Tan Renga Wednesday on Saturday: Cherry Trees in Full Bloom

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springtime is coming

hope to put the longer days

to practical use

shadows become longer

cherry tree in full bloom grows

~Chèvrefeuille & cie~

notes

Once my son and I are done clearing out that blasted mobile home (the one where I lived for 18 years and he lived for close to ten) we will finally be able to concentrate on what we want to do with our new home. I would like to plant a few dwarf fruit trees. I've always loved cherries, both as a fruit and a plant. I try to keep looking to the future, to have aspirations but also keep in mind the need for practicality due to my health issues.

The Ageku of this Renga is © Chèvrefeuille. The Hokku was written by me.

Come As You Are Party: Wired Differently or Just a Flake?

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

This is my response(s) to a post on The Mighty.

It is my hope to back away from apologizing for who I am and instead explain about myself so that those I interact with might develop an understanding of those of us who are wired differently.

I have type 2 bipolar disorder and ADD as well as complex PTSD and OCD. I wasn't properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or OCD until I was almost 40. I didn't know I had ADD until I was in my 50s. I was just always scolded for being forgetful and distracted. I have always vacillated between being Ms. Wonderful and being that flakey a-hole that everyone hates. I understand why it happens now, but I can't change the past. I wish people would try to understand me a little better, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

My son will be 30 this year. He is high-functioning autistic and has ADHD as well as anxiety issues and major depression. He is very intelligent and has read the entire Amber series (Roger Zelazny), much of Tolkien's writing, The Count of Monte Cristo, the works of C.S. Lewis, and the list goes on, but he can't learn from a textbook to save his life. I think the current educational system does a very poor job of addressing the needs of those who are not neurotypical. 

I technically also have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but it is my opinion that borderline personality disorder is actually a form of complex PTSD and is an outdated and sexist diagnosis. It is almost exclusively applied to girls and women. Everyone who has it has endured some form of trauma, whether physical, psychological, sexual or a combination thereof. 

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday: Such a Cold Night

Image by Robson Machado from Pixabay

lying down

with quilts over the head

such a cold night

I spent many nights like this

in a trailer with no heat

~cie~

notes

The Hokku stanza was written by Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694). The Ageku stanza was written by me. It is autobiographical.

Tanka Splendor: Vernal Equinox

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vernal equinox

fifty-fifth year of my life

will I find some peace

or will the dark curtain fall

as it tends to do in spring?

~cie~

notes

I created the Tanka Splendor badge with a free to use stock image on Pixlr. Please feel free to use it on your own blog. No credit is necessary.

I was not correctly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old. I was diagnosed with "depression and anxiety." I have both of those, but I have bipolar disorder rather than unipolar depression as my son has. My restlessness was sometimes blamed on ADD, which I have as well, but the restlessness becomes magnified in a hypomanic state.

My baseline mood is moderately depressed. Some of my depression is situational. Living in poverty is very stressful. I try to ameliorate the way I feel about it by the fact that I keep trying, but sometimes I feel like all my trying adds up to one big ole heapin' helpin' of horse manure and I become despondent. 

I live with suicide ideation. I think about offing myself a lot. Ideation is not the same as planning. My planning levels tend to be low regardless of how strong the ideation levels are. Generally speaking, I'm probably too much of an asshole to commit suicide because then I wouldn't be able to piss people off by existing in a corporeal fashion in their presence. But sometimes not having to struggle sure sounds like a winner.

I have experienced spring depression almost every year of my life since I hit puberty. My puberty was somewhat precocious and started coming on when I was nine years old. Thinking back on things, the first time I can remember seeing a strong manifestation that could have been identified as bipolar 2 was on my tenth birthday. 

Bipolar 2 can be sneaky since it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Hypomania is like "mania lite." However, it can be just as destructive. I've learned to recognize the magical thinking that comes with the condition and to try not to act on my impulses during periods of hypomania. By magical thinking, I don't mean believing in fairies or even believing something potentially fatal like thinking I could get up on a roof and float down. Hypomania does not create that sort of delusion. (The delusion that jumping off a roof is a good idea. I like to hope that believing in fairies is not a delusion.) It does create the sort of delusion that I should buy into an MLM program for a thousand dollars and will make a butt-ton of money and be able to live happily ever after. I don't have the focus to be successful at such a thing, even if it is one of the few programs that is legit.

