100 years, and still nothing's changed.

Never Resist Pie.

The holidays are a-coming. And, in forty-eight years, I've never dreaded any of them. This is where I feel blessed; I have no relatives--visiting or not--that I loathe seeing. No one that inspires me to stock up on extra alcohol. (Yuk-yuk!)

Even luckier, I don't suffer nightmare-traveling. How, you ask? I just don't. Meaning, I don't travel during the holidays. And the few times I do, I don't even attempt to be at my destination 'in time for Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's Eve/Day,' because I have In-laws with careers that aren't holiday-break-friendly. So, there's the lack of that form of familial pressure.
But if you're receiving the "Just get here!" level of stress from clan, why would you willingly oblige them?

The only festivity unpleasantness I choose is the few extra pounds that'll stretch the elastic on my yoga pants. And by the way, men? Chuck the belts! Waistline bondage and Stove-Top stuffing never went hand-in-hand. Loosening the buckle notches to watch football was verboten in my house, growing up; Mah thought it tacky. She was always more easy-going about sweat-pants.

Christmas will be especially fab; I'm house-sitting! Holiday fare, flat-screen, peace, Netflix, solitude....ohhhhmmmm. The only primo improvement would be a lazy cat to keep me company, but I can't have it all. And the home-owners usually honor my simple request of a Barnes & Noble gift-card, in lieu of an elaborate, dust-collecting, porcelain-whatever. So I win again. (And I've routinely spent the card online inside an hour!)

But I'll still have opportunities to hang with an awesomely hip sect that won't have me reaching for the Captain Morgan.

'Unfortunately, at this time...'

'My first writing contest rejection letter.'  ~ J. Lawson

Not nearly as powerful as Hemingway's flash fiction piece, but there it is. Oh, I should think there'd be thoughtful questions for it. For instance...

'Well, what did you write about that the judges didn't like?'

'Did you make too many grammar/punctuation errors?'

'Didn't you send it in time for the deadline?'

'Ohhhh...did you forget to pay the contest fee?'
'Do you mean you've been entering contests, and this is the first time your work was rejected?'

Of course, a jaded Gemini writer--with a Spock-like eyebrow lift--would've known what the first question should be: 'How many writing contests have you actually entered?'

Ya got me! This was the first one. I've known for some time that I had to let contest judges see what I'd been submitting to writing clubs all along. Procrastination was my demon in this, despite that I'll sneer at it in others. And, I'm not feeling that elation that my short story was even read. Plenty of people have read my material; the only diff here was a cash-exchange obligation.

So, I'll try again, likely get another rejection, try again, get another rejection...that's a writer's life. And, despite the J.K. Rowling/Kathryn Stockett/Jane Austen rejection stories, (Oh, yes, even Mr. Darcy was told 'No.') I won't presume to believe I'll 'make it' one day as a published writer. Everyone of my college-writing course professors have given the 'don't quit your day-job' confirmation. In fact, I have favorite, published writers that still have their day-jobs. 

But it's still fun to dream. I'll just hope it doesn't take so many rejection emails before I cancel my annual MS Word subscription. 

Acknowledgement Is Overrated

     Can it be a blessing to not be working? Right now, I have a family member thinking that
very thing, kind of.
     Yah, I would like to be working at least part-time. Solvent enough to purchase the occasional ‘needful,’ and be a tax-paying contributor. But much as the Gemini that I am, (lost in my head) right now I’m told that I’m contributing in one of the most important ways. 

      Just wish Uncle Sam agreed with me. Sigh…ah well.
      I’ve sort of come out of C.N.A. retirement for a time. Acronym for Certified Nursing Assistant; the pros that take care of your parents or grandparents either at home or a professional facility.
      A more accurate corporate acronym? Compensation Not Ample. Last check of the Bureau of Labor & Industries has C.N.A.’s only earning $12.36 an hour. So, I’m of the ‘Fight-for-15’ variety.
      If you have one or two in your family, then you have it hammered into your conscience just how much work they do. It was a twenty-year career for me. Paid career, mind you. Being a childfree meant not coming home to non-paid caregiving responsibilities. So, unless I’m fortunate to win a lottery, I’d never make ‘nurse-with-a-purse.’ (Snerk!)

     But currently, I look after a person who has been fighting for her life. And, her life is my compensation. So, tcha to Uncle Sam; I am contributing.

