2 oranges
1 carrot
1 chunk of ginger root
2-3 kale leaves
3/4 a bunch of green leaf lettuce
Spicy!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
My Heart Wears A Drug Rug
I was riding my bike home from the grocery store tonight wearing my knitted mittens and balancing my reusable tote bag full of organic yams and dandelion greens when it hit me like a ton of patchouli- I'm like some kind of hippie or something.
I know how to pronounce 'quinoa' (that's KEEN-WAH, you hippie), care about animals and go to farmer's markets. I bought a bronze statue of the Indian Buddha at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago, which is especially incriminating.
I don't have anything against hippies necessarily, I just don't want to do drugs or have dreadlocks or anything. I realize that those are among the more external traits of hippiedom. Maybe a lot of us are walking around voting No ON 8 and Yes ON 2 (You know, free love and save the animals), while opting out of eating meals on bamboo dishware.
I really liked that bamboo dishware that Scott's brother and his girlfriend had at their house.
Oh, I'm hopeless.
I know how to pronounce 'quinoa' (that's KEEN-WAH, you hippie), care about animals and go to farmer's markets. I bought a bronze statue of the Indian Buddha at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago, which is especially incriminating.
I don't have anything against hippies necessarily, I just don't want to do drugs or have dreadlocks or anything. I realize that those are among the more external traits of hippiedom. Maybe a lot of us are walking around voting No ON 8 and Yes ON 2 (You know, free love and save the animals), while opting out of eating meals on bamboo dishware.
I really liked that bamboo dishware that Scott's brother and his girlfriend had at their house.
Oh, I'm hopeless.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Fleas and the MFA Monster
The number of inhabitants of my apartment has seen a decided spike in the last three weeks, to a now estimated one thousand living creatures. Broken down by species, that's two human beings, two felines, and 996 fleas.
I'm not a dirty dirty girl! The vacuum is my altar! The flea comb is my rosary! I regularly terrorize the cats with these two items in an effort to decimate the flea population, including their tiny salt-crystal eggs. Poor Happy has earned the nickname Crusty, because she's scratched herself to scabs. Both cats have developed the peculiarly smart habit of avoiding floors all over the apartment. Happy is the most zealous in this pursuit, careening from say, the kitchen stool across the living room and scrambling up the arm of the couch to a high table, her next ivory tower. Reports around town are that it's been a worse than usual flea season, and I take comfort in knowing that everyone else with pets is also living in a den of parasites. Wait, that's not comforting at all.
Anyway, ankles itching, I have begun the full transformation into an MFA monster right here in my own flea nursery. I posted a list of schools recently, then deleted it, and have a slightly different list now. Okay okay I'll post it again.
UT Austin
U North Carolina Greensboro
U Florida
UNH
UMass
U Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
UC Irvine
U Oregon
Washington U St. Louis
U Alabama
Syracuse
U Wisconsin-Madison
U Michigan
Indiana U
Five of the fourteen programs are more competitive than Harvard Medical school, i.e. with acceptance rates lower than three percent. None has an acceptance rate above nine percent. Am I crazy? No, I'm just an MFA monster.
I'm not a dirty dirty girl! The vacuum is my altar! The flea comb is my rosary! I regularly terrorize the cats with these two items in an effort to decimate the flea population, including their tiny salt-crystal eggs. Poor Happy has earned the nickname Crusty, because she's scratched herself to scabs. Both cats have developed the peculiarly smart habit of avoiding floors all over the apartment. Happy is the most zealous in this pursuit, careening from say, the kitchen stool across the living room and scrambling up the arm of the couch to a high table, her next ivory tower. Reports around town are that it's been a worse than usual flea season, and I take comfort in knowing that everyone else with pets is also living in a den of parasites. Wait, that's not comforting at all.
Anyway, ankles itching, I have begun the full transformation into an MFA monster right here in my own flea nursery. I posted a list of schools recently, then deleted it, and have a slightly different list now. Okay okay I'll post it again.
UT Austin
U North Carolina Greensboro
U Florida
UNH
UMass
U Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
UC Irvine
U Oregon
Washington U St. Louis
U Alabama
Syracuse
U Wisconsin-Madison
U Michigan
Indiana U
Five of the fourteen programs are more competitive than Harvard Medical school, i.e. with acceptance rates lower than three percent. None has an acceptance rate above nine percent. Am I crazy? No, I'm just an MFA monster.
Monday, September 22, 2008
What's New in Poetry
I'm home from Georgia after a week of eating pecans, bingo with the locals and the ear splitting silence of Lake Tara's shoreline. On Thursday I gave my reading in Atlanta, of which there are pictures below. I made some of the natural light ones black and white since they're actually pretty blurry.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
california grapes
to begin, you get no capitalization in this entry, or exotic punctuation like quotation marks or exclamation points, because i'm reporting from my water-damaged laptop. everything eventually restored to full function except for the shift key, which is a real display of attitude on the part of my computer. kudos for rendering me small and monotonous, apple.
some guys are re-stuccoing my apartment this weekend, and the landlady warned us tenants to shut all our windows to protect our lungs/possessions from the flesh-toned cloud of old stucco being scoured off the exterior walls. it's murderously hot. the cats are elongated pelts on the floor. i've been working and writing too little but eating plenty of grapes. california grapes are like candy, i swear i have never had grapes this good in new england. they burst in your mouth and you die from happiness. tonight they are black grapes in perfect bunches like an illustration on a wine bottle.
the tv series boston legal has been robbing me lately of the proper amount of guilt and shame over idleness that i require to be prolific. a dubious crush on james spader in secretary has suffered only slightly since he got chunky and started playing a different lawyer who isn't into s&m. by the way i googled ampersand and copied/pasted that symbol for your reading ease and enjoyment. flippin shift key.
