cercelata: poetry

Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

26 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Do you know the famous Wallace Stevens poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird? It's one of my favorites. I love it. And even more than I love reading it, I love teaching it. Because then my class and I get to write our own version of the poem!

Here's the original:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens

I.

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II.
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III.
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV.
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI.
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII.
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII.
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX.
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X.
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI.
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII.
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII.
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Beautiful, right? And here is the version my poetry class at San Quentin wrote last week (we each wrote a few stanzas; I picked 13 and put them in a random-ish order):

Thirteen (More) Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (after Wallace Stevens)

San Quentin H-Unit Poetry Class, May 2011

The rocks begin to move

from the earthquake, but

the blackbird sits firm on top

of the biggest rock.

II.

Spring awaits a young blackbird

who patiently survived

his first Ohio winter.

III.

The blackbird lifts

his wings in greeting:

all rise.

IV.

I see through the eyes

of the blackbird as the sun sets

over sea like an orange

at the edge of a glass bowl.

The blackbird speaks

a language I don’t know,

but I prefer inference

anyway.

VI.

As the sun rises,

so does the blackbird

on its prey.

VII.

Blackbird flies by, headed south.

No direction toward the moon.

Unique-colored and dreamed of.

VIII.

Sailing through the sky

at neutral pace, the blackbird

continues to fly.

IX.

Snow-encrusted branches

shelter a solitary nest

of a pair of blackbirds

longing for winter’s icy grip

to relinquish its hold.

My pupils somersault

tracking the blackbird.

XI.

I need not know

of the blackbird’s song

for I have not a song of my own.

XII.

There are many different blackbirds

in this part of town.

But I never see them.

XIII.

Unseen at night, the blackbird

quiet while in flight, brave

jet-speed wings flap aloud.

Pretty incredible, huh? I'm so proud of these guys, many of whom had never written a poem before January.

One of my Muses

When I have writer's block, the only thing that really pulls me out of it is reading. Usually I read poetry, since that's what I'm writing, but another thing that always works? Anais Nin. Her language is so beautiful and lyrical that it might as well be poetry.

from

If you've never read anything she's written, I'd recommend starting with Henry & June, the famous excerpt from her diaries. It is the compelling story of her years-long affair with author Henry Miller.

Here are some Anais Nin quotes that I've grown attached to over the years:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

"We write to taste life twice: in the moment, and in retrospection."

"I must be a mermaid . . . I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."

"I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

"I am only responsible for my own heart. You offered yours up for the smashing, my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ."

"Anxiety is love's greatest killer."

and for Jessie . . . "Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together."

from

Who is your creative muse?

San Quentin Stand Up

First of all . . .

from

I will be spending today dreaming of king cake and St. Charles Avenue and wishing I were in New Orleans. I have so many great memories of watching the parades from uptown, catching the best beads at Muses, sipping frozen drinks out of neon plastic glasses, and trying to find anywhere that would let us use the bathroom without paying $10. Oh New Orleans, I miss you! Especially at your most festive.

Back to San Quentin. Despite my borderline crazy schedule right now, my poetry class at San Quentin on Monday nights is totally the regular highlight of my week. It's so funny/heartwarming to see the guys watching from their dorms for me to arrive and the guard to announce, "Attention all dorms: Poetry is good in the Education room . . . Poetry is good in the Education room." (Is good = students are allowed to come out of their dorms and head toward the classroom). So far, I haven't had a single student show up without his homework. Impressive, right? And you should see how psyched they are to learn about complex poetic form next week. Two of them even compiled a list of poems they want me to hunt down and print out for them, just based on their own interests (and since needless to say, they don't have access to an extensive poetry library).

Tonight, after I handed back their homework from last week (which I'd scribbled all over with a red pen), I was yammering on about how I want them to start focusing on the form/aesthetics of their poems, as well as to zero in on the sensual images & concrete details. And one of my students said:

"See, I always thought that poetry was supposed to be abstract. That you were supposed to use abstract language. That was my thinking. But then I came to your class, and I learn that I should use concrete images, and that too abstract is bad. Which wasn't what I'd been thinking. But then again, my thinking landed me in prison. It landed me right in West Block."

