Our Drawers

The True Fresco people, who used to provide a cheap and fairly reasonable web referral script to track which sites sent visitors your way, have now yanked their free services and replaced it with a $25 annual fee. Anyone out there know of a good replacement for True Fresco?


****************************


Sometime soon, Jacob and I need to go buy a new chest of drawers. His current one is old and the drawers stick. Mine is so old it is falling apart. I am not even sure it is actually mine! I think it belonged to my ex-partner but it somehow got left behind. Dear God, I know a trip to Ikea is coming soon. I need to start praying for patience now.


****************************


Fellow Doctor: A patient of mine told me you are a poet.
Me: Really? Wow, I didn't think many people knew.
FD: So, what do you write?
Me: Um...... Poems.
FD: What kind of poems do you write?
Me: All kinds, I guess. Mostly dark stuff.
FD: Why? Sounds depressing.
Me: Yeah, I guess it can be.
FD: You should write some poems about love and stuff.
Me: Hmmmmm, that's an idea. Hey, have you seen the latest HBO Series, ROME?


****************************


My medical group partner and I are throwing a luncheon today for the staff of our department at the hospital where we will be based full-time come January 1. Yes, we are following the old rules of Medicine. Feed people and they will be loyal to you. Sad, but still true.


****************************

Seven

Jacob and I went and picked up the keys to the new place. After the owner was gone, we just wandered from room to room thinking out loud. It was kind of silly, the way we talked out loud as we wandered around. It felt like we were sharing a mind for a brief moment. I liked it.


****************************


I am dumping a lot of stuff right now in preparation to move. It is amazing to me how much stuff one can amass in a few years. Actually, it is kind of frightening.


****************************

Post Holiday Wrapup

I cannot believe how quickly the long weekend flew by! We had a blast celebrating the holiday and JG's recent defense of her dissertation. Thanksgiving went by smoothly. We cooked for 25 people. This year, for the first time, there was very little left after the dinner. 20lb turkey, 10lb ham, 8 casseroles, mashed potatoes, the works. All of it gone. There must have been some hungry people this year. In year's past we always sent guests home with leftovers.

We flew off to Vegas on Friday afternoon. We had a great time. We saw Cirque du Soleil's "O" again. It was better the second time. Our favorite is still "Mystere." And we had great meals (only did buffet once). And we left even. We won a lot of money the first day but slowly lost it all back by the time we left. But at least we didn't leave down.

Poor JG had to fly back to Houston this morning on the 6:25AM flight. I am glad I have today off. But tomorrow, I will be back at work. And Jacob and I will be packing and moving over the next two weeks. It should be an experience.

Hope you all had fun over the long weekend. I need to go on a diet now.

Chapeau!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Jacob and I (well, mostly Jacob and JG) are cooking for 25 people today. All the usual stuff for Turkey Day. Last night we went out to a small French bistro we love. The highlight of the night was a bottle of 1978 Chateau Chasse-Spleen Bordeaux. Yes, a wine as old as Jacob! I was so full when we left to go home, but I was so happy. Best food presentation of the night? JG has seared foie gras and it was served on the largest plate ever with a drizzle of various sauces over the plate. A close second was the cauliflower soup with white truffle oil. Nothing like good food and good company.


***************************


Heard Depeche Mode this morning in the car: "Strangelove." As usual, I was young again. Amazing how certain songs can conjure time periods so clearly it is almost like having a hallucination.


***************************


Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.


***************************

Notes from the Dead

So what do you do to celebrate your good friend getting her PhD? Ah, but of course. Champagne. This is one of my favorite rose Champagnes. And tonight, we will toast and enjoy some tasty food at our favorite French bistro. The only rose champagne I love more? Billecart-Salmon's Brut Rose. That, my friends, is heaven in a glass!


****************************


To the woman who emailed me asking to have a baby for me and Jacob: I know you are some evil friend of mine playing a joke on me!


****************************


Found a very funny postcard this morning in my desk drawer.

"It seems like yesterday I was running around a table to escape from William Meredith, but now I am no longer that young man. In fact, I was your age then. Maybe it is time for you to run around a table to try and escape me?"

I dare not say who sent me this postcard.


