How I know I was known

You chose my funeral song. The Neko Case song you chose for your own would make a beautiful and fitting dirge. I hope whoever buries you knows of this and fulfills your request.

I was/am listening to the Starflyer 59 album containing the song "We the Ordinary," the song you reverently chose to play at my service should you outlast me. I remember you were sorry for having chosen this song after scrutinizing it some but I was and still am imminently moved by your choice. There is only a faint tinge of a remembered hope in this song unlike the usual threnody that tries to push images of "the great beyond" and arriving in better places or flying away to home.

We're ordinary people
Close but not the worst
But I think you know
We're all the lonely people

Alone but not at first
But I think you know

The older living people
Who've been through even worse
But I think you know
Just like the other people

Alone but not at first
But I think you know
Sometimes we don't have a life


True, very true. Maybe one of the saddest songs I have ever heard but also one of the most resonant. I used to my brothers and sisters who share the same faith I do that we have the ability to not even know what it feels like to be lonely because we have the spiritual presence of our Lord's comfort. I was incredibly foolish. Jesus was a man isolated and rejected above all and knew practically nothing but loneliness. I had not intended to go here but I used to use this matter of loneliness and the supposed lack-there-of as a selling point to myself for why following Jesus Christ makes sense. I once wrote a very simple and creativity poor poem in high school called "I like goodbyes" that explained why I prefer parting rather than greetings. I said I liked the intense feelings they engender because I found those more profound than the ones accompanying meeting someone new or the gradual warmth of a friendship burgeoning over time. I relished loneliness because I thought I was above it and it was a sort of luxurious treat to partake of when I knew I had stored up enough joy to withstand it. The rush of self-inflicted isolation was thrilling.

Little did I know there is nothing as heart breaking or despised as the person truly alone. I thought emotional pain was a game because I was delusional concerning the immense wall I had constructed around my heart and soul. There has only been one person I have ever truly loved selflessly and only one person who has showed me that love of that sort exists. Also, belied by your duly chosen requiem for me, you were the only person who truly knows how lonely I have been my whole life.

I have no idea if that warrants a thank you or something else but nonetheless I thank you with only fond thoughts from now on.

I also wish to point out that on the ablum containing "We the Ordinary" it is only two songs away from "Fell in Love at 22," the song we danced to at our wedding. The most hopeful and perfectly nostalgic song I have ever heard.

blocked. no, not blocked ... beleagured

But hey, look. I'm fucking prolific. I think I might just break last years record of 26 posts. An accomplishment I don't think I will be brandishing too conspicuously. This blog in and of itself is a pitiful testament to the lack of humanity I have come to accept as my lot. I was empty but now I am seemingly only full of less than positive things to say. So who's to say I am better off or not.

I lost my keys today and I cried. It is no secret that crying is a daily activity for me. But the keys really got to me. I went to a lunar eclipse party the other night on the winter solstice and it was miraculous and mystifying. I felt so much and so little staring up at the color-shifting night sentinel. I was very aware of the Earth and the Sun and the power of planets. I felt moved and movement. I felt the order or things. Many people in my life refer to the Universe in similar terms to the way people who claim to be theists refer to God as someone upstairs liking them. These people in my life will say things like the Universe really has my back. After losing my keys for absolutely no discernible reason and in an extremely brief amount of time I cursed the Universe for having the back of those who are in much less turmoil than I currently find myself and instead merely shitting upon my shitty situation. The connection was lost and I feel heavy-laden. Jesus Christ, unhand your light yoke. I am crushed and abandoned.

a toast

There is a Bjork song I listened to once and I posed the question asked in the song to my car partner. "Where is the line with you?" AT the time I was referring to sexual perpetuity I wanted to assure myself we were congruous. As with all things at this very particular time in my life this memory and Bjork's query has taken on new meaning and received a new context. So where is the line? The surer I become about what it is I ought to be doing the more I become inverted and entirely unsure of everything. What is my place? Where once I felt like (in the words of Bilbo Baggins) butter spread over too much bread I now feel like those burnt corners of the toast that the butter never reaches and will either be torn asunder from the rest and given to the dog or left on the plate to become stale, worthless and wasted.


