shE makes me want again to take up my brushes...

Miss Audrey Kawasaki paints on wood... an amazing artist is she.

It's been more than twelve years since I picked up a brush. I went to work one day at a television station, picked up Photoshop, and my brushes have languished like Poe's House of Usher ever since. I picked up a pen in earnest about the same time and began to write poetry... few stories, because they require the patience of a saint and the determined insanity of a free climber. I have patience in spades but not the gritty determination. The desire is there. It hasn't left. Nor will it. My gift's muscles will wither and atrophy, but exercise will bring them back to life. Yet in order to pick those brushes up again, I've got to have something to say. I'm not even sketching anymore, so whatever voice I have it has been as celibate as I have, lo, these many years.

But miss Kawasaki makes me want again to take up my brushes, and in both wide and fine swathes give my dreams a measure of corporeal presence they've not enjoyed in a long while. Few artists inspire me, which is why I even bother mentioning miss Kawasaki...

My Brush, Dreams' Clarion

Lips a' blush
at the tip of a brush
rose madder and silky pearl
on wooden dreams unfurl
our lips brush
while intimacies blush
hands steady
colors wide, heady and thin
in
swathes, corporeally
stand and demand
~ yearning attention
dreams' intention all along

ELAshley
033110.034926.6

Sorry, didn't mean to wax lyrical. It happens.

I look at miss Kawasaki's work and I am amazed-- I wish for talent like hers --but I must remember that she lives with her talent every moment of her life. As do I. What I see as mundane (seeing it every moment of my life) others look and say "I am amazed!". As am I, at times, when I step back and look at what I've created. Did I really do that? I ask. What force directed my hand?. The easy answer is God.But truthfully, He gave me and miss Kawasaki extraordinary gifts, but we can choose to use them or bury them someplace dark where languishment and atrophy smother dreams. Sometimes our hands are directed. Sometimes not. Having a gift is no guarantee that all we do will stand apart. Standing apart is a struggle, ask people like Dennis B. He succeeds, but success is by no means assured. We must work for it.

It's time to go out into the back yard tonight and in the dark dig up my brushes and wanton inspirations and nurse them back to health.

grok thE Naybob

Remember Spiro T. Agnew? Beuller? Anyone? He was once Vice President to Richard Nixon, perhaps best known for describing Nixon's critics in the media as "nattering nabobs of negativism." Well, I, even I, ELAshley, have my own personal 'Nabob' in the person of a man we'll call Grok. No matter what I show Grok-- flash ad, website, billboard, whatever --he has something negative to say about it...

...it's too fast, I'd use a different font, why did you use those colors? it looks 'kiddie,' it'll distract from all the other ads around it...

...all this while proudly showing off his own work, expecting only praise!

Well, good for him. I'm giving up showing him any of my work. Let him discover my work online like everyone else.

Grok's usually helpful when I have questions, though I've been instructed to not ask his help (long story, and not to the point), but he seems threatened by just about everything I do. He needn't worry-- he's years ahead of me on After Effects, and I'm not competing for his job. I should point out that he's admitted to wishing he still had my position, so perhaps that's it.

Either, or, I'm tired of sharing anything with him. My boss is pleased with my work, as are the clients, and that's what's important.

Speaking of competition, there was a time some seven years back when both he and I were tasked to design some large-format banners for a mobile set; backdrops for anchors (you know, talking heads at a local news station). Grok and I submitted our finished designs to the GM in a pseudo-public meeting, and his design was rejected... it was too "busy"... a cacophony of lines and distubia. Mine was simple and colorful. The banners cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,400 to print and were used for only 9 days during the National Peanut Festival here in Southeast Alabama.

Grok is a whiz with computers, but prior to a couple of years ago his design ability was unremarkable-- that is to say, he had occasional bursts of inspiration but in the long run he was... well... unremarkable. He has improved of late, but it's more the inspiration of others; what he has seen others do and emulated. Me? I won't brag here... except to say I have ALWAYS been creative. Always. It's one of my higher purposes in this life. I'm sure Grok has higher purposes in his life as well, but...

where E is today

Dear Mary Angel

I'm tired of just about everything. I can understand Luke 21:26 though it doesn't apply to the present; there is still a great deal of fear in the world today. I spend too much time worrying about the direction of this country than I do the direction of men's souls. I place too much value in the intransigencies of life than I do in life itself. How has this happened?

