Today is my little sister's birthday.

I was only 16 months old when she was born, so I don’t remember it. When she was 3 months old, she contracted meningitis and nearly died. She was in the hospital for a long time, and I’m told I cried and cried while she was gone, and my parents cried and cried and so did our older sister, Emily, who was old enough to know that everyone was crying but didn’t understand why. And about a year ago at a family dinner, her illness came up in conversation, and how hard it was on all of us, and how much we love her and how totally different life would be without her, and all of us, 28 years after the fact, cried there at the dinner table together. I am so thankful she was born, and so thankful that she survived.

She grew into a hilarious, energetic, totally hyper-active little kid who snort-laughed at the dinner table, set our pet bird free, made up nonsense words and shouted them an inappropriate times and giggled, and squirmed through every minute of church. She’s random and unpredictable. She loves Juice Newton and Beethoven. She’s got some weird thing for celebrity-sponsored cheap perfume and new tennis shoes—she absolutely loves them. She’s afraid of the dark. She’s an intuitive, amazing cook (I asked her to write down her recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and she couldn’t), and she plays the piano by ear. She loves and cares for the elderly for her job. I can't remember the last time she said something hurtful to anyone.

She struggles, though. Sometimes she struggles a lot. I worry about her. I am blessed to have her as a sister. She’s a unique bird, and brings warmth and joy to the world. I tell her that often.

Lists.

Things I like. I just do.:

Cool pens and ink
Spiral notebooks
Fuzzy socks
Rugby
Cosmology and Quantum Physics
Bacon
St. Mary’s Basilica
Making lists
Shells on the beach in Perth

Things I wish I liked but I just don’t:

Oatmeal
Knitting
Gardening in the yard
Sudoku
Surfing
Mornings

Things I intend to do:

Read a science article daily
Keep an audio book in my car all the time
Make more regular trips to the library
Write 2 new poems a day, good or bad
Send something out each month, at a minimum
Keep my exercise dates with Scott
Call my Gram once a week
Take a road trip south, Louisiana, the Smokies, the Florida Everglades, while they still exist
Visit Hanover
Paint more
Save for a new couch
Move into an apartment with a whole kitchen
Hand in my first draft of thesis this fall
Write more letters, including a love letter
Really learn to play the piano

Well, Brett Favre does have a nice booty.

Have I mentioned that I'm enjoying my liberation from homework, and have taken on intellectual endeavors like watching TV in my spare time? I jotted down a couple direct quotes from the announcers of the Packers/Vikings game for you. If you add "in bed" after them, you know, like you do with fortune cookies, they're even funnier.

"...Slipped and threw it right into the offensive lineman..."
"...He came right into the arms of Williamson..."
"...Williamson had six balls. He’s correcting himself now."
"took a hard hit to get the thing out to Chester Taylor--and it goes long and deep..."
"...Asked him about his relationship with Greg and he said, 'We’re cool.'"
"Oh, I like what my quarter back did right there, and he gives it to the 272 pound tight end."
"...The ball's wet and slippery.... We’re going to see a pair at first down."

In bed. In bed. In bed. In bed.
[Insert snort laugh.]

Why didn't someone tell me this is what I'm missing while I'm in grad school. Jeeze.

I am the star.

Of all the years I’ve had so far, this is the year I've learned the most and am happiest to move forward from. I’m thankful for it. Both the dark and light times of the past year make me I’m happier to move toward the future than I’ve ever been. Thanks, Chloe.

You are The Star Hope, expectation, Bright promises. The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future.

Faith, yes. Dreams realised, yes. Powerful change, yes. Healing, yes. Clarity, spiritual insight, unexpected help. Yes, yes, yes.

Who are you?

Bring it.

So, I’ve been working my ass off and the semester’s almost over. The first two years of grad school I worked part-time and I had my mornings to linger over a croissant and coffee and to write when I wanted to and to read a ton. I was also really, really poor and struggling. Now I work all day, come home and do homework until 11 PM. I get down about it sometimes, wishing I had more artist-time, and more free time or at least didn’t work for a corporation. The whole working-all-day-and-all-evening thing, I’m really really tired of it. But there’s a reason I do it: I am well taken care of. My job is pleasant enough and fairly flexible as far as jobs go. I have awesome insurance. I can pay my bills and save some. I have paid time off. I enjoy the people here, and feel good about what my company contributes to the world. So maybe I can’t sleep in and linger over coffee. But I can take advantage of the other stuff.

