ferried.

i have returned. while in the northlands, i:

- ate well.
- applauded and hopped around and giggled genuinely for brother #1 (pool-playing-robot-builder), now a college graduate.
- rode various ferries a total of six times, one time alone on the observation deck looking at the late dark lake.
- finished crime and punishment. (i remained enthralled but skeptical until a minor scene between dunya and sonya near the end. then i was slayed. still, the nuances between characters aren't at the level achieved in brothers k; on the other hand, part of this book's appeal is the magnified, obsessive single-mindedness. there's not as much third-person omniscient.)
- donned an iron pinky ring and posed as an engineer for the sake of cheap beer.
- ate breakfast with my favorite girl at our new favorite diner, which is within walking distance from my pennsylvania house (but which we had never investigated, for some reason). our old favorite diner (truckers, 24 hours) was closed.

so now i'm reading nabokov's pale fire (not part of the russian tome sequence, obviously) and picking the next russian installment on which to gorge. the choices are dostoyevsky's notes from the underground, gogol's dead souls, and tolstoy's anna karenina. feel free to vote.

northland.

lovelies, i am headed to canada. i'll be back in a few days.

on my trip, i plan to listen to:
- the hold steady
- stars
- blonde redhead
- sleater kinney.

i will give a reading report upon return. be well.

odd alignment.

when i came in to work after the passport photo fiasco, i asked my friend b. m. this question. (i love explodingdog. and i love the aforementioned b. m., who made me a chapbook containing photocopies of the offending picture in various stages of altercation combined with word plays on my name ["stuff, honey"].)

pretty little homes.

- photogenics: last week i went to cvs to have a passport photo taken for my visa application. at several moments, i should have taken the opportunity to go elsewhere. the first occurred when the photostation girl said (with skepticism), "you really want a passport photo?" then when she fiddled with the camera for five minutes and finally ended up holding it about eight inches from my face. then when i stood reading people magazine for 20 minutes while she tried to get the computer to work, muttering, "this is so ir-ri-tat-ing." then when she had to re-start the computer and said, "this is why people don't get passport photos at cvs." needless to say, on the bad-passport-photo-spectrum, my pictures are astonishingly, laughably hideous. incidentally, i don't think i photograph well. i am accustomed to the idea that my self-image never appropriately corresponds with the moment the lens picks. but in this photo, i look like the frightened, ornery love child of yoda and an ewok.

- mulling: at a stanley kunitz celebration last week, marie howe quoted kunitz as saying, "To be a poet in an age of the super-state is itself a political act." hrmm.

- experienced with my own arm hairs: the nomadic museum and the faint (the second at webster hall, which is not nomadic).

- gaming update: scrabble intensity rising (game count - ewok: 2, bacca: 2). and spades was learnt last night, in delightful ambiance.

- consumed: a burrito containing tater tots and grilled hotdogs. not bad.

- listening: bloc party.

- longing, envious: classes at the center for the book arts.

- received: six smooth stones from the other side of the country. gratitude, creature comforts.

cloned undergarments.

as a follow-up to my perpetual mishaps, let me list what i've found recently:

- one old friend, on 13th street.
- i'm smitten, whose lovely pins i purchased a year ago in chicago, and whose work i've been trying to locate since.
- one pair of cloned underwear.

ah, but let me explain that last one.

sometime last year i bought a three-pack of underwear with a gift card at common corporate clothing store X. all three had the same pattern but one was red, one was green, and one was blue. this morning i opened my dresser drawer and pulled out the blue pair. imagine my asonishment when an identical blue pair was revealed under the ones i had already pulled out. i stared at both pairs, one in each hand. i glanced around the rest of the room to ascertain whether colors appeared normal. they did.

now, there are three possiblities for this, and only one seems plausible. either these underwears are magically color-changing, or one pair (using my missing sock, of course) cloned itself, or i picked up someone else's identical underwear at the laundromat. both pairs are a size small.

but here's the real question: how long have i had two pairs? have i been wearing someone else's underwear? does it matter? should i keep them both or should i throw them both out? please advise.

listing (reads).

fiction - still crime and punishment. i hope to read the bulk of this tome on the subway. last night t. h. and i were discussing dostoyevsky, and i mentioned that i'd already read the brothers k. "well then you're going backward," he said. this is slightly disappointing and thus far appears to be true.

non-fiction - parched, a memoir about alcoholism by heather king. this was consumed in two days. it is a quick, easy, and fairly engrossing read. while one fears impending religious recruitment throughout, she doesn't really show her hand until the last chapter. self-depricating dry wit (my favorite kind) + some awkward sentences = alright book. a good way to make one feel better about one's own drinking proclivities.

poetry - nothing, really, and it feels damn good.

looking - terrified, at sugar bush squirrel.

mishaps.

lost: one earring (silver with yellow bead; gift from friend in 6th grade)
irreparably broken: signature glasses
lost: one mate in a pair of favorite socks (multicolored, knee-high)

ai ya. aren't i just the little tumbleweed?

sight, cloistered.

yesterday i went to the cloisters and then to a production of kristjan thorgierrsson's the blind. wow.

wow.

today is like this:
drinking - coffee
looking - postsecret
reading - crime and punishment
listening - bowie
playing - lots of online scrabble

pie day.

at work: pie day.
so far i have consumed:
apricot/cherry pie - coffee - mushroom/cheese/spinach savory pie - coffee - pineapple pie - apple pie - berry tart.

speaking of work, the new www.poets.org will be launched soon. it is purty.

piano bars

are marvellous, marvellous.

conclusions.

and there ends napowrimo. as was bound to happen, i've become rather attached to this strange space. i won't continue to post poems (until next april...) but i might periodically "publish" some prose.

Retiring with the Zookeeper

Back-to-back, his bear-musk lulls
and knits together sleep. Cradles
my mind’s circus. Tent me here
awhile, in the shadow of his shoulder.