A Reprise

I haven't done a Jane update in a while. I keep itching to but I feel like I have to step back and tell you the whole thing. These half-truths corrode me. First of all, I made the big mistake of telling my therapist about Jane. When you put something like that into words, you lose it. You not only lose it but throw it down onto concrete and jump on it several times when you tell this to someone who does not get it at all. There is an art to being a therapist, surely, but there is also got to be an art to going to a therapist and seeking healing without misrepresenting the deep and important concepts within and feeling all unclean afterward. Despite the disappointment I had over telling him about Jane and him not getting it and putting me cringing in my seat for forty five minutes over his total ignorance of women's studies, Jane will not be put down. Jane holds up to this, and still needs to be discussed. So that was one thing I needed to tell you. The other thing is that...

  One thing I was thinking about today at work was my old photos from our road trip in 2006 and wanting to see them again. We are getting personal computers pretty soon, and I was thinking about if I want to put my photos on it for background, screensaver or what, and I remembered driving by this abandoned industrial district in Kansas City.   This trip was so incredible to me. I don't think another trip will top this one. I mean that. Germany, France. Okay, maybe going to that park where La Belle et la Bete was filmed. That's the only thing that would top these experiences. We ate at so many diners. We walked along abandoned portions of Route 66 and examined abandoned buildings. The whole reason for this trip was because my husband's band was playing in a music festival in Beardstown, Illinois. Every single detail, every moment, every hotel, every diner, every sight-seeing, most of which were not museums or anything tourist-geared, was everything I had dreamed of in ex...

    Outside the sewing room, under the porch. It crossed my mind that that might be mouse fur in the nest from one of Reginald's kills. I am saving all my loose bits of thread for next spring. I'll distribute them at Imbolc, hoping that I will find bits of those colors in birds' nests. In folk wisdom to save your loose bits of threads in a bottle is to create a charm of protection. Perhaps the charm will work on the birds instead.

The sky is full of churches, stretching over vast expanses. I agree, and I don't, with church. But that seems wrong and ignorant somehow, for them to be so large, and for there to be so many. Hysteria bred of religious fervor. Were we meant to experience this, or is it a reaction of our nervous temperament. I am never calm unless I have written. Yet most of the time I absolutely cannot bear to write. I don't understand it. There are so many things I want to do. I don't know if I want to do any of them. I don't understand the difference between happiness and ambition. I cannot bear to write because I cannot bear to taint my stories with ambition. Yet they are not very meaningful if I cannot intend to share them in some way, or at least promise them a chance of excellence through the fine-toothed comb of an editor. Today I have wished that I was in Austin. I wished it so hard I was bodily thrilled, as though I was about to teleport. I wish. You know what I really did toda...

I have been thinking on the idea of juvenilia a great deal lately. I read some of Jane Austen's early work, and now I am reading Charlotte Bronte's. The juvenilia is inextricably linked to the great fiction. Lurking within the early works are the germs of the great works. And I am working on the idea of my own juvenilia. I am not confident that I have written anything that is not juvenilia. Already it seems like I have written more novels and stories than most successful writers. Sometimes I fear the germ has come and gone for me. But we are all different. I am willing to pose the same questions over and over again, character after character, story after story, if that is what it takes to elevate me from juvenilia to literature. When I have captured the human condition I will have written literature. When I write truth. My juvenilia is very bad. Of course I am embarrassed by it. But I think it's important to look at it to understand what I'm trying to get out of me...

One day a photo will be taken of me in which I am wearing makeup and my hair is combed. This is not that day. This day was huge. This day I found out I was promoted. Lots of stuff happened. When I got home there were tons of packages waiting for me. Jewelry and clothes. It was like my birthday all over again, except I had ordered them weeks before when I was a little depressed. :/   So I had all this new stuff, and I'd just been promoted. My face was still all hot when I got home as you can see, and my hair had frizzed out of its braids. I realized I wanted to remember this moment forever. April 14 - turned 30 April 15 - promoted April 22 - taped some inspirational quotes on my desk. Feeling. unsure of myself.

I am excited because, After work today I'm going to Borders and using my free drink coupon and going to post more pics! I have been looking forward to it all day. I recognized this morning that I am in an awkward place, a crossroads, maybe, an inner search. I tried like reading about women of integrity and not paying so much attention to my appearance these past couple days but that didn't work. I am not being true to myself by doing that, which is sad, I know. One day I feel like I'm 18. The next like I'm middle aged. It's so confusing. I want this dream of self-expression and fulfillment to last forever, but can it, truly? What will there be for me when I am older? What will there be for me when my hair turns gray? What will I be then, an old mermaid? I will be an old mermaid. That's true. At least I am getting a good book out of this. I knew my last novel in the trilogy needed to be about an artist's model and appearances. Now that I'm into Jane Morri...

He signs our names in the Excelsior's register. Famous names are under a glass case in the reception room. We wonder if one day our names will be framed. This page has a double chance, since we both have dreams of achievement.   The carpeting is red; the walls white paneling.   The rooms are appointed with vintage decor. I have had a great love for fashion plates lately. This painting suggests my favorite time period, the 1840's, and my favorite style, dramatic parted hair, bead choker and portrait neckline.     The roses in the courtyard were incredibly fragrant.   We had the hotel to ourselves when we chose to explore, and the courtyard that morning felt like our own as we breakfasted and wandered.     The lush Southern growth was a balm to my senses.   The dining room. We regretted not signing up for breakfast.   We would have eaten at an antique table under this chandelier.   The receptionist gave us details abou...

