Book Junkie – DAY 1083

As I read my books, I am usually reading three at once.  One physical book, a digital book and an audio book.  Without trying, the themes sometimes overlap.  Stories have elements in common.  Sometimes characters go through similar struggles.

This month, I found three excellent memoirs.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert – The belief that ideas are out there trying to find a home.  Be open to them because if you don’t snatch them up, someone else will.  Very cool ideas about living a creative life.

Amy and Isabelle, by Elizabeth Strout – A complex story about a mother and daughter living mirrored lives.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King – Insightful, entertaining and not at all boring.  This is also fun to read if you are merely a fan.

When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi – A beautiful memoir written by a dying neurosurgeon.  His story of life through medical school and the discovery of his own terminal lung cancer.

 

May You Read These Books – DAY 1050

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes – If you’re a fan of this movie, you’ll love the behind-the-scene stories about the making of the film.

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens – Joe interviews a dying, convicted murderer for a college English assignment.  After he hears Carl’s story and studies the court transcripts, he sets out to prove that Carl is innocent of the crime.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney – A complicated family drama in which almost every sibling is in dire need of their portion of “the nest” – the inheritance from their dead father.  This story is well written with complex characterization.

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey – In this WW2 historical novel, Stella is married to a closeted clergyman.  She meets Dan, an American soldier and they begin an affair and fall in love.  In present time, Jess runs away from her abusive boyfriend and squats in an old abandoned house in London.  In this safe place, she comes across all of Dan’s love letters to Stella.  Jess becomes determined to find Stella and Dan.  Will she end up finding a love of her own?

 

Books I Loved – April 2016 – DAY 1013

April was a great month! I finished 25 books and I enjoyed many of them.  Here’s a list of my favorites:

Bright Side by Kim Holden – Kate leaves San Diego and heads to Minnesota to attend college. That’s where she meets and falls in love with Keller.  Gus, Kate’s (male) best friend is on an international tour with his band but they get to talk almost every day.  This is essential because the two are very attached.  Will that be enough and will Kate and Keller have forever?

Bird Box by Josh Malerman – This post-apocalyptic horror story had a fun creepiness factor. Instead of zombies we have some sort of “bad thing” that you cannot look at with your eyes.  Ever.  So, survivors are afraid, wearing blindfolds and keeping their eyes shut.  Loved this book!

Crossroads by Riley Hart – Nick is divorced. Bryce is the kind of guy who has a hard time committing to one woman and settling down.  These two become neighbors, best friends and find themselves spending a lot of time together.  When a member of Bryce’s family suggests that they might be more than friends, he’s forced to consider it.  These two “straight” men figure it out.  Together.

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler – This book was beautiful. Read it.

Favorite Reads March 2016 – DAY 982

March was a productive month! I finished 31 books.  My top 4 March reads fall into the Young Adult or New Adult (Ugly Love) category.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli – 16-year-old Simon has found someone he can be honest with. Blue is his anonymous email buddy and they discuss the impending trial of “coming out” to their friends and family. Meanwhile, an acquaintance gains access to his email and blackmails Simon into helping him gain the attention of a girl. Simon is somewhat bullied into publically admitting his sexuality, but he also finds a boyfriend in Blue at the same time. I found this YA novel to be honest and realistic.

Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson – Emily’s outgoing, BFF Sloan has vanished along with her parents just as the summer has arrived. What will the introverted Emily do without her? Emily receives a to-do list from Sloan via snail mail – one that will surely force her out of her comfort zone. Once she begins to tackle the list, she convinces herself that completing everything on it will help her find Sloan. Enter the very popular Frank Porter who has befriended Emily and insists on helping her check things off her list. One guess how this list and Frank’s assistance will change Emily’s outlook on her summer without Sloan.

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover – Colleen Hoover books are crack. This was a re-read. Stacey and I drove to Vegas and we listened to Ugly Love. Tate and Miles forever…

The Mason List by S.D. Hendrickson – This was a digital read for me. Alex and her father lose everything when she is only 8 years old. Her mother dies, they are living in his truck and life is at an all time low. Enter the wealthy Mason family who offer her father a job and a safe place to live on their property. In fact, the Mason’s make sure they have everything they need. Alex begins to resent the handouts and decides to make a list of everything the Masons have given them so she can pay back the “debt” one day. But Jess Mason is her best friend and he loves her. This book is the coming of age story of Alex and Jess from age 8 to 26. Their friendship/love story is beautiful and it moved me.

Favorite Reads February 2016 – DAY 960

I plowed through 28 books in February.

