Red Underwear and No Resolutions

I am wearing red underwear today. In Spain, people wear red underwear for good luck, one of my friends who lives in Germany tells me. So I am today--why not?

I have a new story idea that might be the one! I am very inspired by the darkness and eros that are swirling in me to produce this hopeful charm.

I do not believe in resolutions, but I do want to write more as my mother who I lost this year (in body) wanted me to. It's funny, I started the year with her and end it without her. Part of me wants to hang onto the year because she lived in it...another part wants the promise of a new year with less sorrow.

Either way, Happy New Year, and here's to a lot more blog posts. Sometimes I am lazy!

Insulation

Finished NaNo but as usual, my new passion is a new piece I am working on. I know it is a reflection of me not being able to follow through. But at least the passion for it will fill me a bit. This is my first Christmas without my mother and there is a draft inside me. My creativity is a bit of insulation for me. It is the thing that warms me when I feel cold inside. Not every bit of creative thought comes from a cold place in me, but when it does it warms me, revitalizes me that I can reconstruct everything that happens to me.

This story is a new theme for me. A spin off from the themes in my NaNo novel, very dark and at the bottom of Pandora's Box. Opened it and like a yoga pose, my head down to the bottom to get up every last bit of what I should not have even known. For this story, I have to be fearless. It is getting easier and easier for me to be so...

Finished!

I completed NaNo at the witching hour. I have never been opposed to being a witch!

So this novel took me to some dark places and let me feel the hum of recurring themes of mine that were lurking in some of my places all along.

I have discovered the mind might try to hide, but the body will not or vice versa. The things that fascinate us are part of us. Just beneath the skin, or right on the surface.

I finished the novel, but I opened Pandora's box and I am not afraid...

Whew

At the mid point of NaNo, at 25000 words I can say whew, and what a sigh of relief, almost like a bath in rose petals while it is still warm. I won last year, and am on the fast track this year. I have been reading and writing nonstop erotica so I am infused with it like a good flavored vodka. It was reading a lot of Black Lace novels two by Kristina Lloyd who I raved about in several previous posts that inspired me to go out of my comfort zone with erotic writing. I was talking to a male friend of mine who is pretty unshockable, and when I told him one of the ideas I was toying with he told me it was DAMN NASTY. I was kind of startled by that, but shocking him encouraged me to shock myself more. When you have to finish a 50000 word novel you do not have time to censor. I will let you know who I am December 1...

Alive

That is the ultimate sensation inside me. I am alive, when my mother died I was not so sure I would be. But I am here, on the shore of what is the ocean of me. I am connected, I am cohesive, I make sense. I sustain myself.

I have been writing like mad, one of my friends every time he comes near me he creates a story inside me. I am nursing one of those, and a woman I met today--a sock fetishist--raved to me about socks that she got from Barcelona. Does anyone love socks that much?

How is the world so filled with life and stories, and I am such a procrastinator? Am I surviving or barely making it as a writer? Well maybe the ideas are alive in me. I read my astrological chart and it says I am due for much success in my middle age. I am not quite there yet...

Smell The Daisies

Finished Darker Than Love. I love to read people who inspire me and stretch my mind as a writer. Kristina Lloyd is so daring and creative erotically! Fearless! Maybe there is some karma granted from reading her novels for my own writing. I have a degree in Creative Writing, but the true lessons in writing is reading and loving what you read. You in turn learn to love what you write, or write what you love.

One of my friends just submitted an erotic story for an anthology, and was like Leonore, you should try doing that! What a novel idea! Me writing! Submitting!--there is a double entendre there, yes?

I am definitely game for doing this very thing. Writing! Submitting! Stay tuned...Right now, I am reading and letting ideas churn. Taking time to stop and smell the daisies until they are blurred...

Black Lace

I just bought a copy of Kristina Lloyd's Darker Than Love, and dropped everything I was reading to start and finish it. She was a pleasant discovery of mine in a favorite used bookstore, when I found Asking For Trouble. If you have not already, drop everything and pick up one or the other! She is the kind of author I read once, and become a devotee. I was like this with Emma Holly and M. J. Rose before her...

Skin Story

I met a woman who participated in this. I am not sure how long it has been going on, but I am tempted to become part of it! The woman I met had a bevy of tattoos, but this one stood out to me as a writer. I went on the site, and discovered that one of the requirements is that you have to use a standard font for the tattoo, which underscores again why I was so drawn to the lovely tattoo. I love to play with fonts, but all of the books that we read are in classic fonts. I am not going to tell you what word she had on her, but is it not fascinating to imagine that all of these people are out in the world and that if they were all put together they would tell a story?

Open to Everything

Three weeks into my yoga practice, I have become a completely different person. Not that I was not mellow, but I am mellower.

I take an anusara yoga class, and my instructor is an artist/yoga instructor who forces us in the most gentle way ever to do more than we think we can. The first week with her I was sore in places I did not know that I could be sore! The following week, I got my leg well close to my shoulder and did not feel a bit of pain. She has a never say never approach, and I just go with the flow. She did a difficult pose, and I said a little bit aloud that I was not going to be able to do that. She said that we were not having a competition, but that we have to be open to at least trying everything.

My body and my mind are open to everything. In terms of my art, I am still tabula rasa, but the new ink is smeared all over my head like henna.

My blogging is like yoga too. I am way past baby steps, I am walking...

Tabula Rasa

Whatever I did, I do not know in terms of what keys I pressed on the computer. All I know is that I lost approximately 10000 words on the novel I have been working on. I was not sure about the direction, so maybe this was a sign, like I have a chance to go back in time and change fate. How many times in your life do you have the chance to go back and change everything? Well writers are a special breed because we are always going back and changing things, but with the kinds of thoughts I was having maybe it is a good thing that I can go back smarter with these characters. I had just begun writing out of sequence, so those pages do not bother me that much, but the pages that led to those hurt me a lot more. I just have to pretend that I have been given a chance to do better and go with it...I cannot stop working on this piece, I have too much personally invested in it...

Lachrymose

Lachrymose, just left MoMA, after seeing Le Notti di Cabiria. I do not want to give away any of the story, but there is a scene with a hypnotist...there is a part where a man says to Cabiria that we all are pure and innocent at heart, that there is romance in all of us--he did not say it like that but that is how I heard it. He said that we wear masks of cynicism. I think we do, we all say that we do not need love but the minute we meet someone who makes us change out minds we are all suckers. I have a cut out piece of paper that reads love makes fools of us all.

I think it does, and that it is the best part of all of us. That love has the ability to take us all out like a two bit gangster. It roughs us up, hangs us over a fish tank with piranhas in it and breaks our bones and hearts. But it is still the thing we all crave and go after blindly. Maybe because I am a violent romantic, but don't we all know it is true?

As long as out of it we can stand on our own two feet and go on like before...

Pink Granny Panties

I did not know it was National Underwear Day until I saw it on the morning news. Let's see, I am peeking...actually my hot pink bra strap is peeking at me. I also know I have on pink granny panties. No thongs for me, I like to feel my butt covered. Cotton too. I love colors and patterns, but cotton and my butt must be covered.

What are you wearing?

Pornology New York

In the span of a few months, I have been bombarded by sex in New York. On the cover of New York magazine, in plays including My First Time and my most recent installment CineKink's Pornology New York.

