Why?

Because all experiences are valuable.

Monday, May 30, 2011

MacGyver

My world changed today.

I had a MacGruber moment today. (SNL reference. You can google it.)
I almost set off the bomb when I was trying to diffuse it.
Though he wasn't very happy at my incompetence, (work with me on the theme here),
MJL handed me the wire cutters when I asked for them...and
when one pair of hands wasn't enough to cut the red wire and the green wire at the
same moment, we did it together.
And! He didn't find it necessary to lecture me or make me stand in the hall and miss recess. (oops, I changed themes.)

I went back to school, and I learned something about someone: something significant,
something lovely, something defining. Most importantly...something I won't forget.

Oh yeah, and when the phone rang while we were disarming the bomb with the obligatory seconds left, that was appropriately hilarious. Reminding us to laugh...

Thank you for that, MJ- you are the Irish MacGyver.

Also I got a new nickname from TK, which I think is excellent. Snoopy- like the cartoon dog in Peanuts. I will leave the reasons a mystery, but thanks for making me laugh, TK. I'm sorry the young ladies of the cove seem to have ripped your pants off of you? I'm good at fixing things like that with my excellent sewing machine. But you have to be more careful next time, hahahaha

I know- this post doesn't give much detail (I only gave you a high-level overview) but maybe you can take something from it anyway, about appreciating the wonderful, special, unique and beautiful people that God gifts you with in your life, and how much it means to be able to work with someone and not on opposite sides.

Happy Memorial Day. Today, as always, I remember my sister, Lieutenant Brynda C. Sipes Drane,USN, and my Grandfather, 1st Lieutenant Charles E. Stiede, US Army Air Corps. Thank you, wherever you are, to everyone who has sacrificed their lives for me.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Author's note?

Ok, y'all.

Big hahahaha. Seriously, I have gotten a couple of emails today asking me if
I'm ok based on that last poem.

I promise it was just a lighthearted look at what happens when a writer sits down
and can't think of anything fresh or interesting to write.

The voice of writer's block, and it can be very mean!

I think based on the elementary style that most of you probably understood.
And thanks for the love and concern, anyway.

It's good to have you in my "corner." Hugs! TSD

That Voice

Sleepy corner, where I sit... and tell myself, "Get on with it!"
I clench my brain to not forget,
I wash the walls with hapless sweat.

Faceless voice says, "You're not strong," and "You are almost always wrong."
It never takes it very long,
to get to "You do not belong."

Even this is trite and poor, "Your skills are weak, and what is more,
the entire pathetic blog's a bore,
what do you even write this for?"

I stitched the wounds and paid the fares, that night I cried beneath the stairs,
hid the truth and took the dares,
saved what was real for one who cares.

"Masochistic little girl, this 'wisdom' that your words unfurl,
is nothing but a cultured pearl,
a grain of sand inside the world."

"You shouldn't even waste the rhyme...it wastes my time!
(...it wastes your time,)
and isn't worth a fiddling dime.

I'm glad this corner's ever near; ugly, cruel voice I hear,
you paper doll of glue and fear.........
you'll never reach me from the rear.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Ansible

I am Jane
I am the ansible
the mind of the game
the voice of the hive.
I am capable of trillions
of actions in fractions of seconds.
Oh, Ender,
what did you do that cannot be undone
turning off
the jewel in your ear
for only a moment
forgetting me
long enough to say a phrase
so that I could not hear you.
Of all things I can do,
like making an entire fleet disappear,
I can't raise the dead for you,
or ever explain how many
millions of light years away I can travel
in the span of time
you forgot.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

French Shirt

Message, I
got a letter
who is that person
it left me
head spun
I said
who the f
is that person?
I want to eat
and I want to drown and
I want to tear the
fucking medals off
my chest
and throw them
off the cliff
and you can burn yours
at the pit
with the black flag
I have choreographed
a dance where
I eat fire
and breathe fire
and not a single
sinew is left unsinged
in the end
because I am wracking my brain
crafty lion in a cage
to get free,
and it's the very reason
the cage is required
the bars are there
to protect someone,
but who is it,
you or
me?

Even

Is Even possible?
There is no "it"
I want to know and I want it to be plain
"it"s a balance of loss with a gallon of gain
in a echo that saved me, but spared me no pain.
Even the crass malingerers
crowding the edge of the sidewalk
know the meaning of tides that meet at the center,
that beg you to come, but forbid you to enter,
I had meant to stand fast, but I'm yet the relenter.
Even a dream
has crisp pockets of seamless vision
as it takes from the mind what is spoken and shouted,
it tears from the heart what is rationed and doubted,
Even fair, Even Libra, as days are recounted.
What isn't Even is odd,
I am sure
I am sure
I am sure
it is so.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Rapture

ok, let's see if I can recreate what MJL told me this morning. Ugh, I'll probably get it wrong, but I will try.

"I see", said the blind man, "a hole in the wall."
"Liar!" said the dummy, "You can't see at all!"

Am I close, M?

