Totes Amaze.

Something not so amazing.

2010-12-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

As you might know, I am embarking on the journey of magazine publication this year and have been reading, responding to, and editing submissions sent to me for consideration in my forthcoming journal, Saltwater Press. I have to say that it has mostly been predictable. I've received a lot of stuff that won't work in the journal (content or style mismatch) and a handful of things that I really enjoy and am excited to publish and share with other readers.

The only thing I've run into trouble with is the rejection. The standard, boring, and quite obviously not right for our journal rejections have all been easy. It's a simple, thank you but it doesn't work for us. The trouble I'm having is with the things that almost worked for me, but didn't quite. I have time and I love to edit (and I'm excellent at it) so I've been sending back suggestions along with those pieces I rejected but felt could be improved.

You'd think poets and writers would love some free, supportive feedback.

Not always the case. For example, one person (with a BA and MFA in creative writing) responded to my comments that her piece felt more like a travel excerpt than a piece of creative non-fiction (because it literally just described the author going from one place to another with a friend, and nothing really happened) with the following email response:

Katie,

In your case, ignorance is not bliss.

Thanks

Cecile Sarruf

As someone who (I would assume) graduated from both a Bachelor's and Master's program in creative writing, you would think she would understand that a) rejection is not personal and b) responding in an unprofessional way to a potential editor or publisher is just plain bad business strategy. So, I send back a response of my own, just in case I misunderstood:

Hi Cecile,

I'm not sure if you intended for this to be insulting, but I suggest that you refrain from sending emails like this to editors and publishers in the future as it is very unprofessional. If you have questions about my comments, I would be happy to clarify, especially if you think I misunderstood your intent. My job, as the primary editor of Saltwater Press, is to look for work that best meets the goals of our journal. While this piece was not a right fit for us, you might have better luck elsewhere. And I do wish you the best of luck.

Katie McClendon, Editor
Saltwater Press

I meant it with all sincerity. But, Cecile did not seem to think that I had the best intention in mind. So she sent me this:

Katie,

I will not be restricted by anyone in the manner of which I choose to respond to my emails. Do not advice me on what is considered "professional" or not, I did not ask you.

You did not understand my piece and that is final.

Thank you,
Cecile

Well, there you have it folks. A day in life of a literary magazine editor, just starting out. I find it funny when authors refuse to be accountable when someone "does not understand" their piece. Isn't this the point of writing? To communicate your message to another person with little or no misinterpretation? Isn't it then the goal of the author to eliminate as much room for misinterpretation as possible? Is it really up to the reader alone to "understand" the piece?

As a writer, I think it is my job to make sure I am crafting my work in a way that makes sense and if a reader doesn't "get it", I take responsibility for that and I go back and edit. That's the work of it, isn't it? Otherwise, what makes writing an art form?

At the very least, I have learned a few tips from the people who have submitted about how not to do it. Thanks for that, Cecile.

The deadline is approaching!

2010-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

If you are a writer that reads this blog, then consider making a submission to my new literary journal. It's devoted to works by and about minority writers, which is very general, we know. Basically, if you've written something about something other than the white, cisgendered, straight experience we'd love to give it a read.

More details on how to submit here: Submission Guidelines

The deadline to be considered for our first issue is December 15th.

"& then afterward" by Nate Pritts

2010-11-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

(i)

I woke to early sun:
burning of fire, & then afterward.

We kept reaching
through the long night.

(ii)

Afterward,

the small deceptions
we allow ourselves:
a sickness, unchecked.
Like this:

(iii)

& first sunlight.
Snow continues.
I could never close my eyes to light.

But there was no light
& you looked like night.

(iv)

There must be a pattern,

snow slow-dropping in wet clusters
through the wooden arms
of empty trees.

(v)

Sun fingering its way
through branches

I’d hung my life on.
We don’t matter a bit; realization
forces our eyes closed—

(vi)

A sickness, unchecked, like this.
I’d hung my life on

burning of fire, & then afterward.

(vii)

Our arms together
we searched for patterns

& sunlight.

(viii)

Our arms laced together,
pointing together
over wind-tossed grasses.

Us: waist deep in night blue.

(ix)

There was no light.
You pointed.

(x)

Sun overhead,
you pointed
to the wind-tossed grasses.
This is a memory now.

(xi)

Together in that first sun,
so vivid:
there must be a pattern

I’d hung my life on.

(xii)

Snow dropped in clusters,
staggered & jagged.

We don’t matter a bit.

(xiii)

Reflected in lake water:
all these things I’ll forget.

(xiv)

Our arms together

but we keep reaching
over the wind-tossed grasses.

(xv)

Black smoke curling:

the importance
of night-blue field grass,

(xvi)

the importance of.

The stars are close; we try to hold together.

(xvii)

All this ends
but until then:

burning of fire, & then afterward.
The stars are close; we try to hold.
Such distance between the fallen!

(xviii)

Burning of fire, & then afterward.

You pointed.

(xix)

Grasses silently fold,
a sickness, unchecked, reaching. Like this.

Wooden arms of trees
long since emptied.

(xx)

This ends in darkness,
& all the stars within reach,
& other constellations.

Nate Pritts, "& then afterward" from The Wonderfull Yeare (a shepherd’s calendar). Copyright © 2009 by Nate Pritts.

Leave Taking by Louise Bogan

2010-11-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

I do not know where either of us can turn

Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.

I do not know how we can bear

The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,

Or many trees shaken together in the darkness.

We shall wish not to be alone

And that love were not dispersed and set free—

Though you defeat me,

And I be heavy upon you.

But like earth heaped over the heart

Is love grown perfect.

Like a shell over the beat of life

Is love perfect to the last.

So let it be the same

Whether we turn to the dark or to the kiss of another;

Let us know this for leavetaking,

That I may not be heavy upon you,

That you may blind me no more.

You Worry Too Much - Rumi

2010-11-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

Oh soul,
you worry too much.
Look at yourself,
what you have become.
You are now a field of sugar canes,
why show that sour face to me?
You have tamed the
winged horse of Love.
Of a death of a donkey,
why do you worry?
You say that I keep you warm inside.
Then why this cold sigh?
You have gone to the roof of heavens.
Of this world of dust, why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
Since you met me,
you have become a master singer,
and are now a skilled wrangler,
you can untangle any knot.
Of life's little leash
why do you worry?
Your arms are heavy
with treasures of all kinds.
About poverty,
why do you worry?
You are Joseph,
beautiful, strong,
steadfast in your belief,
all of Egypt has become drunk
because of you.
Of those who are blind to your beauty,
and deaf to your songs,
why do you worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You say that your housemate is the
Heart of Love,
she is your best friend.
You say that you are the heat of
the oven of every Lover.
You say that you are the servant of
Ali's magical sword, Zolfaghar.
Of any little dagger
why do you still worry?
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
You are the security,
the shelter of the spirit of Lovers.
Oh the sultan of sultans,
of any other king,
why do you worry?
Be silent, like a fish,
and go into that pleasant sea.
You are in deep waters now,
of life's blazing fire.
Why do you worry?

From: 'Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi'
Translated by Sharam Shiva

My newest project!

2010-10-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

I have started a new project. Please check it out and spread the word!

Katie.

p.s. Sorry for the lack of poem posting of late. I have been a) getting used to not being in school and b) beginning many long-term projects for which I previously did not have time. I promise to be back soon!

Goodbye. (Again and again.)

