Poems I wrote somewhere in New Mexico

While I was in college, I took a few poetry classes. I created what I consider my best work ever (which amounts to three poems) and ever since, have not been able to complete a poem I am as proud of. I think my problem is I learned too much about writing poetry intended for other poets. I used to be able to write poems and short stories with such ease--and now I over-think, over-analyze and focus too much on creating intellectual syntax and deeper meaning. So fast-forward to a week or so ago... I was on day two of my three-day cross-country train ride back to L.A. when I finally was able to write and complete two poems. Here they are:

Need vs. Desire

The American Dream was left for dead
cleverly disguised as a weathered Cadillac
next to a stack of used tires
between two terracotta towns

(Someone told you you wanted it)
(Someone told you you needed them)

Signs point toward towns too small to map
as tractor trailers & pickups speed past
backyards full of scrap metal & dry riverbeds
en route to destinations unseen

(Someone told you you bought it)
(Someone told you you owned them)

All Dreams will end the same--
sunbleached by time,
abandoned by technology,
until we differentiate need vs. desire.

Scarecrows

You & I
are scarecrows
between dry watering holes
& dead telephone poles

It's here we question:
how they can afford so many miles of fence
how the cattle are fed and watered
where the dirt road leads
where the nearest general store is located

Is there more to life?
we wonder, alone
unable to wander
far from home.

Tah dah, lemme know what you think. Would love to know your interpretations...

call me slow but... NO MORE JANE MAGAZINE?!!! :(

so i was on a freelancing spree yesterday because i have some short stories and poems that i would love to see published (i've had some work published in my college's literary journals, but to me that doesn't count) so i'm online looking for publications and i think... "Oooo, what about JANE magazine, they publish short stories in the back of their issues!!" so i go to janemag.com and i get redirected to Glamour magazine. what gives?? and then i see this... dun dun dun.

Dear Jane Reader:

With regret, Jane and janemag.com is no longer being published.
In its place, we invite you to explore Glamour magazine and Glamour.com.
We think you’ll love Glamour.com. Like Jane, it’s packed with everything smart, sexy women want to know—about your body, your beauty, your relationships … and more!

Sincerely,
Jane Magazine

WHAT?!!! Glamour is no substitution for JANE... that's why i never renewed my subscription to Glamour when it ended years ago!! (but this does explain why they keep sending it to me).

so i google this situation and discover this isn't news... this is OLD news!!

August 24, 2007 -- FORMER Jane magazine staffers are livid that Conde Nast is sending their one-time readers copies of Glamour now that Jane has bitten the dust. "I want all the Jane readers to just cancel, rather than get Glamour," one ex-staffer griped. "I hope they call and say, 'I don't want this. Give me GQ, anything but this.' " Jane subscribers were informed by Conde Nast, "We think you'll love Glamour. Like Jane, it's packed with everything smart, sexy women want to know." But those who worked for Jane editrix Brandon Holley say, "Glamour is not at all like Jane . . . It's the exact opposite. They preach fake empowerment of 'loving your flaws.' Jane doesn't point out flaws. Glamour is still preaching that women aren't good enough." A Jane staffer who was once courted for a job at Glamour told us she "was asked for a list of 'Jane-type' story ideas, then told, 'we will then need to dumb them down for our readers.' " A rep for Glamour declined to comment on the subscription pitch, but told us, "We don't comment on why specific people don't get hired, but it's safe to say that with two National Magazine Awards in the past three years, we don't dumb down our content." ~nypost.com

JANE was my FAVORITE magazine!! the ONLY one i'm subscribed to!! COSMO is for whores. Glamour is for housewives. and JANE was for hip, "irreverent" artsy chicks. even the paper it was printed on was different and kewl!! not that uber-glossy always-stick-together crap. and JANE wasn't loaded with perfume ads and the photography was creative and the covers used to be awesome (those extreme close up shots) and there were always GOOD articles... not "10 sex tricks to convince your boyfriend he'd rather spend time with you than his friends." NOOOOO!! in JANE, the message was "screw him if he's rather spend time with his friends... here's 10 great roadtrips for you and your girl friends."

but truth be told, we should have seen this coming. ever since Jane Pratt left and Brandon Holley took over JANE, it was all downhill. no matter how many ads tried to lead us to believe that Brandon was "So Jane!" it wasn't the same. Brandon started squeezing out all the kewl features and replacing them with pages of indie music recommendations. (oh goody!!) don't get me wrong, Brandon was blunt and honest and covered some great features, but... I BLAME HER FOR ALL OF THIS. ;)

luckily i have a pile of back issues i haven't read yet (since they still get delivered to my mother's house). i hear BUST magazine is a fair, even sassier, substitution. R.I.P JANE magazine.

english language... not so easy to understand.

