Making Valentine's Day a Little More DIY and a Lot More Creative

Think back if you please to those grade school days and those classroom Valentine's Day parties for which each child would design her own special Valentine's Day box into which the other children could bestow their handmade or store bought but crayon scrawled Valentine cards. Usually, these Valentine boxes were fashioned from shoeboxes or tissue boxes lovingly decorated with colored paper and hearts and foil and lace, with a little slot cut into the lid, awaiting its bright bevy of Valentine cards.

I don't know about you, but for me, designing and decorating and adorning my extra-special Valentine box was almost as much fun as receiving those Valentine's cards themselves. The process of creating my box was a delight that allowed me to express myself uniquely while joyfully anticipating the fun-filled party time soon to come and THEN that eagerly- awaited time after the party when I would get to sort through the contents of my Valentine box and check out all the goodies!

Here's a fun and unique DIY idea if you have a nostalgic significant other, a creative friend, or maybe even a special BFF who you can trace all the way back to those grade school days-why not give your special someone the chance to relive those fond memories from Valentine's Days past by making them a homemade Valentine's Day gift basket in the form of one of those old-school Valentine's day boxes?

You can literally use a shoebox or a tissue box, just like in the days of yore. Or you can make it a little more adult-like by choosing a more sophisticated keepsake style box that your friend can enjoy reusing after the holiday. Why not pay a visit to your local Container Store for box ideas galore? Make sure the box you choose will be spacious enough to accommodate all the groovy Valentine's Day goodies you intend to nestle inside.

Before you fill the box with Valentine's Day gifts, don't forget to decorate it. Be creative! You can use a decorating style that is reminiscent of your grade school days (think red and pink construction paper, notebook paper, red foil paper, crayons, Magic Marker, old photos, heart-shaped doilies or stickers; heck, maybe even break out the paste for old time's sake and that minty fresh smell). Or you can take a more sophisticated, adult-like approach with higher-quality paper and accoutrements such as pretty ribbon, vintage lace, pressed flowers, unique buttons, and more. A few other ideas to get your creative juices flowing: decoupage, calligraphy, handmade paper, pieces of real love letters (or what about notes that the two of you exchanged way back when in an old classroom?)...

The creative Valentine's Day decorating possibilities are myriad and lovely.

Of course, decorating the outside of your lucky friend's Valentine gift box is only part of the fun. You also get to decide what special Valentine gifts to nestle inside. Maybe some of these gifts will be homemade, too, such as a favored baked good. Red Velvet cupcakes are a wonderful choice for Valentine's Day and you can even bake them in a heart-shaped muffin tin. Decorate your heart-shaped Red Velvet cupcake with delicious swirls of vanilla or cream cheese frosting (perhaps with just a drop of red food coloring added to the frosting to create a pretty pink tint), adorn with silver dragee flourishes and you have a baked good that's attractive enough for even a discriminating Valentine's Day gourmand. Or get even fancier with raspberry tarts, reminiscent of The Queen of Hearts. Or what about homemade truffles, rolled in red edible sugar?

Delectable baked goods are only one idea for the yummy innards of your special friend's homemade Valentine's Day gift basket. If you're using the old-school theme, why not consider adding a mix tape with love songs or just a multifaceted music mix that includes ditties of special significance to you and your friend? Poetry is also an excellent gift notion for Valentine's Day. Whether you handwrite a classic love poem to add to the gift box or better yet, write your very own poem for your friend (if you don't feel poetic enough, a handwritten Valentine's Day note would also be nice) or acquire a unique hand-designed poetry chapbook by a contemporary poet, these especially expressive words will surely add a significant and memorable touch to your friend's Valentine's Day gift basket.

Etsy is a wondrous one-stop shopping source for all your unique handmade items needs, so it might serve you very well indeed to browse some etsy categories and shops in search of even more idiosyncratic and personalized special additions for your lucky BFF's Valentine's Day gift basket. From letterpress greeting cards to gourmet cookies to fuzzy red legwarmers to all manner of holiday-themed specialties, etsy offers it all-and all you need to do is visit esty.com online.

