Happy Happy Friday

Happy Happy Friday! And amazingly this weekend is long, because of the holiday on Monday. So I have a couple of plans for this weekend. Saturday I have a girl coming to take a look at the apartment. And than I think that I am going to go to Bartram's Garden (as long as the weather behaves its self, and write outside on grass away from traffic (Check out Bartramgarden.org for information). This is the place where John Bartram's 18 century home is and it looks great (see picture above). And I think that on Sunday or Monday I will go to the Art museum and take advantage of the air conditioning, since the only way to keep cool in my apartment is to run a fan.

Unfortunately I also have to do laundry at some point this weekend (which is my least favorite chore). Well hopefully its all works out to a good weekend!

Ummm

When I write I am thankfully do not have to worry about 'ums'. The terrible filling words um, like, you know, and ahhh, seem to have secretly over taken most of our speech. Yesterday I talked to a customer who said 'you know', more than she said anything else. I wanted to scream "No I have no idea, I do not know what the heck your talking about, because you have not told me anything." or maybe "Listen Lady, I'm not a mind reader, if you want me to 'know' something you have to tell me the problem, I can't magically 'know' something." Of course as a good customer service person, I did not say any of the above.

But this got me thinking. I catch myself saying um every once in a while, and I am sure that I say it more than I realize. Usually I try to no use any fillers (something very hard to concentrate on). Some people need to hear to hear a recording of themselves, because they sound just plan stupid.

There are people who can answer questions and give speeches without sounds as if their brains were seeping out their mouths while they spoke. I had a professor in college, whom I shall not name, who said 'um so right' about a hundred plus time each hour long lecture (we would keep a tally of the number of times she said it per class). She was a very intelligent woman, with a doctorate and everything. Yet because of the filler, which she said in a very nasally voice, dragging the s into the r, almost as if it was one word, none of us took her seriously.

Well um that is um the end of um my um rant for um today.

Childhood Memories

My mother, whom I love, figures that it would be a good idea if I shared more of my memories. Or came up with some kind of time line of family history. The only problem is that I have a very hard time time lining my past. And the further back I go the more messed up my memories become. And there are of course the memories which are not really mine, just things that were told to me over and over and over, until I almost remember it.

Point in fact. When I was little, talking and I think just walking. My family was on a vacation. I was obviously a very tired and rather demanding two or three year old. Anyways, I happened to see a horse drawn carriage, and I demanded a ride. I begged and pleaded for that ride, and probably even cried. Lucky for me my parents decided it was worth it, or they got tired of me and gave in, any ways I got to ride behind that horse. Of course I fell asleep right afterwards, which seems to be typical for me. Beg and plead until you get it, and that once its gone, its no more fun. Nap time!

I also struggle with my memory because like all people who like to tell stories, I tend to make them more into tall tales. Or at least make them 'better'. With a family as close as mine, it is easy to share in great stories, great moment, which fall flat when explained to others. Inside jokes, inside stories. Like pants being hungry. There are times when all of us are around the kitchen table eating, that we laugh more than we eat. My parents give us a hard time, but can not help but become a part of the craziness. Yet outside my family I do not think of my self as a comedian, my timing only seems works with my family. I swear I could write a sitcom about my family, but I have no idea how to write that much crazy.

Well over the next couple of days you might all hear some rather strange memory stories... just for my mothers sake...

What is the Real Meaning?

Yesterday when I went to write, I could think of nothing. Absolutely nothing. And today I'm fearful that I might repeat myself, repeat what I have written in the last week or so. There is community, which I always want to talk about after going to Belly Dance class, because I so love the dynamics. There is the search for a roommate, which seems to kind be a little of a never ending subject at the moment (and slightly on hold because I'm waiting for people to get back to me). I could talk about faith or anything really. But I think that I will talk about my bike.

For the last week plus I have been riding my bike every day to work (minus the rainy day that I wimped out and took Septa). Its a wonderful ride, minus the cars and crazy Septa buses. I get to ride past the Art museum twice a day. I ride up hill both ways (although the worse hills are on the way home). It takes me about 20mins, and my legs get this nice achy feeling by the end. Also when its hot and humid, I arrive home totally sweaty and starving. Work out and transportation all in one, who would have thunk it?

Which brings me to a point were I want to rant. In today's society we most people are just plan fat. And I'm not saying that we all need to be rail thin and look like super models. No I am talking about over the top, way unhealthy. People buy fast food, TV dinners, and canned soup. Most people don't even pay attention to where their food comes from, nor how it is grow/made. Sure we have the rich people who are obsessed with organic food and grass feed and free range. But most people can't afford to buy organic food, or to go to the local farmers market every week.

