Why do I do this to myself?

There are 581 messages on Bloglines waiting to be read.

I feel guilty marking them read. Why? I swear, if I could understand half of the things I do, it'd be like getting to know a whole 'nother person. A whole 'nother stupid person.

A WEE hiatus

I simply haven't had the energy to keep up with WEE, which sucks because I think it's a great thing.

So, WEE will be unupdated for the forseeable future.

When will I stop being so tired?

Yeah, I'm addicted

What of it?

In which Giant Angry Kitty makes a meal of my face!

We have to give Orson a pill.

Orson is a Giant Kitty. A Giant Angry Kitty.



This is what he looks like when he's happy!

If you're reading my blog

That means you're bored and need something to do.

Try this. You'll regret it, but try it anyway.

The lost weekend

Well, that pair of days was pretty much worthless.

Now I get to feel that feeling when you looked forward to a weekend and then frittered it away like a fritter. Damn.

Okay, worse than a stick in the eye

Better than evisceration, but only barely.

Cat tree

I love the idea of a cat tree, with them growing furry like peaches.

But we've bought and assembled a giant piece of cat furniture from this company. If you need a tree for cats, very highly recommended.

In any case, it led to a cartoon moment. Irving was in the cat hut. Albert, who hates Irving, was on the floor. Albert leaped into the air to get to the hut, found that Irving was in the hut, and in mid-leap managed to apply cat brakes and hurtle back down to the floor.

Cat physics. There should be a graduate degree in there.

Maybe not spectacular and shiny

How about "not entirely embarrassing" and "better than a stick in the eye"?

I shall write a poem

And I'm gonna use a word I have never before used in a poem! And it's gonna be spectacular, yes, and shiny!

Pardon me while I shuffle around

I have the tendency to walk on the outside of my feet, so I have new heel inserts (I originally typed "hell" inserts) that straighten my foot. I have a feeling I'm going to be writhing in pain soon. Fun fun fun for the whole family!

If you have a chapbook, check this out!

If your chapbook can be purchased via PayPal, tell Jude Goodwin here. Chapbooks as prizes! Woo!

Whatever you do, don't think of monsters

Somehow, I slept on my face wrong. I look like a creased Stay-Puf marshmallow. The cats scattered.

Erm, my TV is not on

But I can hear it.

I've never heard voices before. These voices sound suspiciously like the guy with the Ford dealership just north of here. He looks a bit like Mum-Ra, though without those weird stretchy spittle lines.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you are no child of the 80s. Bah.

It's ghastly

I have painted my bathroom. It is now uglier by a factor of approximately a googol than it was before I painted it. My god. What the hell was I thinking?

Being on the same wavelength is fine...

... but this is ridiculous!

I just got a call from Steve who is still in St. Louis. Turns out that last night when I wasn't feeling well (actually I still am not feeling so hot), he was also sick.

We're like the Corsican twins!

(I am 35 years old and I still miss "The Electric Company." *sniffle*)

My first complaint about Firefox

I use the Firefox browser and, for some reason, it has decided lately not to show me refreshed versions of my own blog. Very annoying. And I think it used to have a setting under options to tell it to check every time, but it no longer does. Bah.

I had to go muck around in the configurations directly to fix it, but I hope I will no longer be double posting messages.

Speaking of double posting, I paid my mortgage twice yesterday. Yes, I am a doofus, thanks for asking.

Hitting for the cycle

Added a sound file. You should see a blue arrow to click for streaming audio.

Hitting for the cycle
"It is designed to break your heart."--A. Bartlett Giamatti

That makes it easier to shrug, to close the book
on some tragic character falling ill, so irrevocably ill
while the leaves dance down in their long bright autumn.
It's meant that way. It's meant to be. Six months
and you're out. Sixty years and you're out. A quick
signing of a sixty day lease and then, by god, you're out
with a Costco bag clutched sweaty and all of your regrets
poking out the sides.

This is how we shove new petunias into the ground,
deadhead with a flick, tearing petals with their old meat
smell thick on your fingernails, and purple. Nurse them
along, but as callous as an orderly with the demented,
oh they were better dead. It is designed, these gardens
blooming brief and hot, every year, every page turned
and something somewhere ends.

The come home soon blues

When I was a kid, every time my parents would travel I'd fall ill. I think it was just coincidence, and frankly I was a pretty barfy kid.

