here a sheep, there a sheep
May 24, 2008
Just outside my window, someone is playing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” on a harmonica. Life doesn’t get any better than this.
(Although I do wish the person were instead playing a song that doesn’t instill in children the notion that America is dotted with nice, sweet family farms where animals never get hurt or die. “Giant Corporation Had a Factory Farm that Treated Its Animals Inhumanely” would be a more accurate song. I’m just sayin’.)
is it wrong of me to want to have david cook sing to me in person while i am totally naked? (alternatively titled ‘the one wherein i use a lot of italics for emphasis, not to mention all the parentheses’)
May 23, 2008
Here’s the dealio. I am (terribly) ashamed to admit it, but I watched American Idol this season. Me. American Idol. Watched. Me, a person who doesn’t really watch TV. (You’d think I’d select something brainier and more sophisticated like ResearchChannel or at least PBS. But no: I chose Idol.)
How on earth did this come about, you ask? In my defense, I did not watch the whole season, just everything that took place once the select few were chosen to go to Hollywood.
Also in my defense, David Cook is hot. That’s what I have to say about that. I am so happy he won, as opposed to the other David, who is adorable and tiny and all, kind of like a demitasse tea cup or a designer puppy, but who simply isn’t hot. (Even if he were hot, I wouldn’t be able to admit it, since he’s underage. But he’s not, so it’s a nonissue. He is cute, as in I-want-to-pinch-your-cheeks-and ruffle-your-hair cute; I will admit that much. But hot? Not so much.)
If you don’t think David Cook ? or at least his singing ? is hot, you should really watch this video of him singing Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean.” Nobody but him could make a song about impregnating a woman then denying his paternity sound so luscious. (Yes, I said luscious. A cheesy and retro word fer sure, but that’s how I feel about it.)
But would you expect any less from an experienced singer and songwriter whose life as a musician started well before he hit the Idol stage? I have to admit that’s another reason David appeals to me ? he’s not someone Idol “made.” Instead, he went on the show on his own terms (for the most part, except for some of the silly songs, like that one by Roberta Flack, that he was forced to sing sang). He used the forum to rise to the top and build an audience of flush, panting, pantiless fans. (OK, maybe that describes me in particular and not all his fans.) But I also feel a little bit bad for him. Now he has to be the American Idol bitch, for a while anyway.
Case in point: He was given a custom chopper for winning the competition. That sounds pretty damn cool until you learn that the faces of the Idol judges are painted on it and it has a ginormous eighth note on the back. It’s also Wal-Mart blue, like one of Elton John’s tackier jackets. In fact, it looks a lot like something Elton John would ride. Now that I think of it, David should give the bike to Elton John, for in so doing he would undoubtedly right something in the universe, restoring the balance the world so desperately needs.
If you don’t believe me about the bike, check out some photos of it here. Can you imagine him being forced to toodle about on such a monstrosity? That is one surefire way to transform a cool guy into a loser, kind of like this otherwise attractive guy I went to high school with who insisted on wearing acid-wash jeans with a matching acid-wash denim jacket, and a matching acid-wash denim hat. (*rolls eyes*)
Besides his looks and his voice, I like the fact that David is from a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., where I lived for 17 years. And, he moved to Oklahoma, where I was born and lived for the first 17 years of my life. See, we have a connection.
(But I do have to wonder why anyone would move to Oklahoma. Most of the people I know have run far and fast from Oklahoma. And with good reason. This is the place, after all, where an editorial once appeared in a major newspaper stating that “homosexuals” were “mainstreaming Satanism.” I believe the title of the editorial was “Homosexuals Mainstreaming Satanism.” Sure, that was 18 years ago … but still. It’s a ludicrous assertion now, some might say asinine, and it was a ludicrous assertion in 1990.)
What is my point? I don’t remember, as is often the case when I delve into these meandering posts. Oh, I know. David. Cook. Is. Hot.
