Portrait of madrone with stop sign, Magnolia Bluff.

 

Fuzzy harvest moon, Lake Washington, red muscle car

They say some of the smoke, haze has returned. I guess someone had some squirreled away. 

Google says that this is called “harvest moon” because farming folks often depended on the moonlight to get in the final harvest. My peoples were farm folks. This might explain all those long hours worked even after they left the farm. I’ve worked them too. Maybe moon energy gets stuck in the DNA or something. I’m listening to 528hz as I sleep to fix, repair my DNA. I figure it can't hurt. Can it? Geneticists are said to do this in labs for broken DNA. Idk. Sometimes I think they make this stuff up. Google or someone makes this shit up. 

I was out this night on October 1, because I went to buy some Zara jeans a few blocks from my house from some young people. This brand fits my incredible shrinking ass perfectly. These kids let me wait outside their apartment building for 17 minutes. I was walking away when the door opened behind me. A shiny young man named Richard apologized for the delay. I took the jeans, handed him the cash and said “Full professors only get 15 minutes...but you’ve got 5 dollar Zaras.” We laughed and I drove to the water.  

Lonnie something, circa early 1990s

This is Lonnie, a ballroom dance teacher who used to come to the Timberline to dance, not teach. He was such a beautiful dancer and I wanted to learn every West Coast Swing move that he had, lead and follow both. But he taught in a venue that was not friendly to homosexuals who weren't instructors, so I did not. In those years, I avoided going places where I am not welcome as my whole large self when I was not on the clock. At least for dance. I've had to obscure his beautiful face because he might still be alive, passing somewhere but I remember it as clear as day.

A Dog & Her Mirror Image. Her Twin Perhaps.

Phoebe Snow has recently started sitting in front of the dance mirror in my studio, staring at herself. We don't know what this means. It is a new development that we have duly noted. I think she is asking for a haircut. That is what I would be thinking were I doing this.

lost, forgotten blog

I had forgotten all about this blog until a friend asked me recently why I stopped writing in my blog. What blog? I asked her. I'm in witness protection. You know, your blog, she said. I remembered that while in graduate school, I messed around with a lot of web technology in order to "rest" my mind from stuff like Foucault, advanced biostatistics, riding the bus twice daily. I was testing things for what they might be able to do for my purposes which at the time were vague even to me. After my friend's comment, I started looking around and found several blogs, including one called "madcowstupid," which doesn't look as though I ever pushed the publish button. Since I still have a bit of time left from the surplus I got back from the Time Bank when the stay home started, I've decided to start messing around with some web technology again. Of course, now I have to remember how to use this app which is somewhat out of date to some so I started looking at other blogging platforms. I might have a technology fetish, maybe. Here's something that inspired me so much that I spent this month's book budget on her thoughts yesterday:

I remember Matthew Shepard. My heart is still broken over this.

Crystal Valentine - "Black Privilege" (CUPSI 2015 Finals)

Who Were You In Your Past Life According To Your Memories?

Update 10/7/2020: this explains a lot.

Pirate

You were a pirate in your past life! Your memories reveal that your life was spent on the open sea, seeking adventure and treasure! You're a survivor with a strong sense of self and an indomitable wanderlust. Your love of the sea, new experiences, travel and a couple of rough and tumble life experiences this time around all point to your pirate past. You are an explorer at heart and the world is calling your name. You're truly a force to be reckoned with and the open seas await! What do you think about being a pirate? Let us know!

Jorie Graham: Selected Poems | 92Y Readings

Your rainbow is intensely shaded indigo, blue, and violet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate cities, technology, and other great things people have created. Friends count on you for being honest and insightful. You share hobbies with friends and like trying to fit into their routines.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

I have a rainbow!

Singing Nurses of Harborview

This is a post from 2008 upon which I apparently never pushed the "publish" button!  Who are these women? Nurses!!!  Nurses rock.  They do what needs to be done!

Low News Day

I swear I wrote a post yesterday on the Blogger app on my iPhone but it did not show up here.  I guess not everything works.  I'm having a great time here in Texas.  I visited with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and others at the family July 4th gathering.  It was fun, and quite amazing to be with people who have known me for 57 years, through all my phases, changes, trials, tribulations, successes.  It's mind boggling to think about.

Interesting thing today is Nona Faustine.  Check it out.

