Don't think anyting of it.

At first I didn't post because I was Just. That. Busy.

No, that's the primary reason, but not the first one. The first (but secondary) reason I haven't brought any new fiction (or other update) to the table in two weeks is because the next prompt in 3am Epiphany was so easy I couldn't think of what to write. Really. I had many many weak ideas, and though I knew the only way to make one of them strong enough to present would be to start writing and discover what the story was meant to be as I went along.

I finally got over that silly block by putting on some Philip Glass and let it paint the broad strokes of tone. Once again, the strategy was so good that I made it only halfway through the mini-story I expected to write, but already find myself beating out the word count. If it wasn't 6am I'd keep writing, but it is, so I'll try to come back to this prompt tomorrow.

Even on this vast expanse of wasteland, there is only one direction for me to go. I head for the light in the distance. Every time I try to avert my steps and walk into the darkness, the earth seems to turn under my feet and point me toward the tower again. So toward the tower I go.

I've fallen asleep three times on this cracked and dusty ground. Between these periods of unconsciousness, I tread the barren land for untold hours. Two? Twelve? Twenty? Each time I wake up, the tastes of salt and soil in my mouth, I can't remember laying down. All I can do is stand again and put one foot in front of the other, dragging my wagon in the direction of the beacon that never seems to get brighter.

At least the wagon is lighter now. A third of the rations I started with are gone. Too bad the power cell was more than half the payload, even at the beginning of this trek.

I wake up for the fourth time with the tastes of salt and soil in my mouth, and I cannot hear anything. I'm face down on the ground. My shoulders lift once, then droop again. I wonder why my body isn't getting up. In my mind, I stand as far away from myself as I can, and observe in a detached way this prone creature who does not stand, does not move. My hear-rate, already sluggish with apathy, slows more.


Johnny doesn't want to get up for school. His mother is ready to coax the family's sheepdog into jumping on Johnny's bed. She reaches to place a dog treat on her son's pillow, but his eyes snap open, looking directly into hers, and her hand withdraws.

"Time to get ready for school, Jon."
"I went to school yesterday."
"Well, school is open again today, so you have to go."
"I went the day before that, too. And the day before that. And the day before--"
"That was Sunday, you didn't go to school Sunday."
She looks at the clock. No hurry yet. She clears the biggest toys from the middle of Jon's room.
"Sunday doesn't count. Weekends are illusions."
"How's that?"
"They just trick us into thinking the rest of the days aren't the same."
"You've been in the seventh grade for less than three months. Where are you getting this from?"
Jon lies still, watching the line where the far wall joins the ceiling.
"You can't help growing up, Jon, and no one can help summer being over." She leans down and kisses his forehead. "But if you can live through the boring old dull days, you'll make it to another summer."

Jon watches her pick up the laundry basket and leave the room, then looks into a corner of the room and thinks about next summer: the bike trails and pool parties. the barbecues and bonfires. The tree-climbing and baseball-playing under the blazing overhead sun that never seems to set.


When I open my eyes, I am facing away from the light, but still it appears clearly in my mind, dimmer than ever, but undeniable. The image in my head consumes my attention, and I can only see the beacon. When I blink, sight restored, the tower's light remains paramount. I'm already walking, feet already moving under me, subverting my conscious intentions, carrying me towards the tower.

I was numb at first, but not anymore. But I keep going the same way, guided by the only thing I can see... the only thing there is to see.

I love this book. The 3am one. Even a mere 4 exercises into it, I can tell each one has a high replay value.

Some, but not all

I'm only on the mountain as long as I'm climbing. As soon as I turn my pack towards untread trail, I'm "home" again, all business, the romance of the woods lost on me.

But since I went farther and faster than any previous hike (much farther), I got a bad headache once I came home. Not my worst ever, but bad enough to prevent anything interesting from being accomplished.

I did manage 300 of today's 500 word exercise, but even still I'm only 1/4 done with what I mapped out, so not gonna finish or post it tonight.

This post has no point. But the practice is good.

I can't wait to get a new scanner.

(Catching Up) Washing Dishes

(A post from yesterday that was delayed by an evening of unexpected socializing)

Each full day I've been here, I've paid a bit of my "rent" by doing the dishes. It's strange, but I kinda like it.

There's no dishwasher here, so everything has to be done by hand. It's a blessing and a curse that A+H have few dishes; there is never more than a small sinkful and things don't get a chance to encrust, but they need to be done every day. But, as I said, I don't mind.

The first day I did dishes, I set my mp3 player to shuffle and attacked the chore full tilt. I can't even remember what I was listening to, but it made things go quickly as I lived in my ears while scrubbing dishes, tidying up counters, and wiping the stove clean.

