state of friss

the dane in me

2011-08-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

my taste and preferences change a lot, but many of the things that i could look at forever--and never tire of--come from denmark.

like this louis poulsen lamp.

and this one.

i know. lamps! but these are the things i think about.

*sigh*

i'm not sorry. they're beautiful.

today & everyday

2011-07-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

my challenge today is how to say what i mean, and to be brief.

that's one of the great challenges of poetry of course, and you all know how i like to record those moments when a poem intersects my real life perfectly. sometimes those moments are truly, rarely, devastatingly accurate. for just a bit you can forget to breathe and your whole body says, gah, that's it!

the German poet, Ernst Stadler died in 1914 on the Western Front, killed by a British shell. the poem following poem, "The Saying" is a translation {hence, an imitation} by Stephen Berg of Stadler's original poem, which ends with the line, "Mensch, werde wesentlich!" ("Man, become substantial!").

The Saying

In an old book

I stumbled across a saying.

It was like a stranger

punching me in the face,

it won't stop

gnawing at me.

When I walk around at night,

looking for a beautiful girl,

when a lie or a description

of life or somebody's fake

way of being with people

occurs instead of reality,

when I betray myself with

an easy explanation

as if what's dark is clear,

as if life doesn't have thousands

of locked, burning gates,

when I use words without really

having known their strict openness

and put my hands around things

that don't excite me,

when a dream hides my face with soft hands

and the day avoids me,

cut off from the world,

cut off from who I am deeply,

I freeze where I am

and see hanging in the air in front of me

STOP BEING A GHOST!

:: :: ::

and anyway, who out there is fully awake? who is living out every second, confronting fear and earnestly seeking understanding? i think there are such people. but not me. i think i am mostly half asleep.

the NPR program that's often on when i'm out driving the kids to and fro is a SoCal production called Air Talk with Larry Mantle. this week he was asking for people to call in with definitions of patriotism, and so i wrote out some of my own. they may be influenced somewhat by some of what i've heard lately on the topic of immigration {that states like GA, that are following AZ's assault on illegals, are now dealing with the reality that Americans simply aren't willing to do the jobs left vacant, no matter what the unemployment rate is} but i think these three points capture some of how i feel about being a good citizen.

a patriot is someone:

:: whose love of justice and mercy does not end at her nation's borders

:: who says, really, "let all that breathe partake," in the just fruits of freedom, no matter where they were born

:: who honors the sacrifices of past patriots by making her own sacrifices: for example, by giving generously to the poor throughout the world, and particularly to the poorest in undeveloped nations, thereby helping to spread freedom--without violence--where it doesn't exist now

a book came into my hands recently that is really answering a need for me--a need i've felt all my life without responding to fully. it's called, The Life You Can Save, and i will be happy to loan my copy to anyone who has an interest in knowing more about charitable giving.

i will probably always be part ghost, part ponytail, but this book has made me feel a little more alive in the world where i live. it's a step toward becoming the kind of patriot i want to be.

happy independence day, friends! independence from hunger, from tyranny, and from self-loathing. bim & i give our pledge.

what i love about 19th century english novels

2011-04-13T18:38:00.001-07:00

the characters would fall in love with a hat rack if it were tall enough and belonged to the right family. it would take approximately one week to progress from attachment to declaration to engagement to {ding! ding! ding!} "connection."

every subtle action has devastating consequences on individuals' and families' lives.

you can identify the heroine easily as the one who: walks in the rain; dresses most plainly; and gives up everything that could ever make her happy out of duty and goodness.

the most admired people are the ones who are handy with a pencil, a horse, or a piano. they don't do anything else.

everybody reads poetry, and lady novelists are supreme. conversation is art.

this is just a beginning.

must be spring

2011-03-31T08:21:00.000-07:00

here is a bit of spring fever to kick off your April. may it be a bright-shiny wet one.

from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

end quote.

I Stop Writing the Poem

2011-03-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

by Tess Gallagher

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives

or who dies, I'm still a woman.

I'll always have plenty to do.

I bring the arms of his shirt

together. Nothing can stop

our tenderness. I'll get back

to the poem. I'll get back to being

a woman. But for now

there's a shirt, a giant shirt

in my hands, and somewhere a small girl

standing next to her mother

watching to see how it's done.

: : : : : :

good poems travel through time and space to find you, but they find you--if you're listening. Really!

this one found me like a heat-seeking missile. it walked me through years of my life, including the days of standing by my mom's ironing board listening to michael jackson or watching sesame street. and then later, as a newlywed when i told bim, i don't iron men's shirts. do you know how? he did. now we have them dry cleaned, but i still do all the other laundry. i've always enjoyed laundry.

nothing wrong with warm, clean clothes.

chronic

2011-03-24T07:59:00.000-07:00

a fragment has been showing up in my head, not unlike a banner trailing behind one of those little planes at the beach,

coming

and going

coming and going

hello goodbye!

the fragment is this, "chronic dissatisfaction."

i see it all over lately; once i named it, i apparently invited it into my consciousness. i'm not naming my own condition--this is one of those things that you can only see in other people (possibly because you are in denial, but what do i know?). for whatever reason, whatever possible flaw in my gaze, i feel negativity more acutely wherever i encounter it, and i seem to encounter it everywhere.

this is not to say that i am bummed out, only curious. i hear reports from journalists and bystanders that the Japanese people nearest the earthquake damage are largely keeping peace, lining up in orderly queues, and giving courtesy where wild self-preservation might be expected.

i'm not sure what commentary to make on this pairing of observations.

more observations:

:: after going to great lengths to adopt two rabbits from a rescue shelter this month, so my girls could experience family pets, i had a complete panic attack. i actually cried. i did not sleep the night i brought them home, and the more i looked at their furry cuteness, the more i hated them and their bunny smell. it occurred to me that this was an anxiety i'd never felt when my baby children came home from the hospital. i took them back the next morning. (the rabbits, not the babies.)

:: my two friends whose turn it is right now to suffer the hardest buffetings of fate are also the most outwardly cheerful, positive and helpful.

:: my sense of entitlement knows no limits. i am afraid of what i don't see in our food, in our grass, in the air we breathe; meanwhile, scientists speculate about california's fault lines and how major our major earthquakes could really be.

:: i hear about educated americans, not getting the $pay-back$ they expected after years of college expense and toil, jumping ship and leaving the country...and their debt... behind.

:: my daughter gets angry at the word, "no." i understand that, and keep saying it. her heart races and her skin turns red. how hard life is.

:: i am content. there are moments of deep contentment, and even small thrills. i snatch them greedily. i don't expect more, but sometimes i long for another extraordinary opportunity like the ones i've had and sometimes squandered. i think it's good to long for things.

for example, i long to be a Decemberist. i love the music. i love the music. i want to burrow my way inside it, to be at the very center of it. you know this feeling: almost hating something because you love it so much that you belong to it. you need, but cannot be, inside of it.

chronic dissatisfaction.

for the snow-bound i recommend

2011-02-04T07:54:00.000-08:00

1:: visit http://www.grooveshark.com/

2:: enter joao gilberto / stan getz

3:: click Play All

4:: imagine you're in Brazil

5:: have a chill, but not chilly, Friday

'i'm painting a bird...on a bird.'

2011-01-27T08:15:00.001-08:00

i'm krista, i'm from portland, and i put birds on things.

on Liv's second birthday

2011-01-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Matter

It rolls out like a rug, the subject matter
as if someone at the head of the table could make a subject matter,
pluck it from the beginning when matter
was all--king of its own mountain, king of itself, mattering
to no one, really, with no one to claim it from space as black
as night water, black as umbrellas left at coat check. No, blacker--
without stars or reflection. Too dark for eyes to matter.
Black as shoeblack, black as the black box black.
I imagine matter so, just a lump of black. At the start it's always black,
isn't it. No object apart from space, no subject, but no matter.
Nothing has an opposite and it doesn't matter
if there isn't any object or desire. Here is where it began to matter:
I could hold her weight in my two arms. She won't unmatter
now. The sky presses down and I press back, my veil black
as comfort drawn tight. Every small thing that comes from matter
comes to matter. Faster, now a light rain, now a smattering,
now all things swing into view as headlights on the mountain pass, black
startled out of sight by eyes exceedingly bright and blind.

birthday poem: Ally, 4

2011-01-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

Sestina* at Four

You say we’re a family today,

no anything can’t go wrong.

In your bright-shape dress with the bow in front,

with your sister hovering ever present,

the babies’ pale faces watch light turn

through the trees. You hunt for coins in the leaves.

Of all the other stars born today

you charge dangerously to the front.

Georges Seurat is 151, Britney Spears turns

29. Your fresh steps chase friends though the leaves

unmindful of painters or pop singers, nothing yet wrong

with anything you love, with anyone present

and yet, this is the first time you want a present

I didn’t choose myself. Today

is a green party with a pink scooter. Red was the wrong

choice, mine--now in the garage it waits for Liv to turn

two. I have to wonder what else leaves

us with every year, what moves to the front.

It’s enough that I feel safe today.

