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Thursday, 19 November 2009

Friday, 13 November 2009

  • NaNoWriMo....for your consideration

    I would love to post a piece of the work-in-progress, but absolutely refuse to give ONTARIO the satisfaction of seeing a single word....yes, I can see every time that particular person--and I do know who it is, can you say 'get a life'?--visits here.

    So if any of the rest of you would like to see some of Maggie and Cooper's story, please message me here and I'll send you a page or two, critique being welcomed by my fellow writers.  Early discussion among the few I've trusted reveals that it is unique, passionate, and very very real.  Go me.

    And if ONTARIO wants to read any of it...wait until it's published and pay for it, baby...that's the only way you'll ever see it. 
    Currently
    The Soul of Creative Writing
    By Richard Goodman
    see related

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

  • NaNoWriMo? BRING IT!

    I'm stepping away from Where I've Been, Part Three (and you'll see that soon enough) because I am so jazzed right now I can hardly stand myself.  Well, that's not completely true, I actually feel so good about so much that maybe the REST of you can't stand me.  That's probably more accurate.

    It's just that....you've all seen me declare "Watch me" at certain times.  You've seen my poetry.  You've read my working out all the details of who I am and what I want to do, to be, and know--if you've read me even occasionally--that writing is as essential to me as breathing.  And even though my blog entries have been pretty sparse this year, I've been writing more than ever, hours each day, effortlessly.

    I was working on a poem last week (still am, it isn't quite right, but it will be) when suddenly these two characters presented themselves to me, and said 'hello.'  I've learned that their names are Cooper and Margaret (although he calls her Maggie, or Meg, or, when teasing her, NutMeg) and they are very, very much in love.  I know what they look like, where they come from, how they met and how long they have loved each other, and where they want this love to take them.  They've just returned from a vacation together, as a matter of fact.  And they have made it clear to me that I will write their story.

    I've had poems knocking against the front of my face, as if someone was tapping at the door.  I've been working on a novel about my first marriage for some time now, knowing it would be slow going because it means returning to some dark, dark places....and yet, I know I will finish it, and that I need to.  There needs to be something out there for others who have survived all that I have, the ones who would never, looking at me, know I had indeed lived in those dark, dark places...and emerged stronger in the light, a woman who is not filled with hate but overflowing with the most tender heart and so, so much love.  I've even had times when I got out of bed at 4 in the morning, to come here, writing an entry that poured out so quickly I could barely type it fast enough.  So I know how powerful my muse can be, and how demanding.

    But this book, well...I've never had so many details laid out so clearly in advance.  I've never met my characters before.  I've also never 'known' my characters the way I know these two.  I like them.  I can't wait to see where they take me, what they tell me, for I am only their scribe, and not their creator...yes, it's that strong.  I had coffee with a friend this morning and told her all this, and she smiled--she has such a beautiful smile--she said that the writers she knows have told her that's when something really good happens, the best work.  She told me she believes I can do it, and I told her better even than that, for me, is the knowledge in myself--my self--that I will do this.

    So here comes National Novel Writing Month.  And I ask Cooper and Maggie, is this why you're here now? so I can't put you off, can't set you on the shelf and mull you over for a while, but have to just jump in with both feet and get soaking wet all at once?  There's a lot to be said for that; a friend commented on Facebook that she'd thought about it and just didn't have the time.  And I don't, either, not really, but I know with all clarity that I never will have the time, and so I must take it.  I can hardly wait to begin.  I've been preparing to do just that for several days, making notes, rereading certain books, ordering two new ones that I think will be wonderful to have by my side....which is also where Cooper and Maggie are now.

    I'm not telling you any more than this....but watch me, and get ready to meet Cooper and Maggie a month from now.  I think you'll like them as much as I do. 


    Currently
    The Playful Way to Serious Writing
    By Roberta Allen
    see related

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

  • I swear I don't know where the time goes...(Where I've Been, Part Two)

    ...because every time I read my archives, when I'm searching for something someone wants to see, I think, geeze, why aren't I doing this more often? I love blogging!

    Have been dealing with a lot of highs and lows and more to come, I'm sure, so for now, just to get back into the groove, here's Where I've Been, Part Two.  This is based on everything I wrote in 2007, and will give Ontario something else to cluck about, I'm sure, but no matter.  I am finding it interesting to see how I felt as I wrote each entry, and comparing it to how the words make me feel today.

