Why don't I try to learn guitar again?

Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Patti Smith Smells Like again...
My other job is in a room right next to a bunch of practice rooms.
Guitar, piano, voice practice. I hear that every day that I'm there.

(Perhaps a bit unwholesomely) entertaining

To me, after an evening of karaoke. (At work.)
A music critic's voicemail and a Casey Kasem meltdown.

Task putting-off activity

Watching this: Patti Smith - Smells Like Teen Spirit.
But I'll go do that task now!

Ciao cosita

I found a little sharp metallic object when I was cleaning out a bag today. Perhaps it was thrown away or stashed on purpose. It wasn't mine. It's old. It's going in the wastebasket.

que es eso

My friend sent out a message to wear shoulder pads and eat cheesecake in Bea Arthur's honor. At work I saw on Larry King that her costars said she wasn't the "strong" person that her character was, that she was quite "timid." Boo hoo. Cry. Why?

La isla bonita!

Aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui...
ACA.
aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui...

my little poetry info moment

My friend is longtime friends (and once dated) a guy who hosted Mark Doty. He and his boyfriend were taken to some hot springs in Alaska. My aunt, who lives in Alaska, said she shouldn't date someone from Talkeetna. He's not from Talkeetna, originally. But...blah blah blah. He's going to teach in the Middle East. Ya da ya da ya. I don't know what the point of this information is. It just came out while I happened to be sitting in front of the computer. Oh, here's another piece of info. I went to the library and read a new Margaret Atwood book. It had a poems in it about some guy lusting after a young woman and hating being old. Isn't that depressing. And rather shallow, too. I thought about my old students, who told me that they got sick of their Shakespeare prof always talking about the sex in the plays all. the. time. Anyways, then I just checked out this poetry book. It's by a very mature man. It's about gardening. The Wild Braid. Haven't read it yet. When I went to Peru, I wore braids in my passport photo. I was nineteen when it was taken. The customs guy made a big deal about it. Trenzas. Que bonita. That is expired now. I have to get a new passport.

Ugh vs. Much Better

Ugh: Work at same place for years, NO raise, debts, bad economy, aching feet :P Much Better: Nice people who will walk you to your car at night and you give them a ride back. Yay :-) Additionally, I'm ready to embrace a more debt-free lifestyle, including paying back my student loans. Really, really, really!!!!!! And hey, Paulo Coehlo has a blog.

Wild edibles(ish) types of things...

From spiritofchange.org, franklinparkcoalition.org,
thisgardenisillegal.com, gardengirl, yougrowgirl.com.
Also, an essay from I linked to from that site, which I think could be titled "What Scylla accidentally taught me."
About 10 feet away from me right now, an unseen person is doing something to the ground with some kind of gardening implement.
I hear a leaf-blower encroaching.

Hooray for water and a bucket

Wipe down grimy patio table, wash towel, sit outside, and admire grime-free table's fake marble green hues...

Strange Juxtapose: bittersadsoursweethappy

"Darlin'" lyrics are sad. :-( Album cover is happy! :-)

Borders

Huell Howser and Borders

Maybe I served a purpose today...

I was a good person to be lounging in a car parked on the side of the street in between jobs. A young (teenage) couple came up the sidewalk, and they were arguing. They walked away. Then I looked up, they were back. The girl came and stood right next to my car. She was looking down as the guy kept saying "why do you have to be like that" to her. She was quiet and her eyes were to the ground but her body and face were turned more toward me, the stranger in the car, than toward him. I was thinking I didn't like his tone of voice. But just sitting there. Then I looked up. She was walking away, without him. Later after I got out of the car, I saw him walking back the way she went, but she was not anywhere to be seen.

Nicely interesting

My friend gave me a dose of Peruvian culture via a link to someone's, I should say, "miguel23's" blog, and I enjoyed many of his posts for April, and also some older ones, such as: Save the kids... and Tender Morsels!
(Although, I don't agree with the "eye for an eye" thing mentioned in that first post. Easy for me to say, my face hasn't been mutilated.) I like the video of the breakdancing guy and the movie review in April. Reminder to self: I will put more visuals and even embed a video in this. Sometime.

Close to as cute as kittens

1) The voice of the girl down the way (who, after replying in the negative twice, abandoned the swings on the playground yesterday and ran toward her father with this less-than-obliging response "You always have to ruin my day!") crept into my conciousness again today because the roommate had opened the door to the "fishbowl" patio. "Aren't you afraid to do that?" She was standing next to her bike. Two skinny legs dangled from an overhanding balcony. "Yes," the boy said as he eased himself carefully onto a not overly-wide brick wall enclosing the "fishbowl." "Then why are you doing it," she said.

2) I pulled up alongside a red convertible car. The man and woman in the frontseat were looking over to the right of me. I followed their eyes and saw six or seven girls, ranging in the ages of perhaps, four to ten, standing behind a white picket fence. I imagined that they were all the daughters of a diplomat who was staying in the large brick house. Their eyes focused on the shiny red dog in the backseat, and they talked amongst themselves and gestured toward it. The smallest one very quickly waved goodbye to the dog when the light changed.

Ah, well...

