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