Running Away
Topic: Freeflow
Thursday 30Nov06 8:21pm

I caught a bit of a movie with Keanu Reeves, Cameron Dias and Vincent D'Onofrio on the weekend. Can't for the life of me remember the name. In the movie, Cameron's character begs Keanu's to take her with him. Run away. I thought, how nice the idea of running away. Going somewhere new, not knowing anyone other than the person you're with. Blank slate. You can create yourself as a completely different person that the one everyone knows in your present life.

"What do I have to run away from?" I asked myself. I thought and thought and realized as I said it out loud, "Nothing!"
For the first time in my life I don't feel like I have anything to run away from. Where did that come from? Where indeed?

I'm broke and I'm in debt but that's my only real problem and taking care of that is about time, plain and simple. Time and less spending.

And thank goodness I don't have anything to run from because I've got a shit load of books to pack, if I did run.

I've got a few entries on the new blog, if you're interested... Writing Zazen
I'm liking the wordpress.com service if you're interested in blogging it's been the most user friendly thus far. The only thing is I haven't found a spell check. And the type is larger when you're posting which makes a huge difference to me since I'm on the computer all day at work and have strained eyes when I blog at night.

EY

Remembered Rapture
Topic: Freeflow
Sunday 9:45pm 26Nov06

I didn't mention all the books that I bought at the World's Biggest. I also bought two books by bell hooks. I bought "Wounds of Passion - a writing life" and "Remembered Rapture - the writer at work."

Remembered Rapture is what I'm reading. It brings me back to my beginning. When I first started to write. The lack of understanding of why I'd want to write. Drawing was more palatable, made most sense. Why would you write? What purpose does it serve? Asked in a house full of readers. Because from me it could never amount to anything.

No one understood my need to be heard. I couldn't express out loud how the family changes affected me. These two new step sisters who switched me from the youngest child to the middle child and the oldest girl overnight. These two new step sisters that I had to keep happy to avoid punishment. This step father that I deeply suspected couldn't stand me. He wanted the thrill of the black woman and what possessing her meant but the black daughter?

I was burdened by constantly feeling not good enough. The competitive comparisons that were bandied about as proof that I was less.

Debbie saying to my mother about we three Pisces, "Shelley's not a sensitive Pisces like us." Because I didn't cry about it in front of her. I didn't fight and argue to get my point across. I remained silent and watchful. No one had noticed that I had shut down. I was drowning in the realization that I had no power. I had to bide my time and grow up. When I was an adult I'd have the power to leave.

In the meantime I wrote childish love poems that hid my hurt and despair. Love poems were the coded writings for what I was feeling, the slow anger rising in me, the words rehearsed in my head. For that one day that I blurted out what I thought about them. Who knew I was to deal with my step father first? Hmm and never have contact with that one step sister for my whole adult life (other than at my mother's funeral.)

I never believed I'd have the guts to stand feet planted, eye contact in line, mouth without a stutter and hear my voice say that they hadn't crushed me whole...

I feel I need to dig out that false belief that told me I had no right to think I'd be any good , I had no right to think that writing could be my life option. I have so much pain surrounding my need to write and somewhere deep within me I'm still fighting the familial demons that promised me that I'd amount to nothing.

This is why I needed to buy those books.

EY

So Many Men, So Little Time
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: Van Hunt - On the Jungle floor
Topic: Freeflow
Thursday 6:58pm 31Aug06

My sister in law, when she was still just my mother's best friend and long before she married my brother (he was still a child), used to wear a t-shirt with the saying, so many men, so little time.

I swear today, I thought something similar. Where have all the cute, friendly, smiley guys come from? Over the last few weeks I've seen some real cutie patuties. Can this really be a good time to be single? I'm just curious. Even on my walk home tonight a couple of really gorgeous men smiled at me. I had to look behind me to make sure that it was really me they were smiling at and low and behold, it was!

A work girlfriend and I were discussing, one day, that it's just easier to admire all the hot women that walk by because you see more of them than hot men. And we're not even gay. But something new is in the air, I've made some comments about some of the contractors that have breezed into my office that have made my boys blush. But shit, a girl needs some eye candy just as much as the men do.

In keeping with my entry a long while back about being a multiple personality writer, I said that I was having a do over and I was like a teenager. If that's the case shouldn't I date a lot before I commit myself to one person? ha ha! Maybe that's what my downfall was, always putting my focus on one person. I never did the mass dating. I met a guy and went out with him until it ended.

I might have to start asking men out. Hand out my writing business card and say, email me, email me. Can I have your phone number? Do you think we could go out for a tea? The worst anyone can say is no.

Maybe I could learn how to be less tortured and more damsel? Maybe I could treat this whole romance thing like job hunting apply for a lot of jobs until I find the right one. Who knows? But there sure is something in the air. So many men all sorts of time...

EY

Stank
Topic: Freeflow
Wednesday 10:03pm 23Aug06

Someone asked me today, "would your cats mind if I came over?"
I told him they didn't really care if anyone comes over.

Sitting here watching them sleeping peacefully on objects they've decided are cat beds, I wonder what they would say.

sniff, sniff, "you stank!"
"who's stank?"
"he's stank!"
as they walk away giggling.

I realize that I've lost the word stank from my vocabulary. For years everything that wasn't good was stank. I loved stank. It made me laugh. It made others laugh. How could anyone ever truly be insulted when you called them stankboy? I think I'm going to pull stank out of the vault. I'll drop it a few times in front of my impressionable work mate who I taught how to use fuckface in a sentence.

Yeah, stank is back...

EY
still stankin after all these years!

Second Thoughts
Topic: Freeflow
Saturday 5Aug06 10:40am

There's a reason to take your time.
Those small annoyances that creep up unexpectedly:
his tone of voice, a shortness that pinches your feelings, a smile that veils possible outbursts.
He’s not the person you thought he was.
His true colors vibrant with emotion, a negative attitude.
A new uneasy air hangs between you. Yesterday your heart fluttered, today your mind seeks escape.
Time to rethink that fantasy of possibilities in his eyes.

EY