fromthemouthofmoi

I spoke to you yesterday for another two hours. My feelings went from upset, to calm, from loving, to: please, someone make an appointment with a neurologist and find a better cardiologist. I go to sleep waking frequently from the heat. Arlo begins his howl, begging for release of some kind at 4am. He is right on schedule. Never missing the times he has instinctively set up to punctuate the life he lives. I didn't have enough time with you. I've returned still unsettled. We are not done yet. I'm having a difficult time separating me from you. Maybe it is not me from you but rather we are in this thing together. All things are a form of life. I wake up with William Faulkner's, As I Lay Dying seared on my corneas, which instantly brings me back to Jim Case and his comment about Faulkner and the term stream of consciousness. I take the book off my shelf, thumb it, and place it back. I come to my computer and search the book title's meaning and, voila! A piece is ...

I have made many quilts in my life. I learned to quilt in Westchester, when I lived in Crompond, New York, just outside of Poughkeepsie. I quilt when I love. In 1997 I made my first quilt for Ericle. That quilt, when I still had a beautiful oak quilting frame, took me over a year to complete. Piecing fabric is actually the easy part. It is the quilting, the hand sewn designs that bind three layers together, which takes the most time. I will not tell you that I am a great quilter at all, but that quilt was asked to be exhibited in the local library for an exhibition of local quilters. The public enjoyed it before Ericle did.  The pattern I used was, Jacob's Ladder Crisscross. Quilts are constructed of squares for the most part and Jacob's Ladder Crisscross constantly fooled my eye, (as well as everyone else), because it is very difficult to see where the square is for that pattern. In the photograph below, I've highlighted the square which gets repeated, because otherwise ...

A much earlier post, These Misunderstandings Between Us , has garnered the most traffic to this blog with well over 3 thousand hits. I have to assume that its topic struck a chord with many people. So I have decided to continue the conversation, taking it further, with a focus on negotiating and navigating sex. Sexual urges, no matter how frequent or infrequently they occur, are normal. If you like to do it five times a day or once a month, both of those scenarios are normal. Your desire for sexual contact is normal. When people marry, they talk about religion, finances, schooling for their children and a host of other things but rarely do people sit down with their partners and talk about sexual compatibility. If you couple with someone who wants intimacy once a day and you are a once a week person, both of you are soon to be miserable. The once a day person will feel unfulfilled followed by feelings of rejection and the once a week person is going to eventually feel put upon and st...

Well you didn't actually knock, you banged a bit. And through the glass I could see you were a tall person. Who could it be? And I opened the door and there you stood, really, like a site for sore eyes! There really was a second of: pinch me, am I dreaming? Do my eyes deceive me? I had a sudden need to cry and hold you tight. I have missed you my friend! And then you sat down, like time never passed, and we began to talk about zeitgeist and art, about Melville, and London, about all the things that make me love you, and we did it in under fifteen minutes. Who else could? You are my treasure for my heart.

(L-R Craig Horton , Tom Boyd, unknown, Tano Ro , Sam Myers , Big Bob Deance .  Milano, Italy, October 6th, 1981. Photo rights to Tano Ro). Dear Daddy, Each year that passes since your death I've learned increasingly more about you as a man. Not as my father, but as a man, and I am coming to understand that you were one pretty wonderful dude. I recently received a letter from a man in Norway, Jan Erik Moe, who wrote to tell me of your influential impact upon his formative years and how much you meant to him. The letter was quite heartwarming, uplifting, inspiring and for me, a little bit sad. Jan had two memories of you that I share. He mentioned all the postcards he received from you over the years that had been written by hand, that I am sure where written with your Mont Blanc pen. That pen was a permanent fixture in your breast pocket and I have the fondest memories of your penmanship. It was beautiful; the blue black ink flowing freely and smoothly from the end o...

When I went to Bide-A-Wee to adopt a cat, a place I had adopted from before, I picked out a large orange cat that looked to be about two years old. I went into the petting room to see if he was the cat for me and when we got into the room he spent most of his time exploring and very little time brushing against me. He was a beautiful cat and I decided to adopt him. When I went to the counter to pay the fee and fill out paperwork, the worker, without hesitation, said: I don't think you want this cat. The statement struck me as funny because I was at an adoption facility that was there solely to recycle animals to new owners. She removed a paper from the cats' file and reading from it, she said: This cat has been here for two years and has been adopted and returned three times. When I asked her why she said: Previous owners claimed that he meowed too much, scratched in the litter box excessively, wouldn't get off the bed and when you tried to get him off the bed he would atta...

I have not had many lovers in my life. What is it that another person does that conveys love to me. Can I only feel love in one way? Has each of these lovers conveyed love to me in the same way? Did I show love in the same way or does each love present a new challenge of love to be taken? None of my lovers have any shared similarities except they were all artists of some kind. They have not had a similar look, nor a similar income. They have not been the same race nor have they shared physical attributes. And none of them have conveyed their love to me in the same way. Each of my relationships has had a moment in time when I knew I was loved; when I've felt loved. I knew P for possibly four years before we became intimate. We were traveling on a bus from San Francisco headed to Ashland, Oregon. It was winter and I was 17. P and I are both from New York though we did not meet there. I was with him because he had heard I was in a marriage that I didn't wish to be in and out o...

You have a quality that I could feed from With seemingly little effort you pet me and I slow I feel like Miss Havisham. I wonder where Dickens found her? I feel stuck in time with a mouldy mind Wandering my house in the wee hours thinking I smell smoke I am barely here I am losing time I've lost time I flop into bed exhausted and Miss Havisham nags me until dawn The wailing has begun. It's raining in my head Years ago I cried so much I became dehydrated I don't know where I am in this cycle I don't know where I am in the week, or in my house If I could I would place you in a rocking chair by my bed I would make sure you had a window to watch the gloaming from I might ask you to read to me. I can't listen right now But the sound of your voice will wrap me in fur I will drift to sleep with eyes wide shut and I will owe this to you In all this dreariness please Accept my love

A boy can learn a lot from a dog:  obedience, loyalty and the  importance of turning around  three times before lying down --Robert Benchley The bottom line in a Christian life is obedience And most people don't even like the word --Charles Stanley Obedience is detachment from the self.  This is the most radical detachment of all.  But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason  and responsibility in us, it is what makes us men --Bede Griffiths In part one of this essay I explored a theme which runs through the apocalyptic film genre, which often parallels the Old Testament. We looked at Greek mythology as a precursor to the Old Testament, canons in literature and cycles which are not always seen in a lifetime. I also explored what it means to be human. What I have begun to notice in the Old Testament is how much of it parallels the societies we have built for ourselves, going along with our faith, never no...

I'm thinking about this art project: I take photographs of all the friends I have made here in Merida and I colour in their complexions adding characteristics to their faces and clothing to suggest people of African and Asian descent. I title the piece: What I wish I could add to our friendship. I miss diversity. I am standing in line for a dance performance in San Francisco called Seed Language presented by Embodiment Project  a Hip Hop Dance Troupe. All around me, so many I feel I am in a sea, are every kind of coloured one can imagine. Asian Blacks. White Blacks. Chinese Blacks. Norwegian looking Blacks. Jewish Blacks. Blacks the colour of honey, Black Blacks, all Happy Gorgeous Blacks, some seemingly ten feet tall. I feel short. Short and old. I didn't grow up with such a sea of diversity. I am envious. I want to touch each and every person I see; they all seem to have a texture; I want to know what they feel like. A part of me is resentful they are not all my friend...