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Sunday, December 31, 2006
BookendsCan you imagine us years from today, sharing a parkbench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy.
Or ninety. Or five going on twenty-seven.
Or forty-two going on sixteen.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Saturday Photo Hunters -----Theme : "New"
"The Pea" 5 minutes New, Sept. 11-01
Over 5 years later with all her New loot.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Cookbook No time to cook but lots of time to eat. Damn dressing room mirror. Is that really my ass?
You bet your ass it's your ass, and you're about to star on Name That Ass, the newest game show in town.
But seriously... McCall's "No Time To Cook" is the best dang cookbook ever born. Willed
to me in 1989 by Aunt Esther, willed to her by Great-Aunt Lina who won it fair and square in the dice game, then
mother-henned it between her ample bosom and frayed coat past Nuremberg guards every
night for four winters. Precious heirloom hidden safely from mindless munching mice and moths all
these years too. Honey, get ready for caviar devilled eggs,
chicken Veronique, carrots divan (sofa carrots?) with herbed biscuits, lemon-butter Brussels sprouts and chocolate mousse pie tonight!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
WritingWriting's the icing on humanity's cake. No - it's more like the glitter adorning the sugarpaste
roses on top of the icing. And the cake's the writer's pantry
well stocked. (Unless of course, the best writing actually rises from waifs
subsisting on cheese and oranges in cold-water flats?) Anyway... How did Tom Hanks
survive on that island without paper and pen for four years?! I'd've died fast, even if I could've
learned to machete coconuts with a skate blade and spear crabs. I guess he did have sticks to write
in the sand. Every new tide a fresh poem or grocery list or letter to his lady back home. Every new
tide an obliteration. No one but a basketball to talk to. Language rises. Even the wild boy of Aveyron
could've quoted Shakespeare and had a great blogsite if he hadn't been raised by wolves or yaks or whatever.
Monday, December 25, 2006
FireplaceHeat rising on wings of flame. (Sounds like distant popcorn.) Waiting for the child to wake
and see that Santa's been. Peaceful. Moments like these being savored by mothers everywhere. I wonder
what's in my present from Jim? Hopefully those marble "globe" bookends I saw at B & N. I remember
my own mother all those Christmases. Now I am her. How'd that happen? Passage of
time. The 4th dimension. The 5th Dimension. Up up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful cocoon.
O Holy Night
11:34 pm
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Saturday Photo Hunters ----- Theme : "Lines"
Lines alive with lights spanning 37th Street here in Austin. Lines of
cars loping past these maxed-out displays. Lines of folks (like us,) meandering the sidewalk
with cups of cocoa, drinking everything in. Lines of joy and peace!
The Child The Husband
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Hip-HuggersAm I the only woman in the entire Western world who misses jeans that rose gracefully
far north of the navel? Remember those? Jeans whose top band
actually encased what was commonly known as The Waist? Jeans that spared us the embarassment
of flouncing our coin slots and muffin tops all over town. Maybe I'm weird, (well, yah-ah,) but
Calvin Klein et al didn't have it all wrong in the 80s with jeans that left much of
our flesh to the imagination. Fancy Ass, now those were jeans! Remember the little silver
buckles at the ankles? How they jingled! I suppose I could sew my own denims with a high waist. But
no. I've been resorting to my black velour column skirt since it finally got cool lately.
Wearing my cute blue hat too. Also, am I the only one who carries a chapstick in her bra
24/7 in winter? (Ah, but that's a whole other post.)
8:02 am
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
AirSomething smells like burning hair. Something tastes sharp like clear plastic. Something wicked this
way comes, perhaps some naked artist sketching his
or her own death on flakes of mayhem. This shouldn't make any sense and I don't even know
what my word is tonight. Let's pick... air. Yeah air, because it was the best noun I could find on
such short notice. I haven't been timing this. I'm supposed to stop at 5 minutes. Let's say I'm
into this 2 minutes now. This is not very exciting, but neither is most stuff - that's why so many escape
into books or coffee or champagne or pot or heroin or Jesus or music or poetry or numbers or blogging. Or t.v. or movies
or sex or beauty or food. Or sailing. Sailing may be good I suppose, it's a lot of work though. At least
that's what they say. Jesus very good. I should escape into feeding the homeless or hugging
my loved ones more. Yeah, hug them even when I'm mad at them, especially
when.
