Update on this post:
She’s on the cover of New York magazine. How cool is that?
Monday afternoon. Cloudy and humid, 73 degrees.
Cooler temperatures have me longing for fall—red and orange foliage, mountain trails, the smell of loam and cold spring water, crisp apples straight from the orchard, wildflower honey. Ah me. I don’t know if I’ll make it through a real post today, so I’ll just start musing and see where it takes me, okay?
So Corey heard from the landowner, and it doesn’t look promising. The owner wants to sell outright, no lease to buy, and that’s perfectly understandable; also, the other family that is very interested in the property told him that they can have the financing by March of next year. So if we want this property, we need to sell one of these houses so that, we hope, we can secure a new mortgage for the property before March 2015.
Did you get all of that?
In essence, unless we sell something, we’re not going to get my dream property. And the bummer is that we just cannot put our house on the market without doing some work on it. I refuse to take a loss on this house, which might seem stubborn, but it would seem too much like a failure.
Here’s what we need to do to put it on the market:
It actually isn’t a whole lot, and we can do everything except for the AC, and if we do the work, I think that we can get everything done for between 20 and 30K.
I mean, the boys and I can work on the painting while Corey is out. If we’re not staying here, then we don’t need to install the expensive door that I had picked out, and we can save on the kitchen cabinetry as well. Doing a kitchen is not nearly as hard as doing a bathroom; I know this because I’ve done the kitchen in this house before (my ex and I). Installing cabinetry takes a level and two people to handle the cabinets.
Corey has said that he never wants to take on another renovation project himself, having been almost defeated by the bathroom gut and reno; he says that he would rather hire someone to do it, but I think if it means the difference between getting and not getting this property while we wait for funds to do the work, he may see it my way. At least I’m hoping he will. This is one of those situations in which it would be nice if his brothers lived closer so that they could chip in a day or two of help, especially his brother Chad, who is incredibly handy and seems to just know how to do anything.
Anyway, if we start on this work next month, I honestly think that we could be finished by December, and then we could put the house on the market.
Am I not being realistic? Maybe. But this means too much to me to just sit back and accept that we cannot do it.
As far as putting the house on the market, I have no idea what the market is like in this area at the moment. I haven’t been in touch with any of my realty contacts in years, so I don’t know if the market is a buyer’s or a seller’s or no one’s. I know that the market has rebounded since the crash of 2007, and I know that it isn’t inflated like it was in 2004-05. Other than that, I have no idea if we can even sell this stupid house.
I really don’t want to think about it any more at the moment. Let’s see, in other news . . .
I’ve been eating everything in sight for the past few days. No idea where that’s coming from unless it’s stress. It’s stress . . . it’s always stress . . . I throw up . . . it’s stress . . . I eat too much . . . it’s stress . . . I can’t sleep . . . it’s stress . . . I sleep too much . . . it’s stress.
Sheesh. Whatever.
Later this afternoon I’m picking up Olivia, and she’ll stay with me until tomorrow. At least I have that to look forward to. A few hours with le bébé, and almost always it puts me right as rain, even though it leaves me exhausted . . . it’s stress . . .
More later. Peace.
Music by Luke Sital, “Nearly Morning”
So Much of the World
So much of the world exists
without us
the mountain in its own steepness
the deer sliding
into the trees becoming
a darkness
in the woods’ darkness.
So much of an open field
lies somewhere between the grass
and the dragonfly’s drive and thrum
the seed and seedling,
the earth within.
But so much of it lies in someone
standing alone at the edge of a field
with a life apart
feeling for a moment
the plover’s cry
on the tongue
the curve and plumb
of the apple bough
in limb and bone.
So much of it between
one thing and another,
days of invitation,
then of release and return.
~ Gregory Djanikian
I’d like to share a wonderful video a ran across recently on tumblr. In light of recent events, I find that Solomon’s talk discusses the realities of depression in a clear, compassionate manner. In particular, I like Solomon’s discussion on alternative treatments.
(Click here for transcript)
Music by Soledad Bravo, “Violin De Becho”
Making beauty out of the blasphemous (reblobbed from an article by Damien Gayle in The Daily Mail):
A Palestinian woman waters dozens of plants near her desert home, each growing from used tear gas canisters collected in years of clashes with Israeli soldiers.
Her curious garden, photographed today, is in the village of Bilin, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the State of Palestine.
Much of the territory is disputed. Israel continues to expand settlements in the West Bank which the international community have long ago ruled to be illegal.
