I have a chest in  my living room with Chinese ladies quaffing tea together on it. Another Chinese lady is holding a flower in her hand (or is that something on fire?) I hope it isn't a flaming flower because she will burn her hand. There she is, as long as the chest lasts, holding a fiery flower. Ouch. 

Sometimes it's that way. We walk around on fire with nothing to put us out, even in Seattle where it is frequently rainy and cold. Burning, always burning.

photo by Eden, my daughter

I stayed up way too late watching movies, a Sandra Bullock thing with messed up adolescent boys and Rachel Getting Married (subtitle: Dancing with Shiva) with Anne Hathaway. The subtitle gets it right. Shiva-creator/destroyer goddess. Well, Ms Hathaway is a very unhappy person for good reasons and just out of rehab. At her sister's wedding. I think they should have put her in 4 point restraints for the occasion but no, they let her wander around saying terrible things and even socking her mother. Wow, right on the kisser. The blurb said it had moments of humor, uh, dunno where those were. Very disturbing. 

Yesterday I went to the local cheap-o women's spa and sat in the hot tub and steam. Today, as usual, I allow myself to stay in bed as long as I want with the Sunday NYT. I'm looking at an ad for a purse that costs $2005. I thought for a moment it was the date. These ads are always in the section with international news and something called New York's Most Needy about a family living in a box with a crippled kid. 

I'm gonna go hang out with some poets. They don't usually have Cartier watches and 2 thousand dollar handbags.

My friend's parents are in town and they/we are going to Cafe Flor, a fancy gourmet veg restaurant and I don't have to pay. This is excellent because I have very little money at the moment. One of those balancing between sending a check and hoping it doesn't get cashed until after payday, which is weird because I pay myself...Well, this is my attempt at constraint. Sad, I know. 

Oh, poetry sucks. I hate it. If I could write some cheery Northwesty poetry about driftwood and unicorns, I know I would feel better. I'm wearing a purple shirt that I actually ironed. I don't know what possessed me. To iron. I think I am avoiding writing poetry. Because I hate it. It crawls into my brain and I say terrible things, not nice things at all, like I was raised. Bad girl, bad girl. 

My friend has tumors in her brain. Auntie Em, I just wanna go home.

A lotta babies lately. Because I lose sleep, and time, any ritual I might have becomes a moment when I did something with regularity but, uh, not now. Instead, I eat whole sleeves of little lemon cookies and stay up watching the first episode of Rome (ug, way too much violence) and listen to the cats fighting. Hugo (nee Wishbone) and Lola play fight and Lupine fights for real, growling, hissing, tufts of fur and general meanness. 

Tonight because it is so cold outside, I'm going to stand in the wet grass in my bare feet and stare up at the apple tree. This is the 'off' year when the tree makes zero apples, not a single blossom. Last year there were hundreds of apples. My neighbor's pear tree in covered. I await some grocery bags full of pears.

Pear sauce:

Cut up a bunch of pears with the skins.

Put them in a pot with a bit of water and a smidge of salt.

Cook down until they are all mashy

Put through a food processor

Eat warm. It tastes buttery and delicious. Better than homemade applesauce. 

I witness suffering, in my job, in life in general. Women tell me things. Sometimes terrible things. I hold it all. Humans are capable of the worst. And the best. You come around a corner and someone clobbers you or hands you a flower for free. 

I remember a TV show called "The Millionaire." John Ashford Tipton went around handing out checks for a million dollars from a mysterious stranger. The recipients would then proceed to screw up their lives. If someone came to my door and handed me a check for a million dollars, I would endow my artist friends so they could have a really nice vacation. A million dollars doesn't go very far any more. My friends couldn't retire or anything. They could go to Mexico and lie in a hammock in the sun with a big alcoholic beverage with a paper umbrella in it. A pink umbrella. 

I once had a drink in a pineapple. It was at a cheesy luau we went to in Maui. We were given plastic leis and there was a photographer who took our picture. There were piles of roast pig which I didn't eat. And poi. Poi is this greyish gluey stuff, starch of the masses in Hawaii. The best part of being there was swimming with the turtle. Big green turtles.

