Sturgeon's Law

Were I to budget time to change a car battery, I would worst-case it at an hour or so. Ha ha.

When Shawn got home last night, we opened up my hood to take my battery out so we could haul it down to AutoZone and turn it in at the same time as I bought the new one. At that point, we discovered that, unlike normal cars, a 2001 Saturn L-300 has a battery that's very hard to remove, including the contacts being awkwardly bolted on the sides and the whole battery being bolted down to something below it in a way we couldn't determine or reach. So we decided that, since auto parts stores offer free replacement when they sell you a battery, we'd just jumpstart my car and head down there and let them do it.

We arrived at AutoZone about 8 PM to find that they could do it, but only during daylight hours, for reasons that weren't adequately explained to me. So I bought the battery and we headed home, planning to jump my car again this morning if it was necessary so I could go back to AutoZone and let them install the battery. This morning, my car was unhappy, but it did start, so I headed down to AutoZone about 9 AM sans jumpstart. After an employee looked at my car, he fetched his manager, who informed me that they in fact could not install this battery for me because there was a fuse box on top of where the battery bolted down to whatever the hell it bolted to, and they aren't allowed to touch electrical components (except batteries, I guess).

At this point, I had to head across the street to Midas to find a mechanic for the arduous task of lifting up a fusebox to loosen a bolt. I arrived at Midas to find that they were working on a skeleton crew because it was Halloween. (I was in no mood to appreciate the unintentional pun.) After they actually talked to the AutoZone manager, a mechanic who said he'd never heard of AutoZone refusing to install a battery before did the work for me in about 15 minutes. I then had to go back across to AutoZone to turn in my old battery and get a credit against my bill for the new battery.

Total time spent over two days: 3-4 hours.
Total money spent: $115.

But now I have a working car, a new cellphone, and new speakers. And I'm much happier.

In addition to the stuff I mentioned being broken two posts ago, my computer was acting super-weird this morning, and my car battery is dead. Fucking wonderful.

...if every week were Halloween week and I didn't have a weight obsession.

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Satan in chocolate cup form. Completely addictive.
2. Snickers. If I'm on a road trip and stop at a gas station, I'm getting a Snickers more often than not.
3. Caramello. Oh Lord, I think I like the combo of Cadbury chocolate and caramel more than any other combo.
4. Milky Way. This combo is pretty good too, though.
5. Hershey Chocolate Nuggets/Kisses. This is like the chocolate control group.
6. Toblerone. It's the honey that does it for me.
7. Cadbury Eggs. The standard eggs and the caramel eggs are both great.
8. Twix. I used to looooove these. Now I don't even have them that often.
9. 3 Musketeers. Completes the holy trinity of Mars candy bars. (Technically I think Twix may be a Mars property too, but I think of Snickers, Milky Way, and 3 Musketeers together.)
10. See's Candy (creme centers). I'm not huge on this kind of chocolates, but these are good. The brown sugar ones are especially good, as are the Scotch mallows.
11. Ghirardelli caramel squares. You may also be able to tell I like caramel a lot.
12. Rolo. See?
13. Kit Kat. Honestly, these go with Nestle Crunch bars in the category of Candy Bars That Are Much Better for Me in Theory Than in Actuality.

After this weekend, both my cellphone and my nice computer speakers are dead. Fortunately, the phone was still under warranty. The speakers, however, were not.

I didn't end up making the Wheeler reading last night due to a combination of chores and inertia. She has a craft lecture on Tuesday as well that I hope to get to.



The "mew" is completely gratuitous and will probably end up going. But it also made me smile.

I'm going to a reading by Susan Wheeler at WashU tonight. She's been in BAP 7 or 8 times, and I know virtually nothing about her work. Huh.

Scribner is proud to announce the launch of a new annual anthology: The Best American Poetry About Poetry. First-year guest editor (and movement godfather) John Ashbery, with series editor (and actual Godfather) David Lehman, has culled 75 of the best poems on poetry from the literally billions published each year. Fortunately, nearly half of those chosen were ported directly from The Best American Poetry 2007, further demonstrating that the best way to get into these anthologies, next to being one of 20 big names or a student of the editor, is to write navel-gazing poetry about the importance of poems to poets.