To make matters worse, most people have no idea what true nutrition is, balance, variety, and color. So while I ride my bike to work every day and see people my age, who are also skinny and watch the heavier older people ride by in their cars, I wonder what would happen if everyone just rode their bikes, or took the bus. We talk about Green, no that is a very Green idea. I love my bike...

Goodbye to All My Friends

The last two years have been a rather strong show of death. I have lost an Uncle and two very good friends of the family. And in the last 6 months, my family has lost 3 pets, two cats and a dog (which I found out about yesterday). Its seems as though Death wished to make some kind of statement.

Its not as though it is easy to forget about death. He's splashed across our movies and TV shows, perhaps as much as sex. We make fun of him, make him a joke, even glorify and try to figure ways to cheat. And yet when it comes down to it, there is nothing funny about death, no way to cheat. And when one losses a pet, it begs the questions of why we even have them. Most pets, at least dogs and cats, live a fraction of our human life. And even though my cat Pepper, who we had to put down early this past fall, lived almost 17 years completely with me as his owner. Out of 23 years of my existence, that cat was my friend, my comfort, and an existence dependant on me and my family. I cried hard when I had to put him down, when I buried his body in the hill behind my parents house. I even planted flowers, to blossom in the spring.

So today I find my thoughts turned rather morbid. Death. It is something that can never be too far from our mind, and yet, and yet we can not live in fear of that thing. I can not live in fear. So this is my goodbye to my dear friend Shelia, who so hilariously acted as second mother to my youngest brother, who hid in leaf piles, and killed our neighbors chickens. A dog who loved my family and slept on my brothers bed. If there is such a thing as a heaven for dogs, that's were she is.

What is the Answer?

I promised my answer, or at least the best one that I can give. How do we deal with that tilt, the perspective that is just wrong, just off? I have two answers. The first is the easiest one.

Jesus. No I do not mean religiously, if by religion you think of church buildings with stain glass windows, saints in robes of crimson and purple who paint as long ago cracked in their solitary murals, and ritually brilliant and complicated services. I mean simply with faith. Yes it is the my childhood faith, which I have starved and yet it is still there. The easiest answer to the question is simple. Jesus.

Now for the hard answer. This to leads me to Jesus. whether this is ironic or not I am not sure. Perhaps it is pure delusion to think that I might have the same answer by two different means. Is it my childish faith that leads me to gather myself like petals stripped from a flower, given to the wind? Even if you can gather each petal, the flower destroyed stays destroyed. Can one destroy something and somehow among those disorganized fragments find the truth that was lost? You see the hard answer brings even more questions to light.

There is a Salvador Dali picture, which always comes to my mind when I think of all of this (actually several of his paintings and drawings could be used as examples). I'm sure you have seen it, the interlocking stairs, which instead of leading one way, lead up and down and sideways. People walk in this tops-turvy world, gravity playing to the whims of whom ever and what ever. Everything is off. Even the people who seem up right, are upside down when you turn the picture to another angle, and those who seemed so wrong, so backwards, become right. It is easy to see when something is obviously wrong, even something that are only slightly wrong can be pointed out, found out. But is it possible to find something absolutely right? Absolutely good?

Even philosophers have tripped and stumbled upon this very problem. My religion tells me God is good. Even Rene Descartes, makes a full circle to the conclusion that there must first be a God and second that God must be good (even if at first he must stumble through the discussion of being at least a brain being played with by an evil genius, which the Matrix trilogy so wonderful explores). This however is no real help, for although philosophers can be helpful in answering part of this question, they can not add the complete answer.

This is where I must rely on my own field of study: Theatre. Some might find this as a paradox, but I will remind you that Jesus told stories. In fact the great story which finds its climax with Jesus, begins long before with the idea of a God who 'is'. 'I am' Says the Lord, 'Who I am'. This God, unlike so many in history knows of his own existence. And so this great story of a 'Good' God, which from my childhood as gathered me in its arms, like a mother comforting a child, can not lightly be put aside. I believe whole heartily in the truth of story. Theatre, my art, my creation, even my writing, is of stories. I do not believe a story any less real or true or important just because it was written by man. God's story to us (meaning humankind) is not just his story, but is story told through us, through humankind. Even if I thought God as weak and rather bad in form, I could not think less of the story.

