When you're poor but you didn't used to be, part 2: Rockin' it

My last blog post was about stuff I spent money on, with no regrets, when I had money to spare. Which I don't right now, for the most part. But that's okay, because thriving is cheap if you learn the right things & are surrounded by good places and people -- and before I had money, I learned to live poor, so really the past few months have been part refresher course and part personal growth. Again, I know I'm speaking from a position of relative privilege, because I'm not starving in the streets or having to work 3 part-time jobs to survive. But for my fellow lower-middle-class folks, here are some of the adjustments I've made to maintain a fairly fabulous lifestyle -- and they're all pretty much common sense.

Make stuff. Everybody knows how to make something -- jewelry, guacamole, something. Learn to do more. Make stuff that you use around the house. Make stuff you can sell or trade. I've been making my own toothpaste and deodorant for a while now and nobody's complained about any stank. (And I've saved money and prevented a bunch of packaging from ending up in a landfill -- everybody wins!) For $20 I bought some kefir grains because yogurt and kefir can be super expensive at the store, but I've made at least a dozen quarts of kefir at home -- probably $60-$70 worth, for the $20 initial investment & then the cost of a few gallons of milk. And, thanks to becoming very nearly broke, I have a tiiiiny herbal medicine business that I actually *made a profit on* between January and June. It's not much, but it's something. And when I can't pay my dance teacher for lessons, I give her a jar of salve that would cost the same as an hour of class. Which brings me to another tip ...

Know good people, be good people. Since money is the agreed-upon currency in this society, it's always nice to have. What's nicer to have are friends and acquaintances who are willing to barter with you or who understand that you have no money but are willing to work something out because they know you're not a jerk and they'd like to help you.

Scrimp and save what you can. There's a whole newfangled high-tech version of the putting-your-change-in-a-piggy-bank method of savings. There's a program called Digit that hooks up to your bank account, analyzes your spending and stashes away little bits of money that you don't really need -- $3.50 here, $9.75 there -- and puts it in an account for you. You can keep track of the amount of these withdrawals via texts on your smartphone, pause automatic savings, have the program deposit the savings back into your bank account ... all sorts of things. I signed up through a friend's link, and if you sign up through mine I'll get $5 (woo!) so check it out if this sounds like something you'd want to do. It does help you save more money than you think you'd be able to - I've got more than $250 sitting and waiting for an emergency and/or something fun. Details about how Digit works are at the website.

LIBRARY! You know how in my last post I mentioned that books were one of the things I spent money on when I had it, and I totally don't regret it? This is true. I love books. I love reading them, I love being surrounded by them, I love having old favorite and new unexplored worlds sitting right across the room from me. But there's also another place like this: the public library. And it's free. Earlier this summer I actually culled the herd in my personal library, sorting out a bunch of books that I could easily find at the public library if I need them and taking them to Half-Price Books to sell for a little money (which I then used part of to buy some ginger root for one of the medicines I make ... economy!). Because even though I love all the books, I don't actually need to own all the books. They have a home across town where I can go visit them and take them out for a little while and then return them. It's like dating. But with books.

Grow your own food. I know this isn't always a practical suggestion. If you live in a tiny apartment, or if you have a brown thumb like I do, gardening is a very limited activity. But if there's anything you can grow, do it. You can even regrow some foods from scraps -- buy some green onions, use them except for the roots, the white part and the very bottom of the green part, and put that end of the onions in a jar of water. Bam! More green onions. I've got to dig up some purple potatoes that I planted from the eyes of a few potatoes I bought at the store this spring.

Know your seasonings. It sounds silly, but honestly, the right seasonings and spices can turn very simple, cheap food into something kinda beautiful. Buy a box of mac & cheese, add some curry powder to the cheese sauce when you're mixing it all together. If you order pizza, save the red pepper flakes and use them and some lime juice to flavor a Pad Thai boxed meal. Those green onions and potatoes I mentioned that I've regrown from scraps? Those make a righteous side dish when I cook the potatoes, crush them with a fork, sprinkle in the bits of green onion I chopped off, and season the whole thing with apple cider vinegar and rosemary. (And you can find rosemary bushes growing all over the place.) Scrambled eggs are good; scrambled eggs with fresh-ground Italian herbs are great. You get the idea -- dress up your Bachelor Chow!

Wash all your clothes on the delicate cycle and hang dry as much as you can. This not only saves you money on your electric bill (or at the launderette), it also helps your clothes last longer. I've got a couple of shirts I've had for nigh on a decade that I've preserved just by keeping them from going through the rough-and-tumble life of a regular wash cycle and a spin through the dryer. I mean, dryer lint is made of your clothes (and probably pet hair). Slow the disintegration, man.

Find free fun. A friend once said that even though you can't earn a lot of money working in San Marcos, it's easy to be poor here. This is true. There's so much free stuff to do -- go down to the river, catch a free concert, get some coffee & sit outside the old courthouse & people-watch, go to one of the art festivals ... we are blessed to live in a town where there's so much going on that costs nothing or very little.

There are other steps to take to keep living awesomely even if your income is shot to hell -- walk or ride a bike (except it's Texas in July/August and I really don't advise that until the weather turns humane again), go in on a Costco or Sam's Club membership with a couple of buddies, cool off in the river instead of trying to keep your house at 70 degrees, all sorts of things that can make life not just bearable, but beautiful. Life is an art, and it's good to get creative with it.

When you're poor but you didn't used to be

For the past 6 months I've been thrust into relative poverty. I say "relative" because I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, clothes on my back, a functional car and a bed to sleep in, and I don't have to work 60 hours a week (though sometimes I do), and I don't need to apply for food stamps or Section 8 housing. For all that I have, I am grateful. And I'm grateful for the job I have now, despite the radical pay cut, because I'm working for and with people I genuinely like, and I'm doing something I enjoy so much that most of the time it doesn't feel like work -- it's just what I do. If I only had one year to live but I had to have a job, this would be the job I would choose. You can't put a price on that.

But yeah, I miss money. Or not really the money, but the experiences that having expendable income let me have. And in thinking about the difference between reasonably well-off and relatively poor, I started thinking about what on earth I blew all my money on when I had it. Most of it, I don't regret -- I did buy a lot of wankery and do some dumb things, but here's what I spent most of it on. These are things I am glad I did, so you can take this as a list of suggestions on what to do with money if you've got it:

Travel. God, I miss traveling. I never even scraped together enough to leave the country, but I got to visit Florida a couple of times, New York City a handful of times, L.A., Colorado ... my bestie and I made a pilgrimage to Memphis and Clarksdale for my birthday one year, and I visited New Orleans once and fell in love with it so hard I've been back probably a dozen times.
On one of my trips to Florida, to visit family near Fort Lauderdale, I drove down to Miami Beach to hang out with a cousin overnight & had a blast there. And on one of my trips to New York City, I took an Amtrak down to D.C. to meet up with a friend for a whirlwind tour of the city. It was glorious.
I got to see so much, do so much and learn so much ... the people-watching alone when you're in a different city is fascinating. So go travel, even if it's just to a place a few hours away. You'll never look at your home town the same way.

