14 posts from January 2007

Have you ever started a trend? Followed one?
Submitted by It's Raining Calculators.

for as long as i can remember, i've tried to avoid anything trendy.  i don't read fashion magazines.  i don't care about labels, real or fake.  i could care less what hollywood is wearing, eating, snorting.  i don't think i've started any trends but i have had people stop me in stores, on the street, at starbucks to compliment me on my platform shoes and black nail polish.

What do you do to ensure you get a good night's sleep?
Submitted by Jacob's Ladder.

i take 5mg of ambien.

If you were told you could relive a moment in your life, which would you choose?
Submitted by Slight Diffusion.

i would want to relive the day my sister was born.  i was 5 years old.  it was june 21, 1983.  i have no memory of that day, just a picture that shows me holding a tiny, red-faced thing that is looking up at me while i smile for the camera, proud as if i had something to do with her existence.  i want that moment, when i first held her.  i know i loved her from the moment i saw her.  she was mine.  people tell me i became a different child that day.  a 180 degree change, they say, as if still surprised, still wondering how such a drastic change happened overnight.  i went from taking toys away from other children to giving what i had to my sister.  i went from trying to get everyone's attention to making everyone look at my sister.  there is a whole album full of pictures of me holding her, feeding her, playing with her. 

if it wasn't for that day, i would be a completely different person.  if only i could remember.

i was reading "writing down the bones" and came across this question.  the author said something that spoke true to me.

"writing is deeper than therapy.  you write through your pain, and even your suffering must be written out and let go of."

i won't even begin to pretend that my life has been full of that much pain because it hasn't.  no great tragedy has befallen me.  nothing has happened that i couldn't handle.  i've had my share of growing pains, of loss, and mistakes.  i may not have handled it well but i survived.  physically, all my needs were met.  emotionally, something was lacking, so for ME, areas of my life have been painful.  i always wondered why i had a compulsive need to write.  i've kept a journal since i was in the 4th grade.  all of the notebooks are still in a drawer at my parents house.  things have changed since then.  all of my journaling is done on my computer, whether on blogs or journaling software, rather than in spiral notebooks.  but the fact that i need to write is the same.

why do i write?  i write to preserve my life.  i write because i can't remember.  i write to stay alive.  i write because i can't find the words to express how i feel or what i think until it has been written.  i let the words flow as they come and then when i read the words back to myself, i can see where i am.  i could go an entire day without talking.  i could not go an entire day without writing.  i read to lose myself.  i write to find myself.

another excerpt:

"to begin writing from our pain eventually engenders compassion for our small and groping lives.  out of this broken state there comes a tenderness for the cement below our feet, the dried grass cracking in the terrible wind.  we can touch the things around us, we once thought ugly and see their special detail, the peeling paint and gray of shadows as they are - simply what they are: not bad, just part of the life around us - and love this life because it is ours and in the moment there is nothing better."

so why do you write?

1. Did you ever have a domain name?
   yes.  i just recently gave it up because i never used it.
   
2. When did you first start blogging?
   long before most people even knew what it was.  i think it's been at least 6 years.
   
3. What is your favorite website?
   amazon.com.  you can get ANYTHING on amazon.  and free 2- shipping!  i'm obsessed.
   
4. What is your preferred search engine, yahoo, google, etc?
   google it
   
5. Link: your favorite site.
   other than amazon ... cuteoverload of course!
   

How do you beat writer's block? 
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.

i read.  sometimes fiction.  the good kind.  a word, a phrase, will trigger a memory or an emotion that leads to a stream of thought that has to be written.  memoirs also offer inspiration.  i just finished amy tan's "the opposite of fate".  if that doesn't help, then i have several books specifically for writer's block.  my favorites are:

"the writer's block" - a cute cube of a book
"poemcrazy: freeing your life with words" - words words words
"writing down the bones" - short and sweet, easy to digest
"the write-brain workbook" - fun and a little crazy

i'm curled on my side
he's on his back
his leg bent over mine
just to remind me
that he is there
and every once in a while
i look up from my book
because i want to see him smile

today i was content.

"Lord grant that I seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
To understand than to be understood;
To love than to be loved . . ."

~St Francis Assisi