%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  I write, therefore I am |
|
I write, therefore I am. I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough. PLUGS:
|
| As I was growing up I was always under the assumption that my father’s mother was dead. I would see his father from time to time, but never his mother. I don’t know if I was told that she was dead, or if she was just not mentioned. I still don’t know exactly what happened between my father’s parents. There are times when I wonder what she had done that was so bad that she was not mentioned. I didn’t meet her until I was almost thirty. By the time we met she was sick and very weak. She could barely speak above a whisper and her skin seemed to be pale beyond the norm. She died a few years after I met her and I remember crying for a long time. Not over the loss of her, but more from my own shame. I was upset because I never got to share the normal Grandmother and Grandson type things with her and now she was gone. I was angry that she was stolen from me for all those years. I cried not because I mourned her loss, I cried because of the selfishness I felt in mourning my loss. There is a difference. My mother’s mother was the spitting image of my Great Grandmother Augusta Belote. She might has stood just a bit taller, but not much. I understand that she was a relatively short woman. I remember distinctly before she died standing beside my Aunt JoAnn and saying that her youngest daughter was now taller than her. My Aunt JoAnn is only five foot five. So she was relatively short, but she seemed like a Giant to me. I loved her, because to me she was the best thing in the world. I used to love sitting in her lap, dozing off to sleep while she sang song I can never remember and drank coffee. She was in her mid forties when she passed away due to cancer. I know now that she was young, but at the time she seemed old and wise. Like her mother she wore her hair up in a bun and every once in a while I would catch her with it down and running a brush through it. There were lines of stress around her mouth and I remember how her lips wrinkled when she pulled on a cigarette. I don’t know why but I always remember those lines on her lips. I remember the coughing as she grew sick and lost weight. She used to read the Bible to herself every night before bed. As she grew sicker, her children would take turns reading to her. It was hard when she died and I didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t be gone. This quiet woman who would gladly take mudpies made with love from the neighborhood children. This singer of forgotten songs. My mother and her siblings tell me stories of when they were growing up and how strict she was. How she would beat them with shoes, coffee cups, model ships. But in the end the stories always ended in smiles as they talked about something she did out of love for them. How she stood up for them. How she would go hungry some nights so her children could eat. She’s been dead for almost thirty years and still she is in my thoughts from time to time. I wish she had lived longer so she could see me grow up, but then again there goes that selfishness again. Quote; Oh, mama liked the roses she grew them in the yard But Winter always came around and made the growing way too hard Oh, mama liked the roses and when she had the time She'd decorate the living room, for all us kids to see When I hear the Sunday bells ringing in the morning I remember crying when she used to sing Oh, mama liked the roses but most of all she cared About the way we learned to live And if we said our prayers You know I kept the family bible With a rose that she saved inside It was pressed between the pages Like it had found a place to hide Oh, mama liked the roses in such a special way We bring them every Mother's Day And put them on her grave Oh, mama liked the roses Mmmm Mama liked the roses --- Mama Liked the Roses --- sung by Elvis Presley |
| I have stated in the past that it's from my mother's side of the family that I get my family closeness. That is not entirely true. While my Grandfather was not an only child, I know nothing of his brothers and sisters. I only know of his mother from a few pictures. My Great Grandmother was full blooded Indian. The more romantic people in my family claim her to have been Apache or Navajo. The more realistic members say that she was part of a small East Coast Tribe local to our area. I think that is the more likely. My Great Grandmother was a rugged looking woman. In none of her pictures is she seen smiling. Her hair was black and peppered with white. Her eyes always seemed mournful as if they held a great weight. I never got to meet her as far as I can remember. The closeness of family came from my Grandmother's side. Her mother, Augusta was from the Old Country. She was German and from a well off family. The family was political in nature full of Lawyers and Judges. The were old money. Grandma Belote was ostracized from the family when she chose to marry my Great Grandfather, Alfred. She made the mistake of choosing love over family. That had to have been hard to do back then in the early 1900's. I used to be dropped off at her house in the morning, early when darkness still blanketed the sky. I was always afraid to go in and see her. Once inside