...In Which I Daydream Thusly...

(Pre-Script: This post tastes like a dream meal when read while the song, " Going the Distance," by Cake, #53 on the playlist, or "Cornflake girl," #36 on the playlist, plays in the background. So go down to the playlist, click on one of those songs, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Come close and I'll tell you a daydream.

Are you even ready for this?
Warning: You might not even be ready for this.

I am a guest judge on Iron Chef America*. I am sitting at the table with the other two judges waiting for the battle to begin, then end, so that I can dig in to each of the 5 courses, count them, 5 each, which equals 10 courses(!!) that the Iron Chef and the Guest Chef have created in the hour they have in which to create said dishes. Now, in this daydream, it is important to note that there are no snobby judges at the table with me. You know, the ones with the perfect palates? Who look down on those of us who don't know the proper way to eat a quail egg or how to make "foam?" Who have never actually eaten off of a plate that contained foam or quail eggs? But I have eaten Robins eggs, those chocolate ones that you get at Easter.

"But Michelle,"

OH! I hear my Imaginary Reader interrupting!

"Michelle, those aren't real robin eggs, you know."

Yes, dear Imaginary Reader, I know.

"...cause real robins don't lay chocolate filled eggs."

Imaginary Reader, I already said I KNOW! GOSH!

"Just making sure. You don't have to bite my head off."

Ahem.

Yeah, so ANYhoo, speaking of biting off heads...in my daydream, The secret ingredient would not be any kind of seafood, because when there is seafood, the chefs often think it's awesome to make some dish that the head has not been cut off of, and you are sitting their looking at your dish that is looking back at you. Y'all, I am not cultured enough to eat things that look back at me. I am not cultured enough to lick foods that lick me back. I have no desire to ever be that cultured, or to sit at a table amongst those who are. I also don't wish for the secret ingredient to be anything gross like beets or broccoli or peppers or cabbage. Why? Because I don't like any of those things, and it's my daydream.

Some ideas for dream ingredients are: cheese.

Oh how I would love to be the judge of battle cheese!

What if the judges made that glorious thing with Brie cheese, where it's melted in the middle, crusty on the outside, and you pair it with almond slivers and apricot jam on a cracker?

Or what if they made blue cheese dressing in which to dip my mushroom pizza?

Or what if they made anything with feta cheese?

OH how I love and long for feta cheese.

"Everything's betta with feta."

-you know it, baby.

And now, I cannot think of any other single stinking secret ingredient.

So I will leave it at,

"I daydream of being a Guest Judge on Iron Chef America on episode: Battle Cheese."

Amen, let's eat.

-XOXO,

*Of the Food Network fame.

Lemon Tree

(Pre-Script: This poem best paired with the song, " She Will Be Loved," #11 on the playlist, So go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

If you want to pick a lemon from my tree
you should know I will not leave-
guilt is not the thing left dripping in my garden-
too late have I tasted bitter regret,
too slowly have I seen the bleeding fingers
not dripping red, but caked on brown, (this is
old blood), these are old wounds
of late they must be scrubbed
with muscle, teeth clenched in resolution
washed until the water runs clear
If you want to pick a lemon from my tree
bend your bones deliberately
and weep over the soil softening dirt around
roots and dreams
buried together, now intertwined
deep beneath my little lemon tree.

-XOXO,

Long in the feet.

(Pre-Script: This post will grow on you beautifully when paired with the song," Everybody's Changing," #56 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading...I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)
Sometimes you might be having a growing pain and not even realise it, so disguised is it by falling down and tripping all over your self. It's like, "hello, didn't I used to be able to walk normally before, with these same legs and 2 feet? Yes, yes I did. But see here, these are not the same two feet, these are a bigger, newer version, and I have not learned how to balance my weight properly, how hard to step, how far each stride will take the rest of my body." Extra slips and trips do not necessarily mean you are losing your balance and losing it, and a total screw up. It just might mean you are experiencing growing pain. Because you are growing.
I knew a girl who's feet grew long faster than the rest of her grew tall. She had to go around all awkward like that.
("Did she ever grow out of it, Michelle?"
-whispers the wondering mind of my curious, dear Imaginary Reader.)
Boy, I sure THINK so...but then again, I only saw her one year at summer camp and never saw her after that. I would be really surprised if the rest of her did not catch up and match with the size of her feet, eventually. Really, seriously surprised. Most people emerge out of their awkward phases as gorgeous butterflies with colors and sparkle no one ever knew was there, so hidden was it under all that...cocoon of acne cream and what not.
And then there are those who never go through an awkward phase. Remember those kids who were just always cute, and stayed cute? Guess what, they don't grow up to be good looking adults. I know this is true because someone told me that once, and it made all kinds of sense to me, so I believe it now. Physical Growth spurts are gone as quickly as adolescence. Internal growth spurts happen all the time, often right directly on the heels of each other, and you're like, "WAIT! I am trying to catch my breath, trying to catch up with myself here!"
My advice to the perpetually growing is this: Have Mercy! Don't try to run. Walk slowly. You'll eventually find your rhythm.

