Reflecting on a Year of Daily Haiku

Author's note: This blog entry has been ported from another blog, and minor content edits have been made for clarity. The "tweets" mentioned herein are only discoverable on the Wayback Machine by the Internet Archive, because the author's Twitter account has been deleted since 2017. This was back when Twitter was Twitter. As such, links to twitter.com/x.com have been removed. Other dead links have been updated to their most relevant contemporary counterpart. Thank you for your understanding of the limitations of preserving the World Wide Web.

It's been a year since I've taken on the challenge to write a haiku everyday. Before 2014-11-19, I was only writing a haiku tweet about once a month. I had only starting writing haiku tweets in 2014 after my grandpa passed away. On 2014-10-01, I wrote my first haiku tweet in over 10 months.

Vast air shuts my book
They say that, "The wind rises!
We must try to live!"

The haiku was a reference to the poem The Graveyard by the Sea and the movie The Wind Rises, which I had recently seen. The passage I sampled from had to do with living even in the face of death, which was salient with losing my grandpa.

The wind is rising... We must try to live!
The vast air opens then shuts again my book,
The waves dare surge in spray above the rocks!
Scatter, pages dazzled by the light,
Break, waves! Exulting waters, break
This peaceful roof where sailboats dipped like doves!

See https://newcriterion.com/article/the-cemetery-by-the-sea/

I followed the 2014-10-01 post up with one on the first of November, 2014-11-01, all about visioning.

Go The Artist's Way
"Where will you be in five years?"
Answer truthfully

Then on 2014-11-19, I decided to write haiku daily, or at least try to meet that goal. For a month up until that date, I had much lower energy than I was used to. I was, in parallel, facing the aftermath of losing my mentor and patriarch, feeling the pressure of a new job, and reeling from a relationship that didn't work out. I needed something to do that would keep my brain busy. I needed a creative outlet that could help me find my voice again. I already had the haiku Twitter, and I'd written a number of haiku as a fundraiser, so it was familiar enough to keep going, but challenging enough to increase the frequency.

Writing 5-7-5 everyday is hard, at least to write haiku that mean anything. I could have cheated and just assembled random seventeen syllables each time, but I wanted each poem to represent something I'd seen or felt. I think some of the haiku turned out beautifully, and some are a stretch. I found that several haiku talked about the same subjects and ideas. Sometimes I had to resort to clip shows.

As of today, I have written 301 haiku on the daily cadence. There are a few more I squeezed in the next day after I missed a day, but I'm not counting those. I'd like to share some of my favorites from the exercise below. They aren't ranked, and they may not even be the best of the batch. But I think they're worth sharing.

1. This haiku (2014-12-20) is a translation of John Steinbeck's letter to his son and some thoughtful advice on relationships. This advice has helped me get through some seemingly rougher times.

Main thing: not to hurry
If it is right it happens
Good won't get away

The original words:

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
—John Steinbeck, to his son Thom

2. This haiku (2015-01-05) was my reflection on the book Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. I volunteer as a store clerk in a fake robot store that is actually a nonprofit tutoring and writing center. This haiku made the newsletter there.

Robots don't need sleep
They can do your job, better
Player Piano

3. In this haiku (2015-01-08), I was upset about the relatively low temperature outside.

Check if Fahrenheit
Indeed, still zero degrees
My scarf needs a scarf

4. This haiku (2015-02-15) turned out to be advice, as I found several others in this series to be. They feel kind of like fortune cookies. This is advice about learning.

Slow cook mastery
Broil not, lest lesson be singed
All good things take time

5. This haiku (2014-02-17) is about a quiet, starry night.

No wind, stars are loud
Gripped by wonder, vast blackness
Ghosts of long dead suns

6. Two pieces of advice within a week. Maybe I needed some inspiration and comfort when I wrote this haiku (2015-02-21). I get some comfort in reading it again.

Move at your own pace
Be good at being alone
Then it's not lonely

7. I wrote this haiku (2015-03-05) on the day I celebrate as "my favorite day of the year". (There's no particular reason it's my favorite date of the year. I do think it's important to have such a date. For some people it's Halloween or Christmas or the first day of summer.) It's about timeless moments. Note that I accidentally put the line break after the last line. Is there more to this poem?

