Calm down, you haven't known each other that long,

There is no reason to get excited. Nothing to see. No need to panic. It's just something new, that's all. Find a place for it in the world around the desk and the dishes and the cuddly demanding felines.

New friendships are always of interest to me, partly because I enjoy people and learning new people is an absolute plus. Partly because I like the people I hang around. They bring an enormous amount to my life and I hope that I share some of that back with them.

The known friendships are the theme of the moment, though. Who else hangs around for 8 hour breakfasts that do not even involve eggs? or bacon? Only coffee. Lots and lots of coffee for me, thank you! Ah. The joys of over-caffeinated self-dom. Oh, and there was a cinnamon roll and also a blueberry muffin, and also a cup of tea. But I didn't drink the tea, someone else did. The ninja. There was grocery shopping (we did not buy the fingerless gloves), and drugstore shopping (we did not buy the toe-d socks), new age store shopping (I totally bought the date book) in two places and even a trip to the Goodwill (no mojo, no wardrobe addition). It was brilliant. And there is more cheese in the house. And the cats were content to be fed and have new food.

When they left, I sat me down and pulled out some index type cards and made lists for menus and activities for the next few days. Now I do laundry and hang out with the parents and say nothing of the felines who captivate my attention when that attention could really be doing other things. Dreams float up through my memories and entertain me with their vivid disturbing obvious images. It is good these days. This writing and thinking and now laughing and learning and many much words in conversation is good. This is the bliss. Well, mostly. Better paycheck, or more assured paycheck with benefits, or more bills paid and immediate needs met. These, though, are manageable.

Superheroes were in town today for the parade. gak. We heard that there was some awesome Matrix action getting the balloons under the Skywalk. And that Kermit had some issues with a traffic light. It's not easy being green.

There are always boundaries. These are not impediments, they are not problematic, they are part of what defines one relationship from another. There are certain conversations that will not be had concerning this or that. It is a matter of privacy, and also trust, not necessarily of the listener, but of the subject, the person of whom we speak. The last month was very inwardly focused. My father finished his dissertation, friends got married, friends studied and created in classes, I wrote for NaNo. We have not seen much of each other, have not chatted aimlessly around the place enjoying the sounds of each others' vocabularies, hearing sense and understanding and accusations of thwartment or squishing or ninja-creep, etc. The rhythms are reminders that the new friends are good, and that there is always room for more when more are compassionate, understanding and patient.

Now, if only the boy would make some sense of things, I wouldn't have to feel like I'm rushing anything because I could blame him, and then everything would be just fine, thank you very much!

Only, no. It's time to calm down. We haven't known each other that long. And, really, I do have things I need and want to do.

Well now, what's this?

Unethical? Illegal, even?
meh.

The day is one that may or may not be one that has a place in the building of a future. The week of the full moon brought a doctorate for my father, NaNo finished and won, marriages and plays and many accomplishments large and small all around the world I move around. With a complication. Who is nice. It is interesting and frustrating and altogether new.

There is not too very much to say today, it is all made of frustration and annoyance anyway.

This is what happens when friends come to visit. It is brilliant and beautiful and the best!

I'll drop by again. Later. For more, and more words and more focus.

No.
Really.

Movie mini-reviews: next!

Journey to the Center of the Earth (the new one): Adventure a la video game with Brandon Fraser sweating and being generally adorable? yes, please...

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995): The movie that propelled Shahrukh Khan to mega stardom and celebrated its 700th week in theaters in March of 2009. It is a romance threatened by arranged marriage and all sorts of difficulties. The music is beautiful, Kajol shines (as she always does) and it is a joy to watch Shahrukh Khan dance.

Drona (2008): Fantasy epic with Abishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra and Kay Kay Menon. I will adore a movie with Kay Kay Menon in an instant. He is such a talented actor and as the bad guy/demon dude is as enjoyable as Alan Rickman in Robin Hood. If not more - cuz he's a demon! The actors do most of their own stunts, which is a little disconcerting at first, I am used to green screens and stunt doubles: semi-real looks kind of fake at first. My only real issue with the movie is one song. That hurts me. You'll know it when it starts, just hit mute and wait for the story to pick up. Really.

