Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Once I saw this optional idea on Poetry Thursday, I've heard nothing but cliches all week. They're taking over! Here's my interpretation of a cliche very dear to me, the idea of calling sleep 40 winks. If only it were that easy. (I must add that I'm slightly thankful for my insomnia this week, because I don't know when I would have found the time to write otherwise.)

40 Winks

Welcome to paradise, he said to me,
as I stamped my feet in the cold. No shit,
I muttered underneath my breath,
wondering what we really meant.

I watched the digital numbers on the gas pump
accumulate, illuminate, as I waited to go home.

Ten hours later, warm at home, lying
in bed, I am still wondering, trying
to catch 40 winks,
one at a time. They flutter

through my finger tips on eyelash
soft wings. I count them,
like sheep, mouthing the numbers in the dark.

I think about him, talking to me,
clutching the dripping squeegee, slamming it
into the pool of murky blue
water. He walks to the entrance,
talks to the girl in the purple miniskirt
and yellow tights.
I follow them inside.

Welcome to paradise,
he says to the clerk, who hands him
a carton of cigarettes and a case of beer. Welcome
to paradise, he says to the suit,

paying for gas and condoms
on his AmEx. Welcome to
paradise, he says to the teenage boy
unloading the case of candy bars
in the aisle, aligning the red wrappers.

I circle the store, distant
and cold in my pajamas, and make my bed
on a stack of yesterday’s USA Todays.

I wrap myself in gray words
and blurred pictures, the print rubbing off
on my skin. I count my winks,
one by one, as they escape my grasp,
wondering if sleep will ever come home.

Wasting Time #2 -- Blurred Boundaries

Over the Christmas season, I was able to take some much needed vacation from my job. I took ten whole days off. Then, last week, we had a short week plus faculty development, which was more fun than work. I spent those couple of weeks reading and writing a lot, more than I had in a long time. I was cocooning myself in my living room, bundled up in blankets and cuddling with my kitties, and spending time doing what I love.

Today, I had my first "real" day of work of the new year. I thought it might be difficult to plunge right back into the frenetic pace, but instead it felt like I hadn't missed a beat at all. I was back to my 15 minute lunch break, mad dashes around the building lifestyle. There were times when I forgot to go the bathroom.

I have been thinking tonight about how easy it is for me to do that-- sacrifice break times and down times and let work consume me. Even when I got home today, I didn't feel like writing; I felt like working or worrying about work. I realized that the healthy barrier I constructed around myself over the break is being slowly etched away by my daily work activities. Or more realistically, I am stretching my own boundaries while working.

I've called this a time waster because, even though I am efficient and sufficient at my job, I am preventing myself from doing what I really love, my writing. I have to constantly remind myself that I am paid for 40 hours a week, not 400. I wish I could turn my work on and off, like a light switch, but I am still sorting that out for myself.

I think that other people (those magical other people whose houses are clean and lives are orderly) have this part figured out. They can work their jobs, come home, put their jobs away, and focus on their real lives. I wonder how they manage to do that at all. While I try to figure it out, I'll just focus on repairing those boundaries, between my work and my real life, after stretching them much too thin.

Weekly Word Count January 1-7

I don't know if I'm going to have time to write today, so here's my week's count so far. 2709. Not too shabby.

I didn't realize exactly how long 3000 words was. This is going to be a pretty major commitment.

Why Can't We Have Television Like This?

On the BBC, they have a television show called Balderdash and Piffle and I think it's a pretty amazing idea. The show follows Oxford English Dictionary linguistic scholars as they try to track down the origins of words. The best part is that the audience follows along and engages in the process of tracking down word origins.

Here is the list of words they are trying to track right now. The show often focuses on slang, because those are the most difficult to track. (They are so difficult to track because it starts in verbal language among social groups and then travels to mainstream written language later.) This season they have divided groups into themes, so that if you have a particular hobby (like fashion) you can track down fashion related words.

Since I only currently watch a few shows on American television, I wonder why we don't have our own Balderdash & Piffle. Are we too busy making shows like this? And this? And this? I've never been much of an anglophile, but I suddenly want to move to Britain. Or at least move my television there.

Libraries -- the New Wal-Mart?

I don't normally like to think of commerce & literature together, but they are intrinsically connected, whether we like it or not. (My husband is a former manager of a big box bookstore, so I definitely understand the connection.) As a poet especially, I know that I would never have the same financial success as, say, John Grisham or Stephen King.

However, I always thought that our libraries would be a storehouse of all works of literature, but this article from the Wall Street Journal is disturbing, to say the least. It details the use of a computer cataloging system for libraries which monitors circulation, among other things. If a book doesn't circulate within two years, it recommends permanently pulling it from the shelves.

How would students or young readers be able to rediscover writers who have fallen from favor? How would we retain our literary heritage, without the actual physical books to read? How would we be able to gain inspiration from our previous generation's work, if that work has been eradicated?

I know this is slightly hypocritical blogging about this technological change to our literary heritage, but to me it smacks much more of commercialism and pandering than opening up new avenues of expression. I shudder at the new world without complete libraries -- full of VC Andrews books and blank stares.

Politicians Who Piss Me Off #2

It's a political day... I am way behind the curve on this one, but I just read it in a year in review section in Minnesota Monthly magazine. Tim Pawlenty, our Bush-clone governor in Minnesota, vetoed a bill creating a state poet laureate position. That's not so bad, if he chooses to spend the money on education funding. (Fat chance, but one can dream.) But in a letter describing the method behind his madness in the veto, he wrote:

"Even though we have a state 'folklorist,' I also have concern this will lead to calls for other similar positions. We could also see requests for a state mime, interpretive dancer or potter."

I shudder when I realize that this man has just been re-elected to our governorship for another term of rule. Goodbye arts, hello ignorance.

Politicians Who Piss Me Off #1

In a local city magazine, The Rake, I read this article which has left my blood boiling for two days. Last week, Minneapolis had to close down 3 city libraries because the city council and the mayor could not figure out how to fund the library system. While they could offer a sum that could help the Minneapolis Library system tread water for a year, they consistently refuse to create a budget that allows the Minneapolis Library system flourish.

As the article in The Rake puts it, the politicians are framing the debate as a choice between more cops and more libraries. Obviously, public safety is incredibly important, so bye-bye library. However, one politician, Don Samuels, distills the debate into this statement: "When you are a person at the other end of a gun... the only use for a book is to throw it at them, or block a bullet with it."

Council Member Samuels totally ignores the social effects of having a library system available in an area that can use the extra community and education that a free public library affords. While it may not help to have a book on you when confronted with a gun, surely the presence of books in a child's life can prevent the acquisition of the gun in the first place.