...

..., originally uploaded by Attila Racz.

Is he amazing or what?

Him

"Welcome Home Sweetie !!

How was your day? :)

This is a picture of me, not the best but I wanted to send a picture :)

Did you change your dresses for comfortable?"




Would you just look at how precious? We're talking about a man who is speaking a foreign language to make ME feel good.

I really like this guy!

crooked smile, crooked mentality

crooked smile, crooked mentality, originally uploaded by EricasIsland.

I haven't written in a week.
It has been a strange time, full of ups-and-downs. The week went well, but I took a bunch of colleagues and friends to see Jan, and it broke my heart over and over again. I think we all needed to do it together. We knew we should go, but none of us could have done it alone. It is difficult to keep yourself afloat in a conversation with someone then say goodbye and walk out knowing it'll be the last time you see her. So the FC and I put our arms around each other and walked slowly toward the elevator, letting the tears go where they would.

Some people from the past, from whom I NEVER expected to hear again, have reappeared in my life and their little here-and-there presences are making me smile. I have also been speaking with someone a LOT, and I don't know what to make of him. He is far away, but he seems like someone I know...it is not that he reminds me of someone, just that he feels like a familiar friend and not a relative stranger. My heart is so full these days. There are so many people in there, and still there is one whose departure devastates me over and over. I miss my friend...I really do.

But that crazy girl in the photo with the crooked smile keeps trying. She gets up in the morning with an open heart, so full of love. She breaks down from time to time, but she tries. That open heart...it's all over the map...at this moment the Keller says that heart needs to settle down, and that I don't want to take 2 steps forward and 18 steps back. As much as I want him, he does not seem to reciprocate right now. So true. I have had such a difficult time keeping my feelings quiet when it comes to him. It is antithetical to everything we have ever been, but he has left my life and so everything that was, has changed.

I have no answers. Life is short. No more holding out for the brass ring. Reach for stars and catch the moon.

♥e

P.S. Happy Birthday, Jen.

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly

I met some lovely LOVELY men today, and their genuine ease and kindness have inspired me. What a difference...what a new world.

So we'll see what happens with all of them. I am just enjoying their conversation right now, and the absolute lack of guise or guile. THANK you! But they are cute and endearing in their own ways, and in my life now, anything can happen. I was up until 5am this morning turning the corner, making the change.

This is Bella Gnocca, signing off.
xoxo ♥e

P.S. Yes, G, we are both mourning; but we must smile sometime.

we'll shine

It is very late and I am tired but I do not want to go to bed. This begs the question WHY and I don't know the answer. Something feels amiss. Something somewhere is out of order, and I wish I could find it before I gave up on it for the night.

I see so many people are up...I have heard from a few friends here at this late hour, and perhaps it has something to do with the prominence of Mars at the current moment...this will pass; but until then, my whole self---body, mind, and spirit---are running wild.

P.S. I can't...

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures

Can someone please tell me what happened to MANNERS and COMMON SENSE? This oafish woman at the grocery walked RIGHT in front of me with her cart and TOTALLY NEGLECTED to say "Excuse me". She then parked her cart and her wide-load ass RIGHT next to me and stood no more than 10 inches from me to look for her item. I soon realized she might need something RIGHT where I was standing, but REFUSED to move until she said something. FINALLY she said "excuse me" and then I announced "Of course!" but neglected to add the seemingly obligatory "You offensive heifer!"

The Difficult Present
1) My friend is days from her death and knows it
2) It makes me want to pull near some who want to stay distant
3) Motivation = Zero
4) Loneliness
5) Distraction

The Grateful Present
1) Life and Health of so many
2) My own life's bounty
3) Absolute zeal for next summer's plan
4) October evenings, despite the wrath of the daylight hours
5) Other Loves


This is a strange, mysterious year. There are new people everywhere in my life, and I am enjoying wandering down new avenues. All the same, I miss you. I wish you were here.

Double Dose

I got two extra-large helpings of sad, difficult news today. I can't even bear to think of both of them because I have spent the last several hours laughing heartily though deep down there was a clear sadness. We cannot spend our lives mired in sadness, and since I have struggled so much in the past few months I am grateful to have finally found some absolute joy again-- and I'm holding on fiercely but strongly.

I can't even write clearly enough to make that a cogent paragraph, but we know what I mean.

There is no time to waste.
e

From the French

Je tombe pour un homme jouant des jeux avec des coeurs maintenus à la longueur de bras.
Je récupère d'une domination et arrive à son soulèvement haletant de coffre de broyage de coeur de porte
lèvres légèrement dessinées à part
pour le souffle, le baiser
pour éteindre chaque soif que j'ai jamais sue.

Je fais un pas en avant
et rencontrez le talon d'une paume poussée dans mon sternum,
même l'arrêt
un ajustement parfait au-dessous du breastbone.
Atteinte de inclinaison principale de lèvres
pour la carotte invisible au-dessus de ma tête.

