#uncoffeed...

Last year was a crazy-productive one for me and also one of my all-time lows. I found inspiration in the words of Peter Kidd when he sent them to me priority mail .  "See what happens," he said.  A lot happened. And I kept going. I started a series of sunflower paintings , and started a series of crows. I mailed art to an exhibit at Woman Made Gallery (both the exhibit and mailing art were firsts for me) and had a solo exhibit at Beanetics Coffee Roasters near my home-base . At the same time as all this awesomeness, and perhaps exacerbated by it, I smashed head-on into a couple of my strongest demons - accepting too much workload from others and bullying - and gained assistance from my doctor instead of self-medicating. We put me on SSRIs for a few months. "See what happens," she said, not verbatim. I stopped taking the meds when my bloodwork showed stress on my liver, and I've kept working. I compiled two chapbooks of poetry and submitt...

For Michael, Proper My friend, My son, Confidante, Sometimes-secret soul: On your day Everybody passes hearts Like a telephone game Hoping to get one in pocket With its message Still recognisable. It looks like fun, sometimes, But nobody seems to read The secret words of hearts. I put my heart in your pocket Knowing it's safe there While I wait for my can to ring.

My friend Meg played the catalyst this time. She bought me a Zombie Magnetic Poetry Kit and informed me I was to take it to work. "You have a kitchen at your job; I don't," she said. "So this is for your work-kitchen." Roger that. I scooped up a few words, sidled into the break-room and stuck them on the refrigerator door, trying to guess how many minutes I'd be blamed. Even if someone else had done it, my reputation would precede me. By the time I got back to my desk, I was envisioning HR's gentle admonishments in my head, so I went back and pulled all the death, corpses, and creepiness. Not an hour later, I found a new message: find out how unstoppable you can be ...and then I realised someone had gone and found the word be in a different set of magnetic poetry, and in fact had severed it from a longer word, in order to complete her message. I say her, because I knew it had to be Roxanne Jackson , who happens to be a wise person and...