Amy Winehouse - Me & Mr. Jones - Live HD

Harvey used to sing this song to me, substituting in "Me and Pamela."  It was so sexy, so so sexy, so hot.

I never dreamed that this would be the story of my life without him, a life that sometimes doesn't mean dick to me.

What kind of fuckery is this, indeed.

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Going, going, and soon to be gone

An Attempt at Epistolary 

(after Marina Tsvetaeva)

How is your bed without me?

SNIP SNIP SNIP 


How is your bed without me?  

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Posttraumatic Deztox Syndrome

This is life after Dez.  So much happier!  Here I am at the Pogue Special Collections Library, in front of the brace of Art Deco copper-clad doors.  Pogue's the most beautiful building on campus, and I am so happy that no one has tried to tear it down for something "efficient."  Age has its charms.  

This is me at 54.  I feel pretty wonderful, right here, with no one arguing with me about what I am supposed to do, telling me to drop my friends, etc.  I never felt so confined as that.  

I think Harvey would approve of this version of Pamela and tell her to go for whatever she wanted. What I want is to write, to teach, to be a wonderful mom, and to have a summer romance with someone who's normal.  (Cue Bobby Vinton here, or maybe Blake Shelton Lite).  

Or maybe Amy and NARS.  

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For Ms. Moon and Radish King

Here's my new (old) bowl, filled with Granny Smith apples, cherry tomatoes, an Early Girl, Cajun peppers, and banana peppers big as water skis.

I've named every one of these roosters Elvis.


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Akhmatova and the Alphabet

THE SENTENCE--ANNA AKHMATOVA 

Today I have so much to do
I must kill memory once and for all
I must turn soul to stone
I must learn to live again
Unless...Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I've foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.

(translated from the Russian by Judith Hemschemeyer)

Another Parker (Dorothy) says it best, "You might as well live."

I want to know how I went from this:

Broadsided

to this:

Anti-

I want to go back to praising the world.

Here's a gratitude alphabet of what I love and will promote.

 1. Art museums Especially the Frist, which was smart enough to obtain a Harvey drawing. 
 2. Beethoven's Eroica. 
 3. Coffee. Tea. I'm not me without them. (If you're old enough, you'll get the joke).
 4. Diamonds. Rhinestones. Prisms. Shiny shiny shiny. 
 5. Elegies. Tennyson to O'Hara to Bang to my own.
 6. French (Apollinaire, Baudelaire, Char, a wonderful ABC on its own).
 7. Geodes. Such beauty, in such an ordinary wrapper.
 8. Hairbrushes. Snarl, scratch, slither of hair going through them. I like brushing hair and having mine brushed, too.
 9. Indigo buntings. Heck, indigo anything.
10. Jewelry--from Bakelite to bling. (You thought I was going to write John Cusack, didn't you?)
11. Kissing. (See parenthetical 10)
12. Lipstick. Levis. Lazy days. Light filtering through the water maples and falling on the porch.
13. Milky Way bars.  I'm monogamously married to them.  (And I like those two things as well--monogamy and marriage--as once they defined my life).  
14. Nabokov. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 
15. Offspring. Mine: Dan and Raleigh.
16. POETRY. Donne. Keats. Tennyson. Whitman. Bishop. Williams. Hayden. Yours. Mine.
17. Questions. More than answers, but why?
18. Rumi. If I could learn to love as he does, my world would be...transformed.
19. Siamese cats. Even/especially one named Koko.
20. Typewriter tins.
21. Umbrellas, paintings with umbrellas.
22. Violets, especially the ones shaded Veronique.
23. Whistler.
24. XOXOXO.
25. You. You. You.  You. You.  Even you, DZ.
26. Zippers, buttons, hooks and eyes, safety pins. Don't know why, just do. Sewing notions of all kinds.  I like closure and also undoing.  

XOXO to anyone who's slogged through this list. 

What's wrong with these pictures? A. NO SLEEP

This is taken by a 6 feet 7 inch photographer.  I don't like it.

Working with only 3 hours of sleep the night before!  

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Typewriter, Typewriter, Type Righter!

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Typewriter 2, 1973, by Dale Leys.  