The story is one of the greatest ever written, ever lived. It is a endless epic, which begins before time and the ending of which we have mere foreshadows and hints. And every page, every chapter and through the hand of every person who helped to write this great story, in the words of man, one reads Love. One reads of God's great love and great goodness. I can not believe that something, which written and witnessed by so many people, from age to age to age, could hold such a singular theme and not have that theme be true. We read fairy tales, and even though we know it is just a story, being just a story does not stop us from realizing what it is trying to tell us.

Of course I take all of this to a very different level. I believe that it is more than just a story. I believe that Jesus really is the solution, that extra 0.01% that we can't seem to grasp by ourselves. Jesus is the good, the right, the true, the absolute. And although the world will find fault in my logic and even call me deranged, it is more than just a belief for me, it is fact.

Needs Some Adjustment

Do you ever get the feeling that things in your life need just a little adjustment? Something is off, you know it. You can feel the slant in the ground on which you walk, even though it looks to your eyes as flat. You see the sun, not really reach the highest point of the sky, but rather just off to the south. The North star does not point to true North. Everything in your life seems just off tint, like a picture filtered with the wrong light or a painting of a purple sky and orange fields.

It is inside this tilt, this need of adjustment, that all of us live. Everything is always slightly off. There is no perfection. Everything seems wrong. You find yourself trying to over come the tilt. Like when you lean forward going up a steep hill, just to keep your balance. And yet you still feel the slant and despite your try to adjust the world, that slant will remain.

This quandary has been on my mind for some time now. My best friend (whom I shall not name) has been dealing with this problem for years. Only there is a time when in trying to fix the problem, we cause a whole other set of problems, worse than the ones before. Like when a picture is hung wrong, and instead of fixing how the picture is hung, you tilt your head to the side, trying to see it as you should. Only you get a kink in your neck. Or in tilting you make the tilt of the picture worse, not better.

If something is 99.99% right, can we feel the 0.01% wrong? Is there a way to live with the tilt of the world, without losing ourselves to further tilt, further slant? As I struggle to become the best of myself, how do I deal with the percent of wrong? The percent I can not change?

Perhaps like all good pragmatics, I will wait till tomorrow to answer my questions with new questions.

Dance Class

Each Monday I walk about 15 mins to go to a Belly Dance class. This class was something that my roommates (when I had them) and I would attend religiously. Its not a typically hard class, although the workout makes me very sore the day after. This class has become my one really extra thing that I do every week. It costs five whole dollars (I know really low for a class) and I get my work out at the same time.

I know very few of the women who attend every week, and yet together I share something very deep with each of them. Together we make complete fools of ourselves, bending our bodies, trying to do the movements of the teacher. Together we sweat and laugh. We do not judge each others weight nor the color of our skin. I feel very comfortable among the older black women who attend, I feel like I belong there.

I find it interesting that in order to find the community I crave, I pay money to sweat and laugh. At first I did feel like an outsider, someone who had stepped in on something that was meant for other people. Like a child who is allowed to stay up when there are guests over, and yet is left out of the conversation. The child never complains about this, because somehow, she feels that to be left out would be worse, as if to miss some kind of magic. But this feeling has morphed till I feel one of the group.

So last night, Monday night, I was forced to follow a different teacher. My body, thrown by the difference in style and pace, is still sore. Last night I was forced to take ibuprofen in order to sleep, because of my aching bones (which despite my youth, makes me feel rather old). And I found that my community was shaken by the difference. And yet next week I am sure it will feel all the better with our new teacher. Interesting community and feelings just from a dance class.

Possiblities

Finally it looks like I might have a roommate. She would not be moving in until around June 1st, but still a roommate! As I have been trying for more than a month to find someone to take the room, this is a very good sign. I feel that I am starting to go crazy by myself in the apartment. Although I have to admit I was rather productive this weekend. I did laundry (I know amazing), I super cleaned the bathroom and touched up the kitchen/living room area, and I did a good deal of other small chores (like bills and grocery shopping).

However, I did not get done all that I had hoped too. I still really need to re-organize my room. Also I did not get to church on Sunday, something I'm now kicking myself about. And I was glad to come in to work today, because it meant meeting people, and people are good. Sometimes I really worry about myself here in Philadelphia. I guess I just need a community.

Community. That word was a part of everything that happened in college. Messiah College put community at the forefront of every aspect of life at that school. I found this slightly annoying, since when you are in a dorm, its hard not to have a community. When you are a part of a major, its near impossible not to become a part of that community. Everything that happens in college seems to be a part of community. And now that I am out on my own, that is the part with which I struggle the most. I have no community and desperately need one.

So I am going to ask for prayers for two things. First that I would find a community in which to be a part and second that my roommate situation work out. Other than that it feels like every other Monday.

