the dream life

Outward

2009-11-10T19:54:21-05:00

It's the time of the year when social engagements take center stage. I glanced at the calendar today and noticed that my next two weekends are completely booked up. These are all joyous events and I'm looking forward to them but it hasn't always been that I could look at such scheduling and feel good about it.

I've always thought of myself as someone who needs a lot of down time, alone time, time that is controlled by me and does not have to adhere to anyone else's expectation about when I'm supposed to be where, when I have to wake up or when I have to go to sleep.

I've always thought of myself as an introvert and I've always assumed this is just the way I am. Lately, I've felt a slight shift toward a more extroverted personality. I'm still one to cancel plans at the last minute because I need to be by myself, but I'm doing more out in the world these days and responding to a social impulse more than I have in the recent past.

I loved this post at Halfway to Normal and I was struck by a comment made by one of the unravelling participants last week. She defined introversion and extroversion not as inclinations of personality but like this- an introvert draws energy from being alone while and extrovert draws energy from being with others. That makes a lot of sense to me.

I like the idea that the pendulum of what feeds me is swinging. I like the idea that it can swing.

While I do sense parts of myself that I think of as essential to my identity, I also know that I'm always changing and evolving. My life responds to my desire and my desire shifts. I'm not locked in to anything.

NaBloPoMo.

Hoop girl

2009-11-09T17:30:00-05:00

On Sunday morning, we were at my brother and sister in law’s house. We don’t have a fenced in yard so we often take the liberty of setting our dog free in their yard. The girls were out on the porch eating lunch (Woody got in the way of some tomato soup and now has stains on his legs. Yes, our dog is stained) and telling us stories (Emme: Willie was walking around on one foot, one foot. Me: Willie was walking around on one foot? Emme: Uh-huh. Ava: I think what she means is that Willie was walking three paws and holding one paw up. Emme: Uh-huh, because he wanted to go to the vet.) and Ava, who was wearing this rocking cute pair of rhinestone studded jeans, came down into the yard and started spinning her hula hoop.

Now, I was present the first time Ava ever saw a hula hoop; it was last year at a Halloween party. Learning to hoop was frustrating for her. Because she was at a party, in front of a lot of people, she kept her cool pretty well, but I could see that it upset her everytime the hoop hit the ground. She kept trying and kept trying and she, being a child and therefore sort of bendy, was actually pretty good at it by the end of the party, but it was labor for her and she dropped the hoop a lot. This summer, I watched her practice and remarked at how much better she was than the last time I’d seen her. Yesterday morning, she wasn’t even like the same person. The hoop was an extension of her. She appeared to spin it around her waist effortlessly and she could spin it and spin it and spin it on and on. She could do tricky things with her arms, she could make the hoop slow down and speed up. It was really cool to watch.

All of a sudden, she took the hoop in her hand and started moving it around, doing beautiful things with it the way hula hoopers – trick hoopers --do. I watch in awe as the women who hoop for March Madness do these things and wonder if I’ll ever be able to do them

(I’m fairly confident the answer is no), and there was Ava, making grace with her hoop. I asked her where she learned her moves and she said, “I saw some girls doing it at the Woodland Art Fair.”

She saw it, she thought it was cool, so she taught herself.

That’s a role model.

I was inspired and went home to do some hooping of my own. Someday, I hope to be as good as Ava. I’ll call her up and she’ll come over and we’ll have a hoop jam in the back yard. Someday.

Right now, I’m just working on keeping it around my waist. (Oh, and also, I’m looking for some metallic hoop tape that I don’t have to order on-line because the shipping costs more than the tape itself.)

I’m not sure what else I did this weekend other than go to band practice (Christmas parade is gonna rock ya’ll) and make dinner that included the chocolate ganache pie from 30 Minute Vegan (yum) and sit glued to the television screen during Mad Men.

I stayed up late talking last night and felt tired all day. Tonight, I have to go back to work for an hour or so. Upon my return, I shall pajama myself and maybe I’ll think of something to do with this NaNoWriMo novel that doesn’t bore me silly. I’ve written myself into an I-just-don’t-care corner and I need a dose of inspiration to get out. I'm probably going to have to take some of that cheese-free lasagne I made last night and fry it up in a skillet and I’m definitely going to need more pie.