Etsy even features a bath & body category, but another sumptuous source for luxurious bath & body products and blissfully wonderful aromas is lush.com (or Lush in person, if you're lucky enough to live near one of their yummy little shops). Lush stocks all kinds of delicious temptations from lovely hair conditioners to sublime perfumes to a handcrafted facial cleanser known as Angels on Bare Skin.

I think that an especially apt Lush addition to a Valentine's Day gift basket would be one of their famous bath bombs, which are handcrafted in many romantic, relaxing, sexy, sassy, or just plain fun varieties such as the Kiss me Klimt (ylang ylang and rose), the Sex Bomb (jasmine), and the Tisty Tosty (a delicate heart-shaped bath bomb infused with precious rose and orris root to "weave a magic love spell for your bath). While you're browsing these bath bomb offerings for your friend, you'll probably desire to choose one for YOU, too-and why not indulge yourself? It is Valentine's Day, after all and it is oh so important to love yourself and treat yourself, too.

It is also important to show your friends and lovers that you care and what better way to do so than by adding personalized, unique, handmade, artistic flourishes to their Valentine's Day gifts? They'll love you for it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

***

Read more of my Valentine's Day (and Anti-Valentine's Day) articles by clicking the links below.

Paint a Piece of Pottery For Your Valentine:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1426072/paint_a_piece_of_pottery_for_your_valentine.html?cat=30

Valentine's Day Cards:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1381810/valentines_day_card_messages.html?cat=41

Anti-Valentine's Day Cards:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1379598/antivalentines_day_cards.html?cat=7

How To Celebrate An Anti-Valentine's Day:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1380278/how_to_celebrate_an_antivalentines.html?cat=7

Some Alternative Uses For Love Letters:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1371657/some_alternative_uses_for_love_letters.html?cat=10

***

Also Blood Pudding Press has added a new small section of Strange Valentine's - from on-sale special poetry chapbooks to ivory lace & more. Please do feel free to partake:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=7799241

Viral Spiral

NEW Listenlight is now live, with poetry by me, Paul Siegell, Penn Kemp, Sarah Birl, & more: http://www.listenlight.net/.

Viral Spiral is my new-est poem doodad.

Me in Front of a Mausoleum

Me in front of a Mausoleum


What do you think is underneath?


"Wisteria drooping itself lovely above a rim of secrets." Ali Lawrence

***

Me in front of a Monument


T & Me


"Like a gigantic gong
undergoing constant pulsations" Izzy Onereic

Planchette Haunting by Margaret Bashaar

My darkly delicious poet-friend Margaret Bashaar has created wondrous mini-reviews of quite a few of my poetry chapbooks and today she has just posted a new one - a mini-review of my 'Planchette'. Her succulent, shimmering, haunted review is copied below:

"Planchette by Juliet Cook (Blood Pudding Press, 2008) - anyone who has read previous mini reviews by me knows that I love Juliet's poetry, and of course Planchette was no exception. Perhaps my reviews of Juliet's work should simply read "It was Juliet Cook. What do you think?". But no, I will be more descriptive than that. In this collection, I was particularly impressed with how well each poem fit together with the others. The entire collection was pale and haunted. There were hauntings of the body, hauntings of food, hauntings of dolls, hauntings of furniture, hauntings of spiders, and yes, hauntings of homes. I enjoyed how poems would reference one another, yet not be dependent upon one another in order to be understood and appreciated. I felt as though I was being lead through a tour of quiet madness by someone who, themself, was quite mad. As is always a strength in Juliet's writing, there is beauty in the grotesque of Planchette, and, I feel, a strong feminist undertone to her writing about women made pale with blood made thin and fingertips snipped off (though Juliet herself has told me she's been called everything from a radical feminist to an anti-feminist by those who have read her poetry). You can purchase a copy of Planchette at the Blood Pudding Press etsy store, as linked above, and I highly recommend it."

