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Writer's Block: Fashion Forward

  • Jul. 8th, 2009 at 3:40 PM

What do you think we'll be wearing twenty years from now?

Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.


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LOTS of sunblock!!!

Writer's Block: Childhood Firsts

  • Jun. 29th, 2009 at 5:34 PM

What was your first word?


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Dado. 'A' sound as in apple, 'O' sound like the letter it is. Dado.
I was trying to say doggie, not daddy.
In time it morphed into Dido. "Did' as in did, and 'o' as in ew, yucky. Dido.
Hence, my stuffed brown puppy was my Dido Doggie.

Oh yea, and I called breasts, Ku-tyes. Sounds like koo-with a (neck) tie after it. No spelling preference, that's just what I called them. I caught my dad peepin girlie mags and I saw the boobies. Mom said he shouldn't look at stuff like that w/a baby around, he thought I was too young to know anything so it didn't matter. Mom said the gals were hockie, as in icky. I think I was trying to say hockie tittie at first, which became hockootie, and then was shortened to kootie (not cootie - koo-tye).

There was a lot of hockie going around in my formative years. The weaning process resulted in my calling my bottle my hockie bottle ninnie, and a dirty diaper an ah-oh, hockie dookie. It's not as bizarre as it sounds - my cousin called the mailman a Craybeer!

What little things do you do every day to take care of our planet?

Sponsored by One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco.


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I don't drive.

I've only owned one car in my entire life,  used and given to me, for less than one year. Never even bothered to reregister it in my name or switch out the WV plates for CA ones.

I recycle.

I don't litter.

I carry my own stainless steel water bottle, instead of buying a million tiny plastic ones and throwing them away.

I cleaned up a local park awhile back with my son and a host of other volunteers.

I grew the seed of a dying redwood, moved it w/me when I changed homes, kept it until it was too big for my apt, then gave it to my yoga instructor, who drove it up to her & her husband's property in Mendocino County and planted it outdoors.

I was a Fix Our Feral lady for a while.

I nurture found random dying plants/plant clippings thus perpetuating their lifeforce.

I don't buy animals. They just find me over the yrs and become part of the family.

My apt. has water heat under the floors thereby bypassing the need for natural gas.

I've never owned a cellphone, altho I do pay for my son's.

Altho I own these items, I have never purchased a tv/vcr/dvd player/answering machine. They have all been either new or used gifts.

I don't patronize fast-food establishments.

I reuse plastic grocery bags and, as of today, will be returning un-reused ones to stores that recycle them. I also have my own hemp/cotton grocery bags, which I use for various shopping errands.

I just started buying biodegradable kittybox liners.

I love my kitty.

Writer's Block: You Ate What?

  • May. 16th, 2009 at 8:00 PM

What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? Would you eat it again?


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Mums.
A mum centerpiece, actually.
Tripping.
At the Earth House,
as a youngster,
because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
They WERE tasty, and crunchy, and full of smiles.

Do over?
Not THOSE mums.
They were blessed.

Wanderlust Won.

  • Apr. 10th, 2009 at 8:20 PM

Sharon and Syd are going to L.A. for spring break. So long, stinktown!

Creepy.
My apartment is on the first floor now, with my bedroom windows opening onto the sidewalk without.
It is dark, and I can hear the footfalls and verbal business of evening wanderers passing by on their various missions.
I lie in my bed, listening.

And then I am outside, and heading down the street with an unnamed friend.
And then we are inside, the prey of a madman at street's end.

Darkness, shadows, and dust.
High ceilings, hidden corners.
Murkiness and muffled scream.
Not a sound is made.

I sit stock-still as he sews my mouth shut with thick, coarse black twine.
I do not cry.
I do not bleed.
I do not attempt escape.
I know better.

Stitch after stitch, his rough thumbs and forefingers force the oversized needle through the flesh around my lips.
I feel it's point pop through to the inside of my mouth.
Stitch by stitch, I feel the twine unevenly passing through my tissue, sealing me shut.
It catches in places as it passes, and he tugs a bit harder now and again,
Biting his own lip in concentration as he does so.

I lightly, and ever so quietly, tap the fingers of my right hand on the metal table at my side...
grasping for something a bit less terrifying
than the horror of my here and now.

It is almost involuntary.
It is to keep me quiet.
It is to keep me from choking.
It is to keep me sane.

He hums as he sews.
Humming a tune that echoes off the warehouse walls as he admires his handiwork.

Cross-stitch.

He somehow adds two final inner stitches, inside my mouth, one on either side, that tightens things down and pulls it shut.
Seals the deal.

As he does this, I reach out for my companion's hand.
He/she has already been closed and simply stands, mute.
Awaiting.

I know if I move or resist, he will kill me where I sit.
So I wait for him to finish his work.
He will step out briefly after the sewing stops.
If we cannot find a way out before he returns,
We are both dead.

I woke up dreaming this at 3:46 this morning.
And promptly closed my window.
Then opened the curtains so I could see the sky and her stars,
and assure myself that I am on the fourth floor, with my bedroom looking out onto the roof, that is thankfully free of lunatics with upholstery needles waiting to snatch me out of my bed!

