The Dailiy {W}rite March 20, 2018 wk o4

Tuesday,

According to the calendar March 20th is the first day of spring. But don't take the calendar's word for it. My Facebook friends have been sending me HAPPY SPRING DAY! messages all day long. Unfortunately, my sinuses are telling me it's still winter there. And mother nature is agreeing with my nose, sending  razor sharp winds cutting right through the window glass, the walls of my apartment, forcing me into a hoodie and thick socks because the wall heater too thinks it's spring and refuses to turn on!

Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Yesterday was International Poetry Day. I tried to write something specifically for it in celebration, but I couldn't get a writing groove going. My muse has been out of town for about a year and she's not returning any of my calls.  Writing poetry is getting more difficult. Age, I guess. I know. I'm not suppose to mention anything negative about getting old . . . er, but I just can't "feel" the words much anymore. I can rewrite some of the old poetry from 2005-10 pretty well. But the new stuff just doesn't want to formulate in my mind. It's a bit of a bummer.

Even writing the blog is becoming a chore that I really don't want to  do much anymore. But I keep trying. I feel like I need to do something creative. Something.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Okay, so . . . Damn! The flickering pick drives my eyes crazy. I think I better trade it in for something else. yeah, that's better.

We wen to Cheddar's for David has with his kids. Met a waitress there, Alissa. And as always I joked with the waitperson and she laughed and I laughed at my joke about how I want my ices tea . . . "Unsweetened, no straw, no spoon, no piece of lemon on the lip of the glass . . . just a cup, ice and unsweetened inside!"  My friends always roll their eyes every time I do this little tradition.

After dinner, I started a conversation with Alissa . . . or maybe she started one with me. I'm not sure which way it went. Anyway I found out she was from Sulfur, Oklahoma. She was at OU studying . . . deafness? She said some other word  for it and I can't remember what it was.  Anyway, I found out her older sister (23) is deaf and that was why she was studying . . . whatever it was she was studying. She was very interesting to talk to, and it seems that she was interested in what I had to say though I didn't say much, I just listened.

Friday, March 24, 2018
So, this morning . . . yes, I said this morning  . . . David and I was out our respective doors and on the road to Vintage Stock with a box full of old DVDs that I wanted to sell. Yeah, cash is a little hard to get these days. I need a real job. But until then I thought I'd pick up a few bucks by selling some old movies that I bought over the years and barely if ever watch anymore. Had about fifty or so and was looking forward having maybe $80 in my pocket . . . but no. Turned out that $30 was all I could get. Okay, better than nothing.

After that, got frozen yogurt with LOTS of fresh fruit in it. What a treat that is! mmm. After that off to Yuyu's for very over priced coffee ($6 for never empty cup, but I couldn't even get through one!). Ran into some old friends of David's, I knew a few of them. And everybody's talking about the good old days . . . And this friend of ours sees my Captain America t-shirt and says, "I really don't appreciate t-shirts that advertise male aggression." The t-shirt had a Captain America logo on it similar to the picture on the right. Anyway, I didn't just bite her head off like I might have done on a bad day. "So, what do you think of Wonder Woman?" I asked her. "Oh, I really liked the movie!" "Oh?" I had her now! "Even with all the 'female aggression' in it?" And the subject just changed to a discussion of the new Wonder Woman movie. Just like that. No anger on either of our parts. Just talking about the lack of positive role model images in the movie. I was so happy with myself for not getting all huffy about male aggression line, but not caving in to personal prejudice about men and patriotism. Yeah, I said it. I'm a patriot. But not in the conservative bastardization of the term, which isn't patriotism but an excuse for doing evil things to American citizens who don't agree with the conservative point of view.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Yesterday was a day of "revolution" in good ol' America by the most unlikely of revolutionaries high school and middle school children. They came into Washington, D.C. 800,000 strong and not just students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students from everywhere and not just victims of mass murder.  It was glorious to watch these young heroes stand-up and say, No more." The battle was won yesterday, but the war has just started. The conservatives were out in full tilt spin mode on the cable news stations very kindly (yeah, right)  denouncing the movement these kids started up from scratch, trying as best as they could to shrug off the even as if it were nothing. What is nothing is the conservative gun lovers who put their AR-15s ahead of the life of children.

The Daily {W}rite March 2018 wk o3

Thursday,
Last night was our friend Jim Ong's memorial service. No, I didn't go. My friend from Tulsa IM'd me to say she would drive down and pick me up for the service in Guthrie . . . but still, I declined. It could go into the reason why but . . . I really don't want to. There are just people who would have been there that I would rather not see let alone have to talk to . . . and they would feel the same way, I'm sure. Anyway, After trying to get around not going, with Kimm doing her best to be a good friend to me I finally just typed, "I'm going to stay home." She IM'd back, "Alright . . . take care." I got the feeling I was pretty nasty. My friend took it a bit personal . . . so, just now I IM'd her and gave her a "partial" explanation why I didn't want to go.

They have on Spotify Radio an album titled Psychedelic that I'm getting my "head" around to night. Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Doors and a few songs and bands I never heard before. How could I miss any of the music of the late, ACID 60's? Oh,  I know how. Never mind. {smiles}

Okay, I'm driving into that dark, depression tunnel that I carry inside my head for nights like Missing my friend's memorial is guilt-pounding my conscience. Yes, I have one. My

depression is a series of dominos lined up next to each other. Hit one and they all fall down . . . I didn't go because I didn't want to see certain people that I have problems with. So, what did I do? Sat around the dirty apartment thinking about those "assholes" and how badly I think they've treated me in the past. It's painful.