Everything I see as a writer hopefully contributes to a better understanding and sensibility to me with writing about sex. There was a scene in the CineKink feature that I cannot even describe because I am not sure what the man was doing to his girlfriend, except to say that it really looked painful.

And she loved it even though she cried and was visibly in pain. Pain for her experiencing it and me watching it! But when it was over, he said to her who loves you? She fell into his arms with ease and cried, at which point he was so tender and loving to her. You really have to trust someone in a situation like that. I guess you really need to love them and know that they love you because could it be any less?

How lucky am I to live in a city that is so sexually saturated media wise as an erotic (and romantic!) writer?

Post Rainy Sunday Brunch

Look at me--first I was not posting, now I have two posts in one day!

I had brunch at the Mercer Kitchen, a lovely lamb sandwich and a molten Valrhona chocolate cake that was so delicious that I almost was ashamed to eat it in public. I covered my face with my hand, and could not stop moving my feet out of my flip flops with each forkful.

But I digress--

I was sitting in the dry Mercer Kitchen (wet like crazy outside in New York City even though it was not supposed to be that bad with the threat of thunder storms) next to a man who travels between Miami and New York, and is such a regular there that he kept beckoning the hostess over to talk. Now the interesting part is I saw out of the corner of my eye that he had raised his glass of Fiji water to a woman who was sitting in the adjoining hotel lobby. My mind went crazy, as much of a Francophile as I am I ignored the French woman on my other side who was saying that she had been in New York so long that when she went to France they told her she could not speak French anymore--even as I am planning on going to Paris and am working on my French...I wondered if the man on my other side had had a long standing flirtation with the woman in the lobby? When he raised his glass, she looked at him bewildered. I was not sure if she was nervous or what. I kept an eye on their progress--he seemed to have stopped worrying about her and was talking to the hostess who he asked could he bring dessert and coffee into the lobby? The hostess said that he could only bring coffee. So with a grimace he took coffee solo into the lobby and sat across from the woman there with his cell phone. I actually scooted over in my seat to see what happened. But it was not until I was leaving that I saw the woman sitting lotus posed on the couch laughing with him.

That was a classic scene for an hopeless romantic, wasn't it? Kicked my inner Anais Nin into effect too because Anais was a brilliant diarist and people watcher. I think I have done a pretty good job in this post--oui?

Post Venus in Furs

I have stopped feeling so angry and I am happy to post. I am online working on my novel in progress. Met another writer yesterday who wrote a novel after her mother died and it occurred to me that I have created a thing of love and originality that happened after my mother died.

I can still do it, I will continue to do it. I have been writing like mad. But honestly, my inner Anais Nin has been inhibited. I am not sure what is bringing that on, but I am working to push past it. I can get down and dirty like all of the rest!

I am about to have brunch in the city--so many places around me I have spent part of the morning writing--a pretty sexy scene not physically explicit--maybe verbally explicit?

Definitely!

Maybe settling down with a good meal will make my mind wander...

Have you ever read Venus in Furs? I was reading the first few pages in a used bookstore cafe and was it only me who was laughing my head off? Although it was nice to see Sacher-Masoch instead of de Sade. I wish I had had the nice Klimt cover though!

Rage

Not any happier today...

Gratitude Tuesday

Temper, Temper

My temper reared its lovely head in a piece I wrote and shared with some people. I knew when I wrote this poem I was angry. I mean the words I used made it pretty simple "selfish," "bastard," "you(accusingly)."

But the response that the people who read it had to it made me realize that there was even deeper anger there than I had imagined. I was really mad at this person. The anger had been submerged in my mother's death, but it was deep and came out on the page so that the comments that I got made me reevaluate what I had written.

It was very angry and I am grateful. I will take anger--rage as a muse any day. I wrote my piece with more than a bit of a temper and I allowed for my own therapy and recovery. I began several pieces in poem and prose that are helping me to get even more of this out.

I am not watching my temper...

Gratitude Tuesday

Sustenance

I am writing my first Gratitude Tuesday in a long time. I am grateful today for physical and mental sustenance. Particularly mental. When my mother died, I knew I was going to continue to write, but I was not sure where I would find the inspiration from.

I have been startled to discover I still experience joy, happiness, passion--intense good emotions. I am able to take their sap and use them.

I am also able to utilize my sadness. Writers at the end of the day are leeches, we suck the sap out of every experience, every movement--everything. I have never been ashamed of the things that have inspired me or the things that I have utilized for the sake of art.

It is art at the end of the day, isn't it? Whatever medium. A blog, a novel in progress, the new feelings you have for another person...all of it is art right?

I am grateful...

Sharing 101

My mother always told me to be careful when you get comfortable talking. It is like its own sort of intoxication. One second you are talking about simple things, the next you are telling someone what color underwear you have on.

Well I did not reveal that, but I did let someone read a peek at a new project of mine that I realized was a bit racy. Nothing terrible, nothing that Anais Nin would not have be proud of! This guy that was sharing with his work, so I shared with him. I never share my work in progress. But I did. And it was liberating, it was okay to share with him and it was okay for him to share with me.

Then I let another friend read it. Now I am not so anxious anymore, I want to show someone else.

I think I was afraid of not being perfect, I have to learn to throw that inhibition out. I got input which was even better. I really probed both people.

I hope they are still my friends!

Baby Steps

I have forgotten how to blog, and yet I am going to try again. I might have even stopped, but I came back and saw that CeeCi said "Please don't."

Thank you.

The world remains the same, even though my mother died. At first, I was not even sure how people could be happy--hadn't they gotten the memo?

My mom was the sort of woman who could get out of any storm.

She did not get out of this. It is like losing a mom and a superhero. Yet even in her demise, she was the most potent and amazing woman I have ever known.

I miss her.

She was the one who told me about sex at a young age and started the obsession with it. She knew that I liked to write about it and certainly talk about it.

She was fine with that.

My mom was my best friend and my inspiration and it is because of her that I am going on.

Without her.

So I am back to the land of blogging.

Baby steps, baby steps...

Here I Am

I won Script Frenzy.

I lost a loved one.

I could disappear...haven't I?

The Frenzy

I went to a screening for my friend's film short. Why did I feel like a nerd? I was the only person looking at the screen. I am not sure why the other people were there. I wanted to see the film which I discovered was in a foreign language. I needed the director (my friend) to translate to me from the French above the music and liquor rising like heavy steam.

Images from the film are still with me. I feel brazen to want to create one for myself, but then I never said I was not brazen. Since I have to develop the script the day that I begin writing, I just have been collecting ideas. I asked a friend to write down a phrase that she said in the midst of conversation. She understood. Why I love my artist friends. They understand the madness. The frenzy.

Gratitude Tuesday

Re-

I am back on a Tuesday of all things! I am happy for the prefix "re"--rebirth, redo, reincarnation, reeverything.

There is a second chance for everything.

I am preparing myself for Script Frenzy. I will still blog, but that is going to be my focus. I am sucking up life right now for the visuals that I think film requires that I need to write down. I am going to have to write my eye. Exactly what my eye sees which is a challenge and a pleasure at once.

I am going to reinvent the way I create. Wish me luck!

Missed Gratitude Tuesday...Again

So many things have been going on, and I am the type of person if I do not write about it right away it is lost.

I am aglow from new friends who embrace their inner Anais Nin in their e-mails and IMs. One should be so lucky to have friends like that...

