Super Amy

So I’ve been sitting around tonight, sort of hoping that my dear Hannah will call and be free for the evening, as we’ve been playing phone tag all day. And I realized that somehow, in my return trip from Mexico, I lost her comment on my most recent post down there, where she let me in on the fact that she is indeed blogging again, right over at themagicofrichardharris.blogspot.com, and I hope she doesn’t mind the advert. I just don’t think anyone should be deprived of her lovely voice (although I must say that, no matter how eloquently she writes, nothing beats the starkly and undeniably Jewish tone she assumes when leaving messages on my voicemail).

So what’s been going on in the past month in which I haven’t updated anybody (nor have I managed to read everyone else’s updates — sorry, guys!)? Well, it turns out that all sorts of exciting events have been taking place! Feet have been washing ashore in Canada at alarming rates! I started work three weeks ago, full-time and officially, that is, and it has been keeping me entertained for 8+ hours a day, which is quite a feat. I’m really enjoying the work I get to do, I enjoy the people I get to work with, and I honestly just can’t complain. Well, I can, and I pretty much always do. I think I am cursed to want to do and be a million different things at the same time, and it just hasn’t happened yet.

The past few days have found me remembering more often than usual the poetry class I took last semester at Winchester. I remember enjoying it a lot, even though poetry is a very scary thing for me to share, and I think I want to get back into writing more, because rusty doesn’t even begin to describe the state of my poetic prowess. Anyway, the class required both reading and writing of poetry, and focused primarily on British poets, for obvious reasons, which was nice because I wasn’t so much familiar with them. One of the poets we read is Geoff Hattersley, a fairly modern poet who quickly assumed a place amongst my top few writers.

Desert

We were out in the desert, just sort of
fooling around, dreaming up names for some
loud, long-haired rock band we’d be sure to form
the minute we got back home. I liked most

Doctor Straight Neck and his Toothpick Killers.
That was when Heidi started laughing and
couldn’t stop — as much the drink and heat as
the wit, I guess. But it was good, hearing

her laugh like that, after all she’d been through.
The desert could do that. Such stillness there,
as if the earth was taking breath, as if
history was yet to be invented.

I look after cacti in the house now.
They don’t take much of that. I never did
keep in touch with any of those people,
though I heard Heidi died in Berlin, smack.

——–

A Terrible Song

was just starting. I switched it off
and went to buy a loaf. I had the usual
small worries, sleeplessness
and being at the mercy of dentists,
fourteen hundred tons of job
and the chance I might drop dead
before crawling out from under it,
the possibility of reincarnation
as a business man’s fat cigar,
forever puffed on, unlit in mean lips.
Like someone trying to escape through a porthole
getting their backside stuck, that’s how
I felt, and that’s not all, there was
a fresh bunch of flowers
tied to the bus stop down the street
again, a fresh bunch of flowers
is tied to the bus stop every Sunday.
I don’t know why, I don’t know
if I want to know. I don’t know much
these days, but I do at least know
a terrible song when I hear one.

I like his attitude and his mood and his wit. He can switch from dry humor to a heartbreaking twist instantly, or sometimes there’s no plot at all, but I like not knowing what to expect. “Back of Beyond” is the Hattersley book those are from, for anyone interested. “Spider” is another great poem, but a bit too long to be blogging, but if you’re interested, email me and I’ll send it along.

I’m going to see Tom Waits, in all his glory, on stage at the Fox in Atlanta on July 5th. Yes, apparently some of us are blessed enough to see him twice in one lifetime. It’s pretty much the most exciting thing going on right now.

I’m still getting used to this whole work schedule. It’s a totally different kind of budgeting — I’m budgeting hours, instead of dollars. Just now, I went to Starbucks with Hannah (yes, in between these two paragraphs in fact), and already it’s almost an hour past my bedtime. A slight miscalculation for which I will pay, and I definitely can’t afford to snooze through work these days, so I need a better game plan. Any suggestions?

listening to: Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World (you know you love it)