****************************

Making Steps

Dealt with the last contract for the new med corp today. Yay! Now it is just a matter of time. And I found a mover, too. Yay! And Jacob already set up utilities and stuff for the new place. And all I need now is to win the Lottery. And maybe a Snickers Bar.

I Give In, To Sin

Just finished inhaling a sandwich. It has been a busy day. My good friend, JG, is probably finished defending her dissertation by now. And soon she will be here with us for Thanksgiving. And on the day after Thanksgiving, guess where we are going? Yup, you guessed right. I feel some baccarat is in order. Maybe some craps, too. After all, what is Sin City without a little sin... Poor JG has never been to Vegas, so this will be too much fun for words.


****************************


Dreamt last night I was eating pairs of scissors.


****************************


Is it 2008 yet? Will it ever come?


****************************

Bad Start (or how to piss off an interviewer)

Interviewer: Okay, well do you want to talk about Medicine and how it affects your poems?
Me: Not really.
Int: Really?
Me: Really.
Int: Well, that is what people want to know...
Me: Oh, I thought your readers were interested in Literature and why anyone would write it.
Int: Not when it comes to you.
Me: Oh, I see.
Int: Not to be rude or anything.
Me: Of course.
Int: Well?
Me: Well what?
Int: How does Medicine affect your poetry?
Me: I have no idea.
Int: Well, you are either being very difficult or playing dumb.
Me: Playing?
Int: Come now. You have tons of degrees. We know you are smart.
Me: Exactly. Anything else you want to know?
Int: No. Nothing. This has been a total waste of my time.
Me: Likewise.

Unintentionally Avoiding the Muse

When it comes to Medicine, I usually spend about 90% of my time doing clinical work (being a doctor) and 10% of my time being a businessman. Well, for the last 4 weeks, I have been spending about 50% of my time being a businessman and 50% being a doctor. I have to say I really don't like business stuff at all. I thank God I don't do it full-time. Today, I spent a whole bunch of time setting up my new medical corporation's payroll. It totally reminded me of doing taxes. Yuck! That said, it is necessary, unless me and my partner never want to get paid after Jan 1. With that little incentive, I sat here and did the entire payroll setup.

I don't feel very much like a poet lately, for above- mentioned reasons. I normally feel like an imposter in the poetry world, but right now I feel completely divorced from it. I finished up all of my teaching responsibilities early this morning, but even while doing them, it wasn't really poetry. It was teaching. And I have a stack of submissions to NER to read, which I hope to do today. But again, that is editing, and it doesn't feel like poetry to me. What feels like poetry? Reading books, thinking, playing with some lines, constructing things in my head for poems. And for a little over a month now, I have been incapable of doing these things. The new corp., the wedding planning stuff, the now impending move. I don't feel very "poetic," nor do I feel like it is possible for me to think about and write poems. Yes, I read submissions and make decisions, but that isn't quite the same.

I just have to remember it will come back. And I look forward to it coming back. For now, the thought of writing a poem seems alien. But it will come back. I know that over time I cannot not write poems. At least I hope I can keep telling myself that until I have time to think and write again.


*****************************

Deep in the Year of the Rooster

I have been busy most of the morning being a teacher. Well, I have been doing teacher work (critiquing a portfolio, writing semester evals, etc.). Ran with Jacob to do the walk-through of the new house we are renting. Plunked down the $6,600 for the deposit and first month's rent (OUCH!!!!!). And now, back to teacher stuff before picking Jacob up from Piano practice.

Yes, this is a time of change. This is my year, and since it comes around infrequently, I expected a lot of change. Thankfully, come February, the year of the Rooster will come to an end. I suspect most of my life will settle down again until the Rooster returns.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. JG will be flying in on Wednesday. We will then be cooking for a long time. This year, we are cooking for about 22 people. Turkey, a Ham, stuffing, Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, casseroles, deserts, etc. We already have the wine in order. And the champagne. This is our last big Thanksgiving because it is the last one where we will be in Jacob's place. Once we move, that tradition will come to an end. Not to mention, it started because we wanted to have something for friends (residents, post-docs, students, etc.) stuck here for the holiday. As time passes, we have less and less friends in this position. Now, we just invite people for the sake of it. So, this may be the last big Thanksgiving dinner we do. A little sad, really.