"Aegis" by Lisa McPike Smith

Art. This is something I was overjoyed to be able to spend money on, because not only does art beautify my home, but buying it was a way for me to support local artists. Admiration doesn't pay the bills -- believe me, I know -- and it felt so good to be able to give tangible support to some of the artists in San Marcos. And their work gives me immeasurable joy. I think the last piece I bought was "Aegis" by Lisa McPike Smith and it's still hanging on a wall not far from my bedroom door, and every morning when I walk past it, I smile.
I'm also elated that I got Furly to do a portrait of my two cats, Tom and Prissy, before Tom passed away. He's immortalized forever on the living room wall.
Invest in some art -- it's good for your soul and good for the artist's soul as well.

Food. Eating healthy can be expensive. Eating decadently can be expensive. I like to do both. I'm glad I was able to spend as much money as I did at our local farmers' market and at Gourmage, the cheese/bread/wine/dessert/all-good-things shop in New Braunfels where the owner and chef still know me by name and where I still go when I have a little extra dosh to pick up some goat cheese and a baguette. So go on, treat yo'self sometimes.

Books. Do I even need to say why it's great to have books around the house? If I have to explain it to you, I don't know if I should be talking to you. The last major book binge I went on was about $300 at the Maple Street Book Shops in New Orleans last winter, after word got out that they were going to have to close. I panicked. Apparently a bunch of other people made panicked purchases, too, because last I heard, they're still open. Go buy books! Support bookstores and feed your mind!

Charity. I don't really like to talk about the causes I donate to, but it's wonderful to be able to support people who need help and ideas you believe in strongly. And if you pay attention to politics at all, you know money talks louder than most people. Find good charities and support them.

Experiences. This is a broad category, I know, but as examples, I went up in a two-seater airplane over Guadalupe and Comal counties and took photos; I learned some kickboxing techniques; I learned to belly dance and I learned more belly dance and I learned even more belly dance; I went to a comic-con and met Nathan Fillion, Alice Cooper and other groovy people; I spent 48 hours in Castroville, "the little Alsace of Texas," thereby learning that there's a town called "the little Alsace of Texas"; I spent a long weekend at a spa on Lake Travis getting comfortable with myself again, doing yoga, getting scrubbed and rubbed and detoxed, and spending quiet time out in nature. Go do stuff. The world is full of people and places and things and there's no reason for any of us to ever be bored.

Things that happen when you're looking for love

I'm not entirely sure why, but today I found myself thinking of all the reasons why I'm gun-shy about dating. It could be a confluence of conversations I've had with friends -- friends who think it'd be great if I were in a relationship, friends who are concerned that I've become bitter, friends who are worried that I'll die alone, friends who think I should "put myself out there."

I'm 43 years old. I've been divorced. I've been engaged and disengaged. I've been around. I've been "out there." And the reason I don't consider romance a priority, the reason why my head isn't turned so easily, is that it is so rarely worth the risk. Don't get me wrong -- I know that I am part of the problem. I have a "bad picker" when it comes to men. I am drawn toward the crazy and dramatic. The few times I have consciously tried to "pick" a nice, stable guy, he hasn't wanted me, or he's ended up not being as nice and stable as I thought and the whole thing descends into chaos when I'm not prepared for it. So rather than "put myself out there," I just kinda hang out with my friends and myself, being awesome and having fun for my own sake, and I don't really think that's a bad thing. And if some guy happens to notice that I'm awesome and having fun, then sure, we can talk and maybe something will happen, but I'm not going out of my way for it. Here's why.

Real Lies

I have been lied to so much. Not just little ones like "I was helping a buddy fix his car" when he was actually at a strip joint, or "I'm not cheating on you." Major ones like:

I'll come back for you.
I'll never walk again.
I'm dying.
I can provide us a livelihood so you can do your creative thing.
It's okay, I'm taking my meds for it.
I quit doing meth.

And everyone's favorite:
I love you.

These are the kinds of things that affect life decisions. They've directed me in making plans to fit around the situation -- not just what's best for my heart, but shit like jobs and living situations and financial decisions.

But the one thing I've learned from dealing with this level of deception is how to turn on a dime. Thanks, liars, for helping me build resilience and flexibility, even as it became less likely for me to trust someone I'm in a romantic relationship with.

Emotional Abuse

Constant belittling and insults and gaslighting and creating stressful situations on purpose and I could go on. Just ... here.

But it's made me stronger and more sure of myself, so thanks, emotional abusers, for helping me with that.

The Online Jungle

Just as in real life, online dating is not the same for women as it is for men, so when guys tell me I should give it a try, I cringe. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I have:

Received unsolicited dick pics and obscene phone calls
Met a guy online and within 15 minutes gotten a message asking if I shave my pussy (is that how you approach women in bars?)
Been cyberstalked for years by a guy because I said no
Been insulted because I didn't respond or didn't immediately start sending nude pics
Had enough of a decent conversation with a guy to come to trust him only to have him "ghost" rather than meet in person
Used a dating site's sophisticated algorithm that finds life partners and been paired with a bunch of social conservatives who don't read

Every once in a while, it seems like a good idea to join some site to meet some new people, because I actually like people and it's fun to have "friends who live in your computer" sometimes, but then I remember the harassment and other fun and fascinating things that happen online, and I run away screaming.

But it's shown me that there's some shit I absolutely will not put up with, and that I am actually an old-fashioned kind of woman, and so it's helped me know myself better. So thanks, people who seem to think I'm a cunt on legs with no brain or heart -- you've shown me who I am not.

The Conclusion

Each one of these things could be the subject of long, long posts or essays or what have you, and maybe someday they will be. But plenty of women have already written plenty of words about the bizarre and insane shit they've been subjected to in a relationship (and yeah ... I didn't even get into the things I've seen other women go through -- women I love like sisters who've been beaten and cheated on and abandoned). But friends, consider this the nutshell answer to "Why are you single?" "Why aren't you looking for a man?" "Why aren't you putting yourself out there?" "Don't you want to be in love?"

It's not a surprise that I'm perhaps overly cautious. It is a surprise that I'm still willing to entertain the thought of opening my heart to somebody at all. Because damn. Damn. Once again, I ask my friends not to pity me or worry about me because there's no hot sexy romance in my life -- respect what I've been through, respect that I've been through it without becoming a raging alcoholic or actual crazy cat lady, and respect the fact that historically, I do better standing alone.

