I woke up this morning and saw that Cassie was looking much less scary. Her excretions weren't normal, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I went to work, intending to ask if I could leave early to go buy an infrared light, as my Parakeet Handbook suggests.

I got to work and the supervisor said, "Monique! Are you working today?" in this frazzled voice. I answered, "Yes. Why? Is something wrong?" She said, "It's just that there are so many people here today." Indeed, the store was full of employees, including someone who supposedly just quit. "Well, I was going to ask you..." I began, and she cut me off. "You want the day off? Great! Go! Go!!!"

Man, that was easy.

So I went to PetSmart, the only pet store I know of that I thought might have infrared lights. They didn't, but they directed me to my new favorite pet store in the world, Wet Pets. First of all, the name Wet Pets reminds me of Mutt Cutts from Dumb & Dumber. Second of all, it's a huge store with friendly, intelligent employees.

The guy who helped me was knowledgeable about parakeets (unlike every single PetSmart employee I have ever encountered) and helped me pick out a light. He also recommended a certain type of medicine to add to her water. I described her symptoms and situation, and he agreed that the problem was most likely stress due to the arrival of Pidgie.

(By the way, this is the reason I did not take Cassie to the vet today. I felt the trip to the vet would be stressful, and I didn't want to compound the problem by stressing her out more. If she does not continue to improve, I will take her to the vet. It is open on weekends.)

I ran a bunch of other errands and then came home. Being bathed in the infrared light freaked Cassie out (it looks like a pink alien ship has just come to take her away) but it seems to be doing the trick. Her droppings have solidified quite a bit. And I should know. I am a connoisseur of bird droppings these days.

Ash (who gave Pidgie his newest nickname) offered to take care of the birds while I am on vacation. I'd love to leave them in her care, because I know she'd take wonderful care of them. But I don't want to stress them out by driving them to Los Angeles and then leaving them in a strange environment for a month. So it looks like I'll have to turn down her kind offer.

We will now take a brief break so you can all be proud of me.

This is what my professor wrote on my evaluation for Experiments in Poetic Form:

Monique was a fully engaged, attentive student in this seminar. She embraced the assignments with panache and great vigor, making each experiment her own. Her poetic voice is spirited, vivacious, and fresh. She delivered a lively and graceful collaborative reading of an e.e. cummings sonnet. Her final project, a soaring, passionate, beautiful sonnet sequence, demonstrates a powerful interrogation of the form. It was a pleasure to have her in class. Grade: A

This is what she wrote on my sonnets:

A fiercely passionate, beautiful set of sonnets, Monique. It soars out of itself and back into the tradition, aligning in the direction of Bernadette Mayer's work, giving us a strong, angry, tender, petulant and wild female voice. Hard won, I suspect. Brava!

Okay, it's a little overblown. But I love her description of my sequence as an "interrogation of the form." Only a poet could have put it like that, I think.

So, if you'd like to come over and strew roses at my feet, let me know! I'll give you my address!

No, no. Only kidding. Seriously, I'm proud of myself. I don't feel "I fooled her!" about this A. I earned this one.

I went out with a bunch of classmates on Wednesday, including Mickey. He said he really liked my sonnet sequence, which of course, made me smile. I was intensely involved in talking with him when Checkers said, "I'm available for conversation too." I looked at Checkers and said, "Okay. But I'm talking to Mickey right now." And I turned back to Mickey (who was grinning amusedly) and we continued talking. About what? Couldn't tell ya. The bar was loud and I could barely hear him. Did it matter? Not so much.

Later, Checkers said, "Why are you so much nicer to Mickey than you are to me?" I wasn't drunk enough to explain my unbridled lust, thank god. I said, "Well, Checkers, I just don't get to talk to Mickey that often." Which is god's honest truth. At least partially.

He's an interesting fellow, that Checkers. He's the one who writes fling-a-shoe-at-the-keyboard poetry that looks like this: "yammajamma mama pajajamma. 22 { ^floo^oo^{)"

There are some people at our school who regard Checkers and his work very highly. Toker said that Checkers is his favorite poet (not counting yours truly) at our school. Wayne said that his poetry was "sometimes like music" and that Checkers "is the kind of person I came to this school to meet."

