They call me Slug Savior.

Yesterday morning I woke up and there was a slug on my bathroom floor!  My first reaction was, That is a slug.  My second reaction was, Huh, I guess I'm not that bothered by it.  I mean, slugs are not known for speed.  I had plenty of time to pee and think about the slug situation before I actually had to deal with it.  It was then that I decided I wanted to save it. 

This was new territory for me.  I'll be the first to tell you that I'm a big wuss when it comes to creepy crawlies.  I have genuine arachnophobia.  The very sight of even a fake stuffed Halloween spider sends electric currents down my back.  It's something about the legs that freaks me out.  Ew, just writing about it gives me shivers.  Okay.  Deep breaths.  So whenever the spiders find me--and they always do--my two options are to either drown them in Raid or alert my roommate, who, being the adult person that she is, will calmly handle the situation and take the spider outside to let it live and procreate and GAH GROSS!

Okay, enough with the spiders.  Back to yesterday's slug.  I felt instinctively that since I did not recoil at the sight of it, I was emotionally equipped to handle said slug disposal myself.  I've always had a theory that since leggy insects bothered me, I could handle slithery things like snakes and worms.  This was my chance to prove it. 

My plan of action was to get a piece of paper out of the printer, lay it down on the ground, and wait for the slug to creep its way onto it.  It didn't take as long as you would think.  The slug was actually pretty keen.  Maybe because the piece of paper that I grabbed had a recipe for West African peanut soup on it, I don't know.  Anyway, phase one of slug removal was completed.  Phase two was to transport the slug paper through my bedroom, around my bed, through the hall, through the living room and out the front door.  At first I thought I would wear gloves, but then I realized the thing about slugs is that they will cling to anything for dear life.  Once that became evident, I did not worry about the slug sliding around onto anything, namely me. 

Phase three was to put the slug outside, thereby releasing it into the wild and hopefully saving its life.  This proved slightly more challenging due to the aforementioned slug grip on the paper.  I tried to angle the paper so he would just slither off, but he kind of went into a ball of fear, so I just set the paper down outside the door and figured I'd check back later to see if he was gone.  I then proceeded to accost my roommate in the middle of her getting ready for work with the tale of my heroic slug rescue.  It went something like this:  "Omi, there was a SLUG in my BATHROOM and I saved it!  Me!  I saved it!!!"  Oh, the humility. 

She was suitably impressed and wrinkled her nose at the prospect of the slug in the apartment.  She, Savior of Spiders, is not so much a fan of the leg-lacking creepies.  I told her I put the slug outside.  She opened the door to go to work and saw the paper.  Omi:  "Why is there a recipe outside our door . . . OH.  EW!"

We are a great team, don't you think?

Wild Gratitude

Tonight when I knelt down next to our cat, Zooey,
And put my fingers into her clean cat's mouth,
And rubbed her swollen belly that will never know kittens,
And watched her wriggle onto her side, pawing the air,
And listened to her solemn little squeals of delight,
I was thinking about the poet, Christopher Smart,
Who wanted to kneel down and pray without ceasing
In everyone of the splintered London streets,

And was locked away in the madhouse at St. Luke's
With his sad religious mania, and his wild gratitude,
And his grave prayers for the other lunatics,
And his great love for his speckled cat, Jeoffry.
All day today—August 13, 1983—I remembered how
Christopher Smart blessed this same day in August, 1759,
For its calm bravery and ordinary good conscience.

This was the day that he blessed the Postmaster General
"And all conveyancers of letters" for their warm humanity,
And the gardeners for their private benevolence
And intricate knowledge of the language of flowers,
And the milkmen for their universal human kindness.
This morning I understood that he loved to hear—
As I have heard—the soft clink of milk bottles
On the rickety stairs in the early morning,

And how terrible it must have seemed
When even this small pleasure was denied him.
But it wasn't until tonight when I knelt down
And slipped my hand into Zooey's waggling mouth
That I remembered how he'd called Jeoffry "the servant
Of the Living God duly and daily serving Him,"
And for the first time understood what it meant.
Because it wasn't until I saw my own cat

Whine and roll over on her fluffy back
That I realized how gratefully he had watched
Jeoffry fetch and carry his wooden cork
Across the grass in the wet garden, patiently
Jumping over a high stick, calmly sharpening
His claws on the woodpile, rubbing his nose
Against the nose of another cat, stretching, or
Slowly stalking his traditional enemy, the mouse,
A rodent, "a creature of great personal valour,"
And then dallying so much that his enemy escaped.

