Poetry

Poetry poem

Albert walked off without his backpack
But no one saw him do it
Casually, calmly, without a doubt
Dashed to the river and through it

Everyone noticed this time, though
For as he ran across
Good gracious God almighty
His everything was lost

---

What do you think of when you think of a library?

Is it something funny?
Or is it something sad?
I hope you've been listening.

---

Untitled

I want to be embedded in the streets
I want this to be my place my community
I want to embrace everything I hate about here
a poem

---

My brother's guitar

My brother's guitar
Became my father's guitar in some sort of backward inheritance
It will probably become my guitar, going back forward again
in the series of unexpected timelines

Blog

2024-02-01

I feel like I've entered a new era of my life, or a new section? Chapter? Can't think of the right word. But I think I was in a pretty dark place for a few years or so, and it's only now that I'm getting out of it that I can see what it was. I have a comparison. I'm listening to music that I haven't been able to listen to in a long time because for a while pretty much any music made me cry, and I was afraid to open that well. Now it still makes me cry sometimes, but I can accept it a little better.

2024-01-12

Cracks me up that when asked what Black Swan is about, my dad replied something close to "it's about someone with severe mental illness." Not wrong in my opinion but also just the most very basic way to describe it. To me it's more about perfection and pressure, fear of failing, all that stuff. Not necessarily a mental illness but certainly an extreme level of all those things listed. Also as I watch this movie for the 3rd or 4th time, I am realizing how bad some of the dialog is but also how much the dialog is really secondary to the mood, atmosphere, cinematography, sounds, and acting. And dancing. And costumes! The visuals! And boy is it a weeeeeird movie. Like really weird. Spoiler: What's with the semi-actual-swan transformation? Even down to webbed feet and spindly baby feathers sprouting from Portman's back. Interesting. But I love this movie.

2023-11-26

Man oh man. I've been going crazy on this lil' site all weekend. Thanksgiving break officially ends tomorrow so I won't have as much time to work on it, so I'm stuck with the weird slightly Christmas-y theme for now. I'm not wild about it, but I'm really just starting this whole graphic design thing from scratch. My prior experience consisted of using Paint Shop Pro 7 to add drop shadows and make textured wallpaper. That was about it. It's not much different now other than I've started experimenting with animated GIFs and using Gimp for some things here and there. It's a process! More process, less product! Or something.

I'm a little delirious now and kind of looking forward to getting back into the work routine. I'd like it to be less cold outside and I'd like to not feel like my eyesight is getting worse by the minute. But what can you do? The good news is is my creativity appears to be re-emerging with a vengeance.

2023-09-19

Today I saw a small bee on the back of a larger bee. They were both on the ground and the larger bee looked agitated about having a passenger on its back. I thought about trying to mediate the situation but decided it best to walk away. I later looked on the internet to see if I could find out what was happening in that scenario. The best answer I could get was perhaps the bees were mating. Then I got into a whole thing reading about how queen bees are raised and what their lifecycles are like. Man, was it weird. Turns out when a queen bee can no longer produce offspring, the worker bees can sense it and they rear a new queen. The workers all then surround the old, dried-up queen until she overheats and dies. This practice is called 'balling.'

Anyway, I then decided that I want to build a tiny retirement home for queen bees who are past their prime. I could go around rescuing queen bees before they are fully 'balled,' then place them in my little home. Maybe there would be bingo every Wednesday.

2023-08-16

My mom had this friend who was a photographer. One day she took me to his studio. I might've been four or five? I guess not old enough to be in school, but my brother was, because he wasn't with us. I think my mom's friend's name was Gene, but I might never know what happened to him. His studio was up some stairs with a white wall and I remember it smelled like death, because apparently an opossum or something had died in the wall, and it was hot out. We got up to the studio and there were all kinds of things set up around, and lights, and curtains. I don't remember what was being photographed. I think the three of us were the only people there. My mom and Gene talked and Gene gave me magnets to play with. I think they were just little silver balls that magnetically stuck together and I thought they were really cool. I don't remember why, but at some point Gene mentioned that we needed twine to make something. We later all three of us went to my mom's other friend's house, and I don't remember this friend's name, but she was an older lady and I remember sitting in her kitchen. Then I remember she opened a drawer or something and Gene excitedly looked at me and kind of whispered "the TWINE!" like we'd finally found it. I wish I could remember why we needed the twine.

