the most basic Me
Wednesday, November 07, 2001
I am starting to have this weird obsession with wanting to know if anyone has ever read this blog. I have no idea how to add an email link (wyethia@mindspring.com if you are out there) or a counter and it is driving me nuts. I suppose I could try to go somewhere and find out, but with nano month and all, I doubt I will this month anyway. Computer illiteracy.
The writing is going well, all and all. I am falling slowly behind in word count. I missed Sunday and most of Tuesday and was already a few hundred short. Oh well. I'll either catch up or I won't! My characters did some weird stuff this morning. I'm still reeling a bit. Ueda, my married character, who has been written thus far in a sober, literary type style, suddenly was carried away by flying monkeys. A flying baboon, to be more precise. That was not in the plan. No idea how I'm going to get her back. Ryan, alcoholic slut girl, met an unexpected hitchhiker and is now falling into some sort of weird backwards Harlequin romance. Also, not in the plan. No idea where this thing is going.
More web posters are getting their novels up and keeping them updated. www.madebymark.com is still the best. His writing quality suddenly had a few blips on it for Nov. 5th's post--but I won't hold it against him ;) I found a link to another one today, http://www.selkie.net/writing/blogger.php--a woman named Lisa, that has some intriguing excerpts on her blogger.
I went through another book craze. Occasionally I just loose it and start buying book after book. I spend so much money doing this. I bought another Doris Lessing novel, "Love, Again", a book of poetry by Shannon Olds, The Wellspring, then I found a reference to an author named Italo Calvino in an email and had to go buy that through Barnes and Noble (they have free shipping right now [sorry Amazon]). I bought his book "A winter nights traveler"--it isn't a normal novel, it is actually 10 beginning chapters of novels that he manages to string together in a cohesive work. It is wonderful. But I couldn't just buy one book there, I ended up also getting Henry and June by Anais--because I was reading Incest and it was all out of order since I hadn't yet read Henry and June. then I went to the used bookstore and found a stack of good sci-fi novels. I am reading four books at once currently which, in combination with my nanonovel, is making me a bit nutty I think.
On a good note, I've actually been getting more work done at work. Joy! I'll become a productive citizen yet. ¶ 10:22 AM 0 comments
The writing is going well, all and all. I am falling slowly behind in word count. I missed Sunday and most of Tuesday and was already a few hundred short. Oh well. I'll either catch up or I won't! My characters did some weird stuff this morning. I'm still reeling a bit. Ueda, my married character, who has been written thus far in a sober, literary type style, suddenly was carried away by flying monkeys. A flying baboon, to be more precise. That was not in the plan. No idea how I'm going to get her back. Ryan, alcoholic slut girl, met an unexpected hitchhiker and is now falling into some sort of weird backwards Harlequin romance. Also, not in the plan. No idea where this thing is going.
More web posters are getting their novels up and keeping them updated. www.madebymark.com is still the best. His writing quality suddenly had a few blips on it for Nov. 5th's post--but I won't hold it against him ;) I found a link to another one today, http://www.selkie.net/writing/blogger.php--a woman named Lisa, that has some intriguing excerpts on her blogger.
I went through another book craze. Occasionally I just loose it and start buying book after book. I spend so much money doing this. I bought another Doris Lessing novel, "Love, Again", a book of poetry by Shannon Olds, The Wellspring, then I found a reference to an author named Italo Calvino in an email and had to go buy that through Barnes and Noble (they have free shipping right now [sorry Amazon]). I bought his book "A winter nights traveler"--it isn't a normal novel, it is actually 10 beginning chapters of novels that he manages to string together in a cohesive work. It is wonderful. But I couldn't just buy one book there, I ended up also getting Henry and June by Anais--because I was reading Incest and it was all out of order since I hadn't yet read Henry and June. then I went to the used bookstore and found a stack of good sci-fi novels. I am reading four books at once currently which, in combination with my nanonovel, is making me a bit nutty I think.
On a good note, I've actually been getting more work done at work. Joy! I'll become a productive citizen yet. ¶ 10:22 AM 0 comments
Monday, November 05, 2001
Had brunch with an old friend on Saturday. We left the restaurant and walked across the street to the bookstore. On the corner, six people with big signs: Beep for Peace. End the War. World Peace.
My companion said aloud as we drew near, "Beep, beep." and one of the protestors smiled broadly at us. I wanted to spit on them. I said nothing, did nothing.
