August 24, 2025: “High School Senior,” Dreams, “Breathing”

It has been a week of ghosts, strangely.

It started with a memorial service for the father of a good friend of mine.  A lovely, selfless man who launched me on my career as a writer.  That service happened on the tenth anniversary of my sister Sally’s passing.  On Thursday, I led an open mic at Al Quaal, a little recreation area in my home town.  The open mic was, among other things, in honor the third anniversary of the transition of one of my best friends..

If you’re keeping count, that’s three ghosts.

Sharon Olds writes about the ghost of her daughter . . . 

High School Senior

by: Sharon Olds

For seventeen years, her breath in the house
at night, puff, puff, like summer
cumulus above her bed,
and her scalp smelling of apricots
—this being who had formed within me,
squatted like a wide-eyed tree-frog in the night,
like an eohippus she had come out of history
slowly, through me, into the daylight,
I had the daily sight of her,
like food or air she was there, like a mother.
I say “college,” but I feel as if I cannot tell
the difference between her leaving for college
and our parting forever—I try to see
this apartment without her, without her pure
depth of feeling, without her creek-brown
hair, her daedal hands with their tapered
fingers, her pupils dark as the mourning cloak’s
wing, but I can’t. Seventeen years
ago, in this room, she moved inside me,
I looked at the river, I could not imagine
my life with her. I gazed across the street,
and saw, in the icy winter sun,
a column of steam rush up away from the earth.
There are creatures whose children float away
at birth, and those who throat-feed their young for
weeks and never see them again. My daughter
is free and she is in me—no, my love
of her is in me, moving in my heart,
changing chambers, like something poured
from hand to hand, to be weighed and then reweighed.

Yes, Olds is hearing the tiny, ghostly feet of her daughter pattering around her home.  In all truth, I’m in the same boat as Olds.  I have a daughter who’s in med school.  A son who’s a high school senior AND.a college freshman.  My days of hearing little feet patter around my home are long past, unless you count my puppy or the occasional mouse.

I miss my toddler daughter and son.  My friend’s father was one of my favorite profs.  I think of my sister, Sally, every day of my life.  (Sometimes, I think of her hourly, depending on what’s going on in my life.)  And my friend—three years gone—well, I hear her voice every time I sit down to write a new poem or watch a fantastic movie or read an inspiring book.  All of them have been hovering around all week long.  

I start teaching again tomorrow.  The start of a new semester.  I spent a good portion of yesterday updating my online course content.  I’ve got my textbooks packed up, laptop fully charged, and The West Wing playing on the TV. (I’ve started watching the entire series again because I need to see a President of the United States I can get behind—even if said president is fictional.)

Sometimes ghosts aren’t scary.  Sometimes they remind you to be a better person.  A better husband and father.  Better teacher and writer.  And a better friend.  Maybe that’s what being “scared straight” means.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about dreams, based on the August 20th prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about a dream that has seven syllables in each line.  If you can’t remember your dream, ask a friend, lover, spouse, or child about a dream s/he recently had and write a poem about that.  For extra credit, write this poem immediately after waking up in the morning.

Breathing

by: Martin Achatz

Listen.  Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?

          — Mary Oliver

I never remember dreams.

They slip away like one-night

stands as soon as I open

my eyes.  I can almost hear

the front door closing behind

them, cologne or perfume still

lingering on the pillows.

I want my dreams to hang out,

maybe stick around for eggs

and bacon, or to listen

to morning news, sip coffee,

talk about how amazing

last night was, exchange contact

info that I’ll never use,

because that’s the way dreams are:

they slip away without a

word, walk up the street, vanish

around the corner, leaving

a vague sense you’ve lost something,

some deep, wild, and precious breath.

February 2, 2025: "The Derelict," Fall Back, "What If?"

Sometimes I dream of doing something completely different with my life.  No poetry or words.  My dad made me an apprentice plumber when I entered high school, even though I made it pretty clear I had no interest in the trade.  My mom told me, "You should have something to fall back on."  

Probably every person in the world--from the pope to the guy begging for food on the street corner--had dreams and parents who thought those dreams were dangerously unrealistic.

Sharon Olds encounters a homeless person . . . 

The Derelict

by: Sharon Olds

He passes me on the street, his hair

matted, skin polished with grime,

muttering, suit stained and stiffened--

and yet he is so young, his blond beard like a

sign of beauty and power.  But his hands,

strangely flat, as if nerveless, hang and

flap slightly as he walks, like hands of 

someone who has had polio, hands

that cannot be used.  I smell the waste of his

piss, I see the ingot of his beard,

and think of my younger brother, his beauty,

coinage and voltage of his beard, his life

he is not using, like a violinist whose

hands have been crushed so he cannot play--

I who was there at the crushing of his hands

and helped to crush them.

Olds doesn't tell the whole story here about her brother.  Obviously, there's hard feelings or estrangement.  Perhaps underlying violence and/or abuse, too.  Something that's derailed his life.  And Olds seems to take a little responsibility for his situation.

My mom convinced me to study computer science when I graduated from high school and headed off to the university.  "I think there's some future in that," she said wisely.  She knew my passions were not in numbers or lines of code, that I wanted to be a filmmaker or writer.  "It's something to fall back on, in case," she added.  It felt as though I'd already failed as a writer when she said those words.

Here I am, decades later, a published poet with a few books under his belt.  I haven't written a line of programming since I was about 21 or 22.  I never fell back.  I did work as a housekeeper for a hospital,  Painted buildings.  Bused tables.  Sold books and cigars.  Registered patients at an outpatient surgery center and cardiology office.  

But I was writing the whole time.  Look back to the beginning posts of this blog, if you don't believe me.  I never gave up on my dream.  Never settled for Plan B.

Saint Marty wrote a poem today about having something to fall back on, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Imagine that you are given the chance to start your life over.  In this new life you can choose your parents, your hometown, your travels, and your educational and/or career paths, along with your partner, children (or lack thereof), and friends.  What would you change about your life so far if you could?  Write a poem that shares about this new, alternate life.

What If?

by: Martin Achatz

What if, when I wake

up in the morning, I don't

see a finger of sun practicing

scales across the keyboard

of floor?  Or smell coffee 

burning the air like a dying

campfire?  What if instead

I was my dad, listening

to Willie Nelson on WJPD,

my hands hard as permafrost,

all my days dictated by

leaky faucets, basements

flooded with sewage, frozen

pipes and shower drains?

