Around noon today I got stir-crazy, and the cat was all knocked-out-loaded on painkillers, so I went down the street to browse around at the Salvation Army for a bit. I used to love digging around in thrift stores for hours, but I've gotten spoiled and busy, and I was just about to leave when a woman standing in the aisle beside me saw a man she knew, and she yelled across the room, "What did you think of that?" And he knew exactly what she meant, apparently, because after saying hello and long-time-no-see, he said, "Man, he said everything I wanted him to say..." and they both started laughing and talking about Obama's speech. And then another woman, a stranger, across the room started clapping and said, "Did you hear who McCain picked as his VP?" And some other woman came over and said, "Yeah some woman from Alaska?" And someone else said, "Palin! This woman named Palin, and I'm from Alaska, and let me tell you, that lady's just a bimbo!" And the woman who started the whole conversation started talking about what a sexist decision it was, if John McCain really thought women would vote for Palin just because she's a woman, and the first guy asked if that was really what was happening, and on and on... granted, people are chatty in Denver, and especially chatty around this neighborhood, where there are lots of folks hanging out on the street. But this spontaneous conversation amongst mostly-strangers was still pretty awesome.

Because I really don;t want to prrofread:

this might be my new favorite song....why they don't have it on their website is beyond me.

**

also, i think i'm going to call my dissertation "Naming Strays". it's been a few things before this -- "American Distillery," "Strict Fidelities" -- but somehow, this feels right.

**

my last year of school. ever. thank fucking god.

The Naming of Strays


What season in this? The wet shawl
of Deep South cities strung across
my still spotted arms, drinking
local beer outside in the tidal heat

of October. You never know what
the preamble of love will look like –
wrought iron tables, pasted napkins
on the butts of steins, my elbow

and his pitched in conversation.
There’s something in how he told me
he had never been in love – a lie, I later learn –
that makes me anxious to make him,

truss up his story in a thesaurus of words
for “light”. Later, drinking bourbon on my front porch
I marvel at how he does not touch me,
an absence no man has dared give.

Two years of floundering in unmade beds –
bar rat’s rooms with their armies of tossed laundry
and abandoned dryer sheets. Or on my own couch,
propped on a lap like a broken door,

a systematic devastation of men who loved me
then the ones who peopled the bar
with shot glasses and pints of cheap,
American beer. This night is different, though.

The playground across the street
with its stilled swings, my cat slipping
between his legs, the sweetness
in how he touches its back, the arching

acceptance to tenderness that is a language
it alone understands. Love might be simply
the naming of strays, this black tom
that roamed my ex’s parking lot, the bottom half

of a lizard zipped up in its teeth.
Without a name, it was homeless –
no back door where it could smuggle
squirrels, no stretch of shoulders

to paw on afternoon beds. And any name
would do – Othello, Stevens, Serendipity.
Each comes equally from the lips
with the front door propped at the top

of the stairs. Watching him gallop
across that playground on his way home.

Not until I Attained Manhood Did I Realize I Was an Inventor

Lining up everything sideways is better than not

being allied. What is the opposite of sticking you

with the final minutes of the day again? An orangey-

green bruise that I made myself generate some

reasons for having it bloom open on the side of me.

In the side. Because living within seventy paces

of mountain ranges makes you stretch your diction

until it’s heard. In the minutes you mention a new way

to call each other by our names, but I am already

too busy listening for the way I know it will be.

More Than My Full Measure of This Exquisite Enjoyment

Could have been a horsefly – was ground

hornets instead. Tie it all together til it buzzes

out its crunchy body. I have a crunchy,

elderly reason for burning my energy for you.

When we were “toddlers” together we stuck

to our own foreheads through sweat and pieces

of big, darkening BANGS. Because I loved you

I cut out all the Hubba Bubba before we met

the other makers, who don’t like it when

we aren’t always in everything together. But I

am thinking even now of the words I used

up, instead of saving them for this construction.

"When asked why she shunned men and women, Emily Dickinson explained, 'because they talk of hallowed things--aloud--and embarrass my dog.'"

Quote of the day from EW: "George Lucas is turning into the enemy of fun."

And Tiffany was right. Thank you, Clubhouse, for opening my food horizons. It's amazing how many of these things I've actually cooked myself! In fact, I'm going to star the things I've eaten in my own home.

The infamous food meme: Bold means I've had it, strikethrough means I'd never consider eating it.

1. Venison*
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros*
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile(though technically alligator)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue*
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush*
11. Calamari
12. Pho*
13. PB&J sandwich*
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (Lucky dog!)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes*
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries*
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans*
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters*
29. Baklava*
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas*
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float*
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (Had both--though not together)*
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O*
39. Gumbo*
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Swallowed accidentally, while cycling)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (pufferfish)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut*
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer*
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle*
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8%*
59. Poutine*
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores*
62. Sweetbreads*
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs*
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake*
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain*
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho*
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (Close.)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare*
87. Goulash*
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam*
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish*
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta*
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I'm drinking Haitian Blue right now--does that count?)
100. Snake

Kurt Vonnegut called [semicolons] "transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing."

The semicolon is my favorite punctuation mark; I also love parentheses.

Coming in December 2008: Episode #8, featuring Dan Beachy-Quick,
Lily Brown, Eleni Sikelianos, Ed Roberson, Nathalie Stephens, Abraham Smith,
John Keene, Philip Jenks, Lisa Fishman, Richard Meier, and a number of others.

http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com

I was already two centimeters and didn’t
know how to make that pony drink. Anew

without any space between my body

and the bodies of those cool, dark jades
that line the sidewalk home. You can make some waves

out of anything. Aluminum foil. Sometimes I keep on talking
until the radiators bleed out. Sometimes I pour the water

just as long, until anyone tells me
to stop.