thurs yeah / im tiiiired / tus

[recently found this pic. this nite sticks out as one of the craziest bar nites ever. these fools are monotonix. these fools had set up on my bartop as you can see--that's me literally holding the drum stand up. was not too happy about it. the fool w/ the mike is throwing around my fruit trays, straws, & cocktail napkins. i was not too happy about this either. other than that, the show was pretty cool.]

----

i had a shrimp creole dinner last nite w/ mm & a lil nice merlot.

today was peer revision day in my lit 101s--nice!

i'm now home, cleaned everything & am working on my chapbook--Lions, Remonstrance, Fatale, Blue. should be ready to go out here soon--makes me muy happy.

Happy Birthday Granny!

hope you have a lovely day!

my favorite song right now / HANK / a TUS Monday nite

Abraham Smith's HANK was waiting on me when I got home. I do heart Abe. And his poetry makes me wonder what the hell everyone else is writing. He is the real thing. And I'm real sorry his Paaaaackers lost tonite.

--

home / i heart you tucson

home. got a grita on my lap.

unpacked.

working on class stuff, watching stup tele, cooking shrimp & rice. i heart home.

Sunday / Vikings First Win (but versus the Lions) / LA

Hey hey, it's football Sunday in LA, where the illustrious Vikes just won their first season game--24-10. It was okay is all I have to say. Nothing fabulous. Just okay. What was fabulous is here I am with Lyla G in my lap watching the Vikings game from my laptop. I'm babysitting tonite while Rouch/Budz go to the Muse show at the Staples center. Just changed a diaper for practice. Mandy gave me 7 out of 10 for lack of speed, and then one point off for putting in on backwards, which I realized when I went to strap it together. I'll be faster tonight. Happy Sunday! Chris is grilling in a couple of hours--filets, shrimps, & salads.

just back from our h & m casting call / LA

which was great, but painfully long. lyla g had to wait a good full hour & then a lil some before she was in front of the super-cute cameraman for h & m. she was legitimately getting fussy and zonked out. i think some good shots were got though. we're home now. mandy nursing & then we're gonna head out for some shopping. it's so pretty in LA--hot hot but not tucson hot. even though i love tucson hot, it is nearly october. fall-time.

make a poem about LA ivy, the freeways, bad sitcoms, football sunday, the layers the layers. how fragile how green, & smiling.

roscoe's chicken n' waffles / LA / still 100 degree sun yeehaw

ah man i just had my first chicken/waffle duo & it was amazing yes. right now i'm full as all hell, luxuriating w/ rouch, chamomile tea, nerding out watching project runway from last nite. lyla g is napping.

Monsoon Wed / Pretty Pretty desert

i been busy like crazy since yesterday class. both classes were good--we did a bit of cisneros non-fiction as well as a few of my favorite vignettes from Mango St. straightaway after class til like 2am, i was working on my curriculum vitae (ack), my statement of teaching philosophy, my good ole letter of intent, scrabbling up old syllabi and particularly cool assignments, and making myself a lil portfolio to hand over to the U. yep, up, im trying for a better adjuncting position. the U pays twice as much. so even tho i would rather spend a tues nite not working on my cv, i'll do it. several times i thought, i'd rather just bartend, this is so much bs. but i did it! i did it! got to run around & piss off every poor dept of english office assistant at 3 pima campuses because i need a record of all my old student evaluations. fun fun.

at least look outside! it's been monsooning and now it's overcast and beautiful--i couldnt be happier. down with you, 100 degree sun.

got to scrabble (ha! word of wed...) around big time to get everything done i need to get done. my pal, ANDREW BROWN, documentary film maker and man about town w/ camera, is showing his film on SB-1070 at 9 at Beowulf Alley. i must be there, i must! and then i must wake at 5 and go to LA later in the afternoon. fun!

Monday / longest summer EVER

pretty lil LYLA G whom Auntie is so excited to see this Thursday.

In other cute baby news: Mrs Laura Sims (whom I just love--we gave a reading together (Bon/Motley in Cincy) last fall & have kept in touch) & her husband Corey just gave birth to lil Caleb in NYC. Lil Caleb is pretty pretty pretty--a head full of dark hair & cute baby cheeks. Congrats to Laura & Corey!

~

I drove to Mexico yesterday. The sunflowers south of Rio Rico down to MX were beautiful. Nothing like a drive to clear your head out--I listened to music, rocked out on southern roots/rock, Laura Little mixes, & Mag Electric Company. Got back to town & dropped in for a beer with Terry Wolf at Ches. Trotted over to Dubliner to hang out with Mitch, dropped in Congress (my first time going in the place since May) & saw everybody. Ended the evening in my backyard drinking Sparks (wtf?) with lil M. I watched an Iron Chef & went to bed. I woke up today feeling like a million bucks. Really! Whatever lil tinge of sickness is all gone--tho it's too hot outside to bear. Still over 100 degrees. I'm so over it.

too much reliance on AP / painful showing for brett favre / tucson sunday

brett cant seem to throw the ball. 4 turnovers. painful showing at times i wanted childress to just simply take brett out & put sage in. painful. painful. painful.

