Announcement!

Just found out that a revised copy of "Plate Tectonic Theory" is going to be published in Willard & Maple literary magazine!

I'm going to be printed in something other than the internet and newsprint!

XOXO

So Sweet, So Tender

I have a slight obsession with the concept of poets (usually male,) reading poems about their girlfriends, significant others, or wives to audiences in which their girlfriends, significant others, or wives are a part of. So many times we imagine a female poet being the one who writes about her personal life and the romantic, personal persons in it (guilty as charged), but there's something so sweet and incredibly tender and endearing about how when a man reads a poem about his girlfriend/S.O/wife, he never looks at her, never acknowledges her, never puts her on the spot, and yet, you can see the understanding pass silently between the two.

These two poems come from two different poetry readings I sat in on. The first one comes from a reading given by Galway Kinnell at the Burlington Book Festival, and the second was a reading by one of my professors at Champlain College, Warren Baker. Both were poems about their wives when they were younger, and I'll admit to watching their wives like hawks after I realized who the poems being read were about. Like seasoned poker players, neither woman had any sort of tell that they felt any sort of way about it.

I think I would dance on my seat.

The Pulitzer and His Prize

She sits like any other member of the audience,

Periodically fidgeting to get more comfortable in the folding theater seat,

As his voice slides over her,

Touching everyone else as well,

And she shares him equally.

Unlike other audience members,

She never looks at her watch.

Later,

As they walk through the dark,

Arm-in-arm,

She leans into him and sighs.

"I've always loved

When you read the one

About me."

Literary Couples

She sits,

Front row,

As he reads

Aloud

About watching her sleep.

So intimate,

So sweet;

What it's like

For all these strangers

To hear how he feels about her,

I always wonder about.

She sits,

Front row,

Silently,

Not moving,

And I can't help but wonder,

With longing

If I will ever sit,

Front row,

Silently,

Maybe moving,

But just a little bit,

And listen to a man

Speak about what it's like

To watch me sleep.

XOXO

Fall Slides In

Our floors creak in the weather changes,

Like the bones of an old, protesting woman

Who has seen too much

And lived enough

To have filled up every page of her diaries,

And sigh at the first sign of fall.

XOXO

Firenze Sempre

Those were
(Quelli erano)
The golden days.
(I giorni d'oro.)
The mornings where sunlight
(Il mattino dove la luce solare)
Looked like dust filtering through stagnant air
(Considerata come la polvere che filtra attraverso l'aria stagnante)
And
(E)
The heavy weight of jewels.
(Il peso pesante di gioielli.)
The evenings on the coast when warm breezes
(Le serate sulla costa quando brezze termiche)
Carried
(Eseguita)
The clean smell of
(L'odore di pulito)
Cacti
(Cacti)
And
(E)
Sea salt
(Sale marino)
On them.
(Su di essi.)
Monuments
(Monumenti)
Rose like memories in the piazzas,
(Crescere come ricordi nelle piazze,)
And
(E)
Buildings
(Edifici)
Loomed as tangible as the passing of time around them.
(Profilò tangibili come il passare del tempo intorno a loro.)
A back alley in Firenze
(Un vicolo in Firenze)
--Only the Italian names for places—
(-- Solo i nomi italiani per i posti--)
Via dello Studio.
(Via dello Studio.)
I am late on my way to a friend’s apartment,
(Sono in ritardo sul mio modo di appartamento di una amica,)
But walk
(Ma a piedi)
Slowly,
(Lentamente,)
Rewarded for my patience when,
(Premiato per la mia pazienza quando,)
Above me,
(Sopra di me,)
Piano
(Pianoforte)
And
(E)
A woman singing opera
(Una donna di canto lirico)
Erupt from open windows.
(Scoppiare dalle finestre aperte.)
I stop
(Mi fermo)
On the cobblestones
(Sul selciato)
And listen,
(E ascolta,)
Knowing this is a moment I will remember fondly
(Sapere questo è un momento mi ricorderò con affetto)
For the rest of my life.
(Per il resto della mia vita.)
Nothing has changed here
(Nulla è cambiato qui)
Since 1482.
(Dal 1482.)
I hope nothing changes
(Spero che non cambia nulla)
Upon my return—
(Al mio ritorno--)
A 20 year old shadow of me,
(A venti anni ombra vecchio di me,)
Left wandering the streets here,
(Sinistra per le strade qui,)

Forever,

(Sempre,)

With
(Con)
Part of my heart
(Parte del mio cuore.)