How confusing is English to learn? Try on these sentences for size:

1. We have to polish the Polish funriture.
2. How can he lead if he can't get the lead out?
3. A skilled farmer sure can produce a lot of produce.
4.The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
5. The solider decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
6. No time like the present to present the present.
7. A small-mouth bass was painted on the big bass drum.
8. The white dove dove down into Dover.
9. I spent all of last evening evening out the pile.
10. That poor invalid, his insurance is invalid.
11. The bandage was wound around the wound.
12. They were much too close to the door to close it.
13. That buck sure does some odd things around the does.
14. The absent-minded sewer fell into the sewer.
15. You sow! You'll reap what you sow!
16. The wind was way too strong to wind the sail.
17. After a number of injections, my jaw finally got number.
18. If you don't object to the object, I would like to subject the subject to a series of subjective objectives.

(taken from Uncle John's UNSTOPPABLE Bathroom Reader, hehe)

10-12-07 stream of consciousness

i already ate breakfast but i go back to the fridge for two more almonds but two becomes four and four becomes six. and six becomes more pretzels. i crouch down and hug the cat, lifting her front feet off the floor so she's standing upright. "this is what it'd be like if you were a human," i whisper.

i want to reinvent my way of writing because i haven't written a worthwhile poem since i had to in college. i spend an embarrassing amount of time copying and pasting a stranger's fragmented thoughts into a word document and file it away for inspiration. unlike her i don't have the booze, the drugs or the crazy friends (nor do i want them) but i wish i could write like her. i know she thinks she can't write, but she can.

my editor (aka my grandmother) calls. "i think you meant 'secluded' but you put 'excluded'," she says. and she's right. my problem is i can't stay focused. there are too many things i want to create. poems, photos, jewelry, greeting cards, tee shirts. you name it. the dishes still aren't in the dishwasher that leaves soap crystals stuck to the the plates.

i edit photos and realize i haven't left the apartment today. i need to cash two checks and dust my bedroom. my best friend comes to visit in three days but i haven't spoken to her in two weeks. i turn a fisheye shot into an interesting double exposure, make it pink and green and title it "if malibu were a snow globe." a phrase that inspires a lovely shell of a poem in my head. if only i could write poems again.

it's fall and it's cold, but not as cold as it would be if i was home. (although my body is convinced there is no temperature difference today). i add dish soap to the dishwasher because the crystals don't work and we don't have anything else. five minutes pass and i'm scooping suds off the floor with a paper plate. swirly piles of foam fill the kitchen sink. the last time this happened was when i wanted the dishes to be "extra clean". miss gray meows for food. i shake the bowl and she thinks it's new. i wish i were that easy to please.

i'm eating the pretzel nuggets my grandmother mailed me yesterday which reminds me i have things to mail. my boyfriend calls. it's about the perfume i want that the store doesn't carry. so i have to find it online. my best friend calls. she's packing. it is supposed to be in the 70s while she's here so i told her to bring layers and 80s clothes. we're going out on thursday. "i have to pick out ice cream toppings and bake fifty cupcakes for sunday," she complains. she used to like making cupcakes. she's keeping an eye out for a new job because she's tired of dealing with a bitchy boss and coming home late and getting up early, but she loves the stockings and work clothes. (i hate the word pantyhose).

there's a washcloth pocked with mascara marks my mother draped over the tub. i'm hesitant to throw it in the laundry basket because time will make it seem like she hasn't been here in a week. she's home, living out of her suitcase and has a lunch date tomorrow but she doesn't know what to wear. it's either a striped long-sleeved sweater that she she bought me for Christmas one year or what she wore on Mother's Day.

it's nearly 7 now and we haven't eaten dinner yet. andrea was supposed to call me in an hour but an hour was hours ago. she's probably still packing. i'm eager to see the photos dave and his friend shot of me yesterday when i was wearing the pink wig that made me look like natalie portman in "closer." the wig was too kewl not to ask to borrow. my minds churning with ideas for halloween. we still need to buy candy. yesterday i was a model, tomorrow i am a PA, next week a beauty consultant. it's like halloween every day.

