Truth Serum

I always want to tell you the good stuff. Look how smart I am, how driven I am, how disciplined. When I don't have something pretty to say, I don't write. When my mind is a blizzard of indecision, a torrent of sadness, when I am lost, I go silent. I don't want you to see the ugly. I am afraid to be ordinary, fragile, unlovable.

The truth is that I am intense. That is my constant.

I am one hundred shades of green, and sometimes fuchsia, and yellow, and red, and some days, silent white.

And you just never know what you're going to get on any given day.

Narcissilence

There is something about city silence that comforts me more than wilderness silence. City silence is more human, more pensive, more charming, more aware of my existence. Wilderness silence, snowflakes tapping on glass, trickling water, birds, crickets, all performs so unaware of me, so unrequiring of me, as if it always has been and always will be. And there is something about a silence that involves you, seems to wait for you, that exists for your observance.

Makesumption

This morning, I was in the shower having a solo brainstorming session. What can I create from my garbage instead of putting it in a landfill? What can I make with all the newspapers I recycle every day? How can I use my old clothes in the giveaway bag? And how can I do all of this to create something fun, stylish, or useful? I like to call it, Makesumption. It's consumption and creation all wrapped up in one. While I didn't solve the economic crisis, or world hunger, I did come up with a few fun ideas to share with you, using basic, household items.

1) Set up a Red-worm composting bin. Some people sell the vermicompost and the worms for a little profit on the side. I have a red-worm compost bin that we just started a week ago. One bin doesn't quite keep up with how much organic waste two people generate, it handles most of it, including coffee grounds and pulverized eggshells. And it can be expanded into multiple bins over time. The best feature of this project, in my opinion, is that it can be done in an apartment or in a garden. Check out this 10 minute how-to YouTube video by Barb Finnin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbjX2tt-oQw&feature=related.

2) Make your own chalk. A fun and easy project made from pulverized eggshells, which are composed of 94% calcium carbonate. Puppet maker Markie Scholz tells us how to make chalk and other creative crafts for props and art on her website at: http://www.dragonsaretooseldom.com/craft_recipes.html.

Eggshell Chalk
6 eggshells (washed thoroughly)
1 teaspoon very hot water
1 teaspoon flour

Put eggshells in a electric blender and reduce to fine powder. You can also use a mortar and pestle or a rock on a board. Pick out any remaining big shell pieces and discard. Put water and flour in a bowl and mix until a paste is formed. Add 1 teaspoon of shell powder and mix until well combined. You can also add food coloring or tempera for colored chalk. Roll into a chalk-like stick. Wrap tightly in a paper towel. Let dry for 3 days until hard. Remove paper towel and draw a driveway mural.

3) Recycle your junk mail. If even after calling to remove yourself from mailing lists, you are still receiving pesky junk mail, reuse it. Cut your junk mail into 3x5 rectangles to use as scratch paper for grocery lists and other notes and save money on notepads. Or tear newspapers lengthwise in strips to use as packing material and save on costly bubble wrap.

What kind of Makesumer ideas do you have?

Brooklyn

I am lonely for home tonight. I wasn't born in Brooklyn, but it is home, for so many reasons. It belonged to me when nothing else did. I can smell the pink-green-white of the buds on the cherry blossoms, soon to make an appearance.

Sleeps That City Never

She moves through me like a ghost
Severe, tight, exact, crystalline
I keep moving so she won't settle in my chest, my wrists, my ankles
I push the pavement down with my heels to keep her from moving up my legs
She seizes me, invites me even
Coaxes me close enough to feel her breath on my eyelashes
I am silent, cauterized by her icy truth
But that second I looked away, she turns on me
As if I was never there
Forever uninvited
And she makes me watch
She makes me watch while she twists her arctic arms around the new ones, the ones who never dared, the ones who knew better
She makes me watch while they are born on my streets
I am the afterbirth, the sticky placenta
No longer the living

I realize, recently, how little I need.