king crowns-- the rain comes down

rejeneration @ 2008-05-10T22:15:00

2008-05-11T03:16:41Z

Dear Life,

Sometimes you are sweet like jellybeans, sometimes you are sour like gummies, but I think you're delicious, no matter what your flavor.

No I am not drunk.

Yet.

E-Prime

2008-05-05T19:36:12Z

When I write, I write for brevity. The fewer words I can use to express something, the happier I am. However, I'm interested in the challenge of writing something completely e-prime. Anyone experienced in this? I'm thinking the difficulty level would be extreme, the text would feel clunky and uncomfortable, and it would drive my inner critic insane [by which I mean "fucking batshit"].

Wiki on E-Prime

New NIN

2008-05-05T19:09:43Z

Here, go have music - free and legal. =D

http://theslip.nin.com/

All you need is an email address.

"We encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it to your blogs, play it on your podcasts, give it to strangers, etc."

And that is why I love you so, NIN. Enjoy kids!

FILTF - Show me yours, I'll show you mine

2008-05-01T17:35:35Z

Okay, this seems like a travesty. Today I wanted to talk about FILTFs and at the very top of my FILTFy list? Andy Buckley, also known as David Wallace from The Office. Holy mother of Mercy Chapel. Yes, please, yes. Take me into the board room and fuck me into the confrence table. -cough- What??

But here's the travesty. Google that man! There's like nothing, nada, NYET! No pictures, no fan sights gushing, no intimate details about his height, weight, dick size. Nothing, nada, NYET! So not cool.

Also making Jen's FILTF list: Jon Stewart, Dennis Miller, Brian Williams, Anderson Cooper [why yes, smart is sexy], Nigel Barker, and Timothy Olyphant. Mmmhmmph.

So tell me, who's on your list?

[And yeah, yeah guys... unless you you're so inclined, you can gimme MILTFs]

The State of Jen

2008-04-17T01:36:18Z

Goddamn. You know you're old when you get your weekly concert update and you're more excited by the prospect of seeing REO Speedwagon than Deathcab for Cutie. Who? (No, I know who they are, but I can honestly confess, I've never listened to them. It's just emo boy bands + Jen = <|3. Much like Jen + Country. Now I've probably alienated half of you, go me! Grunge/Rock of the 90's? Anyone? Bueller? -cough-

Anywho! This time of the year is one of the worst for me. Worst and best. On Saturday I'm building my seventh house (that'll make you feel old, too, for the record). I promised myself when I get to ten I'll do something really... fun/interesting. Don't know what that'll be yet! But I've been working on Habitat's Annual Drive (organizing their dinner) and I have the Artist's for AIDS benefit at the end of the month, so you probably won't be seeing much of me until May. Don't be too crushed.

Some days... I kinda wanna chuck it all and go off to do missionary work. I want to go build houses in Rwanda or Kabul. Teach people to speak English. So many times I've looked at those TESOL preps and thought about it.

pennydrop

2008-04-07T17:49:55Z

Every word I write gets me one step closer to the lapsing collapse of freefall. The missing floor between twelve and fourteen. Hyperbaric chamber, like black stars spent, pressured to the pin-point of nothing.

Descent feels like flying over washboard roads at a hundred miles an hour. Descent feels like fear and climbing the wrong way out. Descent feels like poison rushing through my veins. Descent feels good. And bad. And so very dangerous [FINAL] in the end.

The Incandescence of Humanity

2008-03-26T20:03:18Z

I've been thinking today about how I am a product of everything that has ever happened to me. The good and the bad. I may have made the choice to be what I have become, but it's not always easy and I don't always make the right decisions. I try hard not to be the negative, to perpetrate the positives, but that's me and I don't expect anyone else to adhere to my philosophies.

The thing is... I approach people (in the literal and the virtual sense) in the very same way I approach myself - I will see your beauty, not your flaws. I will look for your soul, instead of your presence. I'll see your weaknesses, but I will ultimately find your strengths.

Life is fragile. We are fragile. Sons and daughters, mothers and sisters, brothers, husbands, wives. We are delicate and flimsy. We are bound to make mistakes, to have darkness lurking behind the light, to hurt without proper thought. But that doesn’t make us a terrible whole. We are the sum of our parts – good and bad – and I will always be looking for the things that make you luminous. All of you.

Sexy Geeks Make Jen Tingly In the Panty-Region

2008-03-11T04:47:31Z

Thirty six years ago today, one of my favorite BOFH's was born. Baby, I've seen some pretty huge dicks in my life, seen some pretty pretty ones, too. But you are one of the sexiest pricks I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. -grin-

I will forever see your smiling face, three seconds after you deleted the rootpass only to replace it with... discoveranalmystery.

