Confession Wednesday (??)

I confess in the summer I lose track of which day it is. I confess Tuesday came and went without me confessing. I confess I've been busier than usual and this business of being busy makes time move faster and makes my "to-do" list become a "not done" list.

Since I'm late, let's begin...


Something has been a little wacky in my life lately and I'm not sure what it is.

I don't feel centered or grounded. Something's up. It could be be because we've been so busy lately, but it feels different than that. I haven't been to yoga in quite a while and that was really a place where I sort of centered myself. Maybe it's a lack of connection to something greater, but I know something is off with me, but I just can't put my finger on it.

I realize that yoga needs to be a part of my life.

My friend hosted a mom/daughter slumber party and I was up until 1 a.m. playing RockStar. I got 100% in my vocals singing Survivor's Eye of the Tiger & Duran Duran's Hungry Like a Wolf. I'm not a good singer, but I know all the words.

Sometimes I think there's a large portion of my brain is being wasted because it is filled up completely with song lyrics.

I didn't have coffee until 10:45 am yesterday and I was amazed I didn't have a headache.

I went to go to our of drive-thru espresso stands only to find out they have converted it from normal espresso stand to "bikini barista" espresso stand. There was no way in Kansas I was taking my 8 year old daughter through a bikini barista stand, though honestly, she would have just thought they were in their bathing suits because it was hot outside.

I ended up getting my coffee from the Covey Coffee drive thru. It was owned by a smiling middle-aged woman in a yellow sweater and run by two fully-clothed young ladies. Plus there was an image of a bird on their coffee cup.

I always get a large black drip coffee. No cream. No sugar. In my small town, there's a stand where they are $1. Here I paid $2.19

Sometimes I look at my home and wonder how I acquired all this cr*p. I would like to simplify my life again. I read The Circle of Simplicity by Cecile Andrews every fall, but I need to make sure I take time to keep its lessons in my mind throughout the year.

Eventually, I would like to downsize. I'd like to rent a small cabin on the water or rent an apartment. Of course, this probably will not be until my daughter is out of school, but I realize I am not a big house, big yard gal. I am not my khakis.


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How I'm feeling today...

How I'm feeling today...

Saturday evening Thoughts

Here's a photo of the Lake Quinault Boathouse (pet-friendly/poet-friendly) where we stayed this week for our yearly trip. It's rumored to be haunted by a ghost named Beverly, as is the dining room.

I didn't have any ghost experiences, but did manage to freak out an eight and nine year old with my antics...

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Kay Ryan in Newsweek (a pretty good article about our poet laureate)

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I have been writing as much as I usually do.

A few reasons--

It's summer.
I've been reading a lot.
We're working on the next issue of Crab Creek Review.
I've been doing social things with friends.
I've been away.

I know that I will write and I have one poet friend who I email a lot and I do respond to his emails with poems in return. Sometimes those become keepers, many times they do not.

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Joannie had a new way to track submissions and I'm off to watch that video.

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Farrah Fawcett poem...

While I was away at a lodge, a couple of stars left us.

I have never been to believe someone is better or more important just because they are known or famous, but it would ignorant of me not to see their effect on our culture and pop-culture. I know they each made an impression in my life (I was a teenager during the Thriller years and grew up in the 70's watching Charlie's Angels, buying Angel trading card packs at the store, and playing Charlie's Angels with my friends-- though I of course, always played Kelly, my friend Lisa (the lightest blonde) played Jill and no one ever wanted to be Sabrina... but Jenny had her hairstyle, so it defaulted to her.)

But back to the recent news...

I found this poem I wrote many years ago, I can't remember if it was published anywhere (if so, I'll find that out and list the journal), but I don't think it was.

So here it is for a couple days before it vanishes. This was my suburban neighborhood and my memories of growing up...


Poster
circa 1977


Growing up, every garage had her,
except ours. My father was older,
did not put up posters.
But the others, they kept her pinned
to their back wall, smiling.
She looked cold in her swimsuit
and I wondered how everyone’s dad
knew to choose the same poster,
that same look, that same bouncy hair
my girlfriends and I tried to recreate in the bathroom,
curling iron hot, burning our necks,
our fingers, our small ten-year-old hands
trying to hold the attention of boys.



- Kelli Russell Agodon


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Summer Reading Updates...

Summer Reading (update):

What I've read:

Bad Mother (recommend) Every chapter great except the penultimate chapter which is slightly preachy (?) or maybe just a big ol' happy kiss to Berkeley and the world-- it reminded me of how I might write bunch of "my husband is driving me crazy" poems and then stick in a "I love my husband poem" so no one thinks we're breaking up. This chapter does a similar thing, but in a "mom/woman in the community" way.

Year by the Sea by Joan Anderson (Recommended, but only get this if you like books where nothing happens- see Under the Tuscan Sun)

Jennifer Culkin's new memoir/essays: A Final Arc of Sky: A Memoir of Critical Care (highly recommend, she's a friend of mind and is a fantastic writer!)

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt (Just finished! Recommend - the only part I didn't enjoy was the details on if there was cheating in sumo wrestling, but I understood its relevence to the rest of the book)

Outliers, The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell: (kind of recommend, but would recommend BLINK above this)

***Here's the deal with this book, I will summarize and save you the time from hearing story after story that prove the same thing. The reason people are successful has to do with their hard work (or time they've devoted to a particular thing-- 10,000 hours seems to be his magic number) and circumstances of their life (i.e. Bill Gates was the perfect age when the computer revolution began and he had his 10,000 from his work at his HS private school (Lakeside) computer and from his time using the UW computers). Really, that is the same point he hammers home with each story.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting read and I learned something, but about midway through the book, I stopped learning and instead became just the listener saying, "I get it. I get it."

