Half-assed, or maybe even less than that.

So, today I was working on a little video project about technique and craft, and it was so far my longest project and my most ambitious conceptually (although not videographically), and I was going to render it--with its voiceover and music and video--and Final Cut Express just basically refused to do it. It would render exactly 5 percent of it, and then stall out. It was being all sorts of difficult. I was having that curious experience of being super stoked and super irritated all at once.

I think I might have to start from scratch and this time do it right instead of diving in and acting like I can suss it out just by blundering around. Stupid complicated powerful program.

However, I did make a video about this new hoodie I just got at Target. Also, my bathroom mirror needs a cleaning. But that will happen tomorrow. Or the next day.

Most Awesome Hoodie EVER. from lisab on Vimeo.

Read and laugh.

INTERNET-AGE
WRITING SYLLABUS AND
COURSE OVERVIEW.

ENG 371WR:
Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era

Or weep. Actually, I have developed a speciality: the weep/laugh.

(from McSweeney's, via the WPA-List)

Project 2.

Since I have a more or less complete draft of my manuscript, I am moving on to project two of my sabbatical (and high time, I'd say, but who has time for self-recrimination? when it's May, and so on and so forth, whoo! August will be here before you know it--but I digress--): the making of short films.

Some of you may have noticed the new feature to your right, Daily Vid. I posted the first one yesterday. These are and will probably always be modest little things, but in the spirit of diving in . . . there's yesterday's over there and here's another:

Miriam. In motion. from lisab on Vimeo.

Update: still waiting for news about my son (my daughter reminds me that no news is no doubt good news). For updates on Craig Arnold, anyone who wants to can go here (I know a lot of you already know, but for those of you that don't).

Out.

In real time.

In real time, waiting is long, and tedious, and heart-wrenching.

In real time, you still might meet a friend for breakfast, and take the dog for a walk, and do a little laundry, and go to the bank. But while you are doing all of these things, you are still waiting.

In real time, sometimes the news is about things happening around the empty space, the space that should hold the news you are waiting for.

In real time, you wake up to no answers and you go to bed to no answers, and in between you talk to people about how strange and awful it is.

In real time, you think there should be something you can do to help, but there is truthfully almost nothing.

In real time, prayers feel so, so very small.

Today I have been thinking about my son, and I'm thinking about my friend. Here's one little bit of the news about the search for Craig Arnold today, and here is a beautiful poem of his.

What matters.

I was going to write (again) about my irritating, high-end refrigerator that decided not to work (broken tiny heater that prevented a drain from not freezing up, then backing up and filling stuff with ice, which blew a fuse which tripped a breaker that's connected to the thigh bone). Trust me, it would have been amusing.

But then this: The Poet Craig Arnold is Missing in Japan. Which sounds like, sort of, Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego? but it's not, because the poet Craig Arnold really is missing. In Japan.

Add to that that my day was bracketed by conversations with people in Singapore--running son and then his mission president--about a small, probably not-such-a-big-deal surgery that he needs to have. Except: general anesthesia. And: half a world away.

Point 1: when I whine, it's just theater, everyone knows that, right? Just a little theater to amuse the people. And myself.

Point 2: half a world away. Waiting and praying.

Open letter to the end of April.

Dear twenty-ninth of April,

I understand that you are appearing tomorrow, pretty much everywhere. I also understand that it's not really your call about when you show up--in fact, you've been lined up between the twenty-eighth and the thirtieth for, oh, I guess about a year now. Still, I'd like to note for the record out just how hasty, how impatient, I feel you are, waiting around the corner, drumming your fingers on the wall, making the obvious point that we're well into spring now, and by God, we've all got plenty to do.

What about the seeds I bought when spring was wearing a flashy dress, way back in early March, making us think it was time for everything: lighter clothes, sandals, no more tights, planting stuff? But I think now, we may have officially reached "too late for peas and lettuce," and it just doesn't seem fair. Was I supposed to be waiting, parka and trowel in hand, for the fifteen minutes between that snow squall and "oh my hell, it's 80 degrees"? I guess so. And twenty-ninth of April, you are not making it easier, bearing down on me and my failure to carpe diem, hauling the first of May around like it's your best friend. Thuggy first of May.

"May" sounds nice. There's May Day and so-called May baskets (although, where did May baskets go? you'd think someone would have figured out how to make some money out of that, in greeting cards alone.). Proverbial May flowers (following April showers). Steady, beautiful weather. But really, May just throws its weight around, because May knows it's pulled a fast one: April came and went, sure, there was a bunch of weather and some tulips, cherry tree bloom yada yada yada and look out, it's July.

Listen, I've got shit to do, twenty-ninth of April. I have revisions. Movies to make. Seeds to plant and yard work and moreover, I've got to find the motivation to do it all. Twenty-ninth of April, just slow down, will you? Take your time. Sleep in, why don't you. Or maybe fall into a nice temporary coma that lasts for maybe a week? It's okay. I'll wake you up when it's time.

Sincerely,

Myself, hightouchmegastore

Organizing project.

Today, while I was checking out Obsessive Consumption, I clicked through to Design*Sponge for this feature on Kate Bingaman-Burt's apartment in Portland:

When I saw this, I remembered that I saw this idea in a book about interior design, which I actually checked out of the library because, what, I was going to . . . ? Well, I liked the pictures, and anyway: in this book, this wildly hilariously incongruous book, I saw that someone had had the aesthetically pleasing idea of organizing their books by color, which it appears Ms. Bingaman-Burt has done. Lovely! I thought, so I decided to do the same.

Who can spot the problem with this scheme? Well, I went ahead and did it anyway, and here's the in-progress result (I'm not showing you the shelves of theory, the spines of which should all be a soul-crushing gray):

Pretty, right? Now, how will I find my books if I can't remember what color they are? The same way I find them now, when I haven't put them in the appropriate section: by scanning the shelves for minutes on end until I remember that the one I want the one I need the one I must have right now now now is probably under my side of the bed, because that's where I was reading it last.

Good day.

Awhile ago, I set a goal that I would have a complete draft--all the note-like things I've had as placeholders for actual poems would be actual poems, albeit possibly in draft form--of my new manuscript by May 1. Today, I did a little assessment of the status of things, and I am exceedingly happy to report that I am in all probability going to meet this goal. And that, the people, is the proverbial bomb. As in, "the bomb."

