Absences
by Mark Vinz

“Even when you are not in a room,
you are in it, your voice everywhere.” –Bill Holm



The message that’s recorded on the phone
is unmistakably bad news, and then
another call tells us it’s one we love—
a sudden death while traveling, somehow
appropriate for one who always
seized life too completely to stand still.

A door slams shut, a wall has dropped away,
and once again I’m driven back to
empty pages, insufficient words,
to rooms he always filled on entering—
rooms lined with books, piano music, and
good friends who raise their glasses one last time.

And now, as all the lights are blinking off
in every prairie town we’ve ever loved,
when all the toasts are made and songs are sung,
when leaving is the only certainty,
a single voice keeps echoing, along
each dark, untraveled hallway of the heart.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2183768.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: poetry

Looking for a quick beta, if there's any chance of it being done by even late tonight:

3,500ish word | 7ish pages | 4 part fic | Snow POV
Set between "Apple Red as Blood" and "The Pilot/A Land Without Magic."

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2183567.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Good morning, world.

My weekend feels like a blur. Most of it is being spent prone on my bed. I've sort of ordered myself not to move off my bed for this three day weekend to make my knees and ankles recuperate. I'm only getting up to get food, or feed my Girl's Cat's while she's out of town, trying not to sit indian style much and using my knees as a prop as seldom as possible for the laptop.

Mostly, I take my medicine, I cover my joints in biofreeze, I do reiki, I sleep and I watch tv. And get very confused about being awake less than being asleep. I'm frustrated (and I miss everything from sunshine to gaming, and it's a holiday), but I haven't been in epic pain for three days. Mostly because I haven't put much weight on my legs for more than an hour or so a day, but small steps.

I have good cheerleaders and they remind me constantly, the more time I'm taking it this way, the less time stacking event will make this suddenly turn into a seven or eight week case of tendenosis, and only walking half an hour a day and having no life for two months, again. Three days or so isn't horrible in comparison.

Here's to all my hopes. And being awake more someday soon.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2183405.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: body, writing

Waking up every ten to twenty minutes for the last hour and half before I need to get up, for some reason startling awake, thinking I've missed my alarm? Is really not cool world. Especially when it leads to me trying to jump out of bed and run to the clock each time, only remembering to go slow when my weight hits my knees and feet. Sigh.

We could really have started this day much better.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2182952.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: body

Silences
by John Montague

for Elizabeth

1
Poetry is a weapon, and should be used,
though not in the crudity of violence.
It is a prayer before an unknown altar,
a spell to bless the silence.

2
There is a music beyond all this,
beyond all forms of grievance,
where anger lays its muzzle down
into the lap of silence.

3
Or some butterfly script,
fathomed only by the other,
as supple fingers draw
a silent message from the tangible.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2182878.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: poetry

Dear Andrew Lloyd Webber,

I availed myself of the chance to see Love Never Dies recently. Because as the girl who memorized The Phantom of the Opera at twelve, before getting to see it when I was thirteen, and several times since, there was no way I could pass up the chance. Thus, of course, I went to see your newest piece of my favorite musical saga ever.

The version you put on in Australia, where all the choices in costume and staging and taping were done by your personally. Bear with me while I get to the ending point. I'm still certain of the main thing I was certain of two hours after the CD of the original broadway cast, you totally castrated my Phantom.

You, also, kind of massively out of charactered the Madam and Meg Giri. That said, the showing very surprisingly softened my entire view on both Raoul. Aaaannnnd in the cd I'd never envisioned the last scene where Raoul ends up holding Christine after she died, too.

So I was sitting there watching both these grown men, with all their million mistakes between them, the dead body of the one woman they both loved and who loved them both in completely different ways, and the tiny innocent, artistic child, and the music crescendo’s and I head tilt, wondering how this doesn't end up suddenly as my two dads.




(Because someone other than Erik, even a mostly castrated Erik, should be there to make sure the raising of such a brilliant child. So. Someone point me to even the lolarious fic of What Happened Next with Raoul, Erik, Gustav, Madam & Meg Giri.)

