I made it to San Rafael via an Amtrak experience that took 6 1/2 hours to get to Portland from Seattle ( when the train is going backward, you do not get to your destination very fast) and then a 12 hour car ride over the river and through the woods, etc.

Now I am listening to Jesus Christ Superstar coming from my grandson's bedroom and I am a bit worried. He's 6 and JCSS was his choice. It is the music he chose to go to sleep to...Um, well, I like Handel's Messiah so I can sing out loud in the car with a harpsicord, timpani and soloists who I sound better than. JCSS coming from Milo's bedroom sounds like zombies or car mechanics when they tell you it's going to cost at least a thousand five.

There is sun here and no snow. Seattle had more snow than was really necessary. On the morning of the 24th, I was watching MORE EFFING SNOW falling on my deck and I got all weepy and sorry for myself. I called my daughter and told her I wasn't coming, I told J not to expect me and I was going to spend Xmas by myself, wha, wha, wha. My daughter's b'day is the 25th. But the weather demons decided to send a bit of melt and my neighbor took pity on me and drove me to the train station and, well, you know the rest.

G-d rest ye merry gentlemen and so forth. Being vegan this time of year is challenging. I've been cheating a little. Because of chocolate. And because I have very little willpower.

We got a piece of plywood and we put the train tracks together and we hooked up the power thingy and we made the train go. We were brilliant. Milo wore his engineer's hat and he lay on the floor and watched the train go around and around. The engine even has a little light. So cool.

Now we're waiting for a baby cuz babies want to be born in a frickin' snow buried city. I took the bus and walked many blocks to get to my clinic today. This bus ride was as entertaining as last. The driver talked to himself the entire trip, "whoa, there, a big skid, well, here we go, stand back, I gotta see the side mirror, well, that looks like a mess up ahead, I'm riding in the middle of the road to avoid the ice, whoa, a large bump, etc." There were so many people on the bus, a few folks were sitting on the stairs in front of the pneumatic doors, which is, I think, against regulations. And we drove by people standing and waiting because we were so full. Reminded me of the NYC subways, so smooshed together you can't turn around.

I did see a snow plow on Rainier today. quite shocking. I thought they were mythical beasts in Seattle.

In this weather, I feel smarter, fresher, more alive. I think my parents put me in the snow when I was born and I didn't die so they brought me inside and raised me. I still have a tail.

I picked J up at the train station. Actually, I went on the bus, egad, public transportation because driving in Seattle in an effing snow storm is suicidal, to parse. I grew up in terrible weather and I learned to drive there. Black ice, mountains of snow, etc. So those who are clueless get in their 4 wheel drives (or not) without chains and think a drive to the Safeway is a good idea. No, it is not. The 11 o'clock news is gleeful with car smack-ups, sliding into guard rails, backwards down hills, sideways on sidewalks. So, sensibly, I took the metro, vehicle of the people and it worked out fine.

Well, except for the frozen walk to the hall where the Messiah was being performed and we carried J's luggage. So what if we looked homeless. I was wearing a sequined top that belonged to my grandmother and I felt glamorous, even with a runny nose. We had dinner, we listened to Handel's old chestnut like good Americans...and then there was the issue of getting back to the house. So...

The bus, only now it is almost midnight and like the night bus in Harry Potter, the passengers were sketchy. We lumbered on with luggage and found seats, ah ha but we lurched only a few blocks and had to change buses. The second bus had some issues with the door not closing and a girl with a flashlight when with lights went out and some gangbangers in the back where we were. Then a large gentleman got in, covered with bling and carrying a cigar and a bottle of champagne, which he proceeded to open and take large slugs from. Um, well, he began rapping, rather drunkenly and making clicking, whistling sounds which I thought were signs of Tourettes. I made the mistake of looking at him so he decided to issue threats along the line of "busting heads" and "assaulting you, what you looking at, etc" We disembarked the bus, dragging luggage, a bit earlier, like 6 blocks earlier but it was a lovely night and sparkling cold and we weren't interested in busted heads. All in all, a brilliant public transportation experience.

Oh, and while I was sitting there, I was across from some "Poetry on the Buses" posters and, well, yetch. They made my teeth hurt. Call me a curmudgeon but why does poetry have a bad name? Because anything passes for poetry and it is dreck. Poetry is HARD to write, it takes skill, no, not everyone can write poetry. Ok, I said it, so put me in jail. Study poetry, read a lot of poetry,

OMG, it snowed so much. I went to Seward Park on skis and skied around and back up the hill and was out for 3 hours. I was wiped when I got home. This is a perfect reason to drink large quantities of hot chocolate, which I made with rice milk because of the vegan thing. So, rice milk, powered cocoa, agave, vanilla, cinnamon and a smidge of cayenne. It was thick and delicious.

However. There is the issue of getting into the hot tub when it is snowing and there is about 8 inches of snow on the deck, stairs, etc. So, under cover of semi-darkness, you put on a robe and gum boots (very sexy) and go down the stairs which you have not shoveled. You have a vision of slipping and falling into the snow where you will be found tomorrow, frozen to the deck in your white terrycloth robe with a busted leg. You manage to get to the hot tub and the cover has about 100 pounds of snow on it, which you struggle to lift. Then, you balance on one leg while you ease out of one boot, then the other and fling your legs into the tub without getting the bathrobe wet. Oh, the bathrobe. Just put it on the folded back cover where you hope it won't slide into the water. Ah, lovely steamy water. Fantasy #2, you climb out and make it up the stairs to find that you have locked yourself out. Hypothermia sets in and the frozen to the deck scenario ensues. I accomplished all of this without dying. It was brilliant, as they say in a
Australia.

When I have lots of unstructured time, I noodle. I read a bit, I clean a bit, do some laundry, go for a run, etc,etc. All so I don't have to write effing poetry. I am reading Lunar Park, a rather creepy, compulsive book. The author actually makes a living by writing. Imagine a poet deciding he/she is going to make a living by writing poetry. Guaranteed starvation and ruin. Ridiculous. I sold some chapbooks and came out even once. And a composer gave me $200 to use a poem she put to music. And Dana gave me a dollar once to read my poem at a workshop. That's it, that's the extent of it. Cripes.

I think I will go to an open mike in January. I can read a new-ish poem and weird people out. Northwesty types like herons in their poems, not suicide/dead/father in the baseboards kind of poems. Ah well.

I went to the Apple genius bar today and the angel who helped me was MY AGE, not twelve. I was so happy I almost cried. And she showed me stuff like how to get the computer to accept my India pictures and turn them into a slide show. Tomorrow I am going to show random people on the street my pictures, with music. I am so slick now.

However, why is it when you move your computer from one room to another, unplugging it, the internet then refuses to work, the light on the thingy won't come on, even with help from some nice young woman half a world away you can barely understand.? Why is this??? So tomorrow, if we are not buried in snow, I will go out and buy a modem/router thing and perhaps we will have a working computer at the office by tomorrow night, maybe not. I didn't leave work until 11 PM and this is unacceptable.

My honey comes on Friday and we are going to hear the Messiah. I usually sing in a sing-along and before you snort milk out your nose, it is way fun. I love it. I do it almost every year. Besides, the choir director is really cute. Anyway, to sit and listen to people sing much better than I do will be difficult. I might have to jump up and down in place. "Oh, death, where is thy sting?" (my favorite duet). Maybe by jumping up and down I can make my voice wobble.

There is bad awful juju going on right now and I can't really talk about it except to say that children should not play with guns, parents need to unload them and lock them up, ok? I grew up with guns in the house and my dad or my brothers unloaded them and locked them away in a cabinet. We NEVER played with them.

And more bad things are happening and I won't go there. I sent money to the nuns in Kopan monastery in Nepal and they will say prayers for healing for a whole year for some people I love. Parts of this year has really sucked. I'm not sure how we carry all the sorrow and all the pleasure at the same time, how to hold it. All the comings and all the goings.

I might have popcorn for dinner with brewer's yeast on it. I haven't been drinking at all but maybe tonight I should have a wee bit of Scotch. As I once said to a friend when she called me to tell me her boyfriend had just dumped her, "This calls for Scotch," and I walked over to her house with a bottle. We put away a great deal and I walked home. I had to call her to tell her I made it safely. It was only a few blocks but it was a few loooong blocks. I think self medication is, at times, appropriate. And necessary.

Goodnight, Irene, goodnight.

I walked for hours today in the snow. Mount Baker was really clear and the woods in Seward Park made me think of the Northeast. Down parka man was ahead of me on the trail with his backpack. He doesn't like to be talked to or approached. He walks around the park all the time, wearing a lot of clothes. I wonder where in the park he has found to sleep. The top of the park is crisscrossed with trails, a lot of them not used much. I have tried to talk to him before but he growls at me. I stayed behind him and then we went in different directions. Seward Park is one of my favorite places because I can leave the perimeter and be in the woods. I saw a juvenile eagle land in a tree just as I got to the edge of the water. There are nesting eagles in the summer and owls and cormorants drying their wings.

Ecuador has extended constitutional rights to nature. They referred to Pachamama, a mother universe deity. Whoa. Does this mean we must stop mowing our lawns? (grass abuse?) Will we have to stop cooking plant food? I'm baking a yam right now. People for the Ethical Treatment of Carrots. Oh-oh.

I might just have to watch all six hours of Angels in America tonight. I hear my pager. Maybe not.

My big cat, Wishbone, is trying to bury his food. He does it every day. There is a little rug under his bowl and the water bowl and he manages to flip the edges over the bowl so it is partly covered....we all have our coping mechanisms. His version of scarcity involves hiding food. As if the other cats can't find it, doo-doo head. The other cats watch him with their heads cocked, as if they are fooled. Then he walks off, pleased with himself. 

It's snowing here so I raced home after dinner to be in my house where it is warm and there is hot tea and the cats can sit on me. I send a message to all those who are sleeping outside---may you all find someone to sleep with and be warm with. Between here and the beggars in India, we are that close. 

