12/30/08 Year of the Heart

the crushing melancholy I tend and heckle
like a houseplant
being my own peanut gallery
not really wanting to watch the show

you've seen the way
the little heart soldiers
just keep marching

looking without knowing what to look for
not really wanting to find anything at all

and the heart hamster
just keeps running
and running

12/29/08 Jumpin' Jupiter

Let's just remember the good times,
the 30 seconds it took to lose like seventy bucks
at the blackjack table at Jorgy's,
the bargain basement shots at the Lonesome Dove,
the birthday boy's faceplant into the snowbank
while all the kids watched through the open door.

Good times, and a delicious Slippery Saturn to boot,
but I still wish I was somewhere else.

12/28/08 Art for the Artless

We all can't be Silvio,
saying the most painful things
beautifully,
carrying our hearts
inside our guitars,
birds in our mouths.
I don't sing love songs
to Cuba,
usually.

But that doesn't mean
we shouldn't try to live
beautifully,
to transform the things we find
into treasures
and then keep them
in our pockets.
Have dreams
that make us weep.

That is my wish for us,
that we can sing
beautifully,
that we can weep
and find words and
treasures and birds
and keep them in our pockets.
That we sing love songs
to Cuba.
And each other.


Vivamos de corrido sin hacer poesia,
aprendamos palabras de la vida.

Dime lo que te pasa,
dejame levantarte,
dejame darte un beso y curarte.

-Silvio Rodriguez

12/27/08 National Geo-who-ha

Corinne hates National Geographic
almost as much as she hates Christmas.
I got to see Corinne's solstice unclenching,
which was strange and wonderful,
just like Corinne.

Anyway, if she had any idea how much fun
it is to cut and shred National Geographics
into tiny pieces, she might like them better.
Cutting and shredding Christmas,
now that's another story.

12/26/08 Alice Paul

I have a posthumous crush on Alice Paul.
I think I should have learned about her in school,
but I never did.

Learning about her might have inspired me,
which is why I should have learned about her in school,
and probably why I never did.

What I learned in school is that if your ultimate goal
is to be learned about in school,
you ought to consider being a war general

rather than a civil rights leader.
And unless you happen to be Susan B. Anthony,
it's best not to be of the lady persuasion.

12/25/08 Scrabble

__b
n_ o_ o_ s_ e
__o
__z
f _e_ c_ e_ s
_________p_ h
_________a
_________m_ i_ t_ t_ e_ n
__________________g
__________________a
__________________d

12/24/08 Power Through

Got my ass kicked today.
Each day I seem to get my ass kicked in
some new and marvelous way,
and then fall into bed exhausted but still
have to take melatonin to sleep.
Wound up pretty tight,
but I am a warrior.
No sweat.
Head down.
Power through.

Head down power through.

12/23/08 Girlfriends

Two girlfriends ordered coffee.
One was single, one was married.
One lamented the difficulties of dating.
The other said that marriage was awful.

They agreed that men were the problem,
that women and men were not compatible,
that the sexes would best stick together.
Every two girlfriends eventually discuss this.

Every two girlfriends struggle with men.
Every two girlfriends should be girlfriends.
Girlfriends want to have girlfriends.
That's why they have so many girlfriends.

12/22/08 Quiet

The winter is so cold and quiet
there isn't a single smell.
Shhh...
you can listen all you want,
but you won't smell a thing.
Just quiet.
And icy cold smellessness.

12/21/08 Get Over It, Mony

Okay, I need to just stop talking about my raggedy ass holiday feelings
and get over it already.
But they just kind of take over, and there's no school, and then I watched
Mamma Mia, and everybody's flying in tomorrow, and there are angels
and santas and shepherds and candy canes and you order stuff online and it doesn't come,
and I just can't reconcile any of it. Any of it.
And it keeps snowing and snowing and I keep shoveling and shoveling and I hate
living here so much. I am not happy. Not a happy camper.

Okay I'm done.

12/20/08 Tee Hee

I don't have a whole hell of a lot going on
and I'm bitter and passive aggressive
but at least I know that
I'm smarter than you.

12/19/08 Happy Shopmas!

I got caught in a parking lot traffic jam outside Target
on christmas eve eve, which was awkward.

It could have been charming, except that I was late
picking up Cookie from piano lessons,
so instead of being like, no, you go first, I insist,
merry fricking christmas,

I was like, what the hell is wrong with all you people?
Go home and be with your families -
it's your fucking holiday.
I'm not like you at all! I need diapers!
I just came here for diapers!
Let me the fuck out of here!

I had to go back the next day for the diapers.
Whatever. Merry fricking christmas.

12/18/08 Works Well Alone

Okay, well we all know by now
that I go for guys with social problems.
But this is a challenge even for me.

Apparently it doesn't matter how many times I say
that I would rather be alone.
I would rather be alone.
I would rather be alone.

I would rather be alone.
When is somebody going to kill me
(with kindness?)

12/17/08 Pirate Index

Piracy.

And I'm not talking about burning movies on your pc, no sir.
I'm talking about life on the high seas. Yo ho ho and peg legs and scurvy.
It may seem glamorous kids but let's be practical.
As we all know, the pirate population inversely affects
the average world temperature.*
Global warming comes along and we the suckers
take the low road and blame the coal fired power plants.
We are stupid and predictable creatures.

Do your part.
Become a pirate.
The world needs you.
Your destiny calls.

Will you answer?+



*Sea pirates only - no data currently available for butt pirates
+Offer not available to residents of North Dakota and other landlocked areas

12/16/08 Dear Elvis

Dear Elvis,

I have been a very good girl this year.
I hope that you come to my house.
I would like a dependable source of income
and a better perspective on life.
One girl told me that you are not real,
but I believe in you.
I hope this letter gets to Graceland in time.
Travel safe, and goddess speed.

12/15/08 Scrubbing Cupboards

Been more interested in beer and spider solitaire than anything
lately and then bam, the jolly holidays are almost here again and
bam, I am scrubbing cupboards.
All day.
What the hell happened
that I commemorate with scrubbing cupboards?
All day.
Bam.

12/14/08 Normal Model

"Mom, I think you could be
a normal model.

You'd just have to
lose some weight."

I didn't die.
Not right then.

12/13/08 Running Out

Well now I'm running out of time again,
sitting around making treasure maps,
waiting for the snow to stop, waiting
for the year to end.

I only have these few precious days left
to say all the things I didn't say all the other days
when I was trying not to say so many things.
I am not very complicated.

I wish I could take back all the stupid words
and replace them with the things that really mattered,
but even now I am just treading water,
waiting,
filling it up.

12/12/08 A Gift For You

Demetri, I hope things with you are okay.
I mean I hope you haven't invented a maze
and then gotten lost inside of it.
You know puzzles can stop being fun.

I thought I might give you a present.
It's a palindrome: reward drawer.
I've been keeping it in a basket
with all the things I only have one of.

Sometimes when you collect something
it's the only thing anyone ever gives you.
That happened to me when I was ten.
I still have residual penguins.

Anyway, I hope you don't have to build
extra shelves to hold all your stuff.
Here is my reward drawer.
It's for you. You can have it.

12/11/08 Ms. Robot

Excuse me, Ms. Robot,
tell me what's happening.

Out of office auto reply:
I am currently recalibrating my ziggity zoom diddle
and can not possibly process data at this time.

12/10/08 Bunch of Bullshit

God damn it.
It's 30 below outside.
And I'm inside, but
I'm still freaking cold.
It's cold when I move.
It's cold where the air goes up
under my pant legs.
It's fricking cold EveryWhere.
Uh, I can't even think.

12/9/08 Nut Cracker

Did you ever finally decide
that when you grew up
you wanted to be a ballerina?

And then realize that you
figured it out 25 years too late?

You want a nut cracker,
I got your nut cracker right here.

12/8/08 Eulogy for a Walmart Worker

Dear lord, what have we come to?

Dear sweet Jesus hanging up there on the wall,
the reason for the season,
what in the hell is going on
when Black Friday shoppers trample
a man to death at 4 a.m. for a chance to buy
a blue ray whateverthefuck and you,
you,
hanging there all smug.

12/7/08 Barf Festival

If you haven't seen me around lately,
not to worry my dear friend.
I've just been busy hosting a barf festival,
which is only now coming to an end.

The bed, the floors, the hall, the doors,
were showered, caked, and drizzled.
My home a mighty righteous wreck,
for surely and for shizzled.

Of course I had an invitation for you,
but in looking for time to send,
the letter was promptly barfed upon.
Oh shit, I just barfed on my pen.

12/6/08 Fill in the __________

The ________ was hanging there like a
wide-eyed ___________
and I was in a ___________ mood.

You don't want to _________ around
with a _________ in a _________ mood.

The __________ sounded to me like
a ________ ________ and I'd already had
more than a couple of ___________.

I talked like a ________ and you
stood like a ________ and the _________
just hung there like a wide-eyed ________.

A _______, wide-eyed _________.

12/5/08 Fill in the Blah

The moon was hanging there like a
wide-eyed pickpocket
and I was in a foul-ass mood.

You don't want to blah blah around
with a dragon in a foul-ass mood.

The back and forth sounded to me like
a dribbling mad lib and I'd already had
more than a couple of screwdrivers.

I talked like a magic trick and you
stood like a soft-boiled egg and the stupid moon
just hung there like a wide-eyed pickpocket.

A guilty, wide-eyed pickpocket.

12/4/08 At the Peacock

Apparently old men that are drunk like flappers.
And they like the Scarlet O'Hara look, too.

So if you ever want an old guy to dig you,
or even just want a cheer to go up when you walk into a room
("The flappers are here!"),

you should put your money where your flapper is
and take that show on the road, honey.

12/3/08 I Didn't Ask

I had to laugh
when you brought me
purple flowers from the grocery store
for our anniversary

and I opened
the plastic package
and the entire inside of the bouquet
was moldy.

I wondered
if the metaphor
had been intentional on your end
but I didn't ask.

12/2/08 Happy Serfdom

While the zapatistas and others
fight for their right to own land,
in this country we know better.
Owning land is not a right.

If every person asserted their right
to own land, what would happen
to the wealthy landowners?
Owning land is a privilege.

And the rest of us just work
and work and work and work
and never quite own anything.
It's a good system.

Anyway,
you better like it,
because
resistance
is
feudal.

12/1/08 Haircut

What am I doing with my hair?
I'm getting it cut.

Really short.
How short?
Really short.
I want it short enough to regret.

Because it's not a haircut
unless you regret it.
And maybe cry.

