jun 30th 11:21 am pm (pg 197 of 233)
at the pace im going i will be
done tomorrow,, maintain rick
humanity is depending on you
jun 30th 4:42 am pm (pg 192 of 233)
burnt the fuck out, crash landing, god im
tired, my mind has stopped working
jun 29th 9:07 am pm (pg 179 of 236)
pass through thiis by yeshua kloas
VEGGIES AT WHENGSHU TEMPLE
speaking of veggies, did I ever tell you about my experience at the wengshu temple in chengdu, my first year in china and I was tired of rice and noodles, I wanted some veggies and for a buddhist country veggies were hard to find, one veggie joint I heard about all the veggies were styled to be like meat and I don’t want my veggies to look / taste like meat, so there was this temple that they took us to and I often went back there, wenshu temple, plenty nature clad writing spots, and heard they had a legendary veggie restaurant but couldn’t find it and nobody spoke english, saw signs but no restaurant, so me and my TA went to find it, they had assigned me a TA to help with students, language issues and just getting around the city, in return I was expected to help her get to college in the states, recs and the like, we had a good relationship, she went w/me to help me find it, we wandered around the temple without finding it, later we found out they had moved it off location, down the street a ways, but then we only saw signs leading nowhere, I found a cafeteria layout with trestle tables, I was tired, so I sat there while my TA continued to look, soon there were bongs and such and folk started filing in, buddhist monks and layfolk, they sat, there was an open path down the middle, the monks sit on one side and facing them the layfolk and I of course was sitting among the orange clad monks front row, and Im not sure what to do but everybody studiously ignored me, acted like I wasn’t actually there actually, like I was an illusion, most of them I assume had never seen a black person before and there one was, sitting front row center, surrounded by buddhist monks, then we chanted for a half hour or so, me still trying to look like I belong, chanting away, and soon enough I got the rhthym of it and was actually chanting away, after the chanting done folk go get two bowls and some chopsticks, Im still sitting there, the only black in chengdu, folk consciously ignoring me when this old lady across from me decides she cant take it anymore and starts cussing me out in chinese, real hardcore, who let this foreign defiler in here, do you not see him sitting there - but no, shes not cussing me, shes chastizing the monks for their lack of buddhist hospitality, care for the stranger or something,- one quickly brings me bowls and chopsticks, I thank him, I thank her, then they bring out these huge containers of food, broccoli, tofu noodles, carrots, onions, etc, all the essentials, and ladle them into our bowls, a bowl of veggies and a bowl of sticky rice - Im in heaven, I dont even like tofu, because of the consistency, but the tofu noodles were to die for, veggie spaghetti was what it was, with mostly broccoli, my favorite, so Im working the chopsticks, not too well but whose complaining, my benefactor, thats who, she chastizes the monks again, in that irritated tone the chinese do so well, sound like they mad at you but not really - the monks hasten to bring me a spoon, I thank her again, a smile, a little bow, the hand over the heart, I eat my fill, god it was good, - so Im siting there, empty bowl and full belly, wondering what now when my TA comes back in and whispers to me we have to leave, you arent supposed to be here, she told me, I told them you were a buddhist, she say, like they didn’t know better - we slip out the back, me bowing profusely to my benefactor, smile on my face, smile on hers, everybody staring while pretending not to, buncha smilers showering me w/grace - best meal I had in the 3 summers I spent in china, in fact one of my best meals ever in life - I often wear prayer beads these days, for meditative moments, I often think of that meal when I do, remembering the grace of buddha
jun 28th 10:04 pm (pg 173 of 235)
ok, its so diff to step away from the zone
but im about to pass out from low sugar
im gone for real this time
jun 28th 9:09 pm (pg 170 of 235)
wow, 22 pages and still got day left and feeling
strong cause i only got 60 pages to go, 3 days
if ii can maintain the grind (4 if i cant)
only question then is do i then send it off as is
or do i let it get cold a week or so and read thru
it one more time, which will make it stronger
patience puppy, do it right, do it strong
keeping a record here helps keep me
focused to see the pg count growing
im gone, i have not eaten, i need food
im in the zone, where all you want to do
is work, dont want to eat, or sleep or
nothing, just want to ride the whirlwind
jun 27, 1:35 am (pg 148 of 238)
did not do 20, did not catch up, did 1 apparently
but i was able to get out of bed this morning
with neglible pain, so it is a pinched nerve
work wiith it, adjust sitting at computer
which i do like 10 to 15 hours a day
god Im tiired, maybe i need a day off
jun 26, 2:49 am (pg 147 of 240)
okay, 17 pages, almost 20, ima count this w/yesterdays
haul, now if i get 23 pages done today im caught up
i think it was a pinched nerve instead of
dreaded hip issues, i cant take another cut
so im changing my sitting routine and hoping
i have literally been unable too get out of bed in
morning because of the pain and have to move
leg around before Im functional, oh well . . .