Here is a peek at the new kitchen in the new house. Very cool kitchen. That tiled floor just kills me. We will have to learn how to wax the floor. Maybe it isn't so cool after all. I also really like that totally retro breakfast nook.

The Juggler

Setting up the new medical corporation, the wedding, the move to a new house: everything seems to be happening all at once. Don't get me wrong, they are all fantastic things. It is just that I, for once, feel very overextended in my life. Thankfully, my teaching responsibilities end this week. But Thanksgiving is next week, so that week is essentially a wash. In all likelihood, Jacob and I will need to have our stuff out of our respective apartments and into the new house by December 15th, which means I also need to set up a mover now. Yes, I am overwhelmed. And this is a new feeling for me. I have always been one of those people who can juggle many things at once. I have always had more than one "job" along with many commitments. Even as a kid I was that way. But either I am getting old (quite likely) or I have reached saturation point. I am starting to feel as if I cannot keep all the items in the air and that some are about to come crashing down. But I am trying hard. I am trying. And I keep reminding myself that all of these things are good things, that everything will work out fine. God, how Stuart Smalley of me...


****************************


Tonight, Harry Potter with my favorite guy: Jacob, of course! For now, off to the hospital since I have a case in the O.R. this morning.


****************************

Harry Potter and the Caterer's Curse

Crazy day so far. Just crazy. And we finally (Jacob and I) got the contract from our caterer. Thank God the food is amazing because the bill is pretty steep! Ouch!


****************************


One more day until Harry Potter. Jacob is a total Potter fanatic. I think he has read each of the books a half-dozen times each! And of course I had to get us tickets for tomorrow night because I am sure he would just die having to wait to see it.


****************************


I feel overwhelmed all of a sudden.


****************************

Update #311

Got the official acceptance from Kenyon Review. I was a little surprised because it came by email. But I guess they now do everything electronically. They have slated my poem, "Reciprocity," for their Fall 2006 issue. I really do love being in KR. It was one of those magazines I first read and just wanted to be in it. Being a part of KR seemed so unlikely then. And even now, after publishing some poems, I am still thrilled to be in it. Funny how those first magazines we love remain important to us.


****************************


The accountant meeting went well. My partner (medical practice, not Jacob) and I also got our corporate banking accounts opened. We should have payroll on line by next week, far in advance of the new year. Everything is slowly falling into place. I long for it all to be set up and running so I can go back to being a doctor. Right now, I am feeling much more like a businessperson than a doctor. And I hate business. Hence the reason I am in medicine in the first place. And let me say now: That God for lawyers! Yes, I really did say that. Over the past two weeks, our lawyer has been indispensable. We would have been lost without him. I now fear what his bill will look like.


****************************


And what is better than getting a poem taken by Kenyon Review? Making the list over at Jordan Davis's blog. Yes!!!


****************************

The Jackpot

Stop. Before you read further, head over to Woody's. The boy goes apeshit on Vin Diesel. What a total crack up!


****************************


Been up since forever grading and critiquing. Last portfolios of the semester. I am immensely proud of my students. They have taught me more than I could ever have imagined.


****************************


Need to go meet with the accountants to get my new medical corporation on-line financially. Exciting and scary as hell!


****************************


Charles is busy musing again. When that boy muses, he is HOT!


****************************


I didn't win MegaMillions last night. But now the pot is 315 million. Surely Jacob or I will win on Friday night!


****************************

Guppies

Well, I am starting to calm down after all the excitement of yesterday. I know many of you don't get it, but it is hard to get good places to rent in San Francisco, especially houses. In this case, the owners were so picky about what they wanted. I actually contemplated being in the closet but realized that would be hard with Jacob and I looking for a place to live. Anyway, in the end, it all worked out. I dare say the owners liked us BECAUSE we are Guppies. I think they were afraid to rent a 4 BR house to a big family. And I think they kind of liked the idea of leasing to a writer and a composer, even if we aren't well-known in either field.


****************************


It seems like everybody is talking about Brokeback Mountain. Already there are Christian critics crying about how gays are ruining the American Cowboy image and tradition. Dear God, please save me from your followers!


