cherry cokes

I'm in the striped shirt. Kohlers was one of two drugstores in our one stoplight small Southern town (we did have a caution light, too:-). Kohlers had the jukebox and cherry cokes. Thomas' Drugs had the Romance magazines and didn't care if you sat in there and read them. The only movie theatre, owned by V.L. Mungo, the Dodgers old star, had burned down, but a drive-in nineteen miles away welcomed us (sometimes in the car trunk). Simple times. You locked your door only when you went to bed or out of town and everybody in town watched out for you. Days of party lines and no answering machines. TV was available, but not common in this relatively poor town. Families had only one car, but still managed to get where they wanted.

Ah...nostalgia. I do miss the innocence.

..and some fun from Kim Komando

Kim says her five year old can do this, but I had a struggle at first. You'll find a short ad at the beginning but then the site begins automatically. It IS fun. Here's Kim's letter:

Today’s Cool Site takes an innovative look at music. It shows you that you can find music anywhere you look – er, listen. In this animated movie, you start by walking around a city. You'll encounter people working, singing and going about daily life.

The noises you hear can all be recorded. Simply click to record a sound. When you're done recording, it's time to hit the studio. In the studio, you can mix the sounds together, creating your own music. This site is great for kids – my five-year-old, Ian, loves it. And so do I!

Note: You need the free Shockwave player to use today's Cool Site. If you don't have it, you'll be prompted to download it.

An ad will run briefly and end on its own, then the site will begin. I DO hate ads, but no way to avoid this one.

See it at this Kim Komando appproved site.

Bargain

The old hooker won't
shut her mouth while
I fuck her, punch her
off and on for the hell
of it.

She mews like a kitten,
brags through torn lips
how Carter once hired
her and Hugh Grant and
even JFK, the day before
his blood flooded
the streets in Texas.

She claims she once
did a Platoon on leave
in Saigon before they
marched back to orange-
colored jungles and even
has a dried Cong ear
to prove it.

I decline her offer
to show me.

By now, I know the bitch
is delusional. She smells
like stale smoke and
onions, besides, but
the price was right and

a man has his needs,
doesn't he?

Drifting

While the moon dozes, its
orbit around earth
forgotten, he peeks
into my dream, worms
his way in. His presence
holds me hostage in REM,
my eyelids fluttering.

He still needs to be needed,
you see.

He sweet-talks me, bades me
roll back the stone from
the tomb of old memories.
He speaks of green eyed
birds seen, drifting; our nights,
bare and sweaty, to the
slow rasp of Rod Stewart.

His breath becomes a song in
my ear, reminding me of what
used to be sweet and so
I open my arms, finally, to
say yes, to hold him, yes,
to bring it all back, but

he has already wandered away,
bored, to mess with some
other old lover's dream.

Dido

I first heard Dido sing in Love, Actually. I didn't know the song or singer, but loved that music. Here are the first lyrics of that song, but it's the music that's the thing. Listen to it somewhere if you can.



Here With Me

I didn’t hear you leave
I wonder how am I still here
I don’t want to move a thing
It might change my memory
Oh I am what I am
I’ll do what I want
But I can’t hide
I won’t go
I won’t sleep
I can’t breathe
Until you’re resting here with me
I won’t leave
I can’t hide
I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me .....and so on

Just found a sampler of her singing at Amazon.com
Well worth the listen!

Read more about Dido at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The article begins...

Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong (born December 25, 1971 in London) is an English pop singer who performs under her name "Dido" which contrary to belief is not a nickname.

Dido is partly of French descent. Her mother, Claire, is a French poet and her father is British book publisher William Armstrong. At the age of six, she attended the Guildhall School of Music in London, England. By the time she reached her teens she had already mastered piano, violin, and recorder. She has now also learnt guitar, playing it to audiences during her 2004 Life For Rent tour.

She is perhaps best known for her 2001 hit song "Thank You", which was used by the rapper Eminem as the basis for one of his own hit singles, "...use the link to continue



Pris

Covering

Below begins a Washington Post online review of the book, Covering, just out by Random House...

