Way to Use Buckets

Jason Peters, artist in residence at Salina Art Center this summer and whose sculptures similar to this (called "Meandering" and part of the Smoky Hill River Festival) lighted and on view one-night-only at White Flag Projects in St. Louis last year, really knows how to use stuff. This is art I know you can't argue with.

Poison association

We bring it in;
Invited or not, it's given welcome.
Beginning clear, sharp, sparkling —
Becomes a bit cloudy, soft, charming … then
Wicked, belligerent, rough.

The next time it shows up,
We will have forgotten three and four and five and more.
Seeing one and two … yup — we always re-open the door.
Would that I remembered as much.

Heart on sleeve

This skin bruises easily; this skin takes tracks at a glance.
Tears from the eyes come with every imagined tearing of flesh,
Of heart —

Broken dreams manifest as broken capillaries
That start first as a sharp strike,
Noted or not (results are the same),
Then with purple or sub-dermal and surprising pain.

Later the regal turns to rotted black, with
Gruesome dead yellow-green ending it.
Remember the table-corner my thigh struck
Today? He in the room did not.

Another less visible mark hovers above.

Library lectures

This one on Sunday about the Katz brothers who founded drug stores of that name in KC is another I probably won't attend* — I am throwing away the very decent free education offered me by my property taxes … which are slated to drop about $44, the county assessor's office's letter told me this week.

In the linked calendar announcement for this lecture, I object to the classification of the drug store chain as "the Wal-Mart of its day."

I don't see that much connection between someone's inventing a new way around a law (drug stores could stay open later that other stores per a WWI-era decree, so Isaac Katz added a pharm component to his tobacco store — kind-of funny, if you think about it in today's terms, which is how I'm thinking of Wal-Mart and why I think the analogy is strained at best) and the launching of a world-wide amoebic giant that swallows up competition such as family-owned drug stores by manufacturing suppliers that can undercut anyone who can't buy in super-bulk.

I "get it," but 90 years ago and today are so different.

*I'll be in another city visiting Father's Day.

More Power & Light woes

Please, tell me if I'm wrong — but when there is a human being between the two painted pedestrian-crossing stripes on the street and you are operating a motor vehicle that is approaching said human at 34 miles per hour, it's the right thing to do to stop, right?

He didn't recognize me, but I knew KCPD Deputy Chief Kevin Masters back when he was a sergeant … and when I say "know," I mean he's talked to me, knew my name in public without my reminding him — like he'd know any journalist whose newsroom he had visited, any "there's that reporter girl" he'd seen and talked to at events and the police board meetings and whatnot. I can't be 100% sure. But I'm not that bad with faces. And ours were about 10 feet apart.

My version:

15 June, ~13:30: Driving north on Grand Boulevard, right at the Sprint Center, see cop in uniform walking briskly from left/west curb into street and so slow down and stop as he's maybe three feet from my lane-space …

This happens as I'm looking into my rearview mirror and mouthing "don't hit me" to the car behind that was quite close and whose driver was probably surprised, like I was …

… while looking in mirror still, a half-second or so, I hear a shouting angry sound complemented by, as I turned eyes, the angry face in sunglasses set over waving-arm law enforcement officer yelling "GO!" (as in, "Go, you stupid woman.")

Sorry, didn't see your first and quieter instruction. I don't know why you didn't just keep walking.

Sorry, thought it was a good idea not to hit a pedestrian … I thought it was a good idea to stop in front of a police officer …

Leaves a blechy taste in my mouth, almost getting rear-ended and then getting yelled at.

I am going to chalk it up to the pretend fact that the officer must have been mad about paying too much for his greasy meal at (my favorite : ) Bice Bistro …

Nothing yet

That was 12 days ago.

Can't do math to save her life

Just let me enlighten you on a point or two.

Like anyone

Just waiting to hate, just waiting to be shocked, I had to ask why would someone need something like that …

Answers.

Make plenty of sense.

Two places in USA left.  Otherwise, it's "Up to God" who dies when and how.

Killing people in church … like in Birmingham.  Classy enough to make me ill.

Faux ami

The meaning of obviate is not as obvious as it seems:

Pronunciation:

\ˈäb-vē-ˌāt\

Function:

transitive verb

Inflected Form(s):

ob·vi·at·ed; ob·vi·at·ing

Etymology:

Late Latin obviatus, past participle of obviare to meet, withstand, from Latin obviam

Date:

1598

: to anticipate and prevent (as a situation) or make unnecessary (as an action)]

Is tired of desk marks from unergo arrangement

Hello, June

It's called furlough; get used to it.