Tag: creative non-fiction

Vitamin C(an) D(o)

My sister once (and repeatedly since!) insists Vitamin C by Can sums up the grey months in Seattle. She’s not wrong. Ok, fine. She’s right.

That’s hard to say as an older sister.

She also told me about this

Sadness Hides the Sun thing.

Too sad, sister.

Party foul!

Party fowl.

I’m chicken o’ that kinda sad.

Cut it out.

Now

Pitter Patter

There’s blue sky

and the sun’s jutting outta the grey

but it’s not gonna last all day!

Sometimes you gotta run at it

or walk at quickly

(seriously girl-don’t blow them knees out!)

ha

Troubadoursome

This is how she came to know he was Troubadour,

true.

She had loved fellows of music, letters, substances, and substance.

not quite men, yet.

She listened to their odes to women,

other.

Just as lovesome as anything else she had heard.

Love is effortless, but not always loving of itself.

(in-) sufficient.

(not) entitled.

(not) privledged

(dis-) content

At least there was content.

but troubadour’s don’t flee but rather

they incline to persue.

Perhaps it was a simple matter of time.

Some move through it more quickly than others.

She looked 150 years younger than she probably was.

(and still she felt she looked too old! ha!)

but, he had gotten it just right, at least in her eye.

res ges’tae (Latin)

Inclination of the Needle

(dip of the magnetic needle)

illude

(trick, delude)

illudere

(promising)

illywhacker

(confidence trickster)

Illocution

(an action performed by saying or writing something. promise)

idempotent

( < math. an element of a set which is unchanged in value when operated

on by itself )

idem

( < Latin. ‘same‘ ; French. ‘somme‘ )

idée fixe

( obsession < French lit. ‘fixed idæ‘ )

idée reçue

( generally accepted concept < French lit. ‘received idæ’ )

Curious and Capricious

Curious and curiouser.

you’ve heard that, right?

Do you remember Jacob and Esau?

How Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated?

That quintessential golden child and magical child.

Arch.

Jacob and Esau are both parts comprising Alice Ladder.

But, Alice Ladder does not reduce to the sum of her parts.

Alice Ladder is greater than the sum of her parts. constituency.

Did anyone tell Jacob and Esau that they were two sides of one coin?

Janus.

Bachus.

guarding the present now from the encroachment of past and/or future.

God/dess of doors.

Persephone

God/dess of staircases.

Someone let that poor girl out of the basement.

It’s the time of the season they let her out, right?

Scoop and abscond.

We have many more blind spots than the vehicles we proudly drive

It’s stupid, actually,

Kinda funny.

Like when people fall down.

Highlarious, I don’t care who ya are!

Bipedal locomotion is not the most efficient in terms of energy expenditure.

That really comes through when we fall down.

Just a bunch of stupid, lovesome monkies!

As Good as our Questions? (free write)

The question insisted on itself a little over 10 years.

Why do I do the things I do?

Why do I do anything?

Do I really know, moment to moment?

Am I just a meatbag at the end? Consume, reproduce, sleep?

What is my motivation to action?

My action under intent?

I could not say then. It was quite alarming to realize. 22 years of acting per the ways one should act.

I still don’t know (don’t contractions make confessional narrator’s sound so much more natural-less like a prick).

I believe the question is worthwhile for all us h. sapiens.

The question in my mind’s eye, by dint of everyone else’s minds’ eyes, is:

Do I need to be brought to heel? Or, is that what others believe should happen.

Beheeled?

When does anyone cross the line separating contribution from domination (or isolation)?

How do we know if our actions end up hurting people? Really, though. Do we / can we care? Is caring creepy nowadays? Rhetorical, and or to be discussed without me. Philosophical systems of morality bumm me out.

Maybe we should answer those questions ourselves and then compare answers. Not the other way around.

No, I don’t really think we can hate anybody.

Least of all ourselves.

Myself is the continuous thread which I may pull,

said Alice Ladder.

Yes.

I did think everyone hated me. I absconded to lonliness.

I did not know it. Could not dig it.

I let it hurt. Ha! I’m a dummy; that is how we do.

The way we get by.

That’s what it is.

Then, I did not feel it.

Isn’t that wild?

I’ve been considering errors in my judgement.

Error. Judge. Does not compute.

Try. How could I try harder? What did the recent “Tries” teach me? How can I use that feedback for my future “Tries?”

After failing, how long did it take me to be able to Iaugh at myself?

I’m effing funny as hell, so not too long. Hopefully.

Silence reduces, extrapolates,

assumes

You and everyone else knows what I might know.

I assumed no one knew my mind. or what it sees.

Before that, I thought my mind and vision were identical to everyone’s.

Unashamed of naivety.

I have rushed at folks, like a real nut, to try to speak it aloud.

