that's all folks

the end

i have no idea why

puzzle but not guzzle

tickle but not pickle

conquistador but not amarillo

tintinnabulation and susurrus but not cacophony or din

go figure.

if only he weren't serious

what? two posts in one day?
yup, seems like it.

well, i couldn't pass up this little nugget of dumbfuckery. you might think he was joking; but you'd be wrong.

welcome to Utah, folks. enjoy your stay. watch out for satan and fairies and evil salt nymphs. satyrs and mermaids are probably here, too.

forgive me father...

it's been 11 days since my last post. things are pretty slow around here.

i got rejected twice by Barnstorm Magazine.

i haven't written much at all in the last 7 months, and absolutely nothing at all in the last 4. it happens. there are reasons for this current drought that are beyond my control, and i hope for it all to come back in the next few months. we'll see. the last poem i wrote was so bad that the paper i wrote it on literally shuttered at the horror. i would hate for that to be my swan song, but we all can't retire with our last at-bat being a home run.

my mother-in-law is in town for a 10 day visit. the wife is healing quite nicely and will be titrated off Coumadin soon. other than that, it's been not much of anything else. at least spring is finally here.

oh, and we've surpassed 100 finds for the Guerilla Poetics Project (107 as of this post) and are moving along quite nicely. it's the one bright spot in my life (poetically-speaking) lately.

quick update

it's been awhile since my last one. here's what's new:

Eric Dejaeger has been kind enough to translate two more of my poems, one of which he has posted on Fricotage. there are some very kind comments left about it, both for the poem itself (thank you) and for Eric's translation (which he deserves). i had to use Babelfish to translate the comments, and i doubt the translations were the best...but i got the gist.
speaking of translated texts, i've sent out copies of the Mi(ni)crobe chapbook Eric created of his translations of some of my poems. if you haven't received yours yet, it's in the mail (or i have neglected to send you one). i have 4 left, so let me know if you want one.

lastly, i was lucky enough to have two poems voted for printing as a broadside for The Guerilla Poetics Project. i'm honored and excited about this. 12 poems in total were selected out of a humongous cache of over 100. the 12 poems are all very strong and will make great additions to the already fabulous collection. the GPP is also looking to have these broadsides designed by people other than the printer, so if you are interested check out the blog and send the GPP an email.

that's it for now. some submissions out, updates when they return.

CHAMPIONSHIP SANDWICH!

well, my beloved Florida Gators done did it again!
in an historic (that's for you, Kav) win, the Florida Basketball Gators repeated as National Champions (the first since Duke in 1992, and only the second team since the early 70s). even more impressive is the fact that the Florida Football Gators won the National Championship back in January, making Florida the first school to win a football and basketball national championship in the same year, and only the second school (kudos to you, Michigan State) to have multiple titles in both sports.
this has been an amazing year for Gator athletics. i know it can't last forever, but i certainly hope it does!

update

it's been a bit since my last update.
what's new:

i received my copies of Eric Dejaeger's Microbe Editions chapbook in which my poetry is presented in both English and French (as translated by Eric). if you would like a copy, let me know. i have already put aside a few copies for those of you i think might want one, so most likely you're already listed, but still...just in case i don't have you down...

i received word from some little punk (you know who you are ;)) that one of my poems will appear in the next two issues (different poems for each issue, mind you) of The Quirk. this little punk is diligently working on getting the issue designed and collated. he promises it will be a killer issue. i'll be the judge of that, thank you very much! :) i'll update when i hear more. i'm quite excited about this, actually.

i received a rejection from Brian Morrissey of Poesy magazine, though his rejection letter was quite complimentary of me and he asked to see more. and that he shall. i hope to mail him off a new batch soon, but you know how motivation can be a challenge for me. (you don't? well, too bad i'm too lazy to tell you about it, but maybe one day...it's a pretty great story...ah, who am i kidding, it's a bore, much like myself.) anyway, Poesy is a great magazine, and i've appeared in a few issues in the past. maybe i'll slip one past him again in the very near future.

lastly, the latest month's mailings of The Guerilla Poetics Project broadsides have been received, including the first ever broadside printed by a printer other than the original GPP printer. it's a doozy, too. check out the blog for a picture. i've said it before, and i'll say it again: the GPP is something fresh and exciting. if you agree, and believe in the same ideals we believe in, then help us out in any way you can!

