It has been twelve days since I quit smoking.

Why do I allow other people to affect my mood?
Is that why Georgia O'Keeffe planted herself in the middle of the desert? What did I LIKE about society today?

I liked the three pieces of nigiri sushi I ate at Sushi.com for brain food. They came with a tiny salad and yummy garlic dressing and miso soup. The sushi was too expensive though.

I liked dropping off my application for UM's MFA program
at the Rackham Graduate Building. I never noticed how beautiful it is before--marble floors, richly colored carpets, large echoing ceilings, sweeping stairways. Nooks and crannies galore and the famous auditorium where I saw Lawrence Kasdan give a speech about the making of
The Big Chill...

I am reminded of the summer before I left for Munich and how poignant the time at Owen House. It was the first time ever that I had my own room, but I was only a college sophomore so there was nothing in it. Just some oil paintings I found in the attic, pastel drawings of my own, and empty wine bottles. My hair was strawberry blonde then.

Katie had lived for two months in London, where she worked as some kind of data entry girl and drank beer for dinner. When she came back she lived three blocks away at Stevens. She told me she was going to stay the whole summer, but she was sick of being hungry and sick of being poor.

"See my face?" She asked me one day, walking home from the library. "It's flawless."

It was flawless, except she always wore the brightest red lipstick she could find, and it was always smeared all over her front teeth.

*

What am I DOING here?


*

"O To Be a Dragon"

If I, like Solomon...
could have my wish--

my wish... O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven--of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!

--M. Moore


*

Here is the link to the Alice Notley web recording I mentioned earlier. She begins, "You had effectively drugged me."

http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/gpp2002/notley.html

*

I'm going to fill out another application for editing jobs at The University of Chicago now.

*

I better look into this some more:

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/fx/help/payor-faq.html/ref=zm_pb_h_01/104-2326162-5952765#what-is-this