I just sent my first text message (ever). . .

. . .to (of course) a much much younger man. I wondered when I would get around to the texting generation.

Friday poem, Robert Creeley

Other

Having begun in thought there
in that factual embodied wonder
what was lost in the emptied lovers
patience and mind I first felt there
wondered again and again what for
myself so meager and finally singular
despite all issued therefrom whether
sister or mother or brother or father
come to love's emptied place too late
to feel it again see again first there
all the peculiar wet tenderness the care
of her for whom to be other was first fate.

In thinking about my relationships with men and what I may write for the upcoming 18th Carnival of Feminists over at Clare's, this poem comes to mind.

In my work and in my life, I am obsessed with woman as "other." I am deliberately using "woman" rather than "women" here. Although such a designation is capable of reducing the many different experiences of individual women into a singular and ultimately biologically determined essential meaning, "woman" carries a symbolic weight and meanings that function in very specific ways.

Here "woman" is "other." Otherness is specifically her fate. Only "her" works in the last line of a poem about the body as "other." Then there is the rhythm and pace of a poem with no pauses, enjambment in every line--a poem of enjambment, breathless, furious, collapsing into itself. It speaks to me on a personal level because lately, as has always been the case to some degree, my own alienation seems centered on the body, my own body. As a child, I had a recurring dream about looking down at various parts of body and seeing patches of green crystals embedded in my skin. I was fascinated and horrified. The dreams made me feel profoundly sad and disconnected from everyone around me and from myself. I still know that feeling.

Ten from today's work shuffle

1. Yo La Tengo, "Stockholm Syndrome"
2. Lucinda Williams, "Blue"
3. Wilco, "The Lonely 1"
4. Old 97's, "Salome"
5. Liz Phair, "Gunshy"
6. Aimee Mann, "You Do"
7. Emmylou Harris, "Deeper Well"
8. Stereophonics, "Roll Up and Shine"
9. Bright Eyes, "Touch"
10. Radiohead, "Exit Music (For A Film)"

Lyrics sung most loudly in joyous solidarity of feeling:

"And I'm tired of makin' friends.
And I'm tired of makin' time.
And I'm sick to death of love.
And I'm sick to death of tryin'.
And it's easier for you
Yeah it's easier for you."

Uh huh. You sing it, Rhett Miller, you bitter and beautiful little alt-country rocker, you.

Random bullets of silliness

Before I get down to the serious work of the serious thinking on the serious topics . . .

--Guess what I brought home yesterday? Meet my new boyfriend. (Yes, I do realize it looks like a giant smushy bright-pink dildo. Leave me alone. It's a body pillow, and I love him it!)

--South Beach Diet, Phase Four. Expected weight loss per week: 1.5 lbs. I am not kidding. I think it may have something to do with the mad energy of a liver trying to prevent spontaneous combustion of the body.

--After a Rubik's hiatus of about a year or so, I have once again solved the diabolical cube. And, yes, this counts as "work."

Someone get Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorton on the phone

Asteroid 2004 XP14 is on its way.

Lonely lonely attic

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes. It ended last night with a lovely little dinner in a charming little restuarant in a cool little part of town. After all of the celebratory activity and since Dr. Crazy's departure back to hometown city earlier today, things are mighty quiet and lonely around here.

But it is high time that I got to work, so some quiet and alone time are in order. Must somehow now gear up to a high level of productivity in order to finish overdue revisions on one article and to write another, not quite from scratch but close enough. Think I might start with a serious list-making session tonight.

I am just feeling so weird about so many parts of my life right now--my past, my work, my relationship with my family, my social life, my love life. The family visit, the breakup, the birthday have all contributed to this, but I think it's going to take some time to work through it all. I am hoping that I will be able to focus on my work. Actually, I am hoping the heavy work load will somehow help me to work through the weird feelings.

Okay, must drag myself out for a run to work off the alarming number of South Beach Phase Four calories (every single one of which was totally worth it) consumed in the past five days.

