Reading writing ... equals living - how what you read can affect what you write.

Right now I'm reading Carl Hiaasen's Nature Girl and recently finished Juno Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Also in the past year, I have read a lot from Elizabeth Benedict, who analyzes and fully understands the depths of her characters. The point of all this is that in the last two days of writing I feel my style being freed up and am more willing to take risks with my writing style, which is also fun. When I read Diaz, I noted how sometimes I had been amazed at certain turns of speech he used because I had used the same exact turn of words in dialogues. Coincidence or perhaps observational skills. Some of his language was very flavorful. In thinking more about that I realized that there are many are euphemisms and dialectical familiarities specific to people who have lived in the Heights or maybe I could spread that to include the whole of the northeast.
These thoughts and feelings brought me a step further in my novel writing. On around page 90 of my novel I started to cut loose more. Another thing I've begun to do, is to let some rhymes slip into my character's speech only when when they appear there on my tongue. Diaz inspired me to explore my own style more.
I have great respect for poets who write in form although mostly I tend not to. That said, I have pantoums and sestinas as well as quadrants, sonnets, lists & several others. The same with rhyme, I respect all poets who rhyme. I say what I mean to say if I rhyme or not in the spheres of time. DX always teases me and says I rhyme all the time when I speak so I don't have to rhyme in my poetry. He's prejudiced since he loves my poetry.
I have always read a great deal my entire life and still do. Reading helps make us good writers. On occasion I like to imitate someone I like. Early on in this blog I have an imitation writing posted of Marguerite Duras. Check it. I also recently friended Marilyn Nelson (on FB) whose work I greatly admire. I actually wrote a poem imitating her style in a class in my Masters writing program. Maybe I'll post it & maybe not. I'll think about it.

Out & About After Our Fav Haunt

DD & Me in our fav haunt

Page one hundred eighteen on my grind...

Between yesterday & today I wrote 12 pages to my novel.
Yay, Joy is on her grind!
We took yesterday off in the afternoon to check out our regular hang out, Indian Road Cafe, who I have to say, has really popped their menu up. We're loving it.
Also met some really nice fb people and helped two who didn't know how to add their blogs to their pages. There are so many talented people here, I'm honored to be part of a crowd that filled with oceans of inspiration.
It's cool when you get to help someone and cool too when it happens to you, and when someone will lend you a hand. That's what life's about.
Check the new pics.
Dubblex wanted me to put a selection here. If anyone's interested check out lipstick diaries at B & N for a preview of the novel.

BACK ON MY GRIND...

This has been a very strange year. I left my dept. Of Ed. job last August. Last April my short story from my novel in process was published in Lipstick Diaries and in less than a month I had sold over 110 books on my own. I began work transposing the completed screenplay into a novel and the short story, False Pride, is the beginning of the novel. What surprised me most of all was how easily Lipstick Diaries sold. It was almost as if they sold themselves. Probably J's cover does that. Several women who worked with me commented that they had seen the book at B & N and had planned to buy it anyway. What I liked most about this experience was how people came back to me to talk about it. Many people liked it that a white jewish woman involved with a Dominican drug dealer was a new story to them. One woman who I worked with and who only knew my "professional face" complained that I was "trying to be black" because of my writing style. J laughed when I told him and said he guessed she doesn't know any white girls from the hood.
I am always writing - even if I'm writing thoughts or writing conversations imagined or real. I've also written about 10 poems a month for the last 9 months, some of which I continue to work on. I've been working on the novel several days a week. Sometimes shit gets in the way. Emergencies, hospital visits & outpatient surgeries for either my love or me. Shit happens.
Overall, I'm content with my progress. It's unbelievable how busy one can be and not have a 9 to 5. It always struck me whenever I've had any time off how busy I am and how much there is to do. It's a wonder I had time to work when I did work!
I've also been going to the gym regularly since November and am feeling much better. Mostly I concentrate on weights. At first I was going no less than 3 times per week and now it's about 2 or 3. The good news is that I took off 35 of the 50 pounds I had put on. Yay Joy! Joy is gonna be skinny!!!! When the heat lets up I'll get back to the elliptical and treadmill. That will give me a jump start. The other great thing is that I can actually eat and not worry. My metabolism has picked up so I eat 3 or 4 times a day. I can actually eat more and weigh less. Do you love it?????
I'm about to write a few more lines on my novel b4 I join dubblex in bed. I worked on some poems that need reworking today too. Tomorrow we are meeting D's Daddy for dinner at his favorite Italian place.
Life is short and I want to enjoy my time on our planet. Gotta go now so I'll say good bye.

