In yoga this morning, we did a lot of back bends; ustrasana (camel pose), half frog and full frog pose (what's the sanskrit for those?), dhanurasana (bow pose) and then urdvadanurasana (upward bow/wheel pose).

Yoga works with metaphors that are usually horrible cliches if made into art but often profound if experienced physically. When you do a back bend, you have to expose and open up the entire front of your body. This includes your chest and stomach. You have to expose your throat. You have to do all of this while your legs and the back of your torso hold you steady. This movement is the opposite of what most of us do all day as we hunch over our desks or steering wheels. It's also the opposite of what most living creatures do when they're defensive. Fetal position is safe--our vital organs are protected. Urdvadanurasana is an opposite of fetal position.

I like wheel pose, and camel--any of the upside down back bends. I struggle more with dhanurasana and frog, but I'm getting there. I like being upside down. I like dropping back into wheel. I feel brave, tough, and unusually bendy.

Unrelated, but the nun monster has a 30 foot purple tongue that strangles you from a long distance.

How did Colette get fat on shellfish? She said they were impossible to resist.

Unrelated, but I'm reading Barbara Henning's You, Me, and the Insects.

The beach was beautiful this afternoon. I'm trying to give in to the beauty of the beach. I'm convinced that experiencing beauty is bad for my poems. But I'm good at finding horrible things, even while at the beach on a Saturday.

These are the titles of the presentations my students gave today:

History of Kim chi from Ancient Times to Now
The Culture of Tipping and the California Gold Rush
I Love Cologne
Carnival Around the World
Brazilian Immigrants in Tokyo Suburbs

And I am going to make risotto. I don't know what kind. But some kind. Something different than just basic risotto w/mushrooms.

It rained this morning, so I drove to work. It was weird. But I got to wear a dress. That was nice.

While it was raining I listened to a report on public radio about how it's going to be another la nina dry winter.

Today I taught my ESL class in a fancy new lab room in the fancy new horticulture building at MiraCosta College. I don't want to go back to teaching in the crummy trailer! These rooms had lots of computers, and an overhead projector. We amused ourselves by zooming in on various neighborhoods in Tokyo and Cologne. It was kind of related to the topic at hand--rural urban migration. Tokyo has more than 10 million more people in it than Mexico City. Mexico City goes on forever. Tokyo is the largest city in the world. I want to spend some time there outside of the airport.


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Halfway through class, a man delivered flowers. There were buckets of dirt everywhere, and various bulbs and other plants, and also a bucket of star fruit. I wanted to eat one but didn't. I told my students what I know about the history of the cut flower industry in Encinitas.

Most of what I know about Tokyo comes from the airport, and my students, and the history classes I took as an undergrad. Once, because I was lucky and wearing nice clothes, I got to fly first class from Beijing to Tokyo and then Tokyo to New York. I sat next to a Japanese businessman and ate caviar--the only time I have eaten caviar (it was salty).

This doesn't mean that you can only tell me nice things. But please, help me out a little.

I have this habit of obsessing on (or over? about?) disgusting and violent images. This can happen at any moment, but it especially happens when I'm lying on my back--in shavasana (which translates as "corpse pose"), for example. I still obsess over images from horror movies I saw when I was younger, and also a documentary about the Mai Lai Massacre I saw in high school. I'm particularly angry at a former coworker who told me an especially disgusting and violent and cruel story one day after lunch, and now it is in my brain forever.

I mostly obsess over images of horror that have anything to do with violence towards animals, girls, or women. In this way I am a lot like the news in the USA, except that I don't forget these images, they pile up and I think about them before I go to sleep, or when I wake up, or when I'm in shavasana, or before I prepare to do a back bend. I think about them when I'm hypersensitive to texture and can't quite filter and control my emotional reactions to things. Like today, for example.

I'm a bit touchy about this because in the past two or three months several people have tried to tell me stories about how their small bird or cat or little pet died a horrible death. Most small pets die because the people who buy them are oblivious assholes.

A lot of people who decide to have children are oblivious assholes, too.

So, please please don't tell me your stories of awful things that have happened--my body is full of them already.

It is laundry day again

When I first met Mark, he lived with two budgerigars: a white and blue one named Mr. Billings and a green and yellow one named Sir Bayle. Bayle was a bit older than Billings. He was very sweet but not so bright. Billings was a bit more crafty. Budgies in general are smart, crafty birds.

One afternoon, Bayle was singing happily. Billings was perched on one foot a few inches from him, pretending to be asleep. As Bayle sang, Billings crept up to him, moving a few millimeters closer and then resuming his fake sleeping stance. Finally, when he was close enough to Bayle (who was still singing and quite oblivious), he kicked him! Bayle was surprised of course, and the two of them had a good play-fight.

Mark and I stopped getting budgies because we couldn't find anyone who had healthy birds. A budgie should live to be 7-10 years old, or even older. But because they are a small and inexpensive bird, they are over bred. But I love budgies! They are so cheerful and so tricky! Budgies like to party. I also think that Lester would enjoy the company--not in his own cage, of course, but in a separate cage next to his.

