perpetual huddle: 10

i miss them

bones We have not slept
for three days
and the few of us left
are lighting huge bonfires
to keep the elephants at bay,
without success.

--reuters via to be sorted

wacky hometown crap i can't afford

the cubes copy center
the new archie mcphee
catalogue made me nostalgic,
but not for its hometown
and mine, seattle, washington.
no, i got all misty-eyed
at the memory of cold hard cash.
you see, when i was slaving over
that million-dollar print account
at officemax i wanted to buy "the cubes"
copy center extension set, as a funny gift
for each of the employees i managed.
we were all busting our asses
for a soulless corporation,
why not treat them to a laugh?
but i was "too broke," so i was "saving up."
since i lost that job, rather unceremoniously,
i've learned that "broke" isn't
having your overtime capped
before it becomes double-time,
or thinking about diverting
a few bucks of the eating-out budget
into a crap-for-co-workers fund.
broke is commuting an hour
each way in opposite directions
on public transportation
to your two part-time jobs.
it's paying over twice the taxes,
because you're technically "self-employed,"
while "saving up" for next month's bus pass
and the fee you'll need to pay
for a california state i.d.
then again, i don't work for officemax anymore!

pfizer is creepy

do i owe you money?

do you owe me money?
this pretty little site
will never let you forget it:
billmonk.com

thank you for your patience

i quit smoking last monday,
but ending that habit seems
to be interfering with
this habit i've just started.
the cravings have been very
manageable during the day.
new thing to do while
waiting for the bus:
fiddle with the safety switch
on my pepper spray.
new thing to do while
walking: worry at
my gums with a toothpick.
new thing to do when
hungry: chew dentyne ice.
new thing to do when
i want to take a short
break from my writing,
to pause, reflect,
and reenergize myself:
fall asleep instead
i hope and pray i'll figure
out how to write without
my late night cigs
in the next couple days
so i can polish up the nine
or so drafts waiting here.
what i mean to say is--
thank you for your patience
and please stand by.

gorgeous

laura's dress
project runway

spice girls --> baby jesus

dawn french--vicar Frank Pickle: Very good sermon, Vicar!
Jim: No, no, no, no, yes! I like the way you move from the superficial and facile messages of popular culture to the subtle and more complex revelations of the nativity.
--the vicar of dibley

inbox -- not spam, but not quite a letter

a former acquaintance of mine
sent me a mass email asking me to plug
her blog's new book worldchanging in my blog.
i met one of my all-time favorite boys
at one of her parties, so i guess i owe her,
but he's out of the picture now,
and besides, she asked me to read her
the great gatsby out loud,
then stood me up,
which is pretty bitchy.
so this is a kinda' plug:
check it out if you feel you must.
oh, it's about green design
with a foreword by al gore.

sight / vision

anders nilsen's story "the gift"
in the best american comics 2006
is stark and ambitious
without being tidy or pretentious.
i can't seem to avoid
reading and rereading it
smoothing and resmoothing
the thick white pages
with the palms of my hands,
a sort of reverent gesture.

smell / olfaction

scent my second job is now
with a custom perfumer.
today i labeled and dipped
132 thin strips of paper
in cucumber, teak, and fennel.

hearing / audition

atlas shouldering the world I found that where the world was closest to my ears, I could hear everything. I could hear conversation, parrots squawking, donkey's braying. I heard the rushing of underground rivers and the crackle of fires lighted. Each sound became a meaning, and soon I began to de-code the world.

Listen, here is a village with a hundred people in it, and at dawn they take their cattle to the pastures and at evening they herd them home. A girl with a limp takes the pails over her shoulders. I know she limps by the irregular clank of the buckets. There's a boy shooting arrows -- thwack! thwack! into the padded hide of the target. His father pulls the stopper out of a wine jar.

Listen, there's an elephant chased by a band of men. Over there, a nymph is becoming a tree. Her sighs turn into sap.

Someone is scrambling up a scree slope. His boots loosen the ground under him. His nails are torn. He falls exhausted on some goat grass. He breathes heavily and goes to sleep.