Dirty Feet, Childhood, and the Mixed Things

I love standing in the cool mud of late spring. Bare feet oozing into the liquefied earth, a mixture of clay, dirt, water, and rocks. Already half of the garden is planted and weeds mix themselves with the vegetable plants.

Every year, my family tends this large rectangular space of good earth. Compost and manure are stirred in as my mother tries to bend the clay and rocky earth towards better stuff. My father, and now my brother, spend hours stirring with the rototiller. My father used to say, while my sister and I picked rocks, that we should grow rocks instead of vegetables. My mother says we grow vegetables, rocks, and weeds.

When school ended, my sister and I had two things to look forward to, weeding the garden and a week long camping trip. For years it was always the same, till as we got older we added summer jobs, and summer camp to the to do list. When we were younger, my parents would hire a baby sitter for the summer. Every morning my mother would write a long chore list for my sister and I. The good babysitters helped with the chores, the bad ones sun bathed and made sure we were well sun screened while we worked.

Together, my sister whining, we would bend over the rows weeding. Our necks and arms would become drenched with sweat and our backs would bake in the heat of summer. We quickly learned several important facts about weeding. Don't pull up the good plants, make sure to get the roots of the weeds, or they will just grow back, and start weeding early in the morning before it is too hot. Although at the time, my sister and I only wanted to play and felt rather ill used by our parents, there were many great things about the garden. Peas, corn, and beans. A wonderful mix of strange and new things that as a family we would watch grow. Together we would wait for the first fresh spring peas, the yellow and green summer squash sprinkled with fresh mozzarella, and corn roasted over the red hot coals of a broken apart bonfire.

Once the food started to load our table and our freezers and shelves filled with pickles, jams, and bags of various vegetables, our minds changed. No longer was the garden something you complained about. Sure we had hated all that weeding, the bent backs and sweaty foreheads. Sure we had whinnied and found excuses. Once that food started, all seemed to be forgotten. The reason for all the work was easily apparent.

At some point every year, when its still early spring, around the time when you first plant peas, my feet start craving. While living in a city its hardly possible to walk out back and stick your feet in the ground. Yet every spring my feet beg for that muddy clay dirt. My fingers wish to be planting seeds and pulling weeds.

Ever since I moved out of my parents house and started spending summers were there was more concrete then grass and dirt, I have craved for mud and dirt. I crave the clean dirt that gets under your finger nails and stains the bottom of your feet. I crave the sweat making work of weeding in the hot summer sun. The hours spent arguing with my sister while we pulled weeds between the rows of corn. Or complained about the injustice of it all while we trudged with buckets of withering plants out to the hedgerow to dump them.

Looking back I never see how boring or hard the work was. Rather I remember the feeling of accomplishment when after finishing a row, which before was weed filled like a jungle, you look over the dark brown black earth. The feeling of the cool dirt on your bare feet and the pleasant ache as you stand and stretch after bending over for a long time. Sneaking tastes of the peas and pulling pieces of rhubarb to munch on.

When I see kids now, playing their video games, slowly turning to mush in front of the TVs and PCs, I wish I could given them my childhood. Teach them the ways of plants to tell the difference between peas and corn and squash. I want them to learn imagination and creativity at the gentle hands of nature. To feel grass and rock and dirt with bare feet. I want to give them fresh air and sun burns. Teach them the wonders of earth worms and shy blue birds.

So much of my childhood consisted of mixed things: Country life and old values, mixed with the images of the wide world coming across our one channel of TV. Mixes of modern art from my mother's college books and the art work of the sky and earth. Mixes of being poor in the eyes of my classmates, and seeing them poorer than myself. Mixes of faith and religion, of living in creation and learning the world.

Very few people in America today fully understand the feeling of bone tiring work, of growing things, and fighting with the land (or working with the land). In the city (Philadelphia, where I currently live) I see no connection. Children here don't even realize how their food is made, nor have found a connection between dirt and life. It feels so strange here, the ground feels dead, as if I have forgotten my green thumb. Things are too contained.

So I long to break through the concrete and find the good dirt. I long to stand in my bare feet and feel the mud seep between my toes. I wonder if I will ever feel completely at home in the city.

Biking to Work

On Friday I bought a really nice new bike from K-mart. Nothing fancy, just something to get me to work. I have felt that I needed to work out more and that I needed to save money. Thus a bike. Today is the first day that I rode it to work (it was very rainy the last two days and I don't like biking in the rain). Besides getting a little lost around the art museum (where Spring Garden does a very complicated dance with eight thousand other roads). I was able to make it to work earlier than I usually do. It took about 20mins, with the detour, and I left a little early because I was nervous about being late.

