Selected Memories

“You know, your bike tire is low on air.” I said. She had stopped and was looking at me. The party was over and she was about to get on her way home. “I don’t have a bike pump.” she said indifferently. “Oh that’s alright. I could leave one in your box. I’ve got a little one that I use for my bike. It works great.” She said, “I’m not a goal oriented person." and rode off.

“I don’t know where I am or who I’m talking to.” I had said to Aric while laying on a clean bed at a cabin somewhere east of Portland Oregon. I really didn’t know at the time. It was a bachelor party and it was the first night. Greg had given me some kind of opiate, and mixed with the absinthe, booze, and pot, it just knocked me out. I went up stairs to give it a rest. Aric came up and started talking to me, as he does sometimes when I am trying to pass out. I was trying to listen but faded out. He reminded me what I had said sometime later.

“No matter how much you exercise you’ll never be healthy.” Greg repeated back to me. “You know Tyler, you just say the most amazing things. All of a sudden, you just spit out these pearls of wisdom. No matter how much I exercise I’ll never be healthy. Wow.” Of course at the time I really thought he meant it. In retrospect I realized that he was being sarcastic, and that he was trying to indicate to me that I should shut my mouth. At the time I felt encouraged.

Three Quotes

*

“I was getting tired of the literary life, if this was the literary life that I was leading, and already I missed not working and I felt the death loneliness that comes at the end of every day that is wasted in your life.” –Ernest Hemingway, from “Moveable Feast”

*

“I doubt that there were precedents for the ceremonies that opened the Master’s last game. Black made a single play and white a single play, followed by a banquet.”-Yasunari Kawabata, from “The Master of Go”

*

"Pac-Man’s character is difficult to explain even to the Japanese—he is an innocent character. He hasn’t been educated to discern between good and evil. He acts more like a small child than a grown-up person. Think of him as a child learning in the course of his daily activities. If some one tells him guns are evil, he would be the type to rush out and eat guns. But he would most probably eat any gun, even the pistols of the policemen who need them." -Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man

“Socio-economic factors are of limited explanatory power.” -NYT 3/26/06

It has come to my attention lately that a question concerning my poetry practice needs to be addressed: I write poetry, or do I write souped up narrative, getting lost in brambles by design. It would seem that largely, as long as I am simply removing chunks of my notebook and reworking them into appropriate forms, forms that look like poetry, borrowed forms and forms half filled, I think an argument would have to be made that I am not writing poetry because I am not engaging in challenging my means of communication, to say something I haven’t said before. There are times that I have done so, and do so, but I think if I err, I err on the side of presenting a mystical narrator rather than writing a poem, in love with myself as I can be.

Perhaps there is some merit in this, this engagement with the self (an idea of the self) that falls outside of narrative, and back into the category of new language, found or noticed or created. I think this is what Liz was known for, challenging these ideas of self specifically through language, as if talking to yourself on the boundary of self. In terms of prose, self appearing in or as or creating a mythic narrator and openly questioning the legitimacy of that myth. Poetic prose, prose poetry: challenging our ideas of narrative. Is this less than or equal to pure poetry? Where does it belong?

Thinking about Tod and Forest, to a degree, their work is very much about the language interaction and intersection with itself, a persons’ idea of the poem. However not everyone can be T.S. Eliot, and as much as I respect his writing, I usually do not choose to engage with poetry on a such a personal level. And by this I mean I usually do not take poetry as the primary “topic” of my poem, or say take poetry as a thing as my motivator for writing. Sometimes yes, but there are stories I need to tell and jokes I want to make. What is unfortunate that my multi-interest in poetry and writing, is not seen as a serious engagement with poetry, and this is true, it’s not a serious engagement with language but an interest in mediating my own personal narrative. Is this poetry? Not always, but sometimes.

So I guess I can’t blame them for not taking my writing seriously. Nor can I blame Jon Kinsella for ripping to shreds “The Revisionist” or Ed’s insistence that she doesn’t understand my poems. After all, the majority of what I write does not qualify as poetry on a literary level, and so many times have I noticed that a person’s interest in my work is tightly bound to a person’s interest in my person. Without that, I’m not sure the majority of my poetry makes any difference to anybody. It’s simply pop music or something that exists for entertainment purposes, and they’ve got to call it like they see it and we don’t mind.

If poets weren’t so intent on impressing their peers and instead were writing for themselves, than maybe more people would read poetry that doesn’t manipulate them in obvious ways. I do believe that the nature of engagement within language is a relative phenomenon in that what is new for some is not new to others. Professionals, I suppose, make it their business to know what is new, and old.

**

The division of labor continues.

Three Occurrences with Birds

Found a dead red tail hawk when I went to pee. Driving with my father out in the country side for some reason, I was about five and needed to releave myself. We saw it and picked it up, putting it into a trash bag and in the trunk. The DNR told us, after affirming that we weren’t the ones who killed it, that they had no use for it, and that maybe a university or school could use it for research. We contacted my grade school, I was in second grade at the time. They told us that they had no use for it unless it was stuffed and we weren’t about to do that. Why was it dead? It was probably killed from the power lines. There were no noticeable injuries to its body. It was warm and loose when we picked it up.

A hawk perched outside a fledgling bookstore. This one could have been a sign. Like a wolf falling from the sky into the arms of a child with a speech impediment. A sign of future glory. The store was in Brooklyn, owned by a friend of mine. I had helped him build the bookshelves and did the walls for him, painting and repair. In the end I had felt somewhat edged out of the operation, not that I had invested anything other than my time, but I had felt that I had helped him and the bookstore a considerable amount and was hoping to be a part of the bookstore’s future, to be included in some of the decision making in the bookstore’s future. It didn’t work out that way but the store is doing well.

