Book Party

Sold two more books while bartending last night! Tomorrow is the book party, so come celebrate with me at Bar Rouge from 6-9 p.m.!

The Weather is Fitting

Five years ago I woke up to one of my roommates screaming "Fire fire!" I thought she was talking about something in the apartment so I tried frantically grabbing my most valuable possessions. Then she told me to look at the t.v. It's somewhat ironic that I got a new shower curtain with a photograph of the Brooklyn Bride circa 1950, the Towers on the left, tall and almost out of place now. Rob began today's yoga practice asking us to dedicate this hour to someone in need, still, something lost. It is grey and the sky is holding back the rain. Sometimes I wonder how the weather seems to fit with a moment, grey and like this when I went to the concentration camps, warm summer rains on first date nights, a chill fall air to walk home with someone you just met. But getting back to today, five years ago. I was taking my poem to be copied for one of my first writer's workshops of grad school. I was thinking that everything would be back to normal, and that night I would be workshopping poems. The woman in the office told me I was in the middle of a panic attack, that my body was in shock and that it felt it had to continue with the normal routine. I remember how still the city was. I went out for Chinese for lunch since we had no food and everyone was just quiet. I remember coming back to my apartment to look at walls with nothing yet hung, thinking that I was somehow being cheated of my MFA experience. My school became a triage center and everything was off kilter and could not be righted.

Good Morning

It's funny watching GG get comfortable in the apartment. This morning he actually crawled into bed--which really isn't a surprise as he's become more sassy in his relationship with the furniture. He likes sitting on the speakers and running across the coffee table. After about 30 minutes of that I decided it was time to go to the farmer's market. My purchases: basil, pears, and cheese. I came home and made waffles with some of the pears on top. Ramona thinks she may be up for some internet dating. Robert isn't panning out and she needs someone who will be there when she calls.

Wireless at the Rouge

The semester started and I think it's going to be a great one. Everyone really opened up on introduction day, so much that I barely had time to even start reading the poems with them. I'm glad that everyone was so open and I think a lot of trust was created and some walls broken down. I'm really looking forward to the photo writing assignment as it's always good to begin away from the self. We also had our famous faculty dinner and I am reminded of how lucky I am to be a part of such a talented and kind group of writers. I'm hoping this year we will be able to spend some time together more informally like we always say we will...but time, that crazy bird, always has us in flight. Then again, that's what I always think on Saturday---yoga, lunch, visiting the cats at the animal adoption in Dupont, and then Rouge! Though today I brought the laptop so I could blog from the bar (everyone else is playing outside). Stealthy me :) I suppose I should see what Jessery is doing. I hear something being shaken, not stirred!

I've been discovered

Last night one of Fred Pollack's former students came into the Rouge and overheard me talking to someone else that I was a professor at GW. Would that be a conflict of interest...to pass out poems and drinks? Hmmm...I make a mean Manhattan straight up, no metaphors please!

Balance

While in Ocean City, I was able to catch up on some good beach reading. A while ago---perhaps even for college graduation, my Aunt gave me a book of essays of writers on writing. The one I really loved was Gish Jen's Inventing Life Steals Time, Living Life Begs it Back--and it was about the dichotomy a writer experiences between the real world and the fictional world and how does one find a balance between living and writing. I think that's something so many of us struggle with---for we writers could always be writing, but how much of that writing will actually be worth it. Do we sacrifice our lives for our writing or do we sacrifice our writing for our lives?

With the book coming out, I feel like I'm at some kind of cross roads, though I would like to think, I'm just walking along and finding enough time to stop and smell the roses, but also walking briskly enough. It rained all day, a fitting end to the summer as I'm getting ready for a new semester. Tomorrow is my first day teaching and I have this excited nervousness that I can't seem to shake, that always pops up at this time. I remember it from college, even when I wasn't the one in charge. It's like a new page. I love the way the air smells. It smells like college. One of my best friends from college called a few days ago to tell me some exciting news, she's pregnant and I think even though how much it seems like I'm not that far removed from that time of thinking and drinking, we've come so far from those halls of Heer.

Off to Ocean City

As if I didn't have enough vacation already!!!

Demo Cat

Shannon brought GG over this morning so I could try out having a cat and someone can take care of GG while she is off galavanting in Spain. So far, he spent the morning finding all the good hiding spaces in the apartment and I spent the morning editing and typing up poems written on vacation. Then, right when I was finishing up, he came out and rubbed up against my leg and the desk chair. I feel like a real poet now. Maggie Anderson has a series of Black Dog poems, but I warned Shannon that there may end up being some Black Cat poems written.

Vacation Story Board

So, I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures and see if you can find a thread of narrative. Here's my version. We all have our vices. You have to wear protective gear to keep you climbing up that path you want, or to keep the birds from shitting on you. No matter, nature will cleanse you!

Jet Lag, Blog Lag

I've been on vacation (I still am) and have some great photos and stories, but since I'm still on vacation (just down here to print my boarding passes) I'll make you wait---however, you can hear them before I post them if you come to Burlesque Poetry Hour tomorrow where I will be fresh off the plane from the west coast---that means I will have gotten up at about 3 am east coast time to greet you, so it's a good thing I'm hosting and not reading. So we've got three wonderful poets who you should come out and hear...Natalie Illum, Fred Pollack, and Ravi Shankar! Who will be fresher than a daisy or at least more so than Lolita!

Chrysallis

While at the gym this morning, I learned that this was the title of the Toni Basil album that had the "Hey Mickey" song---makes me wonder what those other tracks sounded like as I only remember bouncing around my mom's bedroom on Saturday mornings listening to the top 40 and how one time Toni didn't make it and I was sad because we had had this great dance as it had been on every Saturday. Though I suppose change is natural, but at 6, I just wanted my song to be played---I wasn't yet tired of it.