By the way, Watkins is not that sort of program. It is legit, and the "buy-in" for a year is only $30. I'm only saying this because the -666 of you who follow my blogs might be saying "oh, Cie, have you done this again with this Watkins thing?" No, I actually only signed up for Watkins to get discounts on my own merchandise but after reviewing the material felt good about recommending it to others.

I am trying to learn to forgive myself for sometimes really awful and personally destructive past decisions and to stop belittling myself for having a brain that works differently than the brains of the sort of people who tend to be held up as examples. Nobody will ever say: "why can't you be more like that ornery old hag cie? I mean, she's simply all over the place, and she's easily distracted except when she's laser-focused on one of her ruinous plans? Now there's someone you can look up to!"

I will be fifty-five in a month and a day from this writing unless I go tits up in the meantime. I have no hope that "this will be my year" as I always told myself on birthdays in the past and was inevitably disappointed. This will be a year. There will be no significant shifts. I will remain me and the world will wag on.

Tackle It Tuesday + Inner Champion Workbook Chapter 3: Staying on Track

Disclosure: If readers purchase a copy of the book through the preview link, I will earn a small commission from Amazon.

In Chapter 3 of her autobiography, Lauren reveals how her tendency to jump into situations both feet first without thinking led to a detrimental lifestyle of nonstop partying and drugs. One day she woke up and realized that if she kept on the same path, she was going to die. She successfully went through a rehabilitation program and has been sober ever since.

I am often surprised that I didn't end up either an addict or dead. I have an addictive personality and a self-destructive streak six miles wide. Which, to hear some people talk, is approximately the same width as my ass. These people are incorrect. My ass is, in fact, seven miles wide.

Butt-related jokes aside, I am an adrenaline junkie at heart, but my body won't allow me to indulge my addiction. I also have very low self-esteem. The ravenous hunger for acceptance combined with an addiction to excitement led me into some bad situations in my youth.

When I was younger I was infamous for trying any substance that didn't need to be snorted or injected. It's a good thing that I have a strong aversion to things in my nose. As I discovered when I was in the hospital 25 years ago after having an emergency Cesarean section, I really, really, really like opiates. Not the kind you swallow, those make me nauseous as all fuck. Codeine makes me projectile vomit. But morphine coming through an I.V.? That's the shit! I knew I would be addicted quick if I had a steady supply of that, and I was pretty sure that I would have been addicted to cocaine with the first sniff if I had ever tried it. 

Cocaine has similar effects to drugs like morphine. Fortunately, crack wasn't a thing in the area where I lived back in the day, and the crowd I ran with was too plebian to have access to coke. Also, there was the aversion to putting things in my nose. Much though I liked alcohol (and I liked it a lot), I never became addicted although I was a very heavy drinker and hard partier well into my thirties. I stopped drinking when I got pregnant but picked it back up once I was done nursing.

And now you know that part of my story.

Here are today's Inner Champion Workbook questions:

Wrong direction/action:

Equating excitement with happiness and lust with love. I partied hard and allowed guys who didn't care about me to take a piece of my heart in the hopes that if I was good to them they'd fall in love with me. It doesn't work that way.

How it didn’t match my values or goals:

I was destroying my body and going against my belief that a person should have to earn my trust in order to obtain intimacy, especially that degree of intimacy. I was disrespecting myself and it was destroying not only my body but my will to live.

How I got myself back on track:

It didn't happen until I was finally diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder at nearly 40 years old. I was at last able to see a pattern in my behaviors. I learned about hypomania and hypersexuality. I was able to start treating the physical component of my condition and understanding some of my psychological motivations. 

It took me a while to heal the most important relationship in my life, the relationship with my son. I am forever sorry about the chaos my untreated illness and my lack of self-respect introduced into his life until he was 14 years old. It took a while for him to forgive me. When I think back on how broken our relationship was, it fills me with sadness.

Wrong direction/action:

I equate my value as a person with money or lack thereof.

How it doesn’t match my values or goals:

I know that money doesn't make the person. Case in point: the rich but rank shitgibbon who holds the title President of the United States. Or, in my case, Mr. Not My President. However, my family always equated wealth with personal worth, and that is something that has stuck with me on a very deep level. 