You may also visit Marg's Plucked From Ogygia blog to partake of more, here:

http://pluckedfromogygia.blogspot.com/

You may also visit my Blood Pudding Press etsy shop to see & read more about Planchette (and other chapbooks and artsy/crafty doodads), here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/61369901/planchette-by-juliet-cook

You may also visit Marg's NEW etsy shop, currently offering stunning snippets of hand-made jewelry, here (I love the Turquoise and Shell Necklace):

http://www.etsy.com/shop/myhyacinthgirl?ref=pr_shop_more

AND speaking of Blood Pudding Press, I am currently at work on my Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 5 NEW poetry chapbook of mine called "Post-Stroke", so stay tuned.

AND after that chapbook is created (hopefully in February), then Blood Pudding Press will get to work on its NEXT poetry chapbook, "LETTERS FROM ROOM 27 OF THE GRAND MIDWAY HOTEL", by Margaret Bashaar.

What could be more wonderfully haunting!?!

On a Lighter Note (Fun Socks!)...

On a lighter, funner, more scrumptious note than my last post here about my Stroke last year and my Divorce on the same date this year, I have now created a new little Associated Content piece featuring 15 yummie photos of my Socks. Yay!

As some of my friends and family know, I am indeed a big fan of unique, lovely, sexy, and comfy knee high and thigh high socks. Ooh la la, do I adore them! After a very challenging year for me, it was especially delicious to receive an exciting plethora of unique socks this Christmas (and before and after). You can read about my challenging year by scrolling down to my blog entry below this one and/or you may simply partake of my socks.

I'll admit that Ive been told before I'm too old to be wearing fun socks, but I strongly disagree! I think people should surely feel free to wear what they wish to wear and hold on to their own style until they're 80 or 90 or 100 if they're lucky enough to live that long. So there.

And so below is a link to 15 Sock photos.

(P.S. When I first tried to link to this on my facebook page, I got a note that it contained content that was either 'abusive' or' 'scammy'. Well I know it isn't scammy 'cuz I created it. And since when are sock photos considered abusive? They're not nude sock photos. Does the word 'thigh high' sound abusive or some other word I used? I don't think so, but maybe I don't know. I suddenly started feeling a tidbit worried... Anyway, see for yourself below.)

http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/73584/fun_knee_high_and_thigh_high_sock_extravaganza.html

On January 6 2010, I suffered from a Stroke. On January 6 2011, my husband & I will be getting Divorced.

Below is a link to my published article that starts with a version of "A Round Thing That Starts with a g" piece posted here a few days ago, but includes more.

A Year that Started with the Wrong Kind of Bang Has Ended; What Comes Next?

Poetry? Passion? I hope so

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6187208/a_round_thing_that_starts_with_the.html?cat=5

***

Just in case you do not like the style of Associated Content, I shall also add the entire article below.

A Round Thing that Starts With the Wrong Letter

A year that started with the wrong kind of bang has ended; what comes next?

(On January 6 2010, I suffered from a Stroke. On January 6 2011, my husband & I will be getting Divorced.)

I few days ago, I had a little after-dinner issue that made me feel like crying. Such feelings are nothing new throughout a year that began with me suffering from an unexpected Stroke, but I have been continually recovering and improving, to the point that I think most people who briefly interact with me might not even receive an inkling that anything has affected my brain powers at all. A big part of me really likes that, but it also has its challenging aspects.

Although my reading and writing skills continue to improve, they are still significantly slower than they used to me. Although every month I seem to remember details better, I still do not think I could work a regular job, because after I initially came across as pretty intelligent and productive, how could I explain my inability to memorize new things with quickness, efficiency, or finesse?

