Loose Leaf Notes

1. I was juggling 3-year-old Bryce and his baby brother in my lap, along with a book that Bryce asked me to read. Being uncomfortable, I was reading quick and going through the motions when Bryce interrupted me. “Nana, you’re different,” he said concerned. Turned out that he didn’t approve of the way I was reading, so I started reading more slowly and with more enthusiasm until all was right in the world again.

2. It’s interesting to me that my cutting back on caffeine has coincided with my cutting back on the writing projects I’ve taken on this month.

3. In my fantasy life, I have a walk-in closet, but I suspect that would be a dangerous thing. The more we pile-up – of anything – the more work we’ll have digging ourselves out. Sooner or later we have to emerge from all our choosing and sorting, defining and refining, and give back to the world what we’ve made of it all. ~ From my poetry collection Muses Like Moonlight

4. As a writer, I sometimes cock my head slightly back and squint my eyes when I’m looking for the just right word for a poem.

5. I’m better at moving words around in poetry or prose than I am at moving furniture in rooms.

6. Pablo Picasso’s first word was the Spanish word for pencil.

7. “Poetry is one of the oldest expressions of human speech. It has the lilt and hammer of godspeech, ferrying dark truths through our minds prior to thought.” ~ Brendan MacOdrum at One Stop Poetry

8. In pagan Ireland, a poet or filid spent seven years inside a darkened singing-hut, listening and repeating the tales; a poet was not allowed to write a single line of his or her own until they could sing every tale of the tribe.  ~ Brendan MacOdrum

9. Sometimes I can feel the muse’s nearing presence as a sense of weighty tension. And then something snaps and the barrier is broken. The rhythm of language, like the rhythm of a rainstorm, is the only thing I can hear. My pen douses wildly on notebook paper. My keyboard pounds out a beat. I try to keep up, get out of my own way; the writing starts writing itself.  ~ From Muses Like Moonlight: The Downpour

10. I watched the TV show “Love Bites” based entirely on THIS opening theme music. In my opinion, the show didn’t live up to the song.

11. Seen on Facebook: Nixon raised the debt ceiling 9 times for a total of 36%.  Ford raised the debt ceiling 5 times for a total increase of 41%. Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times for a total increase of 199%. George H. W. Bush raised the debt ceiling 9 times for a total increase of 48%. George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling  7 times for a total increase of 90%. That was okay. They were Republicans.  More HERE.

12. For some surprising fun, check out your awareness skills with THIS test and tell me how you do.

13. The video that goes with today’s 13 photo is HERE.

Visit the 13 Thursday headquarters HERE.