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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Expectations

Thanks to Jennee, I have found yet another blog hop, and this one is really cool. Click on her Cheap Therapy Button in my sidebar and pop over to participate! She has given us three thought provoking questions that reveal some things about ourselves.


I’m cj Schlottman. I’m 62 but don’t look it, and I live in Macon Georgia, in the heat belt of the Deep South with my two dogs, Honey, a Lhasa Apso and Belle, a Boxer. I also have a betta fish whose name is Mr. Palmer. I have one grown son who has schizoaffective disorder and lives in a personal care home. My only grandchild is Addie Duck, and she lives in Savannah. She is above average.

Three simple questions? We’ll see.

I’ll take them ad seriatum,

What have people always thought that you would be doing with your life?

I don’t recall ever being pushed in one direction or another by my mother. I think she expected me to educate myself in the field of my choice, and she never doubted that I could do just that. My family and friends, I think, expected me to succeed at whatever I chose to do with my life.

I am a nurse, have been in 1969, and I’m a good one. I’m just making a transition back into the field after the death my husband, Clint, last year. I will be working with Hospice. He was a physician and retired early so we could travel. Thank God for those years. The memories sustain me now.

And I’m a writer both of prose and poetry. I have no desire to be published. It is my “Cheap Therapy,” though I take it quite seriously and work continuously at my craft. I have been a member of an ongoing writer’s workshop for women since 1996. It’s called Zona Rosa and we meet once a month at the home of our mentor, Rosemary Daniell, in Savannah, Georgia, which is 160 miles down the road. If you don’t know about her, she was at the forefront of the feminist movement in the early 1980’s and scandalized the entire South with her memoir, Fatal Flowers. In an effort to improve my writing, I am reading Proust (I’m on the seventh and final novel, The Past Regained) and Nin and Flaubert. I’m working my way to D. H. Lawrence and Dylan Thomas.


Are they surprised by the path you’ve chosen?

No. I have never doubted myself, so others believe in me, too.


Are you surprised at your own path?

I became a nurse out of necessity, as it was the only profession I could predisoe in our little town except teaching. I ended up loving it!

As for writing, I have been writing all my life, so it does not surprise me that I have taken it up seriously.

Maybe this gives a little insight into who I am!

This post is linked to Cheap Therapy. You will find the button on my side bar!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Meet Me on Monday

Here are our questions for Melissa's Meet Me on Monday



1. What is your favorite Fast Food Restaurant?
Does Waffle House Count? If so, that's the greatest!

2. If given a complete freedom to start afresh, what profession would you choose and why?
I would be a professor, a teacher of poetry.

3. Do you prefer your toilet paper to come over the roll or under the roll?
Oh, under, no doubt about it!

4. What was your favorite tv show as a child?
"Ozzie and Harriett." I was in love with Ricky Nelson!

5. What is your favorite Summer drink?
Lemonade, made from fresh lemons!

Choosing our Heirs

It’s Monday night, and I am just getting around to Week Nine of Jenny Matlock’s ingenious meme called Saturday Centus. Don’t know about it? Just click on her button on my sideboard to learn all about it.

I’m pleading “holiday weekend” and “blog overload” syndrome for being so slow to publish my post on this week’s prompt:

"Are you sure that's the one you want?" I felt a little lump in my throat as I peered down at my choice, held tightly in my hand. I didn't think this would be so nerve-wracking. Was I making the wrong decision? I couldn't agonize over this any longer.

I took a deep breath before managing to say, "... Yes, it is."


Here is my take on it. You will see the prompt in italics.



I sat for a moment, taking a breath and drinking in the face on the photo in my hand. I stood and paced around the office, saying silent prayers, pleading with God for help. I reread the biography, and still unsettled, looked to the counselor, pleading with my eyes for some sort of advice.

Finally, I said, “This is it. This is the one, no doubt.

She queried, "Are you sure that's the one you want?" I felt a little lump in my throat as I peered down at my choice, held tightly in my hand. I didn't think this would be so nerve-wracking. Was I making the wrong decision? I couldn't agonize over this any longer.

I took a deep breath before managing to say, "... Yes, it is."

