Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.



Ignore the video. Just close your eyes and listen.

Busy day

I just wrestled our 10-foot-plus Xmas tree to the ground and out of our apartment by myself, Serious Girl has a playdate in less than one hour (20 minutes away), I'm meeting an old crit partner for late lunch, and... I'm writing something. Hence the photo above. No, that's not actually me, I'm pretty sure that's a guy. Don't distract me. It's a short story that I started yesterday, and I plan to finish the first draft today. Current working title: Gregor Samsa on the Red Line. Don't jinx it.

So, in lieu of something deep and meaningful to read here, I suggest that you go check out the winners to Rachelle Gardener's poetry contest and book giveaway (if you haven't already). I'm an honorable mention, as is one of this blog's regular commenters (yeah, Simon!) and all the entries are fabulous and funny and thoughtful. Enjoy!

Birthday!

Yes, it's December 7th. Go ahead, make a joke about "a date that will live in infamy" and get it out of your systems. I'm used to it.

Although, since I was born in Tokyo, that means that YESTERDAY would have been my birthday if you factor in the time change (my parents lived in Chicago before they moved to Japan, so that's a 15-hour difference right there), so in some ways I'm actually a December 6th birthday. My parents got to call their family in the states and tell them I'd be born "at 4:55am tomorrow". So today is both my birthday and the day after my birthday. I know, that's some Island of the Day Before freakiness right there.

We're getting off track.

Today I am hosting a POETRY PARTY, and I hope you all brought me a present! Please, post a favorite poem in the comments. Here's one of mine (depressing? perhaps, but monumentally powerful):

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.

by Anna Akhmatova

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.

Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.

Some good-for-nothing -- who knows why --

made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness

or boredom, and live accordingly:

they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,

and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,

and on them silence settles down...

I found this out by accident

and now it seems I'm sick all the time.

My other favorites include Poe's The Raven (which I actually memorized for class in elementary school, and my husband and I try to keep it recital-ready at all times, because we're perverse that way), W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues and Three Short Poems (When he looked the cave in the eye, / Hercules / Had a moment of doubt.), Kahil Gibran's On Children, Stephen Crane's Should The Wide World Roll Away, Pablo Neruda's XVI (I do not love you...), William Carlos Williams' This Is Just To Say, and Billy Collins' Litany.

And if anyone is looking for a nice anthology of poetry, I cannot recommend The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart highly enough. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a book on Amazon that had 100% 5-star reviews?

Thanks for dropping by, everyone!

Oh, and I'm 36.