Farewell to a Mustang

All first cars are beautiful. It doesn't matter if you're driving Daddy's Mercedes or an AMC Gremlin you scrimped and saved to buy yourself -- the machine that gives you great freedom of movement when you are young and wild is always a cherished thing.

My first car was a 1971 Mustang. It was school bus yellow, with racing stripes down the sides. Sleek. Huge. It looked so much like the women's car in "Deathproof" that when I first saw the movie I had to call Dad and talk about the car.

The 1972 Mustang from "Deathproof." Pretty pretty car.

The hood was a mile long. And the car was all metal. Heavy. Safe. A glorious, shiny, sexy fortress on wheels. And it was mine.

But before it was mine, it was my mother's. She bought it brand new the year before I was born. I have always looked at that car as lasting proof that at some point, Mom was incredibly cool.

When Mom was in labor with me, she and Dad climbed into the Mustang and drove to the hospital. (None of us knows how on earth a woman 9 months pregnant managed to get in and out of a car that low-slung, but she did.) After I was born, all three of us piled into the Mustang and it took us home.

It wasn't just my first car -- it was my first car from birth.

I can't even begin to speak to all the memories I have of driving that car -- it's where I was sitting when I first met many of the people I'm friends with now. It drove us around on our high-school quests for cheap fun. One day we crammed 9 people into it and went to the river for lunch. One night I drag-raced the then-mayor's son and beat him. At least two people I was friends with had sex in the back seat. It has stories to tell.

That Mustang had very nearly surpassed its mechanical limits when I became its driver, and so it seemed like something was always broken on it. The guys in high school who preferred Chevrolets used to tease me with the typical Ford jokes -- "Found On Road Dead," "Fixed Or Repaired Daily" -- and I laughed good-naturedly, but even when it was living down to expectations I never stopped loving that car. And we never sold the car. Mom's initial ownership of it, Dad's love for mechanical puzzles and my passion for that car led us to hang onto it probably longer than we should. It has been sitting in my parents' driveway, immobile (Found On Road Dead one time too many), for nigh on 15 years.

My '71 Stang. Farewell, my friend. 

This evening, I went over to my parents' house to sign the Mustang's title so Dad could sell it to a young man down the street who wants to fix it up. I had to fight to keep from crying as I did it, but I knew that it was for the best. I don't have the money to get it fixed -- pretty much the only functional parts are the radio, the engine and the transmission -- and Dad doesn't have the time to do any work on it. This guy will take care of her and, hopefully, come to love her as much as I do.

It wasn't until after I got home, bawled for half an hour, went over to a friend's house to think and talk about it, and came home and bawled some more that I realized the best thing about that old Mustang: It taught me how to love something that's broken. It never mattered if the carburetor was messed up or one of the pistons stopped firing or the electrical system was acting wonky -- I never stopped loving that car. Even after it broke down the last time and Dad and I weren't sure whether or how to fix it, I still loved it. I still love it now.

And after teaching me how to love broken things, my old Mustang is teaching me how to let go.

Of Love and Loss

Tom, also known as Tommy the Cat, 
Major Tom, Thomas A Cattus and Meowsolini

I knew it had been a while since I last posted, but until a friend and reader mentioned it I didn't realize that my last post was in August. Good heavens. I know why, though. A couple of weeks after my last blog post, my dear orange tabby cat Tom died. He was the most human cat I have ever known. He had a habit of waving at me or tapping me on the shoulder. And he was a chatty cat -- he had long conversations with my housemate and me. He loved to snuggle, too, and I remember the last time I asked him if he loved me, he meowed once and put his paw on my arm. He died here at home, in my arms, and I had him cremated. In honor of his talent for waving at me, I have a golden Maneki Neko coin bank on top of his box of ashes, like a tombstone.

About a week after Tom died, one of my best friends lost her mother to cancer. That was hard for a lot of people in a lot of ways. Her mother was a talented, generous, loving, bright soul who touched a lot of lives. The memorial service for her was a fitting celebration of her life, with music and food and people sharing stories and laughing and crying together in a room filled with her creations -- blankets and moppets she'd crocheted, photos, things she'd written, and memories that her friends and loved ones shared. Memories are among the beautiful things people create for each other.

That same month, an old friend of mine died. We hadn't seen each other in at least a decade but when we were close, he was very kind and supportive when I needed someone to be kind and supportive, and I've never forgotten it. I rode to Wharton with a couple of other friends to attend the memorial service.

October is my birth month, and though I did a lot of self-pampering, I didn't feel much like celebrating. I have a pinata sitting in my front room that I had thought about filling with candy and tiny bottles of liquor and inviting people over for a party, but losing my eldest fur-baby and two dear friends knocked the wind out of my sails. Then we had what I think was our second hundred-year flood this year, damaging homes that were just beginning to come back together after the floods over Memorial Day weekend.

The bar's red door ain't dere no more. 

In November, the news broke that Triple Crown, our beloved watering hole and the live music capital of San Marcos, would be closing in December to relocate, though when and where the new place will open is still unknown.

Beyond being a fine music venue that offered the best quality and best variety of bands I have ever seen, Triple Crown was kind of the glue that held the community of musicians and artists and bohemians of various sorts together. If you wanted to see people you knew, that's where you went. Without that central spot, that nucleus, holding us together, most of us are now communicating with each other through Facebook, like savages, although there have been a few outings and gatherings of Triple Crown folk so we can hang out live and in person. The Lost Tribe of the Triple Crown awaits the opening of the shiny new incarnation of our home.

"You shall love your crooked neighbor
with your crooked heart." - W.H. Auden

Through all of this, the one thing that has held me up -- that has held up my friends and other members of my community -- is love. The love we have for our town, our community, each other -- the basic human decency and compassion that comes to the surface during times of loss and need. I'm immensely grateful that San Marcos is full of that kind of love. Love is what forms the bond between human and pet, and simply having an animal to love unconditionally is a wonderful gift. Love is what brought friends and family together to celebrate my friend's mother's life and all of her wonderful gifts. Love is what inspired some friends and I to pile into a car and drive all the way to Wharton to say goodbye to a good man. Love is what motivated people to help their flooded neighbors. Love is what keeps local musicians going out to the pile of bricks formerly known as the Triple Crown and playing music there to keep the bar's streak of consecutive days of live music alive. (Yes, that is actually happening.)

What I've seen and experienced in the last few months has given me the shocking idea that even in the worst of times, nobody ever has to be totally alone.

