Advise for Journaling

Property of Stormberry

You might be roaming the ailes of a paper store looking for a notebook and a pen to start journaling because you feel like this is something you want to do, or because you are convinced that this is going to make your life better. You might be nervous or excited, or just blah. So, let me ask you something: What will you do the moment you open the journal? How would you start?

Yes, you may already have a plan, or you might be concentrating on the notebook purchase because you have no idea what to do about it.

The thing with journaling, or keeping a diary - call it any way you want to, it's yours and it should fit and please you, nobody else - is that often expectations can kill the process. The "blank page" can block you and make you feel off because you have no idea what to do, or maybe you devote the first week an insane amount of energy in planning, designing, drawing, collaging and what not, and then you realize you don't really want to do that anymore because it is so tiresome. So, what to do?

I started journaling when I was 10 years old. From age 8 or so, I wanted desperately a Hello Kitty diary, even though I didn't know to write quite well. In my case, ever since I know myself, I have always been drawn to letters and to writing (among other things, of course), so when I've got my first diary for Christmas, I was over the moon, even if it was in a blank paged book, and I was afraid to write in it because I was used to ruled pages. I thought back then that keeping a diary meant to write everyday, so even when I was tired or nothing interesting had happened, I wrote in my journal. Of course, on those days I wrote:

Nothing interesting happened today.

Eventually this became too much of a chore and I abandoned it. Me, quite possibly a graphomaniac. Since I am addicted to writing, though, I came back to it later on, with a much more relaxed attitude, and started writing whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted, no pressure. And I've been doing it since then.

Property of Snowberry

There have been years when I've made only one entry in the whole year, and there are years where I burn through two or three books because I'm carrying my diary around and writing like I'm possessed. Some of my journal books are cover to cover only writing, some have drawings, some have... charts and graphs where I explore ideas for economics theories. Some others are fat and prone to fall apart because I've stuffed it with mementoes from trips and dates and purchases and whatnots. They each are me and represent me, and they are there to wait for me for when I want to write about something. And they work for me.

So, what's my advise for people looking for starting a journal (or a diary)? Simple, pay attention.

First Page Issue

In my case this is no longer an issue. After so many journals, each is like the continuation of the next, so I'm long since gotten over this issue. However, sometimes I like to leave this page purposefully in blank, and later on do something on it. You can, for instance (and I really like this), grab a cup of your favorite hot drink (non sweetened) and pour just a tad on a saucer. Sit the mug on the spilt liquid and then put it on the page and let it sit a couple of minutes. Lift it and you have a purposeful stain, in a circle. You can leave it like that, or write a quote in it, or around it, draw if you want to...

You can also do that with water colors and go creative.

Another idea is to pick up a magazine or a newspaper you like, clip out a picture or a news article, and paste it. The write over it "Most Memorable News/Picture on The Day This Journal/Diary was Started". If the picture is big, or you make a collage, you can always cut a strip of paper to write on it and glue it on. Perfectly cut, ripped... it all works. :-) Remember you can "age" paper by brewing a really strong black tea, and submerging the paper in it. Leave it some 20 to 30 minutes and then dry the page by putting it between old news papers and pressing it down. It can take a day or two, depending on weather conditions.

You can also go not so artsy, and just write a quote or a warning on it, or the date of start or a list of the things you like. And here's another idea: Put on top of it or at the center, or anywhere you want "Random Thoughts" or "Brain Dump", or "Thought Parking", and use it through time to write anything short on it.

You don't need to make it perfect, because honestly, you will hardly see it. Make it anything that talks to you. And yes, it's alright to use it for the first entry. The hell knows you may want to use up as much of the paper real estate of your journal for as long as you can.

First Entry

This can be tricky for many. Remember this is for YOU, so you don't need to introduce yourself to the journal, though you can do that if you want to. In this spirit, remember that this first entry should be... you. Like every other. Writing the date is optional, too. Nobody needs to know. You can add a title, if you like too, or address the journal as if you were writing a letter.

Two of the diaries I've read and remained with me are Anna Frank's and Anaïs Nin's. Ms. Nin wrote continually, so often you don't have an idea of when things happened. Her diaries were a collection of confidences, unaddressed, and mixing thoughts, impressions and facts. Anna started each entry with "Dear Kitty", a friend she invented, and made her journal to be.

Here's an example of how I do it:

Heredia,

2019.09.23

"Giving Advise"

Another day at work, and another day gone by. Things are going as usual and I'm happy about it. I was also thinking about journaling because I've seen K's efforts to try and get into journaling.

Style

The question of style is the easiest: go with whatever pleases you. This is not a beauty contest, nor  there is a price for the journal that keeps the canon. If you feel like doing some are, do some art. If you feel just like writing, then write. The journal is there for you to unload your mind and spirit, so do so and don't mind how it's going to look.

Style can change from book to book, and you can also experiment with different things as you go by. Your journal is personal, so it has an ample space to do all your tries and errors. And don't worry! Try it all, keep it there, and maybe in the future, when you revisit your pages, you can rediscover something from the old days.

Property of Stormberry

Sometimes art or clipping look aweful at the moment, but with time, the materials age and it can look wonderful years later.

The Rhythm

Take it easy. Notebooks and writing instruments have a cost. Don't write if you don't feel like it. If you do something when you don't like it, when you have to force yourself to do it, you'll hate it. This is not a life saving diet, nor exercise to keep you in shape. This is something you do for you. To the hell with all that "you have to make it a habit", or "get into the habit" and "fake it until you make it". Hell no! Do it because it pleases you, because you really want to, because you feel like it.

You can keep it by your bed, or at your desk, or carry it around with you... it's all up to you and what you feel like it.

No matter if you  do it for a mental health exercise or a way to improve your life so, this is your friend, your personal tool, your writing, your journal and it should fit you and serve you, not the other way around. Journaling is a pleasure, not a task.

EDIT: I was checking some videos about journaling, and I found this video from this super lovely girl, and she gives some really incredible tips. So, I'll leave her video here to help you get inspired. :-D Oh, and please, please, PLEASE live her a lot of love in her video, because she just so totally deserve it. :-) 2019.09.24

This Last Week When I Was Out

It's been a week since I last wrote, and not few things happened in this week. First of all, there was the "building matter" and this time it wasn't another evacuation - though I would have really enjoyed that - but an article that appeared in the newspapers about the building and how Supercalifragilistic it is.  This, well, rose a lot of reactions, like some utterly stupid - there's no other word for it -  reader who wrote a comment at the electronic site of the paper saying that we "shouldn't be so lazy" and instead of waiting 45 minutes for the elevator, perhaps we "should climb the stairs". Yeah, why don't that s.o.b. come here and climb 16 flights in those stairs and see how he or she likes it? I mean, I would personally climb the stairs, and I was prepared to it, but I really, really need air, not to mention how unpleasant it is to work steated up. Dude, really, think before opening your trap.

