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# RachelVB.com

Rachel Van Blankenship is a gangly poet, photographer, designer; more magpie than human.

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://rachelvb.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [My Blog](https://rachelvb.com/my-blog/) - Welcome to Rachel Van Blankenship's innards.
- [A letter to Jack](https://rachelvb.com/a-letter-to-jack/) - Jack: You, my son, are a man. In everything that means now and not in the past. You will be held accountable for your actions. You will not hide from your heart
- [I am torn as a mother. I am mended](https://rachelvb.com/i-am-torn-as-a-mother-i-am-mended/) - On our walk, I don't question the nocturnal nature of crickets as I hear one chirping confidently in daylight, the fact that it's morning, that it's winter.
- [Kindness is cool](https://rachelvb.com/kindness-is-cool/) - I miss this guy today. Although, I'm too tired to possibly run after him if we were home. That's how it is though, right? You can't wait to put them to bed and have some alone time, but the minute you put them to bed for some alone time, you miss the crap out of them.
- [Stylish free-thinker?! ha, sure!](https://rachelvb.com/stylish-free-thinker-ha-sure/) - Jack and I were featured as "stylish free-thinkers" for a pretty awesome clothing company called The LB Brand. A few months ago they were searching for brand reps, so I submitted myself. What the hell right
- [Oh, hello!](https://rachelvb.com/oh-hello/) - Wow. Has it been a while. I'm feeling rusty even navigating the website. I haven't been writing. Just working and mom-ing. But I'm getting anxious. Maybe not to write per-say, but create. And I don't know what to create and that's making me even more anxious. I see other moms around me who are selling
- [Great with Child](https://rachelvb.com/great-with-child/) - 'Great with Child,' Beth Ann Fennelly. Sometimes, I'm afraid to really start writing again because my heart has changed so much, feels as Fennelly says 'endangered' and I'm still trying to navigate the new terrain. I feel more acutely than I ever have before and I'm a poet, so that's a hell of a lot more than I'm used to.
- [Our week after our week](https://rachelvb.com/our-week-after-our-week/) - Jack's cold turned into RSV and all the horrible things that ensue because of it: fever, labored breathing, loss of appetite. Thursday night, he was breathing so fast and so hard and we could see his ribs. You still wouldn't have known he was sick, he was rolling around on the floor, squealing, laughing. This
- [Beautiful Boy](https://rachelvb.com/beautiful-boy/) - Where did he come from?! Sometimes I look at him and see a little boy, the person he will be. His face seems so old in certain light.
- [Jack](https://rachelvb.com/jack/) - I've been trying to do this post for a few days, but can't upload photos from my phone for some reason. I'll update this with a few things I want to remember from the last few surreal days. Jack Michael O'Farrell was born on Monday, October 13 2014 at 2:22am. He weighed 8lbs 10oz and
- [Cuddles](https://rachelvb.com/cuddles/) - Curled into me last night, I lay down with Jack to help him to sleep. He doesn't go down easy.
- [Firsts](https://rachelvb.com/firsts-2/) - God, I haven't written! Instead, I'll just post a bunch of pictures =) We've had Pat's 32 birthday for which I commissioned a friend/coworker of mine to do a portrait of Jack. I think she nailed it. He will forever be daydreaming and watching the leaves. We also took our first road trip to LA
- [Jack from 1-7!](https://rachelvb.com/jack-from-1-7/)
- [Take a walk](https://rachelvb.com/take-a-walk/) - There's so much promise. I bought these shoes on a whim. I mean, look at them?! I asked a friend "are these too girly for a boy?"
- [How blue is his blue?](https://rachelvb.com/how-blue-is-his-blue/) - What does it mean when you dream about dolphins? Actually, I don't know what it was - a seal/porpoise creature whose fin poked through gray water.
- [Our week](https://rachelvb.com/our-week/) - I think half of being a mom is being a kid again and all that entails - the good and the wet.
- [4 months old (well last week)](https://rachelvb.com/4-months-old-well-last-week/) - Happy 4 months, Love Bug! (last week) Let's see, he's been sick for about a month, is the best-dressed at daycare
- [Scratch](https://rachelvb.com/scratch/) - I'm in a weird place right now. I'm afraid of my writing. Not, boo! afraid, I'm just totally avoiding it. It's been so long since I sat down to edit a poem, to write a poem.
- [I saw what love might have done had he loved in time - Mary Oliver](https://rachelvb.com/i-saw-what-love-might-have-done-had-he-loved-in-time-mary-oliver/) - I saw what love might have done had he loved in time - Mary Oliver
- [This world](https://rachelvb.com/this-world/) - What the hell did I take pictures of before him? I remember saying I would still talk and write about adult things. hahahaha! But I don't really want to.
- [There is no end to this love](https://rachelvb.com/there-is-no-end-to-this-love/) - He's going down so much easier these days. Thanks, daycare. This morning he fell asleep within minutes after I picked him up from his jumperoo. Even a few weeks ago, I'd have to rock and rock and rock-bounce, rock bounce bounce until he slowly closed his eyes. He's growing up before mine. I held him
- ['Today, we're younger than we're ever gonna be.' -Regina Spektor](https://rachelvb.com/today-were-younger-than-were-ever-gonna-be-regina-spektor/) - I guess day care is alright ... they at least inform parents when their clothes are inside out. But I miss my guy this morning. We've been sick.
- [Happy 3 months, Jack](https://rachelvb.com/happy-3-months-jack/) - Night feels like limbo, some strange net where the hours hang. Pat and I are floating birds, the way they hang in a drift. There is no other person on the planet I would wake up for as much as our little man.
- [Well this sucks](https://rachelvb.com/well-this-sucks/) - I'm here again. Sitting at work and thinking about my little boy in some lady named Jacki's arms. It's strange to have my computer exactly as it was when I left it: the same internet windows popped open like the day I left - radio lab and the Goomba Mushroom Super Mario costume I ordered
- [Quick! While he's sleeping](https://rachelvb.com/quick-while-hes-sleeping/) - God, it's been a month. How did that happen?! He's a love. The best baby we could have asked for. He loves fleece upon fleece, hates to be cold - a true AZ boy.
- [Still waiting. Still walking](https://rachelvb.com/still-waiting-still-walking/) - Today is my last day at work. The only thing I can equate it to is the last day of school, but with bills and adulthood and, like, still having to face labor and not getting to sleep in.
- [36-39 Weeks](https://rachelvb.com/36-39-weeks/) - Slow news day. Things are happening, slowly, which my mom says is a good thing. Rationally, I agree with her. I wonder what in the baby's mind flips the switch? Nature is weird, man.
- [Backseat driver Ellen](https://rachelvb.com/backseat-driver-ellen/) - 'Cause it's only Wednesday and feels like at least Thursday or Friday and Ellen is just funny.
- [Willing fall](https://rachelvb.com/willing-fall/) - I'm going to relish the next few weeks. The baby and I will never be this close again. I heard on Radiolab that fetal cells remain in their mothers for decades.
- [Maternity photos (3-ish weeks to go)](https://rachelvb.com/maternity-photos-3-ish-weeks-to-go/) - Last weekend really really really early in the morning, we took our maternity photos with a co-worker of mine, Jill McNamara. Jill is also doing our newborn photos, so we have more photoshoots to look forward to and more importantly, the, uh, baby!
- [5 weeks (ish) to go](https://rachelvb.com/5-weeks/) - I'm going to the doctor every week now. Things are winding down/gearing up all at the same time. The baby's head is down
- [Belly shots from 24-35 weeks](https://rachelvb.com/belly-shots-from-24-35-weeks/) - Belly shots from 24-35 weeks
- [6 weeks](https://rachelvb.com/6-weeks/) - The other night I had a dream that a really intelligent, artistic teacher told me out of all her students, she would put me in charge of her class because I had love in my face. When it came to writing it wasn't so much about all the academics, but the best writing comes from love and I looked loved. I liked that dream. And I like that our baby is getting chubby and has "rock star" hair I could see waving through the amniotic fluid at our last ultrasound.
- [Full circle: A day last week ](https://rachelvb.com/full-circle-a-day-last-week/) - It's humid as fuck today. This morning, the sliding glass door was covered in sweat from desert-heat mixed with monsoon. It's getting harder to sleep, the baby plays a fun, new game called "poke the cervix." I think it wants out, too. The books lie when they say the baby becomes less active as room runs out.
- [Whoa. Mothers carry their baby's fetal cells for decades. DECADES](https://rachelvb.com/whoa-mothers-carry-their-babys-fetal-cells-for-decades-decades/) - "Fetal Consequences" A Radiolab short
- [Swift kick to the ribs](https://rachelvb.com/swift-kick-to-the-ribs/) - We have about 10 weeks left. Give or take. I guess in some unconscious way, most of us chose our birthday. Well most of us that came naturally. I know I was a week or so late. I liked the month of July better, I guess. That should be our last ultrasound, that pic up there.
- [Family](https://rachelvb.com/diodes/) - Before light, the baby stirs under my skin. Love pulls me in, rubs his face in my hair, laying his arm across my bare-hill belly. The baby kicks, kicks me, kicks him: diode to diode to diode. A family linked in one motion.
- [Reclaimed](https://rachelvb.com/reclaimed/) - I'm listening to music I haven't listened to in about a year because it reminds me of someone I haven't seen since, or spoken to really, and when I last saw her, we listened to these songs over and over driving down the highway and having adventures and magical conversations and then shutting up and being silent when the world required it.
- [Slideshow for the last few weeks](https://rachelvb.com/slideshow-for-the-last-few-weeks/) - I haven't written here in a while. I haven't felt like sharing much. Maybe because the baby takes so much of me already, but it's far less dramatic than that sounds. I'd gladly give it. I'm just staying quiet inside and don't feel emotionally strong enough to delve into the goings on in myself or the world.
- [Homeless poetry](https://rachelvb.com/homeless-poetry/) - Homeless poetry
- [Our sweet face](https://rachelvb.com/our-sweet-face/) - Last week, we got to see our baby's sweet face. They spent most of the time on the heart - measuring chambers, listening to chambers, measuring valves, watching valves, it's amazing what they can see on such a little thing. The baby last week was only 11 inches, how small is the heart of an 11 inch human?
- [Belly progress: Weeks 19-23](https://rachelvb.com/belly-progress-weeks-19-23/) - Work, potato vine, TuneYards/Sylvan Esso concert, breakfast, Tula giving me the stink eye about how much her life is going to change.
- [Spring cleaning](https://rachelvb.com/spring-cleaning/) - In the mornings, after I've just woken up, my belly is hard and pulsing. The baby likes the right side and curls there until I get up and gravity centers us again. The pulsing feels like a wound, when all the blood rushes to one place in your body and you'd swear your heart was beating right there, not your chest.
- [Chandelier](https://rachelvb.com/chandelier/) - Not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed when I heard the new Sia song for the first time. I've been a fan of hers since Zero 7 and a lot of her early albums are moody, well-written and quietly blow you away. She's got a voice, a really powerful voice, a voice you wouldn't think is possible from a skinny, white girl from Australia.
- [Van Blankenwedding](https://rachelvb.com/van-blankenwedding/) - So my brother's hitched! This year our families got a wedding and a baby (baby to come), but I'd say we're growing up, yeah? The wedding was May 3 in Los Angeles at Yamashiro restaurant, a small ceremony at the beautiful Japanese-inspired palace built by two German brothers, go figure, overlooking the Hollywood hills and all of greater LA.
- [How many weeks does it take for your feet to come back?](https://rachelvb.com/how-many-weeks-does-it-take-for-your-feet-to-come-back/) - Pat felt the baby for the first time last night. The past week, the kicks have been getting stronger. I've been feeling them more frequently. Over the weekend, we lay in bed and I put his fingers on my belly to see if he could feel it. No dice. But last night Baby O was punching away and Pat could feel the little pops, faint, I'm sure for him, but every time he said he felt something, sure enough, the baby had just kicked.
- [155 beats per minute](https://rachelvb.com/155-beats-per-minute/) - A dead cat lay on the sidewalk this morning, dangerously close to the street, not that it matters anymore. It's body almost sunning itself and I would have believed that if it weren't for the gaping, red mouth pulled unnaturally open, broken. Was it hit last night? This morning?
- [We dream about things unfinished, trying to tie ends in our minds, ends that always fray](https://rachelvb.com/we-dream-about-things-unfinished-trying-to-tie-ends-in-our-minds-ends-that-always-fray/) - A couple nights ago, I dreamed of an old friend. We were with her family: mom, dad, one sister, one brother (although her family is much larger, not all of them could fit in my mind). We were at her childhood home,
- [Monday Journal entry](https://rachelvb.com/monday-journal-entry/) - Boys share a cigarette on the street corner. One straddles his bike while a smoke points northwest from his ear, a small contrail against his hair, mimicking passing planes. Days grow warm. Summer's heavy foot will soon walk across the valley. I need something oppressive to fuel my writing again. The winter months are so pleasant, days lazy, sweet, vacation sleep. Nothing is accomplished by the pool or out to brunch with Camelback gilded in the background.
- [Tonto Natural Bridge, Payson, AZ](https://rachelvb.com/tonto-natural-bridge-payson-az/) - A few weekends ago, the baby and I went on our own adventure to the Tonto Natural Bridge near Payson, AZ. About an hour and a half, two hours north or Phoenix. I climbed through the entire thing, although, that may be the last time I do a "bouldering" adventure with my belly. The rocks
- [Bees and pet peeves](https://rachelvb.com/bees-and-pet-peeves/) - The bees are dying. A big black one upturned on a sewer grate, the kind imagined from Africa where wild things still grow excessively large. Over the weekend, Pat tried to save one from a swimming pool, but after he set the creature on dry land, it stung him anyway and died. Maybe he was scared, I said. Maybe he thought it was Pat's fault he was drowning. If you look at the big picture, it is our fault.
- [How many weeks does it take to lose your shoes?](https://rachelvb.com/how-many-weeks-does-it-take-to-lose-your-shoes/) - Baby bump at 12 1/2, 14 and 15 weeks
- [Dearly Beloved,](https://rachelvb.com/dearly-beloved/) - Can I tell you something serious? When you outlive me, because I know you will, and I'm not just saying this because I've had a few beers, I've actually thought about this before, a few times, but when you outlive me and people ask you at my eulogy:
- [Poems vs. babies](https://rachelvb.com/poems-vs-babies/) - On Saturday, I went to Babies R Us, which is kind of a hellish-overpriced place, but I'm not going to lie and say I hated it. I can see why people spend THOUSANDS of dollars in such stores, though. Who needs a $60 baby bathtub?
- [Happy Friday, says the Bean](https://rachelvb.com/happy-friday-says-the-bean/) - It's very possible that the reason I'm so tired is because this kiddo will not sit still. During the entire ultrasound this morning, shrimpo (who is not very shrimpo anymore!) was bouncing all over the place. Summersaults, leg flicks, arm flings, dolphin kicks. Baby was having the best time in there! Call it a personal bounce house.
- [What if…?](https://rachelvb.com/what-if/) - I think the past two months I've been holding my breath, not letting my mind wander too deeply to the "other" being in my body. Make it to 8 weeks, I told myself early. Make it to 12, I said after that. I've been living by numbers: week to week; appointment to appointment, not stopping in between to reflect or bond because "what if…?"
- [Beating for two](https://rachelvb.com/beating-for-two/) - About a month ago, two cops were on their way to serve a warrant to a man on an attempted murder charge. They were both shot. One, a 43-year-old husband and father, was killed. Thankfully, the other survived,
- [Mobile is live](https://rachelvb.com/mobile-is-live/) - I've been meaning to do this for years, so thank you Angella for lighting a fire =) My amazing web elf has put together an early version of the site via mobile platform: iPad, droid, iPhone.
- [Firsts](https://rachelvb.com/firsts/) - Children amazed by the smallest high-rise in the city, the ones uptown where the train stops and destitute men
- [How Wolves Change Rivers](https://rachelvb.com/how-wolves-change-rivers/) - "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir
- [Neil’s Not Wheeling Any More    #25   March 3, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-not-wheeling-any-more-25-march-3-2014/) - Tim sent two emails from San Fran: 1. OK, all international legs done. U. A. Flt #6408 is posted as on time. See ya’ll soon. Later 2. Just as I sent the last, flight delayed about 1 hr. I’ll keep you posted.
- [Neil’s Wheeling #22, #23 & #24 (Almost home)](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-22-23-24-almost-home/) - Neil’s Wheeling #22 Feb 28, 2014 Time writes; Well I know it has been awhile, and here we are in Bangkok staging for the long, wrong way around the world, trip home.
- [Sylvan Esso, "Coffee"](https://rachelvb.com/sylvan-esso-coffee/) - Sylvan Esso, "Coffee" I wish these guys had a full album. It's all I want today.
- [Feather grass](https://rachelvb.com/feather-grass/) - My mom says those are feather grasses, or look like them anyway. I have no idea what they are. They don't need a name. I ran my fingers over and through them without knowing anything about them and that was enough.
- [Neil’s Wheeling #20 & #21](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-20-21/) - Neil’s Wheeling #20 Feb 21, 2014 Tim writes: So, a poem from one of our new friends...a German we've paralleled for several days. There was a big contest in Australia about who could make the best poem about the home of the town: Timbuktu. The first one:
- [Neil’s Wheeling   #19    Feb 20, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-19-feb-20-2014/) - Part 1 of 3 Update from Mr. Vong, at the Vilayvong Phimmasone, reservation desk: Thursday, Feb 20. OK I'll reserve one with twin bed and one room with big bed shower in side. Mr Vong
- [Neil’s Wheeling   #18   Feb 19, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-18-feb-19-2014/) - Tim writes: We just got into Vangvien a couple of hours ago after a LONG all day van ride over bad, mountainous passes. All continues to go exceedingly well. Health for us remains good to great.
- [Neil’s Wheeling #16 & #17](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-16-17/) - Neil’s Wheeling #16 Feb 12, 2014 Tim sends: All is going very well, staying healthy. Different adventure every day. Crossing Laos border tomorrow. No keyboards, bad Wi-Fi. Gsn. Mr. Tim
- [Design Oscars](https://rachelvb.com/design-oscars/) - So for those of you who don't know what SND is (Society of News Design), it's basically the Oscars of our business: Magazine and News design. They are very very hard to win,
- [How could anyone hate what we love and love what we hate?](https://rachelvb.com/how-could-anyone-hate-what-we-love-and-love-what-we-hate/) - In the laundry room last night, African drums mixed with the bump of shoes in a dryer. Then rap. Then Demi Lovato. We have new neighbors.
- [Chronically late, angry and dying](https://rachelvb.com/chronically-late-angry-and-dying/) - You're not going to make it. The train picks up speed, enters traffic. Cars beat like notes on bars. This is our music: feet drumming pavement; babies chime; lights turning green release the strings. If you'd only stop rushing, you'd harmonize. You're not going to make it. With every mistake humans make, you boil your newborn in anger. We're not pedophiles for wanting that open seat or fucktards for brushing the stroller. He cries in his carriage. Father, you rock him with the same hands that would hit. You're not going to make it. Suck the blue straw for the final drop. Groom the last hairs from your scalp. Pluck like dandelion heads. Life has blown you bare, scattering time on everyone else. Watch the world grow, the cancer. You're not going to make it.
- [Every Person is a Story](https://rachelvb.com/every-person-is-a-story/) - “I believe photography gives us the power to take the people and the things that we usually forget, and remember them.” - Abdul Kircher
- [Neil's Wheeling  #15    February 10, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-15-february-10-2014/) - (note from Rachel: I hadn't realized there would be so many of these! Tim updates with more oomph than my Grandpa, mostly because Grandpa doesn't know how to use a computer, so we relied on phone calls when we could get them. This seems to be taking over my blog at the moment, but I'm OK with that. I've been feeling lazy anyway and what's happening in Burma is much more exciting that what's happening in Phoenix. It's sunny again, blue skies and people on the train stunk. Same ole, same ole.) [Steve adds clarifying remarks to what] Tim says:
- [Neil’s Wheeling  # 12, 13 and 14 (whoa way behind on my part)](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-12-13-and-14-whoa-way-behind-on-my-part/) - Neil’s Wheeling # 12 Feb 7, 2014 Tim writes: Some internet reflections from Neil: No coincidences and a lot of miracles. Wonderful, playful, delightful things keep happening with me and Tim in Myanmar. Coincidences? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Miraculous and joyful? Yes! Just as I wrote that, sitting in the shade in front of the KKO internet cafe where Tim was doing his magic, I saw two monks walking across the street with parasols in the mid-afternoon Burmese sun. What a great picture - but they were too far away.
- [Neil’s Wheeling  #11   Feb 5, 2014  (a day late on my part)](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-11-feb-5-2014-a-day-late-on-my-part/) - Tim writes, Part1: I found a keyboard in town, so a few more details of recent stuff. Sorry for the 6 [repetitive] previous sends, it's that darn phone thing.
- [Less than one - a beautiful little piece about the algorithms of love](https://rachelvb.com/less-than-one-a-beautiful-little-piece-about-the-algorithms-of-love/) - Less than one - a beautiful little piece about the algorithms of love
- [All my rage](https://rachelvb.com/all-my-rage/) - Disclaimer: Um, turn it up. Loud. Better if you just download the CD and drive around town with a subwoofer. You should probably be angry. Beat the steering wheel. Just left therapy? Even better. If rage could ever be uplifting, powerful - an orb boiling; warm like a nesting bird in your palm. Drum drum. Kick kick. Sing sing. Add your voice, roll down your window. Rage.
- [New Brews](https://rachelvb.com/new-brews/) - Oh there are lots of things brewing lately. Life changing brews. Like really dark and tasty brews. I don't know when the universe decided to start it's gears or if the universe works in waves, if we are all on the same sea, just different boats; different expanses of water, but I've been working and working,
- [Neil’s Wheeling 10     4 Feb 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-10-4-feb-2014/) - Tim writes: Safely in after 2 days overland travel w/ the locals. In pretty good shape and mostly healthy. gsn. T
- [Mend](https://rachelvb.com/mend/) - The white frozen river holds two broken sides together
- [Neil's Wheeling #9 Feb 2, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-9-feb-2-2014/) - Tim reports: Greetings to all after a couple of busy, lots of walking and truck and taxi exploring days here in Mandalay. Might have overdone it a bit yesterday, so chilling until this afternoon where we will finish up on Mandalay Hill for sunset.
- [Neil’s Wheeling 8 - Jan 31, 2014 (my favorite so far)](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-8-jan-31-2014-my-favorite-so-far/) - As a commentator, one always looks for inspiration. It seems unlikely that I will ever have an email that contains so much material that warrants a comment. -Steve Tim writes:
- [Neil’s Wheeling #7   Jan 30, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-7-jan-30-2014/) - (I'm a bit behind…) Tim today reports: Safely into Mandalay last night, now Friday morning. Great, smooth, humming along 10+ hour boat ride through the outback from Bagan. Another big change in environment, hope to find a key board today for a better posting. Gsn. Tw
- [Damn Rabbit.](https://rachelvb.com/damn-rabbit/) - This is another version of this video. I think I posted the first one a few months ago. I need to hear this a lot. I feel like this phase will never end, but I'm hoping by the time I'm 60 the quality of my work will be were I expect it to be. Or maybe we never get there. maybe we are always chasing it. maybe that's how we run faster. maybe we are greyhounds around and around the track. Damn rabbit.
- [Trending](https://rachelvb.com/trending/) - Masculinity climbs her stomach. Vines of hair she doesn't give a shit about showing in public. Cut off shirt, electrocuted hair, where she's from tweezers and wax are as hard to come by as a good meal. Her boyfriend doesn't care, tracing his finger along her richest vein.
- [Skin, a short film](https://rachelvb.com/skin-a-short-film/) - A child taxidermist, an outsider in his small town, is entranced by a girl who finds his work beautiful. But just as their relationship begins to progress, he does something that drastically changes everything.
- [Neil’s Wheeling 6   Jan 29, 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-6-jan-29-2014/) - (This is way more exciting that anything I'm doing lately…) Here's number 6! ----- Tim reports: [Steve adds clarifications in brackets] So far it looks like my most recent and lengthy post went out OK. I'm gonna stick around on the computer here for a bit just to see if I get one of those incredibly stressful "failure notices." So will finish up for today, and look forward to maybe more Wi-Fi in Mandalay in a couple of days.
- [Neil’s Wheeling 4 & 5](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-4-5/) - Friends; For those of you who are not keeping up with current events, here is a summary. Myanmar
- [My happy places](https://rachelvb.com/my-happy-places/) - Another beautiful weekend. Pool, hiking, dark beer, friends. I'm going to ride until the wind shifts, but lately the wind is at our backs, helping us forward. Last week, Pat got a job offer. No more social work, which for him is a weight off and for us a new future.
- [Reinventing The Music Video, One Street Corner At A Time (NPR Story)](https://rachelvb.com/reinventing-the-music-video-one-street-corner-at-a-time-npr-story/) - A French website La Blogoteque has begun filming bands and musicians in impromptu places around the world.
- [Neil’s Wheeling  - Sunday, 26 Jan. 2014](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-sunday-26-jan-2014/) - This guy Tim is doing all of my work! Perfect. Now, all I have to do is insert smart-alecky comments in brackets {like this}. I slept through Saturday, so today we have two days’ worth of notes in one email. -Steve
- [Neil's Wheeling #2‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeling-2‏/) - Fiends; I wish that I would have thought of this before: a chaperone with a smart phone who can send emails. What a gift to the news-hungry folks back home! -Steve
- [At it again...](https://rachelvb.com/at-it-again/) - Whenever my Grandpa goes on wild adventures, my uncle Steve gives us the play by play. Where was he last time? Anyway, I think I posted his updates on the blog and I'll do it again. Thanks, Steve. I'm stealing straight from you:
- [LA on my mind](https://rachelvb.com/la-on-my-mind/) - I'm not sure when (I'm going to say the '50s because when you say the '50s it sounds nostalgic and magical) a crate of green parrots tipped over and escaped in my Grandma's neighborhood. Now, I realize it probably wasn't the '50s - that's a long long time for parrots to live, but seeing them fly by in a wild cluster reminded me of bygone circuses and Houdini and old love.
- [Mother, sons, animals, Russia, farm - magic](https://rachelvb.com/mother-sons-animals-russia-farm-magic/) - "These wonderful photographs by Elena Shumilova plunge the viewer into a beautiful world that revolves around two boys and their adorable dog, cat, duckling and rabbit friends. Taking advantage of natural colors, weather conditions and her enchanting surroundings, the gifted Russian artist creates cozy and heartwarming photography that will leave you amazed.
- [WHATHOWSQUEEEEE!](https://rachelvb.com/whathowsqueeeee/) - I have no idea how I was picked to be a part of this, but I'm so so stoked. So honored. So blown away by the company. I can't wait.
- [Youth](https://rachelvb.com/youth/) - I'm foggy again this morning. Damn medicine or mind. Maybe it's me? Maybe whatever I'm trying to reach wants to stay hidden for now? On the train a child was screaming like the whole world was a playground. FUN FUN FUN FUN as he looked out the window, waving his crayons.
- [Pat Hike/Girls weekend](https://rachelvb.com/pat-hikegirls-weekend/) - A few weeks ago, Pat and I went on a hike in the McDowell Mountain/Sonoran Mountain range.
- [A city that sleeps](https://rachelvb.com/a-city-that-sleeps/) - Phoenix sleeps. Downtown deserted. The train stops at midnight, tucking itself into monster's rest. When we lay in our dreaming beds, the rocking ripples into longer days, like the ocean's frequency hangs in our minds even after we've left her. You're that way. I taste salt.
- [Esse, By Czeslaw Milosz](https://rachelvb.com/esse-by-czeslaw-milosz/) - Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by;
- [Headed somewhere warm](https://rachelvb.com/headed-somewhere-warm/) - In the mornings when I get to work, I flop into my chair that bounces back and forth like those ponies on a playground. I've been so far away lately that I can't even think of the word for the floppy ponies on the playground. My mind, smushed into my skull feels rooted to nothing.
- [Features Designer OF THE YEAR!](https://rachelvb.com/features-designer-of-the-year/) - Last shameless self promotion, I promise. Here's the official notice. The entire newsletter is about 13 pages of all the great work the studio has done this year, but for space sake, I'm posting the opener.
- [Happy *cough* New Year](https://rachelvb.com/happy-cough-new-year/) - I've been sick off and on for the past two weeks. Some awful allergy/cold combo that went away and snuck back on Christmas (red bow included). I'm about ready to cut my head off. Pat said the allergies may have started from our Xmas tree, but I told him to shut his mouth our tree is beautiful. He says it needs to come down
- [A not very Christmasy Christmas poem](https://rachelvb.com/a-not-very-christmasy-christmas-poem/) - My mom asks me to write Christmas poems every year for our cards. We've been doing it since I was in 10th grade, I think.
- [So you know what's awesome?](https://rachelvb.com/so-you-know-whats-awesome/) - My web elf completely transferred my entire site to a new host that has UNLIMITED space and now I can post whatever the eff I want LIKE A BILLION PHOTOS and NO ONE CAN STOP ME!!!!!!!!
- [David Biespiel's 10 things successful poets do](https://rachelvb.com/david-biespiels-10-things-successful-poets-do/) - 10. They Get Over Themselves Yehuda Amichai says, “I think when you’re a poet you have to forget you’re a poet — a real poet doesn’t draw attention to the fact he’s a poet. The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet.” Successful poets know that there is no secret to writing poems. They trust that writing poems begins with alertness, preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. They know that they go through phases as a poet and will reinvent the reasons why they write poems. They trust that last year’s answer might not do for this year or next year.
- [It's ALIIIIIVE!!!!! ](https://rachelvb.com/its-aliiiiive/) - Some of you may recognize this one. It was born here on the blog. But today, with a little tweaking, it's reborn on Cease, Cows (an awesome flash fiction lit mag). I'm so so excited they accepted this one. This was the quickest acceptance I've ever had - 2 days!
- [Raising an army](https://rachelvb.com/raising-an-army/) - The beldams are out today shuffling their carts. Maroon smocks, pointy hats and gloves. The desert cold slows hands to wish bones, easily broken.
- [Digital clutter](https://rachelvb.com/digital-clutter/) - My website is a time bomb. I've been watching is count down for a few months now and still haven't done anything about it.
- [Natural habitat](https://rachelvb.com/natural-habitat/) - It's one of those rare mornings where it's raining. I know people flying in and out or visiting probably think "what the hell, I came to Phoenix and it's not sunny?" But we're getting a weekend of rain and I couldn't be more at peace.
- [Incendiary](https://rachelvb.com/incendiary/) - I’ve seen birds die this way: half in the desert’s mouth, half out; stagnant air so hot every gasp requires a respirator pumping their beaks open shut.
- [Do you understand?](https://rachelvb.com/do-you-understand/) - "I've been here two years, but spent one in the hospital." A mangled woman presses flyaways against here head. The grease holds them. She sips soda from a McDonald's cup,
- [Coming out of your closet - Ash Beckham](https://rachelvb.com/coming-out-of-your-closet-ash-beckham/) - "I think we all have closets. Your closet may be telling someone you love her for the first time; or telling someone that you're pregnant; or telling someone that you have cancer; or any of the other hard conversations we have throughout our lives. All a closet is is a hard conversation." - Ash Beckham
- [Winter is beginning and ending](https://rachelvb.com/winter-is-beginning-and-ending/) - I've been so closed off. And I know it. I've been afraid to rip myself open, to write on bone. Maybe not so much afraid as tired. I've been tired and missing a spark. Perhaps this has been my winter.
- [Happy Hollarweeney!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-hollarweeney/) - Happy Hollarweeney! Can you imagine it's hard to work today?! Our boss set out a vat of candy that probably cost him $80 so we have to eat it ALL out of principle and driving to work as two face was an interesting voyage. Anywho... I have a prose poem coming out in an online zine called in December! Yay! Their motto: Life is short. So is our fiction.
- [Ugly truths](https://rachelvb.com/ugly-truths/) - What happens when you really let someone go? Really let someone go, not just moving across the country or unfriending them on (ugh) Facebook,
- [Lily Myers - "Shrinking Women"](https://rachelvb.com/lily-myers-shrinking-women/) - This girl explains it all about growing into womanhood.
- [So I haven't been here...](https://rachelvb.com/so-i-havent-been-here/) - because I've been doing this:
- [Joshua Tree with my brother Joshua (and Pat and soon-to-be-sister-in-law-Cindy)](https://rachelvb.com/joshua-tree-with-my-brother-joshua-and-pat-and-soon-to-be-sister-in-law-cindy/) - The first night, Pat and I counted a combined 25 shooting stars. When I was a little girl, someone told me that shooting stars were dying stars and for some reason that stuck in my mind despite me knowing that dying stars, stars just like our sun, become supernovas and if we were that close to a supernova to see it streaking across our night sky, well, we'd be goners.
