small victories? a (terrifying) glimpse into my head on a bad day but at least not on a pike or anything

Missing a deadline because you are not sleeping well and thus are terrible at adulting is really irksome.  I felt like I was a plastic bag on a windy day getting blown around from one thing I needed to do to another and then all of a sudden there were no more days left.  (However, I did manage to exercise enough self-restraint to keep myself from replying with a number of mean things to a guy being a(n incorrect) grammar/writing jerk to one of my friends on Facebook.  That was a heroic effort today.)  These are the times I think I will never really be an "author" instead of a writer.  (This is not actually an awful thing because I'd rather be a writer even when I am not sleep deprived and scattered to the four winds.)  I already have no desire or motivation to get my work out there like one is supposed to do, but when a call for entries that seems tailor-made for my work comes, and I am a space cadet due to sleep deprivation for a couple weeks and miss it, it's frustrating, and I want to wallow in self-recrimination (which would be easier if I didn't keep getting distracted by everything in the world), but I also know that melodramatic wailing and stressing out is something I need to avoid (it's really bad for me because it kicks up the pain that leeches the sleep that scatters my brain all over the walls of the house that Jack built).  Did you know that sleep deprivation by itself causes symptoms that look almost exactly like fibromyalgia?  They did studies (that are totally illegal now) once upon a time.  (Seriously, Blogger, I promise fibromyalgia is a real word.  You and certain members of the medical community who also don't believe in it are not helping.)  I'd love to promise to do better next time, but if I'm honest with myself, I'll probably be sleep deprived next time because I am always sleep-deprived to a varying degree, and I just want to throw up my hands and give up, but that's not good either.  All of this thrashing makes me more tired, but the pain makes me not sleep.  I LOSE NO MATTER WHAT I DO OR DO NOT DO.  Therefore, I am going to go read a book, so the day is not a total loss.  Here's hoping I have the self-control to stop reading book at a reasonable time in order to not make things even worse . . .

Part 2 of some ramblings in honor of 6 years of blogging (yes seriously, technically)

It's kind of fun for me to read back through the years.  Some times are more fun than others, for sure, but mostly the super non-fun times are the silences, the spaces in between posts that sometimes stretch on and on.  (Or sometimes I was sacrificing all my creative energy to gulping down the entire catalogs of certain authors, so silence does not necessarily mean rough seas.  It could also mean selfish ones. : )

There was a thing Blogger offered once where you could get a print out of your blogs like a book, and I think I would really like to do that some day.  All the typos that got through would hurt my soul deeply, but I want this more-recent writing to be available to me so that in the rare chances where I see a call for submissions that I am actually drawn to, I can look through my 450-page monster thesis to see where I was from 2003-2009 and then continue looking through the blog pieces I've written since I started in 2009 without having to stare at a screen and scroll for days (which basically makes me want to stop looking).

I love weaving together readings by combing through what I've written and searching for strands to draw together and braid into some kind of story.  Right now, that story I can page through ends in 2009.  (Someday electronics might rule the world and be able to emulate this to my satisfaction, but that day is not here yet.  I hope it comes soon-ish and is accompanied by anti-gravity bras and other useful technology.)

With that, it's obviously time for bed.  : )  Cheers!  (And thanks for reading, faithful ones.  You are the cherry on top of the sundae.)

the moon tonight

the moon tonight is red

on a field of dark blue

with clouds obscuring

and magnifying it as it

watches the fog grow

Part 1 of some ramblings in honor of 6 years of blogging (yes seriously, technically)

In honor of my 6th blogging anniversary and because I felt compelled to write every day again, I challenged myself to blog here every day for a month.  I more or less succeeded (with some instances of cheating), but there were 30 blog posts in 30 days, and I don't want to stop, even to get back into the discipline of just trying to do 1 blog post every day split up among the 4 blogs I have, so they are all updated regularly.  Forward momentum is powerful, and I don't want to hobble it by setting arbitrary rules.  All that's to say that if you are one of the few family members and friends who reads here regularly, the flood will not be abating for a while.  (You're welcome.)

