The Clock is Ticking

**This post feels very disjointed to me. It's the first honest writing I've done in a few weeks and I'm feeling rusty. So, bear with me.

Back in July, I posted this haiku:

Things are not as they
teach us--the Earth is hollow;
I have touched the sky.

I wrote then about it being a 17 syllable catharsis. Lately, it's come to represent mystery for me.

This week's prompt at One Deep Breath is about mystery, specifically the unseen. And so, I'm thinking on it.

I don't do well with the unseen, with being in the dark. I tried to explain this to someone recently, when in the midst of a non-argument argument (which we were so good at), and was told that I was being selfish. I never imagined it as being selfish, more a method of self-preservation, protection. And from him, at the moment, I felt like I needed protection (yes, I mean from him, but not physically.). There are so many things out there that I can't see. Some actually give me comfort (God in my life), others terrify me (the future). Not knowing what was coming prompted the defensive maneuvers.

I need to become more comfortable with the unseen, the unknowable.

But how the hell does one do that?


Okay, so this is my least favorite offering EVER. To see some better stuff, that maybe isn't so disjointed, visit One Deep Breath

I've been AWOL for a couple of weeks. Well, maybe MIA. Life got in the way again, and my writing took a hit. Unfortunately. But, when it came down to choosing between getting a couple of hours of much-needed sleep and writing, sleep will win every time.

But, I should be getting back to this stuff soon. Sleep isn't being elusive anymore--for a variety of reasons.

So, over at Poetry Thursday, the theme this week was 'avoidance.' Particularly, it's poetry that we avoid--poets, time periods, genres, whatever. We all have things we avoid--I tend to avoid Chaucer, because, frankly, it hurts my head. I avoid Poe because all the poetry that was taught in my English classes was his dark stuff, similar to his dark short stories. I adore his short stories, I hate his dark poetry. I realize that not all of his poetry is dark, but what I was introduced to is, and I just won't read the rest of it.

I also avoid rhyming poetry. Ugh. I realize that to follow a particular rhyming pattern is much more difficult than to just write, but I feel so stifled when asked to rhyme. Like I'm being boxed in. And I'm claustrophobic.

So, I've no poetry to share this week...still recuperating from some other things and the creative juices are focussed there...just wanted to share.

To see more on the poetry we avoid, visit Poetry Thursday.

Daddy shared this with me. I wish to 'high heaven' The WonderDog was HALF this smart!

A heart-warming segment from Texas Country Reporter, with Bob Phillips. For more information visit Texas Country Reporter or Skidboot.com

In my literature classes (as in "here's how to choose literature for children and young adults"), we learned about the different levels of reading maturity.

My professor had several she listed, there's generally 4. The 'lowest' level is supposed to be 'unconscious delight'--when someone, usually a young reader, gets caught up in a series like Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys and is just reading because they've gotten excited about reading. The 'highest' is aesthetic reading--reading to enjoy the beauty of the prose.

But I disagree, I get caught up in unconscious delight all the time--I read for the sheer joy of reading, because it excites me. I inhale books...and yes, I'm an aesthetic reader at times, a lot of times.

And so...

Unconscious delight--
simple joy in the words
lost--no, found!--in dreams

For more thoughts on reading, visit this week's One Deep Breath.

Austrian's body found 5 years after death

This is pathetic. Wouldn't it be common sense to check on someone whose mail keeps piling up outside his door???? Where I come from, if a neighbor's papers pile up for more than a couple of days, people check on 'em.

Really, what is the world coming to these days?

I just looked at my calendar for the week. I do this every Sunday night, I guess I'm starting the great switching of gears, getting ready for Monday morning. This week, though, there's something bizarre about my schedule...

There's very little on it.

I mean, there's work stuff, and boy, those days are packed. But there's almost nothing else. In fact, only one day has anything scheduled beyond 4 p.m.

I flipped threw my book for the year...there's no other week since school started that can boast this lack of evening events.

Flip back a bit more...there's no week in 2006 that meets that criteria. Even spring break had evening stuff...and dog-sitting.

You know, I'm willing to bet there hasn't been a week in at least 2 years that didn't have something at least two of the nights. It almost feels wrong, like "what have I forgotten to write down?"

I love it.

At home....Sean Combs In public....P. Diddy

Home....Christopher Bridges Public....Ludacris

Home....Shawn Carter Public....Jay-Z

Home....Trevor Smith Public....Busta Rhymes

Home....William Adams Public....will.i.am

Home....Johnathan Smith Public....Lil John

Makes me wonder...what do their "new" friends call them? The ones who didn't meet them until after there was a public name (a stage name). Hm?