An owl flew up from the middle of the road, a long night in a strange town; the key had broken off in the car’s lock. Jake and I had been painting at Pam’s weekend home in the very Southwest corner of Massachusetts, a town called Ashley Falls. One night we were feeling a little stir crazy and went out to a town about thirty miles north, where there was a kind of nightlife. We wandered around, making our longest stop by a group a street musicians. They were just high school kids but sitting with them made us feel as if we were a part of something larger. As we were leaving I turned the key too hard in a lock that was broken anyway. We called Pam and she came with an extra set of keys. Its wings were huge.

october when the weather was reasonable

Instead of wasting our time here on earth why don’t we gather our own merciful point of reference and celebrate instead the undivided likeness of reciprocity, lost in another world the melody of insurrection and divided unto one’s own lawn, a lawn in a development the ugliness of misappropriated wealth: a boat, a dune buggy, a hammock seldom used and all writhing within the constraints of a single yard, forgetting to speak and then resolving to listen more carefully. Mosquitoes in the morning people disturbed in their sleep. Housing development on the outskirts of Madison, the heart of the heart of the housing development.

train through oregon in late august

Over an uncertain number of years I’ve felt my moral compass or certainty of the right thing to do or say degrade to the point where these judgments become murky. It is not that I’m losing any sense or missing anything but simply making other choices, perhaps making choices that had not been presented to me in one form or the other, the best choices when relayed back to my cohorts reckon or reflect in smiles or admiration as if their old compasses have not changed the bend of conservatism the wild things we used to do where if I were a kid I’d steal a pack or gum or how I would never do such a thing through fear now unable or put in a position where there are choices that perhaps my cohorts had come across at earlier periods whereas I having been well protected am functioning as a child awed at the majesty of morals gone awry or of the trouble we begin to make for ourselves when we stop telling people what we’re afraid of and then we wake up unable to tell the person next to us what we were dreaming of as if any judgment were too much to take not a single decision fit the world ended up upended the questions would not come instead of buying paused to think what I have.

two demons riding a severed arm a man with a large oblong head being held and ridden by a laughing child a teacher holding a scroll being mobbed by children two children playing a game of dice a man reclining against a writing table petting a dog a chrysanthemum a fat man holding a large sack two men riding on the back of a large carp a man with a sword heading towards a clump of trees a boy riding the back of an ox while playing the flute a young man kneeling with a shoe next to an old man riding a mule a man dreaming of eleven little people in a word bubble a woman raising her right hand just above her face a large man with a large weapon stroking his beard a family fishes at the shore a man struggles with an octopus a calm look on his face in ivory and in excellent condition

the man in the office wearing designer glasses gave me steroids to fight the hideous eye parasite that had inflamed my sight related skin modules in the city i was sweating when i got there he asked me if i had been running or if it was another symptom no i said and pointed to the yellow puss oozing out of my arm and asked if this was the problem no he said my skin is weeping the entire appointment took about ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars i have no health insurance anna offered some burnable herbs but it seems like the most intense swelling has gone down turning me from scary looking to looking like i've just been beat up now not entirely healthy but on a fast track to recovery meanwhile the truck with said shipment of goods from brooklyn is approaching fast and i wait on the couch in the late afternoon while the sun begins to go down over the colored houses on top the hill the sounds are few and the air is clean california seems like an easy place to live if your health is not a question usually mine is not though i see doctors throughout the years for various aliments and really some health care would be good for my system the skin begging to dry out and chafe around my eyes large dark spots reminding us what might have been but tonight to go out and see a friend perform with his band twelve dollar tickets the most i've paid to see a friend have a drink and a laugh get back go to sleep wake up take steroids make a pie nothing doing the mojo is nogo nothing much to talk about looking for something to do

from the notebook not too distantly the sixth month called june the thirtyith day of this year

"Southeast". After a night at Pam's in MA somewhere in the corner, the southwest corner of MA. I'm here at the train station waiting to catch a ride and head back into town, the city. Nobody has seen me, under complete camouflage, a desire to wait with an exciting reason to not wait as long, the man gave me two and said you'll have to wait an hour. While the other customers mosey around with no indication of ceasing to mosey. Sentence patterns. Mountain shop, type "A" personality, in the burning like I've found a "newer" and better town, the outskirts extend approximately 120 miles north, at least, or at least as far as I know beyond the eye can see. Red hot skillet. It's not like a cat. White hot. It's not like a hole. Everything you see is the moon shine. Stop to think and touch the pen to your lips. Outside dimensions. A simple work ethic means picking up the wheel barrow and moving it back to the garden.

