Tweetbook and Twitface

so i sent the poem in the previous post to a lot of friends and other people by email. got a lot of nice responses.
one said "you should publish this, seriously." well, i have. on my blog. see?

the cousin (of the friend who is championing my novel) who is nice enough to give me publishing advice by phone, and just got a job a Harper's (OMG) said,"and this is why you should be promoting yourself and get on facebook and twitter." nice compliment!

but ugh. i do NOT want to go on tweetbook and twitface. argh. more machines/instruments of torture/things that utterly defeat me, exasperate me, prove i should have been born in an earlier century!

and how much self-promotion is too much? and, if you wish to publish, does nothing remain private? i am scared enough by blogging! have i already said too much?

Naughty Or Nice?

The holidays are here all right
anxiety is running high
money through our hands flows out
trinkets, baubles make us pout

We've been bad as usual
our tempers are abominable
Santa is upset and sore
he might not come here anymore

Children gritch in Gucci beds
parents envision divorce in their heads
expectations are unreasonable
and no one feels quite seasonal

Maybe if we just get quiet
we will yet avoid the riot
light some candles, play a hymn
joy may still be found within

Keep it simple, keep it real
and maybe soon we'll feel the thrill
of snow on rooftops, fires in hearth
songs and silence, peace on earth


star st.claire, san diego, 2010

Escondido Bomb House

so now san diego is in the news again because of the bomb house in Escondido. and the grand solution the authorities have come up with is to burn the house to the ground.

Merry Christmas, unfortunate neighbors, here is your toxic smoke and fireworks. weeeheee!

don't get me wrong, i LOVE san diego. it is, almost, paradise. but i think we are sending tourists a bad message.

between your "junk" being groped at Lindbergh airport, the chance a bomb-maker could move in next door, and the apparent leanings of the county officials toward pyromania, someone could get hurt.

so, fellow writers, doesn't it seem more and more evident that true life is stranger than fiction?

Splendor Ship and Don't Touch My Junk Synchronicity

about a mile from our tiny victorian apartment in san diego, in the bay, sits the gigantic cruiseship splendor while they fix it. (it arrived, not under its own power, just before the veteran's day parade, held a block away.) that was exciting enough.

then san diego in the news again, all over the world, again, for the guy at our airport who uttered the now famous line "Hey, Don't Touch My Junk."

ah, synchronicity, you gotta love it. both incidents happened in our fair city, san diego! both involved travel! both went viral, engendered crass humor, caused a rumpus and ruckus! hooray!

now there are the mysterious explosions in Escondido to account for. what if they somehow link to the other two incidents? won't that be splendid?

have you ever gotten waylaid (no, not laid, waylaid) by security? or by insecurity?

Time Change Blues

i have self-diagnosed SAD. seasonal affective disorder. when the days get shorter i feel sad.

daylight wasting time makes it darker one hour sooner. why oh why, i wail. so last year i refused.
i did not change my clocks. bad enough it gets dark at six, but five? hell no.
march to the beat of a different drummer, don't let the man get you down, etc etc.

also, when i get up i turn on the lights in every room. i know i know. it's environmentally unfriendly.
but by doing so i figure i keep several hundred empty plastic anti-depressant bottles over the course of my lifetime out of the landfill. it uses petroleum to make plastic, after all.

besides, anti-depressants can cause suicidal feelings. a side effect. hmm.

so how do you, my friends, cope with the time change, the blues, winter doldrums, the man? any hints or tips?

Forget Your Troubles, Walk, Write, Paint

a walk in the park, honeysuckle and violets, tiny lizards lizarding.
(these are a few of my favorite things...)

bunnies hiding from newly watered grass, or hot November sun.

misty mountains far away, layer upon layer of blue.

the famous Taos painter, Bill Rane once said to me, Use every shade of blue.

so, to break writer's block, and even painter's block (Ralph!)--
use every shade of blue.

what is YOUR favorite shade of blue?