Happy Birthday to me!

Thanks to those of you who joined last night's discussion group for your insightful commentary and your willingness to indulge the adolescent girl sides of Drs. Crazy and Medusa. If you had not been there, we very likely would have been prank-calling boys and waiting for one or the other fell asleep so we could put her hand in a cup of water.

To recap:

On fashion
There seems to be a general "no" to neoprene clogs or really clogs of any aggressively ugly design, unless one is heavy with child and walking the streets of Berlin. Until I am in such circumstances, I will continue to insist that neoprene is the pseudo-cloth of Satan and therefore should not cover any part of the body at any time.

I will likely never be in a position to buy the $1790 Mousseline pink blouse by Chanel. Admiring such things, though, and needing a new creative outlet has led me to a birthday resolution (all of which will be posted soon) to buy a sewing machine and learn how to sew. I think I would be good. Dr. Crazy pointed out that it might take years to craft the likes of the Chanel blouse and believes that there is a reason (in the crafting, cut, and fit) for it being $1790. I disagree. It is the name and the design. Anyway, I am looking forward to the new project, especially because I can envision a whole wardrobe in "summer whore" pink.

On pop culture
The neoprene clog, Ashlee Simpson, and Supernanny questions were inspired by the pathetic hour or two that Crazy and I spent lazily flipping through channels, occasionally finding a thing of disgust or interest upon which to ponder, but mostly doing things like playing with the Rubik's cube and falling asleep to Seinfeld. I am not kidding. And, I'll go ahead and admit it to protect my friend, it's me with the Rubik's cube fixation. Anyway, I had not seen the new Simpsonette. The most depressing part of her transformation for me is that she, when asked if she had had a nose job, said, "I am not saying 'yes' and I am not saying 'no'." And she seemed delighted with this answer, which made me imagine the round table of publicists and Joe Simpson coming up with this inane answer and rejoicing. Oh, and for those of you who do not know, this is the Supernanny. I tend to like Nanny 911 better, as those nannies tend blame the parents and not the children, but both are interesting for their crazy anglophilia. Thank you for pointing out that it not so much a regional as a class thing, which come to think of it, one snotty little English child kept pointing out through nasty remarks in one episode. Not that I watch that show. Ever.

On relationships
The Napoleon question was brought on by the latest antics of The Fuckwits, my downstairs neighbors. I had some people over on Saturday night from 9-11 p.m. I know--SHOCKING and INAPPROPRIATE. The Little Fuckwit Husband, who is 3 feet tall and a giant prick, objected in all sorts of obnoxious ways, including confronting my friends and sending an ALL CAP email with exclamation points and things spelled in text-message lingo. This may or may not have inspired some impromptu clog dancing at 3 a.m. So, yes, I would rather live above Napoleon Dynamite than a man who at our first condo meeting asked what I did for a living and when I answered "I am a professor" said, "Oh. We thought you were a stripper." No, I am not lying. And, by the way, while of glorious and compelling beauty, I do not look like a stripper.

Then we have the 35-year-old man with the unironic framed sun-sign poster. Here's my theory. This was the one piece of "art" he ever had framed and this happened when he was 15 years old. Or maybe he found it for a quarter at a yard sale. Whatever. He moved it around because it is his one framed piece of "art." This does not make it okay. It actually makes it worse.

On babies and kittens
Yes. Lovable and edible.

So now it's time to venture out for the actual day of the birthday celebration. There may be lunch and a matinee. There will definitely be a fancy dinner later. So far, the only people who have contacted me (via email and voice mail) to tell me "Happy Birthday" are an old friend I have not heard from in months and months--which is actually good--and, if you can believe it, The Grand He. Strange.

Good and strange. Yep, pretty much sums up my life so far. Off to enjoy my day!

Random musings of Medusa and Crazy

--Neoprene comfort clogs: How do they offend us? Let us count the ways.

