| MY THOUGHTS...Short Stories And Poems. |
Brave OneBrave One Her wings fell limply at her side her eyes gleam up with deep pleading but nothing will stop the bleeding Ivory tears she tries hard to hide soon begin to turn crimson and it has only just begun She tried to fight against the tide now she shivers in the cold disbelieving she was bold Crushing is the pain held inside as she tries to shake free her chains left to the mercy of the rains Alone with no one to confide a broken soul forsaken because she was so mistaken. 3:02 AM - 7/5/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyQuote of the WeekIt is because of men that women dislike one another--Jean de La Bruyere
Runners up:
Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo--Gerorger Bernard Shaw
A true friend is one who likes you despite your acomplishments--Arnold Bennett 12:53 AM - 7/5/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyWounded owlSomething I never realized until earlier this week. When you find a wounded owl in your Dutch backyard, you can't take it to the vet straight away. It's a protected animal. You have to take it to the police first, so they can check whether or not you're guilty of its wounds. Only after that you are free to get it the veterinary attention it needs. The owl could have died during this bureaucratic diversion...8:48 PM - 7/4/2008 - comments {3} - post commentShare and enjoyCan't work? Go fold an eggroll!An interesting piece in one of the four free daily fishwraps we have in this country. Up until a few years ago, and this used to affect the income of at least three people I know, when you were disabled and couldn't work, the authorities simply said, hey, but you can still fold eggrolls. If the victims didn't apply for that job they would lose substantial parts of their benefits.The fact of the matter was, however, that in this country, only a handful of people were actually needed for the job, and on top of that, it was a job that required tremendous skill. You would not only have to be able to neatly fold eggrolls, but you'd have to be able to kep an eye on 21 pans that were cooking at the same time. If a disabled person actually were to apply for the job, they wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately all this is over now. The biggest producer of eggrolls in this country, Beckers, have fully automated the job, and all the living souls it takes now is a maintenance crew. With the machines they produce 700,000 eggrolls a day. The eggrolls I am talking about, are slightly different from the ones I have eaten in the States. Those ones (that I ate in the US) are referred to as "Vietnamese eggrolls" over here, and are cyilindrically shaped. The most popular eggrolls over here -we do love both kinds- are rectangular, and I believe them to be of Chinese or Indonesian origin. 8:38 PM - 7/4/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyBit By BitBit By Bit
Blood begins to drop
bit by bit slow at first but gaining a flood a river each dark reflective without explanation without purpose but a moment passage in time gentle rising up to the crescendo climax thunder bolt drum beat faltering fading twisting dying but for a moment breath intake inhale than gone a mist released exhale 4:49 AM - 7/4/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyServer move is back on trackThe server move is now back on track and we should be moving to a new server, (in the UK), in the next few days. In the past few days we had some problems with the current provider and/or some sustained IP attack. I have reverted about 50 spam accounts a day so it is not impossible that they somehow found a way in or that they felt the urge to 'teach us a lesson'. 9:24 PM - 7/3/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyInternational Liteature - UpdateA while back I posted a list of books called My Personal Reading List, which was a collection of books gathered from the recomendations of others on Non-American/English liteature. So I thought I would post ratings and prehaps breif reviews about each of the books I have read from that list.
Anna Karnine ~ Tolstoy
Rating: * * * *
I found this to be a rather charming, though not nessciarly happy, and interesting book upon love and relationships, it is the story that looks at several different relationships, and how each individual previces there loves, and thier ideas about relationships, from the devoted faithful young couple struggling through marraige, to the adultress, and a devoted loving wife, with the womanizing husband. This book is very passionate and moving, but it also gives a rather realistic glimpse into life and love.
Madame Bovary ~ Flaubert
Rating: * * *
It starts out a bit slow and kind of dry, in the begining I did not find that the main characters really grabbed my attention. But the second part of the book it does begin to get intersting and the story picks up more. You are introduced to a new set of characters that I find to be all rather entertaining in someways even comical. It is a tragic love story of a young woman Emma who is discontent with her husband, a not very ambitious doctor who is content where he is, and spends most his time away working leaving his wife alone to day dream of a more exciting life.
The Metamorphosis ~ Kafka
Rating: * * * *
This is a bazzar story that is touched by both humur and sadness. It starts out in a rather comical fashion but as the story progresses it becomes more emotional, and yet still a thread of comody prevades throughout. The story is about a pool family who is being supported by thier son, Gregor. When one day Gregor wakes up to discover he had over night metamorphed into a giant insect. Not knowing what to do about him his family at first keeps him locked within his room and with his condition they begin to gradullay decline.