In a hospital waiting room, Kenji Yoshino brushed away the reaching, worried hand of his first boyfriend as they waited for a diagnosis that could have been serious. Ten years later, Yoshino, a Yale Law School professor and deputy dean, still winces at the memory. In his rejection of his lover's hand, Yoshino was "covering": Although he was openly gay, he refused to engage in public displays of affection that might seem to "flaunt" his homosexuality.

"Everyone covers," Yoshino asserts at the beginning of his intriguing book. "Covering," a term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman in 1963, means to play down certain characteristics in order to fit into the perceived mainstream. Yoshino provides a number of examples: Krishna Bhanji covered his Indian ethnicity when he became Ben Kingsley; Margaret Thatcher covered her femininity by hiring a coach to help lower her voice; Mary Cheney covered by deflecting the media from her same-sex partner; Issur Danielovitch Demsky covered his Jewish heritage by becoming Kirk Douglas; and even the great FDR covered his wheelchair-bound legs by moving behind a desk whenever his Cabinet entered his office.

Covering, Yoshino posits, is "the dark side of assimilation"....continued here.

It's unfortunate but true, that if we don't fit 'the mold' we either have outward pressure or inside pressure to do so. After all of these years, I still feel some shame at being ill, at having to make excuses for not being able to do things, for needing a wheelchair at times, and so on...I could write a book.

In my twenties, one of my closest male friends throughout gradute school and I took our first jobs in a University setting. He was gay and , even though those were supposedly liberal times, for him to acknowledge his sexual orientation could have realistically jeapardized his position in the professional community. He knew it. In his case, add that pressure to a borderline manic-depressive illness, and he fell over the edge, commiting suicide. His death devastated me. Given societal support, would he still be alive today? I don't know, but I think the odds would've been better.

I met the same sorts of prejudices in my early years as a psychologist. Now, many more women get a Ph.D. in Psychology. At that time, I was the only female psychologist in the entire Hawaian chain when I worked there, one of three in the state of Rhode Island, and, in the two places I worked during my six years in Boston, I was the only female in a one psychology department of four and then in a twenty-one 'man' department at the V.A. I was hired in, I found later, for six thousand dollars less than the starting salary for a man at the same level, yet I worked hard enough and well enough my first year to earn a performance award which brought with it a hefty raise, bringing me then only up to what my peers earned. The men never knew how to deal with me. Flirt? Give me a hard time? Make me prove myself with everything I did? I never called myself a feminist, but that's been my outlook from the time I was small and had aspirations to be a doctor or a writer or a psychologist. I expected the most of myself and soon found that this scared the hell out of a lot of men.

Even though it can be a double-edged sword, one of the several changes due to early feminists is the addition of sexual harrassment laws in the workplace. I'll tell you why this stands out for me. Before this law, when I first moved to Boston, I was responsible for paying for tuition and supporting my first husband through law school. No jobs for psychologists were avaiable, so while I networked with other psychologists, went to psychology talk groups, etc in my search, I also looked for work in any other field I could find. An opening came up when a psychologist suddenly resigned from a well-known research foundation and, having met the director, I was offered the job.

One day I was working at my desk on some paperwork when he came up and looked over my shoulder. Fine. Common enough. Next he put his hand on my shoulder. Okay, still common enough. Itwas a friendly place. Then, he lowered his hand and grasped a private part of my anatomy. Had he been just a guy, I would've turned around and slapped his face. Instead, I froze. There were no laws to protect me. It was my word against his. He wasn't going to get fired. He RAN the place. In that split second before I just lifted his hand and acted as if nothing happened (never turning my back on him in my office ever again), I knew that if I made any commotion, he could fire ME. We didn't have the savings for me to search two months for work again. There were no options open to me and I knew it. He finally hired a young secretary and they carried on a blatant affair...no , she wasn't too bright, but it took the pressure off. I would've loved to have had recourse then , with no risk to my job, so I'm thankful that option is open to women now. I still feel humiliated when I think of that day.

But, most of all, let's not forget those brave women who went to jail and suffered humiliation and persecution to earn women the vote. For every woman before us, for every person of a different color, race, or sexual orientation before us, who's struggled, and even lost his/her life to make the path easier now, to make 'uncovering' easier, we owe our unending thanks.

Opinions? Stories? I'd love to hear.

First Night

The night after that first
hurricane we walked into
yards stacked with lost
trees, wood fences, roof
shingles and somebody's
old lawn chair and it was
dark, so very dark, like
a plug had been pulled
on South Florida and it was
the First Night all over again
before Eve gave Adam the
apple and so black I could see
the Milky Way, the Dipper,
and the Man In the Moon's
grin and so quiet, like Nature was
humming Hosana in the Highest,
and I was part of the chosen choir.



Pris Campbell
2006

Volcanic Activity

This Alaskan Website monitors Volcanic Activity on Mount Augustine, in Alaska. The webcam shots are fascinating and beautiful, and the information on the site quite interesting. Mother Nature in action again.

This is my loooong doc day for CFIDS and my cold rebounded last night, bringing soaking sweats, so off I go like a limp rag today. It's too bad medical science has never conquered the common cold, eh?

Pris

Optical Illusions

When I first began my trip towards my career as a psychologist, perception/illusions was one of the subjects I studied along the way. I think, in illusions, we can most clearly see that the 'world' as we see it is simply that. It's the world as our brain processes it--not necessarily what's actually there. Over the years, this is a subject that's come back often to mind. We can't 'see' most of what makes up that mass of energy swimming around us. I think, sometimes, what it might be like to see with a different brain, with different training and experience or from a different perspective. What would actually be there? Is everything an illusion? Is that table in the corner where I think it is or shaped how I see it?? What does it look like to my dog? My cat?

Go to this page to look at a famous painting and what lies beneath it if you stand a long distance away. A link on the page leads to a number of other well-known illusions that serve to illustrate 'what you see ISN'T what you necessarily get'. Without this brain processing--this learning to see--we would live in a world of chaos, not knowing where to step next, where to reach out and for what.

Subjects like this fascinate me.

that homerun ball
becomes an apple--
or moonpie




Pris

Weekend Posts

I'm not posting today. The weekend posts will serve as today's post.

Enjoy!
Pris

Earth as Art

In this Kim Komando recommended presentation are a series of amazingly gorgeous slides of earth taken by satellite and space shuttle, set to music. Looking every bit like abstract art, this presentation is impressive. At the end, a blurb offers to sell you a longer presentation, but doesn't push it.

Turn on your sound.

Pris

A Renga

I'm involved in my first Renga as a member of a yahoo multimedia group. I don't know how many of you are familiar with Rengas since most of my regular readers are more involved in free verse or art.

The official definition of Renga.... is a form of Japanese collaborative poetry. A Renga consists of at least three ku, often many more. The opening stanza of the Renga chain (the hokku), later became the basis for the modern Haiku style of poetry.

While this definition applies to linked haiku, Renga can refer to any type of linked work in the Japanese tradition. In our Renga, the group leader posted a 'seed' haiga. The person following was to take at least ONE recognizable element from the graphic/photograph and incorporate it into his/her new haiga. In addition, as something that's not been tried before, to the group's knowledge, one word from the haiku on the preceeding haiga is also to be used on the new one in this next haiga. An additional rule is 'no doubling back', ie a new haiga can't use elements from earlier ones and words used in previous haiku, other than words such as 'a, an, the , etc' can't be used again either.

We have 15 participants and the Renga circles through the group twice. We're on our second round now.

If you write haiku, it might be fun to do a mini Renga here with the comments. I'll post a beginning haiku. If you're game, follow with a haiku in your comment that uses one word from mine, and the next person takes one from the preceeding and so on. It's fun:-)

BTW I won't comment inbetween haiku added since it'll break the chain.(I've added yesterday's additions here into the main post. Feel free to still add, if so inclined. I thought these were exceptional)

Pris said...
spring planting
a bee sings
in my mouth

Erin Monahan said...
sweet bee-legs tickle
honeysuckle lips
with his vernal kiss

Shane said...
incessant tickle
in my throat -
winter cold

tom said...
incessant snow
old man and dog still take
their constitutional


mouse said...
Snow falls
As I linger
In the deep


Lyle Daggett said...
Moth wings linger
by the window -
touching pale frost

Lummox Journal is saying goodbye...

