While waiting for my roommate to rise so that we can commence an earnest talk

about how he should, please, let me know, check in, ASK, before inviting 5-10 Whole Foods employees over to our apartment with no living room only hallway to congregate in the kitchen and talk loudly about the vagaries of being a Whole Foods employee right behind the door my bed abutts, where my head rests on its pillow. Yes. I should and will move my bed. Yes. Yes. He should let me know also if he friends from San Jose (specifically, the GIANT man who can never find the bathroom and a) once wandered zombi into my room and pulled my bed out from the wall to get to the door behind it, thinking THAT was the bathroom door and b) peed on my roommates stuff during the night this last time) will be staying with us, in our apartment with no living room only hallway, kitchen, bedrooms.

While I have been waiting, I have seen and read some great things including:

Butt Magazine : Interview with Dennis Cooper (thanks, Ted via FB)

Dodie Bellamy "In My Defense" (thanks, Dodie via FB)

Review of John Colleti's "Mum Halo" (thanks, Dana via FB)

but now I can hear him, first in the bathroom -- pisssss TOOT pisssssss -- now in the kitchen, now here he is standing in my doorway, waving with one squinky morning eye.

- Hi buddy
- Hi buddy, I made some coffee
- Awesome
- Have some coffee and then we can talk.

Will I express myself well? I have rehearsed this conversation many times in my head over the past few days and discussed it too, with my sweetheart, who ironically maybe, is also a Whole Foods employee and co-worker of my roommate(s) (both roommates are Whole Foods employees). I will try to be direct. I will use bullet points. I will not discuss the complexity of feelings and experience, but focus [...]

-Mmm...coffee
-Yes, mmmm
-So, what's up?
-Uh, let me get some more coffee and let's go sit in the kitchen
-Okay

5 minutes later...

-Well, that's perfectly reasonable. I'll talk to (other roommate) and we'll get right on board!
-Yeah, sorry about making you worry yesterday and everything I just wanted to have the chance to really sit down when we both could and talk about it and...
-Yeah, totally, I thought it was going to be something big like, "I'm moving out!" or something.
-Right and I...
-Well I'll talk it over with (other roommate) and we'll get right on board!

...

Now i feel silly. That was way too easy.

Weekend

1.

sexy overload of sunday laze-factor
live large outside of life's dress size
maxed out girl time over bottomless evervescents
into the wilds and sex shops for gear
to drop dough hunks on sex gear
for later dates with loved ones set
simple doo-hickey change your life up
win yourself over and over til upended
the bike ride puts sweat in the kecks
and haighters are listless, too pekid to sp-ange

sexy slipping
foot into shoe
DUH

workable sex experiences at the Goodwill
looking forward to
nabokov in the workplace
fat colors in the mouth
oversexed and hi def fuckable
def fuckable
winny
winny
winny, winny uh-oh
Po-po on the rally
sexperts on the numbers game
shipping back and forth
finite good hair
aeroles of good hair
maxed out good hair
when the sun goes down i know its time to
tickle my ivory fingers
against my black keys


2.

jangling off rings, so important
I have the most keys
my tusks are long
i have the most keys
more keys than anyone
this is how you know that i am important
'cause who has the most keys that you know?
janitors and janitors get the most respect
DUH
I have no keys
and THIS is how you know I am important
i don't make clinking sounds anymore
i have no keys

keys to convertibles
keys to garages
keys to closets
keys to broom closets
keys to offices
keys to houses
keys to airstream trailers
keys to classrooms
keys to pantries
keys to cities
keys to indoor aquatic centers
keys to Key Arena
keys to Arco Arena
keys to Cow Palace
keys to The Great American Music Hall
keys to The Millenium Falcon (bleh)
keys to The Death Star (bleh, bleh, bleh)
keys to fancy cocktail joints
keys to whatever

and keys to the castle gate
the castle gate key
is winging, whipping round my left tusk
i'm breathing heavily
and someone wants to know
how i know who to let in
and I'm all:

what gate key?

oh this gate key

and my Giant Eye watches the key whip around my tusk
1-2-3-4-5
but what gate key?

i can't admit to this person that there is a gate key
i can't admit that there is a gate
i have no such key
i have the most keys because i am
the most important
but i have no keys at all
cuz, that's how you know who's
the most important
the one with no keys
i don't open anything anymore
it is opened for me
i don't even open my emails anymore
my keys have transformed into people

butler
chauffeur
door guy
elevator guy
nanny
secretary
receptionist
personal assistant
personal chef
personal trainer
therapist

but this is a poem about my community
and the tusks i use to defend
what gate?
if you ask me where the gate is
i will deny the existence of the gate
but you will know it by its position
behind my back
it'll be easy to spot
because it will be closed
and when doors are closed to you
you can see them more easily
because they are positioned perpendicularly
to your line of sight
in this position doors are planular (hack)
when they're open, all you can see
is a an oblique shape, a rhombus perhaps
or if its really open
only the line running parallel to the rectangle
of your open space

so that's easy

'kay?


