I won! I'm a winner!

I got to the 50,000 finish line! Whoopee! The ending is lame, although I like parts of it, but I like the idea and the plot twists and the characters. The story definitely needs editing and further development but I made it!! Yeehaaaaw!

I always thought you'd come by

I always thought you'd come by
that you would appear
that you would be here when i needed you
i always thought you'd snap out of it
that you would come to your senses and love me again
that it was all a sick joke
a bad dream
a lie
but the lie was that you were coming back
the lie was that you cared
the lie was that you'd come by
come see me
and be here
the lie was in your position
in your stance
in your false mooned bravado
your fakey smile and bon homie
and hale fellow well met
and yellow smelly feet
and tough guy stance
and wait
that's everything
it was all a lie
you are the lie
the lie is you

i always thought you'd come by
that one day i would look up and there you'd be
that never happened.
sometimes I found you in eyes
or my heart
sometimes i found you in totally great sex
sometimes I found you in explosions
but you never came by
you never said hello
you were never you
you were just crap
that's all crap

i always thought you'd come by
so come by
sometime
anytime
and lie to me again.

Your know you are from the Maritimes ...

Good list. Reminds me of Maine, especially the four seasons bit.

Swami Bahwahmmi

Yep. That's me. Swami Bahwahmmi. I'm a little punchy. I've crossed the 40K threshold and I'm into the home stretch. To celebrate I've covered my head with a silk scarf and had a two hour conversation with a friend. If my fingers don't fail me and I can keep the NaNoisms at bay, it'll be smooth sailing. Okay. Actually it will be a slog but not a terribly difficult one as I am buoyed by ineffable joy. Like yeast bread in the oven there's nothing left to do but rise!

answers to v.m. - 102306

v.m. has posted some questions at Perceval Press, which I have the audacity to answer here.

Q: Do we have a relationship to anything that we do not immediately perceive?
A: Yes. We have creative imagination and memory to construct and reconstruct things. We also have relationships to things we do not perceive. This is unawareness.

Q: And in that moment of perception, do we remain ourselves, or do we, rather, become the connection itself, purely the vantage point we have in a given instant?
A: Both. Quantum mechanics teaches us that we change the thing we perceive. Surely the thing perceived changes us as well. The universe is a dialogue, not a static mirror. A connection entails at least two vantage points and the flow of the common perception(s) between them. We are the connection and the vantage point. How can we separate this? Should we? We are not only what we see, we are also all the things we have ever seen and what we were before we began seeing, which can be transformed by the seeing. We are also everything we have ever experienced and what we were before we began experiencing. Perception flows. Can we also be everything we have the potential to see and experience?

Q: Maybe the why, where, or when of things is irrelevant; only the what matters. Can we forget difference or desire that separates us and leaves us longing or repelled?
A: Perhaps, but if we forget that which separates us then we also forget that which connects us. If we forget our differences and desires we forget who we are. To what purpose? Being who we are is all there is. Longing or repulsion are not bad of themselves. It is what we transform them into and how we judge them that makes the snare.

Other solutions? Let me know.

great returns

I talked to the Wizard of West Point today. He told me that his investments have appreciated 400% since August of 2005. Those of you who would like a consultation, let me know. I can hook you up. Those of you who prefer not to consult, I have one word for you: Copper.

All Day

The problem with giving yourself all day to write is that you've got all day to do it. Here it is 9:48 am and I haven't even started yet.

Song of the Moment:
Being Alive - Barbara Streisand

Fusion is Easy!

Well, easy to talk about. Maybe. And how hard can it be when a 17-year-old can make a fusion device in his basement?

chimera

scabbard ready – sword loose
you enter
shoulders back and tight
hands tense
your face a forbidding stone parapet
vision aroused like a heat-seeking missile
nostrils flared for clues

stoic and brave you enter
ensorcelled by courage
all the air thrums with menace

gaining the entryway you look up
into the face of a friend

as you drown in light
the parapet evaporates
armor translates to silk
saturated by air that has become a conduit for joy your heart sings
your head clears and you wonder why you have fought for so long
and why you have had to work so hard to relinquish your weapons
in the weather of a new found friend

Current Fads
Listening. my iTunes playlists Singles: 1988-2006 and Sunday Morning; birds
Watching. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Activity. not writing a novel
Gadget. Palm Universal Wireless Keyboard
News Source. the news feeds in Safari
Reading. The Maiden's Tale - Margaret Frazer; Getting Unstuck: Breaking Your Habitual Patterns and Encountering Naked Reality - Pema Chodron; Fortune (I would be reading more but I'm not writing a novel right now.)

the pause that refreshes

Writing a novel in 30 days is much like the time-hungry days before the holidays when everything has to be crammed into two minutes. Suddenly the dust bunnies and rolling balls of dog hair must be cleaned up this minute. And not just the obvious ones by the front door but the entire world population under my bed. All must go, now. Before NaNoWriMo that chore was something that would never get done. Now I have novel writing to avoid and the chore looks glorious by comparison. What a great idea to watch "Shrek" for the 13th time when only last month re-watching any old movie from my library was a onerous task.

