There'll be Fireworks Tonight

A rushing red river, currents twisting, raging through my head; speaking in phlegmy android echoes. How strange.

It’s a day better than others, a cream puff by the shore, where little dogs draw crowds, and laughter tips the scales. There’ll be fireworks tonight.

This river flushes through me, cyclic, with primitive beats, redundant.

Forget the river. Eat your cream puff, and flirt with the sun. This day by the salty sea is yours. This place you call home. Where you spend your days spinning gold and your evenings dancing with ghosts.

Thoughts steer the river’s currents, undetermined, for thoughts have hearts, and hearts do fret, and legs run blindly, beset by hearts that jump into rivers and drown.

Will I perish in this river?

Your fate is within you, destiny’s DNA, tainted by time. Yes you will die.

An apple, polished with poison, or perhaps washed with saint’s tears, cleansed for the eating. Will you partake?

Yes.

Listen to the sea. The river may own your body but the sea is your soul.

There’ll be fireworks tonight, and you know how you love fireworks.

Life Personified

A friend recently commented on my habit of personifying things. At first I wasn’t sure what he meant so I looked it up on dictionary.com: “per·son·i·fi·ca·tio [per-son-uh-fi-key-shuh n] noun, the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions.”
He was right. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I think I do it because life has become so big and scary that humanizing things brings life down to my level.

Living in a world where, amongst other things, loved ones suddenly depart to the “other side,” unable to at least send us a postcard on what’s waiting for us there, can be quite unnerving. So, I talk to life as though it were human, slapping back when it pisses me off, arguing with it when it seems unfair, and dancing with it down the middle of my road. Weird? Maybe. But giving life brown eyes and a New England accent certainly demystifies it.



Personification transforms death into a likable dude saddled with a really crappy job. Summer, becomes a barefoot playmate, eating cherry Popsicles, and writing love letters in the sand. Old age becomes my treasured grandmother, with a twinkle in her eye, and a lifetime of wisdom to share. Fear, becomes a friend that I can count on to alert me to danger. But I’ve also found him to be a loud-mouthed bully, exaggerating facts and stirring up rumors. It’s always a crapshoot with fear, so it’s best to get to know him really well so that you’ll be able to tell when he’s lying to you.

I’m not alone in my need for personification. The ancient cultures did it all the time. The Chinese, Greeks, Celtics, Norse, Romans, and Japanese loved to put faces on everything. I was particularly impressed with the endless list of Chinese gods. Among them were the god of wine, wages, and sexual delights.



I assume the god of wine has a red nose and an air of snobbery about him, and the god of wages looks like a union boss chewing on a cigar as he counts out a wad of cash. The god of sexual delights is probably part male and female, having all the parts and knowing all the right moves.

The book of Proverbs calls wisdom a woman. A captain addresses his ship as a she. To a writer a blank sheet of paper can become either a heckler or an inspiring lover, depending on the day.

So, in my life the moon is a poet, worry is a coward, fear is a liar, and love is a hopeless romantic who dances barefoot across a bed of hot coals.

My Chihuahua has a voice; she’s a shifty 4 pounder who whispers to get my attention, and follows me around like a spy. She sees everything that I do and if she could actually speak I’m afraid I would probably have to kill her because she knows way too much!

Beware of Dumbass Choices

So, today I’m just going to ramble on about what ever. I just deleted an entire page of writing and it felt amazing. It was as though I was God and I was erasing a paragraph in Genesis that I felt was a little wordy. Okay maybe that’s a bit heady, how about deleting a rainy day or a traffic jam. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that in real life? Erase the crap.

“Oh hey! This sucks, I think I’ll delete it.” PRESTO! Suddenly the sun is shining again, and the traffic parts for you like the Red Sea.