A couple things about biking in Philadelphia. (1) I am so glad the there are bike lanes, drivers here are really crazy. (2)I like my bike. (3) It felt a lot longer than it actually was. (4)My legs were very sour this morning, and (5) I will need to make sure to eat a better breakfast from now on, I was light headed by the time I got to work this morning. I'm sure that in time I will be very comfortable navigating the streets on my bike, but I will say with all the cars rushing by, I definably feel very alert to everything happening.

There are a couple of things that I need to get for my bike, a bell and some kind of basket or bag for carrying groceries. The only down side to all of this is that I have to carry that bike up and down two flights of steps every day, gross.

Untitled

(Not sure what to call this, and I warn you it is rather sad.)

John woke in the early morning light. there was a thin layer of sand, red sand, all over his issued sleeping bag. Everything was covered with sand. It seemed to cling to everything. It would find its way through the tent and sheets and PJ's, so that he constantly felt the grit next to his skin. Even at night, while he rapped himself in winter blankets and shivered with cold, the sand was there to remind him that he was in fact in the desert. Tomorrow he would be unbelievably hot, the exact opposite of the cold night.

Quickly John pulled on his fatigues and tied his boots. He took special care to tuck things in, it was a fugal attempt at keeping out the red sand.

Some day he would travel back to the Mountains of Western Maryland. there was plenty of water there, and rain, and of course no sand. Most nights that was the dream that filled John's head, a place with no sand, no insurgents, no yelling Sargents, or stuck up officers. John dreamed of home, his parents, and that girl he had kissed at senior prom. Sand back than had been something you saw on vacations to the beach in Virgina. Even than there was always a small amount that was backed up and taken home , stuck in the lining of bathing suits and folded into towels.

John wished that was all he had to worry about here. Here, the sand blew and was in everything and was everywhere. It acted better than sand paper, making things raw and bare. Buildings lost paint, dears and machinery slowly was eaten away. Sand was destructive. Sand covered and hid things. Sand ate at you till you were a different person. O if he had only to worry about bring it home in a swim suit.

"'Nother day in hell" Snapped the driver, old Tom, they all called him, he was the oldest at 35.
"Ain't hell for me old man, this here is what heavens like." Rodger ever sarcastic. "Hey Johnny boy no getting us killed today, if I die I'll go to hell, being such a bad boy."
"And whats hell for you?" John yelled from the hatch here he stood, manning the machine gun.
"40 virgins."
"What no hookers?" The Sargent laughed "Hey driver, I know your old, but your not suppose to hit every pothole."
"I'm trying, I'm trying." Tom said through grinding teeth. "The whole f'ing roads potholes, the best I can do is miss the ones that swallow you alive." their was a string of swearing as they all became air born for a few seconds than landed every which way. John held on to the MK19 and prayed he would not fall down into the laps of the fellows below, nor fly out the hatch completely. He tried to keep his eyes roving around, but it was a losing battle.

"Everyone OK?" the Sargent yelled.
"No" everyone yelled back.
"Fuck" someone yelled, John thought it must have been old tom, but there was no real time to think. The explosion tore him out of the hath and through the air. He landed on the side of the road, mostly covered in red sand. Thank God for unanswered prayers he thought.

His back was to the road, he could not hear what was behind him. All he could see was a long endless expanse of red sand. It stretched out till it became one with the sky. He tried to move, but found it too difficult. all he could think about was sand. How it felt against his neck. Ho it stung were it had wedged itself under his goggles. Than he smelled the burnt flesh, the gas. He could imagine what was behind him. He had see i t before, the billowing black smoke, the half cooked bodies. Blood blacked with smoke and oil. Blood mixed with red sand. Maybe they really were in hell.

John woke with a start. The red digits on the alarm clock next to him read 4:20, a couple of hours before sunrise. He slowly drifted back to sleep, back to the dream that lit up his memory every night. Sand and black smoke. The Sargent's laughter at hell and hookers. In the morning he would look out his windows and see a lake and mountains and woods. He would live in the place that he had dreamt all the months living on the harsh sand. Now all he could dream was sand.
"'Nother day in hell" John whispered in the Maryland night.

Inspiration

Finding inspiration can be easy or it can be hard. Sometimes when I sit down to write absolutely nothing comes out. Other times the amount of stuff floating around up in the Attic makes it even harder to write. I think that my muse, whom ever it is, likes to take long vacations after which feeling badly pumps me full of too many ideas to count.