6 Valuable Online Resources For Writers

I'm a writer. If you saw this headline and thought "Ooh!" and clicked on it, you're probably a writer, too. Because time is a scarce thing for most of us, I thought I would share the handful of websites I feel give you the most mojo for your minutes if you don't want to spend a lot of time out of "the process":

These sites can help out whether you're looking for work, trying to get published, or just trying to solve a problem anywhere along the line while you're working on a project.

1. Freedom With Writing - This is an amazing resource if you're looking for work as a writer. The site offers a daily email digest of websites and publications that will pay you for your work.

2. Writer's Circle - Want to find articles on the writing industry, tips on the craft, interesting facts about famous authors? This is a great site for you, then. Writers Circle also has a fun Facebook page, which is actually how I found out about the website. The website has a list of writers' resources on everything from e-book publishing to writers' conferences to accepting feedback from readers.

3. The Write Life - This website offers industry tips for freelancers and other professional writers (or those looking to become professional), along with tips on craft.

4. Duotrope - Duotrope is an amazing tool for writers submitting work to literary journals and other magazines. First, it is a comprehensive and easily searchable database of journals and magazines that accept work and will let you know if (and at what level) a market pays. More than that, it includes a submissions tracker to help you keep up with what pieces you've sent where, whether you've received a response and whether your work was accepted. Beyond the free trial period there is a subscription cost, but if you're submitting your work professionally (or even fanatically), it's worth it.

5. Writers Digest - Another great website offering everything from creative prompts to tips on writing good cover letters and synopses when you submit your work. This is also where Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides blog lives, and every April he does a Poem-A-Day Challenge with writing prompts for poets who want to write a piece a day during National Poetry Month. Although there are plenty of resources at the website, if you can subscribe to the magazine or find back issues at your local library, I recommend reading "hard copies," too.

6. Poets & Writers - There is so much to be found at the P&W website, I hardly know where to begin. There are listings of journals and magazines accepting submissions, writing contests looking for entries, databases of small presses and literary agents and MFA programs, lists of fellowships and writing conferences ... you name it. There are even writing prompts for both poetry and fiction, and a message board to "talk" with other writers. As with Writers Digest, if you can get your hands on a subscription or back issues, I highly recommend the P&W magazine, although the website is fantastic, too.

10 Great Websites for Creatives, Women, and Creative Women

I'm engaged in the ongoing struggle to keep my head from completely disappearing into the abyss of Facebook, but by now I'm so conditioned to goofing around online when there's nothing else going on that it's been difficult. But as part of my quest to get beyond the Book of Faces I have come across a handful of wonderful websites for creative types and for women (and sometimes they overlap).

1. AndreaBalt.com - A great resource for inspiration and tips on creativity and leading the Renaissance-person lifestyle. I was drawn in by her essay "5 Things Nobody Told You About Living A Creative Life."

2. Luna Luna Magazine - A potent mixture of culture, commentary, art, literature and femininity, with a taste of the supernatural. I think I've recommended Luna Luna as a literary journal before, and with good reason.

3. JuliaCameronLive.com - The website of Julia Cameron, author of "The Artist's Way." Some people can't stand "The Artist's Way" -- my housemate thinks it's some sort of authoritarian system of churning out art -- but it has done me a lot of good in the past. I went to a workshop based on "The Artist's Way" last fall and recently visited the website to kind of refresh myself. Cameron's blog offers encouragement and insights, such as this post about inspiration.

4. CreativeSomething - A great website full of ideas, inspiration and talk about the creative process. There's also a podcast and a "library" -- a list of recommended books about creativity.

5. Brain Pickings - This website offers all kinds of intellectually stimulating content -- and that in itself can spark some creative inspiration -- but it includes some wonderful posts specifically about art and creativity, such as this article containing advice on creativity from Neil Gaiman.

6. Vagina: The Zine - This is a gutsy and interesting journal featuring creative work, opinions and advice articles. Not only is it full of engaging material, but anyone who self-identifies as a woman can contribute work.

7. Entheos - This site might be a little New Age-y woo-woo for some tastes, but it has a lot to offer. There are lots of things for sale, but access to some lectures can be as low as $10/month, and Entheos occasionally offers fantastic and free conferences or symposiums. Check out their page of conferences dealing specifically with creativity for ideas of what you can find there.

8. Being Boss - This is an awesome site for those looking to become creative entrepreneurs (not necessarily entrepreneurs in the creative "industry" but running whatever business venture you've got in a creative and successful fashion).

10. Amy Poehler's Smart Girls - Okay, I'm wayyyy over 30 and I love this website and wish it had been around several decades ago. It might not have a lot to do with the creative process, but it is inspiring to see what girls and young women are capable of when it comes to making changes in the world. Plus there are downloadable coloring pages and Galentine's Day cards, among other things 12-year-old me would have loved (and adult me still does, because why not?).

On the quest to die laughing

This was what I posted on Facebook a year ago today, the day after Robin Williams' suicide. I make no secret of the fact that I've struggled with major depression and panic disorder off & on throughout my life, and it was kind of mind-boggling to see so many people saying, "But he was so funny! How could he be so sad?" Well ... you kind of have to be funny or else you're miserable.

Sometimes I think a certain degree of depression can be a gift -- it's the "strangeness in the proportion" that gives a person a different take on the world, that helps a person understand that this world is indeed temporary and that every one of is is going to die someday, though most people don't like to think about it and think you're weird if you do. That sense of urgency, and that sense of sorrow, can be fuel for a powerful fire. You look for the sweetness in life. You appreciate how rare and wonderful the beautiful and funny moments are. You run like hell from the darkness that's chasing you, toward humor and beauty and light. I think that's why it turns out that so many funny people are depressed -- we're not joking, we're fighting for our lives. And if you're lucky, really lucky, you can find a balance between the darkness and the light. You can stand on the edge, keep that fire burning, without getting sucked into the blackness. But sometimes you lose that balance. Sometimes you get too tired to keep running. And if you don't ask for help, if you don't find help, that's the end of you. But there is help, folks. There are friends. There are professionals. There are meds if you want/need to go that route. Every day that I wake up and find one thing that touches my heart or makes me laugh is a "fuck you" to the disease that could have taken me but didn't. Today I'm grateful that I found help -- the best group of friends a person could hope for, wonderful therapists, meds when my heart was too heavy for even these kind people to lift, and lifestyle changes that have made the struggle more manageable. When I find myself balancing on the edge, I don't stand there -- I dance.

Writing about writing for non-writers

During this whole process of making major revisions to my novella, I've been posting progress updates on Facebook. Possibly too many, and almost certainly more than were of interest to my Facebook friends. But there is a method to my madness.

