coffee and haiku

it's thursday, right?

Interview today, at the potential temp-to-perm job, and although I have worked there once before, there are all these formalities involving interviews and pee tests and meeting people.  I will be extremely grateful when the process is over and done with and I can get back to having a check again every single week.

from erica jong

in "Seducing the Demon"

Twenty-one Rules for Writers

1. Have faith -- not cynicism
2. Dare to dream.
3. Take your mind of publicaton.
4. Write for joy.
5. Get the reader to turn the page.
6. Forget politics (let your real politics shine through).
7. Forget intellect.
8. Forget ego.
9. Be a beginner.
10. Accept change.
11. Don't think your mind needs altering.
12. Don't expect approval for telling the truth.
13. Use everything.
14. Remember that writing is dangerous if it's any good.
15. Let sex (the body the physical world) in!
16. Forget critics.
17. Tell your truth, not the world's.
18. Remember to be earthbound.
19. Remember to be wild!
20. Write for the child (in yourself and others).
21. There are no rules.

The ones in bold were extra special for me.

books and movies and more

Yesterday I sat in the library and read the short story "Brokeback Mountain".  The movie was very true to the story, but I still don't understand all the hype.  I finished To Kill A Mockingbird last night, and I started Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  A few short months ago, I couldn't start a book and finish it, and now I'm all over reading again.   This is great. 

While the season of summer officially started last week, we have been experiencing summer here in Nevada for the past two months.  The temperatures soar up to 115, and then drift back down to the high 90s the next day.  It's funny to hear people say, "Oh it's not that hot today, it's only 100 degrees."  Only 100 degrees is hilarious to hear.

I suppose I will have a two week break from working two jobs and then start right back at it again.  The temp agency informed me that they have another assignment for me, and while I was rather enjoying my break, I am willing to take this next assignment because the company is located in the same business complex as my permanent part-time job.  How cool is that?  The agency says this job is temp-to-perm, and while I don't know how excited I am about the "to-perm" part, I do know that I won't pass up the opportunity to have two jobs within walking distance of each other.  I told my friend that we would lose twenty pounds each this summer, and I suppose it will actually happen now, what with all the walking I have been doing. 

I have actually been taking the bus here in Vegas, which is no easy feat, because the rapid transit system leaves a lot to be desired, but there is only one bus between me and my permanent part-time job, and now there will only be one bus between me and both my jobs.  I've been doing a little car shopping, but not as enthusiastically as I originally was when I first gave up on the Saturn. 

I spend my afternoons in the library, which I am sure has added to my love affair with books.  I told the same friend that I believe I am becoming a women's studies enthusiast, and as most of my research in the library has been in this field, that statement is becoming more true every single day.   I will miss living in the library once I return to working all day long.  It has become a pleasant habit.  There is free wi-fi in our public libraries, and what better place to sit and type than in the quiet zone?

I don't think I'm ready to give up my flipflops so soon either.  I've been wearing them every single day, much to the chagrin of my heels.  I am learning that the more you wear open shoes, the harder it is to protect your pedicure.  I've also discovered that although I think they look really pretty, I am not all that crazy about having acrylic on my nails.  I'm long overdue for a fill, but I have been putting it off because I am actually thinking of just soaking them off.  A decision has to be made rather quickly.  I cannot walk around looking this tacky forever.   Thank god I get American Manicures, otherwise I'm sure they would look a thousand times worse.  Other people cannot tell I need a fill, but by virtue of my knowing I do, I am completely and totally self-conscious about them at this point.

Today my mother asked me how long I thought I would be living in Vegas, and I honestly did not have an answer to that questions.  It seems like just when I think I've settled on a direction on the road of life, I find an interesting detour, and I just have to take it.  Just one of those things I suppose.

I'm loving this journey though.

books and movies

I spent this weekend watching movies and reading books.

Date Movie was a dud.

To Kill A Mockingbird has made its way onto my list of all-time favorites.  I am now reading the book.

I fell asleep on Syriana twice, but once I finally watched it, it was a deep movie.

Brokeback Mountain was a movie about gay cowboys.  After watching it, I still don't understand all the hype.  It was a good story, but all the hype?  Don't get it.

I am presently reading five books --  Those Bones Are Not My Child by toni cade bambara, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Remembered Rapture and Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks, and Seducing the Demon by Erica Jong.

I am still working on my summer 2006 reading list.

the li-berry

I am sitting in the library, on a mission for bell hooks, erica jong and toni cade bambara.  my days just freed up as i was informed last night that my temp assignment ended.  nice of them to tell me last night.  i had a ticket to st louis that i could have used, but didn't and now my friends are out there having fun and i'm here in the library searching for bell hooks, erica jong and toni cade bambara. 

i suppose there could be worse consolation prizes

the amos oz quote

I'm having my second cup of coffee of the day.  The first cup I had at home; it was Cafe Bustelo, which is my preferred coffee to brew.  It is Cuban and strong, and I fell in love with it the first time I had it with Juan Carlos and Enid on New Years Eve 2001.  This cup was brewed in the ktichen here at work.  I'm not sure what brand they use, but it reminds me of coffee I used to drink with my grandmother, when she was still a nurse and getting up early in the morning to go to work. Sipping this, I can see us sitting in the dim early morning light of the "front room", listening to the radio, and waiting for my grandpa, or "the old man" as he was called up until the day he died, to come home from his job working at the harbor. Smells and taste are as attached to memory as the memories themselves are.

When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a
writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill
either. But not books. However systematically you try to destroy them,
there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to
enjoy a shelf-life in some corner of an out-of-the-way library
somewhere, in Reykjavik, Valladolid, or Vancouver."

-Amos Oz

I found this quote in the front of "Seducing the Demon", and I fell in love with it immediately, because it embodies everything I feel about writing.  Long after I am gone, I want my words to still be here.  It is making me more aware of what I am leaving behind. Like pictures and scrapbooks, our words say, "I was here."

lately...

Reading:  Seducing the Demon by Erica Jong and Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks.  I finished Soul City, but I want to reread it before I talk about it.

Writing:  nothing but this journal entry right about now

Eating:  Cheese sticks from some pizza place

Deciding:  To join Weight Watchers again after a long hiatus

I think I only added the Season 2 DVD set of Chappelle's Show so that I could watch two skits -- the one with Wayne brady that was like training day, and of course, I'm Rick James bitch.  I'm sending those back today so that I can get something else.

The major recurring theme in my life right now is truth.

From Erica Jong:

Language matters because whoever controls the words controls the conversation, because whoever controls the conversation controls its outcome, because whoever frames the debate has already won it, because telling the truth has become harder and harder to achieve in an America drowning in Orwellian Newspeak.

hello, again

I just read through the archives on this site.  It would appear that I was in love with blogging once upon a time.