For some reason the whole time my mom was here this week, I kept thinking we were like in Grey Gardens. My middle-aged spinster ass in weird outfits and her widowed, and oddly talkative. But Southern. We kept having all these long conversations about things neither one of us can quite remember.

Everytime I walk past my refrigerator I start laughing:

"Give me something to give in to.
It will be weird. It will be so weird." --Mike Young

Reza's class must have been really good because I can't even finish half my butternut squash raviolis. There is always something really creative in his class that I would never have thought of. We were climbing/leaning against the side of a wall in half moon pose and it helped a lot to get my shoulder back, which never wants to move. It is weird that Crunch yoga is more creative than studio yoga. Silvie too, once had us doing lunges but with the top of our back foot on the ground - it looked hard but wasn't and felt great. Also, opposite of my studio yoga experiences, where the longer I went there the more invisible I seemed to become, at Crunch, the more they see me, the more the more I get adjustments! Which is really the only reason to ever even go to yoga...

Seems like the old studio is mostly dead, but a few of the former teachers started a new studio in the same style I hear. Looks like even with carpet. I want to go but then I'm suspicious for some reason, that weird harshness - now that I'm away from it, I can see it more clearly, they are so tough. Also since I left The City I just see SF as really tough and harsh too (except Mission!) but I do miss the funky poses, and I guess the funkiness of the city, I miss that too (but not the funky smell).

I was just reading from a book with this quote:

"The fact is, I have been dead so long & it has been simply such a grim shoving of the hours behind me as I faced a ceaseless possible horror, since that hideous summer of '78, when I went down to the deep sea, its dark waters closed over me & I knew neither hope nor peace; that now it's only the shrivelling of an empty pea pod that has to be completed." Too bad I'm not depressed this winter, or good thing!

Dreamt I was eating a peanut butter jelly sandwich in Tom Clark's house and it wasn't very good but I kept eating it out of politeness, and then this girl with a huge white cat in her arms called up to Tom can she come in with her cat, and he said no.

I'm also reading Sheila E Murphy's 600 page book of poems called "Collected Chapbooks". The concept itself or the very fact that this exists is worth the price.

From My Sister's Blue Accordion:

All my life she has been simple, cheerful and athletic
as I slaved over the yellowed texts of Garibaldi,
Boehm and Hindemith.
I rehearsed in steamy practice rooms
as she stood effortlessly in yards of beer and hotdogs,
performing personality like a habit
smiling past my smiles.

Makes me sad and happy at the same time. Like what a twisty perfect way to describe the bittersweet path of poetry...

Took a class at the gym called Absolution, (I first typed Abomination-they should rename it) - and it is so not yoga. The guy was like a marine yelling out stuff, and faster faster, at 15 minutes I felt done, but that was only half-way. Then at the end we did something called "Throw downs" where I was lying down, and dude made me hold on to his ankles and I would left up my legs and he would grab my ankles and then he would throw them down, and I had to use my abs to bring them back up, I did 7 and then I was shaking so much it was hard to do 10 but I did them anyway. It was gross too because his socks were wet. Why was he sweating that much!

It took me like an hour to get out of bed today. But I look FLAT STOMACH! And its weird because its the top that hurts, but that makes me pull it in far and so the bottom part which is usually pouffy is not because of the top being pulled in so much. Maybe that is the secret. Also, we did some plank stuff which I didn't think was too bad, but I woke up in the middle of the night with this awful pain in my left hand and it was like this orange glowing line of pain that went all the way up my arm to my shoulder. I rubbed it for a while and it went away and then it came back and I rubbed it again, and then I fell asleep. If you google search "cardiac arrest" the first thing that comes up is Brittany Murphy. I think it was either the plank poses, or maybe the abs stuff was a little too much and i was using my neck. Bad Bad, I know.

I dreamt I had to do proofreading that was due on Christmas, so I was in a panic. But I don't have to do anything. My mom is here and we are going to walk around Berkeley, or Temescal, or Piedmont Ave, or Lake Merritt. Christmas Eve (tomorrow?) we will go to Grace Cathedral, she says there is poetry...

It was sunny and bright and blue skies, and then it rained and rained and I think it might be my fault because I have been listening to Sisters of Mercy all day.



I think I had some sort of creepy guy crush on him in high school. I don't know what was wrong with me. He seems like he probably has a lot of issues.