--The new Ashlee Simpson depresses us in a vague yet profound manner.

--Would you rather live above Napoleon Bonaparte or Napoleon Dynamite?


Hello, Dr. Crazy here. Medusa cannot write, and she'd like me to provide some musings. [Edited to add: Medusa now is being a backseat blogger, and she says I can't say she can't write because she wrote the above, but what I MEANT was that she could no longer write, and so I had to take over. Now do you see why things are hard for us? Why the blogging does not go smoothly? I should also note that neither of us is drunk - which might actually help, though, come to think of it - nor are we in a food coma.] So anyhow, now let me come up with some musings. I am going to number mine, as it is more comfortable for me.

Questions:
1. Let's say that you know this guy. He's 35 years old. And in his bedroom, he has a framed poster (yes, that's right, a framed poster) not unlike this one. And it's not up there in some sort of ironic way. Oh no it's not. So, the question is: Can a person have a "meaningful" relationship with this man? [I feel compelled to add that my answer to this question is, oh my god, no.]
2. Why, when people see babies, is the first instinct to want to eat their faces and feet? Discuss.
3. Medusa, in thinking about procuring a kitty-cat for herself, seems determined to get a girl-kitty. While I understand her reasons, I feel like she discriminates against the boy-kitties who really are very nice, even if like mine they're kind of whore-y. Is it fair to pre-select the sex of kitty-cats before you meet them?
4. Is it ok to spend $1,800 dollars on a pink Chanel blouse if a.) you are not Mandy Moore on the cover of Elle, b.) you do not have independent wealth, but c.) it is for your very special birthday dinner at a fancy restaurant? Incidentally, it is the exact shade of pink that Chelsea Handler calls - in her excellent work, My Horizontal Life - "summer whore." This is a good thing.

I'm tapped out, back to Medusa :) xo, Dr. C

That Supernanny's (Jo Frost, I believe) accent? Please identify by specific region. All I can possibly muster at the moment. Can't account for what has happened to me. May be sugar, alcohol, or sex related. xo, Dr. M

South Beach Diet, Phase Four

Foods to enjoy

Whiskey
Jalapenos (deep fried and/or with cheese ONLY)
Cupcakes
Onion rings
Monte Cristo sandwiches
Sangria
Spanish sparkling wine
Goat cheese (preferably deep fried)
Nachos
Chili cheese fries
Pizza
Coffee
The potato

Foods to avoid

Fresh fruits
Vegetables of any kind
Water
Wraps
Grilled foods prepared without butter
Lean meat
Whole grains
Non-alcoholic beverages
NO BROCCOLI WHATSOEVER
Legumes

Friday poem, Chase Twichell

For all of those who, unlike me at the moment, are writing. I was lucky enough to take a poetry writing class with Chase Twichell way way back in the day. I read this poem just before I went to graduate school. It remains my favorite piece of writing on writing. What a lush relationship the woman has with language, something I try to nurture in myself especially (and perhaps oddly) when writing difficult theoretical papers.

Word Silence

There's a flame like the flame of fucking
that longs to be put out: words are filings
drawn toward a vast magnetic silence.
The loins ask their usual question
considering loneliness.
The answer is always a mountaintop
erasing itself in a cloud.
It's as if the mind keeps flipping
a coin with a lullaby on one side
and a frightening thrill on the other,
and if it lands it's
back in the air at once.
A word can rub itself rosy
against its cage of context,
starting a small fire in the sentence
and trapping for a moment
the twin scents of now and goodbye.
The sexual mimicry always surprises me:
the long dive the talky mind makes
into the pleasures of its native dark.
Like pain, such joy is locked
in forgetfulness, and the prisoner
must shout for freedom again and again.
Is that what breaks sentences apart
and spreads their embers in a cooling silence?
The pen lies in the bleach of sunlight
fallen on the desk, the ghost-sheet of a bed
turned back. If I look for a long time
into wordlessness, I can see
the vestiges of something that I knew
dissolving. Something that I no longer know.
And there I sleep like an innocent
among the words I loved
but crushed for their inflammable perfumes.