I am falling into a pattern of staying up really late, watching bad tv, knitting and eating cookies. I am  eating sugar again. ( It said vegan on the box!) Being vegan is tough. No protein. Lots o' veggies and protein powder, well, it beats powdered placenta (see previous post). You can eat placenta because it wasn't 'killed' but, well, yuck. 

As usual, Rebecca expects us to bring a poem to workshop. Christ, I write so much and some of it is presentable. But then there is all the dreck. It's horrid, liking my own work and having fits about it---schizo, I tell you. 

I love the Seattle weather people. They have basically nothing to report so when a 'weather front' comes through, they get so pathetically excited. They once predicted a 'major wind storm' with lots of rain. I went outside on my lunch hour and one drop of rain fell on my head. One drop. No wind. No roofs flying off to Boeing field. No tsunamis. No tragedy and mayhem. That's what they want. Houses floating by with babies and cows hanging out the windows. That's excitement. This is just the wrong town for big weather. Now North Dakota, that's some weather. Where I'm from, upstate NY, terrible weather, bad, nasty, dangerous. Seattle, puleeze. 

  

Surround the placentas with kitty litter and fill the bucket. Replace the lid, affix the label and call the service.

OK, we'll do that. We have a freezer full of placentas. Placentas and ice cubes.

One of our moms had a heart shaped placenta this year. We taped a picture of it to the computer. Some think placentas are gross. We don't, we think they are preeeeeeety.

Bless the baby Jesus. At least he came out of the right orifice. Buddha came out of his mother's armpit, ouch. At least it was painless, or so they say. Boy, you wouldn't want to shave for while after that. Because of my work, I am intolerant of obstetrical inaccuracies. I can't help it.

Josh wants me to write a poem completely of trite phrases and pathetic fallacies. I do love a good challenge. Sparkling drops of dew on the delicate velvet petals of the mournful rose, here I come! Yeehaw!

I am eating out of a brand new bowl. I bought dishes that MATCH, in Portland where they don't have sales tax. I feel like I am getting away with something. So the universe gave me a flat tire driving home, on the freeway. Man, you step out of your car in the dark and rain because your car has some funny drag going on and sure enough, the back left is totally flat with a big hole but the monstrous trucks are going past at 100 miles an hour and they could so knock you into the next world if they went a little crooked, you and your teensy hybrid two seater, blammo, your body would be thrown into a dang tree, for pete's sake. So you call triple A and they tell you someone will be there IN AN HOUR, sheesh so you're sitting with the car running so you don't freeze and so you can listen to some Dolly Parton and who shows up but a cop, lights twirling around like a nasty headache. You get out of the car (as you have previously piled everything onto the passenger seat from the back so the guy can get to the spare) and it is a lady cop, no a girl cop with a cute little blond bun.  She says," are you ok?" so you explain you're waiting for a tow truck and she offers to change your tire. Huh? well, by the time the guy gets there, she's half-way through it and being cheerful while the monster trucks are mere feet from her butt and she and the triple A guy are joking around and talking about the gangstas they saw recently, with diamond earrings and an Escalade and all and the rain is really coming down and you're thinking, wow, my tax dollars at work and I didn't pay sales tax in Portland, I don't understand. Well, a few new tires will cost me, so I guess it all evens out. Maybe this is the law of cause and effect. 

I got home ok, and by the way, you can go faster than 50 on those weird spare tires. I did, I went 70 but don't tell J. I try to go the speed limit. No, that's a lie. I love to speed. 

The cat is on my lap because I'm too cheap to turn on the heat. It's cold in here. No, the cat does not love me, she likes me cuz I'm a warm body. J loves me and it is a splendid thing.

Any day now, I'm going to send out some work. I used to be so diligent.  

The guy in Dead Can Dance sounds like he's singing in Hungarian. Egan.

Suicide is an exploded bridge that can never be repaired.
-Tom Bissell

Thank you, Marti. We are, unfortunately, in the suicide sisterhood.

Tonight I went to the suicide support group meeting. I haven't been in a long time but I wanted to see how it would feel after a year, a year of mourning. It's different now. Last year, there was a wildness, a smoking crater where life used to be. One lady tonight said she can now imagine killing herself, not that she wants to but she can imagine it, it is another possibility, almost like choosing to eat chocolate or an orange, just another choice. I read obits and I can tell. "Sudden death" without some disclaimer like cancer or a heart attack is suicide. "Overdose", well, yeah.

I know I am better because I forgot a haircut appointment twice and I was pleading with my haircut person to puleeze make time for me. Like this is important. But I am going blind with bangs in my eyes...and everyone likes my hair right now, what the ???

In the village of Pharping we visited Padmasambhava's cave, a yogi who sat there for years chanting. It is all rock and his hand print in in the rock. Pilgrims place their hands into the print--in the rock like it was carved out. Then you go inside the cave and it is surprisingly warm, all the butter lamps keeping it heated and the ceiling blackened. A small altar and a monk sitting and chanting. A small courtyard with a monastery built around it. Two small buildings on either side with a nun in either one, also chanting. In the center of the courtyard is a stone altar and carvings of the yogi's feet where we put water bowls and candles for puja. I sit with my back to one of the small buildings half listening to the puja prayers but vibrating to the sounds of chanting, from the cave, from the nuns, soft, filling the space. An occasional monk looking over at us from the rooftop of the monastery. Today and every day, they are there, chanting, smell of butter lamps and incense in the air.

For the benefit of all beings. Even Geoffrey.

Three babies in the last two days. The air is soft, silky, misty. The babies want to come out now because it is weather between the worlds, soft and dim.

We saw the movie, "Milk" yesterday. I know how it ends but I still cried. What is it about candlelight marches?

In my neighborhood, you can put stuff on the curb and later it is gone, old paint, marginal furniture, clothes, lamps, etc. The people's recycling system. And you don't have to shlep it to Goodwill.

For inexpensive cathartic fun, take your junk to the dump, throw everything into the maw of hell and stand back and feel cleansed. Yes.

Today a year ago, my brother left his job, went to his estranged wife's house, unlocked the shed and went in and hung himself. His stepson found him.

My brother Dirk called me to tell me. I was at work. I went to pieces and there were midwives all around me. I remember this. Michelle was there and she said, don't worry, we'll take care of stuff here, you go and do what you need to...'

Today Michelle called me to ask a question. I told her what day it is. She said, 'well, I didn't remember but it must be somewhere cuz I needed to call you...'

It's like that. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Back from a weekend with J. Love is grand when it doesn't kill you.

The first real day in Nepal, we ate breakfast in an open porch overlooking the street. Streets are narrow, unpaved, dirty and clogged with people, animals, bicycles, scooters, cars, etc. We were spotted by beggars and guys selling stuff. The guys selling stuff are everywhere. They try to sell you postcards, malas, carved thingys like elephants and buddhas, jewelry, etc. They are VERY persistent. We weren't hip to the bargaining thing so we dodged and feinted, to try to get rid of them. They latched on to Charles, a big tall African American guy and would not leave him alone.

The beggars lead with their missing limb, hand, leg, whatever. If they are blind, someone pushes their face into view. Sometimes, people are so bent over they walk in half. Girls with babies on their hips carry empty baby bottles and wave them in your face. The kids are dirty and ragged, they will pluck at you, at your clothes, hands and gesture to their mouths and stomachs. They say 'ma,ma' for rupees, for candy. I have a permanent hole in my psyche where a lot of those memories are now, like a sharp smack to the face. We live like kings and queens. Our little group was grateful for toilet paper, toilets, air conditioners. And water purifiers. Ok, I won't go there but coming back here, I have so much to process, our greed and heartlessness. Ok, my greed and heartlessness. To avoid the beggars, don't look at them. Put up a little wall around yourself. I did give a few rupees to some. But the need is vast...

I bought a white Tara thanka. It is beautiful. She has eyes in her hands and feet and one in her forehead. She has compassion for everything.

Water buffalo are really big. And there really are cows everywhere in India. Krishna rode a cow, I guess, so they are sacred. I'd like to get that gig.

I still tear up when I think about Obama.

I did not sleep at all last night, not at all. Jet lag is so weird. You lie there and tell yourself to go to sleep but your brain in buzzing and sparking, like a bad generator. Speaking of generators, Nepal and India have generators to pump water into the rice fields and for power. It stinks. And all the cars, jeeps, trucks, three wheeled taxis all run on diesel. In all the hotels we stayed in, fancy or plain, the power went off, for a minute, for five minutes, whatever.

Jean was in the bathroom and I heard her gagging and spitting. Apparently, she was brushing her teeth with bug repellent. It doesn't taste very good but those mosquitoes didn't bite her teeth that night!

In India, the heat sticks. My hair stayed in a tie because it was never really clean. Plus add some bug spray and sun screen and voila! the glued to the head look. The first night we were there, we stayed in a guest house. Jean crashed, eye shade, tylenol PM, the works. I desperately wanted a shower after the plane, about a zillion hours. I turned on the water and waited...and waited...and waited...no hot water. So I toughed it out under the cold. It was to be prescient. Cold showers are refreshing, actually. The only place we had a real shower was the Hyatt, obscenely opulent. The shower was so strong and hot, I almost fell down. And my hair was shiny and loose when it dried. I'd almost forgotten what that was like. In the countryside, everyone washes under the pump, head, pits, face.

The next day we sent into a thanka shop and spent a lot of money. We weren't sorry. The thankas are gorgeous. If I can figure out how to get a picture here, I will post it.

Next week is the 1st anniversary of Geoffrey's death. When I was in Varanasi, I watched the bodies burning by the Ganges and I floated a candle ringed with marigolds for him. City of the dead, sky full of black smoke. I sat in a boat and watched. All of it. Goodbye, Geoff.

