Scary and Damaged
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Wednesday 10:33am 9Aug06

I watched part of an episode of Grey's Anatomy (one of the fall shows I taped and haven't watched yet) and Doctor Meredith Grey has started dating a veterinarian and the vet asks her to tell him why she is scary and damaged although she hasn't said that she is. Later on in the episode she gets cold feet and says, "Maybe I'm not the right person for you."
The vet tells her his story and says, "I never said that I wasn't scary and damaged myself."

It made me think that that's often how we enter relationships almost trying to disguise our scary damaged aspects of ourselves, our personalities, our past. I'm not saying that we could start every relationship with full disclosure and spill everything that we've ever said or done, every mishap you ever made but wouldn't it be just a little bit easier if we walked into a relationship and realizing they are possibly as scary and damaged as we are.

I wonder if that would help me to relax a little.

The thing about scary and damaged is that whenever I meet someone new I always think that they are far more sane or together than I am. My belief system is set up, for whatever reason, to think that the other person is more sane, that the other person is less dysfunctional. I don't know what it is exactly. So for me, the scary and damaged outlook is a healthier way to look at others to remind myself that just because I know myself so well as opposed to the other person doesn't necessarily preclude that the person is less damaged or less dysfunctional. We all have aspects of ourselves that are scary and damaged.

Two characters entering into a relationship go in with the focus on their own baggage not necessarily getting or seeing that the person their entering into the relationship with is also scary and damaged. What do they discover about each other that is scary and damaged. How long does it take to discover the scary and damaged aspects? What could be so scary or damaged that would make them reconsider the relationship?

Another story line in Grey's Anatomy was about an intern who had fallen asleep at the wheel while driving. He hit a family and ultimately killed their 22 year old pregnant daughter. He asks Doctor Grey if he can apologize to the family for what he has done. The father of the family (brought in by Doctor George O'Malley) later comes into the intern's room and as the intern says, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me," and starts crying, the father walks to him places his hand on the intern's chest and caresses his face. No words spoken.

Doctor Grey and George (the other doctor that have had a major falling out) look at each other. You know that they are both thinking something along the lines of, if that father can forgive that intern for that, what can I forgive?

What can Kali forgive in White Wishes? What can any character forgive? And in my personal life, what can I forgive?

EY

Thrill Seeker
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 10:36pm 8Aug06

I finally got myself out to Canada's Wonderland today. No more music in the streets to follow, plus I have a season pass. It's funny how the rides look so harmless almost pathetically so until you're up there. Both Top Gun and Tomb Raider scared the pants off me. But after all was said and done I wanted to ride them again.

On each ride I'd think, 'what was I thinking? Why am I on this ride when I'm holding on so tightly and am scared for my life?'
Too funny.

What makes people thrill seekers? What makes people want to scare the poop out of themselves? There are a few rides that I wouldn't consider, like drop zone and jet scream and possibly cyclone (I think it's called.) I do have my limit to the amount of fright I can withstand but some people will do them all. Some people will try all kinds of crazy things.

Why would a character test fate? What would he have to have inside him, what thoughts, what belief system would push him? It's like a criminal that thrives on the next big score. It has to be more than the adrenaline rush. But what?

EY

Extended Long Weekend
Mood:  amorous
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Monday 1:30pm 7Aug06

I haven't moved too far yet for the day because I've been writing. I like to pretend that I'm a full time writer and this is what my life would be like. Fruit and smoothies for breakfast. Writing in my little nook. Cats creeping by to check out what I'm doing. Plans to enjoy outside once I've done my daily pages or words.

I'm off until Thursday so I have a few more days of this. The last strains of Caribana will be heard today until next year. All afternoon to work on my tan and hopefully make my white feet brown.

Bring some writing in my knapsack. I'm on Kali's second chapter and Rachel's second chapter for White Wishes 1. I'd like to complete Kali's chapter today and get clear on what needs to be in Rachel's chapter to work on tomorrow. It can be done.

Bought a new pedometer yesterday. I already have the ones from the Special K cereal box but they only count the steps, which has been good for the last year or so that I've had them but it's time for a new one. My new pedometer measures my aerobic step function, calorie/amount of fat burned. It also stores seven days of data for the number of steps, number of aerobic steps with minutes for aerobic steps, calorie with amount of fat burned, and distance. It's good to know what I've accomplished also to know when I've dipped down too low so I can build it back up. Sometimes I think I've been lazy and I've actually walked over 10,000 steps, Other days I think I've moved and it's only 6500 steps.

That's what I try to do with my writing. Have an idea of what I've accomplished each day. Sometimes I can go days without writing and not realize because I get caught up. I have to keep track. I have to be diligent, I have to practice.

EY

Fun times
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Sunday 10:45pm 6Aug06

Fun times with hot weather and Caribana. Got to hear my steel drums. I got so much sun that my skin is browner than brown and now I have white feet. Made me scream out loud.

