Autism AWARENESS is Multi-Faceted

During autism testing when I received a diagnosis in adulthood, nearly 20 years ago now, it was ‘revealed’ that I have a college level understanding of many things involving words, literature, etc. but I have a 5th grade level maths ability. My skills are uneven. I struggle to imagine the difference between A million and […]

Having A Walmart Brain

Above: This is an example of a 25 hundred dollar mirror with superb “psyche” tilt. That’s an actual term. Below: a French Budoir mirror (Etsy). And Below: WalMart mirror. Functional simplicity. There are some grand sounding words associated with mirrors. For instance: gadrooning (leaves, flowers, birds, etc. carved on the frame), psyche (the mechanism that […]

The Mustard Seed Story and also my latest Shenanigans

I found this in one of my little drawers: (not my grandson’s fingers; I mean I found this trinket) It’s a mustard seed. I’m a border/hoarder… My mother; she was a full out hoarder (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but I’m just borderline hoarder (thus the term border/hoarder.) As such, I often […]

BETWEEN THE GREYS

Somewhere on the planet as I type this; gurgling, burbling geothermic hotspots spurt predictably (like certain presidential candidates) and just like Old Faithful, Pixar presents us with another animated film. Inside Out is about feelings; so I was putting this one off. Eventually I did give it a watch. Turns out it’s literal, it runs […]

Distorted Reality

My first reading material was my set of World Book Encyclopedias. I would buy paperbacks at tag sales. Books like The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe, Elvis’s Autobiography and Chariots of The Gods. I read voraciously. I liked comics too… Richie Rich, Casper, Little Lotta and the scary ones were my favorites- the ones where […]

You can’t go home again, can you?

It’s a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, or wistfulness for a home of the past.

Visual Thinking…I love imagery.

Holy Dust Motes I wrote a poem in 1999 about dust and how it danced in beams of colored light from my church’s stained glass windows. For years I perseverated about anything dust related. Painting The Chameleon Every Day What does that phrase even mean? Well, chameleons change to suit their environment. For people who […]

Survivors’ Hope

In 1999, an editor named Robert took a chance on me and published a nonfiction essay of mine in his literary magazine at March Street Press. Then he published my fiction story in the following issue. (No pay of course.) But seeing your writing in print those first few times is a thrill. Little did […]

A Visual Blog, Some Favorite Pictures, From Ants To Mimes

About seven years ago I walked into a friend’s kitchen and saw a surprising sight. Ants were marching- swarming really– the butter dish, the corners of the counter top, the dish sponge. Ew!. What to do? We tried an ant killer called Revenge which promised that it’s “weather resistant granules attracts and kills both sweet and […]

Some Of The Patterns To Be Found At Mohegan Sun

Oh the patterns to be seen at Mohegan Sun. Didn’t gamble, but enjoyed seeing the sights in the shopping areas. Pardon the blurry. Here are some of them: on the way in in the sweets store looking in the corners gold dragonfly on the floor amongst inlaid shells and glass my favorite section of floor […]

From Singing Bananas to Vests

I was a bit under the weather today, aches, pains, etc. Had a test at the hospital this morning. I had an MRI, and I never have trouble in those things. But this morning was different. I felt so claustrophobic! I kept thinking of that old Vincent Price movie where someone’s buried alive and tries […]

On Roadside Ruminations

A poem by James Richardson— ESSAY ON WOOD At dawn when rowboats drum the dock and every door in the breathing house bumps softly as if someone were leaving quietly, I wonder if something in us is made of wood, maybe not quite the heart, knocking softly, or maybe not made of it, but […]

Interpretting White Roses

salus in ardunis sancte et sapienter Alice In Wonderland Syndrome…(or as it’s also called: Todd’s Syndrome or Lillipution Hallucinations) sounds made-up but it’s a very real condition. People seem fine optically, but they have weird visual perceptions. They have what’s termed a “rare form of migraine” (migrainous ischemia?). All of their senses are strangely distorted. The […]

