On Blogging

I've been doing this blogging business now for about a month .. N00B. You'd think I like blogging. I love to talk and this is a perfect opportunity to natter at people and not care if they hear or pay any attention to what I say. People can read or not. But it's left me feeling .. inadequate.

I've been looking at and reading a lot of other blogs. People seem to do so much with it. There are photography blogs that range from scenic photographs to some that look like that were taken for Better Homes and Garden. Then they are those that ramble about their own lives .. who to date, what school to attend, and why did their friend talk smack about them. There are emo blogs and sometimes I have no idea what they're talking about but they sound kind of sad. There's poetry of all types .. some I like and others not so much. One thing I notice is that people seem to have some kind of theme or purpose and they stick with that.

I'm envious of people that know what they want to write about. Whether I understand it or even enjoy it, at least they seem to have a purpose. I feel like I blog the way I live. Randomly with no real purpose or order. No sense of direction or goal. Just blithely going along, touching people's lives maybe. Or not. Some days I feel as if I'm standing on the outside of a giant bubble and everyone else is inside. I'm watching. Waiting to see what they do and if it works. The thing is, I don't always feel that way. Some days I feel very connected and involved. But that's the randomness of my thoughts and life. So today I'll blog about blogging.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about my socks or why I like string cheese or extol the virtues of my favorite fruit. Who knows?

changing

the wind blew the sky
changing its colors
from blue
to black
to gray
to white
and back
and with it

my mood

Countdown

Last night I had a dream about one of those countdown clocks. You know, one of those things people put on their web pages that tell how long until something special is going to happen. Like graduation or spring break or vacation or even how long they've been dating someone. In my dream the ticking of the clock was almost deafening. I couldn't see the numbers or the writing so I don't know what's going to happen or when. But today I still heard the ticking.

quitting?

sometimes there's nothing left
to say
or think
or feel

maybe i'll quit

Serendipity

"Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for."

Lawrence Block

Sometime around 4 a.m. the other morning, the movie Serendipity was on some obscure channel . I'd seen parts of it before, but given the hour, my unwarranted altertness and mood, I chose a sappy romantic comedy over infomercials. John Cusak was charming and honestly, who could find anything wrong with Kate Beckinsale. It was the typical boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-finds-girl and they fall in love kind of movie. But the banter was smart and funny and I was glad they ended up together.

It's just sometimes it seems we have everything we could possibly want. Our friends and family look at us and say, 'why are you still not content?' Or may they don't. Maybe we just ask ourselves why. And maybe it's a good thing. It keeps us growing, thinking and searching. But there are days when I tire of all that nonsense. So maybe I'll go buy some gloves, write my number in a second hand book or a five dollar bill.

Whatever road I choose, I think I'll adopt the word for a while.

worlds?

I wanted to be eloquent and talk about good things coming from bad. I’m not sure they do and I don’t feel eloquent. These days I feel as if I am on the very brink of something wonderful and at the same time terrified about which way to jump. Maybe I need new shoes. Or to sketch a picture. Or change the date. I don't have words. And none of my clothes seem familiar or comfortable.

I wish to escape into the world we created and stay there. Just for a while. Until I am capable of dealing with the real world. Maybe I never will be and I don't think that would be terrible unless I find myself alone there. So today I will ramble and post this nonsense in the hopes that the words on the page mean more some day later. Maybe they will remind me of how I felt during. And I will be able to ..

go on.

edit today please

they took all my sketches
and an opportunity
i hate them

that is all

my word

is "gah"
has been since late December
and shall remain
for at least another
36+ hours

Crackling Brat

I've always loved books and reading. I know, kind of nerdy. But like music and art, books encourage you to use your imagination. Mine has always been pretty vivid. It's really all my daddy's fault. He used to spend hours reading to me, sometimes the same book over and over just because I loved the accents he used for the characters.

Anyway, I'm on vacation at the beach and it's been raining for 2 days. I've been going stir crazy so today I went to the local bookstore and found a copy of one of my favorite children's books "Crackling Brat". It's a story of a little boy who sets off to find his father who was kidnapped by time. Along the way he encounters the icy snow tiger, the dark night bear, and the hunger wolf. He manages to defeat them all, find and free his father before time turns him to dust. My favorite part of the story is when they describe his breakfast of "clouds and thunder, lightning and rain, hail and gale and blizzard'.

