~Duplicity, because it was better than i thought it would be and totally worth it for the slow-motion beginning. and the soundtrack was fair. and my pal christian worked on it and it makes me proud of him. i love to see my friends' names in lights. maternal, i suppose.
~"Change or fail." -Don Fischer. not often i quote a sartorial tycoon, but i just love the simplicity and ultimatum-isness of this. how nice it would be if it were that cut/dry.
hiya kids.
yesterday a dear pal of mine sent a brief article titled 'when do i tell her?'. i wish the article had been longer and...just more, but i'm not altogether sure how it could have been.
the fella who was asking the question had various scars around his neck area which begged questions from girls he dated. he has a history of cancer. what type in this particular instance doesn't matter. it's a question we (singles) ask ourselves, maybe daily, but definitely when we meet people we might be interested in intimately.
do you wait until the other person divulges something personal? if you wait for that, then tell them, does it seem like you're trying to match them or 'one-up' them, or just trying to share? do you show your cards before you even have a date?
do you tell them ON your date? how much do you tell them?
just once i'd like to meet someone who doesn't freak out (correct me if i'm wrong, fellow survivors, but when you start to talk about it, do you not see the wheels turning, the eyes lower and dart...?),
meet someone who doesn't say 'i'm just not good with illness, but you can talk about it if you want' (been there)
or someone who says, 'it's not that you HAD cancer, it's that you could get it again and i don't really want to be around for that' (good riddance, steve. comments like that make me hope cancer hits you in the part of your pants where you do most of your thinking).
i don't know, gang. it's a pressing question. essentially, that's what the author wrote. he doesn't know. there's no answer. you'll just know when you meet the right person. or you won't. and then you'll adopt old dogs and write ridiculous blog entries.
today's 15 minute exercise:
words: black-bearded & lemon jade
untitled
My black-bearded papa and I boarded when I was 7. Clement weather saw us out of the slip and into the Atlantic.
I was too young to know exactly how many days we were out or why. I lost count after 14 nights.
There were others wealthier than my papa, but his straight back, mediterranean skin and finely-trimmed beard made him the most elegant man I'd ever seen. I could tell the moneyed women on board agreed. So it was odd when he turned his attentions to a squat, rather swarthy woman.
Her wiry black hair was piled high and without any reason to it. As a pair they looked like opposites in the same family. Perhaps she reminded him of someone.
When we docked at dawn in Cartagena, my papa ordered me to stay on ship. When I fussed, he promised to return with a basket of sugar-apples and an aluminum model submarine. He locked me in the room with a book on Francis Drake, a blood-thirsty fright of a man.
~
As I peered out the porthole at the glassy stars, I heard the key in the door and ran for him.
It was not my papa there, but the woman I'd secretly named Hair Pile.
~
During the days Hair Pile would keep me in the ship's sizable kitchen while she prepared heavy cream sauces and fish encrusted with Jerusalem spices. She soon broke me of my crying, but not of missing my papa.
When I had 9 years old she fashioned for me a hammock above her bunk so she could spend her nights with crew. My clothes came carefully pilfered from passengers' trunks and bartered fabrics from ports. I was landless and kin-less and I looked the part.
At 11 years I was allowed to roam the ship a tad more freely if I promised to wear shoes. I always watched the bearded men thinking that, even if not my papa, they would see me and want to take me home with them.
~
At first I picked out little girls because they smelled of marshmallow creme and soap. But they cried too quickly and one bit my arm after the telling.
So I chose little boys with whom to share my tale. I pulled them aside and told them the stories of their fathers and what could happen at the next port.
I promised to convince their fathers to keep them if the boys brought me things: a coin with a Greek silhouette, a lemon jade ring, a yellow scarf, a submarine model, a wooden flute and a pair of high-heel satin slippers.
At first the boys didn't believe me because who could believe that such a heartless father could exist? But who better to convince them than I?
~~~~~~~~~
need a refill, gang. thanks for your continued support/feedback. your emails make my day(s).
take a load off and make the most of your hump-day.
also take a look around and see if you can detect one single solitary person who couldn't benefit from a simple smile.
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