But neither of them were in my Experiments class. They don't know Checkers the way I do.

Checkers didn't do any of the assignments. Instead of a straightforward sonnet or what have you, he would always turn in some gibberish. Often, the logic behind a three line poem of his would take him ten minutes to explain. Sometimes, he would compose his assignments in class, on the spot. To a certain extent, this is endearing. Checkers goes beyond that extent.

To me, his behavior doesn't convey the impression that he is, as others claim, innovative and groundbreaking and original. This conveys the impression that he's a big fraud, that he is unable to write a straightforward poem. Even though he hits on something once in a while, he has not yet earned my respect as a writer.

What Checkers boils down to, both personally and professionally, is that he is unable to meet anyone halfway. All interactions must be on his terms.

"I like your poem, except you should change this line."

"We should go out in January. But we have to go to this specific restaurant so Laurie can eat vegetarian food and see the error of her ways." (He actually said this to Laurie. Of course she's not going to go to lunch with him. What does he expect?)

"No, you can't talk to Mickey now. You have to talk to me."

He hasn't yet won me over as a friend, and he assumes a familiarity that isn't there. I believe this is his pattern, and it puts people off. He's very high maintenance, very needy of attention, when all he really ever does is hold court about his "process" and his issues.

As a writer, he doesn't meet his audience halfway. He encodes his poetry to such a ridiculous extent that it's largely unintelligible. You have to be a cryptographer to understand half of what he writes. And perhaps it's just that I don't "get it." Perhaps he's one of those love him or hate him poets. But I don't think so.

I think I have him all figured out.

Here are some random things:

My mother called me yesterday to give me a URL. My mother giving me a URL is just about the funniest thing you've ever heard. Let's pretend it was euro.com. (It was euro-something.) "Okay Monique. Okay. It's DOUBLE-you, DOUBLE-you, DOUBLE-you... you know, DOUBLE-you. Like as in WILLIAM. Three DOUBLEyous. Then a PERIOD. Then E as in Edward, U as in... UNIFORM. Then R as in Robert, O as in olive. Then another PERIOD. Then C as in Charlie, O as in olive, and M as in Maaaaaa-ary. Then there's a LINE. It goes from the top right corner to the bottom left corner. Like a little LINE. Not a very big line. It's a LINE...." I tried explaining the terminology to her, but I kind of hope she doesn't get it. It's just too entertaining.

I got a web cam today. It cost me exactly zero dollars. In fact, the store paid me $3 to take it off their hands. Here's how this fuzzy math works: the web cams were on sale for $35. There was a $30 rebate on them, making them $5 web cams. However, one of the boxes had been opened, and the cam was therefore marked down to $27. So I came out three bucks ahead. Cool, huh? I am going to try and hook it up later and take a web cam picture of Pidgie so you can see him.

I love The Winslow Boy. I borrowed it again from Leah. I need to get that sucker on DVD someday. Some of my favorite movies are period movies, such as: Age of Innocence, Sense & Sensibility, Emma (I want the non-Gwyneth Paltrow version, although I haven't seen it yet), Little Women (I really want the Winona Ryder one now), Wings of the Dove, and Mansfield Park (also need this one). I eagerly await The House of Mirth. Any other good ones to suggest that I may have missed? If it hadn't been for Leah, I never would have seen The Winslow Boy. And Amazon.com, by the way, is no help. If you search for movies that are "very similar" to that one, you get a list that includes Happy, Texas. I utterly fail to see the link there. Plus, Happy, Texas totally sucks.

All these mailing lists all over the place are driving me mad. I want to put some of my subscriptions on hold while I am on vacation, but I can't do it half the time, because I'm not a member of whatever I need to be a member of, or I can't find the information on the journal page. It's almost enough to make me unsubscribe from all notify lists forevermore.

I've been using the phrase "bomb diggety" a lot in the past 48 hours. When the guy at the sandwich shop gave me my sub, I said, "Thanks. You're the bomb diggety." It was then that I knew I had a problem.

"That might be a nice resolution for the new year. Try and stop worrying so much about how I come off. Stop trying to please everyone. Give less of a rat’s ass about the opinions of everyone--from strangers in cars next to me to my best friend."