November 2: Apology, Poetry Reading, "An American in Paris"

I find myself apologizing a lot recently for prolonged absences from posting, and it bothers me.

Perhaps it's simply my crazy schedule this semester.  Or my crazy life.  Or my kids' crazy lives.  I can't figure out the exact cause for these extended vacations from blogging.  Some nights, it's exhaustion.  After working and teaching and Poet Laureating, I find that I have just enough energy to change into my pajamas and collapse on the couch.  Other nights, it's a pile of papers that needs attention or lesson plans or American Horror Story.

I don't mind being busy.  In fact I don't know what I would do with myself if I wasn't.  Even when I'm supposed to be relaxing or vacationing or sleeping, I find it difficult to shut my mind down.  I lie awake in bed for a good half hour every night before my brain realizes it's time to power down. The work I really enjoy usually happens on weekends, when I have a few minutes to sit down with a book or my journal and pen. 

Tomorrow, I'm giving a poetry reading at my local library with a couple of my musician friends.  I spent a couple hours this afternoon with my friends, pairing poems and songs.  It was wonderful.  Something that I would do all day, every day, if I could.  Yes, I work in a medical office.  Teach college English courses.  Play the pipe organ at church.  That's what pays the bills.  Well, almost pays the bills.  But poetry and writing and music.  These things feed something deeper in me.

I am thankful that I can steal a few hours a week to do things that I really love, even if I'm exhausted the rest of the week.  It's what makes everything else I do bearable.

Now, forgive Saint Marty for this shortened post.  There are books to read.  Poems to write.  An American in Paris on Public TV.

May 4: Out of the Woods, Spring Rituals, Owning Up

Coming out of the woods, I heard loud shots; they reverberated ominously in the damp air.  But when I walked up the road, I saw what it was, and the dread quality of the whole afternoon vanished at once.  It was a couple of garbage trucks, huge trash compacters humped like armadillos, and they were making their engines backfire to impress my neighbors' pretty daughters, high school girls who had just been let off the school bus.  The long-haired girls strayed into giggling clumps at the corner of the road; the garbage trucks sped away gloriously, as if they had been the Tarleton twins on thoroughbreds cantering away from the gates of Tara.  In the distance a white vapor was rising from the waters of Carvin's Cove and catching in trailing tufts in the mountain's sides.  I stood on my own porch, exhilarated, unwilling to go indoors.

It is springtime at Tinker Creek.  Dillard comes upon this little spectacle as she emerges from the forest after a hike.  Everything is greening up, becoming lush and fecund.  The sap is flowing.  The garbage guys are showing off for these teenage girls.  Sort of like a peacock spreading its feathers or a silverback gorilla pounding its chest.  It's a way to draw attention, display masculinity.  It's a spring thing, I think, built into male DNA.  And Dillard finds this spring ritual exhilarating.

I participated in a couple spring rituals this evening.  First, I went to my office at the university and cleaned up my desk from an entire academic year's worth of clutter.  Piles of papers and books.  Empty Diet Coke cans.  I indexed and filed my classroom materials into 3-ring binders.  And I threw out a lot of stuff.

Second, I went Mother's Day shopping with my daughter.  We had exactly one hour to make our purchases.  We went to Walmart.  We crossed the highway to Target.  Success.  Not only did we find cards and presents, but also found a really cool Star Wars shirt for my daughter.  And we got some popcorn, too.

Third, I made some amends this evening.  I sent an e-mail to a colleague/friend.  For most of the school year, I neglected to fulfill some promises I had made.  It has been weighing on my mind a lot.  So, tonight, I apologized to my friend.  I hope that my e-mail is received with the spirit in which it was sent:  sincerity and goodwill.  It is always good to own up to the mistakes you make, I think.  It's good for the soul.  Keeps you grounded and honest.

Spring rituals.  Some of them are cleansing; some, a little painful.  It's all about rebirth and growth.  Letting go and owning up.

