ps from your friendly neighborhood version of ebert and roper

look at me was very good - 2 thumbs up from the monteverdes!

bibbidy bobbidy boo!

exciting notes from the past 24 hours:
-lastnight at the lyric, they interviewed us for The Current (NRV's section of the Roanoke Times) -- will be in print in the Sunday, July 3rd edition. the only shame about it is that nate missed it, as he has been volunteering longer than any of us (in fact, i'm really only a volunteer sidekick!) :)
-outlook 2003 has now been installed on my computer! woo-hoo! now i can sort and flag my e-mail with the best of them!
-a group of us are headed to roanoke tonight to see "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" which I mentioned yesterday, but am becoming increasing excited about - dinner at Corned Beef and Co. to start, then off to the play which is described as "sex and the city meets the history channel." good times ;)

can i go home yet?

the weekend was just not long enough...hopefully the workday will pass by quickly and i can head back home :) tonight cassie and i are volunteering at the lyric, so stop by and see us serving up popcorn and pop for the 9:15 show ;) the movie showing is look at me.
tomorrow night we're off to see they play "A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Forum" - should be fun!

happy father's day dad and marty!

can't believe it's already sunday -- probably because i was at work yesterday morning ;) but not too bad, instead of going in at 7 like the normal work week, i wandered in around 8:15 so i could feel better about being in there on a saturday. i also am now completely prepared for monday and then some.
afterwards, i was being very lazy and just playing on my computer at home, so cleo and i headed to henderson lawn to read in the sun and enjoy the beautiful day.
today is errand day! of to target, except i can't remember what it is that i needed...hmmmm.
nate's now at a villa near florence for those of you keeping up with him :) he's also updating here whenever he can!

Scrabble

I pick seven letters and make the word chance:
twenty-two points, not bad for a start.
You’re not quite as a lucky, and counter with fate:
worth a mere twelve with your Double Word Score.
Fortune’s not bad, using all but my “y,”
and now we’re deep into it, as the board widens out.
Nights not of passion but of deep tendresse,
as you make the word gentle for just seven points.
Our son’s fast asleep, and I make the word heal,
a mere six points, plus a Triple Word Score.
And so, four years from fantasy, we move on this way,
lifting square letters from darkness to light.
Quietly, nastily, we’ve learned how to play,
as you wind up with family and I end with above
on this old, fated gameboard of luck and love.

*

by Michael Blumenthal

view from the virginia creeper

outside of virginia looking in...

inside of virginia looking out...

when in rome...

nate arrives in rome today. i'm jealous! but i'm living vicariously through him: i have a little paper route of his trip, i have several coffee table books of italy to page through, and my windows desktop is a lovely picture of venice. it's as if i'm there instead of in blacksburg watering his plants! :)
not that there's anything wrong with that, especially lately! it's been warm and beautiful here in southwest virginia. yesterday evening as i was driving home on main street, the sun was setting and banners for the lyric touting 75 years were waving, i thought what a wonderful oasis blacksburg is :) this surprising burst of music, organics, education, etc. lastnight i got the grand tour of a friend's new beautiful house and had a glass of wine at boudreaux's with cassie and a friend of hers. then cassie and i headed off to the grocery store. i like grocery shopping fairly late at night. not sure why, especially since by then, the bakery, deli, meat counter, etc. are all closed. may have something to do with a danielle steel novel i read once where the couple of interest meets in the grocery store ;)
tuesday night i sat on the couch to watch a movie with cassie and i don't think i even made it 10 minutes. i finally drug myself off the couch at 10 pm, stumbled into the kitchen to eat 1/2 a cold leftover enchilada, and went straight to bed! which brings me to my next subject: i am yet again on a diet. stay tuned to see if i make it this time. you know what they say, if it first you do not fricassee, fry fry again!

want to buy a house? too bad!

so i've been pre-occupied with real estate lately - seems like everyone around me is buying a house, doing the smart thing, no longer throwing their money away on rent. but oh my goodness the housing prices are ridiculous! so i have a new plan: wait until the housing market tanks, and THEN buy. good plan, eh? okay, maybe not :) but it's a nice thought for me as a lowly renter!
today, it is finally friday. it's been a long time coming. 5-day weeks are a little rough after a leisurely 4-day week like last week. the new river network dealy turned out to be a great time- glorified keg party really (with better food!). great turn out, met some fun and interesting people that actually live in blacksburg, as opposed to just passing through our lovely mountains for a bit of education.

new river network

event today for the new river network-- it's a new organization aimed at young professionals in the area. sounds like fun, $3 to get in, and then it's all the free draft beer you can drink!
in other news...i have no other news! more later.

i wish winnie the pooh was my co-worker!

for an explanation of that statement. so how are you? i always talk about my own goings-on on this blog, which makes sense, because, well, it's my blog, but just thought i'd ask :) work is busy busy today, lots of things going wrong and no time to solve everything all at once. but i'll get there ;) it's also only 45 minutes until lunchtime, always a bonus. we ate taco salad lastnight- mmmm. tonight i think nately is cooking up something on the grill after cassie and i play some tennis. and then maybe to the mall or something - who knows what the evening may hold? :)

hello from the river i can't spell!

i pride myself on spelling but yackuhganey (actually spelled Youghiogeny River) is a little too much for me! but anyway, off for a canoe ride (complete with beer cooler) this afternoon, with a pizza pot of gold at the end of our canoe-rainbow ;)
enjoy the weekend!

i want to go search for treasure!

modern day treasure! and all you have to do is read a children's book?

happy birthday mom!

it's the last day of may

that's all i really have to say.

poetry workshop! :)

so due to a recent lack of creativity, i'm revising some old old poems as opposed to writing new ones. i've already hacked the following poem to pieces, but seems like it still needs work. help! i don't like the way it ends, it's too abrupt i think...

No One Has Ever Fallen in Love with a Fish

Today my sister fell
in love. And i-
well, i bought a goldfish.
He’s a lovely goldfish really.
i brought him home in a clear plastic bag,
filled with air and water,
and one fish.

Startled at first by the transition,
he swam slowly along the bottom of the bowl.
then began to dart around, nipping
bits of food off the surface of the water.

Watching him, i think of my sister,
how she might like to hear
about the latest addition to my life,
but before i can pick up the phone, it rings,
she is on the other end of the line.

“He said I love you,” she says just
as my lips are moving
to form the word fish. Her words
spill over mine, fill in details.

Then i remember,
and tell her about my fish.
How he swims and bobs just a bit
to The Beatles.