Indicate it. You can indicate anything you want.

Shocker (not The shocker).

What I now know is that I know very little.

Groups, collectively, know much.

The appearance of secrets is sometimes more alarming than the secret itself.

People and folks are not different from me, us, and ya’ll-

Specifically, ya’ll privileged.

Us privileged;

NOT entitled.

Life is a dream of a game, but, yet; it’s not such to everyone.

emic. etic.

micro. macro.

Everyone is much more like you than you may think.

So, yeah, you, me, we, us, are NOT special.

Once we stop fretting about being what we cannot be,

we feel special

we feel alive and authentic.

I oscillate between cold-eye wolf stares;

wide-eyed, full of light, terror.

Complete absurdity (shit be funny. re: people falling down).

and curiosity.

and I remain open to be corrected; and,

have only headbutted a few people this week. improvement!

Passing Time After Cancelling Dinner with the Parents of your Ex ( i.e. Saturday getdown)

Anon, anon.

tried to guess different ways to write it.

she’s cagey!

Time to Revive Hartz & rexamine American Exceptionalism?

Embodying an absolute moral ethos, “Americanism,” once it is driven onto the world stage by events, is inspired willy-nilly to reconstruct the very alien things it tries to avoid. Its Messianism is the polar counterpart of its isolation. Americans seem to oscillate between fleeing from the rest of the world and embracing it with too ardent a passion. An absolute national morality is inspired to withdraw from “alien” things or to transform them-It cannot live in comfort constantly by their side.

Louis Hartz. American Exceptionalism. 1955.

Thoughts are with those hurting tonight after the violent events.

Let’s try harder to do better.

10/26

dreamt. vaguely. My parents and sister were there. Don’t think I ever “saw” them

flux

everyone flitting about doing “their bit” – dunno

I didn’t have a bit that I knew about.

vague surprise from family

I consider seeking out a bit to do,

it seems incorrect though

inaction, waiting for things to slow

grey out…

Back on my Literacy Soapbox

First things first: Thank you educators (formal and informal). You guys are on the front lines doing something about literacy issues.

With our digital world still unfolding and it currently being the wild, wild west of the world, I worry there has been a tendency to view words as inferior to numbers. Reading is seen as escapism, a hobby, and other whimsy. Literacy starts meaning the ability to read a newspaper, which is written on an 8th grade level. What do we mean by literate?

The ability to grasp meaning from language requires a capacity to hold those abstract principles in your mind and then critically apply those abstractions to yourself. Sure, a 10 year old girl reading Anne of Green Gables, is absolutely doing this. Even if she’s reading for a school assignment and hates every second of it: she will have a feeling about what she reads and that feeling becomes opinion which she then must express in both a written and oral book report. Then she has learned to think for and express herself and her own thoughts.

Working in risk management for businesses and professionals, my days involve a lot of reading of policy forms. That huge stack of papers they give you when buy, say, auto insurance. Not the page that shows your coverage limits (commonly called or declarations page) but all the stuff after it, that is a legally binding contract you paid money to sign. Consider court documents and the language of laws. Reading a court filing yesterday, I hit a word I did not know. I have 4 print dictionaries I consult for such things. The word was in none of them and I could not find much online either. I was outraged.

I consider the work of promoting literacy to include the right to readability of “binding written agreements.” Things like state and federal law, how voting works, court papers and explanations of rights and lead options, credit card and bank agreements and capitalization and interest practices, student loan education.

The list goes on. My point is: there are ways language can be used to obfuscate instead of illuminate. The less we read the more likely we are to not even notice it. That is not a fair game; everyone deserves equity.

Churches, churches, churches

They are quite magnificent in their way. Most steeples had working bells. Sundays sounded with the pealing of afternoon bells.

Alabam

Alabama is strange and gothically beautiful. A charming place to encounter, but a contentious place to live. At least for me. So I left, but do like remembering.

The Gulf of Mexico is only a few hours away. Summer vacations at Destin or Pensacola Beach. The sand there is soft and fine and white. The gulf waters are lighter and vibrant like the Carribean waters southward. This contrasts with the deep blue, navy color characteristic of the Atlantic on the East Coast as well as the Pacific Ocean on the westcoast.

We’d invite our neighbors, the entire Cole family. Sadie and I were the same age-specifically, being in that thrilling 13-17 yr old range, where you are so excited to be seen and see. People were there year round because it was the cheapest family get away going, often referred to as the Redneck Riviera. My hair likes to curl in general. But, with salty water, hot breezes and 95% humdity, my hair would curl the way I wished it would everyday. Strong memories of walking the beach, feeling my hair blow in the coastal breeze, and being thrilled about how glamorous I surely looked.