I do not personally believe that a person's wealth has anything to do with their personal worth. If they don't do anything worthwhile with their wealth, if they squander and flaunt it, they're nothing but a giant walking rhinestone-encrusted asshole. Yet although I don't believe that wealth reveals anything about a person's true value, I believe on a deeply ingrained level that my lack of it defines mine.

How I’m going to get myself back on track:

I don't really know. I'm going to keep striving both to improve my position in life and my own self-respect. That's really all I can do.

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Ornery Literary Services

Will work for tips and links

The Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp's Come As You Are Party + Ornery Musings: Why Book Reviews are Useful

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

As the late, great Shorty Medlocke used to say, howdy solks, I mean folks! If you don't know who Shorty Medlocke was, it's time for you to at the very least hit Wikipedia and brush up on your music history, and then go listen to some Blackfoot, where you can hear Shorty's grandson Rickey shred on some sadly underrated Southern rock masterpieces.

Sadly for you, this post is not about great blues musicians, twentieth-century radio hosts, or great guitarists. It's about book reviewers.

At the bottom of many posts, you will notice the image of a plump owl carrying a couple of books, one with a pentagram and one with an anarchist symbol. This owl is my alter-ego, my inner badass. Where I am infamous for apologizing for myself constantly and becoming defensive quickly, this owl never apologizes (unless she has actually done something wrong) and has no time for defensiveness. If she is under attack, she will fight back, but she doesn't harbor any of the insecurities that I do. Therefore, defensiveness is foreign to her. This owl is unapologetically, authentically herself.

Me, on the other hand, I tend to always wonder if I'm doing something (or anything) right. I am a horrible--I mean adorable--little (okay, large) bundle of insecurities. I have both physical and psychological disabilities, and I also have ADD and dyslexia. Dyslexia does not have only one manifestation, by the way. I read most things clearly, and I'm a relly gud spelur. My dyslexia tends to present itself with numbers more than words, and I have a great deal of trouble with tests involving pattern recognition, which led to me being labeled borderline retarded when I was in the sixth grade. That label was a thermonuclear hit to my already severely compromised self-esteem, particularly when one of my nastier classmates overheard my parents and the school psychologist discussing it in the hallway and proceeded to ask my father if I really was borderline retarded, to which he naively replied, "yes, I'm afraid so," rather than telling her to run along as he should have.

So, here I am in my fifties with a lifetime of abject failures behind me, disabled and living in poverty, and I review books for a living. Seriously, that is how I eke out a living, and sometimes I become rather cynical about it. Here I am, doing something completely useless yet again because being useless is my M.O. in life. I would do very poorly as something like a virtual administrative assistant or customer service agent. I have moderate anxiety about talking to people on the phone, and if I get bored, I get distracted. I would be fired from these jobs fairly quickly. However, I can read books. These days I prefer e-books because of my vision and because they don't take up space on my shelves. I also enjoy listening to audiobooks. 

Anyway, I possess the ability to read, opinions are like assholes, and I am an asshole with an opinion. So I sneaked in the back door at the Online Book Club and tried my hand at doing reviews for them. My first few reviews were unpaid, and then I started getting paid for my efforts. Doing reviews for paid review services like Online Book Club means that I can do reviews on request for independent authors without charging money. My costs for an independent review are as follows:

If the book is available on Amazon, you give me permission to have an affiliate link in my review post. You won't pay me a cent, but if someone buys the book through the link, Amazon will pay me a few cents.

If you like the review, you provide a link to it on social media.

You understand that providing me with a copy of your book does not guarantee a positive review. There may be reviewers who get their rocks off writing negative reviews and destroying authors' dreams. I am not one of them. I love giving positive reviews. With most of my less stellar reviews, I find that the problem with the book tends not to be the story itself, but the execution and lack of proper editing. By the way, I am also available as a beta reader.

Very rarely do I give scathing reviews. On the occasions that I have done so, it is because I find the author to be an odious jerk with awful opinions who targets vulnerable people for ridicule.

You may be saying (as I sometimes do), "well, that's all fine and good, Cie, but the world wouldn't stop turning if all the book reviewers were abducted by aliens. Book reviewers do not provide vital services such as emergency services personnel, medical personnel, construction workers, mechanics,  teachers, grocery clerks, customer service personnel, cleaning crews, or, pretty much anyone else provides. Reviewing books is fluffy stuff and isn't a real job. Like, you know, the kind of work that you claim you can't do anymore but probably could if you tried, and don't give me that 'but I can't walk very far or very fast, I can't stand up for long periods of time or my back will start hurting, or, but my diabetes fucks with me and starts making me weak and confused' bit!"

