Read a banned book!

what can you do to celebrate banned book week which runs September 29 through October 6? Read a banned book, of course. Great fun is to scan the lists of banned books on the following link (which I will learn how to do nicely once I am not loaded up on Advil for the world's longest and saddest root canal ever) here:http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/explorebbw.cfm
even more fun to do is to note how many banned books you have read - and then ponder over the mystery of some of them as in "why?". A Wrinkle in Time, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Alice in Wonderland, The Bible to name a few. If I wrote a book that was objected to or banned along with such excellent company, I would be thrilled.
The ALA site (American Library Association) is fun to explore if you haven't before - plus their online store has cool stuff like banned books bracelets.

A wet dog week

http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/gargoyle/2006/04/my_favorite_poem_rosemary_laug_1.htm

the rainstorm with Maine in its headlights has given us a week of weather so damp and thick that everything smells like a wet dog - the carpets, the furniture, the interior of the car. I would Febreeze the world if it wouldn't kill the fish, the frog, the tortoise ... yes, the tortoise who decided to hibernate when the sun was high and the yard full of greenery and has now decided to awaken and torture us all by slamming against the walls of his prison to be let out...he then lumbers through the house to slam against the glass doors facing the back yard...he so yearns to escape that I long to set him free, but my daughter insists that would be a very very bad thing as he would come to a very very bad end. Very quickly. If I were him, I would choose the one shining moment of escape but I don't get to call the tortoise shots around here.

Oh, yes. The dogs smell like wet dogs too.

writings about writing

Some one mentioned she had just read a good book on writing memoirs today - turns out it is by Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones author, one of the really good books on writing.
Here are a few others of note:
-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Once I read her book, Operating Instructions, I was hers for life).
- Walking on Water, reflections on faith and art by Madeleine L'Engle (I just bought myself a new copy (beautiful edition by Shaw) as she signed the old one which is falling apart and has moved into things to love but not play with category.
-Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (wonderfully Bradbury which means very sane advice coupled with his enthusiastic madness).
-How to enjoy writing: a book of aid and comfort by Janet and Isaac Asimov (a favorite I reread just for the pleasure of their remarks...I meant him once, mistook him for someone else, and he was extremely gracious).
-Natalie Goldberg has several writing books out, all are good although I view "the bones" one mentioned above as her gold standard.
-A Broom of One's Own by Nancy Peacock is a recent favorite that I liked so much I bought my own copy after reading a library copy.

I just picked up two different titles by Katherine Paterson , the children's author, that look interesting, there's an Ursula LeGuin I want to get to... there are actually a lot of books by writers on the subject since writers like to write and that often includes writing about writing.
I do wish Neil Gaiman would write one but I doubt he ever will.

Why read these? Because writers frequently find themselves surrounded by nonwriters who find the whole business of sitting alone, scratching your thoughts out, and agonizing over your dreadful prose and lack of talent which torments you until you get a line just right and then you glow all day, well, others find all of this a bit strange (and they are probably right) and being one who writes can be a lonely place. like being the only believer in a religion nobody else follows.

Books by writers on writing are nice to dip into now and again, borrow some advice, but mainly a place to hang out with people who think the way you do - which can be a welcoming place to visit when your writing spirits are low. There are, of course, writing blogs by writers but even the best ones are places on the computer you should probably not hang around since, if you recall, you sat down at the computer to write your own stuff and now you are distracted checking mail, reading blogs, typing comments, cruising Etsy, and your story is just wandering about in your head, muttering to itself. Yeah.

Appreciated

I drive past this corner house several times a week coming home from work. While on a busy street corner, the yard is always full of blooms which spill over onto the sidewalk.

Always nice when stuck at a red light to have such a lovely thing to view.

part of a poem by N.M. Bodecker

Slugs are

peaceful, quiet

little fellows,

who have their

little sluggish tiffs

no doubt,

but hardly ever

bother

one another,

and never,

ever

stop

to slug it out.

poetry friday with a toothache

This toothy poem found on the sissyfish blog http://sissyfish.blogspot.com/2008/06/poem-with-teeth.html feels appropriate considering I am on a boatload of pain meds for dental work (note both ocean and teeth themes here) as well as feeling a bit freaked out by the escalating viciousness of the political front.
Obviously many people out there on both sides of the political fence have a lot of passionate opinions to air, but whether you are for one candidate or the other, the fact that some people are using politics to air their secret hatreds (as if that in any way will make this a better country or world) is so disturbing and very sad.

Splash on over

In blog etiquette this is probably the rudest thing - but come visit me at my other blog, Library Mermaid, as I get it up and running - and let me know what you think (not to mention the ongoing participation in dewey's book quotes challenge).

http://librarymermaid.blogspot.com

Eventually I hope to turn this blog back towards what it was originally meant to be, a blog about writing and words, but of course, when you like a lot of things, it's hard to maintain any kind of theme :)

Back in the saddle again

I couldn't access photos and whatnot on the new computer - or maybe it was the zicodin haze the ongoing root canal work has put me in...but I seem to be up and running (okay, walking) now at least.
Still haven't learned how to do the proper way to put in links even though Nan was patient enough to give me a tutorial (thank you again and I promise - am getting to it, been a rough summer!)
but here are two favorites - Comes a Time and Sugar Mountain...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHXU_bW44NU Puts me right back where I want to be.

quote of the day

The nine year old has to choose an instrument at school. He has narrowed down the choices but to make up his mind, we youtube a number of them playing. He chooses one right off the bat, we listen to a number of different people playing, and he wants what he wants. He sighs happily and says, " I now know what I will be when I grow up. A cello player and a biologist."

