Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It

The singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile has a steel hold of the womenfolk in this house. We find ourselves cursing her song "That Wasn't Me" more often than it deserves to be cursed because any time one of us utters the commonly used phrase "Hang on," we are helpless to keep ourselves from adding, in perfect harmony, "Just hang on for a minute, I've got something to say." In honor of a three-day stretch in which this song has not left my head, I present to you this week's Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It. When I feel like it is now.

(I chose this video because it was recorded at Bear Creek Studio in good ol' Woodinville and because I don't think there's anything more perfect in the world than Brandi Carlile going acoustic.)

That Wasn't Me
Brandi Carlile

Hang on, just hang on for a minute
I've got something to say
I'm not asking you to move on or forget it
But these are better days
To be wrong all along and admit it, is not amazing grace
But to be loved like a song you remember
Even when you've changed

Tell me
Did I go on a tangent?
Did I lie through my teeth?
Did I cause you to stumble on your feet?
Did I bring shame on my family?
Did it show when I was weak?
Whatever you see, that wasn't me
That wasn't me, oh that wasn't me

When you're lost you will toss every lucky coin you'll ever trust
And you'll hide from your God like he ever turns his back on us
And you'll fall all the way to the bottom and land on your own knife
But you'll learn who you are even if it doesn't take your life

Tell me
Did I go on a tangent?
Did I lie through my teeth?
Did I cause you to stumble on your feet?
Did I bring shame on my family?
Did it show when I was weak?
Whatever you see, that wasn't me
That wasn't me, oh that wasn't me

But I want you to know that you'll never be alone
I want to believe

Do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet?
When you fall I will get you on your feet
Do I spend time with my family?
Does it show when I am weak?
When that's what you see, that will be me
That will be me, that will be me
That will be me.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home

I've been in somewhat of a reading slump lately. In the month since I've been home from the island--plus, actually, the week before I left--I have started only four books and finished just two. Normally I can knock off double that in a week. No images have danced off the pages, no plot lines have pulled in me. I just haven't found anything that, as my emotionally unstable ninth grade English teacher would say, "speaks to my truth." That is, until I started Carol Rifka Brunt's debut novel Tell the Wolves I'm Home.

I won't say too much about it, mostly because I don't want to spoil it for anyone but also because as of this minute I'm only a third of the way through. What I will say, though, is that you won't need to read even a whole page to know that you never want it to end. I feel such kinship with the fifteen-year-old narrator, June, as she navigates her life after the death of her beloved uncle. Her observations are mature and poignant, and her sadness is so raw that at times I feel like I shouldn't be reading, like I should look away, like she'll only work through her heartbreak if I close the book and leave her alone for a while.

There are countless passages that I read twice, even three times. This one was particularly meaningful for me because I identify so closely with the way June approaches the world:

"Of course, I was relieved that the party was canceled. It wasn't only the shy thing, the total social retardation. It was more than that. I wasn't interested in drinking beer or vodka or smoking cigarettes or doing all the other things Greta thinks I can't even imagine. I don't want to imagine those things. Anyone can imagine things like that. I want to imagine wrinkled time, and forests thick with wolves, and bleak midnight moors. I dream about people who don' t need to have sex to know they love each other. I dream about people who would only ever kiss you on the cheek."

I love this paragraph for about twelve different reasons. I love how well June knows herself and how comfortable she is with her identity. I love that she is clearly the type of person who thinks long and hard before she speaks, who knows more than she'll ever let on. Above all, though, I love that her mind inhabits the wildest of places. I love that she envisions a world nearly identical to the one in my own mind.

I strongly encourage everyone to procure a copy of this book at once.

In the Throes

Well, everybody, it's time once again for our annual Gibbs/Margoshes Fruit Fly Infestation Extravaganza! This is a joyous time filled with mirth and festivities for all ages. There's the Stand 'n' Clap, in which my father stands over the fruit bowl with his hands several inches apart, waiting until a lone fruit fly propels itself upward in an act of resignation (at which point my grandma looks up from her newspaper and asks, with great interest, "Did you get it?"). Then we have the Death Saber, wherein we all take turns dragging the vacuum cleaner around the kitchen and sucking up flies with the extension hose while a second person shakes the plants and flower vases. And finally there's the Sweet Nectar of Revenge, which consists of me filling Mason jars with apple cider vinegar and fashioning death funnels out of printer paper to attach to the top. Yes it's grotesque, and yes the one on the back of the toilet looks a lot like a jar of urine, but I can't tell you how downright fascinating it is to watch these traps in action. Hovering in front of the kitchen sink while an unsuspecting fly marches down the paper tube to its death; watching sixty or so of the little effers swarming toward the side of the jar closest to the window, hoping that if they all push hard enough at the same time the glass will give way.  Even my cat, who has demonstrated intense suspicion of the vacuum in the past, can't mask the delight in her eyes when we wheel it into the kitchen. It's just so much fun.

