exercise!

So I'm way too much of a wuss to go running, even in 38 degree weather. So sue me.

I've been re-exercising my brain. It makes me heppeh.

Janet McCann says journals like titles, but this one doesn't have one, and I'm not sending it to a journal.

you were the preacher's son
(how fucking perfect)
and of course, the snow couldn't leave
the Spring alone. mud-stained
and piled in parking lots overdue
to truck-haul off: May deadline.

you were skinny, and kind of mean, actually.
you stood me up, blew me off, twice
at least. The "ugly sweater" Christmas
party--you never called, and black-holed
my invite for dancing. this before
the coffee mug of Jack-and-coke
and your joint, hot light in the long winter undone
that, even mid-March, wouldn't leave us alone.

You were short with me: gravel voice
clipped sentences and your turned down mouth
for a mind aisled, altared, pewed
at my sighing speech. Anyway
two black and tans and one lung later
later you got gentle. and i fell
for it.

Next days I was angst to hate you. you
skipped town, but two weeks between
and ignoring me.
"Jesus Christ!" and still
no answer.
I never got my green coffee mug
back either. and it had my name on it, too.

Screaming Lobsters

'For those of us who are concerned about cooking screaming lobsters, here are the facts. The nervous system of a lobster is decentralized and has been compared to that of a grasshopper. From what we know, this means they probably feel little or no pain. They also have no vocal chords. The sound I may have heard is actually steam escaping from the shell as the lobster cooks. If you're still concerned about hurting the lobster, begin to cook it in cold water instead of hot. As the temperature rises, it will put the lobster to sleep. So will laying it on its back for a few minutes.'

It's because we bought it live in Menemsha, but I would only cook the potatoes,
and had to leave the room when he got the lobster into the pot and turned on the stove. So, that a lobster doesn't really scream, helps.
_______________________________________________________________________


Justinian

They fluenced me to
knowledge,
all their "don't
you feel it's right"s.

Soft decision, eighteen
years, which is
to say to come
sleepwalkwandering:

underage at twenty with
redwine poured throaty
blurred
road home, darked.

That series of names, of hands, of mouths
leaning
` my fishy lip wondering:
my failed opacity

My stranger, friend's lover, called
same who just
in jest, but fair, redeemed
six letters, saying,
"come,
we have roasted
chestnuts
and big christmas trees
with lights".

Holiday: Family

Mama and Dadda are sick with the flu.
Miss you this Thanksgiving.

fun song, light-hearted, ok?
(Mama--you have to click on the title, it's a surprise link!)


;)

monday: do your exercises

Point Blank
et cetera. My mother promised
us a quilt and I bought flannel
sheets, down
comforter.
But that's beside the

Bathtime, bedtime. Brushed teeth.
I just wanted a lullabye
softly singed.
sung,
whatever.

living within means (even scanty ones) responsibly

And onto other obsessions (the concept of which has recently been begging for a closer look, possibly to come in a later entry): living small. One thing I have always taken issue with about Park City is the luxury, extravagance, and waste. Jeremy Ranch, the neighborhood across from Pinebrook, where I spent my summer living in a shared space of 440 sq. feet, and one door (to the bathroom), is exemplary (others include the Deer Valley area, homes on PC or Canyons Resorts, for the strongest cases, although pretty much any neighborhood in Park City is subject to the quite wasteful trend) of enormous (5k and 6k+) square feet of space for two people, orrr two people half the year. It blows my mind.

I prefer the alternative: tiny-ness. Living in less than 1,000 sq. feet. As a home.












Ok ok, so living in a quasi-studio-more-like-half-assed-mother-in-law-suite/postage-stamp space this summer was tough, but it wasn't a space designed for tiny living, and I'm quite proud of the way Sarah and I handled it (with minimal panic). However, these spaces are.
I'm just showing pictures here, follow the links (1, 2, 3, and 4) for elaboration.
Oh sure, it's an adjustment of lifestyle, and not for everyone (specifically more difficult for families with children!), but what genius! what simplicity that still meets all needs!

I think the tiny-house concept is really all about 1) living responsibly. Carbon footprints notwithstanding, America's standard of living is not just "comfortable", it is, comparatively (when looking at the earth's resources, not to mention how little one is capable of living with and on) hogging. Yeah, I used hogging as a descriptor, get over it. But also, the tiny-house concept is about 2) paring down to sustainable simplicity, which I've become on quite familiar terms with of late. And really enjoy. So, no pontification here, no lectures or condescension: I just love this concept of tiny-houses, and love sharing ideas.