Strong is the New Pretty

Disclaimer: The poem below is not mine. But I wanted very much to share it for all. It's empowering and beautiful, and I give kudos to those with such talent. I enjoy reading others poetry, but possess no aspirations to write it myself.

How's that for a writer whose sixth-great-uncle is Scotland's National Poet?  

'For the Women who are Meant for More' by Sarah L. Harvey

Here’s to the gritty, truth-seeking goddesses who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

Here’s to the brave, badass females who have blasted through a nightmare of shit to be standing here today.

The luscious ladies who love feeling the raw earth beneath their bare feet, and bow down proudly to the supple, winding curves of their thick, fleshy hips.

Here’s to the creative vixens who breathe their sun-soaked, moonlit, windswept, star-dusted dreams to life, every damn day—rain or shine.

Here’s to the wise women who, time and time again, have chosen their own hearts.

I applaud you, with every fibre of my being. I honour you.

I am you.

We are strong and confusing, complicated and powerful, magical and maddening—we are meant for so much more.

We will never be happy stuffed in a sparkling white kitchen with a floral apron, a sleek bun, and carefully applied pink liquid lipstick to complete the wax mask of our fake smiles, playing the role of perfect wife or perfect girlfriend or perfect mother.

Our hearts will choke. Our spirits will scream.

We will never be happy sitting in a grey office working 9 to 5, watching the clock tick slowly, while our souls shrivel to the buzzing sound of fluorescent lights, unable to breathe in the fresh, muddy scent of gusty winds and the frantic, jewelled sweetness of budding cherry blossoms.

We will never be okay sipping champagne, trying on haute couture, and talking about ways to make our asses skinny and recipes for dinner parties and how to get a man to love us.

We don’t really give a damn about any of that—

We want to talk about soul. About dripping truth. About magic. About death. About struggle. About the world’s heart-breaking pain.

We wanna stand in the billowing breeze and decipher wise whispers of the wind as it roars through each singing strand of our thirsty, messy hair.

Yes.

But, for a painfully long time, we have denied who we really are.

We have tried and tried and tried to squeeze our wild wings and paint-splattered hearts into the cramped plastic moulds of what we “should” be.

How miraculously we have failed.

Why do we rip ourselves up into sad, feathery pieces, trying so hard to slide into pretty little lives that, quite frankly, don’t even appeal to us?

Normal won’t cut it—extraordinary is what we’re here for.

We are meant to merge with the moon, cry with the rain, rise with the tides, and shine with every goddamn slice of shimmering yellow sun.

We are meant to run through crowded streets, with love in our hearts and tangerine scarves streaming through our fingertips as we dance to the sobbing drum of the world’s crying tears.

We are meant to make art that grows gritty wings and inspires sad, closed hearts to break the fuck open.

We are meant to stick out our tongues in a fierce lion’s breath in the most unexpected moments—

Rawwwr!

Our dreams and visions and destinies must come first.

Always.

Because we aren’t here to play small; to be polite, people-pleasing pretty plastic barbie dolls with empty, lifeless hearts—we are here to make waves, to chase dreams, to stand in the blazing fires of truth—and we know it.

We are here to live from the harrowing depths of our souls.

Why deny it anymore?

Let’s reach inside our supple skin and taste the thick river of bubbling magic that pulses through our veins like rubies.

Let’s shed the suffocating lives that were never meant to be ours—the lives we’ve brainwashed ourselves into tolerating, but are slowing killing our souls.

It’s time to burn, baby, burn!

Let’s make a pact with our hearts—a vow to listen that inner spark of magic, of truth, of delicious fire that cannot be denied for a minute more.

Let us promise now—

To honour who we really are.

To be forces of light, of love, of sacred power.

To let our star-dust spirits rise—and soar and soar and soar!

Extraordinary flows through our veins. Normal won’t cut it.

We are meant for so much more.

Badass, truth-lovin’, dream-weaving sisters, let’s stop smacking our spirits down and squeezing ourselves into suffocating roles that will never satisfy our thirsty, roaring souls—

We won’t fit.

We aren’t meant to.

Our wings won’t slide through small doors. We are meant for so much more—

Our dreams and visions and destinies must come first.

Always.

Please, answer the rain-drenched, whispering wolf calls of your wild soul.

Do not let your wings lie sticky and suffocated, in a sad clump on the floor.

Do not let your vibrant spirit wither into a colourless grey existence.

Do not let your jewelled destiny lie dormant and dead.

Do not live the life you think you “should.”

