Category Archives: Just Me, Being Me

Winners Lose – Losers Win

Posted on by
3

in
dread
tears flow
bitterly
down already wet cheeks
for names and faces I know not
in the past’s horror and in the fear of tomorrow
I wonder if the end begins
with powers-that-be
watering
away
life
life
for
the men
the women
children and babies
their breaths snuffed in odorless death
less than one hundred days in, it is how things will wage
for those who will not pay the cost
it does not matter
who will win
when all
will
lose
<>==========<>==========<>
National Poetry Writing Month (NoPoWriMo) 2017
National Poetry Writing Month 2017 – Day 7 

A to Z Challenge - F logo
A to Z Challenge – F is for Fibonacci Spiral

Today’s form adds up to the Fibonacci Spiral

The Fibonacci Poem, or Fib Poem for short, is a single stanza poem based on the first 7 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. The first and second lines are one syllable, the third line two syllables, the fourth line three syllables and so forth following the Fibonacci sequence. It traditionally ends at seven lines (13 syllables), but some have taken it longer following the sequence.

The Fibonacci Spiral poem is a more structured poem with two stanzas.

The 1st stanza has 13 lines, the 2nd stanza has 12 lines. The last line of your first stanza is repeated to become the first line of your second stanza with no gap between stanzas. Repeat the syllable count to form the spiral for a total 25 lines altogether. If this confuses you just look below.

The syllable counts must be as follows:

stanza 1
1st line – 1 syllable
2nd line – 1 syllable
3rd line – 2 syllables
4th line -3 syllables
5th line -5 syllables
6th line -8 syllables
7th line -13 syllables
8th line -8 syllables
9th line -5 syllables
10th line – 3 syllables
11th line – 2 syllables
12th line – 1 syllable (word must be at least 4 letters)
13th line – 1 syllable (repeat of the word above)
stanza 2 (remember there is no space between the two stanza)
14th line -1 syllables
15th line -2 syllables
16th line -3 syllables
17th line -5 syllables
18th line -8 syllables
19th line -13 syllables
20th line -8 syllables
21st line -5 syllables
22nd line – 3 syllables
23rd line – 2 syllables
24th line – 1 syllable
25th line – 1 syllable

Though not required, the poem should be Centered for the spiral.

The Big If

Posted on by
2
What in the actual fuck am I do with my existence and time on this planet?? Do you know what you’re doing with yours? If you died today would you be happy?

This query was posed by a friend on Facebook.  Because it was Facebook I gave a quick one paragraph response.  Below is that paragraph expanded out.

The biggest problem with worrying about our existence and time on this earth is that we have no clue how long our ride will last. Therefore worrying about it takes some of that very finite time away from actually living it.  We all, well most of us, want to be someone grand, want to be a known quantity. We want to know we have a purpose in life.  My purpose in life is easy…

Don't just survive life, live it.
Don’t just survive life, live it. 

I believe if I simply live my life to the best of my ability each day, everything else falls into place.

Within the past ten or so years I have rediscovered ME.  The me I am when I’m not being a semi-professional on the job, when I’m not being a mother to now two grown men, when I’m not being a potential someone’s significant other. I have rediscovered the me I am when I take away all the things I have to do and am left with only the things I must to do to make my soul happy. I had no clue as to how just badly I was lost, until I slowly started to find me. I am still learning, challenging and discovering myself, and it has been one heck of an exploration.

I may never be the next Poe or Renoir or Piaf. Especially Piaf,  because this Raivenne who ironically loves karaoke, can’t sing for shit.  Yet on a very small-scale my name is now somewhat known in many countries across this globe. I could never have imagined that ten plus years ago. That is not to say that, with hard work, ten years from now if my name is well on its way to being as recognized as say Angelou or  Chihuly or Adele (again, please see my caveat re: singing above), I will not complain; really I won’t. A few ago I posted in my blog how my life has done a complete 180 degree turn regarding the arts in my life- from it dearth in my youth to its depth now. My love of writing, music, painting, poetry, theatre – it is all so ingrained into me now I cannot imagine breathing without it. I have rediscovered not just my love for the art of others, but to also appreciate and love, nurture my own arts as well.