This may surprise you a little bit, what with all the YouTube research I've done of late and the downloading of Glen Campbell songs, but it is true. I have done fat revisions of poems that were in a sorry state. I have written drafts of things that were the mere whiff of the possibility of the idea of the concept of poems. I have made executive decisions about stuff that no longer appears to need to be in the manuscript. And now, I have

• 2 drafts to write of rather whiffy items
• 3 mash-ups of two or more poems that really should be a single poem
• 1 fat revision of a sorry-state poem
• 2 poems to decide whether they really need to be in the manuscript.

This is doable by May 1. Eminently. After that, I will smoke fat cigars and burn money and download some more stuff, because I will have arrived . . . at the point where I can do more fine-tuned revision. Whoopee!

My midnight confession.

The first record I ever had? 8th grade, Bridge Over Troubled Water.

The very first record I ever had? 7th grade, Gentle On My Mind, by--that's right!--Glen Campbell.

Today, singing son proposed that he and I write a paper sometime about songs about working people, and he mentioned "Wichita Lineman." Which, the people, I had almost completely forgotten about, but which is a very very very good song. As in, a world class great song.

People who have covered "Wichita Lineman": R.E.M., Keith Urban, Cassandra Wilson, Johnny Cash, James Taylor and Freedy Johnston. (Check out the gorgeous piano playing on this performance Jimmy Webb, the composer, gives.)

But scientists have discovered, after extensive research conducted this afternoon on YouTube, that the best version, the people, remains Glen Campbell's:

Also, Glen was way cute, way back when.

The historian as sartorialist.

The historian reviews clothing in a catalog (I suggested he might find something of interest there):

Historian: I don't think I've quite come across what it is you had in mind for me here.

Me: Well, maybe not. I just thought you might see something.

Historian: Everything seems kind of expensive.

Me: You have no idea how much clothes cost anymore.

Historian (pauses to consider justice of this trenchant observation): Well, I don't think socks used to cost twelve dollars a pair.

Me: You know, I've bought you socks that cost that much.

Historian: Actually, my all-time favorite pair of socks cost fifteen dollars, and that was years ago.

Me: You have an all-time favorite pair of socks? What were they like?

Historian: They were wool, I guess . . . they were dress socks, and they came up this high (gestures at mid-calf). When you're wearing dress socks, you don't want . . .

Me (finishing his sentence (very bad habit)): Gapping? (at this point, trying to imagine:) So they were just . . . black socks?

Historian: I can't quite remember--textured, maybe. (Pauses, remembering:) They were the first pair of socks that showed me what socks could be.

This is basically how I feel when I read the news.

Via The Onion:

Seymour Hersh Uncovers New Thing Too Sad To Think About

NEW YORK—Sources at The New Yorker said a new article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh "blows the lid completely off" a subject matter far too soul-crushing for the human brain to process. Hersh, renowned for breaking stories on events such as the My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib, is said to have plumbed every last, depressing detail of the newly uncovered topic, which likely involves an inconceivable combination of violence, drunken abuses of power, wanton disregard for the sanctity of human life, and a chain of deceit and corruption leading all the way to the top. According to a recent poll, none of The New Yorker's nearly 1 million subscribers had summoned the strength to crack the story's first paragraph, instead turning to the new Roz Chast cartoon on the next page.

My virtues.

Well, it's a short list, and I can't really think of any of the items that are on it at the moment, but I can think of the items on the list of Things That Are Not My Virtues, and it starts with

1. Patience.

The historian is patient. He often says, "Historians have to have patience," (I may have made that exact sentence up, although I know he has said something like that in the past. (2. Telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. is another item on my list of Things That Are Not My Virtues.)). I don't know if it's his vocation or his temperament or what, but he does not fly off the handle, pitch fits, sink into funks, or any of the other vices associated with not being patient.

I do. I do all of these things, although I strive not to and am getting better at forestalling my impatience. (Parenthetically, let me add that if I were allowed to stay on sabbatical forever, I am sure my patience would improve. Powers that Rule the Universe, please take note.)

For instance: today was beautiful. It was warm. Everything is in bloom. After an exquisitely refreshing walk with Bruiser, I put on a skirt and reveled in the springiness of it all. (Also, I deleted thousands, and I am not exaggerating, of e-mails from my work e-mail, because finally they got around to telling me, "Hey! You have way too many e-mails, sister." (3. Promptness in carrying out necessary tasks.))

The general blessedness of today did not, however, stop me from having the thought that there is literally NO fruit that is locally in season at the moment. None.

When will the local, seasonal fruit arrive? When?

(4. Gratitude.)

Sunday.

1. slept the sleep of the (pot-sticker-making) just.

2. woke up to sunlight.

3. talked/webchatted to the Scotlands while eating breakfast.

4. bought cute shirt at Target.

5. took B for a walk.

6. ate leftover Mexican food for lunch.

7. watched/ignored Jazz game (hope/agony/hope/agony).

8. renewed ancient grudge against Lakers and possibly all NBA.

9. read NY Times. (Sample from Maureen Dowd's column:

The first thing I wanted to do in the Bay Area was go out to Skywalker Ranch and ask George Lucas about a disturbing conversation we’d had at an Obama inaugural party in Washington.

Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” had told me that I had gotten Dick Cheney completely wrong, that Cheney was no Darth Vader. I felt awful. Had I been too hard on Vice?

Lucas explained politely as I listened contritely. Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader. “George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”

I was relieved. In “Star Wars” terms, Dick Cheney was more evil than Darth Vader. I hadn’t been hard enough on Vice!

Lucas was on his way to Europe and didn’t have time to elaborate in person. But he sent me this message confirming our conversation: “You know, Darth Vader is really a kid from the desert planet near Crawford, and the true evil of the universe is the emperor who pulls all the strings.”)

10. took walk in the park with Singing Son's family.

11. ate splendid leftovers for dinner.

12. new season: Law & Order: Criminal Intent (new Jeff Goldblum character to be introduced next week!).

13. did entire Sunday NY Times crossword.

14. contemplated the genre of the funeral oration. Wrote poem.

And now, I am about to start reading a new novel. That is how Sundays are, at least the good ones.

Momentous culinary event.

There are moments, here on the internet, when I fear I am talking to no one . . . but anyway: today I made pot stickers. I did what any sensible person does, goes on The Google to find out the 411 (or, as my NYTimes crossword had it yesterday, the "FOURONEONE") about pot sticker technique, and then I made my own recipe.

