Posted in Animals & Critters, Laughing, Nature, Personal, Photography, tagged anthromorphizing animals, Baby the bullsnake, bullsnake, pet bullsnake on May 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Baby was up and at it the other day. She almost seemed to be posing for me. She’d eaten a rat a few days earlier, and the sluggishness from winter had all but worn off.
Do you ever look at your animals and wonder what’s going on inside their heads? I do, especially [...]
Posted in Family, Gratitude, Life, Love, Memoir, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged siblings, the power of birth order, writing about birth order, youngest child on May 8, 2008 | 9 Comments »
I’m trying to remember how it was. I see myself skinny on the concrete driveway, dirty knock knees, a striped t-shirt, tiny bumps for boobs. Not only the youngest, but a young youngest.
I didn’t develop until I was 17, didn’t know about Kotex or tampons, although my older sisters told me about starting periods and [...]
Posted in Culture, Family, I Don't Remember, Life, Love, Memoir, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged firstborn child, middle child, mothers and daughters, superheroes, the power of birth order, the practice of writing, writing about birth order on May 8, 2008 | 12 Comments »
Yes, I’m a firstborn. With all the flaws, rights, privileges, and responsibilities that go with being a firstborn. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Hmmm. JFK? No, it was Peter Benjamin Parker. Spider-Man.
Maybe it should read, “With great responsibility comes great power.” Either way, there is an ethical piece, a balance between burden and privilege.
Firstborns [...]
Posted in Family, Growing Older, Life, Love, Personal, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Writing, tagged aging parents, caring for aging parents, red Ravine Guests, Seeded Earth, writing about growing older on May 5, 2008 | 37 Comments »
By Bo
Growing old? I can handle my getting older. I barely notice the days sneaking past. But then I barely noticed the days creeping past my mother, either — she lives 300 miles away and has always maintained her independence. Then there was a death in the family – a dear aunt who was the same [...]
Posted in Body, Bones, Death, Life, Nature, Personal, Seasons, Skies, Writing Practices, tagged April full moon, changing seasons, Frog Moon, Pink Moon, spring in Minnesota, the practice of writing, writing about the moon on April 29, 2008 | No Comments »
I was torn. Pink Moon, Frog Moon, Moon of the Greening Grass. I liked Flower Moon and Broken Snowshoe Moon. I imagined fumbling out of a leather strap on an antique snowshoe, ice jamming the buckle, stepping out just long enough to sink knee-deep into what’s left of Winter. But it is the Frog Moon [...]
Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Family, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged confessional, confessions, motherhood, the Catholic church's view on birth control, writing about sins on April 22, 2008 | 6 Comments »
All day long I put off writing about sin. I wonder, would I think more about sin if I were sinning? I’m not kidding. I believe that if I were plotting to murder, sin and sin’s consequences would be on my mind.
I wonder if murderers really do confess to priests. And if they do, if [...]
Posted in Culture, Jugular, Life, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, Structure, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged 7 Deadly Sins, 7 Holy Virtues, writing about the 7 Deadly Sins on April 21, 2008 | 14 Comments »
Of the 7 Deadly Sins, I find Lust and Wrath to be the most harmful to humanity. That may say more about me, than it does humanity. Lust to excess leads to unseemly, crass actions. I am stunned by news programs where a bait is placed on the Internet and some guy shows up at [...]
Posted in Art, Doodling, Love, Personal, Photography, Poetry, Secrets, tagged fashion, Italian shoes, odes, Pablo Neruda, pink shoes, style on April 19, 2008 | 28 Comments »
Pink Shoe, pen and ink and marker paint on graph paper,
doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
It’s not the first pink shoe I’ve loved.
The first would be a pair I bought for $3 at a garage sale. Nineteen-forties, pointy toe, with a bow. Still in the original shoe box.
“Love” is too strong of a word. That’s [...]
Posted in Body, Bones, Death, Dreams, Family, Growing Older, Life, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Place, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Vision, Writing Practices, tagged cemeteries, honoring the dead, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, mirrors, the practice of writing, the process of aging, visiting graveyards, writing about growing older on April 11, 2008 | 22 Comments »
I’m looking at my ruddy face in a small, round, silver mirror. I look older than I remember. Thick eyebrows, salt and pepper hair; it looks the grayest to me right after a haircut. There is something about the way it lays across the black plastic smock, and falls in shredded pieces on to the [...]
