photo post

A Rant: Now With Photos

~ Bon Steele ~ 16 Comments

*SIGH*

This is going to be a bit stream of consciousness. I am on the exhausted side.

Y’see, I’ve been cleaning for the last five hours.

Oh, quit yer laughing. I got 2 (two!) rooms done. That’s it.

My family are pigs.
😦

Most specifically, my darling daughter is a screaming slob.
I am so tired of the eye-rolling, deep in her personal fable, egocentric, poor pitiful sweetie, everybody1 always picks on me, Cindarella ..thing.2

I’ve written before on her inability to complete a particular chore or clean up after herself. It hasn’t gotten any better. It may have actually gotten worse, on some fronts.

And I’m just done.
Done with a capital ‘fuck it.’

I had hoped that by adopting an abridged and not nearly so neurotic Fly-Lady inspired schedule of cleaning, that keeping house wouldn’t be so difficult. That we wouldn’t have to do the all-day Saturday scrubkriegs of my youth.

I had further hoped that by mostly keeping my nose out of her room she would keep it…well, if not as clean as I’d like, at least not filthy.

Apparently, I was just flat wrong about that. Even my basic rule of No Eating/Drinking in there means nothing. I pulled out several cups, bowls, plates, and utensils out of her bedroom. There is some sort of organic…stuff?… on the bottom of her trash bin.

I can recall my parents telling me that “this isn’t a hotel, we aren’t your servants” when I was a kid. I also recall my room being neater, my attitude being less Woe Unto Me, and less generally unhygienic.

But mayhaps that is just the lens of long years clouding my hindsight.

I’ve tried bribery, firmness, marshmallow-y sweetness, boundary setting, grounding. What I have left is embarrassment.

I’ve gone into her room and taken several photos of the mess that it currently lives in. Also her bathroom. I had  scrubbed it a week or so ago, and asked her to keep it clean(ish).  You can bet I was more than a bit shocked to find it in the condition I did today.

I am going to post this one picture (of the bathroom) so that y’all have an idea of the order of magnitude of slop we are talking about.

Taken from the doorway. I was afraid to set foot in there. 😦

Just..

What…

**FLAIL**

 

 

 

I still have so much left to do.
But every time I move a piece of furniture or pick up something to clean under it3, I find piles of trash. Food wrappers. Dirty socks. Plates. Glasses with milk going sour in them. Clean clothes mixed in with dirty clothes.

All of this, on top of the Attitude that I get whenever I ask her to do something around the house has me full on furious.

GRARGH.

Going to go blow up zombies for a bit. Drink some tea. Calm down.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it’s furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
–Rumi

1 – And by “everybody” she means anyone who asks her to do anything in this house.
2 – If you read that in this style, then I did it right. Or write, as the case may be.
3 – As you are *supposed* to do.

Sharing the Hoard

~ Bon Steele ~ 4 Comments
I smell you, I feel your air - and I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself; there's plenty, AND to spare.

Recently, a fabulous blogger-friend of mine promoted a contest. Only, the contest wasn’t so much about winning1as it is about sharing the love. The whole idea is a Travelling Prize Made of Win and Squee for Other Bloggers. And the prize is a book.

I freaking LOVE this idea.
Part of the “rules” of this are that you must run a similar contest – basically, you have to promise to not be a Smaug, and to share the book once you’ve brain-vacc’d the words into your head.

Here, in Jane’s own words, are the rules:

 1) The book must get passed on to a fellow blogger of the recipient’s choosing once it’s been read. If your potential recipient will not swear upon blogging death to send it on, pick another blogger.
2) The next recipient must post the state/country/province in which they live – whatever is most comfortable for the blogger – and a link to their blog on a page I will create specifically for this purpose.2
That last one isn’t about page views. I want to “meet” the bloggers the people we each think are deserving pick. I want to track the travels of the traveling book so that Melanie and I can both see the impact she and I have had on a world of writers and artists – both women and men.

So,of course I entered.
And I won! I never win anything and I WON!  On top of all that – did I mention? The prize is a book! New word-trails that I haven’t seen yet.

Y’all know how I feel about books, right?

These are ~some~ of my books. By all rights, I should be lying across the top of the bookcase, looking smug.

The whole giddy-with-happiness, breaking into Disney-song when I get a new book thing?
Yeah.

My book arrived in the mail, yesterday.
There might have been singing.

MIGHT.

I win, I win, I win! The mad Madam Mim!

In accordance with the prophecy – and the above noted rules – I will be reading this and passing it along to another winner.
This is where YOU come in, m’friends. I need for at least three of you to enter for this one book. If more of you – say, about five – decide that this is a fantasTIC idea and enter, why….I’ll buy another copy of the book and have more than one winner.

I think that seems fair.

My only request is that:

A. You be a blogger of some kind so that …

B. You’re willing to continue the contest and send the book along to more bloggers.

C. You are comfortable – if you win – in privately sharing your physical address with me so I can ship your book to you.

 

The contest is started ~now~ and y’all can enter until…let’s say the 14th of April. That’s a little over a week.

(Please let me get at least 3 entries!)

 

I am so looking forward to seeing where this all goes.

 

 

1– Although, winning is SWEET.
2 – Not yet up but I am promised that it will be SOON.

UPDATE :  Jane says that the Page O’Place Links will be ready soon(ish) – but for now, to just update her contest comment page with your place.

Flight

~ Bon Steele ~ 5 Comments
Title inspired by the thesarus.com entry for the word.

 

 

 

Somewhere between Paranoid: A Chant and An Awful Rowing Toward God lies the scenic beauty of the cliffs. Standing on the edge, looking down into the pines, I can feel the lure of gravity. Sometimes, it takes the form singing and music. Most often, it takes the form of words. Many words, swirling and dancing. There is a clutching fear of pain that keeps my feet grounded, though.

It isn’t death I fear. It’s the pain of getting there.

When I am peeled free of anxiety, skinned and naked – then I will know the right things to say.  The way to capture all the racket in my head. I will know how to explain about the bath mat. I will know how to frame the swimming pool. I will have the phrase that explains under the football stadium, first year in high school; and another for the anxious over-the-shoulder grade school glances that shouldn’t have ever happened. Stanzas will appear to illuminate the dark corners. Fierce, terrible light that will uncover and remove and scour and liberate.

I will know new synonyms for reclamation and bravery and strength and survival.
Words that don’t hurt so much. Words that pull up scars instead of leaving them.

 

This isn’t self doubt.
This isn’t suicidal thoughts.
This isn’t anything but me making sense of the things that I have to say.

There is a lot to say. And it requires the right words.

 

 

 

 

Just so that we are all clear on this: I am not entertaining suicidal thoughts. I am not even sad or blue. Occasionally, someone says or writes something and it inspires a feeling in me. I write it all out, trying to capture that feeling, chasing it around my head until I can examine it in my hands. As I may have mentioned before, writing of any kind – poetry, biography, fantasy, erotica, sci-fi, essay – is all a process.