Disputed land: A Palestinian woman waters dozens of plants near her desert home, each growing from used tear gas canisters collected in clashes with Israeli soldiers during protests against the West Bank occupation
Poignant: The curious garden, photographed today, is in the village of Bilin, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the State of Palestine
Symbolic: The flowers, with their unusual pots, mark land Palestinians were able to reclaim two years ago after a court battle to re-route Israel’s controversial security wall
The flowers, with their unusual pots, mark land Palestinians were able to reclaim two years ago after a court battle to re-route Israel’s controversial security wall.
Still under construction, the Israeli West Bank barrier is a security wall that will eventually stretch 430 miles around the entire West Bank region.
Israel argues that the barrier is needed to protect its people from Palestinian terrorism, and since construction began the number of suicide bombing attacks have fallen significantly.
But critics of the policy object that the route of the barrier deviates substantially from internationally agreed boundaries into territories occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.
They argue that it uses security concerns to mask an illegal attempt to annex Palestinian land.
A flower hangs from the barbed wire of Israel’s barrier: Still under construction, the Israeli West Bank barrier is a security wall that will eventually stretch 430 miles around the entire West Bank region
Beauty in the midst of horror: Israel argues that the barrier is needed to protect its people from Palestinian terrorism, and since construction began the number of suicide bombing attacks have fallen significantly
Surviving in adversity: But critics of the policy object that the route of the barrier deviates substantially from internationally agreed boundaries and uses security fears to mask an illegal attempt to annex Palestinian land
Music by Mogwai, “I Do Have Weapons”
The Diameter Of The Bomb
Wednesday afternoon. Sunny and hot, 90 degrees. Too hot to think clearly.
Too many thoughts to be cohesive:
I continually find scraps of paper with snatches of words and phrases, but no context, so I don’t know what they mean, much like life.
I grow weary of the open-ended nature of life, would that it could be seen in advance.
I am so tired, weary to the bone, and I do not harbor enough energy to bridge this gulf.
I failed to notice that I and my opinions had become irrelevant, much to my own chagrin.
All images are by Dutch artist, Jan Sluyters (1881-1957).
Music by Night Beds, “Even if We Try”
Bioluminescence
The eggs burn softly
in the earth, and when glow worms
hatch out, ravenous, each one comes with a tiny
bright square of light like the view-hole to a
furnace notched in its belly.
Can you feel their heat? Their hunger for the tender
moonstruck flesh of slugs and snails?
Sometimes at night, fire
flies are startled by lightning,
the tympani-drum flutter of thunder rumbling the storm
home, and they all flash at once in surprise—a quick
blinking open of sleepy
green nocturnal eyes, a phosphorescent murmur:
Go back to sleep. It’s just rain
How vulnerable
we would all be if longing
shone through our bodies, if our skins were translucent
lanterns flushed with yellow flame leaping in the strange
and unpredictable winds
of our desire, like the neon Morse code fireflies
use to brazenly flick the night.
You are a dusky
angel drawn to the gleaming
beam of my porch light, a brief embered orange blaze
from your cigarette, sizzle of sparks splattering
the asphalt of my sidewalk.
Your touch like sooty moth wings, and I glow, suffused
with your heat, your scent, your light.
~ Lee Ann Roripaugh
Saturday afternoon. Partly cloudy and mild, 73 degrees.
Apparently, I have a new follower. And she loves to comment. And she thinks I’m someone else, because apparently anyone using the moniker Lola, must be the same individual. And apparently, I have lots of time with which to run multiple websites.
Cool.
Apparently, this is who I am:
I am a writer and have lived in Manhattan for most of my life. In addition to the random musings of my blog, I am presently working on a sci-fi novel, two mystery novels and a book on my saint squeeze, the Archangel Michael.
Man, I wish that I were this busy . . . and I wish that I had as many books in the works as this particular Lola claims to have. But what is up with the Kate Middleton fixation on both ends of this, er, um, dialogue?
Anyway, apparently, Gillian, my new best friend, thinks that I’ll take down her messages. Oh, my. Not for a million dollars would I delete any of this.
Although I have refrained from reverting to editor role and correcting grammar and syntax, I must admit that I just couldn’t help but respond here and there (emphasis and/or responses in italics mine). Oh and, feel free to comment. You guys (all three to five of you) know that I love to get comments.
Enjoy.
