So...

 ...2011’s Journal is archived, a year’s worth of living shelved on the head of a pin. I probably should have printed a hard copy. But god, the paper and ink. Screw it. As if some post-Armageddon, cockroach-eating dreg, wearing my thumb drive in his left earlobe would be elated to discover a printed copy of last year’s three hundred and sixty-five days of whiny cynicism.

Anyway. Time to start afresh.

In years past, I have contemplated going old school and replacing my retired, Microsoft journal with something leather-bound and acid free. I deluded myself with visions of Craftsman script and borders, inked thick with honeysuckle vines and wide-eyed peepers. I have seven such traditional journals, with three pages rendered exactly thus. All are in a box in the attic.

Hi, my name is Steven, and I’m addicted to spell-check and one-click synonyms—so what.

This year, I have no such hand-penned inclinations. This year, I’m keeping it simple. I’m just going to write. Like I used to. Goofy, stupid, sad, poetry, prose. Everything. And all of it goes to the blog. Yes! Yes!

Oh my god. Did I just make a resolution?

I’m so cliché.

                       

                    You curl up

                                and I'll curl round you,

          and we'll be small together.





 

Christmas Project #2

The back wall of my shop Friday...

The back wall of my shop today...

It's amazing how much you can get done Christmas day

if you don't do Christmas.

I need more Christmases

Gifts to the Magi

As the villagers had come to believe

that it would bring them prosperity in the New Year,

they carried great gifts of food,

left over from their Christmas tables,

up the mountain

to the Hermit. 





And so it was that the Hermit and his dog, Dog,
would gain fifteen pounds apiece

over the course of three days,
reduce the inside diameter of their arterial walls by half,

and put such a strain on their collective pancreases

the organs would not  fully recover till spring.


My neighbors rock.



'Twas the day before Christmas...

...and not a minute spent in the house.

Magpie 96: 'Dialogue II'

  

image: Lee Friedlander, 1966



   

                                     “Seriously? Wildly amphibious?”        

                                     "It is a pool party.”

                                     “But who talks like that?”

                                     “He looked pretty nervous.”

                                     “Well, yeah. But still…”

                                     “It was kind of cute.”

                                     “Cute? Oh no. No. You’re not… You are.”

                                     “I am.”

                                     “With Wildly Amphibious?”

                                      “Yep.”

                                       .

                                       .

                                       .

                                     “He have any friends?”

Have Chalkboard...

...will scribble.

Just as soon as the touchups dry.