Sunday, September 28, 2008

Loving my to-do list, being a mile long, and having a million things on it for blowing off.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Mean Reds

I haven't written anything of any substance in months. A few nights ago, I wrote a poem about belonging that described my Great Aunt Mary and my grandmother's ritual of playing solitaire while drying their pin-curls with setting solution under those whole-head hot-as-hell hair dryers, but it didn't do what I wanted it to do, and so it went in the pile of things I need to edit.

I wrote something recently about coal-miners and faith, but it fell short of amazing, and when I write things that have Big Ideas, they have to be amazing or else they just don't have that sparkle. So that went in the pile of things that have good elements that just don't seem to work together. Those things become 2 or more poems eventually, or they just gather intellectual dust.

I need to paint again. Everything is just so big a mess, and I need to get all my stuff de-cluttered so I can have the chapbook release party in the classroom in November. I know it's like "That's not until November," but I kind of see it as "Oh my goodness I only have 54 days!"

I think I've got those Golightly Mean Reds.

Worse than the Blues, If I had her money I'd be richer than she is, $5 for the powder room Mean ole Reds.

Plus, I'm thirsty right now, and that doesn't help my mood.

Now I'm going to get back to working on the chapbooks. And on Plain Spoke. They're all melting into one big pile of publishing at the moment, but I'll sort it out.
Looking for Penobscot Indian pictures.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Going to Pittsburgh tonight.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Going to buy paper in the morning.

EDU 539: Grad School for Dummies.

I have my computer class this evening. Last week, we did hokey worksheets in which we labeled the monitor, keyboard, and other input and output devices and computer components. We had all week to finish these things. I feel a little bit dumb after having done them, as if there's a trick somewhere that I'm missing, or some obvious "haha - gotya" april fool's day early thing.

But there isn't. It's just that ridiculous. I should scan them in and make fun of them, but that would mean wasting even more time on it.

Today, for homework, I'm supposed to go online and find my dream computer and print out its specifications.

I can't wait to see what the midterm looks like.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I am a peanut butter sandwich (if it's true that you are what you eat)
Going out to the high school for the audition.

Monday, September 8, 2008

about the Flip Kelly Poetry Prize. Please.

http://ping.fm/97umz

I just got done opening the mail.

As of late, I have been literally swamped by mail. Not the email kind, but the real, made-of-paper, in different handwritings and stylings, and in different folds and various sized envelopes.

The kind that comes with stamps.

It's been damp outside recently, and some of the paper has that little bit of roughness, that curl-up and dried feel to it. Like the fake money you bought at the 8th grade field trip to Gettysburg.

It's that kind of thing, and it makes me happy.
ruffling her papers. (It's the Cindy version of feathers, really.)

Monday, September 1, 2008

Where I'm From

after George Ella Lyon

I am from railroad tracks and whirligigs, from blue glass
Ball mason jars full of cat's eye marbles and old buttons,
from my mother's Tupperware parties.
I am from tongue and groove paneling
(shiny maple, put there by my grandfather
when his hands were strong and young).
I am from wisteria and milkweed
and planting petunias in flower beds each spring.

I'm from staying up late, fresh kettle popcorn,
real melted butter and shiny, salty fingers,
from Flip Kelly, Uncle Bub and Great Aunt Mary Davis.
I'm from big-mouths and bull-heads,
from don't-cut-paper-with-my-sewing-scissors
and stand-up-straight.

I am from the Moonlight Sonata
on the upright Wurlitzer my grandmother gave me
because my mother never learned to play,
from macramé and ceramics,
watching The Joy of Painting on PBS
and learning to crochet.

I'm from the coal hill and the Eastern,
radio cookies and the bubbly brown sugar
smell of Great Grandma Morgan's sweet yams,
singing Christmas songs along with Carpenters
while we made pressed butter cookies and divinity.

From putting notes in my grandpa's lunch bucket
before he left for the Y&O mine,
from the recipe book my grandma started
for me and never got a chance to finish.

I am from my mother's bookshelf,
the cedar chest, and the kitchen cupboard
where we still keep Grandma's good plates,
from leather photo albums,
and my favorite picture of my mother
wearing the same navy cable-knit toboggan
hat that I wear now.