Each day is special, because each day I learn a little more about who I am and what I like. And though it may be selfish, that has been really important to me lately.

This song floats over my senses like an airy curtain from a past life brushing against my face. Elton sings of a bridge of cold, hard iron, yet in his music I lose sight of iron realities and sense exclusively the past, especially that one day long, long ago when I stayed home sick from school. Driven by a sense I uncovered a huge stack of 45's in a back closet (I lived in a house of abandoned things and we had not yet explored every cranny). I found several of his and I listened. It was so special to me. I have never, ever felt so not alone while being alone. I remember the simplicity of that day as one of my finest.

This song is relatively new, but its sound hearkens back to that which invaded and shaped my developing senses, and gives me a bittersweetness.

Say hello to your future
I'm real pleased to meet you
You're a million miles away
Say hello to your lion's heart
Queen Victoria's circlet
You'll never ever be the same
Giddy-up!
(horse neigh)

Don't confuse your beauty with the insolence of youth.

I was saved by the enemy
That dare not speak its name.
-- Darren Hayes

I can sleep when I'm dead. -- my Starbucks barista

Darren Hayes' lyrics are among the ones that get stuck in my head.

This is the most important to me: "I believe forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness."

Opuntia polyacantha (Plains prickly pear)

Cryptantha

Argemone pleiacantha (Southwestern prickly poppy)

Opuntia macrocentra

Cirsium ochrocentrum

Lithospermum multiflorum

Labels: Flower Book

In memory of my grandfather, who passed away August 13, 2007. 

From my story Cambriel, in November 2006.

The next morning, I went out into the city alone.

The sky was gray and everything felt dead in the cold mist. Even though I was frightened of the rusty elevator, I stepped inside and lowered myself as I had seen Shelley do. Every time the wind blew, the cage swayed, clanging against the shaft, jarring me mentally far more than physically.

I knew a thrill when I stepped out of it. For once there was no one to check what I did. My mantle wrapped firmly around me, I moved furtively along the alley. I did not know where I would go—only that I would see this place that humans had long forsaken—and at a time when the werewolves would be at their weakest.

I crossed a deserted parking lot which weeds had mostly overtaken. There was one car which was dilapidated almost beyond recognition. Every available crevice was stuffed with straw where birds had made their nests. As I moved across the pavement, a vision came to me in a blinding flash.

I was carrying a heavy burden, my strength from a surge of adrenaline. A trail of blood followed me, darkening the cracked pavement with crimson. My mind moved from one thought to the other—from the past to the present—and I could see shifting images of horror and blood.

In the adjacent field I lay my bundle, then picked up a shovel and started digging. Blood covered the front of my dress. I moaned and wailed as I dug up the dry, dusty earth, wiping my running nose on my dirty sleeve.

It took hours to dig this grave. I had to crawl inside and trowel out the earth. I shook all over as I did so, barely able to suppress the scream rising in my throat. Shakily I crawled partly out, fell in again, then dragged myself onto the grass, dropping my head near the linen-wrapped bundle.

“My darling,” I whispered. “I failed you. Forgive me.”

Then I dragged the form into the grave as gently as I could and started covering it up. Tears streamed down my face as I did so.

The vision affected my physically. I felt it pierce my heart, and I began to cry senselessly as I made my way across the parking lot. There were no spots of blood on the pavement—as there had been in my vision. They would have faded long ago. However, in the adjacent field there was a pile of pieces of asphalt, mostly sunken into the ground.

I approached it, knowing as I did so that it was that grave—lain undisturbed for a hundred years. In it were the darkest of my memories.

Labels: excerpt

Gothic Beauty completely blew me away with this last issue. It has been a very long time since I have simply been awed by something. Every page is full of the beauty I desire most. The very last style shoot with quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne is the most stunning thing I've ever seen in the magazine.

I added several URL's to my to-do list. I need clothing, and I need beauty. I cannot remember the last time I felt so released to dream and revel in the stuff.

• Kestner bride/$99
• Victorian bride framed photograph/$99
• Decorative plate with German verse and floral design/$30
• Little cake-like dolls, one pink, one blue
• 1950's wedding cake decoration

Characters

Josette
Gabriel
Angelica

Setting

Post-apocalyptic urban setting

Werewolves live a lifestyle of secondhand elegance since the fall of humans. The last human is Josette, who learns that her former love Gabriel is a werewolf. To protect her from others who seek to destroy her, he brings her into his underground world.

Moments of conflict, decision
Decisions that change the course of the plot

Labels: story notes