My grandfather and I discussed writing. I told him how many novels I had to read for just one literature class in Oxford and he told me, “baby, it takes me so long to get through one page, stumbling through all those words. The only way I’ll ever read a long book is if someone finds a good, long western and buys it for me.”

He would read it just because someone had given it to him, if nothing else. He’d struggle through the small print and tedious scenic descriptions because he wouldn’t want to waste someone’s kind intentions. There was a pleasant pause in our conversation, and he sat rocking in his chair while I flipped through a magazine that was sitting on their crystal dining room table. That table always seemed so impractical to me, but it made my grandmother happy because it sparkled and made my grandfather happy because it made my aunt happy who had bought it for them. My grandfather’s arm shot up (in slow motion) and he shook his finger in the air a few times. “I have something for you baby…” he said. “I thought maybe you’d like to read it. I found my great grandmother’s journal. We were hiding it until her daughter died—she wrote some things about how they didn’t get along…Let me go get it.” I smiled. I smiled because I was genuinely too excited not to smile. “Oh really?” I said as he made his way out of the room. I was excited. I was thrilled, really—to read someone’s deepest thoughts. To find treasures inside written memories or poems or even an old “To-do List.”

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God allows miracles to happen when its least expected. March 23, 1991 my mother’s first child myself Jocelyn Marie Blake was born. When I was born they had discovered that I had run out growing room in my mother’s womb so my legs were not able to develop properly. My mother was happy despite my complication. However, because of this complication other problems had raised. The doctor told her that there was something wrong with the bones in my legs. My legs were severely bowed and my bones were too soft and I wouldn’t be able to walk. With a broken heart my mother took this piece of information and returned home. She refused to believe what the doctors had said and went on her own search. Read the rest of this entry

Recently I put up a sign that said “Nothing is too hard for God” and people started throwing stones at it, so I took it down.  Now I’ve put it up again and I will leave it up no matter what.

Doing Census verification and driving down  poor streets, lots of  dirt on the side, and azalea bushes in front of  every termite-infested  wooden board house. Grassy spots to pull off the  road, places to find  an address and check it off on my hand held  computer to be GPS’d up to  the sats. And to make a written note about a  mental image. A mental  image conjured from the classic rock on the  radio. Here:

Listening to radio  commercials … “spectacular deal on this clean  2007 Cadillac … come on  by, free food, hamburgers, hot dogs, drinks …  take a look”. It’s like  watching a television show where the actors  believe, the characters  believe, that they’re in the real world, that  the clean Cady and hot  dogs are it.  And I think, where does that leave  me?

Where indeed, in driving, in living and  dying and breeding and  eating? I can’t change channels because every  station is that world,  the real one. I’ve been like this for years and  my psychosis becomes  more pronounced with time, with more and more hot  dog sounds and clean  cars. And theme park billboards. Read the rest of this entry