-- jeanette winterson, weight

alliteration & self-righteous indignation

my best friend's brother let me borrow
a copy of broke-ass stuart's v.2,
a hilarious, helpful, and homemade
alterna-guidebook zine.
i wasn't surprised to find
it doesn't include
bayview/hunter's point,
the broke ass-est
neighborhood in sf.

the night max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another

mischief of one kind
the boy i work with was sick today, and tired.
i plopped him down on a cot, shared a snack,
and read where the wild things are with him.
he loves it, because it shows max being bad
and standing on books. also, he gets to yell
"BE STILL" and "let the wild rumpus start!"
i love it because it is, bar none, the best
children's picture book ever written.
also, i get to yell "BE STILL" and
"let the wild rumpus start!"

what a priviledge it is
to have a drowsy kid
snuggled into my shoulder,
to be given the chance to
create anew with him
the timeless and cozy ritual
of a book before bed.

wednesday whoo!

instead of doing laundry
and going to the library
i ate a fried banana
at chilli cha cha
and went and to see
a show at the hemlock.
i am no music connoisseur,
but i love going to shows.
i blame my clueless
attraction to live music
on my first love who dragged
me to every decent all-ages show on the eastside,
and sometimes, if i could get a curfew waiver, in downtown seattle.
i'm not picky, but i'm especially a sucker for
any band with a hot drummer and some fiddle playin'.
sometimes, i like to raise a ruckus, drink champagne,
and swing from chandeliers. i'm not flattering myself
when i say i know i am personally responsible
for this phrase in skeletonbreath's bio:
The crowds were rowdier, noisier. We liked it.
despite the fact that the degenerate art ensemble
is designed to induce an instantaneous psychotic break
and did happen to include some violin, i was bored.
it isn't their fault. on nights like this, when i try to prove
to myself that i'm super-spontaneous
and go out right after work,
i find that the combination of a sensible sweater,
an invisible yet potent layer of cheez-its and drool,
and an unwieldy backpack full of unreturned library books,
all conspire to remind me
that i'm the least rock and roll chick
i've ever met.

suggestion box

i am headed to the library tonight
looking for interesting non-fiction.
any suggestions, dear readers?

a.k.a. "the texian campaigne"

antiques roadshow trunk logo
my best friend found the antiques roadshow on itunes.
watching it, i decided trunks, or "blanket boxes"
should categorically be banned from the show.
there's just too many of the damn things
and in the end they're all just
boxes for blankets.
why did people in the olden days
have so many blankets?
and why did they keep them
in so many boxes?
watching them get appraised is worse
than watching anything else
in the universe get appraised
"well, maryanne, this piece does appear
to be box-shaped and made of wood;
it definitely was suitable
for storing blankets in,
in fact, the people who originally
owned it propbably did just that."
after a segment on a "blanket box"
even ugly-expensive plates
that commemorate the mexican-american war
seem positively scintillating.

aerie tuesday

girls like me for the second time in a week,
as i was watching veronica mars
in my p.j. pants and hoodie,
and chatting about it with my girlfriends,
i had to watch a commercial
consisting of chicks watching veronica mars,
in their p.j. pants and hoodies,
and chatting about it with their girlfriends.

american eagle, first, thanks for inventing
a whole line of clothing designed
for wearing while watching televison,
then airing your commercials on televison.
now i know that i am not alone.

second, thanks for starting a blog
[excerpted below, for those who balk
at following a link that surely leads
down the path to eternal damnnation.]
just like me and all my cool friends have,
so we can write about television.

but most of all, american eagle,
thanks for opeing up a whole new
world of cringe-tabulous self-loathing.
i'm going to relax, recline, get comfy, and stay awhile.

