At least I'm not in Missouri

I feel for Missouri voters this election cycle. I was just there, and they are being bombarded with lies, lies, and more lies from those against Amendment 2.

I have a frillion voicemail messages, all politicians and the RNC. They block their caller IDs, which is guaranteed to make me think they're hiding something. I snapped and told one caller to go to hell. She hung up, I hope just before actually going to hell, ie: Missouri in this election cycle.

I survived!

It was a visit with the in-laws, so it was iffy. But I made it.

I coughed on everyone. I did manage to avoid snotting on everyone, through sheer force of will.

I'm not a Cardinals fan, but we were in St. Louis for their World Series win, and we went to the parade. It would have been nicer had I not felt like hell, but it was pretty fun in any case.

But now baseball is over and I mourn.

One the one hand, I'm famous

And on the other, INFAMOUS!

John Vick has kindly awarded me a $50 Amazon gift certificate for my poem "Hitting for the cycle."

I am delighted. Thank you, John!

I'm also delighted to find that two of my poems will be in the inaugural "Shit Creek Review." I haven't stopped giggling in days. The nice young men in their clean white coats might arrive at any second.

You keep saying "Flicka." I don't think it means what you think it means

In modern-day Wyoming, teenager Katy McLaughlin dreams of working on and, one day, taking over her father's ranch. She tames a mustang and names her Flicka, then finds that she and her new equine companion are more alike than she imagined. After her father sells Flicka, Katy schemes to win back the horse by entering a dangerous race. Based on the novel by Mary O'Hara.

Why, that sounds exactly like My Friend Flicka, except in the novel by O'Hara, Katy is Ken, a pre-teen, who has to work on the ranch, who wants a horse of his own, who picks one that isn't a mustang, who then tries to save her life after she is injured when she tries to jump a too-high fence. There is no race, no scheming, no selling of the horse, no girls, and dammit, why not just start from scratch instead of twisting an old novel to fit a new generation? It's silly.

Speaking of whammying

I apologize to Tiger fans everywhere.

Go Tigers!

The World Series starts in a few hours. Last year, I didn't watch more than a few innings, but this year I can wholeheartedly root for the Tigers. I even have a Tigers hat that sits awkwardly on the giant melon I call my head.

I can't quite root for Kenny Rogers, but the Tigers represent the AL Central. I hate to make a prediction since I may whammy them, but I think they'll win handily.

Chain Reading is changing my life

Or at least changing the way I read.

The site, which I've pimped before, allows you to put books on a "to be read" list, a "currently reading" list, and a "recommended" list. You can also do reviews, which I do just to keep things straight.

So, how is it changing my reading? By keeping things straight. I can get low on titles and simply bring up my reading list and order another book from the library. No more trusting in my shaky memory all the time. No more standing at the library, slack-jawed and wondering what the hell I'm in the mood for. Mind you, I still browse. I have a need for book browsing. But I can hear about a book, or see it on Amazon, and immediately slap it onto my list.

22 reviews, 15 recommended books, 3 current reads, 39 in my to be read, and that's just since August 12. I cannot tell a lie--I read too damned much.

What's your favorite cookie?

The wife of one of my coworkers runs a cookie shop, and she's always looking for new and popular cookies to make for her customers. What's your dream cookie?

Mine? Snickerdoodles. I adore them.

I contain multitudes

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 846 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Oh yeah

It's about time, dammit.

For more info, clickie on the pictures.

I had nearly forgotten how good they are

1. Veronica Mars. This show is a must see. Watch it.

2. My Friend Flicka. I read it at 8, now again at 35. I had forgotten most of it, but it's easy to recall now why I devoured it and its sequels. This is a book suitable for kids, but not written for them (at least according to the standards of 2006).

3. Cinnamon tea. Every year, the cinnamon tea gets yanked off the shelves, and I go through a summer without. Then fall comes and it comes and damn. The combination of tea and cinnamon is simply divine.

4. The Emperor's New Groove. It's a silly movie, but it makes me laugh like few things I've seen before or since.

If you haven't ever read Rose Kelleher

Please take a look at her lovely poetry here. Rose has decided not to pursue much in the way of publication, so this is a great opportunity to admire her work en masse.

Politics of form

In recent revision of one of my free verse poems, I decided that I would attempt to transform it into some received form--perhaps a dizain because of the mirroring aspect of that form.

Rewriting a free verse poem into a form is obviously an artistic choice, but is it also a political one? The poem is about lynching. Is there a difference between writing a free verse poem about lynching and writing a formal poem about lynching? Is there a statement in there about what are suitable topics for rigidity and artifice? Do we transform a poem's meaning through lineation and rhyme, or just its appearance, as if with a magic wand? Fitting the form to the sense is something that many writers recommend (as do I), so what statement is it actually making if we determine that the sense of a particular poem fits a form? Are we saying that lynching (to use my example) is a particularly dizain-ish historical fact? That it has a stateliness and a predictability?

I've often said that a sonnet can be about anything. But does the act of creating a sonnet change the topic?