- [I guess I was a little bottled up ... randoms](https://rachelvb.com/i-guess-i-was-a-little-bottled-up-randoms/) - Tuesday, I went to see Andrea Gibson at a small gallery in downtown Phoenix. The building was brick painted over white and old i.e. NO AIR CONDITIONING and for the love it's still over 100 degrees here. Fall FAll FALL fall fall fallllll falllll falfllfalfallfalafalllll
- [To love and Corissa](https://rachelvb.com/to-love-and-corissa/) - There are people out there who say brown and black can't mix, that silver and gold look tacky together, that a white sock simply cannot be matched with a gray...
- [It's a video kind of day: Love-ism](https://rachelvb.com/its-a-video-kind-of-day-love-ism/) - Choreographer Mor Shani is working on “Love-ism”. Love-ism is a long term study inspired by the book “Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm. In this study Shani wishes to challenge the perception and liquidity of the agreed upon, the sublime and the condemned. He asks: “when do supreme ideas about love like care, mutuality and dependency stop being sacred and become sinful? And what is it that distinguishes one kind of love from another?”
- [The Innovation of Loneliness](https://rachelvb.com/the-innovation-of-loneliness/) - "What is the connection between social networks and being lonely?"
- [A good girl is the solution, not the problem](https://rachelvb.com/a-good-girl-is-the-solution-not-the-problem/) - I'll always wear scars from playing with mom's BiC razor in the bathtub. The blades stuck, almost organically, like running my fingers over ornamental wheat on her nightstand. I was never a cutter, just curious how something so precise could slice me the way divorce had or two different doorbells sounded like home, never knowing which to answer as my father’s daughter. The pillows between my legs were softer. Objects I pushed inside didn’t hurt like people. Until that blood bath where something I touched didn't touch me back - it cut and after that everything became symbolic: I saw loss in cigarette butts thrown to the curb Loneliness in clocks counting our time instead of their own I learned a mean bark always masked something trembling. My father nicked my fingertips over and over each time I got closer. My hands healed but proved a hungry girl will always misinterpret fireflies lingering on her palms as declarations of love.
- [Haboob](https://rachelvb.com/haboob/) - Last night, Pat and I got deals on lower level Diamonbacks tickets ... basically half off WAHOO ... so he took the train in and met me at the bar around the corner from work for happy hour, all the while the iPhones were alarming every 15 minutes to update applephiles about the oncoming dust storm.
- [Errr, Monday.](https://rachelvb.com/errr-monday/) - I've been having a lot of dreams lately about shutting out the loud things in my life ... in one case it was a very loud person I literally shut the door on and I think in cases where your dreams are SO obvious and take little weeding or analyzing, you have to listen to them. I've been pulling away from social media and even the blog for the past few weeks (maybe even months)
- [The artist of my own life](https://rachelvb.com/the-artist-of-my-own-life/) - I always wanted to be a work of art, a moment captured on canvas, the closing line of a poem that reached so far into a stranger's gut, pulling it out would instantly kill them. I wanted an artist to see me on the street and know there was something kindred, something recognizable:
- [An OCD's love poem](https://rachelvb.com/an-ocds-love-poem/) - Neil Hilborn - "OCD" (Rustbelt 2013)
- [Nailed it](https://rachelvb.com/nailed-it/) - Well, I did it. Freaked out the entire day, built the entire thing up in my mind and then at around 5 pm on my way home, I remembered that once (for my last job) I had to go in front of an entire audience on live television with a memorized introduction of a few art students we had sponsored.
- [Will I be brave?](https://rachelvb.com/will-i-be-brave/) - This is happening tonight: Downtown Phoenix's "one chance to shine" open mic is back and will be better than ever! DID YOU WRITE A NEW POEM OR JOKE OR SONG THIS SUMMER AND NOW YOU NEED SOMEWHERE TO PRACTICE? From August until April, every Monday at 8pm ...just south of Roosevelt on 5th street at Lawn Gnome Publishing, we have poets, emcees, slam poets, comedians, artists, storytellers, ventriloquists, fire performers, burlesque dancers, and underwater basketweaving gracing our humble outdoor stage.
- [What could have happened on the way to Starbucks](https://rachelvb.com/what-could-have-happened-on-the-way-to-starbucks/) - The conversation that happened: "Hi. Excuse me." (Kinda cute, tall black man in a green polo shirt with keys around his neck) "I'm really hungry. Do you have any money on you?" "No, I'm sorry. I don't. ($5 and a Starbucks card in my back pocket) "Oh, OK... Do you like movies?" (laugh) "Who doesn't like movies?"
- [One crack, one river](https://rachelvb.com/one-crack-one-river/) - I live 90% of my life without any skin. The other 10% I wear brass knuckles. That may be a slight exaggeration, 90% is a lot, but I'm beginning to hold who I am very dear.
- [Mermabird](https://rachelvb.com/mermabird/) - Pat commissioned this painting from my boss for my birthday. It's hanging now above our television and I keep saying how I'll never need to watch television again because every time I look at the painting I can't look away.
- [Happy birthday to meeeeee!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-birthday-to-meeeeee/) - This is how I SHOULD look by the end of the day and this is how my cubicle looked when I got into work. Best. Boss. Ever.
- [Welcome to Mars](https://rachelvb.com/welcome-to-mars/) - Today at the hottest point, I'm going to step outside and experience what 120 degrees feels like. Don't cut yourself, my boss said. Your blood is so thin you'll bleed to death.
- [A LETTER TO MY DOG, EXPLORING THE HUMAN CONDITION - Andrea Gibson](https://rachelvb.com/a-letter-to-my-dog-exploring-the-human-condition-andrea-gibson/) - "Humans hold so tight to the leash of life, but you will roll in anything dead and wear it like perfume." - Andrea Gibson
- [Aphrodite](https://rachelvb.com/aphrodite/) - Last night I dreamed a boy I knew from high school grew up to posses a psychic ability that enabled him to see into the future; moment by moment, he saw my life laid out on the grass before him.
- [Birthday memo](https://rachelvb.com/birthday-memo/) - I left Pennsylvania almost a year ago. My 29th birthday is in one week and I remember last year on my 28th, I was on the road with my mom; a hostess cupcake she bought from some no name North Carolina gas station in my lap "to celebrate" and thousands of mile in front of us.
- [Winners!](https://rachelvb.com/winners/) - Check out the winners of Flash Mob 2013 here! I'm so stokedhonoredthrilledhighbeyondexcited to be a part of this! Sometime this summer "Dear, Phoenix" will be published in JMWW I can't FUCKING wait! (sorry, Grandma - the cursing was absolutely necessary)
- [Ascent](https://rachelvb.com/ascent/) - The Van Blankenships had a pretty solid weekend. Pat and I climbed the tallest mountain in Arizona on Saturday: Humphrey's Peak at 12,633 ft. This was quite possibly the hardest physical thing I have ever done.
- [Top 25! yeah, buddy!](https://rachelvb.com/top-25-yeah-buddy/) - I'm in the top 25 for the Flash Mob! hells yeah! There's a bunch of anonymous excerpts on this page, but I don't want to keep mine anonymous, so I'm going to tell you it's THE FIRST ONE! yay!! Happy Fridizzle!
- [Our Melissa](https://rachelvb.com/our-melissa/) - Our beautiful Melissa has part of her new memoir published in Parnassus - you can buy the current issue there, but here's an excerpt taken from Little Star Journal:
- [Flash Fiction Mob 2013!](https://rachelvb.com/flash-fiction-mob-2013/) - I'd tell you to go check out my work at the Flash Fiction Mob 2013, but it had to be a blog post to enter, so I ALREADY POSTED IT HERE =)
- [Coin Purse - video poem](https://rachelvb.com/coin-purse-video-poem/) - My latest video poem. It's still in the works, I think, but I'll figure out this whole movie making thing eventually... Enjoy!
- [Half Journalist: half superhero](https://rachelvb.com/half-journalist-half-superhero/) - Every once and a while we get tours through our building: wild-eyed kids clinging to their backpacks; parents smiling over them; everyone glancing up at the popcorn ceiling, the band of wall clocks for various time-zones covered,
- [American Gothic Bliss](https://rachelvb.com/american-gothic-bliss/) - ... all we're missing in the pitch fork!
- [Illegible](https://rachelvb.com/illegible/) - I wrote you a love poem But I’m so pissed At you right now The damn thing looks Japanese
- [Lovebug](https://rachelvb.com/lovebug/) - When a finch-sized moth flies onto a train, no one notices except a poet and a nurse working triage.
- [Don't belly flop the art](https://rachelvb.com/dont-belly-flop-the-art/) - When I was in NYC, my friend Elyse and I went to the MoMA in hopes of seeing the Rain Room. If you haven't heard about the Rain Room, it's, I suppose, a traveling box from London where inside, duh, it's raining, but all along the floor are sensors so whoever is walking around in the rain doesn't get wet.
- [The Dream, by Felix Pollak](https://rachelvb.com/the-dream-by-felix-pollak/) - He dreamed of an open window. A vagina, said his psychiatrist. Your divorce, said his mistress. Suicide, said an ominous voice within him. It means you should close the window or you'll catch cold, said his mother. His wife said nothing. He dared not tell her such a dangerous dream.
- [Royalty](https://rachelvb.com/royalty/) - Remember me royalty in a dive bar New York City where everyone becomes someone and no one all at the same time
- [Good Art Day!](https://rachelvb.com/good-art-day/) - New video poem and a photo published. Check it out here Everyone gets free gum courtesy of moi!
- ["Love Story" Video Poem](https://rachelvb.com/love-story-video-poem/) - This is my first attempt at a video poem sans Claire. So hopefully as I do more, I'll get better and HOPEFULLY I'll get a real camera someday instead of having to use my phone, but this'll do. I'm finding myself taking random little videos for no reason at all now. Stockpiling for the future. You can never have too many jams in the cellar.
- [Bastards](https://rachelvb.com/dream-bastards/) - I had a dream last night a poet said "I know just what to do with your writing..." and that's where the memory fades. Mysteries are never easy Dreams are never answers, but seeds. Too often I wake from sleep's marathon unsure of the miles I've tracked my back aches, my knees, my heart Why is the mind such a woman? Just tell me what you want! Tell me, alley cat, where you go at night the sex, the trash, the lavender reeks in your fur and I'm left in the morning reeling, pacing, spent from all those bastards you bring home in your belly that never keep you full.
- [The Poet](https://rachelvb.com/the-poet/) - "The Poet: Would rather eat a heart than a hambone." - Theodore Rotheke
- [Tumblr](https://rachelvb.com/tumblr/) - I'm trying out a new tumblr blog/site. Here I'm going to see if this is easier to post with via my phone, Facebook, all that good social media crap *I mean amazing technology stuff* Let me know if you hate it. It seems harder to comment on stuff. is it? I sort of have no idea about how it works....
- [Phoenix (recording)](https://rachelvb.com/phoenix-recording/) - Phoenix
- [Say: writing](https://rachelvb.com/say-writing/) - Take your pen, light it like a cigarette, brace it between your fingertips say: Writing is proof I am not alone, proof I am not standing outside so many closed doors for nothing proof even my voice is a torch sometimes hope chimes on the porch sometimes, even wind smells like home.
- [The real Dorothy and Toto](https://rachelvb.com/the-real-dorothy-and-toto/) - My parents' house was 8 miles west of the tornado. 8 miles. And in between the super cell and our front door is the nursery where my mom got her oak trees, the sonic where she introduced me to their god-sent onion rings, the grocery store where she complained once (being the recent Californian transplant she was) that the checkers weren't in any kind of hurry because they were on Okie time.
- [Phoenix](https://rachelvb.com/phoenix/) - Dear ---, This is my city view from the library. The windows protect me like a ribcage; the books my spine.
- [Us](https://rachelvb.com/us/) - us
- [You may go](https://rachelvb.com/you-may-go/) - "The cage is open: you may go." - Theodore Roethke
- [No Rain on Me](https://rachelvb.com/no-rain-on-me/) - A new exhibit at the MoMA in NYC lets you walk through the rain without getting wet. This is something I must do. Magic.
- [Slack Tide - A Rachel/Claire collaboration ](https://rachelvb.com/slack-tide-a-rachelclaire-collaboration/) - Claire created this wonderful video of my reading "Slack Tide" Go to her blog as well as she writes a beautiful story of how it all came together... Thank you, Claire.
- [Walkabout](https://rachelvb.com/walkabout-2/) - I might be taking one soon. I'm already distancing myself. Feel alienated from certain parts of the web and searching on others. Forgive me if I'm quiet or don't comment often.
- [Have I been watching too much Fringe?](https://rachelvb.com/have-i-been-watching-too-much-fringe/) - "Am I in an alternate reality?" That's what I thought this morning when I woke up topless to the leaf blower rudely droning outside the window.
- [Let's brag about love](https://rachelvb.com/lets-brag-about-love/) - We're going to be reminded this weekend that we do in fact live in the desert. Sunday's forecast is 100 degrees. Ugh. Already? It's not even May! But I'll take it if it means I never have to survive an East coast winter again.
- ["When Brave Bird Saved" Short Film](https://rachelvb.com/when-brave-bird-saved-short-film/) - This is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a while. We need more of this in the world.
- [Once, Laura Marling](https://rachelvb.com/once-laura-marling/) - Once, Laura Marling
- [Jelly Transfer](https://rachelvb.com/jelly-transfer/) - While Lindsey is paying for Grad School, she shares all her secret projects with me and then I steal them for free. A few days ago she showed me some gel medium transfers she did for class and I decided to try some last night with some photos of mine.
- [Multiple Personalities (self portraits)](https://rachelvb.com/multiple-personalities-self-portraits/) - Multiple Personalities (self portraits)
- [Sunday Mexican Market, Phoenix](https://rachelvb.com/sunday-mexican-market-phoenix/) - Balanced between banana leaves and Jamaica drying in bins like small, netted squids I remember the guts it took to kiss you. I was 18 years old not even drunk rushing up your neck like a little girl through summer sprinklers - my polka dot bathing suit instantly wet.
- [Bluebird](https://rachelvb.com/bluebird-2/) - My friend, Lindsey is in grad school and did this video project for class. It's just a simple, beautiful little video and she's reading my poem Bluebird which has a lot of meaning for both of us. It's pretty cool to hear someone else reading one of my poems.
- [Happy Wed.nes.day Hair](https://rachelvb.com/happy-wed-nes-day-hair/) - Happy Wed.nes.day Hair
- [Surgery (Audio)](https://rachelvb.com/surgery-audio/) - I'm hoping to maybe make some video poems in the future, but for now here's some audio of a newly hatched poem I posted yesterday. Surgery
- [Surgery](https://rachelvb.com/surgery/) - All it takes is one person who believes you're more than you are. We were never meant to see love clearly. We were meant to collide - a body against a wave.
- [Slack Tide](https://rachelvb.com/slack-tide/) - When I was a girl, we'd camp by the ocean and once, I waded into the water, cutting my foot on a shell. From that moment, I was a mermaid. My blood leaked into salt water,
- [Sing-along](https://rachelvb.com/early-20s-flashback-singing-a-song-for-you/) - I recorded this in 2008 - how old was I 24? I wrote a lot of music when I was living in Texas. My life existed at night. I would wake up at noon and go to sleep at 4am just in time for the birds to help me to sleep.
- ["Royal Heart," By Andrea Gibson](https://rachelvb.com/royal-heart-by-andrea-gibson/) - "Royal Heart," By Andrea Gibson
- [Shifting Gears](https://rachelvb.com/shifting-gears/) - Shifting Gears Sun drifts behind the hills like a lonely traveler packing light. Staring after him, I stand next to mom shading my eyes to see how long he walks horizon’s trail – his image shrinks and frays.
- [Andrea Gibson](https://rachelvb.com/andrea-gibson/) - A wonderful interview with Poet/Activist Andrea Gibson on AutoStraddle You MUST listen to the poem she reads at the end called "Class"
- [Claire is here! Claire is here! Claire is here!](https://rachelvb.com/claire-is-here-claire-is-here-claire-is-here/) - On Sunday, I am meeting dear Claire. Her blog is here if you don't know her from blogland. But most of the people who read here do, I think. Anyway, she's a wonderful painter, writer, woman.
- [Comatose](https://rachelvb.com/comatose/) - I can tell I'm not tapped in. I can tell I'm only skimming the surface. My brain has all the gear: the wet suit, the tank, the flippers, but it knows right now if it dove in it would most likely drown.
- ["Mad Girls"](https://rachelvb.com/mad-girls/) - "But she did learn a key New York lesson: that if you push as hard as you can, you will, for better or worse, learn things about yourself you would never have otherwise known."
- [Walkabout](https://rachelvb.com/walkabout/) - Pat and I were at the pool Saturday. I took a banana, some strawberries, Marie Claire magazine with Keira Knightly on the cover; slathered myself up in the sun.
- [Focus](https://rachelvb.com/focus/) - The sky is from my last airplane ride. The buildings, this morning. This city can be eerily quiet at times. But the sun always reflects in waves over the brick. Quiet and gilded. And my rides home when it's late enough to be dark. Tired. Music keeps the crazies away. Keeps them quiet in my mind.
- [The only way you can write the truth...](https://rachelvb.com/the-only-way-you-can-write-the-truth/) - “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.” - MARGARET ATWOOD
- [Tuesday. Good Morning](https://rachelvb.com/tuesday-good-morning/) - A stranger sighs warm parchment on the back of my neck. A woman, bald with cancer, sips vodka through a big gulp's blue straw.
- [For in this world ...](https://rachelvb.com/for-in-this-world/) - "For in this world, time does pass, but little happens. Just as little happens from year to year, little happens from month to month, day to day. If time and the passage of events are the same, then time moves barely at all. If time and events are not the same, then it is only people who barely move. If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly." - Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
- [Barren](https://rachelvb.com/barren/) - From the woven fabric of my yellow shirt I discover I'm a messenger. Carrying seed through the day's reach
- [I can complain. And then I can't.](https://rachelvb.com/i-can-complain-and-then-i-cant/) - It's official - our social life has died. Pat and I said goodbye to Alisha last night. I don't really feel like writing about it other than to say that if she were here at work today we'd probably talk about how the 8th floor smells like spicy potatoes
- [Happy Easter little children](https://rachelvb.com/happy-easter-little-children/) - Pat told me once that the Easter Bunny in the mall in PA didn't wear underpants when she was in her costume. Enough said.
- [Sidewalk Art](https://rachelvb.com/sidewalk-art/) - Where did all the spots come from? Oil and gum. Soda and spit stained with tobacco. Piss and shit. Sun and red rain dyed with dirt. The sidewalk looks like skin - human almost as if everything we create is a reflection of ourselves.
- [Untitled affairs](https://rachelvb.com/untitled-affairs/) - In what universe could we exist the way we did - bumping our shadows together like flint? pressing the amber mosquito that bled us dry?
- [Mua muaa mua ](https://rachelvb.com/mua-muaa-mua/) - I'm feeling quiet today. I've been feeling quiet. Last night Pat and I were talking in bed and just as I was rearranging myself into a more comfortable position he said - mua muaa mua.
- [What's your story?](https://rachelvb.com/whats-your-story/) - "We're not on our journey to save the world, but to save ourselves. And in doing that you save the world." Joseph Campbell.
- [sprIng (the I is my middle finger)](https://rachelvb.com/spring-the-i-is-my-middle-finger/) - I've been thrown into a box full of pollen grass clippings cat dander blooming yellow fucking bushes dirt Dirt DIRT Desert dirt
- [The Pendulum](https://rachelvb.com/the-pendulum/) - I have a love hate with this blog as I have a love hate with certain people as I have a love hate with writing and myself and the desert and one could even say ice cream.
- [Checking in](https://rachelvb.com/checking-in/) - I've been away! Obviously. Or not so obviously. But I did leave without saying anything because, well, I couldn't say anything! We were throwing my mom a 60th surprise party and I couldn't spill the beans
- [Seemed like great people](https://rachelvb.com/seemed-like-great-people/) - Walking to the light rail this morning a wheel-chair bound woman stalled in front of me. I expected her to ask for money
- [Let them go](https://rachelvb.com/let-them-go/) - I had a dream last night that airplanes manufactured as dolphins were turning tricks in the sky. And in them, once they landed, were professionals putting on a job fair.
- [I have no idea how to even do that](https://rachelvb.com/i-have-no-idea-how-to-even-do-that/) - My good (well only) friend here is moving back to NYC to work for People magazine. We both started on the same day and became friends like two new girls become friends in kindergarten:
- [Friday Storm](https://rachelvb.com/friday-storm/) - We're getting a crazy storm today - black skies, overblown deck furniture, sideways rain. We may even get hail the size of PENNIES.
- [Where can I go?](https://rachelvb.com/where-can-i-go/) - This girl moves about every bone in my body. There aren't that many artists anymore that I seriously cannot wait for their next album to come out, but Laura Marling
- [Qcumberz](https://rachelvb.com/qcumberz/) - I think I need one of those voice activated keyboards because whenever I'm driving around town or walking or riding the light rail; whenever my body is still, but the world is moving, my mind is running running on words. And then I get here and I forget all of it or the weight of work settles over me and flicks another switch on.
- [Baring myself](https://rachelvb.com/baring-myself/) - I want to be brave. I want to take self-portraits walking down the street, listening to music - the white cords framing my face -
- [ALLEN! ALLEN!](https://rachelvb.com/allen-allen/) - This absolutely made my day.
- [Pier](https://rachelvb.com/pier/) - The days lately have been really hard to get through. Hours drag their feet. Minutes pass into more days, into more dragging hours and at this moment I wonder what the point is.
- [Spring: the loose woman](https://rachelvb.com/spring-the-loose-woman/) - I don't remember the trees having this many shadows. Long teeth cutting the concrete. I walk under the branches and through their mouths.
- [Random Thursday](https://rachelvb.com/random-thursday/) - Today is my late day at work. Arrive at 11, go home at 7. I don't mind putzing around in the morning,
- [I think I'm ready](https://rachelvb.com/i-think-im-ready/) - God has it really been a week since I've posted? God almighty. I have so much to say and then nothing to say. My limbs are tired. It's raining.
- [Speed. My body.](https://rachelvb.com/speed-my-body/) - Pieces of paper are everywhere. Have you noticed? Notes, receipts, wrappers, drawings. I pick them up to see what people have to say, what they buy.
- [Kiss me, and you will see how important I am - S.P.](https://rachelvb.com/kiss-me-and-you-will-see-how-important-i-am-s-p/) - Today is cold, misty. I'm thinking of the red fox I've seen in dreams since I was a teenager. She is my totem and my god. I'm hoping to see her again soon. I am waiting to follow her.
- [Forever unclean](https://rachelvb.com/forever-unclean/) - Apparently there's a toilet in the ladies bathroom that likes to completely humiliate people
- [A mouse is a mouse](https://rachelvb.com/a-mouse-is-a-mouse/) - In the grocery store a little boy was using a helium birthday balloon as a punching bag while his grandma and sisters mulled over canned tomatoes.
- [Shit Shine](https://rachelvb.com/shit-shine/) - Today, I won the shit shine award for many backlogged shit shines. Sometimes at work we get pictures of feet or fingernails or hip replacements or car bows and we have to design the shit out of it and make it magical.
- [Days after](https://rachelvb.com/days-after/) - The fog parts, but you're still foggy. And tired. Floating on churned water into a realm that blends sea/sky. There are no distinct lines.
- [What?](https://rachelvb.com/what/) - I think pat made me partially deaf in one ear. I'm not even joking. On Friday, he made this horrifically loud kissing/Suck noise right over my ear, I'm talking concert level point blank IN MY EAR
- [Boom](https://rachelvb.com/boom/) - Too much coffee, too many trips, not enough work, too much work. I run around people's ankles like an annoying shit dog and then stare into space.
- [Recap](https://rachelvb.com/recap/) - I've had strange dreams this week ranging from the most amazing cookies only I have ever seen (because it was in my head: think chocolate fudge peanut butter layer cake IN A COOKIE) to being an rockstar soccer player in Mexico and being featured in a super artsy documentary.
- [Drunken Poets spread the word](https://rachelvb.com/drunken-poets-spread-the-word/) - We should all start doing things like this!
- [Full Moon Silhouettes](https://rachelvb.com/full-moon-silhouettes/) - Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo. I stole this video from Claire's Facebook page, but it's so beautiful it's worth stealing. Thanks, Claire.
- [Fireweed](https://rachelvb.com/fireweed/) - Over miles, I scatter the ashes of someone once loved. You are wind and need - stay that way: Elusive, untouched but touch only me.
- [In and out](https://rachelvb.com/in-and-out-2/) - Yesterday, I made this fig, olive oil, sea salt challah bread. This was my first bread-making and other than some dough stretched a little too thin, I'm pretty proud of myself.
- [Rachel vs. Boobs. Will there be justice?](https://rachelvb.com/rachel-vs-boobs-will-there-be-justice/) - Friday night, Pat, a co-worker and I went to this place called The Vig (Uptown) - there's soon-to-be one DOWNTOWN and also one in Arcadia noneofthisisimportant.
- ["Write as if you were dying"](https://rachelvb.com/write-as-if-you-were-dying/) - I'm kind of at a crossroads - I know I need help with craft and form and I wonder how much of it I can do myself or if I can do any of it myself? I suppose there was a time way way back when when writers did not go to grad school, they were apprentices like blacksmiths took on or shoemakers or lawyers.
- [I made this](https://rachelvb.com/i-made-this/) - So I just got an email this morning from NewsPageDesigner - an international website that used to be run by SND
- [Happiness](https://rachelvb.com/happiness/) - This weekend. Where do I even start with this weekend. I feel hungry and starving and full and alive. The city is such a nerve ending. We went to sleep and woke up on a different planet and a filthy one, but one I love all the same.
- [I love you, New York](https://rachelvb.com/i-love-you-new-york/) - I've come back from the city like a wild animal. Hungry still, but only for the taste of it, not because I need it filling my body.
- [Nothing is the same](https://rachelvb.com/nothing-is-the-same/) - Last night I dreamed of a river house. It stood on a hill and from the back porch you could see the water slicing the valley into two sides of a body - the river: its spine.
- [For Sale](https://rachelvb.com/for-sale/) - I'm selling prints and hopefully some designs soon here. I'll keep updating as I gather, so hopefully there will be more images soon! Wouldn't you like to decorate your couch with a photo they turn into throw pillows??????!?!!!!?!?!?!? Heck yes, you would!
- [Happy Munday](https://rachelvb.com/happy-munday/) - My boss sent out this picture in an email this morning saying "starting your week with a celebration of this world." So here we go, Monday. I'm starting my week off in celebration of this world no matter what it thinks of me or you or anyone.
- [Holy Tiger!](https://rachelvb.com/holy-tiger/) - This little girl came to visit the news studio this afternoon and the rumors of a tiger running around the building definitely got my attention.
- [I hate you Dolph](https://rachelvb.com/i-hate-you-dolph/) - Last night I had a dream, Pat and I were driving along the crest of a mountain. This is the great divide, he told me and I looked ahead and saw the peak and the road splitting the green like a grey spine.
- [Must I write?](https://rachelvb.com/must-i-write/) - "You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. Search for the reason that bids you write;
- [Stationary at Midnight](https://rachelvb.com/stationary-at-midnight-2/) - From my car’s backseat you dip a cigarette into the night’s pool ash flakes away like skin the way people tiptoe into dust in corner cracks.
- ["Posthumous," Speech by Jeffrey Eugenides (Advice to young writers)](https://rachelvb.com/posthumous-speech-by-jeffrey-eugenides-advice-to-young-writers/) - "If you try to write posthumously, however, fashion doesn’t apply. You step off the catwalk, ignoring this season’s trends and resigning yourself to being unfashionable and possibly unnoticed, at least for a while.
- [Look at your hands](https://rachelvb.com/look-at-your-hands/) - They've moved me up to the 8th floor today. ALong with a few other designers. I've lost my view, but at least I'm by a window. Thank god for that. It's strange. The walls are higher, the light is completely different.
- [Plank](https://rachelvb.com/plank/) - Pat and I had our first session last night and while I thought it was going to be for real our first session, it turned out to be a fitness assessment to see how fat we are and to collect our insecurities and poke us.
- [Suck it, Tony Romo](https://rachelvb.com/suck-it-tony-romo/) - On Saturday, I'm starting a poetry boot camp for myself. I'm going to feel stupid. I'm going to be embarrassed. I'm going to fail a lot and write shitty things and that's just the way things go.
- [To console one must have suffered](https://rachelvb.com/to-console-one-must-have-suffered/) - "Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untouched among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness. ... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words."
- [Racquet Ball for Dummies](https://rachelvb.com/racquet-ball-for-dummies/) - Pat and I joined the gym that just opened up next door to our apartment. We have no excuse now. Pool, top notch equipment, machines, hot tub, racquet ball courts, personal trainers
- [Did you know ...?](https://rachelvb.com/did-you-know/) - There are 8 kinds of close encounters with aliens?? 8! 1. A UFO sighting. 2. A visual sighting plus a physical experience with an inanimate object (i.e. the aliens make your car bounce up and down).
- [Evolution](https://rachelvb.com/evolution/) - My mom left me with a DVD of pictures from when my brother and I were kids. It's strange to see yourself in places you have no recollection
- [Bookmark](https://rachelvb.com/bookmark/) - This morning, I woke up with the "5 Dollar Foot Long" jingle stuck in my head. Was I dreaming of Meatball subs?
- [Gift poem](https://rachelvb.com/gift-poem/) - At my request, Rebecca wrote me (and others) a new year's poem on Facebook. I'm posting it here, so I can always have it. I want to roll around in it like catnip. Thank you, Rebecca.
- [New Year Mountain](https://rachelvb.com/new-year-mountain/) - Yesterday, I climbed to the top of Piestewa Peak aka Squaw Peak aka the Phoenix Mountains. After the last of my family had gone, after I had dropped my grandpa off at the airport
- [Vanvasion](https://rachelvb.com/vanvasion/) - There was frost melting from the car port this morning. FROST. It's 39 degrees and sunny and I bundled into my Brooklyn Industries cowl neck jacket
- [That's what nostalgia is...](https://rachelvb.com/thats-what-nostalgia-is/) - "That's what nostalgia is: you see layers of meaning you never dreamed were there at the time." - Jennifer Egan from "Invisible Circus"
- [im related to u please write back](https://rachelvb.com/im-related-to-u-please-write-back/) - There's still something wrapped around my lungs this morning. A tight netting and I can't see the boat or the line or understand why it's caught me in the first place.
- [Poetry gods](https://rachelvb.com/poetry-gods/) - I've been making these "snow Globes" the past couple of days and pat always asks why my crafty projects take so damn long because they do
- [Inked at birth](https://rachelvb.com/inked-at-birth/) - I was dark-washed in ink when I was born. And no one saw, not my mother, no nurse. My father recognized the oil sinking in, but couldn't understand what it was,
- [Egg Keeper](https://rachelvb.com/egg-keeper/) - This morning I had a dream I was standing next to a barren tree watching a hummingbird prune on a branch near my ear.
- [Hoppy Halidays](https://rachelvb.com/hoppy-halidays/) - Hoppy Halidays
- [Bull Horn](https://rachelvb.com/bull-horn/) - A few days ago, I walked past one of the many giant glass buildings with marble floors and revolving doors. Security guards looked out in amusement at the small group of protesters that had amassed
- [The weight of a messenger bag](https://rachelvb.com/the-weight-of-a-messenger-bag/) - "You should stand up straight," a bald man said as I passed him on the sidewalk this morning. He kept looking back and forth like a security camera
- [But a friend of mine says it good to hear/ that you believe in love even if set in fear.](https://rachelvb.com/but-a-friend-of-mine-says-it-good-to-hear-that-you-believe-in-love-even-if-set-in-fear/) - You were so smart then, in your jacket and coat. My softest red scarf was warming your throat. Winter was on us,
- [Chapter One](https://rachelvb.com/chapter-one/) - I have a section dropping tonight, but I don't want to work on it. I don't want to start. I don't want to puzzle together recipes
- [Words of widsom](https://rachelvb.com/words-of-widsom/) - Person who wishes to remain anonymous: If you want to be a better writer you're going to have to pull it out of you.
