billet doux

time for cake?

Seemed like the best way to get rid of negative idiocy.

I'll reconstruct the kitchen tomorrow.

*bleh ...

Excrutiating. Uncomfortable. This nakedness. These corridors. Psycho-eyed and leering, the plonker who accompanies me tonight is saying, “hmm, you could do to lose a few pounds … you can't go in there, not like that. They'll laugh. All of them. You think they care? You're wrong. No good. Past it. You can't do it anyway, if you ever could - look at you!”

I'm furious but I cannot shake him. He's here, nipping tired heels and heart. Savouring humiliation. Relentless. I despise his critical animosity. I loathe him. Because he is me; and I'm sad that I create a man-me to project my negativity. It doesn't have to be a nightmare full of gory sacrifice for a dream to suck!

*image: applegallery.com

unlimited : reflections

Some places catch wild songbirds, drag them from pure mid-flight dream. Some people do the same with souls that are what they have not.

I've been caught time and again in soul-nets. Who hasn't? Intimate, the loss of power to move, the wrench from freedom is exhausting.

Living death. It isn't always clear how or when it happened. Gutting to admit, for reasons best known to your misty soul, you colluded in your capture. An unholy tryst. Or so it seems.

Bared to the moon, aghast at distance; cold between each here and there, you gaze and shallow-breathe. Life is not the problem, it's the struggle for survival. Knowing that it only takes an inch or two of stagnant water for a song to drown; for sight to blur and fade.

It isn't Life that hurts; it's the agony of losing freedom's pulse.


When sky becomes a cruel, taunting dream you cannot quite recall. Times like that I wondered how I fell to small from such lofty maiden flight; why astronomy confined wild stars to quadrants, pinned each one to the wall for vivisectioned thrill.

Times like that I wondered when the mirror got so empty too. But I know better now. Again. Stars are still whole. Like me. Like you.

It's not the fear or fall that kills you. It's the dainty chains around your throat, the bitter quadrants that divide and drive false hearts to try and own what they have not.

*images: Jean-Paul Avisse & nwcreations.com

nothings #5

In Life now and happy with it,
just in case you worried! *grin



*image: Francois Fressinier

nothings #4

Before Life,

many years ago:

STBXT: So. Tell me about the one you loved who died?
Me: Which one?
STBXT: There were more? Sheesh, we didn't get to the how's your father chapter yet
Me: I sent it to you a week ago but no, we didn't. Three.
STBXT: Three?
Me: Yes, though to be fair, the first was exploration rather than soulmate and I …
STBXT: Ok, ok … so. Are you seeing anyone now?
Me: Not so's you’d notice. Did I tell you how death opens up your senses?

*silence*

STBXT = soon to be ex-therapist. He went off sick. Long term. Never came back after reading my autobiography. The one he asked me to write. Chapter by chapter. The one he read in silence while I sat there. Waiting. Knowing that I'd left out the stuff I wouldn't share with anyone. But then, I'd only just started … to rebuild.

*image: Mike Reid

nothings #3

hospital car park. chaos. i am hovering, graceful in its midst, trying to decide which of two spaces will be prettier for Chief (car's name – not make, his name)

someone takes it. come on, it's obvious i was going to choose that one. malevolence. everywhere.

workmen taking up half the car park to re-lay pavement. badly. it's so not level. what they need is a drop-kerb there. oh. that's what they're doing. didn't stop that woman falling off the other end, did it now? what they need is a wheelchair. oh. they've got one. why is everyone reversing? or is it just me? what i need is ...

*image: inmagine.com

nothings #2

textually ... 1:41 a.m.

occasional: i'm drunk and missing you. get in a taxi and come over to mine? now?

me: i don't think so

occasional: but i've been thinking about you. loads. really. i'll pay for the taxi. was near your place earlier for a few beers. *hic …

me: thanks for thinking about me; much appreciated, 'specially as you were so nearly here. nite.

*watching water freeze … 1:53 a.m.

*image: inmagine.com

nothings #1

I've only just become able to see the cute iconic firefox-fox holding a blue planet. Until now it's been a blue splodge-not-a-fox-at-all climbing over an inexplicable desert.