Saint Marty did a little of all of that tonight.

By the way--Happy Star Wars Day!

February 23: Apology, Broken Computer, Bad Puns

Last night, I had every intention of writing a blog post.  However, my computer made that impossible.  The power cord to my computer was not providing power.  Wires were exposed, and I had to go to the Help Desk at the university this afternoon to get a new cord.  Now, I am charging my battery and posting.

So, my apologies for being absent last night.  I will be back to my normal blogging routine tomorrow, after I'm done teaching.

Until then, Saint Marty is powerless.  Get it?  Power-less.  (Bad puns happen when you're tired.)

September 16: College Bookstores, Apology, Laura Boss, "Aunt Rose," Adventures of Stickman

...One of the joys of her [Annie Ives'] life was to take walks with Caroline and Pablo down Broadway to browse in the college bookstores.  Nothing pleased her more than to search for mysterious and new authors from different parts of the world, to find a cart filled with exoticisms recommended in Columbia literature classes...

Yes, Annie Ives is a lover of books.  It's one of the reasons Ives falls in love with her.  Their apartment is filled with bookshelves of classic novels and collectible editions and encyclopedias.  And after their son is killed, Annie returns to her books more and more to escape the limitless grief of her husband.  Books are her solace in sorrow.

You will forgive me for not posting last night.  I had to attend an awards ceremony for a nature writing contest I entered last May.  I was named one of the honorable mentions, so I was invited to read my essay at the Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore in Munising, right on the shores of Lake Superior.

Falling Rock is one of my favorite bookstores, a little independent business that sells new and used books, as well as ice cream and soups and sandwiches, among other things.  There are not too many stores that have an entire shelf stocked with John O'Hara books.  Falling Rock does.

The evening was lovely.  We listened to nature essays and nature poetry, and then we were treated to a slide show by an award-winning nature photographer.  I sat at a table, listened, and ate a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream.  I reconnected with old friends and met a couple new ones.

By the time I got home last night, I was more than spent.  I was a deflated balloon.  I only had the brain power to brush my teeth and watch the late news.  Then bed (like Aunt Rose in Laura Boss's poem, except I counted Nobel Prize-winning writers).

Saint Marty lived the life of a writer yesterday evening, and it was good.

Aunt Rose

by:  Laura Boss

As a little girl, I modeled myself after my Aunt Rose, not my mother.  My Aunt Rose with her bright green high heeled ankle-strapped shoes, her numerous bottles of perfumes, her dresser drawers filled with black silk lingerie.  My mother wore sensible oxfords which she duplicates in child version for me; my mother teaches third graders, struggles with lesson plans and finances after suppers ending with canned fruit salad.  My Aunt Rose is the hostess in a Manhattan theater district restaurant which her husband owns.  (She met him when she was first working there.)  She leads customers into a dining room with velvet chairs where they can have nesselrode pie for dessert.  She smells of Tabu and wears a large topaz ring.  She has bleached platinum blonde hair and is often mistaken for Ginger Rogers.  She gives my photograph to a customer who is looking for a child actress; I lose to Margaret O'Brien.  My aunt tells me I'm prettier.  My aunt is charming and warm and diplomatic.  My mother is critical--tells the truth though it hurts and you might not want to hear it.  Years later, after my aunt's husband dies, she has a beau (a handsome lawyer) she travels to Europe with--at a time when such travels were considered avantgard by single women.  Men are always calling her up.  She marries again--and after he dies, she still has at least five marriage proposals a year when she is in her sixties.  Last week, my mother tells me that to get to sleep my mother counts first, second, and third cousins.  She tells me my Aunt Rose gets to sleep by counting the men she's known.  I always knew I took after my Aunt Rose.