After i’ve hung up, i turn
to see him, swimming
alone in his bowl, close
to the rocks along the bottom.

errands on my lunch break today

makes me feel like more of an adult somehow. like that (one) time i dropped off dry cleaning in the morning. funny how that is.

words of wisdom or wit

so i am supposed to submit a 'contributor's quote' to silhouette since they're publishing two of my poems in the fall (famous, personal, or otherwise). any ideas? i post them on the blog occasionally, so i might page back through a pick a favorite. here's what i've come up with so far:

"I would explain, but then you would understand my explanation, not what I said." - James Richardson
"Don’t cross this field unless you can do it in 9.9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10."- Anonymous, 1985
"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster."- Isaac Asimov, author of 289 books, 1984
"My vigor, vitality and cheek repel me. I am the kind of woman I would run from."- Nancy, Lady Astor, 1955
"I don’t believe in dying. It’s been done. I’m working on a new exit. Besides, I can’t die now—I’m booked."- George Burns, 1987
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."- Herm Albright
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."- Eleanor Roosevelt
"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."- Gilda Radner
"Of all the ways to avoid living, perfect discipline is the most admired."-James Richardson
"To be fair, English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner. Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled." - Billy Bryson in The Mother Tongue
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if i have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -Buddha
"Do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

vote on one from the list or post one of your own :)

'somewhere out in america it's starting to rain'

good morning! off to a happy and hurried start this morning, work has been slow but i'm happiest when it's busy and today definitely is that! just enough time to blog too :) weekend plans? all the blacksburg best, ashlea is headed out of our dear town soon, so here's the run down: floyd friday night jamboree (hippies, farm town, bluegrass, flat footing and even a little gospel music), the cellar and a night out with the girls' (maybe a little cliff-marry-shag?), the gillie's for a yummy breakfast. in between all of the eating, hopefully the weather will cooperate for a weekend of outdoorsy type stuff ;)

American Love Story, by Mike Dockins

1. THE GIRL
Hallelujah, she knows how to shoot pool.
She sinks her eight ball, drinks me under
the table. I whimper for a date, a smooch,
a slap. She hits the jukebox, that old song.
I change taverns but she's there: pigtails
that fill me with moon silt and planet jelly,
lips that just keep on being lips, little belly
I want to ski across. At home she's on top
of the fridge, dog-earing my favorite Azorean
epic. She drives the bus I take, cleans my
teeth, cuts my hair, cashes my paychecks,
taunting me: Going out tonight, Jerry? See
you there, Doll, I say, shaking with optimism.

2. THE SCHEME
If I can carry the pigskin ten more yards,
she'll take me to the movies, an action flick
with Swiss banks and tanks and jagged Alps.
I'll miss hockey, but her swinging ponytail
is better than a puck slung on ice. Her face
becomes warm, hot, thermonuclear. God,
I love her. She has perfect teeth, a straight
spine, and thighs that make frat boys bang
petulant fists during beer pong. Lord, if I sink
this basket, she'll marry me in Lake Tahoe: my
feet in Nevada, hers in California. If I'm clever,
I'll slip into a triple-cherry slot, and I'll love her
more with each rolling coin, each lucky pull.

we are young and unimpressed by all you'd recognize

another chance at lifelong admiration if you can name the song (cassie, you're disqualified) :) so now you can e-mail the cool stuff i say to cool people you know. since i know that must be so incredibly often, now there's a cool button beneath each post you can use to do it :) oh and i added a picture- narcissistic? maybe.
"When later Narcissus discovered his image in a pool, he fell in love with himself, and not being able to find consolation, he died of sorrow by the same pool. It is said that Narcissus still keeps gazing on his image in the waters of the river Styx in the Underworld."

summer reading list

it's summertime and school's out (1 A, 1 B)! let lazy summer days begin! although, today i'm improving the following: my finances, my weight, my closet. ambitious, i know, but whenever i finish school for the semester, i run out of excuses for months of procrastination. so here we are, it's may and i have several things to accomplish before summer's end. but when i'm not working on the above, i'll be reading and relaxing! here's my summer reading list so far:
the money book for the young, fabulous and broke (suze orman) - thanks mom!
anna karenina (tolstoy)
finish the fountainhead (ayn rand)
harry potter the order of the phoenix (no! i haven't read it yet...)
any other good suggestions? i have a taste for fiction (that non-fiction book is a major anomaly for me), usually chick lit or other fluffy types, with the occasional scholarly type book (enter tolstoy and rand). i also have a few new poetry books to peruse and need to spend more time writing poetry. there's another poetry slam, this time at the underground :) they said maybe they'll be a better turnout with beer. i'm going, but don't know if i'll read...it's on the 27th if you feel like a random dose of semi-literature ;)

hickory dickory dock!

the mouse ran up the clock! is it the end of the work day yet? hmmm?
can't believe it's already thursday. marty (my stepdad) was in richmond for work, so we all met him in lynchburg lastnight at a fantastic restaurant called isabella's. i recommend both the restaurant and the wine we had, the wine is a sicilian red, with a pencil sketch of pinnochio on the front. quirky and tasty :) has also been really warm for the past two days! all kinds of sun and blue skies! hope that continues into the weekend so i can enjoy it all day long :)

ryan hanlon revisits the 'burg

put your party pants on :) (or... dinner and reading pants) because ryan hanlon's coming to visit :) yippee!

Our Generation by Carl Dennis

Whatever they'll say about our delinquencies,
They'll have to agree we managed to bridge the gap
Between those who arrived before us
And those who followed. We learned enough
At the schools available to fill the entry-level positions
At the extant sawmills our elders managed,
At banks, drug stores, freight yards, and hospitals,
Then worked our way up to positions of trust.
There we were, down on the shop floor
Or up in the manager's office, or outside the office
On scaffolds, washing the windows.
Did we work with joy? With no less joy
Than people felt in the generations before us.
And on weekends and weekday evenings
We did our best to pursue the happiness
Our founders encouraged us to pursue,
And with equal gusto. Whatever they say about us
They can't deny that we filled the concert halls,
Movie houses, malls, and late-night restaurants.
We took our bows on stage or waited on tables
Or manned the refreshment booths to earn a little extra
For the things we wanted, the very things
Pursued by the generations before us
And likely to be pursued by generations to come:
Children and lawns and cars and beach towels.
And now and then we stood back to admire
The colorful spectacle, the endless variety,
As others before us admired it, and then returned
To fill our picnic baskets, drive to the park,
And use the baseball diamonds just as their contrivers
Intended they should be used. And if we too
Crowded into the squares to cheer the officials
Who proclaimed our country as fine in fact
As it is in theory, as faithful a friend to the planet
As any country we cared to name,
A few of us confined to a side street,
Carried signs declaring a truth less fanciful.
A few unheeded, to be sure, but no more unheeded
Than a similar few in generations before us
Who hoped that the truth in generations to come,
Though just as homely, would find more followers.

no seriously...

