Finding a New Beat

I was out at an off-site meeting yesterday, so sorry for not posting. There were very good speakers at this event, and I learned a lot about the topic presented, but it was also very discouraging hearing about all of the problems that still exist and are being made worse by policymakers who had pledged to actually try to HELP these people . . . good grief! I can’t say too much more without giving away the nitty gritty of what I do, but man, could I go off . . .

Missed Martha’s Apprentice again last night . . . will just have to catch it on the CNBC rerun tonight, before Trump’s.

This week has been very frustrating in a number of ways, but I am trying to stay as positive as I can and not overthink things. I am now trying to be all about managing expectations, but it is difficult when other people keep adding to the pile. Thank goodness that it is Thursday . . . I do enjoy my weekends!

Also, if it wasn’t for my ESL teaching and my choir practices, I would probably have gone bonkers long ago. My class this week was just too funny – we were working on how to give street directions and how to read a street map Tuesday night, and I gave them lots of examples and exercises to work on in groups, and they just find all kinds of ways to make me crack up. At choir practice last night, we went over some pretty decent songs for Sunday – my soprano parts are pretty complicated this time though, so I hope I can remember them properly during the service or it will be really, really noticeable . . .

A columnist in the Washington Post yesterday seconded my wish that the Panda should have been called “Butterstick.” I did not know this, but there was a blogger-led write in campaign for submitting that name to the Zoo. I’m glad I’m not the only warped mind that liked the name . . .

I found a big hole in the elbow of one of my favorite button down sweaters today . . . So bummed! It is not easily mended either . . . I guess now it gets relegated to just “around the house” wearing . . .

You know how you have those clothes that you just love and wear to death? That sweater was one of them. Actually, since I hate shopping so much, most of my clothes fit in that category, which isn’t good – if I wear them to death, they wear out faster, which means that I have to go shopping more frequently to replace them. I wish I had the bucks to do what the fashion editors say, which is when you see something you like, buy two or three of them. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to find anything like it ever again when you go to look for it . . .

Halloween candy abounds at my office this week, and it will only get worse in the coming weeks. Willpower! Willpower! No, I will not eat those Tootsie Rolls or mini-candy bars. They are dead to me! . . . Wait . . . are those Twizzlers? OK, maybe just one or two . . . That’s it, though . . . no more!

Today, I found a new poet – Bob Kaufman. Learn all about him here: (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/kaufman/about.htm). I had not known anything about this African American member of the Beat scene, and I hope to seek out more of his work in the future. Here are just two of his poems:

Jazz Chick

Music from her breast, vibrating
Soundseared into burnished velvet.
Silent hips deceiving fools.
Rivulets of trickling ecstacy
From the alabaster pools of Jazz
Where music cools hot souls.
Eyes more articulately silent
Than Medusa's thousand tongues.
A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles
reveal her presence singing
Of cool remembrance, happy balls
Wrapped in swinging
Jazz
Her music...
Jazz.

I Have Folded My Sorrows

I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,
Assigning each brief storm its alloted space in time,
Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried in my eyes.
And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,
And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,
And in the imaginary forest, the shingles hippo becomes the gay unicorn.
No, my traffic is not addled keepers of yesterday's disasters,
Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday's pains.
Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.
And yes, I have searched the rooms of the moon on cold summer nights.
And yes, I have refought those unfinished encounters. Still, they remain unfinished.
And yes, I have at times wished myself something different.

The tragedies are sung nightly at the funerals of the poet;
The revisited soul is wrapped in the aura of familiarity.