What is going on? First Michael Jackson, and now Billy Mays are dead at 50!? Looks like the big 5-0 is a dangerous crossing. Thank God mine has been safe thus far.

Dean and I had a great time hosting a little garden party-pot luck fete at our home yesterday. Thank you to everybody who came or sent wishes (and sorry to miss those who could not make it). It was so good to see people from all the different parts of my life -- family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, poetry people, gay buddies, etc -- all together in one place. The youngest person there was 19 mos old, and the oldest was 91. It was HOT and SUNNY and I hope everybody had a great time. I know I had a blast! Some pics below (unfortunately the camera was misplaced about half way through, so we missed a lot of folks),

But first up, the prize for the funniest birthday card goes to Steve I., who could not make it to the party, but sent this via his partner Ralph. The inside says, "See, there are things more frightening than having another birthday." HAHAHAHA!

All Together Now
http://www.inbflat.net/
Got this from Jared Leising a couple weeks ago. It's pretty cool. A collage of You Tube musical instruments. "Play these together, some or all, start them at any time, in any order."

"In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.

The videos can be played simultaneously -- the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders."

Check it out.

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The Most Misspelled Word? Definitely

According to a new study, "definitely" is the most misspelled word in English. (This might be the Queen's English, and not American English though, since "manoeuvre" also made the list.)

Also on the list were broccoli, phlegm, bureaucracy, indict, consensus, unnecessary, sacrilegious and prejudice.

General opinion surrounding the poll seems to blame text messaging for our inability to spell. You know, because people are always texting the words "bureaucracy" and "sacrilegious." Spell check perhaps could shoulder a little blame, but typing OMG into your phone is not automatically the same thing as not being able to spell words correctly.

Harold Norse dies at 92; Beat poet was a literary beacon in the gay community

Harold Norse never attained the recognition that he and others felt was his due. His mentor, poet William Carlos Williams, called him “the best poet of your generation.”
A pioneer of poetry written in plain American English, Norse was mentor or peer to great talents in 20th century American literature, including Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg.

Norse died of natural causes Monday at an assisted-living facility in San Francisco, according to his conservator, attorney Mark Vermeulen. He was 92.

A literary beacon in the gay community who risked ostracism by writing openly of his sexual adventures in the 1940s and '50s, Norse exiled himself to Europe for 15 years before returning to the United States and publishing such volumes as "Hotel Nirvana" (1974), which was nominated for a National Book Award, "Carnivorous Saint" (1977) and "In the Hub of the Fiery Force: Collected Poems" (2003).

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I am sorry to say I didn't know his work. But I will defintely check it out now.

My 50th birthday (yes, it's true) is rapidly approaching. I was having a wonderful day, and feeling pretty copacetic about it, until I received in the mail today these two things: 1) my Official AARP Membership Card (no shit!), and 2) a message from my doctor that I am due for a physical, and that I need to schedule my first COLONOSCOPY. ARRGGH! Life is cruel. Life is cruel. Life is cruel.

I am so looking forward to watching Edie Falco's new show Nurse Jackie. I loved her in The Sopranos. What an incredible actress! Dean and I missed the debut last night (it was on past our bedtime). But the replay is tonight at 7:30 (a much more reasonable time).

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Had a really fun poetry group again on Sunday evening. K and E and M and I all sitting together on the front deck, rocking on our patio chairs, a bud vase of roses on the table, sharing a bottle of wine, pita chips and hummus, cantaloupe slices. Good poems all around: one about Afghan women protesting, another about our best years being behind us (or not!), another about Shi Shi beach. I did one from a new series I am working on, based on the bubonic plague (such an uplifting topic).

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Wow and congrats: The Griffin Prizes announced:

In what was presented as a competition between three generations of Canadian poets, it was the veteran A.F. Moritz who emerged as the Canadian winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, the world's most lucrative for verse,during last night's gala bash in the Distillery District.

Moritz, the author of more than 15 collections of verse, took home the $50,000 award for his current collection, The Sentinel, emerging from an impressive and noticeably fresh field that also included past Trillium Prize winner Kevin Connolly for his fourth book, Revolver, and Jeramy Dodds for his much praised debut, Crabwise to the Hounds.

"I'd especially like to thank readers – and included in that my publishers, House of Anansi," Moritz said.

An equal $50,000 award went to the international winner, U.S. poet C.D. Wright, whose Rising, Falling, Hovering triumphed over collections by countryman Dean Young, Irish poet Derek Mahon and Scottish writer Mick Imlah, who died earlier this year of Lou Gehrig's disease.

"This is the best party in the world," Wright said through tears of joy. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world."

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Had a great poetry group at Gary's place last night. Good poems all around. Terrific late summer-like weather. We all sat at a picnic table amid his garden of perennials and fruit trees, a pond with gold fish (netted over to protect it from the neighborhood herons). It is such a great group.

But just as we were all getting up to leave, a huge storm rolled in, thick heavy black clouds, gusts of wind, the temp dropping about twenty degrees. It was really intense, and a little spooky. Thunder and lightning weather, without the thunder and lightning (so far). Hope everybody made it home safe!

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It's going to another hot one today. They say it may hit 90 degrees in Seattle. The garden is loving it. Especially the basil and the tomatoes and the peppers. Perfect weather for them.

Dean and I both have the day off and have a few errands to do, but otherwise we are going to be hanging in the shade.

Adios!

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PS: So sad to hear about David Carradine. Hung himself in his hotel closet in Bangkok? So sad. I always loved his character in the Kung Fu series. Which I thought captured the popular imagination in the early 70's in the wake of the Vietnam War. A show where an unarmed monk is able to negotiate the lawless Wild West, with peace and patience (and a little whup-ass when necessary). Something we can all learn from today.

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I'm so proud of our Husky Women. They swept a Florida team that had won 29 games in a row, and was 63-3 for the season. UW clobbered Florida 8-0 in the first game, and then squeaked out a 3-2 win in the second game (coming back from a 2-0 deficit). Go Dawgs!

Woman Refuses Surgery on Tumor --
Says the hallucinations it causes help her be creative:

Doctors told Silva her condition could lead to fatal bleeding or seizures. The diagnosis threw her into depression at first. But then she decided to put her hallucinations into her art. She has declined surgery, saying that she doesn't want to cut the creative pipeline.
"I was scared the operation would change my art," Silva told ABC. "I wanted to paint every day after that. One detail, one emotion almost became like a diary. It put me on the edge and forced me to be even more creative."

View art on her website here.