    This,  in January, after having seen We Are Marshall.  Sadly, it's still true--still that same moment when you first waken and you have that dark heavy feeling compounded by 'what was ...oh....' as you remember what it was that split your world into before/after.

    It is amazing, speaking of what we already know and yet reacting the same way each time, how we are always so blindsided by death.  Not one of us know exactly when we'll die, unless we choose to do so by our own hand (please don't, dear ones, please, please don't...) And yet, yet...when someone dies, our immediate answer is 'but he was just here!'  And we walk through rooms they won't see again, picking up a sweater that still carries his scent, the book she was reading to me just last night, the letter you were writing that he will never see, now.  And we just can't believe it.  How could this happen? 

    History repeats this, over and over, in big ways (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) and small (a baby who didn't waken from her morning nap, a cousin on his way home from Fort Hood) and we replay that reel of thoughts and memories and conversations over and over, as if we could rewind it and somehow get a different ending.  I know I did that, endlessly, when Grizzy and I broke up.  Magical thinking.   Joan Didion got that exactly right, in her wrenching memoir of grief and loss.  I've done a lot of that in my time.  I just wanted whatever hurt so much not to be true, wanted to wake as if from a nightmare.  But some nightmares are true, and even in sleep you feel the pain.   


    This was also from January, and reading it again I am taken back into the nightmare of 'how did I get here, and how do I get out?'  I remember being more confused then about what and who love was than I have ever been before or since.  What did I take away from the wily fox? The sure and certain knowledge of who I am, what I am, what I have to offer, and that I need no one to complete or rescue me.  I am a complete and complex woman, and I finally like that woman. THOSE are words to live by, baby, and while I may regret the whole incident--and I do--I am glad to have learned so much from it:

    I'm a passionate believer in finding something good in whatever happens to me (not in a Pollyanna sort of way, just....life is full of lessons, and I don't want to miss them) and understanding as much as I can so that, with any luck, I won't repeat my worst mistakes.

    As my marriage, my heart, my life blew apart, I took my comfort where I could. And I trusted my friends--those who quickly made themselves known as real friends, as opposed to good-time acquaintances--and put myself on autopilot until the worst of what was happening was over.  I seemed to find significance in so many simple phrases......there were days when I'd be just silently screaming "I can't go on, I can't go on, I CANNOT go on...." and then I'd go on.  (After all, what else can you do?)  Other days my mantra was "I will not think, I will not feel, I will not cry."  And my journal at the time had a lovely cover, an Oriental watercolor calligraphed with "I fall down, I get up.  Meanwhile, I keep dancing." 

    All of those thoughts were true, and truly felt.

    But I got sucked into what seemed to be the best friendship that was leading into something more.  Someone older, 'wiser', certainly a fox in the hen house who had used the same words, same poems, same lines on every single woman who ever crossed his path. I didn't see it that way at all, as I think he must have known I would.  Stupidly, I believed him when he said it had never been like this before, because I so desperately needed to be everything to someone.  It never occurred to me that anyone would play someone like that, that they could cast out the same bait to every single person in the pool and see who bit.  I never thought someone who sounded the way he sounded could really have so little respect for women, could have such an empty soul. 

    And  I bit. 


    Here's a couple paragraphs from one of those 'things you didn't know you didn't know about me.'  I wrote it in February.  I think it's funny that even NOW, after so much time, I am still learning who really looks at me and who just gives me the once over....those who assume a blonde must have blue eyes.  My eyes are not blue....never have been.  They're very feline, green, definitely my best feature, and no way could they be mistaken for blue.  I digress.

    ~~Because of my birth, adoption, and marriage, I have had five different names.  I had a couple of engagements through the years that I DIDN'T marry--my name is Beth, after all, not Elizabeth Taylor--or it might have been eight.  Or not.  Who's to say? If I'd married my very first love I might be married to him yet.  The world will never know.

    And...funnily enough...I use a different name from any of these for my publishing.

    ~~My eyes changed color somewhere throughout my life.  For many years they were considered hazel, and now they are pure green.  Gold-flecked green, to be sure, but green nonetheless. 