To those of you who know me, this will come as no surprise: I spent my bonus on an airline ticket. I haven’t been out of the country in over a year and my feet are starting to itch. There is something about being out of my culture and comfort zone that just cracks open the world for me. I lived for a while near the ocean—in Oregon and in the tropics for a little while. I love Minnesota, many things about it, but being landlocked and wearing layers of heavy clothes is really weird for me. I need sand and water. I need to wear a sarong and tank top all day and be barefoot and not covered in something wooly. And for a little while, before I start my thesis, I need my biggest decision in the morning to be “Should I lie in the hammock first? Or should I go for a swim first?”

So I’m going to the Yucatan Peninsula with my sweetheart. We’re likely staying in a small fishing village for a few days, then a hotel in the jungle by Mayan ruins, then we’re going to a small island where you can walk or bike anywhere. We’re staying in a huge condo that one of my graphic designers at work is renting to us for, like, nothing.

I’m going to dig my feet in the sand. I’m going to float on my back in the ocean. I’m going to sleep. I’m going to read whatever I want. I’m going to wander markets for beautiful jewelry. I’m going to see the ruins of an ancient village and old observatories made by one of the most advanced civilizations of the known world. I’m going to get to see what my gorgeous boyfriend is like when he isn’t half crazed by PhD work. I’m going to see what I’m like when I’m not half crazed by MFA work. Oh, it is going to be so very good.

NASA Plans Permanent Moon Base

“[NASA’s] deputy administrator, Shana Dale, said the United States would develop rockets and spacecraft to get people to the Moon and establish a rudimentary base. There, other countries and commercial enterprises could expand the outpost to develop scientific and other interests, Ms. Dale said. ‘The door is open for international and commercial interests.’”

--New York Times, NASA Plans Permanent Moon Base, December 5, 2006

As some of you know, I’m a science nerd. In my free time, I read books about astronomy and physics and quantum mechanics for fun, and I’m in love with planets and stars and the waves of light that come from dust clouds billions of light years away.

I value studying astronomy very much.

NASA’s plan to build a base on the moon is so, so saddening.

The moon does not belong to us. It is separate and gorgeous and mysterious and pure and lovely with all its pits and shadows. We don’t have the right to exploit it. We just don’t. And to claim it and try to live on it and pursue “commercial interests”—the power we assume there, to stake a claim on it—it’s egotistical. It’s gross enough that we left a golf ball there—a golf ball! Guys got to the moon and someone thought, Hey, lets hit a golf ball! Think for a moment about the sport of golf and the target market golf often caters to, and the values thereof. Men went to the moon and we littered a golf ball.

The article said, “Commercial concerns might want to process rocket fuel and other products from water and other materials that might be found in the ground nearby.” The implied intention is to mine the moon’s resources. An article on Hubble’s Web site said, “Hubble observations suggests new patterns in the abundance of titanium and iron oxides, both of which are sources of oxygen, a key ingredient for life, and an essential ingredient for human exploration.”

If you study the images NASA and Hubble has taken of astrological phenomena, and if you read books by astronomers and physicists and cosmologists, the awe and reverence for our vast and amazing home is astounding. It’s breathtaking. It’s a privilege to be a tiny, microscopic part of it, and deserves such reverence and respect.

But this? This is a major violation. NASA has reservations about whether it will even serve to advance astronomical research goals at all. For the 17 billion dollars a year it will cost to make the moon base, we should first think about taking care of the planet we actually live on, or, say, feeding all the people on it. I am disappointed. I think I’m going to write NASA a letter.

Image: "This image shows the Moon's soil and mineral compostion. Mare Tranquillitatis - the 'Sea of Tranquility' - is the dark blue region on the right."

Actually, I'm writing about YOU. Any other questions?

I bet you other writers out there get this too: People who ask “What are you writing about?” I especially get it from family, who I most often see around holidays. I hate this question. I love that they’re interested, and I appreciate the kind intention behind the question, but it’s impossible to answer. And any answer I try to give is followed by a confused look and “But… what is it about?”

What is it about? Well, I’m working on 2 short stories, an essay and about 19 poems right now. One of my poems includes a character based on my self-destructive sister and the narrator’s relationship with her and her ongoing struggle between the care of herself versus the care of her sister, and finding balance between self and giving love, and the guilt for not being able to do more, and suffering and fear. It’s abstract, so the reader needs to read both for the layer of narrative and the multiple layers of suggested emotional turmoil—pain and healing in the universal sense. I’m trying to a villanelle, using the narrative of a woman with a black eye driving down a gravel road in a pickup truck. In the poem, I intertwine metaphors of what is infinitely small (atoms) and infinitely large (the cosmos) to cause the reader to question mortality and what existence really is about—is it about what matters to us? Should we make an effort to put our impulses and serious problems into perspective? What is a big problem anyway? So it’s also about theoretical cosmology. The history of the universe and physics and theories about how and why we exist. Would you like to hear about my other 21 projects?

