so says the straw hat

austin is pretty.

1. Galileo In 1564, Galileo was born. In 1589, he was granted a 3 year teaching contract at the University of Pisa where legend has him dropping objects of varying weight off the leaning towers edge to see them hit the ground. To prove Aristotle wrong. In the spring of '09 someone whispered to him of instruments invented in the Netherlands that showed distant objects as though they were near. Galileo's mind was always a fever. By August, he presented an eight-powered spyglass to Senate. By fall, he had created a twenty-powered spyglass and turned it towards the moon. Come December he had painted the moon with all her undiscovered scars. By 1610 Galileo's spyglass was thirty-powered and with it he discovered Jupiter's orbiting moons. He named them. Io. Ganymede. Callisto. and Europa. Curious Galileo. 2. Europa I am Jupiter's 2nd moon. The scientists say I was not always covered in ice. I am not always so cold. They have found layers here, beneath this frigid outer co

on an evening soon from now she will lay her head next to yours in the simple shape of questioning you are maybe busy for the moment but she has practiced diligently the steady hand of patience. She is still. A blanket of tall grass under an afternoon sun. The stalks, they hardly move with her breathing. When you are ready and done, there will be a stillness in this field she has lain. in that quiet she will turn to you. the sheets are a rainstorm. the blue of her eyes will ask you to tell her of south africa. and you will. in the quiet of that field you will open. somewhere, there is a tree just starting to break soil.

In White River Junction, Vermont there are a lot of bridges. The town is a one block sort of town. There is a beautiful old train station. I read that this is a place where trains were very important so many many years ago. In White River Junction there is an oddities shop that passes itself off as a museum. Inside, there is a cat named Zeke. I have never loved a cat before (aside from Rudy) and I will never again. Zeke, I am told, loves everybody. Zeke let me pet his stomach and carry him around like a baby. And I did. I carried that cat around like a baby and scratched under his chin. His paws looked dirty. He was skinny because he got locked in a neighboring basement for a week. He cried when I put him down. I loved that cat. The rain caught up with us finally. We are leaving today for Boston. Maybe the rain will not follow us to there.

Alright, so from Mid September until I go bat-shit crazy, I am on tour with the Night Kite Revival. I am writing this from an on-campus suite in Middletown CT. In about an hour we are leaving to drive to Cambridge MA. I have already been to so many places. In order: Portland, Or. Bellingham, WA. Spokane, WA. Boise, ID. Logan, UT. Gunnison, CO. Denver, CO. Wichita, KS. City Museum, St. Louis, MO. Danville, KY. Chicago, IL. Naperville, IL. Ann Arbor, MI. Traverse City, MI. Oberlin, OH. Geneseo, NY. Salt Space, NYC, NY. NYU, NYC, NY. Middletown, CT. So many more places to come. I ate a bagel sandwich and walked around the downtown of Middletown today with Cristin and Anis. We stopped in a basement bookstore in one of those indoor malls with the wooden floors and the low ceilings that every beach town has, even though Middletown is not a beach town. There were stores selling dance outfits and other stores selling tacky wall hangings. The bathroom had a pull-tab to the right of the toilet t

it is not July 5th like my calender claims it is not kissing weather it is not night with his bold impenetrable moon it is not as warm as I imagined it is not broken, this bicycle of mine it is not a dance it is not french it is not a typewriter tapping out letters or a piano learning song it is not paved or straight it is not home

Things you left in Austin: 1. The yellow towel hanging over the front porch railing. Just today dry until the summer storm rolled in. 2. Your toothbrush. As always, perched in a place so obvious that one never sees it. 3. A book given to you by a friend. 4. The hat on top of the typewriter that was once Nick's hat and was then your hat and was maybe never a hat you wanted anyway but then you grew to like it alright and now it is back here, in Austin, and not on your head. 5. Black swim shorts. 6. This empty bed.

pasadena death makes the whole house quiet. the pool in the backyard is nearly full with rain.