I woke up twice more from ongoing plays of nocturnal disturbia after this: one culminating in enforced restraint and  painful physical assault, the other lost/stolen neccessities.

It's crazy windy outside right now! I think it just might break something. Freaky weird.

If I didn't have so much to do tomorrow, I'd consider just not going to sleep at all tonight...


 

Writer's Block: Cookies

  • Feb. 4th, 2009 at 7:52 AM

What is the strangest advice you've ever received from a fortune cookie?

Submitted By [info]merrytook92


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"You will go far, but be sure to come back!"

Special Day Alert!!!

  • Jan. 26th, 2009 at 10:53 PM



HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEDEINE!

FROM,

SHARON

Writer's Block: Auld Lang Syne

  • Dec. 31st, 2008 at 1:41 AM

For those who are into such things, this might be the biggest party night of the year. Other people like to keep it a little more low key. How do you plan to ring in the New Year?


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With my dear friend Stacy, The Butthole Surfers, and Negativeland at the Fillmore in San Francisco!
FUNTIME!!!

Writer's Block: Coast Range

  • Dec. 11th, 2008 at 11:40 AM

If you had to choose, would you rather live in the mountains or by the ocean?


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Why can't I have both?
I wanna live in Gualala, where the Gualala River meets the Pacific Ocean, on the Sonoma/Mendocino County borderline.

Writer's Block: Untimely Passing

  • Dec. 8th, 2008 at 1:29 PM

RIP John Lennon. The list of sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths is long—Princess Di, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and many more. Which one affected you the most on an emotional level?


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Freddie Mercury.

VOID

  • Nov. 29th, 2008 at 1:40 PM

Two nites ago, a vehicle containing human beings in possession of a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun whizzed around my building firing shots like they were firecrackers. Last night they returned, and shot down a young man in front of my building, directly across the street from where my son's car was parked. Then, they drove around the corner and shot someone else's son in the face, killing him. Scary, huh? One would think so. But you know what's truly frightening? What's truly frightening is the fact that we've grown accustomed to this type of behavior. It happens so often here that, short of the makeshift shrines that are erected out of posters, stuffed animals, candles, and empty liquor bottles where the boys were felled, and the always present likelihood of retaliation, the next day brings business as usual. It's par for the course, except, of course, for their families. They've got hospitals to get to, or funerals to plan. Oh sure, people look around a bit more as they're walking down the street, in order to avoid becoming a target next themselves. They try to watch their own backs a little more carefully for a few days. But the game continues. Territorial, warlike, empty games. Young, up and coming gangbangers talking shit to their corner congregation. Thieves and ho's. Crack and crime. The dopeman and his rag-tag flock of dopefiends. The homeless man with his shopping cart train full of crap with his astro-turf poncho to keep out the cold. The cops who are always around when nothing's going down, and never around when it is. The first night they were called, they didn't even show up. Last night, they arrived well ahead of the paramedics. Not good for the slain, especially the one that was pronounced D.O.A. at the hospital. Ah, fuck. I don't blame them. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a cop in Oakland. But there's something intrinsically wrong with the law-enforcement/criminal dynamic. There's a sick symbiosis that feeds off itself and is self-perpetuating here.

I don't have an answer. But I know it can't come with bigger guns and tougher sentences. It's such a deeply-entrenched socio-economic problem, it's grown way beyond good-guy/bad-guy, cops and robbers scenarios. There's a spiritual void here (and I'm not speaking of religion in any way, shape, or form) born of utter hopelessness, that renders life valueless to the players. If there is no hope, then nothing matters. There is no fear of death, or law, or consequence. There is no conscience, or empathy, or honor regarding life. It's simply, "I'm gonna get mine, and the rest be damned." I've seen this in many other urban sewers called cities where the disenfranchised are cast. I lived in em. Still do. I live it daily. It wears away at one. The helplessness of it all. The 'why don't people care about each other anymore' question. The 'how close to home does it have to get before one panics' scenario. I am at a loss for answers here. I do know this, though, I removed myself from that game a long time ago, in my own little, teeny attempt to find some meaning, to make some kind of difference. I refuse to perpetuate chaos, yet I am doomed to exist within it's midst. I guess that's just life on Earth in the 21st century.

Sometimes I wish I didn't understand it on so many levels. I've been a player, a pawn, a participant, a protagonist, a perpetuator, a victim, a ponderer. A psychoanalyst of the pathology of criminal intent, of habitual destructiveness, of emptiness. Yet, in the midst of the void, we still survive, and try to create a better tomorrow for those who will follow. It is really dark here right now, and the batteries low, but I have more than one flashlight. And my inner light still burns. That's the only weapon I have against this encroaching darkness. It is all I need. I have never went down without a fight before. We fight ourselves. We fight each other. It's so sad. I am weak, but I am also strong. So, bring it on. I have not been blinded by hate, or by greed, or by fear, or by need. And I will continue to do good wherever possible. And hopefully, it'll open some eyes, and some ears, and especially, some hearts. Cuz that's what we're missing, HEART. Hold yours close. We need em to live, you know...

