I came home today ready to make more than a tiny dent in my packet, which is due on Monday. With the recent craziness at work, I had been coming home absolutely drained, with no real poetry in me. a had a very productive day on Saturday, but didn’t actually do much of anything that will help my next packet, then incredible difficulty focusing on Sunday, and I took yesterday is a sick day because I was just in need of a break (the sore throat didn’t help).

But today I feel energized. This is due partly to the fact that I accomplished quite a bit at work today and left feeling as though I am doing everything I can. But it is also due to the fact that a friend sent me a draft of a poem that left me awed and very excited about poetry. I shouldn’t need these little reminders, but occasionally I do: I am extraordinarily blessed. I’m sure some writers go their whole lives, and never feel understood, never feel like they have co-conspirators and collaborators. Over the last few years, I seem to have no shortage of co-conspirators, people like Ruba, Emma, Michael, Bill and Jeremy, Ellen, Philip and others who shall remain nameless, in order to preserve their reputations as evil intimidators. And all throughout my life, no matter which art form I was working on, I have always been lucky enough to be around people who challenge me to do better, simply by doing fantastic work on their own.

Consider this the occasional, obligatory gushing post about how good life is. Pretty soon, I will feel so saccharine that I will need to say something really rude about some poet I don’t know: watch out, poet, who writes about his childhood but never has much to say. When I write the letter that goes with this packet, you’re gonna get served.

Update: all the misspellings above are due to voice recognition. Yes, I’m embarassed. Will correct later.

C. Dale in the Washington Post! And Pinsky talking about C. Dale.

Also, geekery. Tried this app last night and it works very nicely.

How cool is Ruba Ahmed? Check out how she subtly name-dropped Bull City Press in her recent interview with Broadsided Press.

Off to dinner with Randall Kenan. I expect that this will be much more fun than the rest of the day, in which I basically fought with this new work laptop. The transfer has not been smooth.

It turns out that Emma’s father grew up with a friend named Ross White.

I’m just angry tonight. A total douchebag sent a nastygram to a good friend, and somehow, since I didn’t get copied on the original e-mail that went out, there was some suspicion that I might feel the same way. Not even close. Nastygrams suck. They are for nasty people.

Ohhh, I am so irritated right now. If Ladybug and I had not had beer with a former student that I just adore tonight, I would be steaming. But, I’m just very irritated.

Stop with the nastygramming! Write vague, noncommittal entries in your blog, instead!

It’s amazing how an hour and a hot bathtub can give you a new perspective. My new perspective is: my fingers and toes are shriveled.

I did indeed send the essay in yesterday. I’ve written about 34 pages so far, though I haven’t yet formulated an ending. I was also somewhat surprised while I was working on Saturday to find that I had about five pages worth of letter to send in.

Now I’m up for some serious po-gossip, but alas, most of the blogs I read were quiet today. Here’s about all I gots:

• Emma has a chapbook coming out. Yay!
• Anne has a chapbook coming out. Yay!
• Deborah Ager is making September 2007 “Memorize-a-Poem-Every-Week Month.” I’m down for that.
• Inch contributor Jeffery Beam has work up at The Dead Mule.
• Courtney Love continues to wow the world with her experimental prose.
• Scientists may have figured out how to levitate. I give it six months before I have me a MODOK chair, people.

I’ve spent the last couple days getting things in order on my sweet new 320 GB hard drive. Turns out, even an USB 2.0 external drive is faster than my old 200 GB internal. I’ve been cleaning up and transferring music from the office drive to home and vice versa, getting ready for a sweet new laptop at work. That’s a lot of new toys, you feel me?

This month’s broadside from Broadsided Press is from one of my favorite co-conspirators, Ruba Ahmed. If you’re not already a vector, why not sign up? All you have to do is print and post the broadsides in your city, town, hamlet, village, or commune! You’ll use like four sheets of paper a month. Come on!

I now have eight submissions out. That’s the most I’ve ever sent out at once.

I don’t apologize for calling him out last night. But since Matthew Olzmann’s name has appeared so recently in this blog, you should read one of his poems.

Hell, while I’m at it, let’s Google-stalk a couple of my other poet-friends:
Ruba Ahmed
Laurie Capps
Maudelle Driskell
Justin Gardiner
Jynne Dilling Martin
Leslie Shipman

Many of my other friends can easily be stalked via the blogroll at left.

Other than my stalkings, I have spent the evening re-shelving and alphabetizing books in my office, in preparation for another semester of working my tail off. I did something I’ve never done last night– wrote a paper using voice recognition software. It was tremendously helpful– I got a lot out, and then did more revision than normal. I think just forcing myself to talk my way through the poem gave me the opportunity to look at my topic– stasis and the moment of binding– a little more thoroughly, and perhaps in a different way than I would have if I’d typed it up. When I type papers, I tend to go very slowly and deliberately, and then just revise once. Last night was wholly different. And cool.

Why are people allowed to have GMail accounts, but not Google chat? You should have them both if you have either. Looking at you, Matthew Olzmann.

As with all good memes: I see, I obey. Ivy tagged me to this one, wherein participants reveal 8 things about themselves. My strong tendency towards private confession makes this the best meme ever. How can I make you think I am telling you something while revealing nothing? Why is it so tempting to lie here?

1. When I was in seventh grade, I got into a fight with a guy named Chuck. Chuck was about a foot and a half taller than I was and he absolutely beat me down. It was the only fight I ever got into. I later found that whatever slight it caused the fight had been caused by somebody else and Chuck just thought it was me. So, undeserved beating.

2. This revelation is for Ivy Alvarez only: I was Ale from Steak and Ale. I enjoyed the libertine adventures of the character more than I enjoyed the poems. But I’ve come back to the poems. Haven’t come back to the character.

3. I’m a little obsessive about books. For many years, that obsession was paired with a strange fear of libraries, which I have only conquered in my thirties. In fact, I have swung entirely in the other direction, to the point where I am now a little obsessed with libraries.

4. Though I like small things, I am somewhat convinced that mankind’s end will in some way involve nanotechnology. I can trace some of my fears about man’s annihilation to The Beast– the interactive fiction/game/community that occurred in advance of the horrible Spielberg movie A.I. They have been intensified by the Bush administration. So yes, in my case, the terrorists have won.

5. I am a serial entrepreneur, but not a very good businessman.

6. Lots of people know I’m sort of a jerk. But I think few know that I really don’t know I’m being a jerk most of the time. I do truly believe that if you treat people right, good things will happen in your life. And I really do try to live by that credo, and be pleasant and fair. I recognize my failings in this, though usually only in retrospect.

7. After she delivered a sub to my place of employment and spent some time photographing our lighthouse, I asked a girl named Jenny out on a date. I found out that night that she had kissed Kim Deal, so I told her that I had to kiss her. We went to a show and met up with B-Mo. Jenny was seriously disappointed that I don’t smoke weed, and I never heard from her again. But I did kiss her that one time. Which means I basically kissed Kim Deal. And I love Kim Deal.

8. When I tell people that I have never used an illegal substance, they usually think I am joking. Failing that, they think I am lying to try to make some moral point. But that’s a true fact.

This meme requires that I help it self-replicate by tagging people. Emma Bolden, you must get a blog for the express purpose of answering the call of this meme. Jessie Carty, prepare to be tagged every time I get one of these. Then there are the people who aren’t likely to read this blog, but if you know them, tip them off that they’re named: Ken Rumble, Maureen Thorson, and Chris Tonelli. Daryl, you would be blogged if you had written about poetry in the last two months. But you haven’t– PENALTY BOX.