This came up because this afternoon I saw P.Diddy's new video, "Come to Me." Pretty good song.

Oh...and the most famous one...

Public....The Queen

Home....Jayne *giggle*

Judge dismisses alpaca paternity suit
It's an animal for Pete's sake (whoever Pete is). Okay, okay, I understand that she has to know who the father is for pedigree purposes. Fine. I'll buy that. But you know..the kid's a year old, and now she's worried?

Chocoholics find a venue and a menu
New York gets all the nice stuff. Geez.

Lights go off in Iceland, clouds dim sky for star gazers
What a neat event! I just went out Friday night to star gaze, and had to go in search of a back country road to see anything.

Any of you out there dabble in design? I'm incredibly bored with this template and want something new.

Problem...I've found some backgrounds and images I want to use, but can't make it work out the way I want it to.


**Update...this one is temporary, I think. I don't know.

**UPDATE #2...okay, I'll keep it. Especially now that I've moved all my extras in *grin*.

Start with this post over at Pocket Myriad. It's what jump-started this particular musing. The first paragraph set my mind to wandering.

Okay, now that you've read it, let's begin. And if you didn't, go back..you need to or this may not make much sense.


PocketMyriad's reminder of the fact that the skin is the largest organ of the human body set me to thinking about the way I (physically) feel some emotions on my skin. I wrote in my previous post about how I feel my writing in my skin, like electricity. That's not the only thing I feel on my skin.

When I'm upset or angry, my skin feels physically raw. I remember taking a friend with me to pick up things from the house of an ex-boyfriend who had ended the relationship very harshly. When this friend leaned over to touch my shoulder to comfort me, I jerked away, the way you might if someone touches a burn...I literally hurt to the touch.

Happiness feels like soft cool grass in my parents' backyard. I love to lay (lie?) in the grass and doze on a not-too-warm day. Usually, I start out reading out there, but I always wind up with the book on my chest, or my face on the book.

I'm discovering what love really feels like, on my skin. It's an interesting process because the feeling changes on me and it's honestly very new to me. Sometimes, it feels like...well...you know those boxes with the pins in them and you can press something into the pins and leave the shaped impression? You know..everyone does their face or their hand...it's "desk junk." If I could find a picture, I'd show you. (Take that as an open invitation to help me, if you can, please!) Anyway, sometimes it feels like I'm in a human-body size one of those boxes. Other times, it feels like the velvety leaves of my violets--soft and safe, and comforting (I inherited the violets from my grandmother). Lately, I've noticed a new feeling--it feels like the tingle I get on my tongue when I smoke a menthol clove cigarette (which is a favorite new--occasional--vice, thanks to The Man.). It feels cool and a little exciting. Hm..and it's touched with a bit of that skin-prickly feeling that I'm doing something naughty. Like I still sometimes feel when I have a cigarette, even though I used to smoke a pack and a half a day. Normally, not being able to "name" one sensation to go with an emotion would drive me crazy...but I'm enjoying this evolution for a multitude of reasons.

Switch gears...I promise the rest of this is connected.

I had a date with a guy a couple years ago who seemed great. Then the date happened. Oh my. His choice of dinner conversation was...awful.

Sex. And not just sex in a general way, though he did manage to talk about it academically for a bit. No, he proceeded to give me a run-down of how great his former girlfriends thought he was, how no one ever left unsatisfied, and "trust me..never had to fake it." I got details---"and then I'd..."---and was asked personal questions---"so if I touched you..."---that I didn't answer. Not because I refused to answer, but because he wouldn't give me a chance. I'm shy and don't particularly like confrontation, and often do just bear a situation rather than speak up. So, I sat there very interested in my food and silently willing the waiter to come back by so I could order another margarita and maybe drown my disgust.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said "So..tell me what you like." I let him have it. I assumed a husky, throaty voice, looked him in the eyes and said, "Well, what I really, really like is....a man who really understands how a woman's body works." He was nodding enthusiastically already. Puh-lease. "I'm gonna do you a favor, honey, and let you in on a little secret...and please think of this as a Public Service Announcement. I really love a man who understands that the largest sexual organ in a woman's body is between her ears, not her legs. And if you ever hope to really satisfy a woman's needs, you've got to get inside her head first." I then excused myself to the restroom before I could get too tacky. When I returned, he was gone. Oh darn.

Anyway, that PSA I gave him is SO true, and not just for me. Women tend to be less visceral about sex and men tend to have a hard time understanding that. It's why lots of women are more likely to read erotica than watch porn. Don't get me wrong, the physical aspects are wonderful, but women often find themselves needing more than just the physical, they need the intellectual side of it, the brainy sex, the feeling that we're here because you want the total package, not just the sex. It's not just about the skin.