I would have to give her a kiss and the invisible whiskers on her chin irritated me. Afterward I would climb into her huge bed and take a nap. Grandma Belote always wore dark skirts covered with a white apron. Her shirts were always of a light color. Her hair was long, nearly touching the floor hanging off her five foot frame. Her hair reminded me of cobwebs when it was let down, but those occasions were rare. Usually her hair was held high on her head in a bun. It's funny the things that you can remember and the things you forget. I remember sitting at the metal kitchen table, with is red linoleum cover. I remember reaching into the Fat Cat cookie jar pulling out homemade Ginger Snaps to go with my milk. The jar always seems to be full, but I never saw her making anymore. The cookie jar used to sit on top of the refrigerator, which she called the "Frigit". The refrigerator was one of the old ones that made the awful humming noise as it ran, and you had to pull the handle out, before the door opened. Grandma Belote was strict and you always regret being sent out into the woods to find "the" switch. Because if you didn't find "the" switch, she would go find it and you didn't want that to happen. Yet, she was a sweetheart. She would give me two quarters and have my older cousin Mike walk me up to Roger Brother's Market for a snack, most times it was a Hostess cake, or a candy bar, and there was always a Nehi Grape. My cousin Mike was older than me, by at least ten years, maybe more. He was my first "hero". His room was filled with tanks holding lizards and snakes. He listened to music other than country. He was a rebel to me and he did things different then the way everyone else did. We would play catch with a football in the backyard while the little dogs nipped at us wanting to play too. We would play catch until my Uncle Buck would drive up in his Tractor Trailer to work on one of the cars broken down in the yard. A few years later Mike took his own life. It had been years since I had seen him when it happened, yet it affected me and it seemed like I cried forever. Quote; Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome. That's what momma always says. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. Birdee Pruit (Sandra Bullock) - Hope Floats |
| ***By the way Diaper Dan is a little doll that is used to teach kids to tie shoes, zip pants, button um, buttons.*** I lay here struggling to sleep with what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders. It's seems like when it rains it pours. I've put in applications all around town, with no return calls to show for it. My severance from my job is still four or five weeks away. I'm a few weeks behind on rent. and I'm alone. I big part of me wishes that I never grew up. That we never moved from the quaint little strip of houses where we lived when I was young. There were no troubles then, or course they were right around the corner. But I was too young to know it. I remember lying in bed, waiting for sleep to over take me. I remember watching the fireflies alight in their intricate little dances outside my window. I remember listening to the soft strumming of grasshoper legs and the humming vibration of locusts as they hatched their way out of their skin molting into something bigger. I remember the sweet smell of fresh mown grass. drifint through my window. I remember my father yelling at me for singing "Lay your head on my shoulder" instead of drifting off to sleep. I loved it then and I miss it. Back then there wasn't even the slightest inkling of what the future held. I didn't care. I was in no hurry to grow up. I wanted to spend my days with my friends. Trapsing through marshes in search of bottle still intact from where the old hospital had dump their trash. I wanted to ride my bicycle fast over the bubbling tar roads, only to slam on my brakes breaking the bubbles and stretching the warm tar with my wheels. I wanted to do tricks. I wanted to climb the old fallen tree with it's huge roots upended for the world to see. I wanted to watch as little leaves spiraled their way into the water that had filled the gaping hole the roots had left behind, I wanted to play with the pussywillows and pull them apart watching their stuffing float away on the breeze. To have it blown back in your face, by a direction change and spend the next ten minute spitting it all out, but never getting it all. The world was full of innocence. Kristina was just the little daughter of my parents friends. Dee was a figment of the future. There was no pain, no sadness, only the happiness that being a child can bring. I loved and was loved by my family. My Mom's side was huge and they spent time with each other. The protected each other, stood up for one another. They were family. I don't think I have ever experienced the type of happiness I did when I was really young. I liked school. I liked to learn. I kissed my first girl in kindergarten. Her name was Keisha and she was black. That may not be the politically correct way to say it, but she was. She was dark and she was beautiful. Even years later on into high school, I could still see that beauty. I miss those days so much and there is no way to go back to them. It doesn't seem fair. Quote; I am acting my age. I'm in the prime of my youth and I'll only be young once. Teddy DuChamp (Corey Feldman) - Stand By Me |