At first I "got" it, but I didn't fully get it, because I wasn't allowed to say dummy growing up (by my teacher parents), and I didn't think of the ventriloquist"s dummy.

MJL said...the blind man can't see and the dummy can't speak, so it is all a lie.

I can't even remember what sparked that comment at that moment. Apparently this is something little Irish children grow up hearing?? I was tempted to whip out the
"Miss Lucy had a steamboat" song for him, but I showed restraint!

But...I spent lots of time in my car today wondering whether I am more the Blind Man or the Dummy. I had decided on the dummy. It isn't a bad exercise, pondering the deeper significance today, the day of the fauxrapture, whether one is the blind man or the dummy. Duct tape over the eyes? Or over the mouth?

Looking deeper though, the question isn't am I the blind man pretending to see, or the dummy pretending to speak, it is who is worse? The blind man is only delusional, but the dummy is both a liar and a hypocrite for calling the other one a liar, when he himself propagates a lie...

well, now that I think of it that way---I'm not the Dummy. I despise hypocrisy. So, I'll be the blind man, pontificating about holes I cannot see. Sylace says, "look! there's a hole!"

Now, before anyone starts trying to puzzle out if there is any deeper meaning to all of this, let me say, I'm sorry. There isn't. It has just been such a strange day. All the weird rapture talk and all the jokes. Some poor blind man convincing others of something he sees. The rest of us jeering that he is a liar, when what on Earth do we really know or claim to know about when or how the rapture might occur. Reid told me today that there is a bible passage that says no man can know the date of the rapture, no matter what formula he uses. Maybe those people were happy for a few days this week.

Although Reid did tell us about some people euthanizing their pets in preparation. WHAT self-respecting Vet would do that???? Oh, my goodness, MJL was watching "you Don't Know Jack," starring Al Pacino. It was very well done, but too upsetting at this time for me to finish watching. Another euthanasia reference within 24 hours. And when I came home tonight to my dark front porch, I felt that creepy feeling like I was being watched. I was sure that as I walked up to my front porch there was someone sitting in one of the chairs. It was but a spirit...

We had one that lived in our house in Arkansas. Reid, and Guy, and Ali, and several others (of course I did) saw him on the stairs for the first two years we lived there. There was a dog I would sometimes walk around in the hall, only to realize once again that we didn't have a dog. And when we did get a dog, she would always avoid the exact two spots where the ghost dog would lay.

I had lunch with Tom K. today, he said he has never been able to fathom most of the bizarre motivations that move people, and he doesn't even try. He said (being trained to lie motionless for as much as 24 hours) as long as he has a book and can see some water he can remain content for hours on end. Tom is just a sailor. I think Tom has been a sailor for many, many lifetimes.

I think MJL was the lord of some ancient holdings in the past. I can see it. He doesn't think so. I think his nose is quite regal. He has graciously agreed to lift his ban of pictures of him on my blog. Smiley face.



I suppose I am more the " looking for something rapturous to move me" kind of person. I kind of understand how one could get sucked into that sort of dream...that Jesus was coming today. It isn't a bad dream to have.

I was going to study, but I wrote this instead. It's one am...no rapture. What was that old phrase? Faded paper flowers after the ball.

I googled that to see if I could determine from whence that phrase came. The result that caught my eye was a reference to The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, which I swear I had just asked TK if he had read. The coincidences keep going. The Handmaid's Tale is in my top 50 books I love. I would also highly recommend her book Oryx and Crake, which is in itself a post-apocalyptic tale that skews into the brutal and surreal.

Pg 297 of The Handmaid's Tale:
" ...faded paper flowers, worn satin, an echo of an echo. All gone away, no longer possible. Without warning I began to cry."

Is it possible then that I remembered this particular turn of a phrase from this book? Faded paper flowers...surely not. Who could remember that?

Thank you for your indulgence here, on this strange strange day, when I woke up beautifully, and people and spirits told me things I didn't need to know, and no one I knew was taken into heaven.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Bliss

What moves me? Why am I a diligent student one day, and a fairy the next? Often I am more than one person contained in one body. I used to think that everyone was the same as I am, only they didn't admit it. We all have our own inner dialogue, right?

Reid has been reading some interesting things about what comes with having a high IQ.
It's a touchy subject...no one wants to think of themselves as being of average intelligence, do they?

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe a lot of people are happy being average IQ. Most people are...that's why it is average. Maybe they don't have any desire to suffer the bizarreness of those with abnormally high intelligence. I found very conflicting evidence as to whether high IQ is more or less associated with mental illnesses.
Though it did seem that high IQ protects one from schizophrenia.

So I guess I won't worry about my tendency to transform into a winged creature occasionally. Or a mouse, or a lioness if the occasion demands...

Well, actually, the lioness demands the occasion rise to meet her...

My father had an IQ they called immeasurable. Maybe I have mentioned before. I don't believe he was ever happy for an entire day in his whole life. Only for a few hours, maybe moments, even. I read a book long ago entitled, "Borderliners," by Peter Hoeg. He also wrote "Smilla's Sense of Snow," which I adored. This book isn't for everyone. But the concepts of time presented therein...changed my way of thinking about time forever.

