SOFT
by Braino
A soft loving touch,
So tender and passionate,
That arouses love.
That never seems to end.
Whose kiss is a magical thing in itself.
Loving ares that fit as no other has,
Leaving pain and fear behind.
A voice that I cherish with all my heart.
A woman of beauty and grace,
Whose love is centered on me,
But returned a thousand fold.
My girl that rules my world.
The one I love,
Heart and soul.
The woman I call my love.
I want coffee delivery. Why does this not exist as a service already?
It was an eventful night last night, and I was a bit discombobulated getting ready for work this morning. I ended up getting around late, and I left my coffee at home. I do this frequently. I can't be the only one with this issue. If I had a personal assistant, their first priority would be to make sure I had a cup of coffee in my hands in the morning.
Next poem:
SKY
by Braino
Dragons dancing in the sky,
Entertwined in an endless embrace.
Joined so completely,
Their love seems neverending.
With a passion so hot,
They seem afire.
A timeless act of love,
Delightfully pure and innocent.
A moment caught in time,
Never to be forgotten.
Every once in a while I'll have a dream about going back to high school. In many of them, I have to retake a year because of some clerical error. Then I usually find that I can't juggle high school and the working world, and I fail a class.
This past one was a little different. When I parked in the student lot, it was still dark out. I got out of my car and was greeting by an old high school friend, Blaine. Except this time he was a bully. (Anyone that knows Blaine is probably howling with laughter right now. He's the sweetest, kindest guy and probably couldn't be a bully if he wanted to.) He had a buddy, and the two of them started going through my car. His buddy took my lunch, took a bite of my sandwich, decided he didn't like it, and gave the half eaten sandwich back. I tried to steal his lunch in retaliation, but all he had was chips and sweets. Then Blaine tried to steal my books, and I flipped. I hit him and took my books back, which scared them away.
I went in the school and got my schedule and looked for someone to hang out with. I considered going to the top of the stairs to see if the old crowd was hanging out there, but then I decided not to. I ran into an acquaintance who I didn't think liked me very much, and her girlfriend, and went over to talk to them because I couldn't find anyone else. Her girlfriend was as nice as could be. I sat there and talked to them while I put on a pair of brown lace stockings and socks over them.
Then we got on a bus to go to the dorms. I got a small house, that even had a small garage, instead of a dorm because I was a working adult with a spouse. When I got off the bus, there were clothes hanging in the garage (like for a garage sale), and someone came out to greet me. The dream ended there.
The weird part is that I had this dream 2 nights ago. Last night I watched Requiem. There were a lot of parallels between the movie and my dream. Requiem is about a girl with epilepsy. She didn't go to college right after school because of "her thing," as her mom describes it. So when she did get accepted into college, she considered herself a year behind. So the movie is set in the first semester of her freshman year, with stuff like finding her class, getting a dorm, running into someone she went to highschool with, that person being mean to her, etc.
By the way, the movie itself wasn't all that great. The point of the movie was supposed to be that the girl thought she was possessed. The whole movie seemed to be building to a climax that ended up just being a bit of uneventful text on the screen at the end. It would be like a horror movie that showed the shadow of the monster, and then the screen went black and said, "And then the monster killed him. The end."
All that aside, here's the second of Brian's poems that he gave to me for our anniversary.
MEETING
by Braino
Soul to soul meeting,
an exquisite touch.
Like a feather slowly caressing,
With the intensity of a raging river,
Coursing through body and soul,
Experiencing an earthquake.
But bathes you in loving light,
Yet producing a magical peace of mind,
That leaves you shaken and awed.
Inconceivable ecstasy weakens,
Never to be forgotten,
But always treasured.
A soul to soul meeting.
Our 7th wedding anniversary was yesterday. We celebrated at Brookfield Zoo last weekend, so yesterday we just kind of sat around the house together. That was perfectly fine by me, considering I had made it the weekend of doing nothing. A few months ago I picked up a book called Things I Love About You. It has writing prompts to write the things you love about the recipient. I filled it in and gave it to Brian for our anniversary.
This morning, I was greeted by a handwritten card on the bathroom sink. It's titled "My Thoughts and Feelings - to Michelle, My Wife," and contains some of Brian's poems that he has written over the years. Over the next few days, I'll share a few of them here.
CAGED
by Braino
My brown haired dream,
So wild and free.
Strong and stubborn,
With steel well hidden.
Sheltered and fragile,
With a vicious temper that awaits.
Innocent and dark,
Tender and loving,
But still fettered and caged.
Soft and cuddly,
Bright and beautiful,
My woman supreme.
