'Cause We Like To

I thought it might be fun to add a little variety here by posting some older stuff occasionally, most of which has never been seen by anyone outside of myself and perhaps a few of my writers group cronies. This one is from the late '90's when I ran the Poetry Porch during Tremont Art Walk over the course of three summers. It's a 100% true story.

 ***

So while every sane person is out at the beach or having a picnic or some such, I'm roving about Tremont with a staple gun, posting "Poetry Porch" flyers in the 90 degree heat. I've plastered about three fourths of the hood when a boy, perhaps eight years old, drives up on his bike. "You the one puttin' those up?" He points to the telephone pole I just hit.

"You mean the flyers?" I ask.

"Yeah. What's those about?"

"They're for a poetry reading."

"'Cause me and my friend are tearing them all down." Sure enough, as we speak another somewhat smaller boy is across the street picking at the comers of the flyer I just posted. We watch as he rips it down and crumples up. He is smiling.

"What the hell are you doing that for?!!"

"'Cause we like to." His eager expression reminds me of a puppy explaining that he likes chasing sticks.

"Man, you're crazy!” He just looks at me blankly.

“Hey, this is for the Black Poetic Society!" I try, hoping to appeal to the small African-American in him.

"I hate poetry."

"You should come and listen. You might like it."

"Nah."

"Well cut it out!"

"It's okay, you can put more up." He seems rather proud of himself, as if he honestly believes he's come up with a good and rational solution to my problem. Then he rides off and I watch the two of them casually roll down to the next phone pole and reach for the flyer. I turn away, shaking my head in disbelief.

I finish posting the rest of the flyers on tiptoes, as far up as I can reach.

***

We now return you to our regular featured programing...

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

Reading to begin as soon as I'm done posting here will be the homework from tonight's Market Gardener class: the first five chapters in The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook

Wrote some fun letters to an old high school buddy, but not much else.

Good Eats

Still working through that big crock pot full'o porky goodness. Tonight, accompanied by a nice salad. And I've been snacking on macadamia nuts today, which I haven't bought in a good long time because those suckers are 17 bucks a pound. But my, oh my, they are tasty. I'm doing a Whole30 this month which means I'm back to hardcore Paleo: no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no sweets, no cheating. And no alcohol. So if I seem a little bitchy* this month, that might explain it.

*-er than usual.

My Adorable Child

...can ice skate like nobody's business. He's been in figure skating lessons for a while and is now taking speed skating too. He breezed through Basic 1, 2, and 3, and won his first practice speed skating race. He's gotten so comfortable on the ice. It's really fun to watch. But don't take my word for it, check this kid out.

Transformative. And now 100% vegan-free!

Oops, I did it again. Hit "new post" without a clue as to what I would write. (Pause wherein I decide to take a walk around the block, come home and make a snack of hot tea and almonds.)

It's that time of year when skunks, waking too early from their winter naps and able to find neither coffee nor danishes, commit suicide under the tires of slow moving vehicles on snow covered suburban streets, releasing that all-too-familiar odor that reminds us that Spring! is just around the corner yet still entirely too far away to make us want to do anything at all other than sit around in our pajamas, drinking coffee and eating danishes. Well, except for me. I'm having tea and almonds.

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike:

Still reading Breathing Lessons,  a chapter or two a night.  No writing of note, but I did take in a pleasant poetry reading on Friday at Visible Voice in Tremont, featuring Steve Goldberg, Bree, Miles Budimir and a bevy of open mic notables. It reminded me that I need to do this more often. A good poetry reading serves me as well as any house of worship in the serving up of transformative experiences.

Good Eats

Speaking of transformative experiences, on Saturday evening, a Very Nice Gentleman and I went to dinner at Brasa Grill, at his suggestion. His thought that Brasa would be a fine experience for a Paleo Gal like me. And indeed it was. We had a quick bite from the salad bar, then on to the main event in which servers bring 'round swords laden with a variety of meats in a seemingly endless cavalcade of meaty meatness. The offerings that I recall, and doubtless I'm forgetting some, included leg of lamb, sirloin (both top and bottom), chicken, bacon wrapped chicken, bacon wrapped filet, pork ribs, sausages, and ham. Now I am a fan and an amateur practitioner of both hedonism and gluttony, but there came a point in the evening when both VNG and I became a teensy bit overwhelmed by the parade of glistening brown skewers. And suddenly we were both overtaken by a passionate, desperate, longing...for vegetables. So we went back and filled our plates with fresh leaves and green beans. No dessert necessary, thank you very much. 

