shhh uhhhh I mean ahh and to think, bad writing and grammar drive me crazy. AND I TEACH WRITING FOR GOODNESS SAKE AHHHH

after all this time.... in th midst of a really painful migraine where I'm typing most of this with my eyes closed (haha I mean seriously I should leave it for you as only auto correct intended that would be awesome) anyway where was I oh yes.. only at this incomvoeniwnrnv hHaha ok I left that one for ya, only at this inconvenient mime... Iran ugh i mean time seruov seriously mauby I cannot post on a IPod with aigraobe.* shhh shah IpeAn I mean ahhhhhjhh not duh

*iPod with a migraine
**to be clear, the migraine doesn't have a mountains MIGRAINE -- I do
***lol like that cleared things up!! ha I intended on writing that it's not my iPod who has the migraine, it's me. but I believe sfter all of this nonsense that's become screamingly cleat CLEAR. please font DON'T scream.

oh how this had
has become this is reductions reduce rediculus I just wanted to post some haiku thata I just wrogtw wrote about japan because jahoa -- how appropriate of course bit I scribbled them on post it notes and forget this technology inhibit wow I can't even type u fi
followed by hugging hah ah lala I was trying to put a lot of h's like in ahhhh but with more and I either get inhibit or hugging and now this simple post of two haiku for japan hasbecome a parhetic n obvious display of both my inability to type on th iPod tharen
the Algeria n so kindly gave to me saxonrj six months ago but i still cant do it and also tellse me that Persians during my migraine days I should stick to wroth writing on poster
postits with pencil. oh haha and by persians -imeanto write perhaps ....:for goodness saké [oh ya but that lady lazy LAST one there, my friends, that was alll mine, no credit to autocorrect on that one for goodness---]

ok I mist UST UH MUST dash --

die DUE to technical difficulties..mograkinograine ie. migraine had has seen significant increase.

haik u late
r

x c

trying on all hats

discount shopping 
the colorful suburban way

[six words - free gift with purchase]

flickr

photos : by c

to fall leaves

--changing only as the leaves, falling, flying, turning, 
moving with the wind and against it
across empty parking lots searching, lost, but
just having fallen, again every season
find these colors fading and now and again--


rough winds disturb the poetry of the leaves

--they go with it thus,
let it take them far,
it has they'll fall, they have,
hit the pavement lightly,
lose sight of what was as it
wrecks havoc on what was coming into view
from above and despite-- and at the will
at the whim of your capricious nature--
like the seasons i've known them all

and at times i've even loved them
loved the rain loved them in that rain,
wind at times has changed direction,
and changed-- and
fallen-- still and standing
up against the wind, grasping on
to every last second of fading daylight

to fall, having fallen long ago 

and again and leaves to fall here

amidst fall and caprice-- and

the leaves fall, and the leaves change color,

and leaves--

change the color darkness seasons evolve

and wind, and nights and you become colder

and wind and color and early dusk and--

leaves-- and leaves-- to leave-- and fall--

to fall

•••

all photos by : c (my flickr)

(been super busy with the newspaper will write more soon!) 

x c

suburban nights on the edge of fall

 








just, you know...... where we find ourselves. in the midst of-- in the midst of season and sentiments that--

-- that when you change the lighting just like so-- seem like any other location yet like nothing else, and nevertheless, it's...... what we've got right now, so what we must come to appreciate in small details such moments of delight, and light that often blurs as heads turn and headlights-- cars pass, eyes close in frustration as minds turn blank lulled by the mundane sound of the same steps in the direction we're always headed. and with any small drop of luck from that fountain in the middle of the over-used, crowded strip mall where kids run around without proper parental supervision and parking lots are battlefields where the one spot that's left empty is where you discover the guy next to you parked way over the line and your s.u.v. just will not fit-- but with any drop of luck from that out-of-place, ornate copy of a spanish, andalusian-esq fountain smack dab in the middle of this suburban strip mall, any coin you manage to pick up rather than step over and actually wish on a toss, you will come to find a drop of acceptance, no, even better--- you will see, or at least catch a glimpse of what i'm really doing and if nothing else, appreciate my attempt to capture light in what we have here, to appreciate what we're participating amongst, the bigger picture, and to know (at times) that the coin you --just this time-- didn't step on but instead tossed in the fountain on a wish, to almost believe that the light and focus, the changing seasons and perspective and colors, just might-- could-- will--  bring us just a splash closer-----

so ya, suburbia.