And what if Walt Whitman

decided to paint houses

for a living, or Emily

Dickinson castrated sheep?

How about e. e. cummings

driving a taxi on midnight shifts,

with Wordsworth as his

dispatcher?  What if Sylvia

Plath rode a garbage truck

in Harlem, and Chaucer scooped

ice cream at Baskin-Robbins?

And Shakespeare, ah, Shakespeare.

What if he was a career IRS

agent auditing the return

of Gwendolyn, who owned

a bakery called Brooks' Breads

that specialized in blueberry scones?

What if every poet followed

their parents' advice about

always having something to fall

back on?  Would that mean

Homer getting drunk night after

night at the Paradise after 

a 12-hour shift digging coal, 

telling Odysseus the bartender

how he dreams of sailing

the Mediterranean until

he runs out of baklava or Twinkies?

January 16: "On Meditating, Sort Of," Failures, Dreams

Mary Oliver meditates on meditation . . . 

On Meditating, Sort Of

by:  Mary Oliver

Meditation, so I've heard, is best accomplished

if you entertain a certain strict posture.

Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.

So why should I think I could ever be successful?

Some days I fall asleep, or land in that

even better place--half-asleep--where the world,

spring, summer, autumn, winter--

flies through my mind in its

hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.

So I just lie like that, while distance and time

reveal their true attitudes:  they never

heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

Of course I wake up finally

thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,

made out of earth and water,

my own thoughts, my own fingerprints--

all that glorious, temporary stuff.

I think that poetry is my meditation.  And maybe writing these blog posts.  Anything that takes me out of myself and my own obsessive mind, for even a little while, is meditation.  Of course, there's always the return to myself, as Oliver says the "earth and water" of who I am.  Yet, it's good to be able to expand a little.  To think of things other than my own insignificant problems and insecurities.

Today, I want to meditate on a person who's been a part of my life for over 30 years.  She's been by my side during some of the most difficult times of my life, and she has been the root of some of the most difficult times of my life, as well.  She knows me better than any other person on this planet.  I think she would say the same about me.

I don't often write about my relationship with this person straightforwardly.  Our life together has been, at times, tumultuous, and the difficulties we've experienced have been incredibly personal and painful.  Yet, through all of it, I've never lost faith in her love for me, and I try to demonstrate on a daily basis my love for her (sometimes no that successfully, I'm afraid).

Believe it or not, living with a poet is not the easiest thing in the world.  I can only speak for myself, of course, but I know that I can be withdrawn, sad, surly, emotional, and a little selfish at times.  I don't think that's unusual for a poet.  To be any kind of artist requires, I think, a certain degree of self-centeredness.

The fact that the person I'm writing about today has stuck with me this long is kind of amazing.  Yet, in the life we have carved out for ourselves, she has faced tremendous struggles, as well, with mental illness, self esteem, sexual addiction, and self harm.  She bears the scars of these struggles.  Literally.  I know that each day she gets out of bed is a victory for her.  Each night she climbs into bed, a battle with herself that she has won.

We take the people closest to us for granted.  Because we trust that, no matter what shit storms we create, those people will always be there to pick up the pieces.  I am guilty of this.  Every day, I commit first degree taking for granted.  It's not something of which I'm proud.  

So, today, I want to pay close attention.  Meditate on this person.  I want her to know that I think she's amazingly brave and beautiful.  That I see her trying to be the best she can be, each and every day.  That's all that anybody can ever do.  

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and I think that Dr. King would agree with me on this point.  We all need to try to be the best versions of ourselves, even if we sometimes fail abysmally.   Because, each time we fail, we're one step closer to our dreams.  We are all wonderfully created--out of earth, water, thoughts, fingerprints, and failures.  All that glorious, temporary stuff.

Saint Marty is proud to have a life partner who, no matter how many times she stumbles, never gives up on her dreams.

September 29: The Champion, Glory Days, Nobel Prize in Literature

Santiago recalls when he was a champion . . . 

As the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other's hand down onto the table. There was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro's face. They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro's hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched. The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro's shadow was huge and it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.

The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeon, nearly three inches off balance. But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete, beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. The match had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday morning. Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal Company. Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.

For a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it.

It's really not healthy to dwell on past glory days.  It makes you nostalgic for a time when you threw the winning touchdown or won the eight-grade spelling bee or published a poem in The New Yorker.  (Okay, if I published a poem in The New Yorker, I'd have that puppy framed and wear it on a chain around my neck.  If a person showed me a picture of their grandchild, I'd show them my New Yorker poem, which would probably be a little embarrassing after 20 or so years, I suppose.)

I know people who live in the past.  To a certain extent, I'm guilty of it, myself.  When I'm meeting a person in a professional setting, I may give a list of my accomplishments, including the fact that I served two terms as Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate.  I don't think I rest on my laurels at all, however.  I always try to push myself to be better.  Try harder.

This approach to life has allowed me to do amazing things.  Earn advanced degrees in creative writing.  Teach for 30 years.  Attend a poetry workshop led by Sharon Olds.  Star in musicals.  Direct musicals.  Publish a book of poems.  Be chosen as Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula twice.  Bring two beautiful children into the world.  Love my wife deeply for 30 years.  Host poetry readings by two U. S. Poets Laureate--Natasha Trethewey and Joy Harjo.

I have been able to do these things by looking forward, not backward.  By forcing myself to attempt things that scared the hell out of me.  Glory days are wonderful.  They remind you of really good times in your life.  Golden times when life was all birthday parties and Christmas presents.

Here is what I believe:  there's always room in your life for more glory days.  I still have big dreams for myself.  Trips I want to take (England, Italy).  Things I want to accomplish (publish another book of poems, win the Nobel Prize in Literature).  People I want to meet (Barack Obama, Stephen King).  

Dreams are just glory days in waiting.  Next week, the Swedish Academy announces this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  In seven days' time, someone will be living in their glory days.  And for a little while, I will be a part of that person's glory days, living them vicariously.

Saint Marty's blessing for today: new poems written in a writing workshop tonight.

July 13-14: The Young and Strong, Holden Caulfield, Dreams

Merton returns to England as a teenage American gangster . . .

The truth is that we did have quite a big bar bill, the Bryn Mawr girls and myself, but we were never drunk, because we drank slowly and spent the whole time stuffing ourselves with sardines on toast and all the other dainties which are the stock in trade of English liners.