Writing is a weird vocation. It's not like most of the other arts that I'm surrounded by. If you play music or sing or dance or do spoken word stuff, there's a stage and an audience and an immediate exchange of energy and appreciation (hopefully) between you and the audience when they see the result of your offstage efforts. If you paint or sculpt, there's a finished product that people can look at and instantly be wowed by. Sometimes people will even watch you paint or sculpt, like the live painters I've seen at some art shows (and some music shows), and when you're done they can look at the fruits of your labor and decide whether they think it's awesome or awful.

Writing isn't like that. Nobody watches you do it for fun. You usually do it alone or maybe in small groups. You may do some readings from your book, but unless you read the entire thing to an audience, it only gives them a small taste of the whole thing. There's no immediate gratification, no instant "wow" when someone looks at your book (unless it has a great cover and/or great title). Appreciation of writing takes a lot of effort on the part of your potential audience and patrons. They have to sit and read it. Part of the challenge is writing something that's interesting and engaging enough to convince people to give that much of their time.

As much as I dislike talking about my "process" -- and I still can't really put  my particular process into words, other than it involves music and food and keeping my calico from walking across my laptop -- I wanted to try to show some of what happens during the creation of a piece of written art, to show that writing is as much of an active process as painting or dancing or anything else. It might not involve a lot of physical movement, besides typing furiously, frowning and occasionally pounding your mattress or your keyboard or your forehead with a fist, but it's not like a writer just sits down with a computer or typewriter or paper and pencil and a novel just falls out. But since people rarely see a writer at work, it might seem like it. It's such a solitary pursuit that to non-writers, it might seem like writing takes only a little more effort than typing. Nope.

In fact, it's an arduous process -- as demanding as any other creative act. You make a plan. You abandon the plan. You try to stick to a plan but as you write the characters do something unexpected and you have to decide whether that's good or bad, and if it's good, you compensate by making sure they haven't created any plot holes. Even if you write roman a clefs or stories that take a fantastic turn but are based on real people and places, you create a whole world in your head, and then you have to make that world make sense to other people. Then comes the editing, during which you argue with yourself about a world that only exists in your head -- which under different circumstances is probably a symptom of something diagnosable.

So I was hoping to show my non-writer friends some of what's involved, to let them know that writing is very much an "alive" process. It's hard to describe exactly what goes on, but I can say that it is active, not passive. Even things that come "through" the writer rather than "from" the writer, like this book I've been refining, requires some kind of interaction with the ideas and energy in play. You have to say "yes" and offer up your skill and your time to whatever story is trying to come through you.

As a matter of fact, sometimes I'm writing in my head when I'm nowhere near pen & paper -- whether I'm thinking of things I need to fix in the manuscript or witnessing something amazing in the world and thinking, "This needs to go in a book," and hitting my on-board record button. Just because you don't see the work happening doesn't mean it's not happening or that it's not hard. It's very real.

I'm not demeaning performance art or visual art in any way -- I'm constantly amazed by both of those things, and since I also dance and play music I know how much effort goes into it. I simply mean to say that in the case of writing, the efforts of the artist aren't always as immediately obvious, and I'm trying to bring some of that effort to light.

Also, I finished this round of revisions a day ahead of schedule. I made some notes on things to doublecheck and things to fix when I make my next round of edits, but other than a few issues I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I will be ready to share it with the world in a few months.

Comes the smiling mortician

"Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician"

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti 

Living creatures are fragile. You'd think that living in a town that's the only place on earth where several species live, and where floods and droughts seem to occasionally accelerate the cycle of life and death, would make this more obvious, but sometimes I'm still surprised by it.

I've had a few reasons lately to think about this gossamer mortal coil that grows more delicate every day. Last week a friend's father died -- a man I was fortunate enough to know when I was a little girl. He was a college professor, a perfect profession for a wise and wonderful person whose light should be spread across the world. The biggest consolation is that his son, my friend, is a wonderful expression of that light, and so it shines on. 

The next day, I found out I have to get a colonoscopy. There's no concern about cancer, but my stomach has been so messed up for so long that dozens of diagnoses are possible -- maybe just IBS, maybe Crohn's, maybe something more, and I'd be lying if I said I weren't nervous about it. I'm trying to focus on the fact that it's not as serious as a surgery, and that I will basically get to do a colon cleanse for much less money than I'd pay for the same thing at a spa, but there's the lingering "what if" in the back of my mind that I hope will leave once the anaesthetics kick in. 

And for the past week or so, I've noticed my eldest cat, Tom, has not been eating like usual. He usually loses his appetite to some degree when the weather gets hot, but he's also been spitting up a little bit pretty frequently and I think he's lost some weight over the past month. He has an appointment with the nice ladies at the vet's office on Friday. I'm hoping maybe it's something as simple as a hairball blockage, but I'm worried they might find something seriously wrong with my old man (he's about 13, so if he were a human he'd be almost 70 years old ... which still seems too young to die). 

St. Francis, who loved animals and
just about everyone else

And yet amid all of this, the party of life goes on. Everyone wakes up every day, the sun rises, the river flows, babies are born, families have barbecues, lovers reunite, I still get up and drink tea and laugh and smile and have brunch with friends, the universe keeps churning, because all of these things that feel like the end of the world are just a part of life. We're born to break. It's what we do despite the delicate condition of mortality, what we do before we break irreparably, that makes the whole struggle worthwhile. 

I recently re-encountered one of my favorite quotes from Charles Bukowski:

"We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

And I try to remember that -- to not get terrorized by trivialities, to not freak out about a diagnostic procedure, to not look at my elder kitty as a furry pile of symptoms instead of a living creature I love. And I try to let the fragility of life motivate me to love more, and to live more, rather than to curl up and hide away from the inevitable. Which leads me to another quote from Bukowski:

"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."

May we all do just that -- may Death tremble to take us all. 

Prologue to a manifesto of sorts

Last week, I posted a fragment of the novella I've been fretting and sweating over to get it polished up and pretty. This is another fragment of it -- the first fragment, actually, that lays out what the book is truly about. The plot has to do with a hippie lady and her artsy friends and cooperation and chaos and community, but what it's actually about is a kind of global spiritual shift. It's a shift I believe has been coming, and I'm not alone in believing that it's happening right now. And so I give you what appears to be a socialist-artistic manifesto that flowed through me to give me the framework for the short book, "Enlightenment: The Messy Birth of a New World."

The San Marcos River, the centerpiece and source of life in the town where our story begins

Creation is a nonstop process. Just because our galaxy is flying around in space, just because the Sun and all the planets have formed and seem to be moving as they should, it doesn't mean this is all there is. Water flows in riverbeds and oceans, plants grow and flower and spread, animals frolic and feed. Humans move vast distances and wear business suits and have developed the technology to buy and sell portions of the planet with the touch of a button. Yet there is much farther to go.

