Chicken Little--Goofy Loser

Survived the end of the world again...well, guess I didn't survive it since it didn't happen, but I am getting rather good at still being alive when someone says the end in near, even though it apparently isn't...you know, I'm not certain why people get in a huff about the end of the world since if it is going to end I can't figure out why they are so concerned because it isn't like they can do anything about it and if the world ends how would one prepare for it anyway since it wouldn't make sense to build a shelter or stockpile anything because, well, the world wouldn't exist anymore...I think it is better to have a positive attitude about the world ending...Hey!  I didn't have to pay off my credit card!...Yep, I'm a glass half full kind of guy...

Ha! It's next year already.

Well it hasn't been a year since my last posting, but a while anyway.

Finished reading Super Sad True Love Story last week. Rather troubled me. It's sad. Too close to the truth for me. Too close to where it seems we're headed. Too close to what I see in many of my students and many of my fellow teachers. Ah, the world keeps spinning.

Actually, I've read many good books in the past couple months. Got me one of them e-readers and download books from the public library (there are so many, what do you call them?...crap...love stories...you know...a beautiful woman is saved by a beautiful man and they fall in love crap...anyway, it takes a bit of time to weed through all those to find something good to read using the public library...seems rather sad they have so many of that genre for checkout...guess most people just want to be loved...or whatever). E-readers and very handy--easy to tote about, easy to read. No passion though. No intimacy. Cold.

Noticed I've been rather cranky lately. Beats me. Maybe it's hormones. Remind me to tell you about my hormones some time. Well, maybe that should be in the singular. Probably.

Had a student complain about my cussing in class the first day of summer session. I get one that complains at least once a year. Not certain why. Guess I oughta say "darn" instead of "damn" or maybe even "dang it." "Dang it!" a good one. Haven't used that in years. Tender ears. Maybe I'll stop cussing in class when they stop preaching in their essays. That's a good trade off I should think. I'll limit my vocabulary when they expand their minds. Ha! That's brilliant!

In just over a month I turn a year older. Think I got them ol' birthday blues. Maybe that's why I'm cranky. Maybe it isn't the hormone. It isn't that I'm dreading turning a year older, but more of just how soft I've let myself become. Think I may be a bit more cynical, too. Softness will do such to a person. Got to get unsoft to ease up the crankiness and stop being so dang cynical.

Any bets on when my next posting will be? Send all funds to the above address and if you win

Holy Crap!--it's been over a year since my last posting

So I see it has been over a year since I posted...sounds about right for me...this computer crap really invades our lives and we spend more time computerizing than talking to people...I'm sharing a sandwich with one of my dogs...have three dogs now and a cat to boot..sandwich is done and dog went back to bed...so I'm computerizing...wonder if I'll stick with it...maybe for a bit...don't hold your breath...if anyone is out there...and I don't know why you would be...hell, I almost didn't find this...even forgot the name of the page...why do we blog...why do we read other people's blogs...I don't know why I blog...perhaps I'll make a promise to, well it doesn't really matter to whom, that I'll blog at least once a year, minimum...perhaps...but maybe I don't computerize just out of protest...have a Facebook page that I look at maybe once every two months...tried it and found it to be a real pain...haven't figured out quite what its all about...haven't quite figured out why I don't delete my page or un-join or delete myself or what ever the hell one does to get off or out of Facebook...also joined Linke-somethingortheother...don't even remember why...some sort of professional Facebook site I think...never visited it again and have no intention to...both sites keep notifiying me that soandso wants to be my friend or some crap like that...actually I haven't added any friends in who knows when...maybe tomorrow I'll die on Facebook...would the other one too but I have no idea where it's located on the Web and am not motivated enough to search for it...did get a friend request from some porn site babe...a spam invitation I'm sure...but, still, I was flattered...okay, maybe not flattered...but it was the most interesting invitation I've received...what gets me is that if I do add a friend on Facebook then Facebook suggests other friends of the friend I've added...seriously?...I added my daughter and Facebook said,"Hey, maybe you would like to be friends with these people too!" (I paraphase)...one of the suggestions was my ex and I understand why my daughter has her as a friend...but seriously?...hell it took four years to stop getting mail addressed to her even though I moved six times...