hi. can i sit next to you in spanish class? sex. hi. i like your songs. sex? sex. hi. can i go on your motorcycle? sex. hi. can i go on your motorcycle? how is your girlfriend? sex. hi. im drunk. sex. me too. sex. hi. sex. hi. your kids are in bed, i am sorry about your wife cheating on you. sex? hi. nice clarinet. (sex) thanks. hi. sex. hi. I let another boy kiss me. I hate you. (sex?) ihi. internet. sex. hi. here is the assignment for class. sex. hi. sex. hi. sex. hi. funny joke. sex. hi. might as well sex. yeah. sex.

dear sir, your picture looks like a postcard. and remember to always make written agreements instead of verbal ones, or else the money never does work in your favor. dear sir, your postcard looks just like a picture. your eyelashes curl better than a handlebar mustache. in Texas, I have learned the meanings of "raining sheets" and "when the lightening cracked." I love a good southern storm.

I exfoliated with the floor. we made up names for sex moves that haven't been invented and slapped high five handprints onto places that looked clean. I spread the clay on my face like the way people say warpaint looks like. I used a trowel once. I want to use it again. I love the way dirt feels on my body. I love laughing with friends while getting things done. I love the warm air of the south--being hot in a romper at midnight--smelling of citronella and clay.

In correction to my earlier statement: Texas, in fact, has three federally recognized tribes/reservations. Washington State has twenty-nine. About 3 and 3/4 Washington States could fit into Texas. That means that the ratio would be Washington 108.75 to Texas 3. Also, I want to have a word with those hospitals and their shitty shitty shitty ER procedures. If I am ever in serious abdominal pain again and think I am going to die, I am going to think twice about going to the ER. And then I will probably die. And I am going to go ahead and blame privatized health care for that. Is that ignorant? Perhaps. I just now thought "I should sign up for Twitter, or remember my password, so that I can follow the Census and its tweets." Dork Alert.

Well, what do I have to say on this, the Fourth of July? Lets see. 1. Oklahoma is on the television. I am at the house where I nanny. They are out of town and I am to feed their cat and fish. I've been hanging out here because I like to be alone. Sometimes to my own detriment. For example, I do not have plans for tonight. I may just stay in. Is that sad? I don't know. It is sort of by choice. Here is what is happening on TV "The cows will moo in the clover, the river will ripple out a whispered song and whisper it over and over--don'tchuwishedyewdgo onforever--in that shiny little surrey with the fringe on top." Oh Chelsea...how I miss watching Oklahoma with you, back when we were kids. 2. I cannot hear any fireworks. 3. I did not run into any cockroaches when I was cooking, but last night, there were THREE in the kitchen at 3 in the morning. This makes me want to die. Also, outside today there was one just chilling by the step--which is just this rickety piece of

Prince Rupert of the Rhine made teardrops from glass. Hot molten glass. Cold water. Rupert's drop. Shaped like a tear and full of tension. Strong and explosive all at once. You have taken a hammer. It does not hurt. I clip the tail end and shatter. Also, once in Eureka California a large bearded man whose name I have lost but whose soft slow voice is still a lullaby--once he gave me a tiny piece of lightening glass. When lightening hits the sand.

Dead bird under the bed Have you heard me of late? Sleep comes like a shipwreck these days and the wind oh the wind, how it pulls at my sails. I do not believe that this is a matter of song although your voice-- you sing like the whole gospel choir. Dead bird under the bed I have been counting your babies this spring necks crooked-bent on sidewalk lines tiny feather, just fistfuls of string, rest slick against pink balloon-stretched skin. their eyes are always closed. their eyelids a drowned blue. They are broken on sidewalks in every city I visit so far, twenty-seven have tried to fly. Dead bird under the bed I do not remember how your eyes went missing just how those holes look all empty and black, and how you started to sing one day sad and slow. Familiar southern songs singing the sun to rise. you sing tales of shipwrecks or necks bent wrong-angled and how I started to steal those songs to name them Dream. Dead bird under the bed I never did know you alive so it isn't so muc