I'm tired and and hypersensitive to texture.

But I am done with grading for the time being. And the bike is fixed.

Perhaps during my next underemployed month I'll take a basic bike mechanics course, that would be fun, and then I can do repairs myself the next time.

One of my ESL students complained that his host father gets overwrought about every single sports event on TV. The host father watches a lot of sports games, alone, and screams and cries at the TV. I actually completely relate to this behavior. Being able to scream and cry about something is great. I can't scream at my online teaching supervisor, so a baseball game is a good thing to yell about. It was the end of the class, and I didn't have time to explain the word "alienation."

Even if you don't get overwrought about sports, I bet you get overwrought about something else. I yelled explicatives this morning while trying to fit the bike in the car (we have no bike rack), and I was glad to yell explicatives. It was great.

This is a picture of of someone in Parsva Bhuja Dandasana, or dragonfly pose. I kind of did this asana on Wednesday.


When I'm doing yoga and my teacher says something about peace coming from within, I always think something like, "yes, but if someone attacks me, it is essential for me to get angry about it and punch them if necessary." This is one of the many places where I differ from the new age pseudo Tantric yoga philosophy I love so much: balance doesn't come from within. Balance is a complicated dynamic. If I am standing on my hands, I need to focus on both my body and the environment.

Everything is a complicated dynamic. Duh.

We have no internet and the bike has a flat tire

Well, this weekend is the crunch time for my online classes. I have about 30 hours of grading, at least, at the end of every six week session. I am teaching two classes now. Mark and I went to the library today. The Carlsbad library is nice. Really nice. I am glad to be a "patron." Time Warner sucks.

Tomorrow I am not going to yoga. Instead, Mark and I are going to the IHOP that Mark ate at every Sunday morning the first fall he was here before I moved out (after IHOP, he would go to work). So Mark and I are going to go to that particular IHOP, and then to CSUSM where the internet isn't down (the library doesn't open until 1 tomorrow)! That part will be nice. The grading will not be nice. But then it will be over.

But I know I've been grading too much. I thought a sign that said "American Asphalt" was funny.

And before all that we are going to fix the bike. Cars smash into each other all the time, so there is always a lot of glass all over the road. I'm surprised only one tire is flat.

And speaking of not going to yoga, I can do dragonfly pose decently. All the weird arm balances seem to work for me.

History of the USA

Down South
Up North
Out West
Back East

Editing manuscripts, grading, partying

I wrote this line from Dear [Blank] I Believe in Other Worlds when I had recently graduated from college and hadn't experienced bureaucracy nearly as much as I have now:

"remember you are here because you love what's subsumed in bureaucracy"

I made steak for Mark and I. I haven't eaten steak in ages. I'm currently obsessed with grilled vegetables (squash and red peppers are a must, but eggplant, tomatoes, and mushrooms work well too) layered with fresh ricotta, and a kind of basil-sun dried tomato pesto. Yum yum yum. And very good with a basic steak with a basic pan sauce (shallots, wine, aromatics, etc).

Grading. All weekend.

But after Monday, I won't be, because the weekend will be over.

Benny on the bus was very upset about the rain this morning, and he yelled at everyone: "Is it raining?! It's raining! It's raining!"

Lester was fussy today. He tried to nest in my hair. He needs his wings clipped, and I think he's feeling amorous. He was born in late November, so his father must have been feeling amorous this time of year.

There is a new kitty in the apartment complex. A small, old, grey kitty that sits in the sun and has a big voice. I made contact this afternoon after a run.

On Monday night I dreamed I was presenting at an academic conference. My paper was well received, and the chair of the panel took me to a back room in a library and said, "congratulations!" and then duct-taped me up like a mummy. I think that Ron Silliman and Stan Aps were there, but they weren't on the panel. My paper was about Mina Loy and I was wearing a lampshade.

This dream sounds very hostile and scary and anti-academic, but I don't feel hostile to academia, at least not any more hostile than I do to a lot of other things. But in the dream, I wasn't scared, just puzzled: "how odd, they are duct-taping me up like a mummy. What do they expect will come of this?" It was ridiculous. Here I am looking dreamy:


When I came in to work on Tuesday, one of my coworkers told me that she'd dreamed that her boyfriend was cheating on her with me. She seems nice but I've never met her boyfriend.

Two of the other male teachers also reported having strange dreams, but they didn't go into any detail.

I asked my students if any of them had had strange dreams, and they said no and claimed to not remember their dreams, ever. I said "at least one of you must be lying."

I hate putting away my clothes

I hate it.

Xbox games for my 9.5 year old sisters

So, as I mentioned yesterday, Dad, Mary and my sisters are moving to Adelaide, Australia. They'll be in Flower Mound, Texas (oh, the glorious suburbs north of Dallas...) from October to January, which means a big Graham family powwow in December. According to Mary, Michelle and Allison are begging for an Xbox. So now I need to think about Xbox games.

