they used to.

Dickens wrote an entire world in the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." He could have written that anytime and it would be true. I try to keep this in mind when i am feeling especially glum about the state of the world. what do i know, i haven't lived long enough to make an accurate judgement about what exactly is happening to us as a society, perhaps i never will be able to make one and perhaps i ought not to, don't really want to. what would that solve, after all, one person's lifelong observation of the world. write a memoir, for chrissakes. or just write.

the baby has been doing trapeze artist tricks in there, and it creates the god-weirdest ache in my cervix. 'ow, my cervix' is a curious thing to be saying a few times a day. i cannot quite tell which body part is causing the sharp one-two jabs. all of them, i think.

here is a tiny rhyme about it:

my baby floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee
it's my cervix vs. muhammed ali
punch and jab and kick and spar
out of myself is beaten the tar.



also, i'm so sentimental these days. over the weekend i almost started crying because of takeo spikes's achilles tendon thing. i don't even know what the man looks like, that's how much i follow football. but man, that's a tough row to hoe.

it would be my fortune that just as i finally procure a library card, the library closest to me is closing, permanently. the flourescent paper that declares so is quite sad. though i accept that some libraries *have* to close, and that the 'system' is doing its best to keep all areas of the city well served. we have been lucky so far in that (previously) we were in the top five cities for libraries per capita, or something like that. also, most other libraries charge you to request items and to rent movies, buffalo's didn't (but will starting october 1st, blech).

also there was a fairly entertaining dylan doc on pbs last night, which continues tonight. some of the footage was quite astounding, it provided a nice pictorial/video supplement to the 'story,' which was basically dylan's own 'chronicles: vol 1' with some interviews of contemporaries thrown in. that's why i say 'fairly entertaining' since if you read the book, the film (at least this first part) isn't telling you anything you don't already know. plus if you are a big dylan fan you will most likely already know a ton of this stuff. but dylan's own commentary is a great deal less miserable and vague than seen previously and he actually gets a light in his eyes during a few reminisces. it occured to me, both reading the book and seeing the film, that fame like his is not in the least enviable. you have three, maybe four generations putting all this meaning on songs, words, feelings, and attitudes you can never recreate. deifying you. you yourself may have never known the meaning, and after a certain time, your life changes and you probably don't care like you once may have. you tour, you keep performing since that is your line of work, but (most of) the crowd is expecting those old washed out now threadbare anthems you've done thousands of times, in countless versions, endless cities, in front of hundreds of thousands of old timers and kid hippies, for decades. i'd be pretty miserable as well. but, at what price fame. and i'm making him sound all played out and used up, as if he relies on all those old tunes to get him through, when really 'love and theft' kicks ass. judging from a show i saw a few years back in columbus, he has himself an excellent time playing from that. he's writing his memoirs and appearing in films by martin scorsese, about him. i guess life can't be too bad.

last night i dreamed of two massive eagles with especially large claws, flying just a few feet from the surface of some pristine lake who knows where, hopefully somewhere on this earth, a secret place on mama nature's body as yet undefiled by man's repugnant touch...

anyhow, one of the eagles spotted its catch and swooped down, scooping with its claws but missing, so very quickly it plunged itself into the water in a shallow arc and emerged victorious in the air with a monstrous, delectable salmon. it was awesome. i felt that.

yesterday i witnessed a very happy, very large man riding an old fashioned aqua blue bicycle.

a few days before that, i got to see my baby's face in 4D.

the world is fucking amazing, in't it?

sparrow (finally) caught a bird and left it for us for a present. unfortunately, it was not discovered until it set to stinkin in the 'junk' room we don't use that much. so paul swept it up and dumped it in the trash. i feel bad because i had always kept it in mind that when cats do that it is truly giving a gift, and he should be praised and thanked appropriately. well, who knows when he actually dropped it off, and since the reaction was less than stellar, he may not ever do this again. aw. sorry, little hunter. carry on, do.

matthew's zoo pics reminded me that sometimes at night from our room (which opens up to a backyard porch), we can hear some kind of zoo animal warbling? yowling? lowing? bellowing? moaning? singing? crying? yodeling? ....some combo. the first few times i heard it i thought it was a far off dog, perhaps ill, whose howl got distorted over the distance. then for some reason i thought someone had a llama in their backyard (hey, i have pregnancy brain, ok??? and the pseudo-mansions around here have some big (and of course, fenced and bushed) backyards). i did not even think about the fact that we live near the zoo until our landlord, who came over to fix something, asked if we've heard the zoo animals yet. duh! anyway, it's quite impressive, since it is quite a few blocks away, but also very sad. a plaintive, displaced sound. i will not go to zoos because i get too blue about the whole state of affairs. there's a lot of arguments and counterarguments and reasons and pros and cons and the like, but what it all boils down to is it just makes me *sad* that they're in there. as for what i am going to do when the baby is four or five and wants to go, i do not know......

also in the hood some moneyed folks were having quite the backyard karaoke party last saturday night. yikes! four reps of dancin' queen, each sung by equally hideous though surely different generational females is quite enough for me. i will not enjoy that song evermore. it was fabulous free entertainment though. abruptly, it stopped, which led us to believe that some other moneyed folks may have called the police for disturbing the peace of our perpetually quiet area. p and i were saying how a party in our house would be unenjoyable b/c the neighbors and hood are so still, and music/noise would surely be frowned upon at least. a shame. i miss you, north pearl!! do i feel an ode coming on?? i do, i do!!

ode to north pearl

dearest railroad style apt
i miss that funky brick wall in the kitchen
what became of the courtyard sludge bucket, (surprise!! (ha))
and now no jaunty sparrow climbs that rickety escape to the roof.

we have flowers here too
though much less crack cocaine
i used to walk in antique daydreams
streets leaking slowly histories.

you will be restored to some former glory
huge and barely lived in by two busy people
maybe some echo of a good time will resound in the closet they'll preserve,
i sure hope so, the baby was conceived there.






i won the lottery! my uncle gave me a scratcher called "fat cat" and laughed because i'm 'fat', then i went and won a benjamin. ha ha and hell's yeah! *someone* i know says unfortunately it's not yahoo money this week, but i say screw that, mama's buying herself......hm. what? it is funny how when you're not working you don't need and want things the same way. or maybe i am in the detached from material items cycle. before i might have blown it going out, eating, drinking, carousing. i think i am finally learning how to be quieter.

maybe i could go to some pub at say, three in the pm, play a bunch of jukebox songs and have a pepsi (which sometimes causes my eyes to roll back in my head it's so goddam good: allowable but slightly naughty...) there's something so awful about going to a bar when you're pregnant tho. i can't remember the last time i was in one. am i missing anything? nah.....