This will not, in any way, be uplifting.

Dog's Death – John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

I met with a student this morning about a narrative essay. His teacher had given him this poem to read as an example of what he wanted the narrative essay to accomplish. Lofty goal, I think.

My heart is crumbling after reading this. Knowing that Updike passed away, just recently, makes this more painful to me -- even though I've only ever read one short story by him and don't know a thing about the author as a person.

My brain can't help but relate the indignity of the death in this poem with the possible and probable indignity of the death of John Updike, who passed away from lung cancer earlier this week.

I read an article that included a poem by Updike that will be published later this year. It sums up one of my fears. I can't really say anything else about it but I'll leave you to read the poem and take away your own meaning.

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
‘Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise – depths unplumbable!’

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
'I thought he died a while ago.'

For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

I wish this happened to me all the time.

If only people would break out into choreographed dances in my real life....

I love this particular instance of faux spontaneous choreographed dancing because of the way it seems to move through the crowd. At first, there is only a small group of people but it grows and grows and grows until it isn't clear anymore who is there on purpose and who showed up by accident. I love that so much. I'd like to think I'd be the kind of person who would join in. I think I probs would.

One day I'd like to do this as a present for someone. I'd like to get a bunch of people together for a giant choreographed dance in honor of that person. It would be amazing.

Yep. I sure did.

So, I went ahead and read about a severed head last night at a politically themed show set up to celebrate the Inauguration. Yep. I sure did.

My excerpt had nothing at all to do with politics or presidents or anything related to either of those things. It wasn't even in the "personal is political" category. It was weird and creepy and funny. A fictional story (duh) about a girl who talks to a severed head she found in her bathroom. Yep. True.

But the thing I feel is totes amaze? That I did it. I went right on ahead and did it. Even though everyone else was talkin' revolution and what not. I wanted to talk about dead people. So I did. I talked about dead people. And they loved it.

Maybe that is my version of political. Talkin' about what I want to talk about, I mean. Rather than trying to fit in. Cause listen. I did not fit in. And it was amazing.

Everyone Is Afraid of Something.

Once I was afraid of ghosts, of the dark,
of climbing down from the highest
limb of the backyard oak. Now I'm afraid

my son will die alone in his apartment.
I'm afraid when I break down the door,
I'll find him among the empties-bloated,
discolored, his face a stranger's face.

My granddaughter is afraid of blood
and spider webs and of messing up.
Also bees. Especially bees. Everyone,
she says, is afraid of something.

Another fear of mine: that it will fall to me
to tell this child her father is dead.

Perhaps I should begin today stringing
her a necklace of bees. When they sting
and welts quilt her face, when her lips
whiten and swell, I'll take her
by the shoulders. Child, listen to me.
One day, you'll see. These stings
Are nothing. Nothing at all.

-by Dannye Romine Powell

This makes me laugh. EVERY TIME.

Michael Bevel is my favorite blogger. His blog was the first EVER that I paid any attention to on a regular basis. Today I was in the mood for a little hysterical laughter and I remembered his straw story. I can't say anything else. But you should check it out and laugh your pants off. Try to read it inside your own home, please. You'll feel better about all those strange guffawing and cackling noises if no one else can hear you (or at least, only people you know already). Enjoy!

Note to self.

All of these things I've been reminding myself of this week? You know, "say it" and "live like it's your last day" and all of that?

Totally didn't incorporate those things into my real life at all. I'm just sayin'.

I've got to read a poem on Tuesday and I wrote something to fit into the box of the theme and I hate it and I feel stupid about it and I totally didn't take any of my own good advice. Surprise.

I got together with some other poets today to practice. They made me realize that I wasn't telling the truth in my poem. Dang.

So I ask myself: Do I have time to start over?

If we look at the evidence presented by the Joan letter, the answer is a definitive yes. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be true.

If we consider my perfectionist tendencies and the fact that I feel like I am exposing myself as a fraud every time I walk onto a stage, the answer is a definitive NO. It has to be perfect and the truth is subjective anyhow.

Sigh. I know what to do but I don't know if I can...you know...do it.

It might be revolutionary to read something messy.

It might change everything for me if I accept that I will be judged and I can let the judgement happen without trying to control it.

Hey.

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh Les. No.

I'm on the edge of unemployment. My contract at the UW is up in February and, unless my boss decides to hire me (which means benefits, people, and makes it somewhat unlikely), I am out of a job. Let's be clear here. This UW job pays me a LOT of money to do very, very little. Yesterday? I made some photocopies and put papers in numerical order while listening to Pandora and This American Life. That was it. ALL DAY. Sigh. I love that job.