Major projects

Not of the research type, I am afraid. But finally uploading entire music collection onto iTunes and then to iPod and storing away all CDs and accompanying artwork in convenient and non-space consuming baggies? Painting standing bookshelves, organizing books, and finally starting plans for completing built-in shelves? Hanging artwork? Finishing a huge painting I have been working on for 3 years and hanging it? (By the way, I may blog a photo of it even though it tends to somehow disturb everyone but me and a few select others.) Continuing to organize photographs and writing and letters and countless memorabilia items? Running everyday? Check check check check check and check, as I have done it all--manically--with little sleep over the past four days. Part of this craziness has to do with rabid procrastination, another with my need to reflect and nest before my birthday celebration this weekend, and still another with the mad energy I always get around the solstice.

In any case, the writing is not happening but I am confident that it will and that all will be fine. Delusional? Perhaps. Feeling happy and centered? Definitely. Garret looking a bit fabulous? Absolutely.

And, guess who's arriving tomorrow morning for a visit? Drumroll please . . . . . Dr. Crazy.

You can only imagine the posts to follow.

Worth it?

Always. Isn't it a beautiful spot?

I have returned from the ocean retreat to face piles of work, which I am still not really facing, but I do feel better. I have a theory about this thing I do in the summer ( or really any time I have a deadline) regarding my work. The procrastinating, the hemming, the hawing, the panic, the self-loathing, the self-analysis, the angst, the feeling miserable because I am not working--all just some kind of symptom that I am actually enjoying, well at least more that I would enjoy whatever the hell I am repressing. My elaborate plot for dealing with this and doing my work is to ignore the symptom rather than enjoying the symptom, thereby robbing my unconscious of its means of keeping me from doing my work. Those in the mood for a little psychoanalytic theory-making, please feel free to tell me why this strategy will not work. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures from yesterday. . .

Bad bad bad scholar

Going to the seashore. What?? Just for the day. The work will keep, right? Tralalalalalalalala. . . I can't hear you. . . doopbedoopbedooooooo. . . .

Tell me to do my work . . .

. . .or at least to go out and enjoy the beautiful day.

I cannot recall ever feeling this unproductive. (Well, maybe during that year that I was "reading" for my dissertation.) I have so much writing to do and I am so behind that I am in a state of miserable paralysis. I am actually excited about these projects and would normally want to work on them, but I am so burnt-out from the Year from Hell and especially the Brutal Soul-Killing Semester that I just want to lie about and eat bon-bons all day, everyday, for at least a month. Add to the burnout the break-up drama and the exhaustion from my battle with the Wives of Southerners Present Past and Future and. . . you get the picture.

I have even stopped working on my summer photo-organizing and attic-decorating projects (aka all-consuming vehicles of procrasination) and I have almost reached the place of holding myself hostage in the garret because I am "writing."

I have got company coming on Friday for five days! I have a birthday party to plan and a birthday to celebrate! Why won't I just dig in and get a significant chunk of the work done so that I can enjoy myself?

[Edited to add, Note to self: The lack of productivity? The breaking up? The not sleeping? The ayyy-what-is-wrong-I-cannot-work angst? The seemingly random thoughts about Will Ferrell? You do this at this time of year. . .every year.

Perhaps this should be alarming to me but it seriously seriously cheers me up.]

Confession #242

Nothing gets to me like "The Ghost Whisperer." Nothing. I weep and I do mean weep every single time. No show ever broadcast on television could be more transparent in its emotional manipulations, more full of platitudes, or more downright cheesy in its sets, its special effects, and its messages but it never fails to hit me right there. Tonight, for example, when ghost-boy Kenny--via our Melinda, of course--asked his mommy if his turtle, Stubby, would be waiting for him if he went into the light, I was so determined not to cry that my cheeks were puffed out and my eyes were positively bulging until I finally gave in and broke into a full-on snorting sob.