2010-08-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Stepping Backward - Adrienne Rich

Good-by to you whom I shall see tomorrow,
Next year and when I'm fifty; still good-by.
This is the leave we never really take.
If you were dead or gone to live in China
The event might draw your stature in my mind.
I should be forced to look upon you whole
The way we look upon the things we lose.
We see each other daily and in segments;
Parting might make us meet anew, entire.

You asked me once, and I could give no answer,
How far dare we throw off the daily ruse,
Official treacheries of face and name,
Have out our true identity? I could hazard
An answer now, if you are asking still.
We are a small and lonely human race
Showing no sign of mastering solitude
Out on this stony planet that we farm.
The most that we can do for one another
Is let our blunders and our blind mischances
Argue a certain brusque abrupt compassion.
We might as well be truthful. I should say
They're luckiest who know they're not unique;
But only art or common interchange
Can teach that kindest truth. And even art
Can only hint at what disturbed a Melville
Or calmed a Mahler's frenzy; you and I
Still look from separate windows every morning
Upon the same white daylight in the square.

And when we come into each other's rooms
Once in awhile, encumbered and self-conscious,
We hover awkwardly about the threshold
And usually regret the visit later.
Perhaps the harshest fact is, only lovers--
Unlearn that clumsiness of rare intrusion
And let each other freely come and go.
Most of us shut too quickly into cupboards
The margin-scribbled books, the dried geranium,
The penny horoscope, letters never mailed.
The door may open, but the room is altered;
Not the same room we look from night and day.

It takes a late and slowly blooming wisdom
To learn that those we marked infallible
Are tragi-comic stumblers like ourselves.
The knowledge breeds reserve. We walk on tiptoe,
Demanding more than we know how to render.
Two-edged discovery hunts us finally down;
The human act will make us real again,
And then perhaps we come to know each other.

Let us return to imperfection's school.
No longer wandering after Plato's ghost,
Seeking the garden where all fruit is flawless,
We must at last renounce that ultimate blue
And take a walk in other kinds of weather.
The sourest apple makes its wry announcement
That imperfection has a certain tang.
Maybe we shouldn't turn our pockets out
To the last crumb or lingering bit of fluff,
But all we can confess of what we are
Has in it the defeat of isolation--
If not our own, then someone's, anyway.

So I come back to saying this good-by,
A sort of ceremony of my own,
This stepping backward for another glance.
Perhaps you'll say we need no ceremony,
Because we know each other, crack and flaw,
Like two irregular stones that fit together.
Yet still good-by, because we live by inches
And only sometimes see the full dimension.
Your stature's one I want to memorize--
Your whole level of being, to impose
On any other comers, man or woman.
I'd ask them that they carry what they are
With your particular bearing, as you wear
The flaws that make you both yourself and human.

Adrienne Rich, The Fact of a Doorframe:
Poems Selected and New 1950-1984

Butchering Crabs by Henry Carlile

2010-06-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

All day we smashed and swore,
filling the brine tanks
with twitching claws and legs,
white belly meat,
dropping the entrails
and deep-dish violet shells
down a slime hole to the bay.
Even Hawk, our best butcher,
got pinched.
Those claws cut
through our heaviest gloves.
When we broke them off
they clamped down tighter.

"Take that, you buckethead!"
the shell shattering
like crockery.
"You'll never bite another
Indian!"
Stabbing his hands
into that cage of maniacs,
clattering and seething,
bubbling at the mouths,
glare of stalked eyes,
claws like open traps,
he would snap one up
and in one smooth movement
break it over the knife.

She dips her fork
into the cocktail,
lifts it to her perfect face
and eats.
Over miles of white tablecloth
the bits and pieces fall.

He lived in a shack
with newspaper curtains,
drove home each night
crabby and skidding.
On the third day
they gave me my check:
"Too slow, sonny."
But Hawk was fast,
he was faster than life.

Odes by Ricardo Reis (translated by Edouard Roditi)

2010-06-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

Of the gardens of Adonis, Lydia, I love

Most of all those fugitive roses

That on the day they are born,

That very day, must also die.

Eternal, for them, the light of day:

They're born when the sun is already high

And die before Apollo's course

Across the visible sky is run.

We too, of our lives, must make one day:

We never know, my Lydia, nor want

To know of nights before or after

The little while that we may last.

To be great, be whole: nothing that's you

Should you exaggerate or exclude.

In each thing, be all. Give all you are

In the least you ever do.

The whole moon, because it rides so high,

Is reflected in each pool.

A Blessing - James Wright

2010-05-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Uggggh. This guy is talent plus genius plus changing my world.

2010-05-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I read a shit ton of poetry. I cannot get enough. I eat poems three times a day, put them under my pillow, carry them in my pockets....But I've been introduced to this guy and his poems from this book by my friend (who shall remain anon unless he chooses otherwise*).

I just finished reading this poem and now I don't know whether to break all of my pens and pencils and shred every piece of paper in my house or scream, sing, shout or just wander around the streets dazed and sunken. I have to say that this guy may be my new favorite (all time favorite), favorite of ever poet. And that is saying a lot, considering the amount of poetry I consume.

I want to eat his poems.

I have a serious crush on his poems.

I want to carry his poems around with me for all time.

(You might think I'm exaggerating. Go read the poem I linked and then try to close your mouth.)

*He chose otherwise. A huge thanks to this guy for introducing me to Mr. Siken.

Domestic by Carl Phillips

2010-05-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

If, when studying road atlases
while taking, as you call it, your
morning dump, you shout down to
me names like Miami City, Franconia,
Cancún, as places for you to take
me to from here, can I help it if

all I can think is things that are
stupid, like he loves me he loves me
not? I don’t think so. No more
than, some mornings, waking to your
hands around me, and remembering
these are the fingers, the hands I’ve

over and over given myself to, I can
stop myself from wondering does that
mean they’re the same I’ll grow
old with. Yesterday, in the café I
keep meaning to show you, I thought
this is how I’ll die maybe, alone,

somewhere too far away from wherever
you are then, my heart racing from
espresso and too many cigarettes,
my head down on the table’s cool
marble, and the ceiling fan turning
slowly above me, like fortune, the

part of fortune that’s half-wished-
for only—it did not seem the worst
way. I thought this is another of
those things I’m always forgetting
to tell you, or don’t choose to
tell you, or I tell you but only

in the same way, each morning, I
keep myself from saying too loud I
love you until the moment you flush
the toilet, then I say it, when the
rumble of water running down through
the house could mean anything: flood,

your feet descending the stairs any
moment; any moment the whole world,
all I want of the world, coming down.

Moonlight: Chickens On The Road by Robert Wrigley

2010-05-11T09:52:00.001-07:00

Called out of dream by the pitch and screech,
I awoke to see my mother’s hair
set free of its pincurls, springing out
into the still and hurtling air
above the front seat and just as suddenly gone.
The space around us twisted,
and in the instant before the crash
I heard the bubbling of the chickens,
the homely racket they make at all speeds,
signifying calm, resignation, oblivion.

And I listened. All through the slash
and clatter, the rake of steel, shatter of glass,
I listened, and what came
was a blizzard moan in the wind, a wail
of wreckage, severed hoses and lives,
a storm of loose feathers, and in the final
whirl approximating calm, the cluck
and fracas of the birds. I crawled
on hands and knees where a window should
have been and rose uneven

in November dusk. Wind blew
a snow of down, and rows of it quivered along
the shoulder. One thin stream of blood
oozed, flocked in feathers.
This was in the Ozarks, on a road curving miles
around Missouri, and as far as I could
see, no light flickered through the timber,
no mail box leaned the flag
of itself toward pavement, no cars
seemed ever likely to come along.

