Sitting Saturday with an 18 pound cat holding onto my lap for dear life while I watch “Sylvia” on my computer screen because the DVD player that’s part of my TV doesn’t work.
“Poets are Shamans,” he says to woo her. “What are rituals and incantations but poetry.” How could she resist?
Without the seratonin uptake inhibitors, would I have been another Sylvia? With them, would she have been another me?
I remember the darkness and lying, exhausted, across my unmade bed while my daughter and son worried and did what they had to.
There is a power in that darkness. Words crawl around like snakes slowly curving themselves into dark meanings. The trick is not to fall into the pit.
I am no Lady Lazarus. I am no Sylvia.
I am, however, fond of snakes.

A Kentucky high school student who wrote a story about Zombies invading a high school has been arrested and jailed.
Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole’s home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.
Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.
“My story is based on fiction,” said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. “It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”
Some reports say that he didn’t mention “zombies” in the story that his grandparents unearthed from his journal.
Thanks to the tenor of the times established by the Bushites (who perpetrated the WMD PR fiasco)and the pressures of their fear-inspiring Patriot Act, some Americans no longer can distinguish between fact and fiction, between creative writing and terrorism.
Grandparents turning in grandchildren! Don’t they talk to each other??!! Oh wait, it’s Kentucky — a really RED state, where they blindly follow the country’s blind leader and don’t hesitate to Rush to judgment
I guess none of the adults in Kentucky have every watched Buffy.

Here’s a little brain teaser for all you smart and literate people out there. (I know the answer because I cheated.)
Last year, a man went on vacation to Key West. He spent most of his time either sport fishing on the high seas or carousing on Duval Street. A friend of his prefered a very different kind of vacation. He liked hiking and camping and using stone-age toilet facilities. So he spent most of his vacation in the woods in California and the Pacific Northwest.
When both men returned from their trips, they compared notes. The first man explained that on his vacation he saw something that, when written down, has all five vowels, and the vowels make up five of the seven letters in the word. ( A-E-I-O-and-U were all in the same word) In fact, he saw not just one, but a few of these things.
His friend replied: “When I got to Key West, I also saw something that when written down has all five vowels in its seven letters. In fact, I saw quite a few of these as well.”
Each man wrote down his seven-letter word, and then they exchanged papers. Both men had written down the same word. But what they saw were very different things.
What did each man see?