Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I love Halloween. One time, I dressed up and celebrated for a whole week. Wait, never mind, that week wasn't Halloween...that was just my usual attire. Like Jim Carrey said on SNL when he was dressed as "Hellvis," It's the one time of year when I actually fit in.

C.A. MacConnell

Happy Almost Halloween!

Wolf

Wolf Haven International. Tenino, WA

Working on getting my third book out there, woohoo!! Keeping fingers crossed. :) <3 And going for a walk with one of my best friends. It's gonna be a beautiful (although chilly) day. Love to you,
C.A. MacConnell

My Totem, and Checking In.

Dear you:

My hawk returned. Usually, the female comes first, and then the male rolls in after about a few weeks. I see them each year, right outside my window. :) They both adore this tree. It must be a good lookout for their din din. Also a good place for them to hook up and have "dates," ahem. They're not shy, believe me. And not quiet. Ha. So I saw her yesterday right when I needed to. See, when I catch a glimpse of them, a feeling of peace always settles over me. Suddenly, my heart feels full, yet calm. In short, I feel loved. I see it as a sudden, tangible reminder from my higher power...something, out there, is definitely telling me that everything's gonna be OK.

She came right on time. So, thanks, Great Spirit, for reaching out. I love hawks; I believe they're my totem these days.

Working on some new fiction. 💪👍😁🙌 Right now, I have an outline/shell going, along with a few chapters. Definitely in the beginning stages, but I'm rolling with it. Today, I'm meeting with an old friend to do some research, because I'm at a point where I can't really go forward without it. Rad. He was kind enough to offer up his time for me. Real, in-person accounts are always the best way to go when researching, I believe. Well, of course, the best way is to actually experience a story myself...dig in and just become the research, so to speak.

For my second novel, THE HOUSE OF ANCHOR, I embarked on many years of research. I interviewed skaters, read numerous skate magazines, studied about weapons, boards, ramps, trucks, wheels, and on and on. I learned all the skate tricks, went to competitions, watched tons of street-based movies to create a mixture of dialogue, took notes, emailed skaters, stopped people on the street, read books, read transcripts, lived in Seattle and became immersed in the actual life, spent some time living on and off the streets, you name it. I wasn't shy with it, ever. Years of research. I took notes. I became these notes. I'd love for you to pick up a copy. There's a description of the book when you click on the link. If you've already read it, please tell a friend!

If you'd like to check out GRIFFIN FARM, my first novel, please go here for a description...and for purchase details! It's easy, I promise you.

Love,
C.A. MacConnell

P.S. Morning shots. I'm usually up around 4 or 5 a.m., but I'm not great in the mornings, as far as social abilities go. But it's all right, since most people aren't up at that godawful hour, so I'm only cranky with myself, which can get ugly, now that I think about it. I usually feel better around noon.

P.P.S. Check out my big noggin. 💗 And Happy Halloween!!! It's coming!!!👻 Don't forget, THE HOUSE OF ANCHOR IS NOW ON SALE!

Photo: Let Me Show You

Let Me Show You

C.A. MacConnell

Photos: Limbs, One Yes.

  Limbs

 

One Yes

Sometimes, all we need is one yes. I've been trying my ass off and waiting on that yes for 23 years. Writing can be really tough, sometimes. But my heart feels good and true, and I have so many blessings. That's what's important. <3

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Overlook

Overlook

Mariemont, OH

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Argo the Dog

Argo

In case you didn't know, I used to be quite afraid of dogs, and this German Shepherd, Argo, lives 2 miles away from me. So I started walking to see him sometimes, just to test myself. It took me an entire year before it was safe to approach his fence; he's quite fierce, and he could sense my fear as well. But after some work, we've become best friends. Lovers, you might say, in fact. When I come now, he can't wait to jump up on his fence and lick my face. Back in the day, he'd show his teeth and rage and bark and act like he was going to tear my arm off. Not anymore. Now we're soul mates.

It's been a beautiful journey. I love this dog. You never know what may happen in life, if you just stick something out and show someone a great deal of love.

C.A. MacConnell

Vacation Room

There's no question -- she is beneath him.
Flat on her back, licking her lips,
swimming in sheets, she is seemingly
satisfied. For miles, no one is near. Quiet,
the hours. They could be under water.