Further Phone Fiasco

so i go on a week long vacation to Taos with my new cell phone and it's running out of minutes very fast. when i get home, i call ATT and the customer disservice rep won't give me any details about our account even tho my name is on it because i don't have mi espouso's social security number memorized. ugh. but she will answer general questions. ok.

how did i use 50 minutes on the train when out of the service area and couldn't even call anyone?? guess what. it uses minutes to record voicemail. understandable. BUT it also uses minutes to dial MY OWN voicemail and listen to those messages. ouch!

it even uses minutes (rounded up of course) to call MY OWN home phone on the same account! ayeeee!

she can't tell me when my minutes renew. she gives me a code to access the info on my phone. (which uses minutes.) i try it. it tells me i am almost out of minutes, but doesn't tell me when the minutes renew. arrrgh.

i hang up and yell, "I hate you ATT and i'm glad i wrote mean things about you on my blog!" (and decide ATT now stands for Assinine Terrible Turds.)

it takes me an hour to calm down. i go outside to eat lunch and drink a bud lite. halfway through my hummis and English Water Crackers i notice a truck parked in the street in front of my apartment house. it's ATT.

o my gosh they are stalking me.

Phone Fiasco

so i order a new phone, to call my new friend Bono (see last post) and it comes in the mail, and i go to the ATT store to get it all set up and transfer the number we've been using for two-plus years.

(millie mccarthy, our greyhound, got a brand new tag for her b-day from Dublin Dog Company and the new cell phone number would have rendered it obsolete, not to mention the hassle of changing it elsewhere...)

so after many tries and fails when its all finally seemingly done, the off-site ATT people say i now have to return the phone because i have violated the contract by changing the number. or i owe them a cancellation fee. or both! so i grumble that i will cancel all my ATT--the internet, fax, home phone.

so the nice people at the store, as opposed to the nasty horrible people off-site, give me a free phone and the number i wanted.

only took an hour of my life i will never get back. makes me wonder if ATT stands for Awful Time Takers.

Bono Synchronicity in San Diego

at the hairdresser's friday she's telling me about her trip to Ireland (so jealous am i) and i'm telling her my husband surprised me with tickets to see u2 next june. (our favorite group.) we're Irish.


that night we go to an art opening in Balboa Park. guy walking around looks just like BONO. truly. diamond ear-studs, leather jacket, pink tinted eyeglasses, hair, build, eyes-nose-chin. indeterminate European accent. so i go up and tell him. the chap with him says, How do you know he's not Bono?? oh my god, i say, are you? they both claim yes.


i bring my husband over, and he can't tell for sure either, and we don't want to make the guy prove it cuz what if he REALLY IS BONO?


see you on june 18th, Bono says as we walk away. he knows the date of the concert! maybe it really is him!

so when we get home we check the internet and u2 is in Italy. damn.but there is a Bono impersonator in san diego. Pavel Sfera, (www.bonodouble.com.)

so Pavel, you really had us going. cheers.

and readers, who's the biggest celebrity you've ever met?

Writing Assignment to Break Writer's Block

simple.

just write;
"i don't want to write about__________"
then let it rip. (free write...)

every time you bog down, write:
"and i certainly don't want to write about____________
and i would hate to write about_______
and i will NEVER write about________

scary, huh?
but way cool results, really.

what don't you want to write about?

Obsession (Recently On The News...)

what i can't get of my mind is this man had a lump, i mean a spot, of darkness in his lung, and when they went in there they found a sprouted pea.

another man had a tiny pine tree growing in his lung. somehow that is poetic, to picture it. isn't it?

(i do not know if women grow things in their lungs.)

we are still following Ray Bradbury. still mining our "loves, hates, fears and obsessions."

so if you're a writer and you wish to have an assignment (even tho the root word of assignment is ass) maybe you can write a poem, story, blurt, blog, slug, blot, wart, or worm about "the things that grow in the lung."

maybe a quirky haiku.

i can't seem to.

God Moons Moses

at church sunday pastor andre said God never hides himself from us. hmm.

what about when moses asked to see God
and God said he would pass by and show himself,
but only his backside...

it wasn't the first incident of mooning,
but it was the most spectacular.

Barbra Streisand Synchronicity

while my husband got a haircut i wandered down to a thriftstore. four cassettes for a dollar. i vacillated between bette midler and barbra striesand, but i already have bette. so i got my first barbra. "memory".