I do have confidence in somethings, however. American justice is not dead nor entirely ineffective. My terrific friend was granted the payoff of determined justice seeking. In the name of self preservation and love of the ideal of a safe, peaceful city she has proved hope and diligent resistance can combat any evil. Dragging into the light secretive injustices can embarrass and make impotent those who think they can get away with treating another human as anything less than an incredible creature worthy of respect and compassion.

maybe we never married

I took my good friend, Tim, on a date tonight.

A person can say things in an inward only manner. Speech from the heart. Speaking only by means of not speaking but knowing and existing in. Perhaps if she never said it in her heart nothing ever happened. But then it was a sham and I have been fending off that notion so I don't want to invite it as a possibility. Real is only barely relative but I know there were aspects that must have been real concerning the last five years. I refuse to engage the thoughts that keep hounding me saying I made a nearly unforgivable mistake and my doom is loneliness as retribution.

Maybe it was easy because it never was.


Nothing is simple now and I am rebuilding all of it. I know I am young but I had such a structure.

Clementines surely saved my life and erasing your name

Waking up is easy but the second my brief rehearsed routine of feeding my cat and standing in the center of my bedroom wondering what to do next has concluded I begin trembling and feel hungry and nauseous and I stare so long the top of my head begins to ache.

I ate a bowl of cereal because I knew I was hungry. It was delicious and repugnant. So I walked over to the couch, got down on my knees and wept. I asked God for relief. I asked for ability to let go. I was clutching the afghan covering the cushions, pushing my fingers through the holes like they were eye sockets and I thought about forgiveness.

I don't want to medicate. I am not disordered. Everything is well ordered and falling into place. Every friend and every breeze bringing winter in further tells me this is all normal. I should not be ashamed. I am not ashamed I have failed and I am crushed.

If I felt nothing the problem would lie with me. My mind and body are not the problem. Don't worry about me. I don't. I have immense worries and I tremble for a reason but it is not for my own sake. This, I am told, has been the root to all the trouble however. An ostensiblly unhealthy view of love in a modern context. Looking outside one's self for satisfaction and comfort because although a person may be truly lovely and strong a person is not enough. I fear I may only ever love myself because no one else would desire to. For years I had enough love to sustain two people so I am entirely certain I have enough to love my mere self. That has never been a strain for me.

I am hungry again. A little shaky and a mostly uncertain about everything. But I now eating clementines and going for a walk.

sitting space

I am letting myself go. Not in the sense of allowing myself to become unkempt and corpulent but I am releasing myself to Greaterness. To The Greaterness. Not of humanity but beyond humanity.

There is snow outside and it is colder than it has been all season. You can sense it most in the bathroom of this apartment so I wanted to write this in there but the only sitting space with a view out the window is on the sink counter. And since my wife is leaving me her half-packed belongings are occupying nearly all of the sink counter sitting space.

I began writing a poem this morning about explaining a satisfying pooping experience to a man that doesn't seem to understand me. This is a man I have sought out because I heard he could help me with a project but I quickly find out he cannot help me and so as a means of escape from this situation that is very uncomfortable for me I begin detailing how satisfying and often enjoyable pooping is. All of this is just for the poem of course.

But then I got to thinking. What kind of man writes about poop when his wife is leaving him? Or even better, what kind of adult writes about poop and calls it poop? Isn't the mature thing to do to call it shit? And more accurately, what kind of a human writes about talking about poop? And what kind of human writes about poop when his wife is leaving him? Well, at least I didn't write about shoving shit down his fucking throat because his idiot fucking face can't seem to understand he only makes things worse when he doesn't listen to me. I mean, that sounds more adult but not any more human. I am going for humanity. No. Like I said before: The Greaterness beyond humanity.

American Television

Well after an extremely short search on the internet I found out how to write on my blog using my IPad. Yes, this is being written on an IPad. One of the very first things I did when I bought this thing was open up my blog and attempt to post. I was unsuccessful and I simply assumed Blogger simply isn't compatible with this new, fangled thingy. So instead of utilizing the full spectrum of homogenized technologies inhabiting the IPad (such as the internet, etc.) I just pouted and decided that it wasn't worth it to me to take the three seconds to figure out the solution to this minor of minor problems.