I do not fear death or hell Or loneliness or unhappiness How can the preacher threaten one with such things? I have known them all And we will all pitch aside all supposed heavenly treasures for one moment of earthly ecstasy I will, I do I take my soul in my hands With this circle I cast I'm not afraid I'm alive this way, when I possess myself and am free to discard these myths about perdition.

Cassandra of the russett hair With eyes of wild green I think on you as fair And on myself as plain. Locked up in twisted trees Twists of hair like boatman's rope I fell beneath your wild eyes And found unexpected hope.

The sun has me on fire, fire, fire. I can't get enough of its warmth. When I die I want to go somewhere where I can just burn all the time. Awesome. Each of my summers is dedicated. I try to name them at the beginning of the summer, but I can't really know till its end. Something about the long days, the warmth, the heat, becomes a conflagration of creativity burning in my heart. I am living in The Siren, I feel like. I'm on fire and searching like Lilith for myself. I feel so alive, so desirous of sensation. I have been reading about the Pre-Raphaelites. Jane Burden. I want to see her in person. I want to dream her alive. I want to see the woman, not Rossetti's pictures, but the woman in the photographs.

And I read back over them and think about them, over and over, to understand better. The Siren is autobiographical for me in so many ways. It's about being different from everyone else, really different, so different it's like I'm a different species, like Lilith is. And it has a special significance for me in the way it began. I will never forget the night I first started this story. It was the beginning of realizing who I am. No one asked me to join a conformist Bible group, but I did. I was lonely. I wanted to meet other people like me. I thought since I was technically a Christian, there would be common ground there. However people were put off by me. I couldn't help but notice. I panicked when I saw it, and how it stung, but I persevered and kept going every week hoping sooner or later they would accept me as I was. So I went against the grain a little more and revealed more about myself, and told some of them about this novel I had written and submitted to a ...

Henry's wound is healing nicely. He has adopted an air of pensive melancholy since the incident.   Things I made. Rye bread, and two cloth bread bags. Yellow cupcakes and a cake stand liner. I'm trying to decorate. I never finished decorating for Easter, but these are some vintage cards.   I tried something different for the bathroom curtain. I tried making an oven mitt from my own pattern, but it didn't work. I'm going to try again though. Birds building a nest outside the sewing room. And the biddies. Left to right: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty (possibly Prince Charming), Beauty, Snow White. Look at those feathers. They are getting plump now too.

The bread is on its second rise, the "rich yellow" cupcakes were a success, and I have made this bathroom curtain. I'm not sure about the curtain though. I may make an air freshener doll to match.

The little chickens have survived an exceedingly cold night. This morning I was heartsick to encounter the front. I didn't check on the chicks before work. We have some power troubles in that regard: we have no working flash light and no outdoor lighting near the hen house right now. If I had opened the door, the cat might have rushed in, endangering them. I would have had no way or catching him, or them, in the dark. If they were dead, they were dead. I would have to wait till daylight to know. And I thought about it all day, believe me. I have looked at site after site insisting the warmth and care that baby chicks need. One of them had a photo of fluffy little nothings that looked nothing like the two-week-old behemoths in my barn. I kept thinking, these chicks seem robust. It doesn't seem like the cold snap would kill them. But if there's something developmental about it, perhaps their physical strength doesn't matter. This afternoon I got home and opened the hen...

I am wanted and hounded. To be sighted by another human is to be pursued. I am walking down a sunny and deserted road, when without warning, I see a bus in the distance. I start running as fast as I can, knowing that as I can see the bus, the inhabitants therein, and there must be many, can see me also. I run sluggishly; when I need my strength I have none. I struggle against fences and barriers. I look back to see the bus has stopped. A man is running from the bus toward me at formidable speed. I turn to run, but I feel I shouldn't bother. I will be caught. He takes me to a house alone, and I know that he intends to kill me, but I am still thinking about my escape, and I don't feel quite afraid. He talks to me about killing me, and the others he has killed before me. He tells me that he has made their bodies into ornaments for his home. I have an idea that I should see what he has made; that it will give me a clue for my escape, or it will fill me with horror so that I can run...

Sleep is the sleep of innocents, of angels Sleep is beneath an arbor of silken bedclothes Sleep is a mound of fragrant rose petals Sleep is the sleep of Beauty in her bower The sun is glowing molten white through frosted glass By the time I am done with my shower the room is almost dark Then it is time to climb into a mound of silken bedclothes cloaked in deep curtains And yearn for restorative sleep Sleep is the sleep of the restless The burning Endless dark moments in a cold void Peering out from bedclothes into the dark Fearfully Going downstairs Eating Writing in my journal Terribly awake now I am out of the house before the sun rises And my eyes are burning and my face looks old Because the sleep of innocents and angels has become a fairy tale Sleep is the sleep of Beauty in her bower, Rapunzel in her tower Her long, long hair bound in a tight golden diadem Sleep is long slim hands clinging to silken white pillows Breathing softly in tandem to the gentle wind swaying the curtains ...

On my first break I started a writing post and couldn't wait to continue it on my second break, but it was lost. The app sucks totally. So this is through email and may be badly formatted. My breaks have been shortened to two fifteen-minute breaks and a thirty-minute. This has totally disrupted my break flow. I often don't have time at the end of the day to take a second fifteen minute anyway so I feel totally ripped off. Anyway I thought I would try the five-minute writing challenge but honestly was discouraged by the loss of the post. I will try to write tonight to make up. My computer is suffering the intermittent loss of power, so I have to watch it all the time to make sure the power cable is angled correctly. The battery doesn't hold much, so I could lose data that way too. Man. Oh, well. I have an hour left of work. I have been reading New Moon. I have serious problems with the logic consistencies. I don't know that I have been very Jane today. It's hard to b...