I'm going to Popcorn's orange house for New Year's Eve! Hurray!

XXXXOO

My most hated criticism scribbled by English teachers on junior high school essay assignments: "Too wordy." Not that the criticism was inaccurate. It seems I just don't like the word, "wordy." It makes me think, "Of course it's wordy, it's language!" I'll take verbose any day.

Merry Solstice, suckers.

Mary lent me a nice children's book called, Morning, Noon, and Night: Poems To Fill Your Day selected by Sharon Taberski and illustrated by Nancy Doniger (c) 1996 Mondo Publishing . Here are some of the poems I like in this collection.


Lunchbox


They always

End up

Fighting --


The soft

Square

Sandwich,


The round

Heavy

Apple.

- by Valerie Worth


Pencils

Every word in your
pencil
is fearless Ready to walk
the blue tightrope lines
Ready
to teeter and smile
down Ready to come right out
and show you
thinking!

- by Barbara Juster Esbensen

Cat Kisses

Sandpaper kisses
on a cheek or a chin --
that is the way
for a day to begin!

Sandpaper kisses --
a cuddle, a purr.
I have an alarm clock
that's covered with fur.

- by Bobbi Katz

Shrinkie the Bear says,

Just what you needed: Another goddamn opportunity to grow.

Dear Inkblot,

You were right. Sorry I got mad earlier. That brand new book with the pristine cover did deserve to get clawed. You're always right and should be worshipped.

Me

Back when Fergie-Dog lived with me, she had the strange habit of sleeping with her eyes wide open. She looked pretty dead when she did this. Usually when I came home from work, my key in the lock would wake her up. On rare occasions when I came home, she would fail to wake up. I would gasp thinking she was dead and rush over to her. At that point she would wake up surprised. For some reason it took several instances of this happening before I learned not to assume she was dead. Now it's kind of a fond memory, but, damn, that takes a lot out of you.