But now Steve is away, and I don't feel so good. Maybe I should call my mommy.

I've been tagged!

Cailleach of Barbara's bleeuugh has tagged me with a book meme. Questions are hard.

I have to edit and bump this because Cindy of Quotidian Light retagged me, and her meme has a couple of different questions. Find out below!



1.One book that changed your life?

Er. I am drawing a blank for this question, though I've thought of a few candidates. I think I'll go with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I got for Christmas when I was 6. I was thrilled by this book in a way I still can't describe. It's so boring to say that it was magical, so I won't. The Faerie Queene changed me forever. So did Pride and Prejudice and Far From the Madding Crowd. So did Jonathan Strange and Harry Potter. I think it's more reasonable to ask what books didn't change my life. I am Mutability, hear me roar.

2.One book you've read more than once?

So many. The most recent reread was Greg Keyes's The Briar King, which I needed to reread so that I could read the second and newly released third books in the series. Lovely writing. I am a rereader. There are times when I'm not intended to reread, but there I go and suddenly I discover that I'm 1/3 of the way into a book I've read four times already. I think my most read book is probably The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken. I don't even know how many times I've read that book. Pretty much every couple of months for a handful of years in my childhood, plus a few times since.

3.One book you'd want on a desert island?

Remembrance of Things Past! With a backup of Homer, in Greek! I once had the life goal of translating The Iliad. But, I once could read Greek. Now, not so much. Now, in fact, not at all. Still, maybe someday.

4.One book that made you laugh?

Visions of Sugar Plums, by Janet Evanovich had me giggling so hard I had to put my head on the table. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Patrick McManus, Jon Stewart, Jane Austen, Erma Bombeck, I laugh at anything.

5.One book that made you cry?

So many! I can barely read two lines from Charlotte's Web before I get teary. I can recite the whole ending of "The Dead" and if I am even reminded of it I start bawling.

6.a. One book that you wish you had written?

Ohhh, To Kill a Mockingbird.

6.b. One book I wish had been written:

The sequel to The Walking Drum that Louis L'Amour was planning before he died. I love Louis L'Amour.

7.One book you wish had never been written?

The book I wrote that got lost in a massive computer crash. Bastards!

Otherwise, that damned Curious George. When I was in kindergarten, the teacher made me read in front of the whole class. I was mortified. The book? Curious Goddamned George. My husband likes to go into bookstores and find a copy just to torment me.

8.One book you are currently reading?

A Shadow in Summer, by Daniel Abraham. It's very good.

9.One book you have been meaning to read?

Too many to list. Some I need to wait until I can give them my full attention, some I'm waiting to find copies of, and some I just keep forgetting about.

10.a. Five people I am tagging:

I'm tagging all of you lazy bums! Yah!

10.b. One book I'd like to write:

I want to write YA novels. I have one in my head for someday. I've written a mystery and a romance, one of which I might try to get published someday.

Read this book

If you are into fantasy fiction at all, read Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer.

I've done a review here if you want more information, but just trust me!

The author also maintains a blog here. I love the trend of blogging authors.

Julie Rule of Customer Service #1

1. The more difficult a customer is to work with, the more unforeseen things will go wrong with their order.


My job requires a thick skin sometimes, but if there's one thing I have plenty of, it's skin. Wait, that didn't sound right.

One is the loneliest number

Steve went to visit family in St. Louis until Monday. The cats stare at me, expecting me to do something entertaining. Even Project Runway is depressing. Bah.

What tempts you to submit poetry?

If you're looking at an ezine or journal, what tempts you to submit? The layout? The poems? The name recognition (poets or editors)? The submission requirements? The theme or preferences of the journal? The name of the journal? Word of mouth? Bribes in small denominations of unmarked bills?

Now I can find a home for that poem!

Yes, thanks to Steven Schroeder of Sturgeon's Law, I now know where to send my very worst poem(s) ever: The Awesomely Bad Review.

Except, honestly, I would be devastated if they:

1. Accepted a poem, or
2. Refused a poem, or
3. Suggested I send them a particular other work that they had their eyes on.

*sob*

Yakkety yak at the Carter shack

I was looking at my cell phone earlier today and I discovered that in the 2.5 years I've had this particular phone, I've used it a total of 5 hours.