In any case, I set foot once more on the soil of England dressed up in a gangster suit which Pop had bought me at Wallach's, complete with padded shoulders.  And I had a new, pale grey hat over my eye and walked into England pleased with the consciousness that I had easily acquired a very lurid reputation for myself with scarcely any trouble at all.

The separation of the two generations on board the ship had pleased me.  It had flattered me right down to the soles of my feet.  It was just what I wanted.  It completed my self-confidence, guaranteed my self-assertion.  Anyone older than myself symbolized authority.  And the vulgarity of the detectives and the stupidity of the other middle-aged people who had believed all their stories about us fed me with a pleasantly justifiable sense of contempt for their whole generation.  Therefore I concluded that I was now free of all authority, and that nobody could give me any advice that I had to listen to.  Because advice was only the cloak of hypocrisy or weakness or vulgarity or fear.  Authority was constituted by the old and weak, and had its roots in their envy for the joys and pleasures of the young and strong.

Finally, when I arrived at Oakham several days after the beginning of the term I was convinced that I was the only one in the whole place who knew anything about life, from the Headmaster on down.

I remember that time in my life, when I thought I had everything figured out.  It was wonderfully comforting, knowing that I had all the answers.  And when some authority figure tried to provide guidance or advice, I nodded dutifully, went away, and did exactly the opposite.  My mother told me to study computer science in college.  There was a future in that, she said.  I went to the university and became . . . a poet instead.

Adults always choose the safe path.  Security.  Money.  Employment.  That's not what young adults want.  When I was an undergrad, I was one step away from establishing my own Dead Poets Society.  I was artistic, love-starved, and, a lot of the time, clinically depressed.  In short, I was Holden Caulfield.

Now, as one of those old authority figures that Holden disparages through most of The Catcher in the Rye, I find myself craving safety, security, money, and good employment.  I often wonder if I chose the right path.  Perhaps I should have stuck with computer programming.  I might now have a good-sized 401(k), a nicer house and car, and a vacation home.  If only I had listened to my mother.

Yet, I know that, even with all those luxuries, I probably wouldn't have been very happy.  I mean, John Grisham was a successful lawyer, but he spent his spare time writing novels.  William Carlos Williams was a doctor, scribbling poems on his prescription pads.  Wallace Stevens sold insurance his whole life.  All of these writers had adult jobs to support their writing habits.

That's the real challenge about being a responsible adult--somehow managing to hold on to some part of what excited you as a young person.  The part that spurned all the advice of adults who wanted you to be responsible and boring.  The part that wanted to be Ingmar Bergman or Amelia Earhart or J. D. Salinger or Thomas Merton. 

If you're able to do that, no matter what career you eventually end up pursuing, you'll find happiness, despite all the adult pressures of the real world.

Me?  I work in a medical office and teach at a university.  But I'm also a Nobel Prize-winning poet.  Oscar-winning movie director.  Underground cartoonist.  Mad blogger.  My reality and my dreams.  The day I give up on my dreams is the day I stop believing in miracles. 

This message has been brought to you by Saint Marty, official sponsor of dreams and miracles.

April 25: Utopian Strain, a Writer, Dreams

Merton has a conversation with his aunt about the future . . .

Now that I as going to go to school in England, I would be more and more under her wing.  In fact, I had barely landed when she took me on one of those shopping expeditions in Oxford Street that was the immediate prelude to Ripley Court--a school in Surrey which was now in the hands of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Pearce, the wife of Uncle Ben's late brother, Robert.  He had been killed in a cycling accident when, coming to the bottom of a hill, he had failed to turn the corner and had run straight into a brick wall.  His brakes had gone back on him halfway down.

It was on one of those mornings in Oxford Street, perhaps not the very first one, that Aunt Maud and I had a great conversation about my future.  We had just bought me several pairs of grey flannel trousers and a sweater and some shoes and some grey flannel shirts and one of those floppy flannel hats that English children have to wear, and now, having emerged from D. H Evans, were riding down Oxford Street on the top of an open bus, right up in the front, where one could see simply everything

"I wonder if Tom has thought at all about his future," Aunt Maud said and looked at me, winking and blinking with both eyes as a sign of encouragement.  I was Tom.  She sometimes addressed you in the third person, like that, perhaps as a sign of some delicate, inward diffidence about bringing the matter up at all.

I admitted that I had though a little about the future, and what I wanted to be.  But I rather hesitated to tell her that I wanted to be a novelist.

"Do you think writing would be a good profession for anyone?" I said tentatively.

"Yes indeed, writing is a very fine profession!  But what kind of writing would you like to do?"

"I have been thinking that I might write stories," I said.

"I imagine you would probably do quite well at that, some day," said Aunt Maud, kindly, but added:  "Of course, you know that writers sometimes find it very difficult to make their way in the world."

"Yes, I realize that," I said reflectively.

"Perhaps if you had some other occupation, as a means of making a living, you might find time to write in your spare moments.  Novelists sometimes get their start that way, you know."

"I might be a journalist," I suggested, "and write for the newspapers."

"Perhaps that is a good idea," she said.  "A knowledge of languages would be very valuable in that field, too.  You could work your way up to the position of foreign correspondent."

"And I could write books in my spare time."

"Yes, I suppose you probably could manage it that way."

I think we rode all the way out to Ealing, talking in this somewhat abstract and utopian strain, and finally we got off, and crossed Haven Green to Castlebar Road where we had to stop in at Durston House for something or other.

It's a simple enough conversation.  An adult asking a child what s/he wants to be when s/he grows up.  Everyone reading this post probably had similar conversations with a parent or teacher or counselor or priest or minister or whomever.  "What do you want to be when you grow up?" asks the visiting police officer.  "A police officer!" says I.  "What do you want to be when you grow up, my son?" says my parish priest.  "A priest!" says I.  "What do you want to be when you grow up?" says my mother.  "A writer?" says I timidly.  My mother clucks her tongue, "Well, you can take English classes, but how about computers?  There's a future in that."  Thus I began my college career, on a full-ride scholarship, as a Computer Science major.

That didn't quite work out the way my mother imagined.  Do I regret the twists and turns my life took on the way to my current situation?  I suppose I would make different choices given the opportunity.  Maybe finish my PhD in literature.  Maybe hole up in a bedroom of the first apartment my wife and I had, banging away on a computer, writing my first novel.  Maybe forgo college entirely and travel, visiting the places I've always dreamed of seeing and now probably never will.  Rome.  London.  Paris.  Florence.  Beijing.