Gillian
I want you to post this to your Kate-Hate bitches too, see below:
Although I know you will take down my posts (not a chance) on this and your other crappy websites (would you mind terribly letting me know about these as I must be neglecting them from my dearth of knowledge as to their existence), I have spent – ie. wasted – enough time perusing your self-obsessed, ultimately self-hating whining against other women who have done you no harm. I will leave you to your shameful secret web-mining and hateful group-shaming and bullying posts against Kate Middleton and other women you have never, and will never, meet. I have a backlog of Veep episodes (I’ve heard this is a really good show) to watch which is a far better use of my time. You will never make it as a legitimate published writer – also remember this crap is uploaded forever and will come back to bite you. You should have stuck to quilling! (what an interesting word, and it implies that I actually may have some artistic talent, which I don’t) You may big-time yourself (is big-time a verb? I’m confused) at Starbucks with your laptop (man, so my other self has a laptop? So jealous), but as you judge, remember most of those “little people” around you think good thoughts, including about a woman trying to do her best to bring good cheer to others. Face it, it is more than you do in your quotidian routine life (love this phrase, perhaps I’ll borrow it). She puts forward her best inner self and actively works on her outer health and beauty too. Since you don’t, you therefore choose to hate her for it. Gosh I’m glad I’m not you! Errhh, this whole web-interaction (were we interacting? Sorry, wasn’t paying attention) has left me feeling a bit depressed that the internet now gives unsuccessful writers, who would never have the talent or resilience to get past the junior editor or press cadetship, a chance to publish their rants. This is why fascism, racism and sexism exist, intolerant and judgemental people like you…(PS. If you can publish anonymously, (um, I don’t publish anonymously; anyone wanting to can see my identity) why can’t I? Hypocrite)
Gillian (I guess she wanted to make sure I really paid attention to this comment, so she posted it twice, but I think that it would be overkill if I were to make the same responses twice.)
Although I know you will take down my posts on this and your other crappy websites, I have spent – ie. wasted – enough time perusing your self-obsessed, ultimately self-hating whining against other women who have done you no harm. I will leave you to your shameful secret web-mining and hateful group-shaming and bullying posts against Kate Middleton and other women you have never, and will never, meet. I have a backlog of Veep episodes to watch which is a far better use of my time. You will never make it as a legitimate published writer – also remember this crap is uploaded forever and will come back to bite you. You should have stuck to quilling! You may big-time yourself at Starbucks with your laptop, but as you judge, remember most of those “little people” around you thing good thoughts, including about a woman trying to do her best to bring good cheer to others. Face it, it is more than you do in your quotidian routine life. She puts forward her best inner self and actively works on her outer health and beauty too. Since you don’t, you therefore choose to hate her for it. Gosh I’m glad I’m not you! Errhh, this whole web-interaction has left me feeling a bit depressed that the internet now gives unsuccessful writers, who would never have the talent or resilience to get past the junior editor or press cadetship, a chance to publish their rants. This is why fascism, racism and sexism exist, intolerant and judgemental people like you…(PS. If you can publish anonymously, why can’t I? Hypocrite)
(Let me pause here for a moment: Gillian, my dear, I have to agree with you on this one: Lola of lovelolaheart does seem to be obsessed with the Duchess. It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?)
Gillian
Anyone visiting this page, please refer to the bitchy envious attacks against someone this woman has never met at: lovelolaheart.com, (I have to admit that I am a bit torqued that this Lola is using the word musings in the title of her blog; that’s my word; I like the internal alliteration) then see if you want to keep reading this so-called “liberal” and “feminist”. She never got over being the unattractive little pudgy girl (um, pudgy now, yes, but in school, a bit too skinny, just saying) from an ethnic background (Filipino. Let’s be clear here) at school, rather than wanting to be the posh Anglo-Saxon prefect (Prefect? As in, you know, one of those students in charge at Hogwarts? Now that would be cool). Show ALL your posts to a psychiatrist and start drinking genuinely good coffee (I happen to like my coffee, Mayorga; it’s strong and tasty) (at the Grumpy Cafe for example where you will feel intimidated by genuinely creative people) rather than spending hours in Starbucks (If I did this, it would mean that I would a) have to leave the house, and b) have the money to hang out drinking Starbucks coffee) pretending to yourself that you are a writer, sneering at the little people.