You still deny reality when it feels wrong

and earnestly expect to get every good present

you ask for: not greed but trust that days turn

on wheels of pasta, cheese and order. Tears are a front

that disappear like smoke when disappointment leaves--

almost no trace of tragedy at present

and yet few moments pass without a turn

from pitch to bright like leaves

twisting in a dark river catching light just in front

of the turn, the waterfall always in the wrong

place, and I feel its spray on my face even today

when everything is perfect. The cake will not turn

to dust but become part of us. The sparkle will present

itself for reckoning—your examination of green leaves

something to measure our happiness against, wrong

to stop you from conjuring tomorrow. Today

it’s flashlights in the dark, your light out front.

Now three is over you are ready to turn,

turn, as you leap between holidays to claim every present

good. You holler through the trees. Sudden leaves.

+ + +

*A sestina is a poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time.

no one

2010-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

is as excited for christmas morning as this one right here {i mean me}.

i've been collecting little pre-loved treasures for the girls all year at garage and estate sales. not a large quantity of treasures, mind, because i've just emptied my house of clutter and have no desire to fill it up again. but there were--oh, yes, there were--some finds. some things to play with and to love. the balance of my christmas scheming has been done online so i don't have to leave my small ones to shop. ah, the internet.

this leads me to the following bit of delightful wonderfulness that i'm about to share with you. it amounts to porn for me, really. and, like a fantasy, it doesn't have to be mine to bring me joy. it's enough just to know it exists:

oh, happy tape. oh, happy tape. oh, martha may! oh, CHRISTMAS!

Draft #4: that's what i meant.

2010-10-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

July Never Seemed So Strange

The doors whump shut
her car a polished spoon dipping
the dust bowl now
like part of a fallen constellation

Nothing new here
burned tire lizards skid and lie
Americana all decay and rusted
purple cab, no-gut canopy
a reflection that shudders the windshield

So shiny new at midday
she is the center of all light
she thinks, I should eat off the edge of a stick,
one hand trailing cloud and stream by the still road
something else I can’t come close to

This desert belongs to someone
else why do farmers at night till fins
from the earth’s backbone
their cloud-carried visions burning
like ancient fires to a fork of ash

Out here only hills are monuments
the head of a swollen traveler beside a sleeping elephant
all stone flank and furred shoulders

Cake-eyed she dreams her city gone
the ground runs up beside her
overflowing its banks like rivers of grimy fish
thinks, that bird would take my eye
but I would take his wings

Nor is this the place she is sure of
where is grace
the branch she mistook for a bird
would be lovelier as a bird

Draft #3: getting a littlecloser

2010-10-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

July Never Seemed So Strange

The doors whump shut
This car a sleek spoon dipping the dust bowl
Like the star metal of a broken constellation
Nothing new here
Black tire lizards skid and lie
The full moon only a thumb pressed through dark tissue
I should eat off the edge of a stick, one hand
Trailing in cloud and stream by the still road
Something else I can’t come close to

This desert belongs to someone
Farmers at night invent sea stories
Till fins from the earth’s backbone
Their cloud-carried messages
Burn like ancient fires to a fork of ash
Who digs in the ground only to look at heaps?

Americana out here flaking decay is no more
than a prom queen in her tattered silk
Purple cab, no-gut canopy, rusted hood
The head of a swollen traveler beside a sleeping elephant
Stone flank, furred shoulders

The queen’s sudden glory rubbed out by sun
Makeup smeared and cake-eyed she dreams
The ground runs up beside her
Overflowing its banks like rivers of grimy fish

In the city of water my hands drowned
My body rose
Bird, take my eye : I would take your wings

The Chacans gone still pilgrims linger
Americana, even hate you squander
All that is judged, all who meanly judge
Waste you pin to the obelisk

Without this bone-stink it would be hard to find myself
This is not my monument
That branch I mistook for a bird
Would be lovelier as a bird

retreat, retreat

2010-10-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

i've been too much out there in the world lately, among the bona fide adults, and I'm ready for a good retreat. hovel, where are you?

in college i was so hungry for the association of better minds: i went to every reading, every conference, every art show i could get an invitation to. i hung back for the most part, finding somewhere to go or something to do during intermissions and receptions, wanting to ask all kinds of questions, but not particularly wanting to be seen socially. forcing myself to make conversation when i would have rather just stared. that's what it means to be shy: making a job of observing without really participating. saying only what has to be said.

i'm as hungry now as ever for that association, but now i'm in the over-thirty crowd and i realize that opportunities for community--at least the kind of community i long for--are not always free and forthcoming: i have to make them happen.

example 1: a band i love came to a town two hours away and i bought two tickets, not knowing who would be able to go with me, or how even i could go when there are two kids at home. i counted on the universe {more specifically, my friends and family} to provide me with a "date" and a night off. and to see the way they pulled together to give me that night would melt your heart down to a warm little heart nugget.

so, i've been doing some kind of selfish things. example 2: on friday i went to a conference on poetry & religion and saw several people whose work i've admired, including my first poetry teacher, who has had a very important influence on my own writing. the then me would have enjoyed the reading and gone home comfortable, if sorry to see it end. the now me invited {coerced? kidnapped?} him after the conference and brought him home to meet bim and have dinner with us.

if i'd had the forethought to arrange some kind of dinner party before making an impulsive invitation, i could have provided him with a more entertaining evening. as it was, we managed take-out and some basic conversation before we took him back to his hotel. but we got entertained, so in a selfish way, i got just what i wanted. i am now in further debt to the universe.

i'm writing about this in search of a point...i think it has something to do with taking what you want. i do wonder at the cost to others. my sister, for example, gave up her entire day to make mine possible; bim, also, who agreed to "work" from home {when what he really needed was the chance to get some work done} and then cut out early to bring home dinner for our guest. and, of course, our guest poet, who gave up what is probably a rare opportunity to write/work/reflect in peace, miles away from job & obligations.

for now i am putting guilt and self-doubt away and taking some time alone in my office to enjoy some new poetry collections. some time to make something of these opportunities, which might seem small but are not. not to me.

process

2010-08-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

this draft i am going to keep and work on, so i thought i'd post versions of it as i go. word processing makes this process so clean: i can keep opening new versions and never erase anything. my favorite thing about composing on computers is my ability to keep multiple drafts open at once. even though a lot of lines and ideas get scrapped along the way, still i have a record of where i've been.

in this case, i've been to the desert with my family. it's been a long time since my last road trip and this one {like all of them} was worth remembering. the subject of sonnets came up briefly one morning and as i put together some of the thoughts i'd handwritten in the car, the sonnet form remembered itself to me.

a note on form and rhyme in modern poetry: readers' sensibilities have changed over the centuries. rhyme is still pleasing to most people, as song and sound. but many poetry readers find the sing-song rhyme of ye olden tyme kind of cheesy and heavy-handed. slant rhyme {near rhyme} and eye rhyme {the words have a visual kinship} are more common in poems that adhere to classic forms. it's easy to read a modern sonnet without realizing it is a sonnet; the poet will likely carry phrases over the line break so each line doesn't end heavily at the end.

in my last post i talked about the words preceding the thoughts. ideally, the logical sense joins the language after some amount of work. these drafts are almost purely lyric; any sense you can tease out will be from your own effort. it's my job {if i want this to be more than lyric} to keep working to draw out the sense, so you don't have to. as much.

so. the title i stole directly from The Decemberists. you have to start somewhere.

DRAFT 1

July never seemed so strange

Americana I will get to the bottom of you

Your sudden glory : Rubbed by sun, smeared on land

This hand in cloud and stream by the still road

In the city of that water, my hands drowned : My body rose

Bird would take my eyes : I would take its wings

Black tire lizards skid and lie : Full moon a thumb pressed through dark tissue

Fins from earth’s backbone : who invent sea stories at port

A cloud-carried message : an organ beneath that hooked and played me

Red pebble tooth, low red-rattled cage : Chacans gone, pilgrims linger

Purple cab, no-gut no canopy, rusted hood : Head of a swollen traveler

From ancient fire a fork of ash : Who digs in the ground only to look at heaps

A sleeping elephant, furred shoulders : Stone flank

No end to you, Americana : whose nostrils flare with pleasure

All you perceive you will not tell : All that is judged, all who meanly judge

The hate of what you squander : wastrel pinned to the obelisk

The branch that I mistook for a bird : Would be lovelier as a bird

DRAFT #2

July Never Seemed So Strange

Americana I will get to you : my hand
In cloud and stream by the still road's
desert : sudden glory rubbed by sun, smeared on land.
In the city of that water, my hands drowned : my body rose.

Bird, it would take my eye : I would take its wings.
Black tire lizards skid and lie : the full moon is a thumb pressed
through dark tissue. Farmers at night invent sea stories,
till fins from the earth’s backbone. Their cloud-carried messages

like ancient fires become a fork of ash : who digs in the ground
Only to look at heaps. Who lies in the low, red-rattled cage
open-mouth to dust, red pebble tooth to bone. Purple cab, no-gut canopy, rusted hood
the head of a swollen traveler beside the sleeping elephant. Stone flank,

furred shoulders : whose nostrils flare with pleasure?
No end to you, Americana. All you perceive you will not tell nor ask
and all is judged, and all meanly judge. But hate, you squander :
Chacans gone, pilgrims linger. Wastrels you pin to the obelisk.

This our monument. That branch I mistook for a bird
Would be lovelier as a bird.