it looked like rain all afternoon and tonight it finally burst. there's still foam in the bottom of the dishwasher so i run it again on "light wash." next time i'll do them by hand. my boyfriend started calling the cat "PITA" (Pain In The Ass) and gets mad when i ask him to throw the asparagus into the steamer pot because the cat is comfy on my lap. after dinner, miss gray purrrs in his face and throws herself onto his lap and he forgets what a PITA she is.

it's almost 11 and i'm back on pretzels in front of the computer. two nights ago rick and i played scrabble online because we're too lazy to set it up in the living room but it took even longer to play. i take two nuggets out at a time, hoping they'll be the last two but two becomes four and four becomes six. we just finished watching the special features to "one flew over the cuckoo's nest." i never saw the movie in its entirety but i knew something happened to the Indian at the end. i remember my mother being happy with the outcome.

my bedroom is still dusty but the dog crate is finally out of the spare room. "why don't you read over here?" i ask my boyfriend who is still in the living room reading a Brian Wilson biography. i convince myself this is the last pretzel so he won't have to read over my pretzel crunching. there are new dishes in the sink and the cat box still smells but there's always tomorrow. i'm a procrastinator, but at least i'm consistent.

maybe tonight i'll fall asleep in our bed instead of the spare bed, convincing myself under clean sheets that i'll just lie down for two minutes. but two becomes four and four becomes six and pretty soon it's time for my boyfriend to crawl out of bed to turn off the lights, shut down the computer and return me to where i belong.

thanks joan didion.

i finally started reading joan didion's "we tell ourselves stories in order to live," a collection of her non-fiction short stories and novels. i carefully absorbed every perfectly structured detail and even reread some stories i've already read and i feel inspired. didion is an author i aspire to emulate. and now i finally feel like writing short stories and poems again!! i should have picked up one of didion's novels earlier because for the past year i've been in a slump, but now i've got ideas, lots and lots of ideas and i'm starting 7 things at once because i don't want to lose any of these precious details i've created today on the beach. :)

thanks miss didion.

p.s. honorable mention goes to "open city," the spring/summer 2002 edition. seeing what is being published (especially if i think i can do better), gives me hope. no offense to the contributing authors...

but i can't touch joan didion. she is light years above me. i can only hope that through osmosis, my writing will one day reach an iota of her magnitude. oh how amazing it would be to meet her.

my advice on blogging... don't follow advice.

so there's this columnist on yahoo who i always unintentionally run into by clicking little headlines like "Five Steps to Being More Productive," "Breaking the Perfection Habit" or "Four Ways to Make a Bad Job Good." the author is successful, "her syndicated column has run in more than 200 publications... she was a software executive... founded two companies... has been through an IPO, an acquisition and a bankruptcy... before that she played professional beach volleyball..." blah blah blah, says the bio on her website. the problem... her articles resemble something i wrote when i was freshman in college. they're weak!! she lists common sense in a numerical order and then throws in some quotes from books or the internet. i'm not the most affluent writer, but i am a critical editor. i love finding grammatical errors as much as i love making them. anyway, let's get to my point...

i find an article she wrote for The Boston Globe titled "Blogs 'essential' to a good career," in which she and a professor from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena makes the following recommendation...

"But pick your topics carefully and have a purpose. ''The most interesting blogs are focused and have a certain attitude," says van Allen. ''You need to have a guiding philosophy that you stick to. You cannot one minute pontificate on large issues of the world and the next minute be like, 'My dog died.' ""

that's great advice for... business executives. (but, personally i love those blogs fueled by the contempt of a 9-to-5 cubical job written by someone who wants to "stick it to the man"). when i see a blog that only caters to new gadgets or celebrity gossip or personal philosophies, i stop reading. i get bored. i need variety. i want to connect with someone or something, find the familiar in the unfamiliar. the truth is, people are nosy. that's why reality shows are still popular. they love the one-sided bond between self-identity and the personal life of a stranger.

on paper, employers are more interested in your career. online, employers want to investigate your personal life. that's why it's beneficial to combine the two. show you are a dedicated worker, but also show you have a life outside of work. how wouldn't it be beneficial for an employer to discover than you both share an obsession for receiving positive feedback on ebay??? those quirks allow people to relate to you. if you're a creative professional giving your blog address to clients, it's true that you should slightly monitor your content, but don't void it of personality. show future employers you are a loyal friend, a pet lover, a multi-tasker or an avid mini golfer. you never know where it will take you.

so in the world of blogging, remember why buffets are so appealing... because there's a variety!! just make sure to keep your content hot.