improvarama

  I've changed morning pages to evening pages, when I do them, because other things have gotten in the way of writing first thing in the morning. I still do sometimes, but mostly the journal writing comes at night.  Is that a good idea? I'm not sure. I've written so many volumes over such a long time. They prod me, the comfort me, they process me, they inspire me. It's some little bit annoying to think that no one will ever read them. For goodness sake, I don't even have time (or the inclination) to read them so why would anyone else? Unless there is value in the work and a joy in the treasure hunt.  That could be fun. Lately as the ticking of mortality peppers the soundtrack of my psyche, I think about once greatly well known people who you hardly ever hear about any more because they are gone (no, dead not gone. They didn't go to Cleveland for the week and they aren't missing.) Bernard Shaw. Gertrude Stein. Salvadore Dali. Ginger Rogers. Hellen Keller. Th...

Scene for two people in a public place, like a restaurant, or an office break room, or a place of your choosing. Prompt: "I couldn't help but look thru your window, and I saw what you did." Go.

  You wake up on the floor of a strange basement. You see two doors. Behind one door you hear strange noises. Behind the other door you can see a person or body of a person on the floor. Go.

  Learn to improvise and a thousand other important things suddenly become much easier to learn. -- doug smith

 "It's not a walk in the park," goes the expression, except that this was. This was an epic walk in the park because of when we did it and where we were in our relationship, a relationship that wound up tighter than it had ever before (because this was a second time around) and then unwound in front of us only to weave itself into a cozy, loving, shared understanding. I don't understand it. But there you have it, it seems to be a shared understanding. We don't say everything that's on our minds these days, but those days, in that walk around Allaire State park, we said everything. We said it with our voices. We said it with our smiles. We said it with our bodies. We talked it all thru and it felt exactly right. What do you do with perfection when the threads come loose? What do you do with the magic when the trick is discovered? What do you do with the walls that rebuild and double? "Would you change anything about this?" "No. Because then it wo...

Scene Prompt: Six adults must fit into a car better suited for fewer, smaller people. Your mission: sell the car to the world's most reluctant world leader.

  In the end we left because the bathroom was about to collapse into the garage. That wouldn't be good, and it wasn't my garage. It was the neighbor's garage and one day he showed me how the ceiling of his garage showed clear signs of imminently falling on his car, his bike, or his head. He was concerned. Other than that, we liked the apartment on Wedgewood, even though it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Even though the steps up to the second floor were rickety. Even though the kitchen appliances were right out of the 1980's and small. It was our place and that mattered. We weren't exactly chased out of the previous place -- a beautiful and spacious home in Gunbarrel. But we had to do something. In the end, after living thru the whole move, I know that I should have talked about it more. There were options to discuss. Maybe it wasn't necessary for both of us to move. Maybe I could have subsidized the rent for a while (afterall, I did pay double ren...