Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Sweet B1 and I spent so much time together; before B2 and her married, before sweet Everett came along, we were housemates. And in that time she shared many wonderful poems and poets with me. On a car ride into town one weekend afternoon, B1 recited this entire poem, and I fell in love with it on the spot.      "How to Like it" These are the first days of fall. The wind at evening smells of roads still to be traveled, while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns is like an unsettled feeling in the blood, the desire to get in a car and just keep driving. A man and a dog descend their front steps.The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk. Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find. Thi s is how dogs deal with the prospect of change. But in his sense of the season, the man is struck by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid until it seems he can see remembered faces caught up amon...

Now that Summer Reading is over and vacation--beautiful, sweet, wonderful vacation--is behind me I can finally focus on this tugging feeling I've been suffering from as of late, a being called to write kind of feeling. I used to journal nearly everyday, and aside from this blog, seldom do. And there's that "great American novel," I've been joking about writing for 20 years now--20 years! I've recently began editing a friends very hefty first draft of a book, and then another friend gave me a first draft of a children's story he wants to publish some day. Just as I've finished and sent that back, this week another friend and fellow blogger has asked me to edit something for her...the COSMOS ARE SPEAKING! All of this editing for others is making me hungry to again write furiously; pen smeared fingers, exhausted and creaky knuckles, sore hands. But write what? Should I dabble in the silly scribbly poems I used to love to write. Do I begin some sort of...

Something is happening to me lately. Not like a Peter Brady-hitting-puberty-kind-of-thing, but rather something more introspective. I feel like in some small ways I am noticing how I am changing, and oddly enough, I am trying to be mindful of these slight things--I say oddly enough, since I am not a patient or particularly introspective person like others. I am noticing that I need more time to think and process; I am enjoying silence and solitude in situations were I normally liked the busy, noisy. I am doing a lot of thinking about what my future is supposed to look like, and where I am supposed to be this time next year (next month!). And I got to thinking of this poem, and hoping the answers are still in the fridge... How to Like it These are the first days of fall. The wind at evening smells of roads still to be traveled, while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns is like an unsettled feeling in the blood, the desire to get in a car and just keep driving. A man and a...

Been thinking a lot about the Farm these days. Thinking how the winter there is completely different than the summer, not so much for the obvious reasons like temperature, but more so for the simple luxuries of a season. A season where the smell of wood stoves is present; a time when animals tuck themselves away for the winter and thoughts about things like bears getting into the trash is less of a worry; a season of a winding trail through the woods, with a river who offers a sound slightly louder than silence in the trickling and winding flow of water under a now seemingly completely iced over top. I love the Farm in every season. I have been thinking a lot of the Farm lately. For many reasons. One reason is that my good friend TSO, of Travelin' Shoes , is returning home. Back to the Farm where we all met. I am a little more than envious. I think of the Farm as home and getting back there only ever brings joy to me. In all this thinking about the Farm, and returning to places ...