Dan and I had a great day just doing errands, getting my hair cut while he shopped, and then seeing a popcorn film (Wolverine: Great fun for folks who aren't attached to the original story...and folks who enjoy seeing Hugh Jackman in glorious muscled detail.  That guy Works Out!)

We're home now and hanging out.  Nothing big planned for the weekend.  Just prep work for my doctor's appointment (2nd opinion with Dr. Lenz @ USC/Norris) and some golf.   Always some golf.

I did write a first draft of a new poem today.  It's called "The Stranger and The Word."  Check it out if you like.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend...even if you're not in glorious weather in Southern California.

Thanks to my youngest godson, Chad, I've joined the wacky world of Facebook.  This means I've spent the better part of two days figuring out how to add applications, how to update my profile, what "wall to wall" means, and why so many people are engrossed by this social networking site.  My two-second take on the phenomenon is that it's the next generation of email...just as email took over from snail mail, social networking will take over from email.

The old obsession I've been toying with is reading.  For the first few days after my diagnosis, I couldn't read anything at all.  The words bounced off my brain and lay there on the page, dead.  Now, that the initial shock is over though, I'm beginning to read again.  Not that I've suddenly started reading the classics...no, I'm back to reading thrillers, cop stories and a new sci-fi tale given to me by Erik.  But it had been nice to be interested again, to lose myself for a few moments in another world.

Last, but not least, is poetry.  I've written poetry for as long as I can remember.  And one of the things I quickly decided the past week is that I want to write a poem a day for a while.  So that's what I've been doing.  Not editing, not rewriting (although those things will have to come) but writing a new poem every morning.  So far, I like two of the three very much.  And it's wonderful to be flexing those neurons again...the ones that make yellow leaps and fuse together words that clearly belong together but don't usually occupy the same space.

Other than these three obsessions, Dan and I enjoyed an invigorating walk today.  I watered the plants.  Took back my kitchen (by putting things where they belong <grin>).  And we hung out for three hours with my brother, Dennis, and his son Brian, daughter-in-law June, and our great nephew Avery and his sister Ainsley.  The kids played in the yard, happily dismantling the putting green, tossing the balls in the jacuzzi and throwing in some tub toys I'd bought a while back for Avery.  The adults watched the little ones while talking and snacking...truly a memorable day.

I've posted a new poem in the Poetry section.  I'm trying to write a poem a day these days and I rather liked this one.  I stole the tempo and line break style from some recent poems of Mom's but the words are all mine.

It's called "Reading the Weather."  (Still not sure about the title.)

Enjoy!

It's our weekend to visit our friend in prison.  So no blog today.  Instead, I leave you this poem.  Newly minted.

A Peony Bursts

Somewhere between the kitchen and the front door, the blowzy peony lets go,
unnoticed.

 
On the way back from the greenwaste can,
a trail of false scarlet.
I leave the outdoor offering to wind, dew—
the helpful scatterings of nature.

Petals on the stoop and just inside the door,
I gather into one palm.  They are soft,
remarkably fragrant.
Frangible.  I roll them in my hand,
conjure visions of bone dice and tea leaves.
No use.  The petals remain


inscrutable.

I had a request to post my poem about Dan's grandmother, Maria.  I've posted two of them--Erosion and Afternoon at Villa Bonita.

Appropriate, somehow on a day when I learned that our aunt Nettie (my Dad's sister) sick in bed for so many years now, has passed away.  Godspeed, Aunt Nettie.  I'm sure Maria will be there to welcome you, released from her chair as you are now from your bed.

I heard from Stickman Review, an online journal of poetry and short fiction, regarding the five poems I submitted back in November.  It was a fairly encouraging rejection note.  Judge for yourself:

"Thank you for submitting your work to Stickman Review. Sorry for the long response time. Although we will not be accepting this submission, feel free to submit again."

Something about the "feel free to submit again" felt genuine and reminds me that it's not about rejection, it's about submitting the right poem to the right place.

I checked out Stickman to see what I thought of the poets they published this go round and was pleased to find all but two of the poems to be excellent work.  Nice to be rejected if this is the competition.  Check them out and let me know what you think.

I titled the blog "The Long Lonesome" because that's what writing is some days.  Particularly days regarding the business of writing rather than the actual pen on paper stuff.  You send them out, your poems and stories, as children into the world.  And you watch with shallow breaths and deep hopes as they find their way to their true home.

Here are three of the five I submitted.  (In the Zen Garden, Widow, Al Fresco)  Off to scrounge up some potential homes for the children.

I was amused to read a quote by Catherine Deneuve in today's San Francisco edition of the green website, The Ideal Bite.  Quoth Catherine:  "At a certain point, you have to choose between your face and your ass."  I guess since I've only recently started a skin-care regimen but have been working out for several years, my choice is clear.

The quote tickled me so much that I wrote it down in my little book of collected quotes.  In the process of writing, I realized that there's more to the quote than it originally seemed.  Sure, when one is discussing aging, the quote is a sassy bon mot about facing reality and the tradeoffs of managing Time.