My top 4:

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian – Things go terribly wrong at a Bachelor Party thrown at the Best Man’s family home.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith – The third book in the Cormoran Strike series and the best one yet.  I love the growing “partnership” of Cormoran and Robin.  We are left with a cliffhanger – can’t wait for the next book.

Eventide by Kent Haruf – The second book in this beautiful trilogy.  A window into the fragile people and different families in this small town of Holt Colorado.  Haruf’s writing style is unique and soft.  I want to read everything he wrote.

Little Girls by Ronald Malfi – Is the little girl next door a ghost or is the house you’ve just inherited haunted?  Laurie and her family temporarily move into her childhood home in order to fix it up and sell it after her father’s passing.  Strange things begin to occur as soon as they arrive.

Favorite Reads January 2016 – DAY 922

I love books.  What is life without story?

I finished 32 books in January.

My favorites (listed below) are all must reads.  Look how similar the titles are!  I find that when I read multiple books at the same time, the themes often bleed into each other.

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson – It’s the early 1960’s and a single woman in her mid-30’s owns a bookstore with her best friend.  She starts having reoccurring dreams about her own alternate life…one in which she has a husband and children…one in which she and her best friend no longer speak.

Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain – Oh, how I love me some Archie & Gretchen!  This is the fifth book in the series and my favorite thus far.  What other serial killer/detective series are you reading in which you want to (mostly) root for the serial killer?

The Killing Lessons by Saul Black – Oh my goodness.  This could have been just another serial killer/detective novel, but it was well written and the writer did not keep us in the dark.  We were right there with the detectives, the victims and the killers.  Instead of wondering how they “done it,” we watched it happen.  Talk about being in the story!

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult – When I finished this audiobook, I walked around my house repeating the word “wow.”  This story was hard for me to let go of.  What a great read.  The Storyteller is a Historical Fiction WW2 novel.  We meet Sage, a broken woman who befriends an old man named Josef.  As their friendship grows, he tells her in confidence that he was a Nazi officer in WW2 and he’d like Sage to help him die.  We also meet Sage’s grandmother, a Jew, who survived the Nazi war camps.  Her grandmother recounts her “story” in addition to her own personal story.  This beautiful book is about family tradition, loss, forgiveness and survival.  And a vampire.  I love how she pulls it off.

Audiobook Chuckle – DAY 821

“She screams like a camel that’s eaten sand!” — Assad

The Hanging Girl – Jussi Adler-Olsen

Pre-Trilogy – DAY 791

Those who know, know.

Bellagrand, by Paullina Simons

The Language of Story – DAY 671

“…it had been such a long, long day.  Probably the longest day of my life.  I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight.  Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want to be there.”

— Tell The Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brunt

Bookie – DAY 583

“You look like a protagonist.”

and

“I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being…but I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft…and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake.”

and 

“Or maybe, he thought now, he just didn’t recognize all those other girls. The way a computer drive will spit out a disk if it doesn’t recognize the formatting. When he touched Eleanor’s hand, he recognized her. He knew.”

― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

#amustread

 

Passing Notes in Class – DAY 411

Banter:

You ruined my story! Or did you…  “…she said, always quick with a joke to hide her inner storm.” –JDB

“No story is ever ruined.  Only changed by voice and interpretation.”  — Abbie Berry

Courtside – DAY 405

They crowded around the flag-pole. Just beside the courtyard exterior of the building. There was no flag to bring down half-mast. Nothing to watch move with the wind as words were not spoken about something that was not gone. But the people did reach out. One kissed a shoulder. Another took a hand. A few watched for something to begin and when nothing at all occurred, grew bored and walked away. I watched everyone stand still and become one singular thing. Not two. A group of people wound in a circle that overlapped onto itself. Not unlike a leather belt without loops to weave through.

Okay – DAY 365

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

–The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

Breakfast Club – DAY 316

First thing this morning.  You said:

“…Having the best dream.  I was going to the Moon.  You were there too but I kept forgetting your name…”

Let’s go.  I’ll whisper it in your ear.

 

Duran Duran – Day 63

It was only ten minutes.  On the cement steps behind the office building.  Two of them in the shade.  Eight in the sun’s shine.  I watched a car or two leave the parking lot.  I heard the construction workers pounding on the building next to ours.  Birds were telling each other birdie stories. 

My back without support.  My bottom on the third step.  Sunshine.  But it was the breeze that had me.  It felt like childhood playtime.  It felt like baking cookies on a Sunday morning with a favorite babysitter. 

Took my hair-tie off my right wrist and pulled my hair back.  Three twists.  A bird switched to her song.  Eight of us playing in the yard in third grade, laughing and singing silly made up songs.  And peanut butter chunky cookie batter on my fingertips.  Girls in giggles as we danced around the kitchen table to The Reflex on repeat.

