To O

A pause, a breather, what am I saying, a PARTY now, because it is dear O's one-year blog anniversary.

Hurray!

I started reading O right around when I started my blog. I was too intimidated to leave a comment for quite a long while, even though she was the first person to go into my links. She was my instant must-read.

I really don't know where to start about her. Just so eloquent, erudite, sexy, intelligent. Hot. Watching the evolution of her blog over this year, witnessing her resilience, her openness, and her committed brainy passion for life- all of which shine through blindingly in her every lovely phrase-has been such an incredible inspiration.

(Gush, gush, and I could gush some more, no problem. Such reactions are involuntary when bombarded, yes? )

I would have been happy just reading her, but nooo, then she had to come and read here and leave fabulous comments, and then I got to come further into contact with her lately, and she is all sweet and warm and kind.

She and her blog are like, the coolest gifts. Ever!

Happy blog day again O, you know I wish you all of the very best. Thanks for a fabulous year! All I have to offer in return is this leetle present. A blurry off-centered slightly-parted kiss.

And a little (ok a long) silly something in response to your quiz, below. Enjoy.

I don’t know about doing this quiz of O’s. The only thing I know is that Sylvia is a goat. The theater critics grudgingly commend her story, for all the disturbing sodomy and bestiality. But even that one I’m not sure about. Because Sylvia is also a Crowe, a Raven. I want to go Down Under to see her parks’ landscapes. Or I can go to Sylvia Park, California. (Google is evil, as am I... Just in this case though, promise.) Whatever, Sylvia Park, I’m going to California, leave this all behind, no one can stop me now, not you, not even O. Actually, O probably could. If O asked me to stay I would, because today is her Blogday, and so today it is all about her.

Speaking of O: Holy, fair, and wise is she;/The heaven such grace did lend her,/That she might admirèd be. So you see, she cannot be even remotely compared to a goat. Ravens on the other hand have been occasionally compared to writing desks, though I’m not sure why. There is no point answering questions even Mad Genius Hatters could not answer. They’re the same guys who butter their pocketed times and dip them in their teas, stir it all up with life’s meager coffee spoons. What more can we ask of them? The coffee spoons had to be mentioned because it is in one of my favorite poems, and she is one of my favorite people. Also one of my favorite writers. O that is.

I had a mad, lucid dream once where I flew on the backbone of a raven, and she gave me one of her quills, and then I sat at my desk and wrote and wrote whatever I wanted, dipping into this and that, and I started to fly again on the backbones of words, on the loosened plumage of a raven. O dips into my mind sometimes when she writes, it is scary and oh so cool. O does more than that though, opens us to her luminous intellect, so we can see what we could not see. I’m glad that she writes. I am glad that we read what she writes. I am glad I am not a Dr. Seuss, though I can sound like one. But enough about me, this she I speak of is O. She is O, and today is her Blogday and I want it to be all about her.

But a segue: we don’t have writing desks any more, do we? If I did, mine would be made of oak, slanting, all solid and shiny. But impermanent, prone to rot eventually. Keyboards are less bio-degradable, but not much more permanent really. Laptops crash, memory freezes and slips away. It is the way of all fish and computer chips, it is the way of all pages, it is the way of all minds, and yes, it is the way of all flesh to disappear. Then again, the Logos never disappears. But oh dear, I have skipped ahead. You are ahead by a century, O, let me just squeeze that in.

This year has felt like a century sometimes, sometimes more, hasn’t it? It’s felt like the kind of centuries that go by fast, though. Like how, one minute we’re using pocket-watches, next minute we’ve gone digital. (Or we just check our unpaid-for cell-phones instead, if we didn't forget to charge them.) Or like how, one minute we’re all Victorian, all anti-sex, all anti-abortion, and then the next minute…errr. Never mind. Cause I just thought of that Victorian novel written by a goat- I-mean- sheep herder from Down Under. You know, the one where the guy tries to give that pregnant maid money and everyone’s like, shocked. And then he gets sent to jail for mistaking a proper-like lady for a hooker. And then he hooks up with the maid again when he gets out of jail, and he becomes like, totally an outcast. But that doesn’t sound too distant at all. Not in some places. Not even here. Is it just the way of some to fear, to imprison, to alienate, to reject? Why haven’t we changed yet? Why do we still nurture this? Is it in our nature? What is up with that? When will the time for that be up? I don’t know. There’s hope yet though, a plumply pumping don’t-ever -stop kiss in all our hearts.

Because O is beyond all that. It’s hard to believe Eros, Logos, is a year old, it seems so much wiser, kinder, more beautiful. Yes, how fast the year has gone by. It makes me nostalgic. Where are the snowdens of yesteryear? No wait, that question isn’t nostalgic, that question just disturbs me. Some questions should not be asked. It was the part of the book that disturbed me the most. I cried the first time I read of his death at the back of that flying plane. He should not have died like that. The snowdens of yesteryear are being sent elsewhere now, have moved further towards the middle of the east. But this is no soap-box, this is my tribute to O and her Blogday. My attempt to give her the answers she needs. I don't know, no answers, they died, just like we all do, it is the way – you know what’s coming- of all flesh. But it shouldn’t have been that way.

Still, we must not mourn too long, must move on, must change, must evolve. Thankfully, it is also the way of all flesh to rejoice, to pulse, to regenerate, to sing, to erect. (To make lists to try and make a point.) Where and when is up to us. Up is when your hand goes down under there, and then you feel the tug and the throb lifting both inside and out. That is Eros and in this O excels, ever day, I must commend her for that, though I am not a swain. I believe the word they use for me- not that it is about me- is a bisexual, but who needs the limits of words when we’ve got a flying spirit, no? All I know is that feeling when we read, when we touch, does not stay maybe, but lasts for as long as we are around, sustains us, and that is all that matters. And sometimes the Os we reach at the end, or the rewind and re-end, again and again, feel like a century, last longer, take us further, upwards, to infinity and beyond. (Hah.) Like the ancient books from the time of the invention of the amphitheatre resting still on our shelves, near our non-existent writing desks.

O says she steals from our shelves, our novels, ancient, Victorian, contemporary. (She also says she steals novels from bookstores, naughty naughty.) I say she lends her grace to them, breathes them anew. I say, no I echo, that they mirror her, the fairest of them all. I say too that books are meant to be lent anyways, and are very difficult to return, to which my shelves can attest. But then what do I know, I am another mere mortal on the wall, currently caught in the age of 22. No, 23, crap, forgot about that birthday, how the year has flown by. I have not forgotten O’s Blogday though. Far from it.

I am just tired today, have lost some steam. But O is always worth it. O is my voice, poet, scientist, reader, writer, friend and heroine alike.

O, O, O, I’m through. I made you read all this. I couldn’t answer the questions. I didn’t know. I didn’t get to the point.

I will try one last time. The point is, O, that it is your Blogday and I adore thee, I fly with thee, I cry with thee, perish with thee, am lifted up with thee, always, and the best part is there is no catch, there is no inescapable bind, you are it all, body and mind. You are just you. Hallelujah. To you let us sing. Forevermore.

Happy Blogday, you O you.

And many more.