So I walked, circled the darkening disaster
my life had come to, and cried.
I cried for my family there,
knotted in the snarl of metal and glass;
for the farmer, looking dead, half in
and half out of his windshield; and for myself,
ambling barefoot through the jeweled debris,
glass slitting little blood-stars in my soles,
my arm hung loose at the elbow
and whispering its prophecies of pain.

Around and around the tilted car
and the steaming truck, around the heap
of exploded crates, the smears and small hunks
of chicken and straw. Through
an hour of loneliness and fear
I walked, in the almost black of Ozark night,
the moon just now burning into Missouri. Behind me,
the chickens followed my lead,
some fully upright, pecking

the dim pavement for suet or seed,
some half-hobbled by their wounds, worthless wings
fluttering in the effort. The faintest
light turned their feathers phosphorescent,
and as I watched they came on, as though they believed
me some savior, some highwayman
or commando come to save them the last night
of their clucking lives. This, they must have
believed, was the end they’d always heard of,
this the rendering more efficient than the axe,

the execution more anonymous than
a wringing arm. I walked on, no longer crying,
and soon the amiable and distracted chattering came
again, a sound like chuckling, or the backward suck
of hard laughter. And we walked
to the cadence their clucking called,
a small boy towing a cloud around a scene
of death, coming round and round
like a dream, or a mountain road,
like a pincurl, like pulse, like life.

Graves We Filled Before the Fire by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

2010-05-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

Some lose children in lonelier ways:
tetanus, hard falls, stubborn fevers

that soak the bedclothes five nights running.
Our two boys went out to skate, broke

through the ice like battleships, came back
to us in canvas bags: curled

fossils held fast in ancient stone,
four hands reaching. Then two

sad beds wide enough for planting
wheat or summer-squash but filled

with boys, a barren crop. Our lives
stripped clean as oxen bones.

Werner Herzog reads Madeline

2010-04-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

This is courtesy of The Rejectionist. Enjoy!

Straight Razor by Randall Mann

2010-04-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

He slid the stiff blade up to my ear:
Oh, fear,

this should have been thirst, a cheapening act.
But I lacked,

as usual, the crucial disbelief. Sticky, cold,
a billfold

wet in my mouth, wrists bound by his belt,
I felt

like the boy in a briny night pool, he who found
the drowned

body, yet still somehow swam with an unknown joy.
That boy.

The Fall of 1992 by Randall Mann

2010-04-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

Gainesville, Florida
An empire of moss,
dead yellow, and carapace:
that was the season
of gnats, amyl nitrate, and goddamn
rain; of the gator in the fake lake rolling

his silverish eyes;
of vice; of Erotica,
give it up and let
me have my way. And the gin-soaked dread
that an acronym was festering inside.

Love was a doorknob
statement, a breakneck goodbye—
and the walk of shame
without shame, the hair disheveled, curl
of Kools, and desolate birds like ampersands...

I re-did my face
in the bar bathroom, above
the urinal trough.
I liked it rough. From behind the stall,
Lady Pearl slurred the words: Don’t hold out for love.

Vespers [In your extended absence, you permit me] by Louise Glück

2010-04-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

Portrait of a Figure near Water by Jane Kenyon

2010-04-19T12:02:00.001-07:00

Rebuked, she turned and ran
uphill to the barn. Anger, the inner
arsonist, held a match to her brain.
She observed her life: against her will
it survived the unwavering flame.

The barn was empty of animals.
Only a swallow tilted
near the beams, and bats
hung from the rafters
the roof sagged between.

Her breath became steady
where, years past, the farmer cooled
the big tin amphoræ of milk.
The stone trough was still
filled with water: she watched it
and received its calm.

So it is when we retreat in anger:
we think we burn alone
and there is no balm.
Then water enters, though it makes
no sound.

Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith

2010-04-13T23:15:00.001-07:00

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

The Deathwatch Beetle by Linda Pastan

2010-04-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

A cardinal hurls itself

at my window all morning long,

trying so hard to penetrate

its own reflection

I almost let it in myself,

though once I saw

another red bird, crazed

by the walls of a room,

spatter its feathers

all over the house.

My whole childhood is coming apart,

the last stitches

about to be ripped out

with your death,

and I will be left—ridiculous,

to write

condolence letters

to myself.

The deathwatch beetle

earned its name

not from its ugliness

or our terror

of insects

but simply because of the sound

it makes, ticking.

When your spirit

perfects itself,

will it escape

out of a nostril,

or through the spiral

passage of an ear?

Or is it even now battering

against your thin skull, wild

to get through, blood brother

to this crimson bird?

WCW.

2010-04-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Between Walls

by William Carlos Williams

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

in which shine

the broken

pieces of a green

bottle

Dedication for a Plot of Ground

by William Carlos Williams

This plot of ground

facing the waters of this inlet

is dedicated to the living presence of

Emily Dickinson Wellcome

who was born in England; married;

lost her husband and with

her five year old son

sailed for New York in a two-master;

was driven to the Azores;

ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,

met her second husband

in a Brooklyn boarding house,

went with him to Puerto Rico

bore three more children, lost

her second husband, lived hard

for eight years in St. Thomas,

Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed

the oldest son to New York,

lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"

seized the two boys of

the oldest son by the second marriage

mothered them—they being

motherless—fought for them

against the other grandmother

and the aunts, brought them here

summer after summer, defended

herself here against thieves,

storms, sun, fire,

against flies, against girls

that came smelling about, against

drought, against weeds, storm-tides,

neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,

against the weakness of her own hands,

against the growing strength of

the boys, against wind, against

the stones, against trespassers,

against rents, against her own mind.

She grubbed this earth with her own hands,

domineered over this grass plot,

blackguarded her oldest son

into buying it, lived here fifteen years,

attained a final loneliness and—

If you can bring nothing to this place

but your carcass, keep out.

Break.

2010-04-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

I got stuck on day eleven of the thirty days of poetry, so I went back to reading poetry. I found this today and there is something about it that I am just totally relating to today. I love Louise Gluck and her poetry always does something to me. Enjoy!

The Empty Glass by Louise Glück

I asked for much; I received much.

I asked for much; I received little, I received

next to nothing.

And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors.

A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table.

O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was

hard-hearted, remote. I was

selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny.

But I was always that person, even in early childhood.

Small, dark-haired, dreaded by the other children.

I never changed. Inside the glass, the abstract

tide of fortune turned

from high to low overnight.

Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,

to celestial force? To be safe,

I prayed. I tried to be a better person.

Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror

and matured into moral narcissism

might have become in fact

actual human growth. Maybe

this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,

telling me they understood

the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,

implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick

to give so much for so little.

Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—

a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos.

I was not pathetic! I was writ large,

like a queen or a saint.

Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture.

And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe

in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying,

a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse

to persuade or seduce—

What are we without this?

Whirling in the dark universe,

alone, afraid, unable to influence fate—

What do we have really?

Sad tricks with ladders and shoes,

tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring

attempts to build character.

What do we have to appease the great forces?

And I think in the end this was the question

that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,

the Greek ships at the ready, the sea

invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future

lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking

it could be controlled. He should have said

I have nothing, I am at your mercy.

Haitus.