11/31/08 Hand Earrings

When Frida traveled to Europe with Diego Rivera
she was introduced to Pablo Picasso,
who gave her a pair of gold earrings
in the shape of dangling hands as a gift,
which she later painted herself wearing.

If I had been that pair of hand earrings hanging
in Frida's ears I would have whispered to her,
"I'm sorry that everything hurts so much,
and I'm sorry that you don't feel beautiful.
If I could, I would be your lost leg."

11/30/08 What can I say?

Hurtful and insensitive
things, apparently.
Ignorant and ridiculous,
sure.
Embarrassing, well
I wouldn't have
it any other way.
And always
not the right thing,
okay,
I get it.

11/29/08 forever and ever

ah,
men...

11/28/08 Kitten-Sized Pile of Shit

Why, just the other day
or perhaps it was this morning
I stepped in a kitten-sized
pile of shit with my bare foot
and damned if it wasn't
still warm.

11/27/08 Cat Rat

It's odd,
but when my cat
does the right thing
(like sleep)
he looks so much
like a cat.

And I think,
cat people like myself
are so clever
to choose to share
their space
with such lovely animals.

But then,
when he does
the wrong thing
(like destroy shit)
he looks
exactly like
a giant rat.

And then I think,
well, I shouldn't be surprised
that my stuff is all wrecked
since I live with a gigantic rat.

11/26/08 Invitation

I was wondering if you wanted to come over
and watch a movie or play cards or something
some night after the kids have gone to bed.

That's the time I would normally be drinking
and cleaning the house, or sitting at the computer,
or smoking or reading on the way to bed.

I wish I lived on a warm beach, and after dark
I could go out and walk along the water,
or lay in a hammock and listen to the waves.

I wish that I could wake up every morning
feeling really energized and rested and ready
for another fantastic day of my life.

Anyway, maybe like some scrabble or something?

11/25/08 365

365 days approaches slowly
as I enter the home stretch,
and it only now occurs to me
that 365 days mean one year.

I've spent one whole year
watching myself say the same things,
react over and over in the same ways,
and continue to tell myself

that this is passing.
This is hard times that I am working out.
This is a brief and painful healing process.
Only I haven't gotten very far, have I?

11/24/08 Working vs. Eating Out

Too windy for a walk.
Pizza Hut.

Working out: 0
Eating out: 1

Thought about a ymca membership,
but am so afraid of commitment
(and locker rooms).
Space Aliens.

Working out: 0
Eating out: 2

Got ass kicked by a migraine for 2 days.
Taco Bell.

Working out: 0
Eating out: 3

11/23/08 Sing a Song

Sing a song of six shirts
I bought at TJMaxx.

Four and twenty hours after
I bought new lipstick.

Made a date with Tracy
to be my haircut buddy.

Now wasn't that a dainty day
of image-related purchases.

11/22/08 Mostly

I mostly don't know anything
about everything,
but there are other things, too.

11/21/08 I Will Whisper

Everything is so loud
that everybody has to
try not to listen.

So
I will whisper,
and then
maybe
you will
really have
to try
to hear me.

I can only hope
you'll want
to hear me
enough
to try.

11/20/08 Junk in the Box

When did people start sending
garbage through the mail?
Stop sending me garbage.

Normal people can't just send garbage
through the mail.
Who's sending all this garbage?
I am already responsible for more
garbage than I can realistically deal with,
and every single day I come back
from the mailbox with a huge handful
of garbage and it goes right directly
into the overflowing recycling pile and
I am so sick of it.

I am so sick of it.
I can not be responsible for this.
So stop sending me garbage.

11/19/08 Cats and More Cats

Jesus Christ,
how many cats
live in this house?
Two?
Two cats?
Is that all?
Sometimes it feels like there are 10 or 11.

Jesus Christ,
how many kids
live in this house?
Two?
Two kids?
You've got to be kidding me.

Jesus Christ,
how many people
live inside of my head?
Two?
Three?
Is that all?
I'd be damned if there weren't a dozen.
I think they're playing bingo.

11/18/08 Cowboys

I will not incriminate myself
with the details,
but today I actually
used my Louis Lamoure
novel reading as a reference
to find a common place
between myself
and a cowboy
and a two-step.
None of the three of us
were impressed.

11/17/08 Big Fear Time

Okay, big fear time.
Guess I've been wondering what it was
about the incoherent elderly the other day
that's still bugging me.

Life is really hard for me.
And for all of us probably, which brings me
to the thing.

The big fear time
for me is that someday all of this struggling,
self-improvement, education, parenting, work experience,
interpersonal drama, soul searching and resume building
will end up with me drooling in a padded chair.

And people being scared of me
because I'm old and useless and impossible
to figure out.

11/16/08 School Arguments

If he said, "I don't want to go to school,"
I'd say, "Sorry. You have to."

If he said, "I'm too tired to get up,"
I'd say, "Me, too. Guess we need to get to bed earlier."

If he said, "I hate school,"
I'd say, "I am very sorry to hear that."

But what if he says,
"School feels like torture.
They make us sit still all the time, all day long.
That's not what kids are supposed to do.
Kids need to be free."

I wonder what I would say then.

11/15/08 Pinecone Turkeys

Twenty-five random children visited twenty-five random residents
of the nursing home on the hill overlooking the cemetery.

There was a volunteer playing the accordion somewhere nearby.
There was a cat in a cage in the corner.

Each child was given white glue and all the pieces of a pinecone turkey,
which were to be assembled in the presence of one elderly person.

Once completed, each pinecone turkey was left as a thanksgiving gift
for each elderly person, except for the one that was assembled by Hanna.

Staff found and delivered Hanna's great-aunt Florence, who took the place
of her previous partner and who got to keep Hanna's pinecone turkey.

It was a magical day.

11/14/08 So Close and Yet

So far, I've done a pretty good job
bullshitting my way through
so no one needs to notice.
Actually, it has maybe more to do
with the fact that the three d's
(desperation, depression, disorientation)
seem to have become the norm around here.

Tough times, and all that.
Who do you know who doesn't struggle?

I mean, if this were the 50's
people might say I have "little spells"
like they said about Mrs. Clutter.
Truman might have given it a good 5 pages,
working up to something more interesting.
One mind shattering quietly in a dark room
has yet to make a headline. Or a plot line.

But then again, if this were the 50's,
I would have valium.

11/13/08 Help

Ama: "I need some help!"

Me: "What do you need?"

Ama: "Help."

11/12/08 Corn Stove Time

The time keeps going
faster than I do,
and I guess I shouldn't be surprised,
after all the first snow
has already fallen
and been plowed and partially melted
and become icy and dirty
and ugly,
but I woke up on the floor
in front of the corn stove
this morning
in a pile of blankets
and children,
so I guess it's that time again.
I shouldn't be surprised.

11/11/08 Interactive

Do you ever get the feeling
that life is supposed to be
interactive?

Like an episode of Blues Clues,
where Steve says, "Do you see Blue?"
and you point and yell, "There!
Behind the thinking chair!"

Or like Dora the Explorer,
when Dora says, "Say backpack!"
and you say, "Backpack!"

Interactive
like that?

11/10/08 The Fancy Coffee Girl

I went to school with the girl who works at the coffee shop.
She lived in Spain for many years,
where she collected vintage dresses
and worked for a famous caterer.
She served David Beckhams's 30th birthday dinner,
and attended lots of insane rich people parties.

I almost told her about the time I saw sandhill cranes
fly over the BMX track, or the time a baby
vomited rice all down my shirt.
Instead, I told her that I used to work
at an Applebee's in El Paso.
I usually say the wrong things,
but in this case, there really wasn't a right thing to say.

11/9/08 The Better To See With

Sometimes Excedrin is like
a pair of glasses
for my brain.

On the days when
the things I look at
hurt me.

11/8/08 Of course I'm not mad...

Come on, sweetie.
How would I ever be mad
that you are strong and brave?
That is so ridiculous.
What I do feel is shame.
Shame that my life is such a mess
and instead of finding strength
I keep finding excuses
not to fix it.
Do what I need to do.
Unlike you.
Superwoman.

11/7/08 Getting Buried

Getting buried in the first snow of winter
is how I'd imagine it feels to be buried alive.

Time stops.
There is a moment of panic
that is so slow
it doesn't hurt at all.
It gets harder
and harder to breathe
and you start to feel the cold
in your bones,
and then
the darkness
slowly
descends.

11/6/08 Paper Falling Away

I am a single piece of paper
painstakingly folded
at precise angles,
and the funny thing is
I have no idea what's inside.

I am crinkled here,
ripped and taped together there,
I am wrapped around myself.
I could have been a crane
or a box with a lid

or a pointy little boat,
but this is what I am: hiding
inside an ordinary piece of paper,
painstakingly folded
at precise angles.

11/5/08 California

I suppose I invested a lot of years in not having all that.

But I'm so done now, I'm so totally done.

So you can just go live your little life
in your little world and I don't care.

That's what we all do, right?
What else is there?

11/4/08 What Happened Today

Some days
or even most days,
history happens.

It usually happens
in little ways
or medium little ways.

A day of illness,
a day of health,
maybe a baby gets born.

But today.
Today was Tuesday.
Voting day.

Today our country
shook off its Joe the Plumber
nightmare and woke up.

Today we get to start
the hard work
of starting over.

11/3/08 Daylight Savings My Ass

Tell me why I need to reset my internal clock
again to conform to the time fake clock construct.
Don't feed me any lines about saving electricity.
Since when do Americans inconvenience themselves
for the sake of conservation of resources.
Since never.

I'm more apt to believe the one where
keeping us in a state of confusion and disorientation
helps THEM keep US off kilter enough not to notice THEM.
But we still notice.
Even if we are a little grumpy in the morning.

So my heartfelt thanks goes out to THEM,
our nameless, faceless all-powerful rulers,
for giving us two daylight savings time adjustments
each year to remember that they are there,
ever present,
running the show,
and fucking with us
at will.

11/2/08 Everything Turning

The wind blows and a tree becomes fire wood,
my eyes close and the dusk becomes bed time.

Clouds gather and the bright autumn is buried,
I drive by and a field flattens into Home Depot,

I am trapped somewhere in the wheel's hub
watching everything around me turning,

seeming to be the only thing that can't move.

11/1/08 Cowboy Heaven

All that I can hope
is that when I die
and go to cowboy heaven,

the first face I see
will be Louis LaMoure
fixing me up a mess of beans.

We'll eat our fill and head out:
strap on our Winchesters,
and grab an armload of freight cars.

Maybe we'll go to James City.
Just say you'll be there, Louis,
with a big bag full of bear claw.

10/31/08 The Ghost of Technology Past

[spooky music]

[the floor creaks]

Voiceover: "Do you know..."

