This and that on three and a half hours sleep

While on an after dinner walk around German Village earlier this evening, I realized it has been eleven years since I lived there, and eleven years that I have lived in this house. It's the longest I've lived in one home. Now I'm trapped by the market, and other reasons, and cannot get out of there to live, where? Someplace where I can walk to something other than an IGA where a girl got shot in the face and a half-assed but not altogether unpleasant carryout.

Getting really tired of lists. Every time I see a Buzzfeed.com post on social media that has a list of something like "Fifteen Best Bob Dylan Songs With a Horn Section" or something similar, I scroll past. That and people labeling a TV show or cultural event as the best of all time, or the second best of all time after _____. Something else to scroll past. Great stuff is great stuff. Lists are arbitrary and yes, I'm a bit tired and cranky.

My son fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 last night and woke up at 2:30AM. Did not go back to sleep until about 5. He woke up and ate well, but then his bus was late. Again. Had to drive him to school. Again. Yes, it's getting worse. It was so bad last Friday that his bus was two hours and forty five minutes getting home from school. Yes, you read that right. Complaints have been made, investigations are supposedly happening. One justifiably worried parent filed a police report after her children's bus was missing. When you're not able to get through to transportation, what recourse do you have? Even after all this, I'm not sure the district gets it.

Yesterday morning I got to show my wife the International Space Station as it flew overhead. It was a bright, solid, light that moved across the sky in the pre-dawn hour. A good thing that shows cooperation can happen even as the ground below spins out of control.

Random Friday

What can I say about Writers’ Block’s Founder’s Night? People brought new work, dusted off some old poems – dusted off themselves to come out for the first time in awhile. It’s family, and I’m honored to be a part of it. Scott and Vernell have sustained a loving and supportive creative venue for fifteen years and I cannot thank them enough.

Did a new piece called “Slam Poet Junction” in which I took a scythe to slam poetry topics and put a dagger to the throat of my own work. You never know how new work is going to go in such a crowded setting, and I went first so I got to set the tone of the evening. Yes, the title is Schoolhouse Rock based. Yes, there is singing. Yes, it would sound good with bongos, er, congas backing it up!

Wrote it after watching a DVD of the IWPS 2009 finals; There was some very good poetry read, but I’m not sure it traveled well. Kind of like really, really enjoying a wine during a tasting at the winery. Meeting the winemaker, seeing the vineyards, then when you buy a bottle of the wine you just had and take it home, it does not taste as good. Terroir matters.

The week continued with my son’s school bus not showing up on time, again, on Thursday morning. It finally showed up when he was supposed to be in school. Transportation heard from me. The bus driver heard from me. They know I am not pleased with their lack of punctuality.

I finally got the title to the car and went to the BMV to get license plates. There was no one there. No waiting at the BMV is a great thing to receive.

There was a snow event in the city yesterday so the drive home from work last night was an adventure. I took it slow and steady, as did most of the commuters. There was one mini-van that went into the ditch on Fisher Road, but no one was hurt. Wound up getting all my errands done.

On getting home I found my Scottish Wife in our parking space, shoveling a path for me to park. That was sweet. She even shoveled the back walk while I put the new plates on the car. I shoveled the front, and the sidewalk of my neighbor. We ended up with about six inches of snow.

The car was frozen shut this morning and I had to chip away and wait to finally be able to get in though one of the back doors, push open the front doors – great fun in single digit temperatures, in the dark. Scraping the car of ice and snow was finger numbing, even in gloves. It could be worse. Wanted to head out to the car graveyard and salvage a couple of small parts for the interior tomorrow morning, but temperatures are once again going to be cold. So I’ll end up back at work for a couple of hours and will hopefully be able to see my son in the pool too.

Writers’ Block First Draft tonight. Nuku Haiku, including the haiku death match. Starts at eight at Kafe Kerouac. Admission is a mere three dollars. You can’t beat that!

There was a lovely moon set in the west that I got to see from the large window behind me. Nice way to get the day going.