Writing the Memory Prompt

In my hand-written journal
(yeah, where all the richest mojo tales twine)
I often use little memory prompts:

"On the bank w/tattered white bedspread--"

or

"Cowboy hat--strawberries--White Rain--"

Always intending to go back in and fill in the blanks,
because, surely, I could never forget, say, dew drops
on the broken glass.


Teaching composition has, in turn, taught me
to think about the finest details
that go into the best writings;
so I share with my students:

[from Coles' Teaching Composition]

"Where for me now are all those rich experiences I must have had in the fourth or fifth grade? Where are all those lesser known Shakespeare plays that I have read but was never 'made' to write papers on and never talked over with anyone? Why is it that when I go tiptoeing back through a diary I kept in high school and come upon the entry: 'With Marilyn tonight: the greatest yet'--I can no longer more remember that night than I can remember what was great about it? . . . To go through life Themewriting my experience into bloodless abstractions--we had a swell time; she was really cool; it was a great trip--is to end up finally with a great deal of that life having trickled through my fingers."

Here's a glass of wine to us bloggers
who attempt to capture some of those moments
and to disseminate the true multiculturism of our daily lives.

WTF People?!

Guadian
By BRETT MARTEL
Associated Press Writer

"Blanco said she wanted the Superdome - which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people - evacuated within two days, though was still unclear where the people would go. The air conditioning inside the Superdome was out, the toilets were broken, and tempers were rising in the sweltering heat. 'Conditions are degenerating rapidly,' she said. `It's a very, very desperate situation.'"



Who organizes this shit?!
Come on! Now's the time to use resources--
technology, skills, networks, and compassion--

Get those people out of there!
You--Baton Rouge, Montgomery, Jackson, Monroe, and Tuscaloosa!
And even--Houston, Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, and Atlanta!
And, yes, wider--

Why does it take two planes and two towers
to get people to respond quicker and more efficiently?

Does a suit in a high rise
warrant more urgency
than a t-shirt on top of a trailer?
Get your asses together. Geez.

Reincarnation

Her mum-in-law cracked her grey head
on a porcelain bath tub
at 5:30am on Saturday.

In fact, she split open the bone
just under her left orbital.

It may require plastic surgery.

She walked out of the hospital
with her partner and sister-in-law
onto the sidewalk next to the parking lot.
Clouds overhead.

Detached from the conversation,
she stared at the pavement.

With the tip of her Keds
she began to stamp quietly
in an odd quiet, little dance.

It reminded her of moving her cursor
on a little flash game she once played,
clicking the mouse and watching the gems disappear.

"What are you doing?" she heard the sister-in-law gape.

She picked up her foot, twisted her ankle,
and looked at her sole.
Little black globs were stuck to the bottom.

Just ants. Just ants.

Watching the leaves begin to turn aches in the back of my jaw as if I just imagined droplets of lemon maragine. 

Like This, Fred?

Or do I have to inject into
Mojo's code? I don't like playing around
down there . . .

20 Comments Without SPAM

then BOOM I get hit within an hour.

All after 5pm, to be sure.
Which leads me to believe [ponder, ponder]
that this spamming business
is someone's second job [d*mn mortgage, no doubt]. . .

Oh yeah, the FBI/CIA/FDA/FCC are knocking at my door now.

THEY want to bring the Mojo down,
because THEY are behind it all . . .

So just remember:
If you never see this post,
you'll know why.

"The superdome is not in any dangerous situation," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

Sometimes I fantasize
that I am Wolfman Jack--

broadcasting to you
on pirate air waves--

exposing The Man.

But I know that's not true
because I am not hairy--
in fact, I especially love
my body today. I look/feel fabulous.
We should all love our bodies today.

The Man I wish to expose this morning?
CNN [no surprise here]
for its unabashedly flamboyant
sensationalism of Loisiana's plight:
KATRINA MAY BE 'OUR ASIAN TSUNAMI' [website headline].

Do I even have to elaborate on how absurd
this headline is? How 'hopeful' it sounds?

This headline seems to be based off from
the single statement of some Ivor van Heerden,
director of the Louisiana State University
Public Health Research Center in Baton Rouge:

"We need to recognize we may be about to experience
our equivalent of the Asian tsunami,
in terms of the damage and the numbers
of people that can be killed."

Maybe I'm stupid,
but I just can't comprehend a comparison.

Further, I hope/trust that Mr. Heerden
will be proven horribly wrong,
that today isn't _The Day After Tomorrow_ &
that CNN will be, uh, made to pay for all of the storm's
damage to thousand's of private homes in
Loisiana and Mississippi.