The second day, the house was empty (except for dogs) and I didn't take my mp3 player. Instead I chased myself through circles in my mind and enjoyed the view out the window into the cold and sunny backyard. Dipping my hands in the hot water was a nice change from the nippiness of the weather here. (To be honest, it's often below freezing and I didn't come quite prepared for being outside in these conditions.)

The third day I did dishes Hannah was in the room working on book binding, but I had my headphones on. After I finished, I apologized for the (mild) racket (dishes colliding as I dropped them, or forced them into the tiny drying rack) as I left the room. Hannah just laughed, saying that a clean kitchen is worth any racket.

Although that first day I ran into the problem of not wanting to cook in a dirty kitchen because it's more enjoyable to work in a clean space... but once the effort has been made to clean the kitchen, I don't want to cook because doing so would cause things to be messy again.


Overall I feel like I'm integrating well into life here... at least as well as can be said for only being on the fourth day of my trip. (Donut of Misery says I am 5% done with my stay, and 4% done with my time away from Reagan.)

Integrating may be a strange word for the situation, but I'm somewhere between guest and tenant. I have autonomy (no obligation for them to keep me entertained or for me to always be hanging out), and yet I am invited along for errands, calling on friends, and to break bread. It's very comfortable for me, although not similar to any situation in my past.

I want (and try) to be a good house-citizen. Besides doing the dishes gladly, I want to be on good, easy terms with the people and dogs and avoid anything like the "stucco tower" feeling I had in Upland. Keeping the door to my room open and spending time in other parts of the house goes a long way to help this cause.

But tonight will have temperatures in the single digits (Fahrenheit), and the room I'm staying in is the warmest in the house. Selfishly (perhaps), I'm spending a lot of the cold days in my room with the door closed to preserve warmth.

Luckily most of my painting will be done on the flat, open, well-lit surface of the kitchen table.

Second guesses

Initially, I pulled back from the artistic endeavor I was about to approach. Getting ready to test how some ink would react to watercolors, I changed my mind and came to write instead.

I either pulled back because I suddenly wanted dedicated watercolor "dishes" (so I wouldn't be putting paint-water in anything that didn't belong to me), or because I didn't want to draw the horse. Horses are hard.

But the horse argument is a cop-out, and I could use the abandoned mug in the bathroom without fear.

Instead of pulling paints and paper back out, though, I'm here, writing.

I have mixed feelings about blogging right now, especially as extensively as I've done in the past. The motivations and rewards are entirely internal, as usual, but neither side is huge right now. Contributing factors include a) backlog, b) talking (out loud) about my day more, and c) writing things I want to say here in letters to Reagan.

In truth, right now it's one long letter on three sheets with four greetings, two closures, and a lot of drawings thrown in. True to form, I put lots of arrows and notes all over it and wrote in chunks that don't have to be read in a linear fashion, some of them sideways.

There are some things I only talk to Reagan about, and writing down things I usually say out loud seems to take words away from the things I would normally write about. Or something.

Talking about it makes me miss him.

*big exhale*

Somewhere in my brain there's an imp that thinks that as long as I post faithfully, every day sharing a poem, some drawings, and some interesting thoughts, that the internet loves me. (In spite of myself, I am interested in the fact that my self esteem is tied more to posting [quality] than to getting feedback thereon.)

That imp tells me that I am loved and respected less when I take off days from blogging, or fail to post art and words and poetry. My rational mind does not understand the imp.

I cried today. It was the first time I shed tears about Reagan's impending departure. My rational mind does not understand that, either. My rational mind does understand that it's past midnight on December 31, which means we're down to 13 days.

December 31, 2008 is also exactly 3 years from the first day I met Reagan for the first time, and the first day I became a real person to him.

Non-sequitur: I am going to banish the imp for a while, posting only what and when I feel like it. Blogging is in my blood, and writing is an integral part of who I am. Most certainly I will still be journaling over the next week-and-six-days, both here and at Boot & Beyond, but I am going to do my best to live in the moment and not pressure myself to be perfectly faithful to my posting ideals.

I'll just have to hope that you all still love me anyways. :)

L&L
Annie

ps: and if you can forgive that, can you forgive me falling behind in keeping up with my reading list, too? -.-

I started a blog and pitched a book today.

What did you do?

Okay, I had time to do a lot more and got stuck in the intertubes instead, but both of those things took a considerable amount of time and energy.

The blog and the book are on the same topic: Year One. The blog (which I'll link to once there is more than one post) was a decision that took about 24 hours to reach, and I was lifted to it by the encouragement of some strangers. The book pitch was fully spur-of-the-moment when blog research dropped in my path a link to a literary agency. Not just the agency, but the form for submitting queries.

