one more thing. this blog is getting like ulysses, just describing every banal detail of my life. so once in a while I'll try to stick in something creative. here's a little of my output from high school:

Great-Aunt Constance

I wonder what she was in her prime,
This waddling pear of a woman.
Her eyes are crinkled with too many smiles.
A corner of yellowed petticoat peeks
From beneath her broadcloth gown.

Perhaps she was a scholar, once.
She regales her children with tales of grandeur,
Spouting homespun philosophy reverently—
Interspersed with snatches of Whitman.
This sage, soothsayer from an era long past.

What wheels turn in her mind?
Does she see herself as a crumbling idol?
Has she ever been blessed
With a circle of admirers?
Questions that hang like the pale fall of her hair.