So, I'm doing the job hunt thing. You know, to be safe or smart or ahead of the game or whatever. I'm a huge fan of craigslist. It's how I've found many things I love. The latest? My electronic typewriter. Ah yes. What a gem.

Anyway, while searching around this morning I found a post from a man named Les. He's offering $40-50 an hour to "kick him in the nuts for 1 hour every week". Oh Les. No. See, Les is training for RoShamBo tournaments and wants to build up his pain tolerance. So, he's offering to give you money to kick him in his precious stones. I'll be honest here. I'm seriously considering it. I would love to tell people that one of my jobs involves pain tolerance training via kicking. I might tell people that anyway, actually.

Once, I went to an artsy party under the I-5 overpass. I mean, we're talking ARTSY. I decided to lie about my profession. It's harder than it sounds. People ask questions if you say something too interesting and they hate you if you say something boring. That night, I was a "jello tester", a "financial procurement analytical specialist", a "bouncer", and a "dog bather" (which was funnier with hand gestures and on the spot "anecdotes"). Good times. [The "bouncer" response is only hilarious if you've ever seen me in real life. I'm very petite.]

Last week, I found myself at a drive thru espresso stand where the baristas (female, under 25) were basically wearing underwear and heels. It was horrifying. Can you imagine what the interview process must have been like?

Manager: So, can you make coffee?
Girl: Um, yeah, uh huh, sure.
Manager: What do you weigh? Do you own nice underwear? What is your pain tolerance? Do you know Les? I need to see your ass again. Turn around.

Oh lordy loo, please cross your fingers that I get to keep my job.

January 16th, 2008. Joan Meyer.

“The heart stops briefly when someone dies
a quick pain as you hear the news
& someone passes
from your outside life to inside. Slowly
the heart
adjusts
to its new weight, & slowly everything
continues, sanely.”
Ted Berrigan

This week I've been worried about my body. I tend to worry about my body, in general, but this week I've been more anxious than usual. I've been convinced that there is a cancer lurking. It's been keeping me up at night.

I had a therapist once who told me she believes we store the memories of things in our bodies and, even if we don't register it, we might have strong emotions around a period of time related to a traumatic incident. For instance, this week I have been irrationally worried about cancer.

Three years ago today, Joan Meyer passed away from breast cancer. She died in her home. She died in her sleep. Her daughter had plenty of time to say goodbye.

How much time is enough time?

Joan was like a surrogate mother to me when I was in my teens. I lived with her and her daughter, my friend Nicole, and my sisters and my boyfriend when I was on the edge of turning eighteen. She was my informal foster parent, a woman who chose to act as my mother when my mother refused that duty. Joan helped me celebrate my eighteenth birthday by making sure I did all of the childish things I could think of doing.

I knew she was going to die. I got a phone call from my sister about a week before Joan passed. My sister urged me to fly down to California to see her. I didn't think I could do it. I told myself I couldn't afford it; I couldn't take time off work. Really, I couldn't bear the thought of seeing her. In real life. Dying.

I wrote her a letter. Words have always felt safer. I thought if I put into words what she meant to me, it would be fine.

Only, I forgot that I'm a perfectionist. I kept editing and editing and editing. The day she died, I was still editing. It was a fucking two page letter. I should have sent it to her. It didn't matter if it was exactly what I wanted to say. At the time, I thought I had to get it right. Maybe I still think that.

That was a serious turning point for me. I started to remember that we die. Every one of us. I started to write seriously. I enrolled in school, I quit fucking around. I started to think seriously about what I wanted my life to look like and I stopped compromising.

Today, I'm spending ninety percent of my time doing things that I love. I have Joan to thank for that. So, today I will leave the house and focus on two thoughts.

One: Live like today is the last day you'll ever have.

Two: Say it. Say it right now. You won't get another chance to say it.

When Death Comes (Mary Oliver)

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.*
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.**

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Mary Oliver

* I have a friend who made herself a wedding ring. On the inside she etched the word amazement.

**This line often runs through my head early in the morning while I wait for the bus. It was in my head this morning, as a matter of fact.

Steve Jobs, speechin' it up at Stanford.

Here are a few quotes from the speech:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

This is a good reminder for me, considering some of the choices I've got to make this year. But, I wanted to share this with you too. Cause even though you have the option of being buried with your iphone in a coffin decorated like a box of chocolates, it's not the same as living. And living ends. I know, it's a little cheesy to be reminding people to remember that we are all mortal but jeez, whatever. I believe in it.

What would you do if this was your last day alive? Would everything be the same? What about if you only had a week? What would you do differently?