The beach was good, you could be and act like yourself. Tuscaloosa required a bit more work. Sadie’s family did not “have a church” and my family, we were lower middle-class transplants upon arrival. There were the rich folks and there were the really poor folks, but not a lot in between.

Tuscaloosa is the center of high society for the state. Population just shy of 80,000. I remember hellacious springs that brought in the Azalea bush season. A staple of manicured landscapes. Ours were pink.

My Mom loved dogwood trees. They bloom quickly and lose their petals even quicker. The dogwood flower is symbolic of Christ’s crucifixtion (most everything in Alabama ends up being about Jesus though), accounting for much of their local popularity. We planted one when my grandmother died.

The Black Warrior river running alongside the heart of Tuscaloosa.

This historic trellis bridge on Black Warrior river demarks Tuscaloosa from Northport. Barges and tug boats frequent the water. There is a 3 mile river walk nestled into the shore of the river, and the University of Alabama is across the street. When classes are in sessions, students traditionally setup hammocks between two trees and study there. UA is a football, party, society schmooze school for the elite. There is an old joke that men attend the university to get an MBA degree (Master of Business Admin) while women attend to pursue their MRS degree (find a husband, get married) and so from Miss to Mrs. Gross, right? That is why this gal prefers to use no title before Casey, but when pushed, I always go with Ms. Just for mystery, ya know!

Best restaurant in the state. They do ribs with white bread. That is all. But the way they do it makes anything else seem unnecessary.

This is the University of Alabama.

This is the university during any given home football game.

Too many people for me, but they seem to have a real good time.

This was the safe place for punks, goths, and plain ole’ rock n’ roll animals like me.

Outside of Egan’s, it seemed masks got melted on faces and gender roles became horrific molds to be fit.

Tuscaloosa society gals, begin preparing in high school with debutante balls, antebellum societies, and finally culminating into rushing a sorority and hoping they let you in. Rock n’ roll animals like me, avoided the feck out of these parades.

Spent a lot of time in this theatre. Remains my favorite theatre to this day.

This is Moundville. The peoples who built the land up so and lived here, were one of the most complex civilizations of their time. I majored in Anthropology, so I spent summers doing archeaology fieldwork for class credit. Totally not as romantic as it might sound, but who doesn’t like digging around in the dirt from time to time.

Tuscaloosa gets dozens of tornadoes every spring. The twister in this picture resulted in one of the most expensive (to rebuild) disasters in US history, following right behind the hurricane damage.

After shot below.

By a bit of water

After her meander, she soon spotted him sitting in the tall grass with an unlit smoke hanging off his lip, facing the bottleneck where the narrow little creek began to come together on itself and collect into a pond. A dam edged the flow at the far side of the water and a fishladder sat right alongside this spillway.

Salmon spawned and climbed there. But not yet, as fall was only now making the scene.

She wonders what he is seeing. What made him sit down in the first place?

His back faced her and yet she knew he was gone. Mentally absconding down some path, having been beckoned by guazy spirits within his imagination. She liked to watch his corporeal form when the immaterial consumed his attention.

It was the way his neck worked. Parallel thrusts of unnoticed nuchral rigidity held his head fast and at its present attention. The slope delineated by neck becoming shoulders.

She considered breaking his reverie, but chose to keep still in the moment with him and bask in the felicific tension.

In the suspension of outcome;

the bit before the finale;

the desire for denouement.

Dream of Troubadours

I dream troubadours whisper Provencal words against my neck.

An apothegm: my legs will not stop shaking.

An aphorism: about that which one does not know, one might do best by remaining silent.

Breathe, hold it in and hold in stillness, then release.

Prudence and patience,

my prowess has power adapted to the need.

I work in mystery-the intersection of suspense and anticipation in a heavily muted silence.

Decorously discreet both in dire straits and in heedlessness.

My obliging pruriency sure hopes he pries.

Skech, Inc. [Sic]

PRODUCED BY-A Meandering Club & Gad About Co.

[AMC&GAC]

A Division of Grim Shadowy Form
A Limited Liability Company
[GSF,LLC]

__________________________________________

“No, Meg, don’t hope it was a dream. I don’t understand it anymore than you do. But one thing I have learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be…..”

The art of prose exists because the words are not objects but designations for objects.

Prose is an attitude of mind.

Beauty hides in a book; It acts by persuasion like the charm of a voice or a face. It does not coerce; it inclines a person without his suspecting it, and he thinks that he is yielding to arguments when he is really being solicited by a charm he does not see.

The dead are there [in the library]; The only thing they have done is write. They’ve long since been washed clean of the sin of living and their lives are known only through books which other dead men have written about them.

In one sense, it is a possession; The reader lends himself to the dead in order that they might come back to life.

In another sense, it is contact with the beyond.