"i knock at the door of the rock..."*

2010-07-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

"the words move ahead of the thought in poetry." -edward hirsch

have you ever said or repeated something just because the sound of it felt right to you...only to realize later how nonsensical or even false it was? moan. i have. especially when i've found a microphone and/or a few people listening. i might be doing it right now.

words drive poems. this is obvious and you would think it would apply equally to other forms of writing but it doesn't. events drive journalism; action drives fiction; ideas drive academia. the words are important, and supremely so in the right hands, but to varying degrees the thought has to come first for other genres of writing to succeed. this explains why magistrates who commission poems for special events can later be seen looking puzzled when they're read aloud {or so i imagine}. that's not what i asked for. to which the poet may reply, nor i.

it's not possible to predict the outcome of a poem any more than it is to predict the looks of a newborn. you can expect certain features of its parents; you can expect it to look squishy and red when it first comes out. but nothing can fully prepare you for the first wail of life.

Bim and i were talking about szymborska's poem, "under a certain little star," also translated as, "under one small star," {original in polish} recently, trying to decide what specifically is so affecting about it. we started isolating single lines, clusters of words, until we'd pretty much underlined the whole thing. that's when you know a poem has really succeeded: the whole is more than the sum of its lines. it can have an outright physical impact--your body feels it at the same time your intellect absorbs it. Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body feel so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

where have i heard this sort of soul-mind merge described before? church. poetry is a spiritual event. it's soul-culture. {that's me channeling Emily D. again}.

looking at symborska you can see the relationship between the words and their meanings {my comments in grey. the original has no stanza breaks}:

see the complete poem here.

Under a Certain Little Star
*by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.

what does this mean? calling chance necessity? i don't know. it sounds good--i want to know. so i keep reading.

My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken.

funny & i trust this voice for not being absolute.

Don't be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker.

you talk about universal themes in art connecting us. here's a fine example. who doesn't know exactly how this feels?

My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.

yes.

My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.

life demands horrors from us! this is unspeakable and yet thoroughly important. infinitely true.

Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.

here it is: the lyrical driving the logical. the loveliness of the words is staunchly supported by their meaning. beauty alone is commendable but beauty and truth together are GORGEOUS. it's so good it's sickening. it hurts me. to borrow an Ally phrase, i just completely love it.

My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.

futility and guilt and despair. uncommon insight tinged with humor in so few words. feel the rhythm of the words, and hear the sounds and feel the meaning in your gut? that's poetry, chickens.

And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,staring, motionless, always at the same spot, absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.

these images that evoke objects and places, bring the poem into view. they also earn the challenging, more abstract insights that follow:

My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.

holla! the only thing i can say about those lines is to repeat those lines.
notice she doesn't go long without feeding us more visual goodies. there isn't much i want to say about the final lines: more commentary would just be pollution. but i hope you just completely love them too. i hope you're reading them in a quiet place, preferably in the evening or very early morning. oy.

Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don't blame me that I've got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me, since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,and then labor to make them light.

: :

bim and i talked about how titles come about. "Under One Small Star," or "Under A Certain Little Star," tells me this speaker comes from a place of relative insignificance and yet has importance as a specific life, a small but curiously infinite existence. she is. she is a part of. she is a witness. she feels her impact and simultaneously, her lack of impact. i know how she feels. don't you?

not to make this like homework, but. any thoughts?

The poet Ed Hirsch says, "[a poem] is mute and plaintive in its calling out, its need for renewal. It needs a reader to possess it, to be possessed by it. Its very life depends on it."

save a life today.

"i am a writer, a writer of fictions...

2010-07-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

"and i've written pages upon pages
trying to rid you from my bones..."*

i think the fiction writer is a person who can imagine the worst, the unthinkable, and also the most sweet & fragile good--and does.

while i was in the poetry program at UW i shared an office with a girl in the fiction department. one day she was really upset; her problem wasn't something that had happened, but something that she had imagined happening. {insert my aggressive eye roll here.} sometimes it's just too painful, she said.

in spite of myself, i think i understand better where she was coming from. back then i didn't have kids and despite the true horrors i had experienced by age twenty-two, my vision of the unthinkable was yet more benign than it is now.

i'm not sure what to say about poets relative to this discovery. it's a very different approach to dealing with subjects of comparable magnitude. poetry is something about tinkering with very small toys; they're too small to hold and too small to see properly until you put them all together just right. at that moment they grow until they fill the room.

why this diversion: my morning writing has been fiction lately; not because i'm any good at it, but because it's fun and i think it's good practice. instead of dealing with large subjects with small tools, fiction is trying to organize many moving parts, most of which don't belong there; you have to sift and sort and all the while the conveyor belt is relentlessly moving toward you.

i think my time is already up. Ally just came in and sat on the couch next to my computer.
-but mom, i'm a writer too
-oh, you are? what do you write?
-but i have to write my grandpa's naaaame

gr ANDPA TOM

so. until later...

*the engine driver, the decemberists

the best, the best, the best

2010-07-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

stretchy pants are my very favorite thing in the world right now. i just want to run them up a flagpole and dedicate a day to their honor. streeeeeeetchy pants! stretchy paaaaaaaants!

the draft in the previous post has a couple of things going for it: suprising language, unusual pairings of subject matter and treatment {the key phrase and unexpected allusions and images}, and the beginnings of rhythm. i heard some reference to hericlitus and was curious, and did a little reading about him {only wikipedia} and found him interesting. so i stole some catch phrases from the hericlitus highlights reel and sprinkled them in.

which brings me to the drafts's weaknesses: the allusions are lightly researched and that's okay but i think it's trying to come off as knowing something it doesn't. so there's maybe some missed opportunity there. also the repetition of the key phrase is clunky and overdone. probably there are just too many lines in this poem and i need to decide which are working toward unity and which are just hanging on for fun. cut, cut, cut!

because...if the parts don't hang together, if there's no unity, then there's no excitement or understanding. people will say, "i don't get it," and what they mean is not that they don't understand the words, but that there isn't any sense to the poem as a whole. it's not finished until there is some sense, whether of meaning, story, sound or impression. without any of those, you probably wouldn't even read a poem to the end, because your attention will have been betrayed with red herrings.

one thing that shouldn't be too prominent: wisdom. hide your wisdom, they say. that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any, but you don't want to end a poem with some grand declaration of smartness and finality that makes everyone roll their eyes.

my heart isn't really in this one, so i probably won't spend much time revising it, but i might mine it later for interesting lines or ideas that could spark something new.

that's all.

new floruit?

2010-07-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

recently i went to a conference of mormon women writers and had several versions of the same conversation with different people, all inspired by the the question: do you find time to write? when i mention my two tiny daughters they nod knowingly. so, not much time.

as much as i would like to have "a bit of earth," {time to grow my written thoughts}, i think Bim wants me to have it even more. he is always devising schemes to carve out an hour for me here and there...schemes that usually fail because of life interfering. but he hasn't given up yet and i do get some precious hours in the morning.

so i thought i'd get back to a little poetry talk here. practical poetry talk, even. below is the product of one of my hour-long sessions when i lock myself in my room and put on my headphones and ignore the other three members of my family.

i'll pick it apart in a subsequent post to show something about poetry, and then later i'll do the same with a finished, published poem by someone i admire. not to compare, because that might make me feel bad, but to show different things. it's an exercise designed to help me, but maybe some of you are interested in writing poetry too? or maybe {like me} you have a voyeur's interest in how poems are put together. this only shows you my methods, but over the years i've drawn ideas from other more successful writers and poets. think of it as a poor man's How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry.

in this exercise i took an overheard phrase that caught my attention {this is sometimes called "found poetry"} and worked around it. rather than producing a finished poem, an exercise like this will often launch you into something inventive and interesting that could be molded, through a series of restructuring drafts, into a poem. it's the easiest, and possibly the most fun part of creating a poem because you can--or rather, have to--give yourself the freedom to put down anything you want.

the phrase here is: "the marriage is invalidated."

A Unity of Opposites

In case of fire, flood or indecency, the marriage is invalidated.
When your library card expires, the marriage is invalidated.
If the party of the first parties without the party of the second,
the marriage is invalidated.
When there is a loophole, that is the loophole. For instance,
If an alien nation reaches us first, the marriage is invalidated.
If he wishes it, if she dreams of flowering vines, if their children are gymnasts,
If fantasy bears the burden of hope, if fish can be made to wear pajamas,
if the path up is identical to the path down,
If the river stands still for your second step,
Then you have started off knowing everything and ended with nothing,
and the marriage is invalidated.
If the left side slags when the right side smiles, if the meaning is obscure,
if the philosopher weeps; in case of stroke, dementia or diameter,
night soil, raccoons, puttering in the yard after dark, building with nails and putty;
If nothing is where you put it down, if you can’t break free of yourself,
if your hand is trapped in the shape of a hand, if you cry out,
Who is Hericlitus to show his teeth?
Then the marriage is invalidated, the misanthrope jogs on his wheel,
and the green seed pushes against the crust to bend, bow, break, blossom.

where can i turn for peace?