So I have come up with some sort of solution. I must keep things simple before I let them get overly complicated. I write in this blog practical every day, or at least ever week day during my lunch break. I also spend a lot of time either reading or writing in my journal everyday (I also spend too much time watching TV on my mac... I should work at limiting that). Hardest is that I have to work everyday.

Its been several days since my sisters graduation, and sadly the commencement speaker did not give me anything to really think about. The Baccalaureate speaker did. She said keep a hold of your dreams. Even if you are not working on that dream right now, keep a hold on that dream, keep working towards it. My questions is: What the hell is my dream? Is it to Act? Direct? Write? And what in those fields? TV? Film? Stage? Plays? Short stories? Poems? Is it bad that I want to do it all?

Perhaps that is really the problem, both in my writing and in my dreaming. I want to much, I think too much, I dream too much. Is my muse simply making fun of my overly active creative side that I seem to have little to no control over? I believe that my right brain is way too active for its own good (although every time I take the 'where you think quizzes' they say I think in the middle of my brain). I dream sleeping and waking. I try to write down as many as I can. Yet I feel over powered by all of my thoughts. Sometimes it is just easier to not write at all, but simply listen and watch other writers works. Trying to empty your head, is really hard to do. Inspiration needs space in which to grow, right?

Mother's Day Snow

It is my first day back at work after a long weekend which included very little sleep, crazy family members, buying of bikes, cold weather, and snow on Sunday. Yes snow. I froze most of the weekend, just because I was stupid and did not check to see what the weather was going to be like. Short flirty skirts and harsh cold wind in Rochester, do no mix.

Lucky for me I was with family and I got to catch up with friends as well. And I can always get more sleep other days. Being home always reminds me how much I miss being at home and how much I'm glad that I no longer live with my parents. I'm slightly envious of my sister who gets to live with my parents while doing her masters work. And yet I love coming back to Philly. I love having a apartment. Its all as confusing as snow on Mother's Day.

Grey

Well I finished The Picture of Dorian Grey yesterday. Its not like it is a really long book, but still it is slightly amazing that I started and finished the book all in the same day, before leaving work. I find it amazing that you can feel sorry for Dorian at the end, even though it all really is his fault. True he had horrible direction and friends, but he was also a bad influence to those around him, and he did deserve to die. I really love this story.

Interestingly I also watched Sherlock Homes (the most recent one), last night. I was surprised how I felt about it. It was OK, but there was something missing from the whole thing. I felt as though I had been let down by an invisible force. The Acting was good, I really liked Jude Law and the women who played his wife, and the costuming was amazing. And some of the scenes were great (like when you see how Homes decides to take down people during a fight, hear his reasons, prior to the actually event.) But still I felt let down, like I was watching something that should have been good. I felt the same way about Narnia, as if it was missing something.

Perhaps it was reading of such a well structured novel prior to watching it, or maybe there really was a problem. I wanted to skip over things, speed up the process of watching. Which is my way of saying I got bored. It really is too bad, I think that you have find blame in this case with either the director or the writer. (and its very hard to tell which). And its not like it was the worse movie I have ever seen either, I have seen a lot worse. (And I will be the first to admit it is really hard to keep my attention).

I'm leaving tomorrow for home!!! which means I have to pack...:(

Dear Oscar Wilde...

So after being told that I need to read The Picture of Dorian Grey, umpteen million times, I finally have started the story, not because someone told me to read it, but because I happened past it in the library. Its good, I'm just at the point when Grey figures out that the painting is changing. And although I know the basics of the story, I feel its interesting to try and follow his character.

Its hard to decide, at this point if Grey's horrible character stems from the fact that he has bad influences or because he is beautiful. Perhaps it will be both, I have to finish to decide. I was very intrigued by one thing that Lord Henry says about artist.
"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common-sense. The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poets, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets, are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible."

I wonder what this can tell us about dear Oscar Wilde. Was he a very good 'poet' and thus a 'boring person' or did he view himself as second rate and thus very interesting. I do feel that all writers put their views in the months of their characters, or at least a bit of themselves on the page. I feel that Oscar must have felt the same, or at least wrote that thought into the character of Basil, as he is fearful of how much of himself is in the painting of Grey.

I'm also intrigued by the darkness that I can see coming. There is some kind of inevitability about the whole thing. I know that Grey is a vane, proud man who can not die. I'm a little a feared to see what he will become. I'm also intrigued because I fear so often my own writing takes a similar bent towards the dark. Well back to Oscar Wilde and Dear Grey.

