May 6, 2012
Happy Birthday! If it’s like, you know, your birthday.
This morning the phone rang while I was driving, so I fished it out of my pocket and gave it to the teenager. It was my dad calling; after Drew had listened for a bit he said, “no, it’s not her birthday. No. No, really. I think it’s next week.”
“What is this,” I said. “Is this my dad calling to tell me happy birthday when it’s not my birthday? This is hilarious.”
Drew said, “no, Mom, really. When is your birthday? Isn’t it next week?”
“I think so,” I said. “I think it’s like, Saturday or something.”
So Drew and his grandpa talked for quite a while, while we drove through two tunnels (they got cut off both times and Drew had to call back), and they discussed math and science and my dad’s airplane, which he is trying to sell but first he has to fix it and fly it around for old times’ sake, and when Drew is going out to Albuquerque, which is always around the 4th of July so that he can help my brothers try to set the backyard spectacularly on fire, and after about thirty minutes Drew said, “oh, right, maybe. When IS Uncle Jim’s birthday?”
“It’s the 6th of May,” I said.
So it turns out that it was indeed the birthday of one of Dad’s children, just not me.
Things don’t usually get quite this muddled, but we aren’t a family that pays much attention to birthdays. This is hard on my Mom, who takes hers seriously. The rest of us, our minds are elsewhere.
Later I called my brother. After talking to Drew, Dad had called Jim, and said, “I just called to tell your sister happy birthday.” “Oh, my God,” Jim said. “Is it her birthday already?”
Then he went on the computer and found out it was HIS birthday.
“Awesome,” I said when he told me this. “And how old ARE you? Do you have any idea?”
“Well, how old will you be?”
“I’ll be nearly 60. I’ve been nearly 60 since last October, when I was nearly 58.”
He did the math. “Oh, right, 58, yep. That’s nearly 60. So, I’m 51.”
He said he’d call me next week, when it’s my birthday. I said, fine but really you should call Carl Andy (our other brother), and wish HIM a happy birthday, cause then everything will be even. And we could try to confuse him about how old he is, too, but he’s better at math than we are.
So, Happy Birthday! If it’s your birthday. And if it’s not, it’s probably somebody else’s, which is just as good.
May 4, 2012
A roundup of news — All Over the Place
Michael Begnal has a new poem out in Poiesis, issue 5 — as he points out, the small poetry journals are on the run these days, so it’s lovely to see this. And. Only $4, and his link will take you to where you can buy the issue.
Starhawk’s new book, The Empowerment Manual, which is all about facilitating meetings that actually get things done on several levels, is out in several venues, uncluding e-readers. And you can download one of the chapters for free, over at the link. I am looking forward to the part about dealing with difficult people. Unless I am one of them, in which case forget it.
fairysteps has new shoes for sale, including some plummy ones with leaves on the side. I covet her shoes often. Like, when I see them. Every time.
Somehow, whilst I was asleep in the wood (or, getting through the spring semester, take your pick), I missed, a couple of weeks ago, when Chaucer announced his plans to write a new pilgrimage tale concerning some pilgrims in the stars — you know, the smuggler with the snazzy vest, the whiny youth, the shiny gold translator, etc etc — that one. Thank god. Looking forward to it. Too bad he had to put the Canterbury Tales on hold.
And apparently we’re letting our budgies down, by failing to teach them to recite our address.
January 11, 2012
Musings on life as story, over in D.C.
It’s cold today, but not as cold as it’s going to get in a few days, the weather people tell us. Sarah Beckwith comes in tonight; she’s going to speak on The Winter’s Tale at Duquesne tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:00 PM (324 Fisher Hall; her talk will be followed by the Duquesne Medieval and Renaissance Players performing a play from the York cycle), and then on Measure for Measure the next day, Friday, at Pitt, at 12:30 PM (in 602 Cathedral of Learning). Very exciting for all of us.
But today, I send you on over to The Gold Puppy, wherein Reya muses about how what we do is enact story, all day long, every day.
January 2, 2012
Little budgies, lots of space
Here at Nutwood we have, besides the three dogs and two cats, a couple of budgies, who live in the sunporch window. For a while I had no budgies — when I first moved out of Bear’s Retreat, I couldn’t fit them into the doll’s house apartment I was in, and then, at Nutwood, Laura didn’t want birds. But one day she said, if you want to bring the bird over, why don’t you, so the next day I had Sunny back.
Sunny (who is yellow) was at that time the last survivor of a long line of budgies; I originally inherited one from a grad student (his wife thought the bird was too messy, which was of course true). Her name was Angel (she was white), and I bought a friend for her, and then after that whenever one of the budgies turned up on its back on the floor of the cage I got another one. Thye need company, being flocking birds, and I can’t provide all the companionship they need. And the mirror, with which they always fall in love, is too pathetic, really.
Sunny had lost her companion a year or so before I took her back, and though she was living in the hallway at Bear’s Retreat, and therefore got to see the goings on in the household, as well as stare balefully at the cats there (who eventually gave up trying to get into the cage), she didn’t have a window to look out of.
So when I brought her here, I bought not only a new friend, a budgie named Sky (who is blue)* but a lovely large cage that rolls around, and we put it in front of the giant window in the sunroom, thusly:
little budgies, lots of space
May 19, 2011
Ah. The semester’s over. Let’s check out the blogs:
Mike Begnal’s got a poem in Kali’s Tongue, a chapbook of poems written in homage to Sticky Fingers – and edited by Justin Kishbaugh.
Rachael Herron discusses how to organize an unorganized journal AND work on character motivation.
Robert Isenberg posts an excerpt from Ruins, his (excellent) M.F.A. thesis.
And Anne Hill’s got a video about how to talk to your kids about their dreams.
Not a bad roundup for the day!
March 30, 2011
Excellent Lesson in how NOT to Behave on the Net
This has already gone viral, but for the sake of any writing students who’ve missed it,
and here’s the hoo-hah on amazon.
Enjoy! But do NOT emulate!
March 23, 2011
Open Mic at Duquesne
Next Monday, the 28th of March, :lexicon, the Duquesne literary mag, will be hosting Open Mic at the Barnes and Noble Starbucks, on Forbes Avenue across from the campus.
The sign-up sheet will start going around at 6:30; the readings will start at 6:45; and I know from experience that if you’re arriving after 7:00, which is when the Barnes and Noble closes, you want somebody inside to know, so they can let you in the Starbucks door!
March 9, 2011
Wednesday Round-up
Macha has posted invocations to the Helicon Nine, in case you’re needing inspiration;
Rachael talks about learning plot construction;
and Reya advises us that Uranus is moving into Aries on Friday, so we should damn well chill out.
March 4, 2011
Good News from the Heir Raiser
Michelle Markey Butler (among other things the founder of the Duquesne Medieval and Renaissance Players) has short stories appearing in both Elf Love and Rapunzel’s Daughters, collections from Pink Narcissus Press. Elf Love is out now, and available to purchase; Rapunzel’s Daughters is due to come out in May of this year.