I [Heart] SPAM & [Spleen] Word Identification

I just want you to know
that I failed, yes failed,
a Word Identification Test
at someone's Comment Box.

Couldn't make out a "j" or "q" or something.

The extra typing is Raining on my Parade.
What is the Blog World coming to?
Suddenly, the connections all seem oh so pointless. :-(

And the only things I can really think about
include, but are not limited to:

The elephants in Kenya
which were being relocated
until the very first Bull
broke a Semi with his fat ass . . .

When I pass the orange and red BK establishment
on bridge street, I cringe and think of
the BTK killer--
so BK, to my mind, binds and kills cattle
to feed fat asses. Great . . .

The fricken London Zoo that has set up a "human exhibit"--
displaying, ehem, "athletically inclined" white people
who are scantily dressed (you know, the "humans");
yet the zoo keepers ironically
state that we are indeed a "plague" on our own ecosystem.
Well, ok, so some fat asses might be . . .

Hawaii, the only state Iknow of as yet,
is taking action
at the gas pumps by capping off fat ass prices . . .

and I believe that Gloria Steinem
should have ended her last sentence
concerning the Nature / Nurture debate
on NPR with, well, "Fat Ass
Space Ship Earth" . . .


and yes, what my thoughts are *really* circling around
is my own fat ass,
having eaten homemade BlackBerry Cobbler
for breakfast for the past 3 days in a row--
well,
what was I suppose to do?
I had a whole pie to myself . . .
I'm a threat to my own echo system.

Intersections

OnceOphelia posted on a rather interesting topic the other day:

What do we think of our teachers
when we see them out of context?

I absolutely hate being caught out of context
and had a similiar experience this summer to what OnceOphelia
describes; only my interpretation is somewhat different.

On the freeway home from this state's capitol,
I passed through the town where I taught at a branch university
spring quarter and stopped to get gas. (At $1.36,
I remember so fondly.)

While I sat in the passenger seat with my bare feet
up on the dash, listening to who-knows-what,
I noticed a familiar figure, only in a smock,
taking out trash.

She had been the star student, an excellent writer,
thinker. Beautiful in an honest way. Someone I respect.
A student whose future seemed limitless.

When she saw me sitting at the pump,
she pretended not to notice. I looked the other way.
It wasn't about me at all.
Not about seeing her professor without shoes,
windswept messy hair, listening to music.
No.

That moment was about her
and her desire for me not to see _her_ out of context:
the context of being an incredibly bright student,
eager to experience the world from a better advantage point

than taking out loads of trash
on a Saturday afternoon
at a local Speedway.

Avacado finally got her act together
and posted her pictures from
Delaware to Alaska in 42(?)Days.

Well worth anyone's time and energy this bright and cheery morning.
I love photo journals. Especially of this quality.
The last set of pictures, "Pathways," intrigued me the most.
The journey became more facinating as she progressed West
(and became more familiar with her new camera).
I especially enjoyed the Badlands, Yellowstone, and Glacier.
Would like to see more photos of Alaska
this time of year.

Sigh. Seriously, if I would have known how utterly magnificent
the trip would have been,
I would have had to take out a loan.

Perhaps I could swing by and pick up
an old, curious friend
and make the trek up to Alaska some day in the near future . . .

Woo-woo!
Now these students can look up SQUIRRLEYMOJO on line during class. What a neat idea.

At least, that was my experience at the branch this spring.
One student, during break,
admitted that she sat in the back
and played solitaire while I lectured.

I'm debating on ruling out laptops
in class this Fall.

But the truth is--I really, gasp, don't care.
This is a University.
These are adults (kindof--well, ok, legally).
If they want to spend $$$ to play solitaire, go to it.

Sigh. But I must pretend to care. Right?
Pretend to be shocked & horrified.
Be Robin Williams in _Dead Poet Society_, or what ever.
Stand on my desk and captivate the privilleged
into being throughly entertained while learning.
Tap dance if need be.

Teaching is performance. Am I ready for the second Act?

Seeing Stars

So my nap was ok. Just ok.
Have you ever taken a nap
that left you more fuzzy and just plain nasty
than when you first laid down?

My nap wasn't like that.
But it's not like I feel like
running around the house naked & screaming "yahoo"
either.

Even though I do kindof want to.

But this nap did tell me:
"Get off your lazy *ss!"
To which I properly replied:
Ok.

And emailed the branch that I would NOT
be teaching an additional 2 classes
[totaling 6]
this Fall. Sigh. I think that would have meant, uh, DEATH.

What a weekend.
Let's just say I know what a CAT scan looks like
and how it operates now . . .
and how young people might feel when a parent
decides to "come out" at the last moment of a long weekend
before school starts . . .

