1. Acknowledging, first of all, the Extreme Suckitude and Crass Glorification and Whitewashing of Colonization upon which T-giving mythologies are based, I would like to point out, before going any further, that T-giving is a deeply problematic holiday, perhaps even more resonantly so in this part of the country. That said, my own T-giving celebration was spent at the house of a post-colonial scholar, with all of my extended adopted family. While the feast contained many traditional T-day foods (but, thankfully, none of those Midwestern aberrations such as green bean casserole with that scary fried onion in a can bullshit, nor anything involving marshmallows!), the assortment of guests was marvelously diverse and international. It was a lovely day.

2. For my T-giving contribution, I made a Raspberry Orange Trifle. (And yes, it's probably weird to post pictures of food that one has made on the internet, but here's an aerial view of the Raspberry Orange Trifle, in case one is into that sort of thing.)

3. I'm particularly thankful this year to have such kind and amazing friends who are always so unbelievably good to me in so many ways. I'm thankful that I have nice colleagues and absolutely awesome students. I'm thankful for my cats. I'm thankful for armadillos. And eBay. And star-nosed moles. And you, you, you, and you . . . yes, you.

5. Half-assed vacuuming is infinitely better than no vacuuming at all.

6. When one is shy, there is sometimes an unfortunate penchant for Overcompensatory Logorrhea, in which one's mouth is moving and one's brain, as if from a great distance, is watching on in either outright horror or eye-rolling disgust, and the thing that was coming out of one's mouth that was supposed to be an Amusing Anecdote isn't really all that amusing at all, and even worse, it makes it seem as if the Amusing Anecdote has some sort of Significant Subtext by which one was going out of one's way to Make An Important Point that, in point of fact, one really wasn't trying to make at all, and as if that weren't bad enough, there's no way to clarify and indicate that one wasn't trying to Make That Important Point because in doing so one would then be Making A Different Sort of Point Altogether which would be equally, if not more so, troublesome. I'm just saying . . .

7. My favorite coffee shop in the whole wide world has wireless! How happy am I?!?!

8. Conversations With My Japanese Mother (Condensed Version):
JM: Name-Excluded-to-Protect-the-Innocent said she thought you such nice dresser.
AH: [Wistfully/Hopefully] Really? She did?
JM: Yeah. I think she was drunk. She must be drunk!

A calm, bright day here today. The wind has settled down to soft and fitful gusts that make the hollow bamboo chimes on the balcony knock against each other--riffing their under-the-breath xylophonic murmurings, while the heavy bell chimes simply sway in silence. Maybe the metal pipes accidentally brush against one another for a moment--a faint blush of sound, a slight peal, an awkward ringing cough.

It's as if they are just on the verge of saying something. But they don't. Of tumbling into a random, jumbled, wind-tossed and inchoate song. But they don't.

How to hold all of that light and cold and sound inside without coming unbuttoned, unglued, unraveled? Without mortgaging oneself to the wind for keeps?

Spiral of freckled grit of a pear skin curling in even, green coils onto a quiet plate.

1. Hallway Convo
He: (Petting sleeve.) Is that black velvet, or is is that more of a midnight blue?
Me: Oh, definitely a midnight blue. You know, very David Lynch-y.
He: (Laughing) Oh no!
Me: Except minus the nitrous oxide, I guess.

2. Wind
For two days the wind buffeted, whipped and howled and moaned, and shook and jangled the wind chimes silly. Then, one morning, I woke up to snow. Now it's cold and quiet. I admit that I like the wind. I like the unquenchability of it. I like how it blows away everything that isn't held down, exposing the bare questions that lie below the leaves and debris. I admit I like the unease of it. How it makes it seem as if anything could happen.

3. Rubicund
Just because it's rubied in a fruity, fecund, and lickable kind of way.

4. Googlers Googling
Recent word searches leading to this blog include: Nostril Cancer, Rhodiola Rhizome Extract, Chin Strap Swim Caps, Pig Licker, and Dropship Cheesecake Website. I feel like the Wizard of Oz.

5. Maybe . . .
a vessel in fragments and shards could be a fountain in another life. Nothing but the cold, dark hum of water polishing everything down to nothing, everything, nothing.

is really such an old school word, isn't it?

How does it signify: I don't agree with you, therefore you are insane; a crack undermines your worth and will get you exiled to the outlet store; (in a Juliette Binoche-y accent) damaged people are dangerous.

Emily Dickinson was said to be "half-crack'd."

Anne Sexton's stars were cracked.

That whip-like whallop of a word, crackpot!, with its blistering sting of dismissive contempt. Only a true pot-cracker could crack out the word crackpot as if it were an answer in itself.

Crackpoet.

Everyone knows pots crack. Hence styrofoam peanuts. Hence bubble wrap. Hence newspaper for the traditionalists and the environmentally conscious.

The question isn't that the pots are cracked, but who cracked them? Who was careless? Who let them? Who did it on purpose?

And is it wrong to thirst for water one can never hold?

First of all, thank you SO MUCH for all the kind birthday wishes! I'm just knocked over by by all of the Good Birthday Ju Ju. It was, all in all, a splendid birthday, with excessive sushi consumption, marvelous birthday roses and other assorted fabulous birthday goodness.

I've been off-line for awhile as my plate has been full of goings-on in Meat Space, primarily the co-direction of this conference, which all went off very nicely. It was three full days of terrific readings and panels. Everyone did such an amazing job and I'm just beside myself with delight! (She gave a fabulous reading, and is even more delightful in person than she is in the blogosphere!)

Since then, I kind of bottomed out from exhaustion a little bit and have been laying low and recuperating. I was convinced for a few days that I had Nostril Cancer, which would clearly entail amputation of significant portions of my face and the scooping out of large chunks of my brain. Late-night Googling of medical sites was involved. It got ugly. Now that I'm a little bit better rested, though, I've since come to realize that the Great Nostril Cancer Scare of 2005 may have been some of the Free-Floating Anxiety that backs up on me when it has no place to go upon completion of a large and stressful project. (You Poet-Doctors out there, is it even possible to get nostril cancer? Wait, wait. Never mind. I don't want to know!!)

The cats, too, say that they've been recuperating from the Great Nostril Cancer Scare of 2005.