I have been converted from mildly hating Jennifer Love Hewitt to loving the J. Love. And, on a somewhat random note, I have also become pretty convinced that my girl has alopecia. At first I thought there was no reason (and no need for one) for rocking the beehive wig and false eyelash aesthetic, then something seemed a little iffy and now I am fairly certain she's got no hair at all. This only makes me love her more.

Whisper on, J. Love, whisper on.

Everything's clear to me . . .

Why the night of no sleeping or crazy dreaming? Why has Clare declared "Fuck it!" and dashed off to the pub? Why can I get absolutely no work done?

As the Manolo and the Onion have reminded me, it's friggin' Bloomsday, people! Now go outside and find a pint.

Friday poem, a Medusa original (1986)

King and Queen Termite*

Chain Letter Stand-in or
Mathew the cat's warcry?
And they watch the sky for the mighty fly . . .
And they watch the skies,
For the mighty fly

Ultra marathoning
Beyond all beleif
Belief, belief, belief . . .
Just got feeling music with integrity don't have to be the best musician in the world you just have to mean it
GRIM (theories that harmony breeds)

" . . .it's all monotonous . . .we don't do it because we like it. . .we do it because we're sick. . ."

Bruce Dern

(on running)

How do you know that Bud is really for you?

Give me the freedom to free my soul,
I want to get lost in the rock-and-roll and drift away . . .
Treehouse songs or

Real Live Human Bankers?




*As I go through all of my old photographs in a massive organization attempt, I am finding all sorts of interesting letters, clippings, poems, and stories. In college, I used to keep a notebook with me constantly and jot down poems or ideas as they came to me. Sometimes, I would write a "sketch" of a day or evening by recording phrases that occurred to me or that I overheard or heard on television, on the radio, or in conversation. I would then slap a title on it and call it a "found poem." "King and Queen Termite" is one of my favorites so far.

Not this again

It's 5:42 a.m. Why can't I sleep? Why have I slept a grand total of 45 restless minutes this night?

Edited to add: The answer is now clear. I was keeping myself from having the sex dream about Will Ferrell that I must have somehow known I was going to have when I finally did fall asleep. While I take great guilty pleasure in Ferrell's work and think this is truly the most brilliant thing I have ever seen--sex with him? Not so much. Not so much at all.

Not exactly freaking out, but . . .

I am ignoring a blown deadline (May 30) and a nearing one (June 30) in order to work on one of my summer projects, which I will call the Great Photo Mission. I am gathering all of my photos from boxes, old mildewed albums, and retired harddrives in order to organize them all into new archive-quality albums and to decorate the garret (part of other major summer project, which I will dub the Make Condo Look Like a Person Lives Here Already) with them. Going through all of the photographs along with the memorabilia I have also stashed has provided a kind of "This is your life, Dr. Medusa" experience for me, which is proving to be fascinating and funny and a little sad and terribly, terribly enlightening. I think I started this project not so much to get organized--my conscious purpose--but for some much-needed reflection. After this year's trauma and with a birthday getting closer and closer, I am in a sort of soul-searching mood.

I think I might post some of what I am finding and some of what I am learning. For example, I may or may not have tended to write a sort of stream-of-consciousness log of ideas and bits of conversations I had while I may or may not have been experimenting with what may or may not have been hallucinogenic drugs during (maybe) my college years. Perfect for a Friday poetry blogging entry? Perhaps.