| I open my eyes and there he sits with a notepad in one hand and the nub of a pencil in the others. His bulbous balding head looks abit lopsided in the light. Hair stands on either side of his head sprouting off into conical tufts. His nose is colored a blistering red, like that of an alchoholic. He is wearing a pair of gold rimmed glasses above his nose that is supposed to give him an air of intellegence, instead it makes him look silly. He is holding a thick pad of paper and licking the point of a number 2 pencil, as if it will make it write better. "You Again? Why must you always return?" I ask. "You need to talk to a psychologistic type guy." he says as he pushes up the glasses on his nose. "And here I am." I close my eyes and turn over hoping that he will go away. Half an hour later I open my eyes and he is still sitting there, swinging his foot patiently. Turning over and sitting up on my pillow I sigh. "You should start at the beginning. Isn't that what they always say. What is your easliest memory?" I close my eyes in thought, and I hear his scratch something onto his notepad. My earliest memories are a confusion. Much like the egg or the chicken I am not sure which came first. I remember my first dog, a mutt named Mitzy. I remember watching my father play softball with his brother, dad was catcher and my Uncle Billy was pitcher. I remember eating fried apples while watching Six Million Dollar Man. I remember going to pre-School in a church. I remember my Grandfather bringing me a small brown bag of candy everyday and smelling of Old Spice and Camel cigarettes with their smooth Turkish Blend. "That is the earliest you can remember?" he asks as he scratches at his nose with the eraser on his pencil. I think so. I remember having a nightmare that awakened me screaming in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes in a sweat screaming at the glowing shape of a giant fish on my wall. The bedroom door opened and my mom asked me if everything was allright. The light from the hall cast an eerie glow on her. She was wearing a green houserobe and a towel was wrapped around her head. She didn't look right in the light, so I told her that I was okay, because I was scared of her coming into the room. "How do you feel about that?" he asks sliding his glasses up on his bulbous nose, pencil poised above his notepad. I don't know. "Continue." I remember eating Scrapple and scrambled eggs sitting at the kitchen table, with darkness still heavy in the air outside. A slight chill wrapping around my feet. Mom was on her way to work and I was on my way to stay with my Great Grandmother. I never understood why I didn't stay with my Grandmother who lived four houses down, she didn't work. Maybe she had enough on her hands with the six kids that still lived at home. I remember coming home just as the carpet in the living room caught fire, from a lamp that was knocked over by the wind. The bulb didn't break and it burned a hole in the carpet. Just as we walked in it sparked into flame. I remember wearing blue short pajamas with Steve Austin on them (the Six Million Dollar Man, not the wrestler). I remember playing with my Diaper Dan (does anyone know what that is?). "Is that all you can remember? And as far back?" the little man asks rubbing his head. "Yes, I think it is." Quote; When you're young, every little thing seems so big. Bobby Keller (Corey Feldman) - Dream a Little Dream |
| I want to go to sleep, but the ghosts won't let me. They maketh me to sit before this monitor staring at the blank BLOG space. They begeth me to write something, but I know not what to write. I am in a land of confusion. I do not have the normal feelings of depression, matter of fact I have felt almost content for the last few days. Yet, I know I am still depressed. I have barely gotten out of bed since Friday night. I have just wanted to lay in bed, sleeping it all away. It's not healthy and I know it. Staring at the blank entry form for my BLOG, I want to write, but I have nothing to say. I am torn. I can feel a part of me inside wanting to scream, it's like a tug of war from within. I just want to scream until I am understood. I want to write everything in my mind, put my entire life to paper as if it would help me understand where it all went so wrong. I just want to be loved and held. I think that would be a good night's sleep. I think this entry is as incoherant as the thoughts are in my head. I am bewildered. I want to cry, scream, and laugh all at the same time. I want to be heard and ignored. I want to be loved and left alone. I am a mass of contradictions and I don't know what to do. It's the ghosts, they won't let me rest. They run through my head telling me stories of my life and I let them affect me, when I know I shouldn't. |
