Offshoots Poetry Bookclub THE MYSTERIES OF SMALL HOUSES by Alice Notley BASKET BOOKS & ART Sunday, February 22nd 3-5 pm (this excerpt is from Notley’s poem AS GOOD AS ANYTHING)

Later: “I was wrong. Water does have bones, when it freezes”

Reading poems aloud only to discover I don’t know how to properly pronounce lots of words — “coiffure” “moue” and so on Also don’t know what lots of words mean — “lambent”

I like the stage of getting to know someone where you see what their handwriting looks like for the first time 🙏

“Water has no bones” Hera said to me this morning

Bc I guess I follow a lot of Irish ppl I now (sort of) know what shrove Tuesday and it’s something to do with pancakes 🤷‍♀️🧐

My favorite thing I’ve ever ever seen on the internet was when that guy got stuck in a decorative urn at a New Year’s Eve party

Me: Would you rather be a duck or a unicorn? Hera: A duck Me: Really? Why? Hera: So I could follow you (likes ducklings follow their mothers in a pond)

Does Earth have a special handwriting that belongs to it

Centaur and Hydra: a fragment of the ceiling mural The Sky of Salamanca, painted by Fernando Gallego, 1473. A hidden gem tucked away in the courtyard of the Escuelas Menores, part of the historic University of Salamanca, a blend of science, art, and mysticism that characterized the Renaissance.

Román: The king of rock is Michael Elvis

RIP aol instant messenger

Briefly recalling that period of time when women on their birthdays would post photos of themselves looking preternaturally young, in bikinis, on beaches, with captions saying THIS IS 40 or THIS IS 50 or THIS IS 60

Hera: Mommy, why do childrens have different handwriting than humans?

Ickleton, Pickleton, Tickleton, too

Hera, on getting a dog: “We could name her Opal, or Ruby. Or Mineral.”

I have a lot of stuff to do, so I’ve decided to rearrange my books

I can't say at all what I mean - the gift of expression seems to have left me, so you must guess.

Hera: I know it’s a dream because it’s gray or orange Me: It’s not colorful in your dreams? Hera: No, my head doesn’t put color in it

There is a Renaissance painting of Elijah Wood at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

I’m reading Edith Wharton’s book on interior decorating, which helpfully contains chapters on “Gala Rooms: Ball-Room, Saloon, Music-Room, Gallery” ….. “The Library, Smoking-Room, and ‘Den’” … “The School-Room and Nurseries” …. “The Drawing Room, Boudoir, and Morning Room”

Román (reading): Fish have a pocket of gas inside their body called — Me: Farts Román: Good one, Mommy! Fish have a pocket of gas inside their body called a SWIM BLADDER

Up until just a year ago, I thought “Go Texan Day” might be a national holiday, or at the VERY LEAST a state-wide holiday. It’s just a Houston holiday! It’s the day the rodeo opens & to celebrate children wear Western gear to school.

For a long time I wanted to be the person who name nail polish colors (pink frosting, apple skin, forest shade), but now I want to be the person who gets paid an enormous salary to name rich people’s babies (Ace, Eartha)

Texas is the best-shaped state

I’ve asked my kids to stop rough housing / horse playing / wrestling so many times that I just got mixed up & asked them to stop “horse wrestling”

ICE Agents in Minneapolis vs Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers

Our 👏 solar 👏 system 👏 needs 👏 a 👏 name 👏

It’s unfair that our galaxy has a special name (The Milky Way) but our solar system is plain old Solar System

Between my three children, I’m amassing quite a large collection of baby teeth

Yesterday afternoon it was suspiciously quiet, so I went to check on my children — I found them making a can-and-string telephone. Like it’s the 1950s!

My 6-year-old daughter explained the difference between our fashion sense: “You like things that look good; I like things that look cool” “Cool?” “You know. Backwards hat. Jeans that are too long.”

Remembering how a boy in freshman year of college liked a girl on my hall & he gave her a copy of the ee commings poem that ends “nothing not even the rain has such small hands” —the girl in question had been a “deb” I remember — & had a photo of herself in her white dress and long white gloves

I told my friend “I’m going to leave you a short vm” but wrote “bm”

I have too many books — I need a cruel person to come over to my house and force me to get rid of half my books

Whatever the difference btwn “lays” and “lies” is …. it’s mysterious to me, and will be for all my days

Listening to Lucinda Williams, I commented to my children, “Did you know Lucinda Williams’s father was a poet?” to which Román replied, “Did you know Román Barrios’s mother is a poet??”

Hera has produced a play called SLUG AND SNEL HID about a slug and a snail who have hidden behind a giant lettuce leaf that has “little munches taken out of it, little holes where it has been eaten”

fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi

Pilot offered to let Hera sit in the cockpit before takeoff, but she refused — “I don’t have my driver’s license”

The scientific name for grizzly bear is making me laugh …. Ursus arctos horribilis

This will be an on-going list of things that almost always make almost everyone happy: 1) hummingbirds

In 3rd grade I was supposed to make a model of the Earth by putting paper mache over a ball (like the kind they sold in crates at the grocery store) but my parents had me use a balloon instead & my model of the Earth was the only one with a balloon shape 🎈 🌍 Which is not the shape of Earth

I bought this chic, understated, elegant black halter jumpsuit that has two big buttons on the waistband & my son was sweetly like “Cool! I love it! Mickey Mouse!”

Still clinging to the idea that the most important email of my life will be diverted to my spam folder

My children don’t have iPhones, tablets, computers, …… the only video games they have are the 1989 NES & Super Nintendo…. …….and I’ve just been struck with the unsettling realization that I’m raising elder Millennials

Preposterous tales my sister told me when I was little: 1) that she invented the word “dudette” 2) if I ate a watermelon seed, it would grow in my belly 3) that she paid 1 penny more than me on the Nintendo we pooled our money to buy, so, technically, it belonged entirely to her

The name “Internet cafe” makes them sound more romantic than they were

I think the worst thing I’m good at is having thoughts

Me when a British person calls me “love”: “That person loves me”