Posted in Architecture, Art, Culture, Family, Fotoblog, Laughing, Nature, Personal, Photography, Place, Seasons, Skies, Structure, Vision, Weather, tagged Art Shanty Projects, David Pittman, Medicine Lake, Peter Haakon Thompson, The Art Of Ice, winter in Minnesota on April 6, 2008 | 10 Comments »
The Face Of Winter, Medicine Lake, Minnesota, February 2008, photo
© 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
When photographer Peter Haakon Thompson came up with the Art Shanty Projects in 2003, he never meant for it to become a huge event. The original plan was to take a break from work, build his own ice shack, and [...]
Posted in Life, Personal, Practice, tagged art supplies, the practice of writing, tools of the trade, writing about tools of the trade, writing supplies on April 2, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Van Morrison is on in the background singing, They Sold Me Out. Later…Jools Holland. The sky is lit up at 7:51. A few months ago, dark by 4pm. I’m thinking about Mrs. Blume, my 4th grade teacher. She said her son, Jules had a crush on me. Why? Because my hair looked like Patty Duke. [...]
Posted in Art, Dreams, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged art supplies, the practice of writing, writing about tools of the trade, writing supplies on April 1, 2008 | 22 Comments »
I always wanted to work with my hands. Maybe that’s why I buy so many art supplies. I have a Pentel paint set I once bought in the Tokyo airport. The paints are like pastel sticks that you use to draw on paper. Also in the set are brushes on the ends of plastic tubes. You put [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Nature, Personal, Place, Practice, Recall, Seasons, Silence, Skies, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Ali Selim, March full moon, spring in Minnesota, Sweet Land, Will Weaver, Wind Moon, writing about the moon on March 29, 2008 | 10 Comments »
All is quiet in my home. I am staring out at wind rocking the trees. Mr. StripeyPants curls up on the wool blanket beside me. I connect to something wild in him. I’m reminded of my March practices – mandalas and writing about the moon. Where has she been hiding? I don’t remember seeing her this [...]
Posted in Body, Death, Essay, Family, Gratitude, Jugular, Love, Personal, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Writing, tagged Bob Chrisman, death of a mother, hands, honoring death, red Ravine Guests, writing through pain on March 27, 2008 | 28 Comments »
By Bob Chrisman
I took a photograph of my mother’s hands before the visitors arrived at the funeral home. When she was well, she cared for her hands and nails everyday, but that stopped in the nursing home when she lost the strength in her hands and arms. Her nails grew long and dirty. That bothered [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Family, Growing Older, Laughing, Life, Nature, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged bugs, doodlebugs, humans & nature, insects, memories of bugs, the practice of writing, writing about bugs on March 25, 2008 | 10 Comments »
There is a lot I don’t know about insects, spiders, and bugs. I do know they are connected to memories, sometimes traumatic memories. I had no idea my family had so many connected memories about bugs and creepy crawlers until this Writing Topic was posted and I started reading their comments. Memories are part of [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Family, Nature, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged arthropods, bugs, insects, writing about bugs on March 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I don’t know much about bugs. Not their scientific names nor which ones are considered to be insects and which are not. I think insects are a subset of a larger group called arthropods, of which spiders are also a subset. And I think there is something about a bug’s body — how many sections [...]
Posted in Family, Growing Older, Life, Personal, Practice, Writing Practices, tagged writing about mess, writing as a practice on March 18, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Something about Mess nags at me. I can’t put my finger on it, although I know it has to do with control, wanting a perfect life. Wanting nothing to get out of hand.
It’s not me, I’m not a tidy person. Although there is something there as I age. A desire to finally and at last [...]
Posted in Culture, Jugular, Life, Love, Nature, Personal, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged making politics a spiritual Practice, March snowstorms, order & chaos, the Zen of flat tire repair, Turkey medicine, unity for the good of the whole, writing about mess, writing as a practice on March 18, 2008 | 7 Comments »
The world is a messy place. My home? It is messy in spots, little corners, under the living room table, around the computer desk. It finds order when we clean. And returns to chaos again. I usually recognize an order to the chaos. I manage to find what I need. I’m staring out the window [...]
Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Family, Growing Older, Laughing, Life, Memoir, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Photography, Place, Writing Topics, tagged ancestors, cemeteries, epitaphs, excavating memories, family history, names, researching memoir, Shirley Ellis, the name game, what's in a name, writing about names on March 13, 2008 | 42 Comments »
I continue to pore through photographs and tapes of my trip to Georgia and South Carolina last summer.
“What’s taking you so long?” Monkey Mind yells from the wings (grabbing every opportunity to scratch his haunches).
“It’s a slow process, excavating the past,” I soberly reply. “Don’t rush me.”
Family history rises from the rich, black compost - memories, stories, [...]
Posted in Art of Rebellion, Body, Culture, Growing Older, Labyrinths, Life, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged mandalas, memories, Tattoo You, writing about tattoos on March 10, 2008 | 12 Comments »
I thought about getting a tattoo. In my 40’s. I changed my mind at the last minute. It was going to be a lynx. Yeah, the puffy jowls that look like Kiev’s. When you brush her hair back, her face is thin and pointy like Chaco’s. But naturally, it’s wider at the edges than it [...]
Posted in Jugular, Memoir, Personal, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged writing about risk on February 29, 2008 | 21 Comments »
I take a risk when I write, period. Risk that I might say something I can never take back. Risk I might say something that someone will recognize, like the time I wrote about going to the Taj Mahal with R. How we met in the lobby of our hotel before sunrise, and how I [...]
Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Life, Nature, Personal, Practice, Seasons, Secrets, Skies, Writing Practices, tagged Bone Moon, cabin fever, February Full Moon, Lunar Eclipse, Nature's secrets, Raccoon Moon, Snow Moon, winter in Minnesota on February 25, 2008 | 19 Comments »
The Full Snow Moon was bright, then blood red, the last Total Lunar Eclipse until 2012. There are many names for February’s Moon: Sleet Moon, Goose Moon, Coyote Moon. I even found a reference from the Sioux, Raccoon Moon. I thought of our resident raccoon. I bundled wool over exposed skin, stood outside in no [...]
Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Dreams, Personal, Photography, Practice, Reading, Structure, Writers, Writing, tagged Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott, book talk, Do You Let Yourself Read?, Natalie Goldberg, Sinclair Lewis, the practice of reading, the structure of writing, the value of staring into space on February 23, 2008 | 104 Comments »
Do You Let Yourself Read?, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I had a voicemail from one of my writing friends yesterday. She said she was frustrated because she wasn’t giving herself time to read. Last year, she had structured it in: made a reading list, read the Classics over [...]
Posted in Body, Bones, Nature, Personal, Practice, Seasons, Things That Fly, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged feathers, Great Greys, osprey, raptors, writing about feathers on February 16, 2008 | 8 Comments »
The last feather I saw was a curved downy fluff next to Mr. StripeyPants on the bed. The two comforters are filled with the down of the goose. One is cinnamon, new and soft and fresh. The other, faded pink, old and wearing thin. We have patched the mauve one several times. But alas, there [...]
Posted in 25 Things, Family, Holidays, Love, Personal, Practice, tagged Valentine's Day on February 14, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Valentine’s Day is almost over.
I meant to say how much I love the simple act of acknowledging the day.
I meant to talk about how it seems that when we were little, the cards we gave to our classmates were so much bigger than the cards my girls bring home today. How much I loved coming home [...]
Posted in Body, Growing Older, Personal, Practice, Recall, Writing Practices, tagged body hair, Christine Swint, Desmond Morris, hair, Persian threading, The Naked Ape, writing about hair on February 12, 2008 | 32 Comments »
By Christine Swint
Whatever grows out of this pen, the ink, the spidery words trailing across the page, grow out of me like the hair sprouting from my scalp. The words are connected to my brain only in the instant the pen touches the paper, the same way that my hair is a part of my [...]