I'm baaaaack

I thought I would give you stories in pieces because there is too much to tell, all at once. Anyway, I get to do anything I want on here.

Today I am way jet-lagged. And hungry. I'm not sure what to eat anymore and that's a shame because I l0o0ve food (hey, I like the way that looks). But India and Nepal fry everything. If it isn't fried, the microorganisms that will kill you or make you have very unpleasant symptoms will NOT BE DEAD. So-samosas are really good a few times but then after a while your gall bladder starts to hurt. I could hear it saying in a little sad voice---help me, I'm drowning in grease in here---. Then there is milk tea and I'm sorry, but there just shouldn't be oil circles floating in my tea. It's wrong. And I know the whole world eats white rice but, well, I'm done with it. I broke up with it, no more for me. Food snob that I am.

The Aussies 'go for a wee'-translation, to pee. Candy is lollies. And their marriages break down, not up. Also, they 'bonk', not the other word. I will tell you how I know all this later.

I was told not to eat fresh vegetables but I did. And I survived. I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to break up the samosa/while rice thing.

Oh, I am a total vegetarian now, even a vegan. Believe me, headless goats will put you right off the flesh option. I actually made a chutney/curry dinner last night and wondered what had happened to me. What was I doing anyway? But no animals were munched on, well, maybe a few microbes. *sigh*

I am so glad to be home. It's cold here. Just delicious.

PS. I am madly in love with J. Madly.

I am leaving today for Nepal, OMG. I won't be blogging while I am gone, no cell phone, no pager, no computer, just old fashioned pen and paper. I am taking a camera and a weensy ipod shuffle. I swear, that thing is too small to make music, it flummoxes me.

My naturopath gave me a reprieve. I don't have to take vitamins while I am gone, no handful to choke down every morning. I am taking ambien, doxycycline, cipro, peptobismal, cold meds, and airborn, cripes. I have never traveled with so much reinforcement before. And stuff to purify water and bug repellent and sunscreen. Wussy American, I swear.

And for the final fashion statement, I'm wearing my pass port and airline ticket in a pocket on a string around my neck, nice. Pretty soon, I will be tying stuffed animals to my bags and wearing tin foil on my head. I might just fit in in India. I can be a mad ascetic.

I'll be back November 15th, a new woman. Don't forget to vote for Obama, as if there were any other choice.

Throw your old suit on the fire


when I squint you float on ashes
the burn marks are gone
we used fade cream
as usual a miracle
my darling
I sag in your presence
my ligaments have lost their burnish
you swirl your marvelous hair
a gathering of hoopla
after the pruning
kites were found in the tire treads
we sighed in unison
(you must move out)
before I am forced to put iron filings
in your mutton sauce
walk with me to the gravel pit
look
algae shaped like the face of Jesus

Oysters

Before we go any further, we must speak about oysters. Consider The Joy of Cooking on the subject. "Now back to the actual opening of the shells....Until you develop a knack, shucking is not easy. Should you grow slightly desperate, you may be willing to sacrifice some flavor for convenience. If so, place the oysters in a 400 degree oven for 5 to 7 minutes...." This is blasphemy. But I know slightly desperate. Once you have jammed the oyster up against the side of the fridge and you're whacking it with a screw driver and a hammer, well, then it's time to get out Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and read to calm yourself down.

I'd like to say I'm a vegetarian except for oysters. Oysters and crab. And horseradish. And melted butter.

Four days til I leave and go to the other side of the world. Tomorrow night is another writer's workshop. I have no poems. I don't write poems anymore. I hate poems. They suck.

the cats lie about in sleek dressing gowns

we are already doomed

I spent the last 2 days making grape jelly from my grapes and they didn't effing jel. This is a tragedy of epic proportions. It involves decanting all the jelly and starting over, more sugar, more pectin and more burned fingers, gobs of jelly on the stove/floor/walls and sugar all over everything. Why do I do this every year? Because homemade jelly is delicious and the unsweetened juice is delicious and this beautiful dark red color. And the grapes are free and they grow over the hot tub. I pick a smidge amount of grapes and the raccoons eat the rest. I can't get up there to get the ones on the top. They are all tangled up in the vines.

I also have two winter squash on the counter. One is a giganto acorn and the other is my favorite, a buttercup. She is a beauty and she weighs a ton. I might have to eat her before I leave on my trip.

The apples always look crappy, covered with scab and usually wormy. I eat them anyway. My neighbors have a pear tree and I must say, pear sauce is sublime. Tastes like butter. Butter, I tell you.

Count 'em, 8 days until I leave. Then I won't be doing any blogging for a month. I'm gonna disconnect from everything, email, cell phone, the works. And the election will be over. If it doesn't go the right way, I won't be back. I could be a midwife in India. Or Nepal.

I saw the latest Coen Brother's movie tonight, Burn Before Reading. I love those guys. I've loved them ever since Blood Simple, which I saw at the film festival. In this movie, George Clooney has the crazy eyes. And Tilda Swinton is at her brittle best. But John Malkovich, slightly cross-eyed and yelling f-you every other word, manic genius.

I got my hair ironed again today. My hair feels like feathers, like I am going to start flapping.

Rebecca Loudon's new book, Cadaver Dogs, is beautiful and brilliant. Go buy it, many copies. And when she reads. go hear her and thank her. That's an order.

Sequence #9

fit your hip here polish the skin o morsel o gardenia you make me sweat a banyan tree grew in the bathtub we slake our forefingers indigo contains mercury I would never poison our palace with erythema at least until you rub against my traveling shin I have a rash because I have an affinity for your incisors please continue to bite without your toothmark on my jugular I remain anorexic unable to swallow unable to flit

I am listening to the Goldberg Variations performed by Glenn Gould. He rearranges my molecules.

Ten days to Nepal/India.

Hockey Moms Against Sarah Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0&NR=1

I am here in the Oregon high desert on the Warm Springs rez at KahNeeTah, a resort built around a hot springs so the outdoor pool is a toasty 98 degrees. Pure heaven for a swimmer like me. Plus great gobs of beauty, red bluffs and sagebrush and large sky areas. What, you may ask, during this economic catastrophe, am I doing in such a place, behaving like the sky isn't falling?Well, I'm a guest and I'm here with my honey so it was practically free and yes, we watched the debate because it was patriotic to watch the debate. Sarah is, excuse me, an idiot. I know that isn't very Buddhist of me but hell, we are going down, fast and she is just a distraction in squarish glasses and a frightening hairdo. 

But on the train to Portland there was a lady across the aisle who was wearing a pink plush bear with a blue visor around her neck. And the lady was wearing a matching blue visor. When she sat down, she held the bear under her chin so the bear could see out the window. When she got up to go to the bathroom, she gave the bear to her husband to hold. He kinda clutched the bear a bit severely, I thought. Then she came back and put the bear on her lap so the bear could go to sleep. Then they opened their Subway sandwiches and delicately ate ham and cheese, not dripping a bit on their laps. The bear watched from her shoulder. He wasn't hungry, apparently. When I took a call from my service, she listened in and commented that she had been late with both of her children. This woman has kids, yikes. Maybe they also wear blue visors and wear pink velour suits. I can hardly wait to take the train back to Seattle. I think train passengers have stories to tell. About bears and visors and the view from the window. *sigh*

Things to pack for India:

1. fleecy hat for Nepal

2. washable undies

3. sunscreen

4. mosquito repellant

5. toothbrush

6. water treatment tablets (taste yucky)

7. hand wipey things

8. travelers checks

9. passport

10. meditation bench (comes apart)

11. money belt

The money belt is going to make my waist look, uh, weird. Like lumpy. I have to trade in the travelers checks for rupees. At least rupees don't have pictures of the queen on them like Canada. Or maybe they do. My friend I am traveling with plans to buy a skirt when she gets there. I'm afraid to venture out. I fear I will be fleeced. And don't drink the water. Ever. You will be sorry. 

When I come home, the new regime will be in place. Gawd. 

I kept waking up last night, sweating. I jumped the gun with the fleece jammies but the cats had deserted me and the window was open. Gardening makes me feel better. There are seven bags of yard waste beside my house right now, and my aching back and the dirt under my nails. I pruned the star magnolia and the grapes and cut down all the iris stalks and dead roses. The oak tree hasn't turned yet. Fall moves so fast and then it is done and winter and rain all the time.

My brother killed himself on November 26th, 2007. How I will observe the anniversary I do not know.  

when you are gone, I have to remind myself to breathe. Breathe. I think my heartbeat is erratic.

Golden Sunday, spent 5 days with J. Falling leaves, turning Autumn, reminds me of the Northeast. Always a longing for fall back there, the smell of burning, newly made cider, my father and his dogs readying themselves for duck hunting. My father cleaning guns in the basement, dogs whining to go, into the station wagon, duck blinds, decoy ducks, brothers cleaning ducks on the cellar stairs. 

J reminds me, 3 weeks from today I will be on a plane to Hong Kong, then Katmandu, half way around the world, egad. The pile of travel stuff grows in my bedroom, time to winnow, no I don't need to take 4 pairs of pants. The collapsible meditation bench worked out this morning and it only weighs 4 pounds. Time to get out of the US, collapsing all around us. 

I haven't written a thing in 5 days. Too distracted. 

I;m wearing my grandfather's ring right now, crazy gold double headed snake ring with rubies for eyes and diamonds down their backs. Ridiculous.  

I bought a new MAC for my office and it is so beautiful I want to live at my clinic so I can use it. What was I ever thinking all those years with ugly PCs? I bought one of those big screen flat things and it makes my laptop so...dinky. I could make the case for taking this one home and using my laptop at the office. And no wires and no spam and easy to read and soooooo pretty. 

I leave for India in 25 days. There is STILL a wedding ring mark on my finger. Maybe it's permanent. Gawd. India will erase it, I hope. An exorcism may be in order. Or a tattoo, some kind of flesh offering. I did leave the tip of my little finger in my gym bag, reached in to find my comb and a razor sliced it right off, ouch. I went to the desk and asked nicely for a bandaid while bleeding on the floor. Total biohazard. 