When the branch fell out of the neighbors yard, it knocked over the power lines. I was not home, and the city came and got the power lines up and running. They left the branch--all huge and broken--in pieces in three different back yards. My clocks, they all flashed 12:00. I have fixed one of the clocks. When the branch fell out of the neighbors yard and came crashing down on the corner where three fences meet, bringing the power lines down with it, it did not scratch a single dog or child. We all consider ourselves lucky for this. The dogs have discovered a hole made from loose fence posts. When the branch fell out of the neighbors tree, crashed down on our power lines but not our dogs, there was a moment when nobody knew what time it was. When we remembered what candles were for. The dogs, they have already forgotten why we have fences. And if it weren't for those pesky cars...those pesky cars. The dogs have made it back home. When the branch crashed, and the powerlines blinked,

the trees have started shedding their branches again. I have heard that it is still cold where you are staying. the branches, they are just lying there across backyards and powerlines. dropped down on fences or in the middle of the hot asphalt streets. the branches, they make no apologies. The trees always pretend like they can't hear me complaining--they just turn their newly scarred side toward my face. In tree, this amounts to putting on airs. I don't mind. They have been here much longer than me. Pardon me, tree and branch, I will just turn around. Please, continue on as you please. I have heard it is not even t-shirt weather yet in the far northwest corner of here. I can hardly remember what it means to be cold. the trees must be getting older, shedding branches like hair.

So. I've got him cornered into the bathroom. That is where I found him, the bathroom. I was reaching for my toothbrush when the corner of my eye caught his mad scurry towards the door. Only he got stuck behind it and had no smooth escape. I tried to kill him. He got out the door. I found him hiding behind the leg of a dresser. He almost seemed invisible there with all the shadows and the wood. I took a mop handle and tried to poke him in a violent end. He got away and scurried back into the bathroom. So I just blindly flopped the mop handle on him. It did not hit with enough force or accuracy. He scurried to the corner near the tub. I tried to throw a shoe at him. I do not want to get my face close in case he decides he wants to fly. I do not want to step on him because i have no closed-toe shoes except my one blue pair, and they have very thin soles. I do not think I would like to feel the crunching. Needless to say, my shoe throwing attempt was pathetic. He scurried behind the to

not riding my bike in the morning makes me more tired all day long. babies crying all the time makes me very tired. something about a nervous system and my reflexes. arguments make me tired. this body makes me tired. if i was any more tired, my head would fall off, i am certain of this. writing, writing also makes me tired.

Two fat boxes met in a lane bowed most politely bowed once again how do you do? how do you do? how do you do again? Two fat boxes met in a lane They did. Shook hands. Hello. Hello. Hello again. Bumped corners till they lost some shape. Pardon me, oh my, pardon me! Two fat boxes met in a lane one full of antique picture frames clank clatter crash bonk one full of nothing but air which does not rattle or bang. bowed most politely, bowed once again. It does not say, but I would suppose the two fat boxes just bumped, bowed, and went on along.

If I put this quarter in my mouth I will know the weight of George Washington's decapitated head plus, depending on the quarter, perhaps the weight of one of these 50 states that are United. I already know the weight. It is 5.6 grams. Knowing this does not tell me anything. I do not speak Measurement. I will put this quarter in my mouth. It will feel heavy on my tongue. It will taste of metal, but not like a spoon tastes like metal. It will taste like metal and travel and metal and sort of like blood. I will blame the decapitation of the head. This will be a funny joke that I do not tell anybody about. I will smile a little at my own thoughts. I cannot tell anyone. There is this quarter on my tongue and so I cannot say the things I want to say. 5.6 grams is light in my pocket. It is heavier on my tongue. If there is not a state, there will be an Eagle. I think if I suddenly breathe in, this quarter might flip nicely into my pharynx. The plural of this is pharynges. I only have one

Anis is here. We are busy playing cards and eating food. Also, we walk places. Also, we get our palms read.

