Bird's Blog

Honoring Veterans

2011-07-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

California has more homeless veterans than any other state in the union and federal funding for housing for these vets has declined over the past few years.

Like all vulnerable populations during an economic downturn, vets have shouldered more than their fair share of the burden. Our country likes to pump its fists, yell “USA! USA!” and send the Blue Angels into the air to glorify our military, but we are less than willing to properly support soldiers returning from war.

San Francisco is planning a memorial to veterans at a cost of 2.5 million; about 2/3 of the funds required has already been raised for the project.

The memorial, a series of three reflection pools, will be located between the War Memorial Veterans Building (which, by the way, doesn’t house any entities having do with veterans – it’s a performing arts center) and the War Memorial Opera House (ditto). Both buildings, completed in 1932, were constructed to honor the soldiers of World War I. These are lovely civic buildings with character, but exactly how these edifices honor vets, I am not sure. I doubt that anyone entering these buildings for a performance or lecture or art show thinks about soldiers, or sailors, or airmen and women. Civic buildings and art can certainly honor vets, but the link here is tenuous.

The new veterans memorial will no doubt provide a haven for opera goers and those attending events at the War Memorial Building to meet before a performance. It may also provide a place for those busy people (who work in the area but can't afford to dine in the area’s numerous restaurants) to sit and rest for a bit and eat their bag lunches under the soothing influence of the reflecting pools.

Now that’s fine – calm, peaceful public spaces are an asset to any area. But how that memorial will help or “honor” vets, is frankly, beyond me. I suppose homeless vets can hang out at the reflection pools, pondering their lives, but more than likely, they will be asked to move along. We can’t have homeless folk congregating by a lovely memorial; they will detract from the memorial’s peacefulness and beauty.

San Francisco enjoys many pubic art installations and memorials can be a wonderful way to remember important events and people, but why create a memorial that will not in any way help vets in a time when they need help? Why not take that funding and create a memorial that actually helps veterans – why not use it to provide some low-cost housing for homeless vets?

Rincon Post Office Annex

2011-07-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

This week's post is up at my other blog, 46.7 Square Miles (yup, you guessed it that's the area of San Francisco).

Happy 4th of July

2011-07-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ruw-X7tcJ8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa-q-ztyZZw&feature=related

Mark Dayton: Superhero

2011-07-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Finally, a politician with some balls. And integrity.

Mild mannered, bespectacled Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has shut down his state’s government. Why? Because he clearly understands that the true problem with Minnesota’s state budget (just like so many state budgets across the land and the Federal budget as well) is primarily not a spending problem, but a revenue problem.

His solution: raise taxes on those in the state that make a million dollars or more.

In California, chicken-shit Governor Brown wanted to extend the sales tax and the car registration fees that were increased a few years ago. And who does that hurt the most? The lower-middle class, the working poor, the unemployed, and families living below or at the poverty level. And who does it not affect? The wealthy. At least Brown wanted to take the proposal to the voters, but the Republicans shut that down – fast. Brown didn’t even bring up the idea of raising taxes on those who could most afford it. We now have a budget that cuts social services and funding for education. Because lord knows, you can’t close the loopholes on corporate taxes here in California and you can’t raise taxes on the privileged few who control the vast majority of wealth and whose lives just keep on getting better and better while the lives of the majority of us keep on getting worse and worse.

But back to Minnesota. The Minnesota legislature shares the burden for the government shut down – the Republican-controlled legislature would rather cut services on Minnesota’s most vulnerable populations than require millionaires to pay a bit more. And why not? We are, after all, living in a very Dickensian time. Please sir, may I have just a bit more of that day-old porridge sitting at the bottom of the pot? Hell no – and besides, we’re putting that pot away on the back shelf – and charging you for the storage fees too!

Dayton’s family is rich. And his values are rooted in the Bible – that old idea that those who are blessed have a responsibility to help those who have far less. His early adulthood experience of teaching in an impoverished inner-city school also informs his thinking. “Through no choice of our own, I was born into great wealth and they were born into this abject poverty. The injustice really seared my conscience,” Dayton told the Associated Press.

Besides, as Dayton puts it: “I grew up in that [wealthy] environment. I know people can afford it.”

Put a superman cape on that man!

The Pink Triangle

2011-06-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

As I sip coffee this fine Sunday morning, I gaze out my window to the city below. I have a clear view of Market Street, running like some sort of umbilical cord from the heart of the City (which is indeed the Castro – geographically at least) down to the Ferry Building. Market Street, like this morning, is quiet, though certainly Justin Herman Plaza is now bursting with people and sections of Market are lined with spectators, all awaiting the Pride Parade. Shortly, Dykes on Bikes will open up the parade, gunning their shiny motorcycles down the hot asphalt and Market Street will be awash in color, smiles, officials in shiny convertibles, floats with handsome dancing men, and contingencies of various entities – community organizations, labor unions, student groups - all marching in solidarity, support, and pride. Helicopters will buzz the city; flags will wave; crowds will cheer.

Yesterday, the Pink Triangle was unfurled on the east side of the Twin Peaks Lookout. On a clear day, like today, the Triangle boasts a visibility of 20 miles.

Living on the San Francisco Peninsula for decades, I was of course aware of the Pride Parade, but not until I moved to San Francisco, to my roost east of Twin Peaks and overlooking the Castro, did I learn of the Triangle. During my first Pride Weekend living in the City, I took one of my usual walks in the neighborhood, heading uphill toward Twin Peaks, and halfway there, was astounded to see the large pink triangle embracing the hillside.

For me, the triangle has long represented female power. And that’s how I saw that pink triangle that first morning: a symbol of the lesbian community, of the power and force of women – a symbol of women’s struggle for acceptance, identity and acknowledgement in both the straight and “gay” community. Although LGBT is more often used these days (particularly in San Francisco), gay is still the standard and gay doesn’t really include women. And truly, if you look around the Castro – the gay mecca – you see men dominate the area. Women are scarce in the gay mecca.

But the pink triangle also harkens back to the abysmal time when the Nazis torched Europe, defiling, vilifying, torturing so many. In their sadistic penchant for labeling, the Nazis forced gays and lesbians to sew a pink triangle on their clothing as a sign of oppression. Now, every Pride Weekend, the pink triangle is a loud and visible memorial for the gays and lesbians who suffered in Hitler’s concentration camps. But the triangle makes another statement as well: there is pride in being gay, in being lesbian; and all of us have a right to an identity of our own, a community of our own – and here, now, in this time, the gay and lesbian community and its family, its supporters, are strong and will fight for the right to be treated fairly, equally, under the law.

The parade has begun. At the far end of Market Street I see splashes of gold, as the sunlight sparkles on the brass instruments of marching bands, on the gleaming chrome bumpers of well-polished cars and trucks, on the bits of shiny foil flags and ribbons. But when I leave my roost in a bit, I won’t head east and down the hill to the parade, I’ll head west and upward, toward the Pink Triangle.

(Note: the picture of the pink triangle was "stolen" from the Internet via google images. The other pics are mine. Click on the pics to enlarge for a better view.)

Ode to Buster Posey

2011-06-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

The runner flies down the third base line
With such reckless force he should be fined.
But willing is he to take a thoughtless chance
And alas our noble catcher cannot shift his stance.

Oh ignoble Cousins, what have you done?
Could you not have found a lane that was safe?
No, instead you ran pell mell
into our catcher at home plate.

The stands are quiet
The bats are still.
We hold our breath
muster our will.
And from the bleachers the chant begins:

Posey! Posey!
Posey! Posey!

And all across the ballpark
This chant gains force.
We chant until our voices are hoarse.
For we believe as we always have
That our shouts, our chants
Can sway the game
give our players fortune and fame
the opposing team grief and shame.
Our collective will can make Posey stand
And crush Cousins with an invisible hand.

But our lad has fallen.
Our lad is down.
His fist in vain pummels the ground.
Our voices falter, but not one fan sits down.

We fear the worst.
We know the dark.
Ah baseball gods, will ye not hark
to our collective will?
Make Posey stand, our wishes fulfill!

But our lad has fallen.
Our lad is down.
His fist pummels the ground.
Our faces in dismay still frown.

Oh Cousins, ignoble Cousins,
Some day great fear will you feel
When in the batter’s box you see
A ball coming swiftly toward your knee.
So fast, so furious you cannot move
And whether that ball strike you low or high
It will leave a lasting bruise
And make you cry and cry.

Then you will know a small measure of the pain you’ve caused
And perhaps next time that will give you pause
Before you barrel your two-bit game
Into a catcher of such noble fame!

For our lad has fallen, our lad is down.
But not forever and not for long
and someday again we will sing our song:

Posey! Posey!
Posey! Posey!

For we believe as we always have
that our Giants will rise and our Giants will win
on a glorious day so fair
for to think otherwise will plunge us into despair.

And when our Posey is on the mend
And he takes the field again
the opposing team will fall into his trap
and all of AT&T park will clap and clap.

But until Buster dons that catcher’s mask again
Messages of love we will send
To our lad so noble and so brave
temporarily undone by a callous knave.
And though our rookie of the year we now do lack
to our stalwart Posey we will remain true blue or actually orange and black.

Note: I've taken some poetic license here as I don't truly believe Cousins is a horrible fellow, but he must be vilified for dramatic affect - haha!

Copyright Birdstory Publications 2011

Is Bird Back?

2011-06-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

The last time I posted on this blog was a little over a year ago. Hard to believe, as I look back over the infrequency of my postings that once upon a time, this was a thriving blog with regular posts and a regular readership that engaged in a lively discussion within the comments; I was part of a rich blogging community (which, from a quick swoop through cyberspace, I see is still alive and well).

I ponder whether to blog again. I wonder what has kept old blogger friends blogging all this while (K9, Chicory, Boggs, /T, to name a few). Is it wise or desirable to once again, invest time in blogging – composing, posting, and making regular swoops through the blogs of others (both beloved and reviled) and engage, engage, in this cyberspace community?

The Benefits:
The blog still supports a certain level of anonymity and Facebook does not.
The blog allows for richer postings and Facebook does not.
Community in the blogosphere still exists and can be tapped into .
May force me into a regular writing practice again.

The Concerns:
Will I still become irritated with ill-mannered bloggers – which always bugged the shit out of me before? Will I handle this irritation differently?
Can a true community with substance be built?
Do I still have something to say? A story to tell? Of course I do – that’s a moot point, but leads to the next concern …
Do I want to tell it here?

A few updates about me:
Still teaching.
Now a grandmother and in love with my grand-daughter.
Older than I used to be.
Try harder now not to become upset over politics or the course of the country.
Still in love with San Francisco.
Still in love with the Giants.

Musings on the Use of Way and Why Glasses (As in Reading Glasses) Should (Not) Take the Plural Form of A Verb

2010-06-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

Reading an article in the New York Times yesterday by Justin Gillis and Henry Fountain that explains how oil is gushing more than before since BP installed a new collection device (by cutting through another pipe in order to put in this new collection device), I was struck by something that Dr. Ira Leifer, of the University of Santa Barbara and a part of the government team that is trying to calculate the flow of oil into the ocean, said. Actually, I was struck by his word choice. According to the article, Dr. Leifer believes that the installation of the new device has actually made the situation worse. States Dr. Leifer, “The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before.”

Way more?

Wouldn’t the term “far more” be like, you know, way more appropriate (though not necessarily any more or less precise)?

The use of way in this instance absolutely intrigues me (clear evidence that I am indeed a nerd with too much time on her hands right now – but that’s what a summer vacation is for, in part – to investigate seemingly inconsequential uses of language that one has absolutely no time to ponder during the academic year).

I am accustomed to hearing this word way used in a similar manner or way (note that way in that usage is a noun) from my students, as in “that band last night was way hot” and “the amount of homework you assign is way unfair.” (Note that in those two usages, way is an adjective. Both my students and Dr. Leifer use way to express a measurement of sorts – to measure the degree to which something exhibits the characteristics of an adjective or adjective complement, as in BP deceived the public way more than we thought, or the Dow plunged way more yesterday, or she is way beautiful, or the oil is way disgusting, or BP is way evil.

Ah then, way can also stand in for very, which operates as a measurement, just as far or more or the combination of the two does. If something is very beautiful – it is beautiful to a high degree. In this way, very seems way more precise as a measurement than far more or way, yet is still way too vague for my liking – especially when trying to measure the impact of oil gushing into the ocean, which is way polluting our environment. (Ah, here way functions as an adverb).

Now, although this topic of way’s usage is gripping stuff, it’s time to move on to the next– why the word glasses takes the plural form of a verb – as in my glasses are always getting way smudged. (And please note in the previous sentence the verb takes is in singular form because its subject is not glasses but word - a singular noun. But the issue isn’t why glasses take the plural verb form, the issue is why they should not.

In general, a plural noun takes the plural form of the verb and a singular noun takes a singular form of a verb, as in she is unhappy with BP, or the glass is more than half full of oil, or the wine glasses are streaked, but we will drink out of them anyway to help us cope with the oil spill. Note that she and glass (both singular) take the singular form is, and wine glasses (there is more than one glass) take the plural form are. Interestingly, for my examples I chose to use a verb (to be) which is irregular. But generally, a singular subject (which does not have an s-ending) takes the singular form of a verb (which does have an s-ending) as in a singular subject takes… and a plural subject (which has an s-ending) takes a plural form of a verb (which does not have an s-ending) as in those subjects take… And yes, I know, that this simple formula has plenty of exceptions.

But back to this confounding issue of glasses (eye glasses, not wine glasses) being plural when in reality, I argue it is singular. Granted, glasses have two lenses, but glasses are only one object. Glasses as an object are really singular. It would seem that glasses take the plural form because as an object it is made up of multiple or plural parts, including and clearly the main focus (pun intended) or part of the object - the two lenses that are encased in the frame. But the two lenses, the frame, and the screws are all put together to create one, complete object comprised of multiple parts. We don’t take other objects that are made up of parts and apply the plural form of a verb to them, even if they, by happenstance, include two of the same parts. For example, I have a lamp that is two-headed – branching out from its stand are two different arms (and here, in another peculiar structure, the verb are relates to the plural arms, even though arms appears after the verb and generally, we know, the subject appears before the verb); each arm has its own light bulb (so the lamp has two light bulbs) and two different (yet identical) shades. But we don’t call that lamp a lamps because it has multiple parts of which some are identical. It is still just a singular lamp.

But what about shoes, earrings, gloves – we use plural for those. But there are two items, and in each case, the two items don’t comprise one complete, connected object. The key here is connected – as in one solid object (which glasses are, but gloves, earrings, shoes are not). We have a pair of gloves, a pair of earrings, a pair of shoes. Yes we have a pair of glasses, but my point here is that the pair of glasses are one complete object and the pair of shoes, gloves, earrings, are not. Thus, glasses should not be plural.

We have this same problem with pants or trousers. I am wearing beige pants as I write this, but my blue pants are hanging in the closet. My blue pants are only one object (as are my beige) and despite the use of the plural s-ending, are considered one whole and complete object, (even though one could argue that more than likely, they are made up of different parts and not sewn from one complete piece of cloth). Regardless, it would seem that because that particular article of clothing has two legs, we consider the noun plural and thus it takes a plural form of a verb.

Just as my pants have two legs, the blouse I am wearing has two sleeves. Yet I am not wearing blouses.

Now it’s time to remove my glasses and clean it. The problem with wearing glasses is glasses is always getting dirty. Wow, that like sounds way weird.

Top Ten Milestones Indicating You Are No Longer Dating But Are In A Relationship

2009-12-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

10. You spend the night at one or another’s place 2-3 times a week.
9. You agree to attend a concert with him that is 5 months away and let him buy the tickets in advance.
8. You begin to show up approximately 10 - 15 minutes late for every engagement.
7. You forget you promised to see the movie Nine with him and see it with your daughter instead. You see it again later with him and forget to pretend that you’ve not already seen it.
6. He has a change of clothes and a hygiene kit at your place. You are not sure where to put them, so you keep moving them about, from the dresser top, to a chair in your bedroom, to a spot on your bedroom bookshelf.
5. You throw his change of clothes in with your laundry without even thinking about it.
4. You clear a shelf in the bathroom closet for his kit and make room in a dresser drawer for his change of clothes (which you have folded neatly after laundering).
3. You sometimes wear your regular pajamas (cute though they may be) instead of your sexy lingerie when he sleeps over.
2. He brings you matzo ball soup when you are sick and instead of just accepting it at the door, thanking him and sending him on his way, you allow him to come in and see you in your over-sized sweats, with your hair pulled back, your eyes and nose red, your body smelly and clammy from fever. You rest your head in his lap and fall asleep snoring with drool oozing out the corner of your mouth and onto his jeans.

And the Number 1 milestone indicating you are no longer dating but are in a relationship:

You spend the night together but don’t have sex.

Fleet Week

2009-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Cost of fuel for three, 1-hour Blue Angel performances with 3 jets: $54,000

Cost of fuel for survey flights that are the preliminary event of Fleet Week: $90,000

Total fuel costs: $144,000

For the price of the fuel alone, we could fund approximately 24 lower-division, semester-length college courses.

But then, why would we do that? Better to ooh and ahh at the Angels, thump our chests, wave our flags, and revel in our false pride.

Blue Angel costs based on data mined from http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18268
College course costs based on information from City College of San Francisco

Gimme some moola, and I'll reinstate a class ... at least for now

2009-08-29T12:25:00.001-07:00

On its face, San Francisco City College‘s solution to reduced course offerings is relatively creative: solicit donations to save classes – for a $6000 donation you can save a course in a designated program (though not a specific class) at City College.
You also will be listed on the college website (and no doubt, your donation should be tax deductible).

But is this anyway to run a community college – a public education system – begging for donations to reinstate courses slashed by budget cuts? What happens next semester? And the semester after? Kudos to City College for effort - and a big stream of green birdshit to the State of California for forcing the college into this situation to begin with. How is it possible that the 8th largest economy in the world cannot adequately fund education? (More on that in a later post.)

Education is in the public interest and should be funded by the public via stable government funding, not by the whim of philanthropists.

Open Letter to the San Francisco State University Freshman Class of 2009

2009-08-22T19:04:00.001-07:00

Dear Freshman Class of 2009:

The other day as I looked out my office window, I saw you scramble out of mini-vans and SUVs that crowded the curb by the dorms. The sidewalk was littered with boxes reinforced with cellophane tape, overstuffed suitcases, and backpacks stuffed with teddy bears and laptops. You looked nervous and excited. Here you are – at the beginning of a new semester at SFSU, a campus with a proud history of diversity and student activism. But I wonder if you know what is happening here and at CSU campuses across the state.

Do you know you have paid 32% more in tuition fees than students from last fall? I’d like to tell you the increase in fees equals an increase in the quality of your education, but I can’t. Course offerings and class sections have been slashed; classroom instruction time has been cut by roughly 20% through a CSU-imposed furlough on faculty.

Faculty will lose about 9.53% of our pay because of the furlough, but you will lose nine days of instruction. That might not sound too bad – maybe you think you can use those days to sleep in or do your laundry. But in my first-year composition course, those nine days represent one entire essay unit that helps prepare students for the challenge of the next essay, the next semester, the next composition course. With 20% less instruction time, I can’t prepare you as well as I have prepared previous students.

My office hours have also been cut by 13%. Previous students will tell you that meeting with me during office hours made a significant difference in their ability to improve their writing. But with less office hours, I can’t meet with as many of you as want to see me, nor as often.

Although I will do everything I can to mitigate the impact of these cuts, I can’t possibly provide you with the same quality of instruction I provided students last fall. The quality of your education will decline, even as the cost increases.

But the quality of education is not the only issue; access to education also finds itself on the chopping block as well. CSU will turn away 40,000 students over the next few years. Typically, when access is limited, students who come from economically- and educationally-disadvantaged backgrounds lose out. What will become of those students denied a university education? Will your younger siblings be part of that 40,000?