We had the historian's kids over for dinner with the passel of relevant grandkids. It was noisy and fun, and also delicious. I made a Thai-style curry, including a vegetable one that was sublime, I tell you. (I think the secret is Kaffir lime leaves, which I was lucky enough to find at Whole Foods one day not so long ago and which I hope I will someday find again--I did not let a single glossy dark green leaf go to waste, they were that precious and indeed that curry-altering.) Also, garlic snap peas. Also, salad with oranges, avocado, and cardamom seeds. Also, the pot stickers. They had grated carrot, Napa cabbage, garlic, green onion, a little ground peanut, mint, cilantro, and maybe something else, I forget. Salt. I fried them in some roasted peanut oil, another pantry item that I have cherished and doled out sparingly. I will need to find another bottle, but this may entail a quest. The dipping sauce had soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, ginger and green onion and it was divine. Everyone loved the pot stickers and I was so proud of them, their little pursed selves, how well they held together and how delicious they were.

Since everyone went home and we loaded the dishwasher and packed away the leftovers, I have been watching restful and foot-healing amounts of television. When you cook a big dinner, sometimes you are on your feet for awhile or all day. Movies on television, some of which I have seen so many times it would blow your mind, are just the thing to make your feet feel better. And no, I will not say what these movies are. As if. Like I need the internet to make fun of me for my movie preferences.

Huh, anxious.

This week, I spent several hours at school for this and that, and I am contemplating the fact that I will have to go to work in August. The horror.

I am about to enter the seven stages of grief, and right now, I am in

1. denial. Please do not, if you happen to be talking to me, try to describe the amount of time I have between now and when school starts again in units of days, weeks, or even months. All those units have the end result of making the time I have left to me appear very small. I am not interested in information conveyed in these units. If you would like to talk to me about this subject--and really, it might be dangerous for you, so I would recommend, for your own health and well-being, just don't--but if you have to, if you must, perhaps you could convey it in the form of bird whistles. Or, like, a dance.

After denial comes 2. guilt. Why have I not accomplished more? What about the playing the piano I was going to do every day? the meditating? the total transformation of my inner life and also the way I was going to look thinner? and sexier? when I came back. I feel a little guilty about that.

Next, I believe, will come bargaining (3.), and I have a lot of bargains I would like to strike with the Powers that Rule the Universe, if they would let me keep writing and I would not have to go back to work. I would keep my house clean! I would bake bread! I would volunteer my time for worthy causes! And: cheerful--I would be so cheerful!

Recommendations.

Upon the recommendation of my Scotland daughter, I just downloaded Bat for Lashes and MGMT, which prompted Amazon to recommend that I also download "Don't Fear the Reaper." Yes, that's right, Blue Oyster Cult.

No, no, it turns out it was recommended for me because I downloaded "Rock On," by David Essex, last week. Thank God, the internet makes sense.

Revisiting.

I am still writing like mad and it feels great. Because of the Poem-a-day project, I'm trying to get new poems going, but I'm also working off of old notes and ideas, and my confluence of methods seems to be keeping me in a groove. Today I looked at some notes about my grandmother's death and worked a poem out of that; I'm now working on another Dublin poem, working from some notes there (also doing research on bridges and rivers and ruins and conquest and maps). This has been a very pleasurable day--even the housework I've done has felt, well, satisfying.

Also, I just read a comment on my friend Ann's blog, about the crazy stuff dogs eat--someone noted that their dogs would eat wasps and bees and flies right out of the sky. That, my friends, is a poem just begging to be written. Somebody better get on it.

Happy Easter.

12. The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Garden planning.

After a trip to the Garden Center, I report my findings to the Historian:

Me (waxing rhapsodic): . . . and I found the rose --I'm pretty sure this was the rose--that was in my backyard in California, when I was in high school!

Historian (very good sport): Mmmm!

Me: It's a Grandiflora. (suddenly pedantic:) That means a big tall bush. With big flowers. It's called the Queen Elizabeth. Big pink flowers.

Historian: (pauses.) So did you buy it?

Me: No, I decided to wait because I knew I would need you to dig some holes. So I thought I should talk to you first.

Historian: . . .

Me: How do you feel about that?

Historian: . . . conflicted.

Slap method.

Maybe I don't have a new method so much as I'm developing a well-curated boutique of methods. Here's the newest:

1. Arrange to have your friend send you a missive from the world of Jeannette Winterson.

2. Decide, "I'ma write a pome about that."

3. Entitle a word-processing document "a pome about that."

4. Decide to restart your computer. Don't save the document with nothing but a title on it.

5. Go hither and yon. Do this and that and whatnot. Pause to press your hand to your forehead to see if you might be coming down with something.

6. Make a dinner out of what have you.

7. Watch a hella lotta television.

8. After all of that, start a new word-processing document. Look up the Indo-European roots of about four or so words. Use thesaurus.com. Slap that poem together. Poke it and prod it a little. Et voila.

You could also try the method of using a song to do the above, in which case, add step 7.5: "Put a relevant--loosely or closely--song on repeat on iTunes. Play it till your poem is written or till your ears bleed."

But hey. I'm just one poem behind in Poem-A-Day, and that's not bad. However, I do think I'm coming down with something. Today, I used the Slap Method (with Optional Song), but I had to take a nap first. And do the crossword.

Today's accomplishments: seeing Deacon when he woke up; breakfast with Ann; excellent footwear find at Nordstrom Rack; possible illness; compensatory nap; banking errand; poem; Vietnamese dinner and an amazing movie with the historian.

She had it coming.

Anyone who brags about a new method that is working so unbelievably fantastically well after the phenomenal stretch of three whole days probably deserves to

1. wake up with scratchy eyes and curse the wind.

2. fail to find the lost keys in an always chaotic house.

3. have no internet for a whole day because of a change in ISP, meaning that the new e-mail waiting from running son was out of reach.

4. go to the nearest campus (the wi-fi!) with what has got to take the prize for the Worst Laptop on Earth (this is purely factual and contains not even a tinge of whining. It just is. The Worst.).

5. try said new method and feel not one tiny pulse of life in the material. Big whoop, is what the freewrite, notes, &c. said to me, as I perused and re-perused. Screw you.

I did, however, have the consolation of a dog who sat with me through my trials. Seriously, when I wrapped up in the big blanket to stay warm and nurse my troubles, he nosed his way underneath, possibly in a show of solidarity, although it must be said that his motives may have been a little self-serving. I believe he may have been waiting for the merest hint that we might take a walk.

New, improved method.

Today, the third day in a row in which I took a poem that had previously had me backed into a corner and wrote it, I realized that I have, in fact, a new method. Here's how it goes:

1. Get out previous drafts, note, freewrites, glyphs.

2. Peruse them.

3. Procrastinate in any number of ways, to wit:

• go buy the scarf that you foolishly didn't buy yesterday because you were feeling sweaty
• wash the sheets
• load the dishwasher
• start reading a book that you recently bought
• download the songs you realized last night that you (a) did not have and (b) needed
• download various free song samplers from Amazon
• recharge and sync iPods to take account of newly downloaded &c.
• eat a cookie
• eat another cookie
• walk the dog
• eat lunch
• inspect the roses and admire the creeping phlox, which is blooming.

