San Antonio
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Tonight I lingered over your name,
the delicate assembly of vowels
a voice inside my head.
You were sleeping when I arrived.
I stood by your bed
and watched the sheets rise gently.
I knew what slant of light
would make you turn over.
It was then I felt
the highways slide out of my hands.
I remembered the old men
in the west side café,
dealing dominoes like magical charms.
It was then I knew,
like a woman looking backward,
I could not leave you,
or find anyone I loved more.

If you had been in the vicinity of my Grandmother's driveway at around nine pm this evening, you would have been witness to a sight of National Geographic style proportions.

A gold Toyota Camry is circled almost entirely by two young women, one directly behind the other. The woman in front waves one arm up and down, and over her head, in a regular pattern, speaking quietly. Her other arm she raised up and down opposite to the first, though not as high, because in it she holds a large opaque bottle. Full of Pat and Oscar's salad dressing. It shakes in her hand at the high point in its arc, a shiver that makes it a weapon and a scepter.

All the way around the car they go, starting at the front of the car and traveling past the passenger side, around the trunk to the driver's door. There, the ritual complete, they stop, hug and the girl with the salad dressing returns to the passenger side of the car, while her companion gets in on the driver's side.

Two or three minutes later the car pulls out of the driveway, turning left at the bottom of hill, and traveling out sight.

They keep the bottle of dressing next a bag of lettuce on the floor of the car.



And this is how we keep cobwebs from getting in Karot's hair at my grandmother's house, 'cause they totally gross her out. I am very tough, though I think this is probably the first time I've ever wielded a lemon-vinegrette to do it.

The haiku meme was posted again. And yes we had too much fun with it.

All of my Girl's have been bolded (except the cut tag, which is mine) and the others are, well, mine. Dude, we talk about some random stuff on our journals. HEH.

(You can make your own haiku's here.)

( have been flickerings stray desires nights she turned to karot and said )

Anyone ever heard "Rain City" by Turin Brakes? Yeah, it's good times. So I was thinking, "Hey, this is a good song. I shall go to Amazon and buy the down load for $0.99, and all will be good."

Except. It's like fifteen minutes and costs like three bucks.

Anyone out there willing to upload it for me 'cause you love me? Please?

*pulls out the puppy eyes*


You guys are AWESOME!




In other news it was like 75 degrees today and holy CRAP I missed the sun. We had La Salsa for lunch and then ice cream at Coldstone. All of which we ate outside while staring at fountains. There are times when I love San Diego like burning.

And then we got a single tank of gas for $50 and I remembered why we're moving away as soon as Karot graduates. Dargh.


BUT I STILL LOVE YOU SUNSHINE. DON'T EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN. <3

Vex Me
by Barbara Hamby

Vex me, O Night, your stars stuttering like a stuck jukebox,
put a spell on me, my bones atremble at your tabernacle

of rhythm and blues. Call out your archers, chain me
to a wall, let the stone fortress of my body fall

like a rabid fox before an army of dogs. Rebuke me,
rip out my larynx like a lazy snake and feed it to the voiceless

throng. For I am midnight's girl, scouring unlit streets
like Persephone stalking her swarthy lord. Anoint me

with oil, make me greasy as a fast-food fry. Deliver me
like a pizza to the snapping crack-house hours between

one and four. Build me an ark, fill it with prairie moths,
split-winged fritillaries, blue-bottle flies. Stitch

me a gown of taffeta and quinine, starlight and nightsoil,
and when the clock tocks two, I'll be the belle of the malaria ball.

We have achieved SOFA.

For anyone coming to visit in the near future, you better be just as excited as Karot and I are 'cause holy crap it's like a brand new world in our living room. I almost feel like we should name it or something. "Squishy" maybe, or "Mr. Snuggles."

Or possibly "Mr. Squishy."

. . .


