37.0

I know why authors tend to have such odd handwriting. At least, I know why I tend to have such odd handwriting. Not that I consider myself an author, oh no. I'm not feeling THAT presumptuous today. Sorry to disappoint.:)

Anyway, it's pretty simple. A notebook page is not just a piece of paper. It is an incubator for a whole world. For a whole scenario. It's like growing sea monkeys only with a pen and it's much harder and it turns out cooler.

But, that scenario or story is still fragile. Nothing more than a fetus of a thought. It's squishy and under baked, and even though it's out in the open it's still sensitive to light. You have to protect it, right? From what? Well, from wandering eyes, of course!
See, that's the thing with writing in close proximity to other people like say, oh I don't know, a cramped 10th grade English classroom. Yeah.
You know those spots where you're talking about the transition of agricultural processes during the 1800s and people just start looking around to find something better to pay attention and they just happen upon your strange poem about dandelions and dementia.
God forbid that they read it and give you those oh-so-dreaded words of "What. The Hell?" to which you're now quite accustomed to responding with a harsh "Nothing."

Yeah, in order to avoid that horrendous scenario you have to disguise your writing in the most indecipherable chicken scratch anyone has ever laid their eyes upon. Then you write worry-free under a cloak of illegibility.



(this is a page from Neil Gaiman's American Gods notebook)

36.1

I never thought that it would
come to this
I don't know how we reached this
precipice.

I'd come to think that you were
just a brat.
And I'll bet you'd come to think that I was
a negligent prat

I hated you and
you hated me
and all my sorrowful attempts at being
motherly.

You'd scream and kick,
I'd slap your face,
we'd both go to our rooms
pray to our pillows
so that we could leave this place.

36.0

Is there a problem with your head?
Do you need some tears to shed?
Come with me, I'll lend you three
I've got underneath my bed.

Do you spend your time on sidewalks
that border busy streets?
Are your best friends dark and Doppler?
Do you have a place to sleep?
Do you ever want to sleep?
Are you coughing just because
it stops you from sobbing in your sleeve?

35.0

Story:

Once
upon
a
time
Richard Nixon
lived
in
a
casino
with
George W. Bush
and
they
ate
each other.

THE END.


written by my brother and myself.

34.0

Vals

Yo toco el odio como pecho diurno,
yo sin cesar, de ropa en ropa vengo
durmiendo lejos.

No soy, no sirvo, no conozco a nadie,
no tengo armas de mar ni de madera,
no vivo en esta casa.

De noche y agua está mi boca llena.
La duradera luna determina
lo que no tengo.

Lo que tengo está en medio de las olas.
Un rayo de agua, un día para mí:
un fondo férreo.

No hay contramar, no hay escudo, no hay traje,
no hay especial solución insondable,
ni párpado vicioso.

Vivo de pronto y otras veces sigo.
Toco de pronto un rostro y me asesina.
No tengo tiempo.

No me busquéis entonces descorriendo
el habitual hilo salvaje o la
sangrienta enredadera.

No me llaméis: mi ocupación es ésa.
No preguntéis mi nombre ni mi estado.
Dejadme en medio de mi propia luna,
en mi terreno herido.


*****



Waltz

I touch hatred like a covered breast;
I without stopping go from garment to garment,
sleeping at a distance.

I am not, I'm of no use, I do not know
anyone; I have no weapons of ocean or wood,
I do not live in this house.

My mouth is full of night and water.
The abiding moon determines
what I do not have.

What I have is in the midst of the waves,
a ray of water, a day for myself,
an iron depth.

There is no cross-tide, there is no shield, no costume,
there is no special solution too deep to be sounded,
no vicious eyelid.

I live suddenly and other times I follow.
I touch a face suddenly and it murders me.
I have no time.

Do not look for me when drawing
the usual wild thread or the
bleeding net.

Do not call me: that is my occupation.
Do not ask my name or my condition.
Leave me in the middle of my own moon
in my wounded ground.



Imagine, if you will:
You are a postman in a small town.

Your pay is pittance and you only get to deliver mail to one house, so you wouldn't get tipped very much either. It's just you, your bicycle and some stranger's mail.
But what if that stranger were the perfect stranger? What if you were stuck with this seemingly insignificant menial job but soon find yourself blessed with the honor of delivering mail to the man who wrote the poem above?

Something so simple as delivering mail could be the start of a connection. The very thing that can allow you to pass through the grand crevices of such an entrancing mind. Musings shared with you exclusively. Inklings of ideas that turn your pathetic salary into a mere shadow of a thought. The world was left overwhelmed, overjoyed, intimidated and welcomed all at the same time by this man. And you are his postman.

Pablo Neruda is the Chilean poet who wrote "Waltz". Mario Ruopollo is the lucky fictional postman who gets to meet and befriend this grand poet.

For anyone who's ever dreamt of dinner with Dickinson, Sunday brunch with Steinbeck, afternoon tea with Tolstoy...
I highly recommend the movie "Il Postino".