2010-06-13T11:40:00.001-07:00

not apparently to sacrament meeting, some days.

i lead the hymns in church, as you all know. and despite how often i laugh-cry about it, i really do think it's the best thing i could ask for. i love the music and i love feeling it wash over me from the congregation below.

this blog isn't the right place to be writing what i'm about to write. you who read these posts represent all that i love and admire about my mormon heritage and tradition. please, don't keep reading if you will be hurt by a bit of disgruntled scrutiny of mormon culture, even if it comes from an insider. instead, tune in to my next post, in which i'll talk at length about all that i truly love about it.

this morning i sat directly behind two gentlemen from the high council, whose job it was to preach to our congregation. as i sat there watching my two small fries in one of the pews below, wiggling in the arms of the couple who were supervising them them for me {hubs being still in texas}, i couldn't help but overhear what the high councilors were saying regarding our current president and {worse!} the people who seem to like him so much and would even be foolish enough to vote for him.

one of the gentlemen explained that {as he likes to tell people at work} past republican presidents have built administrations comprised of "people who know how to run a business," whereas obama's cabinet is only 8% such, the rest being "a bunch of academics."

to which my intellectual-fearing heart chimed back, hear, hear! how long do we have to suffer these smart people to piddle around before affairs are rightfully turned back to the ones who are so good with dollars?! it's simple commerce! it's what we value in this country, after all: getting that money. and keeping things the way {we think, or we've heard} they've always been--or is it the way they used to be? oh, but wait...

i imagine these leaders may have chosen their words more carefully had they known that the person sitting behind them was interested in the conversation. but in their defense, i was quite invisible, being only the lady chorister. in a moment of passion i leaned in between the two to announce myself as one of "those people who voted for [obama]," but just then the meeting started and i lost my chance, and my nerve.

there's this little voice in me saying, don't speak now while you're upset. wait until it passes. think it through and don't make a mistake.

i might stop listening to that voice, because although i may have made the wiser choice by not confronting them there and then, I feel cheated out of the opportunity to see what, if any, impact my revelation would have had on their prepared sermons: Church Public Relations, and How We Should Train Our Minds Totally on Thoughts of the Savior During Sacrament Meeting. IRONY, anyone?

in the past i would have quieted myself with the thoughts that i should listen closely to these men {men, men, men, men, men, men....} whom i am supposed to follow {follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, ....} because if i really made an effort, in good faith, i could find something to learn.

i learned something anyway. anger does pass. but you know what doesn't? apathy. because why? because apathy is that vacuum left inside you after that anger passes if you can't find any love to fill it back up with. i don't want to go there.

that's why this post is alternately titled, FOR THE LOVE!

i have this recurring daydream. in it are myself and everyone i love most in the world. we build a great big, beautiful house together, where we're all going to live happily ever after. but just as we're finishing the last coat of paint and settling in, people start to leave. one by one they walk out of the house until it becomes clear that i am going to be the only one left and that, no matter what happens, i can't leave. even as i think of ways to make everything okay, i watch helplessly as chunks of plaster fall out of the building and the house shakes on its foundation. it turns out that everyone has come back, but this time they're here to tear down the house and still, there is nowhere for me to go.

it's a new version of an old nightmare i had as a kid: that i am alone in a burning house, backed into a corner, and i understand that the world is ending.

tell me, you of earlier generations: has it always felt this way? there is a man on the radio who says that BP's monumental disaster doesn't yet rank with the top oil spills in the world in terms of impact on the environment. if we can divert most of it from reaching the coastline, it's just another drop in the ocean. so why does it feel like something vital is leaking out of me as every day passes without a solution? and has there always been this polarization of politics that inspires angry posts like this one {ME VS. THEM}, or can i hope for some reconciliation? i am, very simply, afraid. i can't imagine my daughters 10 years from now without imagining what terror might happen between now and then--what our world will look like. what my church will look like. already it's becoming harder for me to recognize.

and the people with whom i long to identify, the people who are my very own, well, we seem to have put some distance between ourselves and the downtrodden.

poor me! IRONY!

it's not the opposing opinions that are necessarily offensive to me; it's the assumption that, when spoken in the place where we worship, these opinions are shared by everyone within hearing distance. why else would anyone feel free to speak with such contempt and disrespect? i reserve the right to be offended, and if that's my pride speaking, let it speak clearly. what did i learn? that i should have spoken up in the moment. if i'm too afraid, then maybe i need more practice.

which brings me to the point of all of this:

if i am going to live in this place {and i do intend to} despite the fact that it can be very painful and very lonesome sometimes, i am going to have to do some redecorating, save the living artifacts of my faith and move them to the forefront. i am going to have to write out my manifesto and pin it on the door. consider this a preamble.

austen-ize me

2010-06-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

+ + +

poetry emboldens the soul to accept mystery

that thought is attributed to john keats in the biographical movie, bright star.

i like these period movies. there is so much conversation in them, and the stormy speeches are always delivered by people with red cheeks who, when they yell, yell in full sentences and not obscenities. i guess one doesn't like to think of one's heroes and anscestors as having common weaknesses. the movie is beautiful--all English gardens, bumblebees and heavy white light. a little precious overall and, {sorry}, annoying in parts.

mystery is a comfort though, isn't it?

critical mess & the reason why

2010-05-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

a friend--a very good friend who is miles ahead of me in many ways, and regrettably now lives miles away--observed about me that i am "about the experience."

it's lovely to have friends who see things about you that come straight from the core of your identity, and deliver them to you still warm. i'm neither proud nor ashamed of this truth; simply, i am about the experience--the things that don't matter, necessarily, or at least aren't crucial to the moment, like the color of the tablecloth at a cookout, or the foil-wrapped truffles that i dole out during daddy's-gone-days.

i know i'm not alone in this, else there would be no such places as anthropologie, no photography blogs or teeny tiny bakeries, no stores devoted utterly to linen. no hedonism, no sparkling beverages and definitely no inflatable barbecues. although that last one is not something i would ever want, not having a need to cook while swimming.

so anyway, who isn't about the experience?

all of this is a preamble to say that i'm hurtling toward critical mess and it's very nice. my hair is an oil slick. it's endangering local wildlife. my house isn't dirty, thanks to coco the unflinching, but it's clutter central and i am so cool with it.

because i'm pacing myself emotionally to get through the home stretch until bim is through working all hours on a case that {finally!} goes to trial next week. i sang that last bit in opera voice.

some of the experiences of today included the following.

i totally lost it with Ally when she wouldn't let me get near her hair. i'm not unreasonable about her hair; we don't brush it every day. i know it can hurt to have a comb pulled through your curls and i treat the experience with all the sensitivity it deserves--usually. today i was done negotiating. i wrestled my 3 year-old to the floor, overpowered her and held her arms down with one arm while i brushed not gently with the other. did i mention i was yelling? did i mention she was hysterical? meanwhile Liv looked on from a safe distance wearing an expression of mixed horror and relief. that's one experience i'm not about.

later in the day she stood at the podium in primary and recited the four lines of her "talk" perfectly. she had no idea what any of it meant. i suppose that's not really the point anyway.

signing off for tonight.

when i said that

2010-05-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

poetry lights you up with understanding (think: bombs falling on a city at night)...i meant it, but also that poetry makes you feel understood. soul-to-soul kinship is rare in real life; poems remind you that it's possible.

unsatisfactory

2010-05-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

if you read my post of the last, then you know it answers nothing. poetry deals in contradiction: what is always true is also never true. in this way, poetry is like every kind of art, including cave drawings - your diary - and the last documentary you saw.

before i get all existentialist up in there, i won't. except to say that my last post could be true {all that stuff about "getting it"} a few times out of 1,000. and that a poem contains infinitely more to love than what it may teach. i wouldn't read a poem exclusively to learn something any more than i would eat a good meal just for the nourishment of it.

richard gently nudged me to address the excellent questions, what is a poem? and, how can i tell when i'm reading one? and that's how you can tell who the teacher is in the family.

coincidentally my three year-old woke me up this morning by yelling through the house, "MOM! LISTEN TO MY WORDS!", which seems like a good place to start.

thanks for having questions; i'm going to keep hovering around some answers, trying to zero in. {i keep visualizing the giant axe dangling from the ceiling of the art building rotunda where the staff of my college's student review magazine held editorial meetings. i wonder if i'm in more or less danger now, straddling california's fault line.} so much to ponder.

but...i have to go now because the person who shares a room with me needs to sleep and i don't want to type in his ear {though ideally everyone should be wearing earplugs}. i'll think on these questions until another opportunity to write opens up. meanwhile, some words from Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, to my earlier point:

"poetry that speaks to the enduring and irreversible coordinates of human fate---love, striving, fear of pain, hope, the fleeting nature of things, and death---leads us to believe that the poet is one of us, and shares in that fate.... But it would not be quite right to claim that its theme is therefore an eternal human nature, for as our consciousness changes, we humans try to confront ultimate things in new and different ways."

::

for those wanting to start reading a poem here and there, you might enjoy these poets (you can find them online at poets.org, at any largish book store, or of course at the lib'ary): - naomi shihab nye - billy collins - li-young lee - james tate - gary snyder - jorie graham. i think it's best to have the book in your hand but online is okay. anthologies are very nice too because you can browse the most popular poems by selected poets until you find something that, you know, hurts so good.

::

finally, of course, a poem (another by wislawa szymborska):

Some Like Poetry

Some--
not all, that is.
Not even the majority of all, but the minority.
Not counting school, where one must,
or the poets themselves,
there'd be maybe two such people in a thousand.

Like--
but one also likes chicken-noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one's point,
one likes to pet a dog.

