08.27.16
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1979: The Mucil Age

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Was there any finer adhesive
Than sticky brown mucilage?
Your paper, your fingers, your desk, and your hair
Could all play a part in collage.

Kids today only use “school glue.”
There isn’t even paste to eat.
We must send 48 glue sticks
To stick the damn kids to their seats.

There’s disappearing purple and staying purple
And teeny, weeny sticky dots.
But for me, mucilage was king,
Because mucilage was all we got.

Note: Sort of like government cheese, mucilage was much more common in the 1970’s. As a child who was often bored with the lesson, I experimented with viscosity, drying time, and bond strength by gluing my hand to the desk. I’d also glue my fingers together and pull them apart slowly to watch the mucilage form tiny tendrils that finally….SNAPPED. This was likely a less charming habit than it seemed at the time, but I was quiet and at my desk, so that was a plus.

About that picture: As punctuation to an unrelated conversation, I announced, “Well, I guess I’d better glue my hand to a piece of paper now.” My husband was nonplussed, which seems odd because he has met me before. After he was insufficiently impressed by my indoor shots, I took my hand modeling gig outside for the neighbors to wonder at. So…that’s a piece of paper glued to my hand and photographed while hoisted skyward. Hi, neighbors. Just me again.

08.27.16
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Scaling Mt. Clothesmore

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O! Mountain of cleansed things!
How you mock me from the basket,
and the floor, and other there,
and on my bed.

You are a pestilence before whom I fold,
a scourge without scale.
I weep and bow down, helplessly watching
the Clean But Unfolded ossify
into skeletons in my laundry room.

Note: Early on, I fooled my husband into thinking I was a folder. I used to go to the laundromat, and I folded it all before I brought it home. As soon as we were able to have a washer and dryer, this never happened again. Fortunately, folded laundry was not my sole appeal.

Also Note: Ahhhh! I missed midnight! As a piece of advice, it’s a terrible idea to go to a car lot at 6:30 PM and start the car buying process. This would seem like common sense, but I am an uncommon person. *yawn*

08.25.16
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Premourning

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sometimes I miss you
even though you’re exactly                    there
because you won’t be

Note: I drove home alone from the beach today, up Hwy 101 from Manzanita to Hwy 26. It’s a corridor like the ones characters in movies drive through to show that they’re leaving one part of their life behind and approaching another. With the “Stranger Things” soundtrack as my own personal backdrop, I let tears roll for the last first day of kindergarten, and the piece of me that will bounce off into the world in the most official of ways. I call this process pre-mourning. It doesn’t seem to help, really, but it’s a bit like those patent medicines that claim to shorten your cold. Prove it didn’t!

Also:  I know, I know, I counted the middle line on my fingers, too.  Remember, it’s “Bad” Haiku Corner.

08.24.16
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I Forget

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if I made a list
of everything I forgot
it would all be here

Note: I do make lists. If I forget to put something on the list, though, it no longer exists in the universe until I need it 200 miles from home. We are going home tomorrow. All the things will be there, unless I forget some here.

08.23.16
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She Smells Seashells

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Your children bring back treasures
From the seashore, things espied.
It behooves you to check closely
That no corpses cling inside.

Though there may not be a’swimming
A lowlier creature than the whelk,
In a week or so, in Junior’s room,
There’ll be no more powerful smelk.

 

Note: As a child, I spent a half-supervised hour during my brother’s boring seaside cross-country meet digging in the sand, excavating the jawbone of what was likely a deceased canine. I was not allowed to keep my specimen. I was “allowed” to ride the several hours home with my freezing fingers outside the car window, then “assisted” with multiple scrubbings to get the smell off them. Ah, the smell of de-ceas…ed canine. (Too far for that one, I know. *shrug*)

08.22.16
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Explain It Again, I’ll Get It Eventually

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The other day, I made a joke
That nobody got but me.
Thankfully, a Samaritan man
Was right there to help me see…

That the joke to which I responded,
Had a “punchline” that I must have missed.
Thank god he added a winky face,
In case I wasn’t already pissed.

