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Vanessa



Last Updated: 11/21/2009

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Gender: Female
Status: Single
Age: 39
Sign: Taurus

City: Augusta
State: Georgia
Country: US
Signup Date: 1/10/2005

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009 
I’m at the ocean
I’m happy
It’s a perfect, sunny day
But I’m afraid of the surf

I see a dog
She’s happy too
On this perfect, sunny day
And not afraid of the surf

She runs and jumps
Into a crashing wave
Giggling as only dogs can giggle
Playing as only dogs can play

So I decide to run in as well
Into a crashing wave
Into a freer place
Into joy

It cascades over me
Says hello and goodbye in the same breath
And goes
But not entirely
Because we both know
Things have been taken
Things changed
Things given

Skin sparkling and sun in my eyes
I walk back to the grinning dog on the beach
And look at my hands
And see they’ve been filled

With silvery coins



© 2009 Vanessa Campbell
6:59 PM 
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Sunday, July 19, 2009 
what we want
what we have
what we are
are we
not
what we want?

© 2009 Vanessa Campbell
2:59 PM 
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Sunday, July 19, 2009 

Current mood: sparkly
Category: Religion and Philosophy
black coffee
on an outdoor wood table
warms the morning around me
heats my body
heals my soul
encircles me in wisps
as I drink
sunbursts dancing on the cup
moving on the murmuring surface
telling me of ten thousand things
of now
of secrets shown to all
though few can see

© 2009 Vanessa Campbell

Currently listening:
Sounds of the Universe (CD + DVD)
By Depeche Mode
Release date: 2009-04-21
2:19 PM 
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Monday, June 22, 2009 
(c) 2008 Vanessa Campbell

They found the cats tonight, but they don’t know who locked them in the cage and killed them. The police said it was probably Poison.
One of those cats was my friend Bobby, and I am sad. But even more, I have a weird feeling. I saw who took Bobby, and I know where he lives. It’s right there on the corner.
I watched them take the cats out of the cage. It had shown up (out of Nowhere, they said) that night in the Winstons' yard, while they were having a party. No one even looked at the house where the bad man lives. No one was even sad about the cats... More grossed out than anything. The kids were sad, at least.
The moving lights from the cars made me dizzy, and the wet street, from the rain, made the lights even brighter. I wanted to get away, and I wanted to find the bad man. I walked straight to his house, with my nails clicking (I like that sound) and my white fur blowing (I like the wind too). At his house, I saw a big window open and jumped in just as pretty as you please. He was in the bathtub (not my favorite place, I can tell you), and he smiled when he saw me. I guess he is okay with dogs. But not cats, I’m sure of that.
Right there in front of him, I knocked his phone off the bathtub and started stepping on it. I got nothing---just weird sounds. He laughed. I snorted at him and ran to get the police, or somebody. I slid on his floor and almost fell, and then I was out the window and running fast. I was scared.
It took some barking, but I got the police to follow me to the bad man’s house. They said, “What’s wrong, little fella? Are there more cats?” Jeez, just follow me!
They knocked on the man’s door, and he came out, looking all innocent. (I know that look, because I’ve had to use it.) He said, “What’s going on?” The police said, “This little dog dragged us over here, so we should probably take a look around.” The man said, “Sure, of course!” And of course they didn’t find anything.
Well, he might have the police fooled, but not me. I know the truth. I saw, and I know, and I can’t say anything, but there might be something I can do.
 
[end]
Currently reading:
The Call of the Wild
By Jack London
11:30 PM 
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Monday, June 22, 2009 
Bertolt Brecht: The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

Buddha: You yourself, as much as anyone in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.

Charles Bukowski: What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

Dostoyevsky: The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.

Einstein: [The scientist’s] religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

Hafiz: At some point your relationship with God will become like this: Next time you meet Him in the forest or on a crowded city street, there won’t be any more "leaving." That is, God will climb into your pocket.

Hafiz: Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that: It lights the whole sky.

Herman Melville: Silence is the only voice of our God.

Hippocrates: A bad digestion is the root of all evil.

Hippocrates: All things sacred are to be imparted only to sacred persons.

Jung: The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Lao Tzu: Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Meister Eckhardt: Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

Montaigne: The thing of it is, we must live with the living.

Native Americans of the Plains: It is best to ride the horse in the direction it is going.

Rumi: Sell your cleverness, and purchase bewilderment.

