For the past two years, I've been posting this beautiful Jane Miller poem on my birthday. But this year I've picked another poem. It's on page 29 of Night Scenes by Lisa Jarnot. Appropriate, because today I'm 29.

Birthday Ode
by Lisa Jarnot

One flannel shirt and a chocolate cake,
when the phone rings pick it up and say
hello to winter with the winter saying
hello to the sparrows and their tiny hearts
that rise up like the sunrise to be climbing
up the staircase with a greeting made for me.

Under the moon is a moon song
which is the star that rises next to Mars
under the pull of the road, 
white the moon, red Mars, black the sky,
blue me, the wonder of life, my better self,
my better self in spring.

2012 is the year I'm ready to pull away from Livejournal and start a Real Grownup Blog. This is part of a larger resolution to present myself as more adult, which involves things like standing up for myself, ridding my vocabulary of filler apologies, and sticking to a writing schedule. It will probably also include learning how to blowdry my hair and wear eyeliner.

I babysat a precocious two year old and his seven-year old friend a month ago. They played Bed Jumping Olympics, Ninjas in the Park, and Pizza Shop. The two-year old pointed at me, flashed his winning smile, and said, "You're an adult!" Then he laughed, which is pretty much how I want to react whenever someone confers that status on me. 

2011 was the year of:
Wilder Ranch hikes and bike rides
"Eggert West" visit from my cousin Nicole
Not going to AWP because of Snowmageddon
Sunny winter trips to San Francisco
Marionette shows
Late night dances
Best Santa Cruz birthday at the 515
More readings than I've ever done in one year
Beach dances
Candied orange peels
Singing the blues in a cowgirl dress across from a horse farm
The ever-evolving, waxing and waning community of trivia night at The Poet and the Patriot
Adventures with Mom in San Francisco
The Rapture
The best going-away party ever
Boston babyshower and baby-meeting college pal reunions
ALASKA Wedding, a three-day bachelorette party, hikes, midnight sun, "Jesus"
Being the queen of road trips
Volleyball games, trivia, The Bells at Valley Forge, movies and concerts with my brother and sister
Charleston, SC family vacation
Pig roaster family reunion
How to Succeed in Business, starring DANIEL RADCLIFFE, plus Brooklyn adventures, with my brother
Getting my family drunk on mint juleps and taking them blues dancing
Crashing high school show choir reunions we accidentally thought we were invited to
Hurricanes
Earthquakes
Moving to Los Angeles
Exploring Echo Park
The best welcome party ever
Horror movie marathons
Sushi at Thanksgiving

aaand . .... .


CHAPBOOK!

In my journal I will, like every year, record what I did every weekend, what each month smelled like, what songs were associated with each month, everything I will remember most, and my hopes and goals for 2012, assuming the world doesn't end. 

Happy solstice! Happy Christmas Eve!
I've been home in P.A. for the last ten days, and it's been lovely. Ugly sweater Christmas party with my Dad's side of the family, hikes, rainy foggy days, half inch of snow, decorating the house with my Mom's manger collections, Santa collections and nutcracker collections, watching movies, eating way too much cheese.

I've also been pretty busy with writing this week! I wrote a guest post on Shoo-fly Pie for Nishta's Blue Jean Gourmet food blog. And I wrote about how Christmas is a Communist conspiracy over at Ask A Socialist.

Actually, Ask a Socialist has really been taking off over the last few months. We're getting more writers all the time. I especially recommend What is a Revolutionary?, What would a Socialist relationship look like? and my piece on coming out of the Red closet.

I brought my Impossible Project Color Push PX-70 film home with me, but so far all my pictures are coming out kind of washed out and pinkish. I will post a few, though, because some of them look ethereal and rosy.

I wanted to write some deep introspective thoughts about the Solstice, but mostly I'm just happy the light is lengthening. 

Today's going to be a day of cookie-baking, fondue, games, and Muppet Christmas Carol.

"I saw all the bright people;
in imposing flocks they landed,
and they got what they demanded,
and they scratched at the ground."
    -Dar Williams, "Mercy of the Fallen'



Rally at Occupy LA

I submitted this poem to OccupyWriters. 

Occupied Beauty

(after Gerard Manley Hopkins's “Pied Beauty”)

Glory be to those who topple things--
   For tents of triple-color, for the canvas town;
       For froze-proles all in trouble, jostled crowd, that din;
 Meshed firearmed chests; falls, pinches, stings.
   Parks drum-spotted and pieced—hold! hallowed, and now;
       Their barricades, their gear, their tackled limbs.

All things counterstrike and strike, resistant shared rage;
   Whatever is mic-checked, heckled (you? why now?)
      With swift, summed, steep power; dazzling whims;
The gathered source of beauty: past-due change;
                                               Blaze. Win.