A side effect of this pandemic, for me, is all the time I have now to think about things like this.  My future, at the moment, is pretty hemmed in by financial and parental obligations.  I have bills to figure out how to pay and a family to support on a greatly reduced income.  I won't be planning trips to Greece or Madrid or even Green Bay any time soon.  Instead, I will hammer away on some blog post for an hour or so, publish it, and then move on to grading and making a spinach artichoke bomb.  The blogging keeps my dream alive, and the bomb feeds my kids and wife.  Some things don't change.

So, go ahead.  Ask me what I want to be when I grow up.

Saint Marty's answer will probably still be, "A writer."

June 22: Strange Symbols, Dreams, Mowing the Grass

Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian are exploring a subterranean passage on the mythical planet of Magrathea . . .

Zaphod marched quickly down the passageway, nervous as hell, but trying to hide it by striding purposefully.  He flung the beam around.  The walls were covered in dark tiles and were cold to the touch, the air thick with decay.

"There, what did I tell you?" he said.  "An inhabited planet.  Magrathea," and he strode on through the dirt and debris that littered the tile floors.

Trillian was reminded unavoidably of the London Underground, though it was less thoroughly squalid.  

At intervals along the walls the tiles gave way to large mosaics--simple angular patterns in bright colors.  Trillian stopped and studied one of them but could not interpret any sense in them.  She called to Zaphod.

"Hey, have you any idea what these strange symbols are?"

"I think they're just strange symbols of some kind," said Zaphod, hardly glancing back.

Trillian shrugged and hurried after him.

From time to time a doorway led either to the left or right into smallish chambers which Ford discovered to be full of derelict computer equipment.  He dragged Zaphod into one to have a look.  Tillian followed.

"Look," said Ford, "you reckon this is Magrathea . . ."

"Yeah," said Zaphod, "and we heard the voice, right?"

"Okay, so I've bought the fact that it's Magrathea--for the moment.  What you have so far said nothing about is how in the Galaxy you found it.  You didn't just look it up in a star atlas, that's for sure."

Zaphod and Ford grew up with the legend of the planet of Magrathea.  My dad grew up with the films of John Wayne.  My mother loved Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals like Oklahoma.  I think all of us spend our lives chasing the dreams of our youth.  Little boys want to fly off to Neverland.  Little girls want to be Hermione Granger and get an owl from Hogwarts.  For me, it was the Star Wars universe.  I wanted to be Luke Skywalker and spent many a summer afternoon in the woods, searching for my own private Yoda.

Welcome to my Saturday morning.  I have a busy day ahead--mowing and cleaning and playing the pipe organ and getting ready for my Book Club tomorrow evening.  Lots of stuff to do.  Now, I hate cutting my grass.  This antipathy stems from being forced to perform this task by my father when I was a kid.  I would spend an afternoon pushing the lawn mower in the blazing sun, and then my dad would come home and point out places that I missed and make me go out and mow again.  I can't tell you how much I HATED mowing grass.

Of course, now that I'm an adult, I have to do all the other adult things that my dad and mom did that I never noticed--like paying bills, going grocery shopping, spending eight to ten hours every day at a job.  I don't think kids ever really notice these parental acts.  They happen in the background, because kids are more focused on chasing Yoda through the forest, dreaming of discovering dinosaur bones in their backyards.  That is the job of kids.  Chasing dreams.

Me?  My biggest dream was always to be a full-time writer.  In fifth grade, when everyone was tasked to build shoe box dioramas of what we wanted to be when we grew up, I made an office lined with books.  There was a desk with a toy typewriter on it.  Behind the desk, I put a doll of the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz, because he was dressed in a three-piece suit with a top hot and pinstriped pants.  To me, he looked like a writer.  That was my dream.

I don't think I've ever stopped dreaming.  Granted, I no longer believe that there's a brontosaurus buried in my backyard.  I don't think I shall ever receive an owl from Dumbledore requesting my services as a professor of magical spell grammar.  (Now that would be a dream job!)  And I don't think that I will ever experience a jump to hyperspace.  (It would probably give me a case of vertigo now, and I'd spend the entire trip throwing up.)

But I still dream of writing full-time.  The closest I get are these daily blog posts.  An hour or two on my laptop, composing something and then sending it out into the world.  It doesn't pay any of my bills, and I don't get health insurance through Blogger.  However, it makes me feel, for a little while like I'm the Wizard, sitting in my shoe box office, writing my next bestselling novel or collection of Bigfoot poems or Broadway play.

And then, when I'm done blogging, I have to close my computer, drag out the lawn mower, and cut the friggin' grass.

Stop by Saint Marty's house this afternoon if you want.  Share some dreams with him.  He'd appreciate the break from working on his lawn to be Indiana Jones for a while.

June 18: Nikki Giovanni, "Dreams, " Fairy Godmother

Dreams 

by:  Nikki Giovanni

in my younger years

before i learned

black people aren’t

suppose to dream

i wanted to be

a raelet

and say “dr o wn d in my youn tears”

or “tal kin bout tal kin bout”

or marjorie hendricks and grind   

all up against the mic

and scream

“baaaaaby nightandday   

baaaaaby nightandday”

then as i grew and matured

i became more sensible   

and decided i would   

settle down

and just become

a sweet inspiration

_________________________

Been thinking a lot about dreams today.  How they can bolster hopes.  Make your life better.  Give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  They can also be destructive.  Make you miserable.  Focus on what you lack instead of what you have.

I would say that I'm a dreamer.  Always have been.  However, I'm realistic, as well.  I know that dreams aren't things that a Fairy Godmother gives you in a pumpkin patch.  Dreams come true through hard work.  Dedication.  And gratitude.  Lots of gratitude.

Saint Marty is grateful tonight for the life he's living right now and the people who make his dreams come true every day.

July 25: Dreams, Poet of the Week, Camille T. Dungy, "Pity"

Camille T. Dungy is the Poet of the Week.  I'm not really familiar with her work, but I came across her poem "Pity," and, for obvious reasons, it appealed to me quite a bit.

It's about Christ and suffering.  It's about a woman and mother.  It's about not losing yourself or your dreams, or perhaps allowing your dreams to evolve.  I'm not quite sure.  However, I know how family changes your values.