Today I typed and typed and typed on my new Olympiette typewriter (thank you brother). All of that typing and I keep on forgetting to tell people about the storm. Mostly, I turned off all the lights and watched it happen all in the dark. And the sky was purple and green with flashes of lightening. Incredible. Someone (named Nic) has left an air compressor on at the construction site, which also happens to be right outside my trailer. It keeps on deciding randomly it needs to compress air. vvvvrrrrrrrrvvvrrrrrrvvvvrrrrrspifft! I hate it. I also keep on forgetting to write Aly an email about why I am not religious anymore. I also forgot to try to write a poem about electricity for that press in the ham. another day done.

I think that perhaps there are many different types of people, but three that I am concerned with at the moment: 1. People who get shit done. Kerry is a person who gets shit done. Robbie Q is another good example. They are constantly juggling 28 different projects while pursuing/achieving important accomplishments in their lives and they still manage to join the local kickball team or watermelon eating competition. You know what I say to you guys? Yeah? I say that I cleaned my bathroom tonight, AND did my laundry. So, you know, I am capable too. 2. People who wish to get shit done, but cannot get around to doing so. This. Is. Me. I get overwhelmed if it takes me longer to get home than usual. I work 40 hours a week, so then nothing else I want to accomplish ever gets done. I make lists that I have to then throw away. Example: I bought a scooter in January. I still have not transferred the title. I will now get a $110 fee for being lazy. AND even though I know I need to get it done, I s

I have been seeing a lot of ghosts lately. Shadows slinking into places that are not hallways. Or people sitting in rooms when I first enter them. There must be an explanation: 1. I am nearing my own death, but I will die unexpectedly, so how could I expect it? 2. I have chemical slips occurring in my brain. There are recipes for how brains function, and sometimes those recipes go awry. Is it possible for there to be a disease of ghost seeing? 3. There is a natural gas leak. It is covering the entire town of Austin. I am the only one that is affected by it. 4. There are ghosts. They have something they wish to tell me. 5. Crazy. (see 2).

At the Stop Sign between Two Steep Uphills Bitch, you look like some girl my ex-booty-call fucked before me. I'm on my bicycle. I suggest you get out of my way. Near the Cemetery Where the Giant Flag Flies This air is scoopable. I opened all my pores to be bowls. On the ride home, the air, so soft and warm, it sank into these bowls. Later, when you are just about to drift to sleep I will carry them into your room. I have filled these bowls full of the southern dusk air for you. It will taste like favorite soup.

The earth was a blanket. No, the earth was just a segment; just a pile of dirt, and rocks that were waiting to be dirt, and some trash sometimes and bugs. But it could have looked like a blanket in this darkness. The way the ocean can look like a blanket if you are out far enough from the shores so that it will smooth like glass or like, well, a blanket. The earth was not a blanket. I have caught all the fireflies that I have ever seen. I called the ones from Costa Rica to come out of my memory and burn lightbulb real so I could put them in a jar. Then when the earth was busy being a not-blanket I took shearing scissors for a sheep I wish to own later in life, one that I will call Ralph or Evelynn, and I took to the blanket like train whistles piercing the shoreline. Violently. This blanket earth has holes. I have ripped scars in my own backyard. I took the whole jar of all my memory's fireflies. The ones from Maryland came willingly, remembering how I lay flat on my back reading t

1. I did not want to sleep in the trailer tonight, mostly because these manuscripts I have to read are sitting heavily on my heart and going to the trailer seemed such a far-away place. But to add to that, I remembered that in the trailer my alarm is set to NPR and the for the last (holy shit) MONTH there has been constant escalations in bad news about the oil spill. Waking up in the morning with such a blatant reminder that we, as humans, self-dubbed as the "intelligent" creatures of this earth, seem to be only extremely efficient at destroying it. What a heavy heavy heart I carry for this earth of ours. 2. Earlier today I saw a mattress flopped on the asphalt outside a cemetery gate. this prompted ant trails of thoughts. What if it belonged to someone whose bloodstains were what made it so dirty and dingy? What if that person was now buried in the cemetery, and a lover had decided it was high time said person got their mattress back? What if instead of spending money on cof

I haven't been posting because my computer (poor Gregory) is very sick. He won't even open his eyes. The word I could not remember last time, it was "Twenty-Six." Today, a small and rather annoying little bullet of a dog ran directly under my tires as I was trying to ride to work at 8 in the AM. I thought, if I hit this tiny dog, I do not think I will even feel bad. I also yelled "Fuck" really loud at it, hoping to compete with all of its tiny yapping and jumping. Really, I bet we would have both gotten hurt pretty badly, for what it is worth.