Blue on white, she buries herself
under blankets. Always, she’s on time
to meet him. True, she's always drop
dead, carrying limes. Mornings, door
service, it seems that he couldn’t live

without her. Nights, he stacks trays,
unsure how long she will last. No rain --
each dawn glows in the vacation room.
Surely, hiding will make her and break her
into the love of his life. A vision, she sleeps

cold now. But shouldn't her middle hold
less curve. Shouldn't the cut cheek slide into
the chin, stabbing the jawline. And the side
of her face -- shouldn't it hold more lines,
showing the age, the lost years etched

into another shade of eye. When will the pupil
become larger, the black giving up to a fierce,
traveling light. And when she turns, tosses,
rolls over, why doesn't her tired breathing
deepen, like the bravest at rest, like horses.

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Power Lines

Power Lines

Lunken Airport

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Step Up

Step Up

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Drummers

Drummers

Clifton, OH

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: When Light Breaks Through

When Light Breaks Through

Miami Meadows

C.A. MacConnell

Free Dance!

Throwback Thursday, some Comedy for you. C.A.

Free Dance!

Back in 1998-9, I worked at a health food store in Virginia. It was a privately owned, high maintenance, cultish, superbly organized place, and I have no idea how I got the job because I had no experience, and I was newly sober, and I wasn’t feeling well in the head at all I might add, which made it a true adventure, since I suddenly morphed into a wild hippie – not shaving, all natural everything, very high maintenance. Anyway, being the extremist that I was, I got so obsessed with ingredients that it took me all fucking day to shop. Suddenly, when it came to food and cleaners and detergent, I had to be 100% pure. Sure, I have always had trouble with the “happy medium” idea, but at that time, it was extreme. And then I created an entire recycling center inside my one bedroom apartment. I had so much recycling that I had room for nothing else in the apartment except for an egg crate cushion, one chair, and a small desk. That’s it. Anyway, I got so obsessed and spent so much time studying labels while shopping that even though I became an absolute expert, I got fired.

Actually, I probably got fired because one day at work I asked my coworker this: “Hey, do you know of some kind of aromatherapy that helps out with crazy racing thoughts? My mind is in fuckin’ overdrive!” That’s right, I really said that. In front of customers. So my coworker just looked at me weirdly, shook her head, and picked up the phone, and in case you were wondering, yes, the call was about me.

After my short adventure at the health food store, I became so excited and intrigued when I met this medicine woman who only had one name, like Madonna. She was rad, and she loved my “quirky” personality, so she introduced me to her secret society of “Free Dance.” On Friday nights, a group of strangers got together at some vacant house, and she turned some music on, and we “danced out” the way we felt. Like therapeutic movement, only there was no real therapist there. Just a bunch of wild hippies dancing out feelings. We were ultra-serious about it at the time, but thinking back, I’m sure it looked like a circus. Actually, it was fun as hell…for most of us…

See, there was this one chick who was kinda down I guess, because she spent the whole dance night curled up in a little ball on the floor. That was her dance – some kind of never-ending, weird, slow-mo somersault. Every single week, she curled up in this ball, so I’m not sure if the Free Dance was helping her. My dance was pretty intriguing. Kind of a mix between some stoned-out hippie crossed with a hip hop act crossed with a kangaroo crossed with a spider crossed with someone who just got electrocuted. Really, my Free Dance was no different than my regular dancing, to tell the truth.

Maybe I’ll start a Free Dance class around here. You know, get a boom box and some old used CDs, and find some warehouse. I might be the only one attending. Just me, some Dead Can Dance, a candle, some incense, hells yeah. I’d write more, but I have to Free Dance to the kitchen. I may return, I may not.

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Little Miami River

Little Miami River

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Tell Us

Tell Us

Going deep into Kentucky today to share my story. Wish me luck. :) <3
C.A. MacConnell

Clock-in

Hi there. 👀👄💗💪Been cooking up some ideas for some new fiction. I have some ideas, starts, musings for some short stories, books, and the like. Probably a new book. Book 4. I think of good ideas reading random things -- the news, old stories, and even old excerpts I've written. Sometimes I get ideas from poems. Right now, just gathering info. Will focus soon. That's how it works...I take walks, read up, feel like a mess, and then suddenly, I focus, and it comes together. Ha. Like magic.