****************************

La Casa

Oh my God! Oh MY GOD! I just got a voice mail message from the owner lady. At first she sounded very business and stuff, saying Jacob and I each have wonderful credit. And then she said, "So, this is all to say you guys got the house. Let us meet sometime soon to sign a lease. You guys seem perfect for this house."

I listened to the message three times to make sure before calling Jacob. And the picture? This is our house for the next year! Yaaaaay! (cartwheels away) Yaaay! (cartwheels back)

Oh Brutus

So, the finale of ROME is next week. Well, hard to sit in suspense. We know what happens. Brutus et al will kill Julius Caesar. Wow, HBO, this series is starting to annoy me.


***************************


I cannot believe that next week is Thanksgiving. Before you know it, it will be New Year's Eve. Hell, they are already playing Christmas carols on the radio. What is up with that? Carols BEFORE Thanksgiving?


***************************


In keeping with the poet dreams some in the blogosphere have been having, I dreamt last night that Michael Collier was reprimanding me about something. He was making french toast in a kitchen and reprimanding me. I cannot for the life of me now remember what it was I had done.


***************************

Pole Position

So we went and looked at the house yesterday. It isn't exactly what we pictured in terms of that downstairs room, but we really liked it a lot. We will still have the space to each have a studio. And it has a beautiful garden and a cellar for wine! The agent gave us applications to fill out. She says she should know whether or not we get it by Monday or Tuesday. I am not as hopeful as I was before. Jacob, on the other hand, is the one who is hopeful now. He thinks her telling us about the few plants that need to be watered each week is a good sign. Also that she showed us the electrical breakers, phone intake cables, etc. I just don't know though. If we don't get it, we will start searching again. But I really hope we get it.


****************************


The party for us last night was a riot. Jacob kept commenting on the fact most of the folks defer to me and my partner, which I don't really see. But he is probably right. He always sees things I don't. And I suppose even in a social situation, many of the folks still see us as the doctors. So weird. The highlight of the night was when each person took a spin on the pole. Yes, my partner has a stripper pole in her den. Despite trying to avoid it, yes, I did, in fact, take a whirl. I surprised many with my "pole skills." Haha. Anyhoo, it was all a lot of fun. And I will never think of my partner's den the same way again.


****************************


I was chastised last night for not writing more poems. In light of your present company, I won't repeat what I wanted to tell this person to go do to himself.


****************************

Radiance

Saturday morning. I am knee-deep in poetry. I wish it was my own poetry, but I am busy reading and reading. So many poems. So many good ones. It makes me happy. After this quick internet break, a few more hours of reading and then off to the house-viewing appointment.


*****************************


One of my physician colleagues is throwing an engagement party for me and Jacob this evening. The entire staff of one of our hospitals will be there. Apparently, this colleague has a stripper pole in her basement. I have no idea why.


*****************************


It is sunny enough here today to be actually considered radiant. And the air is the particular kind of cool that says Autumn (even though it is now Winter). And drinking coffee in this cool air is as close to heavenly as one can get early in the morning. The lingering smell of the coffee, the cool air, the sound of the ocean nearby, the streetcar's mechanical squeak in the distance.




*****************************


Finally read the article on first book poets in Poets and Writers last night. A very strange article. So many books! And what is up with what they asked each poet. It seemed so odd that this is what they chose to ask these folks. Nice exposure for them though, and for that I applaud P&W.


*****************************


Received an email from BPK this morning. I had hoped it would say something like: "I just sent you 5 of my poems for you to consider." But who am I kidding? The note said she had revised one of her poems into oblivion and was now trying to resurrect it. Ah, that is what one expects from BPK. And I cannot say a thing seeing I am one of those tinkerers as well. It is a sickness, almost.


*****************************


I need to put aside some time to clean and re-ink my fountain pens. Maybe if I do two at a time I can get them done a few weeks. My Pelikan, Cartier, and Dupont pens are in desperate need of cleaning. The Pelikan remains the horse of pens though. It can sit gunked with ink forever and will still deploy a decent line of ink even without cleaning. On the other end, the Cartier, which is like an old finicky woman. It needs constant love and profession of love to do anything!