Adventures of STICKMAN

April 23: In a Forest, Apology, Perfect Place

I forgot my biography of E. B. White in my office at the university, so we're going to have to skip White Wednesday this evening.  Sorry.  I've been out of sorts all day long.  Woke up this morning having a low blood sugar.  Forgot to shave before I left for work.  Worked all day looking like Lon Chaney Jr. during a full moon.  Gave my students a final exam.  Left the E. B. White biography at the college.

So, here we are.  I have a quote from Charlotte's Web to share:

"In a forest looking for beechnuts and truffles and delectable roots, pushing leaves aside with my wonderful strong nose, searching and sniffing along the ground, smelling, smelling, smelling . . ."

Wilbur is describing his perfect place.  It's pretty simple.  In the forest, rooting for things to eat.  I guess, for a pig, that's as close to paradise as you can get.  I want to be a pig in paradise, for just a few moments.  I want to be in my perfect place.

For me, that would be at home on a hot July day.  I would go for a long run and feel great afterward.  Then, I would lie on the floor, the ceiling fan tearing the air above me.  I'd drink a big cup of ice water and just sweat.  Let the endorphins do their work.  Make me feel wonderful.  Invincible.  Free.

Paradise is all about freedom.  Wilbur is free in that forest to do what he wants.  I am free on that summer day to run and sweat.  Everybody should have that freedom, where all worries and fears melt away, and there's just beechnuts or the open road underfoot.  Everybody deserves that.

Saint Marty wishes all readers of this post a little paradise in their lives.

Root around and find some truffles

June 23: Day Off, New Poem, "Apology," New Cartoon

Yes, I've taken it easy today.  Went swimming with the kids.  Went for a run.  I'm currently watching the movie Wreck It Ralph with my daughter.  It's been a really nice respite from the crap of the past week.

I do have a new poem tonight.  It's about apologies and the space they inhabit in the universe.  I'm not sure how good it is, or if it's even done yet.  But I did promise you, my disciples, a new poem, even if it sucks.

And Marty is a saint of his word.

Apology

I'm
between
the silver and kiss
lips pressed against His cheek
of sand, tilapia, unleaven
under the olives and moon
between 
the whip
flesh raw as pomegranate seed
thorn, spike, spear
mud of dark cabernet
between
the limb, rope
the climb and final air
between
the leap
gravity
a field of blood
sorry.

Confessions of Saint Marty

February 18: Apology, Memoir, Confessions," New Cartoon

Sorry I didn't post yesterday.  I had to play a gig with my praise band at a local church, and that little obligation took up most of my Sunday.

As promised, I do have the first installment of my Lenten memoir.  I'm not sure if it's any good.  You're going to have to be the judge of that.  Let me know what you think.  Drop me a comment.

Saint Marty is really insecure, as always.

Confessions

Prologue Confession

I hate surprises.  I hate surprise parties.  People jumping out of hiding places and shouting at me isn't fun.  It's like being pummeled by dodge balls in gym class.  I hate surprise endings.  When I read a book, I start with the last page, sometimes the last chapter.  The genre doesn't matter--mystery, fantasy, biography, fiction, non-fiction.  Whatever.  I was in line at midnight on July 21, 2007, to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  The first thing I did when I had it in my hands was flip to the final page to find out if Harry lived, Snape died, and scar boy and Ginny moved past the kissing stage to some serious skin magic.  If Harry had died and ended up with Moaning Myrtle or Voldemort had destroyed the muggle world like a North Korean missile strike, I wouldn't have cared.  I can accept happily ever after or misery ever after, as long as I'm prepared for it.