Fuck should—

Live the life that makes your heart beat louder, the life that sets your bones sweetly on fire, the life you can’t stand not living—

Answer the blossoming calls of your wild soul!

Go, now—

Into the lush, emerald forest of who you really are.

Find yourself.

Discover your gifts.

Share your gritty magic with the world.

Follow the promising path of your courageous destiny.

Go—

Now.

Do not settle for an empty half-life.

Do not settle for good enough.

Do not settle for anything less than exquisite or extraordinary.

Oh, sweet wise, wild woman—do not settle—

At all.

http://www.sarahlouisaharvey.com/ 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/12/for-the-women-who-are-meant-for-more/ 

Time - Ideas = %$&@#!!

Some Xmas gifts probably shouldn't be ignored...especially by a writer with writers block.

Has any writer described a block as mental constipation? I'll have to research that. In the pro tempore, the omitted Xmas gift has recently been ink-assaulted with mymories that others likely choose to forget. With bleach and a match, no less.

(And yes, I researched that word, and no one's using it yet, supposedly)

My under-appreciated lil' bro and smart-as-sin SIL gave me this (pictured) book. They didn't have to second-guess its purchase when they were looking for writer-inspired paraphernalia. I'm just not proud that it took me a shameful amount of time to write anything in it. Even its contributors unknowingly instill a reprehensible sense of inertia in me.

Nevertheless, it's helping better than milk-of-magnesia. 

"...I mean, there is actual butter coming out of my pen." ~ 'The Paper'

Slow Ride

     Dog fur on your clothes can be awesome, when you rarely get the opportunity to be around dogs. Cat spit on your open palm from licking you, as they condescend to lay half on your lap is an accomplishment, too.

     But a goat nibbling on your jeans hem? That’s the best! 

                             

                 

    When one doesn’t have the means to maintain a menagerie that would make Dr. Dolittle proud, you go where you can enjoy such spoils.

     Add a niece’s birthday to the blender, a little energy drink contraband, a complete lack of watching one’s caloric intake for an entire weekend, and a fun time will always be had---especially when you spoil the niece with flan, churros, and cash.

     A road-trip, when traveled via two-car caravan, is also a wise move; it establishes sanity, stability, and removes all sense of disgruntlement, nae, tempestuousness, at the only one who can reduce my intelligence to flaming gas-balls of fury.  

     Close quarters for longer than an hour usually inspires my need for flight, as is the typical Gemini’s innate characteristic. Boredom, we will not tolerate.

     Painted faces, offerings of ersatz tea and cakes, bubble wands being waved while jumping on trampolines, canines competing for visitor’s affections, sinewy felines pretending they’re not, turkey burgers, and Mexican food that leaves you feeling bloated for having eaten far too much….

    Oh yah, that’s the life! 

The 'Sunscreen Speech.'

Disclaimer: Hey Readers! This is NOT my writing. This was a graduation speech written by Mary Schmich in 1997 for the Chicago Tribune. I remembered first reading it in an issue of Reader's Digest, and liked it so much that I gently tore the pages out and saved it. My copy is still filed away somewhere in the Black Hole of my storage area. But this is almost twenty years old, and I never forgot it. Gen-Xers and the older Millennials will remember it. Enjoy! 

Wear Sunscreen

By Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '98: Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Fake it 'til you make it.

I've drunk the Kool-Aid.

The company I've been working for has found a better 'home' for me within their walls. 'Positional Redistribution,' I call it. Where I lack in one talent, I more than make up for in another. Or, as a previous employer once comically described, I "give good phone." And it seems to show up in a number of surveys; the scale on which staff-members futures lie.

Refining my talents (and time) to what's required still doesn't give me the full-on confidence that I'll make the grade; I'm still 'status: rookie,' so I have an excuse for not being up to par of what's mandatory. But I've always had the capacity to shoot myself in the foot, somehow. So, if I'm handed my walking papers, it won't be a surprise. ("Here's your hat, what's your hurry?")

If I even make it there a year, I'll be shocked. Truly shocked. Still, I'll have three pairs of souvenirs.

Fear and Loathing in Wilsonville

     How can you feel happily creative, or be optimistic about the near future, when everything seems to frequently fail around you? When you’ve had three jobs in two years? How can a person not feel like the gong of impending lay-off/termination isn’t about to be struck, when you show up to work everyday with that knowing that you’re in over your head?