The last morning we were in Hawaii, I got up early and went swimming. Me and six turtles. I touched their shells, just a little. They were so beautiful, they fly in the water. I looked into their lidded eyes and fell in love. They didn't mind that I was swimming with them. Sometimes I think about them when I can't go to sleep. 

I'm watching Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I, so fantastic. Wigs and golden gowns and beheadings. I want to be her. Even white shoe polish on her face, or maybe zinc oxide. I'm going to begin calling myself 'we' as in 'we are not amused' or 'we will have tea for breakfast'. 

A friend of mine is dying of cancer. Or chemo, poisonous swill that it is. Therefore, I am eating chocolate truffles from a box that says Moonstruck surrounded by stars. 

I rode the Coast Starlight train to Portland and it was delayed 6 hours. We, the passengers, were remarkably tolerant, patient even. I reflected on transportation in India and decided that waiting for a train in Seattle wasn't so bad. The station is a ruin, like an old call girl, all smeary mascara and runs in her stockings. You can still see bits of marble and and a gorgeous sculpted ceiling. 

Coming back, I sat next to a very nice faggot named John and we talked the entire time. We both decided that we have to see a woman in the White House before we shuffle off this mortal coil. 

I have eaten every truffle so it must be time for bed. The Sunday NYT has to be dealt with.

 Stigmata

 

You are the one. Solid the spaces lean on, envious.

You are the baby in the barn                                                             

                                                                     -Sylvia Plath

 

 

wring wires to the metal pole   slub your thrust forward     sting elegies     wash your body in lavender    you lost Nepali amber   it burned against your throat     haze country    choice      you can always see the slide cracking fat     when skin ignites       look straight into your margins    study fish migrations   their bloody gilt     pile snow deep    swim out into the frozen gully     absent cardinal movements   dispose of letters home   balance your checkbook    fold laundry dark/light    therethere Nicholas   the tender knot    

This perky real estate person just came in my house with my ex to "evaluate" the worth of the house. It was a surreal experience. I haven't seen my ex up close for, oh, months and here she is with the perky real state person (prep) talking about the wainscoting and the nice windows and the high ceilings and the lovely floors. Gad. Eventually we get to hash it out with lawyers and such. 

Right after they left, I had a teeny glass of Scotch. 

I think humans are INSANE and cats are normal. Hugo (nee Wishbone) is trying to bury his food right now and Lola is chirruping at the birds on the other side of the glass.  Normal, totally normal. 

Ok, enough of this. I went to the tomato and basil plants tonight and apologized to them for planting them in the garden already. It's effing freezing out there. My huge jade plant will just have to deal. 

I just threw a shoe at Lupine, my diabolical semi-feral cat because she was beating up Lola (again). Gawd, what is the problem, the house is warm, they just had dinner, there are no dogs around anymore. Lupine was so sweet when I adopted her. Little did I know she was just weak from hunger (she ate a peanut butter sandwich) and as soon as she regained her strength, she started kicking butt. She'll bite and scratch for no earthly reason and I'm stuck. I can't give her to the pound. I can't give her away without some disclosure about her personality disorder. She's young and healthy and she'll probably outlive me. 

There is a pint of coffee Coconut Bliss, heroin for vegans, in the freezer and I'm not even tempted. I'm having a bagel with fake cream cheese and edamame for dinner. I know, not very balanced. 

It's hard to be an ethical person. I'm attempting to live in a alternate reality.

EasterSundayrain.  Melancholy has struck. This month last year my ex was in a very bad hit-and-run that landed her in the ICU. What is it with people who run over a person WITH THEIR CAR and then drive away? The carnage, the pain and horror. 

I am listening to Vivaldi's Concerto in C Major for oboe. The arpeggios alone are so strenuous and wonderful. And he doesn't even take a breath. He must have the lung capacity of a whale. 

