IF THIS IS A BAD IDEA, YOU SHOULD JUST SAY SO

…I have new things:
"The Truth About Snow" @ THE CAMEL SALOON
"In Flight" @ EUNOIA REVIEW
"Starling" @ EUNOIA REVIEW
"Scoliosis" @ EUNOIA REVIEW
All are here under "Words in Print."

…Boy was I confused! I saw Fleet Foxes last night, NOT The Mountain Goats. I guess I get my forest animals mixed up.
The Cave Singers opened for FF. The Cave Bro's were outstanding. I'm getting their album in a momentito. The lead singer was like a young Joe Cocker, growling, bearded and sort of spastic with his mannerisms.
Fleet Foxes were brilliant. Their music soars and shimmers and gets into your skin like radiation. I have been listening to them non-stop. Even this second I have earbuds stuffed inside my ear canals and I'm listening to White Winter Hymnal on repeat.

…I used to have a dog. She was a blonde cocker, incredibly loveable and just about as mischievous. When friends visited, she'd get so excited that her bladder would burst as they reached down to pet her, urine soaking their Jimmy Choos or Ferragamo shoes.
Her name was Alex. Alexandra. Alexandra Camile Mason Kuntz was her full name.
She lived a long life: 14 years. She traveled all over this continent with me: from Virginia to Seattle to New Jersey to Virginia again, back to Seattle.
In the end she went blind and lost her facilities. It was depressing to see that happen. I remember her whenever I am feeling cozy because she had the softest fur and enjoyed curling up inside my chest like a cashmere shawl. Sometimes she’d stretch, or look up at me with her chocolate eyes. Once in a while she’d yawn so wide you could have fit a tire inside her mouth. Her breath was not always the freshest in the world. But it was impossible not to love her.
Today I am missing Alex.

…The sun is shining here. How about where you are? This morning the sun is strong and arrogant, like a too-proud policeman. It breaks through this window and scars my hands with radiance and I am grateful.

…I am weighing these bad dreams with the good ones.
In the good ones, I fly over Bavarian towns or swim under water for hours on end, coming up face-to-face with a flock of startled swans. In the good dreams I am light as gossamer. I wedge myself between the tightest places, the thinnest slots. I can pretty much go wherever I choose. It's liberating and intoxicating.
In the bad dreams I cannot get where I'm headed. I can't run so fast. My feet are weighted with cement. My thighs are made of rusted steel. But I need to get away. I desperately do, because the black specter is making headway. He's closing in. He holds a scythe over his shoulders like a machete. Tell me, what would he need that for?
His hood flaps loose from the motion of advancement and I get the look at his face and I can't believe it. What a betrayal.
Consider good and evil. Good is supposed to win. But sometimes it doesn't. I’ve seen plenty of evidence where good gets trampled underfoot.
Maybe I'll stay awake tonight. Maybe I'll watch the sun set and rise. Maybe I'll use the extra time to write you a long letter.


“Is the life I'm living the life that wants to live in me?”-- Parker Palmer

“Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.”-- John Keats

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." GK Chesterson