Didn'ts

Okay, so I didn’t start the poem yet, didn’t get my desk cleaned off, didn’t get my bicycle trainer moved to my office which means I didn’t work out. Been quite a day of didn’ts.

Read a couple newish poems at open mic Wednesday evening…people laughed…they weren’t intended to make people laugh…having problems getting things right it seems…third one I read didn’t get any laughs…guess I got the dirge down…a bloody dirge…go figure. It was suppose to be an eulogy for my second wife…been trying for eight years to write an eulogy for her…actually have written several…all crap…last attempt became a dirge…like I said before, I don’t write poetry, all I do is type…now why would a poem pick someone like me to be its typist when I’m such horrible a speller? I am good with a dictionary though.

A side note about spelling: One of my students turned in a draft this week and used the word “turnt.” You know, the past tense of “turn,” as in, “I heard a noise and turnt my head.” Holy shit, can you believe someone doesn’t know what the hell that red wavy line that appears under a word is? I tried to give the person some credit and thought perhaps she had the spell checker turnt off, but had to throw that thought away since she also couldn’t figure how to put the page numbers in the header.

This poem keeps adding to itself in my head and I have a feeling that soon it will tell me to start typing. I hope so, because when poems keep popping in and out and giving more hints about what they should contain frustrates me…just tell me to type and quit screwing with me…spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…whatever Wordsworth.

If I stop smoking, start eating tofu, volunteer for some charitable organization or better yet, organizations, stop cussing, stop cussing in the classroom, quit mean mouthing god and religion in general, stop wearing red shoes, cut my hair and look respectable, get a dog and a couple of cats, not wait two or three or more months to return e-mails, call my brothers and sister more often, be more environmentally conscious, get a hybrid vehicle, bring bags to stores to carry my purchases home in, use mass transit, use less water, recycle more things, don’t buy things that can’t be recycled, stop cussing stupid people, stop thinking so many people are stupid, let people ahead of me in line, grow a garden, stop cussing the kudzu that keeps trying to invade my yard because it is, after all, just doing what kudzu does and truly doesn’t have a vendetta against me, send Christmas cards, stop gagging at the “cute” messages in the Christmas cards I receive, stop making fun of the people in the family photographs they put on their Christmas cards they send me, pay more attention to the news, feel sad when someone I’ve never heard of dies, stop laughing at the way young people dress, stop laughing at the way young people wear their hair, stop laughing at young people because they truly believe their current crisis is a crisis, be happy that someone or someone’s wife at the school where I teach has a baby, be nice to people who come to my door to preach and share the joy of their religion with me, stop cussing telemarketers, stop hoping telemarketers will call me so I can cuss them, ditto for home security representatives, be glad that all six vehicles that ran the red light made it safely through the intersection instead of wishing I had a M-series vehicle and could plow them down to teach them what the hell a red light means, stop cussing the ninety-six percent of drivers who don’t know how to use their turn signals, stop cussing drivers talking or texting on their phones and truly hope they get home safely, stop cussing the students who text in my class, stop wishing I had the nerve to drop a lit cigarette butt in butt crack of my students who dress like whores, stop thinking some of my students dress like cheap whores, stop laughing at people who wear the bill of their baseball cap backwards and then squint because the sun is in their eyes, listen to Easy Listening music instead of AC/DC and punk, stop cussing people who work so hard to look like they think they should look to be accepted instead of having enough self-confidence to look the way they do look, then I wonder if maybe I could channel “nice” poetry that people would like.