Well, you hopefully don't say that last part, but my inner voice is, not to put too fine a point on it, an absolute twat. Anyway, the overall gist is, most people find book reviewers to be non-essential members of society, and I sometimes feel angry at myself for doing a job that most people see as sprinkles on a cake, not even icing or pretty decorations, just sprinkles. The kind of sprinkles that come in a jar and you pay a couple bucks for them and you sprinkle them on your kid's birthday cake and it makes the kid happy. Except that I have the potential to make people's inner children unhappy with my words.

However, today I read a wonderful review from one of my fellow Online Book Club reviewers, and I would like to share that review and my thoughts on it with you. Please follow this link to read it.

Here is a copy of my comment for the reviewer:

Thank you for your lovely, descriptive review. I had tears in my eyes reading it. Although I grew up in a home with both parents present my family was inadvertently emotionally abusive and didn't understand someone like me at all as they were very perfectionistic and I had learning and psych issues (I have type 2 bipolar disorder that wasn't correctly diagnosed until I was almost 40.) I did a lot of the same things that Eva did, moving out with my now-ex-husband when I was 19, being divorced by 29, having a string of abusive relationships. I really appreciate reviews like yours which tell me everything I need to know about a book, even better than simply reading a sample. Have a good day.

Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks. While being a book reviewer is not an essential occupation such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph, nor is it a meaningless occupation. Too many bullies calling themselves critics have given a bad name to critiquing. A professional critic should endeavor to be kind, discussing the best aspects of a work while, if necessary pointing out areas needing improvement.

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Free use image from Pixabay

Cie reviews books and is no longer ashamed to claim it as her profession.

She is also available as a beta reader

Click the link to learn more

I'll bet that some of you would like to know which book I was referring to when praising my fellow reviewer. Well, now you know and can get yourself a copy! 

Disclosure: If readers purchase a copy of this book through the preview link, I receive a small commission from Amazon.

Carpe Diem #1785: Hoarfrost

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an hoarfrost morning

the ghosts of my ancestors

drifting on chill winds

~Cie~

Notes:

I'm not entirely sure that this Haiku entirely plays by the classical rules. It doesn't lose its meaning for me when I flip the first and third lines, which is always the litmus test. However, for me the most important aspect of poetry is expressing the thought, not adhering to exact rules, so--you know me.

OctPoWriMo 2019: Day 20: Haibun My Way: From the Mountains to the Prairie

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

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You see a lot of these critters along the county roads leading to Grover. You have to be careful because sometimes they'll want to cross the road. Unfortunately, I see a fair number of them dead on the roadside. Hitting one would probably total my car, which is one reason I don't like to drive after dark on the Lone Prairie.

And now, on to our Haibun.

In the days of my youth, I loved to party. If anyone asked me to go out to a club, I’d immediately say “yes.” I loved to drink and dance.

I always dreamed of living in a glorious mansion, the sort of place that was the toast of the town.

I have always loved the mountains. For most of my life I lived near the mountains and could not imagine living anywhere else.

The prairie? “Well, how bland and boring is that?” I asked myself.

Except I never really found the prairie bland and boring. I was just repeating what I was supposed to think. Still, I could not imagine living in a place where I couldn’t see the mountains.

Then just this year, I discovered a place a hundred miles from where I’d lived for many years: a place way out on the prairie.

I no longer see the mountains every day, but I love what I see now just as much.

My dream home is in a place that I couldn’t have imagined, far from city nightlife, way out on the prairie. I wouldn’t want it to be anyplace else, and if you asked me to go clubbing these days, I’d look at you as if you had three heads because I can imagine few things I’d want to do less. I prefer to stay home and listen to the wind whistling through the prairie grass instead.

the whispering wind

billowing the prairie grass

sounds like home to me

~Cie~

Notes:

Visit the Artist

Ghost Town Grover Sez: 

"I liked this here High Bun. I ain't up to writin' no High Bun myself right now, but I got a poem fer y'all.

In the days of old when I mined fer gold

Life shore was excitin'

But these days I prefer an easier life

So the Lone Prairie is more invitin'

Visit the Artist

Cactus Clem sez:

"I like that Ornery writes poetry that's more rootin' tootin' than High Fallutin'. I ain't never fit in real well with them High Fallutin' folks myself. Which is okay, 'cause I think them high society parties is kinda boring anyways.