| At the age of twelve I was reading Dracula, Frankenstien, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, Portrait of Dorian Gray and other horror classics. But strangely enough two books I read in that time still stand out in my mind, One was My Brother Sam is Dead, the other was Bridge to Terabithia. I remember watching a PBS version of the movie, but remember very little about it. Today I saw the new movie and I have to say it is utterly amazing. The story was written over thirty years ago by Kathren Patterson to help her son deal with the death of a friend. The movie is pretty much just like the book, with a few minor changes. It's nothing like the trailer, which focus' on the fantasy aspect of the story. What makes the movie so good is the subtle and underplayed way things are handled. It is a tear jerker and I'm not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears even though I knew what and when it was coming. Take your kids to see it and be prepared to answer some questions or at least discuss the movie. That is my movie review. lol. Quote; Just close your eyes, but keep your mind wide open. Leslie Burke (Anna Sophia Robb) - Bridge to Terabithia |
| I grew up reading comic books. They are an influence on my writing. Every Friday I go with a friend up to a local comic shop and discuss new comics with some friends. There is this young kid usually at the store, names Chris. He's frikkin smart, goes to a Magnet school. Anyway he write this short story, bu the doesn't read. We tried to convince him that writer's need to read a variety of styles to become a better writer. He refuses saying he can be great without reading. Kind of the exception to the rule. lol. The kid has the mechanics down and will one day be really good. The problem is his ego. He thinks that he is amazing already. His story starts off with a couple eating dinner, kind of uppercrust. Their son stays out all night. The next day they go to visit the new neighbors, who are into the occult with pentagrams decorating their house. The four of them talk about a miss girl. The original couple goes home where the son is just arriving with the body of the missing girl and they cook her for dinner. You can see what he was doing. Showing that just because people seem strange or different it doesn't make them the bad guy. Stuffage like that. The problem was there was no description of anything. The people and places were non descript. The upper crust couple used the same phrase over and over making hit hard to follow who was saying what. I tried to offer him some advice, but he wouldn't hear any of it, thinking he was already great and without compare. I just shook my head wondering, was I the same way when I was his age? Quote: Oh, you're so COOL, Brewster! Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) - Fright Night |
| I have been bitten. The wound is all pufffy and oozing. I should probably go to the doctor, but it's a wound that I don't want to be treated for. I have been bitten by the writing bug. Yes, I know. I too was shocked by such an occurance. It's truly unbelievable. In the last few days I have rewritten the first chapter of Price of Vengeance, started a rewrite for the second chapter. I have changed the "hero" a bit and need to correct him in the chapters. I also created a new story for Highwind's Horror Contest. I doubt I will win, but it felt good to write an original story once again. The story is called "Invalid Item"  , and no one has been able to tell me the significance of the guys name. It's not really important to the story, it's just a little private thing to see if anyone would notice. So far no one has.Besides all the writing I was paid a great compliment today, by a new member of the WDC world, iceprincess079. She told me that my writing reminded her of Alan Moore's. For those of you who do not know he is a great comic book writer. He created V for Vendetta as well as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It kind of made my day. To ♥Flower♥   , I'm still thinking of you. Stay strong.Quote: You think nobody sees you. Eating lunch behind the portables. Loving some girl like she's all there is, anywhere, to you. I've always seen you. Or maybe I liked Emily. Maybe I see what you're trying to do for her, trying to help her, and I don't know anybody who would do that for me. Laura Dannon (Nora Zehetner) - Brick |
| I have spent the last two hour straightening out my portfolio; rearranging a few things, writing a new "Public" intro, and highlighting a few items. Looking through my portfolio I find it a little amusing that most of my short items are kind of sad and wistful. My longer items are totally different. In rereading reviews of my shorter piece I am constantly told that I have a way of pulling at the heart strings of the reader. It's funny some of the short pieces I have written almost bring me to tears. Then my longer items are written differently. They aren't sad, nor wistful. They are crime dramas, murderous, or fantasy based. It's weird to me the difference. Anyway, I've rambled enough. I think I will go visit a few ports. I'm in the mood to read. I don't like reviewing, because I don't feel like I have a right to do so, but it kind of comes with the territory. Well, I shall see you all in the funny papers. EDIT: Just poking around in the contests I found a horror contest by the lovely Miss Highwind, so I wrote a story expecially for her contest. I hope she likes and I hope you do to.
|
Okay well I rewrote something, but still. lol.
I wanted to change the main character just a bit. So I rewrote the first chapter, tweaked a few things. Of course it still needs a lot of work, but what the hay. |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
I took a look and it seems interesting.