Remember the business card story? I was excited to see this on the Holiday Inn counter:

You better believe I dropped my business card in there, even though I have no idea what I could win. It seemed somewhat poetic considering what I wrote in my last entry. There it was, the win-a-prize bowl, sitting on the counter, proving my point. Steak dinner, here I come! (Too bad I don't eat steak.)

This morning on the train, I was reading two of the poetry books I got at Powell's (chapbooks from two of my favorite prose poets, James Tate and Russell Edson) and was inspired to write a poem. It's part of my in-progress collection of prose poems, which is coming together nicely and called lost objects.

The Function of a Thing

The man dropped his business card into the fishbowl, which was sitting beside a sign that read "Drop your Business Card in to Win." There was no indication as to what the prize might be, but the man didn't feel in the least foolish about this. He looked at the cards in the fishbowl, mentally calculating his odds of winning. As he was about to turn away, he saw that his business card had grown fins and gills. It was flopping around and gasping. Hurriedly, he unscrewed his bottle of Evian and poured it into the fishbowl. All the other business cards were ruined, but his swam along, grateful for the near escape. Suddenly a clerk appeared with a plastic bag, into which she scooped some Evian and the man's business card. The card opened and closed its mouth as the clerk extended the baggie towards him. "Sir, you've won!"

And I figured since I was being artsy anyway, I would share some of the photos I took this weekend. I took a lot of photos. In fact, 189 photos. Yay for my gigantic new memory card. It's made me unstoppable.

Speaking of urban art, here is the Sign Series. When I was driving to and through wine country, I kept pulling over to take pictures of signs. Here are my favorites:

And then there is nature. When you go to a rose garden, have you ever noticed, you end up taking a lot of pictures of roses?

Also, here are my efforts to show how gorgeous Oregon wine country is. I decided my imaginary dream wedding would be on a vineyard. That possibly costs ten million dollars, which is a problem. Also not actually having an upcoming wedding is a problem. But I scoff in the face of these obstacles! Because look...

Thanks for your indulgence with all this. Look for a more substantive entry soon!