Poetry for your Sunday- vol 2.

Homage to My Hips

these hips are big hips

they need space to 

move around in.

they don’t fit into little

petty places.  these hips

are free hips.

they don’t like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved.

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

-Lucille Clifton

I made the mistake of Googling "hips." I'm not quite sure why I thought that would turn out well. Wonder Woman was the only appropriate image I found on that search. I still want to learn a thing or two about poetry, but I'm not sure where to begin. Yesterday, at the the bookstore I picked up many poetry books only to put them right back down. The genre is a little overwhelming to me. I think the best way to go about this is to pick one poet and study them for awhile. Which poet, now that is the question...

Some early morning images.

Good morning, from a very groggy me.

I've been awake since 5am and up and about since right before six. It seems that having a drink after seven in the evening is throwing off my sleep schedule again. This happened right after Ben and I got married- if I had a glass of wine or any alcohol the night before next day I would be up at dawn with my brain ON.

Oh well, I don't need to drink anyway. The most annoying thing about these times is my brain starts to worry. Mostly, about the normal things you'd worry about at 5am-money, your future, your animals. My brain does this so loudly that if I don't get up and do something I'll work myself into a panic. It's crazy really and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Good news is, on days like today I tend to be super active and productive, so that makes me happy. I uploaded the pictures that I took with my still-broken camera. Its a Canon S95 so it doesn't have a view finder. I can still kind of make out an image on the screen so I vaguely know what the photograph looks like but focus and lighting are hit and miss.

See what I mean? Though I do think this makes for a neat picture especially since the subject is pretty mundane.

 And what kind of loosely cat-themed blog would I be if I didn't include multiple cat photos in one post? I feel a little guilty that Tazo is this blog's namesake but Ben's cat Numi tends to be more photographable! I chock it up to age differences-Numi's in his prime house cat years (2) and we've never figured out Tazo's age...though I'm guessing four or five since I found him full grown.

 Some of my cooking endeavors of late- my parent's farm fresh eggs, making broth to blanch chicken in and Sunday pancakes which I succeeded at for the first time!! (<<< here I go again with the exclamation points...their just infectious) I like the idea of a more "special" breakfast on Sundays. It's a nice way to spend a slow morning.

I strategically placed my desk in front of the window so now I can distract both cats from trying to lay across my keyboard by opening the window. This might get tricky in the winter, I may need to invent a laptop cozy or something.
I plan on trying some different decorating things in my new office space. I don't claim to be an expert decorator or even much of an amateur one, but with our new place I'd like to try. Limiting all of my experimenting to the office for Ben's sake.
Now, the sun and Ben are both up, one more confused and my being awake than the other.

Summer Reads

 

From the Outer Banks last year where I spent everyday on the beach with my Nook. It was perfection.

My favorite time of the year when I was growing up was Summer, of course. Like every teenager everywhere I savored the times I could sleep in and watch too much t.v.

In high school I always had a summer job and for several years it was as a day camp counselor and it was awful, but I still didn't have school work and tests to worry about. Meaning, after 5pm I could officially become brain dead until 8am the next morning.

It was wonderful. I still read during those summers, but it was never anything too difficult mostly Harry Potter and once Claiming Georgia Tate (in fact I think I read all the books from this list that summer, very pleasant) things that I could read on breaks and down times.

I've been very slowly making my way through NPR's Top 100 Sci-fi and Fantasy Books list and reading the Classics along with a group. All have been very good reads but also very heavy. I decided since I don't get to have a summer like I used to I was going to give myself a literary summer break.

I really need some good escapist fiction to bury myself in at the present. I started with Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen which I absolutely loved. I also tried my first Romance but since it's the fifth in the series I was bored and confused.

I will also be taking a summer break from book reviews. I say though one or two are bound to pop up. I'll hopefully have my camera back soon and plan on trying a few different things with this blog this summer as well.

Changes! Exciting!

Do you have a summer reading habit, or list?

 

Passion, a thing I know nothing about.

This post has little to do with books or reading. It is a post about me, and since I love books and reading they will probably make an appearance or two.
This is a post about passion, or rather lack thereof.

