13 Thursday: The Downhill Ride
1. Number 90 on my “100 Things about Me” says, “My energy is like a ball I’m trying to keep up. If it falls it stays down for a while.”
2. On my first day home after my twelve day trip to visit my family on Massachusetts coast, I didn’t have the strength to unpack. Forced to spend a good part of the day in bed, I read most of the 2008 We’Moon that had just arrived in the mail.
3. We’Moon is described by its creators as an “astrological moon calendar and ecofeminist appointment book that contains inspirational art and writing by womyn on the growing edge of international womyn’s culture.” The theme for this year, arrived at by drawing the Justice Motherpeace tarot card, is “Mending the Web.” It’s a stunningly beautiful edition with colorful art that jumps off the page and moving words that inspire activism and make me feel proud of the contribution that women make. See it HERE.
4. This excerpted quote by Marcia Starck especially struck me: “My great-grandchildren ask me in a dream, What did you do when the world was unraveling?”
5. Gloria Steinem has coined the term “prick flicks” as a counter to the characterization that films that women watch are “chick flicks.” The term “chick flick” is often used as a way to describe a movie not to be taken seriously. But Gloria points out that they are about “how people live instead of how they die” and that we should get our priorities straight. The rest of this thought provoking article is posted on Bonnie’s Book Blog HERE.
6. I took the skateboarding photo of my sister Tricia’s son, Matty, the day before I left Massachusetts. Tricia has two blonde sons like me, but because I’m fourteen years older than her, my sons are as much as fifteen years older than hers. I used to call my sons the “prototypes,” and hers the “prodigies.” And now hers are big into skateboarding just like my sons were at their age. 
7. Although I never rode on the Paragon Park giant roller coaster in the beach town I grew up in, I was brave enough (or crazy enough) to skateboard down Fort Hill in Hull Village with a homemade skateboard made with wheels that I took off a pair of roller skates. View image“> LOOK what stands where the Paragon Park roller coaster used to be.
8. My brother Jim’s daughter Val (in photo number 2 HERE) is a bartender in a trendy club in Boston. She is tall and lean with long dark hair, wears black eyeliner and tight low slung jeans with a silver studded belt. At our recent family cook-out she was walking around talking on her cell phone, which is when I started to call her the “anti-Paris Hilton.”
9. I have two poems in WeMoon 2008, THIS one and the first one HERE. And I’m excited to be sharing the pages of We’moon with the likes of Alice Walker, who contributed this year and said this about it: “I am thrilled to be a part of We’Moon 2008. I have been using your calendar for years and years!!!”
10. After a trip and upon returning home, I feel opportunities for big changes are opened. Not only do I feel like starting new projects but I’m ready to clean the house. I see my surroundings with new eyes, and some things I’ve accepted in the past, I no longer have any patience for. “Our house is too dark! Let’s put in skylights! Let’s make the windows bigger!” I begged Joe.
11. “You are destined to lead a religious cult full of people who paint their faces purple,” so says my virtual fortune cookie, found via Bonnie’s. I find myself hoping that this prediction isn’t part of the change I feel afoot.
12. While I was in Massachusetts, Joe spent another weekend helping my Asheville potter son Josh who is building large three tiered kiln on his property. Upon returning from Asheville, he spent the rest of the week as a staff member at a nearby week long mediation retreat for teens. Four other staff members stayed in our house. I met three of them briefly at the airport when Joe came to pick me up. They were flying back to California in the same plane I just got off!
13. In a past bio for earlier We’Moon journal, I wrote about my love of words, saying that “I like to break words down, expand on them, and read them in ways other than from left to write.” I never even thought about reading upside down letters until I found this flipped-out word generator (also at Bonnie’s). Who can read this poem that I typed in the generator about a downhill ride? ˙ǝpıls ˙˙˙ ǝɥʇ ˙˙˙ uʍop ˙˙˙ ƃuıpıɹ ˙˙˙ ʎoɾ ƃuıʇɟıldn ˙˙˙ s,ǝɟıl ʎq pǝllnd ˙˙˙ puıɥǝq punoɹ-oƃ-ʎɹɹǝɯ ǝɥʇ ǝʌɐǝl ˙˙˙ oƃ ʇǝl ı sǝɯıʇǝɯos puɐ ˙˙˙ ǝɔuǝpıɟuoɔ ou oʇ ǝɔuǝpıɟuoɔ ɯoɹɟ ˙˙˙ ʇsnɹʇsıɯ oʇ ʇsnɹʇ ɯoɹɟ ˙˙˙ ƃuıʍs ı :ʍɐs ǝǝs
Post notes: Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13’s are here.View more 13 Thursday’s here.