I don't like to go to parties

In the high society

'Cause it's a prickly problem

When them fancy folks stick to me

If you'd like to read Grover and Clem's Halloween adventure, Horrible Harvest, click here.

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: A Green Boat Ride

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taking a boat ride

I would spend several hours

experiencing

the torments of the seasick

from the rocking of the waves

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's pilgrimage inspiration features a very beautiful place. However, with my messed-up inner ears, all you have to say is "boat ride," and I start feeling queasy. I would either spend much of my time nauseated, or I would spend it high and goofy from the motion sickness pills. I am not a good water traveler.

It doesn't matter if the water is calm. One of my worst experiences of water sickness happened while on a rowboat on a calm lake. My inner ear picks up on very subtle rocking motions. I was sick for hours after the fact.

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: St. Mary MacKillop

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I truly believe

that every caring teacher

embodies sainthood

~Cie~

Note:

The aspect of the St. Mary MacKillop story that stood out for me was the fact that she was a teacher.

Teachers can truly make or break their students.

I've had a few wonderful teachers and a few truly horrible ones.

Most of my elementary school teachers were decent. My sixth-grade teacher, however, probably got nominated for some sort of award in the hell that he's likely returned to by now. This man literally traumatized me so much when it came to the use of outlines for writing stories that I have actual PTSD reactions if someone suggests that I work with an outline. My throat starts clenching up and I start having trouble breathing. I can use outlines for boring-ass non-fiction college paper type stuff, but never for any work that I really care about.

You see, my sixth-grade teacher insisted that we write an outline for our story projects, which is something I never did. We were to follow the outline closely and not deviate from it significantly, but if the outline and the story matched exactly, he would know we had written the story first and would give us a failing grade. Which is what happened to me, because I can't write like that.

I was prone to catching every illness that came down the pike when I was a kid, and one time I missed three weeks of school. When I returned, this man marched up to my seat, slammed the attendance book down on the desk, and demanded to know what I was trying to pull.

I looked him dead in the eye and informed him that I had been sick.

I was freaking eleven years old and was something of a nervous wreck. I wasn't trying to pull anything. But after that, I pulled pranks on him, such as locking his file cabinet and hiding the key. I'd never been the sort of kid to do that sort of thing to a teacher previously.

Anyway, good teachers are worth everything and teachers like my sixth-grade teacher should choose a profession where they never encounter another living being. This man would have traumatized e. coli bacteria.

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: Directional Sign

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on a lonesome road

in the middle of nowhere

where the hell am I?

~Cie~

Notes:

The story of the place pictured at the top of the post is interesting, and you can learn it by clicking on the Carpe Diem logo just above the notes. Admissibly, t'was the picture that inspired me.

My most-often-asked questions in this life are:

1. Where the hell am I?

2. What the hell am I doing here?

3. Why the hell am I doing this?

4. What the hell possessed me to think this was a good idea?

5. What the eff is this crap?

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #89: Extreme Haibun: Is It Too Much to Ask For Rain?

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“Is it too much to ask for it to rain?” I ask as I spend another summer steeped in sweat.

Yet I remember the year when the flood came, another year when I often asked: “is it too much to ask for it to rain?”

I remember the wave slamming into the side of my car, the terror as I wondered if I would be swept away into a field which had become a choppy lake.

I did not ask for it to rain for a long time after that.

when something well-loved

becomes a thing of terror

everything changes

~Cie~

Image from the Longmont Times-Call

Notes:

For those who are prone to questioning my veracity, the story related above is 100% true and I had PTSD following the incident. One of the ways in which this affected me is making me unable to write for a long time. People lost their lives during this flood, and I didn't know why I wasn't one of them. I've never done anything which I believe makes me worthy of continued survival, and yet, like toenail fungus, I persist in hanging around long past my sell-by date.

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #86 + Weekend Mini Challenge: A Portrait of Dystopia

Dystopian Portrait

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

Utopia was

Only ever a sad lie

Flawless fallacy

Pretty cars, pretty people

Not a place for those like me

~Cie~

Notes:

Today I found a couple of great prompts and flipped them upside down. 

The Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation prompt asks us to examine the concept of utopia in a Haiku or Tanka. Mine is more a Senryu than a Haiku. I do not question the existence of Utopia, but I postulate that it is more like Metropolis. It exists for a very small percentage of people. Most people are on the outside looking in, and some are completely crushed beneath the boots of the beautiful and careless dwellers of Utopia.

So, what portrait did I paint?

That of one of the people crushed beneath unrealistic expectations of beauty and brilliance and casually cast aside, not worthy of any sort of rescue because they do not adhere to society's standards of prettiness.

The person in the portrait is me. I chose it because I was sitting at a rather dismal-looking bus stop on the day of the 2017 Women's March. I would learn that day that not only had my health deteriorated more than I previously realized, but people are utterly self-absorbed, even the ones who claim to be "progressive" in their approach.

I managed to get through the entire march, which is a miracle in itself considering that I almost stopped several times along the way because I was becoming weak, but I had also become confused enough that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find my way back to the bus stop. 

When the bus stopped, everyone else shoved on board and the bus driver told me he wouldn't be able to take me. I said I understood, and I understood his position, but I kind of thought all those other people were assholes. I started feeling that wouldn't have happened to me if I was young and pretty.

 I was ravenously hungry. I had a Snickers bar, but I was trying to conserve it for "the right moment." With a lifetime living with ED (stands for Eating Disorder), I had learned to deny myself food up until things became critical. They were critical, but not critical enough.

I got on the next bus about a half hour later and had to stand. I was wobbling all over and my eyes were rolling back in my head. Exactly nobody gave any fucks. In fact, one spectacular dudebro about my age chortled and said: "I had to stand all the way there, now it's your turn."

Despite the fact that my eyes were glazed over, I managed a withering glare and said in a steely if somewhat shaky voice: "Buddy, I had to stand the whole way there too. Don't even try to pull that crap on me!"

He turned away and noticed a confused-looking young woman holding a bus schedule. He grinned and invited her to sit down in his seat. She didn't speak much English. He leaned in close to her in order to better "help" her, I suppose, because he was just a helpful kind of guy, at least if the person in need of help was a pretty young woman.

When a seat finally opened up, I scooted my ass into it as quickly as I could and scarfed the Snickers bar as if I hadn't eaten in a year. By the time I got off the bus, my feet were swollen and aching so badly I could hardly walk. This time, however, an angel appeared in the form of a very sweet Latina lady in her late 30's or early 40's who offered me a ride. I thanked her profusely. After the callousness I'd just experienced, her generosity brought tears to my eyes.

I knew at that point that I could no longer take part in events such as marches because I was no longer strong enough to do so physically.

I lost my job a couple months later because I became extremely ill and was pushed to keep working by my supervisor in spite of having a serious respiratory infection. I had a small stroke while working one night and ended up getting fired. Once my savings were gone, which happened reasonably quickly, I ended up living in poverty and have been there ever since. If it weren't for my son allowing me to couch-surf, I'd be sleeping in my car.

Utopia exists for a very small percentage of people. I used to dream of being something wonderful, of being a star, but over the years I've come to see that often those dreams end as nightmares.

So, you have a portrait of the kind of person that society doesn't want to acknowledge even though there are a lot more of us than most people care to think, and my skepticism that Utopia exists for anyone but the well-heeled in anyplace but dreams.

Weekend Tan Renga Meditation: Icicles

 Image Source

Narcissus

in love with his reflection

vainglorious guy

like so many guys I've known

in love with their own image

snowdrops blooming

waving goodbye to Winter

nearly Spring

summer will be here too soon

wave goodbye to what I've known

icicles hanging

at the gutter of the old mansion

sun's reflections

the old place becomes my home

in the middle of nowhere

this cold winter night

laying naked under my quilt

feels like summer

have not felt this way in years

if I ever felt this way

messenger of heaven

circling high above my head -

re-thinking my life

what do you want me to do

why do you want me to do

light of ember

mysterious shadows on the wall -

a cool summer night

here in the home I've run to

long way from the home I knew

Chèvrefeuille & Cie

Note:

The hokku (the Haiku stanza) of each of these Tan Renga were created by Chèvrefeuille. The ageku (the closing stanza) were each created by me.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 28 + Poems in April 2019 Day 28: Major Changes

Greetings from Grover, Colorado

Guess we're making an offer on a place that is

Really in the middle of nowhere

On the outskirts of the outskirts

Very far back in the backwater

Everything in the past leading us to this

Rural hotel in a very tiny town

Can't imagine that most folks would want to

Own a place that's such a 

Long way from everything

Out on the Northeastern plains

Rippling grasses and whispering winds

Accentuate the solitude

Dreary it may seem to most

Only the broken dream of such a view

~Cie~

Notes:

A daunting move filled with possibilities.

