Things I am apparently interested in.

Tonight, I briefly checked out an article in the New Yorker that has to do with new evidence, in the form of feces and its micro-contents, of the route Hannibal took over the Alps with his fabled elephants. Which are--surprise!--probably unlikely.

Once the article, which was quite focused, got down to the tapeworms, I was, quite frankly, out. I mean, elephants crossing the Alps in olden times, sure, but not the dung. The dung is right out. However, I get it that your mileage may vary on this. It is super science-y, for instance.

However! I am currently, apparently, on a quest to find out about a song that Hank Williams wrote with Lawton Williams called 'Between You and God and Me.' It appears on the detailed song list of Williams' Songwriters Hall of Fame page. It was published by Western Hills Music Co., although I don't know when. It doesn't seem to have been recorded, by Hank Williams or anyone else.

I had a conversation about this with my son, the musician, tonight. 'Maybe it's a really crappy song,' he offered, given the sparse facts available.

'Oh, I don't think so,' I said. 'Not in my imagination.' Because this song has taken up territory there. At the suggestion of my son, I wrote an information request to a Library of Congress librarian:

Hello there, 

I'm looking for information about a song that was co-authored by Hank Williams and Lawton Williams, titled 'Between You and God and Me.' It's listed as a song on the Hank Williams Songwriters Hall of Fame page. 

I'd like to know anything at all about the song, including lyrics, whether it was ever recorded, and if there was sheet music of any kind published. I'm a poet, and that's what I'd use this information for --a poem.

Thanks for any help you can give me-- 

htms

Please wish me and the librarians of the Library of Congress, and my mostly hypothetical poem, luck.

Upon examining my apparent weekly schedule.

At the beginning of every semester, there's a period when it's not exactly clear what the week to week is going to look like. Things have to settle in and shake out before I know if my Mondays will typically have an open afternoon, and if Thursdays will usually be [expletive-ing] long ass days, or if this is just beginning of the semester schedule shenanigans.

Moreover--and this is most true in the second semester--there's usually a long long list of things that need to be finished. Letters written, assessments finished, travel proposals made. Projects that got started the previous semester and continue on in a most enervating way. So: on my long long long list of stuff I have to do, most of which like bad debt is coming home to roost in such a way that I feel that I must search my character and possibly the stability of my mental state for what exactly in the hell is or was--and probably will be, if things keep going like this--wrong with me, there is this item:

And the rub is: there are too damn many commitments, and most of them intractable. I can step away from a lot of things, but only once I have finished them. Or when I'm dead, I guess. And then, and only then, will I have the leisure to say: shall I stay on this committee or that? Shall I arrange to have tea with my friend in a half a year or so? And so forth. 

I have come to think of my schedule as a wall made of loose stones, but stones so exactly fitted together that there is no room, no leverage, no play, as it were, so much so that this diagram 

seems to be precisely it. Now: what is the equivalent in life of my metaphorical wedge?

Interrogatory.

For my poetry class, a student and I spent some time today, looking for cover images for our class chapbook. As a title, the students nominated Unanswered Questions (or, technically, Questions Unanswered) to signify their interaction with my pedagogy. Which I am choosing to find hilarious.

Here are some images we found (creative commons > flickr > "question mark graffiti"):

by Brandon Giesbrecht

by Bilal Kamoon

by quinn.anya

by Trois Tetes

by shaggy359

...and here's a couplet. No, here are two.

FAQ.

Q: Whatsoever did happen to the three little dogs?

A: Well, it was high drama. Online, on the website for the animal shelter of my city, it said that they (a) were not open on Saturdays, (b) were closed before we could get home on the worky-work days of last week, (c) were possibly scary and disheartening to visit (not on the website), (d) whatsoever would we do, and whatsoever would become of the three little dogs?

Well, after said dogs had been at our house for a week, cozily ensconced in our laundry room/enclosed porch, we decided we really needed to take them to the shelter, since we were getting no action from our flyers/sign/newspaper ad. So running son and I (with a heavy heart) took the dogs to the shelter.

Where the shelter folks were, of course, very nice, but only after interrogating me as to whether I found said dogs, and to wit, within the city limits. And where the young woman working the desk said, "I know who those dogs belong to." And lo! the heavens did sing, for there was within the city limits of my city a man who has four (FOUR) Shih Tzu dogs, and he had picked up one of them (not one we found), and had said these magic words to the young woman: "I am still missing three (THREE) Shih Tzus."

And the young woman did remember these words, and did repeat them unto us after which she rang the gent whose Shih Tzus we had in our wriggle-filled arms, so that she could deliver the message. BAM.

Q: Where have you been, hightouchmegastore?

A: At an undisclosed location.

Q: And what did you eat there?

A: Tacos pescados. Shrimp and fries. Salmon hash. Mussels and frites. Gougeres. Pear tartlet with honey ice cream.

Q: And what awaited you upon your return home?

A: The kids and grandkids came over for lasagne and gelato. We took down the Christmas decor. High spirits and merriment. Three fewer alien dogs in the house.

Q: And are you rested and ready to fight another day?

A: Boy howdy.

Endings: an FAQ.

Q. How would you describe the final exam you just wrote for your Grammar & Style students?

A. Fun. No, wait: transplendent.

Q. Tomorrow, will there be cake in class?

A. I believe so.

Q. Will Reading Day be a quiet day?

A. Unfortunately not.

Q. Have you done all that you could?

A. I am not sure.

Q. But will there be cake?

A. I hope so, I really do.

Q. And is your conscience clear?

A. Not quite: it is not quite clear.

Q. And will there be cake?

A. If I make it, there will be cake.

No, but I would like to talk about my grandchildren.

That's the answer to the question, "Is your writing going well?" by the way.

But I digress! I am doing a swell job of

• reading.
  
• dog-walking.
• cooking with the vegetables God gave us.
• really enjoying the weather.
• giving a bottle to a tiny baby.
• getting smiles and kisses from the one-year-old grandson.
• did I mention reading?
• tracking every stupid bit of commentary about the election.
• obsessing about comments on Scotland daughter's blog about the election.
• thinking about the writing.

I had a dream that had fruit flies in it a couple of days ago. While, for the most part, fruit flies are almost always a negative, as in, Omg why are there so freaking many fruit flies? hanging around the peaches? Sweet Lord please save me from the fruit flies! In the dream, though--and I can't remember much of it--they were, I think, kind of beautiful. Kind of like these insects, catching the light over the Snake:



Maybe the flies in my dream were not so many or quite so busy, and definitely not as creepy (although I find this video also beautiful, but that's just me). But mind in motion, catching the light--not such bad metaphors for writing, actually.