Poetry--
but what sort of thing is poetry?
Many a shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and hold on to it,
as to a saving bannister.

why i believe

2010-05-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

jessica asked me to write a little something about poetry, about reading and appreciating--maybe about understanding it?

other than a MFA in poetry writing {which anyone can get}, i don't have any particular credentials that would make me an authority, except that i read a lot of poetry. and of course that is the best way to make it click.

since i'm not sure where to start, i will start slowly. just anywhere. how about here?

why read poetry? for me it started as a curiousity and a genre to check off my list on my way to mastering the English language and becoming Queen of The Universe. i didn't expect it to make a beatnik out of me. i certainly didn't expect to become a marginalized, is it just me or is she a little weird?, person while Tina Fey went on to become QOTU. although of course, things are just as they should be in that department.

i kept reading because of what i discovered: that a poem delivers an experience that NO OTHER FORM of communicating can duplicate. in a completely distinct way. imagine that you're working on a really tough math problem and after hours of frustration you suddenly get it completely. you see the whole picture, how it comes together, how mathematics fit into the universe and all that. now imagine that you could take that moment of "getting it" and bottle it, so that you could pull it out and take a drink any time you needed to feel a sudden rush of understanding.

that's like reading a good poem. BAM!

you don't need to read poetry to be someone special but if you don't read poetry, you miss out on a way of understanding your fellow beings in that unique way, and possibly neglect a part of your own soul that can't be reached otherwise. unless you have some of those telescopic surgical tools they use to see inside your guts.

that's all for now. here's a poem.

Under a Certain Little Star

by Wislawa Szymborska Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken.
Don't be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker.
My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.
My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.
Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.
My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.
And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,
staring, motionless, always at the same spot,
absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.
My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.
Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don't blame me that I've got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me,
since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then labor to make them light.

gilllllly!

2010-04-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

the next post is pretty long. sorry.
to make up for it, here is a really short one.

poof

2010-04-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

that's the sound of me blowing a little air into the wind, where it will be carried off instantly as tiny particles, mingling with other tiny particles, more numerous even than there are harry potter fans. there won't be any proof of that poof, no record or memory, except for this.

sigh. i love the internet so very much, to borrow one of my daughter's current phrases. because, though less than polished, the things i write here are more than journal entries. obviously. if i were journaling, i would be writing in my padlocked diary [blog] that is TOTALLY PASSWORD PROTECTED. i write here because, even though i am pretty sure i've got a teeny, tiny readership, mostly made up of family members who are obligated to read, i still know i'm not just talking to myself. does anyone really write without hoping to be read? even my actual journal is intended to be read someday, after i am dead.

:: :: ::

i love Sunday nights. the girls are sleeping in their beds, i have Li-Young Lee's latest collection on my lap, and there are at least three hours before i absolutely have to shut 'er down. i can think. i can write down my thoughts. i can feel cool air coming in through the window. and i can forget about the messy house on the other side of my door {sufficient unto tomorrow is the evil of that. if you know whaddamean}.

:: :: ::

Li-Young, where was this book in 2002 when i was writing my master's thesis? my title was, "a witnessing to magnitude: poems of spirituality in form and free verse." and i struggled to find any in the contemporary canon. really struggled. since then harold bloom has written a whole book about it and it's suddenly a cool thing for poets to sincerely explore their religious roots. oh, well. i found that paper of mine recently and read a few excerpts. who is this person?, i wanted to know. i could go 50 pages through that thing without recalling a single sentence. it didn't teach me what i wanted to know.

this collection, on the other hand, is full of moments you find in poetry when you hear your own voice ringing in the words--only not your voice as you speak it to others, but your authentic voice: the one that can really only be expressed in this strange medium. poetry lovers, do you know what i mean? {are you out there?}

i find myself wanting to finish the sentences.

:: :: ::

from "Cuckoo Flower on the Witness Stand" by Li-Young Lee

When asked about my religious training, I answer,
"I seek my destiny in my origin."

Most of my life, I've answered politely
to questions put to me, speaking only when spoken to,

a sign of weakness
unbefitting of any free human being.

. .

Therefore, for the sake of free human beings everywhere,
and because no one asked, I now say:

:: :: ::

well, i have several things to say, but here is just one. this post is alternately titled, "in defense of public badness. also public goodness."*

THE IMPETUS
i've long followed the admonition that bad behavior, yea even the appearance thereof, sets a bad example for the youth and other impressionable folks. i know this to be true, as a member of the latter category. be careful what you smoke around me because, chances are, i will really want to smoke it too.

but i have been more helped than hurt by good people who are also bad. likewise by bad people who are also good. if you're a baddy of my acquaintance, consider this a thank-you note on cyber-stationery.

THE ARGUMENT
if someone tells you that stealing is bad and then you see a person steal, isn't it logical to connect the triangle {person=bad}? i reasoned this way as a child and probably still do, sometimes, although i know better. mostly we overcome deductions like this as we age and get wisdom. we realize that human motives are complicated and defy simple categorization. we desire grace for ourselves and extend it more willingly to others.

THE CONFESSION
and we want to kick the crap out of people who don't fess up to their own badness {hyprocrites! no grace for you! no soup, either!}.

THE ARGUMENT, WITH NUMBERS
that reaction is not super helpful. what is helpful: listening to lucinda williams. also, an exercise in observation. i observe that people i know and trust do things that i have been taught are bad-to-do. my deductions? (1) sometimes people fail. (2) not all things that i have been taught are bad-to-do are actually bad-to-do. do you hear what i am saying? not everything i was taught is true. accepted truths are not always true. i know. FRIGHTENING! RADICAL and DANGEROUS! believe me, i know. and i am now two steps closer to enlightenment, no joke.

LIKEWISE
sometimes people who are trying to do everything right are just people trying really hard to do right. if that's not okay with you, you'd better run and hide from me. because i am officially claiming that fundamental {excuse that word} right for all the goodies. keep it up, goodies. you are okay.

THE POINT
i am a little bit bad too, and i resolve to show it. not because it is cool, but because it is human and human is a good thing to be.

*can you tell i've been reading a little bit of michel de montaigne here and there? it makes me want to go around defending things, treatising and manifesto-ing. and don't be impressed. reading a few paragraphs does not a scholar make. but oh, i just found a cheerio in my bra. i so deserved this evening of solitude.

THE END

now, if you made it all the way to the end of this post, hi! leave a comment. i want to know how far my poof reached. for science.

universe, where is my cell phone?

2010-02-24T14:17:00.000-08:00

"some humans ain't human..."

2010-02-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

..."some people ain't kind," as John Prine opines. i just finished reading "Say You're One of Them," by Uwem Akpan, and i understand the feeling. not since "Uncle Tom's Cabin" have I thrown a book across the room so often and with such despair. The specific reasons why the latter was so provoking to me (more so than other books) i don't remember, but i do remember that i was living in a studio apartment in Manhattan's upper west side at the time and i kept having to climb the ladder down from my loft to get it again.

read the book, if you can bear it. i have always been cowardly about facing certain realities--and in particular, crimes against children.

but that's not what this post is about. it's about facing the people in our lives with respect, no matter what we think of them. i've been practicing this consciously for about a month as part of a resolution for the new year. it's a simple goal but i can feel it changing me already: to look at every person i physically encounter as a human being deserving of respect.

this is not to say that i didn't respect people before. although a few years of big city living did have the unfortunate effect of teaching me to fight for myself even when fighting isn't called for. at the post office, for example.

this is just to say...that i appreciate our shared humanity more consciously and therefore...more.

Fragments for the End of the Year

2010-01-01T17:39:00.001-08:00

by Jennifer K. Sweeney

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version
of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don’t know
if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring
itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas
as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders
the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.
The one we fly through and the one
we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills
the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.
Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest
not fully melted but enough.

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.

in which jack gilbert says it for me.

2009-12-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Tear it Down

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.

thanksgiving treatise

2009-11-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

in which i ramble about traditions & am occasionally inspired by {unrelated} flashes of genius.

ever feel like you're using both hands, both feet, your forehead and your nose trying to keep all the walls of your world from falling in? i know what that feels like. so i say, bring on the holidays. get your family together and get yourself some turkey, moon cake, black-eyed peas or yorkshire pudding. let's all enjoy some traditional made-up hope and happiness this weekend, and may it last into the winter.

i find that sometimes hope does need a little makeup. we may need to make happiness a tradition we allow ourselves to indulge in. i am not going to lie to you: when it's not being all wonderful, this beautiful world is crap. i can't pretend i don't know what goes on outside of my nice life. and yet. grace comes along and just sucker punches me with beauty. you know what i mean? i will explain with super clarity:

i once wrote a poem about giraffes {yeah, i did} that describes them as "ruminating creatures." of course that's just being nice. giraffes have giant, thoughtful eyes and that makes it nice to think of them as thoughtful instead of what they really are: beasts driven by instinct to chew on leaves. my point is obvious, right? perspective. perspective is power, baby.

i think often of the beliefs i choose and the comfort and misery they can variably bring. some of my beliefs have more or less been chosen for me, and i spend a lot of time learning which to cast off, and which to cling to. i think an awful lot about the lovely myths we perpetuate, and the ugly ones. how our children bear our burdens, no matter how much we wish to spare them, and so another generation is trained in our ways.