XOXO

Tiny Wakes

Dock. Cattails. Dog. House on the hill. Barn. Field. Dock. Cattails. Dog. House on the hill. Barn. Field. Dock.

As my feet make tiny wakes in the still pond water, algae floating in random spots like the ubiquitous Snickers-bars-in-public-pools of urban city kid's youth, I find myself thinking, very hazily, that this is pretty much the life. That right now, right here, this moment in time, spinning in tight circles like a buoyant top with my wet thighs sticking to the black inner-tube, digesting a peppermint stick sundae like the same ones I've been getting since 7th grade, and the gentle splashing sounds of Nora, 10 feet away from me in the pond, rollicking like a young otter in, over, and around her tube, both of us higher than a pair of kites-- that this, this is it. I've stood in the Colosseum; I've been in Carnivale; I've watched freighters and cruise ships sail across the infinite blackness of the night's horizon from the beach as stars fell from the sky overhead. But none of this still compares to being home in Vermont. I would not pass up this feeling of bubbly joy and dizziness as I watch dock, cattails, dog, house on the hill, barn, and field flash before me for another pair of heels; not now, and not ever.

These were the moments I missed the most; the small, the mundane, and the entirely trivial. I missed morning jogs underneath trees with leaves so green and bark so dark from the rain. I missed the noisy buzz and crush of Church Street, and the humidity of packed house parties. I missed the tricky shift from first to second gear; the heavy weight of Saph's head on my chest and damp hemlines from where she breathed onto me. I missed the mountains, and the water, and the storms. My entire 4 months in Florence, we only had one thunderstorm. I missed them just as much as I missed blood-red sunsets over the lake, small psychotic cats, familiar hugs and faces, and buttermilk ranch dressing on Wings Over's honey barbecue boneless wings. Like I said, it was the little things that I wished for. In Italy, I got out of the habit of great big, grand wishes, because I knew upon returning, they would probably remain just that-- wishes, and not reality.

But here, this lounge in a pond-- this was more delicious than any wish I could have come up with, not in my most wild and romantic moment. It beat being spirited away to Bobcat. It beat being met at Logan. It even nearly beat that first American kiss back.

Those 6 things-- dock, cattails, dog, house on the hill, barn, field-- and the feeling of the water lapping at my heels in a way that seemed far too velvet and far to solid to really be water, ushered me back in to my life more surely than anything since the 18th, and I knew it then, that this was not a dream. This was the life that I had left, and the one I had returned to. The simplicity was beautiful, and staggering.

A storm rolled in at around 4:30 in the morning. I woke up to watch it, and went back to sleep with the sound of thunder still crashing in my ears. Some wishes are perfectly harmless and easily answered, after all.

XOXO

"Andata In Gatta"-- The Cats Of Roma

"Andata in gatta" translates to "gone to the cats," an Italian euphemism for "three sheets to the wind," or "dead-drunk." Interesting.

Cats in Florence behave the way Victorian parents wished their children would: they are seen, but only from afar, and not heard. They appear, sleek, mild-mannered, aloof, on rooftops, and only turn to look at you when you call to them.

Roma cats capture my heart. The cats of Roma are straight natural-born hustlers. All missing tips of ears, some teeth, or some hair, nonetheless, they entertain tourists to literally eat from their palms. Scruffy, shameless, grubby-- they act the way cats are not supposed to behave. Mr. Mephistopheles would be appalled. I, however, am enthralled. They talk back. They demand more from you. They looks straight at you and demand more. These are not cats who pussy-foot around the subject. I admire them for this, for their sass and their ease at making demands; for their single-minded affection and independence. These are cats who love you and leave you. Maybe that's what attracts me to them-- the fact that I like to love and leave at will as well. But just like the cats, I also deeply need and crave the affection I get from my interactions. Just like the cats, I want a place to come home to, a hand to reach out and touch me, praise for surviving and thriving.

Maybe I emanate this need more than I'll ever know. But for whatever reason, the cats here seem to know it, and love me for it. They cock their heads and listen to me when I talk to them in the language that Julio Cortazar described as "somewhere between silly and mysterious, making dates with them, giving advice and admonitions (as she tickled their bellies)"-- the odd clicks of tongue on roof of mouth and soft whispers of hisses and kissing sounds. They let me hold them, climb willingly into my lap on their own accord to be closer, swarming in groups of 3s and 5s and 7s around me, milling under legs and between boots and rubbing against my knees. They blink slowly. They mew back. One-- my favorite-- a long-haired black male with a jaw off-set from once being broken, looking like a dashingly disfigured boxer, with blue eyes that startle when he turns and looks at you, nods at me. I don't even like cats, much. If you asked me, I would tell you definitively that I'm much more of a dog person. But these cats don't ask.

