…LET’S BE MOVIE STARS FOR A LITTLE WHILE

…It’s very sad about Robin Williams.  Even all these days afterward.

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about people who take their lives.  Some think it’s cowardly and selfish.  I don’t know it can be cowardly.  Seems like you’d have to have a fair amount of bravery.  Selfish?  Yes, to the extent it cripples those who love you, likely making them feel guilty in ways I can only guess at, like why didn’t I suspect it, was it somehow my fault, why didn’t I spend more time with the person…

There were 39,518 suicides in 2011.  More suicides than homicides.  More people took their life than were killed by breast cancer.

108 people each day take their life.

22 military vets take their own life each day.

That’s pretty tragic.  It’s more than pretty tragic, but I don’t have the appropriate words for it.

I’m not sure why I’m even talking about it other than the subject has been on my mind, not so much specifically about Robin Williams, but more so the topic in general.

Just think how horribly tortured a person must be to do something like that.  It truly is mindboggling.

…Okay, on to happier thoughts…

…I’m headed to Vancouver/Portland this weekend.  There will be laughter and classic quips, and yes , a fair amount of drinking.

There will be a lot of testosterone being slapped about.

It should be a grand time by all accounts.

And then next weekend I get to do it all over again.

Life is good.

…And so are these…

-“The way I deal with arthritis is to keep moving.   As long as I can play hard tennis, as long as I can ski or ride a horse - all kinds of things can come your way.  As long as you can, do it.  People who retire die.  My dad retired and died shortly after.  Just keep moving.”  Robert Redford

-"What is the use of running when we are on the wrong road?" German Proverb

-“There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.” Jim Thompson

-"Second thoughts are always wiser." Euripides

-"I don't trust any writer who doesn't, at some point, feel he or she is a total impostor." Susan Orlean

  “I know you can't save every dog. But you can totally try to save the dog that's in front of you.” Cesar Millan

“In one of the stars I shall be living.  In one of the stars I shall be laughing.” The Little Prince

-"What any human being can do in life depends upon the foundation laid between birth and age five." James Meredith-

-"We were brought up with the value that as we sow, so shall we reap.  We discarded the idea that anything we did was its own reward." Janet Harris

--I KEEP DRIVING AROUND IN CIRCLES

…Do you need approval very much? 

Or are you the kind of person who can leap forward,--in whatever endeavor, against whatever storm or stillness--and keep persevering?

Me, I’m somewhere in the middle, leaning awkwardly and vulnerably toward the former.

 I don’t know if I could keep writing if someone—albeit, several people—said I was shitty at it.  I’d like to think I could keep going, but I just don’t know.  I really don’t.  Mostly I doubt it.

That’s why it gets tricky, say when you’re writing, say when you’re writing something long, maybe like a novel, and it’s just you and the stark-white computer pages staring back at you.

Or perhaps it’s even you and some feedback from others you’ve been given that you might suspect are merely kind critiques, their words intent on not hurting or wounding you too much, rendered that way for all the right reasons, while their having done so leaves you doubtful about ever achieving your dreams?

What if it’s not writing we’re talking about here, but something else?  Like does He/She love me?  r how much does He/She love me? 

Or, when He/She says they love me, does it come from a dutiful position, or does it come from the center of their heart that beats and bleeds true? 

What is the subject is about something that’s important to you—love or otherwise-- and you’re unsure if the person speaking to you is being radically honest?

Do you accept it as fact, or do you hold it up high to the light and look for crevices that could actually portend completely different meanings?

…So, see how I am tonight?

This late? 

I’m stupid, most likely,

lost in translation,

open yet inarticulate.

heart on a sleeve bleeding and needing a bandage--

A gangly nine year-old with a dream…

…Hey ho, but here are some other folks’--“folks” or “folks’” being expressions I never verbally used before, in print or otherwise--sentiments on things of much more importance:

-“Be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world.”  Paul Harding

-“Somehow we all feel broken.” Nigel Lithgow

-“We have failed to recognize our one great asset: time. A conscientious use of it could make us into something quite amazing.”  Friedrich Schiller

 -“One climbs a mountain not to conquer it, but to be lifted away from the earth up into the sky.” Russell Banks

 -“Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to -control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.”  Boxing trainer, Cus D'Amato, to 13 year old Mike Tyson

Question:  “What is life about?”

Hepburn:  “It's about working hard and loving someone. Oh, and having fun. And, if you're lucky, you keep your health and someone will love you back.”

