unnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh

I'm totally autistic. It's a fact. except for the part where I'm supposed to be a whiz at math. Maybe that just means I'm creepy, and not autistic at all- there's no genius to explain my need for repetition. need for repetition. need for repetition.

I'm ruined for making breakfasts. rooo-inned. They always come out looking like a prep cook did them- two dippy eggs, just right where there's no slime on them, two slices of toste sliced down the middle and arranged in triangles on the far side of the plate. And a beautiful, bountiful, belligerent cup of OJ, freshly squeezed to accompany on the pianoforte. It is a masterpiece of culinary delight.

I sit down and eat them to the sounds of the same song I just played 12 times in a row, dirty, dirty, you're such a dirty girl. And also the sounds I hear are the smack, smack, smack of birds trying to fly in the window on the front of our house. They do it every day. They do it all day. Sometimes there will be a real loud one, and we'll look out the window and see a bird laying on the ground, dazed. There will be a wet spot on the window. If I were a bird, I would not be so foolish. I would eat a little and then go away.

dun, dun dun dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNN

I ruined some of my dad's pants tonight, and my mom slapped me.
A high five.
She hated those pants.

A few nights ago, when we were chillaxin in our disco lounge, which is cleverly disguised as our kitchen, she went to the living room #2 and retrieved an old heart shaped box. and then played some nirvana. while that was happening, the box got opened, to reveal a note, which read,

"Will you marry me? (Earl Swart)"

and the other side had two stick-figure, featureless heads inside a box. that was my parents, together for ever- or at least a pictoral representation of the same.

They've been together for 25.5 years, if you count marriage time, and 26.5, if you count actual time. Apparently marriage time is fake. And they're still crazy after all these years, eating chips and arguing about wool pants, occasionally taking cruises, drinking coffee like it's going out of style, and concealing junk food from each other.

I sit in the middle and in the background simultaneously, recording everything with muted keyboard strokes and surreptitious glances and sneaky chip stealing fingers.

occurrences

mom and I talked again today about homosexuality. I doubt we'll ever agree. Though we may not think alike, can we not love alike? Certainly, Mr. Wesley.

I think I should be depressed, and if I were allowing myself to wallow in depressing thoughts, I very well might end up that way. But dammit, I just can't stay down. I start smiling like a goon for no reason at all. I dance across the kitchen floor, swaying my hips to Joss Stone and licking the cookie batter from the spoon. Some things in my life will have changed very little from age three to age seventy three, I think. And I really believe I'm all right with that. I look at who I am, at where I'm headed, and even though things seem mighty convoluted, I believe the kind older black lady at H&R block, who manages to tell me with a straight face that I am going somewhere, despite the fact that she is looking at real numbers of my financial worth. $12048 gross, $4978 taxable income, 2005.

I believe her.

I start working tomorrow, working like Cerberus himself was pawing at my heels. Things come together, and things fall apart, Mr. Achebe. And I keep having story ideas, writing when it makes no sense to be doing so, finding myself in a big, white box headed to Chicago where worlds collide and chicken chokes and Mr. Stevens warbles on softly in the background about bone cancer. It gets hot in small cars when many people are inside. And there is love, and seminary posters featuring exploitation of 3rd world countries, and no my uncle didn't answer the phone, even on the fifth try. And there will be some that I will continue to love, beyond all reason, measure or hope, and never, ever tell them about it. Why? It doesn't matter, the dark keeps being dark and cold is cold is cold.

Jeff and I will mountain bike this Saturday. And go see OTR in April. Once again, I will sit in the hushed stillness of a packed canal street tavern, listening to heaven drop on my fertile ears. And I will rejoice, and be glad in it.

just to say, say, say what you mean

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

----------
Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
by Kenneth Koch

1I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

----------
More Variants on Williams
by me

#1
This morning
I smashed
your favorite
cukoo clock

the one you
were planning to
give Dan when
you died.

Forgive me.
I simply enjoy
killing
wooden birds.

#2
Today you came
in
from New York
to visit me

And I left you
alone
at a Christian
College.

Forgive me.
I've always enjoyed
watching
Buddhists die slowly.

#3
Today I erased
all the files
from your
hard drive

Which you were
intending
to use for your
thesis.

