Introducing…Grace St. Clair

I follow some fabulous writers, and I enjoy promoting them so that people who enjoy my blog can get to know other writers I follow.

Today is all about Grace.  

Now, that link is Grace’s current blog… but today I want to talk about her old blog on Blogger.  It has some jewels.

If you want something good to read on a rainy day, Grace’s old Blog is definitely worth your time. 

I’m on my second reading of it, because I’ve mentioned that I struggle with eating, and Grace’s blog is riveting enough that it draws my attention in and I can sometimes read her blog instead of doing “Blog N Eat”.

How does one describe Grace?  She’s complex.  At times she’s reflective (bordering on philosophical), other times she’s sarcastic and humorous.  Above all, Grace writes some of the best poetry I’ve seen. 

Below I’ve highlighted some passages from Blogger that I enjoy:

“If you live any amount of time in a place you pick up the local lingo. I’ve lived a lot of different places but certainly never lost my native lingo and have often found myself trying to explain what I’m tawkin’ about.
Our local mini-mart is owned by Hindu people, country unknown, and when I bought my lottery ticket the other day the gentleman said, “Don’t forget us when you win”. I said, “From your lips to God’s ears”. He looked at me funny.”

“It’s an odd feeling – phantom hair.
Fluffing hair that isn’t there,
I have no feelings of despair.
It will return, I have no doubt.
Until it does, I’ll do without.”

“My ‘conversations’ with the cats:
Are you crazy?
Must you be everywhere I am?
What have you got now?
Do you want the cheese or not?
Move your fat butt.
Leave her A-lone!
Do that one more time and I swear I’m gonna kill you.

Didn’t I just tell you to get down? Am I not speaking English?
Get OFF!”

“I’ve never quite understood what they mean when they say “Live each day as if it is your last” I would like to spend the last day of my life stuffing my face with jelly donuts and having hot jungle monkey sex.  The last day of my life will probably be spent in a hospital bed, pooping in a diaper and gasping for breath.  Truth to tell I’d rather not spend each day doing either of those things…enticing as the first may seem.”

“When I say hanging out – I mean kids would gather at the candy store, take up all the stools at the counter, order a coke and basically act like fools. Which teenagers do. Periodically there would be a brou-ha-ha and all the kids would get thrown out and possibly banned for a few days. In which case they would migrate to the other candy store – but this was not always a good solution because Jack and Ruby always knew which kids they had thrown out – so if you got banned from Jack’s, Ruby would know and he wouldn’t let you in, in which case your social life was screwed until you apologized.”

[That whole 2012 post is one of my favorites, with the Americana reference to candy stores where teens hung out in 1950’s NYC]

“We are music. The first sounds we hear are music – the beating of our mother’s heart; of our own. The low notes – we hear them first. Warm, dark, comforting. Rhythm – babies love the rhythm – rock them and they are soothed; swing them gently back and forth; our earliest memories, our first memories, are musical – rhythm and melody. The beat of the heart, the melody of the movement of the fluid we float in…our first memories. We share these memories, tho different rhythms and different melodies, and sing out to each other – hear me, hear my music.”

“I was walking home from work this afternoon and I was stopped dead in my tracks by the graceful antics of two small butterflies – they flew close to the ground – wing to wing; swooping and gliding; then chasing each other with the smaller one getting under the wing of the larger one so they looked as if they were one; they tumbled through the air, tossing themselves about and then they parted and flew off in opposite directions.
And I stood there with a foolish smile on my face while traffic rushed around me and and the lunch time diners gave me strange looks as I stood stock still watching this incredible gift.”

“We piled out of the theatre, hopped up, excited, totally jazzed. As we made our way down the street, without forethought or planning, we began to dance, snapping our fingers and singing – “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way, From your first cigarette to your last dying day”

We jostled around and reformed to sing – “Gee Officer Krupke, what are we to do? Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup You!”

We settled, and walked and then someone started to sing – “Could be, Who knows? There’s something due any day I will know right away Soon as it shows…” 15 sweet, beautiful teenage voices joined in. One of the boys ran ahead, leapt onto a light pole, ala Gene Kelly in ‘Singing in the Rain”, one arm wrapped around the pole, the other flung up and out …and we sang – “It may come cannon-ballin’ down from the sky, Gleam in its eye, Bright as a rose. Who knows?”

“I hear music in my head, that no one else can hear.
The drummer keeps a steady beat;
the guitarist throws a riff
While the sax man blows it long and low –
it finally hits my feet.

A shuffle, then a bump, a swing,
as hips go side to side
And then the trumpet sidles in and I begin to glide.”

https://www.just-tawkin.com/2008/

And now I am done… for real… today, as this was like post number 3.

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