Oregon

Lovely to wake up in a wooden house to trees and clouds and know that you have absolutely nothing you need to be doing. The 28toed cat is full of love and the 28toed person is a wonderful host.

Owl the Anteater...

...is my new good friend. I love him, but he's not replacing any old friends. Let's review:

1. Fuck! I don't want to turn 28. I like 27.

2. Tomorrow I'm driving to Portland with HenHen, then going to Seattle to get the lay of the land, and then taking the train back. I get to go to a party at the pub! I'm very excited.

3. I realized talking with D that some of my poems are in a different category better than the rest. I write the rest as a way to be at the desk when the good ones come. It's a frustrating way to work. I've thought this for some time, but he came up with it independently.

4. Saw the trailer park movie last night. Time the Destroyer definitely had a credit on it.

5. Goodbye, Irvine.

River in Egypt

Things are winding down here. I'm trying not to think about that too much.

Today I corresponded with editors about two different things I'm writing for two different publications. I felt like a real freelance writer! Of course, they're the only two things I'll have published all year.

Tonight we were talking about gender in poetry, about poems that strongly announce themselves as "male" or "female." It made me think about how in most poems by men, the "gendered" aspect even of very "male" subject matter is in tension with the unmacho--even delicate--act of putting that subject matter in a poem. In other words, the craft of poetry has a natural--or at least conventional--tendancy to balance out the excesses to which stereotypical maleness is prone. Very "female" poetry, on the other hand, doesn't have an automatic mechanism to undercut its own seeming limitedness, so female poets who are drawn to gender-specific subject matter have to work harder to seem inclusive.

Not fair, but interesting. It seems connected to me to the fact that, I guess as a consequence of feminism, a woman can't exactly dress in drag. She can impersonate a man, but that's different. If it's just the clothes, there's not a lot that because of its genderedness you would have to say was being worn in an ironic spirit.

Actually, though, that may be less true than it was last time I thought about it because of the way fashions have changed. Even an outfit I've seen a million women wear, versions of which I've worn myself a million times, like Carharts and a big t-shirt, would probably now "read" to me as a statement. Interesting.

Kafka in the sun

Well, I spoke too soon about the Spaceship. There are some more hoops to jump through. For instance, I just opened my registration renewal notice from the DMV and discovered a fine for a mysterious offense on October 18, 2005. $100 for a Park/Toll Violation, whatever that is, in the city of Irvine. Now I've never skipped out on a toll and, as far as I know, Irvine has no restricted parking on any public streets. In any case, I've never gotten a ticket. So what did I do wrong?

Luckily, the citation includes a number under the heading "Code." Excellent! Except that I looked at the Vehicle Code, and NO ITEM WITH THAT NUMBER EXISTS! The closet thing--and I couldn't make this up--involves the improper transport of baled hay. So I am being fined for violating a non-existant law. Thank you, Irvine.

...and there's gonna be trouble

The bird is back!

Goodbye, Spaceship

The Spaceship has been with me since I was 20. I drove it back and forth to Williams a thousand times, back and forth to the cape over the Bourne Bridge and the Sagamore Bridge, and finally across the country. I parked its cute little squareish backside all over Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and later Berkeley, and later in the wastelands of Orange County strip malls. It busted a tire in the Fresh Pond rotary, and left its horn in Sacramento. It has seen the Badlands, and Yellowstone, and has even been to Seattle, my future home. It has transported numerous bicycles, cellos, the makings of Emily G's original furniture, and people, people, people. Most people I've loved in the past seven years have ridden in the Spaceship.

I remember soon after I first got it, taking it to Central Square with Emily P, Katie, and, I think, Jon Russell (who I just heard play in a bass clarinet quartet). I don't know what we were doing in Central Square. Probably getting coffee; we didn't go to bars yet. I remember the exciting feeling of getting to drive my friends around in my own car. As I drove, Katie kept pressing the big red hazard-light button, and I pretended to be annoyed but really it heightened the fun of it--but a couple of days later, I still labeled the button "self-destruct."

Spacey is going to the best possible home, but I'm still a little sad. The end of an era. Cheers, Spaceship.

23

Is the number of poems that I definitely want in my thesis, as they are, no more revision. This is a huge relief. With a little work and a little padding I should be able to get to 30 without too much shame. Still a meager output for three years of writing, but I'm slow, I just am.