- [Our children](https://rachelvb.com/our-children/) - They released his name. 24 years old. He's on Facebook with 115 friends, likes the video game Mass Effect and Guns and Roses and The 39 steps.
- [All those children](https://rachelvb.com/all-those-children/) - Have you seen the news? Those poor kids, how horrifying and parents around the newsroom are talking about how they tell their elementary-aged and younger
- [All the cracks](https://rachelvb.com/all-the-cracks/) - Ms. Moon, There was another shoe this morning. The previous pair was gone, but replaced by a lone woman's black slip on.
- [Old hat](https://rachelvb.com/old-hat/) - The city is cold this morning, 61 degrees, windy and cold. The strange thing about the desert is when the sun isn't around, even though it's only 61 degrees, it gets bone-chilling.
- [Hindsight 20/40](https://rachelvb.com/hindsight-2040/) - Dear Kentucky GRILLED Chicken, who are you fooling? I realize I haven't posted anything for a week. I've been feeling quiet.
- [Best friends - Kid, dog, puddle - say no more](https://rachelvb.com/best-friends-kid-dog-puddle-say-no-more/) - Best friends
- [Polly Dolly Doodles](https://rachelvb.com/polly-dolly-doodles/) - I lost my beets. I went looking for them this morning to make a beautiful beet salad for lunch and I remembered that when I took them out of the oven on Sunday,
- [I ](https://rachelvb.com/i/) - This is how I spent yesterday. Pretending I have no idea what December feels like. Snow? Rain? ha! Vitamin E. I know what that is.
- [Pumpkin Guilt](https://rachelvb.com/pumpkin-guilt/) - I have a confession to make. As of yesterday, I still had a Halloween pumpkin sitting on my doorstep...
- [No pain. No happiness. No anger. Air](https://rachelvb.com/no-pain-no-happiness-no-anger-air/) - Every movement was painful and slow. Methodical and heavy. She walked on nails to a seat and fell in. Pulled closer the Hawaiian floral backpack on her lap.
- [800 lb ghosts](https://rachelvb.com/800-lb-ghosts/) - My body feels like it's 800lbs this morning. It weaves in and out of the past. Every day is a new life, but our bodies forget nothing. Sometimes all it takes is a dark photograph of you and a person
- [Light rail chronicles 11/27](https://rachelvb.com/light-rail-chronicles-1127/) - Never sit on the platform seats heading home - they're covered in smokers and dried marmalade and body odor.
- [The bottom of the sea](https://rachelvb.com/the-bottom-of-the-sea/) - This morning, I was in an old tan truck with my father, driving on the bottom of the ocean only all the water had receded so it looked more like a sea green ruin.
- [I am a hero](https://rachelvb.com/i-am-a-hero/) - Today is a beautiful morning. 80s the rest of the week and sunshine. The weather man last night laughed and said there was zero change of rain hitting the valley
- [I must be a mermaid...](https://rachelvb.com/i-must-be-a-mermaid/) - ...I have no fear of great depths and a great fear of shallow living. -Anias Nin
- [We can survive here](https://rachelvb.com/we-can-survive-here/) - I sent the manuscript off this morning for a few first reads. Even now, if only in two directions, it's going places I've never been.
- [Middle](https://rachelvb.com/middle/) - I want to fall off the map. But anymore - is there a place unmapped? An unknown number called me yesterday and I plugged it into Facebook and there she was - my old landlord.
- [Now. Ser.v.ing. J.6.0.5.](https://rachelvb.com/now-ser-v-ing-j-6-0-5/) - I went to the DMV this morning because for the last couple weeks I've been getting notices on my car that say "Welcome to Arizona,
- [Possible Titles](https://rachelvb.com/possible-titles/) - I feel like I'm wrapping my collection up. It's about as good as I can get it right now given where I am as a writer (possibly terrible, possibly OK), but who the hell really knows what will happen with it.
- [Happy Birthday, Anne](https://rachelvb.com/happy-birthday-anne/) - What's That Before it came inside I had watched it from my kitchen window, watched it swell like a new balloon,
- [Thursday rundown ](https://rachelvb.com/thursday-rundown/) - I'm on my last bit of editing, some rearranging, a whole read-through (or 8) and then I think I'm done with a first draft to a real-live manuscript. Hot damn!
- [This is right](https://rachelvb.com/this-is-right/) - You know what I heard a lot last night: that if the republican party doesn't change it's core beliefs it's going to die. And I believe that with my whole heart.
- [Get your rosaries off my ovaries](https://rachelvb.com/get-your-rosaries-off-my-ovaries/) - Get your rosaries off my ovaries
- [You Oracle, you!](https://rachelvb.com/you-oracle-you/) - When I asked the oracle about the election, this is what she said: "What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? That’s what I’d like to know, what are we all doing in a place like this?"
- [Go vote! But only if you're voting for Obama](https://rachelvb.com/go-vote-but-only-if-youre-voting-for-obama/) - Damn, I'm all wired. I voted. I got my sticker. I left the polling place with a woman behind me cheering for Obama and I raised my hand up and pointed to the words leaving her mouth like a jet lifting into the sky.
- [Election Eve](https://rachelvb.com/election-eve/) - We were escorted back to our car last night by two college girls driving a golf cart. They worked on tips,
- [WTF were you thinking? ](https://rachelvb.com/wtf-were-you-thinking/) - Yesterday, I pretended I was in college and had bottomless mimosas with a work friend, her sister and Pat Pat in Scottsdale the land of fake tan boobs, west coast hipsters and $800 massages.
- [Happy Halloweenie!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-halloweenie/) - Happy Halloweenie!
- [McDowell and Central](https://rachelvb.com/mcdowell-and-central/) - "They should put me down like a dog," a woman said after she shuffled herself and walker past a protruding bike tire and sat down next to me on the light rail.
- [Be safe, dear friends. I'm willing you my blue skies](https://rachelvb.com/be-safe-dear-friends-im-willing-you-my-blue-skies/) - It's strange not being anywhere near this hurricane and all the people we love are right in the path.
- [Churchill "Change"](https://rachelvb.com/churchill-change/) - Churchill "Change"
- [Let's start yesterday over](https://rachelvb.com/lets-start-yesterday-over/) - Coffee in my paint-chipped to-go mug Lol Stein quote. Here we go: "If I believed in you the way others believed in God I could ask myself: why you? Does it have any meaning? Yet the beach was empty, as empty as if God had no yet finished making it." - Marguerite Duras
- [Hardly working](https://rachelvb.com/hardly-working/) - When a coworker comes back from Ohio with bags full of buckeyes ... you turn them into vampires and get ready to rumble.
- [Wristwatch ](https://rachelvb.com/wristwatch/) - Yesterday, I saw the wristwatch. He was wearing all black again, even a black backpack. We walked together off the light rail and then he stopped, turned and waited for the crosswalk to get to the other side.
- [Trolling](https://rachelvb.com/trolling/) - I was going to write this beautiful line from Duras' Lol Stein here this morning, a scene where she and a lover are at the beach alone, watching the water and she says The beach is so empty, almost as if God had yet to finish it.
- [ABCs of blushing](https://rachelvb.com/abcs-of-blushing/) - Today, I've spent some time googling "How to train myself to stop blushing for no reason or when people compliment your $1 earrings or your shirt
- [Did and Didn't](https://rachelvb.com/did-and-didnt/) - I think I'm in a filling rotation because I haven't felt like writing much here. These seasons always worry me, but they usually go away at some point.
- [Arizona Monsoon Time lapse](https://rachelvb.com/arizona-monsoon-time-lapse/) - Arizona Monsoon Time lapse
- [Ravishing Lol](https://rachelvb.com/ravishing-lol/) - A few nights ago I was reading "The Ravishing of Lol Stein" by Maguerite Duras before bed and came across the most poetic line (not so much in how it was written
- [Hidden devices, the voice always remains](https://rachelvb.com/hidden-devices-the-voice-always-remains/) - The voice above me was not born like ours are born through screaming His (if I can call him a he) was manufactured like fake breasts - to appear god-given - and tell us where to put our change.
- [Prankster](https://rachelvb.com/prankster/) - I took my car in today because for the past couple of weeks the speaker has been hissing at me and on the brink of blowing out
- [Miles (Sedona pictures)](https://rachelvb.com/miles-sedona-pictures/) - Contours align the sky like spines vertebrae linked-clouds a mile is pieced distance like a cell is pieced skin
- [The Lumineers Ho Hey](https://rachelvb.com/the-lumineers-ho-hey/) - The Lumineers Ho Hey
- [My decoupaged Frankensteins](https://rachelvb.com/my-decoupaged-frankensteins/) - It's quite here this morning. Aside from a few loud voices across the room, I can hear the air traveling through the ceiling.
- [Angel's Trumpet](https://rachelvb.com/angels-trumpet/) - Waiting for the light rail the other day, a thin black woman wearing baggy clothes screamed
- [This is your final bill](https://rachelvb.com/this-is-your-final-bill/) - I am your 39 cent stamp. I am the weather in a city you'll never check, a call you'll never connect,
- [Just dipping my toes](https://rachelvb.com/just-dipping-my-toes/) - Just dipping my toes
- [The Whale](https://rachelvb.com/the-whale/) - Last night, I dreamed of a sea house built of drift wood and dark logs. It was morning or dusk, I'm not sure which - the certain time of day where time could be setting or rising in fog.
- [oooooooh shiny ](https://rachelvb.com/oooooooh-shinny/) - My view this morning is of a real-life Emmy. How cool is that?
- [I'm a great admirer...](https://rachelvb.com/im-a-great-admirer/) - I'm a great admirer...
- [Oak Creek Canyon](https://rachelvb.com/oak-creek-canyon/) - Pat left yesterday to steak out a spot on the Oak Creek in Red Rock Country near Sedona.
- [Manhattan](https://rachelvb.com/manhattan/) - Don't look at the moon tonight You'll never be never be never be Manhattan
- [Grounded](https://rachelvb.com/grounded/) - He held his hand across my stomach clutching me tightly. In his dream I'm a kite as a kite
- [Like any animal, creature, deity](https://rachelvb.com/like-any-animal-creature-deity/) - From September 7-27 my parents were rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
- [Ghosts](https://rachelvb.com/ghosts/) - Ghosts. "I’ve actually seen a ghost, so I do believe in ghosts.
- [7 bodies](https://rachelvb.com/7-bodies/) - This is my life now. My pale skin burning in the sun, taking the train, strangers
- [Downhill](https://rachelvb.com/downhill/) - I took the light rail early this morning, skipping my morning editing before work
- [Thinning blood](https://rachelvb.com/thinning-blood/) - I feel a fall in my bones that isn't coming. Saturday, the first day, was 106 degrees.
- [Only Son of the Ladiesman](https://rachelvb.com/only-son-of-the-ladiesman/) - Only Son of the Ladiesman, Father John Misty
- [Bright Lights and Cityscapes](https://rachelvb.com/bright-lights-and-cityscapes/) - Bright Lights and Cityscapes Sara Bareilles
- [Enough crumbs make a loaf (or at least something you can smoosh back together)](https://rachelvb.com/enough-crumbs-make-a-loaf-or-at-least-something-you-can-smoosh-back-together/) - Have I ever belonged anywhere? If I stayed in California
- [Next stop, crazy town](https://rachelvb.com/next-stop-crazy-town/) - There was a drunk man wearing head to toe Arizona Diamondbacks garb,
- [Loved, full and warm](https://rachelvb.com/loved-full-and-warm/) - I slept uninterrupted last night. For the entire night. But I would have rather
- [Hang in there, Mazie](https://rachelvb.com/hang-in-there-mazie/) - Mazda got sick over the weekend - super high fever and she stopped eating.
- [!](https://rachelvb.com/3802/) - Last night pat and I went to a restaurant called St. Francis for our anniversary
- [Lamplighter](https://rachelvb.com/lamplighter/) - I am the last one up tucking the empty bowl
- [High speed parade](https://rachelvb.com/high-speed-parade/) - Mazda has opened one eye, the other she's prying open
- ["If I’m going to expose anyone it’s going to be me," Cheryl Strayed](https://rachelvb.com/if-im-going-to-expose-anyone-its-going-to-be-me-cheryl-strayed/) - "If I’m going to expose anyone it’s going to be me," Cheryl Strayed
- [The marbles](https://rachelvb.com/the-marbles/) - This is not a desert morning, but something resembling pre-fall in California.
- ["Take your vitamins. Exercise. Just work to love yourself as much as you can — not more than the people around you but not so much less." -Sharon Olds](https://rachelvb.com/take-your-vitamins-exercise-just-work-to-love-yourself-as-much-as-you-can-not-more-than-the-people-around-you-but-not-so-much-less-sharon-olds/) - Take your vitamins. Exercise. Just work to love yourself as much as you can — not more than the people around you but not so much less.
- ["Well, at least he'll be cheaper to neuter," Pat says.](https://rachelvb.com/well-at-least-hell-be-cheaper-to-neuter-pat-says/) - Mazda hasn't opened hisher eyes yet. We keep waiting.
- ["Don't forget my senior discount. I'm older than I look"](https://rachelvb.com/dont-forget-my-senior-discount-im-older-than-i-look/) - God it smells good this morning. It's cool and sprinkling
- [Meet Mazda "Mazie" or "Maz" for short](https://rachelvb.com/meet-mazda-mazie-or-maz-for-short/) - Well, our little fighting orphan made it through the night.
- [Shall we name him Mazda?](https://rachelvb.com/shall-we-name-him-mazda/) - Yesterday, Pat went to a coffee shop here and got really strange looks from a woman
- [You get what you pay for](https://rachelvb.com/you-get-what-you-pay-for/) - God, I slept well last night. My head sunk deep into my pillow like the worm hole to dreamland
- [The boys](https://rachelvb.com/the-boys/) - Demolition Derby, Flagstaff Breweries, a hike in the San Francisco Mountains
- [Lovers and thinkers...](https://rachelvb.com/lovers-and-thinkers/) - Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
- [Two adjusting gringos](https://rachelvb.com/two-adjusting-gringos/) - Every once and a while I have to look out the high-rising windows of my downtown office, take a deep breath and say "This is my life now."
- [Crazy train](https://rachelvb.com/crazy-train/) - What happens when a crotchety old man (who also has cancer and a walker) meets a Hispanic man sitting on the floor of a train car meets a big black woman who just wants to get to work in peace?
- [Phoenix's foot fetish](https://rachelvb.com/phoenixs-foot-fetish/) - I've had more conversations with strangers about my shoes than anywhere else on the planet.
- [Bless my heart/ bless my soul/ I didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old](https://rachelvb.com/bless-my-heart-bless-my-soul-i-didnt-think-id-make-it-to-22-years-old/) - Bless my heart/ bless my soul/ I didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old
- [Up from below](https://rachelvb.com/up-from-below/) - Meet my new sink pal. Our friendship was fairly quick
- [Eve Ensler: Dear Mr. Akin](https://rachelvb.com/eve-ensler-dear-mr-akin/) - "Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space...
- [Gum ... or new friends?](https://rachelvb.com/gum-or-new-friends/) - I've been going through poems the past week.5 and have noticed that many of them are twofers i.e. what in my mind for so long was one poem, is in fact two. The ease of splitting them is actually really awesome because it means I'm in an accepting mode and am no longer mashing things together that are only faintly connected.
- [All the wet metal](https://rachelvb.com/all-the-metal-was-wet/) - This morning, I woke up to mist and gorged condensation on my sliding door, the key hole outside, Pat's sweater I've left drying for a few days that I'll have to leave drying for a few more now. I must have slept through one massive storm, the way water sprayed itself onto my balcony.
- [Things I'm learning about Arizona](https://rachelvb.com/things-im-learning-about-arizona/) - 1. Apparently when the light rail doors have closed and it's still at the station and you're late for work, all you have to do is push the yellow button instead of frantically waiving at the driver to let you in.
- [Like riding a bicycle](https://rachelvb.com/like-riding-a-bicycle/) - This morning I set my alarm early and actually woke up to the chiming. The morning before I slept in about an hour and a half past it without any knowledge it had even gone off.
- [The importance of a walking writer](https://rachelvb.com/the-importance-of-a-walking-writer/) - "It's very important NOT to be bored. Like for no longer than a minute."
- [Today, I asked the Oracle...](https://rachelvb.com/today-i-asked-the-oracle/) - Funny how we hunker down in our little canoes in the middle of the scummy green swamp and wait and wait for hope to appear, for ghosts to die and come back as bodies. * from “The Lord God Returns” by Susan Wood
- [This is the view](https://rachelvb.com/this-is-the-view/) - You can see the planes flying by. Some high and traveling farther west. Some low and landing. I missed my first Haboob. That's what they call dust storms here that come from the mountains like a giant starving mouth.
- [Filing](https://rachelvb.com/filing/) - Friday night I went here a little independent movie theater/bar for a "meet and greet" sort of thing with the design studio. But it was more of a meet and see how many people are in the studio from Ohio (there's a billion oddly) drink and talk about picas and if our jobs will even exist in 10 years. It was amazing actually. To be out in the city at night for the first time.
- [It all started with a picture of a house](https://rachelvb.com/it-all-started-with-a-picture-of-a-house/) - Well, I have a couch. Pat's sister and I reassembled it last night and even in the air conditioning I was sweatin' the sin outta me. Is this like a chemical imbalance sort of thing or has it just been 115 degrees for the past 4 days?
- [Roxane Gay's guide to being friends with women](https://rachelvb.com/roxane-gays-guide-to-being-friends-with-women/) - Roxane Gay's guide to being friends with women
- [Who needs oven racks when you have the sidewalk?](https://rachelvb.com/who-needs-oven-racks-when-you-have-the-sidewalk/) - This morning driving into work, the palm trees parted and downtown lay under a dusty heat blanket. 9 am and 100 degrees. These next few days are sure to be something I've never felt before. By Friday it will be 115. If I could just stop sweating, thin out the Northeastern blood I've built, I might survive the summer.
- [Road thoughts](https://rachelvb.com/road-thoughts/) - I found a bunch of thoughts I jotted down in the notes section of my phone. My mind writes best on the road, which is hard for my hands, which makes me think about those voice activated computers that you can talk and they listen by typing everything you tell them.
- [What is the sky anyway/ but a reply to the earth - Elaine Equi](https://rachelvb.com/what-is-the-sky-anyway-but-a-reply-to-the-earth-elaine-equi/) - From the poem "Self Portrait as you"
- [Just waiting to unload](https://rachelvb.com/just-waiting-to-unload/) - Pat finally left Wilkes-Barre. His dad flew out and they packed the U-Haul in 100 degree heat plus humidity. Yesterday was their first day on the road and 2 grown men with horrible direction, 60 mph in a 17 foot truck hauling a car, a drugged cat who hates the car (and anything out of the norm) and a deadline makes for some grumpy miles ahead.
- [A glittering opportunity - if I fail](https://rachelvb.com/a-glittering-opportunity-if-i-fail/) - Yesterday, I learned about a job opportunity here that I'd never knew existed anywhere else: Vadazzled.
- [Hi, I'm (sluprssssss) Rachel](https://rachelvb.com/hi-im-sluprssssss-rachel/) - How, in a day, can one person go from feeling promised to god-awfully alone? What exactly changed in the last 24 hours? Was it the dream where I came upon a bridge, blocked off and blending the sky, concrete and water in such a way that couldn't see where it ended?
- [Your face, bookmarked](https://rachelvb.com/your-face-bookmarked/) - I've missed reading things in real time. Daily browsing of your flowers, chickens, sons, oceans. Everything is strange for me here and I'm trying not to think about all the things I have to do to become settled. My desk compared to everyone else's is sterile, but covered in dust giving me an eerie feeling that I've been here forever and have yet to make anything.
- [River trip photos and a quick hello](https://rachelvb.com/river-trip-photos-and-a-quick-hello/) - There are about 5 billion more, so if you'd like to waste more of your day here's the link I know I've been away for a loong time - forgive me - I'm living on a futon out of suitcases and trying to learn how to walk again in a new job. As much as I felt unsettled in Pennsylvania,
- [The Last Leg of the journey is always done alone](https://rachelvb.com/the-last-leg-of-the-journey-is-always-done-alone/) - This is it. The last day of my month long driving tour. When I enter Arizona this afternoon I'll have traveled to 16 different states, a few multiple times, in 30 days. This last leg: Little Elm, Texas to Phoenix is 1,070 miles and 17 hours of being in a car with myself. I hope
- [New Mexico is where bananas go to die](https://rachelvb.com/new-mexico-is-where-bananas-go-to-die/) - ...and diesel engines. But thank god for my mechanically inclined step-dad who managed to fix it, but who also just smashed my elbow in between the back seat and truck frame. The past two days I've been up since 5 am with spotty sleep. Part of me wants to curl up on the black top
- [I think I know where you are, he says](https://rachelvb.com/i-think-i-know-where-you-are-he-says/) - Past the clear creek, the rocks electric with lichen, the balding mountain peaks is my past. It's strange being near my boyfriend's hometown and not having him here with me - like I've left my mallard in a tar pit. We traveled this country so many times together taking the lemhi valley highway from Bellevue,
- [Thank the rain in Colorado](https://rachelvb.com/thank-the-rain-in-colorado/) - The forecast predicted clear skies, 80-90 degrees (cooler with each Northern mile.) of course when a prediction or expectation is made, the opposite happens. We entered Colorado after the dullest, blow your brains out drive through Kansas, my sole advice for driving across the country: if you must travel through the hotter than hell's hinges
- [Salinas KS - life is swell on the sunny side](https://rachelvb.com/salinas-ks-life-is-swell-on-the-sunny-side/) - Kansas clouds hang heavy like dormant missiles. The sky a mine field, bomb house waiting for the right weather trigger. The truck stereo plays big bands 4 - trumpeters in white suits, glamorous women in turquoise gowns - in the heart of Kansas time has rewound 70 years. The world was at war. And from
- [Crumb and get it](https://rachelvb.com/crumb-and-get-it/) - In Virginia while mom and I were trying to find a hotel room that first night, we passed at cookie shop called 'Crumb and Get It.' And in Oklahoma entering the city limits, you're still 22 miles out from downtown. Three anthracite crows pow-wowed in a grassy median. 'I wonder what they are plotting?' mom
- [Soft water](https://rachelvb.com/soft-water/) - Warm up coffee is a good place to start. Yogurt or cereal next. Small decisions help the mind focus on tasks not silence. Sugar sinks to the bottom. Bank errands, buying worm poison for the red buds keeps it all in perspective. I have more power than i think. Within my hands - the ability
- [Let the displacement begin](https://rachelvb.com/let-the-displacement-begin/) - Im in the middle of no where. In a quiet house where the only noise is a running refrigerator and the swallows nesting on the back porch. My friends are miles behind me and I'm not going back. My love is in an odd transition zone of gearing up to say goodbye, but still having
- [twitter photos](https://rachelvb.com/twitter-photos/) - So being mobile these past few days and for the next month, I can't upload photos to my blog through my phone and facebook is private, but if you want to be friends on facebook for photo reasons I certainly won't deny you. Anywhoo, I have instagram, but can't figure that out really and then
- [Part of the flock](https://rachelvb.com/part-of-the-flock/) - How long does it take to mow 8 acres of bermuda grass? Oh about 2 hours on a scag turf tiger zero turn mower! I've been put to work already - arriving last night to marinated prime rib, baked potatoes, Whitewater IPA from sam adams in a frosty mug and salad drizzled in fig vinegarette. (those were our terms for waffle hostages. They were met with flying colors.)
- [One hostage down](https://rachelvb.com/one-hostage-down/) - MOm and I are getting delusional. Maybe it's the pure sugar cane root beer or Arkansas itself (which oddly reminds me of the central valley in California where I grew up, but don't tell anyone that.) rice patties snake along the highway. High trees enclose you making it feel as if there's some mystery beyond
- [I-40 west](https://rachelvb.com/i-40-west/) - Last night we wanted to stay in Bucksnort, TN (for obvious reasons) but all it had was an adult superstore and a travel lodge rooms for $30. We passed. I had a wonderful birthday full of wild black berries, North Carolina's blue ridge parkway, 76 degrees, 12 bones BBQ in Asheville, a hostess cupcake (road
- [Happy 28 to me!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-28-to-me/) - Today is my birthday. 28. I wish I could post pics through my phone to the blog because I'd show you the massive storm that rolled through southern Virginia. Our original plan was to spend the night in Roanoke but because of the other massive storm on Friday ALL the hotels were totally full of
- [My dear friends](https://rachelvb.com/my-dear-friends/) - Sizzling potatoes and their golden smell wafting from the kitchen; Pat is still asleep after a long, wonderful birthday/going away party he and my dear friends threw for me last night. This week has exhausted me like a labor. I was trying not to fall asleep at midnight, sitting in a hammock chair in a screened-in porch on a hot night with a fan blowing on my back - sounds hard right?!
- [Last day at work](https://rachelvb.com/last-day-at-work/) - On my last day at work I've: gotten a rejection, but a very nice rejection for 5 poems, eaten two pieces of pizza, got a card from co-workers, drank a sprite, cleaned out my desk of saltine crackers
- [The Early Jobs of 24 Famous Writers ](https://rachelvb.com/the-early-jobs-of-24-famous-writers/) - Listed here on Mental Floss We all gotta do it. Sigh.
- [This product may contain allergens](https://rachelvb.com/this-product-may-contain-allergens/) - Feeling my teeth break into peanut meat is the most pleasing thing I've done all day.
- [Follow the yellow brick road](https://rachelvb.com/follow-the-yellow-brick-road/) - I'm supposed to be looking at routes to take for my journey, then relay those routes to my mom who will then go to AAA to get maps - real live paper maps that no one uses anymore because we all have smart phones - at least one person out of 2 in a vehicle will.
- [Smart Phone](https://rachelvb.com/smart-phone/) - Clouds distort in the sky's fish eye. Washing oil sheen from my hands, they prism momentarily, dull just as quickly in Orwellian florescents.
- [89 and counting](https://rachelvb.com/89-and-counting/) - My Grandma, Bernice, is 89 today. No one is as independent. No one loves seals and birds and cats and polar bears as much. No one hates George W. more.
- [Ugly, you whispered, to me you are beautiful](https://rachelvb.com/ugly-you-whispered-to-me-you-are-beautiful/) - I cannot change the ugly sounds that once scalded my throat. One kick, one slammed car door, one yell I would have run. Steady rain licked red dirt I watched neighbors' porch lights weave in winded trees through the window. You kissed my chest and, in me, the ugliness needing to be horse-broken. You had
- [Nothing is ever tied up in bows.](https://rachelvb.com/nothing-is-ever-tied-up-in-bows/) - How can one desk absorb an echo? One chair muffle the sound of space? Of emptiness? I tiptoed around the room as if I might wake a baby, my once soft steps became cavernous without wood and pulp to grab hold of them.
- [One week to launch](https://rachelvb.com/one-week-to-launch/) - A storm seized the house this morning. Pouring rain, lightning jolting me out of sleep like a flat-lining patient: I left my half-dry clothes on the clothes line last night. Shit. Second washes never hurt, I guess. Who needs to wear pants anyway?
- [Does this look like an adventure or what?!](https://rachelvb.com/does-this-look-like-an-adventure-or-what/) - In less than a month, this is where I'll be. At the put in of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. I'm prepared to get soaking wet.
- [Sand Sunset](https://rachelvb.com/sand-sunset/) - Sand Sunset
- [If not me, her](https://rachelvb.com/if-not-me-her/) - I just saw the video of my cousin Jennifer and, now cousin-in law, Izzy's wedding this morning under my covers and it made me weepie and so damn happy I was able to be there. This is my family.
- [Lost](https://rachelvb.com/lost/) - I may be lost. I may always be lost. But I'll never be stuck.
- [Cold Turkey](https://rachelvb.com/cold-turkey/) - Riding the advice from the beautiful poet, Melissa Green, I have decided to stop pursuing publication of individual poems in literary magazines for at least a year. Why? Because I'm fucking tired.
- [More Maui'd photos](https://rachelvb.com/more-mauid-photos/) - Here's a few I'll post here and then if you'd like to check out more I added some to flikr Click on the link. You know the drill
- ["Atticus," Noisettes](https://rachelvb.com/atticus-noisettes/) - "Atticus," Noisettes
- [Maui'd photos!](https://rachelvb.com/mauid-photos/) - Here's the first batch of photos taken with my phone. My camera ones are still waiting for me to download/process/pull my hair out. So I'll get to those eventually.
- [336 hours to exit](https://rachelvb.com/336-hours-to-exit/) - I should be packing and making salvation army runs and notifying electric companies of our eminent departure, but instead I slept in until 10:30 and I made a cup of Maui coffee that was too expensive, but brought home anyway.
- [Maui'd](https://rachelvb.com/mauid/) - I'm too tired to write (laziness may have a part in this), so I'll make a list of the things I don't want to forget from the past week and then tomorrow I'll add a place for pictures and go through the hundreds that I took in Maui.
- [Sonar](https://rachelvb.com/sonar/) - The sun has barely risen. Outside the scren door a palm tree cuts my view of the pale sky in half. Faint feathers fall like bottled messages wandering aimless space. The birds echo sonar through the tre tops. I've never needed to know what they were saying. It's their secret language and I believe there's
- [Aloha from Kihei](https://rachelvb.com/aloha-from-kihei/) - After 9 hours in an airplane, 6 of which were over the pacific ocean, I had never been so excited to see land. This is my first trip to anywhere remotely tropical and I'm beginning to think living on mainland all these years was a grave grave mistake. Not having been here for 24 hrs
- [Bushcraft (a term for wilderness survival skills)](https://rachelvb.com/bushcraft-a-term-for-wilderness-survival-skills/) - Iowa is a strange country. Beautiful and strange. The hills roll like bunched quilts stitching corn rows. Life is the same there today as it was yesterday. Tractors hum up and down main street in Cascade
- [Thank God I'm the Van](https://rachelvb.com/thank-god-im-the-van/) - Whoever was searching for 'rachel blankenship nude' 'rachel blankenship playboy issue' I can tell you right now you're in the wrong place.
- [Moon-pulling ghost](https://rachelvb.com/moon-pulling-ghost/) - I've dreamed this lake before. Or have I been there, driving the perimeter, not knowing what's reality; what's a dream? Lake Tahoe does exist outside myself. It takes a few hours to circle the water in a car and I suppose the lake in my dream last night was Lake Tahoe, but it felt more familiar than that. Like my body of water.
- [Neils' wheelless 24‏ - Final installment - the Gramps has arrived](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-24‏-final-installment-the-gramps-has-arrived/) - 24. May 31, 2012. At home, at last. When we last left our traveler, Neil was heading for the German hotel. He got there without incident and went to sleep.
- [Neil's wheelless 22‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-22‏-2/) - 23. Morning, my time, on May 30, 2012. Neil’s half-way home. Short version: After Istanbul airport chaos, Neil arrived in Germany. Long version: By 4:45 in the morning, Neil was checked in and ready to go.
- [Happy Belated Blog Birthday](https://rachelvb.com/happy-belated-blog-birthday/) - It was May 12 and I missed it. Better late than never. Happy 2nd birthday, blog! Being a part of me, I don't think your feelings are too hurt. You know as I know we've been pretty absorbed in ourselves the past few months.
- [My amazing race](https://rachelvb.com/my-amazing-race/) - My schedule for the next two months: May 31-June 4: Pat's cousin's wedding in Iowa (we are driving. To Iowa. Wait ... where is Iowa? oh, 14 hours away!) June 6: Important emotional dinner - mucho drinks required June 7: Dentist; therapy
- [Neil's wheelless 22‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-22‏/) - 22. May 29, 2011. Friends; The guy can’t catch a break. Neil was supposed to leave Istanbul today. He called from the airport at 7:30 PM our time (5:30 AM, his time) to report that he had gotten to the airport OK, 3 hours early, and his baggage was all checked in. We wished him a happy flight.
- [Memorial Day weekend with our Brooklyn girl](https://rachelvb.com/memorial-day-weekend-with-our-brooklyn-girl/) - Brooklyn came this weekend and after she arrived, we decided to clean. Not the bathroom, but her sheets were line-dried and we gave her a fresh crunchy towel. Pat did all the dishes - our 5 glasses, 3 bowls, 5 plates now that everything else is packed.
- [Amputee](https://rachelvb.com/amputee/) - I want to disappear. Just for a while. Not answer e-mails, phone calls, text messages. I want to start feeling like myself again - lose 15 lbs, fit into dresses I could 6 months ago, look in the mirror and recognize past face and skin the ?woman? inside her own body.