(wanted to see if the cassette player in our new used '92 jetta works. it does not.)


got home and put the cassette next to my old (from high school) Sylvania record player with radio and double cassette feature. very cool. but didn't listen.


next day walked by the community garden. man gardening says to me, "has anyone ever told you that you look like barbra streisand?" (yes, but not since i was eleven, which is over twenty years ago.)


a week later i'm again walking and a street person on trash day getting cans to recycle says, "you're a pretty lady." i keep walking. "come back," he shouts, "you look like barbra streisand!" what are the odds?


so i go home, listen to "memory" about ten times, develop an overwhelming desire to see CATS, and begin to suspect there is a gay man trapped inside my body yearning to get free.


what does this all mean? what should i do next? obviously the universe is giving me a message, but what?

Soap Synchronicity

last night we went out to Cafe Luna for my college friend's birthday, and her wonderfully enlightened son, who has been travelling the world - Mexico, New York, France, and India - where he spent time at a ashram - told us a certain yogi does not advocate the use of soap.

(i know this young man does not read my blog so there is no way he knows my guilty secret. so it is either a true synchronicity or an antisynchronicity!)


then his sister, the lovely young girl whose recent birthday party theme was "I don't wanna grow up," added that the body is supposedly a self-cleaning mechanism. i said if you've ever gotten a whiff of someone who believes that, you might wish their self-cleaning mechanism worked better.


This same yogi also advocates swallowing a towel, swirling it around to clean the stomach, then pulling it back out. maybe if we swallow soap instead...?

The Dead Poet

so i had this dream last night. there is a dead poet up a tree. a man hits the poet out of the tree with a large stick. a bystander says, 'well, if he wasn't dead already..."

according to one theory of dream analysis (by the way, note that the root word of analysis is anal) every aspect of a dream is the dreamer. so i am the dead poet, the man with a stick, the bystander, even the tree. cool!

when i walked out this morning a light mist enveloped the city. the air smelled of fresh bread, a warm, summery, yeasty scent, like cotton sheets hung on a line. i went to see the two baby bunnies in the park. i would love to pet one, but even if i could, i might get fleas. that is the problem with us humans. we have an unnatural fear of nature. but we ARE nature. therefore we have an unnatural fear of ourselves.

and that is why we have to knock the dead poet out of the tree.

A Little Bit

i put a link to my 2nd novel at the top of this page.

it is not a sausage link, nor a lincoln log, or a link in a chain.

it is a link to words and a heart.

or should i start a whole new blog and put my novel in it chapter by chapter?
is that too revealing?

for some reason i keep thinking about the wiener dog at the full moon circle in the very first post.
oh! because of sausage links! some people call wiener dogs sausage dogs!
alexander macall smith does. i checked out three of his books yesterday. he is the best!

Do You Hear Voices?

when i wake up there are voices in my head. the bad angel. the good angel. Pretty much every day. the bad angel saying "you're fat, get a job, you're old, you probably have dementia, you're fat..."

The good angel is still asleep because she knows there is nothing to worry about. so it's just the fat angel, i mean bad angel, and me. and my various ailments.

recently i hurt my thumb. it became urgent so i went to Urgent Care. the generic prescription was 90 bucks. welcome to America. and i don't even know how i hurt it! maybe i do have dementia.

at urgent care they weighed me. how rude. i thought they are supposed to make you feel better, not worse. i have inexplicably gained forty pounds since i got married fifteen years ago.

when i got married i thought, with relief, "i don't have to be skinny anymore - i got my man." we could eat, drink, and be merry. and we did, do, and are.

(my brother suggested that maybe my husband rolled over onto my thumb in the night and squished it with his belly. or an even bigger part, like his manhood. i did not tell the doctor that. doctors are not known for their senses of humor.)

Transcendence? Really?

of course not. but the holistic dentist chair looks out on a koi pond and a turtle whom is hungry. who is hungry, i mean. this will be expensive. i was too chicken to tell him about the soap. i don't want a total stranger to think i'm strange. or anything.

some of you read my other blog. i have two or more sides. the humorous/irreverent one. the one looking for transcendence. of what? dental problems, and other evils.

some say i am wise. but not to my silly self. to her i am just silly. what a relief. most people i know are artists, writers, singers, players of music. and all are on spiritual paths. and tend to take life too soberly.

i figured out why we don't really want to transcend. we are afraid we won't be needed here anymore. we will be no earthly good. or we will be crucified. or the soap has gone to my brain.