On the steps.  Around minute number three, I should have taken off my shoes.

Ponytail Tuggers– Day 45

Especially when they like you… (the rocks part)

Representation – Day 38

Cross My Heart – Day 16

Today, I crave the rain. 

The smell of the pavement like a boy’s sneakers in the mud.  Slow, round dark freckles on the ground.

I sit behind you with my front-side and my face up-against your back-side, feeling so small against you.  I weave my arms under yours and in-front of you.  Your arms, wrapped behind and beside my legs, touching the semi-wet ground with your fingertips.  My arms now appear to be yours. 

Using both hands, I press a finger or two or six to your lips in a kiss.  Place my right hand in a semi-proper salute, cover your heart and swear my love be true.  Cup both hands and place them above your eyes.  Like shades to keep out the rain.  Now falling harder. 

You grab my damp bottom and pull me closer.  Like I might not ever get close enough.

Then, all ten of my fingers prepare for voyage.

The First Day – Day 1

For those of you who are just tuning in:  I was sad.  I wanted to see what that looked like – in the form of my words – for 30 days.  I was almost done when Jon suggested that I continue and stick with it.  For two years.  Maybe he thought I would enjoy it.  Maybe he believed that I would get crafty.  Maybe he even thought I would get bored and give up. 

As soon as he brought it up, I wanted to do it.

Half-way through-ish I felt different.  I was no longer the angry-sad-whatever I had been.  And it was a joy to unravel my romantic notions, however evasive and sometimes very “swiss-cheese” like they may have been.  To write creatively, quote others, share conversations, songs that moved me, inside-jokes, memories, absolutely anything I didn’t want to forget.  These posts made up my 730 days.

 “…the story without giving us the whole story…” – Jon Oropeza

Sometimes I didn’t have enough to say, so I wouldn’t post anything.

But my readers were paying attention.

“Haven’t seen a new post lately.” — Susan

“…today’s post made me cry…LOVE YOU!!!” — Stacey

“Waiting to read day 700!” — Josh

Which is everything to a writer.  You have to think of your reader.

Today, I start a fresh project. 

I’ve changed the name of my blog from Walk Tall to Walk With Me.   I will no longer count down.  I would like to look forward. 

And for those who cannot Walk With Me, I hope that you will instead.

For Joannie.  For Singerboy.  And especially for Dan, who could not walk.

I wish he was here every day to walk beside me.

I will write what I feel and what I see.  My memories.  My laughs.  My tantrums.  My battles.  My greatest loves.  Everything that inspires me.

Dan, this is for you.

My 700 Days – Day 700

2 years.

grief –> distractions –> kindness

A story without telling the complete story.  Being evasive but also exposed.  And the first 30 days were tough – I cried and serious anger pumped in/attacked my heart.  My gut knows that shit is toxic, but hurt like that can be tough to kick quickly.  Then the days continue on.  Distractions help.  New scenery.  Talking it out.  A year passes by.  More quality time alone.  With books.  Great friends.  Conversations.  And the love of the people I surround myself with.

True heroes.

Here’s to:

• Alexander
• Rosie quotes
• Sticky notes
• The DLC
• Jake Ryan
• Meira
• San Diego
• Asking for what you want
• Singerboy
• Curling my hair
• Remembering Dan
• Josh
• Writing on the walls with Summer
• Reading to one another
• And Jon and Marilynn and Jenn
• And Danielle, Heather, Sara and Sarah
• And Kim and the girls
• And Rich and Will and Jeremy and David
• And RC’s silver sharpie
• The man in the tank top and jeans
• Bob and books
• …tells fantastic tales…
• Dating me later
• Our date to the Odyssey
• The Lucky Brand store
• The brown chair
• My bottles
• Stacey and being “Berries”
• Jesse Pinkman
• Cowles Mountain
• Instagram
• My little brothers
• Poof/Puff
• Melrose Place
• Sarah’s wedding
• The Walk Tall Half at Turf Club
• Todd Manning
• “my heart is swollen open”
• Sierra Highway
• Laters baby
• Stay Awhile video
• Sharpies for SPK
• And you show up
• Ballz
• Quiet game
• Dumbass
• #myperson
• Bryan
• #soasisyes
• #axos
• Yoga
• You are loved by me
• The Christmas pumpkin
• Responding to Susan – collaborating with Joe – writing “together”
• Grey
• Lists
• Two old people, holding hands at the water
• Rooster/Small Cock
• Nomo
• Dave and Jaybird
• Pushing 40
• #GG
• #fuckbutterflies
• The ocean and sunsets
• Slutty pizza
• Shoop Shoppe
• Lego House
• #NotTodd
• Snapchat
• The parents & family
• (And of course) reading
• Always pick a girl who reads

Thank you for walking tall with me for 730 days.

