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I liked how this article pretended like people flying over fly over country are interested somehow in the topography of Kansas.

"Honey look, there's a riverbed down there, but there doesn't appear to be any water."
Flipping his atlas to Kansas, "Well, this is where the Arkansas River should be. What the heck? What's this? There's water again, it's almost like there are two rivers. What shall we do when we get back home to Connecticut?"
"I don't know, dear. The chick who is dictating my dialogue knows absolutely nothing about our state except that it seems like rich people live there and commute to New York. So what we'll do when we get there is beyond her scope."
"Yes, the dictator is mocking a Kansas newspaper through the dialogue about how people flying over would be concerned about the state of a river all the while knowing that easterners, honestly the entire country, know so little about the Plains that the hypothetical concern in the article is inconceivable. Yet the mocking author can't really develop us, her characters, because of her ignorance about the east. Has the drink tray gone by? I want a bloody mary."

No one here is awake yet

I slept on the couch at Matt and Betsy's last night. If you've never been to their house, they have huge east windows and the couch is facing directly toward them. As long as you don't hate the sunshine it isn't bad, but you have to accept that the sun will wake you. It did. The sky was full of light for a little while. Dawn, orange, blazed. Then the shelf of clouds came and there was still a fiery dawning orange just below the shelf of clouds, but the clouds were too thick and where they met the sky the light just stopped. I closed my eyes and slept a little more and when I woke up the shelf was gone and the sun was gone and the sky was nothing but clouds again. Sleeping there is a bit like having a TV tuned to one show :"Good Morning Sunshine". As repetitive as the dawn is, every morning is a little bit different.

It's the first time I've slept on their couch in months. It's a sign of how my life has changed and sleeping here last night is another sign of how it is changing again.

In other news, I have a new name from a child: "Lala". It's very sweet. Makes me miss the old ones: Elllch, Da, Yinda, Dida. Though Dida is still in use.

Vanilla L

I've wanted to start a new poem in Villanelle form, but I haven't had time to hammer it out. We may have to try a summer edition of group poetry writing because my inspiration is so cold and snowy. (I'm a Kansan. I am from the High Plains. I miss the sun. I hate trying to live without the sun.) I feel like this is a sub par offering, but I hope that you can give it a try. Here's your first stanza:


The sky sags down to touch the ground (refrain 1) (rhyme A)
Weighed like a cedar bough heavy with snow (line 2) (rhyme B)
graying out the sun until it's not found (refrain 2) (rhyme A)

The next stanza should be:
Line 5 with rhyme A
Line 6 rhyme B
The sky sags down to touch the ground

I look forward to reading what comes next. You can tell me later if you find this form difficult. (I sort of did. And hopefully, someone is still reading since I haven't been very faithful in writing).

Again

3 to 4 inches of new snow today.

At noon when I arrived home I realized that my sidewalk was passable after a month of being frozen and icy. At 5 when I left the office I spent ten minutes cleaning the snow off of my car.

I've missed you so much!

It was a good weekend to be a wildcat. Welcome back basketball.