*****************************


I was wrong.


*****************************

Tuning Points

Sometime over this weekend, I need to send out three poems. Yup, I finally have poems to send out now that Kenyon Review returned the ones that they aren't using. Oh where oh where shall I send...


****************************


Spoke to the owner of the house again today. I had a quick question. I am even more convinced now that this is going to happen. I just feel it.


****************************


I heard the strangest thing on the radio about how couples in New York are having breakdowns because they can't get little Jenny or little Billy into the right pre-school. The report was about training sessions for the little ones so that they can pass the interview step for the pre-school. Apaprently, these trainers are now sitting in a booming business. What the.... What the hell is up with that? Is it just me or does this all sound deranged?


****************************

Behind Door Number One: Destiny

This is a time of change. I can feel it very clearly now. All around me, change. My life is in a state of transformation, not just the usual day to day changes but a major change. By early next week, I will be the President of a brand new medical practice. On December 30th, I will be leaving the Practice I am currently in. I was scared at first, but now I am excited. I will end up in a better place emotionally in the new practice. And Jacob and I finally found a house to rent that sounds too perfect to be true, large enough for me to keep my writing studio, large enough for him to have a music studio that can hold his desk, books, 5 billion CDs, and a piano. I spoke to the owner yesterday, and we have an appointment to view it tomorrow. She has had it on the market for a while and gotten several offers, but she has turned them down. She says she wants the right people. Maybe I am crazy, but speaking with her gave me a very immediate reaction, one that said "This is it! She has been waiting for you." I don't know why, but I have this weird feeling that this is the house we are supposed to be in for the next year until we can buy our own house. I just know it. And I haven't even seen the inside of the house yet! And it means something that Jacob found it and emailed me about it but that I called. So, new job, new house, a new husband (Jacob) come Spring, major changes happening, and yet, I cannot shake the feeling that it is just supposed to happen this way. Hard to shake that "It is your destiny..." feeling. Do you have this feeling sometime? Do you ever feel things are just happening because they are supposed to happen and there is little you can do about it?

Willing to Sacrifice

So I got another email relating to the same poem I wrote about in my "confession" post. This time, no uncomfortable personal misidentification but something worse. The person who emailed wrote I am his "favorite new-formalist poet." Ah, what the.... I actually went back and checked. In my entire body of published work, I could only find 7 formal poems, that is 7 metrical poems. Two of them were blank verse. That rings in at around 6% of my work. So how the hell am I a new-formalist poet, unless this is some stupid code I don't know or understand?

And isn't the New Formalism dead anyway? Didn't it die around 1996? I never understood that "movement." Just because some verse is rhymed and metered doesn't instantly make it a poem. And this was why I wasn't particularly floored by the New Formalism. For the most part, its practitioners weren't even particularly good at metrics. They wrote clunky sing-song verse that bored me to tears and angered me because it lacked skill. Donald Justice and Anthony Hecht were claimed by the New Formalists, but Justice and Hecht were practically gods compared to many of these metrical practitioners. They were poets first and foremost.

Anyway, it made me bristle to get this email because this isn't the first time someone has called my work "formal" or "formalist" or "neoformal." "Oh, I just love your work, so formal." Whatever. Learn what formal means first. But I cannot help but think that maybe "formal" isn't being used the way I use it, that maybe I am missing something here. It could very well be code for "cold as ice" for all I know.

Toward a Supreme Fiction

Ah lawyers. I have a meeting today with some attorneys. Seeing or talking to an attorney always makes me nervous, which I realize is irrational. One should be nervous negotiating any kind of serious business transaction without advice from an attorney!


****************************


I'm very excited about writing poetry again. Getting the acceptance from Kenyon Review made me update my files and papers toward a third book. Updating that stuff made me realize that there really is a third ms. taking shape, slowly. I have written 15 -16 poems toward this new book, the first one written in 2001. This makes sense seeing I write about 4 poems per year. I actually think the poems fit together so far. But that is harder to see at this point. And unlike my early days of sending poems out, I think I am doing okay placing these poems. I have placed 14 of them already. I have had some good luck with publishing over the past few years. Anyway, it makes me happy to realize something is taking shape. With my second book, I had no idea until one day I printed up all the poems I had written that were not in my first book, and an hour later the second book was staring me in the face!