So this is the first time I have ever jumped so quickly onto a new product band wagon. This is the first time I have even purchased an Apple product. Those who know me well might point out that I do own an IPod Touch but to them I must point out I painted my mother-in-law's laundry room and as payment she gave it to me because she felt owning an IPod she never used and an IPhone was a bit redundant. Speaking of redundancy, I am reading a novel by Muriel Spark and she keeps referring to all these men as being redundant and having a tough time making ends meet. She is british and I suppose redundant in Brit Land is synonymous with "unemployed" on this side of the pond. But Spark gives very few clues to suggest this and I am no expert in the field of vernacular of the modern Britain. It probably took me far too long to figure out this simple semantic issue and perhaps she was writing with a purely British readership in mind but I still felt put off by the whole thing. I suppose, even on this dinky blog, I write far too "American" and use several phrases that would confuse the world's masses if they weren't being pumped hours of American Television every day.

one t-shirt larger

Fascinating story. On NPR this morning I heard the tail end of On Point, the brilliantly mediated discussion show, where Tom was talking with a linguist/cognitive neuroscientist, Arika Okrent, about invented languages. She brought up Klingon and Esperanto, two of the more well-known invented languages from recent history. And as interesting as it is to try to understand why people would invent languages I haven't been able to stop thinking about how lovely it is that naturally occurring language is so consistently disjointed, obtuse, illogical and contradictory.

It is obvious why it would be advantageous to devise a flawlessly structured, immutable language but the fact that our very humanness hatched the strange and hopelessly complex communication standards and patterns we use without even thinking about it says more about what it means to be human than could ever be explained by the means allowed by any language.

Oh, and speaking of NPR, at my place of business we just got in an NPR shirt bearing a faded pair of headphones, the National Public Radio logo and then the somewhat snarky phrase "Get Smarter" across the bottom. I think my wardrobe is going to get one t-shirt larger very soon.


brandonpiercegeary

writing exercise

Perhaps not a true writing exercise because, for the life of me, I can't think of what this is teaching me other than getting me to appreciate metaphor a little more.

The first sentence is the original and I merely replaced all the "in's" with "is's." What fun!

1.
the fruit picker who lived all those years in a motel (incomplete sentence and only moderately interesting)
The fruit picker who lived all those years is a motel. (Ahhh, now there is something to ponder and within the trappings of a proper sentence to boot)

2.
The carrot shaving in my salad looks suspicious. (Hmm, I think I am already losing steam)
The carrot shaving is my salad (and) looks suspicious. (Yeah, this is already becoming redundant. Perhaps I should quit while I still care.)


Point is, I recently acquired a second means of some income. I am writing copy for Hayneedle.com. Product descriptions and so on. It is extremely gratifying and taxing because I get to come up with charming and witty paragraphs about things I rarely ever think about let alone write about and I am also responsible for coding a great deal of what I write. HTML. Good grief.

Anyway, so I tried to come up with a writing exercise before I dig into another task. This was the best I could come up with without consulting other people. Sort of failed but the carrot thing was kind of silly so maybe not an entire loss.

brandonpiercegeary

'Harvard Musical Anthropology Survey'

Okay, so I tried to upload one of Harvey Pekar's last stories but something was going terribly wrong and the image was only 80% visible in this little dialog box I am typing in. So here is the link instead. This is not necessarily indicative of his usual fare but it will at least give you an idea of his sense of humor. Most of his comics are funny in the same way Peanuts was funny. The characters are miserable, lonely, rejected, frustrated, unbecoming, but they have their immutable intelligence and solidarity with others who are poor in spirit.

In the passage of the Bible where Jesus is remarking about these sorts he says they will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. When I was trying to remember what he said they would inherit I thought it was "the Earth." But that is what the meek get. I really thought it was the complete opposite. In the Christian faith I supposed it was the truly humble and contrite who gain access to God. But it seems it is merely the tread-upon. Actually this is making an immense amount of sense because why would those who lived desperate lives on Earth want to inherit it?

"every morning in a cold sweat"

It is more than fitting that it is bitterly dismal today. Harvey Pekar was found dead around 1 a.m. this morning by his wife, Joyce Brabner. (I began this post yesterday but was so disheartened and so terribly busy I was unable to finish).

I don't think I fully understood the term "salt of the earth" until I discovered this rare human who balked at life's menial yet overwhelming daily struggles and yet never made me feel pity nor shame but almost exclusively the most unexpected emotion ever to be elicited by a oft-labeled curmudgeon: love. I believe I fell in love with Harvey Pekar. 'From off the streets of Cleveland' and straight into my heart.