The Play
Monday, December 18, 2006
InkHow many rocks and stumps and potatoes and cows and bales of hay and
shovels of shit for this ink? How many rows and hoes for these ribbons and bows? Horses and hell and my great-great-great
grandfather's bare feet
bleeding from hay stubble for this ink. Who whistled
or cried as they fitted that maple flooring? Who worried their wives to sleep? Their breath
has been circling the globe for decades to meet me back here, many molecules sacrificed to cities and oceans
and cruiseliner decks. Some atoms have split
on my pen. All their toil and tears have buzzed
down brown to this candle and this ink tonight.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
MoleskineWho needs a Mercedes or a mansion? I now have a Moleskine! "A symbol of comtemporary nomadism." Touted as the notebook Ernest Hemmingway wrote in but I haven't
seen him in here anywhere yet. Mr Hemingway? Mr Hemingway? Sir? Not
to worry if he doesn't show up, the Moleskine's gonna do my dishes, clean the bunny box and make it snow in
Austin, Texas today.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Reasons For PoetryTo conjure impresssions
To be heard
To shine
SnowHere in the park on Edgewater it's 75 and sunny and families
are pushing what's left of the afternoon towards sunset with their strollers, flipflops
and tees. Kids are actually immersed in the cold lake! But in my Austin mid-December bubble a white powder is falling
and the crunch underfoot is not gravel. For
me it's almost midnight and there are bells, jingle bells sailing closer on
a shush of sleigh runners. I can smell the horses' harness and
see sweat rise and disappear in winterbreath off their backs. Here in my bubble it's not 75 and sunny, it's snowing and a choir of angels
is singing Silent Night.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Bootlegger #2I think it was a dollar but it may have been two. Some nice round figure the men slipped to the dark
and dangerous one in the corner in exchange for
another pint closer to heaven. 1976. The Beer Shack - what? A 15' x 20'
box? Was it that big? Everything seems bigger to a kid. But what did I know of beer or lengths
and widths, I only darkend the door to get warm in between skates. Man would it be freakin' cold out.
And man could I skate! Fast. Even faster than a lot of the boys. (Probably still can.) The boys lived
for hockey, even during free-skate hogging the rink with their war cries and stray pucks.
But I loved the bounce of my blades on The Beer Shack's black rubber floor, loved the new-rubber smell too, still do.
Tires stores. Erasers. Boots. And love the smell of leather as long as it's not too shoe-polishy.
Wallets. Saddles. Better journals. Never enough leather smells. Never enough.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
MigraineOn the first day She went shopping for items light enough that the postage to mail them overseas would hopefully
cost less than the gifts themselves had. On the second day She wrapped. Third day, She waited forty minutes
at the post office. On the fourth day She created some peanut butter popcorn balls and wrote up about forty
Christmas cards. On the fifth day She fell and sprained her ankle while flinging lights up into the Hackberry tree.
On the sixth day She hobbled out to shop some more. On the seventh day She expected to rest but
ended up washing rabbit-pee bedding and shopping yet again before coming down with a ripping migraine that
sent her to bed in the late afternoon for several hours, but She woke later and managed to write and post this to the
web.
Swear WordsMy husband says it's not ladylike to use the word "fuck" anywhere in my blog and he's probably right.
(Shit!)
BasketBunny munched a basket then peed on the bed. Luckily the mattress protector is thick - no
real damage done and I've rocks and a river on which to beat the ever-lovin' p**s out
of it later. [note later that night: beat the p**s out of the bedding, I meant. Not the baby
rabbit!] Basket - nothing special but the hands that worried it into existence probably were, fingers that bled
and went home to stir soup late that night? Bunny - almost a dog (but obviously not quite.) Husband, child,
dogs, bunny, fish, dishes, papers, shelves, Christmas, Santa, songs and 25-hour days. Please
send more hours.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
SuitsHow fine we look sailing towards each other at Congress and Sixth! Them, up-
wardly thirtyish in almost-good suits. Me, just around the corner from young
with leather heels pounding and hair that's behaving for once. Almost abreast now,
we could touch each others' faces or wrists if we wanted yet they have no inkling of my untidy desk or the
pork chop pan soaking on my back deck. (Soak anything long enough and you'll never have to do dishes again.) The
suits, the suits. The good hair. The new shoes. They cannot surmise by my confident chic
that bunny poops are piling up again and I still haven't gotten to that hell-hole some call a vegetable cripser. Neither
will I ever smell their morning breath or beer puke or see the mess their garages are in. Never see their
eventual paunches and strange underarm hair either, except at the beach. Ah, but at the beach we are not in these
suits, are we?