it has been sort of long but not long enough since we've talked last between us and them the other has landed here in california and though that is a forgone conclusion the purpose of this talk is to bring you up to date on the events that have transpired as thus following the last installment has been a real time buckle down on duties and responsibilities namely the making of a life or a place to go outside of the apartment and wait for mail and or email namely the job the teaching job as of last week has been not found but good progress has been made in the form of cover letters and resumes sent out to all prospective employers in the surrounding area and the hills surrounding these areas to make the update shorter than today say cleaned the garage in preparation for the things from new york to arrive and applied for a couple more teaching jobs but nothing doing yet the labor forces force the market etc but nothing doing no updates the life has most been between the two of us another quiet weekend but oh the rash that i acquired last week is still around and maybe we could call it poison oak or ivy but at this point one and a half weeks later with the symptoms still around and now the eye swelling over we ask for the god of infectious reactions to forgive our bodies and uncles for what can only be described as an unrelenting attack on my skin and now my vision no stories no future plans at this date in history twentyith of november two thousand and six

in one sense liberated and in another not ten thousand years from now dinosaurs now wingless learn again to get smaller than the man eating plants that surround the island a peninsula full of ferns by a lake is a city made of people at the grocery twenty dollars too much too soon a can of olives resting in a plastic bag being carried across stoplightless roads and traffic dont get me started about the traffic it seems as if a single person could roast over our story maybe turn it over as a piece of meat deemed done or a cucumber resting on the chin of a gentle apes potential say theyre just like us a single commander of one particular future meeting your neighbors and being invited to a party but just in case the music will be loud on the step in the late morning again on the step in the late morning notes take place the sounds of a stereo a piece of trash carried to the curb men climbing trees and cutting pieces off behind them with ropes and skill enough to risk ones life meanwhile being watched from quiet houses next door the painters hesitate on the ladder not even twice as high that's right coming to conclusion with the information given dinner at seven people walking through doors and at eight their shows come on at nine go off within the conclusions given in the first place self determination self made millionaires wondering why we just cant get with it an angry face while at work im swamped with deadlines peoples choices and childrens stories mutated into the few chosen film makers rarely visited summer homes a sleeping cat a dream of being licked yours truly couchy

We are pressed, pressed on each other,
We will be told at once
Of anything that happens

And the discovery of fact bursts
In a paroxysm of emotion
Now as always. Crusoe

We say was
'Rescued'.
So we have chosen.


--George Oppen, from "Of Being Numerous"

from the vault again sometime maybe six months ago

last night, yesterday, I took a long nap as my work outside of home had ended early. I was tired and decided to sleep during the late afternoon. After about three hours I woke up, had an evening, made dinner, took a shower, did some submissions, talked on the phone. I went to bed after twelve and woke up at seven. I was dreaming that I was comforting on old friend in a grocery store. All of his closest friends had died (and there's more to that story but I forget). We were checking out of the store, and his father was behind the cash register. My friend was crying and I paid for whatever I was buying, and his father gave me the change. One cent, and I turned and gave the cent to my friend and said it was lucky. I really believed that it was.

from the vault again thursday march sixteenth two thousand and six you see im transcribing a note book and have been coming across these things written while in brooklyn

Thursday, March 16th. I think I felt some vibrations from the train that was passing underneath. Although not exactly warm, the weather is at least sunny. I wanted to get outside after being cooped up in the apartment all day. The job search continues but today was different, researching not jobs but ways to get jobs, applying for temp. agencies and what not. I was gong to go to the museum with a., who happened to be in town, passing through as I might describe it to someone else. Unfortunately though she hadn't finished her work and that effectively put a stop to any plans we might of made this afternoon, and I left slowly thinking of the day and what might become of the day. In the cold it seems that much brighter, and this jacket stops all the wind except of the wind getting on my hands. It feels nice to sit in the sun and as I wait I rot but not in the winter and only as the ground beings to thaw. I keep thinking I hear a rumbling train below me, and I think it is all I hear. No boiling blood or basic instinct, no soluble personal struggle in the hillsover looking the anonymous city. I wonder how ad. made out with the land lord? I wonder how much longer I'll sit here. Am I lonely? Thoughts from above. I don't think so, just tired of being in my apartment. I suppose the elevation of this bench is what's causing the the wind to blow. I suppose.

from the vault march eighth two thousand and six entry number one one two zero three nine

Woke up this morning to find myself in a bed positioned on the floor in an apartment in Brooklyn New York. Got up to use the bathroom and found two people named m. and b. sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the living room area. Returned to bed and began making this entry for future record keeping purposes. Have not been able to locate reason why this journal entry exists, who is motivated to write down what they think they are doing, never an indication of what they have done or will be doing. A notebook lends itself to automatic writing as a painter, such as Degas does a study of a ballerina in charcoal, or makes line drawings of the world collapsing before he goes ahead and purchases the paint. Of course I don't mean to indicate that I am a painter but more along the lines that I went to a museum yesterday with my two guests, and had a lovely time, but for some reason by the time it was all over my body and mind had completely left as soon as I sat down. The pressing needs of my hidden physicality weighs heavy or the fluid that keep me alive is slowly draining out into the general working of the universe for no particular reason other than time and gravity, the wonders of osmosis and the principle of searching for new space.

before i left wisconsin i meant to write a posting about the house my parents house that i was staying in but the one time i sat down to write it the network was down and i didn't get another chance before i left for here california oakland city but the post i was going to write that i had kept in my mind for about three days was about when i was a kid like three years old and my mom and biological dad had bought a new house that we were going to move into in madison and the house was empty and i guess we were all walking around it as my memory is somewhat foggy about this but i do remember the incident clearly where i stepped on a bunch of nails sticking up from a nail board like the kind they use with carpet so that when you put down the carpet the nails hold the carpet in place and i was running around the house in barefoot and even though i was warned not to i stepped on the nail board tack board whatever its called and stuck my feet on it and of course i cried where now many years later where my mom and step dad have moved back into this house that we left a long time ago and came back to right around the time i started high school and i have graduated from highschool thank you very much and found myself painting the living room of that house where i had hurt my foot a long time ago and there is really no story or moral to the story or gigantic leap or image complex that i wanted to transfer from that to this other than to say that i've spent a lot of time in that house at different times in my life be it a little kid to highschool to coming back in living there even post graduate school and maybe this is normal say normal in the grand history of world history where people don't ever go far from where they started and then there is the ts eliot line from four quartets where he says home is where you start from and i think maybe this is true as well that is to say that i just moved again and am now here in oakland to stay with a. and well move soon relatively soon to san francisco but i just wanted to let you know that i moved but am still available to answer questions and sign baseballs and i'll write more later but not right now it's late and theres company