Rumi: You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.

Thoreau: Things do not change; we change.

Voltaire: Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.

Wallace Stevens: After the final no there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends.
Currently reading:
Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao
By Wayne W. Dyer
11:00 PM 
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Monday, January 05, 2009 

Category: Blogging
Most of my 2009 resolutions are actually wishes, because my goals are more ongoing. If I'm getting off track, I dang sure don't wait until 01Jan to refocus. But there's one big change I planned for this year, and it will take some work, but I think it will be worth the effort. I'm calling it One New Thing, and the goal is to find something new (and positive, I hope) to experience each week. It can be almost anything, as long as it's new.

To share these experiences, I've started a separate blog at http://haloblu.blogspot.com/. The first post, for week one, is about my adventures at the Louvre, by way of the Atlanta High Museum of Art. One must be resourceful when one can't just jet off to Paris.

I won't be posting those blogs here, so I hope you'll visit my One New Thing blog often, or even subscribe via email or feed. As always, thanks for reading... and best of luck with your own resolutions and wishes.
Currently reading:
Notebooks 1951-1959
By Albert Camus
4:24 PM 
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Monday, November 17, 2008 

Category: Dreams and the Supernatural
1,800 words
(c) 2008 Vanessa Campbell
 
Marshall Cray hasn't slept in five years. He wants to, but every time he closes his eyes, the dreams are too terrible. Two hours of sleep are the most he has gotten at one time.
     He doesn't know where the dreams come from, but he assumes he is haunted by angry spirits. He tries to understand what they want. He tries to communicate with them, hoping they will find peace and leave him for The Light.
     But for five years they have held on, and Marshall has fought, and run. He lives in his van, if you can call it living. It's a life of bars and cafés and the most impossibly boring people in the world. Marshall had created some very successful art before the spirits came, and now, those damned paintings are all people want to talk about. It's exhausting. It reminds him of better days and makes him feel like a failure. He wants to talk about the spirits. He wants help getting rid of them. But no one can help, and no one cares. They are all worthless, boring people.
     Being an artist, he did try at one point to create a new series of paintings, but the spirits quickly found their way into his work. They absolutely horrified Marshall with their streaming grey anguish and bursts of stark red fear, so he stopped painting and promptly hid the unfinished series. He could not, however, bring himself to destroy them. He might need money someday, or he might want a record of his descent into insanity. Plus, he wouldn't openly admit it, but he knew the paintings held a strange appeal, like the old black-and-white film Death Takes a Holiday. Death assumes human form (as a prince, no less), goes on holiday, and falls in love with the one person who doesn't fear him---the one person who can see beauty in darkness.
     Lately, Marshall has been having trouble separating dreams from reality. He's so tired, he isn't always sure whether he's asleep or awake. The dreams follow him into the daylight---into wakefulness---and he no longer feels safe. Ever. But the worst part is, he knows, in his soul of souls, he will have to sleep soon. Not just for an hour, but an all-out, deep, drooling sleep one step away from coma.
     A month ago, he went from stumbling along the Seine, which had somehow been painted pink and orange, to sitting on the floor at some seedy dive in Amsterdam sweating bullets and smoking the best shit ever, to having a heated discussion with a coterie of incredibly persistent film directors in Berlin. They were saying blah blah your painting The Sails blah blah inspired the so-and-so scene in my film blah blah. And Marshall kept saying who gives a fuck about sails we are talking about quantum physics! Poor Marshall.
     He still wonders if his European adventures were real or dreams or a combination. He suspects he is lying sedated in some hospital bed, trapped in sleep, wholly possessed by the spirits at last. He is so tired of being frightened, he either ignores threats, or screams back at them. He surprised a would-be mugger in Barcelona by throwing him across the street. (It was a narrow, Old-World street, yet sufficiently wide enough to allow lift and flight.) He also surprised a tree in Stockholm that had gotten quarrelsome and needed a good scolding.
     He wonders if the soul leaves the body during sleep, able to roam the world and possibly even the Universe. An orb of energy just bounding around. He wonders if that makes him more vulnerable, or less. Does he go to the spirits, or do they come to him? Will he be able to wake up if things get sticky? For that matter, will he wake up at all? When he finally surrenders to deep sleep, will the battle be over, once and for all, or will he wake up to the same nightmare? Just thinking about it makes him cringe. But buried beneath his desperation is a festering anger over what has been taken from him. So much. He will fight to win it back.
     Yes, it is time to sleep. To spiral down toward a lonesome ocean floor where sunlight never visits, the last sparkles fading high above. To walk dark lands where his fate will be decided by powers unfathomed by the simple minds of mankind. But before the epic battle ensues, Marshall wants to have one (possibly last) blast of an evening. He can think of no better place for that than London, especially since it is nearly summer.
___ __ _
 
So, two days ago, after five years of fighting ghosts, soul-weary and war-torn, Marshall Cray drove his van to London. Arriving long before sundown, he had plenty of time to situate himself and find a well-peopled area reasonably near a hospital, just in case. He would never go to a hospital freely, of course, because the disappointingly inadequate staff would just give him sedatives, which he knew from experience did more harm than good. However, he did want to be close in case someone found him sprawled in a dark alley, with a scream plastered on his face, barely conscious. Yes, it was a stretch, but he was planning for contingencies. Every good artist sees the details in life, whether he wants to or not.
     He had time to walk around Soho and Leicester Square, taking in the sights and smells, the rowdy tourists, the even rowdier locals. He bought a black scarf with sparkly silver thread that read, "London Rocks!" Not only would it help keep him warm in the spring-chilled night air (especially if the dark-alley scene came true), but it also gave him a degree of swagger, which he had been garnering for the upcoming battle.
     He sat outside a café, smoking exotic cigarettes with jittery hands and lingering over peppermint tea. No one said much to him. He looked too insane or drugged out---with the black-rimmed eyes of the haunted---to be approachable, at least during daylight hours.
     Finally, blessedly, the sky's bright blue gave way to indigo, and he wandered from club to pub for a while, eventually settling on one with a great band. They were so alive and loud and just... free. Freedom is something one can never fully appreciate, Marshall knew, until it is threatened or gone.
     He drank ale and whisky. He danced with strangers. He even laughed a few times. He searched the eyes of those strangers for someone he might tell his story to---someone who might stand watch while he helplessly slept. But how do you tell someone that? How do you explain it when you don't even understand it yourself? Marshall had been wandering the world long enough---telling his story, hoping for help or at least understanding---to know that most people are far too needy themselves to help other people, especially strangers. They don't have the energy or empathy for it. No, this was Marshall's showdown to face alone. He wasn't sure who or what he was fighting, but he knew the fight was his own.
     Later, with his merriment quota satisfactorily obtained and himself bearing the bravado awarded by alcohol and a sparkly black scarf, Marshall stepped out of the pub. He gazed up at the sky. He had intended to go straight to his van and into sleep-battle but, for some reason, the stars held his gaze. Of course, the ale was adding extra razzle-dazzle to the heavens, as ale customarily does, but he suddenly had to get away from the city lights so he could see the full swath of the Milky Way. Beauty had been his best friend in life, and he wanted it beside him until the end. Being able to create and appreciate beauty was, in his opinion, the best part of being an artist, and a person. It made him feel sublime and part of something far greater than himself. Only natural that he needed the stars now, impossibly unreachable, but also reliable and reassuring, always twinkling above. Visible markers of the vast magnificence of the Universe.
     Crippled by inebriation, fatigue, and a few stumbles incurred previously that evening, Marshall hobbled toward his van. When he reached it, he wasted no time in climbing in, finding some bottled water, drinking heartily, and then driving, carefully but determined, until the London lights were far behind him. To avoid having his epic battle interrupted by an arrest or, perhaps, a pack of marauding bandits, he parked in the safest-looking area he could find. He grabbed a tatty blanket and climbed onto his van's roof, intent on staying awake and stargazing as long as possible, wanting to enjoy every last moment.
     But of course he slept. He was out before five minutes had passed, and it was indeed the absolute oblivion he had suspected would come. It was also dreamless and nearly motionless. No spirits, no epic demon battles. Just the slumber of utter exhaustion. A mind so tired it cannot dream. He slept not just that night, but the next day as well. For nearly 24 hours, Marshall Cray slept.
     When he woke the next night, he opened his eyes to the same stars that had lulled him to sleep. He slowly realized where he was, all that had happened. At first he thought no time had passed---that he'd been out for a few minutes, like always. But his restored body and lucid mind told him something was different. Very different.
     Cautiously, with both hope and dread, Marshall held up his watch to see the date. He pressed the light button and blinked the tiny numbers into focus. He stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the unequivocal evidence that he'd actually slept a night and a day... and had survived! After several breathless seconds, he filled his lungs and let out a wail that had been five years in the making.
     Lying there under the stars, on the roof of his trusty van, in worn-out clothes and a sparkly black scarf, Marshall didn't know everything, but he knew he had won. He had won simply by refusing to run any longer, to avoid, to fear. Maybe it was more exhaustion than refusal, so maybe he had won by accident, but the strategy was clear to him now: Welcoming a demon is the only way to get rid of it, to take back your power.
     His stomach rumbled. His throat screamed. He slid down off the roof to raid his stash of edible treasures. After gathering a vacuum-sealed pack of salmon, two packs of rice crackers, an orange, a chocolate bar, and a bottle of water, he carried them up to the roof for a moonlit victory dinner. He ate and smiled, smiled and ate. He said "thank you" to whatever might be listening around him, then looked up at the sky and said it again.
     Marshall suspected the spirits hadn't disappeared completely and would drop in from time to time, but he knew he could handle them. He had, amazingly, won the biggest fight of his life by giving up. The spirits could do whatever they wished, but he would no longer feed them with fear and anxiety. He had surrendered, but he was not captive. He was free.
___ __ _
 
