Neruda: Your Laughter

pen + watercolor
inspired by Pablo Neruda's poem Your Laughter. excerpt here:

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

some good news

Two days after my wedding, when submissions aren't on my mind AT ALL, I check my email on my not-so-smart phone at an all you can eat Indian buffet. What joy almost punched me in the face when I read the tiny slice of the email that looked in NO WAY like a rejection! In fact, it was the opposite: an acceptance!

So, it feels fantastic to say I have a short story forthcoming in Interrobang?! Magazine!

When it's out for real, you'll be the first to know. :)

For now, you'll find me honeymooning in our LA apartment (and celebrating my other good news)!

Grok this?

book talk: One Day by David Nicholls

My book club picked David Nicholls's One Day for our January book. What a doozy. As a book club filled with ladies in our mid-twenties, it was quite a sob-fest.

[This contains spoilers! You've been warned.]

I wasn't too keen on the book when I finished, but after the discussion at our meeting, I realized it actually was better than I thought.

The reader visits the main characters, Emma and Dexter, on the same day every year -- July 15, or St. Swithin's Day.

What we've got on the surface is a classic will-they, won't they story? Emma, the female lead, is a strong-wille, idealistic character who leaves college with high hopes, but spends years working as a waitress in a cheesy Mexican restaurant. Dexter's career peaks early, and as a TV announcer he gains a center amount of fame. As Dexter's career begins to plummet, Emma's takes off. She writes a series of successful books for teens, and grows into her ideals in a reasonable way.

I don't want to ruin the romance for you. It's fun, lighthearted and somehow heartbreaking at the same time. Dexter goes down, down, down, and sometimes it's hard as a reader to follow him into the trenches. The ending is infuriating enough to make you want to punch a puppy, and my fiance came to check on me because he heard me hyperventilating from the other room. A puddle of tears collected where my neck meets my collarbone. One of the lovers dies -- EEEK! -- just when their relationship is starting to become adult, honest.

I normally won't touch a romance book without turning my nose up in disgust. I thought that I would absolutely hate this book. And though I certainly hated parts, it is very well written and quite a page turner.

What are your thoughts on One Day?

For those that have read the book, a movie is in the works, with Anne Hathaway as Emma and Jim Sturgess as Dexter. Since I live in LA now and am surrounding by film-speak, are you happy with the actors cast as leads?

the lady who stores stories in her hair

The lady who stores stories in her hair tells the best stories you could imagine. The stories in her hair are always alive and always drifting up towards the sun. She reaches two bony hands into the flowing hair web, she pulls out a delicious looking book, she opens the pages and you devour it. Lick your fingers clean of words. Thank her. Beg her for another, another. Another. You ask how she has so many to tell, and she says they are like rabbits, always multiplying themselves.



 
This is an ink drawing in progress. It is a gift for my nephew Jack.

sad eyes like two drowned stones

Look directly at your fears, dig down to the bottom of them. Realize that you are stronger than they are. You have known this all along. Realize it is only yourself, your own unfathomable strength, that has you trembling in the dark.

character study: Fred

Fred was a man who came before t-shirts. After he retired, he worked on lawnmowers for his neighbors and started to make some extra cash. He decided after a time to paint a bright sign to put in his yard. His granddaughters helped him, carefully spelling out "Lawnmower Repairs" in bold, black letters on a handmade wooden sign. 


His granddaughters liked to giggle to themselves, and he giggled, too, even though he wasn't part of their secret. When they got off the bus and scampered to his house every afternoon, he'd have two warm grilled cheese sandwiches waiting. He'd ask them how many chicken nuggets they wanted, and they'd always reply ten and eight. They would already be huddled together in the floor watching afternoon TV when he'd bring in the feast. He watched them dipping chicken nuggets into bright yellow mustard, watched wide smiles spread on their faces when they'd bite into the gooey sandwiches. He would remove his shoes, place them by the door, sit in his special chair and turn on his foot heater. With a can of watery beer by his side, he'd watch the small sisters watching TV, watch their legs kicking behind them with laughter, watch the blurry shapes and colors from the television dash behind their blonde heads, and he was happy.