Does this make me a total drongo or what?

Probably something to do with self-imagery. Ah. Too revealing, so will steer away right now.

I can't for the life of me see hidden images in "those" pics that I can't remember the name of either. No way. No matter how I swing from the rafters with one eye closed whilst chewing full-moon garlic.

Think I'll go wash Ms Feisty Cat – no, really, the one who seems to have climbed up the inside of the chimney by the look of her. Don't ask me why. Walls have always been good enough for me … perhaps I lack ambition?

God, how boring am I at the moment? *humph*


*image: inmagine.com

idle book-chat

Thomas Covenant is my constant companion. I've no idea how many times I've read him. His leprosy symbolizes so much about all of us. We fall apart; face choices and situations we're ill-equipped to handle. But we do it. Then beat ourselves up forever.

Ultimately it's all chiaroscuro isn't it? This or that just doesn't cut it any more, if it ever did. We are the shades we live in.

I liked that this guy, riddled with disease and madly untouchable, learns just exactly how miserable life can get. And it's all our own doing, one way or another. The Chronicles tied in spectacularly with my own life too. My salvation depended on this beaten wreck of a man for a long time. Perhaps that made me Illearth?

As much as I wanted to slap him a zillion times, would I have been able to do better? I wish! His mythical journey towards sacrifice mirrors Joseph Campbell's description of the hero's journey. Mirrors each and every one of us. Actually everyone in that tale at some point or another reminds me that we are each other, even the icky stuff. Oh yes, I've rebuilt cosmology through Thomas and Linden. Kind of a Farscape thing going on there, eh?

It amuses me when the literati label genres and decry the latest mutation of Tolkien or whoever, like it’s hallowed ground never to be trod again. Like *duhhh … as if! Because hey, in my opinion, our mythical earth-lives have been described in art ever since an asteroid thought “this'd be a place to drop the payload”.

I'm not going anywhere with this. At least, not today. I was just looking at the minimal book listings in profile and realised, omg, where's Tom??

one night ...

someone in a chat room held me close. Not like that. Like this. S/he told me a story. This soul carried only the author's name. Personal contact was purely by way of PM's like, "give me a moment ... on the way ... wait for me."

This happened not long after my partner's death. I was subsumed in grief. Suicidal. Dying inside and willing death’s full hit.

The chat room was a spiritual one. The fighting that went on in there was utter madness. Many logged on just to get a voyeuristic kick from the latest uproar of denunciations. The hype of rage fed my own hysterical energy, though now I am ashamed of that.

That night, this someone started posting chunks of a text. It seemed as though I was the only one who stopped in bitter tracks to notice. I heard a voice. Reading to me. I read the text but I wasn't reading, I was being read to.

On the surface, this was someone copy/pasting. The bane of most chat rooms. Some started to complain. What was going on, what was the point? I found myself asking them to let it be. I needed this. Whatever it was. Please.

Uncharacteristically, conversation started to weave around the text. They sensed I meant it when I said, "please. sshhh." Various rages continued but did not attack the space cleared for whatever this was. Many said, “forget it, I want to hear what's got S so transfixed.” And so, some listened with me.

I was on dial-up, remember that? Most times I could barely spit out a greeting before the line was cut. Not once that night was connection severed.

For well over 4 untouched hours, chunk by chunk, a magnificent story unfolded. Maybe it was being typed out not c/p'd at all. Paragraph by paragraph. Maybe it was something s/he was working on in college. Maybe s/he came into the chat room looking for study-help. What s/he got was my soul instead, wondering silently if there was any point in being earthbound. S/he stayed until the tale was told and I was alive again. Then left. Quietly. Before my tears and thanks could fall on fingertips.

Never ask how or why I hold you. It doesn't matter who I am. We are all storytellers. For and with each other. Always.

*image 1: Susan Seddon-Boulet

staccato

thoughtslip

I don't want to create a reputation for myself as an itv play-gal (though it is the best sleep-aid I have ever found) but last night ... everyone was offering cute things like house-warming, house-party, house-proud. Me? I was thinking house-fire, house-arrest, house-of-horror ... hmmmm ... must be my bio-rhythms, eh? drip. splat.

smugness ...

