I think "nice flip-flops" is an oxymoron.

May 29, 2009 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Everyday 
Link to I think "nice flip-flops" is an oxymoron.

I think "nice flip-flops" is an oxymoron. That's what I said to Amanda, last night, after the show. She'd brought a group of our professor friends to see my play, and afterwards, as is the normal routine and course for our social troupes, we ambled over next door to the Old Venice Pizza Company, the neighborhood bar and grill, and I stood patiently accepting kudos and the like, something I don't always enjoy doing because it seems so impratically rote, but I endure it all the same - I mean, I was brought up right. All the while, though, I was staring at the Pinot Grigio selections.  I was reminded...

Read More »

Ah, Wilderness! Ah, Bottle Rockets!

May 23, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
Link to Ah, Wilderness! Ah, Bottle Rockets!

I was never the best with fireworks. Which I find odd, in retrospect, because I had nearly flawless hand-eye coordination. Reflexes that would make a hummingbird jealous. I played tennis, and well. But, somehow this quick-speed ability failed me at fireworks. I learned the hard way, too. For some reason, as children, when the Hot Holidays arrived, so called because we were allowed fireworks as part of the celebration - and these included Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas which drained into New Year's, Valentine's Day, the Fourth; basically, we begged for fireworks on every holiday - and when we got them, oh how we eagerly hoarded...

Read More »

The monsters in my mouth.

May 20, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
Link to The monsters in my mouth.

I'm no prude, but violence in any form shocks me. (I'm rather hoping that's a universal statement). But, and here's where we may differ, my response to it is to laugh. Maybe it's a nervous habit, maybe I think it's a deflection on my part to make it less real. I don't know why I do it, but I laugh. And loudly. See, what you might not know about me is that I am the world's most foremost expert at inappropriate laughter.  It just seems easier to laugh at everything, for me.  I get tired of crying. (Though, I've done my share of that,...

Read More »

[...] losing Language and Outhouses.

May 15, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
Link to [...] losing Language and Outhouses.

I originally started this blog because I have come to recognize my, more often than not, Losing Battle with the Thousand Thoughts, something I fully intend to expound on later. But, I fought so regularly with my internal editor that I couldn't just get words on a page and leave them alone long enough to sieve through them.  The blog, I thought, would be my excuse, my Place in This Writing World, to just put things down, without theme, without intention, without resolution...sort of like brainstorming for the world to see. I felt it'd make me both accountable and more...

Read More »

I drank it as if it were holier than Coke.

May 11, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
Link to I drank it as if it were holier than Coke.

Hold on, now. Don't think I'm crazy, entirely, but I have on three separate occasions dreamed things that have then occurred. In actual life.   The first involved a childhood pet, Scruff, who had gone to live with my grandparents at Fish Camp, a family compound surrounded my cabins, ponds, a basic swimming pool, and a torturously long vegetable garden, where we gathered each summer for a fish fry and the annual task of grading blueberries and other such fruit; several on my father's side were in the fruit farm industry; after an afternoon of grading blueberries, there is no child on...

Read More »

Persistence has no pesticide.

Link to Persistence has no pesticide.

It all started with the handmade oatmeal soap my sister-in-law gave me, in the guise of a present.  I must say, wrapped as it was in that beautiful red gift paper, it was quite a thoughtful-looking Christmas present. That’s the allure of wrapping paper, though, isn’t it? I learned this early on:  people will take anything on this earth if you just wrap it pretty enough.  It can be a thoughtless happy, a re-gift (as American as the NRA), a genuine present, anything. Many is the household item, kitchen utensil, family portrait, that I, as a child, took and re-wrapped and gave to Nana...

Read More »

The Crawdad Convo Back Slap, and how to recognize it.

April 22, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: That Which Bears Repeating 
Link to The Crawdad Convo Back Slap, and how to recognize it.

So, for some reason, lately, I really don't know why, I find myself seeking out these, elements of personality, shall we say, that I disapprove of in others.  I have no reason to saddle this high horse; god knows, I irritate people...rarely, of course, but still, I'm sure I do.  I guess it's just one of those things we can keep to ourselves (minus the blog) and morally hold over others in our private opinions? Except our best of best friends and anyone who sits too close to us at the bar...anyway, that part's not fun; who really cares why?  Let's...

Read More »