To my surprise, I also found people IN the building upset about the article for an array of reasons. So said that such a note shouldn't have been published, that the problems we experience in the building are "absolutely normal" and proper of "a new building to which one has to get used to". Dude, the building was inspected before we moved in, tests were ran - so it was said - it took an extra month to receive it because it had to be corrected (the Fire Department requested for an external emergency exit, which hasn't been built yet, nor it looks like it would), and we get here and there's not a single day, since June 16th that something doesn't work? The freaking building is supposed to be smart! Or perhaps it is smart, but also spoiled and it's throwing a temper tantrum? (That, or the building is Smart. Yeah, Maxwell Smart.)

Also heard comments berating the publishing, saying that by venting this in the eye of the public, the image of the company would deteriorate. Hn. Let me see: the Government don't allow the company to do any investment, as th money is needed to pay the Governments trips and stunts. Add to it, a former employee of quite a high position is in a trial, where also a former President is charged with accounts of corruption in the Alcatel case. Some years ago the Director of Mobile Telecommunications of that time summoned a press conference to announce the opening of prepaid mobile services, when the service wasn't ready and the technical tests weren't positive, and said Director happily anounced the sale in three days. Three days later he was burried in his office or out of the country on the money of the company and let the technicians to explain why the service couldn't be offered. Then the most recent former CEO of the company, discharged this May, is being held on trial for fraud, as he used public funds for his personal use, as well as allowing his wife, who was not an employee of the company, to run it to her like and destroy the work of experienced employees, not to mention to use public funds for her own means. So no, I don't really think that this note on the building is the stain that would mar the company.

I do understand that things must be kept in the company and seek to solve them without pulling a Lohan or a Spears on the deal, but when the management is oblivious about the matters and the problems are issued with e-mails belittling the sitaution, things must be escalated.

This week also, I've got a new phone. ^_^ But please, don't think it's (yet another) compulsive purchase of mine. It was a real need. Really. My old phone, an adorable purple Sony Ericsson w380 broke. I bought it around two years ago (perhaps a week or two before I met Kari) and I loved it! Phone in Hungarian, preloaded with PannonGSM (now Telnor) stuff and all that, and lets be honest: I'm a sucker for technology in Hungarian. However my phone was reaching the 2 years, which makes it old - for me - so I was thinking in replacing it anyway. I definitively needed something with Internet, since I'm a Twitter and I'd love to tweet my way around like all my other Twitter friends, not to mention going bonkers tweeting during out #twittertours. Then, of course, there's also the matter of my PDA. After years of using my PDA it broke. Yes, I had a Palm Pilot m130 that worked adorably, but before I could replace it Palm Pilot closed the business and sould out to HP, and you know when will I buy HP: on neverday. (Have enough HP experience at the office with the HP laptops and printers and stuff, I really know what they are like and I'm not paying for them). Ever since the begining of this year I went back to basics, with a small agenda. Yep, paper agenda. You know, those that don't beep, that have only one way to be looked at, that require you to write up every single event of a given repetitive task, that don't expand when you need to accomodate more activities. Yeah, those. Well, a few ups, however: don't need batteries, don't disappear on you if you haven't charged them, let you stick stickers, draw, write in code, use colors... One thing for the other, right? 

So, the point is that I needed a new phone, and I was planning on getting it by the end of this year in Hungary. Well, after an improptu decision, I was going, so I might as well use the time to update my phone, right? Not to mention that it doesn't look swell to work on the telecommunications business and have some old phone on you.

Since I'm basically a Sony Ericsson-gal, I was checking their offer and was really thinking about an Xperia. When, how much and all those questions were faraway from me. Someday, some, somehow. The idea of an iPhone also fluttered around my brain. Then it happened. The Happening.

It was early Friday morning and, as usual, my phone rang to wake me up. Yes, only I left it charging and as I reached for it it fell on the floor and the joint between both sides of the clamshell broke. Oh hell. Clamshell phones are quite delicate, particularly this joint as it controls stuff like the answering of an incoming call and so on. The phone itself was still working, but when you opened it or closed it, it didn't have that claa that push it open or close, as it should. It was getting stuck. Well, I wasn't going to walk around with a broken phone, nor I was going to wait for it to finally die on me. Once at the office, I went down to the Lobby, to the Kölbi store and checked out the phones. I didn't really had any phone in mind, so I just saw a big banner of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which was a Sony Ericsson and had all I needed, and pointed at it.

"I want that, but I want it in a plan, with Internet."

The salesguy got me the phone, programmed it, printed out the contract, talked over the monthly fee ($80), told me I'd be paying it from next month on, and just like that, I had a new phone. It gave me a lot of trouble, truth to be told, as the new thing wasn't behaving like any other Sony Ericsson I have had so far, and I had have so far three of them!, but little by little we have been getting acquainted, and even though it hasn't behaved like any of my other SE, this one and I are getting along swell. Haven't named it yet, and I haven't named any phone lately, but I think this one deserves a Scandinav/Scandinavish name. Vesa? Eric?Sven? Sven-Eric, like the cop in Sunstorm? Solstorm? Still to be decided.

Then this same week I had this rich, wrapping messaging with a new penpal of mine, with whom I've took off and flew across the pink and purple skies of the soul. The long, almost daily messages written in such a fashion I felt as Henry Miller penpaling with Anais Nin (me reading Tropic of Cancer may have something to do with the feeling, but may not also), were topped with a delicious letter from her in my P.O.Box on Saturday. Oh the delight! Her letters telling ne as much as her words, the scent of the paper wrapping warm arms around be, from a new friend greeting me as an old one.

This past week felt as heaven!

Well, not to mention that I've worked on fixing the last chapter of the thesis and I've got an SMS from the tutor sayin that "we should unify the document for lecture and defense". We are one step ahead of you, Sir!

To finish it up, I've come up with an idea for a book. After reading a half-assed article in Harper's Bazaar, I've decided I'll compose a book on how to pack for a travel, based on my experience in the matter. Kinda like a "how to do" book with some frappy title like "How to pack and don't kill yourself or the suitcase in the process". How about that?

