Forty-seven.
Poet, writer, editor; a graphomaniac, for sure.
Loves the sound of rain, the smell of homemade ratatouille, the pleasure of company, and the serenity of solitude--not all in that order.
Reads way too much; possibly a bibliomaniac.
Otaku since 1990; fujoshi since 2002. Slash fan and advocate of gender-bending/blending.
Loves Japanese style, gypsy music, manga, anime, Russian poets and poetry over all.
Super keen on movies, crime drama, satire, bad puns, and art.
Fat chick--not into thinspo, fatspo, or any spo.
People watcher, eavesdropper, and fond of hidden places.
Singer in a Sunday choir. No, really.
Speaker of Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
In love with libraries.
Misses the pleasure of sitting on a porch greatly.
Personal assistant to a fighting, biting lightning-fast tuxedo cat.
Working on my first book of poetry--look for Set List in 2012!
Alive and living in the City Beautiful, a/k/a Coral Gables.
Posts tagged: quotidian
Please do forgive me my radio silence. Things have been mixed.
I shall be moving out of the studio by the first of May. Rent trouble again…so I have hit Craigslist to look for a place with a lower rent. Couple of good prospects—one, actually, on Biltmore Way, a 1/1 with all utilities. It seems a great prospect, but I have to pursue at least a Plan B, in case that lead doesn’t go through.
I may well have to give up my little Wonder Cat. I’d like to keep Ten-Ten, but I still have to get on firmer footing (paying work), and the next apartment may not allow me to keep a pet. So I have to seek out someone who can take in a cat, or take her to a shelter. However much it may break my heart, I have to think of her well-being.
My emotions have been pinging all over the place; anxiety, depression, anger, despair, even euphoria…last month marked the 3rd year since my mom died. It’s also fueled a good deal of writing: this National Poetry Month, I’ve been writing on a pretty steady basis.
What will May bring? Stay tuned. I’m hopeful.
Another Sunday is ebbing away. Warm, windy and overcast; another cold front is due for South Florida.
The past few days have been awful: depressed and hungry. At one point, I couldn’t even cry, just couldn’t find the tears. A scary sensation: the feeling, not of being in a black hole, but of being a black hole. Of being void, hollow—nothing.
And as for the hunger—this was the hunger of a very scant pantry stretched to its absolute limit. This probably also aggravated my mood, what with the dip in blood sugar and the lack of serious protein, fats, and nutrients.
No doubt some thinspirationist would say, “good for you, you don’t need to eat.” But let me be perfectly clear: I am not, and never will be, a fan of anything even remotely diet-related, let alone pro-ana or pro-mia. And I do need to eat. I like to eat. I like to cook, and to share food with others. Believe you me, it does warm my heart to stand in the kitchen and roast vegetables, marinate mushrooms, prep a chicken for roasting, etcetera…and it kills me not to have the wherewithal to do so.
Rant aside, I did get some more writing done. And I’ve tucked into several books, too. So, for the moment, my secret sharer (depression) is quiet. As they say, it’s a day at a time,
I’m a mixed bag at the moment.
Yesterday was one of those days where I wanted to cry, laugh, and curl up into a ball. I’m still feeling the impact.
The Coral Gables Cultural Council held a meeting, so I went to see and hear. Strolled and window-shopped, came home, changed clothes, and went off to the library.
After I left, I went to Books and Books, where the Coral Gables Democratic Club was meeting. Talked to a couple of people with Occupy Miami, listened to several speakers—among them Alex Sink, ran into Grisel S. from my days at LACC. She gave me her card.
And somewhere along the way, the frustration over being jobless, combined with grief and PTSD flashbacks, steamrolled me. It was a wonder I didn’t hurl myself onto the parquet and start wailing. I ran into Jonathan Rose and Liz, and they helped me chill. Also got an offer to volunteer for a mayoral candidate race, met several more interesting people…
I wanted to stay in bed this morning. But I had to remind myself what was going down tonight (I read at Books & Books, at the Famous Last Friday poetry night) and got up, fed Ten-Ten, and got out to check my email.
I’m nervous and jumpy and I still feel like laughing and crying all at once. Forgive me for unburdening. I just need to know I’m heard.
Oh well.
It’s a lovely evening (if overcast), and I see myself taking a walk in a bit.
Friday afternoon at the Gables branch. Not much to say at the moment. Two high schoolers are sitting nearby, singing pop idol songs, talking about guys they want to marry, and why guys named Neil will never be their husbands.
To say this is banal is an understatement.
So I’ll move on.
I’m pleased with this last instructional poem, and I think I want to write a proper series, Criminal Minds-related or not. It’s fun, and ripe for mischief.