This place appears in the dictionary next to the phrase "fixer-upper" and the word "boonies."

It is zoned as a multi-use property and has given new life to my dead dreams.

This may be the most important move I will ever make.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 27 + Poems in April 2019 Day 27: Ghost Town Salvation

The former Grover Hotel

This dusty old hotel in a run-down ghost town

Might be salvation for a broken spirit

~Cie~

Notes:

The optional NaPoWriMo prompt was to reinterpret a Shakespearian sonnet, and the Poems in April prompt was to write a stark, two-line poem. At this stage of things, guess which prompt is going to win!

This is a photo of the building that my son and I may be buying. We will be going to see it tomorrow. 

I know this blog does not have many followers and that in general people don't like me very much, but some of you may be curious to see what happens next if we do make this place our home. And yes, it is in a place which is literally in the Ghost Towns of Colorado guide.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 15 + Poems in April 2019 Day 4 & 15: The Haibun Ballad of Cie

My Eyes Have Seen Version 4

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

(Yes, that's my big, ugly, Neanderthal forehead)

So, you want to know about me.

My truth will make you uncomfortable. You may end up thinking that I’m lying because surely in modern society, nobody could be allowed to fall through the cracks that much. But you asked, and so I’ll answer as briefly as possible.

I was born in 1965 in Denver, Colorado to a doctoral student in literature who had once wished to travel the country like his hero, Jack Kerouac, and his wife, a former nurse with a degree in fine arts.

My parents had abandoned the church but returned to it when I was seven years old. My then-three-year-old brother and I were baptized and became Catholic.

My bipolar disorder onset when I hit puberty, and I was always misunderstood.

I am fifty-four years old and live in poverty.

If you are broken

If you are damaged or odd

You will be cast out

~Cie~

(Telling it like it is)

Prompt #4

Prompt #15

Notes:

By the way, I do write flash fictions in Haibun form because I like to.

Come at me!

The ending verse was inspired by a quote from the character John River, portrayed by the brilliant Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard.

In this world, no-one can be different or strange or damaged, or they lock you up.

--John River

NaPoWriMo 2019: Just Another Day Again

Image by Sophie Janotta from Pixabay

Awake

Breakfast

Cook

Drive

Eat

Feed

Groceries

Hair

Imagine

Joke

Know

Learn

Mend

Nosh

Opine

Pay

Quest

Read

Sleep

Try

Utilize

Vent

Work

Xeric

Yawn

Zzzz

~Cie~

Note:

The NaPoWriMo prompt asked for a poem involving a list, and I took it literally and made a List Poem.

Xeric is a word meaning a state of dehydration, containing very little moisture. With my endocrine problems, dry skin is a real problem. The areas that had the worst problems with acne in my youth are now prone to flaking and redness. 

Inspire Me Monday (on Tuesday) #211: My Wait Problem

Copyright Taro Vesalainen

Inspire Me Monday is a new blog hop that I've just discovered. So, even though this is post #211 for them, it's my first one. 

I'm going to play nice and keep this post family-friendly, with the caveat that my blog is not entirely family-friendly. There are no naughty bits here, but there is cussing. That is how I roll.

With the realization that I am not a petite delicate flower and that buttah does indeed melt in my mouth and I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from nice and normal, you may be wondering what in the blazes kind of role model I am and how in the Universe I could possibly inspire you.

Well...

I do not claim that I can inspire everybody or even anybody at all if you want the truth. However, if you are like me and get absolutely nothing from reading cheery platitudes by shiny happy people because you know you are the furthest thing from being what they are, then I may just be the bundle of snark that you need to light a fire under your butt and get you on the road to success, your way.

You see, I was sidelined for many years by being unpretty and unskinny and having a brain that was trying to kill me. I had a very serious Wait problem. Like most girls of my generation and the generations before and possibly the generations since, I was fed a line which involved living Happily Ever After. But since I was unpretty and unskinny and Not Normal, I had to Wait. 