And only then did I understand
It is Jeoffry—and every creature like him—
Who can teach us how to praise—purring
In their own language,
Wreathing themselves in the living fire.

-Edward Hirsch

I'm a little worried that I mentioned babies so much, but then again I also mentioned cheese.

What a jam-packed weekend that was!  I'm still in the process of recovering, as is my roommate's car after I accidentally hit it Friday night.  No damage done, although for a second I thought I hit it hard enough to make the trunk pop open (I didn't).  Sorry, Omi.  That's what happens after a wild and crazy game of Wits 'n Wagers.  Have you ever heard of this game?  It's Trivial Pursuit meets gambling.  Everyone writes down their answers to a question and then we put the answers on a board with the odds laid out on them (3-1, 2-1, etc.) and then you place chips on the answer you think is correct, even if it's not your own.  I'm pretty terrible at it.  The questions are all something like, "What's the average amount of pizza slices American children eat in a year?" One of my friends actually wrote down the exact number, but failed to bet on her answer.  It's 46, in case you were wondering.

Saturday I went to help out at my church's ladies' Valentine's tea.  I'll admit I was kind of more excited about all the food we were preparing than the tea itself, but the actual event turned out to be so fun.  There were all these older ladies recounting the travels of their youth.  Many of them had been flight attendants for TWA and had some great stories.  The woman who was hosting the party is 90 years old!  She was sharp as a tack.  She told us about the history of her beautiful home, which she has lived in since 1958.  She and her husband made plans to build the house, but he was called up to fight in Korea (after already serving in WWII!).  So she built the house while he was gone and also gave birth to his son in the meantime.  Her husband returned 13 months later to a new house and a new baby.  What an awesome lady. 

And yesterday of course was the Superbowl.  I was a lone Steelers fan in a room full of Cheeseheads, which made things pretty exciting.  I mean, we're talking people who actually import cheddar from Wisconsin for events such as this.  I'm not really a diehard Steelers fan at all, but since my grandma the avid sports watcher had me following their run-up to the Superbowl, I figured I should go with them.  Ah well, it was a great game. What wasn't great?  Those stupid talking babies commercials.  When will they end that campaign?  I am seriously creeped out by them, but I guess I'm in the minority.  It's just me and Lindsay Lohan hating on the E-Trade babies.

Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About

My pants could maybe fall down when I dive off the diving board.
My nose could maybe keep growing and never quit.
Miss Brearly could ask me to spell words like stomach and special.
(Stumick and speshul?)
I could play tag all day and always be "it."
Jay Spievack, who's fourteen feet tall, could want to fight me.
My mom and my dad--like Ted's--could want a divorce.
Miss Brearly could ask me a question about Afghanistan.
(Who's Afghanistan?)
Somebody maybe could make me ride a horse.
My mother could maybe decide that I needed more liver.
My dad could decide that I needed less TV.
Miss Brearly could say that I have to write script and stop printing.
(I'm better at printing.)
Chris could decide to stop being friends with me.

The world could maybe come to an end on next Tuesday.
The ceiling could maybe come crashing on my head.
I maybe could run out of things for me to worry about.
And then I'd have to do my homework instead.

-Judith Viorst

In honor of Edgar Allen Poe's birthday (and my friend Amanda's)

I killed a spider in my bathroom five days ago, and I have not yet found the nerve to dispose of it.  The first day it was to make sure it was dead.  The second was to be extra sure.  The third was to be absolutely Washingtonian about it.  The fourth was to let him be a lesson to all his friends.  And the fifth (today) is because I just plain don't want to get near it. 