Over twenty years ago, I was all about writing and publishing and teaching.  Then I got married.  Then I had a daughter.  Eight years later, a son.  I'm not going to lie, though.  Sometimes, late at night when I'm lying in bed, thinking about my life, I still think about being a full-time writer and teacher.  How my life hasn't turned out exactly the way I planned.

But, sometimes God has other plans.  Better plans.

Saint Marty is just here to play his part.

Pity

by:  Camille T. Dungy

Christ bore what suffering he could and died

a young man, but you waited years to learn

how to heal. Only when you could did you

touch the man whose body blistered for yours.

You posted him no news for sixteen terms,

then just a signed graduation notice.

The letter he wrote that week asked only,

Now that your books are closed, can boys come in?

At your wedding, you buried the woman

you thought you knew inside a stranger’s name.

This is how you found yourself: thirty-three,

nursing a son. Soon there was another.

Your mind had already begun to walk.

But you were a mother. Those cribs held you.

March 3: Waiting for Worms, Dreams, Matthew Gavin Frank, "Mirrors"

I am a sacrifice bound with cords to the horns of the world's rock altar, waiting for worms.  I take a deep breath, I open my eyes.  Looking, I see there are worms in the horns of the altar like live maggots in amber, there are shells of worms in the rock and moths flapping at my eyes.  A wind from noplace rises.  A sense of the real exults me; the cords loose; I walk on my way.

Dillard spends an entire chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek talking about snakes and seals and mosquitoes and fleas.  Predators and parasites.  Victims and victimizers.  The world is based on this dynamic:  we are all part of a food chain.  Mosquitoes feed on snakes (at least in Dillard's book).  Spiders feed on mosquitoes.  Birds feed on spiders.  Bigger birds feed on smaller birds.  You get the idea.  We are all bound with cords to the horns of the rock altar, on our way to the worms.

I know that's not a very comforting thought.  But I'm not going to reflect on death or mortality in this post.  I have been in a strange melancholy state for most of this week.  I sat at my desk in the medical office today, and I felt a little trapped.  Not because of the job.  Or my coworkers.  It's the fact that I seem to be facing the same struggles every day of my life.

I wish I could be like Dillard at the end of the above passage.  I want the cords to loose; I want to walk on my way.  Those cords are pretty strong.  I have a lot of people who depend on me.  A wife and kids.  Students.  Family.  I'm not able to simply chuck it all, quit my jobs, and say "I'm going to write the great American novel" or "I'm going to be the next David Foster Wallace" (without the suicidal tendencies).  I can't do that.

I know people who have lived their dreams.  My friend, Matt Gavin Frank, for instance.  He left home at 17, traveled the world, from Alaska to Italy.  Then he went to school and studied writing.  Now, he's a famous writer.  His books are reviewed in Entertainment Weekly and The Paris Review.  This isn't envy I'm expressing.  Matt works his ass off all the time.  But he's doing exactly what he wants to do.  What he's dreamed of doing.

Most days, Saint Marty is just too tired to even think about his dreams.

Mirrors

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

The mosquito wrinkles against the glass, bites
at its own reflection.  My sister wonders
if it sees itself as the bear trapped in its blue

image, the bite of rusted aluminum at its ankles,
think as quicksand.  My sister begins a story
about handcuffs and brass bedposts, then

remembers I'm her brother.  I glance
at her wrists, looking for scars.  Someone
should tell us not to think so much about

the mosquito, not to clap our hands on its flight,
igniting the small firecracker of God-knows-
whose blood onto our palms, not to close

our fronds over the wrists of another.
Sometimes, someone should tell us, the wrists
will maneuver a harmonica over a bearded

man's lip.  Sometimes the sound of a harmonica
played by one's father is gargantuan, explosive
as a firecracker, especially if one's mother

has locked herself into the bedroom again,
threatening to burn all of the paperbacks.
He wouldn't care, but he needs to know

the endings.  It is only the beginnings that matter
to her.  Soon, they will put down their instruments,
find the time to make love six times before the last

few pages.  A brother will hold his sister's hand
at their closed door, as I may hold my sister's,
wishing it was a book of matches.  The air

will be heavy with trying rain, and we
will ask of it, before it falls:  Tell us our names
will be carried on in the saliva of mosquitoes,

our holes will be mended with simple needle
and thread.  And tell us also, that our parents
will never die.

Sometimes it takes an act of God . . .

June 22: Dreams, "Ives" Dip, Poet of the Week, Louise Gluck, "Forbidden Music"

I have been thinking a lot about posterity--what I'm going to be remembered for when I shuffle off this mortal . . . Well, you get the idea.

Ever since I was a kid, I've dreamed of being a famous author.  While other kids were idolizing Superman and Clint Eastwood, I had a different set of heroes:  Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, J. D. Salinger, Harper Lee.  I wanted King's fame and Salinger's mystique.  I wanted Vonnegut's reputation and Lee's good fortune (a Pulitzer Prize for my first book).  I've never really lost this streak of literary hero worship.  I still want to be Flannery O'Connor and Robert Frost and Cormac McCarthy.  Preferably all three at once.

Of course, I've had to adjust my ambitions.  I can no longer be the youngest author to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature (the title still belongs to Rudyard Kipling, who won at the age of 42).  A little concession.  Yet, I still sit down almost every day to write.  Some nights, it's just a blog post.  Other nights, I take out my journal and scribble in it for a while after I'm done posting.  It's a matter of holding onto a dream.  Dreams provide hopes for something better.

So tonight my Ives dip question is this:

Will my dreams of becoming a famous author ever come true?

And the answer from Oscar Hijuelos (who was 39 when he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction):

. . . Her "goodness" was something of a curse.  As a person of principle, who had put many years into her efforts, she could not turn her back on anything.  And yet, at the same time, she had become caustic in her approach to teaching--it took her a long time but the old indifference of the system had caught up to her.

Okay, Annie Ives eventually loses her youthful enthusiasm.  She no longer dreams of changing the world one student at a time.  I'm not quite there yet.  I still think there's hope for me.  Poem by poem.

I have chosen Louis Gluck as the Poet of the Week.  Gluck's latest collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night, won the 2014 National Book Award for Poetry.  At the age of 50, Gluck won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection Wild Iris.  She knows a little bit about making a name for herself. 

Saint Marty still has a few years to beat Gluck to the Pulitzer.

