January 2012
1 post
March 2011
2 posts
June 2010
1 post
I am a runner...again.
Okay.
So, I have to be honest: I haven’t run seriously since the Richmond Marathon, back in November. I mean, yes, I ran with TNT when I coached the Monument 10K, but that was close enough after Richmond that I didn’t really need to train; I just ran with them as my personal level of fitness declined. And declined.
Since I moved to Hampton (anyone who is out of the loop - I moved to...
May 2010
1 post
October 2009
1 post
August 2009
6 posts
How to make a pinch pot
Begin with a healthy handful of clay. In much the same manner as a drill instructor breaks down a recruit in order to build him back up, stronger and more deadly than ever, roll, smack, intimidate and shape your clay into an approximation of a sphere, releasing your own tension and aggression as you do. The smoother and more accurately round your beginning blob, the easier your pot will form, and...
Of boats and air
So I was gazing up at the mountain this morning when my attention was distracted by the clouds passing behind the massive peak. It was a breezy day, and my sweaty t-shirt was being plastered against my back by the stirring air, feeling in turns refreshing and stiflingly hot.
What had caught my attention was a shape in the clouds, a stylized, inverted T, which my imagination immediately...
This Longing
by Martin Steingesser … awoke to rain around 2:30 this morning thinking of you, because I’d said only a few days before, this is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark listening how rain sounds in the tree beside my window, on the sill, against the glass, damp cool air on my face. I am loving fresh smells, light flashes in the black window, love how you are here when you’re...
"Open your arms if you want an embrace!" -Rumi
I am rediscovering how to run alone.
In recent weeks, I had lost this ability. The unaccompanied pounding of my feet on the pavement, the thoughts occupying my brain, all the things I was running to escape would conspire against my forward motion, stealing my air and burning my muscles. Inevitably, these recent solo runs would end with me walking home, panting and irritated, having accomplished...
The Monkey's Paw or The Giving Tree?
A young boy walks through the thick forest, a bright red backpack slung over one shoulder. He walks with his head down, hands in his pockets, occasionally scuffing his shoe through the carpet of fallen pine needles and decaying leaves. He is breathing heavily, but his steps do not slow as he climbs a hill, apparently making his way toward a lone tree at the crest.
This tree stands alone in more...
July 2009
6 posts
There is a tree in my heart
There is a tree in my heart,
and you,
you are the breeze.
You stir the leaves in my heart.
(And before anyone asks, the answer is no. -ed)
Sunday Tubing
My friend Erin and I decided, since our birthdays are only six days apart, we would celebrate together by gathering our friends and going tubing down the James River. We started telling everyone we knew, but that was as far as our planning went until Sunday morning, the day of the tubing. Everyone was calling, what time are we going? Somehow, we managed to coordinate the trip in the space of about...
Anniversaries
by Donald Justice
Great Leo roared at my birth,
The windowpanes were lit
With stars’ applausive light,
And I have heard that the earth
As far away as Japan
Was shaken again and again
The morning I came forth.
Many drew round me then,
Admiring. Beside my bed
The tall aunts prophesied,
And cousins from afar,
Predicting a great career.
At ten there came an hour
When, waking out of ether
Into...
What She Was Wearing
by Denver Butson
this is my suicide dress she told him I only wear it on days when I’m afraid I might kill myself if I don’t wear it
you’ve been wearing it every day since we met he said
and these are my arson gloves
so you don’t set fire to something? he asked
exactly
and this is my terrorism lipstick my assault and battery eyeliner my armed robbery boots
I’d like to undress you...
Strange dream last night...
I was coming in to port on a long, narrow boat. My father was there. I looked into the sky, and saw dozens and dozens of helicopters, each with heavy silver cables attached to their frames. The cables, however, did not hang down below the helicopters, but rather, they stretched up and disappeared into the clouds above the helicopters.
As I watched, one of the helicopters began to weave drunkenly...
June 2009
2 posts
Why, hello there!
It’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? Yes, it has. I’ve missed you too. Hopefully, we will see more of each other. I will try not to be slack :)
Have a good day!
