is my thesis about

Well, the birth mother chose another couple. My wife and I dived into our vacation in Seattle as consolation. Vacationing - binge drinking in massive gulps with no hangover. And Seattle offeres a lot to vacationers. The zoo, the underground, the world's largest international film festival, the Folklife music festival (haven't seen that much pot openly smoked since the upper levels of the busses in Liverpool). Grand fun.

On a different note, I'm defending my thesis tomorrow. Here's a quick poem I scribbled during a boring session at the conference two days ago. Don't like it, but I'm out of practice. Cheers.

At those parties
typically with family
or at least among those who spend their days
in dutiful diligence
or at least get paid for practicality
so practical in fact that they wonder
just what in tarnation
I do
with my days
in academic abstraction
indeed the fact that
I abstract may be the only
thing they
know abstractly

so at those parties with a glass half
full and flanked by family
or friends just as estranged
from graduate school as
they sometimes ask
what is your thesis about

I suspect
this may stem from
the drive for small talk
when, of course, nothing
is greater to grad students
whose souls long slain
rot on the altars of
committee feedback

not wanting to offend them
with any obvious
dissertation for dummies
or offend myself
with anything less than
the bodily fluids
I’ll never recover
lost to that ungodly thing

so I tell them with a smile
my thesis is about three fourths of an inch
of unsullied obfuscation
it’s also about the most horrific waste
of my life – I’ll never see those hours again
but it’s also about the loveliest object
in all of odd creation
and yet
it’s also about the most useless piece
of appendix
more impractical than cable TV
and still
my thesis is about the greatest hope I have
of paving
that ephemeral path to sweet, holy medical benefits
yes, ultimately,
my thesis is about the most intimate
of relationships
(but not quite the
most
thank goodness
and my wife)

and so much more
is my thesis about