NO HIDDEN TRACK

My apartment in Madison (my apartment! in Madison!) has a claw-foot tub, French doors, and a fireplace.  This morning, I drove two hours there, handed the landlord my security deposit, and then drove the two hours back.  This is serious business.  So are the lace curtains I just ordered online.  Don't tell the boy.  He's thinking about applying for a visa to move in with me this fall.  He doesn't know about my secret cache of pictures like this:

or that he's going to drown in doilies and florals.

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Congratulations to Nick on winning the Fulbright!  You're going to have an amazing time in Slovakia.  Now update your damn blog.

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Reading again. Writing again. Well, reading again, anyway. I've taken a second job at a restaurant in town, and tonight is my rare night off -- spending it in bed, thumbing through a Wayne Miller collection, trying not to dog-ear every page.

From "Dear Sappho [In the vast history between us]":

Please believe me: we haven't

forgotten you--we walk

on our syllables (these shadows

of footsteps), we land 

deep in beauty at the expense

of ourselves.  Like color,

the stars keep arriving 

into their presence--arriving

from so long before you.

(from Only the Senses Sleep)

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I am determinedly trying to grow this blog up.  With capital letters.  And links.  And less $*&^%#@ swear words.  Really the original purpose was to collage the things I love - scraps of poems, my days in words, the occasional claw-foot tub. (I am so ready for this claw-foot tub.) And after all the twitchy fervor of application season, I need some air.  So let's try a civilized format & see if it makes my content mind its manners.