NaBloPoMo.

Poem

2009-11-08T20:53:45-05:00

blessing the boats

-Lucille Clifton

(at St. Mary's)

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

This day

2009-11-07T21:05:03-05:00

This day, this day just slipped away.

I went for a walk this morning.

I sat for a while on the front porch with Woody and Tracy while the wind blew dry leaves down the street.

We went to the Co-op for groceries.

I practiced hooping for a bit.

I made the live spring rolls from 30 Minute Vegan for dinner. (Scrumptious.)

We watched most of The Royal Tenenbaums, one of my all-time favorites.

I took a bath.

Now we're watching Take the Money and Run and it's pitch black dark and the pug boy is curled on the blanket sound asleep.

Saturday night.

NaBloPoMo.

Friday fire, pt. 2

2009-11-06T21:32:34-05:00

Lori-Lyn

Friday fire

2009-11-06T20:05:05-05:00

Lori-Lyn

I'm gonna catch up this weekend

2009-11-05T23:13:08-05:00

This is normally the stage of NaNoWriMo when I decide I am too far behind to catch up and quit, but that's not how it's gonna go this time. No, I didn't write tonight. I went to a girl's night instead it was great and fun and wonderful and I'm so glad I went. Yes, my word count suffered, but I did write some dialogue. Really good dialogue about homemade jelly beans and red light bulbs.

NaBloPoMo.

Writing badly is its own reward

2009-11-04T20:56:49-05:00

Today, I got stuck. I put my protagonist at a happy hour with her best friend drinking a Manhattan with an extra cherry and I couldn’t think of what to do next. They even talked about the weather – that’s how bad it was. Not knowing what to do next stopped me. Can’t do it, I thought. Crazy to even try. Who writes a novel in a month? Insane.

Then, I gently reminded myself that I had permission to write a bad novel. The worst. My characters could talk about the weather for five pages if need be because no one is ever going to see this thing. (Thank you for the kind offer, Jen, but Kapow would faint if you could see how awful this thing is.)

Twenty years or so ago a well knownish poet (whose name I’ve forgotten) held a stack of my poems in her hand and compared them to the gunk that she wrote every morning before getting down to the task of actual writing. “Just get this sort of stuff out of the way,” she said. I’m not sure I’ve learned yet how to get that sort of stuff out of the way but it occurs to me that writing for NaNoWriMo is like that.

There’s junk that floats around in the front of my head – who knows how it got there – clichés and boring imagery and things that no one but me cares about and things that even I don’t care about. Speed writing forces all of it out onto the page. It gets it day, its moment of glory. See, the horrible sentences say to me, we deserve to be here.

Sure, I tell them. They don’t know yet about how nobody is ever going to read them.

Along those lines, I have wondered if I should put some sort of big red disclaimer on the document so that in the event of my death no one finds it and misunderstands. I KNOW THIS SUCKS, it would say, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG.

Something else happened today that I recall from the last time I attempted NaNoWriMo. In the middle of slogging my wet, sappy words on to the screen as fast as my fingers could type, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to work on other writing. Poems. As my characters were drinking and admiring one another’s hair, the poems of my past were asking to be tweaked. New poems sprang up requesting attention. It was exciting to feel that rush, the longing, the need to get it right.

So maybe there’s just this one switch in our heads labeled “writing” and once it gets turned on, it doesn’t really matter if it’s bad writing or good writing that comes pouring out. The flow is the thing.

NaNoWriMo word count: 4,251

NaBloPoMo.

Blessings

2009-11-03T21:04:04-05:00

Sometimes my clothes make me happy. Today is one of those times. I bought a dress in Louisville a couple of weeks ago and I wore it for the first time today. It’s soft and has these little velvet pockets and I’m really happy with it even thought the sales person who took my money said, “We almost sent these dresses back because they looked nothing like the photo…so I’m glad you like it.” Yeah, well, I do like it.

I also like the floor length 70’s number I bought for five bucks at the same store where the same clerk kept insisting that surely I was purchasing it to serve as my Halloween costume. No, I assured him, I was buying it because it was a sweet five dollar dress that I planned to wear in my normal non-Halloween life.