From Alyssa To The World
Monday, December 11, 2006
Bedbugs... if they do, take your shoe and whack their asses 'til their eyes turn blue.
(Don't think I'll be teaching her that version anytime soon.)
Toys R Us Potty Dance (Seriously!)
And I want this and this and this and this and this and this and this and.....
SuccessThose of us who think we've finally made it, quite possibly haven't. While those
of us still busy climbing are usually already there.
WillpowerI return something to Target and exit without buying another something. (This was a couple of months ago.) I order a small salad with
grilled chicken and do not even sniff at Kelly's left-over fries. (This was last week.) I munch baby carrots
instead of more cookies with my cocoa. (This was last night.) And from now on, I vow to read only one
month's archives of this woman a day. If I were to sprint ahead with her poems it would be like scarfing whole boxes of candy or multiple
cheeseburgers at once. Well... maybe just one more dark-chocolate covered Mairead wafer today.
One more and that's it!
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Better verbs for "read"... And from now on I vow to ______only one month's archives of this woman
a day... Invade, swallow, nibble, ransack, elope with, travel, sample, gorge on, suck back, x-ray, chomp through,
feast on, loot, ravish, savor, frisk, unlock, unleash.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Free Range Christmas Tree FarmThe cereal box recommends weaving the phrases passion tramples starlight
and melons mince marble into a 10-minute essay with supporting evidence as to why Farmer Brown went off the deep end again with his sheep last week.
But I blink and the cereal words morph into videos of balsam firs swinging from the rafters of a barn, jumping rope and swimming
lazy backstrokes on a pond. Some turning cartwheels
in the hay. (All fun and games of course until someone puts an eye out with
the shears.) Luckily, after the smog of
anesthesia clears the meadow, all bite and buzz of chainsaw is lost in dreams
of little mice and colored lights, whereby these branches green wake up renewed (and renewable,) in Southern
cities, ready and willing to delight us.
Sugar Plum Fairy In The Making
8:31 am
Friday, December 8, 2006
RainbowAgain I saw the gypsy's kilt slipping down to reveal her Scooby-Doo tattoo.
She has to be doing this on purpose. She's already been warned twice by the potato guy who's authorized only
rainbow, sunburst and flower tattoos. I am referring of course to the Farmer's Market flirt with mannequin
eyes who runs the bead stand next to the organic squash booth. Did I mention last week I saw her naked?
Well almost naked in the back of her mini-van. Hey - it wasn't my fault, she'd left the door
open and I was just walking past. I'd've been embarassed if someone skidded into my
world like that. But not she. Perched atop a mini-fridge in her red satin bra and panties,
pulling up her plaid tights with the holes in them and smiling at me as if we meet every day like this.
Bunny's First Christmas
Thursday, December 7, 2006
TreasureWhy would anyone with a blue wine glass in her hand sit alone on the beach?
Was there a friend who left? A lover whose yet to (or may never,) arrive? With her
cigarette and rubber boots resigned to a slump, she seems even sadder than the smell of the sea.
Farther down the shore two girls of four and six sprawl on a blanket sorting their treasures - red glass
with red glass, blue with blue, brown with brown. Half a crab's leg. Part of a lobster claw. Mussel
shells. Driftwood that looks like a snake. The littler child struggles to open a band-aid and succeeds, letting
the two white squares of plastic that covered the adhesive go whipping across the pebbles like butterflies. The
sun contin-
ues to burst from behind one cloud only to be swallowed
by another but in the warmth between, when my face is golden, I know
I'll be happy forever.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Pot-luckI can still see, let's call her Julie, mounding her plate up at the CGIT mother-daughter chinese banquet when I was fifteen, the year Mom made the sweet &
sour meatballs. Who could blame her? So many great-looking dishes
splayed out on those long tables. Four kinds of rice, a dozen casseroles, sides,
veggies, savory sauces. A hundred eggrolls we'd made from scratch weeks earlier and
froze. You couldn't call Julie fat. Plump maybe. Cheerful, yes. Her mother
hollering "Juuu-lie!" at her gluttony but what the heck - we were all friends. I'm sure we all went back
for seconds, maybe even thirds. I miss the church-hall kitchen. Such an airy and organized ruckus with
everybody working and laughing together. Music of dishes and water in the big old stainless
sinks.
We be feedin' Poppy's horses
The six-year-old reads to the four
These pics all from Canada this August, finally got around to learning how to copy from the disc Rosie
burned for me. Technology, one step at a time for Jannie-Bannanie. Oh, Poppy treated the girls to a little
impromptu snow-mobile jaunt around the barnyard. Typical Canadian Summer Recreation!