Among the notable poems on poets, poetry, or poetics you'll find in BAPAP 2007:

• A clever sestina about the difficulty of writing villanelles, in which the clever end-word "villanelle" is also cleverly written as "villain hell"
  
• An avant garde poem that uses the word "poem" in place of all nouns, verbs, and adjectives ("Poem a Poem Poems a Poemy Poem")
  
• A non-avant-garde poem that uses no nouns beside "poet" and "poem" as it tries to compare the writing process to joyous masturbation
  
• A naked attempt to get into Best American Poetry by writing something called "BAP"
• An antiwar poem that contemplates the futility of even starting an antiwar poem at the beginning of . . . here the copywriter loses track of what he's supposed to write
  
• A satire of a mysterious critic named Bilious Blowgan
• A cento of lines by Shakespeare, Cesar Vallejo, Gertrude Stein, and Jewel
  
• 22 ars poeticas, including two titled "Arse Poetica"
  

The volume also contains an index of namedropping references to dead poets and their vastly more successful poems, alphabetically from Auden through Yeats (sorry, no Z's) and chronologically from Homer through Creeley (who rose like Tupac Shakur to also contribute a poem to the anthology). Each author's note will include a defensive statement about why his or her poem is important, and how the idea arrived while he or she was writing a poem that wasn't about poetry, possibly while at Yaddo. Finally, the inside covers will contain handy charts tallying the number of times each poet, journal, and type of poem has appeared in the anthology. The winning poet, journal, and poem type each year will be recognized with grants from the Poety McPoem-Poetryson Foundation.

Come see theory and form overwhelm, uh, poetry! If we haven't gotten meta enough for you yet, wait until next year, when we launch The Best American Poetry About Poetry About Poetry (BAPAPAP). Billy Collins has already selected a triolet about writing sonnets about ballades, an elliptical poem no one was able to tell was about poetry about poetry until they read the accompanying blurb, and a work entitled "Yes, My First Two Published Poems Appeared in BAP Because I Studied With Heather McHugh, Fuckers!" The exclamation point is part of the title.

Okay, here are some update bullets.

• I received my lovely contributor copies of The Laurel Review today. I haven't read through it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It still feels amazing to see my poems in the same journal with people like Albert Goldbarth, Jean Valentine, and Carl Phillips.
• Things in my living space are continuing to come together. I even put up curtains by myself with some trial and error. I feel so handy. Well, not really. I feel slightly handy. We also put up a closet rod. Sadly, I discovered that my ceiling is too low to hang my dartboard (it's a large dartboard), so we're putting that upstairs.
  
• I've been watching very little TV since I moved. Almost no Simpsons reruns, almost no Daily Show, almost no new shows. What I've watched has been House and NFL. Chuck seems like a light, fun show, though I've only seen one episode. Right now I have the third (and sadly final) season of Deadwood and the first season of 30 Rock on DVD.
• Quite a bit of ongoing reading: a new book of poetry I'm going to review; Tony Hoagland's Real Sofistikashun, which has a lot of interesting poetic ideas I think I'll mention on here at some point; The Truth About Money by Ric Edelman as I try to feel my way through investing; and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the first time in years.
  
• It went from 80+ degrees two days ago to chilly and rainy today. At least it's proper October weather. Actually makes me happy.
• Sneak preview of my upcoming longer post: BAPAP. I will say no more.
  
• Anyone want to do a manuscript exchange? I have a chapbook manuscript and the full-length. I'm more interested in the full-length.
  

Congrats to my friend David Keplinger, now of Washington DC, who won the Colorado Book award for The Prayers of Others, a really fine book you ought to check out. Great work and well deserved.

I plan to have an actual substantial post and probably a series of update bullets in the next couple of days...

My friends are having a Halloween party this year at which costume is required, and today I completed my cheap-and-easy-to-buy costume. I'm going as a Beat Poet, with all-black clothes, black beret, little round glasses (had those already, yay), bongos, and copies of Howl and A Coney Island of the Mind (thanks for that book, Jane...). I'll snap my fingers and say "Daddy-o" at least once. It's a low maintenance way to go.

This is nowhere near as good as last year, when I was Invisible Pedestrian (all black, with a sign saying "Not for Blind Kids") from an old SNL sketch with Dan Aykroyd. It's also not as good as my friend's brother's idea to go as Bear Fucker (which is funny whether or not you've seen Super Troopers).

Going out tonight to see Mary Jo Bang read at Left Bank Books. But first I must shave my head. So off I go.

Me win home poker tournament tonight. Go bed now. Wheeeee.

My dad is in town briefly on his way back to Colorado from Nashville, so I won't be posting much today. I did want to note that I got the most recent issue of Copper Nickel, and I don't think there are many more beautiful journals full of stronger work out there. Just an amazing job, Jake and student editors. And if you're in Colorado in a couple days, definitely go to this. Holy shit, what a lineup.

1. moot
2. dugong
3. bamboozle
4. puncheon
5. mellifluous
6. doppelganger
7. disgruntled
8. homunculus
9. googol
10. squeamish
11. fluff
12. mongoose
13. guano

Yesterday I received a form rejection for my submission to Open City, made December 22, 2005. 660 days. Wow. I see another 500+ day submission recently reported on Duotrope, too.

