Pretty Things: postcards, teacups, shiny things and small birds.

aww shucks

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:46:00 +0000

the thing-economy

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:12:00 +0000

I just realized that no matter how stressful it is to juggle financial uncertainty and a meager income, I am working for something I believe in. I am piecing together a life that is meaning-full.

I'd trade meaning for "things" any day.

free creative writing workshops in NYC

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:30:00 +0000

I'll be leading these workshops hosted by the New York Writers Coalition.

We're having a Write-a-Thon on May 16. Sign up to attend or visit my sponsor page to support me and raise money to keep these workshops FREE and available to underserved youth and adult populations.

my self-administered MFA

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:01:00 +0000

endeavoring a serious study of poetry is jumping into a torrential river every morning, icy currents shoving you far from your intended destination, the deep water where you might lay still enough to enjoy water's calm cradle, no, rather opposite. the eddies confuse your sense of direction, spitting you places where you had no intentions of traveling--philosophy, religion, maybe taxonomy.

it takes things like dinner's dishes or the tribal drums of tea to prop your weary and exasperated self on a rock, climb out for the day. it takes a full night's sleep in order to prepare for tomorrow's plunge.

i see how an actual teacher could be handy, a lifeguard, perhaps. or maybe a buoy through a particularly treacherous pit of rapids.

bathwater needs changin'

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:09:00 +0000

I can't help feeling rather dismantled by my situation of delving into the marrow of my trades, writing, arting...I'm basically put in the position of learning new things constantly, feeling in command of nothing. what I have now is an assemblage of limbs that are no longer useful. I'm tripping over things I thought I knew, and further unraveled by the sheer volume of things I don't.

this city is changing me in ways I did not anticipate. standing down my inner impostor has left me rather inanimate, dull. I think everyone needs a little BS to push themselves forward, to quiet down the itty-bitty-shitty-committee, to encourage you to do stuff you might not do otherwise.

all bets are on spring right now to help me make something of this mess.

order in the court

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Being a collage artist is just a good excuse to be exempted from throwing things away, especially little pieces of paper.

homecoming dance

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:17:00 +0000

Moving around so much as a child built within me the inner resiliency to settling down in one place, planted the seed for my vagabond response to life. I cultivated a despondency towards the present, always yearning for the future.

Now, I've been transported to the land of the eternal present, NYC. Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose dropped this little gem in my lap yesterday: "Home is a notion that only the nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend."

I couldn't have described with more precision how I feel about my Austin/NY transition. How surprising it is to finally know I have a home, and how I shall return there as soon as possible.

finer points

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:21:00 +0000

I don't know how or why, but fiction manages to slice deeper gashes in psychology and self knowledge than a non-fiction rendering of pure fact. Probably has something to do with the nature of artistic freedoms. Or maybe because we make up so much about our own realities, we are the character and the storyteller at once.

Honor thy storyteller, inside and out. The storyteller not only unfolds the action, but assembles it into something that makes sense, makes a statement.

What was it like?

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Inauguration Day 2009.

I am really tired. Not from sleep's elusive absence on a buzzing and bumbling bus, our 11:30 pm departure from Chinatown, NYC. Not from walking roughly four miles within a span of three, pre-dawn hours. Not from the wind-chilling 20 degree f temps chipping away at my pajamas in the cold.

I am tired of comments like these: "I wish President Obama the best. But something in me kind of appreciated seeing so many of his fans getting an object lesson in government. Do any of them really think one man can solve all our foreign policy problems, bring the economy out of recession, stop climate change, and fix the whole healthcare system if the government can't manage a crowd it's had 6 weeks to prepare for?" (from Politex blog entry)

Perhaps I come from a generation where cynicism is not yet part of our general composition. I come from parents who instilled opportunity and possibility in me from the beginning (which is not the same as blind expectation, by the way.)

This comment is a tiresome and blase approach to involvement in democracy. I shivered, danced and shouted gratefully next to elderly people, families and children who were not so lucky to have managed tickets of any sort, but wanted to be a part of history, of community, of the general and specific connotation of us. It was pretty apparent to me that even if you had a ticket, you were not guaranteed entry. People lined up, camping out at the special entry points as early as the night before.

We filed into our spots on the general public portion of the mall at around 7 am, which landed us at the second jumbotron from the back (towards the Washington monument), parallel with the National Museum of American History. Miles of more dedicated people than us stood between us and the inaugural platform at the capitol.

The preparations were fantastic in my opinion (from pre-event updates, port-a-potty availability, to the Smithsonian's welcoming heat and amenities) and everything went as smoothly as can be anticipated for a cold and weary crowd of more than a million.