lying in the pillows thinking life is good “life is good” after lying in the pillows thinking guiltily “life is good” thinking guiltily about pillows i come to some obscene design that life is good is always obscene and guilty

somebody told me that writing an email is like writing a letter to yourself a letter not sent but projected onto a screen for editing thoughts moving periods erasing clauses like when planes get in or where you left your hat on the train from next mexico into the city where healthy lives live to see one another meander back from versions of events to each other in the rain late fall somebody told me that writing an email is like writing a letter to yourself

went out to cross plains today where i began painting little quarter circles with minimum of paint so as to leave the brush marks on the wall so as to give the impression of something else happening to the wall asides from the color that i painted underneath it so as i made one and then another one and so on and so forth until the wall was full of them and took great care not to make them random or helpless looking but natural as a tree might look growing infront of a super market or maybe natural like an empty plastic bag blowing across the parking lot of this said super market anyway this continued for a while up and down the wall and inbetween the spaces so many times that the spaces filled up so as to not need me to put these little quarter circle gingko leaf looking paint splotches ontop the persimmony wall with some kind of desert super mix glaze and listened to the radio and worried for a while as the wall looked like hell for a while but as more and more of the spaces got filled in after having gone around the room a small room a bathroom a number of times the spaces began to disappear so as each pass made the room look better and then it was just a matter of standing back and spotting and touching where necessary so as the multiple additions of the little gesture eventually began to add up to something larger than itself or my initial intentions and some of course the motion was not exactly mechanical and as more were made my hand got better so as to really beginning to get the hang of this thing it all felt very japanese in a suburban american mid seventies kind of way

oi still trying to get my stuff and junk from the east to the west whereas just got off the phone with one mysterious man trying very hard to convince me that he was in fact trust worthy and willing to do it and do the job and possibly squeeze me for a little more money know i know the sound of a hussle and when and what it feels like to get to know said person on the phone and the fact of effort the convincing voice and the fact of space allowed for conversation the prototypical pressure mounting in the spaces usually reserved for questions and comments like the man on the street in brooklyn who got not one but ten dollars from me dang what a sucker gave me some story quite urgently and manically and maniacally in retrospectacular fashion it was in fact one of those brand new ten dollar bills that i gave him but not as gave him as the time in providence with the kid giving me the deed to his car in panicky fashion on the phone outside of the bar and easily convinced one is against one another human pray the way one walks down the street hands out of the pockets and instead swinging freely and steady eye contact but not too long but briefly steady freely briefly instead of inside hunched over looking quite quiet vulnerable signs perceived from experts grown up hawk like mouths and gigantic galactica thinking in terms of personality unlike say the opposite small town mind that if i were to claim one the big city versus the small town say neither learn from both ideally in the great war some of us got to know our enemy

you better ask yourself why you're reading this or just ask the waiter please say hey waiter ahem i mean ask your waiter your doctor i mean say hey waiter can i have a glass of water please i'm in severe pain from this balsy weather pattern sun rain moon sun shine rain hail snow sun nothing much but the weather where as over there in the city the weather was not much of a feature as other things were likely to change for example the quality of the piece of fruit you might find or buy from a vendor and secretly anointed upon the supper table one quantity plus one knight of simple supple leather furniture made by hand for people who aren't hung up on the price so much as the simple supple elegance of an elephants tusk sticking out of a bail of hay on the seventh day of july nineteen hundred and seventy two the mammals were asking to play baseball with jesus and nobody bothered to keep score alas insects weather bells and southern belles all missed out on the missing mud slinging antics of gorilla man half man half gorilla man half man half gorilla man half man half gorilla man half man half gorilla man half man half gorilla nostril one dash seven one two zero seven eight nine keyboard piano drums and guitar have all made it out tonight lets give a great big round of applause to the one the only thankyou teddy b teddy rux p ecetera excitera excop calcium vitamin b twelve a zinc carbon flame tipped wing bats length and draughtsmen ship superior quality cuts of dweedle dox and lax at acid licks raw raw post proto plucking yeah yeah yeah apostrophe s makes it something wink wink one eye once in a while

i'm not going to mention the day but i'll speak about tonight but only in reference to the events that came previous to this particular moment say the last twelve hours and again not to mention previously on the this show deep male voice or coming next week cut to action screaming big surprise nope no serious work today got up had a meal with a friend cut loose dutch baby with bananas and strawberry piled into the center raw dough and strawberry something past life smoothie etcetera started back cleaned some gutters on a relatives humble home with said breakfast buddy got down off the ladder washed hands got into borrowed car and drove quickly but carefully to destination one compiled list of to do completed list in less than one second amazing wow got going again and went up to juneau to see ill family member sat around for about an hour listened to strange mumblings but managed to smile none the less gave a hug and kiss talked to nurse answered question about the weather statement about smoking and got back in car came back ate dinner withheld information and continues