My Peeps

Yesterday we went for a walk and ended spending time in Indian Road Cafe with our friends, the crew from Augustus Publishing. Later while chilling, other people dropped by and sat with us. Vanessa Martir (she wrote Woman's Cry) was there and so was J. Will Teez dropped by and talked about his party on Sunday. There was a gal who does marketing and another guy who does movie editing for Universal Films.
DubbleX and I had our usual carafe of red wine. It was good fun all around until Anthony said he hated my new poem about the uterus and he really wasn't down with that. Will jumped in and said he's down with uteruses because his daughter has one and so does his mother so I should send the poem to him.
Eventually I agreed that most men don't like to talk about such things and that it's a mistake to give them poems of this sort unless they're down with it like Will is!
Vanessa was great fun and knows a lot of ropes and how to pull them right and started giving me personal instructions. I'm always down to learn more...

Jack Wiler

DubbleX & I went to see Jack Wiler's play yesterday at Pace University's Black Box theatre. Jack was in top form and although he said he needed to look at his words a few times, he had it down pat. Hey it's not easy to recite over a half hour of poetry from memory with no break! The story and the words are compelling, they hit home. Some beautiful turn of phrases too. I love Jack's poetry!
Although Jack & I only met on facebook by accident, he recognized me immediately. I went crazy for a few days and kept adding people to see what would happen. What did happen was FB finally blocked me from adding more & I lost interest in the add game. That said, my adding Jack led to an exchange of words (how could there be two poets who wouldn't have much to say) and friendship. BTW, the proceeds from the show all goes to Gay Men's Health Crisis, a very well worth while organization to give something to if you can.
Steven McCasland, Director is astute & talented. He broke down two of Jack's books to create this show. The entire play was extremely digestible and I'm still absorbing it today, the day after.
If you have the time or inclination, there's another 3 days running where other actors get to step in Jack's shoes. I wanted to hear Jack perform his own words.

Bronx River Parkway

POMEGRANATE STAIN

The pomegranate incense is gone yet the smell of the smoke lingers
Filling my nose with its scent
I used the last stick yesterday
And am sick with desire to smell that pungent fruit
Sinking into my veins
Like a good fix on life
The deep red burgundy of the berries merges with my blood

The pomegranate incense of my life remains
Like seeds once picked over by crows
Dry and humble they lie
Renewed by life’s rain
Each seed leaves behind a bright red stain

There’s no shortage of pomegranate seeds
When pomegranate season comes
I’ll devour them greedily
The taste of the red berry remains sweet &sticky on my tongue

I long for my pomegranate incense
The last stick burned yesterday
I’m sick with desire to smell that pungent fruit again
Its ephemeral scent lost in my garden of yesteryears
I search for yesterdays scent lost in today’s patchouli mist

Quotes from Joy

©

Peace the Planet

POWER THE MOHAVE DESERT WITH MILES AND MILES OF SOLAR PANELS

ENOUGH TO RUN THE ENTIRE PLANET ON SOLAR ENERGY

BEAUTY IS NOTHING BUT A BACKDROP FOR THE BLUES

BURY ME GREEN PLEASE

MY CONSTANT ACHE, I AIN'T AS PRETTY AS I USED TO BE...

newly retired & celebrating being a life coach

I just retired and am so pleased about it. Now I have time to watch tv all day if I wanted to but that's not for me. I'd rather watch the sky or listen to the rain. Actually I'm very busy with the process of redoing my entire kitchen. I already put down terra-cotta colored porcelain floors and now I'm putting in new wooden cabinets. It will be much more pleasant when it's done.

I'm also now listed as a practitioner with the Flower Essence Society and as an LCSW with NYS Licensing with the 6-year R psychotherapy privilege - I'm ready to do some life coaching. I will provide services based on a sliding scale, payable through pay pal and can consult online or by phone if preferred.

Please check out my new page and newly launched webiste.

NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED, Poetry & Prose by Joy Leftow

I've launched a new website with a more together and professional look - please check it out.
It's google's webpages which are free to do.
Please check it out and let me know how you like it.

