Birthdays

I have taken my ambien, sitting on my chemise covered bed listening to the 5th Dimension's One Less Bell to Answer sipping my rose petal and apricot tea. I should be happy and I am. It was my birthday last week. 30 plus 1 one odd years spent being me. Not expecting anything in particular aside of birthdays and well wishes. I received them. Oh Dionne Warwick is playing "Save little Prayer." Fitting, but my phone rang and I picked up with ample fingers and hit the message button and there he was. A paramour and yes I loved it. He had left not just a greeting but a song. He always speakes better thru songs and I just get all awkward, school girlish that a gorgeous boy is singing to me in counter tenor. For goodness sakes, I blushed and nearly tumbled over my gawky littel limbs.

I have a place where dreams are born,
And time is never planned.
It's not on any chart,
You must find it with your heart.
Never Never Land.

It might be miles beyond the moon,
Or right there where you stand.


Just keep an open mind,
And then suddenly you'll find
Never Never Land.

You'll have a treasure if you stay there,
More precious far than gold.
For once you have found your way there,
You can never, never grow old.

And that's my home where dreams are born,
And time is never planned.
Just think of lovely things.
And your heart will fly on wings,
Forever in Never Never Land.

You'll have a treasure if you stay there,
More precious far than gold.
For once you have found your way there,
You can never, never grow old.

And that's my home where dreams are born,

And time is never planned.
Just think of lovely things.
And your heart will fly on wings,
Forever in Never Never Land

But that's the trouble with boys. One day they say the will paint the sky egg shell blue for you and the next day it's plaid. I look good in both but why don't they see that? Is my ex in Never Never Land or am I? He sees me as phenomenal boy laced to quirk. A walking boudoir crisis, poor lamb. Oh, dear hearts, its all true but who cares. I am working on it, but when practices becomes skilled I find my self so goose witted, yes all fingers and thumbs. What to do?It is as David Sedaris wrote (Me Talk Pretty One Day.) Pg 156...."If your not cute you might as well be clever." So what happens if a boy is cute and clever?

Does he get what dreams of ? Or is he left with more clever bite sized dreams in his hands lost in Never Never Land looking for Tigerlily instead of the elusive Tinkerbell?

The absurdity of love...FALSE

It's funny how standard, scripted television show moments can cleave your heart in two though I can say it isnt so. Even putting on an icy exterior or creating a witty little quip about the absurdity of love can be so bluntly false. Granted I can fool everyone into thinking that I don't care, or I dont feel deeply about anything when in I do. I do feel, I have felt or perhaps will feel.

The later I don't know if it is plausible. I swig denial daily and love still rears its deformed mug in my mirror. Do I love phantoms, do I love the imaginary inside of reality. Am I in fact a Miss Honeychurch on my way to becoming a Charolette Bartlett? (A room with A View) Who can say though I have my suspicions.

Stepping away from emotional caution and physical repression isn't as easy as it looks with the aid of a cocktail. I don't need a crutch even if it's covered in swarovski crystals. I hope to approach the amourous world fully aware with open arms. Singing "Maybe this Time"(Cabaret) in stuffy car with fogged windows and being kissed politely on the cheek before saying goodnight.

Corny as a cob one can say but shocking enough this happened. In my past, like holding a hand in secret while an English crooner sings on top of brightly lit Hollywood stage and I turn and say, I love you. And I meant it. Love to me isnt about the ideal but the idea, the idea of someone who can teach me to say "I love you, I love you and I will always be true." (Saint Etienne) Then again love can be watching someone leaving your flat "in the middle of winter, feeling cold and vacant in the english snow turning parody more obvious." This happened too and it was special.

You know life can be a gazebo gone pink...

Natalie Merchant: One Fine Day

Winter of my Indecision

My book: "Skipping Through Shadow" has been written, revised and is being read by friends. After the mass critique I will revise again. Revisions, rewrites but revisiting romance I think not. Friendships are refine and love is random. Not saying that love is insignificant or otherwise unimportant, it is completely the opposite. Love is all encompassing and important. Though whether love has a stake in my day to day life is to be seen. Maybe I am to well versed in the art of solitaire, or overly engaged to mute satisfaction. Last year my hands reached in amorous waters. Milky and opaque as they were I couldn't see myself there. Love for loves sake isn't me.

I see differently. My peripheral vision maybe shadowed in pale shadows of pink and blue but I got vision. I see love not as a means to an end. I see love as a continual. A evolution of intellect, sensuality and understanding.

Valentines doth day approach. The seeds of love are dormant but I'm hardly in the "Springtime of my Voodoo" more like the "Winter of my Indecision."

Song Choice: Ella Fitzgerald: Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

Pale Distortion

I've determined my value and set the price on unobtainable. I have grown accustomed to myself. Seriously, I won't set my smarts at a five when my paramour is a six because I'm a twelve.

Do the math, darling I don't calculate and you dont measure up.