I did it. I put together 40 poems for R to put into the yes/no piles. I have a goal to be published this year. Me, just myself, no anthology for me. No sir. 

I watched the first episode of Absolutely Fabulous last night. Again. Genius, pure and simple. I might have to watch the rest of the first season for the mood I'm in. 

When Matisse was old and sick and in bed, he painted the walls of his bedroom. He had his paint brushes tied to long sticks like fishing rods so he could reach. I am somewhat the same. This morning I ordered the entire AbFab collection from Amazon and I downloaded the sound track from Slumdog Millionaire into my IPod, all from my bed. See, almost identical. 

Oh, last night driving home, I passed the house where Kurt Cobain died. There is a little park next door and there is a bench in the park. The people who own the house now tore down the building where he actually died but people visit the park and use the bench as a memorial. For the last few days there have been flowers on the bench and last night there were lighted candles...for our own poet. 

Last night was my writer's workshop and so heavenly to be in Rebecca's living room with snacks and wine and R's famous Alice in Wonderland teapot. Because I spend too much time alone, going out to hang with writers makes me so happy, especially poets. 

Aftereffects of my retreat: I woke up during the night and lay weeping for all the animals I have eaten in my life. I asked forgiveness from them and it was a dang long list. 

Time to go swimming in the city pool. Me and the old ladies in their big old bathing suits in water aerobics class. I might get me one of those suits with a little skirt on it, like the hippos in Fantasia. In pink.

I pray for R and her teeth.

When I can, like today, I stay in bed and drag the NYT with me and the latest SUN and read. The window is open, I can hear a bird at the top of the tallest tree and the traffic has nothing to do with me. I answer the phone if I want. I can see eagles circling in the skylight. Swallows just crossed together. Birds are flying everywhere with bits of fluff in their beaks.

When I was on retreat in California, I climbed the very steep, tall hills until I got to the ridge. I could see the Golden Gate bridge and the Richmond bridge and the water... Along the ridge line was a fence and at one end sat the vultures and ravens. I got so close to them I almost touched them. They swiveled their heads and slowly opened their massive wings and launched, floating on the thermals. I could sense flying, opening to the free fall as they tipped and turned their wings slightly, moving up and down in the shadowy depressions looking for lunch.  They were a constant presence during the retreat, circling over and over high above us as we did walking meditation.

Today the sun shone upon the people and the people did squinteth and the people did fumble for sunglasses and the males of the species wore kilts and sneakers and the females of the species wore barely anything and they eyed one another and little bubbles rose in their heads and the hormone levels rose as well as body parts and there were thoughts of merging and mating and building a nest for the eggs and ordering pizza and watching movies very closely on the couch without any clothes or birth control and the midwives rejoiceth for the increase in business when the pregnancy tests looketh like + instead of - and the moral of the story is, um, use sunscreen and beware of kilted men when you are blinded by the yellow orb in the sky. 

The End

This is a picture of my garden with SUN and WARMTH. It is the best I can do for the current dismal weather situation.

WTF, more snow???? This is not the northeast where that sort of thing is, well, common. I grew up there and got out as soon as I could, snow on the crocus and daffs. I think if I hadn't gone to California for a month, I would have been OK. They have sun there almost every day. All day. And people take it for granted. I'm bloody sick of this. 

I miss the wild turkeys at the retreat center. There was a flock of them. They are, in a word, ridiculous. The males puff all up, fluff up their feathers, fan out their tales and change their wattles from white to red. OK, their wattles look like facial scrotums, eewww. And they have this wormy thingy hanging down from their beaks. Then they foof out their wings and drag them on the ground and make huffing noises if they aren't gobbling. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. But I guess the girl turkeys think they are hot. I watched a mating pair. I wasn't sneaking around, just walking down the road and there they were. The male climbed on top and hung on (by the way, turkeys are BIG) and started bouncing around until the female was basically flattened on the pavement with her wings out while making a kind of erping sound. When he was "done", he hopped off and wandered away. No snuggling or cigarettes or anything. Turkey love.