    Here's my thoughts before I went in to interview for a page position at the library:

    In the meantime, I'd love to be part of the library staff.  Anyone who loves books the way I do would be a tremendous asset for them.  So wish me luck.  (This is way better than being the Lunch Lady!)  I'm going in there dressed in something red (I always do, when I want/need to feel powerful) and I'm going to make them wonder how they ever got along without me.

    And this is a couple days later:

    ...completely ignoring Gallagher's oh-so-sage advice: once you get past 40, don't put your butt over your head.

    Okay, so I'm not really doing cartwheels.  Never could.

    But I CAN put my butt over my head, if I care to, a yoga move, you know....lie on your back, stretch your legs up, up, up, and then bring them on over until your toes touch the floor behind your head.  Feels good.  Really!

    But I digress.

     

    The library called me for an interview.  Tomorrow, 1 p.m.  They are interested in me!

     

    Well, of course they are, she says modestly....

    Am I surprised? Not really.  I knew going in that if they looked at my application, they would at least want to talk to me.  And they do.  Grizzy says I am way overqualified, and I am, but this would still be a kick to do.  I mean, I have to be around books on a daily basis...if I am to breathe, that is.

    And I am gonna knock 'em dead.  Watch me!


    And finally:

    I NAILED that interview.  There is just no question about it.  I could see it in their eyes, and feel it in the energy in the room.  I could hear my own inner voice telling me, 'This is yours, now go get it!'  I felt so good I didn't even need to wear red for confidence--today it was black velvet pants, olive green shirt and black/olive/peach jacket. 

    Had three tests.  One was to read aloud, to see how well I could do that.  I do that very well, and I didn't stumble once over a single line.  And I have a good voice, too; I know they wanted to see how I'd sound if someone asked a question.  Grizzy always said I give good phone, so...go me.

    Then I had to alphabetize a stack of cards, the kind that used to be tucked in the little pockets in the books when you checked them out...but they're pretty much history now that it's the computer/scanner age at the checkout desk.  I did that, and then, because I knew how detail-oriented librarians are, I tamped them back into a neat stack and double-checked my work to be sure it was correct, before handing them over.  And it was.

    And while I was doing the last phase, which was to put the cards in order according to the Dewey Decimal System, I saw (peripherally) how both of my interviewers looked over my first stack of cards and nodded to each other.  I double-checked my work a second time and handed them over, knowing that was correct, too.  It's just a matter of waiting for the phone call, now.  They will make the decision this week. (AND it's gonna be me!)

    Do you KNOW how good this is for me?  To once again stride into a place and know it can be mine, if I want it?  I've always been able to do that--make you notice me if I want you to, or be totally invisible if I don't want you to see me. 

    They hired me that same afternoon. By the end of that year I'd moved up two levels from page to assistant, or 'hey! liberry lady!' Still, oh, still and always, I have to be around books if I am to breathe.

    This is from April and oh! I can still hear every word of it and all the fun we had.

    She's always had quite an imagination, this daughter of ours, and we've done everything we could to encourage it to blossom.

    When she was 3, her favorite game to play was school bus, and she'd line up all the chairs in the house and then get into the 'driver's seat,' cautioning everyone to sit down and fasten their seat belts.  (And having seen the way she drives in her favorite arcade game, that's just as well.  Does the term "hell on wheels" mean anything to you??) 

    It means we've often had imaginary playmates--I'm often called upon to make pancakes not just for Betsy, but for Tori and Whitney and Hope and Stephen and Jaylen--none of whom are actually standing anywhere but in the mind of our child.  But I play along every time, especially when she uses a half-dozen different voices to thank me, and I am careful to repeat every name in my "you're welcomes."

    I like it.  I do.  It's nice to see where all she goes and the details in the scenarios she spins.

    Today, she decided, is her wedding day.  She's going to marry Stephen, she says. (Fickle girl.  Last year before we moved here, it was Colin, a little Aussie boy who was utterly charming, whom she fell for on the spot the minute she met him, saying "Oh my GOSH, I HAVE to marry you!")

    Then she decided that there were some details yet to be arranged, and would I take care of them.  In no particular order:

    ~~I'm supposed to buy some flowers.  Pink.  And I'm supposed to get some more flowers, pink ones, and take off the petals and put them in a basket so the kids can throw them at her.