We then took a little jaunt to the new Transformer Station art gallery and smirked on the way in about how, according to the publicity, the place was going to transform the Cleveland art scene. But you know what? It was a damn fine show and and really inviting space. And as we wandered though the first room I was thinking how they had chosen the perfect strange ambient music for the whole affair, and come to find out when we reached the second room that it was being created live by an old friend, noise artiste Bob Drake. Très chouette.

After that, more things happened. But I've already wandered far astray from my food theme, so. Whatever. MY BLOG, MY RULES. Dammit.

Dinner tonight was (and yes, there have been some other, unwritten pauses in the making of this post)  Slow Cooker Kalua Pork (Yum!), Paleo rice  (shhh, it's really cauliflower) and kale chips, which, since I cooked up my first batch of it today, was made with homemade ghee rather than olive oil. I season mine with balsamic vinegar and smoked salt. I've become a nut for smoked salt. Greatest seasoning since horseradish in a jar. 

Meat gooood.

After last night's meatapalooza, I needed to take a little break, so while my pork simmered away all day in the crockpot, I avoided meat until dinner, other than a couple slices of bacon at breakfast and some chicken for lunch.

My Adorable Child

...will be discussed at great length in my next blog post, no doubt. For now I'll mention that he was fired from OT for failure to apply himself or to improve his behavior despite diligent application of said OT. Tomorrow I will discuss this with his therapist. How does one motivate a child to transform his behavior when the child does not see any problems and enjoys acting like a lunatic? This is what I'm up against, folks.

Heavy work in OT

In the Name of God

In the entire year of 2012, I made four blogs posts. This is my sixth post so far in 2013 and it's still January. So while I'm not exactly regular about it, I'm going to give myself a wee little pat on the back because, hey. Who doesn't want a pat on the back? I usually have at least an inkling of what I want to write about when I hit the "new post" button, but today I got nothin'. Just figured I'd start typing and see what came out. Um... (pause wherein I go to the kitchen and eat some dried apricots)

I was thinking about God today. I wrote a long comment about these thoughts on a friend's blog which quite possibly had nothing whatsoever to do with what she had been talking about, but it's where my mind went with it. I was not brought up religious and have never felt a need to apologize for my lack of religion. I don't consider myself an atheist or an agnostic or anything at all, really. And yet...back when I was a teen I felt I needed to develop my own definition of God; something that made sense to me, that I could live with, that would lend a personalized pseudo-spirituality to my life. So I did and it goes like this: God is "The All." Not just that God is IN everything, but the God IS everything; the total sum of everything that exists. Everything is equally and interdependently God: a pebble, a mountain, a sandwich, a gun, air, music, you, me. Pretty simple, but I liked it.

I worked out that definition when I was in high school and have stuck with it ever since. I've even been kind of proud of it. But today as I was writing it, it struck me as a little hollow. And I wondered why I had ever wanted to define God in the first place, and suddenly had the notion that perhaps in doing so, I have taken away my ability to be open to some bigger, unnamed truth.

Naming things can be problematic. I read somewhere that a prelingual child will not recognize shades of a color as the same color-- chartreuse, pine green, mint green, celadon-- appear to be their own utterly unique colors until a child learns the word "green." The label then forever changes how the child sees the world. This group of colors is green. That group is red. So extrapolating here, has deciding that I need a definition for a concept of "God" prevented me, in some very fundamental way, from understanding the universe and how I fit into it?

The closest thing I have to a religious philosophy is an abiding respect for Zen. The idea of maintaining a "beginner's mind" resonates with me. I'm feeling the need to go back to that now.

Okay, enough of this nonsense. Back to the old grind.

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

Reading: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler. And staying up much too late at night to do so. Third chapter in, and I like it so far. A refreshingly straightforward style and storyline.