Short breathlessness, peace
Rare bird spotted once in life
Elusive feeling

8. I wrote this haiku (2015-03-08) about winter's retreat, which seems nice given that I'm currently looking out at the first snowfall of the year as I write this.

Chrome sky, soft mauve, blue
Air thick, sweet with snow's retreat
Dripping percussion

9. This haiku (2015-03-09) sampled from A Tribe Called Quest's track Push It Along, which itself sampled from Grover Washington, Jr. It's about keeping at it, like Sisyphus. I read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus that winter, and I had learned to appreciate tenacity even in the face of futility. The absurd hero pushes the boulder along.

In my way, a boulder
Strength in character, not arms
Just push it along

10. This haiku (2015-03-18) is about naked trees and their gnarly branches. I see in trees a lot of personality, mostly in their shape and not actions.

Inverted talons
Witchy claws scrape baby blue
Begging for new leaves

11. This haiku (2015-03-20) creates a metaphor out of dealing with difficult situations. [Author's interjection: I wrote this before we knew about Louis C.K.'s sexual misconduct. In the interest of preserving history, the text that follows is the original text verbatim. The author in 2024 does not support the author's 2015 text for bullet #11. The author still likes the haiku.] Louis C.K. is very good at observing true things (and thus very funny), and he advocates that knowing how to sit with pain and sadness is how to be a person.

Acceptance as moss
Sit with it and it's pleasant
Know your own way north

12. This haiku (2015-04-04) is about the rise of spring and the surprises buried beneath the snow. When I first learned about haiku, the samples I read were usually about seasons and nature. I think these are important ones to highlight in this series.

Branches a-dancing
Rich spring soil beneath leaves
Wind blows fall away

13. I wrote this haiku (2015-04-19) while feeling sad during my road trip through the southern United States. I had stayed in some hotel rooms by myself, with very populous cities outside. I thought about the millions of people surrounding me and how I didn't want to meet any of them. I looked out my hotel window at a skyline I didn't recognize, and I hated the skyscrapers I saw. Conceptually and architecturally they were impressive, but by that time I'd seen building after building in different cities, and they were all starting to look the same: just metal, concrete, and glass. My best friend P says, "Home is the skyline you smile at." This wasn't home.

City far away
Buildings are generic blocks
Hotel room quiet

14. I wrote this haiku (2015-05-25) about a stunning mutt named Zeke.

Soft, cool plot of grass
Gallop gives to gravity
Dog day afternoon

15. I wrote this haiku (2015-06-22) in thinking about the joy of exploration. When I was little, the forest outside my grandparents' cottage seemed to unfold larger and larger as I walked through it. That forest is now someone's property with dusty driveways and not the fresh, untrodden paths I once knew and still yearn for.

Loamy, twiggy floor
Soft, wild, and new to the step
Undiscovered glade

16. This haiku (2015-06-26) is about Lake Michigan at night, to my left as I was driving to my grandparents' old cottage. The moon had risen white, and the small waves on the lake were picking up its quiet, clear light.

Licorice lakeshore
Ripples like vigil candles
Soft and sure in dark

17. One common trait among haiku in this series is the subject: clouds. I hadn't before recorded how often I look out windows at clouds, for significant lengths of time, and it became very clear that's my most practiced hobby after writing so many haiku about it. This one (2015-07-17) is one of my favorite "cloud haiku", in that it doesn't have the word "cloud" in it, and it doesn't need a picture of a cloud to support it, but a nice picture is attached anyway. (Most of these cloud haiku have an associated cloud picture attached, but I think the haiku should stand on its own.)

Turquoise shines from soot
Late day sky ponders next move
Lumbering liftoff

18. This haiku (2015-07-29) is another "cloud haiku" that doesn't mention "cloud", but finds ways to express what I'm seeing in metaphor.

Suspend in gray clay
Sun is somewhere, butter spread
Ambiguous light

19. This haiku (2015-09-04) is another "advice haiku" about using the right words.

Diction is a knife
Too sharp, certain injury
Honed just right, a tool

20. I have a fascination with rivers. When I stopped going to church, my temple became the riverbanks. I wrote this haiku (2015-09-09) to express my reverence.