Honeymoon Travels Private Ltd. (2007): Ensemble piece about 6 newly married couples on a honeymoon tour of Goa. Did I mention the part about how I adore Kay Kay Menon? Yeah, he's in this. As are Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi - two actors who just make me happy, they are so good. I would recommend seeing Om Shanti Om or Don first, just for the joke. It's worth it.

Don (2006 & 1978): Mistaken identity gangster/cop movie with dancing? The new one features Shahrukh Khan as Don, some incredible fight scenes and much travel in Malaysia. Amitabh Bachchan originated the role in the 70's film, and it is totally worthwhile to see both of them. The first half of the movies are almost identical except for the clothes. There are some unreal fights and moments in both of the movies, thought the 70's movie suffers a bit more for them - at least according to one of my friends, but I thought it was brilliant. Good music, good acting, and I would still like someone to explain to me why the new Don is as good a movie as it is, because I can't explain it.

The Spirit (2009): I love movies based on comics that I've never read, and likely never will. Also, I love Samuel L. Jackson. 'nuff said.

The Punisher (2008): See above. Subsitute Ray Stevenson. Yummy bone crunching guns go 'splodey...

The Blue Umbrella (2007): My new favorite director is Vishal Bhardwaj, who also directed Omkara, about which I will rave whenever given the chance. Or just whenever. The film is based on a children's novel about a young girl who trades a necklace for a blue umbrella which becomes the object of desire for some others in her village. It is absolutely serene and pointed and a joy.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged) (2000): What utter joy and parody and romp and ridiculous in wigs with skirts! They are going to perform at the Lied Center in March of 2010 and I'm already all sweaty about it if that tells you anything. Funny men are just fucking awesome.

Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey (2002): This is one of those films that really highlights the power of film when used for a specific purpose: to showcase the rhythms that people around the world experience and create and have for centuries or decades or years or days. It is bright and brilliant and moves from one clip to the next without losing a flow or leaving the viewer/listener wondering what would happen next, how the song would end - although it is a survey, intended to fire curiosity and awareness, which it does. It was good for my soul. Captivating.

Everybody Says I'm Fine (2001): Tale of a hair-dresser/salon owner in Bombay who hears the thoughts of his clients through their hair as he cuts it and what happens when he meets a woman whose thoughts are closed to him. Best line (that gets quoted frequently): "your saintly soul behind benign eyes..." Very odd movie. Much beloved. In English. And hey, surprise Boman Irani!

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Seriously? You didn't see it? Okay, it's at the library, check it out. We'll talk after.

Bandidas (2006): Could Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek be any more fabulous? No? I didn't think so. This is not a chick flick. This is a movie for the girlz. Just saying. I want them to make more.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004)
The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines (2006)
The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice (2008): Noah Wylie gets to be cute and funny and action-hero-y and get and lose the girl! How do you not love this? Formulaic and slightly more than a little moralistic and fun. Bob Newhart and Jane Curtin and Olympia Dukakis are a more than excellent supporting (literally) cast. The Library itself is the stuff of story-telling and imagination. I hope they make more.

Swades (2004): Shahrukh Khan as a NASA scientist who travels back to India to find his former nanny and bring her to the States so that he can care for her in her dotage. It doesn't work out that way. I loved this movie. I would like to see the longer version that was released in India, but as I do not (as yet) speak Hindi, and the only copy we have around is not subtitled (although the subtitles for this movie lend credence to the opinions of people who think subtitles are stupid (check out my entry on the King James Version of the song lyrics)), I will be patient and persist. The music and landscape are sweeping, the story very simple and straightforward and deeply moving, especially as I am one of those who finds belonging to a land incredibly powerful and moving (the child of Vikings and colonizers and wanderers finds home more transient than most).

