A new friend

Took a break from work to walk down by the water. I was sitting on the water's edge contemplating life and sunshine when a little boy sat down beside me. His grandfather was right behind him.

The kid pointed out the ducks and seagulls swimming on the river. He was excited by boats speeding by.

When his grandfather suggested that they continue walking, the little boy grabbed my hand.

I walked with them down to the Coast Guard station that sits on the river where I needed to say goodbye and get back to work.

The Boys of Summer

Around the country Opening Day is this weekend. My favorite teams' pitchers are above in honor of the occassion that kicks off the best season of the year: baseball season!

God it really isn't funny

Dear God,

While you might think some things are funny, they're not.

After flying in to John Wayne airport, being super dehydrated from the plane, and dead tired, I know you challenged Irvinians to hide all ATMs from visitors. You know I needed cash to get my Peanut Butter, Honey, and Banana sandwich from the Shake Shack at Crystal Cove.

Then there was the time you had the lady at Hertz give me a Taurus knowing Fords have the most flawed cup holder design in the world. It took me a half an hour to find the damn thing to put my coffee in.

Yes, it would have been faster driving across McArthur with the coffee cup in my lap on my way to the office. But we all know that is why McDonalds was sued. I don't particularly want to have second degree burns on my legs because I could not find a cup holder.

Your attempts at humor were not limited to my trips out to California either. There was the time I did the Poo Poo dance while hiking up the side of mountain 'cause I drank Soy Milk that morning. Don't think I didn't hear you laughing.

There was the time I fell down the steps while talking about boys with friends. My butt was bruised for a month!

Your humor needs an update God. At least when it comes to me. Can we take me out of the Keystone Cop era? I am tired of doing pratfalls for your amusement.

I have another point of contention to discuss with you, my neurosis. Yes, I thought you made me slightly neurotic to help satisfy your unending need for laughter. But I am damn neurotic.

How did I not know this until now? What else are you hiding from me?

Can we discuss my need to solve all the world's puzzles? I mean the mental ones. If I start receiving jigsaw puzzles as Christmas gifts, I am heading to the other side; the Southern Baptists. I'm not bluffing.

Also why can't I accept some things as they are? Some of it is a mental game and keeps me sharp. i.e. trying to fix blogger's posting from Word that changes all my apostrophes into question marks. You know I am going to attempt to fix it without getting instructions.

Let's keep my neurosis down to a minimum, and I'll shelve the humor discussion for now.

Love,
Michelle

Thanks Voix de Michele for giving me the idea to play with this style.

The Science of Breathing

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Stressed. I breathe faster, shallow.
The world is spinning too fast for me.

Relaxed, I breathe slower, rhythmic.
Wisdom are my actions and motions

Not finding my breath, the world ceases to exist
I work solely on substaining a breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathing is voluntary motion and
Apathy is my abhorrence.

The Whirling Dervish

Cincysundevil made a suggestion that a music list of new artists be started.

I agree with him. All of us are head over heals about some new artist. Why not post it somewhere?

I am not sure of the essential hows and wheres, but I do think it is a great idea.

I've made a list of some of the stations I listen to and some of the music blogs out there. There are ton. I don't want to start a music blog per se but just get a feel for a few bands that are others are listening to without wading through the ...

I listen to everything. I mean everything, but my roots lie in punk ska and alternative. SO if you are browsing through the list on the sidebar, you'll have some idea of where these places will take you. ( I say that as I am listening to Coltrane. You never know. )

I'm adding suggested artists to the list as I get them.

On the highway

Once upon a time, in a land of the early twentydoms, four friends, two boys who were alcoholics and two girls who were best friends, set out on a trip across the country. Their goal was Boulder, Colorado in time for the June graduation of one friend's sister. In the two weeks in between, the foursome planned on the Grand Canyon and Vegas, baby.

The only thing standing in friends' way was Alabama, as in getting out of the state of. The friends had left Atlanta six hours before, at four in the afternoon, in the hopes of resting in Memphis, Tennessee before hitting Little Rock for sleep.

Remember the alcoholics? A trend had started that the best friends did not know how to stop and resulted in the never ending quest to get the hell out of Bama. The alcoholics would ask to stop for beer and then ask to stop to go to the bathroom. If the girls tried to refuse either the requests for bathroom or alcohol, the boys would 'go' in left over bottles.