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2182578.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: about me, city events, music

This has been a really hard last week on me.

Most days are spent working through the days like normal and with most of my evenings are spent lying flat and still, either passed out asleep, or watching Big Love. My knees and ankles are the least of friendly right now.

My existence might be very sporadic until this ends, as walking, sitting, standing, putting my knees up while laying or sitting, laying them flat, having a laptop move on my lap are all problematic after about three or four minutes. There's a lot of shifting, sleeping or motionless rest going on. Which is really the most I was told to do in Korea, too.

I love you all and I'll be back, and I'll be around as and when I can, but I may sparse while healing first.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2182373.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: body

TAURUS: Here's a great question to pose on a regular basis during the next three weeks: "What's the best use of my time right now?" Whenever you ask, be sure to answer with an open mind. Don't assume that the correct response is always, "working with white-hot intensity on churning out the masterpiece that will fulfill my dreams and cement my legacy." On some occasions, the best use of your time may be doing the laundry or sitting quietly and doing nothing more than watching the world go by. Here's a reminder from philosopher Jonathan Zap: "Meaning and purpose are not merely to be found in the glamorous, dramatic moments of life."

I think, Uncle Rob, that I will write on a post it and ask myself about it. For tonight these are the answer my heart, my soul, my skin whisper the first time I read those words in paragraph. What's the best use of my time right now?





[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2181967.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: horoscopes

"If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print."

- Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2181665.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: about me, books, quotes

Articles/Stories/Poetry
Dana Gioia's "Prophecy"
Traci Brimhall's "Our Bodies Break Light"
Paisley Rekdal's "Intimacy"
Zamora Linmark's "On Silence"
Walt Whitman's "I Swing the Body Electric [excerpt]"
Jillena Rose's "Taos"

Books
Clare, Cassandra - City of Lost Souls
Harvey, Alyxandra - A Field Guide to Vampires: Annotated by Lucy Hamilton
Harvey, Alyxandra - A Killer First Date: A Drake Chronicles Novella
Harvey, Alyxandra - Corsets and Crossbows: A Drake Chronicles Novella
Harvey, Alyxandra - Stolen Away

TV
Big Love 3.01-3.10
Bones 7.13
Borgias 2.06
Eureka 5.05
Game of Thrones 2.07
Nikita 2.23
The Avatar: Korra 1.06
Revenge 1.21

Movies
The Avengers

City Events
San Antonio Symphony's "Star Wars & Other Space Odysseys"

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2181525.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: books, city events, media consumption, movies, poetry, tv

My birthday was a rather disappointing time, but there were some highlights. I still opened thewinteroak's gift at three-thirty-five in the morning, like every year. He gave me a stunningly beautiful silver Celtic knot work & amethyst earrings and large, full color picture book called The Life & Love of Tree. Next was the necklace and earring set from winding_path.

My grandmother sent me a check, which paid off the last sixth of laptop and the rest went into the account for saving which all the three big trips of the year will go to.

I didn't take a picture of it, but Earl bought me a BCD. We got to have words over that, since he bought me scuba diving equipment because he wanted a partner to go take trips with in the summer, which I've never once said I wanted. I told him this was totally a "wife" gift, which he found far more amusing than I ever did.

My parents took me out to a family dinner and bought me the Ipad Versavu, which has a keyboard, and gave me a slot for my stylus. The screen is steep but I'm going to test it for the next week. The last gifts came from a gift certificate to Half Price Books at my Tea Party, which acquired -- A (framed, shadow box) Narnia Map, Jewel's Chasing Down the Dawn, and a set of Alphonse Mucha cards.




[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2181257.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: food, friends, mom, pictures, will & grace
Current Mood: restless

I pushed myself too hard on Thursday at work and, instead of the normal maybe one or one and half miles I walk at work daily between buildings, I ended up walking about four. I threw out my left knee and my right ankle. Ended up crashing out that night in a way I haven't since Korea's little incident. Though this one has lasted off and on three days, it's far better than that event, too. I didn't push myself as hard as I did that day or three weeks following, but a little too hard still.