The inside cover says that in the tradition of most ancient folktales, "Crackling Brat" shows youth triumphing over experience, good over evil, and freedom over oppression. I never cared. I loved the story because the little boy could shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips, and turn water to ice, and use a tiger's claw to cut ropes to free his father. And my daddy could read it with the best accents ever.

Story of my life.

if ..

there is an age when things suddenly become clear and I am no longer confused about everything, could I be that now?

i hate blonde people
i hate guys
i hate blonde guys
i hate guys that like blonde girls
i hate hating things but disliking isn't strong enough right now
i'll delete this tomorrow

i'm angry. not really. i'm frustrated. kind of.
i hate blogging.

good night.

Numbers ..

For some reason, numbers please me. Not in any mathematical way, but for the same reason I like words. They have shape and sound and substance that have an ability to invoke certain feelings. For instance, tomorrow is 03/05/09 but I do wish it were 03/05/07 because it appeals to my numerical sense of orderliness. Yesterday would have been perfect .. absolutely if it were 03/03/03. But it was not. And in 2008 it would have been pleasant because it would have been at least very round. I was not unhappy with 03/03/09. But it could have been better.

Apparently Pope Gregory VIII (I think) invented the calendar we use today. Well, that is unless you have one of those Ansel Adams type things and then I think he did the photography and the Pope did the number part. In any case, if the world were formed to Hayley’s liking, we could number each day, month, year in any way we pleased and then name the days so we would remember them. For instance, yesterday would have been 03/03/03 in numbers and I would have named it “I wore my green pants and bought new socks day”. That way, I would remember what happened that day. The numbers begin to run together anyway and no one really remembers what happened on any given date (except for birthdays and anniversaries and those could have built in names).

Today is 03/04/05 .. The Day I Wrote the Calendar Blog

Waxing?

The sky is black
there is not one visible star
The moon is a filmy white crescent
always perfectly visible
Through my bedroom window


Please don’t bother me with
facts and technicalites
About whether it is waxing or waning
it is a planet .. no a star!
Someone taught me all that once


The moon is none of those things to me
it was brought into existence
To please me
nothing more.. nothing less

And it never fails

Picture Perfect

I'm not an artist but I enjoy creating and recent days have found me sketching incessantly. My fingers are stained a rainbow of colors from smearing pastels and the side of my right hand is blackened with graphite from the charcoal pencil I adore. Most likely this is because it fits perfectly in my fingers. I mourn a little every time I have to sharpen it.

The images for my sketches come to me during the day and are filtered through vague dreams occurring in restless sleep caught at 3 a.m. after an odd combination of coffee and cold medicine (the later is recent and temporary). When I finally shake myself awake and am able to fully open my eyes, I am driven .. compelled even .. to draw the images that have floated to the surface during my brief sleep.

I have spent most of this weekend outside sketching, sitting in the dirt amidst the smell of hay and horses and spring. When my legs finally cramp or nature calls in other ways, I stand and look at the ground, now strewn the remnants of my so-called accomplishments. When I pick them up, they are barely recognizable and I feel detached from them. Strange because mere moments ago they were so much a part of me.

I begin to critically criticize each drawing and one by one they are stacked and put in the re-work pile. One particular drawing has been bothering me for months. I am happy with various elements of the picture at any given time. One time the lines are perfectly even and symmetrical and another time, the perspective is exactly how I imagined. And yet another, all the colors are blended as they should be.

Today I reach a whole new level of strangeness with this drawing. I began and each stroke of the pencil was precisely as I imagined. And the color for each element blended as they might even in nature. I felt so hopeful that I might finally finish this. And with each color chosen and applied, my hopes grew. I would be victorious. This would be my masterpiece. My adrenaline was pumping and my heart was beating faster.. gah!

then ..

disappointment.

Every element in the drawing was perfect. Yet as a whole, the image was jarring and unsettling. Not what I hoped for at all. I put my pencils away, laid the perfect picture on the re-work pile, dusted off my pants and wandered back to the house.

Story of my life.