“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”
- Charles Bukowski
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Charles Bukowski
(scribed in the quotations chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
No comments about Charles Bukowski yet Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
If only death were little
(scribed in the 42 chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
I keep not writing anything here because everything seems too big or too little. I’m having a hard time seeing the point in talking about face cream or the series of flat tires.1 And the big stuff? Well, it’s big and it’s serious and it’s the kind of thing we don’t talk about all that much in our society and we have really poor mechanisms for handling it. And I feel like I talk about the big stuff too much and too seriously already.
And yet, here we are.
…continue reading Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
My days last a month
(scribed in the 42 chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
My plants are three-quarters dead. The furniture downstairs is so dusty it looks like someone decorated with a flour sifter. There is a stack of unopened mail that is literally over a foot high. And I haven’t written anything in a month.1
This is what happens.
This is what happens when your husband has surgery.
Nope. This is what happens when my husband2 has emergency open heart surgery.3
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Fotoshop by Adobé
(scribed in the apolitics chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
It wouldn’t be so bad if everyone knew magazine photos and tv ads are digital paintings and not actual women…
Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.
Sunday, December 25th, 2011
My Christmas wish
(scribed in the writing chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
I am often dissatisfied with my writing on this blog. I rarely have the time to really delve into something anymore,1 and I think that I often deal with things far too superficially, resulting in something trivial and ephemeral, rather than powerful and revealing.2
Favorite Guy gave me a Nook3 for Christmas.4 One of the first things I did was buy Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, something I’ve been meaning to read for years. I’m hoping it will inspire me and help me turn in a deeper and more thoughtful direction with my writing.7
That’s my Christmas wish, I guess. To become a better writer. To be, more consistently, the writer that I am.
Footnotes
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This results in lots of of saved drafts full of jumbled notes. Often, I can’t quite remember where I was going with the idea.
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It takes time, energy, resolve, and intention to shake the earth, speak like mountains, dance like rain. I’ve become far too fearful in my mainstream Midwestern life.
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Yes, this is related. Patience.
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Yes, I already have a Nook5 which I like quite a lot. I love the size and E Ink and the fact that I can carry 300 books in my purse and that I can buy the next book in the series the moment I finish the last one.6
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My new Nook is the little adorable one with the touchscreen. I already love it and all I’ve done is charge the battery and download my library.
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Yes, I also have an iPad, which can do all of those things as well, which I also love, but not for reading books. I can’t make my eye stick on the page in the iPad…I tend to skim and skip around. Also, I get eyestrain and headaches from looking at it for too long.
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I think it might also help if I stop posting every day. Or if I can figure out a way to make the rest of life go away so that I can spend 5 or 6 hours writing every day instead of 20 to 45 minutes.
Saturday, December 24th, 2011
A wish for Peace
(scribed in the random chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Friday, December 23rd, 2011
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
(scribed in the 42 chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Welcome Christmas, while we stand
Heart to heart, and hand in hand!
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Dear Esmée,
(scribed in the Dear Esmée chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Not infrequently, I find myself wanting to write a blog post as a letter to someone.1 I’ve even written some of them, but I haven’t published any.
I start writing and realize I’m talking to myself as much as I am to the other person and then I start wondering if I’m being patronizing or condescending or if I’m inadvertently using someone else’s struggle to focus on myself or to soapbox. It just feels uncomfortable to me.
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
…What were you saying about that pig?
(scribed in the 42 chapter because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Well, fuck me and give me a pig.1
Somehow, I lost the evening. We were watching Star Trek2 and being 95% of a family together,4 and then the kids went to bed, and Favorite Guy and I started watching Vlogbrothers6 and Maureen Johnson7 videos together.