In the past, when the quality of and access to education has been threatened, SFSU students have not sat by idly; they have organized, made history and headlines, demanded and created change. They have not been alone in that effort; faculty has stood with them. We will stand with you again.

But this fight will depend largely on what you choose to do. As students you have more power than you think. And you have more to lose than any other stakeholder in this high-stakes crisis.

My dear freshmen, are you up to this challenge? You have a choice to make: you can meekly duck your heads, scurry off to your classes (if you’re lucky enough to get them) and accept this decline as inevitable. Or you can, in the words of Bob Marley, “get up, stand up, stand up for your rights; get up, stand up and don't give up the fight.” Will you fight for your education? Will you demand a restoration of quality education and open access – for yourselves and for those who come after you.

The choice is yours. What will you do?

Bird

Italia Roma e Pietrasanta

2009-07-26T10:34:00.001-07:00

Just for the heck of it: a slide show of my Italia pics. Unfortunately, the music doesn't play all the way through the slide show and the picture quality diminished when uploaded to youtube.

So why do I even bother posting something that's substandard?

What the heck.

The Fountains of Rome

2009-07-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

One of three fountains at the ...

Bird at the Trevi Fountain

In St. Peter's Square

At the Piazza Barberini Near the Via Veneto

In the Piazza Spagna,at the foot of the Spanish Steps

In the Piazza Republica

My favorite: A fountain in the Jewish Quarter on an exceptionally hot day (temps were up in the high 90s)

Forget the pill, diaphragms, the patch, condoms, etc., - just watch TV!

2009-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Oh India, I thought you were smarter than this.

India plans on reducing its rapidly expanding population by providing electricity and television to its rural and poor areas. People will watch TV, instead of making love – instead of making babies. “80% of the population growth can be reduced through television,” claims Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Health and Family Welfare Minister.

Did the Minister not think that perhaps free birth control might prove useful in reducing birth rates?

And what about … education?

Studies from the CDC and from the United Nations show that when women are educated, they are empowered, autonomous – and birth rates decline. And in general, isn’t a literate and educated population of women good for society as a whole?

Of course, India believes the night-time TV will perhaps be enlightening and of some educational value.

Now what are the odds of that?

On the street where I lived ...

2009-07-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

in Pietrasanta, Italia

Pics are about all I can handle posting right now ... busy writing. Hope to post some halfway decent writing in a few days.

I had intended to visit Firenze, but ...

2009-06-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

once in Roma, the course of my trip changed. Firenze, which had occupied a large piece of real estate in my head while planning my month’s stay in Italia, was discarded, replaced, superseded by Roma. I can hear Tony Bennet’s voice in my ear, “the beauty that is Rome is of another day,” but Tony got it wrong. Roma’s beauty is timeless, ageless, limitless.

Roma has an abundance of energy. The energy of all the people who live and work there, of all the tourists who tromp through the streets, ride the buses, sit in the cafes and ristorantes and cool their hot feet in the fountains of Roma. Roma pulsates with the energy that seeps from the buildings and sculptures, the churches, the cobblestones – so old, carrying the energy of centuries - of the people who trod those same streets centuries ago and built those domes, those columns of marble, carved those statues, painted those frescoes. That’s the grandeur and concrete, daily reality of Roma.

My first trip to Roma lasted three days and before departing I booked another two-night stay with the hotel for the following week. But even upon return, two nights wasn’t enough – I added a third, because while tramping about Roma on what was to be my last day there, I chanced across an opportunity to attend a production of La Traviata at San Paoli en la Mura Chiesa. I just had to buy a ticket – and then find a hotel room for the night!

Roma is dangerous like that - you're just walking along, your jaw dragging on the cement in awe, or a silly smile plastered all over your face, and suddenly, you turn a corner and one more extraordinarily delightful thing pops up - an opera, the perfect gellato, a cobblestoned piazza with a beautiful fountain, a building with magnificent marble columns, a narrow street with children playing a wild game of tag - something just pops up and you suddenly change your plans - play tag with children, eat gellato (even though you just finished melon e prosciutto with a white wine at the last piazza!), buy an opera ticket (even though that means you have to find a hotel room for another night).

Roma is like opera. Captivates you, provides moments of quiet tenderness and instances of rousing crescendos that overwhelm you with delight, glee, joy.

I have no words for Roma that do it justice. Exquisite. Awesome. Captivating. Powerful. Rich. None of these words convey the essence of Roma. Not a one. Roma is all those things, but more than that too. And those words are so paltry compared to all that Roma is.

I spent today at the beach in Marina de Pietrasanta, an hour’s walk from my apartment in Pietrasanta. But tomorrow I leave Italia. My month is over. I head back to New York for a two-day stopover and then on to San Francisco, home. After Italia, after Roma, I am even more grateful that I live in San Francisco, for if I did not have San Francisco to go home to, I would cry at leaving Italia. I may cry anyway. San Francisco now has a true rival for my heart. Ah … I have been a bit unfaithful, but it’s nothing serious I will tell my beloved city. After all, I am coming home.

But I leave you all with a few pictures of Roma and St. Peter’s. When I visited St. Peter’s, I was struck dumb. But when I gazed on the Pieta, I cried. (I cried at the Sistine Chapel too.) The beauty, the craftsmanship – how did Michelangelo create such a masterpiece as the Pieta? The man was a genius. But then, all of Roma is a genius.

Until we meet again Italia e Roma (for I did indeed throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain to ensure my return). Arrivederci!

Saturday Evening Mass at Chiesa di San Francesco, Pietrasanta, Italy

2009-06-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

Renaissance pictures of Christ, Madonna and Child, St. Francesco. Marbled columns and arcs. Side altars. Candles. Wooden pews and wooden floor polished a burnt brown. The smell of lilies overwhelms the church. Inescapable. Yet I do not want to escape. I want to sit with this scent, these sights. Foreigner though I am, I feel at home.

Small, wrinkled, white-haired, wearing an orange shift with an embroidered collar, orange sandals to match, gold rings on fingers, gold bracelets on her wrists, a very old woman walks slowly, gracefully, into the church, her shoulders stooped just ever-so-slightly. She pauses in the center aisle near the two back pews, looks slowly to the pew on her left, to the pew on her right, where I sit with both my traveling companion for the past week and an older Italian woman to my right.

Though she reflects no accusation, no judgment, no insult, I know that we are in this old woman’s pew. “Scoot over,” I whisper to my friend, gesturing to the old woman in orange. We both scoot over, my friend now much closer to the older woman at the other end of our pew, and the little old lady takes her place next to me, on the aisle. As she seats herself, she smiles and keeps up a soft, running conversation to me in Italian. Her voice is soothing, conversational, almost intimate; her smile warm and gracious; her eyes a pale blue with flecks of light. I cannot understand a word she is saying, but I understand her tone and feel cherished, welcomed. I smile back and lean closer to her, say “Le no capisco” (I don’t understand.) “Sono Americana Catholic.” She smiles back at me, says “Ah, le capsico.” I have explained everything to her in that one phrase – why I don’t look like I fit it, why she has never seen me at mass before, why I am sitting in what is her normal place.

During mass, she speaks the responses clearly and loudly, as if she wants me to hear her and repeat, which I do. She often looks over to me and smiles approvingly when I have echoed her Italian words accurately. I like this guide to the Mass I have stumbled across. I wish she was my grandmother, my nonna, as I never really had one and have always wished for one – one like her, like this old woman in orange. I tell myself that for just now, for this mass, she is my nonna – I am at mass with my own nonna. I smile and wish I could clasp her hand in mine, but this I fear would be too much of a privilege, one I am not worthy of. It is enough to sit next to this lovely old woman, pretend she belongs to me. If I lay too much claim, my nonna will disappear, and I want to stay next to her as long as I can with this pleasant fiction.

Before communion, before the priest consecrates the bread and wine, we reach that moment of the Mass when parishioners recognize each other, extend their well wishes to those about them. We turn to those beside, in front, and behind us, extend a hand and say “peace be with you.” I recognize the moment; a familiar one, from my memory of old, and from the service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral I attended in New York shortly before I left for Italia. Now my nonna turns to me, offers her hand, says peace (pace) to me in Italian. Her hand, like her tone, is warm as the terra cotta and ocher colored buildings burnished by the Tuscan sun. I take her hand in mine, her delicate skin so finely etched with lines and soft liver spots, skin stretched carefully across the fine bones of tiny hand and small fingers. “Peace be with you,” I say and add the “nonna” in my mind only - not daring to utter it aloud - though I am sure she would take the word graciously, a sign of respect, of longing. But again, fear of breaking the spell holds me back.

Now I turn and reach across my friend to clasp the hand of the woman sitting on her right. “Peace be with you,” this Italian woman and I say to each other in unison, she in Italian, I in English. I take my friend’s hand. “Peace,” she says to me and I to her. We are all smiling, my friend, the other woman, my nonna, and me.

Behind us, half a dozen teenaged boys have been standing throughout the service, their occasional giggles and whispers sometimes floating over the tops of our heads, sometimes drifting into our ears, and now my nonna turns to them, brings them into her circle. She extends her hand to each of them; each one of them takes that hand, beams and echoes her blessing back to her. Pace. Peace.

She asks me if I will take communion, gestures with her hands to the altar and the others lining up for communion. I shake my head no and tell her, “no confessiori.” I vaguely recall that in the U.S. at least, you no longer must have confession with a priest before receiving communion. But even when I was still a practicing Catholic, I couldn’t accept that modernization. I don’t know what the practice is here in Italia, and I am sure that I am not using the right word, only this poor American’s attempt at Italianizing English, but my nonna understands. She smiles and says something to me - I can’t quite catch it all. I hear again “le capisco,” then “manga,” and “pizza.” Her tone is both wise and mischievous and her blue eyes twinkle within their deep-set recesses. She winks at me. I am convinced that she has said to me in a conspiratory tone: “I understand, I’d rather eat pizza too.”

After mass, I walk out the broad church doors behind her, onto the tiled portico with the frescoed ceiling, then circle in front of her to say “Buona sera, Signora, ariverderci.” She once again offers that beatific smile, waves her hand in goodbye. “Ariverderci,” she says in return.

Walking back home, along the narrow streets of Pietrasanta, I feel an utter sense of satisfaction, as though everything has fallen into place, as though I am once again a small child, intuitively confident that I am totally and completely loved. Confession or not, I had no need to receive communion at the altar from the hands of the priest; communion came to me in the form of an old and gracious nonna who sat beside me on that worn wooden pew in the Chiesa di San Francesco.

(Note: I wish I could post pictures, but my Internet connection is rather weak.)

Dispatch from Pietrasanta, Italy

2009-06-12T01:03:00.001-07:00

Morning in Pietrasanta

White dish towel flutters from
a window framed by green shutters.
A glimpse of graceful fingers, amiable arms,
oval face, slender form leaning over the threshold.
She speaks with clear, pleasing tones
to someone sheltered within
the cool recess of the window
as she shakes the white towel
free of the morning’s breadcrumbs.

And just a few pics ...

The full moon from my apartment living room in Pietrasanta

From St. Caterina's Cheisa in Pisa:

Off to Italia!

2009-05-27T20:37:00.001-07:00

Bird's flyin' the coop - off to NYC for a few days and then on to Italia!

Be back in July.

Ciao bella!

The Double-Ds Ride Again

2009-05-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Yup, my buddy, Jae, from high school flew into town this past week and of course, as is our wont, we partied.

What else can two girls do?

She flew in on Tuesday and out again on Friday, so the party was swift and frenetic. Van Diesel would have been proud of our velocity, our fury, not to mention the somewhat macho (albeit feminine macho) discipline such partying requires. We ate, we drank; we danced. We discussed all manner of worldly and personal concerns. We ate. We drank. We drank. We ate. Did I mention we drank and ate? And ate and drank?

I paid the price on Friday with a hangover – something I’ve not felt in quite a long time (last time was … hmmm … let me think … when my double-d partner was in town – damn that girl will be the death of me!).

Jae has a philosophy: if you want something, you must outline in relatively specific detail exactly what you want – write it down. Make a list. Look at that list every day and sure enough, sooner or later, what you desire will manifest itself in your life – it will happen.

As one of our more benign activities, we created a wish list for the type of man I want as my Italian lover this summer (I’ll be in Italia for the month of June). We sat at a bar, sipping wine, eating steamed clams and sour dough bread, and scratched out the list on a piece of scratch paper begged from the bartender. Lord only knows what that bartender, the two old fellas to our left, the 30-something hetero and clearly tourista couple to our right thought as they heard bits and pieces of our conversation. No doubt, the lord cares probably just as little as we.

Jae has found the list only works when limited to ten specifications. We brainstormed, we pondered, we discussed the difference between desirable, highly desirable and absolute minimum requirements and finally settled on the following randomly-ordered qualifications:

Bird’s Italian Lover must be

1. Disease-free (both mentally and physically).

2. Between 35 and 50 years of age.

3. At least 8 inches at erection with a fulfilling girth (no pencil dicks need
apply) and need relatively little recuperation time between consummating
activities.

4. Available (i.e., not married, not shacked up).

5. Generous of spirit, as well as with his money – yet is nobody’s fool and does
not allow himself to be used unless it suits his purpose.

6. Has a multi-lingual (speaking at least both Italian and English) sexy voice
–rich as cannoli, deep as Italian roast coffee, sweet as tiramisu, smooth as
gelato.

7. Possesses a sharp wit and an appreciation for irony and dark humor, yet
exhibits a joyous zest for life.

8. At least 5’10” and with a muscular build that has little extra poundage.

9. An expert and quite generous at kissing, foreplay, fucking & lovemaking (and
clearly understands the difference between those last two).

10. Knows perfectly well that a woman on her knees is in a position of power, not
submission.

A Ban on Stupidty (if only)

2009-05-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

Great Britain’s recently published list of individuals banned from visiting that country causes me some consternation. I sympathize with the good folks of England. Some of the individuals on the blacklist deserve to be banned.

Certainly, some people foster extreme views that should not be tolerated. And that is the point of the GB blacklist – GB does not wish to welcome into England those who espouse hard line, extremist views. I sympathize: who would want some of the people on this list to come calling and spout off their hateful nonsense? Not I! If some of these folks came to San Francisco, I would shudder. Why should I or anyone else have to tolerate extremists who espouse hate – sometimes to the point of murder?

But it’s one thing to ban those who incite others to violence and who commit crimes themselves, it’s another to ban those who are voicing ideas that many others find repugnant and ill founded. Can you really ban stupidity?

The issue then becomes: who decides? And how much censorship are you willing to allow?

Clearly, Artur Ryno of Russia, who at 17 was convicted of 37 murders and who lead a skinhead gang that committed 20 racially-motivated murders is an easy call – stay out! And stay out of the U.S. too! But this fellow is a criminal– so the censorship, the banning, is easily justified.

US pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, also on GB’s list, is a homophobic, hateful little man. This guy believes and preaches that God hates gays, that aids cures fags, and 9/11 and some of the natural disasters we’ve experienced in the past several years are evidence of God’s wrath at those who tolerate or promote homosexuality. Phelps is off the deep end.

As much as I find Phelp’s doctrines to be hateful, intolerable, and intellectually deficit, I cannot support banning him. Let him speak. Let him protest. As long as he doesn’t break any laws, he has a right to speak out. But Phelps could easily cross the line - his hate speech could easily incite some to violence. But the tightrope between free speech and illegal conduct is just that – a tightrope. If Phelps shows up in San Francisco, I’ll attend his rally – sporting my own sign and protesting his views. That’s my right. And my responsibility. That’s how we deal with those whom we find intolerable – not by shutting them up, but by challenging their ignorance.

Also banned: Talk show host Michael Savage. Now this charming fellow spurts forth unbridled, passionate bigotry and ignorance over the airwaves. But he too, has committed no crime, though again, he walks a fine line – and one day his virulent bigoted outbursts might provoke some violent incident. Savage deserves a muzzle. I muzzle him by turning him off – or rather, by not turning him on.

As much as I see both Phelps and Savage as intolerable extremists void of any rational logic, I wouldn’t support the U.S. government if it banned him. Until these fellows commit a crime, citizens need to enforce their own ban, their own muzzle on such extraordinarily deficit human beings. We do that by challenging their assumptions, engaging in legitimate debate (arguably difficult to do with folks that have no reason) and by turning them off. Democracy demands this of us – if you don’t like what you’re hearing, turn it off or challenge the ideologue. Fight back with your intellect, with your words.

Great Britain doesn’t have something akin to our First Amendment. Maybe they’re better off without such a thing – maybe sometimes we carry our First Amendment rights too far. How much easier public debate would be if we saw things as simply black and white, good or bad; if we could compile a simple list of those who can speak and those who cannot.

When it comes to Phelps and Savage, I find sticking to my values quite difficult for I’d love to shut them up. Nonetheless, I’ll stick to my liberal values: I’d rather keep things messy and complex – and err on the side of too many rights than too few.

Breaking Protocol

2009-04-30T08:09:00.001-07:00

She could be a model. She wants to become an airline steward and travel the world. She lives in a tiny apartment in the Tenderloin with her mother, who is an airline steward. Though she has lived abroad, knows financial hardship well, and witnesses the despair and grittiness of the Tenderloin every day, she still has a girlish innocence to her.

While she thinks outside the box – quickly going far below the surface of an issue, making connections between ideas that no one else in the class makes, she is failing the course. Her papers are a consistent and beautiful disarray of provocative ideas, logical arguments, and bizarre twists and turns into intriguing explorations of tangential issues – completely fascinating yet unrelated to her thesis. I am sure she has learning disabilities; I know she has Attention Deficit Disorder and often tunes out – she might be hunting for some scrap of paper upon which she scribbled down a question she had to ask – but while she’s hunting for that bit of paper, we are on a totally different topic and she misses out on new information. She might be fishing through her large leather purse for a cough drop and a tissue for a classmate with a runny nose and cough, but while she’s doing that, we are working on sentence structure and she misses the review of the main principles of sentence focus.

I’m sure too that her distraction often leads her into trouble –because others (and I’ve caught myself doing this as well) misinterpret the distraction as willful disregard for the situation at hand. And I’m sure too that sometimes her mother doesn’t care that the distraction is caused by ADD – the cause of the behavior sometimes becomes irrelevant – it’s the outcome that matters. And at her age, she should have by now developed some compensatory skills to keep her on track. I know this because my son has ADHD and I reached that point with him – the point where you must learn how to manage your ailment – you must be responsible for mitigating the ill effects over which you actually do have some measure of control.

Yesterday, she arrived early to class (unheard of, she is usually late) wearing very large, dark sunglasses (also unusual), but I could see how puffy her face was underneath, she had been crying – and hard – and for some time.

She asked to speak with me in the hallway and out we went. She was trembling and tears rolled down her face in a steady stream. I’ve had students break down on me before, but never with this intensity. I couldn’t be a teacher any more. I could not maintain a safe distance (safe for me – if I take on every emotional crisis of every student, I would never survive – and I am not any student’s mother, aunt, sister, counselor, therapist, friend – I am their teacher and that is how I can best help them – by teaching them how to write, how to question, how to dig deeper). I immediately put my arms around her, patted her on the shoulder, held her tight, smoothed her hair, as if she were my baby girl. I held her like this for several minutes, until her trembling subsided and she could speak clearly. She was on her way to see a therapist on campus but wanted me to know why she wouldn’t be in class, why she didn’t have the essay due. Her life is falling apart – has been really for the whole semester – but the crisis has struck now. Her mother kicked her out of their studio apartment and she is unsure where she will go, where she will sleep. I’m sure that when she calms down, she’ll find a girlfriend willing to take her in. I resist the urge to offer her a port in this storm for the weekend. I cannot take in a student.

I calm her down, tell her that right now, I am not her teacher, just a concerned adult friend and we can save the discussion about her schoolwork for later – now is not the time – her crisis takes priority. I ask if she wants me to walk her to the counseling department but she shakes her head. I hug her one more time, brush the hair away from her forehead and kiss her as I would my own daughter – a breach in protocol with such profound ramifications that it scares me.