So, with all that said...and thinking about synaesthesia, and skin, and...hmm...I better stop. Some things I just can't share, even with the relative anonymity of this blog. Sorry. *grin*


For other thoughts and feelings about skin, visit this week's Sunday Scribblings.

The prompt at Poetry Thursday this week was about bringing synaesthesia into poetry. In short, synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which the senses are coupled--so that one a person's perception of something with one sense is always connected with another sense. Hm..I'm not sure I got that down clearly. Check out this 'article.'

Anyway, I really thought I could run with this one. I read a book this summer called Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens which was about synaesthesia, particularly one woman's experience. It's fascinating.

I played with stuff all week..all week. I honestly think I've got a touch of synaesthesia, so I thought this would be so much easier for me than it has been. I think I'm just too focused on some other things that are distinctly not poetic this week.

So, I'm thinking about my writing. It's gotten better, more prolific the last few months. I thank the creative writing blogs and prompts that I've run across for inspiring me. I also attribute it to the people who have positively commented on what I have dared to post--wow, it's amazing what a little ego-stroking will inspire. Of course, at least some of the blame for my recent surge of writing can be placed on The Man--happiness will do that to a girl, you know?

But this post is supposed to be about synaesthesia. Allegedly. In thinking of my writing...one thing comes to mind.

When I write, really write, I feel the words on my skin. But I feel the words long before I "get" them. It's like static electricity. You know, when you get that little bit of a tingle on your skin and the hairs on your arm stand up a little bit--that feeling the kids giggle about when you do the balloon trick. It's how I know something's cooking, something's stirring.

When the words come, it's more intense. You know the feeling of the electricity in the air during a lightning storm? When the air is charged and you get the feeling that lightning could literally strike at any second, right near you? You can hear and feel the buzz and almost taste something a little coppery in the air. (Well, I can). I get that feeling when the words come at me. Sometimes, it's easy, like a slow-building rain storm. Other times, it's like it hits me...like those huge crashes of thunder your aren't expecting and shake the house, setting you off-balance for just a few seconds. Sometimes those nearly violent ones are God-sends, other times I want to run and hide.


For other thoughts about synaesthesia, visit this week's Poetry Thursday: a feast of the senses

This is my favorite picture of The WonderDog. My mother took it and he's actually staring out the door I just left through and crying.

I guess at this point, I'd had him about a year, maybe a little more and we were in hopeless "puppy-mommy" love. I've always been a dog person and can't imagine any home of mine without a dog (it was so hard those years before WonderDog!).

All of this to set up a poem that has nothing to do with WonderDog or dogs in general. *Grin*

Eyes out the window
running through dreams far more grand
than the day inside.

The last couple of days have been pretty, and I've been stuck inside. I have windows...that look out over a beautiful...hallway crowded with students.

Check out other poetry at One Deep Breath.

The prompt at Sunday Scribblings (which I'm doing on a Tuesday) is about writing instructions. The first thing that's come to mind everytime I read the prompt since it was posted (on Friday) is the song by The Fray "How to Save a Life." The lyrics are here It's haunting, for reasons I can't explain or understand.

I have a hard time with instructions. I don't always follow them. I don't know why. If I'm putting something together, or dealing with a difficult recipe, then sure I follow them. But when it comes to other things, I have a hard time with it.

Maybe I don't like the constraints.

Ok, I know I don't like constraints. A friend used to tell me "you can tell me to do something or how to do something, but not both." Hehe...I can't manage that either. If I ask you to do something for me, I'm likely to do the back seat driver bit as well. I try to hold my tongue, but yeah...that don't always work.

There's a fine line between instructions and parameters, I think. Tell me something I'm supposed to do and what the box the finished product should be in looks like but don't tell me how to get it in the box. (ooo, wordy). I'll get ya there, my way, in my time. Just wait.


For other thoughts on instructions, check out Sunday Scribblings.

I live on the Gulf Coast of Texas. We joke that we only have 2 seasons around here--summer and something that's not summer OR one of the other 3 recognized seasons. It doesn't really cool off around here until December, and sometimes not even then. I've got pictures of me riding my bike on Christmas Day in two different years. One year, I'm bundled head to toe. The other, I'm in shorts.

That leads me to...

Wish it would cool off,
leaves would change, be nice out, but
no such luck 'round here.


and


In Texas, leaves do change.
From bright green to dirty brown
No reds, or oranges here.

Check out other posts about Autumn at One Deep Breath.

Okay, so this week, I'm cheating a bit..again. (I call it cheating if I never manage a poem for the prompt.) I wrote the post here last week, in a response to a conversation I had with someone important to me.




For other offerings about a poet's voice, check out Poetry Thursday.