Mr. Squishy, I think I love you. <3


For those of you who actually care, we went to Ikea on Saturday with the help of my dad and chose the lovely and squishy (woo!) Ektorp in the dark blue. There was a bit of drama getting him up the stairs with me having a sprained-ish wrist and the apartment having an awkward stair arrangement, but we made it. Dad was given an ice cold coke for his troubles and then Karot and I got ourselves pizza for lunch. It was good pizza. Mr. Squishy himself was actually very easy to put together and if he's very good and we end up with a little more disposable income we may get him a second outfit. Or possibly decorative throw pillows. We shall have see.

We were tagged. We have done a meme. I would right more but I am dying of bird flu. Har.

Meme of Random and Inside Jokery




Also I am going to be on week FOUR of my jury duty and the world is a bleak and unhappy place. Rar rar rar.

In The Middle
by Barbara Crooker

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window,
green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

Misgivings
by William Matthews

"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on our owns

for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door, "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-

in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.

karotsamused here. I maded icons and put them up in my girlfriend's journal. GO TO HER PROFILE AND LOOK BWAHAHAHAHA.

This one's probably my favorite. For like the next five seconds. HAHA I PUT HANSON AND SUPER JUNIOR TOGETHER I love me.



Also we named our goldfish. Dude and Sweet are pleased to meet you. :D

karotsamused here.

Starting in about an hour and eleven minutes, Rune and I will be gone. Gawn. Up in the snow, where hopefully our colds won't kill us and I might even get a day of skiing in.

I know neither of us are huge presences on the Interweb, but this is a notice on account of we're gonna be gone.

There might even be pictures when we get back on Jan 4.

:D

Everyone have a happy new year.

And, Rana? We wanna get together with yoooou. Can we play later? <3

To all those who treat our private parking lot as

A) Liquor Store Parking

B) Art Gallery Parking

C) A Place To Drop Off Your Kids When They Go To School Across The Street

D) KFC Parking

E) Happenin' Night Spot Party Parking

F) Antique Store Parking

We know what the cars that are supposed to be in our lot look like.
If we know where you are, we will call you on your shit. Because you don't want two young women out late at night walking home by themselves. Especially not on New Year's Eve. Especially not when they pay to park in the spot you just pulled into.

No, we don't care if your daughter said no-one would mind. We mind. And no, we don't care if you give us the stink-eye. Don't put your hand in the cookie jar if you don't want your fingers bitten. The police know how to speed down this road. We've called them before.

No Love,
The Girls Who Really Do Live Above The Liquor Store, You Pretentious, Middle-Aged Twat.

It all started when my mom told me I could buy a new sweatshirt, as long as it had my college logo on it.

You see, when my dad had taken my brother and me on various trips to see colleges, we'd purchased myriad sweatshirts from all of the institutions...except the ones we eventually chose to attend.

By the by, this is karotsamused.

When my job at the Bookstore at my Hallowed Place of Learning brought me in contact with some sweatshirt styles other than the College Lettered Sweatshirt in Blue And Gold, I found myself a bit covetous of others' purchases. Thus, when I asked if I might purchase a sweatshirt for myself, my mother agreed on the grounds that it was in fact from my place of work.

This week, we're having a 40% off sale. On items that were, last week, 20% off. So that's 40% off things that were already priced at 80%. The hell is that math? 46% percent off or so? I have no calculator. Blargh.

But anyway, I got a sweatshirt. At my Bookstore. For $19.77. NINETEEN. FREAKIN. SEVENTY-SEVEN.
At Bookstore prices, that's a crappy t-shirt.

...

I love this sweatshirt. It is black, and the hood is big enough, and the logo is not stupid. I bought it yesterday, and after I got off work and had a shower, I decided to wear it to Rune's Family Holiday Dinner last night.

...Now, Rune has a big family. One that has to gather in separate locations at separate times, half because it would be impossible to gather that many people in one place, and half because the two sides would make that one place explode.

So we met at the Gma's, for the Gma's Side Of The Family sort of thing, and the house, normally pretty cozy with five people, was... packed.

Pack. Ed.

There was the Gma, and Rune's parents, and all of Rune's aunts and uncle and their spouses, and their offspring, and their offspring's spouses and offspring. And then the Friends, which consisted of me and this one guy who held the camcorder a lot.