And how the heck would I explain my trouble associated with handling easy little words? Food stuff is one example of my easy little word problems. My ongoing issue with food stuff words is what made me feel like crying the other night. Even my poetry used to be brimming with strange and specific food-oriented words, to the extent that a few people thought I had made up my last name, COOK, to fit into my own poetry-fest.

A few nights ago after dinner, my mom handed me a yummy piece of homemade gingerbread (I had to concentrate while typing this to get the word gingerbread) and she put something on it; some white stuff that I cannot remember the word of. I asked her what that white stuff was called and she told me, but I have already forgotten the word again. When she told me the word, I started to tell her what it reminded me of, which was another white thing atop another dessert thing and...

See what I mean? I couldn't think of the word of a dessert product that I have partaken of many times in my life. And I couldn't think of the word of the white stuff on top of that dessert product. Oftentimes, I can think of the first letter of a word even if I can’t think of the whole word. So I said something like "that round thing that starts with a g" and then I began to feel like some sort of an idiot. I was seated at the kitchen table with a group full of people and the best descriptive phrase I could muster was “that round thing that starts with a g".

As it turned out, I didn't even get the first letter right this time. As I tried to describe the dessert product a little better, my mom finally asked if I was talking about Cinnamon Rolls and YES that is what I was talking about. The main reason I had even brought up Cinnamon Rolls was due to an attempt to talk about the white stuff that sometimes appears on top of them, but it took me so long to make it to the word Cinnamon Roll, that after that, I felt overly stressed out and dumb and pretty much just gave up.

I was among a group of people and could not even manage to describe something as well as their little kids would have been able to describe it. I felt like they most likely wanted to play with the kids, rather than spend half an hour trying to concentrate on a disabled adult attempting to figure out easy little words in order to say what I was trying to say, when what I was trying to say was simply a very small description of a white dessert product atop my mom's gingerbread that tasted like a different white dessert product atop some Cinnamon Rolls. I could hardly think of any of the words for a small description that should have lasted about one minute long.

Unfortunately, that is nothing new when I am trying to talk about food (or names or other brief descriptive words), so sometimes I just don’t even try to talk about those things, especially in the midst of group settings as opposed to one on one. Sometimes I find myself worrying about not being able to think of some easy little word in a public setting (which has happened before) and then how the heck should I explain that? I don’t wish to be frequently telling semi-random people who I barely know that I suffered from a Stroke almost a year ago.

It is very frustrating and upsetting to me sometimes, being someone who used to be able to describe things interestingly, uniquely, and EASILY and now I often can't. In addition to the little words, there's the fact that I can't write significant book reviews anymore; I can no longer specifically describe my own viewpoints on stuff like poetry, art, feminism, and much more (and since I would have to concentrate long and hard in order to think of more specific words, I just typed 'and much more').

Overall, I have been feeling less depressed, less negative, and more willing to shift my own style of verbiage around. But every once in a while, an exchange that ought to consist of a simple, easy, quick little description goes awfully wrong and very much bothers me. Sometimes I worry that I am NEVER going to be able to communicate as well as I used to. Sometimes that really makes me feel like breaking down and crying.

***

Several other things have also made me feel like crying lately; one of them is my upcoming Divorce. I recently realized that my Divorce Court Hearing is scheduled to happen on the same date that my Stroke happened last year. I did not choose either of those dates.

My husband could hardly handle my Stroke for even a few months, even though he was not the one who lost part of his brain. He suggested that my personality had changed, but I think the only parts that really changed about me where my problems with maneuvering easy little words, my unfortunate inability to work a regular job, plus the fact that I stopped drinking alcohol as often as I used to. I guess it could be tough when a partner who often was a fun party animal was suddenly overly worried about her own health. I was worried for valid reasons, though. Nobody knew exactly what caused my Stroke and I did not wish to risk my recovery. I understand that the whole situation caused difficult, challenging aspects for my husband too; but I don’t really understand why he often acted as if it was just as difficult for him (or even more so) as it was for me. He told me that others were paying too much attention to me and treating me like a baby. He blurted out the word Divorce and offered me unhappy threats until I went ahead and left our home together and then finally filed for that Divorce.