''
My head held high, I walked confidently out of the sperm bank.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

My Heart's in Lost and Found

Hey! It's six word fridays again! Today, Melissa has assigned us the word "found." Her format draws six word lined poems out of me, and here is mine for today. Please look on my sidebar for six word fridays and click on the little tools to go to Melissa's blog. You will be amazed at what you find there!


My heart's in Lost and Found
just where I do not know.
I had it with me when
you died, or did I? Maybe
you took it on your final
journey, forgot to send it back.

It was yours alone, for sure
as I gave it to you those
many years past in the heat
of our new love, the fire
of new passion and youthful lust.

I miss my heart as I
do you, my one true love.
Please come back and bring it.
Oh, I know you can't do
that. You can't come back, but
could you leave my heart in
my dream one night, a kiss
out of darkness on my breast,
the flutter of its beating restored?

What X Means to Me

07/01/10

Well, it's Alphabe-Thursday, and we all know what that means. You don't? Then click on Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursdays button in my sidebar and find out all about it, and while you're at it, read some really good writing!



X is for eXamples, the ones
we set for our children and those
with whom we share great love.

X for the eXtras, the ones we
give and receive, like knowing smiles
and unexpected warming hugs.

X is for the eXtraordinary
beauty of a night sky, fire flies
atwinkle in the dark back yard.

X is for eXtreme kindness, like
buying groceries for one who
clearly struggles to make ends meet.

X is for eXultation, the
pure joy of complete fulfillment
happiness oozing from each pore.

X is for Xanadu, that place
we never cease to long for in
our dreams and in our waking.

X is for an X-ray fish who
nearly transparent thrives in the
rivers of South America

X is for Xanax, the drug that
soothes our anxiety when we
are overwhelmed with sadness.

X is for Xavior, Saint
Francis who with a few others
founded the Society of Jesus.

X is for eXhuastion, the kind that
come comes with making love on a
hot afternoon in September.

X is for the X chromosome
that makes me a woman, happy
as I am to be one, happy indeed.


This Post is Linked to Alphabe-Thursdays Button on left!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

My Two Cents Worth

It’s Saturday Centus time again! Jenny Matlock has created this wonderful meme to help all of us sharpen our writing skills. We are given a prompt and must write a little story or a poem using the prompt - in 100 words of less. Intrigued? Clink on her link at the bottom of this page to got to Jenny’s and find out more.

This week’s prompt is "Did you notice Elizabeth in class this morning and how forlorn she seemed?" Perhaps I will write her a comforting note, I thought.

Below is my take on it, and you will find the prompt in italics.


"Did you notice Elizabeth in class this morning and how forlorn she seemed?" Perhaps I will write her a comforting note, I thought.

“Don’t enable her,” said Val, a judgmental scowl on her face. “She has no business trying to rejoin aerobics class so soon after her son’s death.
It’s unseemly.”

“In her defense, she is only trying to help herself.”

“Piffle! She has always loved the spotlight, and losing Tony is just another excuse for her to milk us all of every modicum of pity we have.”

My cell phone rang. It was Mac, Elizabeth’s husband.

“I hate to say this on the phone, but I wanted you to hear it from me. Elizabeth came home from aerobics and hanged herself.”


This post is linked to Saturday Centus - Button on the left!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Meet Me on Monday

June 27, 2010
It’s already Meet Me on Monday again. Where does the time go? Each Monday, Java posts five questions for us to answer about ourselves. Click on her button right here on this page and join in the fun of learning more about each other!


Today’s Questions:

1. Are you a collector of anything?
I’m not much of a collector. I do have every book Ellen Gilcrist ever wrote, so I guess that counts. When I was younger, I collected thimbles, and I still have all of the silver ones.

2. Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
Clutch the pearls! I am an aging Southern Belle with one hole in each
ear lobe and that’s it.

3. What is your favorite salad dressing?
Bleu cheese mixed with honey mustard. Don’t wrinkle your nose up until you’ve tried it!

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Some Cheerios, dry and right out of the box. It’s my bedtime snack nearly every night. Call me weird. I don’t mind!

5. What was the last movie that you saw?
It’s Complicated. I laughed so hard, I almost wet my drawers!



This post is linked to Meet Me on Monday. Button on left of this page!