Last night I laid out stretched on a polar bear blanket
and watched the stars into the night . . .
I couldn't find the Little Dipper. Or Orion.
Two of the only three constellations I know.
And to think I was in my own backyard.

Somehow, I felt saddened, yet relieved;
I couldn't even quite tell the satellites from the North Star . . .
which I think might actually be Venus?

What does such universal ambiguity mean?

No Coffee--Again!

So yeah, I'm giving in--
I'm taking a Monday nap.

Too much to think about--
maybe all the riddles will be solved when I wake up.

Electric Sex (Would Burn, Right)?

I imagine that even after 10 years I would be so
uncomfortable and peeved--mostly peeved--
when the father of the 13-year-old
would pick her up for the weekend and, say,
talk about the movies they were going to see.

He'd probably mention Wes Craven's _Red Eye_
as a perferrable option--and his light tone of voice,
not to mention his posture,
would make me look up trailers online later that evening.

Now, I'd probably look up the trailer to _Red Eye_
after I dropped off all of my other various children
at other various grandparents,
just to bust my *ss home to work on a gazillion projects--

while say, my partner left for the evening
with a few non-mutual friends.
Left me, we'll just imagine, a bit sexually frustrated
in an empty house.

But I would never blog about my sexual frustrations.
Even if I had become oh too cozy in my blogger relationships.

So, while looking at this trailer,
I'd probably be a bit pricked by the sexy new starlet,
Cillian Murphy. I might even think, "D*mn. He is hot."

I might not be able to put my finger on precisely
what ellevated Cillian Murphy's charisma that particular evening
until
I read his bio.
Which would begin by mentioning his startling blue eyes.

Then my cheeks would burn.
I'd put 2 and 2 together pretty quickly after that:



I'd remember the young boy from the video store
when I was 18--
his electric eyes. Eyes that made your heart gasp.
Fumble with your purchase. Your purse.

And, incidentally,
I would no-doubt remember how that same father of the
then 2year-old
left me soon after an
out-of-state wrestling match with this same video-store beau . . .

Would I even then remember how this father
would slyly checkout the swim coach's glistening bod
when the 13year-old was, say, six?

Yes, cold, blue seductive eyes--
no wonder he would want to go see this "thriller."


Umm. Piecing the puzzle together would probably
make me want to write something . . .
without giving too much away.

I Imagine Most Mothers are Pretty Busy Right About Now

A friend of a friend of a friend
showed me this back-to-school
supply list for first grade:

1 Folder w/child's name
1 Plastc school box (5"x8")
3 #2 Pencils--Sharpened
1 Box 24 Crayola Crayons
1 Box Crayola markers
1 Pair Fiskars scissors
2 Small Glue Sticks
1 Pink Pearl Eraser
1 Large Box of Tissues
2 70 Page Wide Rule Spiral Notebooks
1 Box Quart Ziplock Freezer Bags
1 Box Gallon Ziplock Freezer Bags
1 Box Baby Wipes
1 lb. Ground Beef


Anything not quite setting right with you?

Just a Heads Up

The news this morning is really nasty.


Skip it.
Blog instead.

Shopping Lists & Weapons

In the frozen section
of a local grocery,
my partner and I found
a discarded grocery list,

milk
eggs
cheese
bread
juice
butter

written in pencil
by a strong hand
on a broken piece of a 2 x 4 hunk of pine.


No blood.
No worries.

Aestheticism Notes

Europe; 18oos.

"Art for the Sake of Art" v Didactic Purposes

Influenced by:
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848--Victorian Period).

Elevating beauty above all else.
Sensuous details.

Asthetic Distance
1] attempting "objective" perspective between author & work, illusion
2] w/reception theory, the curiosity between "then/now" readings


Wow--I thought I had something to say to this.

Mosquito Bait

While I am still alive
THEY should harvest my blood
and discover the reasons mosquitos
are attracted to particular people more so
than others.

I donate my body to science.

And Now in Spanish

Having finished Mina Shaughnessy's _Errors and Expectations_ (1977),
I'd probably have my 13 year-old daughter
look up the following fun/useful
terms I found in Shaughnessy's work:

ubiquitous
fulcrum
provincialism
nominalize
obfuscate
abrogation
mercurial
palimpsest
acuity
kinesthetic
haptical
obfuscate
acculturation
belletristic
viscosity
sophomoric
aplomb
prolixity
incipient


What's good for me is good for her, yeah?

Just wondering how she might meet the challenge to
include as many of these words in one single sentence
that she possibly could . . .

Ack. Snarf snarf. I know she'd be a math/science geek.

