Ought

Every day is Birdy on my mind, Skinny Love. The rains come in patches of mist. Purple hood up. It's the time of three paper ghosts on my front door. Squash in the oven Sunday after church. Beauty in the day, whip brisk by night. Take the train down south to the blufftop. Run to the old house, wood porch, Mississippi river boat. Murder stories and that golden hour on the shoe box casino. New season of American Horror Story, and this time maybe Ryan Murphy won't ruin the kit 'n' kaboodle. It's everyone's birthday. It's audition season. No, it's audition town. In any season. Fire up the Keurig.

Sullen load is full, so slow on the spit.

The Big Red Dot

Fishies at Hein Garden. 2008.

Today was mini-Japan day!

-This morning I read in the CS Monitor that Japan is still strugglin' even though the rest of the world has kind of moved on. I said a teeny prayer for my favorite country.
-Read a lot about Noh theatre in preparation for Theatre History today. Was whisked back to seeing Noh with Jamin and Mahji on a crisp fall evening in Kyoto. The show was so good that I did a cartwheel while I waited for the bus to take me home.
-Watched part of Throne of Blood--the Japanesed-up Macbeth directed by Kobayashi.* Instead of three witches, the Macbeth and Banquo characters come across an old man singing in the woods. He is singing about man being as inconsequential as insects. The two warriors stumble upon him and demand information about who he is at bow-point. Yo, weren't you guys listening? He's singing about the pointlessness of existence...How scared do you think he is to lose his life?
-For only one millisecond, when I heard the Japanese music and the Nihongo, did I think, "Oh...I could have been there." But then the millisecond was shot through with a billion samurai arrows as all the perfection of me coming to graduate school right here and right now swam up from the depths of the Pacific.

I'm the sea, and you're Japan.

*SERIOUSLY EMBARRASSING EDIT. THIS IS THE GUY WHO CAN EAT A BILLION HOT DOGS. The film was directed by Kurosawa. I am the worst Japanese lover of all time...

Snow Started Fallin'

February 2008


This will be the year I stop hating winter. This song helps.

Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said, "See look thats yours!
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how the resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers"

And I said I know it well

That secret that you knew
But don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cos its running you with red

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both of my hands
Chewing on a candy bar

You said "'Aint this just like the present
To be showing up like this"
As a moon waned to crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor
I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs babe?
Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I said I know it well
I know it well


December 2006