Instead, I am going to focus on celebrating Mr. Poe's birthday, which my friend Amanda-from-New-York also shares.  Bet you've never heard this one:

"Alone"

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring—

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow—I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone—

And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—

Then—in my childhood—in the dawn

Of a most stormy life—was drawn

From ev’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still—

From the torrent, or the fountain—

From the red cliff of the mountain—

From the sun that ’round me roll’d

In its autumn tint of gold—

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by—

From the thunder, and the storm—

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view—

The sound of silence = the sound of my own paranoia

Have you ever heard of those sensory deprivation tanks where you sit in water in the pitch black with absolute silence around you?  At first I thought that would be kind of a cool experience, but now I'm not so sure.  I think my imagination is not cut out for something like that.  It would be kicked into overdrive.  After two minutes I would convince myself that I'm going to be stuck in there forever, that I am being punished for something, that the people in control of the tank are at any moment going to release a shark or a piranha or killer squid into the water to see how I react. 

What brought about these thoughts was the electricity going out on our block tonight.  Being in a new apartment, my roommate and I are not entirely sure of where everything is. We just kind of sat there in the blackness for a minute before launching into action.  Usually in the past when this happened it was because we overloaded the circuit or blew a fuse.  In this place, I don't even know whether it uses circuit breakers or fuses.  All I knew was that I was going to have to step over a lot of crap between where I was in the living room and where my flashlight was next to my bed.  And I cannot even begin to tell you where I packed the candles.  Anyway, my imagination kicked into gear as I was sitting there- it was really dark!  When my roommate ventured into the kitchen to find her flashlight, I sat there in the dead silence and imagined this was all the effort of a serial killer targeting me specifically.  Once I brushed off the serial killer scenario, I focused on the noiselessness and that freaked me out even more.  That's because it amplifies smaller sounds like rodents skittering. 

Look, I know I sound like a crazy person with a bunch of neuroses.  Maybe I am, but that rodent thing is legit.  One time we had a rat loose in our apartment, and when we thought we had it quarantined, we all went to bed.  Guess whose room it ended it up in.  I woke up to the scratching sound of rat claws on the wood floor.  When I turned on the light, it ran across my wall.  I didn't know rats could do that!  And that is why I sleep with earplugs.

Beach Walk

I found a baby shark on the beach.
Seagulls had eaten his eyes. His throat was bleeding.
Lying on shell and sand, he looked smaller than he was.
The ocean had scraped his insides clean.
When I poked his stomach, darkness rose up in him,
like black water. Later, I saw a boy,
aroused and elated, beckoning from a dune.
Like me, he was alone. Something tumbled between us—
not quite emotion. I could see the pink
interior flesh of his eyes. "I got lost. Where am I?"
he asked, like a debt owed to death.
I was pressing my face to its spear-hafts.
We fall, we fell, we are falling. Nothing mitigates it.
The dark embryo bares its teeth and we move on.

-Henri Cole

Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we?

I was watching the Golden Globes tonight,  and as a result I feel compelled to admit something.  I think most people who have jobs in the arts imagine themselves up on the stage of some awards show, accepting the highest honor for their work in front of all their peers.  I, on the other hand, can think of nothing more tortuous aside from being stuck on a bridge in a car full of spiders over a bay on a gusty day.  I mean, before we even get to the horror of public speaking, let's consider the long march from your seat to the stage.  At least at the Globes everyone is too busy toasting drinks at their tables to be paying too much attention to the actual show.  Most other shows everyone is so bored that they just stare at you as you pass by and psychically bombard you with "keep it short" vibes.  

I guess I should put a disclaimer here that I've never been to an awards show, I'm only writing what I know from television, and it's probably a poor representation at that.  That still doesn't change the fact that if I was ever nominated for an award, I would quickly schedule something out of the country and hope that someone famously hilarious accepts on my behalf. 

