Ampersand

Category: Writing

  • Enough

    We got back from the trip to the States about three weeks ago. “How was the trip?” people asked me, and I said “Good! The trip was good.” The trip was good, and being home is good, and it’s all good. I’ve been trying to write about it for about two weeks–one of the old-style…

  • Finally, The Winter Boyfriend Video

    Last year I wrote a song. I sang it to myself a lot and talked about a lot and practicing it a lot with my friend Jez. At first I used to say ‘band practice’ in quotes because I reasoned that thirty-six year old public servants with no musical ability don’t really go to band…

  • Scintillating Prose

    I’ve been sick for what feels like ages even though I guess it’s only been a week, really. Went back to work full time today, swallowing my antibiotics and wiping my nose. I’ve had to skip circus and parties and Cut Copy and all sorts of things: too tired to do anything but stagger home,…

  • Down From The Mountain

    In the course of a series of emails this week I sent a friend a link to this old entry (I still call them “entries”), and he sent back some very nice compliments. Is it true, he asked, is all of it true. The mountain, the kiss, the fireworks in the background on the Fourth…

  • Maybe Next Time

    I wanted to write a story about hanging around, about sitting around, about walking around. I wanted to write a story about the stars and the sky and the moon and the trees, and everyone who lived in all of those places. I wanted to write a story about the deep blue sea. I wanted…

  • and anyway

    one time a lover sent me an email with a link to an article about introversion it compared extroverts (that’s me, I’m the extrovert) to yapping dogs while introverts (that was him, he was the introvert) are deep still calm lakes full of thoughts and meaning and more thoughts, and broad considerations that are far…

  • Feathered Watermelon

    Yesterday I realized I’ve been keeping a paper journal since I was twelve. I’ve been keeping a paper journal for twenty years, man. I started out writing in big five-section spiral notebooks and at first would use a different color pen for each section. I would write, in big block letters on the front page:…

  • Paragraphs

    The Tent They are out of shots. They got in the car and drove out of the stunned city on Tuesday, thinking that this way at least they wouldn’t get anyone else sick. The baby is quiet, breathing deep, ragged, seldom, and last night as they zipped up the tent against the wind (it’s early…

  • Going Through The Archives

    I’ve been spending so much time in the archives the past couple of days that I forget I haven’t been writing much; I’m reading so much of my own stuff that I feel I must have been updating seven times a day. Part of me feels I should be preserving the old entries in their…

  • Allchiara Dot com

    Hey! Hi! I was going to wait until things were prettier around here, or until I could figure out how to make the archives not kill my soul, or until I’d gone through everything and assigned categories and fixed the links and so on and so forth…but I am so tired of managing this journal,…

  • Three Experiences With Art

    (Originally written at my livejournal) First: I’m about eighteen, in the last throes of my career as a Teen Evangelist ™, and am spending two weeks in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip with my church in Miami. We’re finished up our construction work and are headed home, spending a couple of days at…

  • Diary-X Disaster

    (Originally written at my livejournal) Hey, guess what. You know that other, old skool 2001-style journal I had? The one I linked to off this here livejournal thingy? Diary-X is, like…gone. A hard drive failure, apparently. It’s uncertain at this point what this will mean long term; short term the word on the street is…

  • Going Okay

    Last night was the second night of my writing class. It’s going okay. It’s held in this sort of writers’ center in Capitol Hill (and I think that at least half of my jitteriness last week had to do with having to not only drive but also park in Capitol Hill because I am a…

  • Jittery

    Tonight is the first night of the writing class I signed up for last week. I was emailing with Gwen about how she wrote this awesome book and I kind of want to write an awesome book but have no idea how one goes about writing an awesome book. “Maybe I should take a class…

  • Something Else in 2004

    As usual, I made no New Year’s Resolutions this year. The one I made last year (to take to drink) didn’t work out very well, as I remain an unregenerate teetotaler. And it’s already twelve days into 2004 and so far I haven’t lost thirty pounds or written a novel or found my dream job…

  • I Went To JournalCon And All I Got Was…

    TranceJen and I had a little shopping to do in the hotel gift shop while we were at JournalCon. We saw something we thought would be perfect. She was within our price range… …so we hastened to purchase her. She was just what we had been looking for!

  • Dear JournalCon, I Love You

    You know I was worried. You know that I was secretly thinking I was going to hang out in my room all weekend. You know that those first couple of hours in the swag room were just awful…that I actually did the thing where I had a plateful of cucumber with Ranch dressing and was…

  • What If? (Special JournalCon Freakout Entry)

    Please excuse me. I just have to get all this out of my system for a minute. I’m sure you understand. COMMENCE FREAKOUT MODE What if I miss the plane? I have to get up at 4:00 and be out the door by 4:30 to get there by 5:00 to catch a 6:00 flight. That…

  • Imagine, If You Will…

    …what it would be like if Sundry and I went to JournalCon this October. Can’t you see it? Picture us leaning on the wall of the ballroom in the hotel, watching all the Cool Famous Journallers shriek with recognition, drink, hand out “swag,” and make karaoke plans. Picture us whispering and tussling and punching each…

  • One Year

    A year ago I was home for Christmas vacation and I had just read through Jessamyn’s archives. I was telling Carl how much I liked her journal and how much I thought that maybe I could do something like that too and how much fun that would be. I even knew about a service that…

  • Sixteen Candles–collab entry

    I used to carry around a small spiral-bound notebook during my junior year of high school so that I could write down any poems that occurred to me no matter where I was. Took it to geometry class, to Denny’s after the movies, to youth group, to play practice. My favorite image of myself at…

  • Personal

    It’s been about six months since I started this journal, can you believe it? Me neither. It hasn’t catapulted me to stardom and financial independence yet, but neither have I gotten any hate mail either. I guess I’m coming out even. I’ve been thinking about this journal, and online journalling in general, all week. First…

  • These People’s Journals Are So Cool, I Went And Started My Own!

    It’s my tenth entry! I’ve already written and deleted about four or five opening paragraphs here, trying to explain why I thought starting this little journal would be a good idea. Of course, since I have no readers as yet (since I have told no one about it yet) I can’t quite tell if it…