A few months ago just after seeing the film based on Harvey's comic book series 'American Splendor' I wrote a post concerning the life-altering revelations proffered by my viewing of this movie. The implications of a single human's life being so important without being so important struck me about as deep as any proper philosophical account of the same anomaly of living. I re-watched the movie last night accompanied by my enduring partner in art and life (so akin to Joyce in the best ways) and a 2-liter of orange soda (reportedly Harvey's consistent beverage of choice). There is a scene set up like a dream sequence after Harvey passes out in their Cleveland Heights apartment because his cancer treatment is so oppressive to his already feeble body. In this scene Harvey walks among partially illustrated rooms in a nondescript house reciting a monologue about living in his first apartment and coming across other Harvey Pekars in his first phone book.

He is very self-aware and naturally realizes the oddity of more than one person having such a rare name let alone several people. He follows these other Harveys' lives through their presence in the phone book and when they come to die he said, "I was filled with sadness. Although I had never met them I felt we had this inexplicable connection."

This sentiment is what I fell in love with. He was known as cantankerous, which he certainly seemed to be, but he was so generous with his appreciation that other people existed. He was desperately lonely because he valued other people so exceptionally. When I heard of his death the reality of his contribution was clearer than ever. I too was filled with sadness. I had hardly even known Harvey through his art but his unorthodox care was so evident and life-affirming I was completely disarmed by the news. In my estimation one of the most loving humans had passed. He was entirely mortal and just by living his day-to-day he reveled in that. It is not that he was remarkable for his unremarkableness. He was beyond those trite assumptions. He was fascinating because he existed and that is all. And I believe he would say the exact same thing about anyone else.

'Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.'

You will be sorely missed, Harvey
brandon

not so strange magnificence

The internet we use at home just comes and goes and so it is with nearly everything else as well.
I found a new callous on the back of my heel just below the achilles tendon. Definitely the sign of movement. Progress perhaps.

"The feeling of health. The full noon trill."

I am escaping into the night to read Walt Whitman and to become a man. I don't suspect I shall be gone very long.

I also have an inkling that unless I begin writing something that makes a little bit more sense I am never going to get published. Or perhaps I should actually just submit the material that makes no sense. Perhaps.

brandonpiercegeary

It seems beautiful just the way it is

In Sebastopol, California I have been able to confront a more ideal way of living with my cynicism and have found myself greatly wanting. This has been the most enlightening, spiritually aggressive and emotionally fortifying trip I have taken in my adult life.

Ideals are not dreams and dreams are not foolish. There is worth and there is worth in everything. I have had a lot of time to think about the order of all things in my life and I don't necessarily feel I will be taking things "back" with me but I feel I am coming into life and understanding love and selflessness. Selflessness especially. All of these things not as preoccupations that somewhat distract from day-to-day but serve to elevate my moments and hours.

I can't remember the last time I felt this sure about anything.
brandonpiercegeary

reality

In my attempt to primarily only give opinions on my own day-to-day on this blog I feel a little queasy putting this little paragraph about a very timely political conundrum. It was not from a political blog however, it was a philosophy blog. Clearly very different. But I find this paragraph makes an interesting comparison. I also love anything that recognizes the pull and tension between two opposing yet immutable realities.


"This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable. And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury. All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved. However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence. That is permanent." - J. M. Bernstein, Opinionator (blog), June 13, 2010

everything has a name

I love living in other people's homes and understanding this has suspiciously led me to want to own my own house more than ever.

Waking up in a bed, bedroom and house that does not belong to me is exhilarating. I remember having this feeling nearly daily when I was in high school living at my parents' house. I was still surrounded by my accumulations and trinkets but somehow I always felt as though I was not "home." My family was there, a great deal of my memories sprung from there, and it always felt secure and welcoming. But I felt like a constant boarder. And, to be clear, this was a very good sensation. It was undeniably inspiring as far as gathering my courage to leave and not be anchored too solidly by the weight of roots.