     So is my reality. I absorb knowledge, hang on to what I’ve learned…and then the proverbial goalpost is moved further away. The phrase, ‘Fake it til you make it’ has kept me treading water for the last six weeks. My skill set has never been very impressive. Or, maybe it is, but just not weighed as useful.

     We’ve all known that feeling that, surely, everyone else in the room was smarter than us. We can even feel (or perhaps imagine) the sense of eye-rolling from others. When it’s confirmed by someone in the know, you’ll ask yourself why you even bother to keep showing up. (Also, what was the person’s agenda in revealing such info?)

     Well, this Gemini will tell you. Because fuck you, that’s why. I’m here for me. For myself, my future, my desire to learn, and to understand. It may take a little more time for me to ‘get it,’ but I will. I may be the astrological sign that gets bored easily, but I’ve also got a small stubborn streak that knows I will ‘get it’ eventually, given the opportunity. That stubborn streak is the pilot light in my soul. I know I’m worth the time and learning.

     Oh, sure, there’s been many a Friday feeling that I won’t even bother showing up on Monday. ‘Course, the paycheck keeps us going, right? Naturally! Yah, that putting ‘one foot in front of the other’ ain’t just a song. You really do have to do it. Ya fake it til ya make it.

     Most Geminis will concur that we have that tactical ping-pong game going on in our decision-making.  I’ve had several mornings that started in fear, anxiety, and low self-esteem, only to be left shining with confidence at the end of the day. Then, there are those days of complete reversal.

     I dread those days.

     But, I have to keep going. Otherwise, the time invested will all be for naught. I dread that thought more. 

A Recipe to Cure Depression

Ingredients:

Grandma’s kitchen

1 cup of flour

1 cup of sugar

1 tbs. of favorite cousin’s smile

2 bags of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup of Grandpa’s familiar, rich pipe tobacco that permeated the house every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

2 tbs. of vanilla extract

1 cup of Mom’s congratulatory-hug on the ‘A’ you got on your essay the week before.

3 eggs

1 cup of Dad’s teaching you how to throw a Frisbee

½ cup canola oil

4 oz. of your big brother standing between you and the school-bully who pulled your hair when no one was looking.

1 4x6 picture of you and your best friend going out trick-or-treating by yourselves for the first time.

Combine ingredients in your late, great-grandmother’s chipped, antique mixing bowl with the family-crest on the bottom, and beat until you’re exhausted.

Pour in Mom’s old, blackened baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees until she sticks her head out the back-yard door, where you’re on the tire-swing, and yells, “It’s done!!”

The Poets of Bloomswick

   With composition book and Bic pen in tow, I headed to Annie Bloom’s Books, snuggled next to an Irish pub in Multnomah Village; a hamlet of shops I’d been through many times before on my way to the Starbucks, without ever having stopped inside the staple of the village.

   The atmosphere was conducive to a poetry-reading on that cool and crisp October eve. And the shop’s resident mouser, a pink-tongued, black American Bombay named Molly, made the ambiance seem more like I just ended up in neighbor's cozy living room.

   Despite the seemingly endless rows of books, the poets themselves were the promising attraction for the evening. Carolyn Martin, Kathleen Halme, and Sage Cohen would call the small and well-established bookstore their stage for the night. Only, I had no idea what they looked like. They didn’t exactly stand out from the crowd. The ‘meet-n-greet’ of many people beforehand left me wondering from the beginning: just who were the poets in the room? After half a glass of served pinot, I’d allowed myself to imagine flighty-looking hippies, wearing turquoise and silver jewelry, and sporting graceful age-lines. But soon, one of the store’s staff-members stood at a lectern, and announced the first of the three poets.

   Carolyn Martin, former nun, turned savvy business growth-management speaker, turned poet, presented the audience with material she was working forward on. Exodus of Two Testaments, It’s Good To Be Slow, Lines Composed, and Collusion. (Her reading of Collusion had me so enthralled, that, unfortunately, I failed to scrawl down my usual notes of quotable lines, as is my practice.) 

   Kathleen Halme, a native of Wakefield, Michigan, with a fascination in anthropology and biology, graced us with melodic writings in-between praises coming from her husband in the audience; The Bungalow Museum, Incarnation Café, Evulsion, (my slim memory of this poem suggested an injury once suffered) Drift and Pulse, from the book of the same name, and Equipoise. This last, Ms. Halme explained, was inspired by her enchantment with light-houses.