I'm chasing words to say. Casting my tattered net wide across the gray skies of my limited vocabulary. If I were a dog, I would imagine myself a mailman and I'd bite down hard on his ankles. Dots of bright red blood rising . . . matching the wounds Jesus sported on his last breathes of earthly air.

If I were more birdlike driving my wingless heart through the storm, I would sing to you even though you are less likely to hear me from beneath the crackle of cold lightning filling this late even thought. Where's a weatherman when you need him? Somewhere else in Oklahoma is my guess . . .  chasing tornado dreams.

I would walk away from you, walk  away right now. But broken legs keep me stranded in your shadow. Chase you out, you shout out of my apartment, watching the neighbors crack open their doors to see if the insane tenant in apartment #4 has finally murdered himself. Now only the ghost remains. Here, he's only here to torment our ears with its bubbling shouts of profanity. Out, out, damn idiot ghost. Find your grave and sleep well. If you can remember how to sleep without dreaming as your alibi.

I have less than 15 minutes to finish this post before today turns into tomorrow and I will have to write more than my fingers are willing to suffer through. So, goodnight. I say goodnight now because the day will soon start kicking its feet and screaming for acknowledgement if I don't at least pretend to sleep.

Sunday, March 11, 2018
As is usual with it comes to my writer's work ethic . . . I'm behind. Four days into the 2nd week at this will be only the second entry. But to be fair . . to me . . . the first entry was LOOOOOOOOOONG!

Last Friday was the 2nd Friday Art Walk in Norman-town. Got there at 6:30pm, had dinner at Sergio's, the supreme pizza for me and David . . . well, David doesn't eat dinner in a restaurant. Well, okay, he sometimes eats a bit but he usually has most of it "to go."  Don't know why. It's a David thing. Then after dinner we walked the art and I took a ton of pics! 139 to be precise. And for what ever reason, I got really focused on red heads! Yes! No, NOT that way . . . I got home afterwards and looked at the pics and noticed there were a LOT of pics of women with red hair, different shades of red ranging from tinted rust colors to raging fire! Really lovely and sort of weird in a way. My camera seemed to have had a "thing" for red heads tonight and I had no idea it felt that way.

So, we walked the Walk and talked to folks. Well, mostly David talked to people. I tend not to. I don't know why. I feel a bit  . . . intimidated by strangers. I've been that way for always, I think. I don't know. When I'm forced to talk to people (particularly women) who I don't know, I feel like I become another person, A sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde thing happens any time I have to talk. I stammer a lot, my voice gets real loud . . . I always try to be funny, say something funny, and I always wind-up feeling uncomfortable, AND I'm pretty sure whomever I'm talking is feeling uncomfortable too. Strange. I can't seem to be myself around other people. Hell, I don't know if I've ever even been myself with MYSELF. I am a product of my environment . . . there is no me except that which my life experiences have made me . . . what other people have made me. Sometimes I try to really look at myself . . . it's like holding a mirror up to my inner thoughts and all I can see is a thick fog. I try wiping it away, I try to get to that core of self . . . but all I can accomplish, all I can see is a blur, a stain, a shadow . . . that's me. That's the real me. A blurry shadow.

Monday, March 12, 2o18

As you might be able to tell if you read my posts, I'm most prolific when I'm wrestling with my depression. I suppose it's just that my treatment for "the blues" is writing, writing, writing  all that nasty negativity out of my head and body. Just in case you were wondering if I'm sane or insane . . . mostly I'm insane, which isn't all that bad. I choose sometimes to fight it off, try not to feel angry or sad and that always makes it worse. It's better for me to write and get it all out on the page, and most times when I read over it, it's even incoherent to me let alone to my readers . . . if I have any readers, that is. I could, I suppose, go on antidepressants  but I'm so against it. This may sound weird but depression is a part of me . . . I don't want to lose it. Besides, my ex head duster (shrink) always said that it's better for my spirit to learn to deal with depression than to strap it into a drug induced straightjacket. Hey! Here's a poem (which you probably have already read) which describes the feelings  I have when I let my "illness" take control.

The Nothingness

Extraordinary to see yourself outside your . . . self;

looking back into those eyes that you've never
really seen before. Counting each wrinkle on that
alien face, each scar that you never were aware of.
You look and you stare and you analyze and criticize
every nook, every cranny every blemish that time created.
where nothing lives, where nothing feels like home, like all
that you are is that nothingness and that nothingness
is more real, more solid, much more than what they've told
you, all your life they told you, what reality is supposed to be.
A bare existence that glares at you through that self you've
never known. You have never known. It feels like butterflies
fluttering around the fire’s light, like the deepest end of the pool
where panicky legs keep searching for the bottom and find
nothing more than . . . than . . . and there's that word again . . .
nothingness. All there is, all there’ll ever be . . . nothingness.

Not even a splinter of a shadow left.

Woodie o4-28-17

(rewrites o3-o9-18)

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Well, the last entry for the week. Something wonderful happened today. Students in 3,000 + high schools walked out of class to protest gun violence in schools. Dude, my heart throbbed with their courage, their strength, their since of pride. The warrior's spirit, the power to stand up against the insanity that is gun violence in schools. There were are few folks scoffing  them, that idiot Ted Cruz was laughing, LAUGHING at them these kids who are willing to stand up for what's right! Cruz said something like, "Well, if the police had done their job and got to the school in time, there wouldn't have been any fatalities! Yeah, you know, Mr. Cruz, if you Congress guys would pass the gun reform bills, you be doing your job!