why not tell our own stories rather head off the flow of information before it gets larger than we could make alone say use names and dates and places and issues of privacy remain in the foreground instead run don't tell anybody if you have anybody any more or even if you never did the voice you might ask questions to once in a long while why not wait for her to come home skip the middle go back over come out back not where you were going wait for the signal and throw your sweater behind a garage and panic run off somewhere unseen unheard for days and in denial of ones friends asked out for breakfast have some money i'm scared omit judgment past lives present personality question mark seriously needing people needing help from ones uncle cousins and misunderstanding no i don't under stand him he see he told us all he told everybody everything all at once and we looked at each other and said huh see we all looked at each other and asked a few questions and left the room days later saved yet again simply by opening his mouth unbelieved as it was at the time two weeks later not a single sign to speak of and we weren't looking and to boot we can record this incident in history as closed now perfect though the real ones the ones outside of jurisdiction will not know either side to pull back in

rain and supposed snow by tomorrow today the job the big job got done on the street off the street with the world famous over priced ice cream shop overrated and pretentious in the words of certain residents but the lady though slightly crazy so i was told and had a house absolutely full of junk and the smell would permeate through the windows even when closed and maybe this is disgusting and it was but sadly as always i got used to it and carry on only seven days no change with the machine and then ladders and sticks we assaulted the three story well being of the quiet neighborhood with a busy street close by and then it started to rain mr. wabbit on the ladder begun to slip and yelled out my name i came running up the ladder and found the supporting structure slipping and the ladder beginning to turn mr. wabbit he held on i said shoot and held the ladder and he said a few more spots and stood in the rain okay we're done got done got cleaned up its been a while since we've spoken and the reason being not a good one instead debauchery and stress and other orders of business but really i'm committed to you i am your little blogger based in the work a day wisconsin think about the weekend personal life and then some more time to lay after work a slight nap and then the schedule begins did you happen to notice the comment posted on the last email what the heck i asked and over the weekend i went to a wedding almost missed it quick change in the street jog across the park solid gold

rain today got up at eight put dirty pants on got in car drove to work site moved cars and big machine sat in car in rain waited for machine to be picked up never came moved machine out moved cars back in machine back in in reverse order got in car drove home reported findings ate breakfast and lunch went back to work site touched house still wet made call to postpone until tomorrow got back in car with working buddy drove around killed time to see if the sun would come back drove through the arboretum made comments about the leaves changing color fall wisconsin colder weather drove home got out went into room got onto computer and onto bed wrote emails poked at work in san francisco posted on craigslist got up ate donut drank milk ate peach watched baseball playoff game ninth inning athletics and twins game two got up went back to computer picked it up and put it on lap on bed onward work tomorrow sun comes back newspaper reads rises again clean weather get done by friday

hi i just erased a post that was rambling on about what not and what have you about the unspeakable untraceable if i could have it my way it wouldn't be about anything to actually say it and not just dance around as if there were no topic but just the empty rhetoric like a political speech or a promise from an unreliable friend and you know who you are you feel guilty about yourself but only on the surface deep down you love yourself and that's cool like movie food like butter on popcorn and a large expensive soda and the film is just about to start and its really really dark in there and your cell phone is turned off and secretly you feel happy about this but outwardly you feel happy about this and secretly the movie ticket taker is quite happy about this and secretly is also outwardly happy about this and takes your ticket and then i started rambling again but i just erased it just in case somebody is keeping track that makes two false starts or one false start and one stop in the middle when i went to write stop i wrote stope like stoop and i'll go sit down now thank you for reading i'm sorry i haven't been truthful today but it's not because i don't want to and it's not because i didn't try but because i just don't know i hope that's enough for you

walking around a town in west virginia at dusk the skies were purple mostly and cloudy not entirely just across the bottom band looking for dinner with some lad much younger maybe in his early twenties with curly hair a native and the traffic wasn't bad driving around what seemed to be a small town what also seemed to be san diego a large bridge a highway overpass hung over most of our walk down from the parking spot which took a while to find and then to the base of an urban hill i asked him what there was to eat around there and said i don't know the closest street with restaurants was up there and we started walking up and on the way i saw two people both sitting at restaurant tables one was wearing a cowboy hat the other was an old man both looked like they lived there and all of a sudden i'm in the shower still light out trying to get the soap out of my eyes feel a nudge from the front and a jump back saying what the hell there's the kid who was trying to show me dinner smirking curly hair and all i woke myself up after that

got stung by a bee today i was like ow i was like swearing and junk i was holding a long pole with a paintbrush taped to the end of it and felt good for a few odd seconds as i wielded this primitive tool like some kind of martial artist and then the bee came and earlier i had set down my blueberry soda and picked it up to take a glug when right at the bottom i guess but right in my mouth the bee swam as i was finishing the soda and i spit it out like some kind of cartoon comic strip spew all over the ground and threw the bottle down where the be was still alive and inside the bottle minus the soda and i came back later that day to find the bottle empty i thought that much soda would have done him in or her but i guess not and maybe must maybe it was the same bee that had stung me right on my big paw i sat on a rock and cried like a baby actually not i kept painting because there was a just a little bit left and usually normally i'm allergic to bees but it has been purteneer um ah ten years or so since i was stung last if i write a book about this time i'll call it in between bee stings and this will be the last paragraph

