I’m lying in bed, surfing the web.  Ladybug is talking to a Chinese friend in Canada, using that enunciation that she reserves for non-native English speakers.  I’m listening to her, thinking that voice recognition would serve her well.  She has a good voice for poems, though she would not be caught dead reading a poem aloud.  I should make her read what I write so I can hear it aloud.  I would be mortified to hear her read my poems aloud.  She is talking to a friend who speaks Chinglish.  She would not read in Chinglish.

It doesn’t seem to matter what else you do for her birthday; as long as you take her to karaoke and sing James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” in the voice of James Blunt, she’s going to be happy.

Ladybug and I ended up taking an impromptu road trip before through northern Durham and Orange counties, driving some roads we’d never driven before. It seems irresponsible to take a drive just for the sake of taking a drive, but that was something I loved doing as a kid. My parents got divorced when I was twelve and my father moved into an efficiency about a mile and a half away. That wasn’t very far, but it sure seemed like a million light years away at the time.

I didn’t see much of him during the week, which in retrospect doesn’t make a great deal of sense, since he was so close. But every Saturday, we got to hang out. We’d usually start with a trip to the comic book store, then lunch at Houston’s, where my father would draw cartoons of a suicidal dog named Chuck on the cocktail napkins. Maybe we’d wander over to Egghead Software, but more often than not, we’d hop in the car and set out. He was usually pretty cool about letting me choose the music, so I spent more than my fair share of Saturdays buckled into the passenger seat, listening to REM or They Might Be Giants.

We’d drive just to drive. There’s not much highway in Maryland that we didn’t cover, and a fair bit in Northern Virginia. I know a couple of Saturdays, we turned around when we hit a state line, and on rare occasion, we’d head on past them, venturing into Delaware or West Virginia. I always wondered if we drove so far because we didn’t really have anywhere else to go, really. We’d usually end up back in his efficiency around 6 PM, in time for microwaved hot dogs and Star Trek, and I’d read comics for a while before we’d go to bed. There was no pressing urgency to get back from driving, and I don’t remember my father ever saying, “Let’s go home.” It was always, “Let’s go back.” I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I’d said, “We should keep driving”– how far we would have gone, where we would have run out of gas, what reasons we would have found to go back if we got far enough away.

I spent the day in a training for a product that the Community College system is evaluating, and as awesome as it is, I am not sure I can tell you anything more, because I signed an non-disclosure form. I had never signed a NDA before. I feel now like I have a great secret– though, to be honest, the secret would only have been fair-to-middling if it hadn’t been for the imposing NDA.

November is month 2 of poem-a-day grind, with mildly relaxed rules. Three U of M poets, three from Warren Wilson. Not everyone knows each other. I like it.

Seriously, if I don’t get on the stick and put up a profile for Kirk on Catster tomorrow night, I’m gonna be embarrassed. That cat has needed a profile since Monday.

The stereo has been on constantly, but there has been a pronounced lack of music in my life of late. Maybe this will change when Ladybug gets back from Italy tonight.

The final results are in: I’m growing a beard, and by a margin of one vote to none, Ladybug will be growing a soul patch. She revealed last night that she began years ago. I can hardly see it, but I’ll trust her.

She heads to Italy today for work. Yuck. At least there are kitties in the house.

I’m engaged in another poem-a-day month, the first one I have done where I haven’t posted the poems somewhere public. I have three co-conspirators this time, including the lovely Ruba Ahmed, who did this with me in June. So far, everyone’s phoned it in at least once, but everybody has also nailed it right on the head at least once.

I’ve used the month as an excuse to give myself some formal challenges– rhyming, imitation, blank verse. I’ll probably attempt others, though likely on the weekends when I have time to write. Working a full day makes it hard to concentrate on one of these as long as I would like.