You, me, the boy. This weekend. I'm DD'ing. I'm going to get you both sloppy drunk and take merciless advantage of your prowess. The three of us will smurf NASA and play Quake 3 in the auditorium. With the lights off. At three AM!

Good times, honey. Good times.

This will just have to tide you over until then. Happy birthday, asshole. I love you.

City of the Gods

2008-03-10T21:45:45Z

So I am seriously considering Lhasa in June. I haven't decided on the route yet, whether to go through Beijing, Hong Kong, or maybe Chengdu. I'd probably choose Kathmandu if I could, but as it is this is going to cost me almost 5K.

It was Lhasa or Jordan and everyone looks at me like a freak when I tell them I'm going alone. My parents are acting like I'd never come back from either. I mean, c'mon, it's Tibet! The scariest thing I'll have to deal with in Tibet will be a rogue yak (or hemorrhaging to death from the altitude)! But I really want to be here and here.

It'll be my pilgrimage.

What do you think?

Kindness of Strangers

2008-03-02T20:51:22Z

In the end, the only charge to her card is from the grocery store.

They find the car a week later, spoiled dairy in the trunk.

An old man, sweet, wrinkled face, holds the door, “Allow me, miss.”

Seventy-seven years, and no one's ever had to drag this river.

She lowers the music, rolls down her window. A warm, spring day, welcomed after too much winter. “Can I offer you a ride?”

The local media questions officials.

There are parts of the human body people rarely consider.

Wheel well patterns. Detectives think she might have thought about crashing the car.

It’s the femoral artery that does it.

Checkout line, twenty items or less, scan your own – she’s bagging plastic.

“I can’t believe I started this and we don’t have any milk.” He’s a little frantic, parents due in less than an hour. She’s nothing but amused, an arm around his waist, soft kiss to his cheek. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ve got it.”

Pieces.

This is how she disappears.

unlikely happenstance

2008-02-29T18:41:36Z

Today I walked out of 'Foundations in Business' right into a girl... sobbing. I'm not even kidding. It was like a car crash on the quad, me looking down, blinking into the winter-sun. I grabbed a hold of her, trying to keep us both steady on our feet, and it was a long time until I figured out that her tears weren't from the collision but something else.

"Hey, darlin'," I said, hand still on her hip. "What's the trouble?"

Turns out, all the effort and research she spent on her thesis was for naught... completely dismissed by the department even after they'd signed off on the project. I can't believe - in this day and age - things like this still happen. So I took her to Murphy's. We had green beer (unofficial St. Patty's Day, RAH!) and grilled chicken and I tried my best to soothe her doubts. It's amazing to me, how callous this circuit can be.

I'll be cheesy for a second and tell you all that I reminded her today's a free-day. Anything that happens today can so obviously be undone. It's not the truth, but at least it made her laugh.

Here's to free days, to green-beer, to being alive and still with it... to enjoying life, despite the downfalls. Cheers.

Let's Help Someone.

2008-01-30T00:53:45Z

From my middlest sister:

Hey you guys! This website makes you play this crazy vocabulary game and for every word you get right, it donates rice to hungry people! It's totally free and doesn't require registration or anything. I donated about 1000 grains in 3 minutes! See how well you can do....

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

I've been playing for about 3 minutes and I've only donated 550 grains (see, she's smarter), but I have to say it is kinda fun (and addictive) and the words. Some I haven't even seen. Go help someone and lemme know where you end off (and what words you just fell in love with).

If you wanna pass it on, feel free to hotlink the image. (=

rejeneration @ 2008-01-22T12:40:00

2008-01-22T18:50:57Z

I'm sitting there, front row, and his dad, ... his dad hands me a pocket watch. It belonged to Marcus' grandfather, Joe's father and he says, "I wanted to give it to him. I always thought it'd be when he had kids, but then he never did." And he's crying and I'm fucking crying, and Paul's looking at me from across the corridor like "Yeah, I know."

We waste time. We _all_ waste time. We tell ourselves we're going to do something when x happens or y comes along. I'm sitting here holding some 1920's relic in my hand, a slip of gears and metal and I'm wondering... Would he have liked this? Would he hate me because his dad gave it to me? Death is probably a pretty fucking permanent solution to envy, but who knows.

I'm trying to unwrap myself from the monstrosity of this feeling. I feel all tied up in ribbons of mourning. Morose. I keep wondering how many times I failed him. How many times I've failed everyone I've loved. Left, walked away, gotten caught up in other things. I'm so fucking notorious for it. I turn my back for what feels like a second and it's been two years and I just... I just _think_ I can pick it all back up. Bleed in and out of lives like it's superficial.

Someone emails me today about something and I feel like I'm letting them down because I just... I can't. I can't do _anything_ right now. 'Cept look at this damn watch spinning on a chain, wondering how I ever managed to walk out of there with the box it came in.

