Goodbye February.

Goodbye love.

It doesn't have a punchline

Last night I went to a reading by Zachary Schomburg and Matthew Dickman: fantastic readers, kind & funny fellows both.

I noticed that the audience clapped after each funny one (that's irritating to me anyway) but the poems that were serious were met with dead silence, like they didn't even know it ended if there isn't a punch line. This worries me because none of my poems are funny & no one will probably clap for them, except at the end when they have to, as a group. But it also bothers me because a poem's not a joke, you know, even if it's funny.

But maybe I'm wrong. At drinks afterward Zachary told a story about an Russell Edson reading at AWP where he kept coughing this long slow cough while reading & then he'd start the poem all over again at the beginning. He said that the poem was well known & when it didn't look like he's make it to the end, everyone wanted to shout the punch line.

Really?

You are tragically alone in a world of your own making (Sweets Love Pt. 4)

I have left you, tragically, alone, but I did not forget about you. I moved & in moving was without the internet & without time to cafe. I'm going to make it up to you.

Firstly, a picture. Monkey Love cookies not from Crema, but rather the place to get the best, simplest cupcakes in town: Beaverton Bakery.

Secondly, some talk time: the title of this post comes from a D poem & I realized lately exactly how right he is. I mean, everyone's aware of how alone we are always, that weird loneliness that is evident when we are alone, when we are with others, when we look at others, when we hear someone else speak, when we fail to be understood. What's more important to me lately is the part about it being of our own making. Only it doesn't have to be tragic -- you can make a world that's incredible, that you're thrilled to be left alone in. That's something I've been building towards lately. This awesome world. With each of my actions, with each of my decisions & choices & purchases & feelings & words, with each & every thing I am making my world. I am making it incredible & joyful. It's possible, you know. It's something you could have too, if you wanted it.

Lastly, a poem from the lovely Rachel Springer:
*removed*

Is acid making a comeback?

Srsly. This video:



& My Girls (see below).

The Airlift video did highlight something that's missing from my life: fancy underwater outfits.

List: Crema Adoration (Sweets Love Pt. 3)

The soups: This is the real reason I always want to go to Crema. Sometimes it's the only thing I eat all day. Srsly, the only "bad" one I've had was just one that was too spicy for me. Their soups are so good I'll eat things I hate in real life, like chili. Spicy meat-chunky chili with huge pieces of hot tomato. All gross to me, but I loved it.

The treats: All my sweets loves so far have come from their heavenly bakery. If bakers didn't have to be up so early I'd probably try to get a job frosting cupcakes here. All that tiny back-room heat would be so good for my hands!

The baristas: Male or female, they're mostly good looking & sweet sweet sweet. & cheerful. You can't lose.

The lattes: Yum.

The tea makers they use: They're like vintage '50s jade-colored future perfection with an adorable flat/lipped lid to keep it hot/put the in-cup strainer on when yr done steeping it. Curious about what to get me for my bday? Find out where to get one, hand it over & let the squealing commence.

The walls & walls of roll-up windows: As if there could ever be enough light.

The temperature control: Fresh Pot? FREEZING. Annex? SO WARM. 3rd Ave Stumptown? Stop opening the windows in the winter! Crema? Just right.

The number of power outlets: Thanks guys.

Bathrooms: They have one (ahem, Annex), they have mirrors (ahem, 3rd Ave Stumptown) & despite the fact that you don't need a key (ahem, Fresh Pot/Stumptown), they're still the cleanest around (& always smell like cinnamon!).

The Chromatics girl: She's always in here & she's cute as a button to look at.

Bonus: They're playing My Girls right now. Place's emptying as they get ready to close & they are pumping it.

There's more, I'm sure of it, but they're almost closed -- the only bad thing about this place.

I'm not trying to tell you anything you didn't know

Writing win!

Please visit my tiny poems on elimae.

Happy Valentine's Day! (Sweets Love Pt. 2)

Good intentions, hinky follow-through.

But I love you. Don't doubt that for a second.

Cold hands, hot tea.

