something completely different.

I'm now guest posting at Hemant Mehta's Friendly Atheist blog. My first post went up yesterday.  Check it out here:

Dissecting Rick Perry's 'Strong' Ad

If you're new to my site, check out the About section - and feel free to say hello!

push along.

It is a true thing: sometimes it doesn't really get easier. There are things that tug and pull at you, your emotions, your thoughts, and they just aren't going to go away. Do you know what I mean?

For me, it's smoking. I am slowly and calmly (sort of) trying to accept the fact that I will always want to smoke. Just over six months in the clear, but I still get the jealous, violent pang each time I see someone smoking. I will get better at ignoring the voices in my head, the ones that scream, It's raining, I'm tired, I have a headache, I feel emotional and I need to smoke.

And I will get better at pushing myself along. Towards goals, towards creative growth, towards greater empathy and love. One of the amazing and accidental purposes that this blog now has is this: on the days like today, when I'd rather gnaw off my own fingers than write, I can still say to myself, Just write something for the blog. As soon as I get that out, the spark is alive again and I can keep going. Thank you, internet gods, for that.

the notebook, continued.

Here's the deal:
Two months ago, I said I was going to finish the notebook. I only had seven pages left. More or less the moment I said those words, it became impossible for me to do it. I still wrote, finished two pieces, blogged, wrote in other notebooks. But something in me resisted finishing this notebook. I don't understand it so I can't explain it. I kind of lied a little, mostly to myself, and said it was done. Well, it wasn't.

I know this might seem insignificant - maybe it is insignificant. But it matters to me.

So today, holed up in Starbucks on my lunch break with an Earl Gray tea, I wrote the last seven pages. There, it's done. I want to throw it away something fierce, but I will not.

The notebook ended on this:

And now I'm staring at these last pages gripped with fear, fear of the beautiful words and the ugly words and myself. Just another face in another Starbucks scribbling things that seem so important. Well what is it? I will not throw it away. Keep on keep on. Stand in the long line and creep forward with each moment and word, stare out the window, look back and blink. 

***

funerals & clasped hands.

I walk by a funeral home every day. At least twice a week, there's a crowd outside, gathered after a funeral. I stare those people down. I can feel loss and death on that corner, underneath my fingernails, creaking in my elbows and knees. I dwell on those people, perhaps too much. The loss of another human being, a life, someone who was loved. I don't want to see, but I can't turn away.

In return, I also devote myself to beautiful things,

Such as this wonderful wire sculpture by Gavin Worth,

different kinds.

I read some beautiful writing today. The kind that makes your palms tingly. The kind that makes you unconsciously hold your breath. I live for those moments. I can't tell you why, exactly, other than this: in those moments there's a wholeness in the universe and myself that is complete. It is the closest thing I can imagine to the absolute. And I know it's real when I read something and say to myself, Someday I'll write like that.

There are different kinds of writing in my life.

There's journal writing, which I have done on and off since I was 13 or 14. It's self-absorbed fear and heartbreak and mad love.

There's notebook writing, writing practice. I've really only been doing it for the past 3 or 4 years. And even then, I've really only been dedicated to it for a year or less. This is usually where I plug in freewriting, make lists and let ideas gather some energy.