Forgive me.
I needed a
new,
gray coffeetable.

beware the ides of march

beware greeks bearing gifts.

in honor of all the haiku writing lately, here are some in honor of emily, and war, and what is it good for, and bikes.

signing off at night
worlds apart, keystrokes away-
love you... don't get shot

you send photographs
images stuffed down phone lines
...the war seems far off

when you return home
what will have changed in our lives?
you get your bike back.

lil bubz wit sum fresh cuts

happiness = catching my little bro, sprawled on the floor playing xbox 360, singing "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, there's no other way" along with Natasha Bedingfield. In her octave, with a cracking voice.

He then reveals to me that if he ever releases a hip-hop song, it's going to be called "Hot Dawg Sauce."

duo

thump thump thump slide

kick out
arms spread
fly through air thick

with taco seasonings
ground beef in the microwave

coast and turn

double axel
triple salchow
dismount


socks on linoleum



------------------------------



You told me you liked my poem.
The one about socks, and running,
Sliding across the kitchen floor.

I thought about that for a while.
Thought about you and I,
Running the long lazy days away together,
Down to that greasy diner and back
To your house-

Marching to those crazy latin standards
Going down and dirty
In summer heat, winter chill
Cold hands and chapped lips
Buzzing against frigid mouthpieces.

I remembered standing on risers with you.
Walking across stage floors
And through stage doors
And beside you for all the accolades
And honors we received together.

Together.

And you like my poem, my crazy poem
About running, and socks
And linoleum,

And you don’t do any of it anymore.
You don’t feel that floor with your weak, flopping feet
Impotent at the end of stick legs,
Encased in a shroud of steel,
Pulled along by canes,
Or resting benignly on metal flappers
Like the figurehead of your solitary
Ship on wheels.


but


You still understand.
You still know that elusive feeling,
That lovely freedom of sliding along in the kitchen on socks.

I remind you,
And still we remain
Together-

On socks,
On wheels,
On wings.

Brian, shit, and Mars

WOOT! Brian sends shit to mars, and it gets there.

My dear friend, Brian Simms, from Denver, helped write the software on this project. After launch, he has been working in ops (he is an employee of Lockheed Martin, in Littleton, CO) to make sure everything is smooth as a baby canteloupe. And it was. Congrats, friend!



NASA Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Mars

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer 5 minutes ago
PASADENA, Calif. - A
NASA spacecraft successfully slipped into orbit around Mars Friday, joining a trio of orbiters already circling the Red Planet.
Scientists cheered after the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter emerged from the planet's shadow and signaled to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the maneuver was a success.
"Oh I am very relieved," project manager Jim Graf said minutes later. "It was picture perfect."
The two-ton spacecraft is the most sophisticated ever to arrive at Mars and is expected to gather more data on the Red Planet than all previous Martian missions combined.
It will explore Mars in low orbit for four years and is expected to churn out the most detailed information ever about the planet and its climate and landscape.
In the fall, the orbiter will begin exploring the Martian atmosphere, scan the surface for evidence of ancient water and scout for future landing sites to send robotic and possibly human explorers.
The $720 million mission is managed by JPL in Pasadena.
After a seven-month, 310 million-mile journey, the orbiter arrived at Mars Friday for the risky orbit insertion phase. Project managers had been nervous because of Mars' reputation of swallowing scientific probes.
But the Reconnaissance Orbiter performed the move without problem.
As it neared the planet, it fired its main propulsion engines for 27 minutes to slow itself down so that the planet's gravity could pull it into orbit. At one point during the burn, the spacecraft disappeared behind Mars — as engineers had planned — and was temporarily out of radio contact with controllers.
Mission control was visibly tense as it awaited word from the orbiter, which reappeared and signaled that it had entered into an elliptical orbit around Mars that will swing it as close as 250 miles above the surface.
The spacecraft will spend seven months dipping into the upper atmosphere to shrink the orbit.
The successful mission was welcome news for NASA, which has a mixed record of putting spacecraft into orbit around Mars.
In the last 15 years, NASA lost two orbiters back-to-back — the Mars Observer in 1993 and the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 — during the orbit insertion phase.
The Reconnaissance Orbiter is the fourth eye on the Martian sky, joining NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey and the European Space Agency's Mars Express, which have been mapping the planet the past few years. On the surface, the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, continue their robotic geology missions.
The newest orbiter is loaded with the most advanced science instruments ever sent to another planet including a telescopic camera to photograph the surface in unprecedented detail and radar to probe underground for ice and possible evidence of liquid water.
The spacecraft won't beam back images or data until November. Like previous space probes before it, it will seek for evidence of ancient water and other signs that the planet could have been hospitable to life.
It will also scan for potential spots to land the next generation of robotic rovers and determine whether human outposts can survive on the dusty planet.
Present-day Mars is dry and cold with large caps of frozen water at its poles, but scientists believe the planet once was warmer and wetter eons ago — conditions that might have been suitable for life.
During the mission's second phase, the orbiter will transmit data between Earth and Mars. It is expected to serve as a communication relay for the Phoenix Mars Scout, which will explore the icy north pole in 2008 and the Mars Science Laboratory, an advanced rover scheduled to launch in 2009.
The Reconnaissance Orbiter's primary mission will end in 2010.