HAHA! See why I love them so?

and p.s., this past Friday I had a delightful blogger lunch date with this girl! I promise to post pics as soon as she sends them to me (I left my camera/phone in the car). Hint, hint Leeann! :)

Festive.

Today I am sporting my red Miu Miu slingbacks*:

and this little headband in my hair:

from Gracie Bella Butterfly

toting these for my lil' monster-students:

and with copies of this poem to share with them:

First Poem for You**

Kim Addonizio

I like to touch your tattoos in complete

darkness, where I can't see them. I'm sure of

where they are, know by heart the neat

lines of lightning pulsing just above

your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue

swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent

twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you

to me, taking you until we're spent

and quiet on the sheets, I love to kiss

the pictures in your skin. They'll last until

you're seared to ashes; whatever persists

or turns to pain between us, they will still

be there. Such permanence is terrifying.

So I touch them in the dark; but touch them, trying.

***

Seriously: what's not to love about Valentine's Day? However, my Valentine's Day promises to be quite untraditional, as instead of savoring a romantic dinner tonight, I will be teaching love poems at San Quentin State Prison. What a hilarious place to spend the day of love! It will certainly remind me that there are far worse positions to be in than dateless. ;)

What are y'all up to today??

*Let it be known that I will not be wearing said Miu Miu slingbacks to the prison tonight.
**Did you notice it's a perfect Shakespearean sonnet?

Monday nights at the prison

I taught my first creative writing class in a jail when I was 20. The class offerings at the jail consisted of: Alcoholics Anonymous, a Baptist preacher's weekly visit, and my poetry class. The Atlanta Journal Constitution came and did a news story on my class because it was such a crazy concept that any sort of arts education would be in a jail in Georgia!

From then on, I was hooked. I got a year-long fellowship after graduating college to travel around the country teaching creative writing in prisons. I drove across the country (my mama came with me on the drive!) to San Francisco in August of 2003 to start my first class at San Quentin State Prison--I'd turned 22 just days before I started. So funny when I think about it. After four months at San Quentin, I went to Miami to teach at the Federal Correctional Institution there (international druglord Manuel Noriega was there at the time!), and then drove all the way up to Vermont, where I taught classes at Chittenden County Correctional Facility, Dale Women's Facility, and Northwest State Correctional Facility, a prison with a radical sex-offender treatment program, an organic garden, and an entomology lab. Crazy.

After the year was done, I moved to San Francisco for graduate school, got a full-time job, and taught creative writing one night at week at San Quentin as a volunteer. I loved those classes so much. Eventually, I was too crazy-busy to do it anymore; I was working 40+ hours a week at a group home and finishing my masters thesis, and I had to take a break from teaching at the prison.

But this past Monday night, I started up again, and it was wonderful.

I sat at a table in a classroom right off the H-Unit yard, surrounded by inmates wearing "PROPERTY OF CDC" denim shirts & pants. One of them had written quite a bit in his life, but the rest were inexperienced with poetry. I was teaching imagery, and shared Ezra Pound's famous poem:

   In a Station of the Metro

   The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
   Petals on a wet, black bough.

I yammered on and on about imagery until I was pretty sure they got it. When I started explaining metaphor, and the metaphor that IS this poem, I said:

"There are two words that are implied in this poem. Right between the two lines. Pound didn't write them into the poem, but they are there--we infer them. What are they?"

There was a long pause. Finally, one of the guys, still looking down at the poem, said:

"are like."

And seriously, y'all--it made my whole week.

Shivers & Goosebumps

I know videos can be tedious to watch. I often start watching a video someone's posted on facebook or a blog, and then skip to the next thing after about 30 seconds (my attention span is that of a flea's).

But as a person who teaches kids of incarcerated parents, I find this video so moving. It made me get teary toward the end and my legs got goosebumps! Most of my students are all too familiar with what this guy is saying in his brilliant & haunting poem.

Not to be preachy, but there are 2.4 million children in this country with a parent who is incarcerated. If we don't intervene/step up/embrace them, it's all too clear that they're gonna slip through the cracks.

Christmas Pressies Part 1

I totally want to hear about what all of you got for Christmas (what was your favorite gift you gave? What about your favorite gift you received?). There are a few gifts I want to tell you about, starting with just one today.