There were two itty bitty half-Japanese babies, and their very Japanese mama (adorably trying to correct her Very White father-in-law's mispronunciation of her name - "Yu - KI - ko." "No. YU - ki - ko." "Yu - KI - ko. Right? I don't hear what's different!")

There were also ... well. They were all about my age, I guess, or a little older, but since one of them asked Rune her age, they probably assumed I was older. But four barely-legal boys, all about six feet huge, and broad as doorways. (Rune says the eldest is about twenty-five. Ha-ha.)

They were all rather sweet, in their weird Barely-Legal Boy way, and apparently I was unconsciously on my game.

See, as soon as I walked in, I think there was the radar ping. Girl-That-Isn't-Family does a lot to make me attractive. XD

I realized I was getting hit on about the time the youngest one told me he was a writer. And that he was getting ready to write his second Album, and was in the process of recording for the first.

Which is no big deal, especially in this area, since the music scene here right now is exploding. But when I brought up a friend of mine, actually a very talented white hip-hop artist, who had recorded his albums and was in the marketing stage, and was finding the most challenging thing was being articulate about his work and making sure he was putting it out in the right places, I got this response:

"Well, marketing isn't hard if you're good."

...I think you really needed to be able to hear it. And see the little face of "Aw, man, she knows -other- guys?"

Boys. He started laying it on a little thick in the middle, and by the end, played Family Man (although this was rather genuine and in a lot of ways he was sweet. I enjoyed his company). He was funny in the Multigenerational Photo they all took - excluding, of course, me and Camcorder Guy (who took the picture).

But after The Boy left, I turned to Rune's Gma and this exchange followed:

Me: *wry* You know, I think he found me attractive.
Gma: Well, dear, I don't see why he wouldn't have.
Me: -! What do you know? You're blind!
Gma: *laughs*

On the way home, Rune confessed she wanted to growl at him. I confessed I sat with my ring showing in a very shiny fashion after the hip-hop bit of the conversation.

Heh. I got hit on at the family dinner.

...HEH.

After a few false starts and disappointments, we finally have it all settled.

Two: Lit windows, glowing pink and orange with multicolored Christmas indoor/outdoor lights, hung indoors.
One: Living Christmas tree, decked in many ball ornaments, three non-ball ornaments (one blue Betta, one green penguin with goldfish inside, and one plastic raptor), and topped with a Cardinal bird.
One: Severely confused Sydney, now forced to share the table with a bright red tree skirt and aforementioned living Christmas tree.

Out the windows, we can see the nearly-completed KFC and the lights put up atop the old folks' high rises where Park meets University. Sea World should be starting their fireworks show soon.

Like the song says, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The Tow Truck Driver's Story
by Elizabeth W. Garbe

You meet all kinds of people in this work.
You have to be polite, twenty-four hours
a day. It was a brutal winter night,
I'd worked since four a.m., finally coming in
to sleep when the phone rang, a guy calling
from up on Appleton ridge, saying
he needs a jump. I asked, "Can't it wait?
There's still snow on the roads, the plows aren't
All through. It'll take me three hours at least
to get there with the roads like this." "Ok,"
he said, "I'll wait." I went to bed an hour,
before he called, "It's an emergency."
The storm had eased as I headed out,
But the wind had been so bad, I had
To stop and climb over the drifts to knock
the snow off signs to see where to go,
a hard dark climb up to Appleton Ridge.
Over three hours to get to a lonely
country farmhouse, light glowing brightly.
Then a man in, I kid you not, a red
Satin smoking jacket comes out and waves.
I think he's waving to me, and wave back,
But it's a garage opener and out of the dark
A door rises, lit like a museum,
A car, glittering white and chrome beauty,
It was a 1954 Mercedes.
A Gull-Wing. You ever heard of them?
I think they only made ten of them.
Its doors lift up like a gull in flight.
I bet it was worth a million dollars.
I ask, "Are you going to take that out?"
"Oh, no, we just got back from Jamaica
I want a jump to make sure it's ok."
It starts like a dream, purrs dangerously.
"Oh good," he says and walks away, waving
his arm to close the door, never saying
a word, left me standing there in the snow.