Death at a Funeral (2007): British farce done very well. The grinning scene is worth everything. Avoid the commentary with Frank Oz, though. I found it difficult and sort of, um, repetitive? Alan Tudyk is just brilliant. As is Matthew Macfadyen. Fun Fun Fun.

Thus concludes this installment! I will turn the page before next time and we'll see how long it takes to catch up! (should be about two more entries before I'm current)

Enjoy!

Movie List: part, um, beginning?

I started keeping track of the movies that I watch. I began the list on the second of March of 2009 and tried to remember all of the movies that I had seen since December of 2008.

The list is getting a bit ridiculous.

However, somewhere around May, I met a woman who is just getting into many of the Indian movies that I watch like they are necessary for me to continue to exist. Because they are. I told her that I would send her the list of movies that I've seen and maybe make some recommendations.

It is now almost July. I have decided to do things this way. There will be more lists, as I watch about 2 movies a week. I am slowing down for need of other ways to spend my time, but still find film captivating.

I was going to link these, but imdb has crap for information and I just dislike linking wikipedia, even though there is far more info there. Or netflix. Probably Blockbuster as well. And some of them have myspace pages.

Jodhaa Akbar - historically flexible account of the Mughal Emperor Akbar who was Mulsim and Jodhaa, his Hindu princess wife. It is a stunning film, with that enveloping music that only AR Rahman can make.

Om Shanti Om - Shahrukh Khan in a reincarnation movie! With abs! The director, Farah Khan has this wonderful way with making homage to the movies of the '60s and '70s and poking an amount of fun at movies of the 90's and aughts. Colorful and fun and the music is wonderful.

Parineeta - I have seen both the 2005 and 1953 film adaptations of this 1914 novel. The story is lovely: childhood friends who become sweethearts just as the world begins to collapse around them. Ashok Kumar is a less smoldering Shekar than Saif Ali Khan, but he gets more romantic lines. Meena Kumari and Vidya Balan share something like luminescence, and you wonder how any man could fail to notice. I enjoyed both of these movies, and try to take time to watch the 2005 version at least once every few months. Speaking of...

Captain Blood - Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland in a movie that has a story and adventure and twists and strange Irish accents and palm trees and is generally wonderful. What I love, almost more than the sword fights and Basil Rathbone, is that this was the first film for both of the leads.

Red vs Blue seasons 1,2 and 3 - wrong. just wrong. animated web-isode show based on Halo. who knew? It is brilliant. and wrong.

Kal Ho Na Ho / Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - I mention these movies to introduce something that we like to call The Bad. Adored and respected actors in movies that are made of *headsmack* or "wtf?" moments. That is all.

Omkara - This movie is an adaptation of Othello. Omkara (the Othello character) could totally take Othello. (not Laurence Fishburne, mind (no one can take him)) Visually it is very deliberate and evocative. The acting is wonderful. The adaptation of the story is completely spot-on. I am fully convinced that this in one of the most perfect movies I have ever seen.

Paheli - Much color. Much big Rahman music. Much Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukerji. It tells a kind of odd story about a ghost who falls in love with a woman and takes the place of her husband. It's totally worth it.

Dil Chahta Hai - Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna look fabulous and have wonderful moments in what is essentially a coming-of-age movie about three friends navigating through the world. Lovely shots of Goa. Fun music. There is some strange dancing,(we call this one Wiggly Arms) and a soul patch, but otherwise, a very good time.

Amar Akbar Anthony - If you only ever see one Amitabh Bachchan movie you are an idiot and need to re-evaluate your life's priorities. This is movie about three brothers who get separated when they are very very young, and taken in by three different foster fathers, one Catholic, one Hindu and one Muslim. It is delightful and enjoyable and if you can watch it with someone who can get through translating the opening song (which didn't have subtitles) you will thank me forever.

The Holiday - This movie is cute. It could have been better. It should have been better. Kate Winslet and Jack Black? That really could have worked more and better and funnier. I totally watched the making of featurette.