... x ...

oops ...

LOL ... ok, now I'm befuddled! The sun:roof post should have gone here but it went down there instead, which is right for the time I saved it in draft. I got distracted trying out a half-poem/photo thingy and wanted the leaky roof to be today's entry. Ah well!

If I delete it now and new-post as a today thing, I guess I'd have an embarrassing "Ha! Blogger derives enormous sadistic pleasure announcing that S made a complete mess of this!" So it stays! By way of an update, there has been drip splat silence. I think there was a mysterically complex geometrical wind-rain-angle equation going on and repairs will wait til I win the lottery? This week? See? I'm not all doomy gloom!


*image: Claude Theberge

.....

sun : roof

One of my pillows is wet when I go to bed. Since boy-cat has been tormenting girl-cat and made her very huffy, I think - no, assume – she's got the last word in by weeing on the sacred sleeping grounds. Since they are mostly arguing about who cosies up on the bed closest to me, this would be a superbly apropos move, given how clever she is. No doubts in my mind that this is a carefully thought out action springing from sadly true and honest intent. The ceremonial desecration of the pillow hums poetic justice.

Nevertheless, we have words. Whereby I apologize to girl-cat for turning her life inside out. For taking in the waifs and strays, thereby changing the colour of our quiet, intensely private shared life.

Drip. Splat. Loud in these hours that are an awesome chasm between days. Drip. Splat. Next to me. Another angel is crying – what did I do this time? The thought of down-winged guardians huddled together for a communal bawl at my antics down here actually does disturb me. Deeply. I hate for anyone to cry, celestial or not. I mean, crying per se is good, I hate that I can’t heal misery. I'm cool with Mystery these days but misery is always so … implacable. Inevitable.

Drip. Splat. Light on for full inspection of surroundings. Four cat-ears are alert to possible angelic sorrows or the imminence of demonic attack. Maybe it's on the t.v. Just because it's off doesn't mean it can't get to you. So, switch it on to check. The itv-play studio seems to be running its usual manic course. I distract myself by noting down wrong answers and cross matching with a hastily flung-together list of my own (innately correct.) Suddenly my list has more crossings out, on both sides, than is reasonable. Come on! Enough already! But then that's how it goes, eh? Nothing in my life has ever been reasonable, why start now? At least I have honoured girl-cat with overdue homage. I'm feeling better now.

Outside it's raining hard. Drip. Splat. Thoughts uglier than demonic or angelic wailing drive a wedge between "sundown" and "sunsign" (the puzzle on itv play is prefixed with "sun") and I'm chuckling at the lady who just suggested "sundial kid". But hey, who am I to snigger? I stretch out a hand. Drip. Splat. On my palm.

So how do I fix a leaking roof when I am NBC (Nil By Cash)?? I beg girl-cat to confess that she is indeed remote weeing. She purrs and settles down. On a dry pillow. Aaaahhhh … it never rains but …

*images: Claude Theberge

another breakthrough

It's strangely true that I'm still in recovery from teaching. It's only now, 7 years out of it, that I can bear to read or talk about it. That I can try to answer the phone, write with a pen, make a list or see a crowd of youngsters fill mid-afternoon. I still have difficulty holding onto simple detail, following basic directions, breathing in a crowd (four is max capacity.) Not-keeping-track of conversations has, at last, become a-musing to myself and friends rather than excrutiating social phobia.

It's sad comfort that I'm not unusual. Shocking how many of us there are. Jenna fell 3 years ago. She was superb, often mentioned by inspectors as excellent. She showed me how to teach with flair, how to make imagination's passion really work in classrooms. How to love it even if it all went pear-shaped. Especially when it did that.

A moment changes everything. Revelation strips you brutally, suddenly, no preamble. Here. Now. That's it. Done.

Ill with flu and stress, Jenna dropped the folder that had devoured yet another weekend. Everything spilled onto the floor, the metal teeth that held her life spat it out. Gazing at eviscerated, shiny lesson plans drowning in a hundred other pressing matters, all in triplicate, Jenna cried. Quietly. Incessantly. Her partner found her there, still kneeling on the floor, an hour later. Still gazing. Still crying. This beautiful, strong woman who is pathologically unwilling to cry. Ever. She who held my world aloft on her shoulders when it was crushing mine.