2010-04-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

It's NaPoWriMo, y'all. I will be switching over to http://pseudoencephalitic.blogspot.com/ for the month so I can participate. Be sure to hop on over and click the "follow" button so you can track my progress.

I may keep blogging random thingies over here, but for now I think I'm putting up the "Be back soon" sign. See you in May!

Body and Soul by Sharon Bryan*

2010-03-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

They grow up together
but they aren't even fraternal

twins, they quarrel a lot
about where to go and what

to do, the body complains
about having to carry

the soul everywhere as if
it were some helpless cripple,

and the soul snipes that it can go
places the body never dreamed of,

then they quarrel over which one of them
does the dreaming, but the truth is,

they can't live without each other and
they both know it, anima, animosity,

the diaphragm pumps like a bellows
and the soul pulls out all the stops—

sings at the top of its lungs, laughs
at its little jokes, it would like

to think it has the upper hand
and can leave whenever it wants—

but only as long as it knows
the door will be unlocked

when it sneaks back home before
the sun comes up, and when the body

says where have you been, the soul
says, with a smirk, I was at the end

of my tether, and it was, like a diver
on the ocean floor or an astronaut

admiring the view from outside
the mother ship, and like them

it would be lost without its air
supply and protective clothing,

the body knows that and begins
to hum, I get along without you

very well, and the soul says, Listen
to that, you can't sing worth a lick

without me, they'll go on bickering
like this until death do them part—

and then, even if the soul seems to float
above the body for a moment,

like a flame above a candle, pinch
the wick and it disappears.

* Did you notice how this poem is broken up into stanzas of only two lines? It matches the content so beautifully....

Better or Worse by Heather McHugh

2010-03-30T08:57:00.001-07:00

I.

Daily, the kindergarteners
passed my porch. I loved
their likeness and variety,
their selves in line like little
monosyllables, but huggable—
I wasn't meant

to grab them, ever,
up into actual besmooches or down
into grubbiest tumbles, my lot was not
to have them, in the flesh.
Was it better or worse to let
their lovability go by untouched, and just
watch over their river of ever-
inbraiding relations? I wouldn't
mother them or teach. We couldn't be
each other's others; maybe,
at removes, each other's each.
II.

Each toddler had a hand-hold on
a loop of rope, designed to haul
the whole school onward
in the sidewalk stream—
like pickerel through freshets,
at the pull of something else's will, the children
spun and bobbled, three years old and four
(or were they little drunken Buddhas,
buoyant, plump?). They looked
now to the right, now to the sky, and now
toward nothing (nothing was too small)—
they followed a thread of destination,
chain of command, order of actual rope that led

to what? Who knew?

For here and now in one child's eye there was a yellow truck,
and in another's was a burning star; but from my own perspective,
overhead, adult, where trucks and suns had lost their luster,
they were one whole baby-rush toward
a target, toward the law
of targets, fledge
in the wake of an arrowhead;

a bull's-eye bloomed, a red
eight-sided sign. What
did I wish them?
Nothing I foresaw.

On the Eve of a Birthday by Timothy Steele

2010-03-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

As my Scotch, spared the water, blondly sloshes
About its tumbler, and gay manic flame
Is snapping in the fireplace, I grow youthful:
I realize that calendars aren’t truthful
And that for all of my grand unsuccesses
External causes are to blame.

And if at present somewhat destitute,
I plan to alter, prove myself more able,
And suavely stroll into the coming years
As into rooms with thick rugs, chandeliers,
And colorfully pyramided fruit
On linened lengths of table.

At times I fear the future won’t reward
My failures with sufficient compensation,
But dump me, aging, in a garret room
Appointed with twilit, slant-ceilinged gloom
And a lone bulb depending from a cord
Suggestive of self-strangulation.

Then, too, I have bad dreams, in one of which
A cowled, scythe-bearing figure beckons me.
Dark plains glow at his back: it seems I’ve died,
And my soul, weighed and judged, has qualified
For an extended, hyper-sultry hitch
Down in eternity.

Such fears and dreams, however, always pass.
And gazing from my window at the dark,
My drink in hand, I’m jauntily unbowed.
The sky’s tiered, windy galleries stream with cloud,
And higher still, the dazed stars thickly mass
In their long Ptolemaic arc.

What constellated powers, unkind or kind,
Sway me, what far preposterous ghosts of air?
Whoever they are, whatever our connection,
I toast them (toasting also my reflection),
Not minding that the words which come to mind
Make the toast less toast than prayer:

Here’s to the next year, to the best year yet;
To mixed joys, to my harum-scarum prime;
To auguries reliable and specious;
To times to come, such times being precious,
If only for the reason that they get
Shorter all the time.

P-p-p-p-published?

2010-03-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

In January, I decided that this was finally going to be the year that I went ahead and jumped into the terrifying deep end (more like middle of the ocean without a boat) of publishing. As in, publishing my own poems. In real literary journals. That have bar codes.

I've made this resolution before. I've developed a strategy for submissions, researched literary magazines, and sorted through my poems. However, the last time I seriously submitted something was my first year of writing--back when I was new enough to think that it was okay to send the first draft of a (now, I realize) very bad short story to Glimmer Train. Heh. I was a confident bastard. The point is that I never actually had anything accepted, so I just kind of stopped trying. But I kept writing.

This year, I decided to try again. It was a bad year for fiction in 2009 (for one Ms. McClendon), so I decided to go back to writing and thinking about poetry.

Now, it's March (almost April) and I have submitted a total of approximately 12 poems to four different places. And...

one of them has been accepted!

I know what you're thinking. Either, "Good for you! That's hope, right there, is what that is!" or "Whatever, I do that all the time." But, here is (so far) my reaction:

Upon reading the acceptance email:
"Woah. It's like, official. I hope they didn't accidentally send this to me. Did they mean to send this to me? Yeah. They sent it to me. Woah. Yeah. Yes. Woah."

Then I was all like:
"I did it! I'm telling everyone! I can't wait to see it in print!"
(I started going into newsstand shops daydreaming about seeing my name in a literary journal.)

Then I heard that this awesome local poet* just published a book and I thought about how awesome she is and how much better her writing is and it turned into:
"So what if I got one little poem published. I'll never be as awesome as that."

* (Her blog post for March 26th has a poem by Marge Piercy that is kind of telling me to shut up and get back to work--but in a very inspiring and loving way.)

Which then became:
"What am I doing with my life?!?!? How have I convinced myself that this is a good idea?! This is ONE step in a long series of steps that has taken me FIVE years. By that calculation, I will be friggin' dead by the time I can do this for a living" (At which point I chuckled to myself cause that whole dead/living thing was kinda neat and I am my biggest fan.)

Then, I told some people and it was back to:
"Yeah! I did it! It's AMAZING."

But. This morning, I got an email from the editors asking me to look through the proof to make any last minute changes to my poem. I read the other poets and now I'm at:
"My poem sucks. How embarrassing. They were probably so embarrassed for me that they put it in the journal to make me feel better and to give me a reason to go on. Aw, man."

I'm sure it will change again. After all, there is (I hear) a release party forthcoming. I'm sure that will have it's own set of complicated (and somewhat rollercoastery) feelings.

Sigh. I love it. I'm sick.

Unhappy Hipsters (reality check!)

2010-03-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Try this! It will help you laugh your way into the weekend, dear readers. They are all pretty hilarious!

"Needless to say, Karl’s first impression of life outside the womb was a bit disappointing."