I am having some trouble quashing a backlash of feelings brought on by being in the South and around my family. I am somewhat ashamed of this, but the inner monologue goes a bit like this: "What if I am not a progressive woman at all? What if I am a freak? What is I am really just a hopeless commitment phobe? What if I have not married and had children because I am terrified of intimacy? What if I have fooled myself into thinking I am happy and content and that I do not particularly want to get married and very possibly do not want children because I am some sort of pathetic failure? What if I am a monster?". I want to say that I KNOW IN MY BONES that the preceding is complete hogwash, but it is hard, people, HARD to defend yourself against a troop of Mimosa-swilling Southern wives and mothers. I mean nearly every conversation--even those involving my nieces who only are 11 and 16--included some contemplation of how to get me married and knocked up, DESPITE my continuous reminders that I would be and could be married with a whole brood of children if I wanted to be. After all, I have received more than one (five, to be exact) marriage proposals and I have been engaged more than once. BUT, you see, they use this as more evidence that I have some sort of problem. Yes, *I* have a problem and never the men, who are constantly described as the ones who got away. I see how, with the multiple engagements and all, it may seem like I do have a problem but the first time I was engaged I was just much much too young to be married and the second time we were both in graduate school and it just fell apart.

Anyway (catch breath) I am trying not to feel like a freak OR rather I am trying to embrace what might be perceived by others as freakishness. Expect more ranting, though . . . and perhaps a bit of late 80's acid-inspired poetics.

The Southland

Posting more photos of the trip, as I am too tapped to write a real post. Still recovering from trip and now dealing with ex drama. Should not have told him I was back in town. Why oh why did I tell him I was back in town? Wish I could run away again, but work remains untouched and deadlines loom. I feel a real freakout coming on. Be afraid. Be very afraid.


Fly fly away . . .

At the ballpark

The nephew



Red-haired niece and "Papa"


My mother's house is on the edge of a cemetery, where we like to walk at night. What? I am a gorgon, after all.

St. Luke

Full moon

Mama's studio

A magical place, always changing, in my mother's house . . .

Easel & poppet

Mama's pastels

A couple of the many angels, elfs, and fairies who inhabit the house

Who's that cute baby?

The forms are always dancing.

Brief thoughts upon returning from the American South

--I, unmarried and childless and in my thirties, remain like a circus freak to my sister, my sister's friends, and my three nieces. Not a day of a visit passes without some attention directed to the state of my love life and my uterus. Despite my 16-year-old niece's exasperated questions and stabs at analysis ("Why won't you get married, Aunt Medusa?!" "Maybe you didn't marry X because you are too cynical."), she is at least a little bit (and in a good way) intrigued. My sister and her friends remain in a state of panic.

--The mullet is alive and well.

--I wonder if it is normal to sit at the dinner table and wonder which of Lacan's four structures of psychopathology (hysteria, obsessional neurosis, perversion, psychosis) is most dominant in each family member. I also wonder if it is normal that when I mention that I am doing this, it becomes a popular dinner-table game for the rest of the week.

--Christianity (at least the Southern brand of it) scares the bejesus out of me.

--Despite the fact that we are all insane and I remain one snarky bitch, I love my family and it was very good to get away.

Clearing out

I need to put some space between myself and the recent breakup ugliness (which I want to blog about, once I get my bearings) not to mention the general nastiness of the Year From Hell. So I am off to the Deep Red to visit my family. This of course will not be in the least relaxing, but I need (and want) to see them. Rather than going in the middle of July or August (and interrupting any summer projects, including the very important Project Kitten) and in spite of looming deadlines, I am going now. Then I will be able to breathe! When I return next Monday, the summer will stretch endlessly before me! Endlessly! That's the general idea, anyway.

OK, to shower, to car, to airport in other city where cheap air fares live, to satellite parking lot, to smelly "valet" van, to security, to plane . . .and finally to the South--where there had better be some version of a Mint Julep with my name on it.

Will blog from the road. If anyone else is laying over in Scarlett and Rhett's city this afternoon, say "hello."