...and I am. Tuesdays have become a day that does not embrace me having the time to blog--maybe I can anticipate my gratitude on Monday?!

I started working on yet another new story. But better yet, I picked up an old one I had not worked on with new inspiration.

I am glowing and full of all kinds of gratitude!

Missed Gratitude Tuesday

...I am going to continue next Tuesday. I want to keep some decorum. Life has been so hectic...I want to keep something still...

Babycakes and Babeland

I was wandering about the Lower East Side. I am a native New Yorker, but do not think that means I do not have to HopStop certain parts, or discover somewhere I have not been like Columbus. I knew I had to get to Babycakes for their amazing spelt and gluten free chocolate frosted cupcake tops--I did not realize that the rest of the world feels like me and thinks that is the best part of the cupcake hands down. I want to go there now, but I am in the East Village and it would take a while to get there...

This is a lovely irony. I am all for planning my sugar shopping, but when I wandered into Babeland on Rivington Street, I was the chica who walked out with a bottled water. I was salivating over the erotic books there--instructional and fictional. But I walked out with room temperature water with a pink Babeland label. The cashier was lovely, said to me there was a rip off coupon on the bottle which I almost used for my $1.60 water. But then had a change of heart. Decided to save the coupon for a rainy day.

Both of us were glad I made that decision...

Gratitude Tuesday

Quirks

In my I Heart Memes post, CeeCi mentioned my semi addiction to Tori Amos...

Her new album came out today, and it is the new soundtrack in my head. I cannot even begin to describe how good the album is. I am the sort of girl who usually does not love an album until I have heard it a few times. I have never met a Tori song I did not like. The lyrics, the voice, the sounds. What a sensation.

I read years ago in an interview in Rolling Stone, Tori Amos said that she was an acquired taste like anchovies. I remember my first Tori album was "Boys for Pele." Let's just say my mother does not like anchovies. No matter how low I played the album she would hear it and tell me to turn it down more.

A crush of mine once asked me to waltz to a remix of "Hey Jupiter." I was just getting to know him and I don't dance much so I said no, but it was once of the most romantic things a guy has ever proposed to me.

There is a Tori album that is the soundtrack to infinite parts of my life. Even when her words cannot be literally translated for me, I find something I feel in them and am captured.

Maybe Tori is one of my quirks--among many! Thank God for them because if we were all the same we would be nothing.

The Grindhouse Rules

I saw Grindhouse last night with one of my adventurous friends, who also went with me to see Les Anges Exterminateurs, and I laughed until my face was stained with tears. It was so over the top that I could not help myself. I laughed during Les Anges as well--because of the over the top sex in place of the violence.

Everything is over the top in the movies. At least Grindhouse was supposed to be. Someone was reading New York, the Sex and Love issue which of course I read (the coolest thing I discovered there was X Tube). The article about the rare species aka New York City virgins reminded me of an idea that is being fed to me in every "literary" book I read, and by other writers that the only way New Yorkers know how to connect is by being physical. This idea disturbs me, but as I am laughing my head off about extreme sex and violence in the movies I have seen, I think about a line from Joni Mitchell's song "People's Parties." "Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.”

Maybe those tears on my eyes were for the still that it is so easy in this city for people to feel awkward about sex. I am 32 years old, and I am talking to friends who still cannot have frank conversations about sex. Friends who cannot say fuck--what the fuck is that? In Grindhouse, there were fucks on top of motherfucks, and it was annoying because cursing is like a fine liquor--good in small doses. How can you not be able to say fuck, while fucking other people? Because to me getting to know someone’s body before getting to know that person is fucking. It’s not making love until there is love involved. Call me traditional or whatever. I am disturbed by people who can be so hypocritical. The people, who smirk and grin during gratuitous sex scenes on the screen as if they have never had it, cringe at real emotion and love seeing blood everywhere.

Is trying to connect with people in New York City really such a grindhouse drama?

Anais Anais

I saw this Irving Penn photograph of Anais Nin. I was talking with a woman who was remarked about Nin being a polygamist--one husband on each coast of the continental United States. I think it was kind of cool! I mean I am not the sort of person who would want to marry two men, but I can have nothing against a woman who was her age and able to pull it off. It is inspirational.

I told a guy I know so many times that he should read Little Birds that he finally bought it. I am waiting to see if he likes it, I have never tired of turning people onto her.

This image courtesy of http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa393.htm

Gratitude Tuesday

Persistence

This one gets written small and sweet. Fortune cookie style. Imagine breaking the cookie--preferably chocolate--and seeing this in tiny red writing:

Much gratitude for persistence because sometimes you have to go on when there is nothing to go on with.

I Heart Memes

Theresa whose blog is filled with faerie dust and beauty posted this meme. One of the most unique I have ever seen. I am interested in the results, here goes:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want -- good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

Gratitude Tuesday

Observation

I believe in the power of observation. Whether it is inward or outward, there is not another way in the world to learn than to look at what is around you and in you.

Have you ever felt like a failure? As if you could do nothing right even though you were trying harder than you ever could? Did you ever think what am I doing? The common denominator for everything in your life is you. You can change yourself.

I am a chameleon. I got the ability from my mother who is much more stable than me. She knows how to keep me grounded. I am the kind of person who will plan for the worse case scenario because I want to be prepared. My mother told me that I get myself all wound up all the time when there is not even a reason for me to feel that way.

Now when I fall, I let my mouth savor the soft metallic of the scrape wherever, and think I have gotten up, I can move on.

Just an observation about me.

If I was not an observer, I would not be a blogger. I watched what other people were doing and decided to join in. Being a blogger is one of the best things in my life. I see things--observe things like I never did before. Other people like I never did before.

I am richer for it.

I licked observation on a sugar cone today. More observation led me to free ice cream cone day at Ben and Jerry's. I actually hate ice cream cones, but there were no cups so I had to have one to place the fudge brownie ice cream in.

A lot to observe on the periphery of Times Square I might add.

Have you done your taxes? Oh the observation that I have not means I have to get off of this computer and do that!

Objets D'Art

Enough blogging about--here is my completed story in the rough. Please feel free to tell me what you think, and this time please it has sexual content so please do not say I did not preface the piece with that knowledge...if you are not old enough just don't bother...