- [Neil's wheelless 21‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-21‏/) - 21. Neil’s Wheelless May 26, 2012 Merhaba, benim arkadaşlarım. (Or, “Hello, my friends.” for those who don’t speak Turkish).
- [‎"Loving leaves stretch marks" - Marge Piercy](https://rachelvb.com/‎loving-leaves-stretch-marks-marge-piercy/) - ‎"Loving leaves stretch marks" - Marge Piercy that is all
- [It takes 10 minutes to drive to work](https://rachelvb.com/it-takes-10-minutes-to-drive-to-work/) - On my way in to work I tried to save a little gray kitten that had run into the middle on an intersection and then up into some woman's spare tire - while she was in the right turn lane. So I immediately pulled over and put on my flashers and three other people and I were trying to find this poor baby gray fluff - it was so small!
- [Ask the Oracle](https://rachelvb.com/ask-the-oracle/) - This is a pretty cool link from Rebecca Loudon's blog. The best way to find out about your life anyway is to read poems. That's what I think anyway.
- [Hey You!](https://rachelvb.com/hey-you/)
- [Gather Kindling Issue 5](https://rachelvb.com/gather-kindling-issue-5/) - There's finally a link to purchase Gather Kindling Issue 5. I still haven't seen it yet, but I have all the faith in the world that it lingers like spilled cologne.
- [Philafelphia](https://rachelvb.com/philafelphia/) - We got away this weekend, thank god, a late birthday present for Pat and went to a Phillies game against the Red Sox on Friday. We arrived late, but saw 2 homeruns and ate like college students and drank $8 beer. Heaven. And then we went out to South street at midnight and watched all the drunk people getting drunker.
- [Dream fragments](https://rachelvb.com/dream-fragments/) - Last night I had a dream I was pulling a giant sliver from the bottom of my foot. I don't remember any pain, but Pat was there watching me squeeze this sharp, brown pin with my thumbs. I was able to extract the entire thing without it breaking in two.
- [Neil's wheelless 19‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-19‏/) - Sic transit Neil. I got an email from Fadime. Neil is under her care, again. The photos and her email says it all. -Steve
- [Neil's wheelless 18‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-18‏/) - 18. May 17, 2012 Attention Neil stalkers: Neil stays true to his pattern. He continues to talk with anyone that he can. He has had conversations with:
- [My body's revolt](https://rachelvb.com/my-bodys-revolt/) - I was productive this morning for about 20 minutes. And already I've hit a before noon wall. That picture of the iris with it's head flopped over - that's how I feel today. I wouldn't mind being a flopped over iris today if it meant I could lay in the sun in the dirt in the garden.
- [Heavy heads make us fall over](https://rachelvb.com/heavy-heads-make-us-fallover/) - Heavy heads make us fall over
- [Devotion, in my book](https://rachelvb.com/i-hate-church-but-i-love-the-bells/) - Hanging laundry on the line, the bells extended over the row houses into my square, sunlit yard. Why were they reaching out now, I wondered? To tell me it was noon? Church has never been a welcome place for me.
- [Dues are up](https://rachelvb.com/dues-are-up/) - I'm wondering what I should do this morning. It's such a warm, beautiful morning that I had to pull the covers over my head to sleep in. Another night shift tonight - I ride them pretty easily,
- [Neil's wheelless 17‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-17‏/) - 17. May 15, 2012 Dear Vicarious Travelers; Neil called first thing this morning. The first item of business is a retraction of a previously made statement: the Turks do speak English as well as, if not better than, the Iranians. Neil’s hasty judgment was caused by a sampling error. He had not talked to enough people.
- [Neil's wheelless 16‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-16‏/) - 16. May 12, 2012 Dear Birdwatcher; Don’t you just hate it when some family member calls up and yacks away forever - blocking your phone line. I know that I do. And, so does Neil. Therefore, he called up, gave me some quick details and got off the line.
- [Neil's Wheelless 15‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-15‏/) - Dear Van Guardians; Daddy-o is doing well. He is happy and also proud that he is navigating on his own. He is also tired from walking and climbing steps because there is so much good stuff to see.
- [Additions](https://rachelvb.com/additions/) - It's raining on all the sparrows. Inside my beautiful old house, I drink a billowing latte, knowing this will not be my house much longer. There are things inside this place I have never done -
- [Phoenix, we are moving to Phoenix](https://rachelvb.com/phoenix-we-are-moving-to-phoenix/) - I had the day off yesterday by accident. We are working these god awful night shifts and a little scheduling mishap rewarded me with A FULL DAY OFF FOR NO REASON. I'll have to make it up eventually, but maybe no one will notice and by the time they do I'll be gone. I had grand ideas of writing the day away,
- [What we do seems so unnatural](https://rachelvb.com/what-we-do-seems-so-unnatural/) - Yesterday, I watched women smoking in the rain under a pine tree. Sitting and standing around a red park bench, their smoke trailing up in fingers; rain intermittently falling down like a leaky roof.
- [We are coming home](https://rachelvb.com/we-are-coming-home/) - By the end of July, this is where I will be. By August, this is where Pat will be too. I've been sitting on this giant egg for quite some time and finally am able to let a little peak out. I'm terrified, but so ready. We are coming home.
- [Neil's wheelless 11‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-11‏/) - 11. May 3, 2012 Dear Leader’s followers; We got another overseas call last night. Neil’s cold is better and he is feeling stronger. Stronger than what, I don’t know. When the group visits a mosque, they do not have to remove their shoes.
- [Neil's wheelless 10‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-10‏/) - Hey you; The good news just keeps coming: 1. Two more people have promised to donate to the ransom fund, one with all of his pocket change and another with some post-vacation left-over Mexican coins.
- [It's a chex mix BOLD party mix, red vines, coke zero sort of day](https://rachelvb.com/its-a-chex-mix-bold-party-mix-red-vines-coke-zero-sort-of-day/) - Damn, this day. I don't even know how it happened. All I did was wake up. Have you seen "Stranger than Fiction"? That scene where the professor tells Will Farrell NOT TO DO ANYTHING all day and see if the plot is driven forward.
- [Neil's wheelless 9‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-9‏/) - Dearly beloved; When last we left our intrepid traveler, he was in Shiraz, in the middle of a religious festival where, out of respect, the cars do not use their horns.
- [Neil's Wheelless 8](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-8/) - Steve - please say "no" to camel heads. And tell the 7-year-old when he's old enough AND if (and only if) he has enough money, I'll marry him. But he has to come here.
- [Almost here!](https://rachelvb.com/almost-here/) - I just got the galleys (galley - just one) for Gather Kindling. I'm super excited and have been waiting for this to come out for months - May 1! I'm broke and that's when rent is due, but maybe it won't seem so bad when I have a poem coming out the same day.
- [Neil's wheeless 7‏](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheeless-7‏/) - Friends Watching Neil; Telephone answering machines are great inventions. If you are not at home, you can still get a message.
- [We Found Love](https://rachelvb.com/we-found-love/) - I've never seen Rihanna's video version though - wow. Her videos are pretty stunning - stark, real, dangerous. What a force this woman is.
- [2 bad ass covers by Ingrid Michaelson](https://rachelvb.com/2-bad-ass-covers-by-ingrid-michaelson/)
- [He was beautiful. And then he fell](https://rachelvb.com/he-was-beautiful-and-then-he-fell/)
- [The docks](https://rachelvb.com/the-docks/) - All I wanted was for you to come down to the docks. I was already there, listening to the water, but not seeing anything at all, sensing, the way you manage a dark hallway, that there were objects in front of me, behind me, above me and below.
- [3am sucks](https://rachelvb.com/3am-sucks/) - That is all
- [Neil's wheelless 6‏ - note my uncle is not "crazy" he prefers deranged ](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheelless-6‏-note-my-uncle-is-not-crazy-he-prefers-deranged/) - The latest installment of my Grandpa's adventures have him slowly easing all Iranians into loving old American men. He should get a peace prize that one. Sending him safe travels still.
- [Marsh Horse](https://rachelvb.com/marsh-horse/)
- [Another one bites the tile](https://rachelvb.com/another-one-bites-the-tile/) - Last night I stayed up too late downloading free books on Pat's kindle - stuff he won't ever read, but THEY WERE FREE! And classics like Poe and Bleak House and The Wizard of Oz.
- [There are worse addictions](https://rachelvb.com/there-are-worse-addictions/) - My mom is coming! In one week! I have no idea what we are going to do yet, but I don't care! I just hope the weather is nice and not like it is now - 40 and rainy and possible snow.
- [I need to start writing my "fictions"](https://rachelvb.com/i-need-to-start-writing-my-fictions/) - "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories.just change their height and hair color. No one ever once has recognized him or herself in my fiction. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better." — Anne Lamott
- [Orange Lemon rolls and Cardinals](https://rachelvb.com/orange-lemon-rolls-and-cardinals/) - I was a lump of poo yesterday. Woke up at 10:30 am and showered at 2. Pat made orange/lemon rolls and I helped him kneed the dough when it stuck to his fingers becoming a sticky yeast monster.
- [In bed on Monday morning](https://rachelvb.com/in-bed-on-monday-morning/) - I have one eye open to reality and one eye closed to dreams
- [And And And...](https://rachelvb.com/and-and-and/) - Today is another night shift. I woke up too early and will definitely fall asleep at my desk once 11:15 pm rolls around. I'm still bitter about all of it, but am pretending what's it's like if writing were my real day job.
- [Neil's Wheels part 5](https://rachelvb.com/neils-wheels-part-5/) - I know I've not posted parts 1, 2, 3 or 4, but today I thought I'd share that my 84-year-old Grandpa Neil is once again travelling the world while I have to read about it from a stinking desk. He's in Iran for now
- [My beer and Frida's](https://rachelvb.com/my-beer-and-fridas/) - "I very much enjoy the days in which time seems to move slowly. I sit in front of my canvas, drink my beer and adorn myself in the infinite possibilities of the white." - Frida Khalo.
- [When an O- meets an O+](https://rachelvb.com/when-an-o-meets-an-o/) - When you live with a hemophiliac, you get used to seeing blood in strange places. This morning a red dollop lay on the stairs followed by two small splatters.
- [Wipe the Grid](https://rachelvb.com/wipe-the-grid/) - I was just invited by my step-dad for a 3.5 week rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. God I want to go. God I can't. I hope there's some time in my life where I might feel free enough
- [2 floor office space](https://rachelvb.com/2-floor-office-space/) - I've been reading emails, trying to settle into a comfortable, peaceful place today: the daily rumpus newsletter which sometimes feels too long to read in the mornings, but today was a good one
- [53](https://rachelvb.com/53/) - may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple and even if it's Sunday may I be wrong for whenever men are right they are not young - e.e. Cummings
- [Forever in the unsolicited pile](https://rachelvb.com/forever-in-the-unsolicited-pile/) - This is a sorry day. It apologizes with bouquets of sun and notes from friends, but I don't accept. This morning I perfectly measured oatmeal and thought, today will be perfect.
- [Gifts from the late 80s, early 90s](https://rachelvb.com/gifts-from-the-late-80s-early-90s/) - My dad found these photos yesterday among his house clutter. My mom made this ice cream dress. I remember the rouching machine she had even though there's no rouching on this one. It's long strange silver fingers. She did cross-stitch the cones.
- [The hibernating Tula Bear](https://rachelvb.com/the-hibernating-tula-bear/) - Last night it dipped down to 40 degrees and we woke up this morning freezing with open windows. It's been so nice lately, the lilacs in shotgun position.
- [It's fixed, he says](https://rachelvb.com/its-fixed-he-says/) - The annoying thing about the internet and blogs and interwebs in general is that when things don't work, you can't reach inside and shake things around, take out the disk and blow on the insides because you tell yourself all it needs is a little fresh air ... from your mouth ... with spit in it.
- [Miriam](https://rachelvb.com/miriam/) - There's a really great new song from Norah Jones on the NPR website. It's called "Miriam" and it's dark and murderous and the music is so calming, it seems heartbreaking at first, but so full of wrath. It's surprising in every way, especially coming from Norah Jones who has never sang a song like this
- [My walk is a lot like your walk](https://rachelvb.com/my-walk-is-a-lot-like-your-walk/) - Gray bag full of empty keylight cans crumpled lotto ticket garbage sweating inside yellow plastic Sausage McMuffin paper
- [Henri 2, Paw de Deux - Chat Noir](https://rachelvb.com/henri-2-paw-de-deux-chat-noir/) - "The whipped cream in the bathroom is not whipped cream"
- [This sucks](https://rachelvb.com/this-sucks/) - My therapist said to write about other things too. She must not be a poet, but I see what she means. The healthy vs digging nature of obsession. How can I not write about something I think about every day most of the day? That's probably not healthy either. I'm at work right now under false light
- [Pretending your a cat day](https://rachelvb.com/pretending-your-a-cat-day/) - Today, we start the night shifts at work. They've been shuffling people around to other community papers and decided not to rehire the positions where there are holes - ununionized us - we get to fill the holes on top of our normal jobs without extra pay.
- [To be held](https://rachelvb.com/to-be-held/) - I had a small moment today, driving home pitch black, where a sigh left my body in a whimper. I became a small girl filled with so much adult sadness. I miss her today and that's all - no there's more than that. I'm sorry she can't see what I see. I'm sorry she's scared.
- [Happy 13th!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-13th/) - I like Friday the 13th - it's the date Pat and I started dating and nothing bad has ever happened to me on Friday the 13th. Do whatever you want, stop making scaredy-cat excuses. Today, definitely sky dive.
- [Three years ago today...](https://rachelvb.com/three-years-ago-today/) - ... a little person pointed at me on a dance floor and said "I want that one." Nothing has ever been the same since.
- [Sidewalk treasures](https://rachelvb.com/sidewalk-treasures/) - I found some interesting treasures this morning walking to work. 1. a post-it sized note next to the court house with the names:
- [Fertilizing](https://rachelvb.com/fertilizing/) - I'm starting to arrange my poems from this handy dandy essay about grouping poems I found on P&W by Katrina Vandenberg. This is what happens when you teach yourself (or try to teach yourself) new things.
- [Crock Pot Closure](https://rachelvb.com/crock-pot-closure/) - I told myself that if your car was in the driveway, I wasn't going to drop off your crock pot. I wanted to make sure you weren't home, that there was no chance of awkward encounters.
- [Nitrogen's dark side](https://rachelvb.com/nitrogens-dark-side/) - Tulips are teacups everywhere except my yard. I've either missed them entirely or they refuse to enter my spring. The grape hyacinth become unwanted hairs I razor down with a push mower.
- [Peeling garlic is satisfying in every way](https://rachelvb.com/peeling-garlic-is-satisfying-in-every-way/) - Pat is becoming quite the baker - last weekend he made a blackberry cake that required a special pan that required him GOING TO THE STORE and today he made banana bread without nuts (he says nuts ruin things) I think nuts make a party, but I'm enjoying his new hobbies: brewing beer and baking - all of which are making my stomach jiggle.
- [Looped](https://rachelvb.com/looped/) - I ate too much queso from the jar, contemplating my life lately. Came to no conclusions other than an empty sort of drone sensation. It's been a month since I lost a friend and I'm trying to run around all the scenarios, wondering how one gets over such a thing.
- [Who in the world](https://rachelvb.com/who-in-the-world/) - "i wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?'" - Lewis Carroll
- [Keep dreaming](https://rachelvb.com/keep-dreaming/) - I admit it, I got my ticket. More accurately I got a co-worker to get me two tickets. $1 each. Big spender, I know, but why not? Every one is talking about this. A co-worker said his girlfriend in Japan called him last night telling him to buy. I heard a girl on the news say she was going to buy race cars if she won WHAT A STUPID THING TO BUY
- ["My Head Is An Animal," by Of Monsters and Men](https://rachelvb.com/my-head-is-an-animal-by-of-monsters-and-men/)
- [poof](https://rachelvb.com/poof/) - It's times like today when I'm completely overwhelmed with my work and what to do with that I wish I went to grad school - like someone there would magically poof it for me and all of it would come together. I'm literally without direction other than the random finds from the internet. How the
- [Unpolished](https://rachelvb.com/unpolished/) - I want to rip off the nail — you —
- [Driftwood dream](https://rachelvb.com/driftwood-dream/) - I had the most beautiful dream last night with my mom - a green dream, foggy on the Oregon or Washington Coast. Mist fell in pockets between dark trees.
- [Baby Natalie Nubs](https://rachelvb.com/baby-natalie-nubs/) - This is another friends' miracle baby - Miss Natalie. She was about 3 years in the making and born 5lbs 6oz 2 months ago. They asked me to take a few pictures of their nub - I got a few smiles and then she crashed. But she makes a good model.
- [“Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together”  ― Marilyn Monroe](https://rachelvb.com/sometimes-things-fall-apart-so-that-better-things-can-fall-together-―-marilyn-monroe/)
- [What does it take to be lonesome? Nothing at all](https://rachelvb.com/what-does-it-take-to-be-lonesome-nothing-at-all/) - "Lonesome," Dr. Dog Sometimes the things we experience by chance make the greatest impacts. I think - I hope - that's why I try to experience all that I can even if it's something I never thought I would do. Get a tattoo? Yes. Eat tongue? hmm, how is it prepared. Move to Nebraska? yeah,
- [‎"It's better to help people than garden gnomes." - Amelie](https://rachelvb.com/‎its-better-to-help-people-than-garden-gnomes-amelie/)
- [Chicken Little](https://rachelvb.com/chicken-little/) - Do you believe in bad omens, luck, juju? Does a cockroach practically falling on your head from an exit sign in my building count? I'm watching my back today. The sky is falling.
- [Sway](https://rachelvb.com/sway/) - Why does everything to music sound so much better? Why does it have so much more meaning? I was listening to a Weepies favorite of mine "Can't Go Back Now" and all of it together - the music, voices, words do so much more than alone. Isolated it seems so simple, without form or guts.
- [The Secret World of Alex Mack](https://rachelvb.com/the-secret-world-of-alex-mack/) - Last night I bought new poet boots for $8! That means they are serious poet boots because poets are poor mostly and the fact that I can get something so wonderful on my feet for $8 is a miracle! They aren't even my size, but fit which makes them more of a miracle. Here's a
- [They made it to a blog!](https://rachelvb.com/they-made-it-to-a-blog/) - My beautiful sister (I can call her that since she practically is) and her now husband had their wedding featured on the "Love Well Styled" blog. Not that that should mean anything to you, I've never heard of the blog, but THEY ARE ON IT! And I'm in the little yellow dress. Check it out
- [Things I want today:](https://rachelvb.com/things-i-want-today/) - 1. A keyboard @. A Banjo 3. Eileen Myles' new collection: Snowflake/Different Streets $. The hottest kiss from someone I love - with tongue with guts 5. Swan Dives ^. Money for a new tattoo 7. An idea for a new tattoo *. A new job 9. A bloody nose - it's been a while
- [New Music Tuesday - "It's Time," by Imagine Dragons](https://rachelvb.com/new-music-tuesday/)
- [Past noon on a whatday](https://rachelvb.com/past-noon-on-a-whatday/) - When I woke up this morning I wasn't sure what day it was. My hope was that it was Wednesday because Thursday I'm getting a massage, but I still need to shave my legs which might be a two-day affair - one never knows. That's why I didn't wish it was Thursday. I'm sorry if
- [Fruit Salad](https://rachelvb.com/fruit-salad/) - This is my mom's new raft - an electric orange tangerine I hope to see bobbing down a river soon. My step-dad calls this photo "Fruit Salad." Normally, if she were "en-route" she'd be wearing a mango-colored wet suit - only in the big waves, the little waves are relaxing and don't require much work
- [There is comfort in a shot glass](https://rachelvb.com/there-is-comfort-in-a-shot-glass/) - I've been dealing with a very impersonal end to what was a meaningful friendship and love. The impact of this loss has hit me head on - my brain and heart have been painfully raw. I look in the mirror and a red-eyed ghoul glares back at me. I can feel my hunger fading, the
- [Poets are everything](https://rachelvb.com/poets-are-everything/) - mismatched socks on clotheslines, gold flakes around the rim of a shot glass, tattoos, car fluids, cotton dust orbiting like satellites. We are failures and mechanics. We are immense sneezes and skin biters. We are compressed pieces of cork crumbling particle by particle in life's hands. We are crock pots. We are complicated. We pick
- ["The Secret About," Anonymous from theRumpus.net](https://rachelvb.com/the-secret-about-anonymous-from-therumpus-net/) - "Like everyone in this world and out of it, I have a relentlessly complicated relationship with sex. Sex is my back-rubbing, silky-voiced soulmate who sometimes—more frequently than once a full moon—goes werewolf on my physical, psychological, and emotional makeup. Sex is my self-love and my self-hate. Sex is my pride and my shame." "The Secret
- [Sneeze, please](https://rachelvb.com/sneeze-please/) - I'm breathing on half a nostril right now. What I originally thought was spring spawn flitting through the air ducts at work has manifested into a head cold. Either that or I'm allergic to douche bags - there's been a lot of those around lately. It's hard not to suck other people in when you
- [Poliça "Wandering Star"](https://rachelvb.com/polica-wandering-star/) - This makes me want to be in a band. Too bad my doppelganger is much cooler than me.
- [The Nemean Lion Ate My Wish Years Ago](https://rachelvb.com/the-nemean-lion-ate-my-wish-years-ago/) - Your first star, little love, was Venus. I didn’t have the heart to tell you your wish was lost orbiting our sun’s falling reign.
- [I'm new at this - don't watch](https://rachelvb.com/im-new-at-this-dont-watch/) - I got my favorite "letter in the mail" so far last night. From a poet named Matthew Zapruder. He talks about fear when writing and how it's supposed to be there because when you write there's the chance you might change who you are and there's a chance you might change who your reader is - and that should be scary.
- [A wing trapped in dirt](https://rachelvb.com/a-wing-trapped-in-the-earth/) - I can't stand that I'm here right now in front of my computer. I want to pout and hate myself and throw every awful thing I think about my work, life choices, creative abilities. My jacket smells mildewed, water-logged and dried. There are too many times I wash my clothes and leave them for days
- [The B-side is scratched to hell.](https://rachelvb.com/the-b-side-is-scratched-to-hell/) - I've been brain numb for a while kicking meds out of my body, half in and half out. Move too fast and I fizz, hear car wrecks before they actually happen. Some part of me wants to pluck my eyelashes like a dog licks a raw spot. I know none of this makes sense to
- [Dragon Tattoo intro sequence](https://rachelvb.com/dragon-tattoo-intro-sequence/) - I don't know how many of you have seen the movie - the book uh huh is better - but I have a crush on Rooney Mara now and it all happened in the first 2 minutes of the film. Seeing this on a computer screen doesn't do it justice - it needs to be
- [Lily Kiyo - One Week Old](https://rachelvb.com/lily-kiyo-one-week-old/) - She's not 10lbs yet, but she's doing damn good for her first week in the world. Some women just know how to fight.
- [Excerpt from Inside HigherEd](https://rachelvb.com/excerpt-from-inside-highered/) - Capitalism vs. Art One of the fundamental themes of "Seminar," Rebeck said, is “What does it mean to be an artist in this world we live in now?… What does it mean to be an artist in a capitalist society?” “I’m not so sure that having the critics endorse you is a sign that you’re
- [Photos on Etsy](https://rachelvb.com/photos-on-etsy/) - I've started a new Etsy shop It's a work in progress, so I'll be adding more photos soon
- [Beautiful Baby Girl](https://rachelvb.com/beautiful-baby-girl/) - 4lbs 15oz and 18" gangly inches. Beautiful and healthy and BIG considering. Welcome to the world, little nub
- [Bitty boy or girl Dotter](https://rachelvb.com/bitty-boy-or-girl-dotter/) - My friend Dianne is having her baby today - 3 months early. She's been in the hospital for a month after her water broke because they needed to keep baby cooking. Lungs, heart, kidneys are pretty important for a person - even a person the size of a glow worm. I didn't know it was
- [I had to be sure](https://rachelvb.com/i-had-to-be-sure/) - My hands smell like garlic. And I ate a banana and licked my fingers and strange things happened. Why do some flavors clash with each other? I suppose it's the same reason some people clash with each other - born in different cycles, different dirt. Pat has the flu. I went to the store at
- [Pearl and the Beard photos](https://rachelvb.com/pearl-and-the-beard-photos/) - I should have brought my real camera. I knew it! Damn. Oh well - the phone did ok, actually it did poorly, but we were in the first row, leaning on the stage all night and the last thing I gave a crap about what taking pictures on my phone. Damn these guys are talented.
- [Maintenance Man](https://rachelvb.com/maintenance-man/) - Your breathing rakes leaves of air into a green metal scratching sound on concrete. Rattling inside you is a steady oscillating tool, loose screw. Or perhaps you are mopping the flooding blood. Damn kids, you mumble through a dream, plugging the faucets again, the pipes, my lungs. I watch your nightly maintenance - sighing, snoring.
- [Feeders, Mutuals, Calmers](https://rachelvb.com/feeders-mutuals-calmers/) - I've been thinking about how certain people are takers, feeders and how I whore myself to them and how some part of me gets a strange satisfaction being needed in such a way.
- [Don't forget your black rimmed glasses](https://rachelvb.com/dont-forget-your-black-rimmed-glasses/) - These wonderful people are the reason I'm taking a city jaunt. I'm going to watch their videos all day, wear my pearls and try to grow a beard. My Brookie gal is 27 and her goal for the year is to attend 27 events/shows/plays. I think she's in the 20s already. It's easy to do
- [City bound](https://rachelvb.com/city-bound/) - I get to play all day and walk on city grates that if you look deep enough into, probably lead to hell. I should take my camera.
- [The Daily Rumpus: an excerpt](https://rachelvb.com/the-daily-rumpus-an-excerpt/) - It's better, I think, to strive toward someone instead of swimming away.
- [Museum of Broken Relationships](https://rachelvb.com/museum-of-broken-relationships/) - What happens to the other side of love? We make it, we can break it. And like abandoned buildings, ghosts towns - there are pieces left that are lost and unwanted.
- [(Family warning) Once a boy told me he loved me after a month and I knew he was full of shit...](https://rachelvb.com/family-warning-once-a-boy-told-me-he-loved-me-after-a-month-and-i-knew-he-was-full-of-shit/) - Love IS the old couple in the Wegmans parking lot walking up to their early '90s Ford sedan; the woman saying "I thought we were taking the Jaguar today?" and giggling at the absurdity of such a thought.
- [License plates have ruined my road rage](https://rachelvb.com/license-plates-have-ruined-my-road-rage/) - I never used to have an issue with yelling at people for making severely illegal U-Turns, left turns, one way turns, red light runs, yellow light stops; for driving too slow, driving too fast, not using provided left turn lanes, not turning right on red, riding the stripes. But now everyone has these specialized plates
- [Thoughts?](https://rachelvb.com/thoughts/) - Anyone have any thoughts about small presses, writing contests - to enter or not to enter a listing that probably every other poet on the planet is looking at?
- [Periodic table of waiting](https://rachelvb.com/periodic-table-of-waiting/) - How much do we have to push? How much do we have to wait? And in those two elements is there some chemical reaction, some formula for the catalyst to finally explode and produce said event?
- [Be a kid again](https://rachelvb.com/be-a-kid-again/) - I captured something. A camera flash. 20 seconds of human nothing that I'll remember until I forget. But that's why I'm here. That's why my fingers are clicking in the most annoying way on the keyboard. It was nothing monumental just two brothers each holding a small dog on a leash. The first brother, older,
- [Living with a diva](https://rachelvb.com/living-with-a-diva/) - My bitch cat wouldn't come off the balcony this morning and it's freezing - 26 degrees, but sunny - I certainly couldn't leave the door open all day for her prissy ass to mosey in as she pleased. You want to be outside, Tula, you can be outside! I left her food and water -
- [Artistic integrity ](https://rachelvb.com/artistic-integrity/) - I got my first Letter in the Mail from Marie Calloway. I'm not quite sure what to think of her - but can you really learn who a person is from Google? Maybe... What was most curious is how someone so young is known enough to be a part of such a "scene." She's 21
- [Do I measure up against your life?](https://rachelvb.com/do-i-measure-up-against-your-life/) - I saw a squirrel climbing. That was it, the great line I came up with this morning on the way to work. Deep thoughts. And actually the squirrel wasn't climbing at all, it was suspended, just hanging onto the bark like an ornament or moss. People around here remind me of food.
- [Underwater beauties](https://rachelvb.com/underwater-beauties/) - Russian Photographer, Alexander Semenov took some amazing shots of underwater creatures. Check out his galleries here
- [Polica "Lay Your Cards Out"](https://rachelvb.com/polica-lay-your-cards-out/) - Polica "Lay Your Cards Out" music video
- [Love ends](https://rachelvb.com/love-ends/) - Would we be bad without other people? People need people. People have eaten people. People have raped people. Alone we are safe from harm yet we are lonely. What a species. If there were one human on earth would she be angry? At sun? At auroras she couldn't touch? At the feral dog who would
- [Meant to be seen](https://rachelvb.com/meant-to-be-seen/) - I haven't gone IN in a while. Maybe it's because I've been pretty content and fear is keeping me from dragging my feet against the river bottom. I don't want to deal with all the silt. I don't want to muddy the water. I told my mom that I got my tattoo, so I wouldn't
- [Leave it to Aunt Julie to figure it out...](https://rachelvb.com/leave-it-to-aunt-julie-to-figure-it-out/) - My mom asked. I can't lie. Virginia Elwood is a tattoo goddess. A friend of mine a while ago told me to "put my hand out, write it down, tell the truth." I got the first phrase. 1. Because it scared me and I wanted to conquer a fear of the "tattoo" unknown. 2. Because
- [well-oiled machine](https://rachelvb.com/well-oiled-machine/) - I can't think at length anymore. Everything is short city blocks of thought. This morning is cold, my skin is peeling. I've been told to stay out of the sun, but who purposefully avoids warmth? There is nothing in this post, I'm just out of practice. Gold skin, but underneath just skin and bone. I
- [Am I getting fat when ...](https://rachelvb.com/am-i-getting-fat-when/) - a piece of cheeto falls down my shirt only to be softly absorbed by my belly button - and then I eat it?
- [Dirt day](https://rachelvb.com/dirt-day/) - There's a broken pipe in the ceiling at work. I hope it's not toilet water from upstairs. Every ten minutes or so brown earth comes crashing onto the linoleum - a collection of years, fossils, rat shit and plaster. I'm curious how it got there in the first place, how long it's been there caking,
- [Put your hand out...](https://rachelvb.com/put-your-hand-out/) - It hurt, but we talked shop while I sat under her light. The writing ebb and the squirts you might consider the "flow." She's a writer, too, an artist. I sat like a champ. I didn't tear up. I didn't flinch. I viced bubble mint gum between my teeth and watched a dream become my
- [Gather Kindling](https://rachelvb.com/gather-kindling/) - Saturday, I got word from Gather Kindling that a short poem of mine is going to appear in the March issue. When I first submitted this 3 line poem, I figured it was a long shot, but I did it anyway because I loved the idea of this "magazine." I hope you check it out
- [I want to ride my bicycle](https://rachelvb.com/i-want-to-ride-my-bicycle/) - I was riding my bike up a gravel hill, churning and pushing, fighting so hard my own weight almost tipped me over. I stopped a few times, put my feet down for balance and pushed off again against the pedals with every thing I had. Finally when I made it to the top, I looked
- [Interview with Kim Hyesoon](https://rachelvb.com/interview-with-kim-hyesoon/) - "I gradually realized that speaking as an outsider is the most authentic voice for a poet." Kim Hyesoon A South Korean poet who is rewriting the role for female poets in her native country. Read the whole interview here
- [Letters in the Mail](https://rachelvb.com/letters-in-the-mail/) - I just discovered The Rumpus which is sort of a literary/culture website that's slightly intimidating and hipster-ish, but that I have been lost in for about an hour. The coolest part: Letters in the Mail. "Almost every week you’ll receive a letter, in the mail. Letter writers will include Dave Eggers, Tao Lin, Stephen Elliott,
- [Black hole](https://rachelvb.com/black-hole/) - I keep dreaming about you and I'm not sure why - two appearances two nights ago, one last night. I've stolen your body, breasts, hair, hands and fit them into myself the only way I can. But what dreams are lost in singularity - the core of our black minds? What else have I done
- [My word of the day: Grifter](https://rachelvb.com/my-word-of-the-day-grifter/) - Grifter: -noun Slang. 1. A person who operates a side show at a circus, fair, etc., especially a gambling attraction. 2. a swindler, dishonest gambler, or the like.
