Natasha Alexander » best friends forever

Jane Austen’s Fight Club

Natasha — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:51:12 +0000

It’s my Blogaversary!

Natasha — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:57:34 +0000

Exactly one year ago today, Nancy Drew Too rolled out its first blog post! It’s my blogaversary! It’s a birthday! I followed my writing buddies Kathan, Darksculptures, and Dayner into the blog pool and we started swimming. In the deep end.

Little did I realize at the time how much y’all would mean to me as we plowed forward and shared our writing adventures, hopes, dreams, frustrations, doubts, and, of course, our fabulous writing. Bless your hearts and thanks much, darlin’s… Likewise to everyone else who has graced this blog with your presence and comments.

In keeping with the tradition of my first blog post (what is it about these summer colds?), I’m gonna go take some cough syrup and blow my nose now and hope to come up with something clever for the Year In Review when I feel better. Namaste.

A knee-high tower of books

Natasha — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:19:39 +0000

My church had its annual best-in-the-world used book sale this week-end, and I scored. Big time.

Here’s what I came home with (in case you’re wondering, I’m listing them according to physical size and where they actually sit in the tower, so it’s smallest to biggest. Thank heaven Barnes & Noble doesn’t sort that way.)

A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole
The Idiot by Dostoevsky
Island Murders by Canada
For the Sake of Elena by George
Seven Up by Evanovich
Basket Case by Hiaasen
A Patchwork Planet by Tyler
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by Rowling
Wise Blood by O’Connor
The English Patient by Ondaatje
Belle Weather by Rivenbark
The Bible Salesman by Edgerton
Water for Elephants by Gruen
I, Richard by George
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Lamott
Blue Shoe by Lamott

Thirteen bucks. Grace (Eventually) is the only book I’ve read and I’m thrilled to have my own copy after hoarding a friend’s copy all last winter. For the Sake of Elena is also looking strangely familiar and I’m thinking it might be one I donated a couple of years ago.

So. I have my beach and bed-time reading cut out for me for a while. I started with A Confederacy of Dunces based on Kirsten’s recommendation (even if I didn’t win her contest).

Any suggestions for what to read next? What from this list did you like? Throw across the room? Never heard of?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Friday Flash Fiction

Natasha — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:56:36 +0000

“That your dog?” He laughed at the dirty hound licking crumbs and gravel off the sidewalk next to the outdoor café. She could see its ribs; dried blood stuck to a jagged scratch along its flank.

The only dog here is this date, she thought.

“Yes,” she said as she stood up. “Yes, it is.”

She grabbed his half-pound Buster Burger before walking away.

She hoped the dog would enjoy it, would let her take him home.

Yoga B & B

Natasha — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:09:24 +0000

Each January, my yoga group does a B & B – breakfast and burning – and this past Saturday was our day to bring food and eat together. We shared simple gifts with each other – the perfect crystal, tulip bulbs and gardening gloves, a new meditation chant. K had snapped each of us throughout the year and put tiny snapshots of each in magnetic frames. I made little books (of course) with Thich Nhat Hanh quotes and a poem by Raicho Hiratsuko. (I’ll post a photo of some of these later. My camera still has pics of the little dog in it and frankly we can’t bear to look at them yet to download them to computer.)

Then we each wrote what we wanted to let go, to release, from the past. We also wrote individual goals for the future, our intentions moving forward. Some of us wrote a lot, some only a few words.

We moved out to the deck, where C had already filled her little iron cauldron with sea salt and Epsom salts. She poured rum (yes, rum – I think any alcohol works, but rum is perfect at the beach!) over the salts and lit a match. Once we saw the flame rising, we crumbled our tissue paper words and tossed the papers, one by one, into the cauldron.

That’s me – in my NaNoWriMo hoodie, even – tossing my words into the flame. You can see the walkway leading east over the dunes to the Atlantic, which is peeping out of the top left corner of the photo.

We watched until our words had been completely consumed by the flame. Because of the way the sunlight hit, we could watch the flame rise from the cauldron and also watch the heat shadows flicker on the wooden deck behind the cauldron.

Here’s Hiratsuko’s poem, the perfect bookend to this morning:

Women, please let your own sun, your
concentrated energy, your own submerged
authentic vital power shine out from you.

We are no longer the moon. Today we are truly the sun.
We will build shining golden cathedrals
at the top of crystal mountains, East of
the Land of the Rising Sun.

Women, when you paint your own portrait,
do not forget to put the golden dome at
the top of your head.