Rivers never end
To sea, to rise, and to fall
Infinity stream

21. This haiku (2015-09-10) is about "the little things". It's also about my grandpa going on a walk with me through the woods on a cool summer morning when I was maybe 8. He told me to look closely at the sparkling morning dew on a spider web below a fern along the trail. I've been looking at those kinds of details ever since.

"Is all common, base?"
"Have you seen the morning dew?
There's no rarer gem"

22. This haiku (2015-10-13) is about a dream I had the previous night, where I was lost at sea and questioning some of my values.

Silent sea beckons
Great water doesn't douse your
Roaring inner flame

23. I wrote this haiku (2015-10-27) about the impermanence of the beauty of fall. Some people living near deciduous trees make rituals out of seeing them in their traffic light state. I'm one such observer. About 10 years ago I remember falling to the ground as one of my crutches landed incorrectly, and I didn't get up because I was lost in the golden leaves of a tree. I was feeling a similar awe when I wrote this.

Rush and lust for gold
Great treasure needs reverence
So impermanent

24. Precisely one year after I started this practice, I wrote this haiku (2015-11-19) about the practice itself. I think to live up to the phrase, "We must try to live!" we have to do more than merely passively survive, but create artifacts, ideas, and practices that can help and inspire others. (The owner of a local bookstore here replies to "That author has a gift!" with "No, he has a practice.")

Create or consume?
The former a firmer stance
Against entropy

25. I wrote this haiku (2015-11-21) at the first snowfall of the season, rounding out the weather observances for the year.

Light and sound diffused
All will be immobile soon
As silver dust falls

That's it for the highlights, but there are plenty more haiku available at my Twitter page, @ArthurHovinc. [Author's interjection: this Twitter page is only discoverable on the Wayback Machine at this time. I highly discourage the use of Twitter/its (in)appropriately named successor X.]

I intend to continue the "daily" haiku practice for the rest of the year. I'll decide then if I want to keep the frequency into the new year, or resume a monthly contribution.

—Art

Insomnia Log 8

There's the whir of air escaping into an abyss in my bedroom. The vent normally blows in cool air this time of summer, but right now air seems to be leaving out through it into nowhere. It's about the same sound you hear when you listen into the deep hole of a composting toilet, which I also think is a portal to the Abyss. As my best good friend P and I know from watching As Above, So Below, there are some unconventional ways to get to the underworld if you only look hard enough. Or listen hard enough.

I think a lot about the legacy we leave when we die. This has probably been amplified by several important family members dying in the past couple years. In my pocket notebook I once wrote, "I always think, if I die, someone has to deal with my Speedy Rewards card." Even trivial things like my about.me website or my unused Wikipedia accounts are digital refuse that live on long after the animate matter of me is gone. Digital ghosts. Facebook offers some feature for others to suggest deletion of the accounts of the deceased. That has to be strange to perform. I don't even tell most people I have four Twitter accounts. How will anyone know to delete those? Or will they just pile up like in the dark memory dump of Riley's mind? I was reading about Frances Cobain tonight, about how former Nirvana members see her dad living on through her, while others idolize him even though neither she nor they really knew him. That's the only form of afterlife that makes sense to me, and it's pretty Absurd.

Sometimes dead relationships also suffer a digital haunting. Two of my friends from Dallas liked each other very much and eventually got engaged. They made a wedding website through a service called The Knot that told their story and details about their wedding ceremony and reception in fabulous San Francisco. I visited that site tonight and read "11 days to go!" there. Except this couple is no longer together. I was one of the last of our friend group to know. One day I noticed one of the people in this relationship was no longer Facebook friends with most of our old Dallas crew (previously our "Mutual Friends" on FB). I remember seeing the wedding site years ago but never got a formal invite. I asked this person what was happening. They ended the engagement. I got more of the story when I visited Dallas this past spring (post coming soon I swear!), and I understood why the old crew detached. How strange that in some digital parallel universe the clock is still ticking for this couple to be wed and I'm probably stressing out about dry cleaning my suit.