my guileless husband reminds me {a little too often?} of what a shame it is to disparage that which brings joy to someone, whether or not i like it. because really, is there just too much joy in this world? do we need to go around canceling it? DO WE HAVE TO CANCEL CHRISTMAS? {yeah, i like santa. in fact, bless him and the person who inspired the tradition. he must have been a saint.}

do i sound like i'm dissolving into relativism? i'm totally not. i have a serious, strict code of ethics that some people may find strange, but which usually makes sense to me. it's really complicated and has a lot of color coding and math that would probably confuse you. but don't worry about it because, you know what? at our best and worst we are gods already: we live in a world of our own making. we may choose to look forward and see redemption or doom.

i choose to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

a motto and a book review

2009-11-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

i once read a book and, in a way that very rarely happens, i remember it from time to time. it was called, "how can i help." my dad bought me this book very soon after my mom died. it did help.

author: lowell bennion, a great humanitarian and a great man.
what i remember: learn to love simple things, like simple food and simple pleasures. live life in "day-tight compartments," making of them all you can.

in that spirit, i have developed a new motto for moi meme (that's myself). you'll agree that it is less ambitious than lowell's recommendation, but i think there's hope in even this:

"maybe today."

what is your motto?

choristing

2009-09-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

i was given the excellent advice to be MORE CONFIDENT. (less slouch-to-avoid-revealing-that-i-forgot-to-wear-both-nursing-pads, maybe?) meanwhile my baby is seated just a few rows away, waiting for just the right enthusiastic upbeat to signal--mutely but *so* effectively--that she needs to be fed.

although i've never actually seen it, i have heard the stories of the ward chorister who tempted fate in this way. in the future i will be wearing more cardigans and double layers.

our chorister is so deeply good at what she does that i can't look directly at her for danger of having my eyeballs burst into flame. i prefer the toddler-approaching-the-ocean/new-skier-on-a-black-diamond sideways approach.

already i have a deepened appreciation for the hard work of an organist. ours told me some very interesting stories, most of which involved the pianist/organist getting a raw deal, and i am not just talking about when people unfortunately pronounce "pianist" correctly.

a good reason to make a pie at 9 pm

2009-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

as if i needed a reason for night pie.

today is my mama's birfday and i am certain she liked chocolate pie. not as much as a reese's peanut butter cup or an orange-soda-with-apple-pie combo, but enough. if i remember right, her recipe was for a chocolate silk pie. the one i'm trying tonight uses bittersweet chocolate and creme fraiche, so...a little different. still, with those ingredients, i don't see how it could be anything but a splendid celebration.

maybe after i will eat some potato chips and lie on the couch.
stupid trader joes (i mean that affectionately) still isn't stocking their frozen pie crust (apparently it's seasonal) so i am going to have to MAKE MY OWN. bleh. fortunately natalie had the foresight to supply me with crust-making essentials (such as the cutest little rolling pin cozy you have ever seen), and hence made this project possible. so natalie, part of the pie honor goes to you.

in honor of the birthday girl, here's a poem i started 3 years ago and just found in my scraps folder. it started as an exercise, modeled after a poem by gerald stern that was in the New Yorker (3 years ago), so you can blame the run-on structure on him. this is not one of those poems that you can expect to understand literally. sorry--i like those better too. also i can't seem to get the font all the same size.

anyway, i think it's time to let this one air out.

Ailanthus*

(after Gerald Stern)

She was bright light against the blue

deeper-by-the-hour sky and lit I guessed from

the inside like the silk of a certain spinning moth and we

spoke less than we shuddered together

stuck as we were in time between valleys, in the shelter

of trees turned shadow by the contrast of dust carrying light

and she explained or I understood these tiny torches to be death

chariots, mote-small and everywhere, and what she

wanted most of all, if it came to a reckoning,

was cover under the leaves of the tree of heaven

and to be less than dead or rather more, inside

that canopy of bright fruit with her old bruised and corruptible skin

for it was harm she missed now and the juices of

decay even more than pleasure but it was

only memory for she was far from this familiar to me

now and I forgot to say that

she had died and she wore a blue sequined cap

that I remembered her in, my favorite of them all,

with no wig against the white curved neck

and I forgot to say that I was her daughter

the way I sometimes forgot in life to call her Mom,

though she was always mythic, even then

and now a bright soft light crouched around her

as if to guard or contain that body, as if

sensible to perfection; and reverence

is what we talked about and bad words and mean

jokes we’d thought were funny and still did

for that matter, though she was tired, and although

she wore the cap she said it was only a last-minute

useless stab at cheer, nothing like she could have done

with the blood still in her when one whisper in church

could choke me with laugh-tears, but now she quoted Hetet

interviewed on the subject of trees (who found Ailanthus

fit for gods and dogs, a fine catalyst of copious stools, the bark

of which by chewing could overcome tapeworm,

dysentery, and sundry bowel complaints) at which point

I begged her to stop so I could breathe.

*also known as "the tree of heaven"

and now i really must sign off or there will be nothing but metaphorical pie making tonight.

more things to like

2009-08-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

it has been hinted at by certain people that i may be overly negative about certain things at certain times. in retaliation, i offer a list of things i like. i invite you to like them too, but please don't feel any obligation.

:: actors who do one character (over and over again) really well: thomas hayden church, vince vaughn, john cusack, joan cusack, michael cera, juliette binoche. et cetera.

:: the word, "satchel"

:: noam chomsky

:: actual autumn, as opposed to the pasadena poor man's fall. which i'm not complaining about. it's just as lovely as spring, summer and winter. which is why no one can tell the difference.*

:: nursing my babies (this one's just for me. get your own babies. and if you think this may be TMI, remember that no one is forcing you to read further, and consider this your final warning). a blast of endorphins hits you immediately. no drug--that i have ever taken--works this fast. ladies, did you know about this? i confused it for a long time with a caffeine rush, but then i'd remember i hadn't had any caffeine lately--and i knew something else {magical} was making me want to both laugh and punch someone out, but in a good-natured, "let's do yoga sometime when this is all over," sort of way. if you haven't had this experience, don't feel bad at all. the first few weeks are not cool. imagine two of your sensitive "areas" wrassling with the business end of a cheese grater. imagine a sudden and emotional need for water. imagine deformity. but it does turn out to be worth it...so much.

* don't confuse this with a complaint because i could do sooooo much better. i love pasadena. pasadena is the paris of suburban los angeles.

i need to go now. i am considering starting a workout of some kind at some point. i have to train my legs to accept speed.

tempest

2009-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

i've been getting in touch with my inner wolverine. she feels hostile whenever she wants to for very good reasons - or - for no reason. she takes no prisoners & i am pretty sure she has the mange.the casualties are mounting & i fear for hubs. he doesn't complain, but i'm not sure how much longer he can stay up in that tree. eventually he'll need to eat & heaven knows i'm not cooking anything.*

wish i could say what causes this stormy state of being, but it defies explanation. defiance is sort of the point.

i can provide a list of complaints, but none of them is really the answer:

:: she's feeling weary (do you know what i mean?)

:: she relapses into an older, worser self & she feels remorse

:: she fails to do everything the way she prefers it to be done

:: she has a hernia. this is actually pretty funny** but also totally true

:: she needs a few days of blue

so, what do you think? how blue is too blue?

and what do you do in stormy [inner] weather?

*did you know a female adolescent wolverine can strip a man's forearm to the bone in less than 30 seconds, and then eat that bone? (probably)

**in a sad way

the weather is here, wish you were beautiful

2009-06-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

it's june gloom glorious here.

and i dig it. i want to eat it with a spoon. oh, want something else tasty? read THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

it's your song playing*

2009-05-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

walking with my girls in the cool of the evening, i think about how many days we have left until summer takes over the night. and i think about raccoons a little bit, and my neighbors, and how cool it would be to have an entire bolt of the fabric Al's dress is made of (so i can make matching clothes for the whole family and realize my sudden dream of becoming *the actual* baroness maria augusta von trapp).

and tonight i was thinking about other evening walks in other cities. especially new york. i loved the after dinner hour in manhattan, when all the apartment lights are on and the street smells just a little less of doggie tinkle. i'd come home from work and get off the subway a few stops early so i could get a hot dog (but really 2 hot dogs) at gray's papaya. and peek in people's windows.

i still do this because, hello, what's more interesting than watching other people live their lives?

i'm more discreet than The Toddler, aka The Beans, who feels free to gallop up the front walk, smell all the flowers and press her nose against the glass. (also she likes to collect gravel and i don't really.) but i'm just as curious.

and i needed a little diversion tonight--maybe hoping for a little wisdom from someone else in one of those glowing windows. i'm feeling a little downcast about the ca supreme ct decision today to uphold the ban on gay marriage. i still don't understand and i felt heartsick when i passed my neighbor who's raising a beautiful adopted daughter with her partner. her family is legitimate to me. i'd be plain lying if i pretended otherwise. i also felt encouraged by friends of faith who are delving into this dialogue. i got to thinking about all our separate lives, all our stories. how many causes, how many needs, how many hurts that could be mended, if only.

what would someone see through my window if they peeked in at night?** they'd know i like to eat chocolate pudding with a measuring spoon (1 tsp.). and putter around in an apron. they'd probably see me smell the back of my baby's head a lot (it smells exactly like fresh laundry, even when i haven't bathed her and the rest of her smells like my armpit).

who knows what other secrets aren't really secrets? would it be apparent to any observer, for instance, that i'm very interested in upholstery? i am, but i don't own a staple gun. so i guess i'm not that serious about it. also i am a person who is crazy about hostess products but who (almost) never buys them. a person who does not feel guilt about God, but who does feel guilt about plastic.

and here's some more: i'm a believer. in all of it: God, love, vanilla zingers. i am a person who feels strongly in the value of questions. who has never fully gotten over television. who has spent more than an hour admiring some new smocked dresses i made for The Beans and feeling like a little bit of a genius about it.

tell me something about yourself that i don't already know, won't you? thanks and good night. and good luck.