On our little round piece of the universe, there are certain places where it seems as though the power to make and remake comes up through the earth in eruptions, like a geyser. And the only vessels around to receive that power are the humans in the vicinity. Sometimes the ambient creative energy is powerful enough to override basic human behaviors -- the desire for wealth, the tendency to rush and worry. The people who are drawn to, or born to, these plumes of creativity and choose to remain open to the power and let it move through them believe that everything else will fall into place. They let the energy carry them. A group of people who share this belief will take care of each other, whether through emotional encouragement or help in providing the necessities of life, because they understand that they are all in it together -- atoms drawn together into molecules and joined in a perfect mass of living creation.

San Marcos, a town in the middle of Texas that people have heard of but don't really know, is one of the places where this energy is strong. The power rises from the ground with the water that feeds the local river, freshly sprung from a vast underground source. It's as if the Demiurge has a compulsion to continue expressing itself with the minds, hearts, hands and voices of anyone nearby who will open up to it.

This isn't to say that everyone in the town spends every waking moment philosophizing, writing, singing, dancing, making soap or knitting hats, though more of that goes on here than in a lot of places. People have day jobs. Some are lucky enough to get paid for being vessels for the creative energy. Others, out of necessity, may hold jobs that have nothing to do with their creative purpose but allow them to pursue their passions with financial and/or moral support. Others may not have what is typically considered an artistic bent but have found time and energy to serve their muses. Some feel their children and families are their highest purpose and are stay-at-home parents. Some really love talking to people and go into retail or customer service. Some really love clothing or beverages or food and have been able to find work that lets them be surrounded by those things all day. Still others -- a handful here, but from what I understand they're the dominant species elsewhere -- have closed themselves off to their purpose and do what they do out of greed or ambition, ignoring the urge to submit to the creative energy and dismissing the importance of that urge in others.

This is where the story of the Great Breakdown begins -- this is where a new wave of creation and compassion crashes down over the useless systems that only benefit a handful of people who have shut themselves away from the universe's growth process. The cataclysm begins in a small town at the foot of the Texas Hill Country known mostly to outsiders for its outlet malls and university football team, even though music always fills the air and the Creator is busy feeling and shaping the world with the people's hands.

I'm not making this up! Well, actually, I guess I am ...

I've been working on a novella forever, or at least since 2013, which is forever in Internet years, and most people haven't seen a single sentence of this phantom manuscript. Really, it does exist -- it's not just an excuse to get my introversion on. So, in part to get a fragment of this thing out into the world, and in part to prove that I'm neither insane nor posting on Facebook about writing and revising when I'm actually marathoning "Firefly" again, here's a little excerpt from the current iteration of the novella, currently called "Enlightenment: The Messy Birth of a New World."

"What do you wear when you're dressing to impress five guys at once?" Charlotte muttered, apparently asking her open closet for fashion advice. "Dammit!" She closed her closet door and looked around her room -- the hats hanging on the wall, her bass guitar, her Buddha/Jesus/Yoda shrine, the fez sitting on her bookshelf, the plastic tackle box full of makeup she never wore unless she was going out at night.

"Dammit," she whispered again, failing to find inspiration for her outfit for the night.

She got up and went over to her dresser, where a motley assortment of necklaces and earrings hung on a jewelry tree. Her eyes wandered to the spot on her mirror where she'd written "You're a hippie" in lipstick in case she ever forgot.

Finally, a gold coin necklace caught her eye.

"Yeah, belly dancer," she thought. "The guys always love a belly dancer."

It was Friday night, and Charlotte was dressing up for what promised to be a great evening at Triple Crown, the local live music hot spot. She was most excited about the headlining band, Moksha, the glam band whose guitarist and lead singer Charlotte had known since childhood. Charlotte had become a devoted supporter of the band -- not only did she love spending time with them, and they with her, but they were amazing musicians who put on a theatrical and energetic show. Besides, hanging out with a glam band is a great reason to wear the kind of outfit most people would only wear on Halloween. Charlotte often borrowed from the sparkle and jingle of her belly dance wardrobe for Moksha shows, figuring if the outfits were beautiful enough for her to wear when she danced at a belly dance show, they were beautiful enough for her to wear when she danced for Moksha in the front row.

As she assembled herself for the evening, Charlotte felt warmth percolating just under her skin. It wasn't the kind of excitement she had experienced in her years as a journalist, which often ranged from frustration to danger -- it was joy. She smiled at herself as she found a clip to hold back some of her long, vivid red hair. She knew part of her happiness was about getting to see the Moksha guys, but part of it was a warm fuzzy feeling about getting to see Baron Samedi, another local band she was friends with and loved so much that she sometimes felt like she was "cheating" on Moksha whenever she went to see Baron Samedi play.

"Thank you, God, for planting me in a small town full of wise and kind folk with guitars," she whispered, shifting her eyes heavenward, away from her mirror. She was ready to go.

As she traipsed out to her Honda, Charlotte noticed the world looked weird.

Full moon? She thought. No, it's the wrong time. She looked up to see if a streetlight that was always out had come on. No. But something beyond the streetlight, up in the sky, caught her eye -- a bluish-white light brighter than any star or planet she had ever seen in her four decades of looking at the night skies. It wasn't as big as the moon but was somehow just as bright.

            She said, "Whaaaaat?" but what she thought was, "Meteor?" In her mind, she flipped back through her day at work and didn't remember seeing any news stories about a meteor or comet about to graze the Earth, but she didn't know what else it could possibly be.

            Well, if I'm going to be taken out by an extraterrestrial catastrophe, I've got no problem with Baron Samedi and Moksha being my last memory of this world. 

Facebook People, I have legitimate concerns

I originally wrote a long blog post about why I'm stepping way the hell away from Facebook for a while. Mostly, that post had a list of questions about what refusing to vote in elections accomplishes ... or whether people honestly assume that just because someone holds an opinion on an issue that's become part of the national discourse, that person is just part of the "sheeple" being told what they should think ... or what people who think that news stories about injustices happening to minorities are just manufactured bullshit meant to keep us divided do if they see such an injustice happening in front of them.

But then I realized my whole point can be summed up like this: Facebook is about 80 percent a hybrid of the worst parts of Jerry Springer and 24-hour news channels screaming out of a little flat glowing screen at me. This 80 percent of Facebook is a world where reason does not exist,where otherwise very sweet people scream at and make accusations about each other and stir shit like they're making a roux. The other 20 percent is cats and funny shit and keeping up with friends and local events, and that's the only reason I haven't closed down my account altogether. That 20 percent gives me some sane answers to the questions I saved from the original draft of this blog post:

What do people talk about other than what boils down to Culture Wars? Republican vs. Democrat, black vs. white, gay vs. straight, citizen vs. immigrant, radical vs. moderate, fire-and-brimstone Christians vs. salvation-and-grace Christians, people of faith vs. atheists? Because lately, that's all I see on Facebook. The divisions that may or may not have been invented by some mysterious "they" and are certainly being fed by human nature, or human nature + technology. The divisions people complain about and yet can't stop talking about, apparently. People do still view themselves and each other as whole beings and not stacks of labels, don't they? Do people still discuss things like literature, art, going fishing, traveling, recipes, children, pets, movies, life, death, dreams, love, what they had for breakfast, what this human life is like? Is there an app for that?

