thanks drew

We love the camera. (We being me and my dogs). Thank you.

Yay! This is us hugging and celebrating the new camera!

Mollie, some berries, and so much happiness. 

She looks just like a spinosaurus in this photo. The new camera is bewitched, I'm certain.

the unruly beloved emu

I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy (kind of. I've also spent a lot of time flâneuring 'bout the town). Et, je suis paresseuse.  A few big things:

Firstly, Four Corners. Aug 29-31. Friday I emceed the late night stage, then overdid it a bit on the partying (Scott ran down the street naked and got the cops called on us; Marykate subsequently yelled "The strippers are here!" when the cops knocked on the door), so Saturday was a little more low-key. Well, until the evening, when I slipped and fell in the mud dancing to the Punch Brothers, emceed the late night stage again, and listened to the jams until 3:30 a.m. Sunday, despite (or perhaps because of) the rain, was the best day: two-stepping with a bit of swing dancing under the tent. That's all that I need to say. For those of you who missed it: come next time! For those who were there: high five! See you next year. I'll be the one with a bottle of Maker's Mark in one hand and a mic in the other (just kidding, I don't drink while I'm working. Complete professional, I am, sir).

Secondly, Dennis and Gretchen are MARRIED! Sept. 6, in Sedona (well, in between Sedona and Flagstaff, I guess). They were married in a sun-filled red canyon, and Emmy and I played in a nearby creek before the ceremony. I've never been hiking in a dress before. "I'd like to introduce you all to Mr. and Mrs. Jones!" 

Thirdly, I moved back to Boulder. Yes, I live here now. My house has a wonderful backyard and two apple trees, and Emmy has named the squirrel who lives outside Winslow. 

Fourthly, the Monolith Festival, Red Rocks, Sept. 13 & 14. I'm surprised I didn't have a seizure from sensory overload. Jumping from the Avett Brothers to Justice in less than six hours takes a finely-tuned mind and surly demeanor (and I posses both). Also, I discovered that sevenish pulls from the Tullamore Dew bottle IN THE CAR before the festival starts may be excessive; verdict's still out on that one.

So, I apologize for ignoring this little bloggy. Sorry for being a bad mom, bloggy. But to the approximately 2.5 people who read this blog, rejoice! For the first time since, well, since Paris, I've been writing (non-work writing, that is). It's just a bunch of little fragments right now, worthy of papier maché projects, at best. But still, I'll put in a concerted effort to post here more regularly. Surprisingly, chugging two mugs of coffee (like literal, desperate, throat-scalding chugging) and driving nonstop to Flagstaff for the wedding provided me with a lot of writing material. For example: a giant, bloated, dead white cow on the side of the road that Sean mistook for a polar bear. Priceless.

In the meantime, a poem I really love: the unruly beloved emu. Are you the reverse stork of gorgeousness?

gently furious nostalgia: two old poems

from spring 2007

phoenix IV (diagnosis)

The summer my sister came home from Sun Valley
Good Samaritan, I rooted out all the nail polish
bottles in our house and threw them away. I had heard
polish stopped sticking to fingernails after
sickness. I did not want her to see paint slip from her
fingers like fat, garish banana leaves. It was the summer of
120 degrees heat, of oven mitts worn in cars to grip
scorched steering wheels. Potted spider plants became
spindly starfish; cactus wrens haunted streets at night,
searching for glasses of chalky lemon water left on porches.
It was also the summer I learned all bodies held secrets:
my sister’s ribboned through her lymph until the
flues blocked and she was drained of her
waters like the city. After sitting in a patch of
withered dandelions, I saw the yellow streaks on
my thighs and thought I had jaundiced like her,
thought Here it comes. Yet there was no way for me
to understand. I could only twist the sprinkler and watch
the globed water net her small frame in the grass.
Outside the borders of her frayed blue bathing suit,
I watched the pale parentheses in her armpits, delineating
places where her body did itself harm. Stitches
shone like train tracks through the channels of her
groin as she crossed the dry husk of our lawn.


Upon Viewing the First Giant Squid Caught on Video

I anticipated this. Before you existed
in the world, I often envisioned your curved beak,
plump tentacles in the green sea, eyes Frisbee-big.
The largest eyes of any animal on the planet.

Glutted with books, I knew your red skin,
the secret barbs in your suckers
to catch and rip fish. I knew you well.
But old friend, to watch you die
after putting up quite a fight — to see you

caught on hooks, the thin brown
cellulose of film where you cannot
escape, where you will struggle
on the knife-grey water
causing the injuries that killed you —

I did not know this, the limp body slide
of a baby by giant squid standards,
never saw froth and pulp on pale eyes,
dead limbs animated, dancing with waves.

You should not have died. But we wanted
you here with us, not in your home
where we cannot see you, where sunlight
never reaches. I am sorry, but please understand:

We know nothing of you, except the
broken plank dreams left in your wake,
and that one day we will all swim forever
across the terrible water toward your brothers.