Found: Nothing Worth Earning Comes Easy

"I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them."

Boris Pasternak

Thanks for the lead, DailyLiteraryQuote.com.

From: "Hard to Make a Stand"

"We've got loud guitars and big suspicions,
great big guns and small ambitions,
and we still argue over who is God."

Sheryl Crow

From: "Her Majesty Loses Her Touch"

"Back in the days
when I was called Queen of Cherries
I used to write.
Not like this.
I'd lie in bed at night
composing bawdy lyrics,
a regal drifter through my private orchard
of no regrets.
Cherries simply rained
down on my head."

from A Working Girl Can't Win
by Deborah Garrison

From: "Sugar, We're Going Down"

"I'm just a notch in your bedpost,
but you're just a line in a song."

Fall Out Boy

"I've survived a lot of things, and I'll probably survive this."

J.D. Salinger's passing bums me out, but this article about Salinger by Lillian Ross got me thinking about his utter awesome-ness.

I've probably read Catcher in the Rye more than 20 times, and loved it more each time, but I don't think it'd be half as wonderful without J.D. Salinger being a total punk in real life. He saw the connection between being a writer and being narcissistic, and he avoided ruin by isolating himself from people who wanted to lavish him with praise--something he considered damaging.

In the New Yorker article, Lillian Ross says:

"The older and crankier he got, the more convinced he was that in the end all writers get pretty much what’s coming to them: the destructive praise and flattery, the killing attention and appreciation. ...He talked about how easily writers could become vain, complaining that they got puffed up by the same 'authorities' who approved putting monosodium glutamate in baby food."

Have you read The Catcher in the Rye? Should we have a group reading of the original YA novel? I'll lead the discussion. Let me know if you're in, or if you're just a crummy phony.

From: "What Do Women Want?"

"I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath..."

You can hear Kim Addonizio read this poem aloud by visiting the Academy of American Poets Web site.

Loves her. Don't want to infringe on copyright though, so go read the whole thing. Read more from her book Tell Me at her author's Web site.

From: Jesus' Son

"There were many moments in the Vine like that one--where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons."

Jesus' Son
Denis Johnson

If you haven't read Jesus' Son, you're missing the best novel/collection of short stories of all time (in my humble opinion). It's dark and makes you wonder. It also illustrates a definition of "desperation." Oh yeah, and it's my favorite book. What's yours?

From: "A Mood"

"A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--
Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness..."

T.B. Aldrich

From: "The Final Cut"

"...If I show you my dark side,
will you still hold me tonight?
And if I open my heart to you
and show you my weak side,
what would you do?

Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone?
Would you take the children away and leave me alone?
And smile in reassurance as you whisper down the phone--

Would you send me packing?
Or would you take me home?"

"The Final Cut"
Roger Waters

(And now for a Wikipedia-napping within a Booknapping: "Q Magazine once compiled a top ten list of depressing records, and this [The Final Cut] was on it. Enough said, I think.")

From: "Alive"

"Is something wrong?" she said.

"Well, of course there is."

"You're still alive," she said.

"Oh, and do I deserve to be?
And is that the question?
And if so, if so,
who answers?"

Eddie Vedder

From: Jellicoe Road

"On the other side of the cell Jonah Griggs and Santangelo are too busy sizing each other up like two demented pit bulls who have to prove who's got the biggest...attitude.

I lean against the bars that separate us from the others. 'So let me get this right,' I say to one of the Townie girls. 'All it takes is to insult someone's mother?'

'No,' she explains. 'That's the beauty of it. They don't actually have to insult. The words Your mother are enough.'

'So if I said to you, "Your mother is a...?"' I shrug.

'Just "Your mother." But it doesn't work if girls say it to each other,' she continues. 'You have to have a penis for it to affect you in such a way.'

'Oh funny, funny,' Santangelo says.

Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta

From: Shiver

"What was I without my wolf's skin? A boy stuffed so full of words that they spilled out of me."

Shiver
by Maggie Stiefvater

Napped From the Vault: The Offspring

Sorry about the sporadic posting. I seem to be entering one of those melancholy phases where nothing is as interesting as it once was.

You get that?

I've also been time-traveling via a collection of mix CDs I unearthed in my basement. Perhaps this audio meditation is fueling my dejection?

What evs. It'll pass. Always does. In the meantime, I offer you a songnapping from the nineties. Damn, I love(d) these guys:

"Late at night she knocks on my door.
She's drunk again and looking to score.
Oh, I know I should say no, but
it's kind of hard when she's ready to go.
I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb.
I'm just a sucker with no self esteem."

The Offspring

From: "Father and Son"

"From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen."

Cat Stevens

"Time to murder and create"

The voice in my head chides me regularly:

• Why did you trust her? You should’ve known better.
• Hey dummy, why don't you keep that thought to yourself.
• Is this a game of how many was-es and thats you can fit on a page?

The voice is smart, snarky, and quick. When it goes off on me, which is often, I get a taste of all the hurt I’ve laid on others over the years in the name of being funny. I can be a real bitch, but I’m working on it.

In my lifelong quest for inner peace, I’ve been reading a lot of hippie new-age stuff--I read everything--and this one hippie in particular recommends talking to your anger, finding out why it’s so, well, angry.

My anger rolls her eyes when I approach. She taps her foot impatiently and asks, “What now?”

But I walk right up to her and ask, "Whats your damage, Heather?"

The rest is personal, so I won’t go into it. I mean, it’s embarrassing, and even though my anger is kind of a bitch, I don’t want to sell her out. I’m trying to teach her about trusting people and being nicer, especially to me—so I lead by example.