I did three loads of laundry and printed about 70 copies of Logan's book. Met my neighbor "Scott." Came back in and realized I had my skirt on inside out. I still haven't turned it right-side out. A very domestic day. But busy printing, and sorting, and folding, etc. Spent some time at vector magic, was having vector problems, but it looks cool, kind of like when Professional sites try to look DIY, but it really is DIY, so it is DIY trying to look like a Professional who is trying to do the DIY look. Um. Logan's book is the first where I have transitioned from using a real ink stamp pad for my Y logo, to having scanned it in, and so it is a scan of a real ink stamp. How selling out am I? Also I couldn't find green ink, like off the cuff, so this is easier.


Read AnnMarie Eldon's Some2; is there a place where her genre and Will Alexander's genre intersect. I think, maybe. Sciency surrealism stuff... Do I just want to write the word Loxodrome? Yes.

Had an epiphany about my anger and my sexuality, not sure if it is a happy thought, but I think anger is sexuality. And when I'm stopping my anger I'm stopping my sex drive, and that is why I have all these blocks... But then I started thinking about how rape is supposedly "not about sex" but it is sex, and so, then, isn't it? Maybe passion isn't anger but energetically its cousin, and sometimes people get confused by it. Reading Dalai Lama in the bathroom. I really dig the antidote stuff, he says letting out anger is really never good, but that also anger will increase if you never "implement the antidote." Certain people that anger seeps out of, and are seemingly unconscious about the fact that they are angry, it is because they are not applying the antidote. I suppose consciousness has to come first though, then the antidote can be applied. The only thing I am not too keen on in his philosophy (so far) is he is entirely against euthanasia, and I've been told by my mother that I have to pull the plug if it ever comes to that. Not necessarily euthanasia, but still, it seems if you are relieving suffering, how is that bad? For him, he says all suffering is the result of previous bad karmas, and you have to live it out. Seems a little arbitrary, medicine is OK, he says relieve suffering as much as possible, but this next step of relieving suffering is not OK. Hmmm.

My favorite lifestyle choice is eating by myself in a restaurant with a really difficult book. You would see a lot of women eating by themselves in Mission, but in East Bay I am always the only one. Or I'm the only one in the restaurant. I felt like maybe I should acquiesce to the culture here and take to go, but then maybe East Bay needs to acquiesce to me! Maybe women secretly want to eat alone, but are afraid, and maybe seeing me will empower them.

There are two stores walking distance from my place that are totally cool to just wander through on my way past:

East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse

and

Sagrada

I did all my holiday shopping at Sagrada. Yule-tide shopping I guess I should say. I want to just wander through some weekend day and read about chakras. They had a bunch of chakra books. I think I feel them lately, I feel them moving, and I feel all this yoga energy moving up and down too. mostly moving up.

Maybe I'll move to Japan and teach ESL, maybe I'll move to Dubai, I think I could make a shitload teaching ESL in Dubai, I've heard. I guess its not exactly like SF there... I wonder how it is for a woman, I heard its a party city, which sounds fun, but I'm not sure how well ESL teaching and partying it up really go together. I probably would prefer a more intellectual city. Like Berkeley, or Buffalo. Maybe I'll finally apply to Phd school, maybe I'll read Guattari and Deleuze. Right after I finish the Spicer bio.

I'm thinking of going to a chiropractor, still having a tingly thing in the middle of my back. It is better, and we did scapula exercises in yoga last night, which helped but didn't fix entirely. I know my hips are out of alignment and something is off in my neck, I can tell because every time I do a backbend something in my neck like falls into place.

I wanted to be surreptitious today, but I can't find my black bra.

Missing so many poetry readings lately. But am not missing the Rosmarie Waldrop reading tomorrow night, except I guess its not really a Rosmarie Waldrop reading, but an Oppen lecture. But at any rate, should be cool. And in celebration, a Waldrop/Oppen mash-up:

Well except not, I totally don't have time for that. But in my dreams of my perfect life - I do.

There will be no merit increases this year. So I put lipstick on. For like 30 minutes. Then I ate a candy cane, apple flavored, which exactly did not match my lavender lipstick.

Speaking of John Wieners, I'm having problems with my nerves. And I mean the pinchy kind. (I'm bizarrely calm this week in my headspace, I think maybe just exhaustion?) My whole left leg went numb for a minute today while sitting on my knees and twisting after camel pose. I don't think that is a good way to twist...I have a tendency to want to try and do everything I'm told, in yoga at least, but I was like no no no, and sat differently.

I cam home in the pouring rain, and there was a very long line of ants in my apartment leading straight to the garbage can. I poured Brita water all over the kitchen, and am glad I have tile floors.




