This blogging thing is hard.

Oh the woes of the pseud-busy me.

A few things. I'm tremendously excited because I'm going tot he opera tonight, to see some Wagner. It'll be the first opera I've been to in years, so I'm pumped.

I'm not sure why I'm not writing ONLINE more. Especially because I'm looking for writing groups. I guess I can't figure out whether I'd rather have a digital or physical one.

But in the meantime I started thinking of a good metaphor for a poem. Let's see if I can come up with a few lines.

There's a small button
on my left thigh --
watch for it. I'll depress
it during an emergency.
It deploys the twinkle
in my eye, and I've many
emergencies these days.
Who taught me that one?
To wield the "shiny thing"
with such potency?

Life -- the magnolia that keeps on bloomin'

Walking to my apartment tonight after walking a friend to his car. The magnolia has started blooming; part of me wishes there were more than one, but I'll take it. The tree holds countless pink-dyed eggs. The yolks have been carefully drained giving each blossom the illusion of delicacy; the marks of tiny paint brushes are everywhere and extend beyond each flower -- the precision sharpens everything around the tree, heightening even the details of the air which my fingertips feel.

Among those sharing the subway last night with me were four deaf people. They were signing while their lips were evoking. I watched out of the corner of my eye. The Indian infant was not so bashful, watching with wide eyes, squeals and all. His Indian grandmother and mother also seemed less bashful than me.

How different is their world? How much harder it must be for them to walk up to strangers in a bar and greet them after only one drink. Maybe they need more. Or maybe their differences have helped them cast aside fear and do it without any.

I don't know.

Do they feel more when they see egg-blossoms in the warming spring air?

Accidently taking.

A girl on the subway is listening to her headset, lip-syncing, and bobbing, or more accurately banging, her head. Her eyes are getting all contorted, squinty-like -- you can tell that she really feels it. Somehow (someone must have told her) our eyes catch, as if when lugging an over-sized bag through a turnstile. The glint is lost -- her exuberance settles down into the muck, the riverbed of the subway. Unsuccessfully, I stir the silt with my feet, hoping to fling it back into the air. Her attention bores into her lap, and I am sorry.

Vague Maps

Gazing up at the street-sign you retrieve the map from your pocket. The territory is unfamiliar -- the map is worn, creased. Noting an unfamiliar symbol you refer to the key.

A curse drifts out from under your breath, or did you only utter it in your head? At least 40% of the characters are Cyrillic. That's up from 20% last time. 35% aren't used in the map. 15% are upside down -- a teenage girl in over sized leather boots stifles laughter as she notes your sideways deciphering. At least one third of the symbols refer only to specific pages in War and Peace. The other half are more or less cogent.

You find your location on the map just as a snow plow drives by, splashing you with lemon juice that looks, smells, and tastes like water. But the rainbow it creates, briefly cast above the sewage drain, has the texture of a lemon rind.

On the map, you note that the intersection is marked with footnote #5*. The corresponding entry reads "Spice Up Your Life," -- The Spice Girls. The feel of lemon peel fresh on your mind, you sit down on the curb, find the song on your iPod, and hit play.