33.1

There's a time in a girl's life when she can't wait to get her period (I know, right?). Girls can't wait to have an age that required 2 digits to be told. 13 is the checkpoint.
A time when girls have this problem where their brains don't process age correctly so they think that 13 = 20 for some reason. So they fill their wardrobes with "mature" tops and skirts, they stuff their drawers with bras so padded they could be used as skydiving helmets. They start to spend their pocket money on mascara, eyeliner and lipgloss instead of the K-Mart carousel, gum and wishing fountains.

At the same time, boys can't wait to grow facial hair. They inspect their cheeks and chins religiously. Hoping, praying for the smallest trace of stubble. These prayers are usually misheard, and the boys are granted acne instead. They long for a car, they long for a girlfriend. They grow sick of their girlish frame, and want to be bigger, taller, older. They stop hanging around by the slide and start hanging around by the weight room. They start to look at their cowboy pajamas with detest, and they shun anything that might be classified under "doll".

I come into contact with these endangered specimens almost every day, and sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I want to laugh because they look so ridiculous but I want to cry because it's one of the many examples of this whole "grass is always greener" syndrome.

Kids can never wait to grow up. Never. Once you hit 13, you want to be 16. Once you hit 16 you want to hit 18, 19, 20. But everyone gets to the age that they wish they could be frozen in forever. Once you get past that age, birthdays are no longer looked forward to. They're feared. And the tables are turned.

People want to hold on to the very thing they wanted to skip: their youth.

I see kids who can't wait to grow up and I see adults who wish they wouldn't. Either way, I see impatient, anxious, unhappy people who grow to fear something as magical as a birthday.


A gloriously narcissistic day in which your accomplishment of inhaling and exhaling for a whole 365 days is celebrated with cake, ice cream, and free stuff from all of your relatives and friends.

I can only see a WIN/WIN here.

In short, I guess what this is all supposed to add up to is to calm down and eat your birthday cake. Something that comes and goes as consistently as age isn't something to get very worked up about. There are a million other things that are more worthy of your worries.

33.0

Why is it that I hardly ever write about happy things? I guess writing is what I do to substitute for pillow punching mainly because I'm scared that if I punch ANYTHING (even something as soft as a pillow), I'll break my fist. However, I am immune to carpal tunnel syndrome (SCORE!). Hence, hours at the keyboard with repeated uses of my write pinky for the "backspace" button.

But I'm feeling the need for some smiley faces here, my blogs have been too bleak and whiny. So in the meantime:

:) :) :) :)

you can name them John Paul George and Ringo. Or any other famous foursome that comes to mind. They can keep you company while I think of something happy to write about.

This may take a while.

Oh forget it, this post is becoming too synthetic. I'm going to go do "work" now. See you in 2 seconds.

32.3

I seem to perpetually find myself in situations of distaste. Of crookedness. Of discomfort. Of exclamations that go a little like "whoops." And in the moment, my whole world falls. I smack my palm to my forehead and wince while I think, "I messed up. I've ruined everything." And the little squigglies in my brain tangle up and mesh real tight while I go through all of the horrible scenarios of my adult future that for some reason is terribly affected by this one screw up. Kind of like the whole "Sound of Thunder" deal. You know, step on a butterfly and all of humanity disappears. I tend to freak out, silently. So as not to disturb the serene ambiance of my home(*cough couch* SARCASM *cough*). But freaking out silently feels more painful than freaking out noisily. However, I found a trick that always helps me. I stop and I give my ego some oxygen and think, "psh, this can just be one of those humanizing anecdotes I tell in my autobiography I'll write 20 years from now titled 'Even I wasn't always perfect!' and the cover will have a professional looking picture of me smirking amusingly at my would-be audience." That always makes me smile, and gives me hope of future redemption.

32.2

I apologize, Blogger, for calling you incompetent. I realized it's just part of your allure to be mysterious and hide the "draft" button so no one can find it. But in the words of a sharp young girl, being enigmatic really doesn't suit you. And neither does your new layout. I apologize for my strange internal drama that was exhibited via this blog, but there aren't too many people go apologize to so I won't worry too much about it. :) Your welcome for the Jersey Shore quality entertainment. Savor it while it lasts.

32.1

I literally just finished a really nice post about tea and the weather. Blogger decided to be incompetent, as it neither saved nor published my golden material. Now my 32.0 post is just going to be this 3 sentence complaint, which is not as colorful or as interesting as the 32.0 post I had in mind before.

32.0

I'm craving the cold.
No, not the chill, the COLD.

Global warming totally ate up the hardcore winters I grew up with as a kid. I can't believe I'm saying this but I miss 'em. Part of me feels incomplete if my nose doesn't turn blue for those magical 3 months and a half. It's just the way it's always been. But not this year I guess.

Another reason why I'm craving the cold is because the unusual warmth has caused me to neglect tea. I have no idea why. It's not even that hot that I would disregard my favorite beverage. I have tea in the summer for crissakes! HOT TEA! IN THE HOT SUMMER! WHAT IS WRONG WITH HOT TEA DURING THE EVE OF SPRING-LIKE CHILL OF WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MIDDLE OF THE BEGINNING OF WINTER???