OK I am waiting for something to print so I do have time.



How wonderfully the air is laid down on shadows.
It brightens up into the branches
A sort of empty number

Give back what disappears

and the beds of the defeated,
Scattering earth in the strange woods.

ART!

I spent a lot of time painstakingly collecting every postcard/card possible from this art party thingy last night; in the order in which they came out of my purse:


Steve Javiel

Colin Harris

Angela Scrivani

Michael Murphy

Rubyspam

Ian Ross

Erin Schroeder

Reb Peters Press

Megan Fister

Kiss dude

Kelly Page

Slava Likhatchev

Henry H. Barbero

Red Rabbit 7

Rosemarie V. Castillo

Christie Newman

Debbie Cain

Laura Browning

and best for last:

Eve Shen

The way they always want to make you have an "intention" before class. But every time I do that - it comes out completely something other - and I don't really see the point. Pre-defining something seems sort of anti-yoga? I'm having a spastic pain on my scoliosis place pretty bad so my "intention" was to relax it, but that didn't happen at all. But the yoga teacher was really cool and loving, like she has this universal love vibe, and I think that affected me more than anything. And as I was waiting at BART after class, I was totally just feeling love for humanity. I think the yoga teacher's intention (or personality?) affects things much more than my intention. Similarly, I wish they wouldn't ask "any requests" before class, but half-way into class, once you are feeling your body, then seems the time to ask what we need or are feeling... because every class is different, and what you think in your head you need might not be what you need when you get into it.

The reason all I talk about is yoga on here is that is ALL I'm ever doing, besides working the two jobs. And I'm working two jobs. I'm not making ANY poetry readings, and I hate it, but I can't do everything. The two jobs and yoga (to counteract the two jobs) are it. But also reading a lot thanks to BART. I really liked Rachel Levitsky's "Neighbor," who doesn't obsess about their neighbors? There's a part in there that is seemingly or possibly an homage to Lisa Robertson's The Weather, with the litany of names, was that in "Thursday"? I think Thursday. I always wanted to write something in response to that which may be my favorite poem by a living writer ever, but could never think of anything that's not straight up copying.

And the Jack Spicer bio was my airplane book but I didn't finish it, and it is hard to take on BART, it is hardcover, and I guess that it would be a good Kindle book if i ever got a kindle. The good thing about those seems to be not needing to turn pages, which if you are stuck standing up on a contraption upon which you must balance, would be a good thing. Sometimes every time I turn a page I fall down, and I'm one of those annoying unbalanced people, but that won't keep me from reading. But I prefer thin books I can fold over.

There is no music in my life this week. Except for my neighbors.

Other people have a lot of pain too so its not like I'm different Reading Poet Be Like God, the Spicer bio, and there is a sad story about this guy that had strep and his doctor didn't pay attention to it, and he died, he was (probably) in so much pain he just drank and drank and he died of suffocation. That's what I'm doing! Hopefully I will live.

All 5 nights in Texas I did a yoga practice, I am so proud of my discipline, but I still ended up with all this awful back pain, from watching too much CSI I guess, I can't even stand the show but there is nothing to do. I should have begged my mom to let me scrub her floors or something. And so I have this awful sitting too much lower back pain. I can't get rid of it and it is awful. I went to two Yoga to the People classes today and it didn't work, but my skin looks nice. Maybe tomorrow I will feel great... sometimes it takes a while to take effect.

My relaxation techniques worked well up to a point. Up until my back started hurting and then I couldn't relax because I was in so much pain. I wonder if all the forced relaxation just forced everything to finally collapse? I just think vacations are evil. I want to always be working but at a really slow relaxed pace.

The last day in Austin my dad took me to this awful hole in the wall in East Austin, I think he thinks obscure hole in the wall places are cool, but to me, now, after my californiacation, i just want healthy. I ate this enchilada, and maybe it almost killed me, two nights in a row up with horrible indigestion. Awful, I thought I was going to die. I got one cheese enchilada: "for our vegetarian friends," so what was all the grease it was swimming in? Grease. Liesse said maybe its from the tomato sauce. I think they poured meat grease on my vegetarian enchilada. I knew with the first bite I shouldn't keep going but I did. What else was I going to do! Not eat right before my flight? I had to eat.

I did manage to quit coffee though. Worked great on vacation, I just felt kind of stoned all the time. We will see what happens at work tomorrow though. I might start crying and run to starbucks in a panic.