Forbidden Music

by:  Louise Gluck

After the orchestra had been playing for some time, and had passed the andante, the scherzo, the poco adagio, and the first flautist had put his head on the stand because he would not be needed until tomorrow, there came a passage that was called the forbidden music because it could not, the composer specified, be played.  And still it must exist and be passed over, an interval at the discretion of the conductor.  But tonight, the conductor decides, it must be played--he has a hunger to make his name.  The flautist wakes with a start.  Something has happened to his ears, something he has never felt before.  His sleep is over.  Where am I now, he thinks.  And then he repeated it, like an old man lying on the floor instead of in his bed.  Where am I now?

Rumor has it that Kipling slept with the King of Sweden to get the Nobel

May 20: Dreams, Gregory Pardlo, "Raisin"

Tonight, I've been thinking a lot about dreams.  It seems like my whole life I've been a dreamer.  If it weren't for my dreams, I don't think I'd be able to get out of bed and go to work every day.  I feel a little like a sell-out in the medical office.  I don't believe that I'm helping people.  I feel like I'm helping a huge healthcare organization take advantage of sick people.

Dreams.  I believe that my life can be better.  That there's something better around the corner.  Maybe down the hill.  Across the river.  Through the desert.  And over the mountain.

Saint Marty is ready to go the distance.

Raisin

by:  Gregory Pardlo

I dragged my twelve-year-old cousin
to see the Broadway production of A Raisin
in the Sun because the hip-hop mogul
and rapping bachelor, Diddy, played
the starring role.  An aspiring rapper gave
my cousin his last name and the occasional child
support so I thought the boy would geek to see a pop
hero in the flesh as Walter Lee.  My wife was newly
pregnant, and I was rehearsing, like Diddy
swapping fictions, surrendering his manicured
thug persona for a more domestic performance.
My cousin mostly yawned throughout the play.
Except the moment Walter Lee's tween son stiffened
on stage, as if rapt by the sound of a roulette ball.
Scene:  No one breathes as Walter Lee vacillates,
uncertain of obsequity or indignation after Lindner offers
to buy the family out of the house they've purchased
in the all-white suburb.  Walter might kneel to accept,
but he senses the tension in his son's gaze.  I was thinking,
for real though, what would Diddy do?  "Get rich
die trying," 50 Cent would tell us.  But my father would
sing like Ricky Scaggs, "Don't get above your raisin',"
when as a kid I vowed to be a bigger man than him.
That oppressive fruit dropped heavy as a medicine
ball in my lap meant to check my ego, and I imagined
generations wimpling in succession like the conga
marching raisins that sang Marvin's hit song.  Silly,
I know.  Outside the theater, my cousin told me
when Diddy was two, they found his hustler dad
draping a steering wheel in Central Park,
a bullet in his head.  I shared what I knew of dreams
deferred and Marvin Gaye.  (When asked if he loved
his son, Marvin Sr. answered, "Let's just say I didn't
dislike him.")  Beneath the billing of many billion
diodes I walked beside the boy through Times Square
as if anticipating a magic curtain that would rise,
but only one of us would get to take a bow.

A Diddy in the Sun

August 18: Darkness, Poet of the Week, Mary Oliver, "The Uses of Sorrow"

OK, so I wrote about dreams in my previous post.

I'm not feeling very dreamy this evening.  I'm feeling a little dark.  This week's Poet of the Week, Mary Oliver, knows a few things about darkness.  Sometimes, it's difficult to see the sun through the clouds.  But clouds are important, too.

Tonight's poem is short, but it captures my thoughts perfectly.

Mary Oliver sometimes makes Saint Marty think he should give up writing.

The Uses of Sorrow

by:  Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

There can't be light without darkness

July 30: The New Yorker, Salaried Professional Writer, Dreams

Harold Ross, the founder of The New Yorker, literally begged E. B. White to join the staff of his fledgling magazine.  Ross begged for a couple of months.  Eventually, White relented:

Finally, in January 1927, Andy agreed to contribute new work every week and to show up every weekday, at least for a few hours, at a small office that was assigned to him.  In return Harold Ross agreed to pay him $30 per week.,  [White] had left Frank Seaman and was now working part-time at a different advertising agency, J. H. Newmark, where he earned the same amount.  Surely a frugal man could live on $60 a week, especially while still rooming with three others.  More important than the money, about which [White] had an almost cavalier attitude, was that at twenty-seven he had suddenly become a salaried professional writer.

E. B. White lucked out.  He got hired by The New Yorker before it became THE NEW YORKER, the magazine that every poet, writer, and essayist wanted to appear in.  Nowadays, most poets would sacrifice a limb to have even one poem published in its pages.  I, personally, would sacrifice a testicle to land a poem in The New Yorker.  White didn't have to make a blood offering.  He, almost literally, walked into a job as a staff writer/editor.

Of course, E. B. White did hang around New York for a few years before Harold Ross came knocking.  He published in various magazines and newspapers, and he dreamed of being the next Franklin Pierce Adams (F. P. A.) or Don Marquis.  He dreamed a lot, and he wrote a lot.

I think one of the requirements of being a writer is the ability to dream.  Almost every writer I know dreams of publishing in magazines like The New Yorker or landing a book on the bestseller lists.  Putting words on a page is an act of hope.  Hope that somebody will want to read it, publish it, give it a Pulitzer Prize.  Big dreams.

I've been dreaming writing dreams for a very long time.  I've published a book of poems.  I'm the poetry editor of an internationally respected literary magazine.  I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  I've had some success, but I'm still dreaming.  The day that I stop dreaming is the day that I stop writing.

Saint Marty has a dream tonight that some major editor or literary agent will read this post, track him down, and offer him a contract for an obscene amount of money.  It might happen.

Dream a little dream...

June 7: Case of Injustice, Weeping Teenage Girls, New Cartoon

"I see no difference," replied Fern, still hanging on to the ax.  "This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of."

Fern is near hysterics at the beginning of Charlotte's Web.  She's sobbing, yelling, basically doing anything she can to save Wilbur from the ax.  And, because Mr. Arable is moved by his daughter's emotional pleas (White writes that "[h]e seemed almost ready to cry himself"), Fern wins the responsibility of raising the little pig.

Last night, my wife and I went to see the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars.  It was the first date we had been on in a long time.  The movie was really well done, and the popcorn was fantastic.  The only thing that was slightly annoying was the theater crammed with crying teenage girls.  Not just sniffling teenage girls.  I'm talking full-on sobbing.  Chest-heaving, snotty-nose sobbing.  I barely heard the last half hour of the movie.  Then, when it was over, the girls congregated in the lobby, hugging each other, weeping as though they were all at a middle school dance.