Poetry Sampler

JoyLeftow.com

Family History Deja vu

If Mommy only knew all that occurred,
She would turn over in her grave.
She’d question and explore the said misdeed
to figure why anyone would behave

that way to their sibling, their own blood,
their family. It would cause Mom great pain,
release memories, an entire flood
of them reminding her of the campaign

her family led against her when they
declared her dead, and sat Shiva for her
forsaking her, long before the day
when she lay in the funeral parlor

dead, having been ravaged by the cancer
which destroyed and took her away.
Then - her family came to see her.
They should have been ashamed to come that day.

Her family disowned her when she married Dad
who, although he was Jewish too, had been married
before with a son, then divorced. Her family had
no tolerance of this, being orthodox, and such
... thus they, considered her Dead!

My mother suffered so much from her illness
and trying to raise us four children.
She did the best she could under her duress.
She’d wonder what could make this occur again.

that now, I, the youngest am forsaken
by two of my sisters, one who just passed on
ravaged too, by the cancer that has overtaken
and polluted my family’s gene pool,
... oh sorrows, please be gone

I am the lone survivor, who, as of yet
have not fallen prey to the horrific scourge
I live under the fear and the threat
of cancerous death and pray to emerge

safely through the onslaught and expulsion
from family that my mother lived through
and wonder why all this must be redone
and why, even dialogue on this, is taboo.

photos by joy

IS IT LOVE OR EXCUSES

You avoid me because
you know I know
your secrets
the thoughts that make you ill
I know how you feel

Sometimes you utter nothing
at all & the tv gets louder
to drown out the sound
of my words, my voice
a discarded memory
of what’s left unsaid

We don’t discuss
what I think is wrong
as I record the trail you forge
with the sound of your voice
hollow in my veins
while I follow you room
to room echoing your thoughts
fill the room’s silence
Thunder claps in the distance

You say the echo is loud, too clear
you turn up the volume, cover your ears
while I bisect & categorize
the entrails of your thoughts
My unsaid words follow
the curve of your hips
As you move to and fro worrying
I’ll disparage what you say

I listen, record the flow
of your words, you want me
to share my observations
I do; for you they only personify
my excellent clinical skills
your firm lips cover my unspoken words
a poor excuse, a moment frozen in time
I like the way I feel about me
when I see myself in your eyes

Your eyes hold back tears;
you stare at me & hide your soul;
why should you share to recreate the pain
I don’t exist for myself or you
Your mind’s eye a reflection in glass
None of it real

Go to raintiger.com & publish

This is a great place for new poets and writers to try their hand. They publish a great many different things and are open to new faces and styles.
The only loser is the person who refuses to try.
As long as you're trying you're a winner!

My short story

My story "False Pride" is included in the new all-female anthology of short stories, "Lipstick Diaries", by Augustus Publishing. Out in all the big book stores, including B & N. I’m the only white woman whose story is included; a blue-eyed soul sister. “False Pride” is a story about a young white woman from the hood on a journey of self discovery who continues to struggle in spite of making some bad choices, to make her dreams reality!

The cover is sizzling and so are the stories.

Read this short story; the entire explosive novel is soon to follow it!

You can also check me out at:

My Space

And listen to me read poetry and talk at:

Cool on the Groove

My contract gives me 2 boxes of books and now I'm paying for the copies so please support me by buying directly from me.
I can be contacted at violetwrites@nyc.rr.com or 212 569 4048.

TWISTED, A SESTINA OF LOVE

Everything always seems to be twisted
Nothing is the way we’d expect
If I want one man, I get another
I should be happy and get what I like
If I can’t be with the one I love
I should give my love to the man I’m with

It’s better to give my love to the man I’m with
Than to try to love someone who will twist
my heart; a strange phenomenon, this thing called love
The one I get is never who I would expect
him to be. Do you think we ever get what we like?
It’s a big mess, first one lover then another

He’s not endeared to her, he wants another.
She wants him and not the one she’s with
It’s so confusing, no one gets who they like
Mind is like a monkey, grasping and twisting
from one branch to the next; never where I’d expect
It to be especially when it comes to finding love

I sometimes wonder, is there true love?
Or could it be one man as well as another?
Who can fill the gap, meet my expectations?
Can I meet a love eternal and stay with
him forever to an end with no twisting
fate? Can he stay with me and like

what I do? Or should I expect that he’ll only like
What I don’t like? Should I freely give my love
Without worrying that our love will twist
To hate? Then instead of him I’ll seek another
Man who I shall repeat this cycle with
until it’s finally over when we least expect