I kept thinking I would clean stuff up before I took a picture of the new living space, but progress on that is sporadic at best, so here's a picture.



The end of the room you can't see because I'm standing in it to take the picture is even messier, so I actually will have to pick that side up before you see it.

The first time a poem is dedicated to you? Awesome.
A poem dedicated to you and titled "Velociraptor vs. Unicorn"? Super Awesome.
Trying to figure out how you can steal "Velociraptor vs. Unicorn" as a title for yourself? Poetry.

Happy 21st, Shanna!

We're all going to dinner and then briefly to one of the casinos here tonight. Don't expect much from me here. Later this week, I'll post pictures of my new room.

October and November are big months for manuscript submission, both for open periods and a few contests I actually care about. Therefore, their sons grow suicidally beautiful I'm revising and polishing the manuscript so I can start sending it out again next week. Switched a couple poems from one section to another, got rid of one more poem that was published and is good but that doesn't really fit the overall book, figured out exactly where a new poem goes.

I also made the decision that I'm going to start on manuscript 2 poems once I finish the current set I'm working on. I have a clear preliminary idea of what that one's going to do, and I've been putting off too many fun poems because they're better for that manuscript than this one. Working title: Pieces of Thirteen. Manuscript 1, lest you forget, is Torched Verse Ends.

Last night was the Observable Readings benefit dinner, featuring readings by Jane O. Wayne and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Troy Jollimore. His win was quite a shock, but based on his reading, it at least seems merited quality-wise. Very good stuff, most of which I wasn't familiar with.

This will also serve as a good list for S&S to pick from if they want me to make them something easily...

1. No-Flour Peanut Butter Cookies: Easy to make, tasty as hell, ostensibly a little better for you because of the lack of flour (but not really). I'd say these are my specialty.

2. Chicken Quesadillas: My dinner specialty. They rock.

3. Margaritas: I make a mean margarita, and my strawberry margaritas last weekend turned out pretty well too.

4. Spice Bars: chewy, sweet, spicy goodness. Dessert or snack material, and actually fairly healthy.

5. Sour Cream Supreme: Partway between a noodle casserole and lasagna, I'd say.

6. Oven-Baked Beef Nachos: A lot of my dinners are quasi-but-not-really Mexican food.

7. Pecan Butterscotch Bars: Notice the dessert theme emerging here?

8. Blue Cheese Chicken: Actually uses blue cheese dressing, not straight blue cheese. Might be even better with crumbles.

9. Bean Dip: Easy to make, easy to devour.

10. Chocolate Milkshakes: When I get the ice cream just right, mmmmmm.

11. Western Burritos: Essentially like breakfast burritos, but not for breakfast.

12. Parmesan Onion Puffs: I always remember these as being slightly more of a pain in my ass than they had any right to be, but I'd still make them again.

13. Rice Krispy Squares: Haven't made them in ages, but I'm sure I still could. Especially good when you and your friend make them at 2 in the morning and wake up your mom. That was a loooong time ago, obviously.

Off tonight to see the Observable Reading series at the Schlafly Bottleworks with Richard Newman, Daniel Borzutzky, and Peter Davis. There may be drinking before, during, and after. I'll make sure it's not too excessive though--no hangover work days, thanks.

This is a reminder to myself, in no particular order but what I think of them.

1. "Cuckoo" by Larissa Szporluk
2. "I Know a Man" by Robert Creeley
3. "Resume" by Dorothy Parker
4. "Olduvai Gorge Thorn Tree" by Sarah Lindsay
5. "How to Listen" by Major Jackson
6. "Praise in Summer" by Richard Wilbur
7. "The Tyger" by William Blake
8. "Buffalo Bill's" by E. E. Cummings (so many good choices here)
9. "For My Daughter" by Weldon Kees
10. "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W. H. Auden
11. "To Earthward" by Robert Frost
12. "On the Death of Friends in Childhood" by Donald Justice
13. "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

So many more good choices I'm leaving off here too. What about you?

I haven't written much about sports on here recently, but I'm rooting for the Colorado Rockies tonight in their one-game playoff against the Padres to get into the actual MLB playoffs. The Rockies won 13 of their last 14 games to come almost out of nowhere and tie the Padres for the NL Wild Card berth. This is almost certainly the best team the Rockies have ever put together. Good hitting almost across the board, a strong bullpen, and a ragtag bunch of starters with a legit near-ace in Jeff Francis. I'm going to be thumping the Todd-Helton-for-the-Hall-of-Fame drum when he retires in 5-7 years.