"can't do it. can't do it." Whispered incantation. Stunned, he said, "It's ok, love, I'll pick it up, I'll sort it out and even put it back in order, maybe treat you to a stronger folder …"

Almost beyond breath she keened "no.can't.do.this.any.more."

The utterly naked enormity of that moment guts passion with a butcher's grace.

in quiet ...

I've been watching snow fall most of the day. It fascinates me. Cloud messages. White magic. Unwritten and unique. They say each graceful one is different. Like souls. Rushing, dawdling, twisting down to earth.

Should I watch each tiny piece of sky, stay with one gorgeous piece of it from first sight into end? Gorge senses on the whole she-bang? Map the journeys spiralling so close before they sweep away? How can they do this, show me every awesome swerve and curve, so intimately honest that every landing all but tears me open?

They never seem to collide, though, no matter how bizarre the flight-fall. Perhaps they know how not to interfere with another's path. Perhaps I just can't see when or where they touch and change. Each crystal beautifully decorates, completes a whole. Why can’t we be like this? Or are we? Maybe it just seems a very different story once we hit the ground, running. Perhaps we just forget how magically we embrace in our swerves and curves as we stumble on wet earth?

For all its problems, life and all, I could never wish away bold snow.

half-light thoughts

ok, it isn't much by way of snow, not like other places. I'm just sooo glad right now that I'm not in rush hour any more. Behind that wall lives BigDog - who has the most gorgeous deep voice, full of vibrant, rich and subtle tone. He barks as soon as I start to worry that I haven't heard him. Or when I am close to sleep. I don't mind. We have a telepathic link and that's cool. I need to know he's safe and present, since he isn't allowed indoors. The adults on his side of the wall regard his kind as unclean beasts. It's cold, the road is full of diamonds (the real things, not the stuff we invent as valuable) and I can only hug him with these words.

From my side of his wall.

His voice has helped me write; he makes me feel connected. Reassured. I recall when he first arrived. His sky-calls had a repetitive pattern and I ached to know exactly what he was saying. He gets no loving; no pats, not even company, except in summer when his younger people are outside. I love him. He's barking as I type. I like that. It's right that I speak of him, his huge soul and praise his cosmic place in my quiet life.

Sometimes there are no walls.

Also on the otherside, unknown bird-beings, maybe peacocks, who make terrifying and disturbing sounds - possibly before they leave this life? I don't know for sure, but when they scream, it's always really late at night ... and then nothing.

That worries me too.

in sight ...

*image: blueridgemuse.com

get a life when ...

your rooftop-drama dream.exe displays in HTML and the [escape-now] code is a broken hyperlink. Page Not Found. The weather font is meta-cold but the sky is clicked and saved to frame. Invisibly. Conversation is in bold italics; comic-sans. Untracked.

*image: crystalinks.com

birdseed ...

everywhere. In my hair. Jumper. Eyes. So much for being clever. Last time I got covered, wind had blown it all back at me, as if the Pigeons from The Park (PFTP) had decided those tiny particles hurled their way were beak-fulls short of a coconut. One collective sneeze and I was clearing up for days.

This time, I thought, I’ll position myself correctly. No wind. I was precise, gentle of movement and, on my last fling, took a smugly triumphant half-step backwards adding an audacious slight twist. Came nose to wire with bird feeder on washing line. Several times. Ricochet is glorious, eh? PFTP love that kind of thing.

errgghh ...

Couldn't make that moon-thingy post show up better. If you click the image, though, it works fine! It's not a poem, just what i hoped might be a cool way of presenting odd thoughts at odd times *grin ... ahhh well ...

After a couple of days erratically trying to sort out my errant puter, diverted and distracted by new clues every few seconds, i wonder how this blog actually looks to others. Not that i'd know how to account for resolution differences and whatnot else. However, i have fixed a recurring error message - though i'm sure the initial mission was about something else, long forgotten now ... i've breathed since then ... lol

not quite ...