(Photo: Lara Tunbjork; The New York Times)

unhappyhispters.com

Oh my deer.

2010-03-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

I found this illustrator a number of years ago and I fell right in love. This one is my favorite, but she has a number of other ones that are just as lovely and captivating. While searching the magical interwebs, I found a blog post mentioning her. The artist is Chiara Bautista and she lives in Tuscon, Arizona. Apparently, she is working on a website, but when I followed the link it said (sadly) "en construccion". Sigh. Her artwork mixes the mythical, religious, and contemporary in a way that gets me all crumpled up inside. Once her website is up and functioning, I highly recommend checking it out and buying some pretty pretty things.

Quickly Aging Here by Denis Johnson

2010-03-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

1

nothing to drink in
the refrigerator but juice from
the pickles come back
long dead, or thin
catsup. i feel i am old

now, though surely i
am young enough? i feel that i have had
winters, too many heaped cold

and dry as reptiles into my slack skin.
i am not the kind to win
and win.
no i am not that kind, i can hear

my wife yelling, “goddamnit, quit
running over,” talking to
the stove, yelling, “i
mean it, just stop,” and i am old and

2

i wonder about everything: birds
clamber south, your car
kaputs in a blazing, dusty
nowhere, things happen, and constantly you

wish for your slight home, for
your wife’s rusted
voice slamming around the kitchen. so few

of us wonder why
we crowded, as strange,
monstrous bodies, blindly into one
another till the bed

choked, and our range
of impossible maneuvers was gone,
but isn’t it because by dissolving like so
much dust into the sheets we are crowding

south, into the kitchen, into
nowhere?

Ah, the villanelle. My new favorite form, masterfully done by Bishop.

2010-03-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Well, yes.

2010-03-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

It is not so much that I miss you
by Dorothea Grossman

It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.

I have to tell you
by Dorothea Grossman

I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears.

What a character!

2010-03-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Post Secret makes me want to write stories about the people who send in postcards. Like this one:

I mean, as a fiction writer, how could I not begin to create a narrative out of this? Who isn't curious about what this person says to a woman who can't respond? Who out there isn't wondering why this person is talking to someone who can't talk back? What fiction writer doesn't feel like they are doing this everytime they sit down to write a story? (Or maybe I am just being morbid here.) I heart heart heart Post Secret.

One of the other things I love is this. It's going to stop accepting assignments on May 1st, so get to it!

Although the title is cheesy, I started reading this last night. On the bus this morning, I found myself thinking about my characters--especially those poor bastards who have been hanging around in my subconscious for years waiting for me to let them speak--and I started to see the holes in their stories. There is one in particular that I've been working on since I started writing fiction (in 2005!) and I think this book may have helped snap me out of it, so to speak, and really see the reason I haven't been able to make the story work. I've always thought that I had a problem with plot, but really I think it comes down to character (some authors would argue that this is always the case).

My schedule is about to open up again. No more of this starting work at eight in the morning and not stopping until I leave class at nine in the eve anymore. Now I will start work at 9. This might make me appear overly optimistic about my free time. However, I will only be working part-time, so I'm going to actually have time to do the things I love (eat! write stories! read!) without having to do it while rushing from one place to another. (Last week, I ate my lunch on the bus and it was possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever done.)

When my time opens up, my mind opens up and I start daydreaming. And you know what that means.

Characters!

Said the Poet to the Analyst - Anne Sexton

2010-03-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget how one words is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
something I might have said...
but did not.
Your business is watching my words. But I
admit nothing. I work with my best, for instance,
when I can write my praise for a nickel machine,
that one night in Nevada: telling how the magic jackpot
came clacking three bells out, over the lucky screen.
But if you should say this is something it is not,
then I grow weak, remembering how my hands felt funny
and ridiculous and crowded with all
the believing money.

Composite Poem (written with a stranger).

2010-03-18T09:21:00.001-07:00

I went to a class at the Hugo House last night. It was about organic poetry and was geared toward teachers of creative writing. There was none of the usual basic craft discussion, which was awesome because I've heard it, and I sat in a room filled with mostly middle aged white women. We did a number of exercises to access our subconscious minds and silence our internal editors (which I've been trying to do for months) and this was one of the things that came out of it:

When tuplis burst like open
mouths, the bees buzz
in a crowded hall
of yellow and orange, and
heat flames from chill
blue ice.

She tells me I need to stop
calling her name,
but I don't anymore.
Folded into my pocket, I
keep it up son, keep
it close to my heart
because I told you so
and you know I
hate it when you--

I see you when you
stop by the trailer
court, and all the darlings and
the bird that lands
on tiny petals sprouting
blue and purple and
gold winters.

I know. It's not the most amazing thing ever, but I love how my mind imposes a narrative on this. The exercise was pretty simple (try it with a stranger! or a friend!). Write one line and one word. Fold the page so only the one word shows. Pass it to your partner, who will complete the line and add one word on the next line. Have them fold it and pass it back. Rinse and repeat as needed.

Have fun!

One of my very favorites.

2010-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

With Mercy for the Greedy
by Anne Sexton

For my friend, Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession

Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose—

I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it lies on your letter ... deep, deep.
I detest my sins and I try to believe
in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,
its solid neck, its brown sleep.

True. There is
a beautiful Jesus.
He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
But I can’t. Need is not quite belief.

All morning long
I have worn
your cross, hung with package string around my throat.
It tapped me lightly as a child’s heart might,
tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.
Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.

My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue’s wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.

Check only one box.

2010-03-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

It's census time! That means that I have received a form in the mail asking me about my race and sex. It also means that I have been thrown into the confusion of race identity, once again. Let me tell you a story.

A long time ago, a woman named Josephine was born in Mexico City. She grew up and fell in love with Frank. They moved to Arizona. They had a son named Frank. When Frank grew up, he married Alice, who bore my mother, Beverly.

My mother married a man from Washington who had Irish-Scottish ancestry, named Mike. My mother herself was a mix of Mexican, French, German, and Scottish.

What on earth does that make me?

On the census, it asks people if they are "of Hispanic origin", but clearly states that they (who is this "they"?) don't consider Hispanic a race. They go on to ask about race identity. Hispanic is not an option.

Yesterday, I stood in my kitchen holding this little piece of paper. I thought about my grandparents speaking Spanish to my mother and how they never taught me. I thought about my grandmother's homemade tortillas. I have never seen the recipe. When strangers see my grandparents, they ask them about working on farms and immigration--even though they were born in the U.S.

I haven't filled out the form. I don't know how to answer the question. Once upon a time, my history was in Mexico. Once upon a time, one drop of blood was the measurement for race. But. No one ever asks me if I'm part Mexican. I have white skin and white privilege. I have never checked a scholarship box indicating I am Hispanic because I'm afraid it might be like stealing.

But secreted away between my first and last name is the name Josephine.

“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .”

2010-03-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .”
by Jack Spicer

Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2008).

Mother and Child by Louise Gluck

2010-03-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.

Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.

We dream; we don’t remember.

Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.

And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.

And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.

This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it’s your turn to be driven;
you’re the one who demands to know:

Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?

Kind of Blue by Lynn Powell

2010-03-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

Not Delft or
delphinium, not Wedgewood
among the knickknacks, not wide-eyed chicory
evangelizing in the devil strip—

But way on down in the moonless
octave below midnight, honey,
way down where you can't tell cerulean
from teal.

Not Mason jars of moonshine, not
waverings of silk, not the long-legged hunger
of a heron or the peacock's
iridescent id—

But Delilahs of darkness, darling,
and the muscle of the mind
giving in.

