Long time no blog

Good Lands! It’s been 6 mos since I blogged. I missed it, but for some reason I was also afraid of it. Plus I rarely use my laptop anymore. So I downloaded WP for iPhone!

I got a new dog. Her name is Penny. She is an 8 yr old puppy mill Mama. And she’s a very sweet girl. Here’s a pic.

Books

I’ve been reading a lot of long-form magazine articles.  I find them at Longform.org, Longreads.com & Byliner.com.  I’ve wanted to read a paper book for awhile, and haven’t been able to get into it.  I started a great book by my buddy Nancy Snow called Information War.  She is a very interesting person and you can follow her on Twitter @DrPersuasion.  She teaches about Propaganda & the Media & Government at a couple of schools.  The book is great but I wanted some fiction, true crime or memoir.

So, I ordered a few books from Amazon.  The Burn Farm by Michael Benson is one.  I can’t believe I missed this sensational crime case.  I have slipped!  The other for my True Crime fix is Death Sentence: Inside Story of the List Murders by Joe Sharkey  I’ve been a little obsessed with this story since 1989, when the fugitive John List was found living in my town of Richmond, VA, after 17 years on the lam.

I ordered 2 books by writers whose long form stories I’ve read.  They are: The Sleep-Over Artist by Thomas Beller,  and Mommies Who Drink by Brett Paesel

I ordered two books by authors I admire.  The first is George Saunders’ new book of short stories, Tenth of December, and the other is My Own Country by Abraham Verghese.

I am excited about all of them and will tell you what I think after I’ve read.  Ta!

I Watched a Documentary

on Netflix about a month ago.  I realized after a few minutes I’d seen it before, but completely forgot what happened in it.  I am most certainly a ‘big picture’ person.  Details escape me.  I have a hard time remembering details of conversations, books I’ve read, or film’s I’ve seen.

This documentary was well done and very powerful.  It’s a film by Kurt Kuenne called “Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father”.  The filmmaker’s best friend was murdered by his girlfriend, and she turned up pregnant.  Kuenne decided to make a film for the boy so he would know about his father.

I highly recommend.  It will move you.

The Best Thing In The World…

is to wake up singing or laughing.  A few weeks ago I woke up & started singing “We Shall Overcome”.  I love it when I wake myself up laughing.  It’s a great way to start the day.

Another bit of dreaming pleasantry is when Elsie would chase something in her dreams.  Her little paws would just go, and she would bark quietly.  She rarely barked while awake, although she found her voice late in life.  I’d heard her bark less than 5 times the first 4 years I had her.  She started barking more about 6 mos. ago.  It was a joy to hear.  Obviously, thinking about her is a little hurtful to my heart, but it’s also nice to remember.

A fellow I worked with years ago lost his 20 year old son.  I saw an obituary today.  I can’t imagine the pain he and his wife are feeling.  It has to be the worst feeling one could feel, the loss of a child.

Geez, I started with a happy thought, and look where it went!  Here is a poem by Denise Levertov.  I found it here.  It is called:  When We Look Up

He had not looked,
pitiful man whom none

pity, whom all
must pity if they look

into their own face (given
only by glass, steel, water
barely known) all
who look up

to see-how many
faces? How many

seen in a lifetime? (Not those that flash by, but those

into which the gaze wanders
and is lost

and returns to tell
Here is a mystery,

a person, an
other, an I?

I will leave you with a picture of… my booth at West End Antiques.  Went over and cleaned & rearranged and added and subtracted today.

 

More Inspiration from Mama Kat

Once again, I got a writing prompt from Mama Kat.

The prompt is:

Write about someone who is an underdog.

I don’t know that this person is an underdog.  He just seems sort of one.  I don’t know how old he is, but he seems like he could be in his 60′s.  He is short, seems a bit passive, doesn’t talk much, that I’ve seen.  I don’t really know him, but I see him at an auction I sometimes attend to procure items for my booth at West End Antiques.

This auction house employs a number of folks to help bring items up and hold them up as they are being auctioned.  All night long employees, mostly boys or young men, are racing back and forth with furniture.  The large furniture items are brought up to the right of the auctioneer.  The ‘smalls’ – dishes, silver, small tables & chairs, lamps, etc. are brought up to the left of the auctioneer.