Meet my friend Kimberly:

me on the left, Kimberly on the right

at the Brick Store, one of my favorite Atlanta spots

Kimberly and I met ten years ago when we both worked at a very trendy European bar/restaurant/cafe in Atlanta called Cafe Intermezzo. I was home from college for the summer and Kimberly was getting ready to head off to Columbia in the fall (we're both from Georgia). We've stayed friends through all these years and several moves, and I think she's come to visit me pretty much everywhere I have lived!

After finishing her degree at Columbia in New York City, Kimberly joined the Peace Corps, spent a couple years in Africa, and is now in her third year of a Ph.D. program in cultural anthropology at Northwestern. Don't I have such interesting friends?

She gave me this book of poems for Christmas:

We Don't Know We Don't Know by Nick Lantz

The incredible first book of Nick Lantz, We Don't Know We Don't Know is a collection of poems sprung from quotations from Donald Rumsfeld and Pliny the Elder. What a duo! I read almost the entire collection on the plane ride back to California (thank you so much Kimberly, totally made my long flight bearable!). The poems deal with a lot of eerie "what ifs," cause & effect, mythology, and the grittiness of rurality. Pretty incredible how Lantz incorporates these bewildering quotes of Rumsfeld and turns them into fascinating poems that, at their core, aren't even about politics.

I love discovering new poets--thank you Kimberly!

Now tell me about some of your Christmas gifts! (I have another one to share soon).

A Cute Baby, Poems, and a Giveaway!

Thanks everyone for humoring my over-eager "guest blogger" yesterday (I found him working suspiciously quietly on my computer, asked what he was up to, and he said "Oh, just writing an email" . . . twenty minutes later, 90% of his self-declared "Guest Post" was written--HA). He loved the attention, and maybe he'll be back early next week since I will be in Guatemala!

Yesterday after work I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to hang out with the Freitags, and I know sometimes I tend to go overboard with the baby pics . . . but can you believe this sweet face?

Jude: The Good Egg

Goodness that is one sweet baby boy. And speaking of good things, my oldest friend Lesley (she was at the hospital waiting for me to be born--she was only 6 months old and knew we'd be best friends since our mamas were!) is hosting a special Christmas giveaway from my sister's vintage etsy shop! Click here to enter, and grab the button on my right sidebar if you're so inclined. This is what's up for grabs:

very fine house

Today is my Cobra day and my poem is due in a few short hours. I always have the most trouble writing when I'm responding to one of my own assignments (we take turns giving assignments, then have dinner & mini poetry workshops every other week or so). This time, it's write a poem that addresses your greatest fear. Pretty terrifying, huh? I have a few fears and phobias to work with, ha, so I'm not sure which one I'm gonna tackle yet. Maybe developing paranoid schizophrenia or some sort of psychosis . . . that scares the living daylights out of me. I'm shuddering just thinking about all my greatest fears . . .

What would you write about?

Happiness is Breakfast at La Note

First of all, thank you all so much for your love and sympathy about yesterday's post. I heard from Marie again this morning and, although she is incredibly sad, it made me feel better to get a long email from her and hear how she is coping with the loss of her brother. All your thoughts and prayers mean so much to me, and I will pass them along to Adam's family.

But I'd had enough of being sad. I'm not very good at being sad . . . so I tend to take the bull by the dang horns and make myself be happy! Which is what I did this morning. My classes start later on Tuesdays, so this morning I met my dear friend Helen at my favorite breakfast place in Berkeley, La Note. Some good strong coffee and the nutella French toast that I have always coveted (but never had the nerve to order) did my soul well.

pre-work breakfast at La Note

Helen with lemon ginger pancakes at our window table

sometimes happiness comes in the form of nutella French toast

And now I'm home working on my lesson plans, and revisiting this poem by e.e. cummings before I head into work today, because sometimes you gotta go back to basics:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Wednesday Companions

1. Miss Rosalie Lenora Porter

I have my friends' 8 month old daughter, Rosalie today. What a sweet little beamy baby. Last week I got her big sis, Naomi, for two days, and today I have baby Rosalie. I'm so lucky that my friends have cute kids! And doesn't she have the greatest name? Look at her sitting on my couch like a big girl!