Bird's Gotta New Blog

2009-04-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Come check it out.

Congratulations Mackenzie Brown on a Perfect Game

2009-04-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

How many times has a woman shaken her head in disgust when some poor schmuck of an awkward guy heard the belittling declaration: “You throw just like a girl!”?

Well guys – you can only hope.

27 batters up, 27 batters down. No hits, walks, runs. A no hitter and a shutout – a pitcher’s perfect game.

In major league history, the perfect game has been pitched only 17 times.

Little Leaguer Mackenzie Brown pitched a perfect game just the other day.

Yeah, baby!

South Carolina woman sees Jesus in her cheese toast

2009-04-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Jesus: Are you aware that somewhere in South Carolina, a grown woman keeps you by her bedside? In a Tupperware container? Your image, seared into burnt cheese toast, is like a funerary relic - not quite as good as the fingernails of St. Francis or a few strands of hair from St. Theresa; and the receptacle is not as grand as a golden box the Egyptians might use, nor does it posess as much character as a 16th century hand-carved, wooden cup with a cover (a kind of sippy cup for Saints' relics).

Dear Jesus: Did you know this woman tried to sell the cheese toast on EBay? She had no takers for this wonder of wonders, this miracle of miracles. Your image on the burnt piece of toast doesn’t quite translate to cyberspace – the image, you know, didn’t upload. That’s why you’re now in a Tupperware container on her nightstand.

(Did I tell you she was making the cheese toast for her boyfriend - a sort of breakfast-in-bed treat?)

I worry this woman will hold a Feast of Relics and eat you. Does that worry you too?

I know you befriend lepers, prostitutes, madmen, the poor – those in your community infirm of heart, mind, body and material – and surely this woman is infirm, but really, do you think you could do something about this? A little divine intervention? What will you do when mold begins to grow across your face?

Just asking, Jesus, what will you do?

Respectfully,

Bird

P.S. Yes, Jesus, I know – I need to stop watching yahoo news clips. I’m working on that.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

2009-04-21T07:58:00.001-07:00

Last summer while in NYC, I stopped by St. Patrick's Cathedral. I had not intended to do so, but I was walking by and the church was open. And it is a beautiful church. Even more surprising to me: I stayed for the early evening Mass and then returned the following day for one of the docent-guided tours. During Mass, I felt none of my old angst and resentment toward the Catholic Church, only the peace and beauty of the Mass. I take issue with many of the Catholic Church's stances and practices - all that money - all that pomp and luxury in which the Church's high priests dwell, its anti-choice stance, its homophobia, its pedophile priests, its enslavement of the Native American population of California in an attempt to convert them - there is much to dislike. But the Cathedral was a peaceful and beautiful place so I set my resentments aside and enjoyed the place for those qualities alone.

14 Year-Old Survives Attack

2009-04-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I commented on a horrible incident reported in the papers about a mother who stabbed her nine year old daughter to death. The woman was also approximately 7 months pregnant and stabbed herself, resulting in the termination of the pregnancy. A 14-year-old who called the police was also wounded.

I have been eerily fascinated by this horrible report and curious about the 14 year-old. Who was she? Why was she there? What happened? And how will this incident affect her? Here's the rough draft at a fictive account of the incident from the view of the 14 year-old.

You want me to say what happened. But it’s hard to remember. I know I went over in the afternoon at three to babysit. I am always on time.

I hate babysitting for Mrs. Shui. She is a small woman, very thin and she makes me think of a spider. I really hate spiders. I hate that part in the Lord of the Rings movie where Frodo is captured by the spider. You know a lot of people are afraid of spiders too, not just me – that’s why they use ‘em in movies and make them big. Everyone’s afraid of giant bugs – especially giant spiders. I read somewhere that the average human will swallow hundreds of spiders in their sleep over their whole lifetime. Mama tells me I am being irrational. “Use your head, Amy. Spiders can’t hurt you.” She just doesn’t really understand. I know spiders can’t really hurt me, but I don’t want any spiders crawling across my face at night and getting sucked down my throat as I am breathing in my sleep.

Mrs. Shui has spindly arms and legs, but a fat, swollen body – that’s why she reminds me of a spider. And she has mean eyes too I think. – and that’s like a spider also. She can look at you sharply, and her eyes narrow and you know she isn’t thinking kindly of you at all, but something mean and probably not even true. She’s very suspicious of people. But she really isn’t fat. She’s pregnant. I’ve seen lots of pregnant women. But Mrs. Shui is huge in her belly and the rest of her is so small and skinny. I don’t know how she supports her belly on that body. I would crumple if I had legs and arms so thin and weak and had to carry such a huge baby. I wonder if Mrs. Shui will ever have that baby. But I’m forgetting. She killed the baby, didn’t she? It died? I remember that. She picked up that knife in the kitchen and plunged the knife into her belly. There was a lot of blood, but that didn’t make a difference to Mrs. Shui. I mean, it didn’t stop her. She didn’t faint or even cry out. That’s what you want to know about, right? That’s what I have to tell you about – about what happened and how.

But I don’t understand any of this. She was mad at Lilly that day. And at me too. It was my fault I think. I’m sure of it. It was all my fault. I guess you want to know that too, don’t you? You want to know whose fault it is.

I’ve been teaching Lilly to cook. She is nine. No, I mean, I HAD been teaching Lilly to cook – and she WAS nine. But I’m not supposed to teach Lilly to cook. Mrs. Shui doesn’t really like me to do anything with Lilly. One time, I brought some craft stuff over to keep Lilly busy. We made masks with beads and feathers. Lilly’s mask was a rooster. We punched holes in the masks and ran twine through the holes so we could tie the masks across our faces. Lilly strutted all through the house, crowing like a rooster. But Mrs. Shui found some of the beads on the floor and the scraps of paper and feathers in the trash. “No crafts,” she told me. “Too much of a mess. Lilly can play in her room.” But it’s hard to make someone play in their room all afternoon. Besides, Lilly didn’t really have any toys. She didn’t even have crayons or paints. And I took a whole 4-week babysitting course before I started babysitting. You’re suppose to find creative things to do with the kids you babysit – that’s part of being a good babysitter. But Mrs. Shui didn’t think so.

Mrs. Shui’s house is immaculate. And she doesn’t like anything to be disturbed. When I first started babysitting, she taught me how to fold the laundry exactly the way she likes it. Mrs. Shui showed me how to fold Lilly’s cotton T-shirts. I even have to measure the folds with a ruler.

Mrs. Shui is unhappy. She was unhappy with Lily all the time. I don’t really know why, but they were always arguing. Well, Mrs. Shui calls it an argument, but Lilly doesn’t talk back, not really. Mrs. Shui says Lily can’t pay attention, that Lily ignores her all the time. But I like Lilly even though I think she is not too smart – she doesn’t catch on quick. When we made the rooster mask, I had to watch Lilly very carefully because she kept trying to eat the glue. Kids her age don’t eat glue- that’s something really little kids do. Maybe it’s stuff like that that upset Mrs. Shui so much. I think she’s embarrassed by Lilly. She doesn’t like me to take Lilly outside either. “Neighbors will gossip.” Mrs. Shui says.” Keep Lilly inside.” I wonder what the neighbors are saying now. They saw the ambulance, didn’t they? Mrs. Shui won’t like that.

I think Mrs. Shui is only just as old as my mother, but she looks used up, tired, as though she is a worn-out shoe, or an over-used sponge – you know, a yellow sponge that is getting dingy and has stains on it and really should be thrown out, but because you are trying to save money, you keep pouring bleach over the sponge to make it clean and though it does come clean, bits and pieces of the sponge fall off because the bleach eats away at it. Sooner or later, you have to give it up – forget about using bleach to make the sponge last longer – because it just starts to fall apart. Mrs. Shui is like that. Her house is perfect, but she is falling apart. She has big shadows under her eyes and her lips are thin and always pursed together. My mom’s lips only purse together when she is upset – and that isn’t really all that often. Or when she thinks I’m being irresponsible. That’s sort of often enough I guess though I am not really irresponsible. I get good grades and I babysit all the time for Mrs. Shui. The money I earn is in a large mayonnaise jar. I’m saving that money for something big and important – though I don’t know what yet. Mama cleaned the jar out for me and it sits in the cupboard above the refrigerator. I babysit for other families too in the neighborhood, but not as often as I do for Mrs. Shui. I don’t think anyone will have me babysit anymore – not after all this. I am really responsible even though everything that happened is all my fault.

I started to teach Lilly to cook a little. That’s why this is my fault. If I hadn’t taught Lilly how to cook, none of this would have ever happened. But I was really just trying to do a good job. Mama says you must do a good job, even if you don’t like your job. You must be good at it. But I am a good babysitter even though at the end I didn’t take good care of Lilly. When you babysit, when you are responsible for someone younger than you, you’re suppose to protect them. I didn’t do that. I don’t know why I didn’t do that.

But I’m to remember what happened. It’s not that I can’t remember what happened, but I don’t really know how – or why. And I’m not sure what happened when – the order of things. I should know this, I know. If I was responsible, I’d know how it happened.

I came over to babysit and there was no answer at the door, but I could hear Lilly crying. I knocked louder and finally Mrs. Shui opened the door and let me in. She was upset. Her eyes were super narrow. Her face looked grim. And grey. When I came into the kitchen, I could see why she was upset. Lilly had been trying to cook. “This is your fault.” Mrs. Shui told me. “I have told you, no cooking with Lilly. Now look at the mess she has made all because she wanted to cook for you.”

The kitchen was a mess. The counter was covered with bowls –Lilly must have used almost every bowl in the cupboard and they all had some sort of goopy, batter-like mess in them. Eggshells and flour and sugar were scattered all over the counter. Dirty dishes – more bowls – small ones – and spoons with dried up batter on them – were in the sink. Lilly had peeled oranges. The sections were all in a pile near the sink, and the orange peel was on the chopping board. Lilly must have been trying to dice up the orange peel, but had cut herself, for there was blood on the board and Lilly had a gash on her finger. It was bleeding. I don’t know why she tried to dice orange peel. I had showed her how to rub the orange on the grater to get orange peel for cookie batter. You put the grated orange peel in the batter and it makes the cookies taste like just the hint of orange. Lilly really liked that.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Shui.” I remember apologizing. “This is all my fault.” I said. I told her I would clean everything up though. And that I’d take care of Lilly - wash her cut and put a band aid on it and then clean up the kitchen. I kept saying, “Don’t worry Mrs. Shui, I’ll clean everything up.”

“The cut is too deep for a band aid.” Mrs. Shui said. “She will have to go the emergency room. The cut is too deep.”

I moved over to Lilly and looked. The cut didn’t seem too deep to me. Before I started babysitting, I had taken a whole first-aid course. I studied very hard and got an A on my first aid test. The cut seemed pretty small to me. “Oh, Mrs. Shui – Lilly will be fine.” I told her. “Look,” I told her, “it’s already stopped bleeding and it’s not very deep at all.” I held out Lilly’s finger to Mrs. Shui. I wanted her to see that it would be ok.

“That’s not the point.” Mrs. Shui said sharply to me. And she kept on scolding. And I know she was right – I know I deserved the scolding. “You are a bad girl. You are a bad babysitter. If you hadn’t tried to teach Lilly to cook, this mess would never have happened.”

Mrs. Shui’s voice was sharp and shrill. But I know she is right - it is all my fault. And Lilly started crying even louder – her crying got as shrill as Mrs. Shui’s scolding but so much louder.

“Shut up Lilly! Shut up!” Mrs. Shui shouted. I had never heard Mrs. Shui raise her voice before. And it just made Lilly cry harder and louder. I wanted to run out of the kitchen – everything was so loud. But didn’t. I was suppose to babysit and I knew Mrs. Shui would be even more upset if I just ran out. And that’ s not good manners any way.

I just wanted Mrs. Shui to leave – to go out. If she would just leave, I know I could have calmed Lilly down. I kept promising to take care of everything, but Mrs. Shui just seemed like she wasn’t listening, or she didn’t care. Or maybe she just didn’t trust me. But I had to try and convince her. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Shui.” I tried to talk in my calmest, most polite voice, so Mrs. Shui would see that even though I had made a mistake, I was competent and could make things right. “I’ll clean it up and I’ll get Lilly quiet and calm. You go ahead and go out. When you come back, everything will be perfect. I promise, Mrs. Shui, I promise.” I really thought that would work. But it didn’t.

Mrs. Shui looked at me. She looked at the mess. She looked at Lilly. “You are both bad,” said Mrs. Shui. “Irresponsible, thoughtless girls.”

I remember a lot of screaming. Lilly was screaming, her scream so high-pitched, so loud I put my hands over my ears. But that didn’t help at all. She just screamed and screamed. And then I saw Mrs. Shui take a knife from the counter. Or maybe Lilly’s screaming started after that. But I remember seeing the knife go into Lilly – over and over again. And I should have done something. I know I should have. She had Lilly by the arm, her fingers digging into Lilly’s arm and her other hand with the knife coming down over and over again. I don’t know how many times she stuck the knife into Lilly. If I had kept my head I would have counted. Then I could tell you. Mama always tells me it’s important to keep your head in an emergency.

When Mrs. Shui let Lilly go she just fell to the floor, like a puppet you know – as if all the strings that made her move had been cut. That’s when she stopped crying and I think that’s when I finally stepped in between her and Mrs. Shui. But I think it was too late then.

That’s when Mrs. Shui stabbed me. I can’t remember if this was before or after she started stabbing herself. But she was crying now too and that seemed strange, because I had never seen Mrs. Shui cry. She just never seemed like a person who would cry – I bet she didn’t even cry when she was little girl. And I think it made her angry that she was crying, because her whole body shook and her face turned so red. I don’t think she really could see what she was doing. That must have been after she stabbed herself. I think she was crying because she stabbed the baby. She was so upset, she didn’t really get to me too much, only a few stabs and the doctor says I’ll be ok.

Everything happened so fast. There was so much blood and Lilly was screaming and Mrs. Shui was quiet but her face was so grey and her lips clamped down together. And then she was crying and Lily was quiet and there was blood all over the floor.

I don’t remember too much else. Except when that other policeman and my mother looked under the kitchen table and found me and Lilly. I don’t know how we got there. I was holding Lilly. Her eyes looked like the eyes of a dead fish. And then my mother was on the floor next me. “Come here baby,” she said. ”Come here.” Her voice was soft and low – she talks like that to me when I’m sick, not when I’ve done something wrong, not when I’ve let her down. I guess she thinks I didn’t do anything wrong, but I don’t see how anyone can think that. It all started with the cooking. But I remember Mama telling me that I couldn’t do anything more to help Lilly. “You can’t do anything more for Lilly, baby. Just come here.” But she doesn't know – I didn't do anything at all for Lilly. It's all my fault. But I crawled away from Lilly anyway and into my mama’s arms.

And speaking of monsters

2009-04-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

As much as I would like all of those responsible in any way for the despicable use of torture interrogation techniques – those high up in the Bush administration who promoted the policies, those who agreed to it, the lawyers who did the research and parsed words to cloak the torture techniques in legalese, and those who actually carried out the policy – I think President Obama follows a wise course by, as accused by some on the left and the liberal center, ignoring the issue. We will do nothing.

Well almost nothing. He has instructed the Justice Department to assist any CIA operatives who find themselves in courts overseas.

Makes sense to me. Unless we’re going to actually deal with the head honchos (Bush, et al), then let’s help those lower down the food chain cover their butts.

Senator Leahy is still making noises about some sort of inquiry – but that’s just for show. He pushed that idea a while back – a laughable idea at best, a cynical one at worst: We can have all the inquiries we want – but we already know what happened and we already know that any such commission will merely wag its collective finger in pompous indignation at those truly responsible while unfairly squashing any pawns the last administration pushed out in front as canon fodder. Why go after the little guys? Waste of time and money.

Monster

2009-04-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

QUINCY, Mass. – Authorities in a city just south of Boston say a pregnant woman killed her 9-year-old daughter and stabbed herself in the stomach to kill her unborn child.

Norfolk District Attorney William Keating says 38-year-old Fang Chi Xue (SHWAY) was treated for self-inflicted stab wounds to the arms and abdomen at Boston Medical Center and is expected to be arraigned Friday on two counts of murder. She was 7 1/2 months pregnant.

Police were called to the family home Thursday night by a 14-year-old girl who survived the attack with minor injuries.

Keating says the 9-year-old girl suffered stab wounds to her wrists, but authorities are also investigating whether she was poisoned.

Keating says the incident was sparked by an argument.

Sparked by an argument. The understatement chills me. This incident was more than likely the result of years of repression and depression, desperateness, sickness. What could this woman have been thinking, feeling? Despair must have been her only companion. How she must hate her life – and how much more she must hate it now.

How desperate she must be – to inflict such wounds on herself in an effort to rid herself of the baby she carries inside. What went on in that household between her and her nine year-old daughter? Where was the father? Relatives? Friends? Neighbors? Somehow, this woman languished alone in her own dark thoughts.

Who is the 14 year-old girl? Is she a family member? Friend? She must have witnessed all of this. The yelling, screaming, running. The mother catching up with the nine year-old and wielding a knife against her. That 14-year will carry the color of blood with her all her life.

I don’t want to go to school to teach this morning. I want to stay home and write about this. A poem, a piece of flash fiction … something.

How terrible to turn this “incident” into grist for a creative mill. But isn’t that what we do? How does this incident fit into the picture we have of ourselves? How can we tidy this up, clean up the blood and fear and hate that palpates from this story? How can we make sense out of the senseless? Could not anyone of us been capable of this deed? Isn’t that the truly scary part of this tale? Deep inside humanity there lies a monster – one we impose boundaries on and keep at bay. And when that monster breaks out in any of us, we shudder. We don’t want to see the dark reflection of ourselves. We don’t want to admit that of this too we are capable.

Make a Dead Man Come

2009-04-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

“This is probably going to bankrupt me,” claims Missy Evans, determined to, after harvesting her dead son’s sperm, have a fetus conceived from that sperm, carried to term (by whom?) and born into this world for her to raise because her 21 year-old son spoke of having children - had the names already picked our for his “three sons.” The whole scenario gives new meaning to the lyrics “make a dead man come” from the Rolling Stones song, “Start Me Up.”

Somebody needs to sit this woman down and talk some sense into her. Don’t count on her family to do so – they agreed with her decision.

I suppose I should feel sympathy for this woman who has just lost her son – and indeed I do – but that sympathy is greatly muted by my disapproval and by-stander shock at her irresponsible behavior. And I am a bystander. After all, what’s it to me? But I cringe at the precedent this will set and her clear lack of responsibility and common sense. Some people shouldn’t breed, even by proxy.

At a time of great emotional upheaval, when she is less than clear-headed (and who would be after the death of a child?), she is making major decisions that will not only affect her, but, if all goes as she would like, a child. And she bases this decision on the fantasies of a 21 year-old. When I was in my early adult years, I fantasized about children too. About a lot of things. But as I grew older, I abandoned some of those dreams for they were unrealistic. I came to know that I either didn’t have what it took to make the dream come true, or the dream had no longevity – it was not what I really wanted. I once wanted three children. After my second child was born, I gave up that dream –saw it for the fantasy it was. I realized that two was quite enough.

Each of us is responsible for our dreams and must determine how to make them come true. Sure, parents often help their offspring achieve their goals, their dreams (and we often help our offspring come to the realization that their dreams are unrealistic too and encourage them to find new dreams, new goals), but Evans is not helping her son realize his dream of having children. Her son, after all, is dead. He won’t attend college. He won’t develop a successful career. He won’t have children. His dreams are dead too. As are his fantasies. All of life’s options have been removed from this young man – taken away by force. Surely such a loss requires mourning. And surely the life of that young man should also be celebrated – but not by bringing into the world a child born of semen harvested from his dead body.