Shasha was relatively that—was his name Martin?—could not have been more anxious than she was.
She rolled a finger on her hangnail, chewed just sufficiently enough that she knew exactly when to stop.
So that she would nor draw blood.
Even though the spot was a bruised red color.
One more tug with her teeth and she would be a vampire.
For the entire week that the figure model had been there all she had done was study the tattoo on the inside of his forearm..
It was a symbol she knew in Morocco that was on doors to keep evil spirits away.
She could not help but wonder what he wanted to keep away.
Maybe autovampires, she made herself smile before she remembered she was now the one in a vulnerable position.
Because now—martin her professor called his name –was walking around to see what the class had come up with.
Her professor had suggested that everyone focus on the part of him that was most striking to them.
“To capture his essence,” she had gesticulated wildly. “To capture his soul.”
The closer that martin came to her canvas, the more she felt herself pull at that hangnail.
Until finally she took in the taste of blood like a drug.
Closed her eyes.
Opened them.
Saw Martin in front of her.
“No one else even noticed the tattoo. Or anything that was on me.
Shasha looked into his eyes.
She wasn’t so shy with a guy if she had something to say.
“Are you Moroccan?”
”No,” he smiled.
Up close he wasn’t even that stunning, but his smile and personal demeanor engaged her.
In his back pocket was a novel in Portuguese.
He was actually Brazilian.
She understood bits and pieces from listening to Astrud Gilberto.
But it did not help her now.
When Martin walked away, she felt the sense of loss she was more than accustomed to.
Folded her things up.
Walked out of the classroom.
Martin was standing there.
“Are you playing hard to get?” he asked awkwardly.
Shasha frowned.
“Typical,’ was her clever comeback even if he was too stupid to know.
He followed her down the hall.
She shrugged.
Looked up into his eyes without flinching.
“Typical of really good looking guys to think the world revolves around them”
Typical of really smart girls to stereotype any man who is interested in them,” he said to her back.
Like shards of ice darted between her shoulder blades.
When she turned to look at him, the only thing that stilled her tongue was the look of injury on his face that mirrored hers.
Her turned her head to the side as she adjusted her sketchbook.
Her glasses fell forward slightly so she had to adjust them.
“So what do you have to say? What is your interest in me?”
”You’re putting me on the spot so I am destined to fail.”
Shasha knew she was being a bitch to him, but she could no more stop herself from doing it than anything else.
“I know I am being a bitch,” she said softly. “What do you want from me?”
“Are you doing that on purpose? It is nearly irresistible of you…”
She pushed the door to the stairwell.
Felt him close behind her.
She hadn’t been thinking, and walked into the deserted stairwell with him.
When she saw his arm, the hamsa on his inner forearm was not protecting either of them from evil.
At first his lips were just on the nape of her neck.
She sensed he would not do anything with them that she did not want him to do, as she took his arm.
Put her lips against the good luck symbol that she had drawn and colored so brilliantly in class.
One girl had drawn his penis so that it looked like what Georgia O’Keeffe did with vaginas.
“Does it have to be more than this?” she whispered, realized she was raising her hand to her mouth to chew the hangnail.
She whispered so low, she was not even sure he heard her.
“No, it doesn’t have to be anymore than you want it to be.”
Shasha kissed the hamsa, warm, lightly haired and veins beneath her mouth.
It was impossible to resist letting the tip of her tongue run along its path.
Once her tongue hit off of his tattoo, she realized she was not worshipping his tattoo like she had been doing the entire week in class.
She had entered him finally.
What she had been seeking all along.
Her lips trembled at this realization.
What should happen next?
Instead of following the heart pounding behind her breast, Shasha followed her mouth.
When Martin grabbed her left breast, he grabbed her so close to her heart it made it easy for her to romanticize was happening.
She was equally imaginative and romantic.
His hand moved from her breast to cover her eyes without lifting from her body so her skin flamed in the crescent shaped path he took.
Even the soles of her feet as if hot coals beneath them gave her goose bumps.
She felt the same texture at the nape of her neck, wondered if it prickled under his lips when he kissed her there?
His hand moved again without lifting from her body to her right hip, seizing her to him.
Her breath was awkward; it was odd to breathe still on fire the coolness of the wall soothed her.
Their lips came together and when he moved his mouth from hers, she licked her lips to continue to feel the warmth that remained before it was completely gone.
She looked at him through sit eyes to see his soft smile evolve into a kiss.
This time she did not let him pull away.
Even if his mouth moved from hers she held his body close to his.
So he knew that she wanted him with her, close and warm.
She felt a large piece of turned up paint against the small of her back.
There was work being done in the corridor and the scent of paint became rampant.
Not the kind of paint that she loved, but house paint.
Her hands loosened their hold
Even though she was standing with her legs jarred and licking her lips when Martin was not kissing them, she knew she did not have any intention of having sex with him in a college corridor.
Martin suddenly took her hand, her bag and led her down the stairs.
Shasha did not understand, but she did feel awkward back pressed to a peeling wall.
Even I f she was with martin.
“There’s a place that I go after posing for the class, “he said holding her hand which made her unable to think if anything else but the sensation of his hand in hers.
She was not sure what felt warmer when she had her hand around a mug of coffee at the café they ended up at—his hand or his eyes?
He had the sort of eyes that it seemed like he wanted you, but he was just looking at you.
Returning your gaze.
It was hard to marry that notion when her lips still warmed from the kissing they had done in the corridor.
She could not distinguish the difference between his fingers and peeling paint now.
Her foot hit his under the table, and she wondered if he thought it was intentional.
Their eyes met at the same moment, Shasha could not helot but smile.
“What is that book you are reading?”
Shasha looked up from her coffee; her eyes fell on his novel.
“You are all looking at me so I have to focus on something”
”So you were looking at me?”
Martin smiled.
“I was looking at your book like you were looking at me tattoo.”
“Touché,” Shasha smiled on the rim of the coffee mug. “Touché””
She did not question him after that.
Just took his hand in hers hen they were done at the café.
Let him take her downtown somewhere she did not know but close enough to kiss the Brooklyn Bridge .
“Where are we?” she asked standing after awhile in his unlit apartment.
“Where were we is more what I was thinking”
His face was lit by the flashing car lights in the distance from the bridge as he stroked her mouth, throat between her breasts through her t-shirt.
“Everything here is soft unlike on the stairwell at the university.”
A drive of heat between her legs cooled a bit by his body close to hers. She wanted where they were as well.
For her that meant she had to turn off her mind.
Close her eyes.
Eyes closed, she felt his body move from her.
She followed him with her pelvis which as entire hand covered her triangle through a flared skirt.
“Keep your eyes closed. I want you to listen.”
Shasha was obedient, eyes close she heard music in Portuguese.
She tried not to think about the song to much.
She had to turn off her mind to be with martin.
Her mid was sometimes a barrier to her enjoyment.
The only thing she wanted was to be with martin.
He spoke to her in fluent Portuguese which she believed she was learning intuitively.
When he touched her between her now bare breasts and bare rest of her body except for the triangle that still wore his hand, she felt he was telling he thing about her body she would not have otherwise known.
Lying on the floor legs tangled in semi comfort after much trial and error, he brought his hand to his head when she saw his tattoo.
Instantly remembered that she’d used it as a diversion not to stare at the body she was entangled with.
Now it was okay.
For the moment, that body was hers.
She scrambled to her knees; let her breasts move over his chest from above.
Let them swing then crush against him, his chest his stomach, his thighs.
Sweeping him was a maintenance that she enjoyed more that anything she has ever done in her domicile.
When his hand slid past her sweeping breasts, her labia rushed with the lava she felt down there.
She had not looked at his body because she did not want to fantasize about him when she had to regard him as an objet d’art.
Now the artistry was in what their bodies felt together
Her fingers slipped between her legs she was so hot there and would not be able to think otherwise.
Then she realized she could use him.
His moans beneath her were more melodic than the song they were listening to which even though it was the first time she had heard it she realized they were listening to it over and over again.
They could not be bothered as she eased her throbbing along a thick vein along his shaft
Her own moaning joined in with his.
He was not an object, as he grabbed her hips and buttocks in ways that made the vibration there more intense than she was capable of on her own.
Shasha stopped even though she was almost there.
The heat between her legs now throbbed with heaviness there.
Martin’s face was a study in ambiguity—arousal pain and confusion.
The very thing she had not wanted to do she had done.
Treated him like an object.
However she was heavy with the need for release.
Crawled over him, his eyes crystal clear as he gazed into hers.
Left nothing to the imagination.
The way he sprawled beneath her, it was if he were impaled by his own erection.
She grabbed his shaft to see what would happen.
His breath came like a waterfall.
But he didn’t.
“Go to the dresser by the door—there are condoms in the bottom.
“For all of your living room seductions?” she smiled letting her breasts sway above him before she let her hips sway in a grand exaggeration on her way to the dresser.
Before she was aware of her vulnerable state she felt the heat of her body.
“You had your way with me, now I have my way with you.”
Shasha wondered how he expected her to find anything in his dark apartment, as she placed her hand flat until she felt the after dinner mint sized square that would brig her pleasure.
There was the shimmer of a mirror inside the room she could barely see but could sort out that he was putting the condom he had found beside her questing hand.
When he entered her, her eyes caught on what they were doing like murky pornography.
When he entered her, her body felt the objet d’art she was glad she had not let her fantasies cloud.She gripped the edge of the dresser tightly—squeezed a tiny bit of skin in the drawer that opened and closed in response to their thrusting.
Shasha was relatively that—was his name Martin?—could not have been more anxious than she was.
She rolled a finger on her hangnail, chewed just sufficiently enough that she knew exactly when to stop.
So that she would nor draw blood.
Even though the spot was a bruised red color.
One more tug with her teeth and she would be a vampire.
For the entire week that the figure model had been there all she had done was study the tattoo on the inside of his forearm..
It was a symbol she knew in Morocco that was on doors to keep evil spirits away.
She could not help but wonder what he wanted to keep away.
Maybe autovampires, she made herself smile before she remembered she was now the one in a vulnerable position.
Because now—martin her professor called his name –was walking around to see what the class had come up with.
Her professor had suggested that everyone focus on the part of him that was most striking to them.
“To capture his essence,” she had gesticulated wildly. “To capture his soul.”
The closer that martin came to her canvas, the more she felt herself pull at that hangnail.