come celebrate her!

Eysenck's Test Results

Extraversion (76%) high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity. Neuroticism (42%) moderately low which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic. Psychoticism (33%) moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly kind natured, trusting, and helpful at the expense of your own individual development (martyr complex).

Take Eysenck Personality Test (similar to EPQ-R)
personality tests by similarminds.com

one old friend, one new

My dear friend Evelyn, whom I participated in Huntington College Theatre with, recently sent me these pictures of herself and her daughter. Since I know some folks who check this blog out fairly often know Ev, I thought I'd post them. The tyke is named Morgan.

hubris

after the elvis special on public television is over, dad pops in an Andy Griffith Show dvd.

"Dad, are you putting that in to honor Don Knotts?" I ask over the top of my laptop a.k.a. crappy lappy, knowing the famed actor and comedian died recently.

"Nope," he replies. "I'm putting it in to honor me."

open your eyes, boy- I think we are saved

I'm playing handbells with Westside Church of the Nazarene as a favor to my aunt, who informally directs the group. They are one ringer short (sounds like a punchline) for an upcoming performance, so I'm stepping up to the plate, temporarily only. It's been pretty fun, I'm on the bass clef just like I was in college, so it's at least familiar. There's only a few times that I am unable to keep up, so I just abbreviate my part- it really is amazing how the mind can have such amazing physical memory response. And sometimes, it's amazing how it has no physical memory response.

*clunk* go the bells. *grimace* go the other ringers.

So tonight, we had a Mr. Everling, who apparently is the formal director and just shows up to final rehearsals and performances, come in and *clap clap clap* "watch the tempo, remember this section is piano" *gesture at certain bells at certain times and wave a baton* "remember the retard." So that was interesting. And then, halfway through the rehearsal, a homeless man came in the sanctuary. I went from drop dead witty to dumbstruck in seconds; I hate it when I do that. Like, oh crap, head can't do anything but sit here on top of this big clumsy body and hang open. He was muttering, then we got out of him that he was broke and needed a couple of dollars, or some work or some help. My aunt was the only one who actually spoke to him, until the Mr. Everling collected his wits and told the man to come back in the morning when the office was open. I wished to heaven that I had a couple of bucks in my pockets to give the man. But I didn't. I don't even have two dimes to rub together right now. But this guy, he is a guy, just like any other guy. Jesus died for this man, the Spirit groans, and the Father made him with just as much care as he made the Pope. He came to a church for help, and was ultimately turned away, and as he left, whispering began immediately, that he might grab one of the ladies' purses, sitting in the pews, on his way out. I bet none of them have ever had a purse stolen. I've had my bike cut from it's chain and robbed of me when I was already over the line of destitute, and still I wanted to give this man something, anything. Anything but the impression that we wanted nothing to do with him, and he was nothing more than a distraction, an unpleasant distraction amidst our handbell practice. Jesus doesn't give a flying crap about our handbells, our "Now hear the word of the Lord, Dry Bones!" for the old people after their potluck, where there will be plenty to eat. And Mr. Everling pantomimes kicking the guy in the butt to get him out the door after he's gone, and everyone laughs nervously, glad that reality check didn't last longer than 30 seconds.

All I could play were wrong notes for the rest of the night.

W-2s

I've decided I like calling Adam's Mountain Cafe looking for errant W-2s a lot more than calling Starbucks.

Just guess which establishment was answered by a man named Frog, who after a surprised beat of silence, exploded with, "Well how the hell are ya!?!?!"