Speaking of Halloween, I still have glitter on my boots and that makes me happy, too.

This was my massage day. I seriously can’t think of any ill that a good massage can’t put right. Well, except vertigo maybe.

I did take Tracy to the doctor yesterday and found out that his severe vertigo isn’t caused by any other physical condition (good to know). He got some meds that seem to be doing the trick, thankfully. Can you imagine spinning for a week unable to tell up from down? The doc told him the condition would resolve itself in four to six weeks, or he could take a pill and get better faster. Mmmhmmm. We got that pill.

I may have mentioned before that I go through periods of my life thinking that I want to go to nursing school. What I’m specifically interested in is working for hospice, but I’ve always had this weird nagging thing about nursing even though my logical mind knows that I would mostly hate going through the things nurses have to endure and that I would philosophically disagree with much of what I’d be asked to do. Taking Tracy to the doctor’s office nipped my latest bout of nurse-thoughts. As soon as I walked in that place I was flooded with the understanding that nope, this is not for me.

I was thinking about how, when I go to my massage therapist’s office, I am enveloped by a warm nurturing beautiful environment that smells delicious. When I go to get a Reiki treatment, I am welcomed into a warm nurturing beautiful environment that smells delicious. When I used to go to my holistic doctor in Brooklyn, I sat in a visually pleasing, airy, calm waiting room (with live plants!) just like the one I sit in at my acupuncturist. I am/was taken care of from the moment I walked in, my senses tended to, my whole self considered. In each case, I am listened to and respected. I am free to cry, laugh, explain, and I am heard. My body, mind, heart and soul knows as soon as it enters one of these spaces that it has entered into the safety of healing and so the healing begins.

The waiting room yesterday was an assault of hostile florescent lighting and ugliness. Why, I wonder, does western medicine not consider the whole person or the impact of environment on wellness? I know in many cases it’s because clinics and practices are just trying to hang on, working within an impossible system under impossible pressures, but this office I’m talking about is a practice run by five established physicians and a team of nurses and receptionists. They could make changes with very little cost to them that would dramatically improve the well-being of their patients before they even lay hands on them. So much good could be done simply by shifting the focus to wellness instead of illness.

I’m also aware that this is the least of the problem with our healthcare system.

So I’m not complaining so much as I’m just wondering. But still, it does puzzle me, and it also scares me a little that someone like me who doesn't shun allopathic medicine* but is dependent upon complimentary and alternative therapies is a non-entity as far as the establishment is concerned. That’s all right for the likes of me but it’s not all right for people who are financially overwhelmed or are otherwise compromised, disenfranchised and silenced.

See. I would be a really ornery nurse.

I have this joke with one of my friends that I’m “fringe.” It just suddenly occurred to me one day that most of what I hear in dominant culture – most of what’s presented on the television and all around me just couldn’t be further from my own beliefs and perspective. (I watch the Today Show for about 30 mintues every morning and I'm deeply offended about ten to fifteen times during that half hour--although I do like Nancy Snyderman.) I’m talking about big issues, but small stuff, too. I guess maybe what I really am, is a radical – except a peaceful one. I’m a peace radical! A glittery rebel rouser! I take to the streets with my velvet pockets and demand love for all!

And Tracy loves his doctor. He actually said, “Man, I love my doctor,” which is how it should be and I’m happy for the two of them – that they’ve found one another. You need the wellness practitioners on your side, whomever they happen to be. And that, I suppose is my point. This is not a one size fits all world. You must do whatever you can to find the stuff that fits you.

I’m thankful for the healers the universe has sent to me because they are gifted and they enhance and transform my life in tremendous ways. Without my acupuncturist and my massage therapist, I would be in a sad sorry state, indeed. I’m thankful that I’m in a position to be able to make choices. These are the treatments that enable me to thrive. I’m thankful that I’m able to pay for them and thankful that I can afford food that isn’t filled with preservatives, dyes, and high fructose corn syrup. I wish that for everyone.

Did you know I’ve passed the six month anniversary of eating vegan? I still can’t believe how easy it’s been and how much good it’s done me. That doctor in Brooklyn, if she remembered me, would be proud. She tried so hard to get me to change my diet, but I wasn’t ready then. Eating vegan is growing me younger instead of older and that is an incredible unexpected blessing.