Now that the Divorce date has almost arrived, he has told me he did not want it, but if that is really the case, than I don’t understand why he was blurting out that word and telling me he needed to move on. He is now filing for Bankruptcy, planning on leaving the state, and leaving me with our unpaid Mortgage and Home Equity Loans. He recently sent me a small Happy New Year note, suggesting that this past year was terrible for both of us, but 2011 would be better for both of us. In a way, that almost made me feel like screaming, “Your brain is the same as it’s always been! And soon, you will be gone from the state and our unpaid bills will all be in my name! So I guess 2011 will be better for YOU!”

In the course of one year, I lost parts of my brain, my husband, and am now in the process of losing my good credit. Even though I have never in my life been a big credit card user, my husband was and now I am forced to suffer the results of that, which will ruin my credit for 7-10 years. In addition to that stress, I sometimes feel quite unhappy that I am a 38 year old woman who is temporarily living with my parents and does not know when that will change; does not know when I will be able to work a regular job again, and more.

I know I am lucky to be alive and to have the power to choose for myself how to best move on with my life, but sometimes I have mixed feelings about HOW to move on and what my life ought to focus on next. Losing the man who I thought was a real love partner makes me feel more uncomfortable about long term relationships in general, yet one on one interaction is quite important to me, especially if that interaction is with someone I feel strongly about and love. I can’t allow myself to lose my credibility, my passion, my interest and adoration in myself and others. I can’t allow myself to lose my sweet snippets of happiness, poeticism and love of truly unique communication.

I need to focus on the fact that some very fun encounters have happened this past year too. I have made a few new wonderful friends who are poets and artists. I have participated in extraordinary poetry readings involving furry Typewriter Girls and movie filming involving Haunted Hotels filled with ghosts and zombies and other darkly delicious creativity.

Even though my reading and writing is still slower, I have maintained my passionate adoration for poetry. I have continued to handle my own online literary publication, Thirteen Myna Birds. I created two new poetry chapbooks for my print publishing endeavor, Blood Pudding Press. I will soon be publishing another Blood Pudding Press chapbook of my own as part of a vast creative entity called the Dusie Kollektiv; that chapbook will include my new Post-Stroke poems. I even assembled and started submitting my second full-length poetry manuscript.

In addition to staying artistically creative and visiting new friends several times, I also visited two long time extra-special close friends of mine, one of whom I have been connecting with a great deal. I do have some delectably scrumptious one on one time available in my present and future, as long as I am able to focus significantly and passionately upon what should come next within my remaining lifetime.

***

Juliet’s very first small article about her Stroke – “Post-Stroke Survival and Sad Little Blues” - http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2807396/poststroke_survival_and_sad_little.html?cat=70

Juliet’s second article about her Stroke and also about her Poetry – “Full Length Dissection” - http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5602556/full_length_dissection.html?cat=70

Juliet’s third article about her Stroke and Poetry, posted on her own blog & linked to by Big Tent Poetry - “Doll Injection Mold Disaster” – http://bigtentpoetry.org/2010/08/sideshow-finding-the-words/

Juliet’s ‘Horrific Confection” website (find out more about her Poetry and other Creative Endeavors – http://www.julietcook.weebly.com/

Dark Dessert in Progress

"From a fabulous creature to a throw away/
poison-induced creme brulee paraclete..."

Vaticanal/"Amazons of Vaginal Resistance"

Oddly scrumptious writer Letizia Merello has written another peculiarly delicious article about my poetry, yay!

This article appears in an online magazine called Vaticanal and here is the link:

http://vaticanal.blogspot.com/

If interested, you need to download the magazine. Leti's piece appears on page 30.

