Tagged: puttingwordstogether

18
Apr
2008

PUBLIC APOLOGY

I was kind of yanking my brother’s chain when I wrote yesterday’s post, and obviously, since he’s one of the few that hears the tone of my voice in his head when he reads my words, simply BECAUSE he knows me (too) well, I figured he would get that. See, it wasn’t really him (he?) that sparked the post I wrote, but it was he (him?) that sent me the link to the essay that DID spark it, so he got sort of associated sideways and took the brunt of the blame, quite unfairly. Robin Hobb thinks what I do...

17
Apr
2008

THE WOODS WOULD BE VERY SILENT IF NO BIRDS SANG THERE EXCEPT THOSE THAT SANG BEST*

My brother thinks what I do here isn’t Writing (with a capital W). But what he doesn’t realize is that I’m not really a writer and if I wasn’t writing here, I wouldn’t be writing at all. I started this journal SPECIFICALLY to kick start my writing again, and it worked, and as a big fat bonus I also got a round of awesome people to become friends with and the whole Internet to ask questions of and get recognition and applause from. Score! There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do all the things I’d like to...

02
Mar
2008

IT IS WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT

These things go a long way toward restoring my equilibrium: sleeping in, sushi, massage, cleaning, reading, napping, music and watching my children’s faces light up. I had all of them, in one form or another, this weekend. There might also have been Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew ice cream in there somewhere. It makes me feel that I can face Monday morning, which is nice. The upcoming week isn’t a busy one (I mean, aside from work): just taking Karin to karate tomorrow and walking while she’s there; and dinner with the Wonders on Friday. I read an excellent...

07
Feb
2008

AH, THERE YOU ARE

Do you ever stop and think about the fact that all the people around you, the people on the bus, or the woman riding horseback in the field by the road or the folk that wander purposefully up and down the aisles of the grocery store you’re in, ALL those people are thinking and doing and living their lives just like you? Sometimes it freaks me out a little bit. It used to freak me out a lot when I had this kind of epiphany every once in awhile in Chicago, city of 9 million plus souls. And half the...

19
Jan
2008

SIGHT UNSEEN

The days keep getting away from me. Even as I sharpen my gaze, fixating on the color and the lightness of the evening sky—is it more cobalt than black at 4 o’clock?—is it lighter now, just slightly? It is! A miniscule difference that lights up my whole attitude—they seem to begin, whiz past, and end more quickly than ever before. In addition to the still-more-frequent than I would like blurry eyes, I’ve been plagued this past year with a recurring eye infection that is very irritating coming as it does with constant watering, sensitivity and redness that the strongest eyedrops...

26
Dec
2007

WHAT EVERY WELL-ROUNDED LIBRARY NEEDS

I realize this is really bad timing, judging from the tumbleweeds currently blowing through my own wallet, but I can finally make mention here, since I’ve just verified that all my family members have received and unwrapped their Christmas presents. Remember all that editing I was so mysteriously working on over the course of the past year? It was this: lizardek’s obiter dictum — best of 2003-2006 And if there is anyone who just can’t get enough (and my jaw will permanently dislocate if so), there is also The Complete Works (to date). I know these are not really of...

05
Nov
2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Do you ever actually sit and count your blessings? I suppose because it’s November now and getting closer to Thanksgiving, and also because we are reading Those Happy Golden Years in which Laura is now a schoolteacher boarding 12 miles from home in a horrible household and SHE is talking about how wonderful her home and family and life are in contrast, that I am thinking so frequently about my life and the things that are good in it. Even if you don’t believe in BLESSINGS, per se; the idea that someone, some higher being, some all-knowing, all-seeing power PERSONALLY...

23
Oct
2007

LIGHT TOMORROW WITH TODAY*

Every time something happens to interrupt the flow of words to this journal—vacations, business trips, illnesses, general maniac busyness—I find it harder to get back on track. There was a time, some years ago, when for a whole year and then some I actually wrote something nearly every day. Every day! What perserverance I must have had then, back when I was a young thing, with sparkles in my eyes and a spring in my step.** Then I decided to cut myself some slack and you can see, if you look at my journal calendars, that I began slacking and...

18
Sep
2007

EATING OF THE FRUIT (AND VEGETABLE) OF KNOWLEDGE

The best way to say the word ‘vegetable’ is like this: veggie-wobble. It’s addictive, beware. Not one but TWO sugar beets were sighted today, outside of Gårdstånga on E22 heading toward Lund. Fall is officially here. It’s the annual I-Saw-a-Sugar-Beet-on-the-Side-of-the-Road-so-it-Must-be-Autum journal post! Yay! New favorite veggie-wobble: KOHLRABI. Like George Martin, this one is all my brother’s fault. Have you ever had a kohlrabi? I bet you have, but you didn’t know it. Sometimes they’re the mysterious white crispy veggies in frozen wok mixes or the pale thin strips of veggies mixed in with the red peppers and julienned carrots in...

23
Jul
2007

MERRY GO ROUND

When I opened the side door and stepped out, I was surprised to see a rather large hedgehog snuffling around right there, practically under my feet. He seemed taken aback as well and waffled first one way and then the other. I didn’t want to scare him so I just chuckled a quiet hello and went for a walk in the lovely evening sunshine, made even lovelier by its contrast with the 24-hour pouring buckets of rain we had yesterday. A grasshopper string section played a buzzing, frenzied sarabande as I strode past a meadow overflowing with golden feathered tall...