i'm feeling green

today is when everyone is irish, at least for a couple hours.  yep, even in the elevator at the office a co-worker asked me if we had anything planned to celebrate st. paddy's day.  nope, i said.  what a drag, my co-worker said.  then another person sharing the elevator with us turned and said, what?!  st. patrick's day is the highest of the holy holidays!

maybe so for some, or many, of us in the u.s.  except for me because the highest of the holy holidays is halloween.  now, if some genius crossed st. paddy's day with halloween, that might be something.  after all, halloween began with the celts.  i can dream, right?!

but then anyway, the whole of downtown and midtown was packed with people wearing green and bar hopping.  basketball fans too, because we got a new basketball arena, a big monolithic building smack in the middle of downtown, my city is hosting a bunch of college basketball games.  i didn't know college basketball was so popular.  it is.  oh, how i like to see my beloved city alive and hopping.

well, then, i think i was irish in a previous life such is my love and appreciation of irish culture, country[s] [north and the republic], poetry and so on.  i hope that doesn't sound weird.   today my name is richard o'lopez.  okay!

but as for names i was thinking of the fresno poet peter everwine, whose interview i had been reading in the lit mag i bought at B&N last weekend.  everwine is a cool name.  but i'm not big on wine.  so if i were to change my name, adopt a nom de plume, i think i'd go with this, richard alwaysbeer.  because beer is, in the phrase of austin powers, international man of mystery, my bag.

skal!