2023-06-21

I recently found the tiny home of a mud dauber wasp near my front door. It was an adorable little tunnel made of mud. Unfortunately my roommate removed it from the wall. Even though mud dauber wasps are harmless to humans, the home was inconveniently located as the wasp would have been disturbed every time we opened or closed the door. I can't imagine this would make for a good relationship between us.

Here is some information about mud daubers from Bugs of the Month. According to the article, mud daubers are predators of spiders. This article explains a bit further: "The nests are stocked with spiders paralyzed by a sting. Inside their mud cells, the young wasps eat the spiders. When nests are knocked down (the best method of control), the spiders skins are all that is left to see." As for cohabitating with your friendly mud wasp: "Simply knock down the nest if it is located in an undesirable area. Otherwise, leave these creatures alone. They are part of the beautiful web of life and add to Maryland’s biodiversity."

Other entomology sites

The Backyard Arthropod Project
The Humane Gardener

Animals I've loved

Here are some animals I've known and loved throughout my life. Click their image to learn how Earth's creatures can change you.

Bemo (pronounced bee-mo) is my current wonderful little creature. His name is a combination of the words beast and monster; the fact that BMO (also pronounced bee-mo) is a character from one of my favorite cartoons was a happy accident. When Bemo was a wildly energetic kitten and I couldn't decide on a name for him, he loved to hop around and attack my feet, prompting me to call him the little beast monster… and there was the perfect name.

Bemo was found in the bushes on a street near my then apartment. It was close to Halloween–-I remember this because my friends and I had spent the evening at one of those haunted hayride spectacles, followed by hanging out at a friend's apartment. I was young and newly on my own and working in a restaurant at the time, and had a bunch of restaurant buddies who all lived in the same neighborhood. It was a fun and strange time of my life. But due to the restaurant work, I was often up and out into the wee hours of the night, and on this particular night I didn't head home until around 4 AM. My friend offered me a ride and as we were walking to his car, I heard the unmistakable sound of a kitten mewing somewhere in the darkness. Having grown up with lots of cats in the house and just in general being an extreme animal lover, I knew I wouldn't rest until I'd found the source of the mewing. My friend was gracious enough to wander into the bushes looking for the creature, and when he emerged he was carrying a tiny, black-and-white floof in his hands. I was in love.

My friend then kindly drove me to 7-11 where I purchased cat food, swearing I'd feed the little guy and give him a warm place to sleep and then bring him to the animal shelter the next day. After I brought him home and fed him, he curled up in bed with me and started purring. I think I knew at that moment–-whether or not I admitted it to myself-–that he would not be going to the animal shelter the next day. Eleven years later he is the center of my universe and has been by my side through lots of things. Maybe I'm biased but he's the sweetest cat I've ever known and continues to surprise me, even after all this time.

Bemo's nicknames

• Sweet Beast, Little Beast, or Wild Beast
• Sweet Prince or Little Prince
• Muffin or Sweet Muffin
• Pumpkin or Pumpkin Prince
• Probably tons of others I'm forgetting

Bemo's favorite things

• Salmon treats
• Going out in the yard in the morning
• His fuzzy blanket
• Rubbery wristbands
• Armpit scritches

Chaucer is a friendly neighborhood bookstore cat. He's kind of old and scruffy. He's been around this bookstore for as long as I've lived in this city, and probably longer. You'll frequently find him snoozing on a bookshelf or in a corner. Occasionally he'll give a meowful greeting and even accept scritches if you catch him in the right mood, but usually he seems to want to be left to his snoozes. The bookstore is his home, afterall, and you are just a visitor. From what I've heard, the bookstore employees take care of Chaucer and the other resident cat, who I'll probably mention later.