Anxiety and Depression Get Married

yikes. i go to the holistic dentist today for a second opinion. i am scared. i have recently discovered that feeling anxious about anxiety makes it worse. hmm.

i have a lifetime of dental fears and nightmares, combined with guilt that i waited so long to go, and resentment that i was too poor to go, and shame because i should have gone anyway because the truth is i bought canvases and paints and went to Santa Fe and out to the pub a few times instead of saving money for the dentist.

and i felt justified, as i had taken a vow of poverty to be an artist. i now know all of that to be bullshit. or chickenshit, as it were.

so now anxiety and depression have gotten married and set up housekeeping in my brain. how pleasant!

the brushing with soap experiment continues...i have now also tried tea tree oil soap. it hardly has a flavor, yet strangely, i prefer the olive oil. i think there may be something wrong with me...maybe the gingivitis has travelled to my brain.

Soap Poisoning

the scene in the movie "a Christmas story" where Ralphie has to bite the lifebuoy soap because he said the word f-u-d-g-e...except he didn't say fudge.

as kids who cussed (even darnit and fart were forbidden) we got a choice between Tabasco and soap. i chose the hot sauce, because the soap (Ivory) would make me gag. so now here's this chemist (as detailed in previous post) saying to brush our teeth with ordinary soap! that it is THE way to gum health!!! yuck...

but i am game for old fashioned/cheap cures. i am also curios by nature...and i had this new soap - olive oil - hand milled - lightly scented of pale flowers. very rich soap i would not have had except it showed up at Ross-dress-for-less deeply discounted and i put it out for guests.

so yes, i tried it. and it wasn't bad. and my mouth felt cleaner than clean. and now, i'm ashamed to say, i kind of like it and am even getting hooked on it. does that make me bad? or just fresh?

Wash Out Your Mouth

so i go to the dentist because i finally have insurance, not Obama-care, but my husband started full time, and i get bad news. have to pull wisdom teeth and a baby tooth, replace a cap, and all my fillings, etc...not to mention gingivitis can send plaque to my heart and kill me instantly. Argh.

so i have this ongoing panic response that totally belies my supposedly spiritual beliefs, and plunges me into an anxiety-laced depression, for which i have to go to the chiropractor to loosen my clenched jaw and stuck neck. (i've had tooth nightmares most of my life since my little brother knocked one of my teeth out with a belt buckle...sounds like a drunken white trash family, right? but he was only playing with the cat and my mouth got in the way...)

meanwhile i search holistic solutions and tips on the internet, desperate for solutions that don't involve removing gum tissue! and i come across this chemist, a professor emeritus at some big university, who says to brush your teeth with SOAP! any soap.

To be continued...

BEES ARE BUSY BUZZING

waiting at the station for my honey to arrive
bees a busy buzzing making honey in the hive
honey honey honey is a flavor i adore
honey is better than money for sure

been writing some little jazzy songs lately. have never sung jazz outside the shower, but would like to try. my band members from the whiskey sluts were in town for a few days. guitarist told me it takes years to learn jazz styling unless you gotta knack for it! maybe...

on the bridge friday were swarming bees! they are enamored with a lamp post for no apparent reason. it is painted yellowish gold. is that it? it was certainly a synchronicity, however, as you know i wrote in here previously, "above all, do not swarm!" (Hippocrates actually said, above all do no harm.)

after observing the bees i met a new friend. a gentleman taking a walk. turns out to be a fellow writer and very interesting chap! i warned him about the bees as he also likes to walk on the bridge. i believe meeting him was quite serendipitous! (divine timing...?)

so, who or whom has entered your life lately by chance? any kindred spirits?

Banana Obama and Baby Boomers

When I told my friend i wanted to embark on a new career as a comic, she said "are you serious?" (When you start something new at your age...your age is not something you wanna advertise--fifty is the new forty-nine, whatever...)