Là voyages de son coeur
par son bras un courant
émanant dans ma moelle,
une énergie aiment l'électricité choquant son coeur ma palpitation de palpitation de coeur
les cellules légères de dix-millièmes par des artères aux veines aux artères aux veines et au dos encore un circuit accomplissent ainsi mes trouvailles de bouche la carotte entre ses lèvres.

*********
I am falling for a man playing games with hearts
kept at arms length.
I am recovering from a stranglehold
and arrive at his door gasping
heart pounding chest heaving
lips lightly drawn apart
for the breath, the kiss
to quench every thirst I've ever known.

I step forward
and meet the heel of a palm
thrust into my sternum,
even the stop
a perfect fit below the breastbone.
Head tilting lips reaching
for the invisible carrot above my head.

There travels from his heart
through his arm a current
emanating into my marrow,
an energy like electricity shocking
his heart my heart pulsing pulsing
ten thousand light cells through
arteries to veins to arteries to veins
and back again a circuit so complete
my mouth finds the carrot between his lips.

**********
♥e

You're HOT!

You are, you know.

I think you're amazing, and I love you.

I miss you, too!

xoxo
♥e

the.last.of.it

I was up before dawn this morning, and I'm not altogether certain why. I opened the door for the dog and had to grab my camera before setting my toes onto the cold bricks. September is coolly slipping away, slyly turning its head and smirking in its deceit. We were all tricked, earlier believing fall was upon us only to be taunted by the most brutal of Indian summers. Finally it is taking leave and none too soon; I am done with it. The further I get from July, the better.

After watching the sun come up, I went back to bed and woke four hours later with the most wicked of migraines and sinus pain. I could not lift my head enough to sit on the couch so stayed in bed until around 4pm. The entire day was spent in unbearable pain, and I would like to believe there was a reason half my weekend was for naught, but I cannot find one.

So here I am at the end of the weekend, facing a week without having had a fulfilling weekend, but so be it.

One of my Lauras wanted me to check out LA Ink to see Kat Von D and as luck would have it, there was a marathon starting just as my headache abated...and now I'm hooked. I was doing SO well on cutting back on my television watching! I don't know what it is about this show (yes, I'm watching it RIGHT now) that just DRAWS me in, but I can't get enough. I should be in bed!

That's it...off with me.
♥e

I ♥ Lollibomb

from "Tell me something I don't know" ericasisland says: Here is something very conservative from me... George Washington looked NOTHING like he does in all his portraits. He posed for the most famous one (what we see on dollar bills and everywhere else) immediately following a rigourous tooth-pulling, sans painkillers, and had wads of cotton stuffed into his cheeks to absorb the blood. He was actually a very handsome man with normal unchipmunk-like cheeks. (Neither did he chop down a cherry tree.) Now, in honor of Luca's pursuit of the golden ticket, I will add that one year, as I taught this information to my first grade class; I had a little girl masturbate herself to orgasm. Posted at 2:40 pm, September 28 2007 EST

Boxie says: a first grader?? Posted at 2:42 pm, September 28 2007 EST

didileo says: are you serious????? Posted at 2:43 pm, September 28 2007 EST

radiantjewels says: wow -- at all of this Posted at 2:43 pm, September 28 2007 EST

Lollibomb says: Holy-effin'-SHIT. Ass Goddess in the house, ya'll!!! Posted at 2:43 pm, September 28 2007 EST

didileo says: oh my, erica definitely wins! Posted at 2:43 pm, September 28 2007 EST

Lollibomb says: Erica ALWAYS wins.

Migraine, Day 3

How much time do you spend thinking about whether or not you are what and where you are supposed to be? I usually abide within that Zen state of true acceptance of what is as what should be; but lately I am curious about what it all says to me, and what the meaning of this here-and-now truly is.

Thank you for spending some time with me tonight, the 4 of you who whispered into my ears, made me laugh, rubbed my back, and loved me. I love you back.

xo♥e

Pull me out

I've decided not to take the November trip. Something no longer feels right about it, and I'm going with my gut on this one. (Actually, when do I NOT go with my gut?) My gut is also telling me some things have changed but I wonder how much of that is anxiety and my self-defense mechanism preparing me for disappointment.

This is just a depressing conversation. Moving on.

I made a lot of progress on one of the 2 bedroom paintings. That made me REALLY happy on Tuesday night, but Wednesday I was flattened by a migraine and had to lie in a dark dark room in a dark dark wood (cute little book) and do nothing.

I just want so much in the way of natural human happiness, neither material possessions nor unrealistic expectations, but waking and sending out all this love not merely through my job, but my relationships and my writing and my painting. I want to give to someone and keep myself awake and alive late late in the night with the natural energy and joy that comes from doing what I love.