It's Friday night and what am I doing? Playing Sushi Cat.
It's basically a version of Plinko. You drop the cat, it bounces off pegs, and eats sushi. You get to the next round by eating the required amount. That's it. Sounds stupid and boring, doesn't it? So boring that I've been playing this game for an hour.
Right now, at 11:30 at night, the heat index is 87. If our pool were open this late, I'd totally be up for a midnight swim. I really don't understand the need to close the pool overnight. Maybe it's to prevent pool parties. And maybe they don't reopen it until 9 am so they can prevent people from wanting to exercise before work. 'Cuz swimming a few laps in the morning would be a catastrophe.
I'm kind of bored, but I couldn't tell you what I'd rather be doing. I haven't even had an alcoholic beverage tonight. I had some Dark Matter El Salvador coffee that we got from Star Lounge in Chicago, which is probably how I got enough of a second wind to drop a fat animated cat through some boulders. I cleaned up and organized my Twitter follows, that was a boatload of fun. Wee.
I think I'll finish up this game of Sushi Cat and go to bed. I won't say "win this game," because I don't feel like you can really lose it. But it's idiotically addicting enough that I can't leave it unfinished.
I have a life, really I do. But I wonder if a nice social calendar isn't all it's cracked up to be. I think being a hermit is sometimes necessary. Now get off my lawn you damn kids.
I'm back, and in a foul mood. I had a post typed out, but my browser crashed and I lost it. I told you all about what I had been doing since I last posted, but now you don't get to know. You're just going to have to use your imagination. Here are some keywords to get you started:
To sum it all up, every year I get to the end of summer wishing I had done more. This year I don't think I'm going to have that problem. I want to be home for a while.
But there is a particular reason I'm in a foul mood. Today in particular, I don't feel like I've been left alone for 2 minutes, which isn't conductive to a lot of productivity. My customers aren't giving me the usual 24 hours to follow up with them.
But that's riding on top of financial worries. Due to some glitch in their system which no one at Work One has been able to explain, Brian hasn't received an unemployment check in 7 weeks. He keeps going in, and either they say there's no one there to help him, or they claim it's fixed when it's not. My check alone can get us by for a little while, but I'm finding that time limit has run out. And of course, that's when Murphy's Law kicks in. So no matter what I'm doing, there's still that little alarm going off in the back of my head saying, "You're out of groceries. This bill is due. That bill is due. You're late scheduling your doctor's appointment..."
I've tried unplugging the alarm. Covering it with a pillow. Drowning it in wine. Even when I've got it muffled, it's still incessantly ringing. I'm getting all stressed out. My thumb has started twitching. You know, like an eye twitch, except this one moves my whole thumb. I keep thinking I'm seeing people just out of my field of vision. Either I'm stressed out, going crazy, or about to talk to dead people. At this point, I'm wishing for the latter.
The post has ended up being a downer, I'm sorry. It's my mood. "I've always made whatever I feel like making. But now I feel terrible, so the candy is terrible." - Willy Wonka
In an effort to write more (since it seems I never blog anymore), I'm attempting to bring a dedicated journal along with me any time I will be away from the computer. Everything in this journal will either be posted on my blog (pre-dated to correspond to the date it was written), or be part of a future story or book.
So obviously, I'm away without my computer at the moment. We're camping at Lindsey's aunt and uncle's property in Brazil this weekend. We drove through a bit of rain, but I'm hoping it will stay clear for the weekend. Right now I'm sitting in front of the campfire, which by the law of camping, is blowing the smoke right at me. The sun has mostly set, but it's cloudy; this is the type of light, and the time of day, that can only be described as dusk.
"Do you want a lamp?" asks Brian.
"No," I respond, "I'm writing by firelight, which is pretty cool."
Abby the dog runs by, illuminated in the surrounding trees by a glow stick tied to her collar. She looks like a black and green glowing, and very happy, dog. She's in the perfect doggy state, away from the house, and out in nature.
"This is the perfect music for camping," Cam says sarcastically while stoking the fire for cooking. The only non-country station that Noah could find was a pop station. I have to agree with Cam, sitting around a campfire with top 40 blaring from the speakers is a bit surreal.
Brian's back with a flashlight, even though I said I didn't need one. I'll stick it in my pocket for later. "I'm sorry, Baby," he says. I got a little annoyed with him earlier. That's another law of camping, a couple cannot set up the tent without bickering.
"It's okay, Babe."
Noah finally got tired of the teeny-bopper music and switched to a station that he thought was a classic rock station. It turns out that this station also plays country. I yell a high pitched, "Yee haw!"