My 700 Days – Days 694 & 695

A friend sent this to all of the readers in his life.  I did a browser cut-and-paste and saved it for later like a cookie.

A couple of days ago, I made the time to check it out and it made me feel alive.  As a woman, as a reader, as a lover as a human being.  Awake and alive.

I have always been a reader.  Little girl on a trip to NYC – staying with a friend’s family – nose in a book.  Missed parts of most of what NYC can be.  But I saw characters.  That’s how my mind worked when I was a child.  Nose in a book.

I went through a phase where I stopped reading.  It didn’t last long, but at that time in my young-adult life I only had time for the “cooler” things.  Whatever – cool or not, I brought back the books.

And they have always been books.  I have yet to convert to e-readers.  I’ll get there in time.  But I love the feel of a book in my lap, holding one in my hands, always having one in my purse.

And these days I read in bed on weekend mornings.  It’s a tiny slice of a smile.

So I hope you will read this blog post:  “You Should Date An Illiterate Girl,” by Charles Warnke & “You Should Date A Girl Who Reads,” by Rosemarie Urquico

Because it is the other slice of my incomplete snarky/goofy smile and it made me feel alive.  Like dancing.  And whipped cream.  And a sonic boom in my future words.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

From: You Should Date A Girl Who Reads – by Rosiemarie Urquico

My 700 Days – Day 679

And then, I found snapchat and my ten-year-old self:

My 700 Days – Days 660 – 666

This is for Susan, in response to:  http://poetg65.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/my-list-as-of-june-10-2013-i-love/

I went to the beach and walked to the water’s edge.  I turned my back to the water and pushed my toes down deep.  Felt my whole self rock back and then forward.  Regained my balance and hugged both of my arms to myself.  I could feel the writing on my T-shirt against my forearms.  It made me want to scratch but I remained still.  I’m not sure how long I stood there but I started to feel like I was in quicksand.  And, eventually, I couldn’t feel my toes.

A little boy played with red and yellow shovels and a white plastic bucket to my left.  I watched him build mounds and shuffle sand around.  He’d knock it down and then push it all back together.  At one point he sat right on top of his creation.  That made perfect sense to me and I continued to suck into the earth.

When I could no longer feel my feet, I sat down on the wetness and waited for the next wave.  It came.  When it moved back, away from me again – I felt relief.  The water was cold – but that wasn’t why – instead, because I might pull out into the ocean with the next one and not find a way back.  Back to this place where my legs were now hidden.  Where my backside was wet with ocean water.  Where my arms remained braided and where the little boy continued to build himself a compound.

You say:  “…my friend who takes pictures of sunsets, and other beautiful things in San Diego, she sees nothing but ‘the happy’ about this city…”

See, I am not so evasive.

My 700 Days – Days 649 – 651

From The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton:

“…By the time I met a bloke I could live with, the baby ship had sailed.  We tried for a while but” –she shrugged– “well you can’t fight nature.”

“I’m sorry Ruby.”

“Don’t be.  I’m doing all right.  I have a job I love, good friends.”

She winked.  “And come on, you’ve seen my flat.  I’m onto a winner there.  No room to swing a cat, but hey–I haven’t got a cat to swing.”

Cassandra smiled.

“You make a life out of what you have, not what you’re missing.”

My 700 Days – Day 648

Abbie’s crush of like, forever – #NotTodd

 

 

My 700 Days – Days 638 – 645

More please:

• Yoga
• Starbucks Black Iced Tea
• Spring Cleaning
• A bath
• The girls
• Sunsets
• Blue
• Hearing you say my name
• Unexpected texts
• Planning
• Creative planning
• Creativity
• Collaborating with JoeKane
• SPK
• NotTodd
• The neighborhood trees
• The urban “noise”
• Shoop Shoppe
• Babies
• Slutty Pizza
• Lego House
• Reading in the brown chair

My 700 Days – Day 603

I’ll let you find it.

My 700 Days – Days 585 – 588

Right now:

all i want to do is climb back into my bed a read my new book.

#bookaddict

#fuckbutterflies

My 700 Days – Day 570

“It was a possibility she could not bear.  She wound herself tightly, as if within her girdled ribs she could contain all possibilities, all futures and all deaths.  Perhaps if she held herself just right.  Maybe if she knew what would be or could be.  Or if she wished with enough heart.  If only she could believe.”