April 2009
9 posts
Several times, with several different people, I have had these long conversations about growing/being old together. Sometimes these talks are silly - Will you change my diapers when I’m 90? - sometimes they are less so. These discussions always have at their core, though, the same ideas. This other person and I will be together in our old age - not romantically so, just companions in those...
from JC:
Jonathan Carroll posted this link, and I am reposting it here. A stirring rendition (several, in fact) of a long-time favorite song. Check it out.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741
late night
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I’ve made a lot of mistakes…”
-Sufjan Stevens, ‘Chicago’
7 April 2009
“The branches of the dogwood quiver, and countless knives flash in the darkness. The window is my heart’s window, the door my soul’s door. I lie there awake until dawn, gazing at the empty chair.”
-Haruki Murakami, from “Kafka on the Shore”
feathers
I have a heart made of feathers
light, airy, brightly colored feathers.
My feather heart is fragile,
you could break it if you try.
But it’s my fragile feather heart
with which I’ve learned to fly.
Posted this a while ago, but it's important enough...
You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you...
Training a dog to ring a bell to go outside can't...
marseeah:
After approximately 24 hours of trying to bell train Madeline, and about a half hour after her afternoon walk, she rang her bell. I immediately took her outside, making her ring the bell again on her way out.
It was raining, so I was only going to take her on our “short walk” route, just to associate the bell ringing with going outside.
And at the first place that she could possibly...
Dead True
A friend of mine told me this story the other day:
His great aunt, a relatively wealthy woman, had been getting on in years. She lived in Georgia, far from the rest of the family, with whom she had a rather strained relationship. She took on a caretaker, a woman to help her around the house with various everyday tasks. As time went by, though, this woman systematically acquired more and more...
March 2009
41 posts
Yesterday...
Riding my bike home from the coffee shop, I decided to see if I could find a different route, one that didn’t take me for two miles along one of the busier streets in the area. I ended up cycling through a neighborhood, past houses and churches, the typical stuff. Rounding a curve in the road, I saw ahead of me, a local swimming pool. The deck area behind the clubhouse was cluttered with...
all the stars and boulevards
That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? We’re all stars in our own movie. We view the world through the filter of our own experiences.
It’s that whole…what do they call it? Oh yeah, life.
A Pleasant Shade of Gray
There is a lot of art on the walls of this coffee shop where I sit. One piece in particular keeps pulling my attention. It is a collection of grays, different shades, broad strokes with a sketching pencil or charcoal. At first glance, it appears haphazard, random, and maybe it is. But upon closer inspection, there is an entire world of contours contained within its blind monochromaticity (I think...
Made into pieces from a whole
When everything broke, we stopped going out. Evenings were spent sitting on the broken couch, watching the plaster flake slowly from the wall. The television was broken - not that we’d watched it for a long time, anyway. The radio, the computer, even the bookshelves: broken. The pages had fallen out of all the books, scattering across the floor like giant yellowing snowflakes, piling up in...
Bob Schneider
Sun Li was a pilot in the nationally known
Amazing Ladies of the Outer Ozone.
She didn’t have no kids, she didn’t have no time,
she was a woman of her word, she was a fighter of crime.
She looked good in a hat, she had a natural way
with tools and old cars, she went to UCLA.
And everybody said she was as crazy as a loon,
when she was a girl she’d spend every afternoon
...
When I say good bye to my sister on the phone, I...
laureola:
noticed again. :D
Awww… :)
Sometimes...
…things come along in your life, maybe it’s an event, maybe it’s a person. Anyway, this thing (let’s just say person, for simplicity), this person comes along, and it’s the exact right time and place for them to appear in your life. This person fits, like a puzzle piece of clear blue sky; it appears ordinary at a glance, but upon closer examination, it is the only...
Learning To Love You More →
(via amandoline)
This is one of my favorite all-time websites.
Please don’t scream when you turn around.
Happy St Patrick's Day!
Still job hunting, still missing everyone!
You should all email me (davebessom@gmail.com). You should email me today!
Man...
…I miss you guys. I need to get me some home internets, and soon. Of course, that may detract from you know, the whole job search thing, but I think that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Because, as I said, I miss you guys.
Somebody email me: davebessom@gmail.com!
11 March 2009
Finished reading Milan Kundera’s “Identity” yesterday. Today I began reading “The Joke.”
No jobs yet. But I like to read, so hey, it works out.
Hey everybody!
This will just be a quick update, since my internets access is (at the moment) limited to the local public library, and I’m (quickly) running out of time…
As some of you may already have heard, I lost my job last week. I’m okay, though. I am maintaining the opinion this is a good thing for me; an opportunity to find more enjoyable and personally fulfilling employment within a...
izabel4you:
The Shins - New Slang.
This song...