Between hell and hopelessness: Works In Progress

I don’t understand it. Am I taking the weight of the woeful world’s troubles on and internalizing it? Lately I’ve had trouble seeing the positive side of things. I won’t mention the bullying, cruelty and atrocious acts I’m referring to here, but you have access to media; you know what I mean. Even if I […]

IF

If it weren’t for the moon, to slow Earth’s spin, we’d have 6 hour days instead of 24. If Teddy Roosevelt hadn’t been carrying his speech in a metal eyeglasses container that October night in 1912 when John Schrank shot him, the bullet would’ve killed him. If Al Capone hadn’t compulsively carried his trademark mirror […]

Is It Profound or Is It Poop?

Have you heard about the tiny skeletons appearing on the streets of Mexico? Urban artist Isaac Cordal can tell you about them. He created them. The following quote is from his website, which has a link following this blog: “These small sculptures contemplate the demolition and reconstruction of everything around us. They catch the attention […]

Thou Art Inspiring

My grandson said recently: “Grandma enjoys stress. It gives her something to do.” This is my bathroom shower curtain. The curtain was purchased at Walmart.As you can see, it’s an oceanic world, an underwater scene of fish and coral. Every week I buy stickers and when my grandson sleeps over, he puts them into the scene. […]

Emotions With No Name

Where can you find the remains of a giraffe, an upright dining table, a claw hand and silver bars worth millions (all in the same place)? Underwater, in NYC, that’s where. Weird finds in New York’s waterways are the inspiration for fictional stories on a “digital journal” called Underwater New York. But I’m more interested […]

BRAIN PLUMAGE

“You see yourself descending From the building to the ground And you watch the sky receding And you spin to see the traffic Rising up and it’s so quiet Then you wake”–Adam Duritz I went to an IMax theater in Boston last week and saw a docu-film in 3-D about South Pacific sea life. […]

A more interesting word without “U”

Obscure: the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, or unimportant. I forgot the library’s closed on Mondays and it was there on my shelf so I picked up my memoir. For some obscure reason, (imagine ME obscure? Right, I know) I decided to reread my book “Under the Banana Moon.” Well actually it can be […]

Sharp Little Pencil Addresses My Faux Pas and Makes Me Smile

I need to get something out of my system: “Fizzling Fireboxes!” “Well… Flatten my funnel!” “Oh! Trembly tracks!” There, that’s better. I’ve been watching CPTV’s Thomas The Tank Engine with a 2 year old. Thomas gets into mischief on that program. He’s called the “cheeky” engine for a reason. He’s also an example for […]

Rantings of a logophile

I’m into obscure things. If you’ve read this blog you already know that. This forum, for me, is kind of an information purge of sorts. It’s like a safe place where I can say things like moon pigeons and alphabet juice and electric ketchup. Oddball conundrums keep my brain cells happy. Let me explain the […]

it’s that month again, here’s what I’ve been up to, in part

the infamous puzzle piece? Yeah I know, it’s very cliche Here’s what I’ve been up to: (Keep in mind there are several links on this blog. Don’t forget to come back and read the rest…Or click them when you finish reading…) http://barkingsycamores.wordpress.com/current-issue/ The above link is from a “neurodivergent” sister site on wordpress who […]

J. Moore’s Book, Memory, and Tattooed Pigs

JJ has this theory that memory is still there; like in a computer; in the recesses of your brain. Like you never really forget things; not even in regard to Alzheimers. He feels that you never really delete anything from your hard drive per se. As in with […]

Cypress Knees. Because.