I should realize it’s stupid to expect
Anything to turn out the way I’d like
and in the end be with who I want to be with
And the one I love would just love
me, Only me and wouldn’t want another
just me unless he became mean and twisted

Twisting my heart, then he’d expect me
to find love with another like the one before who I liked
With whom I was so happy before things got so twisted

© JL written in 1981 at Columbia U writing class

Harold Hunter

I met Harold when he attended Seward Park HS. He and I hit it off (I was one of the counselors there) but he was assigned to someone else. I asked the other counselor to let me see Harold instead of him seeing Harold since they didn't have a relationship anyway. The counselor said "If you want to but he's never here." I managed to see quite a lot of Harold and learn a lot about him. Harold had a very hard life and I related to that, having had a very hard life myself. He was such a fantastic kid and so friendly. He had the biggest personality. I later met his brother when his brother was at a GED program and his brother was a very talented artist. He drew great comics.


I remember once running into Harold when I was with my son, and being proud to introduce him, because Harold was the type of guy anyone would have been proud to know. After that, I ran into Harold infrequently and when ever I did, he always spent time chatting and telling me what was new in his life.


It's no wonder I found myself crying after I got to work, I just couldn't stop the tears and contain myself. And it was probably meant for me to meet that young man I met this morning on the train who told me Harold was dead. I just began talking to the guy because he had a skateboard and it reminded of Harold back in the day. Actually Harold had been on my mind lately because I always ran into him around NY. I had been thinking seeing him is way overdue. I'm so sorry - it's a loss to our world and a reminder that we are all only visitors here of our own demise.

SOLSTICE

It's summer solstice, the longest day of year, I want the light to last but it's fading. Shadow is everywhere. The sun is
sinking into the horizon behind the trees, and I can't see anymore what I came to see. There are thick bushes laden with berries. Plump black ones, tender to the touch. Bruised, they bleed a dark bluish juice on my fingers. I move to the next bush and reach for sweet red berries, not quite ripe but leaving the promise of sugar to come. The ground is moist and gives way beneath my feet. The smell of rotting earth and leaves teases my nostrils. Exciting me. Reminscent me of days spent in the woods when the sun burned down and the stillness was suddenly disturbed by thundering clouds and lightening. Then later, long after the rain stopped, the pungent seductive smell of earth lingered.

BODY LANGUAGE

Hear my body talk
My body speaks to
your body from across
the room aching
for your touch

At nite I awaken
several times
imagining your hands
upon my breasts
my body heats
I touch myself

Hunger and holding back
b-4 the rain, and after
we remain the same
all looks no caresses
Just desire stirred

my nipples tingle
my breasts yearn
for your solitary touch
Wrap me in your arms
provide solace for my dreams
Find a home for my lust
which you’ve reawakened
with a thirst I didn’t
realize still existed

You’ve reawakened
my girlhood charm
my lust, while you fight
your urges and mine

There you stand
Here I am
You’re too far away
to be blamed
for a lovers quarrel

Make your jokes
Pick me like a daisy
I do - I don’t,
yesterday was not today
I don’t know
who I am
Here I stand

MY MOTHER

My mother is an artist
She designs embroidery
- a dying art - and creates
any design she desires
her hands instruments
of a higher force

She explains to me
how this one is a fleur-de-lis
and how in the region
where we come from
it is made differently
from someplace else

With only one eye
the other is glass
she sees more than I do
She is dying
my heart is unsteady
I am powerless
a witness to her fate

My mother’s hands create
embroidery with many
names and meanings
She patiently explains
the subtle meanings
behind each motif

I listened in awe
while she explained
all of this to me
I had nothing to say

Now there is even
less to say as
Each day brings her
closer to her end
I drown in helplessness

She tells us she is sick, not stupid
she knows her death is near
If only I could relieve her suffering
I would do so until the end

She alternates between begging for death
then apologizes for doing this
She is my mother, she worries
about me, my mental health
how I will handle her death instead

I think about her hands flying quickly
the needle moving as tho she has 3 eyes
The pattern suddenly emerging
Then the design is near complete
like the course of my mother’s life


*This poem is published at Poetry Kite Anthology where only invited poets are published. Poetry Kite is administered by Jim Bennet.

