People! I have things to add to the writing blog! I just need to stop procrastinating and actually post it. Oy. I’m beginning to think maybe these blogs are stupid things. HOW MANY DIFFERENT COMPARTMENTS OF MY LIFE CAN EXIST ONLINE SIMULTANEOUSLY?

Many, apparently.

My best friend and I started a joint blog, Illegal Jesus. Currently it is heavily populated with content from my best friend, who is mainly talking politics. I just kind of…ramble. Which is how you know it’s me. I do the same thing on EVERY SINGLE BLOG. I’m a rambler. What?

Class this semester is a challenge for a number of reasons. We’re actually having to produce content, which is great, but also a little difficult because I seem to have lost all will to write anything worthwhile. Or…anything, period. I turned in my latest lesson late because I just didn’t feel like doing it. That is a little odd for me. I’ve got to turn in another story in about three weeks and I have no idea what to write. I will probably start trolling the writing prompt communities on Livejournal again.

What do you do when you’re stuck in a rut? This rut is kind of commandeering my entire life.

I won’t add him to my fancy blog roll until I’ve actually read some of his stuff, but I’m going to put a link here because…it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.

John Boyne’s site.
John Boyne’s blog. (WordPress buddy)

That is all.

Wow. So. Summer is over. I was lamenting to a friend about how I hadn’t achieved anything writing-related over the summer like I had planned. Then he reminded me that I had, in fact, accomplished my goal by partaking in a few communities online. It’s true, to a point. Writing fanfiction feels like wasting any potential or good ideas I have, but then I realized not too long ago that there are published writers and professors in this world who also write fanfiction. That said, if you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find some of my not-so-fabulous works at that bastion of bad writing, FanFiction.net.

My whole point for this post was to announce that school is back in session! Which means there will be more content. I hope. Unless this class kills me. I’m not going to think about that right now.

Also a point of notice! NaNoWriMo is in a little over two months. Time to start kicking around some ideas. Actually, I have one sketched out in my mind. If I can keep it fresh enough in my mind, it should get me to at least 50k.

I might post a few snippets of the fanfics on the writing blog just so there’s something there. I also need to post my final story for last semester’s class. I keep forgetting to do that. It has been an insane summer. I’m ready for 2008 to GTFO.

ETA: I still need to talk ad nauseum about The Late Hector Kipling.

Google Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s genealogy, fill in the blanks, and create a plausible male descendant.

Also, walk around for a day saying, “subcutaneous” because it sounds nice on the tongue.

I was supposed to spend the summer writing. Crafting and forming and tearing apart and writing, writing, writing. I’ve done none of that. Well, nothing serious. Nothing that I would actually show anyone than a small cluster of people who would understand why I had to do it in the first place.

It doesn’t happen often but sometimes I pick up a book and begin reading it and I am soared up to dizzying heights all full of anxious fingers and a need to just write. I think one of the biggest struggles any writer has is finding her/his own voice. You write over and over again, you put words together and take them apart, you experiment and you read copiously and you ingest different things and you begin to pull from people whose voice appeals to you. Every writer’s voice is unique but is shaped and influenced by outside forces, by other voices. I find myself mimicking some writers, picking up their sentence flow, their rhythm, their structure and then blending it all together with what I already have.

Admittedly, I read very little. This is probably my biggest character flaw. I used to read a lot; I went through books like they were food. Now I am bored easily or I become too tired or my mind wanders or the television/internet is more mindless and easy. I really aim to rectify this. But right now I’m reading a very good book; the author has one of those voices. The kind that wraps around me and makes all the crazy short chopped up thoughts suddenly sensible and logical.

The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis. I will openly admit that I only started reading this book because I like DT. I like him a lot. He’s smart and sexy and tall and from northern England where all the British boys worth liking are from and when I’d found he’d written a book, I got kind of dizzy and weak in the knees. And also worried that it might not be a very good book. It’s a very good book. Worries are unfounded. The brilliance of the book makes me want to read it on the bus, which I cannot do because it will make me quite ill, so you know it must be good. (I’ve yet to actually subject myself to motion sickness for this book. My apologies, Mr. Thewlis, but no matter how elegant and enchanting your prose, I will not sacrifice my physical health. I have, however, read it while walking to the bus.)

I tend to prefer writing as I think – in choppy, broken sentences and asides and random observations and quiet dark rages and brilliant euphoria. Stream-of-consciousness is not that easy because you must be conscious of your lack of consciousness, so it is difficult to keep from swinging your thoughts from one subject to another or to keep from pressing influence into your thoughts.

There was an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where a man ate his novel. Sometimes I feel that way but not about my own writing. I want to eat the novels written by others because I want the words to become part of my blood stream. I want to absorb everything down to the last punctuation mark. I want to eat The Late Hector Kipling because it, like so much Kerouac’s work, makes sense and I don’t want to lose this feeling of thinking there are people who see the world from behind a different type of veil.