Friday was all touch and go, but I probably should have passed on the four-inch heels for evening plans, even if they were all snazzy and matched my outfit perfectly. Friday night was Earl's birthday night, with Jason and I had been in cahoots about for a few weeks previously. He drove down early from Austin.

Jason covered everyone for dinner at Zio's, while I covered for everyone at "Star Wars and Other Space Odyssey's" performed by the San Antonio Symphony. The latter was a blast. If the place was far more crowded than ever given the subject matter. We all giggled and named things through the Star Trek piece, and there was a parade of costumed Star Wars people through the last three pieces in the second half.



Saturday was rather a lot spent either laying down, sitting very carefully or not bending. I couldn't bend my knees for long all morning while laying down on my bed even. Heels + All The Joints Bad Right Now = Bad Plan, Amanda. So there was tv, and then was very few errands and a meal out with Earl so long as he drove and let me walk very slowly.

Let's see other end of the week importance’s up until then. I caught up on all my tv, enough to start trying to work on watching the last few seasons of Big Love again instead of just wistful thinking at it. I finally read more than one book in the last week while at work again.



Sunday and I are eying each other with possibility now. There's an outing for a King Lear performance & Tea House I might be able to make. I need to do birthday swag post, as reminded by two different people recently. Maybe more Big Love, maybe an MM oom, and taking it very, very, very easy on myself. We're in flats until this all settles out.


All my love and the hope that you're all well.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2180888.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: body, geek the girl, will & grace

Running off to help Jason shower Earl's night with birthday magic tonight.

I'll catch you all after the fun has been had.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2180674.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: will & grace

I walked something like four miles for my job, unexpectedly today. My body, in grand complaint, promptly threw out my left knee and my right ankle. I wobbled my way home, steeling myself for every step I took that involved shifting my body weight, or moment spent needing my right foot to drive.

I popped Motrin, used some of the pain reliever gel Earl tossed at me, and checked out of the world, since even having my laptop on my lap gave me excruciating pain anytime it so much as shifted when I hit a single key to type. The bad part of that is that I slept early, and now I'm wide awake at ten pm, and still in pain.

Sigh. New joints? Anyone? You know, on my non-existent temp lack of any health benefits.

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2180573.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

Tags: about me, body, job, job: adecco, job: usaa, will & grace
Current Mood: grumpy

TAURUS: If we thought of your life as a book, the title of the next chapter could very well be "In Quest of the Primal." I encourage you to meditate on what that means to you, and then act accordingly. Here are a few possibilities: tapping into the mother lode; connecting to the source; communing with the core; returning to beginnings; seeking out the original; being in tune with the pulse of nature. Does any of that sound like fun? According to my reading of the astrological omens, you have a mandate to be as raw as the law allows -- to be the smartest animal you can be.

I...will meditate on that, then, Uncle Rob, as we're not there yet.



I'm actually in a stellar writer's block, that was lasted for nearly six days running now, and it's making me feel blasé and melancholy about a whole bunch of things I have no reasons to be blasé and melancholy over. I had to push TGA back a month and it's a struggle to tag everyone once a day at this second. Taking whole hours to make my brain work for single tags.


Once Upon a Time is gone, finished its first season, and I thought I'd feel....more. More anything about it than I do right this second. I'm not even impatient for another episode or feeling the several weeks ahead. I do keep turning over the end, and I don't think my honeymoon is over, but I'm definitely not feeling a lot of things everywhere right now. Which is probably wrapped a lot into the above. As Once has been my candy for months now.




I've been quiet for eons, I know, though still not for bad things until recently, and I've been making the effort to at least keep myself coming back on Tuesday's and Sundays. Things I can think of that under of worthy note to tell you tonight. I gave up on Firefox and moved to Chrome, without losing a single extension.