I couldnt believe I saying this, or worse used to do this. I would paint myself in a dull hue, a placcid shade of him instead of letting my glow glisten like a gold coin at the bottom of a wishing well. Loneliness lashes fast and deep but I can dream. I can wish. "Did anyone say wish," Jambie asked. I did, I did, oh pick me, I want to hear my name in the magic mirror. Dont blur my image, no vaseoline on the surface. I want to be clean, babes, clean like my heart before I broke it in attempts at being his.

What happens when the looking glass cracks? Glass is fragil and transparent. So you sweep the shards and all you're left with is the pale distortion of someones elses derrière? Tragic truth isn't it? Honestly, why set your shine for sallow or ground your greatness? Be bright, be brave and be beautiful while migrating through the strange avenues of love.

Now on to the show, my book which is now being edited by Leilani Clark of Petals and Bones. Bhuka Spook: Skipping through Shadows-Chapter 4.

The engine revved and the two raced down the street haphazardly. Vanir’s boat of car wove through the traffic like a Japanese racing bike, exact and precise. Vanir knew her car and drove it like an expert. Bhuka adored how she handled the hairpin turns and begged her to drive faster. Vanir obliged and pressed her platformed boot to the gas pedal and sped all the way to Hesitancy Falls. Once they parked the car and walked for what felt like miles they eventually made their way to a tree-covered hill. Upon closer inspection, Bhuka realized it was not a small grove of trees clinging to the hilltop. It was a megalithic rope rooted banyan tree. The full span of the tree and its interlaced woody trunks dotted the entire expanse of the hillside. Stunned Bhuka could not comprehend how one tree could cover such a space without fully obstructing the sky.

“Bhuka, I see this tree was as much as a shock to you as it was to me. Even Fenris was awestruck. I love this tree but it is a Trojan horse. It houses an even deeper mystery that surpasses its beauty.”

Vanir leapt around the tree skillfully.

Bhuka followed in suit and treaded down the opposite side of the tree. When she reached ground level, Bhuka understood why Vanir referred to the banyan tree as a “Trojan horse.” Its roots as dramatic as they appeared on the top of the hill were nothing short than astonishing as below. They speared directly through the mound shrouding the preexisting structure underneath it in a foreboding blanket of caliginous green.

(Song choice... Stars: Wasted Daylight)

A is 4 Abscess

Do you believe in predestined fate or does free will have a foothold over your heart? My view is life has an infinite amount of paths, one choice can set fire to your past and create a volcanic eruption in the bowels of your soul. But the burn can't monogram my preception. I wish it could but it doesn't. The kindling is wet and the pyre untouched. Got to start with my A, B, C's, jumble and add a few addtional letters, ingredients to the recipe cooking. Keep the letter A in its place like me with a smile on my face, the letter B stays second, Be secondary and happy with the present, right. Swap the letter C for an S and make it for and Can I make do with what I have. Gimme an E for easy and another E enjoyment and repeat the serpentine S twice and what do you get, Abscess and abysmal abscess of no greater consequence than before. Destiny opens the window only to find my hand pulling the blinds. It's time to let go. I'm letting it all go.

Song...Prince: Still Would Stand All Time

My book: Skipping through Shadows, a brief snippet of chapter three.

You would not believe it but I even started saying the rosary. I was talking to Tamu one day, telling her this and that when she mentioned something about the rosary. She said the Virgin Mary introduced it to people so they could learn how to meditate on something bigger other than our own problems. She also said that saying the rosary was just as good if not better than going out dancing and having drinks. Since when do nuns even if they are postulants get to go out dancing and drinking? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Okay here is the nutty thing as soon as I started praying the rosary I forgot about being lonely, not that I don't miss you but I just stopped being so sad. Tamu was right, I guess being a postulant who listens to Prince and the Revolution doesn’t make you all that bad?

Gold Lipped, simple and understated

The candles in my bedroom are lit and I am feeling slightly sentimental, touched. Maybe it's Julie Andrew's singing "Feed the Birds" in the background that is shifting my mood like glitter in a glass snow globe. I'm missing my grandmother, my nammie tonight. I guess the after effects of Mother's Day is catching up. I miss my nammie, I miss her laugh, I miss her clanging the silver wear at two in the morning, I miss her pile of library books on the side of the sofa, I just miss her.

Mother's Day was difficult. I wore my smile and placed my sorrow in a velvet lined pocket. Safe. I understood as the holiday approached my mother would be deeply effected and there is no use in two people being unhappy. Regardless of the color blue tinting our hearts the day turned pink with a genuine happiness. Mumsie and I went to tea to celebrate, she had pineapple, coconut tea and I peach, apricot with several egg salad and cucumber sandwiches. Tres yummy. Bringing up the word pink again, prior to be being seated, I spotted a petite tea cup in the foyer. The word sweet came to mind when I thought of the Royal Grafton, gold lipped piece of perfection. I had to buy it, purchase it, take it-I needed it. Mumsie informed me that I would not bedoing any such thing. She said to put my wallet away. I did as instructed and presto, she bought it for me. The cup is pink, my nammie's color, simple and understated like nammie herself. Mumsie said the money being used was actually nammies. The item in question would be in all senses the last gift my nammie would buy me, a tea cup and saucer. I was tickled pink.

