3/29/14

So what if I’m overreacting again? Maybe I'm a repetitive mess.

I’m not quite sure why my mind is overreacting to this matter today; it’s probably because my mind is choosing to  focus on something small that’s bothering me/hurting my feelings, rather than focusing on the larger things that are bothering me but that I can’t do anything about.
 
So here’s the small thing that’s currently bothering me and causing me to feel like crying. How come nobody likes the way I smell?  I feel like for years I’ve been into unique delightful oddly delicious scents of perfumes and body moisturizers and I feel like I used to get quite a few scent-related compliments, but now I seem to get the opposite of compliments, mostly from my mom.  In recent months, several times my mom has told me that my perfume doesn’t smell good and it reminds her of Avon perfume (which would be the total opposite of what I want to smell like, since Avon strikes me as generic, un-unique and old lady like). 

The other day in the hospital, my aunt who was sitting next to me made a comment about smelling something and my mom said that it was my perfume and that she didn’t like it.  I wouldn’t really care what my mom thought of my scent if anyone DID seem to like it, but I’m starting to feel as if something might be wrong with my sense of smell and/or I have unusual taste with my smell sensors (not that there’s anything wrong with unusual), because the last time I remember anyone complimenting the way I smelled was more than 8 months ago when I was in some coffee shop in Pittsburgh and the gay guy working behind the counter wanted to know what kind of scent I was wearing because he liked it.  So I guess I appeal to nobody, scent-wise, except for a young gay guy in a different state. 

The main perfume I’m been wearing for about a year now is called Annabel Lee and it’s a handmade artisan oil with primary scents of fern, jasmine, orris, and sandalwood.  I understand that kind of scent is not going to appeal to everyone/not going to be everyone’s style, but it’s MY style right now, and how could it possibly smell like Avon?  If some guy had told me that I smelled like Avon, I would have felt like punching him and I might have just walked out of the room.  Obviously I’m not going to punch my mom and walk away from her, but I really hope I don’t hear from her about my perfume again in the next few days.

The body butter I’ve been wearing recently is called Scintillating and includes champagne bubbles, ginger, cardamom, and amber.  Does that sound like Avon?  Not to me it doesn’t.  Maybe I just have a different sense of smell and different style than anyone around me.  

Or maybe I’m nobody’s style – the way I look, the way I talk, the way I under dress or overdress, AND the way I smell. But if I’m nobody else’s style, then I might as well at least keep being my own style and personally liking the way I smell, so I’m not going to quit wearing the scents I like until I get tired of them and switch to something else different.  (But I will admit it still hurts my feelings a little if nobody else likes my style though.  One side of my brain is like, “Oh yeah?  Well fuck you!” The other side of my brain is brimming with hurt feelings and should just live in a closet by itself and sob.)

3/28/14

WHY?

I’m not anti-hunting, but what is up with some people’s seemingly natural proclivity to kill non-human creatures that are smaller than them even if they’re not doing anything to you and you’re not going to eat them – you’re just going to stomp them onto the ground and leave them.  I’m mostly thinking of insects and why it seems fun to a lot of kids to kill insects.

When I was walking my dog this morning, I saw a worm crawling on the sidewalk and it almost automatically popped into my head that some kids would probably automatically step on it, not because they were scared of it, but because it was a small creature that they had the power to crush.

And then I started thinking what is up with that – the apparently natural inclination to kill small things – to stomp or squish insects to death, even if the insects are outside.  I recently saw one of my nephews, almost as soon as he saw a spider outside, repeatedly stomp on the thing, as though the death of the spider was both fun and necessary.

Some adults seem to have a tendency to automatically have to kill an insect as soon as they see it in their house ( I feel that way about mosquitoes), so maybe that translates to their kids as automatically having to kill it if they see an insect ANYWHERE, even outside. And maybe that combines with a natural tendency to crush things that we have the power to crush – and kids are too young to analyze where that tendency comes from and what it means and make their own choice of turning it up, toning it down, or otherwise controlling it – or at least questioning where it comes from and what it means.

As an adult, it’s not like I’ve never killed a spider before – I’ve killed a few big ones in my house – but then I feel guilty that I didn’t just manage to take the living creature outside and allow it to do its own thing.  Small spiders in my house don’t even bother me; if I see one I just leave it be.  If I saw one that I knew was poisonous then I’d probably kill it, so it didn’t kill me – but I wouldn’t kill one for no apparent reason other than controlling and causing death.

I have a memory from my childhood, in which me and one of my sisters and my mom were visiting my aunt who lived in Florida and were spending time in an area where we were fishing and there were little crabs walking around on the ground.  I was an un-athletic girl and didn’t have very good aim, so when I saw this one little crab a ways away from me, just staying in the same place, I thought I’d throw a rock in its general direction, so that the rock landing near it would make it start moving again. Well, the rock I threw ended up landing directly on top of the crab and crushed it into oblivion. I certainly didn’t feel like that was a powerful, successful accomplishment. I felt awful, upset and guilty, but kept those feelings to myself and didn’t tell anyone that I had accidentally managed to kill a crab. I certainly didn't brag about it.

