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The Mask, by William Butler Yeats

"Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes."
"O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold."

"I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit."
"It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind."

"But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire."
"O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?"

Tonight I'm going to meet up with some of my fellow novel-writers-to-be. The more peer pressure the better.

I think I will post, each day, a sentence of the day. I actually bought a domain to put things on, but it's not ready yet. further updates as events warrant.

sometimes i do not like a picture at explodingdog, but sometimes i am deeply speechless

I'd never been to a party exactly like the one on Saturday night before - I suppose large parties have many things in common, but I don't go to any very often, much less one held in such a big beautiful house and backyard. I didn't finally get to bed until about 9:30 am Sunday, after breakfast. I think I may be almost recovered now (and this is all without my ever drinking any alcohol - I did try once to get a margarita, early on, but that particular bar stand was out of tequila).

I do enjoy, once in a while, pretending to be an extrovert with smooth social skills. Sometimes it works. But I'm not very good at getting away from people that I don't want to talk with anymore, unless they grab me and keep trying to kiss me when I've already mostly dodged them twice, and I'm not very good at dancing with another person (though I really therefore ought to get more practice, I know). Mostly in large loud groups I just like to observe, say from a seat in a second-story window, watch the masses dancing and talking and caressing below as the dance music vibrates through our bodies. And if there is a song that calls to me, I must go and dance to it.

So many people in the world, all creating their own lives and realities with varying degrees of thought. I think too much, with my overactive melodramatic imagination, but I'm not sure how to change, nor do I really want to. There have to be a few of us left, in the morning, who remember, to be the storytellers.

Yes, don't worry. hi. I probably overdid it a bit there on the drama. sorry. My mom is truly scared of him though.

Before sunrise, the traffic lights paint sidewalks and streets and trees in changing colors. I used to watch the lights change in the evening from my bedroom window, when i was little. I had a game in my head where the red light was the top of a slide, and suddenly you slid to the bottom whoosh! so fast it missed yellow, and then after a while you climbed back up the ladder through yellow to red, waiting your turn again.

some people count sheep. some people dream of electric lights.

uh, if our entire household is ever gone fatally postal upon, and anyone is not sure who did it, tell them to go "talk" with our neighbor the descendant of berserkers. i really truly think he is. the ethnic origins of his surname support that hypothesis.

i don't really expect it (or i'd be moving to grandma's). bullies are all talk. mostly. but just, you know, saying. for the record.

Grandma turns 87 today! happy birthday to her, happy birthday to her, happy birthday dear grandma, happy birthday to you!

Of course, she doesn't even have a computer, much less surf the web, so a phone call will be in order. Grandma never even learned to drive. She always had either brothers or a husband who did that sort of thing.

Grandma was the sixth of eight kids, born in the hills of Tennessee. The oldest, Bessie, of beautiful long red hair, ran off and married a loving but illiterate mountain man at the age of 14 or 15 (about the time Grandma was born), much to the disappointment of her family who had high hopes for her educated future. There is one known photograph of the next sibling, Charlie, whom Grandma still cannot talk about without getting sad and wistful and sometimes teary. Grandma was about nine years old when he died at age 21 of a fever, along with his baby daughter. Next came Claude, of whom I know little; then came John Q. The Q stood for nothing; it was simply a middle initial to differentiate him from his father, also John. John Q was normally known as "Red" because he also had red hair. Next was Beaulah, who hated that name and was known as Bea, who in the produce plants of the California central valley was the fastest packer on the line. Then there was Grandma, named Ozelma (to her lasting dismay) by the midwife after the gypsy princess heroine of the novel she was reading. Grandma was always called Zell, and if I manage to name a child of mine after her the child will be named simply Zell. Then came Clifford, who later fought in World War 2 and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, spending many months in a German POW camp till the end of the war. Last came Ruby, who was still small when the family (minus Bessie and Charlie) made the journey out to California from Tennessee just in time for the Depression.

There's plenty more after that, and more than that to it. I think I can get 50,000 words of it down in a month. Then after I've had a chance to edit at least a little, I might let you read some of it. :)

it feels good to finally get going on this.

this year, i'm going to do it:

You know the story I mentioned on 9/25, among the ones I haven't told you, about the first time my grandmother met a radio? My novel is going to start with that. But it won't end there.

This is going to be fun. (repeat to self ad infinitum as needed, take two aspirin, call in morning)

i'm so used to it now, i didn't think until just this moment about the fact that the only smoke inside the club last night was from the dancefloor "smoke" machines. i have to say, i prefer it that way. i can't see how any area with cold winters is going to follow that particular california lead to outdoor smoking patios, though. our winters are plenty cold, even, at least to natives.

dancing is fun. this amazing nugget o wisdom brought to you by matt's birthday party and the letter I. happy birthday matt!

it is a measure either of how much of a morning person i am, or of how i can set my own internal alarm clock, that i woke up this morning slightly before my alarm went off. the talkative crows outside may have helped also.

i am disappointed by this entry. i want to write something scintillating about the lights, the disco ball glitter, the dancers attempting to pick up somethings from the floor under the suspicious eye of a security guard, the shiny floors, the long red hallway to the bathrooms, the presence of shadowy people (mostly men) lining the dance floor watching us groove and twist and boogie in the midst of the colors and strobes and sparkles and smoke. i just like the word boogie. i wonder where it came from.

i think that's the limit of my coherence this morning. it's lucky i'm even awake, ex-twentysomething that i am.

...love: Moulin Rouge
hate: cruelty
impatient with: dishonesty
admire: talent
tickled by: wit
angry at: greed
exhilirated by: art
annoyed by: pretension
scared of: meaningless death
dreaming of: immortality
frustrated by: my own laziness
enjoy: weather
ponder: the tangle of world problems
watch: for shooting stars
wish for: soulmate
shy of: fast-flowing conversation
satisfied to: listen
conscious of: history
curious about: future
love: family
love: surprises
love: chocolate
love: the ability to run
love: witnessing altruism
love: teasing
love: discovering a small flower amid barrenness
love:

Thomas Friedman for president.

and by the way, the Torricelli New Jersey ridiculousness. like i said back at the 2000 Florida ridiculousness, I may be a Democrat (increasing emphasis on "may" if this sort of thing spreads), but I don't want to win by any means necessary. because that can get out of control very quickly. and it's just plain SNEAKY and WRONG, HELLO.

but if they let them do it, then i wish we could tag-team riordan in for simon in the california governor's race. then i could vote for a main-party candidate i actually don't mind voting for. otherwise i think i may vote green party.

2 October 2002: they're your treasured friends in prose and rhyme

someone today said that he'd counted up all the books he had, and calculated that even if he read a book every two days for the rest of his life (ending for calculation purposes at 80), he could never read them all.

I haven't made that count for myself, but I suspect I'm likely to also fit that description, if not now, within a foreseeable future. But that's why I like to get hardcovers. Books can last much longer than people, if their people treat them properly. We are only keeping them for a little while. And then we pass them on to new readers, and the song continues with new voices. Thus some of the lucky stories, and some of the best, can survive for a thousand years or more.

this is in part why i have subscribed to the library of america. i wish there were something similar for works from elsewhere (authoritative editions, acid-free paper). those i'll have to round up myself. in my plentiful free time.

back issues: ( 2001 ) ( january ) ( february ) ( march ) ( april ) ( may-june-july ) ( august ) ( september ) ( november ) ( december ) ( 2003 )

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