For my birthday, I will . . .

. . . relax. Though, I have to get through this day of teaching first.

***

Am currently radioactive.

***

Listening to the following:

Dengue Fever
Aesop Rock
Madvillain
Tift Merritt
Vampire Weekend
The Russian Futurists
TV On the Radio

***

The sunny days have ended. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled drudgery.

---

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You're often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly. You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well. You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. (And while you're the most interesting person they know, they can't help feeling like they don't know you well.) You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are
You?

Novelty? Excitement? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So not me. For me, excitement = finishing a load of laundry
***

Had our faculty baby shower this afternoon. Lots of TOO CUTE things in the pile of goodies. Photos soon.

***

Weird series of hospital visits this week. Two shots in the buttocks. I know, TMI, but you read blogs for TMI, right?

***

Still sunny and loving it!

***

To my students who googled me . . . I see you.

Matt O'Donnell

Matt O'Donnell
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

The fabulous Matt O'Donnell in pink.

Evie n' Me

Evie n' Me
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Evie n' Me are mugging for the camera post reading.

Matt's super car

Matt's super car
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Isn't that cool? Matt O'Donnell's automobile runs on used kitchen grease. . .

Ice skaters in the park

Ice skaters in the park
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

They spray down the green and make it a rink.

The Brunswick Inn

The Brunswick Inn
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

From the Fishouse (aka Matt O'Donnell) invited me to read at Bowdoin College this past week. Here's the charming B&B where I stayed.

Don't Forget!

Poets, it's time for NEA Applications!.

If you haven't started filling your apps out, do it now. It's a complicated multi-step process that involves registering for a site and converting a lot of your files to pdfs. There's a time-lag for the site registration, so better get in line ASAP.

I completed my application last week after much swearing and gnashing of teeth.

Mary B. puts out a call for an NEA support group.. I might join.

Cooper's Hawk

Cooper's Hawk
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

This guy came to visit during the party. He's looking over at our bird feeders.

Bird Seed----->Sparrows---->Hawks.

The most patient dog, ever.

The most patient dog, ever.
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

So . . . truth is, Jake's not scary at all. We put him in humiliating situations all the time.

The kid's first cup.

The kid's first cup.
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Suzanne and Cynthia made the cup. It's sterling silver. They took it with 'em back to San Francisco for engraving.

Elephant Mobile

Elephant Mobile
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Cute mobile. A gift from our neighbor, Brita.

The scariest dog, ever.

The scariest dog, ever.
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Look at the size of his paws! Good golly!

LUMPIA!

LUMPIA!
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Lots of things to celebrate this past week:

1. Valentine's Day.
2. Our first baby shower.
3. My upcoming birthday.

****

We had a low-key Valentine's Day. While I don't feel I need a designated day to tell Meredith how fabulous she is, it's pretty fun giving each other presents which usually happens on birthdays and on Christmas. I got Meredith two plum trees and some heather to landscape the yard. The plum trees are planted and should bear fruit come summer. Meredith got me the gizmo with which I'm taking these pictures. (Mere, I'm totally happy with this camera. I'm going to take pictures of everything now. You're in trouble!).

****

We had the first of two baby showers. This past one was for our neighbors and our relatives. My mother flew over from Oregon (OR-uh-gun) and made the fabulous and perfect eggrolls you see in the picture. Growing up, they were my favorite thing to eat. Nothing's changed.

Anyway, we got a lot of cute baby outfits. One of our neighbors knitted some hats and gloves. Another got us a fabulous mobile. Babies are expensive, man.

****

My birthday'll be here next week, so I decided to treat myself to a gizmo. I got myself a new iPod. I already filled my 60GB iPod and I'm not even through my entire CD collection yet. I can't bear to get rid of music.

So anyway, I decide to go to Best Buy to purchase a new iPod. I'm looking at the 160GB iPod which, I know is huge, but I know I won't have the problem of over-filling it, plus I'll be able to store photos and my manuscripts.

Out comes rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guy. He sizes me up and asks, "Can I help you?"