Apparently, I have no friends who wish to talk to me.

Can I even unitask?

I got the results back from an exam I took while I was chatting with Gabriel. 99%.

Which doesn't surprise me very much. I am a multitasker. I have a short attention span, so I need multiple things happening at once to keep me focused.

When I'm rich and famous, I'm hiring Gabriel to stand around and talk to me so that I can get things done. Right now, he's doing it for free, bless him.

Can't stop tinkering

I'm tinkering with the blog again. Tinker. Tinker.

No one ever yells at me for screwing it up, so I'm hoping that means it's functional enough. Does anyone care what the most popular outgoing link is? Probably not. It amuses me, though. Click. Click. Tinker. Tink.

Kid on my TV

His name is Gauntlett Eldermire. That's awesome.

Ooh, book website

Check out Chain Reading, which allows you to mark books to be read, list what you're currently reading, review, and recommend (and get recommendations) from others.

I've just joined, but it looks neato. You can come stare at me here.

Much easier to say, and funnee

A blogger has dubbed Shin-Soo Choo "Big League."

That makes me laugh like a fool. And since it's always appropriate for people to behave in ways that reflect their inner natures, laughing like a fool fits me to a T.

Still pondering the poem. Maybe it's just a stupid idea, inspired by an ancestor of mine with a strange name. A couple, actually, Blazius and Walburga.

I think I could bear being named Blazius. I actually like the name. But Walburga? Great great great great (or so) grandmother Walburga? Even when I say it in an exaggerated German accent? It's not good. And I like exaggerated German accents.

I just flew in from Berlin, and boy are my arms tired!

Germans don't do comedy. Germans do beer.

Germans don't do comedy. That explains so much about my blog.

Julie "95% German" Carter

Damn you, pizza night!

We hadn't gotten a pizza in too long, and then it tasted too good, and then I ate too much and now I need to lie down.

It's been quiet on the blog because I'm obsessing over a poem I'm trying to shape. I'm stumped, like a... er... stump?

Calling all chapbook authors

There's a new site dedicated to reviewing chapbooks put out by small presses or self-published: The Chapbook Review.

He's looking for chapbooks to review, and also for reviews of chapbooks by... you!

Reviewing is hard work, so support this endeavor, please.

Names don't get any better than this

A new journal seeking submissions: Unloved Mail-Order Bride.

That would look great on a bio.

I had forgotten my deep love

Of Michael Sowa.

Specifically, his "Kohler's Schwein."

Oh the mysteries of online searching

I love looking at what search strings bring people here, and I have a new favorite.

You, too, can search for the elusive Holy Grail of the internets, by clicking here.

Doc, it hurts if I do this!

So, don't do that!

Ow. Yesterday I spent doing a transcription assessment, and apparently I was all hunched over the keyboard because at the end of the assessment I could hardly stand. This morning, my neck has decided that while it is somewhat permissable to turn to the right, turning to the left is the Way of Satan and must result in stabbing pains. Aiiee!

In other news... nope. There is no other news.

Goosing the goose

Bumped this one to the top since it was mentioned in a comment. Besides, there's a 7th in the series now, so my prediction about writing Little Blue Boy came true.

Original commentary: I have six sonnets giving new treatments of nursery rhymes or fables. I have the strange desire to do more, but I wonder if I'm going to get rocks thrown at me if I do.

How much of even a good (or semi-good) thing is too much? When does a writer turn from innovation into a one-trick pony? Does it matter? Should it?

I still have the desire to write about Little Boy Blue and perhaps a little Baa Baa Black Sheep. Killer sheep! I wonder if I should seek therapy.

Sauce for the Goose


I. Three blind mice

The farmer's wife is cruelty at rest
in calico, in reddened hands and brawn
that stem from wringing rooster necks at dawn
before they crow. She serves invited guests
with crumbled sage and dressing, second best
china for the preacher. In the lawn,
three sleeping mice lie still and dream of drawn
butter on the grains of grasses pressed
into the dirt; of tails still twitching warm;
of noses that would stay content with weeds
and never long for bread to feed their wives;
of ears that could detect the hens' alarm;
of eyes that have more use than poppy seeds
in farmhouse kitchens filled with carving knives.