SRW out,

11-29-08.

Writer's Block: Secret Ballot

  • Nov. 4th, 2008 at 8:40 PM

It's hard to ignore the fact that today is Election Day in the U.S. If you went to the polls today, tell us what it was like. Long line? Free stickers? Hanging chads? We want the details.


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What was it like, you ask?
PRESIDENT OBAMA is what it was like, mo****fu**ers!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!My neighborhood is rollin!  People are yelling out their windows and screaming in the streets! The people have spoken - the Republicans broken. Once again I say, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Writer's Block: Short Days

  • Nov. 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 AM

As the Northern hemisphere spins toward the shortest day of the year, it's getting dark earlier and earlier. What comforts do you fall back on when the days are short and the nights are long?


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I find comfort IN the fact that the days are short and the nights are long.

Oh dear, what have I done?

  • Oct. 6th, 2008 at 2:05 PM

I'm going to West Virginia tomorrow.

Writer's Block: Day of German Unity

  • Oct. 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 AM

It’s the Day of German Unity, marking the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany. In our current period of global instability, do you ever feel nostalgic for the seeming simplicity of the Cold War?


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WTF?

Adobe

  • Sep. 21st, 2008 at 12:23 PM


V is home. And cookin.

I hafta simmer down now or else I'll boil over.
Then my pot will be empty and get scorched.
Geez, where did that come from?

I'm overly-mentally-stimulated.
must force myself to CHILLLLLLLL.

No artifice
Just proper placement of potential
has me in a swoon.

Could we really all
join forces
and MAKE IT SO
from so many different
places in time?

The things I'm coming to realize
I am realizing.
Real lies real lives joined
Not the fake ones people tell.

Yesterday I jumped up and down
And giggled
At the realization
of the magnificent miracle
of still existing
after so much space
in between breaths.

I twirled
in my swirly-chair
And hugged my friends
Embarrassing them
But making them grin
Cuz they felt the same way
And understood as well
But were unsure how to say
And not sure how to tell.

So much time lapse
Meant nothing
The aural connection
Bridged the gap instantly
As we still had
The same voices
We've always had.

Time had no power
Over us once
That was made clear
We had learned to hear
again.

Life is for the living
And the dead
We are the thread.


Bound.


In sound.

Writer's Block: Sarah Palin?

  • Sep. 2nd, 2008 at 12:15 AM

Is Sarah Palin a shrewd choice for the Republican Party, or is she a liability?


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Sarah Palin is a very dangerous choice for the already tentative future of this once-wonder-FULL planet.
It's way beyond shrewdness or liabilities. She is a straight-up threat. She's the wife of a big oil lackey. She backs aerial hunting of endangered species, including wolves and bears. She's an enemy of  Gaia's last remaining beluga whales. She's a proponent of drilling in the last refuges of wonder we have left. She's all oil, all the time, anywhere, at any cost. And she's an unknown (well, she used to be, anyway), she's inexperienced in just about everything governmental except destruction, which she seems to be pretty damned good at, on several fronts at once. She's an extreme right-wing Christian super-duper anti-abortionist, a woman against a woman's right to choose, even in cases of rape or grave maternal danger. She couldn't even run her own gas station, how's she gonna run the country? If u've got a death wish, go for it. Vote republican.

Astronomy

  • Jul. 26th, 2008 at 2:25 PM

The plutoid 'Easterbunny'  has now been named Makemake (I hope I spelled that right) after a Polynesian fertility god. Look it up!

Blind Appeal

  • Jul. 1st, 2008 at 7:45 PM




Oh Lord,
 Who isn't really there
Why am I still here?

As I walk down this forgotten street
with broken glass crunching
under my sandalled feet
I wonder...

Debris blows by on the freeway breeze
As fire continues to burn all our trees
I wonder...

And then I smell the honeysuckle
Struggling past the fenced-in yard,
It cries, "smell me!"
"I will make you smile"
"I will remind you when you forget"

I look up and over,
Toward the forsaken yard,
Of the forsaken house,
With the crumbling staircase
And the mounds of refuse cast about.
From the decay,
rosebushes grow wild,
screaming,
"see me!"
I am still alive
And will soothe your eye when it wants to cry.

On the corner
A woman chained to dope
Sits her little boy up on the long-unused loading dock
Of a now-defunct warehouse to wait,
As she brokers a deal with a passing male
Through the passenger-side window of his sedan.
Her eyes plead, "free me"
But her mouth says something else.

The tiny, emaciated frame of the deaf hustler
in front of the corner liquor store
Finally gave up it's ghost.
"Feed me!" it used to mime.
But no more.
His deaf brother made his hands into wings
Flying into the sky,
The last time I asked about him.

I speak for the lost today
I will be their voice -
The sweet and the ugly
The honeysuckle and the homeless
The whore and the rose
That is why I'm here today - 
To speak for the street
And the secrets it keeps.
Nobody's dog and the hungry kid
And I saw what your mama did

But I also see blossoms in the most unlikely places
And try to understand.
I am poet.
But the story belongs to us all.
Take it, it's free.

Love,

Me.