Thousand: Thirty-Five

first thing you find there. It should be a pearl. If it is a dirigible or a rubber octopus, please put it back. If it is something like a pearl, even if not exactly a pearl, it will do. Insert the pearl (or pearl-like object) into your ear. It should settle securely into the ear canal. Do not push it in deeply, as the pearl needs time to adjust to its new environment. If you have already shoved the pearl into your ear as deep as it will go, what can I say. Don’t be in such a rush. Take

Thousand: Thirty-Four

then makes a break for it, thudding down the steps, dashing across the lawn. She’s left the binoculars behind! Do you look through them now? Or should you follow her? If you are tired of this game, go inside the house. There is a pitcher of iced lemonade on the table and plastic tumblers stacked upside down next to it. If, however, you can’t resist the girl’s invitation, she seems have taken to you after all, make haste. If neither of these options quite sounds like you and you would like a third, reach inside your pocket. Pull out the

Thousand: Thirty-Three

into its skin by a pelting of hail. There’s no way you’d be able to read that message without the binoculars. On the other hand, it’s just a fucking apple. Who needs it! It’s not like you’d be able to reach it anyway. The ladder doesn’t go near high enough. If it did someone long since would have had the thing in hand, bitten it, sucked its juices, and dropped what of the woody core they didn’t want there among the foxtails and star thistle. The little girl looks over her shoulder at you, beckons with a theatrically crooked finger,

Thousand: Thirty-Two

the porch steps. The binoculars lurch off the table. Do you grab them to keep them from thumping onto the boards? Or do you figure, they’re not your binoculars, presumably they belong to the girl, she must know what she’s doing? She gets to the porch steps and tugs the strap again as though it were a leash. Does that mean she pulls you along? Or do you watch the binoculars rumble forth at your feet? Is there anything important about using the binoculars? You were going to use them to check out that apple. Maybe a message was scarred

Thousand: Thirty-One

curls one hand around the strap from the binoculars and holds the other over her mouth. She’s smiling, clearly. It’s not possible to hide that big of a grin. But when she sees your face the girl quickly purses her lips and puts her index finger in front of them. She gives you a slow blink. A tattered straw hat covers her hair but for wisps at her ears. Around the hat a once white ribbon culminates in a flower, battered, blowzy, and unforgiving. Without letting go the strap the girl drops forward and crawls on hands and knees toward

Thousand: Thirty

tugs back. Do you wonder if it’s dangerous? Or do you bend down to look? While you are hesitating a comet sheds molecules of water, steaming coldly toward the sun. While you think about the fruit’s possible states and the safety of a home swing set made of aluminum, a bell signals the opening of the stock exchange on an island nation too small to support sales of annuities. The strap’s slack is again taken up, but gently. When you peek under the table a little girl in a flouncy yellow dress and white sandals decorated with colored glass gems

Thousand: Twenty-Nine

Consider the apple. Would it be sweet or sour? Is the skin puckered, like it’s drying out? On a table on a nearby porch is a pair of binoculars. Do your feet hurt? What time is it? The door is ajar. As you step on one of the porch’s creaking boards, a cat darts out of the house. Then a dog. The dog shoots right past you, almost making you stumble. When you pick up the binoculars you find the neck strap is caught on something under the table. You give a tug. Whatever below has hold of the strap

Thousand: Twenty-Eight

the treacle in a glass jar, you will see a newspaper truck idling in front of a fire hydrant. Turn your eyes in a leftward direction but without pivoting. You should be able to spot a child sitting on the grass. If that child is made of straw you will need to count the stop signs at the next three intersections. If the child is constructed completely of bird seed there will be a ladder nearby leading up into an apple tree. There will be no apples on the tree but for one at the very top out of reach.

Thousand: Twenty-Seven

honey, my sweet, my precious. I want to eat you up. I want to slup your entrails, nibble the webbing from between your toes, gnaw the teeth I’ve worked from those powerful jaws, tickle your tendons with my raspy tongue. All in good fun, my dear. Here, I’m going to put you by the fireplace. Watch out for the firedogs! Kidding, kidding! Sh. Just rest there. I’m going to show our new friend the TDL basics. It won’t take but a moment. Have a shrimp. OK. Besides the distractions of the manor estates with their beard moss festooned oaks and

Thousand: Twenty-Six

L for L for L for leather? I don’t know. L for love? L for El Gran Idea! Something like that. Eh. It’s on the clasp, a logo. I bought the bag in a specialty shop. It was given to me. Things are beautiful and then respond well to caresses. A night draws the dawn back toward itself but there is always a struggle. Always a struggle! People have been known to weep over nothing then stand stoically amid clamorous death. Oh hello, it’s Velma the Camen. She’s right on top. She usually is. What green eyes you have, my

Thousand: Twenty-Five

contortion toward the light while below an ancient volcano washes gently, gradually, roundly down. Try to cross that coral and it will shred the ship’s hull, and then where will you be! On permanent vacation, marooned desert island style. Got sunscreen? Umbrellas? Hurricane waders? Yes, you have a transdimensional shift. Go ahead. Put it on. How? It doesn’t look like clothes, right? You don’t put it on like clothes. Again, you’re looking at me like I’m not being helpful. I would demonstrate but. I have an idea. Give me the TDL satchel. T for Trans, D for Dimension, L for

Thousand: Twenty-Four

just slightly, like the smudge of a word incompletely erased, by a distant island. It’s not always easy to get to an island, you know. Some of them are protected by reefs with teeth as jagged as any shark’s. You sail your ship around a surf that pounds a half mile from the sand and palms, a wild white surf bashing away on its own skirts while underneath the clown fish and octopus, the parrot and eel nip about among anemones and the coral that grew upon coral that grew upon coral, lumping and branching bonily in a slow secretive

Thousand: Twenty-Three

I had been thinking about boating. There is a lot of water in the world and it would be a darn shame not to be able to step about on it. Move about on it, I mean. Swim? I’m afraid I don’t know how to swim. I know how to flail and flounder without quite failing and foundering. Not swimming, really. I probably wouldn’t last long out in the great sea unsupported, even if the waters were shark-uninfested. Sharks always infest the better water, the kind we like to hie over, wind and sea spray, joy of a horizon blemished

Thousand: Twenty-Two

a magnet doesn’t do anything, that it’s passive, the lines that iron filings gather into around the magnet being nothing having to do with action but rather automatic sorting via unvarying, unwilled natural laws, you’d roll your eyes at my weirdly restrictive definition of “doing.” Huh-chew! Sorry. Do you have a tissue? Thanks. Huh-huh-CHEFFFF! Whew. That was a big one. Hm. Would you look at that! See? A prophecy in the spittle pattern captured by the tissue. I can see that reading, but I think it has more to do with whether the weather tomorrow will be good for boating.

Thousand explained, 2

“Thousand” has passed its second thousand words. Only 98 to go.

It’s really quite easy to write 100 words. It takes 5 to 10 minutes, time which isn’t difficult to find in a day. As the passage usually ends mid-sentence, my mind goes on busily, finishing that sentence off the page, and typically runs on with the story, spinning it toward future turns. When next I sit down I tend not to remember most of the ideas I’ve had for what will happen next. That’s perfectly fine. I have to focus on the 100 words, and 100 words don’t present much opportunity for advancing a plot, unless the writer is very patient and willing to take baby baby steps toward a long term goal. I’m not that patient. Nor do I have enough faith in any plot I might dream up. I wouldn’t expect it to play out well over 100,000 words. I think it’s better that I have little more idea of what is going to happen next than anybody reading along.

There being no plot, each 100 word piece has to stand on its own to a greater extent. There has to be something interesting going on in every passage; merely advancing the plot is not an available excuse for dull prose.

Thousand: Twenty-One

How many would it take to make nice drapes? I wonder if souls melted down would make an alloy with gold. Could there be a metal more likely to be the soul’s mate? Does “transdimensional” sound more scientific than “soul”? Here, pass it to me. Yes, you have a perfectly good grip on it. The thing about “transdimensional”, it sounds explanatory. But it isn’t, really. Might as well call it a “bunduggle wah zinswitz”. Euphonious, no? Harder to remember, though. What does it do? Do? I’m tempted to say it doesn’t do anything. But if I were to say that

Thousand: Twenty

and in some stories the Devil is hideous. It seems more reasonable to me that he is beautiful if he’s in the business of temptation. But then, he would have to be a really great salesman if he was hideous. And isn’t he supposed to be? Or maybe he’s supposed to be a great buyer. Although it isn’t right to say a salesmen doesn’t buy things. He buys things for a little and sells them for a lot. Even if the Devil gets a soul cheap, who would want it? Of what use is it? Is a soul beautiful? Decorative?

Thousand: Nineteen

thinking of those buttresses, flying up like shoulder pads, and those dazzling windows that draw your eye to as much as from the cleavage between breasts lifted, gently together pressed and held, the display of patience before God like that of a bustier before three candles which raise gold flames, unflickering in the warm boudoir. There you go. You found it. It was the best clue one could offer. The transdimensional shift! Beautiful, isn’t it! I know. It’s hard to tell. But it’s more fun to say it’s beautiful than that it’s ugly. In some stories the Devil is beautiful

Thousand: Eighteen

you’ve ever seen a cathedral in blue? Yes. No, I don’t mean a cathedral painted blue. Never mind. I saw a book once that was all in blue; it was adapted from a major motion picture that was all in blue, which was inspired by a very rainy day. The shift? Look for something that does not look like clothes. Does not. I realize many things do not look like clothes. A fire hyrdant does not look like clothes, a beach ball does not look clothes. A cathedral? Some cathedrals are ready to wear, don’t you think? I guess I’m

Thousand: Seventeen

escape you, despite my velocity. Not that I’m in any hurry to leave you. No no. I could stay all afternoon. Work? Don’t worry! I called your boss to let her know you wouldn’t be in today. You have the sweetest boss. I would dip her in my bitter dregs any day. Would you like to watch some TV? No? Why are you staring at me like that! I know, what we really need is a transdimensional shift. Yes, I have one. It’s in my bag. Don’t let out the camen. She’s very sweet but toothy. I don’t know if

Thousand: Sixteen

See, just here. The portrait of George “The Slugmullion” Washington will watch over it. I’m going to make you a cup of tea. Coffee? Sure. Cream and sugar? You take it with what? God’s everlasting glory? Sounds great. This blue mug okay, the one with the Live Fish logo? You know, you look beautiful like that, sipping coffee gone to glory. The way the steam paints a soft mist across your bifocals, the way the halo orbits your neck, its counterclockwise motion revealed by the blue bead caught in the inevitable pull of your fine gravity. I, too, am unable

Thousand: Fifteen

roses fluffed. The door. Here it is. Standing before you in its gatekeeper way, there to keep things out and in and to provide egress. No, I’m not stalling. Wait, yes, I’m getting a transmission. All that caterwauling that supposedly sounds like it’s calling for you? All that banging and thumping like a crowd of elders on mission after somebody’s slipped triple cap shots in their chamomile tea? Pay no attention. Sh. We’re going to go over to the couch now. Sit down. Let me unlace those hobnailed boots. I’m hanging your chain mail on the hook by the door.

Thousand: Fourteen

on the list of things to do. There are always so many things to do. No matter how many of them you’ve done! You go to the door. It’s the foremost thing on today’s agenda, it seems, though you’d been thinking earlier that riding the new slide down from the highest turret at the Castle of Nowundaid with the kids from the Knitting Club or putting in your application for tusk polisher at the Mega Large Elephant Array could fill that ungainly space between the usual chores, the cats needing to be watered, for instance, or the heads of the

Thousand: Thirteen

your hands inside the launch car, and loose articles under the seat. Besides, who cares if it’s your name. Your name could be anywhere, could go anywhere, could be living a life separated from you by miles and attitude. You realize your brow is wrinkled. That is what happens when you concentrate or when you’re upset, and when the botulism injections have been neutralized by your immune system. If I had allergies, I would take something for my allergies, you say to yourself. The latch is almost off the trapdoor to heaven, you note, as you look up. Put that

Thousand: Twelve

loaded? And what about that one? It’s heavy enough. OK. Shark hat, octopus gloves, dragon breath, supersonic goggles, DNA-disruptors. Check, check, and, oh, no more breath in the dragon breath bottle. You listen again. Yes, the knocking is still going on, and the shouting. It might even be your name. But your name sounds like all sorts of common noises; you’ve heard your name in the sounds of subway trains, the troubling through underbrush of ground animals, and the squeaks of the clouds rubbing against the sky. So you’ve learned to be cautious, not to jump to conclusions without putting

Thousand: Eleven

the mother of presidents? Presidents stand for something. It would be nice to be able to stand. Later, after a good night’s rest, you are rinsing your mouth with detergent and alcohol when there is a knock at the door. You think, “I’m not going to get that. It’s way too early to see humans.” But again there’s the knocking and this time a voice seems to accompany it. You stop swishing and spit, then cock an ear. That voice is familiar? If so, she’ll just have to wait a minute while you strap on your weapons. Is that thing

Thousand: Ten

achieve its beauty, unmarked, unmarred, made. Now, having flexed, it cracked your skull open, pulled itself, wet and purposeful, from the chrysalis. Which it leaves on the accent rug. Next to a curl of hairs and dust beside the shower stall. How does it feel to be emerged from? To be left by your inner child? For starters maybe you’re wondering what’s left of you. It’s all rather sudden. One must take a moment. You blink your eyes. Yes, your eyes blink. You remember who the president is, then decide, no, you’d rather remember who your mother is. Was she

Thousand: Nine

sort of idea one clings to in the face of contrary evidence? Then you remember: you haven’t taken any. So the leprechaun business—you’re facing it straight. “It might be a dream,” offers the gnome. No. It wasn’t the gnome. Its eyes are closed, its breathing slow and even. Maybe the cat? The cat who lives in the dell? It is time to be naked and empty so the butterfly within you breaks out via your forehead, sloughing the material that held it back, but which held it safe so it could grow, restrained it in order that it could

Thousand: Eight

gnome on the leprechaun which is face down on the toilet's lid. The day is looking up. A new dawn is already crawling into the sky. You draw the curtains. A cold wind is blowing. It gets in through cracks in the walls. Soon something mythical will begin its dark rounds. The leprechaun and gnome, despite being mythical, don’t look like they’d be up to dark rounds. The gnome groans and squirms atop the leprechaun, then, with a long sigh, seems to fall back into unconsciousness. The idea of taking drugs in order to improve one’s situation—is it the

Thousand: Seven

door open, as the reveal takes place, the chemistry constructed for your mental construction, for the relief of your aches and cooling of your cough. You didn’t expect the leprechaun. He’s not dead, but the signs of life are few. You consider CPR, which suddenly makes you think it’s an abbreviation of coprolite or, even worse, coprophile. Well, can’t have any of that. So you put the leprechaun aside and move on to the red-capped gnome who also is looking unwell. Were they at each other’s throats? Or at your drugs! You don’t even have good drugs. You stack the

Thousand: Six

pink kitties? Who wants pink kitties? You can’t sell them. You can’t get money for them. You put them in a box by the supermarket and they squall and roll their bloodshot little eyes and the cute little girls bend over the box only to jump back and begin to wail, clutching their mothers’ legs. So you take a tranquilizer. That’s really your only choice. Faced with a preventable accident like pinkness in cats so freshly laundered. You go to the medicine cabinet, you don’t even let yourself meet your blue eyes in the warped mirror as you pull the

Thousand: Five

and mouth to mouth and sea to shining sea. Grandma, you know what I’m talking about! Meanwhile, in the laundry, one red sock turns every fucking white cat pink. You throw them all in together, hold the lid down, maybe you have to put a few bricks on top to keep the lid on, and when you go to put them in the dryer, they’re pink because some shithead left a red sock from the last load down there in the bottom of the tub. You wanna kill him. Cuz what are you going to do with a passel of

Thousand: Four

be dropped off on a nearby doorstep. We can pilfer that. The stars will need to be replenished from the bucket out back. A rare religious exception will be made for the rinderpest to recede to its original hosts without exacting divine punishment from the wicked. Why? Don’t ask why. The reasons are among the stars, I mean the way they are distributed. It’s a pattern. A completely random and arbitrary pattern meaning nothing, but a pattern nonetheless, one you can read by, the future, the past, and certain recipes, the ones that have been passed from hand to hand

Thousand: Three

apologize again. That’s what’s going to happen between now and November, more frequently than either of us would prefer. This means I’m going to insult you repeatedly? That’s not the plan. But things I don’t think bad will turn out bad and I will come to see the error of my ways and, all things being equal, will search my drawers for an apology as sincere as any other, clean and uncreased, and I will offer that to you. I promise. OK? That out of the way, let’s look at the inventory of celestial items. I understand fresh produce will

Thousand: Two

know by now, being familiar with the experience of humanity. A bug is a bug, or so they say. Once one was wonderful. Then one became wretched, and after looking the body over, one was amazed by the miracle of misery, what perfect drama it created, or if not perfect, then meticulously crafted. Someone is going to write your story up. I have a lead or two. I will get it out of my supernal box then swoop it over your nose—swoop swoop—while the angels of hootenany repose in their ordnance. I’m sorry I’m going to have to

Thousand explained

I'm starting a new long piece. It is called "Thousand." The plan is to write one hundred words at a sitting, stopping as soon as I've hit 100 -- with Microsoft Word doing the counting for me. That means stopping in the middle of a sentence, like as not.

The plan is to write one thousand of these 100-word pieces. Each takes off from where the other left off? I guess so. We'll see. A thousand pieces sounds like a lot. If I write one per day "Thousand" will take less than three years. But let's just say three years, it will take three years. And end up being 100,000 words. That also sounds like a lot. It sounds like a good deal more than a thousand.

There is, so far, no plot. A plot of some sort may begin to accrue. I suspect it will. In my writing I tend to pull all the parts together, even if I am also trying to push them apart.

Thousand: One

Thousand thousand. You don’t have to be happy, mon ami. The happier, the crueler, I used to say, until the boom got lowered and I had to crawl around on all fours and I discovered the necessity of reserving words for torturing small animals and children. The wind blows, the air shakes sand out of its skirts, and a legless lizard disappears into the downslope. You never know what is going to happen. You’ll hear that a lot. Frequently you know what is going to happen. What is going to happen has happened to someone else who you ought to

written at the Info Desk

row by
row he
reviews
the shel
ves until
he's bow
ing deep
ly



I don't know what language
she's using with her child
except for, "No," and "No."



it ought to be simple --
explaining why it's not
is not easy

written at the Info Desk

in a library full of books
books full of words
I find nothing to say



tree the wind sets all aquiver
you haven't died to make a book



newest newspapers bound to sticks
the man and woman each
shielding their faces behind events



she puts on her glasses
turns to face
the wall of mysteries



he puts on his glasses
to examine the piece
that fell off them



judging by the clock
how much hunger I'll have to fill

written in a cafe

ah, I see who got the last
chocolate chip cookie



dotted streaks
raindrops hitting the dry window



chair tipped so it rests against the table
the rain can't sit there



almost done with that book
true for weeks

written at the Info Desk

my boss walks by
I try to make thinking
look busy



he flips through the first several pages
then puts the book back



people in caps and jackets
umbrellas dripping
so sunny yesterday!



a book by Edward Lear
it belongs to another library
How Pleasant to Know!

written in radiation oncology waiting room

"AUTOMATIC
CAUTION,"
says the
"DOOR"



sit facing the clock
or
sit facing the television



"How are you?"
"All right."
"Good for you," the tired patient says.



on the bulletin board
the smiling faces --
pushpins in their heads



these eyes wouldn't be able to read
that sign
in English either

written on back porch

seeing my thoughts
not the grass



sitting
the cat going under my legs
a tunnel



the floaters in my eyes swirl
turning to look at the cat



cat, tasting something under a porchrail, shakes its head



the mouth of the hose is dry
the ground below still wet



watering can on its side in the grass
gathering spider webs



a white calla lily
its neighbors curling into fists



yup, cat loves my lap when it's his choice

written at the table

I opened the window
because the outside
needed more room



tree, a tiny breeze will make you shiver so



a stack of CDs --
so much sound
sitting silently




feeling slighted by the neighbor
-- this moment's old resentment

written in a cafe

having cleaned my plate
food in my teeth



the handsome dyke
just look at her
the world is better



the farther away the easier to see
the haze on the hills



after naming all the stores
she's shopped at
she & her friend sit quietly

written in the bakery cafe

anxious, tired
not always, I remind myself



Buson on the white board
I squint to see who he's missing this year



snickerdoodle, choclatine, macaroon
this time a muffin



is there more wakefulness
in the bottom third of the coffee cup?



she sticks out her tongue
rushes to add sugar to her cup



last swallow more bitter than sweet
sticky crumbs on the muffin paper

written at the table, listening to music

all of a sudden
a lot of light
but look at those rainclouds!



now the table's shining
we need curtains



this page has a freckle



no more sun
it was too much, really
for this mood



what if the next song makes me feel like dancing?
oh, it doesn't

written in the break room

startled to find
the glass vase waiting
shiny, clean and broken



metal book ends
arches lining up a passage
tongues overlapping for a path



the unopened fortune cookie
who here didn't need to know?



a yellowed old donation
hey, I'm reading that book



the mending supplies
what a messy jumble

written in a cafe

he shaves his whole head every day?



ceramic duck in the window,
peoplewatching?



shaking his mother's keys,
he waits for the intersection to clear
completely



at least one in every crosswalk



sky bending across windshields

written on back porch

my notebook
sun on the page
I filled last night



digging them up
cutting them back
living with plants



crows now and jays
the songbirds taking a break



surprised at having set the bin a-rocking,
the squirrel hops off



upside down, clinging to eaves
by your toes, bird,
great place for a bug?



past the hairs on my ankle
the ant makes good time
across my foot

working at the library

"good morning, baby"
croons a child's voice
"tuh woo! tuh woo! tuh woo!"



tic a tac
closing out the cash register
did we break a hundred?



returning her DVDs
the woman gasps
a case -- empty!

written on the back porch

inside -- Kent's TV
outside -- the neighbor's



the cats are listening
to birds
not the market report



noises: traffic, airplanes, newscast
I came outside to commune
with the visible



the yellow trumpets of oxalis
are tooting toward the underworld



do you want anybody to pity you, cat?
me neither!



quieter, cooler, darker
what next?



my hand likes the feel of you, too,
orange cat

written in a cafe

dead weather constellations
psychedelic horseshit rubbersidedown
-- playing tonight



under a green umbrella
the blond reads the pink pages



guidebooks for Spain and Andalucia
the traveler fetching a latte



another one of my little burps
I take a sip of water
to fill the gap



his yellow t-shirt
likes his body



two little girls --
this one in two colors
this one in six



he carries his skateboard
its black surface sparkling

written in the taqueria

tree shadow aquiver
faded parking cross



the man in reflective orange
rests against a white fire plug



even upside down
pineapple pulp and ice cube
not shaking loose



police officer on a bike
another officer
and they're off!