Being a guest also has with it a certain expectation of courtesy. You may come and go as you please but make your bed and keep the rock music to a reasonable level when others are in the house. I have never owned my own house but for some reason I see it looking like this. Hearing a housekeeper of sorts beckoning me to straighten up the office desk, help clear the table and put the toilet seat down. I don't think I will hear this voice as an overbearing feminine presence as in a tasking mother or overbearing spouse. But merely a genderless, formless nudging towards understanding of everything I think I have may not in fact be "mine."

Everything changes hands. Either to another actually hand or the soil-y grip of Earth. I just think the idea of owning a house that was purchased with money my wife and I have earned is far too overwhelming and the reminder of it would only cause me to consider the fading away of all things.

brandonpiercegeary

look aftering

There are many a tipping point in one's life. Getting pushed to the precipice is common exercise and I don't even have heels in any of my shoes anymore from pushing against the dirt. I know I have a lithe demeanor but it is tempered with a rebellious spirit. And I have had tremors coursing through this secondary sensibility and I am moved. I have rediscovered the value of faith through the intervention of friends and I am understanding the necessity of movement and progress and dreams. I am moreover furthering my knowledge of love and all the sacrifices therein. For the first time I feel just like the enormous sycamore tree across the street from our apartment. Full to bursting with vibrant, lush green. But instead of this growth merely weighing down my bows I am able to emulate the tree and stand entirely at ease because the leaves cause me no harm.

unsought

I found this sentiment scrolled onto a tiny piece of notebook paper and it gave me great encouragement:

all be second nature

soon, I promise



I then turned it over and saw that it was a note from my wife to one of her employees she was training about what his new duties would be and how after awhile he won't have trouble with them. But she couldn't fit the whole thing on one side and I believe I found a true message meant just for me in that precise moment. I wasn't demoralized this morning but even so the little two line poem raised my spirits considerably.

brandon

No poem to speak of

I know I missed a couple poem expounding days but I really don't care. I have been reading some poems but I don't have the time or energy to go the distance with any of them. And I still have those eight Dickinson poems I am leaning on so I don't feel so far behind. In all actuality I am just pleased to be reading poetry again. I haven't even thought in these sorts of critical ways in years.

the stretching is great and it reminds me I need to get back into yoga.

Melissa and I discussed what our mornings should look like from this point on. Or I suppose from the point last night on. There are a multitude of tiny oases in the form of quaint parks mere walking minutes from our apartment. We are going to utilize these weekly and in the morning do something extravagantly creative. Or perhaps modestly creative.

We used to have write-nights and it was terrific. That fell to the wayside far too quickly. But this, this is going to be different. Right? Right.

brandon

no one was there

Well, I know I didn't write about any poems that I read yesterday but I figured I already broke my cardinal rule concerning the amount of poems from each poet I would read. I also started this whole thing off on the wrong foot by starting in the middle of the month and not planning ahead. Planning is what begins and ends this crazy, muddled up world we live in right? I hope I learned my lesson about preparedness last year when I tried to tend a community garden plot but did little to no advanced scheduling or research and ended the harvest with a paltry yield.

I have come to understand this as a very important month. A month that holds two of my brothers' birthdays, my other brother's college graduation, and a two-fer appreciation month. Not only is it National Poetry Month (the muse behind my poetry writings) it is also Jazz Appreciation Month. So in the spirit of both these I shall regale you with an unsolicited, impromptu poem on the subject of jazz.

gather and push from this side to the back
buckle and jive so full
so much so
capacity's sound jolted to the not yet arrived

Well that is all I could muster. I hope both poetry and jazz feel appreciated. For my part I tried my darnedest.

brandon

"a member of the cloud"

I am so irreconcilably hasty as far as "classic" poets go and looking askance at them as opposed to absorbing them entirely and often. I just read an Emily Dickinson poem from a collection called Love Poems published by Peter Pauper Press in some undisclosed year. I know the poems were probably public domain when the book was put out but there is still a short forward I assume they would have wanted to copyright. Oh, well. I applaud their spirit of giving. I am not sure if the editors of this tiny volume added titles to the poems or if Emily herself initially intended the titles they appear here with. The one I read is called "Renunciation." It was was sort of long in comparison to most Dickinson I have read and with much, much more vague imagery. I read it thinking of her subject being love because of the name of the collection but I think she is talking about so many things in the various stanzas and sections of this poem that it is either a misnomer to have it included here or the editor included it as way to project an expansive view of love through Dickinson's not-so-much-a-love-poem.