First of all, I had to Wait for the Handsome Prince (TM) that was going to come and rescue me, because, you see, Girls are Petite Delicate Flowers who cannot handle making their own way in the world. They will need a Handsome Prince (TM) to fight the Beasties that live in the Wild Wood. 

However, before setting out to catch a Handsome Prince (TM) I needed to Wait until I became Slim and Pretty. Because a Handsome Prince (TM) will never see fit to rescue a maid who is unskinny and unpretty. 

The years went by while I attempted to become Slim and Pretty. There was a prince or knight or something who liked me well enough and I liked him well enough. It wasn't love, but we did have a son, who isn't normal--he's better. The prince or knight or whatever and I ended up divorcing, but we got along better afterward (as friends, not romantically) and became a Forever Family together with our son.

I did not, however, live Happily Ever After. I was still unskinny and unpretty and my brain was still a mess, and I was still Waiting to catch a Handsome Prince (TM) to save me from myself. I never did catch a Handsome Prince (TM), but I did let quite a few Knaves into my life before realizing that my son didn't deserve to be exposed to these abusive not-gentlemen, and, in fact, neither did I. So I stopped waiting for the Handsome Prince (TM). 

It would take a while longer for me to stop Waiting to be Slim and Pretty before living my life. Then one day when I was 45 years old, I was hit upside the head with a couple of bricks. One was called Health at Every Size. The other was called Size Acceptance. A bright golden light shone down on me as I realized that it was not necessary to be Slim and Pretty to pursue my goals. It wasn't even necessary to be young, which was a good thing, because I'd left that attribute lying in a ditch years ago.

Unfortunately, I still believed that I needed to be Adored in order to be Successful. I gauged the worth of my writing on whether I got a lot of comments. I gauged my own worth on whether I got compliments. I was often left disappointed and sullen. Despite shedding so much Wait, I was clearly still suffering from a tremendous Wait problem.

I needed to make a critical decision: either accept the fact that my work will never appeal to the mainstream, or stop writing altogether. Since I become a tremendously sullen sod when I don't write, I decided to stop caring about the opinions of others, whether it be their opinions of my writing or their opinions of me personally. 

At that moment, a great, rotting albatross and a millstone lifted from my neck, and I felt as free as I did as a young child writing and drawing and giving no rips what anyone else thought of my creations, simply enjoying the act of creating them.

At this point, I engage in a few different types of writing. One is non-fiction writing, such as what I have done here. This type of writing divides into subtypes. One is promotional writing, the other is anecdotal and possibly encouraging in nature, such as this post. The more sanitized posts appear on the Deliver Me blog and sometimes the Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood blog. The more raw and dark examples of this writing can be found on the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp blog.

I also write and edit fiction, which, again, divides into two categories. There is work slated for publication. You can view examples of this kind of writing on the Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood blog.

I write poetry as well, but this tends to be confined to two times a year: April and October. The NaPoWriMo blog hop takes place in April and the OctPoWriMo takes place in--you guessed it--October.

On the Deliver Me blog, I also share ways to make a bit of extra income. I do not claim that I am any sort of expert, only that I have learned a few things over the years, and I would like to share them with you in case they might help you too.

I am not an expert of any kind. I don't offer up soothing platitudes, either religious or otherwise. I am an agnostic and prefer to keep my spiritual beliefs and theories separate from my business writing. I have had a difficult life and, while I'm less overtly angry than I was when I was younger, I can't say I've completely accepted the things that have transpired in my life, even if I do understand them better. I have not been "cured" of my psychological dysfunctions, I have simply learned to cope with them. I am not here to tell you "feel good" stories or to tell you that it's all going to be okay because I don't know if it is or not.

So, how in Hades can someone like me possibly inspire you?

As I said before, it's quite possible that I can't. However, while I can't make everything right for you, what I can offer you is this: 

Honesty.

Not just honesty about the products or earning opportunities I may recommend. 

Honesty about myself and the world as I see it. 

No rose-colored glasses.

Just bare-bones, bare-knuckled honesty.

It's unpretty, but it's real.

Personally, I've never gotten anything out of saccharine platitudes. If you don't either, you may find me a--dare I say--inspiring change of pace.

This is how I may be able to inspire you.

~Cie~

Cross-Posted to:

Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp

Deliver Me

Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood

Netherworld Writers Guild

One Love