I Am From...

I am from dreaming of roller-skating and a basketball hoop in a driveway I would never have.

I am from overdone fish sticks, crinkly-cut Ore-Ida French fries, and frozen mixed vegetables from a single mom too tired to make anything else...and loving every bite because I loved her.

I am from never feeling like I quite fit in to the dozen schools I attended before I was twelve; I am from latchkeys that let me into houses I could never call home. 

I am from a Commodore 64 that always sat on the C:\ prompt, eventually playing the embarrassingly inferior Space Crunchers while I desperately pined for Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, and Ms. Pac Man.

I am from no father but a mother worth a million men or more.

I am from unity through diversity; I am from having the courage of your convictions and suffering the splintery consequences of riding the fence.

 

I am from racing horses bareback, speeding into sunsets looking for a love that would define or destroy me, but settling for nothing less.

I am from Wildcats, Salukis, Volunteers, Panthers, Redhawks and Raiders.  I am from never knowing the score but never once missing the games on Friday nights.

I am from “getting ready”; spending hours under the pretense of trying to look cute for cruising around parking lots, up to no good on a Saturday evening with my best friends.

I am from tingly hand-holding in dark theatres, a mouthful of cold air sparking in my teeth while kissing late on a Saturday night in a wintry cold parking lot, and the tickle of butterflies in the tummy for the love of a man I have searched for almost half of my life.

I am from being a jack of all trades, but a master of only one that I will never name.

I am from waiting—maybe not for marriage, but for when it would matter.

I am from university life:  diversity, multicultural education, identity, introspection, self-reflection, and social action.

I am from open minds, open hearts, open arms, and open mouths.

I am from nickel pitcher Tuesdays and hating cigarettes and the way they prey upon the vices of men, but open to the hypocrisy of the occasional social smoke because, damn, are they ever delicious.

I am from House Party, Heathers, Pretty in Pink, Dirty Dancing, Say Anything, Footloose, The Breakfast Club, Chasing Amy, and Reality Bites—all fragments of a fractured reflection of who I thought I was or might one day be. 

I am from being okay with being the not so small girl with the big heart; I am from never, ever being willing to return to the eating disorders that (for a short time) made me thin and "beautiful" on the outside, but sick and ugly on the inside. 

I am from a bowl of cereal in my jammies on the living room floor at dawn on a Saturday morning spent with my best friends  Tom & Jerry,  Smurfette, Strawberry Shortcake, Daffy Duck, and Foghorn Leghorn (turned way down low so my mom could sleep).

I am from worshipping my precious children as the golden apples that they are and the absolute joy in knowing that, without hesitation, I would happily lay my life down for their happiness.

I am from Philip Roth, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, Eudora Welty, Chuck Palahniuk, and John Irving.  Though I am from the Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman, I am also from pride in my fervor for all things Stephen King.

I am from the belief that book snobs suck.  Movie and music snobs, too.  Life it too short not to love every moment you can.

I am from loving Pac and Biggie in equal measure…from being unashamed (and willing to lose a bit of credibility) to share my penchant for Digital Underground, Biz Markie, Hammer, and Ice (Cube, T, and Vanilla).

I am from Carole, Janis, Alanis, Tori, Fiona and Cheryl—chicks who flipped their fingers in the faces of those that cut them and cauterized their pain through the community of sisterhood and the power of the chords.

I am from Dylan and Young and Buckley and Cohen and Cobain and Vedder—I am from music being my family and these men being my fathers—supportive ones at that.  At least they were always there. 

I am from racing toward being a stupid teenage statistic at 88 miles an hour in an ‘88 Grand Prix down country roads with the windows down and my hair slicing into my eyes screaming music from Morrissey to Megadeth and never feeling more alive for the rest of my entire life than the way I did in those stolen seconds.

I am from carpe diem, because YOLO is for the lost and the lazy.  I am from loving Mr. Keating, crying “Oh Captain, my Captain”, and sucking the marrow from the bones of life.

I am from Freddy and Jason and Michael, the crappier and slashier the flick, the better…though I humbly bow at the altars of Fellini, Welles, Waters, Wright, Hughes, Scorsese, Smith, and the Coen brothers.

I am from Nickelodeon, The History Channel, VH1, CNN, BRAVO, and TLC.  I am from pre-VHS, but I am unafraid of DVR.