Here she comes again, yapping about my low nano word count.

“There will be time, there will be time…” I tell her, and get this—she smiles. She remembers college when we used to skip class to sit around our dorm smoking cigarettes and reading poetry out loud with passionate inflection. She remembers writing 600 poems in the style of "Prufrock" because we couldn’t get that haunting voice out of our head--and how all that useless, horrible writing made us the wordsmith we are today.

These days, me and my anger are tight, yo. Still, she leaned in close this morning and said, “Staring into the distance is cool, but it’s November 17, and I really want to know what you-know-who is going to do about you-know-what. If you don’t start writing that scene, we’ll never know.”

And my anger is totally right, although I’m glad she’s found a nicer way to express herself.

Describe your inner voice. Give it an adjective, and tell me about it in the comments. If it’s a negative adjective, have a conversation with your inner voice. The world has enough mean people. Be nice to yourself.

Metaphor Salad: What is this "satisfaction" thing I hear so much about? I can't get none.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

In college, my friends and I developed a theory about the three main aspects of university life:

• partying
• sports
• classes

Our theory held that every student must choose two of these aspects. Attempting to balance all three led to certain failure. You'd no doubt eventually wake up on a Sunday with a hangover, a morning game, and a test the next day. You'd theoretically go crazy, drop out, and--I don't know--die on Skid Row, or something.

It occurs to me as I try to squeeze in home-cleanliness, responsible pet ownership, career, writing, family (both extended and immediate), socialization, recycling, reading, bill-paying, car upkeep, health, pop-culture junkiness, and a host of other responsibilities--that I can't have it all. I didn’t even mention sleep. Starting Monday, I cut into sleep a little bit further each night, so that by Friday, sleep has grown into a giant beast that hates accomplishment. Sleep pushes away my laptop and doesn't care about my dirty dishes, my unfinished chapter, Project Runway.

I don't even remember sleep from college, but it must have been there. The sleep urge seems to get stronger with age, but even it is not invincible. Certain books challenge sleep, and occasionally I get so into writing that everything else cowers: the gym is a den for the self-obsessed, my house is an important observation site for dust growth, and I don't know what happens to the rest of that stuff. I guess it evaporates.

Anyway, I am noticing a pattern:

1. I come down with an inspiration-virus, which hits me with the mistaken notion that I can do everything. It's all a matter of following lists and not reading Perez Hilton.
2. I create a color-coded schedule of tasks: solve world hunger, dust curtain rods, write a poem.
3. The next few days I try valiantly to do it all, then settle for most. A battle ensues between the inspiration-virus and the growing strength of sleep beast. They fight. Sleep wins.
4. By Thursday, I am a petri dish of self-hatred. I've completed 50% of my plans; yet I feel like 100% failure. To coddle myself, I read all the Perez I've missed and grow angry as I count typos and realize that most of his posts are a whole lot of nothing described in sensationalistic language intended to make me think it’s important… AND I AM FALLING FOR IT!
5. I flog myself metaphorically, continue to tread the quickly rising water of my life, cultivate the inspiration-virus, and repeat.

How annoying! College offered less choices--sports, partying, classes--but I learned the mechanics of finite time. Still, I attempt to force 300 pounds of stuffing into a 10-pound bird.

I am Atlas, only I carry the world in a lumbar-supportive backpack. It doesn’t fit, but I squeeze the planets and shove them in, latch the bulging flaps, and reattempt my climb.

Oh wise blog-readers, this is a call to your collective knowledge. The sleep beast is a kitten compared to the unhappiness monster that will overtake me if I continue this pattern. But what stays, what goes? And how to battle the feeling of not doing enough despite doing all I can? Explain, please, how you achieve balance.

From: "Wishlist"

"I wish I were a neutron bomb;
for once I could go off."

Pearl Jam

From: Love You Hate You Miss You

"There's a couple of other kids who eat by themselves, but I'm in no mood for a very special episode moment, and even if I was it still wouldn't be enough to make me sit with the girl who needs to be told to bleach her mustache or the guy who always wears a suit and tie. I suppose he's making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You're not supposed to be real. You're supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world."

Love You Hate You Miss You
Elizabeth Scott

From: Tricks

They Call Vegas

Sin City, like calling it what it is
somehow legitimizes the name.
Las Vegas is Sin City. Whole lot

of sinning going on, from fancy
high-rise casino rooms to sleazy
well-off-the-strip motel dives.

People come here specifically
to sin. But I wonder whether
it's really true that "what happens

in Vegas stays in Vegas."
People stain themselves here.
I bet, no matter how hard they

scrub themselves after sinning,
when they go home, a certain
amount of stain remains visible.

Then, I guess, it's up to the spouse
or significant other to recognize
the meaning of that dark splotch

ghosting beneath the bleach.
Most of 'em probably don't want
to look. Don't want to know.

Ellen Hopkins

From: After Tupac and D Foster

"'There's millions of people in the world, though. And more getting born every day. And some of them blow up--like Tupac did. I think that's why he's so cool by me, because he didn't come from any rich people like a lot of those celebrities be coming from--with their mamas or their daddies already movie stars.' Neeka leaned her head against the window. 'I mean his parents were out there being Black Panthers and whatnot, but they was struggling too. Didn't always have money. Didn't always have food.'

Neeka looked at me. 'I want to blow up. Have people knowing my name. I want to walk inside a subway car and have white people be giving me big respect instead of looking at me and my family like we some kind of circus act or something.'"

From young adult novel After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson