what I said to Seth

In response to Seth's post about improving his life I posted the following:

I wish my anger were a better motivator. Too often it turns back on me and gnaws.

At first I used my blog as a diary, but then after talking about someone I found I'd hurt his feelings. That made me stop blogging for a few months. I started up again to respond to another poet who'd slagged me. I figured I could post my version of the story and could direct anyone there who was curious.

My main blog, LoveSettlement, is a mild mix of my diary, my poetry notebook, and a photo blog. I don't lay out really personal stuff but I do like to note major activities -- new job, big vacation, floods. I started my book blog because for years I've kept records of my reading and I don't think the result is really publishable but do think it's interesting. The blogs are informal writing. I try things out. But I know I have a reader or two so I make sure what I post isn't sloppy or tedious.

We are traveling. Even sitting still we are traveling because all throughout our bodies & minds there is motion and time is the traverse of space, the earth turns on its axis and turns about the sun and the sun travels through this galaxy and the galaxy too is moving. A wind of particles is constantly blowing through us and striking us and changing us. And we change merely by sitting or lying down, we tense or relax, the mind wanders or fixates or seems to vanish, the breath comes in, the breath goes out, having been invited, having been asked to leave. And the inviter, the one asking the breath to go -- me?

Let's say

the news coming out of your two by four is of a piece with the raunchy silhouette of a laddish gal from out back yonder, her hair done up in the latest tulips, her lips like a long song you're stuck searching out the words for, words you'd be able to find if you weren't so dog burned crazy with the truckle, if this & that weren't rubbing up in a misty manger, inn lights dancing on the lambs. And let's say you had a map to the nether regions of the lumber yard, where warm sawdust yet tumbles in close sheds, and the blades' fresh oil is sweet enough to slip into like a lip balm, tongue battering the teeth to get them to move, and a tremulous fly opens the way to another corner, his buzz the only noise drying.

Sundy smiling

photo credit -- KLM

cold & rainy

Sutra is licking the rain from his back. As he is on my lap I have to reach around him to type. He doesn't like that.

Jack's blog

is called immaculate conniption.

Info Desk Blogging

Whenever I sit down at the Info Desk I adjust the chair. Chair adjusting is an important skill for the modern office worker. There should be trainings so we can all adjust the various brands of office chair, each one being differently adjustable. You shouldn't settle for an ill fitting chair.

That said, I must say I always forget how to adjust the Info Desk chair and have to fiddle around with the levers, lowering my seat when I mean to shift the angle of the seat back and vice versa.

Last week I emailed a link to this site to one of the librarians. I'd talked to her about my "being a writer" then followed up with the email. I only realized after she replied (with nice words) that I'd intended to send her to my homestead page. This blog is such a miscellany. My homestead page organizes things a bit -- poetry, musings, book talk. Now you know.

T for wa er

waTer

water for tea

heating water for tea

Info Desk Blogging

Every so often someone asks if we have a certain textbook, high school, college, and I say, "We usually don't carry textbooks. And when we have one it's often an old edition."

When a young man found a calculus text today he said, "So I can't keep this out a whole semester, right?"

Um ... No. But that would be why we don't carry many textbooks, I guess. It would be terribly tempting for one person to hang onto it as long as he needed it. Plus which them things are darn expensive.

3 piece suit

I bought a suit. Kent has been needing clothes so we went to a discount clothing store called the Clothing Broker, partly because we couldn't think of any decent department stores nearby. Kent found a suit jacket that he liked but they were all out of shoes his size. I found a dark three piece suit for less than two hundred dollars. I don't have a suit. When we went to the bat mitzvah of one of K's nieces Kent dressed me in one of his old suits. It's too small for him these days and still too big for me. Baggy but not falling off. I looked dressed up. Not having a suit otherwise has not interfered with my life. Still, it seems like I ought to have one. For that businessman look. I like looking all manly normal, however I feel inside. Not saying I don't feel normal, just not manly normal, y'dig?

When one of the salesman saw me wearing the suit he said, "You're not one who puts on weight easily? Add ten pounds and that won't fit."