— from The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

My 700 Days – Day 563

He says that I have a unique way of saying things.  I don’t think I’m all that special.  I mean, I have a small rooster on my desk.  Doesn’t everybody?

He wants me to understand what he is trying to say.  But, I hear one thing, he says one thing and something else might be said/heard.  There’s nothing I can do.

At the same time, he understands me almost 100%. I think he’s an alien.  And I’ve convinced myself that I understand him.  It may not be true of course.  I mean, I have a rooster.  How can I be solid?

There are like seven other factors that I can’t get into right now.  You may be reading this, but you aren’t really listening and I don’t have the time to explain.  Nobody has the time to give away anymore.  (Did they ever)?   Everything is rushed and I need space to explain.  You let me know when you have a bubble for me to sit inside of and I’ll talk and you’ll listen and then we’ll switch.

Oh, and you can have my rooster too.

My 700 Days – Day 555

I’m not completely sure what he meant when he said, “it may be too word game heavy for some.”  But I wrote it down and decided to keep the sentence in my pocket.  I do that — keep sentences that I hear people say.  Sometimes when I read one that makes me ask questions, I’ll deem it worthy and write it down myself. 

A collection of sentences and statements and questions and fragments, overheard and read and mimicked in a glass jar. 

I save them all in a glass jar in my room.  I’ve never shown it to you before, but if you would just ask…

Be mindful when you ask to read them, or I may write down what you say and pretend that I have no idea what you’re talking about.

My 700 Days – Days 548 – 550

For the entire Walk Tall (730 day) experience, I hope that you will start at the beginning, step inside the space I’ve created, and walk along until the entire two years are complete.

Five months to go.

My 700 Days – Day 543

This is a great writing exercise.  I received two spam blog comments today that were worth sharing.  Try to write two of your own.  The sentences should mostly make sense but the sentences should not necessarily make sense together:   

 

The place where everyone who uses the bathroom shoves everything.
re also going to need to think about the kind of curtains you.
So hang in there ’cause now’s the fun part: shopping.

 

Oregano is a perennial herb which means it will come back year after year, and can get out of control if not properly contained. Cut pig-in-blanketfree from strip and make 19 more pigs-in-blankets in same manner, arrangingthem, seam sides down, as they are made on prepared baking sheet. I tried dozens of different recipes for pizza crust, and none of them were satisfactory.

My 700 Days – Days 537 – 541

You don’t know this, but I stopped writing it down.  I stopped writing it down because when you say things out loud they become things and they have a better chance of coming true and writing is like talking and writing is like believing and I do believe.  But I stopped.  I stopped writing it down, saying it out loud, whispering it to the morning, the late-night dark, the mid afternoon nap, snack, rustle, shopping trip, eating lunch, chapter reading, student work editing, soap opera half-watching, daydreaming, hunger, laundry day, text messaging, snapshot taking, walk around the block, call with my best friend, knowledge you are not, memory of nothing, a slice of a day when it was here or breakfast I didn’t make you.  I stopped.  But why not write and add new words?  A boy on the street on his skateboard.  A new pair of board shorts.  A truck’s rumble outside.  People.  Families out for a walk.  My phone ringtone.  The ice cream truck.  A shampoo commercial.  Children asking questions.  Singing songs in the car.  In the shower.  In my head.  A dance.  A smell.  Doing absolutely nothing with my day.  Listening to the birds tell their morning story.  Playing with your hair.  Sensing your stillness.  Dripping with sweat in the yoga room.  Asking my body to heal.  My stillness.  My understanding.  Acceptance.  Your:  I love you.  My:  I love you.  Your:  I love you.  Your:  I love you.  Two little, old people holding hands at the water.  I cannot stop writing it down.

My 700 Days – Days 534 & 535

#saynotodrugs

My 700 Days – Days 530 – 533

She used to say that her favorite smell was oranges.  She liked things that were round as edges made her nervous.  One day I heard her speaking softly while watering her plants, “he was kind to me, you know what that’s like?  To be admired by a patient man?”  She was speaking to them.  Her carriage was much like her cadence and she had also perfected the use of hand gestures while storytelling.  I could always tell when she had something juicy to share.  Her hands fluttered like birds and her fingers intertwined at the climax of her tale.  She enjoyed sharing as much as I liked listening.

The other one — she liked bananas best.  She preferred sharper objects but what else can you expect in comparison?  She had the knack of killing a plant with just a glance and she sauntered in and wandered out and that was accepted.  Her stories were soft.  They were the prettiest stories anyone had ever heard.  One could not be bored or confused or anything but interested in her words.  But she was flawed you see.  She could not tell them herself.  Her voice was too boisterous and her ugly cough began when she tried to read aloud.  Someone had to read them for her.  And this saddened her greatly.