Literature and Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre

…………gather round the children and elders, as I will tell a tale of Once, Back When We All Lived In The Forest…….

The tale is nothing, if not novel and authentic. I readily admit the probable likelihood of disputes issuing forth once I’ve told my unheard tale.

You’ll say that you have heard this one from somewhere before.

The sensation persuading you to disbelieve me is itself the evidence that I advance in support of the validity of the two assertions I aver of my tale-it is untold and authentic.

For, do you not know that all tales of, Once, When We All Lived In The Forest, are the same tale being told anew in novel forms. The stories endure existence because we never stop wanting to hear them. We never stop wanting to hear them because we’ve always heard them. But, it is not in the way we hear phones ring, cars alarm,or birds chirp.

The sound of a story is the sound of one’s own pulse. Can you really conceive of the sound that your pulse makes? I experience my pulse, more than I hear it-although it certainly is audible. After physical exertion, I hear it loudly, sometimes, even ringing in my ears until my heartbeat begins to still. Fear, complete quiet, and stillness make my own pulse sound the loudest.

The sound of my pulse goes unnoticed by my awareness most of the time. I presume this results from my awareness having been exposed to the constant, continuing sound of my pulse during every single moment of my existence.

Eventually, my brain said, “Enough! Let’s just tune that one out. We’ve got more stimuli in this very second than the sense facilities of this meat bag could ever experience, let just go ahead and not waste energy on perceiving the pulse. That sound will continue until the meat bag dies. I know avoiding death is sort of what my job here is all about, but we don’t need to monitor for the sound of the pulse. With pulse, I’m willing to go on the honor system. Besides, if I always listen for the pulse and the pulse is always audible until ceasing at death, I will never hear it cease because its cessation is the end of my ability to hear. “

So it is with story. The ‘me,”myself,’ and, ‘I’ (used when a self references its own self hood) exist because humans have story as a sense organ. The organ differentiates humans from other mammals.

The story organ creates a self out of the development of a homo sapien. What human can be said to not have self-hood?

What is a self and how is it by which some organisms and not others come to possess self hood? Is it possible to possess self hood but have no awareness of your own self?

Is was another day.

The sun shied back into the woods, partially concealed behind a cloak of mist and residual angular trajectory.

It gave the morning a quintessence of allure and glamour, even including that tinge of melancholy which the Vested feel.

I suppose nostalgia may be a more apt descriptor than melancholy.

Then again, I guess both words are completely right & dexter yet, simulateously, inappropriate.

The sun tests the boundary condition between night and day; everyday it rises.

I test the boundary condition within to see how supple and malleable I be without shattering into infinity just yet.

The woods have eyes too… he, he

Slightly aggressive, especially if feeling

Partially cornered

Total arousal of senses. Endocrine ; adrenaline ; spite but not smite at The Smug who think shes blind.

Eyes cutting sidewards, upwards to the left or downwards

i.e. any way but candidly.

Only one mouse spoke words to make her honest shudders occur.

UnLike the ignorant liars, soothsayers, mad pipers, would be priors, et al.

Facading smile worn in protection of someone or something. Such a precious, protective pretense should be judged not.

We keep Stretching until tendons roll over bits of lingering softness.

Until ligaments distend symmetricaly and transform that which was almost unrecognizable into something that is inexorably unrecognizable.

Watch “James Brown – Soul Power. 1971 (12″ Long Version)” on YouTube

Dont own rights, paying mad homage.

Soul Power reminds me of Bowie/Ziggy’s Soul Love

Give it to me, put it back

Can we go to the bridge now?

I wanna go to the bridge…..me too!

I wanna get under your skin.

Gotta feeeeyeeel it.

I need help, I cant do it alone

Come back for more, say it again, come back for more.

Say it again!

You, ball on tha bound, you gotta get down.

You heard him, do your lil thing.

Watch “Iggy Pop – The Passenger” on YouTube

https://youtu.be/hLhN__oEHaw

Dont own rights, but iggy owns rights to US punk verbe.

This has been reincarnated, to my limited experience, twice ( ala Michael Hutchence < of INXS, RIP > and the miraculous Deftones and MJK).

Listen to this track on great headphones and hear so much additional quintessence.

Casey Adams shared an answer on Quora with you

Why does this Harvard mathematician say that science is built upon the axiom “0 exists”? by Joshua Engel https://www.quora.com/Why-does-this-Harvard-mathematician-say-that-science-is-built-upon-the-axiom-0-exists/answer/Joshua-Engel?ch=99&share=e5b9759c&srid=CWTwk

I do the words and let others do the math, generally speaking.

So , I appreciate those that can communicate numbers into words.

Words should still not be considered second to numbers.

It’s not a competition, to say the absolute least.