--I KNOW YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT, BUT I STILL MEAN IT

…Ah, Wednesday. 

Hello, You.

…Over a year ago I wrote a story for “Stripped” an anthology with various writers (most of whom I know).  None of the pieces were identified by author and the idea was to write as your opposite gender, thus breaking down gender lines.

This week each author and their gender were identified.

My piece was “The Bear”:

                                                            The Bear

            She is reaching around him, past the skin and blood and sonorous breathing.  She is up on her tip toes, stretching.  It’s something, this feeling, to finally be seeking escape.  Sometimes we want to hurt, and the pain feels a penance we deserve.

            She does not look behind her.  She already knows what he looks like in bed—a bald, sweaty bear.  When she married him he was thin with normal-sized nails and teeth.  She did not know he was so clever, that, inside he was made of fur.

            She’s tried telling herself the fetus is not a child yet.  Maybe he will hit me there instead, she’d thought, and he’ll be the one to kill it.  That’s how horrible she’d become, abetting baby murder. 

But rage is hereditary.  The sins of the fathers are handed down.  She’d seen it, knew what it felt like, the sheer, red sound of it.

            She knows this is the tipping point, yet the planet’s been askew for several years now.  Nighttime no longer fades and the days are all black.

            On the top closet shelf, inside her Grandmother’s hatbox, she finds the knitting needles.  They are steel, silver spears.  She still has choices: do nothing, take the baby, herself.

            But, she thinks, this is not about her.  If she were to kill herself, the bear would still need to eat.  He would forage, he would destroy other green forests.

            Head and heart—he has them, she thinks.  Even bears do. 

            She aims there.

--ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LISTEN

…I’m back from a fun weekend in Portland.  I saw old friends and laughed and played a lot.

Today my body is letting me know just how much fun I had, and I’m trying to regroup for reentry.

…Here are some things to ponder on a Monday:

"When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear.  For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists." Paul Auster

"No one’s going to do something for you, and I think that’s been the thing that’s gotten me through everything. I’ve never sat around and waited for anybody to do anything for me. If I wanted to do something, I made it happen." Alyssa Mastromonaco, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Operations

"No home is complete without affection. You can have all the Picassos in the world or walls made of gold, but without affection it's nothing." Claudio Luti

"So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." J. K.  Rowling

+"If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.” Terry Pratchett

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." Epictetus

"I wanted some music to let me know just how short it all is. Something to let me know how impossible my words are. But it's a trick I won't master. Something to say, but no way to get at it. I can write what it's about — I can't write the thing itself." Sam Rasnake

+“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” Ray Bradbury

"The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success." Vauvenargues

"A man is only as good as what he loves." Saul Bellow

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." Malcolm Forbes

+"America is the land of second chances.  All you have to do is ask." Frank Farley

"The past isn't dead.  It isn't even past." Faulkner

--I'M ALMOST KIND OF GETTING IT TOGETHER

…I have a new poem, "Space and Time" up at RiverBabble:

http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/issue22/RIVER-P-22-KUNTZ.HTML

…I also have a very creepy story, "Last Night" up at Pure Slush (The theme for the issue was "eyes", so this is the best I could do):

http://pureslush.webs.com/lastnight.htm

…Sad, yet inevitable news.  Barnes and Noble is going to close 20 stores a year over the next decade.

Yikes.

…According to Blogger, of all my blog page views, half have come from Poland.  Really?  That's pretty cool.

Poland is followed by Turkey, then the UK.

Who knew?

…The other day I woke up at 3 am, subsequently got an allergy attack, never went back to sleep and read Sara Gran’s book, “Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead.”

It’s a mystery starting a female private eye, set in New Orleans post Katrina.

While I didn’t like the book as much as The Atlantic Monthly, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and others who were quoted on the bock jacket, there were some memorable phrasings and sentences.

Here they are:

…Satisfaction will be rare.  Uncertainty will be your natural state.  Sureness will always elude you.

It doesn’t matter what people want to hear.  It doesn’t matter if people like you.  It doesn’t matter if the whole world thinks you’re crazy.  It doesn’t matter whose heart you break.  What matters is the truth.

The only question is, how will you bear your portion of guilt?

Most people’s idea of help is a bigger gun.

Simplicity is the refuge of fools.

Depression can make people stupid.

Forever never lasts as long as you think it will.

That’s the thing about the truth.  It’s just like your car keys—always in the last place you look.

It isn’t the dead we should feel sorry for.  It’s the living.

