- I’ve become really interested and fully invested in upping my technical skills, particularly w/ php, mysql, Drupal, etc. More to come on that subject.

- Despite my recent struggles with WordPress I’ve decided to keep this blog on WordPress for the time being. I don’t love WordPress for many reasons, but I don’t hate it either. It makes blogging pretty easy, and as long as that’s all you want to do it definitely works. Redesign forthcoming. I have a ‘real’ website in development elsewhere. I started development on it in WordPress and am slowly moving over to Drupal.

- I also have a pretty fun php project in the works. Launches in early September. Stay tuned.

- Check out centerfieldgate.com, a Washington Nationals blog customized and maintained by yours truly. You may remember a post from last year in which I mentioned my work on river-dogz. I’m happy to say that my skillz are a bit better than back then. Granted I’m using a stock theme but all of it just generally looks better. It’s also a recent addition to the NL East Chatter community. Hawt.

- I helped out a bunch on masspoetry.org and attended the festival last October. I’m not helping as much with it this year given other commitments but it’s still a really awesome event so you should probably go to masspoetry.org. Masspoetry.org. Oh also, you’re only cool if you actually attend the festival!

- I developed and was tech support for vetsforobama.org during most of his campaign until the campaign actually took the site over. That’s probably the site I am most proud of on my resume, given tons of custom design work and functionality, trying to manage a massive petition, and pretty much always being on call for any site issues despite my objections (“I have a job!”). They had to take the site down for legal reasons after the campaign ended, but maybe I’ll find a screenshot and post it later. He won, too, so that doesn’t hurt.

- I also did The Truth About Palin and The Truth About McCain. Tumblr is fun.

- I moved to Boston from DC successfully, with my 2 cats. I’m in the same crappy apartment but moving to a better one soon (September 1).

- Oh, I signed up for Twitter. If you came here from me posting a link to Twitter, that’s awesome. If not, email me if you want my twitter name or just want to stalk me.

- that reminds me, I need to set up a penfall.com email address

- I’m getting a new iPhone, suckas.

- I may start to write those Musings again soon. Maybe musings from Cambridge? Ideas are welcome.

I think that’s it. I’m on the Acela to DC at the moment, it’s 7am, I’ve been awake for 3 hours and only got 3.5hrs of sleep. I have a long day ahead, a long week ahead, and I’ve officially exhausted my want or ability to write (or say?) anything creative at least for the next 24 hours. Time to go check Google Analytics and see if Tweeting about this made any difference in site traffic.

O Future bards
chant from skull to heart to ass
as long as language lasts
Vocalize all chords
zap all consciousness
I sing out of mind jail
in New York State
without electricity
rain on the mountain
thought fills cities
I’ll leave my body
in a thin motel
my self escapes
through unborn ears
Not my language
but a voice
chanting in patterns
survives on earth
not history’s bones
but vocal tones
Dear breaths and eyes
shine in the skies
where rockets rise
to take me home.

- Allen Ginsberg

The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,—
I know what sound is there.

I’m sick of arguments
“You threw the butter in the pan”
“I did not you let it melt on the stove”
“You invaded Turkey and killed all the Armenians!”
“I did not! You invaded China got them addicted to Opium!”
“You built a bigger H Bomb than I did”
“You used poison gas in Indochina”
“Your agent orange defoliated 1/4 the landmass     It isn’t fair”
“You sprayed Paraquat”
“You smoke pot”
“You’re under arrest”
“I declare war!”
Why don’t we turn off the loudspeakers?

- Allen Ginsberg

But there’s this one poem called, “On a Seven Day Diary.” During my senior year of college I was taking an advanced poetry class, convinced that poetry could not, and should not, be taught. But I was wrong. Professor Bob Day, very famous at Washington College, taught the class and it was unbelievable. Truly. At the end of the year, we were given an assignment to memorize two poems — any two poems — to then recite to the entire class. It was not an option, however, to simply memorize and recite the poems; some thought, some (for lack of a better word) performance was necessary. Let me say for the record that Professor Day was, and probably still is, somewhat against poetry being read out loud. Rather, it should be read on the page as it was meant to be.

That said, there must have been a point to his exersize — and as it turns out, there was! I remember this poem very well, and I think of it it at least two or three times a week, riding back and forth on the metro to and from work, becoming numb by thursday or friday, and then…well, Dugan says it best. Read on:

“On a Seven Day Diary”

Oh I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and talked and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and watched a show and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate steak and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and fucked and went to sleep.
Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
Love must be the reason for the week!
We went shopping! I saw clouds!
The children explained everything!
I could talk about the main thing!
What did I drink on Saturday night
that lost the first, best half of Sunday?
The last half wasn’t worth this “word.”
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and went to sleep,
refreshed but tired by the weekend.

- Alan Dugan

“Winter’s Onset from an Alienated Point of View”

The first cold front came in

whining like a carpenter’s plane

and curled the warm air

up the sky: winter is

for busy work, summer

for construction. As for

spring and fall, ah, you

know what we do then:

sow and reap. I want

never to be idle or by plumb

or level to fear death,

so I do none of this

in offices away from weather.

- Alan Dugan