Me: *reading lj*
Karot: *realizes she's scraped her leg open when she hit it with the car door earlier*
Me: DDD:
Karot: Yeah. I was like, "Why is my leg itchy? Oh. Decay."

Coats
by Jane Kenyon

I saw him leaving the hospital
with a woman's coat over his arm.
Clearly she would not need it.
The sunglasses he wore could not
conceal his wet face, his bafflement.

As if in mockery the day was fair,
and the air mild for December. All the same
he had zipped his own coat and tied
the hood under his chin, preparing
for irremediable cold.

"I'm too much of a spaz to write in my own journal anymore."

That's right. It's karotsamused. Why do I even preface this anymore?

( Stuff we did, posh potties, and Holy Shit, A Plant! )

karotsamused here.

So.

The apartment, ne, Cozy Home, is a wonderful warm place with only one limitation.
It seems we blow a fuse if we run the toaster oven and microwave at the same time, and the fridge happens to kick on.

We did it for the first time last week, when one of our landlords was close by to flip the fuse for us, and leave us completely confused as to how he made the lights come back. But we were joyful.

Tonight, the error was repeated, by my beautiful little Mexican.

I, being intrepid and more fully clothed, called the landlord and was told that the folks that run the liquor store downstairs have a key to the big cage what holds the fuse boxes.
So I trekked downstairs, explained the situation, was laughed with at with by the proprietors, and given a key.

Upon entering said cage what holds the fuse boxes, I found that there were. Um. Lots of them. Also water meters. So I called Rune and made her put on pants and bring me a flashlight.

We toodled around for a bit, trying to figure things out, then gave up and called the landlord again.

I think we really freaked her out.

Run decided it was a good idea to just start pulling levers. Especially the big, rusted one that didn't look like it had been pulled ever.

"My thought process was: If you pull the lever, the box will open!"

Once it got pulled? The light in the stairwell went out. ... Ah.

Cue Handsome Neighbor A. He lives in apartment number two, and was the only other person around to notice that all. The power. For the entire. Floor. Went. Out.

This is about the time where I am laughing madly and explaining exactly what's going on to the landlady.
I had a feeling Rune shouldn't have pulled that switch. Once we flipped it back up, the lights came back on. Yay!

By this time the landlord was resigned and in hysterics all at once. The language barrier is occasionally quite interesting in our neck of the woods.

But uh. I assured her everything was fine, and she heard other people laughing, and we haven't gotten any more frantic phone calls. :D

I returned the key to the liquor store guys, Handsome Neighbor A laughed good-naturedly and assured us he'd done it a bijillion times, and we all went upstairs.

The lights in the Cozy Home? Still out.

Cue me running back down to The Cage and jimmying it open (on account of it didn't really close in the first place :B ) and flipping the fuse.

A few times.
Ah.

About then Hansome Neighbor A, being the good man that he is, came down to make sure the cage had locked.

Me: Hey, wait! I'm still in here!
HNA: What? What are you doing? Is it still out?!
Me: Yeah! D: D: D:
HNA: ... *comes in* *flips switch* *flips it again*
Rune: *on phone* OMG THE LIGHTS ARE ON :D
Me: ... <3
HNA: :D

So we went upstairs again and now are in the process of resetting the clocks.

We love you, Daylight Savings Time.

Jet Lag
by Eve Robillard

He flies over the ocean to see his girl, his Sorbonne
girl, his ginger-skinned girl waiting for him in the City

of Light. Everywhere river and almost-spring gardens,
everywhere bridges and rainy statues. Streets going

nowhere, streets going on all night. I love you my mona
my lisa, my cabbage, my gargoyle, Degas' little dancer

in dawn's ragged gown. But on the third day she
picks up her books, tells him she needs to study:

she adores this town, she's not coming home in May, she's
going to stay all summer. Lowers her morning-calm eyes.

He's all right in the cab, all right on the plane droning
him home in only three hours American-key in his lock now

his tick-tock apartment, shiver his shadow, his need
to sleep. Then with a tiredness washing over and

over him and through his raveling bones
he begins to know.