There is a poem looming over my head but I cannot channel it just yet. I feel once again, I am like Stravinsky's theory -- that I will neither create nor own it, but be the vehicle through which [the poem] flows. I wonder if I will always feel this distance from the words when they are simultaneously the most intimate thing I know, or if I will keep myself outside peering through the window once they are alive. Oh I miss my mountain friends so much right now I can barely take it. I would so love to step back into the valley of Canaan (oh, the obvious correlations) but that was 9 years ago and it hurts to think of all that has transpired between that week and this. A whole lifetime...in fact, several, and I feel them all crashing down on me this moment, the giving and the loss, the cycle from joy to mourning.

I am sitting in the darkness with the windows open at this late hour, the crickets and cicadas carrying on, the dog's claws scraping the gravel as she wanders, a deer snorting at her from the ridge. I have waited all day for this breeze, and it's carrying me back to bed.

I miss you.
♥e

Inquire Within

Anyone want to go with me to London in November? I'm serious.

the monday before the tuesday and nothing redeeming so far

I am in a particularly disjointed, disconcerted mood today. Not angry or hostile, or depressed, just a little melancholy when I take a break from being goofy. Nothing is going particularly "right" today. I think I'm a bit ticked over some things and I'd like to get over them but I can't, not yet. I just cannot understand a few things that have taken place and nothing can fix those things, I just have to learn to accept them. This is neither a quick nor easy lesson. *Sigh*

Let's add to that the fact that I'm fighting some stuffy throaty thing; my black dress flew open while teaching (button in critical area); I forgot to get a package into the mail and it's almost late; it's crummy Monday before THE Tuesday, and there's a dead mouse stuck in the wall in the CENTER of my house UPSTAIRS...so that it stinks EVERYWHERE, mainly the teeny-tiny windowless bathroom. Yesterday was particularly hideous, and I had hoped we had reached the apex of stink; but I walked into the house this afternoon and straightaway it was foul. I really just don't care for that.

Mostly I'm really tired of boys giving me conflicting messages. Didn't you read the post about flirting with me? READ ITHERE, NOW.

Come on!

meow meow meow.

Marona's

All too often in the hurry and routine of our daily lives we miss the finer aspects of the commonplace. I do it all the time, take for granted what comes and goes so easily for me. I ran some errands in town yesterday, and it was not until very early this morning that I realized how lovely it had been. I parked my car outside the hardware store and walked Sadie to the little family IGA, Marona's, the only grocery store within 10 miles. If Sadie were a dog I could carry in one arm I'd have brought her in. She is so adorable, so friendly and snuggly that I didn't want to leave her outside too long. I looped her around the shady tree in the small yard, and went inside. I was in such a rush to get back to her that I missed all the joys that usually comprise my experience. Everyone who works there (less than ten people total, I'd say) will give you a big hello if you pass them while they work. Matt also works as an EMT and drove the ambulance when I severed the nerves in my hand. All of them will ask you if you need help finding anything if you look perplexed.I love the knowledge they all have. No one will ever look at you blankly, or stand there umming and hmming after a question. They are fast on their feet and know exactly where everything is because they stock the shelves and overhead hooks themselves. One of the eldest gentleman was out for quite awhile last year and by the conversations I overheard plus the absence of the large mole on his nose, I am gathering he had a bad bout with skin cancer. He is a quiet man, a hard worker, and I would guess he has spent most of the hours of his life within that store doing whatever needs to be done.

Sometimes when I pass the butcher counter there will be two or three people behind it and they always make me laugh after they greet me. They will do anything I could wish - debone and skin chickens, portion and wrap separately, take the fat off a piece of beef,or take a leg of lamb and cut it into smaller pieces for a fantastic stew recipe I just couldn't wait any longer to try. More than that, they will do it happily, almost as if they've been waiting all day for me. While they work, I continue my shopping, maneuvering my little cart through the four narrow aisles, invariably scraping the wheels sideways to turn a tight corner. When I'm lucky, I'll find the cat, sometimes curled up on a box of Tide, other times roaming the aisles surely looking for me. I pick her up and carry her for the rest of my shopping. She is a sweet little one, a tiny tabby who fits between my bent elbow and my shoulder, purring and mewing softly as I speak to her. Someone always tells me I must be special because she doesn't go to just anyone, that no one else can carry her around like that while they shop. Most times I'd like to walk out with her and take her right home with me, but then there wouldn't be the joy of finding her on an odd Tuesday after a long, loud day.

By the time I get to one of the two registers, I am sure there is something else I want but can't remember. I usually head for the shorter, older of the two women...the one with the glasses and the curly helmet of a head of hair. I'm not altogether certain why, but I think in some way she calms me in an old-fashioned way. No matter who rings me up, it is clear that they've been trained on how to pack a paper bag. This is a lost art, and I long for it every time I shop elsewhere and some unknowing teen has shoved three items haphazardly into a plastic sack before reaching for a new one. I love the way these ladies and gentlemen can use every square inch of a paper bag and nothing is ever crooked, my bread is never crushed, and my eggs arrive in strangely pristine condition even though I might find the carton placed on its short side.

