Thursday, August 22, 2013

Driving north and feeling down
When on the radio a sappy blues
number, Unhappy little girl blues.
Hey line comes on about Counting raindrops on the windshield.
I look at the windshield and notice the raindrops.

Song is taunting me for being an unhappy little girl.

Suddenly I am thinking Prospero giving up his magic and becoming a new prince again.

And a siren from behind me and I jump out of my skin. Too jumpy. Paranoid. Because I am in standstill traffic and texting. Because I am always under the gun release days. Mostly because I am not very smart when it comes to the exigencies of living day-to-day life. But that is the price of being me, no? So then how to be me and to please a worried perfectionist.

Then there's just becomes a journal entry and not a poem.

Step back and notice how pain led me to think. Also take a breath and stop thinking. Then I feel better. But that is the crux of the problem. How do I not think and enjoy, when I have to think all the time?

You just heard, sometimes I'm happy, the DJ says on the radio.

Radio as Prospero. Prospero as. Shakespeare as writer. Writer as self.



Friday, August 9, 2013

Romantic comedy

My friend Chris sent me a play list he made for his new love, and the playlist she made for him. I loved being in the middle, his gaze on her and hers for him, both of them presenting their best vision of the picture through the music.

And I was thinking about all of the nuances, his long intro, certain lines that I know he was putting emphasis on, figured that at some level I was picking up more than she was. I was deeper inside of the romance between the two of them from my objective third-party subjectivity, than either of them could be, Love being blind and all.

I feel that way I read literature too, like tonight watching Shakespeare. to be an attentive lover to Shakespeare I have to plumb the depths of the play. I have to get him. And so he gives me is all. I Fall in love with either side of the equation as presented by the two in him.

Monday, August 5, 2013

91

This morning dancing down Queens Boulevard towards the city. Just trying to dance among people comfortably. Yesterday my Liverpudlian neighbor Jamie stopped us as we were leaving and asked were you running earlier today? I said probably. He said, and were you dancing? As he said he went into a little dance. This made my wife and her sister laugh. So he hammed it up and danced a little more. I think my wife was embarrassed and impressed at the same time. Ha!

This morning African Internet Radio. AIR. I have been listening to the station for a long time and every once in a while they give me a magnificent Set. That is what I got this morning. A mix of African dance music and club music. "It's Will I Am and Britney bitch."

I have a surreal glide son where people just disappeared and the music was everything and took me into the beyond







90

MIA first album is a classic. Maybe a top 10 in terms of dance-ability, originality and political importance of lyrics. My body was buzzing after dancing to it in grave yard.

I danced with a black and yellow butterfly. It really seemed as if it we were dancing around each other. Magic.



Sunday, August 4, 2013

funny how that works

My sister in law is staying with us for a few months. Because she goes to mass it means Sofia wants to go which means Genevieve goes. So an unforseen consequence of having Catherine stay with us is that our Sunday mornings are now given over to mass.

I have issues with the Catholic Church anyway, so was grousing about this to my brother Matthew on the phone while walking back from the church with Lucia on my shoulders. He said, "You'll find that's it is good to have your kids raised with some kind of religious education." I said, "Yeah, maybe, but I didn't choose THAT one."

Right as I said "THAT" I walked into a rock on the curb and gashed my toe open. 

It felt like such a brutal, funny reminder that I don't get to choose. It was a reminder not to judge someone else's path. It felt like the universe zen master whacking me with a stick.

I am always amazed at how the universe lines up like that? Like, was I subconsciously aiming for the rock? Or did the rock just so happen to be there because the universe is really 4 dimensional, with everything connected by angles to everything else?
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Friday, August 2, 2013

Shakespeare in the park

The park across the street, Sunnyside Gardens, hosted free Shakespeare in the park. The Tempest. Very well done. I loved how the cast was so multiethnic. And so talented! New York, got to love the talent. It kept the kids attention and mine too. profound for me, Prospero's plight. Thinking about How Shakespeare can work on so many levels. Amazing. Also free cupcakes. My neighbor bought me a beer after the show. The weather is temporare and perfect. I wonder how I got so lucky as to be here. A highlight.