Loose Leaf Notes

1. “Be the Elizabeth Warren you want to see in the world.”  – my friend Kanta Bosniak

2. I’m not good with writer’s prompts like I’m not good at dance classes.  I can’t follow movements or write on cue. I’m best left alone to do what I do.

3. I got a “conga rats” comment from my poet friend Ron who came across THIS recently published One Sentence Poem by yours truly.

4. My poetry memoir, Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press (FLP), an award winning small press out of Georgetown, Kentucky.   The 32 poem collection probes the questions: How much does the essence of one’s psyche weigh? Is the soul the one carry-on that we can actually take with us? In the end, what do we value and what do we leave behind?  The poems are a distillation of life’s memories and track the inner and outer journeys of childhood, care giving, aging and life’s inevitable losses. You can read more about it and how you can pre-order HERE.

5. The Grammy fashions this year included a gumball dress, Cello Green in head-to-toe gold Oscar, a Trump-themed gown, and a pregnant Beyonce shining in gold as a black Madonna in a theatrical art performance.  Twenty One Pilots accepted their Grammy in their underwear and Bruno Mars dressed as Prince. The neckline plunges and skirt slits have become standard fare, making me ask ‘where can they go from here?’  I was happy to see that the rappers pants weren’t falling down. Maybe that trend is subsiding?

6. There She Goes! Hold That Pose! – More photos or our niece Catherine HERE.

7. Suddenly the world is so much more unsafe than before Trump was elected that we need a seven country travel ban. Could it be that the world is more unsafe because he was elected?

8. I’m not a bleeding heart liberal but I do wear my heart on my sleeve.

9. We’re all in the same boat, but it seems Trump only wants the gold lifeboats and to grab them ahead of the women and children.  But you know gold is heavy and sinks.

10. I still look for the humorous spin, like this:  Alec Baldwin has won praise for playing President Donald Trump. And it turns out he’s so convincing that a Dominican Republic newspaper ran a photo of the actor portraying Trump instead of the president.

11. “I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me, all right? I just want to relax and watch the Grammys,” – Cicely Strong, playing a court TV judge overseeing a case with Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin).

12. When I Should Be Napping: I’m counting syllables in a poem / like medicinal drops of tincture / I’m writing the formula / on the back of a card / grabbed from the table by the bed / where I’m prone to lay / and tell only the truth / rather than lie / and be caught awake

13. I actually met him at the laundry mat. Isn’t there a song for that?  He was tie-dying shirts with a couple of Blue Mountain parent-friends to sell at a Dead show for a school fundraiser.  I had been picking apples from a tree on the side of the road and came in to say hello. He still talks about how enthusiastic I was about my trunk full of foraging and the apple crisp I was going to make.  We talked and I remember being impressed. The next thing that happened was a kind of like a scene in a movie… – Read the rest the Valentine story of how Joe and I met HERE.

_______Thirteen Thursday