You know what? I knew I was going to do this. I read eight Emily Dickinson poems that were not clearly marked as separate poems all as one large, unbelievably wonderful poem. The order of these must have been selected very carefully. It works so perfectly. She has the same sort of contentment throughout the eight poems and reoccurring themes of suffering saviors, divine gifts, royalty, turmoil over what to do with the grace of earthly love and company. All of it works so well. So the link to "Renunciation" is in fact only the part of the poem that was originally named that by Dickinson. I am trying to find the rest of the parts now.

Here they are: (and read them in this order too)

Of all the souls that stand create

That I did always love

Doubt me, my dim companion! (There are two versions of this one out there. I don't know if she wrote two editions of it or if one is not genuine. I like this one better either way. It is the one from my book)

Come slowly, Eden! (This one is really racy)

God permits industrious angels

He put the belt around my life

God gave a loaf to every bird

Maybe tomorrow I will copy and paste all of those on here into one large, glorious poem. I swear read them all together in that order. It was meant to be. I feel a tad sheepish for not noticing the tiny ferns marked the end of each poem. But in the end I stumbled upon something far greater than I bargained for. As an whole poem she has such a poignant way of coming to terms with her state in regards to herself, her God, her community, her lover, nature, and daily incidentals. Very moving and very sad she didn't write them as one piece to begin with.

brandon

The first even though midway through

I decided I was not too ambitious but I was merely impractical. I came up with this project too late (sort of). I have sixteen days left of April, National Poetry Month, so I have to read 1.875 poems a day in order to have 30 poems read, one for each day of the month, but the end. I read two yesterday:

"Emaciate Buddha" by Brett Eugene Ralph from Black Sabbatical

and

"Wind Camp" by Joanna Rawson from Unrest

I was pleased with myself for choosing two contemporary poets to begin with. I really thought I was just going to go the easy route and only read "the classics." I found these on Ron Hogan's literature blog Beatrice. I highly recommend you read his blog. He is a writer but what's more is he is a very active impresario of literary arts in New York. In all narcissistic honesty, I would like to be the Ron Hogan of Omaha. I just don't read enough. I am not involved in the literary circles I wish to be.

Frequently I do searches for writing and reading groups around Omaha and I am also dismayed and tickled by the ones that I find. There are abundant middle-aged to elderly women who write and read droll romance and romantic sci-fi. Interesting, but certainly not what I am looking for.

I was pleased to see that Jeffery Koterba, Omaha World Herald cartoonist and recent author of a pretty good memoir (and a jazz musician to boot), was mentioned in a Washington Post article about tourette's.

Oh, and the poems were pretty good. I liked wind camp better. It reminded me of a poem an old classmate of mine wrote in college in which he pondered a tree that seemed to be alive and personified by the enormous amount of black birds rattling around in its branches. He was delighted by the birds but Rawson took a little more offense to the natural activity of these little guys. Her's seems to fit with the Hitchcockian paranoia birds engender or the Poe-esque madness that comes by giving a little too much control of one's peace to incessant bird banter.

And the Ralph poem reminds me of a poet I used to be in monthly reading group with. He was bald too. This was when I lived in Cincinnati and the guy read this one poem nearly every month about him sitting next to the Ohio river and perceiving himself to be a circle on the ground and attaining a zen sort of "okayness" with his state. I was never sure if it was the state of Ohio, the state trying to write poems for a living, or a more cerebral sort of thing. Anyway, Ralph's poem conjured that up for me.

I like the poem but I am trying to figure out why we scarcely see the guy this poem is talking about. Is it that we won't see him? Is he actually invisible? Because if he is displayed like the second stanza makes it sound like he is it seems as though he would be a bit of a spectacle. But, I have a feeling he embodies that seemingly unattainable spiritual emptiness/wholeness that most say they desire but won't commit to. Or perhaps the guy is just a self-made martyr. Either way it is an intriguing picture.

brandon

I don't want to write about writing. I want to write.

