Cupcakes Will Make Everything OK

Just like every cloud has it's silver lining, every cupcake has it's icing.

These fabulous cupcakes here are wheat free and gluten free and amazing! I'd even say as good if not better than Magnolia. And what's awesome is that many people are working on making food for people with allergies. The ones pictured here are courtesy of Pamela of Pamela's Products (I had at least 6 tonight.) At the reading, I also met Lucy whose son is allergic to many things and so she developed her own line as well---I don't know the official website, but I'm sure she's google-able. She's based out of Norfolk, VA. So for those of you looking for yummy treats, these women are sure to satisfy!

I got to the Alimentum reading early and Paulette was all: Do you want to help ice the cupcakes?

Me: Hell yes!

After that, I knew the night was going to be grand...I was even asked to read---and so I read Ramona from the iphone! Yes, I email myself my poems. I read the new one and it went over well and it looks like Ramona will be a book some day. She may even be a one woman show. Someone approached me about that too---I had never considered Ramona live, but since my Drisha collaboration, I'm open to exploring the creative options---

And I brought the cupcakes home (and even the mix so I can make more) for the roommates and they were a huge hit, so it looks like I'm back to fantastic land. And yes, that is a size 2. Traci gave me all her old bar clothes, so eat your heart out ladies.

I know I'll have my cupcakes and still be a 2!

The Fabulous and Not So

Lately I've been thinking about the way we present ourselves on our blogs (as well as in our lives). The way we can make an ordinary thing seem like our life is kissed by something so great, well, we just have to explode and take photos and put it out there in the cosmos for others to come across.

My new chair came. I took it in a cab home. It was sunny and we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge. It cost me $30...I was supposed to go out last night and meet a good friend not from here for her birthday, but I couldn't. I was too exhausted and heart broken. The ex is already back on Jdate. I know, I never blog of these things---the really personal ones. I like to guard my ~real~ life and keep those private moments, well private. So I don't know how long this post will actually stay up. But I'm digressing.

And I'm also living in the past a little bit and I'm sure I'm going through all the things anyone who has ever gone through a break up has been through. This was a man I thought I could marry. I guess I was living in some deluded life that he would realize what it was we had and he would not be able to let go completely. I don't know if this is the case, but I most certainly do not have an online dating presence.

Though as a woman, I suppose these things are a little easier. Wear a cute shirt to a poetry reading and read a poem about menstruation and you will get asked for a drink afterwards. So I know maybe I shouldn't let my mind run in these circles. He did say the dates weren't good. In my mind, he was still mine...

Maybe I need to be hit over the head with this. Maybe I shouldn't waste my tears. Maybe I should sieze the day---after all, I've been in bed since 7 p.m. last night. And I'm sure that my mr. right is out there and has probably already emailed me a poem about me or spent the better half of the evening listening to me snivel, or maybe he knows the right place to have dessert, or can hang shelves. I want to believe it's out there. But I'm still tired and my heart feels like the kitchen after the restaurant's closed. Or like my new chair in the early morning light. My favorite jeans within reaching distance.

Ginger and Juice!

This is the juice (from GoBo) that I had with Beth from NYSCASA that inspired so much---one, a new desk chair from Bo Concept coming my way next week---though mine will have a white slip cover. It's so comfy and my feet hit the floor while my back is supported. It's funny, even though I love my lap top, I love it most on the desk :)

And number two is my new super secret project for The Why and Later. There's much to say about the meeting, but for now, I'm up to my eyeballs in student fiction...I played frisbee all day in Princeton so serves me right to have to buckle down tonight! Let's just say, I'll have a new title soon :)

The Perfect Wedding

Erin got married this weekend. Here's pictures of all of us gals and of her cupcakes! No wedding cake, wedding cupcakes! It was a dream come true for me---still not as good as Sugar Sweet Sunshine, but these orange and pink flowered beauties captured my heart. What was the best part of the wedding, besides all of us together again, was the pictures---on each table they had a picture of them together and on the back they had written letters to each other about that time and their life together thus far and what they hope for the future. It was a simple wedding---you could see so much of themselves and theur families and friends in it. It was really a day about love and life, both theirs and all of ours.