Just so you know, some of the Vaticanal content happens to be semi-pornographic (in an artsy kind of way), so if you're not into that sort of thing, then you might not wanna click the link.

Also, the magazine's content is in Italian and so is Leti's piece. If you can't read Italian, but are interested in her article, an English version appears below.

***

"Ladies and gentlemen, the curtain rises on the massacre of the dignity of cunt. The last bulwark of resistance to today's aesthetic rules seems to have finally succumbed, my ladies, except for those of you who hide between their thighs something looking like a worn purse or a dressed-leather loafer. Will you, the amazons of vaginal resistance, be able to resist the temptation of flattering rejuvenation surgery?

Vagina d'autore

Le sue rosee labbra smerlate si schiudono, una varietà carnosa
di bocca di leone. Un trattamento insolito ma efficace è
l'uso del batticarne: la rende così deliziosamente insensibile,
è come legare quattro arti fantasma a quattro cavalli e intervenire
chirurgicamente, come l'applauso di un pubblico al lieve tremolìo di quei lobi.

"Cos'è, una gara fra anoressiche a chi mangia più torte?"
L'urlo viene da uno spettatore estremamente partecipe.
"Forza! Dentro!" e alla fine sventrano:
uno che traffica freneticamente in mezzo alle gambe,
l'altro che si dà da fare con la lobotomia.

È ridotta proprio male, ma presto i resti saranno soltanto dolci
petit-four. Carni nauseanti da salassare, quindi isolare.
Una volta ottenuto l'effetto puntura d'ape, quel nido di vespe furioso
dev'essere suturato. Tutto sta nel soddisfare quegli
scarabocchi rosa, quelle piccole ali inadatte al volo.

Designer Vagina

Her pink scalloped lips part, a meatier variety
of snapdragon. A strange but effective treatment
is meat tenderizer. Then she’s so deliciously numb,
it’s like tying phantom limbs to four horses & performing
surgery, as an audience applauds those delicately trembling lobes.

“What is this, a pie eating contest for anorexics?”
shouts one overzealous clapper from the crowd.
“Get in there! Giddyup!” and they tear in--
one furiously working between the legs;
one serving point on the lobotomy.

She’s a real mess, but soon every remnant will be sweet
petit fours. Cloying meat must be leeched, then cloistered.
After the bee-sting effect is achieved, her angry hornet nest
must be sewn shut. It’s all about pleasing
pink squiggles and tiny flightless wings.

Juliet Cook, poet, publisher and author of this poem, is used to rummage in troubled waters with irony and coquetterie, but never afraid to get her hands dirty. Her Designer Vaginas are partly inspired by the latest craze, that is to become highly-fuckable Barbies in all respects. The Designer Vaginas series poems, a poetic squirt in the face of advocates and supporters of this trend, show that, thank Satan, beauty can survive even during a surgical procedure that seeks to kill her with standardization. Would you like more of this? Other creatures, mutilated and caramelized, are shaking their legs and tentacles on http://julietcook.weebly.com/."

A Round Thing that Starts With the Wrong Letter

(A year that started with the wrong kind of bang has ended; what comes next?)

I few days ago, I had a little after-dinner issue that made me feel like crying. These feelings are nothing new throughout a year that began with me suffering from an unexpected Stroke, but I have been continually recovering and improving, to the point that I think most people who briefly interact with me might not even receive an inkling that anything has affected my brain powers at all. A big part of me really likes that, but it also has its challenging aspects.

Although my reading and writing skills continue to get better and better thank goodness, they are still significantly slower than they used to me. Although every month, I seem to remember details better, I still do not think I could work a regular job, because after I initially came across as pretty intelligent and productive, how could I explain my inability to memorize new things with quickness or efficiency?