(links and photos courtesy of our lovely google search engine)

in love

So igoogle has this really nice customizable homepage, which I'm sure is familiar, and I've got a gadget on mine that's an "artist of the day." For me, it's hit or miss, but I think that I may have to start saving up for serious art investments after yesterday's Yvette Molina. I seriously want to live within her paintings. Fuh-Evah.

protection obsession

So it's not *really* cold yet here in Utah. Lows are in the 20s, highs between the 30s and 50s. Some snow, little wind, pretty much bliss actually. Sweater-weather without the bite that January and February (at least of last year) have (had) in the mountains.

I was speaking with a grocer at the local natural foods store (Fairweather Natural Foods...They don't have their own website) the other day, and she was telling me about how, last year during Sundance when she was waiting for the bus, her eyelashes broke off, and she watched them fall onto her jacket. Whoa. Then, when I was retelling that story to a couple who recently moved to Park City from Chicago, one of them replied, "Oh yeah, that's what all of winter is like in Chicago."
(Needless to say, I shat my pants. Figuratively. Mostly).
And since, I have been obsessively looking at coats that I can't afford. Such as these.

JLo's Double-breasted hooded wool coat. Delicious.




A Steve-madden wool-blend.




Mmm and my favorite: Ellen Tracy Wool-Cashmere blend with that little stand-up collar.

Sighhhh.

Oh, well. My mama's knitting me socks. That's something at least (I'll post pictures of those when she finishes with them).

All lusting after winterwear done via www.overstock.com.

sweet freedom

I may have a penchant for skinny dipping, but that's neither here nor there. Unless you invite me to a warm ocean for the weekend...

I have, in the last three weeks, sold or given away my car, my bike, my snowboard (and gear), all my furniture and household items (leaving me with clothes, and books only). And it has actually been freeing.

I'm looking forward to paring down my life even more when I leave the country, whenever that may be. Now, at least, it's unexpectedly pleasant to feel like a nomad.

(The photo-post-card courtesy of Lina Valenzuela, who designed it herself, and then sent it out as a college graduation announcement this past August. Beautiful!)

twelve years ago

"Damaged Goods"

My eleventh birthday,
from San
Luis Obispo he brought it me.
It stuck
above my sink, those
two mirror-words in
pink and orange script.
My mother would
squint her nose, "I don't
like it," and brush
out, shaking her head.
"We're none of us perfect" was
the surf-shop story he told, I
remember:
weekend travels and his eyes
that sadness haunts heavy these years.

Here at the Right Time

turned off

It would seem that after approximately twenty minutes re-researching graduate schools and programs, I am fed up.

This does not bode well for my future career in academia. You know, the one that I so violently shook off 1.4 years ago when I ditched all thoughts of graduate school in exchange for snowshoeing and (ahhh) hiking.

Trouble is, I keep coming back to it. March of 2008 I was set on applying for Fall 2009 admission. Only three months later, I said "screw that sh*t" (ahem, in a most composed and academic fashion) for the idea of expatriating and getting my hands dirty (probably very literally) serving underprivileged communities in third world countries (this the idea most currently in the works). Still, oh classrooms and research and theses!--I can't get you off my mind! I get lured back into the tantalizing prospect of incorporating words like "heteronormativization" into my everyday vocabulary, and using "culturally sanctioned" as an adverbial modifying phrase to describe concepts like "binary systems" or "phobias constructed on a false matrix of exclusivity". Ha. But seriously.

So I start researching again: graduate certificates, M.S.W.s, M.A.s, M.Ed.s, M.S.es, whatevers.
To be completely truthful: it is the suggestion of snobbery that turns me away, each time. The obsessions with prestige, the competitions for "best-ranking program," the requirements of already having an M.A. (for some graduate certificates), etc. And it's never more than a suggestion, to be sure. Subtlety is a well-learned skill of the prestigious...and pretentious.

To be short, there is something so repulsive about the entitlement that (traditionally) accompanies successive degrees that I continue to turn away. I wanna be able to use those big words, and I'm almost very nearly seduced by the prospect that I have, on multiple occasions, began the application process. And although I recognize that I eventually would need another degree to have the career I'd love to pursue, I (at this point) cannot bring myself to ...what I feel, if I examine it honestly: sell out.

So I'm back to here, and here, and here.