This comment makes me angry for a number of reasons. Are we destined to become the Roman Empire? Why even try if antipathy is the foundation upon which we stand? This president, my president, our president hasn't promised to be our messiah. He has promised us hope for a better future. He has motivated millions of people and activated millions more. He uses words that (he not only understands the meaning, but also) mean a return to rationality and reason to our government.

Democracy is the sum of people plus solid belief in government and its capacity for good. I support the idea and ideals of real democracy, and not the one that keeps getting exported to other countries as a means of income generation for our military-industrial complex. I don't honestly expect Obama to be the person to set the polar ice caps back in their freezer and plop me down in a social healthcare system that functions as smoothly as say Switzerland or EU countries' systems have for decades.

I do expect exactly what is happening now, an active populace providing feedback and input for a large and bureaucratic machine that has a long way to go. Why not provide a different motto for our children than the status quo where"nothing is fair."

And, frankly, I am tired of being viewed as a bleary-eyed and naive believer. When did hope become a bad word?

sequential orders

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:10:00 +0000

things I understand about right now:

the mail person comes once per day
the cat eats twice per day
I must eat three or more times per day
four o clock is an ideal time for a break
i get nervous when i have more than five library books checked out at once
and,
milk works in tea, but not coffee

fragile in my clunky boots, trying not to step on myself.
treading lightly on the new year.

with this ring I thee wed

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:54:00 +0000

I've decided to make a commitment to beauty and longing, ache and lovely as a certain someone in the desert put it. The absence of the absolute shall be mourned.

To be absolutely modern involves plastic nowadays. I adhere, I line up, I commit myself to technology and progress.

pieces of my right now poem

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:10:00 +0000

Winter's silent malaise makes a slow descent upon this tall city. My insides are quieter, my appetite disproportionally larger.

The slowdown of hibernation. Reality's winter coat.

my blog-fomercial: reclaiming our civilization

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:41:00 +0000

As I stood in the line curving around the block this morning at my polling place in a lower income neighborhood in Brooklyn, I started to realize what "democracy" is like for most of the population. The commitment to caring about the electoral process has to be pretty solid when you factor in hours of long lines and the process of daily life--kids, feeding said kids, unsympathetic bosses and jobs you don't want to lose.

Rattling me from my 7 a.m. grumbles about the obvious differences from my relatively affluent former neighborhood's polling place, a school bus full of elementary or middle school children rode by, faces out the windows shouting OBAMA as loudly as they could muster. Once inside the room where the four voting machines reside (the four machines that are supposed to serve the thousands of people in my neighborhood) a dazed woman made her way out mumbling that she finally did it albeit being late for work because her line mates wouldn't let her leave without voting.

My deliberations on fairness and justice ended as I pulled the lever, but much to my surprise, we didn't receive the little "I Voted!" stickers upon exiting the curtain; I had to make my own.

Our founding fathers didn't have much faith in the mass populace in terms of establishing a truly democratic system, hence our reliance upon the electoral college. As a grand "up yours" to our founding fathers and the people presently wrangling all the power and media, TURN OFF the television and stop allowing them to keep us on our couches and utterly uninformed. After all, an uninformed public is easier to control.

I don't think one candidate, one election, one set of policies is able to bail us out of the huge mess we're in as a country, a human race, BUT I'm voting with all my might in hopes of stopping the bleeding now. When in doubt look at the kids: shout out the windows at the top of your lungs. Who knows, you may inadvertently inspire someone.

StoryPeople is always so appropriate

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:23:00 +0000

storypeeps in action!!! Cartoon entitled "SHINY STUFF"...

i love these people, truly. (even though I've never met them, I just know because people who can make me feel like I just got a hug from reading an email are MY kind of people.)

Who sponsors journalism these days?

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:54:00 +0000

I just love how we are being presented with a specially-interested frame of reference in what should just be a transparent relaying of factual information.

bosses' day today

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:04:00 +0000

I suppose I should get myself a present...

And I did!! What a fantastic place!

connective tissue

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:22:00 +0000

New York is charming and brutal. From my ground floor apartment I see knees and feet scurrying and shuffling, the constant exchange between isolation and inundation.

I feel exquisitely bound to all these humans around me, even the homeless man who yelled at me the other morning. There are no presiding mores or societal oppressors governing life here, primarily because there are so many societies here in general. I can slough off my professionalism problem like an itchy sweater and no one blinks an eye.

For the past 5 years I've suffered under the "real job" regime. The prevailing belief system being a full-time job + benefits is boss and all else takes a backseat. Well, you can only imagine how a closet poet true to a Grace Paley belief system might respond to this. Yes! The gradual progression to freelance.