Books in Progress:
Death in Venice 3:41 AM - 7/3/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoySmoking banYes, we have it too, in the Netherlands: a smoking ban in bars, restaurants, and clubs. The ban commenced yesterday. It's nothing new of course. Many other countries have such bans in place. Still, knowing the country I live in, the coming months could be interesting. Will the ban be upheld at all? I mean, we don't fight the use of certain drugs, slavery in the world of prostitution goes largely unnoticed, if you report the theft of items like laptops and bicycle the police laugh at you instead of taking you seriously... Why would they go from bar to bar to uphold a smoking ban? If the restaurant, bar, or club owner allows it, what can the police do?On the other hand, there is such a thing as the militant non-smoker, who will try and stop anyone from even trying to light a cigarette. If enough of those call the police, they will have to show up at that particular venue to stop the smoker. I wonder who will win out, eventually. Of course, small businesses are already busy taking legal steps, because this smoking ban will kill them. The slightly bigger establishments, however, expect to thrive under the new law. Their income is usually hampered by people who occupy tables all night drinking only one beer. The ones who smoke will lose the table as soon they go out for a fag, hopefully to customers who drink more than one beer. Anyways, those are the cliche expectations that were seen the world over, wherever the ban popped up. As for me, I don't smoke, and I never did, but I'm not at all hostile to smokers. I don't mind if people want to smoke around me. I used to feel slightly different about smiking when I was younger, but then I saw a woman asking a militant non-smoker for a light, and he gave her a lecture that made my head spin. I felt my sympathy towards smokers grow right away. 9:32 PM - 7/2/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoySun ChildSun Child She was raised in the sun a sun with heavy lided eyes that never did wink; stretched across the sky languidly Crowned in golden light, she liked to dance among the flowers, flowers of yellow that never slept And above in the sky the bright fire-orange eye watched with a steady gaze that grazed upon the skin She never dreamed for she never closed her eyes, but she danced in fields of amber in the light of day; a day that is never vanquished A child cradled in warmth and radiance, her eyes seemed to shine in illuminated innocence born by the shield from darkness and shadows Yet only a half-lived life beneath the watch of a sun that never smiled without a purpose. 9:10 AM - 7/2/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoySheep Need Not ApplyIn the US there is this Adopt A Highway program in which groups and organizations can sponsor a section of the highway, donating money in order to help pay for its good repair and than they get a sign by the side of the road that says "The section of the highway sponsored by such and such"
Apparently one of these signs has stirred up quite the controversy, as hard as that might be to believe. But well there was one of these signs up which said "Sponsored by Atheists and Other Freethinkers" and some people claim that the sign is meant to be a slight against religion, and that it is suggesting that people who are religious are not freethinkers. But personally I really do not think this sign is making any sort of anti-religion statement at all, I do not think it is about religion. The way I see it, it is one of those things were if you are offended by it, it is because it does apply to you. If someone sees this sign and is offended by it, it is because they know they really are not free thinkers or that they belong to an organization that does not support free thinking, and they just do not want to accept or acknowledge that truth. A true Atheists would not agree with or support my beliefs any more than they would that of anyone else, but I know that even though I hold a certain faith I am also a free thinker, so I do not find that this sign is insulting to me in anyway, and I am not offended by it or find anything insulting by it, though I am a spiritual-religious person. And there was one other person that called into the radio station where I first heard about the story supporting what I said. He said that he was a Christian but he also knew he was a free thinker, and so he really did not find that the sign was anti-religious, because it did not apply to him. So I think that anyone who comes forward against this sign, is just admitting that indeed they are not free thinkers. And the guy hosting the radio show was really adamant that the sign was a slight against all religion and was a claim that all religious people are not free thinkers like they are. And so I could not help but to wonder, what that said about him. I think trying to say that the sign is against religion in general is just a way for people to veil the fact that actually the sign is really only a slight against them personally.