A Poem Will Be Written

Okay, read over past postings…what crap…either I write good stuff or shut this thing down…I teach, I write…teach is listed first because it takes so much of my time…writing does also but it doesn’t put food in my mouth…my prose friends have schedules they follow to ensure they have time to write…Trollope did too and once that fact was published in his autobiography after he died he rather fell out of favor…seems “real” authors didn’t write on a schedule…ah, times change…me, no schedule to follow…I’m not a disciplined writer…I wait until I have something to write and usually let it stew for a few days or weeks before actually beginning…reckon I’m lazy or not a good writer or just not motivated or perhaps I’m not really a writer…I may be just one of those folks who want to be a writer but put forth little to no effort…

A week and a half ago I was hit with something to write…nothing new for me but a different angle…not certain there is anything new to write, just a different angle…life hasn’t changed…people are people…customs change, attitudes change, lots of things change, but we continue being people just like all those before us…we tell the same stories over and over with a new twist that places the stories in the present day…seems like we would have learned something after hearing the same stories for centuries…ah, we’re just people…actually got a line, maybe a line and a half written last Friday about the “new” ideal…only took a week and a half to get one line or maybe a bit more written…and it’s crap, but a beginning…fact is, I’m not certain I really write…I just sort of tap on the keys of this computer and stuff gets written…then it sits for a week or more before I look at it again and attempt to polish it…sometimes that fails and it sits for another week or two or maybe a month or more…it makes that decision…I just try to listen…

This new thing has to do with my father’s family and their friends…first generation born in this country…hearing first-hand accounts of the “old country,” which, in fact, was home for the ones who came to this country…strange to think how differently life was for their children…maybe not all that different except for one thing, opportunity…the children were bilingual…Italian spoken at home and in their groups, English everywhere else…how the children sort of had a foot in each world…and other things as they grew…embracing baseball…surviving the Depression…serving in WWII and fighting in their parents country, their parents home …becoming Americans…

This shan’t be an easy piece…but, if I listen well it might not be too difficult…if it wants to be written that is, and I’m guessing it is since it presented itself…I’m not certain I write poetry, poetry writes itself…maybe prose is that way too…don’t know…I can force a poem…decide I am going to write a poem about this or that and punch it out on the keyboard like a machine…sometimes they aren’t too bad…but I don’t find that satisfying…sort of like the Vic20 program I wrote while sitting on a mountain top for a year…didn’t like poetry back then but writing the program was an exercise and kept my mind occupied for a couple days…guess some folk are good at popping out good poetry and maybe I could be too if I practiced doing that, but I’m not certain I want to…life should have some mystery…Trollope was accused of being mechanical and not working from inspiration…Trollope may have been super inspired daily, maybe he had an inside track, so to say…don’t know…lots of poets turn out tons of material…maybe I’m not really a poet…maybe I’m don’t listen well…maybe I’m too thick to be inspired daily…don’t know…I’m rather happy as I am…I’m a patient man…maybe that’s laziness…maybe not…maybe it doesn’t matter…since I’m content and happy it probably doesn’t matter…life is sweet if you don’t wrap yourself up with things that truly aren’t that important…the sun will rise, birds will sing, a gentle rain will fall, a smile will fill your soul if you permit it to, and a poem will be written…

Blogging, Scientists, and Poetry

Okay, my buddies got me into writing this blog and so now here I sit writing this damn thing and not writing poetry. Sort of makes me wonder if they planned it that way. Hell, if they didn’t like my poetry they could have just told me so. They didn’t have to trick me, you know. But what’s done is done and the earth spins, or so I’m told. I ain’t too certain the earth really spins because otherwise I figure we’d all be dizzy. Those science types will tell us anything and we say, “Oh!” We are just like little kids. We’ll believe anything scientists tell us. Back in the ‘70s an ice age was coming…”Oh!” Now it’s gonna get hot…”Oh!” Cold, hot, me, I’m holding out for when they tell us it’s going to not get above the low 70s for daytime highs and maybe in the 40s for lows in the winter. You see how this blog thing works? I mention something about poetry and zip…here comes a weather report.