Mimicking Marguerite Duras; A Tribute

She stood there, watching the wind lift her long skirt, playing with it. She spoke to the wind softly with caresses. She had red hair and blue eyes. She was quite alone by the shore, watching the storm heaving, as though it had spent the night drinking and could hold no more. She stood still allowing the wind to caress her hair.
Even at this distance her smile could be clearly seen. The stranger stood by the glass windows of the cafe and watched her move gracefully along the beach shore. An incredible sadness washed over him. His eyes were fastened on her red hair swirling into the oncoming gloom. The gloom of despair.
Great pellets began to beat down upon her. Still she remained unmoved. She may as well have been a picture, she stood untouched and alone. At this point the stranger saw the man come out from one of the bungalows. The man stood under the awning and yelled but his voice seemed drowned by the storm. All he could decipher was the howling of a wounded animal.
The girl raised her face upwards and closed her eyes, as though she were in prayer. She turned towards the cafe. The stranger felt naked, exposed, although, his eyes plainly saw the red gauze cloth clinging to her erect, rose colored nipples. The man by the bungalows had disappeared. She walked towards the stranger.
She entered the cafe. She moved her hips enticingly through the door, her eyes cast down. She knew there wasn't one person who could keep their eyes from following her as she undulated though the seated guests, looking for a table. Her red hair and Mediterranean azure eyes resembled a lit green emergency flare. She spotted a small table at the room’s rear, with only two chairs. She strode there purposefully.
The table may well have been in the room's center, for she reigned over the room. Her hair hung heavily against her as though it were another layer of clothes. When she sat, some of her hair fell to the floor. She picked it up and wrung it as though it were a piece of clothing. Drops fell glistening on the floor.
Every eye in that cafe, whether willingly or by force, belonged to her. She began sobbing, long deep wails that shook her body. She lay her head on the table and sobbed. People returned to their food and conversation.
The stranger approached her table and sat opposite. His eyes burned and melted, as though feverish. His tears fell silently aside hers.
She raised her head. Their eyes met. In sorrow they were introduced. "Please," he begged, "I only want to share your sorrow."

Inspirational: Washington Heights is Home

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS IS HOME

You found my online photo album and you saw the photos I’d posted of 1 Sickle Street both inside and out of the building. You wrote me and told me you grew up in Washington Heights where I grew up. You said, things look different yet the same. You recognized the building on Sickle Street where you had grown up and which now has been renovated. You commented on its revived beauty and said you should visit. You told me you often think of visiting that building and surrounding area.
“Yes,” I wrote you back, “you should before it's too late and you wont be able to. You know how life is, it passes by so fast; there’s never enough time to count up our regrets.” Think of all the times we say we’ll do something and that something never comes to pass.
I still live in the area where I was born in Washington Heights. I wonder if it's like at the end of the galaxy where the further away you live from where you were born, the more chaos you create in the universe. If that’s true, why have I been through so much? It seems as though I’ve survived an unending mass of crises always waiting to be resolved.
Maybe it’s just like my old social work professor said, Problems are proof of life, and so they ought to be celebrated.” I’ll go along with that.
It's strange to leave the neighborhood where you’ve always lived, especially when you only live in another section of the same neighborhood or even another borough of the same city. Then like you, although you’re still very close to where you grew up, you feel as though you’re a million miles away. Nostalgia sets in and then we desire what we perceive as lost. Even when what was lost was never that great - maybe even painful - when we had it back then.
I’m like the female counterpart to Jim Carroll, who wrote Basketball Diaries - having also grown up in Washington Heights - and also writing from an early age. I’ve been writing since I’m 4 years old. I did that for love. My life actually became a parody of looking for love in all the wrong places - obviously because I wasn’t getting enough in the right places. I had a very hard life as a youngster growing up in Washington Heights and then when I became a parody of looking for love in all the wrong places - and of all places -in Washington Heights, it sure didn’t make living any easier.
Now as an adult, I’ve been able to fulfill many desires I had as a child. And I’ve been able to do this in my birthplace, right here in Washington Heights. I literally live 2 blocks from where I was born, in Jewish Memorial Hospital, which is now JH 218.
I never had a childhood because as a child I had to deal with adult concerns. The good part of this is that my past made me who I am; a social worker devoted to helping people move ahead and also to get benefits they’re entitled to. I’ve devoted over 21 professional years helping people attain their goals, and many more years as just a citizen and human being.
I've gone from being a high school dropout to now being an Ivy League drop-in; I’m a double alumna of Columbia University. My undergraduate BA is in Anthropology and my Masters in Social Work. I’m living proof of someone who has pulled themselves up through the system by my boot straps. It was very difficult. One of the major pluses was how I capitalized on being poor and undereducated and got my undergrad BA for free. You’ll have to read my stories on how that came to be. Now I hold 2 master’s degrees, one in social work and the other in Creative Writing from CCNY. See, now that I’ve made it into middle class life, I can’t afford the best and Ivy League anymore. I have to pay for everything; sometimes more than others. Like in the Mitchel-Lama cooperative where I live; we pay a 50% surcharge.
I have a clear message to anyone else who feels like they’ve been through it all and had enough. After all is said and done, I’ll repeat what Irving Miller told me, after he called me “a mitzvah to humanity.” Mitzvah means gift and he called me this because I have an inherent understanding of people's needs and how to help them move ahead. He also said that my self awareness and acceptance of my own eccentricities and flaws make it easier for me to accept others. I agree with this; you must learn to accept who you are. The most important thing I learned from Irving Miller, my honored social work professor is this, "Celebrate your problems, it means you're alive."
My message to you remains the same; "Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Attack your problems with vigor as new ones crop up to replace the ones that have been resolved. Most importantly, always have a goal in sight and make certain it is an attainable one."

