My body is a temple.

Picture from National Institute of Massotherapy

I'm giving myself the present of a massage and facial today.

What presents do you like to give yourself?

Surround yourself with beauty.

I think a lot of writers have this tedious self discipline and denial attitude towards their writing. That you have to get up at 3 am or force yourself to work in order to actually finish the book.

As an eternal contrarian, I think writing is self care. I do it because it makes me feel wonderful, and therefore, I want to do it a lot. And denial breeds resentment, not joy.

So in practicing what I preach, I indulged myself in some personal beauty.

First, I got a gorgeous henna this past weekend. Sorry for the view of the sink, but that's where the light was good. :) Isn't this a beauty??

Then yesterday, I painted over a semi-circular window in our house. This window faces south and it can get quite bright in that room. I took down the fabric I'd stapled there years ago, and came up with this little confection.

Inspiration

These are the pictures that inspired Rachel and Rod:

 Doesn't she look like trouble? I see her as a rebel and daredevil.

And he looks very uptight to me. :) The kind of guy who never misses a chance to do sit ups, fill out paperwork, and dot every lowercase j.

The coolest thing about writing?

Is the odd-ball stuff my brain throws at me.

I've had this beginning rolling around in my head for a while:

“Get a load of her,” a man’s appreciative voice came across the bar.

Rod Wachowska looked up at the entrance of the club. And trouble brought all his carefully constructed fictions tumbling down.

Rachel Albin stood in the doorway, her black tuxedo jacket cut to her navel and her skirt up to her butt cheeks. And just like he had twenty years ago in high school, Rod got a present in his pants.

And from here I have some vague ideas about a reckless woman with a secret deathwish and the By-The-Book man who yearns for her. 

Give-away!

I've painted a new one-of-a-kind fan. 

Be the first person to tell me, here on this blog, in what city is the Topkapi Palace?

World War I sucked.

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.



Note: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.