All I want is to be all that God made me to be, and to be loved by someone God would approve of. I don't think that's too much to ask.

I'm so tired and distracted I haven't been able to focus on work for a week now. There have been no looming deadlines, and those making their approach are nothing to worry over, nevertheless I can't focus on the tasks before me; they pale in comparison to the crisis currently facing me-- my own personal midlife crisis. And I have no one to share it with it.

What will that shore look like when I get to the other side of this? I think that answer worries more than anything else. This world is going to shit in a ziplock, And yes, that worries me, but I'm worried more about where I fit in all this. God doesn't make anything without specific purpose. Each of us have specific purpose, something we are meant to do. How many of us ever discover that purpose? I want to know my reason for being. He's given me so many talents... so many... but I've never known what to do with them, let alone use them for His glory. I wish I had done things differently when I was 17, 18, 20, 23. I wish I weren't the kind of person I was then. But I did meet you, didn't I? A blessing in every brier patch? And what's the point of having a midlife crisis if you don't even have cash enough for a motorcycle?

Something I've considered lately. We are all stimulus junkies; we are sensory beings owing our daily perceptions to the things we see, hear, taste, yada... and it is through these stimulus-imprinted perceptions we categorize it all: good days, bad days, and everything in between. And that's all a motorcycle would be, something mostly in between. I'm tired of being 'in between.' I just want to know who I am in Him.

There's a song getting some air on the radio where I'm at, something about ten-thousand fireflies? Well, the song is silly, but the last line speaks to where I am:

Because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

And my dilemma? Not enough net in which to catch them all.


Thank you for listening,

All my love,


Eric

vir res trunco

I gravitate between two poles
One of excess, one of denial
And have learned the center, that perfect between
Is both greatest reward and darkest trial
I would stand at the center
If the center would but hold
All efforts put forth in containing that eye
Leave me weak, inconsolable ~ tears untolled

ELAshley
032510.095026.1

a bit of bad poetry, I know

n the process of crafting something new

I stumbled across a poem this afternoon that I wish to remember. It speaks to someone the author obviously knows and loves, but as a list of attributes this 'someone' possesses. I don't want to copy his form, but I do want to craft something just as personal about that ephemeral 'someone' I have yet to meet. For this reason I can't be specific about her. I can only be specific about MY search, and what I hope to find.

Here is the poem I found:

A Little Love Poem
--by Andy Weaver

Someone who hates scrabble.

Someone who sleeps on her back near an open window in winter, her breath rolling like a river into night.

Someone who wants me to wake her in the morning by reading ee cummings' love poems, giving a small candle-flicker of a smile just before opening her eyes.

Someone who appreciates the architecture of churches, but refuses to step inside.

Someone who has hands fit to hold hurt sparrows and robins.

Someone who threw out an her Alice Cooper records when she found out he loves to golf.

Someone who would swerve a new car into the ditch to avoid a frog crossing the road.

Someone who would tattoo my name on her arm in writing the same colour as her skin, so it would appear slowly from nowhere when she suntanned, people thinking her blood was telling secrets to the world of its own accord.

Someone who learned Spanish to read Marquez, or Lorca, or Neruda.

Someone whose hips whisper their own stories of the serpent and the garden of Eden.

Someone who bites the back of my neck like a leopardess carrying her kitten to safety.

Someone who'll make me wait for her to come out of the shower.

Someone whose smallest movements amaze me: her hair falling over her eyes, the soft swell of her hips when she ties down, a deep sigh when she sleeps.

Someone who maps every ticklish part of my body and then uses her knowledge strictly for evil.

Someone who paints our bodies black and makes love with me under the stars.

Someone who burns through my chest like that first shot of scotch.

Someone whose tongue, if we're kept apart too long, would nervously trace my face into the roof of her mouth.

Someone who practices her signature with her wrong hand, in case of accidents or a sudden arrest.

Someone whose fingernails smell faintly of her hair.

Someone who reminds me of the soft tickle of fog.

Someone who would rush outside in the middle of the night, setting a spider onto the lawn, never admitting it's because she hates rain.

Someone who understands the unforgivable importance of ravens.

Someone who'll flicker into my lips with the ferocity of a dragonfly.

Someone who will open, thick, pungent and vital, like a Mapplethorpe flower.

Someone who has searched for me like a near-sighted woman groping for her glasses, stubbing her toes and swearing in Yiddish.

Someone who would understand why Steve and Dave and Paul and I sat in a bar staring at the mirror behind us for twenty minutes because somebody had asked what would happen if you looked at yourself in a mirror using a pair of binoculars unti1 we had to admit the question was too big for us, and we turned back to the safe optics of the beer bottle.

Someone who would just happen to cut my wrist shortly after reading Ondaatje's "The Time Around Scars."

Someone who'll stare softly but straight at me, smiling reassuringly when I tell her how my 73 year old Medieval lit prof looked up from Chaucer, stared blankly over the class's heads and said that even the happiest marriage will end in death.

Someone who understands the efficiency inherent in suicide.

Someone who knows that love can be the thickest slice of hell we’ll ever taste.

Someone who would dance with me by the sides of highways.

The imagery here is beautiful. And what makes it so beautiful is the intensely personal nature of each 'someone'. Would that we all had the ability to define our lives and loves in like manner.

Stay tuned.

upon the will of prostrate Egos...

I stumbled across an essay this morning by George Orwell. I'm still trying to process the essay, yet at the same time I don't want to lose this gem. So I'm posting it here in full. I should add, however, that, since there's no need to let this long beautiful essay dominate the page, please click the read more link at the end of this excerpt to read the entire essay.

Shooting an Elephant

In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically—and secretly, of course—I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, IN SAECULA SAECULORUM, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

Read More

A mob [Entitlement Slaves] has gathered. In full possession of its spite and ire for the behemoth [the Constitution] determined to tear down what these squatters have built up, the mob looks to the Imperial [Liberalism], his long carbine over one shoulder, five fat slugs in his shirt pocket-- not unlike five smooth stones and a sling --to bring down this "destructive" giant and replace it with the giant facade of greater personal liberty.

The Imperial doesn't have to shoot the elephant but his growing boot of colonial serfdom has been so long on Liberty's throat it seems best to put the beast-- our Constitution --out of its misery. The mob behind him-- entitlement slaves --both hating the hand that supports them and loving him for the boons he grants them, salivate at the prospect of stripping the carcass. He doesn't have to shoot the elephant but he's oppressed the unwashed for so long he both sees himself as their protector and beneficent lord. He knows better than the pachyderm what nature has to say about freedom, and balance. And in the end botches the killing, forcing it to suffer a prolonged and painful death.


I find the parallels here to be curious: The Mob, ignorant and both distrustful and dependent upon the Imperial. The Elephant struggling to live the life it was meant to live in the face of the Imperial who sees himself as superior and justified in killing the law the elephant represents, and the Mob who wants what it wants, the Elephant be damned. I don't think the Imperial understands what he's done. And the Mob can't think beyond the meat they've hacked from freedom's corpse.

George Orwell later wrote something that perfectly describes this scenario:

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Strength is Ignorance.

hello, can i help you?

I have no motivation this morning. None whatsoever. This could stem from all the frustration and stress that built up over the politics page I had to build, but since I finished it yesterday, a full three days early, this could simply be the product of a kind of... stress lag? Despite being awake and alert I am in a bit of a motivational fog. I have two things that need doing, but...

No motivation. I guess the last project did take a lot out of me.

I'll get some work done today. I have to build a Space Camp contest page that won't be difficult. There's* also a Golf Contest that needs building but that deadline's still two weeks off. There are a couple of commercials that need uploading to Mixpo and linked via corresponding sets of static ads... but there's always Friday. Better yet, later today.

I'm also feeling a bit... watched... I don't know... kinda like someone is watching me here and not approving at all. But then I can't help that if this someone is remaining silent. But it's probably just my imagination; a result of having been alone for too long. Here's a thought:

Wouldn't it be cool if every time someone visited a site (including this one) you'd be able to see them? Like having an actual storefront where, every time someone enters the store the bell rings and you look up and see them, and say something like, "Hello. Can I help you?"

---
* Never begin a sentence with 'there,' boys and girls. It's just bad.

something borrowed, something new

I hesitate to post this, but. I may be shy when it comes to the opposite sex, but I'm not all that shy about sharing my thoughts to those who'll listen. And since no one is listening...

I have the melody, and these are the lyrics.

Mary (Go Ahead and Cry)

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Will you marry
Mary will you
Marry your friend
And love to the end?
Mary will you

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh
Will you bury
Mary will you
Bury your loves
With the angels above
Mary will you

Carry your heart
In the bag on your shoulder
Collecting your tears
In every 'I love you' you told her
Don't cry...
Mary don't cry
Though they are gone, you know this isn't goodbye

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Will you love me
Mary will you
Love who I become
In all of Autumn's setting suns
Mary will you

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Will you hold me
Mary will you
Hold me as I lay dying
In my dying breath sighing
Mary will you

Hold in your heart
In the bag on your shoulder
Every prayer on your rosary
The Hail Marys your prayed to her
Don't weep
Oh, Mary you're weeping
They're not gone, they are only sleeping

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Will you marry me
Mary will you
Marry your friend
And love to the end
Mary will you
~For better for worse

Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Mary I'm with you
Never will leave you
Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Mary I love you
My whole heart and life breaks for you
Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Mary I'm here, go ahead and cry

(Repeat to End)
Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh,
Go ahead and cry

(Very End)
I'm here, and not going anywhere




ELAshley
031610.090326.6
Revisions
031710.100526.1

It may seem I presume too much, but I don't write for myself. I only imagine the pain I would feel were I wearing different shoes. It is not my voice that sings. But my sorrow for her is real.

what a difference a day makes

I hunkered down today and built one page of a proposed nine, though I can assure you the count will never get that high. Here's the link, if you're interested. Considering this took me roughly 7 hours start to finish, it looks pretty good. Simple, but good.

As to my deadline next Friday, realistically speaking two of the major pages can't even go live because a) the deadline for qualifying in Florida is April 2nd (however, that's not to say I can't get a start on it), and b) there are no amendments or issues presently driving this Fall's elections, so, realistically, I'm left with only one or two other pages that must be built. And if today is any indication I could have everything that can be completed finished by Wednesday. Early. The remaining pages can be expanded as the information becomes available.

Also. With the completion of this one page, I now have a template for the others, so they will progress more quickly.

And to think the previous few days had me stressed!

in the moment, dEfining the moment

Okay, here's something new. I came in this morning all stressed and junk, and I just decided to relax and do nothing but write. I had roughly thirty minutes I could reasonably spare and I used every one.

I thought back to a time several years ago when I took a lonesome trip to St. Petersburg to visit my grandfather. My little sister also happened to live there as did one of my aunts and uncle. So there I was the first late-afternoon of my weekend trip visiting at my sister's place. A little hole in the wall that probably cost more to live in than what I pay now... and when I say 'hole in the wall' I mean it was a typical 70-plus year-old Florida cinder-block building-- perhaps a small motel at one time --converted to tiny tiny apartments, hidden in the heart of the city by a small grove of oak and short palm.

Here I was sitting on an old dog-hair covered couch-- doing something I shouldn't have --considering the oppressive heat outside, the relative coolness of the apartment, and a KISS tune blaring from the speakers. And something clicked (as only some things can under these circumstances). I realized that Time has no bearing on 'the Moment'. That is to say, 'Moments' are not bound by any set length of time. Moments can be a split second in duration or several minutes, but the passing of time has no control or say as to how long the Moment can endure. Moments, they are fleeting, yes, but they cannot be truly measured, or their durations anticipated. The Moment begins and ends as it chooses, generally when something new intrudes, breaking the thread. And a new moment begins.

Fast forward quite a few years... this morning in fact. And I'm wondering about the moment I'm in; the one wherein I'm trying to hit the reset button. Trying to get past the log jam and the fear of failing at a task that MUST get done-- a Job-Killing must should I fail. Well, writing has always been good for me in this respect. It always allows me to clear my head and reach that button-- you know, the one that says 'Reset'?

This little poem is not the best I've ever written, but neither is it the worst. In short, it is what it is, and it got me out of one heck of a jam.

Here's what passes for thirty minutes in MY head... a fleeting moment, if you will.