[the sound of glass shattering]

[a woman screams]

Voiceover: "...where your 8-track player is?"

10/30/08 Stove Top

Yesterday in anticipation of halloween
I turned my stove top into a mini bar,
complete with glasses, liquors, mixes, limes,

and it was so beautiful and functional.
I have finally discovered what
my stovetop is for.

10/29/08 Tequila and other Trick-or-Treating Supplies

Like most people, I -
don't roll your eyes at me.
Not quite yet.
Save it for the punch line.

Like most people, I
wait all year for halloween.
Like a heroin addict in a poppy field.
Grow faster, god damn it!

And now, with only two days to go,
I find that I am losing sleep over the
sugar skulls.
They still have no delightful sugary frosting decorations.

I have not started assembling my costume,
and am not sure if I have enough vinyl records
and vhs tapes to make an impact.

And, more importantly, do I have enough liquor?

I said, DO I HAVE ENOUGH LIQUOR?

When I say have enough, you say liquor.
Have enough!

10/28/08 Putting Off

What might I be putting off:

if I decide to paint the bathroom?

if I decide to grout the backsplash?

if I decide to reorganize the closet?

if I decide to sew two pillow cases?


Mmm, I see.
Yes.
Those are all very good answers.

10/27/08 The Giggles

They get the giggles and sister,
bed time is officially on hold.
I'm not gonna be the one
to try to stop it or make it go.

Cause I don't know why the
clock
fake
number
time
construct
would ever be more important
than an uncontrollable explosion
of pure joyfulness.

Do you?

10/26/08 Victory Flags

All the little Obama bumper stickers
buzzing around town
look more like victory flags
waving goodbye
and waving hello

10/25/08 Migration Pattern

I thought I saw the geese circling up
over the fields south of town while I sat
at the Cottonwood BMX track one Sunday.

I hadn't seen any yet this autumn at all,
and was looking forward to the melancholy
and sense of doom they always awaken in me.

So I craned my neck to see the V's taking off,
then overheard a man tell his wife look the
sandhills were flying south for the winter.

Sandhills. Sandhill cranes!

I didn't even know they came through here,
I say as if they were the traveling Shriner's circus
or a pack of migrating helmet-less Sturgis bikers.

And I got all excited about these birds that
looked remarkably like geese from the ground,
but that said whirrrr instead of haaaa.

Damn sandhill cranes flying south instead of geese,
and taking all of my well-deserved and
hard-fought melancholy with them to Florida.

10/24/08 Faker

I have developed the habit
of writing many poems at a time

while dating them separately
to appear as if this is a daily activity,

even though I realize I am only
cheating at my own game,

which is the lamest thing I could do,
so I hope the fake out is working.

10/23/08 Ode to Ode

Ode,
though I have let
my subscription expire,
don't think for a second
that I don't think of you.
Don't think I don't pine,
as your sweet pages
may pine for the pines
they may have once been
the time before they were
lovingly recycled from
the post-consumer waste stream,
or the new-growth pine
from which your water wheel
of sparkling, refreshing and
unfailingly sustainable ideas
may have been rough-hewn.
I have every pulpy piece of you
tucked gently onto my bookshelf,
in a neat stack all facing the same way,
waiting in suspended motion
for the moment
when I can unroll your many scrolls
of wordy volumes
like an inviting bedroll
on the forest floor
(or my living room)
and pour lovingly over
every glistening dewy
drop
of your
responsibly
harvested
sap
(articles).

10/22/08 Put Out Your Flags!

There are a lot of reasons to dislike election time,
but I like to use this time to get to know my neighbors,
since I'll probably never actually talk to any of them.
Put out your flags and let me see who's side you're on!

Months from now I will be huffing and puffing and
trying to remember which was the house with 4 McCain signs again?
Hmm, that's funny, it's a really cute house. Who knew?

I will remember the flip flopper over on 3rd Street,
the one up on Mandan that seemed so damned adamant
about the outcome of the race for state auditor.

I read more into these political yard signs than I should
because this is all I've got. I'm a one-banana monkey here.
And this is my only chance to feel connected to these strangers
in my community, however briefly and however mistakenly.

10/21/08 Seeds of Hope

I've been going to the thrift store so much
I am starting to recognize the regular shoppers.
I can't decide if I want them
to recognize me as one of them.
I am this close to being a Bismarck bag lady.
And I kind of like it.

10/20/08 Preparation

These are the small steps,
this is me in training:
I learn to light the grill,
I put the meat on the grill,
I take the meat off the grill.
Doesn't sound like much
when I say it like that.
But it's important for me
to know that I can do this
myself.

10/19/08 Vessels

The basket can collect the seeds,
though the smallest of them may fall
through the broken switches.

And the jug can carry the water,
though some may slosh over the side
and more still may sweat out in the heat.

The sling can hold the baby there
swinging against mama's working body,
and she may be whole for now.

But she will bleed and lose those pieces
that the moon drags out of her,
that she knew she'd have to give back.

10/18/08 Running for the Hills

Running to the store or running to the bank
but let's be straight with each other right now
we can't count on either to be there tomorrow.

But the hills will always be there
and when the day comes
I will put bells on my feet
and walk day and night
and you can carry a flag
and climb to the highest spot
and I will find you.

10/17/08 Unspun

It's true I spend more time with you
Mozilla Firefox, than with any of my friends.
It's true that I've been through a lot
with you, for quite a few years running,
and you know most of my secrets.
But you will know when I consider us
old friends. Because then if you are lucky
I will buy you a garbage bag full of
sheep shear, unspun and since last season
still even unwashed,
and give it to you for your birthday
three months too late.

10/16/08 Subcomandante Pinkos

I am mid-drought with the costume ideas
which I usually have ready well in advance,

but so far I only had this one idea that was stupid
that needed pink fatigues and a pink ski mask
and a pink pipe and some pink ammunition,

but I try to let the thrift shopping be my guide,
like dowsing for water or divining a pendulum,
and Seeds of Hope didn't have anything pink at all,

so I might have to just be a cocaine-overdosed
sixties singer-songwriter, which is so overdone...

10/15/08 Eavesdropping on Homework

Define the following words:

part:
Well, it can mean a lot of things, like on my arm, this is a part, or like, I have all these things and I can put them together and make something.

horse:
It's a thing that's, um, well it's kind of like a unicorn only without the horn.

farm:
A farm is a place...it's a place where...it's a place where there is a...barn. But it doesn't have to have a barn. And it has wildlife. A farm has to have a lot of wildlife.

10/14/08 Sweeping

This time of year, we're lucky when the wind doesn't
blow through and clear the autumn leaves off the trees
all at once, but even so, they inevitably come down.
I like the way they fall like yellow, crackling rain, and
I like the way the leaves collect along the edges of the sidewalks.
They make me want to get out my broom and start sweeping.

10/13/08 Words On Paper

words on paper
words in the air
words in your ear
words in your heart
words in your head
words in your mouth
words in your altar
words under your pillow
words in the wrong order
words in a book
words in cyberspace
words in theory
words in action
words in contradiction
words in retrospect
words in defense
words better left unsaid
words in the wrong place
at the wrong time

10/12/08 Waiting for Me

"Wait for me!
Wait for me!
Don't give up on me!
I can still catch up!"
I said to
human evolution.

10/11/08 To The Tune Of

We are suckers,
we are suckers,
maybe if we just pretend that everything is normal
we won't have to ever admit that our government is corrupt
and that we have lost control of our leaders
or that our country is being controlled by corporate terrorists.

We have lost all control,
we have lost all control,
la dee da.



(to be sung to the tune of 850 billion dollars)

10/10/08 Life's a Stage

Oh my god is it possible for me
to screw up absolutely everything?!?

Audience Card: "AWWWWW"

Oh my god could you all please
just leave me alone for five seconds?!?

Audience Card: "BOOOOO"

Oh my god I am going to run away
screaming and never come back!!!

Audience Card: "APPLAUSE"

10/9/08 Marvelous

There's no one else I'd rather be detained with
at the Canadian border.
There's not another soul on this earth
I'd rather slide drunkenly
across the kitchen floor with.

Because you are the original
zany superhero penpal.
You possess the grace to blog
with hummingbird in hand.
I don't even mind that you run.

Boisterous
or soft.
Married
or medicated.
You will always win
the best camper award.

10/8/08 Disguised

I saw a girl today who was wearing
a goofy trendy hat and a pair of
great big huge sunglasses,
with her hair bunched in around her face.

First I thought she looked like
a celebrity disguised as a normal person,
then decided she must be a normal person
disguised as a celebrity.

10/7/08 Island

I am an island floating
in a sea of couch,
inhabited only by two lazy
but well-mannered cats.

10/6/08 Tough Crowd

"Who do I have to show my boobs to
to get a little respect around here?!?"

Cook looks up from his legos and
Ama studies me from the high chair.

Don't forget to tip your waiters.
I'll be here all week.

10/5/08 Sigh of Relief

Apparently
anybody
can get
a blog.

You don't
have to
deserve it
and thankfully

there are no
minimum
quality
requirements.

(sigh of relief)

10/4 Good Buddy

wiretapping citizens

check

interfering with elections

check

torturing prisoners

check

arresting dissenters

check

controlling the media

check

hmmm, I'm starting to get...the...feeling...
nope, never mind...anyone for a piece of apple pie?

10/3/08 Chi Body Parts

If we become present in our world
we begin to see the way the energy
flows into and out of and beyond every thing.

We begin to see with our chi-eyes
and feel compassion with our chi-hearts.

We begin to find humility in our chi-knees
and wiggle our delicious cheese-powdered chi-toes.

10/2/08 Eat Your Hamburger

In a moment of hopelessness
or introspection or drunkenness
midway through an evening at the casino
one could easily decide to do
a badly-phrased informal public survey
about going crazy trying to be authentic
versus trying to act convincingly enough of normal.

This would be a good time for a friend or
even a friendly bystander to step in and say,
"Listen, this is a bad idea and you are obnoxious.
Why don't you just sit down, eat your hamburger
and shut the fuck up."
Wouldn't it?

10/1/08 On Shame and Corn Syrup

I saw a girl I knew at the store.
I had a Coca Cola in my hand
as I sometimes do, just freshly purchased,
and I reacted like I sometimes do,
like a cross between a cringe and a shrink,
like I'd just been caught masturbating
or shoplifting a home enema kit
or kicking my neighbor's little white ugly dog
in its little yippity yappity ribs.

