I'll find you in the pages...

They spoke on the phone. Every day. That's how it had to be, for now. During their conversations they would share stories of childhood, visions of the future, dreams of traveling abroad, and literature. The literature that each of them felt molded their lives. He listened to her as she passionately recited passages that made her mind reel. He asked her to make a list of her favorite authors. She did. That Sunday, as he walked the narrow city streets, he stumbled upon a small secondhand bookstore and quickly ducked in out of the rain. He walked directly to the M's and pulled one of the books she mentioned from the shelf, purchasing it immediately. He walked home with it carefully tucked under his arm. Up the stairs to his apartment his anticipation grew. He wanted to see the words that moved her. He walked straight to his sofa where he sat the rest of the afternoon, reading the entire work cover to cover in one sitting. With each chapter he felt her sitting beside him. The turn of each page brought them closer together. So close they could touch.

Thankfully surrounded by wisdom...

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." --C.S. Lewis

We are all so foolish...

Nightclub by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

A remaining Bohemian...

She told me if I wrote the words down they would materialize. She believed in words – their power, the strength in the way their sounds hit your ears, the absolute purpose in their formation with your tongue – the way I believe in love. So, I wrote down a list of desires and they found power in their acknowledgment. Now I wait for the manifestation of all things good.

No one sets out to be a workaholic...

When an acquaintance asked for her phone number, she began to rattle off her extension at work and caught herself, saying, “No, sorry…that’s my work number. My home number is....” She couldn’t remember. She searched her mind. All that was there was the number for the cubicle where she sat day in and day out. The fact that her work number was the only one engrained in her memory, she felt, was a startling reflection of her highly mismanaged priorities.

The day he realized that you only live once...

His children knew he had had a good day when they went out for dinner, because when the waitress asked if they wanted an appetizer he didn't immediately reply with a dismissive "no". He actually opened the menu and looked at the list, lifting his head to ask his children if anything sounded good. For a painfully frugal man, this was letting loose.

Things she used to like...

The sound of rain keeps her awake. She remembers being young and wanting a house with a tin roof. She enjoyed the sound of rain. Not young anymore, the rain depresses her. All she can think about is how she just washed her car. She needs to sleep. She closes her eyes hard, wrinkles in the corners, and hopes when she opens them she is somewhere...anywhere...else.

Thieves go to Belize and Dreamers to the Caspian Sea...

He laid in bed one night, dreaming of sailing on the Caspian Sea. He dreamt of waves...of how her hair would blow across her face and the way they would throw their heads back with laughter. He liked these dreams. What he did not know, while far off on the sea, was that a stranger was purchasing a ticket to Belize with his credit card. He would not know that until tomorrow.

Pennies are not obsolete...not yet anyway.

She said, "Remember that penny I found in the parking lot yesterday?" Her roommate said, "Yes, I was surprised you stopped to pick it up." She said, "Well, it happened to pay for 1/54 of the day-old loaf of bread we had with our fettucini alfredo tonight." Her roommate asked, "And you paid for it with all pennies again, didn't you?" She said, "Yes." Her roommate asked, "Are you pleased with yourself?" She grinned and said, "Yes."

People say all sorts of things to make themselves feel better...

She typed, "Come over." He typed, "You know I'm at work." She typed, "Okay...later then?" He typed, "Of course." But they both knew he didn't mean it. They were 2400 miles away from each other. He picked up a pen and began to sketch what a teleporter might look like.

I'm kickin' it old school...

with my song choice today, but it just seems fitting.

Amie by Damien Rice

Nothing unusual, nothing strange
close to nothing at all.
The same old scenario, the same old rain
and there's no explosions here.

Then something unusual, something
strange
comes from nothing at all.
I saw a spaceship fly by your window,
did you see it disappear?

Amie come sit on my wall and read me a
story of old.
Tell it like you still believe that the end of
the century
brings a change for you and me.

Nothing unusual, nothing's changed
just a little older that's all.
You know when you've found it, there's
something I've learned,
'cause you feel it when they take it away.

Then something unusual, something
strange
comes from nothing at all.
But I'm not a miracle and you're not a saint,
just another soldier on the road to nowhere.

Amie come sit on my wall and read me a
story of old.
Tell it like you still believe that the end of
the century
brings a change for you and me.

Amie come sit on my wall and read me the
story of O.
Tell it like you still believe that the end of
the century
brings a change for you and me.

The joys of teaching...

On Tuesday evening, in my Composition II class, we busted out some crazy rhyme schemes and mad assonant beats. By this, of course, I mean poetry. Yes.

