Poem

peeled

raw
like a grape
not like an onion
peeling an onion leaves layer after smooth whole layer
peel a grape and you go straight to the inside, where the nerves are

yesterday I had a glass of wine
it was a spanish wine
the grape went to a relaxed part of me
it was a calm happy grape
like a calm happy baby after a calm happy pregnancy
fat and happy in the sun, those grapes

today
i had a glass of wine
the grapes were sad grapes
they went to a sad place inside of me
i cried and felt deep despair
no, they were not bitter like the fable
they tasted of the most lovely sadness
like opera or shakespeare
like a love letter found when the love has gone

Where am I? Looks like Kansas before the storm

What I'm Reading

Zen in the art of writing - Bradbury
The Golden Compass - Pullman
Inkheart - Funke
We'll always have Paris - Bradbury
Uncommon grounds : the history of coffee and how it transformed our world - Pendergrast
Pigs in Heaven: A Novel - Kingsolver
Great Expectations - Dickens
We tell ourselves stories in order to live: the collected nonfiction - Didion

All around the Mulberry Bush ...

Greetings friends!

I guess I do have a little time for the occasional post still. I'm loving my new job and the prospects are good that I will be hired permanently in the fall. Hoping to take a little vAcA before then or in September. We'll see. In the meantime ... what do I do all day? Well it's like play and that's how I know I'm in the right line of work. I design flyers for library activities and work at the kids' desk, reference desk and circulation desk. I also write press releases, do the occasional interview and generally spend my day in a Candy Land of books. I love it!! The people I work for and with are varied and delightful. I feel lucky and blessed. I've been here for about 5 weeks and I'm afraid I'm going to wake up.

I'm still running although I was knocked low by a virus of some kind shortly after starting work. The library is a lovely place, but with so many kids, it's very germy and I missed a good 9 days of running. This set me back further than I thought it would. I went through breezing through a 5K three to four times a week to struggling to finish 2 miles. It took me just over a week to get up to 5K again but I've slowed a couple of minutes. Now I know why runners hate to miss training. Even my bad ankle was complaining afterwards. I recently added weights to my training and that has made a huge difference in how easy or hard a run feels.

I also wanted to mention a couple of products I really like. I just purchased a new Sally Hansen nail polish pen. It's the Color Quick Fast Dry Nail Color Pen in Turquoise Chrome. It goes on smoothly, drying in an instant and requires only one coat. According to the ingredients it does not contain Thalates, which I understand are not good for the body.

A second item to mention is Lindt's Chili Chocolate. If you eat this you will wonder why all chocolate doesn't contain chili. And hint hint try it with a dark, medium dry, spicy red wine. Talk about a taste explosion in your mouth! Xcuse my terrible blurry images this evening, using my phone.