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Category: Random Stuff

The catch-all category for random things about life in Austin, food & drink, politics, the occasional rant, whatever else.

A Perfect World

August 1, 2011 • • Leave a comment

For the first time in 22 years, I am not working at Camp Periwinkle this week. Between having a newborn and several days of professional development training, it just wasn’t in the cards this year. It’s strange to be away from something I’ve been involved with over half my life so while thinking about the good times those kids are having, I figured I’d dig up this old post from 2006. It was originally called “Back from Camp” but was changed to “A Perfect World” when it was re-published in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing. So, a rerun. Enjoy. (And please consider making a donation.)

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We got back from Camp Periwinkle (a camp for childhood cancer patients and their siblings) on Saturday afternoon and have spent most of the time since recovering. I’ve been going to Camp every summer since 1990, which is possible since it’s only a week long.

The underlying philosophy of camp is selflessness. All the counselors and staff are volunteers, the kids go for free, everything there is donated. For one week, and sometimes for the last time, the kids at camp get to feel normal, and they get to have fun, and they have the time of their lives.

The smiles and the laughter at Camp Periwinkle are things that keep those of us who’ve been doing it for so long coming back year after year.

It’s typically one of the high points of any given year. It’s a chance to spend a week living in a perfect world, a world of patience, selflessness, love, compassion, understanding. It’s a chance to see kids and adults truly be their best selves. Where else can you see kids in a relay race cheering on the kid in a wheelchair who will cost them the race, yet no one cares about who wins or loses? Where else can you see adults put aside every aspect of their own comfort and convenience so that kids will feel special?

I’ve never been anywhere or done anything else that focuses what life should be about and how we should interact with one another more clearly than Camp Periwinkle. It’s a place where no expense is spared, no opportunity missed, to make kids whose lives are a daily struggle feel special, feel normal. It teaches kids that they can do what no one thinks they can. It helps them survive.

In the past seventeen years, I’ve seen kids laugh, smile, dance, and play who might never otherwise have found a place to do those things. I’ve watched kids crawl out of wheelchairs to climb a wall on the ropes course. I’ve seen kids fresh from brain surgery lean on their crutches and dance.

It’s a powerful place and it changes a person’s way of thinking. It reminds me of how special life is, how lucky I am, how important it is to work everday to make the world a better place for everyone.

It’s a chance to see what life could be like in a world ruled by love, where nobody ever wanted for anything.

Did I say it is a perfect world?

Summer, Baby

June 29, 2011 • • 4 Comments

Every summer, it takes a little more time to get used to the heat, but this summer it’s come on so fast and blinding, I wonder if I’ll ever get used to it. Late last month (where did that month go?), when I walked down to the pond after work on Friday, it was 102 degrees out. I joked that I was going out to look at the vulture and grackle and that’s mainly what I saw, although down by the pond, I did see a pair of black-bellied whistling ducks. It’s only the second time I’ve seen whistling ducks in the neighborhood, the first being May 27, 2009. Two years to the day. I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s the same two ducks. What do they make of the heat? Maybe this is just a stopover for them on the way to somewhere cooler.

Eastern cottontail

The paper says that in the next century Austin’s climate will come to resemble that of San Angelo as the Chihuahua Desert continues it’s slow eastward creep. I like deserts, and don’t care much for Austin’s humidity, but damn, I’d hate to see this town turn into a desert town and I shudder to think what the effects might be on the golden-cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos not to mention all the other less-endangered wildlife.

That’s a lot of heat to get used to, but I usually do get used to it. It’s not uncommon to go cycling when the temperatures are in triple digits, though that gets harder with each passing year. I like to think that’s because the heat is just more brutal, and I think I’ll keep telling myself that.

I don’t know how often I’ll be posting in the near future. Between the writing and the posting of this we had a baby. We’ll call him Fox Mercury around here, though I doubt I’ll write about him much on the open web. Still, I’m a father now and already that awesome responsibility and awe is settling into me and so it’ll likely inform my writing and it’s already impacting how I think about and see the world. It’s odd… we’ve known he was coming for months and yet everything changed in an instant.

Here at the beginning of this new adventure, it seems appropriate to be looking at these pictures of the neighborhood trails I can’t wait to show him. But first, lots of sleeplessness and tired wonder. It may be quiet around here in the coming weeks, but I’m still writing (but behind on posting) my daily stones at a gnarled oak, but that’s not about the blogging.

