the busy heart

Check out issue TWO of JuiceBox: A Journal of the Ordinary . I'm the poetry editor. Ain't it pretty?

I got these pretty red shoes yesterday at Ross for ten bucks. Yes, I said ten bucks. They're the red shoes of my soul. I fashion-showed the red shoes and my other loot for my mother while she was propped in bed, watching the news with my dad. Later, when she came out to get some vitamins before going to bed, she stopped in my room, tried on the red shoes, and ended up doing a tap dance for me on my hardwood floor. I told myself as I watched, as she danced: I must remember this. My reserved, wonderful mama, in her nightgown, dancing in my red high heels.

I'm going for a record three posts in one day. I couldn't resist posting a few of more pics. One of kitties, sleeping. A few of Sam and me at Arches. One of how it looked in my rearview mirror when a cop pulled me over for speeding through a tiny town in the southwest crumb of Colorado. (whoops.)

Sam was out in Utah with me for a few days, and, while looking for things to do, we came across the national Alpaca show. How could we not attend? There were hundreds of Alpacas, looking like unicorns, hippies, fraggles, snow owls from space, wookies, hairy hillbillies, poodles with problems, q-tips, you get the idea. You'll have to pardon so many pictures. They delight me. P.S. In the second one of Sam and me, we're wearing the Alpaca-fur duds he bought for us: winter hat and pretty shawl object. My kitties are suspicious of them (because they smell like another furry creature, I suspect), but I like.

I was on Ikea.com today, dreaming of how I will furnish my apartment when I move to Boston. I fell in love with the bed you see above. Truth be told, I don't even know if I like the bed that much. I'm probably more into the style of the bed below; that one looks like the bed of a modern woman. But that's the secret: I don't want to be a modern woman. I want to be a princess. I want to be six-years-old. I like the thought of froofy billowing fabric draped from the top of the four-poster. When I was in the midst of going back and forth between the two beds, my dad came to tell me that my cat, Sprout (whom you see below), had jumped on the roof. He said she had barely made it up in the first place: jumped from the porch railing, caught the corner of the rain gutter and had to claw the rest of way with her front paws. When i came out she was looking over the edge, terrified. My dad got a ladder and I climbed it, tugged her off. I thought she would claw my face off, b...

I'm in Texas, sitting on a hotel bed, having completed the first leg of my voyage home to Utah for the summer. Sam and I didn't get on the road until one this afternoon; we ran into snafus all morning: My laptop AND cell phone broke and then magically repaired themselves by the time I took them in to be fixed. (Thanks to prayer, I reckon.) We miscommunicated regarding some boxes, which left me in the Hattiesburg post office, trying to lift 67-pound boxes of my stuff, with this woman who kept calling me " shoog " (as in, first syllable of sugar) and dropping my precious packaged possessions into a deep bin in the back. So long, Grandma's rippled blue drinking glasses. (Yes, I know. Shouldn't have packaged them anyway. I was desperate and delirious by the end of packing--throwing out everything: cat food, sweaters, pillows, vacuum cleaners. Chaotic heartbreak.) Anyway, rough morning. Then, a few hours out, my check engine light went on. We drove through Shreve...

I begin with the beach. After I was all graduated, I headed down to the Alabama coast with the folks and Meesha. Oh, it was gorgeous. White sand, blue sky, lots of seafood. (See photo of my delicate, dignified mother cracking a huge crableg.) We walked on the beach, then read books, then ate, walked on the beach, read books, ate, then did it all over again. We did manage to squeeze in a dolphin cruise, so I'll include one of that, too. All of our attempts to capture the actual dolphins on film are pretty disappointing, so I'll spare you. So, I graduated. My dissertation committee chair, Angela Ball, stood on this little grey box and hooded me. That was really weird, by the way. Felt ... I don't know, odd. Like I was joining a cult. Sixteen other peop le graduated with their PhDs, but they were serious folks and they looked very accomplished, and all in all I just felt like a puppy. I was taking pictures of Sam making smoochy faces while wearing his cap sideways, and they we...