That Evans would undertake this endeavor knowing that she might not be able to afford it is egregiously irresponsible. What financial resources will she have left to care for the offspring of her dead son? This child will start life in this world with no father, no mother, and very little financial support.

Great beginning indeed.

But does Evans truly have the right to do this? And beyond the legalities, should she have the right?

Absolutely not.

Congratulations Iowa and Vermont!

2009-04-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Blessings upon you all!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/gay_marriage_vermont

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

Now, if only California would get its act together!

Wedding Photo Shoot in Central Park, July 2008

2009-04-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

I spent several days in New York City last July. One day, I fled the crowds in the Guggenheim Museum and sought refuge in Central Park where I photographed a wedding photo shoot in action.

The roof of this beautiful wedding shoot locale:

Park musicians who appreciate the acoustics and played a wedding song in honor of the newly-married couple:

If you pose for professional pictures in a public place, you risk amateurs capturing you as well:

The shoot's over:

What The Market Will Bear (A Rant)

2009-03-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

Why is Michael Vick worth 10 mil a year?

And I am only worth 5 figures (and low ones at that)?

Why does he have even the remotest possibility of working again in his field?

And even if he is not rehired by the NFL - he's made a fortune (if he managed it correctly) and needn't work at all. But he will no doubt work at something. He'll make tons of dough. He'll peddle his story; he'll crop up on talk shows and as some sort of "expert." He may even play the mea culpa game and become the new darling of the masses.

Yet I worry that due to budget cuts, I may not get all my classes in the fall - thus reducing my income (and potentially eliminating my health benefits).

Why is that?

It's what the market will bear. Capitalism tells us that an athlete, even a tarnished athlete,is worth far, far more than a teacher.

What does that tell us about capitalism? Our value system?

I was at my family's reunion over the weekend, and once again had to listen to one family member knock my profession.

I hear this all the time: You knew it was a low-paying job when you took it. If you're stupid enough to do that job for that kind of money -then that's what you deserve.

And what if I, and others like me, took our brains (for yes, we are the intellectually elite) and our education (yes, we are highly educated) and left academia. What if we walked out full force - all of us - from K-12 and through the postsecondary ed system - just walked out?

Who would teach the nurses? The politicians? The other teachers? The business moguls? The administrative assistants? The government workers? The market analysts? The stock brokers? The mortgage brokers? The business managers?

And don't tell me that clearly, we did a lousy job educating some of those folks (just look at the mess we're in now, you'll say - didn't educators educate the people who caused this mess?). We don't teach morals and values (contrary to what the far-right seems to think - that we do teach such things and of course teach the WRONG ones). I teach my students to think, to examine, to explore -and come to their own decisions. Some of them do well with that; others ... turn into scumbags. But they were really scumbags before they walked through the door of my classroom.

What would the city, county, state, country do if all the underpaid and under-valued educators walked out?

Where would your capitalist and what-the-market-will-bear attitude be then?

Toque aqui para abierto la puerta.

2009-03-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

Touch here to open door.

Door. Door. I read somewhere that door is one of the prettiest words in the English language. Door. What makes door so pretty? Door. The consonant is not really hard – though we think of d as a hard consonant – but neither is it soft. The two o’s in a row make a soothing sound. Door. Your tongue lightly presses, just the slightest touch – against the back of your front upper teeth and then retreats easily as your mouth opens slightly, almost as though your lips were ready to kiss the r of door goodbye as it slips out the threshold of your mouth, past the sweet doors that are your lips. Door.

Doors swing open. Doors slam shut. Close the door. Shut the door. Slam the door. Oh, the meanness, the pettiness, the violence of doors. A door’s thickness, wideness, heaviness, slams in your face, shutting you out, or shutting you in. What’s so pretty about that?

Doors are portals, entryways. But to what? You walk through them. Sometimes you run into them. Sometimes they open wide, welcoming, come in, come in the door seems to say. Come in to home and hearth. To warmth, light, hot soup and tea. To family. To love. Come in. Come in. I have a door in my body. We all have doors in our bodies – many doors to our bodies. Who do we let in through the doors of our bodies? Who comes into my body and through what door? How do you come to be inside me? Through what door? And what doors lock you out? Lock me in?

Locks. Now that’s something else. Lock is not a pretty word, though it starts off with an inviting lull. Lock. A strong word, a startling word. A word that carries weight.
L O CK. The c and k together carry the weight of the word, carry the weight at the end, create a sharp, but not high or tinny weight – sharp like a heavy butcher knife that comes down with a hard slam. Ah, so locks, like doors, can slam shut. Slam into you. Slam you out. LOCK. Lock is not a pretty word unless you spell it l o c h and then that means something quite different. A body of water, a lake. Maybe with a monster in it, but still pretty. Green-blue water on the surface, surrounded by emerald hills and grey skies hanging overhead, reaching down to touch the loch, make love to the loch, smother it in affection. Or neglect.

How can a body of water with a monster in it be pretty? What’s so pretty about a monster?

Who has the key to the loch? Does the monster have this key?

The man next to me sighs heavily (yet in some ways softly – if it wasn’t so quiet in here you wouldn’t think he had sighed heavily, you would think he had sighed softly). He is sighing as he writes, as he works on his novel. What has made him sigh? What part of his work has caused him to open the door of his sigh, the door of his chest and throat and larynx and let that soft sigh that sits so heavily come out and rest like a pudgy hand on my shoulder, on my ear lobe, in my brain? He sighs again. Does he know that he has become the subject of my forced write? He can’t read what I’m writing – he is about four feet away and focused on his own laptop, the screen with words across them – his screen doesn’t move. He is too busy sighing. Something must be wrong. Perhaps the protaganist in his novel is not behaving himself properly – perhaps going places and doing things he doesn’t like, doesn’t want the character to do. Perhaps he has lost control of his plot. Perhaps there’s a dog running down the streets of his novel, running amuck with a bone in its mouth – a bone that is really the rolled up wads of discarded proofs, discarded drafts that the man next to me rejected as not good enough, not witty enough, not compelling enough, not chiseled enough in syntax or perhaps just plain boring in range of events and scope of narrative. Poor fellow, no wonder he is sighing. If a dog ran through my work right now and dug into my wastebasket and came back with my garbage writing and somehow leaked it into my latest draft, I would sigh too.

But I don’t have that problem because I am not working on a draft. I am just writing. Just following the thread.

How did this all get started with the bus? With the words on the back-of-the-bus doors.

Toque aqui para abierto la puerta. Touch here to open door.

Compliments of last night's SUAW (Shut Up and Write) session.

Don't Tell Me

2009-02-12T21:33:00.000-08:00

Don’t tell me I’m beautiful; I know I’m not.

Oh but you’re beautiful to me, you say.

Don’t tell me “you’re beautiful to me.”

When you say, “you’re beautiful to me” it means I am not beautiful to others. And if I am not beautiful to others, I am not beautiful. I know I’m not beautiful, but you needn’t remind me.

Don't tell me my body is perfectly beautiful exactly as it is. Tell me my hands are broad, yet my fingers long. Tell me you admire my long jaw that juts out, when I’m mad, like a jetty or pier reaching out, eager to meet an angry sea. Tell me my butt is plump yet tight and how surprised you were when you slipped your hands down the back of my jeans to find no silk nor rayon, no cotton nor polyester shielding my buttocks from the touch of your rough fingers, your calloused palms cupping each cheek plump and ready for juicing like late fall apples.

But don’t tell me my body is perfectly beautiful exactly as it is.

Don’t tell me you could drown in my eyes. My eyes are not deep nor vast; you can’t see the universe in my eyes. My eyes are hazel, sometimes green, sometimes brown. They are not wide, nor do they hold a provocative tilt, an erotic slant. But I have just now, in this past year of my life, learned how to wink. Tell me my wink needs some practice. But don’t tell me you want to gaze into my eyes forever.

Don’t tell me that in your eyes, I am flawless. I have more flaws than Market Street has lights, than a golf course has holes, than the Congress has scandals.

Tell me the freckles on my back are confounding, that if you stare at them closely between almost closed eyes, you can see a brown tree frog leaping over a mottled lizard. Tell me you can see a giraffe that is about to lope off into the dry savannah of skin just under my left shoulder blade.

Tell me my feet are curiously wide and it’s a puzzle that my little toe is always swollen and red, yet all the other toes are white, soft, smooth, with nails that shimmer pearly-pink.

Tell me you wonder if I ever comb my hair, curly and unkempt. Tell me when you run your hands through my hair and your fingers get tangled in the knots and the curls, you wonder what it would be like to be trapped in a fight with me. You wonder who would win. You wonder if it would matter.

Don’t tell me I look beautiful when you pick me up for a night out. Tell me my dress hugs my butt just right and you like how my black lace bra pushes my breasts up, just barely overflowing the low cowl neckline of my dress, scarcely revealing just enough of my full white breasts to make you whisper in my ear, as you hand me a cocktail from the bar, of ravaging me in the parking lot before you take me home.

Don’t tell me I’m the perfect lover for you. Tell me you like the way I rise up to meet you, stroke for stroke. Tell me you like how my body is soft yet firm beneath you, yielding yet not submissive. Tell me you like how I ride you, how my breasts dangle in front of you. Tell me thank you for the breakfast I sucked out of you, and the breakfast that came from my body. And the breakfast I finally brought you from the kitchen – the eggs and bacon and coffee and juice. Tell me you want me to eat you for breakfast again and again, but don’t tell me I’m a perfect lover.

Don’t tell my face is lovely. My nose is not a sleek and graceful one, or a sweet turned-up little button. My face is not delicate, nor finely chiseled, nor my skin translucent porcelain. My lips are not full, nor elegant. My face tells a story of time best left untold. And sometimes, even when I know others can see, I can’t keep my face from slumping into shadow, the jaw slack, the eyes vacant.

Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. And don’t tell me you love me.

Tell me when I sleep, my face looks like a ship moving carelessly to the edge of the earth, and with each breath I draw, I move closer and closer to dropping off the face, the edge, of that flat earth and you worry I will never wake again but stay in that foreign world, that strange universe where the world is not a sphere but is flat, flat, flat and you fear that if my face falls off into that edge, off that map, you will never find me again.

Compliments of another SUAW (Shut Up and Write) Session

National Review Decries Government Give-Aways

2009-02-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

The National Review Online prominently displays its list of “ 50 outrages” in the Stimulus Bill. We can indeed debate the usefulness of the items on the list (some of which make a lot of no-nonsense common sense to me – heck – we’ve got an unbelievably high unemployment rate that continues to advance – why not invest in infrastructure, schools, green research? Doing so generates jobs!); but the National Review should look to its own pages for the various ill-formed ideas and pork appropriations it decries. Nestled in between the list of ten Various Left-Wingery assaults and the list of three Poorly Designed Tax Relief measures we view this advertisement:

Almost Tuesday: Respecting the Man and The Office

2009-01-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

While President-elect Obama has record approval ratings, our soon-to-be former President has record low ratings from the public. Only 20 percent of those polled currently approve of Bush - an all-time low and a definite no confidence vote.

So let us at last bid good bye to Bush, who leaves the office of President in far worse shape than when he received it eight very long years ago. The damage he has done to this country and to the world is unconscionable. Let us gladly and willingly let Bush disappear into his plush Dallas neighborhood (leaving the ranch that was never really a ranch at all, merely a prop, to brush and tumbleweeds) and be heard from no more. Let him live a quiet life, as untroubled by the press and the attentions of the outside world as he himself is untroubled by reflection or self-recrimination, and by his sometimes ironic, and almost always ignoble actions.

May his soul rot in hell when he departs this earth; may his cronies rot with him as well.

Let us turn and leave him and face our future, bleak that it is, yet hopeful and promising at the same time.

Never in my life have I seen a country so excited, jubilant, celebratory about and welcoming to an incoming president. Part of our celebratory mood must certainly be part of our pride - pride in the long road we’ve traversed in race-relations in this country. Racial inequities and prejudice have not disappeared from our national landscape - not at all - but we’ve made significant progress. And we have pride too in a victory well-planned and executed, yet a victory hard won.

Part of our mood must be the sheer joy and absolute relief at the departure of Bush and cronies - at the defeat of Rovian thinking that infected even McCain’s campaign. Part of our joy is the triumph over hard-line, arrogant, and irrational conservatives. Do not mistake me, do not misinterpret me - you can be a conservative and be rational and humble, and do the right things. But the tone and tenor of conservatism our country has experienced in the past eight years has not truly been conservatism; rather, that tone and tenor has bordered on fascism and fanaticism.

Yet the changing of the guard does not mean the recession will magically disappear, the war come to a sudden halt, the massive debt we’ve accumulated in the last eight years evaporate. President-elect Obama is, after all, a mere man (a damned smart one, that’s for sure, but still just a man) and not a miracle-worker, not the Messiah (and Lord knows, we don’t want a Messiah anyway - we’ve already had our full of one president who thought he was doing God’s will - and that’ s quite enough, thank you).

We will have a reasonable man, not an ideologue at the helm. Science, reason, debate, analysis, depth and breadth of knowledge - all these things matter again. During an interview several weeks ago, President-elect Obama said words I have not heard spoken with any intent from a president in eight years: science, culture, art, and poetry. He said in times of hardship, these are the things that define a country - its people - these are the things which bring sustenance and comfort - and help us carry on.

President-elect Obama has already made some decisions that I agree with and some with which I disagree. But I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt, to trust and wait and see what will happen. He has my trust because this man explains why he does what he does, and with some eloquence at that. I am aligned with this leader in basic philosophy and in the manner of his thinking - his ability to follow a line of reason and explain his rationale. He will make mistakes - as all Presidents do - but he won’t make them because he didn’t take the time to seek counsel, hear multiple points of view, study, and reflect before coming to a decision. His mistakes won’t come from arrogance or negligence or incompetency. His mistakes will come because he is not perfect - and I can live with that.

President-elect Obama. I like those words as they roll off my tongue, as they appear in type. President Obama. I like that even better. In the last eight years, I have refused to call Bush by the title of his office - I couldn’t provide that level of respect for not only did the man not deserve it, but he demeaned the office as well.

But by Tuesday afternoon, I will be able to respect both the office and the man who holds it.

That’s something indeed.

The Woman Who Fell to The Moon

2009-01-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

I've joined a new writing group, Shut Up and Write. We meet in cafes. Introduce ourselves, and then we shut up and write for an hour. Here's the results of last night's Shut Up and Write Session:

“What page are you going to start on?” said the young bookstore clerk in white go-go boots. Her voice, high and clear, reverberating throughout the small bookstore cafe - one of many, one of a million ubiquitous bookstore cafes . Latte sippers, book browsers, and the curious people in the corner writing in notebooks or click-clack-clacking on their laptop keyboards looked in her direction. They knew her question was really for them.

“What page are you going to start on?” she says holding the print-out of the inventory in her hand, her hand with long, dark, elegant fingers. Fingers that thumb through book pages and sheaves of computer print out. Fingers that grip the metal bars running across the seat in front of her on the T bus on her way to and from work. Fingers that sometimes drum quietly on her crossed leg as her head nods to the sounds in her iPod, the sounds in her head - the sounds she imagines are out in the world out there. The sounds she can’t hear.

What page are you going to start on? A good question for which I am not sure I have an answer. What page should I start on?

She wears a white sweater over a grey T-shirt, glasses, and corn rows. Dark thick black glasses you would expect to see on a man in a 50s movie, no a teenaged boy who has not only entered the science fair, but has won first place and is on his way to the state sponsored fair which he will also win. Eventually this teenaged boy with the dark, thick-framed glasses will be one of those clean cut guys you see in movies like Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff - wearing a white collar shirt with short sleeves and a few pens stuffed into the shirt’s pocket. He will have a degree in space travel and one or two masters degrees and Ph.D. in physics. He’ll have built rockets, know all about quarks and mass and the universal gravitational constant.

But what page ARE you going to start on? Where should you start? Would page 15 be a good place to start? What would happen if you walked into a bookstore, browsed the shelves, and every book you pulled out started not on page one, but on page 15, or 28, maybe even page 62. That might be a bit too far, starting on page 62. You’d be dropped right into, perhaps, a dull moment in the book, in the story, a lull in which the protagonist is sitting in a bookstore/cafe - one of the many ubiquitous bookstore-cafes, just sitting there, sipping a decaf nonfat latte, wondering on what page her story will get going again, wondering on what page her car will break down on a back country road, changing her life, and the plot, irrevocably.

What page are you going to start on? You pull another book, because you don’t want to start on page 62, surely there’s another option - so you pull another book. This one starts on page 12. A woman has just stumbled, tripped in the grate of a busy city street (perhaps she was crossing the street to get to the other side, to get to one of those ubiquitous bookstore/cafes we’ve heard so much about of late). She has stumbled, skinned her bare knee, broken the nail of her big toe so the beautiful white line from her French manicure is ruined. And her purse has spilled - so classic, so cliche. And as she gathers her possession, a handsome man with sharp white teeth and dashingly well-trimmed mustache and beard, driving one of the buses, rolls up and runs her over flat. That would be a good page to start at. Page 12. But what will happen next, on page 13? Wouldn’t the story have ended on page 12 already? Start and stop on the same page. Not much of a book that.

You put that book back on the shelf. No, you don’t want to start on page 61 or 12. What else? You pull out yet another book, a thick, stubby book with a blue cover. You open it to page 3 and read:

Strolling down the street, wondering if she had let the cat out, she fell.
She landed upside down on the moon, grey-green moon-dust shoved up her nose.

She had always wanted a nose job. Now NASA could pay for it.

She took the gum out of her mouth and made a cast of the impression her nose had left on the surface of the moon.

In court, the lawyer showed enlarged before and after photos of her nose, and handed the jury the bubblegum fossil of her nose as it landed on the moon. A small baggy of moon dust was also handed over to the jurors, each Each one dipping a finger into the dust before passing it reluctantly along to the juror in the box.

Half the jury were women with long, hook-like noses that gleamed under the artificial light of the courtroom. Though they were jealous of of the woman’s options and didn’t buy her story, they were inclined to side with her.

In the courtroom sat that man with the close-cropped hair, wearing dark, thick-framed glasses and short-sleeved, white collar shirt. Yes, the teenager who had won one science fair after another and gone to work at NASA. Now he sat in the courtroom, listening carefully to the expert witness who discussed he universal gravitational constant, the moon’s earthquakes, its dust particles and the affects of a gravity-less environment on the nose. The man analyzed the evidence at hand. Then his eyes glazed over and in his head he saw equations

F net = m * a

And

F grav = G*m1*m2/d2

He ran the calculations swiftly in his head, determining the gravitational pull between the woman and the moon, Between himself and the woman. He wanted to know. And when he finished his calculations, he opened his eyes. The woman with the moon-dust nose was surely the girl of his dreams. His calculations could not be wrong. And she had been there, to that place he had, so long ago, designed rocket ships to reach. And she had arrived there simply by falling down.

Christmas Time in the City of San Francisco

2008-12-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

Photo credits: I went out on a holiday lights tour of the City with friends the other week. I forgot my camera - but friends did not. Merry Christmas to All!

To Be or Not To Be: IS that the Question?

2008-11-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

One of the surefire techniques to teach students how to sort through their sometimes grammatically (and often semantically) tortured sentence structures is a study of sentence focus. Yes, sentence focus. Just as a photographer focuses a picture on a particular object, a sentence must be focused on its subject. But the subject isn't the only important element; the verb plays a vital role. Two basic principles of sentence focus are:

1.whenever possible, have a clear concrete subject and
2.use vibrant, strong verbs.

Under those two guidelines, specific rules apply:

Make what you're writing about the subject of your sentence.

Whenever possible, if a human agent is present or implied in the sentence, use that human agent as the subject.

Avoid the automatic use of forms of to be (the most over-used and mis-used verb in the English language).

Avoid empty subjects and clutter (there is, there are, there were and the ever popular the reason is because).

Determine who or what is really doing what.

To demonstrate some of the above principles and rules, let's unpack the following sentence:

Darlene is a teacher in Mexico.

