Saturday, July 29, 2006

Ms. Anne's Encouraging Words

Ms. Anne consistently made encouraging comments on my old blog and now she's continued that practice on The White City. I can't tell you how this makes me feel. Right after I put The White City back up, I had doubts. Last night I sat at my computer for something like two hours composing a post which in the end I judged to be worthless. Today, I was haunted by the feeling that I had nothing interesting to say. I was worried I would start whining again. I considered deleting this new blog.

I got home from playing with penguins all day realizing how ridiculous I was being. First off, there are literally hundreds of penguin/aquarium stories rolling around in my head if I could just stop thinking about certain individuals who are no longer in my life for five, maybe ten minutes. In fact, I could start a separate blog called "Mock Turtle's Aquarium Life" and spend decades writing about that subject alone.

I was thinking about all this when I logged onto my email and found Ms. Anne's sweet comment. As she points out, comments really help a blogger along. It's so wonderful to know that someone else is reading and enjoying what you write.

Thanks a whole lot, Ms. Anne. Your comment couldn't have come at a better time.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

My Last Blog...

was called Mock Turtle's San Francisco Life. I purged and deleted it a few weeks ago. This new blog will be similar; it just has a new title. I've included my dream about the White City in case you're curious about the title, but I doubt it will shed much light on things. What to say? This time there's a lot to say.

Things like I missed blogging so much I actually started to ache from it. I'd wander around my City looking at things and wanting to take pictures so I could post them. Then I realized there was nothing to post to. I missed the writing. I've been doing quite a bit of writing lately which is great, but there's something so deeply satisfying about writing for an audience and publishing it here on Blogger.com. I don't know what it is. It's a different kind of writing.

I missed Mr. Gryphon, my imaginary friend.

I was supposed to go see the Buzzcocks at the Mezzanine tonight, but I skipped it because I wanted to set up this blog. No matter, I'm only out $24.

I kept going back to my purged posts. I have a 95 page Word document with all the posts I saved. It includes many posts I never published either because I never got around to fleshing them out or they were even more deeply personal than the posts I did publish. I love all those posts. I was so proud of Mock Turtle's San Francisco Life. I felt I had successfully created a world of my own, a world where my writing was capable of moving others.

While setting up this blog, I considered using a completely different persona and using a different URL, but must admit I've become fond of being Miss Turtle. Coming back here has a feeling of coming home for me.

I've learned many new things about myself since I've been gone these few weeks. Some of the lessons have been very hard indeed. I'm still spitting out my teeth from when they were kicked in. There's still blood running down my chin, but I've gotten better about keeping a steady supply of gauze around.

One last thing: if you think that my starting this blog shows a lack of integrity and/or consistency on my character, then you can go laugh and be mean somewhere else.

But if you want to sit for a bit and read because you're curious and/or because you actually think I might have something interesting to say then I welcome you to this space. The holes in my mouth will heal eventually and I have a good dental plan. Who knows what will happen later? Time heals everything, so they say.

Dream I Had: The White City (first posted 6/18/06 on SF Life)

I have vivid dreams, but lately have not been able to recall them. Last week, however, I had an odd dream I can't get out of my mind.

I dreamed my parents and brother went on a trip around the world and I couldn't go at the last minute (crushing for me since I've always wanted to travel). I can't remember why I didn't go. When they came back, I was talking to my brother about the trip and he remarked that he had to wait in line for three hours at a museum in Tokyo and how much better it would have been if I'd been there. The next part of the dream had me looking at a world map and plotting out a course.

Then I was on a huge ship and looking at a big city as we were going by. It was a lot like San Francisco, but everything was white including the buildings. It was a beautiful, magical place. I realized I belonged there, but the ship wouldn't stop so I jumped off the boat and swam to shore. The ship was far from shore and the water was cold. Also, I'm not a great swimmer and I was wearing about four coats throughout this dream for some reason so I was feeling really bulky. I kept swimming and swimming. I kept getting more and more tired and afraid I wouldn't make it. Finally, just when I thought my strength was going to give out, I put my foot down and made contact with the ocean floor. It turned out I was on the edge of a huge drop off and the rest of the way was only three feet deep. The City was still far off, but I was able to walk the rest of the way. As I walked, I slowly took each coat layer off as they were dripping wet and heavy. At this point I woke up, but I knew without a doubt I was going to make it even though I was cold and shivering.

Dream interpretation is very interesting to me, but I have not had much success with it. This one seems fairly obvious. I hope it's a good sign.

Test 1-2-3