~

Every Monday Needs A Little Roadtrip

Because I have moved, I didn't find out until last night that I was getting this award! Luckily, I was able to juggle my schedule around so I could be at the dinner and ceremony this evening upstate---eight years in the making for the anthology and eight hours on the road (there and back) today. The plaque is resting on the bed next to where I'll be laying my head in a few moments. More to come, but for now, it's a good night for me...

My New Writing Area

The new room is coming together! Thanks to a super sweet poet/construction worker friend, I was able to hang my new shelves the other day!

The room still needs some work, but it's coming together---it's a metaphor in a way---trying to figure out what fits and what goes where...

Yesterday was Sex and the City with the gals in Brooklyn at lunch. We ended up at 12th street bar and grill and the bartender said, wow, you all just need a fourth and we'd be like the movie. Oh how true---

There is nothing in the world like laughing with the girls in the middle of the afternoon :)

I'm really starting to hang things up on my New York shelves so to speak---just found out that I'll have a why and later reading in the next KGB Bar poetry reading series in the fall! And starting to make regular writing dates with my gal pal writers, so working on creating the space that I need, the things to make me feel whole.

The Big Drisha Show

I am excited to announce that I will previewing excerpts of a new work this month, created in collaboration with Dages Keates and Basya Shechter as well as my favorite dancers.

The work is based on my first book of poetry, "the steam sequence" and features performers Adrienne Barr, Rachel Lane, Sarah Lannon, Megan Sommerville, Alexis Steeves and myself.

Drisha Showcase
June 16th
7:30 PM
JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY

This short and varied evening will feature the work of other Drisha Arts Fellows, including wonderful artists, musicians, composers, poets and more. Tickets are now on sale for the event. Please contact the JCC for tickets.

The event is $5 and begins at 7:30PM.

Death and Company

has some of the best signature cocktails in town! After going to the Jan Beatty/Gerry LaFemina reading at Small's, I met the gals for ladies night. The bar is of course death themed and quite dark and romantic---a HOT candlelit death! Mandy got in good with the bouncer so looks like this will be a regular spot for us.

It was a night completely needed. I'm grateful for both Amy and Mandy and that I got myself out of the house. And it was well worth it on a few fronts---I scored some po'business and a drink was bought for me, all thanks to the winning combo of my tampon poem and my MoMoFoLana shirt!

Jan Beatty is my new favorite super hero poet

and so I'm excited to go hear her read tomorrow! And since I have never been to Small's in my New York life, it's a double bonus!!!

Smalls Reading Series is proud to announce the lineup for our May 31st Reading:

Jan Beatty (RED SUGAR, U of Pittsburgh Press, 2008; BONESHAKER, U of Pittsburgh Press, 2002)

+Gerry LaFemina (THE PARAKEETS OF BROOKLYN, Bordighera Press, 2005; THE WINDOW FACING WINTER, New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2004)

+Open reading featuring a host of fine NYC poets.+A little music+Your Hosts, George Guida, Lee Kostrinsky and Christine Timm

Come be part of a special evening.
Saturday, May 31st, 5 p. m.
Smalls Jazz Club
183 West 10th Street
Manhattan
For further information
visit www.smallsjazzclub.com

YAY!

the new bed and walls!

Moving Grace

I'm grateful for being moved in to the new place, after a long day of moving (sigh)

New blue walls and Martha Stewart bedding

and Dages and Basya, for an amazing rehearsal tonight

and Colson's spicy chocolate tart as a before rehearsal treat!

Memorial Gratitude

I'm grateful for my subway reading: Jane Austen's Emma and Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle, which I can't put down---

for SB's visit and late night tea and bourbon

for ASD and JD for stopping in to the Silverleaf (I'm wondering if I watched too many episodes of Cheers!) Had a great discussion with some gals who came into the bar about using their first name when I return their credit cards---who wants to be Ms. So and So when you're tossing back martinis? Albeit, it's a Swanky Cheers when I'm behind the bar :)

and Heidi at Whistle who knows how to make me feel pretty!