Cypress trees grow in marshlands and swamps. They make the most amazing pieces of furniture… Furniture I will never own; will never afford. take this table for example: http://www.thomsonrusticfurnishings.com sells this lovely functional piece of cypress tree art: Below I’ve put a picture of cypress ‘knees’ as they appear in a swamp… (What are […]

Loss of A Dear Friend, Zsolt Megai

Please don’t be put off by the length of this. I’m not sure how long it will roll on; but I’ve lost a dear friend so here goes. It was October of 2007 when I first met Zsolt Megai. My husband had died in 2005 and The Ct […]

weather patterns, Donna Williams, fruit salad, Buddha

Donna Williams says (in a brilliant analogy) that autism is a fruit salad, which I infer to mean, that everyone’s fruit bowl looks a bit different. Mine has Aspergers bananas in it, with selective mutism lemons, sensory processing dysfunction prickly pears, and dysthymic mangos. There are other fruits in there too. Like anxious horned melon […]

Here Be Dragons…When Pipes Are Not Pipes

Stephen King once wrote a short story about the heyday of youth with all it’s freshness and trials. He called youth: Pony days. We all have a brief time as ponies. There were two times during my pony years that I was given horses and both times my father said no, absolutely not, she can […]

SOME OF MY PAINTINGS, here ART thou

(above-my version of a Van Gogh) (above-my version of a Monet)

Neologism, weight loss, rebuilding Lost Identity

I’ve become a shack again. My body is no longer my temple. Time to rebuild. I’ve done it before. I’ve done it many times in the course of this life. Redesigned my self… There’s a lot that goes into that: rational belief, toughness, emotional strength, endurance, resilience and the jump starter: desire. Example: I’ve been […]

Acts Of Kindness and the HEART

My grandmother died when I was about 13 years old. It’s the last thing I expected even though she was nearly 90. (Or was she in her 90s? Memory fades that detail…) To a child, death only happens to other people; not to people you know. It was a special relationship. I was mute most […]

Comparing Luigi to the Voynich find, a look at two of the weirdest outsider art books ever!

Imagine writing and illustrating a book so bizarre (but intriguing) that decades later people are still drawn to it and NO ONE has been able to decode the secret language you made up, nor are they able to understand what your mind boggling illustrations mean?! Hey that’s a feat, eh? Look at one of the […]

Fascinating modern architecture to 1700 manor houses…it’s all good

Recently I’ve been reflecting about architecture. I’m reading a historical book called The Manor: Three centuries at a slave plantation on Long Island by Mac Griswold. This 70 year old woman, Mac, is a cultural landscape historian, a fascinating job. When she was a little girl in the 1950s growing up in New Jersey, […]

Under the banana moon finally has an official website

http://mercurygirl49.wix.com/underthebananamoon-1 Finally my book has an official website. After days of working on this site for my book, I can get back to blogging! Kim

Feeling around in a flowery diction

Have you ever felt you resided inside that place in a harmonica where moist breath and music meet? Have you ever felt like one of those perfectly imperfect pine trees that grow sideways on golf courses? Ok well have you ever felt like a collection of soft blue, pink, white grey lint, like the kind […]

Magic and Innovative Art in A Sisyphean World

This poster is an example of some unusual art I came across quite by happy accident some years ago. The Empty Set Project Space was active sporadically as a gallery between 2001 and 2008. It […]

Believe In People and also Levi Brown, “Graffiti” and Photography/Art taken to New Lengths!

There is a mysterious local New Haven artist going only by the moniker: ‘Believe In People,’ often shortened to BIP. Watch out! A giant baby holding a briefcase-wielding businessman! This particular painting ‘sprung’ up “guerrilla style” on the side of a business along State Street. In this instance, the painter had the permission of the […]

Keeping it Real, Feeling CRAFTY

I pick up things all the time. They don’t have to be shiny. Sometimes something catches my eye. How about sticks? You know…twigs, tree arms, small limbs, branches, tree offshoots, switches. That’s what I’m talking about. I guess it’s just that time of year when I get an urge to collect, to craft, to bring […]

A Kinship; A Means of Communication

Growing up, I never bothered looking at people long enough to see them as anything other than blurry models out of Matisse paintings; jumbled but interesting. I especially hated pictures of relatives hanging on walls. You could never ever avoid their staring eyes. I’d have to dash past them. I […]

Slipper Mopping and Negative Place Association

I still do things outside my comfort zone and that’s got to be a healthy thing, right? Recently we went to Tweed to pick up a friend from the airport who’s staying with us this week. My good friend was driving (I don’t drive at 49 yrs. of age, more about that later!). Anyway he […]