Suggestions on how to slake my grad-school-lust, or how, if I ever get admitted and enrolled to a program, to hold in humility my understanding and efforts at changing the world, remembering that I don't know everything (or much) are welcome. (Read: "halp!")

At this point, however, I feel pretty screwed.

Bedroom Scenes

Ok, so I know this scene is set in a kitchen, but these moments of mis-communication and missed trains and all the things that fall through the cracks is the kind of thing I used to want to write about. I don't know now, what I want to write about. But these conversations still tug.

INT. KITCHEN - WITHERS HOME - NIGHT
Gill and Clare are eating dinner. Actually eating together.
Trout, peas, potatoes.

CLARE
This is me trying.
GILL
And it’s nice, right?
CLARE
Nice? Do you know that I think about killing myself on a regular basis, now?
GILL
I hear you and I’m validating you by saying that I think about it constantly, but the truth is this too shall pass.
CLARE
That I would too.
GILL
And then so would I, in an alcohol induced coma.

He grabs her hand.

GILL (CONT’D)
But we’re two rational, intelligent people that can overcome anything as long as we do it together. She takes her hand back to eat and takes a bite of food.
CLARE
You know, people who believe in God say things like God let our baby die to save her from something more horrible in the future.
GILL
I think we’ve reached our quota for horrible this year.
CLARE
We did. But maybe she was saved. From us raising her. We were going to raise her. We were her future.
So maybe there’s something wrong with us.
GILL
Why go there? Why not maybe there’s a meteor headed for earth? Or global warming? That’s pretty
horrible.
CLARE
Or, nuclear holocaust, I guess too?
GILL
Exactly.
CLARE
Tsunami?
GILL
We’re a little far from the beach, but good. Come on, one more.
CLARE
Divorce.

Gill, hurt.

GILL
Yeah. That too.
CLARE
I’m sorry.

Gill stands.

GILL
You coulda said red dwarf.
CLARE
You mean the sun burning out --
GILL
That’s pretty horrible too.

Gill walks out with his food. Clare drops her head.

(Thanks to JVH for sharing his screenplay Close to Me with me)

Mountains

I'm leavin' them soon, so thought I'd post pics of my drive to work today:

foggy

foggy

suddenly clear.

Revised Terrifying Halloween Thoughts: Undergraduates

in the group "Young Conservatives of Texas" at Texas A&M (the school from which I obtained my own degree) hosted an "Anti-Obama Carnival" on a University Plaza. See the video below, and this link to some photos.

At least one of my friends/colleagues have commented that they are embarrassed to be an Aggie, but this strikes a different chord in me. I'm not embarrassed, I am, quite frankly, terrified. The YCT is a university level group of students who profess conservativism as a common orientation, and as an advocate for diversity and informative education on a spectrum of political beliefs, I take no issue with their right to peacefully assemble and promote their values. However, the concerns brought up in the video are compelling and thought-provoking points: the YCT's claim to the right to free speech and assembly is a right I strongly endorse; the point of the disparity between Obama's portrait and his policies as being egged is more than somewhat perturbing; and mostly--it was the defensiveness with which some students ("liberal" or "conservative", "republican" or "democrat" notwithstanding) reacted that speaks most clearly about the manner in which YCT was attempting to demonstrate its stance.

The anger and violence of the whole situation, and especially, its masquerading as a "carnival" is deeply chilling. Obama's head on a stick? (historical flashbacks to decapitated heads on spikes, anyone?) The act of throwing objects at someone's portrait? How far off is this from burning effigies? I understand and am well aware that violence is often a part of political demonstration; however I do not believe that it is ever necessary (cf Ghandi, Martin Luther King, blah blah blah). But I am not surprised at all at students' (even "conservative" students') reactions to the violence in Rudder plaza. And the most disturbing aspect? The "carnival" part of it. That it should not be a demonstration in which students are stolidly "standing up" for what they believe in (although in my very personal opinion, economic policies are a far cry from civil rights), but that it should be cast as a festival of merry-making, its flippancy and disrespect emphasized in the guise of pastimes, fun, a lark, is portentously alarming.

Caution, students; caution, Americans; caution, humans: what, exactly, is the intended message, and what, exactly is the message being received? In an effort to promote social responsibility, I strongly encourage mindfulness in the expression of opinions, values and beliefs. Sure, I have the right to say whatever I want, and almost however I want to say it. But I must remember, I also have the responsibility as a human(ist) to do my best to ensure that I am not marginalizing others by my expression.

