bird is the word

2005-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

so i'm sitting here writing my very first blog entry and sharing swiss cheese cubes with my dog, lola, aka the pig. i'm not really sure she should eat much cheese, actually, because isn't it binding? i can never remember the rules on cheese, but i do know that chocolate and ice cream are verboten.

outside the window, on our third floor balcony (which i love, btw -- my favorite thing about my home), there is all sorts of bird activity.

i enjoy birds a lot. not so much that you could call me a bird watcher, but i do enjoy them.

a finch just landed on my rail a few moments ago. small grey, white and black creature. it sat for quite a while, facing towards my balcony, cocking its head first this way, then that. he (i have no assurance of gender) is observing me. i think about this juxtaposition, birds watching humans. and it's just silly.

but i'm watching him and wondering what this balcony looks like to him. there's nothing here that he would recognize of his probable surroundings. i mean, what is an adirondack chair to a bird? an ashtray? i can't help thinking how odd this must all look to him, and the way he's studying it so intently makes me believe that i am actually right -- he can't believe what he's seeing.

in the time that it's taken me to write this, the pig has lost interest in cheese cubes and is now resting her head rather uncomfortably on my chair leg. lola is kind of a clumsy oaf.

and about 13 minutes have gone by, because even though i type around 70 wpm, the space bar on our keyboard sticks. it takes some getting used to. really aggressive hammering of the space bar is required. i never really realized how often my right thumb has to hit the space bar to construct words, sentences, whole documents. i'm overly conscious of it right now. it's kind of driving me crazy.

and also the finch lost interest and left. but after that, a red cardinal flew in and settled into the same spot. my balcony is very fetching today.

random factoid:
my great aunt eva loved cardinals. my family is from kentucky and it is the state bird, but she had a thing about them. her house was decorated with all manner of cardinal bric a brac -- plates, figurines, salt & pepper shakers, sweatshirts, "stained glass," and so on. it sounds like it was tacky but it was oddly beautiful, all that red. she passed away six years ago (lung cancer), within 24 hours of her brother, my grandfather (whom i called daddy-harold). so now whenever i see a cardinal, i say, and usually out loud, "hi eva." the thing that reminds me of my grandfather, though, is the smell of tobacco leaves.

some favorite things:

buttons in a jar
ice water in a glass
a good pen
the smell of rain on pavement
looking at dust motes through half closed eyes
robbie's clean white cotton tee shirt smell

poesy writes!

2005-07-30T10:46:00.002-07:00

po·e·sy

Poetical works; poetry.
The art or practice of composing poems.
The inspiration involved in composing poetry.

(Middle English poesie, from Old French, from Latin posis, from Greek poisis, from poiein, to create.)

i like that last stuff, in parens, don't you? even more than the actual definition.

word origin always intrigues me and it's also somehow comforting, how almost every word has a greek root.

i always think of mr. wall, my 6th grade greek roots teacher, when i can figure out a word's meaning from it's roots. mr. wall looked like jerry garcia and he wore suede boots that laced up to his knees. i seriously thought that he wore these because he lived in the black forest (this was heidelberg middle school, heidelberg, germany. c. 1981). this seems incredibly naive now, for a 6th grader.

back to poesy:

i've used this name for some years online. my email is poesy@lycos.com, an account i've had since 1996. i'm proud of this for some reason. i think it makes me feel like i was on to something early, when in actuality, i'm a bit of a luddite. or rather, i choose to be when i want to be.

poesy because i used to fancy myself a poet. went almost all the way through an MFA in poetry even. i'm 35 now and it seems faintly ridiculous to refer to myself as a poet, so i say i used to be. like i made a career move or something.

about the lower case: okay, yes, i am lazy, but that's not why. i've just been doing it for so long online that it's natural to me. my normal correspondence -- bills, Word documents, interoffice emails -- are all in upper case and with proper punctuation. i am a bit of a stickler for that. i keep red pens around and everything.

i will admit this readily: i am a lazy writer.

most of my writing has been born out of pain and a dramatic impulse to get it out. and poetry, well, i like sparse words, i like the brevity of the form and even how it looks on the page. but let's face it, i probably wrote poetry instead of say, fiction, because it was also easier. shorter.

so. the older i get, the less i hurt -- or i roll with the punches, i don't know, maybe it's just maturity -- and the less i write. which ironically sounds like an immature reason for not writing.

but i'm going to try this thing.

it might be observations.

it might be a list of the mundane: what i ate today, what annoyed me, cool articles i read.

i really have no idea yet. and i really can't promise that i'll write every day. but i am going to try.

and there is my very first blog entry.

uh oh. now it's on.