When I come back from my trip, Obama will be president and he will have inherited a huge crapola mess. I wonder where all the crooks go when they die? Are they recycled as bugs? slime mold? jello mold? permafrost? jujubes? Remember those? I pulled out fillings with jujubes, oh and turkish taffy too. I was an odd child, too much Greek and Roman mythology as a 6th grader. I read anything I could get my hands on. Medusa with the snakey hair, now that was a fantastic woman, turned mortals into salt if they looked at her. Yas.

My Beautiful Children

I have one pair of high heels and a black dress cut on the bias. Yas, yas. I am fine, so fine. Up to my elbows in the garden, dirt under my nails and clumped on my boots, you would never know what a vixen I am. But I am. Especially after it rains and the ground groans and gurgles open.

Version three:apologetica

take the orange moon across the room and mince why is it you have no feelings have they been excised along with your fur I regret the showers we took together you thought we were close after that but excuse me you have not seen anything yet excuse me for these messes I keep making in the laundry room trying to get the stains out I think they are blackberries but maybe I 'm bleeding and I just can't remember the blood was on my night dress how old fashioned with flowers and leaves but the blood was where my crotch should be perhaps I 've begun to bleed again like I did when I was twelve that would be ironic I think you call it after all this time to bleed for you in your pale skin I think you 're dead you sit there on the pale couch you don't say a thing while I eviscerate myself ok that's too strong an image all those intestines coil like snakes the blood on the floor in front of the picture of the girl in the blue dress I hear you I press my ear to the floor you haunt the cellar stairs you muffle your cries you don't know beans about sex well you won't learn it is too late to teach you where to put your hands your mouth your goddamn mouth

no, oh no. Thursday is workshop day and I have nothing to read, oh gawd. My brain is a dried up, squeezed up husk, a poor limp thing (not limpid thing, oh no, not that). It's too many babies, all at once, it's bad cats sleeping on my feet and sucking out my blood, the dog ate my homework, it's the root canal I had back in '84, it's the stolen wallet, the warm piss, the vanilla pudding.

Tonight I am going to lie on the couch and eat edemame for dinner. Maybe I'll have a glass of wine too. 4 births since Thursday. Gawd, I'm beat.

The moon is a grand hussy tonight, spilling her sassy self on the lake. We stand and gape.

I am getting to the heart, the bloody heart, close enough to smell the burning.

I took down the large beautiful Quan Yin scrolls in my bedroom. Well, they don't belong to me. A lot around here doesn't belong to me. Maybe nothing belongs to me--Zen moment--well, hogwash. The cats are mine and the quilt and the painting of the naked lady. I finally put up the naked lady because she is, well, naked and I can look at her whenever want.

Yesterday I was in therapy, just getting revved up, kleenix in hand and my pager went off. So off I charged, calls to the momma, my student, my partner. We arrived and the mom was laughing between contractions. She actually laughed until about an hour before the birth. Beautiful boy with gobs of black hair. Sometimes I wonder at the work I do, the birth thing. Women sweat and cry and push out babies and the babies are gorgeous and they don't usually scare us by not breathing so all is well. Not your average job.

I watched 'Au Revoir les Enfants', Louis Malle, the other night. Wow. I fogot what film can look like in the hands of an artist. Beautiful and bleak, almost monchromatic, a few bits of red and blue. The children all look pinched, hungry and pale. Now I have to watch his other films. Immediately.

Art saves me. Music and art and poetry. Even though I am not writing poetry right now. I am having trouble describing love; incandescent, liminal, lingual. I don't want to explain the mad tangle. Lenticular halo.

I have a confession. I listen to the sound track from Mama Mia everyday. I played a little Mozart this morning and then....Pierce Brosnan singing is cringe-inducing but I don't care. I know all the songs by heart now (not hard because they are so obvious-alone-flown, around-down, etc). Patti Smith they ain't. I think it is my version of valium. I need to listen to Meryl Streep singing Super Trouper.

My squirrely cat is behaving bizarrely, even for her. Maybe S.O.S. is getting to her. That song makes me jump up and down in the kitchen, making the dishes rattle. She is chasing a dish towel around like it is alive. She is flipping and skidding and pouncing. Usually she reserves this sort of behavior for living (or recently dead) rodents and birds.

One more typhoid pill to go. I haven't keeled over. And now I am protected for five years. I wonder where I will go after India. My bedroom is now a staging area for clothes and other stuff like tablets to treat water, sunscreen and bug goop, synthetic clothes that 'crush'. I know from being a runner and hiker, fake fabric smells gross after a healthy sweat so I am expecting to be quite fragrant. But maybe India herself is quite fragrant so I'll just blend in.

without you the stars
without you grasping
without you the antichrist
without you heavenly lava

India

I just took my second typhoid pill (one hour before meals, two hours after) and it came with a lot of warnings. *If you feel nausea, dizzyness, derangement, etc, you may be having an allergic reaction. (ha!). Drink with a whole glass of cool or lukewarm water. If you miss a pill, take as soon as you remember. Keep refrigerated. Take every other day*. Sheesh. Good for five years, well, thats a relief.

Everyone says I will get diarrhea. Great. So bring some anti-diarrheal meds. And some cipro for the respiratory infection I will get too. Plus India is hot, really really hot. But you gotta cover up because of mosquitoes and sunburn. Okey dokey. Don't drink the water, not even in the shower. If we get showers, that is. Laura said she took two bucket baths a day. Dump a bucket of water over your head twice a day to cool off. Take clothes that cover but are cool. With UV protection and insect repellent. How did anyone travel before REI, I ask you? I mean, John Muir climbing around on glaciers in wool pants and uncomfortable boots with a huge heavy box camera. Christ.

I got a catalogue yesterday for body parts. It's a fake body parts catalogue. You can get eyeballs and hearts, also budget eyeballs and giant eyeballs. You can deconstruct vaginas and testicles. And brains, my favorite. The brains run anywhere from $50 to $200. The expensive brains are sliced in pieces and fanned out, like you would arrange a cantalope for a picnic. Very pretty. There are a bunch of skeletons too. When I took Anatomy a million years ago, I got 100% on the bone exam. I would lie in bed next to my girlfriend and name all her bones. Maybe that's where I went wrong, the worst kind of objectification, "the shin bone connected to the ankle bone, etc".

I went to a wedding yesterday. It just made me feel sad. All those high expectations, all that alcohol. And a great view and some people I really love. I snuck out early because I couldn't take my bad self any longer. Sometimes I am better off being alone with my evil thoughts.

I once hid under my mother's bed while she sat on her hope chest waiting for me to come out so she could spank me. All the kids told me to ask her if it was OK to jump on the beds. So I went and stood in the doorway of the bathroom waiting to ask her. She was changing my retarded cousin and looked harrassed. Angry even. I decided to make an executive decision and ran back to the bedroom and said, yeah, it's OK. We were having a hell of a time, jumping from one bed to the other when she came in. Uh-oh. She was pretty mad and I was fingered, of course.

So I ran and hid. I think she was very patient. I looked at her shoes for a long time. I finally came out and got spanked for lying. Years later she asked if I was having it off with my boyfriend and I told the truth. So she threw me out of the house. Permanently.

Where is the justice in this? I now see that it involved beds amd jumping on them. I mean, teach your kids to tell the truth and punish them when they do? This might be the source of all my maladjustments. It is why I have futon beds. You can't jump on them. I also have a pathological fear of being homeless. I still imagine being able to put everything I own in a backpack. The cats would have a hard time being in there together. At this point the backpack would have to be pretty big. I would include the wooden Quan Yin, all the poetry books I own, my lucky penny, some underwear and extra glasses, in case I lost mine.

There is still a dent in my finger where my wedding ring used to be. It sucks.

Today I picked up a plate and dashed it to the floor. My therapist suggested this as a way to express my anger. It scared me and the cats. It was really loud. I was afraid to break any more dishes after the first one. When I get a new set of dishes, I am sure my old dishes will meet a similar fate. If you ever have an ex living directly under your living room ( with a new lover), you may feel like smashing dishes with a resounding crash, sending the cats skittering off to the basement.

I like my therapist right now. She has some good ideas. And she is keeping me from being self-destructive, well mostly.

I leave for Nepal and India in about 5 weeks. Egad. A big adventure. A friend wants me to ride an elephant for her. I' m not sure that is technically possible. She said elephant skin is tough and the hairs are thick and spiky.

Cool.

I'm way too tired to be up still. Only one thing. Without you, I can't wear the red shoes. My bathrobe is unappealing. I haven't the heart to break any dishes. I want to sleep on the floor.

Restore me to my former glory. I might have to wander the heath.

I'm supposed to submit poetry today. It's Saturday and that's the rule. I don't want to, too disspirited. Besides, I'm going to the train station at noon and that's all I'm going to say about that.

I submitted to Paris Review and they sent their rejection on an itty bitty piece of paper. Sheesh, they can't afford a whole piece or what, lots of scrap paper to get rid of? At least Handsome Journal sent a whole piece handwritten with beautiful handwriting. I put it up over my computer with Kelly's poem. Kelly's poem is called Boxtalk and I missed the workshop she brought it to. She sent it to me and so I encountered it straight on, noone reading it to me. I wish I could publish it here. It is so brilliant and shivery and brutal. I still use it for inspiration.