Fun times with all types of accents and black butts. Big black butts and high black butts and round tight butts that you could eat a lunch off. I love black peoples asses!

Calypso and reggae and steel drums and soca and giggling at sexual lyrics. People smiling at each other. It seemed like every time I'd sit by myself people would come and join me in my solitary spot.

I ran into old friends and made some new friends and ...

EY

People Who Produce
Topic: Writing Outings
Sunday 5:55am 6Aug06

In keeping with my IFOA Notes

Prince
I let the music dictate what I want.

"He's an example of the ability to keep being inspired by your life" -- Ani Difranco

Earth, Wind & Fire
"I'd just get together with guys and kick it until we came up with something appropriate for a song. Piano and vocals or piano and drums, and then adding layers from there."

"We just took our cues from the Universe and kept moving on." -- Maurice White

Earth, Air and Fire didn't sound right so I used 'wind' instead, and I literally drew a picture of what I wanted the group to look like. I was reading Napoleon Hill's book, The Laws of Success, and I put the drawing in the back of the book...

The message in the music was clearly a reflection of White's vision for the group: "From the very start, I had a commitment to be different in terms of music and what was projected on stage. Coming out of a period of social confusion in the seventies, I wanted EW&F to reflect the growing search for greater self-understanding, greater freedom from the restrictions we placed on ourselves in terms of our individual potential"

Anthony Robbins
Your life can change in a minute and you can change the way you feel right now. You don't have to wait for someone to say I love you. It's already inside you. You just have to give yourself permission.

He wrote in his journal...
On one side of the page, he put the things he could no longer stand in his life. On the other side, he wrote down every thing he was committed to. Having set some higher stands for himself, he went about looking for the "tools" that would help him achieve them.

Affirmation
Now I am the voice. I will lead, not follow. I will believe, not doubt. I will create, not destroy. I am a force for good. I am a leader. I will defy the odds. Step up. Step up. Step up.

Will Smith
There's no place for a lack of confidence.
You cannot beat a person who is going to tell you the truth.
Being the guy that does what people say can't be done.
The road to success is through commitment.

Selma Hayek
Life is one opportunity
My sexuality doesn't make me less intelligent or talented.
Mexico & Frieda Kahlo - broken with an indestructible spirit.

Everything that you grow up with you have to fight against. Whether you grow up poor or you grow up privileged because you have to keep moving so that you keep learning different things. Otherwise, how do you discover life? You've got to get out there and discover who you are.
Regarding the film Frieda - You do something, you give it your best, and then when it's done you let it go, and then you have to dream a new dream.

Tim O'Brien
writing allows me to live lives I could have led.
You remember wonderful moments in the midst of horror.

Sharon Butala
Everything you do is part of your real life.
People suffer a lot of pain and try to hide it from themselves and from others.
what gifts we bring to the lives of others.

Keith Maillard
Commitment to what is true.

Mary Lou Zeitoun
Sex is tricked out of women
You can't let your self feel remorse when you write.

Mariah Carey
Impresario Lyor Cohen: "I said to [Mariah], 'What's your competitive advantage? A great voice, of course. And what else? You write every one of your songs - You're a great writer. So why did you stray from your competitive advantage?"

Eric Drooker
novel - "Flood" - a novel done in pictures without words.

Patricia Cornwall
Writing is a way of having experiences without scars.

Ray Bradbury
"I don't think I know what writer's block is. I never had it. My typewriter goes everywhere I go. I get up at 3am everyday, head for the keyboard, laugh a lot, then go to bed."

It takes him 2 hours to write a poem, half a day to finish a story, 9 days for a full-scale novel. His secret? "let your subconscious take over, keep your intellect out of the way. Be passionate about what you're doing. When you start a love affair, the last thing you want to be is critical right? Don't look back, just write. Go and write."

Elie Weisel
obsession of memory
the duty to memory
To write - to plum the unfathomable depths of being.
celebration of memory

Tim O'Brien
You have to be a great liar on the page.
The world as it could have been or as it should have been
Fascination with that what might have been or could be.
Try to make it feel true

Margaret Laurence
Waiting is an act of faith or hope.

Irving Layton
Artists are here to warn us about the dangers to the human soul.

August Wilson
has been telling the story of black America through an ongoing 10 play cycle, each play covering a decade of the 20th century:
- the dynamics of the father-son relationship ... how can a people move forward if each generation cannot help the next to realize its own dreams?
- the characters question how to build a family, an economy, and, above all, a sense of self worth.
- another consistent motif is the presence of the ancestors, as well as death.
- the spirit world and the physical plane are very much connected.

It's the question that African Americans must ask: What do you do with your legacy? Can you achieve a sense of self worth by denying your past? It's an affirmation of your past; that's how you achieve a sense of self worth.

EY