Darlene acts as the clear, concrete subject. We can't get any clearer than that.
But what is Darlene really doing in that sentence? Is she really ising? Or is she really teaching?

She really is teaching; she is not ising.

Darlene teaches in Mexico.

We now have eliminated the flabby verb is and replaced it with a much stronger, vivid verb, teach.

Before submitting a final draft essay for grading, my students must assess their essays for sentence focus. Though a painstaking process, if students hold their feet to the fire and do the work, they not only find wildly unfocused sentences and correct them, they also find numerous miscellaneous errors and sentences that appear to be experiencing some sort of linguistically psychotic break (sentences with which even nerdy English teacher-types sometimes struggle to untangle and make sense out of). To recast those sentences, students (at least those who really work the process) engage in word-smithing – finding the precise subject and verb that suits their needs, sculpting their sentences, finessing their language – an English teacher's hallucination turned reality.

One of my students, in the process of eliminating her automatic and abundant use of forms of to be (which by the way, students often cannot even articulate: they use the forms, but cannot identify those forms when asked – to be: is, am, are, was, were), came up with a ingenious idea: simply contract the form of to be, joining it to the subject with an apostrophe. Thus, in this student's essay analyzing political ads, I tripped over such sentences as:

The ad's showing McCain standing at a podium, speaking to a crowd.
The ad's sending the message that Obama's the best candidate for President.

And my favorite:

The voter's viewing the ad never knowing how manipulative it's.

Every time this student came across a sentence which used a form of to be (primarily is – which she used in almost every other sentence) she would simply contract it. As we discussed her paper and her process in conference, she told me, “Yes, I really wanted to eliminate my overuse of to be. That seemed to be the easiest way I could do it. It worked pretty well, didn't it?”

Yet she had not eliminated her use of to be – she had merely disguised it – and in the process, created confusion for her readers. Her incessant use of apostrophes to contract the verb and join it with the subject made for a huge distraction as I read and effectively clouded much of the meaning of her sentences.

Initially, I felt her struggle with and resolution of her sentence focus problem revealed an alienation and disconnect from her native tongue. But she is not as disconnected and alienated as one might believe. She is actually beginning to appropriate the language of our classroom, the language of a working, thinking writer (though she does not quite understand what all that language means). She is constructing herself as a writer, engaged in the analysis and craft of writing. Her approach tells me that to some degree, she pays attention, for she clearly received the message that sentence focus matters. And her process also brings to the fore some of her finer qualities: her creativity and ability to problem-solve and her willingness to push through a time-consuming, mundane process to achieve her goal.

Now, how many times did I use a form of to be (as part of my sentence, not in an example sentence)? And can you recommend a way to recast those sentences using a strong, vivid verb?

(Of course, sometimes the use of to be IS appropriate. But IS this one of 'em?)

A Shiny Band of Gold

2008-11-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

Today, the rainbow flag at the corner of Castro and Market hung at half mast, with a small black flag hanging slightly above it.

Last night's joy was muted, dampened by the passage of Proposition 8, which codifies discrimination into our state constitution.

How is it that a scarce majority can use the power of the ballot to legally discriminate against a minority?

Tyranny.

How is it that one group of people can feel justified in discriminating against another group of people?

Tyranny.

Though Proposition 8 passed,the battle is not over.

Challenges to Proposition 8's passage were filed early this morning.

Sooner or later, this tyranny will be overturned, overcome. And all of us will dance in the streets yet again.

UNBELIEVABLE!

2008-11-05T00:31:00.000-08:00

(Posted 12:31 AM, Wednesday, Nov. 5th)

Joy. Dancing in the streets - literally!

I danced in the streets tonight with hundreds of people. Youngsters, Gen. Xers, Gen Yers, baby boomers. Black and white, Hispanic, Latino, Asian - we were all dancing in the streets chanting "USA! USA!" and "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!"

No arrogance. Just joy. Relief. Strangers hugging strangers. As though we had come through a tough time, a hard-fought war that we thought we would lose. Only to find, we won. And won not with arrogance, not at the expense of our neighbors, but on behalf of our neighbors.

All of us caught up by it all.

I have been stressed and depressed so far this semester. Feeling as if I make no difference. As if my work is too hard for too little impact, for too little money.

But tonight, I thought, if we as a nation can do this - then I as a teacher can keep doing what I do.

Yes. Hokey. I know. I am a mixture of cynicism and idealism. And thank God - idealism wins out tonight.

For yes we can.
Yes I can.
Long hard road ahead. But we have a chance now.

VOTING RIGHTS

2008-11-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Chatting with my sister the other day about the long lines at the polls, I was struck by her attitude (and the attitude I've seen in many others): she had no pity or concern for people who might have to stand in line for hours on end, or who might not be able to do so because they could not take time off from work. "There's personal responsibility involved here," she said. "They should have planned better. I had to stand in line, I had to give up time - why shouldn't they?" This year, for the first time in her voting life, my sister stood in line for an hour to vote. Normally, she stands in line for about 10 to 20 minutes. Her polling place is two blocks from home. And although she works two jobs, one her own business and the other for a major casino, she has a lot of wiggle room during her work days - it's pretty easy for her to slip away from her business and vote.

Imagine if you will: your job is a two-hour bus ride from home. Your shift starts at 6PM (before the polls open) and you normally work a ten hour day - you pick up the extra hours whenever you can because you need the money. You don't make much - in fact, you're not even sure how you're going to pay the electric bill this month. Although legally, your employer must allow you time off from work to vote, you can't afford financially to take the time off and besides, your boss is a real you-know-what. Times are tight, you don't want to do anything that might make it easy for him to lay you off. Yes, yes, he can't technically lay you off without good cause, but last month, he laid off one of his better workers, just like that. The guy was due for a raise. Two weeks later, he hired someone else as a replacement - at minimum wage.

Yes, you could have voted absentee. When your voting materials arrived in the mail, you didn't really pick up on that option. The booklet was thick. You wished you had realized you could do so - and you know it's your own damn fault for not reading the booklet thoroughly - front to cover. But working ten hours a day, picking up after the kids, helping with the homework, you're pretty darn tired by the end of the day and usually crawl into bed exhausted.

You could have taken advantage of early voting. But your polling place was only open between 10 and 2PM on the weekdays during early voting - you can't take time off from work in the middle of the day.

You sigh. Yes, you're responsible for this. You should have figured out a way. You accept personal responsibility: guess your vote won't count this year.

We say voting is a privilege. But it's not. We are a democracy. And voting is NOT a privilege. Voting is our RIGHT.

Maybe when this election is over, we will demand that our elected officials review the way we vote in this country and make substantive changes. Here we are, supposedly a shining example of a democracy and voters are tricked into staying away from the polls, voters are expunged from the voting rolls (without cause), and are deterred from voting because there are not enough polling precincts, not enough voting booths.

For those of us who are privileged enough that we can take advantage of our voting rights: GO VOTE!

Voting San Francisco Style

2008-11-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

I cast my first vote in 1976. A strange time in our country: The US was fighting inflation and on the horizon, though many Americans were happily unaware, energy woes were as ships at sea, out there on the horizon, big tanker ships drifting slowly to dock, yet carrying no oil to pump through pipelines into the refineries. Just a few years earlier, we watched spellbound as our legislative branch grappled with the executive branch's usurpation and corruption of power. The major networks preempted their regular daytime programming to broadcast the Watergate Hearings to the American public. I remember Sam Ervin, and his big, bushy white eyebrows, his gravelly southern drawl and the gavel he banged with gentility, yet command. I remember watching Halderman, Erlichmann, Jeb Magruder and James Dean, testifying to the committee. Some were cocky and arrogant. All were out to save their skins. Yet some were also keenly aware of the damage they had done, the fissure they had helped create in our democracy. I can still hear Senator Baker, querying with that now famous line: “What did the President know and when did he know it?” And I can recall the utter hush in the room, when Haldeman and Ehrlichman's lawyer, thinking the microphone was off, spoke in annoyance to his clients about one of the committee members, “that little Jap,” Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a decorated World War II hero who lost his arm in the war. With grace, dignity, and elegance, Inouye put that two-bit lawyer in his place.

Politically innocent despite having watched several years before the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on television in the wee hours of the morning, despite having watched,again on television, the turmoil and violence of the 1968 Democratic Convention, despite Watergate, I was excited to vote, to participate. I cast my vote nervously and left the voting booth in pride.

Yesterday, I voted at San Francisco's City Hall. I took Muni downtown, got off at the Powell Street Station, pulled my coat hood over my head and walked in the rain through the United Nations Plaza, the Civic Center Plaza, and into the gold-domed City Hall. For the first time in my life, I stood in line and waited over an hour to vote.

The line was long, but the voters waiting their turn were happy and friendly. We joked that someone could make a killing selling pastries and coffee to us; that San Francisco's famous Tamale Lady could wrack up the sales – if only she came by with her twinkly little bell and cartful of tamales. Parents stood in line with their children, lovers stood in line holding hands. Grey-haired ladies with large bags sat in camp chairs,and one young fellow, seeing an old couple moving quite slowly, gave up his spot in line for them – giving them a ten minute wait while he went to the end of the line – to wait another hour. Students stood with ipods plugged into their ears, books in their hands, and their feet tapping out a beat on the tile floor. One woman worked the NY Times crossword puzzle. I brought papers to grade, but scarcely looked at them. We laughed and smiled. We exchanged tidbits of information and gossip: Steve Young, former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers and a Mormon, has a No on Prop. 8 sign in his yard. The mayor, Gavin Newsom, will be in the Castro in the afternoon, reminding folks to vote. But we delicately danced around the topic everyone had foremost in their minds: the reason we were all standing in line – the historical nature of the election and the man truly responsible for the large early-voter turnout. No, we didn't speak of Barack Obama, but why else would so many people, old and young, happily wait in line to vote on a dreary, rainy day in San Francisco?

I went through the state and local ballots first, following my little cheat sheet prepared at home. I drew my line across the ballot for my congressional representative. And then I paused, to savor the moment, to say a little prayer, before I cast my vote for President with trembling hands. I tell my students: don't vote with your heart, vote with your head. But I voted with both. How could I not? And I walked out of City Hall with my “I Voted Sticker” securely plastered on my coat lapel. The rain came down harder than before. But I skipped through the heavy sheets of rain, splashed through the puddles. Pretending I was Gene Kelly, I danced my way back to the Powell Street Station, ran down the stairs, through the closing doors of the M line car, and smiled my way back home.

Words Matter!

2008-10-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Octboer 17th the final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama airs at 6PM Pacific Time out here on the West Coast.

If you're playing the debate drinking game, have your booze bottle (tequilla, rum, whiskey, scotch, what-have-you) and shot glasses readily at hand.

Take a shot whenever McCain says:

my friends
maverick
he doesn't understand/he's naive (or variant thereof)
reform
Bonus Shots: Ayers, Wright

Take a shot whenever Obama says:

um
look
failed policy
Bush
he voted 93% of the time with Bush (or variant thereof - this line requires two shots, one for Bush, and one for the main message of the line)
Bonus Shots: Hagee, Keating Five

Take a shot whenever either candidate says:

change
middle class
working class
tax cuts
Main Street/Wall Street

Remember: in this game, WORDS MATTER.

Questions for John McCain and Sarah Palin

2008-09-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

1. How would you characterize your role in the 1989 Keating 5 corruption and racketeering scandal in which you and four other congressmen were accused of improperly aiding Charles Keating, an Arizona banker whose risky and unethical investment practices lead to the 1989 Savings and Loan Crisis?

2. Can you tell us what you did with the over $100,000 you received from Keating as campaign contributions? Is it possible that you returned the funds or donated them to charity?

3. What did you learn from the Keating 5 scandal and the 1989 Savings and Loan crisis that supports your stance now that deregulation of the banking industry has aided the US economy?

4. Your running mate has claimed repeatedly that she turned down the money for the “bridge to nowhere.” However, she did accept the funding for that bridge, and instead of building the bridge, constructed a road which leads to where the bridge should have been. Can you explain how accepting the funding for the bridge and yet not building the bridge, is a) ethical, b) benefits the people of Alaska, and c) benefits the US taxpayers who provided the funding?

5. What is your definition of “earmarks?”

6. Please explain why the following are NOT earmarks:

Your 2006 request for $10 million for a University of Arizona academic center named after Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (an earmark about which the National Taxpayers Union, usually an ally to you, wondered why federal taxpayer’s money should be used to create this center).

The $14.3 million you added to a 2003 defense appropriations bill to
create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

The approximately $400 million Palin initially requested for the now infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” – funding which she did indeed accept.

7. In January of 2008, you vowed to combat global warning, yet you chose a running mate who doesn’t believe global warming is a reality. Can you explain the discrepancy between your thinking and your running mate’s?

8. If you win the office of the Presidency and you die in office, do you believe Palin would change her opinion on global warming?

9. You recently stated that because Palin’s son is soon to be deployed to Iraq, she clearly understands our national security and defense issues. Can you explain how having a family member serve in Iraq provides an individual with the national security and defense expertise required of a chief executive of the United States?

10. If I have a family relative serving in Iraq, would you consider me as an alternative choice for a running mate – in so far as national security and defense is concerned?

11. You recently stated that the deregulation of the banking system which occurred in the early 2000s (and which you supported), has made our economy strong. Can you explain how record unemployment rates, escalating consumer goods costs, the sub prime mortgage fiasco, and failing financial institutions equate to a strong economy?

12. You promote “family values." Can you explain which family value caused you to file for divorce from your first wife less than one year after you met your current wife who is 18 years your junior?

13. Can you tell us how you would treat your current wife, Cindy, if she were to experience an accident which disfigured her and what family value would guide your conduct in such a situation?

14. Recently, you have refused to answer questions posed by the press, accused the press of asking questions you feel are irrelevant and inappropriate, and your campaign has also banned the press from some of Palin’s appearances (allowing only photographers and video crews, but no print reporters whose role it is to ask questions). Can you explain which questions the press has posed that are inappropriate and why they are so?

15. What is the role of a free press in a democracy?

16. You have previously stated that the healthcare system would benefit from a similar type of de-regulation that the banking industry has experienced in the past 8 years. You have also promoted a healthcare plan that will consider healthcare benefits provided by employers as taxable income to the employee. Can you explain how deregulation of the healthcare system will benefit the American people and how taxing healthcare benefits as income will help middle and lower class Americans afford healthcare?

17. Additionally, will your healthcare plan also tax as income the health benefits the taxpayers of this country provide to senators and congresspersons?

18. What is the difference between the Shia and the Sunni and how does that difference relate to situation in the Middle East?

Below are questions (compliments of The Nation) that should be asked of Sarah Palin (the compassionate, feminist maverick) during the VP debate, but probably won't because to do so would be sexist according to current Republican wisdom. And as political satirist Cobert reminds us: the Repubs should know what's truly sexist since they've been feminists for almost two weeks now,far longer than Palin.

1. Suppose your 14-year-old daughter Willow is brutally raped in her bedroom by an intruder. She becomes pregnant and wants an abortion. Could you tell the parents of America why you think your child and their children should be forced by law to have their rapists' babies?

2. You say you don't believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what scientists you've spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are getting wrong?

3. If you didn't try to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Baker over her refusal to consider censoring books, why did you try to fire her?

4. What is the European Union, and how does it function?

5. Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance. John Goodman, who has advised McCain on healthcare, has proposed redefining them as covered because, he says, anyone can get care at an ER. Do you agree with him?

6. What is the function of the Federal Reserve?

7. Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and what did you talk about?

8. Approximately how old is the earth? Five thousand years? 10,000? 5 billion?

9. You are a big fan of President Bush, so why didn't you mention him even once in your convention speech?

10. McCain says cutting earmarks and waste will make up for revenues lost by making the tax cuts permanent. Experts say that won't wash. Balancing the Bush tax cuts plus new ones proposed by McCain would most likely mean cutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Which would you cut?

11. You're suing the federal government to have polar bears removed from the endangered species list, even as Alaska's northern coastal ice is melting and falling into the sea. Can you explain the science behind your decision?

12. You've suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline. How do you know?

She Has Two Men

2008-07-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

One a very nice man.

Available for all the major holidays, her birthday, family gatherings.
Pays for dinners, baseball and movie tickets.
Brings her flowers, wine, candy. Opens the car door.
Calls every few days to say “hello, how are you? How was your day?”

He makes love to her by the numbers, with sensual yet technical skill.
He has found some of the sweet spots:
the side of her neck just below the ear, the back of her knees, the dark areolas which crown her nipples, and the tender taint between her vagina and anus.
Though he has read all the books, he still can’t quite stroke or lick or suck in just the right way.

And he wants to make love, she wants to fuck.

Eager to see him go, she never asks him to stay, tells him no when he asks.
He pulls on pants, combs his hair, kisses her goodbye.
She showers, changes the bed linens, removing all trace of his scent.

He is financially stable and worries about nothing at all. Asks no questions, entertains no dark thoughts. He is pedestrian, suburban, center-of-the road, totally devoid of any passion, filled with a stubborn naiveté, and completely lacking any imagination.
He is a very nice man.

The other is complicated.

Sometimes dark and brooding, wallowing in a sinister, pessimistic view of the day and the future. Sometimes light-hearted, making puns and giggling. Always passionate and intense. No half measures – it is all or nothing. He is often broke, lives from day-to-day. Lacks financial and mental stability. His imagination runs away from him and he stays up until all hours of the night, worrying, wondering, writing, drinking. He sleeps it all off during the day.

She comes to him at his place and he keeps her up till 4AM. They talk, argue politics, art, philosophy. They listen to opera – he exclaiming over the intricate triad of baritone, tenor, soprano. She clutches her hands to her throat, her heart, sighs with fear and longing. She knows the lovers in the opera will come to no good end.

Afterwards, they fuck wildly, forcefully, unafraid of lust, desire. Whisper rough words to each other. Satiate themselves with each other over and over again until they must stop – before she is bruised too badly, before he is rubbed too raw, because they have nothing left. Neither is gentle with the other until they are done; then they stroke each other’s faces momentarily before turning away, apart, exhausted.

They fall asleep in a tangle of condom wrappers and sheets stained with lubricating gellee, bodies slick with juice and sweat. They sleep long and hard, his back presses against her breasts, her knee rests on his buttocks.

Later in the week she sees the nice guy. He has bought tickets to the ballgame. She asks him questions about the game, he answers patiently, crack jokes, then meekisly explains the punch lines, even after she has laughed. He sees her home, sits next to her on the couch and executes what he knows to be the requisite sequence of foreplay moves, then carries her to the bedroom. She responds to his touch appropriately, until he thinks she is spent, but he is too gentle, too thoughtful to milk her through and through. He is tender and she responds in kind for he is a nice guy. Her hands move gently across his chest and down the inside of his thigh yet she feels no tenderness toward him – her movements are as technically accurate as his.

When he leaves, she strips the bed of its sheets, pours herself a glass of wine from the bottle he brought. Wine glass in hand, she lights candles and blasts opera on her stereo, weeping in the candlelight as the baritone and soprano tangled in love, lust, and deceit, reach their apex and tear each other apart.

Bird on the Wing

2008-07-11T18:58:00.001-07:00

What's this? Almost four weeks without a post?

And yet, I have been writing steadily.

But I have flown the coop!

Flap/Flap/Flap!

The Muse Took a Hike

2008-06-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the Muse took off a few days ago.

I am still writing a poem a day, but now, I am indeed relying only on craft, and much of the work is not even fit to be called a rough draft yet. I am also, however, tinkering with previous work - as is the wont of poets. Fussing, fussing, fussing. And of course, that's what one does when the Muse takes off - because that fussing - that's revising - and that's craft.

But damn these Muses ... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

Baby come back,
any kind of fool could see
I was wrong...
and I just can't live without you.

Baby come back,
craft is certainly an imperative indeed,
but my love
i need your inspiration.

Baby come back,
the full gin bottle stares at me
and my words ring cold and empty
without you in the mix.