Ah the joys of writing! How it focuses the mind and reprioritizes life. Yummy.

What lures me back into the novel-writing frontier is the thought that my plot will twist like a cobra with ululations that I would never imagine. The writing will hypnotize me and magically turn hours into minutes. Well, almost. That and the thought of getting my word count up. And that I may actually accomplish it. Gee, I may actually be a novel writer by the end of the month. What could happen then is one of three things:

1. I will have a 50,000 word piece of junk on my hands.


2. I will have the first draft of a publishable novel.


3. Something in between.

Promise to let you know which it is.

Time well spent

Here's a great site (link from the post title above) that's definitely like nothing you've ever seen before, at least on the web. You may need to wait a few seconds for things to totally load but check it out! Have fun!

... and in other news

I've been messing around with Daz 3-D software. I have bought my fair share of extras, including eyes. Yes. Eyes! Here's a sample of artwork made with Daz.

Things to Note: See how the woman, Victoria, is all beautified? She has great luminescent skin and sparkly eyes. The man, Michael, on the other hand has pasty skin and comes with eyes you wouldn't put in an action figure. So I had to buy him eyes and clothes. Maybe you'll notice there are no shoes on his feet, Victoria's costumes come with shoes, Michael's don't. Why is that? I've tweaked Michael's skin, including making a custom skin bump map, and he still looks pasty. And the eyes don't sparkle even though I paid for them. Well, they sparkle in some lights. (Click on the image to zoom in.)

I also bought special morphs for Michael so he can be something besides an extreme male model. However, the morphs mostly make him freaky or old so I'm messing around with those. Victoria is also very Barbie but you can change her a lot more and make her frumpy quite easily.

Daz offers lots of skimpy and exciting clothes for Victoria. Not much for Michael. Hair is pretty hard to get, too. That's why my Michael's hair looks so weird. I did buy what I thought was hair but it turned out to be hair options. I still need to buy the hair. :::sigh:::::

Virginia Makes Christianity Official State Religion

Virginia is only one of the latest states to officially adopt a religion, abandoning the separation of church and state. The United States of America is now a Christian nation of constricting zealots. Why do we let priests and other Christian leaders tell us how to vote? What happened to religious freedom? Didn't we come to this country to be able to practice our religion as we saw fit? Apparently not. Apparently we came here to be able to practice our version of Christianity and to force others to practice as we do. The USA is now no better than any other country with a national religion, like Saudi Arabia or Thailand. Beliefs run the world. The USA is no longer one nation under God. It is a prison contructed of the populist notion of what a Christian God should be. There will be no peace (national or world) until we have religious freedom and tolerance.

I am a magical creature!

What Magical Creature are You?


You are a Pixie! Pixies are a race of people who are not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell so they are forced to stay on earth forever. They often play tricks on people by stealing things or throwing things at them. At night they steal horses and bring them back before dawn leaving only tangled manes to show they were there. They love dance food and fun!
Take this quiz!

To the Wide-eyed Miner

Your fair mind, your wise heart, your sad eyes —
Appearances now altered by wealth. Mine by penury.
Who is better?
I, at least, am yet wise and sad.
Words are useless. Speak to me.

Writer's Block ...

and some suggestions on how to handle it. Not saying I have it, mind you. But good to know there's a resource available. Now – back to making art. ;-)

Focus

It's amazing how a huge task will focus my mind and get me motivated. Suddenly I'm willing to do extra meditation, to hop out of bed in the morning and to get to work on time. The dog gets fed, the floor swept, the dishes done (well, once anyway). And I love it. Why? Because I have this self-inflicted goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. Almost anything looks easy by comparison. And I'm focused. I have a purpose. It's just too cool.

The initial rush is over. I could give this up but I promised myself I would do it. The novel is started and I'm engaged, involved, hooked. Can't stop now. Word count is good but must work ahead as I'll be not writing much this weekend.

Woo hoo!

... and also there's nothing on TV.