I am most distressed. Bailey Coy Bookstore closed last year. I walked down there from my clinic and it was GONE. Forever. Then I was just in Fremont and their bookstore is closing. I've read there and attended readings there. Elliot Bay Books moved up to Capitol Hill so I can still go there and smell the heavenly paper/ink/glue of books. I cruise books. I sidle up to them and feel them. I read the back, the cover, sometimes the index. I ponder their physicality, their heft and texture. When I bought Just Kids, the Patti Smith bio about her and Mapplethorpe, I felt the pain of happiness. There are piles of books on my bed. I sleep with books. There are piles beside my bed. I read mysteries, biographies, poetry, travel books, cook books, classics, trash. I read everything. Some books I read annually. The Cider House Rules is one of those books. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow is every bit as good as Dostoevsky. I've read it so many times in the bath, it's swollen to twice it's size. A Kindle won't replace a book, even though I'd use a Kindle if someone gave me one.

Bookstores are disappearing right now. Save a bookstore. Buy a book. (buy a stack of books)

I have two imaginary poodles. Standard poodles. Their names are Gina and Jean Paul. Gina is a silvery gray and JP is chocolate brown. They are past the puppy stage and midway through obedience school. They are extremely smart and intuitive. And they don't shed. The cats tolerate them, as they do one another. When we go for walks, they hardly need leashes because they are so well behaved. They have puppy haircuts, not those stupid pompom cuts you see at dog shows. They are handsome and dignified and they sleep at the foot of my bed. They understand three languages; English, Portugese and, of course, French.

They are the best dogs ever.

I have to talk about a sensitive topic here. The dentist. I had a dentist who is my friend. She began all young and perky. We gossiped about people we knew and we even went to a wedding together where we were horrified and delighted. Inappropriate comments, horrible bride's maids dresses, the works. Then she decided she would move to an island and raise sheep dogs. So she got some sheep and some dogs and did just that. She still commuted to Seattle to be a dentist. Then one day, without any notice, she sold her practice to a guy, a Christian guy who played (blech) Christian soft rock in his office. From NPR to that. It was terrible. So I took my dental needs to a local guy walking distance from my house.

(((sigh)))

It wasn't the same. No one gossiped with me. The dentist cleaned my teeth with a vicious vibrating metal torture device and gave me a rinse to use that would "only stain my teeth a little". Argh. And now I need another cleaning and nowhere to go. I am bereft.

Plus my doctor just retired. That shouldn't be allowed. I'm reduced to seeing 12 year olds who say they are doctors but I'm not so sure. I think they're on their lunch break from junior high.

I got all caught up with my NYT book reviews and I learned that Oprah! magazine had a spread (for poetry month) of young nubile poets modeling fancy expensive outfits. WTF? A $5000 jacket? $400 shoes?

This is totally WRONG. I'm so disgusted I'm going to wear my red clogs all week in honor of fashionable poets even if they don't match anything else I'm wearing. Or maybe the lavender clogs with French writing on them (oui oui!) My daughter gets free Danskos so I do too.

Poetry is sexy! Poetry is hot! Poetry sells outfits !?

Today is Eden's birthday, my daughter. It was a wild and fast labor, a home birth with my beloved family doc who I convinced to attend and a cold snowy morning in upstate New York. Her face was bruised she came out so fast. My house is filled with her photos and art. I sent her roses.

In case you're wondering, this is an urban coyote riding the subway. We are everywhere and we can't be got rid of. We're invincible, especially on the uptown train.

There is a sign on Beacon Hill over a hair shop that says, PERMS, Pedicures, TUNA. I think they must be a full service salon...sashimi and a manicure perhaps.

As I was putting on my 'walking shoes', my beat-up sneakers, it began to rain. Eff it, I have a raincoat, so there!

After I get a cold, I cough for, o, weeks. Last night, in the midst of a coughing fit in bed, I staggered to the medicine cabinet and downed {{{codeine}}} cough syrup which works because it makes you unconscious dead never moving until morning so you don't have the strength to cough. But all the gunk in your lungs is still there, waiting to start bubbling and wheezing in the morning AND you have a wicked headache and you feel...drugged. I sound like Linda Blair. I need an exorcism. Be gone, evil lung gunk!!!

My midwife partner thinks my sicknesses are from my vegan diet. I wonder if she's right. Although I can't see eating a few hamburgers as a cure. Besides, yuck.