I'm glad I saved the text of my proposal. It has the potential to act as a guide for my Other Blogging Adventure.

--

Not getting enough sleep. I need a large bottle of CONCENTRATE, the product that has the ability to make anything more potent. Sleep. Orange Juice. Thoughts. Coffee. Poetry, maybe.

Hungover

your voice did echo
spilt words in my mind
of hours to come
and moments behind

that, having passed,
are nothing but warning
all is a day
and we are a morning

Yes. We needs it.

I want to etch that in the corner of a bold painting in sunset colors and a cliche, bereft figure or two. Something very 365.

Instead, I will take up my pen and hamoodle out some drawings while eating and con Reagan into scanning them for me. This note is entirely unnecessary because the lapse in time for you to go from here to the image below is a fraction, I say a fraction of what it takes me to make it happen. Appreciate it. (My goodness, the lack of sleep is making me punchy.)



ZOUNDS! that's not a scan!

Reagan went to bed and the scanner would awaken him. I draw, he shall scan, I then shall post anon.

*resets "days of non-goofy posts" counter to 0*

Post-holiday post

rockin' some christmas gifts :)

I'm not quite ready to descend into the "real world" and do things like blogging, internet-reading, or cleaning the room yet. Late December has so many reasons to "take the day off". :P Soon, though! And I did do drawing/writing while away. :)

Low Hanging... Fruit

Day off, three ways. I used a photo I took when R and I were last at The Ranch. It was slightly blurry because there was low light and I don't have a tripod.


(inspired by Postal Poetry. I love this image and design.)


(inspired by this Color+Design post)


(inspired by Photoshop Disasters. Mmmm... clone stamp.)

Invisible Norm

When I have my own place, I'm totally going to make myself a bear footstool.

Also, my first (practically) free issue of GOOD Magazine showed up today. I payed cover price a while ago and it didn't live up to my high expectations. Some of the research was shallow and the graphics misleading. But with the pay-what-you-want thing they have going on, you can get a year subscription for a dollar. I got my year subscription for a dollar. If I was flush with cash, I'd give more, but I'm not. I haven't read it yet, though.

I stayed up till 7am (or was it 8?) yesterday, and slept off and on till after 4pm. The block of sleep was interrupted with answering text messages, canceling plans, reading Farenheight 451 and checking headphone reviews for people not-at-computers. One person.

Inconsistent internet service kept my browsing experience from being fluid and transparent (when the tools give you trouble...). Lacking the fortitude to draw without TV in the background (that right there is a dangerous realization), I've spent a lot of today reading and closing the 120+ tabs that I've got open. And writing poetry.

Also related to inconsistent internet service, it gives me pause with the plan to store poetry in GoogleDocs for it's access-anywhere and tagging features. (Inconsistent internet came up in a recent discussion of paperless medical offices, but that's a different issue.) It would be easier for me to give up access-anywhere (and commit to backing up my harddrive) if there was an elegant way to tag files in OS X 10.4. (I realize it's redundant to say X 10, but X.4 doesn't properly convey the situation.) Maybe I should ask for an upgrade to the latest version of my OS for Christmas.

My paper journal is getting distractingly full. The handbound scrap-paper book with a burlap cover and zombie-bandage tie has become so integral to my days and thoughts that it will be difficult to replace. I don't know what I'll do when I'm out of space. Obviously hold onto it and read the full thing once, and bits and pieces from time to time, but I no longer have an epic stash of novelty, scratch, and found papers to build a new journal from. I think I'll do shorter (3 signature) cloth-bound books with interesting fabrics for the (less ghetto) covers until I can collect enough found papers to do another tome.

Thank you for listening, blog.

A poem I wrestled with today. It's another new one. I wrote it long-hand, and the page is a delightful mess of stricken words. The first draft rhymed, then I tried to make it not-rhyme, but couldn't find the rhythm in that version.

From Too Far

Do you see my whole devotion,
long-suffering, and patient care
or do you sense a latent crazy
with desperate and wild stare?

Are you reading it a danger
when I profess my loyalty?
Do you think I paint delusion
over empty, harsh reality?

I thought I found a stable bond
within my constant adoration;
I'm sending you this love, again,
open to interpretation.

I'm excited about tomorrow's poem. I cross my fingers that the enthusiasm will hold out.

Drawing that was wrestled with yesterday:

Determiation

I am not posting anything (interesting) tonight.

Because I don't want to.

Twofer

Today started alright, if a bit late. I had the best intentions of making up for yesterday's epic headache with an early post, some writing, a good bout of drawing, and other productive things.