This fellow works on the left, bringing the smalls up to the front.  He hustles like everyone else, but doesn’t do a lot of heavy lifting like the others do.  He may be younger than I imagine him.  To me, he looks like Clarence, the angel in It’s A Wonderful Life.  Remember Clarence?  Here’s a picture:

Clarence has a sweet innocence about him which I think he shares with this gentleman I’m describing as an underdog.  I don’t know that he’s an underdog, he just seems like it.  It’s not an easy job.  You work until the wee hours of the morning.

Who knows, he may be on top of the world, and not an underdog at all.  Clarence may have seemed like an underdog as well, but he really wasn’t.  Neither was George Bailey, and it took the whole film to convince him of it!

This is the first year I haven’t watched It’s A Wonderful Life during the Christmas season.  I was pretty depressed over Christmas, and I could stand neither the sadness nor the gladness of it.  I’m much better now, Thank God.

Anyhoo, that’s my post for today.  Let’s have a great weekend!

Inspiration from Mama Kat

Her fantastic blog is over here.  I linked to her writer’s workshop page where I got today’s writer’s prompt, since I didn’t wake up with anything.  Sometimes I wake up teeming with life and ideas.  I swear you’ll experience that me one day!  In the meantime,

Write about a time you hid from someone, or a time you disguised who you really were.

I won’t be a downer and describe the many recurring dreams I have where I’m being chased and trying to hide!  Did I mention if I had one superpower it would be to transport myself, i.e. disappear?

No, once I was visiting my sister at her school in Central North Carolina.  She lived with her sorority sisters in their house, and I’m always up for some shenanigans.  She had briefly dated this fellow, and I called him and told him I was whoever, and I’d met him at such and such party, and I’d love to see him again.  We agreed upon a meeting place, and she and her ‘sisters’ hid and watched and tittered at our meeting.

I dressed up like a country bumpkin with no social skills, and chatted with him for about 15 min- 1/2 hr., trying to convince him we’d met before, and how much he had admired me.  Alas, I don’t remember much more about it except Betsy and her sisters and I thought it was quite funny.  I think I had him convinced he had met me.

And that is a time I disguised who I was.  Which is difficult for me because I am compulsively honest.  Although right now I’m not sure I’ve been honest with myself lately, which has nothing to do with the writing prompt so I’ll leave you with a pretty picture.  Going back to my Denmark files…..

I can’t remember the name of the hotel, but I think it was designed by the brilliant Arne Jacobsen.  These are the first artichoke lamps I ever saw.  Aren’t they stunning?

I’m going to try to write every day, so…

I’m using a writing prompt today!  Because my life is dull at times.  I got the prompt over at this blog.

Today’s Writing Prompt: Repentance

Is there a wrong in your past you’d like to make right?

I used to feel no regrets about my past.  Perhaps I was in denial.  I have many regrets about my past now, and I can’t believe they just popped up!

I was just thinking of this regret today.

Once a new friend confided something to me & it made me angry she hadn’t told me initially.  She had moved here from another place fairly recently.  It was during a time of deep soul searching and change in my life.  Astrologically, it was during my Saturn Return, and this time usually involves spiritual awakening, life change, etc.  I was exploring lots of spiritual practices and healing practices.  I had met this woman at one of these events.

I became angry because she confided she had moved here with a woman, in a lesbian relationship.  I didn’t have anything against that, but I was angry she hadn’t told me initially.  I wish I had handled it better.  Perhaps it brought up confusion about my own sexual identity?  I wonder this because of how angry I was.  What it felt like at the time was secret keeping, with which I knew I was uncomfortable.

I ended up validating all she feared about telling me, and we didn’t see each other again.  And, strangely, I remember very little about her or the situation, like how we parted.  It’s like a whole piece is missing, forgotten.  I felt shame over not being understanding, but what’s weird is I didn’t make it right quickly.  That’s unusual for me.  At the time, I probably wasn’t self aware enough to realize my strong reaction had much more to do with me than her.

So, there it is.  And I shall leave you with a lovely picture from when I was in Denmark.

Aren’t these gals adorable?  Love their coats.  Saw them on the street and wanted to be just like them!  Ha!