Buy my book, 'A Spot of Bleach' at Amazon.com and read more about being a social worker, growing up poor and making it in Washington Heights. Surviving and succeeding took hard work and courage and reading about my life will give you the strength to do what you need to do to get where you want to go.

Rosa's Legacy

Walking through Harlem on a dusty spring morning, the ground is slowly drying on one side of the street while the other side remains dark with the wetness of early morning drizzle. City sounds surround me. Horns blaring, people yelling, the sounds of cars and trucks whooshing by intermingled with the call of a crow just settled in a nearby tree. I make a strange sight in Harlem and some people stare while we wait for our bus. I hear their silence loudly, “What’s this white lady doing in the middle of Harlem waiting for a bus.” No one speaks yet their eyes say more or is this just my imagination?
Right now all I want to think about is when will the right bus pick me up? My fellow waiters give up staring at me and it is as though, by default, I finally fit into the scene. I become one with it. We are all just passengers waiting for a new life or waiting for our own demise. Well, o.k., I'm being dramatic, we're only waiting for the bus. It's taking a long time today. I'm waiting for the crosstown. I count four M100's and three M101's before the bus I need comes by.
When I finally board the bus, no one sees me anymore. I may as well be invisible and then a young pedestrian strides by dressed in a red plaid mini-skirt and thigh high stockings. The two ladies seated in front of me comment on her style.
The first lady says, "Oh, she thinks she looks cute, but she doesn't!"
"No," I cut in, "She don't look cute, she looks sexy!"
Both of them crack up. We're talking about overweight, middle-aged women.
I say, "If I were small and skinny, I wouldn't mind wearing that."
They giggle in embarrassment at my spoken words. I continue, "But I'm not. so I can't."
They laugh harder. "You're too much," one of them replies.
At that moment, I'm not white or black, just another woman who knows and sees what they see.
This makes some sense, fits the cliche. But what I really want to say is that there are all types of prejudice. Color is only one of them. Prejudice is an excuse to treat someone mean and put them down. People find all kinds of reasons to put each other down. Just examine history and you'll see. I don't even need to get into it.

Worries

I worry about the world and what will happen to it; the rivers and forests are being destoyed, the land is polluted and our air is smogged out. I worry about the future of our children and grandchildren who inherit the earth and wonder if they will save it or keep destoying nature.

What will happen to our planet?

Will this planet die out and turn to a ball of fire?

Will the life on other planets continue and will they ever discover our planet?

Fuck all this and tell me what's happening tomorrow. Another bomb threat on the subways?

Just do the best you can with what you have and keep going.

It's all any of can do.

reflections

We each seek in the other a reflection of ourselves, to be seen through their eyes. Perhaps to reconfirm to our selves who we are, or how we want to be seen. Perhaps only to assuage our loneliness in knowledge of who the other is or who we see them to be in relation to ourselves. The other may be seen only as an extension of ourselves, or as undiscovered pieces of a puzzle or as a lost part of ourselves.