A woman asked if we carried anything that would get the devil out of her husband

I know I haven't written you in a while. I won't give you excuses. But I would like to give you a run down, a short 5k of my life currently. Ha! And now that I'm at my computer I feel I have nothing to give you, nothing worthy of writing - just the quotidian, like taxes (and the death that will eventually follow).

Anyway, interesting fact #1: Joe and I are now veggies. For lots of reasons. Some you probably know. Some I doubt you do. Maybe I'll write about it one of these long days.

Most of you already know, I'm going to grad school in the fall. I didn't get the TA position. I'd be the worst teacher. My students would speak in foreign languages; they'd know proper nouns when I'd be stuck on adjectives; they would wallow in callow exasperation at my odd pauses. And they wouldn't laugh when I'd say, "I just lost my train." I dream, in wonder and fear, about the classes I will take.

About once a day I scour the classifieds for a better job and a house to rent. About a month ago while Joe was hiking in the valley alone, he met a man who was taking his dog "mouse hunting" along the river. He told Joe that he was weird for hiking alone, without a dog. Of course this is the same man who told Joe that he kept a dead mouse in his freezer because his dog liked to play with it sometimes, like a prize he'd won through rigorous battle. So, we need a dog like algae needs CO2. I think we can find a nice house with a fenced yard, and a few people want to move in with us. Do they know how clean I like my kitchen? Do they know I kill plants by simply being in the room with them?

My friend Megan entered a design contest and asked me to be her model. We've had three challenges now and we've won one. In fact, we're kicking ass, in my opinion, although when I say "we," I mean that Megan is oozing with creative fabric genius and she clothes me in magnificent things and I walk around sucking it all in while people stare at me. The audience takes pictures and videos, so I now know that I walk like a mobster when I'm trying to act cute and feminine. In the first challenge I nearly fell down in front of 100 people - seriously. Oh, its ridiculous and wonderful, like playing dress up every week. I should post pictures of Megan's winsome work. And videos. ;)

I am reading Bukowski and loving him because I'm reading of a life I will never lead. And it's mysterious, dark, haunting, and full of a broken passion. He writes of the saddest bars; of roaches and rats; of easy women, cheap wine, and gambling it all away; and then, on the next page, he'll write one solitary poem of passion and poetry and resurrection. His poems range from (seemingly) simple, narrative stories to the abstract poems that you have to read at least three times even to see the words for what they might mean, but it's all bewitching:

"...when the last fig falls and we are pruned from light,/our golden ladies gleaned of love - / infest us with the mercy/of stone." - from "the death of a roach"

Well, that's the best I can leave you with. I am trying to write but find it difficult. A coworker said last week that he noticed that there are many good writers, but the ones that get published are the ones who not only write well but also have something definite to say. My job inspires hopelessness within me and not much else; it's like a postmodern text; it's White Noise.

Thank God for Bukowski and the like,

Jess

I love lolcats