Extracted from my response to a point about his sister in a conversation with Daniel at the Pie House

Daniel says that his sister visited, and that it took him a while to realize that she, in fact, was assuming that there was a well-ordering of restaurants in L.A., and that there was, in fact, a single best restaurant in L.A. (though, says Daniel, she probably wouldn't have used those precise words), and both of us begin pondering how many of our families believe in the well-ordering so adamantly, and how Daniel's sister seems to think that there is objective goodness of things, which is given by their Neilsen ratings and reviews, I come out with:

"Maybe the Asians and the Jews
have just substituted Zagats
for their village elders."

On the state of friendship in Los Angeles, part 2

A feature of every great conversation:
at least once, you both laugh
at the shocking truth of something.

For David: Swampy Landscape With Drunken Horse

Neigh, niegh
whinny whinny, neigh -
thud-plop.

Things keeping me from nipping into my sister's half-gallon of raw chocolate chip cookie dough full of her prescription Mendocino County homegrown

The dry air,
the dry air
and uncertainty

Oh it wasn't very merry going to the cemetery for the ending of Don Gato: Lessons in Love and Death in Second Grade Music Class

There was not a sweeter kitty (meow meow meow)
in the country or the city (meow meow meow)
and she said she'd wed Don Gato.

On the state of friendship in Los Angeles

Two slugs
on a river
at midnight.

Landscape with drunken family

Watching turtles
Bobbing for bugs
Catfish flicking their tales.

On weight loss: 2 poems (the first one is dedicated to, and in the spirit of, David Agraz)

Since I've started doing 2 hours of yoga every morning, I've dropped something like 17 pounds and I have that... healthy yoga glow and posture and whatever. People are... treating me differently.

Every five pounds I drop
the amount I get hit on rises
by an order of magnitude.

Either it's the weight, or the posture, or the pleasantly animal musk that floats off of me every morning, or the fact that I'm always a little tired and out of it. It might take the edge off. I remember in college, I figured out that the best chance I had of being able to talk to people at parties was to not sleep the night before. It took the wild, zingy, nervous edge off.

Anyway, I was at a cafe the other day and I asked a question in passing of the exceedingly charming, ripped-jeans-surfer-hippie-sexy barista and suddenly found myself being chatted up. She leaned over and checked out my iPod and told me I had excellent taste. The next time I showed up there, she told me I was getting my macchiato in "the best cup in the house," which, at first, just seemed like a pink cup, until I looked a little closer:


The text reads, for those of you who can't read in mirror-image:

BOOBY TRAP
The Very Best Show In Town

Curator tells me that I was, indeed, being flirted with.

(For those of you who are still looking, the second poem is the cup.)

neologism watch #2

I realized today
that you can engage in such
sublime acts of ass-hattery
that you become an asshatchery.

Today I aspire to become more like Martha Plimpton in several ways, except perhaps the having-kissed-Corey-Feldman way.

Me and Martha Plimpton
in a fancy elevator,
narrating audiobooks.

On opening a new bottle of Springbank 10-year scotch

Imagine the Loch Ness monster binging on a box of Turkish Delight sweetened with aspartame, taking a nap, and then unleashing a mean piss on a new bar of Ivory Soap. Now imagine deep-throating that bar of soap.
This is what Springbank tastes like.

A New Endeavor

Shilling for an upcoming show
By linking to Evil Audubon Society
makes Warhol proud

Neologism Watch

Mobile phone user, overheard on the southbound Metrolink train in Burbank, California:

"It's like, I get the story from Tricia, and you get the story from Angel, and then we talk about it on the phone and find out there's all this mixinformation."

A Sonnet That Is Making A Pedantic Point About The So-Called "Turn"

When we are asked, and we are often asked,
to differentiate between acts
of function, and of prayer, as when the crane
flaps and lifts, and lands, and as a prelude
to the scratching of its face with a foot,
acknowledges each cardinal direction -
as when we are asked about the science
of human sex cries, or their numinous
effect - when we are asked, and we are asked
routinely, whether the experience
of the tiny wheels of the shopping cart
is mainly economic or erotic
as they slide down the concrete to the glaze
of the L.A. river - so shallow, ducks
can cross it and keep their butt feathers dry -

backpacking haiku

Leaving the tent to pee:
This moonlit canyon is so beau...
goddamn fucking mosquito.


Kathy finally
manages to poo.
Now interested in food again.

The L.A. River is green
but cool - ask the herons,
ask the shopping carts.

poetic form

Was just discussing poetry with my coworker Phong. He tells me that Vietnamese, having no stress, has basically syllabic forms (e.g. 6 words followed by 8) but it does have rules about tones. Say, the last syllable in the six line must have the same tone as the sixth syllable in the 8 line. Furthermore, being monosyllabic, I guess this amounts to counting words per line.

hmm.

How about classical chinese poetry? What sort of forms did they use? If only we had someone on this board who studied such things... hmm.

How about a structured form poetry challenge? Sonnets, pontoons, sestinas, take your pick, but make it structured.

Source of Found Poetry: orkut

I have an account on Orkut. I check it... let's say... rarely.

If you do, as well, and are neither Brazilian nor Indian, odds are you're in a similar situation.

And here I am to tell you what a grave mistake I was and you are committing.

Messages sent to me by random users:

• good night
  you Brazil
  no speak English
  
  
• Hi my name is Jonas
  I'm a big fa from you.
  When is the hair coming back dude?
  hgehehe
  
  
  By friend
  


• The excuse of the good afternoon incorporates its orkut that good I came here plus you I ask if is possible you gives some community to me of 2 or 3 digits because I love the communities more me cannot wait its community of the reply have an end otima of the week
  

The excuse of the good afternoon,
-Dan

ritual

So, whenever I have my son there is a long ritual around going to bed. At the very end I place him in his crib, he places his head on his pillow, grabs hold of tuppy -- a stuffed wolf about three quarters his size -- and, importantly, he gets tucked in. If, say, it's hot and I try to skip this step, he asks for it. These days I use a lighter blanket, though there is a slightly heavier one in the crib for use should it get suddenly colder.

So, tonight I went to check on him about an hour after I put him down, and found his heavier blanket carefully placed to cover his pillow, then tuppy on top of the heavy blanket, carefully tucked in with the lighter one. Rowan himself is sleeping without blanket or pillow a few inches away.

This is the second night in a row this has happened.

This raises some questions. Normally, Rowan is the sort of kid who just closes his eyes and drifts off. So did something wake him, or does he lie in bed quietly, wait for me to leave, and then get up to rearrange his bed? If he wanted me to tuck in tuppy, he would certainly ask me to. That's the kind of kid he is. So I'm left to assume that it's somehow important that _he_ tuck tuppy in, and it is important that I tuck him in, even though he's going to undue it a moment later.

So then, is the closing of the bed time ritual something that he goes through for my benefit, or that I go through for his? Each go through for each other's benefit? our own?

so, you realize that wolves have fur, right?
oh, ok.
I was just checking.

The unexpected intimacy
of brushing up against her extension cord
as I plug my laptop in under hers.