so i'm still wading the bog of eternal stench even though it's decidedly autumn. in five days i fly to atlanta for a week, at the end of which i give a poetry reading at emory. when i get back, i buckle down and start applying to my whopping thirteen mfa programs du jour, while continuing to work, and volunteer, and not buy monthly bus passes. there's not a whole lot of time to compose the great american poetry collection in that schedule, but maybe that's why i'm trying to get into school in the first place. to be offered copious amounts of money. goooo austin.
it looks like my lagging boston legal episode download has about ten sweet, sweet minutes of show time ready to roll, so this is me signing off, eating a grape and ashamedly ogling james spader's waddle. when he's not acting, he wears cool black glasses and has a kind of ira glass thing going on. and there's nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to sleep with ira glass.
some guys are re-stuccoing my apartment this weekend, and the landlady warned us tenants to shut all our windows to protect our lungs/possessions from the flesh-toned cloud of old stucco being scoured off the exterior walls. it's murderously hot. the cats are elongated pelts on the floor. i've been working and writing too little but eating plenty of grapes. california grapes are like candy, i swear i have never had grapes this good in new england. they burst in your mouth and you die from happiness. tonight they are black grapes in perfect bunches like an illustration on a wine bottle.
the tv series boston legal has been robbing me lately of the proper amount of guilt and shame over idleness that i require to be prolific. a dubious crush on james spader in secretary has suffered only slightly since he got chunky and started playing a different lawyer who isn't into s&m. by the way i googled ampersand and copied/pasted that symbol for your reading ease and enjoyment. flippin shift key.
so i'm still wading the bog of eternal stench even though it's decidedly autumn. in five days i fly to atlanta for a week, at the end of which i give a poetry reading at emory. when i get back, i buckle down and start applying to my whopping thirteen mfa programs du jour, while continuing to work, and volunteer, and not buy monthly bus passes. there's not a whole lot of time to compose the great american poetry collection in that schedule, but maybe that's why i'm trying to get into school in the first place. to be offered copious amounts of money. goooo austin.
it looks like my lagging boston legal episode download has about ten sweet, sweet minutes of show time ready to roll, so this is me signing off, eating a grape and ashamedly ogling james spader's waddle. when he's not acting, he wears cool black glasses and has a kind of ira glass thing going on. and there's nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to sleep with ira glass.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Plug
This is a little belated, but my poem "The Last Fetish" appeared on the Best American Poetry blog on Sunday with an introduction by Bruce Covey. A heads up to interested parties, and many thanks to Bruce.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Garlic Roulette
The older I get, the more weirdly I behave in malls. Right now I'm operating at the stage on the mall-sanity continuum that involves wandering the aisles stunned, sweeping my gaze like a searchlight and generally wearing the expression of someone who has never before heard of or seen a shopping mall.
I don't know what code-red mall intolerance looks like, but I imagine it includes shirt ripping and other symptoms of classic Victorian-era feminine hysterics.
One thing that bred a sense of alienation during my visit a few days ago was the obvious comfort and ease of the other shoppers. People were strolling back and forth, laughing, swinging shopping bags and eating Dippin' Dots. Cell phones abounded.
Nobody else seems to think it's profoundly weird to spend one's free time buying expensive crummy objects. It's an enigma to me, but if regular mall goers experience half the contentment I feel in the produce section, then I'm glad they go. At the end of the day, a bag of nectarines or strappy shoes from Charlotte Russe- whatever gets you off.
So why was I at a mall in the first place, sticking out like a sore thumb? I was looking for an oil cruet, which I didn't find, probably due to bad navigating.
I found one a day or two later, totally by accident at Longs Drug Store. That place is just a cavern of surprises. I felt like Harry Potter lowering the small glass stoppered bottle from the top shelf, blowing on its surface and releasing a plume of dust from 1985. I promptly purchased it and took it home to start my very own botulism colony.
NOTE: don't ever keep garlic cloves submerged in olive oil at room temperature. Botulism loves that anaerobic shit. I did not know this. I threw my cruet in the garbage after the cloves started quietly bubbling. It's not sad because it only cost me three dollars, and I didn't get botulism. I won one round of garlic roulette.
I don't know what code-red mall intolerance looks like, but I imagine it includes shirt ripping and other symptoms of classic Victorian-era feminine hysterics.
One thing that bred a sense of alienation during my visit a few days ago was the obvious comfort and ease of the other shoppers. People were strolling back and forth, laughing, swinging shopping bags and eating Dippin' Dots. Cell phones abounded.
Nobody else seems to think it's profoundly weird to spend one's free time buying expensive crummy objects. It's an enigma to me, but if regular mall goers experience half the contentment I feel in the produce section, then I'm glad they go. At the end of the day, a bag of nectarines or strappy shoes from Charlotte Russe- whatever gets you off.
So why was I at a mall in the first place, sticking out like a sore thumb? I was looking for an oil cruet, which I didn't find, probably due to bad navigating.
I found one a day or two later, totally by accident at Longs Drug Store. That place is just a cavern of surprises. I felt like Harry Potter lowering the small glass stoppered bottle from the top shelf, blowing on its surface and releasing a plume of dust from 1985. I promptly purchased it and took it home to start my very own botulism colony.
NOTE: don't ever keep garlic cloves submerged in olive oil at room temperature. Botulism loves that anaerobic shit. I did not know this. I threw my cruet in the garbage after the cloves started quietly bubbling. It's not sad because it only cost me three dollars, and I didn't get botulism. I won one round of garlic roulette.
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