Every day these folks are performing a dying art. The combination of varying knowledges and genuine friendliness within their customer service is neither simple nor mundane. It is beautiful, the way they make people feel welcome and important, the way they know the answers to your questions and work happily to do or get whatever you need, and the way they connect with each person in the way that suits the experience. If you want to be quiet and left alone, you are. If you need help, they know. If you need to connect to another human being with small talk, they are more than obliging. I always walk out satisfied; and if I walk out with too many bags, there is a gentleman who will leave his register or his task to carry them to my car. I will gladly hand over my money for the goods in this store. I am getting more than the items that find their way into my cart -- I am being nourished in so many ways.

"...you need a long toe."

and other strange statements of the day...

"Here's Sadie's cheeseburger."
(Sadie is a dog.)

"I can't let my father see my "Ass Goddess" and "I ♥ Titty Effing" pins!"

"Oh I'll get her Gingerbread, if I don't already have it."

on marriage: "You just pick the right one to be in the foxhole with, and when you're out of the foxhole you keep your dick in your pants."

AlxPeach: what is wrong with me?

EricasIsland: a myriad of things

"Please stand by, we've got a real bark-off going on over here."

AlxPeach:you definitely deserve him

EricasIsland:thank you...you know what? I deserve him if he's READY to be a grown man---not if he wants to be stupid; because I don't deserve stupid.

"Maybe they ought to set up weekly meetings of the We Fucked Up club."
--Frankly, I've got someone in mind to spearhead the whole organization.


Smile, Friends. It's come to this.
♥e

Is that really what you wanted to say to me?

I do not find spite a particularly useful endeavor.

I am aggravated because I think something was done spitefully, to illustrate something other than what was implied, and it hurt. I would like to have let things be, but I didn't.

In the meantime, just hear this: No need to bother. Message received. I get it, and so be it.

~*~

thank you, Stacey

"Wow what a back to school night!! Your confidence has always been incredible but I've got to tell you this was your best one yet. Thanks so much for all you do for those kids, and if any parent ever questions you after that presentation they need serious help.

You have always had such a great presence but I've got to tell you that tonight there was something about you, a glow, a fire, a something that I can not put into words that was beyond compare. You are such a gifted teacher, an amazing person, and someone that deserves nothing but the very BEST in all aspects of your life. Even Bobby said that there was something different about you tonight, besides looking more amazing then ever, he said there was something else he could not put his finger on. I then told him about the tough summer you had, and the new outlook you were going forward with. He said that when one door closes another door will open, and usually what awaits us on the other side of the door is usually the best thing for us. We just don't believe it at the time when that first door is hitting us in the butt. So anyway what we are trying to say is that we are glad that you are in our life, we have so much respect for you."

***************************

I don't know that I can ever thank her enough for saying that.

***************************

That Monday night cast a shadow over my entire week. My appetite is off; I am exhausted but can't sleep (look at the time of this post); my mind is wandering and I am lacking the strength to veer it in the right direction. Wednesday's only just BEGUN and if yesterday was any indication of what things are like now, the kids are sensing my change and rolling right over me. Yesterday during recess one little boy got bitten on the bicep by a child from another class. It broke the skin so his mom came to pick him up and I was fine with that (unusual) because he was REALLY enjoying his new roll as boy-with-injury. Shortly afterward, they both show up at my door (JUST as I was kicking my good deep-south Poppleton accent into high gear during Lit time) and lo and behold, he wants to stay. Mom's fighting back tears; I'm trying to comfort her yet return to my story post haste; and he's savoring the moment. I'm telling you that boy walked around with his arm clutched to his chest like the walking wounded. You'd think he were a vet returning from war with a medical discharge the way he proceeded. Finally I told him his arm was going to hurt even MORE if he didn't relax it and let it hang the way it should rather than clutching it to his ribs as if he were wearing a sling. I have another little girl, all of 12 pounds herself, with a heavy plaster cast extending from just below her shoulder all the way over her knuckles, and she manages with less dramatic flair than this little neosporined thespian. I hope he's back to normal today. I need a LITTLE bit of normalcy wherever I can find it.

Frankly I hope I'M back to normal. I don't think sitting here at 2:50am is going to help, so I'm back to the SC for round 2.

♥e

Breathe Me

I am in love with this song.

I love the stops and starts, her breathing, the vulnerability and absolute opening that comes from her need. I get that.

I love how this ends...with a surprise; and how sometimes, in fleeting moments, we look alike. If you know me, look for it. I am running.

♥e