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.

old things

I went to Santa Barbara with my brother and his wife a few weeks ago - my first time going back since I moved to and came back from Baltimore. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is and it made me want to live there again, this time in my own cute apartment downtown and a little less coffee table dancing.

Our cute hotel:

Water Dog, you are finished. For now.

Water Dog

Letter from a stranger –
“You’re a water dog,”
it says. Welcome to
your new home,
where the water is
dry and the air is not
there. Your tongue is mostly
sweet, but sometimes sharp,
and you are stubborn
and eccentric. And
though you have
no say in the matter,
it is a truth beyond
your grasp and larger
than your small body
that you will always
feel the black shadow
gliding
beneath the light
on the water.

Heather says, Are you sure it was a dream and not a flashback?

I was in Mount Vernon at a vintage store looking through old dresses, but they were all too big for me. Maybe it was the store I used to go to when I first moved to Maryland, the one on Charles Street that was below ground level that was later moved to Hampden. What was it called? Dreamland? I bought a yellow 60s shift dress there and now I'm too fat for it. Anyway, I left the store and met Heather near the monument. I asked her where she wanted to go for breakfast and she said Let's go to this bar where my friend is the owner. And we walked into a tiny, dirty bar with a low ceiling and no windows. Of course Heather was wound into a long conversation with her owner friend and I sat at the bar next to a man with a pinhead, just like the one in Popeye, and I said to myself Please don't talk to me, pinhead, oh please don't start talking to me. And then, of course, I woke up.

Heather and Jen are or will soon be back in Baltimore, and sometimes I daydream about all of us returning and what it would be like now, would things be the same? I miss Eunjeong taking care of me and showing me new stores, and I miss the leaves changing color in the fall. I like to think how I would do things differently, starting with one night at the Brass Elephant. It's useless, I know, but I do it anyway. I think I need a change. I want to live in the city again, but I feel like I will never be able to afford anything and I am just stuck here near the port.