Maybe I’m a contradictory mess though (and maybe I’ve always been that way) because even though my memory of guilt about accidentally killing a crab is true, I also remember torturing a few insects as a kid.  Not frequently and not thinking of it as purposeful torture at the time, but why did my sister and I once catch a fly in our house and tear off one of its wings and then the other and then just watch it, unable to fly, and then pick it up while it was still alive and flush it down the toilet?  And why did I once catch a daddy long legs spider and slowly tear off all of its long legs until it was nothing but a little round circle that couldn’t move?

***

My grandpa died early this morning and for some reason (maybe deriving from past memories combined with a poem I read last night called “After the Stillbirth, the Pioneer Wife Dresses a Rabbit” by Donna Vorreyer), I’m remembering a time way back when I was in junior high and had a pet rabbit and my grandpa seemed to think it was really humorous to tell me about the days when he was a boy and would snap rabbits necks.


3/19/14

New Pretty Owl Poetry!

"Gorgeous broken doll brains, stillborn. Powdered up."

The first issue of Pretty Owl Poetry is alive and includes a collaborative poem by Juliet Cook & Robert Cole - "Egg Sack Suspension Cord". 

Read more here - 
http://prettyowlpoetry.com/egg-sack-suspension-cord/

3/15/14

March Thirteen Myna Birds is alive, swimming, flying, hiding, swinging, cutting its fingers and swooning

The Thirteen Myna Birds flock is newly updated! Offering the title poem from Susan Yount's new contest winning Blood Pudding Press chapbook - and poems from some of the contests semifinalists - Patti Flint, Allie Marini Batts, and Jessy Randall.

"She can hear the red stream calling - layer after layer of vibrating - velvet legs begin thrashing - a human leg bone - small wound littered with strawberry seeds - stars sewn across our palms - pulled the songs out of your mouth backwards"

http://13myna.blogspot.com/

3/11/14

This is Poetry

"Loony bin pyrotechnics glimmer
inside my disaster zone, call me"

Or read me or something.

I have a couple poems up at This is Poetry, a project of the Literary Underground

http://thisispoetry.tumblr.com/

3/10/14

Sunday March 16, Snoetry Poetry Reading

This Sunday March 16, anyone in or near the Cleveland area who likes poetry, consider coming to this day long Snoetry reading (or part of it) http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2014/02/17/snoetry-4-a-kulchured-winter-wordfest---march-16th-at-guide-to-kulchur-in-cleveland.aspx


60 different readers for ten minutes each (including me at 2:30-2:40).

3/9/14

Blood Pudding Press Poetry Oodles this March!

Susan Yount at AWP 2014 (in Seattle) holding copies of her Blood Pudding Press Contest Winning poetry chapbook, "House on Fire", during her book signing.

Get a copy of her chapbook here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/150775648/sister-blood-and-bone-by-paula-cary-2013?
 























Blood Pudding Press editor Juliet Cook) has a busy March ahead and is still a bit discombobulated and playing catch up after a very busy end to last month, but here is some of what's in the works for the rest of March.

Reading, writing, submitting - and trying to catch up on reading submissions to Thirteen Myna Birds. As of right now, the coming-soon March issue is filled up with another teaser piece from Susan Yount's  winning chapbook plus poetry from some of the recent Blood Pudding Press chapbook contest semi-finalists (Patti Flint, Allie Marini Batts, and Jessy Randall) AND the upcoming April issue is full too with a teaser piece from the upcoming chapbook by Paul David Adkins plus more poetry by Susan Yount and Roberta Chloe Verdant, David Hutt, Zoltan Komar, Nynlil Shain, Jeremiah Walton, Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia, and Stephanie Kaylor.

As of right now, it's still not too late to partake of the current Myna Birds flock and read poems from the winners and finalists (Susan Yount, Paul David Adkins, Alessandra Bava, Donavon Davidson, Kelly Andrews, and Jay Sizemore)  here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/.


Closer to the end of March, I hope to be starting to work on the next winning Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Stick Up" by Paul David Adkins.

Next weekend, Sunday March 16, for interested poetry peeps in or around the Cleveland area, Juliet Cook (and oodles of others - 60 featured readers) will be performing at this Snoetry poetry reading from noon until 11:00 P.M. -http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2014/02/17/snoetry-4-a-kulchured-winter-wordfest---march-16th-at-guide-to-kulchur-in-cleveland.aspx


I'm probably forgetting something(s), but those are the creative basics that are popping out now...