Of course my knee-jerk emotion was shame,
isn't it always, as I crumbled before this casual acquaintance
who might now possibly think slightly less of me,
and then I thought, you know, this is me and a soda.
I can just own this. I can just be my whole self
and embrace the caffeine/refined sugar addict that I am
along with all the other things about me that I
may or may not fully agree with or be proud of.

And anyway a little bit of corn syrup never hurt anybody.
Well, that's just silly, of course it has,
but still I refuse to give up my right
to be intermittently self-destructive,
which I believe is one of the inalienable rights,
and is usually one of my favorite rights to exercise
intermittently.

9/30/08 Pillows

sometimes the bed is so small I can't breathe
and other times it is so big
no number of pillows
seems to fill it up

my bed is a place to hide
a cocoon that never transforms me
a blue ocean of sadness
and away I float

9/29/08 Deconstruction Zone

First I threw away all my furniture.
Now I've emptied my living room
and decided I prefer it this way.
I wonder what my closet would
look like if it were empty.
I wonder if I really need a bed.
My final goal is to get to the point
where I have erased any sign of myself.

9/28/08 to be continued...

I drive on the same three or four streets every day.
I don't even have to focus my eyes anymore.
I don't even have to look at the road.

I wish I would have been counting all along
so right now I would know exactly how many times
I've driven up Washington freaking Street.

9/27/08 Polite Conversation

So, what are you doing these days?

Oh, I'm an accountant.

I see. Are you self-employed, or?

Well, I work for a local firm, but I also do some
consulting on the side. Where are you now?

Actually, I just finished school, and now I'm a reverse psychologist.
Whatever you do, you definitely do NOT want to do my taxes
for free.

9/26/08 Card Night

A long, late night with a bent deck,
a couple bottles of wine and a silver case
filled with....chips? cash? gold?
What was in the case, Mony?
Intrigue at the Casino Royale level,
but with a little bit less killing.
And then we busted out the Apples to Apples
and it was all over.

9/25/08 Beautiful Day for Watching TV

It seems too late in the year to go outside
but it's not. It hasn't even frosted at night yet.
The trees are midway through changing color,

but the afternoons are actually warm.
Like start sweating when you get in the car
and wonder why you wore a jacket warm.

But I'm so ready to burrow down, I seriously
just want to curl up in the house today,
so I tell myself I'm practicing for winter.

9/24/08 Living Room

Between all these books
and piles of papers
and houseplants and art projects
and furniture and jackets and pillows
and toys and blankets and legos,
oh my god the legos,
between all these things there
is barely room for any living.

9/23/08 Ama's Story

I am a baby statue
and I am crying.
Ohhh, are you okay?
Yeah, I think I'm okay.

9/22/08 Cookie's Story

I don't ever want to be in another play.
I get too excited.
I don't want to be famous.
I just want to live a normal life.

9/21/08 Rock Band

Everybody's walking around like they're in a band,
like they're a rock star (they wish, we all wish)
because it's always been cool
but it's kind of an extra cool fad right now,
kind of like skulls.
Timeless coolness made cooler by a fad
that has been marketed just so.
Energy drinks and video games.
Skulls with bows stuck to their heads
for the girls.

9/20/08 Fries and Circus

I'm just a simple kind of girl
(with a nutritional deficiency)
and all I need is french fries.
All day every day for real.
French fries....and a circus.

9/19/08 Red Leather Couch

red leather yellow leather
blue leather purple leather
fa la la la la

this is my new red leather couch happy song

9/18/08 Time Out

Somebody throws something and then
somebody kicks me and somebody else
slams a door or empties out a bag of chips
on the couch or in the bathtub and it seems
like everybody around here gets time out
except me.

9/17/08 Marcos Altar Card

There's so much to do today
that I spent the morning watching
project runway on the dvr
and making a homemade altar card
of subcomandante insurgente marcos.
Next I might ride the momentum
and take a nap.

And there are heckles from the peanut section.

9/16/08 Bed Forever

Yesterday I wanted to stick
a garden hose down my throat
and strap a toilet to my ass
so I could stay in bed forever.

9/15/08 Asshole

I just remembered what an asshole you are!

Ha ha! I had forgotten!

9/14/08 Spirits

I can't hear my spirit guides
advising me
normally
but sometimes
I hear them howling
with laughter.

9/13/08 Campaign Ads

These things are so gross
they make me gag and sometimes
a little bit of vomit comes up
and then I swallow it again.

And I'm like
ewwww, McCain,
oh nasty, corn.

9/12/08 Marshmallow

There is a sleeping marshmallow on my lap.

He likes to nap on my lap while I type.

Sometimes he gets feisty and bites.

Other times he just melts into a ball of purriness.

9/11/08 Shift

I love the shift button on my keyboard so much.
I love its optimistic little arrow
that magically changes anything
into something else.

I bet there is a big huge shift button
hiding somewhere in my life,
and when I find it,
I am going to be so stoked.

9/10/08 Marriage = Man + Woman

Do you think these people
who argue all this marriage bullshit
realize that they are placing themselves
on the same historical level
as the people who argued against rights
for women or for African Americans?

Do you think that when they realize
what they have done
they will feel as lame
as they are?

9/9/08 My Wild Garden

all those yellow teardrop tomatoes
are hanging on the ground

pretty much everything else is
dying and getting crunchy

other people's pumpkins are already
turning orange

and I know it won't be long before
the geese fly

summer has had its way with me again
and I'm ready for a rest

9/8/08 Yesterday Out Here

Cookie stepped out the door today and said

it feels like yesterday out here

and I loved him a little bit more

9/7/08 Bureau of Dragony Magic

And now,
ladies and gentlemen
and members of the press,
please welcome the
assistant secretary
to the vice-president of the
lady in waiting department
of the home lair security branch
of the bureau of dragony magic.

9/6/08 Where I'm Going

I have seen the place
that I will go when I die.
There are dancing skeletons
and they are singing to me:

"Welcome to Tijuana,
tequila, sexo, marijuana..."
It's confusing, alright, but
things feel pretty good there.

9/5/08 Spit Up Chewed Out

I can't even tell what that is.

Is it cheese?
Cat vomit?
Playdough?

And without knowing what it is,
it is difficult if not impossible to determine
how many layers of paper towel I should use
to pick it up.

9/4/08 Medicine Wheel

The medicine wheel was much bigger
and had longer, rockier spokes
than I had imagined it might.

If I had had the presence of mind yesterday,
this is what I would have asked the wheel:

beautiful ancient medicine wheel,
as your spokes turn the sun in the sky
please help us turn, too, out of darkness
because we need your magical medicine
so desperately right now.

And then I would have thrown a penny at it.

9/3/08 Human Riot

A human walked in a sandwich board
covered with pictures of dead humans.

Another human dressed all in black
hurled hurtful words and shook their human fist
at the human inside the black riot armor.

A group of humans carried the names
of many, many human soldiers that had died
while herding or killing or helping
a distant group of civilian humans.

One angry human standing on a jeep
shot a gun filled with gas into a group
of angry and/or onlooking humans.

It is interesting to note that all of these
humans had one thing in common.

9/2/08 Bleeding Heart

If I take responsibility for that horrible thing that my country did in my name, I will have to take responsibility for every horrible thing that it has done in my name. And then my heart will be crushed by the weight of my responsibility and my utter failure.

If I cry now because I have seen this terrible truth or this cruelty, if I allow my heart to break for this, then my heart will break for every terrible truth and every cruelty that has happened or is happening or will happen, and my heart will be destroyed by the pain of my own small impotence.

But if my heart's destruction will help in any small way in the healing of this world, then I wish with all my heart for my heart's destruction.

9/1/08 My Son

My son is not a soldier.
He will never hold your weapon.
He will live long in spite of
the momentum of history.

My home is not a cell.
Its walls will hold strong for us.
It will be a place of safety
for anyone who enters.

My voice is not afraid.
It will never fear for its life.
It will speak its own truth
and find compassion.

My son is not a soldier.
My home is not a cell.
My voice is not afraid.

8/31/08 Your General Direction

I smile at you from great distances,
through walls,
through dreams,
with the river in between,
or even mountains in between.

You may not feel it every time
I smile at you,
but I hope you know
somehow that there are smiles
aimed in your general direction.

8/30/08 You Say Tomato

Today on the phone with mom I said
"I want to strangle everybody.
Did I just say that out loud?"

Meanwhile on the other side of the universe...

Cookie is playing a snowboarding video game
and figured out how to make his guy
meditate during the jumps.

Okay, well, to each his own.

8/29/08 Memo to Consumer

Dear Consumer:

Please allow us to thank you for your ridiculously regular consumption of our product.

As a gesture of our gratitude for your brand loyalty, we are including a one-year supply of Excedrin Migraine Formula for you completely free of charge.

Of course, for you, valued customer, it will likely only last a month, and the addictive nature of the drug combination will reinforce your need for more.

Much luck with that in the future.

In gratitude,

Your Friendly All-Powerful OTC Drug Manufacturer

8/28/08 Old Photos

In this one, grandpa Moorhead leans against a car
and his posture reminds mom of Spencer.

In this one, baby Molly with ringlets hugs a chicken
and her smile is shaped kind of like Ama's.

And this is one of the only ones of baby Mary
together with her grandma Mary with the goiter.

There's one of the family having a picnic on the porch
of an abandoned house on Romie's birthday, December 2nd.

In this one, grandma Clarice is young and with her friends,
and I try to find any of my features in her smiling face.

8/27/08 On the Podium

Of all the feats of the greatest olympic athletes,
I most enjoy watching them stand on the podium,
still damp with sweat or pool water,
but in coordinating sweatsuits now.

I like when they fidget.

I like to see if they will sing all the words
or cry or smile during the national anthem.
Sometimes they only sing the parts they know,
and sometimes it's not their song playing.

Sometimes the podium doesn't mean you've won.

8/26/08 Housewife

When I get the housewife blues,
which would be fine
if that were a pharmaceutical
but it's not,
I can at least be thankful
that I don't have to
pincurl my hair before breakfast,
or wash the dishes
in three inch pumps.

8/25/08 Hooters

I ate at Hooters.

For real.

There isn't even a punchline,
just a little bit of sadness.

8/24/08 Dressing the Dragon

Tomorrow we are dressing the dragon,
which is an activity that might
fall somewhere between
dressing a child and
dressing a turkey
(because she's stuffed, you see)
(with batting - not edible)
(you can ignore me - I'm just trying to be clever)

8/23/08 Poodle in a Life Jacket

The lady driving the boat
next to the poodle
in the life jacket
is a good example
of someone I might
not be friends with,
not as a judgment against her,
it's just that I don't think
we'd have much in common,
which might actually be
a judgment
in her favor,
but probably not
because she has a poodle
in a life jacket.