    ~~I need to bake the wedding cake, tomorrow, so it'll be fresh.  Half chocolate and half  'nilla.  And though she handed me 'the little dolls' to put on top, she also asked me to cut out some cardboard dinosaurs--green ones--because that's Stephen's favorite--to put beside the little dolls.

    ~~I need to get a CD with "Here Comes the Bride" on it.

    ~~She would like me to bake cupcakes for the kids.  (We had a cupcake tree at our second wedding, instead of the traditional wedding cake, because we thought she'd like that best of all.  And she did.)

    ~~I need to set up the playpen for all the little kids.  (I'm not just sure who all these little kids are, but no matter.  We can imagine as many as are wanted.)

    ~~I'm supposed to get one hundred pink sparkly scarves and sew them together, and then get on a ladder and hang them up on the ceiling in a big U.

    ~~I'm supposed to get a big slide for out back for the bigger kids.  But nothing for the teenagers to do because they'll just want to watch the wedding.

    ~~I'm supposed to buy two wigs, for her little daughter, who is having a bad hair day.  (You think I'm making this up, don't you?)

    ~~I'm supposed to buy pizza and some drinks for the party for after the wedding.  And some water.

    ~~I'm supposed to get some poles to keep everyone in straight lines.

    ~~I'm supposed to take her husband to the ring store and that way he can pick what rings he wants to give her and then I can just buy what I think will look good on him and then he can choose.

    ~~Oh, and I can choose her dress, too.

     

    My daughter, the bride.  In her wrinkled pink dress (worn over ever-so-attractive grey leggings) and bare feet.  With a temporary tattoo of a butterfly on her cheek.  Reminding me, as she walks down the aisle, "Mom! Remember! You're supposed to cry happy tears!"

    Please join us for the festivities.  Mr. and Mrs. Stephen "I don't know his last name" are registered at Toys R Us and FAO Schwartz. 

    (I really doubt we will have any MORE fun planning her actual wedding.)


    That summer I had a spectacular struggle with the Beast, as I call it, and it lasted longer than any depression I have ever had.  In fact....I have to say that when weeks turn into months with no new posts from me here, it's a pretty sure bet that I am fighting off the demons yet again....it is the only time I cannot write and that simple fact only adds to the agonies.

    For two months I've pretty much felt I was behind a thick and solid wall of glass.  I could see you, but not hear you.  I could not talk to you, because I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to say.  I was on autopilot, functioning just enough and no more.  It reminded me of the summer of 2002, when I was passing through the worst pain of my life, but you would never have known if I did not wish you to.  Even Grizzy and Betsy, and my parents, have been largely unaware of so much inner turmoil, because when you feel the same way day after day....you learn to keep it to yourself.  (No, really, you do.  Think about it.  How often when someone asks 'how ya doing?' do they really want to know?) 

    And so I've dealt with everything I could, as best as I could, and let go what I could not manage.  I keep reminding myself that I'm not really as worthless as I have felt, though there are those who would surely disagree. 

    Time heals.  There are always scars, but time heals.

    "Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
    But I believe only in this moment
    of well being. Unholy Ghost,
    you are certain to come again."

     

    This is undoubtedly true.  But when that Ghost comes again....I will not go quietly.







    Currently
    Various Positions - A Life of Leonard Cohen
    By Ira B. Nadel
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Tuesday, 11 August 2009

  • Where I've been....Part One

    ...is not what you're thinking. 

    Had a stupid and needless dust-up the other day with someone on a message board; I held my own, replied as needed and lost not one bit of sleep over it.  For one thing, the whole thing is so ridiculously familiar, all about ego, all about manipulation; the kingpin stays the same and the players rotate in and out as they wise up to the reality. 

    But it did get me to thinking about posting and posting and posting yet again something you've written.  It is, to me, as if you're saying, 'Aren't I profound? You didn't admire this enough the first time, so listen up!'  So I've almost never quoted anything I've written; if this blog didn't have archives, I would have very little saved that I've written...no matter how deep and thought-filled the work was, it would, eventually, have slipped into the mists of time.  I'm okay with that.