i cant watch brett this season if it's gonna be like this. i am wishing he didn't come back at all if this is his final season. his career's been too important for such a last season showing. painful.

sat / it's 145 degrees / tucson

when you're a lil under the weather, the desert heat can make you feel outright blah & sizzle. so ive stayed in since thurs nite--just going here & there to get a couple things done, etc. i know it's prob just allergies (ragweed! ew.), but im lying low so that when i go to LA this thurs, all is well & behind me.

how excited am i to go to LA? sooooooooo! mandy & i are already planning everything out--yoga, museum for fashion exhibit, west hollywood bookfair, & of course the most important part other than spending QT together is foooooooooooooooood. we're def going to rosco's chikn & waffles & are both getting the carol c. and i might get my lashes done! eyelash extensions! ha!

last nite i went to ari & aisha's reading at casa libre. aisha started off strong with a lyric essay on identity/family/herself as woman which i found very, very good. i love the 'i'--i love the 'i' shirtless & crouched behind a pile of tires at an old automotive warehouse, camera on tripod set for click, & 'i' crouching for self-portrait--the vulnerability which 'i' find beautiful. how fragile we all are figuring ourselves out. aisha has work up at identitytheory.com. check her out.

then ms arianne zwartjes read from her new book--'the surfacing of excess.' i remember most all the poems from wkps in grad school, & to now, at this moment, have the book in my hands is a magnificent experience. what a beautiful book from eastern washington university press--& what a beautiful friend--& perhaps most important, what beautiful, beautiful poetry. it was good to get out for a lil bit & hear great work which inspires my own infinitely--& to also see local writers/friends--ms kristen nelson & noah saterstrom, kristi & michael, mm was there, so was drew if but for a minute, was so nice.

thurs / feels like a rant day all around

i feel like ranting much like kate zambreno on her blog about the blaaaaahs of adjuncting (or whatever) & being young & woman. ive been teaching on & off for years. school has been in sesh for a good month now & every time (every single time) i enter the faculty room someone tries to stop me or either the ole BATS at the front desk are whispering up a storm & quite frankly i am tired of it. finally i said to them (THE OLE gossipy BATS), let me just introduce myself, i do actually teach here, i'm not breaking into the faculty room. you see me every week, right? & their comment, oh yes we know you just look so young. well hello everyone, im 29 & a college adjunct instructor.

ive been teaching at the school, just different campuses, for TWO years (since i was freakin 27) & ive yet to be treated like this. it's a bit annoying to say the least. that on top of students not showing up, not paying attention, sleeping, etc. i am trying to get out from behind the bar & afford myself a more cerebral writer's life, when instead im just constantly aggravated.

i used to make in ONE NIGHT BEHIND THE BAR what i make IN ONE MONTH in the classroom. now im not meant to be a bartender forever no doubt but jesus, this is all ridiculous. i feel like a nursemaid/babysitter in class--when it is soooooo not my style to get pissy with students, nor do i want to have to lug them through the semester on my back--id rather be an exciting lit teacher--& then there is this flip side of being questioned again & again for 'oh my goodness what's a student doing in the faculty area using the copy machine' hello. world. a woman can be in her late twenties & teach college & write books & evidently, in my case now, make next to NOTHING doing way too much. dont get me wrong, i love to teach. it's what i want to do. im just saying...it aint easy. & on this pay im never gonna be able to buy myself a horse. so it matters.

tues / it's 1203 actally wed / tucson

i find my 710 class is exhausting. i find my 840 invigorating. this is how tuesday went. arm wrestling. class discussion. class discussion of arm wrestling. men as non-verbal: stereotype or not? and so on it goes in lit 101.

did a lot of errands, this & that. got short cuts, a film by robert altman, to see what he did for raymond carver short stories. got 'the nite of the iguana'--tennessee williams, my heart, by john huston...we'll see. im reading all of tennessee williams, my new task.

had afternoon tea in the backyard with mm. went to sup at b-line w/ dear miriam, mm, & gail. lovely smartie dinner, a lot discussed, from burqas to rosemont mine to being a woman in the now.

nathaniel picked me up in his old red truck. went for tues smithwicks as per usual now, it seems. lovely tues. life discussion, the good stuff. and i'm so tired out now. to sleep.

MON. / an old journal with a rodeo queen on the front / song on Pandora 'wise up'... / the journal is from Laura to me on my 25th / the first entry

is for/to her & also myself, from then: (circa 2006)

~

she's nothing but a slow swell garble of hands & no more sweeping mothers when the sky turns peach, it is. the fence row & the hangers-on, rough ivy--done the benign, begin the pull, your shoes emptied by what rapture, what blowup dolly, wear what clothes; interminable divorcings: she as arched onlooker, daze as goings. hold-tight, looker, fancy not the brazen cages you are in boxed tight, flash of knee in a leg bend upwards. and on & on. her voice low & loud & low the corsage & low the buttons. feet-easy your once, your mother, & once a fencepost. once a crane & once a searchlight. find her, find her smiling again. every cup in the cupboard is on her nightstand & she's lowest the landing runway & pose, tuned to the outlet that let you in.