Maybe it's because my Linus mug and one of my Snoopy mugs broke from the handle. Maybe that's what's throwing off my tastes. Well whatever it is, I'm going to stop it. Lately I've been eating bread and chocolate like a pothead and I'm thinking "What the hell? I'm not even on my period... WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME??" and then I glanced at my lonely kettle sulking in the corner from neglect and my eyebrows shot up in realization and I uttered a small enlightened-sounding "Ah."

But all is well now for I am happily sipping at a Charlie Brown mug full of Tazo Organic Chai ($2.50 for a box. TOTAL STEAL).

31.0

It's 7:00 PM, and I just had a whole block of chocolate cheesecake, this means I can't blog. So I'll copy and paste something I did write earlier when I was sober and not as tired. Yeah, it's only 7, but it's DARK outside and I have it embedded in the depths of my soul (if I have one) that DARK = NIGHT and NIGHT = SLEEP therefore DARK = SLEEP. This combination of events leads to situations in which I make up proofs for everything, and crave more cheesecake. This is a total lose/lose. Anyway I guess it's a good idea to put this stuff up here (by up here I mean on the internet in general) so that if my computer explodes or whatever I'll always have this snippet of a story saved on the interwebz forever... Thanks, interwebz.

Below the weeping street lamp there lay a boy curled up in a ball and fast asleep. This boy wasn’t a bum and he wasn’t a runaway. Why, he hadn’t a scratch on his body or a trace of dirt underneath his fingernails but there he was, asleep beneath a weepy street lamp. He hadn’t a blanket and he hadn’t a pillow, yet he slept with a smile on his lips and a glow of warmth in his cheeks. and yet there he was, asleep beneath a weepy street lamp.

Through the night, the boy was left alone. When morning came, the few passers by paid him no heed. The men and women who sat at the bus stop just across the street could not be bothered to say “Good morning” to the person they sat beside, let alone take notice of a sleeping boy across the street. No, they were people of much too much importance to trouble themselves with a thing as silly as that. Because no one took notice of the boy, he stayed asleep for quite a long time. He didn’t so much as stir at the clack of women’s shoes or the hiss and rumble of the buses.

Many people walked beside that street lamp that day, and it wasn’t until around noon that things started to get interesting.

“Rebecca, I told you to stop fiddling with that thing,” said a woman.
“I’m not fiddling,” answered a little girl holding a balloon. She made it bob up and down with a flick of her wrist.
“I’m telling you, Rebecca,” the woman continued, “if you keep fiddling with that thing it’ll become loose and you’ll lose it to the skies. And I won’t get you another one.”
Rebecca gazed up at her rubber bubble on a string, completely unfazed by her mother’s words.
“Ok,” she replied, bouncing the balloon as they walked.

When they approached the corner of the sidewalk, Rebecca immediately turned her attention toward the sleeping boy still huddled up under the lamp which was no longer weepy.
“Mom, is that a person?” she asked, losing grip of her balloon as she reached to point at the boy. But Rebecca’s mother wasn’t listening.
“Oh, Rebecca. What did I tell you? If you think I’m going to walk all the way back to that stand to get you another one you’re extremely mistaken.”
“But mom,” Rebecca persisted, “is that a person?”




Right, now the next time I come on to this blog, seeing this post will remind me, "oh yeah, I did that huh?" and maybe that will make me laugh.

30.0

While my sitar gently weeps...


I've always had this fascination with odd instruments. Sitars, dulcimers, accordions, ocarinas, melodicas etc. When I grow up I'll buy one of each instrument I've listed. Maybe I'll learn to play them all, and create some obscure one-woman band music with my newly developed musical polyglotism. This musical anomaly will be so fantastic as to serve the purpose of completing my soul and the world. Maybe I'll become extremely famous in Spain and Norway. Maybe I'll be a worldwide sensation within a short while, like internet cat videos.


And maybe I won't learn how to play them. Maybe I'll be far too busy doing whatever it is I'll be doing when I'm "grown up", whatever that means. Perhaps their only purpose will be to provide culturally stylish litter to my living room. Maybe I'll be far too depressed to try to play them. Nothing makes me more frustrated than discordant noodling on an instrument, which is why when I noodle discordantly on my guitar whenever I'm upset I get more upset. But I'll be far too depressed to sell them as well. I'm a pack rat. I can only imagine how I'll be as an old lady, hoarding every tea tin and yogurt container I come across. The only contact I'll ever have with my instruments will be with a feather duster. The only sound they'll produce will be soft whimpers of dust.


And maybe I won't learn how to play them, but I'll still hear them be played. Maybe I'll have kids, and they'll know how to play sitars, dulcimers, accordions, ocarinas, melodicas etc. But suppose they decide to leave house, and I won't have anyone to play for me anymore. But then again, suppose my kids don't have washing machines. Or change. Perhaps they can use my washer and dryer in exchange for playing my obscure instruments. Laundry days will be spent at my house, and the basement will fill with the songs of sitars, dulcimers, accordions, ocarinas, melodicas etc. playing to the beat of the clothes tumbling in the dryer.

I would like that.