There is a reason poetry is spelt the way it is…and no, it has nothing to do with any Latin or Guatemalan or whatever roots. Poetry begins with “po” because that’s what you are going to be if you rely on poetry as your financial support. Now you see a scientist can come up with some half-baked idea that ain’t nothing more than a theory and get everyone to say “Oh!” You know what a theory is, right? It’s a maybe. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…a maybe, and we fall all over ourselves eating it up, reading everything we can about it, watching television programs about it, listening to anyone on talk radio talk all about it, and preaching it to our friends and to strangers we’re stuck in an elevator or on a bus or whatever with. But poetry…”Aw man, that’s some boring shit.” I mean poetry is that crap in the card you give on holidays like Valentine’s Day or birthdays to show how much that person means to you in hope of getting lucky. And the mushier the better…sort of like my French toast with butter, peanut butter, and real maple syrup…over indulgence over hill over dale over the river over the top and if the gods smile on you, in the pants. That’s the purpose of poetry…it’s expected on certain occasions to maintain a peaceful life…and maybe loosen a belt or two. “Oh!”

This summer I was covering poetry in my Comp II class (I never mention I’m a poet to my classes but they eventually figure it out) and most, like most, don’t care for poetry and we’re talking about the poets and one thing leads to another and most of the class agrees that male poets aren’t manly. I mean come on…since poetry deals with emotions and real men only know maybe two emotions…hate and anything to do with balls of any shape or size…then male poets can’t be anything other than sissies…”oh,” i say. And women don’t want sissies, they want manly men…”oh,” i say. So I keep my mouth shut about me being a poet for a few more weeks and I keep reminding them about open mic at the school and eventually someone asks me if I read there and I say yes and the class sniggers but I bring in some poetry that ain’t in their book and we read it and they say “OH!”…even the manly guys in class...and the women sort of half swoon even though the poem I read by Etheridge Knight had the word fuck about a dozen times in it and it is a powerful poem and it’s a love poem and the guys understand what Knight is saying and the women understand what Knight is saying and it’s beautiful and the guys and the women both can feel the beauty of the poem and all I can do is say thank you to Mr. Knight for opening my class up to emotions and movement and beauty and poetry.

Weight Loss Over the Rainbow

So I go to the doctor a few months ago and he tells me I have type 2 diabetes and “Shit!” falls out of my mouth because the last thing I need in my life is any sort of diabetes because I know the severity of diabetes seeing as my second wife was a type 1 and it killed her so I know I gotta get my act together and lose weight and eat sensible and start exercising again because 256 pounds on a 5’11” frame is asking for trouble even though the doctor checked my body fat and it’s only two points over the max for someone my age which sort of means I ain’t grossly obese but am still too damn fat and the doctor tells me if I get down to 200 pounds I’ll have this thing beat but damn I like eating and I mean eating really good quality food and seeing as my wife and nephew and I love cooking we eat some great meals and I’ve learned how to cook things I love but have trouble finding in this area and am more than happy to spend three hours batting out a curry or anything else for that matter and can cook a steak that makes you want to fall in love so I start watching my carbs except for breakfast because breakfast is like the greatest meal of the day. Now I love supper too because that’s when we usually have our big meal but breakfast…OH! Beautiful, beautiful breakfast…I want food within half an hour of waking, I need food when I wake up, but I don’t go to sleep thinking of breakfast. But oh, when I wake I anticipate the flavors, the textures, the smells, and if breakfast includes French toast well then you know that all is well with the world and four or five slices of French toast slathered in butter and peanut butter with just a drizzle of real maple syrup will make me weep, but alas, today I have maybe one slice of French toast on the rare occasion with low fat margarine, no peanut butter, and a drizzle of some fake low fat or low sugar crap that someone decided to market as maple syrup. Healthier? Probably, but what the hell is the point of it all? Food isn’t just something to keep the body functioning, it is passion…sort of like the difference between masturbating or having wild passionate sex…masturbation will keep your eyes from crossing but wild, wild passionate sex makes you feel the marrow in your bones. But now I only eat half a steak, half of the curry I indulged in…moderation…that’s straight from Buddha’s mouth…a wise man…but if I sort of indulge for breakfast then I’m pretty satisfied for the rest of the day and I started poking myself twice a day and got my sugars in the normal range and have dropped to 232 pounds in a sensible amount of time but now I’m perched on that damn 232 ledge and need to drop another 32 pounds which seems like its sitting at the end of the rainbow but there ain’t no damn rainbow to be seen.