I completely and totally (kind of) planned to go to this quasi local book festival today. But I just have a feeling it's kind of not happening...oh well. It's too bad. I think that would be an interesting building to check out, too. And it's been a while since I've been to Baltimore. I don't know Baltimore very well. I feel like I should go there and check out good seafood restaurants or something. Baltimore to me is mostly Mary Prankster, or this old poem from English class. Or a few vague, old memories of walking by the aquarium. Or where one of my dad's girlfriends used to live. Or just really annoying traffic. But anyways, it feels like it's not happening today. Anyways, I already missed Mary Downing Hahn, of Wait Til Helen Comes fame. I had a crazy night at one of my jobs last night. (I have 2 part time jobs.) And the roommate has been fighting with the landlady. And time is already marching on and the day is already halfway unfolded. Need to get out in the sun and relax!!! Go to a park.

Biluminous Nights

Sigh. I can't find anything with that title on the internet. Disappointing. We read it in upstate New York. My mother told her boyfriend that she was reading a good book about biluminous nights, and told us that he was under the impression it was something scientific, and then she showed him our library book. It had many female characters. Lots of night-time pictures were featured. Maybe it like an ode to a mother and some daughters, who ate spaghetti and drank pineapple juice on biluminous nights. When I think back on it now, it seems vaguely pagan.
Actually, its kind of hard to find anything referencing that word. (Biluminous.) I found this, on the website of a novelist.

Visits

In grad school, some friends and I saw Melville's house and stayed in a fine old inn in Salem, but we missed Emily Dickinson's house. We travelled in my friend's big white van which used to transport passengers around O'Hare, and we called it The White Whale. My friends and I returned and two of us got to see Dickenson's house, and the driver saw a little bit but didn't feel well and had to stay in the car. The first time, when we missed it, we stayed at a B & B across the street and could see it the whole time. We went in the middle of winter, and with great enthusiasm, we explored all the other empty rooms, which were open and themed in a Victorian style. In Salem, everyone spoke of one particular witch, who owned the witchiest shop, with great admiration, but I don't remember her name. It may be this.

curious

I looked around about that poem and found a site dedicate to medieval stuff but actually, it's not, at least, not totally, really (?) I kind of feel like I look at it and think "this is for people who had some kind of significant issues in a "medieval times" life, whether they realize it or not. WTF else would you actually dedicate your life to some long ago era. Just imagine those in the future, getting their degrees in "21st century studies."

wulf and eadwacer

I think I always loved that poem. And I read it in modern English. And on wikipedia, it's just in old English. And I liked a version that went "our child (our song) together."
"

MAMMA MIA

I THINK I'LL WATCH IT...
A STEADY DIET OF CHICK FLICKS
TO MAKE UP FOR ALL THOSE OTHERS....

JWQ

8 n5y8hinn 8[OONN 2Q5DYN JJJQJJJQN J8QKN 599NJQI3N70NR94NQOON5Y9W3N95Y34NN 29J3HLN

some write reviews in verse form

I just found one...
I thought the one about the Tangysweet Yogurt Bar was the best.

What I remember about art and second grade

I learned to make clay elephants. I completely failed to make any impression on the visiting artist and cried as I tried to draw a tricycle. Wait, was that in Grade 3? Nevermind go back to second grade. A "new boy" who had been my friend at the apartments in Watervliet showed up. He drew a diamond on an apple to make it look shiny, and some kids made fun of that, but I thought it was really cool.

Making the ugliest poster in class and being told "That's not the kind of poster that wins prizes." Skip foward a few days or weekends. I was reading a book in the car. Was it about a mouse? Throwing up on myself on the way home from my father's place. Stopping off at the babysitter's house for a change of clothes and mother was mad. (Shame shame shame...) Being dropped off at school even though I had just been sick (I'm I was wearing different clothes.) There was a school assembly. As I walked into the auditorium, a big kid from my busstop, I who I thought was mean and I was afraid of him, excitedly jestered (sic!) at me. When the teacher saw me, she pushed me towards the front of the auditorium. Then the principal presented me with a trophy. I felt hot with embarrassment and engulfed by the noise of the applause. "There must be some mistake." He bent over kindly. "Oh, there is no mistake." Later, I sat at my desk and my trophy turned magically pink! It reflected the color of my sweater. I was slapped by my friends on the bus when I rode it home. "I'm so jealous!" they said as they hit me.

The winning posters were later displayed at the firehouse. I went there with my brownie troup. Which one is yours? the girls said. I showed them. I still didn't think it was that great. They didn't disagree with me. I turned it over, to hide it. We ran off to play. We climbed on fire engines. I was happy to leave it behind. I'd thought that another kind of poster would win. "Don't do this" it said, and showed a fork going inside of a toaster. I thought it was much better-looking.

At some point, teachers enlightened me as to the merits of my poster. I'd tried to draw the whole apartment filled with smoke and flames, and indicated the safety route for me and my mom and my sister. We were three small figures of greenish-yellow, a crayon color that no one but me seemed to like. The teacher suggested that maybe our figures could've been a darker color.

I also remember the girl who was kind of like the class artist. She lived on a farm and brought in a squash that was made into a small animal (maybe a pig.) Not hard to remember her name, since I was told a story of what happened the year before, when the principal had announced over the intercom: Eula Bus your Biss is here!

Silly song sent to me; song seen after

Toe Jam; Seattle

Almost ROTFL

But, I just looked up "ROTFL."
Bjork ~ Kitty Kat