2. Writer's Block

♥

My girls--The Cobras--are coming over tonight, and I still don't have my poem written. Par for the freakin' course. These days we're only meeting every other Wednesday, which means that we have two whole weeks to get our assignments done. We rotate giving assignments, and go figure that I always have the toughest time getting it done when I'm the one who gives it--cruel, cruel irony! This week I gave us a Romanian poem by Mihai Eminescu to "translate" (look at the words/structure, having no idea what they mean, and let your own words emerge from the original language). So far, I'm two lines in. Goodness gracious alive.

3. Old School Beverly Hills 90210

Nothing like throwback episodes of 90210 in the middle of the day (maybe it's not so much writer's block that is my problem . . . ). Every episode I watch reminds me of how much of a boyfriend-stealing breezy Kelly Taylor is. And that whiny poor-little-girl voice. She's almost as annoying as Andrea. But speaking of 90210, I gotta get back to it pronto cause Donna and David are about to do the nasty for the first time.

xoxo!

Moving Day

but not for me! I've lived in my apartment in Oakland (just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco) for 4.5 years . . . longer than I've lived anywhere since I lived at my parents' house. Let's see . . . I moved out of my mom's house in Marietta, GA just after I turned 18 and, not including two different dorms during college, I've lived in eight different apartments since then. Lots of different bedrooms, lots of different roommates, and five different cities: New Orleans, San Francisco, Miami, Burlington (Vermont), and Oakland.

Today a bunch of us convened to help my dear friend Meagan move from her apartment in Berkeley to another place just a mile or so away in Oakland (closer to me--yay!). Moving is such a strenuous feat! Fortunately, there were more than ten of us, so we got the job done quickly (and then immediately proceeded to hang out and BBQ and play games in her front yard). Bringing all her boxes and furniture and belongings filled me with a desire to purge and organize my own place . . . even if I'm not moving anytime soon.

When I talked to my mama on the phone today, she said they'd helped my sister and her husband move this weekend as well. Lots of shifting lately.

On a completely different note, here are a few more blogs I love for those of you looking for more amazing sites to follow:

Heather at A Measure Of . . .

(Heather and I met my first semester of grad school, and she's remained one of my best, closest friends ever since then, even though she lives across the world now!)

Drollgirl

(I wish I knew her in real life . . . HILARIOUS)

Erika at Cafe Fashionista

(she's a doll, and such an organized blogger!)

Danielle at Dinosaur Toes

(she's adorable)

I'm gonna keep sharing blogs I love as I think of them/discover them, cause I always like knowing who y'all are reading and loving! There are a lot more that I read every day than those I've mentioned, but this is just a start. And if you missed my Gratitude post the other day, click here for my first list of blogs I love. :)

I've been in such a funk today . . . probably due to uncertainty about my job, my relationship ending, and missing lots of friends . . . but we can't always explain these things, can we? But then today I got to hang out with this little guy and things immediately started to look up:

Judebug at exactly four months

The 4th of July always makes me think of this poem by David Baker:

Patriotics

David Baker

Yesterday a little girl got slapped to death by her daddy,
out of work, alcoholic, and estranged two towns down river.
America, it's hard to get your attention politely.
America, the beautiful night is about to blow up

and the cop who brought the man down with a shot to the chops
is shaking hands, dribbling chaw across his sweaty shirt,
and pointing cars across the courthouse grass to park.
It's the Big One one more time, July the 4th,

our country's perfect holiday, so direct a metaphor for war,
we shoot off bombs, launch rockets from Drano cans,
spray the streets and neighbors' yards with the machine-gun crack
of fireworks, with rebel yells and beer. In short, we celebrate.

It's hard to believe. But so help the soul of Thomas Paine,
the entire county must be here--the acned faces of neglect,
the halter-tops and ties, the bellies, badges, beehives,
jacked-up cowboy boots, yes, the back-up singers of democracy

all gathered to brighten in unambiguous delight
when we attack the calm and pointless sky. With terrifying vigor
the whistle-stop across the river will lob its smaller arsenal
halfway back again. Some may be moved to tears.