oh, and i almost forgot. the wife's cast came off three weeks early. apparently, she's some kind of freak of nature when it comes to healing. her bone is already mended and now she's working on getting the muscles and tendons back to strength. lucky her. if it were me, i'd be in the cast three weeks longer, probably. and my leg would look like a broomstick (or MORE like a broomstick). sad.
anyway, her leg is atrophied a little, and still quite tender and puffy. the skin is tight and swollen and bruised. it's pretty nasty, really. it was really gross before she shaved: it looked like a man's leg. ugh. but, she's on the way to a full recovery and she'll be back in the gym in no time. yea!

we've finally made it

yea! it's so damn great to live in this fucking state. what is wrong with people? seriously, what is wrong with them? man. just when you think the government couldn't get any dumber, they go and do something like this. it's enough to make someone go crazy with rage.

and if the dumbasses at the Tax Commission didn't know that merlot was a type of wine, then i doubt they'll know a muscat is too. maybe those of us here in Utah who disagree with this kind of thing should inundate the Tax Commission with applications for vanity plates featuring rare alcoholic beverages just to see if we can squeeze one past them.

that'll show 'em who they're dealing with...
maybe not, but it would still be fun.

bad moon rising

here's a photo i just took of the full moon rising over Lone Peak. i couldn't quite get it to look exactly like it did, but the ones i took with the film camera are probably much better. it was less blindingly white, as this photo shows it, and more pale yellowish-blue, with wisps of cirrus clouds streaking across it; and the faintest hint of the mountain illuminated below it.

simply gorgeous.

the ankle, and a nice email

well, it turns out the wife doesn't need surgery; a small bit of good news after a lot of bad.
she had the ankle set and casted yesterday, and will remain in a cast for the next 6 weeks. she's in a considerable amount of pain, but that too will pass soon enough. before you know it, she'll be hobbling around, then the cast will be off and she'll back up on those rocks.
we got lucky, too, in that no hematoma developed as a result of being on Coumadin. bleeding to death isn't really a concern in something like this, but hematomas aren't uncommon from soft tissue trauma. however, the swelling and bruising she experienced was normal.
and not needing surgery means she can remain on Coumadin, which is good because she'll be idle for some time, which is a risk factor for developing further blood clots.
anyway, all in all she's doing well. she fell off the horse (and hurt herself) but she's climbing back in the saddle again.

i received a very nice email today from Rachel Bunting letting me know that my poem where have you gone, Jack Kevorkian? appears as a poem of the week on Kendall A. Bell's website and that she liked the poem very much. i don't recall submitting to him (though it IS entirely possible that i did), so he probably found it on my website (or another). i'm honored to have the poem as poem of the week, and gladder still that it touched someone enough for them to email me. thank you Kendall and Rachel for your support and kind words.

well, damn

and in the continuing saga of the .barrett household, my wife broke her ankle earlier this morning while rock climbing.
for Valentine's Day i purchased a year's membership to a new indoor rock climbing gym (the largest in the west...or at least it will be when construction is finished in April). it was something she always wanted to do, and i didn't (fear of heights and all).
anyway, i decided it might be fun to try the damn thing. since the gym isn't fully completed, yet, only the bouldering section is open. we've gone a few times and really enjoy it: it's a good workout, requires some mental flexibility to figure out the best route, and is something we both can enjoy.
to continue making a short story less short, my wife was tackling a difficult route, one she'd tried days before without success. it was a hard one, at least for us newbies.
she got to the hardest part of the route and lost her grip, falling to the padded floor. it was only a 6 foot or so drop, and onto a good 2 feet of padding, but she landed awkwardly with her leg underneath her. we thought it was merely a bad sprain (i've had a few in my life, and they can be quite painful). we called our insurance ompany's nurseline, being unable to get through to our doctors, and since Julee is on Coumadin they recommended her getting the ankle checked out, just to be sure.
luckily we did, as she fractured her fibula. it's nothing severe, as fractured fibulas aren't uncommon; however, we're worried about the Coumadin and what effect it might have on the swelling, bruising and internal bleeding. she may need surgery to put a pin in the bone, but we won't know until later this week, when she can get an appointment to see an orthopaedic surgeon.

needless to say, it's certainly not something we need right now.