Happy new Week!

Lawrence as Nin's June Before June

The pages fly under my fingers, before my eyes and the end is coming closer. The initial awe and strict interpretation of Lawrence slowly vanishes and Nin, by the end of the study, seeks quite vehemently to defend the object of her study even when his flaws escape between her fingers. As reader, as someone who hasn't yet experienced Lawrence first hand, inspite of the richness in well selected quotes, he reveals in her words as a wobbly character, prone to mood swings and whimsy outbursts. A deep immaturity unveils, further sinking in, reinforcing previous ideas one forms of him.

As the book nears its end, and Nin tangles in the throws of Lawrence's sea of moods, where the reafirmation and revalidation of self appear constantly in different characters marked by the lack of strenght, or hold down to a life guiding principle. For Nin it is the trademark of the poet, the seal of the creator, all of them beautiful words and inspired excuses for what seems to me the escape of a man who can't accept himself, no matter how hard, so vehemently he tries to do so. And so, wrapping in the cloak of self-proclaimed individuality all oddness is excused, purposeful ignorance of the social reaction is pulled up, to hide behind such a screen the wails and tantrums of a self tormented both by its very unspeakable nature and the condemning of the society upon it, whether happening or the feared reaction if the truth where to be known. Nin runs up front, fending her submissive femininity in the fashion proper of old chavalry stories, where the hurt brave's life is spared thanks to the sacrifice and humble pleading of the fair maiden.

Nin elevates him high to the sphere of worldly gods, the ultimate creators, the purest of men, those whose fertile, unique skills match those of the gods, and therefore shall always be above normal men. Her worship is absolute, and thus she lays her words at his feet, serve him humbly explaining to the word how his flaws are divine features, his immaturity the needed brand of those infused with the power of artistic creation. In the non-understanding of his throws lies the key to his genius, in the moves that betray ridicule to the normal man, hides the greatness of his outworldly, avant-guard, gifted vision.

Having read her journal before, suddenly I face the same defending line she took with June Miller. In the blindness of the flaws, she insists in a distorted vision of the person beyond the person, where the blatant and factual weakness of nature superposes in the surrealist plane the unveiling of such high features, they must, by rule be incomprehensive to the average of men, and seem, by the power of simplicity, envy, obscurity of mind or any other cloaking device, a wicked, abhorrent, unbearable flaw. As with June, the unstability of a self that refuses to see itself in the eye, that runs around its own core, is worshiped as a sign of deep artistic inclination.

Anais Nin was an abused child, beaten and submitted to emotional harm. It is possible her mind had soaked in the idea that there is something intrinsically unspeakable about herself, something horrid that should be kept at bay by punishment. This could have turned her away from herself. Uncomfortable by being forced to live in another skin, an imposed or self imposed one, but deeply afraid of assuming her own. In her words, both June and Lawrence seem to share this feature. Nor June, nor Lawrence settle with themselves, and run around, awkward and playing roles, façades like plaster masks that do not fit theirselves. And uncomfortable in the not fitting shoe they are forced into, they turn against others, torment those they can torment, play the victim when the situation gets out of control and blame the world for everything, from the rain to the war to their headache.

This book reveals Nin pathological, reveals her needs, and large chunks of herself, as also things that are not intended to be revealed as pety and obscure get revealed of the object of her abject worship.

At the same time her style continuous flowing and perfect, bigger than herself, absorbent, enveloping, grasping. Nin becomes the tool of her gift, the peripheral attachment of her style, the devise to move pen over paper, digits over keys, to get the message through. Yes, she is broken, yes, she is flawed, but still, the things her eyes see, even past her hability to process and reinterpret into her own world are astonishing.

A Short Flirt With Nin and Lawrence

After finishing Larsson's book, I picked up Anais Nin's "D.H.Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study". This is a book I bought quite some time ago, but haven't gotten around to read it.  A reprinting of this interesting analysis of Lawrence's writing, a dissection of his characters and the style of writing itself, that says so much of our dear Anais Nin. From the book the Introduction by Harry T. Moore stands like a stain to the work, as Mr. Moore seems more concerned with promoting his own books on Lawrence and showing off his knowledge of the late author than actually giving honest word about the book he should be presenting. Isn't some sort of editor out there stopping this atrocities from happening?

The book itself is quite short, with a distinctive touch of Nin, who takes this objetc of study and by delving into it, giving us an interpretation of it, showcases her own amazing style, her human, biting, pumping style, swelling with feelings, growing out of desires, nurturing on passion. The very style we shall exterience later on in her magnificent diaries, which I adore and hope to collect all.

There is something about Nin, something about her writing, the very intimate way in which she expresses herself, that makes you want to have her diaries at hand and search in the recorded days and months during her writing of the book, those feelings, thoughts and emotions that fueled her words, later put out in a more public way.

For me, House of Incest would have been a completely different book if I hadn't read before the journal, and so with Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

In "D.H. Lawrence" Nin sings her praises to Lawrence, but also takes her time to point out her vision, her interpretation hopping from topic to topic fending off tabu with almost scientific precision. Like with her diaries, after her Unprofessional Study, far less pretentious and bile driven than others more professional, one gets the distinct feeling of standing before a milestone. There is a reading of Lawrence before Nin and after Nin.

It is almost as if her surrealist prism could break the world into glass tiles, and by looking at it again, through her caleidoscopic eye, the world would rearrange into more exotic, shifting meanings, all of the marvelous and artistic. Chaos finds a system in her, with the "system of mobility", and weakness becomes "layered emotional experience". There were others see failure she sees the amazing avant garde vision that speaks to many senses at the same time. Language gets deconstructed from the meaning to leave it up to the primal blocks: just the sounds. It speaks not to the mind, but to the gut, convinces not the brain, but the plexus.

Apology of Lawrence or not, in the end what bewitches us is her writing, her mind and the fabulous word she fingerpaints for us with Lawrence's themes and words.

Muse

This time a matter common to creative, artistic people comes to my mind: the Question of the Muse. The ideas rolling around in the world about Muses are often too romantic and unrealistic. They are imagined as some sort of perfect, beautiful creatures treasured for the loving inspiration they are capable of evoquing. Through the ages a lot of people had aspired to become a Muse, but they hardly really understand what being a Muse entails.