Today I heard this word and thought about how it was strange that when I was young it meant one thing, and now that I am old, it means something completely different. I can't remember what the word was.

My mama is here. Her name is Sierra. Like the mountains. Or the truck. Or the jeans. Or my middle name. It is a lovely name. She is just like me. I was born on her birthday. She was turning 26--which is how old I am now--and instead of being in Austin, she was being in labor. Apparently, I cried a lot. My middle name is Sierra. Her middle name is not Alexis, it is Dee. Her last name once was Winn, then it was Davis, now it is Shield. Davis is the only last name that is not a verb. She is not just like me, I am just like her.

tiny tiny hands the air in texas is this thick blanket the lightening is more silent the thunder is more loud i have tiny hand gloves. I put them on my regular hands to make my hands small like erasers. the rain on the canopy sounds like a giant peeing.

City Museum (St. Louis, Missouri) Holy Shit, this is Wonka Land. I am one kaleidescope. You are another. When we crash, there is this eruption of mirrors, fragments of colors, and we are both rendered useless. I am riding a ferris wheel on a rooftop. I am climbing in the mouth of a beluga whale. I am lost in a rabbit hole. The rope swing that Derrick pushes me on is not safe. I do not care one bit. Nope. This is not what I want to write about. But I think a list of places I have been since I moved to Texas would be cool. I hate how prevalent Wikipedia is. Did you know that Texas has flown six different flags? Not in historical order they are: Spanish French Mexican Republic of Texas Confederate US Woah.

Nobody badgered me about not posting yesterday. that means that nobody is paying attention to these. this could be good or bad. Yesterday would have read something like this. Baby. Stop this crying. My head, it is a hurting. Wind. Stop this blowing. My trailer, it is a'swayin. Anger. Stop this building. My heart, it wants to learn to kick-box. My heart, it is using its coronaries for arms. They swing blindly just like two helicopter blades in motion. My heart, it is using those vena cava's like legs. My heart, it is doing a high kick. Today...hmmm. Today, I am not sure what today would read like. When my puppy and I step outside it is July and I am in the year when I was 25. And I am in a State for the first time where Home is not where I left it when I was a child. Here, the night puts itself down on me like a thick blanket. My puppy loves to run in the field. It is dark, this thick blanket, it hides my puppy so well. Also: I am so afraid of similarities. Also: Dear Brain, Sto

i got lost in this grocery store. mom was right here just one second ago, i swear. or she was right there. or she was somewhere. uhm. now there are just all these jars of pickles. which is pretty ok because i like pickles. well i like some pickles. not those sweet ones, or the ones that are cut like potato chips. mostly i do not like them cut. oh, my grandma makes pickles! my grandma is my mom's mom. and right now i cannot find my mom and so i am going to just stand right here and count all the jars on all these shelves. in school they told me to stay in one spot if you are lost. and also to not talk to strangers. and also to stop drop and roll. and to have a fire safety plan. i have a fire safety plan. me and my sister are going to drop our pillows out the window first and then i'll lower her down far because she is the younger one and then i'll hang onto the sill and drop down after her. but there isn't a fire right now. no pillows, just pickles, so i am going to coun

i am growing up. this is how i know: today i decided to paint the room where i store my piano. i bought the paint, brought it home, and painted half of the room before i realized that i had managed to paint the room a toothpaste mint. i sort of like it. i must be old.

