I love Padgett’s poems in which connected the dots. For instance, he gets annoyed that the letter u in four is dropped in forty. He also points out the eccentricity in subject-verb agreement. It’s a fun, witty read.

The spelling of 40. We have four and fourteen, and then, for no reason I know of, the u is dropped and we’re left with forty, not to mention the schizophrenic forty-four. Most annoying, as Sei Shōnagon would say.

Ron Padgett

I purchased a license of Lang Gothic to accommodate AT Lang, designed by Stephen Nixon. I know Stephen will support Vietnamese and will turn it into a large family. I was hoping that Stephen would expand AT Lang to include reading text, but it looks like that will be on Lang Gothic. It is only $35. Definitely worth spending.

A concise book providing tips for landing a job. It’s a good beginner guide. It’s a quick flip-through book, which is what the author intended. I wish Foss delves deeper into specific situations. Maybe I am just too old to deal with office politics and co-worker conflicts.

for my husband, twenty-one years my senior

There are so many times
I could have killed you.

After twenty-eight years of marriage—
the only contact sport I’ve ever stuck wit—

I found myself

crying this morning,
after a trip outside,
singing Happy Birthday

three times through,

just to be sure,

scrubbing despite
the sting of my split skin

as I’ve loved you through
even the rub
of the raw years.

I held my hands steady
in the water’s reassuring scald,

trying and trying
to save you.

Francesca Bell

I voted yesterday. I didn’t even know any of the candidates. I just filled in the names with a D next to them. If there were no D next to their names, I relied on the sample ballot handed out by the Democrats. I don’t care for the Democrats. I just can’t stand the Republicans. I was also glad that the Democrat incumbent beat the Vietnamese-American MAGA magnet in District 9. He was such a joke. Flipping the House of Delegates is a huge blow to Youngkin’s right-wing agenda and his limits on access to abortion.

I required, finally, a boy with twelve years
of piano lessons singing in his hands,
and the girlfriend before me who taught him
to play scales up and down her body.
He reached casually between my legs,
without needing to look,

to place one practiced finger on my clitoris
and press as if freeing a clear note from his piano.
My body did the rest, bucking against him,
then arching with an involuntary, jubilant moan.
I lay after, amazed and chagrined to think of pleasure,
a spring coiled all that time in my body.

Francesca Bell

I just learned about a CSS feature that would prevent orphans on text blocks. Of course, I applied it to this blog:

.content {text-wrap: pretty;}

This will make my body text less lonely (no orphans left behind). Thanks to Robin Rendle and Stephanie Stimac for the tip.

While reading Trúng Số Độc Đắc (Winning the Lottery), a classic novel by the great late Vũ Trọng Phụng, I encountered so many use of Vietnamese proverbs. One of my favorites is “Con giun xéo mãi cũng quằn” (Even a worm will turn). I collected them for my literary leisure and created a sample page. Typeset in Loes, designed by Dương Trần.

Once, I was a whole person.
I agreed to be transformed,
through trauma, into pieces.
I laid myself cheerfully down
before the apocalypse.
After, the doctor placed the baby
among my body’s wreckage.
I learned to call this love.

Francesca Bell