I say, "Yeah, I'm looking at the 160GB iPods."

He says, "Are you looking or looking to buy?" in a sneering manner.

I'm stunned, of course. So I tell him to get me one and I'll buy it. He goes away for a couple of minutes and comes back with the merchandise. I'm not done shopping at this point, though, because I still need a case. Rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guy is looking impatient and is hurriedly fingering all the cases on display. "Here's one and here's one." "Here's another one." At this point I'm pretty annoyed and I want to get out of the store. After I select my case, he walks me over to a cash-register, but he can't see me off without making a comment.

"You know, 160GB is big. You won't be able to fill it." And I'm thinking to myself, duh, genius. I didn't really reply to him. I just wanted to pay for my stuff and go. What I should've said to rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guy was that he's a little punk who doesn't know jack about what a customer wants, and that he should go home to his momma's house after I kick his skinny little ass, and that rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guys like him are going to stay rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guys because they don't know jack about how the world works and that I feel sorry for rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guys like him because what they THINK they know ain't gonna cut it.

Really, though, I'm too nice and I "walk off" the bad experience.

So to you, rude-know-it-all-Best-Buy-teenager-guy, I hope your day goes better and that you can pay for a college education with partial funding from the commission I got you. Keep your nose clean and learn some manners.

***

Of course, the iPod and the camera are great gizmos and I'm having loads of fun with 'em. As I'm blogging, I'm importing a bunch of my CD's to iTunes.

Sexy

n540091105_600703_2968.jpg
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

The sexy and sultry Jon Pineda.

Jan and Joseph

n540091105_600719_9440.jpg
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

Cute photo taken from Jan's camera.

Thai Food with the Kundi-Crew

n540091105_600725_4746.jpg
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

From left to right, Joseph, Jon, Janine, Sarah, Me, and Neil.

January's taking the picture.

Our First Kundiman Panel

n540091105_600669_9191.jpg
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

From left to right, David Mura, Sarah Gambito, Tamiko Beyer, Purvi Shah, and Jon Pineda. I'm off to the right . . . somewhere.

*Photo courtesy of January Gill

Check out my sexy shirt

n540091105_600713_7042.jpg
Originally uploaded by odelapaz.

That's my Kundiman shirt, worn for the a/p/a reading at NYU. The photo's courtesy of January Gill.

Back

Hi guys. Sorry it's been awhile. I seem to be apologizing for my blog absences quite frequently these days. It's not that I don't like you or anything, it's just that I've been busy in all aspects of my life.

I've been getting home fairly late and I've had lots of students come by during my office hours (primo blogging time), so I just haven't had time.

Anyway, enough moaning and groaning. How are you?

***

AWP was a blur. I spent a lot of time with Jon Pineda, talking about fatherhood, jobs, poetry. It was good to catch up with him. It's too bad his book wasn't out for the conference. He read some stuff from the new book at the A/P/A reading and the Kundiman panel. Phenomenal new work, and I'm looking forward to reading it cover to cover.

A lot of the conference was spent behind Table #220 at the bookfaire. That spot ended up becoming the meeting place for our extended Kundiman clan. Of course, I hung out with Sarah Gambito, Joseph Legaspi, Jennifer Chang, many Kundiman fellows and former faculty members, and friends of the organization. So it was a big conference for our burgeoning non-profit organization.

The joint panel with Cave Canem was wonderful. I'm still in awe of Toi and Cornelius. And it was great to partner up with Tim Seibles for moderator duties.

The solo Kundiman panel was also fabulous, and our fellows really shined.

Overall, though, it was good to be in good company. I always feel bad about not being able to spend time with anybody at the conference, but this time, I think I had some good long conversations with good friends.

***

Still, I didn't get to see New York. I mean, I've seen New York and I've wandered through New York on several occasions, but now that it's so far from me, I should've at least gotten in some culture. No plays. No museums. No shows.

***

I bought some books, but not as many as in the past. I was disciplined.

***

Photos soon.