Hmmm, funny phrase..."thinking about time forever"
that might spark a poem tomorrow.
I think the smarter you are, the harder it is to stay in the moment, to stay happy.
If we are creating our own reality every moment with our brains, then my reality may be much bigger than some people's. In fact, I would bet everything I have that this is true. My reality is bigger. Others' are even bigger than mine. Some are infinitesimally small. Mostly, for our whole lives, all we know is our own reality.
Occasionally they intersect.

To have one's moments of happiness and presence intersect with another's moments of happiness and presence...that is bliss.

I'm working on that. Yesterday was bliss. A lot of bliss going around lately...at least in my reality...which is full of fairy dust, Russian tea with the best companions, and new names.

Oh...and presents! This beautiful corset was a gift from MJL, which was terribly expensive, and which is outrageously delighting in it's sheer lack of necessity to life...which makes it a perfectly wonderful gift for a fairy...


Saturday, May 7, 2011

Down the Road

churning things smack my face
before I hold breath to go under...
a water wheel,
I think I am tied to it,
a revolutionary participant,
sanely resisting any fresh wound
that puts blood in the water.

blind, I feel for the rope
to be pulled in the event of an emergency,
I wait
the crisis may come later
down the road

what makes my mind pull two directions at once,
thinking itself limitless it sees no antagonism,
only fighting and wanting
all things.

what a stain this beating red disaster will leave,
one thing or the other...
one thing,
or the other,
or waiting for the wheel to go round again.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Keebler Connection

Have you seen the Muppet movie? If not, why not? Well, that aside...
remember the song Kermit sings at the beginning of the movie? "The Rainbow Connection" Here is a sample:

why are there so many,
songs about rainbows,
and what's on the other side?
rainbows are visions,
but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide...
what's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
what do we think we might see??
someday we'll find it...
the rainbow connection-
the lovers,
the dreamers,
and me.

It goes on from there. If you haven't heard it...I love to sing it...so I can oblige you.

Well, this intrepid reporter of all things wild and McDonald'sy has made a mind-blowing, life-changing disovery while touring with the band, no less,
(groupie mom)- in the barren tundra of central Ohio!!

I found it...for all the cookie lovers, and toll house dreamers out there...

THE Keebler Connection. It exists. You can label this another conspiracy theory...ranking up there with the Obama Re-election/ Osama Demise Debacle
(ORODD)...but unlike others, I am providing genuine photographic evidence of my assertions. Get ready for the shocker. (but not yet...first, an homage adaptation...I learned this technique from Geraldo...one of MJLs faves...hahahaha)

Why are there so many,
songs about cookies,
all full of chips inside?
Cookies delicious,
baked with Elfin Magic...
why must those wee bakers hide??

It's so amazin',
the nuts and the raisins,
whipped up in a hollow tree...
someday I'll find it,
the Keebler Connection...
for lovers
of cookies...
like meeeee!!

(thank you for the gracious applause)
(besides, I recently found out that my blog is "all about me"...ROTFL,
I had thought that was obvious from the title.)

Okay, let's open Al Capone's safe....ugh, I mean let's cut to the camera crew at McDonald's for a report...


Suspicious, eh??

At first I thought...oh, truck parking...sure.

Talk about hiding in plain sight.

People are just not observant these days...never fear that's why I am here for you.


Oh no you didn't!!! That's right, far beyong suspicious now! Two large cookie filled Keebler transport vehicles spotted together at one time. Now why would these two be having this clandestine meeting here in this remote parking lot? This ain't no girl scout meeting for sure. Plus Keebler doesn't make those cookies! A HA!

I moved in closer to see what what was brewing, doing my best Fred Flinstone tippy toes sneaking...
but something caught my eye...like Maxwell Smart...I almost missed it, "by this much..." But I didn't!



Are you seeing what I'm seeing????
After I firmly reimplanted my teeth with only a moment's spit polish...
sucking up the pavement grit like the holy mother's milk reporters are raised on...
taking a moment to ask my self the vital and vaunted questions who, what , when , where and why...
I snapped this shot.


Let me zoom in closer.

Yes, yes, YES! It is indeed.....a large, hollow tree. THE HOLLOW TREE!...at a McDonald's in central Ohio.

With all the wiles of their magic, and the glamours of their Elvish selves...they disguise the delicious aroma of
milions of cookies being baked...right here!

If you can't see the obvious and clear evidential connection...then I will return you to your broadcast of Fox news, or your taped reruns of the OJ Simpson trial. The rest of us will ponder this mystery, plumbing the depths like James Cameron in a tiny submarine seeking the Heart of the Ocean...discovering what this
veritable "Tree of Life" means to each one of us individually.

Blessings to you all, and to quote the Oracle of the Matrix..."have a cookie...I promise you, when you leave here, you will be right as rain."