I called in sick today. Yeah, sick of work! It’s fabulous: I’m in Nina’s Coffee Shop in St. Paul reading the amazingly helpful comments DK wrote on my most recent stack of poetry. She is not to be confused with my current professor, whose actual job it is to give me comments this semester. DK is my future thesis advisor, and is totally going above and beyond. Instead of giving her her own tiara and delivering fresh flowers to her house daily, which she deserves, I’ve given a donation to poets.org in her honor.
Next issue: I’m moving. My landlord’s a total kook and I’m totally sick of having no kitchen. I found a big cool place in a neighborhood that’s wedged in between 3 lakes, close enough to walk or bike to groovy urban stuff, but not in the heart of trend-o-rama hipsterville. However: It’s a garden-level apartment. Which means one could, if the curtains are up, walk straight up to the windows and look right in, or hell, swing one open and dive straight into my living room.
I just finished a book by a former professor on her rape and recovery. The rape happened, I learned, in a neighborhood very near to the one I’ll be in. The stats are there: A woman has more chance of being raped than she does of having her tonsils out. One in four women. One every six minutes. I’m generally conscious of this kind of thing, but the book (excellent book) renewed my bug-eyed scared-shitlessness and awakened (awoke?) my dormant rage against violence.
I want this apartment. It’s big and cute and there are nice neighbors and I’m within a stone’s throw of two little lake beaches. I won’t let fear drive me away from it, but you can bet your ass I’m going to get the landlord to install multiple window safety locks if she hasn’t already. Even so—the most disturbing thing is that there’s only so much a person can do—attacks happen on their way to the car at 7 a.m. They happen while boyfriends and children are home. Good locks get picked. All we can do is be as smart as we can and hope it isn’t us. Scary to relaize, yes, but also permission to surrender to the limits of what we can do.
I’m glad apartment hunting is done, anyway. The first few places I looked at smelled like cat pee.
It’s snowing in Saint Paul. It’s April—and this is weird even for us. But it’s beautiful. Big white flakes. It’ll be gone soon enough.
Some of DK’s comments on my work:
cool. fabulous. more than enough.
you could risk a couple moments
of smart, imaginistic self-portrait.
yes. yes. i see it like this.
be tough, abrupt, honest.
i love it as it is.
stanza could be a bit more fabulous.
maybe the “i” imagines what the lover is doing?
build to the finale.
this is done.
i think this is the end.
the end.
Next issue: I’m moving. My landlord’s a total kook and I’m totally sick of having no kitchen. I found a big cool place in a neighborhood that’s wedged in between 3 lakes, close enough to walk or bike to groovy urban stuff, but not in the heart of trend-o-rama hipsterville. However: It’s a garden-level apartment. Which means one could, if the curtains are up, walk straight up to the windows and look right in, or hell, swing one open and dive straight into my living room.
I just finished a book by a former professor on her rape and recovery. The rape happened, I learned, in a neighborhood very near to the one I’ll be in. The stats are there: A woman has more chance of being raped than she does of having her tonsils out. One in four women. One every six minutes. I’m generally conscious of this kind of thing, but the book (excellent book) renewed my bug-eyed scared-shitlessness and awakened (awoke?) my dormant rage against violence.
I want this apartment. It’s big and cute and there are nice neighbors and I’m within a stone’s throw of two little lake beaches. I won’t let fear drive me away from it, but you can bet your ass I’m going to get the landlord to install multiple window safety locks if she hasn’t already. Even so—the most disturbing thing is that there’s only so much a person can do—attacks happen on their way to the car at 7 a.m. They happen while boyfriends and children are home. Good locks get picked. All we can do is be as smart as we can and hope it isn’t us. Scary to relaize, yes, but also permission to surrender to the limits of what we can do.
I’m glad apartment hunting is done, anyway. The first few places I looked at smelled like cat pee.
It’s snowing in Saint Paul. It’s April—and this is weird even for us. But it’s beautiful. Big white flakes. It’ll be gone soon enough.
Some of DK’s comments on my work:
cool. fabulous. more than enough.
you could risk a couple moments
of smart, imaginistic self-portrait.
yes. yes. i see it like this.
be tough, abrupt, honest.
i love it as it is.
stanza could be a bit more fabulous.
maybe the “i” imagines what the lover is doing?
build to the finale.
this is done.
i think this is the end.
the end.
3 comments:
Yay Cavu! Good job for calling out sick.
I can't help but try to figure out where your new place is. I've been gone 9 years now, and I even get lost when I go back there.
Your poetry is good. Keep doing it. For all of us!
Cavu, it's good to have you back! I lost your blog for awhile. It looks like maybe you changed your web address a little bit?
Anyway, now I've got all these great Cavu posts to catch up on.
Groo-v!
Apartment hunting is such fun, isn't it? When I've been on the hunt, landlords have tried to rent out dirty little closets, call them bedrooms and ask for ridiculous amounts of money.
My recent move across the country was prompted by the landlord unreasonably jacking up the rent in my former city.The place wasn't bad, but it wasn't worth wat he wanted.
I hope you get your new place.
As a curious aside, the word verification is 'fokmuy'. I think that's funny.
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