I am from The Giving Tree and the philosophy of Warm Fuzzies.  Take whatever you need from me; it is all I have to give.

 

I am from the religion of recognition; I am from the prescience that there may be nothing waiting on the other side...and from knowing that our only obligation in this life is to making the breaths that we take and the moments that we make matter more than anything that ever came before...

 

I am from a passion for educating and facilitating, for personal development and for making lifelong learning connections.  I am from never lying to you and always standing beside you.

I am from helping you to grow up, to grow into yourselves, to love life, and to leading the way by living it fully forever.

 

 

 

2013 Summer Film Review: In Haiku

Hello, my sweet friends.

It’s been a cray summer…and yes, I meant to write “cray”. 


(I am old and ironic—live in my paradox, bitches.)

The days of this season have poured together into one fluid river of time and memory and I have been drowning in every delicious drop of it all—

I’ve read less than I meant to, listened to far more music that I could really afford to purchase, seen tons of films, reconnected with old friends, made a few new friends, and...essentially... tried to spend each day finding the laughter and attempting to take the sweetest bite out of everything that was placed upon my plate.

In this same vein, I thought I’d play with something new—

For those who have requested my thoughts on the films I’ve seen (but to honor those who would like me to be more truncated in my responses…yes, I know I talk too much and post far too often), I give to you…a compromise!  

(And who said old dogs couldn't learn new tricks???)

Consider this a concentrated sampling of the madness in my mind—

May I present, my summer film reviews…

...in stunning HD haiku, the deceptively simple, ancient Japanese poetry in seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five. 

Plant your tongues firmly in your cheeks and let’s give it a go, shall we?

 

 

 

“The Great Gatsby: My Review in Five Haiku”

DiCaprio: good.

Joel Edgerton: amazing.

Luhrmann: in control.

 

Not as frenetic

as Moulin Rouge (no seizures!)

True adaptation.

 

Green light should mean “go”…

 

but valleys of ashes blind.
 

(This shit writes itself—)

 

Respect: “So we beat

on, boats against the current,

borne back ceaselessly

 

into the past.” Damn.

 

Fitzgerald was a wizard.

 

Ouch. Dat green light, tho.

 

 
 

“This is the End: My Review in Three Haiku”

One hundred seven

 

minutes of meta wisdom

 

church could not provide.

 

Franco and Rogen

 

Face revelations with weed

 

and hilarity.

 

Just be good and kind

And know that Michael Cera

is your fucking god.

 

 
 

 

“Man of Steel: My Review in Three Haiku”

Christ mythology

on overload—however,

Henry Cavill?  Yum.

 

Michael Shannon, too.

Intergalactic effects—

but loud and cliché.

An hour too long, but

I mentioned Henry Cavill?

(He wears thermal shirts.)

 

 
 

“Fast and the Furious Six: My Review in One Haiku”

Sucks; surprise, surprise.

Sexy cars; but aging stars

must need cash for coke.

 



 

 

 

“Star Trek Into Darkness: My Review in Two Haiku”

Chris Pine makes me squint.

 

And Zach Quinto makes me pine.

 

(See what I did there?)

Trekkies may hiss, but

 

popcorn films like this one rule.

 

(Why?  Because— Kha-aaaaan.)

 

 

 

 

“Monsters University: My Review in Three Haiku”

All you will get from

 

unnecessary prequels

 

is a laugh or two.

 

The adventures of

 

Mike and Sully in college?

 

Quite tame for monsters.

 

Art is my favorite.

But Van Wilder was better.

(Just not for your kids.)

  

“The Heat: My Review in Three Haiku”

Bullock plays stiff cop
 
McCarthy’s so bad she’s gold
 
Heaven’s vulgar gift—



One gets made over

One gets all the laughs—guess who?

Eddie Murphy-lite.

But with vaginas.

Beverly Hills Cop in drag.

 

Laughs will bust your nuts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Despicable Me 2: My Review in Two Haiku”

Kid flicks get old fast

When not inventive or new.

A sad irony—

 

But for the minion,

The delight of the first film,

Is now formula.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The Conjuring: My Review in Four Haiku” 

 

 

Better the first time,

 

When it was “Amityville”—

 

But not bad at all.

 

70’s fashion

And cinematography

Make up for a lot.

 

(Possession ain’t cool,

 

‘cept 16 millimeter

 

and in bell bottoms.)

