Category Archives: general

general, internals

mouse trap

we found a mouse in the house. a little mouse, a house mouse. i did nothing about it the first day, but with the newborn and all, she went and bought glue traps, snap traps. she set them on the kitchen floor with little pieces of cheese, straight out of the cartoons. a trap snapped within the hour. couldn’t even tell what was sticking out of the trap, whether it was its hind legs or torso but it didn’t twitch or anything, so it was dead. turned a plastic bag inside out and i scooped it up like dog poop. but the very same night we caught sight of the tail of another. there had been two, so the wife breaks out the glue traps and i placed where we had seen it. i finally read up on it and it turns out that peanut butter was the way to go, not the salami i had replaced the cheese with. so i dab it here and there and set the snap traps by the glue ones. an hour later there was the other one, stuck on its side, moving its head as it saw me approach. turn another bag inside out and scooped it up, still twitching. i tied the bag, then slammed it on the granite counter. it didn’t move after that.

general

this stupid mystique of writers and writing

what is it with this stupid mystique of writers and writing? every writer i have met has been maladjusted in some way. a bag full of quirks, an idiosyncrasy that slaps you in the face five minutes after meeting them. a history of broken relationships. tenuous relationships with family. addiction.
i had a friend who wrote dialog that was funny without being sugary. dialog that crackled and was sharp. could never end a conversation with him, it would go on literally for hours moving from one topic to the next. then suddenly he would just turn around and walk away. no goodbye, no see ya later. just like that. when i brought it up, suggesting perhaps he had lost a pet at a young age, he claims he didn’t realize he even did it. he just figured there was a lull and he didn’t want to waste my time.
i had another friend, brilliant poet, excellent teacher, was told that he had a choice of either to stop drinking coffee or to stop drinking bourbon or else he would lose his eye. he gave up coffee because giving up bourbon would most likely result in him being arrested for assault. he also pointed out that when he taught in prison he often wondered if he had any business leaving it at the end of the day.
and we seem generally to be curmudgeons, in tune with some other part of the psyche that makes us keen observers but also disgusted by what we see. we don’t turn away though, we wallow in it, we roll around in it. as if we never had a choice, as if the possibility of having any other choice would be obscene. we were made or are we born?

general, internals

spider song

i dreamt of spiders coming out of my hair with lilacs and orchids and they each sang a song i once remembered and i tried so hard to separate the orchids from the rest as they rained down my face carrying with them the words i couldn’t put my finger on and a part of me wanted to cover my ears to keep the song out of my head but i didn’t want the spiders to leave they were so graceful and soft but they had much better places to go and sing their song and the lilacs kept sticking to my hands

general

culture shock

and my father says, as the little one shuffles and glides to the music of a children’s dvd,
you need to teach her our culture, lest it disappear
and what culture is that, i ask
expose her to our music, our history
i do that, i expose her
how, he asks, looking at her
you’re assuming that i don’t, she’s all of three, what are you expecting to see
you should encourage her, she might have a talent, like singing
i frowned, i’d rather she was a scientist
but she could end up on american idol
the conversation went haywire after that