To get their composition-loving feet wet, I assigned a dozen poems for homework. True, I had read the majority of the poems I assigned beforehand, but one escaped me. When I was preparing for class I stumbled upon this happy surprise, and the poem hit me. I can't pinpoint it, but it evoked emotion and stirred something inside of me. Maybe urgency...maybe desire...both emotions the poet is conveying, among others. And that is what good poetry should do. Affect.

In teaching the poem, I know I relayed my passion for the work...and in talking to my students, several of them had emotional reactions to Pastan's words. Earlier this evening, I received an e-mail from one of my students explaining how this particular poem impacted her and how she didn't feel she could share her emotions or opinions in class, but she just wanted to let me know. I loved that e-mail. I love knowing how words can cause chain reactions from the page to your mind and through your body. In short, I am a nerd.

Shared passions. Slight nods of affirmation. Excited looks that say, "Yes, I get it. I know exactly what the author/poet means, but I've never been able to express it that well." These are the joys of teaching.


love poem by Linda Pastan

I want to write you
a love poem as headlong
as our creek
after thaw
when we stand
on its dangerous
banks and watch it carry
with it every twig
every dry leaf and branch
in its path
every scruple
when we see it
so swollen
with runoff
that even as we watch
we must grab
each other
and step back
we must grab each
other or
get our shoes
soaked we must
grab each other

I ♥ short short stories...

"I was never good at hide and seek because I'd always make enough noise so my friends would be sure to find me. I don't have anyone to play those games with anymore, but now and then I make enough noise just in case someone is still looking and hasn't found me yet."

Let's play catch up: An exhaustive list of events...

Things that have happened since my last blog post (in no specific order):

• One of our house pets, First Lady (an African Dwarf Frog), died. Our fish, John Adams, was in mourning for weeks.
• I went to New York City.
• My students turned in their first essays, which proved to be interesting reads.
• I found a spider in a bell pepper.
• I wrote snippets of poems on the backs of receipts in between subway stops.
• I had several drinks at the taco bar behind my apartment, and that place is never a good idea.
• I slept for approximately 230 hours.
• Two replacement frogs were purchased.
• I put down a deposit on a house, which (subsequently) made me feel far too adult-ish.
• I ate many, many sandwiches at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chelsea.
• I almost flew to Missouri to rescue a dog named Molly, but – assured a family with children wanted her – I stayed put.
• I bought Dendrobium Orchids and they were beautiful.
• I watched TiVo-ed episodes of MXC and laughed.
• I spent quite a bit of time at JFK Airport and was quite disappointed in the breakfast selection.
• Replacement frog #1 died. Ashley performed some sort of top-secret burial ritual. I couldn’t watch.
• I signed a lot of housing paperwork. It was boring.
• I met incredible new friends that live too, too far away.
• I saw a British actress at the DFW airport.
• I got lost, by myself, in the ghetto. Good times.
• I took a few showers.
• I watched four episodes of The Biggest Loser and cheered for the Black Team.
• I celebrated Valentine’s Day with a café latte and fabulous dessert in a quaint coffee shop, preceded by a walk through Central Park.
• Replacement frog #2 died. The only logical reason for this frog holocaust is PetSmart has sickly frogs. Look out.
• I picked out flooring and appliances.
• I tried avocado eggrolls.
• I celebrated the birthday of one of my favorite people.
• I carried luggage across Manhattan.
• I tried out some new recipes.
• I was upset about the economy and falling interest rates. Though it may prove beneficial to mortgages, it is not good for high-yield savings. Stupid.
• I played Guitar Hero: 80s Edition.
• I attended Emily’s baby shower aka Abilene High mini-reunion.
• I ate famous cupcakes.
• I discussed current events over Saturday morning coffee at Starbucks.
• I stayed up all night.
• I two-stepped.
• I slept on a futon in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
• I rode curled up in the back of a Volvo station wagon.
• I read a lot of Flannery O’Connor.
• I drank delicious wine in various forms: sangria, bellinis, and wine…just.
• I took photographs showing the progress of my house like a proud mom.
• I ate Italian food for far too many meals back-to-back.
• I tried the new, tiny cheeseburgers at Chili’s and they were incredible.
• I went to bed with wet hair and woke up to a wavy mop.
• I took my first taxi in Texas.
• I frequented the local DQ for Blizzards.
• I paid $70 for a cab to catch a plane I missed – all so I could meet a friend uptown for coffee. Worth it.
• I held a hamster.
• I saw Leslie Hall in concert for the second time and threw my head back with laughter (www.lesliehall.com).
• I jumped a fence.
• I saw a grown woman wearing a Jurassic Park backpack. Awesome.

So, yeah…that’s about it. The events of the last month…from the mundane to the less mundane. Maybe one day I will put up some photographs or something.