Monday

Tonight Steven and I had dinner in Soho at a little restaurant on Elizabeth Street. They had amazing Pad Thai and cocktails. I had a cocktail that was plum wine and gingerale. Yummy. Very summer-ish. We were talking, I looked over, and there was Ryan Gosling! He wasn't there when we got there. So I don't know how he got into the restaurant without me seeing him? He kept looking our way (we were by the window). I know he was thinking: is that that famous blogger? Yes, I'm kidding. He was looking out the window waiting for a friend, who eventually showed up. One of the other guys he was sitting with may have been Daniel Gillies, but he may not have been either. I can't be sure. Ryan Gosling is a cool celebrity sighting. Unexpected. Once I had drinks at Moby's restaurant, but I didn't know it was Moby's. He actually brought a candle to my table, and I asked him where the bathroom was. I had no idea it was him. Then he sat down with some people and just hung out. I only realized it was him when I was watching a Moby video and realized the guy in the restaurant had the same tattoo on the back of his neck.

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The whole weekend has been lovely. Gorgeous weather. It's funny, but even though I've given notice at this horrible job, I still get an awful dread in my stomach when I think about having to go there tomorrow. Leaving that place is definitely the right decision. I despise it. I have an exit interview tomorrow with the worthless HR person. I'm going to tell her how much I hate working there. She won't do anything about it because she's lazy and worthless, but she needs to know what a hell hole that place is. The final question on the exit interview is: Would you work for this company again? I'm going to respond, with no additional explanation: No.

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I need to write some new poems. I think I'm close to beginning something.

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I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's new book Snuff. It's kind of disappointing. He's writing in different voices, letting characters speak, and each character kind of sounds the same. Also, they all just happen to know bits of random trivia. Also, time hasn't seemed to move in the novel, but the movies that are showing on the screens where the characters are hanging out have changed a whole lot. I think he just likes making up fake porn titles. They're entertaining, but not believable. I guess like the book.

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Has Hillary Clinton dropped out yet? I'm sick of both candidates at this point. I need a break from it.

Regie Hamm

My friend Regie won the American Idol song competition! I had no idea. My sister just told me. You should get his CD, American Dreams. Pretty awesome.

Television

Sex and the City in syndication: blah, blah, blah, whine...

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American Idol: show choir and sentimentality and embarrassing earnestness...the person who will inevitably win tomorrow (the young one) will be doing crappy musicals in three years...

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Dancing with the Stars: Its own kind of sadness...

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Oprah Winfrey Show: Why am I always home on Dr. Oz day? (I am telecommuting tomorrow and he's scheduled.)

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Extreme Home Makeover: Attractive, overprivileged people who help unnattractive, underprivileged people and then talk about how proud they are of themselves for doing it.

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Local news: embarrassing, but hot when Sue Simmons said, "What the fuck are you doing" when she thought she was off the air...lol...

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Deal or No Deal: I don't even know where to start. I would have to write an essay.

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The View: Someone needs to smack the republican, really slap the shit out of her.

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I'm ready for a new season of television this fall...(and not fucking My Boys this summer)

How to Handle Your Next Public Insult via Director Kevin Smith

Suggestions

As I'm thinking about classes this fall, I'm planning to teach a fresmen seminar about outsiders/misfits/the other. I have an idea of books to teach from poetry to memoir to novels, but I would like to have some essays about otherness or the idea of an outsider in literature. Does anyone know any essays that address this? I don't want them to be too theoretical to the point where the students are like huh? But I would like to use some essays to contextualize what I want to teach. Some books I'm considering: The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte, Charley Bland by Mary Lee Settle, What Saves Us by Bruce Weigl. I want to cast a wide net on what an outsider can be, and I don't want all the books to cast favorable images necessarily on the outsider.

Monday

I had to give a presentation today at work, and I think it went well. Public speaking has always been pretty easy for me, but it was odd to be talking about student engineering events. I had to talk about some of the student programs we have been offering. (Basically, I reported on all the trips I've taken.) It was weird not to be talking about poetry. It was weird to have to even think about these things and talk about them. In true engineering fashion, I used power point slides to go along with the talk. Engineers love power point. I was thinking how different this profession is from writing. We are taught to listen to speakers. I wonder what it would be like if we put our poems up on power point slides while we read? It would feel like over kill, I think. One day I decided to pretend that working with engineers was like working with special needs children. You can tell them something, but if you demostrate it with blocks, they understand.

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I told my boss today that I was leaving to teach, and he was really lovely and supportive. Everyone in my department has been really nice to me. I don't think the content I'm working with is a fit, and I have had run-ins with more than a few of the people. But my department has been very nice to me. I told him I wasn't exactly sure when I was leaving, but I felt like telling him kind of relieved some pressure, made it all more real. Sometimes I get really sad about leaving NYC (even if it turns out to be for only a year). I moved here to figure out some things, and I am leaving feeling more confused than ever. Maybe there aren't answers to the things I want to know about myself. But I'm also kind of excited. I'm trying to be open to good things happening, and that's hard when one is a pessimist. But I'm trying to have a positive outlook with room for complication. I think I'm such a perfectionist on some level that nothing I do will ever feel like enough. Maybe that makes art, at least for me.

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Enthusiastic contestants on game shows embarrass me.

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Games shows embarrass me.

Having a Coke with You

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Last night when I read at the Fales Library, a man came up to me and was telling me about having met Frank O'Hara several times. He told me that the best way to understand him was to see the outtakes of O'Hara from a film that O'Hara was making (or made?). I think he said it was called Black Socks. He said a famous poet (he told me his name) had a copy of the video. He said O'Hara was bored easily, and you could see it in these outtakes. It's hard to believe that there is more footage of O'Hara in existence that we don't have access to. I did some digging and found the video above on YouTube. That video and two others can be found on-line. Look how hunky the artist Alfred Leslie is in one of the videos. Check the videos out here.

Wojnarowicz