Loose Leaf Notes

1. Double take would make a good name for a second-hand clothing shop.

2. That’s my friend Mark making his second 7 letter Scrabble Bingo in the first few plays of the game. The second one is below the first and makes six new small words.

3. Does ZAG exist without ZIG? I played UNITE rather than UNTIE because I like the word better and Mara wondered why she saw VOLE instead of LOVE in her letters. We learned that GEEZ could be spelled with a G or a J and was used as a “mild oath,” but SHANG (maybe we were thinking of DANG) was not. “We we’re doing more than playing Scrabble,” I said.  – From Vole Not Love 2009 

4. Every time I want to reach the $25 mark on Amazon so I can get free shipping, I add a mini umbrella and imagine giving everyone I know one for Christmas.

5. “I’m not a big gun guy. I was just in Colorado, a big gun state. I go there with my girlfriend, meet her father. Her dad’s into guns, carries a concealed weapon at all times, which makes sense, because he is in real estate. At a certain point, he pulls me aside and he’s showing me his guns, and he finally goes, “Do you got a gun at your place in L.A.” so you can protect my daughter?” I was, like, “Do I have a gun in my place? Dude, I don’t even have an umbrella.” I can’t protect your daughter from a light drizzle… “let alone an armed intruder. Your daughter’s in real danger.” -Neil Brennan

6. It fills up too fast / like your child grows up / like your teenaged grandchild / resists your affection / An old journal’s like a closet / for all your favorite outfits / mixed in with all the misfits / that only take up space… Read Decomposition in its entirety HERE.

7. I don’t like anchovies but Phat Anchovies are good. Pass it on.

8. Recently overheard: “Oh, you’re not religious. Thank God.”

9. Ever since I missed an email about my friend Alywn’s Quaker wake, I check my daily spam. I did go to her burial and the memorial though.

10. My Poem is Going to the Moon! Artemis is an uncrewed spacecraft that was planned to launch today for a moon-orbiting mission. It’s also the name of the premier poetry and art journal, founded and headed up by Floyd Countian Jeri Rogers. Not only is Artemis Journal about to launch its 2022 issue at Roanoke’s Taubman Museum on September 2, 5-9 pm, the journal will be flying to the moon with the Artemis 1 spaceship when it launches, and with one of my poems in it… More HERE.

11. John Lennon met Yoko Ono at her London art exhibit in 1966 when he climbed up a ladder to look at a painting on the ceiling with a magnifying glass. He saw the the word “yes” in small letters.  If it had said “no” they probably wouldn’t have gotten together he later said.

12. John Lennon’s last words to Yoko Ono: In 2007, Yoko told Desert Island Discs (per Independent), “I said, ‘Shall we go and have dinner before we go home? ‘ and John said, ‘No, let’s go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep. ‘”

13. “The sound of crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep… Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?” -Henry David Thoreau

________Thirteen Thursday