4. (optional) take a nap.

5. Re-peruse the materials in 1 above.

6. Check your e-mail, check your blog, check the Huffington Post, check the Fug Girls.

7. Repeat 3, 5, and 6 as necessary.

8. Write the new draft.

In other news, this morning at 6:48 a.m. I let the cat out. At 7:15 a.m., I let her back in, not noticing that she was carrying with her a dead mouse. New method: check cat's mouth in case of vermin transport.

Very good.

In a document I call "Daily Writing," I had this to say about today:

sweaty shopping excursion, ugh
after all that bravado, feeling: RELUCTANT to start anew on the terrifying poem.

(Re the sweaty shopping: because I started to feel sweaty, I failed to buy a beautiful scarf that I am totally regretting at the moment. I hope no one else bought it before I get there tomorrow at 10 a.m., sharp, to snag it myself.)

But: back to the tedious story of me writing.

1. I got out my fat freewrite re terrifying poem.
2. I got out my ancillary notes on my fat freewrite.
3. I went shopping.
4. I took a shower to wash off the shopping sweat.
5. I ate my lunch.
6. I looked at my freewrites and ancillary notes. I took some more notes.
7. Exhausted from all the getting out and the looking and the note-taking, I lay down and finished my French detective novel.
8. I sleep-wrote.
9. I got up, slightly disgusted with myself for the self-delusional "sleep-writing" nonsense I was shoveling.
10. I WROTE A FRESH, FULL DRAFT OF THE TERRIFYING POEM.

Wrote and cried, cried and wrote. When he got home, the historian asked, "Are you okay?" I told him about the crying and writing. He said, "Yeah, you look like you've just been crying." I told him I had just finished the tear-stained draft.

And today, the writing--all of it--was very, very good.

Corner.

I feel a little ridiculous saying so, but today I feel I turned a corner on this manuscript that has been one-half of my nominal rationale for a sabbatical. That's because, today, for my writing group, I decided to finally tackle the poem I've been calling "The New York Dolls" poem for nigh unto two years now.

This is one of those poems I allowed to saturate in dread (if dread were a kind of marinade) and then roll in scholarship (if scholarship were, say, toasted ground nuts--if you're following my recipe) until it became practically unwritable. Today, for instance, before I made myself bang out a horrible draft (I know, I have told you this story before, but that was another poem), I consulted:

• the Latin of The Aeneid;
• several stodgy translations of The Aeneid;
• the lyrics to many New York Dolls songs;
• a discussion of Kant's Critique of Judgment by Lyotard.

That seems like a lot for a poem to carry, in my humble opinion, and also it proved to be rather humbling, trying to figure out how to paste this stuff together in a way that felt remotely felicitous. I ended mid-poem, literally--the last line ended with a colon, which signified all that would come after. All that should come after. All that must come after, if it were to be a poem at all.

But hey, and what do you know, the horrible draft ended up being not so horrible after all, and when I read the poem to the group, with many last minute cuts and emendations and additions, ending mid-poem, they thought that the non-ending made a great ending, and all my big fill-in-the-blank ideas of what should come after the colon melted away, and the poem, she is finished, or dang near.

Because this poem had terrorized me into random acts of scholarship and truly awful avoidance behavior, the fact of having drafted it successfully has me feeling that I am nearer to a whole draft of this manuscript than I thought. In fact, I believe I will tackle the other terrorist poem in my manuscript tomorrow, because I am on a roll: Iceman, Power Lisa, my assault on the world starts NOW.

Data data data.

Found this, this morning, on TED: Tim Berners-Lee, who, did you know this? is said to have invented (yes, "invented"!) the World Wide Web. He's rather excitable in this lecture, but is pointing the way to what is called, variously, Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web:

Also, yesterday in the mail came a slim volume, the CD-ROM of Chris Marker's Immemory, a very poetic, idiosyncratic and gorgeous meditation on memory, which the user navigates in a highly poetic and idiosyncratic way. It only recently became available again--if anyone wants a demo, I'd be happy to share. It requires the Mac OS X to run.

Did/did not.

Today, I did

• sleep a blissful little bit longer than usual
• have a bagel for breakfast with the historian
• work on my manuscript
• take B for a walk during a break in the snow--well, mostly a break
• go to the bank
• contemplate the spring and also the summer
• text various children
• go to bank
• slide a movie into late afternoon/evening plans (Adventureland--lovely, and excellent soundtrack)
• go to evening work event (very clever, to go to late afternoon movie! made the evening work event bearable and even enjoyable)
• write poem 3 of the Poem a Day project.

However, I did not

• say no to a large work-related commitment for next year
• make a lovely homemade breakfast
• completely get over my hot eyes syndrome
• complete textbook review
• write a textbook proposal
• do a crossword puzzle
• take a nap
• have very many conversations with Bruiser.

And thus, on balance, aside from hot eyes syndrome, this was a good day, spring snow and all.

Today.

1. My eyes felt hot.

2. The wind sounded ominous.

3. After breakfast with daughter and grandson, I stayed in.

That is all.

p.s. Poem A Day is ongoing here. You can go there if you've checked your pockets and your purse but still find yourself in need of some poems for National Poetry Month. Dr. Write is there and so is Nik, as well as friendly others who may or may not post, we'll just have to see. As of today, April 2, I am two for two.

Megastore Dog Road Home Rescue Place.

Today, when Bruiser and I set out for our walk, we hadn't gone very far when he halted, at full dog-across-the-street alert. He's not a pointer, but if he had been a pointer, he would have pointed. Dog! Across the street!

It was a little cocker spaniel, buff-colored, with a collar but without any leash or person attached to her. She was walking like she meant business, but when Bruiser stopped, she stopped, and I thought, Damn. Who are you, little buff-colored dog?

We went across the street and I checked her tag. There was a phone number. I had no cell phone and, more to the point, no reading glasses, so I hoisted her up and carried her back to my house, Bruiser leading the way. The number was the vet's, who tracked down her rabies shot number, which gave me the name and phone number of her owner. And the dog's name--Annie. I called and left a message.

After that, the three of us went for a walk. Bruiser thought that was a novel, interesting, perhaps foolhardy and overly ambitious enterprise. Periodically, he stopped, wheeled around, and gave little Annie the business. Picture me as a Maypole and the dogs as children winding ribbons in a complicated dance. Picture that, but with growling and yelping and yiping. I was like Shiva, doing the dance of a zillion hands, untangling the leashes.