UPDATE: 25 Feb 07, 10:20 AM: it appears the swelling and bruising haven't gotten any worse and aren't abnormal for such trauma. this is obviously good news as it means the blood isn't pooling unusually. the risk for hematomas is definitely real when experiencing trauma while on Coumadin.

morning commutes suck.....but

at least, if things work out just right, and i get out of bed in time and eat breakfast fast enough and don't dawdle too long with getting everything ready, i get to see a gorgeous mountain sunrise like this every so often. the thing is these pictures don't even do the real thing justice. it was absolutely stunning.

almost makes the snowstorm that hit later that night worth it. ALMOST!

updates

my wife got both her legs ultrasounded (is that the past tense of the verb ultrasound? it sounds weird). anyway, she got them done and there are no clots in her legs. there shouldn't have been, but the ultrasound was performed just to be 100% certain. so, it looks like this weekend will be when we take her off the blood-thinners. i'd be a liar if i said i wasn't nervous about this whole thing. most likely, though, she'll end up back on them for life. if you're gonna roll the dice, you might as well stack the odds in your favor as much as you can.

on the poetry front, Brian McGettrick has accepted two of my poems (to not think of an elephant and Perspective from the 10,000 Foot View) for his guest-edited issue of remark. (which is due out sometime this spring or summer). i also will have a poem in C. Allen Rearick's guest-edited issue (a tangle of arms and hair), due out very soon, and will have two more poems (Sins of the Father and why i wish we never met) in a later, regularly edited issue sometime later this year.
also, i received word that one of the 18 poems i wrote for my wife about her ordeal, and our attempts at dealing with it, has been accepted by David Greenspan of Butcher Shop Press.
David wrote a diatribe lamenting the current state of poetry, and soliciting for poems that we "beautiful". i sent him a few of the poems about our recent issues, and told him that though "there might not be the beauty of a fucking daffodil in a field...or a goddamn sunset behind the smog of a forest fire...but i'll be damned if there isn't beauty in escaping death and coming out on the other side..."
he apparently agreed. the poem First Night Home was accepted and will appear in that issue.

other than this, there's nothing much else to report. the Guerilla Poetics Project is still going strong, with many new operative and 64 registered finds.

the verdict

well, the wife got her angiogram read by the pulmonologist.
everything is fully resolved!

however, she will remain on Coumadin for another 2 weeks (to make the treatment a full 6 months), just to be safe, then she'll have ultrasounds performed on her legs (to ensure that no clots are hanging out there, either) and if everything is clean we have a decision to make:
the doctor said she can either remain on Coumadin for life (which brings with it a 1% chance of bleeding to death) or she stop taking it (which brings about a 5% of a second clotting event). those percentages are pretty much even, so we really don't know what to do. the doctor, even, couldn't tell us. he said her case is unique in that she had no risk factors, and she was so young, so they'll have to play it by ear.

i think we're going to experiment with taking her off of Coumadin for a few weeks, get some genetic testing done to rule out those rare but serious disorders, then see how it goes.
i suppose the really good news about all of this is that the treatment worked and those massive clots in her lungs (she saw both angiograms -- the first one from 6 months ago and the one from yesterday -- and she said it was shocking how large the clots in her lungs were) are gone.

tapping veins

my wife got her angiogram this morning. they were finally able to tap one of her veins, and thusly inject her with the radiocontrast dye. she said it was a horrible feeling as the dye causes an instantaneous release of adrenaline, which causes the heart to race and the fight-or-flight response to kick in...but, just then, they stick you in a big tube and tell you lie still. paranoia and claustrophobia start to creep in (even if you aren't normally claustrophobic), and it gets really creepy.
also, the dye causes the blood vessels to warm up, and it's particularly noticeable around the urethra, so a few seconds after the injection you are convinced you just pissed yourself on the table.