- [Sunday Dreams](https://rachelvb.com/sunday-dreams/) - Last night while I was sleeping, I was tortured in a dream by two people I know well, who finally banned together because I had shot their child in the back and murdered him. His bloody body lay in the shadows 30 feet ahead of me. There was no place, no setting, no background other
- [Dutton + O'Farrell = O'Futton wedding](https://rachelvb.com/dutton-ofarrell-ofutton-wedding/) - More wedding pictures! And by more I mean like MOOOOOOOOOOORE. Photos by Ryan Macdonald
- [Clean feet during hibernation is imperative](https://rachelvb.com/clean-feet-during-hibernation-is-imperative/) - I'm turning inside and around. If I could I would hibernate in someone's naval poking my toes out for fresh air.
- [Back to the Future: Irina Werning](https://rachelvb.com/back-to-the-future-irina-werning/) - This is an awesome photo series about then and now. Here's her statement: I love old photos. I admit being a nosey photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for them. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel
- [Runaway](https://rachelvb.com/runaway-2/) - On Saturday, I noticed a silver object floating through our backyard - gracefully, lazily. I went to the window to see what it was and saw a star balloon with a flitting white strand passing into the neighbors yard, over the laundry lines and I followed it until it disappeared among the row houses. I've
- [Good and frothy](https://rachelvb.com/good-and-frothy/) - It's too early for people to be screaming over each other about the Steelers and how terrible Roethlisberger is how terrible a human being Roethlisberger is. There's Chinese characters on the vacation board. I feel wet and feverish. On Friday, our friends had a baby from a surrogate - their baby! And if you knew
- [Galco ](https://rachelvb.com/gunleather/) - I'd like to fall on the floor. Or if it was warm enough grass, but it's not warm enough, the ground is block-ice, so I'd like to fall on the floor and let my cat walk over my chest dimpling circling tracing until she found the right mass. Brass and rivets. She'd use one long
- [Thoisday](https://rachelvb.com/thoisday/) - When I woke up this morning I got another rejection which makes it 3 for 11 poems in 24 hours. Bite the weenie. Fortunately, our aeropress arrived in the mail yesterday along with our nespresso milk frother and it distracted me from crying about it. I also got my Timbuk2 bag in the mail last
- [Eclipsed expectations](https://rachelvb.com/eclipsed-expectations/) - It's colder than a witches asshole this morning! - no that's not right... I feel deflated today and am hoping no one steps on me further or I might explode as my last line of defense. I've already gotten into an imaginary argument with a co-worker because he found out I was a poet and
- [Strange cheese wheels are turning](https://rachelvb.com/strange-cheese-wheels-are-turning/) - In my dream last night, underneath Faith Hill's flawless halo-self, she was a raging bitch and cut me in line and I pouted away to glaze weird pieces of pottery on a farm in Kansas where they made cheese from calves in wooden boxes and grew tomatoes that ripened in threes across a trellis. Consult
- [Our furnace kicked off again last night](https://rachelvb.com/our-furnace-kicked-off-again-last-night/) - It starts in extraneous limbs - your heart, stomach devour warmth like sharks in bloody water - your fingers lose touch and numb. The leaves chime like glass. Newspaper stands capsized in snow. The streets are dusted and empty except the parking lot outside the heating assistance office. Breathing heat is fleeting - the inhale
- [It's here! Menacing Hedge's Winter Edition 2012](https://rachelvb.com/its-here-menacing-hedges-winter-edition-2012/) - I'm so proud and excited to be a part of the winter edition. Be sure to check out the Scary Bush portion where you can read some of my (and others) very first poems and wanderings and get a good chuckle. I really love that they do this - poets take themselves much too seriously
- [Switch](https://rachelvb.com/switch/) - Yesterday morning against the bite, a woman waited on a concrete stoop, cigarette viced in one hand and a styrofoam cup in the other. Her body, covered in red-knit, weaved back and forth to her own music. or high. or crash. When we were in NYC on our way home from the wedding, I passed
- [Love 3x](https://rachelvb.com/love-3x/) - I miss the roundness of Liam's face. His new blue eyes, squid tongue rolling in and out of his lips, the light white grass on his head waiting for miracle grow. And I miss Yohanes' sick fro, beautiful brown skin and joy in his white teeth forever exposed like an open gate - this small
- [Happy Holidays from Mom and me](https://rachelvb.com/happy-holidays-from-mom-and-me/)
- [Off again off again](https://rachelvb.com/off-again-off-again/) - Have a wonderful holiday, not-holiday, sit on your ass, tip over your tree, drink lots of beer, read lots of poetry, tickle baby feet, howl at the moon (is there a moon?), eat your own cookies sort of weekend. I will try to do the same. Love and love and love, Rach
- ["Invocation" by Elaine Equi](https://rachelvb.com/invocation-by-elaine-equi/) - Come Inspiration, sweet as two beautiful hookers in a dream. Don't go girls-- even if you don't know a thing about poetry, at least help me decide what to wear.
- [Oh by golly have a holly jolly](https://rachelvb.com/oh-by-golly-have-a-holly-jolly/)
- [Naughty Nellie](https://rachelvb.com/naughty-nellie/) - The postcards on the wedding tables are over 100 years old, collected from Pat's great grandma in her youth. Love cards, quick notes - what we have modernized as text messages and emails. But sending and receiving took patience. Patience I don't think people have anymore. Nellie was her name. There is such an amazing
- [All I did was push a button - life did the rest](https://rachelvb.com/all-i-did-was-push-a-button-life-did-the-rest/) - All I did was push a button - life did the rest
- [If you close your eyes and listen, where do you go?](https://rachelvb.com/if-you-close-your-eyes-and-listen-where-do-you-go/)
- [Barely Lucid](https://rachelvb.com/barely-lucid/) - I woke up in the middle of the night feeling 8 years old - pouty, anxious, entitled, broken. Why in the strange space between dream and conscious are we at our most vulnerable? The demons seem to prowl at night - spindles and vapors colliding in atmospheres around our bodies. The strange softness of our
- [Galleys!](https://rachelvb.com/galleys/) - I got an email of galleys for "Menacing Hedge" AND I'M ON THERE I'M ACTUALLY ON THERE! Two years ago I didn't even know what the hell "galleys" were - they sound like a mix between gutters and valleys - for the people who (like me) don't (didn't) know what they are: proofs, basically, but
- [Wreaths - as promised](https://rachelvb.com/wreaths-as-promised/) - Sorry for the glare - damn sun!
- [One week](https://rachelvb.com/one-week/) - I feel like someone has been throwing golf balls at my head all day - well not someone LOTS of someones and my contacts are sticking to my eyeballs in bad ways and I'm tired of helping people figure out their problems with computers and bathroom towel dispensers and forks and how do you spell
- [Why do adults lose that?](https://rachelvb.com/why-do-adults-lose-that/) - Yesterday, I watched a little girl prancing after her mother. It was raining lightly, her mother was rushed and the little girl skipped like she was attached with a loose pink ribbon, ignoring the hood on her jacket and looking up at the mist like it was dust from some fairy planet.
- [oh, silly ego](https://rachelvb.com/oh-silly-ego/) - “Maybe it was Marilyn, but I felt more fragile than I usually do on this movie. I felt more dependent on other people’s kindnesses. I would live off a compliment that the camera man gave me for two weeks. It would feed me. It would get me out of bed.” - Michelle Williams on channeling
- [Things that fall when the trees are bare](https://rachelvb.com/things-that-fall-when-the-trees-are-bare/) - Dog shit nuggets Vitamin C Have a nice day! says the gutter bag smiling. Thanks, you too? Picking sparrows hop. Cotton elopes with a cigarette butt Cartilage sheered in a nail salon lot Paper clip Gold light bulb tip A crib marooned in pot holes
- [*Disclaimer* - see I told you](https://rachelvb.com/disclaimer-see-i-told-you/) - I'm grumpy as all hell today. I'd rather curl up under my desk and collect warts and tear at the carpet with staples and paper clips and dump my coffee over and then look like a small puppy or child whose eyes say "I didn't mean to!" but whose brains says "HAHAHAHAHA! I TOTALLY DID!"
- [A Victim Treats His Mugger Right](https://rachelvb.com/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right/) - "Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an
- [Thanks](https://rachelvb.com/thanks-2/) - I just want to thank every one who reads and comments here. You keep coming back and it's such a great support knowing you guys are out there. I've decided to start celebrating my rejections - I'm not sure how yet - but I keep getting them and they keep bumming me out and I
- [Dara Scully](https://rachelvb.com/dara-scully/) - Dara Scully has some beautiful images that walk the line between reality and fantasy. I don't know about you, but when I was a little girl I dreamed about talking to animals.
- [Do you think there's love on the backside of a black hole?](https://rachelvb.com/do-you-think-theres-love-on-the-backside-of-a-black-hole/) - Sometimes being in blogland webland makes me feel lost and unimportant, sitting in my own corner picking my toenails and popping up every so often to interject. I've always been that way, I think, more comfortable with a wall at my back to lean and curl into. I like to watch and listen and peep
- [Dryer Sheets & 10 Hail Marys](https://rachelvb.com/dryer-sheets-10-hail-marys/) - Fanning a mangled Vogue, pages fall like her teeth in trends. Pieces surround a woman's coin-slot skin. She offers quarters worth 20 bucks in her shirt. A man pukes by the curb wipes his mouth picks up a garbage bag and his son and kneels under a beaconing Laundromat sign. Unnoticed art commits suicide off
- [Friday and fatter](https://rachelvb.com/friday-and-fatter/) - I was a little grumpy having to come to work today until I saw a snowman with a brown top hat parading a super sale sign on Main street. Next to him is the Crowns fried chicken that sells money orders. Yesterday, being Thanksgiving and all, a man was walking down this same street with
- [Yo-Yo Ma's rockin' new band](https://rachelvb.com/yo-yo-mas-rockin-new-band/)
- [Kittens! Inspired by Kittens!](https://rachelvb.com/kittens-inspired-by-kittens/)
- [Home](https://rachelvb.com/home/) - I've almost forgotten it's Thanksgiving week. And then it occurred to me coming home from NYC on the bus as I watched a silvered couple get off in Panther Valley, hands full of flowers and luggage, embracing their daughter and grandchildren. It was sort of a beautiful thing to witness - coming home, coming to
- [Heart Strands](https://rachelvb.com/heart-strands/) - Created with old poem drafts and magazines and my trusty pfaff
- [Park Slope sights](https://rachelvb.com/park-slope-sights/)
- [Fallen leaves in Brooklyn](https://rachelvb.com/fallen-leaves-in-brooklyn/) - Down four flights of brownstone stairs Wilson barks, stairs creak, a stroller is banished into a landing corner - in these servants quarters a black-sheeped dresser in the living room poses as a crib. Cracked windows whisper of Brooklyn open spaces where Air has no architect. Neither do the paths we weave. X-Marks the spot
- [Just what I needed](https://rachelvb.com/just-what-i-needed/) - This is an amazing interview with Billy Collins from 2006. "there’s this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about 'finding your own voice as a poet', which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine
- [This is insanely hard!](https://rachelvb.com/this-is-insanely-hard/) - When you graduate from young poet to intermediate poet to adept poet to grand poet, is there a medal or sign or celebration with confetti and hats and noise blowers? A trophy with your name on it saying "take off your headgear and smile!" I feel like one of those people who thought they were
- [11-11-11](https://rachelvb.com/11-11-11/) - I'm feeling sunk today and like I'm bobbing in my little tea cup at sea. There's no land and I've lost my oar, having to use my shoe instead and now my foot is cold. So it is. At least it's Friday and my coffee is warm.
- [Rejecting rejections](https://rachelvb.com/rejecting-rejections/) - This one hurt a little. They'd been looking at them since the end of July and I had hoped that meant they wanted them around and maybe they did, maybe these poems got farther than others, but rejections seem to come in waves. Nothing for months and then two in one week. Damn. Oh well.
- [Night trips](https://rachelvb.com/night-trips/) - I slept against the moon's womb. Curled in sweat and backbone. There's no winter, just rain freezing in the sky as if to ward some nameless spirit away, I jingle my keys like an outstretched lantern. Leave the blind to their sticks - I'll take the light and the way you look at me in
- [Subway Sessions - Pearl and the Beard](https://rachelvb.com/subway-sessions-pearl-and-the-beard/) - I know I'm going a little crazy with Pearl and the Beard right now, but this is pretty damn cool - these Subway Sessions.
- [A collection of starlings is called a Murmuration](https://rachelvb.com/a-collection-of-starlings-is-called-a-murmuration/) - This made me jump inside
- [Pearl And The Beard, "The Lament of Coronado Brown"](https://rachelvb.com/pearl-and-the-beard-the-lament-of-coronado-brown/) - We all attempt rediscovery at the ocean. Some of us dig longer.
- [By morning, Fall is dead](https://rachelvb.com/by-morning-fall-is-dead/) - I'm one carriage of many. You're not alone in neurosis, standing in the shower looking back, embarrassed. Red skin - it's hot water's fault. Exhale and two pulses pump against my neck. Why when we're full do we feel nothing of our bodies? Empty and bones rake against flesh. Frost is a wheeling virus, the
- [You had me at "Insert face up"](https://rachelvb.com/you-had-me-at-insert-face-up/) - Warming up my soup for lunch I had this really strange desire to hug the Pepsi machine. I don't even like Pepsi, but I saw myself wrapping my arms awkwardly around the big blue refrigerator, my wrists wrenched at the sides, cheek flushed with the logo and fake refreshing dew drops. Ice cold. But I
- [A ceiling turned to sky](https://rachelvb.com/a-celing-turned-to-sky/) - I was in my old bedroom this morning - I've been dreaming about my house a lot lately, the one we no longer have in California. I suppose we want to return to the places we can't ever go again. The places, the people we've lost haunt us. My mom and I drove by once,
- [Westwater photos](https://rachelvb.com/westwater-photos-2/) - If you'd like to see more (like A LOT more) click here and here
- [Which, if you could, would you choose?](https://rachelvb.com/2669/) - Through the fog and railroad tracks a scraggly man carries purses of cans. Two large white plastic bags oozing brown sugar hanging from his hands like rusted chandeliers. So many people use these tracks as roads or sidewalks. How much money would he make for his efforts? It's cold this morning and damp. I dreamed
- [Stress doesn't exist in a bag of cheetos](https://rachelvb.com/stress-doesnt-exist-in-a-bag-of-cheetos/) - I had many - many many many dreams last night. Trying to fit a bag of charcoal in an ATM, late to pay the bill at a restaurant, home - home home hauling 5 people on a bike and riding up to my old house wondering why cans were strewn about the court? Why 20
- [Happy Halloween!](https://rachelvb.com/happy-halloween/) - I'm not showering today or washing my face or putting on a bra or shaving my legs. Clearly no make-up. My face may change. I'll think about deodorant and brushing my teeth and eating something other than hubba bubba and coffee. Costume enough. Children beware: a poet lives here.
- [A winter day before Halloween](https://rachelvb.com/a-winter-day-before-halloween/) - I woke up to your baleen lashes filtering visions. Eyes bouncing back and forth underneath skin's thin layer. I wondered what dreams you were scanning and if a small sliver of your lid would open to reveal a human white - not pure, but threaded with veins. I saw where your iris lay - a
- [Our October snow](https://rachelvb.com/our-october-snow/)
- [Sera-sera](https://rachelvb.com/sera-sera/) - I was going to carve my pumpkins today, but since it's snowing 3-7 inches of snow, I think I'll just bypass Halloween altogether and sit in fleece and try to keep my feet warm. I baked an Apple bunt cake with cream cheese filling this morning and half of it fell apart when I plopped
- [Underdog](https://rachelvb.com/underdog/) - You came back to push me again. You look old, strangely like your mother. You look older than me, but maybe I look old, too, and don't know it. I don't belong in your high society, you've made that pretty clear. I'm not good enough for you, talented enough for you, an artist like you.
- [Made in China](https://rachelvb.com/made-in-china/) - I'm feeling inadequate today and then oddly inspired and wanting to run run. Walking in the rain to the library, I avoided small puddles on the wrong side of things, knowing even spit would seep into my shoes and get my white socks wet. I wear white socks. Man white socks. My boyfriend hates it
- [My hand is out for you](https://rachelvb.com/my-hand-is-out-for-you/) - I plucked an eyelash crop in my sleep. Wishes wet and unmoved, I watched a tree blush with Winter's proposal. A white terrier barked behind glass. I couldn't hear a word, but it seemed important he reach someone who wasn't there. His body jumped with each howl. I'm afraid my girls are lonely. Last night,
- [Bottle Beach](https://rachelvb.com/bottle-beach/) - "Have you heard of Bottle Beach?" my mom asked in an email. Go to this blog, she said and like a single clue to a treasure hunt, I clicked, followed and am in love. More in love with the bottles waiting than the odd history of Brooklyn's Dead Horse Bay: "It was during this era,
- [Instant sunshine, right leg seizure](https://rachelvb.com/instant-sunshine-right-leg-seizure/)
- [Bumble bee with a duct-taped stinger](https://rachelvb.com/bumble-bee-with-a-duct-taped-stinger/) - It all hurts - my elbowed nose, my cleated calf, my strained hip-flexor, wobbly ankles, sore arches, tick-like bruise under my toenail. Soccer is a brutal sport. Soccer against men is a viking battle, mauling orcs and especially brutal when one smells like the dregs of a gym bag left in a sweltering car for
- [What to do when you're bored taking your author photo](https://rachelvb.com/what-to-do-when-youre-bored-taking-your-author-photo/)
- [Peanutbutter on sourdough toast](https://rachelvb.com/peanutbutter-on-sourdough-toast/) - Reminds me of California - of being home. Weekend mornings wandering the backyard. We had a wooden bench made from driftwood plopped in the middle of sweet peas and artichokes. I'd peer through the holes in the fences, see what the neighbors were up to. The devocalized greyhound straining for his voice again, the golden
- [From "Skykomish River Running"](https://rachelvb.com/from-skykomish-river-running/) - "The river Sky is running in my hair. I am floating past the troutless pools learning water is the easy way to go. I will reach the sea before December when the Sky is turning gray and wild and rolling heavy from the east to say late autumn was an Oriental child." -Richard Hugo
- [on the line](https://rachelvb.com/on-the-line/) - I'm having trouble coming back - to work, to writing, to stringing laundry across a thin rope in fall. I'm in a strange shifting stage - another morph perhaps, a skin shedding. I feel like I need to learn how to write all over again. Does anyone have a process that sticks - really sticks?
- [Scraper Bikes - saving Oakland kids](https://rachelvb.com/scraper-bikes-saving-oakland-kids/)
- [Who knows?](https://rachelvb.com/who-knows/) - Ivy swallows a telephone pole. From the bottom up green palms turning red with fall surround wires and circuits, 3 silver drums. In the end, in the end end nature overcomes everything. Sprouts through concrete. Green tufts through bricks. Why do we keep trying to mow, pluck, prune, contain the things we will become? Everyone
- [coming up for air](https://rachelvb.com/coming-up-for-air/) - I'm leery coming back. I went to the grocery store yesterday and felt lost. Where the hell did all those people come from?! And cars?! And crap?! Staring at 5 kinds of hummus and 8 kinds of tortilla chips and hundreds of cases of beer. On the river you have a couple choices and she'll
- [See you back on dry land](https://rachelvb.com/see-you-back-on-dry-land/) - Peace.
- [My writing is my writing is my writing](https://rachelvb.com/my-writing-is-my-writing-is-my-writing/) - Do writers need a reject complex? I've been feeling ill-fitted everywhere - rejections mounting - one even had the audacity to tell me "please wait a month before you submit again." Um, I'm sorry - *coughFUCKYOUcough*. I can wait a lot longer than a month. Believe me. I don't NEED you to publish my work.
- [Heavy - are we weightless?](https://rachelvb.com/heavy-are-we-weightless/) - Kurz und Schön opener from errorone on Vimeo.
- [Creatives](https://rachelvb.com/creatives/) - “If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even
- [Bigger than cigarettes](https://rachelvb.com/bigger-than-cigarettes/) - This morning I saw a Cheetah smoking a cigarette. That es no bueno, I thought, her roots exploding on the top of her head like a dying star. Long printed spandex dress and non-matching printed bag, black nylons, black pumps - she stopped in front of my building, sucked in smoke and the morning, said
- [Turk](https://rachelvb.com/turk/) - A good friend of mine lost her puppy yesterday. He was 3 years old and beautiful. All tongue and paws. Turk was abandoned at 5 weeks old on the side of a Portland road. I can't imagine dumping a face like his anywhere, but the circumstance allowed him to be a part of my friend's
- [Pruning](https://rachelvb.com/pruning/) - This coming Saturday I'll be getting up at 4 am (an hour I think shouldn't exist) to catch a plane. It's West Water - 5 days on the Colorado River with nothing tethering me but sky and water. My phone shut off and locked in the truck, internet a useless invention next to fire. Pack
- [Park Slope(s) for E.H.](https://rachelvb.com/park-slopes-for-e-h/) - Your hand shores your hairline. Heat and sweat rising in light. A mist I never knew a human could posses, but your steam settles on a higher plane, quietly disappearing. Brooklyn hands swing like silver pendulums. Back and forth bulldozing sewer smells and city-approved paths. My hand is empty, lifting toward yours with magnetic force.
- [Laura Marling Live "Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)"](https://rachelvb.com/laura-marling-live-goodbye-england-covered-in-snow/)
- [Laura Marling Live at Webster Hall "Alpha Shallows"](https://rachelvb.com/laura-marling-live-at-webster-hall-alpha-shallows/)
- [Get me out](https://rachelvb.com/get-me-out/) - Beggars practically on their knees as if one dollar will get them anywhere. His teeth corn kernels - how much is a crystal high? A woman screams at her husband 'what time is your hearing test tomorrow?! God, I hope she's not on my bus. 3 hours of her cackling voice. This place is chaos
- [I feel full already - "Let it always be know that I was who I am"](https://rachelvb.com/i-feel-full-already-let-it-always-be-know-that-i-was-who-i-am/)
- [Gatekeeper - written version posted for Claire](https://rachelvb.com/gatekeeper-written-version-posted-for-claire/) - My shipped heart is ruddering resistent try turning around even though everything is screwed Let wind carry our sheared, dead hair Open the doors, you say, and sails In one Godful moment williwaws could blend us into bonds we never held on our own. I hate white flags unravelling stern and bowed at my parapet.
- [Louder - Dubstep](https://rachelvb.com/louder-dubstep/) - I'm going to start a new club to learn how to dance like this - you are all invited.
- [Warm "Monkey Balls"](https://rachelvb.com/warm-monkey-balls/) - Last night, I made Pumpkin Monkey Bread with FROOOOOOOOSTING from scratch. I've never made dough from scratch, well not since elementary school where they force you into "groups" to make playdough and pizza dough and inevitably the kid who bites his scabs is forced to sit next to you and "help" by sticking his fingers
- [Audio of 'Gatekeeper'](https://rachelvb.com/audio-of-gatekeeper/) - 'Gatekeeper,' by Rachel Van Blankenship
- [Shadow Art](https://rachelvb.com/shadow-art/)
- [Hearts forced open](https://rachelvb.com/closing-hearts/) - I got an email yesterday afternoon that my dad was in the hospital again. Chest pains at 3 am, rushed to the ER. He knows the signs - the shooting pain down the arm. He's never had a heart attack before but is so close to jumping on the next stone. 2 more stents totaling
- [I have a habit of reading too far into things](https://rachelvb.com/i-have-a-habit-of-reading-too-far-into-things/) - Today I feel like giving up. Throwing everything I've ever written into a pile and burning it, become an accountant. Except no one would hire me because I can't add 13+29 without using my fingers. A little girl was staring at me through a tinted back window. I had been crying in my car for
- [SCHWEDDY BALLS!](https://rachelvb.com/schweddy-balls/) - I'm not sure why I'm into the all-caps today. heheheheheehheheeheheheheheheh thanks Ben & Jerry I hate malt balls, but would try this just for the name: Fair Trade vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum and is loaded with fudge covered rum and milk chocolate malt balls.
- [SATURDAY!](https://rachelvb.com/saturday/) - I'm at work. Sigh. But hopefully not for long. Driving through downtown everyone seemed unusually chipper on such a soggy morning. A father in a sideways baseball hat was leading is young daughter to dance class. Her pink tights exposed like flamingo legs under a baggy sweatshirt. They looked like such opposites. But I like
- [Music from a dry cleaner, Diego Stocco](https://rachelvb.com/music-from-a-dry-cleaner-diego-stocco/) - Diego Stocco - Music From A Dry Cleaner from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.
- [We are all smart enough to laugh](https://rachelvb.com/we-are-all-smart-enough-to-laugh/) - universality from retainer media on Vimeo.
- [Today....](https://rachelvb.com/today/) - ...someone googled "rachel van sex" and somehow made it to my blog. And I think that's weird.
- [Back to the Sea](https://rachelvb.com/back-to-the-sea/) - Artist Jason de Caires Taylor creates life-size human figures and submerges them in the sea. As time goes on, they become home to reefs and fish. These remind me of Atlantis or some underwater shrine.
- [A skater and his instrument - Beautiful short film ](https://rachelvb.com/a-skater-and-his-instrument-beautiful-short-film/)
- [Anyone have any good Halloween costume ideas?](https://rachelvb.com/anyone-have-any-good-halloween-costume-ideas/) - I always WANT to do something fun and can never think of anything. My creativity stops there. And then I get really jealous that other people have better costumes than me. Oh Halloween.
- [Downfall, by Rune Guneriussen](https://rachelvb.com/downfall-by-rune-guneriussen/) - See more work here
- [Light](https://rachelvb.com/light/) - Last night, I entered a mine, dusty and old, to take photos of the miners. I clicked and clicked away taking detail shots of gauges and clocks. I noticed a long strand of wire hanging down with a single bulb like light was a rain drop. So I decided to create a wall of hanging
- [Winnie-the-Pooh](https://rachelvb.com/winnie-the-pooh/) - “Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh?' he whispered. 'Yes, Piglet?' 'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.' ” ― A.A. Milne
- [On TV, the Verizon wireless coverage map spreads like a red disease](https://rachelvb.com/on-tv-the-verizon-wireless-coverage-map-spreads-like-a-red-disease/) - We end with our hands. I'm feeling a bit wounded today. Making X's with strangers on the street. I don't look at them. I don't want to see them. Some teenager flipped me off for driving too close to him and trying to pass as he was turning right. This was the other night and
- [Friday dreams](https://rachelvb.com/friday-dreams/) - Last night I had a dream of the most beautiful wedding. An old house. Mason jars turned into humming bird feeders. Tables lined up in a partially enclosed planting house all arranged with flowers. It was lush and green and the bridesmaids wore deep pink dresses. They came in singing, laughing - so overjoyed to
- [Tangerines and Vitamin C](https://rachelvb.com/tangerines-and-vitamin-c/) - It's raining again. A quiet rain almost too light to make pattering sounds on my umbrella. Looking up the clouds gate the sky in gray. Why is the world so quiet without a sky? I was late this morning and didn't care. I was still the first one here. Waking up an hour early from
- [Abandoned Flight Patterns](https://rachelvb.com/abandoned-flight-patterns/) - Go to a cabin isolation in snow grind coffee burn pots boiling water steep a loose-leafed soul Your fire in the place smoke drift fanning faith Flames weave sarcous in and out through veins retrace cutting plains a heart’s blue river source. Such promised warmth when the make-up the people you’re made of flash in
- [A Creature I Don't Know - short film](https://rachelvb.com/a-creature-i-dont-know-short-film/) - "The self-indulgence of writing songs and performing them and recording them means you are taking people with you on your own sort of understanding of what's going on in your life. I hope I'm in control of my mind therefore I know what I'm writing, but I'm not in control of what's going on in
- [Melvina](https://rachelvb.com/melvina/)
- [Up the River destruction](https://rachelvb.com/up-the-river-destruction/) - This is what's left of "Up the River" as everyone likes to call it. Our friend's trailer is the one in the very back. But normally it sits parallel to the road. From the pictures it looks as if a slit telephone pole is keeping it in place or at least it was when the
- [A cop car door was cracked open - do I take it for a ride?](https://rachelvb.com/a-cop-car-door-was-cracked-open-do-i-take-it-for-a-ride/) - Dried milk on the asphalt existed in someone's hand once. Now streaked like saliva from a rabid dog, the small carton - a mouth agape. I was trying to imagine the instant the high schooler smashed the small cardboard heart to the ground. Was he laughing? Was he fighting? Were his friends egging him on?
- [Melvina is back!](https://rachelvb.com/melvina-is-back/) - I don't know why but having a beer after playing soccer is one of the most wonderful indulgences ever. It completely defeats the purpose of working out and probably dehydrates me more, but my Newcastle Brown humming with Government Mule's theme song makes me forget that I'm too old to sprint for an hour. Last
- [Dr. Seuss read in a monotone sucks](https://rachelvb.com/dr-seuss-read-in-a-monotone-sucks/) - A bulging woman teeters across the crosswalk in a motorized wheelchair. Her gray pants, her black shirt, her medically-braced booties all ripple under skin's pressure. Each movement is a bounce forward then back. A bobblehead's street life. She has no smile, no neck, no elbows. She has no chin, weighted lungs. Could you breathe in
- [Happy 9 years today, my love. I'm glad I made you kiss me](https://rachelvb.com/happy-9-years-today-with-my-love-im-glad-i-made-you-kiss-me/)
- [Socked](https://rachelvb.com/socked/) - I accidentally killed a spider this morning. I'm sorry spider. It was dangling in the doorway to the balcony. I was still fresh from a dream, about what I can't remember, but all I wanted was for it NOT to come in the house and it was spinning that way - legs lurching and hairy
- [Laundry and clean-up](https://rachelvb.com/laundry-and-clean-up/) - Pat and I are looking forward to football today. Some normalcy and good ole fashioned head banging. I don't even know where to start today except with breakfast and coffee and laundry. I still feel extremely tired and can't imagine what those people who lost everything are feeling. But it is just stuff and people
- [Suspended](https://rachelvb.com/suspended/) - Yesterday, I worked for almost 14 hours in a makeshift newsroom on the 3rd floor conference room overlooking the valley. From up there, you couldn't tell anything was wrong or that thousands of people were anxiously watching the river teetering over the levees like a water glass about to overflow. There's the brief moments, the
- [Creep](https://rachelvb.com/creep/) - The mayor has ordered us to leave our building at noon. Computers need to be relocated to higher ground. We've set up a station near the mall. Deadline is rushing up and up like the river we are trying to follow. I'm exhausted already. Haven't eaten a think. Pushing designs and pages as fast as
- [new crest - 40.7](https://rachelvb.com/new-crest-40-7/)
- [Hunkering down part 2](https://rachelvb.com/hunkering-down-part-2/) - 39 feet by tonight. All low-lying areas in our valley have a mandatory evacuation. Every one in the path of Hurricane Agnes in '72 is forced to leave - meaning about 60,000 people or so have to pack their cats, insurance documents, photographs, lives as quickly as they can. By 8 tonight they have to
- [Noah, hurry the *&%@ up!](https://rachelvb.com/noah-hurry-the-up/) - Market street bridge waits for more water. The dark river rises unnoticed until the moment (tomorrow? Friday?) when it finally crests above the stone. Police barricades, blinking orange lights, detour upon detour, I finally crossed the river to get home. Thankful for my hill - 38 feet - that's the projected water level. The dyke
- [The Phoenicians](https://rachelvb.com/the-phoenicians/) - Past the flood walls, on a small hill, neighbors flick cigarette butts in our overgrown yard. The push mower only pushes weeds, so we let them grow under the Chinese elm tree's chameleon leaves - one side is fall, the other spring. We're between two worlds. We're always east of west and north of south.
- [Beer and a bath](https://rachelvb.com/beer-and-a-bath/) - A beer and a bubble bath: sarnac hefeweizen and booth's shea butter cream bath. Dear friend, this was the best idea you've ever had. I'm thinking of someone and not because I'm naked - it's nothing like that though my breasts stand out like cones in a construction zone - how are they so white
- [Veins tuned, ready to strum](https://rachelvb.com/veins-tuned-ready-to-strum/) - We start small like a note - hummmmmm to a melody. How do we get to heaven if we don't sing? Dad was proud of my voice, but I never let him hear me. Sing with me Sing to me Sing the parts that are he. Sing to the moon a guttural howl. What I
- [Pigeons point north](https://rachelvb.com/for-mg/) - We are called today in hearts. To walk against the torrid rain. If I knew where you lived I would rock, holding yours cresting over it all. We are blood diamonds and mine is pointed north and out of breath. On a cold, wet stoop I watch a child covered in a yellow blanket, a
- [Goodbye England (Covered in Snow), Laura Marling](https://rachelvb.com/goodbye-england-covered-in-snow-laura-marling/) - Goosepimples. Makes winter embraceable. Read and stream: a NY Times article about her new album. She's 21! What am I doing?!!!!