Fuck. Seriously, just... fuck.

Marcus

2008-01-20T09:12:30Z

I met him on the last day of his life. Twenty-seven year old shooting star burning through the stratosphere. It was the gay bars at two am the diners at four. His arm around me in the early morning bacon and runny eggs.

The day I met him it was the last day of his life. Diagnosed at twenty-five terminal disease. He lived every day like he’d never see the next. Said “Jen baby I’ll go out the same way I came in kicking and screaming.” I’d like to think he did.

I met Marcus on the last day of his life. Same as they all were as maybe they’d always been. Supernova darling my fading diva de jour. He said “We’re all dying love. Just some of us know it better than the rest.”

I left him on the last day of his life. Disco balls and hit parades. Sing-song Kylie Minogue. Forty-five minutes from three when his heart gave out.

I met him on the last day of his life. Seven and half years ago. Brother teacher friend. There isn’t an inch of me that hasn’t been touched changed effected by his existence. So here I am here I’ll be remembering the last day of his life. The day I met him.

your faith is like the picture i cannot see

2008-01-10T01:45:59Z

Sometimes... love takes me by surprise. Winds me. Makes it so I can't breathe.

Last night, three miles into my run, it started raining. Sheets of sleet, slanting sideways, pelting against my face. What can you expect in December?

I'm soaked through, and who should appear, headlights slicing through the freezing rain? My husband.

Sometimes... I forget how simple love can be. How I deserve this.

I am forgetful, what can I say?

we met in the ocean

2008-01-06T21:45:35Z

It’s been years and years now and I still remember where most of us met. Not really the how, but in my memory it plays out like some Warhol party from the seventies – bare brick walls swaged in purple linen, the clever (and too obvious to be obvious) overhead lighting, a constant wash of verbs and nouns rinsing into the lyrical tinkle of cocktail glasses – cabal of… well, I suppose I could say it. Cabal of the elite.

Like the urchin at the window glass, I was never a writer. Never, never-ever. I just got lucky and managed to trip my way into this fashion-press of creativity with all the style and panache of an elephant on rollerblades - careful for the knees. But as I’ve said, this is years ago now… back when it all felt so very think-tank. When it never occurred to me that what was happening was really… something. Like Socrates and Plato sitting under a murderous sun discussing life. Philosophizing until someone had to take a piss and probably even then! Aristotle easing something quippy into the dirt before the shake.

The other day, this gorgeous thing I met – once upon a time – well, she played this little game. She wanted all these sexy geniuses (geniusi?) on her flist to link to just one post, their best post of 2007. I admit, as probably many did when they saw it, I squealed out loud. Right into my fist. It had this feel to it, the same one I got about a hundred years ago now when we all first met. When, man, when everything out of someone’s mouth felt like soulful meta. I knew it was going to be amazing and it was.

I have changed so much since then. We all have. I am still shock-stunned, jaw-drop of crazy astonishment, when I think of how many years we’ve known each other, how none of us has ever met, how we all vanish and come back together like gravity’s at play. Never more reason to put faith in one’s karass than this.

I miss… I miss those days and I love you guys.

Goals - 2008

2008-01-02T20:04:20Z

I've never been much for resolutions, but I've always been kinda partial to goals. None of these will be especially interesting to anyone, but I'd kind of like to have them here just the same so I can update them and use 'em to kick my own ass as the year progresses. -smiling-

Goals for 2008
- Run/Walk 200 miles
Completed as of 4/08: 42.5/200
- Climb 20,000 stairs (counting only ups)
Completed as of 4/08: 3800/20000
- Finish the 100 books project I started mid-2007
- Stay in three cities I've never been to before
- Take Sara on another trip
- Chicago in November
- Write at least two original pieces
- Try to find at least three new charities I'm not already involved in
- Resign seat on ZBA
- Give yoga or Pilates a concentrated effort
- Theory of a Deadman - Live!
- Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin & Seether in February
- Get my ass back in class
- "365 Days In My Year"

More to come...

Every day; The World Around Us

2007-12-31T16:10:01Z

Cotton Walker's in cuffs. Halfway down the block, Molingo's sneakers hit the pavement. Cold, goddamn traitorous in his lungs. Yoo Hoo Wu, a dog named Blue, leash shaking in his hands, walk eastward from the scene. A block and a half, up and over, Kevin Roarke sticks his debit card into an ATM, machine sucking it out of freezing fingers, blinking "INSUFFICENT FUNDS" after he enters his pin.