II. There was a crooked man

The house is crooked, and the siding gaps
enough to welcome in a mouse or vole
who hopes to find more shelter than a hole
in sod can offer it. The owner naps.
His cat curls like a furry sleeping-cap
around his head. But rodents on patrol
are not as silent as they think. Parole
is brief, then they find prison in the snap
of jaws. He calls her thirst for blood a vice,
disgusting him, if she makes the mistake
of asking him, with purrs, to share her meat.
So she learns secrecy; she kills the mice
with one quick bite before the man can take
them from her mouth and never let her eat.


III. Old Mother Hubbard

The mutt's tail thumps against the parlor floor
but cannot stir his mistress from her chair.
She waits, as if some djinn will enter there
and grant three wishes. Both grow gaunt, and sore
from pressure on the bones that long before
were cushioned by their flesh. The shelves are bare.
This is no place for mice to feast; nowhere
for kin to step in unannounced and pour
their joys in friendly ears. The hall is grey
with dust and shells of some dead spider's lunch,
without the track of butcher's blood to brand
his passage, with a beef roast or filet
beneath his arm. The dog now dreams the crunch
of brittle bones that form his warden's hand.

In Sheep's Clothing


I. The Boy Who Cried

The reed had time to wait, piped any tunes
the boy knew best, like shrilling false alarms.
And farmers, red and round as full balloons,
puffed up the hill again and waved their arms
to spook the lamb-starved wolves that stalked the wold.
The boy, ruddy with glee, leapt into view
and poked fat bellies with his flute. The old
men grumbled at their ouster from their stew
and cuffed the boy and stumbled back to town.
Then waiting till the moon's light didn't bleed
through clouds, the boy again disturbed the down.
But no one answered. Satisfied, the reed--
while villagers sat chuckling in their beer--
began to trill notes only wolves could hear.


II. Three Little Pigs

The straw knew better than to stand. Why should
it shelter anything that mowed it down
with flashing scythes? The stupid boar withstood
the warning jabs of stalks dried into brown
sharp splinters strong enough for porcine hide,
ignored the husks tempting each burning brand.
And now the wolf had come and piggy cried
for some salvation. Quietly, a strand
unraveled, and its sheaf slipped from the strap.
No sudden movements, subtlety was key
to relishing the spring of an old trap
so long dreamed of. See piggy stare, and see
a ripple spread along the grasses who
would pass the tale. The sticks knew what to do.


III. Red Riding

It was the trees who whispered to the wolf
a little girl walked lonely in the wood.
They knew she'd lead him to a clearing, roofed
by shuddering branches, witnesses who stood
helpless to the woodsman. Roots entwined,
spread tales of holocaust beyond the hill
as ashes coated even churring pines
at forest's edge. They plotted how to kill.
A rabbit's no fit morsel for a lord;
there's something sweeter. Feast, the aspen called.
It took no more. But champions' lives are short,
and end in blood-splashed leaves, redder than fall.
Still charnel bark lies heaped within the clearing,
and xylems hum their malice out of hearing.

Blue boy

The cows ache in their bones, rapped on the ribs
by a dour boy with bitter, cracking sticks.
They low their discontent, nagged past the ricks
of haying green, nagged from the sweetfill cribs--
hard cobs of broken corn. The fields are grey
with dust, the crumbling stalks of grass like ash.
Boy drives them through the gate that drags a gash
through clay. The cattle wander anyway,
and eat strategically, sapping the walls
of every mow. He wiles his days in sleep
until the urgent mealtime bells could ring.
The cows were patient, immune to the calls
for quick revenge, until the boy lies deep
beneath the toppled haystack, smothering.

If you like high fantasy

If you like high fantasy novels and haven't read Greg Keyes's The Briar King, do not wait. I just read it for the second time this weekend and it's simply superb. I had to reread because the third book in the series is now out and I'm awaiting its arrival.

And Silent (archive)

Since this is the one Rose Kelleher quoted in her review, it seemed appropriate to post today.

And Silent

Shush, shush, shush
November's 3 a.m., and silent
save the bristle straws of my neighbor's broom.
She carves a floor, her porch planks bared
of shushing leaf crumble.

Morning squad lights did not wait
politely outside the pane, knocking pause
or whisper through the carved mail slot door,
but spun to fire the phosphorescent starmap
painted on my walls, spun to light
her husband's shroud-passage,
my own breath sparkle.