Jesus Christ in legal battle to get license
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Posted: 7:58 AM EDT (1158 GMT)

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- Even Jesus Christ can't circumvent the rules for getting a driver's license in West Virginia.

Attempts to prove his name really is Christ have led the man born as Peter Robert Phillips Jr. through a lengthy legal battle and a recent victory in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
"This all started with him expressing his faith and his respect and love for Jesus Christ," attorney A.P. Pishevar told The Associated Press. "Now he needs to document it for legal reasons."
Described by his attorney as a white-haired businessman in his mid-50s, Christ is moving to West Virginia to enjoy a slower lifestyle. He bought property near Lost River, about 100 miles west of Washington, and has a U.S. passport, Social Security card and Washington driver's license bearing the name Jesus Christ.
But he still falls short of West Virginia title and license transfer requirements because his Florida birth certificate has his original name on it and he has been unable to obtain an official name change in Washington.
"We just need official documentation that that's his name," said Doug Stump, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles. "He will be treated no different than anybody else."
Christ applied for the legal name change in May 2003, but it was denied by District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Tim Murphy because "taking the name of Jesus Christ may provoke a violent reaction or may significantly offend people."
In his appeal, Christ's attorney argued that Phillips had changed his name to Jesus Christ 15 years earlier, and "has been using the name since then without incident."
The appeals court last month sent the name-change proposal back to the lower court, saying some required hearings in the case had not been held.
Any comment from the man in the middle of this legal tussle?
"Christ is not speaking to the press at this time," Pishevar said.

i'm done! i'm done i'm done i'm done!

woo-hoo! a summer full of nothing but fun! i took my last final of the semester at 7:45 this morning and now it's nothing but 40-hour work weeks and fun!
i'm a little excited, can you tell?
tonight's plans? hang out with nate, cassie, ashlea and mike as ashlea is leaving for georgia tech this weekend! sniff... but congrats to her on attending the #1 industrial engineering school in the nation for her phd! v. exciting. also exciting are my plans to visit her in atlanta (a city i've yet to explore).

Just Keep Quiet and No One Will Notice by Ogden Nash

There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to one kind of apology alone,
Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.
You go to their house for a meal,
And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;
They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,
And they apologzie publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;
If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,
And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;
They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,
But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,
I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,
Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,
And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,
And what particularly bores me with them,
Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,
So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.

arizona

arizona. we’ve been gone
too long. lately, i hear your rain
falls day and night, are you trying to fill
the hole we’ve left you?

pizza ends hostage standoff?

Pizza delivery ends prison hostage standoff
Monday, May 9, 2005 Posted: 9:40 AM EDT (1340 GMT)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Officials bought 15 pizzas to secure the release of a guard who had been held for 42 hours by inmates at an Australian top-security prison, police said Monday.

Twenty prisoners were involved in the standoff, which began Saturday when inmates occupied part of Risdon Prison on the southern island state of Tasmania, complaining about conditions in the aging institution and taking guard Ken Hannah hostage.

Hannah finally was released late Sunday night after authorities caved in to demands for pizza.

"The final sticking point with the inmates was that they were requiring pizzas to be delivered," senior prisons official Graeme Barber said.

"We had held off in relation to that -- we obviously wanted the release of our staff member," he added. "Our staff member was negotiated out by the delivery of 15 pizzas."

The last prisoner involved in the siege gave himself up Monday. No one was injured.

The siege followed months of violence and unrest at Risdon, which holds one of Australia's most notorious convicts, Martin Bryant, who went on a shooting rampage at Tasmania's Port Arthur historic penal settlement in 1996, killing 35 people.

1-2-3-4 i don't wanna anymore!

study that is.

my test is in 1 hour, 7 minutes and i don't want to study...la la la

second verse? same as the first! everybody now! my test is in 1 hour, 6 minutes and i don't want to study...la la la...

happy cinco de mayo!

litte known fact, cinco de mayo is NOT mexican independence day. i've got a stick of gum and lifelong admiration waiting for anyone who can tell me what it actually is ;) in other news, the life of my favorite shoes, the rocket dogs, is coming to a close. that's right, everyone's favorite pair of industrial grip platform mary jane's has entered the sunset of its life. e-bay can't console me. my only hope is to find some insoles that patch things up and extend their wear!
i also have a final today. yip yip yippee! not really though. it's on quality control. i have news for him, quality is not in control. period. that's going to be my answer to every question. okay maybe not every question. point is, i'm hightailing it out of here asap, heading home to change, starbuck's for a recharge, then to campus to study up until my test at 7.
THEN it's downtown charlie brown!

nashville carried me away ;)

which is to say i got carried away in nashville and under the slight influence of a bit of alcohol purchased a beautiful pair of cowboy (girl) boots and a hat to match!
other highlights? krystallll on the drive down, dinner at las palmas (fantastic chimis..mmmm) on friday night and some POURING rain to boot (no pun intended), some fantastic omelettes for breakfast made by none other than our host, then the parthenon (full size replica!), then some fantastic bbq at jack's, then some great honky tonk at open mic night, then home to change, then to the mall for aforementioned boots and hat, then to another fantastic dinner, and then to back to broadway for more music and entertainment :)
overall, it was a great weekend :) i think my favorite part about nashville is how many people are trying to make it as stars- made me excited for them when watching them play- at one point, even our bartender got up and sang a song :)
my only complaint is nashville apparently doesn't qualify to have a coffee mug to call their own- music city? c'mon starbucks, have a heart!

oh i'm going to be such a tourist...

Heralded as Music City, USA, and the country-music capital of the world, Tennessee's fast-growing capital city also shines as a leading center of higher education, appropriately known as the Athens of the South. Nashville has prospered from both labels, emerging as one of the South's most vibrant cities in the process. The Gaylor Entertainment Center (formerly Nashville Arena), a 20,000-seat facility spanning three blocks at 5th and Broadway, opened in 1996. Connected to the city's convention center by a tunnel, the Arena hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in 1997. A successful drive to land both a National Football League and a National Hockey League franchise, coupled with a population gain that has pushed Nashville ahead of Memphis, has put Nashville into the major leagues of American cities.

wow what a crazy week!

have been busy on the border of ridiculousness (or beyond it) :) but that's only because the semester is quickly coming to a close! am on vacation tomorrow (yipee!) headed to nashville for a marathon
.
.
.
and you're thinking... what? did i read that correctly? yes you did, but i'm not the one running in it! i'm just along for the beer (cough.. root beer mom!) and country music :) it's also the best chance i have to wear my rhinestone belt buckle. which i will, proudly. i only hope that i can locate a decent cowgirl hat on the drive through tennessee.
gram - if i get time, we might stop in greene county!

relay for life!