Gross, right? That's what the girls thought. To avoid the disgusting the girls acquiesced to the boys request to go to the bathroom every five minutes not sure what was a bathroom trip and what was a beer run. Most often it was both. Through the night and along the rural stretch of highway, the ritual continued.

Twelve hours after the trip began, Memphis was finally in site. Exhausted the two girls, cause there was no way that the boys would be allowed to drive, pulled the car over at a motel in order to sleep.

Three hours later the foursome was back on the road.

Going to My Happy Place

Cropped from Sunday's paper:

The Interview

If I question this and then question that will I ever have an answer?

Does circling around from a different view point really tell much about a person anyway?

Will I continually drive myself into a padded room from so much analysis?

How much analysis is really needed to answer this question?

Do all the answers ever get to the heart of the human connection?

Watching the News this AM

I noticed that once again my Final Four picks are demolished.

• Duke's upset! UNC's upset! Gonzaga's upset! What is the world coming to? The only one in my four left is BC. I should pray for an upset.
• The only good thing is that I don't actually watch these games. The Final Four is a work habit I picked up. (My sports weakness is baseball.)

Texas has a new law that a person cannot be drunk inside a bar.

• Why?
  
• Does this mean the movie Barfly will never get remade?
• Are we re-entering prohibition?
  

For more relevant news, i.e. more interesting to me, see Voix 's music series or Cincysundevil's I Might As Well Get Ready for Reunion Tours (3/19).

I stole this from Bookfraud: The What classic punk band are you Test

Dead Kennedy's

If you are as crazy about music as I and want an influx of new music, check out these sites that allow you to customize your own personal radio Pandora and Launchcast, and music news is on You Ain't no Picasso - a blog site dedicated to music with audio clips. I am currently checking out My Space's music page for value.

I am looking for good new music. Let me know if you have any sites or bands.

Continuance

I never believed in love at first sight until then.

Maybe that was just chemistry. The world needs illusions especially when the war begins.

Battles rage inside between the heart and the head. Normally the head wins.

Reeling from every over-exposed nerve and overwhelmed by emotion, the brain could not keep up with the thump of the heart.

Absorbing all the information from what was said and not said, I connected the dots to the knowledge I already knew about him, creating new dots to be connected with incoming precious information at later time. This man quickly became an intricate part of my life.

Could life be changed in just one moment?

Synopsis

The feeling. Falling in love. The feeling was a first, the first time. Standing out from all the ones before, the crushes and infatuations.

A wealth of emotions, a whirlwind, never feeling so alive.

A first step refusing the slightest of imitations; no work of fiction captures this essence. Shunning all medias except one; music.

Billie Holiday soothes the senses; tingling from exploring so much, relaxing the mind into a state of happiness; enjoying the moments.

Even though the feeling is lingering in the past, a fundamental part of me has changed from the monumental awakening.

My Fuzzy Slippers

I wonder why the Keyspan Energy guy was laughing when I let him in wearing these?

Dreams of Platelets

"I had a really weird dream last night. "

No matter how many times that line is said, I am still drawn in. My response is always, "Really! Tell me about it."

Yesterday I blamed my mom for embarrassing me. Today I blame her for my interest in dreams. Dreams are fascinating. I'm a bit Freudian that way.

Whether someone dreams in color or black and white doesn't matter too much to me. The juxtaposition of activities in someone's life and how they manifest in that someone's dreams is what I find interesting.

I wonder if dreams help people figure out dilemmas. I wonder how much what people dream affects their moods for the day.

That said, I dreamed last night I needed to donate platelets.

Not an interesting or weird dream and it does nothing for my mood today. I do feel the need to schedule an appointment with the Red Cross.

The Search for Writers

Had an email conversation recently about writer's groups or poetry groups near me. I have been to one other writer's group at Barnes and Noble. B&N hosts writer's groups at certain locations in Mass.

The first time I attended a writer's group at B&N my mom was in town. My mom has written periodically for a local paper in Maine. I thought she'd enjoy going with me, my roommate at the time- Silva and Jen.

The meeting went well. I had enough back material to keep me covered.

