A Card Catalog

Weep no more, little love-notes, your shoebox homes are safe from Dewey's decimals.

I have found a prettier way to index.

House poem

                             Seo Jungju, translated by Clare You

Prayer I

Now I’m
Like an utterly empty vessel or
An utterly vacant field
Oh Lord,—Knowing not how to call you—
Leave the harsh storm
A bit longer in me or
A few butterflies or
Make me a half-filled celadon of water
Whatever pleases you
Now I’m
Like an empty vessel
Once full of blossoms with scents 

MoMA garden.

MoMA garden.

The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
Absolutely committed to Structured Procrastination as a life plan.


Menene y Tata

Menene y Tata

found in our basement, a relic of second grade.

found in our basement, a relic of second grade.

Mark at the Pony Club, Buenos Aires.

Mark at the Pony Club, Buenos Aires.

Cows on the road, horse-hair, hand-drawn niandu, “a mini ostrich that lives in uruguay”(exact spelling uncertain), hen with chicks. Punta del Este travel scrapbook, December-January of 6th grade

Cows on the road, horse-hair, hand-drawn niandu, “a mini ostrich that lives in uruguay”(exact spelling uncertain), hen with chicks.

Punta del Este travel scrapbook, December-January of 6th grade


San Francisco at dusk

San Francisco at dusk

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening /for/ them is something more acute than listening /to/ them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are /there/. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.
Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings, p. 14


Dorm living, senior year of college. This must have been before I inherited a large spotted bunny from my friend Stanley’s dorm-mate. Lily had been keeping the pet (her first) in a closet from the time it was a small ball of fluff, but when I got it bunny was the size of a fat cat. Every time you came home from class there she’d be, grunting and looping around the room like a desperate rutting moose with lop ears and a cotton tail. We had to rig up a special waist-high baby fence to take up all the floor space and keep her from boxing my other bunny (did I mention there was another bunny in the room? also a large bookshelf pantry full of food, and a no-pets rule) on the ears. How did I ever get any work done?  

Dorm living, senior year of college. This must have been before I inherited a large spotted bunny from my friend Stanley’s dorm-mate. Lily had been keeping the pet (her first) in a closet from the time it was a small ball of fluff, but when I got it bunny was the size of a fat cat. Every time you came home from class there she’d be, grunting and looping around the room like a desperate rutting moose with lop ears and a cotton tail. We had to rig up a special waist-high baby fence to take up all the floor space and keep her from boxing my other bunny (did I mention there was another bunny in the room? also a large bookshelf pantry full of food, and a no-pets rule) on the ears. How did I ever get any work done?  

“Old Family Photographs”—for example, this one of my grandmother Menene and grandfather Tata. She used to send me Xeroxes of good ones in giant manila envelopes along with clarifying captions: “tus abuelos en el Triumph, 1950.” Reading between the lines, I think this is one from their courtship period.

“Old Family Photographs”—for example, this one of my grandmother Menene and grandfather Tata. She used to send me Xeroxes of good ones in giant manila envelopes along with clarifying captions: “tus abuelos en el Triumph, 1950.” Reading between the lines, I think this is one from their courtship period.

little Dad in the most hilarious baby carriage I’ve ever seen. If only my grandma had saved it, my someday-kids would join the proud line of babies who Lazy Boy in style.

little Dad in the most hilarious baby carriage I’ve ever seen. If only my grandma had saved it, my someday-kids would join the proud line of babies who Lazy Boy in style.