September song

Try to remember

the kind of September

when life was slow

and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember

the kind of September

when grass was green

and grain was yellow.

Try to remember

the kind of September

when you were a tender and callow fellow.

Try to remember,

and if you remember, then follow.

Car poetry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqmQ829qYRc


For Poetry Friday - a Mary Oliver poem read by a woman in a car who posted it on YouTube.
I love how it starts out - a bit wonky, this, you think, a woman in a car waiting for her husband to finish a doctor's appointment. And then she starts to read this most marvelous poem of Mary Oliver's, and you get so pulled into it, and it isn't wonky after all, just you and this woman in a car and this bridge of words between her speaking the poem and you listening, and the little space in mind it creates afterward.

Catting around

Okay, not really catting around but it's fun to say. Speaking of...(nice how I worked this in, huh?) cat lovers take note - a really charming book I came across in a Vet's office (appropriately, I suppose, although I was there with a very cranky tortoise, not a cat) is

With Cats for Comforter by Ray Bradbury. When not writing his terrific short stories, screenplays, essays and novels, apparently he is loving cats.

Morning grass, rock lines

Starting to look through the vacation photos - here is the grass at the edge of the deck at the place we stay...
I also liked these rock lines, formed at the swimming hole by an anonymous earlier visitor - I love seeing what's left behind, mud castles and stone bridges.

Some good reds

Some bright and bold summer reds to welcome the new week.

"First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do."

-Epictetus

I am so sick

and yet in my raised temperature haze, I recalled I had this photo...I think times like this make a girl realize she has become addicted to blogging...back to Advil and antibiotics.

some good blues

thoughts on wanderlust

Was writing a review of a book on Goodreads and thought I would drag some of it here since it (the book) got me to thinking about travel. You've seen the book in bookstores, I'm sure... A 1,000 places to see before you die. Well, I thought that this book really sets the bar a bit high. A thousand places just assumes right off that you have time and money since the rest of us drones have trouble getting time off to go visit Aunt Ida in Des Moines. I mean, come on. We were skimming through it at work - I cannot imagine anyone actually reading the whole thing unless they had a highlighter in hand and index cards 'cause that is how they roll. However, besides realizing I will not ever see 100 things at the rate I am going, it also made me realize I have questionable aim in the places I would choose compared to the higher end choices laid out in this puppy.
So - let's just assume you have ten places to go because really, just going from the couch to the kitchen and back to the couch can be exhausting some evenings, yes?
Well. 1) I want to eat a slice of key lime pie in Key West.
2) I want to go to Scotland and if I don't go soon, my daughter says she will clonk me over the head and drag me there as she is sick of hearing about it.
3) I want to see San Francisco because my mother loved it.
4) I don't want to see Niagara Falls but the husband has some obsession with it and I imagine it would be sort of cool to take one of those little boat rides where everyone wears rain slickers, so I have to include it.
5) Pablo Neruda's house in Chili. Isla Negra. And could I just move in?
6) Portland, Maine but without children as I have heard the combination of bookstores and restaurants is lovely...
7) England - but Virginia's England and C.S. Lewis' England and Mole and Ratty's England. A cousin-in-law who lives there said I shouldn't actually see England as the England in my head is really far more beautiful and quite fictional.
8) Long backroads and good b-b-q and people that say "hey".
9) Watch the sun set in a desert. Any desert.
10) Open to suggestions and changes of heart.

Fish love and furniture

A small and solo road trip last weekend - I was aiming for a crafts show but got sidetracked by a sign for a sale at the Lillian August outlet in Norwalk, Ct... I don't usually bring a camera into a store with me, but it was a happy accident that I had mine in my bag - I love the textures of the iron against the brick, the cement, the glass.

I love the beach bone weathered wood feeling - this couch was corduroy and as comfortable as a favorite pair of autumn pants...



I am generally not a big shopper but I found wandering around in the store with a camera very pleasing - the price tags even on sale were beyond me but it started turning into an explore of things I like.

I loved the wood of the old shelves and bins although I was a bit surprised to realize that people buy cleaned up pine cones and bark and seed pods from stores rather than finding them on walks. It was like finding those bags of seashells and dried up starfish at craft stores and feeling sad that a starfish ended up dried in a bag just waiting for somebody's glue gun to stick it on something.



But what made me so very happy was to see this fish. He was the reason I got sidetracked. The husband and I went here about a year ago to look at chairs before we realized we have Lillian August taste and an Ikea budget. But I fell in love. This is a great big whomping fish - and his wooden tale could move side to side the way it is hinged. He looks like he's made out of an old tin shack and he speaks to me. I was so happy to see him again - and me with with a camera! It was meant to be.

Hail Storm

8/8/08

eighty degrees and a few rumbles of distant thunder even as the weather woman announces the storm has passed us and is on route to Long Island. Suddenly pouring rain, hail, and a drop in temperature to the fifties.

I love summer storms.