*

If we are to build the future from fireflies
Start with mortality
Or morality, you choose one or the other
Not both, my heart

Find yourself on this compass
You are here, I am there
We meet in the middle, which
Houses a few cedars, an occasional cattail

An ocean in between, a tunnel through the ground
Sailing ships and candlesticks
Darkness random flavors
Cinnamon portabella lavender

Here, give me your hand
Or the body part you wish to relinquish
I have need of a familiar
For this turbulence

Shake a vessel barrels roll into the sea
Fish tangled and gutted
A mountain crashed down on us
Sharks, aluminum foil, cherry pits

What I mean to talk about is smothered
Pressed against your breastbone
With every breath you collapse into a levy
While I float tethered to the mast

Shipwreck, home to bottom feeders
Lions , butterfly bushes
All camphorated handkerchiefs
Your grandmother’s ghost perfumes the sheets

*

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah breaks my heart. Every time.

I realize that sunny days are all the same. I was so bored in LA. There weren't even any seasons. Sun edges everything, the leaves and grass and rocks. Overcast, that's my kind of weather, blurry outlines, indistinct borders and boundaries. Comes from upstate New York, land of lake effect cold, ice, mountains of snow. They say the Iroquois cursed the settlers for stealing salt so rain fell all the time. Like Seattle. Plus we gear up here, sunglasses, sunscreen, whathaveyou. And the serious sun lives elsewhere.

Los Angeles has a texture. New York City has a texture. You can shower at night and wash off grit and dirt and your top layer of skin. New York is full of skin cells. All those people.

I'm procrastinating. I don't want to write poetry. Well, I do but it will all be bad because I'm in love and the poetry is dreck. Love and/or sex poetry is usually bad. Not that all the good ideas are taken, exactly, but there is Anne Sexton and Richard Siken and Shakespeare.

I'm also angry so I could write some anger poems. Maybe I'll combine anger and love and/or sex. Then a dash of ennui. Perfect.

Yes I will. If you ask me to. Oh yes. Horses run through the house, looking for gold.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

When you get divorced, you have a tendency to wake up really early, staring at the ceiling, thinking that the light will come in and the day will start at any time. Not so. So if your laptop is right by the bed (not a good idea according to my psychic-don't sleep with electronics), you can start writing emails and poems until the cats come in and slide around on the floor while fighting.
At least they have not had a repeat of the poop/pee fest of the weekend. Such delicate creatures, so sensitive. They are asleep on my bed right now, looking all innocent.

I think I should wear my red shoes today. I have a collection of shoes. My daughter is my pusher. She brings suitcases full of shoes and I can pick. I have green, red, black, purple and teal. I have ones with swirls on them. I have strappy one and plain ones. I only have one pair of high heels which I haven't worn for a long time, no opportunity. I also have a slinky black dress which I might still be able to wear, with the proper accessories, of course. I might actually have an occasion to wear it and someone to wear it for. When I wear my slinky dress and high heels, I feel fabulous. I think a limo should drive me around and I will drink champaigne from my high heel shoe and I can toss my head back and laugh, a sound like bells.

Then divorce is a distant memory.

revenge of the cat people

I once had cats who could be LEFT AT HOME b'y THEMSELVES and they didn't self destruct. No, they ate their food and USED A LITTER BOX and didn't barf on my bed.

I was gone for 3 measly days and I came home very late last night, ie. 2AM. After unloading my kayak, no mean feat and getting all my gear into the house and knowing I had an 8AM client, I began to notice a 'smell'. First there was the rug by the front door all balled up and as I approached, I noticed many poops all over it and much pee. Ok, a moment of unhappiness. Then there was a dab of cat barf on the big rug in the living room, alrighty. As I climbed the stairs to my room, I was seized with fear. Approaching my room, ok, a larger pile of barf on my bed, whew, not poop. But the guest room, aha, another balled up rug, much more poop and pee AND pee ON THE BED. On to the bathroom, another balled up rug and, you quessed it, more pee/poop combo plate. What the fark? Did the cat door become stuck and they couldn't get to the basement and the litter boxes?? Did a burgler get in and traumatize them so they completely forgot their manners?

I stripped all the beds, put massive poop into the toilet, took the rugs outside and left them on the porch and got jolly 4 hours before work.

Obviously, they cannot be left alone. Or they will gang up on me and turn my house into one giant litter box. I wanted to strangle each one of them but I was too tired. Strangle.my.cats.yes.

I feel mentally ill this morning. It's because of no sleep. I sleep about 4 hours a night. This is a poor situation for a midwife. I listen to a 'calming' cd and I think that is the problem. The cd makes me want to scream. Not sleeping makes me want to scream. The skylight makes me want to scream. My anger that recently surfaced makes me vibrate, a kind of high pitched whining sound, which makes me want to scream. I have been listening to the sound track from Mamma Mia! nonstop and you say, aha! that's why you feel this way. Mahler might be a better choice. But I am compelled. Every time I get in my car, I put on the damn cd. The songs are so bouncy and trite, they don't even use real instruments fer chrissake. I don't think the piano is real. The issue here is that I am driving to Portland today and I don't want to fall asleep at the wheel. Woman found today in overturned car, kayak smashed into the roof, soundtrack from Mamma Mia ! blasting.

Gawd.

My anger-this ain't no righteous indignation, baby. This is a flame thrower, Mount St Helens, an eternally burning lake, a nuclear explosion, stings from a million bees, a tsumani of papercuts. Seattle has been raining, at least if I spontaneously combust, the rain might put me out. I wonder how long I can a.) be this angry b.) be this sleep deprived and c.) listen to Mamma Mia! every effing day?

Without you, I am an incubus, a mini-bus, a blunderbuss.

Amen

It's too late to eat dinner. Does a banana count? I'm driving to Portland tomorrow and my kayak has been on top of my car for TWO DAYS collecting the proverbial downpour. I bet there are fish up there swimming around. I'll just slosh my way to Portland, how's that?

I packed Sarah Vaughn and Dead Can Dance and Beethoven's 9th and Astral Weeks, Van Morrison's finest album, made when he was 12 or something. The guy is a genius with zero stage presence, none at all. He stands there stiffly, like someone has a gun pointed at his head.


Last night I had a rageful dream. I was lava, the red haze, about to explode. When I woke this AM, I went for a run and with every step I was thinking,'I hate you, I hate you.' Whoa, I didn't even have anyone in mind, and then my brother floated in. So I hated him for a while, for killing himself, for being a jerk and killing himself. Then I started crying so by the time I got home, I couldn't see very well. It was raining but I threw myself face down on the grass and hollered for a while, clutching the dirt. Neighbors were walking by but I didn't care if they heard me. Finally, I sat up, wiped the snot off and went in the house. Time to start the day!

A bee stung me on the upper arm and it itches like crazy. I put ice on it and that helps. I think the bees are mad at me for making a scene. I like bees! I come in peace! I'm not mad at THEM.

brilliant Skagit. I rode up to JoAnne and Jim's house yesterday to retrieve my kayak. Jim pointed to a branch high up and an owl peered down at me. This morning, quail ran ahead of my car when I left. Jim has planted an abundant garden and many dahlias in all colors. They live in a log cabin with half sawn logs as stairs. I woke during the night to rain on the skylight. Jim fell asleep in front of the Olympics and JoAnne and I watched a bit of trampoline, wha the heck?? I would never, ever bounce that high on an unstable surface AND do flips and back bends etc. No, I would not. Not ever.

It is hotter than g-d, hotter than a hot pocket, hotter than a penny driven rain. and my bedroom is hotter than all of that, hotter than the center of the earth in a red high heel. I have a painting of a coyote wearing red heels, that would be me in my animal incarnation. my tail is fluffy and my ears are large. I eat cats (sorry) and I stand in the road at 2 AM with attitude.

today is a day for total immersion in a large cold body of water. even with weeds (shudder).

because of my busted mac I am bringing an old used poem to the writers. they don't know it is old and used. it will be our little secret. the mac person had the nerve to ask if I had backed up all my data. do they take me for a fool? of course not! harrumph.

This time I had port and cereal for dinner. The cereal had walnuts in it so there was protein. My mac is busted, kaput, squirrely, etc. First it behaved badly with earthlink then the arrow cursor stopped working, it is stuck in the corner of the screen, back to the store with the blue shirt people, give me strength.

I have fallen far below. We have fallen far below. I turn to you.

I have a fever. I think I'm in love or maybe I have allergies. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Today I am planning to use Rescue Remedy for mood swings. I went to bed with paint on my fingers. Red paint. I used feathers and I glued them down. Perhaps the painting flew away. I have to go look and see if I left the window open. Love makes me anorexic. If I start losing weight, I'll know it isn't allergies. Sometimes, Job's travails come into my thoughts, unbidden.

I had toast and Scotch for dinner. Tomorrow I will have some vegetables. I am a good vegan. Except for the cheese.

I am recently arrived from Westport which, if you don't know, is on the coast of Washington where the BIG ocean is, not the little Puget Sound. I was there with my family and friends. It poured torrents. You wake up at night and the rain is bearing down on you and you are hoping you are not lying in a trough where a large puddle will be forming any minute. The only large guy person, Brian, built a fire with lighter fluid and that, apparently appeased the rain gods and it was sunny today so we could leave on a good note. Milo was in fine form in his Superman pjs and Hazel, the 3 year old wonder girl was there too. She swims in the NW ocean and she is FEARLESS. I believe the world will survive because Hazel is here and she will see to it. My friend Judith played Scrabble with me and whipped my ass. I hate that when someone says, "ah shucks, I don't play this very well" and they proceed to kill you.

In the morning, I could hear the kids singing songs about ducks and then they would get up at some gawdawful hour like 6 AM and stick their heads in the tents so we would get up, start the day and help them find and catch frogs. I told them they were poison dart frogs but they didn't believe me.

Children eat constantly. I had forgotten this fact. And they leave partly chewed apples around and the mothers finish them off. I remember that part. I did not have any s'mores. S'mores are gross, so sweet they make my teeth hurt. I remember liking them as a child, yuck. Sitting around the fire was our favorite unless it was pouring, which it mostly was. I smell like wood smoke now. I like it. It is a friendly camping kind of smell.