the sky is after putting my glasses on purple on a sunday evening by my computers watch the time is seven o seven and no change pm it says and i have no reason not to believe it after dinner mysterious chef no names allowed here due to personal liability reasons privacy concerns shishkabob pork and peppers garbonzo beans or something like them white buttery nuggets in a well developed bowl and a bowl of salad no spinach some bread and something else that escapes me at the moment afterwards eating chocolate while looking at mystery number twos pictures from a far away and foreign land slight breeze temperatures in the middle sixties those noises coming from the kitchen clinking dishes have done nothing toward preparation or clean up do you still like me or today was the first day that i've had nothing to do for about a month and a half or maybe longer than that and by nothing to do i mean at a home base like location and having the luxury to stay put or go or play music or dote on my sweetheart but nothing or neither read the paper and ate breakfast sat down to work on a manuscript for submission season but quickly got back up and took a walk through the grave yard to the music store where i browsed without a purpose and came back the skies were threatening all afternoon but held off as long as they needed to for this one sometimes sentences are meaning not what i wanted to say but in the rush of themselves spill out in premeditated chunks of habit and i have to admit that the last line and a half i didn't write straight through but slowed down so that i could say exactly what i wanted to say and thought about it because it was important

late night thursday got back from the office my mothers office where there is a printer and a copier machine where i sent of an application for the macdowell colony that may or may not be on time plus the recommendation that i asked for from a mentor like persona was asked for about three hours ago so maybe all this is too much too late but we'll see speaking at least i tried if nothing else i'll be early for the january deadline and speaking of which i need to write a check for twenty dollars for the processing fee which would probably bother me if i was addicted to heroin and had no job but as it stands right now i have work temporary as it is and am not addicted to heroin so twenty dollars to take a chance a fancy month long residency where i will finally have some concentrated writing time seems like a reasonable thing to do on a thursday in wisconsin where the clouds have cleared up and i can open the windows a bit and hear the insects and airplanes and breath a little bit better than i could while working at elizabeths house with the paint fumes and angry dog and all that and more one more day over there unless something goes wrong and then a big fat weekend to do nothing with my nothing and that will be nice maybe i'll eat ice cream in the hot sun and let it drip all over my tshirt with a big smile last a little while i have nothing really to say right now i'll keep you posted

the dog came back inside today with burrs all over her back and i got mad i said goddamn it violet i just picked a bunch of burrs out of your beard yesterday and then here you are again and commenced pulling little green fresh burrs out of the hair on her back which is much easier than the fur on her face i say fur not hair because that's a better word for it and i apologize for the personification like word i used to describe her fur ie the hair on her back which makes her sound like a hairy human like so many of us with hair on our backs in varying degrees but the point is i got mad and then got to picking burrs out of the fur on her back and the back yard is clear the sun finally came back today just in the last couple hours as i sat eating dinner and reading the paper in this two bedroom and mostly empty of people house in wisconsin i ate dinner and read the paper while watching the cnn news show the situation room which showed lots of bad news and one light hearted story about condi rice that lasted a couple minutes but other than that it was bad news across the board in iraq afganistan and our politicians ragging on each other and on the news services of course i would occasionally flip to fox news just to see what was going on there and it was all car crashes in ohio and not the war which cnn was broadcasting pictures and stories from it was depressing and mind numbing and how much bad news can one person actually take and maybe now i get it when people say i don't watch the news because it depresses me and others who ask if you actually watch or read the news and its all bad including the education report and makes me wonder how it could get better and it could warning political comment really they should cut loose rumsfeld and really the bush administration but that won't happen but rumsfeld seems like a possibility and its freaking crazy how much worse the war is going and the entire middle east but you don't need me to tell you this but what are we going to do about this but anyway whoever works at cnn must be some kind of robot or incredibly tough to stomach so much suffering detail on a daily basis or maybe one gets used to it seemingly not a solution just to endure but a survival technique corporate media to disband the united states somewhere in between exit ramps on the highway frightened midwesterner signing off

i think i just bought a printer that won't actually print the things i would like it to print but will see the man's name was clement as in clement i know no other reference points but i bought the printer for twenty dollars so i would have printing capabilities from here in wisconsin because since i'm earth bound right now i can work on sending out work which may or may not work but at least i will have been able to print it out or so i thought so hard about all of this before hand each piece should fit and when it does i can move on to the next one this piece the printer may only print photos but i don't know why that would be the case hopefully it isn't and hopefully the ink isn't ridiculously expensive the dog is shaking and rubbing against the bed because of what we do not know perhaps a glandular problem oily skin and fur that kind of thing helps ward off evil spirits the dog keeps shaking its collar which signifies something i'm supposed to understand maybe let me out or feed me or hello or maybe something more complicated but how could i know i mean i'm not a mind reader today it was raining all day all day inside no fun but painting busy young mother's house and young daughter must be aware of leaving toxic chemicals out and clean up right nice i will for the young family trying to make lasagna for dinner its almost ready as my mother will be away for the week she prepared me some lasagna to heat up i am twenty seven years old i think the dog is throwing up

also, found this on a website pointed to by the nytimes (watchingtheworldchange.com)

people ask me why i left new york...