Not sullen snow slumped
against the garden, not the first instinct of flame,
not small, stoic ponds, or the cold derangement
of a jealous sea—

But bluer than the lips of Lazarus, baby,
before Sweet Jesus himself could figure out
what else in the world to do but weep.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

2010-03-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
by Gwendolyn Brooks

I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

Accidents.

2010-02-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

It all looks so innocent. A swingset in a park. An innertube at the top of a snowy bank. But I keep managing to hurt myself by trying to do things kids do and adults should maybe not.

Last summer, I went out of town with a couple of friends to a place inspired by Belgian towns. That meant beer. Lots of beer. I decided to try the swingset in the local park. No big, right? Alas, I took it too far. Little old me (with my tum full of beers) decided to try to jump from the swinging swing--only I forgot what I was doing once I'd unhooked my arms and instead went flying out of the swing onto my knees in a gravel pit. Ouch. I was bruised up and in pain for days.

Last weekend, my sweetie and I went to the mountains (snow!) for a dreamy vacay and we spent one morning-ish afternoon in the snow. I found an innertube and decided it would be fun to try sledding. Listen. There were other people doing it too. My mistake was going off in my own direction to find my own sledding hill. I'm a loner. A rebel. So, I find this unused hill that is kind of a dream. The snow is slicked down and it looked like someone prepared it just for me. To sled.

As soon as I pushed off the top, I noticed the curled lip of snow that was going to shoot me into the air as soon as I reached the bottom. Oops. I slid around backwards, all the while saying, "Oh no no no no no no" and as soon as I was completely turned around, I flew off the lip (parallel to the ground) and landed on my fleshy/bone hip. Now there is a giant purple bruise, which I am kind of proud of, on my side and a somewhat rational fear of snow sledding.

"But it's funner to say letters."

2010-02-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Today, on the day of floaty hearty things and merry lovey-ness, I am going to relax and watch this. And laugh. A lot.

Blogs!

2010-02-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

I found a new blog through my lazy interwebs floating and I think I'm in love. Also, I've realized how utterly boring my own blog must be to readers everywhere. Sorry, dudes. Here are some pictures of cute things to make up for the lack of verbal interesting.

2010-02-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful play, but I'm finding it ironic that the actor reading the part of the old man sounds like he is twelve.

8 reasons to walk, instead of riding the bus.

2010-02-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

2010-02-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

I don't want to ever, ever lose my hands. But lately, science has been progressing toward that weird science-fictiony place where all is possible, so I may never have to worry about it.

The other day, I listened to a podcast about auto-tune. You know, that device that automatically corrects out of tune singers. It got me to thinking about being a kid and dreaming up all the wacky things the future might hold.

And I want to hold those things. I never, ever want to lose my hands. I know I'm starting to sound obsessed, but seriously. I want to keep my hands.

A bit of funny.

2010-02-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

Taken from the podcast, Today In The Past, by John Hodgman

November 25.

"Happy Birthday, Colin Julius Robert Von Mayer. This famous German physicist, whom I’m sure you’re all intimately familiar with, turns a hundred and thirty one years old today. Famous for observing that “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed” (now do you know who I’m talking about?), Von Mayer went on to invent…immortality. He would later live on to regret it. And unregret it. And then regret it again. And then he would live on to reconsider his regret, another time, and then he would really regret it and then forget that it happened and then remember. He currently lives in a hospital in his home town of Hilebrawn, Germany, where he keeps active by pushing pieces of crumpled up paper around on a tray and thinking about his children, whom he has outlived, and his own many failed suicide attempts. Happy Birthday! (It happened today, in the past!)"

If I was a mermaid...

2010-02-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

it might be easier to stay underwater.

Myth of Innate Genius: 1, Me: 0

2010-02-01T15:46:00.000-08:00

This kid didn't even like drawing until he was, like, four. Now people are comparing him to Picasso. Am I jealous? Yes. Am I angry that the myth of innate genius prevents many talented people from ever attempting to create something? Yes. Do I love his paintings anyway? Yes.

Swift striking nostalgia.

2010-01-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

If I had the kind of mother who kept things from my childhood, I might still have (along with the very basic and very much missed baby pictures and things):

* A videorecording of the time the police came to my kindergarden class and introduced us to their police dogs. The local news came and videotaped it. They used a clip of a giant German Shepard leaping up and licking my face. (This may be the root of my fear of large dogs.)

* The videorecording of my second band playing a Halloween party in San Jose. I was wearing some kick ass white pleather go-go boots and a peach sixties short dress that I wish I still had but probably couldn't fit into anymore. This was the night I sang over my guitarist's solo by accident and he hissed loudly, "What are you doooooing?" (This may be the root of my insecurity on stage.)

* The photograph of our trip to Universal Studios, when I got picked to ride the E.T. bike and, for a few minutes, it looked like I had been the child picked to play Elliott in the movie. I was flying across the sky with an alien in my bike basket and the moon as my background. (This might be the root of my tendency to name all of my characters Elliott.)

* The tape recording of my first time singing in public at an open mic with my first band, which included Eric on bass and Dave on guitar. My sister said (and you could hear proof in the tape) that when I started singing, everyone became very quiet. (This may be the root of my desire to sing in public, even though it terrifies me.)

* All of those tons of mixed tapes I made by inserting a blank tape into the radio and pressing pause on the "record" button until I heard a song I liked. I spent thousands of hours, I'm sure, reading by my radio (which I still have), waiting for good songs to come on.

* All of those mixed tapes made for me by my musical compilation genius friends in high school.

* The binder filled with all of my letters in middle school and high school, to and from, my best friend Christina and/or my ex-boyfriend Jon. (This may be the root of my need to write things down over and over and over.)

* My pound puppy, Nilla.

What a question.

2010-01-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

This guy is a genuis.

Spindle Cells.

2010-01-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

Even though I sometimes hate these guys, I do love this episode about empathy and animals.

Fish Outta/Under Water

2010-01-28T11:53:00.000-08:00

I want to feel like this:

But today, I feel more like this:

There is a kind of order in the world.

2010-01-26T14:10:00.001-08:00

I lost a last game of online Scrabble with Godzilla5555 because I ended up with the letters: I,I,I,E,E,O,O (consistently) for the last seven turns of the game. But now, every turn includes a letter of 5 or more and the double/triple word spots are opening up just for me. I know it's geeky, but it makes me feel certain of some sort of balance in the world. And I've been doubting that lately.

Thanks, online Scrabble, for giving me a glimmer of optimism.

(And yes, that Scrabble board is supposed to look like a portrait of Abe Lincoln. I just thought it was cool. I'm not relating Lincoln to balance in the universe. Not directly, anyhow.)

The things we do.

2010-01-25T13:23:00.000-08:00

I was in the bathroom at work the other day and I thought to myself, "It is someone's job to calculate the number of necessary stalls in a public bathroom. I doubt that it's a full-time job. It's probably just part of a construction planning job. But. Someone does that. Someone plans the number of stalls. This means that someone else has estimated usage per stall to estimate need according to the number of people estimated to visit said location."

Then I went back to my desk.

Art and Magic

2010-01-15T08:45:00.001-08:00

The Deep, deep, blue.

2010-01-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a writing project this week for a class. I've been asked to write a personification poem from the perspective of an animal, object, or plant. I can either address this animal, object, or plant using the 2nd person point of view or I can use 1st person, as the animal, object, or plant. Phew. That was a lot of animal, object, and plants.

