea of a dribble

of words.  I stare at nanowrimo with my toddling novel

staring at me with big imploring eyes.  I am at

a loss, of words and of focus, though not ideas. 

First, to prime the dry pump, lubricate.  Today and for

the rest of the month, I will write 100 words

exactly every day. I will write about whatsoever is at

hand.  There may be more bad haiku, whinging, work stories. 

Moody (Photos)

Domain (Photos)

Lick

Photobooth captures of the famous cat. Reading Pratchett's new book, can't talk now.