Assignments

I have been doing a poetry back and forth with Evan, which probably no one cares about, for good reason, but here is this:

I asked him to: Write a poem about falling, include the word "earnings." My feedback: It's very Margaret Atwoody, which I love, and also very you.


Earnings

The whole body draws a salary -
hands, ribs, knees, hearts -
and if you refuse to pay,
you discover the body is a union
and has been planning this strike for days.

Listen to me, please:
Pay the heart first.
Count out the coins.

No one asks more than the heart,
I know, and so often you'll be tempted
to pocket the extra, save it for the mind
forever roaming, for the hands that feel
so good in the dark, for the acute angle
of the shoulder blade that digs into
the mattress at night, pleasured.

If the heart goes broke,
it will not simply go on strike,
go cold on the picket walk,
protest as loudly as a joint
or a ligament. No, no, no:
it becomes fragile
and then it falls. It falls
far, and fast, but unwisely.
And when it falls, it will easily
break, unable to make a landing.

Pay the heart first,
it earns its wages most.
Don't let it fall so easily.
You'd think it was your servant,
trapped there among the viscera,
among the hug of lungs,
the sternum paid to thicken
with credit of milk over years,
among the blood that runs
faster and faster.
But you'd be wrong.

If it falls, it will be that much harder
to pick up the pieces and rebuild,
retrain, and start over.
The salary goes up every time.
I know because I've paid
a king's ransom to keep things together,
to keep from falling,
falling,
falling.


My assignment: (1) Write a short poem (10 lines or less) that is an ode to your favorite food ingredient.

Come kiss me, quick
the sharpness on your tongue
delicious, rich, and seeped
with garlic afterbite. Let
the hunters come:
mosquitoes beaten back
and vampires that sneer
and sulk away. We ate
all the cloves
we are roasting in it
bold, exploring, bursting
to feast on each other.

The City

A friend posted a link to this and I love it so much, I keep watching it over and over.



I like when he yells.

Also, watch Portlandia.

What I Wrote To Evan Stephens

...when he asked me to write to him about the most recent movie I had seen.


Howl

I saw the best minds of my generation
merged, in a creative writing class and twisted,
involuntarily, through the years. Endlessly seeking
ecstasy, truth, and intuition in a partner or
in many partners or in the pursuit of something larger than all of us.
We visit over social media and in 400 level classes and in museum corridors and like and unlike what is happening in our worlds.
We laugh because the names are all the same, recycled, a relic of what we once grabbed and fed upon and experienced for the first time, ecstatic.
And each time is new, and each time is a redemption for what was lost, and each time we shyly look down at our shoes, and smile, and remember, and face the present gazing upon us: brilliant, social, bright.
We force the truth to flow out of our mouths and are grateful for whatever kind landing it arrives upon; we want to be understood, we do not think you possibly can, and you surprise us, time after time, kind eyes and strong fingers.
Your touch is an unexpected gift, it stays with us longer than we expect it will.
We are teeming in the here and now, we are -- you cannot understand -- we are bursting into this new life
which begins now
which is endless
which is home.

New Year's Resolutions

For the record... I gave up using 4square. I am not the mayor of anything.

I have found there are more enjoyable ways to interact with the world and the people contained within.

And, there are no points, and no winners, and no prizes.

I am sorry, but whoever told you there are prizes was lying!

I am, however, interested in checking in to places. I think that when you are in a place, you should really be there.

Which brings me to the few New Year's Resolutions that have kept coming back to my head over the last few weeks:

1. Earn your weekends

I usually work hard, but lately I have been distracted, perhaps for understandable reasons, but not in a "feel sorry for me" way, more like a "good for you; you gave your life a kick in the ass, now start living it" type of way. But still, it's easy to fall back into the "feel sorry for me" camp if it means that maybe we can coast a little until the holidays... and then until business really gets started up again... NO, earn your weekends. Go kick ass. The stakes are too high. Get a raise!

2. Follow your bliss

BECAUSE WHY NOT?? Bliss is great. Let's make more of that.

3. Get better

This is not to suggest any current deficiencies. You are fine. What I mean is: where do you want to grow this year? Do you want to get a passport and travel abroad? Do it. Do you want to be a good homeowner and trim those bushes and take out the trash on Sundays without an Outlook reminder? Girl, get on that. You could know what cleaner will work best on your wood floors. You could have awesome lamps. You can find a flush mount light fixture you don't hate. You could ENJOY going to Home Depot (ok, let's not go overboard here...). The point is, Mary, your Strengthfinders says you are a learner, so keep learning, and think of it less as "chores" than as "amazing ways to glean knowledge" and then relax in your super clean and eclectic home and if all else fails, keep frequenting the gym and the coffee shop around the corner, because we want them in our corner for years to come.