The jackhammer is close enough that when it first breaks ground I can feel my trailer shake with the earth. This poor earth. This poor poor earth. It burps once, sends its fumes up tubes we have stuck straight down this delicate throat, and we blame the President. And underneath this concrete I believe there once used to be soil. I believe this soil once took seed. I understand that once, flowers may have grown there. My trailer shakes a jackhammer shimmy. It is 7:30 on a Saturday morning, and I know that when the asphalt cracks the flowers on the hillside bow down their petals to see the graves of their loved ones so violently shaken. They raise up their petals, sending seed back to the long strangled soil. There is a machine that follows the jackhammer, scooping aside chunks of asphalt in great elephantine scoops. I cannot see it, but the scrape of its beak against the ground sounds just like the chain-link loops against metal from when I was a child on the playground swing. ccccrrrr

07 May 2010. 96 degrees today. mosquitoes ate my legs. cactus for dinner. there is never silence here. birds and crickets, cicadas and toads. they all make such beautiful noise. I hear them in the green leaves. I hear them in this heat, slow and sticky, this heat. christmas lights look pretty year round. the trees send vines down from their branches, wear them both like jewels.

I am going to write a ballad. As soon as I can get through these piles of books on my bookshelf and find the stupid textbook that tells me all the rules of ballad writing. I do not trust the internet. Ehow just doesn't seem like a reliable source to me. So. I am going to write a ballad about the crazy life of the lady I work for and all her exhusbands and luckily, she was born and raised in the south so she has a perfect ballad name and I will call it The Ballad of Stacey Lyn. But I do not know the rules of a ballad. So. Today on the bike ride home from work it was late. I stayed late and ate free pizza. And listened to Stacey's crazy life story. On the bike ride home there were a lot of bugs out and I thought about the consequences of swallowing a firefly. I have decided that they are the cause of spontaneous combustion. I have solved the mystery. Stacey married young once, and was not sure she ever loved him. He loved her and loved someone else who had clamidia. She married

when the old man lit fire to his hairpiece we all just stood round in awe. 'specially cos he was so good at tap-dancing those flames right out. 'specially cos when he put it back on, it looked just fine with those tips singed charcoal in the sun. my bet is he used to go out friday nights, go out dancing to the big bands. my bet is he could really cut-a-rug. I heard he met a purdy girl too. Says it didn't even matter she was married. 'specially when they did the Charleston.

i am never going to be big. never big enough. this shadow is always bigger. also, this is funny: I was talking on the telephone with my sister and explaining a situation that could not be remedied because the shit had already hit the fan. The mess had exploded. And I thought this was a good way to explain my inability to pack it all away, clean it all up. I will be finding remnants of this shit/fan explosion in the most unexpected of places for the longest time. That is just how it is. And still, I am not bigger.

Fireflies, lightening bugs, whatever it is you want to call them. They are here! They are glowing their little butt glows like leftover camera flashes or neon or something so much more magical because it is not technology. Like when the phosphorus of the ocean glows on the sea turtles back, dragging your fingers across it. Like maybe these fireflies were born of the ocean, fucked love with a sea turtle, kept the magic inside. I wonder how long they live for. I think it is forever. They are singing out summer summer summer! Also, the mosquitoes are back. Fucking mosquitoes.

There is salt and dust on my skin. come lick it off. come lick all the parts of my body till I aint salty no more. I spilled a little shaved ice down the front of my shirt yesterday. I got sticky there, all down my sternum to my belly button. come lick it off. Stop being so far away. I got all this salty and sticky for you. The fan is on. The lightbulb, it has burnt out. There is a soft and warm breeze.

on accident I had a superfunday. first, I went to get some coffee and go to the bank. Anlo and I split a cinnamon roll and we got down to the last bite and Zeno's paradoxed it--cutting it in half so many times it became ridiculous, just a crumb smaller than other crumbs left on the plate--every time insisting the other person take the last bite. then, we went to a poolside cookout. I played with my friends kid and ate a steak taco. yum. after that, Anlo had to run his projector downtown for a friend, but we forgot the power chord. we got stuck in traffic. There was traffic for the Pecan Street Festival and for the Immigration Rally. We should have gone to the Rally. and decided it would be faster to ride bikes back. Which meant we had an excuse to go to the Pecan Street Festival. So we did. At the festival there was this petting zoo, which was just a small pen with all these animals in it. There were big goats, and little goats, and miniature goats and one HUGE goat. There were big