I can try to give this answer, or a less painfully personal version of it, but they never know how to respond. I don’t think this is what they want. It’s like when people ask “How are you?” and you know they want to hear “Fine” because they’re asking to show light affection, not to get a real answer.

Giving a general answer doesn’t work. Saying one of my current 22 writing projects is about a girl driving a truck is like saying Animal Farm is about a pig. If Animal Farm is about a pig, then here is what I am writing about:

Nursing homes
Sex
Outer Space
Sledding
Eagles (the band)
Somalia
Grass
Breakups
Cats
Domestic Abuse
Rubber Chickens
Birds
Planets
The Spine
Boats
Ribbons

An incomplete list, but you get the idea: Giving a short answer trivializes the work. I have so many multi-dimensional projects going at once, and even I don’t know what some of them are about. “What are you writing about?” would be more accurate if stated as “Tell me about what you’re doing that’s meaningful to you right now. I know writing is important to you—tell me about that.” That is a warm, good request, especially if followed by attentive listening, an effort to understand and subsequent inquiries.

So: What to do…. Here’s a possible answer: “What I’m writing about is really complex and personal. Trying to explain it quickly wouldn’t really do the work justice, but thanks for asking. I’m working on several pieces right now about relationships and philosophy. When I get published, I’ll bring you a copy.” There—I just killed both “What are you writing about?” And “When can I read something?” with one stone. Now, for a response (be sure to look at the cartoons) to “I’m thinking about writing a book when I’m done with my next knitting project. It sounds fun.”

Rothko

I’m in a coffee shop down the street from me that feels oddly empty and quiet. It isn’t empty. Every table here has one occupant each, and I just noticed that I’m the only woman. The walls are large and bare and mostly white except for a scene painted on them in one color with no variation—a sort of tomato orange. The scene is solid and has distinct corners. Part of the mural is of an abandoned warehouse with broken windows, which takes up 1/3rd of one of the walls, and the rest of the walls are painted with a silhouette of telephone poles and connecting wires that cross and sag along the rest of the walls.

I can sort of see it—an urbanite wants to open a coffee shop, so she gets a retail space sort of in the hip neighborhood but on side streets so she can afford it. She brings in an artistic consultant. He comes into the room, puts his hand to his chin and after a moment says, “I’ve got it. I see white. I see a red—no, orange—no, red-orange. I see [dramatic pause] telephone poles. Rows and rows of telephone poles.”

I’m sitting by the wall by the cracked-up orange warehouse and my shirt, oddly, is the same red as the paint. It looks planned. Everyone is quiet here. Most of the men look like they came home from whatever work wherever, ate something and fell asleep in front of the television for 15 hard minutes, then woke up with a start and thought “I have so much shit to do. I have to get out of this apartment.” Two of them are holding up their heads by resting their chin in a hand and an elbow on the table. I kind of wish my cell phone would ring.

All the men have white coffee cups except the guy with the hair straight up and the cowgirl boots. There are large, bulbous lamps on each table that look like trees from The Lorax. I’m drinking a lemon soda called Bubble Up! And sitting in a chair covered in gold-flecked plastic. There’s definitely some sort of 50’s theme going on here.

All of us are here for company and we know it. There are five tables against each wall and behind us and behind the light from the Lorax Trees, orange telephone wires connect us at the shoulder or head, and I think about wires. Telephones with hearty coiled cords and grounded computers and the speaker in my car with a loose and unreliable wire "I'm wired," how obsolete telephone poles already are. I think of how 50’s homemakers cried the day a husband wheeled the first television into the living room because otherwise, there had very little access to the outside world, except in books and radio and imagination.

The tables are full here because our own walls are not covered in orange telephone poles and we need something that isn’t what we’re surrounded by all the time, even though we’ll stare at our screens and books like I have for over eight hours already just today. And we need people—silent is fine, just to be around more people. In the same room with them. Six Dells. Three Macs. Four Razors. Us. We probably won’t talk.

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.- Vernor Vinge

Hemmingway once wrote a really short story. It goes like this:

"For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never worn."

Wired Magazine asked authors to write a 6-word short story. Here are some of my favs:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit. - Margaret Atwood
Failed SAT. Lost scholarship. Invented rocket.- William Shatner
Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?- Eileen Gunn
Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.- Joss Whedon

Then I tried some of my own:

Submerged crocodile licks lips.
“Romantic swim?”

**

Broken vows generate escape velocity.
Freedom.