12:40 AM - 7/2/2008 - comments {1} - post commentShare and enjoySham elections in Africa[warning: a little political rant] I have been in Africa for a little over 2 years now and I am amazed at the so called democratic process that is going on here. I know that what we do in Europe is not always pretty, but at least people don't die for voting one way or another. First there was a sham election in Kenya, where the result was nowhere near free nor fair, but rather than re-doing the election, (and/or sending someone to jail for it), they chose to have a government of 'national unity'. In other word, 'we don't care who you voted for, we will choose your leaders for you'. Now the elections in Zimbabwe are also a sham, the whole world knows that it is a sham, yet African leaders at the AU summit in Egypt are still patting Robert Mugabe on the back and telling him well done and even applauding him for his abuses. The South African president Thabo Mbeki would rather be seen dancing, (yes, dancing!), with the Zimbabwean dictator rather than actually doing what 90% of the people that voted him in office are telling him to do. Mbeki is happy to close his eyes to the very oppression he claimed he was against. It also makes you think really, what was the ANC really fighting for all this time? To defend the rights of the African people'? because if it is then they are failing the African people miserably over and over again, (how many people must die in Sudan before someone calls Omar Hassan al Bashir and politely asks him to stop doing what he is doing?). And when the Zimbabwean dictatorship falls, (because all dictatorships eventually collapse), he will probably be welcomed with open arms by many African leaders. As I said, European governments are not always much better, but at least we can vote them out of office fairly quickly and we have no one to blame than ourselves. 6:24 PM - 7/1/2008 - comments {4} - post commentShare and enjoyThe Short StoryI was bored so I decided to put together a list of short stories I have read, and than becasue I have nothing better to do at the moment, I decided to post it up here.
Edgar Allan Poe The Black Cat A Tell-tale Heart The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Gold-Bug Ligeia A Decent into the Maelstrom The Purloined Letter MS. Found in a Bottle William Wilson The Fall of the House of Usher The Cask Amontillado The Pit and the Pendulum The Masque of the Red Death The Premature Burial The Imp of the Perverse The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar Hop-Frog The Angel of the Odd The Devil in the Belfy Loss of Breath Chekhov Anton Sleepy The Black Monk Gooseberries The Man in the Case About Love The Student Rothchild’s Fiddle D.H. Lawrence Sun The Man Who Loved Two Bluebirds The Shadow in the Rose Garden The Blind Man Witch A la Mode The Old Adam
Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets The Blue Hotel Bride Comes to Yellow Sky The Open Boat The Monster Henry James The Altar of the Dead The Beast of the Jungle The Jolly Corner An International Episode Daisy Miller The Turn of the Screw The Aspern Papers Herman Melville Bartleby The Piazza The Encantadas The Bell-Tower Benito Cereno The Billy Budd
3:06 PM - 7/1/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyEarth Day SurpriseI'm the guest blogger. I know I might have told you this and I know school's out and that Earth Day was a while back but here it goes:
I asked the science teacher a question and went to my desk. (We were doing a project about Earth Day.) On the way , that boy my friend likes followed me back to my desk. Usually when people do that to me, they insult me. So I said " He's harassing me!" Later I realized he might not have been doing that... or was he? Well,I never figured out why he followed me. So I read a book. And he came back and said "Stop harassing me!" Okay first of all, I said "He's harassing me" not "Stop harassing me". Second, he was trying to get back at me and I just happened to be reading. But from the teacher point of view, he was bothering me while I was reading. So he got in trouble. I just love happy endings... but not with soy sauce, it tastes terrible with soy sauce. 9:19 AM - 7/1/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyGirl in the MirrorGirl in the Mirror
There was a girl who stood before the mirror
she looked desperately but did not recognize the other
eyes watched as if from another realm
a spirit trapped deep within her body
only a stranger gazed back behind the glass
she could not speak buried inside herself
lost forever to this world, only the shell remains
there is no escaping from this prison
she tried to scream but only silence answers
shatters the reflection with fallen glass and tears
down the drain the blood begins to flow
at least now she no longer has to see
scattered around her feet are slivered figments
old memories that will never again be
the tile is cold against her skin as she feels
porcelain once white now died crimson
there is nothing left for her in this life
only lost hopes and unfulfilled desires
when the girl on the other side of the mirror
only a shadow image that wavers
takes control of who she use to be
life at last to the illusions denied.
7:23 AM - 7/1/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyAtheletes of Wannabe ModelI flipped on the TV to find that a tennis match was on instead of the show I usually watch. Now I do not watch tennis and I have no real interest in tennis, and yet tennis is evil. In that whenever I happen to find it on I always get sucked into watching it, even as I am sitting there thinking that I do not want to watch and have no real interest in what is going on, I cannot look away, at least for the first few minitues before I come back to my senses.