Please be careful and safe this Halloween, and please consider others.

Halloween (of course)

This the most frightening thought: I said "yes" to this:

Disclaimer: I do love him. And find him incredibly attractive, even in this picture. Hrm. Must check meds.

Spoons and Such

The Utah Arts Festival this year was late June (actually I think it might always be), and it showcases phenomenal down-to-earth artists and artisans. It was hot, and our beers got warm, fast. But it was where I found something amazing (unfortunately, the website is still under construction). I found a tent, the walls of which were lined with wooden cooking utensils, spaced about every six inches. The personal healing (oh how we each have our issues) I found in the artistry of the attention with which each utensil was carved, polished, and named something quirky and specific, like "cranberry almond butter knife" not withstanding, I was overwhelmed by the experience. One man from Wyoming? Montana? (somewhere actually more desolate than Utah, at least in my imagination) imports wood from all over the world, and crafts each item himself, and he knew exactly where each was placed in his tent, and what wood it was made from. I asked for a pancake (he said "flapjack") spatula. He knew that he'd already just sold it earlier that day, but helped me find something that felt right in my hand. Anyway, without being hokey, check him out, if he finishes his website.

intermission

This is the week I move out of my apartment and into temporary housing (Thank God for Billie who has offered me her guest bedroom for all of a month or longer!) while I attempt to sell my car, all my possessions, and organize the rest of my life in the same fashion in preparation for moving, so please excuse an abbreviated entry. A picture for thought:

Una entrada menos pesada

Ok, ok, so Wednesday's entry was a wittow heavy, so something less so for the weekend:

In School Suspension: an Elementary Memory

Preface: so I only know one person who regularly reads my blog who will identify with all these specific memories, but here goes:

It must have been fourth grade. I had just come back to my Elementary school five houses away from my red-bricked one, my Elementary school teeming with white kids, having spent three years at Mahon Elementary on the East Side of town, where I was one of two white kids at least two of my years there. (First grade, it was just CJ Hargrove and me, and second grade, Dominic Zeni joined us. No idea why we were all there, the only white tiny faces on the "bad" side of town, but hell, I knew no color-boundaries. Especially since my parents pulled me out of my kindergarten class because my teacher Mrs. Cunningham? Cummings? would go bonkos if I colored "outside the lines" in our coloring book projects. Hrm...). Well to make a long story short, even though the Lubbock School District was busing for "integration" in 1993, they were busing class loads of kids, so that in third grade, the entire class was white, from the West Side of town, bused from Rush Elementary (fourth grade was from my home elementary Hardwick): kids whose last names began with L-Z. Lubbock might have been a tad bit behind on the whole "integration" thing, but I've heard that it didn't even begin until 1989. Whoa).

So, fourth grade, I had just come from the "bad" side of town, having spent the last three years in and out of the principal's office for various antics, but getting away with much too much because I was a "responsive" student (meaning: I read on a level two grades above mine, a highly prized commodity at Mahon. Not sayin' it was right, just sayin' how it was), and had entered Hardwick: middle-class Whitedom. Where I got in trouble. A lot.

I think at one point my teachers were just fed up with my talking incessantly in class, and running into the boys' bathroom, and asking to get a drink of water only to wander the halls and peek into the other classrooms. Anyway, I don't remember the last infraction, just that my folder had been signed enough times (oh the phrase "Anne, go get your folder" I heard so much, and most of the time, I thought unfairly) that I was deserving of ISS: oh yes: IN SCHOOL SUSPENSION, a place only kids like Charles Giddens were supposed to be on familiar terms with.

ISS was in a closet. Seriously. A supply closet, cleaned out of supplies, with room enough for three kids' desks and one adult's desk, although teachers were never in there. They just poked their heads in to make sure all was well. Which meant that most of the time we were drawing or talking in whispers, and only hastily scratched out our assignments when there were fifteen minutes left in the day. Oh yes, we were given ISS essay assignments. I remember mine was: Why You Shouldn't Go To ISS (or something like that).

I was a little bullshitter even then. I remember writing some cause-and-effect crap like "If I go to ISS, then I will not be in class to make good grades. If I do not make good grades, then I will not get a good job. If I do not get a good job, then I will end up flipping burgers my whole life." (Little did I know, that as an English-Major-To-Be, the flipping burgers part would probably be in my future regardless of my grades). Oh to be sure, the essay was more involved and descriptive, probably using vocabulary words of the fourth-grade equivalent to those in my bullshit French Revolution paper for my Senior year in High School (which were, specifically, "carnage," "bloodbath," "massacre," and some other over-the-top descriptors that had no place in an academic treatise, high school or not, even though that paper earned me an "A-" and a comment in green: "Very vivid imagery". Ha.), but more or less, it was a bunch of crap, and I knew it, even at age ten, or eleven, or whenever it was.