I have accomplished some things I could not conceive of doing 30, 20, 10 years ago. Imagined?-yes. Hoped and prayed?-yes. Actually thought I would get to do?-no. But I have done and it has been a marvel. I have so many wonderful people in my life, and I include some of those whom I have yet to meet face-to-face. Had you asked me years if I ever truly thought I would know get to know just people globally, outside of my best friend, that if I should ever step foot in their country and did not make a sincere effort to meet with them that I would be royally cussed out, I would have laughed heartily in your face. Heartily. Yet, I am slowly marking not just countries, but continents of my lists; this is where I am now.

I look in the mirror each morning and I’m glad to say the majority of the time I smile at what I see. (Queue Mary J. Blige’s Fine here.) Not just physically, but emotionally as well. I have my raw days, we all do, however I can honestly say I have never been so full of life, enjoying life, thriving in the art of simply living life as I am right now.

So, if I have to make that final exit today, I can say I would be happy.  Still, for as much as I have already accomplished, have I crossed-off even a third of my ever-expanding Want-To-Do list?-Nope. So forgive me if  I’m hoping for at least a few more decades to work on those, before I leave you guys, okay? Because I’m Happy!
<>==========<>==========<>

Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 14

52essays2017

A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

24 Hours

Posted on by
4

This is less a slice and more a serving of the whole cake as this past Saturday I participated in the 24HourProject a 24 hour photography where every hour you post at least one picture to your Instagram, so it’s all in real time. To prep for the event I took Friday off to run errands in the morning and sleep in the afternoon. Well, I got my errands taken care of, but naturally sleep was elusive. Having been up since 8am, at 10:30pm it was a lost cause. I, along with the Stanley to my Ollie (what another fine challenge you’ve gotten me into!), my running buddy GirlGriot, met at midnight in Times Square to begin.  As luck would have it, it was a cold, windy and rainy midnight, but in for a penny – in for a 24 Hours, troopers that we are, it did not deter us.

Together and separately, we ran amok in the City That Never Sleeps and photographed the people and things that captured our eye.

Some of my favorites of the 24 Hours –

Clockwise from top left:

  • 1:00am – East Side of 42nd Street looking into the infinity of the lights of Times Square on the West Side.
  • 1:30am – A play of shadows and light, I love how glittery the wet pavement looks and that this not a black and white photo.
  • 2:54am – Catching the middle of the night magic of Macy’s Department store as it maintain the massive floral arrangements in its annual Flower Show.
  • 11:02pm – One of several times throughout the day I used a clock as a timestamp. The other two were digital, this was the first analog clock I came across.
  • 12:13pm – The Birdman of Washington Square Park who would have made Alfred Hitchcock smile.
  • 9:27pm – We come upon this lovely young man offering “Free Poetry”. Poetry typed on a manual typewriter in the spur of the moment. Give him a subject, a smile, a donation because come on how could I not offer him something for his work, wait a few minutes and voila personalized prose.

In the middle of this I also attended a Cookie Crawl with friends. Yes, it’s like a pub crawl, but hopping around to various sweet shops/bakeries. You know how you have a wish list of eateries you’d like try? Imagine going to several of them in one day and you get it. NYC has a plethora of such small businesses to tempt the sweet tooth and we visited a few of them. Let’s just say the repeated consumption of sweets was just what this this slowly tiring body needed.  GirlGriot and I met up later in the day to attend a free improv show. We had a little under three hours left when we ran into the subway poet pictured above.

His finished impromptu prose for me:

Subway Poetry

I can hear you
I can hear —

I can dance
I feel the native
animal inside me

…oh, you were
saying some
one was
sangin’ summer fever

a heel drummer
an unshackled rattling
one&two&one?

hello hey
let’s stop talkin’

we’ve made it to the
weekend
let this old body
feel young

The young man would not give his signature so I’ll call him Eeyore as this was the key chain that sat on his table as he worked.

My last official shot of the night?

I captured this little guy hanging out on a staircase while waiting for the train, one of many such whimsical bronze figures which comprise the “Life Underground” sculptures by Tom Otterness dotting the platform and steps of that station.