- [Wait](https://rachelvb.com/wait/) - I want to f*&% and write today. Is that too personal for blogland? Maybe... but it's how I feel - I haven't felt the need to ram something out in a while and maybe it's because I didn't take my little blue pill yesterday and the wild itch is rising back up or maybe it's
- [Germinating genes](https://rachelvb.com/germinating-genes/) - Small fingers made especially small by bitten nails. Sometimes my hands already look old, but today they are brimmed with color. They feel warm as I lay them across the keyboard, hangnails beginning their petal peeling, veins protruding underground pipelines. I have my mother's hands - not glamorous or manicured, but gardener's tools. They are
- [You bet your ass I got back up](https://rachelvb.com/you-bet-your-ass-i-got-back-up/) - I've started playing soccer once a week with a co-ed team. I haven't played soccer since junior year of college when I was 20 years old and I don't know what happened in 7 years - maybe all the ass-sitting, computer-staring, cream cheese-eating going on, but my body hurts a deep hurt in the hips,
- [Poop-ooop e doop](https://rachelvb.com/poop-ooop-e-doop/) - This is saaad water, Pat said. I peered down at him from the basement stairs as he stood on a higher landing where a shower in the basement had been installed years ago. Why anyone would want to shower in the basement next to a broken peach-colored toilet was beyond me, but so was the
- [Thaw](https://rachelvb.com/thaw/) - Last night, I was wandering a mountain pass in China and came upon a small village with a single road. It was summer, but the snow never thawed and glacial ice stood 5 feet tall, obesely blocking the road. There was an old white farm truck caught in the center like a fossil and I
- [Hunkering down](https://rachelvb.com/hunkering-down/) - The clouds bully, fat and lazy, smirking with humidity. They've scared off the sun. Not even her halo's light rim can be seen in the sky. But it's starting to get darker.The wind rustles the weeds growing from our garage's rain gutter. Irene's tip is crossing the city limits of Philadelphia - slowly at 14
- [C'mon Irene](https://rachelvb.com/cmon-irene/) - The little sparrow was gone when I got home. He pooped in his food, so I'm guessing he ate something. I hope it means he's OK and I hope he holes up somewhere this weekend with Irene on the way. I'm hearing the sky will be unforgiving. Such turbulence is no place for winged creatures.
- [A cardinal watches from the bough](https://rachelvb.com/a-cardinal-watches-from-the-bough/) - Tucked like a brown ball of yarn, a sparrow hid among the rocks in our driveway. He didn't flee when I came upon him. In fact, he hardly noticed me at all - his concentration on his breath and current. Heavy gasp. wings shake. Heavy gasp. gasp. I bent over. He looked up, blinked and
- [Rain beats](https://rachelvb.com/rain-beats/)
- [Where do I stand?](https://rachelvb.com/where-do-i-stand/) - I peaked out the balcony door this morning, let Tula out and although I couldn't see without my glasses, the light rain glistened on the roof. The gray morning, diffused light turning green electric. I crawled back in bed. Pat still slept, the unwoven threads on his head reaching out to something. Where do we
- [EARTHQUAKE!](https://rachelvb.com/earthquake/) - I move east and feel two earthquakes in a year! First it was a wave like rolling up and down with the sea and then the blinds started shaking, the windows shaking, the TVs hanging from the ceiling shaking. We could hear the building and feel the building rolling around us. "Rachel, You're from California,
- [What the Water Gave Me, Florence + The Machine](https://rachelvb.com/what-the-water-gave-me-florence-the-machine/) - There's something amazing about watching an artist dive into their work. Nothing else exists in that moment, but the act of creation. I NEED TO GET BACK TO IT!
- [What's in a name?](https://rachelvb.com/whats-in-a-name/) - I went to get chocolate doughnuts and coffee this morning. Walked through the square to hear a man hacking a loogie. A lawn mower scalped a tree branch, I heard the scream. People kept staring at me, that creepy way you feel a portrait following you, but you don't turn around to look. Or the
- [Muffin: a poem (1992 - I am 8)](https://rachelvb.com/muffin-a-poem-1992-i-am-8/) - He is gone so he is where I left him There under dirt and in some cloth I am lonely and so sad I am crying at my bed Lots of toys and lots of things but nothing is so very neat. Sunny and rainy days nothing is just the same Nice and mean mean
- [ACoAs](https://rachelvb.com/acoas/) - I was looking through old journals this morning for the first poem I ever wrote when I was 8. I know it's somewhere written down, but I haven't found it yet. Instead, I went to 2001 (high school for me - 10th grade) and I found a worksheet from my mom in the closet about
- [My body's right side was completely asleep](https://rachelvb.com/my-bodys-right-side-was-completely-asleep/) - I had three dreams last night that I remember. My first dream had another dream within that dream INCEPTION-like, but the dream within the dream was slightly distressing and sexual. It didn't involve ME per say as a "character" but I don't really want to write about that one on here. I know I keep
- [It's Official!](https://rachelvb.com/its-official/) - mankini: n. (pl. mankinis) a brief one-piece bathing garment for men, with a T-back IS NOW OFFICIALLY AN ENGLISH WORD. I hope this means more fat, hairy men will be wearing them.
- [One jewel at a time](https://rachelvb.com/one-jewel-at-a-time/) - 4 a.m. shouldn't exist. Half awake, half in dream. Headlights outside strobed like a spaceship. And inside the mind, a door unhinged spilling all the things I'd locked up. Why was I awake? Stop clenching your eyes, I told myself. Haram sah, Haram sah - the mantra I repeated over and over to the sleep
- [STOP BANNING BOOKS!](https://rachelvb.com/stop-banning-books/) - I'm so disheartened that schools are banning books. And not just leaving them out of their reading list for that year, but FLAT OUT BANNING THEM. How is this allowed?! When did conservative off the map far right Christians get so much power in schools? One of my best friends, Cecilia Galante's novel "The Patron
- [What's that saying about glue and words sticking and bouncing and being a kid?](https://rachelvb.com/whats-that-saying-about-glue-and-words-sticking-and-bouncing-and-being-a-kid/) - Another rejection today in the mail. This sad little envelope with my handwriting on it, taped wonkily on the back like a SCOTCH brand extra sticky assembly line rolled right over it. The letter inside no better like sending someone a single grain of rice. Dear Poet (that's me), blah blah no place for you
- [A blind mouse still sees their imagination](https://rachelvb.com/a-blind-mouse-still-sees-their-imagination/) - I'm insanely happy today, listening to "Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic (what's their name?) The Magnetic Zeros. Over and Over and Over again, this song makes me so damn happy I want to run around like a field mouse. There's a new bounce to my bottom, a skip in my step. I've been
- [Pennsylvania Birdlime](https://rachelvb.com/pennsylvania-birdlime/) - He drifts to sleep, hand down my pants to the man at my back I drift Campfire smell, Varvatos cologne He's catching eastern pheromones. The Susquehanna scalping weeds at his feet. I came quickly His mouth cupped my tit drinking Big Sky nourishment. Pollen smuggled home past the Great Divide the west in me still
- [Westwater 2011](https://rachelvb.com/westwater-2011/) - I just found out that I get to raft Westwater again in October. The thought of being on the river again for a whole week makes so light I'm already there, dipping myself in the chilled muddy water, nestled between the red canyon as a small creature and nothing more. I have the days. I
- ["Little Sorrow," Gaby Moreno (check her out! Incredible!)](https://rachelvb.com/little-sorrow-gaby-moreno-check-her-out-incredible/) - Here's an NPR link to an acoustic concert - well worth the 12 minutes
- [Hummingbird](https://rachelvb.com/hummingbird/) - Last night, my mom saved a hummingbird. Trapped in the shop out back, she found it laying on the concrete floor half dead, heat-exhausted. This has been the hottest summer ever in Oklahoma since they started keeping track of such things. She told me she was glad to have 100 degrees instead of the weeks
- [Trepidatiously putting this out there](https://rachelvb.com/trepidatiously-putting-this-out-there/) - Her Hamster Devoured its Young There were no fragments to bury under the apricot tree No mourning her disembodied family. She grew into her eyelashes She shed her father’s eyes pawning the lapis as passage to her mother’s side Suicide too dark Maybe hit by a car, she’d survive? Would a father notice the billboard
- [Etsuko Ichikawa - art within art - stunning](https://rachelvb.com/etsuko-ichikawa-art-within-art-stunning/)
- [Haitus](https://rachelvb.com/haitus/) - I'm going to be gone from the blog for a while. Not sure how long yet, but am feeling the need to disconnect. Hope to "see" youse (that's NEPA speak for you all) when I'm back. Ciao for now, Rach
- ["PEANUT, PEANUT BUTTER *jazz hands* AND JELLY" ](https://rachelvb.com/peanut-peanut-butter-jazz-hands-and-jelly/) - I have the lamest lunch today. PB&J, some cheese and bread and a nectarine. Oh and a banana for later and a snack pack popcorn on reserve if I'm starving. I don't know what I was thinking this morning. I almost took a sip of super cold coffee. Who makes PB&J past the age of
- [The river claps over rocks](https://rachelvb.com/the-river-claps-over-rocks/) - Dragonflies danced above the water's surface like marionettes on a stage
- [Wednesday morning - the last before August](https://rachelvb.com/wednesday-morning-the-last-before-august/) - It's a beautiful morning - molten sunrise, blue clouds. The hills waver through the tree branches stretched like candelabras. Green flickering leaves. The night before last, I was freezing. After our big rain, the temperature dropped to spring. I kept smothering Pat because he's always running hot and I'm always running cold and I'm a thief. Last night
- [Tula Bear](https://rachelvb.com/tula-bear/) - Tula curled into me last night. It was finally cool enough, it felt like winter the way she curls into us in the cold weather when her thick hair isn't such a hindrance. She was under the covers, head towards my knees, I was on my side and she streeeeeeeeetched her muscly legs onto my chest
- [Backtracking emotional maps](https://rachelvb.com/backtracking-emotional-maps/) - Anne Sexton's biography by Diane Middlebrook arrived in the mail today. I've been sneaking bits and pieces in the library, but now I have my OWN copy that I can write in and wonder and wander through. Some sentences are already highlighted - that's what happens when you buy a used copy, but I like
- [Life in the mills](https://rachelvb.com/life-in-the-mills/) - Maybe I'll take a bath. My legs are beat up, I ran into river rocks, a mountain under black water. I'm covered in bruises. "MY WRITING IS MY WRITING IS MY WRITING IS MY WRITING," Sylvia says to herself, but I feel to me. Why am I looking so far outside of me? I keep
- [This song feels like home](https://rachelvb.com/this-song-feels-like-home/) - Flyrock #2
- [Lunch break](https://rachelvb.com/lunch-break-2/) - I dart across the square like a chess piece to dark spaces, shade. Say 'Thank you' sharply to a man ogling me for half a block when he says he likes my hair. Jesus, Rachel, you don't have to thank, acknowledge, sorry everything. I went to the library again for lunch. Breaking up the day
- [A love montage](https://rachelvb.com/a-love-montage/)
- [Another day, another heat index](https://rachelvb.com/another-day-another-heat-index/) - 6:40 am, it's 81 degrees. Tula nestled into the coolest bed in the house - other than mine with the AC unit groaning in the window. I feel like my skin has candy melted all over it or sea salt, a taffy mixture. Pat is leaving for the day - upriver and I'll be working
- [the dove carols like a broken wheel (yesterday's post come back to life)](https://rachelvb.com/the-dove-carols-like-a-broken-wheel/) - Already, 80 degrees this morning. I don't think it cooled down much last night. The sun's pulling an all-nighter, on a bender and we're caught in the hangover, the spewing heat, the moisture. Everywhere I walk, I'm covered in wet wool. I'm heartbroken today for reasons I can't talk about, for mistakes, bad decisions made
- [The reality of writing...](https://rachelvb.com/the-reality-of-writing/) - ...is that you're never finished (I could say until you die, but no one know what happens when you die and you may well be writing when you're dying into dying out of dying passed dying always writing.) Just give me a pen, I'll use skin.
- [Morning's mourning dove](https://rachelvb.com/the-doves-calling/) - I woke up before my alarm this morning. The sky - half dark, half light - seemed unsure like exposing skin beyond a tan line. I was unsettled by a dream. A beefy Hispanic boy who kept following me, wanting to hurt me. I was in a high school. He had a crew. I knew
- [US Women's soccer - I still love you](https://rachelvb.com/us-womens-soccer-i-still-love-you/) - I'm closer to a new poem. Holding it in the light. Peeling off its unneeded skin like a sunburn. I am closer to soaking in faith. I'm tired of not quite believing in myself. My voice was strong when I knew it was just me, but releasing it into the world has offered a new
- [Soon we'll be fireside, Worlds End](https://rachelvb.com/soon-well-be-fireside-world-end-state-park/) - I rub my lips together faster faster add tongue flint a spark
- [Just another day on Public Square](https://rachelvb.com/just-another-day-on-public-square/) - I was on my way back from the library when I walked upon this gem right across the way. I had been reading chapters of Anne Sexton's biography because I want to buy it, but can't buy anything right now - until payday anyway, tomorrow. But I've been looking for guidance on how to get
- [Larson's Holstein Bull, By Jim Harrison](https://rachelvb.com/larsons-holstein-bull-by-jim-harrison/) - Death waits inside us for a door to open. Death is patient as a dead cat. Death is a doorknob made of flesh. Death is that angelic farm girl gored by the bull on her way home from school, crossing the pasture for a shortcut. In the seventh grade she couldn't read or write. She
- [Can you see this line?](https://rachelvb.com/can-you-see-this-line/) - Melvin, our spider, up and left the other morning. Only one day after we named him. I guess that's what we get for making a spider our pet. But he packed up his entire web. I didn't know they could do that! How do they do that?! Suck all that thread back into their bodies?
- [All in the risk](https://rachelvb.com/all-in-the-risk/) - A few weeks ago, maybe almost a month ago, I went to a reading at one of the private universities here. There were a few poets, a few fiction writers, a few playwrites. I didn't stay for the whole thing, I went to see C read. Mostly, the other writers were pretty bland, trite, had
- [Sex Properly Disposed](https://rachelvb.com/properly-disposed/) - Open legs swim the breaststroke my chest, linoleum wiped clean Fruit flies hover in the wrong rooms Cars slip, wet roadways Blazing feet, suddenly cold crumpled, our bodies, in your boxers
- [Post from the fissure](https://rachelvb.com/post-from-the-fissure/) - I'm eating dark cherries. Grinding my teeth around the seed, scraping the last fruit bits. For my lunch break I went to an old church now a library to write. The Osterhout. Old women fishing for microfilm. Old men reading the news on the internet. Is my job obsolete? Moments ago on the sidewalk, dog
- ["How to See The Sun Rise," Ben Sollee ](https://rachelvb.com/how-to-see-the-sun-rise-ben-sollee/) - Just discovered him today. Time to explore.
- [NEW CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!](https://rachelvb.com/new-car/) - I'm taking suggestions for names. My friend has a character in one of her books they called "Movado the avocado," so that's in the running. HOOOORAYYY!
- ["Bluebird" revisited](https://rachelvb.com/bluebird-revisited/) - Her lips through the glass reflect her lying back Blue swarmed calves, wrapped in Pashmina lather She shaves in bathwater Soap drips bursts wakes unravels, a semen snake love’s close shave, an uncairned edge she hums hope hope hope, instead All around boisterous robins coo her toes grip a porcelain ledge wind rustles rattling ribs
- [The hamster's wheels are spinning toward ME!](https://rachelvb.com/the-hamsters-wheels-are-spinning-toward-me/) - Right now, I need to not do anything. Take off my socks. Watch my beer sweat. Pat's playing video games, he steals a sip. Another. This hot computer on my lap burning through the corduroy. I can never spell that word right, I had to look it up. So many easy phonetic things my mind
- [Melvin](https://rachelvb.com/melvin/) - Pat and I have adopted a spider, made it our pet in the window opposite the sink. He catches fruit flies, wraps them up like eggrolls, saves them for later. I swear in one night he's grown fat. Do spider's poop? I guess not. This morning, I considered putting him on a diet until a
- [Fall in love with a seal-woman](https://rachelvb.com/fall-in-love-with-a-seal-woman/) - I had a dream I was walking toward a flooded boardwalk. It was morning, no fog. It was morning and no one was around. The sea lapping wood; high enough to harbor seals swimming on our side of the world. Their metallic heads matched the sea but glimmered, their heads poked out like fingers. I
- [Waters we love](https://rachelvb.com/waters-we-love/) - My mom just got off the river last night. A week between red canyons, high water, white waves. This photo looks like a painting to me, the sighing light, the clouds holding thunder, waiting. My mom is headed home to Oklahoma, my Step-Dad going North for another week to ride the Salmon River. I wish
- [Clothes don't make the wo-man](https://rachelvb.com/clothes-dont-make-the-wo-man/) - Today I dressed all professional-like, but not old lady like, basically I put on a jacket. I was supposed to go to the dealership with Pat and he was going to sit there next to me while I try and act like I know what I'm talking about and try to act like I'm not
- [Carlos, why do I have to put titles on things I don't want to give titles to? Peace, love, Poo](https://rachelvb.com/2169/) - You knew it didn't you? Coming out like coming. The line, elation from your breast. A gulp and words become fruit, excess, planted. Our arid bodies. I feel jolts, the squeezed warm tingle. Rain. fiiiizzzzzFull lungs. I feel it from you and from you. Poet to poet to poem. I bite down to the nail,
- [Clouds hold rain, yet nothing](https://rachelvb.com/clouds-hold-rain-yet-nothing/) - Wet body smell. Gasoline. Cigarettes. Muggy like a sewer. I look up to blue slits between cloud grates. Public square is a fishbowl, upside down, roulette wheel people spun: a woman scabbed with arms, white healing a fat boy on a bench unscuffed skate shoes, eating subway a pigeon waiting Muggy, eyes split peas My
- [Politely rejected poem, slightly revised, I'm reclaiming the title (they picked, I wrote, but I think I can do better)](https://rachelvb.com/politely-rejected-poem-slightly-revised-im-reclaiming-the-title-they-picked-i-wrote-but-i-think-i-can-do-better/) - Red Car in the Future Stalled in a grease spot, your tongue slithers down my leg my oil, sweat Red nail polish flecks your mouth, my toes Arco,Idaho– Years miraged on Number Hill fading in the light thin wings on the grill Welcome signs, Atomic power can’t seduce dry beds. “The Big Lost River is
- [Collaborative writing/reading](https://rachelvb.com/collaborative-writingreading/) - “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.” — Ernest Hemingway from “Death in the Afternoon.”
- [Turn here at the freckle](https://rachelvb.com/turn-here-at-the-freckle/) - Tonight a firefly and I became friends. My smell maybe, their peaceful nature? Have you ever noticed how easy they are to catch? They don't fling and jerk like other insects. They don't mind being touched, being cupped. He mapped my fingers to no end for 20 minutes while I talked with a friend. Caught
- [Reposting a needed Joni quote](https://rachelvb.com/reposting-a-needed-joni-quote/) - “I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work, in order to give it back to the people; where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and, you know, makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And
- [Wilkes-Barre, an old star's comeback](https://rachelvb.com/wilkes-barre-an-old-stars-comeback/) - My voices took a walk. I went with them. Down Franklin street past the mansion. The biggest, oldest for sale. Garbage dumpster spray painted red, trash spilling out in excess. The ivy quakes, carpets brick buildings. Sweet chlorine from the YMCA, the street corner owned by smell. A hair salon on the second floor. Not
- [Please turn the TV off](https://rachelvb.com/please-turn-the-tv-off/) - I look damn good in clothes today. My guts cinched. A high waisted skirt. A poppyseed punctuating my teeth, hidden, my tongue works it out is working. I get chills, I sweat after showers. Nails ripped like notes from a pad. birth control breakfast, before coffee. I need a car. I need the West. I
- [I need to make up for the last and the last](https://rachelvb.com/i-need-to-make-up-for-the-last-and-the-last/) - So I googled "ball of yarn" and got a synonymy: Clew who knew that would be educational? clew 1 (kl) n. 1. A ball of yarn or thread. 2. Greek Mythology The ball of thread used by Theseus to find his way out of the labyrinth. 3. clews The cords by which a hammock is suspended.
- [I need to make up for the last post](https://rachelvb.com/i-need-to-make-up-for-the-last-post/) - My nose itches inside I've had a wedgie most of the day - don't buy Victoria's Secret boy shorts in white or any color. I'm biting a hangnail and taste bug spray. I think I'll eat a Popsicle. Peach. Fruit flakes.
- [Gotsta get some Soul+](https://rachelvb.com/gotsta-get-some-soul/) - Looking, driving, trying, financing cars for the past month has just about pinched me pulp like a lime slice. I've been without my vehicular freedom for a while now and it's screwing with my poetry. Going in with Pat, the bike I just can't do anymore or did for a week I'm not a big
- [Not mine, don't touch!](https://rachelvb.com/not-mine-dont-touch/) - "Make sure that by the time the fisherman returns, you are gone," Anis Mojgani I'm in editing mode and want to edit this line. It's not mine. I think the core is beautiful.
- [Insert me here](https://rachelvb.com/insert-me-here/) - It's hard getting back into a poem, the kneading required to insert my body, my brain, my vision - the vision that started it, I see it again. This one is green and forested. This one is tangled. I'll sit in the yard being bit by mosquitoes. Dusk. I need to strip and build, strip and build
- [Biting the skin around my nails](https://rachelvb.com/biting-the-skin-around-my-nails/) - All I can do today is this. My brain is full of syntax. I'm supposed to be doing something else. Work. I'm anxious today - it's mondaytuesday, feels like Monday and I'm here and my writs starts to hurt immediately, once I wrap it around the mouse - shock therapy. I woke up at 7
- [They wore their antlers like badges](https://rachelvb.com/they-wore-their-antlers-like-badges/) - My boss asked us if we wanted to run wild. We stood next to a bare forest, on the edge. I couldn't see the tree tops, no leaves, just trunk upon trunk, the ground brown, the trunks brown, the slits through the trunks - I wanted to run into them, like I've always wanted to
- [Happy 4th of July](https://rachelvb.com/happy-4th-of-july/) - This morning I dreamed of connecting something not sure what two wires, two bodies, two heads, seats, something. My two best friends in a car with me driving through a parking lot, in front of us a vast green and yellow play ground. Children were playing and screaming, the playground was attached to a school.
- [A night sky turned gray](https://rachelvb.com/a-night-sky-turned-gray/) - The illegal fireworks are winding down. In the distance, the popping echoes against the hills. Green and pink flashes. These aren't professionals, these are fathers on the streets buying hundreds of dollars worth of explosives from trailers in the Volunteers of America parking lot. And next to that is the Bank of America and in
- [ooh ooh, me too!](https://rachelvb.com/ooh-ooh-me-too/) - "I really would like to stop working forever–never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now–and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man —
- [A pink-bellied dove waits for a thunder storm](https://rachelvb.com/a-pink-bellied-dove-waits-for-a-thunder-storm/) - This is as natural as it gets minus the unnatural light. My eyebrows are getting a bit bushy, I think, the left one always sits a bit higher. The eyes - I always see my mother, the pillows under when we smile. When I got my haircut on Friday, she cut off all my highlights.
- [Seeya 26](https://rachelvb.com/seeya-26/) - Tomorrow is my birthday and we're having a bbq with yard games and beer and sunshine and we'll be having my birthday bbq into the night and by then we'll invite the skunks and I haven't written all day, so this post is stupid and I've got nothing - it's the end of the day
- [A pleasant rejection](https://rachelvb.com/a-pleasant-rejection/) - Dear Rachel Van Blankenship, Thank you for sending us "Red Car in the Future". Although the editors voted against accepting it, I wanted you to know that I really liked it and I hope you will submit again to our next issue. Thanks again. Best of luck.
- [The Auto-Destructor’s Masterpiece](https://rachelvb.com/the-auto-destructors-masterpiece/) - Canvas stretched He smeared gesso like semen scumbled ribs, bore a girl glazed in kerosene, linseed oil Her pointillistic eyes praised by curators The rendering, he left unsigned
- [The guy selling fireworks lives in a trailer in a parking lot](https://rachelvb.com/the-guy-selling-fireworks-lives-in-a-trailer-in-a-parking-lot/) - I open my mouth, an echo. I have so much to do to day and just don't want to It's cool and sunny and beautiful out. I want out. Sleep was spotted last night. I felt years every time I woke up. Laying flat, in and out of dreams, I was 49 and Pat still
- [Cold potato by now](https://rachelvb.com/cold-potato-by-now/) - I'm making a baked-potato (the fast way - microed first and then popped in the over for about 10 minutes to give the appears of crispy skin). I'm not sure why I'm making it now, I'm not hungry. My dinner: guacamole (homemade of course) and a tropical Popsicle with fruit lint - at least that's
- [Plucked too soon](https://rachelvb.com/plucked-too-soon/) - My high hopes for a good apricot in the East have been squashed by a pithy, tasteless ball of peach flesh. I miss my mom's tree in the backyard. Fruit so heavy and plentiful, we could never keep up. The juice on the ground, the ants on the juice, the roots rich, drinking, recycling its
- [Happy 89 years, Grandma](https://rachelvb.com/happy-89-years-grandma/) - I'm not sure how old my Grandma is here, but I think she looks beautiful and it's one of my favorite pictures of her. She's still in Montana in this photo. Still Bernice Newkirk. Will become Bernice Van Steenbergen to give me the "Van" in my name. She'll fight for the polar bears any day.
- [A lady asks for another shot of espresso - too much milk](https://rachelvb.com/a-lady-asks-for-another-shot-of-espresso-too-much-milk/) - Please stop talking, I'm going to lose this all, words tromping through my brain, the words I've been running over on the walk over and rushing to the computer and now you want to know about my weekend and the party, what party oh that party and it was great, good food, nice place, OK
- [Recycled drafts](https://rachelvb.com/recycled-drafts/)
- [P.S. my birthday is in 6 days. tee-hee](https://rachelvb.com/p-s-my-birthday-is-in-6-days-tee-hee/) - Running my fingers through my hair, a small flake of tomato skin fell into my hand. No juice, no meat. I'm growing roots. Check my stomach for the seeds.
- [Journey of a bag-girl](https://rachelvb.com/journey-of-a-bag-girl/) - For the Taste section at work, we are all supposed to think of some creative recipe for "Red, White and Blue" 4th of July barbecues and potato dishes and coleslaw and illegal fireworks the neighbor children set off at 11 p.m. and scare all the skunks to spray in our yard. I'm not really sure
- [Anne Sexton's life work is meaty](https://rachelvb.com/anne-sextons-life-work-is-meaty/)
- [I need to work on better titles](https://rachelvb.com/i-need-to-work-on-better-titles/) - Today is going to be a slow day. The French Press steeping, waiting. There's time to slowly make coffee, to slowly wake up, to slowly remember my dreams from last night. I was gettin' it on with Sarah Jessica Parker in a yellow hotel room. OK? Not bad for two skinny broads. She was being
- ["Re: Stacks," Bon Iver](https://rachelvb.com/re-stacks-bon-iver/) - "This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away Your love will be Safe with me"
- ["Skinny Love," Bon Iver](https://rachelvb.com/skinny-love-bon-iver/)
- [Creature comfort](https://rachelvb.com/creature-comfort/) - Lightning strobbed through the front windows. Thunder grumbled behind. Split by a house, I was inside. The rain second-washed our sheets on the line, washed the bird shit out. Today, I doubt they'll dry. I watched a squirrel use his tail as an umbrella. Fluff pulled over his back, his head. He was perched on
- [I knew it](https://rachelvb.com/i-knew-it/)
- [Happy Hour](https://rachelvb.com/happy-hour/) - I'm going to be 27 this year. How old do I feel? 22? 12? 59? What matters is warm air. The "P" on the parking garage. The signs that tell us where to go. I'm waiting or not for you. The half empty beer. Thai Thai on the corner. Their fried dough permeates summer. 6:45 pm.
- [Distance between two moths](https://rachelvb.com/distance-between-moths/) - Your dirty clothes neatly packed our hips grind, the aroma scours sheets. Atlas moths brace the walls captured lips part like wings - a coffee mug's entomology My last order: cream, no sugar squeeze the pulp The bed, our sky is unmade
- [Belated Father's Day](https://rachelvb.com/belated-fathers-day/) - My father taught me how to wipe my ass, front to back, never the other way around because BAAAAD things would happen.
- [I hope I don't have to bike in the rain](https://rachelvb.com/i-hope-i-dont-have-to-bike-in-the-rain/) - In the past three days, I've killed two ants and a wolf spider. I felt nothing until their bodies crumpled under my tools like licorice wrappers. And then I became a murderer. Does everything curl up in completion when it dies or only when impacted by a phone book, a shoe? It was supposed to
- [Wood spine, I'm full of slivers](https://rachelvb.com/wood-spine-im-full-of-slivers/) - Virginia Woolf killed an ant last night. I'm blaming her. I feel slightly guilty. That fat grape ant. It was quick. On the dresser. Keep to the kitchen, lady. I have nothing to say. I keep twiddling something. I keep staring at myself as I go around. Then around. I want to pound it out
- [Today is my brother's birthday](https://rachelvb.com/today-is-my-brothers-birthday/) - Happy Verry Merry Van Birthday (his slogan, not mine, although I wish I had come up with it) to my brother who is 30 today. When I asked him what he wanted he mentioned a gift certificate to one place or a gift certificate to Threadless as he said "I want to replace a shirt
- [Lunch break](https://rachelvb.com/lunch-break/) - My body is full of squirrels trying to fuck each other. Today at least. I've been peachy peachy the last few days. Maybe because I've been writing ALL day like 8 hours like when I shouldn't be because I might get in trouble. But I did it anyway. And now today, I actually have things
- [Revision dreams](https://rachelvb.com/revision-dreams/) - This morning I was on a space mission. My second one. The town consisted of market tents, street sellers. I went to look at a wig, but they were all black hair, black hats, dreadlocks and I knew they would clash on my white skin. But I tried one on, looked in the mirror and
- [My newly-tuned wheels](https://rachelvb.com/my-newly-tuned-wheels/)
- [The poet necklace](https://rachelvb.com/the-poet-necklace/) - I went INTO the bank yesterday. I never go INTO the bank, I usually just use the ATM, but I needed to put rent money in and it seemed ridiculous to put hundreds of dollars in 20s into the ATM and this is the "sketchy" bank, not the nicer bank. But what's funny (or possibly
- [Not recommended for outside use](https://rachelvb.com/not-recommended-for-outside-use/) - My shirt smells faintly like basement. Musty, muggy. Green swamp. Plant parts. Washed in earth. My dreams have been chopped meat. Meaty dreams. Choppy dreams. Images and nothing else. But the last two nights I've woken in the morning and felt full. Stuffed. Over-packed luggage. P laughed in his sleep two nights ago and I'd
- [Thieves](https://rachelvb.com/thieves/) - Greedy birds. Almost thieves. But we put out seed and they come. More come. Doves, red and brown finch-like ones that I can't put a name to. The only ones I know for sure are the cardinals, Blue jays. The big names. Yesterday morning, I felt love's vein. Someone's pain down my arm. There's so
- [Truth in the toilet ring](https://rachelvb.com/toilet-ring/) - MMM, beer. A warm liquid pot. Pat hovering his face over the steam. The potato, nutty smell of amber water. You smell smells you'd never smell when you make beer, he said. Hops and grains. I wonder how hard it is to grow HOps. I like to say it like that, the onomatopoetic way -
- [community](https://rachelvb.com/empty-tin-foil/) - This morning, Pat drove me to work. When the mechanic recommends you NOT drive your car, you should listen. I saw a homeless man kick discarded tin foil on the ground. Looking for trashed food, I think. It was empty. He moved on down main street. Past the fried chicken place, the taco bell skeleton,
- [The Eggplant is officially roasted](https://rachelvb.com/the-eggplant-is-officially-roasted/)
- [Creative Clutter](https://rachelvb.com/creative-clutter/) - I took my car in this morning. Driving around in 90 degree weather with the heater on to dissipate heat from the engine burns my tootsies. And yesterday, while the gauge was climbingclimbingclimbing rising like a volcano I had a vision the floor would catch on fire and I'd be fucked. Not to mention my
- [Revisions](https://rachelvb.com/revisions/) - I'm going to tackle some revisions. I can't go forward if I don't go back, I've decided, and back into poems that I love to make them better, stronger, piercing (I hope). I've tried to apply suggestions to the new drafts and I feel distrusting of myself (which is bad bad for a poet) it's
- [It's only Tuesday](https://rachelvb.com/its-only-tuesday/) - My blue dress and black tights and poet boots and green and white stripey cardigan isn't as twirly today. My dress sticks to my tights when I walk. wadded up like toilet paper when you wad toilet paper. It inches higher and higher on my thighs. I walk like a little girl tugging a wedgie.
