Celebrate blog's upcoming birthday; poetry, zeolite, and magic beans.

Hi! Come July 27 this blog will have a first birthday.

Until June of 2006 I didn't know the first thing about blogging. I thank Carl Bryant and Cynthia Bagley for schooling me in how to get a stat counter, how to back-link, how to participate in the online community.

I'm a little surprised that videoblogs have not taken over yet, but perhaps the Net is a more literary medium by nature. Most of us have televisions.

One thing I have yet to learn about blogging is how to be brief. It's hard for me to sit down and write less than 1000 words. Most blog updates are not more than 200. I'm a natural bloviator.

Tonight at an open mic where only singer-guitarists played, I recited my poem, "The Deprivathon," for the second time (it appears earlier in this blog). It's a diary of quitting smoking. The crowd was not prepared for it but they treated me well.

I was the unexpected poet. Kind of nice to be in a singular category at a music-oriented open mic.

I made myself go read although I was tired. Why? Because in my still lingering depression,though now mild to moderate, I tried to behave on the basis of commitment, not feeling. I didn't particularly want to go. But as a poet I need to commit myself to whatever outlets invite me. It's not like poetry's a paying gig, so you don't have the dollar driving you. You have to drive yourself.

I've probably gone beyond 200 words now.

I met a fellow on the beach today who told me zeolite would cure all forms of cancer--how he beat it himself. I went home to the Net and disovered one animal study suggesting zeolite might be helpful as an adjunct to Doxyrubicin, a standard chemotherapeutic agent.

I love the human capacity to believe. More than half of us would trade our cow for a bag of magic beans. Isn't that just the way it goes?

Thine,

CE