I’ve never been very good at sleeping. I either feel like it’s so much wasted time, or I’m afraid of what my imagination will run on the movie screen of my mind, so I avoid it, or I’m so exhausted and cranky that I cannot get enough of it.
Last night, I took melatonin way too late. Today, I was a zombie.
But I was a zombie with incredibly vivid dreams, who woke to make dinner, spend time with my husband, and still get a blog post in under the wire.
Tonight? I’m hoping to be in bed by 1 AM.
I asked the universe (and my mother) to send me a storm for my birthday. I woke yesterday to thunder, lightning, and torrential rain, which subsided into a steady, soaking rain around noon, and lingered throughout the day.
I love it when nature cooperates with my desires.
Turning forty-four was easy and fun, filled with laughter, good friends, good food, and special gifts: goodies from Lush and a bracelet from Fuzzy, flowers and plants from two of my favorite people, and a non-fiction book from my aunt that I’d never have chosen, but will enjoy.
Happy Birthday to Me, indeed.
My blog-friend Michael (aka WarriorPoet(2)) died last year, a veteran who fell, not to gunfire or missile blasts, but to cancer, at too young an age.
We used to challenge each other with memes and prompts over on OpenDiary, which also died, just a few months ago, of neglect, mostly – not by the participants but by the site owner who had moved on to other things.
I found this meme while sifting through archives, and thought I’d share it here.
10 words you like in your own language:
brilliant, decadent, fractious, glower, nostalgic, susurration, overzealous, tintinnabulation, zesty, zoetrope,
9 words you like in other languages:
allegro, attraversiamo, ciao, guacala, joyeux, melange, noir, pianissimo, scocciare
8 city names that are fun to say:
Albequerque, Boise, Carcassone, Istanbul, Marrakech, Tehachapi, Tuolomne, Waxahachie
7 words that make you uncomfortable:
autistic, cloaca, can’t, death, fear, truth, war
6 words that relate to your job:
creative, emotional, internal, nebulous, scary, undisciplined
5 words that describe someone you love greatly:
affectionate, forgiving, loyal, silly, understanding
4 words you would use to describe yourself:
improvisational, mercurial, sarcastic, vivacious
3 words that describe your pet:
canine, clingy, quartet
2 words that describe your higher power:
divine spark
1 word to end with:
imagine
Adoptable in Texas.
MADISON
Click to embiggen
Click HERE for adoption information.
It’s just over a month til my birthday (5 weeks from Sunday, actually) and I’ve entered the period of the year when I’m sort of creatively dormant. I think, I plan, I read, and lift weights, and play in the kitchen, but my writing slows down to the bare minimum.
Once the calendar page flips to August, however – once it turns to MY month – my creativity always comes surging back like a huge wave breaking over a jetty.
Cool, ferocious, blue-green creativity.
For now though, I have a pot of pasta that will soon become a bowl of aglia e olio, and a chilled wine that’s light and neither too sweet nor too dry, and a beachy novel to read.
Dormant? Maybe.
But it’s just part of my personal cycle.
“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.”
~ Japanese Proverb
I’ve taken dance classes on and off since I was five years old. It started, as it does for most little girls, with ballet. Ballet is still my favorite.
Later it became tap, jazz (my second favorite), show dancing (basically lite ballroom meant for actors), and even hip-hop.
These days, I pretty much dance in my kitchen, and my living room. My life is a musical, and I sing and dance my way through every task, and even dance with my dogs. Especially Teddy. Teddy is an awesome partner. He’s part Catahoula, so dancing comes naturally.
I keep trying to convince Fuzzy to take a ballroom class with me, but he’s the quintessential white boy with no rhythm. He will, however, dance with me in the kitchen, when Teddy lets him cut in.
I love that we’ve been married 19 years and we still dance in the kitchen and sing silly songs to each other.
Image Credit:David Gilbert via 123RF.com
Last Saturday, I went to see the grey whales, and got to pet one.
This morning, I wrote about it at All Things Girl.
Most of us think of humpback whales when we think of whale watching, but – at least here in Baja – it’s the grey whales you come to see, and it’s evident from their behavior that the whales are also here to see us. Quite social, it’s almost as if they’re trained. We are in the water with four other boats and there are three or four mother-calf pairs. The mothers, massive creatures that you never see in their entirety, stay farther away from us, monitoring the situation, but the calves are like puppies, going from boat to boat, rolling over to blink at you, or meet your gaze with theirs – they have eyelashes!!! – begging for skritches and belly-rubs, smiling and showing off their baleen.
Here’s an excerpt. For the whole piece, click here: Sunday Brunch: The Hottest Blood of All.
Several months ago, I auditioned for a role at Pendant Audio, and even though I’d never done anything on their radar, I was cast.
Three days ago, the episode I was in – Episode 55 of their anthology series, Seminar, went live. My section: The Crimson Cape starts around 17 minutes in, but you should totally listen to the whole thing because it’s awesome.
Link to Seminar show page:
http://pendantaudio.com/seminar.php#new
Download the episode:
Download the commentary track:
Happy Valentine’s Day. Several years ago, when I discovered this poem, it instantly became my favorite love poem EVER. For many years I posted it in my blog on Valentine’s Day. Last year, I posted a poem by Harold Pinter, instead.
As I write this, my Valentine is away on a business trip, so I won’t see him til tomorrow morning. Still, it seems appropriate to post this rather…earthy…celebration of love.
May this day be full of love and light no matter the status of your relationship.
Valentine
The things about you I appreciate
May seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power
And see your eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like successfully to guess your weight
And win you at a fête.
I’d like to offer you a flower.I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like your particulars in folders
Marked Confidential).I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
In rows.I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work.
On hinges …I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount
And get some change.I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you not and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap,
Where to find them.I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres
And have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I’d like you to embrace me.I’d like to see you ironing your skirt
And cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide
Into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were Bride
Of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s
Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian
Or Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
Mathematics.You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin,
And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin
I’d like to make you reproduce.I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence
And mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference
And hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
Your future tense.~John Fuller
Image credit: byheaven / 123RF Stock Photo
I’m not sure when I found the Interwar Duets, a collection of music for cello and violin from the period between World Wars I & II, but they’ve become a sort of favorite of mine since sometime last fall.
It began, I think, with a search for something two characters could be playing in a fiction piece I was working on then (and have laid aside, but will go back to soon). I wanted something interesting, something with a story, but something the average listener would probably not be familiar with.
It’s hard for me to listen to anything with lyrics when I’m writing, because I get distracted by the desire – no, the NEED – to either sing along, or get up and dance, or both. The thing is, I’m not good with quiet either, and my writing studio doesn’t have a television any more.
Whatever the reason, these duets have become ingrained in my being, and I find them particularly haunting in dismal, gray weather like today’s, probably because they were inspired by a rather dismal, gray, state of being in Europe.
Never heard them? Here’s a RHAPSODY LINK.
Image credit: demian1975 / 123RF Stock Photo