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Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying, or that were worth saying once but not any more ....
~Jose Saramago, The Cave
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Dec

28

Rejected but Not Dejected

Filed Under being creative, happiness, photos, plans | 2 Comments

This photo of Havana didn't make the cut
These days I’m writing poems inspired by photographs I took in Cuba back in 1999. The photos and poems will be compiled into an iPhoto book for my personal library. I’m excited to finally be doing something with the photos. (And a Hooray for scanners!)

Several weeks ago, I received my first rejection letter since deciding to “become” a writer again. Apart from a feeling of mild disappointment that lasted all of ten seconds, the notice didn’t bother me. (Don’t ask me when I learned not to take that kind of thing personally - maybe it ran off with my Seasonal Affective Disorder.) Included in my rejected application was a proposal for a collection of poems about the trips I’ve taken to Cuba, Spain, and Guatemala. Just because my proposal wasn’t accepted doesn’t mean I shouldn’t write the poems ….

I’m not using all of my Cuba photos - just 10-15 of them. The photo above, of a main street in Havana, didn’t make the cut. Because it’s cute, I stick in this one of the farm puppy with the toddler’s shoes.

Puppy

Popularity: 21% [?]

Jul

27

Colorado

Filed Under away from home, being creative, health, photos, small happinesses | 1 Comment

As it turns out, I’m having a GREAT time at the Take Shape for Life health coach convention. Tons of great, friendly people and wonderful information sessions. Not to mention, the beautiful scenery. Tomorrow morning, Robert Fritz will be speaking to us - he wrote a book I loved, “The Path of Least Resistance.”

Today I’ve been in workshops, but yesterday I managed to take a three hour walk from one end of the resort to another.

3 Trees at Keystone

River View at Keystone

Condos at Keystone

Popularity: 22% [?]

Jul

26

Pain, and Foul Language in Colorado

Filed Under away from home, being creative, events, health, photos | 2 Comments

HS & the DH at Keystone Resort, working I arrived at Keystone Resort yesterday with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was an opportunity to be in a beautiful place with my sweetie and other nice people; on the other, it was forcing me out of my comfort cave of introversion, a place I’d somberly retreated to after General Assembly and the US Social Forum. This convention will be much smaller - 400 f

olks instead of thousand - so perhaps it won’t be such a drain on me.

Yesterday we didn’t do much. Just settled in, picked up some groceries (we’re renting a comfortable condo), and somehow ended up watching The Kill Point and a really good episode of CSI in which Grissom went head to head with his former forensics mentor.

While flipping channels I thought I heard the “s” word - okay, shit - in a movie that was playing on AMC. I dismissed it, thinking, “It must be one of those garbled attempts at replacing a cuss word with something corny.” Then, while watching The Kill Point I was shocked to hear the “s” word twice. It took a moment to register and then I exclaimed to the DH, “What the hell is going on!?” I thought for sure that the censors had fallen asleep, and someone was going to lose their job! But no, the DH informed me that one can now say shit on cable channels after a certain night time hour.

He said, “Don’t you remember that South Park episode called “Night of a Thousand Shits” where they tried to say shit as many times as possible?”

I’d heard vague things about that, but somehow interpreted it as some kind of special deal the Comedy Channel had finagled, kind of like how Spielberg persuaded a broadcast network to air Schindler’s List without commercial breaks.

Man, I felt old. I remember when you couldn’t say bitch on tv. Or ass. I felt strangely nostalgic for the days before one could say shit on cable tv.

But I felt older still when my legs started hurting. The throbbing pain went from my lower back to my hips, and down my thighs to my knees. The DH massaged my legs but the relief this gave me was woefully temporary. Eventually, I went to sleep, but woke up at 4 in the morning in so much discomfort that I cried. I’m not sure what’s going on. I looked up the symptoms and it looks like I might be having sciatica. We’ll figure this out when I get home, I guess. Not looking forward to that process. My faith in doctors being able to tell me what is actually happening with my body is somewhere between zero and forget-it-about.

Still, after this I’m off for a walk/jog around the resort and take more photos. Lying around won’t make me feel any better!

Update: It looks like the leg pain might have been due to altitude. Keeping fingers crossed it doesn’t come back.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Jul

14

“Birdnesting” and More on Divorce

Filed Under from the heart, heteropatriarchy, life changes, love, photos, sadness | 4 Comments

Birdnesting is one of the terms for the kids-stay-in-the-home-after-divorce model I mentioned recently in “What’s Best for the Children of Divorce?” Here is a link to a 2003 Washington Post article that gives more information on birdnesting. No registration needed.

As David pointed out, if a couple could collaborate to make such an arrangement work long term one wonders if they could have worked things out in their marriage. I think it’s important to recognize that people divorce for different reasons, just as they marry for different reasons. Sometimes the divorce has to do with an inability to communicate or create solutions together - which doesn’t help during the process of divorce itself (witness nasty custody battles). But sometimes the divorce has to do with simply falling out of love or realizing you made a hasty decision, as Jess alludes to.

Me as a very well-fed infant I think divorce can be pretty awful for kids. My mom did as much as she could to protect me from the drama of breaking up with her first husband, my biological father. She didn’t want to get divorced, but she also didn’t want to be married to an unreliable drug user or be a “co-wife.” I was fortunate in that she remarried a man who has been a great father to me and my brother, and a good husband to her.

Perhaps because of this I don’t see divorce as the cause of “broken” children and broken families. I think widespread divorce is a symptom of isolation and consumerism. An exacerbating symptom, but a symptom nonetheless.

What hurt me was my bio-dad’s decision to stop seeing me when I was little, and still refusing to have anything to do with me now, twenty five years later. He reneged on his commitment to his children. He was doing that before the divorce.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Jul

2

Snucked-In Fried Chicken & Other Photos

Filed Under away from home, photos, ussf, uu culture | Leave a Comment

Finally, had an opportunity to download the last two weeks’ photographs from my camera … here is a sampling. (Note: photographs of me with Elandria, and me on the beach were taken by Mr. Williams.)