Speaking of San Francisco, you should see Inside Out if you haven't already. I can't remember the last new movie I watched that had had me tearing up at multiple moments for multiple viewings of the movie (and it is worth multiple viewings). P changed his shirt that said, "Bring back Bernie Mac" to "Bring back Bing Bong". You'll understand that after watching the movie. Go tomorrow! I used to like WALL•E and Up the most of the Pixar crop, but I'm now more aware that I really just love the beginnings of those movies (and their remainders I think are just fine, but not moving). (Somewhere (where?!) I read that the dividing line between mere entertainment and art is in its ability to help us understand the human condition.) I think the beginnings of WALL•E and Up should be their own short films, both pretty tragic. Inside Out, on the other hand, is just as affecting (moving) as the beginnings of WALL•E and Up while still being genuinely funny, smart, relatable, and intriguing for the entire runtime. There are other Pixar films that hold up for the whole movie, but I don't think they have the same poesy as a film entirely about emotions, family, coping, and loss. While other Pixar films primarily focus on the things that bring us joy (a good thing for whole-family movies), Inside Out (literally) turns the spotlight to sadness as an important and neglected emotion that must be felt to be truly human. It helps us connect with the people we love when we need to be loved. I'm going to say this so that it's somewhere on the Internet for those whose search for these kinds of opinions: Inside Out is my favorite Pixar movie.

Blue or Kind Of Blue has a Sunny Border Blue,
Art

Insomnia Log 7

It's that time of the night when the only thing I can think to do is write. This seems to regularly happen after a decent streak of nights of going to bed "on time". Maybe I feel defeated about missing "bed time" one night and just stay up with an attitude of apathy. I don't think that's all of it, because I'm not yawning or feeling that heavy sack-of-sand feeling in my head, so I'm also not physically tired.

I've got The 88 stuck in my head but I'm happy to have them as guests. OC is OK with me. Before that I was listening to how quiet it was in this room. I couldn't tell if what I was hearing was coming from my head or the space around me. Sort of like how when it's dark enough black looks black with your eyes opened or closed. Sort of like how dark it is in the room except for this lighted screen.

A mentor of mine at work reminded me on Monday that it will always take a long time for anyone's impression to change of anyone else. Put another way, trust is built slowly like habits, but it shatters like porcelain with a few mistakes. I won't go into those mistakes here, but I've got some habits to work in that I think will allow my coworkers to trust me as one of their own. These will take time to develop. I think I often want instant results, but there's no magic pill or "program" that I can throw money at. (Believe me, I've thrown some serious money at "programs" before. The lasting effect has always been, "Wow, I guess I really should do that," while leaving it to me to do the work on it. No quick fix.) I think it will work the same way that I don't realize how much my hair grows in a day but notice it over a few months. (I don't cut my hair very often.) And yet, according to Annie Dillard, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

I realized this the other day: I think it's challenging my ego and self-esteem to have so much "constructive" feedback from coworkers all the time, but I think I prefer it to the non-feedback I used to get on the job. "Yeah, you're doing fine. ["Fine." No better way to sound insincere.] Just keep doing what you're doing." There's no path for growth or mastery there! A book I'm leafing through called Apprenticeship Patterns (appropriate for me as an apprentice in this company) suggests to "Be The Worst". To surround myself with people who are far above my level and gain whatever I can from them. Seems like it would work like learning a foreign language by immersion in another country, immensely stressful at first, but builds a language in my brain out of necessity rather than sheer willpower (which I know is a limited resource I'm good at burning through). I think while I'm still "learning the lingo" I'm going to be stressed because I don't know how to speak yet.

I'll need to accept that I have some shortcomings as a developer. Some are inherent to my character, because whether we call traits "strengths" or "weaknesses" are just labels for perceptions of how common inner mental structures affect other things. In that way, my strengths lead to my weaknesses, and vice versa. I'll do what I can to go further than my short arms can currently reach. Until I've developed confidence in this "pattern language", as the book calls it, I'll look to this image for inspiration.

The sun's the closest star, but it's dang dark,
Art 

Insomnia Log 6

Readers,

I owe you some more blog posts about my spring road trip but you aren't going to get them right away. Soon enough. I've at least been thinking about writing them recently as opposed to not thinking about them recently. Patience.