If I could read my life, I would already know the details of my end.  The date and time and circumstance.  Cancer.  Car accident.  Stroke.  Chicken bone.  It wouldn't matter.  I hope for a long tenure on this planet, but if my last page was tomorrow morning at 6:57 a.m., I would accept my fate.  I'd probably cancel class, since I wouldn't want to spend my final moments with 25 surly eighteen-year-olds who don't know a run-on sentence from a death sentence.  I wold pop in my DVD of It's a Wonderful Life, order a stuffed-crust pizza with mushrooms and chicken, and watch George Bailey save Bedford Falls from Mr. Potter.  Maybe I would ask my daughter if I could braid her hair like I used to when she was small.  I would slip my hand under my wife's pajamas to feel the warmth of her body.  I'd let my four-year-old son eat ice cream for dinner and skip his bath.  And, at the end of the film, I'd sing "Auld Lang Syne" with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, crying like I always do.  I'd kiss my kids the way Stewart does, as if I'm having a low blood sugar and they're a pile of Skittles.  With my children all nestled, snug in their beds, I'd climb into bed with my wife.  We'd talk about something small, unimportant.  The potluck at church on Sunday or the new John Irving novel.  When it was time for sleep, I'd press my lips to her mouth the way I did when we first met, hungry, full of breath and tongue.  The end.

Yes, I've thought about my final pages a lot.  When I was nine or ten, I wrote the instructions for my funeral in my journal, including seating arrangements and hymns and the menu for my wake (pancakes and bacon).  My family and friends thought I was just left of Gomez Addams in my weirdness.  I preferred to think of myself as considerate, making all the hard choices for my survivors.  No surprises.  Simply read and follow the instructions on the box, like making brownies.

My life has not been all brownies, however, and I think that may account for my almost phobic avoidance of surprise.  I haven't been successful at maintaining an uneventful life.  In fact, I've sometimes navigated my days like a visually-impaired mountain climber, toeing the summit of Pikes Peak at midnight in a dense fog.  If I manage to travel from alarm clock off in morning to alarm clock set at night with a minimum of spikes on my surprise meter, I consider those waking hours golden.  Being a pessimist and a realist, I know life rarely works that way.  Scratch "rarely."  Life never works that way.

Being a poet and a writer, I know literature can work that way.  With foreshadowing and symbolism, I can prepare readers for surprises.  If these literary devices aren't explicit enough, readers can flip or scroll ahead to find out whether this Prince Charming finds the owner of the glass slipper filled with lithium.  To eliminate the possibility of unpleasant plot twists, I provide a catalog of upcoming events and subjects:

I will talk a good deal about mental illness and sexual addiction.  Accompanying these subjects, I will also discuss Internet pornography and masturbation.  There will be a pregnancy, a stroke, a birth, and a pulmonary embolism.  Throw in the election of the first African American to the Oval Office, and an Iraqi journalist pitching his shoes at the President of the United States. 

That takes care of most of the Richter Scale quakes and tremors in this book.  I will avoid subtlety at all costs.  If something bad is about to happen, I will provide plenty of warning.

Most of all, I can promise, if not a happily ever after, a happily ever final paragraph, filled with snow and colored lights and possibility.

Confessions of Saint Marty

May 18: Not Himself, Inexorable Finger, Apology

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time.  I see the house.  Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come!"

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed.  "Why do you point away?"

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in.  It was an office still, but not his.  The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.  The Phantom pointed as before.

Scrooge is peering through a window into his future in this little passage.  He's searching for some hint about what he will become of him.  The Ghost of the Future is pointing with his inexorable finger toward a different destination, but Scrooge can't resist taking control, going to his place of business and finding not himself, but a stranger.

I'm not sure I would want to peer into the future as Scrooge does.  I'd be a little to nervous about witnessing the seeds of the past and present taking root and growing.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not a serial killer or a bank robber.  I don't kick puppies or kittens.  However, like everyone else, I've said and done some things in the past of which I'm not too proud.

I've been thinking about one particular incident.  It happened many years ago.  My wife and I were going to a birthday party for my wife's sister.  I believe my sister-in-law was turning 30.  Anyway, it was supposed to be a Mexican-themed party, with everybody bringing a Mexican dish to pass.  My wife decided to make quesadillas.  Well, the day of the party, we found out that my wife's other sister was bringing quesadillas, as well.  So my wife decided to make peanut butter and banana quesadillas for the kids.  Well, the peanut butter ran.  The bananas slipped out of the tortilla shells.  The whole concoction was a mess.

