I think I’m over the hump of what the hell is going on with Teresa Ballard. The surgery is minor and I meet with the surgeon on Friday and they are not doing the actual operation until next week but I’m fine. Nothin’ to see here folks...

Except that it is almost May Day and I will have giant puppets in my front yard, children running through my flowers and a parade—they will be a parade. All my friends will march and I will watch with Em and her mom. My girls will be on stilts or sun runners. It is my favorite day.

In poetry news, Valzhyna Mort is making me incredibly jealous. She is on the cover of the new Poets & Writers. I can’t wait to read her new book but I swear to god, if she tried to published the manuscript “A Factory of Tears” through the normal venues of sending to a first book contest---it may not have seen the light of day.
But maybe I’m wrong. Am I cynical to believe that we offer foreign born writers more freedom with poetry?

After my fourth conversation with my mother this week I decided to look up my horoscope and see if Mars was in retrograde again. Actually after the week I had, I wanted to see if it was possible Mars BLEW UP or some shit like that b/c my universe was definitely wacked.

My parents after 40 some years of marriage, which explains why a lot of poems are DARK, seem to have succeeded in finally killing each other, unfortunately they don’t do well without an audience so they’ve been trying to include us every step of the way.

My brothers, sister and I voted tonight and we are officially all adopted. Thank god I live half way across the United States---though this unlimited phone minute thing is killing me.

My horoscope quoted Carl Jung “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." And that my friends just about sums it up.

Today we woke to snow so I closed the door and went back to bed. In four days E’s mom will be here and in five days I will have surgery. Only E’s mom was expected. I hate people seeing me sick so I plan to be instantly better, five minutes after I see the doctor.

At the thrift store we found a first edition Anne Sexton which convinced me once again, that I don’t like most poetry books written in the last twenty years. Maybe it’s the modern voice. Maybe I have old ears. Yet give me Sexton and Celan each and every day. I think old poetry can heal me.

Oh and did anyone else read the Spencer Reesce became a priest?

I’ve grown tired of the excessive
noise within my head. All the rooms
of the body lock down with the same key,
yet faith where do you live?

I do trust anything,
facts are fractal, even the blue door
is every color but blue, my eyes call it so,
and my tongue follows.

Here are the words my mother taught me.
Yes, there’s nothing here but silence

and the blue door, closing
over and over again.

 

A bit of devastation, a bit of pestilence

So I’ve been in and out of the doctor’s office/ hospital the last few days and I need to go back on Friday for an ultra sound. Professional note: I really think doctors should have different hand outs for moms to be, verses people who are getting scanned for tumors. The note about being able to bring a “partner” and video tape the whole procedure is very disturbing when it is the latter.

And if this isn’t hell enough the dreaded “lice” parasite has found my house again. Yes, my daughter Bella still hugs with her head but it was I, her mother who was escorted OUT of Aveda by way of the back door, my head still dripping wet while they “yellow taped” the station I was sitting at.

Emily is still laughing and I feel like a leper.

Because I was alone in the house for two whole hours at supper time I decided to eat the things in my fridge that no one else would eat. The lone pickle, the half eaten sandwich because I reasoned, in my rather adult head, that even if it didn’t satisfy me or made me slightly ill, I would NOT feel guilty for throwing large quantities of food out come Saturday morning.

Well friends, I’m here to tell you TWO HOURS LATER that guilt is not a physical response--- food poisoning however, sure the hell is!!!!

Rule number one in life: never, ever put anything in your mouth you don’t want there.

Rule number two: if someone else puts it there---spit it the hell out!

Why do I always feel like I’m living one of those educational videos of what not to do with your life.

Okay so I suck at a poem a day and I’ve turned in my poet badge and my secret de-coder ring. I know I can’t be in the club so I’m starting my own with a top-secret handshake and you don’t have to write anything unless you want to. Swing to your own drum. Play with sticks.

On Friday I went to see the wonderful Lee Ann Roripaugh read and then we went out for dumplings and Saturday we went out for sushi. It was a high holiday weekend. And this weekend looks to be more of the same. Ms. Fannie Howe is coming to my town, along with Mary Jo Bang & Mathea Harvey, they will be at the Loft this Friday in Minneapolis at 7 p.m.

I will be the girl in the audience drinking beer, because at the last reading I found out that if you go to the coffee shop and bitch the manger brings you out one from the "back room". I will also be the girl, next to the girl who is trying to sneak my beer because she never, ever buys her own!

Side note: at my feet right now ----- a purple mermaid, a monkey, pink bunny ears and a panda. The cats are fornicating again with Bella’s stuffed animals and it is oh so very wrong!!!