That was my evening.  Movie.  Popcorn.  Hormonal crying.  Oh, and the sobbing girls.  Welcome to my life.

I've been thinking a lot about dreams recently.  Dreams are based on hopes, and hopes foster expectations.  In the past year or so, I've allowed myself to have expectations, and it hasn't worked out well for me.  I wish I could go through my life without expectations or hopes or dreams.  I wish I could just be satisfied with my life.  Unfortunately, I can't.  To be completely satisfied with my life, I would need to have no worries, and I'm a worrier.

I worry, so therefore I have expectations.  I have expectations, so therefore I have hopes.  I have hopes, so therefore I have dreams.

So, Saint Marty will continue to dream the impossible dream.

Confessions of Saint Marty

March 4: Day One, Spring Break, Walter Mitty, "Rye" Dip

Welcome to Day One of Spring Break.  I have twelve hours of work ahead of me, so it doesn't seem like too much of a vacation at the moment.  Granted, I don't have to leave my medical office job in order to teach at the university.  That is a break from my usual daily routine.  But, as you are all well aware, I'm, generally, a glass-half-empty kind of person.  What is going through my mind right now is this:  if I were full-time professor at the university, I would still be in bed, under my quilt, dreaming sweet dreams without care (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Seuss).  Instead, I'm up at 4 a.m., as usual, preparing for a long day of human interaction.

If it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm not.  Well, not too much.  I'm just fantasizing about the good life.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on a Friday in which I exaggerated a great deal.  OK, I lied unashamedly.  It was quite liberating.  For a few blogging minutes, I was able to pretend I had the life I've always wanted.  I felt like Walter Mitty with his ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

I don't think I'm unusual in my Mittyesque musings.  Most people dream during their days.  About winning the lottery or starring in movies or writing bestselling books or winning the Nobel Prize in Literature or finding an intelligent/compassionate Republican.  Some of those fantasies are attainable (writing a book, even if it doesn't hit the bestseller lists).  Other fantasies are just that--pure, unadulterated make-believe (the intelligent/compassionate Republican).  However, human beings need to dream, because, without dreams, life seems pretty hopeless.

As a Christian, I have an edge in the hope department.  I know that hope exists.  There is always light in the darkness.  While I have struggled at times to find that light, I always have.  Of course, in the darkness, I have prayed for unrealistic things sometimes, such as a distant rich relative dying and leaving me a multimillion dollar estate or the MacArthur Foundation awarding me a genius grant.  In my most desperate moments, my prayer always boils down, becomes distilled, simpler:  God, help me, help me, help me, help me.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with  Rye Dip Monday.  Well, I think the questions I ask in my posts on Monday mornings are, sort of, a form of prayer.  They voice my worries and hopes and dreams.  The answers I get from The Catcher in the Rye are just a way of focusing the thoughts and feelings that already exist within me, put there by a Higher Power.

Today, I'm going to keep my question simple:

Will I have a good day?

And the answer from the gospel of Salinger is:

...One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something--it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid.  Some guys spend days looking for something they lost.  I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much...

That answer seems pretty obvious.  I need to stop worrying, because worry doesn't accomplish anything.  It just makes the worrier feel lousy.  Give all my concerns up to God, and I will have a good day.

The universe is working for Saint Marty's happiness right now.  He can hear its engine running:  ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa...

Hopes, Joys, Cares Long Forgotten, New Cartoon

I'm feeling in a reflective mood this morning.  I'm thinking about how, some ten years ago, I was completing the requirements for my MFA in poetry.  My daughter was just over two-years-old, and my wife's bipolar seemed to be under control.  I had dreams of publication, a full-time teaching gig at the university, a bigger house.  Anything seemed possible.

A lot has changed in those ten years.  My daughter is a gorgeous young woman.  I have a smart, funny son.  I'm still living in the same house.  My wife has battled mental illness on several fronts--mania and sexual addiction and depression.  Our marriage has come back from the brink of divorce.  I've published a book of poems.  I'm still a part-time adjunct.  I still work 12 to 14 hour days between the school and the hospital.  And I still have dreams.

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly.  Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling.  He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten.

Scrooge, during the course of A Christmas Carol, is reminded of his youthful dreams.  He sees himself as a boy again, filled with the kind of happiness that goes along with having your whole life ahead of you.  Of course, the difference is that Scrooge knows what the future holds for his teenage self.  And it ain't pretty.  In the company of the Ghost of Christmas Past, however, he allows himself, for a few moments, to be swept up in his old thoughts, hopes, joys, and cares.

I don't think you're ever too old to dream.  Despite everything that's happened in the past ten years, I still have dreams.  I haven't completely let go of my old ones, either.  I still believe I will one day have a full-time professorship at the university.  I still believe I will publish a book that will win the Pulitzer Prize.  I still believe I will live in a bigger house.  (I have lowered my standards on this dream.  I no longer need a mansion with a swimming pool.  I just want to be able to buy this beautiful, old house up the street.)  I still believe.

Scrooge has to be reminded by Jacob Marley and the Christmas Spirits about the importance of dreams.  Granted, now that Scrooge is old and rich, he has the means to make more of his dreams come true.  He starts dreaming again.  He dreams that Tiny Tim will walk and be healthy.  He dreams he will find the love of human beings in his life.

If I didn't have dreams, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.  There would be no point.  By the end of the book, Scrooge starts living his dreams again.  That's what Christmas is all about.  That's what life is all about.  Hopes.  Joys.  Cares.  Dreams.

Saint Marty, keeping his hopes and dreams alive.  (By the way, he wouldn't turn down a house with a swimming pool.)

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 25: More Submissions, New Poem, Oslo

I sent out some more poems for publication, this time to The Christian Century, which seems like a magazine that is custom-made for me.  I looked at quite a few poets who have published in the magazine in the past.  Their subject matter, their style, their everything seemed perfectly suited for my work.  So I sent the poetry editor five of my poems.  We'll see what happens.

Another magazine to publish in...

This morning, when I wrote a little bit about the death of Amy Winehouse, I didn't even mention the horrible killings in Norway.  Generally, I stay away from news reports on the weekends, so anything that happens from Friday afternoon to Monday morning comes as a surprise to me.

