I have a terrible time writing in first person. It’s a long, dark walk into the night to find the place where you can spill yourself. It’s high and hard to climb. It’s where you exist as: “Me” but where you no longer belong to yourself. First person exposes you. The wind blows harder here.…
Category: Writing
This is not content.
Taking the Bagel
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The truth about life lies in this pat of butter. We can ask for what we want. We can even PAY for what we want. We can desire and expect it. But we won’t always get it. Here’s the bagel I had for breakfast at my favorite Milford cafe. I order it in this way.…
On Being Brand New
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Only once do we have the chance to ACTUALLY be brand new. We arrive on the earth, sticky and discombobulated, completely unprepared for all this light and noise. From then on, we are experienced. We’ve seen it all. So we have to do all manner of contortions to reinvent ourselves. The book I am reading…
Please Accept This Spider Drawing as Payment
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Artists are basically fucked in America. They work their asses off, often all day and all night, spend heaps of money and thought on their craft and at the end of the month, they still have nothing with which to pay their water bills. So can they flush their toilets? NOOOO! One of the offspring…
On Being an American Pacifist
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I started writing a long, kinda preachy post and then I just stopped. Here’s how I feel as a pacifist: I am a conflicted human in my American place. I often wonder if I am stupid and ignorant. There is no doubt I am grateful for the freedom of our lives here. And my mind…
Losing Late Nights
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It suddenly occurred to me — when I was in the basement waiting to see if the washer would flood/leak — that I am no longer a Night Writer. I used to stay up and journal, scribble, angst-ify long after the sun had gone and the house had gone quiet. In KC, I’d sit on…
Getting the Olivetti 33
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I just went ahead, finally, and dished out the $$ on the Olivetti 33, because every writer should own a manual typewriter and this one is so lovely. I did what Mom told me and thought about it for awhile– like two years. Restored to oily perfection by Dan, aka “Mr Typewriter,” from Florrisant, MO,…
The Unfinished Basement is Not Worth Examining
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So I’m just emptying the dishwasher this morning and number one son runs out the the kitchen and says: “Mom! I just saw this guy on TV! He says he can finish your basement!” “Oh yeah?” My mind is spinning. I start to do the math. Local news is on. Commercial jingles ring. TiVo has…
The Look you are Looking For
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Blogs are NOT what they used to be– which is mostly good. Fine– I’ll get the bad part out of the way quick– I’m typing this post on my iLhjvd (iPhone) which makes fir Manu typkys (many typos) and a cramp in my left hand. The good change is paired with plethora: ie. The abundance…
The Tweet is a Lonely Hunter
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Today ScoutieGirl posed an interesting question about how the internet shapes and changes our creativity. She and I seem to agree that, like all things that are woven to the human form, the Web has the innate ability to remind us that we are alone in the universe. She asked: “as sister diane pointed out…
Life is Too Short to Just Wear Black
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Or, An Ode To Candied Fabrics, Who Is Very Busy Quilting, Yet Commented on my Blog Anyway Everyday, the grass pushes up through the dirt And Everyday We swing the doors of our houses In and out– (My front door is red, chipping red paint With chipping brass fixtures)– And Everyday, we knit our wardrobe…
Experiential Blogger Seeks Single Robot for Poetic Amalgamation
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Or, How to Write a Blog Post that No One Understands and Yet Still Find the Solution to World Peace I love this post from ScoutieGirl about Experiential Blogging so much that I’ve decided to give up my calling as a freelance circus masseur and start only being experiential. Dastardly cruel as it is (yes,…
Boobquake, Milkshakes and Our Diabolical Plan
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As a professor (all right! just an adjunct…) of rhetoric, I can spot and identify logical fallacy when I see one. So did the awesome BlagHag blogger Jen McCreight when a Muslim cleric managed to twist the logic so profoundly of protecting women from their own immodesty that he accidentally predicted that free-moving, free-ranging cellulite…
“It’s All Up in the Air”
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Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s musings on “The Philo-Lilac” (available only in hardcopy… not yet available online) in Orion Magazine this month poses the question I am pondering myself– what’s that emptiness and loss of rejection in the work world– even when it’s something you are pretty sure you don’t want? Previously I blogged about the political in-fighting…
Earth Day, Imagined
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I found that my iPhone’s App Store “What’s Hot” as Green Apps featured today, as part of Earth Day celebration and I am thrilled. Earth Day is 40 years old today, and now it is almost ubiquitous. Everywhere there are thousands of events, so many that it is impossible to even get to all of…
