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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

A Quick Study

Lessons I learned in childhood
served me well though
the lesson taught
is not the one I took away.

Take for example
the forced intake of food
Poor Richard and

the starving children seated beside me
drooling over my Lima beans

This taught me
to feel guilty for not wanting;
and that sometimes it’s easier to do it
than think of the reasons you’d rather not;

a certain stoicism has seen me through
and when they ask
"Are you comfortable?"
I can convincingly say "it’s fine"
around a mouth of stringy asparagus
cold Brussels sprouts

Or for example

the allergy shots
the hours spent with ankles
wrapped around chair legs
waiting to see my reaction

This taught me
to sit still for hours;
and that to show a reaction
is the least desirable response;

a blank face to greet the worst news
and when they say
"I don’t…" or "I can’t…"
I don’t even blink, and if there is an inadvertent
tendency to red eyes, puffy skin, the
inability to breathe I’m not letting on.

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