Terrible Circle

Here is a short story I have been working at for a little bit, sorry if it is a bit ruff.

He awoke, his face set in a silent scream. A scream his lungs could not support. All was darkness. He did not remember where he was from, nor why his body was full of pain. He did not know what his name was, but he was sure that he had one. Slowly the pain lessened and he was able to slowly close his mouth and uncurl his body. Finally the pain faded into a memory, which would be very difficult to forget, for at the moment it was the only memory he had.

He opened his eyes into the darkness. the darkness also remembered his pain, his silent scream. But it also remembered how he had come to this place. The shadows were whispering to each other, but they did not share with him. Slowly his ears heard more then just the shadows whispers, it heard the music thumping out of the club around the corner and he could hear the hooker in the next alley over, working. But he also heard the knife unsheathed three blocks away, heard as it slide through flesh. He heard the soup dumped into a boil eight blocks away at a soup kitchen. He heard the whole city all at one and yet he heard each sound, could place everything. While he listened, his eyes picked the shadows from themselves. He saw lightness and grey, he saw true black. He saw the stars seeking to shine through the fogs and clouds above.

After a while he realized that he was hungry. And very soon after this he realized he was also cold. For a moment he wondered whether to head towards the soup kitchen or in the other direction to where there was a fire around which several people had gathered to warm themselves. Something told him to go towards food first.

Slowly he stood, feeling his limbs. He pulled his cloak around his sore body. Something warned him to put up his hood. Not having any memories he felt his impulses were the best things to follow. And his mind warned caution.

He was able to make it to the street of the soup kitchen with out meeting a single soul. He hung in the shadows, waiting, watching, till his stomach took over and told him to forget fear. the food was horrible, but his body did not seem to mind.


From the shadows Mark watched her, not sure what it was that held his attention. He had yet to see her face, she was sitting with her back to him. He was sure that she was playing at being attached to the young man who was doting on her. She was playing but she did not have the power in the situation. The young man had a very strong power and Mark did not like the look in his eyes.

Mark found that he was spending too much time looking in her direction, despite his honest tries at appearing to not be interested. the last thing he needed was to gain the attention of a rich, dangerous boy.

He finished his drink and paid his tab. He grabbed his cloak and made for the door. He did not look at her table while he left, although it took every bit of his control not too. He listened through the pounding of the club music, searching a safe route home. His ears heard everything, but he concentrated on only that which was most important. After deciding on the best way, he quickly moved into the shadows. Staying a part of the black until he reached his apartment. Only then when he was safe, did he let his ears search out the girl. But through the whole city he could not hear her out. He found her young man with ease, he was still at the club. She did not seem to be with him.

Mark lay, arms folded, eyes closed. When this position did not afford any help, he tried sitting up on his bed. Still he could not sense her. Than as he sat, legs folded, arms out stretched, resting on his knees and eyes closed, he realized he could not find her in the city, because she was in his room.

Her eyes were green. But other that stating the color, it was difficult to describe it in any real way. They were brighter then neon lights, yet it was not electric color. Nor was it dark like a forest glade, but almost as mysterious. He wondered if this was the Gypsy color that his mother had told him about. At least he was sure it had been his mother, he could not remember.

She was inches away, so close that he could feel her breath. He was sure he knew her from somewhere. And there was an attraction that made him feel like he was too comfortable. But he couldn't remember fully.
"You really don't remember me do you?"


She had betrayed him. It was the only way they could have cornered him so easily. There were three of them, he knew his strength was greater than theirs. Caution, his body told him.
"Every time its the same, Mark" Her voice had a fell tone to it.
"So when you get bored you just kill me again?"
"No one can kill you, but I can make sure that you don't remember."
"Why?" Her eyes were green flame, boiling over with hatred, where once there had been love.
"I keep hoping you'll remember it would make the torture so much more fulfilling."
"Obviously its your fault I can't."


He woke, his face set in a silent scream, his lungs bursting, darkness pounding on his head and in his ears. When the pain finally dulled to a memory, it would stay with him. It was the only thing he could remember.

wet, wet, wet

I'm going to do a little complaining, forgive me.

Yesterday was one of those uber hot and sticky days that belong to summer, not the first weekend of May. I also in following the weathers lead, decided to wear my flip flops to church. I did not think much about this until I was half way there and the blisters started. So I have some, three to be exact, really beautiful blisters on my feet now. And to top off yesterdays greatness, I could not sleep because it was so hot/sticky in my room.