No one looks you straight in the eye when they’re telling the truth.

Nothing ever really ends.  The fat lady never really sings her last song.  She only changes costumes and goes onto the next show.  It’s just a matter of when you stop watching.

I wanted to hug him but I figured he might shoot me.

Some people just do a better job of pretending.

There are no coincidences.  Only opportunities.

Intuition is only a very good memory.

There will never be any shortage of floods.  There will always be people who need to be rescued.  And there will never, ever be enough people to save them.

We all have blood on our hands.

--NOTHING EVER REALLY ENDS

…How are you?

…I learned a lot of miscellaneous things in the last week.  Perhaps you already know this, or maybe you don’t, so here it is:

…Each year Americans adopt 2,600 children from China, 1,700 from Ethiopia, 1,000 from Russia, and 700 from South Korea.

…There have been 60 million abortions in the US in the last 12 years.

…"A lot of people think of Detroit as the armpit of America, but there are a lot of nice areas in Detroit where there's money to be made." -Nate Heaps of American Fork, Utah, who bought 290 Detroit properties for $190,000, some tax-delinquent homes selling for as little at $500 at auctions.

…The stock market is up more than 120% since the bull market began in March of 2009, yet in the five years ended in 2012, individual investors have yanked an estimated $557 billion out of US stock mutual funds while funneling $1 trillion into bonds.

…The federal debt is now $16.1 trillion, up from $11.9 trillion in 2009, and expected to rise to $17.9 trillion by 2015.

…Last year, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers made $59.8 million on and off the court.  LeBron James made $57.6 million.

…The price of a 30-second Super Bowl ad is $3.8 million, up from $2.15 million ten years ago.

Volkswagen is set to launch a $10 million commercial this weekend.

…Nearly half of all college graduates from the class of 2012 are overqualified for their jobs.

In 1970, 1% of all taxi drivers in the US had bachelor degrees.

in 2010, 15% had degrees.

…Top income tax rates:

1. 50% --United Kingdom

2. 48% --Canada

3. 45% --Germany

4. 45% --France

5. 35% --USA

…Have you ever secretly read your significant other's email?

Men --84% said No

Women --81% said No

…34% of people have hidden purchases from their spouse/partner

…Do you believe in Love at First Sight?

-Currently married --58% said Yes

-In a relationship --66% said Yes

-No relationship --48% said Yes

…18 -Percentage our risk of dying of heart disease goes up for each out of TV.

…15 -Percentage of women who send themselves Valentine's flowers.

…On Valentine's Day:

44% feel warm and fuzzy about the day.

39% feel no difference.  it's just like any other day.

17% silently protest and don't buy into the hype.

…2.5 --Pound a pair of C-cup breasts weigh.

…8 --Percentage of all men's plastic surgery procedures that are breast reductions.

…The amount of people living to be 100 in America is up 66% in the last 30 years.

…The US Postal Service delivers 46 billion fewer pieces of mail than it did 10 years ago.

…56% of all people remember a quarter (or less) of their dreams

…77% of all Americans have gone online to diagnose an potential illness they might have

…In the "Big East" colleges spend $102,000 per athlete and only $17,000 per student

…8 of the ten tallest buildings in the world are in China.  Only one in the US

…Florida has the highest foreclosure rate in America with 1 out of every 300 home currently in foreclosure

…Over 136 million prescriptions for Vicodin are written each year in America.

47% of all American adults own a gun.

...Developed countries, ranked by life expectancy (for men):

Top 5

1. Switzerland 79.33 years

2. Australia 79.27 years

3. Japan 79.20 years

4. Sweden 78.92 years

5. Italy 78.52

Bottom 5

13. Germany 77.11 years

14. Denmark 76.13 years

15. Portugal 75.87 years

16. Finland 75.86 years

17. USA 75.64

(for women, add five years to each)

…Gun manufacturing in the US has more than doubled in the last decade

…Actor Christian Slater starred in the horror film, "Playback" which made a whopping $264 at the box office.

…The top five New Year Resolutions for 2013 were:

21% -Weight loss

14% -Improve finances

14% -Exercise

10% -Get a new job

7% -Eat healthier

…Congress has a record number of women holding office:

20 in the Senate

78 in the House

--SHUT UP AND KISS ME

…Did you have a splendid weekend?  I hope so.

…The other day I finished Anne Lamott's new book, "Help Thanks Wow."

Here are some of the bits from it that I liked best:

…“There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”-- Rumi

…“And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on earth.” –Raymond Carver

…Below are all from Anne Lamott’s book, “Help Thanks Wow.”