After the meeting, my mom was discussing something with another writer. I was standing by her waiting to leave. My face looked interested, but all I was thinking was 'how much longer do I have to stand here?'.

Jen and Silva were psssstting me. I gave the "hold on a minute" sign because the other writer was speaking.

Now I don't know why, actually I do - her name is my mom and her goal is my marriage to anyone which she discusses frequently and had done so on the way to B&N- Jen and Silva start giggling and whisper loudly "he's married."

I, mortified, whisper back, "hush", while probably shaking my head and making a face. Smiling politely at the writer and my mom. I join my friends, smack them on the arm, and head for whatever mission they wanted me for, which I admit was better than standing listening to my mom and said writer.

Could I go back to that group of writers? I did every other week until I moved. The need to share writing was more important than the embarrassment.

Now I live two hours away from these writers and am looking for a new group. A poetry group would be great.

I went to my Yahoo Yellow Pages. There is actually a section under Entertainment and Arts called writers. The section doesn't help me but the names are entertaining for a minute. Braile Robert, Polese Clancy, Beach Brooke Productions, Zyla Gail Communications. Zyla is my favorite. Though I do like Polese Clancy.

I am looking back to B&N for writer's groups nearest me.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Drop by the Carnival of the Mundane VI at breadandbread.blogspot.com.

Update: Cheryl at Bread and Bread was victim of Blogger's technical difficulties. Check back later with her.

Good Green Day!

Stream of Consciousness

Thank you Stephanie for the good advice about poetry submissions. You helped me to have faith in my poetry and to submit what is not necessarily a favorite.

The other day I walked down to the water after being cooped up inside for too long. Writing overtook me:

The water is moving rapidly today
I sit here and feel the moisture in the wood from last night's rain
A front is coming in
I don't need the weather man to tell me
I can feel it in the wind as it blows my hair in front of my eyes
Making my writing hard to see
I see the front coming in the river's choppy waves
The sun is out and really that is what I care about
Too many storms and overcast days have clouded my mind for sometime
I write better here even with the seagull staring at me
Reminding me that Hitchcock was a genius
He wants food and is only three feet from me
All I have is coffee
I wonder what a hopped up on caffeine seagull would look like

Contemplating my Toenails

Chutzpah -I entered a poetry contest which asks for unpublished work. Do blogs and internet sites count? Can I send in my work to an online blog site at the same time? I find not sending in my favorite poems difficult.

Toxicity - I wrote, at the beginning of the year, that last year was a particularly hard one. The latter half of the year was filled with crisis after crisis. I am getting my emotional bearings. The ahhhhgggggg is finally leaving my head.

The third decade - From my teens through my twenties, a group of friends would always hang around together. As Erica pointed out, we would splinter off into smaller subsets as people came and went. The core was always there. Still is.

That core has moved outward now into different cities. As I talk to my friends I see a pattern. Finding people to support us in different activities is difficult. i.e. I like to go dancing. I have a friend that will do that, but she lives in Augusta. When we meet up, then we go.

Is making plans with friends who have the same commonalities harder in your thirties because that is the decade where most people focus on family and being a family ( I am single. Most of my friends are not.), or do I find it harder because I come from a close-knit group who had been together so long?

Drinking Problem - I seem to miss my mouth, always catching the outer corner, when drinking coffee from cups with lids.

Music - I love music. Avid music lover. All forms. All the time. My ultimate job is helping people fulfill their dreams. If that job involves music, my passion, all the better. Working on it.

Union

Two years ago my best friend married the love of her life. They have two beautiful children, and they are truly a wonderful family.

I want to commemorate their wedding anniversary with the poem I wrote then. I love you both.