Edited by RD Armstrong, known as 'Raindog', the current issue of Lummox Journal just arrived in today's mail. It begins:

Winter Tale

'A fallen leaf does not hate the wind'
--from The Blind Swordsman in samuri movie

I keep telling myself that it's
The natural order
To every season, etc.
But try as I might
There's no reversing this tide
No pretending this isn't real
No waking from a bad dream
Breathing short apprehensive breaths

Everything's measured in half steps now

--RD Armstrong

As so with this poem, written shortly before his 55th birthday, Raindog announces that this will be the last year for Lummox, an print journal I've not long been a subscriber to, but love. Raindog is a wild card, a man who says what he thinks and dares to print it. From interviews to wild art to letter to the editor to musings, this is a journal I feel sad to say goodbye to.

Thanks, Raindog, for hanging yourself out there for all of us for so long.

Pris

The art of JMW Turner...

I admit it. I'm a frustrated wannabe artist. Since I can only sketch or paint haphazardly, I sigh over anyone who can create beautiful art.

I found two versions of this painting and, with the rowboat, it seems as if there WERE two versions with the same name. In this top one, the sky is far more pronounced.









The following article in the online Washington Post caught my eyes this morning:

Turner watercolour set to break saleroom record
Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:33 AM GMT

LONDON (Reuters) - An 1842 watercolour by JMW Turner could well set a saleroom record when it goes under the hammer in June, auctioneers Christie's said on Wednesday.

The Blue Rigi: Lake of Lucerne is expected to fetch more than two million pounds, putting it on target to beat the current record for a Turner watercolour on paper of 2.04 million pounds set in 2001 by Heidelberg with a Rainbow.

It is also within striking distance of the world record for a British work of art on paper of 2.6 million pounds set in 2000 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Pandora.

Christie's said it is the most important watercolour to appear at auction for more than half a century.

Blue Rigi was one of four works Turner produced in 1842 after a visit to Switzerland.
Influential 19th century art critic John Ruskin said they were the best watercolours the artist ever painted.

The work, which shows Rigi Mountain rising out of the mists of Lake Lucerne, changed hands twice -- in 1863 and 1912 -- before ending up in 1942 in the family of the current owner. It will be the leading item at Christie's British Art Week sales between June 5 and June 9.

Click HERE to read more about Turner's technique, artwork and history.

From another link on his work...

Because of all artists he was the most sensitive to subtle inflections in the intensities and the gradations of colour, no reproduction, however accurate, can quite do justice to his vision. The reader must therefore be prepared, in looking at this impression of the Rigi at sunset with the lake of Lucerne at its base, to reinforce Turner's vision with his own.

The watercolour is one of a series made by Turner during a visit to Switzerland in 1841. The scene is hardly sensational in its own right, but Turner must have felt impelled, as the sun sank behind the mountains, giving way to deepening twilight and, afterwards, to a moonlit night, to record with the utmost accuracy each passing phase of the changing light.

Yet accuracy is hardly the quality that we most aware of in the presence of Turner's best water-colours. They may be based on acute observation yet they achieve a lyrical quality that one does not associate with realism. In this example the last rays of the sun have spread a rose-colored veil across the upper slopes of the mountain. At its foot, level lines of blue mist spread themselves across the calmness of the lake, and the wooded slopes that come down to its edge are almost lost in the deepening twilight. The sharp accents of three boats break the surface of the water and one of them in the distance emits a trail of smoke that drifts upward into the mist. In the far distance one feels rather than sees the ranges of the high Alps.

From a purely technical point of view, the gradations in the luminous sky from blue to the palest pink are the work of a virtuoso, as anyone who has attempted such effects in watercolours will known. Yet just as Turner makes one forget his realism, so also does he conceal his virtuosity. It is as though he were identifying with the sunset rather than describing it.

Angels in Black Denim

No-one said fire
would rain from the
sky early, that I'd
forget what name to call
the sun or the moon,
that I'd lose myself
driving in circles,
just two blocks from my house.

Not a soul ever warned
me I'd walk into walls,
or that wind in the trees
would roar like Niagra
through hands cupped like
lifeboats tight to my ears,
that friends would
fly off like Monarchs,
and silence could
sound loud as a
junkman's parade.

Nobody said these
years of dizzies in
a walled-off Gethsemane
could bring a gun
to my hand and make me
think more than once
about how it would feel
just to use it.