Blinx: The Time Sweeper sounds kind of interesting as does Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix.

They do read, but they read their own things. There are new fangled series for young girls that they read. I don't know what they are.

Sarah doesn't seem to care much about video games. I was thinking of getting her some kind of a girly fashion design program, if such a thing exists--she likes to play with paper dolls. I think she's already received knitting kits, etc, and I don't have enough money to get her a sewing machine. Besides, anything I give them will have to either stay in Flower Mound or get carted off to south Australia.

On my mind

1. So, Dad and Mary and my little sisters (Sarah, Michelle, and Allison) are not moving to Singapore anymore, they are moving to Adelaide. Dad will be with BH Billinton working on the Olympic dam project. So, for now, no more Bechtel. This is good. Now I can fantasize about Mark and I visiting them and then going to Tasmania. This isn't going to happen, but still.

2. What makes a dunkel a dunkle? I know that a dunkle is a darker wheat beer. Stout is a dark beer made from barley, or maybe oatmeal, like Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, the beer that convinced me I could like beer.

3. This email message from an employer:

Fall Session I is quickly approaching. As we begin to prepare for our upcoming classes, it is important to the General Education Department that everyone is on the same page.

We therefore ask that you attend a special training hosted by one of our full time faculty members. Attendance will be taken at this session.

XXX XXXX invites you to participate as an attendee in this online training session.

I love how this email suggests that invitees are not on the same page as everyone else. It also suggests that the training session is "special." What does that mean? Created just for the people who are not on the same page as everyone else? I also love how we are invited to participate and also asked to participate. And then, in big bold letters, they tell us that they will be taking attendance.

I had a classic Lorraine & Old Man encounter at D.G. Wills bookstore in La Jolla this evening. (We were there for Mark Salerno's reading--pictures and more on that later). A not so vaguely tipsy old man complimented me on my necklace before the reading started (squidglass from Etsy) and then took a picture of me during the reading with his digital camera.

Then, after the reading, he asked me "Are you really a poet? You look more like a cheerleader."

And I said that yes, I was really a poet. And then I joked and said that I was also a cheerleader and a beauty school dropout.

The Old Man's friend, another Old Man, turned to me and said, "really?" "

No," I said, "not really. I've never been to beauty school and I avoided cheerleading.

"No you didn't!" said the Old Man's friend.

"Yes, I did."

"No you didn't!" The Old Man said. "Did you go to school here in La Jolla?"

At this point, I was of course trying to leave the conversation, but I couldn't, because I was too sweet and polite. This is why I have Lorraine and Old Man encounters in the first place. I have a sweet face. I am sweet, kind of, except when I am hostile, but I am rarely hostile to the Old Man.

Anyway, I said that no, that I grew up overseas and in Maine. The Old Man knew that I spoke Chinese. I don't know why. I hadn't told him. He's a regular at D.G Wills, and a friend of the owner. The last time I was at the bookstore, I bought two used copies of Practical Chinese Reader II and II.

So I said I spoke French and Chinese and Spanish. And he told me in French that I was a very pretty young girl and I said thank you and left.

I'm a pseudo not so pseudo carlsbad local girl and don't bother

Dit by my window and look outside, wonder why the sun don't shine on me
What's wrong with you, you stupid child, don't you think that I'm the one you're waiting to see?
Don't talk too much 'cause she falls for the suckers, makes her feel everything is secure
Don't ever leave a footprint on the floor

Chorus: Don't bother with the local girls, don't bother with the local girls
They don't bother me

She's probably half-wit, she must be straight,
or bound to have a mother who knows nothing but hate
Don't want to love her, I'd rather knock her down
Standing at the busstop where she waits each morning
So isolated that she thinks that the army is the place where a man ought to be
Don't bother with them, they don't bother me

Chorus

They got the walk, they got the talk, right down without a flaw
At 6:00 I got to stop my dreaming at the counter of the store

Chorus

Without a doubt I got to intercept, must be time someone ran and shouted intheir head
You look all right in the cheap print dress,
but everytime you swish it 'round you make me disappear
I'm aware of exactly what I'm doing, making everything a mystery
Don't bother with it, it don't bother me

Alex the parrot has passed away, unexpectedly, at 31 years old. Here's the New York Time's editorial and the press release from the Alex Foundation.

There's also a good article over at Seed Magazine that originally appeared in summer 2004 but which has been reposted in Alex's memory.

Coversation between Mark and I

- That's true.

- There's a lot that's true.

- That's true.

- Yeah, but I'm not it.

Things I want

From the immediately possible to the immediately impossible:

1. To scratch Lester under the chin
1a. To stand up
2. To get a glass of wine
3. A hand massage
3a. To be a the beach. Now. Watching dolphins play in the waves.
4. No more grading
4a. My hamstring attachment to never hurt again
5. Freedom from employment