The Department of Vital Statistics

I have a fabulous, uber-secret password
that I'm not sharing.
But it's really good.


Ok, so if I had twins, it would probably
take me 6 1/2 years to discover that they had, indeed,
been SWITCHED AT BIRTH.
Dun Dun Dun DU~U~N.

Here how I imagine it would go:

After many years of petty jokes and endless ribbing
about mixing up those identical twin boys,
I would blithely look at their birth certificates
on my way to registar Twin A and Twin B
at a new school for First Grade.

For the first time, I would notice that, hummmm,
Vital Statistics (aka. our dear dear government)
had documented that Twin B was born at 8:52pm,
while Twin A was born at 9:22pm.

Notice the descrepency: The letter "A" comes before "B"
in our alphabet.

I'd stare at the certificate and double check it--
then, yes, totally flip out.
Laughing and shouting incredulously, I'd show the documents
to my partner.
"Unbelievable."

Yet, I'd remember:
Twin A came out first and would be named __________;
I'd know because he didn't cry at his birth.
That would have worried me, and I would have remembered
him being rushed out into the neonatal unit.

Twin B would have arrived soon after, named __________;
I would remember his cry as being loud and strong--no worries.

Then, after I came down/up from sedation,
I would be told that Twin B, the second child, had a collasped lung
and was taken to a University Hospital . . .

so how did he cry so loudly? hmmmmmmmm . . .

The entire circumstances would leave me wondering . . .

then, because of my hive like mind-powers,
Twin B would probably pick up on my consternation, grin and ask:

"I'm still _________, right mom? I like that name . . . "

For Those Who Wonder, Or Not

I'd blog,
but I've been answering the strangest
emails all day . . .
and phone calls . . .

bizzare situations
begin to bloom as fall approaches
and my world slowly comes back to life . . .

Meet Avacado! She says she's standing at a glacier after a biker convention, but I thought glaciers had snow??? 

Another Saturday

What to do today ??

I woke up this morning from a delicious dream
and asked my partner for a baby.

A little girl named Shannon. With red hair.
This little girl has actually been haunting us for quite sometime.

She's right there, on the verge of existence.
I can feel her little fingers curl around my own.
I see her walking in from school with her books.
I see her forehead sweating from child birth travail.
I see her opening the envelope and screaming upon her first publication.

I see all of my unrealized hopes for myself
reflected in her . . . she's waiting in the void,
arms and hands stretched out--

wait, that's a little creepy. I don't want to go all _Beloved_.


Anyway, my partner just laughed.

Hope is about Perspective--I know, That's No Secret

Green Surface (re)Discovery may still exist:

A Secret Waterfall.


This picture, for me, demystifies the discovery a bit:
A Secret Trickle. Sigh.


Which picture will you make your reality?

Her Moment of Clarity

"Dear God, help me to get out of here,"
she breathed silently.
Her grip on the plastic handle of the shopping cart
tightened and twisted in a moment of panic.

Her eyes darted from the pencil boxes,
to the flower arrangements, from the cereal boxes,
to the back-to-school display in the center isle.

Suddenly the florecent lighting was all too vivid,
revealing the rubbery skins of shoppers:
bodies hanging over motorized wheelchairs,
smoke wrinkled faces with unkept hair,
middle-aged mothers with wide hips, gold earrings and polished nails,
willowy daughters with protruding, nude navels,
red-haired boys with freckles and guns,
missing teeth, child carriers, walking suits
with minds else where.

"Pleeeease, help me get out of here. I am ready.
Yes. Finally ready." She tried to lay her mind bare, open,
as she searched for maxi pads with wings.
Purple packages, yellow, and mint green--
all sizes to choose from--fit for the appropriate occassion.
Light days, heavy days, and over-night.

But she didn't want to see a gazillion choices
of toothpaste and vitamines. Camping gear marked down.
She had just read:

Michael T, MS 1998, PhD 2003 (GLE).
After finishing my dissertation in late 2002,
my fiancee, Vong, and I moved to Houston, and I started a job in research and development at BP Corporation. After a year at BP, I realized the company was a little too big, so I took a job as senior research geophysicist with a small start-up company, in the UK [. . .] Vong and I now live in Alberdeen, Scotland and are enjoying traveling Europe as much as possible. We have only been in Aberdeen since Jan. 2004, but our recent trips include Greece, Belgium, France, [. . .] and the Jorvik Viking Festival in York. Of course, emails are always welcome.

and momentarily, her life had been revealed.