I purged my closet. The rule is, if you haven't worn it in 1 year (Ok, maybe 2 years), out it goes. I have this little black dress, cut on the bias that I looked HOT in about, um, a lotta years ago. I would look ridiculous in it now. So I've been hanging on to it for the sake of memory. And my former hot self. With high heels and stockings with seams. Oh yeah. Farewell, former hot self. I'm sure I have a current hot self. She hasn't arrived as yet. Deb thinks I'm hot in my green ratty bathrobe. She is obviously blinded by love.

I forgot to put out the garbage and the outfit I wore in haste ahead of the garbage truck was stunning. Pajama top, dirty pants that were on the floor and aqua gardening shoes. Yum. I bet the garbage people have seen everything. And Deb still thinks I'm cute. I'm so glad she's delusional.

FOR TODAY AND THE SUN AND ALL THE BRILLIANT

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

dshaw@jabberwocky.com

---

Return to Glorious Nonsense

My girlfriend just put a bowl of strawberries in front of me. They are so beautiful, I want to cry.

Downed trees in Seward Park, trilliums coming up in my yard and a ton o' weeding awaits me. Light and shadow, bring an umbrella but bits of sun and an eagle calling out of sight in the treetops. The camilla is thick with pink flowers, wholly over grown. I'm a wimpy pruner. I make little snips here and there. My stout hearted girlfriend will wade in with giant clippers and give the camilla a proper grooming. When all appears dead, green mites appear ground level where I despaired of any plant living through the winter, especially a fickle winter of snow and warmth and more snow and ice. Plants in their dumb glory.

One lone daffodil but many more coming. I forgot how many tulips I planted last year but they are everywhere under the bushes. I will never vanquish the grape hyacinths but I always try.

The dogs in the park are, for the most part, delirious. Especially the blondes. They run all over, their owners calling in vain. I miss Yogi man and his barrel body. He was quite polite and above the frolickry.

Got a nasty sore throat. Here in bed with the blue sky and puffy clouds. No gardening for me.

PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES

If you're squeamish. I'm waiting for my g'friend to arrive because she has to help me. Seriously to g-d. Lola has a giant poop matt under her tail and try as I might, I can't pin her down to wash/cut/slash etc at her bottomside without significant damage to myself. I tried. Last night. My hands are bandaged. I left her in the bathroom because she smells, well, like cat poop. And she knows something is wrong. She limps down the stairs. She's taken to lying flat on her back with her back legs wide apart, something I've never seen her do before. Occasionally she tries to clean herself but, yuck, even for a cat. In the meantime, the house smells real bad and no amount of incense is helping.

ARGAA.

I just wanted to share. Thanks for listening.

My hunny and I went to the Gem and Jewelry show at the Seattle Center today. I got a piece of amber, still in my pocket. Amber is magic. Lots of 'jewels' are fake, apparently. I saw a lot of rocks which should have been left alone where they were, like geodes that people saw in half. Most of the people selling were Chinese or Korean. Most of the people buying were East Indian. I don't understand this. There were two men sitting by a polisher machine that whirred around and around. This is how you make facets. I asked how long it would take for a rock to be polished and the one with the glasses said, "about 800 years". I believed him.

My neighbor downstairs is having sex VERY LOUDLY. It might be time for me to go upstairs to bed. Oh, now it's quiet. Sometimes, I wonder if I am really a human being. Like other human beings.

It is blowing winds about 800 miles an hour. I rolled up the awning and a garbage can convention is skittering down the street, can lids everywhere.

In Wisconsin, the farmers are gonna drive their tractors to the state capitol. Go farmers! What's happening is truly horrifying. Tonight I'm gonna eat sushi with my honey, go to a movie and hunker down in our liberal corner of Seattle while the world goes to hell. I'll dust off my protest signs for the coming street demos. Or the space ships to come get me and my friends.

While swimming today, my lane partner was a sleek young man who mostly swam underwater. I'd look down and there he was, fish man in his little black trunks and wavery hands. I though I might be dreaming. Swimming in the pool is not like Hawaii and the Pacific. I know this because there isn't any salt or blue neons or parrot fish. Just a merman.

Back to the forest for split pea soup and a bread crust a crust some sparse butter from a butterfly bush last summer we had no thought of the winter calamity but here it is the sorrowful hand signals a darning egg we frolicked in our flouncy trousers the beetle queen adorned her many children with spun sugar all colors I liked the purple ones cavort you may=nonesuch=honeysuckle birds in their feathered bower.