---------------------

*the title of tonight's post is brought to you by the song, "old coyote," by the weepies, whom i love, though we've never met, though i did see them live once at the tractor tavern in seattle. the volume on my computer is b-u-s-t-e-d so i can't preview a good youtube version of this song, but please do look it up if you feel like enjoying yourself immensely. old coyote. check it.

**which they totally couldn't because i close all my blinds as soon as it gets dark because i don't like crazy people staring at me.

ratitude

2009-04-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

this post is alternately titled, "why i am a rat."

that's actually my secret. but i will say this: i was walking through our house the other day and i felt really good.

i like the new grass in the backyard and the pretty things my pretty sister helps me make. and the little home fries. all i can say about liv is that she's sweetness on a stick. and allyn is so baffling and so beautiful.

today i caught myself being excited about monday.

slap. me. in. the. face.

this rat just wants to say thank you. thank you for the nap this afternoon. thank you for the brothers and the aunties and the poetry and all wicked awesome things. this rat is in the mood to create. this rat thinks cleaning up poop is worth it.

tumbleweeds

2009-04-19T23:26:00.000-07:00

dust, wind, silence.

welcome to the post wherein i reassert my status as alive, kind of ticked, and chomping to blog again. it's a wicked irony that now, during the BEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES, i can't make three new posts a day. Wee is growing. you won't even recognize her.

i need to get my lovely, lovely computer fixed. tonight she's on her knees waiting for a pardon in the form of a dell extended warranty, or at least a stay of execution. i hate to think of her going to some chinese electro-rubbish heap, pinned under a nasty old office PC, roped down with tangled cords and leaking toxicity into the groudwater.

guess who turns out not to be good at delayed gratification?

i asked hubs today if he ever thinks of himself in terms of the "old" bim (pre-hubs days) and the new bim. because i am always comparing myself to the "old" me. since graduating college i've had a goal to make one major self improvement or accomplishment every year. i am pretty sure i was kicking butt for a while. but more and more i get a feeling disturbingly like...shame. a sense that i'm not maintaining the integrity of my ideals. in fact, i think the old me would probably b*slap the new me over certain issues.

see how being away from the blog is turning me into a navel-gazing turd, switching from one topic to another willy-nilly?

without my computer i'm a shadow of a woman. i'm far less capable than that single mom in england with no arms or legs.

one thing i'll be really excited to have again is my music. granted, i only used the speakers on my computer before--no big sound system--but i did appreciate having that. in the meantime i have resorted to a super-cheapo CD player and old, scratched CDs because i can't listen to my iTunes or pandora. i'm reconnecting with my old peeps (CDs i haven't heard in a long time). basically it's like going back to a recorder and a wood block.

all of this techno-whining reminds me of a funny from my big brother. too-shay.

and so i leave you with a brave, winning smile and a super attitude. the sun'll come out TO-FREAKING-MORROW, everybody! so have sweet dreams. i will be dreaming about motherboards and RAM. and how much i miss you...

also sailing terminology. are these not the best words?: maritime...sloop...schooner...starboard...jib.

oh, yes it is

2009-04-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!

Get yer daily fix here

and kindly share a favorite poem with the class? ...for to leave a comment?

one thing i don't like, one thing i do

2009-02-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

i don't like grocery bags. plastic or paper. but especially not plastic, which is derived as we all know from a nonrenewable resource. it's easy now to get those handy reusable bags and it doesn't take very long to get in the habit. even I can remember--most of the time. keith olbermann should feature grocery baggers who double bag milk jugs on his "worst person in the world" segment. well, not really, because they're nice people just doing their jobs, but i do think it would be fun to see someone get red in the face about it (besides me and the crazy bus people). i've said this before, haven't i? milk jugs come with their own handle. that's right! THEY HAVE A HANDLE! go ahead and comment if you think i'm being a freak about this. i don't mind.

and now, for today's thing i do like. it's a film. this one. by filmmaker douglas hunter, whom i met today for the first time, though i have known and admired his wife for some months. the audience seemed largely comprised of episcopalians (makes sense given the topic and the fact that they hosted the screening at their church) and the mood was very positive. i'm way too sleepy to wax eloquent, so let me just say this: when it gets distributed more widely, i will encourage anyone who can see it to do so. it was an uplifting, hopeful, moving way to start my sabbath morning and i expect its effects to follow me for some days.

it makes me happy when people work hard to do good.

not back to full YAAAAAA strength

2009-02-11T15:04:00.001-08:00

neesh suggested i might have my brain back now that i'm in awesome postpartum limbo-land. it might be just wishful thinking, but i am still hoping for more brain. sometime.

i don't have much to write about. unless you count babies (mine). but i know that even my warrior-goddess firstborn and her new sister could become tedious to anyone from whose forehead (ahem, to be delicate) they did not spring. so i'm saving my commentary about them for the other place where i blog.

maybe i need a gimick. for inspiration. like a "tip tuesday" (sarah). except i don't know that much stuff.

one of the blogs i stalk has a "things i love" roundup. so this week i'm stealing that idea. this way i don't have to feel bad when i forget to fill out those email questionnaires that i'm supposed to forward to all the people i know. so, here are some things i like this week.

clockwise from top left: (1) snoop-dogg (i don't actually listen to his music or watch his show, but i still like him. so what?); (2) tom waits (forever and always); (3) art by andrew holder (i'm going through a phase); (4) cormac mccarthy's "the road" (excuse my french, but holy crap!)

that is all for today. i'd like to know some of the things you like.

waking up in the white house

2009-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

this post is alternately titled, "things i have in common with the obama children."

:: i too live in a white house. it's a rental, but the prestige is all mine. behold its glory:

:: i too make my own bed.

:: i too bathe with the audacity of soap.

:: i too am feeling happy today. but probably less nervous and with fewer men in black suits hovering around me. other than that, we're the same.

by all means marry...

2009-01-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

...either you'll become happy, or you'll become a philosopher.

(this according to socrates, who i guess thought well of philosophers, for obvious reasons. or maybe he just really liked his wife.)

it's not my anniversary, and this post isn't even about marriage. i just have been missing my hubs and thought this demotivator was funny. again, not a reflection on hubs or our enviable happiness.

oh, and i've also been thinking (since christmas) about why so few things in life are easy. neither the good things nor the nasty things.

because here's the deal. i'm old enough not to cry every time the holidays come around. so i kept telling myself. christmas is put out there as the, you know, most wonderful time of the year. and i like it--a lot. and i like jimmy stewart and i like angels and snow and all that white stuff.

but it occurred to me this year, for the first time (wha?), that it's not just a season for all that's frosty and pine-scented. it's a time when you inevitably think about people in your life who aren't there anymore. and people you love whose lives are really hard, which sucks hard. and the kids who don't have happy homes to celebrate in, and (thanks, paul mccartney) all the lonely people.

and now some of you are thinking i'm a real downer. but i'm not trying to tinkle on your tinsel. i just finally get it. and it's a good realization that i wish i'd had a long time ago: that trying to whitewash christmas--or anything else that's held up to be exemplary and perfect--only decreases its worth and its ability to work miracles of healing, generosity and renewal.

i guess i've believed in a manufactured vision of christmas as a parade of chipmunks for too long and i'm glad to be over it. it feels better to accept that real life is full of real hardship, and that even times of celebration are colored with sorrow. and that i'm not powerless. i can add to the goodness--all the more effectively if i don't pretend that's all there is.

seems so obvious now, but seriously. it took me this long to figure out. so, happy new year everyone! here's to looking on the bright side by acknowledging the dark side. (or, as they like to say at despair.com: increasing success by lowering expectations.) and here's to many true, merry christmases in the future.

ode on a grecian urn

2009-01-03T16:39:00.000-08:00

do you say vace or vaaz?

i don't actually care. this is just to say...i resolve to never use empty vases (or empty bowls) in the decor of my home. it's just boring. and one more thing to dust.

unpleasant-news specialists

2008-12-12T21:38:00.000-08:00

this day is dedicated to the unpleasant-news specialists (a term i borrow from the late david foster wallace), otherwise known as the technicians who work the graveyard shift at HP's india-based phone support center.

so you see, there is a reason i haven't been posting.

so far i have logged 6 hours of very kindly, if ineffective, phone support. the rest of my time has been spent frantically trying to make up for what i have missed of my day(s). if my child ever stops taking afternoon naps i will be doomed.

of course, i am hopeful that my super-chouette new $39 printer will be working by then.

christmas cards may be late (again) this year. but if i ever clear the FATAL ERROR DURING INSTALLATION!!! message from my computer screen, my awesome new phone friends will be getting one.

oh, and it was not my fault.

god bless the child that's got her own

2008-12-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

raise your hand if you love peace!

sorry, dudes. it has been my experience that, when two or more children are gathered together, they will fight. but here's another observation from a former child fighter (sounds like i was trained in cage fighting--and i was): we have different kinds of fight in us, and it's not all bad. not at all.

to some is given to fight with words. to some with might (how totally cliche, but still, often effective). to some with chickens (these are the bad people). i submit to you that it's possible to fight with glitter. and i'm going to try it this holiday. whom am i fighting? maybe you.*

and so i answer the question: can there be any peace in the world as long as more than 1 of us is living on it? i think, yeah verily. from time to time. but not all the time. from time to time it would be really nice.