****************************


I think I want to adopt Ilya Kaminsky.


****************************

Yay!

Well, it seems acceptances are in the air here in the blogosphere. I have been reading about a lot of acceptances on various blogs. Well, I am joining in. Kenyon Review just took a poem of mine. I just heard from David Baker today. The acceptance is provisional until their editor-in-chief signs off. I cannot say anything about the two-step acceptance seeing NER does the exact same thing. Nothing is officially accepted until the Editor-in-Chief signs off. Anyway, I am pretty excited because the poem they took is one from my third ms. Yes, I am working on a third book. At my rate, it should be finished around 2011.

Beantown

My fifteen year college reunion is coming up this Spring. One part of me wants to go. The other part of me would rather be caught dead than go. I loved and hated college. A confusing time for me, it was. That said, I can't shake the Romy and Michelle movie from my head. I have an incredible desire to tell people I invented post-its.

Charlie!

Once again, an intellectually-moving post by Charles Jensen. It is funny because I have been thinking much about these very things lately.

Confession

Got a sweet, but a little scary, note from someone who read one of my poems recently in a magazine. The person writing to me assumed that the subject of my poem was, by default, a personal and autobiographical thing. I just finished writing this person back, and I had to explain that the poem, though based in true emotion and history, is not autobiographical in the way he believed.

This brings up something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I cannot speak for anyone other than myself, but have we come to a place where we now automatically assume poems are confessional? I don't believe that, but I also notice I do a lot of work to remind myself that poems aren't always confessional. I know, for me as a writer, even my truths are many times lies. My truth is often too boring or, conversely, too real. Things get changed, get shifted. But I have noticed that several of my more recently published poems create a real desire for people reading them to believe the speaker of the poem is ME and that the things in the poems are a history of sorts. I don't believe I am doing this purposely, that is trying to create poems that seem autobiographical. So, I am a little confused. But I usually am anyway, so what is new? In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter. But it did get me thinking.

A Real Cow Town

Last night, after picking up Jacob from Piano, we decided to just get out of Dodge. So we hopped in the car and drove East. Oddly enough, it was one of the best evenings.


****************************


The only thing better than shopping at Banana Republic on a Sunday afternoon is shopping at the Banana Republic Outlet on a Sunday afternoon. Thanks Vacaville!


****************************

In and Out

I need a bottle of fine bordeaux. I need some haute cuisine or some mac and cheese. I need a long vacation.

****************************


One of my patients came for follow up recently, an older guy I treated for prostate cancer years ago. He was making his usual jokes with me, but I wasn't my usual jokey self back.

Old Man: "Doc, what is wrong with you? You are not yourself today."
Me: "Not much. It's just been a stressful week."
OM: "You better tell that man of yours to be nice to you or he is going to have some angry patients at your doorstep."
Me: (uncomfortable laugh) "My 'man' is always good to me"

Realizing what he just said, I went on:

Me: "How did you know I had a man and not a woman?"
OM: (laughing) "You wear a wedding band and all, but you remind me of my son, and he is, I am pretty sure, gay."
Me: "You aren't sure if your son is gay?"
Old Man: "Well, I think he is, but it isn't like I have seen him having sex or anything."
Me: "Well, why don't you just ask him if he is?"
OM: "Oh, I couldn't. It would be kind of embarassing for both of us."
Me: "So you can out your doctor but you can't out your son?"
OM: "Well my son didn't cure me of cancer, and he doesn't know me quite the way you know me."
Me: "Good God!"
OM: "You know, you know me inside out and stuff. You examine me."
Me: "Well, yes, but he is your SON."
OM: "Yeah, but we aren't that close the way I am with my other kids."
Me: "Does he have a girlfriend or boyfriend?"
OM: "I'm not sure. But he has a roommate. Nice guy named _____________"
Me: "How old is your son?"
OM: "47"
Me: "How long have they been roommates?"
OM: "Not sure. Well, now that I think of it, almost 10 years!"
Me: "I think you have a son as well as a son-in-law."