one big sneeze
my eyes open
world's about the same

written on the bed before dinner

the things piled in this room
are patient



unfolded shirts
rest on a pillow



hearing noises upstairs,
the cat takes his purr away

written in doctor's exam room

I haven't had a physical in 2 or 3 years. I've had it on my to-do list for months. Finally, I scheduled one. As usual it was loads of fun! What I wrote in the exam room:



the nurse having gone
I'm alone with
more waiting



doctor's exam room --
on the white walls
fliers of many colors



a model heart
a model tailbone
imagining myself a model patient



how many ahs
in the jar of
tongue depressors?



picking at a thread
not ready to come free



I have higher blood pressure than I ought to. It's short of a diagnosis of disease, but when I said my dad had bypass surgery doctor looked concerned and gave me the spiel about eating right. At the pharmacy I bought a bottle of vitamin D - "It's the latest miracle supplement," the doctor said, with a twinkle.

written on couch, listening to music

"You need somebody to reach behind your neck,"
says Kent, giving the cat in his arms a vigorous scratch.



how can I write with all these distractions?
the distractions are more important
so neglect them and write badly



this music is really rock & roll!
Kent cleans the litter pan
this music is really rock & roll!



am I hungry
or just tense
-- belly things!



adjusting my body
to be more comfortable

the next tiny itch - where will it be?

written at the dining table

a proud vermilion cock
construction cranes against a manila sky
-- two poetry anthologies



salt cellar
peppercorns with grinder top
-- two towers



asking for something
nervous because I think he doesn't want to do it



the heater has come on
yes, it does look cold outside

new books in the Claremont collection

Life in Rewind
Back to Life
How Not to Die



7-day Energy Surge
So Stressed
Rest



Secrets of Happy Families
Happy at Work, Happy at Home
At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream



The Wild Marsh
The Pecan Orchard
The Wolf in the Parlor

written at the library information desk

the reflected 8
a little top-heavy



my heart is working –
too hard?



under the chair
nothing
but some dark



do I have to like
what I write?



embarrassed by something I said
… uh … sorry, interrupted, what?

written in radiation oncology waiting room

"I will recognize you next time,"
the patient apologizing to the nurse



I start to count waiting room chairs,
lose interest

number of people: 2



taking a breath -
I've been holding it
listening to strangers' voices



They should have treadmills in waiting rooms.



----
This is the 1,001st post at LoveSettlement.

written at the bakery cafe

pressing warm coffee cup
to my forehead



his long curly blond hair held with a barrette
hers straight and loose



the bakers are talking business
my coffee break's almost over



having loaded folded laundry
in his car, the baker
comes to work



eye on the pastries,
Rosemary passes right by my "Hi!"

written in the attic

in the attic, hearing
how hard the rain
wants down



roar of airplane above rainclouds
thrumming of construction tools next door



third pen this morning balking
like my thoughts

written at dining table

I can see rain
but only when it passes
shadows



the wind whistles
going about its business



I won't see you in sequins
when the sun's out,
neighbor house



mouth still sweet from the cookie
drinking glass still white from the milk

written at the Albany Bulb

On April 1st I started a haiku project. My husband has been diagnosed with colon cancer and he's trying to live in the now, pausing to meditate and appreciate, so I'm following his example. While at the hospital last week I wrote some haiku (or haiku-like poems, depending on how pernsnickety you are about definitions). And I thought they were pretty good. So I set myself the goal of stopping somewhere each day and writing at least 3 haiku, preferably at one sitting or in a short space of time.

Today K & I went to the Albany Bulb, a former dump for construction materials that nature has reclaimed. It's a park now. It extends into the SF Bay in the shape of a bulb. Lots of people take their dogs. Shortly after we arrived I saw one dog that, for a split second, I thought had only three legs. As we were leaving a real three-legged dog bopped by - one forelimb, two back.

As we rounded the bend to the flattest, most exposed part of the park, where it's just slightly above the water, we saw a young woman in white, baring her shoulders to sunlight just beginning to warm as the high fog burned away. She had two companions - young men in faded green or blue jackets. They were all quiet, and at first I thought the boys must be photographers and the girl a model. But when we came upon them, the woman returned my smile and I said, "Here on a photo shoot?" She said, "Just enjoying it."

As K & I left we looked back to see the woman had walked out in her long white dress and white fur to the point, while the young men shared one chunk of concrete some distance away. One of the men was smoking.

People paint or sculpt the old rubble so there's often something new to see.

As we neared the paved drive a tall young black man in baggy clothes passed us telling his cell phone, "Chemotherapy will fuck you up."



faces of bright yellow
painted on the rubble



four diving birds on the water
no diving birds on the water



surf so sleepy
it doesn't even turn over



time to go?
just a little more breeze
for our backs



the sound of
stepping stones
rocking



on a tree
naked but for hanging shoes
Kent hangs the shoe



ahead Kent
fords the puddle



the puddles are blue now too



grand plume of tail
on that dog
I'd be proud of it

while on the new couch upstairs

I watch myself on the turned-off TV:
he looks tired



through old glass
a tree's a little warped
but the white sky -
perfectly smooth



a plastic bag
stored between spokes of the bike
that doesn't go anywhere

written at cafe

dark glasses on the table
bicycle seat in the backpack
he sits down again


leaving the Laundry
red jeans spread to dry
over the wheeled basket


she holds her reading glasses against her nose
when she lets go, they don't fall


a borrowed pencil
the back of a receipt
otherwise: thoughts only

Saturday at the library

I walked to work this morning. On Saturdays I take the bus. Except today. I guess I just wanted to be moving. It takes me about 40 minutes to make the trek. The bus, frankly, isn't much faster, especially once you add in the time waiting for it and the ten minutes it takes to walk to the bus stop.

The morning fog kept me cool though I shed my overshirt just after crossing campus.

When it's quiet on the Information Desk I will shelve DVDs or new books or clear away a pile of books abandoned on a table. Saturday can be crazy. It's not been bad at the Info Desk but I think the circulation desk got slammed, as usual. When the delivery arrived - boxes of books from other BPL branches - I brought a couple boxes over to the Info Desk to check in.

My boss this week sent an email reminder to those of us who staff Info. No cell phone conversations at the Info Desk. No online shopping. No homework.

Hm. What about poems?

Fante, etc

I processed 12 more paperbacks. Tuesday, March 9. The batch prior I solicited guesses on which would go first, right? But one of the other things I was curious about was how long it would take for the first to go out. It took ten days.

That batch was made up of the sort of popular fiction you see by the supermarket checkout counter. There are readers for it here, but not a lot.

So what about the 12 I put out this week? It's been three days and already three have been checked out:

Ehud Havazelet - Bearing the Body
Ursula Hegi - Stones from the River
John Fante - The Road to Los Angeles

The Hegi book was an Oprah book club selection from a few years ago. But the John Fante? Fante was a writer long out of print until the small press Black Sparrow took notice (presumably at the urging of Black Sparrow house writer & Fante fan Charles Bukowski) - Black Sparrow Press was acquired by a New York publisher, so Fante now has a New York publisher. I don't know Ehud Havazelet.

Margolin goes first

So two weeks ago I added a batch of paperbacks to the browsing collection.

I made a couple guesses and David (in comments) left a guess, and Kent (offline) made a guess. None of us were right.

The first book from the batch that got checked out was:
Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

The next day another went out:
Amanda Quick - The Third Circle

And two days later:
Daniel Silva - The Mark of the Assassin

3 copies of P&P

I think we're shorthanded today. That wouldn't be unusual. I've already had my lunch - I ate at House of Curries, a chicken tikka masala with rice. This afternoon's break I will eat homemade chocolate chip cookies as I slurp my coffee. I am looking forward to it.

No hassles at the Claremont branch so far. I haven't smelled any homeless people. Maybe the sunshine has them out wandering.

The Info Desk is near the corner where we keep the DVDs and new books. If nobody needs reference help I'm often shelving in that corner.

The DVDs come in & out so quickly - I wonder how long we had them before I realized there are three copies of the 2005 movie version of "Pride and Prejudice"? Two are on the shelf right now. One is out.

I just fetched another batch of new books from the circulation desk. Are there any that I'd like to read? Not Now, Voyager has a clever title. It's by Lynn Sharon Schwartz, says it's a memoir. Seems to be a series of essays on travels - to Rome, to Jamaica. Chapter titles like "Hotels and Soap" and "Borders or Cabo Tormentoso".

"One day our doorbell in Rome rang," writes Schwartz, "and we discovered two strangers, an American couple in their fifties who introduced themselves as neighbors of my parents. They were vacationing in Rome and my mother had asked them to look in on us. ... My parents knew we had a furnished apartment but couldn't quite picture the details. So they sent this couple. ... [After a tour of the apartment they could] reassure my mother that we were living in some semblance of decency."

Looks okay. But I think I won't add it to my current pile.

goodbye Chinese books, hello cafe

Last Tuesday I put 14 new paperbacks onto the browsing racks. They're not new, as in brand new from the publisher; being as they were all donated, they are pre-read, but they are new to our collection. Last post I asked for guesses on which of these 14 would first be checked out. In the week since, not one has been checked out. Hm. That's not what I usually see. Usually one of the new items goes right out. The 14 books are just about all by bestselling authors of the supermarket wire rack variety. The readers here don't seem to go for that sort of bestseller. Dunno why. Anyway, you can still guess which will go first! If anybody gets it right, they'll get a prize! Or maybe a no-prize. An air kiss? We'll see.

The Claremont branch library is facing renovation. It's looking like there will actually be less shelving in the library after renovation than we have now. That's not making me happy. Even though I'm all into weeding and everything. Speaking of weeding - the Chinese books are out of here. We no longer have an employee who speaks (or reads) Chinese so we don't have anyone who can review the collection for currency and quality; the books are getting old and aren't often checked out. So we're deleting them. It's not a big collection. Six or seven shelves. Down to two. I spent an hour earlier today deleting.

When it rains we put a big roll of paper towels out on the returns desk next to a sign: "Please dry your books! Thank you!" If people bringing their books back don't use the towels, we certainly do.

There's a new cafe in the neighborhood. Just what the neighborhood needed? It's only been open a few days and already it's busy. The cafe takes over what used to be a soda fountain in a drug store. The rest of the old drug store has been taken over by the expansion of the independent bookstore, Mrs Dalloway's. Yes, an independent bookstore successful enough to expand. Who'd thunk?

any bets?

Patricia Cornwell - Predator
Anne River Siddons - Fox's Earth
James Baldwin - Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin - If Beale Street Could Talk
Amanda Quick - The Third Circle
Daniel Silva - The Mark of the Assassin
Eric Van Lustbader - Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Sanction
Haywood Smith - The Red Hat Club
James Patterson - Sail
Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege
Robert B. Parker - Stranger in Paradise
Clive Cussler w/Paul Kemprecos - Polar Shift
Clive Cussler w/Paul Kemprecos - The Navigator
Clive Cussler & Dirk Cussler - Black Wind

The above are books I added to the browsing paperbacks collection here at the Claremont branch. I added the books on Tuesday, so it's been a couple days and none have yet been checked out. Any guesses as to which will walk out the door first?

I'm going to guess:
Robert B. Parker's Stranger in Paradise

Since there are so many I'm going to give a second guess. If not Stranger then Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin.

Info Desk!

One of my duties is waking sleeping people. It's not like I tour the library looking for them. But if I hear snoring I get up from the Info Desk and look for the snorer and wake them. Sometimes it's a homeless person, sometimes it's an old lady. I have seen a college student or two with head down but I've not yet felt I had to wake one. I mean, if you sit out of sight of the Info Desk and sleep quietly there's probably not much risk anyone will bother you. That is, unless we see you stretched out in a bedroll.

Nick was busy trying to finish shelving the holds. As usual we've got a lot of them. Each book (or DVD or whatever) has wrapped around it a printed slip showing the name of the patron for which it is on hold. We don't really have room for all the holds. Currently, I see, Nick has not been able to get them all onto the shelves so there are two book trucks poking out into the aisle with holds on them. Anyway, while Nick was working on the holds I helped out a bit on the Circulation Desk. So I was running back & forth - handing out a library card application here, helping with the balking self-checkout machine there.

Now I'm back at the Info Desk. A patron said he couldn't get access to our wireless network; he said he'd never had any trouble before. He waited a few minutes and is in. "Don't know what happened," he says.

My last reference question: a woman is putting together a short course (6 two-hour lectures) on the history of photography. So I helped go through the catalog in search of books & DVDs on the topic.

Julian Bond of the NAACP speaks to the Human Rights Campaign

I watched this speech by Julian Bond spring of '09. I saved the code to embed it here, then didn't. Playing it again I like it again.

So reasonable. So soft-spoken. Such a mensch.

back to the Info Desk at the Claremont Library

I see someone spinning the browsing paperback racks. Looks like she's going for a PD James - plus 2 others I can't make out.

I did a batch of nonfiction paperbacks yesterday. Nobody's checked out any of those yet. It always encourages me when something I've processed gets checked out, especially if somebody pounces on it as soon as it's available.

A woman just asked if we had any books by a writer, "Last name - Robert." She double-checks her note to herself. "Roberts," she corrects.

Roberts? Uh. "Nora Roberts?" I guess.

"No." She thinks. "David Roberts."

I put that into the search box and come up with five different "David Roberts" author entries. The woman is holding a book of mystery short stories. I ask if David Roberts writes mysteries. There is a David Roberts in the catalog with mysteries to his name. I read off a few of the titles. None are in this branch; all are held at Central. The woman says she will go by Central this weekend.

We have four computer terminals for accessing the internet. Used to be one was set aside for drop-ins. We had a waiting list people would sign. As of this week you have to make a reservation via one of the catalog terminals in the lobby. No more waiting list. One of the usual questions we get is: "I just need to get on the internet for 2 minutes to check my email." Sadly, we do not have a 2 minute internet terminal.

An older man tells me, after having trouble with the newly installed catalog interface, "When you get to be 80, all change is bad."

“progress in understanding one’s self”

My mother died more than five years ago. When I cleared out the house in Sebastopol I threw away lots of stuff. But I kept as much writing or handmade work as I could. I brought it back in boxes and crates to the house in Berkeley. There was really no place to put it all so it stacked up in corners.

Now that the upstairs renovation is done, Kent and I are trying to find places for all the things we really want to keep. And if we don’t really want to keep it? Move it on out into the world. This weekend Kent took boxes of books and clothes to Out of the Closet, an AIDS charity thrift store.

One pile gone, umpteen to go.

In her last years Mom found a friend in Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher. In going through a box just now I came across Old Path White Clouds: walking in the footsteps of the Buddha, a fat book of teachings and stories (legends?) about the Buddha. Mom marked pages 146 & 147 which give a thumbnail of the Buddha’s central teaching. “The Buddha began serenely … ‘The path I have discovered is the Middle Way, which avoids both extremes and has the capacity to lead one to understanding, liberation, and peace.’” (Mom’s emphasis)

On the inside back cover Mom’s handwriting notes, “Humility and open-mindedness are necessary for making progress.”

Then, dated 8/27/00 Sunday, Mom questions the preceding, “Where did I find? This statement is not complete. I’m sure that ‘progress’ refers to progress in understanding one’s self -- Not ‘progress’ in mechanical, non-feeling technology.’”

She adds two book recommendations. “Books I like – by David Darling Soul Search and Zen Physics.”

comments on “I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling”, version 4

New title. I edited down what had been the first three lines to a title. I decided the old title was merely the spark and didn’t need to stay. I grew to dislike the word “kingdom”, especially. Lopping off the beginning of a poem in revision was a lesson learned from my first poet-teachers. The beginning is also often the hardest bit to part with, as it was what got the poem going and can seem like the poem entire. The new first line is better, though.

Some other changes, but I won’t itemize.

My opinion of the poem over the course of its versioning has gone from I-love-it to I-hate-it and back. I’m in an I-love-it mood right now. Or I was when I started writing these comments. Now? Oh, now I’m just sorta tired.

“I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling”, version 4

House on Foundation of Cloud


In the hall my heart stopped.
The wind dragged past to the bath.
And I had to tear loose some fear,
some little of it
that caught in the hinge,
that had stopped things up.

To one of the tongues of flame
that searched the walls for words
already eaten, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
smudge now across a watery way between
white monuments,
I pressed it.
To one of the fatter
I pressed it.

Wasn’t it falling?
Wasn’t I?

I reviewed my expertise in falling,
tested the latch and release of the heart.
The wind dragged off in the other direction
toward one of the dark rooms
far back.

With cold fingers I tore from my fear what would come.
Put it in your ears, I told myself.
They burn, too.

comments on “I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling”, version 3

When I started this version I thought I was maybe just fiddling. I don’t know. At the moment the rather minor changes feel important.

I note a lack of agreement in the phrase, “the words that had been eaten … that was smudge now”. “Words” is plural, “was smudge” should be “were smudge”? Yet I prefer “was”. Words a singular like team or language. Then there’s getting rid of “was” … “eaten and digested, / smudge now across a watery way …” Hm.

Paul Mariah’s workshop, I recall, was the place I learned to look at the tiniest words, like “it” or “was” or “the”. One tends to overlook them. Then the question, if overlooked, truly needed? I can see other places that might profitably lose small words. “I had to tear loose some fear, / some little of it / caught in the hinge …”

Fiddling.

I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling, version 3

The house, on foundations of cloud,
replenished smoke tapestries
from the burning of fear.
In the hall my heart stopped suddenly,
the wind on the way to the bath dragging past.

I had to tear loose some of that fear,
some little of it
that caught in the hinge,
that brought things to a halt.
And to one of the tongues of flame

that searched the walls for the words
that had been eaten already, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
that was smudge now across a watery way between
white monuments,

to one of the fatter
I pressed it.

Wasn’t I falling anyway?

I explored my expertise in falling,
tested the latch and release of the heart.
The wind dragged off in the other direction
toward one of the dark rooms
far back.

With cold fingers I tore from my fear what would come.
Put it in your ears, I told myself.
Keep them burning.

comments on “I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling” version 2

I used to avoid melodramatic language. Didn’t I? Well, I’ve always used it. But I tend to edit it down cuz people find it objectionable. I think I’m camping anyway. Exaggerating, dressing emotion in gaudy excess. I think that’s one of the things that poetry does – excess. Non-poets turn to poetry in extremis. When the heart hurts, when they feel an agonizing grief, a flaring rage, a deep calm. Ordinary, daily emotion isn’t what poetry is for. It’s also for an excess of language strategies – sound, pun, structure, destruction. Excess doesn’t mean not serious. But serious doesn’t mean fun-hating.

Used to be the dedicated poet soaked in agonies and spewed ecstasies, too. But fashions changed. Restraint. A cool intellectualism. These became the acceptable poetry. All that panting and moaning and running through the streets – even if only safe on the page and bound – ugh – the sophisticated reader recoiled. And I’m not saying I don’t share the reaction. Poems of centuries past that wordily roved about the poet’s oh-so-important sentiment remain anachronistic.

But I like passions. If my poetry is sometimes more WWF than street brawl, okay. I like capes and shouting. A poem is not a fist in the face. Not really. It’s display, not attack. Not that the two aren’t frequently confused.

When I showed the poem to Kent he said it was familiar. Yeah. I knew when I was writing it I was revisiting a dream that’s found it’s way into many an earlier poem. There’s a terrain that I wander through that a reader used to my work could begin to anticipate. It’s not that we refrain from repeating ourselves; it’s that we’re trying out variations.

I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling, version 2

The house, from foundations of cloud,
replenished smoke tapestries
with the burning of fear.
In the hall my heart stopped.
The wind dragged past to the bath.
And I had to tear loose some of that fear,
some little of it
that had caught in the hinge,
that had brought things to a halt.
And to one of the tongues of flame
that searched the walls for the words
that had been eaten already, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
that was smudge now across a watery way between
white monuments,
to one of the fatter
I pressed it.
Wasn’t I going to fall anyway?
I explored my skills in falling,
tested the latch and release of the heart.
The wind dragged off in the other direction
toward one of the dark rooms
far back.
With cold fingers I tore from my fear what would come.
Put it in your ears, I told myself.
Keep them burning.

poem I bought a book with

“I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling” is the poem I bought a book with. Today was Small Press Distribution’s annual open house and in a nook of one of the office cubicles they’d set out yellow writing tablets. If you brought a poem or story you could fill out a voucher form, then hand over your writing and choose from several shelves of books. If you hadn’t had the foresight to bring anything you could sit down and write something on one of the yellow pads. I liked that. So I sat down, cast my gaze about the walls at posters, at the bookshelves, nothing grabbed me. I turned to the page and wrote down a phrase that has visited me now & again for decades – “I fell into a kingdom of falling.”

They say they will publish a selection of the poems. The young woman who stapled my poem to the voucher asked if she could read the poem. I said yes; once she’d read it she didn’t say anything. If she’d loved it I suppose she would have said something, but who knows.

I saw one familiar poet waiting for the scheduled reading to begin, Dale Jensen. He showed me a couple books he’d plucked from the boxes of books being offered for a dollar per. After the reading (which was good; I really have to sit down with that Andrew Joron book I bought years ago) I applied myself to the task of spending $10. There were about fifteen full boxes – poetry, novels, essays, literary magazines. Did I succeed? I did. I will list them all at DIR.

A big storm is coming in. It rained a bit on the car on the drive over to SPD, and maybe it rained while I was safely inside the warehouse poring diligently over the dollar books. Having bought them I was asked repeatedly if I was sure I didn’t need a bag. No, I said. Somebody took a picture of me holding them against my chest.

I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling

The house, its foundation of cloud,
replenished smoke tapestries
with the burning of fear.
My heart stopped in the hall
as the wind dragged past to the bath
and I tore loose some of the fear,
some little of it
that had caught in the hinge,
and pressed it to one of the tongues of flame
that searched the walls for the words
that had been eaten already, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
now smudge across a watery way between
white monuments.
I was going to fall anyway.
I explored my falling skills,
tested the opening and closing of the heart,
the wind dragging past my mouth
toward one of the dark rooms
at the back of the house.
I tore at my fear with cold fingers.
I should put them in my ears, which
are burning.

Finding Fowl

Here I am at the Info Desk again. I helped a woman (mother?) find the 3rd & 4th novels of the Artemis Fowl series - the books don't feature a number on the cover, and our online catalog doesn't tell you. There are tricks - like sorting search results by publication date - #3 in a series is never published before #2, right?

I haven't had many live people asking for help. And most of the phone calls make me feel like a receptionist - "Let me transfer you to her office."

A preteen girl wanted the Dear America series. A friend had recommended them. I found the series in the catalog, then set her up at a catalog terminal so she could scroll down the list until she found one she liked. She found two. Neither was on the shelf. One was checked out. The other? Who knows. While we were looking for the Dear America books the girl started spinning a rack of paperbacks and said she was okay with not finding the Dear America books as she was finding other things of interest.

I don't do the children's paperbacks. I will help with the processing of them - entering the titles into the system, slapping on a barcode, whatever. But I don't choose any. So if there's great stuff there I can't take the credit.