Eight:

Ike (currently sick with fin rot, on day five of medication and still eating and acting like himself)
Alexander (formerly The Guinness Fish, now hard-pressed not to keep his bowl clean)
Mickey (entrenched behind his little wall of rocks and peering out over Battlefield Living Room)
Sammy (who needs a cleaning and is growing a fine white beard)
Travis (the Rooster Fish, who jumps out of his water to attack his food)
Casey (who gets bigger and purpler every day, the spaz)
Sydney (the daylight sky fish, whose plants are now growing entirely upside down as they float on the surface and give him something to cuddle)
Taisa (the midnight fish, that still hasn't got the hang of eating, but rather treats it more like play. Also, this is one pretty fish)

...

Eight bettas. All in separate bowls. Not to mention Phil, Philbaby1, Rhodes, and Q-Tip, the resident houseplants. That's a lotta life going on in a little apartment.

Oh, yeah, and the Girl and me, too. And whatever's growing in the dishes in the kitchen. Yeeg.

On Faith
by Cecilia Woloch

How do people stay true to each other?
When I think of my parents all those years
in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
longing for anything else— or: no, they must
have longed; there must have been flickerings,
stray desires, nights she turned from him,
sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
and tangled limbs must have seemed
not enough. But it was. Or they just
held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out,
having been always too willing to fly
to the next love, the next and the next, certain
nothing was really mine, certain nothing
would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
When he turns his back to me now, I think:
disappear. I think: not what I want. I think
of my mother lying awake in those arms
that could crush her. That could have. Did not.

Marcus Millsap: School Day Afternoon
by Dave Etter

I climb the steps of the yellow school bus,
move to a seat in back, and we're off,
bouncing along the bumpy blacktop.
What am I going to do when I get home?
I'm going to make myself a sugar sandwich
and go outdoors and look at the birds
and the gigantic blue silo
they put up across the road at Motts'.
This weekend we're going to the farm show.
I like roosters and pigs, but farming's no fun.
When I get old enough to do something big,
I'd like to grow orange trees in a greenhouse.
Or maybe I'll drive a school bus
and yell at the kids when I feel mad:
"Shut up back there, you hear me?"
At last, my house, and I grab my science book
and hurry down the steps into the sun.
There's Mr. Mott, staring at his tractor.
He's wearing his DeKalb cap
with the crazy winged ear of corn on it.
He wouldn't wave over here to me
if I was handing out hundred dollar bills.
I'll put brown sugar on my bread this time,
then go lie around by the water pump,
where the grass is very green and soft,
soft as the body of a red-winged blackbird.
Imagine, a blue silo to stare at,
and Mother not coming home till dark!

The Hunkering
by Donald Hall

In October the red leaves going brown heap and
scatter
over hayfield and dirt road, over garden and circular
driveway,

and rise in a curl of wind disheveled as
schoolchildren
at recess, school just starting and summer done,
winter's

white quiet beginning in ice on the windshield, in
hard frost
that only blue asters survive, and in the long houses
that once

more tighten themselves for darkness and
hunker down.

Today is the Gma's 93rd Birthday (and the Third Annual Celebration of Grandma's Last Birthday Ever).

There was pizza.
There was ice cream cake.

The Gma was talking about how, when you get to be her age, you appreciate having family around. Then, she turned to Karot and said, "And you're a part of this family too, whether you like it or not."

Then, after the birthday cake, when Karot was taking pictures, my mother said, "Well, Kelly, if you're really a part of this family, Elisa, you better show your father how to use the camera so he can take a picture of the two of you with your grandma."
Grandma said, "Yes, that's right, that's right."
I showed dad how to work it - "I just push the button, right?" "Yeah."
And so we were getting ourselves situated, and Grandma said to Karot, "That's right. You lose one grandma, you get another one."

And so we had our picture taken with my grandma. She smiled a lot, and she laughed, and then she made us take pictures of my father in a weird hat.

Mama never does anything without a purpose. In two days, it will have been a year and ten months since we began dating. It will be five months since we moved in together come mid-November.

Today, Karot sang "Happy Birthday, Dear Grandma," and maybe really got to mean it.