[I'm only shy when I want to be; my head between my cyprus knees]

Here's the thing: I want to be a poet. I want to write and write and let the ink store up in my veins.
I decided when I was thirteen, that I would find a way to eventually establish myself as a poet and survive in whatever manner was necessary for such a dream.

I have been to conferences and workshops, I have taken so many classes,  when I was at Shoreline c.c. I was president of the Poetry club (wordsmithies). I've had five poems published in various literary journals. I made $200. It is not a lucrative passion, it is not even particularly admired. I realize that Poetry is not a career.
I believe in compassion and patience, I know that my talents and ambitions will make me a good elementary school teacher.

But I breathe it. And one must, to write anything, to say anything: observation journals, pen and paper journals. Every day, carefully marked with times and locations, because everything means everything and it can always be written down. There are forever avenues to express the way groups collectively quiet when moving from rain to bus, how lights push against cement, or the smell behind buildings of laundry or toast.

What it is though- I discourage easily. Kim Addonizio leads her phrases tantalizingly through subtle erotic images; CK Williams fills his poems with quiet, airy jests; Sylvia Plath makes her acute pain, drawn, and easy to swallow; Roethke is grand; Adrienne Rich teeters between tragic and consuming... how does a young poet, of marginal talent not let the ink dry up? I want to write that I am sad but it had already been discovered one thousand times. I want to write about the air that presses against my body when I'm in love, but it too has been invented.

I am struggling now, with school and a practical career path, to let myself imagine. I can't stop the words, it is silly, I know. But they are important and I cannot just seal them up under my flesh and pretend they don't ache to come out. But they feel dull and then I feel dull, and writing poems becomes an embarrassing absolute in my life. It was easier before when I let myself loftily aspire. There is no either/or, I know that in my head, but the unsteadiness makes me forget.
It is always like this.

[November Currents]

Currently:

grass and mild uninterest

Current Album:  

forever and ever. (amen)

Current TV Series

my heart swells with delight!

Current Shame Inducing Guilty Pleasure:

gimlets before noon

Current Links:http://www.wherehousemusic.com/

http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=wedding+dress&filter%5B0%5D=handmade&filter%5B1%5D=weddings&filter%5B2%5D=clothing

http://www.marthastewart.com/food

Current Wish List:

community

Current Songs
http://hypem.com/#/search/chistmas/1/

Current Triumph

nearly an entire quater after six years

Current Fetish:

Current Indulgence

Current excitment

more of this.

Current mood:

[split pea breakfast]

I turned the wrong burner on low and left another one on high. My brilliant idea to eat split peas with garlic is all burnt and smokey now.

I should work and go downtown and find James' christmas presents and edit photos and eat breakfast and put on pants and write school papers.
But I'm watching SVU year one and browsing for throw rugs that look like a cozy bed.

My eyes are watery from this smoke.

[My Dear Watson]

We arrived home by train this afternoon. Thanksgiving was simple and uninteresting. We mostly spent the four days in Portland drinking new beers and watching physics professors explain theories that are too big for my mind. It makes me want to read more string theory and anything about black holes. We exist as everything exists.
I am happy to be home. Everything is in place. The animals spread their soft hairs accross the hard wood floors each day they went unswept, we came in the door to a scene something snow like. I could probably reconstruct several animals with the amount of hair I gathered into the garbage.

We made an especially garlic dinner tonight and are slouching into to Sherlock Holmes, letting him solve everything.

[snow days: 2]

two days of no school. pretty exciting. I didn't even leave the house until 5pm today. I slept until just about noon.
I like the cold and the coziness it implies. we just drank cocktails and played City Monopoly, I lost.
movies and knitting now, and sleeping in.

[winter]

it was very cold today. I forgot how things can get like that.
we made the best clam chowder last night. And the worst egg nog, I don't know went wrong, there were only like four ingredients. Maybe I should not have bought cheap rum? still....

the animals are snuggly, our bed is warm. I do not want to ever leave the house.

[letter one]

How did this happen? It was not supposed to end up like this. Your life was supposed to be better than mine. I always imagined you tall, thin, and beautiful; an intellectual, arguing for rights. What was it that pulled our lives apart? Were you doomed from the start, your fathers tawdry life marring your own?
I should have stayed around. I should have kept you from those girls, desperate for your good soul. I should have kept you from feeling alone. My own selfishness and embarrassment forcing me to keep quiet, to deny every risky behavior.
Would it have been different then? I worry that you won't live much longer and not being able to do anything is all consuming.

[preperations]

For the sake of needing more blog entries and having plenty of content, I've decided I'll share wedding plans with you. Darling things, you know.

The date is July 23rd 2011, at 6pm. We've yet to pick an officiant or decide the exact details of the ceremony. Vows and such. The most important parts tend to take a little longer. I've been meditating on the idea of including some version of the Cherokee's blanket ceremony tradition. Basically, the officiant puts a blanket/throw/sheet over both the bride and groom while reciting vows, to represent the new oneness of the couple. I know we'll have the following passage by Stan Davis read:

Now you will feel no rain for each of you will be shelter for the other  Now you will feel no cold for each of you will be warmth for the otherNow there is no lonelinessNow you are two persons but there is only one life before youGo now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life together
and may your days be good and long upon the earth.

The ceremony will be at Lincoln Viewpoint in West Seattle:

Our reception will be at Zeitgeist Coffee


We're going to have Shoefly Pie Company's cutie pie cups for dessert:

A keg of Mothership Wit (our favourite summer beer):

We don't have a caterer yet but we want something local and deliciously Northwest. Right now we're pursuing our favourite pubs chef at the Virginia Inn

French presses of Stumptown:

Everything liquid will be served in jam jars, of which we already have plenty.

If we are lucky some small fusing of Combodeulxe and Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band will play live:
http://www.combodeluxe.net/music.html

James hasn't bought clothes yet but told me that he wants to look like he owns a yacht, like a play boy. He said he definitely wants to wear an ascot. Exciting stuff.

I had my heart on a specific sweet dress but the price increased and I cannot justify spending over $1,000 on a dress. Right now I'm beginning to fall in love with this dress from a maker on etsy.

I'm thinking I'll make or buy a simple white lace shrug and either wear flats of kitten heals. I definitely want to wear my hair down or mostly down.

We're going to fill the Cafe with floating yellow candles. And use our typewriter for a guestbook.

Oh, there are many many things...


[charmed life]

I'm in math right now. I'd like to be listening to Harry Potter. Audio books have created an entirely new avenue for my favourite books. I should find out if The History of Love comes in audio. I think I have. I don't think it does. I wante Stephen Fry to narrate everything. I heard they might make Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close into a movie. Something involving Tom Hanks. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I left my coffee on the counter at home and I can feel myself muting out the movements and sounds around me. It is good I have yoga this afternoon. Yoga makes me miss Ballet. I was good at it, even if I was old when I started (16). My pointe shoes are in a train case on a shelf above my bed. I'd like to think I will take classes again. Time and money always seem to prioritize themselves in other ways though.

James and I have brought back cocktail hour during winter again. For the time being I am Gin and he is Whiskey. We also have been trying to work through our steadily impressive wine collection, as well as some home brews. For the moment we live a charmed life, where evening drink choices are the most difficult decisions of the day.