Tonight I will sleep in a bed with sheets and no one will be singing duck songs in the morning. Drat.

further operations are postponed
if you want to investigate call first
the phones are all turned off
no reason annoying rings sound
like cats fighting
so if you want to visit
bring money chocolate
even though I have stopped eating
the money is for the fire
I no longer feel cold
here hold my fingers against your chest
I cannot refuse your attentions
rubbed out even in this light
your outline is faint porous
the broken moon lies in the dish
knife fork spoon

Milo, Maya and Eden are all here. Milo came in this morning in his Superman jammies, complete with cape. Last summer he was Superman all day, changing to Spiderman only when Superman's duds were too grungy, like when Superman turned bad and didn't shave. He also has Superman dolls with long capes for 'flying' around the house. This involves launching them from the bed or down the stairs. The result is 'broken neck Superman' and 'splatto Superman'.

Eden and I engaged in a cooking marathon yesterday. I forgot what it is like to have my family here. There is luggage and laundry everywhere. Friends come over to visit. We went to the store for provisions because, god forbid, we should starve. We made lasagna (with special homemade sauce, of course), African peanut stew and a giant salad with spelt berries in it. Who knew you could cook spelt berries. They brought a huge drippy bag of blackberries for a crumble but they are still in the fridge, making a puddle. On Thursday, we're going camping on the coast where Milo can fly from the dunes in his red cape.

my new theory:: cats kill birds because birds were once dinosaurs and sabertooth tigers were leetle compared to brontosaurus and T-Rex. They probably just kicked those sabertooths to the curb, metaphorically speaking, or stepped on them or whatnot. So this is kitty revenge, many years later.

The poem below is a collaboration between Dana mygorgeoussomewhere.org and me. Please read her description of our evening together. I had to hide the feather boa from the cats. They thought it was a giant bird and wanted to destroy it. I love it. I want to wear it to work. I am going hiking today and I think I will wear it on the trail. No hunter would dare shoot me.

Facebook says my name doesn't exist. It's not true. It does, it does!!! Perhaps I need a middle name. Any suggestions?

suddenly orange roughy strewn across laps embarrasses nobody

Lester tinkers with minute follicles, abrasive contrarians.
Pedunculated litter lapses into shameful barrage, indecorous swills.
Storm drains allude to seasonal variations while sex devours facial territory like pleather. Not to mention fireflies, random harbingers.

Understand less than blue. More intemperate banalities.
Why is the fanbelt flirting with Dorton?
Mechanics gesticulate martyred fragrance.
The spillage weeps mistaken parts and ravishes labor laws.
Feather boas plunder certain boundaries. Obsequious margins blur.
Razzle-dazzle, he says, Lieutenant Gov’ner.

Don’t it, Zollie. Gimme that caulk gun. The roof bounces light.
Red tiles recoil underneath. Discriminate horizons multiplex flicker-code.
Hesitate. Stutter. Secure granulations, mild exfoliants.
Gravitate on stilts. Abandon all deliverables who obstacle.
Brace the fortress (obviously).

Slap the sturgeon. Slide the tongue toward water.
Gape at everything. Morse holds hooks out slant-wise.
Rudely black affections least obey.
Entangled surrogates respond in mime. Port of call.
Squinting, wide apertures demand compensation.
Seasick. Motionless. Stale. Drop the body.
Vessels demonstrate drag, waft occult moths.

Dana Guthrie Martin and Beth Coyote

understand less than blue martyred fragrance razzle dazzle - thanks, Dana for the poem and the feather boa. I am wearing it now.

Seafair is horrid, great big noise in my neighborhood and millions of cars. Ug.

Um, a composer contacted me about using a poem of mine in a composition she has been commissioned to write, omg. She's even paying me. More than a dollar. I'm gonna go to the premiere. In Denver. In January.

You may kiss my ring. Oh, I'm not THAT famous. But I am excited. Way.

seethe

my brother came in during the night
he had no head
he had no arms or legs
he dangled his feet
first he was laughing
then a bit of shouting

you are not allowed to wrangle with mace
if my brother were here he would beat you up
he would chase you away
we left the orange out until it became a boat
we found some oars and paddled to the middle

my brother swam after us
he couldn't catch us because of his feet
he didn't have any feet
confessional poetry is humorous
that's why we are mute when my brother appears

can you wrap this up for me
I want to take it home
you are really very smooth
you remind me of my brother when he was sober
references to heaven or purgatory have been redacted

honey, I never told you about my brother
there was nothing to tell
he had my father's hands
he wore braces when he was 12
can you see him now?

I'm going to have a whine fest and then I will get up and go to work, which I love, I know I said it here but I am so freakin' tired right now. So we had some more babies and last night just as I was contemplating my sweet, new, slightly squishy futon bed with the soft wool topper, the pager went off again. ARRRGGGGA. The momma couldn't tell what was going on so I got in my car and went to her house to check it out. She was not in labor, thank all the birth goddesses of all time, and I came home again and fell into a sleep coma. I think I didn't even move all night. Chronic fatigue is the reason people lose their minds, go crazy, see visions, etc. New parents can testify to all this. Midwives have sleep deprivation sometimes. And if it persists, we turn into scary monsters like in Ed Wood movies, Bela Lugosi on morphine, lurching around and drooling. Fortunately, I slept ALL NIGHT and I plan to do the same tonight. When I am fully recovered, I will go hiking in the mountains, twirling in my dirndle and singing, "The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Music", which, if you think about it, would make a fine horror film. Little music notes crawling through the hills, devouring all in their path. They would be humming The Ring cycle (all zillion overblown hours of it) and gnashing their bitty pointy teeth. **shudder**

Go here: http://sundress.net/21stars for my latest poem. Formatting a bit weird. Not my fault.

Bring down the rains. Crispy grass, even in Seattle. I have a new bed, nearer the floor with a wool topper, very squishy and soft.

Without any provocation, I believe I will gather enough poems for a book and become published, by a small press. I will use a painting I am fond of for the cover or an old photo from my daughter. I will be modest but proud. When they send a car for me, I will refuse because I would rather ride the stallion.

With forgiveness comes freedom.

My partner and I of almost 7 years are separating. The feeling in my body is like an electrical current, a jangling, whistling sound, ragged and raw. Sleep is difficult. I sit in my bed in the morning and wonder about 'groundlessness', where the edges don't hold. How is it that we push away pain, welcome delight as if both were not in each other. All the time.

Patti fed me heirloom tomatoes, aged cheese and good Scotch last night. She has a couch now and we sat on it and looked at the water from her living room window. I don't scare her. A Portland friend is coming tonight to stay the weekend. I hope the babies will give me a break and not want to be born in the next few days.

Gratitude. For those who can approach without fear. I'm not toxic. Not really.

write with a pencil. write with a special pen. write with chalk. write with invisible ink. write with epoxy. write with ground bones. write with grasshopper spit. write with strawberry juice. write with smoke. write with salt. write with a quill. write with sea water. write with a dog jaw.

write 3 poems when you are really tired. revise when you are rested.

Yesterday I actually had a day off so my friend Patti and I had a delish dinner and we headed to The Dark Knight. Blech! I was pumped cuz it was the 'sequel' to Batman Begins, a brilliant effort, I thought. Our waitron even approved our choice. He said "the best movie in a long time.."

Two and 1/2 hour slugfest with some cool stuff like the Batcar and a Batmotorcycle with ridiculous wide wheels. Heath was a great Joker but I tired of him too because there was just too much slamming and punching and blowing buildings and people up. And the girl lead, whatzername, chipmunk cheeks and pouty lips in place of acting, which was in short supply. I am not a teenage boy, or whoever likes this kind of thing. Ironman was much better.

Just say no to summer blockbusters. Blockheaded is more like it.

I am going swimming NOW, before anything else happens. Way busy week, seeing all manner of pregnant women in my clinic. My partner is is Mexico, the nerve. She will be back in 10, count 'em, days. Then I will toss the pager to her and leave town for any area where the waves smack against the shore. I will drink some alcohol and read trashy books.

I watched a man in a large red t-shirt doing an interpretive dance in front of the hospital yesterday. He was talking and waving his arms in the most fluid way. Then he stopped and talked with himself. He leapt in the air after,apparently, receiving an answer. More arm waving, occasional glances skyward. I think he was expecting his people to return to earth and carry him away. The red t-shirt and arm waving were signals. Perhaps I need to wear brighter colored clothes so I am easier to spot. I already talk to myself. The conversation goes like this:

"Oh, good morning, it's effing bright in here."

"Well, you had these skylights put in. What did you expect?"

"I think my leg is paralized, no wait, it is a cat, the heavy one."

"They're all heavy, even with diet food."

"I wonder if it is the same fly as yesterday..."

etc, etc. Brilliant stuff.

To the pool to immerse myself in silence.

I drove all the way to my workshop and it was canceled WAAAAAAAAAAA. Page came out and told me. He was so kind partly because he is used to writers and the strange metallic glint in their eyes...esp when they are thwarted. I am working all the time, every day and it so sucks. +++whine and complain horn section+++ I am going for a long walk now to contemplate 'Bird' Parker and John Coltraine and Billie Holliday. If you have never seen all 20 hours of Ken Burns 'Jazz', rent it and wonder about what you have been missing.

Even I, a woman with no identity, can feel the humble.

Oh, well, I do have a paper driver's license with a pretty good picture on it, better than the last one. Paper driver's licenses seem so...flimsy. I have a paper driver's license, a QFC card and a health insurance card. The rest is just piffle.

Wishbone is better and he is released from kitty jail. I was feeling almost normal this morning and I thought it was a brilliant sunny day so I should go to Seward Park and walk the perimeter before work and I got choked up and was crying a little being grateful and I saw a heron (yes, Rebecca, I did) and many people out walking and I smiled at them and I saw an eagle at the top of the snag and I got near my car and noticed people standing around and I thought, 'aha, they are wondering who owns the spiffy hybrid', but no, someone had smashed my passenger window and stolen my bag with my wallet, glasses, beeper, etc etc in it. Glass all over. Right.