despite popular belief, participating in relay for life does NOT mean you walk all night long. it kicks off at 6:30 pm and last until 9 am. each team participating keeps someone on the track at ALL times (hence....relay) :) so, i'll get some quality naps in tonight, but our team will always be walking for all 14 hours. i have made a personal pledge to walk at least 5 miles...at least, that's what i had to agree to for a guy at work to donate $20 for the cause :) we're under a severe thunderstorm warning with predictions of heavy rain and large hail, so this should prove to be an interesting evening! luckily we're offsetting any good doing type exercise with a grill full of beer brots. i mean really - what else would you have at a cancer benefit?
enjoy the weekend! :)

thursday means it's ALMOST the weekend

thursday is by far my longest day (class until 10 pm) but in some ways my favorite as it is the kick-off to the weekend :) am off to starbucks to work on a project, then class from 7-10, then paul clark and the lonesome drifters at the cellar :) busy busy. cleo doesn't remember what i look like anymore!
but i've made 2 lists, one of things left to do for school (and folks, it's LONG)- one of things i need to take care of outside of school/work - also long :) but some of it's fun, for example -make an appointment to cut my hair, which is getting long, and in need of cutting.
okay, i'm outta here :) anyone noticed my attempt to blog more frequently?

don't you know about the new fashion honey?

all you need are looks and a whole lot of money.

post delinquency

so i've been not posting lately due to work/school/social craziness! seems like i've only been at my apartment to sleep lately. i'm off again this time, but first, a few things of note from last weekend:

- great bike ride and picnic on the new river trail
- fun trip to chateau morrisette :) with plenty of wine to be had
- i read poetry at the 'poetry slam' at easy chair bookstore. it was so much fun - exhilerating even. did i spell that right? whatever.. i'm in a hurry ;) no time for spell check! but somehow, there is time to type several sentences about how it may be mispelled... ah well, there's no accounting for logic on this blog!
happy wednesday ;)

yawn...

i'm tired! but looking forward to a great weekend :) and i'm reading poetry tonight- not to myself at home, but out loud at a bookstore! v. exciting :) enjoy your weekend...

oh that's right

when i post poetry, you guys (and girls!) stop talking... :)

poetry dose 1!

this was written about something my mom used to tell us when we were growing up. now in her defense (i just got off the phone with her)- she says what she ACTUALLY said was "the one who is least emotionally involved is in control," so take this one with a grain of salt ;) and don't get caught up in the overdramatics: (1) it's poetry, (2) this was a long time ago.

my sister tells me we are cursed by the unattainable

no matter what happens, i know

i’ll be okay, i tell her, smoothing

the tears from my cheek

with my fingers, pausing

while the phone line falls silent,

interrupted again by the sound

of her voice. that’s another curse

of ours, she says.

six days later i am walking home

at five o’clock in the evening and i realize

what she meant. rush hour traffic is speeding

past me and my love life suddenly makes sense.

we will never completely succumb our lives

to someone else’s. suspended

in our independence- cursed in knowing

that the one

who loves

the least

is in control.

second poetry dose!

this one is (obviously) written about living on the oil rig.. lyrics in italics shamelessly stolen from Natalie Merchant's Where I Go.

Venice, But No Gondola

I: On the Way

He says out loud (not necessarily to me)

“If you want to see poverty, just go to Venice.”

Funny how they’re both water cities,

whether it’s Italy or Louisiana.

Instead of a gondola, I’m in a Chevy Suburban

traveling down a highway.

Houses on stilts line the roadside,

the smell of oil seems to hang

among the cars on blocks, dark swamps with bright

green algae on the surface. Natalie Merchant

wails from the car speakers, a borrowed CD.

I didn’t borrow it, the lyrics reach me anyway,

climbing over the old stone wall

I am bound for the riverside.

When I look out the window, the leather seats

seem wrong for the situation. I feel compelled

to respond to the poverty comment but don’t know

what to say and the awkward lapse inevitable

of a four hour car ride with a stranger

fills the car. Natalie sings anyway, unaware

there is nothing to say, find a place

on the riverbank

where the green rushes grow

see the wind

in the willow tree

in the branches hanging low

We reach the dock and I board a boat headed out

to the Gulf. I watch from the back deck as we push

through the heavy water and every now and then

my gaze lands on small houses, isolated

by the swamps , connected only by dilapidated

wooden docks. Later, I notice the water has cleared,

the houses are gone and ocean water laps the tall grass

all around us.

II: On the Rig

My shift will be midnight to noon. I learn

to love rising in the darkness, eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.

I learn exactly what to tell “Q” in the mornings

to have my eggs cooked just right. I learn what to call

the men. Later, I even learn their names.

I find that when the metal

and the men and the mud

become too much,

I can always find the sea.

It stretches out so far that I can no longer remember

where I might find land. At night, I forget that it’s only water;

the other rigs light the skyline as if they are outskirts

of a metropolis.

One morning, as the sun rose on the water

I noticed that the blue was being overtaken by a deeper,

darker brown. It’s the Mississippi, they tell me, even

twelve miles of water between us, it still finds the way

all the silt spilling into the gulf,

staining the blue. child it's lovely

let the river take it all away

the mad pace, the hurry

the troubles, the worries

just the river take them all away

flow away.

i'm published! (well, sort of...)

Silhouette is Virginia Tech's Literary and Art Magazine:

Dear Brianna,

Congratulations! Your poems, “Venice but No Gondola” and “My sister tells me we are cursed by the unattainable” were selected for publication in the Fall 2005 edition of the Silhouette. Thank you so much for submitting! We will be contacting you later on about signing forms, etc. Thanks again and congratulations! :)

Lindsay Key

Poetry Editor of the Silhouette

coffee champions!

jason posted this a few posts down, and i wanted to make sure it wasn't overlooked. my favorite coffee house at purdue, vienna, was 'threatened' by a lesser coffee shop that charged more for coffee that wasn't even good (opened when i was a sophomore there), and it's finally gone out of business :) sad for the business owners, but yay for vienna, the reigning champion! nothing beats ridiculously tasty flavors of the day and sandwiches named after jazz musicians :)

"Jason said...

Speaking of coffee houses...some big news here in the west lafayette (remember, that town you lived in for undergrad?) well, all was normal on thursday, vienna and village coffeehouse both open for java drinks (of course one is better than the other)...come saturday morning village is closed, completely empty with "for lease" signs in the windows, and the markerboard outside says "20 unemployed on a whim..." leaving vienna the undisputed champion on campus..."

i'm in class right now

which is why i've been so post-happy. just in case you were wondering.

april is poetry month!

well we're one week in to poetry month. were you aware of this? the below is stolen from slate's tribute to it:

"Poetry Month, some say, is a promotional vulgarity that lowers a great and fundamental art to the level of Domestic Cheese or Accident Prevention. Others respond, Poetry Month is a genial, harmless way of encouraging people to read poems and buy books of poetry.