I almost never miss a chance to buy art, but sometimes it eludes me.  I've wanted a drawing by Dale for years and years, and now I have one.  It joins my collection of drawings, prints, and paintings, and I'll hang it over my desk for inspiration.  


Happy early birthday to me, from me. I'm being very good to myself these days and praying for a good resolution to the DZ situation.  I feel a little less captive--and captivated--every day.  

The end of heartbreak isn't here, but it's in sight.  

ANNA KARENINA - Official Trailer (2012) [HD]

This could be THE movie for me this year.

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For Harvey--was this song written for you?

Women drink him in, swimming in his green eyes


Every lyric about how she feels about her husband is how I feel about you--always, sweetheart.  


Pamela 


Read more: AMY WINEHOUSE - BETWEEN THE CHEATS LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/between-the-cheats-lyrics-amy-winehouse.html#ixzz1yMeRXP4Q 

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Today is a Day No Geraniums Will Bloom: Monday

The Geranium

When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,

I brought her back in again
For a new routine--
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!--
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.

Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me--
And that was scary--
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.

But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely.

Theodore Roethke
_______

No geraniums here, either; and of my 500 day lilies, only 15 bloom today.  A dearth of day lilies.  A dram of fragrance in a jar on the desk.  

I am direly lonely for peonies, for poetry, for pie, and all I can manage is one of them.  I shouldn't even manage that, but a girl all by her lonesome has to eat.

CONFESSION:  I miss D.  (I know, I know, but it's still true.  I became accustomed to his pretty face, as cliche-cute as that song, as cliche-clinched as my biochemical response to him, and his to me).

I could to say that I have memories to kindle a few fires at the retirement center, but then I already had those--a ton of them from Harvey, and a few more from my few years of college dating.  I wonder why I can't live without some kind of physical contact, why I craved the idea of D. and the exquisite anatomy of him, the acrobatics with him, and not the actuality of him.  (Why the heck did he want to marry me?  That ruined everything, and everything wasn't perfect before then.  All the jealousy, daily photos, etc).

Do you think, Universe, that there is a little love and trust and friendship out there for me, ever again?  I was so very blessed with Harvey, and without him I'm just a piece of, well, pie.  Or a few crumbs of crust.

And until this I prided myself at being good at the relationship thing.  I guess that's a talent I lost.

I was that lonely.  "The Geranium," Theodore Roethke  

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The Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling (Live)

That guy in the hat is originally from western Kentucky.  Check him out.  

The Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling (Live): The Black Keys perform "Gold on the Ceiling" live at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards

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Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to Harvey Parker, who was the best dad I ever had the privilege to know. Even at 22, he just knew how to be the dad every son, especially Dan, wanted--playmate, confidante, fellow cartoon watcher-- and at 33 he perfected the art of falling in love with his daughter and making his wife fall more and more in love with him.  I will always love you, sweetheart, and I will always long for the days we were together.  Every morning when I awaken, I expect you to be there, holding my hipbone.

Here are Harvey and Pamela, visiting in Tennessee, and below us is Harvey's dad, holding his granddaughter, Jessica Nettles.  This is the day that we told his family we were pregnant with Raleigh.   Dan took these photos.




This poem won't be up very long because it's out in the world.  For Father's Day, though, I wanted to honor Harvey, so I'm posting it:

BLIND CONTOUR DRAWING

(smoke and mirrors)

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Happy Bloomsday

after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could  O Molly Bloom dear blooming girl that facet of me that is you that is sex before love always gets me in trouble and this is an encapsulation of my relationship with D and if he could just understand Ulysses then he would understand me a little  Here are the Cliffs Notes in eight of my sentence fragments o that long kiss was exquisite a series of them was exquisite o he understood or felt what a woman is and I had forgotten that someone could be that intuitive o i did give you all the pleasure that I could but that was all I can give pleasure not my heart and not my soul and not my family and I don't want to give up my teaching and I will not give up my writing to be with him I have only had it back for 5-1/2 years and I want to keep it always so unlike molly who thinks as good him as another I am not saying yes and unlike Penelope I am not saying later to stall him or stave him off I am not a Penelope and not a Molly I am a Pamela and I want someone who will always come to me not to some idea he has of me being perfect because I am not perfect  I want a man who likes my jokes and my mind and my moods and not just my skin and my eyes although they are fine eyes yes very fine  I want a love who will say To me you are Ithaka and I had one who said these very words to me after 23 years of marriage and meant them  and when I asked D about Ithaka he told me it was in New York yes he did yes

Follow the Leader (I ask the Oracle a question)

So the PB called me again and made a pretty convincing case for coming home to see me in 4 weeks.  No more marriage, no more jealousy, no more roping me off like a calf at the rodeo.  We'll see, I said.  And then I asked the Oracle, the poetry muse, what to do, because I do have to see him to give back these Jeanine Payer rings.