Non Committed

I've been falling behind with my gratitude. Perhaps it's hard to stick to gratitude or hard for me to just keep a routine going. Here's what brings me joy:

The JC Penny Towel, thanks to Michal for introducing me to them!

Behr Spring Rain---the color of my new room (painting this weekend)

the washer and dryer (filled with laundry right now)

Amanda and FD for a well needed get away last weekend

DP for driving down to be a part of it

My family, for so many things, esp. Uncle Scott's chocolate chip pancakes and their support of my literary happenings

Sarah and her mom for driving down for the reading

Annie for always being there to listen or email me info when I misplace what I shouldn't misplace

my mom for emailing me positive, insightful and often original quotes

~

My online semester has started and so I'm full of students' writing and remembering when I began, how exciting and scary to begin to take stock of your life and what matters most to you and then to write it down, and gasp, share it with the world, or at least a smaller version of it. I'm grateful for them right now too.

Gratitude in the Heartland

It's always good to go home, though I'm on the other side of the state. The yoga/reading BG benefit was so much more than I imagined. I was really touched by Cathy who lost her daughter a year ago because of domestic violence---one week after her loss, she started Alicia's Voice. Her strength is an inspiration.

Perhaps it was one of the reasons I was able to do my first headstand in yoga class without the wall! There I was, holding myself upside down in the middle of the room and for the first time I wasn't afraid of falling.

Amanda and FD have been fabulous hosts---from vegetarian tortilla casserole for dinner on friday, my amazing super soft bed, flowers for my hair, and of course the rock star Bleu! We're about to head out to Revolver for an amazing dinner...

monday :(

i'm not feeling so hot or gracious today. it's rainy and i'm a little sad about all the changes...i know they're exciting and will be good for me, but today, these were a struggle:

franny's pizza
susan and fritz in town
annie's cheery email

saturday's three joys and today's

cristina at work setting up the bar so i could have more time at macy's and dinner with mom

rhonda in the bedding dept at macy's

mom in town

~

carla's yoga class this am

going to see made of honor

chickpea pasta dinner plans

Celebratory List

Pilates at noon

Homemade veggie nachos with Amanda

my reading tonight at the Lucky Cat

(this is something I'm working on---to find 3 things to celebrate each day) so look for small snippets of gratitude blogging this month)

Blue

always makes me happy and it's around this time of year that I always end up with blue toe nails---tonight they're the color of the sky.

When I got home, found a letter from my father with a clipping from the Cleveland Plain Dealer---an article about Maj Ragain:

some lines from Daniel Thompson, a Cleveland poet, writing about Maj Ragain:

The heart unfolding
like a bird on the wing
asks of heaven
only for a mouth to sing

reminds me of Nancy singing Nigguns at Drisha during our artists' lunch. And in speaking of poems and songs, you'll find me in Vilna with Alicia Ostriker and Jehanne Dubrow. And as Maj always taught, gratitude can come as the honest and bastardly prophet. And on Friday, you'll find me in Williamsburg for a reading...

I'm grateful for all of this...

Confirmation

As I've been struggling with what really matters in my life and what is it that I want to do and be the most, this article confirms the work that has chosen me. Joanna brings to the surface what many of us want to bury.

You can read the entire series Beyond Rape in The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

There is too much to say and too much not said and for now, it is someone else's words that sing.

Come See Me

I know I've been out of touch...I have so many stories but I'm struggling with trying to figure everything out lately...sometimes I think I do so much that it's difficult to know which direction to take. But I'm not one to discuss these things via the blog. Hence the silence. So right now, here's some more shameless promotion.

DRISHA POETS Elana Bell, Amy Gottlieb, Sarah Heller, and Carly Sachs
Will Give a Reading On Wednesday, April 30th at 6:00 PMat the Cornelia Street Café

Poets and Drisha Arts Fellows, Elana Bell, Amy Gottlieb, Sarah Heller, and Carly Sachs, will read from their work at the Cornelia Street Café in the West Village on Wednesday night, April 30th at 6PM (29 Cornelia Street, 212-989-9319). The evening will be introduced by Drisha Arts Fellowships Coordinator, Eve Grubin.