A Muse is not necessarily a person, but it can be an object, a place, and era, and it's not necessarily perfect or beautiful. A muse doesn't need to inspire love or be admired, only to sparkle up an idea for a story, a painting, a sculpture, a musical composition... The misinterpretation comes often from the popular literature filled with romantic "thought" and propaganda. Artists in love, or even artists eager to please someone, who worked around the apraising of the Muse, in an attempt to heighten their image, making it often into something the very Muse is not. A Muse can be the sparkle, like a plateau from which the thoughts, the ideas of the artist take off, can be the mid flight, requiring the artist to make the begining of the idea and the end, or can be the end result. Can be a simple component in a much bigger scheme, or a particle. the Muse might not be the whole person, the whole place, the whole time, but just a fraction of it.

It is little known, but the Muse can be negative. Something or someone that ignites hate, sadness, indignation. A writer writing about some despicable person has a despicable Muse, but this is an idea many often don't get, because the idea of the Muse is the idea of perfection to acquire.

Realizing this sheds a different light to June Miller and her relationship with Anais Nin and Henry Miller. She did became their muse, just like she wanted to, but for Henry Miller, she became a negative Muse, a flesh can full of disgusting features, ill manners, ill behavior. In his novel, Tropic of Cancer, he depicted her as a hateful creature that lived to leech, to spread her disease on those around her. Nutting attitude, never ending lies and poisoned fooling around for money.

Anais on the other hand, infatuated, desperate to burry herself in the world of beauty and ethereal moves, elevated her far high into the depths of surrealistic castles, offering her a few paragraphs in her House of Incest. There the Muse took the form of a rocking, loving child, paying tribute to the hips of her beautiful Muse.

None of them satisfied June, who believed that being a Muse meant her lies to become a book that would make them true. And yet she was a muse, a fine muse for wonderful pieces of XXth century literature.

It's All About The Name

Wonder what the hell is this? This is the e-card my boyfriend sent me for my "name-day", something Hungarians celebrate. Yes, today is my name-day, and this is one of the many perks of being Hungarian. He asked me whether I was going to throw a party. Well, first of all, I don't even throw parties for my birthday, less for a name-day. I'm not much of the "party-type" as I am of the "celebration" type. So, since in here nobody celebrates it, I was thinking about doing one of my ultimate favorite things in the Universe: celebrate it with the one I love the most: me.

So I was thinking that I could surprise myself with a little something, mostlikely on the line of books or something to write, since I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff, or something lovely and green. Then, for today, I was thinking in either taking myself to the movies or rent a movie. If I decide to go to the movies, I'll treat myself with a nice dinner at some place I like, like Ichiban, or Antojitos (in which case a tequila would be mandatory for the celebration), but if I decide to rent a movie, I'll go "spa" and treat myself like a queen, put on some face mask, do the whole shebang, get a couple of Smirnoff Ice Black and celebrate like the rich and famous.

Truth is... I'm flying up and high, still, envelopped by Anais Nin and her world. I'm feeling also a few stabs of deception, and that's making me colder, less caring... however, oddly, this time I don't care that much for my heart going cold. My mind, my mastermind, has prepared a suitable route fro this and all the little contracts, traps and conditions to detach myself from unpleasantries. I believe I can't change after so many years, and truth is, why should I? So far it has worked like I charm and I am not discarding it for the likes of others.

I am Anais Nin.

My Life, My Heart

Well, he went home yesterday, and it's funny how my heart, my body and my mind keep talking so long with him. My hand insists over and over on writing him letters even though my mind can't produce anything other than "Szeretlek" over and over and over. Yes, yes, I love him and I love him so much it's blinding. Once again I'm drowning into an existence dedicated solely to survival, not to life. The plotting of politics, the maneuvering among all kinds of deals, the fishing for information, turning into somekind of flesh machine, a moving doll that presents a fair porcelain surface but encloses darkness and cold inside.

Back at the office, things are as nice and fine as they can get. This existences goes on among technical blabbering, blogs, smiles at the spirited and heartfelt words of our cherished Dragonfly, the scents of violets escaping from some small jar somewhere, the dream of dancing grass carpets extended on a long, long, wuthering land, and ... again, Amazon.com. I feel so close again to Anais Nin and can't but hope and dream to taste her words again, soaked in her surrealistic words, where days and life are closed in a cage of cellulose, layered page after page in soft, ink-scented words and traces. The escape, the avoiding of this harsh, ripping world that has nothing to my taste. Close my eyes to the taste of ashes and live fiercely fighting like a blooddrunk amazon, bow and arrow in hand, killing before asking. Live, live, violently vital and happy, a deceiving mirage of the darkness within, where the child, the maiden, the woman slumbers in oblivion, locked in a bone casket awaiting for the moment to rise and shine.

I retrieve back to live in my head, in my heart, in my words. This is why I can write so much, because this is how I live and this is why I feel such a tremendous love for Anais Nin.

Introduction by a Snob, Ignorant Sycophant

You may think anyway you want, and I'm sure you do, but there has been no worse decision made by an editorial house than to let Mr. Karl Shapiro write the introduction of Henry Miller's «Tropic of Cancer». Through Anais Nin's diaries, I have come acquinted with Henry Miller and his rather interesting, "naturalist" approach to life. I wouldn't say that then I loved him and I thought all his words were made of gold, but I stared at him and watched him from a safe distance, as through Anais' sometimes affected, sometimes shaded, sometimes rebelious and open words reflected this hard eyed, German descendant, who would barely write but devoted a great deal of his time to take tons of notes taht would rest in heaps all around him, would be irresponsible with money, speding in whores as if they were a basic necessity of importance only surpassed by breathing, whines about his relationship to June and then simply stares and let people do his life. From love to hate to disappointment, to soft love and a fading sense of friendship soon replaced by other characters, you get to know a given Henry Miller that raises yous curiosity. So you wonder:

"Okay, who the hell must he be?"

Anais' diary is, after all, a diary plagued with the most subjective observations of the world, and after all, what is a diary or a journal but the very concentration and intensification of the subjective view of an individual? Perhaps the question of the diaries, or journals always tends to divert me towards this story I was writing a while ago, a fanfic, a Snockhart that broke the boundaries of NC-17, truth to be told, and where there's mention of three journals kept by a character, three that were kept with different purposes, but weren't even those subjective? So, from Anais' words to Miller's, I thought it was about time I found out the Miller in Miller, so I checked upon two of his books, which I ended buying. The question was indeed fascinating, as you have been watching him from Anais' eyes and you imagine vividly a true procrastinator, who gives so much to a way of organization, the building of a work environment that applies to his European roots, so fond of orderliness and structure, which he yet can't comply with as he's immersed in his Americanism, prone to temper tantrums, and chaos and lack of discipline by claiming "freedom" and the destruction of structures that "enslave the human" and so on, and with which the final result is the nothing: a lot of blah and no result.