Alyssa - Niece
Rosie - Sister
Kelly of the self-cut bangs
Kelly
Alyssa
Extra-Cuteness
Nephew Austin Ryan, 4 weeks new
11:13 am
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
ToothbrushBristles on a stick could save the world. Bear with me on this, as even I don't know where my mind's
going. My mind does go. On planes mostly. Like yes-
terday at the post office. (By the way, feeling really snuggly that I mailed the
nine parcels to Canada and overseas. Only a forty minute wait and sixty bucks, not bad.) Where
was I? Oh yes, planes. Amazing little microcosms. I like to think of who might be bundled together in
the air. Sad ones. Happy ones. Carpenters. Ladies. Hotel Inspectors. Tanned ones back from near-death ordeals to one day be
showcased on I Shouldn't Be Alive, like that couple lost six days in the Amazon. Also thought how at this time of year you
see little old ladies at Walgreens who probably haven't been out of the house since this time last year, their nieces
taking them shopping for stuff to mail - Old Spice for Minnesota Marty and Michigan
Mel. Turtles for Mabel in Maine. About that toothbrush saving the
world... keep your smile bright to baffle the bad guys.
YUMMM!!!
Monday, December 4, 2006
Bad DreamSo I'm the belle of a music showcase I organized at a fancy hotel, bringing so many people together. Catering and
free beer arranged just so. Everybody grooving. As I make my socialite rounds, I see my cousin Lynn in one
of the rooms and we hug. (In real life we haven't seen each other in years but yesterday I stumbled upon her name and
new phone number while looking in my book for Christmas card addresses.
Must call her.) She looks great. Lynn, in the dream I mean. Then I breeze into another room
where I am finally to meet the partially-semi-famous woman I apparently planned this whole event for and there she is.
Laughing it up with her pretty face, long legs and winsome personality in front of a computer screen with MY
HUSBAND and he all but ignores me for her charms, makes some comment about me once
mentioning 'flame' in a poem. Goes back to the computer with her. I turn to leave and she slides
her beautiful-mean eyes towards me. So I run numb. Some teenager stops in the hall to thank me for the party
and asks me how I am and I start spilling to her that I'm not well because someone I was hoping to impress is now impressing
my husband. I start crying and keep running. I run and run, down highways. Away into the night. Crying
and crying. Till I realize I'm lost. Alone. With no cell phone. No money. No coat and
it's getting cold. Don't recognize the road names. And get this - I'm somehow back in New Brunswick.
So after I claw my way (strangely enough,) through a cupboard full of cereal boxes and cans of food to get to higher ground
for my bearings, I yell out to the live figures on the billboard poster that I need help.
Yee-uuuck! I'm going back to bed now to hold my man super-extra-close.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
PoetIf I knew anything about poetry I'd be able to regale you with which bard is most likely to be glancing
at you sideways from behind an old oak or whacking you over the head with a sprig of lilac or daring you to chase him
through the labyrinthe of some little village on the outskirts of Rome. I'd instinctively know what Shelley or
Yeats or Emily Dickinson had for breakfast or what scent they favored in their bath. But I'm out of the
loop on all this. All I can surmise is Shakespeare munched mutton, swilled ale and was never an Aqua Velva man. And Poe ate four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie. A pie
with raw crust and rotten leaves sprinkled on top. Long live the dead poets.
Let's Try This Bunny Thing Again... Presenting... "Grace Snowflake Ernst"
Bunny Go Shop-Shop
Friday, December 1, 2006
MercedesDoris got a "new" one, an '87 wagon, 300. Lucky Duck to drive it past all that history every day. What's
Texas' history? We went straight from dinosaurs to The Alamo to Apollo 13 to the two George Bushes. That's it.
But Germany, ah, Germany. They've done it right. All those old castles and dusty kings. Dark paintings
on thousand-year-old walls. Conquests, Reformation and the Holy Roman Empire. The first Christmas
tree. Neuschawnstein. But the greatest achievement of course - Mercedes. Let's compare Doris' '87 Benz to say, an '87 Chevy
Cavalier. Might as well compare Black Forest Cake to Hostess Twinkies, the Autobahn to I-35 or Einstein to...?????
Yes indeed. Oh wait, I forgot, Texas does have chicken-fried steak, hard to top that cultural staple.
This...
or this ?
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