Because my head is going to asplode if I don’t do something.

It hurts. Ow ow ow ow.

Even my purple sock cap, which is something of a wubby, isn’t helping.

So I’m making chicken pot pie and am going to watch TV and whine. The two go together so well.

And I had plans for this evening. Burgeoning blogplans! There was to be poemicizing and polemicizing and mooning over my newly thawed but still uneaten tiramisu.

But that will have to wait until I no longer feel like sawing my own head off with dental floss. Cinnamon!

Have you written your julain?

Have you edited the Poetry Wiki?

Did you take your vitamins? You look pale. Are you getting enough sleep? It’s okay, you don’t have to answer. I’ll just sit here in complete silence, not knowing if you’re dead or alive. Don’t worry about me.

“And take the whole Barrel of Monkeys with you!”

Today’s news headline of note:

Milton Bradley Files for Divorce After 11 Months

Okay, MB is actually a baseball player, but the headline still offers much potential for jollity.

There have been a lot of baseball players whose names I love. And because I am a creature of habit, I generally end up with some annoying tic when those certain players are mentioned.

“Rich Corinthian Leather!” greeted every appearance by Marty Cordova.

“No, it is you who should be frightened, leetle puppy dog,” shout out to Bartolo Colon, peetcher.

An uncontrollable head bob accompanies every mention of Hideki Matsui.

And now the Indians have brought back Loomer. Loomer Loni.

Yes, normal people hear “Lou Merloni.” But I hear Loomer.

If I disappear part way through the season, expect to hear that Loomer’s been called to the bigs. My husband might just smother me with a penguin pillow.

Loomer!

Hot dog diggity.

The only reason I wasn’t gnashing my teeth and rending my garments is they’re both too expensive to replace. But I despaired.

And, lo. For the angel of the Italian dessert did deliver unto me a message. “Go to Kroger! Go to Kroger!”

And I went to Kroger, and I was sore afraid. And I did load my cart with Diet Cokes and carrots and fruit bats and… what’s this? What to my wondering eyes should appear (yeah, I’m mixing allusions, so sue me) but a frozen tiramisu.

Discontinued! So there’s a good side and a bad side.

On the bad side, if my obsession continues, I won’t be able to get my fix again from Kroger.

On the good side, it was on sale, baby! And there’s nothing better than feeding an addiction while saving money.

But on the bad side, it’s frozen. I might have to go fondle it some more and breathe on it with desperate hot breaths.

Yet on the gripping hand, SCOOOOOOOORE!

Booklovers have a new toy. LibraryThing is an online book catalog that allows you to meet others with the same taste in books, and it allows yet another neato widget for the bloggers among us.

Check it out!

“Boy Scouts Say They’re Like KKK Youth”

At some point, isn’t there a little warning bell, rather like the margin bell on a typewriter, that tells people when they are getting close to saying something really really really really stupid?

If there isn’t, there oughtta be. Even though that would cut down the perverse and malicious pleasure the rest of us enjoy whenever these stupid things are said, and it would put whole news networks out of business.

Such is the cross we should bear. For the chillun. The KKK Boy Scout chillun.

Sparrow

A shard of ancient glass still pricks my foot
since I passed underneath the window burst
by sparrow flight, as if the building put
itself into her path and wasn’t first
on this old street–predates by eighty springs
my birth, her egg. But in her jealousy
of robins’ breasts, of cardinal-bright wings,
she slit her throat on kitchen glaziery
and dyed down red. The tendrils of her blood
that traced the scratches in my iron sink
remain, despite my bleach, despite the flood
of soap and scrub. I’ve seen a sparrow shrink
from feathered warm to nonsense lines of brown,
and feel the glass in me that brought her down.

Now here’s an oldie but a goodie. Or at least a poem I’m very fond of. An oldie but a fondie? I’ll take it.

I’m testing sound files, and this is one of the few poems I’ve recorded myself reading. I think there are three others, but this is the shortest, so it’s the smallest file.

(Click on the title to play. Please let me know if it explodes.)

Edited to add: I’ve redone the recording. You can’t click on the title to play now, since the title isn’t linked. Click on the leetle arrow, instead. I hope the recording is a little clearer, though I nearly get tongue-tied a couple of times.

Cleveland fans can’t win for losing. With all the pain and misery, we still come in second.

2. Cleveland Indians
Red Sox fans lived charmed lives compared to Cleveland fans. They haven’t seen their team win the World Series since 1948. They had the best record in league history in 1954 and got swept in the World Series. They had a player killed by a pitch in 1920. They have their own curse — the trade of Rocky Colavito that turned them into a national punch line for the better part of four decades. And then, when they were within three outs of winning it all in 1997, Jose Mesa blew the lead and the World Series.

Cubs’ fans? Bah! You just like to drink beer and look cool on TV.

Sniff. The Indians’ll win it all someday and then you’ll be sorry.

Calling Anne Sullivan

I know what I could hear. I write them down
(the words that end in -oma) in my palm
like Helen Keller. Will I wear a gown
of paper blue? Blue is supposed to calm
my nerves. That’s why these rooms are kept so cold,
to hold our thoughts, but I think still of tombs,
and ice, and deadly things. If I were bold
I’d rise, and keep on rising, like a bomb’s
fat mushroom cloud. Disintegrate this room
with its chill air, its copies of McCalls,
its TV Guides from 1990, June,
its warning posters stapled to the walls.
Instead, as one of this blank timid herd,
I sit and sign carcinogenic words.

Go to Sleep, Anne, Nevermind

Benign. How harmless. But I see the scars
that dimple on my arm. In time they’ll fade
from scabbed lividity, and I can wear
a short sleeved shirt again without the fear
someone will joke that I’ve been in the wars
or pity me, as if a hand grenade
had taken off my feet or burst my ear.
How odd. I sit and worry what to wear
to hide that I’m not dying. Biopsies
may split the wheat from chaff, the sheep from goats
with medical precision, but our skins
will bear the mark of Cain, of bullets dodged.
And even as our terror is dislodged
survivors’ shame still bares our guilty throats.