But so he wrote a book, pushed and pulled by two women: Anais and June, though... was it so? Did June's endless lies did feed the story so he would write it, and did Anais' motherly persistence allowed him to finally materialize the book. Was it so? Was Anais' hand in the letters, guiding him to put together a decent book and not only a pile of notes? It was time to turn to Miller and see what does he has to say for himself in the book that was supposed to be the portrait of June, a counterpart of «House of Incest», where June was protrayed through the eyes of her female lover. Orderly, as I try to be, I started on the first page of the book, Miller's book, and read my way through the Introduction. >_< Pfwaaaaaaaaaa!!!! You do better skipping it! Put together by Karl Shapiro, the words of an ignorant sycophant rain over you profuse of lists of authors and books and turns and turns around flourish that say nothing, anchoring in profuse quotations of the author himself, is a clear attempt to imitate Miller. Disgusting.

Why do we need to know the list of books Miller or Shapiro have read or the artists that lived or accounted Miller among his friends, or have snippets of Miller's passion for the phenomenon of Rimbauld and then ADD the list of poets and artists that lived in the time of Rimbauld? I stare in the book into the words of an ignorant, no better than the people who surround me on daily basis, who pretend to know by puking long threads of memorized snippets of great names with big words and self-important attitudes. Through thirty-too-many pages this ass-sucking dickwad vomits gouts after gouts of showy phrases that hardly connect to a point, but try unsuccessfully to encompass Miller, his work and present his love for Rimbauld's work and life as an "amazing parallelism" that do not exist if not in Miller's aspirations and half intended desire to imitate. Yep, I see Miller giving up women to fuck men in the ass and pretend an adolescence way up in his 30's and sit down to write poetry. Admiration is not reincarnation.

Shapiro misses all the signs and in the swirl of it, he misses also Miller and his work, spinning words and attempts to show his own "intellectuality" failing so miserably that ends up giving the book a sour, regurritating taste of bile. Anai's prologue smothers it somehow with delicated words and soft praise of her friend, with a shy apologetic smile on her lips, lowering her head and seeking to fit him in the frame of her dream world, imagining the crowd composed by an endless number of clones of herself that would not understand raw words if there's not a prior love for the writer. She might be looking back at her diary and guiltily thinking: "I wrote it was ugly... I tried to make it right, but the truth in me is that I hate it because it is so unaesthetical."

I'm amused. I snort carelessly, frown and face him:

"C'mon dude. Do your worse."

Quick Notes: Surreal Awakening. The World of Feelings Anais Pioneered. Hatred is All Consuming

The access to the editing and creating of entries is still blocked. Why must it be so?

I have not yet ordered my next volumes of Anais' journal, and I'm already missing reading her. « House of Incest » is beautiful. Someone talked about surrealism and The Clockwork Orange and 2001: Space Odissey of Stanley Kubrick were "too surrealist". I can't but pity him. What kind of poor sould, lacking of the skills for insight and meditation can't enjoy the lax embrace of surrealism? I have found that surrealism wraps around me, and that I can touch meanings embedded in the flowing, liquid words, where emotions, actual feeling and emotions and internal turmoils are finger- and brush painting upon pages with overflowing aquarelles that run over the lines of material definitions, make semantics escape the closeted, solid world of "things" and "facts of the matter" and become the giant array of meanings of the emotions. The warm ignorance of unknowing things, of learning them from books and words, but not by the rubbing on the flesh, the touch, the gust of air trapped midway in the throat, the flaring of nostrils and the widening of eyes. The dropping of eyelids and the tingling od the skin. The feelings that surpass fear, joy, apprehension, aversion, happiness, hate, excitement. Travel and travel into the dreams, past the meaning of Atlantis to the meaning of the water surrounding and engulfing the dreamstate where the turmoil swirls and reigns.

I feel understood.

I miss her.

Ma belle Anais.

Sunday I finished a journal book. I'm carrying a new one in my bag, which still bears no words. Not yet. My thoughts are growing and becoming ripe. I'm filled with so much deception, so much hurt and anger, and I do not wish to start a journal rattling about such things. It took me seven days to complete my reccount of such terrible happenings, and I cried every second for giving my dear journal's last, innocent pages to such wrath. It felt so bad, but I had to take it out of my chest. My words, like poison ivy, ran up the inner covers of the journal and stopped short from pasting additional pages to complete in full, hateful and painful detail the entire length of my deception. Like a Book of Judgment, a reminder for the next time I place my confidence on someone, the next time I allow someone to reivindicate past mistakes. There are flaws of character that shall never be forgotten nor forgiven, for they have no cure. Immaturity is one of them. Hyne, such hatred keeps eating up my heart, as my mind places a finger on that page of my life. There have been others who have poked my tolerance this week. Impertinent proding into my personal life, details that are not as starstruck as outsider, ignoring eyes would hope them to be. Sucking for inexisting words, for concepts and stories that would match twisted, sick, preconceived. misogynistic ideals of unnatural, primitive, deceiving, selfdenying romanticism. The anger again, the hatred. What do you think? How many times must I ask you to wake up and smell the coffee! The youngsters rush head first into their own deception. Old I am and I stand on my mountain, my rock after smacking my staff on their hard heads that would never listen the words they wish not to hear. Misplaced goals and grandeur. "Talk to us about life, Master". "Feed us with your experience on sex". I keep my tongue. Words are futile for those who wish not to understand them. Even silence falls on deaf ears.

I understand now why so many youngsters commit physical, intellectual or emotional suicide.

I look around me then. Yes, I could have been diagnosed as psychologically unhinged, but I am not dead. When I walk among men, I walk among walking deads, zombies by choice. The stench of their death, rotting upon their skins and minds chase me with the disgusting tones of imbecility, ignorance, irrationality, uncare, shamelessness, corruption, immaturity, unawareness. There was a mind in each of these heads that was widely awake once. I weep and mourn the death of so many ideas and believes. I mourn the death of human sincerity, the honesty towards oneself. I weep for the loss of touch with teh self, and in each corpse I mourn the mangificent, delicious person that could have been, from which I could have learned and which I would have loved so dearly. From close and from distance, I love violently those few still alive. My fingertips touch my lips and I mutter a prayer in deep gratitude for the glimpse of them I have gotten. Their live minds are the lanterns that light the dark waters of this unforseeable river of life. Lo there, they make it so beautiful. I love each of them, for they make life this beautiful river of floating lanterns and dragonfiles that draw upong the factual and material world a beautiful surreal universe of delight. From my high, lonely, snow capped mountain that baths in thescent of shy, fresh grass and tiny wild flowers, and the scent of nocturnal jasmine, I find tremendous joy in the beauty still alive and drawing such excitement on life. I pity those who let themselves be dragged by the darkness that miss the glimpse of such a breathtaking sight.

