I ♥ BOOBIES!!

So last night was PRIT-TY cool (no longer last night). Actually, that's an understatement. It was HELLA FREAKING COOL! And the things that I'm doing with my life and making happen blow my mind. :)

Last night was a fundraising event for fighting breast cancer, organized and executed by a beautiful and vivacious friend of mine named Wim. I met Wim thru facebook last year and took a liking to her immediately after reading her blog which had me laughing one quip after another. I sent her some of my stuff, she liked it, we bonded, met for lunch, it was cute, moving on.

(what a team!)

A few months back she organized another charity event (her first) and sweetly asked me to write something for it. The idea definitely piqued my interest. And I'm at a point in this whole "Ima poet" thing where I'm ready to start accepting new challenges, such as "Hey you! Write me something about this. Make it snappy."

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, okay."

This is something I've never really welcomed before, "taking requests," creating something ON Demand, with will power instead of pure inspiration....providing an actual service beyond rifling thru my catalog of old poems and finding one to slap on the situation like a bumper sticker! It hasn't been until this point in my life that I feel THAT "in control" of my art that I could do something like that. Oftentimes writing a poem is like trying to call a cat to you. Sometimes it just looks at you and goes, "Ehhhhhhhh, I'm gonna go over here." To which you respond, "FUCK YOU POEM!" And that usually goes on for about an hour without much success.

"GET--ON--THE PAGE!"

But she asked and I said I would try and (Thank God she gave me like two months notice) sure enough, a week before the event, a poem jumped outta me. The topic at hand was Strong Women (bulging biceps optional) and I ended up writing one of the craziest (and longest) poems in my collection, on a topic I never dreamed of writing a poem about: Women in Ancient history. ??? WTF? Lol. Why not?!

(spoutin off at the mouth to a crowd of people about ancient history...you know, like ya do!)

Long story short tho, it turned out well. And it was a REALLY cool experience. I never shared it with you on here, or anywhere outside of that event but it went well! (I'm really skeptical about how well it works on the page, it's really meant to be spoken, so I never put it on the blog, but I am trying to think of a way to put it to video for ya) And then THIS event came along.

When she first got behind the cause, I was like cool. I pitched in my support. I dig her energy and think she can really do somethin with it. When she announced the event, she jokingly said to me "Breast Poem, KJ? lol" (or something like that) and even as busy as I was, the idea didn't sound too bad to me. But I just took it as a joke, and put it on the shelf for later. But as soon as I really thought about it (a couple weeks ago) I knew immediately it would be a FUN poem to write. I could hear it already just like that. And I don't get too many opportunities (cuz I just don't ever push myself to) to write fun poems, so I was like "Woohoo, BOOBIES, I gotta give this a try!"

Weeks go by, life goes by, busyness becomes a mainstay cuz it's the end of the school year annnnnnd that leaves me NO time to do shit for ME. I.e. WRITE, i.e. ponder, i.e. Make Cool Shit! Til the night before the event! I figured it was too late, but I also figured there was hope.
It was my last day of classes, so I was finally off the hook for grading (for a couple days) and I could FINALLY take some time to myself. In the back of my mind I was like "Hey, maybe I'll sit down and give that poem a try tonight." (it's so weird but cool, the thought of scheduling a poem!) But then I even forgot about it and tried to make dinner plans with Prang. Thankfully she was busy. And as the sun sat, I remembered--"Oh yeah! Me, writer, poem"--Kinda halfheartedly tho cuz I was feelin lazy, but then I remembered how cool it would be to do a poem in Bed Supper and so I got back on the computer and started punchin away at it. And it came along, just like that. Three hours later I was messagin Wim like Paul Revere! "The Boobies are coming, the boobies are coming!" Or something like that. And it was done.

I really didn't wanna force my way into the night or anything like that, I felt pretty self-conscious, I had no idea how much they'd planned or put into it, and I certainly didn't wanna upset the apple cart over my last minute bullshit. If it's not broke, DONT FIX IT, ya know? But I thought if she really liked it, then it would be up to her what to do with it since I wrote it for her/her event anyway. It is JUST a poem, if it can make the night better, cool, if not, no problem. Totally up to her....and she made it happen! TWAS SO COOL! The whole event, so awesome to be a part of it, and it seemed like people really liked my addition so it made a difference! WOO-Freakin-HOO!
I got lots of nice responses to it afterwards. An older man came up and wanted me to email it to him so he could send it on to a friend of his who's surviving breast cancer. Thought she would really like it. That makes me smile REAL big! To think that there will be people somewhere in the world who are fighting this fight and might get a kick outta some words I barely had a chance to put together. How cool is that!? Really nice.

thought it might help drive the poem home if I had a beautiful (busty) woman there as an example :)
thanks Nan!

Anyway, that's the story pretty much. I'm happy to contribute. It would be ingenuine to suggest I'm personally involved in this cause, I'm not. While other cancers have, breast cancer specifically has never touched my life. But I care about all that I can, including what my friends care about and I like to help! Especially in the form of POETRY! I'm thrilled to show people what poetry can do and how fun it can be. The reception I got there was far better than anything I would've EVER expected. They liked it, they really liked it. I'm still cheesin out when I think about it. :-D

Thank you Life, thank you cool peoples who were all up and involved in this event and Bed Supper Club for hosting it. Wim/that event raised over 2 thousand dollars in a couple hours. Cash. (I helped count!) Pretty frickin cool. And it all goes to Thai women receiving treatment that they can't or can barely afford. And needless to say, that money goes a lot farther here than it would back home. Chh-ching.

Here's the poem. Wim posted part of it on her blog already and gave it a title, somethin I hadn't even considered at that point, so I think I'll borrow some inspiration from her title and go with "The Blessed World of Breasts." That's got a nice ring to it. Though, in my own head, I think it'll always be secretly titled, "I HEART BOOBIES!!" ;-)