Until finally she took in the taste of blood like a drug.
Closed her eyes.
Opened them.
Saw Martin in front of her.
“No one else even noticed the tattoo. Or anything that was on me.
Shasha looked into his eyes.
She wasn’t so shy with a guy if she had something to say.
“Are you Moroccan?”
”No,” he smiled.
Up close he wasn’t even that stunning, but his smile and personal demeanor engaged her.
In his back pocket was a novel in Portuguese.
He was actually Brazilian.
She understood bits and pieces from listening to Astrud Gilberto.
But it did not help her now.
When Martin walked away, she felt the sense of loss she was more than accustomed to.
Folded her things up.
Walked out of the classroom.
Martin was standing there.
“Are you playing hard to get?” he asked awkwardly.
Shasha frowned.
“Typical,’ was her clever comeback even if he was too stupid to know.
He followed her down the hall.
She shrugged.
Looked up into his eyes without flinching.
“Typical of really good looking guys to think the world revolves around them”
Typical of really smart girls to stereotype any man who is interested in them,” he said to her back.
Like shards of ice darted between her shoulder blades.
When she turned to look at him, the only thing that stilled her tongue was the look of injury on his face that mirrored hers.
Her turned her head to the side as she adjusted her sketchbook.
Her glasses fell forward slightly so she had to adjust them.
“So what do you have to say? What is your interest in me?”
”You’re putting me on the spot so I am destined to fail.”
Shasha knew she was being a bitch to him, but she could no more stop herself from doing it than anything else.
“I know I am being a bitch,” she said softly. “What do you want from me?”
“Are you doing that on purpose? It is nearly irresistible of you…”
She pushed the door to the stairwell.
Felt him close behind her.
She hadn’t been thinking, and walked into the deserted stairwell with him.
When she saw his arm, the hamsa on his inner forearm was not protecting either of them from evil.
At first his lips were just on the nape of her neck.
She sensed he would not do anything with them that she did not want him to do, as she took his arm.
Put her lips against the good luck symbol that she had drawn and colored so brilliantly in class.
One girl had drawn his penis so that it looked like what Georgia O’Keeffe did with vaginas.
“Does it have to be more than this?” she whispered, realized she was raising her hand to her mouth to chew the hangnail.
She whispered so low, she was not even sure he heard her.
“No, it doesn’t have to be anymore than you want it to be.”
Shasha kissed the hamsa, warm, lightly haired and veins beneath her mouth.
It was impossible to resist letting the tip of her tongue run along its path.
Once her tongue hit off of his tattoo, she realized she was not worshipping his tattoo like she had been doing the entire week in class.
She had entered him finally.
What she had been seeking all along.
Her lips trembled at this realization.
What should happen next?
Instead of following the heart pounding behind her breast, Shasha followed her mouth.
When Martin grabbed her left breast, he grabbed her so close to her heart it made it easy for her to romanticize was happening.
She was equally imaginative and romantic.
His hand moved from her breast to cover her eyes without lifting from her body so her skin flamed in the crescent shaped path he took.
Even the soles of her feet as if hot coals beneath them gave her goose bumps.
She felt the same texture at the nape of her neck, wondered if it prickled under his lips when he kissed her there?
His hand moved again without lifting from her body to her right hip, seizing her to him.
Her breath was awkward; it was odd to breathe still on fire the coolness of the wall soothed her.
Their lips came together and when he moved his mouth from hers, she licked her lips to continue to feel the warmth that remained before it was completely gone.
She looked at him through sit eyes to see his soft smile evolve into a kiss.
This time she did not let him pull away.
Even if his mouth moved from hers she held his body close to his.
So he knew that she wanted him with her, close and warm.
She felt a large piece of turned up paint against the small of her back.
There was work being done in the corridor and the scent of paint became rampant.
Not the kind of paint that she loved, but house paint.
Her hands loosened their hold
Even though she was standing with her legs jarred and licking her lips when Martin was not kissing them, she knew she did not have any intention of having sex with him in a college corridor.
Martin suddenly took her hand, her bag and led her down the stairs.
Shasha did not understand, but she did feel awkward back pressed to a peeling wall.
Even I f she was with martin.
“There’s a place that I go after posing for the class, “he said holding her hand which made her unable to think if anything else but the sensation of his hand in hers.
She was not sure what felt warmer when she had her hand around a mug of coffee at the café they ended up at—his hand or his eyes?
He had the sort of eyes that it seemed like he wanted you, but he was just looking at you.
Returning your gaze.
It was hard to marry that notion when her lips still warmed from the kissing they had done in the corridor.
She could not distinguish the difference between his fingers and peeling paint now.
Her foot hit his under the table, and she wondered if he thought it was intentional.
Their eyes met at the same moment, Shasha could not helot but smile.
“What is that book you are reading?”
Shasha looked up from her coffee; her eyes fell on his novel.
“You are all looking at me so I have to focus on something”
”So you were looking at me?”
Martin smiled.
“I was looking at your book like you were looking at me tattoo.”
“Touché,” Shasha smiled on the rim of the coffee mug. “Touché””
She did not question him after that.
Just took his hand in hers hen they were done at the café.
Let him take her downtown somewhere she did not know but close enough to kiss the Brooklyn Bridge .
“Where are we?” she asked standing after awhile in his unlit apartment.
“Where were we is more what I was thinking”
His face was lit by the flashing car lights in the distance from the bridge as he stroked her mouth, throat between her breasts through her t-shirt.
“Everything here is soft unlike on the stairwell at the university.”
A drive of heat between her legs cooled a bit by his body close to hers. She wanted where they were as well.
For her that meant she had to turn off her mind.
Close her eyes.
Eyes closed, she felt his body move from her.
She followed him with her pelvis which as entire hand covered her triangle through a flared skirt.
“Keep your eyes closed. I want you to listen.”
Shasha was obedient, eyes close she heard music in Portuguese.
She tried not to think about the song to much.
She had to turn off her mind to be with martin.
Her mid was sometimes a barrier to her enjoyment.
The only thing she wanted was to be with martin.
He spoke to her in fluent Portuguese which she believed she was learning intuitively.
When he touched her between her now bare breasts and bare rest of her body except for the triangle that still wore his hand, she felt he was telling he thing about her body she would not have otherwise known.
Lying on the floor legs tangled in semi comfort after much trial and error, he brought his hand to his head when she saw his tattoo.
Instantly remembered that she’d used it as a diversion not to stare at the body she was entangled with.
Now it was okay.
For the moment, that body was hers.
She scrambled to her knees; let her breasts move over his chest from above.
Let them swing then crush against him, his chest his stomach, his thighs.
Sweeping him was a maintenance that she enjoyed more that anything she has ever done in her domicile.
When his hand slid past her sweeping breasts, her labia rushed with the lava she felt down there.
She had not looked at his body because she did not want to fantasize about him when she had to regard him as an objet d’art.
Now the artistry was in what their bodies felt together
Her fingers slipped between her legs she was so hot there and would not be able to think otherwise.
Then she realized she could use him.
His moans beneath her were more melodic than the song they were listening to which even though it was the first time she had heard it she realized they were listening to it over and over again.
They could not be bothered as she eased her throbbing along a thick vein along his shaft
Her own moaning joined in with his.
He was not an object, as he grabbed her hips and buttocks in ways that made the vibration there more intense than she was capable of on her own.
Shasha stopped even though she was almost there.
The heat between her legs now throbbed with heaviness there.
Martin’s face was a study in ambiguity—arousal pain and confusion.
The very thing she had not wanted to do she had done.
Treated him like an object.
However she was heavy with the need for release.
Crawled over him, his eyes crystal clear as he gazed into hers.
Left nothing to the imagination.
The way he sprawled beneath her, it was if he were impaled by his own erection.
She grabbed his shaft to see what would happen.
His breath came like a waterfall.
But he didn’t.
“Go to the dresser by the door—there are condoms in the bottom.
“For all of your living room seductions?” she smiled letting her breasts sway above him before she let her hips sway in a grand exaggeration on her way to the dresser.
Before she was aware of her vulnerable state she felt the heat of her body.
“You had your way with me, now I have my way with you.”
Shasha wondered how he expected her to find anything in his dark apartment, as she placed her hand flat until she felt the after dinner mint sized square that would brig her pleasure.
There was the shimmer of a mirror inside the room she could barely see but could sort out that he was putting the condom he had found beside her questing hand.
When he entered her, her eyes caught on what they were doing like murky pornography.
When he entered her, her body felt the objet d’art she was glad she had not let her fantasies cloud.She gripped the edge of the dresser tightly—squeezed a tiny bit of skin in the drawer that opened and closed in response to their thrusting.
Right now was mostly about him.
Though he caressed her breasts and backside absently but with enough attention that she felt herself move against the edge of the dresser.
Her own stimulation in conjunction with his was unbearable.
His moans were deep within him, she wished his face was part of the murky porno they were in inside the mirror but she could not see him.
She saw only a grotesque grimace on her face and fleetingly his face tight and stern with a suggestion of a smile when he caught her eye.
His eyes were intense even in the dark distance.
Shasha sat on the dresser after.
The light from the tips of their cigarettes like votive candles.
The fist of his tattoo was illuminated, when he lit her cigarette.
Her thought s were murky like the porno scene they had acted out.
Slowly she realized that martin had put the song they were listening to on repeat but they were so involved before she had not noticed.
She laughed to herself softly.
“What?” he questioned.
She looked up into his eyes, they were an anchor.
Maybe into his soul.
“Nothing.”Right now was mostly about him.
Though he caressed her breasts and backside absently but with enough attention that she felt herself move against the edge of the dresser.
Her own stimulation in conjunction with his was unbearable.
His moans were deep within him, she wished his face were part of the murky porno they were in inside the mirror but she could not see him.
She saw only a grotesque grimace on her face and fleetingly his face tight and stern with a suggestion of a smile when he caught her eye.
His eyes were intense even in the dark distance.
Shasha sat on the dresser after.
The light from the tips of their cigarettes like votive candles.
The fist of his tattoo was illuminated, when he lit her cigarette.
Her thoughts were murky like the porno scene they had acted out.
Slowly she realized that Martin had put the song they were listening to on repeat but they were so involved before she had not noticed.
She laughed to herself softly.
“What?” he questioned.
She looked up into his eyes, they were an anchor.
Maybe into his soul.
“Nothing.”