Brian, startled, whines, "Don't do that again!"
Dan asks Cam, "You're from Texas, isn't this your music?"
'Jew dogs' are on the grill, and the sun's down now, so I think it's time to put this away.
I haven't posted in over a month? Here's a summary:
HorrorHound Weekend was a blast. I sold a few books, which I am happy with. I met a few people that I'm still in contact with, which surprises me. There was so much good stuff there that I'm still struggling to get through it all. I'd like to set up a table at another horror con, if only to hang with the great people there, but I just can't justify the expense.
Speaking of books, I'm making progress editing Sweet Addiction. I'm amazed at how much better it is than Helpless, and I'm quite proud of it. But soon I'll reach the chapters that need entirely rewritten, so there's still a lot of work to do on it yet. Then, time to find an agent. I'm dreading that part, I just like writing. But I think this book will be worth sending off.
What I'm not making progress on is the camo pattern for Dimensions. I know what the next step needs to be, but I keep running out of memory. I condense the file and try again, but when I spend all that time waiting on it and get an out of memory error, I get frustrated and put it away. I also think that we'll have to pick new colors, which I'm dreading.
So much to do, so little time. I also haven't done any sewing or painting. I haven't filed for financial aid or applied to any scholarships. And I've gained weight. I'm having a hard time convincing myself to go for a walk instead of staying home and having a glass of wine. I don't see how I can be motivated to do all these other things, but to go for a simple half hour walk. Or stay in and practice tai chi.
And then there's the Xbox 360 (if you have one, look me up, my gamertag is "Mz and Braino", mention that you saw my blog), and Lego Star Wars. I must be being influenced by the Dark Side. ;)
I've had plenty of ideas for blog posts lately, and been dreaming a ton, I don't know why I'm not making it to writing them down. We have vacation coming up in a month or so, and it'll be vacation on a budget this year. Laying on the beach is free, so I think I'll try to write a daily blog post in a notebook, then enter them all in when I get back.
But for now, I'm ending with a picture of my "daughter" Sami laying on her daddy's lap:
Let's do a Five Question Fri-Sunday:
1. What was the first car you owned?
A huge 1979 Buick Century in a wonderful drab gray. I called it the USS Slug. It lasted an hour before the engine overheated beyond repair.
2. What song are you embarrassed to know the lyrics to?
I know most of the lyrics to "3." I'm not saying any more.
3. Have you ever had stitches?
Yep. One day while swimming at the Y, I jumped into the pool too close to the edge. My chin landed on the gutter and split open. I was about 7. I remember everyone kept calling me brave because I didn't cry.
4. What was your first job?
Not counting babysitting, McDonald's. I only lasted there a few months. I've never been back to food service.
5. Who is your favorite Sesame Street character?
Not counting Kermit, Oscar the Grouch. I think I liked him because he was so different from the rest of the characters.
And now let's catch up to Getting To Know You Sunday.
1. If you could star in any movie genre..what would it be..romance..horror..comedy..suspense or action?
Horror. As a villain. Or preferably, the complex villain that you can sympathize with.
2. Do you recycle?
Yep. We don't have pick up, so we have to take it to the recycling center ourselves, but it's just down the road.
3. Have you ever been to a strip club?
Yep. I went with the neighbor's last summer, and my husband didn't even come along. I didn't think I'd like it, but I really did have fun.
4. Do you have a nickname?
I'm known online as MzHartz, Mz, or Em Zee. I think enough people know me by that moniker that I can claim it as a nickname. In the past I've also been called Mitch and Mel.
5. What's a name you can't stand to be called?
Shelly. I don't mind "Shell," but I can't stand "Shelly." I knew a few people who went by "Shelly," and I didn't really care for the way they presented themselves.
6. What are your Summer staples?
SUNGLASSES! Okay, that's not just a summer staple, but they're especially important in summer.
7. What was the last thing you bought for yourself?
I spent $3 on a pair of pants, and $8 on a Tommy Bahama suit jacket from the thrift store yesterday.
8. Are you happy with your boob size?
Sometimes. I am rather well endowed, and they can be a pain in the ass. It's a pain to find a bra that fits right, and I'm never really comfortable without one. They get in the way, and they aren't always perky. But, guys seem to like them, particularly my husband.
The official release date for Helpless is March 26, 2010.DAUGHTER WEEK!!!!!!! If you have a daughter who makes your life interesting and fun, has been a blessing in your life and generally makes life worth living by being around, copy and paste this to your status. The world would not be the same without daughters! Couldn't be prouder of my lovely daughters!