Happy Birthday, Daniel Johnston

Upwards Over the Mountain

I tried to share this awhile back, but couldn't find a link at the time.

Listen and love:

Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.

Listen to the whole episode. Aimee Man + Iron and Wine = Melt.

The Old Man Who Saved Some Ungrateful People

The third installment from Children of Wax:

(I am not making this up.)

I know what you are thinking -- OH MAN this is a great book. The young people could learn something from this book!

Well, yes, the young people could probably learn something from this book. But mostly the rich and fat people could learn something from this story!

So a bunch of rich and fat people live in abundance in a town with bountiful grain and they are all happy. They think this is a great place to live, where their grain silo regularly overflows and they are fat and happy.

You know who else thinks this is a great place to live?

The birds! The birds think this is a great place for birds to live, and they build little bird condos in the trees and help themselves to grain from the silo.

The rich and fat people are not happy about their new bird neighbors, who are eating all the grain. They realize that if this situation continues, they will become poor and skinny. They attempt to get rid of the birds with arrows, but the arrows are either very slow or the birds are very clever, or both, and it does not work.

So the people think and think and think and eventually they realize that they are not very smart, and one poor sod is like "you know who would know what to do... that old man we ran out of town because of his witchery."

And a hush falls over the crowd, because everyone was thinking it but no one wanted to say it. But eventually they concur, yes, we need to go ask the old man for help, le sigh.

The leader of the rich and fat people travels not too far away, to a bush where the old man has been living and is very skinny and is eating leaves to stay alive. And he's like, heyyyyy... and the old man is like, piss off, and the leader begs him to return and help them deal with the pesky, crafty birds, and the old man finally gives in and gathers some magic arrow formula and returns to the village.

The next morning the birds are literally singing and strutting and taunting the rich and fat people and the old man tells the people to dip their arrows into his magic arrow formula, and viola--arrows now go into the birds. Any birds that don't immediately die make for the hills.

And the rich and happy people celebrate and make the old man their leader, and bring him cows and beer to his heart's delight, and he governs justly and all is good. UNTIL some nitwit is like, hey--did you see how that old man used magic to kill those birds? He could probably do the same thing to us. We should probably run him out of town.

And this sentiment spreads throughout the town until eventually the old man is, once again, run out of town (are you paying attention, Texas Board of Education, are you seeing how history repeats itself and why you should not monkey with the social studies curriculum?) and all the while the birds have been quietly watching and waiting for this moment, and what do you suppose happens once the old man is run out of town?

Alfred Hitchcock happens.

The four highest ranking men run after the old man, and beg him to return and help them again, and the old man looks carefully at his bush, with its scarcity of leaves and hard ground to sleep on, and its absence of stupid people, and he says: No.

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Ed. Note: I started rewriting this story in May of 2010, and never finished, but decided it is a story that deserves to be told, even though I couldn't find the life connect at the time. Not least because the title and the beginning of the story remind me of my dad, and I started retelling it for him-- so here you go Dad, a few months belated.

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And what lessons can we draw from the old man who saved the ungrateful people?

Well, first of all, I'm not sure I can't sympathize with the ungrateful people. It is good to be rich and fat. And, birds are super annoying. And, people who insist on using magic: weird. Also, grain, yum.

But, let's suppose the old man is a hard decision, but something that is good for you, and one that you keep making, time after time. And then you get attacked by birds. And sooner or later, you might be living on leaves. And you are stupid, you know this, but you run the old man out, and you try to remember what he taught you, and you try to shoot straight, and get rid of the birds. You might not be as rich or as fat, over time, but you'll be more wily, and God willing, you'll get smarter. You might wind up in a bush. This might take some time.

And let's say the old man is in the right--and it is hard to argue that he is not--let's say you are the only sane person in the village. You could show up again and again to argue your case. You could go insane in the arguing. Or you could learn to live in the beauty of the bush. You could learn to like leaves. You could make your own magic.

Catching the Tail Ends of Compliments

What the man at Spec's said to me, in passing:

FUL!

What he said to the woman walking in front of me:

You are BEAUTI

Brink

"Jill's face changed constantly. She was always affectable, always vulnerable. The penalty she paid for being honest was that she lived most of her life poised on brinks. They were real brinks too. At first the sight of Jill poised on a brink scared me badly. I had no confidence in my ability to pull her back, and if I said something false or wrong and she went over she would really go over, into some kind of different life. She never poised on phony brinks."

from All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, by Larry McMurtry

A Good Pupil

Lately, I've been noticing that the pupils of my eyes seem abnormally dilated, without the influence of drugs, alcohol, or medicine.

And at first, I summed it up to the company I was with at the time (which still applies).

But then, I noticed it happening more frequently, and in a variety of contexts. And I realized: this is what my eyes look like.

This is what my eyes look like when they are letting the light in. When they are seeing and are wildly attracted to the world.