-- Katherine Hepburn to biographer Scott Berg

-“I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.” Dorothy Parker

-"When you are happy, you can forgive a great deal." Princess Diana

-"Your memory has a mind of its own.  Let it go to work.  Pay attention." John Dufresne

-"It is a privilege to prepare the place where someone else will sleep." Elizabeth Jolley

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." Aldous Huxley

--I'LL SEE YOU AROUND  

                                                                   Bone Yard

            She finds bones in bottom dresser drawers, in shoe boxes perched on the highest closet shelves, gunny sacks stuffed with bones in the truck of her husband’s car where the spare tire should be, bones in a cardboard box marked ALLY’S BABY CLOTHES.

            There are bones buried in the backyard garden bed, beneath the rosebushes whose thorns catch on her hair, skin and blouse. 

            There are bones in the attic, piled in a dusty heap behind stacks of their old year books and photo albums.

            Bones in the downstairs bath that smells of formaldehyde.

            Bones in the lawn mower bag.

            Bones beneath the garage workbench, right next to Ally’s never-used tricycle.

            Bones and bones and bones.

            It takes her two days, but she collects them all, noticing  as she does how their texture and weight is like drift wood, chalky white and brittle after all these years.

            In their backyard, she stacks them until they’ve become a small mountain, and after she’s tossed the last one on top, she lets herself remember the horror of hearing about what had happened—her husband drunk, heading out on a liquor run, backing over little Ally.

            From prison, each letter said the same thing—pleas for forgiveness and a second chance.  He couldn’t make it up to her, but they’d make a new start.  He’d be a better husband.  He was sober now.

            Today is his release.  She’d seen the news coverage just an hour ago and knew he’d be arriving any minute.  That’s why she doused the bone pile with gasoline, using another gallon on herself, waiting for him to find the note taped to the front door welcoming him home, telling him to meet her in the back yard where he’d get the answers to all of his questions.

               

                

--SOMEHOW WE ALL FEEL BROKEN

…Sometimes when I watch the news lately, it seems like the world is ending—Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Boko Harem in Africa, Ebola.  People say, “Well don’t watch the news then.”  But what good does it do being ignorant?

…Anyway, it’s Friday, and doesn’t everyone love the weekend?  Especially a sunny weekend?

…Here’s a story I wrote a long time ago.  It’s one of my sadder stories, yet a favorite:

                                                                 Mermaid

            You swim with the other orange fish, flapping, splashing in a manmade koi pond outside the Bank of America building just after noon on a hot Friday.  I say, “Honey, how did you get here?”

            You giggle and gurgle, such a slippery young thing.

            “Come on,” I say, “what’re you doing?”

            Around me people in business attire come and go in a hurry.  Darrell saunters over, gives me a head tilt and asks if everything’s okay, his Security badge glinting furious from sun glare.

            I bend down, and hear your rippled laughter, high pitched and juvenile.  It’s been so long, since that day on the boat, when you were angry.  You said you didn’t need swimming lessons.  You said, “Mermaids are water-born!”  And when I said I’d teach you how to swim as soon as the cruise was over, after we got back to the states, you threw a rare tantrum.  I heard your mother’s voice say, “Just let her blow it off.”  And though we were over by then, me and my ex-wife, I took her advice this once and didn’t chase after my little girl.

            “So what’s up, partner?” Darrell asks, his thick thumbs hooked through belt loops.

            He doesn’t see you because you’ve gone under, deep below the surface the way you must have after jumping overboard, hiding behind some slime-slickened boulder, blending in with the willowy seaweed or swimming to the far ends of the water the way mermaids do when they’re curious and bold.

--A PERFECT DIFFERENT ANIMAL WOULD BE OKAY

 …Hey!  It’s Wednesday, one of my favorite days of the week.

 …I’ve never been a big Marilyn Monroe fan.  I thought she was a bad actress and she seemed very dimwitted.  But I’m pretty sure now that I was wrong and she had a lot of people like me fooled.

Read these from her and decide for yourself:

-"Ever notice how ‘What the hell’ is always the right answer?"

-"Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer."

-"I don’t want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."

-"A career is wonderful thing, but you can’t snuggle up to it on a cold night."

-"Most importantly, keep smiling. Because life is a beautiful thing, and there’s so much to smile about."

-"It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."

-"Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius. It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."

-Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul."

-"It’s often just enough to be with someone. I don’t need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You’re not alone."

-"To all the girls that think you’re fat because you’re not a size zero, you’re the beautiful one, its society who’s ugly."

-"The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space."

-"I’ve often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people."

"Suicide is a person’s privilege. I don’t believe it’s a sin or a crime. --"It’s your right if you want to, though it doesn’t get you anywhere."

-"Beneath the make-up and behind the smile, I’m just a girl who wishes for the world."

-"The truth is I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them."

-"Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one… I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity… If fame goes by, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live."

-"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they’re right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. And sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."

-"I’m selfish, impatient, and insecure. I make mistakes. I am out of control and at times, hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best."

-"Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature."