There must be more going on in Omaha literature-wise than I am aware of. It makes me queasy that I am not more aware of these things. Oh, and it's National Poetry Month. Hey, I will read a poem a day this month. Sounds like nothing but anything that even smacks of consistency is a very some something when it comes to my routine. A severe lack of poetry has invaded my life since college. I have a bit of catching up to do today. I have 12 poems to read today. And by golly, I am not going to limit myself to tiny Shakespearean sonnets (although I read a few a couple months ago and was bowled over with how moving I found them) but I am going to take on Prufrock scaled masterpieces. I might even delve into an epic poem here or there. I will chronologue my efforts and I will be back in business. For the first time in months I have that twinge of excitement I so easily allowed to vaporize. Oh and I think each poem will have to be from a different poet. Yeah, that makes the most sense. I'll do that.

in the same house

I had grand plans/illusions to drive to a semi-remote place with trees and perhaps a bit of grass poking through the snow. I would arrive around five o'clock slip into the back of my car where I have the seat down and turn on NPR because at five o'clock they played an episode of American Routes featuring John Prine. John Prine always reminds me of my dad. Not necessarily the man's particulars but my father introduced me to his music and I was stymied by my lack of knowledge of someone who was so terrific and had been directly under my nose, living in the same house even (his records anyway). Perhaps that is actually the similarity I find between my dad and John. I remember telling one of my roommates in college how fascinated I was with my dad. I was going to write him a letter while I listened to the radio show. I will write him later this week.

brandonpiercegeary

Pretty Music

I just think that Melissa and I are the kind of people who find a Susan Minot film like Evening a silly, little movie and categorically despise a Nancy Meyers and Scott Rudin flick like It's Complicated. Meryll Streep is in both. We also say things like, "Ooo, I like this already," on the title menu of a DVD because of pretty music.

tiny kingdoms

I honestly thought this could be the end. Ordinary life is a struggle I clearly am not equipped to struggle through.

I interviewed today for a higher position at the company I currently work for. This was my second interview and, to my knowledge, the one that really seals the deal. I am not sure what it was. Probably knowing what was at stake if I blew the interview. But I didn't keep my cool. I stammered and shook and went on and on about nothing. I prepared excessively and I truly believe I choked.

When I returned home I nearly passed out. I had indeed worried myself sick. I had put all my eggs in this basket and the thought of not accomplishing this made my head ache feverishly and my body swoon. I laid in bed drowning my cold sweat and my mom called. She was actually a wonderful respite. I was still shaking though. I couldn't get over the thought that I had thrown my immediate future completely away because I didn't control my nerves.

Eventually I realized that the whole deal was completely out of my hands now and I needed to engage in something therapeutic. I cooked the brussels sprouts I had bought to experiment with. I didn't actually experiment too heavily. I read some websites about how to cook them and then I boiled them. I put some left over Taco Bell fire sauce on them and they were delicious and my fears were subsided.

I then wanted to land the crushing blow. I looked around the bedroom for something I could accomplish that would put my gut at ease. I was on my laptop so the missing "h" key was a glaring problem that needed solving. Two of the little pieces including the key itself had popped off a couple days ago and were lying somewhere on the floor beside the bed. I quickly got my wits about me and found the two pieces, tiny as they are. Sparing the needless details, I put the key back in its proper place I could have sworn I heard a tiny kingdom of my loyal subjects feasting and celebrating with the utmost jocundity at this truly remarkable success.

I feel much better now.

brandonpiercegeary

disruption

I have not done any formal writing in a long time and I am starting to feel the weight of the absence of the practice. I have read to be sure and amassed a small fortune of scraps of paper, receipt backs and tiny notebooks attesting to the fact that my brain hasn't slowed nearly as much as I assumed it would.

"If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames."

Excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard pp. 16-17

And that is why I am writing this instant. I closed my eyes but the light from the blaze colored the darkness I sought all yellow and orange and left me without peace. The past couple months have seemed too much to chronicle with accuracy yet I was catching fire over the Holidays and I do not wish to be so passive and above-it-all that I doze while it all goes up in smoke.

Not that the last couple months have been anything truly Earth shattering but in my tiny part of the land they have greatly distruptive.

God save Haiti from the ground that seems to seek to devour her. The Voodoo teachings that are prevelant in Haiti say that the nation is a mother. May her own children and the neighborhood kids do everything to heal her. I heard it will most likely take till the end of this century before there is a sense of how things used to be in Haiti before the earthquake. If that is the timeline to get back to that then there is far more than mere restoration that needs to take place. Hopefully Haiti will spring up brand new and hardly be recognizable. No more misery and no more fear.