Travels: San Francisco!

Hey everyone! A to Z Challenge aside (which I'm horribly behind on anyhow), I'll soon be traveling...

to San Francisco!

Any of you near or around there? Let's have coffee (or tea) and annoy the poor baristas with how long we sit and chat and type, lol.

To continue, I hope to be able to time and do:

Pier 39 predawn for the seals.
Zoo
Gardens
Coit Tower
That one really long walk down from Coit Tower
Alcatraz
City Lights bookstore
Lots of coffee and tea stops
Maybe hit a show (music) or something
Beach
Beach trail (can't remember the name)
Aquarium
Ballet studios (for research)
Library (for fun)
Trolley car rides (of course)
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Bridge

Ummm...any recommendations, those of you who live there or have been there frequently?

Directly following that I'll be heading to Montana--Bozeman to be exact. From there it's south to Yellowstone for the summer. But that's to live and work and play, not to vacation.

That being said, as sporadic as my posting has been of late, it's bound to get even worse. The coming week will likely be a flurry of packing and travel arrangements...but I want to try and post every day of my trip, right up until I no longer have WIFI.

That's all for now; I'm off to the post office for shipping boxes! Yayy! (That "yayy" was semi-sarcastic, mind you.)

A to Z: "D" as in Dream. Pronunciation: driːm

Again according to the Oxford Dictionaries Online, a dream (the noun) is:

1.a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep
2. a state of mind in which someone is or seems to be unaware of their immediate surroundings
3. a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal
4. an unrealistic or self-deluding fantasy
5. a person or thing perceived as wonderful or perfect

In keeping with English teachers' longheld desire to uphold parallel structures, first things first: the dreams when we have when we are sleeping.

"--You can take away our cars and you can take away our phones but you cannot take away our dreams!
--Yeah, 'cause we're like, sleeping, when we have them!" 

What movie, what movie!?!

A to Z: "C" as in Call for Events

Howdy! I'm scrapping what I was going to put up for the letter "C" in favor of a much more exciting idea, I hope...

I'll post any and all writing-oriented upcoming events for the month of May (since April is already upon us, I'm skipping it) where I am now and in my home state--that I know of, at least.Will post by state first to keep it navigable.

Those of you who feel the urge upon you, comment below as a way of updating the list; I'm sure I'm missing some great events! But please be sure to include the State, City, Location (as in business or address), Title and Date.  That way everyone who swings by this page can get a feel for what's hip and happening or whatever it is people say.

As for me, here's what I know:

Colorado
Boulder~  Laughing Goat Coffeehouse: "'So You Think You're a Poet' Reading Series" Monday nights
Colorado Springs ~Poor Richard's Bookstore:  "Writers Night." May 28
Denver ~ Tattered Cover:  Booksignings by various authors. May 1-3, 7-10, 21-25, 30 and 31
Englewood ~ Doubletree Hotel: "1001 Ways to Market Your Book." May 3

Missouri
Kansas City ~ The Writers Place: "Riverfront Reading" May 4, May 11
                       Uptown Arts Bar:  "Blue Monday."  May 14
                       Johnson County Library: "Poetry Reading." May 15 <-------------- This is technically KS
                       The Writers Place: "Sunday Salon."  May 20
                       The Writers Place: "Workshop: Lessons from a Bestseller." May 24
                       The Writers Place: "Reading and Book Release."  May 25
                       The Writer Place: "Writers Place Salon."   (open mic) May 28
Saint Louis ~ Kirkwood Train Station: "Family Friendly Open Mic Night." May 8
                       Touhill Performing Arts Center: "St. Louis Storytelling Festival." May 3
                       Focal Point: "St. Louis Poetry Slam." May 17

                                                      

B: Bird of Blue and Black

Uhm, so "A" is bogging me down and will be back-dated...don't tell! Here's something completely different for "B."

Bird of Blue and Black

Bird of blue and black
beak dipped to the feeder on the deck:
             The mountain is shrouded
             in sun and snow.

You have mined my body of seeds
for treasure and for sustenance,
flicking away the shells with your
beaked mouth.
           I am the feeder;
           am shrouded in sun and snow;
           am the wind which blows you from
your feast and lifts you to mountains
new and far, deserts of sands
in piled shapes you will
not describe to me, smog and cities
that shall remain unnamed
where they fall into that final ebb
of waving sea.
          
            But all is me.

So do not tell me these things,
bird of blue and black,
nor snap your greedy wings or beak.
          (For I am the seeds of a mountain
          the dunes you drive past
          the smog over the County
          the rush of salted water like tears.)
What is light is light and not is not,
shrouded both in sun and snow.

And you are flown;
          the feeder empty.

A to Z: "A" as in Atoms

Did you know there are 67 octillion atoms in the average human body? Isn't that incredible? Now, I may be a bit on the short side, but the fact is there's a great deal of...stuff...that goes into making me, me.

Then the other day I read that atoms are mostly "empty" space. This statement was then followed by a high discussion of just what "empty" means, in regards to atomical space. From what I understand, "empty" in this instance means somethign more along the lines of "inaccessible," that is, by other atoms, because of quantum whositwhatsits. But that was all beyond me, frankly, and much less interesting. 

They have these scanning tunneling microscropes (STMs) that can recreate supposedly accurate images of things like DNA strands and atoms. Here's a reconstruction of a bunch of silicon atoms:

Image courtesy of:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV3181.html

Know what those sort of remind me of (pardon me; know of what those remind me?)? 

Ever since I was little--usually when I can't sleep because it seems to work best at night or with my eyes closed--if I let my eyes go unfocused and just looked at the air, very vaguely, you understand, I begin to see little dots that kind of shiver back in forth. Never lasts very long; I always lose the dots if I try to follow them; focus on them. They remind me a lot of that photo, minus the computer-added coloring. Vague jumbled up dots that kinda bump into each other. Now let's face it: I'm probably just weird, or have weird eyeballs, a hecitc imagination--something. Maybe it's some kind of after-image effect. But how cool would it be if that were me somehow, for a matter of a milisecond or whatnot, actually seeing atoms? (Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? Tell me if you do!)

That'd we wicked. Highly unlikely, I understand. But very wicked. Anyway...

I digress. Allow me to return. There are 67 octillion atoms in your body, and those atoms are as empty as the atoms that make up the air you breathe. I find that sort of thing just...yeah, well, incredible. So much, and yet so little. You are a walking sack of 67 octillion nothing-filled atoms. Just so you know.