Posted in 25 Things, Culture, Essay, Jugular, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Structure, Vision, tagged A Presidential Primer, Barack Obama, get out and vote, Hillary Clinton, Minnesota Caucus, MPR Select A Candidate, politics in America, Super Tuesday States, the politics of primaries, the structure of U.S. politics on February 1, 2008 | 61 Comments »
New Mexico To Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I’m not a very political person. I don’t follow politics, and haven’t since my more radical days in the 1970’s. But this year has been different. I’ve been energized and inspired by the candidates on both sides of the fence. [...]
Posted in Body, Culture, Family, Film / TV / Video, I Don't Remember, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, tagged curly hair, hair, memories of hair, writing about hair on February 1, 2008 | 13 Comments »
I have brown curly hair. I am the only one in my family with curls. Not just waves, but corkscrew curls. People asked throughout my childhood: Who has curls in the family? The answer to strangers was: Her grandmother had wavy hair. To friends and one another, we joked: Her father was Zorro.
Zorro is what [...]
Posted in Body, Culture, Family, Growing Older, Life, Personal, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged hair, hair phobias, hairstyles, memories of hair, writing about hair on January 31, 2008 | 18 Comments »
I can’t stand loose, grubby hair on the bottom of my socks. I either go barefoot, or wear slippers around the house. But I rarely go barefoot (tender feet). So we’re back to the slippers. My slippers are (were) Minnetonka Moccasins I had for the last, oh, probably, 20 years. They finally wore through at [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Essay, Family, Love, Personal, Practice, Relationships, tagged black widow spiders, love of spiders, totem animals on January 29, 2008 | 36 Comments »
By Sharon Sperry Bloom
QM and YB got me thinking about what my totem animal might be.
I’ve always had cats, my whole life, and I’m uncomfortable without one in the house right now. I think we probably have exchanged a few traits along the way, like a love of solitude and sleep.
I love dogs, especially the [...]
Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Dreams, Gratitude, I Don't Remember, Jugular, Personal, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged discrimination, finding your voice, Martin Luther King, memories, self-discrimination, the 1960's on January 25, 2008 | 15 Comments »
I don’t remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not like Jim remembers. Jim was in 4th grade when Martin Luther King was assassinated. He says he remembers Walter Cronkite cackling over a black-and-white TV tube. I can picture the television, set in a blond wood console with long spindly legs. I can picture Jim’s dad [...]
Posted in Art of Rebellion, Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Dreams, Gratitude, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Life, Personal, Politics, Practice, Silence, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged Enrique Rivera, fighting the good fight, finding your voice, Human Rights, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, memories, Shirley Chisholm, stepping out of silence, Temple Grandin, the 1960's, Walking with the Wind on January 25, 2008 | 12 Comments »
I don’t remember Martin Luther King in 1962 or ‘63 when I was 8 or 9 or 10. I don’t remember him when I lived in the South. I must have been sheltered from all the strife and unrest that was going on during those years. I would not have understood.
I do remember him in [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Family, Nature, Personal, Practice, Writing Practices, tagged prayers answered, Raven the wolf, Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, Wolf Moon, wolves on January 24, 2008 | 8 Comments »
I didn’t notice the moon last night, too busy being sick, too busy eating coffee ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery, too busy looking on the internet for a chair.
Reminds me. Dad said his brother called with a story the other day. His brother, N., had wanted a new pair of Dockers but not tan [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Body, Bones, Death, Dreams, Gratitude, Life, Personal, Practice, Seasons, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged Bat medicine, feeling frozen in my tracks, January Full Moon, January in Minnesota, realizing your dreams, totem animals, winter, Wolf Moon on January 23, 2008 | 23 Comments »
The January Wolf Moon was wide and full, smeared across the morning sky the way an artist rubs a chalky finger across gray charcoal on paper. It was Liz that pointed it out to me, half asleep in the kitchen making coffee. By the time I got to the window, she was already out the [...]
Posted in Animals & Critters, Family, Food, Laughing, Personal, Random, tagged mouse in the house, Mr. StripeyPants, totem animals on January 20, 2008 | 42 Comments »
Mr. StripeyPants bolted off of his gentle resting spot, purring and catching some z-z-z-z’s on Liz’s side this morning. I knew he’d heard a noise. With the frigid, stony, -24 degree skies, and all the creaking and popping ice on the roof this weekend, I got up to see what the fuss was. The kitchen cabinet [...]
