Sue Baiman's Blog, page 5

Reasons Why I’ve Given Up on Dating

I tried internet dating

Once

Or twice

And I finally gave up

I know the profile thingies

Are like a resume of sorts

And you want to put

Your best foot forward

But they really should be

About some sort of honesty too

Reading through them

Was like reading the slush pile

From hell

With no way to get a logarithm

For basic grammar

Or sentence structure

Even if they passed the test

Of describing themselves coherently

That only meant they were clear

To round two…

Meeting face to face

Inevitable they dropped their jaws

And looked at me with some mixture

Of amazement

Or puzzlement

Or just plain disbelief

When I said I’m a writer

And an editor

I didn’t usually even bring up

Indie yarn dyer

I can only imagine

That would cause a similar reaction

As my growing a second head would

I don’t have time for this dance

Nor do I want to rehash

My 48 year history

When I have plenty of friends

Who already know me

And love me

Despite knowing what they know

I’m half panicked most days

Thinking I won’t have enough time

To write everything

Do everything

Be everything

That I need to be me

Why waste a minute more?

Do I miss intimacy?

Hell yes!

But not enough

To put myself through that nonsense

Do I wish I had someone

To bounce ideas off of

While snuggling on the couch?

Or read each other’s words

While staying in bed late

On a lazy Sunday morning

After making love

For the umpteenth time?

Do I want to be part

Of a partnership

That’s bigger than either of us

Could ever be on our own?

Or have someone in my life

Whose strengths and weaknesses

Dovetailed to mine

So that together

We are unstoppable?

Nah, what gave you that idea?

Last Day of Vacation

The heavy drapery
Blocks all but one sliver of light
A rogue sunbeam
Warm already
Glowing with the same peachy-pink
As the ripe summer fruit

That errant ray
Softly sculpting
The curve of your hip
In warm silhouette
And my hand
As I trace over the same

Your face is in darkness
But I don’t need light
To know the curve of your mouth
As it turns into a sleepy smile
At the touch of my fingers
So early in the morning

What I need is time
On this last day of vacation
To give in to my deepest desire
And stand still for a while
Drawing out these last hours
Into the forever we’ll never have

Time to memorize every sensation
Every sight, sound, smell
Touch, mood, and emotion
Of being in your arms
Of feeling your body and soul
Wrapped around and inside mine

Time to wake you
With soft kisses
And lazy strokes
As the soft light
Caresses us both
Sun rising with you

Time to nuzzle your neck
Breathing in your scent
Memorizing every inch
Of your body
Committing every expression
Of joy to memory

So that once this day has passed
As it will far too quickly
I will have you with me always
In these memories
More valuable than any treasure
For your love is priceless

I’ll take home souvenirs
And show people my photographs
But you, and us, I will keep to myself
And the memories of this time
This vacation from reality
Will be safe in my memory

The Poem that Wasn’t Yet is Again

On my way

To opening up a clean page

On which to write,

I saw what I thought

Was a poem

Stored in the wrong place.

At first glance,

Upon peeking in at these words,

I still thought it was a poem.

Until I recognized

The individual threads of thought

That were weaving their way

Down the page in note form.

Random bits of words

Unpacking an idea,

Becoming larger

And more important

As they crawled down the page

And down into the recesses

Of my thoughts.

Until I recognized

The epic tale

The broad brushstrokes of which

Were painted there.

These words belong

Not to any poem

Though they are the heart

Of millions of poems

Written about great loves

Throughout history.

No, these words are the notes

To the story I’ve almost written

Uncounted times.

They are the notes

To the only novel

I know I need to write–some day.

Sadly, now is not that time.

But it was nice,

In a bitter-sweet kind of way,

To stumble upon them again

And even nicer to,

At first,

Think they were a poem.

Stages

I was 24 when I met him

I guess my childhood ended

When I went away to college

That first time

At the age of 17

But really that was a transitional period

Longer for me than many

I thought

As it lasted from 17 to 24

A full 7 years

But I’ve heard that stages in our lives

Tend to last that long

Or that every 7 years is another phase

Or something

People get hung up on numbers

And ages

And stuck in stages

But I was 24 when I met him

And 44when I cheated on him

almost 21 years later

So I guess if the 7 year thing is true

I went through 3 stages with him

Before I couldn’t take any more

Now I’m 48, almost 49

And wondering

How those stages and ages

Are measured

Do they start at birth

And every 7 is another thing?

Or do you get a pass

For the first few and then start counting?

She was 21 when I was born

And her 70th birthday

Would have been

In 3 days

But she died at 69

And the adolescent in me

Will still chuckle at any reason

To say 69

But 70 is far too young to die

Her passing makes me wonder

How much time do I have left?

How many more stages?

Or groups of 7 years?

And if my childhood lasted 24 years

And I spent the next 24

In the life cycle of a relationship

From dating and marriage

Through having and raising children

And finally the long illness

And eventual death by divorce;

Do I have another 24 years

Of something new ahead of me?

Is the curtain slowly rising

On the third act

Of a 3-act play?

Have I taken the stage

To strut and fret

With all the world watching?

Am I that idiot?

And am I already in the middle

Of a 7 year span

That I will someday look back on

As my personal great struggle

Where I went from

Being bankrupt

Both financially and emotionally

To triumphant fanfare

As I come out the other side

Secure in all those things

I was previously lacking?

I know I can do my best

To plan where I want to go

In the next stages

Of my life

And I suppose there is merit

In doing that

But I know in hindsight

That when I was 17

Or when I met him

At the age of 24

None of what has transpired since

Was planned in any way

Either the good or the bad

Life just happened

So now that it feels like

I’ve finally left my seat

In the audience

And stepped up on the stage

For these final scenes

In the last great act

I’m going to see what I can script,

Learn to improvise,

And hope for a lot of curtain calls.

