This was a writing challenge….it’s cliche that suspense and mystery novels begin with this one phrase. The challenge was to put our own spin on how such a story would unfold:
It was a dark and stormy night. Which was just as well, because then you couldn’t see the tears rolling down Janelle’s face as she sat in the car contemplating what her next move would be. The mansion was dark and foreboding and she knew once she stepped inside she …

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September knew how to walk. In fact, she’d become quite adept at that sort of thing for the better part of her 16 years. It was only until she passed Billy Walsh in the hallways of Summerville High that her legs were as stable as two spindly, licorice sticks that had been left out on the streets of her native New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
They were a hopeless jumble of nerves that seemed to short circuit whenever the tall, handsome …

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Photo credit cuny.edu
Here are five poems that I’ve loved for years because each has taught me lessons that I needed to learn during a particular time of crisis or happiness in my life……
1. Nikki Giovanni’s “I wrote a good Omelet”
I wrote a good omelet…and ate a hot poem…
after loving you
Buttoned my car…and drove my coat home…in the
rain…
after loving you
I goed on red…and stopped on green….floating
somewhere in between…
being here and being there…
after loving you
I rolled my bed…turned down my hair…slightly
confused …

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One day,  I’d like to make enough money on my travel website so that I can quit my current job,  sell my house and travel the world without looking back.   I tend to feel this way when I think about the years that I’ve wasted when I did what I thought others expected of me rather than following my own heart and ambitions.
I believe that I became less like the person I was meant …

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Sometimes when I lie in the bed alone
Imagining you beside me
Like you used to be
And still catching a whiff of paco rabonne cologne on
Your pillow brings
Smiles
And somehow I still feel you
Tugging at the quilt
Tickling my feet and telling
Me that the blueberry waffles that
You made were going fast
So it was now or never
I still remember our solitary
Time
Away from the kids
Thinking about blessings
Never dreamt of
Just a short time ago
I see the brush on the dresser
Once so lovingly used as
You’d call me to …

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Reviewed on Tuesday, 13 Nov, 2007
Until last night, I was convinced that the best movie to watch when you’re feeling blue is a comedy. I’m beginning to think that I was wrong. Movies that inspire and encourage you seem to be the antidote for a troubled heart. After the laughs from a comedic movie have subsided, there is still a longing, a void in the spirit that isn’t quite filled.
August Rush is a magical blend of the type of …

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