I recently wrestled the haphazardly unpacked stacks of my notebooks from over the years (starting my second year of my MFA apparently), and there was so much drafting in them that never made it onto a page for even the cursory editing efforts I put forth here that I could seriously post one every day for several years before I had to start coming up with new material.  I totally want to do that some day.  But I also want to leave room for the NOW, so this can serve as more of a record again, a slightly humorous (when possible) way for the limited folks I've told about it to know I'm still here, still thinking too much, and still really obsessed with teeny tree frogs.  (I sort of think they're my current muses but not actually really at all.  They're just cute in an ugly way, and they can hang in there with the best of them.)

TAI and Bujold's new story

When I staggered out of bed this morning like a tremendously clumsy yeti, TinyAdorableIllegal Dog (TAI for short from henceforth) was whimpering fit to break your heart.  He was so loud that I could clearly hear him from my second floor condo with two doors in between us.  The sound was so pitiful that I nearly flung open the door to see if it was dying.  Then I remembered that I was not clothed for company and that I can't see a darned thing without corrective lenses.  I lumbered away from the sound and into the bathroom.  I have no idea what caused TAI to make that sound, but I hope it never happens again because I will cry.

The day ended sort of better.  I was donating plasma to get money to pay for my allergy meds, and I was reading the new novella by Lois McMaster Bujold, and I was just having a grand time.  (Not with the donating because DudeBro put the needle in kind of wrong, so it hurt a bit more than usual and was kind of bleeding.)  I was just giggling and occasionally snorting and grinning my face off because LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD NEW STORY YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!  It's in the 5 Gods world, and it's great, and I've barely started it, really.

Actually, I have no idea how close I am to the end.  I want it to go on and on and on and never end as I often do when I read Bujold's stuff.  I hope it at least gets me through one more donation.  Two more to go before I can afford both allergy meds!  Wish me luck!  (And health and copious plasma.)

All I wanted to do today

All I wanted to do today
was lie on the deck
reading a book.  When
I am very sleep-deprived,
I do not adult well at all.

Can I quit this club?

The infographic said 1

out of 10 

people has 

pain

every day

and I thought

Really?!

9 out of 10 people 

DON'T?

What is that 

like?  It sounds

awesome to not be part

of this 10% club. I don't

remember what it's like

not to be in this club.  

I've been 

in it longer

than not now.

Does this tithe

of pain count

toward some total

I do not understand?

Would I feel

any better 

if I did

understand?

Doubtful.

Augtober melancholy

first
unexpected beauty
of a random scrap
of filmy white plastic
gliding in for a landing
from the dark grey sky and then
                                                         leapingflapping back
                                                              into the air
                                                  with a flick of
                                                        the wind's wrists

next
stub of a severed
rear windshield wiper
waving regularly

                                        faithfully (futilely?) 

despite being
disarmed

and 

this 

last:

lavender twilight

summer (plums)

p l u m s

plums plums plums

plumsplu msplums

plumsplu  msplums

plums     plums

forests burning somewhere

Friday the light that fell 

from high windows cast 

an odd shade on 

corporate carpets: 

orange-ish pink.  

The sun was a large 

red-orange ball 

when it set.  

The moon (just past 

one quarter) is coppery.  

Forests somewhere 

are burning, and we 

are far enough away 

to only see the beauty 

it adds to the light.

good things about the rain

Good things about the rain and cooler weather this week

• regular demolition of spider web blocking my deck door 
• How many times will it take before it gives up and goes far away to more welcoming surroundings?
• Hopefully this many.
• more tiny tree frog fairies on the windows at work

Midwestern weather whiplash brought to you by the start of a new school year

Several days 

of scorchingly 

melting August 

followed 

by a week 

of November

:

this Midwestern

weather whiplash

brought to you

by the start 

of a new

school year?

empty fortune cookie

empty
fortune
cookie


full
of
possibilitiy

Keep on going

Four froggies clinging
grimly to windows
every time I passed.
A personal best of
sorts, and I swear
one was showing
V for victory.