--

"i didn't want to be reductive with too grand a material."

--

pound's dictum that writer's fail when they start from too narrow a base--& life too. the way i understand it anyways.

--

Eeyore: "All I get is thistles."

--

Bunyan's riddle: "the more you throw away, the more you have."

--

Feet! You walk now.

hello sunday / sunday your overcastness matches my physical spirit / the part of my body that is writer / on being a woman in tucson, the world

i stole this from laura. yikes what powerful art is in the world: ours. bhanu kapil says in her blog: 'write a book of madness. a book for you. a book for you.' i think yes yes yes. everything else to the side, i write.

i dont know but

une: what's cuter than lashel in windowsill with a tiny star saying joy? nada.
duo: is this a joyful face? uh huh.

Ahhhhhh Vikings

yesterdays class was superb. read sarah vowell's 'shooting dad' & listened to shortened version of it on npr's 'this american life.'

love sarah vowell & the story: liberal daughter & conservative gunsmith father that dont necessarily get along--'some things were said during the reagan administration that cant be taken back'--attempts as the author gets older, hence 'maturer'--dad builds a cannon--author travels home to see him shoot it off--his last 'Gesamtkunstwerk' planned, a 'performance piece' involving mother, sister 'loneliest twin in history' & author--the 'morbid joker' dad wants fam to shoot his ashes out of the cannon postmortem--'his last hunting trip'--& the author's, "i'll do it, too. [...] i will lite the fuse. but i will not cover my ears. because when i blow what used to be my dad into the earth, i want it to hurt." yikes powerful.

i took a lil nap post-class then got a big as hell burrito & went to mms before the fiction wksp to watch my vikings. it sucked, the game. that's just about all im gonna say about it.

today is friday; friday is lovely. i been up too long tho. had to take car to shop for checkup & now im just lazing around, luxuriating. think mm & i are going to go to sherwin bitsui's reading at the po center tonite. & then some fun later on im excited about.

this song reminds me of someone too

kevin barnes aka 'liminal fantasia' from of montreal -- love!


(thanks laura little!) get ur ass out here.

Tues into Wed / It's Wed / Grita sprawl / Start a poem / Think hard about men fixed forever in childhood, or adolesence / How far I've come / Tucson

hallow. today is a beautiful one hoping for afternoon showers or sprinkle at least. cool things off so I can jog without death.

yesterday's class was good i feel. & yesterday was good bc i talked to both ma & rouch which almost never happens. im going to LA at the end of the month, yep, & it's been much too long. i feel lyla g wont even remember auntie. anyways im excited. gonna babysit whilst mandy & budz go out on the town, being it's his bday weekend.

i met up w lil m. my bff yesterday for swithwicks. we then dropped in clusterf-style to the frys grocery store, then i fried up some okra & also made some lemon pepper chicken. brian l stopped by. so did dan h. we dance partied kitchen style to the new kylie m whom lil m thinks is awesome. lots of morrissey. & guns. brian l looks cute holding a rifle. yes, these kind of things occur at lil m's house. kylie m & rifles & a dog named talladega.

today im planning class stuff. & im working on a new poem. & enjoying the change of light.

i'm teaching "lust" by susan minot

to my 101 students tomorrow. it's a short story i love to teach, but it's also a little bit risque. i hope for great maturity & open-mindedness. i'm also showing a bit of the film "stealing beauty" that is written by minot & directed by bertolucci. wish me luck.

glee sunday glee / pre-belen

family toast, beach weekend. mama & daddy & fam toast daddy's one year one day anniversary of motorcycle wreck, broken neck, etc. we're lucky to still have him around!


by andrew brown who has an odd sense of humor.

me & grita at my desk that's slowly falling apart. on sunday, enjoying sunday.

wonder woman on npr today

the ole grl turned 70. i dont like this modernized version--the jeggings are dreadful, the hair though is cute. the kitsch of star panties/hot pants were great. if a woman had a choice (f- feminism for the moment--if you as a woman had that crime-fighting body & any kind of fashion sense), would you prefer to cover it up versus flaunt? most would flaunt. i would fo' sure!

such a fan of friday

ive havent written in quite awhile! you see im busy busy doing class stuff. i have 60 papers to grade, lessons to plan, sleep to get/catch up on.

i celebrated a good class week by getting myself a pizza from rocco's & then going out with drew. id never been to danny's & had fun. hung out w fashion blogger amber & cute-as-always bradley, & my drew. when danny's ran out of steam we jumped over to plush where the evening was mellow quiet, but lovely. drew, for all the folks in me-blog world that dont know, is a poet living in tucson that was raised in chula, ga--right outside of tift county. we grew up country kids right down the road from each other, practically, & here we are in tucson now. we keep saying 'where is laura little?' hurry laura little!

today i awoke to a happy mm who spent the morning on the phone w/ big big editor in nyc--getting her book raven together for its evident & soon-coming publication. i have champagne chilling & yams a-roasting for a big toast in a couple hours. exciting!

im back working on belen, my novel-esque thing. the trio-strong badass ladies fiction wksp starts soon. also, poetry still coming along. abraham smith has his 'hank' coming out soon. are you all as excited as i am?