Well, it comes together with a lot of painstaking hard work + magic.

Still working on getting book 3 out there. It's a process, aye. But I won't give up! Wish me luck. Time to rest. I've been a bit under the weather. Just wanted to give an update and wish you well. Hope you like today's poem.
🐯
-- C.A. MacConnell

Clock-in

So clean the buckets
or don't
scrub a-thing.
Maybe ride the finest
gelding;
that boy's 100-K
at least.
Fix what's black
and make it
white-smooth,
or watch someone else
get the leg up;
he'll become
the cowboy you never were
and never will be.
Teach this and that kid
how to win.
Always.
Or head down the drive
and lose every single one
all-the-way.
The cat lives or dies.
Look, Mac the dog smiles
almost-forever.
And then the barking.
Above all, keep-moving.
And just when true-
love comes
to break the back of work,
perhaps he never even knew
who you were,
but like God, now he hears
your name,
and he's with you
wherever-you-go, even
when you clock-out.
So walk in silence
or hammer-something.

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Roar

Roar

Cincinnati Zoo 

 

Film, b/w. :) <3 Hope you have a good day. I'm slow to start! Much love,

C.A. MacConnell

Shavings

Songs are poems, poems are songs. Ray Lamontagne is a master at the craft, in my opinion. Rich with concrete imagery. :) Love it when it comes from real life, from the gut. -- C.A. MacConnell

Shavings

Hand me a bandage. Earlier, I cut myself;
we are forever blending into some couch.
You are made of smog, smoke, fog, steam.
You are dust. You are an intangible buffet,
a cirrus cloud, a vast scab, a gorgeous vapor.
Your shoulders are static rather than bone.

Something hangs between us – a fight never
fought, a loss never lost, and the irresistible,
makeup screw. To our mad, silent lives --
from the dirtiest laundry to the lightest
sheets. Sometimes, I see your shavings.
Cutting the quiet in two, sound is our knife.

I see our small house, white paint peeling
on the left, the heart side. I see you call
the painter. I see me call the gutter man.
I see our swing, our kitchen, our late night
dinner -- orange, fake fish on green plates,
no napkin, bare clean kitchen, the scent of it.

The table, the imperfect circle. And no matter
how the meal ends -- empty or full, imagined
or real -- even if I could, even if I should,
I wouldn't take anything back. Hand me
a bandage. I see us sit down at the same
time, sinking into high-backed, black, plastic

chairs, praying and laughing and digging in,
whether or not people need to eat
in heaven.

C.A. MacConnell

Church

I see your face
in the face of

strangers --

in the lick of lips,

in the sweeping,

and my eyes become
blue,

like you,

and the green becomes
my tree,
my man,

my church.

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Pay Phone

Pay Phone

Anywhere, US

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Pumpkin Carver

Pumpkin Carver

Roanoke, VA

Howdy. Been working too much. Ah. Some things that come to mind at the moment:

1. I think I'd like to marry someone. I suppose I'd like to hang out with the person first. I would also like to have a tiny house behind the house (large or small) of the person I marry, and we'll just live in our own places and meet at one house or the other whenever we want to have a hot rendezvous. I would also like my tiny house to have working plumbing.
2. The sequel to "It" should be "Not It." That shark movie was terrifying.
3. Diet Cola is every bit as good as Diet Coke. In the Midwest, we call it "pop," not "soda." If you judge me for drinking pop, I'll say something like, "Hows that fuckin' massive burger you scarfed down earlier?" or "I'm sure you're a perfect person; that must be fun." Hahaha.
4. I feel sad for pumpkins this time of year.
5. I love raptors, Good 'n Plentys, and Quest bars, as well as ducks, Argo the dog, and you.

C.A. MacConnell

Photo: Wild Horses

Wild Horses Monument

Vantage, Washington

From the late nineties. Original was film, scanned in. Love this place, the freedom there. <3. Hope you have a good day. Time to get to work.

Much love,
C.A. MacConnell

Happy October

 

This Morning
C.A. MacConnell