I wish I had patience. I think at my core is rage that I try to prevent from feeling. I nod and say, "Mm," when I really want to say, "No, that's not correct," or, "That's terrible." My good friend P and I talked on the phone last night and agreed we need to stop more pointless conversation in its tracks. Simply halt the speaker and say, "OK. We can talk more about that after you change your shirt. Why are you wearing that shirt? Why did you think that was a good idea?" Flip something pointless on its head with something equally irrelevant. If they actually change their shirt they care enough to deserve your attention.

I haven't felt so angry in probably months, which might be what is causing this sleeplessness and stream of unedited words. Dawna Markova says, "Rage is passion without choice." It feels like a spit of gasoline into the engine. If Color Theory (more on this another time) is to be trusted, and I think it is, rage is composed of the colors black and red, where black represents one's own ambition and power and red represents one's emotions. We use words like "ardent" to describe someone's passion, and the feel is fiery, which is also very red. Red is about creativity and emotion; I just worry about its pairing with my own ego and power, manifesting in anger. It's a potent fuel, no doubt.

I've continued with my mostly daily haiku on my Twitter. I missed up to five days at a time, but I keep coming back to it. I like the challenge. For my grandpa, for whom we just this weekend held a memorial service, I dedicate every day of the remaining half of the year that I will write a haiku, a poetic (thus red, but controlled, with choice) expression to help channel the anger I have that he's gone. I felt that this weekend. I clutched my magic egg (a lucky charm, more on this another time) as "Taps" played, my throat tight with strained tracheal cartilage and my face a frown canyon. I looked at some of the treasure maps my grandpa and I made year after year for a forest that no longer stands where now rest pole barns and snowmobiles. I miss him so much. I want to live a life as great as his and often worry I won't. I want to walk in the woods again with him, him pointing out the morning dew beading on old spider webs below ferns, white light and long shadows abundant. It can't happen. I remember collapsing in front of an angel statue the last time I saw him, fingernails piercing palms, so angry that anything could take someone so great away. I want to keep channeling this rage in a creative way.

There's another reason I started writing these haiku. One that I'm now ashamed to admit but think I must admit at this point. Most longer term projects of mine kick off because I'm upset that someone doesn't reciprocate my feelings for them. I created Behold The Cheese as a way to cope with longing for someone. I learned Graph Theory and developed Color Theory from it as a way to take my mind off someone else. And I took on the poetic challenge as a way to deal with rage about my grandpa and rage about someone who left me with feelings of withdrawal. I directed so much of the latter anger toward myself for months after I stopped seeing her, after conversation previously held everyday abruptly stopped. I believed that there were things wrong with me that were keeping me all alone, that I wasn't funny enough or strong enough or that I was too obsessive. I compulsively ate and drank without realizing I was over my limit. I sighed, so much. I created such a narrative about this person in my head that thoughts continued on far longer than I expected them to. I felt haunted. I kept thinking of reasons why this person was justified and I needed fixing.

I don't need fixing. I'm not broken. (I sense my own power in writing that.) I don't want to diminish myself anymore. I don't want one person's rejection of me to bring down my esteem and affect relationships that matter far more. I deserve love.

P asked me if this person liked me for the reasons he likes me (that is, for my real self). I didn't have a good answer back then. The answer is probably no. The people who really like me say, "Never change." They tell me they miss me and wish I were there.

I am also angry about some comments I've received on my appearance and beliefs. I received both from a teenager who probably doesn't know any better, but that doesn't defuse my immediate emotional response. I don't like being called "Jesus" mockingly, especially because Jesus probably didn't look anything like my mostly Nordic self. I don't like being called "Sasquatch" while I'm staring at my grandfather's urn about to be buried, the last time I would ever see his physical form, though dust. He said, "Whoa, it's Saquatch! Let me get your picture!" pulling out his phone while I was sobbing and sullen about my fallen hero. I'm sorry, that's disgusting. That's asocial. I don't ever like hearing gay jokes, but especially not from a punk teenager as I'm celebrating marriage equality with my Facebook profile picture. I hope this person reads this when he grows up and realizes what a shit he was.