This week over at Sunday Scribblings, the prompt is to write about something we've researched. I've spent all week coming up blank. This morning, I was still at a loss.

So, I've been rereading some things on my blogs, looking at some other things, thinking about the evening I had with The Man last night (mmm), and cuddling with the WonderDog, thinking about my upcoming birthday. And it's come to me.

Easy Bake Ovens.

(I'm sure The Man is thrilled that thoughts of last night have led me to thinking about Easy Bake Ovens. I don't think there's really a connection, I'm just a little more A.D.D. this morning than usual.)

The one I played with when I was little looked like this, except I think it was more yellow. I got it as a hand me down from a neighbor girl. I can remember making peanut butter cookies in it ALL THE TIME. I loved it.

I've been thinking about it again. They're so cool now! Like the Oven and Snack Center and the Real Meal Oven. Way neater than what I had when I was little.

And there's even gourment cookbooks to use with your Easy Bake. Like this one with a recipe from Bobby Flay (they're right..I didn't know my Easy Bake could make food like this!), or the official one from Hasbro.

Websites are posting Easy Bake recipes, too. Take a look at cake mix replacement recipes at The FUN Place.

There's also The Cooking Inn recipes

Gluten-free recipes on this site.


I still think this would be an awesome gift to get. I can only imagine how much fun I'd have. teehee.


For more writings, that are probably more intellectual, check out Sunday Scribblings.

We're all guilty of it. The words we put on the page (the screen, the text message) may or may not reflect precisely what we think they do.

Words that are meant as innocent can be misconstrued as meaning more than you thought.

But that's the danger of writing, isn't it? Writers spend their whole lives crafting meaning and tone on white pages. Some can do it without much effort. Others (like me) agonize over it.

Words that are meant as innocent can be misconstrued as meaning more than you thought.

This is something I know, and something I really think about when in direct communication. But my writing, what does and doesn't get posted here or on my other blog, is done for me. Yes, I know others are reading it--I mean, I've put it out there for the world to see. But what a stranger takes from it is for them to decide. So, because I know what I mean in my writing, I've fallen into the trap of not crafting well.

Only now, someone I care about more and more is reading me. And some of my words have been thrown back at me. Not maliciously, just enough that I was left trying to explain what I meant. Well, more correctly, I was caught explaining not the meaning--that was clear--but more the implications of that meaning now.

I'm being vague on purpose...I don't really want to get into a discussion here of what exactly happened, because, honestly, it's not your business and I don't want your opinions. No offense intended, it's just that there's only one person's who's thoughts on this matter to me...and I hope that person knows it.

Anyway, I think this will be good for me, and my writing. It's prompting me to think more about intent and projected meaning. This is a good thing.

And (insert name here), thank you. I hope this will do some good things for us.

I read something tonight that just defined my writing life.

I didn't write it. But I wish I had. I wish I'd been able to voice the need the way this writer did.

Read it here....3am Scribblings.



And here's my comment.

Wow. Beautiful poem, or mantra, or whatever. For the record, poetry is defined only by the writer--if you think it is, then it is. Worry about form some other time. *grin*

LOVE this line..."...if sanity is to be achieved..."

I started writing, seriously in high school. Then stopped at 20 (during that 'blank' spot in my memory). I came back to it about 4 years ago. And even more so, seriously so, since May. I'd realized that I was avoiding myself, and doing so, for me, incited insanity.

This is how I release the pent up anger, pain, love (since I can't yet say that to The Man). Your mantra captured why I must write. Thank you.

I read something tonight that just defined my writing life.

I didn't write it. But I wish I had. I wish I'd been able to voice the need the way this writer did.

Read it here....3am Scribblings.

Over at One Deep Breath this week, the prompt is to write tanka, which is...

A Japanese verse form in five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven.[Japanese.] (That means a 5-7-5-7-7 structure.) American Heritage Dictionary

I lurve playing with form. Like other writers I imagine, my writing notebooks/spirals/journals/grocery store receipts are full of bits that have the same words in various arrangements. I rearrange and rearrange until the breaking mimic my thoughts. And sometimes, until the shape on the page feels right.

Several of you, dear readers, may have noticed I don't follow directions very well...but when it comes to physical poetic structure (like syllables on a line), I'm excited by the challenge. I may still run amok with the rules of content, but I can't follow all the rules, now can I? (I love that word--"amok.")

Anyway, here's my offering. This one came way easier than anything I've written for any of these prompts lately.

Smiling local girl
big dreams in a small, small world,
faith in the future.
Waiting on the spin to stop.
Waiting on the spin to stop, for her.

Check out more tanka, and other poetry, at One Deep Breath.