Basically, damn, Facebookians, stop all the yelling. I don't want to hear about why the federal government, the military, either major political party, the patriarchy or Jesus is either out to get me or my only hope. I want to hear about you. I want to know who you are, where you've been, how you got to where you are, what you love, what you want, what you dream about, what you've overcome, what you struggle with, what your favorite song or painting or movie or sculpture or outfit or moment is. I hate the current state of public discourse, based on fear and misinformation and rage and as many different sets of "facts" as there are people. But I love you, Facebookians. I love you as people. The labels we wrap ourselves in are mummy bandages that hide us from each other, from the world, and even from ourselves. Take off the wrappings before you forget what you look like under there.

Och, what a whirlwind!

I had a couple of days off from work last week, and now I need a vacation from my vacation! Last Thursday, I saw the Minions movie at a sneak-peek at the Alamo Drafthouse in New Braunfels. It was awesome. It's set mostly in the '60s, in swingin' London, with Jennifer Saunders voicing Queen Elizabeth, and of course Jon Hamm and Sandra Bullock as the main villains. If you're a fan of the mellow yellow fellows, you will love it. My new favorite word in Minionese is the word for electric guitar: megaukulele!

Your humble blogger, standing on one leg
with a sword on her head

Next was the Sultan's Feast, our big annual belly dance show here in San Marcos. Every Sultan's Feast is fantastic, but this one knocked it out of the park (with a hip bump). I consider it a real honor to be able to share the stage with so many amazing ladies.

Then was a dance workshop at Austin Belly Dance led by Roxxanne Shelaby, daughter of the original owner of The Fez Supperclub in Los Angeles, which was pretty much the cradle of American Cabaret style belly dance. Roxxanne held a Kickstarter campaign and has produced a documentary about The Fez. The workshop -- though I had to sit down about halfway through because I danced until the arches in my feet fell -- was hugely interesting and informative. It was a great experience.

And last night I performed a few poems at the weekly open mic at my beloved Triple Crown. I did one political-ish piece and two saucy pieces, including a poem about a "blue-eyed boy in a '67 Stang" and the raunchy piece popularly known as "the Excalibur poem." Favorite response from a stranger: "I have my '67 parked out back, and I left my blue contacts at home." Least favorite response from a stranger: "Make me a sandwich." Really, dude? (I responded with a "HEY! NO!")

Anyway, this week I am back to working on the novel, so most of my "spare time" is going to be devoted to that. I'll still make a few blog posts -- I intend to post a couple of excerpts from the current draft and then some lists that will probably be of interest to a few of you -- but mostly I'll be spending the next couple of weeks arguing with myself about a world that exists inside my own head.

Gettin' busy

My last post was bleak, but necessary. This one is happier.

I took a break from working on the novella this week so I could concentrate more on belly dancing because the big Sultan's Feast show is coming up Friday and for the first time, I am dancing in 3 different numbers. Eek! The costume changes alone are going to be feats of agility and speed. The show is two hours of lovely and talented dancers, with a meal catered by Euro Cafe. If you're in the area, check it out!

Saturday afternoon, I'm going to a belly dance workshop in Austin, and then Sunday, to get back into a writerly frame of mind, I will be performing some poetry at the open mic at Triple Crown. There are always some wonderful singer-songwriter types at the open mic, but there is poetry and comedy too. Signup starts at 7, and the show starts sometime after that. If you're looking for a mellow way to round out your weekend, come see me share words.

And speaking of sharing words, I will be doing some freelance work for SMTX/Bobcat Fans magazine here in town. It'll be great to spend a little time interviewing people, thinking up story ideas and writing about the town I love so much. I'm very excited about it!

The San Marcos Flood of 2015: It's Not Over

So as I mentioned before, we had a catastrophic flood here in San Marcos and Hays County over Memorial Day weekend. It's thought to be the worst in the region's history, and people are still trying to recover from it.

The night that the rains came, I was up late, keeping an eye on the weather via Twitter, Facebook and the NWS and USGS hydrology charts for the Blanco and San Marcos rivers. There had been talk of some flash flooding, and since I couldn't sleep and am kind of a weather geek anyway, I wanted to keep track of what was going on. I was shocked by what happened overnight.

This area has been going through a pretty severe drought for about 10 years. For most of that time, the Blanco River at Wimberley usually didn't have any water in it. In eastern San Marcos, where Highway 80 crosses the Blanco, it had been so dry for so long that trees were growing in the riverbed. Sometimes cattle grazed there. I had seen the Blanco River in flood before, but it was a rare and short-lived event.

The night of the flood, the Blanco River at Wimberley got over 41 feet -- a record-breaking height -- before the flood gauge washed away and they lost track of what it was doing. At that height, and running twice as fast as Niagra Falls, the river completely washed away houses, pulled up trees and even took out the bridge at Fischer Store Road. When the Blanco reached San Marcos, it covered Interstate 35. The Hays County Sheriff's 911 center and the jail had to be evacuated. Apartments were lost. Our local Wal-Mart got flooded. Our local Half Price Books got flooded. An entire trailer park off of River Road was wiped out.

It was worse downstream, where the Blanco merges with the San Marcos River, just above the city of Martindale. My best friend's family lives in Martindale along the river -- during our "100-year flood" in 1998, the water got up to their back porch but didn't get in the house. In this flood, the water got into their house, around their house and across the road. Moreover, with all the water from the Blanco rushing into the San Marcos River, the San Marcos backed up and neighborhoods here in town got flooded. A new apartment complex along the river with essentially a levee built around it caused water to go into a residential area. Parks along the river were inundated.







Just today, the San Marcos Mercury published a piece on the damage assessments -- almost 1,500 homes destroyed or damaged, businesses damaged, infrastructure hit pretty hard. Lives were lost. I had many friends who lived in areas inundated by the flood waters and wasn't sure until Monday night that all of them were okay.