In the Moment

They appear as threads
in the hackneyed tapestry
New, their life and end unfathomed
these moments when eyes first meet
hands first touch
lips first brush
And like that spark struck
burn quickly out
     ~the moment gone
Defined as the space between the when
of eyes meeting and parting
hands touching and parting
lips brushing and parting
Time is the beggar within these little ages
holding out its hand for more primacy
But it is Impression which sits upon
these thrones of relevance
Each new thread in our hackneyed tapestries
is experienced not in time
but in Impression
     ~duration goes hungry here
Moments are fleeting and singularly unique
Moments are texture
in the tapestry of our lives
Eyes see what hands feel what lips soon forget

ELAshley
031110.084502.1
Revisions:
031110.045926.6
031110.055152.6


George Harrison also sang of this in All Things Must Pass. I need to remember the old saying, 'this too shall pass', and not worry about the tensions some moments produce. Fear breeds prolifically in such environments. But what to do with Fear once it has set root?

Frank Herbert describes the process best in the Litany Against Fear...

     I must not fear.
     Fear is the mind-killer.
     Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
     I will face my fear.
     I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
     And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
     Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
     Only I will remain.


Easier said than done... Trust me.

lunch buddy v2.0

I had lunch last week with the lunch buddy. New paradigm; she's settled back into the familiar comforts of her on-again/off-again ex. It was a very enjoyable lunch and, as it turns out, she has become a great resource in terms of networking. So... all's well that end's well.

I updated my profile on a few online dating services.

log jam clEared

Big weight lifted today. Made some headway with the Politics Page I'm building for the station. I'll be glad when this thing is finished. All I have left to do are the center column content sections: Issues & Amendments, The Candidates, Districts, and Election Night. The templates are built, it's just a matter of populating the pages with content. I have til 5pm next Friday.

Were I a drinking man, I'd celebrate somewhere immediately after work. As it is, however, I'll kick back with a quart jar of ice cold water... at the house.

e is stressed...

I'm in one of those, 'what have I gotten myself into' moments. I was stressed so badly last night my chest was tight and neck so stiff I had to lay down and chill for 30...

More to follow... but not in this thread.

something new...

Not sure what I feel about it yet, but for better or worse, here is something new.


Running Out of Ways

You are the golden path
The scents of jasmine and clove
The taste of berries succulent and dew
Naked in the tamarind grove
Dark and glistening 'neath the hems of Summer's few
We are golden in our desires
In all the garments we've wove

We are threshing floor embers
The fires of fullness and rising
Of warm summer starlings and lilies and crocus
Of naked lusts disguising
The weft and warp of which our love bespoke us
We are golden and spent like breath
And in those garments drowsing

You are the brush of silk
Over taut skin in arousal
The fires of femininity, and pear
~ Succulently coital
Sweet and moist every long limbed strand of honey hair
We are golden in our desires
Attired in love's apparel

We dress in the setting sun
'Neath a wakening of stars above
Feasts of body following feasts of flesh
~ I the strong hand and thee the soft glove
Submerging to cleanse and arising afresh
Golden again in our nightly throes
We are running out of ways to say we love

And delight in loving


ELAshley
030410.052626.6
Revisions:
030510.044102.6
030510.045216.6


I seem to always be drawn to eroticism... Is that typically male? Or am I but a fish in a sea of horny fishes?

It's something to ponder.

E expects to get his feeling hurt...

...in all things dating. I've been on very few honest to goodness dates in my life, so I can't say I'm even remotely aware of the ins and outs of everyday dating. So, I'm going to close the chapter on my Lunch Buddy. Yeah, I like her. Like her a lot. I could even fall in love with her were she the least bit interested, but... it's clear she's not really interested in even being lunch buddies.

I've stopped calling or emailing her; calling is pointless as she never answers. The same is true with emails, so what's the point? She will answer texts... most of the time, but I've stopped doing that also. The most I'll do now is comment on her status in MySpace. Now, should she call and ask for lunch I'll certainly go. But for now it's obvious even to me, a guy with ZERO dating experience (or experience period with women), that she's just not interested.

Besides which, I told her from the very beginning that I'm not at liberty to date. I'm still in the midst of a separation. A separation from, I might add, a nonsexual relationship.... a long-term, 20 year long-term, relationship. I'm tired of waiting for her as well.

I've six months to go and then I'm free.