I have a tendency to get carried away. I can be vocal and loud about things. Some people like it, some people cover their ears. I think it's one of my greatest strengths and a simultaneous weakness (but I believe strengths and weaknesses are intricately tied). It sometimes leads me to think more about another person than can be reasonably reciprocated, which leads to me being alone. But it sometimes also leads to one hundred something haiku produced so far this year, or over 5,000 miles traveled across these United States in two weeks. Sometimes it leads to twenty mile walks which result in deep insights to my brain and brewing of lavish life philosophies. Sometimes it leads me to inexplicable sobbing, or at least looking out windows for hours wistfully. Sometimes it leads to lengthy rants like this one.

The more I use up this anger rocket fuel in creative projects, the better.

Black and red all over,

Art

Insomnia Log 5

I've got the opening theme to Portlandia playing on endless loop in my head. I'm not referring to it by its song name or artist because I learned it first from Portlandia. I'm not current on music, or I might have known about the song back in 2011. Heck, I'm not current on TV either, never having watched the first season of Mad Men and only seeing the first season of Portlandia a week ago because the library carried it.

"Current" is definitely the right word for the state of understanding recent developments, i.e. knowing current events, or knowing what song is currently playing. If all our information is a river (I think it is), those who are current with it swim at pace in the most turbulent and forceful parts (the current) of that body of water. Those who are behind and don't even think about swimming in that stream (like the author) are just looking at the river and all its swirls and ripples. I happen to look at it all rather wistfully, poetically if my brain is working. I have a list called "Music to listen to" that contains music recommendations from friends (whom I trust more than Amazon or Pandora). I'd say that list has six items added to it for each item checked off, on average. I find staying current pretty stressful. I rent multiple CDs from the library and listen to them while driving. Sometimes my car's CD player thinks I put in a coaster and beeps at me with the CD halfway out. If it does actually play, it feels like homework if I'm working to stay current. "Have you listened to the new Vampire Weekend?" I did pick it up from the library and I didn't know what to do with it. Nothing stuck. I don't even remember how any songs went. I reply to that question with, "Yes, it'd be a fine weekend for a campfire."

I like unasking questions. "Mu," said Jōshū.

And yet the album The Campfire Headphase sticks with me, especially the song Dayvan Cowboy, even though the songs are just loops of guitar sounds. Why? I don't know.

I don't listen to lyrics. My good friend P will repeat sections of songs we're listening to when he thinks the lyrics are important. I miss the words until the fifth repeat. I usually just nod on the first repeat and politely say, "Mm. Yeah, that's a good line." If I want to be moved by words I prefer reading them on paper. Maybe that's why I like a lot of music that's just sounds and no words.

Coming full circle, I only like the part of the Portlandia theme that plays during the show's opening, i.e. the part without words. Once the robotic vocals come in, I lose interest. Then the song becomes something I "have to" interpret. Beats never need to be interpreted, only felt. Jazz never needs to be interpreted, only felt. I don't think I can feel spoken or sung word.

Missing: adenosine; reward: $$$
Art

Insomnia Log 4

Hey, just because it's fun to lie down and look at trees outside my window doesn't mean I should keep doing it. In fact, last night the sun hadn't even fully set when I looked out my window and then stopped remembering things, and then I woke up when it rose again. Now I can't fall asleep. I wish my circadian rhythm knew what a day was.

Do you know that feeling of enjoying communication with someone, and all of a sudden it stops? Where for seemingly no reason you can't get a hold of a person anymore? Where you even start to doubt yourself for something you said or did? It's a rotten feeling, like a feeling that something may actually be rotting in you, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. If you ever get like this, here's my advice: drop it, forget you ever knew that person, and be around your friends. Breathe. Drink some water. You'll be OK. Not everyone likes peaches.

I'm in my car. Sometimes I hang out in here while it's parked. It's really quiet in here. It's even quieter than in my place, because my fridge is loud and always running (so don't call me for pranks, OK? (The end of land lines has brought the end of prank calling, alas. I used to prank call, and I miss it. There were so many Buttses in my phone book.)), and there's that loud dripping outside my bedroom window. There is no noise in here. It's dark. I still can't fall asleep. I have been able to sleep in my car before. Rest areas are very cheap motels.