3.

if you show up looking
to get past my bouncer shoulder
slip me an attention twenty
and we'll see what "we" can do
we're sexed up and broke
but we might be able to recognize your personhood

Blog

This jerk of a blog needs a revamp. What's a girl to do? Maybe the blog is over, but I am so attached. This blog has been my blog for some time now, probably years that I don't feel like calculating yet even as I type I am calculating. A while. What's in it for a blog? This blog has lost its joie de vivre and I feel the need to inject it with raison d'etre, yunno? Doof. It's like, all been done! I've DONE EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING person could do on a blog I HAVE DONE IT. It's so frustrating. I've really just out done myself and now I find myself with no way to EXPRESS myself. Myself. What's a girl to do? I want to blog about my literary experiences this week but a) feel that it would feel tedious to type out my notes from the events b) data from the focus group held last week indicates that readers are NOT interested in reading about literary events c) I want to make my posts funny and I don't feel all that funny right now d) time spent blogging could be time spent...doing lesson plans or some crud. All terrible excuses for depriving you of my insight into Bay Area Literary Culture outside and beyond the AVANT GARDE POETIC COMMUNITY. Boff. Also, there is a jackass dog belting his (too jerky to be a girl dog--SEXIST) guts out outside my window (beyond my window). He sounds like someone is forcefully squeezing him over and over forcing harsh, pained air from his body, like when I squeeze my cat just to hear her squeak. He stopped and now he's going again. It's a machine that's squeezing him. A pneumatic press with two paddedpaddles. His eyes bulge *SQUEEZE* BARK! *SQUEEZE* BARK!

Anyway, this blog doesn't know what it is. It doesn't even have a gender, unlike the dog. It's identity politics are all out of wack. I can tell you that my blog is not a lady from Marin County, at least not one who recites verses of Rumi or Leonard Cohen or Stanley Kuniz (poem about Salmon life cycle for instance) with hand held mic in hand, working the crowd, making eye contact, all to the soundtrack of electric cello (which I did see happen 3 times Tuesday night at a fundraiser for California Poets in the Schools at which I performed as The Human Jukebox and hung out with my friend Dana Teen Lomax and her fantastic daughter Una). See, I DO want to write about that event and also the reading at Radar Reading and how completely charming and hott Michelle Tea is, but my blog is confused about itself, so today is not the day. Maybe this weekend, although my friend Persephone is coming to town and we will probably do girl things. I am excited for girl things. I mostly hang out with boys: Steve, Matthew, Brandon, John and Morgan (female) if I am lucky because she is in grad school and very busy. I am open to changing this dynamic, but it seems to take lots of work. That said, let's have a date. I like tea. I enjoy museums. I often have lunchtimes free. I enjoy walks. I like to chat. I like you, you maybe like me, let's have a date.

*SQUEEZE* BARK! again and again without any discernable *SQUEEZE* BARK! cause. Cause is not the right word to use there.

So, have a good day. I'm thinking of you. Take care of yourself, drink lots of water, pee after sex, have a glass of water for every cigarette you smoke to avoid dehydration, don't smoke it's bad for you, go for a walk, turn OFF the pneumatic dog press.

MONSTER

Today I will teach two poetry classes, one to 3rd graders and one to 5th graders. The theme is MONSTERS. They are to write poems from the point of view of a monster of their choosing and there are so many to choose from. At some point in the lesson I should probably play "The Monster Mash"

"The Monster Mash"and Screamin Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You" were my favorite Halloween jams as a kid, but then are there really many others?

Screamin' Jay is sexy, eery and straight up scary. The sax in this song is so dang sexy, it alone makes you want to shed your human skin and join the ranks of the monstrous. I know it's a silly song, I get that, but still, it's unnerving, right? In a really good way.
Later on this month I will teach a similar lesson at Marin Juvenile Hall for a class of 14-19 year olds. I'll use Nicki Minaj rap from Kanye West's "Monster" as an example and will probably play the song somewhere toward the end of class.

I'm not going to break down why this song is awesome right now because I don't really know how to talk about hip hop and not sound like a total chauncey. I will say that Nicki Minaj's contribution to "Monster" makes me feel immense heaps of hope. There hasn't been a lady-rapper on par with Missy Elliot since, well, Missy Elliot, but here she is. Nicki Minaj's style is as tight as Missy's or Jay's but with moments of sublime messiness a la ODB. It's just really, really creative writing. Shoot, you guys. It's exciting.

My brain isn't quite up and running yet or I'd try to say something articulate about the nature of "the monstrous" and and all that jazz and how we're all monstrous etc. etc., but I'm not going to right now because I sincerely feel like the living dead a little bit this morning.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION