Month: August 2021

talent with words. But when I’m hitting on all cylinders, damn I’m good! Melissa wrote a very lovely post the other day about my writing and I loved the examples she chose to share especially the one about music. It reminded that when I an good I am very very good. (And when I am bad, well, we won’t tawk about that.)

I now have it in my head that I should chose the good stuff, prose and poetry, and book it up the way I did with my Today’s Conversation blog, and maybe even try to sell it (OMG, do you hear me LOL).

So now I have to do the rabbit hole thing and find out all that needs to be done practicality-wise, since the writing is all done. I was going to go the Amazon route but that seems to complicated (oh jeeze!) so I’ve signed up with Lulu Press. The good thing with Lulu press is I can put the book together via OpenOffice then decide whether I want to do the print/ebook/sell thing or just have some printed as gifts – the way I did with Today’s Conversation. ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity”

Moving on – Is there anything more shocking than seeing a candid photo of yourself? Daughter sent some photos from her vacation and there were a few of me that were taken when I wasn’t looking (so to speak) – Oh my word!

At the very least I need to buy some new clothes – ones that actually fit me. Everything I own is at least 2 sizes too big, some are 3 sizes to big and trust me, baggy clothes do not flatter anyone. I lost like 35 pounds a few years ago and haven’t put any of it back on (I still need to lose 20 more) and I’m still wearing those ‘fat’ clothes. So not only are they several sizes too big they are also at least 10 years old, some even older. Such as –

This morning, getting dressed I decided to wear a favorite pair of yoga pants (not that I do yoga but they are comfy)  that I haven’t worn in about 4 or 5 years. I purchased the pants back in 2003 (yes, that’s what I said – 2003) when I was laid up with my back and needed some easy-on clothes. I won’t tell you what size they are but I had the darndest time trying to get them on because they are SO big I kept getting both legs into one pant leg! I pulled them up and they fell off!

I realize I rarely leave the apartment, and on a day to day basis no one sees me but my husband but damn, I looked horrible in those photos – I’m still chubby but not as chubby as I looked in my way to big (and old) clothes.

To end on a more cheerful note – while daughter and family were here on vacation they went into D.C.  to see the memorials – not that a 2 year old and a 4 year old were thrilled with that – here they are, my Baby Princesses, at the Lincoln Memorial –

 

Thoughts

I sit with them,
the mad thoughts,
the bad thoughts,
the sad thoughts.
We are content in our perverse affinity.

We nestle in the comfort of
our rote conversations.
Debating light and dark, and wrongs
long past and unresolved.

We are good friends.
the mad thoughts
the bad thoughts,
the sad thoughts.
Reflections of each other.

And like good friends we
laugh at our absurdities,
as if any of it matters anymore.
Or if it ever did.

Companions in the dark we are,
the mad thoughts,
the bad thoughts,
the sad thoughts.
We want no other company.

© 2019 Grace St. Clair 

to drag myself through a book. A book of approximately 275 pages. 11 days. I know it was 11 days because I got the book from my local library and loans are for 21 days and the library says I have 10 days until it expires.

I reserved the book 4 months ago (the library now has 31 copies of the ebook and there are 231 people on the ‘wait list’), I was so excited when I got the notification that the book was available for me to download. Finally my turn!

Total waste of time. So disappointed. I mean, really disappointed.

“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro. That link will take you to an NPR review. The narrator of the book is an AF – artificial friend, a robot.

As I started reading I thought to myself – “This is a rip off of the movie “Bicentennial Man” ( starring Robin Williams). I loved that movie, more than a little sentimental, hokey even, you will cry at the end, but, oh yes, I loved that movie. This book, “Klara and the Sun” – not so much. Not at all.

I have read one other book by Mr. Ishiguro, who, by the way, is a Nobel Laureate, “Never Let Me Go”. I love that book, I have read it 4, maybe 5 times. It never fails to please, and to touch me. (They made an excellent movie of the book.)

“Never Let Me Go’ and “Klara and the Sun” are both sorta kinda science fiction – not my favorite genre. I have a problem with suspension of disbelief yet I very much enjoy paranormal type stories – having a bit of a paranormal background myself (not writing about it but living it.)

I’m just so irked that something I was so looking forward to turned out to be a dud.

Perhaps I am just not deep enough, or intelligent enough or thoughtful enough to appreciate the book. Or perhaps I am too literal. Or perhaps the emperor has no clothes.