A blessing like this dress. I was really on to something when I bought this dress.

(Wear the clothes that feel good – give away the ones that don’t.)

NaBloPoMo.

*No, I do not. I have had my share of medicine and innoculations and tests and many of my loved ones are kept alive by the pills they take each day and the treatments they receive. I know I sometimes seem like I'm bashing "medicine" but I'm really not. I'm grateful for medicine. I just don't believe in blindly accepting what dominant culture hands us. I believe in questioning everything. If that makes me fringe, so be it.

Making characters do stuff

2009-11-02T20:53:19-05:00

It’s the end of the second day of NaNoWriMo and I'm about 700 words behind my word count goal. I have made a couple of illuminating discoveries, though. It’s clear to me now just how much I restrict myself during the creative process in an attempt to do things “well.” Even having given myself permission to write badly, the only goal being put words on page, I have found that I stop and sputter and reconsider. I fight myself. This alone is great motivation for me to continue, to seek that place of abandon. The creative process must, as some point, be wild and untamed and it troubles me that I’ve moved so far away from that place.

One of my biggest deficits as a writer is my tendency to become obsessed with the inner workings of my characters’ emotions, thoughts and memories at the exclusion of plot. I often forget to have them do things or sometimes even verbally interact with one another.

Writing for NaNoWriMo, with the intention of working quickly, has forced me into a whole new arena where action is the thing. I have to make my characters do stuff and I don’t have time to consider or weigh their actions. This is good for me and surprisingly strange-feeling. I do love, when I relax and let myself enjoy it, the anticipation of truly not knowing what my characters are going to do and say next. I did no prep work for this so it’s just unfolding as I go.
Tracy just asked me, "What's your novel about?"
I have no idea.

The first day of November

2009-11-01T19:14:32-05:00

This was one of those Halloweens. Chill in the air, swirl of leaves, rich gorgeous sunset, beautiful children in furry feet, surprise visits from friends. So perfect.

I had plenty of excuses for costuming.

And I got to see this:

Not so perfect is the fact that Tracy has had vertigo for a week now. He's exhausted and worried and we're going to try to get him in to see his doctor this week. He was able to sit on the porch with me last night while we handed out candy, but it was difficult for him.
Two nights in a row of performing kept me tucked in on the couch today. It would have been a beautiful day for being out and about in the world, but I couldn't manage it. I did manage a skimpy 500 words or so on my nanowrimo project, as of yet untitled. (I've got my protagonist on her front stoop but I can't seem to move her.)
I was grateful for the extra hour of the time change, but a little freaked out by the fact that it was dark at 6. November has arrived. Here we go.
nablopowrimo.

Bits; pieces

2009-10-30T17:15:00-04:00

I was deeply moved by this piece on sacred activism and particularly glad to know about Buddhist Global Relief.

Make a commitment to always have some small change in one of your pockets so you can always give something to one of the growing thousands of homeless in our streets. I learned this habit as a child from my grandmother in India, and over the years it has brought me into contact with some extraordinary people. One in particular I would like to celebrate here. Outside a temple in South India, there was a long line of desolate looking beggars and among them a very old woman, dressed in a ragged and filthy sari with no shoes. I gave her what I had on me, about a dollar. I watched in amazement as she walked unsteadily over to the nearest food-stand, bought herself a handful of chapatis, broke them carefully in two, and shared them with a dog as emaciated as she was. If we all knew what that penniless old beggar knew, the hundreds of children who have died of starvation while you were reading this would still be alive.

I’m trying out this LinkWithin thing. I’m not sure yet if I’ll keep it. For one thing, I don’t know if I care to see all those older posts and many of them with formatting issues to boot (and sometimes it links to deleted posts, which is confusing). For another thing, I kinda hoped the links would be to related content, not just randomly generated (it seems less random now). On the other hand, it looks neat. What do you think?

There’s also a favorites feature now, for when you really, really love something. (I’ll try to write something loveable soon, I promise.)