But anway, it was a womans tennis match, and one of the players was wearing earing on the court while she was playing, and they were these like fancy tear drop earings not just like a stud. But dangling earings. And it just lookesd stupid. What was she thinking, presumbly when she got up in the morning she knew ahead of time that she was going to have a tennis match today and so when she dressed it was with that in mind. So what in the world made her decide, you know, what I really need is to where these earings to spend the majority of my day running around back and forth upon the court. 5:05 AM - 7/1/2008 - comments {2} - post commentShare and enjoyMore On FinancesSo, here we are in the present. A few weeks before the blowup, my father mentioned that my neice was going to college in Colorado. I was really surprised. I hadn't heard anything. Her brother is studying 'sports journalism' in a neighboring state school that is really recognized at being great for this field. I mentioned in an e-mail to my sister that I heard her daughter was going to Colorado. She didn't comment on that. As a side light, my sister has the most amazing e-mail. It mysteriously stops working when it's convenient for her, and --how did you know? It starts working equally mysteriously when she wants it. Sign me up! We tried to speculate what someone would go halfway across the country to an out-of-state school in Co., that they couldn't study here. Snow boarding instructor was all I could come up with. Finally, I asked my sister and to my utter astonishment she tells me that she hasn't decided yet---she's going to study liberal arts. Enough said. We hope she stays away from Gary Barnett and his womanizing football players.
11:30 AM - 6/28/2008 - comments {1} - post commentShare and enjoyLoveLove Love: a soft cascading caress feathery touches with sweet rising tenderness Love: seen deeply within a lovers eyes felt suddenly through my body my heart stuttering with stolen breath Love: glistening upon the sea dancing twilight of the stars reflection whispers carried in the breeze all felt like a dream Love: an unveiled mystery like the mist dissipating just before the fingers touch yet cool tender kisses tantalize the skin Love: awakened from deep within undeniable feeling that captivates even as it frees the comfort in the darkness is love. 6:47 AM - 6/28/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyVerse 30Santo leaned back against the velvet red cushions of the couch. It was framed in fine dark wood carved with lion’s feet and was very straight backed. The noise of the hotel lobby seemed to blend together around him. The hotel was very posh. Not of his own choosing, but it is where she instructed to meet him. Perhaps out of old habit, but he would have preferred something a bit more subtle. Peter stood rapt before him. Not swaying a word keeping his dark eyes fixed forward, in the proper stance of inattention, as if though standing right there he was oblivious to all being said. Yet still ready to leap at first command and obey in an instant. Why had he brought the boy? Santo wondered to himself, here of all places, for such an ungodly task. He could not say, yet something had compelled him. Some old sentimentality? Now he was dressed in a fine well made and hand cut suit of gray, the white collar still adorning his neck. Quite the spectacle they must have made, and yet, perhaps thankfully so, none seemed to pay them the slightest heed. “What you are proposing is unthinkable.” He said in a slow drawn voice. His pale eyes upon the figure of the woman before him. “To break the house? After so many years? I am out of it now, trying to find some comfort in my dwindling years. I am too old to be dragged back into this sort again. Why have you contacted me? You know there is nothing to be done. It is the way it has always been, and not without reason mind you. You know that as well as I do.” “If you believed half of what you said you would not be here” She said crisply. They were the perfect opposites of each other. While his body was languid against the couch, his face betrayed much strain and anxiety, but she said, alert, erect, attentive, but her face was as serene as ever. How she had managed it he will never know, but she had kept her looks almost as pristine as the day they met. Her gloved hands rested just upon the top of her knee as one leg was crossed gracefully over the other. The black dress she wore fell smoothly over her body, betraying not a wrinkle inspire of her posture. Her face earnestly upturned to his though particularly obscured by the hat she wore. Which looked like something of a throwback, to a lost and dead age of glamour, and yet she pulled it off beautifully. “Why now of all times? After all these years, what has made you suddenly come forward? What has changed?” Santo could not take his eyes from her. Even knowing of the life he once had before, he felt a rising shame that he could not completely release. What would people think? A man of the cloth sitting here, starting at a woman like that? Inwardly he chuckled to himself, was he really growing so soft? “Lives are going to be broken” He could detect the almost desperation in her voice, something that was so far removed from her usual hauteur it made him stir in his seat. “Have you forgotten what we once shared? What was stolen from us” Her voice began to rise like a tide with anger, that it had drawn a few glances of the stranger passing by, of course they could not begin to imagine what was discussed but still. Why had she persisted they meet in public? He let out a drawn sigh speaking in a firm gradual tone. “That was a long time ago, and you know, doing this is not going to change our past or our future. What are you not telling me?” Yes he was sure there was something