But it was a lot of fun.

The whole walk long, I thought--and these were foolish thoughts--what if we get to keep Annie? She's such a cute dog! It's fun to have a little dog with a big dog. I bet they'll get along. We could take walks like this every day!

I got to talk to the owner, who was at work. She asked if it would be all right if Annie stayed there till she got home. All right? You bet. At that point, I was preparing to take a rest, and both dogs were curled up with me on the bed.

So now, no more Annie. But the day we rescued Annie--it was still a pretty great day.

My calendar is very full.

Today I

• arose at 7 to take my folks to the airport.
• had croissants at Les Madeleines.
• visited the Whole Foods Food Emporium.
• took a long walk by the Jordan River with my friend, after which I
• found that I had hurt my feet because I was too hasty in leaving the house and didn't have socks on.
• pondered the significance of this lapse in judgement.
• took a shower.
• answered e-mail, took a phone call, got some more poems rejected, ate some leftover spaghetti.
• made lemon madeleines.
• took another phone call, then another one.
• prepared for the Ballets Russes event, culmination of the avant-garde poetry workshop.
• ate several madeleines.
• went to Target and forgot to buy the new Prince recording.
• made copies of my manuscript and mailed it.
• moaned a little.
• did yesterday's crossword puzzle.
• moaned some more and took some ibuprofen.
• went to the event and read some poetry aloud to a small group with elegant taste (clearly).
• came home, watched the Jazz play on the road (translation: torture that should be prohibited by the Geneva Convention).
• waited for young running son to write, probably in vain because I think he got transferred this week.

What do I mean by this recitation of mundane events? Well, first of all, I fear I may never blog again if I don't at least try. Second of all, what this day was like? Ridiculous. I got no writing done. I suppose I could have squeezed some in there amongst the moaning and the ibuprofen, but the moaning felt needful. Necessary. Of great moment. Pressing.

So there you have it. If the Jazz keep on being awful on the road, I may moan some more.

Something.

This is not amusing or lively, but it is beautiful and cool:

This is Chris Marker's piece Junktopia. In looking for video essay stuff, I found that ubuweb has a bunch of avant-garde short films linked here. It's a total trove.

Please, shut up.

For the past couple of days, I've found myself monumentally bored with every possible thing I might have to say in a blog-shaped utterance called a "post." Here's what happened: I went back in the archives to find out when, exactly, our Great Mouse Invasion was (I didn't find it, so whatever date I put in that last post--totally made up).

First of all, this exercise made me very glad I have kept this blog--there is a record of my days there, and things I would never remember had I not written it. Second of all, I found a lot of things to like in the writing, which is a good feeling.

At least, it's a good feeling at first, because after that, and third of all, I felt an overwhelming, existential nausea overcome me. What is all the crap I fill my days with of late? Why are there no charming little essays, manifesti, letters to inanimate objects, whatever, that come to mind? Moreover, why is my life so crowded with obligations I can't seem to remember to take care of? And avoidance--why are my hours so powerfully controlled by my urge to avoid whatever it is that's at hand, needing to be done?

I know, it's insufferable. As Robert Lowell said, "I myself am hell." Not to mention, hell on other people.

So that--this absurd state of funk, for absolutely no good reason, really--that's why I haven't blogged for a couple of days. But now: I finished a draft of the paper my colleague and I are writing. I hung up all my clothes. I turned in my travel papers to be reimbursed. I don't know, the day looks brighter.

In the meantime, I have found another possible alternative career--ghost Twitterer.

Signs.

It is mouse season. Since the Great Mouse Invasion of 2007, we have had no further pestilence or rodentine apparitions. However, the cat is our reminder that the mice are there, always there, in the field beyond the fence. The other evening (the night the Magic took the Jazz to the Orlandian woodshed, the very same), I opened the back door for Bruiser only to see, at the foot of the steps, precisely half a mouse and, out of the corner of my eye, an elderly cat scampering in a murderous way. The people, my cat is a serial killer. If she sees a mouse, she will pop a cap in its ass and then eat it. Except for a small pile of innards. Those, she likes to leave as a sign for the criminal profiler.

The economy is weird (or, For whom was this ad written?). Ad for Saks Fifth Avenue in today's New York Times: "MARC BY MARC JACOBS SWIMWEAR. Get a goody-filled zebra-striped beach tote with your $400 swimwear purchase, plus enjoy beach-ready body treatments and more."

I am flummoxed.

Celeriac, my dears. I got a couple of knobby, sprouty pieces of celeriac from Chad recently, and used them a couple of days ago when I made soup. Trim, slice, dice, saute, and your soup will be ever so delightfully redolent of celery, in addition to whatever other vegetables you may have whipped into the mix. What is a cleaner, more refreshing flavor than celery? I ask you.

Snow & the apricot.

This weekend at the multiplex.

Every so often, when we've seen every arty, independent, and/or foreign film in town--you know, the ones that confirm for us we are special and have good taste--and we see movies at the multiplex which is right around the corner from our house. That's right: we live near a movie theater that is so huge it lights up the freaking sky at night, if you look in the right direction. Said theater has stadium seating that, if you get to your showing early enough, allows you to stretch out and even put up your feet. At said theater, you not only have previews, you have commercials and the interminable First Bludgeoning feature, wherein they show you stuff about the upcoming horror film marathon that is summer, the new sitcom on ABC Family that is curiously--curiously!--like Friends, and some other stuff. Said theater shows films that have been focus-grouped and audience-feedbacked to bits. This weekend, the multiplex made us happy with the film-products we viewed.

Exhibit A, Duplicity. I have been in conversations recently, with Dr. Write and another friend, in which they noted they didn't much care for Julia Roberts. Also, recently I read a review by a professional reviewer who noted the same. In my Personal Julia Roberts Filmography (PJRF), I have edited out certain films, certain awful films, because who really needs to remember them? And last night I saw a bit of My Best Friend's Wedding, which is, honestly, quite a bit worse than I remember. So what I'm saying is, I can see their point. And yet, I have never quite crossed that line, the line of not caring for JR, and so it was good to see her last night. She was good. And my friends, Clive Owen was excellent.

Here let me pause to point out that the analytic category we call "chemistry" is highly subjective. After viewing the film on Friday night, I checked out the Metacritic reviews (average score, about 70), and the reviews ran the gamut, from A.O. Scott saying the chemistry between Roberts and Owen was terrific, to some grouch somewhere else saying there was absolutely no chemistry. In case you want my vote: chemistry was effervescent and delightful and very sexy.