Deborah Ager did something in April that I thought was cool– she didn’t post the poems, but did post the titles. So, here are mine thus far:

Oct 1 - House With Chimaeras
Oct 2 - Expert Advice for Your Flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Chicago-Midway
Oct 3 - Expert Advice for Your Televangelism Ministry
Oct 4 - While Jobless, I Eat Snack Foods With Famous People
Oct 5 - Bayside
Oct 6 - Shit-Town
Oct 7 - Actaeon
Oct 8 - Box and Whisker Plot

Also, I haven’t been shaving since I left for vacation… I’m considering doing the beard thing again for a while. It’s generally pretty weak, but it beats shaving.

What do you think? Your vote would be welcome in the comments, though Ladybug’s vote will be worth like 150 of yours.

Also taking votes as to whether Ladybug should grow a beard.

I’m in Denver, visiting with my mom and stepfather for a day before I fly home after a business thing. I came out here to talk about professional learning communities with some real hotshots in the field. (I am wondering now how I even got invited… some of these people really knew their stuff.)

We spent the afternoon at the Colorado Rail Museum, which was terrific. To continue a theme, I think Mary, Scott, and I are going to go to Union Station to see the Denver Model Train Club run their trains. I’ve heard that’s a pretty massive setup for model trains… if so, I’ll be thoroughly impressed, because the setup at the Rail Museum was impressive.

If my week continues as it has begun, I’ll be able to start scheduling time for the work tasks that I labeled “low priority” back in June. I have been trying to accept very little new work until I could get to these things, because while they weren’t high priority at the time, they’ve accumulated, and their presence in my list of stuff to do has begun to make me feel mad anxious. One of them is technically about a year old. It’s time for it to happen.

Ladybug and I went to a live Clue party Saturday night, dressed up and mildly in character. This confirmed for me that I will never write mysteries, and made me think about being straightforward in poems as opposed to withholding information until it’s needed. It’s not hard to withhold in a poem, only to find when you release the information that the poem had telegraphed the revelation, announced the absence of meaning, and already veered towards gimmickry. Most of the best poems lay out the emotional stakes quickly and work within the parameters they’ve set forth. It’s not that they don’t surprise, it’s just that the surprise is warranted and earned.

One outcome of the party is that I’ve been thinking really seriously about organizing a big scavenger hunt. It’s way more fun to be on a team, but hey, we could put one together.

Someone broke into Ladybug’s car last night. Well, not broke in so much as went in, since she left it unlocked. They opened the glove box and tossed some stuff around, and then opened the trunk. But they didn’t take anything, since there wasn’t much of value. It’s hard to whine when nothing’s missing and nothing’s damaged, but it’s just never fun to wake up to a reminder that your world just isn’t as safe as you would like to believe.

Oddly enough, I had terrible trouble going to sleep last night; I kept hearing the cats rumble about and thinking that someone was in the house. I would wake up every couple minutes before I drifted off for good, convinced that when I opened my eyes, I was going to see a human form in the doorway. I am not sure what a panic attack feels like, but I’m guessing that’s pretty close. (My pulse has been well above normal for about two weeks straight, I think due to stress.) I had nightmares most of the night that were based on that initial paranoia…

After Ladybug roused me in the morning and I drifted back to sleep, I continued to have nightmares, but these were actually based on the lowest form of po-gossip. It was still sort of terrifying… people were physically threatening me about keeping their secrets and giving up others. And it was all the juvenile who-kissed-who kind of stuff that makes for interesting conversation but isn’t useful or important in any way. I woke up fairly convinced that I don’t want to know anything about anyone ever again.

Still, it’s nice to go from night terrors to po-terrors, the latter of which is the lesser. I did feel like my mental load was lighter for much of the day. Whatever was bothering me, I think (I hope) it worked itself out of my system.

DHL tried to deliver a package today. I’m guessing it was a packet. So, I’ve signed. Maybe it will be waiting when I come home tomorrow.

Tonight, I have treated myself to luxurious sloth, downloading some songs from music blogs (to give you an idea of the quality, the best was Kix’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes”… for serious) and shredding months worth of bills and bank statements and stuff.I had the shredder on for a good half-hour solid.

One Story arrived today and I still hadn’t read the last one. I’ll remedy that before the end of the night.