   Charming the audience with a lively tale of her son, Theo, Sage Cohen revealed she had only just begun a new poem based on a youthful statement made by her ‘primary muse,' as twilight fell one late summer’s eve. Cohen couldn’t resist the tickle to the corner of her mouth when she recounted his words. “Theo asked me to please, ‘Turn the daylight back on’.”

   A native of New Jersey, Cohen ventured west to live in San Francisco, returned to semi-eastern roots, before making her home in Portland, Oregon to relish in ‘greater spaciousness, a worm compost bin, and the freedom to cut a cat door into the side of the house, with no one to tell me it’s not allowed’.

   Like Martin and Halme, Cohen read from a short list of new works; Dear Redbud, A Dictionary of the Cathedral, Dear Scar, (a seeming ode to the C-section she withstood during her son’s birth) Still Life With Cough Drops, and Dear Fritz Guest House. (So, this student couldn’t ‘cheat’ and follow along in her school textbook)

   Question and answer sessions were held after each author prepared to close their moment in the spotlight, so as to shine it upon the audience-poets; I’d given a slight glance over my shoulder now and then to find I wasn’t the only one with ink-markings on my digits.

   An ‘open-mic’ evening of sorts commenced, welcoming a small handful. And I realized my earlier question had been answered: everyone in the room was a poet. A short, pleasantly-plump woman named Liz read two poems, named Haiku, and Japanese Garden in the Rain. Shawna, one of the ‘meet-n-greet’ people I’d met briefly, read her piece, Mandated Grievings. Another, calling himself F.I. Gold, had recited his works, State Park, and Age Old Dilemma, which I’d marked down in my notebook as being awesome, though I don’t remember why. (Sigh. So many notes to take, not taken)   

   During the readings, I heard a light chuckle behind me, as Molly was witnessed playing with the runner-fringe hanging from the lectern. It was her home, after all, and we were the guests she tolerated, so long as she was offered a lap when she so desired.

   In-between these imaginative writers, I braved the waters with a single poem, inspired by Tim O’Brien’s short story collection, The Things They Carried. The short applause each poet (known or unknown) received was met with thankfulness and encouragement.

   Before retreating into the chilly evening, I stopped to thank each of the guests, with special attention to Ms. Cohen, who was honored to know that her work, Writing The Life Poetic, was a classroom textbook for the art she loved. And she warmly accepted my request of a book-signature:

   ‘Such a pleasure to spend an evening of poetry with you. May this book be good company for your adventure.’ ~ Sage Cohen

   Guess I can forget about a ‘book buy-back’ at my school’s campus bookstore.

                              "Books. Cats. Life is good."  ~ Edward Gorey

Automat (An Homage to Edward Hopper)

A love affair in light and dark,

and I could even imagine a sound.

In my head, gazing upon a contrast so stark,

of a lady, canvas bound.

She’d removed only one of her gloves,

as she huddled under the light.

And the yellow domes hanging above,

were ghostly reflections in the night.

With a steaming cup, she sat quietly alone,

the shadows behind her, an abyss.

Her expression was set with an uncertain tone.

Was she waiting for her lover’s kiss?

Each opening sound of the luncheonette’s door,

arose a stir of anticipation.

But without a familiar smile, resolve replaced ardor,

and she was met with a sobering revelation.

‘He isn’t coming,’ her head told her heart,

‘you’re a fool to stay, so just leave.

There’s time enough for you to fall apart,

time abundant, perhaps, to grieve.’

A last sip of liquid warmth, before rising from the table,

buttoning her thin coat against the chill.

His parade of promises had included a mink or sable,

and even that big house on the hill.

But vows mean nothing, when not said before a witness,

at a church, a chapel, or a city hall.

When friends and family can attest a shared kiss,

and, an ‘I do’ can be heard by all.

And so, she turned and exited the automat,

unwittingly leaving her glove behind.

With newfound wisdom, and her pride intact, 
nevermore to live life so blind.

Five Senses

Loneliness:
Looks like a person sitting at a bus stop.
Feels like a room full of people that don’t talk to you.                       

Tastes like a cold dinner.

Sounds like a T.V. playing in the background of an empty room.

Smells like the air, just before it rains.

Joy:

Looks like the grinning, five-year-old niece, who’s been looking out the window, waiting for your car to drive up.

Feels like getting your homework-paper returned, with an ‘A’ on it.

Tastes like Godiva’s white-chocolate-raspberry ice cream.

Sounds like your favorite basketball team making the winning point at the buzzer.

Smells like the kitchen of the little old lady who bakes, whom you’ve lived next door to since you were three years old.