some new favorite things

• Words: The most recent issues of The Southern Poetry Review and Agni; The Great Shame byThomas Kineally; the poem/chapbook October by Louise Gluck; poets Jack Boettcher, Elizabeth Volpe, Alex Stolis, and all the work in the most recent issue of Siren
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• Music: The soundtrack to the film Prairie Home Companion; some old music from the 80's that I hadn't listened to in a long time, like Robyn Hitchcock and the Throwing Muses; "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon," by Urge Overkill, "Flinch," by Alanis Morisette, "Waiting on a Friend," by Rolling Stones (one of my favorite songs since I was about five but hadn't listened to it in a while), and "Extraordinary Machine," by Fiona Apple.
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• Art: Caravaggio
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• Film: The Land Girls; The Fever; Sicko
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• People: a baby named Kendall; John Edwards
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• Miscellany: The squirrels and chipmunks (which I found out are actually a type of squirrel, or so I think says one of my college animal behavior textbooks when it says "genus Tamias") that live or at least hang out in my backyard and under my back porch, especially this one little black squirrel (my favorites) who is not at all shy and that I could watch for hours. He runs up this huge tree and then right back down, and then about ten yards and under my porch, where he'll be for about a minute and then right back to the tree, repeating the whole thing over again and again. And I swear he works in tandem with this little chipmunk out there. The best thing is that when I go to get into my car, there are always a bunch of empty peanut shells all around my car -- and on my car, especially in this space right below the wondshield wipers. Jezebel and Rubyfruit Lulu (my cats) also like watching them from a window or behind the storm door or whatever those outside-the-regular-door doors are called -- their heads going from right to left to right, back and forth, 'completely absorbed. The only downside to all of this is that now, everyday, as soon as the sun comes up, and I do mean as soon as, Ruby wakes me up by running over me like I'm furniture, and then by going and sitting by the back door and crying until I get up and open the door so she can watch all these little animals out there. So now, instead of waking up at about 8 to get ready, or 11 on weekends, I'm awake by 6:00 in the morning, which is an ungodly early hour, and which cuts into me watching Charlie Rose the night before (on from 11:30 -12:30), because I just can't stay awake past midnight. And missing Charlie Rose makes me cranky. But I can sit on my back porch or in the grass under the sun when I get cranky -- and watch the squirrels, which is so therapeutic, so it all works out. What I'm losing in terms of intellect maybe I'll gain in peace of mind. Hmmm.