Someone expressed surprise to me tonight when I said I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. "At your age?!" I want to be interesting enough that even at age 40 I still don't know what I want to do. I was starting to express what I would ideally be, but then I got cut off, so I dropped it.

I think this song counts as a love song. What do you think? I could picture it played by a chamber orchestra for a wedding. I was really sad to hear about a friend who became separated recently, when the wedding had a cool nature and blue/green (my favorite colors) scheme, and there was a chamber orchestra. What a nice wedding. Damn shame when the wedding's so nice and the marriage just isn't. Then I saw a person in my friend B's family get wedded by the state (straightforward), but apparently their marriage will be great. Can asexual people get married to themselves for tax benefits? I'm not asexual, but it would be so much easier to be that way. It would also be cool to reproduce by budding.

Hey, did anyone else celebrate Beltane? I gave a quiet "woohoo" at 2014-05-05T13:56-0:00. Between Beltane and Lughnasadh is going to be really nice. I'll explain more after Lughnasadh.

Sleepless, soon in Seattle,
Art

Insomnia Log 3

Polaris wrote the soundtrack to the '90s Nickelodeon TV show The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Right now the song "She Is Staggering" from that soundtrack is playing in my head on repeat, especially the lines, "I couldn't get to sleep/ And then I couldn't eat/"

My shoulder keeps popping, and I'm not even a street performer.

I want to cook something awesome again, but I've been eating leftovers from restaurants and family meals for weeks now.

I wish there were a book titled How to Fall Asleep. I've got a few other How to books, and most of them are about drawing, which won't help right now.

The place I really work (I actually have to work for "The Man" and show up somewhere every weekday morning) has new faces around me all the time. (There are also new bodies attached to these new faces, but a masquerade would be fun every once in a while.) A considerable fraction of faces I only see for a few months. It feels a bit like a claw machine that keeps filling up with new plush toys and leaving some old ones at the bottom, you know, like the bears that have one eye upside down that no one wants. I had a friend in college who could win at the claw machine maybe 50% of the time, which is really good, and he gave away his bounty of plush animals. I took away a few of the crooked-eyed rejects. They needed a good home.

I keep hearing a big drip around my bedroom window. It's been like that since November. I don't see water damage anywhere, so I think it's OK. That drip sound is not regular, so it makes it even harder to sleep on a night like this.

I want some milk, but I think my tummy would get mad at me.

I want a guitar effects pedal that makes airy distortion like the kind I hear in songs by Polaris, The Pretenders, and Throwing Muses, but that's the only way I can describe it. That's my favorite guitar sound. I don't hear it anywhere anymore.

I don't know if I told you, but I tutor children younger than thirteen in math and other subjects. It's a "drop-in" tutoring program, so any number of students and subjects could appear. Yesterday the program coordinator and I were the only tutors for about eight students, all needing one-on-one attention. I was disappointed I didn't figure out how to clone myself in my experiments when I was nine. At one point the coordinator left for the library, asking if I could hold down the fort. I said, "Sure," but thought, Oh no, I know one of them is going to faint or cry or maybe they'll get in a fight while he's gone and I have no training in resolving conflicts between children, oh man what am I going to do?

I love the movie MirrorMask. The main character Helena finds a book called A Really Useful Book in her adventure in the movie. I want such a book right now to give some advice about sleeping, or maybe just help me think about life in general. None of my current books have "useful" in the title. What was I thinking in buying them?!

Yours awake,
Art

A Sonnet About Writing Poetry

I wrote a Petrarchan Sonnet in Iambic pentameter about writing poetry as part of an application for volunteer work at a writing center. It is below. I am now a volunteer there.

They say it's difficult to write a rhyme
That meter's ticking like a metronome
And one's organic voice is now a drone
How can a writer feel in marking time?
In freeform I respect a blob of nouns
But I don't know which ones I should display
I might just throw a dart at what to say
But no, it lands on one I can't pronounce
I know! I'll pick up my guitar and sing!
Then words will have to come out to the beats
And I'll pretend I had them all along
Well, shoot, guitar's one thing I didn't bring
But in my heart there's one line that repeats:
"Write from myself, and then those words belong."

Wreturning to Writing,
Art