- [Virginia Woolf may be on to something](https://rachelvb.com/virginia-woolf-may-be-on-to-something/) - For lunch today I sliced a ripe tomato, fresh mozzarella, plucked green basil. Drizzled sea salt and boysenberry balsamic vinegar on top and ate ate ate. I ate with a fork and my fingers. I ate fresh, sweet, filling food and it helps the soul a little. So does chocolate goodness, but I have to
- [In and out](https://rachelvb.com/in-and-out/) - I started to write about a dream last night. Setting two tables. One table with the chairs all facing the wrong way. But I've suddenly lost the energy and deleted everything and mostly I wanted to write about/remember the part where we ate in a Mexican restaurant, supposedly a famous restaurant, authentic in a nameless
- [What do two enigmas make?](https://rachelvb.com/what-do-two-enigmas-make/) - I'm just wondering... I have the question and no answer yet.
- [For Strong Women, by Marge Piercy](https://rachelvb.com/for-strong-women-by-marge-piercy/) - A strong woman is a woman who is straining A strong woman is a woman standing on tiptoe and lifting a barbell while trying to sing "Boris Godunov." A strong woman is a woman at work cleaning out the cesspool of the ages, and while she shovels, she talks about how she doesn't mind crying,
- [Writing the body](https://rachelvb.com/writing-the-body/) - I think what interests me about Hélène Cixous' Laugh of the Medusa isn't the heavily feminist viewpoint bashing the male oppressor, the "phallocentric" society, the "imbecilic capitalist machinery" that she is so passionate about breaking down - I'm interested in my own experiences in my own body. I'm interested in my guilt, my desires, my
- [A big Tuesday mish-mash](https://rachelvb.com/a-big-tuesday-mish-mash/) - Last night I had a dream that an old friend asked me to be in her sister's wedding. I haven't talked to this friend in a while and I was late in getting ready. About 3 or 4 hours late. But who needs THAT much time to get ready? That and I didn't have the
- [For Lindsey! I love you!](https://rachelvb.com/for-lindsey-i-love-you/)
- [You still want to be a poet?](https://rachelvb.com/you-still-want-to-be-a-poet/) - I'm learning as I go. When to push. When to pull back. When to run in scratching and clawing even though I'm terrified. This morning I opened up a sorely patched wound. I sat on the couch for a long time knowing what I had to do, trying to build up some nerve, some strength
- [Rats](https://rachelvb.com/rats/) - Last night I dreamed I was in a bathroom, not my bathroom, but a dingy bathroom that I seemed familiar with. The tiles were a decay color, tan or brown or gray, I'm not really sure. Something moved under the bathmat, so I moved it with my toe and found a crawdad fighting another crawdad
- [Coming down](https://rachelvb.com/coming-down/) - This morning for two hours I was throwing my heart against a white wall. Over and over. I picked up the pulsing red ball hurl and hurled and as my time wound down, I turned on the cold water, washed the shards and slivers from a raw muscle, made oatmeal, sipped cold coffee and read
- [Marge Piercy except - from "Fooling with Words"](https://rachelvb.com/marge-piercy-except-from-fooling-with-words/) - "Imagery can't really be taught. You can lecture about the different kinds of imagery in different sorts of poems, but the truth is, imagery is the most important core of a poet. What you know and what you feel becomes your imagery. The more you actually see - how carefully you look at an opossum
- [A day with Lindsey in New York](https://rachelvb.com/a-day-with-lindsey-in-new-york/) - Yesterday, I ditched work (well told THEM I was ditching work) and Linds and I hopped on a bus with a few sleepy-eyed commuters and hit NYC. It's refreshing and exhausting and over stimulating and sometimes near impossible to open up, let open, my skin the way maybe I should in a city. But I
- [ Breathe, settle, resurface and then dive back in](https://rachelvb.com/breathe-settle-resurface-and-then-dive-back-in/) - I thought I was done. Now my blood feels heavy and tired. Two hours this morning, cutting and slicing and doing intricate surgery on 6 lines and then that rush after it's all over, the conviction of something great being born. It had meat in my handwriting, meat on the lined page, weight in ink,
- [Tubers](https://rachelvb.com/tubers/) - I saw a man today walking on tuber legs. Round mound calves, bulging and scaled with dry skin. His feet were curled inward from the weight. His socks were ripped from the pressure of skin. I was trying not to stare and felt like a little girl who doesn't know any better. But I'm only curious how
- [The sparrows shook when they sang](https://rachelvb.com/the-sparrows-shook/) - What the fuck is going on today? I'm carrying too much weight. A book bag cutting into my shoulder, a faint brown stain on my blue dress, runs, holes, pithy tears in my tights. And all of these things I'm finding later, holding later, carrying when it's too late to turn around. I'm wrapped around
- [one line one line one line one line](https://rachelvb.com/one-line-one-line-one-line-one-line/) - one line one line one line one line typing that quickly is like a lame horse. clompidy clomp. There's a large ant on our coffee table. Feeling out the cracks with his long feely wires. I'll leave him. His reflection on the polished wood is like dancing partners. He must have missed the giant open
- [I'm starving](https://rachelvb.com/im-starving/) - I want my body painted with hands
- [Embrace](https://rachelvb.com/embrace/) - Take off my shoes and wade into a rust blood red pool. Not water like water, but a body. Water as a body. A body of tissue under my toes, into my toes. The bottom of a body. The pulse of a heart of water. It ripples like water ripples. Like ribbons. Like breath around
- ["Lions," by tUnE-yArDs](https://rachelvb.com/lyrics-to-lions-by-tune-yards/)
- [Good morning from the high school boys outside the gym](https://rachelvb.com/good-morning-from-the-high-school-boys-outside-the-gym/) - The morning is misting. Too tired to even cry. I carry an umbrella, but it doesn't seem like I need one. There's nothing solid hitting the ground. The air, however, is saturated. I can feel it through the cloth, through my clothes. I cross the street in front of a black speeding car. I'm carrying
- [How can a plant grow so tall, it can't support it's own weight?](https://rachelvb.com/how-can-a-plant-grow-so-tall-it-cant-support-its-own-weight/)
- [aiding poetics](https://rachelvb.com/aiding-poetics/) - Last night, I washed my face with my orange neutrogena face wash like I always do. Put a mandarin slice of soap in my palm, made the sink water do laps around the drain to warm up, and I polished and I polished and I polished the white suds all over my skin. And I
- [Weekend in review](https://rachelvb.com/weekend-in-review/) - My stomach keeps asking questions. Questions and statements and judgmental wanderings. muUh-ooh it bubbles. Oh, muyeah? I should eat something to shut it up. Friday after I dropped C off at midnight, I turned Adele up so loud, the bass shifted, rocked and bounced the blood in my body. And I drove over the bridge
- [But I will clean my house](https://rachelvb.com/but-i-will-clean-my-house/) - Speaking of not cleaning my room...Lindsey is coming to visit on Monday for two weeks! I haven't seen her since she left in October and since she left, my life has been about adaptation. It's been growth. At work, in this self. I've been asked and asked myself to be stronger, more circular, more tidal.
- [I refuse to clean my room](https://rachelvb.com/i-refuse-to-clean-my-room/) - There's a flower pot in my yard that keeps overflowing when it rains. It has no drainage holes and no seeds can grown. And yet despite it being unviable for seeds, green moss is floating and growing on the surface of the water like swampy clouds hovering. I'm full up this weekend. Every time I
- [Chan Chan, Buena Vista Social Club](https://rachelvb.com/chan-chan-buena-vista-social-club/) - Translation: From Alto Cedro, I go to Marcan I arrive in CUeto, and then I go towards Mayar. The love I have for you is something I cannot deny I drool all over I cannot help it. When Juanica and Chan Chan sifted sand at the beach ... Chan Chan felt sorry/shame Clean the path
- [A new crayon for my coloring box](https://rachelvb.com/a-new-crayon-for-my-coloring-box/) - Sylph - noun: 1. A slender, graceful woman or girl. 2. (in folklore) one of a race of supernatural beings supposed to inhabit the air.
- [shorts](https://rachelvb.com/shorts/) - part of me want to stare off into a wall, through a wall, stare off into the space of it. I haven't felt like writing much today, at least not poetry. I have something working and it's short, something for submissions and the short ones are hard because even the 'a's' matter. Everything within a
- [Who doesn't love floor exercises on their blog birthday?! Happy one, blog.](https://rachelvb.com/who-doesnt-love-floor-exercises-on-their-blog-birthday/) - Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
- [Whew!](https://rachelvb.com/whew/) - Last night, in my dream, I could curl 29lbs over 30 times. Which if you are a girl means some serious arm muscle, some serious strength. I tried the 17lb dumbbell first because I knew I needed a challenge (I'd been curling 10lbs, 15lbs), but even the 17lb was too light, so I moved up,
- [According to Dip n Dots...](https://rachelvb.com/according-to-dip-n-dots/) - ...It's national eat what you want day.
- [Talk day](https://rachelvb.com/talk-day/) - today. is. utterly. boring. and draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaging. And completely dull other than the fact that I have to get up in front of some younger peeps and their parents and a tv camera and try not to stumble on the word "exhibition" after the word "arts" and "Carmody" which is the girl's name, which feels like
- [Happy BlogBIrth](https://rachelvb.com/happy-blogbirth/) - My blog is turning one on Thursday!
- [When poets become obsessed trackers](https://rachelvb.com/when-poets-become-obsessed-trackers/) - I've been hunting the fedex man through the online tracking. Like modern day horses and hounds. If I were home, I'd open the door foaming at the mouth and bleary-eyed and maybe holding a pot holder and a butter knife. He'd have no idea what to do with me - except hand over my package
- [Laying down bedrock](https://rachelvb.com/laying-down-bedrock/) - I'm a little late for work because I was waiting for a package. And not even a really important package, but one you have to sign for and when you aren't there they leave you a slip that says they were there and then you have to drive to some creepy warehouse in the dark
- [Hickory Run State Park](https://rachelvb.com/hickory-run-state-park/)
- [Wait, it's not 4 yet?](https://rachelvb.com/wait-its-not-4-yet/) - Now people are straggling in. Wet hair still, turning TVs on, letting phones brrrrring. One guy laughs like a robot and knows at least one friend's cousin's daughter's best friend in every city in America and maybe a few in Canada. He's had the hiccups for 2 days in a row. I wonder if he
- [Is it 4 yet?](https://rachelvb.com/is-it-4-yet/) - I'm at work early today because we are going camping tonight and this weekend for Pat's birthday. Our friend from Missoula who was also crazy enough to move to the East Coast is coming in on a bus from NYC. She picked a better East Coast, but then again I have the Poconos close and
- [walking and writing can be dangerous](https://rachelvb.com/walking-and-writing-can-be-dangerous/) - No matter how old I get, the word POOP still makes me giggle. I had a friend once and we could call each other poop as a pet name. Hey, Poop. Poop-a-doop. Maybe I'll try it out on my new friends, only the ones I'm close with, see if it sticks. heh. I think God
- [Text from Pat this morning](https://rachelvb.com/text-from-pat-this-morning/) - "Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!" hahahahteeeheeehaha.
- [She just wanted her sister's shoes back...](https://rachelvb.com/she-just-wanted-her-sisters-shoes-back/)
- [Morning mish-mash](https://rachelvb.com/morning-mish-mash/) - Saturated skies and rain. Now, I'm waiting for my coffee to brew - the sweet grumbling sound like a hungry stomach. I should eat something. The lilacs are fragrant and naked in the yard. I'd cut some to bring in the house, but things die so much more quickly that way and I wouldn't mind
- [Waiting for my coffee to cool](https://rachelvb.com/waiting-for-my-coffee-to-cool/) - Something has taken residence in the middle of my chest. An iron heart, but there's nothing there. Just bone. Can people feel bones like a pulse, like an organ, like a being of flesh just being there. I told myself, walking across the street, to open my skin. To absorb everything in because I haven't
- [a no skin day](https://rachelvb.com/a-no-skin-day/) - How do we digest all of this? Elation and sadness, reflection and triumph. I feel uneasy. I feel a mound in my chest that I can't spit up or swallow. I feel like people have already moved on. One girl on facebook said just that, "Moving on to more important things, I got my BRITNEY
- [Osama Bin Laden is dead](https://rachelvb.com/osama-bin-laden-is-dead/) - And the news is celebrating, facebook is celebrating, America is celebrating. "Ding Dong." "USA, USA, USA" Hundreds of people chant outside the White House at midnight. Special Ops, human intelligence - they found him in Pakistan - dead or alive the order said, but they probably wanted him dead. Will May 1 become a national
- [Saturday, Saturday.](https://rachelvb.com/saturday-saturday/) - I went on a 3 mile walk this morning along the dike. The water is overflowing from the river. Muddy caramel colors swirling, stumps drifting. It was overcast and cold and nothing like it is right now. Right now it is sunny and wonderful and lilac-filled and lawn mower filled and motorcycle filled. C was
- [Back at the ranch](https://rachelvb.com/back-at-the-ranch/) - This morning, I opened a bill that came yesterday. From the ob-gyn. An ultrasound I had about 2 or 3 months ago that I've never had to pay for before, but now that our company has changed our insurance I have to pay $94 for something that used to be preventive and free. Sometimes money
- [When a lumberjack finds a glittery egg](https://rachelvb.com/when-a-lumberjack-finds-a-glittery-egg/) - I was in a deep green forest last night. A lush moss-covered island with a house on the tip. Surrounded by a dark creek. A small wooden house or cottage adorned the edge, the island was just big enough to fit it. Pat and I met up with an old friend and her new life
- [GUUUUUULP](https://rachelvb.com/guuuuuulp/) - This is my first gulp of air at work today. And now it smells like fish. Last night I had a dream of two twisters. Clear and close enough I could kiss. And I wasn't scared of them, I was in awe. I wanted to touch them. They seemed more liquid than air. The lightning
- [So there](https://rachelvb.com/so-there/) - This year I have to share my birthday with a wedding. I told them that it was my birthday, but I don't think they heard me. And I don't think they care because they are in love and they are planning what best banquet hotel food to order for masses of people and I could
- [Thanks, Uncle Stevie](https://rachelvb.com/thanks-uncle-stevie/) - Rach; "Rejects" = You are a writer. No "Rejects" = You are watching TV, sleeping, doing chores, ... et al. Keep up the good work! -Steve
- [Hot damn, Dunkin](https://rachelvb.com/hot-damn-dunkin/) - Pat and I got coffee last night at the Dunkin where all the bikers hang out. I wish there was a better place to get coffee, but it was quick and I was really good about not ordering a chocolate frosting doughnut and we were just killing time before our friends got home - we
- ["Welcome Home," Radical Face](https://rachelvb.com/welcome-home-radical-face/)
- [Names for the unknown](https://rachelvb.com/names-for-the-unknown/) - This morning I cried. The holes of a heart that don't feel like holes at all, but pressure building with no holes to breathe out of. The condensation building by the edge of glass. That's what happens - breath turns to water. I felt abandoned by someone who would probably never abandoned me. But that's
- [bread crumbs](https://rachelvb.com/bread-crumbs/) - Lunch outside. My knees burning under my black pants. My pits sweating, my skin blooming red from the sun. My tulips have yet to open up in the garden. Tightly curled in their green pillows. They are open every where else. I ate a beautiful, simple meal: chili, the last of our garlic, salty bread,
- [There's a chance](https://rachelvb.com/theres-a-chance/) - I'm feeling anxious for having no where to be right now. Which should be a wonderful thing, really and I have somewhere to be later because around here without our families, someone always takes pity on us and invites us to their family gatherings because we are orphans and pat and I haven't lived together
- [Happy Easter](https://rachelvb.com/happy-easter/) - This may be one of the most lovely, warm, beautiful late-mornings I've felt since last spring. I'm in a t-shirt! Outside! with my legs shadowed with slits of sun. Yogurt with berries and granola, espresso soaking in the warm water of my French Press. I'm waiting to press. I planted small strawberries in a blue
- ["The earth forgives the previous year every year," Robert Hass](https://rachelvb.com/the-earth-forgives-the-previous-year-every-year-robert-hass/)
- [WAKE UP! "Bizness" by tUnE-yArDs](https://rachelvb.com/wake-up-bizness-by-tune-yards/)
- [With pulp](https://rachelvb.com/with-pulp/) - Work dreams are uncommon for me and unpleasant and when I have them i feel as if I've been working all night. Something was wrong with the press. I had 20 pages to do and it was deadline already. People were breathing down my neck and the cover, that I had already proofed and sent,
- [Stationary at Midnight](https://rachelvb.com/stationary-at-midnight/) - From the backseat of my car you dip a cigarette into the night's deep pool the ripples of ash fall away like whispers of rain or skin - the way people tiptoe into dust in the corners of their smooth floors. Someday we'll all leave each other and I'll never know what your eyes are
- [Antarctica by The Weepies (For Claire!) ](https://rachelvb.com/antarctica-by-the-weepies-for-claire/)
- [Runaway](https://rachelvb.com/runaway/) - I watched a red shopping cart gallop across the parking lot. The wind with its fierce pushing tails. It veered head on into pat's car - I almost got out to stop it, but then it veered left and missed. Diagonally through the rows of spaces, the wet pavement, the lines we all follow, I
- [Eat only from the bowl](https://rachelvb.com/eat-only-from-the-bowl/) - Well I made it until 2. And now Tula and I are sharing a bowl of popcorn in bed except she keeps licking the kernels and leaving them, so I gave her a pile which she'll leave anyway, which I'll have to clean up. It's raining. It's been raining. I don't know if popcorn and
- [white noise](https://rachelvb.com/white-noise/) - Today my head is slightly removed from my body. My coffee is too strong with usually is a good thing, but today it leaves too much acidity on my tongue. I hear noises, telephones, buzzing and some of them seem so close and piercing and some seem really far away. But the telephones are far
- [The Monday after a storm](https://rachelvb.com/the-monday-after-a-storm/) - Please go away, Mr. Chainsaw. Even the birds say so.
- [Odd Block, by Kay Ryan](https://rachelvb.com/odd-block-by-kay-ryan/) - Every Swiss-village calendar instructs as to how stone gathers the landscape around it, how glacier-scattered thousand-ton monuments to randomness become fixed points in finding home. Order is always starting over. And why not also in the self, the odd blocks, all lost and left, become first facts toward which later a little town looks back?
- [Quick cold](https://rachelvb.com/quick-cold/) - The worse is when you feel it coming. The sandpaper throat when you swallow. The itching in your ears. The high school marching band wailing off key in your head. I loaded up the vitamins, drank some tea, but it's too late already. It's like trying to pee on a forest fire to put it
- [Pictures in a dream](https://rachelvb.com/pictures-in-a-dream/) - I woke up scanning the beautiful, haunted images of a friendship lost in a dream. Gray mist and youth. Two girls holding together because they had nothing else to hold on to. I stumbled upon these photographs, set up on a page memorializing the lost time, the lost relationship the regret of letting someone you
- [Leaderless](https://rachelvb.com/leaderless/) - There's no one "in charge" at work yet. And somehow, despite the 9 years that I've been out of high school (I realize that's not very much, but it seems, looking back, like a long time ago) I've been transported right back into a classroom with no teacher. Paper flying, voices screaming across the room,
- [out on a limb](https://rachelvb.com/out-on-a-limb/) - Sometimes, like today, I feel like I feel feelings too much to function in a normal world. The everyday work. The chaos. The cellphone world. The internet world. The connected to wires and everything connected back world. I can hardly handle my own feelings let alone reading about, seeing, being a witness to everyone else's
- [Run the dogs](https://rachelvb.com/run-the-dogs/) - We got up at 5:45 this morning. The alarm was set, but my internal clock was off. 4 to 4:30 to 5. I didn't dare check the time, but I could sense through the half sleep, the rotations to my side, to my back that the light wouldn't break for a while. I kept seeing
- [Converge](https://rachelvb.com/converge/) - Rain and spaghetti sauce dive together through the house. Sweet and salt. Warm and cool. The birds click in the clouds. If I close my eyes for just a moment, erase the woosh of cars on the street outside, I feel surrounded by light and trees. I feel a forest wild. I feel like walking
- [Rach and mom do DC](https://rachelvb.com/rach-and-mom-do-dc/)
- [Purple lightning, a rusy saw](https://rachelvb.com/purple-lightning-a-rusy-saw/) - I had a dream in DC that I was on an island. The sky was moonless, black. It was a sparse island dotted with only a few trees. There was no way of telling how large the land was because I could only see a few feet in front of me, but I got a
- [Home and tired](https://rachelvb.com/home-and-tired/) - The tree outside has red lollipops on the branches. The daffodils popped open like yellow parasoles while I was gone. More sprouts, more flowers, so many more than I even planted. There's promise in the pool of water at the base of my tulips. Tomorrow in the 80s and then back down to the 60s,
- [Mediastorm.com](https://rachelvb.com/mediastorm-com/) - I learned about this site in college - mediastorm.com. Brian Storm the creator came to speak in one of my photojournalism classes about new media, how they were using new media to present stories. I forget to come here. And every time I remember and come back I'm moved in so many ways by the
- [AHHH](https://rachelvb.com/ahhh-2/) - I'm taking Thursday and Friday off to meet my folks in DC. I'm going to go to big bookstores and markets and galleries and new restaurants and see cherry blossoms and all things city and city people. This is my mom and me or mom-me or me and my mom or the person I will end
- [Ebbs](https://rachelvb.com/ebbs/) - I've been running around poems the past week. Unable to settle on one I want to sit with. It's all feeling. Sticking your hand into murky water, waiting for a bite. In Oklahoma they call this noodling. I'm not a big beefy man with hairy arms and cut-off camo, but I still feel like I'm
- [High-class](https://rachelvb.com/high-class/) - The other night I had a dream I was back in school. It was a huge, all-encompassing school not broken at all by grades. The building was a warm caramel color, dipped in gold light. I passed the first building which I knew I didn't belong in. And then I walked into a class I
- [Waiting room](https://rachelvb.com/waiting-room/) - This morning in the head-lady's office, a young guy walked in with a dunkin donuts coffee, he smelled like expensive generic cologne and looked like he walked out of a ralph lauren ad with the white sailor shoes and the cream-colored wind breaker. He seemed too happy to be seeing a therapist and he wondered
- [My defenses were down - this one didn't even knock](https://rachelvb.com/my-defenses-were-down-this-one-didnt-even-knock/) - Across a Great Wilderness without You by Keetje Kuipers The deer come out in the evening. God bless them for not judging me, I'm drunk. I stand on the porch in my bathrobe and make strange noises at them— language, if language can be a kind of crying. The tin cans scattered in the meadow
- [On the brink](https://rachelvb.com/on-the-brink/) - The pearls of rain adorned on the telephone wires never looked so beautiful. Please don't snow, please don't snow, please don't snow...
- [2-7 inches](https://rachelvb.com/2-7-inches/) - ...of snow forecasted for the next 2 days. What level of hell is this? Bill Murray was in Groundhog's day for: Precisely, 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days. 6 months+ doesn't seem so bad anymore.
- [50 more years to retirement](https://rachelvb.com/50-more-years-to-retirement/) - the bathroom smells like cheap perfume - dear intern, please get better perfume. The walls are an insane asylum gray or white? Or gray? Or white? Or yellow from the florescent lights? Or jaundiced like a sick woman's skin? No one wants to hear your hiccups even though you think they do. Hiccups don't warrant sympathy.
- [Green dreams](https://rachelvb.com/green-dreams/) - I had a beautiful dream last night. A soft blue-green field. Hills and hills and waves and waves of seaweed grasses of light and breezes strumming through. Miles and miles, there was nothing else but this blue grass water. The light sliced in and out of the clouds. There was a house, habitable, but weary.
- [u complete me](https://rachelvb.com/u-complete-me/) - We can't sit at a table alone anymore. We have to be waiting - for someone, something to show. We can't stare at the flowers and wonder if they're real. We can't study the inside structure of fruit. We can't take a breath, spend 10 minutes scanning the menu painted on the wall. We can't
- [Cat's do it](https://rachelvb.com/cats-do-it/) - I'm so bored I'm chewing on wires. *TZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*
- [set adrift](https://rachelvb.com/set-adrift/) - There's a new sign in public square that says "public bathing strictly prohibited" - I noticed it for the first time today, but it's not warm enough for anyone to be publicly bathing and it's not warm enough for the wimpy fountain that smells like sewer to be on anyway. But I suppose you need signs
- [Cradling birds](https://rachelvb.com/cradling-birds/) - My eggs hatched. Last night in the middle of a dream. They were cold and I cradled them, blew on them until they were warm. There were 4 white orbs and everything behind my hands was dark. One by one, I brought them back, but still you never know if the things you care for
- [Reading of 'Two Bodies'](https://rachelvb.com/reading-of-two-bodies/) - Someday I will actually have to do this and it scares the crap out of me, so this is me sticking a pinkie toe in the pool and then running back to my towel while the lifeguard yells at me for running. Two Bodies
- [Midday bath](https://rachelvb.com/midday-bath/) - Inside it's quiet and warm. Outside the light is hard, harsh, bright and cold. I took this photo on a day where the wind was slamming down people's door, ripping off their screens. And I went outside and stood in the storm and felt the rain. I went out to meet her. I took the
- [Mish-mash](https://rachelvb.com/mish-mash/) - Maybe it's exhaustion. Tula playing with bells at 3am. Sleeping with my shirt off in cold weather. The odd sensation that I'm bleeding. But my bones feel heavy today. Even as I watched the fog lift. Outside it's an opal - pale, pink, glittery. I'm looking for emeralds, but only find white crystals in patches
- [only poets...](https://rachelvb.com/only-poets/) - ...and animals would ever seek the origins to the smell of blood
- [A Green Crab's Shell - Mark Doty](https://rachelvb.com/a-green-crabs-shell-mark-doty/) - Not, exactly, green: closer to bronze preserved in kind brine, something retrieved from a Greco-Roman wreck, patinated and oddly muscular. We cannot know what his fantastic legs were like - though evidence suggests eight complexly folded scuttling works of armament, crowned by the foreclaws' gesture of menace and power. A gull's gobbled the center, leaving
- [Two bodies](https://rachelvb.com/two-bodies/) - The ocean drifts at my hips then back an undercurrent hungry for my suit. Water pulls his palms over unshaved sticks licks the sweat from my cool melon legs. I feel him in and out of my toes watch the pool of me – metallic sun screened skin – bob like sheets on his wide
- [Sneak](https://rachelvb.com/sneak/) - I just found 40 cents in change and a single clear stud of a Light Bright in a pocket on my purse I never use. That sneaky child left her/his mark; his/her calling card.
- [Over-saturated](https://rachelvb.com/over-saturated/) - Snow falls from the branches. It looks like cotton, but looks and feels are different. Snow has fallen. Wet and heavy. I dropped my coffee on a long white pillow. I dropped my lunch on the asphalt. Thank god for pyrex the unbreakable glass. All the colors are over-saturated. White grays blacks again. Do you
- [More snow](https://rachelvb.com/more-snow/) - I fear my crocus didn't even have a chance. And I'm a terrible keeper. When it's light, I'll put on my boots, get out the snow shovel I eagerly put in the basement and maybe I can save some of Spring. How are you supposed to know as a flower? How do such things survive?
- [My place among the music](https://rachelvb.com/my-place-among-the-music/) - I didn't read much poetry when I was younger. As a child, I didn't find myself lost in words as I hear some writers were. I don't know if I had a favorite book (perhaps "A Light in the Attic," or "Misty of Chincoteague" - the story of a family raising a filly born of
- [The all-of-us artists](https://rachelvb.com/the-all-of-us-artists/) - What we do as poets, what we do as musicians, what we do as artists seems one in the same. Today, I'll be a cellist with words. Make music with consonants and vowels
- [Berry picker](https://rachelvb.com/berry-picker/) - I'm eating raspberries and hoping the seeds get stuck in my teeth. They are tart raspberries from California, but not like the raspberries in California that I'm used to. These were shipped off and freezing and I like them warm on the vine behind the garage when my mom would send me out on summer
- [Manatees need more friends](https://rachelvb.com/manatees-need-more-friends/) - My heart's been rickety in a flood. Splinters. A house rocking around a frame in rising water. I had stranger than normal dreams. I'm not even sure normal is allowed in the same sentence. I was in bed with my brother and his ex. Nothing was touched, but it was implied. I had a vision
- [Bats, moons, beer](https://rachelvb.com/bats-moons-beer/) - They laugh in hearty wood tones. A cigarette lingering up through my writing room. The doors are open. THE DOORS ARE OPEN! And the moon. did you see the moon?! Oh, rising like a ship with fierce sails. An open mouth. The O in the middle of a daisy. Pat says she's the closest she'll
- [Readings](https://rachelvb.com/readings/) - I've always been a shy little bunny or maybe I'm better as a fox. White breast, face flushed. How old is she? She seems old (er) than me. She uses words like visceral in conversation. She's naked and doesn't seem to mind. Is embarrassed and doesn't care. Is that what getting older is? I've been
- [Ahhh](https://rachelvb.com/ahhh/) - Last night, I strung up the hammock we got in nag's head last summer. It's been on a rung in the basement all winter and other than one day where it was warmer than it should have been and I hung it up to lay underneath the sun, it's been hanging in the dark, like
- [Winter in Bandon](https://rachelvb.com/winter-in-bandon/) - Sent from my dad a few days ago. It all seems like a dance, doesn't it? Claire, it reminds me of you, WaterWoman ;-)
- [All the layers](https://rachelvb.com/all-the-layers/) - There was an opening going on, a ceremony. Free food - cookies, punch, party fare. A waitress was carrying to giant tray that were longer than her body and somehow could almost balance it all. But a woman came to help her set the tray of goodies down on a table full of goodies. And
- [brain stew 3 days cold on the stove](https://rachelvb.com/brain-stew-3-days-cold-on-the-stove/) - I'm getting that glooooooooooooooossed over feeling when you've been staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaring at the computer and your assssssssssssssssssssssssssss has gone numb and so has your faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace and your liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiips hang on to a gnawed on piece of gum
- [camping soon](https://rachelvb.com/camping-soon/) - Spring mornings and they always smell like smoke. Fog and cold, wet dew. Frost on the grass. I remember writing about winter coming, having to shut my doors. And now the winter is burning off, hence the smoke, hence the skin-colored sky taking one giant stretch above me. I'll follow its lead. It leads to
- [Redemption Day, Sheryl Crow](https://rachelvb.com/redemption-day-sheryl-crow/)
- [Bluebird](https://rachelvb.com/bluebird/) - Red lips bloom through the glass, a reflection of her lying back. Blue blooms emerge on her calves like withered buds with the end of spring. She wraps herself in Pashmina soap, shaves her skin in the bathwater. Soap drips, bursts, wakes. It unravels in the water like some semen snake. Love is a close
- [Waiting room chains](https://rachelvb.com/waiting-room-chains/) - At my appointment today, the CD player was playing Carole King's "Chains" song. I didn't know who it was, I just looked it up. I'd never heard the song before, but I got an odd feeling if I was in a bad relationship this song was a subliminal messages to do something... Except I was
- [Dear Spam,](https://rachelvb.com/dear-spam/) - Please leave me alone. You're turning my blog into a garbage can. Thanks, Rach
- [I used to care, but now I have pills for that](https://rachelvb.com/i-used-to-care-but-now-i-have-pills-for-that/) - Pat made eggs for breakfast and the steam sucks to my glasses. It's raining this morning and the cars drive over it with such haste. I've been watching an orange porch light all morning. A false moon in the dark vellum air. But when I looked away for an instant and then back it's gone.
- [Letter squares](https://rachelvb.com/letter-squares/) - I found two pieces of a discarded, ripped letter on the ground by the post office. I picked it up, unfolded the lined square, the face - exposed to weather - had yellowed and all I could make our were words, parts of words. I wonder who this person was writing to, why they ripped
- [Spring?](https://rachelvb.com/spring/) - The sun is out today. Friday the forecast is 65. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! Walking to work was cold, but it was Spring cold, not winter cold. Cold with the hope of warmth. Cold with the birds out. Cold with frost on the grass that melts in the sun. Cold that will burn off, shake off, LEAVE!
