My First Double Abecedarian or The Pattern is the Primary Point

Zucchini crossed with a pirate gets you a squashbuckler. Ha!
You've got to really pay attention here, are you listening, bub?
X may mark the spot, but the tables of contents are kept at tic toc.
Which do you choose? Pirate or Ninja? You'd better rock it and
videotape it. Somebody needs a laugh and that person is probably me.
Upload it to YouTube. Not everyone gets it, but that's okay. If
Tigger gets into a terrible tangle will he then zig instead of zag?
Someone, somewhere has written 25 things about it. When you sayeth
random things, you meant carefully contrived. Am I right or am I?
Quick! Play rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock with Sheldon and Raj.
Procrastination and Facebook go hand in hand, but poetry and Facebook
oil and water, competitive spirit, whimsy and ennui do not mix. Why will
no one join me in this clever nonsensical not-quite poetical game? Boredom,
my dear, apparently does know some bounds. Although John and John -
Linnell and Flansburgh - would go for this sort of thing. “Hello Radio”
“Kiss me, Son of God” I should have thought of TMBG titles at the top -
just my luck. I see the easy way out after I'm already mired in the quag. Q
is a bitch. I lied; it isn't really boredom or too much time on my computer or
hands. No, just bouts of too much brain followed by faulty autopilot's messes.
Gee, since no one asked, my best conversation ender is, “I just read the most
fascinating thing on rare lichens” on which I will probably write a series of haiku
even if no one reads it. I am nothing if not persistently inconsistent. Mazel tov,
Dear! You really hit the nail on the head, I'm still picking out splinters. How
come I googled it, but I still don't get it? Don't you dare put me in a box,
Baby! Unless there is a fully-stocked art deco bar along one side of the library,
and laptop with wifi so I can inhale some poetry/haiku/your comments for the buzz.



Gah! This thing always jacks up the formatting on my Abecedarians! >:-( (I had to make it smaller.)

p.s. I wrote this back in February. Did you get it? Alphabet runs up with first letter and down with last of each line. I came across the concept in Mike Dockins poem “Dead Critics Society”(in The Best American Poetry 2007.) (Who needs a theme when you have lots of random shoutouts?) For the record, it did occur to me to embed a haiku, but I had to write this relatively quickly, so I didn't. Hmmm, somehow I don't quite see this being the next gigantic Facebook craze...

zeugma – a figure of speech in which a verb or adjective is applied jointly to two nouns although logically appropriate to only one; e.g., We changed our minds and our clothes. (Hadn't heard of that until I was wandering around in Z for this, so I threw one in - in the “i......r” line.)

What Keeps My Head from Exploding -OR- My Week in Perverse Joy

So anyway, our neighborhood is pretty diverse. (OK, diverse for a Texas suburb.) Our neighbors insisted on taking us (my parents are visiting) out for Indian food. The same neighbor had insisted on taking us out last trip, but my Mother somehow hurt her back and wound up in bed for three days. Actually, she preferred being in bed for three days to eating Indian food. Because I am diabolical, I had made my parents eat Indian food one time in Indiana. She still holds a grudge. That may run in the family.

Anyway, in case you're not familiar with vintage Indiana farm cookingness...when Mom made "chili" it had no actual chili powder in it. It had home-canned tomatoes (so very yummy), chunks of hamburger, kidney beans, and...wait for it...macaroni!!! It was some kind of unchililike soup. (We also called green bell peppers "mangoes." I still have no idea why.) Spices? You are allowed to use the teeniest bit of black pepper as a spice, but that's it. Anything over 1/16 teaspoon in a large pot and you'll hear about it! (I've since started taking her to Penzey's. For once my foolish optimism has paid off.) So Mom was all "Hell-to-the-No!" on the Indian food.

Oi...this is where I always get sidetracked. What am I supposed to say? My parents are good people. Oh, but their intolerant streak drives me *&^%ing insane.

See, Mom had really pissed me off at the art museum last week. I'll just say she had a tantrum of intolerance. Nice. So anyway, it made me crazy, but then mid-fuming it occurs to me in a somewhat comedysketchesque fashion...you know, I can keep this in mind when I'm picking out your nursing home someday. Imagine a battle of wills with a toddler...but my mother. Me: "By God you WILL stop being intolerant someday!" Yeah, OK, so it's not that funny, but it may have kept my head from exploding. I've learned to appreciate the little moments of perverse joy that keep my head from going kaboom. So yeah, I came to think of Mom going out to dinner as her 'time out' for bad behavior. And I did appreciate knowing that Mom was dreading going out for dinner. I knew she'd have fun, and she did. Still, it was nice to know she was not happy about it for the days leading up to it.