see my suburban dust flickr album!


x c

sunday comics--

he's mr.
So and So
and i'm ms.
I Think You Know

music boxes 
kindred spirits
sunday comics

and 
i knew 
the words



 

sunday comics 
with Linus.  

yes, THAT Linus. 
who else.  

yes really, the REAL Linus from the peanuts cartoon strip (minus the blanket, he left it in the car) the most amazing man you ever did meet-- cartoonist, painter, writer, thinker, joker, smooth talker, my mentor, sunday lunch date, partner in crime and pen pal.... ....Linus doesn't have a computer, or an email address, he doesn't use the internet and still draws his cartoons by hand and submits them in the post.. so we send each other good old-fashioned letters. "we're the exception" he announced with a grin to me and everyone else at the lunch table this past sunday, referring with pride to our out-dated habit of correspondence via handwritten letters sent in the mail.

Linus has been a mentor to me in my writing and in every other creative endeavor i've attempted. he's also just somehow always been there letting me know it's ok to see things in a different light, to try things another way, and to live a life that others might never really understand, he supports me as i attempt to discover what to do with all the extra details i continue to notice about this world.

he told his parents he wanted to be a cartoonist at the age of six. he used to wait on the porch for his father to come home from work every night with newspaper in hand, so that they could read the comics together. he worked with charles schulz (creator of the peanuts comic strip) and reminds me all the time that schulz used to tell him that even if he wasn't paid to draw the peanuts comic strip, he would have done it every day anyway, that's how much a part of him it was, that's how much it meant to him. and i got it. so did Linus. 

at the age of 83 he's still working hard and has made his living as a clever cartoonist, a brilliant artist (his paintings are fantastic) and a colorful comic on and off the page. So ya, this Linus is real. Just wish he could read my blog, i've showed him a few times how to access this internet thing, but it was just an art from another time that he didn't seem to grasp, so instead i'll print it out and send it to him in the mail.

sunday comics--

x c

photos : by c

more sunday comics photographs : flickr

last time i mentioned Linus : here

trying on the reading glasses at 30

had a dinner party last night in the warm still summerish air of the candle-lit backyard, in the company of a few good friends from college and paris who i don't get to see very often, the algerian, and my parents (my mom planned it as a surprise thing for my bday today) it was really nice, really good friends, really good conversation, really really really laughing. really.

 

and i figured since i'm 30 now and people seem to think that's a big deal and old, that i should act old and look old, so i should maybe wear my mom's reading glasses (the drugstore kind) i mean, 'old' people wear reading glasses right? ;) so i wore them all night i can't say they (the glasses) made it easy to see when walking around, especially outside at night... but i suppose like all things... like this new age..new decade... i'll get used to it. and on the bright side, i am excited for the potential of a new accessory--- and if all else fails, i'll wait another 10 years and try again...

x c 

(check out the full story on my flickr!)

photos : by c (flickr)

just wanted reflection : got life reflected

(six word story)

...during photo shoot with my photographer friend cristian el chico de camisa morada, i might just have convinced him to start a little photography somethin' with me... it's in the works. so what you think about that! (but he needs a blog... right?)

