40x365

after words

Just wanted to make a quick post here to answer a few recurring questions.

You are absolutely allowed to "change the rules" to suit yourself. However, you should also realize that to the best of my knowledge no one who has changed the rules to make it easier (less restrictions) has actually completed all 365--one person who made it harder (added restrictions) completed their 365. It's the challenge that will keep you going.

The blogroll died when blogrolling.com folded up.

365/365, Jennifer

Jennifer is the love of my life, the glue that holds all my toothpicks together, my bestest friend in the world, my green velvet beetle bird, my chipmunk zoo, my oh, my mine and more, always and all ways more.

364/365, Michael

Michael is a rock dropped in a lake whose ripples touch the lives of more people than he can know. Think saki, bocci, hand-stitched books, telling the first story so others tell theirs, and "always ask for more poems."

363/365, Jules

Jules was my grandfather, never sick a day until cancer killed him in weeks. I joked at his sudden thinness, his pained smile crushed me. Decades later my dad said he'd loved to laugh and I'd provided his last one.

362/365, Chris

Chris was steaming past me and I said, "Hey, what's the rush." He said, "Oh, someone broke a urinal upstairs." I said, "Wow, how do you break a urinal." He shook his head in resignation and said, "With a sledgehammer."

361/365, Kathy

Kathy was the second prettiest girl in junior high, if you looked past braces and the temporarily out-of-proportion lines of her growth-spurting bones, which most people couldn't. She seemed to fit every group by relying on none.

360/365, Dawn

Dawn is the quiet one who wonders if poetry really runs through her. Her hope that it does is strong enough to keep her writing, coming to readings, and standing at the microphone to put it out there. Poetry wins.

359/365, Jeff

Jeff is the kind of guy who'll do a first-rate job during the four weeks after the two weeks he thought the job would take when he quoted it, and not even think to try and renegotiate the price.

358/365, Ben

Ben was my highschool girlfriend's father. We were all going out together, the boys were sitting, waiting. The ladies appeared, I began to stand. He stopped me and said, "Don't ever get off the couch until they're in the car."

357/365, Mike

Mike told me he was from IllinoiS, and pronounced the final s. I told him nobody was from IllinoiS, to be FROM you were from Illinois with a silent s. Clue number one I was dealing with a chronic liar.

356/365, Brian

Brian was the blonde haired, freckled kid who lived in a stuccoed house that did to my elbow what a grater does to cheese as I was riding by on my bike. He taught me how to flip my eyelids.

355/365, Harley

Harley always seemed to me like the perfect gentleman. Unflappable, impeccably dressed, married to a woman who was more like Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis than anyone I ever knew, he was the quiet one of the brothers, and taught me graciousness.

354/365, Anne

Anne was the boss's wife, but didn't want to be treated any differently. Unless there was something she thought should be done differently, in which case she'd get her husband's okay to have it changed, and let you know afterwards.

353/365, Scott

Scott went by the nickname Zippy in college. As a party wound down, someone asked, "Zippy, tell us the nastiest girl you ever slept with." He said, "Yeeeesh, I wouldn't tell you guys the third nastiest I ever slept with."

352/365, Dan

Dan was born the day after me, had red hair like me, wore glasses like mine, was about the same height, same build, same sense of humor, same level of competitiveness, which led to him breaking my glasses six times.

351/365, Nancy

Nancy has read one of her poems a little too often, and the rest of her poems not near enough for my liking. Always impeccably correct, but still, there's no mistaking the presence of the all grown up little girl.

350/365, Judy

Judy gave me a Hot Rod magazine once. I was baffled and set it aside for years. Cleaning house for a move I flipped through it. There she was, in a Stars & Stripes bikini, a finalist flanking the contest winner.

349/365, Kelly

Kelly was the reason I went to California in the first place, and the reason I left. It was my own stupid fault and took until helping her pick her wedding dress for me to realize how misguided I was.

348/365, Brian

Brian drank for free using the kitty game. Hey everybody, let's all kick in $20, make a kitty for the bartender. Kitty's getting low, let's kick in. Last man standing tips big, eats at Denny's, and recovers his original $20.

347/365, Susan

Susan had one chance to make the right pitch to the right guy at the right time and she blew it by choosing a deception over an honesty. Though I'm not sure her employers would have agreed to the honesty.