The Oracle didn't let me down.

Says, it will be heavenly
To be set free,
Cries, heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

from “The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith

But what's heavenly, the freedom, the disenchantment?  I needed to find the poem, which I didn't know.  It's definitely going in my long-long-desired Fairy Tale unit:

The Frog Prince, Stevie Smith

I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
Of a green well

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father’s palace

The story is familiar
Everybody knows it well
But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell,

As if they will be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
In a frog’s doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in all this time
I have not shed many tears,

I am happy, I like the life,
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am for ever agile.

And the quietness,
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,

But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another thought comes to me and says:
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment

Says, It will be heavenly
To be se free,
Cries Heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly,
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly.

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"Fucked Me Right Up"--My Theme Song

If you don't love him, with all your heart, there's something wrong with you and your heart.  This is heaven.

And that last line--priceless.

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Cold Turkey, Days One and Two

Monday:  Break up for good with the Pretty One.  Consider calling him most of the day.  Resist.

Tuesday:  Receive in the mail the wedding bands he bought for the two of you.  WTF WTF WTF.  Should you pawn them?  Send them back?  Sell them for their weight in gold?  Use them for earrings?
_______

Monday:  Present Teaching Ekphrasis in the Classroom to vast and wild applause.  Harvey would be so proud of you.

Tuesday:  Forget the name of your collection in search of a publisher, perhaps because you changed the title to something less obvious than the title you loved, Cleave.   Harvey would find this so funny.  Cry a little bit.
_______

Monday:  Swear that you'll never date again.  Mean it.

Tuesday:  Go on Chemistry.com to see if the subscription your friend bought for you is still valid.  See the Pretty One has just posted a profile, stating that he has been searching for love all of his life, only to have it wrested away by fate.  (If fate is a 50+ year old woman who is tired of obsessive jealousy, insistence on marriage, and misunderstanding, then it was fate).
_______

Monday:  Write what you think is a killer prose poem about the reasons you dumped the pretty one.  Look in your email and see that the Pretty One wants to be your Facebook friend.  

Tuesday:  See that you have forgotten how to write a non-prose poem.  Read yesterday's prose poem and be struck all over again that you cannot write a sentence that is not S+V+O in construction.   Change your Facebook password.
_______

Monday:  Spend time with your friends Will and Dale Ray, missing Harvey and crying a little bit and laughing a lot more as you honor his memory.

Tuesday:  Spend 30 minutes on the phone with your best girlfriend, deciding that the Pretty One was actually in the Mafia and has called a hit on you.  Even though it's a joke, you start to give this theory credence.
_______

Monday:  Cry.  Cry some more.  Crave kissing.  Crave chocolate.  Crave your husband's hands on the small of your back.

Tuesday:  Begin the work for your dental implant of tooth #14.  Cry.  Cry some more.  Crave taffy.  Crave coffee.  Deny yourself for the greater good.   Delete all pictures from your phone of the Pretty One.  Console yourself that there are hundreds on your computer.  Remind yourself that he sent you all of them.
_______

Monday:  When he calls you (and he will call you 15 times that morning and 12 times before sundown),  don't pick up.

Tuesday:  He doesn't call at all. This annoys you for some reason.
_______

Monday:  Smell his cologne everywhere you go.  Acqua di Gio.  Feel both aroused and slightly embarrassed by this snake-in-the-spine reaction.

Tuesday:  Look forward to a blind date arranged for you by your friend.  Resolve not to be deaf or dumb yourself the next time around.