I haven’t found my voice yet because I remain unabused of the notion that there are certain rules I must follow. I am afraid of letting my voice go, letting it sing, and having everyone point and laugh at how rough and cracked and off-key it is.

Tonight we watched 27 Dresses because I hadn’t seen it yet. A friend of mine is an extra in the movie, in some deleted scenes or something, so I felt kind of obliged to see it. It was okay, tolerable and all that. Katherine Heigel (?) was beautiful, of course, and managed to make all those stupid bridesmaid dresses look amazing. But all of that aside, the movie kind of irritated the living shit out of me. At one point in my life, I thought I would have that – a wedding, a groom, all my friends in beautiful dresses (my choice in dresses would be far superior to anyone else, you see), lots of flowers, dancing, my dad giving me away, all of that – and now just the thought of it makes me furious. Not furious out of jealousy. Furious out of how it’s expected of me, as a woman, to want that. How I’m expected to long for a husband and how at my age, I should probably just settle for the first guy who comes along. Who cares if he’s not the man of my dreams? I’m 30, if I’m going to get married, I’d better do it NOW.

But it’s that’s not okay. That expectation of me is not okay. And it’s not okay for other people to say that I’m lying when I say I don’t want that. I don’t want a husband. I want a partner. I want someone who is on my side, someone who will face this fucked up world with me, which yes, is exactly what a marriage is. But I don’t want the wedding. I don’t want the supposed fairy tale day. I want the man who is my equal, who sees me as his equal, and most of all, I just want to be happy. If being happy includes being on my own for the rest of my life, then that’s fine. I think I’ve done pretty well for myself thus far. I’d like to get a little more play (WHO WOULDN’T, I SAY) but that’s another story all together.

So there you go. I really need to get on with my writing. Things have been so crazy around here lately that I can’t really focus on anything but those things that need taken care of immediately.

Say nice things to me, Internets. Show me love.

Bunch

Originally uploaded by madrigals

This is just a little bit of what I get to see when I walk out my front door.

In other news, it was 102 degrees today. WTF.

Sometimes I miss J. I miss him in a strange way, in a wistful sort of sepia-tinged way. I miss him when things are difficult with The Other, like they are now. I miss the simplicity and predictability of things “with” J. The thing is, everything with The Other is also quite predictable. I know how The Other reacts and interacts and I find nothing surprising in his passivity, his fear, his dismal attempts to quiet the screaming. At first, when things were new again, when it felt like I had been given a second chance, everything was dizzying and perfect and The Other was hesitant but at least somewhat open to peace negotiations. There was a moment one afternoon when he seemed to step back and let some of his defenses down. It came rushing through this other worldly plane that binds us all together and for awhile, things were good. Solid. Defined.

Now there is nothing but silence and a hint of spite. Retracting, recoiling. I cannot get it back. I cannot demand The Other stay or change or fulfill all of my selfish fantasies. I cannot, so I will not. This makes me miss J. The hum of possibility was always so vibrant and electric that even in the pulling away, it seemed all right. Perhaps that is because it was never meant to turn out the way I thought it might. Perhaps that is why, despite the occasional pang of desperate need, watching him fade from importance in my life never really happened. One day I was on the way home from work and realized that I no longer missed him. The thought of seeing him no longer thrilled me. Perhaps that was its natural lifetime coming to an end.

I wish though that this was not the case. Right now I wish it because I am hurt. I feel abandoned and shunned and angry and hurt. I feel as though a fight took place between us and I was absent for it. Maybe he has remembered the past and everything in it and does not want it to happen again and so he is retreating to protect himself. Maybe this is true. Maybe it is not. But whatever the case, it makes me miss J. It makes me want to hurt The Other with my memories of J, to flaunt everything J was to me in his face, to prove that I don’t need him.

But I do need him. I will always need him.

I am so not dazzled right now. I’m sick as fuck and in pain and lethargic and I need to pack up, you know, this whole house for the move in less than two weeks and guess what? I haven’t the strength or energy to do it. I’m cranky and upset and sad and depressed and am watching from a distance as someone I love slips away from me and there’s nothing I can do about it because he won’t listen to me or even acknowledge that I’m saying anything.

Epic fail, Life. Epic fail.

What Do Women Want?
By Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

**
I really like that poem. I feel that way but about a good pair of shoes, which I suppose one would need if one had such a scandalous and delicious red dress.
**

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
By Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it’s you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

**
Neruda is amazing. How I ever existed not knowing about his work is beyond me. Hopefully the above translation is correct. Sometimes they’re a little off.

I know I’ve said it before but I think I’ve reached a point where my only option is to write some poetry. But I shall study the poetry of others first because I am not so lyrical.