Soft Black Butter

Today’s soundtrack: “Ingenue” by k.d. lang. “So It Shall Be” is one of my all-time favorite songs. The woman’s voice is like soft black butter. (Aside: fortunately, I didn’t make up that “soft black butter” stuff. Back when I worked with “Rag and Bone” — oh, how desperately that publication needs a link — we used to pull our favorite phrases from submissions and compile them into new poems. We wrote language poetry before we knew what it was. SBB was one of the winners in my third year — Mary and I used to laugh until our stomachs hurt over that. But the phrase actually fits k.d. lang.) (See, there was a point.)

Hi! Hope you’re having a good day. I’m brittlely determined to be productive despite all impulses to the contrary. I used up most of my week’s allotment of productivity by Christmas shopping last night. The work ethic is also a distraction from last night’s dream, which involved falling bombs and the destruction of all I hold dear…but in which I played the hero, which happens a lot in my dreaming life. I guess we’re all legends in our own minds.

Today’s moral? That yes, I’m aware that I’ve done a lot of surface-scratching in my blogs lately. In doing so, I’m being honest. My life lately has been surface-dwelt. But for now, that’s okay. Isn’t that okay? We can’t always be deep. There are many things about which I could write — my happiness about being employed, how much better I think I look with contacts, my terror about my impending 5-year college reunion, Debbie’s freakishly cute new puppy, my guilt about eating chocolate when Christina sends me articles about the slave plantations in the Ivory Coast, my guilt about how little my life has changed since Sept. 11th, my continued avoidance of the guy at church, the wonderful smell of fog and dead leaves at the farm (it’s almost like incense), my need for new clothes — but I’m comfortable being shallow for now.

Ay-yup.

I hope you all have a great day. I hope you get to invent words like “brittlely” and say “soft black butter” in context at least once. Doing it with a straight face earns you bonus points. p34c3 0|_|t!