- [Night Mare](https://rachelvb.com/night-mare/) - What a Night Mare as if this dark horse threw a shoe “Fuck it,” she said I like sneaking Pretty soon religion will be free and then what will we believe in? God’s war accept he never signed the check and left the waitress with the bill Do people still get Tweety Bird tattoos? a
- [Happy Birthday, Mom](https://rachelvb.com/happy-birthday-mom/) - Mary Oliver kept me up last night. I kept seeing her words, not her actual words, but the shapes of her words, in and out of dreams. The cat by my feet, by my legs, by my knees. Not awake enough to rise into the world, but not able to sleep. My body aches when
- [Litter](https://rachelvb.com/litter/) - My Grandpa wrote to me - one of my gift letters and I've kept every one knowing that someday I'll have to reread the things he's said. But he wrote to me, "There is absolutely nothing I need from anyone anymore. So much of my energy is this life of mine; for so many years
- [The day I was saved by a cowboy ... and Walmart](https://rachelvb.com/the-day-i-was-saved-by-a-cowboy-and-walmart/) - The other morning, driving to work, I saw 5 men helping one woman in a red car. It broke down in a puddle and she was laughing, but looked worried. Since when does it take 5 guys to push a car out of a puddle? Usually you just need one. But she was pretty enough
- [Down the drain](https://rachelvb.com/down-the-drain/) - Do you think SHE's trying to tell us something? Do you think people will actually start to listen? That giant whirlpool makes us look like toys. That boat spinning around and around - I kept imagining some large hand would pick it out of the water, set it on the bathroom counter, in a cabinet.
- [ha.ha.](https://rachelvb.com/ha-ha/) - The snow was gone again. All that was left was a tiny tiny patch in the back yard under the trees that never gets sun. It was the size of a football. And then it rained all day yesterday and I though - This will make it so green, the plants need rain - and
- [coffee](https://rachelvb.com/coffee/) - I found a hair in my coffee this morning and thought of you.
- [Sunday Morning - my saturday](https://rachelvb.com/sunday-morning-my-saturday/) - It's warmer and raining. The yard is full of birds. Sparrows, Starlings, the swoop of a royal blue jay into a red-armed bush; his crown high and kingly. Tula and I are watching the birds, the occasional squirrel pass by. Her tail is wagging ferociously, she stretches up on the window and scratches like she's
- [Feed her life](https://rachelvb.com/feed-her-life/) - The blood-moon-month comes, rising full above the trees. Each night, in the shadow, I wait to see her, sleep and dream of her in a white dress, before she leapt off that ledge into teeth-green wealds. Somehow, I always found the strength to catch, to hold her weeping eyes before they shed into blood-emerald pools.
- [Calm and working](https://rachelvb.com/calm-and-working/) - Another one is soon. A couple of days and I'll release her. My house is creaking with heat and water. The heartbeat of wood and stone is not like our own. There is no rhythm, I can hear, but it does not mean there isn't one. A whisper, a knock, a ding. Each doorway is
- [Cautious Quicksilver](https://rachelvb.com/cautious-quicksilver/) - I dreamt of a horse. One side silver, one side black. She shone, stood out, had a sleek back. She was wild, but not fast and took off before I had my stirrup tight. We were told to race on ice. We were ahead at first and then she fell behind. A woman gave her
- [Sea dreams](https://rachelvb.com/sea-dreams/) - The sand was dark. Glittering reflections like ribbons down its back. pat and I were digging in the sand. I was trying to redirect the water with barriers, using my feet as shovels. Small walls of sand, but the water always broke through. We found caverns on the beach, other people were around. I collected
- [Dream](https://rachelvb.com/dream-2/) - I was home, but I wasn't. Walking around a town looking for someone familiar, hoping for someone to come. In a small cafe, the sign like a Swedish Village - black wood outlined in snow. I met up with an old friend. We searched for her partner in love in a run-down house he owned.
- [Empathy, by Stephen Dunn](https://rachelvb.com/empathy-by-stephen-dunn/) - Once in a small rented room, awaiting a night call from a distant time zone, I understood you could feel so futureless you'd want to get a mermaid tattooed on your biceps. Company forever. Flex and she'd dance. The phone never rang, except for those phantom rings, which I almost always answered. I was in
- [On the street](https://rachelvb.com/on-the-street/) - Last Saturday, I saw a Tall black man in a long black suit and hat, walking down the street, carrying a newspaper folded in half with one single red rose sticking out. I wonder where he was going at 9 in the morning? I hope it was for love.
- [People and spice](https://rachelvb.com/people-and-spice/) - I'm watching fresh basil in a glass in the light. The roasted red pepper soup down and now the Vegetable soup is simmering. I have plants under my nails turning a brown and read (I meant red, but I like read) and green. When I bring them close to my face they smell like cilantro
- [Stirring](https://rachelvb.com/stirring/) - It's raining today. What a wonderful sound, smell, sight. To see rain and not snow falling into my backyard. Rain means something is promised. Rain means something is coming soon - the bulbs I planted in the fall have thin fingers reaching through the ground, the snow is melting, I even heard thunder this morning
- [Trick of Spring](https://rachelvb.com/trick-of-spring/) - After your hands shredded ribbons up my neck I saw the lawn release itself from its white cast underneath it was decay a smothered-color green Your warmth was like a trick of spring now I watch it snow again one two three four five six seven more inch upon inch of your heavy chill a
- [I'm going in](https://rachelvb.com/im-going-in/) - In my brain I hear a lot of clapping, a roar of a crowd. It's my imagination - sush - because I'm going back in. I've found a flashlight and heading back into the mines.
- ['Negative Capability'](https://rachelvb.com/negative-capability/) - Melissa Green wrote a comment last night about Keats' 'Negative Capability.' Keats' says it when man, ahem or woman (collectively) "is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." It's an "emotional state characterized by indecision, restlessness, uncertainty and tension resulting from incompatible inner needs or drives of
- [Dress appropriately ](https://rachelvb.com/dress-appropriately/) - I gave a coworker a pen and she gave it back and now that I'm biting it and looking at it I see that I gave her a pen covered in bite marks. Sorry. I feel like sitting in a field today. In the sun and popping the heads off daisies and tying together ropes
- [The weight of snow](https://rachelvb.com/the-weight-of-snow/) - There's something tugging on the trunk of me. shaking everything free. But it's not as freeing as it sounds. I ventured out into the world today. I saw a middle-aged Hispanic busboy waiting patiently for two overweight middle-Americans to leave their table so he could do his job and clear their empty glasses. Of course
- [The Groundhog lied](https://rachelvb.com/the-groundhog-lied/) - We were done. We were almost completely done. The lawn released from its white cast, it was a smothered-color green. We had a trickster day of 55 degrees last week. Now it's just being mean. One, two, three, four, five, six - seven inches on the branches. Maybe a foot on the ground. The bushes
- [WCW on Howl](https://rachelvb.com/wcw-on-howl/) - "We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness. Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels." - William Carlos Williams in a introduction to 'Howl,' by Allen Ginsberg
- [It's slippery out there](https://rachelvb.com/its-slippery-out-there/) - the snow coming at the car. the white fuzz. the light years I was traveling. The road to insanity is what it felt like. A dark trance on the highway. The wipers dark bone arms. We watched 127 hours and a row of students were speaking the entire time. Even shushed, they wouldn't shut up.
- [I love you, mom. Especially when I beat you at words w/ friends](https://rachelvb.com/i-love-you-mom-especially-when-i-beat-you-at-words-w-friends/)
- [27 and more](https://rachelvb.com/27andmor/) - About two months ago, my dad sent me a summary of benefits for a life insurance plan he and my mom opened when I was born. This was the first I'd ever seen or heard of it. An expired piece of paper, jammed into a Christmas card addressed to me and my boyfriend, "Sir Patrick."
- [Why do we do this again? - me](https://rachelvb.com/why-do-we-do-this-again-me/) - "It keeps us the most alive." -C
- [Glitter in the Air, Pink](https://rachelvb.com/glitter-in-the-air-pink/) - It's a pop music kind of day. I like this for being unexpected. I would have thrown up if I were her.
- [Left to swoon](https://rachelvb.com/left-to-swoon/) - Artist: Ana Teresa Fernandez
- [Aftermath](https://rachelvb.com/aftermath/) - Inside my body is running. But my body stays still. What a ghost of a train wreck. Happiness is a faint whistle. I can still hear it behind me. In front of me. But presently. Just the breaks and bent steel.
- [There's no children here](https://rachelvb.com/theres-no-children-here/) - I saw a used needle on the ground this morning. I didn't pick it up. Then I thought of children seeing it. I still didn't pick it up. It had an orange tip plunger. What kind of children would be playing in a parking lot anyway? Frozen. Full of cars. Dog shit still smells even
- [West Coast is the Best Coast part 1](https://rachelvb.com/west-coast-is-the-best-coast-part-1/)
- [West Coast is the Best Coast part 2](https://rachelvb.com/west-coast-is-the-best-coast-part-2/)
- [Not like the others](https://rachelvb.com/not-like-the-others/) - What happens when you can't finish a poem? When it's not like the others? When it doesn't know what it wants or how to be? When you feel tired even feeling one of the words, the same line you've been staring at for a month and it's lost all meaning? Was it not supposed to
- [On the plane](https://rachelvb.com/on-the-plane/) - I'm extra thin. I feel air on my skin, but I'm fully clothed. I feel netted. Cut it and I'd spill out all over the floor. I don't even have ribs. My heart's not under there. It's like sandpaper under the skin. But maybe softer. If you said your toe hurt, my heart would feel
- [more soon](https://rachelvb.com/more-soon/) - I have more photos of sunshine and LA and Jellies. Being in front of the computer for half the day is making me tired again. The drug doesn't last long.
- [The happy artist?](https://rachelvb.com/the-happy-artist/) - It's my first day back at work today. And usually the first day is OK. I've carried over a calm that I always hope will last, but as the weeks go on something usually starts building and a big fat invisible elephant likes to sit on my chest and get in the way. I had
- [Against the waves](https://rachelvb.com/against-the-waves/) - A few nights ago I had a dream I was back at the river. I was on a mission from work and I had to get to my camera which was back with our rafts in the middle of no where without any way in or out. Except by water. I trudged upstream, against the
- [It's happening](https://rachelvb.com/its-happening/) - Pat and I were just watching Jeopardy...it's happening... computers are going to take over the world and it's going to be our fault. Not so good with the decades though, Watson. Not so good on the decades. But man, the Beetles! He had them DOWN. *Lady Madonna!*
- [Excerpt from Inferno - Eileen Myles](https://rachelvb.com/excerpt-from-inferno-eileen-myles/) - "Over the years I discovered it was always good to go. I have a hard time knowing what to do. About leaving. I'd feel I was ready and yet I was too embarrassed to draw attention to myself by saying goodbye so I'd wait, or leave with Tom, or someone. Sometimes I'd just escape, not
- [A roscoe's breakfast to start the day](https://rachelvb.com/a-roscoes-breakfast-to-start-the-day/) - Last night: comics and comics. A small comedy club in the back of a comics store. Free miller light and Mgd in a can but you're supposed to tip a dollar. A food truck out front selling sushi burritos the size of my arm. This morning: fried chicken and waffles at roscoes
- [75 and Sunny](https://rachelvb.com/75-and-sunny/) - It's 75 degrees today. Hot almost. Maybe hotter walking down the street with my brother. Me wearing black pants and my poet boots and a newly used jacket I bought yesterday at Buffalo Exchange in Belmont Shore. We got a late lunch of real tacos. Tacos I haven't eaten in years. Not Tex-mex or Eastern
- [SEE  YOU IN CALIFORNIA!](https://rachelvb.com/see-you-in-california/)
- [not the person you think](https://rachelvb.com/confession/) - Every time things get hard I think you'll realize your life is easier, better without me.
- [greedy greedy](https://rachelvb.com/greedy-greedy/) - HEY! YOU! THAT'S YOUR SECOND DOUGHNUT! I SAW YOU!
- [One more day](https://rachelvb.com/one-more-day/) - I feel a loss for words, writing-wise. At least extraneous words which are usually spinning around inside my brain most days like a hyper puppy chewing on this word or that word or syntax, squeaky toys. I don't believe in writer's block - I think that's a crock of shit. When our minds are quiet
- [2 more days](https://rachelvb.com/2-more-days/) - I've been a bad blogger of late. I think I'm using all my reserves for the poems or maybe it's just too damn cold here. Sunny California awaits. 70 degrees and did I mention sunny? I'm going to sit by the water and take deep breaths. I was hoping the poem I was working on
- [Western blend](https://rachelvb.com/western-blend/) - It's snowing again. Snowing. snowing. more snow. This morning I drank my western blend coffee. I've become a western blend. Rooted there with more accents mixed in. It tastes pretty good. It tastes warm and sweet and a little nutty. It tastes strong. I'm leaving the snow soon. Saturday. 6am. I'm heading west, taking my
- [dream wall](https://rachelvb.com/dream-wall/) - The past two nights I've dreamed of a box, a rectangle on the wall I can't quite see. A piece of paper perhaps, but written on. It may not even be paper, I can't see it clearly enough. It may be stone, wood, a pale face. Ancient. It wakes me up, but I can't see
- [Florence + The Machine](https://rachelvb.com/florence-the-machine/)
- [This poem needs a sacrifice](https://rachelvb.com/this-poem-needs-a-sacrifice/) - Last night I took a drive. Not because I felt I needed to, but because my mom sent me a $10 coupon for shoes and I wanted to look at the sale shoes. I bought a new CD. "Lungs" by Florence + The Machine. Her music is epic. Not the epic that teenagers say these
- [I need to write, soak this one out](https://rachelvb.com/i-need-to-write-soak-this-one-out/) - An empty bathtub is calling me
- [Go ahead, hit me](https://rachelvb.com/go-ahead-hit-me/) - Art is power. I have power in my art. We have power in our art. We have power.
- [Rolling in the Dark - Adele](https://rachelvb.com/rolling-in-the-dark-adele/) - Turn this shit up! This girl is 22 years old. Incredible.
- [Dance Anthem of the 80's - Regina Spektor](https://rachelvb.com/dance-anthem-of-the-80s-regina-spektor/) - An addiction, two hands and feet, there's a meat market down the street, the boys and girls watch each other eat when they really just want to watch each other sleep. This song makes me dance inside.
- [shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh](https://rachelvb.com/shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh/) - Through all the murmuring, all the murmuring, I slit my eyes like a contented cat. Watching it all, trying to sleep, trying to sleep away the noise. I feel something over my shoulder. watching. My headphones are in, but I'm listening to nothing. Unrelated conversations begin to relate. Their words overlap and answer each other
- [gimme a toothpick](https://rachelvb.com/gimme-a-toothpick/) - There are things stuck. Pieces, small pieces I can't get to. In my eye - a soft, small, invisible hair. In my teeth - a sliver of onion from the pizza I just ate. It's always that small space between my teeth where things get stuck - the skin of apples mostly. I want quick
- [Paths](https://rachelvb.com/paths/) - In the winter the paths are so clear. They've been cleared for you by machines with hammerhead noses. They've been cleared by other footprints trying to do the same thing through the snow and ice - just find a way through it all. I think the paths through life are laid in the same way
- [Monday is like any other day](https://rachelvb.com/monday-is-like-any-other-day/) - I'm supposed to be writing something for work, but I'm writing this instead. I've felt a lot of things already today. Another high, deep love. I've almost finished another one and I even cried after it had settled. I cried a drip drop because this morning I was just so damn happy to be doing
- [Dear Winter,](https://rachelvb.com/dear-winter/) - go away. no one likes you anymore. especially at 2 degrees. especially when you drain car batteries. especially when the drained car is behind mine in the driveway. you are mean and nasty and negative. negative. negative. Especially in the dark. But no matter - I have poetry and this morning even before I knew
- [She could have said playground](https://rachelvb.com/she-could-have-said-playground/) - My friend's 7-year-old daughter just asked her if "dammit" was a compound word. My day is complete. Peace out.
- [It's a party!](https://rachelvb.com/its-a-party/) - I'm having a party this weekend - tomorrow actually - and you all are invited. Oh the conversations we could have - especially with beer and wine to take off the edges. I like talking when I've been drinking beer or wine. I seem to care less, which is what happens anyway with drinking. If
- [I hate you poem, but I want to love you](https://rachelvb.com/i-hate-you-poem-but-i-want-to-love-you/) - I officially declare this week "banana peel boogers stinky shoes dead flowers tuna waste the oven's been" on for 24 hours week. We are out of coffee filters.
- [Says the psych major](https://rachelvb.com/says-the-psych-major/) - Pat just told me that all cognitive behavior is fully ingrained and developed by the time we are 8 years old. So our thought patterns, even though we may know they are slightly irrational, are really those of an 8 year old. It makes sense. I know why I think certain things, I know they
- [Tapped](https://rachelvb.com/tapped/) - I thought I heard a stranger in a crowd say my mom's name this morning. Perhaps she's just on my mind today. I've been hearing things that aren't really there the past couple of days. Crickets from his chest, his arm pit - summer crickets. Where do crickets go in the winter? Do they all
- [Update from mom in OKC this morning](https://rachelvb.com/update-from-mom-in-okc-this-morning/) - Light glaze of ice and a dusting of snow here. Pretty windy. Funny to watch the birds slide about when coming in for a landing on the porch.
- [I'm not ready](https://rachelvb.com/im-not-ready/) - You nibble breasts like wood ear mushrooms They are always about you but more I'm thin-skinned and paper light today even the sky is thin pale pink and translucent I arrived before you showered with heavy arms There could be coffee one step at a time up stairs the heavy umbrella of a body the
- [Street scars](https://rachelvb.com/street-scars/) - The moon is full and barking into my window through the curtain. Yesterday I said everything. Even secrets. I said most everything. She asked me about sleep and concentration and anger and relationships and I almost cried a few times at the hard stuff. After I left I felt heavy and light at the same
- [To the couch](https://rachelvb.com/to-the-couch/) - I have an appointment today I'm a little nervous about. The kind where you sit with someone and they stare at you and you have to talk about your feelings. I'm worried she'll turn me away and say there's nothing wrong with you, I can't help you, find someone else. I'm worried about getting to
- [I'm up!](https://rachelvb.com/im-up/) - Well the photos are in and the designs are in and some minor tweaking here and there, a new writing page soon, a fresh coat of paint and she's up, she's up!!! Have a looks-y around. I hope you all like it!
- [Wake me up, Norah Jones - no video, just listen.](https://rachelvb.com/wake-me-up-norah-jones-no-video-just-listen/)
- [Rosie's Lullaby, Norah Jones](https://rachelvb.com/rosies-lullaby-norah-jones/)
- [On the road to Target I got lost](https://rachelvb.com/on-the-road-to-target-i-got-lost/) - There was a back road to Target. A heavily wooded one in the mountains, high trees, curving roads. I was walking there, taking the uncommon route and got lost on a milk farm. I wandered through the barn, the light warm and crisp adding contrast to the shadows, the farm tools. Everything was blue and
- [Don't mind us](https://rachelvb.com/dont-mind-us/) - Don't mind the mess of us. The phantom links, pages, photos that aren't mine, but some I wish were (although they have a certain 'stock art' feel to them - moo). It takes a while when you move into a new place to get everything just as you like it. I'm still learning where the
- [The Cabin](https://rachelvb.com/the-cabin/) - Tomorrow - I'd like to go into a cabin, in the snow, in isolation, with coffee, with bread, with water, with soul, a fire in the place, the smell of smoke, feeling the drift above me. I'd like to be alone. Am I doing too much for my own good? Pushing myself to an edge?
- [Choppy dream](https://rachelvb.com/choppy-dream/) - I'm not sure if I want to write or listen. I suppose I've chose writing, but I feel just as strongly toward the listening. I had strange long dreams last night. We kept riding by a very well-produced haunted house. The fog, the green eerie light, the plastic stone ghouls. We corralled a cobra a
- [Bad dog](https://rachelvb.com/985/) - I saw a lawyer picking his wedgie on his way to court. I drove behind a NY car with a big placard in the back window that said "bad dog" and had a picture of a pit bull. And then the driver made an illegal U-turn in the middle of main street. And I honked
- [snowsnowsnow and new year's shoes](https://rachelvb.com/snowsnowsnow-and-new-years-shoes/)
- [I was just whispering/ into her mouth](https://rachelvb.com/i-was-just-whispering-into-her-mouth/) - The trees, now, are trees I'm seeing myself seeing. I'll always deny that I kissed her. I was just whispering into her mouth -Stephen Dunn/Slant This arrived in the mail yesterday from a certain wonderpoet Rebecca. Thanks again, Dear. Had I not know it was coming it would have been very mysterious indeed. No return
- [Have I won a Pulitzer yet?](https://rachelvb.com/have-i-won-a-pulitzer-yet/) - You could be a poet You just don't know it
- [WHAT ARE YOU PLOWING?!!!](https://rachelvb.com/what-are-you-plowing/) - There is a man outside snow-blowing China. At least that's what it sounds like as he's certainly gone over his allotted snow-blowing time. We got 5 inches buddy, use a shovel, it might be good for you. I find it funny that people around here have snow-blowers. It really doesn't snow THAT much. I mean
- [Thanks](https://rachelvb.com/thanks/) - I feel anxious and bored at the same time. Unsure of what to write today if anything. There's always something to say, but deciding if we want to say it or not is another question. Yesterday I talked to my bestie about writers being loners, solitary beings and I believed it believed it believed it
- [A day with the boys](https://rachelvb.com/955/) - I'm hanging with the boys today. We are making 2 batches of beer and chowder while it snows outside. I'm going to get to say bad words and scratch my butt and burp and tell dirty jokes. It's fun being a boy for a day and forgetting that in the morning you were crying like
- [Watch out for bad cheese](https://rachelvb.com/watch-out-for-bad-cheese/) - I slept like poo last night, that's right poo. My throat started to hurt again because my boyfriend caught some venus fly disease on the airplane and brought it home and I became so grumpy that I might get sick again that I ate nachos with maybe some questionable cheese and took 6 vitamins and
- [California I'm coming home - in a month](https://rachelvb.com/california-im-coming-home-in-a-month/) - [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al75lj3A240&fs=1&hl=en_US]
- [Upstate](https://rachelvb.com/upstate/) - An open ladder of tracks fades into eventual sky. Any other place the sky is just a sky here it is always a horizon beyond gray waters, gray eyes, a soft dripping sound of more, the drip of a faucet. Our hands touch like petals of skin on skin We lift them up on strings
- [The grumpy barista](https://rachelvb.com/the-grumpy-barista/) - I held my coffee through the dark, U-ed around the banister, found the landing in the deepest black, the occasional car passing on the road outside shedding light through the curtain. I did it all without seeing where I was going. How much of what we do is just a bodily memory of having done
- [Revise](https://rachelvb.com/940/) - I'm trying to revise a new poem, but my mind keeps wandering off and I can't concentrate and my computer is staring at me telling me to check all the portals, the internet portals, to distract myself further. I know you're supposed to sit with things when you are stuck, but I'm feeling this one
- [Tiny teacup](https://rachelvb.com/938/) - When I think of the publishing world, I think of myself sailing across the ocean in a tiny teacup with an umbrella broken at the joints as a sail. And I get nervous and unsure and my armpits start to sweat. There's so many of us, there's so many of us, there's so many of
- [Mushaboom, Feist - if only my toast could fly](https://rachelvb.com/mushaboom-feist-if-only-my-toast-could-fly/) - [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYF0qU5WSew&fs=1&hl=en_US]
- [My Moon My Man, Feist - this also makes me happy](https://rachelvb.com/my-moon-my-man-feist-this-also-makes-me-happy/) - [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltYq-jalYm0&fs=1&hl=en_US]
- [1234, Feist - this makes me happy](https://rachelvb.com/1234-feist-this-makes-me-happy/) - [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABYnqp-bxvg&fs=1&hl=en_US]
- [Step up](https://rachelvb.com/step-up/) - I was running a high last night. Driving through the dark, cranking the music up, feeling as if dreams are so fragile I need to cradle them like an egg inside me. Some are just not ready to come out yet, some need to be tended before they are released. And what a giddy feeling
- [Tending the fire](https://rachelvb.com/tending-the-fire/) - Finishing a poem is the best high in the world. Something happens in your entire body - you can feel fingers working, molding, creating. You can feel a warmth being created under you and you're tending and poking and rearranging the logs to the fire of this poem. You know it's good when you're reading
- [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!         !](https://rachelvb.com/918/) - Why do some poets put so many exclamation points in their poems? Like every line or every stanza? It's like the life-size blow up Snowman in a sleigh being pulled by a polar bear I saw on someone's roof yesterday. Sometimes, it's just too much to be put in my poetry.
- [2nd as good as the first](https://rachelvb.com/2nd-as-good-as-the-first/) - Yesterday was 55 degrees. Today it's 50. What is it about sunshine, about warm weather that changes people so? People roll down their windows, take their coats off, become more open. I saw a girl with her hands through her sun roof, her fingers wiggling like worms coming out of hibernation. And then I saw
- [My true loves](https://rachelvb.com/my-true-loves/) - Born in the Oklahoma City Stockyards at a bootwonderland known as "Langston's"
- [The first day of many](https://rachelvb.com/the-first-day-of-many/) - Yesterday was long. I don't feel like writing all the details. I went to bed at 2:30 am in the fresh year of 2011. I watched the ball drop at some good friends' house where they treated us like kings with all the food: Fresh figs and brie and bread, shrimp cocktail, bruschetta, scallops and
- [Why I love Target](https://rachelvb.com/why-i-love-target/) - Cat litter mascara Motor Oil 75% off Wrapping paper Flannel Sheets 'Thank You' Cards
- [Happy New Year](https://rachelvb.com/happy-new-year/) - I'm looking to buy some great shoes today. To finish a poem I've been working on, to replace my Miz Mooz Amelia Button Boots that I've worn to death over the past three years, and to finish a poem. Here's to new things like a new year and new boots and a new poem. I'm
- [Traveling Mercies Excerpt, Anne Lamott](https://rachelvb.com/traveling-mercies-except-anne-lamott/) - "Twice I have held the ashes of people I adored - my dad's, my friend Pammy's. Nearly twenty years ago I poured my father's into the water near Angel Island, late at night, but I was twenty-five years old and very drunk at the time and so my grief was anesthetized. When I opened the
- [Spring?](https://rachelvb.com/894/) - This morning I opened the door and smelled winter's smoke. The houses in a thaw. The steam rising from the roofs. The white. The pink of morning. Birds chipped away at the cold with their voices and for a brief moment I felt inside me - Spring.
- [A Woman and Her Muse](https://rachelvb.com/a-woman-and-her-muse/) - Blood drops blossom on the bathroom floor. The make-up you’re wearing, the heels, the pants around your ankles – a poet’s morning glow disappears in the mirror. There’s much to do, I beg you. You look with empty bucket eyes, eyes I faintly know. Zip up your pants, wipe the blood from the floor. The
- [write night](https://rachelvb.com/889/) - I feel a marathon coming, a need coming. We are so tidal, pulling and pushing, our waves rolling around the sand in our toes uncovering shells and weeds and treasure. By morning we wash it ashore like naked babies crying, just born. The things inside of us revealed - we knew they were there all
- [The places we go](https://rachelvb.com/886/) - Writers go places. Deep into the mind, into emotion, into fear and love and dark crevices that have never seen light before. I've always been an explorer. I've squeezed through sandpaper boulders in Joshua Tree National Park so I could get to the top of the world and look down. I've lost myself in the
- [Thoughts before bed](https://rachelvb.com/thoughts-before-bed/) - Gray hairs are much easier to pull out than normal hairs. And they don't even hurt.
- [So many states to live in](https://rachelvb.com/so-many-states-to-live-in/) - I watched 'The Duchess' last night with Keira Knightley. I've never really had any intention to watch this movie, but I thought it would be full of good sex scenes and the green English countryside and pretty dresses and sheep. And it was certainly full of that, but also full of so much sadness. I'm not
- [hit and run to hell](https://rachelvb.com/hit-and-run-to-hell/) - I heard a vroom and a vroom and someone driving much too fast for roads like this for weather like this and then I heard the crunch of him hitting a car on the street. His lights pointing sideways, T-ed into a silver mini-van, not a fast accident. What do I do, what do I
- [Slow down](https://rachelvb.com/868/) - It's snowing outside, but I can't see it. I'm not moving. We are supposed to get 11 to 16 inches, the most snow we've gotten all winter so far. All I hear are the wet swish of tires on the road, the continual grind of car engines, the hum of the fan in my room.
- [urghkl;](https://rachelvb.com/865/) - I think this is a pretty typical day for the cat. She hasn't seemed to have any problems staying in bed with me all day. I've talked to more of my family today than I normally do, so that's nice. this is mostly out of boredom, so I apologize because it's boring, but my fingers
- [oh stomach flu, oh stomach flu...](https://rachelvb.com/oh-stomach-flu-oh-stomach-flu/) - ...don't talk to me about being verdant. Just when I think I'll make it through the holiday without feeling too pathetic, too sorry for myself, too dependent on people - I wind up throwing up all over myself and the floor twice as I'm trying to make it to the bathroom. I wind up cleaning
- [The happier note](https://rachelvb.com/the-happier-note/) - In happy news I got "Inferno," by Eileen Myles because Rebecca Loudon kept talking about how fabulous it was and I'm excited to find out how fabulous it really is and Joni Mitchel's album "Blue" and warm mittens and a hat and two beautiful leather journals and anthropologie gift cards, a beautiful shirt to go

## Pages

- [Home Sweet Home](https://rachelvb.com/)
- [Writings](https://rachelvb.com/writings/) - Rachel Van Blankenship, Writing, Home Sweet Home, Writings, Photos, My Blog, Design, Links, About Me
- [Links](https://rachelvb.com/links/) - Literary, web links for Rachel Van Blankenship. More coming soon!
- [Design](https://rachelvb.com/design/) - Design work by Rachel Van Blankenship
- [About Me](https://rachelvb.com/about-me/) - Rachel Van Blankenship is a gangly poet in and out of her shell. She's a fruit fly catcher with a lemon heart. Sleeps in pink and purple cowboy boots. Loves: watching water of any kind move, a not-at-all Irishman named O'Farrell, a blue-eyed cat named Tula Bear, almond joys, beer you can't see through, oak-ish sound, highway lines, sitting next to rivers.
- [US of A](https://rachelvb.com/photos/us-of-a/) - Rachel Van Blankenship USA Photography, Home Sweet Home, Writings, Photos, My Blog, Design, Links, About Me
- [B&W](https://rachelvb.com/photos/bw/) - Rachel Van Blankenship Black and White Photography
- [Horses](https://rachelvb.com/photos/horses/) - Rachel Van Blankenship Horse Photography, Home Sweet Home, Writings, Photos, My Blog, Design, Links, About Me
- [Europe](https://rachelvb.com/photos/europe/) - Rachel Van Blankenship Europe Photography, Home Sweet Home, Writings, Photos, My Blog, Design, Links, About Me
- [Photos](https://rachelvb.com/photos/) - Welcome to Rachel Van Blankenship's Photography page. Europe. USA. Horses. Black and white.

## Categories

- [Uncategorized](https://rachelvb.com/category/uncategorized/)
- [Dreams](https://rachelvb.com/category/dreams/)
- [Good Writing](https://rachelvb.com/category/good-writing/)
- [Photos](https://rachelvb.com/category/photos/)
- [Poetry](https://rachelvb.com/category/poetry/)
- [seasons](https://rachelvb.com/category/seasons/)
- [Sigh](https://rachelvb.com/category/sigh/)
- [Videos](https://rachelvb.com/category/videos/)
- [wandering mind](https://rachelvb.com/category/wandering-mind/)
- [When the sun shines inside](https://rachelvb.com/category/when-the-sun-shines-inside/)
- [Writing Life](https://rachelvb.com/category/writing-life/)
- [Jack](https://rachelvb.com/category/jack/)

## Tags

- [son](https://rachelvb.com/tag/son/)
- [man](https://rachelvb.com/tag/man/)
- [being a man](https://rachelvb.com/tag/being-a-man/)
- [masculinity](https://rachelvb.com/tag/masculinity/)
- [new masculinity](https://rachelvb.com/tag/new-masculinity/)
- [parenthood](https://rachelvb.com/tag/parenthood/)
- [love](https://rachelvb.com/tag/love/)