From waking up at 8am Friday, I finally hit my bed some 41 hours later. It was the most exercise my legs have had since fall. Advil and I were best friends when I finally crawled out of bed on Sunday. It’s Tuesday and while my calves have finally stopped their cussin’, they’re still pretty miffed. Ow, but so worth it.
<>==========<>==========<>

Slice of Life logo

Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

Being Beat

Posted on by
1

Get 1 idea let it stew
Pinch a friend to go with you (fun but optional)
4 Advil in case there be need (to be optimal)
1 smart phone with camera as it’s the point indeed
Bring chargers plug and portable, one of each should do
Have funds because you’ll want to refuel yourself too
Pair of comfortable footwear for pounding the street
Dress casual, but together, never know who you’ll meet
Stroke of midnight start roving through your city.
Take pictures of things, the pretty, and the gritty.
Pick one and post it to your Instagram before the hour is done.
It’s the #24HourPorject – and you’ve completed hour one.

You now have the basics and know what to do. Repeat the last two steps for hour two. Continue these steps throughout the rest of the day.  Have mini breaks to refuel and eat or you will sway. Show the things you see in the city your roam, post the 24th shot on your way or at home. You’ll wake the next with 24 pictures posted so neat, and your body feeling successfully being beat.

<>========<>==========<>

24 Hour Project logo
Yesterday, I participated in the annual 24HourProject for the first time. The 24HourProject gathers street and documentary photographers from around the globe to share in photography of humanity in real time. Photographers share one photo per hour during twenty four hours.  Suffice to say this morning Advil is my friend because my body is beat.

National Poetry Writing Month (NoPoWriMo) 2017
National Poetry Writing Month 2017 – Day 2
Write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe!

A to Z Challenge 2017 - B logo
A to Z Challenge 2017 Day 2
B is for Being Beat

The Horror of the Harlequin

Posted on by
Reply

No one batted an eye when I, a female, read the Borne series of espionage novels by Robert Ludlum long before the movies came out. Nor when I was enthralled by the Spenser detective series by Robert B.  Parker after being introduced to the character thanks to the 80’s TV series. Oh, but let me read anything from the Troubleshooters series, military novels by Suzanne Brockman and eyes roll hard because Brockman’s books are considered romance.

While I personally find most of what is published under romance novels as a genre to be poorly penned and predictable as all get out, my wiring simply cannot find pleasure in reading them. But I don’t knock their existence for clearly many people, like my best friend, simply adore them. Please note: I am not solely speaking of romance novels with sex scenes, explicit or otherwise, but the quick read novels made infamous by Harlequin which became so popular in the 80s and remain steadfastly so today. This includes many of which can be found under the somewhat less threatening big sister header of Chick Lit.

Romance novels are often dismissed as guilty pleasures, something a person should be be above reading once out of their teens by women, and to be outright ashamed of being seen as read by men. Granted, the covers of barrel chested men with gloriously voluptuous women do not help, but still it is not just females reading romance novels. Let’s be honest: just as “boys have adventures with action figures” while “girls play with dolls“, men read plenty of books with romance in them — they just aren’t called romance novels.

The espionage and detective series mentioned above have romance scenes, separate or including depictions of sex, to demonstrate the level of importance of the romantic interests to each other. It’s often needed to push the story, no matter how weakly. I mean was there really any need for the Marie character in the Ludlum books, or movies, other than to give the lead character the damsel to save? So guys aren’t exactly foreign to the concept of reading up on some lovely-dovey time in novels and tacitly accept it.  Whodathunkit? Uh, most e-book users and FanFic writers.

With e-books and Fan Fiction or FanFic for short, males -especially CIS males- can delve into the world of romance historical, modern, fact, fiction, and yes the homoerotic, BDSM and so many other subsets within subsets as most females have enjoyed in, sometimes covered, print for decades. One of the many reasons E-books have become so popular  is that people can read whatever they want in relative private, without the grandiose covers mentioned above shouting to world what steamy words lay on the pixelated screen.

We live in a (relatively) free society in which we can like anything we want. So if men are reading romance too, why all the hating? as the kids would say. The problem is we live in a society that claims to embrace equality between men and women and at the same time devalues femininity.

It seems that we’ve been taught to have a disdain for all girly things. It’s is just part and parcel of living in a patriarchal society.  While traditional femininity can be just as toxic as traditional masculinity, in the push for equality, somehow being actually feminine has been pushed away into being considered less than. That feminine pursuits are frivolous, while masculine pursuits are valid, including what we read. When we try to devalue femininity as a means of oppression that is a problem.

There’s no more wrong with a guy reading a historical romance for fun than a gal reading a political thriller for the same reason – if it brings the reader pleasure – to each/his or her own.