8/22/08 Parties

There is another flag sewing party
on my calendar.
I believe this may be how
revolutions begin.

Of course, there is a tattoo party
also on my calendar,
which could very well be how
revolutions are undone.

8/21/08 Ransacked

I think while I was sleeping
someone snuck in and
ransacked my house.

I think while I was sleeping
in a more figurative way
someone snuck in and
ransacked my life.

8/20/08 Zucchinied

Who did you
zucchini
last night?

I couldn't help
but notice
that you didn't
zucchini me.

8/19/08 Eagles

I saw a bald eagle eating a steak on a log
under a low net at the zoo yesterday.
Dina said she's seen three on the river this year.

They installed the last eagle statue this summer.
I know it's illegal to possess an eagle feather,
but what if you just found one on the ground?

What if everywhere you went everybody
just wanted you to play Hotel California
over and over again?

8/18/08 Badminton and other Unexpected Joy

NBC
like a siphon
sucking all my time
and vital energy
and now I suddenly
care about badminton
and the 3000-meter steeple chase
beach volleyball
rhythmic gymnastics
the 100-meter butterfly
javelin for crying out loud
like an ugly American zombie
I watch it
all.

8/17/08 Clay People

Clay people rise out of the river
and play on the lignite-littered shore.
Lignite!

Clay people dance in circles
under the ancient harvest moon.
Orange!

Clay people bundle russian olive
and chase the sunset until dark.
Fire!

8/16/08 Lifescape

Wrapped up in a purple hammock cocoon
hanging between the trees like a Warhol print
a horizontal purple banana swinging there
considering the best use of my 15 minutes

considering, too, how all of these landscapes
that seemed so unchangeable, unconquerable
have been ripped and redesigned, thinking perhaps
this seemingly unchangeable lifescape might also
change.

8/15/08 Looking Up

Looking up
I see
the tops of trees,
the part
you only see
when you are
looking up.

8/14/08 The Last Market

The last kid's hour.
The last drum circle.
The last late night leg ache.

Lots of lasts and I'm not sure
I even know what's going on.

The good thing was
it rained so hard
I didn't have to cry.

8/13/08 Lots of Letters

Two possible ways for me to get some credentials
since normal school doesn't seem to jive for me:

I think when you finish 25% of a degree
you should get a quarter sheet of paper.
Then when you've done all 100% of it
you can tape the pieces together to make a certificate.
But if you don't finish, you've still got something.

OR

We could just reinvent the thing where
your degrees add letters after your name.
PhD. What about: OCD?
MD. Let's try: ADHD.

Then I could say, look, I'm ADHD.
And here's the quarter sheet of paper to prove it.

8/12/08 In The Garage

• bicycles
• paint cans
• lawnmower
• plastic recycling
• wheelbarrow
• broom
• maggots
  

8/11/08 Remind me again

what it was I was looking for on this planet
when I agreed to come back here.

8/10/08 A Mi Mami

Mi a mi mama
dame a la pacha mama y yo te digo
que te quiero entero
me llamo dame a la mama
le doy flores para la mama
paque me quiere
la mamita chiquita chipichita
la pachita bonita
que se duerme la mama
que se llena la mamila
que se queda llena la mamita
paque me quiere
mi a mi mama
a mi mama

8/9/08 Finding a Place in this World

I think of the young men on horses
in the park after the parade
with sticks in their hands,
playful and powerful warriors
jumping and tromping in circles

while ancestors watched from the big tree
a moment of so much beauty
placed ironically after
a very long and ugly past,
everyone finding a place in this world

8/8/08 Crying

The floor is crying for a mop.
The walls are crying for paint.
The cat is crying for any scrap of affection.
The garden is crying for water.
Cookie is crying out of desperation,
and Ama is crying out of habit.
It seems like everybody is crying.

8/7/08 Wild Greens

Cash for the nettles
and Jill throws in
a free sample of purslane.

It is a pleasure
to be part of
the food underground.

8/6/08 Nothing

Right now I am in the process of doing
some massive life simplification,
with the hope that I might end up happy.

I need nothing.
Desperately.

8/5/08 Indian Time

outside the Prairie Dog Cafe
Main Street McLaughlin
South Dakota

she told us indians use central time
white people use mountain time here
business hours depend on the owner

a kind reminder
that although time is subjective
racial division isn't

8/4/08 Words

Eric wants to write songs and asked me
if I had any words.

Do I have any words? Ha.

Do I have any words.

Oh, Eric. I have so many words.

Silly boy.

Best to explain, however, that the words I have
are dull, albeit plentiful.

8/3/08 Southport Cobb Salad

Breaded chicken lay upon a bed of romaine lettuce,
avocado, roma tomatoes, egg, chopped chives,
bacon crumbles, and Blue Cheese.
The mood was tense.

8/2/08 Tornado Warning

I'm glad there's a tornado warning
because, you know what, when stuff comes down
from the sky like that it's a good thing

and a tornado is a really good sign, it's lucky.
I'm actually really lucky, I should buy some pull tabs
but I ain't got no pockets.

8/1/08 F Bomb

Remind me if I ever forget
where I was when the record
for the loudest F bomb ever dropped
by a bride at a wedding reception
was shattered.

7/31/08 Take The Wheel

Kris asked me if I knew the song.
Silly question. Carrie Underwood,
come on, we all know that song.

I said that I try it from time to time,
letting Jesus take the wheel.
Kris said, yeah but it never works.

7/30/08 Large Crowd

Funny that a large crowd is so often the easiest place
to sense what a very lonely world this is.

7/29/08 RNC: Anticipation

Republican
National
Convention:
A
nice
time
if you
care enough to participate in
insurrection,
protests
are too often
the only
instance that
our culture chooses to exercise
nonviolence

7/28/08 Chi Gung

Forty-five hundred years ago
people practiced the art
of inhaling good energy
and exhaling icky energy.

I wonder at what point
people stopped thinking
that was a good idea.

7/27/08 Hearing Trains

I don't think I've ever lived in a place
where I couldn't hear trains.
I could hear trains from the apartment
in Springfield.
I could hear them from both houses
in Eugene.
And here in Bismarck, of course.
I don't think I could hear any trains
in Mexico City,
but I wasn't really living there.
That was more like dying.

7/26/08 Buzzards

Nothing like twenty or thirty
huge-ass vultures
circling the sky over your house
every day.
I realize they are living on the
sandbars this time of year,
but still, each time I drive home,
I wonder who might be
slowly dying in my yard.

7/25/08 Pride and Dandy

The serene bale-dotted fields
stretching out from my camper's window
on the morning after pridefest
belied the chaos and impossible noise
that had been rattling my ribcage and
jiggling my headache all night long.
Was it remixed Britney Spears?
Was it really?

Or was it all just a crazy rainbow-tinted,
overflowing porta-potty dream?

7/24/08 Hey, Macarena

Don't mean to get snagged up with definitions
but the salsa dance party tonight made me wonder
what salsa dancing really looks like and
what salsa music really sounds like.

I wasn't going to argue with seven carloads
of hispanic people representing almost
every country in Central and South America.
Maybe it was salsa, in which case I was mistaken.

7/23/08 Harvesting Organs

Another Thursday means more Urban Harvest.
This creature has quite an appetite.
It is eating me.
I think there's still a good kidney
somewhere in there that I don't really need.
But what will I feed it next week?

7/22/08 After Graduation

Tonight Cookie wanted to know how many
grades there are and I told him 12.
He thought 12 years might be enough.

"I don't think I'm going to go to college.
I'm just going to get my driver's license instead."

Then he wanted to know exactly
how many levels of school there are.
He decided he wouldn't get his master's.

"I can't afford it anyway, right?
I'd rather spend the money on cars."

7/21/08 Birthday Blues and Greens

there is loneliness wrapped
in blue and green tissue paper

there is a sewing machine
with questionable intentions

there are quiet longings here
and so much love at a distance

7/20/08 dropping out

let's all just drop out
just walk away from all of this junk
and figure out what's really important
what's really going on
what we really have
what we really think
what we can really do
it could be beautiful

7/19/08 Watch This

For example,
you can watch a watch
all day long
and never know
what time it is.

Better not to watch
and know for sure
you don't know.

7/18/08 Bows and Eyelashes

According to cartoons
the only difference between
males and females
is that females have
eyelashes and bows.

Sometimes
when I'm not sure,
I still use that rule
to decode a person's
gender.

7/17/08 Super Computer

(colored lights blinking randomly)
beep boop beep bop
beep beep
boop bop
(small ribbon of paper snakes out of the
output slot)

The tiny scientist inside my head picks up the end
of the paper and begins to read:

"send package wedding card milk diapers oil change van registration rehearsal at six babysitter for friday charge the phone bills reserve a room do the mileage preschool sign-up helmet band-aids order checks recycling thank yous"

The tiny scientist shakes her head and lets the paper slip out of her fingers onto the floor.

7/16/08 Things I Don't Need

this jar full of coins
the rice cooker
a whole drawer full of pens and rubber bands
the furniture
my houseplants
that vase
the television
the step stool
the cat

When I imagine losing everything,
I realize that it won't be that bad.

7/15/08 The Old Fashioned Way

Campers are a simple lot.
Basking in nature.
Unplugging from the hectic world.

I myself enjoy doing things
the old fashioned way.
I just roll like that.

Like the time we had to make
the coffee in the campground bathroom
because we forgot the french press.

Primitive, I know.

7/14/08 Circle Town

The On-A-Slant village had a population
of 15,000 people before the smallpox.
There's really no good reason to refer to a settlement
that size as a village except that it was a circle town.
Circle houses placed in concentric circles
around a central circle. Circle town for circle people.

I saw the diorama.
I also saw the diorama of the fort.
That was a square town.
Square buildings enclosed by a square fence.
We may feel like we've learned a thing or two since then
but I believe that when we build our circle town
the square people will still call it a village.
And we circle people won't really care.

7/13/08 Jump in the River

Why are we not all standing with our feet in the water
like elephants on these hottest summer days?

I want to watch the trains cross the river.
I want to let the cold water take my breath away.
I want to watch the sun weave light through the clouds.
I want to hear the thunder coming and wait for it.

Why am I not standing with my feet in the water
like an elephant on this hot hot day?

7/12/08 Little Garden that Could

All the traditional garden plots are boasting
some massively oversized crops already
here in the second week of July.
And by traditional I mean Miracle Grow.

And the little organic plots like mine
look longingly over at them.
It's not just the grass that's greener,
apparently it's the corn and melons and tomatoes, too.

So I sit quietly and encouragingly, weeding
and hoping to love my plants enough
that they will grow, when what they really want
is some of that petroleum-derived deliciousness.

