Do you like hanging out at the beach? I used to not. But now I kind of do. In fact, I will be there shortly, trying my best to distract myself while I wait to hear about a job. It's a good job. A job I want pretty bad. If I get it, I'll tell you more, but for now I'll tell you that I'm out of clean underwear and will probably buy more before I wash what I already have. I'm 32, by the way.

Have you listened to Beyonce's new record? I have...7 times. The production is a little scattered, but it still comes together in the way a good mix CD comes together. Thematically, again, much like a good mix, it's pretty consistent falling in and around, "I love you," "I miss you," "I'm glad I don't love you," "I want to love you again," and "this is what love makes me do." I have a few favorite songs, but I want you to guess what they are. Maybe someday I'll put them on a mix for you...

Do you think anyone has ever captured on film what it's like to stand in field glittered with lightning bugs? I don't think anyone ever has because that seems like something that really wouldn't make an interesting picture, but is, nonetheless, a totally awesome experience. Kind of like finding a breezy spot in the shade on a really hot day.

My therapist is out of town on vacation. I wish she weren't because I've had a really busy week.

I'm broke as shit. But somehow I still managed to see 2 plays, 1 chamber music performance and 13 Assassins. Have you ever seen a guy use the crook of elbow to squeegee blood from a sword? I have. And it was totally boss.

My apartment has spiders. That is why I am not in my apartment right now. I have spider bites. They're rashy and itchy and after a few days they look like bruises. If there are any spiders reading this, be warned. I have seen 13 Assassins and am soon to return to my apartment.

The air smells like fried eggs here. I've been here for 2 hours. I'm really hungry for fried eggs. I think I'll make fried eggs for supper tonight.

Today I visited my grandma. She fed me goulash, a ham sandwich, green beans, cottage cheese, applesauce, strawberries, watermelon and then asked if I wanted her to make me a hamburger.

I almost said yes.

Rhinoscapes, Eggscapes, Landscapes and Potted Meatscapes. We should all try to scape more things, sometimes. But especially when our chairs can't stop rolling over our donuts.

How super-famous are you? I'm not very super-famous. Not super-famous at all, really. But I do write poems, so it's only a matter of time.

That is just one feeling I've had. Another is this:

Letter to a Lover

Today I am going to pick you up at the beige airport.
My heart feels like a field of calves in the sun.
My heart is wired directly to the power source of mediocre songs.
I am trying to catch a ray of sunlight in my mouth.

I look forward to showing you my new furniture.
I look forward to the telephone ringing, it is not you,
you are in the kitchen trying to figure out the coffee maker,
you are pouring out the contents of your backpack.

I wonder if you now have golden fur?
I wonder if your arsenal of kind remarks is empty?
I remember when I met you you were wearing a grey dress,
that was also blue, not unlike the water plus the sky.

They say it’s difficult to put a leash on a hummingbird.
So let us be no longer the actuary of each other!
Let us bow no longer our heads to the tyranny of numbers!
Hurry off the plane, with your rhinestone covered bag

full of magazines that check up on the downfall of the stars.
I will be waiting for you at the bottom of the moving stairs.

Actually, that's a Matthew Zapruder feeling, but I sympathize with it.

A few months ago MZ told me that the single most efficacious circumstance on his poems was when he read, on camera and at the cameraman's behest, to a single woman at a gas station. Being that close to someone who easily could not care was a revelation in voice and purpose and scope. Poemscope...to keep the poem both practical and mystical without have one devour the other. You want magic, yes, but you want the kind of magic that is putting in change for one soda and having two pop out. That is thinking of a loved one just before they unexpectedly call you. That is Apple Cider Donuts at the Farmer's Market. And yet, none of these things are beyond reason, resting somewhere between hope and expectation. I feel this is a good place for poems to be, somewhere between hope and expectation. A reverie, maybe, but more like the end of that poem...that moment your lover's head crests the horizon of an escalator, and your heart explodes a little.

A series of tiny heart explosions...

Today I told a group of 8 year-olds to dream up a list of incongruous things. Like gummi bear toilets. Or Cheez Wiz ears. Or potato skin bears. Towards the end of our sharing though, a young one stood and quite proudly said, vegetarian cookies. I thought for a second and then said, you mean, like cookies made from vegetarians? And she said, no, vegetarian cookies. I said, well, those are real...in fact, most cookies are. To which she replied scoffing, BJ, you can't make cookies without bacon soda.

I was taken aback, totally.

You know what, I said, I'mma let you have that one.

But as the day has worn on, I'm wondering; is that a joke? Did I get played by an 8 year-old?

Did I? I mean, that's almost too perfect, right?

Help me.

Bike rides are pretty rad.

Last night I ate the best pizza I think I've ever had.

Finishing books always makes me kind of sad.

Today it's rainy and cool and I've decided to do laundry and look through the want ads.

But there are spiders everywhere here, even in my mattress pad.

Have you ever eaten Woeber's Cranberry Horseradish Sauce? It's not that bad.

The last few mixes I've made were named: bad, cad, dad, egad and fad.

I don't know that it matters which city you're looking down on, when you're up 10 stories, they all take on some amazing, totally finger point worthy qualities.

My therapist said I need to shed my shoulds...and then told me I should write a poem about it.

Yes, I should, I said.

Then she asked me if I could help her with the tiller in her garden. I hesitated, but then she said that we could keep on talking and that she wouldn't charge me for the session.

I did it. I'm cheap. And I have a fucking weird relationship with my therapist...

Hey Thanks Benjamin is the name of this blog. HEY THANKS BENJAMIN is the name of my manuscript. I've sent it out to three places, each place receiving a slightly different version. It keeps telling me it's done. I hesitate and then I write another poem that seems to fit.

I put them in. I'm obsessive. And I have a fucking weird relationship with my manuscript...

I've been reading, off and on, "Your Father on the Train of Ghosts," by GC Waldrep and John Gallaher. It's a testament to a shit-ton.

There are so many poems here. Most of them good. But good doesn't seem to be the point.

That they are here at all, poems just being poems, that is what this book exists for. And honestly, I don't mind it. Like I said, the poems are good enough, occasionally great, and even more occasionally worthwhile. Which is what makes reading this book really enjoyable. Really, who's to say poetry needs to be worthwhile? Why do I need to feel like a poem hasn't wasted my time?

I mean, that's why I read poems...to waste time. When I read the paper, I don't hesitate to jump from one article to the next, so as to not waste time. But when I read poems, I'm happy to waste the time, because somewhere, it feels good to know that that is what I'm doing. I'm just sitting around, reading some fucking poems and this book allowed me that greatest of luxuries without feeling like I owed it more than that.

I hate that feeling...like I owe books something. Look, I say, I'm reading you, isn't that good enough?

Happily, in this case, it seems to be.