12 July 2003 - 12:27 a.m.

From the "Dude, it's a biiiiiiiiig state. . ." Department:

Lapsed Catholics are my biggest market and, for some reason I don't understand, Texas is the biggest source of customers. The orders from Texas outnumber all the others four to one. The people who buy from me are split evenly between men and women and include everyone from religious fetishists to Wall Street types. Really, you'd be amazed at who buys my products. I never took religion particularly seriously, I knew nothing about fetishism or dispossessed Catholics, but I've been thanked countless times for providing this outlet. All you have to do is look at the haiku page on the site to see how people feel.

- "Nigel," interviewed in the current issue of Tin House

(To be honest, I'm not at all turned on by said product, but somehow seeing "Texas, "fetishism," and "haiku" in the same paragraph sent me into a cackling fit.)

What a maddening, unproductive week. The mosquitoes are biting; received word that Larcom Press had to close (one of my poems had been accepted for "a forthcoming issue" over a year ago); uncooperative digestion; bizarre server behavior (still!). On the bright side: good workouts and bizarre pets (the chowhound dove after a stray cherry tonight and neatly spit out the stone and the stem a few minutes later - but when I tried to whisk away the stone, she snatched it back up and swallowed it), and I've got a new poem started. Also tackled the overdue gifties for three birthdays tonight (and am about to go wrap up a book in advance of a fourth) - and a package arrived from Socrates containing The Eyre Affair and a Keeneland t-shirt and two belated birthday cards (one featuring Winnie the Pooh, the other flaunting an exceedingly well-defined male torso). Just seeing the two cards next to each other cracks me up.

One year ago: "it suddenly seemed to me a new poem"