Autumn Rain

I had a writing professor in college who asked us to write a poem and she forced us to use the title, "Autumn Rain" to see what we would do with a) a title everyone else was using, and b) a title that was so cliche that it sounded like something that would be in the diary of a 15-year-old stricken by the heartache of their first breakup.

I wish I could find mine. I remember thinking it was the shit, that I had somehow evaded the stupidity of the title. But who cares? Autumn Rain, Jesus. So the point I'd like to make is about labels (how cliche!)

No matter what labels people force upon your work, your creative enterprise, yourself as a person, as an individual, you can make their Autumn Rain your own by writing the poem yourself.

Yeah, they got to pen the title, but you get to pen the poem. And it might be the shit, or it might be shit, it's up to you.

So here's the challenge: write a poem entitled "Autumn Rain" and post it here or on your own blog and send me the link. I wanna see what all y'all come up with out of such a miserably cliche title. But above all, think about the title muthafuckaz have put on you and make it your own. Whatchu got to lose? 

NUTHIN'

Here's your [stupid!] inspiration:

Autumn Rain

meltdown central | it's all okay

omg, omg, omg. instead of oooommm, omg has been my mantra for the past several days. i work at home and have important clients -- hell, all my clients are important to me whether they're paying $400 a month or $2000 a month, you can't leave one behind because as with any other job, even if it's the one guy in Nowheresville, USA who just needs me to make sure his tweets are politically correct, if he has a bad experience with me it can reverberate across the universe.

so how do you reconcile the differences between what the priorities of your life are? i look into my daughter's eyes when she wants my attention, while i'm typing my ass off for a press release or a blog and think, hey there, little cookie, mama's doin' this for you! but lil' cookies don't understand the madness of making ends meet, and if it were up to me, they'd never have to.

but there it is, the truth. them bills gotsa be paid and no baby can do her homeworkz in the dark! she's too young to know now, and i'm thankful for that. jose has been working so hard it puts the dudes who put together the pyramids to shame. here we are though, and as Gloria Estefan would say, we're "coming out of the dark!" (i think i have to download that now so i can have a good cry -- a healthy cry.)

but i think i'll stick with Lil' Wayne and Bronson and T.I. on this one. Neither of the Duurty South stars know Bronson, but I know them all. Bottom line: it's all okay, it will all be okay, tell your story until it feels okay, help other people feel okay, surrender to not being okay when you don't feel okay, love life even when cockroaches are swarming across the floor.

and bottom-bottom line: it's all gonna be okay, even when it's completely not (easy for you to say... easy for you to say to say too... say it til you believe it, for the love of yourself muthafuckaz!)

Bronson says love your mom! (he really does say that)

Friday Night at Frontier Ranch

By the time this posts it will no longer technically be Friday night, which is exactly what makes it the perfect immediate reflection on a Friday night on Frontier Ranch.

It's not the exact topic i wanted to write about, so there may be some bleeding here and there and you will have to forgive the digressions. first, let me tell you that i just had tequila Jose had been saving. i thought it would be a good idea to mix it with soda water just as i would with vodka (the skinny bitch as Katie would call it). Ommmm, this was maybe the worst idea i've ever had except for when i was 18 and thought it might be "radical" to vote for Bob Dole (but i didn't, take it easy.)

Jose redid the shelves in our closet today on a total whim and for clearly no reason except that he is waiting to hear back from the 1000+ resumes we have sent out for him now that he is an official plumber. so he's cruising the house all day, finding shit to fix, fixing it with other shit that's lying around, and making me watch the baby on my knee while i blog or repair reputations. he's very MacGyver, perhaps MacGyveriguez.

so it's Friday night. i just realized several hours ago that it had been Friday the 13th. not too bad for a superstitious holiday. i actually resolved to stop screaming today, unless screaming is 100% called for, which currently in my life it is not. generally i scream at just about everything in this house, and only maybe 10 to 15% of it deserves real yelling. that said, probably a good 50 to 70% of it deserves some stern talking and a kickass internal attitude.

so that's what i'm learning about. the inner attitude. you think you know what i'm talking about but i bet only a few of you really do. there's the voice in your head that guides you. sometimes it tells you to stick up, sometimes to sit down, sometimes to do nothing at all. this voice will tell you to eat chocolate cake when you weigh 400 pounds. it will also tell you not to drive after drinking. this is not the voice i am talking about.

i'm talking more about a seat where your soul can choose to sit within your mind. imagine there are a row of various chairs in your mind. a lawn chair, an easy chair, an executive leather desk chair, a stool, a wooden box, a wheelchair, and finally, the crown seat, the throne where your soul sits when it rules. it rules over your senses and emotions, your tensions and the dispositions of others. the soul should not always sit in the throne, there are times when the stool and the lawn chair should be enjoyed, times even when the easy chair that faces a blank wall is the best choice.

but today i sat in my mind's throne. i made a choice. this was a choice i thought would be difficult until i surrendered to my own strength. sounds funny, doesn't it? surrendering to your own strength; think about it for a second. basically, it means (for me) that instead of letting the outside judgments, advice, criticisms, or internal whirlwinds of self-doubt, self-hatred and inability to believe in myself get in the way of true achievement. it's a kind of clarity that words don't do justice to, not unlike childbirth or drawing the blueprints to a structure that is revered for generations.

the point is, it's Friday night on Frontier Ranch and there's nothing different about the people i love and there's nothing different about me -- it's all been right there, but my soul has been switching between my mind's leather executive chair and the wooden box situated by the dumpster where all my "worthless" thoughts go to die. all i did was pick my ass up and walk it to a different seat.

new perspective, new kind of Friday night.

Mexican Held Hostage, Forced to Watch Bridget Jones's Diary

It just dawned on me a couple of days ago that in like the first week of dating Jose we watched Bridget Jones's Diary. There is no way this was okay with him no matter what he may claim today. I also realized I had watched The Sound of Music with him sometime within the first month of our courtship. This is also not acceptable.

You see, there are some things we consider cultural barriers, and others we may consider barriers between genders (or lifestyle, whatever). When you combine both sorts of barriers, you're messing with pure insanity. It's worth it, though you can expect the Mexican man who watched Steel Magnolias with his (relatively) Anglo babymama last week to go straight to bed. Something about Fried Green Tomatoes does something to wilt the male sexuality, and most especially the Latino male sexuality.

What makes it so hilarious for me (not Jose) is that we're usually halfway through the movie when he realizes that 70% or more of the cast is female, the story is dramatic with estrogen-packed comedic overtones and ... he's been roped into a chick flick. Maybe even one from the 1980s. Maybe even one from the 1970s. But the cultural barrier has allowed me to get more than halfway through An Affair to Remember, Hair, Hairspray, and the Hanna Montana movie (you heard me.)



There's value in barriers. Take advantage of them to have some fun.