coma baby

Being sick on sunny days is the worst. I've been laying around watching 80s movies on TV (The Great Outdoors and Bright Lights, Big City) and videos on youtube. I hope my voice comes back soon and my nasal passages get normal.

busted book

For Christmas, my dear mother gave me a book I’d been wanting since I heard about it on NPR: Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction. The cover is beautiful, and I like all the stories so far, but I have to be very careful when I read it because none of the signatures inside the book have been sewn in. Can you believe that? The pages at the spine have perforations where it seems like the stitching would be, but there is none, and every time I open the book widely or at all, a group of pages slips out. I want to send an email to the publishers (Dalkey Archive) saying HELLO, you forgot to finish making this book, and now I can’t read it outside on windy days!

Yes Girl,

starring me as myself saying yes to everyone on the street. Since being laid off from the factory, I've had a lot of free time. Time that lets me go for leisurely walks, stop and talk to people about anything - their dog, the weather, environmental concerns. I don't know if it's because I've been watching Yes Man a lot on TV lately, but I feel like I just can't say no to strangers in need anymore. Before, if anyone would ask me if I had time to sign a petition or take a survey, I would say Sorry! and leave them and their clipboard in the dust. But now I stop and listen.

Last week outside Amoeba, someone asked me if I cared about the ocean and five minutes later I became a member of some kind of California environmental group that is trying to ban styrofoam use in California. (By the way, styrofoam is a large part of a Texas-sized formation of trash bobbing in the Pacific Ocean that is only growing. Disgusting.)

This morning I was awakened by two nice Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door, telling me that the end is near. I know, I said. But I stood leaning against the door frame anyway, listening to the woman with glasses, who then showed me passages in the Bible about signs of the last days. If I hadn't been only half awake and in my big Holland t-shirt and pajama pants, I would've told her that we've been in the last days for over 2,000 years now, and that trying to figure out when exactly Jesus is coming back is pointless because we are supposed to always be ready in case He comes today. Maybe I'll tell her when she comes back in a month.

Later today, while riding my bike at the beach and stopping at the pier to drink some water, I took a survey from a girl with big sunglasses and tribal earrings about an ad. "Do you agree with the statement that children are our future?" Uh, yes? Who doesn't?

I just hope no one asks me to eat sushi or go on roller coasters all day.

Sorry for ignoring you, little blog.

I've been hard on myself lately. Some days I'm happy to have most of the day to do whatever I want. But others I feel useless and stagnant like an old swamp, all mossy and dark and where nothing really happens. And then I start to compare myself to other writing friends who are working on new projects, and I can't even remember the last time I made a book. (That's not true, it was in 2008.) And I sat down to write the other day, hoping to find that Lorrie Moore's Self-Help really was helping me, and absolutely nothing came to mind besides tired old themes that I've exhausted. Maybe it's time to leave poetry behind, or aside, for awhile and go back to fiction. Seeing and holding the little chapbook in Echo Park today with the little poems written by children reminded me that not everything you write will be a hit. What's more important is that you do write, and I have to remember that.

the real dog of the sea

On Sunday I bought the new El Perro del Mar album, Love Is Not Pop, and it's fan-tastic! I can't wait to see her when she comes to LA in a few weeks. I told Mateo I want to give her a hug. She seems so sad.

From the new one:

I hope she plays some oldies, too.

I'm a dog aunt!

My friends' new puppy children: Pepper and Hazel.


 I love them! Now when will I get my beagle puppy, Cowboy? Wah.