Cotton Walker's still in cuffs as Toby's car clips the cops bumper, stopped halfway between the dividing line and the center lane. Cotton thinks he sees his chance, the moment he slips away, tries to shimmy the cuffs down his legs even though his ass is too big and he'd have to fucking break an arm to make it work. Sheriff's Deputy - Mr. Rodgers - shakes his head, hand on pistol. He's never drawn his gun, never been offered the chance, but that doesn't make him green. He'll do it if he has to. Cotton hangs his head in defeat, a single solitary officer - badge Cotton hasn't made out - reacting to the crash.

Renu Azu barely hits his brakes, silver S-class coasting to a stop behind "SPAZ 24/7". Carter Wirth slaps him on the chest, says, "Whooooooaaaa, close one, dude." Carter's never known the half of it. Close is... well, close is the call from your girlfriend saying, "I think I'm pregnant." Close is... close is that one time he fooled around in college with the guy he later found out had HIV. Close will be the call Elif Akar has when he drags Renu back to his place and fucks him face down without a backwards thought to safety. That's close.

Cotton Walker's in cuffs. Black trench coat hanging open to the winter chill, Molingo's sneakers a dull thud on pavement before the scene comes into focus, thinking about the Kenyan heat and the traitorous cold of Illinois. Each footfall hammers shock-epiphany, like miles stretching onward. Predestined and undeterred.

+ || + || +

Happy New Years, my loves.

This is what happens when you've been around _too long_

2007-12-20T00:05:46Z

I told Tim if I lost, I'd do this... and considering I'm not a sore loser:

PANDORA.COM

GO JOIN!!! =D You'll love it, promise!

PSA on 'the grossest thing ever and the intarnets'

2007-11-19T21:54:29Z

Well, it's official. I have now seen the grossest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. To put this into gory perspective, I was an EMT for a few years. I've seen gross. This trumped everything I’ve seen to date.

If someone walks up to you, giggles into their fist and says, "Want to see the grossest thing you'll ever see in your life?" trust me on this one... listen to your instincts. Walk away. Hell, run.

There is no going to your happy place after this one... [and people are fuckin' evil]

Littoral Current

2007-11-14T17:06:37Z

The first girl I kissed. Her named should have been Pepper or Tahoma, Indi or Kit. It wasn't. It wasn't.

And we sat on the floor, cold concrete, our legs dangling miles down. Stair well. In autumn. Harsh. The violent thump of bass.

Whiskey on my breath, I said, I can't feel my lips. I CAN NOT feel my lips. Now how's that for a line?

The last girl I kissed. Her name should have been Christy or Cathleen, Amanda or Jane. It wasn't. It wasn't.

And we sat beneath stained glass, wood slide under hip, our legs dangling miles down. Stair well. In autumn. Quiet. The tender beat of rain.

Whisper on my breath, I said, I can't feel my lips. I CAN NOT feel my lips. Now how's that for a line?

Words, I make them an artform.

2007-11-13T19:26:02Z

Kind of a mixed bag (90x90 'cause I love it), both snark & little emotes for those bwee, boo, wibble, meh moments. First snark set: [HERE] and First expressions set: [HERE]

Take/Share/Enjoy

01.	02.	03.	04.
05.	06.	07.	08.
09.	10.	11.	12.
13.	14.	15.	16.

x-posted

Lataris

2007-11-04T07:19:59Z

There are times when I am very this or that.

Mostly:

quiet. quiet. quiet.

~~Lots~~, ~~nothing~~, ~~anything~~

to say.

Today robbed me an hour,

stole my voice.

Maybe tomorrow will bring it back.

The Thing In Itself

2007-10-29T21:23:20Z

Today
I want to sit in a window seat
overlook the Chesapeake,
wrapped in cashmere and wool,
Jean Paul Sartre in one hand,
hot cocoa in the other.

I will have none of these things,
but wanting,
wishing,
and never obtaining,
have in no way dissuaded
my desire to dream.

This isn't about food

2007-10-29T00:19:28Z

So instead of getting into how awesome and incredible last night was, 'cause lemme tell ya, it was both awesome and incredible (incredibly fucking awesome), allow me to tell you what a whore I am for ... tapas.

I had the most amazing food last night. Sun-dried tomato coulee and this sinful-to-die-for green olive tampenade with garlic brushed crostini, and fresh, creamy Havarti, grape leaves stuffed with feta and black olive salad, cajun hummus (I'm not big on the chick-pea, but this was unreal!), oven-roasted shitake with gorgonzola and chile oil, artichoke dip! etc. etc. It was so good I think I may have found tapas-Nirvana.

Tonight I made baby red potatoes with chives and fresh dill. It's okay, don't hate. I made enough for everyone, so you can all come over and enjoy it too. Man, I could never give up meat, I enjoy steak way too much, but there are plenty of days I'm happy not eating it.

In case you missed it, last night? Was incredible. -grin- I'll miss you both.