The Random Files: On an Easter Sunday

Today is Easter.  The whole Jesus shindig and whatnot.  Celebrate your own way:  candy, bunnies, church, eggs,  family dinners, skinned knees, wine, prayer, NCIS marathons...whatever.

***

Today, while trying to get the dog outside, I noticed two grackles exiting my old gas grill on the back porch.  Apparently they are creating quite an elaborate nest--twigs are protruding from the front lip of the grill.  It seems all barbecues are on hold as the grill operates as an avian nursery...

Spring is a time of regeneration and warm weather.  Turn off the TV.  Step away from the Interwebs.  Put all phones--yes, that includes the cell--to ring straight to voicemail.  Go outside and spend a good long time with the quiet world outside your door.  What crazy sounds are the local birds making?  What smells are carried to you on the breeze?  When will the cicadas begin the summer hum?  What stars are spinning overhead as the sun drops past the horizon?

What is your world without the chatter?

***

I am loving the web comic called Girls with Slingshots.  I found it a few months ago and have enjoyed keeping up with the adventures of Hazel and the gang.  I love the ghost kitty....Doooooooooom!

Lucille Clifton

I totally suck as a person with both an English BA and an MFA!  How could I possibly miss the death of Lucille Clifton??  She died last Saturday (February 13th, 2010).

The poetry of Lucille Clifton is not overwhelming; it does not beat the reader down.  There is a quiet power and deep love in her work.  It is a weird analogy but her patterns always remind me of water ripples--the reverberations feeding out from the central point until they touch the edges of our outer self.  It brings comfort and transformation.

Links 

Sorrows.
Won't You Celebrate With Me. [video]
Remembering Lucille Clifton.  [Poetry Off the Shelf]
Far Memory.

Vaccu-suck and share

Ok.  Last week I had one of those vaccu-suck experiences on the web.  I was innocently clicking on links I visit regularly--and wham--I was following links from blog to blog and site to site reading all kinds of wild and fun things.  So I thought I'd share a few...

1)  Whatever.  John Scalzi.  There are lots of great links and lovely introductions for new books.  Also he declared February 15th to be International Grover Appreciation Day.  Really--I swear!  Anyone who loves Grover is A-OK in my book.

2)  Blake Charlton.  New writer with a his first novel coming out on March 2 [Spellwright].  Med student.  All-around multi-tasking genius.  His blog is excellent--well written, intelligent, and funny.  If there's ever a remake of West Side Story featuring internists and surgeons...or maybe you need a sympathetic soul after witnessing a talking pile of laundry...

3)  Making Light.  Theresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden.  I don't even know where to begin.  Let me start by saying I've never seen so many links to everywhere and everything in my life! I enjoy the commentary...

4)  Seven Stories Concerning Joss Whedon -or- The Road to Damascus.  Posted January 11, 2010 on Patrick Rothfuss' blog.  Actually he's pretty amusing on the whole.  See the post on how to determine his "cool factor" on the Gaiman-Day rating scale...


Moon Report:  20% of full.  Waxing crescent.
Outside:  Sunny.  Icy crust snow--very sharp on bare ankles.

Confession

This is not about confession as in "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...", but the kind of writing that allows for the expression of emotions--even the ones we keep hidden from just about everyone (including ourselves).

I am perpetually fascinated by the masks people wear. Some people are distant. Some people are smart. Some people are slackers or lovers or garbage collectors. Most of us wear masks even when in the arms of the most intimate company.

We do our best to "keep up appearances"--to maintain our facade through the daily routine. But sometimes we crack. Sometimes the mask slips and we are on full display in our rage and fear and sadness and hope and love. We can be glorious. Even if only for a moment.

Occasionally, we allow these slips to be channeled into a written format. It can be as horrific as a slap in the face. It can be easy and small. But it makes us real. It gives us shape--even long after we are gone.


Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
PostSecret
The Secret Postcards
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists


Dear XYZ--

We've lived separated lives over years, centuries, eons...who can tell? In the too short moment crossing I...(insert phrase of your choice here). Did you know you still live under my skin? I never imagined this would be so wrenching.

Words take too long.

Moon Report: 80% of full. Waning gibbous.

Saturday...in the dark (no, it's not the 4th of July)

Terribly sorry for that sad-sack reference to "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago...it just popped into my head. I was looking out the office window at almost 7:30am on a Saturday morning and it was pitch black outside. I couldn't even see the maple tree in the front yard. Of course this could have more to do with my lack of glasses than darkness...


Moon Report: 40% of full. waxing crescent.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

--Dorothy Parker

On a Saturday! What a pity in midwinter dark that I should be up and around before 7am. Isn't there some law of Midwestern hibernation? But no. I was wide awake. So I have been snerting around on the web. Here's what I found:

1. A funny brainworm...

2. Today's Poem from the Writer's Almanac

3. My friend Melissa's blog: Whimsy. [Hiya M!]

4. My secret science addiction

That's as far as I got before I posted here. I'm sure I'll get on to Ravelry soon...but that place is a mammoth zone for eye candy. Once you're in, you lose track of space and time. I was sucked in for four hours yesterday without even realizing it.

Would you look at that...pink sunlight through all the grey gloom of cloud. Morning is here!