Baby come back
the gin bottle is empty
and my words lay
flat and stale.

Baby come back
anything i write now
pales
in comparison to the words you gave me.

Baby, just come back.

Celebrating Love

2008-06-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

love is limitless
honor their hearts' desire
equity at last

In my travels today, I walked by the store above as a worker was changing the sign - several of us gathered to watch as the letters went up and we read the message aloud with a thrill.

Prose vs. Poetry

2008-06-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Prose is less exacting
more forgiving in its form and function.
Poetry is meticulous
brooks no errant sloppiness
frowns highly
on a pell mell approach
unless pell mell is calculated in the poet’s mind
executed with great precision
before tumbling across the page
in a torrent of black ink.

© 2008 Birdstory Publications

More from the Muse

2008-06-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Listen baby,
I’m gonna pack up
and move on.
This ain’t working for me any more.
I can’t get any sleep with you
banging away like that
and even a Muse needs his rest.
And the bed is always full of paper scraps and pens.
Damn near poked my eye out last night with that pen.

Stop beggin’ baby.
You're like an addict.
Stop crawling. And don’t lick my toes.
You’ll find no inspiration there,
only toe jam.
What’s a matter with you?

You’re on your own now, girl.

© 2008 Birdstory Publications

The Muse Bitch Slaps the Poet

2008-06-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Look, the muse tells her,
you are a pain in the ass right now.
Always complaining
this word isn’t quite right
that line break is off
the language cliché
the metaphor mixed
the repetition dull
the direction isn’t quite where you wanted to go.

Give me a break, you recalcitrant bitch.
You’re writing every day, aren’t you?

So quit your belly-aching
and be grateful I don’t
call the Block over
to teach you a thing or two about
inspiration and the lack thereof.

Inspirate this, bitch:

I need a break
so you gotta rely on Craft now.
And don’t give me any more of your lip
or I will lay your neck on the Block
faster than your fingers could ever fly across the keyboard.

See if you get any writing done then.

© 2008 Birdstory Publications

The Muse

2008-06-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

Bang that keyboard
as if sheer will
and the heavy tap-tap-tapping
of fingertips
pounding the keys
will arouse the muse.

He is still hidng under the covers
from the noon day sun,
grumpy and uncooperative.

“Stop working me so hard,” he grumbles.
“Even a muse needs his sleep.”

Perhaps he is in the wrong bed
and is not my muse at all.

You know how muses can be sometimes.
They wander off into the wrong places
at the wrong times
then feign innocence, ignorance
when no words of relevance appear on the screen.

©Birdstory Publications, 2008

What To Do In San Francisco

2008-06-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Stand on the corner of 16th & Guerrero eating carne asada tacos with lime. Let the lime juice drip down your chin and grin shamelessly at all the passers-by.

Ride the F Market up and down Market Street, discussing politics with the old man in the seat in front of you and the teenager, her hair dyed pink and purple and green,on the seat across the aisle.

Walk up to the Twin Peaks Lookout and instead of taking pictures of the view, take pictures of the tourists.

Smile at the panhandler outside the Civic Center Muni Station near the Main Library and drop a dollar in his cup. He will tell you you’re beautiful and one of God’s creatures and wish you well for the day.

Wander through the ruins of the Sutro Baths when the surf is high and the sun is shining. Then have pancakes at Louie’s Diner overlooking the ruins and leave the waitress a piece of sea glass along with a generous tip.

Give your book of Charles Bukowski poems as a thank you to the pony-tailed, bearded bus driver who, seeing you half a block away and running madly for the bus, waits for you at the stop, and commands you to “step up , darlin’, step up” as he opens the bus doors.

Shop at Thrift Town on Mission for $15. 45 worth of mis-matched china plates.

Listen to the old lady on the corner of Castro and Market, every Friday evening at 5 as she plays her cello, a blue and orange bandana wrapped around her elegantly-shaped bald head. Be sure to put a buck or two in her open cello case and then revel in the smile that fans across her face ever-so gracefully. She is one of San Francisco’s finest.

Nap in the rose garden in Golden Gate Park, your arm flung across your face as a shield protecting you from the sun’s rays.

Sit in Union Square, watching the shoppers hurry by with their red Macy’s bags and share an orange with the bum to your left. He will speak to you then about Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Emerson and Thoreau and expound on the Beauties of the Universe.

© Birdstory Publications, 2008

(Saturday's poem is still in process and as yet, completely unworthy of posting.)

A Summer Kiss on Your Smooth Neck

2008-06-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

a summer sestina

You sit in Dolores Park, tongue slowly licking
honey-mint lavender ice cream on a plain cone.
You watch the lovers kiss, the babies cry, the mamas laugh,
waiting for the warm breeze to find you
and leave a summer kiss on your smooth neck.

Small dews of beaded sweat glisten on your neck as
the summer sun beats on the freshly mowed lawn,
smooth except for the small mounds of emerald
waiting for the kiss of a dog’s butt, of a bum’s worn shoe,
of your bare feet ready to run across the grass
in search of a lover on this fresh summer’s day.

On days like these, when babies cry in the park
shedding their tears on their mamas’ necks,
your lips long for the taste of salt,
the taste of summer grass and hay lingering
on full lips, long for his kiss
smooth as a warm beer on a hot day.

Smooth as the blue sky, he slides alongside you
on the green bench with Luisa & Ramon carved into
its old back, names framed with a kiss.
His hand caresses your swan’s neck
warm and lovely from the summer sun.
Your lover bends his lips to pale skin.

Your hands cup his face and
gently smooth the stubble that cloaks
sweet skin toasted by the summer sun.
On this sun-drenched afternoon
you yield willingly to one kiss after another,
your creamy neck bends slightly at such a soft touch.

He waits for your lips, your kiss
for your tongue to
move to his neck
to feel your rough tongue drift lazily across the smooth skin
on the damp nape of his neck,
joining this summer day to a lover’s heat.

A white neck teases one kiss after another and
your lover demands a summer full of kisses
as smooth as the honey-mint lavender ice cream melting on the grass.

© Birdstory Publications, 2008

A sestina is composed of 7 stanzas. The first 6 stanzas have 6 lines each; the last stanza is a tercet - 3 lines. Stanzas 2-6 must take the last 6 words of the last line of the first stanza and repeat them, using one of each of those 6 words in a particular order in each line of each stanza. The sestina is an exacting form, and though I think the language a little cliche, I like this first effort of mine. The challenge is to follow the form without sacrificing content to form. A poet's puzzle.

For those interested, here is the pattern:

2nd stanza: 6, 1, 5, 2, 4 3
3rd stanza: 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5
4th stanza: 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4
5th stanza: 4, 5, 1, 3, 2, 6
6th stanza: 2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1
7th stanza: 6 &2, 1 & 4, 5 & 3

Lucifer

2008-06-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Lucifer found her not in the dark of night
but came to her on a summer’s afternoon
when sunlight filtered through the tree limbs
and left soft shadows on the ground below
interspersed with flashes of gold.

He did not come to her with a dark look.
There was nothing sinister in his countenance.
He came with eyes flecked with amber
sharp, white teeth
full red lips
and a strong square jaw
accentuated by a closely trimmed mustache and beard.

He did not greet her with “Pleased to meet you,
hope you guess my name”
for that would have tipped her off.
He winked.
He smiled.
He placed a warm hand on her bare shoulder.
She shivered
but did not recognize the touch.

She sat with him on the plaid blanket
under the mulberry trees
as he softly traced his fingers along
the sun-warmed calf of her leg
up and under her soft cotton skirt
to find her tender thighs,
his hand slipping like silk between the pale blue lace of her panties
and the smooth white cream of her skin.

He had brought wine and roses.

She had no idea the wine was poisoned
the roses rotted through and through.

© Birdstory Publications, 2008

OBAMA!

2008-06-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

OBAMA!

Obama! Obama! Obama!

The cynic in me says it doesn't matter -
he has already lost the general election
because of

the color of his skin
the content of his name
the character (and stupidity) of the average American voter.

But the idealist in me revels
in this landmark moment.
The idealist wants the impossible
to happen in November.

So I will mix water with wine
and burn the clean, white bone of a fatted lamb
as sacrifice to the gods.
I will cross my fingers
step carefully over sidewalk cracks.
I will light candles in church
and pray on my knees.
I will beseech the blessed
Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
Goddess of all that is good and right
to intercede on Obama's behalf
on my behalf.
I will write letters.
Walk precincts.
Donate money.
Blog.
Register voters.
And I will book a hotel room in Washington DC for January,
just in case
just in case.

Because why not?

Ok - TWO poems a day (if you can call this a poem)

2008-06-03T09:02:00.001-07:00

Hillary, Dilliary, Billiary
dally
spinning the numbers
trying to change the tally.

Unity with inpunity
so she says
then continues
to hedge.

Drizzle drozzle
drizzle droan
time for this one
to go home.

The "real" poem for the day is in the previous post - but I like this one better.

Metallurgy

2008-06-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

fog
lays lightly on
the bay, a mirror
turning gold to silver

© Birdstory Publications, 2008

No one said I would write a good poem a day - hahahaha!

Continuing with Summer Project #1: A Poem A Day

2008-06-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wine

One wine tastes of smoke and oak.
Think cinnamon
cocoa powder
and pour me another while you’re at it.

Another smells of roses and chocolate.
Blooms in the mouth
coming to full flower
only after half a glass is gone.

Now this wine wants to hitch a ride
home with me
and stay the night.
I will let it slip in between the sheets with me,
but I shan’t ask it back again
as it is far too forward
and only interested in pleasuring itself.

Another, feisty, errant, wants to pick a fight.
Kicks down the door,
ravages tongue
roughs up the gullet
and demands a second chance.

One in particular is impertinent and
needlessly pretentious.
Cloaking its damaged ego
in manufactured self-importance,
hoping no one will notice
it is betrayed by cork and bottle,
tainted through and through.

But this one,
this one
wants to caress my lips
linger on my tongue
warm my veins
flush my cheeks.
This one wants to make love to me
slowly, purposely
without cessation.
I will let it have its way.

© Birdstory Publications, 2008

Summer Project #1, Day 2, Poem 2

A Poem A Day - That's All I Ask

2008-06-01T19:12:00.000-07:00

Summer Project #1: Write a poem a day. And so I begin:

essential to the game

indigenous to North America
feed crop for animals and baseball players
one oz. nets 6 grams of protein
and relieves an inning of stress

store at least a dozen uncracked kernels
in the left cheek
shift one to front center of teeth
crack and rescue seed with tongue
swallow seed
shift debris to right side of cheek
repeat until right side is full
left side is empty.

spit shells
swing bat
run

The Plague of Tyranny

2008-05-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Conservatives (read: fascist) groups in California want the state to delay granting marriage licenses to same sex couples, defying, of course, the recent State Supreme Court ruling, which held that the State cannot withhold such licenses – essentially confirming what anyone with half a brain and one pinky’s worth of reason understands: withholding the right of marriage to same sex couples is unconstitutional, and beyond that, simply irrational and immoral - how can you, in all good conscience, deny a right to an entire class of people? The ruling also confirmed that no argument based on logic and reason to support denying this right exists.

The ever-so stalwart Campaign for California Families warns us that in light of the recent ruling, “the plague of same-sex marriage will soon spread rapidly across the nation.” Lovely language indeed. The black plague of the Middle Ages? The plague the Bible speaks of that came down upon the Egyptians when they would not let Moses’ “people go”? The metaphor is ill-chosen: the same-sex couples I know are all extremely healthy ones – healthy in mind, spirit, body, and healthy in their relationships. What plague is that? Would that my own marriage had been as healthy as those same sex relationships. But even so, even if those same sex relationships were in some fashion unhealthy, if the individuals themselves were in some fashion unhealthy, so what? Do we deny marriage to heteros because in some fashion one or more of the partners, or the relationship itself is not healthy? Of course not.

The CCF advises us to “resist the Supreme Court’s tyrannical gay marriage ruling.” What tyranny? How is granting a right to same sex couples that hetero couples take for granted tyrannical? Is it not tyranny to deny such a basic right as marriage to an entire group of people?

But the CCF appears to be on a mission. A further inquiry into the organization’s website nets this glittering generality:
“Campaign for Children and Families is standing up for the best values the world has ever known. We are strong advocates of … religious freedom.”
What hyperbole – “standing up for the best values the world has ever known” – now there’s a reasonable, specific, supportable claim.

And how about that advocacy of religious freedom? CCF advocates for their religious freedom – for freedom to force their religious moral code on us all.

The CCF believes that in November, the good voters of the State of California will approve a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. And they are essentially asking the State to enforce that ban NOW- before it even exists.

The attorney for the state responded this way to CCF’s stance: "Such an action would be tantamount to putting the (ballot) initiative into temporary effect more than five months before it is even submitted to the electorate. The court would ... set a dangerous and highly questionable precedent were it to manipulate its own processes to accommodate a political interest."

Instead of trying to force their cruel, absolutist religious beliefs on us all, instead of trying to undermine the judicial system, instead of playing politics, the CCF should focus their attention on truly supporting families: how about advocating for a decent living wage? For more funding for public education? Quality child care programs? Tutoring centers? Prenatal healthcare? Healthcare for children? Would not such advocacy support families more than the dictatorial denial of a basic right to a group of people based on … religious belief?

Let the CCF have their religious freedom – if CCF members don’t wish to have same-sex marriages, they can simply not have them. Pretty simple solution. No one’s forcing anyone to marry anyone. Where’s the tyranny in that?

And She Likes The Way He Says Baby

2008-05-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

She likes the way he makes love to her.
Ride my cock baby, he says, as he rolls over and pulls her on top.

She likes the way he critiques her writing.
Baby, this is magnificent. Superb. Tour de force, he says.
But baby, I made just a few edits.

She likes the way he scolds her.
Baby, don’t post your poems on that blog.
Baby, I don’t ever want to hear you say you’ve failed again.
What’s a matter with you baby? You’re a star, baby, a star.
Baby, he says, don’t ever say you weren’t good enough.
Your children owe you respect, baby.
They owe you respect.

She likes his thick, Brooklyn accent.
Doll, he says, come sit on me.

She likes when he argues with her about politics.
Baby, I used to be a political reporter, he says.
Baby, you’re like every other idealistic liberal out there.
Come out of the rain, baby.
Step into the light, baby.
Politics aren’t ideal; politics are pragmatic, baby.
You idealistic liberals will ruin the party, baby.
It’ll be your fault come November, doll.

She likes the clucking, soothing tone he takes
when she reports over the phone
that she is sick.
Oh honey, oh sweetie, he says, if I were there,
I’d slip chicken soup down
your hot throat
and bang that bug right out of you.

But he is crazy as a loon.

Stays up late at night,
imagines bugs in his bed,
crawling on his skin.
Can’t sleep.
Can’t write.
Sits on his couch, covered with plastic
and listens to the pounding beat of his heart
the raspy draw of his breath.

She calls, from across a thousand miles.
How are you, baby, she asks.

Not so good baby, he says. Not so good.
But what do I have to complain about?
I can always think of you baby. He he he.

From a distance, she remembers that years ago,
his laugh would have made her skin crawl.
And probably would now too, if she bothered to care.
He he he.

Thank god he lives across the country, she thinks.
Thank god they are not banging each other any more.

But she wants him, she wants him.
And once more
picks up the phone
dials his number.

Hey, baby, she says. How are you?

Drumming the Semester to an End

2008-05-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

I was on campus every day last week (finals week) and watched the campus clear out. Students scurried about from library to computer lab to classroom, their heads ducked, brows furrowed, stress showing in their hurried strides. They juggled final projects and papers, finals, and the time-honored labor of packing up - moving out of the dorms.

Students in lounging pajamas and old sweats pushed odd carts piled high with TVs, computer equipment, posters, fluffy quilts, microwave ovens, mini-refrigerators, tennis racquets, basket and soccer balls, scrapbooks, stuffed animals, odd-shaped lamps, suitcases stuffed full - some with plaid shirts hanging out the sides, and boxes straining against the duct tape that reinforced their cardboard walls. Behind these students and their carts full of precariously stacked possessions trailed fathers and mothers, arms full of bags and boxes. A chain of mini-vans and SUVs pulled up in the parking lots, and parents stuffed all these boxes and bundles into their vehicles, leaving scant room for the students who squeezed into rear seats between boxes and the partially opened-car windows.

On Friday, facilities began to set up for Saturday's graduation. Metal barricades were placed along the access roads, signs went up directing folks to various parking lots and to Cox Stadium, where the graduation is always held, rain or shine.

But as I walked out the door on Friday, a bag of papers slung over my shoulder (yes, it ain't over for me ... yet), and headed across campus to 19th Avenue to catch Muni, I paused at Malcolm X Plaza, outside the Cesar Chavez Student Union. Sitting on the plaza's stage, a trio of students drummed the semester to a joyful end.

A May Morning in San Francisco

2008-05-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last week, San Francisco experienced a heat wave: temps were in the 80s for a few days in a row; the sky – a clear, sharp blue – arced over the city as a joyous proclamation. The weather was so warm that last Friday night, as I waited for my bus on the corner of Market and Castro at 11:45PM, I wore no jacket, no sweater, no sweatshirt – just the thin, cotton, sleeveless blouse I had worn to the ballpark. My Giants sweatshirt remained in my backpack, unneeded, unwanted.

But the fog has rolled in again and my city is shrouded now in soft grey.

The Class Slam

2008-05-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of instruction for my classes. Hurrah!

And I end the semester on a very high note, for two of my classes finish tomorrow with the third round – the final round – of a class slam.

I have taught two sections of 2nd year composition this semester – in which students write expository, argumentative essays about literature. We have read and talked and read and talked and drafted, revised, revised, edited and polished, edited and polished, and proofed, proofed, proofed our way through 4 critical essays about various stories and a novel.

But I wanted to end the semester with something fun and relatively speaking, easy. Or at least, so fun that my students would think it’s easy (but actually, it’s not).

First, I sent them out into the world at large, searching for spoken-word events or slams. They were required to attend at least one event and write a review. They returned to the classroom, many of them, in a state of shock and hilarity. Far too many of them had no idea that poetry could be performance – that poetry could kick your ass – that poetry could make your brain steam, your heart pound, your feet stamp, and your voice call out in response to the poet and the poem – hooting and hollering. Far too many of them thought poetry was an old man in a stiff white shirt, reading in a monotone voice from a dusty book, sucking the life out of the words and never, ever making you feel anything at all.

But they went to poetry events and slams at bars and taverns, cafes and pizza parlors, and came back excited, enthralled, invigorated. That was the easy part - I lulled them in.

Then we began to investigate what Billy Collins calls “poems in the air” and “poems on the page” and talk about the differences. We read and we listened. We talked about the meaning of the poem and how its form on the page hindered or helped craft that meaning, and how its sound in the air did the same. They had to write two critical papers about poetry – and discuss the differences between poems on the page and poems in the air and explain why those differences matter – or why they don’t. No one complained - they wanted to discuss and write about poetry (even the ones that groaned when I said we would be writing about poetry).

Then I delivered the sucker punch. I told them: you must write poetry.

Their jaws dropped. But, but, they stammered, we aren’t creative writers.

Oh really? I said. Too bad, because you must write poetry. And not only that, you must compete in a class slam.

What? What? They shouted. But Ms. G – that’s not fair – we’re not creative writers.

Too bad, I said. Do it anyway.

They relented, hanging their heads low, mumbling in their seats. Fine, we’ll do it. But what do we write about? How does it work? What are the rules?

You write about anything you want.

Anything?

Anything.

Are you sure? ANYTHING????

You're writing poetry - that's art and I don't censor art.

What about the rules for the slam?

There are no rules.

How can there be no rules?

Ok, there’s two rules: 1. the poems cannot be longer than 3 minutes. 2) the judges must judge on content and performance.

So what's the criteria for that? What basis do they judge the content and the performance? Will you give us a rubric?