Gillian
You and your other Kate-Hate friends are all a bunch of hypocrites (I have friends?).You profess to that you are not making envious attacks, that you are concerned Kate Middleton carries out insufficient royal duties, that she is undermining the institution of royalty, that you had to work full-time as well as raise children, that royalty is waste a money and irrelevant. Yet you all (fifteen of you) (wow, fifteen? Really? Are they all named Lola? Where are these fifteen duchess disparagers?) seem to spend hours trawling the internet and blogging comments that are misogynistic, indirectly aggressive (the psych term for bitchy), derogatory and highly critical – despite claiming that you are not at all jealous. (Now I must pause here and be serious for one moment: I’ve been called many things, but misogynistic is definitely not one of them. Perhaps, Gillian, you should look through my posts for the past six years, which, by the way, also serves as a direct indicator that I didn’t start this blog to excoriate the Duchess.) So why do you care? How does it negatively impact on your life? If it doesn’t, why are you wasting your time being a “Mean Girl” to someone you never met in such a cowardly way? You would never, ever say this to the woman’s face, or her husbands, were you by chance to meet her. If you say you would, then protest publicly in your real name with a real address by writing a letter to a UK newspaper – if you don’t have the guts, then why are you wasting your time on this. Maybe you should spend it constructively doing charitable works yourself at a local women’s shelter or playing/socialising with those kids that you had to raise part-time for the hours every week you spend on this drivel. If you are unwilling to show your writings to a colleague outside any posters on this page, then you are exhibiting shame and embarrassment about this activity.(Beg to differ with you on this particular point, only as regards my actual blog: I don’t share my writings with any colleagues because, well, I don’t have any of those any more, not since going out on disability, just my meager little audience here who can attest that I am actually not at all interested in the goings-on of any royals, anywhere.) I can’t believe there are adult women, many of whom have university educations, participating in this exercise in the group-shaming of a young woman who has never committed a crime, never abused a child, never purposefully behaved harmfully towards another human-being (You are absolutely spot on here, Gillian). She wears a thong because if she had a visible panty line, no doubt the press would pick on it (TMITMITMI). She wears off-the-rack accessible clothing and unfortunately, helicopter down-draft caused her skirt to flap for less than a second. She has been photographed behaving with goodwill in an appropriate manner millions of times by now. The travel agent amateur photographers is being ostracised by the local community in the Blue Mountains now because they consider her behaviour towards a young woman generously bringing funds and publicity towards their plight disgraceful. That’s reflects the way almost all people would respond to the comments on this and similar pages you all frequent. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, was what my mother used to quote. (I’ll just let this speak for itself, shall I?) I would say this to each of you to your face. If you can’t honestly say that you would post this garbage in your own name, in full knowledge of your family, friends and colleagues, then don’t waste the world’s and your own time. If you think you need psychological help because you recognise that it is odd to demonstrate so much ill-feeling towards a woman you actually don’t know or have any interaction with, then please get it (I will certainly address this with my therapist at my next appointment, but it will have to come right after my ongoing discussion regarding my response to recently losing my last parent. Priorities, don’t you know). Publish the Blue Mountains Mayor’s comments because they reflect what most people think, not your own mean-spirited musings…. Bet you don’t even have the guts to post this or his comments Lolita (Hooray! You got my name right!). I am going to refer you and other Kate-Hate middle-aged ranters (love this) to the Daily Mail as story material. Your self-obsessed and hateful behaviour is appalling – no wonder you also have a low opinion of yourself.
Okay, now seriously, I cannot tell you how much this collection of comments has brightened my Saturday afternoon. It’s been a very long time since anyone paid any attention to my little blog, other than the few compatriots who lend me a bit of their time by commenting on my relatively inane ramblings. The last time this happened, it was the psycho stalker who was hanging about in the shadows wreaking havoc. That individual chose not to come forth and identify herself, so that makes this little interlude all the more special.
It’s funny, but whenever someone attempts to disparage me, I always think of Oscar Wilde, who, because of his lifestyle, was constantly harangued in the press, yet he chose to respond with wit and wisdom. I only wish that I could be so urbane, but as I am not, I decided to include some of Wilde’s more apropos words.
So I’m taking the following from Gillian’s (I’ve always loved that name) rather heated rant:
For the record:
Thank you, Gillian. Truly. It’s been lovely.
More later. Peace.
Music by The Kinks, “Lola” (what else?)
Confessions
I once shoplifted
a tin of Vienna sausages.
Crouched in the aisle
as if to study the syllables
of preservatives, tore off the lid,
pulled out a wiener and sucked it down.
I’ve cheated on exams.
Made love to foldouts.