-XOXO,

I Know What Rain Clouds Look Like

(Pre-Script: In order to properly shake things up, this post must be read as the song,"Everybody's Changing," #56 on the playlist, plays in the background, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

They are flat on the bottom.

You can be in the middle of the grayest, cloudiest day, but if you look up and the clouds are not flat on the bottom, it's not going to rain. I have heard talk of earthquake weather:

"This looks like earthquake weather" I'm sure that on the east coast, they say things like "This looks like hurricane weather," and in the Midwest they probably say things like "This looks like tornado weather." In Hawaii and Pompeii, they probably say, "This looks like Volcano weather; like I have TIME to for instant petrification today. Like I WANT my eggs perfectly preserved so that generations from now can dig us up and see that I only had time to make hard boiled eggs and bread for dinner. GOSH."

But I live in California, and can assure you that I have never felt an earthquake on a day when anyone has said to me "this is earthquake weather." The earthquakes I remember have happened when no one ever expected them, when no one was thinking about earthquakes, when everyone was busy living their sure, safe lives, and no one was giving the sky a second glance.

In elementary school, I learned the drill. When an earthquake hits, get under a table, under your desk, stand in a doorway. Earthquake drills happen twice each school year so that kids and teachers know exactly what to do should an earthquake so rudely disrupt their learning process. Such earthquake readiness knowledge is poured into the minds of the youngest, most easily shaken residents of the state that has a tendency to shake like it's doing the Cha Cha from time to time. But then when the actual earthquake hits, you stand around looking at each other.

Blink.

Blink.

By the time it occurs to you where you are supposed to go, what you are supposed to do, the earthquake is over.

The last earthquake I experienced was about 4 years ago. I had just put my children to bed. The earthquake started, and I looked at my husband. I think I said something like "we're having an earthquake" this thought alone was solid. Every other thought was instantly liquefied, and poured out both ears as quickly as the hot melted lava poured out of Mt. Vesuvius that fateful night as it watched over the inhabitants of Pompeii circa 70AD.

I think I walked from one child's bedroom doorway to the other, wondering if I was supposed to pick the children up and carry them outside or just stand there or what. In the end, my just stand there reflex proved to be the stronger urge. And then it was over.

When an earthquake is over, It is not always over, there are aftershocks, and you stand there and say "Oh, that must have been an earthquake," because it shocks you, catches you completely off guard, every time. Then you or the person nearest you says something like, "Turn on the news, let's see how big it was."

You check for damage and knocked over shelves and knickknacks. If anything needs rearranging, you rearrange, you straighten yourself out, you tuck the kids back in bed reassuringly.

You brush yourself off.

You blink.

You blink again.

At least that is what I did last time.

It was only after all of this that I knew that I had been shaken my core, to the core of my belief and all I thought I held so carefully, and oh, how easy I had been to shake! How heavily fell the knowledge that I am only in charge of so very little! So I hold the little I have in my hand openly, and I hold my palm up towards the sky. When the first drop of rain hits, I fling back my head, open wide my mouth, and stick out my tongue to catch it.

-XOXO,

We're gonna get there...soon...at least I sure THINK so...

(Pre-Script: This post will get you where you need to go when paired with the song, "Closer to Love," #54 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Something is wrong with my directional feature. I have lived in this city for the majority of my life, yet I often have trouble getting to a place. If I can see the place I want to go in my mind, then I know how to get there. I can go from point a to point b, but then let's say I am at point c, and I want to get to point b, (whoa, Nellie.) where I have already been, you will recall, if you were paying attention, from point a. Then, it's like, Back the truck UP.