*nah, not really. mostly my own demons.

my christmas manifesto includes the following proclamation:

:: i will decorate my house until you can't open your eyes without getting glitter in them

them's my fightin' words. GAME ON.

because i promised something brighter

2008-11-30T21:42:00.001-08:00

here is a poem that must be read. i hope you love it. i love it. dedicated to my brother the elder, who does me good.

Around Us
by Marvin Bell

We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen. We need these things
between appointments, after work,
and, if we keep them, then someone someday,
lying down after a walk
and supper, with the fire hole wet down,
the whole night sky set at a particular
time, without numbers or hours, will cause
a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap--
to close round the moment and the thought
of whatever good we did.

grinchy grouchy

2008-11-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

topping the friss "dead to me" list: overplayed christmas songs.

the worst offenders:

1. little drummer boy (ANY VERSION - HATE IT!)
2. rockin' around the christmas tree (someone pry the eggnog out of these maniacs' unworthy hands)
3. happy christmas/war is over (john! not my favorite of yourn. it goes on for-EVER. seriously. i tuned out, listened to a whole NPR segment and it was still on when i switched back. don't blame it on yoko)

there are many more, but these just deserve an isolated moment of concentrated shame-staring. stare with me, everyone.

next up, something brighter to make you happy (maybe?): lovelies & favorites. suggestions welcome.

my theme song until further notice

2008-11-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

i just can't get enough. gosh, i love it.

i wonder if it's true...nothing's gonna change my world. in a way entrancing, comforting. (e.g., y'all can try but you're not going to change my world--the internal one filled with tiny people spinning candy and hula hoops and telling me to stick my in the freezer and breathe deeply through both nostrils.)

in another way, freaky deaky.

what's your theme song?

still life with dead partridge

2008-11-16T15:42:00.002-08:00

this post is alternately titled, the 12 days before richard dandelion lifts his ban on christmas.*

on the twelfth day of unchristmas, my big brother gave to me: a re-e-e-e-e-sssi-peeeeee! thanks, brother. i actually have both potatoes and a will to cook today.

*somewhat reluctantly i have to admit he's right. we must protect xmas and thereby save all of december from certain blah-dom.

jelly of the month club

2008-11-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

this post is alternately titled, cogent transitions were invented for boring people. or, where (and why) will the friss go next?

i know it's vulgar to talk about money, but since it vies with politics for my negative attention, i am feeling a little warm to the subject right now. it's a decent post-election diversion and re-entry to my dressed down everyday life.

i won't get detailed with a personal account summary or a list of the furniture i have recklessly bought. suffice it to say, i'm hoping the universe doesn't hit us with a clark griswold bonus this christmas. because i want a lot, a lot, a lot more things.

in case i actually did say that out loud, and then publish it on the web, this is what i really meant to say: spending money wearies me and doesn't always improve my mood (although sometimes it totally does). and i need someone to pry the plastic out of my hands right now.

seriously, what has happened to the quality of my posts? is it just me or am i only working with half of my powers lately? i'm like sampson without his hair. wonder woman without her lasso of truth. carly simon without her huge teeth.

for a second back there i forgot i don't have any super powers. in the absence of pithy observations and wit i rely on people reading my blog late at night in the eclipsing near-clutch of sleep.

back to money musing. they say money is one of the topics couples most often fight about. so i'm glad to be married to someone who doesn't vex me with contrary views on this matter. want to know what we fight about? nothing EVER! bahahahahaha! stick it.

so what do you all think about bite-sized brownies? kind of like "fun size" candy bars that aren't anywhere as fun as real size candy bars? or kind of neat, as in, half the size, half the stress?

and that is all.

somewhere over the rainbow

2008-11-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

yeah, i took down my last post. no big reason except that i'm feeling kind of over myself. you know that feeling? thanks to all who commented, tho. we'll talk more soon.

you must whip it

2008-10-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

at the park recently i overheard two well meaning mamas talking, and what they said kept me puzzling for some of the night. this is pretty much verbatim:

woman 1: [regarding a california ballot proposition] "i prayed about it and got my answer. why should i read what the laws say? voting "no" means this, voting "yes" means that...what difference does it make? i don't need to know any of that stuff. i got my answer.
woman 2: "totally."

i do not repeat this to ridicule anyone (to be fair, i don't even know these women), but just to point out what is certainly an unintended consequence of blindly following the prophet. don't misunderstand me. do follow prophets. do not make their counsel an abject substitute for your own research and learning (not that any of you do. i'm just saying). prayer is less powerful without it. is that enough bossy imperatives for one paragraph? the glory of god is intelligence--and intelligence doesn't force itself on us. it takes a little of that gritty, bothersome work i am always trying to avoid.

i have no argument with those who sincerely study, ask, receive, and ultimately disagree with me (on the contrary, i'd like to shake hands and kiss on both cheeks, frenchy-style, because we agree on the most important thing: sincerity). and i fully accept that i may be wrong--a lot. but that's not my point. this is: "Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me." -D&C 9:7

as our good friends the taylors recently reminded me, one can't be effectively persuasive (or educated) in an argument, without learning about and (this is key...) trying honestly to understand the major conflicting points of view. it doesn't work in scholarly research and it doesn't work in political research. you simply have to try for some objectivity. and then, once you have made your decision, and had it ratified through prayer (if you're of the praying persuasion), you must own it.

in my honest-to-goodness last political post before the election (because really, i don't enjoy being a social pariah in my chosen community as much as it may seem*), i have some information to share. i know my readership is small, but i figure the least i can do is share the research of others within this small circle, in case anyone is still interested. i don't do it idly: this election has honestly compelled me to vote in ways i never have before.

whether you bleed blue, red, or regular human blood, remember this: if you find yourself getting angry during the process, you must whip it. overcome the bad feelings. we need opposing views in this country. this is excellent advice i had to give to my own self (oh, thanks, self!). then vote the way you gotta.

to recap: learn it. own it. whip it. good.

and now, some nuggets**:

:: interesting thoughts here--esp. scan the right-hand column

:: smart & faithful brother--try him. you'll like him

:: my own self--i found the reader comments helpful

:: hear them out--listening will not make you a bad mormon

*brings back memories of being the one and only scab (aka conscientious objector) during the dread grad student union strike of '00-'01 in the UW english dept. oy. ask me about that sometime if you want me to hit you in the eye with a tack hammer.

**keep in mind my opinions may or not be shared by these folks, so give them the benefit of the doubt. me you can badmouth all over town. it's all in the name of peace, love & understandin'.

(see how i got a little folksy there at the end by dropping the "g"? i am hoping it will add to my appeal.)

"you've got to mess with people"

2008-10-28T14:33:00.001-07:00

"day and night, you have to mess with people!"

-Utah Phillips
open poll: what is your favorite way to mess with people?

some of my favorites are from a friend and former co-worker, emma. she likes to hang up on me midway through a telephone conversation. no matter how many times she does it, i always get surprised. also, in public places, she used to like to ask me (loudly) how my starvation diet was working, and how many days it had been since i last ate. also, she had me believing her name was emma for two years when, actually, it is emily. she's a sly little witch, in't she?

your turn.

i voted and all i got was this lousy sticker

2008-10-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

actually, i didn't even get a sticker this year. i voted absentee. and as much as i like going to my polling place and chatting with the old ladies at the desk as they painstakingly look up my name with a ruler, and then going into the secret booth like a super hero, and getting a sweet "i voted" sticker...i like being done even more.

now if the rest of you yahoos would just hurry up and do your patriotic duty, we could get this election over with! won't it be great when, the day after the election (yea, even the very minute after), everyone will be friends again? no more political squabbling, no more blacklisting our neighbors, no more flaming bags of poo on the front porch, no more disagreement of any kind?

yes, i am ready!

(plus i'm really excited for all the coverage, aren't you?)

possible substitutes for a good night's sleep?

2008-10-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

:: unchecked sarcasm

:: a good friend visit

:: that chocolate cake. you know the one.

:: finding the perfect blue. in a picture frame, a bookshelf or a chair.

:: a great chair. hello, i am chair crazy now. 6 of these just took over our house. for $7.99! i'm in love.

:: remembering that, since i washed the floor two days ago, i don't have to wash it again for, you know, 2 months. (does anyone else's floor change colors when they wash it? so brilliant.)

as the proverbial woman thinketh, so is she

2008-10-22T23:14:00.001-07:00

tonight i was lying awake trying to picture what my brain looks like. more specifically, i guess, what kind of thinker i am.

i'd like to say this captures me:

...but really there's some of this:

and this:
and, *sigh*, this:
(comic by natalie dee)

but worst of all is this:

not to be confused with the straight and narrow path, one could argue that the airport's moving walkway is for people who have given up. (or are pregnant, have gout or bulbous varicose veins, are disabled or otherwise incapacitated by traveling toddlers).

tonight my wish is to be a little more of my best and a little less of my worst. and to not be a quitter. what's your christmas wish?