Poetry, say some, is a private and personal art, best appreciated in deep chambers of the soul, not out in the public marketplace where it can be bought and sold like a hot dog or an entertainment center. But poetry, say others, makes art from words, the very stuff of the public agora where people meet and exchange words along with ideas, feelings, and goods."

spring fling!

i flung the old blog template in favor of this pretty new green one - enjoy until i get bored and change it again!

a cookie is a sometimes food?

so cookie monster is into greener pastures this season -- a few excerpts below ;) full article here.

"My beloved blue, furry monster -- who sang "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me" -- is now advocating eating healthy. There's even a new song -- "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food," where Cookie Monster learns there are "anytime" foods and "sometimes" foods...
...The furry one also plans to try different kinds of cookies (read: healthier cookies) rather than his just staple, chocolate chip.
But will he still scarf his food? Yes, plus the occasional object, Truglio said.
But isn't that unhealthy? Her reply: He's still Cookie Monster.
Cookie Monster appears to be happy with the new "sometimes food" song, because at the end he warbles: "Is sometimes now?"
"Yes," he's told.
So there it is. Cookie Monster still gobbles cookies, he's just a healthier version of his old self. His eyes are still googly, his fur is still scruffy and he's still messy.
Even "Sesame Street" recognizes that we all need guilty pleasures."

arizona snippets

ashlea and i in arizona...with a saguaro (suh-wauroh) for those of you not familiar ;)

but then all was resolved and we were on our way there!

ashlea and i unhappily delayed when flying to az...

this just in

so, i found during my few days in arizona that my grandma does in fact still read my blog (thanks gram!). my mom doesn't because of the lame excuse that she got a new computer and it's no longer her homepage. that's the only way i can get her to read it.. make it her default internet site. the blog even a mother couldn't love! lucky for me, my sense of worth is not closely tied to the number of comments on my blog ;)
this week is filled with homework, projects, papers, and work (of the 40-hour-a-week variety that is). but after that the fun begins! it's a paul clark week, closely followed on friday by the graduate student semi-formal gala - that's right, get out your gala clothes because there's a cocktail party, dinner, and dance to attend (isn't that festive?) can't think of a better way to kick off the warm weather that's starting to be the norm around here again.
bollo's has good coffee today, and i've now come often enough that i recall the exact change for a house mug. $1.37. today, there's not even time for my one free refill, have to rush off to a meeting on campus ;) enjoy the warm weather (hopefully wherever you are, there is some!)

damn that technology

so new google craziness. recently they released google maps - which is my new directions site of choice, but NOW they have satellite photos- want to see your house from way up high? type in your address and up it comes, most are zoomable (i found houses in phoenix i could zoom in completely, but those in blacksburg, i couldn't). http://maps.google.com/ for a little distraction ;) for a little controversy about the subject, check out cnn.

there IS an arizona!

and i'm here enjoying it :) along with miss ashlea -- have been here since thursday and am enjoying every minute of it -- am headed out now for a day of lunching and shopping and then a yummy dinner at cafe boa. it's almost 80 here! am also looking forward to getting back to virginia though :) there are things to be missed at home -- enjoy the rest of the weekend ;)
(i said enjoy no less than 3 times in this post.. and now 4!)

a little laundry, a little wine (and whine)

ahh... (breathe) my 3-day hellacious week is coming to a close! well, it wasn't all bad ;) but parts were -- it was a bit of a jolt after such a wonderful easter weekend to return to work and actually get stuff done :) but tomorrow morning ashlea and i are headed off to arizona! i can't wait...i plan on returning tan, happy, and rested :) (and with a considerably expanded wardrobe)
low lowercase word of the random interval in which i will post one is savour:
sa·vor
NOUN: 1. The taste or smell of something. 2. A specific taste or smell. See synonyms at taste. 3. A distinctive quality or sensation: enjoying the savor of victory.
VERB: Inflected forms: sa·vored, sa·vor·ing, sa·vors
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To have a particular taste or smell: a dish that savors of curry. 2. To exhibit a specified quality or characteristic; smack: postures that savored of vanity.
TRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To impart flavor or scent to; season: savored the bland soup with salt. 2. To taste or smell, especially with pleasure: savored each morsel of the feast. 3. To appreciate fully; enjoy or relish: I want to savor this great moment of accomplishment.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English savour, from Old French, from Latin sapor, from sapere, to taste.

work sucks, pass it on

just found out i have to work over the fourth of july...

blog not working?

a little birdie told me comments aren't working -- which means.... i can't post whatever i want and until the server comes back up you people can't comment. mwha ha ha ha ha.
let's take a vote. does the evil laugh begin with an m or a w?

almost forgot...

..new blog title was the one and only suggestion, but i like it :) so, yet again, ashlea, this one's for you :)

Eating Poetry, by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does no believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

it's all about the blog

you people amuse me. what i thought was the most boring post garnered no less than six comments. i guess ie's can't resist a little process improvement ;) well, ie's and an english major. yay for only brushing your teeth once per year, it's much more efficient- in fact who needs teeth? we could all just suck puree through a straw. okay gross, it's too early in the morning for that.
my candy bowl at work has been filled with easter candy- happy easter early!
observation: my boss always calls me bri- except when i'm in some sort of trouble, in which case i am 'brianna' - (i.e. 'brianna, i really need those metrics i asked you about.') very similar to my mother actually :) at least i know right off when to sit up straight and pay attention!

my morning routine

one of the great things about blogging is you can post things that are of absolutely no interest whatsoever to anyone but you. now ideally of course, other people are interested and read and are entertained -- i decided to walk that oh-so-dangerous line and post something of possible little to no interest ;) you tell me. if left to my own devices, i tend to run on the exact same schedule every morning --

5:30 am: alarm 1 goes off, hit snooze, snuggle back into covers
5:38 am: alarm 1 goes off again, repeat above
5:45 am: alarm 2 goes off, get up, turn off alarm 2, turn off alarm 1, pull cleo out of bed and set her on the floor, walk to take her out, stand just inside while she runs outside
5:42 am: different clock ;) clocks in my room are 4 minutes fast. feed the dog, grind coffee, start the coffee maker-- return to my room, put toothpaste on my toothbrush and get back in bed to brush teeth, splash water on face and put contacts in
5:55ish am: take cleo out again, then back in the kitchen - pour one mug for home, one travel mug for work- back to room to shower, then dressed, then hair and makeup
6:25 am: put shoes on, cuddle dog, put dog in crate
6:33 am: grab coffee and bag and leave

typically this puts me in the car at 6:39 (where the clock is 4 minutes fast again). i find it odd (and a little disturbing) that i'm so repeatable -- but i guess it makes sense. now that i see my entire routine on paper the industrial engineer in me wants to improve the process ;)
now that i've effectively postponed doing any real work (i have homework i REALLY don't want to do right now, which is the only explanation i have for the above), i'll get back to it ;)

ashlea, this one's for you

Super swine was real, experts say, Tuesday, March 22, 2005

They also noted the super swine didn't quite live up to the 1,000-pound (450-kilogram), 12-foot (3.6-meter) hype generated when Hogzilla was caught on a farm last summer and photographed hanging from a backhoe.