So i saw this special on baby boomers, how they don't want to get old...they were a bunch of old hippies. I don't mind being called a hippy (imagine the sound of inhaling), but don't call me old! I wasn't even at Woodstock. I wasn't even born yet. Woodstock to me is that yellow bird that lands on Snoopy's head. (I'm more familiar with chicken stock - a shout out to my Jewish friends...woo hoo, chicken stock! screw Woodstock!)

But I did wanna be a folk singer. You can make anything sound folk! Pluck a mandolin and sing along, "My banana has a name/ it's oscar meyer/ he doesn't trip no one/ no one slips on oscar meyer/ he's an enlightened banana/ and a political hero/ banana obama...hey hey

Blog Rhymes With Slog

Ugh. i am still bothered by the ugliness of the word BLOG. As i said before, it sounds like an intestinal ailment.

(My character, Robin, says, "If my mind works like a computer, it must have a blurt, a blog, a worm, a fatal flaw...")

I am officially proposing a new term for blogs that sounds nicer: I-aries (short for internet-diaries.)

(And the "I" also stands for I who am writing it.)

Iaries, reminiscent of a place where birds live, or some wonderful island, like the canaries. (maybe they are wonderful, i have never been...)

Moonshine

The moon is new and waxing again toward full. If we have been feeling down, this should make everyone feel better! (Last month, the new crescent moon over the bay in San Diego was tipped exactly like a smile.)

Moon smile
Dog smile, we all smile
God's smile

(a ridiculously short haiku)

SO, do you believe the phases of the moon influence our moods?
Do you think the moon affects women more than men?

Under the Bridge

Hiked/walked in Maple Canyon for first time today. White and yellow daisies as high as our heads. Orange and yellow Nasturtiums everywhere, blooming. Apparently, teens have found a way to use these flowers to get high. Saw it on the local news. Hey kids, if you didn't know it already...check it out! Woo-hoo!

(Parents, i'm sure you appreciate these helpful drug tips your local media provides to your kids!)

Anyway, it was beautiful, high or not. Hillsides terraced with cacti and wildflowers, gold light splashing leaf shapes on the trail, crows and mockingbirds winging, singing.

We walked beneath the span of the recently retro-restored First Avenue Bridge - a historic treasure (the bridge of dreams to which i make so frequent pilgrimage and have walked over so many times, but never under.)

The bridge is a metaphor that just keeps appearing. Think about it. Write about it. What are your bridges and where do they take you?

Sunglasses at Night

Sending queries yesterday for my first novel. (There are two now, but i'd rather neglected the first till the part of me that wrote it got hopping mad...)

Up and down, all around, many cups of tea...and at one point thought my vision was compromised...(this is it, i thought, i've looked at the computer for so many hours i am going blind...)

Yikes! but then realized i was staring at the screen, or trying to, through sunglasses rather than my reading glasses. Oh. Silly me...

God, I Mean Dog, Goes For a Walk

i've been writing anecdotes inspired by Millie, our greyhound. i planned to call the collection "Conversations With Dog" - (subtitled - a greyhound is my guru!)

i'd written several chapters when i thought to google it. Damn, someone already did it. Conversations with Dog, that is.

So now i need a new title. Any suggestions?

Key to Happiness

(Sitting outside Starbuck's on 5th Avenue)

"The key to happiness is to allow ones self to be happy."

I love to quote myself. My favorite self-quote is "The root word of happiness is penis." This should be on bumper stickers throughout the land.

Ray Bradbury says writers should mine their loves, hates, fears and obsessions.

I love pudding, i hate spiders, i fear death and i obsess about writing. So - maybe i will die by finding a spider in my pudding while writing. (I don't know why i said i love pudding - i don't. I like it a normal amount.)

Now, a synchronicity would be if a spider dropped on this page right now - (though that is not a "happy coincidence.") Or if a truck drove by with an advertisement for pudding on it. Or if a hearse drove by, with an advertisement for pudding on it, while i am writing.

But we can't will synchronicities to happen. They are random happy accidents. They do happen, though, randomly, accidentally, and happily, every day. They are serendipitous.