    Yesterday my Grizzy gave me a printout of a deliriously happy and foolishly long post I'd written on a message board, a sort of review of a long weekend with friends.  He saved it for me; he likes the way I write, and that means more to me than any other opinion I could receive.  (This is not to say that I don't value your input, of course!  Comments are always welcome.) Reading such exuberance, I felt ten years younger--it's not that I feel old, because I don't.  It's that for those few moments I was that girl again. 

    So, because this has been so long neglected (I'll be filling you in bit by bit about all that's kept me so busy these past few months)  I decided I would go into the archives.  Nope, not gonna take the lazy way out and just repost them....as I pulled up what I've written the last 4 years, I began to wonder what I'd think now about what I wrote then.  So here's 2006!

    Like this: Friday night we have an appointment to see a cottage in Winona Lake that we hope to rent...it's white, is about all I know.  I'm thinking 'shabby chic' and hoping it won't, instead, be 'Ma and Pa Kettle.'  That was March, and we did rent that cottage.  It was indeed shabby and we spent the next three years in it, making it much less shabby.  We painted our bedroom an incredible shade of blue, and the living room was a 'custom blended color' (note: that means we took a leftover gallon of desert coral and a marked down gallon of raspberry satin and poured it into a soup pot and used my longest cooking whisk to stir them together.)  We hung wallpaper border and renovated the bathroom and built in shelves everywhere we could.  It was a nice enough house and I'm glad we had it, and I'm much more glad to own our own home now....where we can mix more paint and build more shelves without having to get permission first!

    Or this, describing Grizzy for people who only know him through my musings here: Most of all I would tell them what a gift he is, how even with the ups and downs we have experienced in twenty-three years, I cannot imagine my life without him in it, for even when he wasn't in it...he still was.  He was everywhere I looked, every scent in a left-behind shirt, every inscription in a book and every song on the radio.  It is how I knew what I must have known all along....he is the rest of me.  That was three years ago, we've now been together 26 years and married for 24 (we don't count our time apart at all, and why should we) and I love him more than I did then.  And I will love him more tomorrow.

    And this, which I do enjoy reading again:  We shared pizza and ice cream, went to movies and plays together, threw together parties at the drop of a hat, some with themes and some for no good reason and all more fun than the law should ever allow.  We helped each other move, and study, and paint scenery, and study, and rehearse scenes, and studystudySTUDY when it was finals time.  We went dancing together, and we danced in each other's apartments, too....determined that we WOULD cave in my dining room floor by doing "The Time Warp"...again.  We kissed under the mistletoe and went for walks in the snow and endured bad (a/k/a cheap) booze (and hangovers, too, alas) and sunburns and broken hearts and bad grades and scathing reviews in the newspapers. We cut each other's hair and gave facials and manicures...the girls too....   We admired each other's decor.....Ken and his roommate didn't have beds, they had hammocks, and their 'barbecue grill' was an oven rack placed over an old toilet.  Grizzy's place had a bathtub in the hallway, where we always put our ice and soda and booze for parties...and if there were no drinks there, you could find several people sitting in the tub talking.  Kathy and JoBeth had some sort of stucco on their walls that they called guacamole, because it was exactly that green and lumpy.  And we all swiped milk crates from the grocery and dairy stores to use for our LPs and books and magazines and clothes....it was fun, making a 'milk crate run.'  Hot fudge ice cream cake, with extra ice cream and extra fudge and cherries, and coffee with extra cream, and 'Sweet and Low, because I'm on a diet' every night during the run of a play...too hopped up on performance adrenaline to go home and sleep, so why not load yourself up with caffeine and sugar.  Midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" complete with gestures and rude dialogue. Walks in the park, and a 'first annual 'Ritz' reunion party, where we gathered together all of our cast and crew from a year before, and partied at our apartment from 6 p.m.--with a barbecue, frisbee, all that stuff, until midnight, when we were well-lubricated and got out the scripts and read (and taped) the words, with a whole lot more entendre than Terence McNally could have envisioned as he wrote it--to 6 A.M when the last guest left. Yes, 12 hours of eating and drinking and dancing and laughing.  We were looking at the pictures of this just two nights ago.  And every night, I'd get into bed and reach for my journal so I could freeze the moment...and know, again, that this was the happiest time of my life.  I'm sure my memories aren't much different than most other's, when they think back on the most carefree period of their lives, whatever it may have been, but these are my memories, and we are all still young, still resilient, thin, still have our hair and teeth and whatever else....and life holds so much promise.   Why do I like this? because, thanks to Facebook, I've found just about every one of these long-missed friends.  And it's as if no time has passed at all; our bantering on each other's Walls and comments on each other's photos are just as much fun as they ever were. 