Actually, I think I was in ISS more than once. One time in sixth grade for letting someone have the answers to my homework, or a test, or something. I remember Mrs. Nugent being appalled, but hey man, I just wanted to share the knowledge! (or maybe I just wanted acceptance from my peers, or maybe I was a sellout. Who knows).

But the point is. A few days after my first ISS incident and the bullshit essay (having been completed, of course, in the last fifteen minutes of the day), I was in my federally funded, poorly nutritional valued lunch-food line (ah, another place I heard "Anne, go get your folder!" for once having said to Katie, about the re-fried beans under the hot lamps, "wow, those beans look like crap." Well, they did!), and Mrs. Carmona came up to me and said "I read your ISS essay, Anne. It was really good. Thank you for putting in the effort." And I glowed with the pride of a bullshitter having been commended on a half-ass job.

Apparently, though, as I was later told, other kids in ISS had done much more poorly on their essays. One turned in an entire sheet of wide-ruled paper that had written on it "SA SA SA SA SA SA SA SA SA" over and again.

Kudos, Anne Jones. Raising the bar, wherever she goes.

"Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine"

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver's poem is beautiful, and compassionate, and loving, although it stung much of "home again" and "family", and these are concepts I'm constantly struggling with, which may explain why my first reaction was quietly and sadly refutative, and reminded me one of the homeless kids I work with in Salt Lake who shakes his head when someone (stupidly) blanket statement tells him "It's gonna be ok." But the weird thing is: I DO believe "it's gonna be ok"--I wish I had written what Mary Oliver had. Instead, just an ekprhasis exercise:

It's funny
I have those things: the sun more than
half the year in these mountains
pebbled, undarked by elk hoof prints,
bearded with fir and ever whispering
aspens that stand slender tall
as I want to.
I have those things: rivers chuckling
between the beavers’ dams, those stream-
branches that giggling (and whatever else
the poets say that rivers do),
cut into my switchback trails.
I have that soft animal body too.
Never firm enough
despite my fish-and-rice-and-running-regi-
men. And I have that flat deserted despair,
crawling, as my too loose ligaments only able,
toward some deictic orientation
that wavering mirage.

Civic Privilege

Duty schmooty. It was my privilege to drive 1.2 hours on Friday to the Summit County seat here: to register myself to vote in this election. The drive was scenic: and a little tiny-town-middle-of-nowhere-America-ish: but hey, that's what America's about. Right? Right??

(honestly? I have no idea. I'm just a-postin' purty pictures).

Small Town (see first picture)

So the news is, I am entered into a betrothal.

The hilarity is timeline:
***Tuesday approx 5.30pm, roof of Salt Lake City Library, one John R. Nelson asks one Anne W. Jones to marry him. Anne answers in the affirmative.
***Tuesday approx 7pm, curbside drop off of Salt Lake City Airport, one aforementioned AWJ drops off one aforementioned JRN for his 8pm flight back to the city of Chicago, IL.
***Tuesday 7pm until 10pm, the dungeon of a studio apartment in Pinebrook, Park City, UT, AWJ relates the aforementioned events to her immediate family.
***Wednesday, approx 12noon at 804 Main St, suite 100, AWJ informs her employers of her news and pending resignation.
... ... ...

***Thursday, approx 9.43am at 804 Main St, suite 100, the UPS guy brings in a package for which he asks AWJ to sign.
***Thursday, approx 9.44am the UPS guy bursts out with "Congratulations! I heard you were engaged." ....

Feelings of horror at the small-town nature of Park City and the bizarreness of nameless UPS guy knowing the intimacies of her personal affairs flood AWJ.

Which is why she has decided to move to Chicago. (see second picture)

future city memory

Fuck

(My newspaper stale, and sinkwater running)
This one pads around the tangled sheets lumpy
piles of too-quick-shed jeans and missing socks,
cigarette wobbling, stuck to her lower lip
and the occasional flicker of her inhales:
a blush in the not-yet-morning.
(My coffee's not strong enough)
Man's wallet in her hands, the bills between
yellowstained fingers, pocketed, she drifts
out: (two floors down I hear his door creak shut
from my frontside window watch her
ash my porch, off towards the corner bus stop,
my pancake soggy but I'm sure) he's
still sleeping beer-heavy at sunrise.