Oh, kind, KIND sir, my friend
With the very best of intentions.
I assure you the problem is not
My reading comprehension.

You are the one who missed it,
And maybe that’s not your fault.
But let me explain it at least twice
So you appreciate its heady gestalt.

Oh, and give me your business card, please.
I’ll put you on retainer.
I’ve been trolling the whole internet
For a zealously attentive mansplainer.

Note:  I have made many jokes in my life that fell flat, or were sloppy, or were too many steps away to be a good rejoinder.  I’m familiar with polite laughter and quizzical faces, and I’m cool with that.  I am apparently not good with a guy I don’t know explaining that I missed the punchline.  Weird.

08.21.16
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Disaplating

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I used to work in nice restaurants
Where I learned the art of presentation.
Now I am feeding my husband this meal–
Worthy of defenestration!

Note: It is delicious smoked chicken.  I just couldn’t be bothered to wipe the plate last night while I was doing 70 bazillion loads of laundry (so we could take it to the beach and filthy it up again).

Also…I gave this so much thought when I started, I didn’t think at all about posting from a campsite.  This ought to be entertaining.

08.20.16
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Handy

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Lewis Carroll was left-handed.
His whimsy it helps to explain.
While I write with the north paw,
I seem to have a left-handed brain.

Note: I am particularly attracted to the left-handed. There were and are a lot of lefties in my family, and now I have a husband and son who favor their lefts. I find the different places they go on their trains of thought delightful. In The Tiny Giant, the novel I’m getting ready to send to the world, Dan is left-handed, and it’s key to his position in the story.  Lewis Carroll has a bit part in the story about 2/3 of the way through, and his handedness was his ticket in.  Lefties, I will always make room at the table for you, just…wait, don’t sit there, because then we’ll have to play dueling elbows…there.

08.19.16
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103° Pacific Northwest

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103 in Oregon
Feels like the face of the sun.
I’m used to dressing in layers,
But I don’t know dressing in one.

This vest is sleeveless, at least,
Even if it’s filled with down.
Maybe the fingerless gloves?
They’ll be cool while we walk downtown?

We already wear nothing but shorts,
Check my hiking boots, they’re Arctic Fox.
My ski hat will shield my head from the rays
While sweat puddles up in my socks.

I clearly don’t know the keys
To hot weather survival and dress.
Five minutes outside, I’m a goner.
Call the coroner to scrape up the mess.

You hot, wicked Devil, you Sun,
Put your clouds back on, scorcher of retinas!
You’ve proven I’ll never be cool,
Now go away and play with your nebula.

Note: I took that picture by sticking just my arm out the back door at 8:00AM this morning. It physically hurts my eyes to look at the picture, let alone go outside. We are the naked mole rats of America, and we are not made for this weather.

08.18.16
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Roadskillz

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My undercarriage is almost the last thing
That stupid squirrel ever saw.
He ran from one side to the other.
His plan should be called “Fatal Flaw.”

My car passed right over his eartips.
No THUD ka-THUMP THUMP was heard.
Must have been like Independence Day,
But deafening and all in a blur.

I saw him go on in my rearview,
Back to his friends in the ditch.
I swear I heard another one say…
“Here, hold my nut and watch this!”

Note: Squirrels, man. I grew up in a rural place, and I know the roadkill rules. If it’s the size of a squirrel, and on a highway, you don’t do anything drastic to avoid it. Swerving to avoid it is more likely to cause you to lose control of your vehicle than avoid the damn thing anyway. I jogged the car over a few inches and Stupid Squirrel must have hunkered down. It’s not worth it, Stupid Squirrel. Don’t do stuff like that to impress the other squirrels. They will not remember it tomorrow, and if you are flat, they won’t remember YOU tomorrow. Go taunt a dog or something.