We'll clean up fast, drive home slow, and tomorrow
get back to work, those of us with jobs, convicting the others
in the back rooms of our courts and malls--yet what
will be left of that one poor child, veteran of no war

but her family's own? The comfort of a welfare plot,
a stalk of wilting prayers? Our fathers' dreams come true as nightmare.
So the first bomb blasts and echoes through the streets and shrubs:
red, white, and blue sparks shower down, a plague

of patriotic bugs. Our thousand eyeballs burn aglow like punks.
America, I'd swear I don't believe in you, but here I am,
and here you are, and here we stand again, agape.

Poetry, Prosecco, and Pretty Girls

So my favorite day of the week is Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Cause that's the day I get to see my Cobras!

The Cobras:

Claire Ali Diana

We all went to grad school together to get our ever-practical Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (ha), and since then have been the best of friends! I love these two beauties . . . (seriously, aren't they so pretty?)!

Every Wednesday evening (with rare & devastating exception), the Cobras gather at my house and drink wine and eat dinner and workshop our poems from that week. The three of us take turns coming up with the assignments. Last week was my turn, for instance, and since we were going to have to skip a week (horrifying!), I assigned two poems:

1. Write a sestina, pantoum, or villanelle;

2. Pick a "mentor poet," read 30 poems from him/her, and write a poem that is inspired by your poet

But our lovely Ali just moved into a ridiculously gorgeous, serene house in the Oakland hills with her boyfriend, so we packed up and had a little Cobra field trip to her new digs . . . OMG:

I mean for real??

Those of you who live in cities understand how rare it is to have this kind of amazing beauty and space at home. Fountains! Yards! And what's that in the top left?? A HOT TUB.

We sat outside and had some okra & brie, and also some of this:

let's just say we finished both bottles . . . and only two of us drink

It was amazing. Ali cooked us a lovely dinner, we drank aplenty, and we discussed our poems. Next Wednesday I'll be in Georgia, and although I'm so excited to see my family . . . I'll be missing my Cobras. xoxo.

Obsessions

Those of y'all who actually know me know that I'm obsessed with two Hollywood ladies.

One because she's adorable:

Seriously, what I'd give to have a kid that cute one day. I can't get enough of her. She's the prettiest little thing around, and she has an enviable wardrobe at 4 years old (yes, y'all . . . Suri turned 4 in April. Doesn't time fly)?

And one because she's grotesque:

I'm really sort of obsessed with the Cat Woman, Jocelyn Wildenstein. (Click on Cat Woman for Mayra's post that inspired me to post an homage to The Lion Queen). For a while, I was reading all up on her and poring over her life and making everyone I know look at pictures of her. She's so fascinating . . . in a terribly tragic sort of way. Did you know that she's reportedly spent 4 MILLION DOLLARS on plastic surgery? And that she asked her surgeon to make her look feline to play to her then-husband's tastes? Man oh man. I am so fixated on her that I even wrote a poem about her for my Wednesday night Cobras poetry/dinner/wine group:

Jocelyn

Bride of Wildenstein, your gaze

interrupts the sun—eyes drawn up to nowhere

some unimaginable constellation

Hercules strangled him because

Leo’s hide was unpuncturable by stone,

if you tried to think of a million ways to die—

Everything is some shade of yellow. Every day

is Tuesday. There’s a sweet synchronicity

to the way 7 o’clock exhales in surrender:

Okay, it’s over, you can rest. Lie down, sleep,

it’s all right if you die a little bit. Your skin

is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.

The Eiffel Tower is slowly crumbling.

I swear I heard this dragonfly talking—shrillest

pitch—said her face is aglow with

radioactive heat. Please believe me—

I saw you at a café with your son. He looks at you

with a tender fear, jaundiced

in your shadow. Butterflies abuzz

swarm your head in awe. This is our landing patch.

This is our blonde mausoleum. This is

the most beautiful tragedy

That's my unedited ode to Jocelyn . . . maybe I'll have to write a whole series about her. I kind of love her. And fear her. Mostly, though, I fear her.

Happy Friday! I'm off to 21st Amendment and then to the Giants' game with my peeps--yay weekend!