Welcome to aerie, a comfy meeting place where we’ll happily stay busy providing the soundtrack and the look of your life. So, recline. Relax. Be comfortable…in your own skin. It’s all about comfy cozy dorm wear, irresistible intimates, and great company. Like to keep a pulse on what’s new in entertainment? Visit us for updates about the latest news about your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. Also, find out about the cool aerie promotions going on at your local AE store. We’ll let you know about amazing sweepstakes, inside information about your favorite singers, actors and writers, plus exclusive music and videos. It never stops here at aerie. So, get comfy and stay awhile. There’s a lot in store… just for you.

the soup

photobooth
the boy i work with and i
celebrated columbus day
by going to the zoo,
which he insisted on calling
"the soup." his favorite animals
were the gorillas, the ice cream,
and the photo booth.

strong on dragons

i'd give my right arm for one of these original etchings Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.

my best friend is revisiting
the chronicles of narnia
and i had the great pleasure
of reading her two chapters
from the voyage of the dawn treader.
i tried to channel my dad
(who does reepicheep's voice
better than anyone else
in the entire world)
and refused to make it
"a triple chapter night."
it was past her bedtime.

george & martha

One Saturday morning, George wanted to sleep late.
"I love sleeping late," said George.
But Martha had other ideas.
She wanted to go on a picnic.
"Here she comes!" said George to himself.

my best friend just gave me the hefty yellow hardcover
george and martha; the complete stories of two best friends.
maurice sendak's stunning forward, james marshall, wicked angel,
is a quick overview of picture books as an art form
and an ode to his dear friend. read it online here.

who wants to go see ramblin' jack elliott with me tomorrow? anyone? please?

battling past the port-a-potties
at hardly strictly bluegrass,
i chided myself for forgetting
how easy it is for a girl alone
to feel invisible in crowd.
every time i go out by myself,
which is often, the cliche
smacks me in the face,
but never more blatantly than it did today.
everybody had beer, blankets, chairs, and children.
they were all stopping with no warning
to wave "hi" to their distant buddies,
or elbowing their way in half-dancing
clumps towards the stage.

but after i staked my claim
at one of the less popular stages,
sprawled out on the grass,
and closed my eyes,
it was all about
the saturday sunshine,
and the banjos.
with them came
unemcumbered joy.
even the blue angels buzzing
by were just conspiring
to prove that i was alive
and here and happy,
buddies and blankets be damned.

i even overheard a guy on a cell phone
say loudly i have a love/hate
relationship with solitude
and eyes still closed, grinned wider...
right before he tripped over my head,
catching me, hard, in the cheek with his boot
and walking on without even checking
what had caused him to stumble.
me too,
my friend,
me too.

book reports

my favorite sister says
everyone skips
long essay-posts
on books, and i think
she's right.

chelsea handler's my horizontal life:
chelsea's a smart girl, and very funny on tv,
but on paper she just comes across as an alcoholic slut,
totally oblivious to how boring and mean she comes across.

When I told Ivory the next morning about how small his penis was, she said, "Gosh Chels, you didn't need to leave him there, he could have been good at other things."
"Like what?" I asked her. "Math?"

jeanette winterson's lighthousekeeping:

heavy-handed and beautiful,
all about stories and storytelling,
it secretly makes me believe in magic
and poetry again. especially, babel,
the dark priest who tortures his dull wife,
but is capable of love two months out of the year,
who discovers a fossilized seahorse cave,
and keeps two diaries.

Tell me a story, Pew.
What story, child?
One that begins again.
That's the story of life.
But is it the story of my life?
Only if you tell it.

i (heart) explorers

redwood richard preston's article "tall for its age"
in the current new yorker, about
surveying a record-setting redwood
is refreshingly vivid,
without those listy bits
you have to skip
in most new yorker articles.
it makes science and trees
and climbing trees for science
sound so boyishly charming
and matter of fact
at the same time,
sort of like
shakleton.

truth & beauty, finally

i've been trying to write a post on
anne patchett's book, truth & beauty
about her friendship with lucy grealy
for weeks now.
here are the basics.

lucy grealy was my poetry teacher, briefly
until she dissapeared, leaving vague instructions
with her favorite student, like
"meet before breakfast, drink champagne,
and finish the john ashbery."

she wrote our evaluations,
i read her book, autobiography of a face,
then when i returned to school,
she was dead, just like that.
later, other people i knew briefly,
were dead, just like that,
one after another.

reading about lucy the first time was invasive.
i didn't know how i would look her in the eye.
me, a stupid freshman, party to her childhood memories,
her sex life, her ruthless self-examination.
it didn't seem fair.

