If you’ll wait for me, I’ll tell you about my day — it was a lovely one.

Ghost ghost I know you live within me feel as you fly
in thunderclouds above the city into one that i
love with all that was left within me till we tore in two
now wings and rings and there’s so many waiting here for you

and she goes and now she knows she’ll never be afraid
to watch the morning paper blow
into a hole where no one can escape

Listen

We just watched Blood Simple, which astonishingly enough we didn’t realize was a Coen brothers film until the credits started rolling — a good sign, I think.

If I talk too much about this movie I will ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, and since I think it’s a brilliantly crafted piece of work, smart, well-paced and incredibly detail-oriented from start to finish, I don’t want to ruin it. What’s interesting about it is that it’s really not a film that’s about plot (although the plot is laid out well) or character, or meaning — it’s a film that’s about mood, above all. Every frame is deliberately designed to create a very specific mood, one of a certain strange kind of sinister beauty. I will say that it’s a fascinating experience to find your heart so often in your mouth, thumping with anticipation, when in a sense there’s absolutely no mystery in the plot — just a great deal of suspense.

Some wonderful moments: Abby noticing the dog in the corner of the room and its panting getting louder and louder while Marty tries to strangle her, Loren’s beat-up Beetle appearing suddenly in the window when Abby lies down to go back to bed, looking down on Ray in his chair through the rotating blades of the fan, the sound of the shovel scraping against the road as Ray stands over Marty, the blood spots coming through the towels on Ray’s back seat, those amazing beams of light shooting through into the darkened bathroom when Loren puts all his bullets through the wall…

…maybe I have ruined it after all. But probably you can forget everything I just said quite easily, and go out and rent this movie or put it on your Netflix list. If you’re at all a fan of films in which characters, caught in the mad tangle of their own misdeeds, keep pushing themselves further and further into horribly bad trouble (I know I am!), you’ll really enjoy this.

I asked Ross if he would pose for me last night, partly because I was trying to do something similar in a self-portrait session a few weeks ago and couldn’t organize a suitable camera set-up (I really should cave and get a tripod), and partly because I think he’s an absolutely gorgeous model, as y’all know. We have a lovely rich fabric wall-hanging in our bedroom (orange silk that thought it would one day be a sari), and I arranged Ross in front of it with his shirt off (not that it matters, but he was wearing jeans when we did the shoot). This is one we both especially like, because the way he’s holding his arms does delicious things to the curves and shadows of his back and shoulders.

It was mostly an experiment, but I’m looking forward to giving it another go soon. It’s difficult for Ross because he’s a natural ham, and what I tend to want is for him to show his serious, romantic, or intense sides without being overly dramatic. I think it helped that this time I mostly asked him to face away from the camera. He’s always excited when I photograph him, though, and it’s really wonderful to be able to show him how beautiful he is and that he doesn’t, in fact, always have to be a clown in front of the lens.

That’s one of the biggest reasons I like doing portraits in general; when it works — which it doesn’t always because I’m not always the best at keeping people relaxed — it can be really transformative. When I photographed Jenn and she loved the way the pictures turned out, I felt as if I had pulled her over to where I was, like I had said to her, “See? No, do you see? This is the way you look to me, and everyone who knows you — so full of grace and life.”

I just found this writing exercise I did last spring, when I was trying out things from a craft book I’d ordered. You might remember the funny little mermaid thing I wrote. I didn’t post the following, which I must have written a week or so later, because at the time I was still less than three months away from quitting teaching and it seemed too strange, too selfish, too something to share. I also didn’t have the energy to change the names in it, but now I do. I share it not because it’s any good — it was just an exercise — but because reading it thrusts me straight back into what it felt like to be in the classroom in the morning, watching my kids blaze in already on fire and not having any idea how to douse the flames. Too, it makes me realize how totally off-kilter my perception was at the time, and for months afterwards — how honestly terrified I was of those girls, for no good reason. I wish I’d had a little more courage, and then I’d have seen them for who they really were.

I AM GARCIA MARQUEZ

Write a paragraph to a page (150-350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices).

slam and danae blows into the room like a small tornado not yet eight forty am and already she is burning at her momma who sizzled a curse off the edge of a frying pan this morning and burning at ms reyes who won’t let her into English class until she apologizes for calling her a stupid bitch which she is and burning at that pretty little girl on the bus who looks softer than rabbits she can suck her tits all of them can the whole world danae is apocalyptic or maybe she is just hysterical with the sheer effort of all those long minutes without racing or screaming or throwing herself into the nearest likely sulk slam and coming in she sucks up shamari and joelle so she can whirl them into the center of her storm they squint against the dust and laugh like babies being swooped in the air but there is a thinness to their laughter because they know what it is like to be dropped slam and hanging up her coat danae knocks kaylynn way out into a cornfield somewhere comes back to get her so she can fling her down again danae is small and very dense she cannot be subdued with reason or love it is useless to argue with her or ask her why she does these things for danae is a tornado and tornadoes do not know why they blow

This post is for those of you who were thinking, “You know, that Meera, she really doesn’t do enough with her time.”

(I’m working on getting my name spelled right. ;-))

Later: All fixed!

My skin is bugging more than usual this week and I’m tired from work and extra-work work, and I’m feeling strombly so I’ve got no words for you right now (apart from strombly, which I just made up and am quite proud of). I’m going to go ask Ross if he wants to watch a movie before bed. I hope he says yes.

Oh, these are pictures I took of some power lines just before we went into the casino in New Orleans and won twenty one dollars on a slot machine. Mmmhmm.

Yeah. Still strombly.