There isn’t any criterion. There is no rubric.

What???

There is no criterion, no rubric. Judges decide based on whatever they like, whatever they don’t like. And then they score your poem however they feel like.

That’s ridiculous, they said.

Yes, I said. It is.

We formed groups. Each student wrote three poems and brought those poems to their group. And each group selected three poems (one for each round) to enter in the slam. On Monday, we had the first two rounds of the slam. Groups performed their poems. Judges rated the poems on the Olympic scale of 1 – 10. The audience applauded the poems and the poets, then applauded or booed the judges as they revealed the scores. The numbers were tallied, and the four highest-scoring groups (out of five) moved into the second round. After the second round, the three highest-scoring groups moved into the final round – that’s tomorrow.

I heard some terrific poems. Some were wise, some were sexy, some were sarcastic, some were about love and angst, some about social change. One was about chocolate cake. Some were about sex. Some were about war, strife, terror, and politics. Some had nothing to do with anything but were just plain fun. One of my quietest, softest-spoken students suddenly became a spoken-word star. One student who has struggled all semester with essay writing suddenly became the best writer in the room. And all I heard on Monday when our two rounds were finished was how much fun everyone had. Students didn't want to leave class - I had to kick them out. They wanted to talk about the poems, tease each other, clap each other on the backs. One student visited me in my office today to tell me that even though he has struggled with the course and knows he is failing (he will take the course again over the summer), he feels he accomplished something. "I can't write an essay very easily," he told me, "but I know I can write poetry now."

Victory is mine!

Mothers

2008-05-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

We get credit for a lot: everything that goes badly when you raise a child is laid on our doorsteps. And rarely do we get credit for what goes well. We are often seen as monsters – if perhaps only momentarily – during our children’s lives. They see us as bigger than life (as well we are to them when they are young) and wholly inexplicable when they are teenagers (as they are to us – even though we actually do know what’s going on with them – having been down the same path, having felt similar emotions, having once been young ourselves).

Even though we make mistakes and sometimes fail miserably in our task, most of us never get up in the morning and say to ourselves, “Today, I’m gonna fuck my children up good.” We have good intentions, even when our actions go awry, even when we misunderstand, even when in an effort to keep our children safe, we overprotect them, in an effort to teach them discipline and provide a moral compass, we come down too hard on them, in an effort to provide comfort and compassion, we are too easy on them. Mothers are angels dancing on the head of a pin.

But along with the blame and guilt and life-encompassing responsibility, we have other things laid at our doorstep. Here are some of them:

The sweet contentment that comes from rocking a nursing baby in the family rocking chair by the window on a rainy day as the house sits quietly and all you can hear are the soft breaths and suckling sounds of your baby, and all you feel is her mouth on your nipple and her little hand resting on your breast. The world stops and all is well.

The absolute shambles of your kitchen after a pack of 9-year old boys – laughing with cracked voices, sometimes deep then screechingly high – invade it, plundering the refrigerator and pantry, on a summer’s day after a pick-up game of baseball.

The sleepy satisfaction you feel when your teen-aged daughter comes home from a night out with friends and sits on the edge of your bed, chattering excitedly about her evening for a good hour and then curls up next to you in bed, resting her head on your shoulder.

The deep, booming, goofy laugh of your son, 6’4’ tall, 250 pounds, his arm weighing heavy as he drapes it around your shoulders and says, in front of all his friends, “I love you, Mommy.”

The peace you feel when finally, after many restless hours, your child’s fever breaks, he stops fussing and both of you fall asleep, his head resting in your lap.

The absolute annoyance you feel (and pride) when your daughter mothers you by pestering you endlessly to get that damn colonoscopy when you turn 50.

The hysterical laughter you hide when you smell something burning in your son’s room, and when you enter to investigate, he and his best friend gainfully try to deny that they have set fire to a baseball but then abruptly confess they were merely conducting a "scientific experiment on the incendiary properties of baseballs."

The worry and pride you have when your 18 year-old daughter, against your better advice, stands by her friend of 14 years when that friend descends into the utter chaos of crystal-meth addiction and your daughter’s faithfulness and sheer willpower gets that friend into rehab.

The howling of the dog next door every afternoon at 4PM when your son begins to practice the saxophone and the pleasure you experience weeks later when the dog stops howling and you sit on the landing outside your son’s door, listening with pride to the jazz riffs he has now mastered on the sax.

The joy you feel for your son when he wins the day for his soccer team at a Thanksgiving tournament with a sudden-death shootout – he is the victorious goalie and when he blocks that last kick, the team surges onto the muddy field, engulfs him and lifts him up on their shoulders, chanting his name.

The admiration you have when you come home on a dark winter’s night from your part-time job at a bookstore and discover your daughter, in an effort to surprise you, has unpacked all the Christmas boxes and has not only decorated the house for you, but is waiting patiently by the warm fire she laid and lit, with a plate of homemade cookies and a mug of hot chocolate just for you.

The box you have in your closet, filled with the homemade cards, the abstract finger-paintings, the ceramic hand molds, the oddly-shaped clay figures, the twisted lanyards, the painted coffee mugs and plates your children made for you, and the odd dry leaves and stones and shells and twigs that meant so much to them, and which they gifted to you with their deepest pride and love.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

How To Write A Poem

2008-05-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

First, it helps if you have grown up with
melancholy
mania
depression
bi polar
or OCD.
ADD or ADHD won’t work.

It needn’t be you who has the ailment
as long as you grew up
in it
around it
with it.

If you didn’t grow up
in it
around it
with it

then there’s nothing for it
you must get it.

Somehow.

If you
lose your job
hit the bottle
smoke crystal meth
shoot heroin
that might be good start.

If you are a man
live on the streets.
If you are a woman
walk them.
Or, cut your hair short
and say you are a lesbian
(especially if you’re not).
If you are a lesbian already
you are doomed
for you are passé.
(Don’t blame me – I don’t make up the rules.)

Second, you must read
e.e. cummings
T.S. Eliot
Sylvia Plath
Keats
Yeats
Elizabeth Barret Browning
and that guy she banged.

Then you must read
Walt Whitman
Allen Ginsberg
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Diane di Prima

and
Galway Kinnel
Anne Sexton
Maya Angelou
Ted Kooser
Billy Collins
Charles Bukowski
William Carlos Williams
and of course
Wislawa Szymborska

and all the rest.
The order in which you read them
doesn’t matter. Just read them.

Imitate every poet you read until you want to puke
and you are no longer
sure you have any
thing to say
of
your
own
in your own
way.

Stop writing. Yes
just stop.
Tell everyone you know you have
WRITER’S BLOCK
because of course you are
off the booze
the meth
the heroin
and no longer live or walk the streets.
And you’ve grown your hair back
and are sure you are not a lesbian after all.

Stop reading the poems of others.

Stay home for three weeks straight.
Don’t answer the phone
or the doorbell
or any knock on the door.
Throw your cell phone and television out the window.
Disable your wireless connection or the DSL on your laptop.

Write.
Write some more.
Don’t stop.
Don’t stop for food or drink, nor sleep.
Don’t stop for anything.
Don’t stop for days until it is done.

Now. Shower.
Eat a steak and drink a martini.
Wine will not do.

Drink at least two (perhaps three)
martinis
straight up
on the rocks
with only a hint of vermouth
and at least three fat
olives skewered on the toothpick
(eat those last, ensuring they
are soaked thoroughly with the gin).

Now comes the Inquisition.
Stretch your work out on a rack
interrogate it closely
and write down
everything it says
and everything it doesn’t say.

Hold that up to a mirror and
read it.
Read it again.
Read it again.

Take it out to the garage
where all the tools are
and attack it
with a hack saw until it bleeds.

Whatever you do,
do not relent.
Let it bleed it self out.

Use the jig saw on your line breaks.
Make cross cuts
bevels
and scrolling curve cuts where appropriate.

Pick up a small, sharp knife.
Whittle the work carefully down.
Be precise – measure twice, but cut more than once.

If there is anything left when you are done
you have a poem.

Of course,
now you have to submit it for publication.
But that my friends,
is another poem
entirely.

He Calls Her

2008-05-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

baby
honey
hot one
lover lips
dearie
pussy

sweetie
sweet knees
sweetheart
darling
sweetums
sugar puss

But never her name.

she wonders:
intimacy or detachment?

Untitled

2008-05-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Do you think you can come back
and rip my soul away from me again so easily?
Without cost? Without penalty?

This time I will rape you.

I will spike my cunt with shards of glass.
You will cut your tongue on me
and I will fuck you until you bleed.

Then I will turn my sweet countenance
to other lovers.
open my generous thighs

and with all the tenderness I command
I will fuck them
till nothing is left except soft sweet sighs

and the inner folds of my vagina no longer know your name.

Mission Accomplished, May 1, 2003

2008-04-30T20:47:00.001-07:00

Iraq War Casualties as of April 30, 2008
US Military: 4063
Iraqi non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and civil violence since 2003: 90,782
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Cost of Iraq War as of April 30, 2008, 8:30PM
$515,733,178,000.00 (and counting)
• $4,681 per household.
• $1,721 per person.
• $341.4 million per day.

Approximate U.S. Debt: $9,339,822,108,765.84 (and counting)
Foreign countries we owe:
• Japan - 580 billion
• China - 390 billion
• UK - 320 billion

HEY BUSH BOY!!!WHAT THE HELL MISSION WERE YOU ON???? AND ARE YA DONE YET????

Baseball Poems

2008-04-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Baseball and Chardonnay

I hold the heavy, thick, short cocktail glass in my hand
filled with cheap chardonnay.
Drain the glass
and look
through the bottom
at the refracted lights
of the ballpark
a wavering image dominating my view
from the living room window.

Why am I not there?

Outside Corner, Two Balls, One Strike

No men on base.
A lean, lanky,
left-handed pitcher controls the mound.
Devil’s spawn.

He made his major league debut the same year
the shortstop from the opposing team
was born.

Three balls.

Weather worn.
Weather wise.
He is slipping.
And the batter has a good eye.

Wind whips through the park.
Fans pull the hoods of their sweatshirts up
as the batter tosses the bat aside and takes first base.

A walk.

Lefty sighs.
Spits. Swallows.
Circles the white strip on the mound.
Tugs at his cap.

Three walks and four strikes for the inning,
he returns to the white strip in the center of the mound
readies himself to face the next batter.
Places his feet carefully into position.
Leans forward. Leans back.
Pulls his left leg in close, knee to chest.
Snap!
The left leg extends
and the knuckle ball explodes in slow motion.
Strike!
And again!

Lefty is an almost has-been.
A recent survival of the DL
destined to be traded at the end of the season.

His grey eyes stare into the catcher’s mask.
110 pitches.
Ill-used in his waning years,
yet he nods his assent.

The crowd holds their breath,
suspends their disbelief,
rises to their feet.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
They send their supplication out on the air
and the roar of 45,000 voices shouting, whistling
fills the park.

Lefty hears not,
sees not.
Pitches.
The batter swings.
The crowd roars!
Willing
able
to co-op this victory.

What Happens When Your Head is in Poetry

2008-04-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

I spent the evening reading poetry:
Charles Bukowski, Jack McCarthy, Jr., Bob Holman.
Not your typical elitist crowd.

Spent the evening reading poetry
as I rode Muni to and from the pizza parlor
where I drank beer
and listened to old timers
pluck words from their mouths
and spit them in the air.

Where I drank beer
and listened to their words
plunge, tumble,
execute loopy-de-loops
and linguistically musical
feats of aerial prowess.

Where I drank beer
and watched
one old timer, a thin man
with a cane and glasses
a black hat dusted with city soot and soil
from the streets
on his head.

An old timer
with black leathery skin
and long, slender fingers
tracing the staccato pattern of his words
in the air.

I want to kiss those hands
suck those fingers
for they are as mercurial
as compelling
as his words.

I would like to take that old timer
into my bed
feel the heat from his old street poet’s shanks and marred back
feel the calluses of his hands
penetrate my white skin
seep through my pores
and bones and blood
and sinew and turn my words
into rich, dark-red glutinous plasma
like his.

Instead

I come home and write:

I want to be a
hard-drinking
steady-fucking woman
who doesn’t care
if anyone calls her
whore
slut
cunt.
I’d smile and say
yes, that’s what makes my words
taste of my own juice
still succulent
still savory
after all these years.

Truth is
alcohol sucks a woman dry
so I won’t drink so much.
but I’ll still fuck.

Charles Bukowski and Me

2008-03-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

Once again, I offer up a poem against all copyright laws. But I can’t help myself. Here’s a poem from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way, by Charles Bukowski. His words are rough and I love them. My response to his poem and then the revision to my response (just posted today - 3/28) appears after.

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in
you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

*****************************************
And from me – after reading CB:

empty status

entrails ooze out slowly.
putrid.
i stare from the great distance between my guts and brain.

the booze bottle is empty and still
i am tortured.

words on a page.
words in the air.

there is no repressing them.

they demand a full hearing.
no matter how deadening,
how dull.
no matter how empty.
like the booze bottle
with just the faint scent of gin.
and a few, stale drops lingering at the bottom.

____________________________________
and the revision:

i stare at the great distance between guts and brain
putrid
ooze

the booze bottle is empty and still
i am tortured

words on a page
in the air
in my head
floundering on my tongue and
the tips of my fingers

there is no repressing them

they demand a full hearing
no matter how deadening
how dull
no matter how empty

like the booze bottle
with just the faint scent of gin
and a few stale drops lingering at the bottom

Wave That Flag Wide and High For Freedom, Justice, and the American Way

2008-03-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Was it just a few short weeks ago that I said to a friend at least McCain is against waterboarding, against torture?

Hah!

Now McCain supports Bush’s veto of the bill banning waterboarding, claiming, in essence, that although it’s not right, nor just, nor ethical, nor appropriate for the military to use torture techniques (techniques which McCain himself endured as a POW), it IS certainly permissible for the CIA to use those techniques. Or rather, not be limited to the Army’s roster of acceptable torture practices (waterboarding is not on the list).

And it was just yesterday that I told me stepmum that although I didn’t like McCain, at least I wouldn’t be embarrassed if he was my president.

Yeah, right.

Waterboarding – a technique favored by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Burmese government. Gosh, the US sure does know how to pick its bedfellows, eh? .Ain’t ya proud? Let’s all stand up for the red, white, and blue. Wave that flag wide and high as a beacon of freedom and justice.

In the meantime, the Dems continue to shoot themselves in the foot with bickering, and a show down over delegates looms in the offing.

I despair. There is no hope for U.S.

39 Questions

2008-03-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

How would you answer?

1. Were you named after anyone?
Yes.
2. When was the last time you cried?
Approximately 1 year and 3 months ago
3. What is your favorite lunch meat?
Roast beef.
4. Do you have kids?
Yes.
5. Do you use sarcasm?
Often.
6. Gallows humor?
Frequently.
7. Do you still have your tonsils?
Yes.
8. Would you bungee jump?
No. But I might parachute from an airplane.
9. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
No.
10. What are you most afraid of?
Becoming mentally incompetent when I’m old (not remembering who my children
are).
11. Do you think you are strong?
Yes.
12. What is your favorite ice cream?
Chocolate. No, make that Heath Bar Coffee Crunch. Wait, I mean coffee. No,
I’ll stick with chocolate.
13. What is the first thing you notice about people?
Voice, facial expressions, hands
14. Red or pink?
Neither.
15. Who do you miss the most?
My parents.
16. North or south? East or west?
North. West.
17. What are you looking forward to in 2008?
Summer vacation and the general election.
18. What are you listening to right now?
The quiet of my apartment of a Thursday morning.
19. What did you watch on TV last night?
Nothing.
20. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
A man from New York.
21. What is your favorite sound?
Laughter.A bat hitting a ball out of the ballpark. A ball landing with a thud
in the catcher's mitt. And the sound of a man who cares for me calling me
sweetheart, or darling, or babe, or sweetie pie, or angel.
22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Green.
23. What is your favorite smell?
Rosemary. Rain. Ocean.
24. What sport do you like to watch the most?
Baseball.
25. Favorite food?
Almost all of ’em.
26. Scary movies or happy endings?
Happy endings.
27. What is the last movie you watched?
Shenandoah with James Stewart.
28. Summer or winter?
Summer.
29. Hugs or kisses?
Both.
30. Favorite dessert?
Crème brulee. Chocolate anything.
31. What book are you reading now?
Atonement. Spoken Word Revolution. Women Word Warriors. Check the Rhyme.
32. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Beatles. But ultimately – The Grateful Dead.
33. Heath Ledger or John Wayne?
Both.
34. Beethoven or Bach?
Neither – what about Vivaldi?
35. Where were you born?
Hawaii.
36. Do you have a special talent?
Yes.
37. What’s the furthest you’ve been from home?
Halfway around the world.
38. What is your favorite time of day?
Sunrise and sunset. Moonrise.
39. Beach or mountains?
Beach.

The McCain-Bush Ticket

2008-02-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve never truly cared much for McCain, though I did admire some of his stances (campaign finance reform and his rejection of the hardline, Christian Conservative Right – alas, of late, he has cozied up to that bigoted and intolerant crew). He was able to reach out across the aisle and work with the Dems for the greater good. And he seemed, once upon a time, to be in league with the common man.

But he’s certainly betrayed the common man now with his switch on the Bush tax cuts. Now the man who once fought those tax cuts because they favored the wealthy over the middle class, the man who also once clearly stated we had no business implementing tax cuts until we knew what the Iraq War would cost us – has changed his tune. McCain more and more is stepping in tune with the used-up, washed-out, ineffective and tawdry ways of the Bush administration. All this to get elected.

Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe McCain is setting himself up now for a loss by embracing the Bush economic idiocy.

One can only hope.

Super-Duper Tuesday

2008-02-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my voting life, the dawn of an Election Day arrives and I am not yet sure for whom I will cast my ballot.

After 9/11, when Hilary Clinton cast her vote for the Iraq War, and later, when she backed an amendment that would restrict free speech (the whole burning-the-flag- thing), and when she began talking through her mouth from both sides, I told myself, sadly, I cannot vote for her if she runs. I will not vote for her if she runs.

I am not so sure now. She is smart, she is tough. As a policy wonk – she knows the big picture and the details. The economy may very well be better in her hands than anyone else’s. Despite her pandering, she won’t betray women on our right to choose. Social issues may not advance a great deal while she is in office, but they won’t slip any further either. And she is one tough cookie – though I believe she will use diplomacy (and she’s got one hell of an ambassador in her corner who is still much-beloved by the rest of the world, not to mention a sharp political operative and excellent advisor), I’d hate to get into a dog fight ... er ... cat fight with this broad.

And she is a woman. And how proud I would be to see a woman hold the highest office in the land. We could do far worse than Clinton, and perhaps not much better. And though I would not always agree with her policies or approaches, I would not be ashamed or embarrassed to call her President. I would, indeed, be proud. And what a message her ascendancy to the highest office in the land would send young women. I can hear the wonder and pride already in my daughter’s voice, see her tears Election Night in November. I can almost taste my own.

But before Obama announced his candidacy, I, like many others, had sent him an email: Run, Obama, run. I see in Obama a man of integrity and vision. A man capable of healing a divided country and bringing us together for a far more nobler purpose than shopping to shore up our economy. While Hilary Clinton will fight for me, Obama will too – but he will also ask me to fight as well. He will ask me to step up. I agree with his philosophy, his rhetoric. He will listen to those who say no to power, not ignore advice from all corners, before rendering his decisions.

And he is a black man. We could do far worse than Obama, and perhaps not much better. How proud I would be to see a black man hold the highest office in the land.. And though I would not always agree with his policies or approaches, I would not be ashamed or embarrassed to call him President. I would, indeed, be proud. And what a message his ascendancy to the highest office in our land would send to our country, to our youth, to African-Americans who thought they would never, ever, see such a day. I can hear the wonder and pride already, see the tears of joy. I can almost taste my own.

I would be content; I would be proud if either of these candidates made it to the White House.

