Update on the 25 things
I color-coded the items in that old post (2 down) to let anyone who gives a rat's ass see which were true. Here's the code: Orange = False. Green = True. Lilac = A Half Truth. Items in brackets = Explainations.

"Se La Vie," said the Old Folks,
"It Goes to Show You Never Can Tell."



As another twist on another recent blogtrend I have seen floating around (I got this from Retarius): I am going to make a list. The typical list tells one hundred (self-perceived) truths about the blogger. In my version, it is going to be more like those get-to-know-you games in college, where you tell some truths and some lies and people just have to figure out for themselves which is which. And no, I don't believe I'm going to let any of you in on which are which. ~ Evil gg rides again.
Update: Orange = False. Green = True. Lilac = A Half Truth. Items in brackets = Explainations.
1. I was born with six toes on each foot. The extra toe-nubs were removed at four days of age. [My feet just look that way.]
2. At the moment, I have fifteen siblings. [Including steps.]
3. I have had a "letter" published in Penthouse. (The letter was a bit exaggerated, I admit). [I just like reading them.]
4. A thirteen year-old recently came on to me. It took me a moment to realize that that was what he was doing.
5. #4 was the only time I have been embarrassed so far this year (2005).
6. Tonight is the only time I have been bored so far this year.
7. I am very excited about my latest acquisition - a leaf blower. [I'm not excited about it.] 8. Andy Goldsworthy is my favorite artist.
9. There are at least three men in their 70's that I would gladly get to know (see the biblical definition).
10. I love listening to the sound of the highway in my backyard at night - it puts me right to sleep.
11. My daughter has five names.
12. One of my son's names is a number.
13. One of my cousin's names is a different number.
14. I was once mugged at machete-point.
15. One of my English professors in college slept on his floor even though he had rats in his house.
16. I once streaked the audience at one of the performances of our highschool musical "South Pacific".
17. I am acquainted with one of Willie Nelson's main "suppliers".
18. To this day, I must cover my ears with my hair or blankets when I sleep in order to make it more difficult for insects to crawl in and lay eggs in my ear canal or brain. [I did this for so long as a kid that now it is just habit.]
19. I love working with power tools.
20. I was the first female ever to accolite in my church.
21. I have been "the squirter" on hog-cutting day. [I've seen it done and I was invited to be the squirter but I politely declined.]
22. When I met Woody Harrelson, he thought I was going to mug him. [He had to remind me to give him back the stuff he asked me to hold. I was 14, awestruck and just forgot.]
23. I have traveled to 49 of the 50 United States. [Airports only not included my number is 34/50.]
24. I am a Rocky Horror Virgin. [I've seen it, in a theatre but I was never de-virginized.] 25. The only trouble I ever got into in highschool was for setting a girl's hair on fire (she was my nemisis). [I got in trouble for my high number of absences every year (around 40 each year). I didn't get caught with this one because my evil plan didn't work.]

There you go, the first installment of "You Never Can Tell."
Any guesses as to which of these beauties is true? Not that it matters...



"There is no spoon." - The Matrix

Chew On This
Comfort Poem (and Books)



I'm very tired tonight, not to mention over-committed. So I am just going to post this, which made me cry on first reading, my favorite (so far) poem by Ray Bradbury. Yeah, that guy who wrote Farenheit 451. Plus about two dozen awesome books full of short stories and some novels, my top three being, in reverse order:


#3: The Illustrated Man. These short stories are all connected by the fact that some depiction of each is tattooed onto a carnie's body. And get this - they move. (Yes, I loved this one before I was old enough for ink.)


#2: Something Wicked This Way Comes. A novel about two boys - one light and one dark. Their names are Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway. Can you guess which one is which? This evil carnival comes to their small midwestern (read: girlgrey's childhood) town, and lures the townsfolk in. I won't give it away, but it is Fuh-reeeaaa-ky. I read this one every year during the month of October. Just talking about it makes me wish it was fall (the best season).


And drumrole please::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#1: Dandelion Wine. Probably my favorite book *Of All Time* (said with God-inflection). This one is a novel about summer and childhood and being ferociously ALIVE. It, without fail, brings me comfort in a world that can seem very cynical. It makes me remember that I am still alive, a gypsy soul, sucking the marrow and relishing the sensuous; "a crazy creature with a head full of carnival spangles." Read it and tell me you didn't search for some ancient drug store that sold old-fashioned lime-vanilla ice. I dare you.

P.S. So he has a thing for carnivals. So sue him. -gg



That Woman on the Lawn by Ray Bradbury

Sometimes, gone late at night,
I would awake and hear
My mother in another year and place
Out walking on the lawn so late
It must have been near dawn yet dark it was
The only light then in the gesture of the stars
Which wheeled around in motionings so soft
They took your breath to see; and there upon the grass
Like ghost with dew-washed feet she was
A maid again, alone, quite singular, so young.
I wept to see her there so strange,
So unrelate to me, so special to herself,
So untouched by the world, evanescent, free,
With something wild come up in cheeks
And red to lips, and flashing in the eyes;
It frightened me.
Why should she wander out without permit,
Permission saying go or do not go
From us or any other…?
Was she, or My God, wasn’t she our mother?
How dare she walk, a virgin, fresh once more
Within a night that hid her face,
How dare displace us in her thoughts and will?!