This boy had been her first crush, in Ms. Sweedish's fourth grade.
She had convinced him to do a project on Astronomy
with her during recess and then, later, a project identify rocks.
Geology.
They had been identified as TAG together since 3rd grade.
She watched him look down Julie's blouce to see her budding breasts.

By eighth grade, she had become his assistant in architectural design
for young girls he planned to hit on--namely the other redhead.
Eighth grade would also see a moment of violence
when she would slam him against a wall by the throat
and threaten to kill him for making her the butt end of his jokes.

In nineth grade, home economics class, concerned for the soul
she valued most, she would screw up her courage and ask,
"Do you know who Jesus is?"
"Of course," he would sneer. "As your personal saviour?"
her cheeks would flame. And that would be the end of speaking.

Until several thousands of years later,
when she would duck into a candy store during
a mass Halloween celebration in a smallish university town.
He would be behind the counter
and smile incredulously when he saw her
sporting a black leather biker-jacket.
"Was that guy flirting with you?" her partner would ask
as they left the shop.
"No. That wouldn't be possible."

And even he had not graduated Valor Victorian. No, her class
had been absolutely exceptional. What freak circumstances--
that she should grow into adulthood under such an environment.
Considering her own economic, familia and cultural disadvantages.
It's a wonder she survived.

Never expecting to thrive.

"Help me, help me to get out of here," the silent, desperate
cry continued to the other end of the store in search for
laundry detergent.
But bears danced to sell crackers
and little old women with too much lipstick
stuck out trays of cheese and toothpicked sausages.

These moments of clarity for her are sharp and painful;
they must have been caused by the juxtaposition
of three circumstances in her immediate life:
1) finally watching _What the Bleep Do We Know_
2) beginning therapy with psycotropic medication
3) and realizing that, for her, writing is the only way out.

In a Rut: Spiked Coffee w/Tranqualizers

Those boys would have to be about 6 1/2 years by now.
I'd probably get up one morning
and notice that each was playing in a seperate room.
And this would be quite unusal.
Maybe Twin A would be at the dining table
with a new board game,
and Twin B would be in his room playing with cars.

I'd raise each child as a seperate person,
to the best of my ability,
but I imagine that they would still be each other's
best friend. Maybe until about 6 1/2.
Maybe it would be about that time that each child
would feel secure and confident enough to explore
without the constant shadow of his brother.
Occasionally.

Otherwise, they would still build structures together
out of wooden blocks and set about drawing what they built
on paper. Together.

While I blogged, no doubt,
and tried to think
of another fantastic adventure
to spend our last summer days on.

Nathaniel Hawthorne writes: Free Jennifer Wilbanks (aka the runaway bride) from the "Scarlet (ok, orange) Vest"

Have you ever clicked
on a YAHOO! news message board?
What sick freaks.
For some reason,
I wanted to know what "the populous"
had to say about recent boyscout tragedies--
the latest being the 8 year-old who died
when a tree fell on her first-aid tent.

People who comment there are unimaginable.
I have lived such a sheltered life.



In unrelated news,
Habitat called me back in to work on site.
The Women Build is not finished.
Actually, it's no where near being complete.
I'm pretty aggravated & tired about the whole thing.
But the weird news?



The guy from the gym (think back to a January post)
showed up on site today!
In dress clothes with his wife--
they are on the board. How strange is that?

When he saw me, he froze.
"I think I know you," I smiled wryly.

"You've changed your hair." He seemed a bit gazed.
There is some type of energy between us.
His wife must have felt awkward,
because she stared straight ahead and moved on . . .

at least that's how I remember it . . .
I wonder what my "final cut" would show?



One last tidbit of info I'd like to share:

"Of all the encoding skills, spelling tends to be viewed by teachers and students alike as the most arbitrary, the most resistant to instruction, and the least related to intelligence (a myth that has comforted many bad spellers). It is the one area of writing where English teachers themselves will admit ineptness. Outside the academy, however, the response to misspelling is less obliging. Indeed, the ability to spell is viewed by many as one of the marks of the educated person, and the failure of a college graduate to meet that minimal standard of advanced literacy is cause to question the quality of his education or even his intelligence."--Mina Shaughnessy

Well! I suppose Ms. Shaughnessy would just absolutely croak to learn that I had to (re)learn & committ to memory how to spell "excellent" (ent/ant--so confusing) so that I could mark student papers my first year of teaching! LOL! and "college" (no "d"??). . . and "analysis" . . . "intelligence"(ence/ance) . . . ect. But I've never had trouble with words like epistemology or dichotomy or dialogical or implicit/explicit . . . Did she enjoy popping my "myth" bubble?? . . . I guess I ought to spell check this post:

"boy scout" is 2 words; "commit" has one "t." Got it. Till next time. What a drag.