****************************


Same Day as above:

Wacky old lady: "Doctor Young, are you married?"
Me: "Are you proposing?"
WOL: "No, I'm too old for you."
Me: "You are?"
WOL: "I have this niece, and I think you two would make a great couple."
Me: "Well, I'm getting married in six months."
WOL: "Damn. Well, such is San Francisco. The keepers are either married or gay."
Me: "Oh come on now."
WOL: "Its true. There are a lot of gays here."
Me: "Yeah, I guess they are everywhere."
WOL: (concerned sounding) "Everywhere..."

*****************************

Pause

Greed is one of the most interesting of the seven deadly sins. And I hope it is, in fact, deadly. Those who have money seem to always want more money. And usually, this is at the expense of others. I am no saint, but I refuse to join that fellowship of greed. It is unseemly. And it is wrong. Okay, I will now step down from the soapbox and return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Temperance

Nightmare on Judah Street

I had a messed up dream last night. It is hard to piece it back together, but the part that is most vivid still is the fact that in the dream no sound would come out of my mouth when I talked or screamed. I am pretty sure I have had this happen in dreams before. Anyway, the dream freaked me out and I woke up in a panic around 3:00 AM. I was totally wigged out for a while. I even had to get up and turn on my sound spa thingy to rain to help me fall back asleep. All I remember was trying to yell for help but nothing would come out. It was as if someone had bottled my voice.


*****************************


No freakin' Top Model last night. UPN sucks. They ran a ridiculous recap episode just to stretch out their damned season.


*****************************


I received a copy of Suzanne's chapbook in the mail yesterday. Thanks, Suzanne.


*****************************

Geoffrey Brock

There are just some people that you know are smart within minutes of meeting them. Geoff Brock is one of those people. I met him years ago in Gainesville, Florida. I was a medical student then, but I met Geoff via my Ex who, at the time, was in the MFA program there; they were classmates. Anyway, I knew within minutes of meeting Geoff, at the Salty Dog Saloon, that he was the real thing.

Geoff is an award-winning poet, translator, and scholar. He is a former winner of the Raiziss/de Palchi Award from the Academy of American Poets for his translations from the Italian. He went on to translate Cesare PaveseÂ’s Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950, for which he received the PEN Center USA Translation Award, the MLAÂ’s Lois Roth Award, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Translation Prize.

For his own poetry, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The American Antiquarian Society, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the Florida Arts Council, as well as the 2002-2004 Wallace Stegner Fellowship in poetry from Stanford University. In the Fall of 2006, Geoff will join the faculty of University of Arkansas' Creative Writing Program, where he will be teaching creative writing and translation.

More recently, his first collection of poems won the New Criterion Prize. Weighing Light is just now out from Ivan R. Dee. Check it out when you have a chance.

Space

I have been re-reading Bachelard's Poetics of Space. Amazing stuff. I am fascinated by his interpretation of the house and how it helps mold our imaginary constructs about space.


****************************


Busy looking for a new apartment, a bigger apartment. Why does everything related to moving suck so much? Even if the move is in the same city?


****************************


Laurel has a great question about blogs and essays.


****************************

Study in Blue and Silver

I have spent the last two days reading through every poem in this year's issues of NER. Why, you ask? Well, it is Pushcart time again. We nominate six pieces: 2 poems, 2 stories/novellas, and 2 essays. So, I have been busy coming up with the short list of 4 poems in my ranked order to submit to our Editor. I sent it off today.


***************************




I have no idea why, but over the past day, I have become obsessed with this painting by Whistler. And every time I see it, I hear Chet Baker in my head, a distinct moment early in his rendition of "My Funny Valentine." It is bizarre.


***************************


The Dead never stay dead.


***************************

More from the Town Crier

Our own Eduardo has good news to share. Stop by and check it out.

Faster

I swear November and December always seem to go by faster than the early part of the year. In fact, I always feel as if the months go by faster and faster as the year progresses, which of course makes no logical sense.


****************************


The MegaMillions Lottery was 165 million last night. I wonder if I won.



****************************


Re-reading work by Kenneth Koch at present. What a lovely mind. What a lovely mind at play in verse.