With rough hands, she separates the wheat from the chaff while others stay inside, playing cards and sleeping off yesterday's follie. She walks a rocky path to bring harvest to them all. And this she will know till her hair turns to tin. No rest for the soul of one whose beauty hides within.

It happens without fail. Someone writes a Letter to the Editor about "proper punctuation." The only problem is that the letter itself has a grammatical error.

I was just dozing off at my computer here at work. And in a brief moment, I dreamed that a guy was red with indignation over why he decided to leave periods out of his sentences. He refused to use periods because there's enough space to designate the ends of sentences and that he wouldn't use periods if he didn't have to.

I had been working with an outside software vendor for the last several months and have been appauled over how horrible the user interface design is. I've been in the software business for 8 years, and I've seen and documented a lot of crap. But this company's software has produced the worst user interface I've seen in my life. I feel so sorry for the thousands of people dotted across the North American continent who have to use this ridiculous Java applet for their business-critical operations.

So I ask the vendor representative if other clients were able to smoothly integrate this product with their workflows.

"It depends on their intelligence," she tells me.

I am boiling. Just because clients can't navigate this company's jungle screens doesn't mean the clients are stupid. How about an intelligent design? Good grief.

I wish you knew what it was like
to dig dirt
To see your French manicure dullened
by the earth
I wish you could hear what we
think down here
But the only sound you hear
is the jangle at your wrist
of metal upon metal

Dear Dad,

Yesterday, I sat among the congregration, 20 or so of them, in that tiny Baptist church in Waianae Valley. Every time you stand in front of people, I feel so proud. I feel giddy, and I become like a little girl dangling her feet under the pew. Pastor, that's what they call you.

You look so kind in polyester slacks and aloha shirt. Your thick eyebrows and your silver hair make you look very dignified. For a preacher, you say very little. Your sentences are quaint, and you tell sweet jokes.

souls run through
powdered streets
at her feet
neckties like flags
wave desperately
without answers
as he stabs her heart
crushing her form
bringing her to her knees
then she cries
with a plea that
he not forget her

Written 10/2001