July 12th, 2007 11:17 am
Good for Gloria Steinem! I think that’s AWESOME!
I need to go away for a long time so that I, too, will be ready to clean the house! I’m getting there 😉
My fortune cooke: You snap your cookie open, extract your fortune, and read: This report is filled with omissions. Yup, sounds like me!
That flipped out writing looks like Russian LOL!
July 12th, 2007 11:22 am
Maybe it would do us all good to paint our faces purple…..
Love the datebook. I am going to need a new for 2008, this may be it!
Nice capture of Skaterboy! Love all the pictures from your vacation.
July 12th, 2007 12:05 pm
Glad I inspired parts of today’s TH1RT3EN. To see Chattanooga’s carousel look here: http://history.amusement-parks.com/tenncool.htm and here: http://www.chattanooga.gov/general_government/62_1727.htm
July 12th, 2007 12:11 pm
Love what Gloria called guy movies! I can’t wait to use that one on mr. kenju the next time he wants to rent a war dvd.
July 12th, 2007 12:19 pm
For a laugh, I always read my fortune cookie fortunes aloud and stick the phrase “in bed” at the end. The results are usually funny and a little bit dirty, too, sometimes. 🙂
July 12th, 2007 12:28 pm
Congrats on the poems! My fortune cookie says:
Your reasoning is excellent — it’s only your basic assumptions that are wrong.
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!
July 12th, 2007 12:30 pm
It sounds like you are all rested up now, ready to tackle big projects! (I am sure your husband is thrilled) A day in bed was just the ticket it seems. Enjoy your renewed spirit!
July 12th, 2007 4:29 pm
hey girlfriend, sounds like a wonderful trip…looking forward to finding out the big projects in your life this year. It’s good to see family. I finally got all mine together after 2 years and finally got to hold our first grandbaby.
July 12th, 2007 5:20 pm
I don’t know, I can see you leading a group that paints their faces purple. Maybe a Floydian version of the Red Hat Ladies?
July 12th, 2007 6:10 pm
Soudsnlike you had a great time. I get one more vaccation before the summer is up and that’s in New Boston…south of there I think.
July 12th, 2007 6:58 pm
Thanks for visiting my blog — ! Sounds like we have alot in common, but I’ve been an Illinois girl my entire life. Would love to see Mass some day — I hear Boston is an absolute must see!
Love your upside-down typing….that was great! Glad to meet you!
Lara
July 12th, 2007 8:24 pm
Hi Colleen,
I loved the pics from your vacation — and it seemed you were able to “go home again” so easily! I know that one saying is that you “can’t go home again”, but you proved them wrong! If I truly want to go home to where I grew up, all I need to do is get in the car and drive 15 minutes! Guess I’m not too adventurous — at least when it comes to living somewhere different!
And I know — that dress is so great. I’m just not sure if we are going to see “eye to eye” so to speak!
thanks again–
Lara
July 12th, 2007 8:30 pm
Cool TT.
July 12th, 2007 9:13 pm
Hi Colleen. Michele sent me tonight, but you know how I really feel about your writing: I don’t usually need an invitation. At least I don’t THINK I do 🙂
Your words on Hull and on the Paragon Park roller coaster really hit home. You could have been writing about Belmont Park, the old and now long gone amusement park that defined my childhood. It, too, has now been supplanted by anonymous condos. But every time I’m in town, I take a ride down to the site and sit by the water. I swear I can feel the ghosts.
July 13th, 2007 11:25 am
Hi Colleen
Michele sent me …
I’d hate to go home to where I was brought up. Luckily I don’t have to as my parents moved. Lucky you for being able to go back and for having good memories.
July 13th, 2007 12:14 pm
As always facinating TT filled with much to contemplate and enjoy…LOVED the Steinem artcle…And I think “prick flicks” is PERFECT!
How did you get those words upside down, Collen? You never cease to amaze me…..
LOVE WeMoon…!
July 13th, 2007 5:50 pm
If you’re that motivated about making big changes around your place, Joe is either going to send you away more often, or never let you go anywhere again! I love skylights. I’d love some right over our bed so we can look at the stars and maybe catch the moon.
That calendar is a neat idea.
July 13th, 2007 6:40 pm
The big project thing wears off pretty quick, but at least I write the ideas down on the long list of wishes. I have been weeding the garden and harvesting food. Thinking I need a maid.