A "meme"-away, a "meme"-away

As in, "in the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

The memes they are raging again, folks. Time to duck. This, courtesy of and by invitation of Spirithelper.

Ten Years Ago: May 1998

Tina was three months into carrying the Babe of Babes, our now nine year old beauty of a son: he is growling Taz-like in the background and singing as I write this: it is best friend’s birthday party today—they are headed to the latest Indy Jones flick and camping out in friend M’s backyard tonight.

I was in my last days as a therapist, writing poetry like crazy, cracked open by my classes with Hoa Nguyen, poetry teacher extraordinaire, former student herself of Tom Clark out in San Francisco. I was reading poetry like mad as well, a “whateverth” generation offspring of an amalgam of the New York School of Poets (Schuyler and O’Hara, and later folk Ted Berrigan and wife Alice Notley) and the Black Mountaineers (Olson, Duncan, and Levertov), and making my way back through to Pound and HD and Mina Loy and Snyder and all the party that was 20^th century rock and roll poetizing. I couldn’t get enough. As a fiction writer, I reveled in the instant gratification of poems, though part of me (a wee part, sure) thought such instant grat was straight out cheating. This was also when I discovered the joy of reading poetry behind a microphone and letting it rip. I learned the valuable lesson that poems are lurking everywhere.

The pageantry of Austin: there was Amy’s ice cream, sushi galore at Musashino, breakfast at Las Manitas, the utterly carnivorous debauchery of the Salt Lick, trips out to brother Vern at the ranch and the beauty of the emerald Frio River. We swam and baptized that uterine fish in practically every river in central Texas. Living on Bridal Path, just blocks from the river. Hiking in the glory of Austin’s Barton Creek greenbelt, something Tina did right up until two days before Mr. Baby popped (three miles that day). The guiding hands of midwife Suzi through the journey of it all.

5 Things on Today’s To Do List:

1. Lay Eucharistic Minister at Church, bidding farewell to the Influx Transposer Familia, que lastima.
2. Taking Mr. Baby to meet up with M at the Quarry Cinema.
3. Spectating at the Talent Show going away party for choir director Barbara at church.
4. Re-reading this awesome quote from Raymond Chandler’s The High Window: “She looked at us lazily as we came over the grass. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away…the mascara was so thick on her eyelashes that they looked like miniature iron railings."
5. Why this here meme, cher.

5 Things I’d Do If I Were a billionaire:

1. Rebuild and staff LeRuth’s Restaurant in Gretna, Louisiana. And reincarnate Warren LeRuth, of course.
2. Run a publishing company that published unpublished writers who should not be on the outside looking in. On second thought, we’d have to redefine just exactly what “publish” means.
3. Hire Oprah’s trainer and chef right out from under her, BUT SHARE them with her for free.
4. Open an art space that featured the works of Tina Karagulian, San Meredith, Wild Bill Tick Tock, Ms Influx, and Tammie Lee, for starters.
5. Tear down at least one major dam that’s participated in the killing of our rivers: Snake? Columbia? Colorado? Pearl?

Three Bad Habits:

1. Rooting for teams other than the home team.
2. Amy’s Ice Cream.
3. Amy’s Ice Cream, while rooting for teams other than the home team.

5 Places I’ve Lived:

1. Moscow, Idaho.
2. Frankfurt, Germany.
3. Knippa, Texas.
4. Clarksville, Tennessee (yes, THAT last train).
5. Tres Leches.

5 Jobs I’ve Had:

1. Woodworking with the Hummers of Reagan Wells, Texas.
2. Archiving in and around Eudora Welty’s papers at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
3. Bush-hogging more pastures of gorgeous sunflowers than any human being should have in seven lifetimes.
4. Land surveying the Texas Hill Country.
5. Writing consultant for this project: Common Ground.

(5) Folks I’m Taggin’. The usual suspects, of course, some of whom could cut and paste their answers from a suspiciously similar earlier meme: ALT, San, Lee, and that traveling IT mujer. I don’t get out to many blog-parties, so 4 tags will have to do. Deadline is by the time that “End of Time” cycle comes around that the Maya and Terence McKenna have been talking about. You gotta a few more years, folks.