Geni

A friend sent me a link to a genealogy site, said it took over his life. He and his cousins traced their family back to the 17th C and they've got something like 50 (email accessible) people participating all over the world. Well, I logged in. So what? I knew I'd be the only one of me up there. Not even my parents to link to. The whole thing is stupid, anyway. Really, why do people care?

The guilt

The main question is, who left the front door unlocked? Billy says he can't remember if he locked it when he came home from the beach, is he lying? Peter doubts that when he got back from his date Billy was already home. When did the workers leave the premises? Jimmy thinks he saw the light in the garage, when he woke up because of the sound of the front door opening. He doesn't know whether it was Peter or Jimmy or one of the workers looking for something inside the house. The point is, somebody was here, inside, because the dog was barking, and in the morning Jimmy's stuff -- all the expensive stuff, laptop, cellphone, school bag -- was missing. So the question is, who was it who didn't turn the latch? Who didn't fasten the chain? Because that's the person who must pay Jimmy the damages. That's the person who's effectively guilty.

Baked apple

The simple stop at the post office to mail cookies to my cousin that should've taken not more than 5 minutes in fact lasted so long that an apple I left on the passenger seat of the car was half-baked by the time I got back. It was baked on the top, the part that was directly exposed to the sunlight. I had never realized that something like this could happen to an apple, although thinking about it in retrospect, it totally makes sense. I ate it anyway. A man standing in front of me in line to mail four Priority envelopes had collapsed and died on the spot, before my very eyes. The paramedics took 10 minutes to arrive, and then they thought he had a stroke. There were bubbles coming out of his mouth. He fell down right in front of me. I think his arm brushed against my knee. Then the police was there too and they had all kinds of questions to ask. I was a witness -- as if there had been anything to witness. Somewhere between the paramedics and the police I wondered what was going to happen to his mail. Like if it was ever going to get mailed. The post office employees didn't seem very concerned about it. They just stood back and were pale and didn't know what to say. I think they wanted to close for the day, but I just begged them to process my stuff. I mailed the cookies and the Priority envelopes and tried not to think about how the addressees wouldn't know about how they got mail from a dead guy.

Power of authority

The attraction is instant. You come into the classroom, pick an empty seat -- it's easy, most of them are empty, -- take out brand new writing pad and your sack of colored pens and pencils, wait. Students stroll in, most of them younger, distracted, casual. Finally, at 7 on the dot, he walks in and shuts the door behind him. He hands out syllabi and smiles. "So, tell me, what is a play?" he asks.

Dragon Day

"Do you know when the Holiday of the Dragon is?" message comes. I go online and spend half an hour researching the question, then text back, "I think it's in March, but on lunar calendar, so hard to know for sure." But my eight-year-old correspondent tricks me, "I'm just reading a book," she texts back. "The one you gave me." Oops.

Lecture

Dr. Chekhov was a cranky old man. He died of tuberculosis in Yalta. The one thing he always wanted to do -- to write a novel -- eluded him, so he made up half a dozen of plays and hundreds of short stories. He was married to an actress, that didn't help. The actress was independent and lived in St. Petersburg, so they only saw each other once a year. But still, they were married. Perhaps, the cost of opportunity of finding a new wife was too high. They also could've been romantics. The only thing that mattered were letters, words. One theory goes, theatre is a process of othering the self in order to constitute self. Go ahead, explain that to undergrads.

Geese

My heart is closed for the season.
The geese, V, wintering.
Staples: meat and potatoes.
I go to the library to work
every day
I eat apples, for vitamins.
In other news, my story
is getting published in the Faraway Journal
in February.
Perhaps in the spring there will be ocean
again
and sunset, and homeless people;
there will be you
and shiver
and electricity.
But perhaps it will be too late
and this winter is the last one.

Tree texture

I got to paint a tent today. We were walking by a neighborhood park, and there were some kids painting a tent there. They drew a tree, brown, navy blue sky on the background. "Here," they said, "give it some texture!" So I took a paintbrush and drew white, brown, and blue squiggles on it. It started to look like an alien tree as a result of my efforts.

Alpine Smith

Alpine Smith, Inc is anxious to rid our driveway of snow. They'll come for the first time free of charge to evaluate the amount of work, and then give us a quote for their quickest service and environmentally friendly equipment. They'll even make sure to give us wide edges and to blow-clean the walkway to the front door -- but! they will not venture off the pavement or do damage to our lawn. These guys are SO good that they'll first bring snow to the Mission District and then clean it off. Because obviously anybody with the San Francisco address must miss snow THIS badly.

Smart kid

The boy called today. He told me to meet him at the Burger King, on the corner of 16th and Valencia. He's never been in the city before, and he tells me where to meet him! Thank you Google Street View for this particular pleasure: little kids telling us where to go and what to do. So I suppose he will also tell me which restaurant I should take him to. What ice cream I should get him. He'll insist on not seeing the Fisherman's Warf or Chinatown, oh no, that's for tourists and he means business, like what about going down the Peninsula to check out that Computer Museum? That place is getting great yelp reviews! Fine, fine. Fine. He can BART it if he likes, if he's so good at it. I'll stay home and go to the Zeitgeist to while away the time. Thank goodness, they don't let kids into the bars yet.

To the dog owner, received and processed

On Thursday & Friday your dog(s) kept me awake as I work graveyard. The one has been bad enough (now you have 2?) as you can't seem to control its incessant barking. Now 2 is ridiculous!
You obviously are self-centered & have no regard for neighbors.
If you don't control or train or muzzle your mutts I will launch a petition & see what all the neighbors think of your inconsiderateness. On Thurs & Friday the dogs must of been unsupervised as they yapped & fought most of the day! Back & forrth & it echoed off the buildings!
DO something -- or I will launch the neighbors together! The ones I have talked to are fed up!
Enough is Enough!

Childhood

I read in bed, when the sun finally broke through the lace curtain
I read on the porch, dew and dragonflies, neighbors waking up, buckets banging
I read in the milk line, when there was nothing else to do
I read in the kitchen, water boiling, grandmother sighing
why don't you do something
I read in the strawberry patch in between the spurts of weeding
smudges of dirt and grass between the pages
mosquitoes
It was hard to read in the currant bushes, fingers black and blue
arms aching
I read by the side of the lake, where no one was watching
what took you so long?
nothing, nothing
I read on the old couch by the fire pit, after potatoes had been watered
cucumbers covered up with polyethylene
I read while she watched TV, forte piano sonata performed by Evgenij Kissin
Back in bed I wrote poetry and read, longing

Rings and dresses

A boy is coming to get the rings and the dresses. He's coming all the way from Brooklyn, New York, but considering the distance all this stuff has already traveled, this is not far at all. These rings, they are quite old-fashioned. A purple stone in a bulky gold setting, and a simple gold band, woven sort of like a beehive. She had worn them till the day she died, and they had to pry them off her swollen white fingers. This was in Khabarovsk, and now they've traveled to St. Petersburg, Frankfurt, Palermo, and San Francisco, and the boy is coming for them from Brooklyn. The dresses, too. Summer crepe de chine decorated with wild roses and white daisies thrown against the pitch-black background. The kind of pattern that was mass produced once but will never be reproduced. She loved the dresses and willed them to her daughter, and now the boy is coming to get them. I wonder what he thinks about this errand.

My mother's dream

She encoded his words, his story within the allergy blotches upon her skin. It felt like the right thing to do.