|
ten4ruthie
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: ruthie
Birthday: 10/4/1976
Gender: Female
Interests: my family, this camp that we have the privilege of calling home, reading, knitting (scarves) and crocheting (afghans), being with my "girlfriends," finding treasures at second-hand stores, any time that I get alone with my husband... right now I think that sheep are interesting, and I'm even more fascinated with the idea of guineas... it also interests me to think that people actually like to read what I write... and i think that ellipses add interest to comfortable phrases...
Expertise: feeding people
Occupation: constant
Industry: that's classified information
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  ten4ruthie
Member Since:
4/7/2005
 True
|
|
| In the jigsaw puzzle on your basement table
(the one you started by candlelight last winter)
I'm the piece that belongs in the corner
over by the edge,
one in a myriad of
bits of cloudless sky blue.
If you notice me at all,
it's because my cardboard layers
are slowly separating,
loosened by a toddler's slobber,
nervous red fingernails, or
maybe the spreading condensation from a neglected glass of iced tea.
The first pieces placed are the obvious ones
the horse's face, the flashing scarlet of the woman's dress,
the stable, solid lines of the edge.
And then the frustration of placing the commonplace
using as a reference
uncertain, looping edges
that don't complete an object.
In my tumbled pile of blue I wait
for eyes perceptive enough
to make me fit.
If I could urge my paper fibers into motion
creep to the edge of this endless plateau of tableland
-wood grain showing conspicuously through the blue sky pure
in the hole that I leave-
and drop quietly to the
stains of the dusty second-hand carpet,
try out that existence for awhile...
Maybe then,
with the near-completion of a picture perfect scene
above me,
Someone
might drop to their knees,
crawl around in the grime
and with searching fingers
find me.
| | |
| I’m not a very ambitious person. I always wanted to - a) get married and b) have a baby - before I die, and I’ve done both of those things. But I don’t think I’m ready to go yet, so there must be something else that I’m living for. Here are a few things I’d like to do during the rest of my life:
- Celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary.
- Make memories with my grandchildren.
- Get my life in order enough that when I’m gone my clutter doesn’t cause my loved ones frustration. One of my favorite song lyrics is by Mary Chapin Carpenter: “The key to traveling light is to not need very much.” I want to not need very much.
- Make a pumpkin roll.
- Own a second vehicle – a nice little car that’s not big enough for the whole family. 
- Put together a cookbook and fill it with stories.
- Raise four teenagers who talk to me. (And the year I turn 40, they will all be teenagers.)
- I’d also like to turn out four children who are more spiritually sound than their mother.
- Organize my photos. (Who knows what that means.)
- Knit a sweater and wear it. (It won't count if I make it and hate it.)
- Have a file of letters to each of my children for them to read when they are older.
- Travel west with my family. I’d like to see the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, Old Faithful and all of those famous sites that feel out-of-reach to me.
- Finish the laundry.
| | |
| This one is beyond me. I don't doodle, and I don't write in notebooks. The only things I write by hand are shopping lists and the occasional card to a friend. I get impatient writing down something as simple as a telephone message - my handwriting is horrible in a hurry. Occasionally I decide to concentrate on improving my handwriting, but.... that never lasts long. I was never one of those girls with beautiful handwriting. (Although I have spent time analyzing people and their personalities and their handwriting. I have theories.)
My fingers love computer keyboards.
One time in college, I drew a picture of my hand that looked really good. It's the only realistic drawing I've ever done - probably the only one I ever will do. I have nothing else to say about that.
The only other possible way for me to correctly do this post would be to string together a crown from all of the daisies that I've doodled in my margins, plop it on the top of a smiley face and call it a princess. Then I'd send her on her merry way, down the swirling, looping lines of "hurry up and write, you good-for-nothing ink pen" scribbles. And when she leaves the room in a crumpled ball of paper aimed in the vicinity of the trash can, I can be done with her and all of this doodling nonsense at the same time. Have a nice day! | | |
| Wrong. I honestly have no desire to. Sex scenes ruin good books for me. It’s not something that needs to be discussed or written about. Sex is a definite (and good) part of life, but when it comes to literature, writing about sex is almost always unnecessary. It rarely adds anything to the storyline. When I mentally pull those parts out of the book, the story is just as good - if not better. Once sex is thrown into a novel, you’re no longer holding a book that you can read aloud to your whole family or leave lying where your bookworm son or daughter may pick it up.
One of the better books that I’ve read recently is also one of the books that I most despise - The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Neffeniger. The writing and character development were amazing enough that the book kept me awake at night, and even found its way into my dreams. But the author was so obsessed with the private (very private) life of the main characters that I was completely turned off from the book. (Unfortunately, I was so sucked into the story by then that I couldn’t just put it down.) I was glad to be reading the paper version of the book. There are few things worse than listening to a sex scene in an audio book. (Death by meteorite would probably qualify….) I do wish the author realized how incredible her writing is before she published The Time Traveller's Wife - she didn't need sex to sell her book.
There's lots more I could write about this, but..... I would just be ranting. This isn't a ranting blog.
| | |
|
Desperation
some days I'm grateful to you for loving me.
apart from you (I'm almost positive that) no one would ever look at me with desire, humor my sense of novelty, willingly wander down the rabbit trail of words that I bring to our late night talks.
only you would kiss me in the car in the parking lot at the motel 6 while we wait for the rain to slow enough for the wipers to clear the glass... then brave the wind and the mud for 2 scoops of Baseball Nut (which I feed to you as we drive down forever roads)
not a super nova romance, flaring brightly, gone in a moment, we are a river... swirled together with strong currents and dull, lazy stills... but lasting, long and long and narrowing down until one day when I look up and realize that it's just lonely me, trickling between two barren shores, (they are) empty from the loss of you.
don't leave me.
| | |
|