**

Tequila in Minneapolis?
Breakfast in Tijuana.

**

Here he comes! Run for your—

OKAY, your turn.

Thesis? Piece of cake.

Miz Voix de Michele is handing in the first draft of her thesis today. Do go congratulate her.

Four

Shamelessly ripped off from other bloggers:

Four jobs I have had in my life:

Worm sorter. (Bait.)
Maid.
Wine Club Manager.
Medical Writer.

Four jobs I think would be neat:

Scuba diving instructor.
Travel writer.
Musician.
Nun. The good kind. Especially if I could fly.

Four places I’ve lived:

Rural Indiana
Oxford, England
Portland, Oregon
Perth, Western Australia

Four places I’ve been on vacation:

Cabo
New Orleans
Wyoming
Prague

Four TV shows I love to watch:

Jeopardy
Oprah
Some sitcoms from before 2003
The Universe shows on PBS

Four of my favorite foods:

Thai curry w/ tofu and veggies
Ruffles and French onion dip
Gourmet chocolate and red wine
Enchiladas

Four places I’d rather be right now

Cottesloe Beach
The Walk Café in Subiaco
Road tripping through South America
A cabin in the mountains with lots of windows.

Happy Halloween

BOO.

Anyone? Anyone? Anybody out there?

Today I took 6,395,329 pounds of books to the used book store. The idea was to sell them and walk out with more money and fewer books than I walked in with. Rather, I walked out with the same amount of books I walked in with, minus $64.

I am working on a research paper about poetry written about science. I’m learning that there isn’t much of it out there. I got a book called “Verse and Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics.” Other than that, I’m not finding much poetry about science (for adults—there are some kid’s science education books). Can any of you recommend anything? Specifically about the Universe/Space or about the opposite: Cells, microscopic stuff. They don’t need to be whole books about it—a single poem here and there will do. Anyone?


"It hit the news today: the telescopic evidence,
faint light from cosmic gas, traces of the stuff
that held everything at once--my fingernail, this pen...
my mother's hairnets, the plane that crashed in Dallas yesterday...
the cameo that vanished under my bed when I was ten, mountains
of bleashed conch shells, women washing sheets
in the Ganges... cobbled streets
of Paris, craters on the moon, spaceships not invented yet
and cameras clicking pictures of that cosmic dust
colder than the pain of loss--proving that everything came
from the same infintesimal seed
about the size, they say, of the dot at the end of this sentence."

--Dinah Berland, All Together, Nothing Lost

In which the artist bangs her head on her desk, stops to yawn, and resumes.

When I dragged myself
to my cubicle this morning
It was like I had never left. I can’t escape
To a coffee shop
Or—novel idea—the gym
Because I have to leave on time again
to go to class and I
I’m going nuts
It is 2:30. The day is young.

My rhododendron weeps for me.
The printer whines.
If my cube had iron bars
I’d drag a tin can along them.
If my cube had iron bars
I’d hold them in my fists
Shake and do something obscene,
like a monkey at the zoo who belongs
in a tree, in a forest, in a country, far, far
away from here.

Where will untellable stories be told?

“We would learn to hear the blankness / that forms the essence of our going on”
--McPherson

On the lawn at 1 a.m. they grow
closer together, strangers in robes
and party skirts and flannels they come
from watching television, making routine love
the bar, couches where they dozed, they come
from doorways and alleys
from the gun shot, the sirens, or the
rustling of voices they have come
together now, from the corners, with nothing
at all to say.
A boy is dead. They all know that
The many questions have no answers
no use asking
but there is comfort
in standing near, the drawing in like ducks on a pond,
an unlikely group, silent, as if to say I
am not alone I am not alone right now these
are my companions
in this they shift their weight cross
and uncross their arms then one girl, maybe twenty, says
It is late.
They separate, the miserable thread of the night growing long and tangled
between them.

Firstbasawassa

Coach Conrads Sit-up Camp for Shirtless Boys

I Ransacked My Landlord's Garden

You charged Joanie downstairs for heat and water
for the washer everybody, including you, uses.
You yelled at Ali for not composting eggshells.

And when I asked you to replace the backdoor eyehook
with a deadbolt
you told me that such paranoid vibes
sent forth into the world
will only serve to attract rapists to me, and
by your inaction, you declared you deemed
a lock
unnecessary.

You didn’t tell me that squirrels nest
in the vent ducts in the cold and will
break into my house and might
smash my stained glass art,
pee on my bookshelf
and claw the window sills so they look
torn, like the work
of a crowbar
which sent me screaming down
the stairs to the neighbors
There's A Man In My House
when it was just three stinking rats
with bushy tails.