The only problem I can find with David is one thought about him that I can’t shake: He was seven years old when I started college. That idea makes me feel like a sexual deviant: I imagine him on a playground somewhere and me driving by flashing my rack at him. But more importantly, this thought makes me feel old. Fine. I am old, but I haven’t yet learned to face it. I just hope David wouldn’t mind the thought of singing in person to an older (naked) woman.
Listen. Here’s how hot I think David Cook is: It doesn’t even phase me that he reminds me of this guy I used to work with, someone who was way good-looking but kept sandwiches in his desk drawers and spoke in such a soft voice that everything he uttered sounded more like a gentle breeze riffling long blades of grass than like human vocalizations. I could barely understand whatever it was he was trying to communicate.
And trust me, I was listening hard, intent on befriending this guy, because I am not one to turn away good-looking company, even if that company keeps sandwiches in his desk drawers. I should point out that there was meat on said sandwiches, and I challenge anyone to tell me that the idea of pulling a warm meaty sandwich out of a desk drawer and eating it isn’t downright disturbing.
I eventually had to stop talking to that guy because I couldn’t hear him, despite my best efforts. It was sad, really. For me, mostly. I don’t think he cared one way or the other about continuing, or not continuing, to talk to me. (That’s what happens when you are the less attractive person in any pairing. You become the one who wants, not the one who is wanted. Not that I wanted him, exactly. I was spoken for at the time. But you get the idea. I mean wanted in a friendly way. And by friendly I don’t mean sexual. Well, maybe a little. What? I’m just being honest. Geez.) Thereafter I would walk past his cubicle, see him eating a sandwich and silently shake my head.
So yes, it doesn’t bother me that David reminds me of Sandwich Guy. Nor does it bother me that he tends to wear some kind of stretchy-but-loose pants that look like something from the pre-Lycra days ? the kind of fabric that used to be tight but during the course of the day became loose in all the wrong places, and by that I mean the knees and the rear end. You know what I am talking about ladies ? that is, if you were in high school in the ’80s and bought into the cotton stretchpants phenomenon. Those were wrong on so many levels. Cotton might be the fabric of our lives but it’s not the fabric we should try to stuff ourselves into and wear as a second skin. That’s why God invented pleather.
OK … well. I think my work on this topic is done. In closing, I want to state that in no way is this post endorsed or supported by American Idol or Simon Cowell nor is it designed to upset my husband or make light of the forever-and-ever bond the two of us have. He is my Loveshack, and always will be. David can’t do nothin bout that.
(Psst. Call me, David.)
(I’m just kidding. Don’t call me.)
((Call me, Dave. Do it.))
it is *really* hard to get a bra on when you’re wearing a holter monitor
May 21, 2008
monitor me
May 20, 2008
My MRI results came back, and they were normal. My EEG results also came back and show that I have abnormalities in my brain as well as my heart. (My heart function was assessed with a two-lead EKG as part of the EEG.) No verdict on what might be causing either of these problems. I am going for a 24-hour Holter monitoring test tomorrow and will have a 12-lead EKG the day after tomorrow.
I am not very happy about these developments. I am trying to remember my mantra, but doing so is not an easy undertaking.
my mantra for this week
May 17, 2008
Health is not the absence of illness.
— Anne Lucas (my cognitive-behavioral therapist)
weave magazine
May 13, 2008
I just found out that three of my poems have been accepted for the first issue of Weave Magazine, a print literary journal out of Pittsburgh. The issue will be available this fall. I’m stoked!
To find out more about Weave, visit their blog, weavezine.
read write poem prompt #26
May 12, 2008
The Read Write Prompt this week at Read Write Poem was to write about your mother. I know this isn’t the typical mother’s day poem, but here’s what I created in response to the prompt.
A quick note on the form: I decided to make each line contain six syllables to underscore the drunken dance between my mother and father, kind of like a waltz but with a lot of improperly accented beats.
* * *
Night out
It’s always one of two
dresses on these nights out,
the one with blue flowers
parading across it,
or the black poly print.
You buckle your swollen
feet into your strappy
gold shoes then walk with an
air of pain mixed with mild
elation as if you’ve
upped the dose of your meds.