Schoolbooks never taught
that my clock would
stop so abruptly and
without any warning,
or that I'd pray for angels
in black denim or some
saint with a rag on her head
to kneel down beside me, brush
back my hair and say
it's okay, dear...
it's okay.

(c)2006

For Valentine's Day, the Barrett-Brownings

On January 10, 1845, Robert Browning wrote to Elizabeth Barrett for the first time, after reading her volume of poetry, Poems. He was a little-known thirty-two-year-old poet and playwright, she was an internationally renowned poet, an invalid, and a thirty-nine-year-old spinster. "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett -- I do, as I say, love these verses with all my heart," the letter said. Over the course of the next twenty months, they would write each other close to six hundred letters -- one of the greatest literary correspondences of all time.....read more on this page from the History Channel Online.

(The same site has other romantic links that are fun, too).

Whom do you think of as the most intensely romantic couple over the centuries, either in real life or in fiction? Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler? Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton? FDR and Lucy Mercer?

Twenty-fifth Anniversary Time

And...shame on me for losing track of time. Remembered just now that today is that day. Still too dizzy/weak from the cold to do anything special. Think chicken soup would make a nice anniversary meal?? This is our wedding photo. Click to enlarge.


my cat
crouched, with bird in her mouth
wedding gift



(My cat did leave a multicolored bird on the doorstep the morning after our wedding. I've never seen a bird of that many colors before or since, nor had I ever seen my cat kill a bird)


Pris

Addition to the below post...

Geoff Sanderson just couldn't resist adding a goose haiku to another photo I sent him of yesterday's trip. Yep, the goose is flapping her wings:-)

Thanks, g.

Back to the Sea!

Yesterday, for the first time in over a year, I got over to sit by my beloved ocean for a little while. It's been a rough go of it, healthwise, for almost a year now. My husband drove me. and I sat on a bench, watching the last of the sunworshipers, the swimmers, and kids turning cartwheels in the warm ocean breeze at four in the afternoon.(Yes, ye northerners, it was a warm day here in South Florida:-)

Usually, I prefer the ocean at dawn or at near dusk, when only the walkers and joggers are around and the sky is beginning its milky pink change into day or night, but this is when my husband could take me. I'm too dizzy to drive yet, so...
The sea has always been a place of meditation for me. Before CFIDS, when I was able to bike, every weekend, weather permitting, my neighbor and I left at dawn, biked over to the ocean then turned north into Palm Beach for our weekly twenty-six mile round-trip ride. The ocean lay to our right. Exclusive Palm Beach mansions rose to our left. Trump's private club (formerly the Trump Mansion) that set Palm Beachers in a twitter (oh the fuss when The Beach Boys performed there!), was on our route.

Even better were times I could get out on my boat, out past the inlet when the tide was changing and the water went from pale clear green to deep turquise in an abrupt line, as if a child had drawn the two colors next to each other. When I lived in Hawaii, the newspaper ran a poll and published the results. How many people felt trapped living on an island, they asked. It came out about fifty-fifty, as I recall. The strange part was that it had never occurred to me to feel trapped there. The sea was simply an extension of the land I stood upon. I loved that I could circle the island and see it to my right almost the entire way.

I'm posting one of my favorite sea poems below. I would imagine most of you have read it over the years at some point. If you have a favorite, tell me about it. I love poems that laud the sea.


"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)
Found on This Site

Mipoesias Journal, the ladies only issue, is out!

Read it HERE. It sizzles! (You'll find one of mine in there, too).

Want to HEAR the issue (starting out with some great music)? Click HERE. And hey, my reading is first after the music (if you can understand my darn Southern accent lol. Music weaves throughout.

Very good job on this issue, Didi! Didi Menendez is Editor/Publisher of the journal.

dawn (a haiga.....click to enlarge)

Thanks again to Geoff Sanderson for giving me this hand carved chop for my haiga, via his son in Japan who tracked down a master carver to make it, and thanks, also, to Laryalee Fraser who translated a scanned copy into different colors in Photoshop so that I could vary them when using. She just made this green one for the current haiga.(the actual wax impression is orange-red. Both of you are the greatest!