Tonight Thriller takes over the streets of Lexington and I will be performing as a hoop ghoul with March Madness. It feels extra special to be a part of it this year, in honor of Michael. I’m sad that Tracy won’t be with us (which also means I won’t have pictures).

Saturday night we’re at Busters for the Beaux Arts Fall Ball with Man Man. I’m going to be dressed as a sinister fairy, possibly wingless (but don’t worry, I can teleport.)

Also in Lexington on Halloween night, the Carnegie Center’s Miss Havisham party at the Thomas January House.

The Inner Light Festival is back at Lexington Center this weekend and Tammy is leading a past life regression on Sunday. (She’s so good.)

11:11 sightings are plentiful. I’m seeing those beautiful numbers everywhere I look.

Your mind is a troublemaker.

Love Letter to the Universe.

Don’t you love it when the veil is thin?

I’m still looking for that hat with ears. Leopard print, please.

Remarkable creatures

2009-10-29T18:17:02-04:00

I was unable to attend Remarkable Creatures author Sean Carroll’s presentation on Wednesday night, but I did get to hear him answer questions during an informal session this afternoon. He’s a terrifically smart man, obviously--a scientist--but I was struck by his ability to speak honestly in a way that was neither lofty nor condescending. As I listened to faculty and students pose questions about gene sequencing and other topics that I can neither spell nor pronounce, I was impressed with Carroll’s ability to discuss these topics in a clear and loving way.

Yes, loving.

We are made of science and live the lives we live because of science and I respect that, but often when I listen to scientists speak, I’m cold. Often I feel they leave out or step around essential life ingredients and those ingredients are so important to me, I just stop listening to whatever it is they’re saying. Not so with Carroll, who seemed passionate about his work not only because of facts and discoveries but also because of mystery and dreams.

When my job allows me to be privy to conversations such as these, I’m always a little blown away by how knowledgeable and poised college students are and I’m always a little blown away by how little I know and I always leave wanting to know, which is the whole point I think, of everything.
You may recall that I experienced a sudden and sweeping love for Charles Darwin during his birthday celebrations last year because I’d never actually read his words before, the way he wrote them in his notebook, the moment when he asserted, I think it’s like this. Today, I watched Sean Carroll gently turn the pages of a first edition of On the Origin of Species and I listened to him answer a question about Darwin and Alfred Wallace and who deserved the credit for what by saying, “Why does it have to be either or?” and I felt fortunate indeed that circumstance had placed me there.

My brief encounters with Carroll today reminded me of the choice we each make in every moment. We are either living closed or open, expansive or withdrawn. We come at life thinking we have all the answers or we come to live knowing that we do not. He reminded me that every job, every task, every endeavor – no matter how intellectual or scientific – can be met in the heart.

Talking about a long-held theory that was proven wrong, Carroll said, “It took fifteen years before people started to accept the findings. It took a lot of blood.”

I was oddly fortified by that statement, the poetry of science, the passion. It moves me to think of the people who go to work every day and stand on the edge of this vast, complicated, intricate, unknowable universe and venture to unwrap its secrets.

Early

2009-10-29T17:15:00-04:00

Sometimes Woody has to go out early in the morning, hours before we would normally get up. We always take him out before bed but sometimes, we think, he rushes through his business because he knows that the faster he gets back inside, the faster he gets his bedtime Greenie and he really loves that thing.

He is sweet and gentle about waking us up. Usually, he just gets out of bed and sits at the top of the stairs, waiting to be magically transported down to the door. Even though he doesn’t make any noise, we wake up when he does this. We’re on his wavelength or he sends us psychic messages or something.

Usually, it’s Tracy who takes him, but Tracy has been incapacitated by vertigo for the past two days, so this morning, when Woody woke up a little before five, I carried him down and suited him up (that’s what we call putting on his harness and leash) and took him out in my pajamas and bare feet. My shoes were upstairs and it just didn’t seem worth it to me to go and get them.

This is how it is with me early in the morning.

As much as I don’t like losing even one second of precious sleep, I always find there’s something a little bit magical about those early morning trips to the yard. It’s so dark and quiet and the streetlamps are muted amber. Often, there’s the aroma of roasting peanuts from the Smuckers factory. They work around the clock in there, you know.