(more) photos : by c : here

x c

found the peace i was holding

photos : by c

x c

any corner

staying out of the lines it really doesn’t matter where blurs blush turns to look could have happened anywhere any corner but this in passing and now--

photos : by c

in this light--

photos : by c

in time-- in words in
silence --in every hour years
light dark eyes and will---

the tunnel, the end, in this light--

photos : by c

well, maybe i used to have a really different sort of life a few years ago, the kind where people still tell me, wow that's the kind of life i only dream about, what was it like, it must have been amazing. and sure yes it was. these days i don't even mention it anymore. time to-- because-- you see, between that and the world constructed in my mind through creativity and words, and from behind these headaches and sunglasses, i haven't seen much of reality. i haven't even looked at what's right next to me because none of it even resembled what i thought it would or should or-- or what i thought i knew i wanted it to look like. the life i was supposed to have. and that probably sounds familiar and i guess they say it never is or does or will--

photos : by c

and then i just sort of-- after all this time, started taking pictures everyday of every day with my old, temperamental digital camera. we have an on-again-off-again relationship in that it only actually takes pictures on occasions, when i hit it or shake it or when it's not telling me 'memory card error' or 'corrupt data' or when i can at least identify who is in the blurry photos. but it works. sometimes. and in these photos i've captured-- there's simplicity in the perspective, change, colors, fade, or focus. seeing things in another light or if nothing else-- trying 'in this light' and muting the shades of my words, to the simple, the corners of my world right now. corners of my mind and the corners that i've discovered right here, i was perhaps even hiding in them, and now i see, i don't have to go anywhere and they are taking me somewhere completely different.


photos : by c

it's been three years now since i moved back home from the five years of my life that i spent in paris but you won't see any pictures of eiffel towers these days, just cars and pavement buildings and suburbs for now and hours that glow when you really can't tell where i am or where any of us are. and i'm not looking away from these photographs anymore because they're even better in this light-- this isn't to say that i've figured it all out and everything is suddenly perfect for me, because you should have seen me yesterday, but i have my good moments, i don't think that the light at the end of the tunnel was just the flash of my camera, i think you were there with me and actually we both could have seen it but we just didn't-- too busy hiding in the shadows. and really, everyone has pictures of the eiffel tower, so in a way our subtle every day photos are most spectacular because no one else has captured lived laughed or written the moment in this exact light.



x c

--under construction--

not the blog, just my mind.

it's rather simple. like the old nokia cell phone i've reverted back to using in the past few weeks since my smaller more socially acceptable cell phone died. wires crossed uncrossed and now at rest. a little over a month on a new headache medication and the world seems to have slowed, calmed, nearly emptied-- through this view out the same sunglasses i always wear, it's in a light i've never seen before. simple. just phone calls received, dialed. text messages-- not enough memory to save the ones from last week so just delete and start fresh. a familiar phone-- so old i think it's probably back in style-- remember the old nokia you could drop in the gutter and take in the shower and spill coffee on and step on or drive your car over and it never broke or stopped working-- it's that one, and it works perfectly and it makes me laugh when i use it and it's easy. it's simple. {abby one of my young students thought i accidentally brought my house phone to the cafe the first time she saw it! she still calls it my house phone} but you know what, it works better than any of the fancy mobile phones i've used for years and it's reliable. the reception is unbelievable and the battery never dies it's suddenly everything i needed.

as i've often mentioned i've been battling chronic headaches for years and going through a series of new medications and treatments. the latest approach was the most drastic, and i've found some headache relief, but all at once everything else seemed to change as well, thoughts come slower and are often lost right in mid sentence, and words--- well-- i feel like we're starting over again. this has been a transforming month. another life. things are somewhat simpler, and i almost like it. but some of it has also been unbelievably frustrating and disheartening and just exhausting.

in the midst of all of this i had a visit from my dear norwegian friend and i will share some of our photographic explorations of suburbia. and then there's something that i found which i'd thought existed but also somewhat took with a grain of salt--as myth-- urban legend, turned out to be walking with me all along just like they said but-- you know how things come and go and if you listen closely you can hear me whispering it right now, but maybe you can feel it under my words, and words to come. until then, and until i figure out how to merge the new and old ways of living, thinking, functioning, observing, appreciating and most importantly writing, i might play around with posting some of the photos i've been taking lately with my really old, faulty digital camera, as for the past month, my words have been lost somewhere inside this head of mine that's trying to find its way through the pain and back again speaking the same language, and learning yours. the headaches aren't completely gone, and even though at times it makes me dizzy, somehow things stopped spinning. please excuse my unplanned absences as i adjust to all of this and still find my words, and you-- and back again.

x c

photos : by c