I'm off to answer those questions myself. Check ya later.

Museum of Broken Relationships

My friend sent this link to me. It's one of the saddest and most amazing things I've seen all year (ha!).

I love it so much they will have to start a museum where I can put the things that remind me of my love for that museum where people can put things to remind people of the people they've loved. Try to say that three times fast. Or just once. I know it's a clunky sentence but I love it so.

The website is not so easy to navigate, but worth the attempt. You can actually look at electronic objects like emails and pictures from broken relationships. It reminds me of a few thousand emails I have, tucked away somewhere, from the person who shall not be named. Double sigh.

Here's the deal. The artists who created this concept believe that the objects from relationships carry with them a sort of memory of our experience. Rather than throw these things away, you should send them to Croatia, where artists will include the item in a travelling exhibit. They're showin' off your heartbreaks, darlings.

There's an ax that one woman used to chop up her ex-girlfriend's furniture. There is a teddy bear -- the one gift from a man the woman wasn't supposed to be dating. There's a set of mannequin hands, removed from the mannequin that "bore the brunt of a love-hate relationship". Amazing.

Fancy pants (and ideas).

"He lived on himself, fed on his own substance, like those hibernating animals that lie torpid in a hole all the winter; solitude had acted on his brain as a narcotic. At first, it had nerved and stimulated him, but its later effect was a somnolence haunted by vague reveries; it checked all his plans, broke down his will, led him through a long procession of dreams which he accepted with passive endurance without an attempt to escape them." Against the Grain (p.71)

So, I'm reading this book called Against the Grain. It's about a dude who doesn't want to work or be a part of society, so he sells the house he's inherited, makes a good deal of loot, and buys a little cottage just outside of town. He's a strange man. He kinda hates people. He thinks they're stupid, basically. It's for a modern lit class.

I just have to say that, even though the main character is a dislikeable sorta fella and the writing includes deeply ingrained sexist comments (get it? ingrained?), I love some of the ideas presented in this story.

He destroys a marriage by suggesting that the couple live in a round house with round furniture. Once they tire of this and move to a "normal", square house the furniture becomes a major source of conflict, since nothing will fit against the wall, causing a lack of space.

He also has a collection of liquor casks that he calls his "mouth organ". He compares the taste and effect of each type of liquor to an instrument and/or a note and then makes symphonies in his mouth by drinking drops from the various taps. Oh dang. I love that.

Also, he has a "funeral feast in celebration of the most unmentionable of minor personal calamities". My birthday is in a few months and I'd love to have a funeral for my pre-thirty years. But really, I can't help but think that a party like that would be too morbid, even for me.

But you can see why I love this book, right?

The career choice of my alternate life.

There is something about the combination of music and movement that causes an emotional eruption in my heart. This choreographed dance first appeared on the show "So You Think You Can Dance" last year. I went searching the old youtube for the original but it had been removed. Ah, copyright laws. This, however, is a better version. The dancers must be highly trained because the subtle expression of movement is obvious to me, after having seen the contestants perform this dance. I mean, don't get me wrong, those two contestants were amazing. I watched them perform it over and over again. But this, shockingly, is even more effective.

It makes me cry and it gives me goosebumps. If I had another lifetime, knowing what I know now, this would be my career path. I'd be an effin contemporary dancer. You should see me attempt it now. The few people who have witnessed my attempts have laughed so hard that they shot stuff out of their noses. And no, they were not consuming beverages at the time.

But still. When I see this, I want to be able to do it. It amazes me that people are able to convey such arresting emotions using the movement of their bodies. I know, I know. People do it all the time. It's a form of language. The body language. I know. But still.

Vision.

Your eyeballs are the same size now that they were the day you were born. This means that I had gigantic eyeballs as a baby. I grew into them.

I'm one of the few in my family who does not wear glasses. I've always been a little jealous of the rest of them. Interestingly enough, I found out that smoking damages the cornea and leads to irreversible blindness. I just quit smoking and am the oldest and longest smoker in my family. I hope this does not make me blind.

If given a choice between going deaf and going blind, I would rather go deaf. I am a bad listener some days anyways. I think it would be terrifying to go blind. I know I wouldn't be able to enjoy music or sing in the same way anymore if I went deaf but blindness feels more vulnerable.

I used to work near an organization that provided services to the blind. I would end up at the bus stop with people who were blind and/or deaf. One time, I watched two blind and deaf men communicate with each other by pressing their hands into the other man's open palms and making movements. There was so much physical contact. It was the only way they could get the message across. I thought, 'If we were all deaf and blind, we would have no choice but to touch each other.'