Walked my paper route in a snowstorm after dark,
so I could steal down a particular alley
where through her gauze curtains, a lady
lounged with her nightgown undone.
I’ve thrown sticks at stray dogs.
Ignored the cat scratching to come inside.
Even in the rain.
Sat for idle hours in front of the TV, and not two feet away
the philodendrons for lack of a glass of water
gasped and expired.
So many excuses I’ve concocted to get by.
Called in sick when I was not. Grabbed credit
for happy accidents I had no hand in.
Pointed fingers
to pin the innocent with crimes
unmistakably mine.
I have failed
to learn from grievous error.
Repeated gossip.
Invented gossip. Held hands
in a circle of friends to rejoice
over the misfortune of strangers.
Pushed over tombstones.
Danced the devil’s jig.
Once, when I was barely old enough
to walk home on my own, I hid
behind an abandoned garage.
Counted sixteen windows.
Needed only four handfuls of stones
to break every one.
~ Lowell Jaeger
Wednesday afternoon, windy and cold, 47 degrees.
Two days ago it was in the mid 70’s, now this. My body is so confused, and everything hurts, right down to the cells.
I’ve spent the last two days trying to do taxes, the operative word being trying. Even with the online program, I realized two very important things: First, I did last year’s taxes wrong, and second, the people who write the tax codes went to the La Sade school of pain.
In between doing taxes, I have allowed myself to go on an art hunt for image of the moon, and I have come across some lovely new ones, so many that I will perhaps have to divide them among two posts.
Ah, me. So much to do still, and so very little of the wherewithal to do it. Yes, I am hovering somewhere near the bottom of the lowest lows, for far too many reasons to elucidate, so I decided that I will do a random thoughts post, mostly because I haven’t done one in a while, and also, I have a lot of random thoughts jostling for space in my brain, and if I don’t put them down, either my brain will explode, or it will reset itself, and I will have nothing but a reformatted hard drive of a brain, which, if you don’t know, means I will be completely empty.
To begin . . . what do I love?
by Eugène Fredrik Jansson
What do I hate?
by Charles Guilloux
Color my world:
by Maurice Prendergast
Things that bother me too much:
by Oscar Hullgren
What I’m feeling lately:
What I am not good at:
Etcetera:
Look, I know that I’m not a bad person, but I’m not the best person that I could be. I give when I can, but not enough. I do some things, but not others. I don’t go far enough with my writing. I love my family too fiercely, so that sometimes it’s smothering. I treat my dogs like children. I berate myself constantly for not following through, with my publishing degree, with postgraduate work, with writing workshops, with writing projects. But I stop just short of moving on. I harbor deep resentment, and I hold grudges, if only in my mind. I awaken from these nightmares, and I wonder how I got here, how I can go on, how I can do the right thing, whatever that is. I judge the actions of others when I have far too many foibles of my own.
I should be happy with what I have, my spouse, my kids, my granddaughter, but I cannot still this unrest in my heart, this feeling that I am not doing something that I need to do, that I am not going to the place that I need to be, but do not ask me what or where or when. If I had any answers, do you think I would do this day in and day out? The only thing that I know for certain is that I know less and less with each passing hour, and it leaves me feeling left behind. I am fallow and hollow, and my soul is the color of coffee dregs. And no matter how much I try to brighten my face or paint my nails, there is a hardness beneath, and yet that hardness is but a veneer, and below that is quicksilver, a mercurial being that is willful in one moment and utterly fragile in the next.
Enough. The floodgates must be closed. I knew that this wasn’t a good idea.
More later. Peace.
Music by Janel Drewis, “In the Pines (Where Did You Sleep Last Night)”
The Other Day
1
The other day my wristwatch
came apart – not the time
but the band, not the beginning
but the end. The sun did not
shine, but it had not shown
itself for a handful of days.
Night came on early, but it is
that part of the year, at least
here, where night does that.
One friend says
“you can take my word
for the sun,”
misunderstood this as:
some sentences are like
sun and the moon,
some moon or sun,
some night only but
near night or far
night – consolation
in either case.
2
Wish friend had said
“take my friendship
for the sun”
Am missing the sun – but the
orbit or a human closeness
over time begins to resemble
the misshapen stand of a watchband,
or the case of moonlight
held only in the hands of
illusion / accompaniment –
the moon is moving a few
feet (or is it inches)
away from the earth every
year – whether “it” collided
with us (thus forming)
is beside the point. The
moon moves away like
our lives from ourselves.
~ Michael Burkard