the rix mix

Strange day. Began with an e mail that a fine poet I haven't seen in years died suddenly last week. His photo & some of his poems were at the Museum of American Poetics website, which just turned into a page for an expired domain only a week after the Director of MAP wrote me about a new Allen Ginsberg archival exhibition - I looked that over, & about how he'd gotten some financial support earlier this year to keep that huge & wonderful poetry project going. Now the whole caboodle's disappeared. Spent a lot of time going to, waiting around for & returning from the dentist, all for what amounted to a five minute consultation we could have had by phone if her office staff had actually understood the identical letters we received from the insurance company. Later, riding my bicycle, I misjudged a curb, glanced off it, & fell over, fortunately going about 4 mph. It happened because I was preoccupied with the other stuff. In fact, it had already crossed my mind to get off the bike & walk for awhile because I wasn't feeling attentive. I almost walked out of the supermarket without one of the bags, but I stopped to rearrange the items long enough for the cashier to catch up, a nice kid for that. I decided to zone out on the Mets-Marlins game, until the lousy Mets pitcher gave up 7 runs including a grand slam in the 4th, two innings later I had a feeling NY wasn't coming back (they didn't) & switched to Bill Moyers' "Faith & Reason," got bored, went to "Donnie Darko," still incomprehensible despite the great cast, switched to "Two Rode Together" with James Stewart & Richard Widmark, disappointing, back to Mets post-game show, turned off the TV & read a mail order catalogue.