I think being touched would be frightening as a blind person. I'm assuming that I would get to know the touch of those most familiar to me. What if I was wrong?

The blind are sometimes used in movies as wise, older people who have the power of premonition. They come stuttering from cave openings, leaning on canes twisted from the darkness, waving their arms around and trying to get our attention. 'I've seen the future,' they tell us, 'and it doesn't look good.'

I'd like to hear someone tell me the future looks good. I would love it if someone woke me up one morning and said, 'Good News! If we continue on -- exactly as we have been -- everything is going to be okay.'

Lately, I have developed the habit of telling people, 'It's going to be fine.' This isn't a sympathetic response to a difficult situation. It is more of an automated response to hardship. I wish that I had something better to say -- or that I no longer felt the need to say anything at all, except I'm sorry.

I think the roughest thing would be having premonitions. If I knew how things were going to turn out (even just one or two things of a higher importance than my morning eggs) I would like to believe that I would be the kind of person who would try to fix any of the negative things I saw coming. This goes against my belief that, good or bad, the things that have happened in my life have led me here. I like it here.

I don't really like it here but it is very much the same as saying, 'It's going to be fine.'

I do believe that we have an impact on how our lives turn out. This is not to say that everything turns out well simply because we wish it. This is also not to say that everything turns out well simply because we deserve it.

I deserve to have everything turn out well.

I wish for everything to turn out well.

So far, everything has not turned out well, but it's fine.

Where does this expression come from? This 'turning out well'? It makes me think of stone wells filled with water. It makes me think we are attempting to empty out the last drop. It makes me wonder if we are greedy for wanting things to be simply decent. Are they decent in other parts of the world? Some parts of them, I suppose.

I would like to get to the end of my life and say that it was better than decent. I'd like to say I saw everything clearly as what it was, rather than what I wished it to be, and that it was good that way.

Cartoon versions of Adam West

I'm about to hunker down with my roomie and watch Batman Begins. I was the only person in the world who thought that Dark Knight could have been edited to speed up the plot. My roomie thinks it's because I haven't seen the other movies. I'm about to find out.

It's not that I don't like the comic book turned movie. I love them actually. It all started with Tank Girl. Sigh. That was a great comic book. The movie? Sucky. Let's be real. It sucks. But when I was a teenager and I wanted so desperately to be fierce instead of shy and awkward, Tank Girl was my hero. She is dirty and sexy and bold. Just the way I want to be.

When I was fifteen, I worked for the uncle of a friend. After school, a bunch of us would go to the warehouse space behind the local comic book store and spend hours packaging up comic books. Our boss (the uncle) only let us listen to one tape. Fleetwood Mac. Every day. For months. The other kids would smoke pot and drop acid before work. I usually said no thanks. One time, I ate some mushrooms before going to work and that was a hilariously bad day.

I loved Constantine, Hellblazer, Sandman, and Tank Girl. I still have a box of Sandman comics up in my closet. Good lord, it was a beautiful set of stories.

I find a particluar kind of humor ridiculously hilarious. It's the kind of humor that doesn't make logical sense. For instance, the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode 44b, which fades to black and white and involves lots of random noises like phones ringing and symphony music.

Also, Harvey Birdman cartoons make me crack the heck up. Seriously. Like ridiculous, losing my mind, crying kind of laughter. I love it. In Season One, there is an episode called "The Mole". It makes me lose my sh-t. Every time.

I wanted to laugh today. Hard. I've actually read that laughter helps with the whole kickin' an addiction thing. So I went looking for my favorite kind of humor. I found a hilarious episode of Johnny Bravo (remember that show?) where Adam West shows up. I just have to say that every moment of the scene in the Chinese Restaurant makes me squeal with laughter. Jeez.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Day One. Non-smoker. This scared the junk out of me. I watched it three times in a row.

So what am I fascinated by today? The fact that this is the first time in fifteen years and nine attempts that I feel like I am actually done smoking.

Today, it feels easy. I've been a non-smoker for ten hours but I slept through most of it, so....

And the nicotine gum isn't so bad. It's kind of sharp, like cinnamon, and it keeps my mouth busy.

Today, I am going for a long walk. I am going to clean my room. I am going to wash my clothes. I am not going to smoke.

For Desire - Kim Addonizio

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.
Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and begin their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.
To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.
I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how fucking good I look

- Kim Addonizio

This is so sweet.

I know. Usually the things I find amazing are a little, um, on the dark side.

But I found this tonight and, sigh, I think I'm in love.

I just have one thing to say. Muffin, don't forget your wrapper!