I'm thinking about these things instead of actually, you know, writing poems.

A sure sign of insanity

I'm going to try to do NaNoWriMo again this year. Last year was a horrible failure. The year before was a success.

Anyone else brave/foolish enough to join me in writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November?

Is anything in history more pathetic than anonymous comments?

I have arrived!

My commenter is an astonishing combination of ignorance and illiteracy. It thinks I do music! It makes me so proud.

But I've turned off anonymous commenting. Why? To test the dedication of this lovely. If I have real power, it will create a Blogger account just to comment further. Pleaseohpleaseohplease.

If I wanted cold toes...

... I'd stick 'em in the freezer, dammit!

I am so not ready for this weather.

There was frost on the Jeep this morning. There should be a law that it not frost before Steve's birthday.

My roots are showing

But I don't mean hair.

Last night, Steve and I went to the fair. While at the fair, we went to a demolition derby. Pickups. It was hilarious.

We ate too much, of course, and I got mud on my head.

But it was worth it.

MINIPORC

MINI POetry Review Challenge: MINIPORC

Please participate by publicly reviewing at least one published poem per day this week, as discussed here.


SarahJ of The Rain in My Purse has got the ball rolling with her review.

And Very Like a Whale weighs in, a whale of a weigh-in.

What a nice day

The weather was gorgeous, the news from baseball deeelightful (Yanks lose! Yanks lose!) and some kind person picked up my phone after it fell from my pocket during a hike in the woods and returned it to the visitor center. Everyone deserves a big hug. C'mere.

Is poetry reviewing worth the time?

Over on WEE, I've tried to get back to reviewing a couple of poems most days, but I constantly wonder if it's worth it. What am I accomplishing? I can burn myself out, and for what? Does reviewing add something positive to the general state of the poetry world even if the review ends up negative? Is a negative review worth more or less than a positive one? Do I drag down or build up poetry by approaching it with the intent to speak?

It's Friday, so I offer a challenge. Publically review at least one published poem every weekday next week. Then talk about the experience. Does it change the way you read? Is it a good change or a bad one? Does speaking publicly make you more negative or more positive? Do you fear hurting feelings? Did you read poems you wouldn't have read otherwise? Is there a benefit to the exercise? Do you want to continue?

It's the MINI POetry Review Challenge: MINIPORC. Please participate. Let's talk reviews.

It's been six months

I should be glad that it has been six months since my last batch of cluster headaches. I should be glad. I'm not.

I'm really really not.

Because they're back.

Top ten literary crushes

Stolen from Cindy at Quotidian Light. She stole from someone else. We are a community of thieves!

So, my top ten literary crushes?

1. Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L Sayers)--In real life, superrich, superskinny, and superblond don't do much for me. But Gaudy Night is one of the perfect books in the English language, and Harriet Vane may be a Mary Sue but I don't care.

2. Mr. Darcy (Jane Austen)--I think he would show up on more lists than anyone else. There's just something about Mr. Darcy.

3. Superman--I can't help it, no matter how lame it is.

4. The Scarlet Pimpernel/Sir Percy Blakeney (Baroness Orczy)--One of my earliest crushes, and one of the most defensible.

5. Sidney Carton (Charles Dickens)--I see a French Revolution theme growing here.

6. The Bastard (Lois McMaster Bujold)--I think this will be the only god on the list, and I tell ya, it's a little embarrassing.

7. Jack Bauer (24)--The least defensible one on the list is this sociopath with a heart of... well... something very black and hard. We shall call it coal.

8. Sherlock Holmes (Laurie R King)--I have no interest in Doyle's original Sherlock, but King's Sherlock is pretty damned dreamy, and pretty damned Lord Peter, too.

9. James T Kirk--Damn, do I ever have a thing for heroes.

10. Aslan (CS Lewis)--Dammit, dammit, dammit. I said only one god, but I lied.

Online book fair

Check out the online book fair happening now. Raffles! Interviews! Raffles! Forums! Raffles!

g r a p e z back in business

Greg Perry of g r a p e z was the one who inspired me to tackle the daily review on WEE. He went on hiatus for a while, but is back swinging. Please check it out.

Read this blog

How can you resist the Bookshelves of Doom? This is my favorite of the book-related blogs out there, and that's saying something.

Oh, yeah, I want to be in this

It's the inaugural edition of The Shit Creek Review. That's not a publication credit you can get just anywhere, monkeys!

Scam alert!

My coworker's kid got approached at her workplace by a scam artist.

For once in my life, I actually had information that was helpful. You see, this scamming dude works for Primerica, a subsidiary of Citigroup. What they do is tell you that they want to interview you for a job. But instead of an interview, it's a sales pitch to get you involved in MLM. Oh, and they want you to pay money for the privilege.

How do I know? I was contacted by these people six years ago when I put my resume up on Monster. Oh, but I'd make a "six-figure income," they said. Oh, but you can "be your own boss." All by recruiting others into the fold. Baa.