The Law of Group Polarization & YOU

I received a very strange email yesterday:


Hi SQ,

Attached is a one-page suggestion for curriculum inclusion.
It concerns what Sociology calls, 'THE LAW OF GROUP POLARIZATION' .
This is in the interest of a complete education on gender issues,
Peter F K and family

< /DIV>

Now, as of yet, no one in the department
can figure out who this guy is. My guess?
Perhaps an angry/concerned parent.

I say "angry" because of my historic
experiences with parents . . . conservative parents
who never realized they were sending their child
to a liberal arts school.

I say "concerned" because of my eternal
hope and belief in the good nature of human kind.

Anyway, I looked up Group Polarization on the net
and here's what I found:

The Law of Group Polarization

CASS R. SUNSTEIN
University of Chicago Law School
December 1999

University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 91

Abstract:
In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon -- group polarization -- has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, "radicalization," cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the Internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism. Group polarization bears on the conduct of government institutions, including juries, legislatures, courts, and regulatory commissions. There are interesting relationships between group polarization and social cascades, both informational and reputational. Normative implications are discussed, with special attention to political and legal institutions.

Yadda Yadda.

So here's the question:
Is Peter a concerned parent who believes the theories behind group polarization could help explain gender contruction and/or even be utilized to forward the feminist movement?
Or is Peter an angry parent who believes that the university itself is a huge wash of nothing but group polarization and should be flushed accordingly?
Some iroinc combo? You decide.

James Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ (c. 1914)

"[. . .] and, even when he [Stephen Dedalus] doubted some statement of a master [Catholic Priest], he had never presumed to doubt openly. Lately some of their judgments had sounded a little childish in his ears and had made him feel a regret and pity as though he were slowly passing out of an accustomed world and hearing its language for the last time." --see photo below.

A Visual Meditation on James Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_.  

Boxing at Dawn

Daybreak is my absolute favorite time
of the day--
the crisp freshness of the air,
dew drops glistening in the cool grass,
the morning globe suspending smartly above my horizon
like a terrible pin prick full of potential--
too bad I've missed this the past couple of weeks
of daybreaks.

I'm having an awful time getting up in the mornings.
Quite unusual.

My favorite set of waterfalls were practically
dried up yesterday. The water, stagnant.
I crept behind a secret alcove
and checked on a letterbox I had hidden nearby,
sometime last year.

At first, I thought the box was missing--
it was so well hidden. My fingers ran
the mossy edge of the stone and I had
to tiptoe to reach the tiny fairy grotto.
The people who had found the box last
did an excellent job of recovering it with bits of bark.

The contents, much to my satisfaction,
were quite dry, locked away in zippies.
I didn't count the visitors, but instead, reveled
in their congratulations on finding the perfect hiding spot.

One couple had been on their honeymoon--
another person claimed that this was her first box.

I came home and immediately informed a fellow
that the box had NOT been washed away by floods--
even if I had read reports of another smallish
waterfall forming over the grotto itself . . .

Strange. I feel like there are little pieces of me
stuck out in unseemly places through the woods--
no matter what happens in my day-to-day,
I must remember that
there are little boxes of me tucked away into bits
and nooks of fallen trees
and behind small gatherings of mossy rocks,
awaiting the sky to turn pale in the mornings
and to flood into color of an evening. Counting rain drops
and lightning crashes--
snowflakes. Watching the worms.

Naturally

All of you know
that if I choose to close my eyes
you will cease to exist ?

I won't say anything
quite as unflattering as I may,
but here's an idea--

To my way of thinking
this morning, this is how I imagine
your toes:

Butterfly Wings must paint her toenails red--

Lillee, a deep shade of blue--

Blue2going doesn't keep hers trimmed--

Dragonfly experiments with yellows
and wants a tatoo by her ankle--

EbonyQueen89 changes hers so often, I couldn't tell--

Happy and Blue 2 is meticulous with his nails,
trimming them over a garbage can--

Tish never has time to worry about her nails--

DMB Freak bites his--

Swampy keeps hers trim to keep out the dirt--

Kazumi once had an interest, one summer
with a fabulous pair of sandles, but not now--

Folks at Dewey Diaries are conservative with
their toe nail polish--

MREeater peals his off when distracted--

PQ doesn't give a d*mn--

Bouncegrrrl may have maroon toenails,
but it's hard to see--

Phil's are haphazzard--

Noelle's are pure and clean--

Quipsodelica once painted his ex's toe nails--

Sumo buys the cartoon apllication stickers
(she also has BUSH MEAT tatooed
to her knuckles)--

The Anchored Nomad has fabulous, fashionable
toe nails (what ever they are)--

Etch-A-Sketch [the artist formerly know as MIKE]
has a complete foot care ensamble--

Litany has, ehem, toes we'd never imagine--

A Solitary Wife has toes--

Artic Living paints with deep purples--

Avacado doesn't know she has toes--

WillLover wouldn't blink to wear orange--

And if I've forgotten anyone today, which I'm sure I have,
it's because you don't have toes.

