Writing

I’ve decided to challenge myself by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is 50K words in 30 days. I’ve had several books on my mind, but have gone with the one I feel is the most developed of those. While it isn’t the fantastic story I want to work with my friend Daniel on, I think it will be great to finally get it out. I have to keep reminding myself that I can develop some of the story as I write and I can do fine-tuning when I edit. I have a lot of questions about the direction the novel will take and I look forward to seeing where these characters end up. I’m spending this week on my main characters, writing back stories and descriptions that will help me understand them as I go along. I personally find it helpful to name my characters first, but I often change that in the end. Naming them just allows me to start ‘talking to them’ and getting into who they are. If this goes well, I feel like I could be finally headed in the right direction.

I’ve also revisited an idea I’ve had for a long time of creating a book of short stories, poems, artwork, etc. I’d collect submissions from current of past booksellers, likely those I’ve worked with… or those people who exist on the periphery of the bookselling world. I just have to get through to those who find the idea dumb.

Lastly, while looking through my notes concerning the novel I’ll be working on in November I came across a poem I had written in 2008. It needed a little work, so I’ve polished it a bit. Enjoy!

Daniel Naranjo
a platonic love poem

I itch for the subtle way joy emerges
from your face – overcome with yourself,
with yourself.
It’s lovely. You’re lovely.
You aren’t so familiar, aren’t so unfamiliar.
In the long months between,
everything misses you.
My senses feel achy and empty without
your enchanting aura of smoke and wine.
I smile, thinking of that laugh,
you know the one,
that erupts accidentally when you’ve
amused yourself.
God, I love that laugh.
You blew in on winds you could’ve
ridden forever, resigned to not settle,
loving the feel of the dust
whipping through your pores,
hair, teeth.
You seem reluctant,
you seem reluctant,
reluctant.
Or is that me?
I decided to write you a poem,
a poem of you, the you I know of,
the you who is only a slight version of you.
It took four years to say
things about your loveliness,
about the smoke and the wine,
about Oregon and Alaska,
about loving your laugh.
It wasn’t just joy, was it?
I detected some shame,
loved that shame, if that’s what it was,
wanted to live in that feeling.
I’ll remember that face,
remembering how much I love you,
and I’ll exist for a few seconds
in that moment, that feeling,
inside a space you created.
I believe in horses and you,
I believe in me and you,
I believe in you
and you.

10.25.2011

Next time, I’ll ask for help!

I received help with whatever I’d done to my site to make it disappear. It did take me a while to ask for help, but I’m back to it now.

My mom stayed at my house for a month, to close out the summer with me in Anchorage, her first trip to Alaska. It was nice to around another person who likes to create. Regardless of what it was, we were all about making something new. We took a class on using natural dyes; we created a nature journal to preserve the many pressed flowers she collected while she was here; we collaborated on a scrapbook of her trip, so she won’t have to do it later; and we experimented with new recipes and new foods. I’ll get some of our shenanigans listed here.

important advertisement!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PinkiesPalace

you MUST go to this shop and buy things. her work is lovely, as is she. I am in awe by the beauty she has found in simplicity. i hope to offer things one day that make people as happy as these things have made me.

now, stop reading and buy from carole!

What Am I Listening To?

I’m so glad you asked.

Here’s 15 of my favorite dance songs at the moment… the order changes for me hourly:

1. Rocket in the Sky // Benny Benassi
2. Available // Flo Rida
3. Alors On Dance // Stormae
4. Fireflies // Owl City
5. Revolver // Madonna
6. Q.I. // Mylène Farmer
7. Bad Romance // Lady Gaga
8. Pour Un Infidele // Coeur De Pirate & Julien Dore
9. Caught // Ari Gold
10. Hush Hush // The Pussycat Dolls
11. I Love My Sex // Benny Benassi
12. I Am the Body Beautiful // Salt-n-Pepa
13. Big and Chunky // Will.I.Am
14. Inside of Me // Benny Benassi
15. The Look Of Love (Madison Park Vs. Lenny B Remix) // Nina Simone

Here are 15 other songs I can’t stop listening to right now:

1. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love // Ethel Waters & Duke Ellington
2. You’re the Top // Ella Fitzgerald
3. Let’s Do It // Ella Fitzgerald
4. Miss Otis Regrets // Ethel Waters
5. It’s Only a Paper Moon // Paul Whiteman
6. It’s a Bore (from Gigi) // Louis Jourdan & Maurice Chevalier
7. Kristofferson’s Theme // Alexandre Desplat
8. Honeysuckle Rose // Django Reinhardt
9. Waltz At Maxim’s (She’s Not Thinking of Me) (from Gigi) // Louis Jourdan
10. Happy Feet // Paul Whiteman
11. Django’s Tiger // Django Reinhardt
12. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate // Madeleine Peyroux
13. Cette Chanson Est Pour Vous // Django Reinhardt & Jean Sablon
14. Gigi // Louis Jourdan
15. Mr. Fox In the Fields // Alexandre Desplat

I’m thinking of a reboot to my little blog universe here. Keep me in mind; I have not abandoned this exactly.

