[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.