Now, I was just a little child so I did not know one story from the next.  Obviously, they both fooled me.

My 700 Days – Day 522

And I remember sometimes.  Because forgetting just happens without thought. 

The remembering, the knowing, feeling the way I used to – that takes time.  First, I can see what it looked like.  Warm or dark or the shape of your finger-tips.  Then, I hear something.  Maybe it’s a simple sound, or more complex like part of a song or a promise you once made me.  Seeing, hearing — feeling would logically come next.  But, I feel the memory of that thing, the whatever it is or was between us without thinking about it.  Yesterday.  Five years ago.  And in eight weeks.  It doesn’t matter when.    

In the thing I make up, there is a house.  The look of it is very stereotypical.  Green lawn, two cars in front, a tree in the back and children.  Children.  There’s a routine and there is family.  In the thing I make up you call me a pet name and I smile every time you write it down and every time you use it without thinking about it.  In the thing, we play games.  Only we know the rules and how to break them.  We both win.  In the thing, time never ends and we never get old. 

In the thing — we never get old.

But many times I forget.  And I have to write things down to remember.  Like here.  This.  In this thing that I made up, I remember.  I remember you saying my name, holding me under you, sleeping on your side, touching your back, sharing food, plotting trips away, laughing to nothing, crying when needed and I put in an extra effort to smile the way I know you would want me to.  Here.  Sitting, remembering.  I take my time. 

#thatsmorethanfoursentences

My 700 Days – Days 515 & 518

I’ve been reading and thinking about storytellers. 

Is storytelling a talent one is born with or is it developed?  Or both?

I know a few fantastic storytellers who do not consider themselves writers.  How do I get them to start writing?

#p.s.Iloveblue

My 700 Days – Days 513 & 514

Early morning reading.  Hug of a new bed.  Rediscovery of early morning dark outside.  Absence of late night up all night by choice.  I’m a magnet to my bed.

This is now.

Long, long ago, my bed became a place that kept me close.  An absence of physical books and space. 

This is not that.

This is warmth.  I’m here.  And I’m reading again. 

If I could give you a gift.  It would be this.

My 700 Days – Days 507 – 511

Jesse:  Vamanos.

Skyler:  I wish.

Breaking Bad – Season 5

My 700 Days – Days 502 – 504

My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself.  What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story?  What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?  When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails?  No.  When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid.  What you need are the plump comforts of a story.  The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.

— from: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

My 700 Days – Days 493 – 497

Last night, I found a lone shoe at the back right corner of my closet.  It was upside down, red and brown.  The heel worn, mostly on the right outer side.  Two and a half sizes too large.  A number 6 written on the inner sole with a sharpie.  How does a lone shoe end up alone?

This morning I noticed that other things were missing.  Books and cards and CD’s and cups and ribbon and lotion and lemonade and hair ties and words and a smile and my favorite scarf.  How does that happen?  Things that don’t walk – walk in and out?  People?  Notions?  Promises?

There’s clutter before massive change. 

There’s a bright shiny cleaning project ahead. 

Like now.

Happy almost 2013 people.

My 700 Days – Day 470

Jon:  Berries, I have your next writing assignment.

Me:  Listening.

Jon:  You’ve been telling us a story using the evasive, and lists and dialogue.  Now, I want you to tell us a story using good old fashioned narrative.

Me:  You want me to write a traditional short story?

Jon:  Yes.

Me:  Well, I do have an idea but I’m not really sure how to go about it.

Jon:  Don’t think about it or you’ll mess it all up.

Shit.

My 700 Days – Day 434

The Mad Hatter:  Have I gone mad?

Alice Kingsley:  I’m afraid so.  You’re entirely bonkers.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  All the best people are.

My 700 Days – Days 428 & 429

And she says, “fuck you for the book.  I cried twice already.”

My 700 Days – Days 425 – 427

1. A man that smells good
2. Artists
3. Todd Manning
4. Jesse Pinkman
5. Making out
6. Selflessness
7. Books
8. Ryan Star – Stay Awhile
9. Hips
10. Confidence
11. Lists
12. Pictures of my friends reading my favorite books:

 

#turn-ons

My 700 Days – Day 399

I live in a world where Danny Zuko & Sandy Olsen fly away from the school carnival.

Everyone should live here.

Jump in.

My 700 Days – Days 397 & 398

“My procrastination is bleeding.  Does anyone have a spare vampire?”  — Me

My 700 Days – Days 368 – 370

Poofity Puff Puff Puff the Magic Dragon:

I’m a fiction writer & I make this stuff up as I go.