Union

Sacred are these things

The individual soul holds more promise than all the sun and stars
The universe holds no secrets as compared to all that is locked in a soul

A marriage brings together two souls to unlock the harmonies
Igniting, shining the love to all those who would bear witness

A family. And the world is changed forever.
Synergy of unconditional love brings forth a continually bigger circle

Miracles of the world look forward to rare events as these
Events that are three, have been made

Strength of these bonds are not binding, But freeing

To be the essence of you without restriction
To have another's acceptance and encouragement to just be

They say all that glimmers is not gold
Yet, all that shines as brightly as the sun is greater than the light

Now you know better riches than all the kings
Now you know life for what it is

Hold these moments close to your heart; therein lies the beauty
It will carry you forth forever and a day in love that holds you now sway

All that you are due is now in your possession
Happiness is fragile wings that can be forged into tempered steel

Steel that will lift you higher than you been
Protect you from the darkness and be your light

Sacred are these things to hold

Update: Flat Stanley In Boston

Flat Stanley went back last week to Atlanta. We (Jenn, Robin and I) miss him. My friend Jenn wanted to take Stan the Man to Germany with her. For a flat guy, he was a lot of fun.

Stan has an interesting way of meeting people. While taking picutures, people would call out to us,
"Flat Stanley?"
Us with huge grins: Yeah!
Stranger 1: Take him to the Constitution
Stranger 2: You really outta take 'em to the bah pahk (Fenway).
Stranger 3: We took ours to Hahvahd.

Here's some picture we did take. ( I have no formatting ability with pictures.)

First picture is of Stan in front of Frog Pond in Boston Common. He used to be able to ice skate. I offered to take him out on the ice but he left his jacket in Georgia and was wee bit cold.

Stan and I thought it was too cold to walk to the Constitution. We're babies. We tried to capture the ship from Cobb's cemetary. Unfortuantely, you cannot make out the ship through the branches.

We headed to the Old North Church and I posed.

Two days later Stan and I went to Concord and stood outside Hawthorne's house.

Here's to you Stan!

Rambling thoughts

I recently made a comment on one of my favorite blog sites; Voix de Michele, that set off a discussion on another favorite blog site, Cleopatra's Kitten.

Both site's posts have given me a lot to think about. Issues that I have been weighing on this site. How much do I post and how personal can it be?

I like to think of this site as a place where I can work out the ramblings in my head while improving my writing. Yet, some of the thoughts involve other people whom some readers know. These are not bad thoughts. I don't want to cause a gossip chain or unintentionally hurt someone.

I want to have the confidence to own this site, much as I own my poetry, whether the readers are there or not .

Julie and Michele have voiced this discussion more eloquently than I. (I am stringing together the sentences from their posts that provoked the most thought.)

Julie: "At the risk of starting a polemic, my theory of audience can be summarized in this way: Traditional readers (of books) give, bloggers take." To elucidate my theory, I think blogs are about the bloggers, not audiences. And I believe that books, journals, and magazines function in the opposite way. But when we blog, we are blogging for ourselves. ...blogs can give a blogger the impetus to continue with his or her writing

Michele: I spent the rest of the day tumbling this comment around in my brain and wondering about the value of maintaining this space as a road map of my emotional truths.... about the value of making the discernment of emotions clear. Perhaps this blog of mine is my rope ladder to self-confidence? Or maybe it's woven more like a fishing net -- infinite numbers of diamonds connected together, anchored to the place I used to be, raising up into the sky, waiting for me to climb higher and higher to a new platform -- to a place where I not only claim my truth, but I believe it.


Musings...

The Little Things

Music is the happiness that bursts on a bubble blown by child
Floats on the air
Surrounds the soul in melody
Dances harmony in between heartbeats

Baseball spring training games are underway. Winter is finally releasing her hold. The Cheap Suits CD is on its way. The Cars are back together for a reunion concert.

I am happy sitting in the sun.


Update: Dahli asked how can a Cars reunion can take place without Ben Orr? Enter Todd Rundgren. Not the same I know.... Will keep update to date on this. I also hear Rick Ocasek may not be on the tour which is a let down, but look at this way Spring is COMING!!!!

The Thin Man

With the Oscars fresh and inspiration rambling in my head by this post from Neil, I decided to write about my favorite romantic comedies. Just feeling the springtime.

The Thin Man series makes my all time favorite movies list and best romantic comedy. Why? There was COMEDY in that them there romantic comedy.

The dialogue was subtle and startled laughter right out of you. The brilliant writing team of Albert Haclutt and Frances Goodrich have no equal. The story is no where near the match of the dialogue but the dialogue....

Nora: (commenting on another character's beauty) Pretty girl.
Nick: Yes, she's a very nice type.
Nora: You got types?
Nick: Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

Maybe seems cheesy, but I like my cheese and this cheese was excellent. William Powell, Nick, and Myrna Loy, Nora, were geniuses of comedic timing. Doris Day and Rock Hudson had nothing on them.

