The cat thinks i'm crazy wanting to stay inside and type while it's so beautiful outside. Perhaps i am. I read an email this morning though about looking for good female poets to read who were writing pre-1945. A tickle in my brain said i knew some and after discovering my grandmother's poetry book on my shelf published in 1942 was full of women, i couldn't help but go on a poetry hunt. Here's some of the names i came up with...

Phyllis Wheatley
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Emma Lazarus
Emily Bronte
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Christina Rossetti
Dorothy Parker
Elizabeth Bishop
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Miss Emily Dickinson had already been mentioned. I found it strange the number of "E" names that showed up on the list. What's that all about?

I've determined though that there is more poetry out there than i will ever have time to read if i want to write any of my own.~w

I got caught up in a personal poetry hunt this morning...

I'll get back to you after these messages....

In one day everything can look different and not change at all.
At 3:00am i woke to rumblings and watched the the staccoto flash strobe light bright filled the yard for seconds at a time.
Today it's just damp out there, but my brain feels wet too after a fitful night's sleep.
I'm late, and feel there is too much to get done today.
Yesterday i felt ahead of the game, but somehow that washed away in last night's storm.

Till tomorrow...~w

This day is a bit grey to start. Or maybe the sun just hasn't made it over the trees. In any case i've feeling more lazy than glorious this morning. Yesterday after a visit to the chiropracter (to undo what 60 hours of typing at a computer did to me last week) i took a long hot soak and managed to read a few pages before falling asleep early. I guess i needed a night off. Thing is, i didn't wake up bouncing with energy this morning like i had hoped.

My head's a little boggled by a perplexing question a friend of mine is wrestling with right now. How do you decided what to be when you grow up? Or, when you've grown up, how do you decide what you want to be? My thought was that a myriad of experiences and stories add up to being a full time writer. Thing is, when you haven't written anything yet, it's hard to do that and pay off debts at the same time. So do you blow off the debts and hope that it will all work out? Or do you defer the dream and pay the bills? It's hard to add it all up and make sense out of it. For now, i'm trying to keep the debts down.~w

My roommate's cat is nearly frothing at the mouth over the fact that the neighbor's cat is sitting on the back porch. She wants out to attack him, but she doesn't have claws. My cat, who has claws, is napping completely unmoved by her antics. I guess the neighbor's cat knows he's safe.

I saw "Memento" last night and that movie messed with my head the way I was hoping "The Others" would but didn't. So far this summer of the 4 movies i've seen, the two i paid $2 for were by far the better ones. It actually took me a while to reorder my brain after seeing it because i had worked so hard to follow a backwards storyline. It was a very bizzare and disturbing story. I think partly because i started noticing the number of notes i leave to myself as reminders of things i need to do. Or that game of pleasant acknowlegment as you wrack your brain trying to remember how you met this person who knows you, but you can't even remember their name. Memory is a tricky thing. It all comes down to what you choose to remember. A lot of times it's easier that way.~w

I mailed things yesterday...lots of things...in fact we decided to drive the mail to the post office cuz i made such a big pile. It felt good to get rid of all the stuff that has been keeping me so busy. Now i have other things to keep me busy and more things to mail. At least it's different stuff from last week's stuff. Funny how once you go into business the busy-ness never seems to stop.

I puttered away my morning reading someone else's post about touring. She had some good points. I might have to see if i can dig through my memory and figure out what i would tell somebody new to the road...~w

My neighbors have cable. From the cool dark quiet of my house i can see the flashing color images through the leaves of a plant. I've never paid for cable. I had it when i lived on the road in hotel rooms and it can nearly drive you mad staring at that little black box prominently displayed in the center of the room. I listened to music yesterday, which was nice, but mostly i like it quiet. The bugs are quite loud with their singing at night and make enough sound to deal with while trying to sleep. There's no reason to add any more. Still, one car is missing and the other neighbor is walking the dog and the color still flashes through the leaves from their TV.

My computer is colorful too, but i don't have sounds and flashing pictures coming from it right now. I think my main gripe with cable is all the ads that i'm paying someone to give me. Unless you do as a friend of mine does, and record all your shows to watch later with remote in hand, finger on "fast-forward," you end up watching more ads than any programming. Besides don't i spend enough of my day in front of a screen? The window behind my screen is what reminds me that a world is out there. Still most of the time i see it through the frame of a window or windshield. Saturday i sat on the back porch just looking at the wind play in the trees with my naked eyes (okay i did have contacts in so i could see the leaves...but still, no glass between me and them). I felt more relaxed than i have in a long time. There is something very peaceful about looking at the world in "real time" and letting the sun tell you the hour by its position.

With that i duck back into the fray today and hope i remember to come up for air before too much time goes by.~w

Maybe it's just an ego thing i need to get over. After all, my connection to the Seattle Slam is long past and now i have work to do her in Asheville to relight the slam fire (people want it, just no one is doing it). Still, I just read the history of Seattle's slam at HistoryLink and was i sad to see that there was no mention of Raging Muse Press and the monthly journal Emeralds in the Ash that grew out of the scene. After all, it was the first publishing opportunity for many people of the slam community. It also kinda sounds like i wasn't involved until i auditioned to host when i fact i put several years of blood sweat and tears into making the show happen. I suppose it's hard to let go and live by one of my favorite lines of poetry "i want to be that unnoticed and that necessary." I suppose knowing i was necessary is much more important than anyone actually remembering what i did.

With that i'm off to find happy things to do with my day.~w