Pris

Serendipity on the Internet

I got this surprise email this morning from David Giacalone, former Harvard trained lawyer, now turned poet, due to reasons you'll see below. Turns out that he was attending Harvard the same time I lived and worked in Boston, though we didn't know it at the time. The Ellen he refers to in the linked blog entry below is a friend from Wales, whom I've known online for several years. When I read David's blog further I found that he wrote beautiful haiku/senryu (see the additional link to his site in my links column). I wrote a haiku writing online friend in Canada and SHE knew his name. They'd just shared first place in a recent haiku competition and she'd been planning on googling him to find out more about him! Small world!

At any rate, Ellen, on a first visit to his site had tagged David for the 'name five weird things about yourself' thingie that's going around the blogs now (and no, we won't get into Michelle and Michael being able to touch their noses with their tongues here). David posted i'm just not that weird (honest) (the Wednesday entry) to explain why his Weird-Tagged list isn't finished, plus he discusses discovering my link through Ellen's blog and the fact that, like him, I have CFIDS.

Below is the blog copied, but visit both of his sites. His senryu are truly lovely.

His blog entry:

i'm just not that weird (honest)

How embarrassing for a so-called "creative," curmudgeonly pundit-haijin: I've been Weird-Tagged and can't come up with any examples of "weird habits" of mine, much less five of them. Although I just might end up with a plethora of examples, I think I'll email a few friends and family members to see if they can help fill my Weird list.

Meanwhile, a little background on getting tagged: Ellen M Johns, of the Coffee Granules weblog, reached all the way over from the UK, and tagged me at dagosan's haiku diary -- apparently during her very first visit there (yes, pretty forward, indeed). Ellen was tagged by poet and author Pris Campbell. At Pris' surprise-filled Songs To A Midnight Sky weblog, I learned that Ellen is waiting to see whether I, and the four other males she tagged, "have risen to the challenge!!!" Great, more performance expectations.

Reading about Pris Campbell, I discovered that she -- like myself -- has been living with CFS/CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome) for many years. On her website About page, Pris begins her story:

"I didn't start out as a poet. I wanted to be a novelist until a major illness wiped out that idea. On September 23, 1990, I woke up with a severe case of what was later to be diag-nosed as CFIDS. . . .

"When this illness hit, I felt as if I had been transported to a place I no longer recognized."

Although I have talked about my having CFS at this website (mostly in the context of having to stop posting or switch formats to conform to the illness' limitations and frustrations), I have not said much about the great transformation this illness has caused in my life. Of course, I bet my astute readers could figure out what it might mean to lose one's profession and livelihood, all financial security and most social contacts. Nor have I discussed the dispiriting aspects of having a mere
"syndrome," that sounds trivial, doesn't make you "look sick," and offers no roadmap back to good health.

Prior to CFIDS, Pris had been a 'health nut' and former clinical psychologist, who was an aspiring author. She biked daily, kept a garden, and was active with friends and in the community. If you are at all curious about this illness, which has greatly affected the lives of hundreds of thousand of people (plus their families), I recommend that you read Pris' story -- and her tips about how to relate to us CSFers.

One thing Pris and I appear to have in common: an appreciation for the insights and values gained living with this illness. When I thought I had to give up "ethicalEsq" (the prior name of this weblog) for good, I wrote something worth repeating (if only for my own edification): I know that some of the new friends I've made out there in Web Log Land are a little worried about me and my health, but they shouldn't be. I'm not seeking sympathy by telling personal details in this public place. I've learned some very important lessons while dealing with a serious health condition over the past decade, and I'mg lad to have learned them and lived them. Besides discovering my own inner strength, I found out that there are things far more valuable to me than the typical American symbols of "success" -- power, influence, recognition, wealth.

I still haven't learned how to pace myself, to avoid doing my body harm in a constant hyper-weblogging mode. Maybe Pris can share some of her experience with me.

On the other hand, perhaps she can lend me a few "weird habits" so I can get this darn List done. Soon, Ellen (honest).


Speaking of poets, here are a few poems from Lee Gurga that fit my mood tonight:

arc of a rubberband
back and forth across the room;
winter evening


first snow --
little boy laughing
in his sleep


the sky black with stars --
coyote tracks up and down
the frozen creek


lee gurga from Fresh Scent (1998)

Walking Watery Graves

In an unsuccesful search for that interview mentioned in yesterday's post with Pasquale, I stumbled across this now eerie Drinking in Hurricanes: A Report in the Aftermath of Isidore article, published in Slow Trains Journal in 2003, by Jamie Joy Gatto, editor of Mind Caviar. After Katrina destoyed most of New Orleans, I read that Jamie Joy had waded miles in waist-deep water to escape the city, her home destroyed. A fund was being raised to help her get resettled so that she could eventually continue editorship of her journals.