There’s no traffic, no one moving around, it’s just me and Woody and it’s peaceful and expectant and it feels like the world is a dream except the dream is the reality and what comes next with the getting dressed and scurrying around is actually the unreal thing.

Maybe this is why he does it, because he wants to be out in that place, too, with the crystal air and the glowing leaves and the dew on the grass and everything open and resting.

Words are coming

2009-10-28T18:36:33-04:00

I’ve never come close to completing a NaNoWriMo project. I tend to start out strong then abandon the whole thing. I’ve decided to embark on this adventure again, however. It feels like a good thing to do, to put words on the page, since I’ve been so out of touch with my fiction writery self lately.

I guess there’s a couple of ways I could go. I could create an outline and map out scenes to be written each day or I could just start writing with daily word count goals (1700 words a day should do it) and let the thing be loose and free-flowing (which means it will probably end up plotless and unreadable, but that’s part of the point of NaNoWriMo, isn’t it?) Knowing me, I’ll go with the second option.

I have considered coming up with a list of qualities that I want the writing to possess, or characters I’d like to develop, or settings I’d like to describe. When I was in high school, I used to do this thing where I’d make lists of people, places and situations on strips of paper then pull a handful out of a hat and write something that included each of the randomly selected items. Maybe I’ll do something like that.

I’m hoping that the crazy goal of writing a novel in a month will free up my head and open the doors to imaginative thinking, which seems to be running a little dry with me lately. Here’s what I’m hoping for: Sparkle. I’m not really looking to make sense or make art with this thing. I just want to feel sparkly.

I’m also considering signing on for NaBloPoMo in November. I figure I almost post here daily anyway and the two projects sort of go hand in hand because I can always post about how the novel writing is going. I’m drawn to the idea because I’m still trying to figure out something about this blog and giving it that sort of attention – telling myself that I’m going to think of something to say every day for a month – might help me get clarity.

Maybe.

Also, I just like to join these things.

If you’re participating in either, please leave a comment and let me know.

Unravelling

2009-10-27T21:20:46-04:00

I took this picture today as part of Unravelling. I haven't been writing about that project because I don't want to accidentally reveal any of the course's content, but I will say that it's an interesting journey and unravelling a beautiful word that pulls my mind in a variety of directions.

Lately I've been considering the idea of identity. What makes us us?

Lately I've been wondering what it is that lives in my core. What is the light that shines in the most hidden room in my heart? What is essentially me?

I've been wondering what words I would put on a list if I made a list of qualities that described me.

Is it our desire that makes us who we are or is it what's left when desire is fulfilled?

For your zombiefication

2009-10-27T17:23:58-04:00

How to do zombie make-up.
How to do zombie make-up.

How to do zombie make-up for Halloween.

Zombie costume.

How to create a zombie costume.
Types of zombies.
Zombie food pyramid.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Night of the Living Dead.

Thriller.

Thriller Lexington 2008.

Thriller 2009.

One million acts of kindness

2009-10-26T18:19:13-04:00

Christine left a comment on my last post about Lars and the Real Girl that hits on exactly what it is that I love about this movie and why it is that after watching it once last week, it’s already made it to my list of all time favorite films.

It’s not just that the acting is great (which it is) or that the setting and wardrobe is so completely real-seeming (which it is). It’s because the story is about the power of compassion without coming across as heavy handed sentimentality. This is a film about love and hope and transformation and acceptance without ever becoming schmaltzy.

I found myself watching this story unfold and asking myself what would happen if each of us on this planet, in this world, extended to one another the sort of acceptance and compassion that Lars’ community extends to him when he shows up one day with his delusion.

What if we stopped holding on so tightly to what we think is “ours” and what we think is “sane” and what we think is “good”? What if we accepted that being human is a messy business? What if we decided to love one another, no exceptions? What if when we saw that another human being was suffering – even if we didn’t approve of their actions or choices, even if they had harmed us, even if they were mentally ill, physically ill, addicted, angry, confused, mean – we decided to extend mercy and compassion instead of judgment?

What would happen then?

What if we did it on a small scale, the smallest? What if we started with ourselves then branched out to our immediate family, our closest friends, then out a little further and a little further?

