New Years Resolutions

I actually gave up resolutions for 2007 but thought this was worth a re-post. Found it on nerve.com and it's probably the best thing I've read on that site for about 5 years but I digress. It's from Belief and Technique in Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac:

1) Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2) Submissive to everything, open, listening
3) Try never get drunk outside your own house
4) Be in love with your life
5) Something that you feel will find its own form
6) Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7) Blow as deep as you want to blow
8) Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9) The unspeakable visions of the individual
10) No time for poetry but exactly what is
11) Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12) In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13) Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14) Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15) Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16) The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17) Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18) Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19) Accept loss forever
20) Believe in the holy contour of life
21) Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22) Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23) Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in your morning
24) No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge
25 Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it
26) Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27) In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28) Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29) You're a Genius all the time
30) Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Awesome.

To blog or not to blog

So, I just came back from my writing group. The members of which all have these blogs that I was just checking out. Thought they all were pretty interesting and was inspired to set up one of my own. Not sure how it will turn out, it's pretty much a work in progress.

On my way home from said writing group, I was thinking about my recent move from Boston and how I don't regret a thing. Despite there being some ups and downs, I am so happy here and feel extremely blessed. I really feel that Seattle is the right place for me to be at this point in my life. I believe they call it "The Emerald City". I am not sure what that refers to exactly. To me, it sounds like a Wizard of Oz reference but perhaps I am way, way off. Probably they are talking about trees. As in big, green ones this region is famous for. Anyway, when I first got here I parked my car on a busy street in the International/Chinatown district. Right away, I loved that they are so correct here. In Boston, Chinatown is known for what little is left of it from all the luxury high rise condos that are quickly eating it away. Not many people seem to know or care if actual Chinese or other Asian people still live there. In Seattle, this does not seem to be the case. So, anyway, I open my car door and for some reason, look down at the ground. I quickly scooped up the small change purse at my feet. There was no identifying information, no ID, no credit cards, just a handful of quarters and silver dollars inside a old, beaded American Indian style coin purse. No one was reasonably near to ask if they had lost it. All the stores on the block were closing or closed. For whatever reason, I decided to keep it. I still feel a little guilty about doing so, however, there were few other viable options. I did give some of it later to some homeless people but it quickly became like feeding seagulls at the beach. I have decided to view the finding as a sign of good luck. A sign of better things to come in my new life in Seattle.