In the article she writes about hurricane parties and that feeling of invulnerability I think we all have until disaster has actually hit right at home. The article opens with...

When New Orleanians are in peril, the wusses flee and the stubborn stay, gathering together at hurricane parties, where we literally throw caution to the wind by leaving our own homes to drink together. This is a tradition that could only come from a place known as "the city that care forgot." Why do you think they call those drinks at world famous Pat O'Brien's "Hurricanes"? The legend goes that they were invented at a hurricane party in the 1940s during a particularly nasty storm.

and this now poignant close...

Who knows? Maybe that pigeon on our back patio did fare as well as we had through Tropical Storm Isidore. Maybe even better. Maybe that bird did what I'd dare to do if I had my own wings. I'd fly into the storm fast and furiously. Defy it. Play with it. Fight it. Make love to it. Risk dying with it.

I think maybe it would all be worth it.

For the first 24 years I lived in Florida, only one mild hurricane gave my area a direct hit and we never even lost power. After the last two seasons, with much of South Florida, along with other areas, most notably the Gulf States and New Orleans, devasted by storm after storm, I don't think anyone will take hurricanes lightly again. I know I don't. Just the word makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

Niederngasse Journal...the February erotic supplement is out!

The supplement, edited by Arlene Ang,the Italian editor of Niederngasse and a very fine poet, was announced in my morning mail. My bleary, cold-ridden eyes are barely open yet, but glancing through the issue, it looks to be a good one. Go HERE to read the issue.

Pasquale Capocasa, a self-proclaimed hedonist, according to an interview I read with him some time ago, is primary editor for Niederngasse, so this supplement doesn't come as a surprise.

Erotic/sensual poems are difficult to write well. I've written some, myself. Discarded many. Kept some. Published some of them. Most notably in the regular issue of Niederngasse, Erosha, and Mind Caviar. Everyone has his/her own opinion about erotic poems. What crosses the line into a turn-off poem for some is a work of beauty for another set of eyes. However you feel about it, the erotic poem has been in existance for centuries and will be for the foreseeable future.

Pris

Couldn't resist. Haze on MySpace Had this up...

...and this cold prevents me from making a post that requires a terribly lot of sense right now. At least last night I moved from chills to sweats, but my brain is still residing on another planet! Maybe that planet is the moon??

You Are From the Moon

You can vibe with the steady rhythms of the Moon. You're in touch with your emotions and intuition. You possess a great, unmatched imagination - and an infinite memory. Ultra-sensitive, you feel at home anywhere (or with anyone). A total healer, you light the way in the dark for many.

What Planet Are You From?

The prize graphic for the blog guessers!!

Seven people guessed the identity of my secret blogger several posts down. Yes, it was Michael Parker.

As promised, here are, in clockwise order, starting with the 'child'; Rae Pater, Berenice Dunford, Erin Monahan, JB Rowell, Michelle Buchanan, and C. Allen! My cold is lousy, so if I misspelled your name, please correct!!!!! I can barely think. Oh...the background is my distorted solarization of the top of Michael's head against his fantastic artwork (also solarized). You'll find a set of his jogging legs in the upper lefthand corner in case you want to run from all this FAST;-)

(PS Lyle Daggett is missing, but the only photo he has of himself is the one appearing in MiPo this issue. I know they prefer to have unique photos there, if possible, so just imagine Lyle here, then go read MiPo and you'll see what he looks like. You'll also see a photo of Michael with his column in that issue and one of me, circa the seventies, that d liked)




(CLICK TO SEE FULL SIZE)

**BLOGGER.COM ANNOUNCED THAT THEY'LL BE DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE BETWEEN 7-8 PM PST TO TRY AND FIX SOME OF THE PROBLEMS THEY'VE BEEN HAVING***

Chicken Soup

I had chills all night. That, plus a two day sore throat and feeling lousy yesterday is finally leading me to reluctantly believe I've caught something. I'm still waiting for one last photo for the surprise graphic for the winners of the 'guess the blogger' post further down and was planning to post it later today. We'll see. Right now I just feel like climbing back under the covers and dreaming of chicken soup. The worst of it is that a close friend of 25 years who's moved away from this area is driving through town today and plans to stop for lunch. Since chemo she's very vulnerable to catching things, so if this IS something, I don't want to espose her. I'm hoping I feel miraculously better before mid-day. I HAVE to. I really want to see her...if I can keep my eyes open!!