These Roma ruin cats just like me. Maybe it's because I'm more of a cat than a dog, myself, no matter how much I appreciate a good canine. Pleasing people just isn't in my repertoire-- I'd rather hide and sleep.

So it bothers me when one is aloof and scales a tree. He can't seem to make up his mind about me. Conversely, a squat brown and black tiger "guardian of the spirits" in the Protestant cemetery playfully engages me in a game of hide-and-seek in the flower beds, jumping out to startle me and touch my boot with a tagging paw. A playful spirit, obviously. A cuddly tiger female winds around me, and I watch a group of Irish tourists repeatedly try their luck at making friends and fail. Feeling bad, I coax her like the Pied Piper with whispers and beckoning fingers down to the group, where all the other cats have scattered from. "They're nice," I tell her, and then turn to the anxiously expectant Irish.

"She's nice," I tell them. "She'll let you pet her." And she does stay for them to scoot over and scritch at her, waiting patiently until the last hand has touched her to then duck under the rail and disappear.

As I stand to leave, my favorite, the black male with the blue eyes, reappears, melting out from the shadows of the ruins to say goodbye, rubbing that distinctive jawline over me, a face only a mother, or a complete sucker, like me, could love. I thank him, gently run a finger under that deformity, certain most people won't touch him there, remembering how much my cats at home love being scratched under the chin. He tilts his face up to me, blinks his big blue eyes slowly (so that's the power big blue eyes have?) and grins.

Cats know more than you would ever guess. Here, in the ruins, I let these strays, mangy and rag-tag, yet still elegant and commanding, wrap themselves around me, and into me. I find I need them, possibly more than they could ever need me, because they are cats, after all. Cats don't need like people need. And I am finding that I need.

---The best part is, you can

adopt a little scoundrel of your own. Going in my first Big Girl Apartment? A Roman gatto.---

XOXO

A (Brief) Goodbye Tale

Not Good: Pushing not one, but two cars in the snow.

As in, "My Jetta doesn't have winter tires. Could you guys give me a push, including you, girl in the small cute skirt?"

Good: Smoking and driving at the same time.

As in, "Hey, do you have a lighter?"

Better: Smoking a bowl and driving at the same time.

As in, "Hey, do you have a lighter? And don't bogart the piece, man. This is an all-inclusive burn ride."

Best: Ending up at the shooting range.

As in, "Here are you ear plugs. Here's the .38. Load your bullets. Aim at the clays. Fire when you're ready."

Possibly the best goodbye afternoon I have ever had the pleasure of either having, or even hearing of. More to come later. Right now, I am too wound up and hungry to expand in any sort of sensical fashion.

XOXO

I Still Can't Say "Lata, Playa."

This past October, one of my really dear friends died suddenly. I can trace the Maturation of Carissa back to almost that exact date. He was a big dude in almost every sense, and not having him there made a lot of us all grow up and fill the holes that he left in having to take care of ourselves and each other.

He had my back more than anyone else ever has. And I only say this over my best girl friends, because I am pretty sure that he would have killed someone if he thought he really had to. He certainly was right up and in the face of the drunk dude at Higher Ground until I got an apology for being doused by his beer. He was there to protect and serve when the Ex Who Won't Take No For An Answer came back to Burlington.

He was the sort of guy who would give you both his shirt AND his ill hoodie right off of his back if you asked for it. I don't think I ever heard him tell me "no." I could call him at any hour of the day or night and tell him what was up, and he'd be right on it. More than anything else I miss about him lately, I miss that feeling of knowing that there was someone who can just say, "Hey, homegirl, it's aight. You're a dime, and you're gonna get through this," and tuck me under his chin. And it made it "aight."

We went through a lot together. I'd never been more honest with anyone than I was with him. He was just one of those people who you just wanted to tell everything to. We'd sit out on the stoop and smoke and shoot the shit, and those are probably some of my favorite memories. I learned more about other people and myself when I was with him then I ever did alone. It stands to reason that sometimes, the people that you least expect it from are the ones that are going to provide you with exactly what you need, even if you never knew you needed it before.

The other day, I was feeling pretty low. I went into my little Drawer of Magic and was promptly stumped. There was lots more in there then I remembered, and I mean, I'm not just being forgetful here. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I pulled it all out, looked at it, exceedingly puzzled, and then just felt it. There he was, in with his wares, still providing for me. Basically, still saying, "Keep it easy, and this one's on me. Still." I sat there on my bedroom floor and gave in to the least-graceful mix of laughing and crying at the same time ever executed.