Info Desk Blogging

Quiet night. I'm usually not on Info Desk the last two hours of a Thursday. I guess I got plunked here cuz the head of the branch is taking part in a public meeting to gather input on the renovation of the branch. I just got a phone call: "Are there many people at the meeting?" Being as I can't see the meeting room from the Info Desk I tried encouraging the caller to come and have his say. "We welcome the input," I said. But the caller wasn't right nearby. It would take him fifteen minutes to get here. He didn't want to come unless nobody else was here. So I put him on hold and went to see. "Looks like there are five people at the meeting," I told him as I got back on the line. "Oh dear," he said, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

Tonight is also our day of the month to host Lawyers in the Library, a volunteer service of the Alameda County Bar Association. There's only one lawyer. So it's Lawyer in the Library. Rather than Lawyers ... donchano.

The Lawyer night brings more anxiety than usual into the library. I don't hear any of the stories that lead people to need lawyers, but worried faces come up to the desk wondering if the lawyer is in, how long does the lawyer see each person, what's the order people are seen, and so on.

One of the slightly weird things about our Lawyer night is this: "In-person sign-ups only; sign-ups begin at 5pm. Names pulled by lottery at 6pm." You are not seen in the order in which you show up. You are seen in a random order. This seems to change somewhat according to who is at the Info Desk. Some Info Deskers give people a place in line. This changeability is kind of annoying. The Berkeley Information Network page (linked above) has the rules; I read the rules to anybody who asks and whenever they tell me someone else told them something different I tell the questioner all I know is what's written. If the policy has been changed the written version needs to be changed so we all can give out the same information. Blah blah blah. I try to say it nicely.

I try to say everything nicely. Nobody likes attitude. Frankly, attitude just makes the job harder. Of course, part of the job is enforcing rules and that's not always happy-making.

Ooh. Is cold out. The door opens and chill air pours in. Just think, at home now we have central heating! It's cheering me up.

pre-Thanksgiving thoughts

The renovation project drags on. It’s stressful. Working on our fourth* month. I’m sure other people have had it worse. Do you ever actually feel better when you hear how much worse other people have it? Better, in a relative way, maybe. It doesn’t make you feel good, right? It just puts your misery into perspective. At least I’m not in prison or wandering homeless in the desert. My hands are cold – but I could be starving!

Really, I don’t get the could-be-worse strategy for bucking oneself up.

Last night in bed I was counting my blessings. Most of them came with a yeah-but (“Praise be for two orange kitties. … Yeah, but it would be better if they didn’t pee in the house, and if that big fluffy one didn’t act like we were just this side of enemies and run away from our affections.”); I tried to quiet the yeah-buts and came up with a pretty good list.

We don’t have concrete plans for Thanksgiving. … uh … Cooking in the new kitchen?

----

* actually, we're working on our fifth month!

a haiku sequence written at sunset Nov 8, 2009

too chilly to sit
on the porch, have to pee
write about that



white apartments sunset pink
cherry tree porchlight yellow



two old toilets under a tarp
chimney now a pile of bricks
grass green again



cat circling me
hunting a chin scratch



the mop propped outside
gets wet with each rain
but not clean



all right, daylight
leave the page
to my imagination

Info Desk Blogging

Don't have the approval to clear the weeding shelves yet. So. Not doing that.

And I did a heckuva lot of paperbacks last month so I want to wait till people adjust to the new stuff before processing any more. And I kinda don't want to kill off any older paperbacks right now.

On lunches & breaks I choose a book from among the deleted paperbacks (yes, I hang onto those that look interesting). Last week I finished The Boys and Their Baby by Larry Wolff. I started The Good Conscience by Carlos Fuentes at lunch today. I ate a veggie sandwich at Nabolom Bakery and in two chapters worked my way through two generations of a Mexican family.

Weather is nice. The front door is propped open.

Browsing paperbacks that have been checked out today so far:

Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club
Emily Griffin - Baby Proof
Anne River Siddons - Sweetwater Creek
Anna Quindlen - Black and Blue
Robert B. Parker - High Profile
PD James - Shroud for a Nightingale
Adrienne Brodeur - Man Camp
Jane Smiley - Ten Days in the Hills
Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You
Anne Tyler - Digging to America
Velma Wallis - Two Old Women: an Alaska legend

Info Desk Blogging

I've completed the weeding project. That doesn't mean it's finished, tied with a bow, put away, all done. After all, we're still getting in new books and the new books have to go on the old shelves. Even though I've removed many books from the old shelves, the new books will fill them up and more weeding will need to be done. Plus there are small collections that I haven't worked on yet - the Chinese books, the oversized books.

A couple years ago I took on the weeding when I was annoyed by the book trucks in the meeting room that had been set aside for overflow, that is, all those books there was no room for in the stacks. I was sitting here at the Info Desk, you know, looking over at the crowded Fiction thinking, "I bet no one checks that one out, or that one." There was a period not long ago when I had made enough room on the shelves to clear the books trucks. That was satisfying. Unfortunately the most popular collection, the Mysteries, is full again. The DVDs are crowded, too. And the area set aside for them was small to start with. I haven't attempted to weed those. I suspect the best way to weed them would be for condition - do they play? But we don't have a DVD player here.

Actually I'm waiting on my boss to approve for deletion that last batch of weeding. Once she gives the OK that'll be the work of a couple hours.

morning jackhammer

Let’s see. A jackhammer is beating away at the concrete that was just laid last week? That would be under the house. I think that’s what’s happening. I haven’t actually gone to look. Or asked. I just get to hear it. That was a hammer wielded by hand, that was. Thunk thunk thunk. Felt that one through the floor boards.

Living in a construction project. Fun? Or not fun?

Ambient temperature outside: 59 degrees fahrenheit
Inside: 61 degrees
I got the first number from Weather Underground. The second was the last number I saw on the thermometer upstairs. The one on the downstairs thermostat is less precise but looks about the same.

There are still holes in the roof. These will be filled by skylights. Sometime. Not by tomorrow, though. Tomorrow a big storm is supposed to be coming in. Supposedly the holes will be covered enough to keep the rain out.

The project is a kitchen remodel. It keeps being other things. The jackhammering is related to the structural deficiencies our contractor discovered upon tearing out walls that were holding the kitchen in. He wants to make sure the house rides out the next big quake. Which is overdue, he insists. Earthquakes are not library books, I almost say.

Angry

Angry that we have to fight and fight and fight.

Watching the fight to keep Maine’s new marriage law with a feeling of dread.

Just as important is the fight in Washington state to keep marriage-in-all-but-name.

Angry that we have to spend lots of money to run these expensive campaigns so we can live out our boring, normal lives.

Angry that we lose these fights over and over.

Nobody wins anything when we lose. Nobody’s life is easier. No one is protected from anything. Nothing is served except pain.

Walk?

I feel like going for a walk. I wonder if I am going to go for a walk. It's getting late-ish, toward dinner time. I feel somewhat less like going for a walk than I did a couple hours ago, time I've spent reading, mostly, also eating the cold, sweet watermelon Kent cut. Drifting around the house.

Part of what's stayed me from a stroll is lack of destination, but all the routes have been traveled, too. If Black Oak Books hadn't closed, I said to myself earlier, I would probably walk over there, a mere two blocks, and while away an hour picking up books and trying to talk myself out of buying them. But today is Labor Day; even if Black Oak were still there wouldn't it have shut for the holday?

Kent & I ate lunch at Bel Forno, a North Berkeley cafe, then took advantage of $10-off coupons to buy some stuff at CVS Pharmacy (formerly Long's). Kent got new earbuds for his iPod. I got toilet paper.

That was our walking for the day. Which didn't seem quite enough. But if I were to step out the door now, where would I go? Half Price Books is open as is, I believe, Comic Relief - and Half Price is even offering 20% off on everything - but we poked around there yesterday and I managed not to buy anything.