Gotta love that Death Saber.

What is not fun, however, is having this problem to begin with. Until recently, I seemed to be the only member of the household who noticed that our yearly infestations just so happened to coincide with my brother's winery's grape crush and the eight tons of grapes fermenting in plastic bins in our basement. Last night, implicating himself at least partially in the fruit fly breeding ground that our house has become, Pasha taped newspaper over the heating vent in the bathroom because he suspected the flies were using it as their own personal portal to and from the basement. This fire hazard would undoubtedly alarm any sane person, but we freaks will stop at nothing to fuel this genocide, even if it means taking our house down, too.

If I weren't so busy falling into the clutches of sweet, sweet villainy I would be impressed by the resilience of these things. Pasha spent a good ten minutes in the bathroom last night sucking them up with the vacuum, and even though he claimed to have gotten "at least 95%" of them, this morning when I went to take a shower a great black plume burst forth when I slid open the curtain. You've got to hand it to them: fruit flies are highly efficient procreators.

I should probably be embarrassed by how easily I have yielded to these obnoxious pests, and by my willingness to share my abovementioned breakdown here with all you fives of readers, but I'm not. The way I see it, everyone reading this already knows how much of a freak I am. The damage is already done. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some vacuuming to do.

The Upside of the Shutdown

Now, I basically live for the week before Valentine's Day when NPR releases its newest batch of public radio pun-laden V-Day cards. Immediately after they're posted I print them out and, delirious with dweebishness, I dance around the house cackling to myself as I hide them in the refrigerator or inside the newspaper for my parents to find. (I really shouldn't be admitting to this kind of behavior. It's just depressing.)

This year, thanks to our friendly neighborhood GOP, I have another reason to live: NPR's government shutdown pickup lines. Oooh baby. It's like Valentine's Day four and a half months early! I should be angry with NPR for being the overwhelming cause of my singlehood, but I'm not. Nothing will turn this girl against her public radio.

And so, without further ado, here they are:

8 Great "Shutdown Pickup Lines" - NPR

Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It

It's been a while, but Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It is making its molasses-slow return. In time I promise I'll post a happy poem; just not today.

Infinite Room

Tess Gallagher

Having lost future with him
I'm fit now to love those
who offer no future when future
is the heart's way of throwing itself away
in time. He gave me all, even
the last marbled instant, and not as excess,
but as if a closed intention were itself
a spring by the roadside
I could put my lips to and be quenched
remembering. So love in a room now
can too easily make me lost
like a child having to hurry home
in darkness, afraid the house
will be empty. Or just afraid.

Tell me again how this is only
for as long as it lasts. I want to be
fragile and true as one who extends
the moment with its death intact,
with her too wise heart
cleansed of that debris we called hope.
Only then can I revisit that last surviving
and know with the wild exactness
of a shattered window what he meant
with all time gone
when he said, "I love you."

Now offer me again
what you thought was nothing.

American Football: The Seattle Sounders Documentary

Hell YES.

Fare Thee Well, Little Island

Today I leave.

It has been four months. Four months of sunsets over Canada, four months of falling asleep to the sound of fog horns in nights that seemed more grey than black. Four months of lion-gold valleys and dusty woods, of garlic parsley walnut bread and more books than any mentally stable person should ever attempt to read.

For me, one of the hardest parts of leaving has always been the inevitable caging of experiences behind the bars of a single adjective. "It was great," I'll say, if anyone asks. One syllable. A single syllable to stand for everything from the sound of pebbles dragged backward by the tide to the smell of strawberries warming in the late afternoon sun. And the thing is, oftentimes that one syllable seems like the only logical thing to say. No casual asker wants to hear about the time you and a friend drove home from a hike with a dog in the backseat and a bag of dog poop on your windshield because there was no garbage can at the trail head, or how a woman asked if you were valedictorian simply because you knew how to spell "congratulations." Pinning that monosyllabic "great" to the walls of the atmosphere will keep it there forever--will condense all your stories into a tidy, manageable segment. It's the truth, after all; it was great, and great is what people want to hear. But it certainly doesn't seem fair to shrink-wrap four months of your life to a bit of idle conversation before the topic turns.

Consider this post my response to the question, "How was the island?" I know I can't very well use this platform as a replacement for a verbal answer, but at least I'll feel better knowing that in my small corner of cyberspace I have posted the full truth.