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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

You Say Tomato

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They wait at the corner, behind the picket fences that do less to protect their property and more to support the wild roses than any fences really should. Clad in ancient calico, with their white hair covered by straw hats, they work the soil, with serene smiles on their weathered faces.

They are always slightly built, but their arms are lean and strong, and on their feet are sturdy shoes, and stockings that have fallen down to reveal legs mapped with varicose veins. Their eyes are masks; behind their wide-open stares they could be plotting to take over the world, one batch of cookies at a time, or just re-writing their Christmas lists, putting whichever grandchild is 'in favor' at that moment, at the top of the list.

They carry with them the co-mingled scents of sun and soil, and Chanel No. 5, the latter spritzed on quickly, every morning, more from habit than anything else. They wear lipstick, but generally no other make-up.

They wait at the corner, and hold out bags of sun-ripened tomatoes, and ask, âœWouldn't you like to take some home, dearie? I just picked them this morning.â

Permalink at Moonchilde.com

Antihistamine Hangover

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Woke up this morning feeling groggy and drugged, looked at the clock and went back to bed. Spend the day floating in and out of sleep, thought about writing something real, but the words wouldn't come.

My head feels oddly disconnected from my body, and sinus pressure has formed invisible rings around my eyes. Sinus congestion would be an extremely effective form of torture, I think, if only it were controllable, but perhaps too inhumane.

Endless glasses of ice water laced with lemon or lime are my balm today.

Note to self: taking benadryl at 4 AM ruins your day.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Aqueous

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Sunday afternoon found me jumping into the deep end of the pool rather than mincing into the water, step by step from the shallows. Cool liquid enveloped me, and I was suddenly a mermaid, splashing and frolicking with innocent delight.

Green and blue foam “noodles,” the aquatic colors matching the stripes in my swimsuit, were my toys, alternately forming an ersatz raft, or a free-floating obstacle course.

I floated on breeze-created waves with my eyes closed, later opening them to sudden disorientation caused by the leafy canopy of the trees, and higher up, the beginnings of a mackerel sky.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Lazy Saturday

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It's been a lazy Saturday, spent mostly in bed, the four of us, two human and two not, cuddling, reading, napping, talking quietly.

I left the bedroom at three and sat by the pool but couldn't find the motivation to actually swim. The dogs flanked me, glad I was on dry land â“ the pool makes them anxious â“ they seem to think it's a giant sloshy monster, devouring their people, then returning them, dripping wet.

I returned to the bedroom at six, napping through the and of some movie I'd seen a thousand times before. At midnight, we might get waffles.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Writerly Stuff II

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I want to send out a quick thank you to all of you who suggested article topics. As I've now received official word, and my first check, I can tell you why I asked.

I'm being paid to write articles for CarSeek.com.

Yes, you read that correctly. The woman who doesn't even really like cars is writing for a car site.
(I do, however, LOVE research, and market trends, and writing, and learning new things.)

Okay, it's a website, not a glossy magazine.
But it's content not code.

And they're giving me money to do it.

Back in January I wrote my Mondo Beyondo list and said, “I will write for a living.”

It's beginning to happen.

And you all helped.

Thank you.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Hurricane Housing

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A recent addition to my LJ flist posted information about MoveOn's Hurricane Housing website. As my OD friend seems to be okay for now, we've posted our guest room as an offering. Their blurb is quoted below:

I'm sure you've seen the horrifying images on TV of destruction left by Hurricane Katrina, and the many, many people left with nowhere to go.

You can help. MoveOn.org just launched a website, www.hurricanehousing.org, to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm.

You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) on www.HurricaneHousing.org or search there for housing if you need it.

MoveOn will pass requests from hurricane victims or relief agencies on to volunteer hosts, who can decide whether or not to respond to a particular request. The host remains anonymous until they reply to someone looking for housing.

I just posted my own offer. I hope you will too, or pass this on to people you know in the Southeast:

www.HurricaneHousing.org

Housing is most urgently needed within reasonable driving distance (about 300 miles) of the affected areas, especially New Orleans.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Do You Know What It Means?

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Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong, the feeling's getting stronger
The longer I stay away

Miss the moss-covered vines, tall sugar pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
I'd love to see that old lazy Mississippi
Hurrying into Spring1

I've never actually been to New Orleans except in my imagination. I've read books like crazy that take place there – Anne Rice's books, of course – but the work of others, as well. If it's possible to long for a place you've never been, to feel like a city you've only seen in books and movies is somehow home, well, the city of jazz and zydeco has called to me for as long as I can remember.

It's the music that does it. Jazz isn't always the kickiest of styles, but it speaks directly to my soul with an honesty and a kind of nakedness that other music doesn't seem to offer, at least, not with visceral poignance. Jazz and blues, with their tendency toward improvisation, and their brutally emotional lyrics, get me through the darkest hours of my life. It's hard to remain sad when Billie Holiday or Louis Armstrong, or even Harry Connick, Jr., are crooning about wine and relationships.

Zydeco is a much more recent ship on my musical horizon, but like it's older brothers, it's deeply rooted in story. I think that's why I like all three forms of music. They're not just empty words, they're oral history, and perfect scenes. You can taste the flavor of the region in every stanza.

The moonlight on the bayou
A Creole tune that fills the air
I dream about magnolias in bloom
And I'm wishin I was there2>

Everything I've ever read about New Orleans talks about the light in certain parts of the city as being sort of greenish grey. If you've never lived in an old neighborhood, the kind where the trees are ancient, and the houses are all slightly different from one another, and there's a leafy canopy over the center of the road, you might never have seen that kind of light. You get it, sometimes, in places like the Rosegarden District in San Jose, CA, on overcast days. It's a soft light that lends a misty patina to everything it touches, and walking in it is not unlike being steeped in sepia and posing in a picture.

On days when the light was like that, I'd walk into a favorite cafe, and sip a mocha, and read a thick novel, spending hours inside myself. I always wanted to experience the real thing. I hope that when the levees are rebuilt and the city is drained, there's some of that left.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more, I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans3

I wrote, several months ago, that the ideal way to spend my 35th birthday was to sip cafe au lait and eat beignets at Cafe Du Monde, but I let myself be talked out of it. “The weather will suck,” they said. “Wait til fall, when it's nicer.” So I waited, and I shouldn't have.

I've been glued to CNN for the past few days, watching the damage from Katrina mounting, watching water pour into New Orleans. My thoughts are with the people of Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, of course, but a piece of my heart cries for the city of New Orleans as well.

Way down yonder in New Orleans
In the land of the dreamy scenes
There's a garden of Eden…you know what I mean4

Amy of BeautyJoyFood has asked all her blogbuddies to write about New Orleans in some fashion, and post the link you see at the top of the entry. So this entry is at her behest, but it's dedicated to two amazing women from OpenDiary: RebelBelle, who is safe at home, but soggy, in Alabama, and Cobalt, who is one of the many evacuees from New Orleans.

1, 2, & 3) “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?,” by Louis Alter and Eddie DeLange.
4) “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” by Henry Creamer and J. Turner Layton.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com