Donning biohazard suits to exhume the behemoth's smelly remains, the experts estimated Hogzilla was probably only 7 1/2 to 8 feet (2.25 to 2.4 meters) long, and weighed about 800 pounds (360 kilograms).

Continue reading this amazing news...

productivity is the name of the game

i'm rather self-satisfied today as i arrived at work at 6:30 and am actually fairly organized for a tuesday ;) well, for any day really. homework is done (complete with cover sheet!), reports ran, boards updated, etcetera etcetera. i feel like i've been on a long trip or something, my day-to-day calendar says march 14. this is because, until today, about 2 weeks worth of papers were on top of it. actually.... i guess it could only really be 1 week's worth based on the date that's showing...but it's still a lot of papers! trust me on that one!

shameless plug ;)

if you're one act short of your random act of kindness for the day, give me money! no, not actually me. relay for life (to raise money for cancer research) is on april 22-23. if you're thinking 'relay for wha?' then let me explain - it's an all night vigil of sorts -- our team (virginia tech grad students) will keep someone walking all night long around the track, along with dozens of other teams from virginia tech, to support research for a cure to cancer. before the relay however, we hit up our friends and family for money :) so take a look at the website, it's very easy to donate, and if you are stuck in the 80's and putting credit card info on the internet freaks you out a bit, just let me know- there are alternate means of donation :) thanks!

i rock and want to give bri (ahem, relay for life) money!

don't think i've ever posted this one

although maybe it's cause i never quite nailed the wording -- anyway, here it is in all its rough draft glory:

My Fairy Godmother Wears Versace

I tell him twenty-one year olds are sexy
and sophisticated. He seems skeptical
of such a transformation, one that happens
while we sleep breathing the stroke
of midnight. A Versace clad
fairy godmother will wave her wand
over the length of my sleeping form,
then flit elsewhere- perhaps in pursuit
of a tall skinny café latte (no foam).

I will wake with an impeccable French twist,
cotton turned silk, wool to angora and a craving
for a lightly buttered croissant alongside a café au lait.
He won’t know me when he wakes, yawning
turning to find that I have been thieved
away in the middle of the night
by the turn of a year, leaving someone
he’s never seen before.

days like these

are perfect for lazy mornings and farmers' markets and used bookstores -- i'm off to find them :)

happy saint patrick's day

Leprechauns, castles, good luck and laughter;
Lullabies, dreams and love ever after.
Poems and songs with pipes and drums;
A thousand welcomes when anyone comes.

it IS easy being green

well, at least today anyway. i almost forgot so i've got a green rubber band on my wrist and i'm wearing pink ;) ah well, tonight i'll put on something more festive and of the green variety.
in the spirit of spring and mid-march, a few inches of snow fell lastnight...hmmm, that actually doesn't seem quite right. but it did make for a beautiful drive this morning!

my latest addiction

is the garden state soundtrack. ironically, i haven't seen the movie. favorites so far are let's go by frou frou, and eyes of blue by cary brothers.
today, i am tired! noticeably apparently because i was harrassed in my morning meeting :) oh well, after homework and studying for my midterm, i'm home free for a little while anyway, although that research paper is starting to loom overhead.

'cause blue eyes, you’re the secret i keep
'cause blue eyes, all the lights on and you are alive, but you can't point the way to your heart, so sublime, when the stars are aligned, but you don't know, you don't know the greatness you are, 'cause Blue Eyes, you are destiny's scene

rock the blog

comments pop up now! don't be alarmed by the fast-paced technological advances of this blog.

more than a spoonful of poetry (and some commentary to go with it)

"It is hard to talk concretely about Ashbery's poetry, because his subject is, so often, aesthetic consciousness—what he calls "the experience of experience." On the one hand, the poems have the dashed-off look and feel of pop culture-inflected postmodernism, inspired by the radical innovations of Dada and French Surrealism. On the other hand, at their heart is a kind of high Romantic yearning for wholeness: In a sense the poems are simply about being unable to give up that longing. At the center of an Ashbery poem isn't usually a subject (à la Philip Larkin) but a feeling (à la Jackson Pollock). That feeling is conjured up by the interplay between aesthetic conviction and amiably bland bewilderment; amid all the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life is the enduring hope that, as one speaker puts it, "at last I shall see my complete face." The best thing to do, then, is not to try to understand the poems but to try to take pleasure from their arrangement, the way you listen to music. It's only then, for most readers, that the meaning begins to leak through." (article smidgen shamelessly stolen from slate.msn.com)


Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashberry

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the stream and chatter of typewriters.

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren’t there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.

drive by post!

at the library... quick post! just saw million dollar baby. it was good. won't ruin it for anyone though -- now it's on to the cellar for some yummy dinner (weeks lately have been filled with good music and late nights at the cellar).
until tomorrow--

blog hiatus!

well after being incredibly attentive to my blog for over a week, i abandoned it for days!
but don't worry, i'm back now, after a great weekend :) highlights? margaritas, pancakes (twice), biking and spring peepers, ice cream, good books, bruschetta, dancing, lebansese food .... anyone else notice how much food shows up on this list? :) and miss ashlea got back lastnight from spring break, so we had a nice extended dinner at the cellar (more food: manicotti, cheesecake, wine) and caught up on more than a week's worth of girl talk :)
in other news, i decided i love food too much to eat less of it, so i'm going to try the exercise route ;)
back into the school swing of things, i have a midterm on thursday, conf. call today, homework due thursday... ahhhhhh! not to mention all the things i have put off that need to be done at home as well. oh well :) i'll get it all done evenutally.

friday where are you?

every day i drive by a XXX adult shop -- it's new, only been there a few months. this series of messages has been on their marquis recently:

'COMING SOON: LINGERIE! COME SEE OUR SELECTION'
...a few weeks later:
'LINGERIE 40% OFF'
...and a few more weeks:
'PLUS SIZE LINGERIE NOW AVAILABLE'

just something that tends to amuse me at 6:45 am. in other news, girls' poker night was a smash success. lots of fun to play poker with a group of girls who know very little about poker. we had a $3 buy-in, but after all was said and done, no money was exchanged ;) the hours of laughter and entertainment were payment enough :)

!

okay i couldn't take it, i deleted the u.s. map post. it will suffice to say that i've been to 58% of the states, and am missing most of the states in the middle. but according to cassie, all of those states are worthless anyway and the only reason people live there is that their wagons broke down while they were headed for the west coast and they had no other choice. food for thought!

it didn't work....

oh well!