im so tired of this memoir
im so tired of me me me - and daily
roller coaster emotional registers
that make the narrative worthwhile
it leaves me drained,
spiritually, mentally and emotionally
exhausted, every day and bored
the same thing hour after hour after
hour but i aint complaining dear
reader, i love the life
struggling w/the page
everyday, all day
you can do this rick
this what writers do
jun 25, 11:12pm (pg 133 of 240)
just 11 pages, take a
break, keep stepping
lost 7 off the top, that
means slush got cut
jun 24, 9:27am (122 of 247)
i had said i was gon do a segment every day
but i got self conscious about it, just did this one &
it moved me, couldnt get out of bed this morning
my hip was hurting so bad, had to use a cane
to get to bathroom, Im in decline, body a wreck
but long as the mind still good Im good . . .
--------------------
MFA GRADUATION: A CONV W/LING NA
I always use the graduation ceremony as a motivational speaker moment, trying to inspire and reassure my students, in particular the ones I worked on their thesis - most of the time I have to tell folk i dont think this draft is ready for prime time just yet, got to hit it again, full court rewrite, thats always a bummer, sometimes my frankness discourages folk, often my advice just alienates young writers and makes me feel like Im wasting my own writing time, trying so hard to be frank, easier to just stroke folk, but if you really believe in their potential you got to give it to them straight - hope they finesse it, take it to higherground, cause this a sacred calling this thing, and it will eat your life, cant let folk waste life and all soulwork it takes to write a novel, to put long hard and sacrificial years on a fantasy cause I didnt tell them the truth, my basic mode is to encourage encourage encourage, eyes wide open and in full knowledge of the odds - helping folk make books is a skill in which I have been trained, it is a skill of which I am proud - unleashing young talent is what I do, each unto self an army, and it has become my my hoodoo specialty, enable an artist you blessing them and everybody their work touches, but it is a very delicate process, fiddling with their souls like that - give them the wrong suggestions and they lose years wandering down side streets, perhaps never ever to find their way back to their true path - over at the schoolhouse me and ling na been tussling over her thesis, Ive cautiously but insistently suggested it could not stay where it was - I feared I had lost her, sometimes the visions just arent compatible, what you say of no use to them but at the graduation ceremony ling na read a poem, ling na made me cry
conversation over the chessboard
the earth is our chessboard
i make the last move and say to arthur
my army went across the river
he blows away the mist and says
you lost your last soldier
it feels like a million years before I
find the beheaded soldiers
runaway commanders
broken swords in the water
I then say to arthur
I can never get across the river
he says, you will, you need a new army
and time
jun 23, 6:07 (11 of 248)
had 100 yesterday, i think i can do 9 more
that would be 20 a day, a week left to do
7 days, lets put a day off in there, 8 days
jun 21, 8:35 pm (80 pg of 250)
didnt work yesterday so did 40 pages today
but they kind weak, probably rework them
before moving forward, we will see
jun 19, 11:30 jun 18th, 11:58 pm (55 of 251 pgs)
40 pages today, 41 actually, you know what that means right
means its reading better than i feared, no stumbles so far
where you got to stop and rewrite the passage, im rolling . .
what up world, been s while,, i been workling
just aint been chroniclling, just started a new draft
trying to see what my daily grind gon be
i did 15 today, so thats my baseline
see if i can get 20 tomoow, if its still just
15 that will be the goal, we shalll, see
its 15 good pages.. reads good so far
20 pages a day with 2days off will be 100
pages a week, lets say 2 weeks, i can live
w/that, 15 about 3 weeks, unaccepptable . .
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