Another Quite Evening

I imagine that at exactly 29 hours
into the grandparents'-weekend-extravaganza,
right after I finished watching
2 & 1/2 hours of
Akira Kurosawa's 1985ish _RAN_,
I'd really be missing my children.

I imagine I'd be like other mothers
and blog blog blog
about them, posting lots of pictures.

I imagine that honestly, I could barely contain
just how central they were to my life.
To my happiness.

Those Crazy Academics

An unauthorized excerpt
from my dearest listserv:


Dear Everybody,

Guess who is on my couch?! Avacado!

[Avacado wants to know why WillLover is sending her an
email when she could be talking to her, but some
things are not meant to be understood. Now back to
your regularly scheduled programming.]

Academics have a communication disorder. They're shy.
They communicate by e-mail more effectively than face
to face ;)

[Uh... does everyone realize that we're passing the
laptop back and forth between us? Because we are. Just
thought I'd mention that. MsTheorist, PoetTigerWoman, SQ, you
didn't think this email was about you, did you? It's
totally about us.]

Totally. _We_ stayed at our cabin last night. It was
gorgeous. And _we_ went to Crazy Horse this morning.
It was gorgeous. And _we_ ate at the Alpine Inn and
had yummy cheesy turkey. It was gorgeous. Oh, and
Avacado taught me to play a new kind of Scrabble. It was
gorgeous!

[That's because we're gorgeous. Everything else is
just trying to keep up. We got fed really good fondu
last night, too. And tomorrow we're going hiking in
the Badlands, because we can. This is your twelve-hour
warning notice. It's not too late to jump in your cars
and get out here. We'll meet you at the trail head.]

It's going to be a gorgeous hike. Okay, enough. It
really is nice to have Avacado here :). I think we
should all plan a trip here sometime, stay at the
cabin, eat cheese fondu, go hiking in the hills and in
the Badlands. A year from now? We can all plan it and
make a pact: meeting in the Black Hills.

[I owe PoetTigerWoman a beach trip, too. I haven't forgotten.]

Let's all go to the beach!

Avacado's been so brave: we have ten people sleeping in
this house plus three children, two of them babies.
It's a full house. And the shoes in the entry are
multiplying like rabbits--rabbits, I tell you!

[Three children is nothing. I just came from the
Wisconsin relatives' place. Speaking of rabbits...
Anyway. Do you think WillLover will let me check my email
and see if the Guy wrote me?]

Oooh! The Guy. THE GUY. I did hear a bit about the
guy. How much will you all pay me for the info? ;)

[In my defense, I was probably tipsy when she heard
about the Guy. SQ, no, she does NOT know his name.
I promised you'd get it first. If we don't hate each
other on sight. Which is possible. But enough about my
imaginary love life.]

SQ gets the name first....humph....

So, PoetTigerWoman, you're back in A-town? I didn't even know!
Tell me (and us) about this summer? How did the
teaching go? What are you doing this fall (are your
exams this fall?). MsTheorist, Avacado said you looked good
and were doing well--though the book is/was a bitch.
And SQ! Are you still traveling South America? Did
you finish your tour through Africa? Are you prepping
for your four courses this fall?

[SQ, I told her you looked good, too. PoetTigerWoman,
thanks for letting me know that I didn't wreck your
apartment. If anything, I'm getting even spacier than
I was when I left there ... I think vacation is bad for
me. MsTheorist, it was fantastic seeing you!]

SQ does have sexy legs. As do PoetTigerWoman and MsTheorist.

I think I will let Avacado check her e-mail. I may go
play the new Scrabble by myself. :) It is sooooo fun!
It's so nice to see Avacado. I can't wait to see you
guys again soon. Love you.

[Hope your summers are going well still! I'll catch up
with everyone when I get back to AK. I'm estimating
August 15 at the moment, but who knows. It may be
December at the rate I'm going.]

Glorious Aloneness

I imagine that if I did have children,
nights like these, spent utterly alone,
would be rare and few.

In fact, by the first week of August,
I imagine that no matter how wonderously beautiful
my young children were,
I'd fall to the ground in thankfulness
when their grandparents would offer to keep them
for 4 days and nights . . .