dang it louise i just wrote a big long entry and then it all disappeared when i tried to spell check it o who care go dawgs yells the foot ball fan boy howdy its been a while but i wont make excuses instead i'll say after massachusets was a brief trip to kentucky to visit family then back to new york to finish packing my belongings into my brothers apartment and if you feel like you started reading in the middle of a story you probably did but you've done nothing wrong i'm the one who hasn't been keeping up on things or this thing here this program i say with a disdainful expression on my face to symbolize my contempt for technology but really i'm just sad because it rained all day so anyway after packing off to oregon for the bachelor party back to portland to get reacquainted then to oakland to do laundry and walk up a hill short lived to san francisco where i saw them all it was nice went to the beach serpentine bob dylan electric car morning flew to wisconsin for the wedding main even found everybody else even you also working painting back in it then to virginia for one more wedding and now i'm back here for the next month and a half before i go meet california in a formal way universal health care failed nor will i have a car but we might not care see movies get a job that kind of thing i'm happy to be back where the ground is not moving beneath me and will see you soon monday through friday five days a week

rain delay late afternoon the owner came back in full glory from the great city to the south and is making us the working class dinner which is nice i think but then we'll probably have to sit around and patiently listen which is great i'm sorry to be rude but its part of the deal i guess to come up and have a house to stay in but to share with its owner on the weekend and maybe its owner is a little lonely and maybe she's sitting in the room with me right now but that's what's great about the internet right or the movie theatres like that alanis morisette song or that time i went and saw the first pirates movie with ms. wabbit and we made out in the back just for fun or for me it was just for fun because i didn't have much of a vested interest in the movie itself and then there's the alphabet and alphabetization and all the things that can get mixed up and was talking to mr. wabbit the other day and he said "alphabetize the alphabet itself" and it was funny because that is so stupid and falsely profound and we chuckled and later went to the brew pub where they were smoking drugs on the back patio and mulberries were falling from the sky and its all right now its stopped raining but it is unlikely that we'll get back to work today and tomorrow its supposed to sun shine all day by the pool we'll take our break and get back to work

what's cracking sorry it took so long to return to this empty lecture hall but i was busy and had no intention of stopping the madness just so i could sit down and poke out letters and sentences about this or that or painting or not but since i started with a greeting maybe i'll end this email in a traditional manner like a wave good bye or something but first please let me tell you about all the things i've been doing and i'll be brief but i finished the job on the east side of manhattan and after a silly weekend i'm up here yonder in massachusets with mr. wabbit who i haven't seen for five years and yes we are painting a house in the woods sort of complete with eccentric owner who only shows up on the weekends and pool so its a nice deal a paid vacation maybe but its how it gets hot and when it does we strip to our skivies and jump in the pool make dinner after work its a good time plus also has been gifted an automobile to use for the two weeks us alls up here so as to get around town and the town by the by is called masterpiece on the edge of western massachusets in the neighborhood they call the berkshires which actually the town is called ashely falls but i don't know why maybe this will be revealed to me through the local swimming hole and brew pub across the street is an ancient graveyard

i'm sorry there's really been a lot going on inside my head as far as making arrangements for the remaining summer months and fall and really a lot going on outside my head as far as finishing the current work project and getting ready for the big massachusetts house painting trip and beyond into infinity i'll be back soon as soon as can i miss you bye

three days ago i was probably thinking about what i'd do today and now i know or knew then what now not then there or that but things we live amongst like calendars and bubble wars and newspapers spread out on a hot hot sunday bed the cats eye wouldn't open this weekend i don't mean this as a metaphor but really the cat's eye wouldn't open it was pussy and maybe a sty i don't know i'm not a cat or a sty but we braved it we sat down and i grabbed her and with a wet rag furiously wiped at her eye which i don't think helped the eye open but i do think it made both of us feel a little better about the situation her thinking i'm taking care of her and me thinking i'm taking care of her but today it looks much better now doesn't it yes it does and back again to the hot hot sunday bed newspapers spread out and a long lazy half nap half sweat lodge laze about laying half way off the bed and wondering how my pillows could not get dirty with my sweaty head and drool gracing the cat hair and dirt clods oh really its not that bad but probally due for a washing today moved my junk from the old apartment to my bro dogs place in preperation for the great leap into travel time and no lease ville at the intersection of hickory and locust streets my neigbor with a kind hand on the wheel helped the said objects move from one locale to the next in a swift and sensible manner as yesterday was spent in the old aparment putting books into plastic bins listening to jimi hendrix all along the watch tower and cross town traffic of course i bought her breakfast dranka stella mixed with sprite no revelation not really anything at all today was hot

the elevator man was in a foul mood today and in general there was a weird wind blowing though it was quite hot it wasn't terribly humid or as humid as promised two things went wrong initially one being the dead battery on the cell phone and two being limbo like status of the current project having been vaguely instructed to stop painting until august by someone who will not return phone calls and is leaving the country tomorrow so instead i'll keep painting upon the house keepers request and my own personal preference to work while there is work to do and not have work waiting for me upon my reentry into new york come august post massachusets house painting post finding somebody to take care of the cat since option one has bailed out on mission cat love huggy fluff and she is a really nice cat so preferably after mad action phone call action option two has been relocated and moved into ready position as option one peddles backward into contact lists to find a suitable replacement said replacement doesn't need to be tall or good looking but instead of decoding the following message let us return to the assertion that a weird wind is blowing a general uneasy feeling like the train is going too fast in between brooklyn and manhattan and i'm not sure it makes anyone else nervous but the loud clatter i find to be disturbing and also i worry about the threat of explosive devices not that i've seen one but the sensation of a train splitting in half or a car full of people suddenly stopping and where do all the people go anyway but forward in the direction that momentum has supplied them said the general do you usually disobey direct orders sir no sir i usually don't but i need the money

hi its nice to see you today was working day while listening to radio day the radio was on most of the day in the bedroom the master bedroom with two large windows that i decided to approach sensibly i said windows hello this is what is going on today with us we'll first rub this metal tool across your magnificent veneer and pull the flaking old colors off of you with grace and elegance i will catch these droppings in plastic cloth and leave it on the floor right here underneath us and outside below us is a moving van made of men moving furniture and men leaning against the moving van and then i'll take this sand paper with an emory cloth backing and scratch the rough edges down so we can't see where i've been picking at you and then i will wipe you clean with a mild acid and then wipe the mild acid with a fresh cloth and then i will apply on your bare spots a lovely coat of latex primer before i apply a lovely oil based top coat now isn't that nice is what i should of said but instead i just painted some windows mostly keeping to myself wednesday though the elevator guy did tell me he was from ireland and has been living here for last thirty one years how about that two weeks ago he threatened to unleash some dogs on me at the laundry mat watched "so you think you can dance" while eating chicken fingers stopped off at the grocery on the way home price check on limonata two dollars and seventy five cents for a six pack can't be right and now its raining again new york

now here i'm back from where i worked today which happens to be located on the upper east side in new york city and happens to be located kiddie corner to where that big explosion was earlier today so when i got there to work there were all these firetrucks and big clouds of smoke and i thought "fire" and proceeded into the back of my building to take the elevator but earlier when i got on the train to go to work the trains were all screwed up as far as taking the four or the five because somebody got killed up at the astor place stop and so the trains were all screwed up and had to wait a little while before finding a space on one of the packed trains heading north to the east side so the thing is if the trains hadn't been mucked up i would of gotten to where i was going a little earlier and would of been right there to hear the explosion which would of been surprising to me i'm sure instead i knew nothing for a little while and said to the elevator guy that it was a screwed up morning and he agreed and told me about the explosion and the subway death and i was surprised enough to immediately turn on the radio as soon as i got into the apartment i was working in and learned after a little while that the explosion was a gas leak on fire and perhaps a suicide attempt by a doctor who was divorcing his wife and didn't want to sell the ten million dollar building so instead blew it up with himself in it and i'm sure he was surprised that he didn't die as much as the fire fighters were surprised to pull him out from beneath a burning pile of rubble

so i've been working on this application for a residency out in seattle,the hugo huts residency program that consists of a year in subsidized cottage in bell town an up scale neighborhood in down town seattle and the question is not the letter of interest the references or the poetry sample but the project proposal that i've been trying to write for the last week or rather trying to figure out what my project was/is or my business so i went over to my neighbors and talked to her about it as she's a little older and is pretty savvy when it comes to public presentation and this was good though i can't say she actually wrote anything for me but at least it got me unstuck from where i was which was the question of making some fake project up for the sake of having something solid to write about or trying to present an open ended proposal where i go into methods and directions but avoid actually committing to anything in particular like say proposing something very specific like "i'm going to write a sonnet cycle about every piece of jewelry my dead grandmother left my sister" or as equally terrible would be me explaining myself in a very pointed and rational way that concludes in "and therefore my project is no project at all" and so i come back to my apartment and begin again something much closer to what i mean to say

whoa am i full. after a long hard day at work i went to the thai restaurant located by where i am currently living and ordered some kind of sweet and sour dish with tofu that came with rice and came in a metal try that you have to bend the edges out to remove the plastic lid and made me think about the time i had ordered something similar from the same place and bent the lid back and cut my thumb and so i put a band aid on the thumb and probably saved my own life but anyway i totally scarfed everything down and really tried to eat as much as i possibly could while reading a new yorker article about somebody's democratic agenda but the reason i was so hungry was that i ate an early lunch because i wanted to have a cigarette and was multi tasking but only had four dollars in my wallet so ended up with two hot dogs and a doctor pepper at eleven in the morning and figured what the heck so now about seven fourty three and eight hours later i ate again but also i was late in eating because i went to the museum after work because i was in the neighborhood and on fridays its free and i wanted to see the exhibit on dada and hey i did but it was sitting in a plastic chair watching a dada movie that was playing in the museum and with my head resting against the wall i closed my eyes and realized how hungry i was and how little i wanted to sit through that crazy film while deep inside my hunger raged stronger than any dada film i had ever seen

Rosemary Potatoes

3 lbs. sm. red skinned new potatoes
3/4 c. unsalted butter
1/2 c. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. lemon zest, grated
2 tsp. rosemary
Salt and pepper

rough day at work today, i was supposed to do this thing and instead i did this other thing knowing that i was supposed to not do the thing i was doing and do the other thing and my boss was hey she was like hey what are you doing and i was like i'm doing this thing and she says no don't do that do this and i'm like but this thing here because this this and this and she says no and i quote "get with the program babe" and i'm like okay but secretly inside i was mad because i really thought what i was doing made more sense to be doing in the larger scheme of the given project and really the entire universe in general would of been better off if i had been given sovereignty over my actions at that time i mean wouldn't we all be better off if we were doing what we thought we should be doing but then again there is such a thing as compromise and other people's wills and wishes but the thing is see that yesterday i showed up to work at the given day on the given time and place and nope she didn't show up and left me a message saying hey sorry i'm in vermont i'll meet you tomorrow bye bye and that pissed me off and really what i was doing today was partly in reaction to yesterday but i'd like to consider my act an act of subversion stemming from a generalized lack of reciprocal respect because believe me she does that not showing up thing all the time and thank god this is my last job for her because believe me i'm done