Here’s what I loved most about the movie (and I’m just going to assume that you’ve seen it so if you haven’t, go get it and watch it now!) – I loved that Lars’ fate wasn’t fixed. I loved that in each moment, there was redemption. When his delusion runs its course, when he puts it aside because he no longer needs it, he isn’t marked or ruined or ostracized. Love is waiting for him there just as love as been his companion all along. And his love has created a reality. What’s real is the bond of love. It’s everything else that’s the illusion. That's how it is that the town could grieve for a woman who never existed -- because she did exist.

That's the world we live in, each of us. It's easy to forget. Watch too much of the nightly news, read the comments posted to your daily newspaper, and it is easy to forget. It's easy to latch on to fear and condemnation.

It's just as easy to let it go, to love instead. It's just as easy and you'll feel so much better. Fear doesn't want you to know that, but it's true.

Toward the end of my workday, Amy came by to let me know that a kindness bus was parked in front of the building. A kindness bus. This man and his dog are on to something.

How I spent my fall vacation: day nine

2009-10-25T21:07:25-04:00

Lars and the Real Girl is a fantastic movie. (Although I'm not sure I would categorize it as comedy).

We also watched Outrage last night, which should be required viewing for everyone. It's difficult to watch and listen to hatred and hypocrisy of the anti-gay movement in this country. Terrifying, actually, but this film is so well-done and we do need to look and listen, because this is where we live. And love.

This morning as I was making the coffee, I tried to talk to myself gently about going back to work tomorrow, but myself didn't want to listen. I settled in on the couch with my mug and a warm blanket and watched K- Pax. I had some issues with the movie itself but Kevin Spacey was brilliant, as usual. It's the subtle, quiet moments with him -- that's where he really gets me.
I wished for muffins or cake or cookies -- a sign of some sort of imbalance, I'm sure. I tried to remember the spiritual reason for carb cravings (because I could tell my desire wasn't nutritional), but all I could come up with was these things sounded good to me - the sweeter and denser the better. But I had none of these things and there is no vegan bakery here so I remained beneath my blanket for quite a while and played with pictures.

And then I got so hungry I had no choice but to stand up and move around and make toast with tomatoes.
The sun called to me through the windows, asked me to come out even though my body wasn't sure. I knew I was supposed to feel rested, rejuvenated, ready to return to my schedule, but I felt instead that I would like to disappear beneath the softness of the blankets for at least another month or two.

I felt soft and exposed and vulnerable and muddled. Light, the sun insisted, one step then another. So I went out.

Before I knew it, it was time to go to band practice, so I went.

We had dinner and now the Blob is on and we're waiting for Mad Men.
That's it. That's all. That was my day, that was my week. It's almost the end of October. I never did find those sweet carbs today. Maybe I'll make a cake in a mug, stay up late, light candles. Maybe I'll just drift here for a while.

How I spent my fall vacation: day eight

2009-10-24T20:14:39-04:00

Last night's marathon of sitting under a blanket eating popcorn and watching things continued with Smart People (liked it) and Wanda Sykes (love, love, love her).

Today, we drove to Louisville for more vintage clothes shopping. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so beautiful that I danced in the leaves of someone's yard.

We had lunch at Ramsi's,where I've never had a bad meal, and I wondered why it is that Lexington doesn't have a restaurant that caters to both vegans and omnivores the way Ramsi's does. I understand (maybe understand) why a completely vegan restaurant may not be viable here, but why not something like this? I have these thoughts a lot when I'm in Louisville (why don't we have this, why can't we have that? The answer, I suppose, is just to relax and enjoy the fact that Louisville has so many things I love, including a little house in the Highlands painted like a rainbow!)

We shopped the Nitty Gritty, which was packed with sequined delights;

Queen of Rags, where I found leopard print boots that were ever so slightly too big for me but scored a black satin embroidered kimono robe (yes, my second robe of the vacation);

and Cherry Bomb. I found some delicious pieces to add to my wardrobe.

It is Tracy's tradition, whenever we visit Louisville, to stop at Karem Deeb's and get baked beans, so he did.
And that is how we spent our day. Now it's dark and time once again to sit very, very still and watch things. Lars and the Real Girl is coming on.