I know you're thinking, careful, your misanthropy is starting to show.  I wasn't always like this.  In my bolder days of youthful vanity (read: middle school), I would pretend to be sitting across from Oprah talking about my most recent bestseller.  Award shows weren't really my thing, but network television's highly rated daytime shows apparently were.  In my angrier, angsty-er days (read: college), I pictured a scenario in which I would accept an award out of spite for all the haters and nay-sayers.  That speech would go something like, "This is no thanks to YOU, blankety-blank, who refused to write me a recommendation to get into such-and-such program.  Despite you, so-and-so, who rolled your eyes when I said I wanted to be a writer, I'm accepting this award.  Suck it."

So that's over, thank goodness.  Now I'm sorry to tell you, friends and family members, I will not ever be a good bet for an awards show ticket, but in return I invite you to join me on a secluded beach somewhere- many time zones away from the video feeds (and unfortunately, the gift bags).

The Pillar of Fame

-Robert Herrick

             Fame’s pillar here at last we set,

             Out-during marble, brass or jet;

                  Charmed and enchanted so

                  As to withstand the blow

                   O f   o v e r t h r o w ;

                   Nor   shall   the   seas,

                     Or     o u t r a g e s

                   Of   storms,   o’erbear

                     What    we    uprear;

                   Tho’   kingdoms   fall,

                This   pillar   never   shall

                Decline   or waste at   all;

         But   stand   for ever   by   his   own

         Firm   and    well-fixed    foundation.

The worst

For 30-some hours last week, I stayed in the hospital with a family member who was ill.  I've never spent the night in a hospital before, at least not since I can remember.  It struck me how much like a prison it is, not only in the sense of being trapped in the building but of being seized by fear and anxiety. 

There is an old saying that you don't go to a hospital in order to get rest.  This is true.  Though you may arrive there at 4:30 in the morning, there is no sleep on the horizon.  First you are worried about how soon you can be seen in the emergency room.  If you are lucky, it could take less than an hour, but if it is busy, you could be there for four, five, six hours just waiting.  In our situation, the next step was triage.  Then you have to wait for a room to become available before you can even get treatment.  Apparently the quickest way to secure a room is to uncontrollably vomit.  This will bump you to the front of the line. 

Once you are in a room, you have to wait for the doctor to come in.  The nurses are in and out, they check your vitals, but they can't do anything really productive without the doctor signing off on it.  Here is what I've discovered about ER doctors: their treatments are tentative at best.  I don't know if they're scared of being sued for malpractice or if our doctor wasn't exactly grasping the problem, but things only got worse in the ER rather than better.  This necessitated full admittance into the hospital and a move up to an actual room in the observation ward.  What we thought was going to be a few hours was now turning into an overnight stay. 

The observation nurses are amazing.  I don't think this is something that every hospital has, but at this one they dedicate all their time to patients that just need to be monitored.  They seem to have a better idea of what treatments are necessary and they contact the doctors and explain each case to them.  Things started to turn around for us in this ward.  At this hospital, family is encouraged to stay with the patient, so they very thoughtfully provided a chair/bed for me to sleep in.  This makes a huge difference because you can be on constant alert for your family member and get the nurses really fast if you have to.

All through the night, they wake you up every few hours to change the saline bag for the IV or check your blood sugar.  The main nurse assigned to us was really great about being quiet and just getting the job done, but sometimes you wonder how certain people fell into the line of work they're in.  One nurse seemed to be in her 20s, and she was so loud.  You could hear her voice all through the ward and at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, the last thing you want to hear is a shrill call about which room the beeping noise is coming from.

We were lucky that we were able to leave the next day.  Of course you have to wait for the doctor to come and agree to discharge you.  Naturally they are busy, so this could take hours.  The worst feeling besides fear and anxiety is helplessness.  At the hospital, these seem to be the trifecta of emotions.  You are always waiting to react to some kind of news.  You have no control over your body, over who prods at you, or what the test results are going to say.  You can't get up without dragging an IV machine behind you, and you can't shower or brush your teeth- even after you vomit. 

Hospitals.  You're lucky if you get a good one, and the people working there make all the difference. 

This is a poem written by Elizabeth Bishop about visiting the poet Ezra Pound in a mental hospital after he was arrested for treason and judged to be insane.  The poem is modeled on the nursery rhyme "This is the house that Jack built," which gives it an eerie quality sort of fitting for a psychiatric hospital.