7/11/08 Caveman

It's like a trippy rabbit hole thing
cause it looks really little on the outside
and then you step in the door and
it just sort of expands all around you
like a cozy wood-paneled slice of heaven
with a vintage green stove and matching
icebox. Yes, I said icebox.
It's like a fridge except it's just a box.
For ice.

7/10/08 shake it don't bake it

While contemplating deeper acts of rebellion
I will just go ahead and start with this:
I will dance right here in front of the computer
and I will not cook anything for dinner.

I will continue to dance late into the night,
dancing in addition to or in spite of any needs
or requests others may have of me.

I may dance over to the mirror to watch
myself dance if feeling especially funky.
I may put on shoes to hear myself dance.

7/9/08 I Got This

I have left the wet laundry in the washer
until it got moldy three times in a row.
I washed the same clothes 4 times.

So the biodiesel bus broke down by Mary's house.
Don't look at me like that. Nope,
not gonna drive around and collect raffle tickets.

I can't keep pretending like I can do better
because what you're looking at is all I've got.
All I've got. Do you hear me?

7/8/08 Go To Sleep

I would like very much for you all to go to sleep right now,
not so much because of the restorative powers of sleep,
not so much because we have a huge day tomorrow,
but because I can't take any more, and I need to be done.

7/7/08 Let's Go

What do you want to do?
Really?
Let me buy you a shot first.
Okay, let's go.

7/6/08 Prairie Women

There is loneliness
and there is strength
in a prairie woman.

There is sacrifice and frustration, too,
I would imagine.

I believe there may also be joy
and some simple satisfaction,
although I don't know for sure.

Yet.

7/5/08 Owning the Earth

Jen points far off toward the horizon.
That's our land out to those trees.
And up to the river that way.
Not those hills.
That's where the coyotes live.
We own all this along the road
out to where that green field starts.
And another piece up past the homestead.

But off the back of the 4-wheeler
I saw some antelope,
and I'm pretty sure they
thought they owned that land, too.

7/4/08 Glaciers

The wind makes waves in the grass that look like moving water.
I pretend that the prairie is an ocean and this gravel road is the beach.

Out here you can see how the glaciers' giant hands smoothed and rippled
the solid ground, and where enormous pebbles slipped through their fingers.

My hands become giant, too, and I can smooth the hills and push them back.
I can scoop up mounds of clay and built a castle between the corn fields.

7/3/08 Estrellitas

When all the fireworks were gone
the kids chased fireflies instead.

Grandma Henry remembered loading everybody into the car
and driving down to the river late at night to watch them.

In Spanish they are called luciernagas,
but in Cacalote they called them estrellitas.

Little stars.
Grandma Henry said the river looked just like Las Vegas.

7/2/08 Daily Yell

Oh, it's not a day until I yell at somebody about something.
Some people need coffee or a jog,
some people need a shower.
There are even people that have to eat a meal.
Every day.
I don't need any of those things.
I just need to lose my temper and yell.
At anybody.
So it's best not to make eye contact if you can help it.
You're in bear country now.
Might want to put a doorknob
on that trash can.

7/1/08 Push Lawnmower

My push lawnmower may not be as time efficient as your mower.
But at least you can't hear it from 3 blocks away.
Like yours.

My push lawnmower may not trim all the grass the same length.
But at least it doesn't pollute the air.
Like yours.

My push lawnmower might make me do all the work,
sweating and heaving over and over the same spot.
But at least no one is living in an oil war zone, or dying there,
so that I can have a pretty lawn.

6/30/08 Every Bell

many skirts have brushed this path
bodies have fallen and risen

I am not brave
this is not even my choice

in the night
I am drawn to the light of every fire

in the quiet
I follow the sound of every bell

6/29/08 I am a bird

I am a bird

My wings are a beautiful crying song

I sing in my sleep before the sun comes up


I am a bird

The ground stretches out beneath me

I don't even know that I am flying

6/28/08 Thunder and Lightning

thunder and lightning come in a big blue cloud
blow through and shake the leaves off the trees

bite your tongue if you wish the storm away
this water keeps our wells and rivers alive

the thunder reminds the animals to be alert
and lightening tattoos the rain on the earth

6/27/08 Jabberbox

Mama, is that paper?
Yes honey but it's 6:30 in the morning.
Eat it?
No honey don't eat it.
Don't eat it? Cookie eat it?
Honey, it's 6:30 in the morning.
Where did Cookie go?
Listen.
You are a jabberbox.
And jabberboxes become more cute
the later it is in the morning.
Less cute the earlier it is.
Do you understand?

6/26/08 Captain Farkle

Oh, sweet sweet Spencer.
Don't throw away all those fifties.
Okay, so you have a strategy,
fishing for three of a kinds so you
throw back your lowly fifties.
But then, bam. Farkle.
Wouldn't have mattered anyway.

6/25/08 Eating Pizza with Dragons

Bowl time was extra delicious this evening
with pizza fresh from St. Paul, snapping carrots,
sparkling pomegranate soda and red tea.
I like dragons a lot.

6/24/08 Bananas in Montana?

Verse:
Ama went to the store to buy a juice box
Ama went to the store to buy a juice box
(uh uh)
Gonna go to the store to buy a juice box
Gonna go to the store to buy a (uh uh) juice box

Chorus:
Ama likes to dance Ama likes to dance
Ama Ama Ama Ama Ama likes to dance

Bridge:
I saw a cantaloupe (uh uh)
I think I saw an antelope

6/23/08 Misunderestimated

I get very discouraged.
Where are we going anyway?
Maybe if I try harder.
Maybe if we all try harder.

The whole world is waiting.

6/22/08 Garden of Life

The weeds are as tall as the plants in my garden
so that it's hard to tell what I even planted.
It all grows equally as well regardless
of whether or not I want it there.

This is an easy metaphor for life,
which is convenient for someone like me
but trite and obvious for someone like you.
So what. Go get your own blog.

6/21/08 Haystack Rock

The beach at haystack rock was sprinkled
with shell, wet feathers, and broken sand dollars.

Ribbons of seaweed bulbs lay like a damp belt
of meteorites halfway up the drying shore.

No starfish today, so instead I inscribe names and hearts
in the sand with a piece of driftwood.

6/20/08 Kites and Birds

Seagulls and kites float between all the blue edges
of the water and hills and sky.

The kites are leashed to their masters,
and tug playfully like cute flying puppies.

The gulls are free to fly away but choose to stay hovering
like ghosts over the dead bodies of crabs and fish.

And the salty wind blows and blows
but it can't blow any of them away.

6/19/08 Reflecting on the Beach

Every time I put on my cute brown shoes,
I think about flying the Barbie kite on the beach at Seaside.

It's a wonderful opportunity to reflect each time I slip
my shoes on and realize there is still sand in them.

I can't get it all out. I knock them together before I put them on,
and as my feet grind I pretend I am exfoliating them on purpose.

And if I had chosen to wear different (more appropriate) shoes
that day, I might not still be thinking about it. So it's good.

6/18/08 Mama Robin

Cook said it was fun discovering nature
after we found the nest with babies in it.

I'm guessing their mama is the harried,
multi-tasking, slightly neurotic robin
that keeps hopping and diving through our campsite.

Apparently, camping is difficult
for mama birds, too.

6/17/08 Mountains

Thin clouds catch on
tree-covered mountains
like a cotton ball
rubbed the wrong way
over stubbly leg hair.
Only prettier.

6/16/08 Hitchhikers

I wonder why every single hitchhiker
looks like a serial killer.

Grungy, scraggly-ass looking white guys
in army fatigues that look like they either
just dug a hole under a prison fence or
have been living under a bridge and
dining on snails and unfortunate children.

Not gonna hitch too many rides
looking like that.

6/15/08 June Rise

I can hear the Yellowstone from where I sit,
but the sound doesn't call me closer,
doesn't beg my toes to wiggle in for a dip.

She's an angry woman these days,
all brown and swirling, she's ferocious.
I got too close yesterday and she snarled.

Give her a little time and after the mountains
have melted all they are going to melt,
she'll be clear and splashy and dippable again.

6/14/08 Tillamook

Driving just to drive
up the curvy coastline
like an elongating worm
of cars that want to go faster:
a Winnebago bottleneck on the 101.

Lunch at the Blue Moon Cafe
just up the road from the cheese plant
where Cookie picked PB&J
and Ama ate one crouton for lunch.
Then back to Cannon Beach for a nap.

6/13/08 A Beautiful Thing

It will be a beautiful thing
when we all realize
that a really cheap product
is really cheap for a reason.

When we all know that a good deal
is never a good deal.
When instead of making us feel lucky,
it allows us to feel compassion.

It will be a beautiful thing
when we take full responsibility
for each life our lifestyle affects.

6/12/08 Flowers Everywhere

Sleeping.
Eating peanuts.
Lounging on the patio
or playing the X Box.

It doesn't matter what you do
when there are flowers everywhere.

6/11/08 Good Night

I love you baby owl.

I love you baby Ama.

I love you teddy bear.

I love you Cookie bear.

6/10/08 One Piece

Well if there's one thing I've learned
from late night online jigsaw puzzling
it's that you can't expect anything
to make any fucking sense
when you are just one piece
of the big picture.
But eventually,
it all comes together
and you don't really have to
understand.
It happens without you.

6/9/08 Buttons

Buttons are like
bumper stickers
for humans.

6/8/08 Don't Look Now

Don't look now
but I'm ahead of myself
and it's already tomorrow
even though it's still today.

Einstein would be so proud
if he was the one who said
that time was relative
or inconstant
or fake
or whatever.
I'm so stupid.
And I bore myself.

How dare I pretend I understand
what Einstein was talking about.

6/7/08 El Sharpo

As life continues in its endless spiral
into the even more ridiculous
I prepare the only way I know how:
I shut my eyes and hope something funny happens.

By the way, I'm trying to describe a road trip.
I realize that I am motivated by/relate to
different things than normal people.

For example: money. Normal motivator.
Vacation. People relate to the concept of that I think.
What about: drunken campfires. I'm so into that.

Anyway, vacation is meaningless when you simultaneously
never work and never stop working.

Another example: ego et al. Normal motivator.
Respect. People relate to wanting some of that.
What about: making people feel uncomfortable.

Including myself. Wait,
I just realized I'm writing this.
Is this about El Sharpo yet?
Shit.
Please disregard.

6/6/08 Obscenely Poetic

Okay so on top of everything else
today we ended up planting mom's garden.
Fine.

Her sister Molly came to town to join our RV adventure
with a box full of flowers that needed planting.
Before departure.

