I see problems down the line; I know they're not mine (Don't let the darkness eat you up)

During last night's evening run, I came around a bend and saw the most powerful woman running up the same hill I was coming down. She was frowning hard with the kind of concentration a good runner has when they are distracted unraveling the physical puzzle of a steep slope, and her face was red. She wasn't wearing makeup. Her hair was blonde, but not my ash, more like honeybrown. She had big, pretty breasts and a super cut little stomach, and she was just eating up that hill like it was every part of a balanced breakfast. Even though she looked intimidating as hell, she gave me a little up-nod as we passed, and I smiled at her. A true bad bitch: a great inspiration. Every step after that, I ran harder and faster for seeing her.


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I was going into the library last night with a book (returning Manassas to Appomattox ughh I can't stop and I won't stop) and I held the door for an old man. He laughed and told me "And here I thought chivalry was dead!" I just laughed, but I wanted to say back You have no idea!

General, I shall lead my division on.

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Speaking on nostalgia and civil war, I had a peculiar scent memory the other day.

I don't really care for perfume, and I don't buy it. I like my coat to be glossy and soft like a bad little thoroughbred, so I put on body oil every time I get out of the shower. I usually pick straightforward, simple scents I like for that: lavender, lemon essential oils. I'm put off by the idea of spending a ton of money on something overpowering. It's not that my disdain for big perfumey scents is related to it being "girly"crap or that I'm snobbish about spending money for quality stuff. I'm not above spending on things that make me feel like a hot, confident piece of ass. I feel sexy with cute silk unders or my machete hanging off my hip. The seeming contradiction doesn't have meaning to me. I like nice makeup. I also like getting dirty.

Perfume though: so I do wear it occasionally, but rarely. I have two scents, both received as gifts, and I switch between them season by season whenever the feeling takes me to put on something extra. I wear them so rarely that this arrangement has lasted an embarrassingly long time.

Anyway: about a week or so ago, I was getting ready to go out, and I put on my "warm weather" scent for the first time this year: honeysuckle. Since I was getting dressed, I was wearing little enough that I could feel the creamy sort of just-warmed-up-to-bare-skin-temperature feeling of the air on my skin. Everything had that soft, gloamy dusk light. Pale new spring. I could smell the cold fragrance of daffodils blooming outside the open window, clean sweat, sex, and my old honeysuckle perfume.

It smelled so exactly like the end of college to me. I was that girl again, absolutely and completely, standing in her skin for just one single second. It gave me this hardchoke swallowy half-sob feeling in my throat: not good or bad, just potent, electric, significant.

So Tuesday night, I drank an old fashioned and impulse-bought some Le Labo samples.

Yesterdays' full moon eclipse was a years-long cycle just finished. But does anything in astrology ever truly finish, or does it just go looping off to the far end of the orbit for a pass in another generation?

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Speaking a little on moons: the current moon is waning off: traditionally, into a cursing moon. It reminds me of a long talk I had with my friend Chris about curses. I respect Chris tremendously, and I'm always curious to hear his thoughts on these kinds of things. He's both very wise, and also proved willing to look into the blackholes in my personality and yell me back in line when I need it. His talents lie in the realm of finding and binding, and you have to admire that in a world of chaos, careless irresponsibility, and abandonment.

When we talked, he seemed to think the warnings against curses were metaphorical: holding onto hate only destroys the bearer. It's inherent that such things would rebound simply by their nature. He also questioned the level of true hatred needed to conjure that kind of thing, sort of like the logic of unforgivable spells in Harry Potter--needing to "mean it." How much fury does anyone really possess?

It made me smile, trying to imagine the weak-ass curses produced by garden-variety hate. I hope you forget the most important item on your grocery list! I hope your house gets fruit flies! I hope your hair looks bad today!

I got some feedback recently that talking about my writing process might be interesting to blog about, and so this is me doing that. Poems for me start like that: little tiny nubs of hypothetical ideas that I can try to spin out. Tame curses.