October Snow

Just as an update: Park City, Utah got hit by a snowstorm this weekend. Traipsing through three inches of snow on the trail that I was supposed to be running this Sunday was only somewhat amusing when I remembered that it's only October. Barely.

Most of Sunday morning, however, was spent bundled up and hanging over from Sarah's 24th birthday, for which there was so much surplus booze that we are still drinking it. It is well noted that this never happened in college--people stingier, booze scarcer, maybe just friends were drunker. However, with a quarter-keg of home brew, a couple of cases of Dos Equis, two bottles of champange, four bottles of wine, mixed drinks and shots to go around for all eight guests attending, we, um, we managed to hold our own. Happy Birthday Sarah!

And more to come on Park City weather, as it changes.

unghosted memory (with a little help)

Photo: day two in Playa del Carmen. Annie and Sarah reach the outside world at 1pm, surprisingly not hideous for hanging over. It might have been the sweet Mexican sea air. Which I miss. So now I monitor some form of Metabolic Support:

my metabolic statement: I vitamin my arteries,
SMTWTFS each unassuming box lids three large pills
that smell of hay. one for balance, one for immunity.
the last softens my arteries for good measure.

And two tiny silent ones, pinkly sour taste, pocketed for dissolution-
under-tongue emergencies, that constant Absence.

Processed Food

Nah, I plant my own potatoes.
They root themselves, you know.
Stem storage organs, they'll grow
even
in a water jar, warm kitchen windowsill
but prefer the quiet under earth
for soft hymns undirged.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (untitled)

I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

unimpressive aerial views

Kelly and I biked this route yesterday. Well. She biked. I ran. Some fifty minutes or so. Was only 700 vertical feet, but who knows how many miles. We're making the best of the last of the weather and sunshine; there was snow on the peaks yesterday, and frost on all the fields this morning (this is not a good sign for my Seasonal Affective Disorder).


After the run, I came home and holed myself up in my 440 sq ft. Studio. Winter-style, with tea and a chicki-patti from MorningStarFarms. This does not bode well for my long winter. Or my brain. I can feel it lumping up already from fat-storing-winter-hibernation.

I *did* find out, however, that non-motorvehicle owners can pay only $20 a month to be insured. This is tempting.

reinforced plans for expatriation

natural decadence

Wilde's Symphony in Yellow

An omnibus across the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly,
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

outstanding pricipl balance

I found an ear
bended
an easyflown canal
curren-
-sea of murmurs re
leased of debt and
silence

October

texas inspired, but home and hearts go hand-in-hand

long winter, and

with someone in mind


(Robert Earl Keen came to Park City last winter--my brother says he comes every year for his birthday in January--and it pricked, stinging of home: memoried flautas and train tracks, margaritas to-go, crowded dive bar music, "safety-clinic" cycling team pub crawls, budlight and pepperjack cheese, language lessons and,


at the concert there were too many men wearing undershirts under t-shirts, and I swear to god, Curve cologne).

nostalgia for England

I'm required to get proof of attendance at Lancs U from 2005-2006 for my background check at my Domestic Violence Shelter job. Initiating email contact with some of the departments has tugged on my heartstrings some, least of which are connected to the Wednesday Market and sitting with a crepe on the Library/Museum steps, Blue-Anchoring myself, pints at lunch, dinner, and before and after damn Syntax lab (never thought I'd need an entire pint to get through a linguistics class, although if I can ever find the limerick that giggled Kara and me near enough to expulsion from the class, I'll post it), taking the free Sainsbury's bus on Wednesdays because we were so poor and cheap, the Sugar House, £1 Yager shots out of a test tube, for whatever reason no one knew, the LUSU shop, charity shops and radiant heat.

The closings of letters and emails are something I miss most from the single year I lived in Lancaster, and unexpectedly so.
A sampling of my favorites:

Kind Regards,
Earnestly,
All the Best,
Best Wishes,
Many Thanks,
xoxox (mostly text messages),
xxxxxxxxxxxx (mostly text messages, and more from Northerners that I remember),
thanksx,
and of course,
Cheers, (that as often was spoken; I would fake a softer "r" when getting on the bus so no one would ask me where I was from. No shame. And anyway, it worked).