At least my passport was at home.

A nice man came and replaced the window but the bank couldn't close my account without ID because of the Patriot Act. ARRRGGGG.

I will admit I had a moment of absolute freedom, no identity, no stupid debit/credit cards, no pager. Now I can get a new wallet.

Wishbone is really sick and he is in the kitty infirmary upstairs in the spare room. He got over his abcess but now he has an infection and one eye is all goopy and half closed. Plus he's blowing his coat and he's skinny, at least for him. I go in there and talk to him about life and how I wish he felt better and he rubs up against me and purrs. He really is the sweetest cat. Well, except for the murderous behaviour but that's normal.

I took him to the emergency vet yesterday and they were actually nice. I have been used to going to the mercenary after hours vet where they punish you for inconveniencing them by demanding your credit card BEFORE they even see your animal. You can come in with a half dead dog and they gotta have their lucre. Cripes. So this new place was such a relief. They were kind and inexpensive and told me I could bring him back, no charge, if he wasn't better. I'm not sure what better is but he is lying around on a fluffy cat bed with all manner of foods and beverages geared for his recovery. I am so not like him when I get sick. I get all dramatic and whine and moan. Although my father was the master of death bed scenes when he was sick. It was clear he wouldn't recover from his cold and we would be so sorry, standing around his death bed, wishing we had been nicer to him. Death by snotty nose. Maybe it's a guy thing.

Last night I stopped to see a friend who has moved into a cabin overlooking the lake. We sat on the only chairs and looked past the piles of boxes at the glittery bridge and glittery cars and drank cheap wine. She said she was so worried about me, she was going to come to my house and see if there was a grave-sized bit of disturbed earth in the yard. Sometimes I resent the sun coming up and being all pretty and shit. Maybe I am a wee bit angry because I am working every day for 2 weeks. I know, I did it to myself. But I got to sit in Patti's weensy living room and shed some self-pitying tears. Cathartic.

Mid-American Review sent me a copy of their latest journal. I was thinking, "Did I get a poem in there and I forgot?" Nope. And I won't either. My poems are too different from what they publish. Can you tell me why translations get published, especially when the translation is...lame? There are a dozen poems in the journal from a Slovenian poet and the translations are limp and tired. Wait, maybe I am limp and tired. Anyway, let me know your thoughts about this. I bet good translations are effing hard to write.

Bah, humbug. I am feeling Scrooge-ish, feverish, waspish, warpish, etc. Even though the skies are not cloudy all day, Trigger nickers so winningly and the corn is as high as an elephant's eye. I have worked another 12 hour day and I am still here, at work. I love what I do except when I eat cheese curds for dinner and get NO exercise. Home to scrounge a poem for the poets tomorrow night. A dirty poem, a soiled hankerchief of a poem, a ratty poem, a neglected poem, a poem squiggling crookedly across the page.

Perhaps I will eat strawberries in their perfection and the right answers will come. My anxiety will disappear, the heavens will send down shortcake and whipped cream and there will be peace on the land. And the trolls in the White House will dig themselves back into their grottos and crags on the side of Warlock Hill.

I wait for a sign.

Welcome back to the USA and proud owners of really big cars. After a week on retreat in Canada, Nanaimo to be exact (means hill with 7 potatoes in Japanese, apparently), I came back to land of the free and home of the fearful, by the looks of things. The garden is still growing and the NYTimes was still delivered to my door so all is well. An article about suicide was cheerful and the economy situation...well, Hummers get 8 miles a gallon! I can feel righteous putt-putting along in my eany hybrid.

Canada has weird things, like red lights on the freeway. You are whizzing along at 90 K and whoops, a flipppin' red light,and you fling your hand and arm across the chest of your passenger as you screech to a stop. They have national health insurance, can you imagine? And KD Laing, who I am listening to right now because she can belt "One cigarette in an ashtray". There were quail that sat on the roof of the building and tut-tut-tutted to us. I thought quail couldn't fly, it must be the Canadian water. Oh, Canadians don't do July 4th, brilliant, as they say, just brilliant. No sounds of gunfire all night for 3 days, scaring the horses.

A friend told me recently that she is feeling happy sometimes. I am not sure I know what that experience is like. I don't do happy so much. I swam in a lake every day when I was away. I could call that happiness, stroking out to the middle of the lake, floating on my back and knowing if I couldn't continue to swim, I could float. That's why grief takes courage, the getting through it part. And nobody can do it for you. Like having a baby, you gotta do it by yourself.

Impermanence, that's what Adrianne reminded us, all will pass. Even this sorrow.

This morning I read a review of a Frank O'Hara compilation. I am awful tired of the top 10 poets and the deconstruction of their lives/work/drinking habits, etc. There are, apparently, no decent women except for the usual Bishop or Emily footnote. Women do better if we are a. crazy, b. suicidal, c. "write like a man (whatever that means), or d. some combination of the above.

And don't get me started about poetry readings, the small local kind. It is discouraging.

Ok, moving on. "The morning is bright and clear (and hot as hell)". We are in a bi-polar weather pattern; cold, expecting snow or 95 degrees. The lettuce doesn't have the good sense to bolt. Not yet anyway.

Last night Pat brought an incredible poem, spare and gorgeous. She is a soprano. And Martha's poem made me cry. I don't choke up when I read poetry. It was vivid and there was longing and loss and stained glass and ritual and Martha was wearing lavender and white, even her watch had a lavender band. Oh, I am so happy to be in such company. Rebecca was delightful, as usual, and she could probably open a restaurant. I would come and eat crunchy bread with tapanade, basil, tomatoes and goat cheese. And all the other things she makes for us. We missed Kelly and Laura.

Today in yoga, the teacher had a silent class, no talking. Every time we were to change position, he rang the bell. I had to keep looking at him to see what he was doing. We were all sitting cross legged and we were to bend over. A few people could actually put their foreheads on the floor, including the old lady beside me. Sheesh. But when we were doing shoulder stands, when she came down out of the pose, she ripped a very loud fart. It was beautiful. She may be able to bend in half but sphincter control, ha! I know I'm being petty but I don't care. The vinyasa lady from my very first class was there and she was ridiculous. Show-off. She did a head stand and some impossible thing tilting her body sky-ward while bending and balancing on her ELBOWS. And she didn't fart. Not once.

my downstairs neighbor is getting louder and louder. her voice comes up through the floor. I think she sits by a vent and talks real loud so we will be driven insane. it is working. I go on retreat next week, a silent retreat. Pure bliss, silence, except for the voices. Usually on day 2 of a retreat, my mind entertains itself with old show tunes and entire scripts from movies. Really.

"I love Maude"

"And I love you, Harold."

(throws trinket into the water)

"Why did you do that?!"

"So I'll always know where it is..."

****sigh*****

I live in the walls. Between the studs. I stay away from electricity.

Love,

Sigmund Freud

My downstairs neighbor is moving out. This is very good. She has left a burner on and I came home to the smoke detector going off and all the animals had wads of toilet paper in their ears. Then after we told her we were giving her notice, she mentioned that some sparks came out of an outlet after she plugged in her ancient toaster. No wonder it was on the curb. And only a little smoke up the wall. Now she moans and bangs around down there, punctuated by yelps and cussing.

I like the word 'cuss'. It has a friendly sound to it. Different from curse or blaspheme. You can cuss and belch and drink beer and snort a luggy.

All my house is disordered. I can' t find anything and I don't seem to have any energy to make any changes. I have to clean out my studio, my closets and throw a lot of s**t away. A lot. I think it would make me feel better. And I could paint my office. The yellow in here is too aggressive. Where are my mother's pearls? Where is the jewelry I hid? If I take in a few more cats, it will be clear, I have lost it.

Lola peed on my meditation cushion. Why o why? What is the message o cat of mystery? See how tolerant I am? I didn't even throw anything at her. Truth to tell, I don't know it was her. Maybe it was a stranger cat who comes in and hides my mother's pearls and pees on stuff.

I survived the overnight walk. Along the way we were told we were 'almost there'. I hate that. Unless I can SEE the finish line, we are not almost there, for cripes sake. We walked along a lane of luminarias with pictures and letters to dead people, all suicides. It was difficult, more difficult than what we had just done. Marti and I sat down in front of Geoff's luminaria and she took out her bag with her sister's picture on it and we hugged and cried.

There were too many dead people, too many.

I slept until 3PM today. There are blisters on my left foot. Sometimes all I want is to be left alone.

Eden is going to Amman, Jordan for 2 weeks on a shoot. She goes everywhere.

Today I saw the man with one leg walking around on two legs. Maybe it is a miracle and he woke up in the morning and his leg magically appeared or re-grew overnight. He usually stands by the Safeway parking lot with a sign. I saw him sleeping in a doorway and later, there he was, two legs and two shoes, one for each foot.

No one in my family is missing any body parts or digits or anything. Well, except for appendixes and wisdom teeth. We were all taught not to stare. You know, the little kids that stand and STARE at you so hard you are sure all your hair has fallen out and you didn't notice or you have magic marker all over your face or you are hideously scarred but forgot to put your mask on like phantom of the opera.

The crows were looking morose today. They were hanging out on the garage roof, just standing around. They complain a lot whenever I am in the yard, minding my own business. They must have a nest nearby. I have never seen a baby crow, come to think of it. Are they cute in their crowishness? Is their cawing more high pitched?