Nov 1999

I don't know whether it was the very first Poetry & Pizza, but I was throwing away some old papers and came across the notation on the calendar page for November 1999. The first Friday. November 5th.

So P&P has been at it for -- as of last November -- at least six years.

Throwing away papers for me always feels a little bit like throwing away history, like I have some obligation to the future to keep records of the past. But who's going to look at these dry notations? Really. Even if I were to become (posthumously?) a famous person (for what? my poetry?) is there anyone who would go through my old calendars in order to learn about me?

I do find material evidence interesting. You know, how many times did I call in sick that year? when was the last time I went to court for jury duty (1996 -- and I was dismissed after sitting all morning listening to the loud television in the jury pool room and people yakking on cell phones)? It's not like I write EVERYTHING in my journal. There's lots I don't bother to (or forget to) write about.

Kent had filled a grocery bag with old papers to shred. When I got home from work today I sat down and shredded everything in the bag. God, I hope that was okay. All that shredding inspired me to grab a few of my own papers -- the calendars, some old utililty bills -- and shred or discard them, too. Like I said though, it still feels weird.

Info Desk Blogging

My regular Info Desk hour is 4-5 on Monday. What with holidays taking up the past couple Mondays I haven't been Info-ing in awhile.

Busy today! A video that was supposed to be on the hold shelf for a patron isn't. For a disabled patron I quick ran back to the sorting area to check on a video that has been "recently returned" so hasn't made it to the shelf yet -- couldn't find it either. It's so much more satisfying to flourish the very thing they want!

A boy of eight? nine? asked, "Could you direct me to where you have books on astronomy?" His mother standing attentively behind him the boy carefully wrote my answer on his notepaper, "4th floor".

Hey, nobody's asked me where the restrooms are!

True Love addendum

In the post below I talk about a movie a friend is in. But I don't mention the friend's name. Not like it's a secret. His name is Gregg Richardson. There's even a picture of him in a review at Film Monthly. Gregg is the one with glasses.

True Love

A friend is in a movie, a tiny independent movie, that's now available on DVD. True Love is only 72 minutes but it includes seven brief stories. My friend's segment, "Sunday", was filmed at his own house in the Berkeley hills. Two middle aged men are in bed together on a Sunday morning. One wakes to find a Happy Anniversary card on the bedside table. He turns to his lover and mimes making love to him, in order not to wake him. It's sexy, not pornographic.

The movie is pretty good overall. "Staying Together" was my favorite story, I think. The actors are playing a couple that's been together awhile and they seem comfortable with each other; they touch, kiss, embrace, as though there were no danger in the act.

It's worth a see, if you can find it.

no worries

With a loud Wow Sundy popped onto my chest at 2:45 am last night. I woke Kent by dancing kitty on his shoulder. Startled, Kent gazed out of sleep daze, "Oh. He's back."

Sundy smelled of old dirt, not quite under the house dirt. Maybe somebody else's toolshed? Maybe they heard him yowling in the quiet of the night and set him free.

worried

If worry could move mountains a mountain would be creaking at its bolts right now.

Sundy wasn't here when I got home, which is very unlike him. He's a people cat. He's always here. He's almost as needy as a dog. His brother, Sutra, is around. When I went out in the backyard looking for Sundy there was Sutra, walking away from me. That's Sutra. The walking away from you cat. When Sutra came in while we were watching TV I told Kent to send Sutra back out to fetch his brother.

happy new year!

Rain rain rain.

Naturally the Russian River is flooding. I grew up in Sebastopol, which is near the Russian River and every time there was a serious storm you'd hear how high the river had risen with flood crest predicted. Every few years the river floods and once a decade or so it really floods.

Meanwhile in Berkeley we've stayed around home. Went out for sandwiches and coffee drinks around one. Did some laundry, dishes, watched a movie on tape. Got the year started.

Tomorrow I'm promoted. New pay scale, window, smaller cubicle, different supervisor, new work, same library, same department. Whee!