I Know What I Like When I See It

The usual format of the writers' group I am in is thus: author reads, critics mull and re-read and mark up, critics discuss, and finally author is allowed to speak and answer questions.

Tonight, over plates of chicken salad wraps at the aut Bar, I read the poem posted below at 18 May. I could barely hear myself over the stereo system blaring Dido into the courtyard. When I finished, the critics sat and figeted with their pens. When the discussion rolled around, they unanimously liked it. Loved it even. Every-single-line-is-beautiful, this-is-so-sensual-and-intriguing loved it.

But they didn't know what it meant.

H. put forth several interpretations. As the group talked it over, I started to wonder if even I knew what it meant.

"It must be a good poem," S. said. "I don't understand it."
"I've decided to just leave it a mystery," said L.
"You should submit this somewhere," H. said. "Like The New Yorker."

I laughed.

M., the real poet of the group, merely winked at me and pointed out some too-ordinary words.

Absence Maketh the Blog Grow Boring

Yeah, yeah, so I took some time off. In addition to gallivanting around the greater Ann Arbor area looking for an affordable new place to live and donating to the Waterloo Rec Area Anopheles Blood Bank, here's whut I been up to:

Vinology
The Penelopiad
Ethnologue

While You Were Out

The viburnum happened.



And the alium.



And this unknown purple flower. Kind of silly that I don't know what it is, since I planted the bulbs.

Pygmalia

His lips first I fashioned,
apple blossoms I bit the pink curve into;
His cheeks next,
musky clay warmed round by my palm cups,
stubbled with bur oak acorn caps.
Two river-rubbed rocks I set for his eyes,
glinting with schist like silver minnows.
His neck sinews last winter’s grapevine
I braided around the antlers of his collarbones.
For his back an acre’s ground,
each vertebrae a fossil unturned.
Two mounds of earth I kneaded into buttocks,
bound to a hickory my arms’ circumference measured,
forking down to grounded knotty roots,
forking up to a driftwood-smooth branch
from which I hung a spider’s sack
cradling a pair of dusky plums.
An armful of moss I distributed,
a little bit everywhere;
a thatch of wild vetch his crown;
fronds to point the delicate curling way
home down his belly.
Last I pressed my tongue to form
the moist interior nautilus of his mouth,
whispered into the snail shells of his ears
his secret name,
and brought my self to life.

The Da Vinci Overload

Enough! Enough already! It’s a made-up story, people! Fiction! A novel! Not even a particularly well-written one!

IT IS NOT THE BIBLE!

ps. The Bible is mostly stories too.

Orange Barrel Season

Thanks to A. for the sign generator link.

Elusive Bird

Ahh! I just clicked over to Robert Royse's bird photo pages to see what's been going on migratory-bird-wise down oHIo way, and started air-stabbing myself in the chest when I saw that his current home page photo is of the skulker that has thus far eluded me, the Kentucky warbler. Singing, no less.

Someday, little sideburned bird. *rubs hands together* Someday...I will find you...

Walking

Spent quite a bit of the day walking, first in town looking for rentals, then on the bog trail at Waterloo Recreation Area with Law School P., who is heading for Portland, Oregon, for the summer. P.'s a good one to walk with - just the right level of chatting and he knows when to shut it, like when the barred owl started to hoot (and then made a ghostly shadow across the green leaves off to our right). He even risked warbler neck and helped me search vainly for the black-throated green warblers zee-zoo-zoo-zeeing all around us.

Let's Try It Again

This winter, I found a real steal of a deal online for the full, premium version of Adobe Creative Suite 2, thanks to my enrollment in the college. I hemmed and hawed, and didn’t order it right away, because my nefarious plans had me sitting pretty this summer, a Ms. Muffet on her financial tuffet, and even better able to afford this big expensive software package.

Now we all know that plans have a way of going up like so much smoke at Hash Bash, and instead of being Ms. Muffet, my budget is more like a kid stuck in a well. Without a monkey and a roast beef sandwich.

But I’ve had a few freelance opportunities, with the potential for more, and while my older versions of Photoshop and Illustrator still produce useable files for the printer, I desperately need InDesign on my Mac to do the serious work I want to do. Plus, I’d be missing out on all the new features in CS2 that we went over in class. So I winced, and placed the order on a credit card, which I probably shouldn’t have done, because I’m already squeezing nickels so hard that the buffalo on the back farts, but I figure that 10-12 hours or so of freelance work will defray the cost.

I clicked the FedEx tracking link two or three times a day, imagining my little brown RFID-tagged box wending its way from Dallas to Memphis, and finally to Ann Arbor. Late one afternoon, the link provided me with the following information: “Delivery Exception.” I rushed home. I wailed when I saw the sticky door-hangy-thingy, but no little brown box.

The tag was checked “signature in person required.” Maybe I could get away with it, though. I selected my most waterproof blue pen and signed the door-hangy and left it stuck to the storm door glass the next morning.

The following evening, I returned to find the door-hangy had, like some unicellular organism, replicated itself. The second one had a genetic variance towards a more assertive personality, with “signature in person” printed quite boldly upon it. Second delivery attempt! Three strikes and no FedEx for you!

Not really wanting to drive back to Ann Arbor to pick the fool thing up that evening, I called the FedEx 800 number to see if they could hold it there so I could pick it up the following day. A recording of a woman’s voice answered and tried to get me to talk. “Say, ‘Schedule a pick up’ to schedule a pick up,” she ordered me. “Say ‘Find locations’ to find locations.”

“Speak, Sylvie, speak,” I said to the cat. Sylvie blinked slowly and sauntered into the living room.
“Say, ‘Track a package’ to track a package,” the recorded voice continued.

I said, “Screw this shit,” and pushed the zero three times.
“Sorry, I didn’t understand.” The enunciation was sharper, more pronounced, like she suddenly thought maybe I was from some other country. “Say, ‘Track a package’ to track a package.”
“I know where the damn package is,” I muttered, punching the zero again.
“Sorry, I didn’t understand.” Then, more condescending, “Let’s try it again.”
I would have held up my middle finger, but I was using it to jab the star key about fifteen times.
“I’m connecting you to a FedEx representative.”
Thank God.

The FexEd representative, Frank, was sweet as pecan pie. He transmitted a message that my little brown box should be held at the location in Ann Arbor until I could pick up the next day after my writers’ group meeting. Thank you, Frank.

The meeting was at Grizzly Peak. Feeling delightfully warm and hoppy at about 7:30, I carefully steered my way down to the FedEx location, where I handed over my two door-hangies, now stuck together like mating dragonflies, and received in return my little brown box. I set it on the passenger side seat. I patted it. When I got home, I put it on the kitchen table, then lay down and promptly fell asleep.

This evening I stopped off to see a sandhill crane chick and to do some grocery shopping. By the time I got home, I was itching with anticipation. I tore open the brown box and pulled out this gorgeous, three-inch thick glistening white distinctively Adobe package. Then I saw this:



If you heard a huge *clunk* about 10:00 p.m. EDT, that was my head hitting the desk.

I’ll call tomorrow.

:(

To top off my many other issues, the wren box I hung in the viburnum has disappeared.