Anyways, I have been looking out at the world with this project in mind this week. It changes everything. When observing the world as a possible symbol for something innately human, everything becomes more human. A dandelion is not just a flower, it is bowing its head in shame. Two metal hangers are not just there to hold your clothes, they are swaying, tapping each other lightly on the shoulder. For me, this makes the world feel like a disney cartoon--and I mean that in the best possible way.

This morning, I was poking around on the interwebs looking for interesting things and I found The Deep Book. It's a photo collection of creatures from the deep, deep sea. I'm fascinated by the deep of the ocean. It's like outerspace, but inverted somehow. The creatures are terrifying and beautiful. Check 'em out: http://www.thedeepbook.org/

I wish that, for one week, I could wander quietly along the bottom of the sea, safely observing the life below my own life where everything looks like something I have never seen before. Last quarter, we talked about pre-19th century American writers and the concept of perception. There's a theory somewhere that we must get mid-way between ourselves and any other object to see it as it truly is. Right now, these deep sea creatures are right in front of my nose. It's like magic.

Goals for 2010

2010-01-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

Yep, I like to make goals. I do this every year. Last year, I set a goal to quit smoking. I did it for like three months and (after many sobbing fits and tantrums) gave in to the addiction once more. But. I have been done with the smoking now (and not as a goal) for four months. (Yay!) This isn't the point.

The point is that I have new goals! They are (in no particular order):

1. Record an album.

This doesn't have to be fancy. I just want to get back to creating music. I'm going to get a few silly little faux guitar (thanks iPhone) melodies down and sing along.

2. Perform the shit out of one good karaoke song.

I love to sing more than most things, but I freak out so bad in front of a crowd. I'm going to try to let it go and enjoy the performance aspect of it all. (I hope I don't pee.)

3. Write a play.

Man, do I love drama. I love a good dialogue and I am one of those repeater types. You know, the kind of person who mimicks other people when they like something? You say, "Ohhh, that was ku-hool." I repeat it to mimick the sound. Why? Because I like the way people talk. I like the way that people omit information from their language or weigh a spoken sentence down with multiple meanings. I think writing a play will help me get outta my fiction funk too. Yeah.

4. Publish some poetry.

Cause really, I have like piles and piles of it just laying around the house. What good is it doing there? Shoot.

I know there should be five goals, for balance or something, but I am very distracted by the version of the hit song "Beauty & the Beast" by Peabo Bryson and Celine Dion playing on my pandora station right now.

In Rome

2009-07-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

I am on a short hiatus from blogging while I participate in a study abroad creative writing program through the University of Washington. When I return (and this, I vow), I will post something about each of my days here (including site visits, writing assignments, and photographs). Hold your breath (and try not to get dizzy). Ciao!

Cigaretta portabello.

2009-03-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

This is Chaplin's first "talkie" film, Modern Times. He doesn't speak throughout the film and we only hear his voice when he performs this song (although it is a recorded version and he is lip synching). He's written the words of the song on his cuffs, which fly off early on in his performance so the words he sings are basically gibberish -- a combination of French and Italian. While watching this film, I was struck by how innocent the characters in films were during this time period. I recommend checking out this movie, if you can find it. It was one of Chaplin's last ones and the female lead ended up being one of his wives. She's a doll. Seriously tough and pretty. Sigh. A good one.

"You've been put in the world to love the act of being alive."

2009-02-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

I love Ray Bradbury for a number of reasons but his discussions about writing give me chills. He makes me want to leap from my chair, burst into tears, and love this life with everything I've got. He reminds me what it is I feel I am meant to do in this world. I love that.

My favorite part of the video above is his discussion of the first story he wrote that he considered beautiful. He says, "When I finished the short story, I burst into tears. I realized that after ten years of writing, I'd finally written something beautiful. I turned a corner into my interior self. I wasn't writing exterior stuff. I wasn't writing for the right or the left or the inbetween, I was writing for me. And I discovered, that was the way to go."

Tossing & Turning - John Updike

2009-02-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

The spirit has infinite facets, but the body
confiningly few sides.
There is the left,
the right, the back, the belly, and tempting
in-betweens, northeasts and northwests,
that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation
in one or another arm.
Yet we turn each time
with fresh hope, believing that sleep
will visit us here, descending like an angel
down the angle our flesh's sextant sets,
tilted toward that unreachable star
hung in the night between our eyebrows, whence
dreams and good luck flow.
Uncross
your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.
This bed was invented by others; know we go
to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.
This churning is our journey.
It ends,
can only end, around a corner
we do not know
we are turning.

"Tossing and Turning" by John Updike, from Collected Poems 1953-1993.

[I love the form of this poem and the way each sentence changes length like someone trying to get comfortable....]

In Blackwater Woods - Mary Oliver

2009-02-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

[I am going to see her in May thanks to my dear friend, Dee. I am not going to wear mascara because of the probability of tears. There are a number of poems by Mary Oliver that I love. This is a new discovery.]

Fragile and Frightening.

2009-02-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a class this quarter where we are focusing on modernism to study how different mediums convey "truth". The coolest part? Silent films. Seriously.

I've seen Buster Keaton films before. He's hilarious. But I only fully realized what sort of genuis-ness was taking place in early film when I saw some clips of 'Metropolis'. Jeez. It's gorgeous. I read somewhere that they spent a ridiculous amount of money to produce the film. Like millions. In 1927. Woah, right? I love the music that's paired with this. I'm assuming it's the original music, but you never can tell with these old films.

Just watch a few minutes. It's dreamy.

Also, we watched 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' in class this week and it was totes creepy. If you can, you should watch the whole thing. This clip isn't very good but it was the best I could find. I ended up picking it because it had the color tint and the music wasn't as awful as it seemed to be in the other clips. Anyway, this scene is when Dr. Caligari is at the fair and he's offering to show the people "Cesare, the Somnambulist". For those of you who don't know, a 'somnambulist' is a sleepwalker. I learned that by asking (really loud in the middle of the dark class), "Whattsa somnambulist anyway?" So, this is when Dr. Caligari shows off Cesare who has been sleeping for 23 years...in a row! It's a shame this clip omitted the title screens. They were pretty funny.

But the point is...check out Cesare's face as he wakes up. Daaaang. And also, I wouldn't want to run into Dr. Caligari on a dark street, if you know what I mean. Shoooot.

This will not, in any way, be uplifting.

2009-01-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-21T11:49:00.001-08:00

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.

2009-01-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-18T15:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

“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)

2009-01-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-14T08:08:00.000-08:00

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).

2009-01-14T07:35:00.001-08:00

"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.

2009-01-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

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!

Life is like a box of chocolates...or your coffin could just look like one.

2008-12-30T21:39:00.000-08:00

I was roaming around the internet trying to do a little research for something I'm writing. I wanted to see a coffin, a real modern and up to date coffin, so I could write about one with some accuracy.

A quick google search on coffins brings up a long list of weird websites that typically have more to do with decorations for your home (seriously) than your final resting place. I did stumble across this little gem of a website, which advertises creatively designed coffins. It also advertises environmentally "sympathetic" coffins, which makes me laugh. I can just picture a couple of coffins around the water cooler.

"Yes, I'm entirely sympathetic to the environment," says Box O' Chocolates.

"I mean, it really takes a lot of shit," says Gone to Seed.