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." – Oscar Wilde
 
Currently listening:
Fix You
By Coldplay
Release date: 2005-09-12
2:33 AM 
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Saturday, November 01, 2008 
Okay, I'll admit I was slow to embrace this whole reusable shopping bag movement. My "excuse" was that I would have to keep up with—and wash—the bags. But then I discovered a startling statistic: An estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Those bags require energy and petroleum to produce and, after use, more resources to be recycled… unless, of course, they're sent to landfills to photodegrade or they're scattered to the four winds.
I mean, a trillion plastic bags? And that's not even counting paper bags, which of course require trees to be produced. Anyway, after reading that statistic, I bought two reusable bags, for 99 cents each, at Whole Foods. At the time, I think Whole Foods was the only store that sold reusable bags, but many stores sell them now, so you don't need to go all-out with $30 canvas bags. For the tiny price of $1.98, you can make a difference. Sometimes it's that easy.
As for the so-called chore of having to wash the bags, they stay clean and presentable for months! It turns out that most things sold in stores, including groceries, are not dirty. Why I thought I'd be washing bags all the time, I don't know.
My only learning curve was remembering to actually bring the bags to the stores—not just the grocery store, but Target and wherever else. It's just something I had to get into the habit of doing. Now, after I put away my purchases, I simply fold the bags and lay them by my purse, so I'll remember to take them out to the car. They have their own special place in the car, and I just grab them whenever I'm heading into a store.
No matter what you think about climate change, this reusable bag thing is super-duper easy. Just try it and you'll see what I'm talking about. And if you already use reusable bags, or if you just like to do things in threes, there are a couple of other easy things you can do as well: Recycle your trash (or some of it, at least) and turn off your lights and electronics when not in use. You can find your nearest recycling center at earth911.com. Also, you can get unbiased info about climate change here.
Currently listening:
The Head on the Door
By The Cure
Release date: 1990-10-25
3:27 AM 
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Monday, October 20, 2008 

Category: Music

Currently listening:
Year Zero
By Nine Inch Nails
Release date: 2007-04-17
2:49 AM 
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Thursday, October 16, 2008 

Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Down by Law is a 1986 film by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tom Waits. I believe Jarmusch said (in the extra/interview) he wrote the screenplay around Tom Waits' character. If so, that would explain why, throughout the film, I was thinking how perfect the lead role was for Waits. I had no idea he is such a great actor and in so many films!

 

The plot is fairly simple: An out-of-work DJ (Waits), a small-time pimp (Braschi), and a bubbly Italian tourist (Benigni) end up in a New Orleans prison together. They bond, mostly by fighting, and they escape together through the swamps of southern Louisiana. True to Jarmusch form, this film is all about character, with little action and lots of stillness and silence. If you loved the dark-yet-playful humor of Broken Flowers (also a Jarmusch film), I think you'll really enjoy this.

 

Also worth nothing is that, once Benigni's character arrives in prison, it becomes apparent that Down by Law inspired the later blockbuster, The Usual Suspects.

Currently reading:
Nausea
By Jean-Paul Sartre
8:56 PM 
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