<>==========<>==========<>

Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 13

52essays2017

A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

 

Looks Like We Made It

Posted on by
3

Slice of Life Writing Challenge 31 Day Writing Streak

For the first time since I started participating in Slice of Life four years ago I have completed all 31 Days!!!

It’s been a struggle – once I think I made it in with less than ten minutes to spare. But oh, it has been fun. Caught up with some slicers from previous years, picked up a few new ones, and a recipe for delicious lemon bars (thanks Arjeha).

Congrats to all my fellow March slicers whether you participated for 1 day are all 31. We have one heck of a community of camaraderie here. I have enjoyed these 31 days of poignant, anger inducing, gut-wrenching, hilarious, thought provoking slices of your lives and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I want to publically lay my annual blame/blessing for the reason I discovered this community on Original Slicer, fellow blogger and a wonderful person I get to call a friend in real life, Girl Griot. The crap you get me into, woman! Thank you so much <3!

We now return to our regular programming of weekly slices  – see you on Tuesday and next March.
<>==========<>==========<>
And I gave myself yet another earworm. My apologies to those who know why., my bigger apologies if you now suffer for it as well.

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

#SOL2017

Check out the final touches:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 31 – Finite!

Almost Over

Posted on by
2

22 hours ago at the witching hour I went to bed wondering what I would slice about today.

17 hours ago I woke up wondering what was I going to slice about today.

Fourteen and a half hours ago I walked out of Starbucks, on my way to work, with all hopes dashed of anything of interest happening for me to slice about today.

Ditto for the next coffee run, the lunch run and the I’m done for the day run at twelve, eight and a half, and five hours ago respectively.

Walked out of the movie theater an hour and a half ago with the same wonder still unanswered

And now an hour and a half before a new witching hour I stare at the blinking cursor and wonde…

Hmmm, not wondering any more…
<>==========<>==========<>

Desperate times, desperate posts?

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

#SOL2017

Check out the more thoughtful slices for what’s left of this Thursday:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 30

Discretion Is… 

Posted on by
3

Spoiled is walking into my local Starbucks and not having my name called out when my order is ready. I nod returning the baristas’ smiles in greeting as they acknowledge my presence upon entering. Once D and M, with my coffee and breakfast sandwich respectively, see my name on the label they each walk over to their side of the counter closest to where I stand and hand my order directly to me. I hoist my purchase in thanks to each as they laugh at my serious head-banging to the music my iPod. The final notes of The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” is clearly not the mellow tune regaling the customers over the store’s speakers at that moment.  Still, I overhear this cheeky college girl near me talking with a friend, “Check out She Who Shall Not Be Named.”

I slowly turn my head and smile, letting her know I heard. I think I smile charmingly,

Tom Hiddleston, normal smile

Tom Hiddleston, normal smile

but considering I have not had time to indulge in my coffee yet, it is very likely it came off as menacingly, for she blinks rapidly and takes an unconscious step back. I hear D behind me start to speak up “Girl, shut up.”

“Rai, don’t. Trust me, she’s not worthy of your wrath.” M chimes in at the same time. I turn to her fully, this time knowing my smile is all sorts of wrong.

Tom Hiddleston, evil grin

Tom Hiddleston, evil grin

With the opening whispers of Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” now in my ears, I choose to heed the discretion is route of M’s advice and leave.

Note: from my entrance to my exit, I had not uttered a single word.

<>==========<>==========<>

#SOL2017

#SOL2017

Let’s see how others are getting through this Hump Day:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 29 Almost over!

Oh, For Crying Out Loud!

Posted on by
2

My commute is such that while all of my subway ride is underground, various stations along the route are equipped with free WiFi. The thirty to forty-five seconds spent at each station is usually just enough time for my smartphone to pick up a signal and perhaps update texts and/or an app or two. As such I was having something of a textation, a texting conversation, with a friend. As we each were on different trains, with anything between two to seven minutes between stations, we innately accepted the stop and go nature of it.

At one pointed she texted something that caught me completely off-guard. I just was not expecting such words to come from her and it touched me in a way I was not prepared to handle. There I was, on the subway, choking with feeling. I was so completely overcome by it. I felt my face contort, tears I could not control were about to fall. It was made all the worse when the man sitting next to me touched my trembling shoulder asking if I were okay. I immediately put my head in my lap unable to answer. Unable to stop the ragged gasping that fell from my lips. I was just short of keening as I desperately tried to suppress my emotions.

GOD DAMN HER!!!!