A True Account Of Talking To The Sun At Fire Island by Frank O'Hara

i decided a long poem might fix this formatting issue my blog is having ;) so, enjoy!

The Sun woke me this morning loud
and clear, saying "Hey! I've been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don't be so rude, you are
only the second poet I've ever chosen
to speak to personally
so why
aren't you more attentive? If I could
burn you through the window I would
to wake you up. I can't hang around
here all day."
"Sorry, Sun, I stayed
up late last night talking to Hal."

"When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
a lot more prompt" the Sun said
petulantly. "Most people are up
already waiting to see if I'm going
to put in an appearance."
I tried
to apologize "I missed you yesterday."
"That's better" he said. "I didn't
know you'd come out." "You may be wondering why I've come so close?"
"Yes" I said beginning to feel hot
and wondering if maybe he wasn't
burning me
anyway.
"Frankly I wanted to tell you
I like your poetry. I see a lot
on my rounds and you're okay. You
may
not be the greatest thing on earth, but
you're different. Now, I've heard some
say you're crazy, they being excessively
calm themselves to my mind, and other
crazy poets think that you're a boring
reactionary. Not me.
Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You'll
find that some people always will
complain about the atmosphere,
either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.
If you don't appear
at all one day they think you're lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.

And don't worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you
were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was
waiting
for you to get to work.

And now that you
are making your own days, so to
speak,
even if no one reads you but me
you won't be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It
hurts their eyes."
"Oh Sun, I'm so grateful to you!"

"Thanks and remember I'm watching.
It's
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don't have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.
And
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the
heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.
Maybe we'll
speak again in Africa, of which I too
am specially fond. Go back to sleep
now
Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem
in that brain of yours as my farewell."

"Sun, don't go!" I was awake
at last. "No, go I must, they're calling
me."
"Who are they?"
Rising he said "Some
day you'll know. They're calling to you
too." Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

the verdict is in!

and it's ugly! the blog that is, not the verdict. so, i changed it back to something more pleasing to the eye. unfortunately my big ol' u.s. map has shoved all the posts below the top of the page, so you have to go searching for any new posts. anyway, nothing of substance to say, i'm off to sleep!

no frills blog!

so, i was bored and playing around with my blog templates and settled on this one. let's see how long i can take it being this plain. archives are at the waaaaayyyy bottom, no links to recent posts. it's the plain jane of blogs. the austere blog. the unconcealed blog! okay, i'm done, you get the picture.

from the movie i saw lastnight

"No, but I do like to think about the life of wine, how it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining that summer or if it rained... what the weather was like. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes, and if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I love how wine continues to evolve, how every time I open a bottle its going to taste different than if I had opened it on any other day. Because a bottle of wine is actually alive - it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks - like your '61 - and begins its steady, inevitable decline..."

spring, is that you?

it was almost warm this morning :) didn't need a coat, beautiful sunrise. aw... just checked the weather to see if this will continue and here's what i found:

... A FRONT TO HERALD MORE WINTER LIKE WEATHER...
A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL MOVE EAST ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TONIGHT AND OFFSHORE BY TUESDAY. MUCH WARMER AIR SURGES NORTH AHEAD OF THE FRONT MONDAY... FOLLOWED BY SHOWERS AND PERHAPS A THUNDERSTORM LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT. MUCH COLDER AIR WILL RACE INTO THE MOUNTAINS LATE TONIGHT AS THE FRONT CROSSES EAST OF THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS. MOISTURE LINGERING BEHIND THE FRONT ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS... AND A STRONG NORTHWEST FLOW WILL RESULT IN SNOW SHOWERS. LOCATIONS SUCH AS QUINWOOD... SOUTH TO FLAT TOP... AND THE HIGH COUNTRY OF NORTHWEST NORTH CAROLINA COULD SEE 1 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW.
IN ADDITION... VERY WINDY CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO ACCOMPANY THE MUCH COLDER AIR... AS TEMPERATURES STRUGGLE TO RISE MUCH ABOVE FREEZING THROUGH TUESDAY AFTERNOON....

well that's disappointing. has anyone ever seen the old popeye cartoon with ali baba and his forty thieves? they're in some village and the phonograph horn keeps announcing news in this loud booming voice about the approaching thieves. that's how i hear the weather statement in my head. just in case you were wondering ;)

vectors, aphorisms & ten-second essays #386

During the hottest months, the sun is moving away from us, during the coldest, coming back.

the early bird gets the worm...but the second mouse gets the cheese.

name the movie?

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

didn't you get the memo? it's friday!

so the low-lowercase word of the random interval in which i will post one is 'americana' - bet you didn't know it was a city in southeast brazil! a large one too, pop. 153,779, suburb to Sao Paulo. but technically, that's supposed to be capitalized, so here's the other definition:
A·mer·i·ca·na 1. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Materials relating to American history, folklore, or geography or considered to be typical of American culture: Americana are featured in the exhibit. 2. (used with a sing. verb) The culture of America: “[Hip-hop is] as much of a fixture in Americana as hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet” (Ken Capobianco, The Tab October 17-23, 1995).

the picture from awhile ago i said i'd post and never did :)

The Day Lady Died by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les N'gres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

"each year gets late earlier."

this morning i walked outside and had a mild heart attack. here's my early morning thought process 'oh my god, why is it so light out? am i late? are my clocks an hour off??? (breathe) oh. i went to work early yesterday and that's why it was dark...'
anyway, i'm happy to realize that spring is close at hand. there's a james richardson quote about how as our days get longer, the sun is actually moving away and when they're at they're shortest, it's actually moving closer to us, but i can't find it. will search through my book later and find it :) listening to lisa loeb this morning on launchcast and filling in the daily metrics sheet... get to leave work early today for a hair appointment, cutting all my hair off! (sorry mom)...
oh, ps, title of this post is a james richardson ten-second essay ;)

i dink i'm ghedding shick.. sniffle

which i definitely don't have time for! hopefully it will magically disappear when i get a full night of sleep tonight. at least that's the plan anyway. cleo didn't even want to get up this morning. 5:15 came a little too early. well at least it wasn't snowy and windy...oh wait, yes it was! i'm done whining now :)
cassie made red beans and rice with chicken for me lastnight :) i'm spoiled. that was shortly followed by a girly conference call (long overdue!) with ashlea and jules.
tonight? homework! but i still have great hope my thursday night class will get cancelled like last week...