Serenity - um. I think I heard somewhere that there's a Commentary: The Musical because of people like Joss Whedon who are all brilliant and gen x and who read stuff. If you haven't seen it: Firefly and Serenity are brilliant. I love this movie so much it is not a topic for public discussion.

Rang de Basanti - watch this movie. invite me over. i will watch it with you. just have faith.

Jab We Met - This falls under the label OMG This is the Cutest Movie Ever! There are about 13 titles on the list right now. Boy is angsty and silent. Girl is chatty and bubbly. They meet on a train. Things go from there. It is not completely predictable. It is completely lovely and sweet.

You know who you are - hope this gives you a good start!

It's more of a beginning than declarative...

The day is fine and warm and filled with wind. My walk downtown was intended to serve another purpose, but this is good, too. Universities are a joy when there is no one around to fill in the space between the steps and the air they breathe. It is a weakness, a daydream, a way of walking through the world, that all of these buildings like schools and capitols and libraries and fairgrounds, they have a very real life of their own, and that life is what I breathe in their halls when there is no one else about to do it for me.

Lately the world has seemed filled with talk. Talk of this, talk of that, lots of words and very little of it silent or considered. I know that the First Amendment guarantees US citizens the right to freedom of speech, but what about the freedom to listen, the freedom to consider audience, the freedom to speak well, the freedom to demand speech that is worth the listening.

I believe that freedom is a right is a privilege is a responsibility, and must not be left stagnant, without exploration or understanding. It is not enough to exercise the right to speak. It is not correct to speak simply because it is a freedom. It is up the speaker to accept responsibility for the choice of words others may hear. I am firmly opposed to inflammatory speech and speeches. I believe their purpose is destructive and divisive. Any audience whose ability to debate and argue is distracted by propaganda is an audience that has become a puppet.

It was difficult to acknowledge that in this world it is the right of citizenship that confers the rights of humanity. Whatever rights are bestowed, given or simply acknowledged by the country or nation or entity are the only rights any of us have. Whether I agree with this sentiment or not (and I don't) does not change what seems to be a fundamental state of being in this world. It is unnatural to be without country or place. It is not human, not valid. Though, how human anyone is or is not depends entirely on the accident of birth, unless a person chooses to change allegiance and become someone different. Born into one family or another on one continent or another, if rich, it is by blessing, if poor, it is because the choice was not made to accept the blessing.

We are an odd grouping of fundaments, we children of the Puritans.

And we have been given this right of voice, or at least of speech. Our Constitution makes room for arguments and debates, and we spend much time hearing about how there is no time for either, decisions must be made. I have wondered, more than a few times, if there were provisions made for rules of argument and debate, if perhaps we would be less inclined to such immediate action. I expect much more of the past than I have the right to. Argument has been reduced to volume - in loudness and number of words, no matter how relevant or coherent, the voice that speaks the most often with the most confidence is minded, given audience and time. There seems little point in the face of such opposition to speak up at all, knowing the voice will be little more than a squeak.

And yet. When those quieter, less familiar, more deliberate, voices are ignored, neglected or assumed to be an agreement, social injustice thrives. How to reach them, how to assure them they will be heard, how to deflect the necessary anger into something productive instead of something that perpetuates the status quo of nothing ever changes. How do we learn to listen?

I hear people everyday. I hear their stories, their jokes, their puns and barely concealed bitternesses. We all do, every time we greet someone or pass them in the hall or on the floor. Alone the comments are tweets & status updates, together over time, they become a narrative, a series of events and changes and personalities and as those statements collect, something begins to take shape, room appears for questioning, observing, patterns, history.

Without that history, my own voice feels anchorless, blown about with less purpose than an autumn leaf. With it, there is joy in the speaking, because I know what it means that I can.

These bits are beginnings. This conversation will go on. I will continue to ponder, to read, to listen, to speak.

Be well.
Be safe.
Be joyful.