30.06.2008. 9+10.19.9+1.10.1+0.1. I have started my Year One. Numerology once taught to us by a professor at the Economics university. Meaning? A hard year. It is strange though how this year has started for me with enlightment. I wrote to Sandy how I felt rooted in light and filled. Sense of purpose, direction, balance, style... all have flowed to me. Rocky economical start, but that can be easilly arranged, right? Practice simplicity, wisdom, selfcontrol. Rationality. My closet is bursting with clothes. I don't need any more. There are books that gather dust, which I don't like and have no purpose taking precious space of my so scarce shelve-space. Seek to sell them to a used book bookstore. Shed, shed, shed. My year is starting, and it is time to clean out all I have no need for. Save the sweet memorabilia, but let go of the clutter, of the excess that drags you down. Let it all go and start fresh. Weekends of sorting and throwing away and giving away, selling and dumping and keeping are ahead. So much work... it is time to tune and align everything in my life with the new premises that rule my mind. Time to institute changes at the office as well. Let the bunnies go? It is certainly I possibility I've been considering. Seek a more green&glass approach. A flow between the soft decontracté and the elongating, curling, stylized art nouveau. There's a world of posibilities open and I'm eager to fill my mouth with them, dip my nose in them and have them sting my gums. Like a wolf biting into life, a cat eating the soft flesh of light.

Life is Magnificent.

-- « Every schilling you save puts a man out of Work for a Day. »
- John Maynard Keynes

Notes After the Storm

I felt the desire to write today, a compulsive need brought to me by what I have read today, but as I was going to sit and write, a storm broke the sky darkening it, lashing deafening lightnings and whipping the air with harsh rain and winds. I was taken by fear, but not some psychotic fear for the storm, for I do love them, but from power shortenings, power cuts that could harm Omi. I should really buy him a UPS. I feared each second that a thunder would hit close and the power would oscilate and flip something inside him, breaking him beyond repair. I had turned him on, and he was working slow, Internet getting caught on him, and I couldn't make my entry. My hand was firmly around the cable, ready to pull it out and save him if the light as much as flickered. I feared terribly for my baby.

Today I had to wait for the storm to wind down, so I could leave my impressions of the day.

My first action of the day was to read Anais Nin's journal, as I don't seem to have enough of it lately. There's not enough time to spend with it, reading about her life and the life of those in her life. I read more about her tormentous relationship with her father, and her turbulent thoughts on the matter. Open admission of incestuos thoughts and desires. She starts her visits to Dr. Otto Rank, a former disciple of Freud. His ideas, as she exposes them are somewhat misogynistic, denying the woman's possibility to be an artist. He says, according to her, that a cured neurotic man becomes an artist, while a cured neurotic woman becomes a woman. The man has invented the soul, so women have no acces to the soul. He throws in an array of "conforting prizes" such as women having acces to intuition, instinct and such, emotion and feelings, while men are rational. I hated that description. Dr. Rank continues saying that no woman can be an artist, or a good one, and those few who have (by 1933) managed to create something, they do it thinking and creating as men.

I sense a basic contradiction in the words Anais transcribes in her diary, or her "sketchbook": for once, Rank breaks with the psychoanalysts because he do not "label", and concentrate on the artist letting each individual create their own world, not trying to fit them into one general, social world, as Dr. Allendy did. He says that traditional psychoanalysis goes almost all about sex, but sex isn't all. Okay, I stress that and confront it with this thing about "women not being like men". We are of the same species, why would be be so different if it is not due to the traditional social roles imposed to us? There isn't a male way of thinking, or a female way of thinking, there's just "thinking" and that's different for every person, may that person be male or female or none of the above. Certainly, I have no idea what's like to be a man, for if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I do not remember the times I have been a man. I know my perspective, being born in this gender, but I do not feel being bound, being different than my male counterparts. Well, maybe only when I'm with my period and I wish all male motherfuckers to experience the same discomfort, but if I were a man, if I'd get my balls hit, I would certainly wish for all the female bitches to feel the same discomfort. Male of female, I'd always be the same and I'd think the same way. Socially, I might not express it the same way, but I don't see why would I think, act or feel differently. There are things that do not depend on a pussy or a dick-and-balls, and they are a lot, so why would they be different depending on the equipment you have between your legs?

What makes a man different from a woman? What would make their thinking different? You can't say that the man is a natural "provider" who from ancient times sought to protect the family and the turf, because women do that too. Look at all the single moms out there, or look at all the single women doing great. You can't say that women are softer and caring and the heart of the family, because there are single dads out there, and a lot of men care, even if they don't have a family on their own, they care for their pets or plants just as the traditional woman would. Ways of thinking? Yes, yes, I have said that men think within a digital frame with only two values to express all thoughts: sex and no-sex; while women use an "analogue" system with a wide arrange of values, all of which represent different feelings, which they use to express all thoughts. I do not deter from this, BUT this is a social programming. Men are brought up repressed from all values, forced into the digital system, while women, socially repressed from the "sex" value (they must be virgins, not whores), are pushed into the analogue system. But the thoughts, the core of thoughts are the same, aren't they? It's as if men were taught to speak French and women were taught to speak German. The language, the protocol is different, and it might not allow direct communication, BUT it doesn't mean that the things both of them express aren't the same, or similar.

It's the social protocol what takes us apart, but under this, we are all the same. If we could only stop thinking with our sex and use it for what it was intended, for fucking, life might be so much uncomplicated.

Another thing bothered me deeply. Rank also demanded Anais to stop writing her journal. What's wrong with this people? Is it that everybody thinks that what they can't see is all about them? Ugly stuff about them? I keep a journal ans I have taken to carry it around with me werever I go. I would feel at loss without it now. Leaving it at home, by my bed, would drive me insane with unease.Not because of the things written in it, fuck, it's all in Hungarian, but because what would I do if I want to record something at some moment and I don't have it with me? As it is, most of my entries I do when I'm not home. At lunch, at a seminar, while waiting for a meeting, during a power failure at the office, while waiting for something to download, for a printing to be done, waitign for someone, when I'm alone at the mall (which I actively seek)... what would I do if my journal were not there? What harm do these doctors see in the journal? Her journal might not be different from any other journal written by anyone else.