Writing: blog posts. I want credit for this, okay? And I have what I think will be a fun story idea for my next writing group prompt. Nothing on paper yet, but circling around it in my mind.

Good Eats

Beef stew with lots of veggies in it. Raw carrot and beet salad. Dried apricots.

My Adorable Child

...is asleep. As should I be. Cop out? Sure. But after two nights in a row of fives hours sleep each, I'll take it. Goodnight. 

The Importance of Being Frank

1998 photo of Frank by Andy Timithy

Frank Green died. When I heard that yesterday I felt both gut-punched and bewildered. Had his HIV progressed that quickly since I last saw him? When was that? Probably at a party at Sally and Jerry's. Or was it at the Lit? No. No. It's not right. How could he be gone so soon?

I met Frank in 1999, when I worked with him on a committee putting together the very first Tremont Arts and Culture Festival. Frank was sharp, witty, cute. I liked him right away. We never became close friends, but I saw him from time to time and I thought of him as a touchstone in the arts community. Admired and respected him. Over the years, attacks on his mind and body from within and without rearranged the way he looked and thought. But there remained that Frankish core. Positive, creative, funny, Frank. Always Frank.

In recent years, Frank forgot exactly who I was. But every time he saw me, he'd get a bright, happy smile, and say, "I know you!" as if I were a long lost friend. Then he'd ask my name. Utterly sincere and unembarrassed. Oh sure, he could be a pain in the ass sometimes; like, he seemed to always have forgotten something-or-other and he'd need a ride to go fetch it, but you couldn't help but shake your head and smile and love the guy. Just so Frank.

And always a big hug when he was leaving. Until now.

I scanned the growing number of posts about Frank on my Facebook page and learned from Mike DeCapite that Frank had died from hitting his head in the shower. So it wasn't the HIV or the diabetes, or the cancer, or the drugs, or any of the other crazy shit that he had already survived. Hit his head. Maybe he got off easy, all things considered. Not that that makes it easy for those he left behind.

I am in no way qualified to eulogize Frank Green. I trust that his myriad of closer friends will do a stellar job of it. Just thought I'd toss in my little goodbye note from the outer fringe of his life. Because I, for one, am going to miss having him ask me my name just one more time.



Update: Just heard that Frank actually died of a stroke.  Adding that here so as to not spread incorrect information.

Lost and Found

In my last blog entry I wrote, among other things, this: 

Weird mind quirk: Not long after moving into my current house 12 years ago, someone who was driving past stopped and asked me where an obscure little street in my neighborhood was. I didn't know. I found out a couple months later and I've been wanting him to stop back and ask again ever since.

And just now I got back from a walk in my neighborhood, during which a young man ran up to me and breathlessly asked me if I knew where that very street was. And I told him! He thanked me and ran off in that direction. It was utterly weird yet very gratifying, despite the fact that it was clearly not the same person who had asked me 12 years ago. One would hope the first fellow has found it by now. Still. What are the chances?

I'll bet 3 out of 4 readers would like to tell me that this was not pure coincidence. That "putting it out to the universe" has caused, or at least contributed, to this happening. And I'd kinda like to believe that too; that I let loose this little wish and the universe responded to it, albeit imperfectly.

Trouble is, if you believe your wishes, prayers, and positive thoughts can cause good things to happen, what are you to believe causes the bad stuff? I'm not going to delve any further into this right now, but it is something I think about often. Causation, consequences, coincidences. What do you think?

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

Yes! I recently joined a writers group composed of nine wonderful women, all of whom are truly talented writers. Last night we met at my house. The ladies brought lovely snacks, chocolate, and FIVE bottles of wine. Jealous yet? Our prompt had been Keeping it clean. The writings were brilliant, illuminating, hilarious, heartbreaking, and more. The conversations they spawned were likewise. I wrote a piece that was the proverbial "thing that you don't want to write about," the hard, gut-level stuff. I went last, cried throughout the reading of it, felt the calm empathy and warmth of this circle of women. Cathartic. Just a lovely evening. Next month's prompt: Off the shelf. Should be interesting.