We enjoyed Duplicity. It was directed by Tony Gilroy who directed Michael Clayton, which, in case anyone has forgotten, was one of my very favorite films of the last quite a bit of time. This isn't as good as that. But it had an absorbing, tricky-but-not-too-tricky plot, and it zipped along except when there were some small draggy parts. But mostly zipped. Sexy and tricky. Zippy!

Exhibit B, I Love You, Man. This is part of the variously-designated Apatow-esque series (though I believe Apatow had nothing directly to do with this film--he was merely its genial spirit, its motive force, its Prime Mover) of comedies that, if I am frank with you, the people--and what should I be if not frank?--I love. I love them because they are funny, and because "funny" is what you are looking for in a comedy. Funny, and genius, but if you can't have genius, you better have funny.

ILY,M is funny with a side of funny, and funny sauce to top it off. Paul Rudd? Funny. Jason Segel? Funny. Chemistry between the two of them? Forget about it. You may wish to save this movie for when it comes out on DVD. You may wish to save it for a dark, dark day, when you feel you have nothing left to live for. This movie will lead you out of this dark, dark place, with laughter your Beatrice, leading you from the stinking inferno that is regular life, to the Paradise that is a funny-ass comedy. You heard it here.

Let us pause so that we may reflect.

From the Geoffrey Wolff's review of Blake Bailey's Cheever: A Life (New York Times Book Review, 3/15/09):

[Bailey] sometimes bores right to the center of complex relationships, revealing their essence in a sentence, as when he explains Cheever’s reluctance to teach while working on a novel, resenting “distractions of any kind, especially the muddling static of apprentice prose." [Italics--it goes without saying--mine.]

On the other hand, I suppose that none of us wishes s/he were John Cheever, either.

Beautiful information. (apologies to Mr. Tufte)

I ran across an article on Slate about Ben Huh, Internet boy genius who thought up I Can Has Cheezburger and other meme-related sites, including GraphJam, a site in which people graph unlikely topics (relationship of money and troubles, stuff your parents lecture you about, etc.). The article led me to this fantastic flickr set, Song Chart Meme. Here is "I Will Survive," as a timeline (click to see a larger version):

made by metacub
Originally uploaded by boyshapedbox.

Make sure to look at the rest of the set: it's genius. Oh, fine, just one more:

made by sultmhoor
Originally uploaded by boyshapedbox.

Questions & statements.

1. Can anyone give me one good reason I shouldn't dye a pair of white jeans brilliant yellow? Because I'm going to.

2. Question: What is the best M&M? Answer: Almond is the best M&M.

3. I need an agenda. I need some agendas. I need a lot of agendas. Or, possibly, I may need to drastically improve my character.

4. Writing is reading is writing is reading is writing is reading is writing.

5. A year of wearing mostly comfortable shoes renders uncomfortable shoes exponentially more uncomfortable.

6. Today, we have to save capitalism. We can dismantle it later.

7. Some people describe some artists as mere technicians, but technique is really never mere.

8. I speak very, very fluent Spanish. (not true at all. A big fat lie, in fact. But a quotation from Stevie Wonder, so in that sense, true.)

9. (conversation at a gelato stand in Geneva:)

Qu'est-ce que c'est "cannelle"?

Cannelle? C'est--c'est cannelle!

(cannelle is cinnamon, a fact which momentarily escaped the customer, hence the question.)

Any more questions? or statements? Please! I'm not sure why you think I could help you.

Alternative careers (installment 334).

There's a fashion blog that I love so much it actually makes me wince a little--Go Fug Yourself (Because Fugly is the New Pretty). I have shared this blog (wherein the Fug Girls skewer with rapier-like wit the fashions of CelebWorld) with a few of you, I know, but not with everyone, because I don't want you all to think I'm shallow like that. I envy these bloggers, because they are hilarious and observant and also because I am convinced that their job is to look at magazines, read e-mail, and watch trash television--and then to write hilarious and observant posts about it all. Then eat Cheetos and drink Diet Coke. Not that I would ever do that.

But this feature, on New York Magazine's The Cut blog (which the Fug bloggers edit), absolutely tears it. In this case, they're sharing their shopping expertise in a little thing they call "Shop-a-Matic." Each installment of Shop-a-Matic gives you a whole bunch of variations on a theme--in this case, spring dresses--in all price ranges. It's fun to click through the slideshow (No. No. Never. Maybe. No. No. Too expensive. Wait, I think I just saw that at Target. Seriously? Ooooh!). But as I was clicking away, thinking to myself, those Fug Girls have the best job EVER, I realized, Hey. I don't need this so-called Shop-a-Matic! I AM Shop-a-Matic!

The people, I am hereby offering you my services as your own personal ShopRobot. All you need to do is tell me what you're looking for, and I will find you something awesome that expresses your personal gorgeousness. That's right, you heard me: tell me the kind of clothing you want and I will find it for you, and at a price you can afford.

Do you need

• Black linen cropped trousers?
• Spring-y floral floaty top?
• Tee shirt in a silky soft but not-too-sheer fabric?
• A clever bag in just the right size and shape?
• Sculptural shoes?

Like a robot, which as we all know is made by science, I will use my proprietary algorithms to locate these items of clothing for you, and more. And to think, all you have to do is ask.

"It."

Recently, I read this (a post on Terrible Mother which makes reference to a now-notable accusation made by Alice Walker's daughter that she was a bad mom), then this (an article on Salon that talks some more about that accusation, following through to a consideration of the question about whether a mom can be an important writer and an attentive mother--the answer the author comes up with is, "Trust me, a woman really cannot do both. The myth that we can is a dangerous one."), and I have ever since been wondering about this question:

when women ask, "can women have/do/be it all?" what is "it"?

This is a serious question. Now that I am officially old, I really do look at my life with a different filter. For instance, when I look at my 20s, I think, there were people who could have, or maybe should have, given me advice about, say, how to "do" grad school, and maybe I could have learned from others how to focus and sharpen my ambitions beyond, say, getting good grades and keeping my scholarship. But, and on the other hand, if I had become a different kind of person--a person with sharpened and more focused ambitions, or a person who made more of her grad school experience--my life might have turned out quite differently than it had. At this point, I'm not sure that would be all that much of an improvement.

What if "it" is "a rich, full life"? Is that so impossible? (As you can see, I am conducting an argument with myself. Feel free to jump in at any point, though I can't promise you I will yield the floor.)

Slow down hurry up.

