Chills

"Jerry scared all the fish away with his loud personal story."

Lazy saturday: Huluing Parks and Rec, The Office, bronwyn is making french toast and coffee, blankets.
later heading up to Stanwood with Dad to visit the grandmas and see some blues at the Hotel Tavern.

dances we do in cold weather.

in greys and muted reds, they're shooting a music video.
all natural light. glasgow rarely looks so post-chilled
chill.

the last time a calm this deep landed
in a grey-grit town
it was Manchester,
after someone's comedown lent them
the necessary zen for life epiphanies,
the sort between scheme and high-rise,

leap and landing. the records never sold,
but the books about making them did.

i guess we were all so young, we didn't know what we were doing, really
there's always a suspicion, in weather like this,
that the next minutes will bring back Death
in full-cloaked glory, voiced by the seven most ominous
actors we can think of, overdubbed, re-looping
a constant thud, while we, like a great stream of
rats, follow him into warehouse catacombs

it keeps them restless, this time, behind the camera.
only the pictures stay calm. behind each beat, behind
each grimacing, pretend-to-be-bothered worker mugging
a hello for hometown heroes, is the entire driving force
of a million dancing kids pockmarking

something special. of whole rainy puddle rituals
disrupting the epiphanies, destroying half of Europe
before the camera can even be clicked off, carried
on ships to America, where the grim spectacle starts again.

yeah, if I had to do it over, I guess I would. Its hard to know,
though.
in muted greys and bricks, the echoes bounce off the walls,
one more busted jaw youngster looking for a party, for someone
with a large coat and commanding voice
to tell them which dance is next.
______________________________________________

the prompts were to write about the black death. to write about the nu romantics. i made it into a sandwich. edits to follow.

Cheap Wine and Poetry

Went well. Seattle poet/promoter Greg Bem recorded it and you can listen to it on the internet.
I performed first, opening for Sierra Nelson, Rebecca Hoogs and Emmet Montgomery. I genuinely enjoyed everyone who read-- Emmet did a sort of genre-blurring comedy/autobio/poetry set (you could say he "gave a talk"), Rebecca read some smart, occasionally sexy "page" poetry (don't like those distinctions) and Sierra was clever but-not-smug and adorably quirky (sounds waaaay more condescending than I mean it to, but oh well.)

I apparently also now feel entitled to refer to all these folks by their first names.

Set List
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Genus, Species and Flavour
Ambition is Critical
Rules for Riding the King County Metro

Likely the biggest reading I've done in Seattle so far. Great night.

Ain't WITH. . .

being broke.

Talked a few weeks ago with Lailey (or New York Sister, which would be a title if it didn't sound so loaded) about the difference between being broke in Seattle and being broke in New York. The main note was that when you're broke, like, have no money in NYC, and you tell your friends, there's a greater chance that they'll actually believe you.

Seattle is a city full of new-moneyists who, because they vote liberal and live on the west coast, don't think of themselves as rich. NYC is accepted as one of the most expensive cities in the US, if not world. You tell people in NYC you can't go out because a sandwich and beer could be the difference between having a place to live next month or not and you get a "yikes!"

but it's a real yikes. folks in Seattle don't seem to have that concept. the number of times friends of mine have responded with "yeah, things are really tight for me too, I saw this new dress I wanted but knew I really shouldn't. . ."

there is a gap there.

Dream Jobbery #345

I wonder how many snarky blog-injokes, mind-numbing entertainment industry forums, misspelled hate e-mails and aplogetic dismissals of popular sitcoms this writer had to write/endure before getting to do this sort of thing for money.

seriously, when I was 10 I would have done that for free.

Feb '11/this ends here/has ended/trouble with tenses.

Things that I realized/did/experienced in February that were not related to readings, as such:

1) starting a blog post and getting distracted and starting it up again twenty minutes later is a good way to forget all your awesome ideas.

2) sitting on the floor in the middle of your living room, trying to write things (of any nature) while the universe and your family cavorts around you is less than optimal. the reason this sitting occurs in this place is because of the necessity of physical wires for the internet.

3) roy williams is capable of high levels of support, fun-having, charm and unobrusivity, all at once.

4) my dad know everything about seattle's history and still wants to learn the new stuff ("why don't we swing through georgetown-- where exactly is all the stuff supposed to be happening there?")

5) planning for a class that you are going to teach requires actually planning for a class you are going to teach.

6) having a cute new baby around means people bring your sister food, which you can steal.

7) a broken phone screen is a pain at first, but then, liberating.

8) lists are the lowest form of communication.