Thanks to friends who have been sending me mix CDs every few months, and my own diligence in seeking out new music, 2011 was a banner year for me in music. Here's a roundup of my best musical discoveries of the year, and what I consider the best albums of the year. I'm not NPR or Pitchfork (surprise!) so I'm sure that list will be lacking a lot of great acts, but here's what I've got.

Click on links for videos.

Best artists I discovered in 2011:
Florence + The Machine*
Adele
Tune-Yards
TV on the Radio
Eleanor Friedberger*
Little Joy
John Grant
Pomplamoose
Gotye
Sleigh Bells*
Janiva Magness

Best albums of 2011, according to me


tUnE-YarDs - W H O K I L L 
African-inspired wailing dance hip hop!


Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer
Delicate, weird folk with non-melodic twists and a very distinctive voice.


TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
Hip hop indie soul


Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Simon & Garfunkel for the generation whose parents listened to Simon & Garfunkel. I played the title track several times a day for a week this June.


My Morning Jacket - Circuital
Rock. Desert-driving music. "Holdin' on to Black Metal" is the standout track. 


Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow
Moody dreamy sensual winter songs. 


Girls - Father, Son and Holy Ghost
California sun-drenched pop rock

I'm sure St. Vincent's new album, Strange Mercy, and Wild Flag's eponymous debut would be on here too if I had listened to them in time. Among others. This is why I would never survive at Pitchfork. Maybe I'll come back with a review before the year's over.

*Belongs to my new favorite musical genre, "Music by Women with Heavy Fringe Bangs," which also includes She & Him (with reservations), First Aid Kit, Beach House, Wild Flag, Cat Power and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart**

**A 2011 release I really wanted to be good, but which I couldn't get into. 

There are twelve days until Christmas, so, like Lisa, I'm making an effort to post something every day until then, like an advent calendar. The fall has been busy with visits, long walks, rock concerts, literary readings, square dances, and babysitting small children. And now I'm in Pennsylvania for a month. It was a long travel day, so before I crash for the night, here's a literary roundup. 

Sign up to get updates on my friend Boris's novel in progress, The Multiparent. He's doing something cool and innovative with the idea of publishing. You can read each chapter as he writes it and contribute input and editorial advice, and you might win and Amazon gift certificate. 

My new poetry crush is Emily Kendal Frey, and not just because her first book is titled The Grief Performance, and my graduate poetry manuscript was titled The Grief Rehearsals. She's part of the booming Portland poetry scene, and I adore her lyricism. She might have actually convinced me to try short lines again, after sticking to prose poems for several years.

I was also slayed by this poem by Richard Siken.

Read my friend Nishta's essay about grieving. And then try out one of her no-fuss delicious recipes. In a few weeks, check back for my guest post on shoo-fly pie, tradition and misguided seduction.

I've put this all over facebook already, but it's been officially announced: Hyacinth Girl Press will be publishing my first chapbook, The Exhibit, next fall. I'm thrilled. I've since gotten to know Margaret, the badass Pittsburgh woman who runs HGP, through the internet and through a poetry collaboration we decided to work on, and it's been quite inspiring. 

I've also been watching this video a lot:

January
Dog days are over
but unfortunately not
the commuting days.

February
The sunlight is clean
enough to eat. We could live
on its lemony gifts.

March
Lent, I am yours. Make
me holier with everything
I resist touching.

April
Skin has never been
clearer. Now, WHERE ARE ALL THE
BOYS WHO WILL KISS IT

May
Forgot how to dance
but I can still sing the blues
Come on in my kitchen.

June
Quit my job, but my
car died when I said goodbye.
Santa Cruz loves me.

July
Alaska wedding
I'm a road trip goddess
Philly family time!

August
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh
ugh ugh what?! ugh ugh ugh ugh
UGH. Also: earthquake.

September
Lost a lot of weight.
Too skinny for skinny jeans.
Maybe sugar will help?

October
One thing I can do 
well is drive for hours.
Hello Los Angeles!

November
San Francisco is
so gorgeous. I wish I were
someone else sometimes.

December
Hibernating and
dreaming. The future is big.
Time is all around.

#51
I live four doors down
from the drained lake where I once
journalled, younger, scared.

#52
Emotional maps.
You know these intersections
a way you should stop.

#53
The heart a minefield
of nostalgias: L.A.X. 
lights in the distance.

#54
You can rename all
the streets you never walked on
with no one you loved.

#55
Echo Park's dried lung:
the fenced-off lake we breathed from
in siren-hot June.

I spent a week in Santa Cruz and San Francisco at the beginning of this month. I was invited up there for a reading put on by Quiet Lightning, and since I'm funemployed, I figured I'd stay there for a week. There were birthday parties to attend, other San Francisco readings to hear, Santa Cruz trivia to lose at, hot chocolate and literary-themed cocktails to be had with linguist friends, beaches to walk on and too many books to buy. 