On Friday, we took a grandson to lunch for his sixth birthday. A few weeks earlier, he was trying to slow down time, since he was thoroughly enjoying being five and not too sure about six--trying, in his words, to "save himself from six." (Quixotically, however, he also wants to "fast forward to Christmas.")

The people: I am interested in saving myself from spring--we are on the cusp of it, today a delicious day, just on the cusp of it. I have seeds I've purchased that I'm going to plant: lettuces, kale, peas, sweet peas, poppies, larkspur. I like that there's still a chill in the air. I like that it's too soon yet to wear flip flops, shorts, bare legs--but it's almost here. I would like to pause

while this moment lasts and lasts and lasts.

This desire to linger has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that time rushing by means that the elapsing of sabbatical time also rushes. Nothing whatsoever.

Little bits of news.

Recent downloads:

• Mike Errico, Pictures of the Big Vacation
• U2, No Line on the Horizon
• Willie Nelson/Asleep at the Wheel, Willie and the Wheel
• Kutiman, Kutiman
• Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
• John Lee Hooker, I Feel Good
• Robbie Fulks, Georgia Hard

My nephew found this, which is really, literally, too cool for words (this guy remixes music on YouTube to make songs of his own--wow wow wow):

Have an awesome weekend, you guys.

Cheap therapy.

I used to have a therapist, who I liked a lot, and who I visited, on and off, for many years. I cried, I argued, I bargained, I blah blah blah. It was therapy. I learned a lot and I have more tools now than before I went to therapy. Now that I've said that, I don't plan to say another word--if that!--about therapy.

Except that occasionally I buy a copy of O, the Oprah magazine. Don't bother to tell me what's wrong with that. I already know. But sometimes it just kind of cheers me up, gives me a lift, and let me tell you, at this point, I much prefer it to going week after week to an excellent, compassionate, insightful, and skillful professional. For one thing, it only costs me about $4.

Now, as for what I have gleaned in terms of life-improving, soul-healing material with this month's issue: Sarah Vowell's Bookshelf (the "Bookshelf," for those of you whose intake of periodicals includes only The Believer and professional journals, and who would not stoop to mass-market uplift, is a regular feature in O, in which a famous person talks about five or so books that have been important to him or her).

I love Sarah Vowell and her weird little voice. I love her occasional columns in the New York Times. I love running into her on This American Life and wherever else I might run into her. I might, sometime, read Assassination Vacation. Or not. In O this month, she names five books that made a difference to her: Great Lodges of the National Parks, by Christine Barnes; Lincoln at Gettysburg, by Garry Wills; Great Plains, by Ian Frazier; Chronicles, Volume One, by Bob Dylan; and Out of Sheer Rage, by Geoff Dyer. Of this last, she says:

This is a book about not being able to write a book about D. H. Lawrence. Dyer is frustrated and therefore hilarious. He procrastinates. He can't concentrate. He's indecisive about everything from where to live to what to pack. And he lays bare the embarrassing secret of authors. Namely, the amount of stupidity and paralysis and adolescent putting things off that goes into writing about even the most high-minded subjects. As a person who gets paid to pontificate about my nation's history and ideals (but only after walking back and forth to the crackers in my pajamas and/or watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on cable), I find this book terribly funny and painfully true.

Yeah. I get that. I will read this book, absolutely, and after I have contemplated my own weird little dances of avoidance for the writing I am supposed to do, and I want to do, then I will calculate my unanticipated, ancillary sabbatical expenses, such as the overages for crackers and other salty snacks. Oh my Lord.

Bruiser dreams of spring.

For Lent.

Me (there are Reese's flavored Easter eggs on a television commercial): That's right, it's almost Easter.

The historian: That's why, when I stopped at the 7-Eleven on my way home for a bottle of Coke, except I bought Dr. Pepper instead, at the cash register, I said to myself, "That's a Cadbury egg," and I bought one and ate the whole thing in the car.

Me: So you think that's fine, eating Easter candy now? Even though it's Lent?

Historian: Well . . .

Me: I guess you don't really observe Lent.

Historian: No, actually, I'm giving up texting for Lent.

Me: [mirth]

Historian: Also, the desire to text.

Me: [mirth redoubled]

Historian: Also, . . . what is that? Twittering.

Listing.

I found this list via digg, and it's got me thinking about the whole enterprise of the list. Which I love, I think by now it goes without saying.

The list under our discussion, "75 Albums Every Man Should Own," is one of Esquire's millions of lists of 75 things (in honor of their 75th anniversary), and comprises a scintillating mix of things I haven't heard by artists I like or admire (Willie Nelson, David Bowie, Dire Straits), artists I've never listened to, or at least not much (Minor Threat, Cody Chesnutt, Bill Callahan), and artists I hate, viscerally (KISS). Oh, and recordings I know and love: What's Going On, Rubber Soul, The Bends, Blood on the Tracks, Combat Rock, Who's Next, Grace.

Now: What recordings would I say that every human needs to hear? I cannot give you 75, but perhaps, in honor of my blog's almost 4th anniversary, I could choose four, or eight, or twelve. Or maybe I could, instead of saying what's essential, or required listening, or de rigueur, or something like that . . . I could just say, here are a bunch of artists who hardly ever, if ever, let me down:

• Emmylou Harris
• Gillian Welch
• Keith Jarrett
• Brad Mehldau
• Lindsey Buckingham
• any of them there Wainwrights
• The Beatles, Beck, The Who
• Mavis Staples
• Van Morrison
• Neil Young
• Nellie McKay
• Patti Smith
• Richard Thompson
• Rickie Lee Jones

I'll add Joni Mitchell, who has become so cranky lately that it's hard to say she never disappoints, but still. That's eighteen, not a multiple of four in any way that I can think of, but it's a little list of, maybe, kind of, some of the crucial artists for me.

And yours?

Ill-est.

Well, I did go to Target today, but I didn't buy anything, and I did work on a poem to take to my writing group today, and we did eat soup for dinner and then I spent most of the evening horizontal when I wasn't cursing the wireless situation at my house for being all fouled up AGAIN, but when I found this link on kottke, I decided that it was time to get licensed, for the first time in my life, after all these years, and for such a good price!  You can too, but as of now, you have exactly 69 minutes.

Without peer.

Tonight we saw The Class, which is pretty much the best film I have ever seen about teaching, classrooms, students, and education as a social enterprise.  Everyone should run to see it, as fast as you can, so we can all talk about it.