Sometimes I think I spend half of my life trying to avoid mistakes. That and dodging long-winded people in grocery lines; I’m a magnet for the socially starved. Unfortunately life isn’t a keyboard and bad choices are a lot like tattoos; initially it’s fun picking out the design, but then one must face the needles, risk of infection, and the reality of waking up for the rest of your life with an eternal doodle on your favorite body part. I’m not saying that tattoos are bad but they are indelible and I think if we had to get a tattoo each time we made a choice we would be a lot more cautious with our decision making.

Lets say for each good choice we make we would be given a Master Artist like Michelangelo to design and engrave the tattoo, but for each foolish choice we make we would be given, Bronson, (who I will introduce you to shortly) or be forced to give ourselves a tattoo (with the wrong hand).

First you have the major tattoos (choices). The ones you commit an important body part to. Getting married or having kids are examples of major tattoos. These are the ones you’re most proud of, unless of course the marriage is bad, and then you might want to refer back to paragraph one on deleting the crap, which of course is impossible. Wearing a long sleeve shirt might help but most people get the marriage tattoo on their faces, that being the most important body part. Pancake make-up might hide it a little but eventually most people wind up paying a fortune to have their marriage tattoos removed.



Next you have the embarrassing tattoos (choices). These are the choices you made in haste, or when you were drunk, tired, depressed, impressed or simply pressed. These tattoos were done by an artist (and I use that term loosely) named, Bronson, with whiskey breath and hands the size of honey-glazed hams. Of course you’re so toasted that Bronson looks competent and like-able, so you agree to let him doodle a charming Chinese symbol on the base of your spine that’s supposed to say Wisdom, but it really says, Dumbass. So now you’re stuck with Dumbass inked on the base of your spine and you’ll be forever tugging your shirt down over it and praying that nobody reads Chinese.



Finally we have the little tattoos (choices). The ones you almost need a microscope to find. The ladies choice is usually a heart the size of a Spaghetti-O on the ankle and for the men we have the ever-popular Love inked on the knuckles. These are usually self-inflicted during the turbulent teens… And ugly! I have two of such tattoos, but thankfully they are so tiny that nobody ever notices them.



Each day we make dozens of small choices, which seem insignificant at the time, but over a lifetime they often become the foundation for our larger choices. This is why it’s important to be wise with all the choices that we make because in the end our lives can either reflect the beauty of the Sistine Chapel or a Men’s room wall. “For a good time call…"

The moral of this blog is quite simple. One mustn’t doodle on oneself.

Blog Awards Dogs and YTT

Today I want to thank Karen Wojcik Berner of Bibliophilic Blather for the Versatile Blogger Award. Karen is the author of a wonderful book entitled A Whisper to a Scream which is the first in I believe a six book series. Karen’s an amazing lady and very supportive of the writing community.



I must admit, I’m honored, but I usually avoid accepting these awards because they require me to do two very difficult things. One is to figure out how to link to it, and the other is that in return I have to choose five other recipients for the award and I’m the type who wants to spread the love and give everyone an award. So, if you’ve given me an award in the past, and I never posted it, then it’s simply because I’m a dummy and not because I’m not thoroughly honored.

With that said, I’ve decided to put on my big girl panties today and follow through with the stipulations on this award. I see by the rules that I have to post seven things that you don’t know about me so here goes.

1. When I walk I listen to music on my iPhone and adjust my walk to the rhythm of each song… sway, sway, bounce, skip;)

2. I always wanted to be a blues singer, wear a slinky black dress, and sprawl myself across a Grand Piano.

3. I intend to take tango lessons… preferably by an angry dark-eyed Spaniard.

4. I cannot have any stimulus other than instrumental music playing when I write. I get distracted very easily and wind up dancing instead of writing.

5. I love it when silvery sunbeams escape from behind the clouds and create a God Sky. I believe that it’s a sign from beyond telling me that I’m not alone and that everything is just as it should be.

6. I always wanted to live in an old house on the beach with natural woodwork, a fireplace, large windows, walls of bookcases, and a porch with hanging potted plants. Oh, and a swing so I can sit there after a long days work and ponder everything.