Restless

I have been restless as all hell for the past few days...I stayed up talking all morning Monday right before work and have not been the same since. Don't look at me too closely--oh you cannot see the dark circles under my eyes!

I managed to finish the second half of the story I lost--and found--after the contest was over. I will be posting it tomorrow after I respond to all the lovely comments I got from the Fish Tank...

Story to come, she types with a yawn...

Gratitude Tuesday

New York

Only in my beloved New York, could I--who can newly drink coffee again post Lent--be walking out of Starbuck's, tell a woman that the beads she was wearing were nice and have her give them to me!

I was mad because I had just gotten my coffee and asked for six packets of honey to put into it--a habit that is hard to relinquish post tea--only to have the barista say to me that that is sure a lot of honey! This after he failed to give me my change, and I said okay keep it.

But I digress...

I pointed to the woman's beads and said they were cute. She said thank you, and after I poured half and half into my coffee said to take them. I said no of course! But she insisted. Turns out she had a bunch as part of a New Orleans promotion. I took the beads, and was overwhelmed. I have never visited New Orleans, but it has always had a dear spot in my heart. It was lovely to feel some of the hospitality of the city, and to have a Fat Tuesday so much after the fact.

What city connects other cities like New York does? I am proud to be a native New Yorker because as far as I am concerned it is the capital of the world, which has given me endless experiences like the above.

Thinking Blogger Meme

I have been given a Thinking Blogger award and a ton of accolade from CeeCi who is such an amazing blogger friend and who inspired me from the beginning with her blogs. Please if I have not mentioned her magic here enough click on her name.

I am going to do the meme that comes with this honor, which goes like this:


1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

I was lucky enough to post gold! Needless to say CeeCi is given one--she gave six on her blog too! But she creates such a sense of community, and makes me think about how lucky I am and she even helped me get this red on my blog with her Geeky Streak blog. I am also giving awards to:

Probitionate who got me from the beginning, and continues to inspire me. He is more prolific than most of us will ever be and witty and just a lovely blogger friend. He responded to my confession post and he has been a kindred ever since. I was really scared to write that post, but he made me feel glad I had.

Shanna Germain, whose talent and ambition inspire me to no end. She writes brilliant erotica, and she sets goals for herself. Her blog is full of goals and things to do plus appearances because she is making the rounds with her work. She is in Best American Erotica 2007, and featured here.