I had an incredibly brief two-day dalliance with the idea of moving to Dreamwidth, it flailed again, with their lack of scrap book, iphone app and requiring money for icons. At least so far. I finished my year with fire. I passed my twenty-ninth birthday. It was disappointing on the whole, but without being entirely depressing. I was made employee of the month for March (though informed of it on the last day in April) for my temp place.

Things have been hazy at work, while one of the other temps is trying to get everyone's use of all electronics revoked forever and the other is apparently moving away, as she turned in her two week notice last Friday surprisingly. Still a fulltime temp, still saving all my paychecks for Midsummer Celebration, Dragon*Con and Weavesaplooza.

I'm rambling and not writing tonight. I think it may be time to set aside the computer, for the second time tonight. Maybe take a shower and read my book before sleeping as everything else is rather blasé and little distantly despondent.

Tags: dreamwidth, friends, gaming, geek the girl, horoscopes, job, job: adecco, job: usaa, laptop, milliways, travel, travel: dragon*con, tv, writing

Taos
by Jillena Rose

Bones are easier to find than flowers
in the desert, so I paint these:
Fine white skulls of cows and horses.

When I lie flat under the stars
in the back of the car, coyotes howling
in the scrub pines, easy to feel how those bones
are so much like mine: Here is my pelvis,
like the pelvis I found today
bleached by the sun and the sand. Same
hole where the hip would go, same

white curve of bone beneath my flesh
same cradle of life, silent and still in me.

Tags: poetry

Tags: pimp, tv

Articles/Stories/Poetry
Vona Groarke's "Purism"
CAConrad's "Guessing My Death [excerpt]"
Nathalie Handal's "Granada Sings Whitman"
Ben Jonson's "The Noble Nature"
Henry Cuyler Bunner's "The Heart of the Tree"
Thomas Lux's "You and Your Ilk"
Aracelis Girmay's "Kingdom Animalia"
Katrina Vandenberg's "Oarlock, Oar (Y, W, V, U, F)"
Heather McHugh's "Glass House"
Rose McLarney's "Gather"
Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat"
Dana Gioia's "Prophecy"
Traci Brimhall's "Our Bodies Break Light"

Books
Bishop, Elora - Braided
Roth, Veronica - Insurgent

TV
The Big Bang Theory 5.23, 5.24
Bones 7.07-7.12
The Borgias 2.01-2.05
Community 3.18, 3.19
Eureka 5.04
Fringe 4.21
Game of Thrones 2.05, 2.06
GCB 1.10
Grey's Anatomy 8.21-8.23
The Legend of Korra 1.05
Nikita 2.21, 2.22
Once Upon a Time 1.21, 2.22
Revenge 1.19, 1.02
The Secret Circle 1.21-1.22
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 4.21, 4.22
Supernatural 7.17-7.22
The Vampire Diaries 3.21, 3.22

Music
Once Upon a Time Soundtrack/Score

City Events
Satori Game Event
RCG Spring Retreat: The Mother
RCG Council Meeting

Tags: books, city events, media consumption, music, tv

Prophecy
by Dana Gioia

Sometimes a child will stare out of a window
for a moment or an hour—deciphering
the future from a dusky summer sky.

Does he imagine that some wisp of cloud
reveals the signature of things to come?
Or that the world’s a book we learn to translate?

And sometimes a girl stands naked by a mirror
imagining beauty in a stranger's eyes
finding a place where fear leads to desire.

For what is prophecy but the first inkling
of what we ourselves must call into being?
The call need not be large. No voice in thunder.

It's not so much what's spoken as what's heard—
and recognized, of course. The gift is listening
and hearing what is only meant for you.

Life has its mysteries, annunciations,
and some must wear a crown of thorns. I found
my Via Dolorosa in your love.

And sometimes we proceed by prophecy,
or not at all—even if only to know
what destiny requires us to renounce.

O Lord of indirection and ellipses,
ignore our prayers. Deliver us from distraction.
Slow our heartbeat to a cricket's call.