She works in a greenhouse and gets paid in flowers,
which is obscenely poetic to me. Obscenely poetic.

I worked in a greenhouse once in Eugene
and got paid in money, which it turns out
is neither obscene nor poetic.
Which means that from a marketing perspective
I'm dead in the water.
Typical.

6/5/08 Bird is the Word

teacups on roses and raindrops on kittens
and mairzy doats and rock a bye baby in the bebop
and we all live in a paperback writer we are the world series

she's a maniac maneater her name is rio and she flashdances
on the ceiling with betty davis eyes lucy in the skies
hanging on the line a yo yo
go go bogo 1/2 off

How much crap fits inside my brain?
Everything I've ever heard?
And it's all in there somewhere, isn't it?
Be geez.

6/4/08 Very Glad Rag

it always comes out wrong
when I try to be all empowered
or try too hard to be too happy
about menstruation

I don't want anyone to be sad
or wonder what they're doing wrong
when it is very uncomfortable or when
they aren't especially happy about it

because I'm not always all that happy
unless resignation is happiness or
doing your best is happiness but
neither of those very often is

6/3/08 Sweatshop Sundress

Eric is up
watching the Alaska sun
spin in circles in the sky.

Danni is over
commuting and working
on nanny negotiations.

Spencer, well
Spencer, you know Spencer.

And my ethical compromise
(the sweatshop sundress)
was like a floodgate opening

and now I've got new clothes
everywhere. I even went to Kohl's.
Fresh from the sweatshop.

Still smell like sweat
some of em do. And me all guilty.

6/2/08 Growing Community

I'm thinking about the cat trap lady
who pretends to be my friend
and then collects cat gossip about me

and then relays it back to me in a sort of
for your own good, conspiratorial,
fake helping, self-important way.

I'm down at the garden thinking about
how god damn hard it is to build community
with tomatoes and birdbaths and one hose.

It makes me want to move far away
to some other make believe neighborhood
where people are kind and warm and
where there is never any sneering.

6/1/08 Drinking Alone

Seems like this ought to be an admonishment
of some type but I can't imagine what
that would be because sometimes
you don't really have any other choice.

Drink alone or be sober.
That's not a choice.

Anyway, history remembers
the rule breakers.
Occasionally.
The rest die poor and alone.

5/31/08 Two Seemingly Unrelated Items

The only thing I clearly remember wanting
to be when I grew up was Pat Benetar
in the Love is a Battlefield video.
Do you remember that video?
She left home and had to be very brave.


I see Cookie wrestling with a deep sadness
that I remember having as a child, too.
Like a sense of fleetingness or loss,
like a thinness of time, or a hyper-awareness
of mortality. The only thing I can say to him is
I'm sorry, sweetie. I used to feel that way.
Truth is, I still feel that way sometimes.

5/30/08 Dinosaur Park

there is an interesting recipe in me
and when you mix just the right amount
of family vacation and Michael Jackson
with summer storms and a deck of cards
you get dinosaur park
with a side of melancholy

5/29/08 Waiting for Thunder

There's not much animal instinct left in human beings.
You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?
That's cause you're a sucker.

But when you can smell thunder rolling miles away
through your open window at night,
or in the middle of a sunny afternoon
or suddenly feel the wind change and think
I better get home before it starts raining,
then I will laugh at you lovingly and say,

"See? Your animal soul can still feel the earth heaving
and the sky rolling and the universe breathing
all around you. Congratulations!"

5/28/08 Bandaid

a brand new light fixture
is like a fancy antibiotic band-aid
over a wounded bleeding marriage

at least in this case

not helping

5/27/08 Money

earn it
lose it
hate it
need it
resent it
want it
spend it
gamble it
save it
fight it
manage it
hide it
beg it for mercy

5/26/08 Great Day

soccer in the parking lot
and ticks in the trees
throwing rocks in the river

dad built a big fire
and mom drank two beers

Spencer and Tara shared a pinney
Ama's shoes kept coming off
and Cookie never slowed down

perfection unlimited

5/25/08 pacha mama

rub your big black clay belly
summer is here now

dust you off and touch your hands
and turn the wheel again

I love you mama
flowers for my pacha mama
today

5/24/08 Speed Racer

The movie Speed Racer
has been marketed
so thoroughly

it's everywhere

it is every where

it's sick

Cookie thinks he loved it
and we didn't even
let him see it.

5/23/08 Jump a Train

I would jump a train
without even knowing where it went
and sleep in a red boxcar
and rumble along all night.

But instead what I do
is sit on the patio at Fiesta Villa
drinking a margarita
faster than I should.

5/22/08 Planting Potatoes

There is a small bowl full of potatoes
on my kitchen counter.
The potatoes are simultaneously growing
and blackening with mold
as they wait to be planted.
I am intrigued.

5/21/08 Getting Behind

falling further and further behind

can't catch up

please send help

5/20/08 Highlights

The highlight of yesterday was either
watching Cook try to sit still under the heater
for 10 minutes while his blond highlights cooked,
or the look on his face when he saw himself
with his new awesome hairdo.

The highlight of today was Cook running
as fast as he could into the school building
so he could show his friends.

5/19/08 Apple Blossoms

The apple trees are doing their thing
just bursting and dripping with flowers
more blossoms than you would ever think
could even fit on a tree.

I was walking and watching the birds
diving out of the air and disappearing
into the depths of the fluffy flower trees
and it was so luscious.

I wished I was very small so that I could
lose myself inside the trees like a bird,
like laying under a christmas tree and looking up
through the branches and lights.

5/18/08 Exclamation

Thank you!!!!!

I can't put enough exclamation marks
on the end of that thank you.

So here are some more!!!!!.

Let me know if you'd like more than that,
cause I've got a bunch of em right here.

5/17/08 Buffalo Day

The better part of today was spent in Jamestown
so it's no surprise that it ended up being buffalo day.
I don't think I really need to elaborate
and anyway I don't feel like it.

5/16/08 Jungle Boy

When you are a parent
you spend a lot of time wondering
how badly you are screwing up.

What about when you have a son
and when he's seven you realize
that you raised Mowgli.

The kid from the Jungle Book
who was raised by wolves.

Does that mean that you
parent like a wolf?

5/15/08 Thrill the World

I think I used to want to be a dancer
and I still do when I see people dance
but all I can do is Thrill the World
with my kids in my living room.

Someday I'm gonna take my bootie bounce
out into the street and shake it,
but only when I am very certain
that I can get my zombie on.

5/14/08 New Item on the To Do List

Can you guess which thing took me by surprise
when I wrote it on my to do list for today?

• pick up bread
• thank you to grandma
• send Danni's package
• buy a tabloid
  

5/13/08 One Million Suns

I was watching TV again.

Now NASA researchers believe
that a supernova near the sun exploded,
knocking hundreds of thousands
of meteorites out of their orbits.
This created all the craters on the moon.

But all the explanations seem to involve
the light of one million suns,
billions of light years,
4 and a half gazillion years,
the force of a hundred jillion atomic bombs.

What does that mean?
Ridiculous unfathomable numbers, meaningless
to me really, and then the scientist said,
"For now, we are lucky to be alive."

Oh, okay.
I get it.

5/12/08 What I Love About Life

On my mental health walk I discovered
that my ipod was dead and then
I heard frogs down by the water
and I listened to them instead.

I told Cookie what happened and he said,
That's what I love about life, mom.
When you want music but you don't have any,
nature makes music for you.

5/11/08 Lazy Meat Eater

I'm a lazy meat eater.
I don't want to eat it
but it's so much harder not to.
Everything's all set up
to just eat it.
So I just eat it.

I prefer to eat the stuff
that doesn't look like meat
that's not the shape or texture
of the animal of origin.
Of any animal.
It makes me gag.

I prefer it to resemble tofu
or tvp or cloth or plastic
or anything
so that I can forget.
So I don't have to think about it.
So I can just eat it.

5/10/08 Email to Danni

Sometimes I feel like I'm doing way too much,
and then other times I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough.
I'm thirty, after all.
And also a white,
affluent,
educated
American.

God damn.
Got a lot going for me.
If anybody should I should
be doing a lot more in this world.
Says my inner chatter.

5/9/08 Ama's Birthday

Happy Birthday Ama!
she answers: Happy Birthday Mom!

How old are you Ama?
she answers: No.

How old is Ama today?
she answers: Ama.

Is Ama two today? Is Ama two?
she fails to answer.

5/8/08 Pocky

Today I got the biggest box of Pocky I've ever seen
in the mail.
Not that I've ever seen in the mail.
I mean I got it in the mail.
Got the misplaced part of speech there
that I can't remember the name of.
This is not going well.

It's the biggest box of Pocky I've ever seen.
And I got it in the mail.
Pocky I've ever seen.

5/7/08 That One Girl

Today I saw that one girl.
The one who used to date
that one guy.
I used to work with her
at that one place.
Remember, you met her
that one time.

Oh it feels so good
to reminisce.

5/6/08 You Tube

Don't act all innocent
you tube.
You freaking tube.

Why you gotta be such a tube.

5/5/08 Mirror

If I had been writing all this
into a mirror,
it would explain why
everything is backwards.

5/4/08 HD Theater

Last night I spent two hours
in a vegetative (albeit educable) state
watching the HD Theater channel.

First I watched a show about river dolphins
and life on the Mekong in Cambodia.
There is a monk there who uses his karma
to protect the giant bats in his village
from the hungry villagers.

Then I watched a thing about bison
and prairie dogs' symbiotic relationship
on the great plains. Both have been
historically regarded as pests by white people.
I couldn't help but scan the wildlife shots
for fences and power lines.

Anyway, if I tell you I never have any
down time just tell me that I'm a liar
and direct me to 5/4/08 HD Theater.
You'll be right. As usual.

5/3/08 Feeling and Failing

There are different theories
about the causes for human suffering.

I don't know a lot about humans,
not nearly as much as I let on anyway,
but I know a little bit about hurting
and I cry quite a bit, so

if I were to put forth my own theory on human suffering
based on my personal experience (which resembles human-ness)
it would be mostly about feeling too much or not enough, and then
failing a lot or a little, and then it would conclude with more feeling
in response to the failing.

5/2/08 Bed All Day

If I could lay in bed all day
I could seriously lay in bed
all day

and though that may seem tiresome
to someone like you
someone like me knows how tiresome it can be
to not lay in bed all day

5/1/08 Honey Bee

you're so sweet
my little honey bee
and you're so kissable
I can't stop kissing you
I can't stop kissing you
I can't stop kissing you

4/30/08 I Don't.

People with jobs
get paid to go to the bathroom
and it doesn't even seem weird.