7. I just adopted a Chihuahua puppy and she’s so wild that I had to hand her over to my daughter for training. I fear she may be too much for me and that she might end up like Fenton. (See video at bottom of post.)




Now for the most difficult part: passing this award on to only five recipients. Here are some of my favorites blogs. I could have easily gone on and on with my favorite cooking blog, movie blog, photography blog etc. etc. but alas the rules are the rules. So, in no particular order here are some wonderful blogs that I would like to pass this award on to:

http://www.healingmorning.blogspot.com ~ Healing Morning~ Dawn, for her generous spirit and light giving words.

http://www.mypoetcharm.blogspot.com ~ My Poet Charm ~ Andy, because your words melt my heart.

http://www.paintedpath.org ~Painted Path~ Julia for her boundless creativity and enthusiastic love for everything.

http://www.suburbansoliloquy.com ~Suburban Soliloquy~ Jayne, for her beautiful writing; her ability to see things in a most unique way, and for turning me on to amazing music.

http://www.rockthekasbahafrica.blogspot.com ~Rock The Kasbah~ Marie, for mixing things up, making me smile, and taking me traveling with her.

http://www.writingwhilethericeboils.blogspot.com ~Writing While The Rice Boils~ Debbie, for generously sharing so many important facts on the craft of writing.

www.bloomtopia.org ~Bloomtopia~ Brooke, for her gut wrenching honesty, insight and boldness of spirit.

I see that I’ve broken a rule already and chose seven instead of five blogs. Oh well… I’m going to break them even further too by stating that if you received this award today... you do not have to post this on your blog, or follow any of the other rules, if you don’t want to. It doesn’t matter as long as you know that I think you are all fabulous! Oh… and it took me three days to put this post together. That top picture is me trying to figure this thing out. I never could get the links to work (except for Karen's) so simply copy and paste the urls in your browser or check the blog list on the side of my blog for a link. I believe they are all there except Andy's. For some reason unknown to me I can't find him on the blogs I'm following to list him there. THREE DAYS! LOL!! Duh duh duh;)

Thank you Karen! *grin



You Tube Tuesday, adopted from Josh at http://www.itstigertime.blogspot.com ~ It’s Tiger Time is a day set aside for sharing your favorite video. Feel free to join in each week and see how creative we bloggers can be. Each month, Josh will highlight a selected video and present the winner with the 'You Tube Tuesday' Award. If you participate, remember to leave your You Tube Tuesday link in the Linky Tool at Its Tiger Time. And remember, your video doesn't necessarily have to be from You Tube, it can be any video.

This is what I fear my little dog's fate might be if we don't snap her into shape;)

Facing The New Year

The New Year gives me the same sensation that I used to get walking out of the confessional on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and enjoying the uplifting (howbeit temporary) sensation of having a soul as spotless as a downy white baby seal. Of course by Monday afternoon my soul would look more like a dirty Dalmatian dodging Animal Control.

I’ve been pondering some resolutions for 2012, but I haven’t made any commitments. It seems I have a bad track record with huge statements made in public meant to pressure me into making changes. Of course there’s a whole slew of us spewing off at the mouth at this time of the year so nobody really pays much attention to who is keeping their resolutions and who isn’t. I always seem to keep track of my resolutions though, and I feel the heart curling shame they inflict on my conscience when I don’t keep them. So, this year I ain’t making any!

Suffice it to say that I am going to try really hard to focus on what really matters instead of standing in front of the mirror and pulling on my face to see what I’d look like with a face-lift.




I want to focus more on the things that I need to do to in order to take better care of myself. I believe that on the inside of us we have all of the tools that we need in order to live an amazing life. I want to be like one of those all-in-one miracle pocketknives that they advertise at 3:00 a.m. on those late night shopping networks with those loud mouth announcers bragging; “That’s right folks, it screws, hammers, saws, measures, levels, opens cans, makes keys, starts your car, and adjusts the firmness of your mattress!”




That about sums it up. I have no fancy words or strategies for success. I figure if I focus on this one thing the rest will simply fall into place… including my face;)