In honor of Clare's week of memes

One of Clare's early morning memes:

10 Favorites
Favorite Season: Fall
Favorite Color: Dark blues, any green, and--yes--pink
Favorite Time: Morning and evening
Favorite Food: Fish
Favorite Drink: Whiskey, rocks
Favorite Ice Cream: Ginger
Favorite Place: New York
Favorite Sport: To do: running and once upon a time, gymnastics; To watch: baseball
Favorite Actor: Lately, my sweet sweet lovely Gael Garcia Bernal
Favorite Actress: Maggie Gyllenhaal

9 Currents
Current Feeling: Incredibly anxious, as I just made last-minute plane reservations to visit my family for one week in the Deep Red State. I leave on Monday. I have my annual report, article revisions, and article-length version of paper due. What was I thinking?!?!?!?
Current Drink: Water. Cold coffee from this morning.
Current Time: 3:20 p.m.
Current Show on TV: No T.V. on at the moment
Current Mobile used: LG
Current Windows: Cheapseats.com, ultimatefares.com, Ink & Incapability, Bloglines
Current Underwear: None, of course
Current Clothes: Navy blue camisole and boy shorts
Current Thought: I seem more stylish than I am. You should know I haven't showered in 48 hours and my hair is especially Medusa-like. I am no doubt frightening the neighbors, who can see me in the garret window.

8 Firsts
First Nickname: Agapita
First Kiss: Awkward, during a game of "Post Office" at a cast party after a play I was in when I was 11.
First Crush: Kenny Wong, my kindergarten love. I used to chase him around the schoolyard, trying to kiss him.
First Best Friend: Jenny, 6-9 years old
First Vehicle I Drove: Two-tone blue Datsun (yes, before it was Nissan) 240SX. It was a hand-me-down from my mother. It talked ("Fuel level is low," "Right door is ajar"); I wrecked it.
First Job: Selling Levi's
First Date: A proper date? When I was 14 with my first love/high school boyfriend. I think we went to school dance.
First Pet: Red Baron, the giant Persian attack cat

7 Lasts
Last Drink: As in alcoholic? A Jameson's on the rocks.
Last Kiss: Tragic break-up kiss with now ex-boyfriend.
Last Meal: Omelet, spicy V8, coffee
Last Web Site Visited: Ink & Incapability
Last Movie Watched: Grizzly Man, which I highly recommend. The contrast between Timothy Treadwell's crazy, sweet ebullience and Herzog's creepy Germanness is genius.
Last Phone Call: Dr. Crazy
Last TV show Watched: The Daily Show

6 Have You Ever...
Have You Ever Broken the Law: There's just one?
Have You Ever Been Drunk: On the blog or off?
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Well, this is a tricky one. Just randomly kissed a stranger? No.
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire: Wow. No.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yes! Just this weekend in fact.
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: Er, yes . . .just this weekend in fact.

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: Dogs barking. Who keeps a Rottweiler in a tiny apartment all day? My new idiot neighbors to the right.
Things On Your Bed: Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen; Kiehl's Lip Balm #1; Moonbeam, my stuffed cat
Things You Ate Today: Breakfast mentioned above, walnuts
Things You Can't Live Without: food and drink, sex, books, friends, family (not necessarily in that order)
Things You Do When You Are Bored: read blogs, talk on phone, watch T.V., visit friends, go running, adopt imaginary pets

4 Places You Have Been Today
Bed
Bath
Kitchen
Study

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
Laptop
Cell phone
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise

2 Choices
Shower or rot in own filth?
Write annual report or go buy bottle of wine (or both)?

1 Place You Want To Visit
Newfoundland

Friday poem, Louise Gluck

Happiness

A man and woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth--
At the window ledge,
once, twice,
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
Fills with his breath.

I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.

--Louise Gluck

Medusa runs away with the (rock-and-roll) circus

Why have all of these people gathered here? To witness Medusa's return to the scene?

Nope, just to see some dude.

As they always say, just when you least expect to go on tour with Willie Nelson for the weekend . . .