Quickly, before April is over, a rant

I’m really over all of the horror-infused classics.  It was clever when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith was new. It was amusing and fun — Jane Austen’s original, but with zombie parts that seemed to work in well. We could all see what was coming next. The genie had been let out of the bottle and everyone who had the slightest way of jumping on the bandwagon was going to do so. Now it seems that nearly every classic novel will be reworked with zombies, vampires, werewolves, or some other horror staple. I can’t be the only one who thinks it has run its course. To Mr. Grahame-Smith’s credit, his fresh idea wasn’t his only one. His new book is promising, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sure, it is in the same vein as his first work, but it is different. He’s moving forward, can’t everyone else already!?!

I’ve discovered music from the 1920s and 1930s. I’m hooked.

Lucky 13

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all. I’m spending my 13th* creating a special birthday present for Kerith. I’ll post a photo after I give it to her. Next year, I’ll attempt something more for this day. This year, low key feels just right.

*y’all know what it means… right?

Here’s Kerith’s gift.

Yep, it’s a two-headed giraffe.

Happy Birthday, Daniel

Daniel, thoughts about a friend on his birthday (mostly unfinished)

To be an artist and troubled,
untroubled, beautiful — as beautiful as you and…

My dreams seem more vivid than they used to;
I credit you, unsure of how you are responsible.

Everything your ex-lover does reminds me of you,
reminds me of laughter, but not his, of yours,
reminds me to stop and notice nature, reminds me…

You were looking back at me through
the ceramic eyes of that white stag.
You’re in everything. I wonder if you’re real, if you…

I’m whispering secrets about you
to myself on cold nights.
I’m wondering what you’re creating — love, beauty,
magic, great catastrophes, or…?

You’re still dancing through trees in my brain,
you are plucking the commonest items,
pointing out the simple beauty, the perfection, the…

I wonder what your skin feels like.

I’m in love with who I am when I remember I know you.

1.15.2010

Updates, awards

In addition to winning “Most Likely to Join a Cult in 2010,” I spent a lot of time updating my site. I’ve been adding my older xanga posts, but I think I’m going to reach back even further. I’d like this to be a sort of journaling gallery reaching back to my earliest journals, many of which are pretty funny… I was a dorky little kid. This is truly emotional exhibitionism.

I also did a bit of writing and thought a lot about John Haynes today. Today I transferred 2004; his death was a big part of that year. I do miss him.

Here are the poems I wrote today:

G

a squash blossom
perfect and lovely
so often overlooked.

1.1.2010

Autobiographie de Mom Affection

My heart is fragmented, the pieces promised to many and too few.
Wholeness feels distant, a great space waiting to be filled makes my own soul seem oddly empty.
Greatness has found me through those whose lives have been bigger than mine, more than mine – folks whose presence has occasioned my to feel touched by God.
I know a beautiful lady who seems younger each time I see her and have the fortune of calling her a friend and my mom.
I’ve known beautiful ladies who I feel connected to even years after death. Grandmothers, great grandmothers, great aunts, friends.
Life’s losses, so definingly sad for the melancholy are of people I love to remember. Friends, boisterous and infinitely humorous friends. The lives they touched now moving in various directions, away from them, not even grasping.
I’ve brothers and a father who have made some of the best friends of my life. They seem to loom above me, the things they’ve done so much more important that who I feel like I am at times. I love them for it.
Even children with their own special chaos find my heart and steal it. Nieces and nephews, little people I want great things for,
It’s me sometimes, but more often it is them. I’m not even a slight fraction of who I am without the friends and family that have made me, are still making me. My! How different things feel at thirty.

1.1.2010

David

Let’s still be friends when we’re old and cranky,
turning to each other for the laughs that get us through the day.

Smile warmly over a silent coffee about the beautiful people we’ve known,
now scattered across the globe or lost. I’ll nod that I understand.

Sometimes, I can’t bear the estrangement I feel
when you’re in your own home and I’m in mine.
Be my friend until the last days of my life.

1.1.2010

In with the new

Have a wonderful 2010 everyone!  It has been an eventful decade.  I’m going to strive to make the coming one as excellent as I can. While I don’t always trust resolutions, I might even make a few for myself to ring in the new year and decade.

Love to everyone.

A Christmas Wish

Start shopping! I want six or so Buddha’s hands. These would make such amazing and fragrant ornaments. How cool would it be to clove these instead of regular oranges this year!? Can’t find any? Okay, how about something Buddha’s hand flavored or scented. Hey, it’s more tangible than the color grey, which I’ve wanted before and not received.