Shortly after we visited nammie, tea cup and saucer in hand at the cemetery. My grandfather, mumsie dear and I left flowers and then headed to my grandmother Nelly's house. We had a wonderful time talking, having food and a rather delicious glass of sangria laced with brandy. I also received my birthday presents. Three framed photographs of my great grandparents: Jeese I and Cora/Victoria-Gonzalo and Maria, and my grandparents: Jesse II and Nellie. I still have the smile on my face. The photos are beautiful black and whites set in the 1920's, 1950's and present day.

Song Choice: Feed The Birds.

Present days and present situations, I am mailing my book: Skipping Through Shadows, off this week to my friend Leiliani to edit. I am beginning to read it now and think, oh dear, I should draft it again. Life is fleeting as is inspiration but flaws are forever. Off it goes, wild as the wind....Here is yet another look into it, chapter two.

The heavy wooden doors to the infirmary swung open. Long faced and giant, Sister Amelior returned with basket full dried plants, stones and miniature glass bottles filled with multi colored liquids. A smaller nun with tan skin and magnanimous hazel eyes walked beside her. Bhuka recognized the nun from somewhere but could not place her. Though in the smaller nun’s slender hands Bhuka noticed she held a golden thurible. Bhuka starred curiously at it. Especially since the thurible had a curious French phrase engraved on its carved side: le parfum de la sainteté.

“What’s le parfum de la sainteté mean? Bhuka asked, creeping under her wrinkled bone colored sheets.

The smaller nun looked elfin standing next to tall, Sister Amelior as she answered. “Miss Spook, le parfum de la sainteté roughly translates to the perfume of the holy.”

Sister Amelior scowled as she sat her cumbersome wicker basket on an aged wooden dressing table across from Bhuka’s bed. “Sister, would you stop wasting time chatting with the child and set the thurible down. We have work to do.”

Back to Life

My blog has been ignored, my podcast has stopped and romance isn't on the plateau. My book, "Skipping through Shadows" is done. But life moves on. I am starting on book two of the Bhuka Spook sagas. This one should veer off polite introductions and explore the already established realtionships into much darker regions.

As you can see I am not in the Bell Jar just busy. My friend Leilani Clark, has wonderfully joined the Bhuka Band and will begin editing in the second week of May. I am so blessed to have been kissed by both, Apollo and Calliope for granting me inspiration to write, read and be connected with so many wonderful people. Again, I cannot thank Leilani enough!

The book, "Skipping through Shadows," finished itself bascially and Leilani is one of the best people help me progress. She like Katie Mc Cleary have been with Bhuka since she first started walking through the corridors of Saint Cecilia's of the Celestial Song. Once my revise is done, I will shipping it to select friends (Katie) and family along with a questionaire about their take on my book. Once I inhale all the critiques and exhale, do a little more revising, hopefully my quest for artist representation will be over as well.

Since you have been kind enough to read this, I will give you a sneak peek into Bhuka Spook's Skipping Through Shadows first chapter...

A subtle breeze, scented with the faintest trace of thyme, wafted by; it moved lightly through the outstretched branches of the plum. The aspen trees quivered, casting an undulating wave of yellow and green leaves towards the sky. Their muted colors heightened the strange unearthliness of the purple plums. One distinct plum dislodged itself from the tree and plummeted unforgivably onto Bhuka’s head.

Violaceous fruit gore spilled down Bhuka’s heart-shaped face; her onyx curls collapsed into sticky tangles. She dropped to the ground in a thud, just like the ruptured plum, her vision bleed Bordeaux, changing her eyes from brown to burgundy. The color and texture lulled Bhuka as her vision dissolved into a flickering cinemascope. She saw a thin, pale woman with skin like white acacia petals and hair as dark and curled as a midnight maelstrom. The woman’s right ear had nine earrings, and left ear held three. She was beautiful. A thin man with gold-dust skin and almond-shaped eyes stood by the woman’s side. Dressed in torn denim jeans and a white tank top that showed off the map of colorful tattoos cascading down his slight but muscular arms. The inked tangles of flowers, moons and stars glowed mysteriously in the sunlight.

The couple seemed out of place on the busy street. The two remained blissfully ignorant as they walked holding hands amongst the gawking and pointing townspeople. Bhuka watched, unmoving from her position on the ground. These were her parents. She smiled as she watched her father wrap his golden arms, with their complex designs, around her mother and kiss her.

There you have it, a sneek into my first book, "Skipping Through Shadows" and Bhuka's first vision. It's been fun and exciting working on this. Many of you know this was my thesis project back at New College, and shocking enough I stuck with it. I doubt Bhuka would have let me shelve her story, when she wants to talk, I listen and well...she certainly is talking. So thank you everyone for reading and i promise there is more to come!