Father drives you to the
fancy club where you dance
to a big band and drink
highballs then slip the stems
from every centerpiece
to sneak them home with you.
It’s always the same when
you get home, both of you
worn out and plastered, your
voices raised in one room
after another, the
argument rising like
a trumpet section in
full crescendo. Standing
toe to toe in what mimes
a dance, your hands and lips
shake. You start to go numb.
Next day, you won’t recall
anything but the fine
time you had, how your shoes
caught the light when you twirled.
* * *
To read more poetry, click on the button below.
what the church marquee down the street told me today*
May 12, 2008
*alternatively titled ‘what the heck does this mean, anyway?’
An ounce of mother is worth more than a pound of clergy.
letters to myself
May 9, 2008
Something inside you keeps saying, What the hell am I doing? You open doors, close them, greet everyone with the same false smile, the one where you raise the right side of your mouth more than the left, in a near-smirk, like Tom Cruise’s wife, What’s-Her-Name, the one with the pretty hair and pretty features and a nose smaller and straighter than yours. The kind of face you’ve always wanted.
But this isn’t about looks. There’s more going on, the fact that there’s not much to celebrate, of course, where your life is concerned, certainly not while something in you keeps saying, What the hell am I doing inside this small life with its picture-framed windows, retractable shades? This cubicle of a life, where nobody takes your picture or even notices that you’ve arrived. Where is the red carpet, the studded high heels you’ve longed for since childhood? Where are the rabbits that get pulled out of goddamn hats?
You knew a man once when you were young, a friend of your father’s, who could tie a knot in a cherry stem using only his tongue. He showed you and you laughed, his tongue sticking out with the knotted stem wrapped around the end. That’s when you knew magic existed in ordinary people. You believed you’d grow into that magic, like the women who got sawed in half then walked away whole, or like girls whose breasts exploded into double Ds practically overnight. You looked through catalogs from JC Penney at the lingerie section hoping someday magic would find and transform your body, make you into something remarkable and or at least wanted.
Your father had magic, walked into a room, his footsteps lighting it up. He soared on a combination of Marlboros and Bloody Marys, his every gesture illumitated. Power does that for people, makes them funnier, more engaging. But who cares if the attention is feigned? Didn’t someone once say appearance is all that matters?
But back to you. Dull, idle, wasted potential. Never amounted to much. And why does all that matter? Because of the promise that was made implicitly and explicitly — that you would be something, that people would notice you. But there’s nothing much to celebrate, other than your survival. And what does that amount to? Millions have done no less and against far greater odds.
You wait for the clouds to part, for something deep within to be churned up like water in a lake, its nutrients rising to the surface.
You wait to celebrate yourself.
* * *
This letter to myself uses or plays on the following lines from poems by Charles Bukowski:
Something inside you keeps saying / what the hell am I doing?
There wasn’t much to celebrate / of course
I was only celebrating myself
i just got hit on by an 18 year old
May 9, 2008
sweet
This is my blog wherein I, Dana Guthrie Martin, write things and stuff. Most of the time, writing and I hobble along in a sort of three-legged race where there is no finish line. (more...)
Poetry is a river; many voices travel in it; poem after poem moves along in the exciting crests and falls of the river waves. None is timeless; each arrives in an historical context; almost everything, in the end, passes. But the desire to make a poem, and the world’s willingness to receive it – indeed the world’s need of it – these never pass. — Mary Oliver
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beg, borrow, but don't steal
This work is licensed under Creative Commons. If you don’t credit Dana (by using her full name and preferably by linking back to the appropriate post) for however you copy, distribute, transmit or adapt her words, you are being bad. And naughty. And she will have her servant monkeys hunt you down and cut your hands off so you can never copy, distribute, transmit or adapt anyone’s work again and call it your own.
(Unless, of course, you were to use your butt cheeks to manipulate your keyboard with the copying, distributing, transmitting, adapting and whatnot, but Dana fortunately has only met one person whose butt cheeks are that talented. He could play a major third on a piano using nothing but his ass. She kids you not.).
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flick, flick, flick
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i cannot be bought