 

The Kardashians

Frighten me more than this film

...but, damn, that doll, yo.

 

 

 

 

“World War Z: My Review in Four Haiku”

Zombie tropes abound

 

Twenty Eight Days Later broke

 

Ground for World War Z.

 

Earnest dad’s journey

Suspends audience languor;

Viral undead race.

 

Worth the ticket price

To see zombies build towers

And Pitt drink Pepsi.

 

Is anything new?

 

Perhaps in the solution—

 

The cure that infects.

 

 

 

So...silly?  Yes.

That's the point.

This summer has been about finding the moments and making them last...especially the laughs.

That's it for now...but there are still a few weeks left. 

Check back and I'll keep you poetically updated on my thoughts—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy and the Tin Man

“Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.”

~The Wizard of Oz

She sits quietly in the corner, twisting her hair… 

watching silvery fish race pointlessly around a polluted tank—

staring slightly slack-jawed, stupefied by the irony of it all—

realizing that there must have been a time when she hadn’t felt so impotent—

retracing the steps that had brought her to this very moment—

questioning the validity of whatever she was [or would have been]—

doubting the choices she’d made and that had made her—

hating the oversimplified structure of the existence she peters out with each shallow breath—

denying that this was all she could be or all there was to see—

dying inside to feel something other than numb—

excusing herself from the responsibility for what she had become—

crying incriminating streams of self-pity—

seeking the exit sign to direct her from this place—

wishing frog princes and glistening knights would pick up the phone if she dialed 911—

knowing that if they did, she would only end up with warts on her lips and aluminum poisoning—

accepting that her life has no more meaning than that of the silvery fish—

believing that, if she were one of them, she’d simply leap from the tank and lie quietly in the corner— 

…breathing herself to death.

 

 

Lost and Unfound, Floating in (Cyber) Space: "There Was a Time, I Need Not a Name"

I. 

Sixty-eight degrees of separation

between us.

The warm balm of May has given sway

to the icy,

isolated showers

of late November.

His eye has grown weary

of the same unobstructed sight.

A chilled window pane reflects a

still cooler bed—

and two bodies

drift apart,

finding the struggle a bitter challenge

upon oceans of pima sheets and discovering

solitary warmth preferable

to a belabored embrace

(which inevitably ends with two

too annoyed by the sticky cling)

and disdainfully, painfully

shoving themselves apart where,

on a broken floe,

bilious,

we drift in two directions

across the artic white vast.

I breath a sigh…actual relief—

To shiver and smile

and find

my own warmth

in the folds of deep down,

scarcely regretting favoring

the caress of cold white cotton

to the synthetic touch of toxic familiarity.

I pray the swift return of numbing sleep

to forget for another hour,

at least,

how truly cold a bed can feel—

When broken only

by sixty-eight degrees of separation.

 

II.

We were not always this way,

says the cliché.

But I have begun to believe that maybe

we were this way always.

You, rigid, intolerant and arrogant—unearned and

undeserved

 

self-assurance and a sense of

entitlement.

Me, too young and too foolish,

 

not of mind—

but of spirit—

too quick to trade her sex and self-respect for a

(false)

sense of belonging and place.

 

If only we had pressboard props of

your overbearing mother

and my ever-absent father

to bear false witness to the absurd and unholy union

we two have forged, perhaps,

we could bid a formal farewell,

take a bow, and drop

the curtain on this tragic comedy of the grotesque

before we become the thing we are together,

apart.

You are not bad.

I am not bad.

But, together,

 

we are rot, but not

the kind that you can cut away on a piece of fruit,

leaving wounded but tender, healthy flesh behind

with only a scar or a gaping wound to mark the memory

of black

and bruise.

No, we two are rot like an amalgam

of forgotten,

ugly, unwanted vegetables

left stinking

at the bottom of a refrigerator,

spoiling and melting into an indiscernible soup

of filthy,

 

rancid

 

rot.

 

III.

Stagnation.

We travel in familiar circles because they are

just that:

familiar.

The known has been

all too well revealed between us,

and time spent without mystery

 

is just that:

time spent.

Only there is no change back.

There is no receipt for refund.

There is no warranty for what is broken.

And there is certainly nothing

to show

for the time we have invested.

Together, we face the

Bankruptcy

of a lifetime

spent venturing

 

everything

without gain.