What I'm Currently Reading

Engulf Your Family in Flames: David Sedaris (so far interesting, but not crazyfunny like his other books and I keep forgetting to go back to it.)

Madness: A Bi-Polar Life by Marya Hornbacher - I zipped through pages 1-100, but 100-165 were rather tedious with the same "I'm drinking all the time, taking/or not taking meds, and manic." One problem, to which the author admits, is that she doesn't remember much during these manic times, so as a reader, it felt as if I was hearing the same vague story again and again like in Outliers, I wasn't learning anything new.

Her writing is strong and her life is interesting, but the middle does not equal what the first 100 pages gave me. I'm in the last section and hoping it reads more like the beginning. I will let you know. As I said, I could not put this book down when I first began it.

Stranger Than Fiction True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk: So far, I love it. But I'm a Chuck fan. We'll see if he's able to pull me through to the end. As you see, I've had a few issues with many of these books in the middle. Oh, how to sustain your work, it's something we all work on.

What's on my list to read:

Womanomics (recommended by January)

Ka-Ching by Denise Duhamel The Seeker's Guide (I think it's called that)

Grayson: Just got it from the library ( in LARGE PRINT so it seems) and I forget who wrote it. Looks like an easy read, hope to have this finished by the end of the weekend.

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I'm back from Lake Quinault Lodge, our yearly family trip. It was wonderful and poured one day (well, we were in the rainforest). It seemed we missed a windstorm and power outage at home. We came home to find our patio table umbrella on its side and our huge gas grill knocked over on our deck.

I'll post a couple photos from the trip. When I booked it, I asked for a "pet-friendly" room and the woman wrote in "poet-friendly," which was hilariously perfect. The whole lodge is poet friendly though. I sat on the big leather couch in the lodge by the fire and read Madness, while it poured outside. It reminded me how much I love fall (shhhh, don't tell anyone I said that, as summer just began...)

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Michael Thomas (author) wins Impac Dublin Prize

Gives an Author Some Time to Exhale from the New York Times...

Author wins $138,000 ($100 Euros) from winning the International Impac Dublin Literary Award - Who knew there was such an award?

From the article...

"Even before the unexpected announcement came this month, Michael Thomas had enjoyed a run of good luck with “Man Gone Down,” his first novel...

“It lowers the stress of chasing money around and provides some time,” he said. “I can pay off whatever credit card debt I have and get off this high wire for a couple of years, and then start over again. As a friend told me, there is no down side to this: ‘You can’t find one, even you.’ ”

“Every opportunity I’ve had, I’ve either spurned or shunned or squandered through whatever kind of chip I’ve had, or rage or suspicion,” he added. “Whatever I feel, this is a new opportunity to be a part of things, and my way of being a part of things is writing. That’s my covenant.”

Haiku of the Day

2 of my Favorite Haiku by Issa

translated by Robert Hass


Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.



Even with insects—
some can sing,
some can’t.


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Confession Tuesday

Dear Reader, I'm so behind on things, let's just begin!


I confess I've been quite the procrastinator since summer began. Some of it's from a busy schedule, some of it's just laziness.

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I confess I tuned into Jon & Kate plus 8 last night to see if they were getting a divorce. (They are, if it matters.)

I heard the author of the book Bad Mother (Ayelet Waldman) speak about how our culture is always looking for the next bad mother to point out to the masses. This time it's Kate from the J&K+8 show.

What's interesting is that if you're following the drama that has unfolded, it's been the husband, Jon, whose been caught with photos of being out with a 23 year old at 2 am leaving a bar, plus photos with other women, but Kate is getting blasted for worrying "too much about her career and not enough about the kids." Um, looking at those kids have last night, they seem kind of the opposite of neglected.

So, I'm not a fan of Kate or having 8 kids, but why does our culture always have to focus on "the bad mother?" According to Waldman, it's because we're all so insecure ourselves it's nice to have someone in the public eye to point out as the villian, that way if there's always someone worse than us, our jobs as parents can't be *that bad.*

Anyway, I confess I watched, but I confess I won't be watching again.

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I confess I'm still in search of a new poet to love. Some of the recommendations I've received have come close, but I'm still waiting for cupid to pierce my heart.

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I confess writing poetry (and submitting) is much harder in the summer.

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I confess I'm working on a series of essays, or dare I say it "memoir" though I prefer "creative non-fiction" - on this year of relearning how to play the violin at age 40. I am telling you this so I will be accountable for it. Don't let me off the hook.

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I confess I started the book Madness and can't put it down.


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I confess it's hard for me to get close to people who are uncomfortable with their imperfections, who are afraid to be less than perfect, because my favorite people aren't afraid to share what's wrong in their life. I like it when people can be honest about the good and the bad and not worry about appearances.

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I confess while I loved the first part of the book Outliers, the second part about the airplane crashes and why they happened has been a little tedious. Also, the author is kicking the dead horse on the "part of success is being born at the right time in the right place" theory. Yes, I get that, now tell me something I don't know.

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It drives me crazy when I see pets left in cars on warm/hot days. Seriously, the owners haven't heard of the dangers about that? Sheesh.

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Forgive me for glaring at the cashier who is a little too friendly to other women's husbands.

Forgive me for wasting the roasted chicken.

Forgive me for putting cinnamon rolls on my priority list and exercise on my TBA list.

Forgive me for thinking that flip-flops are appropriate for all dress occasions.

Forgive me eating all the Raisinettes at the movies. They were so good, so sweet, so mine.

I confess I'm all confessed out.

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Paul Muldoon on the Colbert Report

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I just fall more and more in *heart* with Stephen Colbert.


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