The people at the party made jokes and teased my wife.  Instead of defending her, I made a joke, as well.  My wife has battled low self-esteem all her life.  When I made my joke, she started to cry.  I apologized to her immediately, but, after all these years, I still feel incredible guilt.  My wife and I have had our share of struggles over the years.  Perhaps, if I'd been a little more supportive and kind, I could have helped my wife overcome her self-confidence issues.  Perhaps her life would be easier right now if I'd just been a better person myself.

I'm not sure in which direction that inexorable finger of the future is pointing for me right now, but, this morning, I'm reminding myself to be compassionate, more understanding.  And I'm apologizing to my wife, telling her how lucky I am to have her as my partner.

Plus, Saint Marty loves peanut butter and banana quesadillas now.

Don't knock 'em 'til you try 'em

February 15: Apology, Liberality, Scrooge-ality

Before I get into the meat of my thoughts this morning, I would like to issue an apology for the typos in the blog I posted last night.  I was tired.  I was in a hurry.  Bed was calling to me.  Generally, I read, reread, and reread again anything I'm thinking of posting.  Last night, I didn't do that.  Therefore, several glaring mistakes made it online.  I have corrected those typos.  I go apeshit on my students for typos.  Typos are sloppy and stupid.  I have corrected those errors this morning.

Now that I have that off my chest, I can move on with A Christmas Carol:

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits.  At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

OK, I know I've talked about "liberality" and the bad rap the word "liberal" has received, but coming across this passage today actually made me laugh out loud.  Charles Dickens isn't using the word "liberality" in a negative manner here.  He's using the word to show what a son of a bitch Scrooge really is.  These two guys show up in Scrooge's office to collect money for the poor, and Scrooge wants nothing to do with their "liberal" cause.  In Dickens' book, Scrooge is the one who has his head up his ass.  Scrooge is the one who's going to end up with a one way ticket to Marley damnation.

I find this passage funny because, in a presidential election year in the United States, the word "liberal" always gets thrown at candidates as some kind of insult.  I don't understand it.  "Liberal," in my lexicon, is a synonym for "generous" and "charitable" and "kind."  If you go to a party, and the host is liberal with the food and drinks, you come away full and happy (and maybe a little drunk).  You want a liberal host.  It's a good thing.  Why wouldn't you want the same character trait in the leader of the United States?

On the flip side, the word "conservative" somehow has become a badge of honor in most election years.  Being conservative has come to mean moral, ethical, and Christian.  I don't know how that happened.  If my memory is correct, Jesus didn't have a beatitude that said, "Blessed are the conservative in spirit, for they shall keep all their money and be upstanding citizens."  In the Dickens universe, Scrooge, who is, by all accounts, an ultra-conservative, isn't the one with whom we should sympathize.  Old Chuck would roll over in his grave in Westminster Abbey if he thought we agreed with Scrooge.  Conservative means frugal, stingy, cheap, maybe even a little greedy.  That's Scrooge.  I don't want to go to a party thrown by a conservative host.  I'd probably have to bring a dish to pass. 

Want this guy in charge of things?

When I hear Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin refer to "good, conservative values," I cringe.  I don't want my president to have good, conservative values.  This past weekend, Mitt Romney gave a speech where he used the phrase "we conservatives" about a thousand times.  Every time Romney said "we conservatives," I heard "we Scrooges."  Basically, all of these Republicans are a bunch of Scrooges, wanting to keep health care as a privilege and not a right.  Wanting to keep the poor poor and hungry.  If someone asked Newt about the plight of the impoverished, I could actually hear him saying, "Are there no prisons?"

Therefore, I will not be voting for any presidential candidate who calls him/herself "conservative."  I want liberality, not Scrooge-ality.

Saint Marty, liberal and proud.