This week's mushroom miracle

I have learned that, if the mushroom pieces are big enough to spot but small enough to swallow whole without chewing, I can eat mushrooms.  (Works for lima beans, too!)  It's the squeakiness when I chew them and the texture that doesn't agree with me, not so much the taste.  Does this mean I will be cooking with them?  Um, probably not really so much, no.  Unless they repel spiders.  Then I would be cooking them every day.  Seriously.

When I can taste . . .

There was a day last week that I could taste.  It's pretty rare and seems to happen maybe when general inflammation is down, my allergies are more at bay, and the barometric pressure or whatever it is aligns and then, behold, I can REALLY taste things despite a nine-times-broken nose, and all the allergy and sinus problems.  It is kind of glorious, and it helps me understand why people like eating food.

Normally, food is something I eat because there are nutrients and stuff in it, and it fuels me.  If it tastes like blah all the time, that's actually kind of convenient.  I can eat healthier food that may not taste great (and might thus be cheaper).  If I could taste well, maybe I wouldn't go near it.

On that most recent tasting day, I was in the big cafeteria at work (not the mini version we have in our building), and I had some food that was amazing.  (Those green beans!  That chicken fajita wrap full of peppers and onions!  Droooool.)  So sometimes food tastes amazing.  Thanks be to God.

Dear Spider, please!

Dear Spider,

Please

go somewhere

else to build

your work of 

art.  It is 

splendid; I 

appreciate its

complexity

and its beauty

and your

industriousness,

but your art

is in an inconvenient 

place.  You are big 

for a spider, and I

have no idea if

you are venomous 

(though I am likely allergic to you even if you are not), 

but in a contest 

between you 

and my vacuum, 

my vacuum cleaner 

would win.

(Until you crawled out in the middle of the night to wreak spider vengeance on me and then sleep on my nose, so you'll be the first thing I see in the morning, so I can wake up too paralyzed by fear if your venom hasn't already rendered me dead, in which case, the sleeping on my nose would be kind of overkill, don't you think?  Let's be reasonable here, as much as we can.)

But I'm not sure 

it would kill you, 

so there would have to be 

flailing and smashing, 

and neither 

of us would 

enjoy that at all.

Please, for the love 

of God, go 

build your lovely 

web somewhere 

else.  

(Seriously.  Even in front of the screen door instead of the door I actually use.  Go now.  Please.)  

I wish you well 

there

in direct proportion

to your distance 

from me.

Sincerely,

Someone Who Wants to Use Her Deck Again Some Day Soon.

Give me justice!

Imagine me, if you will, in that Japanese trope from crime shows where the victim lies facedown, with one finger outstretched in the act of writing (using her own blood) the name of the murderer even as she died.  You see the letters M-O-S-Q with the tail of the q fading. If I die unexpectedly in the next few days, it had to have been the mosquitoes, who are, no doubt, in their evil lair right now, drunk, satiated, and thinking they are above the law. Don't let them get away with it! I demand justice.

Stay tuned . . .

we are kin, the frogs and I

three tiny tree frogs

cling to windows high above

the place where you leave

God of the stars

Dear God,

Thank you for stars 

I can see even in 

the middle of 

the city.

who wouldn't cry

The sun was already out of sight, but it was still a dreamy, shady 80 degrees, and I went out to the deck and set up the hammock (even though I've already REALLY overdone it this week), and some of the new neighbors were there, but they weren't swearing, and their illegal dog was acting really weird, and I wonder if they also don't realize that when the signs get put on the grass out front that it's been treated to make it look soft and lush and inviting and is now extremely poisonous to pets and children, the poisoning also applies to the back, and I wonder if the tiny, adorable doggie has been poisoned or is just trying to whack underground moles to death with her skull, but then I get back to my book, which is nonfiction and makes me cry anyway because I'm so tired, and it's so beautiful on the deck now that I've swept away the dead neon green and black wasp and the last bits of sunlight are showing me the glowing spider webs above the neighbors' yard, who wouldn't cry?