4/29/08 Lazy Pants

I feel very expansive
in these pants
that have soaked up
so many sleepy mornings

they dissolve deadlines
and they kill pain like
the 100% cotton version
of hydrocodone

and I can ignore the phone
even though I don't
really need a wardrobe-related reason
for my laziness today.
It comes naturally.

4/28/08 Five Hands

Daniel said that if you put all of his childhood birthday presents together
they wouldn't equal all the stuff Cookie got for his birthday this year.

On one hand, there's so much heavy sadness and longing in Daniel
left over from his childhood that maybe should be dealt with.

On another hand, it is interesting to always be reminded at odd times
of the ridiculous affluence and excess we live with every day.

Then there's another hand, where it should be okay to be thankful and
accept all that we have and be generous with it.

And of course, there's the hand where stuff has so little value really.

And the hand where we are safe and healthy and have full bellies and love,
which are the truest blessings and measures of affluence.

There are lots of hands.

4/27/08 letting go

Cook cried again tonight
asking me what happened to Lee

I explained about the gun but this time
I left out the word accidentally

maybe that untruth has been confusing
to his little psyche that knows so much

how can people just die he asked
and did he even get to meet me

I consoled him the best I could
I just wish I knew which of them
is having so much trouble letting go

4/26/08 On Her Way To Sleep

on her way to sleep
she holds on to her hair
and tickles herself
on the face with the loose ends

4/25/08 Quotation Marks

We "thank you" for your patronage!

The world's "best" hamburger.

Your "favorite" country radio station.

Always made with "real" cheese.

Maybe people who don't know how to use "quotation marks"
should not be in charge of "advertising."

4/24/08 Every Day

How terribly often
you have to do
something
in order for it to be
something
you do
every day
really.

4/23/08 to coffee or not to coffee

That is the question.

Whether 'tis easier to be draggy all day,
or to suck it up and grind and wash and fill
and drink and two hours from now to be
all jacked up and having a very productive day.

I just need to decide which 'tis nobler.

4/22/08 Earth Day Bang

The highlight of Earth Day for me this year
was either the man dressed up like a giant
leafy spurge that handed me a VHS video
called "How to Control Leafy Spurge"
or it was...nope, that was it.

4/21/08 Getting Old

This morning, in a moment of
painful childhood honesty,
Cookie looked at me and said,

"Mom, you look old."

And I, misunderstanding it to be
the beginning of something charming, said,

"What do you mean, honey?"

And he elaborated by saying,

"Well, you are getting a lot of wrinkles
and you look tired and I think you're
finally getting really old."

I didn't cry. Not right then.

4/20/08 Happy Daze

I could be high like a kite,
or riding the snake,
or clarifying butter
in order to bake.

How par but still lame
on this 20th day of 4,
to be unfazed and undazed,
just like almost every 420
before.

4/19/08 Go Away

I can hear birds singing as I get ready for bed.

And I love love love sleeping by myself.

So don't take it personally that I go outside for a while
before I lay down, or that I'm glad when you're gone.

4/18/08 Skate Park

Took Cookie to the skate park today
to celebrate getting his skateboard stolen
yesterday and then Dan finding it down the street.

I love skateboarders. Tough looking teenagers,
but they are infinitely patient with Cookie,
even when he heckles them when they fall,
or when he tells them why they aren't any good.

I'm just afraid that one day he'll stop being cute
and then he'll get his ass kicked.

4/17/08 Day Lilies

When the day lilies first come up
they are so green and delicious-looking,
I almost want to eat them.
But I try not to eat them.

4/16/08 The Cement Truck

Whenever I look at myself and wonder
how I got here or why I turned out this way,
it usually comes back to that time
I didn't steal the cement truck.

I wanted to do it so bad.
It was running and the driver's side door
was wide open. It would have been easy
and I stood there in the rain for 15 minutes
imagining it but I just couldn't do it.

What a funny reason to go to jail
that might have been.
I totally blew it.
No wonder I'm so lame.

4/15/08 RRL hearts MJ

Got the new 25th anniversary
special edition Thriller CD and
can't stop listening to it. Can't. Stop.
(till I get enough?)

It has remixes.
And a photographic chronicle
of all of MJ's early plastic surgeries.

And a DVD with the videos.
They are sort of bad. By bad I mean dated.
The remixes are bad, too.
Not dated. Just bad.

4/14/08 Unnecessary Multitasking

The other day Eric called
and said whatcha doin
(he talks weird) and then there was
this really bright flash of light

as I realized that I was
eating lunch and doing the dishes
at the same time. For no reason.
I was unnecessarily multitasking.

And I have had similar flashes of light
since that day, like the time it occurred
to me that I maybe don't need to scrub
the toilet while I'm on the phone.

I think I am just in the habit of being busy.
Maybe even of feeling overwhelmed.
Maybe I'm not really busy or overwhelmed.
But I'm not going to let that stop me.

4/13/08 Let's Reminisce

Do you remember that one time
(and the only reason I ask is that I wrote it down)
(otherwise I most likely wouldn't)
when the ants infiltrated the house
and you sprayed them to a crisp
and I got my period and had to go to the bathroom
in the middle of the night and it was
a very toxic crunchy walk?
Good times.

4/12/08 Love It. Hate It.

Sugar. Splenda.

Flappers. Gangsters.

Sleeping children. That sandwich I ate in Fargo.

Airplanes. Running through airports.

Mountain lions that live on the prairie. People that shoot them.

Laughing. Forgetting people's names.

Monopoly. Monopoly.

4/11/08 Volunteer Board

Is it smart
to be on a volunteer board?
Or is it very dumb?

It's like a job
only without any money.
Which kind of flies in the face
of the reward system
we've got in place
that makes everybody do stuff
they wouldn't otherwise do.

But the fact that
there are volunteer boards
means that people still do stuff
because it is meaningful.

Beyond money.
Maybe not smart.
But definitely reassuring.

4/10/08 How Scary Am I?

Turn Back! Save Yourself!
might be what the signs say
as you approach my house.

If you could get your hands on a map
of this neighborhood circa 1600,
it might be marked with a
Here Thar Be Witches!
or Dragons!
or Pagans!
or Bitches!
Aaaarrrrggghhhh!
(or Pirates!)

That's how scary I am.

4/9/08 Disco Body Image Collision

All pantsuits and joking aside,
there's nothing like a large amount
(but somehow not quite enough)
of shimmery spandex to bring out
your body issues.

But you know what they say:
fashion hurts.
If you're doing it right.

4/8/08 Fun with Migraines

1 shift at Smoothie
1 mild hangover
9 hours of lying in bed but not sleeping
2 Excedrin migraine capsules
1 bottle of Coca Cola

Mix Smoothie shift and mild hangover until fully blended.

Slowly add the hours of lying in bed but not sleeping
until the mixture is the right consistency - should be jagged and
lightly nauseated. Moisten if too painful (with tears).

Let sit until morning. At dawn add the Excedrin migraine
capsules and wash down with Coca Cola. Simmer. Then go to work.

4/7/08 Pinwheels for Prevention

Hundreds of blue pinwheels spinning on the courthouse lawn
can't prevent child abuse as effectively as
changing our country's foreign policy.

We're not dumb. We've learned that the best way to get somebody
to do something is to beat the shit out of them.
May I suggest:

Pinwheels for Peaceful International Diplomacy

4/6/08 Oh crap.

So the diapers.

The disposable ones go in the landfill.
Bad.

The cloth ones get hand washed in the toilet.
Very bad.

I wish there was one more choice.

4/5/08 Coffee

getting jacked up on
drive through fat free
fair trade double brew roasted
hot shade grown cinnamon almond
whipped cream organic bean vanilla
naturally caffeinated soy oh and so
tasty

4/4/08 Gobama (and Hillary)

Did a ten-hour driving extravaganza yesterday
to see Obama speak in Grand Forks (and Hillary).

Through what combination of complacency and avarice
have we Americans earned the chance to have
a presidential candidate as great as Obama (and Hillary)?

I think I'm in love with Barack Obama (and Hillary).

4/3/08 Win Win

When I drive with Tracy
it's a win win situation.

She gains a personal satisfaction
from knowing exactly where to go
and telling me exactly where to go,

and I have a competent co-pi, so that
I never get turned around the wrong way,
and I don't have to think.

Win win is a million times better setup
than win lose or lose win or lose lose -
I wish it always worked out this way.

4/2/08 Carabiner

I love carabiners,
but I can't decide
which I like more:

the actual carabiner
or the word carabiner.

So I will just sit here and luxuriate
in the question, all the while getting
to say carabiner over and over.

I do this with the word tarmac, too.
Like hey, why are you sitting on the tar, mac?

4/1/08 Train Wreck

Things are pretty rough right now, actually
my life is a complete train wreck,
and my heart is a complete train wreck.
If I rode on a train right now,
I would probably be involved in a train wreck.

A general state of derailment.

Like full-on cross-country Empire Builder-level.
Like you're sitting in the observation car
with a seven dollar turkey sandwich
watching Over The Hedge and then suddenly
screech tumble tumble smash into the trees-level.

3/31/08 Junk Mail

When I try to imagine my life without junk mail,
here's what I do:

I keep it all together until I have a big pile,
and then I take out all the business reply envelopes.

Then I stuff everything else into the envelopes
and seal them and mail them back. Postage paid.

Return to sender, baby.

3/30/08 Easy, Cowboy

He came blazing into the room
like a five alarm asshole,
saying something about
partying like it was 1999.

Someone said,
"easy, cowboy"
and someone else said,
"I think you normally wear pants under chaps."

party's over oops out of time

3/29/08 Red Water

I curl into my menstrual skirts
like a nest made out of leaves.

My hands wring out the blood
and they feel clean and strong.

Red water feeds my garden
and the trees' deep roots.

I soak down into the earth
and the cycle is complete.

3/28/08 What A Salad Is Not

I realize this may be a contentious topic,
but what is a salad exactly?

Sometimes it's easier to start the maze at Finish.
So the question becomes: what is a salad not?

A salad is not marshmallows.
A salad is not mayonnaise.
A salad is not jello.
A salad is not bacon.
A salad is not snickers.
A salad is not cool whip.

Along a similar vein, I might have said that
cheeseburgers are not soup, but I don't
want to get kicked out of North Dakota.

3/27/08 She's Overthinking Again

I can see it by the weird grimace on her face
that looks even uglier because
she is gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

She's either going to say something inappropriate
or say something mean about herself
or start up her crazy running away forever rant.

I bet she either can't find her keys, hates her hair,
or is thinking about becoming a lesbian.
Oh my god, is that me?