How I got the scratch on my face.

It's a bird, It's a plane, it's......Scaredycat!!!!
Leaping off falling baskets at the speed of light!
But what's this? Oh no! A giant head is in her path!
Swish! MROOOOOW! Yikes!

Painted lady

If you don't put on your veneer, you don't care about yourself. Your self esteem is zip. If you do put on your veneer, you're succumbing. You've fallen for the lie that you have to be beautiful all the time. And sometimes you stand there and you struggle with what you're told. Am I beautiful as I am? Do I need to lose weight for my health? What IS a healthy weight? Am I perpetuating the slavery of women to the male ideal? Is the male ideal a figment of the female imagination? And you wonder, how can a tube of lipstick be so fraught? How can the way you feel about your own body be so tied up in the psychobabble phrases of people you've never met? And your mother, who loves you, aims those phrases at you, and you know it's because she loves you, but it makes it even harder. Every time you pick up your brushes you question your motives. Why am I putting this on my skin? Who is really benefitting here? You tell yourself your expressing yourself, but you wonder if there's a hollow ring to that phrase, and then you jump at yourself for overanalyzing, but you're still wondering if you're just rationalizing. You cover your face in powder and cream, veiling it, to get a job, to get a date, to get your Mom to not ask about your eating habits and why you're breaking out. And you see yourself in the mirror, and you think you look pretty, and other people tell you you look pretty, but you know it's wax and pigments they're complimenting. And you look at the real you, the shade of your lips, the color of your eyelashes, the true nature of your skin, and you think, this is beautiful too. Why can't people see?

What Mona Lisa was thinking.

She laughed as she related it,
What you said about me.
And I laughed along with her because it was sweet and a little awkward and it made me happy.
But inside I am quietly turning the information over.
What does it mean to me?
What does it mean to you?
What do I need to do with it?
One thing I know for sure,
I am going to visit this thought often for the next few days
And smile that secret inward smile known only to the female race.

Arachnitypist!

My fingers tap the keyboard
Like a spider's testing staccatto
As it inches warily forward
Into an unknown insect grotto.

Listening to classical piano

Cascading over each other
A waterfall of notes
In liquid harmonies
Upon which my mind floats

Fairy thoughts

Far and away the future flies
On wings as bright as dreams,
A vision passed before our eyes.
Silver gossamer it seems,
That thinly veils our wishing
From the life we erstwhile lead.
The life that stands there dishing
Out the fragile, hopeful seed
That planted in our memory
Will root the suckling plant
Upon which that ephemery,
Our future, will lightly land.

On entertaining the long lost Uncle from Germany.

For someone I've never met before and who I felt I was supposed to get along with we got on pretty well. It's always hard to get along with someone you're supposed to get along with. Especially when they're staying at your house for a few days. I think he liked us back, even if we ARE religious weirdos and Dad is a conservative. It was nice being able to talk with someone who knows more than I do about art and literature. We stayed up late one night reading funny old poetry and talking about other languages. All in all I had a nice time, and I hope he did too.