grand trunk travel pillow, hooded

questionable

(via nytimes)

this little knife

found this in my bag today — the knife from our plane ride from italy. the gentle swoop.

jack gilbert, part three

one more bit from the paris review interview with poet jack gilbert:

INTERVIEWER

What, other than yourself, is the subject of your poems?

GILBERT

Those I love. Being. Living my life without being diverted into things that people so often get diverted into. Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life? Vacations are second-rate. People deprive themselves of so much of their lives—until it’s too late. Though I understand that often you don’t have a choice.

and we had milkshakes

more from the paris review interview with poet jack gilbert:

Later, I was living in the East Village and this one night there was pounding on the door and there was Cleve [Moffet, a writer] standing in the hall. He was agitated and said, They’re looking all over for you. I asked who, and he explained that somebody wanted to give me the Yale prize. I didn’t know what to do, how to express it. I took him out with my two friends and we had milkshakes.

oh one thing

from the paris review interview with poet jack gilbert:

I’ve never been in a hospital, except once—I fell. … I was supposed to die. I fell head down from ninety feet. When I didn’t die right away, they let me go home. I insisted because it was Christmas. If I was going to die, I wanted to die under the Christmas tree with Linda. I still didn’t die. But I couldn’t support my own torso because I’d broken my spine and chest. Linda and I wanted to go to Europe, so I had them build something that was like an exoskeleton. After saying goodbye to the doctors, I walked toward the door with Linda and when I got halfway there the doctor in charge said, Oh, one thing. If you feel a little bit of tingling in your fingers, that will mean that the paralysis has started.

ideas i want to pursue during my break (i guess that is now)

• write something about airports, my favorite interstitial spaces, maybe just a two-line blog post (have i actually written it just now?)
• make my donut ABC book! #1 project
• make a “trash only” shirt for rob, maybe also make a “brats only” shirt for rob, maybe one for myself, too
• design hot air balloon t-shirts
• make a secret thing for carolyn
• make a YES shirt or at least play around with this idea
• read some chekhov (bought plays at half price books yesterday) (note: half price books in houston was straight PACKED at 6pm on a sunday night. ?! this gave me weird hope for the future cuz half price books isn’t even all that awesome or cool and still all these people were there browsing books and/or calendars?!)
• read infinite jest (doubt it)
• read the rest of claire watkins’ book battleborn
• buy jack gilbert books
• buy a regular black turtleneck (guess this is not really a project)

not sure if i’ll make it through. but here we go. television, goodbye (psych television i’ll never say goodbye) (newspaper, goodbye)

good things

good things:

• mojitos
• room service
• room service with mojitos
• taking showers and/or baths
• richard jenkins
• bridesmaids on television
• reading jack gilbert in best hotel bed while drinking free coffee and sunday ny times strewn about
• that elizabeth gilbert book about creativity?!

bad things:

• alienating all marfa friends
• not ordering fries from room service

costco witchery

went to costco last night with my mom. bought 8 venus razors and some toothbrush heads and also what the HELL is this

the secrets of paul ryan

from “Speaker Paul Ryan Moves Fast to ‘Detoxify’ Boehner’s Smoky Suite”:

There are many things Americans cannot yet know about Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s plans for his fancy new digs on Capitol Hill. Dark curtains or sheers? Memorabilia from the 2012 presidential campaign or his first House race in 1998? Will he hang a poster of his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine?

WHAT

One thing is known: He wants to get rid of the smoke left behind by his predecessor, John A. Boehner. “You know when you ever go to a hotel room or get a rental car that has been smoked in? That’s what this smells like,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday in reference to the speaker’s suite, which is of perhaps even greater interest to Mr. Ryan because he sleeps in his office.

WHAT X 2

paul ryan: secret shade thrower leftist rocker office sleeper. weirdly, learning that boehner smoked [inside] gives him a new [even darker] dimension. inside smokers: not for the faint of heart.

dead rubber soul ponchos

lot to say but nothing much to say. been in houston and  work has been crazy but still trying to take advantage of the in-theory more chill time and so have been renting lots of movies on amazon, including spy (greatly enjoyed), bridesmaids (old emo favorite, many tears, many laughs), forgetting sarah marshall (old likeable fave), and almost got my mom to watch macgruber, but trailer made no sense and she was like, “if you want to…”. also watched trainwreck, which i didn’t love. thought i was gonna love it. did not love it. the good news is now i own it.

(though i must doff my hat to colin quinn, who is in trainwreck, on whom i had a passionate crush when i was 14 and watching him on remote control. i mean look at him. you can see it. [simply] irresistible.) (photo courtesy of this site)

i have to go back to marfa tomorrow and feel like my feet are made of clod. and my eyes are also made of clod. not ready to go back, even if it’s just for two days. i want to say it’s all work related (i hope so? but that’s weird too?), but is it? will i love it when i shed the ballroom monkey? also how long can you feel like you are a diamond on the inside, but one that has been sadly wrapped in an old thick heavy smelly rubber poncho, before the diamond crumbles and you are just a thick old rubber poncho. i found this old email from 2008 where i said, “there ain’t nothing new all up in here. just fun times and fun,” and i’m like, whoa where did that diamond go. A: it is smothered under a thick old rubber poncho and on the verge of disintegrating. metaphor not to exact scale.

(thick rubber civil war soul poncho courtesy of this site)