Monday's Quote - Welch

"Be true to yourself, be honest with others, say what you think, go with your instincts, teach people that you can stretch and grow in ways you never thought possible." 

-Jack Welch

Happy Monday and remember, inspiration and courage can come from anywhere.

Things That Make You Go Yum - Columbus Edition

It is mighty hard for me to take anything seriously these days.  The world has taken a turn into extreme chaos on all fronts, and I think my life and cares seem miniscule in comparison.  However, they are my miniscule triumphs, foibles, heartbreaks, pleasures and I have no one else's to live.  We all get tested; we all have our turn with disaster and emergency.  Luckily, this moment is not mine.

WOWps was a huge experience and very very tough for me in a lot of ways - some random, some stupid, and some possibly important.  I'm always a reluctant slammer, and often feel like the whole thing is a prolonged version of picking teams for gym in 7th grade.  And I'm always the short one.

Finals night was pretty gorgeous, and as has been known about me and certain events, I cried a lot.  Then we partied more.  I think the DJ's were guys (ok, tequila haze - I don't actually remember), but they made sure to play lots of empowering women.  There was something about a basement full of poet women divas dancing when suddenly Beyonce's Single Ladies came on ---- it was a funny kind of explosion and liberation.

It's true - I didn't see much of Columbus - there wasn't really time - but our hotel was close to some great things, thankfully, so what I did get was super yummy.

NORTH MARKET

Wow.

An indoor farmer's/food market.

From fantastic Indian to Polish, Middle Eastern to Sushi, Boba to smoothies - what a GREAT place!

It was about a 2-minute walk from the hotel, which meant I basically ate every meal here (okay, there was really only time for 1 meal a day).

Highlight/standout would have to be Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.  

Holla if you want to try the Cherry Lambic sorbet or the Goat Cheese Fig Cointreau ice cream.

I think my favorite might have been the Olive Oil with Roasted Pepitas.

We are all going through major withdrawal from Jeni's and would go back to Columbus in a flash for more!

THE SHORT NORTH

The organizers placed us in this revitalized arts district which was really great.  Lots of restaurants and shops and stuff to walk to.  It was so windy my hat blew off, but the sun was shining and it felt really nice to be outside.

Blink Davies was the shop I had the mostest fun in.  Lots of cool gifts that you want to buy your friends and yourself.

A somewhat humungous brunch was had at Betty's, which was decorated like an altar to Bettie Page.

The Lincoln Theatre

Finals were held at this gorgeous old theatre.

Inside, the decorations were all Egyptian-themed - it reminded me of the Egyptian in Park City.

I suddenly thought what a long, strange trip it had been from watching Slam at Sundance at that theatre when it premiered, to being at Finals Night for WOWps in this theatre.

Monday's Quote - Sexton

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."

- Anne Sexton

Seems like a good quote for the spring solstice.

Monday's Quote - No quote

I don't have a quote for today.  The world has erupted in the last week, and nothing seems appropriate.  From Libya to Wisconsin to Japan the inner and outer landscapes have shifted so dramatically - the Northern Japanese coastline has sunk 2 feet and widened by 13 inches -  it feels that we are on completely new ground.

What seems clear to me is that we need less power, not more.  Less nuclear power.  No oil drilling.  Tectonic plates will do what they do, but drilling the lubricant and buffer zone for those plates right out of the earth has never seemed like a good idea to me.  (I'm not even making this up - check out this article.  Or this one.  Or this blog on Haiti's earthquake with numerous links.)  Imagine how your bones would move if all of your tendons and cartilage were suddenly removed from your body.

Time to find new balance.

I'm attempting to take today off, as I am completely crushed by travel and exhaustion.  You can see it's working really well so far.

Monday's Quote - Hedberg

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."

- Mitch Hedberg

I was looking for something funny - all my quotes are packed away, I forgot to leave them out!  

I found this and I'm kinda sad that I feel it's a bit true.  Sometimes following my dreams is so exhausting, time consuming, and angst producing, I feel like I'm back in the rat race.  There's a million little details to get right every day, and I feel as though I get 999,999 of them wrong, so they carry over to the next day to get corrected.  I keep thinking, what if I could just put down the hustle for a minute.  

But we all know about momentum.  When you got it, don't drop the ball.  

Swimming Through Amber feature in PSH Bookstore!

Very excited that SWIMMING THROUGH AMBER is featured this week in the Poetry Super Highway Bookstore.

What a fresh pic of Brendan I found on accident. 

Not only is that cool cause it's cool, it's cool cause PSH is run by the awesome Rick Lupert, it's cool cause PSH is a great poetry website AND it's megatronically cool because I have a spot in between Rick Lupert, Brendan Constantine, and Buddy Wakefield!

If only I could work that out in real life!

: )