"A blog is to a writer what a canvas is to an artist." ~ Colleen Redman

I Heart Scrabble

Your thoughts and words are powerful … they think we’re disposable … well both my thumbs opposable …are spelled out on a double word and triple letter score … ~ Kimya Dawson

Warming up for a game with my poet friend, Mara, I put the Scrabble box by the woodstove after it sat in the back seat of the car overnight. “I hope you’re dressed warm,” I said to her, holding the phone in one hand and pushing a log in the woodstove with the other. She assured me she had long johns on and that she would bring a paper from The Harvest Moon because my article on musician Bernie Coveney was in it and I hadn’t seen it yet.

Before we started the game, she downloaded Microsoft publisher on my computer so I could make my own chapbooks of poetry. I read her my poem about Jesus in answer to the one she read at the last Spoken Word night. My Jesus paints graffiti. Hers is an Aries. We drank tea with jasmine and listened to the music of Kimya Dawson, who features prominently on the movie soundtrack Juno.

Mara buys valentine conversation hearts like she was playing the lottery, looking for that winner that says, “Write Me.” One like it was given to her by another poet at the start of their friendship. They started writing each other after that, and Mara’s been trying to find another “Write Me” valentine heart ever since.

“At four boxes for $1, I can afford the habit,” she told me. We dumped them out in a bowl. Neither of us would eat them; we just like to read them. Later I learned that the theme for this year’s hearts is weather, with messages like Could Nine, Chill Out, In a Fog, and Melt Me. “Write Me” came from the 2003 line.

I fed her homemade soup, crackers with melted Swiss cheese. She brought me my first valentine. I think it was Sponge Bob Square Pants, but he was shaped like a heart. The message on it said “You’re the Spongiest.” She put it on the table before heading home. I was upstairs on the computer at the time, playing with a conversation heart generator. “I can’t spell WRITE ME, “I called down to her. “Too many letters … will BITE ME do?

Our game? Considering that I got the Q, X, J, and a 50 point Bingo and only won by 16 points, I think she played the better game.

January 26th, 2008 Colleen Redman Posted in S-C-R-A-B-B-L-E

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