I've been going through some things lately, things like depression, feelings of utter failure and lack of energy.
Today is the first day I feel a little closer to the me that I like so I decided to do some reflecting and thinking about my life.
I've been fighting feelings of failure lately. Right now, my life seemingly has little direction. I need to find a better job. That's my life right now, trying to get hired again at Starbucks. Swallowing my pride. There's nothing wrong with working at Starbucks. I like being a barista, but when I was 19 thinking about what my 24th year would look like it was drastically different than the reality. It looked like this-

I had a little office in Colorado where I practiced massage, just me and maybe a part-time receptionist if I ended up selling any product. I was able to support myself with my practice and I was going to school in the evenings to finish my bachelor's degree in English. I occasionally wrote wellness articles for a little local newspaper. I lived alone in an apartment with a dog, probably a Shepard mix, that would go almost everywhere with me. I was busy, I was happy...

I get teary eyed and wistful when I read that. I am happy where I am now, I do like how things how turned out, but there's one thing I'm missing that the girl in my dream had- passion.

In high school and in college I journaled daily and wrote your typical angst poetry and published it to MySpace. I had people tell me how well I wrote and how they loved reading it. However, I've had a public blog since 2010 and I've yet to have anyone outside my family comment on it. I've racked my brain as to how I could become a popular blogger. I've tried all the tricks that the other successful bloggers have used and yet I get nothing. I purposely narrowed to scope of this blog to try and fill a niche or something like that.

This morning while doing the dishes (household chores are the best time to reflect on your life I've found) I've figured out why I feel like a failure, why things aren't working out for me.                                                      I once offended some random poet on MySpace because I wrote about PETA and how I don't believe most of the things they post. I changed the blog according to his opinion which I don't remember now what it even was.                                                The point is I didn't want anyone to feel offended, and that has carried over into my blogging. I tried to keep this superficial and have taken to using a gross amount of !!!! because that what I've seen other bloggers do. I've been doing all this for the wrong reason. What made me a good writer was my passion for expressing myself using words, sometimes strong words that made an impact. I've been trying to do the opposite of that for the past three years trying to make everyone of my imaginary audience happy and trying not step on any toes. Even with my review of Supergods! I really really don't like Grant Morrison, but I felt like I had to give him a fair shake in my review. He did drugs and cast spells to write some of the series he did that's not art that's a farce and I don't respect anyone who tries to prove that wrong. (And he killed Jean Grey in New X-Men, unforgivable).

Anyway-

The point of all this self-reflection is that I want to put passion back in my writing, my massage, my life. This blog is my starting point of all that because I quite honestly don't really know how to do that in the other aspects of my life. My writing, however, I know. 

This blog is about books and reading and me. Since I don't just read books everyday other things will undoubtedly pop up on here. But, I do read quite a lot so it'll still mainly be about books and reading. I won't try and cater to an imaginary audience anymore, I'll probably still use too many !!! because it's grown on me and I might end up offending someone,most likely a Grant Morrison fan, because that's how these things go. 

Once upon a time I loved to write, I loved massage, I loved books, I loved life and I really wanted to live in Colorado and own a dog. I'm finding my way back towards that path because that was the right direction to go in.

In explanation of my absence.

It's hot and breezy which is always and interesting combination. You almost enjoy being outside until that breeze dies down and you automatically sweat through whatever your wearing. Its been high humidity for the past couple of days and that is one of the worse parts of living in Southern Indiana.

 Ben and I have moved into a house! We are a little ways out of town which is actually nice. I grew up north of Evansville and was used to driving 30 minutes plus to get anywhere. When I moved to Kentucky I lived in town and then when we moved back to Evansville we were still close to everything. It's nice and quiet up here and there is so little traffic on our road. Our neighbors are nice but keep to themselves which is so so nice after having neighbors that didn't understand personal space. And ideally we'd like to live here for a couple of years so we're planning on actually painting walls and things that seemed like a waste of time at other places. 

Bad news though-I've broken the screen on my camera. I can still take pictures but I don't know how they'll turn out! It's not expensive to replace but its low on my priority list at the moment so you'll have to bear with me and my iPhone photos.

I also have still been reading and hope to have some reviews up on: The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Arrows of the Queen, and The Twilight of a Queen which will be the first modern day romance novel I've read. I also just finished Grant Morrison's New X-Men run which I feel like I should review but am not sure how to since it's multiple issues.

Is everyone having a good week? Actually enjoying the summer heat?