-"People respect you because they feel you’ve survived hard times and endured and although you’ve become famous, you haven’t become phony.

-"I restore myself when I’m alone."

-"Men who think that a woman’s past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak. A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many."

--Marilyn Monroe

--IT’S FINALLY GETTING BETTER HERE

…It’s a banner year at my place for blueberries.  I’ve spent over five hours the last two days picking them.  The bushes in my yard are probably fifty years old and some are over ten feet tall so picking gets a little tricky.  But they sure taste good.

Here were the notable comments on Facebook last week:

-now I weight lift to Beethoven. at home of course.

-the mini van in front of me has a bumper sticker that says--ETHANOL: FEED YOUR CAR; STARVE A KID

-I like when a man wears a Superman t-shirt paired with flip flops, 'cause nothing says Man of Steel like the clippity-clop of plastic footwear.

CO2: IT'S PLANT FOOD, NOT POLLUTION

i hate this person, and want to drop kick them in the face

 -I hate the loyalty cards you have to use when shopping--and the fact that the checker always looks at the receipt and says "Thank you Miss Hinkson".... so I changed my name to Elizabeth America. Now whenever I shop, I get "Thank you Miss America"... then a confused pause and lots of giggles! Simple pleasures...

-A FB friend posted that she heard on good authority that today is National Orgasm Day. In her comments thread, it was noted (lamented?) that it comes only once a year.

-one of the most disturbing things I just saw....I head a crash of something crazy loud on the back porch...I jump up from my comfy seated spot where my wicked hot and strong coffeelove-love and a handfulla ibuprofen is working to calm my crampies...I hear squeaking over and over...something was attacked. I think it's the dove that's made a nest on the ledge of our ladder out back...maybe a hawk snatched it up. I race to the back door and there's a giant squirrel with a baby bunny in it's mouth! Holy FUCK! I say, not knowing what to do and before I could do anything, inna mad flash it took off with it's screaming prey....yes it was screaming. Poor bunnyheart. What a terrible sight and sound...one that's gonna stay in my head for all eternity. I think I need a drink already...

 -Caught my coworker eating food that a customer had left on her plate.  He just looks at me, shrugs, then says "I would have fucked her."

 -Quick, how do I become a hipster? According to trusted ideological sources both right and left, hipsterdom constitutes a badge of dishonor, a marker of meretricious style and thoughtless privilege … but every time I see a PICTURE of a HIPSTER on the INTERNET, I get a funny feeling in my belly, a little gastro-erotic leap of excitement … so I wanna BE one! A hipster!! How do I BE one?! (I think all I need is glasses. Possibly also 15 years subtracted from my age. But mainly glasses. You know.)

 -Hey Lauren, just followed your example, posted an ad at CL looking for a platonic friend. HA. "I can lick you to multiple orgasm and make you forget about your ex." Why did I mention the ex? Because I'm a fucktard. "How tall are you?" Geeeeez.

 -Arguing about religion/politics on Facebook is so COOL! In fact, science proves that arguing about these things on Facebook almost always changes someone's views!

 -How come people always touch each other when posing for photos?  Like, if we wouldn't normally touch when standing next to each other, why not just take pictures of ourselves standing around not touching?

--NOBODY LIKES YOU LIKE I LIKE YOU

…There’s a James Brown movie coming out.  I appreciated him but was never a huge fan.

Some things I just found about him are pretty impressive:

He had over 800 songs in his catalog.

Only Glee, Lil Wayne and Elvis had more top 100 singles than Brown, although Brown never reached #1

He typically lost seven pounds of sweat during a live show

He was addicted to painkillers and PCP

 Here’s a quote from him that I like: “Sports are good, but it don’t touch music.  Music is till the master of the soul.  I can play in a place, and 30 minutes later everybody is brothers.”

…Here are some others I like for the weekend:

-“Most people think the hardest three words are ‘I love you,’ but they’re actually ‘I don’t know’.” Steven Levitt

 -“Seeing anyone do what they do best is beautiful.”  Bonnie Stoll

 -“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”  Albert Camus

-“I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.” Charles Bukowski

-“We all have dreams. And we all get disappointed. We all have heartache and we suffer and work to get through it. It’s just the human condition. ...So I stand here today so proud. I’m so proud of

my team and I’m so proud of myself.”  Diana Nyad, who at age 64 swam 103 miles from Cuba to Florida

 -“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” Sarah Ban Breathnack

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver

“For weeks Tyrone thought he was going to die any minute, and there were also times when he was afraid he wasnt going to die.”  Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

  

“Now is the time to understand more, so we fear less.” Marie Curie

 “Aspire, break bounds. Endeavor to be good, and better still, best.”  Robert Browning

  

 U.G.L.Y: U gotta love yourself.