Elsewhere on the Web

June 9, 2011 • • 2 Comments

During April, I only blogged poetry in my weekdays-only NaPoWriMo effort and during May, I took an unintentional vow of blogging silence (here anyway) and posted pictures of the local wildflowers. Now it’s June and there are many things I meant to link to and write about so here’s a dump of sorts since I’m a little short of time right now.

I’ve read a lot of good poems lately. Some have really stuck with me. Check out “Wake” by Angie Werren, “Running Water Ghazal” by Joseph Harker, and “Doors” by Dick Jones.

NaPoWriMo ended and, alas, so did Big Tent Poetry just a year after Read Write Poem closed. Is there something about NaPoWriMo that burns out prompt sites? It’s sad to see the Big Tent fold, but thanks (many many thanks) to Deb, Carolee and Jill for running the site and providing so many wonderful prompts that led me to writing a number of poems that I still like. Now, after giving so much to the poetry community Deb, Carolee and Jill are blogging together at A Fine Kettle of Fish where they’re taking well-deserved time to focus on their own poetry. Go check it out.

NS published her collection Forever Will on Thursday. It’s a fine read, deserving of a longer review here at some future time. I’ve read it online and intend to order the book because I’m a paper kind of guy. One thing that’s unique about her publishing process is her philosophy of delivering poetry in multiple formats, several of them free, which means you can read Forever Will End on Thursday as an e-book, pdf, paper book, website or listen to her read it online as a download or on a CD. I really admire this approach and may emulate it when I get around to publishing my short collection.

Speaking of fine reads deserving of their own posts (perhaps later when I have time), Mark Stratton’s collection Tender Mercies is out now. Mark asked me to give some feedback on the manuscript, and then he kindly sent me a copy of the finished book, which I enjoyed even more in final form. Many of the poems first appeared on his blog, Aggaspletch, and they combine nicely into this debut collection. I’m especially fond of “Tender Mercy 12F,” which you can read on Mark’s blog.

Yesterday, I got my copy of The Book of Ystwyth: Six Poets on the Work of Clive Hicks-Jenkins. I haven’t read it yet, but good lord, it’s one of the most beautiful books I own. It’s full of excellent reproductions of Hicks-Jenkins’s paintings alongside the poems they inspired. I’d read Dave Bonta’s “The Temptations of Solitude” series on his blog, and it’s great to see his work alongside the images that inspired it. Also, a joy to discover five other poets whose work is new to me. Actually, I have read one poem in the book, “Pegasus” by Catriona Urquhart. I flipped it open and that’s the one I came to. It floored me and I wanted let it settle before diving in. Hell, I might read the whole book just by flipping through. That’s how I often do my first read of a poetry collection.

The blogosphere is changing as more and more links are shared through Twitter and Facebook, and it seems that the venerated blog carnival I and the Bird has run its course. I contributed off-and-on since 2006 and even had the privilege of hosting it once (in ghazal form). The final installment was over at Twin Cities Naturalist. It’s sad to see it go, but there’s still loads of great bird blogging to be found.

My video of Howie Good’s “Fable” took 3rd place in the Moving Poems video contest. Do check out the various entries. It’s interesting to see how different videomakers interpret the same poem. Thanks, Howie & Dave!

Qarrtsiluni‘s latest issue, “Imprisonment,” is off to a powerful start. Make sure you check out “My Cellies.” I’m honored to say that I’ve got a poem that will be appearing later in this issue. Also, while we’re on qarrtsiluni, the chapbook contest deadline is June 15.

Because this Blog Has Mercury in Its Name

March 30, 2011 • • 5 Comments
MESSENGER's first picture from Mercury orbit (courtesy NASA)

This is the first image ever taken from orbit around Mercury. Pretty cool, right? The image comes from NASA’s MESSENGER. NASA had this to say on its image of the day page:

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System’s innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down.

Phil at Bad Astronomy has more including the name of that big crater, Debussy.

Chuy’s

March 9, 2011 • • Leave a comment

I’ve been eating at Chuy’s as long as I’ve been living in Austin. What do I eat? More often than not, the chile relleno-enchilada combo: cheese relleno with Hatch green chile sauce and a boom-boom enchilada. Green chile rice. Refried beans. Creamy jalapeno dip. Iced tea.

I’m not sure I could live outside the southwest anymore.

An Overgrown Grave

January 18, 2011 • • 2 Comments

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I’ve been going through old photographs, cleaning out the closet. This is from sometime late in 1992. I was in college, taking a photography course. I chose graves as my subject matter. I spent the semester tromping around all the local cemeteries, graveyards, boneyards and gardens of eternal rest.