5 April 2009 noon

(still watching Simon Schama's Power of Art)(I seriously love it)

JWM Turner had a way with light. Apparently he also had a way with line, though because his lines are fluid and liquid in places and invisible in others, it is not often mentioned. I mention it now. I am still too struck by the works to talk much about them, also my ignorance shows itself to no great harm if I choose to acknowledge it and put a name to it that tells it where to go to change its face.

I am thinking of the people in Turner’s paintings. Of the vast range of the sky and the sea and the atmosphere and ho little of the space is filled with the image of humanity and its suffering or turmoil or death. Of the sense that there is much suffered in the bottom third of the painting that cannot be erased by the ephemeral beauty of the rest of it. I do not pretend to have any knowledge or understanding of the reasons for these compositional choices, but I can tell you very exactly what I feel and think of them. I feel very small and pointless and entirely connected to something that will do as it pleases whether I care or approve or no. It is not a fatalistic naturalism, but a pragmatic view of nature – it does not matter whether I exist or not, nature will.

The wind is blowing with a vengeance borne of neglect outside. It brings snow to this warming earth and sends so many of us indoors, where we will be safe and warm and can complain at our leisure about how unfair is the spring and why won’t it just be warm, forgetting just how warm is the summer, how still and wet the August days in the city when the wind has not abandoned us, but brings only strength and destruction and dust, nothing like relief. Nothing like respite. We do spend time looking for the beauty that will be in front of us eventually, say in Eden. I hope the people who seek Eden will find it, and tell their families and their friends and then get on a bunch of boats and planes and cars and trains and move past the gates and enter the garden and leave the rest of this life to me and my own, so that we can struggle as we will, learn and understand and adapt as we will, eat as we will and never again worry that we are surrounded by so much “life sucks” that we forget our manners and start acting inappropriately.

Yesterday the wind was not so full of cold and I walked with a book in my arms and my hair in a whirlwind past the old place and saw the magnolia buds. The flowers this year have been a grand shock. I am not ready for them, I have become accustomed to the gentle browns and grays and how bright the blue of the sky, the colors on the ground are startling and make me catch my breath, but I know that if I do not see, I will miss what is loveliest in this town – watching it change and remain the same no matter the season or day. This storm that sits over the Midlands and the Plains seems to have some grand purpose, some scheme in mind that requires our absence from its air for a time. We have grown soft in the days past of sunshine and breeze and left-at-home coats. The winter does not toughen us up anymore, rather it makes us fluid, longing creatures filled with hope, easily wounded.

There are leaf buds on a tree that I walk by, though I could not tell you where it grows. The buds have not changed size in a week. I tend to take my cue from them, waiting until the sun finally has its way as it does every year, and only then crawling out to show colors held away so long they are surprised at their own names. This is the wind, the time that kicks up the debris of little urban messes and makes the dust into something solid, with faces and arms and biting tendrils, the edges of leaves never sharper against such tender skin as legs and cheeks and eyeballs.

We command each other to make apologies for this weather as we do for all things unexpected. It is not our right to hold humanity accountable for nature, and yet we do. We forget that the greatest stories happen in a land, on a land, under a sky, on a sea, within a context that we seem to believe we can ignore because it has been explained as so many atoms, particles, light bits and patterns made up of names with definitions not reliant on mystery any longer! We have been freed of superstition! Only to fall victim to narrow minded self-assurance? So we are told. So we tell ourselves. Repeatedly.

I wonder. I wonder how many clichés I can come up with to explain my point of view, to explain how limited is everyone else’s, to justify my constant struggle with absolute hermitude, knowing I cannot be away from an espresso machine for long enough to unpack into my little cave. I wonder what is happening in the world that exists beyond and beneath what we are told about the world. I wonder how much of it does not need the reminder, would not care to share even the bottom third of the canvas, knows that Eden is where the rest of the world lives, and that’s more room for the rest of us.