Cosima is just amazing. CeeCi even posted when you read her blog it is like entering another world. She has more culture and insight in her little posting finger! Every time I read her, I learn something new and am inspired as an artist more than ever.

Sexualite is after my own heart. She is fearless, intelligent, and for me as a writer and reader, she is just mind candy.

Remittance Girl wrote a story that literally is still with me, and ironically enough, it was about a character named Leonora which was a lovely thing too!

BTW the name of my blog is Leo Solo, is a play on Spanish. Lei is how you say, "I read" in Spanish, it is an exception because usually an "o" is added to the end of the Spanish verb when you drop the suffix. I could not help but think of that, and Leo could make you think I was male which was lovely too, so I was sold on the title.

Clyde

I have been getting updates via Tori Amos e-mail prompts. Via e-mail she will be introducing us to the girls of the American Doll Posse. The first girl is Clyde.

I love this blog, aside from the sensational artwork--de Lempicka and Nesrat--I love what it is saying. I think that the piece about how all art and relationships start as potential. I love that idea. Further in the bit about who we choose to be in a particular moment. I know I have the ability to be a thousand different people in a matter of seconds.

The image above is courtesy of Sony Music. I feel like this right now.

Gratitude Tuesday on a Wednesday

Magic

I believe in magic, not the pulling rabbits out of hats sort, but the kind that is meaningful and makes you think. I walked a blind man through a watery Times Square station today. The magic of people to help one another humbles me. Have you seen CeeCi's Geeky Streak? She helped me put the red in my blog, it's a simple change, but I swear it is magic to me!

BTW Guess what reared its pretty late head to me after the contest was over? I'll post the rest of objets d'art soon enough. I finished it, and so I won in my own way...


Magic courtesy of Getty Images

April Fool Early

I almost finished typing today for the contest, and then I somehow lost the ten pages I typed. I was sitting on the train with a green pen revising--because I printed it out--and now I do not have the story and I can honestly tell you that I know I am not going to want to type it again. So basically I am not going to enter the contest. I have really mixed feelings about that, because I was really interested in doing it, but I know I am going to be too busy and tired.

I also learned that I am not going to be able to drink coffee until a week from Sunday--I did not even know when Easter was...

I feel like a mess, but here, here is what is left the story. I am giving it to the Fish Tank as well.

Shasha was relatively sure that—was his name Martin—could not have been more anxious than she was.

She rolled a finger on her hangnail, chewed just sufficiently enough that she knew exactly when to stop.

So that she would nor draw blood.

The skin was a bruised red color.

One more tug with her teeth and she would be a vampire.

For the entire week that the figure model had been there all she had done was study the tattoo on the inside of his forearm.

It was a symbol in Morocco that was put on doors to keep evil spirits away.

She could not help but wonder what he wanted to keep away.

Maybe autovampires, she made herself smile before she remembered she was now the one in a vulnerable position.

Because Martin--her professor called his name-–was walking around to see what the class had come up with as his essence.

Her professor had suggested that everyone focus on the part of him that was most striking to them.

“To capture his essence,” she had gesticulated wildly. “to capture his soul.”

The closer that Martin came to her canvas, the more she felt herself pull at that hangnail.

Until finally she took in the taste of blood like a drug.

Closed her eyes.

Opened them.

Saw Martin in front of her.

“No one else even noticed the tattoo. Or anything that was on me."

Shasha looked into his eyes.

She wasn’t so shy with a guy if she had something to say.

“Are you Moroccan?”

”No,” he smiled, his eyes lingered.

Up close he wasn’t that stunning, but his smile and personal demeanor engaged her.

In his back pocket was a novel in Portuguese.

She understood bits and pieces from listening to Astrud Gilberto.

But it did not help her now.

When Martin walked away, she felt the sense of loss she was more than accustomed to.

Folded her things up.

Walked out of the classroom.

Martin stood there.

“Are you playing hard to get?” he asked awkwardly.

Shasha frowned.

“Typical,’ was her clever comeback even if he was too stupid to know.

He followed her down the hall.

She shrugged.

Looked up into his eyes without flinching.

“Typical of really good looking guys to think the world revolves around them!”

"Typical of really smart girls to stereotype any man who is interested in them!” he said to her back.

When she turned to look at him, the only thing that stilled her tongue was the look of injury on his face.

Her head to the side as she adjusted her sketchbook.

Her glasses fell forward slightly so she had to adjust them.

“So what do you have to say? What is your interest in me?”

”You’re putting me on the spot so I am destined to fail.”

Shasha knew she was being a bitch to him, but she could no more stop herself from doing it than anything else.

“I know I am being a bitch,” she said softly. “What do you want from me?”

“Are you doing that on purpose? It is nearly irresistible of you…”

She continued to walk.

Pushed the door to the stairwell.

Felt him close behind her.

Would you believe I overwrote my last post with this one? Bad blog day...

Very Soon

Already I am procrastinating...

I am already not sure that I am going to type up my tat story for Desdmona. Someone please beat me senseless!

Oh yes, this is me attacking myself mentally so l will feel ashamed and type the thing up since I blogged about it and need to follow through. Okay, I guess I will type it up. I promised myself to be different. I promised...even though I have another story that I have begun writing and feel very excited about...

Maybe it will be easier since I can just about taste a cup of coffee! Happy Easter very soon!

Gratitude Tuesday

Love

What other word could I pick with the letter "L?" I am a hopeless and hopeful romantic--thanks Probitionate! I have been in love with love since I was a little girl. I think it is one of the most beautiful notions in the world--contrary to Tina Turner.

It is probably one of the words that I overuse the most in the world, but it is something that I always feel, and say with a great deal of gusto when I use it. I told a co-worker today that I loved her and she did not even flinch. I once told a guy that--who I probably loved more than her and he was nearly freaked out.

Love is a heavy word and should not be misused. But it is, but then like I said when you say it or feel it in the moment, you mean it. I mean it almost every time I say it. Because there is not another word that gives the same meaning.

I love books. The sexist thing to me is to see someone reading a book--especially one that I might have wanted to read or read and liked. I love the person with the book at that moment, and I mean that.

I was at a book release party, and it was ridiculously entertaining. I saw someone there who I had not seen or heard from for a very long time. It was interesting the emotions I felt while talking to them. We kissed goodbye, and I was like how insignificant that was. Love and kisses can sometimes be so insignificant.

And sometimes be everything in the world.

There is nothing else like love under the sun, I rather have it than money or bread in my mouth.

I am grateful for everything I love, and for everything I have the potential of loving...

This cupid is courtesy of Getty Images

Sunday Afternoon with Rosemary

I was watching public television--I am not sure if I mention what channel that everyone will know what I am talking about--but the show was called "Rosemary Clooney--Girl Singer." I adore Rosemary Clooney. I am not much of a Christmas addict, but one of the great things about the holiday is to see White Christmas--which I did not see this year and I am not sure I was the same...

The thing that got me the most about the show was that almost in the beginning, we are told that Rosemary had five children in five years for her once husband Jose Ferrer. The marriage did not last, and it is heavily implied that it eventually led to her nervous breakdown from which she recovered brilliantly, and had a renewed career.