In the green torpor of the afternoon,
bless us with ennui and quietude.
And grant us only what we fear, so that

Underneath the murmur of the wasp
we hear the dry grass bending in the wind
and the spider's silken whisper from its web.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Tags: via ljapp
Current Location: US, Texas, San Antonio, Bexar, Fredericksburg Rd, 9844

Two weeks of Friday Mini (140 character) Fics. (At least for this week it was me trying hard to write something while my heads been an empty mess for a few days inspiration wise.)



Last Friday

Animorphs/Hunger Games, Peeta and Rachel, Real or Not Real? for Li:
He turns the coin over and over in his hand. Milliways might be a suspect delusion -- but Rachel, and her echoing words, are not.

Once Upon a Time, Archie in a session, for Amber:
He doesn't know where the line is exactly. He shouldn't be giving Regina his files, but he knows this is his truest calling.

Once Upon a Time, Mary Margaret, truth in a mirror, for Laura:
It bothers her every morning. Not her eyes, hair, smile. Something in her reflection. Insistent, seen but not, familiar but not.

Robin Hood BBC/Robin Hood,Marian-Will-The green, for Kate:
Nothing, not even summer, is like spring in Sherwood. When white melts before the force of stunning green, life pushing out cold

Once Upon a Time, Snow and James-Being us, for Kate:
They say it's just being themselves, doing what is right, but how could the world not notice? Their love and sacrifice for All.

The Hunger Games, Peeta-too much today, for Kate:
He's good most days. But then he breaks canvases, drops bowls, scares even Katniss (who won't run now). Those days test him most

X-Men, Jean-I am, for Kate:
Everything that she is she learned at his knee, the wide expanse of his mind. Freedom, duty, love, sacrifice: to always Dream.

This Friday

Robin Hood BBC, Lady Marian & Sir Guy, how could I forgive? For Gabby:
"You might be a better person," she gave him. "But you had to kill me to choose it. We both have to live with that now."

Farscape, John & Aeryn, fractures, for Gabby:
(Also, works as another one for the Marian & Guy prompt)

It's not that she doesn't forgive him every night, it's that in the morning all she can give him is 'being alive' now, too.

Farscape, Aeryn & Zhaan, healing/learning, for Gabby:
In the end, Aeryn apologizes, too. Because she never thought she would understand (or need) such holy, unconditional faith.

Narnia/Robin Hood BBC, Marian & Caspian, any, for Gabby:
It's not that she was blinded. It would've been impossible to step back to see Caspian. Like stopping breathing to see air.

Grey's Anatomy Meredith-Cristina bff moments, for Jen:
1. They don't do tears. Hugging. Feelings. Talking. Instead they do: alcohol, dancing parties, biting snaps, silent calls - each other.

2. "You can't be serious." "I am." "Nu huh." "Uh huh." "Isn't possible." "You're just jealous." "Seriously, a quarter off a scalpel?"

Once Upon a Time, SNOW/CHARMING, for Jen:
He's the magic. Her shepherd prince, her unwavering king: with all that was taken from him, he gives her every drop of faith still.

Once Upon a Time, Archie-fluff, for Amber:
He thinks he is lost, blind, has done terrible things. But every day, she watches him walk to his office, to help more people.

X-Men, Jean, Where I fit, for Kate:
She doesn't speak for a long time, even after he is seeing her on the astral plane. Why use her mouth when he can see her words?

Narnia/Robin Hood BBC, Marian & Tumnus, Woods of home, for Kate:
They walk through the Milliways Woods, talking about plants and sunshine. Knowing that it is not Narnia, and not Nottingham.

Once Upon a Time, Mary Margaret & Graham, Lost hearts, for Kate:
Part I: She tells him, without looking, over the rum glass he finds her holding at Granny's, that she's never been very brave.

Part II: Settling on a stool, he tells her she shouldn't be so hard on herself, she has one the truest hearts he's ever seen.

Tags: fanfic, gaming, writing