Yes,
it has been a while, I know, but today,
I ransacked your garden.
All summer you have been bent
yanking and digging and sweating and I
have watched you
from my comfortable chair on the balcony,
sipping wine, grilling burgers and now,
Steve,
A half-dozen red ripe tomatoes
sit in my bowl.

Three hot peppers,
the only yellow squash,
several cucumbers (there are a thousand),
a head of lettuce, five carrots,
a most beautiful violet eggplant with
waxed-shiny skin and
a spongy core fresh
and white,
like a daisy.

I wonder, Steve, if you put some
fear-of-people-steeling-your-vegetables
paranoid vibe
into the Universe
because
I blame your vibe
for making me hack through
enough rhubarb
for twenty-seven pies.

I do have one regret.
I did not not take
the lovely lone melon.
The cord, too strong
for me to break
by myself.

Jackpot.

I picked up my new car last night. The sellers and I went to the DMV together to with our sickle’s (for the red tape), and after nearly keeling over from the amount of taxes I had to pay (there is no sales tax in Oregon, so what a surprise!) and dealing with a guy who didn’t want to accept my out-of-state check (Yes, I’ve lived here 2 years and still have Oregon checks. Sue me.), and filling stuff out and all that jazz, I have my new car. Well, it is new to me.

My old car—well, dears, my old car is very old. If my old car were a person, she’d be named something like Matilda and would be someone’s 80-year-old grandma who wears fuchsia polyester pants, smokes 3-packs of Parlaments a day, complains about her aching liver and spends far too many late nights drinking cheap gin through a straw in front of the slot machines at the casino. She’s not stylish, has a broken tape deck, coffee stickiness on the dash (no cupholders), and no cruise control. She wheezes and coughs and clunks and exudes a puff of smelliness every time I turn left. And like said granny-lady, she’s been there when I needed her—gotten me around in my underemployed days, made it through a snowdrift in rural Wisconsin, blasted through Chicago toll roads without (accidentally) paying, remained relatively rust-free, and recently survived being driven into an (almost) flash flood. Matilda, she’s a trooper when she isn’t groaning about her aching CV joints and asking for insanely heavy buckets of change to be dropped in her engine.

My new car, if she were a person, her name would be Ruby and she’d be dressed in stylish yet comfortable designer shoes she found at a consignment shop. She’d belong to MPR, vote, pluck her eyebrows and occasionally date a motorcycle. She would see Paris while she’s young, eat chocolate ice cream in her pajamas and escape to the boundary waters for the weekend. She’s pretty but not too frilly. Practical, safe, and zippy enough to be fun and free-wheelin’.

I feel like I just went from a college-age futon and milk-crate coffee table to Pottery Barn. Not Ethan Allen, but happy to have it.

Word of the day: Phhhhht.

Things that suck:

Family issues that I won’t bother going into and some other unfortunate crap.
Dreams about hurt friends and burnt love letters in the toaster (Hey, it was a dream).
Schlepping boxes and stuffing 250 marketing launch packets.
Heavy boxes.
Incompetent people who say they’re going to do something (that is ON a DEADLINE) then don’t do what they said they’ll do, and to fix it, you must make 42,000 phone calls like this: “Dial 1 for loans, 2 for contracts, 3 to wait on hold for 5000 more minutes only to be connected to someone COMPLETELY useless who will just fuck up your paperwork even MORE.”
Eating cheap take-out lunch while trying to assemble 250 shipping boxes.
Clowns. Okay, clowns have nothing to do with today, but aren’t they totally creepy?
My boss, who got in at 9 and left at 4.
Cute shoes that really hurt.
Stupid people who demand stupid unreasonable things and change their mind at the last effing second and don’t understand what you do enough to know you can’t just freaking whip out jobs in two seconds by command.
TWO presentations on poets that may or may not be due tomorrow but must be prepared anyway.
PMS.

Things that do not suck about today:

French Meadow’s Almond Croissants and my friend Kate.
Getting home from work.
Flannel pajamas.
Purple. I just like purple.
The 42,000-phone-calls-stupidity working out in the end.
People who help stuff 250 packets and assemble shipping boxes.
Overtime.
Fall. Fireplaces.
72 hours until I leave town for a north woods cabin.
Myself, who has good work ethic. Except for that whole personal-emails thing.
Good. Boxed. Wine.
Cheesy chick TV shows.
Quality frozen pizza.
My new car. Well, new to me. I pick it up on Thursday.
Phones with an off button.

Oh, more good things on the list than bad things. That’s good.

-Deborah Keenan

Your job is to add
To the river.
You might be
a drop of rain.