I’m graduating

Although a number of people still visit this blog daily to check out the contest lists, I have decided to close down this blog. I am (for better or worse) no longer a poet with a day job; now, my hobbies are my jobs.

Therefore, once I export the posts from this blog to my computer, I will be taking this site offline and settling in at http://thehobbyisthejob.blogspot.com/ for the duration. If you like following my train of thought, please join me at the new address and/or add me to your reader. I’d love to see you there.

In the meantime, get all the info you need from the contest lists…or if there is some soul out there who also keeps track of contests, please feel free to take my lists and add them to your own. She’ll be down in a couple of weeks.

Thank you all for following me at PWADJ for the past, oh, three or so years. It’s been wonderful getting to know you all and of course, I’ll continue following you all in my reader, on facebook, and twitter!

Peace friends.

Miss you, Michael

It’s official – Hiatus

Thanks for your thoughts people – I agree: scrapping the blog altogether would be a bad idea. I think I’d miss it too much! So, I am going on a long-ish haitus – until August. Hopefully, I’ll come back with a new perspective, fresh attitude, new themes, and a longed-for refreshed spirit. Keep me in your readers…and in the meantime, keep on visiting the contest pages, and of course if you need a PWADJ fix, the archives.

Friends: come find, and stay in touch, with me on Facebook.

Poetry Contest
Poetry Residencies
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Fiction Residencies
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Slush

I think i am going to close this blog down

Thoughts?

Alec Mapa – the funniest Mofo in town!

Hat tip: Kathy!

Obamadoma

I know that as employs of the Nation you must uphold the Constitution. It’s basically your only job. So now, because DOMA’s “law” you feel you need to uphold it. Good for you.

Question: where were you, upholding the Constitution (of fed AND state), when shit like DOMA (and Prop 8 or whatever else) was being WRITTEN into law? These “amendments” are so glaringly unconstitutional you have to be dead not to see it.

Uphold? Only when it’s convenient for you, of course. MORE HYPOCRISY FROM THE U.S. I think it might be time to amend the definition of hypocrisy:

One entry found.

Entry Word: hypocrisy
Function: noun

Text: the pretending of having virtues, principles, or beliefs that one in fact does not have the hypocrisy of the United States to uphold the Constitution by adding amendments that are in disharmony with the tenets of that Constitution.

Synonyms: cant, dissembling, dissimulation, insincerity, United States, sanctimoniousness

Related Words: deception, deceptiveness, dishonesty, falsity, pretense, Obama’s GLBT policies, pretension, pretentiousness, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction; duplicity, fakery, falseness, fraudulentness, shamming, Second Term Posturing; artificiality, glibness, oiliness, smoothness, unctuousness, Obama Administration

Antonyms: genuineness, sincerity, equal rights

Back from the East Coast, with a germ

I got back from visiting family in Massachusetts late Wednesday night. I woke up Thursday with white spots on my throat and an almost complete inability to swallow – no fever though. So I just slept a lot last night and, regardless, I have something wicked in my head/nose/ears now (throat less spotty, still a bit sore). I am sullen about this because my pal Alex is in town and my dilapidated state is keeping me from sharing joyment with him. I regard this as mean. More lame blogging from PWADJ soon, I promise.

American hypocrisy is tops!

North Korea: Illegal border crossing and associated "grave crimes" – 12 years hard labor.

United States: Illegal border crossing (southern only, of course) and associated "grave crimes" – death and tortue at the hand of some rogue Texan’s rifle.

Off to the East Coast for a few days

I am going to visit family in Massachusetts for my nephew’s high school graduation. Hope the weather’s nice…In the meantime, here are some pictures of the meal I made for me and L last Sunday. The fog’s been heavy (our San Francisco summer) so it made me want the hearty warmth of soup…it also happens to be high season inland for summer fruits and vegetables, so I decided to make potato leek soup with green garlic (my little shout-out to summer)*, along with spring pea crostini (ingredients: spring sugar snap peas hulled and blanched, aged jack cheese, toasted crushed almonds, olive oil, salt and pepper and mint leaves on toasted bread rubbed with green garlic – I know,  am still dreaming about it). And of course, the berries being what they are right now (AWESOME) I made a parfait – raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and unsweetened whipped cream. Can you say antioxidants. Since Leah is gluten-free, I put her crostini topping on some rice crackers and the flavor remained marvelous (I rubbed the crackers with the green garlic, so I am sure that helped!).

Vichyssoise (aka potato leek soup)
3 tablespoons butter
3 cups leeks, sliced and washed
4 cups potatoes, peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
8 cups water
2 cup heavy cream
In large pot melt butter. Add leeks and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Add water and bring to a simmer. Cook until vegetables are tender. Place 3/4 of soup into a blender and puree, return to pot and stir in cream. Serve hot or cold

Gardenias

My grandmother’s favorite flower was a gardenia. It was through her I learned how fragile these flowers are: even the slightest bit of oil left by the lightest touch of a human finger will set them to bruising, and once that’s begun, the process cannot be stopped. Gardenias smell amazing, and this scent has not been replicated in any candle, perfume or soap I’ve ever smelled. It’s freshet and garden, and light sweetness; it’s what you’d imagine a bee’s house would smell like – you know, that “home” smell each of us has. This particular gardenia is one of many blossoms on a bush outside an apartment building nearby where I live. My mother tried so hard for so many years to nurture a successful gardenia – in her house, misting it, feeding it, giving it sun, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, love – but never succeeded…and here’s this happy blooming bush of them just in the dry, cemented ground outside!

My grandmother died on Memorial Day weekend of 1993. I miss her, but each year around this time, I get nostalgic for her cooking, her presence, her smell.