This was but one activity in a pretty much terrific Saturday that involved: 

• a long and loving reading of the sports pages, post the Jazz win, with
• muffins, after which 
• a walk with the dog under a perfectly clear, perfectly blue sky, and then
• dropping clothes off and picking clothes up at the cleaners, and then
• buying vegetables and eggs from Chad and Chad's dad, followed by
• a lunch with the historian's son and his family, which led to 
• visits to several furniture consignment stores at which we were looking for nothing at all, and 
• a visit to Ken Sanders, then
• the movie, after which we drove to the Red Iguana which had scads of people milling around waiting to get in, so we skedaddled along Redwood Road, and had
• dinner at a new-to-us Mexican restaurant.  

Just as we were sipping (in my case, guzzling) the last of our Cokes, the historian said to me: "I wonder how late that new Nordstrom is open?"  

I said I figured it'd be open till 9.  

He said, "Would it be okay if, after we finish here, we went and looked around a little bit?"

The historian does not like to shop, a dislike which extends to pretty much all places where shopping takes place, such as department stores, malls, and department stores located in malls. But he loves me, which is why this brought tears to my eyes.  Yes, the people, I was brought to tears over a Coke in a west side Mexican restaurant because my husband offered to take me to the mall.  So we went, and it was glorious and shiny, and then we came home, to find that West Jordan took the 5-A state championship, which I find absurdly gratifying.  Actually, I taught their coach in an Intro to Lit class at the University.  I'm pretty sure, therefore and ergo, that I had A LOT to do with their victory tonight.  Boo ya!

In basketball news.

1.  I love Deron Williams.  Love. Him.

2. I love Charles Barkley because he loves, has faith in, and believes in the Jazz.

3.  I want it on record that I am still holding a grudge against George Karl because he disrespected Karl Malone's game back in the day.

4.  I am so glad Boozer is back and playing like he means it.

5.  C.J. Miles hits back to back threes!

6.  Brewer plays out of his mind!

7.  Kirilenko uses his freakish arm length to snag balls!

8.  Paul Millsap is a consummate pro.

In conclusion, the Utah Jazz won.  We ate Girl Scout cookies (Do Si Dos, Thin Mints, and Dulce de Leches, courtesy of singing son), potato chips, and drank Coca Cola.  We listened to Jerry Sloan's regular grumpy post-game discussion and we registered all the players soberly acknowledging that these last ten games mean nothing--nothing!--if they can't win on the road. And we rejoiced.

Also of note:  the West Jordan Jaguars are in the 5-A finals for the state championship.  Go go go Jaguars!  And now, good night.

I said:  Good Night.

Organizing.

Funny thing, I feel like I have written this post before, the one I'm about to write, the one about how disorganized I am.  But really, how can I be expected to be organized, when I have so much stuff? Wait, I think I've already written that post, too--the one about how much stuff I have. Come to think of it, this may be my true subject, the chaos and disorder of me and my stuff:

Today, I thought I might make a little movie using some excellent footage I got at the beach, of two lively dogs playing at the water's edge.  I was thinking I might revive a poem I wrote quite a while ago called "Shoreline Grammar," which has dogs playing in it.  This merely required me to find a copy of the poem, then I could begin fussing around with iMovie &c., fussing around being a good way to learn at least some basic stuff.  But first I had to put my hands on the poem, or at least, that's what I figured a logical first step would be.

About eleven or twelve file folders later--and these are actual files, the people, files made from paper--I found (get this!) a handwritten copy of the poem, which I believe I actually had made copies of and took them to my writing group, because it also had my notes from the group.

Please consider these details:  Handwritten copy.  Paper files.  Twelve file folders later.

But now I have it, this sad little handwritten poem, and I have made a digital file of it, started digging around in the Indo-European roots, blah blah blah.  The project will happen.  It's just, the pre-production around here is such a nightmare.  

(file this under:  Chaos and Disorder and Stuff.)

Highlight reel.

Today's list of good things:

• after having misplaced it for a couple of years, I was relieved to find that my friend had my copy of The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
• the workshop I have been putting together on avant-garde poetry (symbolist, futurist, dada, surrealist, constructivist . . . -ist) of the early 20th century went smashingly at the first meeting this evening.
• when we took our walk, Bruiser and I did not get blown away by the gust-a-licious wind that's been blowing in our town.
• buckwheat pancakes for breakfast.
• I have a plan to visit my mom and dad soon.
• lots of salty crunchy snacks around the house.
• I had important insights when I was in California about some of my poems.
• the historian and I ate breakfast at Clint Eastwood's. Because we're very close friends with Clint. Or because he has a restaurant and inn in Carmel.
• excellent episode of Damages.
• strawberry ice cream.
• the Jazz won tonight, and Boozer played big. Huge. Very, very large.
• I know so much more about the early 20th c. avant-garde amongst French and Russian poets than I did before, say, yesterday.
• because I am done with the workshop for the week (just 2 more meetings!), I can now go read a detective novel like it is my job.

Water and rocks. Okay, water, rocks, and birds. And seals.

The genius of digital cameras is that you can take a zillion pictures and see what you came up with, with no penalty in terms of developing, etc. However, in practice, what this means is that you come home with 500 pictures of interesting rock formations, glorious pictures of the water rolling in, the grandeur of partial shots of birds, and more glorious water.

As I've been sorting through my pictures from our recent trip to the coast, I also realize that I love these pictures, even in their sameness; but I probably don't need to inflict them on the internet. My oldest dear friend has a flickr account that she maintains scrupulously, like a gallery run by someone with exquisite taste. My flickr account, on the other hand, I keep just like I keep everything else in my house--a little chaotically, with many versions of almost the same thing, and everything crowded in with everything else, so you can hardly see what's there. Also, despite my love for the idiosyncratic tag, I have failed to tag my photos, with the result that . . . well, you can predict the results. Let's put it this way: there's a lot of ocean in my flickr.

Never mind. Since there are at least ten shots of amazing rock formations at Point Lobos, and since I cannot bring myself not to keep them all, let me show you at least a little of what we saw in this magnificent part of the California coast:

At Carmel beach.

Pelicans at Point Lobos.

Awesome stone formations! (you just let me know if you need to see more.)

Blue-headed bird at Big Sur.

At Nepenthe, in the late afternoon.

Seaweed on the beach. (lustrous and enigmatic, right?)

This bird seriously dive-bombed me, smacked me in the face, and stole my french fry, practically from my lips.

Back. And forth.

I will have some pictures of the trip up shortly. In the meantime, I am back and I am confronting my agenda, which is daunting, considering that yesterday I was communing with the big fat seals who hang out under the Santa Cruz wharf. They were sleeping and communicating, sharply, then sleeping some more. Perhaps yet another lesson to absorb from our brothers and sisters, the animals? Sleep. Bark. Sleep. Bark. Repeat as needed.