Perhaps less than solid

It is the third day of the month of national poetry writing, the 30 days of the year when the prolific nature of every poet is put to the test and heaven only knows what strung out bloodiness results. I would put myself to this test, spreading my lungs out over my ribs, no sound escaping with air, but with letters and rhythms struggling in the places between walking and thinking and typing and writing and keyboards. I would. I cannot. My imaginings are occupied on roads without names finding songs that tell stories about people who mean little to my responsibilities. They build cities and stories about cities and wonder at lives lived encrusted in the local magics. I guess that ought to be 'magicks.'

I have plundered my daydreams and found a jewel, something private and impossible to make fiction and real for these creatures rolling around in the muck of my still-forming stories. I do them disservice. They live and breathe and have names, and I have yet to find them places. There is little poetry solidifying itself in my life. All of the language is blood.

I have begun watching Simon Schama's The Power of Art. I had seen the Caravaggio episode, a friend of mine recorded it. I remember being thunderstruck at how meaningful the thing was when I saw it - how appropriate the timing of such overwhelming talent and ability and faith and that particular inability to see the morass of humanity as anything but sublime and fertile.

Now I am again struck at the peculiarly urban nature of certain art - the squalor and pageantry that walk the streets together, claiming the same spaces, the same roads and histories, though seen and told from perspectives so skewed as to be legitimately called alien. There is some magic, some mystery in the creation and maintenance of a city, a proper city, I mean, not just a large collection of people in tall residences. I mean a city, a living, breathing organism with a personality, creation story, art, food, smell, bureaucracy, music, trade, death, cancers and buds and patterns of traffic and chaos moving through every world created within its geography. There can be no city without a sense of expression. Reliance on trade as the defining characteristic of any urban area as a city reduces the human element to mechanization, something which is far too commonplace in this world, and has been throughout much of the history the world has seen fit to throw up in front of my eyes.

Why else would marble become flesh? Why bring Jesus to earth and give pilgrims dirty feet? Why find satisfaction showing mortal beings that no wealth, pomp or decree can prevent the beauty of Death its due? The city is a place that can live on the illusion of immortality, after all, the buildings will outlive us, perhaps we can outlive ourselves, skip the tradition of social construct, we'll just not acknowledge the right of Death. Rural life does not allow such illusions, a claim I do not make in the spirit of romance or idealism. Nature is a pragmatic lady, and Death is her triumph.

But we will insist that we see what we wish, will we not? We will see Nature as Fury, as Benevolent, as a Bitch. We will see the city as proof against Death, as the City of God(s), as the ultimate expression of our human capabilities.

I like to think of cities as the ultimate version of Voltron, made of the collected abilities and presences of every inhabitant, ready to establish that I Am Here. Problem with that is the rest of that statement: Best Not Fuck With Me. Bit defensive, bit challenging, bit headed towards disaster, that.

These thoughts are still shadowy, but I could not pretend that they were not there, could not go forward without finding them some sort of solid ground whereon to find their feet. It is a complicated thing, this world that builds itself from the patterns and details of the planet that is my home. I am in no hurry to define it for itself, the job is already done.

Lyrics in Translation

Swades song lyrics in translation – The King James version – not all the bits, but most of them from two of the songs.
Because they cracked me up.

I have to say here that I loved Swades and think it a wonderful movie that must be seen again and again and the music is a delight. It's the subtitles and the lyrics in translation that pose a bit of a problem cuz I find them distractingly funny. Distractingly.

Saanwariya
I am infatuated with thee
Thou hast endeared my heart
My heart’s bewildered
My body with fire kindled
It’s monsoon of my dreams
The courtyard of my eyes streams
The pitcher of my heart is overflowing
O dear who hast drawn so near!
O dear who hast endeared my heart!
How canst I recount
What hath been thy bequest pray how?
Somewhere art buds of a throbbing heart
Somewhere the dream-lanes
Mirth that dwells in the heart,
How shallst I articulate?
Thou swayest me so
That oft times I am embarrassed
It seems I have lost my path
Ever since I have seen the haven of love
Now that thou hast met me
This world’s transformed
Methinks the flowers have begun to beset my path
And I fancy too that the earth’s renewed
The sky too freshly spun in our love
Wanton breeze singeth some melody
River too narrates some tale
All’s changed, my love, since my eyes courted thine
I have lost presence of mind
Gone is my treasured selfhood.