And sometimes even still, late nights,
I think I hear her soft tread on the sill
And wake to see her cross the lawn
Gone wild with wishing, dreaming, wanting
And crouched down there until dawn,
Washing her hair with wind,
Paying no mind to the cold,
Waiting for some bold strange man
To rise up like the sun
And strike her beauteous-blind!
And weeping I call out to her:
Oh, young girl there,
Oh, sweet girl in the dawn!
I do not mind, no, no. I do not mind.

In Honor of My One-Month Blog Birthday
A Small Experiment



I found this interesting little experiment on a cool blog called D S Projects. It is a brave twist on the dorky blog quizzes out there:
I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions. Any three, no matter how personal, private, or random. I must answer them honestly. In turn, you have to post this message on your own journal/blog/site and you must honestly answer the questions that are asked of you. [I am interested to see how many takers are out there.]



"Do not do what you would undo if caught." ~Leah Arendt


"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud." ~Sophocles

A Pedestal of Abalone Shell



I am posting a poem I wrote several years ago. This one actually got picked up by a literary quarterly called Appalachian Heritage. It even won some kind of annually awarded prize (though sadly, the prize was not loads of cash).



Mollusk

The smell of you in a darkened room is of
oysterless shells picked today from beach;
deep healthy soil;
a field in rain.
My palm on your vulnerable abdomen
sticks slightly and I reel,
so gone
my tongue must press briefly to your shoulder
that I may see if you are salty
as the perfect olives I have in past eaten
and you are all that I relish with taste of crushed pearl.

Comfort Food... Er, Comfort Film



I am going to post on several movies that I really LOVE. These are movies that I watch over and over and over and over again. I do this with books too, but I'll save them for some different posts.
This first one is a movie that I hope all of you have already seen. If you've seen it once or twice, go buy it. If you own it, go watch it. If you have never seen it, PLEASE, go get it RIGHT NOW (or make it #1 on your Netflix list). This movie comforts me to no end. I am listening to it even as I speak.

"Dad, You were never dying." "But I'm gonna live!"
Isn't this how most of us feel most of the time?
I can't really explain the beauty of this movie to you if you have not already seen it. If you have already seen it, you don't need me to explain.
There is a beautiful soundtrack, including Dylan, Lennon, Elliot Smith, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones (with one of my favorite Stones' songs), that Snoopy/Peanuts music, and Nico, singing "These Days." Some of which are included on the cd:

I think I will someday even go so far as to someday make my own soundtrack for this movie (and I am generally too lazy to make my own mixed cds - that's what boys are for).

There is a pet falcon named Mortichai for God's sake - how much better can it get?
The Royal Tenenbaums is about the ways people connect - or fail to. It is full of icecream shop illuminations (the scene in which, I always, without fail, weep). This film is full of gentle lies and gentle truth, deceit, love, the parent-child structures we never escape, and good old-fashioned incest (almost).
Essentially this movie is about Family. YOUR family. MY family. (Did I mention JB's family?) It's about knowing that no matter what, there is always a family out there more fucked up than yours is.
And it's about how forgiveness is an absolutely nesessary element in every. single. life. It is also about how nearly every one we are connected to is part of our family, and thus, worthy of our love and compassion. How we all miss the comforting parts of being a child. And how even those childhood moments were never so comforting as we wished.
All that un-cheesy sappiness is perfectly interspersed with lines like these:
"Let's shag ass."
"You poor Sucker. You poor, washed up, Papa's boy."
"Don't listen to me. I'm on mescalin - been spaced out all day."
"What happened to you? You used to be a genius. At least, that's what they said."
"I've missed the Hell out of you, my darlings."
"You gotta brew some recklessness into them."
Granted, Wes Anderson is a genius. But in my opinion, this is his opus.


Quote: "I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were gonna forgive me." "I don't think you're an asshole, Royal. I just think you're kind of a sonofabitch."

Quote: "Hmm. Can't somebody be a shit their whole life and try to repair the damage? I think people want to hear that..." The Royal Tenenbaums

Dyn-O-miiiiiite!


~Napoleon refridgerator magnet~

No time for a long post today, but as I explore blogworld more I keep finding art. People make a lot more art in general than I thought (or maybe bloggers are just the most creative types of people - you little artists you!). And I thought to myself, "Self," that's what I thought, "You could put some of your art and even your crafty-dealies on the blog." "Ooohhhhhhhhh, what a fun idea, Other Self." [I don't think this counts as multiple personality just because there is a conversation going on in my head.] So, last post there was a poem (art) and this post there are some stinky little fridge magnets

I like to make when I'm bored and sick of technology in general. Which, BTW, I can send you the directions for making them, for all you funky crafty kids out there.


~James Cagney and Errol Flynn~


~Cyndi Lauper (who I once had the pleasure of meeting), John and Olivia, Barbara~

"A flippin' skit?!?! ...Pedro, just listen to your heart. That's what I do."
"If you vote for me, all your wildest dreams will come true" ~Napoleon Dynamite