In Which I Name Something Good

+ Sam Adams Boston Lager
+ Lost episodes on the internet
+ Tomorrow = day off

Various

If I had my camera handy I would post a picture of how I feel this morning. But since I don't, this lemur will have to do. He is pop-eyed with the kind of mixture of curiosity and terror that I find drives me in my day-to-day quest for knowledge... *

Actually I have to schlep up to Bronxville today for an appointment of a thoroughly unfun kind. If I were being appointed to the Society of No-Goodniks and Slobs, I would be more excited, but it's really just a regular old doctor's appointment. I have to make sure my circulation is OK. Why I scheduled it at 10AM I have no idea; that means I have to leave here by 8:30 to make it in. But afterward, yoga with my sister and Alexis, and then delicious frozen yogurt.

It has been wonderful having family in town. As I was telling Garrett, it's nice for a change to be surrounded just with people who love you and all your idiosyncracies and dumbness. It's such a difference from everyday, when you can't talk about how you think your armpits sweat more than normal people's armpits without getting dirty looks. And Minna is also a really fun person to be around. The peoplewatching is great in NY -- classic scenes from this weekend include: Pleased Short-Shorts Hockey Guy gets rejected by Spartan Profile Girl; Aggressively Stretching Meathead flailing and flexing his arms while walking as if he's going to beat someone down.

The graduation was mildly entertaining; Maija was having a great time through all of it except for the speeches, which, of course, weren't designed to hold a three-year-old's attention. Jessica Lange spoke at length first about the messed-up war effort and then about how the responsibility is on the new generation; she then went on for a long time about her own life, at which point Maija exclaimed "Um, I think this lady should be done." Everyone in her row chuckled, of course. She's three and adorable.

I think I'll probably post photos soon, but you can always look to Facebook. K, on to Bronxville.

*(1-24-2009) I deleted the lemur because due to my having hotlinked it, I was suddenly getting a lot of hits from people searching for lemur photos. Ho hum.

I'm a vegetarian

Introducing The Brooklyn Pleaser:

1. Take white bread. Fill it with meat. Skip the salad. Don't skimp on the cheese, oil, and bacon.
2. Fry the sandwich.
3. Cover it in bacon.
4. Fry it again.
5. Put it in a panini press.
6. Fry the panini press.
7. Serve it on a bacon mat, with side salad (optional).

Lunching Toward Enlightenment

I have been unusually sleepy. It's so bad that when it's past eleven and I'm hanging out with crowds, my yawning is so frequent that it prompts people to ask if I'm bored with them. (Case in point: Alex Lemon. No, Alex, you rule! I'm just a big fat sleepyhead.)

It's a big week, though, and no time to sleep. The family gets in later today, and then tomorrow = graduation, and then we have a big weekend of fussing around NY. What to do with a four-year-old? She doesn't have the attention span for Broadway ("that's ridiculous!" she would say); what other NY things do people with children do anyway? Not that I don't want to just hang around our scenic, roomy Brooklyn apartment (hah), but I, well, don't. I guess we'll work it out. Maybe I'll just schedule lots of lunches. Lunches upon lunches. Yes.

I am very tired. So instead of properly blogging, and at the risk of making the indie blog world go "aww, that's so old," I give you Jeff Mangum doing "Two-Headed Boy" at Jittery Joe's. I am not sure why this album resonates with me right now, but it does.

MAGAZINETIQUETTE

Hyuaaargh. Alexis and I went to yoga earlier, and I hadn't been in such a bloody long time, and now I feel not unlike a bowl of soaked wakame.

Still, I thought I would pass on this little note about Finery, a journal in its 5th issue. Basically, they publish women and genderfreaks; the issue deadline is June 15th but submit ASAP. Here are the guidelines:

Finery, a literary & arts semi-quarterly is currently seeking submissions for its fifth issue due out in the summer of 2008, Rites of Passage. Submissions can be on topics of female rites of passage or more broadly on the rituals that are used to create, perform or distort femininity. We are seeking poetry, prose. creative non-fiction, novel excerpts and hybrid work. Those published shall receive a copy of Finery 5.

Further deets here at Birds of Lace.

Speaking of submissions, my (& Rohin's & Garrett's & Angela's & etc) ownest and crankiest brainbaby, At-Large, is reading for its Fame and Teeth issues. It is important to remember that the issue themes are meant to guide submissions, but they're especially meant to tie the rag together visually, since, as we are a net presence, we need to look snappy. So if you have work you'd like to send, but it isn't about fame or teeth in any conceivable way, that's okay too dears. And of course the Foreplay and Jungle issues are still up for your viewing plesh...

And Garrett is off with my thesis! Unless he gets his backpack smooth-talked away by poetry-hungry montebanks, that small, unimpressive stack of paper will be turned in later today. So, MFA, here we are.

What to do now? Work an another project? As a matter of fact, I am. I decided to postpone the Paradise Lost poems for a bit (not to stop working on them, but just to leave them be for now -- they are my best route to a book at the moment) and to work on a chap, tentatively called 24. (Not for the TV show, and not for my age neither, even though I am 24.)

The other night, we went to hear Anne Carson (again!) read with Graham Foust and Misty Harper at the Kaveh Bassiri- and Mary Austin Speaker-curated Reading Between A and B series, which is an impressive, 10-year-running gig at the 11th Street Bar in NYC. It's probably so successful because (a) it's excellently curated, and (b) it's actually one of the few free readings (no cover, no nothing, you can show up and just listen to poetry. 'Course you can get a drink too, and most of the time people do). The website features sample poems by most of the guest poets -- check it out. Anyway, the reading was all killer no filler. I love Anne, obviously, and she read new material she's been working on since in New York. Graham Foust was amazing. He has this knack for serious humor -- he's not a funny poet but a wrenching one with funny things to say sometimes. Read a few short marrowy poems here at Shampoo. And Misty Harper, whom I'd never heard before, was also great. She is a PSA chapbook contest winner from 2004, and her poems had a neat little internal rhythm.

In other news, I can't believe it's this early. It's 8. Does anyone know how to change the timestamp on blogger? I think I'll make some breakfast.

The Poetry Festival was amazing. Everything went off without a major hitch, and our Friday and Saturday night readings were stuffed like one of those Wendy's pitas they don't make anymore... why don't they make those? I'm a vegetarian now but I'm pretty sure they could make a veggie one. Anyway, Sonia Sanchez/Sage Francis drew such a crowd that people were crammed in the aisles, and the Saturday trio of Bob, Carl, and Ron (Hicok, Phillips, and Padgett) was also quite the popular Saturday night to-do.

So this week, thesis. Things seem to be ok so far. Today I turned in a copy to Suzanne (Gardinier, my thesis advisor, who was on NPR this week!). I don't see any reason why I wouldn't graduate on time, frankly, barring a terrible disaster, natural or un, that overcomes everyone's ability to comprehend poetic information. Not that it's that great a work of literature, but hey, it's just a thesis. I ended up calling it "Endanger."

Oh, and Bateau took one of my poems for their next issue. And that's it for the tooting.