Visits to St. Elizabeths

[1950]

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

Basically, I'm a big scaredy cat.

I have many fears, including but not limited to spiders, roaches, tornadoes, traveling in a car on a bridge over water, heights (this is a new one), and velociraptors.  But one other very serious fear for me is encountering a blank screen when I sit down to write.  It's a classic western stand-off.  The blank page says that it is better off without anything on it.  It reasons with me: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."  Yeah, thanks for that, page. 

Some of the ways I've learned to combat this is to jot down some ideas or the first lines of something on a scrap of paper.  That way, I have something to immediately type up before the page can get a word in edgewise.  I also stumbled onto another process accidentally.  I once had to type up a poem for class from an author I admired, and even the physical act of typing those lines that I knew were great and seeing the words appear on the screen as I "wrote" them gave me courage.  It's hard to explain, but if I type a few stanzas from Edgar Allen Poe, I get an idea of what it's like to see myself type something good, and then it makes me want to tackle my own writing and be better at it.  That's one of the reasons I enjoy writing the entries for this blog. 

In keeping with the Halloween theme of the week, I thought a little Poe was in order.  Now I'll bet you think I'm going to post "The Raven."  That poem's pretty good, but I prefer "Annabel Lee."  It was the last poem Poe wrote before he died.  Many people assume it's about his wife, Virginia, who had died from tuberculosis a couple years before.  Poe said that the death of a beautiful woman was the most poetical theme to write about.  This poem gives me the wiggins.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Am I becoming a misanthrope?

It all started last Thursday around 6:30 pm.  I was in my bedroom getting ready to go out and meet some friends for dinner when I heard five rapid gunshots.  No one else was around, so I took a moment to think.  First, were those really gunshots?  Sometimes the neighborhood kids set off fireworks, and the two can sound remarkably similar.  But I didn't hear any other fireworks.  Second, where did the sound come from?  I went to the living room window that looks onto the street and peeked out.  I didn't see anything.  I went back to my room upon the realization that if they were gunshots, maybe I shouldn't be standing next to the window.

About five minutes later I started to hear police sirens and a helicopter.  It's not that unusual to hear those sounds in my 'hood.  In fact, almost nightly I shout at my ceiling at passing helicopters to hurry up and find the perp already because their noise is drowning out my TV (this is either misanthropy sign #1 or a sign that I'm turning into an old person).  So upon hearing these sounds, I said to myself, if the cops drive past and the sirens fade away, then I'm going to assume it was fireworks.  But they didn't drive past.  The sirens stopped at the southern end of my block.  Great.

It was at that point I wished that my intrepidly curious downstairs neighbor was around.  He would have gone outside with me to see what was going down.  I was too scared to go alone in case some gang war was taking place.  About a half hour later, I had to leave the house anyway to meet my friends.  I saw cars coming up from that end of the block, so I decided to drive that way.  When I got to the cross street, there was a cop car blocking the way and one entire corner was roped off with police tape.  Yikes.  I turned around and drove in a different direction, but that shook me up.

My roommates always tease me because it's actually kind of common for me to think I hear gunshots.  One time I was so sure that I made everyone get down on the ground and belly crawl, but that one turned out to be just a firework.  This was real.

I thought back to the walk I had taken to the bank the day before.  There had been some MS-13 tagging I passed along the way.  Was it new?  We always joke about our neighborhood being up-and-coming (at least for the last 3 years since we moved here), but what if it had suddenly gone the other direction?  This was the first time I had ever felt unsafe.

Cut to this morning when I was working on some writing and someone buzzed the doorbell three times.  I peeped out the peep hole.  No one inside the building (meaning it wasn't maintenance or my landlord).  I looked outside.  If it was UPS or FedEx, I would see a truck.  No truck.  The doorbell rang another three times.  Well, who the hell could that be?  None of my neighbors were home.  My imagination was running away with me.  I thought back to a news story in Memphis when I lived there about a local DJ being shot in the head just because she opened her apartment door to a stranger.  Again the buzzer rang three times.  I decided not to answer it.  What calm and logical solution did I come up with instead?  I turned on the shower.  And then I decided to get in.  There.  That was my excuse for not answering the door.  If anyone asked later, it was because I was in the shower.