But getting back to the word of the day---I had ice cream with an old friend who I met at camp when i was 15. Since then, he has traveled all over the world and has most recently left his job as a speech writer for the Israeli ambassador at the UN to attend law school here in DC. His nickname back then was Bug. Talk about change! And here he was impressed with my book...?! However, it was my book that scored us free scoops at Larry's and Larry bought the book as well!

Check Me Out

www.wwph.org

This week I'm wrapping up my online class and then it's off to Portland and Seattle, but don't worry, I'll be back before you can say Burlesque Poetry Hour.

My copy of Ekphrasis came in the mail today and I'm really excited to read all of these poems about art---I don't even really remember how I got so into that---I think a friend said, you have to see this statue and then it seemed like I was always in the National Gallery, wandering around and writing. As I was talking to one of my students the other day, I was explaining how at some point, her writing will shift away from herself---what I like about writing about art, is that it takes you away from the self--and lets you jump in the minds and bodies of other selves. When I was younger, it seemed like I had to write about me (I still do, after all, this is my blog) but I find myself, now, not appearing in my own poems. What can I say, I'm boring :). Today I graded, did laundry, went to the drug store and the grocery store and will be baking my raspberry chocolate brownies---who really wants to read about that!

I think that's why I like the voice of the persona, you get to be someone else, or at least take your attention away from your own life.

A Lazy Friday

Since Blackboard is down, I can't access any of my students' writing and so that means karmically, I think I'm supposed to have the day off. I even woke up before nine to start reading their short stories. Ah, well, I sent out the evite for the book party and now I'm going to make breakfast and hope some of them have emailed me their work so we don't get set back too much. The other day I freaked out because my internet was working and I got so frantic thinking I wouldn't get everything done that needed getting done. But I did, *sigh*, of course I knew I would and that none of it would really mattered in the grand scheme of things, but oh, how we let ourselves get all riled up!

So today, yoga, ordering the new couch, coffee, and some salsa later on with Jonathan--and hopefully some short stories zing their way over :)

It's Here!

And you can order the book on Amazon.com or through Small Press Distribution---pick your vendor :)

Shannon helped me pick out the shoes to match!

A Lot of Personality

Noah dubbed me little miss sunshine at the Rouge last night. My hair can't take the heat--it curls and frizzes so it's back to braids, up do's, and of course flowers! And why wouldn't I be--Shannon is coming tomorrow to pick up the book with me from Piotr's place in B'more, then a cool lunch in Hamden and date night at Asia Nora (Ramona's playing third wheel). I've been working on so many of my other projects that she feels neglected. After all, she's the one who started the flowers, not me :) I hope she doesn't get too jealous of this ghostly woman she's about to meet.

Sunshine Day

Yesterday I found out the book will be here friday! I'm so excited and nervous to see it. To celebrate, Karl and I went to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and The Portrait Gallery---which are my new favorite museums in DC (sorry National Gallery and Hirshorn). We've decided to start collaborating and our first poem was incredible (I may be biased). But it was uncanny to see how easily they resonated. We've made a pact to keep it up so here's hoping this wasn't a fluke. And yesterday the most gorgeous books arrived from Kore Press in Arizona---I'll definitely be reviewing something they sent for the KGB Lit Mag. And to top it off we had an incredible lunch at Poste---conveniently located right across from the museum so I have a funny feeling I'll be spending a good number of afternoons there. Everything is good in ice cream form--including mustard and cucumbers. Really, I swear!

I'm Vindicated!!!

My mom called today to tell me I made local news. Check it out by pasting http://www.vindy.com/content/society/311620887233040.php into your browser. I'm so excited I forgot how to make a click-able link!

I'm not sure if all those typos were in the original but the info is there :)

Good News

A series of unconnected events---there is a huge fat ugly moth that I have to step over to get my mail. After I get the mail, my neighbors and I all get to talking about this thing on the steps. I go inside and open the mail and find out that my poem "Self Portrait with Cigarette" (about Edward Munch, not me) was a finalist in the 2006 Ekphrasis Prize. What this means is that my poem will be published along with the other finalists in the next issue. I get a contributor's copy. Jonathan comes over with yellow flowers.

From the Bartender Diaries

We're not supposed to say when someone famous or sort of famous walks in the bar and we can't ask them about their fame. We're just supposed to treat them like regular folks and act natural---no fawning and asking for autographs and whatnot. We can even kick them out at last call...which I've done twice this week. There have also been some conference go-ers who made me recite poetry b/c I'm the resident poet at the Rouge (can I put that one on the resume) and so I'm sometimes called upon in my drink making, to recite---my last call lines being from Dylan Thomas...do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage, against the dying of the light---it got them out so I guess it did the job :)

I just hope this resident poet status sells some books. So preorder your copies at amazon.com and you too can toast the resident poet on September 15th at Bar Rouge (where else) where I'll be drinking (not bartending) and celebrating the book.

Cheers!

Dance Dance Revolution

Tonight is Salsa night---Jonathan and I start dance lessons. Since moving out of Kent and Youngstown, I've really missed swing dancing and so we decided to try something new so we could both learn together. Actually, today has been a very dance centered day as this afternoon Shannon and I had lunch and we talked about the steam sequence---giving Shannon a better idea about who this woman is so she could begin to start working with movement. I'm really excited to be collaborating with her and next week we'll be in the studio! She was asking me a lot of questions about the woman, many of which I hadn't ever thought about while writing the poems. I don't think I could have done it if I had some direction in mind though---I often tell my students that writing isn't a path to some greater theme or idea and that you have to let the writing tell you what it wants to do. I like how some things just aren't explainable---which is esentially the "message" behind the sequence.