Can We Keep This Simple?

I miss Orlando.

That is all.

A few ideas:

- Spend an entire day subway hopping and journal recording all the people or things I find interesting.

- Coming up with a list of all my favorite things to eat/do and plan an entire day around these things. Simple stuff though, like ordering my favorite chai latte and sitting at my favorite spot in the park. You know, stuff do-able. 

- JUST thought of a totally new idea. Make a list of my favorite things that I would want in an entire day, that are completely undo-able. Such as: Waking up and winning the lottery. Seeing Barenaked Ladies perform in their 90's version of them. Running into Abraham Lincoln while walking the dogs in the morning and having random morning conversation. Woah. I totally just blew my mind. No lie. 

I gotta take this over to myspace.... But, what would you have in your days? Realistic or unrealistic?

So Aware

So last week I went to my literary group. It's a small group of students and a few professors who all submit little tidbits of work to one another via email, and then we give feedback and review one another's stuff. I hit gold with this group, because we got some real genuine feedback. 

Last week when I went, I submitted some old poetry I'd done. I had to explain a few poems, because it hadn't come completely across. 

"Well, it's just about wanting to keep a part of someone until they come back, just hold a piece of them, no matter how small. Or even if it's just their shadow, as long as it's them."

"Now Astra! See? Why didn't you just say that?"

"Uhhh, erm.... I thought I did?"

We tossed and turned a bit over the subject. Apparently I completely skew over what I'm feeling and hide it too much, without giving the audience some grounding. I get too lost in my metaphors and similes. I told them, "Well, I suppose it's because I blog, and I'm hyper aware of my audience. I don't want anyone to figure out who it's about." There was a huge 'Aha!' moment around the table. See, I would have never really noticed that if I didn't have the group. It's because I don't write my blogs in some little word document. I pretty much write it straight into this little box, either here, myspace, or xanga. My writing is pretty stream of conscious, and then I edit it to death then hit publish. It's my ritual. I rarely think about what I'm going to write for too long. I just get a thought, or a feeling I want to share, and push it out. That's what I do.

I often wondered what the difference between me and a lot of other bloggers were like, since there's a lot who have just their internet posse and an alternative identity. I mean, I know I have an alt, but I don't hide it. My top people consist of my closest friends in my real life, and then another section for the people I love on the interweb :D 

So I'm gonna try to be more... robust? Break the walls of my writing? Show a little more skin :) But not real skin. Ew. Okay, maybe that really, just not online.