NYC this weekend!

On Friday I'm going up to NYC to see Anne Carson deliver a lecture at The Philoctetes Center. My husband and I are staying the weekend. I'm so excited to get out of town! And it's Halloween weekend-- an extra bonus.

I've been finding it hard to concentrate on writing. I've blamed that on a lot of things, but mostly attributing it to feeling so underemployed at work. I try to make the most of it, but it seems pointless.

Man, don't you miss the old days when I would have just gone ape-shit about it on my blog? Let it all out? I guess those days are over. A new maturity? Perhaps.

Damn, though. I just sound depressed.

Mountains and other naturally occuring things

Hooray for a weekend of walking the woods. Hooray for Berkley Springs, Katie F and Katherine O! Woodpeckers, chickadees, prehistoric mud ponds, the most poorly marked trail ever-- numbers? what do these mean?-- earth dog, green bean's long lost brothers, Jazz Masters and crayfish. Yes.

Also, reading A Super Sad True Love Story and loving it!

Get ready for Helloing!

small post

I had a peaceful weekend. I met a super friendly Matt Bell, heard him read about a mechanical messiah, was captivated by Joanna Howard's lyrical internal meter and got drawn in by Brian Evenson's "Wind-Eye." Wind-eye is the Norwegian word for window in English. I love how one word can grab someone and make them create a story.


Then, Chris Toll held mass on the 11th floor of the Bromo Seltzer tower. The room was white and full of afternoon sun. There were benevolent armchairs. Joe Young brought us "When Light becomes St. Paul" and a discussion followed. I brought original sin and some stuff about taproots. I thought it was a good pairing.

I slept and woke and played Irish music on my mandolin. I bought my cat a jungle-gym igloo. I bought him catnip, but will dispense it carefully because I read cats can give themselves brain damage because they have such little self control when it comes to inhaling the herb.

What about this?

Birkensnake Three is GORGEOUS!!!

These came in the mail the other day. They are handmade-- the cover is hand printed, the pages sewn in two signatures. The entire layout is inspiring. I love that the cover folds over the book. The wooden men are from one of the stories-- that's the other thing, I love all of the writing in here. I feel lucky to be in this journal.

Please click here for the free online version-- Birkensnake Three

OR HERE to purchase your own copy. They are only four dollars an issue-- pretty unbelievable for all of the work that went into making them.
BUY ONE

Here is my story: White Knees

This has given me a small shot of happiness, something I've been lacking this summer.

Sad day at the admission unit.

My weekend

We traveled one mile into the mine on a blind
mule. Red water ran down our ears and
necks, our toes black with coal mud.

Everyone's sweat cooled in rings.
And the man said, rats know when
the rumbling is coming.

We stumped around in the dark, small
flames on our heads.
Upon leaving the mule kicked out
an angry breath.

My great-grandfather was drowned 600
feet down when he discovered an underground
river with his pick and dynamite.

We drove past the tenement house where
my grandmother lived as a child.
Many people were entering and exiting
the house as we watched from across
the street. That can't be good, I said.
A neighbor came out and we told him about grandma.
Oh, yeah, he said. That house is going back on
sale. The guy bought it for 12,000 and wants 20,000
for it! It had last been rehabbed in the seventies,
based on the dark wood paneling and long mirrors we could
see through the screen door. A doll baby and a purple
bike.

We are looking for the Lithuanian graveyard, we said.
Do you want the haunted one? We don't know we said.
We were given the wrong directions. My mom woke up
early and went driving and found the Polish graveyard, the German
graveyard, the Irish graveyard, the Ukrainian graveyard
and finally the Lithuanian one, too.

We didn't find our dead because they didn't pay for
"perpetual care" and their head stones must have
been grown over. I picked wildflowers and we drank
cognac. My aunt prayed to St. Antony to help us find
them. A man and his son came up and my uncle asked
him about the other Lithuanian graveyard we had heard about.

He took us there. It was in the woods, grown over with moss
and ferns. The stones were felled by roots. Only the largest
monuments remained.

We left. We ate lunch where the Molly Maguires had a secret tunnel.
We saw where they were hanged for being a terrorist sect--
or, to say it another way, for fighting for labor laws for the miners.
We ate chicken wings.

I came home and attended the viewing for Panda. It was a closed
casket because of his self-directed anger. I cried at the horror of it.
His mother came over and thanked me for coming. We hugged for a long minute and
she talked about his smile. I sat down, my ears with the sound of
my pulse. My stomach rolling.