else, she was always a romantic, but he had never known her to be given to such wild heroic whims as this, not on so selfless a motive as she proclaimed. She sat speechless a moment yet she knew it would come to this. Slowly she came to lift her purse into her lap as she snapped it open and reached inside; carefully her fingers drew the photograph out before she tossed it lightly upon the table between them. She said nothing at first as she watched him. Santo leaned forward as he took the picture up and looked down to it a moment. His gaze turned back up to her. There was something, something familiar about that photo. Yet he was sure he had never seen the girl within it. Soon his unvoiced questions would be answered. “She is our daughter. And the whelp of the man who broke my heart, who destroyed our lives and tore us apart is going to claim her as his own.” Santo was stunned. The picture forgotten was still balanced between his fingertips yet he no longer saw it, he saw nothing. This must be some joke, some dream, he thought. At any moment he would wake up, and yet he could not deny the realty the moved around him. Her words continued, it was a struggle for him to try and grasp just what she was saying. “I am sorry I never told you, but I was afraid, afraid of what might happen to her, what they might do to her. I had to protect her, it would have been too risky if you knew. And if you had known, you would have talked me into doing something impossible. I took great pains to conceal the pregnancy and the child after she was born. But it seems now that has backfired. HE is going to take her if we do not do something.” Her eyes burned into his soul as the realization began to hit him. Thundered through his body and jolted him back into consciousness and yet, still nothing was truly answered. The task she proposed as all but impossible and yet…his eyes were drawn back to the photo. His daughter, his flesh and blood, being sacrificed by the offspring of the man who ruined his own life? “What can we do?” He said with some resignation. Perhaps he had learned too well from the past, but no more could he be the same man who he once was that would leap into a pit of vipers trusting only some blind emotion. “There is someone who might help, someone on the inside. I know it is a risk, but if we were to get her alone, to talk to her, to tell her the truth and make her understand, I think she just might help us. We can trust her. She would not give us away even if she refuses. It is our best hope. Now there is something I must do. We have not much time. I will be in touch.” She rose to stand in one fluid motion as her eyes flashed upon him and an all too well remembered smile turned upon her lips. “Keep the picture” With that she turned and left. The scent of her still hovered in the air like a faint memory and he closed his eyes for a moment before letting out a slow breath. What was that woman getting him into now? He thought and yet a new vital force of life rushed through his veins and he felt the burden of age lift away from him. He could lie to himself no more. He had not enjoyed his stagnant existence, his attempt to escape life. But now something was before him.5:01 AM - 6/28/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyQuote of the WeekLove is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's--Madame de Stael12:45 AM - 6/28/2008 - comments {0} - post commentShare and enjoyA Tale of Two SistersIn which I discuss finances and how things got to be the way they are. I can't explain why, but I can tell how, so I will.
I've been waiting for her to throw this back at me. I got to go to nursing school, but she did not get to go to college. Nursing school is very practical;one can always find a job and everybody knows that. My sister wanted to study acting and my parents said, "no way". She was going to go to a secretarial school, but she took a test at my mother's old employer, the old Amoco Oil. She was one of the very few who passed the test right out of high school, so she skipped secretarial school (Robert Morris). You know that back then, secretaries could advance to some pretty good positions and that she did. She was unhappy there, although she did have some really good friends. Boy oh boy could she sneak out of there like nobody's business. She waited until she was vested at ten years and then quit. It's probably a good thing because everybody knows that oil companies in the u.s. are practically bankrupt. HaHa. During her time working in downtown Chicago, she was very generous to me. She would often bring me a box of Godiva chocolate. The thing is, that Godiva chocolates are incredibly, incredibly expensive. Sometimes if I would no do or feel the way she wanted me to, she would hold it over my head that she gave me things. Later on, when she had kids, she got a job as a teaching assistant at their school. Then because she hung around a gym and is fitness obsessed, someone told her that she should study to become a personal trainer. She is still doing that. Awhile ago, my mother, who was coherent at the time, told me that she had quit because she got into a fight with her boss. Don't know if this is the same place or not. When she got married, the trips continued. Her husband is a type of cameraman who worked for a small firm before the owner pulled the plug. Now I think he works freelance. She was always going with him to a shoot somewhere. When she was pregnant, she asked to borrow some of my clothes for a trip to Florida because she was gaining so much weight. I was 5'2", 107 lbs for goodness sakes. Her kids were on planes before they could walk. I went to California when I was inbetween jobs in 1988. My company sent me to San Antonio and Denver, and St. Louis. We honeymooned in Arizona. The next year we wen |