I miss the green, and the softest Springtime I'd ever known. I miss the cows on my walk to town. How weird is that?

Lingual Play

Presumably, a [preposition] interlude, gallery

opening: some insuspirations manifest

must have been.

One quick errand for a corkscrew,

your midnight innovations made [present tense]

a champagne hero.

Apparently, you followed [temporal adverbial

clause] somewhere now obscure.

11 PM your words in my ear as I

listed for produce groceries after a 12-hour-work-day,

hearing your traipsing festivities and flirting bar to pub

-lic transport, while I, wanting [infinitive]

fermata-ed that bridge, your attention, laughter across

goddamn satellite static

cellphones and the noise my TV

used to make between channels when

it was "snowing,"

combined with the evensong's slurred

speech disremembering syllables,

made [obsolete ablative]. It didn’t translate.

You’d lost your [singular noun]

so a hard line for incoming calls.

You felt you ought to retell after noon
in stickythroat halting that
frontal lobe and lips involved, damage here
(my “Oh.”)
and by six AM, a sleep-debt [future mixed conditional

of "to be" or a past modal expectation] relieved.

[indirect spacial deixis reference] and

[misspelled possessive apostrophe].

I try to think, “neither [proximity] nor [distance marker],”
(because English already dropped the accusative

case, with no remaining

declensions, save maybe “him”,
that also can class dative, more oblique, but)

anyway, I forwent a season pass this year.

Resort lots full, wintry-slipped roads,

slopes too steep, and too many trips

to physical therapy.

Besides, they, too, have black-out dates,

no access to a lift, reserved for tourists.

chest balm for the heart

After a year in seemingly godforsaken Utah, I've had my heart calmed unexpectedly by my discoveries of a visual version of the eucalyptus, rosemary, ravensara, tea tree, and peppermint chest rubs.

Smith and Moorehouse Reservoir



Mormon Trail at Sunset

This is the intersection of Pinebrook Perimiter trail and MidMountain, I think. It's about five minutes from my house.



Another trail near my house, Troy's, or Spring Trail I think. Maybe Upper Meeks--one of the ones I've been running lately. This one taken in mid-September.

Please excuse the quality of the above pictures, as they were all taken from my cellphone, my own camera battery charger having been left in Mexico. I'll be sure to get some more autumn pictures up too. The orange is in full swing, and the aspens have yet to golden themselves, but I'll try to share some of it soon.

gift horse

You were my mother--the petulant apologies half-growled,

flung like a confident new convert's appeasement:

They chafed

She slapped my mouth (I counted the times) with her floury hands--

you kissed it: buttering my unraveling debt.

some salve.

dreaded question: "What's the points spread on tonight's game?"

"I feel so uneducated," was a lament expressed the other day from one of my friends. What surprised me was this gal is one of the smartest, most well read, and interested people I know. So. This got me thinking.

Her comment was in regards to a conversation about my (yes, my) menstrual cycle. I chart it, observing cervical fluid and my basal body temperature each day, based on the technique elaborated on by Toni Weschler in her informative book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I became interested when I tired of hormonal cycle regulation (damn pills stifled my emotions and made me fat) and disposed of all those little white vacuum sealed pills, but found my menstrual cycles to be as irregular as ever. Never knowing when my period would settle into my new panties or my mar forever my white linen pants (I'm one of the few not struck down by debilitating cramps or downswings in my moods with this PMS business. Lucky, except that I was always taken by surprise when with no warning I'd need to rush off to the ladies' room, totally unprepared and without prepackaged wads of cotton to...um...anyway) was incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I'd have a period as soon as 21 days after my last, with sometimes as many as fifty-five days between menses. My boss/co-worker/one of my best friends here in Utah had just finished with this book, and hell, I wanted to take charge of my fertility. Or, at least be aware of when I could expect to get drownded.

(For those of you interested, as this isn't really what my post is about, I highly recommend the book. I remember one week in biolab as a freshman in college coming to the Female Menstrual Cycle lesson and thinking "oh man, I got this down. I mean. I should. I mean, I deal with this every month." And then being totally baffled by the horrifyingly confusing scientific-speak and convoluted presentation about processes that were occurring semi-regularly in my own body. So anyway, this book: very informative, very accessible, funny, engaging, and ultimately, educating, which is more in line with what my post is about).