How should I spend the evening?
Clipping pictures
and watching Christine Jeff's
_Sylvia_ for the first time--
you know,
to celebrate my first dose of Paxil tonight.

Of Sound Body

I kept my appointment
at 8:00am this morning
simply because
I am driven to follow rules
that govern me, established by people
who may not have my best interest in mind.

This new doctor
is part of a huge conglomorate hospital
in this area; the health care network it
has established is rather obscene and spider-esque.

When I arrived at the sprawling office complex
and navvigated a path through the webbing of corridors,
I found 2 fellow patients standing in a narrow hall
waiting for the office door to open.

A bleak water color sat in uninterrupted desolation.

Considering the expansive waiting area inside
this particular group's office,
I found standing in the closet hall rather distasteful.

"8:00am. Do you think that means we will
get right in?" I ask an older woman
shifting her weight from side to side
on a pair of beat up Keds.

"Humph." She snorts.

The door opens and a quite man
holds it as we walk in,
sign in, sit in.
The TV is blaring some cheerful local news channel
about the elderly dying in the heat.
More people begin to filter in at 8:03.

Some woman in a purple smock reaches
for the exact same magazine
I do. A Travel from 2003.

Matt LaBlanc stares at me with his cheeky wife.

I see a sign which reads:
FROM NOW ON [NOVEMEBR 2004]
THERE WILL BE A $5 FEE FOR ALL
FMLA FORMS.

Finally, I am called back; I have lost weight from the Luxapro.
Even if this is bloat week.
I discover that at least 2 other people
are scheduled to see the same doctor
at the exact same time--is that legal?
For insurance billing, I mean??

When my doctor does come in,
she still has the same look on her face.
Like someone just
pillow slapped her at a slumber party.
She must pinch herself awake.

What is she thinking about? She isn't here with me . . .
An affair gone wrong? A lonely child with a nanny?
Last night's episode of . . .?
A mild heat rash under her bra?
Something caught in her teeth?

She feigns interest
at the patient staring at her:
"So . . . ? The Luxapro didn't work?"
There is simply nothing
behind her eyes.

I tell her I want to try Paxil.
The magazines in her office have advertised
all sorts of drugs for anxiety.
I stumbled across three articles that delt with:
"Stress in the Work Place";
"Coping with the American Lifestyle";
"Dealing with Anxiety."

The medicalization of Stress
has, no doubt, worked in it's complex
fashion to put me right there in front of her.

Yet, self-treatment is bullshit.
I don't have a medical degree, nor
the time or energy to research what I should be taking.
That's why I pay her $65.oo a pop.

Doesn't she have any new insight?
An outsider's point of view?

Hell, I know I can drink a few glasses of wine
to relax--what's a difference she proposes?

"How's my bloodwork?" It's not like she
volunteered to share this information.
"Great. Everything looks great. So, it's not . . .
you know . . . [shrug] . . ." Yeah???

"Medical?"

That's astounding.
No chemical imbalance?
Just nuts.

And why must a medical doctor be uncomfortable
with saying it? I asked about a pap too--and she was all awkward.
The only time she acted at ease
was when she said she liked my shoes.

"Paxil's fine. I just usually perscribe Luxapro
because all of these medications are hit and miss.
Let me see if I have any samples."

She doesn't. Have any samples, that is.
And my cynical inner-monolgue
chides her for being a slave
to the pharmesuedical companies--
that's why she perscribes Luxapro:
she is provided with samples by
those capitalist monkies
and then looks like a angel to her patients when she
"saves them money."
Wonder what her kickbacks are.
Seriously.

I have a 12 week supply of Paxil &
12 weeks to look for another doctor
with better magazines.

New Energy Bill

My electric bill
doubled
for the past month.

But I have been oh so cool . . .

Nah--I'm Not a Harvard Grad, But can You Believe This??

MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer
[For Full Story: Link to 'Protest']

BOSTON - A member of Harvard's top governing board who resigned recently was upset about a proposed raise for the university's president, according to a copy of his resignation letter released Monday by the school.

In the letter, Harper said his concerns "came to a head" when the Harvard Corporation decided last month to give Summers a 3 percent raise to about $580,000. Summers earned about $563,000 in salary during the 2005 fiscal year.

"Despite your apologies and your creation of important task forces, I could not and cannot support a raise in your salary," Harper wrote. "I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation."

Harper, who is black, was the only minority on the board. He was elected to the board five years ago and was on the search committee that selected Summers in 2001.

A 1965 graduate of Harvard Law School, Harper is a partner at the New York law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.



On a side Note:
Can you believe I haven't
been LetterBoxing yet this summer ?!?