BUT, the good thing is that the test is over. the films will be read by the pulmonologist this afternoon and we'll know what the next course of treatment is (be it continued blood-thinning therapy or not).

i'll update soon with what the pulmonologist finds.

on the poetry front, Guerilla Poetics Project found broadside #62 was just registered. we're averaging a find/register every three days. phenomenal!

an update on the wife, and a little poetics

well, we've been having a bitch of time getting the wife the xray for her chest (actually, an CT angiogram, to be precise). Monday, we went in and it turns out we were supposed to have an appointment, yet were never told to set one up. so, we drove all the way to the hospital for nothing. fine, whatever. the doctor's appointment (to have the angiogram read) was also that day, so that had to be rescheduled. we set up a an appointment for the angiogram for yesterday (Friday) and the doctor's appointment for the reading for next Monday. yesterday, we go in and the nurses (3 different ones) were unable to tap a vein in Julee's arm. she has 5 pricks on each elbow pit and one on the underside of her right forearm. and, since she's on bloodthinners, they are bruised like she's some kind of heroin addict. she had to stop because it was hurting her so much. so, no dice on the angiogram once again.
she set up another appointment for Monday morning, then that afternoon (assuming all goes well) she will have the damn things read and we'll know where we stand. her veins are deep and she's always had a hard time when she tried to give blood, but this was ridiculous. anyway, we're hoping Monday will be different.

i just found out from Eric Dejaeger that he has uploaded my poem six pack and his translation of it here. i still haven't received my copies of the book Eric released. i'm afraid they have been lost in the mail.

down goes frazier...

well, just received a letter yesterday from Greg Edwards, editor of Naked Knuckle, informing me that he has decided to call it quits. this sucks. Naked Knuckle quickly became a favorite of mine, and was consistently full of great poetry. the design, too, was original and quirky. anyway, RIP Naked Knuckle. another will come in to fill the void, no doubt, i just hope it's as good as NK.

on a personal note, my dual-language (English-French) chapbook, the uncertainty principle, was published by Eric Dejaeger's Microbe Editions. unfortunately, they are not for sale as all copies were given to the subscribers to Microbe. fortunately, i receive 20 copies to do with what i please. unfortunately, i neglected to give Eric my new address and they have now been lost in transit. regardless, i'm proud of this book and want to thank Eric for translating my poems and finding them keen enough to collect into a book.

lastly, this Friday my wife, Julee, will get her 6 month lung xray to make sure the clot has fully resolved. if so, she will be taken off Coumadin (gulp!) and we'll start the next phase of our lives. obviously, the clot being gone is a good thing, a very good thing, but being removed from Coumadin scares me as there is always the possibility another clot could form. she go through an extensive round of genetic testing in a few weeks to check out all the known culprits, and if she's clean...it's pretty much a wait and see thing. if she does happen to have one of these extremely rare disorders (please, no!), then she'll be put back on Coumadin for life. anyway, i'll post the results, in case you're interested.

GO GATORS!

and with the most dominating performance in a BCS bowl game EVER, the Florida Football Gators are the #1 team in the nation.

that's football AND basketball, folks. first time in the history of the NCAA that the same team has held the championship in both sports.

surrender, give us your women, we are coming to repeat in both!

GO GATORS!

good news for j.b!

snuck in here while j.b was in the toilet.

check this out: sanity returning?

big poetry update

the past two days i received:

* the newest issue of Nerve Cowboy (#22) in which my poem Letter to Glenn appears. other poets appearing in this issue included: David J. Thompson, Christopher Cunningham, Gerald Locklin, Michael Kriesel, Robert L. Penick, Michael Estabrook and Nathan Graziano.

* the first three issues of Adrian Manning's Concrete Meat Sheet -- a single sheet broadside journal of poetry. i will have a poem featured in issue #4. check out Concrete Meat Press for more information.

* the latest Guerilla Poetics Project broadside mailing. the package included 10 copies of broadsides #9 and #10 (by David Barker and William Taylor, Jr., respectively) which will soon be placed into undisclosed books at an undisclosed bookstore somewhere in the Salt Lake Valley.

new year college football-arama

lots of games.

there's nothing better than just lying on this couch, the laptop on, the tv switching between the many games, and doing nothing but relaxing.

gotta love it.

hope you all had a safe and happy new year's celebration.