Jackson had his six-month check-up yesterday, he's in the 90th percentile for height (27 3/4"), the 75th for weight (18 lbs. 6 oz.), and the 95th for head circumference (a whopping 18 1/4") -- finally, part of him that will take after me, I have bestowed upon him the lifelong challenge of finding a hat that fits. Time for resolutions! Mine this year is to dress better -- I spent the last six months wearing t-shirts and jeans or anything that Jackson could cheese with impunity, and the six months before that wearing a pair of 40-waist Levi's and any shirt that would cover my belly. Now it's time to spruce it up a bit. (Something for Daddy, dontcha know.)
Lakers won last night even without Shaq and his injured toe. I had scoffed at the inability of such a big man to deal with such a small problem, so the gods punished me by giving me a blocked milk duct -- my right breast got really hard and I had to cover it with a heating pad set on high and then massage it (ouch) while I nursed Jackson with a cracked nipple, which I believe is the equivalent of walking 20 blocks with a blister on your heel. So I've gained some sympathy for the milionaire and his arthritic toe.
New link on the right to The Plagiarist, a good source for modern poetry. Here's one of my favorites.
Why I Am Not A Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have sardines in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's sardines?"
All that's left is just
letters. "It was too much," Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it oranges. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called sardines.
Frank O'Hara