peter is amazing

I bought a piece entitled "Name it What You Want to Name it." It is very zen, and the lines seem to indicate monsters, crocodiles, dinosaurs and an eye.

We stood around and talked eruditely about the work.

The playmobile piece with its upending of heteronotmative relationships (particularly as localized in the figure of Santa) was a standout.

Peter was almost tossed in the river a number of times, and each time was granted a reprieve.

I was sent to a desert eerily reminiscent of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Here are some pictures.

if this were This American Life i would entitle this program "stories of being 'foiled again'"

Looks like my attempts to go here, to write and read and bicycle and swim, and also to visit my old stomping grounds may be foiled by unfortunate administrative snafus. I won the fellowship, yes, but sadly they may be booked during the only time possible for me to go. Keep your fingers crossed that things will work themselves out.

Last night the MFA basketball team, The Dangling Modifiers, aquitted themselves beautifully but were ultimately denied victory against their opponents, Some Team in Blue Jerseys with a Less Witty Name. I stood on the sidelines and tried to adapt my football cheers (by the time you get out "move that ball," the ball has been up and down the court five times already), and T wore her team colors, even if it was an accident. A had an amazing backwards lay-up, L scored several handy baskets, and dear sweet R blocked like the fierce woman we all know she is, even if she's usually too polite to show it. I wish I had pictures.

Thank goodness art openings for 4-year-olds can't be foiled. Tonight I will witness the debut of the masterwork, "No Good Things or Bad Things Ever Happen." I can't wait.

more stories from the gym

I can't abide by a Core Exercise teacher who uses music like "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" and who has no sense of rhythm. If only she didn't kick my ass so hard, I'd be out of there. But she does.

escapes

All of my belongings are walking away from me lately. I think perhaps they are trying to tell me I need to be less invested in things that tie me to the material world. First the phone adventure, and now my school ID has headed for the hills of Ohio in the company of a wandering minstrel. Hopefully it will come back to me through the good ol' P.O. in the near future so the gym won't charge me exhorbitant rates to use the services I already pay exhorbitant fees to use. Speaking of the gym, there's been a rash of children there lately. The other day I saw a little girl walking very deliberately, head down, in front of her mother on the treadmill (collective "ohhhh...") and today two little boys were scaling the railing I use for barre work. They climbed all around me and then there was apparently some sort of falling out, because the chubbier boy said, "well, you'll never get to be king, then." This warmer weather is nice, but the resulting floods of slush make it mandatory for me to wear my moonboots to the gym. This entry has been brought to you by the adjective: whimsical.

in the icy world

Last night I scaled the snowy heights of Prospect Hill without slipping once. Everything was iced and I felt like a pioneer as I wandered the silent world, trudging across bridges and fields and placing my footprints next to the tracks of dogs, birds and cars. During the day melting ice had made the trees crackle like paper. But it was cold enough again at night that everything was still and my legs in tights were two popsicles. It's been a long time since I've wandered alone after dark in snow that clean.

In an odd and fun piece of news, The Hartford Courant has nominated my mother as a finalist for letter to the editor of the year. We tried to figure out whether it was for her letter scolding them for their ethnocentric take on housing paint colors, or whether it was for her letter recommending Slim Whitman as a solution to the ubiquitous "loitering teens" problem. More information as it rolls in.

My friends are lovely writers. At the reading last night P read poems as beautiful as she, and V's bank robbery story held me in its thrall until the final, explosive and emotional ending. Marzipan is divine. I watched a cat and dog mate. I also picked up some terminology I really wish had stayed outside the purview of my knowledge. No, don't ask. I'm protecting your tender ears.

Oh, and in case Jamil called you, I have my phone back. No worries. Just one more petit adventure.

the great valentine project 2007

Unfortunately, there are no photographs of the hot pretzels or the hot toddy. No photographs of people actually making the beautiful valentines. And I didn't, as I promised A, actually attempt to make a pretzel in the shape of a sexy lady. That would have made for a good snapshot. But thankfully, there is a photograph of the wreckage (carnage?) of the valentine-making. Check out all the magazines. Can you see the Anthropologie catalogues? The copies of Science? What about Stanford Alumni magazine? CosmoGirl? Hustler? Poets&Writers? SexFever?

The house is still recovering. Next stop, groceries.

p.s. That new Charlie Brown Valentine movie they made was terrible. Stay away. It's no Great Pumpkin.

brushes with fame

This past week I have been stalked by a Famous Artist. I don't know who he is (ok, this is a lie - it's a small town so a little research led me to this conclusion), and I only know he is a Famous Artist because I've twice sat next to him in the Art Museum cafe during my office hours. Both times, professor-types have come up to him and discussed his visit - it became immediately clear that he was in B-town to give a talk, and also that he was much admired. It made me think about how many writers have come through town, and occasions that strangers have interacted with them in my presence in a way that made me want to say, hey, don't you know this is ________ (Mary Gaitskill, Charles Baxter, Toi Dericotte...), and how on this occasion I was the dummy sitting blithely at my table reading submissions while Famous Artist guy sat around being famous. So, I thought it was funny that I ran into him twice at the cafe. And then I ran into him at the union parking lot. And THEN he almost hit me with his car. This is totally unrelated (don't think it an unkindness born of the car incident), but I have to confess that something about him reminds me of Wallace Shawn.

go colts!

We were clearly a room full of writers. The wording of the commentary got us almost as up in arms as the game. At times it was like watching clowns come out of a clown car, at others like that greased pig wrestling I watched last year. And what was with Prince and his phallus? V says she heard gunshots. I'm just waiting to see how many students bother to show up to the 9am class tomorrow.

memo to the salt-scatterers of bloomington

You may think it clever to spread blue-green tinted salt on the road. You may think it brings light, like the pebbles on the bottom of a fish tank, refracted underwater. But here is what else it looks like: broken glass.

climate change, language change

As someone who teaches students about the precision of language, I find these two sentences from a CNN article on the latest global warming research amusing:

"The phrase 'very likely' translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man.

What that means in layman's language is 'we have this nailed,' said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system."

Is Jerry Mahlman really the one who decided that "very likely" = 90%? Does that mean that whenever I use "very likely" in the future, it's going to mean I'm 90% certain about something? And why does "very likely" need to be translated into layman's terms? It it really such technical language that no ordinary mortal could grasp it?

road trippin for poetry?

Butler University has a pretty well-funded reading series. And people from here are always jaunting up to see the Famous Poets, and now that I'm writing poetry again, I thought maybe I might take a field trip myself one of these days. Of course, I secretly want to see Mr. Billy Pilgrim in all his glory, but I've also been trying to read bits of the other folks that I'm sure I ought to know (but too often, only know by name, my contemporary poetry literacy having been stunted).

So anyway, in poem-of-the-day form, here's some nice Franz Wright I came across. Particulary enjoying the turns (verse! reverse!) in the first, "Old Story."