Local news at 10:09 AM

Today is the 31st anniversary of my mother's death. We share a tradition on this day, my sister, brother, and I; an email exchange and candles plus whatever goes on in our private thoughts. I included my brother's message below. Seems all three of us dream and redream our childhood home. It's like a haunting but that can be a good thing, I suppose. Or okay anyway.

Today in Seattle the weather was just like it was 31 years ago, that January day - cold with a dirty fog that closing in the city. We put mom in a wheelchair and pushed her around the hospital floor. Which one? The 7th? We stopped at the NW window looking out over 15th st. A very depressing, gray mist pushed up against the window. I distinctly remember feeling embarrassed showing her such things. I told her I loved her and that I would miss her dearly. She just looked out, saying nothing. Moving on, we went back to the room and I lifted her into bed. So light and frail.

The other night I had a dream of biking home to Beaux Arts. I was going up 106th street, the Akin's house to the left, the Wah's to the right, the road was cobble stone with emerald green moss growing and healthy between the stones. I was tired, it was a long ride from my office in Seattle, or wherever I had come from. In dreams you never really know, only the moment, the cobblestone path, and the thought that it was so so long a ride. Soon I would be home. But then I realized the family was not there and I would have to make it a home on my own. It was too far to ride.

One hell of a dream, eh?
Love to both of you.

I'll light a candle tonight.

I posted a new poem on my poetry blog today. I started it awhile ago, I don't know when. I found it in one of my old notebooks. Anyway, I finished it this morning.

As though

I am the shadow and the leaves tonight. I am pooled under trees. I seep into the forest floor and smell of mold and rot. I am quiet as moss and the dark side of rocks. I drink rain with an open mouth. I am the reflection that looks back with many eyes.

Local news at 12:31

I am a wreck. Have been for a while. My office is a wreck. Everything is a drag. I will tell you what. I am getting really sick of this. Just sayin.








Depressed Hamster

Cookies for breakfast but no Haloscan

Coffee can message holder
left at the peak of a lonely
mountain top somewhere
in the Nevada desert

They weren't the hit I'd thought they'd be but this morning I gave the magpies butter cookies for breakfast, the kind you buy at xmas in the big tin. I'm not sure how old they are. At least a year. By seconds the general consensus was they were weird. A few birds hung around to pick and nibble but even they left some on the table. Now, as usual, one fellow is still out there cleaning up but I hope he doesn't get a tummy ache. No more cookies for magpies. Maybe I will try them on the ducks. They are pigs with feathers.

In other news, Haloscam has finally extracted itself from my blog. Good! Skeevy bastards. It was waste of time installing their stupid service in the first place. Blogger comments always worked just fine. I was like a crow, enamored by a bit of shiny tinsel. The downside is that the brilliant, witty comments left here over the years are also gone leaving me at this outpost border crossing bribing birds for company and hoping a ragged traveler or two will happen by and leave a note in the can. Yes, they are only digital but they do make the world seem a friendlier place.

Local news at 12:17

From where I sit, twenty-ten came out of the gate sideways. Change. So be it. I don't have to like it. I just have to go with it. Even my favorite cafe in Reno closed. WTF? It had the best poetry open mic in town and was right on the river in the same building as a great gallery and an artist's resident hotel. On the other side of the spectrum, the assholes at Haloscan still haven't removed me from their service. Fuckers. Anyway, I am in Reno today. Will post some photos later. I hope your year had a more gentle beginning.

Real friend test

/>