She swept the floor after him.

I cannot hear the crackle of her synapse,
sketch her cerebellum's curve
as she sweeps, shush shush,
in the snap cold of November,
and would not tell her son
(he of the vinyl siding)
what his mother does to chap her hands
between his two times weekly visits.

A leaf falls in twilight hush
to tap her window,
waken her from daylong sleep.
She surges to her kitchen's night,
stands and waits and waits for morning.

Infamy in the family

I just got a call from my sister's (close enough to) father-in-law. He has a copy of pseudophakia and was just calling to say that he's just pleased as punch to have someone with such "talent" in the family.

It's silly, but that was a fun call to get.

He really wanted to doublecheck the pronunciation so he can tell their friends. I have a PR machine!

What's the opposite of adding insult to injury?

Adding gravy to biscuit?

Adding hot fudge to ice cream?

Adding extra cheese to pizza?

Why are all of my examples food?

I fell through the stair the other day opening the basement door for gas meter dude. And after I fixed the stair, I was cynically sure GMD wouldn't show.

But he apparently did, for suddenly I have a $106 credit with Columbia Gas.

If they had just listened to me in the first place, I wouldn't have a giant bruise on my knee and GMD wouldn't have had to get snarled at by barky barky neighbor dog. That'll learn ya.

So, tomorrow pretty much has to suck in order to balance out the niceness of today, huh? Yeah. I'll be keeping my head down.

Wow, I didn't expect that

My raise that I initially turned down, then accepted, has now been more than doubled.

It ain't good livin' that brought me this good fortune, and I'm rarely lucky. So I think it must be the kind thoughts wafting in from the blogcaves. Either that or the nekkid pictures of my boss...

In any case, perhaps this will ease my healthcare billing woes.

Still knocking on that wooden pate.

The stitches are out!

School's out for the summer. The stitches are out of Steve's wrist.

No more doctors? No more pills?
No more surgery for ills?

I am knocking on my noggin for luck.

DIY publishing

Check out Shanna Compton's blog about DIY publishing.

I'm a big fan of do-it-yourselfing in poetry publishing, and after seeing the results from Lulu, I'm an even bigger fan.

If you were considering doing it, do it!

I got a good review!

Rose Kelleher had kind words to say about pseudophakia on the Lulu page. And I didn't bribe her or nuffink!

Rose is a no-nonsense poet, and always a breath of fresh air whereever she may roam, so this feels good.

Just for the record

The Indians announcer just said, "Shin-Shoo Choo." Ha!

I have a future in home repair!

Because it only took me two tries to fix my stairs, despite there being rot in my stringer! Rot! In my stringer! A stringer full o' rot!

I can come to your house and fix it. I am a wizard.

New journal, with a great editorial policy

21 Stars Review has its first issue out. On their submission page:

Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, as what's not right for us may be right for someone else; we don't want to be responsible for impeding the process for you. Just let us know if you get good news from somebody else.

I love that sentiment, and hope to see more of it.

The journal is very attractive, and was brought to my attention by one of its original contributors: Mandy Laughtland of Teeny Tiny.

What's the best poem...

... you've read recently? Links where possible!

Blogroll tidying

I've deleted a handful of links from the blogroll. I hope they were all defunct links, but I am quite often extremely clueless. If you're not on the list and you either should be or were once, tell me. I would be happy to fix it.

Beginning the morning with a bang and a whimper

Columbia Gas keeps estimating my meter reading instead of reading the meter. It's in the basement and apparently the meter reader is a lazy bum. I say that affectionately.

In any case, I set up a special appointment for tomorrow with said meter reader bum. This morning, I went to the basement and decided, while down there, to doublecheck the basement door was unlocked so there could be no excuse for meter reader bum.

And then I fell through the stairs.

It sounds very dramatic, but it just means that I ended up on my buttocks on a lower stair. The one I stepped on was on the floor.

Boobytrapped!

In any case, it wasn't that big of a deal, though I have to fix the stairs before tomorrow.

But my knee! It's the size of a small linebacker. Ow. Ow.

Welp, I got my raise

It's a good raise. 10%. The sad thing is that it just means I'll be a hair less broke. I can't stand doing the math right now. It's depressing as hell.