 
Good Eats

This morning I went down to the Coit Road Farmer's Market to buy eggs and whatnot. Kevin, market manager and owner of Spicehound, had made venison sausages yesterday, and today had cooked up a big ole pot of them with a mess of cabbage and boy howdy, was it ever good.

My Adorable Child

...called me from the zoo today, where his dad had taken him. He wanted to know if his pet mice were okay, and if it was okay to eat some french fries. Yes and yes. I love to hear his voice on the phone. He somehow sounds even younger and cuter. 

This is not a Facebook post

So I thought I'd do something different today and I left this "compose blog post" window open all day and wrote down random thoughts as they occurred. And I just reread them now and they look to me like a series of Facebook posts. Do I really think in Facebookese now? This cannot possibly be good.

I feel that I have become addicted to the internet in general and Facebook in particular. I'd like to temporarily shut down my Facebook account, but this is complicated by the fact one of my few paying jobs these days is making a daily post on the Funny Times Facebook page. I don't think I can continue as an admin there if I don't have an active primary account. And I'm an admin on five other Facebook groups, four of which I created and two of which have had an influx of new members and a flurry of activity lately. So I can't very well abandon all of them now, can I?

Is internet addiction a real thing? I'm suppressing the urge to Google it because, come on. What am I going to do, join an online forum for internet addicts? If anyone has any wisdom in this regard, lay it on me. Meanwhile, here are my random trinkets of thought, for what it's worth...

***

Weird mind quirk: Not long after moving into my current house 12 years ago, someone who was driving past stopped and asked me where an obscure little street in my neighborhood was. I didn't know. I found out a couple months later and I've been wanting him to stop back and ask again ever since.

***

I fear the possum lying in the middle of the road isn't playing.

***

Eating fresh raspberries in winter feels incredibly extravagant and decadent to me. I try not to do it too often so I can maintain that feeling.

***

Just a plain roasted chicken on Mulberry Street. This was my thought about my dinner as I watched some fancy meals go by on my wall. Yeah, that would be Facebook I'm referring to.

***

Word of the day: sapiosexual. Yes, I saw it on Facebook. FML.

***

Outlandish! I like this word. I'll not mention where I heard it today. I tend to like old fashioned words that have fallen out of favor. My son says he has two favorite words: chicken and dunebuggy.

***

Damn. These could have been some hella fine Facebook posts and garnered all manner of likes and comments but instead Ive got them languishing away on a blog that I know perfectly well not more than five people will read. Because nobody clicks over on links to blog posts from Facebook and where else does anyone even find out about blog posts?

Yes indeed, I do have myself a problem here. Help?

Once more unto the breach

Not doing so good at keeping up here. Gonna try to dash out a post while the boy is amused by a playdate.

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

I made my Funny Times Facebook page readers give me a writing assignment. They gave me 20 words; I wrote a story. Of course they had to go and give me words like triskaidekaphobia and sesquipedalian. Charming bunch, those Funny Times fans. So that was kinda fun. I also had to write an essay in order to get a mystery shopping job, but I won't bore you with that.

As for reading, I wasn't really in the mood for The Lacuna, but will likely pick it up again eventually. Instead, I've started up with the 2013 Pushcart Prize book. Much better suited to my short attention span. About five stories in now and nothing I've adored yet, but Pushcart always has an interesting mix so I remain hopeful.

Good Eats

Lunch: egg salad wrapped in lettuce leaves. Dinner: something involving chicken, avocados, and hijiki. Coffee today: yes, indeed.

My Adorable Child

...wrote this for me yesterday:



Instructions on how to go to sleep. I had given him an assignment to write three sentences, thus that second line says "the sentences." But he said he combined all the sentences into one.

The boy is currently in the backyard with his buddy, making a snow dragon, whilst his friend makes a snow cow. They have fallen in and out of love with each other a dozen times in the past hour and a half, periodically declaring that they hate one another and will never play together again, then working it out and having a blast. Laughter, tears, and fart noises. The stuff little boys are made of.

Off topic: Now if anyone can tell me how to fix the font size on blogger, I'd be much obliged. I want something between "normal" and "large" and I don't want to spend the time going into the HTML and changing every instance of "font size" to a number. Thanks!