Eh...

I think I have lost my zeal for blogging. :( I have been out of class for a couple of weeks now. So, I have had considerably more free time. However, when I think about coming here to write nothing really inspires me.

*shrug*

Yet, I want this to be a discipline. It's good for me to write for a few reasons:
1) It is good to get somethings out of my head
2) I am much more thoughtful about things when I write them out
3) If I ever have kids, they have some way of connecting to this time in my life
4) why ask why, drink bud dry?....

A couple of updates and then regular posting will resume in a couple of days:
- I was asked to be the featured poet at the poetry reading I go to every month!!!!!! I will feature in November, yay!
-I leave in less than two weeks to go on my very first cruise with my very best friend, Natesha!
-Just before the cruise, I am going to the 3-day Cuban Salsa Party  (http://www.salsatlanta10.com/)

Life is good for me. There are always some unpleasantness going on in life, but today I realize that i am blessed beyond measure.

Letters From My Past Self

So Many Things to Write, so Little Time...

I promise I am coming back, but I have to take care of some stuff first. I have read some amazing things that I wish I could take the time to write about right now, but there just isn't the time. Even now, I have to awaken in five hours to go to work and I have at least three more things to do before I can think about sleep.

I offer that not to incite pity, but to stir up compassion in my absenteeism on this blog of late. In the words one of the greats, the Terminator, "I'll be back."

Yep.

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

― Rosemarie Urquico

Good Night

Tonight was really good. I got back on the stage after what seemed like a very long hiatus. It was so good; so energizing.

More importantly, I got to hear a lot of poems and poets. Some were good, some were bad, and some blew my socks off. All, however, were genuine and evocative. I was reminded tonight that we all have a need to express our inner selves. Some do it through poetry, some through, dance, some through music, some through straight up conversation, and so many other ways. It doesn't matter how erudite you are, we all want to contribute something of meaning and value to this world. And, we all have something to give. I am grateful for the brave souls who gave tonight in their own way.

Yes, tonight was a good night. A good night, indeed.