Also, I got excited about ordering them. Right now, there are three sections: 1. Time the Destroyer, 2. Drowned Girls, 3. Time Again Plus Dogs. Scarily, there is only one poem in the Group of 23 that doesn't fit into one of those categories, a new one in which I call my ex-boyfriend a Yeti. But I am hoping that adding some more poems will necessitate some new categories.

Red Red Blog

The blog is a little over a year old, and I thought it needed a new outfit.

Tis the season

for people to have lovely life events like engagements and weddings and births, and congratulations to them. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with my feet up on my desk blogging and biting my nails and thinking about how dangerous it would be to have a beautiful house. It would be like a giant anchor and I might never think about anything else. I would rather be a vagabond with no tea towels. I've been thinking a lot about how life seems to be going on somewhere else, somewhere I'm nose-to-glass to. That's how I've started thinking of myself, like it's an identity. I don't buy the shit about needing to be miserable to be a writer, not at all, but I don't see why anyone would write if they didn't have a big store of regrets.

So maybe...

... this blog is sometimes all about karaoke. Not to imply that I'm embarrassed or have anything to answer for, but... it's just that karaoke is sometimes the perfect distillation of everything good about Irvine. (Everything bad about Irvine, by the way, is having to go to court early in the morning to try to get a judge not to charge you $200 for rolling through a stop sign.)



But on the subject of things that are good, if you're in the OC you must come to Faultline's launch tomorrow! There will be a cheese waterfall on a marble slab and--I have it on good authority, but shh, it's a surprise--wine.

Is it Wrong to Love Karaoke?

No.

Also, it's not wrong to go to the prom in a dress affectionately named "George of the Jungle."

Nor is it wrong to drive really fast, if you are in California. In Iowa it is wrong, apparently.

Salt Lake City

We are getting a late start today, here under the toothy Wasatch mountains. We still have to see the Temple, and we also failed in our quest to find a speakeasy--but they must exist, right? Places where they secretly serve full-proof beer and the Tabernacle Choir cuts loose in the back?

Ogalalla, Nebraska

Apparently Best Westerns now have wireless, as do all the rest stops in Iowa. I guess I like the 21st century. I like Ogalalla Nebraska. It has crazy lightning and a western smell.

On the Road Again!

Sisterkins and I are napping up a storm in preparation for our big road trip. Tomorrow: Julesburg, Nebraska! Then Salt Lake, Reno, Tahoe, San Francisco, down the coast, and home. We're preparaing to load up with snacks and music and drive drive drive. As I type, Sisterkins is on the phone being an HPI (high-powered individual), arranging for the Boss's big world tour.

It's a weird world...

.... where you can find your nose doctor on myspace.

Bird Report

She is gone, and I miss her! She's been gone since last night when I got home from having a Pabst bucket at the lovely new on-campus food-court-turned-pub. Come back, Bird, please. We need you!

Tonight I'm giving a reading. It's been months since I've shown anyone a poem, so it's a little nerve-wracking to think of reading for a whole room of bored undergrads, but good to get back on the horse.

A public service announcement: Today is May 11. It is not May 12. Sisterkins's birthday is tomorrow, not today. Just in case anyone else was also confused.

Bird, Lovebird...

...has really moved in, I think. She was there, with her neck sunk into her shoulder-feathers and her beady eyes tracking back and forth, when I got home tonight from a beautiful Sex-and-the-City binge at HenHen's. Before that we all went to the bank. It was a lovely evening.

I Think I'll Call Her "Bird, Lovebird"*

The front door to my apartment is in a little covered alcove, and on a fire-extinguisher case in the alcove a bird has decided to make her nest. The nest is made of sticks and is less woven than just piled up (I think the bird and I use the same interior decorator). It's at eye level, and we have to pass about six inches from it on our way in and out, but the bird just sits there, giving us her beady stare. She also has a mate who brings her sticks and sometimes sits on her. Not in THAT way, but still, we are hoping there will be eggs and then babies. We also hope they will want to attend, or at least not call the police on, our parties. Thank you, bird! Thank you, Irvine!

*"bird, lovebird" is a line from a Faultline poem

UW Students:

Please don't all be married or 12 years old. Please be my new friends.

My nose...

... got acquainted with a concrete pillar yesterday at an unadvisable velocity. It is now cut and swollen and obviously not quite right (but I'm pretty sure not broken). If anyone else thought they were the klutziest, well, sorry.