I wish the current movie world would take lessons from The Thin Man series. I'll take brilliant wit and dialogue any day over cookie cutter stories.

Just musing.

The Fiercest Test Yet

I was feeling rather sunshiny. I still am actually, but having seen yesterday's Yahoo news item (seen below), I am not going to keep my political mouth shut.

Even though I don't agree with abortion, I think abortion is the most personal decision a woman can make. I still believe that abortion comes under a woman's (and actually a man's) right to choose.

I think in today's society with so much prevention available, even in a bathroom of the clubs, I have a hard time understanding why abortion is a common choice. I think the ease in choosing abortion may have more to do with how women see themselves in the sexual process. Which is sad. The self esteem issues, the fear, the ignorance... sad sigh.

In this time of my life, I understand what a young woman can't see beyond and know her life is not over. I can't condemn what people don't know or what fear is preventing them from knowing.

I've never been a situation where I needed an abortion, but I've been to the clinic with two of my friends. Once in high school and once in college. I've seen the protesters outside the clinic who claim so much love and spew hate. Those are the people who terrify me.

I've seen the psychological effects of the process on the women who underwent the procedures then and now. I have a different friend now who rips herself apart because she can't have children. Women who can't seem to help each other.

The person I am today, who wants children and realistically may not have any is against abortion at a very personal level. Yet I still advocate the right of choice because women are left on their own to fend for their health. Women need to be in charge of their health and women's health issues are not taken seriously enough.

The argument over the issue is a sad one. I have no answers, but if I remembered correctly, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal because of privacy rights implied in the First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. Because privacy rights are sacred, I am scared for this law to be overturned. (on more than just abortion issues, but I'll save that post for another day.)

Yahoo News Item on Abortion

S.D. Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

PIERRE, S.D. - Gov. Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973
U.S. Supreme Court' decision that legalized abortion.

The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman's life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest.

Star Coffee Wars

Starbucks and the local coffee houses
(repost from 11/04)

Today I visited what has been called the Evil Empire or more exactly that "blood sucking corporation" I'm still not sure why the Empire is called that. OK, I sorta get it. Anyhow, the Empire was busy as it usually is on days like today. I looked for Darth Vader, but he was nowhere in sight. I didn't want to stand in line; so I went up the street to the local coffee shop.

The locals usually get to the Empire earlier or they start at the local shop. Actually there are five places here where you can get a caffeine fix like the one I needed today. I prefer the cappuccinos from the Evil Empire. Their coffee though sucks. That goes for their tea as well

At the local, I saw Darth Vader sipping on chamomile and jasmine tea. He had his mask off so he looked human. I had to laugh. He was just lounging

There is an economic philosophy, economies of agglomeration, that says business increases by opening stores that sell the same products within a certain radius. All five coffee shops do a great business.

The evil empire really hasn't harmed business for anyone. People go into the store name they remember and, overwhelmed by the line, move to one of the other four caffeine shops, all locally owned. They may even get a better cup of joe or discover the world outside of coffee.

Hmmm... Soothing tea, hot chocolate, root beer floats; remember them? I think I fall in love with floats every year. Floats are rememberences of being a child again.

So is Darth Vader the father of Skywalker? I guess it's kinda how you look at it; the chicken or egg argument. Do you believe Darth kicked off the trend of coffee shops? If so, then the local ones wouldn't exist?Hmmm... maybe not.

The bad news is the Empire has a plan to triple the numbers of stores they have and add some stores with drive-thrus. Yes, I said triple, encouraging an already lazy nation to become even lazier. The Empire grows more dominant.

Here's what's good about the Empire: consumers can buy Fair Trade and shade grown, read less bitter, coffee in the same, if not better, percentages that they can buy it at their local grocery. Local coffee houses don't know shade grown and fair trade coffee from a hamburger.

Does this mean Skywalker has no chance? Have faith young Jedi. The coffee house is an institution that goes back to the 1500s where ideas, arts; enlightenment have been exchanged. That will not stop.

The battle will be long, fierce and silent, where consumers hold all the power over the outcome.