November 2: Gray Day, Apologies, Work

It has been a very gray day, in more ways than weather.  This morning, I found out that a good friend has a daughter who just received some very serious health news.  It sort of put a pall over the rest of the day for me.  I've been thinking about my friend and her family all day.  It's hard for me to know how to help them.  One of my other friends is planning on cooking something for them.  At the moment, all I can think to do is pray.

It's sad, but prayer is usually the last thing people turn to.  First, you try to fix the problem yourself.  When that doesn't work , you turn to the most appropriate professional.  Doctor.  Lawyer.  Psychiatrist.  McDonald's fry cook.  Then, when all else fails, you think of praying.  That's all back-asswards.  I have learned through my life's lessons that prayer shouldn't be the last resort.  It should be the first.  Because, in a lot of situations, prayer is the only thing that's going to do any good.

I must apologize for the fact that I have no new poem for you today.  I've started writing one, but just haven't found the time to sit and concentrate on it.  Perhaps I will get it done tomorrow for my disciples.  No promises at the moment.  I still have much to accomplish for my mythology class tomorrow afternoon.

That's all I have for ya this evening.  A plea for prayer and an apology.

Saint Marty hasn't been a very good saint or blogger or poet today.

Not the last resort...

September 8: Attitude and Honest Friends

My friend Wonder Twin told me this afternoon that I need to stop complaining in my blog.  I believe her exact words were, "Ever since you got back from vacation, you've been very negative."  She even suggested I may be going through male menopause.

My first reaction was knee-jerk.  I wanted to defend my recent attitude, attribute it to exhaustion or overwork or financial worries or Republicans.

My second reaction was remorse.  I didn't realize my recent posts have been so...so...whiny.

My third reaction was acceptance.  Yes, having reviewed some of my recent blogs, I admit it.  I've been a little down in the dumps, and dragging all of my disciples into the pit of despair with me.

My fourth (and current) reaction is a vow to change.  I promise to make an effort to be more positive in my outlook and posts.  I will try to keep my bitching to a minimum, and, if I feel it necessary to bitch, I will temper said bitching with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor.  My natural character tends to be a bit on the dark side.  I will have to keep a very close eye on myself.

Hopefully, I have not turned too many people off blog.  Stay tuned for a definite change (even though I hate change).  It won't be all puppies and rainbows, but I will guarantee something a little lighter every once in a while.  Maybe puppies and compost.

Saint Marty is going to try to turn over a new leaf.  Just in time for autumn.

Let's blame my bad mood on her

June 13: Take 1, An Apology and Explanation

Well, I need to apologize for being absent from the blog universe this weekend.  I spent the last three days trying to be a good father.  On Saturday, I was shuttling my daughter to rehearsals for her dance concerts, which took place Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  On Saturday, I sat in an auditorium for six hours, watching little ballerinas and tap dancers practice.  Then, I played the organ for a church service and quickly got my daughter in costume, makeup, and hair for the performance in the evening.  Back to the auditorium at 6 p.m.  The show lasted until about 10:15 p.m.  Needless to say, I didn't even see a keyboard all day long.

The same can be said for Sunday.  Church in the morning.  I had to get my daughter to the theater by 1 p.m. for her afternoon performance.  The performance ended at around 5:15 p.m.  Quick drive home so my daughter could take a shower.  Then I had a family birthday party to attend.  My duties/obligations ended around 7:30 p.m.  I was going to get to a computer and do some blogging, but I was too tired.

Instead, I watched the Tony Awards last night and completely unplugged my brain.  Or tried to.  However, all this explanation doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of my readers.  I do have two new Confessions of Saint Marty cartoons to post today.  Look for those this evening.  And I'm planning on working on a poem today.  Hopefully, that will be coming later today, as well.  Potentially, this post could be the first of four new posts today.  Keep checking.

Saint Marty has to get busy.

My daughter with her dance trophies she won in May