I’m a bit shocked that November’s almost done.
Shocked, too, that I am still behind the curve on my transcriptions for Set List. I couldn’t quite make my deadline, so I’m giving myself an extension for December—the 15th is my new target deadline. Since the Colorado contest calls for a minimum of 48 pages, I need to count pages, and will more than likely add more material.
Work-wise: I took the first mock MCAT Verbal last week. Wasn’t as frightening as I thought it would be, but getting there was daunting, and the test was not exactly a Mickey Mouse. Still, it was gratifying to get an average of 5/8 on the test. I hadn’t heard from Williams-Sonoma—that was a bit of a downer. (Yes, I need to schedule a second test, and pester W-S, I know…)
The fatigue, coupled with the holiday blahs, spilled into depression—I didn’t feel it on Thanksgiving itself (which was lovely & quiet) so much as over the weekend, especially from Saturday on. Saturday and yesterday, I didn’t even get out of my pj’s—just vegetated. Were it not for the fact that I had to get up today, I suspect that I probably would have hibernated.
What scares me about this round is how matter-of-fact, how unremarkable it is: no tears, no outbursts. Just a cold sort of silence. It’s the waiting for shoes to drop, the suspense, that gets me.
Downs aside, the week is eventful: Art Basel begins on Thursday, and First Friday promises to be very energetic. (Especially since the lighting of the Christmas Tree in front of Coral Gables City Hall dovetails…) There’s a writer’s salon at Books & Books tomorrow evening, and I do look to attend.
That said, this winter looks to be anything but dull. Stay tuned.
I surprised myself this morning: I woke up and left the house before eight.
Oh, it was for a good cause: a breakfast at Books & Books, where I met and greeted many interesting people. (I would have handed out cards, but I’d chucked the ones I had…wrong address, phone, et cetera.) After, I hung for a little while, then crossed to the Colonnade, where Telemundo was setting up to film Maid In America—a brand-new telenovela. I ducked into the former Norman’s 180 space, where some of the extras were chatting, and followed them, taking a couple of snaps on my phone.
After that, I went to Barnes & Noble, then to St. George. Sadly, Father Peter was not there, so I took the next trolley to Merrick Park. Swung by Williams-Sonoma and Anthropologie—only to come away frustrated. (I should have called before going by.)
Spent a couple of hours at the Library, then made the trek back to Planet Linux, with books in hand.
Didn’t work on Set List today. Was debating adding another section, and calling it “Encore.” As it was, I had only one notebook—my last excuse there.
My depression has lifted somewhat; it has not, however, vanished. I don’t expect that I shall ever be 100% depression-free. That’s all right. Life is, simply, too intricate and rich to be flattened into a happy vacancy.
It’s Monday afternoon here in the City Beautiful. I’m at Planet Linux Caffe (I thought it was Penguin, mea culpa) and am catching up on the networking. I have to head to the Library, to do some transcription on Set List, but who knows, I may just do some of that work here, especially since Linux is scary-fast and with Windows compatible programming.
No cell at the moment. Frustrating, but I shall live. After the Library, I will probably head over to FYE and sell some stuff. And pester, pester, pester…it would be good to have some regular funds. At least, I’d like to wangle a couple of interviews.
Wish me well, people. November promises to be an interesting month.
While I’m looking for work, I’ve taken advantage of Library time to transcribe the poems for my manuscript onto a flash drive. Set List (my working title) will probably consist of 30-35 of the pieces I’ve written over the course of 2011.
I’m thinking of incorporating a CD, or possibly creating a podcast for this book, but at the moment, I want to get the poems themselves onto drive, then into print. If anyone has created audio-books of poetry, or done multi-media, please let me know, and share your know how. I would be more than grateful.
… yes
Funny, looking at this vid…it struck a chord. Not because of the melodrama or the OTT girl emoting—it had to do with the air of ressentiment that hung over it all.
I recently spoke with D., who had proceeded to give me a dressing down for not keeping in touch with him.
And I was ashamed of not calling, not getting together…but I couldn’t just tell myself, “Yeh, everything’s cool, everything’s copacetic.”
No, he didn’t go out of his way to hurt me. But just because the hurt wasn’t deliberate, didn’t make it hurt any less. If anything, it hurt worse, and especially because I thought, “If I say something, we’ll fight, just let it go.”
And it wasn’t like I was unaware of our 30-year history, the ups, the downs, the fights, the nights of poetry, movies, and coffee. I just felt like he wanted to paper things over, act like we could be who we were.
And I’d reached a point where I didn’t want to paper things over. Period.
I probably will talk to him again, but I can’t say when…