I say nothing about politics lately. How can one be against, "peace"? One time I was with my husband in a grocery store parking lot and a guy walked up to us and asked us to sign a petition for legislation to help end school violence. We declined because the petition was actually out of our voting jurisdiction, but we didn't explain why. The guy said, "aren't you against school violence?" My husband jokingly said, "no, I'm all for it, the more the better," causing the guy to step away from us like we were diseased.
Of course I'm for peace. I'd love nothing better than an end to world suffering. If I let myself, my mind plays over and over for me planes crashing into towers, sobbing as a tower 100 stories high collapses into rubble. I re-live the emotion of not-knowing. Not-knowing how many. Knowing it was too many.
At night, I feel the pain of two nations, one country in mourning that their "innocence has ended," as if America could ever had innocence to be lost. Another, war-torn for decades, under new threat. I think about being a woman in Afghanistan. I wonder if what her day would be like, if she hears bombs at night.
I can hardly listen to the news. I know I should listen. I should listen as a citizen, a watch-dog to make sure our government isn't using this act of violence against us to push economic agendas. I hear snippets from people, "they are carpet bombing cities, hospitals, there is no possibility that this war will ever end." Conspiracy theories. I feel helpless to do anything but go on with my life, live each day the best I can.
I feel like a child. When I was young, sometimes I would watch a news story and form an opinion about a world issue. I would present the newly formed idea to my parents. Normally, I was "wrong", and they quickly explained how wrong I was. My dad was military, party-line republican.
I don't know what I am when it comes to politics. Lately, my mind closes down to even beginning to wrap my mind around world issues. Logical thought impossible, I'm just left with emotions that race through my system, hard to hold still long enough to examine. Anger, sadness, confusion. Patriotic sentiment. Disgust that I am one of the faceless masses that can be categorized under the statistic, "decline to state opinion". I don't know what my opinion is.
I long for an enemy with borders and its own flag. An enemy that bullets could really kill rather than this enemy that spills our blood and scatters into holes, like cockroaches when a light is turned on. Kill one and there are a thousand more.
But I walked next to my companion into the bookstore and we talked about my husband, her boyfriend, our latest writing projects. I wonder if it matters that I form and state an opinion, or it is better to leave that to others and just live the best I can.
¶ 10:43 AM 0 comments
My companion said aloud as we drew near, "Beep, beep." and one of the protestors smiled broadly at us. I wanted to spit on them. I said nothing, did nothing.
I say nothing about politics lately. How can one be against, "peace"? One time I was with my husband in a grocery store parking lot and a guy walked up to us and asked us to sign a petition for legislation to help end school violence. We declined because the petition was actually out of our voting jurisdiction, but we didn't explain why. The guy said, "aren't you against school violence?" My husband jokingly said, "no, I'm all for it, the more the better," causing the guy to step away from us like we were diseased.
Of course I'm for peace. I'd love nothing better than an end to world suffering. If I let myself, my mind plays over and over for me planes crashing into towers, sobbing as a tower 100 stories high collapses into rubble. I re-live the emotion of not-knowing. Not-knowing how many. Knowing it was too many.
At night, I feel the pain of two nations, one country in mourning that their "innocence has ended," as if America could ever had innocence to be lost. Another, war-torn for decades, under new threat. I think about being a woman in Afghanistan. I wonder if what her day would be like, if she hears bombs at night.
I can hardly listen to the news. I know I should listen. I should listen as a citizen, a watch-dog to make sure our government isn't using this act of violence against us to push economic agendas. I hear snippets from people, "they are carpet bombing cities, hospitals, there is no possibility that this war will ever end." Conspiracy theories. I feel helpless to do anything but go on with my life, live each day the best I can.
I feel like a child. When I was young, sometimes I would watch a news story and form an opinion about a world issue. I would present the newly formed idea to my parents. Normally, I was "wrong", and they quickly explained how wrong I was. My dad was military, party-line republican.
I don't know what I am when it comes to politics. Lately, my mind closes down to even beginning to wrap my mind around world issues. Logical thought impossible, I'm just left with emotions that race through my system, hard to hold still long enough to examine. Anger, sadness, confusion. Patriotic sentiment. Disgust that I am one of the faceless masses that can be categorized under the statistic, "decline to state opinion". I don't know what my opinion is.
I long for an enemy with borders and its own flag. An enemy that bullets could really kill rather than this enemy that spills our blood and scatters into holes, like cockroaches when a light is turned on. Kill one and there are a thousand more.
But I walked next to my companion into the bookstore and we talked about my husband, her boyfriend, our latest writing projects. I wonder if it matters that I form and state an opinion, or it is better to leave that to others and just live the best I can.
¶ 10:43 AM 0 comments