reading about her the second time
was exponentially more invasive.
i didn't read truth & beauty, because i wanted
to read what everyone had described as an excellent book.
i wanted to know everything i could about lucy.
i wanted all the details, her intimate moments
set down on paper by her best friend.

because when the other people
i kind of knew died, i was lost
in the heirarchy of grief.
you can't "get to know"
somebody after they're dead.
even though that's all i wanted,
suddenly, to get to know these people.
because of one fact, death,
i knew it was no longer my right.

reading this book i learned a lot about lucy,
just has i had expected,
and i felt really creepy, nosing around,
just as i had expected,
but at least it gave some closure to,
the strange guilt and tension leftover
from mourning for people i'd hardly known.

as a consequence, i felt extra super creepy
when anne patchett wrote about her disgust
for readers who use lucy's writing
and her life, as a sort of cathartic
one-size-fits-all narrative
of their own suffering,
as self-help.
whoops.

despite the cringeiness of the whole thing,
the book also made me want to be
anne patchett when i grow up.
first, because of her writing.
it isn't effortlessly lyrical.
it is the work of a skilled
and practiced writer
struggling to say something
both honest and tender
about somebody she loved.

more importantly, i want to be her
because of the kind of friend she is.
i think i'm drawn to her so much because
i'm in a very 'esther' mood lately.
she's a fierce and practical sidekick,
ready to defend your artful memior
against the bourgeoisie self-pity
that would make it into a
protracted tabloid feature,
ready to organize your closets, your unopened mail,
to chaperone the crowds at your hospital bed.

"I'm going to write a book about my friends," Lucy said to me one afternoon after dispatching Sophie and Ben for fresh magazines and a milkshake. "I have the most extraordinary friends. I've never really understood why everyone has been so good to me, and now I can interview them, talk to them and see." Then she added as a gift, "I'll write a whole chapter about you."

"I could write a whole book about you," I said, and laughed.

gross

braff cake the only problem with scrubs
is zach braff, but he is a big problem.
he's annoying and glib and whiney,
sickly sweet, like generic frosting.
so, i'm ashamed to admit
i stayed home sick all day,
bought two whole cakes at safeway,
both covered in gobs
of unsatisfying fluff,
and watched hour after
hour after hour of scrubs.

limbo

my epiphany throne it was as though i had begun
taking a new medication
and one of the side effects was inertia.
-augusten burroughs, possible side effects

the full post,
including more quotes,
wacky chit-chat,
an epiphany,
francis scott key,
and much much more!

mr. meaty

one minute you're watching
a little lighthearted tween fare,
and the next minute you're clutching
your best friend's shoulder
with all your might,
mouth agape,
unable to rip your gaze
from the most grotesque
terrifying and nonsensical spectacle
ever made in the name of nick tv.
excuse me, i have to go scoop
my own eyeballs
out with a rusty spoon.

avatars

virtual sally & virtual me
i once honored my hero, sally sugarman,
by including her digital doppelganger
in my geektastic lecture on the sims II.
it tickles me pink me that
joe has done the same for me.
i'm now officially a kick-ass
world of warcraft babe!!!!!!1!111!1111!

perpetual huddle

Thursday, October 26, 2006

i miss them

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

wacky hometown crap i can't afford

pfizer is creepy

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

do i owe you money?

Monday, October 23, 2006

thank you for your patience

Sunday, October 22, 2006

gorgeous

Saturday, October 21, 2006

spice girls --> baby jesus

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

inbox -- not spam, but not quite a letter

Monday, October 16, 2006

sight / vision

Saturday, October 14, 2006

smell / olfaction

Friday, October 13, 2006

hearing / audition

alliteration & self-righteous indignation

Thursday, October 12, 2006

the night max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

wednesday whoo!

suggestion box

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

a.k.a. "the texian campaigne"

aerie tuesday

Monday, October 9, 2006

the soup

Sunday, October 8, 2006

strong on dragons

Saturday, October 7, 2006

george & martha

who wants to go see ramblin' jack elliott with me tomorrow? anyone? please?

book reports

Friday, October 6, 2006

i (heart) explorers

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

truth & beauty, finally

gross

Monday, October 2, 2006

limbo

Sunday, October 1, 2006

mr. meaty

avatars