The reading was warm and cozy, at this funky little art space called Chez Poulet in the Mission District. Thirteen other writers and I read to a packed house that included six of my friends. Six! I was so honored. My bay area friends are awesome. Here's the video of me reading the poem that Lisa Ciccarello and I collaboratively wrote. There's video of the entire reading, too, and it's all worth it. The two acts before me read about retro porn cinema. Definitely watch Keely Hyslop read breakup poetry that invokes pirate queen Ann Bonny. 



On my first night in Santa Cruz, at Karinn's birthday party, a very well-meaning surf instructor with a wide earnest smile and a head of Goldilocks curls asked me what my poetry was about.  I am *terrible* at answering that question - it never has an answer. It's like asking what a painting is about. It doesn't have a plot. There might be people, places or things you can mention, or emotions that the piece is working to evoke, but half the time I don't even feel like I can clearly articulate those things in my poetry either. I'd much rather hear what someone else comes up with when they read it.

So I evaded the question by mumbling something about lyrical poetry, about how I try to work with language to create an emotional mood, and, um, imagery, and sensual detail! But he was not satisfied. He cornered me by the fridge and said, "No, really, what is your poetry about?" If I hadn't been so spacey from driving for six hours, maybe I would have sighed and said, "It's about jealousy, and hating your body sometimes, and it might also be about yoga and photography? I'm not entirely sure. It also could be about walking on the beach. So I guess it's about romantic trauma and hobbies. Excuse me, but I really want to get some more of that cheese that tastes kind of like Brie on steroids before it's gone."

I stayed in Santa Cruz for a delightful weekend, doing all the things that were part of my routine when I lived there, plus a long leisurely French toast brunch with mintyfreshsocks at Linghaus. I could feel the pull of nostalgia for a time when I was a little more stable. Moving to a new place is hard, though worth it. And it's easy to miss a familiar landscape, cityscape and peoplescape. Plus, I felt like I had finally figured out how to dress for the Bay Area. I was so happy to wear multiple sweaters and scarves. I'm going to have to learn California fashion all over again, now!


 I got to play model at Land's End Park, on the west side of San Francisco. Photo by my friend John

I spent the rest of the week in San Francisco with Vera and Boris, two of my beloved Santa Cruz friends who moved up there last year. Vera is teaching linguistics at Stanford. About time that dump got some decent teachers. They're really trying to clean the place up. Boris is writing a dystopian novel about people who time-share foster children, which he's publishing serially on his blog. You should check it out. We wrote in Farley's coffee shop each morning, in the darling neighborhood of Potrero Hill. To make the week extra-literary, I also went to Booksmith in the Haight to hear Peter Orner read from his new novel, Love and Shame and Love. When he autographed my book, he wrote, "Wishing you more shame than love." Thanks?

On my last night before driving back to L.A., Anna and I split a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at Hotel Biron during an art show, and wrote a collaborative sonnet. I hadn't written those since the silly ones I wrote with Celeste almost six years ago. Each person writes every other line, without knowing what the other person has written. It's kind of like Exquisite Corpse or Sentence-Picture, but with rhymes. Here's what we came up with. For writing blindly, I have to say our lines match up pretty well.

The exhibit stares at you with skulls upon the wall.
I wish we never came to this hotel.
You clutch your purse while limping down the hall.
The floorboards creak; we know each timber well.
In candles, you can see your future lover.
The autumn moon, so full it was bursting.
They say I look just like my dad and brother.
I wonder if the dogs here are thirsty.
Mammalian hearts and fur, the animals.
I want to bone the girl with hipster frames.
I hide my ribcage when I see those girls.
It doesn't matter if she knows my name.
I turn to face you. Empty room. I say,
You're right. I doubt she even knows she's gay.


The week kicked my literary ass into gear. (It also kicked my literal ass, what with all the hikes around Glen Canyon and up Telegraph Hill). I know so many talented writers. I have so many creative friends who I want to emulate. But I don't write as often as I want to because laziness is one of my character flaws. (Also: nailpicking). And I think those stable, domestic, wifey, full-time-job-with-healthcare-and-a-401K years in Santa Cruz made me a little complacent. Working as a secretary in a building that looked like a spa resort gave me the mental energy to be creative, but I did other things instead. Like cooking and gardening and playing hostess. I don't regret that. But I'm hoping to use this time of transition and disorientation to write like a motherfucker. Instead of just being distracted like one. 

The next day, I drove seven hours in the rain down I-5, listening to both Buffy soundtracks and A LOT of Dar Williams and thinking about how much I still have to learn about California. And how much left there is to see. 

When Anna and I walked through Glen Canyon, she pointed to a wooded trail about fifty feet from the one we were already walking on. She said, "I've never taken that path before. It might meet up with this one but I've never actually followed this one to the end because I'm scared to go alone."
I said, "I feel like everything you just said was a gigantic metaphor," and she laughed.