so that's why the grocery store was so crowded...

woke up to a winter wonderland this morning. after sweeping snow off my car, was only eight minutes behind as i headed up our not-so-intimidating parking lot hill. turns out, with all this snow it becomes impassable for a corolla ;) so now i'm waiting for a 4WD ride, or until they plow, whichever comes first. so far, 4 of my 22 made it to work. or 23, counting me! they even delayed tech a few hours, which in my experience, has been rare. anyway, going to go sit on the couch, watch the snow fall, and enjoy another cup of coffee.
can this be considered march coming in as a lion?

i love my dictionary and my dictionary loves me

i had to look up two words from the poem below, so why not share?
'insouciance' is blithe unconcern and 'susurrus' is a soft whisper.
see? now don't you feel smarter? now i'm off to the grocery as we've eaten everything in the apartment. cassie even got up this morning and had a bowl of rice i had cooked for cleo (who's still sick, but getting better). happy sunday ;)

'A Life' by Michael Blumenthal

So you grew older just like everyone else
and the questions loomed
with their easy, alternating answers of yes and no
and then their reconsiderations,
promising us a false simplicity
like a flock of sparrows at dusk,
and you were there,
in the fragrant osciallating light
of the good, the noble, the daemonic,
and the simply inexplicable
that might have passed, in lesser hands,
for a kind of confusion,
but you saw it for what it really was:
the clarity of conflicting clarities,
the sorting out that led to no perfect solutions,
and so you merely contented yourself
with the here-today-gone-tomorrow certainties
you hoped would lead to the right choices
(or choices you could later define as right):
the bright, loudly proclaimed insouciance
of the jay, or the scent of lemons,
though you knew in the end
that you would always return,
like a shoe in love with its foot,
to the same luminous starting point
of mixed feelings, the susurrus
of your one body mumbling and cussing
from its nest of desires, that old tune
of the profane and the sacred,
the noble and daemonic,
the unanswerable singing.

yaaaaaaaawn.

wow i'm tired. that part of my brain that's supposed to send me home at a reasonable hour didn't kick in last night. ah well, a few more hours at work, then home to take a nap. in the meantime, i should really clean my desk- can hardly find it beneath the papers and notebooks and backlogs and various office supplies. would probably make me feel more productive, besides, i'm not setting a very good example ;)
did anyone notice it's almost march? are you kidding me? i can't believe it. now if only it would get warmer...

poetry deluge

so 5 of my latest 7 posts have been poetry. must be feeling poetic or something... at least 71% poetic anyway. apparently 29% of me is still engineering or i wouldn't have calculated percentages around this recent fact ;)

altitude

this town breathes a sigh
of relief when i’ve left
my feet too heavy
on its streets.
sometimes, when we sit
inside on sunday mornings,
the waitress comes by
with the coffee, and i pretend
i’m somewhere else. a ski chalet
where the syrup is thick
like the snow and no one
has seen me before.
let me breathe- this altitude
suffocates me.

arizona collected

11 November 2000
arizona, i feel you calling me
deep inside late nights when i am almost asleep,
i feel your breath through the window
-a raspy dust filled breeze-
drift across my cheek
and whisper past my ear.

arizona, i sleep fitfully and wake
from dreams of you only to feel disappointed
at the continued loss of your landscapes, your twilight,
the sweet scent of orange blossoms in spring,
the way palm fronds thrash in a summer monsoon,
and most of all, your skies.

arizona, there is a part of me unwilling to leave you,
no matter where i sleep, still searching for your scent
in the breeze through the window- always longing.
arizona, i feel you calling me.

15 December 2000
arizona, you left me when
i needed you most.
the grit of your deserts
nowhere to be found
when i lacked the strength.

i feel as if i’ve failed you,
in a way, i know i have.
but you’ve failed me too,
i cried alone while your night sky
stood empty.

where were you on autumn nights
when the chill froze leaves
still too green to see november?

the night i dreamt of you,
the scent of your rains lingering
even while i slept-
where were you then?

arizona, why did you do it?

9 January 2001
arizona, i’ve left you far behind,
still, your sidewalks burn my feet,
your sun still warms my skin in a way
i could never capture with words.

17 January 2001
arizona-
i felt your breeze through the window
the other day-
a hint of dust lingered,
then faded and i stood there
long after, trying to recapture the moment.

arizona-
how can we be angry with each other
when you are so much a part of me?
i left you only because i had to and
while away i have only grown to love
you more. no, that’s not true. you
felt it to, didn’t you? the last time,
when we met, you knew, just as i realized
i could live without you.

14 November 2001
arizona-
how can i leave you behind?
i can still taste your breath.
he speaks of you and i with sadness
in his voice. he knows i’ll come back
to you.
arizona, it isn’t fair. can you not hold
us both?
why do i feel as if i cannot hold on
to either of you?
arizona, i’m pleading with you.

26 August 2002
arizona,
how very far apart we are- your sun
reaches me only long after i’ve risen,
and even then, i’m not sure it reaches me at all.
arizona how could you give up on me so easily?

the 2.5 year itch?

all of the sudden i'm overcome with a desire to move.. far far away! i think i'm conditioned after all those college years of relocating every 3/9 months. the west coast is calling my name. ooh that reminds me of some arizona poems i don't think i've ever posted. always threw my poetry professor off a bit, he said they were addressed as if to a lover. i'll post them later.
anyway, findyourspot.com is a great site to check out if you're feeling that itch to see what else is out there, geographically speaking.
just don't blame me if it makes you want to pack your bags and move to a downtown loft apartment with ocean and city views ;)

a poem for this cloudy windy day

Pagan Litany by Paula Closson Buck

The sea swells over the breakwater,
careers in heavy showers
across the harbor road
where salt pines
lie broken by the wind.
It's nearly dark by four p.m.

Through open doors, small markets
like grave sites surrender
a naïve collection of supplies:
ouzo, chocolate bars,
cigarettes and toys.

If we have souls, if we dare to think so
on a day like this, we play them
close to our bodies.
What gods there might be
won't hear us above the wind
or the tarp of the sky
lashed down. Days like this,

we demonstrate the simple
economies of our need

and bury our dead
with change in their pockets.

singles awareness day

here's to all the guys that i saw at the mall and at target, frantically scouring card racks, jewlery stores, and victoria's secret for that perfect last minute gift ;) oh yeah, and they cleared out the entire red-themed gift wrap section at target too.

"On Valentine's Day, millions of men give millions of women flowers, cards and candy as a heartfelt expression of the emotion that also motivates men to observe anniversaries and birthdays: fear."
-Dave Barry