hello

This blog will be devoted to my rantings and ponderings. The things I will write here are "utterly unasked for" and may in some instances contain nonwords such as "flamily." It is called Poppies in October after a Sylvia Plath poem:


Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly--

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxide, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.


So today happens to be Christmas, and in a fittingly secular manner, my family had latkes for breakfast, tasty. Among other things, I got a bunch of amazing books that I wanted, so I'm excited to read them and hopefully I will soon have time to. [The breaking news is that I finished my college apps last night, so my life no longer sucks.] Anyway, I got the complete works of Baudelaire... in French. That will be an undertaking. Garcia Lorca's Gypsy Ballads. The Associated Press Stylebook for the journalism nerd in me. The thing I'm probably most excited about is two giant collections of The Evergreen Review, edited by the great Barney Rosset of Grove Press. They span 1957 to 1973.

My bro got an electric cello, which is actually really cool. He has been classically trained, so he's upstairs playing Bach and experimenting with reverb. My mom also got our entire family these silly matching down slipper boot things. They're ridiculously comfortable, but my feet feel gluttonous.