If it resembles YOU or YOU or YOU – even better.  :)

Isn’t fiction best when you can see yourself inside of it?

Occasionally, it is my own heart on the page & when that is the case, you will know if HE is you.

My 700 Days – Days 365 – 367

The other day, you mentioned that you thought I was crazy.  I heard you muttering while you were in the kitchen.  Toasting a bagel.  Brewing coffee.  Muttering and sputtering, while I made the bed.  “Crazy girl…” was what I heard. “I must be crazy,” was what you really said.  But I thought you were talking about me.  You were talking to yourself.  About yourself.  But I don’t know that and won’t figure that out.

One night, months ago, we were about to get comfortable to watch a movie.  I put the DVD into the player and climbed in bed beside you.  The movie previews began.  You complained.  “Why are we watching these?”  But I did not have the remote.  It was lost in the move.  You sat through two previews.  Then:  “I’m not coming over again until you get a remote.”

Tomorrow you will stand across the room from me.  I’ll watch your facial expressions while you speak and then say goodbye.  When you leave, I will still be able to smell you.

Maybe you’ll read this and wonder if it was written about you.  Maybe you’ll assume it is.  Maybe not.  That’s not why I wrote it.  It never is.

I wrote it because I write snapshots of what love looks like.  Little moments caught between two.  You.  Me.  Not you.  Not me.  Love letters, without the “Dear lover” and “Love always.”  I wrote this anti-love letter instead.  Not because I don’t, because I do love you.  But this is what it looks like from the mirror.  The light hits just right and it hurts my eyes.

My 700 Days – Days 359 & 360

Updated list (because sweet boys who cook meth trump snarky bad boys):

1. That cologne
2. Other artists
3. Todd Manning
4. Jesse Pinkman
5. Making out

#Ilovebreakingbad

My 700 Days – Day 344

Buy and read this book.

Lidia will crawl inside of you.  I promise.

Click here to buy it.

Click here to see what it is.

My 700 Days – Day 338

In trying to convince my Aunt to read one of my favorite books, I found the following:  (Seeing the movie IS NOT reading the book Auntie!!!)

“Don’t you think it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

“There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.”

― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

“Why is love intensified by absence?”

― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

 

#andshewaswearingherDLCtanktop

My 700 Days – Day 335

A year ago, I started counting days — to see what the first 30 days would look like — in my own words.  And now, it has become something else entirely.  A constant conversation with my friends and readers.  A story without telling the whole story. 

Snapshots.

You can peak in.  You can stay a while.  You can stay away and catch up all at once.

I would like to thank you for your visits.

Here’s to the second half of whatever this is:  Love.  Friendship.  Personal discovery.  Shared laughs.  Knowledge.  Idiocy.  Play.

My heart is swollen open.

#365daystogo

 

My 700 Days – Days 218 & 219

We were in a bed the day you first told me a story.  I know that you didn’t actually know the people, but the events weren’t fiction. They were in books and you had studied them well.  You spoke softly to me.  We were in a bed.  I know, that’s cliché – but that’s the way I remember it.  Although, I only remember certain details:  That when you arrived, you had on the same dark grey shorts you always wore.  That you never called me by my name.  That you put up with my wishy-washy, “maybe we shouldn’t do this” for hours.  And not just once.  Waiting for me to give in, the way I always did.   Afterwards, you told me that I liked to be touched.  “You like to be touched.  I like to touch you,” you told me.  And I looked up at you from my side of the bed when you said it.  The same side of the bed that you were currently occupying.  “Tell me more about the story?” I asked.  I listened to you paint pictures of the people and the cities and the countries and the war and their history.  It was all history.  My eyes on you.  Your lips moving.  Your fingers on me the entire time you spoke.  I don’t remember if I made you something to eat.  I don’t remember how long we stayed that day.  I do remember thinking we would never end up in the bed. And now, on the list of things I am looking for is:

“tells fantastic tales.”

My 700 Days – Day 153

This made me chuckle:

              * * * THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN * * *

                                A BOY WHO HATES YOU

                                A boy who loves you.

The voice of Death, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

My 700 Days – Day 148

I pull out the bookmark.  Page 44 — where we left off.  And I read to you.   Every page or two, I look up.  To be sure that you are still next to me.  Listening.  Each time, you are.  Your blue eyes on me.  Your head resting in the curve of one of your hands.  The other in your lap, palm up, like you are presenting yourself as a gift to me.  As you have every day since that day when you finally did.