Chasca at a United Way of Hays County benefit

Ghosts of Dixie at a United Way of Hays County benefit

It's no surprise to anyone who lives around here that relief efforts began springing up almost immediately -- besides the National Guard, Red Cross and eventually FEMA coming into town. The cities affected opened up shelters. People started setting up collection centers for donations of food, clothing, cleaning supplies, pet food, anything people could give to their neighbors in need. Volunteers went into neighborhoods to help people begin to clean up. One of my friends who had lived in New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina went and lent her skills. People who had lived here at one time and still lived within a 100-mile radius showed up to help with the cleanup. (As one of my friends said, "Once a San Martian, always a San Martian.") I had just cleaned out my closet the day before the floods so I had 3 bags of clothes and purses and shoes ready to go, and I gathered up some canned food, pet food and first aid supplies and dropped them off at one of the donation centers.

Even some corporations stepped in to help out -- Tide Loads of Hope came through town to let people do laundry. Proctor & Gamble came through with cleaning supplies during the cleanup. The Texas-based HEB grocery store chain served hot meals to volunteers and evacuees for several days. Whataburger, another Texas-based company, gave free meals to uniformed first responders and Red Cross volunteers. Anheuser-Busch halted beer production at one of their facilities and instead put drinking water in cans to deliver to Central Texas and other areas across the state that were also hit with flooding.

MLuck and the Big Love at an
Eyes of the San Marcos River benefit

Later, at least three fund-raisers took place at local live music hotspots. My favorite, Triple Crown, even donated portions of their sales during the fund-raisers. It was a devastating tragedy, and the effects are still seen and felt. People are still trying to find places to live. People who've lost everything are still trying to piece their lives back together. People who lost loved ones in the raging waters will probably never be the same.

This devastation came from the same river we here in San Marcos consider sacred. It can be a beautiful, soothing sanctuary. It can cool down the hottest of heads in the dead of summer. But it is a river, after all, and sometimes rivers get angry.

And so, we're continuing to rebuild down here. It can be a frustrating process, but people are still working to help their neighbors, and until the Powers That Be do their part to make things bearable at first, and right at last, it's all that can be done.

If you're on the Book of Faces, there's a group where you can find out what's being done and what needs to be done to continue to help. The City of San Marcos also has a page up, and funds are always welcome at the United Way of Hays County. Everything helps. If you're a San Martian and know of another organization that could use donations, post in the comments. Much love.

Happenings

I have to write this quickly because I need to get ready for dance practice ahead of the Sultan's Feast belly dance show, which is one of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately, but there are some things you should know:

1. I'm hard at work on some rewrites on my novel after getting feedback from a judge at the Writers League of Texas competition this year. I aim to get this round finished by Aug. 1.

2. My friends Chasca released a new CD and you can find it on Spotify! Or be amazing and order it from Chasca's website. Here's my very favorite Chasca song on Soundcloud: Barbarian. Dig those drums! And everything else!

3. We had a catastrophic flood here in San Marcos over Memorial Day weekend. Like made-national-news-and-was-mentioned-on-the-BBC flood. The National Guard and Red Cross were here. There was a curfew. It was crazy for those of us who didn't lose life, limb or property, but it was devastating for many people in San Marcos and Wimberley. I'll be posting about that and the after-effects soon.

4. The Sultan's Feast, as I mentioned, is coming up July 10 at the San Marcos Activity Center. Dinner and a 2-hour show for $20! Get tickets here at Eventbrite.

And now I'm off!

Long time, no me

I'm a bad blogger. I've been busy -- mostly getting my financial poop in a group, doing more dancing than I thought I would ever do, and working on rewrites for the novel that's sort of the raison d'etre for this blog in the first place. As a friend said recently on Facebook, life is "lifey."

Apologies for the long absence, but I promise you a bunch of stuff is coming in the next few weeks.

It's National Poetry Month!

There are lots of things going on this month to celebrate poetry. Whether you're a reader or writer of poetry, there's something for everyone. This list is far from comprehensive, but it's a sampling of National Poetry Month stuff you can enjoy while basking in the glow of your computer screen:

• Knopf Poem-A-Day delivers a poem to your email inbox every day in April.
• LunaLuna is featuring one modern poet each day this month.
• Robert Brewer at Writers Digest is, as every year, offering daily poetry prompts for the Poem-A-Day Challenge.
• Huffington Post has a collection of articles about poetry, including my friend Jonathan Hobratsch's interview with T.R. Hummer.
• Julia Glum at the International Business Times has a great list of ideas for taking some time to appreciate the poetry around us and discover more.

You can find out more about National Poetry Month at the Academy of American Poets.

Business and Busy-Ness

I am so bad at updating ... someday I'll get the hang of posting regularly for more than a few weeks at a time. But since January, I have been legitimately busy, and good things have come of it.

I made another round of revisions to my book manuscript and am letting it sit until June, when I should get feedback from the Writers League of Texas manuscript competition folks and a couple of friends. After that, I edited the manuscript for a romance novel that a colleague wrote, and there's reasonable hope that it will get picked up by one of the big romance publishing houses.

Now I'm learning HTML and CSS so that I can eventually design my own web page. (Yay!)

And, in my quest to get on stage at least 10 times this year, and out of my love for sharing my poetry with people who normally wouldn't give a damn about poetry, I'm going to be performing more regularly at the Triple Crown Open Mic on Sunday nights.

Between all this, I found out that my writing is gaining appreciation in Singapore, San Francisco and San Marcos. "The Soft Burden," the essay I posted here several months ago about the very odd family heirloom I'll be inheriting and all that it entails, was one of six finalists in the nonfiction category at the San Francisco Writers Conference contest this year. A poem I wrote about the same subject matter was published in Issue 3 of Junoesq, a Singapore-based literary journal for women. My blog post on the Just For Fun Parade from last April will be reprinted in the April edition of SMTX Magazine here in San Marcos. (I won't link back to that blog post here because it'll look so awesome in print, you should read it in the magazine when it comes out.)

And even with all this writing stuff going on, there is still the dance. I performed my first drum solo, choreographed by myself with help from my teacher Jamie Lynn, in February at Euro Cafe. It was terrifying, but I made it through and apparently did a pretty good job, and I hope to be able to perform it again soon -- if not here in town then at another venue. I'm currently in the middle of the 90-Day Belly Dance Challenge organized by Alia Thabit. It requires at least 20 minutes of improvisational dancing for 90 days. It's been an eye-opening experience thus far and I'm glad to have found something to get me in the habit of dancing without a plan.

Meanwhile, a bunch of my friends have been busy, too. Last weekend was the surprise party and fund-raiser for Christopher Paul Cardoza, the photographer who moved here just a couple of years ago and has done so much to document and promote the San Marcos live music scene, particularly the shows at Triple Crown. And now, with South By Southwest going on just up the road in Austin, many of our local bands are showing an international audience how we do things down here. Chasca, 4orms and Ghosts of Dixie are just a few of the local bands playing official or unofficial SXSW shows this week and I'm super proud of all of them and glad to call them my friends.

Spring is springing here in our happy little village, and everything is coming to life!