Memorial service in Norway

Obviously, the man who is responsible for the bombing and shootings in Oslo has some serious mental health issues.  Regardless of police and lawyers saying he is completely rational and sane, a person doesn't go on a murder rampage like this without a few synapses not firing correctly in the brain.  As I perused the various accounts of what happened, I started thinking about how dreams can be both liberating and fatal. 

This shooter in Norway says he was striking some kind of blow against the spread of Islam in Europe.  His violent act was his dream, his chance to take a stand for his beliefs, as warped as they may be.  Other people, like Martin Luther King and Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, had dreams, as well.  Their dreams lead to freedom, justice, equality, tolerance.  Dreams are powerful things.

That's what today's poem is about, the duality of dreams.

Saint Marty is dreaming of a vanilla malt right now.

This is what I'm talkin' about

I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King had one,

Raised his voice, fed that crowd

The way Jesus fed his audience

With bread and fish, told them

To break off pieces, pass it along

Until everyone’s stomachs filled,

Need banished to shadow, cave,

Places where nightmare reigns.

Mandela survived 27 years on it,

The limestone, veld flower

On Robben Island, his wheat and tilapia.

Gandhi marched to the sea for salt,

Cut it into dough, sprinkled it

Over silver pomfret until its meat tasted

Like heartbreak.  I dream of lines

Baked brown, the silence of yeast,

The crash of whale fluke in dark water.

Dream is funny like that, a coupling

Of joy and sorrow, a zygote

That swims, gestates, sprouts

Spine, eye, arm, leg, finger,

Crowds the womb into light and breath,

Into a form we recognize:

Hutus wielding machetes or

Poets stringing pearls or

Prophets preaching from treetops

In the hungry jungles of the soul.

August 13: Saint Benildus

It is Friday the 13th.  I'm not really superstitious, however.  Nothing really terrible has ever happened to me on a Friday the 13th.  I'm pretty sure the bad karma attributed to the day comes from the fact that Christ was supposedly crucified on a Friday, and the unlucky number 13 is connected to the number of people at the Last Supper.  The superstition, then, has its roots in Christian tradition.  That doesn't mean that I believe in the whole black-cat, step-on-a-crack, don't-walk-under-a-ladder way of thinking.  However, I did grow up with the whole Jason-in-a-hockey-mask, serial killer thing.  As long as I'm not camping in a rustic cabin on a deserted lake with a group of horny teenagers, I can confidently say that I'm pretty safe.

As a follower of Christ, I guess I shouldn't really subscribe to ideas of luck or karma or fate.  Friday the 13th is just another day of the month...Okay, I just typed that and nothing bad happened.  A brick didn't crush my skull.  Lightning didn't strike my computer and fry its circuitry.  The phone didn't ring with news that my house was on fire or my dog died of severe mange.  (Actually, I don't own a dog, but I just wanted to use the word "mange.")

Since I'm courting catastrophe by scoffing at Friday the 13th, I think I'll just throw caution to the wind and talk about some dreams and goals I have for myself and my life.  So, this post may really annoy those of you who can't stand the me-me-me-ness of current popular books like Eat, Pray, Love.  (I think I may be the only man I know who actually liked that book.)  In my defense, you are reading a blog written about me and my experiences by me.  What the hell do you expect?

Anyway, I recently accomplished one of the goals I've had for a while.  I was chosen as Employee of the Month for the health care system I work for.  That means, for one shining period of 31 days, I was better than over 1200 other people.  (Okay, even I have to admit that statement sounds incredibly shallow.)  I know that awards and accolades don't determine how good of a person I am.  But it's a lot easier to feel good about myself if I have that physical affirmation to back it up.  Plus the money that went with the award was nice.  It's sort of like my coworker who just purchased a new used car.  "Is it bad that I feel like a better person when I'm driving now?" she asked me.

One of my current goals may seem equally as self-serving as the one I just wrote about.  I know I shouldn't crave fame or readership, although sometimes it feels like I'm writing only for myself and the few friends I drag to a computer and force to review my latest post.  I know there are more readers out there than I'm aware of.  However, writing is essentially a lonely process.  You write in isolation, rewrite in isolation, and, in the case of a blog, publish in isolation.  I revel in comments from readers I don't know personally because it means that what I'm writing is actually being read by people who aren't obligated to read it.

Which brings me to my next goal.  I want to be chosen by Blogger.com as a Blog of Note.  Basically, every month, the good people who run Blogger.com choose blogs that somehow strike their fancy for some reason.  I've reviewed a lot of the blogs that have received this distinction.  They don't seem to follow any particular topic or theme.  There's artists and cab drivers and chicken farmers and Hooter's waitresses and moustache fetishists.  You name it.

I want to be chosen as a Blog of Note.

Now, the problem is that the authors of these blogs are pretty good self-promoters.  They do things like e-mail Blogger.com and threaten to torture kittens if their blog isn't chosen for recognition.  I'm not good at stuff like that.  I think another way a blog gets chosen is by having a large following.  That means I need more followers.  I've been at five followers for a while now.  So, what I'm asking is for those of you anonymous followers to register as official followers.  Tell your friends/relatives to register as followers.  I like new friends, even if they're cyber.  And, if you feel so inclined, e-mail Blogger.com and tell them you're going to shave a puppy if Feasts & Famines isn't chosen as a Blog of Note.  It might help.

Now, this blatant plea for recognition and popularity may seem to be antithetical to my quest for becoming more saintly.  I agree with you.  Benildus, today's saint, didn't go around telling friends to mention his name to the pope.  Basically, Benildus spent his life as a teaching priest in France in the 19th century.  He established a school in Saugues, France, and spent almost a third of his life providing free education to underprivileged boys.  He had a reputation for sanctity, generosity, and humility (of course).  He didn't care is he was voted Teacher of the Year.  He didn't even care is he was a Priest of Note.  Benildus just did what he thought God wanted him to do.  When I started this blog, I really thought it was God who planted the seed in my heart.  It was something I felt I needed to do.  I think that qualifies as being called, just like Benildus was called to teach.

I thought God was going to take control, and I'd have over 1000 followers by now.  I'd be getting calls from the New York Times and have my pick of literary agents.  At the very least, I'd be a freakin' Blog of Note.  But, of course, God has other plans.  So, I'm just going to keep writing and trusting.  It's all I can do.  The rest is out of my hands, like all goals and dreams.  It's not about luck, good or bad.  It's about trust.

And a few hundred e-mails to Blogger.com by some avid fans.