Inspirational Quotes from Great Literature.

You know that James Wright-y feeling you get when you look back on the last year or so of your life and see it amounts to nothing more than staring at a screen writing words nobody will ever read, both professionally and for pleasure? Well, a heavy wave of that burnt-retina despair washed over me last night, children.

So I did the only thing a person can do under the circumstances. I poured a glass of whiskey and I got out The Long Winter for inspiration. Because as pointless as contract-writing life seems, it's like a day at a beauty spa compared to the Blizzards of '80 - '81. As usual, the reading worked like a charm (the whiskey worked like an alcohol.)

Here are the most inspirational quotes I came across.

1. How brave Laura is here. "Just" buying something, she says. As if buying something were easy! As if it were something people did every day of the week! How can a person not be inspired in the face of such heroic stoicism?

2. You may have thought that only 20th and 21st century people knew how to "peace out," but Pa Ingalls was doing it long before it was cool. (And long before the spelling change.)

3. See what I mean? I may think it's boring to stare at a computer all day--BUT AT LEAST I DON'T HAVE ICICLES IN MY MUSTACHE!

Meet Your Grandparents! (Clark Edition)

This weekend, your father and I drove out to the 'burbs to visit your grandparents, who kindly still feed us when we knock on their door. Hopefully, we will time your births exactly right, so that just as they're beginning to get absolutely sick to death of us, we will announce that we have made adorable new people who are currently living inside one of our bodies (we won't bore them with all the details) and whom they may play with, but only on the condition that they continue to feed us all when we knock on their door. Whenever we knock on their door.

Anyway, the main difference between your grandparents and your parents is that they have what are considered "useful" professions, and we are what is considered "freelance bloggers."

Your grandfather Bill, for example, is a preacher. While we were visiting, I sneezed and he said "Bless you," and you know what, children? It actually meant something.










And your grandmother Laurie, who is a doctor, examined your father's ears because they hurt, and diagnosed the problem with no difficulties*.

So let me apologize in advance for the day you and your spouses come to visit your dad and me in our suburban house and the most help I can offer you is to suggest you try shuffling your syntax so you have more trochees and fewer dactyls or perhaps a nice slant rhyme here and there or maybe an allusion to Greek mythology or two.

...I'm such a waste of space.

*Obviously, I can't repeat the problem here, because it would violate doctor-patient privilege AND spousal privilege, which I know about from Law & Order shows and because your father went to law school.

And He Says I'M the Artsy One.

Being the poet of the relationship means that I am often stereotyped as the more butterflies-and-rainbows, skipping-through-a-field-of-daisies-barefoot, oddly dressed one. And in a relationship of only two people, your father is the one who does that stereotyping.

But then I left the camera in his area of the apartment during our standard home-office workday, and turned it on later to find THESE:

Blurred lines, strange angles, closeups on wooden molding?

I think we know who the artsy one is, now don't we*?

*It's still me. I mean, I write poetry, for Christ's sake.

An Abiding Love for Poetry.

Some people like to cuddle with their spouses.

Some people like to cuddle with their cats.

Me? I like to cuddle* with poems.

 How happy does this cuddling make me? Sooo happy (pictured).

*Yes, just cuddle. For the last time, your brother is not half haiku, he's just short.

What Writers Do at a Party.

While parties are not an everyday occurrence for us, I nonetheless feel compelled to document one on this blog for you, dear future children. This is a writer's party. You can see that there is natural light in the room, because this particular party took place at brunch-time.
You can also see that we are thoughtfully listening to one writer read from his work. When he finishes, we snap our fingers and sip from our wine bottles. And then we all grow beards and sleep with other*.

*Ha! Kidding! You know I can't grow a beard!

In the Spirit of the Season...

Happy Valentine's Day, children! In honor of the day, I'll write about three of the things I love most: your father, beer, and poems.

1. I like my beer opposite of how I like my men: stout, dark, and rich.

2. What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells on the Future! -- how it tells of the rapture that impels to the swinging and the ringing of the bells, bells, bells*...

3. Look at that. Not only does your father wash dishes like a champ, he makes them tessellate in the drying rack. Am I a lucky lady, or what?


4. ...to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells*.



* My apologies to Edgar Poe.

Some Verse.

Two poets, both alike in dignity,

In my fair kitchen, where I lay my scene,

From liquor store and from the grocery,

One is a beer and one is tea that’s green.

From forth the tasty drops of these two drinks

Another poet finds her will to write;

Why wake at all without these two, methinks?

And how to start the day or end the night?

The quaffing of your mother’s constant thirst,

And the clearing of her brain’s daily smog,

Which happens in the early morning first,

Is now this entry’s traffic of her blog.

(And you thought poetry was dull and bland—

Not when it springs forth from your mother’s hand!)

What Your Mom Does for a Living (Hopefully).

Well, children, it's finally happened. Just this week, I received in the mail my official Poet card, meaning that I am, officially, a card-carrying poet.

I hope that by the time you exist and can read this, the title of this post is true. Which I guess means that I hope the future world has an insatiable hunger for poetry. And let's face it, if there is no such hunger in the future world, WHO WOULD WANT TO LIVE THERE?!?!