2 butterflies exhausted

Two butterflies
on the deck dancing
with each other reminded me
that I can still appreciate beauty
even when I am lying on the couch,
too exhausted to go outside to
play with them.
One  was a
swallowtail
of some kind, brilliant
yellow and black in the
rare sunlight, and I have
a particular love of swallowtails
even if they are not blue.  This
is rest done right, my friend
with no chance of ill-timed
dizziness to cause
         resting-
           related
             injuries.

Today I am grateful for (2)

Today I am grateful for

• 2 teeny tree frogs on the same window pane at midday
• 2 deer walking across the work parking lot in the cool of the evening after I got out of the gym
• 2 AM bedtime after not-enough-time with two old friends and two new
• weather too gorgeous to be believed
• 2 functioning hips to walk to the ice cream place
• 2 dollars to spend on ice cream

that night (and early morning)

I wonder if I am better 

at being present 

here and now or if I 

am just finally as good 

as I used to be when 

I was a child.

Farewell to the Lady

The July painting on my Pre-Raphaelites calendar

was "The Lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt. 

This awful reproduction made me long to see

the original test painting again with sharp 

lines of threads snapping and unraveling like

whips, like the lady's life when 

her curiosity got the better 

of her self-control.

Sleep deprivation and spiders: definitely an awesome combination

It is not as if I imagine that the second the door shuts when I leave in the morning that all the spiders descend from the ceilings, raise a tiny cheer, and then start licking my toothbrush or peeing on my pillow.  Really.  

It's just that I hate the way they only seem to come out when I don't have my glasses on, and all I can see is this fuzzy moving blobby blur like the mosaics they use in Japanese comedies to show you where a cockroach is.  (I know they're not cockroaches because they are too small and because spiders move differently from insects, so I can tell even mostly blind.)   They just seem much larger than they actually are because of my lack of ability to focus on anything further than two inches away from my nose.   I know this, truly, I do.

I'm fairly certain they're not making faces at me.  But again, I can't really KNOW this without my glasses on.  I am not going to set up tiny hidden spider cams around my house.  That would just be silly.  

(I blame all this on Allie fordrawing pictures of scary spiders.)  

Also, it's not like I want to destroy all spiders.  I just want them to be sneaky and not get caught by me.  Because if I catch them, I have to acknowledge their existences, and if they flaunt their existences, I have to end them.  (Why don't they LISTEN when I tell them to go away, or I will kill them?) 

I am trying to be reasonable here, spiders.  We can coexist as long as you live lives of fear and secrecy.  Why is that so hard for you?!  Don't you want to live?!

It may be that I am not being fair or reasonable about this.  Maybe they are starving because there is a lack of bugs for food in my house.  Maybe they are crazed by hunger and can't help staggering around in a daze the one time a day I am in the master bathroom.  Maybe I should have more compassionate thoughts toward them.  

I just can't.  And I'm okay with that.

northern sky, sea grey

Did you look
at the northern sky
this morning?

And did it look 

like the ocean from 

where you are?  

There was this band of dark blue-gray clouds low on the horizon and a bank of fluffy grey and white clouds above it, and it reminded me of the shoreline leading to the ocean in Wales on an overcast autumn day, layers of blue grey with some whitecaps.  I took a picture, but it didn't do the view justice.  It looked like I could walk out there and put my toes in the ocean again.  I knew it really wasn't the ocean, but the beauty and transporting other-worldliness of the effect made me miss the real thing, homesick.  I thought you might understand.  I hope you do.

a summer moon

I called to tell you

to go outside and look

at the moon right now

because it hung above

the river banks an

impossibly huge and

pitted pewter coin

ready to fall.