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Radiohead - Full Stop (NEW SONG)

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"I've a Feeling We Aren't in Kansas Anymore"

To get ready 

to get in the car

to board the plane

to fly to Chicago 

to the Congress Hotel

to take the taxi 

to Joe's 

and then back 

to the Congress Hotel 

to take a short rest

before the Chicago Art Institute

to see if my painting can be attributed 

to a newish master

to get a receipt from the Morelli analyzer 

and then back 

to the hotel 

to take a nap

to look rested and resolved 

to get a pedicure

to walk around in a hotel bathrobe 

to primp for Radiohead

and then back 

to a taxi 

to the stadium 

to listen to music 

to feel like a kid again

to dance maybe in my seat

to flick my lighter  

and then back 

to sleep perchance

to dream of the pretty one then 

to get in a taxi at 6 a.m.

to go to the airport

to check in luggage and 

to arrange for painting transport

to have breakfast 

and then back 

to the plane 

to head back to Kentucky

to leave the airport

to pick up my car 

to drive to Murray 

and then back 

to MSU  

to do my PAWP presentation from 9 

to 11:30 

to get paid the big bucks

to cover my ticket

to get from Paducah 

to Chicago 

to Paducah 

to Murray 

and then back

AARGH.   

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Two Different Versions of Reality

Yes, I will love this for the rest of my life, typos and all:  


My position is that rage and grief, the two forbidden or at least discouraged emotions, are the way home for us spiritually and psychically. Anger, esp for women, is the great sin. the culture tells you that angry women are either totally defective, or witches. But you can't come into the fullness of your life without dealing with the suppressed rage of having been scared and abused along the way. And the grief heals us, even though everyone wishes you would hurry it up and be done already. Our tears baptize us, wash us, hydrate the ground at our feet, where we might NOW be able to let some amazing new plants grow. Succulents and those gorgeous crinkly crunkly poppies; eleanor roosevelt irises, flowering pear trees. But unfortuantely, you have to do the grief and rage. "   


Anne Lamott, from a 6/8/12 travel post on Facebook 


WTF do you say to this?  


"Every morning, I want to wake up with your breath on my chest." 

The Pretty One, from a 6/8/12 phone conversation 

Southern Red's BB-Q, Hope Y'all Came Hungry

I was hungry, and it was your world.  (Sorry, Bob Dylan)

Raleigh having a FIT(CH) and making a face. 

Excellent BB-Q with slaw--the sandwiches were so big we had to attack them with forks.   

On the way out, I pose again for what could be the most Kentuckian author photo yet.

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Heartbreak: A Poem and a Postscript

  ANYTHING IN THE THICKET


“We like a fire and we don’t mind if it smokes.”  
                             Gertrude Stein, Lifting Belly    

What I touch flash-burns

                        What I leave turns

                                    Into ash.

            Or I’m sorry for

                        Myself, or I

Disagree

                                   

                                    With myself, or How

                                                I miss my last

                                                            Lover—cold,

                                    Stoned, and partial

                                                To me. Now he

                                                            Doesn’t come

                                    Anymore, now it’s

                                                Night, now here you

                                                            And this fire

                                    Arrive, best of all and

                                                Worst of all. I

                                                            Don’t much like

                                    A fire tonight, and

                                                The same goes for

                                                            Death. I like

                                    You smoking, here in

                                                Bed, your black hair

                                                            And darker

                                    Thoughts of consumption

                                                And no light, to

                                                            Which I don’t

                                    Agree. Smoking, your hands

                                                Are strangers. And

                                                            Again this

  

                                    Fever, stoked, goes up.

                                                I learn some things

                                                            Here, a lot

                                    Of your words:  Welcome

                                                Heartbreak; we welcome

                                                            All the things

           

                                    That do the breaking as

                                                Our cigarettes

                                                            Wither in

                                                           

                                    Their trays. Elegies? 

                                                I understand them

                                                            Better now.  

(originally published in FLIP)

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Rest in Peace, Ray Bradbury

My beloved magician, my inspiration, my role model for writing every day.  I resolve to be even more devoted to the desk and to the page.  I mourn you with my whole heart and am glad I'm a Bradbury, too.

The word of the day today, not surprisingly, is "indite," a word I learned from you, which means to put it down in writing, so that it will live forever.  You'll live forever, too.  

I love you.  

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