How Writers Write Fiction 2014

I was working too much to do this program, but plan to go through it once the course is archived.

Modern Poetry (ENGL 310) with Langdon Hammer

What have I been up to?  I've been watching these poetry classes from Yale Open Course. They are so meaty that I can watch them over and over and pick up something new every time.  I've never actually studied poetry, so it has been a real treat.  I stream these videos on my laptop (macbook pro) and use Google Chrome to get them up on the the TV.  I bought myself a SmartTV for an early birthday present and should check and see if I can get right to YouTube from there.  I love this guy Hammer!  There are lots of videos in this class.  The handouts and whatever the class is seeing on the overhead is not available which is annoying but probably has to do with copyright.

Juan Felipe Herrera’s winding path to poetry

Back Again

I needed a place to post a page outlining the animal care at my house so I decided to resurrect my blog!  I've been out of graduate school for almost as long as I was in it now and times have changed.  I work full time as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in an inpatient setting and really love my work.  I'm figuring out how to age gracefully.  I work a lot, like A LOT, and have engaged a house manager to help me care for the animals and run the house.

I'll try to keep up better with my blog!

Wow, time passes!

I've been gone a long time.  I have looked up my blog  because I'm trying to join a writing group that requires we have a blog.  Much has changed.  I've changed jobs several times.  I love my current job.  One of my dogs died, and I have a new dog.  It's been really hot here.  I'll be back.

I have rediscovered my blog.  It's been so long since I posted here that the password had to be changed for me to gain access.  My new year's resolution for 2012 is to learn something new.  I tried to think of something that I have always wanted to learn and decided to learn to write fiction this year.  To that end I have dug out some old stories that I wrote 20  years ago and found that I don't hate them and have a much easier time editing them now than before.  I've also been reading books about writing.  I'm trying to check these books out of the library but they don't have everything that Amazon suggests.  For instance, Stein on Writing, is only available in the Seattle Public Library as an audiobook of all things.  I'm not sure why a book on writing would particularly lend itself to the audio format but there you are. 

I also signed up to go to Centrum this summer.  I signed up for two classes, one on flash fiction by Sam Ligon, and another class with Pam Houston.  I don't know if I'm ready for Pam Houston but thought it would give me something to work toward.  Surely I can handle a flash fiction boot camp.  Flash fiction is not even as long as a chart note in some cases.  I decided to read Sam Ligon's books and thought I might have to buy them but found them both on top of a box of poetry books in my overrun office.  I've been reading his stories themselves but so far have not liked any of the characters. 

Oh, my other new year's resolution is to lose 20 pounds.  Don't worry, I won't be posting my weight here every week!

nalo's blog | Nalo Hopkinson

I've been reading the science fiction of Olivia Butler, a series of books called Seed to Harvest. It is an interesting exploration of forms of slavery, power relationships, etc. Octavia E. Butler was a black female science fiction writier, very rare. She has died but in an interview she pointed me to Nalo Hopkinson. I think I'll read her next.

nalo's blog | Nalo Hopkinson

Good Morning Sunday!

I must have a sun overdose. I've had all kinds of energy. I've figured out how to fix the WordPress webzine for my professional organization but think I'll still hire someone else to do it. I found a WP template I like and now I want to start another blog for pete's sake, just to use the new template.

I've been looking at the letters and poetry files from the 80s and 90s and converting the ancient WordPerfect files over to Word docs. I wish I could convert them all at once like I did with the documents I used for my dissertation but I can't find any software that recognizes this very old file format.  It's from one of the early WordPerfect versions from the 80s that I used on that old 286.  I'm using a WordPerfect 2002 to read the files.  I have to open each file in order to convert it so it forces me to read the files, something I've been putting off for years.

I also spent some time spiffing up my blogger blog and found an interesting new tool called Zemanta which suggests related content for your blog post.  It also uses something called common tagging which is a real semantic web effort aimed at creating unified content across the web. 

Today, we are having my final birthday party of the year--the poker crew is coming over--yay!  I'm going to get Ezell's Chicken for the party,  We will probably play poker here in the heat in the kitchen because that's what we do.  We are having the party so early because we have a Seattle Storm game to attend this evening.  Hopefully we will win this one and go 20/2. We are playing the Tulsa Shock so victory shouldn't be too hard.

Time to go get me some fried chicken!