Get a ticket

I hope you enjoy the show.

 

 

Sue

On Dragon’s Wings

Faint glow of dawn

Crawling up her belly

Flickering each time

She rises ‘neath me

Stretching heavenward

Silken wings

Forrest green lifting

Into the last breaths of night

Momentary death of the dark

Giving birth to the light

Cold wind rushes past

Then a warm flash

That never lasts

Soft petal pink and peach

Getting closer

Still always out of reach

Whoosh on the downstroke

Soft hiss after the peak

The colors bloom

Creep up my legs

Followed by the warmth

Flying up to meet us

As we lift higher still

Currents lifting us

Long fingers caressing

Carrying us gently

Cabled muscles of steel

My Seraphim

Rocking me to sleep

Flights of fancy

Dreaming of walking on clouds

Laying down along her great green neck

To feel her power

Down the length of me

Born on the back

Of the greatest beast

Sailing off to new lands

And future dreams

Shouting against the wind

In joy and delight

As the sun rises fully

And we soar at daylight

 

 

Sue

I Believe

I believe in love

That’s such a little word

So easy to say

Yet it means so much

I believe in the grand overarching ideal

Of romantic love

Of knights on white horses

And all those cliches

And the love between

A mother and her child

But more than that

I believe that love

Is in the smallest gestures too

It is in going out of your way

To make sure you are never the cause

Of someone else’s pain

But I also believe

That I am far from perfect

That we all make mistakes

I believe in learning and growing

I believe that I am so far from perfect

That even if I learn something new

On how to be a better person

A better parent

A better human

Every day for the rest of my life

I will still fail someone

In some way

And while I’m not okay

With letting anyone down

Or causing someone pain

I’ve learned to forgive

And strive to do better

The next time

I believe a soul is infinite

That the energy of a living thing

Can not be destroyed

It is simply transferred to another place

And just because we can’t always

See or feel something

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

I believe our souls exist

We exist

Not as finite individual entities

But as pieces of a bigger whole

That we are meant to fit together

In some complex way

That we can only begin

To comprehend

When we stop judging souls

By the physical container

That houses them

I believe that love is love

And has nothing to do with

The gender of a body

And everything to do with

Giving someone pleasure

And making them feel safe

Love is acceptance

It is discovering who a person is

And not trying to change

Anything about them

I believe not in a soulmate

But in soulmates. Plural.

I believe that we are meant to connect

To many other souls.

As we travel along this journey

We call life

I believe we are meant to find

Other souls

Other energies

That when merged with our own

Creates a slightly bigger piece of the whole

That we are like atoms

Drifting through the emptiness of space

And while we can combine

In infinite ways

It is only when we find

A particular type of other

To bind with

That we transform ourselves

Into what we were meant to be

I believe that you

Are one of those other atoms

That is meant to be

A part of my life

A part of me

That spiritually

We are bound together

And that together

We will achieve great things

Balticon Schedule

This year I’ll be a guest at Balticon.  Here’s my tentative schedule.  I hope to see you there!

 

Friday, May 23, 2014

6:00 PM in Derby

Selling your audio (ACX vs Podiobooks vs podcasting)

8:00 PM in Belmont

Copy Editing Do’s and Don’ts

 

Saturday, May 24, 2014

8:00 AM in Belmont

Editors Q & A

9:00 AM in Derby

Pricing eBooks and why free is not always better

2:00 PM in Belmont

The Fine Line Between Editing and Rewriting

 

Sunday, May 25, 2014

11:00 AM in Derby

Dealing with Problematic Authors

6:00 PM in Chesapeake

Blogging for Dummies

7:00 PM in Chesapeake

WordPress 101

 

Monday, May 26, 2014

9:00 AM in Salon C

Magic Spreadsheet (Or, Just. Keep. Writing.)

10:00 AM in Parlor 1041

The Balticon Indie Spirit and What Makes Us Tick

Noon in Salon C

Multi-Creatives

 

I’m vacillating between excited and terrified.  This will be my first time being a guest at a convention and I’m a reformed introvert.  Well, not really reformed…that makes it sound like a bad thing.  Let’s just say that I’m a shy introvert who is learning to be around more than 2 other people at the same time without always shrinking into the corner. I’ll never change my basic nature, but I’ve made so many friends who also call Balticon home that this year I’m taking a HUGE step and shining the spotlight on myself for a change.  I’m even going tiara shopping for the occasion.  Hell, if I’m going to say, “Look at me”, I might as well be wearing a tiara too. Go big, or go home, as they say.  Hope to see you there!

Yarn and stuff

I haven’t written many words so far in May because May is all about Balticon.  In previous years, I started dyeing the Balticon yarn in January or February and paced myself.  Two years ago I moved in April so that put me under a time crunch.  But this year was so much worse that I’m shocked that I managed to get it done. I don’t remember much of anything from March beyond Mom no longer being here.  April was a little less hazy, but not enough for me to wake up and realize where I was time-wise. So, when it finally hit me that I was running out of time, I pushed everything else to the side and dyed like a crazy person.  And, with 2 weeks to go before Balticon 48 opens on May 23, this year’s yarn colors went up for sale last night.  I’m happy to report that 9 of the 30 skeins have already sold. If you’re interested in seeing them or ordering some for yourself before they disappear, you can visit my yarn site, Dyed Bright Here.

Settled

I can’t imagine

What it feels like to feel settled

To know that where you are

Is home

Love Letters

I put down these words

On cards of lavender and pink

Embossed with a delicate heart

In the hope of one day finding you

So that I can send them

To their rightful home

They are my wishes and desires

The words of my inner fires

And all my unanswered questions

And declarations

Of undying love

For someone I may never find