I ended up spending most of the day chasing my tail. But did do token amounts of writing and drawing.

Here's somethings for yesterday:

Tasteless

Living in a half-baked world
built of gingerbread,
a person only ever finds
an oven for a bed.

Hospitals are bakeries,
they have drives for dough;
when you loose your cookie head,
that is where to go.

Sugar, spice, molasses
make both girls and boys,
frosting is their clothing,
candies are their toys.

We're having Gramps for supper,
'cause Grandma was for tea,
and if you are not tasteful,
that's immortality!

Gingerbread is my traditional holiday treat, passed down from my mother. When I was a kid she had these parties where she would make a gingerbread house for each kid in the neighborhood. All the kids would come over to our house with bags of candy and we'd make a day of decorating them. Now she makes a gingerbread house for each student in her class, and in the good years I mail boxes of cookies to friends. I wrote a storytelling game about gingerbread men, too.



For today, I offer poetry and image combined into one. Pushed some digital paint around with my beloved Kojak for company.

Eeeek!

Today was very stressful. Except for that part where I was running errands alone for a few hours. That was only slightly stressful. (The errand-running wasn't stressful, my overall level of anxiety was just lower.)

I have zero confidence in the classroom. But I'm going back anyways, at least tomorrow. =\

In a strange way, if I had made up my mind on what to teach three hours earlier, or six hours earlier, or one hour earlier than I did, it would not have lowered my stress level. The only reason I'll be able to sleep is because I ran out of seconds to second guess.

Now look at photographs (scans) of the good old days...




And listen to music of the good old times...

Not exactly feel-good poetry today, but the music it was written to [youtube] makes me feel good, in a cathartic, melancholy kind of way. Don't watch the video. It's really creepy (huge eyes on real people) and is not at all what I imagine listening to the song.

The Longest Night

I think of the date we never took,
the time we never went to France.
The day was hot
but night came quickly;
the sun spied us sitting together
and could not set fast enough.
He pulled the warmth down into the sea.

You saw my sweater,
offered to hold it.
I wanted to be so immodest.
I wanted my shivers to draw you closer,
my sweater forgotten.
But I wrapped myself to stay warm.

It was the longest night.

I remember the cafe we dined in
and the story I told you there
Both were tinged with longing for the Old World.

The walls were painted with nostalgia
and I saw the matron
standing by the door
Lost in thought, lost in memories
lost memories.
Her hair looked like and exhausted sunrise,
the sunrise in my story.

I spun a tale about a place I'd never been
but we both longed for.
Your eyes, your smile
took us to the castles, courtyards, queens.
The danger, the intrigue,
the gardens with tame swans.

I said words
you gave them light.
Our soup grew cold.

It was the longest night.

*marks it as "revisit more"*

Timing is off, part I

There is no particularly good reason that I've taken so long to do a make-up post this morning. I've been up for at least three hours. I think I'll blame it on staggered muti-tasking.

Posting didn't happen last night because I've been falling asleep unexpectedly early. Perhaps all the sleep lost when I had my cold is catching up with me.

Last night Reagan and I spent some time together at the bookstore. It was almost like a real date. We shared coffee and a brownie, talked about drawing, did sketching from life. Two things I did on my own: look for a recipe for martini cookies and read Poetry East. (No luck with the cookie recipe.)

But the literary magazine was something of a revelation to me. I liked a lot of what I read (flipping through at random), and didn't get annoyed or sick of it before it was time to leave. Granted, it might have only been twenty minutes at the outside, but it was still an experience that made me want to sit down with a notebook and really study the things I enjoyed, making note of the imaginative devices and phrases.

Don't tell Reagan, but when we came home and watched the last bit of No Country For Old Men, I dozed off. Fortunately it's on the Netflix website.

I thought that after a nap I'd be able to get up and do some writing and/or drawing, but that didn't happen. Here are the two very last un-posted scans I have.




And something appropriate for yesterday:

April, 2006

one way ticket to love
the blood through my heart
only has one way to flow
when you look at me
only one place for me to go
I drop everything
and I cry
and I sing
and I buy
my one way ticket to love

Other matters

I haven't been posting, or doing much useful internet at all, for the past couple days due to high concentrations of congestion and low concentrations of sleep.

Most of my time is spent wishlisting kitchen gadgets, watching old Marx brothers comedies, and blowing my nose. The only drawings I've done are in my tiny blue sketchbook.

Did pick up a shiny new phone yesterday to replace the one that went missing Monday. This one has a camera, bluetooth, and a picture of a jackal as the wallpaper.

I could have scrounged and such to keep posting, especially since I'm not so ill I have a fever, just obnoxiously distracting amounts of congestion.

Will be back when I can breathe properly.