-Imagination is part of the way we understand the world.

Three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

We learn through pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons.

If we are lucky, gratitude becomes a habit.

In the face of everything, we slowly come through.

I don’t believe it, but I know it is true.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior.

When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled.

A good marriage is one in which each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.

God’s idea of a good time is to see us picking up litter.

“Wow” means we are not dulled to wonder.

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we’re finally starting to get somewhere.

Everywhere you look, couples are falling in love.

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention.  We just have to be open for business.

We get to keep starting over.

There really is only today.

--IT'S RIGHT THERE.  CAN'T YOU SEE IT?

…The other day I finally finished a collection of essays by famed writer Gene Weingarten called “The Fiddler in the Subway.” 

The title essay is about Joshua Bell, legendary violinist, who plopped down at the Metro Bus station and played for about an hour while over a thousand people passed by without stopping.

The night prior, Bell had played to a sold out show, with each ticket costing in excess of $100.

The following are random excerpts from the book that struck me as meaningful.

I hope they will you, too:

-“The meaning of life is that it ends.” Kafka

-“We wake up in the morning.  That is a miracle.” Father Steven

-“What worries you masters you.” John Locke

-“All babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is an iambic meter.  Then, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us.” Billy Collins

-(Of famed violinist Joshua Bell) “His playing does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live.” Interview Magazine

(The words below are all Gene Weingarten’s:

-Did I mention that when I am trouble most I consult the dead?

-The most important words in your story are the ones you don’t write.  They’re the ones you imply.

-I hate writing.  I love having written.

-Big truths usually contain somewhere within them the specter of death.  Death informs virtually all of literature.  We lust and love so we can feel more alive.  We build families so we can be immortal.  We crave fame, and do good works, so both will outlive us.

-A real writer is someone for whom writing is a terrible ordeal.  That is because he knows, deep down, with an awful clarity, that there are limitless ways to fill a page with words, and that he will never, ever do it perfectly.  On some level, that knowledge haunts him all the time.  He will always be juggling words in his head, trying to get them closer to a tantalizing, unreachable ideal.

It’s a torment you can’t escape.  It will reach even into the comfort of a drunken sleep, and it will shake you awake, and send you, heart pumping, to an empty piece of paper.

If you have that, you can be a good writer.  Congratulations, I guess.

-Writing, particularly fiction writing, is an act of quiet terror.  You are alone all at once with your genius and your ineptitude, and your errors are as public as possible.  To be a good writer requires extreme self-discipline and extreme self-confidence, and many of the people drawn to writing have neither.

Mostly, you become a writer not because you want to get rich or famous, but because you have to write, because there is something inside that must come out.  When a baby is born, she is born.

-If you are a bad writer, writing poorly must be no big deal.

But if you are a good writer, writing poorly must be hell.  You must die a little with every word.

-If only people knew what was in our dumpsters.

-Humor often requires a bloodless hostility: laughs usually come at the expense of something or someone.

-Affection is hard to express in writing without seeming like a sap.  A good way to do it is through indirection; write of facts, not feelings.  But choose the right facts.

-An actor who is frightened or angry or embarrassed is often encouraged not to stifle that emotion but to capture it and transform it into something useful.  Emotion is too valuable an asset to throw away.  This holds true for writing as well.

-In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

--I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT A WONDERFUL PERSON YOU ARE

…How was your holiday weekend?  Was it eventful?

I laughed a lot and played games and watched some good television.

Did you see the inaugural?  It was a little silly how long the coverage went.  Did we really need to watch a limo going 3 miles per hour trundle down the street for an hour and a half?  I don’t think so.

…Tomorrow is Tuesday, a new, shortened week.  I’m excited. 

Are you?

…‎"We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accident, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is... about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phatasmagoria which is our actual experience." - Joan Didion, "The White Album"

"Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man." Nabokov

"If I read a book and it makes my body so cold that no fire can ever warm me body, I know it's poetry." Emily Dickinson

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are... Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." Mary Jean Iron

"When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen." Arland Gilbert

"I am an artist. I am here to live out loud." Emile Zola

"If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." Mary Pickford

“The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters.”
― Tom Robbins

"All words are fingers pointing toward the moon." Rumi

"Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we're invited into a relationship with someone how hears us when we speak in silence." Anne Lamott

"Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up." Anne Lamott

"Even mushrooms respond to light." Anne Lamott

"What is remembered is what becomes reality." Patricia Hampl