Blink

Blink

I have to stop and think. For a long, long time. If I can't see it in my head, then I just don't know where to go, even though I have lived in this city the majority of my life, as I said in the first sentence of this post, and you will recall it if you were paying attention, reading and absorbing, not just speed reading to get to the end of the post. If you are just speed reading to get to the end, what's the point? What are you learning? Who are you trying to impress? Only read if it draws you in, and you enjoy it, and you want to see where this post will take you, like a road, and you have no idea where you are going. Hi, I can relate to the feeling I am creating in you now, by writing all wonky so you have no idea where I am taking you. And now I feel like we understand each other, we both have experienced this feeling of not understanding where we are going, but yet somehow, at the end of the day, we both end up at home. Just maybe with some detours in between, but always at the end of the day, back home.

-XOXO,

Write On

(This post speaks in a voice all it's own when paired with the song, "Unwritten," #5 on the playlist, so please go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I have recently been reading the poetry of Ogden Nash. If you have never heard of him or read his poems, Run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore or Ogden Nash poetry website (Hello, Google!) to get a brainful of goodness. I recommend "Columbus," and "Come on in, the Senility's Fine," among others.

Ahem.

His poems make me smile, they make me laugh out loud. He's got his own bumpy style, meter, rhyme, and made up words. It's always his own voice, though. His simple life observations are brilliant, in a "why didn't I see that," or"why did I never say that myself?" sort of way. In fact, you may find yourself wanting to bang your head against the wall at the simple perfection of his words, so frustrated may you be that you did not write that very thing you just read. It seems so...Simple. it is just so very right there in front of your face, do you know what I mean?? Do you even KNOW that feeling I am describing here?

Blink.

Blink.
What people don't understand is that it takes a lot of talent and skill to write in such a fashion. No one can imitate Ogden Nash, his meter is sometimes inconsistent, but it works for him; it still sounds deliberately like his own voice, like someone who's voice is scratchy, and misses in spots.

People think Dr. Seuss is easy, too, but it's not. It's brilliant. His genius is always his own, his meter and made up words his own. Others have tried to write books in his style, and they are terribly NOT the great Dr.'s work. They are not even close.

They can't EVEN touch this.

-That last sentence I just wrote there is the great M.C. Hammer's original work, (except I took the liberty of adding the word "EVEN") and he was right, you can't touch his work, or that of Ogden Nash, or that of Dr. Seuss. You just can't. Because it's not your own. Don't even try. Well, okay, try, if that's what you need to do to prove to the world and yourself that you cannot do it. We will collectively roll our eyes at you and refuse to buy your book. You cannot talk in someone else's voice.

Now my darlings, please understand; you can be inspired by someone else, because it resonates inside of you with something that was already there, and now you have an example of how to execute that thing that was inside of you. Take inspiration from as many great writers as possible, but be sure that what comes out of you was what was in you all along, that is the place from where the process needs to emerge, as opposed to trying to imitate someone else on the surface of the thing, and trying to dig deeper from there. That sort just seems...forced and contrived, fake and phony, and quite frankly, it makes me feel nauseated. And we ALL know what happens when a person (in this case, me) feels nauseated. Let's just say I am temporarily unable to speak in my own voice because I am preoccupied. Let's just leave it at that.

Blink.

Blink.

"But Michelle,"

Oh, would you look at who's Imaginary Reader decided to show up just now?! Mine, of course! Hello, Gentle Imaginary Reader! What would you like to know today?

"Michelle, I am wondering who inspires you."

Well, Gentle Reader, I thought you would never ask. Let me think. I am inspired by great writers who's work I cannot touch, though I have tried, OH! HOW I have TRIED!!

These are a few : Ogden Nash, Dr. Seuss, Anne Lamott, Robert Frost. And then I am inspired by my own rambly thoughts, run on sentences, and a slew of made up words and eccentricities all my own.

"Michelle, thank you. I will go and look all of those writers up online, if I cannot get to my nearest bookstore."

Great idea, Gentle Reader, great idea.

-XOXO,

Since she'll only be 2 for 5.7 more seconds.

(Pre-Script: This post builds beautifully when layered with the song, "Little Wonders," #55 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading; I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Natalie and I are building block castles,
then knocking them down, over and over.
I place a wooden block where I think it fits,
and she rearranges it to match her vision

as a master architect.
Then we knock it down.
Then we build again.
She says "This is a castle for a king."
I say "Who is our king?"
thinking she will say, "Jesus." But She says "Daddy,"
and I am comforted by this.
I remember that there is laundry to fold,
I remember that there are dishes to put away,
I remember that the living room needs to be vacuumed.
Natalie remembers none of this.
So the house remains in it's varying degrees of entropy while we sit in the middle of it,
building a castle.

-XOXO,