So I got to thinking: how can she feel uneducated? I mean, the only reason I felt educated about the subject is because I was fed up with something directly relating to my experience and did the research on it. And it clicked. With so much information "out there," how in the world does one choose what to read/watch/listen to? Sure, sure, high school and even college degrees have pretty specific curricula, but after that? Why do I know so much about my period, and my sister knows so much about South Africa, and Katie so much about paper, etc etc etc?

I remember reading an article about the war with Iraq and American ignorance of its culture (yes yes yes, get on with it, you say), and the salient point was: we're not curious. The saturation of the media tells us exactly what we think we want to know and so we don't feel compelled to look further. (Take that how you will, but my point is): what are we curious about? What are our own and individual experiences pushing us toward? My frustration with my body got me asking questions about what I could do about it. I wonder if we're only going to "do the research" on what gets us going, and that's always going to be different. It's not a stock curricula, and it's not about being uneducated or ejuhmuhkated, or whatever, because no one ever will be, or everyone always is, or however one wants to evaluate it.

Anyway, in order not to make this seem like an exercise in futility, (or an overly elaborate and tiring encomium on the wealth of our melting-pot-resources and experiences) I'd leave on a note of this my own desire: to walk through life (well, with me, I might just be wandering around) with enough of an open mind to hear what is unfamiliar to me, and to be curious about it not for education's sake, but for the prospect of being able to connect with a stranger through that lovely medium, conversation.

Which means I might want to learn what a "curve ball" is.

eponymous post

avoirdupois

separate. collection of goods: sorted grained-

freckles, my pied nipples weigh

tea leaves too many, and o(u)nced

sweetened butter creamy between

the legs measure out my pounds. Bleached

or unsifted rye-dark skin—no matter—

milled ever too coarse

or fine.

Legal limit for flight is fifty

pounds (more twelve thousand drams)

for baggage; I always owe

the surfeit fee (stock package) for the “extra-

heavy” orange tag.

skeptic, cynicism, and por quoi?

Wow, talk about tetchy (which happens to be Merriam-Webster's word of the day today). I googled "acupuncture" and the majority of the links on the first page of the search had to do with "does it work?" or "medicine: is acupuncture effective?" and even "although more traditional hospitals are offering both training and treatment in the forms of acupuncture, it remains to be seen whether...".

So: 1) I had no idea it was so controversial because 2) I have always wanted it.

Back pain, anxiety, insomnia, infertility, stress, et cetera. It's a practice of healing, and a practice indeed. Although the training requirements differ since there's not a centralized certification system, healers apprentice and train for anywhere from one to ten years before practicing on their own. From my (very limited) understanding, it's not a panacea; even in university and other hospitals where it's being offered as a "complementary therapy," doctors stress the superseding effectiveness of Western medicine. However, in some places like Santa Fe, most insurance polices offer ten to fifteen acupuncture sessions as standard medical coverage (info courtesy of a friend only, unresearched).

I first saw an acupuncture needle in "real life" a few weeks ago at the Park City Rail Trail mixer in Prospector. It was a promotion for local businesses and a couple Melissa Pepper Krajeski and Wyatt Krajeski (please note these links are not their current business, but are bios/interesting info about them. To contact them at their current practice, please go here) were there giving away free ten-minute chair massages. Ha, well, living for all intents and purposes alone, and where hugs and cuddles are scarce due to my partner's living approximately 1,378 miles away, I'm a sucker for being touched when I don't have to pay for it (e.g. pedicures, massages, facials, etc). Wyatt demonstrated a needle for me, and I was surprised at how flexible and thin acupuncture needles are. And after ten minutes under Melissa's hands at a business-promotion Rail Trail mixer, I was hooked. Or at least eternally longing. Acupuncture is expensive. About as expensive as a standard massage, counseling, or physical therapy session: between $75 and $100 for forty-five minutes or an hour and a half. At least in Park City anyway.

Whatever your bone about it may or may not be, it's appealing to me for it's emphasis on touch, gentleness and holistic healing. Several local practitioners I know integrate acupuncture with massage therapy in their sessions and encourage participation of one's rational, emotional, and spiritual sides in the healing process. Sounds like a quack, for those who would rather pop an aspirin and "get on with life". I wonder two things: how much do we scoff at "untraditional" (at least in our young culture) healing practices and refuse to validate them as "medicine" (relegating them to "therapies" and "treatments") because we are simply afraid of that which is unfamiliar and un-experienced? And what else are we missing out on?

If I ever scrounge around and come up with 7,500 pennies I will post again with the results.
Till then, this just thought-therapy.