Later I had to go to the police station to take care of a traffic violation, but while I was there I decided to get some serious info.  I told the very friendly desk officer that I had heard gun shots on my street but I couldn't find anything about what had happened.  Was there a shooting on my street?  He looked at me and said, "Probably."  Probably?!  According to him, "It happens a lot.  You're at home and you hear something and you think, was that a gun?  In this neighborhood, chances are it was."

Well, that's just dandy.  I am going to become like Emily Dickinson and never leave my house and never answer the door.  I already rarely answer my phone (that's another story), so this won't be that big of a leap for me.

I never hear the word "escape"

I never hear the word "escape"
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.

I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars, --
Only to fail again!

-Emily Dickinson

Positively Hitchcockian

I generally go through life thinking I have an unspoken agreement with a lot of things.  Pretty much if you don't bother me, I don't bother you.  One of the things I have this agreement with is birds.  I don't really think about them one way or another except when they crap on my car and I shake my fist at the sky, but some birds are cool.  Some of them have super powers and can talk and stuff.  Peacocks are all right because they're nice to look at.  Sparrows are unassuming and happy simply if you give them a crumb of bread.  Turkeys and eagles are patriotic so I have no beef with them.  Parrots are only cool because they are riding the shoulders of pirates and Monty Python once did a hilarious sketch about one.

I know people think most birds are not so smart, but I am convinced we are not giving them enough credit.  Some birds are evil and with that evil comes strategizing capabilities.  The other day I was walking, minding my own business, in a busy area of town.  I had to get to a crosswalk to cross a busy intersection.  Off to the side were all these pigeons gathered around a tree and a telephone pole.  There were quite a lot of them, but I didn't even think "hey, that's a large group of pigeons."  That's how much I was minding my own business.  Suddenly they all took off at once.  No big deal, but I tried to steer clear from walking directly under them so I could avoid any droppings.  They flew past me, so I thought I was safe.  I was still headed for the crosswalk.  Suddenly back they flew in the direction whence they came.  Again, I edged away for scatalogical reasons.  I shook my head.  Weird birds.

The cross walk was only about 15 feet away at this point when they took off again.  These pigeons were everywhere.  There was no escape.  They were pumping the air like DJ Paulie D on the dance floor.  These freaking pigeons would take off and land, take off and land, but when they landed, they barely even touched the tree or the telephone pole before they were up and off again.  My next thought was, maybe we're about to have an earthquake.  Animals can sense these things and these birds were going nuts.  But by the time I was waiting for the light to change, the earth had not quaked once.  These crazed pigeons were treading air.  Two of them clawed at the bar above the "don't walk" sign.  They were looking at me.  This was highly disturbing.  My next and final thought on the matter was whether there was any factual basis for the movie The Birds and what it would feel like to be pecked to death by a dirty air rat.

Luckily, the light changed before I could find out.  As I ran across the street, I looked back and saw they had taken off again, this time with another poor soul trapped in their whirlpool of feathers.

Triangles

Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.

I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.

-Pablo Neruda

This post makes my skin crawl.

I hate the word "moist."  I hate the way the mouth forms when it's spoken.  It reminds me of those skeevy men who lean out of their trucks, honk and blow kisses as they drive past and make me want to yell, "I'm walking here!"  "Moist" is blood and stickiness.  It is also cottonmouth.  Someone who moistens his lips is unsure of himself and therefore unattractive.  He probably has chapped lips.

These are all irrational things, like when I think of the word "Amsterdam" I think of the color orange.  But there are two instances when I can deal with "moist."  One is in the description of a cake, because I love cake more than I hate "moist."  The other is in poetry, because as much as I loathe the word, it evokes a strong reaction in me.  That is what I want out of poems, and that is the most I can handle with "moist."  This poem by Sharon Olds is the perfect example:

35/10

Brushing out our daughter’s brown
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a moist
precise flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It’s an old
story—the oldest we have on our planet—
the story of replacement.