(I was going to call this blog "Synchronicity, Serendipity, and Dreams" but then the inner comic took over, thank God.)

New York State of Mind

My writing buddy just returned from visiting New York and mentioned the St. Patrick's day parade.

I happen to be reading a book called "The Road To McCarthy" and just finished the part where the British/Irish author is visiting New York during the St. Pat's festivities and crashes the parade.

He also runs into two Irish lads, total strangers, who end up being the writer and actor of a play he wished to see, but could not get tickets for. They give him tickets. After the play he and his new friends go into a bar and come across a girl one of the actors knew from primary school in Ireland. He wonders at the odds and says "It's almost enough to make you believe that our choices really are guided by some higher intelligence..."

(One time I sat with a New York friend on a cafe patio in Taos, with three other people, all strangers, who got to talking and discovered they were all from New York.)

Cosmic, I Mean Comic, Energy

So if humor is the fluid in animal bodies and we humans have animal bodies and 70% of us is water - then humor must be keeping us alive! A splendid conclusion.

(i have spent much time and energy in my life trying not to be irreverent, but the comic in me isn't having it. i have to find my inner comic if i want 70% humor in my body! )

Synchronicities happen in the now. In my other blog I write a lot about the past. The past has its place, yet wasn't it St. Paul who said "forgetting those things that are behind..." or maybe he said, forgetting those things that are in my behind? (knock knock i am going to hell...)

My assignment, if i choose to accept it, is to turn loose the inner comic. ("Ass" is the root word of assignment - so i think i see a pattern developing here.)

Good News

"Ah, San Diego - I love this City" (Ron Burgundy, The Anchorman)

I do. But more on that later. For now, synchronicity. Jung coined the word. (See Wikipedia.) I will define it as "Happy Coincidence" - synchronicities make me feel like heaven is watching and does have a plan for my life.

Unlike those who knock on my door with "The Good News." I open it in my pyjamas. Hi, they say, you are a sinner and are going to burn in hell. That is NOT good news! (Also, If your lifestyle hasn't attracted followers to your way of believing, then i can't help you.)

Good news would be that the same Creator who made butterflies, kittens and french fries also made me. (GOD means GOOD, after all...)

But why have i started a second blog? (When i first heard the word BLOG, i didn't know what it meant. I didn't know it was short for web-log. Even then, it still sounded sinister. Webs remind me of spiders, and something you get trapped in.

And log? Well, how can we avoid bathroom humor? We can't. As long as we humans still have to use the bathroom, there will be bathroom humor. Hippocrates said all ailments begin in the gut. He also said, "Above all, do not swarm." (He had a problem with bees in his yard.)

Anyway, my other blog was getting too serious. My wise self said i needed more humor. I looked up humor. Among other things (like "fun") the dictionary said humor is "the fluid in animal bodies." Hmm.

I Want To Marry It

I wish there were a nicer name than BLOG. Blog sounds like an intestinal ailment. (If you experience a Blog lasting more than four hours, see a doctor...) etc.

Journal is a prettier word, like journey - a wonderful adventure.

Synchronicity has the word city in it. So that's why this intestinal ailment, i mean blog, is called Synchronicity in the City. A play on "Sex and the City," of course. Which i never "got." My single New York-Taos-girl-friends told me it was funny. If i lived in New York and was single i would think so, they said.

(But even they admitted that not that many people were actually having much sex in NY city - due, they informed me, to the single men being "metro-sexual", and the women being, as elsewhere but moreso, exhausted and gun shy.)

I had lived in small Colorado and New Mexico towns for most of my life and had by then been married a dozen years. So not only did i not understand the show, i didn't know what Metro-sexual meant.

My NY girls dressed up like the characters (i would have been the slutty one) and went for drinks and attended the opening day of the movie in Taos. They invited me, even, which was nice. But i just could not work up any enthusiasm. It's like inviting a wiener dog to a full moon goddess circle. He just won't get it.

That is a bad analogy. Anyway, i have since moved to the city. San Diego, not NY. and i am in love with it. Almost two years here now and the infatuation hasn't worn off. It is the best city in America. I love it so much i want to marry it, as my NY-mermaid-singer-girl would say.