    Or this, which I'll leave you with: And it was nice to see that all my years of studying and performing music haven't left me (and that it's time to pick up the instruments again.  I NEED to make music, not just listen to it.)  One of the songs was called "North Pole," and with the opening notes I knew it was meant to be some form of "New York, New York:" no, it wasn't the heavy swaggering brass sound, I just felt it, and knew I was right, and I was.  Grizzy was amazed! I love putting that look on his face! (Grizzy's been singing it ever since, sounding amazingly like Sinatra.  I had something occur in my life a couple years back that put me right off Sinatra for a while, but that's gone now and I can enjoy him, and Grizzy's renditions, as much as I ever did before that train wreck.... ) But I digress.  On the one hand, this show  mirrored every such program I've ever attended (hey, long before I was a good mommy I was a good aunt! the bestest, my nieces would say.  And Grizzy and I have directed a childrens' program or two, ourselves, as well as other forms of involvement--ask Grizzy about being a "Diagnostic Disk"...or the time we made the Psalty meter for a church play....good times.)  When I say it mirrored the others, I mean that you can always count on a few things happening:

    --someone will pull her dress up over her head.  I don't know if it's shyness or exhibitionism.  Maybe it's just a fun way to show off ruffly-butt tights.  But you can be sure some little darlin' WILL flash the crowd.  (No, it wasn't mine, although I did have to remind her to be careful when she sat cross-legged on the floor...'but Mom! I'm wearing tights! you can't see my panties!'  to the amusement of all who heard it....)

    --someone will be picking his nose.  Never fails.

    --someone will be showing off.  I really hate that.  And the music teacher wasn't thrilled, either. 

    --someone else will steal the show.  In our case, it was a small handicapped child who was always just a beat behind what everyone else was doing, but was so ear-to-ear grinning exuberance that NO one minded. When they turned left, she turned right.  We just didn't care.  It was so sweet to see her trying so hard.

    --someone will absolutely freeze and just stand there, like a deer in the headlights. 

    --and someone will always come in with a line at the wrong time.  And they blush.  And all of us parents are sitting there thinking, 'that's okay, honey, no one minds.' 

    --and...best of all...the lyrics of at least one song will absolutely melt your heart, and bring tears to your eyes.  In this one, there were two, one called 'Peace in our Hearts,' where a dozen beautiful little girls sang these wistful, wishful lyrics while they signed at the same time.  God, I wish we had the peace in the world they sang of.  They're so little they don't even know how much we need it.

    And the second one was this:

    Wouldn't it be nice, if everyone was nice?

    Wouldn't it be nice, don't you agree?

    Wouldn't it be nice, if everyone was happy,

    And kindness always came naturally.

    Wouldn't it be nice, if there was no more war?

    Wouldn't it be nice, don't you agree?

    Wouldn't it be nice, if there was so much love here

    That we could live in pure harmony?

    Wouldn't it be nice, if all of us had peace?

    Wouldn't it be nice, don't you agree?

    Can you imagine how perfect it would be?

    Wouldn't it be nice to see?

    Wouldn't it be nice?

    Wouldn't it be nice.......


     

     



    Currently
    Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
    By Natalie Goldberg
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GracieBC

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    • Name: Beth Anne
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About Me

  • 'and all of the things that I said that I wanted~ come rushing in by my head when I'm with you~14 joys and a will to be merry~and all of the things that we say are very~sentimental gentle wind~blowing through my life again~sentimental lady, gentle one....' In addition to that...I am a wife, mother, poet, painter, student, cook, daughter, friend. Not as good as I want to be, not as bad as I used to be, always trying to be what I'm meant to be.

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  • vexations
    Wishing you a good day.
  • vexations
    Glad to see you writing poetry and so well. Cheers
  • mtnfairy
    Hi lady. I deleted your registration on the RMMB as you requested. Deleted me too. *G* Remember this? (It probably won't work because I forgot how to write code..)