secret:

i have a certain phone number memorized. once upon a time the person on the other end of the line and i were close friends. and then things happened and we didn't talk anymore. one day, after a long time i called it and i found that the other phone had been disconnected.

so those 10 digits that i know by heart can do absolutely no good now.

but at least once every week i still dial them, just in case.

-

there's something about holding on.

is it a sin...

... that all day when i heard people say Billy Mays just died i subconsciously thought they were all saying Willie Mays, and when i actually realized the truth.... i was kind of less sad?

i know. i know! i hardly ever blog anymore except when i have to say something important. well i have something important to say now.

here it is:

i am the people for the ethical treatment of old pianos.

if you have an elderly baby grand and don't want to have it the solution is simple and that is to give it to me.

if instead you decide it is a piece of furniture and only a piece of furniture and let it sit in your room as such and never touch or tune or repair or feed or clean or play or talk to it, i will find you.

i will find you.
I WILL find you.
I will find YOU.

(and then i will tie you to the railroad tracks and make you eat dog hair until you repent of what you have done)

*

This has been a Sonatina public service announcement

June 21

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow

- e.e. cummings

of the need to be quiet and small

here that this remember there now frontwards backward him her why know how either or for do must shall when I who them can't no yes

*

all this, when some nights all i should be thinking about is all those stars God made.

From the Sonatina Classifieds:

Hungry dog. Will sing for people food.

this is another one of those midnight posts

now, when i say i went deerhunting i really mean i was deerlooking. they are basically the same to me, but to other people deerhunting involves shooting things like deer with things like guns so i try to keep these words separate and distinct when they are in public. always remember: when deerhunting you have to be stealthy like a spy. when deerlooking, you have to be as soundless as winter. to deerhunt you have to be sneaky like a thought. to deerlook, you should be as small as an idea.


-

tonight it was a very sunset and windy first, then grey-green, then shadow-blue and at some points in between all of those together. it's amazing how long a deer can look at you when she's not sure about you. you feel kind of imagined while you're looking back. at least i do which means you don't and i should stop saying that you word. so i was just walking and she was far off the road and between trees and bright as a penny and watching me. my vision passing between the trees, watching me. i stopped and we just looked. watching me, watching her. we heard voices across the woods and down the hill. i turned away, i looked back and she was gone. and then i walked on and i didn't see anything else but one robberfaced raccoon, and the occasional roadside rustling things that i didn't actually see which are fairies or whispers or might not even be real. coming back, i saw my deer again and i don't know how to tell how i knew she was the same one but this time she only stayed for one wide alert listening second and her ears were wise and ready and she turned and leaped/pranced/flew away. it was all beautiful.



-

since i last wrote
i run around every day, i wonder why i thought i would have more time in summer than in spring, i realize occasionally that everyone i know on this earth is also human and i was never the only one with a secret, i think about failures and victory, i don't write awful poems
a thousand things are going wrong and a thousand things are going right.
so life is life, i guess.



and oh -!
:::: my EXCITING NEWS which is one more thing that keeps me away from here but which is what we have all been waiting for is that on the weekends now i go play my little heart out at a little restaurant in a little town, and the first report is that it's a little tremulous and a little wonderful. after two nights of it i've come through all the first-time enthusiasm to get to the biggest doubts in the world, too big to fit in this little restaurant town heart. so here i am, doing one of the most precarious things i could possibly do. understandably i now feel unstable. yet i know certain things and those hold me up - like gifts from God, unsimple but real things; knowing i have one that's still to me strange and yet a part of me as much as my eyes; the honest thought that things are happening just the way they are supposed to.

no time to say sorry for not writing!

no time to say anything but that i have no time to say anything!

my mistake

here at the end
of myself, is
the place i
thought
you'd
b
e
g
i
n

in another's words

I keep mentally and emotionally running into things. Evidently my psyche needs glasses.

~ JMK

a change in perspective

somehow when i'm sad i always end up reading Psalms. i read songs David wrote when he was running for his life when he was hiding when he was guilt-ridden down-trodden and broken-hearted. but God was his rock, and so he kept going. and so he kept singing. God is my rock, and so must i do.

last night i heard that my friend from school's boyfriend was shot and killed overseas in Iraq. in praying and grieving for her, i noticed i haven't thought about myself all day.

well i'm sick

yesterday i woke up at 5 and left at 6 to babysit and i used nearly a whole box of tissues in just that hour. which wasn't just allergies like i thought. it hurt like anything to talk by breakfast time which was wonderful for when you're watching children you have to tell everything to twice. i tried to explain that Miss Tina didn't want to have to repeat herself anymore because she didn't feel very good today, and then i asked now Michael what did i just say and he proudly said i don't hit sissy! so during naptime which was a long one, thank the Lord, i curled up on the couch and drank water water water and ate zoo animal fruit snacks made with real fruit and watched infomercials for the Slap Chop and Titan Peeler and the Patch Genie all of which at the time looked like brilliant contraptions sent from heaven to save the world. then i spent the rest of the day trying to nanny from across the room so i didn't get any kids sick. on further reflection, i have decided it was them that got me sick so i feel no more remorse. but TGIT. when i got home i had a fever and dropped on the couch. since then i've used up another box of Puffs, broken a thermometer from overuse, drank about 6 gallons of water, ingested everything that says fever reducer or decongestant or even has the letter C on the label, and peed 37 times. fever's gone and now i only feel a little miserable. there's been an NCIS marathon on today and i never thought i could get sick of NCIS until i watched 6 episodes straight. and then i realized i just didn't want to see any more cadavers. i just didn't. so i watched The Temptations which was the most depressing movie i have ever seen and i cried all over my pillow and wanted to die since everyone else was and for now i think i should just stick with Disney movies which are at least disheartening in a completely un-morbid way.

anniversaries

my uncle's daughter had her second child, Noah, on May 20 of last year. my uncle is an alcoholic, and for being chronically depressed he is one of the funniest people you will ever meet. before he stopped calling we used to talk about baseball and the stars. his son Matthew's birthday is also May 20th. and my uncle's father, my grandfather, was born on May 20th. i never got to know my grandfather. he died in 1985, on the 20th of May. my mother once told me his favorite piece of music was Ravel's Bolero, and this is all just to say i have been listening to it in my head all day.