But the emphasis was references to the marriage, and how deeply in love she was with him (five kids in five years? I think there is not a question!). Her children said that the way that they could tell their parents really loved each other was because of the way they watched each other tell stories when they were in company. Rosemary was practically at Jose's feet, said one of her children. One of her sons said that when his father came over even after their divorce, Rosemary would ask him repeatedly if he wanted anything--which was shocking to her son because he said that his mother never waited on anyone, but she waited on his father.

I am a hopeless romantic, and I was struck by this. Rosemary was described as a wickedly funny and smart woman who sang songs for the words, not just the melody. I cannot stop singing to myself the song that goes "Come a to my house I am going to give you candy...I am going to give you everything..." I heard the double entendre! I saw it in her eyes too even though she was in black and white.

Her brother Nick said that she sang songs that reminded people of an America that was not any more or less cynical pre war--she sang an America that people dream of. The idealism of "simpler times."

I fell so much more madly in love with her than I was before after watching Girl Singer. Is there anything better than public television on a Sunday afternoon in New York City?

The picture of Rosemary Clooney from http://www.skylighters.org

Zwartboek

I saw a preview of this movie. Got to the Nerve screening so early that I was actually able to sit down and get inspired to work on a story...have to finish that...

Also known as Black Book, the movie is about a Dutch Jewish woman--and it is hard for me to even fathom how there could have been a Holocaust and how people were just forced to go along with the program. I don't hate anyone even some people who have done awful things to me. I can't let it blacken my heart. That was one of the best parts of the movie. The inconsistency of human nature. There was love in the middle of it, yet no one who could really be trusted. Which is why Rachel (Carice van Houten) suffered, but also triumphed through this story that involved painful and innumerable twists and turns.

The above photograph (which comes from Kaaslog), shows the time before it really got ugly for Rachel. I was only at peace watching the movie because I knew she would get out of it alive. The meat of the movie was a flashback. And let's just say how can you not like a movie where the heroine eats chocolate to get out of a near fatal bind!

You have to see this movie. It's an aural sensation too because you hear the similarities between Dutch and English--when was the last time I saw a movie that did not have subtitles?

May Daze

This lovely image is from Tori Amos's website, and is the artwork for her upcoming album. May is turning out to be the best month. There will be two full moons, and a new Tori album. Give me one rose sometime during the month and I am all set.

Back to March madness, I finished the story for the Desdmona contest and am in the process of a) typing it up so I can easily revise, and b) not hating it.

Gratitude Tuesday

Kink

I am thankful for every kinky part of me, my hair, my mind. For everything that undoes my kinks.

I have been thinking about what turns people on--maybe so much from having seen Les Anges Exterminateurs, reading Glamour. I do not think that my personal fantasies fall into the realm of the typical or atypical. Fantasies are a hypnotic state, and when I am in the mood, I let my mind wander. If I am sitting on a train, I have no problem setting my fantasy right there against a pole. If I am in the supermarket, maybe on a pile of lemons, so as we move the scent will go with the rolling fruit. I am very spontaneous.

Yet I am willing to share the stage of my fantasies with you, but not the what actually happens against that pole or on those lemons--I don't kiss or even fantasize and tell...

Now share with me--that would make me even more grateful!

The above image is courtesy of Getty Images.

Confession

A few days ago, I remembered the Desdmona contest. I do that often. Know that a writing contest is coming up, and not remember until the deadline is almost here.

This time I have learned that I have to stop doing that. So with a swiped steno pad from work and a lovely pencil--allowing myself to know that my ink to the page is not indelible--I have begun piecing together a story.

Everyone knows that I am a writer, everyone knows I write like I breathe, bleed--it is an excretion of mine. I was talking to someone last week, and he says to me that I should try to get published. I gave him such a look that he negated what he said to me. His was a kind of tough love gesture that everyone gives me because I write, but what do I do with it? I keep saying that I am--so it makes me--a writer. What have I got to show for it? What keeps me back from writing more? Is it fear, is it a lack of time? What has it been?

My entire body is warm from this confession. I never let anyone see the side of me that just goes cold at doing the thing that I love the most. I could not live if I was not a writer. It is how I process everything--thinking how to put it into words. This is the first time that I have put into words that I am not sure why I am not writing more and harder. I know other people beat themselves up about these things, but it really hurts to go inside and not know why there are so many blank screens and pages behind me.

Behind me. Although it is a pain in the ass to write it on the page and then type it--but I will. I have a little less than two weeks to finish this story I am working on for the contest. I am trying not to think about the deadline.

The above image is from Athens Art Association

The Story of O or I?

An acquaintance of mine shocks me by not knowing about The Story of O--I thought everyone knew about that book--there is even a comic book version! He doubly shocked me, and told me about the The Story of the Eye. I was amazed by a book I did not know. I do not mean to come off as a book snob, but I know about a lot of books and I never heard of this one which was amazing because of the perverse and surreal nature--I certainly should have known about it! I am obsessed with finding it as several sources identified it as, "a classic of pornographic literature." And it would just figure that the guy took the book out of the library...so I cannot even borrow it from him!

The image above is from Amazon Books.

Gratitude Tuesday

Jazz

In the form of Astrud Gilberto. I am pretty certain that you cannot capture a bad side of her voice. Whether it is English or Portuguese, she never fails to create a certain sadness or happiness! I was at a lovely now extinct restaurant years ago, and the backdrop was Astrud Gilberto for Lovers.

Need I say more about her, or elaborate more on my gratitude? I was reading the notes in the CD I got of hers today--yes I am that old fashioned--and read that she was a housewife with little musical training. Also that her career did not take off much after the seventies. I also recently learned that Star Trek was not such a big hit in its day either. I think endurance is the key, and to Astrud I bid a warm, obrigado.

Les Anges Exterminateurs

I went to see THE EXTERMINATING ANGELS (the image above is courtesy of indieWIRE. I am not interested in doing a blow by blow review. The main part of the movie was that a director wanted to expore women's private sexual lives and responses. It was hard for him in the movie (and I guess in reality?) to find women who wanted to explore that, no holds barred in front of a crew--to be displayed for the public. The movie was a sensation at Cannes, and caused a scandal in France.

France. Sexuality. Scandal. Need I say more?

The man next to me said that the movie was over the top. I personally have never seen a woman-women--masturbate in front of the camera for a non porn movie. Note, none of this was simulated. Every major sex scene was real. I had a bit of trouble with it, but the main trouble I had was why isn't there a movie like this with men? Shouldn't it be made? We don't know all of the aspects of male sexuaity do we? I would like to write, produce, direct and maybe even act in a movie where men are placed in the same way as women in this movie. If in enough of a state of arousal, would a man kiss another man even if he was not homosexual? Would he masturbate that man and perform oral sex on that man if they were both in enough of a state of arousal? I'm curious, I really want to explore this on film. I wonder if I am willing to explore it on paper or a computer screen first?

My guess? The story will come from my hands before you see it at any major theater--even as porn. Because as much phallic symbols as there are in the world, men still want to keep theirs hidden. I think they should come out of hiding...

Gratitude Tuesday

Icicle

First, I am thankful for Tori Amos's song, "Icicle."

Then I am thankful for becoming one today in NYC. I do love New York, even when it is cold on my face, and colder running up my legs--I was crazy to wear a skirt today with sheer pantyhose!

But when I am warm, and later I am going to lay down like Tori sings in this song...

And on the train ride home, I am going to think of The Butterfly Tempstress, you must go to her post and ponder the quote there, and just the entire post!

This icicle of Tori Amos from Toriphoria .