a piece of cardboard invited the stars to dance

so here's the cool new thing

tiffany's nook color

& an awesome app.

zach gave it to her

for her birthday

& she let me play with it.

hmmm.

might have to have me

one of those....

Blog alternative:

203. invite the stars to dance with your cardboard. or maybe use a marker.

moments, like fish

what swims like fish beneath the sea of each moment?

So there I was, ready to get ready to leave & it occurred to me:

easter weekend

minnesota

that could only mean one thing:

minicon.

so I went up to the sheraton bloomington & saw my peeps (& some actual peeps) & it was good.

also got to participate in the lady poetesses from hell reading, which went very well, from all accounts. so lovely to read my own poems & hear the poems of the other poetesses. (not all of whom are gendered feminine.)

so now what?

I was thinking about leaving tomorrow, but there are tornadoes in the way, so perhaps friday & saturday are good travel days. we shall see. in the mean time (or should I say "in the nice time") I will be here now, wherever here is.

& so

Blog alternative:

202. change a plan. plan a change.

the electramagnetic complex

having way too much fun

tracing my own hand

I do it again...

I noticed a typo in my blog alternative yesterday & it was too juicy & delicious to change. Electramagnetic spectrum. (That means you might kinda sorta have an electra complex, but whoever it is you're attracted to, be it father or father figure, it's pretty magnetic.)

Our 6 to 8 inches of snow yesterday pretty much melted into the ground as it fell. That means our girls' poker night is still on. Years ago I had my heart set on a 54 inch round pedestal table, reasoning--correctly--that 54 inches is the absolute best size for cards. With a 60 inch it's hard to reach the middle to rake in cards, if you take a trick in pinochle, or a pot, if you win one in poker. With a 48 inch, you can't seat enough peeps. Pedestal because then no one is bumping knees on table legs. Then, voila, cold frozy day in Minneapolis & my poetry buds & I were early to something & walking around a block & the only thing open was an antique/consignment store. 54 inch round pedestal table just waiting for me. & now Tiffany, daughter-in-law-to-be, likes to play hold 'em & doesn't get an opportunity to do so very often, so my poker buddies & her poker buddy are coming over. Zach will hang out in the garage...

Another event for today is a trip to the Crossings Gallery in Zumbrota to see the poet/artist collaboration show, always one of my favorites.

Blog alternative:

201. Venture into an art gallery. Write a poem about one of the paintings.

No one here but us brainwaves: nothing to read here. move along. move along.

when you put your hand up

the stars reach for themselves

reborn as flesh

I have blogged so much over the last few years. You just wouldn't be able to keep up with it. Literally. Or, rather, fictively. Imaginally. Brain-wavery. This is to say that I keep coming up with topics to blog about & even phrases, sentence, paragraphs, as I'm driving, walking, eating, etcetera-ing. Be glad you don't have to read all that!

Blogging about blogging means I have reached a new low, given that I am a bit of an anti-blogger. Groan. Grin. Bear it. My biggest consolation in all this is that, since I blog (in a form that you can access) so infrequently that you are more likely to be doing some of the things I consider "real life" (as expounded in my blog alternatives) like building a little (or big) snowbeing, or walking a dog or writing an essay about your sister that she may be considered for the title "farm wife of america."

It is snowing in Rochester, Minnesota. My son Zach is studying & doing homework. Tiffany is bustling around emptying the garbage. Quote for the day, as she re-entered the house. "How craptastik is it out there. Jeez." Later in the week we will hardboil a dozen eggs & decorate them. Maybe two dozen. I will dedicated mine to "egg horror poem" which has garnered me well over a thousand dollars so far. maybe two thousand.

I am coming up (friday) on my 52nd birthday. Finally, I will be a full deck!

Blog alternative:

200. ding ding ding, you win! Consider everything that you win just by being here as this starstuff: air to breathe. horizons. the energy of the sun, feeding you & the planet & everything between & beyond so much energy we shade ourselves from it. water. tequila. the ability to create anything you want inside your mind. dog tails wagging. the difference between silence & sound. the electramagnetic spectrum.

A day well seized: celebration in hand-me-downs

dancing with the sun and sky

earth heart smiling

I wrote some poems at my cousin's concert at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings, Montana. (Yes, I am still in Montana, where my dad is recovering from his third surgery.) (Third? you ask, quizzically, thinking--correctly--that he has but 2 carotid arteries. More on that later...) Meanwhile, back at the poem. My cousin Korine Fujiwara is a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, & omigosh, a concert with them is a day well seized. Korine has composed "Montana," which is so amazing. (Check them out on youtube. Anyway, here is a poem I wrote near the beginning of the concert. (The concert (& the newly-renamed Grandmaster Karlo Fujiwara Memorial Taekwondo Tournament) were dedicated to her father (my uncle) who died last summer.)

I Swear

I will get my cello strung & tuned

& learn to play at least one song

I will hug my father extra tight

when next I see him

(avoiding his neck, which is sore)

I will perform the music of my heart

which is peace & love & joy incarnate

I will go home

right now

a one-inch journey

to the center of my heart

I will melt into the music

of this moment

So, how do you have 3 surgeries when you only have 2 carotid arteries? Swell up like crazy one day & confuse the doctors & (after 4 days of not getting better quickly or consistently enough) have them reopen the incision to discover a big old hematoma that would have dissolved in 8 or 9 months on its own but in the meantime was painful & causing a deviated trachea & ear pain & such. He seems to be doing better & should be out of the hospital soon. About time--at the cafeteria today the cashier asked if I worked there since she'd seen me so often for so long. Dad & my cousin Aeron beat Mom & I twice in a row at 4-handed cribbage. We told the doctors he really didn't need extra blood flow to his brain...

I did a really good job of packing for this trip, which means I have worn everything I brought--even 2 long dresses, blue & green, which I wear as a reversible other-color-peeking-out-from-under duo--numerous times & I'm not sick of any of my clothes yet. I did get some hand-me-down jeans from my mom, & a shiny ruffly teal shirt & a pair of black sweatpants from my (R.I.P.) Great-aunt Lila, & 3 undershirts from (R.I.P.) Grandma Arla. Wardrobed!

Blog alternative:

199. Swear. &--after you're done with the profanity--swear to (fill-in-the-blank). Above poem may be used for exampling.