Than this morning I wake up to pouring rain, which although the weather report did not mention this, I figured it was coming because of the humidity. So this morning I walked to the subway station while the rain flew sideways (underneath my umbrella). Also it was raining so hard that there was always about an inch of water on the ground, and some places a whole lot more. Needless to say I arrived at work very wet.

I must say that this is not a really great way to start a week. The best thing I can say is that I'm leaving Friday to go home for my sisters graduation, and that my friends is something wonderful to look forward too (As long as I can make it till then).

The Pinnaculum

(The following is the beginning of the story I started the other day. Forgive me if it is still a little ruff.)

The Pinnaculum rose above the wide valley several yards over the tallest tree. It stood, a testament to an old age, the age of the great ones. No one seemed to know who the great ones were, nor where they had come from, or where they had disappeared to. Disappeared they did, into the grey fog of time, becoming legend and myth. Yet they must have lived, ages ago, for one could find the markings and makings of that people across every kingdom from Nordoth in the North to Diblen in the far south.

From lower pass into the valley the Pinnaculum was just a needle pointing towards the sky. The closer one got, the more it began to resemble some sort of long finger, pointing up to the gods. However it was too smooth and straight to be a finger.

The Prince had travelled farther then many, and never had he seen a valley like this one. Usually when one found a marker of the past age, that was the only thing one saw for miles. In this valley it was almost the opposite. Very soon after entering the valley, they had happened on the road, a paved road. None of them had ever ridden on a paved way out side of a city before. And the Prince knew of many cities with no paved roads.

Yet here, in the middle of wilderness of the western lands, they had found a paved road. It seemed to run straight at the Pinnaculum to the West. Since their band wished to go west, in the hopes of finding the mythical lost city of Westima, they followed it happily, having finally found a way in the right direction. The old tales said that the great ones had come from the West, Westima being their greatest city. The Prince took the sign of the road and Pinnaculum as proof that they were getting closer.

An hour before sunset, when they were still about a mile from the base of the Pinnaculum, the Prince by chance happened to look up again at its top. He stopped horse, his mouth opened in pure shock. The other horses slowly stuttered to a stand still, and slowly each turned their eyes to follow the path of the Prince’s. Together they stood in amazement, as if turned to stone.

Standing on top of the Pinnaculum, yards above the tallest tree, stood a girl. The Prince knew it was a girl, because even from the distance he could see her hair flowing in the wind. He strained his eyes, trying to see her better. Than suddenly he moved like lightning, ripping his pack off his horse and digging like a greedy child till he found what he sought. Leaving the pack where it lay, he turned and pointed his looking glass towards the girl.

Her back was to him, her hair flowing like water behind her. She held her hands out in front as if offering something to the setting sun. She looked as though she was part of the Pinnaculum, for she stood perfectly at the top straight at the rock beneath her feet. Slowly the sun set as he watcher her. She did not move, did not flinch, until the sun had sunk below the western pass of the valley. Then she was gone.

Darkness took hold quickly. Around the prince, the men were unpacking the horses and making camp, to the north of the road, near a small stream they had found. The prince stood, glass pointed at the dark spike that rose up into the sky in front of him. He could not see her, nor could he tell how she had gotten down from the top.

The prince barely slept that night. He watched the stars on their long journey across the sky. It was a moonless night, thus the stars shown out of the black blanket about, bright and twinkling, with nothing to diminish their light. Nothing that is until early morning, when the sky to the east started to burn.

Having decided that the girl must be a sun worshipper, he turned his back to the glowing light towards the pinnaculum. He waited a long time, while the light slowly crept through the sky and the stars vanished. The men around him began to rise, the horses stamped their feet and pulled at their picket lines, ready to start a new day. Still he held his eyes forward to the west. The sun must be up by now.

Finally he stole a look behind him and watched as the first ray of sun peaked over the pass to the east. Quickly he turned back towards the west, his eyes finding the top of the pinnaculum. There she stood, arms out to the east and the sun. It was as if she had always been there.

He raised his glass sought out her face. He had been right to guess that it was a girl. The sun was full in her face, her eyes closed, arms out stretched, her hair uncovered freely flowing about her. She was wearing a simple tunic and either a very narrow skirt or breeches. He put his money on pants. She must have climbed something to reach the top of the pinnaculum that would be hard in a skirt.

He watched for a short time today, or he felt that it was shorter. Without a word he turned from the west and made ready to continue westward towards the pinnaculum. Although he wished for speed, the horsed could handle little more then a walk, they were still tired from the week long race westward. They were little more then half an hour from the base. The price felt that it was of the highest importance that he meet the girl.