Pris

Watching the Superbowl today??

Kim Komando says that some of the best ads of the year are run during Superbowl coverage and creative ads can be fun. Who'll ever forget the alka seltzer jiggling tummy's commercial, or the Pillsberry dough boy? This Kim Komando Recommended Site gives you a choice to see some of the more interesting commercials, as well as a few that were banned.

Now, go to the bathroom. Get that beer during break. You won't miss a thing:-)

I watched a few of these and I NEVER watch commercials, but these, I admit, really were pretty interesting.

Pris

wilted....a haiga (click to enlarge)

I've been tagged...

..by Coloratura.

I'm supposed to list 5 weird things about myself. (can this be booklength??:-)

Here are the rules:
“The first player of this game starts with the topic “five weird habits of yourself, and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Dont forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You are tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.”

Okay. I need to think about this. It may take a while to narrow them down. I'll be back. In the meantime if anybody wants to contribute something weird about me I might not think about, feel free. Well, almost free. I'm pretty good at shooting spit balls.

Back with five of the weird things:
1-I'm completely right-handed but CANNOT coordinate a mouse with my right hand. Have to use my left hand.
2-I was born with a rudimentary third nipple. Mother told me it was where a diaper pin jabbed me. Didn't find out until a GYN told me in my twenties. (Before you come rushing down with cameras, it absorbed into my body, eventually):-)
3-Yes, I love eating brains and eggs, boiled okra and collard greens.
4-Ever since I saw Jaws, I've rarely gone into water I can't see through.
5-When I eat, I eat one dish till it's gone, then rotate around my plate. No clue why. Just seems natural.

Okay. I'm now tagging Geoff, Berenice, Ellen, Lee Herrick and Tammy.


Done!
Pris



Pris

SECRET BLOGGER ANNOUNCED!!!!!!!!!

Does it come as a big surprise?? Yes, it's ta da... MICHAEL PARKER !!!

Now, if your guess was right, send me a photo I can use for making one big group graphic by this coming Monday, latest. If you don't want your face shown, send a pic of your foot, your nose, your hair, your hand, the back of your head, your favorite tree, your cat. I'm easy. My address is in my profile. Just put your full name so a lurker doesn't send me a photo I REALLY don't want to see lol.


Berenice-Geoff, then changed to Michael Parker (I'll accept the vote change!)
Erin-Michael Parker
mouse-Lyle Daggett
JB Rowell-Michael Parker
Rae-Michael Parker
Lyle D-Michael Parker
Michelle-Michael Parker
C. Allen on MySpace-Michael Parker
s.a. on MySpace-the guess too complex to duplicate here lol



It's been fun:-)Thanks, Michael, for being such a good sport about this!

SEND PICTURES, YOU WINNERS. OTHERWISE I'LL HAVE TO POST ONE OF MICHAEL'S ANKLE OR MAYBE EVEN HIS ELBOW ALL BY ITS LONESOME.


Pris

One of my favorite bloggers!

I always enjoy his posts. I always learn something, too. If you can guess who he is (and I won't give you the answer on this post or he'd kill me), I'll figure out a surprise prize for you. Maybe a graphic for you?? Like that??

Three guesses in. Another hint. This one captures his essence??

The Closet Geek

Well, after two days of trying all of my tricks to retrieve my sound after a driver update crashed my sound and froze any program using music, not to mention a few on the side, too, I figured out the solution several clicks deep into the control panel. Five minutes later, I got a note from my swamped dear tech bud suggesting trying that solution, too. I love to solve problems, esp computer problems. The intermittent crashes are still beyond my skill level, though, so he'll help me with that this weekend. Can you see me patting myself on the back???

Doc appointment this morning, so you'll just have to do with my bragging in this post:-)

Pris