It started with her asking me about a -how shall I say this? stranger than usual- Facebook post and the snark started. I wish I could share, but the comments started in the gutter and went downhill fast, even by my prurient standards. Taken on its own, it would not have been as amusing, but in context of the randomness of the texts coming in, some out of order, the time of morning, the picking on of a mutual friend and the simple lack of that life giving thing called coffee, it was all the more funny than it ever should have been to disastrous results.  That emotion I was choking on? Pure unhinged laughter.

I was was not just crying with laughter, I trying with all of my might not to howl with it. And that was my mistake.

I should have learned my lesson from the last time this happened and just let it out to begin with.  This happened to me years ago at work, where several of my colleagues, and my boss, thought I was distraught over something as I was literally sobbing with suppressed laughter for a solid ten minutes because my cubicle mate at the time and I got into a case of the giggles and completely lost it. When it happened back then, I went off the floor to the ladies room and let it all out – much to the amusement of the one colleague who witnessed the transition from presumably distraught to dying of laughter as I could barely breath for it.  The memory of that last time combined with this one. And. Did. Not. Help. At. All.  Apparently, laughing hysterically and sobbing hysterically share many properties, thus why the word hysteria exists. The poor caring -and bless their souls- folks on the train simply could not tell at first.  It was a good two stations until I could finally lift my tear stained face and unmistakably guffaw at their expressions, letting those near me on the train know I was clearly crazy as a loon, but otherwise fine.

I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral
Can’t understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will
–“One Week” Bare Naked Ladies
<>==========<>==========<>

#SOL2017

#SOL2017

Let’s see how others are losing it through the rest of this Monday:

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 27

Fine Dining

Posted on by
4

Yesterday was all about Georgia O’Keeffe, but that was not all I saw while at Brooklyn Museum. Continuing its feminist vibe, the museum also has on exhibit “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago.

At some point in our lives we ask or are asked “If you could have dinner with…?” type of question. In her work “The Dinner Party” artist Judy Chicago takes that question and answers it in a magnificent way. It is a tribute of women from mythical goddesses, government leaders, wordsmiths, artists, scholars, activists and more, from historical to 20th century contemporaries.

Before you get to the table itself you pass through an entry where you are welcomed via a series of banners which hang from the ceiling. The phrases, depicted in much of the color pallet used in the main exhibit, read:

“And She Gathered All before Her”
“And She made for them A Sign to See”
“And lo They saw a Vision”
“From this day forth Like to like in All things”
“And then all that divided them merged”
“And then Everywhere was Eden Once again”

“The Dinner Party” entry banner “From this day forth Like to like in All things”
“The Dinner Party” entry banner “And then Everywhere was Eden once again”

I do not know Ms. Chicago’s intention, but reading this I felt as though a powerful feminine deity looked around to see the mess that had been made of things and took action setting things right.

And then you enter “The Dinner Party”

“The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago at Brooklyn Museun

“The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago at Brooklyn Museum

I had heard of the iconic, large scale project years ago. Still I was not prepared for the monumental scope of it. Chicago does not invite just one iconic woman, but what has to be nearly a thousand women in history to dinner. The lighting is intimate and inviting. You want to lean in and view each setting. About 40 who are represented by place settings at the triangular shaped table and rest via names inscribed on floor on which the table rests. Because of the flowing text and the lighting, I initially felt the table floated on tiles made to look like water. Especially in the center of the floor where the names of so many women, a representation of the ebb and flow, the fluidity of the female spirit throughout history. I thought it fitting.

Sojourner Truth Plate Setting – “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago at Brooklyn Museum Note: Harriet Tubman
Emily Dickerson Plate Setting – “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago at Brooklyn Museum. Note: Austin and Bronte
Georgia O’Keffe Plate Setting – “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago at Brooklyn Museum Note: Anis Nin

Ceramics, intricately embroidered table linens sit beneath utensils and golden chalices surrounding unique porcelain plates created for each invitee, with radiating forms representing female external sexual organs. Akin to a Georgia O’Keefe flower painting in spirit, she of course is a guest at this astonishing table. I was amazed by the beauty and depth of detail of each setting.

I cannot fathom the amount of staff involved in the creation of such amazing craftwork, but I give immense praise to all who brought this to life.

<>==========<>==========<>

#SOL2017

#SOL2017

Let’s see how the others are slicing their Sunday,

10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 26