I think these doctors feared the secrecy of the journal. Some paranoid feeling might have taken over them, fearing to see themselves portrayed in those pages in a way different than the way they are. Thoughts are fine as long as they remain locked in people's heads and they don't speak them, but when they are out, and the image one have of other materializes and it is realistic and do not fit the image people have of themselves, they feel threatened. Might be a natural reaction, but are not people entitled to have their own vision of the world and their own vision of others? If someone who hates you thinks poorly of you, you retaliate by doing the same, but then again, that person hated you in your face and you expected the ill thoughts, but what happens when a friend, someone who has been nice to you thinks ill of you? Many consider that treason. Treason, I say? Why should anyone think only positive things of their friends and acquintances? People is human and they have their flaws you don't have to love. What if you recognize them and even point them out or down right hate them? Why should anyone accept someone fully? I hate stuff from my friends, and I vent about it in my journals. Why not say it into their face? Well, not all social bonds can take negative comments. That's why. Compromising because there's more good than bad in a relationship does not mean that you have to accept the good, or ignore itor bear with it. Be human. Hate it. Express it somehow . Express it to yourself.

In her journals, Anais also dos something really stupid: she lies to herself. What's the point of that? She lies when she tries to explain why she does this or that, why she reacts this way or the other, or when she tries to explain her feelings, and the actions of other people. There is a chance that she's lying because she knows others will read her journal --- sorry, diary --- but then again, she constantly insist on being honest only to the diary. Is it so? No, it is not. She gives excuses to her behavior and the behavior of others. She lies to others in order to "give them what they want", as if people wanted lies, but then, is she lying to herslef to give herself what she wants? Shouldn't people go for what they want, and if it si impossible, be informed of that so that they can readjust their goals or live with it? All deceptions are bound to evaporate. You can't hold up a lie forever. Truth do not exist, but the facts and the perceptions of facts people try to cover with fabrications and lies eventually surface. There's only so far a lie can stretch. Lies, like everything human are limited.

Hoops & Yoyo

The designs asre ugly, I admit to it, but I can't get enough of them! Gara love them. Really. Do not posses anything with their mug on, but a friend of mine and I send Hoops&Yoyo cards to each other quite often. (Well, we used to send them far more often when I moved into this new building...) Hallmark, which is our "source of cards" of choice, has created a site for them with a lot of interactive stuff you sure can't download into your mobile just now (sorry GPRS), with a lot of links that send you back to the begining. Yep, back to Hallmark. Cards, gifts... they certainly don't have enough, if I may say so. What do you do with two mugs, two ding-dong plastic buttons and two termic jars? Hello people! There must be something more out there you ain't showing! For fuck's sake, this is the Internet, and the Internet is supposed to be more stocked up, have more variety than my local store! Nope. It ain't the case. So, will I be buying?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA !!

No.

Come on dudes! Show me some respect here!

It's early, but not too early. Have loads of job to do, and I have the feeling I did something extremely insulting and extremely exposing, but I can't remember what it was. Something I said? Something that came to light? It's like a memory was triggered by what I was reading last night from Anais Nin's journal. It was so... How can I properly express it? Well, se wrote about how she remained silent as Antonin Artaud, a very extreme character I would have never talked to from the begining, was acusing her of being an evil, deceptive person. Okay, her fault for going around waving lies upon lies to make people happy. Her fault for talking to that mental case in teh first place. From the begining, she tried to make frineds with him, though she thought of him poorly, but since he's an artist and all that, she wanted to know him better. It's something she took from her father, I believe. Anyway, the silent character turns out to be a terrible mental case that lives in nightmares, that suffers constantly and seems to seek this kind of life. In a way, Antonin Artaud reminds me of a friend of mine, Marc.

There's a violent need for a dramatic life, dramatic days and he must, must be the victim. Must be the outcast, the suffering, the one cheated on, the one who must close himself and remain a mistery because everybody is out there to take advantage of him, hurt him, because nobody understands him, and nobody fits really into the world he lives in. Artaud falls in love (or so he says) with Anais, and triest to have a more physical, sexual relationship with him, which she doesn't want because, though she likes him as an artist, truth is she doesn't like him as man. So she invents a story, but eventually let him kiss her... when he can corner her into it. Yes, right then I thought « WEAKLING!». I belive that if she would have told him face to face that she doesn't love him, period, that she appreciates him as a FRIEND and as an ARTIST but that's as far as her feelings go for him, then she could have saved herself a lot of trouble.

Artaud acused her of not loving her, of leaving him, of her feelings being shallow and whimsical, and that she exchanged him, replaced him with the love she has for her father, which, according to Artaud, is an abomination. (Well, Anais clearly has an Elektra Complex going on...). She remained silent, and according to her notes, denying nothing. Well, what else to do? Unless Artaud's outburst rends me speechless, I would have countered saying that I may have softened reality (actually, I would have never lied), but that he can't blame me for what he chose not to notice until it was way too evident. Then I guess, it's easy to judge from outside. At the same time, it made me think about a couple of things. Sometimes how hard can it be to tell something to someone?

As you age, as days go by, you can become more and more tough to certain things and flap down an answer to them. This is it and if you don't like it, like we say in Hungarian « fel is út, le is út ». ("There's also a way up, there's also a way down". It's a way to say: go anywhere you chose, just go.) One friend is having a hard time for a guy she likes but he ain't making the first step, and ain't giving her any clear signals of his feelings. Another friend is suffering also for a guy who is chasing her, who she doesn't find attractive, but he doesn't seem to undestand her subtle messages on the matter. A friend is suffering because the girl of his life doesn't want to acknowledge his love.

What do we do? We remain silent.

Unlike you would think, in some cases matters of feelings do tie up my tongue and I struggle and don't get to express myself properly, but I always seek to enjoy teh feeling, happy that I'm human, I'm alive and I can feel. Feeling ain't a curse, but a beautiful blessing that makes life richer. Every feeling should be cherished. Then again, usually matters of work is what tangle me the most. These are situations where I feel my losses could be higher than my gains, so I try to keep a balanced scorecard. But what about the rest? What about feelings? what about the one sided experiences that are killing us? I have only one thing to say: speak up. When we were babies, we cried for everythign we needed. What happened now? We subdue most thing, even unnecesary things, in hopes of things solving themselves, problems fading away, but this is not the way things go. Furthermore, there's a terrible social phenomenon that also adds for things, specially between men and women, to get particularly bad.