Ah yes, perverse joy. I believe @leewaters brought that up first in regard to declining follow requests on Twitter. I said something about me finding perverse joy in tricking people into doing something good.

Again with the parents. I've tried writing about this before...but it never works out. I'll just say that this dates back to something that happened last year. I'm still beyond pissed at them. At some point this winter I went all "By God you will do something good whether you want to (or even realize it) or not!" I had already been volunteering at a place for a while when it occurred to me...you know, they would *really* hate this place (what with being intolerant #&^s and all). So every time they're in town, I make sure to enlist their help for the cause. Among other things, I've had them extend their travel plans more than once so they can keep the kids while I go to a project they wouldn't actually approve of. (I'm pathologically vague. It's quite a gift. They don't actually realize where I'm going.) So even in their inability to be decent...they're promoting goodness in the world. And my head is intact. That all points to WIN, right?

Shhh, don't say anything. Don't ruin my diabolical plot to turn intolerant #%&^s into helperbots for good. :-D (Yes, I have an expansion plan.) That, and who's going to clean up the mess if my head explodes?

Abecedarian on Love and Letters

A poem of only twenty lines?
Bam! There goes my abecedarian.
Can't you have some pity on the verbose?
Do unto others? Does that ring a bell?
Eventually justice will prevail. All deserve the chance to pursue the
full measure of their happiness – in words and in love.
Guess I'd better decide which letters to exclude.
How will poor Q feel? I bet he'll see it coming, “This is dodge ball all over again.”
Isn't there some way we can all get along?
Just think how you would feel to be officially excluded.
Kindness needs to come back into style. Hatred is so last century.
Love and letters are all around us – wanted or not. I am
married to this idea of equality! Gee-whiz!
Now is the time! What happens if you become an “other” someday?
Once they burned the “others,” then the books. Let's get out of this fundamentally-flawed box.
Pressure is mounting. This is due tomorrow.
Quick! Let's look at this in a new way. Wraparound?! Mazel tov!
Right, can't leave anyone out, not even unassuming U.
Somehow, we all need to find a way to fit.

Backstory: I wrote this back in February. I thought it was a little strange that I had turned two poems in the day BEFORE they were due. (You could turn in three poems up to 20 lines each for a library contest.) I should have known I'd wind up writing a third and final one at midnight the night before. I guess procrastination and smartass proved once again to be an irresistible combination for me. So I wrote this in like 35 minutes. (Someone was going through a short-lived double abecedarian phase.) Yeah, I know the formatting in blogspot screwed this up. None of the lines run over in the original. ;-)

I managed to hit equal marriage rights, burning at the stake, book burning, (I also had small pox blankets in there, but had to take it out because the line was too long) and a slam on the line limit all in 20 lines. Plus a little golden rule, playground angst, Mazel tov and a quote from Obama's inauguration address thrown in for fun. As with everything I do, it's okay if you don't particularly like it. I like enough for the both of us. :-D

Btw, if you're going to write an acrostic (and I'm sure you ALL will), make sure you have the freaking alphabet spelled right! And that you number the lines right...although since I don't know if the title is included in the limit, the inadvertent 19 turned out to be a good CYA, er, C-my-A.

Update: Gee, I can't believe the library poetry contest committee didn't go for this! (or the other two on Twitter and Brain Freeze.)

Vermonters on my mind

So tonight, I'm thinking about those other Vermonters who went against the wishes of their constituents. (You know, as opposed to the current veto-threatening governor so many would like to clock.) Of course it took some digging in my brain and on Google to get here. All I could remember was I had heard a story on NPR sometime during my 10+ years in Texas. It was about a Vermont teacher who voted for same sex unions even though he knew his constituents would kill him (well, not Texas-kill him, just you know, never vote for him. Again. Ever.) But he said he couldn't imagine facing his classroom full of kids and saying what? I could have done the right thing, but wanted to keep my job?

So anyway, here are some links to actual details.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/20/us/vermont-senate-votes-for-gay-civil-unions.html
(article with State Senator Mark A. MacDonald who was the guy I vaguely remembered 9!?! years later.)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/gay_marriage/vermont.html
[At least read until you get to William Lippert. Makes me wanna clock the current governor upside the head with Rep. Allard ;-) ]

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=100675
"Heroes of the Green Mountain State"


Anyway, just thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane (even if parts of it were for the first time). It's important to look back, even while you're looking forward, remembering those who made a difference then, even while you're looking to the ones you hope will make a difference now. [And yeah, maybe look now and then at the person standing in between the two, :-)] So here is hoping the legislators who voted against the marriage bill will make good on their promise to vote to override Douglas' veto out of principle.

Last Sunday at Church we sang "Standing on the Side of Love" in tribute to Iowa. I sure am hoping next Sunday we'll be singing to Vermont. :-)