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Not dead
Many, many previously unfathomable things have happened. Maybe the biggest of them all is that I am still alive. -
"How to Build an Owl," by Kathleen Lynch
1. Decide you must.
2. Develop deep respect
for feather, bone, claw.
3. Place your trembling thumb
where the heart will be:
for one hundred hours watch
so you will know
where to put the first feather.
4. Stay awake forever.
When the bird takes shape
gently pry open its beak
and whisper into it ( Read more... ) -
Merit.
After several years, I have finally admitted that maintaining a paid LJ account is simply wasting money. This is how my world changes: quietly, with sighs and exhalations. $20 is a meaningful amount, and I think in comparative value--that could be dinner, or jeans on sale, or cat food, or the manicure I'm not sure I merit, or even saved for the ( Read more... ) -
Ways and means
Apparently it's almost NaNoWriMo, that delicious month where ordinary people are encouraged to write at least 50k words of their own novel from scratch. I've watched it come and go a few times, always thinking rather abstractly that it might be nice to try, but my participation is somewhere in the middle of a long list of other nice things like ( Read more... ) -
X-Men, or learning to love the bomb
This is the sort of post that requires of me a second cup of coffee, a sweater, and time. I still am not sure entirely what I am writing, or why, or even why it needs to be here, semi-public, but it is here. If I say anything worrisome, please be assured that I already have the appropriate psycho/medical support structure in place.
All of this ( Read more... ) -
Move
I am changing my address with a hope among many hopes that this will be for the better. I have always been ambivalent about moving, in that I exist dually on the valences of love and hate. There is no 'like' option, and I have attempted to apply the same duality to the debris that has filled my closets: I should only have the things I love. I ( Read more... ) -
I thought this post had been lost.
A few weeks later, I returned to LJ to post something inane, and it asks me if I want to restore from a previous draft. Previous draft? What had I been writing? and so I clicked. I suppose I'm a sucker for this sort of thing--a ridiculous pack-rat who hopes to find herself in the detritus of the life she's been frittering away. This is what I ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
"Having it Out with Melancholy," by Jane Kenyon
If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure. - A.P. Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
1 FROM THE NURSERY
When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into ( Read more... ) -
Happy Lunar New Year!
For everyone, my earnest wish that 4707,
Year of the Metal (White) Tiger (or Geng Yin),
brings you innumerable blessings and health
(and is an improvement on last year).
( Read more... )