Today a rheumatology specialist told me I'm not allowed to drink iced tea or coffee in the winter. Apparently it raises my core body temperature & may induce an episode of blood vessel spasms because I have a blood vessel disease. No, really.

Besides being SO RIDICULOUS, I happen to hate a hot coffee, & I only drink a hot tea at night. This is a sad day & a total blow to my drinks-life.

Sweets Love

I'm wooing you.

I'm disappointed in apathy. I'm disappointed in lack of enthusiasm. I'm disappointed in holding back. In not putting it out there fully. I'm disappointed in not laying it on the line. I'm disappointed in games & in strategies. In defenses. I'm disappointed in withdrawal. I'm disappointed in the long term.

I'm disappointed most of all with how many of these things I know I am capable of doing, how many of these things I have done in the last two weeks even. One of my new year's resolutions had been to make decisions without fear & I was failing that even in the first few days when I was so mindful of it. (It's a hard one. Constant vigilance & motive questioning & all that.)

I want to do what I want others to do. I want to say it all. I want to feel my feelings honestly in the instant that I'm feeling them & I want to be honest about them.

This is going to make me obnoxious, I can tell. But it is also going to make me happy. It is also going to be a relief.

Wooing you failure.

What I want to do, February, is invite you over one evening when the house is empty, turn the lights down & ask you to put on some music made for night while I make you a tea. I want us to snuggle on the couch under a blanket, our faces close together & talk, really talk.

What's happening instead is the everyday is already coming between us & I try to compensate by shoving my manic enthusiasm at you in place of intimacy.

I'm sorry. I don't know how to remedy this yet.

Love songs. Kind of.

I love these songs. And on some strange level, they remind me of romance.

It's got to be the panties.

Just saying it

I'm a compulsive repeat listener. I'll often just listen to one song all day, looping it until it becomes necessary then so familiar it fades then so present it's nauseating. Today one of the songs I'm doing that to is Kate Bush's Cloudbusting.

There's a little moment that gets a tiny bit more desperate than the rest of the song, where she says: "I just know that something good is going to happen / I don't know when / but saying it could even make it happen."

I realize that I've been treating that statement as true for a while now. First was the writing -- trying to write a place I might want to inhabit rather than just recreating my own most painful moments with added fury & revenge. Then I found myself saying to my roommate that I was just going to say what I wanted, to put it out there to the Universe to come true. (Yea, I'm the person that puts it out there to the Universe. I'm not entirely sure when that happened, but it is ON. And moreover, it works. Like what I wanted happened immediately after I said it to her. And then later something else I said wanted happened within a day.)

So I'm going to try to make more good things happen. I'm going to try to keep articulating just what I want. Also, the next time it rains, I'm going to stand outside in it, no matter how cold it is.

Congrats

Brooklyn!

http://www.airforcejoyride.com/gg10.html

Whee! You are awesome.

She dials boyfriend

& in boyfriend's house is a pattern you would not expect. It isn't until they finish talking that the song starts. The song starts with talking. A heart beat is a stop-time flashlight. A heart beat is a finger walk. There is nothing left of the moon but you can't take it back. It's only an hour. Can't you wait this one hour?


I feel like this belongs somewhere else, you know? But I feel like it belongs here too.

Let's play!

Today I gave my collab partner these words:
arrange
sit
red
loop & button
tip

If you write a poem containing these words & post it in my comments, I will add to/delete from/mush around/generally collaborate with you on it & post it back.

And so on & so forth.

He must really love her. For who she is.

A stylist buddy of mine cuts the hair of a pretty well known artist who's married to a bigwig Poetry Foundation dude. He forwarded an email from her in which she types "Hey., I forgot to ask what you were dong in Cali....Fun?"

So many things about that sentence make me cringe; it's wild. When I read it to my roommate, her response was my title.

I am feeling MEAN today.

I am committed to February.

I love you February. I love your weird spelling & yr not enough days. I love your love holiday, I love your love-feel & I am committed to you.

Among other goals, I am committing to write a new thing everyday & posting it on my little buddy writing blog & I am committed to posting something here every day too.

February, I want to share with you. Let's be together. Really. Let's really be here together.