"Turtle are forever, boys are whatever."

Perhaps the karmic rule is "One blog per meet," as today could have been much more successful than it was.

But alas, they find a way to sneak onto the podium anyway.

Aren't they cute?

Born in the USA

Does blogging about the girls the night before lead to a place on the podium? If so, GTB better jump onboard!

Despite our third leg sneaking onto the floor during the national anthem and the fourth leg never showing up, these ladies put together their finest performance yet. How 'bout those 35's?

Valentina is second on beam! (And first at asking ridiculous questions.)

Then time for sunroof open, "Hey, Soul Sista!" fingers out the window solo adventure.

My first jaunt to Robert Moses.

And then back to the gym for the sassiest of them all:

"Right now we've got Zeus in the studio."

Happy birthday, Leenes!

(Stay tuned. You may just see us on late-night public access television pretty soon, sporting some rockin' costumes and asking those hard-hitting questions, like, "What's it like to be head of the Grecian gods?")

(P.S. This is no joke.)

--

I'm better at being proud of others than I am of myself. After watching the YAWP kids tear up the stage in the morning performance, I wonder if one day, the girls I see four days a week three hours at a time will bring it home.

2.5 pages later

Some nights, you just gotta put in the work.

The Challenges Faced by Modern RA's

include, but are never limited to:

-children rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning
-three weed write-ups in one week in the same building (two for the same people)
-holes burnt in bulletin boards
-stolen cross-walk signs placed in front of a building, in which the walking man now holds a joint and a lighter
-human waste in garbage bins
and
-Christmas trees in the laundry room.

To the old country

It's 51 degrees and the children of Southampton are unleashed in their green shirts, suspicious beverages, blasted music out the windows of questionable Irish authenticity.

And for me? Well, green's never been my favorite color, nor do I think I look particularly good in it. I'm in the mood for some Lady GaGa. And somehow I doubt that St. Patrick aspired to become synonymous with debauchery.

So a cold Guinness and good people should serve quite well, indeed.

3-17

Looks like today's the day to celebrate all sorts of things. ;-)

Almost two years and a near MFA later,

I've learned that if there's anything I need, it's rain boots.

Beware the ides of March!

Setting for a horror movie, anyone?

Poetry in the Time of Facebook

In a return of the "stay-up-'til-4am-for-no-real-reason" days, Kevin and I engaged in a conversation about all sorts of writing, but especially poetry.

I appreciate poetry. I like to write poetry when lightning jolts me to do so. I've been told by multiple professors that my poetry is quite good. But I don't consider myself a poet.

Why?

1. I don't bleed over my poems.
2. People can read my poems and know what's going on.

However, someone made the statement yesterday of "I don't believe in genres," and that interested me quite a bit. But that's for another time.

I agree with every teacher/poet who agrees that a poem scrutinizes an image, a moment, an emotion, a notion in the most concise way. I heartily believe that poems do not need to rhyme, and really shouldn't unless 1. they're following a strict form or 2. are just that good.

However, I also strongly believe that a poem must have something real for the reader to grasp. Something beyond words, words, WORDS.

Because when you start abstractly and float farther afield, the reader floats, too. Away from the poem. At that point your audience is other poets who write dense poems and probably don't know what the hell you mean, either, but will be glad to apply their interpretations.

Begin with something we all know or can envision ourselves knowing. Then move into abstractions. Move us with you from known to unknown, from concrete to imagined. From the mundane to the mystical. To those final two lines that make us say, "That's what this is all about."

That said, I think those dense poems do have a place: in the spoken realm. One of my friends writes deep poems that I can't for the life of me understand, but they sure do sound cool with the attention she pays to meter and rhythm. And when she performs them out loud, the words pitch and roll and run. I still don't know what they mean, but I feel them moving.

Today/tonight's goals: no meltdowns, possibly better poetry.

Reading critiques before bed is a bad idea. Now I'm awake and slowly panicking and trying to write poetry and realizing how incapable I am of thinking of anything that really matters.

Do you know what I mean? Here but not there. Not quite there. This is drivel, you know, but maybe you'd understand.

chill, winds!

-I love that it's warm enough to wear sweatshirts!

-Stumbled upon this in the SBS library. Dr. Boynton is my hero!

"It was an awesome $2.81 meal!"

I'd like to talk food for a hot moment, since Emeline has reminded me of our eating habits when times get tough. I'm talkin' rice for breakfast, giant molasses cookie and small french fry for dinner, cinnamon crunch cereal when ASC decided to serve corndogs over winter session. I have to keep these times in mind when I see my gymnasts make moves like:

-putting down one's donut to rush to the award stand
-eating Oreo's at 9:30 am
-refueling on Cheese Doodles (Cheez?)

After all, one of the best meets I ever had was Level 8 States in Vestal; in fact, I placed on beam! And what was the breakfast of champions that morning? An apple and a Boston creme donut. You never know.

--

I was about to announce that I'm going to run a ten-mile race in May!...And then I found the link and saw that it's $40 to enter. Uh...yeah.

--

Man, it feels good to be back in the write-'em-up swing! RA Diana rises again.

dog day

You know how some novels have that page between the dedication and the first line of prose? The page devoted to a deep quote that sets the tone for the novel?

I choose this:

Hear you sir,
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

-Hamlet, Act 5. Sc. 1

"I feel like I just gave birth."

There's my baby!

:-)

Meet me at Montauk

See you at The End.

burn-out scene

My life seems lamer than everyone else's. Time for a pros/cons list.

Hence why Albany is the perpetual escape. Why Albany? No idea, but it's always seemed like a good one. Get ready, Emeline. ;-)

They pound it and end scene.

Sometimes you can't resist embracing a cliche like "WRITING IS REWRITING" -- because it is -- and thank God it's true!

I find a deep satisfaction in rewriting, more so than finishing the first time around. I love the sense of excavating--all right, deeper here--tossing off debris--cut cut cut--rearranging--mosaic, how 'bout that?--to create a new work. Muscular and potent.

Two down. Nineteen to go?

1/234; 251

It's March.

Is it lame that I already miss Nick & Pete, as well as the Winter Olympics? And winter?

Either way, I'll take this lameness.