I miss him terribly, every day.

But it's good to know his sense of generous humor has still stuck around.

So this one's on me. One love, MJP. And I'll never say "lata, playa."
XOXO

Essays, Wrote The Wise Man

If I have nothing original to give you of my own, I will find you something interesting and of note to read.

This is the website of one of my professors, and his essay on the durian fruit is hilarious. If nothing else today, you need to read this, and laugh.

Like Tim Brookes, I thoroughly appreciate a good essay. Essays, essays, essays...I have a long and involved relationship with essays, (possibly my only long and involved relationship ever). When I was a freshmen in high school, my English teacher passed out a prompt and those iconoclastic blue booklets to our class so, like every other high school student in grades 9-12 in the state of Vermont, we could participate in the annual Vermont Honors Competition for Excellence in Writing. (Long title; 5 paragraph essay.)

To my utter surprise, my essay (I don't remember the prompt,) was selected as the best out of the 150 some-odd from my freshmen class. On to Round Two writing against the freshmen winners of the other schools in my county, and a new prompt, this one on what I would chose to do if I knew it was my last day alive. (My response: nothing different, except I'd sleep in and finally be daring enough to speak up to a few people I felt I couldn't be for the fear of having to live with the words I'd said. As still now, I have always had a problem with actually saying the words I feel and think.) Again, utter shock when I was announced the county winner.

This brought me onto State Finals at UVM. I brought my friends Wheaton and Carson along for moral support, and was (again, as always) 15 minutes late to the actual timed writing period. This was the prompt for the competing essay: "Our country prides itself on progress made in such fields as technology, medicine, education, etc. In a thoughtful, well-developed essay, discuss how progress, although highly valued in our society, could be viewed as being paradoxical." I wrote something about how although technology has made our lives "easier," one could argue that it has taken away the personal element to things such as communication, which undermines the definition of "progress." I think I even used the word "juxtaposition" somewhere in that essay. It would make sense. It's been my favorite word since my intimidating, inspiring, iconic 9th grade play-writing teacher used it one day in class.

The prompt for all grades was a bit less cerebral: "Henry Adams wrote, 'A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.' Reflect upon Adams’ words. Then, in a thoughtful, well-developed essay, discuss the impact a teacher (the individual does not have to be in the teaching profession) made on you." I thought about my teachers; my trainer; my parents; my more enlightened friends. And then I wrote about myself and my writer's voice, and though I may not know where it came from, or how, that voice, more than all the class assignments, bad teenage poetry, fan-fictions, and notes passed in class, is what encourages me to write, and to continue writing. I have tried scouring the internet and files to find the copy of the essay for you, but, alas, somewhere in the past (jeeezus) seven years, it has disappeared. Probably, a good thing. It was not my favorite essay ever written. But yet, when they announced my name as the statewide freshmen year winner and ushered me up to collect my $2,000 check, that was the essay they asked me to read. So, like anyone just given a large amount of money and then asked to do something, I complied, and was amazed when I watched stranger's mothers tear up. I was even more amazed when I was called to the school office a week later to conduct a phone interview with a reporter from the local paper.

"Have you always written?" the reporter asked me.

"Um...yeah, I guess so." (I was in such shock I am afraid I was not the eloquent. Then again, I've always been far more eloquent via written rather than spoken word.)

"What do you think you want to do with your writing? Any plans on making it a profession?"

"I want to be a journalist." The words were out of my mouth before I'd even thought about them. I was just as surprised as the reporter was. This was the first time I'd even considered making writing (something I loved,) into a career (something to feed myself and pay the bills). Before, I had every intention on attending veterinary school, nevermind the fact I am so severely needle-phobic I get strapped down to the chair at my doctor's. All it took was four five-paragraph essays that a few other people believed in enough to think they were "winners" to change the entire course of my life.

I have always loved shared knowledge-- if you find something you think I might enjoy or find novel, please, and by all means, leave it for me as a comment. I always love finding, discovering, or reading new things.

XOXO

"Abandon Truth; Settle For Good Fantasy."

It is not often I demand things from people.

But, I am demanding you to go here, explore, and form an opinion. As one author writes, "I came. I saw. I conceded."

These are the Sixers. I think they're revolutionary and liberating.

Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure

Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak

Shocked at what people can accomplish with limited space, time, and word count? Do you love or hate the concise format? Are you a minimalist who revels in the diminutive? If so, you'd love me.

XOXO