More reading.  At the end of the chapter, I stop.  I stretch my body.  “More please.”  That’s you.  I hand you the book, with my finger still in it.  “You have that mischievous look on your face again, you know.”  You again.  So, I keep the bookmark in my other hand.  You rearrange yourself on our bed and begin to read.  I focus on your face — your mouth as you begin.  You don’t look up to see if I am still there.  I just am.  We take turns like this, reading to one another until it is late. We, place our book by our bed, until the next time. 

Under the covers together, we design ourselves into the shape we have made our own and work towards sleep.  Not until the lights are out.  And then, like every other time, I tell the dark room that I love you.  “I love you.”

When I do that now, on this night when we do not yet share a room and I do not yet read to you, I instinctively know that you can hear me.  But on this night, when we read and hold onto one another, not thirty years from now, you squeeze me a little to let me know that you know.

#somedaynot30yearsfromnow

The first 30 days – Days 28 & 29

I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do when the 30 days are up. 

I’ll be honest, I was hoping to find happiness inside of these 30 days.

Jon IM’s me:  “Berries – I think you should try going on in the same mode…for two years…”

I’m seriously considering it.  Think of all the happiness one might find in 730 days.

The first 30 days – Day 5

I’m reading The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons.

War.  Starvation.  Death.  Heroic love.  Alexander Belov.

Exactly what I need right now.

A writer writes: an adventure.

It’s an experiment — an experience.

A writing exercise.

For those of you who do and those of you who don’t know me, I’ll explain.

I’m Abbie.  I’m a writer, 35, still single, recently unemployed for the first time since I was 21, and ready for something to happen.

I live in this beautiful, perfect weather city of San Diego. I’m outgoing and talkative.  I meet new people all of the time.  My last relationship ended more than a year and a half ago.  Since then, I haven’t dated any one guy longer than three weeks.  As soon as I’m sure he’s not the guy for the long term, I’m done and this is because I feel as if I now know what I want.

Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve met quite a few cool guys and I’ve also been on some crazy first dates.

The best worst date:  I had plans to check out a band on a Friday night with a group of friends.  A guy that I “met” on a dating site wanted to meet me.  I wasn’t ready to go on a one on one date with him due to the fact that we had not yet met in person.  So, I invited him to join us.  Not knowing that he considered it a date, (I didn’t.  I don’t usually go on first dates that include a bunch of my friends) I was my normal social self.  I introduced him to everyone and sat next to him.  Until he offended me.  Yes, he offended me with, “so how many of these guys have you dated before?” This was within the first ten minutes of meeting me.  Then a text that read, “so, how do you think this is going?”  I didn’t even have one word for the guy.  Done.

OK.  But, is something bigger going on with me?

Lately, my friends ask “what’s new?” and all I have to reply with is, “not much.”  It’s the truth and it’s boring and I’m bored.

It’s as if my insides are divided in half.

Half of me is this positive, wise woman in her thirties who really likes herself, is “in a great place,” and really ready to meet someone new.

The other half of me is a mess.  OK, not a mess, but kind of depressed and beginning to feel like a loser.  Waking up every day without a job to go to and without a sense of purpose is rough.  I’m the girl who has always had three jobs.  I’m that girl who is so busy, you have to make plans with me in advance or you’re out of luck.  It drives one or two of my fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-with-plans friends crazy.

My current daily agenda is mostly made up of:  1) going to the gym and 2) sitting at a local coffee house to job search.  I’ve never been “here” before and I don’t know how long I really want to stay.  It’s scary.

So, instead of worrying about it, I’m giving myself a purpose.

A gift.

A few days ago, I had dinner with my friend Cutcha.  We went to Grad school together.  She’s a talented writer and I love her stuff (you should check out her blog). She and I both write about people and relationships but she adds this quirky humor to her work that you can’t help but find amusing.

A few years ago, Cutcha stopped dating (for a six month period of time) and started concentrating on doing things for herself instead of worrying about boys.  No more worrying about if he was going to call, text or care.  No more ugly silences and wondering how to make herself disappear during a bad first date.  Or worse.

And she wrote about it.

I always thought she was genius for doing this.  I’ve always secretly wanted to try it, but too chicken to try.

Some writerly advice to every writer out there:  A good writer borrows.  A great writer steals.

I now consider myself to be a thief.

I’m going to take six months for myself.  To attack the list of things I wrote when I turned 35.  The things I want to accomplish before I turn 36 in December.

No dating.

This is pretty out of character for me.  I’m scared to death.  Can I do it?  Will I run out of things to say?  Will you care to read what I do have to say?

Scared or not, this is it people.

No more first or non-first dates for me.

Six months.

As I walk tall.