But in light of yesterday's blog about the congressional resolution to officially declare the Armenian Genocide, it takes on a whole different meaning.  The quote pithily captures the dilemma facing our representatives.  Do they save their face (i.e., their reputation for acting with integrity, in accordance with their ideals) or do they save their ass?

Idealists save their face.  Pragmatists save their ass.  There are those infrequent instances where saving one's face and saving one's bacon (tired of the "a" word) coincide--where one is held accountable for acting with integrity.  But recently, especially in politics, these interests seem to be opposites rather than sidekicks.

So that's it for my salient observations for the day.  I'm looking forward to lunching with my Santa Clarita friend, Peggy; to working out (saving my a!); and to office work today.

Speaking of which, I've got a couple of new poems up on the poetry page.  They're works in progress, so read them with a kindly eye.  If you want to check just these new ones out, click on "Storyteller" and "Among Her Collection of Bowls."  I'm experimenting (like Donald Hall in Without) with writing my typical confessional poetry in a stepped-back, third person.

I'm re-reading Without, Hall's account in poetry of his wife's (poet Jane Kenyon) death.  It's heart-wrenching, particular and luminous.  If you're into poetry, check out the link below.  Who knows, maybe someday I'll have a link to one of my books down below the blog?

Three headlines from today's LA Times:

1.  Foreclosures in state hit record high (Seems we're up a whopping 799%  from the same period--2nd quarter of the year--last year).

2.  Uninsured adults face yearlong delays for some surgeries (If you're in LA County and you need "non-emergency"--meaning not immediately life threatening but who cares if you're doubled over in pain--surgery, you better have insurance.  Otherwise the waiting list for little "elective" surgeries like gall bladders removal or hernia repair is over a year long).

3.  GOP budget plan would slash welfare (Senate Republicans are proposing a $324 million cut to welfare which would "result in as many as 40,000 families losing state assistance).

Never mind that welfare has been radically cut over the years of the Bush administration.  They want to cut more.  It's not a good time to be poor in California.

I know all the arguments ("I've known them all already, known them all" to quote Prufrock).  That only lazy people are on welfare.  Only people without ambition are without insurance.  It's the illegal aliens (let's blame them, yeah, or the terrorists).  Blah...blah...blah.  I worked with many welfare-dependent, uninsured people at the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry.  I can see them now.

Sure some have long-standing drug and alcohol problems.  But the majority are single moms (or dads) who are simply stuck in a cycle of poverty that minimum wage jobs do nothing to break.  Then someone gets sick.  Someone gets fired.

And their safety net?  Well, for up to 40,000 of them, it's more of a safety trampoline.  Here today, bounced out tomorrow.

And why?  So we can keep paying OUTRAGEOUS salaries to prison guards.  So we can keep providing agricultural subsidies that protect big farming companies.  So we can keep protecting big business interests.

Sorry kids.  It's a tough world out there.

I certainly didn't think, when I boarded the plane in Hawaii, that it would take me 3 days to get back on the blog.  Of course, it's not as exciting to blog about lazy weekends, doing the laundry, sudden HUGE migraines, and rejection letters.

Having said that...sometimes that's what happens in life!

Dan picked me up at the airport after a long flight (kids all around again...this time kicking the back of my seat for 5 1/2 hours over the Pacific).  I enjoyed an amazing sunset--gaudy oranges and pinks fading to mauve over a cloud strewn sky--despite the kicking.  I was also stunned when another jet passed us, heading to Hawaii, about an hour out of Orange County.  When you're sitting in the plane, you don't realize how stinkin' fast you're going...but when you have another (fast moving) point of reference, it all comes clear.

At home, I had a very nice rejection notice for five of my poems.  The notice was nice for two reasons.  First, it said, "The hardest thing we have to do as editors is to turn down excellent poets like you, poets whose submissions came very close; but were not selected."  Granted, it was a form letter...but I have edited a poetry magazine and I prefer to believe that they have form letters for poets they want to hear from again and another one for poets they don't want to hear from again...something less encouraging...maybe "Thank you for thinking of us.  Your poems did not fit with our publication."  I like the publication, Runes: A Review of Poetry, quite a bit.  And I'm not surprised I didn't get in since they had 10,000 submissions and selected 100 poems.

The second reason I thought the rejection was nice is that I got a handwritten note from one of the editors saying their favorite of the five submissions was "Advice."  I'll post it in the poetry section after I finish the blog.

The publication is worth checking out: Runes: A Review of Poetry.  They do issues surrounding specific topics.  My submissions were for their next book about Connection.

I spent Saturday unpacking, doing laundry, puttering.  Dan played golf and afterwards we did a bit of shopping, buying him an chair and ottoman for his office.

Yesterday was supposed to be filled with furniture shopping and golf practice.  The day started out well at the local farmer's market.  I picked up some gorgeous nectarines, a stunningly beautiful head of lettuce, grapes, bread, squashes and some tomatoes I can hardly wait to eat.

Then I was felled by a migraine out of nowhere...literally knocked me off my feet for the rest of the day.  I'm somewhat better today...down to a dull pounding now and again.  Lots of fluids.  Rest.  And the sound of our landscapers hard at work.

That's all the news from Laguna Niguel.  Now to send out those poems again!