Sans the professional problem, I can be a number of things, left UNdefined by my jobs and REdefined by my true passions. As the knees outside continue their transit, I sit still, concentrating on my tasks at hand, being an artist and communicator who brings people together in an increasingly disjointed world.

thinking about Russia from my house

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:06:00 +0000

I am apalled at standard party lines. Strict boundaries of rhetoric that set off little buzzers as if you've just set off the store's exit alarm by mistake. debates are really nothing but media-less plugs at shoving the same rhetoric in our faces, packaged in new ways and shapes (dem) or by using exactly the same words (repub).

Though, if you must choose between two ideologies, as we do here in the ol' two-party system, how can an intelligent person adhere to Rebublican (today's version) ideology? This has nothing to do with GW Bush's 8-year tenure, this means core issues:

global warming
the "war" on terror, stated progress on said war
the positive effects of the free market, positive situation of aforementioned market

nobody is asking America to think for themselves, here, god forbid. But, really is it all that hard?

grow a pair...

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:48:00 +0000

oh, i just couldn't help myself:

Autumn Sweater

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:20:00 +0000

Speaking of autumn, the summer's end finds me in Brooklyn, NY; we found the one apartment in NYC with a backyard, for this my dog is eternally grateful. A quiet spell from which I emerge, the end of summer.

I moved here to teach and create and write, developing my jack of mixed media trade, I am in the city that doesn't sleep. My neighborhood, Bed-Stuy, is charming and harsh and quiet and old.

My one-week anniversary just passed, and I finally know where I live and how to get home on my bike from most places! More good news, I'm still writing! Poems fall faster than autumn leaves in the clamor of change.

La Vie Boheme

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:31:00 +0000

The Lives of Others has effectively diffused my tropical depression.

Thank God.

on the wire

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Sitting in my house after my last night as a motor vehicle owner/operator. Earlier I jumped in Barton Springs as an attempt at closure, didn't have my swimmer, so I plunged in in my underwear. Emotions are my wet clothes tugging at me as i climb the stairs out of the pool. Coming home, I slithered slowly through the streets soaking up every last drop of being behind the wheel of Eva (Golf, who is moving to Montana, where her new owners live.)

I mourn the loss of an experience I've never been without. Feels scary and uncomfortable. Detachment is the farthest thing from my mind. I stand naked in the open air locker room, I'm going to miss all of this. Austin's tropic thick, the pool cold on my skin, the lazy teacup sky overhead, my sleek Eva, everything that is now.

All i can think of is that song by Rogue Wave, Bird on a Wire.

Wires are heavy and tugging at me, too. I saw a documentary last night, Man on Wire . Not only did this film restore my hope in humanity (still suffering aftershocks from the moral apocalypse afforded by Cormac McCarthy/Coen Bros. movie, No Country for Old Men), but I also realized how I am a wire walker, committing feats of beauty and wonder on a daily basis, enjoying things no one seems to notice anymore. No "why's", just becauses.

Living each moment as forward motion erases the last step. The lure of instant death awaiting you at the bottom if you really mess up, oh, what a magnificent mode of operation.

facebook

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:56:00 +0000

i can't believe i actually did it. a total accident and now it's done. i suppose i should get rid of the myspace now. no sense in having two of these unwieldy, invisible networks sucking me in.

oddly enough, i can't imagine how any of these online networking things actually make non-virtual life better. yet (sigh), i proceed with caution...

niki the impatient buddhist

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:27:00 +0000

This post is dedicated to my friend Niki Duncan, the great, because she said something funny yesterday. She practices a real-life, in-the-trenches version of buddhism, which, as she was aptly dodging traffic with me in the passenger seat, was made clear by her acknowledgement that "she's an impatient buddhist".

Well, this sort of relates to me because I am having "stuff" anxiety. Mainly, I've decided that i must sell my car. It makes zero sense to move to NYC and store my car until some point in the future when i may want it again. Hence, the beloved Eva Golf is about to do me in. I LOVE this car. I'm feeling rather unhealthily attached to her; thus, buddhist lessons tell me that selling her seems even more like the right choice.

So, real-life buddhists of the world, I understand that this level of attachment can't be healthy...and, if you love something you have to be able to let it go. But, geez...it's tough (especially since VW really does a great job with brand attachment, on par with Apple and Chaco.)

on eastly prospects

noreply@blogger.com (the lady) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:43:00 +0000

well, friends, family, loved ones, people i don't know...

the resolve: i'm moving to brooklyn as august makes its its final moves. i head east (after traversing the country 7 years ago with westward visions) to claim my city dreams. I have a partner in crime and an affordable living scenario, hence I can't think of any reasons not to jump.

grad school is not on my agenda right now; thankfully saved from the student loan office. city affords bigger playground, exciting prospects of ways to make a living, here's my ad:

wandering creative seeks meaningful employ. numerous positions requested. puzzling pieces desired for exquisite life collection. (aka know of any interesting jobs in nyc? doing just about anything? hopefully with children or art or groups of people?)