It all looked pretty normal, yes, until I checked out the set of coffins labeled "bespoke". Apparently, you can actually be buried in a coffin that looks like a box of chocolates. My favorite was the one labeled "gone to seed", for the avid gardener. You can design your very own casket and visually sum up your entire life. Can you imagine if your entire life was expressed by a gigantic replica of a box of chocolates?

I would love to be buried in a gigantic book, complete with print and everything. The pages would be glued together, of course. You know, like those bibles with the squares cut out for secret bottles of alcohol. Only it would be a secret body of me. And not so secret, really.

Set your alarm for the end of the world.

2008-12-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

I've always been a night owl but lately, I've been waking up feeling like a zombie. You know, all zoned out and foggy headed. But I love pushing the end of the day past its limit, watching the clock and the sky change. In the middle of the night, it's easier to be alone. I can sit and stare off into space. I don't have to talk to anyone. I am free to do whatever I please.

There was a year when I only worked for six months. I was unemployed the other six. It was the best. My sleep cycle was so strange, though. I would stay up later and later until, eventually, I was up until six in the morning and then I would sleep until the late afternoon. But I was getting eight hours of sleep, so technically I was being very healthy.

The night time is so quiet when the streets are empty. Everyone is inside and there isn't much noise past three in the morning. I used to smoke cigarettes on my front porch and listen to the way the natural world took over. Tree leaves rustling, wind whistling, animals prowling -- I felt like the only human being left on earth. Most of the time, I liked this feeling.

I often like to pretend that I am the only one left in the world. I wonder how long I could keep myself company. I would write a lot. I would sleep for ages. I would read books like that guy in the Twilight Zone episode but I wouldn't wear glasses. I would just have to be careful not to poke my eyes out.

I am pretty sure that I need more time alone than most people but that doesn't mean I would be happy being the only person left on earth.

Have you ever seen this movie? The Quiet Earth. It's one of those mid-eighties "end of the world" movies. I remember watching it at my cousin's house and crying after one particular scene. The main character was so lonely that he stood naked in front of a mirror and pretended that he was a woman. The way he touched the mirror and the way he cried...that scene is burned in my memory. It was horrifying and captured such an extreme feeling of loneliness. I still think about that scene, that depth of loneliness, from time to time.

Especially during weeks like this one, with everyone gone for the holidays and an empty house all to myself. I sometimes wonder if I am going to wake up and find an empty city. If it happens, please don't let everyone turn into zombies because I am not the main character in this movie. She's such a bad ass. Plus, ever since Bess told me about zoombies (real fast zombies -- get it? Zoom-bies?) I've been worried that I'm just not quick enough for a zombie fight.

I would like to think that night owls have an advantage when it comes to end of the world scenarios but I suspect that it's always the night owls who end up being the zombies. If I've learned anything from eighties movies about apocalyptic events, it's that "early to bed, early to rise" is basically another way of saying, "Go to bed early, you jerk, and you won't be a zombie in the morning."

Call me. I'll be around.

2008-12-23T23:44:00.000-08:00

As far as technology fads go, I'm rarely surprised.

This surprises me.

People are choosing to take their cellphones with them to the grave. Like a secret. Only not at all. Game boys, ipods, and even Blackberries (and I'm not talking about fruit) are being tossed in the caskets with the recently deceased.

It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "You can't take it with you." I guess in this case, you can.

You can even choose a special ring tone and call your loved one as they are being lowered into their grave.

Strange. And totes amaze.

I'm afraid of icicles.

2008-12-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

I've been telling everyone I know that I'm afraid of being impaled by an icicle. In Seattle, snow is rare and icicles are even more rare than snow. But this last week, there has been a LOT of snow. People have been sledding down major streets, skiing to work, and snowshoeing to the grocery store. No joke. It's beautiful and strange.

But the icicles frighten the ever lovin' love out of me. When I was eighteen, I visited my grandmother out on Fox Island. It's a little island off of Gig Harbor, which is a little city off of Tacoma. Anyway, a snow storm hit the city. It was one of those rare Seattle (read, WA) snow storms.

We lost power for days. We made grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and tea using the fireplace. We slept around that heat maker at night, listening to the snow thaw. We spent our days playing cards and talking. It was great. It was one of the greatest disasters I've experienced.

But then, I heard about icicles. Big ones. They were falling from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and smashing through windshields. This terrifies me. Can you imagine driving, very carefully, across a SUSPENSION BRIDGE after a snow storm, and getting almost all the way across....

Your legs are shaking, your hands are trembling, but you've almost made it. You can see the other side. There it is. You're almost there. Almost there.

Then, BAM! A giant friggin' icicle smashes through your windshield and kills you. What a way to go.

So, yes. I am afraid of icicles. Those f-ers are sharp little spears and they aren't going to melt between the rooftop and your noggin'. Someone asked me about the possibility of being impaled by an icicle. I googled it. (Surprise, surprise.)

Here is what I found:

In Ploughkeepsie, N.Y. in 1897, a twenty-four year old man named William Hover --

Wait. His last name is Hover, for cryin' out loud. Here is the definition from the lovely people at Dictionary.com:

hov⋅er

[huhv-er, hov-] Show IPA Pronunciation

–verb (used without object)

1. to hang fluttering or suspended in the air: The [icicle, maybe?] hovered over the building.

Isn't that what icicles do? Hover? I mean, seriously. That's just creepy. Also, if you click the button above, the one that says "Hear", a voice will say hover. Do it a few times real fast. It's funny.

Anyway, Bill was leaving a warehouse and a TEN POUND icicle fell from the roof of the carriage factory and "cut his derby hat", leaving him with a nasty head wound. The wound was wearing clothes (it was dressed) and Bill went home in a sleigh. Seriously. Like a wounded Santa, minus the hat obviously. Anyway, he died of a concussion.

Get the full story here.

So that's how possible it is people. One day your leaving the carriage factory and the next, your dead....because of an icicle. Listen, winter is pretty but it's frightening too. Be careful out there folks.

A piece of raw bacon.

2008-12-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

This Mystery List is from Weird Universe, one of my favorite sources for news and fascinating bits of information.

A thank-you note for 'What Would Jesus Do?' thong underwear;
W-2 forms;
A feather;
A photograph of a nude pregnant woman;
A ticket to Handel's "Messiah";
A love poem comparing the relationship to free samples in a grocery store;
Airplane tickets;
A prescription for Zyrtec;
A sheet of notebook paper announcing 'I am stealing your watch, you moron';
A piece of raw bacon.

Yes, a piece of raw bacon is included in this list.

Want more about the list? Click here.

Retort.

2008-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

I was searching the Internet today. This is something I do quite often, since I am better at looking things up than talking to other people. I like to google. That's the truth.

Anyway, the googling....I found a website selling decorative urns. I may have even found the urn I want my cremated remains to, ahem, remain in. But this made me curious. How does cremation work?

The basics:

They remove your jewelry.

They take out your pacemaker. It could cause an explosion.

They put you in a large cardboard box with a plywood bottom surface.

They warm up the cremation chamber and then send you in for an hour and a half to two hours.

They pull out the ash and bone.

They use a machine that is a mix between a blender and a dishwasher disposal to create a consistent texture.

They seal you up in a plastic bag and send you home.

My favorite part? The cremation chamber is often referred to as a "retort".

In the dictionary, one of the other definitions of retort, when used as a noun is: "a quick, witty, or cutting reply; especially: one that turns back or counters the first speaker's words".

Amazing.