Loose Leaf Notes

1. My energy is better at night. In the morning I sometimes wake-up feeling like I have leukemia, which is why I hate going to bed because I hate waking up, and the later I stay up the more I hate waking up.

2. Taking pictures is a lot like writing. You have to have the camera ready to capture the shot that will likely change in a matter of seconds, like you have to be willing to immediately write down creative thoughts that come and will be soon forgotten if you don’t.

3. I come from a time and place where Jimmies are little chocolate sprinkles and Johnnies are hospital gowns (as well as the names of brothers), where the packie is an ABC store, a bubbler is a water fountain, jeans are dungarees, soda is tonic and people say on a perfectly nice day, “I wish we could bottle it.”

4. The weekend was filled with Feelin’ Groovy HERE and Highlight Highflights HERE.

5.  It’s funny how a wristband can either mean that you probably had some fun last night or that you have recently been in the hospital. The one I’m wearing now is “Baywatch Orange.”

6. How did I miss that The Doors played at the Surf Ballroom in my small little beach town of Hull, MA when I was a teenager?  I practically lived at the Surf every weekend during high school.  I remember the Ram Rods well and saw so many of the bands that THIS Ram Rod musician mentions.  But I also missed Sonny and Cher when they came.  I may have seen Jimmy Page but wouldn’t have known who he was because is was before he was part of the Yardbirds or Led Zeppelin.

7. Hitchhiker:  Poetry went to Woodstock / It hitchhiked to Yasgur’s Farm / Got an autograph from Mickey Hart / but marched to its own drum /Poetry drank Southern Comfort / with Janis Joplin and Hendrix / It evaded the draft / Got a backstage pass / Went to college but flunked middle class.

8. I’m reading blogger Jenny Lawson’s book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. In the introduction she warns readers that the book is like Little House on the Prairie but with more cursing. Well, it’s giving me whiplash, not because of the swearing but because of the unrelenting far-out humor, much of which is in footnotes and parenthesis.

9. So, you heard about Bruce Jenner? He just came out as a Conservative Republican.   

10. It’s true, but seriously, I agree with Portia de Rossi when she said, “I know how difficult it is to come out but how much worse it is to live a lie,” and Oprah, who said, “All of us deserve the right to be loved for who we are.”

11. I call THIS picture “The Latest in Outdoor Lawn Furniture,” and the one above is called “Black Gold.”

12. “The proofreaders are playing the ping pong game of proofreading, glancing back and forth from page to page, the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes, and the poets are at their windows because it is their job for which they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.”  – from Monday by Billy Collins

13. Below is “Getting Our Ducks in a Row.”

Thirteen Thursday