Day Drinking

(Recap of weekend which followed hellish, stressfest week):

Friday: Left school, went straight to the patio at El Rio for my amazing co-worker's AIDS Ride fundraiser happy hour. Had two (strong) vodka sodas, then went to the Small Desk Press reading at Adobe Books in the Mission. Great reading, folks. I always love hearing Marisa read her poems, and Matt was great, and Corry, and Michael, and Lizzy, and everyone. Long freakin' day.

Saturday: So what if you're 8 hours late to the party? That's what I was to my friends' Kentucky Derby party in San Francisco on Saturday . . . but I showed up and quickly joined the ranks of those holding old fashioned cocktails in their right hands. But before I could become properly intoxicated, I started to feel a little sick (sore throat, etc.), so I fell asleep on the futon.

Sunday: After getting a text from my Rug-Boy at 5 am (what??), I couldn't sleep, so drove back home, canceled my babysitting job, took an Ambien, and SLEPT. Upon waking, I chatted with my roommate on our back deck, and determined that my sore throat + the miraculous sunshine only meant one thing: day drinking in the sun! I put on a tank top and a short skirt, drove to BevMo, and bought the ingredients for my new favorite cocktail (which I also imbibed at Doro and Anahita's Kentucky Derby party last night). Here's how today is going so far:

*delicious* banana nut muffins I baked this morning

sweet tea vodka + lemonade = instant happiness

new summer sandals

Sometimes decadence is the way to go. Also, two other exciting/alarming pieces of news:

1. One of my bffs in the whole wide world, Amy Lazzaroni, is in labor! I just got a text from her husband saying that she is 10 cm dilated and Baby Boy Lazzaroni is on his way! I love these people, so I can't wait to meet their little squishball.

2. I just got the news that one of my other bffs, Lane, is dating someone who drives a Hummer. Now we all know that this is all kinds of unacceptable. Help me convince her that this is most definitely a deal-breaker!!

Happy sunshiney Sunday! (cough, cough)

Lane Visits, Easter!, and Happy Birthday Gaela

What a whirlwind of a week. My mama was here till Tuesday, Lane was here Fri-Sun, and Sunday was both Easter (so excited for the end of Lent!) and Gaela's birthday. Lots to do . . . on top of:

a) new roommate Alicia moving in today, and

b) OG friend Anthony coming into town on Wednesday.

I love my peeps, but no rest for the weary, I tell ya.

On Friday night, Lane and I went to my dear friend Marisa's book launch party. Her first book, a collection of poems called The Haunted House, came out on 4/1 (and is most definitely not an April Fools joke!). :) The party/reading was at the Space Gallery in San Francisco, and was complete with funfetti cupcakes, ouija boards, and sleeping bags. Pretty amazing. Here are Lane and me at the funfunfun party:

Saturday involved yet another gorgeous hike, a little tree climbing, and an awesome Ladies' Night at Gaela's (games, champagne, food, girltalk). I couldn't wait to get up Sunday to have Easter brunch and a MIMOSA! My experience with sobriety is over, y'all . . . I'm back on the sauce! Haha. Lane and I woke up and opened our Easter baskets, put on our bunny ears, and drove up to Nectar in Sonoma County for their fabulous Easter champagne brunch:

at Nectar, waiting for our table

my first drink since Valentine's Day :)

After I left Lane with her auntie in Santa Rosa, I headed back to my side of the Bay in order to take a disco nap before Gaela's birthday festivities last night. She likes to keep it low key on her birthday (as opposed to me, who likes to announce my birthday to the world and celebrate like a queen), so we went to Bazaar Cafe in San Francisco to see our dear friend AJ Roach play his guitar and sing. If you don't know AJ's music, and you like folky singer/songwriter stuff at ALL, you definitely should do yourself the favor of buying one of his cds. I enjoy watching him perform about as much as I enjoy watching anyone. He's that good.

Happy Birthday Gaela!

Makiko brought this delicious chocolate cake for the birthday girl

AJ and co. playing at Bazaar

And today it's back to the grind at Balboa High School, the rush home to greet my new roommate, and the coming week chock full of things like ice skating, babies, cocktails, and hopefully a little outdoor exercise. Not to mention, my Cobras assignment this week is to write an erotic poem . . . we'll see how that goes. ;) Have a great week, and happy belated Easter!

p.s. I still have no functioning tv. Can I come over and watch American Idol?? I'm going crazy.