Traditionally, women are taught to be "hard to get". Never say "yes" at first. Women are systematically told to lie and lie, never to be honest, because honestly isn't a ladylike behavior. Men think that if they just persevere and press long enough, women will yield. But what happens when a woman says "no" and means it? There's no way she can express so. Women are told things that are expected from them, not what they really think, what they really feel. For ages they were even instructed to hide their brains, to suggest things instead of speaking them up front, so how do you know she's being honest, and when is she being "ladylike"? I don't wonder poor men find it hard to understand us, and then, when a poor christian finds his way to a woman like yours truly (and there are a lot like me), has no idea what to do or how to reaxt, because this bitch is telling him what she wants, what she things and no means just that: no. If you want something, someone, say it. Ain't no shame in saying yes at first, kissing in the first five minutes, hitting the bed in the first two hours, as long as you are clear with what you want and you are doing what you want.

I'm not saying it's easy, but wouldn't this be an easier world if you could come up front ans say thing as they are? The first step to being understood, is to speak clearly.

Misjudgement

I must wonder, have I misjudged Anais Nin's writings? I imagined her books and stories to carry on the overly romantic, idealizing style of her journals, but it doesn't seem so as I page through one of her book, "House of Incest". A strange title that gives you a whole world of wicked ideas (even more wicked now after the Fritzl case...), but it isn't so. Her writing is far stronger and collected, more unanimous and "imposing" than her journal. Her journal... her diary is such a soft collection of human flaws! Beautiful, yes, but HUMAN, human above all, with things that make you want to slap her in the face and tell her "oh grow up already!". Filled with insecurities and dark spots of which people usually keep silence. Well, it's a journal, and she takes the bravery of putting down things, admiting them to herself and then to the rest of the world. Would anyone ever dare to such things?

Judging by her journal, I imagined her novels and stories be just as candid, as soft and "boneless" as her entries. Soft and delicate, yearning to prove herself strong when she is soft and fragile, and aware of her nature, her image, she strugle yet to project a different image, an antagonic image without breaking the one she is and she has grown into. The eternal strugle between the human and its many masks. Who is Anais Nin? Which one? Is she any of these? Has she grown up from the girl that loved and feared her father? Has she evolved from her eternal, romaticized, bonding Electra complex? In the pages of her journal, she remains this XX century Electra, soft and caring, loving her father from far, scared of him, resenting him, ahdn yet yearning his aproval as she learned from her mother and her environment. But her books... in her novel she doesn't question "Who is Anais", but Anais is the axiom that defines the universe. Alpha and Omega, and she makes her mind and her vision into a ubiquitous rule inside vibrating pages of strenght and color, sophisticated words that wove themselves into the threads of forward, passionate energy. Beautiful, lifting. She don't question, she creates and defines and the world becomes a space thickly filled with her. You breath her, drink her, live her and eat her, and there's nothing but her, so hard, so strong so there, it is impossible not to see her big and dominating, managing that perfect balance between far and sophisticated with ubiquitous and self assured.

If June would have met this Anais, the story would be different. Oh Anais, why couldn't you be more yourself?

Buckle the Beer

There's this article on CNN about this dude in Australia who buckled up a 30 can carton of beer, but let a five year old unbuckled in the car. How could someone do that? Easy. People think like this:

1. The kid has arms to hold himself. The beer has no arms.
2. The kid can think and take care of itself. The beer can't.
3. I can tell the kid to sit tight and behave. I can tell nothing to the kid.
4. I had to pay to get my beer. Kid came for free.
5. After I had the kid, I had to pay for it. I paid for the beer and after that it's only free pleasure.

Fuck yeah more than one motherfucker would secure the beer!

I think it's not a matter of being horrified for this incident, but more a matter of realizing all the things we do we shouldn't because "nobody is looking" or because "it ain't as dangerous as people say", such as crossing highways on unmarked points with cars rushing up and down at full speed... with kids. Oh, I have seen that many times. Play with the kid in the car while you are driving and the car IS in movement. (My dad does that all the time, no matter how many times I tell him to keep his fucking eyes on the fucking road.) Get into the wrong line to cut some traffic because "nobody is coming the other way".

This from the top of my mind.

I still have like... oh well... 13-7= 6 chapters to go from the last season of Queer as Folk. After that I believe I'll be free to do as I please and take better care of my blogs, my writings and my friends. finished the book Roo left for me, "Bareback", and I must say, it wasn't that impressive. Really. Now I'm continuing with the Diary of Anais Nin. Forgot how nice was it to read her journals. Her image is so fragile. It seems to me she needs to be fragile and delicate in order to survive in the world she has embedded herself into. She seeks to be strong, but also stays away from actual expressions of strength as if the toughtness of it would mash the fragility of the persona she has built to be. Deeply interesting.

As I read her lines, I can't stop thinking of Carrie and Marie-Joséphine. Marie-Joséphine is definitively the "June" for her compulsive lying and her need to pretend to be someone she's not and Carrie is definitively the "Anais" for the weakness of her character, in what personality and behavior respects, but as we gain introspective into Anais' mind, she has a lot of other people I know. Mostly Carrie, even in things such as her need to evade direct questions and don't open up about who she is.

On the other end of the scope, the book I have been having trouble to read, there's "Suite Française", where a truly though yet refined Irene Némirovsky develops for us a word of burgeoise absurd in the face of the war, death and destruction of all posessions and symbols, where status is trying to be grasped, held by some tiny corner and carried through. Common sense is defied by prestige, image and social structures. Strenght can live in a woman without making her less a lady. A warrior, a fighter is not a bad kind of woman, only a different kind. In the books I have read of witchcraft (research for a novel, you mind), there's this idea of the "goddess" as maiden, mother and old woman. Kind of what we all women are, and actually what we all are, as mankind. We are all the maiden and the lad, the mother and the father, the wiseman and the wise-woman. However, the world wants to see only the maiden and only the lad or the father. All other aspects of people are nicely tucked away. Anais talks about the strong woman she is or has inside, which I perceive more as a survivor rather than an out-there fighter. Certainly not someone to lead a manifestation, but someone to hold together a team that needs to get through something. Irene is both a survivor and a keen observant, a pointer, like a sniper that can't get herself to shoot. But her eye is on the target.

Books written by women have a taste... such a taste!