I want to be a hand of some sort on a cattle farm. I want a small house. A converted garage with hardly anything in it. I want hardly anything in it. I feel small. I want to touch my hand to the bull, pat the dust off his coarse hair. I want to put my face up near his face and feel it breathe. Something big. The back part of the bull, the part I imagine patting, it becomes the Round steaks.

On my bicycle. Always I am on my bicycle. Sometimes I sing songs. Sometimes I find what I am singing is a song from a toddler cartoon and then I try and change my song but then it gets only more stuck. I am on my bicycle on the corner of 30th and West Avenue. This is where I see your ghost. You own a scooter now. It is silver. You still wear a full-face helmet, good for safety. You know, pretty faces and what not. Your pants are still just a little on the short side, just a little too cool. And even though it is 89 degrees outside, you are wearing a full jacket. Kevlar. With the tiny holes for breathing onto your white t-shirt. You always used to wear black t-shirts. And leather. Not Kevlar. And you had a motorcycle. Not a scooter. On the corner of 30th and West Avenue and I feel my heart do one perfect backflip while riding a bicycle. This is not an easy feat. Your license reads Illinois. You never told me that you left Bellingham. You never told me you bought a scooter, a kevlar jack

creepy men that have recently hit on me: 1. the toy-joy boy 2. the bus driver 3. the homeless man by the movie theatre 4. fellow bus rider when the bus had broken down, also possibly homeless (this does not reflect well on me) creepy ways said creepy men hit on me(respectively) 1. "do you go to barton springs often? you have this very distinct earthy smell" 2. hands me a bus pass I did not pay for. It reads: Lunch? no (yes). when? where? 3. "god told me to come and tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen" (me: who? god? neverheardofhim) 4. him: May I? I'll walk with you. me: I am going to ride my bike. reasons why today made me mad: 1. baby projectile vomiting 2. a two year old. just being two. 3. being a nanny for a family with a retired dad. 4. how i was 20 minutes early and the bus was 10 minutes late 5. The automated lady who is supposed to help me: "I'm sorry, I did not understand what you said. I'm sorry, I did not und

I had this idea. Ok, listen. I had this idea because I do not feel like writing in a journal and I do not feel like writing in a word document because both of those things elicit no response, they have no purpose. And I do not feel like writing to a friend or a boyfriend where then I expect a response or have the possibility of disappointment, but I do feel like writing. So. I think I will try to put something on here every day. Here is the bad part--it has no theme, no drive, no purpose, no organization. This is not a tool for your (reader, if there is one) enjoyment, this has now become a tool for my own selfish gain. Like so many other things in my life. So, it may be no fun to read. But hopefully it will help me get back into the groove of writing and then it WILL be fun! OR I will realize that I should not be writing at all. I just want a way to get through this mud in my head and I think this might be the medium I need for now. I am sort of hoping that not very many people read

I am feeling restless and angry. This is not a poem. I am feeling not restless or angry. I am feeling a dragonfly sitting right on my left ventricle and every time blood pulses through those flaps in my heart, then his wings quiver. He is full. His wings are big and bigger. Yesterday I cut fresh mint from the garden, steeped it in warm water while the train-songs crept in from the open back door. There was a tone in them so they sounded like my phone ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing. You were not calling. Portland is so many boxcars away. Tonight I read an article about sea turtles in the Smithsonian. They are turtles washing up in Maine, and they have hypothermia and retired people wander the beach, scoop them up, and rehabilitate them in order to reintroduce them into the wild. The turtles spend weeks or even months sometimes in little turtle fridges, slowly warming their internal temperature. They are given daily doses of antibiotics and supplements to keep th