And how the heck would I explain my ongoing trouble associated with handling easy little words? Food stuff is one example of those easy little words and my ongoing issue with food stuff words is what made me feel like crying the other night. Even my poetry used to be brimming with strange and specific food-oriented words, to the extent that a few people thought I had made up my last name, COOK, to fit into my own poetry-fest.

A few nights ago after dinner, my mom handed me a yummy piece of homemade gingerbread (I had to concentrate while typing this to get the word gingerbread) and she put something on it; some white stuff that I cannot remember the word of. I asked her what that white stuff was called and she told me, but I have already forgotten that word again. When she told me the word, I started to tell her what it reminded me of, which was another white thing atop another dessert thing and...

See what I mean? I couldn't think of the word of a dessert product that I have partaken of many times in my life. And I couldn't think of the word of the white stuff on top of that dessert product. Oftentimes, I can think of the first letter of a word even if I can’t think of the whole word. So I said something like "that round thing that starts with a g" and then I began to feel like some sort of an idiot, because here I was seated at the kitchen table with a group of people and the best descriptive phrase I could muster was “that round thing that starts with a g".

As it turned out, I didn't even get the first letter right this time. As I tried to describe the dessert product a little better, my mom finally asked if I was talking about Cinnamon Rolls and YES that is what I was talking about. And the main reason I had even brought up Cinnamon Rolls was due to an attempt to talk about the white product that sometimes appears on top of them, but it took me so long to make it to the word Cinnamon Roll, that after that, I felt overly stressed out and dumb and pretty much just gave up.

Here I was among a group of people and could not even manage to describe certain things as well as their little kids would have been able to describe it. I felt like they most likely would rather play with the kids, rather than spend half an hour trying to concentrate on a disabled adult attempting to figure out easy little words in order to say what I was trying to say, when what I was trying to say was simply a very small description of a white dessert product atop my mom's gingerbread that tasted like a different white dessert product atop some Cinnamon Rolls. I could hardly think of any of the words for a small description that should have lasted about one minute long.

Unfortunately, that is nothing new when I am trying to talk about food (or names or other brief descriptions), so sometimes I just don’t even try to talk about those things, especially in the midst of group settings as opposed to one on one. Sometimes I find myself worrying about not being able to think of some easy little word in a public setting (which has happened before) and then how the heck should I explain that? I don’t really feel like telling semi-random people who I barely know that I suffered from a Stroke almost a year ago.

It's so frustrating and upsetting to me sometimes, being someone who used to be able to describe things interestingly, uniquely, and EASILY and now I often can't. In addition to the little words, there's the fact that I can't write significant book reviews anymore; I can no longer specifically describe my own viewpoints on stuff like poetry, art, feminism, and much more (and since I would have to concentrate long and hard in order to think of more specific words, I just typed 'and much more').

Overall, I have been feeling less depressed, less negative, and more willing to interestingly shift my own verbiage around. But every once in a while, an exchange that ought to consist of a simple, easy, quick little conversation goes awfully wrong and really upsets me. Sometimes I worry that I am NEVER going to be able to communicate as well as I used to. Sometimes that makes me feel like crying.

***

(This is a short version of a small article I am currently working on. I hope to complete and publish a slightly longer version on my Associated Content site soon. If you are interested, stay tuned.)

Split Heart Fulfillment

It is a Darkly Delicious Happy New Year featuring a masterpiece of new innards from poets J.R. Pearson, Jason Sturner, Tanuj Solanki, and Nathan Moore – plus poisonous drinks by artists Kalli Schulz, Mary Roxette, and silentkitty using the body & face of fiendish male model Jason Baca. Dig into this hideously scrumptious feast and prepare to be aroused!

Many of the lines in the post below are snipped from the NEW poems in Thirteen Myna Birds; read more here!

http://13myna.blogspot.com/

Venus spatters wet retinas, icicles caught on the roof top of an iris, an honest atrocity, liquids full of sugar, rumors numb, birds flutter in gossip, require necromantic imaginations, do your best work, dear demon!