So for whom do I vote?

The pragmatist in me drives me to strategy. Which one, Obama or Clinton, has the best chance to beat the Republicans? Does it really come down to this then – who is more electable?

SOTU Drinking Game

2008-01-31T07:49:00.000-08:00

This game need not be confined to the SOTU, but can be played during any Bush speech or press conference. The clock is ticking folks, you only have 355 days left in which to play this game.

Game intended for those 21 years of age or older.

Warning: This game may lead to binge drinking or alcohol poisoning. Have emergency numbers and cab fare to the nearest emergency room on hand prior to beginning of game.

Instructions:
Invite several friends to join you, procure numerous bottles of the alcoholic beverage of choice and the appropriate glasses to match for all participants.

Turn on the SOTU or any other speech or address Bush is giving. (You may certainly pre-record his mumblings for future gaming).

Whenever Bush says something which upsets any participant, all participants must take ONE shot of their alcoholic beverage of choice.

Whenever Bush lies, all participants must take TWO shots of their alcoholic beverage of choice.

New rule (inspired by Bogs): Whenever Bush says "nucular" all participants must take THREE shots of the alcoholic beverage of their choice.

Game is over when Bush finishes speaking or all participants pass out.

Only 365 Days To Go

2008-01-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Quack! Quack! Quack!

Looks like one. Sounds like one. Walks like one. Must be one.

Quack! Quack! Quack!

The Dogs of Pattaya

2008-01-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

Here’s a fine specimen of a typical Thai dog.

This fine fellow joined us in the evenings as we strolled the beach after dinner. He had a particular section of the beach that was clearly his and would accompany us only along that section. When we reached the invisible border, he would turn off. He was quite a good companion and on occasion, would warn other dogs in our vicinity that we were his and not to bother claiming us. We didn't in the least mind belonging to him.

These murky, shadowy fellows hung out in the parking lot near the beach in the evening. I’m sure they guarded our car as we strolled the beach. Who would disturb our car with this pack on patrol?

My favorite pup – BBQ, who belonged to the vendor in charge of our section of the beach. BBQ was popular with all the patrons.

Just Another Day on the Beach in Pattaya

2008-01-04T03:37:00.000-08:00

Beach Umbrellas

A Waiter Bringing Lunch

A Seller of Decorative Goods

A Russian Bear

Sailboat

Friends on the Beach

Men in a Skiff

Day's End

Happy New Year from Pattaya

2008-01-03T04:37:00.000-08:00

A Bird on the beach.

A Bird in the water.

Waiting on the beach for fireworks and 2008.

Fireworks in Abstract

This one makes me think of /t.

A floating lantern (once floating in the sky, now floating along the shore)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! HERE'S TO 2008!

At the Farm in Thailand

2007-12-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

Bird revealed - looking out on the view from our table at The Gop (Frog) restaurant on our way to the farm.

By the duck pond, before setting out for a tromp.

In the hot Thai sun.

The big house.

From across the garlic fields.

Coffee trees shaded by lichee trees.

Moon rise at the farm.

The moon through the dawk kaa trees.

The whole gang on Christmas Eve.

At The Orchid Farm in Chiang Mai, Thailand

2007-12-21T00:11:00.001-08:00

FLAP/FLAP/FLAP SWOOP-SWOOSH & SOAR

2007-12-18T18:08:00.001-08:00

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

I am off to Thailand for four weeks. Hope to post while I'm away. Catch you all on the other side of the world!

flap/flap/flap
swoop
swoosh
SOAR!

Sunrise Silhouettes

2007-12-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

Friday Night at Union Square

2007-11-23T23:37:00.001-08:00

Moon rising as the sun sets.

Abstract at Union Square

Macys

Ads At Union Square

The Sir Francis Drake Hotel

San Francisco's 85 foot tree all lit up.

The moon - trying to become the tree topper.

Finessing Poetry

2007-11-22T09:12:00.001-08:00

Over this Thanksgiving break, I've managed to get none of my teaching work accomplished, but I have worked on two poems that were quite fexing me. I am thankful for the break - for the poetry time, for being able to finesse what were rough drafts into pieces which, though not quite done, are worthy of being read aloud at an upcoming open reading. And I am thankful for the fellow writer (A) who gave me some excellent advice and some much-needed inspiration.

The second of the following poems I posted here a few weeks back, in its very rough form.

The Wheelbarrow and the Props Master
(for MJ and with thanks to A)

Somewhere along the coast,
an old wooden wheelbarrow stood
forlornly, yet hopefully, in some fallow field.
Standing in the mud and the muck,
with the light rain drizzling down upon it.
Waiting, patiently waiting
for the props master to discover it
load it into the back of a small pickup truck
with the rich, dark mud clinging
to its two rotting legs and its worn gritty tire
and place it center stage
the spotlight trained upon it.

Somewhere along the coast
a props master hunted
desperately, yet hopefully
in countryside feed and grain stores
and the little boutiques along Main Street
stuffed with quaint oddities
for an old wooden wheelbarrow.
Slogging through the rural lanes near the coast,
peeping into front and back yards,
she hoped to spot an old wooden wheelbarrow
neglected or perhaps filled with dirt and geraniums
that she might ask the owner the lend of.

So much depends on
this old wooden wheelbarrow
the props master fretted with the play but a few days away.

That night the props master
saw her wheelbarrow in her dreams
standing alone in a barren field
moonlight gleaming down upon it.
Setting forth down the road, eyes sharply trained on the wheelbarrow
she saw William Carlos Williams dressed in dingy white
sitting in the wet, dirty wheelbarrow as on a throne
his long legs sprawled out before him.
A can of red paint in one hand
a brush in the other
and he grinning like a ghost.

Nothing depends
on any wheelbarrow
he whispered in the props master’s ear.

In The Poet’s Tent at the Book Faire
(with thanks to A)

I am a polite member of the audience and even though
I am bored now with you and your poem
and my stomach is imagining what the sugar-fried doughnuts on-a-stick
might taste like - I did see a doughnut stand at the far end of the book stalls -
and the sun beckons me from outside the poet's tent at the book fair -
I am a polite member of the audience
sitting in the front row and will not interrupt your moment to leave.

But as I am no longer interested in your words
(though I am compelled to tell you
I thought most assuredly I would be)
I stare at the huge redwood tree outside the tent
in the center of the square
noticing the Christmas lights still nestled in its limbs
even though it is September.

I hear the low murmur of the crowd out in the square
as it peruses the book stalls
sounding almost like a cocktail party
except for the notes of ice clinking in glasses
which are absent with nothing to stand in their stead
and lead me to wish I had a drink in my hand.

And as you read
the heavily weighted, meaningful, ponderous
words of your poem
One
At
A
Time
And with e-xact-ing e-nun-ci-a-shun

I scribble all these thoughts down
across the names of featured authors
in the small white spaces between lines
and along the grey margins of the program
for I forgot to bring a pad of paper,
and though I walked up and down the rows
of booksellers before I took my seat
none of the them
had a blank book to sell.

The Grading Agony

2007-11-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of each semester, I explain to students how I grade and what the typical essay grades in my courses are. I tell them that it's not unusual at all for students to fail their first college-level essay. I tell them that the most commonly-received essay grade in my course is a C and that's a fine grade. A C represents a competent, college-level essay. And yes, a C is average. Most of us, whether we like it or not, are average. That's just how it is. I do give Bs, and they are well-earned. But an A on an essay in my course is hard to earn. A is outstanding, stellar, extraordinary, and so of course, an A is a rarity.

But I often wonder if I grade too harshly. Am I, in my attempt to prepare my students for the next level up, demanding too much from them? Holding them to unrealistic standards? Students say I am tough and that it's nearly impossible to earn an A. And yet, I have given As in the past – but only when they are well-deserved.

This week, as I graded what is a pivotal paper in my course - a paper which, despite all other essay grades a student receives in my course, they must pass to pass the course - I agonized over my decisions. And I scrutinized my students as they workshopped their writing in class. Are they ready? Can I send them on to the next level confident that even if they struggle, they are competent at this basic level and capable of the challenge of the next? Am I grading too harshly? And as a result holding back students who really should be moving forward and at the same time, demoralizing them?

I received my answer in a an email on Friday from a former student - one who had my class last year and whom I advanced to the next level course, English 214. I can’t help myself folks, here's her email:

Hi Bird!
How's your semester going? As for me, this semester is bit more hectic than last. I'm doing lots of extra studying for my courses and working a part time job. But I wanted to let you know how things are going for me in English 214. On my first essay, I had to analyze the poem "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost and received an A! And I've continued to do well. Overall, 214 is not as difficult as I thought it would be - because of the difficult assignments you gave me last year. Those assignments prepared me for papers that I'm currently working on in 214. The only change for me in 214 is that I receive less in-class preparation than I did in your class. But with all the tools I learned in your course, I am fully equipped in the preparation of my essays. I just want to say thank you for believing in me and giving me the chance to prove I can make it through 214. I hope you have a wonderful semester and hope to hear from you soon!

On most days, I consider myself a competent, college-level teacher. If I were to grade myself on a daily basis, I would often give myself a C, and sometimes a B.

But I’m framing that student’s email. For this is gold – a student has given me that rarity of rarities: an A.

For AB

2007-11-06T23:56:00.001-08:00

crush of semester
brain is festering
students are messin'
with papers and grades

and all i want to do is
sit in the park and wear shades

stacks of papers on the living room floor
bleeding purple, green, and black
i just can't bear to look at them anymore
so I stuff them in my sack
and take them back

to the office.
but there is no solace
in the office
nothing but a harder chair
that makes me work at a feverish pitch
even though i want to play hookey and ditch
that last essay
which i finish with a flourish
and a sashay

only to see another stack
has taken its place
oh dear god - bring me fortitude to keep up the pace!

for after grading
there's an apartment to clean
must bring it to a sheen
for a party friday night
i hope i am not so worn out i look like a fright!

SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK!

FLAP/FLAP/FLAP
SWOOSH, SWOOP AND SOAR

Friday Night At Home

2007-10-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Soft grey rain clouds rest over the City tonight, gently wrapping her in a shroud that keeps the crescent moon from shining upon her. Odd. Saint Francis was a man, but San Francisco is surely a woman – sometimes an exciting, sexy, hot woman – vibrant, glowing, teasing the life out of all who are around her - sometimes a woman of grace and elegance, dressed impeccably in a dark woolen suit with splashes of red and gold; sometimes the City is a gaggle of girls, in Catholic school uniforms, riding Muni, their hair pulled back into pony tails, their soft young arms wrapped closely around their waists, their long, smooth, young legs complimented by short, checkered pleated skirts. Sometimes The City is a skanky woman, skinny and drawn, with yellow teeth, yellow skin, and a raspy voice, walking on worn high heels that click-clack a staccato rhythm of fear thinly veiled by bravado. Tonight the City is a content yet tired woman who welcomes the protective and cleansing cloak of rain and the opportunity to rest, just a bit, just a bit.

Out my window I can see over the rooftops and down the hill, see the warm lights of homes, bars, restaurants. Yet in the distance, the lights on Market Street are not quite as bright as usual, and there’s a point at which they completely dim, fade away into the dark, and I can see no further. Yet I know that beyond those lights which disappear in the grey mist, beyond that cloak of rain and clouds, the familiar buildings of downtown San Francisco – City Hall with it’s gold-hued roof, the sharp pyramid of the Bank of America building, the charming ferry building, sitting on the wharf, dwarfed by the tall buildings which flank it on either side - yes those buildings are still there hiding in the dark, waiting for the gray rain to dissipate. The long line of cars that cross the Bay Bridge are still visible, their white headlights wavering in the rain, but the bridge’s suspension arcs no longer twinkle in the night like spider webs drenched in dew – they are lost in the grey clouds.

A fire burns in my fireplace and Van Morrison plays on my stereo – singing of the Healing Game - and I am home, gazing out my window, dining on cheese, cold chicken, a Fuji apple, a Hershey’s chocolate bar and a bottle of syrah.

I am not home much on Friday nights. Usually I am out and about, dining here and there, sipping coffee in some café that features a poetry reading, popping into bars to listen to jazz or, of all the things, betting on horse races – yes the latest craze. Last Friday found me at an Irish bar on Geary Street that holds occasional horse races, the proceeds benefiting an Irish charity abroad. (Hmmm… though I understand The Troubles are over - can you say IRA?)The bar puts together a race program and various bar patrons pay to “own” horses and hire jockeys. Over the course of three hours I lost 10 bucks on eight races. In race six, my horse was in the lead, but fell behind just short of the finish line. The bar plays a CD of various races on a large screen: steeplechases, fast tracks, and market races. The crowd cheers on the horses and as the evening progresses and the beer pours more swiftly, becomes quite heated – yelling profanities at horses that fall behind (yet carry a hefty bet), cheering on the leaders and the break-aways – the horses that pull up with astounding speed from behind – and guffawing – rather loudly and coarsely - if a horse trips or a jockey falls.

But tonight I am home. Watching the rain and mist and dim lights. Listening to Morrison and Coltrane and Thelonius Monk. And even though my place still isn’t quite together (I sit on the blow-up mattress in my living room as my new couch still hasn’t been delivered), I am at peace. This is indeed home, and I am content to be here tonight resting in my roost.

Ah, the rain has stopped. The clouds begin to thin, leaving a loosely woven blanket of grey wrapped around the city. The lights of downtown shimmer threw the mists, and the suspension arcs of the Bay Bridge become faint traces of light against the grey night, just barely perceptible. The City shakes her wet hair, casting a thousand and one drops of water across rooftops and street lights, brick stairways and gritty alleys; drops that scatter like small, tiny kisses and then softly, softly, disappear, leaving just the slightest trace of mystery in the night air.

Now the clouds lift, rising up and moving steadily south as the ocean wind blows gently yet steadily over the Golden Gate and down the Bay. The City rises from her damp, silver couch, dons her glittering jewelry. The lights sparkle and twinkle again along Market Street, the golden dome of City Hall gleams, the lights of the financial district brighten.

The City is breathing, moving, as a woman on the stage, performing the most exquisite dance. I sip the smooth syrah from my wine goblet and smile.

It’s good to be home.

Conversation Overheard While Waiting For The Bus

2007-10-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today, on my way home from Golden Gate Park (where I graded papers sitting on a bench near the duck pond in the Botanical Gardens, munching on an apple and a piece of chocolate, and occasionally glancing up to watch a toddler who was not only intent on joining the ducks in the pond, but damned near made it, getting far enough in the water to soak his sneakers and the cuffs of his corduroys before his father, who was much chagrined, snatched the boy out of the water, paying no heed to his freckled-faced son’s outraged wails of “Duckeeeeee! Duckeeeeee!” and the frantic kicking of his sturdy little legs – I ask you, what better place to grade papers?), I overheard the snippet of a conversation while waiting for my bus. A young woman in her early twenties, dressed in black tights, a brown skirt, and an orange rag roll sweater (so Eddie Bauer) was waiting for the bus along with her boyfriend, who seemed to be a bit older than her and smoked one of those short, brown cigarettes that smell like allspice and cloves.

“My mom,” the young woman told her companion, “is one of those people who is absolutely sure of her opinion and that she has the ONLY way to think. You know, she tells me that EVERYONE in the porn business, EVERYONE must have been molested and is in the business because they’ve suffered and are DEEPLY, DEEPLY disturbed. But I told her, Mom, really, that’s just not true. Honest – I was never molested and I’m in the porn business and know plenty of people in the business that are NOT messed up. She doesn’t believe me and wants me to go to therapy. Imagine. She’s just nuts”

Sitting on the bus bench, I stared politely over the top of this girl’s head and past her boyfriend at a somewhat scraggly little tree which sheltered at least a dozen finches (who were oddly still and quiet – perhaps as astounded by this girl’s revelation as I), and tried hard not to laugh or snort or guffaw, or appeal to the young woman to stop torturing her mother with proclamations about the porn business, or tell her to seek therapy right away, or plead with her that if she couldn’t at least quit the porn business, could she at least not discuss it in public, at the top of her lungs, whilst sitting on the bus bench next to me for I really don’t need to add to my worries and don’t wish to wake up in a cold sweat at half past two in the morning worrying about some silly girl in an orange rag roll sweater who apparently is in the porn business – though I know not what aspect of the business she’s in. No, I said none of this. I bit my tongue with more force and endeavor than I have ever had to with my daughter or son – I was quite sure I would make it bleed (calloused though it be from other tongue-biting occasions – children will do that to you, you know), but that was not the case. Thankfully, before the girl could continue, the bus pulled up, the doors opened, and we boarded – the young couple moving to the back of the bus, while I stayed near the front, sitting next to a young man dressed in a leather vest and scruffy blue jeans, and sporting two tattoo sleeves (snakes coiling and circling up his arms) and a row of Celtic crosses tattooed across his forehead (I do believe it was permanent tattoo, not a temporary one for the work was quite good). He smiled at me when I sat down, and through crooked yet white teeth said in a cowboy drawl so completely incongruent with his dress, “Afernoon, ma’m.” And although I detest the respectful “ma’m” (it really does make me feel old – who are these young whippersnappers to age me so?), I smiled at him and responded, “Yes, it’s a lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” And it really was, despite the grey clouds overhead and the slight chill in the air.

He smiled back and offered me a peppermint, which I accepted gratefully. I wished I’d had something to offer him in return, but I had nothing in my bag except a few crumbs of chocolate nestled inside the balled-up candy wrapper and a brown apple core rapped in a paper towel.

When the bus rolled up to my stop, I stepped down and onto the curb, turned and waved good-bye to the bus. The young man waved back, and as the bus lumbered by, I saw the porn girl, her nose pressed against the glass of the rear window, grinning at me. I shouldered my bag, walked the three blocks up the hill to my place and called my children, grateful to hear their voices and relieved that neither is in the porn business (though one does have two tattoos).

Something to Be Proud Of

2007-10-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Al Gore, who along with the UN Panel on Climate Change, won the Nobel Peace Prize today for his work building awareness and understanding of global warming.

Amazing - an intelligent, articulate, passionate individual - and an American too!

BREAKING NEWS!

2007-10-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

For reasons passing all understanding, I turned on my television this morning to watch the cable news shows. I used to do this quite a lot (mind you – I didn’t rely on these shows as my primary source of news; after all, I am an educated, intelligent woman) – but in the past few months, I've broken my TV addiction (with the notable exception of watching baseball games on occasion).

The news show was broadcasting a LIVE courthouse scene - the media clustered outside with their mics and vans and cameras, oh my! The headline ticking across this scene in the lower part of the TV screen was:

LIVE! BREAKING NEWS: Brittany Spears about to arrive at courthouse.

I don’t know what station I was watching – MSNBC, or CNN, or FOX - (I know it wasn’t a PBS station, nor the BBC, both stations that would not sport such footage, nor spend one jot of time covering Brittany’s travails).

As God as my witness, I vow to renew my commitment – to just say NO TO TV NEWS.

I’d unplug the set completely, but it’s October, for cryin’ out loud – gotta watch the Series!

Ocean Beach Sunset

2007-10-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's sunset at Ocean Beach ...

San Francisco Sunrise

2007-10-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

Shopping at Walgreens (for almost everything a healthy woman needs)

2007-10-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

One bottle of Bolla Valpolicella 2005: $7.99

One 4.3 oz tube of Arm &Hammer Advance White, Floride Anti-Cavity Toothpaste with Baking Soda and Peroxide: $4.19

Two tubes of Maybeline Rose Superstay Lip Color: $9.99 each

One 30 caplet box of Estroven Hormone-Balancing Dietary Supplement with Soy and Black Cohosh, plus vitamins B-6, E & Calcium: $14.99

One pack of 3, Durex Extra Sensitive Ribbed Lubricated Condoms: $2.99

One pack of 3, Durex Tropical (assorted colors and luscious flavors) Lubricated Condoms: $3.99

The beet-red blush of the 19 year-old cashier with peach fuzz on his chin: Priceless