I could walk up to the Rose Garden. The sun's getting low so maybe I'd be in time for sunset. (Timeanddate.com says sunset is at 7:29, so I can dally and still make it.) Views of the bay and the Golden Gate are good from there.

I've seen 'em so I know. Plus a walk up that way would be good exercise.

If I walk north I end up at Solano Ave. Which is of interest. But I was there just last week. And what would be open?

If I walk west, what? The Ohlone Greenway? It's okay, a long stretch of urban park. Kids on monkey bars, dogs in the fenced-in off-leash zone, homeless people.

Sometimes I like looking at houses or imagining myself living in different neighborhoods. I could do that in any direction.

It would be fun to have a friend (or three) that's also a neighbor who doesn't mind an occasional visitor dropping by. You know, for a chat, a cup of tea, a game of checkers. Whatever. But I don't have any quite like that these days.

I guess I'm a little bored. Not frustratingly so. I've banned myself for the rest of the day from the political blogs because I was just leaving angry comments that weren't doing me a lick of good, really.

Walk. Or no. Having written about it I'm sleepy. Perhaps I'll take a nap.

Info Desk Blogging

It's quiet here at the Claremont Branch. I can hear over at the circulation desk an older woman is being told she returned a DVD case without the DVD inside. "I found that at home. I was wondering about it. If you really want it, I can get it back today," she says.

Thursday nights we stay open until 8pm. And when the light lasts people linger. During winter by 8 it's been dark for two or three hours. Few people hang around.

A warm day. The front door is propped open.

A man just asked me what our wifi security protocols are. We have security protocols? The Wireless FAQ page on the BPL website says, "Your information is not protected while using wireless." So I guess there aren't any.

Another man asks me if he can talk to me about a missing book. It seems he got a notice saying a book he checked out had not yet been returned. "But I know I returned it," he says. "I know because I opened the door to the drop box and looked in to make sure it had fallen all the way in."

I took the library card, scanned it under the laser frog scanner. The patron's library account popped up. He had exactly zero books checked out currently and had no fines. "No need to worry any more," I said.

I've been working away at the weeding project, book by book reviewing the collection for damage and for books that just don't go out the door. The section I've been going through just lately used to be very tight and has been weeded in the recent past. So mostly I'm carrying books from the shelf to the Info Desk then, a few minutes later, carrying them back. Still, a few things have been put aside: Chinatown, USA: a history and guide (1965), a 17 year old collection of George Will columns, superceded editions (a Suze Orman book, a Nolo book on 401(k)s, a J.K. Lasser Income Tax guide).

poem

The mouth opens black
under an inaccessible sky.
You look at the mouth,
black and open like that,
no way into it.
You're considering the ways
you might get away from it.
There’s left
and right
and back the way you came.
You could walk under it, too,
duck right under its big black gape,
those two broad teeth poised to bite,
one tooth to each stiff jaw.
You could stop,
and with an open palm,
whack that mouth -
whang!
Then on into the unfenced field,
leave the road stopped before the mouth
that’s going to bite, looks like,
going to bite a piece off and swallow it.
You’d be brave,
marching down the throat of that future,
past where any road’s allowed.





photo by Art Durkee
found on blog post by Jim Murdoch
in which he talks about writing poems in response to artwork

Winkie report?

Winkie good. Compliments to David Maxine for putting together a solid program. Um. Nice drive down with John Bell who was visiting from Boston; I picked him up in Oakland and we chatted (or I chattered?) all the way down. I asked him once on the way down & once on the way back what sort of music he liked – I’d intended to bring a batch of the playlist CDs I’d burned, but had forgotten them at home, the music preference question being not just idle curiosity but checking to see whether he would hate what I was going to slip into the car’s CD player – except, of course, I didn’t have the CDs with me. Still, John said he liked “American Standards.”

American Standard?

Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, Eloise McGraw. Um. No? I didn’t put on the radio because I was talking, plus I was driving, so why distract from the moment?

I liked John. Smart guy. Personable. Didn’t interrupt me.

Anything else about Winkies? The old regulars. They are getting older. I guess that was a surprise. We youngsters of the 70s & 80s? Middle aged. Anybody coming up behind us? Um. Anthony? The 15 year old local? I liked him. Bouncy. He was puzzled by the lack of attention to the MGM movie. “That’s what I really like,” he said. “I haven’t read the books.”

Meanwhile David Maxine was saying we really need to get people to join the club who are into the Oz books. The books!

There is only one MGM Wizard of Oz. There are 14 sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. And many sequels by subsequent authors. I run out of things to say about the MGM movie rather quickly.

But I don’t know. I got one thing at the auction, an early edition of The Giant Horse of Oz. The other night Kent asked me if it was a book I really liked. After he noted that I wasn’t answering that question I furrowed my little brow and said, “I’ve never thought of it that way. I’m going to have all 40 books in the Oz series, and, yes, there are some I like better than others … but the issue of whether to buy something has little to do with whether that particular book is a favorite. Some editions of the books have more illustrations. I’d like the ones with all the illustrations.”

videotape

"On a recent night, [diver Shanda] Magill watched ... a dozen squid with doleful, expressive eyes circle her group, tapping and patting the divers and gently bumping them before dashing away.

"One especially large squid suspended itself motionless in the water about three feet away and peered at her closely, its eyes rolling, before it vanished into the black. A shimmering incandescence rippled along its body ...

"Other divers have reported squid pulling at their masks and gear and roughing them up.

"Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer, ... said ... The animals taste with their tentacles ... 'As soon as we went underwater and turned on the video lights, there they were. They would ram into you, they kept hitting the back of my head,' he said. 'One got ahold of the video light head and yanked on it for two or three seconds ... trying to take the video light with him.'"

more

*

"[A] huge search [of NASA archives] that began three years ago for the old moon tapes led to the 'inescapable conclusion' that 45 tapes of Apollo 11 [moon walk] video were erased and reused. ... The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and '80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.

"[NASA senior engineer Dick] Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings back in the Apollo years, said they were mostly thought of as data tapes. It wasn't his job to preserve history, he said, just to make sure the footage worked."

more

life in Berkeley

Banging upstairs as our contractor & his assistant tear up the floor. New kitchen on the way. We had walls taken out and the ceiling is gone.

Weather is nice. So if I’m driven from the house by the noise I won’t be wandering in the rain or fog.

I’m off to Monterey this weekend, the Winkie Convention. Looks like I’m giving a lift to another conventioneer who’s making his first Winkie appearance.

Kent will be helping a law school buddy celebrate his 50th birthday. So we’ll be in different place this weekend.

The cats seem to be handling the renovation okay. They make themselves scarce during the day then show up once the strange destructors take their leave. Sundy goes upstairs and cautiously investigates the changes. I don’t know if Sutra has gotten past a frightened glance.

Couple nights ago Sundy came down – his face black! I knew he’d poked his nose into some new hole. I grabbed him up to show Kent. Kent delicately removed the spider web black with dust that had neatly framed his orange eyes.

Try This at Home

I like to pick up cheap sampler CDs. I’ve found lots of great music that way. At Half Price Books this week I found a sampler from Shut Eye Records, “Wrapped in Plastic”. The names of the songs, the bands, even the engineers and studios come together into fascinating tiny stories.

Catholic School Girls “Meat Wrench” (from the new album “Emily’s Basement”). Recorded at Smegma Studios.

Female Chauvinist Pigs “You Lied” (from the debut cd “So You Think You’re a Man”). Recorded at Spock’s Brain Studios.

Public Safety “Need a Reason” (from the album, “Try This at Home”)

Happy Campers “Things Could Be Worse” (previously unreleased). Recorded at Bombshelter. Engineered by Adam Bomb. Produced by Happy Campers. Mastered by Alien Audio.

I haven’t listened to the music yet. It would be nice if I liked it at least as much as the liner notes.