The Long Good-bye...

Slate magazine compiled the top 25 Bushisms of all time. After 8 years of this, how will we as a nation ever get used to a president who does not mutilate the English language and does not "misunderestimate" our hunger for eloquence?

Enjoy!

http://www.slate.com/id/2208132/

Self-indulgent Birthday Poem

I just read that 40 is the new 20
Can I just call bullshit on that?
When I was twenty I was a newlywed
And a college sophomore
And thinking of having babies
And I hear that’s not what 20
Was supposed to be

I just read that 40 is the new 30
Can I call bullshit on that, too?
At 30 I was postpartum with baby number three
And finally finished college
And started my first real job
And I hear that’s not what 30
Was supposed to be

My 40 is the new I don’t know what
I need to lose weight
I have no more babies
I have too many bills
But I am still married
And I love my job
And I have a blog
And moose in my yard
Is that what 40 is supposed to be?

January Moose

She sits down on the winter ground
Her great shape safeguarding her twins
The mass, the size of her,
Packs down five feet of snow

And presses her body to the slumbering soil

I spent the last three weeks
Trying not to sink
Into the cold, white blanketing ground
To avoid the heft of my own body,
Until I haul myself, heavily wrapped
And slide on the ice to get close enough
To take her picture

I am drawn in
By the pull of her form,
The weight of her,
Joined through the snow to the earth below,
There is purpose in her solidity
Her anatomy knows no shame
The brown of her body
And the brown of the earth
Are one and the same.

Moose!

Today, my neighbor called to alert me to the presence of a mama moose and her two yearlings that were hanging out in the field across from her house. All three were lying in the snow, so the babies were hard to see, but the mama was quite visible and didn't seem to mind getting her picture taken. We see her often in the spring and summer when we are kayaking along the Little Spokane River--she goes there every year to calf. We have never seen her this late in the year, so I was quite tickled to be able to photograph her in the snow. She looked very serene and self-assured. Moose are often awkward looking; their body parts seem improbably put together. But sitting there in the snow, this moose looked almost graceful. It's amazing what snow can do!

English 206

When I was nineteen, I took a lower-division creative writing poetry class. I was excited, as I had been writing poetry since I was a kid. I don’t exactly know what I expected, but I do recall that my experience did not quite match whatever expectations I may have had. I had heard good things about the professor, but I think he was past his prime by the time I took his class. At times, he was animated and inspiring when he spoke about poetic language, but more often then not, he was erratic and irritable, and he would forget what he had told us from one moment to the next.

I found that I didn’t quite fit in with all of the students, either. There were a couple of girls who were of the belief that no one’s poetry should be critiqued, because to do so was to critique that person’s feelings and that just wasn’t fair. As a matter of fact, they often met any discussion of their recent drafts with trembling lips and watery eyes. They had a very Stuart Smalley-like approach to poetry class: it should function as a daily affirmation for everyone’s emotions and experiences.

There were other students who wore black all of the time and often came to class barefoot. They seemed to equate the poetic life with a lack of attention to personal hygiene and a need to use the f**k word as often as possible in their work. One girl in the class seemed to write every poem about the size and girth of her various lovers’ private parts, using the word “cockroach” as a double entendre/metaphor as often as possible.

I left the class feeling like I did not belong in the creative writing world. And for the rest of my undergraduate career, I used this feeling as an excuse to not attempt any other poetry or fiction classes. The class was not a total loss, however. I find myself now striving to implement the lessons I learned: make your language as precise as possible, avoid clichés, and write at least one poem a week. 20 years later, I’m still not sure how well I am doing, but I am taking pleasure in doing it.

At the end of that semester, my professor wrote a comment on my final portfolio that pleased me and frustrated me to no end: “You have a strong sense of the language of poetry, but you have yet to find your own authentic poetic voice. Final grade: B.” I was glad that he thought I had a knack for poetic language, but what was a poetic voice? Where could I get one? How did I find it? Did I miss the distribution line at freshman orientation? If my poetic voice wasn’t my own, whose was it? My nearly 40-year-old self thinks it’s ridiculous to expect that any 19-year-old could have found her own poetic voice, but my 19-year-old self would surely disagree!

I have no idea what my professor would think of this blog, but I’m no longer using my experience in his class as an excuse to hold back on my writing. Maybe that’s a first step to finding my voice.

Arbitrary Beginnings

Good bye old year
I will slough you off like dead skin
Break you off like a split end
Pluck you out like unwanted hair
Scrub you off until my hands are raw
And march over that line
Between December and January
Like I really, really mean it.

Brown-eyed Baby Brother's Birthday

Today is my brother Tim's 37th birthday. I'm sure he'll be quick to remind me that my 40th birthday is fast approaching, but today is all about Tim. One of the high points of Tim's life took place from 1972-1975, when he had the good taste to worship me and when I could get him to clean up my side of our bedroom. Since then, Tim has earned family kudos for his musical talents and for his ability to grow an astonishing amount of facial hair (for a Whalen). I happen to think that Tim's two most notable achievements are convincing the lovely Colleen to marry him and fathering two extraordinarily good looking and smart children (Liam and Molly). A close third would surely be his knack for being a cool uncle to Seamus, Jack, and Brendan. I predict good things for Tim in 2009; chief among them, I'm sure, will be a trip to Spokane to visit his favorite sister. I'm sure he won't forget to bring Liam and Molly--he knows better.

Happy Birthday Tim!