Dekho Na
See! Just see!
It’s you and me, and long solitude!
See! Just see!
How delicate are these shadows!
Listen in; heed the heartbeats
Listen in; heed the song of silence
Listen in; heed what the night hath to say
Night’s come; with desires nameless and many
She narrateth a hundred woes;
I listen to her epiphany
Night unwindeth, unabashed stripeth her cloak
Pearls, scattered as it were; I pick
You have chanted some spell in words
Lamps are alit in my eyes
You have chanted some spell in words
The darkness of my nights hath poured out
Lonely went the day and nights sans you,
Overcast with desolation
And now it seemeth the nights,
Kissed by the day and perfumed
For you art my companion
I was incomplete sans you,
More compete now none couldst be
In yours, my world I discovered,
Yet I am all lost
Both of us have now learned, art of living well earned
Like Midas touch, our living how well hath altered
Both of us have now learned,
Beauty of life well earned
O joys, we owneth a score, enough and more…

Bits from Sunday pm

It is not so easy to recapture the silence and movement of yesterday in the chatter and chairs of this afternoon, but I will do my best.

The television is not where it will be, though it is also not where it was one step closer to ready for the summer's heat escaping from the sunny funk in the kitchen that was the whole reason to move the television in the first place.

Every goal must be achieved through a series of steps as I reconnect with my home after it or I have been ill, usually both together and similarly. The funk must be identified and eliminated, it does violence to my healing senses from its invisible perch lately placed somewhere near the kitchen sink. It could be from the dishes.

The dishes get done last.

In order to move the cookbooks and the cat food and the table, the television, DVD and VCR must take space from the radio, writing desk, telephone and lavender which have been dislocated to the chairs for the duration as Pledge wipes make their way and the broom sweeps up litter and I mop the rugs of cat hair, glad to be free of the vacuum that sits in the almost way and has and will until I get around to letting go. Sets of altar decorations (for every horizontal surface is an altar) move together and are cleaned together and rearranged as I make plans to do this again in two months, only hoping that my apartment tetris skills allow me the mental space to work again, tho I have the had space for days and have not used it but for sleeping. The refrigerator top, the table top, the boards and blocks and stove-top and burners and door handles the hyphens between movement.

And all of this accompanied by dancing and a grace the felines do not acknowledge to my face. It is the grace of knowing where everything is or will be, how to get there and how to make things happen. The invisible part of housework and homemaking and living in rooms defined so specifically. This is my little cave and I the bear, groggy and dreaming and unwilling to tolerate tripping over shit in my way and tired of litter under my feet and in the cats' fur and sensing the absence of friends and comfortable surroundings.

The sunlight in rays inaccessible to small cats leaves the kitchen warm, spreads the smell of something. The discomfort is no longer bearable.

I have not been well enough to dance through the mess, cleaning. Today is different, legs and back and arms and focus working, though slowly, and the sink is clean, the stove white, the trash out and in the late evening I find quiet in the chair too large for the living room, and my home settles.

The funk is still present.

The dance continues.

I'm not so sure about all of this, but...

I made resolutions last year and didn't do any one of them. Not serious things like working out or anything, important things like going to visit my best friend in California, things that didn't happen.

I've decided to grow my hair out again. World changing? Not hardly. Just a personal choice.

Also, I've been thinking of what to do for a blog this year, as I'd like to keep one, perhaps weekly instead of daily, but we'll see. There is a reading project that is on-going, a collection and analysis project that is on-going and a fiction piece that is multimedia and in something like limbo. Adding another project might seem a bit ludicrous, particularly given my other commitments, but I think I've got a good idea for article analysis from periodicals that I see every day and would read, and sometimes do, if only I took the time to do it. Why take the time if there is no reason? Perhaps i can give myself a reason.

We shall see.

Bean soup and Blessed mornings to all!
Happy New Year.