I watched Harold and Maude yesterday with Holly. She kept saying 'oh, g-d, I hope they don't have sex, it'll be ruined'. I couldn't bring myself to tell her...and on the eve of the suicide walk, I thought, how appropriate, numerous fake suicides and one real one, all in an hour and a half. Nice going, psyche.

tonight I taught a class in a livingroom full of bunnies. there were 3 bunnies and they hopped around and nibbled on kale and an apple. the boy bunny was black and white and softer than Lola. they are litter box trained. I felt a little like Alice. I fell down a long way and never came back. now I want some rabbits. although Lupine would attack and eat them so I better not.

o moon o gimormous orb o plod yer way through the fizzy grapestems.

today was glorious so I went for a (sic) hike. there was so much snow the trails were buried. hilarious to watch the families with dogs and babies in backpacks struggling along. most wearing sneakers and tee-shirts. father's day and all. I fell down a few times but mostly slid along. here and there the trail was clear and there was a pool with a large chunk of ice floating in it, skunk cabbage coming up and ringed with trillium, so much later than the city. the creek was booming over the rocks. then I went to yoga and did a shoulder stand, all by myself. it seems wrong to be looking at my thighs upside down. however, the teacher was very nice to me while I wobbled around. I love my yoga teacher. she talks about Hindu saints and she sings to us. she didn't put eye pillows on our eyes today. I was a little disappointed but I got over it.

Apparently, underneath my brother's death is my MOTHER. gawd, not again.

Wishbone has gotten into an unhealthy relationship with a neighborhood cat. his ear is all bloody and he complains when I treat it. then I squirt antibiotic in his mouth. he hates me.

the wind is blowing a 100 miles an hour and it is SNOWiNG in the pass, ha! Mount Baker neighborhood is all dark too, I know because I had to drive to UW again because I left my glasses there, gawd. trees down, the whole magilla. weather is awesome the way it just arrives and we have to deal with floods, tornadoes, endless rain etc. and all the ways humans have tried to navigate or control the weather like we actually could. preposterous, really. except that we warmed things up a bit and woohoo, look what happened.

I sit in a little room and talk to people all day about babies. it is a bit odd kind of job. occasionally, I go out and watch a baby come out of a woman. crazy, I tell you. babies are pretty fine, all their equipment ready to go, they just have to get bigger and they start working on that right away, looking for things to suck on, fingers, nipples, noses, whatever sticks out. they are always on the hunt for milk that tastes very sweet and lo and behold, very sweet milk comes out of their very own mother, how convenient. I am often impressed with their singleness of purpose. go, babies, go.

Shhhhhhh, the s.u.n is out, don't say the word out loud, you'll scare it. I'm going for a walk in the s.u.n, with s.u.n glasses on, omg.

Today is the day I write a mint poem. It is going to be brilliant. And so minty.

I got two poems accepted to 21 Stars, yeah! This makes me pleased, happy, glad, life is worth living etc.

A nice person in my suicide group has offered to give me some of her checks to make up the difference in my pathetic fund drive. Then we're walkin' 20 miles, from Seattle Center to Seattle Center, wha? I haven't seen the route but I bet we will wander downtown aimlessly, wearing headlamps and camelbacks. Eventually we end up at the fountain. I'm supposed to decorate a paper bag for a luminaria. I think I will put sequins on it. My brother was so not a sequin kind of guy. I might wear a feather boa however.

Josh sent me a poem about mint. I might try to write about mint. I'm turning over a new leaf, so to speak. I'm going to write garden poems now. Nice poems, I can too, I can write some kind poems that are not full of razors and blackened fingernails. The ones you hit with a hammer, the hammer you used in the garden to smash the dandelions, no wait, that's not it. I'm going to try really hard, I can change, I can.

Tonight Rebecca fed us blueberry cobbler that was so good, I wanted to take the pan and a spoon and go sit in my car and eat the whole thing. Shamelessly.

Josh wrote a poem about fava plants and it was gorgeous, sad and wistful. I told him I am going to write a garden poem. I mean it, I am done with suicide/accident/trauma poems. Like the one I brought tonight. Kelly wasn't there and I missed her. I always miss her when she doesn't show up.

More tornadoes expected. Seattle just gets buckets of rain and glowering skies. We have been bad, very, very bad to deserve this. In Syracuse it rains this much but that is because the honkies stole salt from the Iroquois and they were pissed so they cursed the city with endless rain. Seems only fair.

I went to see Young @ Heart, a movie about old people in a choir, not just any choir either. They 'cover' Talking Heads, Coldplay and James Brown. When they did I Feel Good, the crowd went wild. Their average age is 82 or something. The oldest member (92) said if she ever died onstage, they should just haul her off and keep singing.

The suicide walk is in 2 weeks and I haven't raised all the money yet. I am so lame. One member of my support group has raised $13,000!!!! I can't even raise $1000. Gawd, why is is I don't have rich friends?

I watched Barack give his acceptance speech last night. We are going to have a smart, kind, decent black president, as I live and breathe. Unbelievable. He was even nice to Hillary. How is it that some people seem trustworthy and sincere? If John McCain gets in, I'm going to Canada.

I found a squirrel tail on the floor in the cellar, next to the washing machine. I think it is a sign. I wonder where the rest of the squirrel is. The cats are looking particularly pleased with themselves tonight.

I hiked Rattlesnake Ridge today. The green made my eyes water. There were many dogs, straining at their leashes. Whenever I heard choking and huffing, I knew another dog was behind me, attached to a human. At the top of the ridge, I ate almonds and squinted my eyes like John Muir must have done, off in the distance at all the fuzzy mountains and terrible trees. Then I swooshed out my primo walking sticks and caroused down again. I must make many more trips to the forest. Large pieces of nature everywhere.

There are cats on every surface. Whenever I enter a room, they look up and inquire, "what's for dinner? is it now? why not?" I have rearranged my room so the meditation altar no longer faces the window, way too distracting. Dogs in coats, chickens in the road, neighbors in jogging/rain/baby wearing clothes. I begin a story about them and off I go, no more meditation.

I went to Ikea today and I will not go back. The layout is henious. You have to walk through every square foot in order to get out. I had to pee and I became more and more irritated while walking by SVEN and LISSOT, geegaws I surely do not need and they are manufactured in China or Micronesia or the Antarctic besides. When I started to eye any wastebasket in a dimly lit area, I knew I needed to GET OUT NOW. Argg. I have bought stuff there you are supposed to assemble at home, ha! The directions are cruely wrong and you need to use power tools and you usually put some holes (inadvertantly, of course) in your floor or table because the drill bit you chose was too long or zipped through the fiberboard of the cd holder you thought looked "cute". And you put the shelves in backward.

Today I bought a rug, no assembly required.

It is raining just enough so I don't have to garden but the plants are happy. Especially the lettuce. I planted the varigated stuff, so pretty, almost too pretty to eat. Only 2 weeks left until the garden tour. Please let something be in bloom.

froth you said wait for the right
stretch the inner arms in shuvasana
bend at the ankle
put your paws against my chest
can you hear the sound of the floor
as we float among the revolutionaries
their impossible lairs
red mountains
sartorial mouths
can you understand reluctance
lightening perks up the remaining elephant
holly trees are a nuisance
I left your pockets full of pricks

Tonight Bev and I went to the Korean spa where the ladies scrubbed off all out skin. They make us sit in the sauna until we were delirious and then they lead us to the curtained area where they are all dressed in black underwear. They stood by white covered tables and up you go! they began attacking us with scratchy mitts until I start thinking I might be bleeding. The result is skin that feels like a baby butt. Then we went to the salt room and lay there until we were purified and angels began appearing on the backs of my eyelids ( or maybe I was dehydrated). We staggered out into the night air at the end and believed that gas prices would go down, world peace had been achieved and we had personally lost 10# and all our bodily imperfections had been forcibly scraped off us. Now to bed and no skin cells will be lost this night.

I cried a lot today and in front of people. I hate that. I just can't help it. I went for a run and it helped, wait that was before I cried a lot. The suicide walk people sent a long email about the walk, where, what time and so on. The closing ceremony is at 5AM. I don't think I will be inviting anyone to come on down and see me cross the finish line or whatever. Oh, I'm supposed to bring extra socks and a headlamp, such a lovely hair ornament. And a camel back water thing.

I called my friend Victoria today and told her I am not a nice person anymore. She said that was OK, she would still like me anyway. She believes there is life after suicide. She should know. She even has a house full of boys and she has a sense of humor. Her house is always full of noise and a big dog. They don't really have furniture arrangements, more like corridors for running around yelling and brandishing various implements. It is invigorating to go there, like being in a wind tunnel and your hairpiece has been sucked up the vent. You have that surprised look on your face. One of the wolverines in a purple and yellow letter jacket. Plush.

This morning Wishbone was flipping around the room at 5AM so I woke up and thought about some animal or bird he was torturing. He was only dancing on my pajama bottoms and watching a robin outside the window. I fell back to sleep for a time and in my dream he ran in with a baby mouse in his mouth followed by the mouse mother except that it wasn't a mouse, it was a NAKED MOLE RAT, ug, with buck teeth and hairless, yuck. The mother rat got her baby away from Wishbone and she ran down the stairs with her baby in her mouth. I woke up thinking, crap, now we have an infestation of naked mole rats, what next?

suspended animation. I kept waking up in a sweat, turned on the fan, then had to get the blanket, but didn't turn off the fan until morning. Watched West Side Story last night. Wow. I must have been 14 or so when I saw it for the first time. I think I went with my dad. It was/is incredible. Just the opening prelude, the Manhattan skyline in different colors, that lush Leonard Bernstein score and Jerome Robbins choreography--wow, wow, the first scene, there is no talking for 5 minutes or so, just dancing and finger snapping. I found myself grinning even tho I knew Natalie Wood can't really sing and it isn't her voice.

Today, I'm waiting for a baby.

My yoga teacher sings to us and puts scented eye pillows on our eyes when we are relaxing at the end of class. I want to stay in the studio all day. It feels safe there and I don't have to talk to anyone. She had us do a reverse twist triangle pose today and I almost fell over--ha, not quite.

My garden is busting at the seams. Busting, I tell you.