The pressure! It's mounting!

Now I need to write a dedication for Aloysius, in 48 words or less.

I can't handle the pressure! This feels very permanent and very very short.

And Aloysius might eat my head if I embarrass him. Damn. I'll sleep on it.

Daily Poem Project, Week 9

At Andrew J Shields's blog.

I haven't decided on a favorite yet. Some great lines (theirs). Some dead brain cells (mine). Both combine to make a difficult decision.

I'm trying to adopt a lion!

A shameless lion, no less.

The blank verse curse

I think I broke my versifier. Stuck on line 184.

I'm glad there isn't a time limit, one with that Jeopardy! song. That'd be bad.

Anyone been to a tomato tasting?

I want to go to a tomato tasting this year. Has anyone ever gone? There's one at Monticello that could be fun, and one at Rutgers that looks enormous.

Now here's an idea I can get behind

Internet Access CAPTCHAS.

I should have to pass one of these each time I consider a blog post. That way, when I'm too stupid to pass, I'm not allowed to post!

They're blooming!

I love it when the tomato plants get all bloomy and you realize that all of those little yellow flowers will turn into big, juicy tomatoes.

But I want them now!

It's hot. Tomatoes like hot. It's dry, though, and tomatoes don't particularly appreciate dry.

On the other hand, I appreciate dry. The tomatoes can just live with a soaker hose.

I think a slight rewording might be in order

So, somewhere else along the road there was construction. And they had those enormous customizable signs. The first sign said:

SLOW DOWN

Fines doubled in work zone!

The second said:

HIT A WORKER

Fine $10,000 and 14 years in jail!

Now, doesn't that look like an order?

A peacock hitchhiker?

Steve and I are visiting relatives in St. Louis. During the drive, in Illinois, we saw a peacock strolling nonchalantly (for how else can you stroll?) along the shoulder.

I hope that seems strange to someone else.

Today I learned a new word

"Astroturfing." It means an attempt to fake grassroots support for a product, whether a politician or an artist or, in the case of the retarded Chasing Cool spammers, a book.

They think we're idiots. They think we're all idiots.

I've joined two more poetry boards

In the last six months, I've joined (I think) two poetry boards. I think I have two posts at one and none at the other. I'm not really sure what I think I'm achieving by joining. I feel a strange guilt if I lurk without joining. Obviously, I'm just plain weird.

Honestly, I'm looking for inspiration. I don't know why I think it's out there and not in here *taps noggin*. Maybe because nothing much is in here *taps noggin*. If you put your ear to my head, you can hear the ocean!

"Chasing Cool" is chasing my last goddamn nerve

I moderate at a book forum. We keep getting hit by spammers trying to sell a book called Chasing Cool. They're signing up just to spam us.

Note to publishers, this is a piss-poor way to treat readers. And what advertising for your book, since we all know that spam is the epitome of cool. Yeah. Like ringworm.

Idiots.

Captain Kirk rockin' the velour sweatshirt

This is my new favorite picture in the whole world. Courtesy of here.

Lloyd Alexander has died

"I used the imaginary kingdom not as a sentimentalized fairyland, but as an opening wedge to express what I hoped would be some very hard truths," he once told an interviewer. "I never saw fairy tales as an escape or a cop-out. . . . On the contrary, speaking for myself, it is the way to understand reality."

83 years. Too short.

My html comeuppance!

The blog was fubar'd for part of the day yesterday because I was tinkering. After whining that Wordpress wouldn't let me change the template, it was fitting that I crashed my blog because I could change the template!

I really do believe that there's an evil elf somewhere, giggling at me.

Doesn't that sound like a delicious pasta dish?

The Indians have a fine young pitcher named Fausto Carmona. It sounds like that should involve a cream sauce somehow.

Still, he doesn't compare with the A's pitcher Kiko Calero, or the Twins' young Boof Bonser. I don't think I'd want a Boof Bonser with cream sauce.

Goodbye to my favorite show

Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes,
Veronica has gone to hide?
And all the time she laughs at those who shout
her name and steal her clothes
Veronica
Veronica

It looks like "Veronica Mars" is history. So sad. My Tuesdays look bleak as hell.

As the sun goes, so goes my mood

I was feeling pretty chipper until yesterday's grey and gloomy rains. The sun is now starting to peek out and I'm feeling better again--not so tired and angsty.

My blank verse so far has been hyperfocused on gardening, weeding, that sort of thing. If you had told me a year ago what enjoyment I would be getting out of plants, I would have mocked you to your face. And pointed. Because I'm rude.

Give us a call, Mister Rooferman!

One begins to feel a little persecuted after the roofers don't call back multiple times.

Do I have roof cooties? Is my brittle slate contagious? I pay! Big money! You like!

There are two roofers in the county. Two. Guess how many I've called? Grr.

Jerry Falwell dead

I'm not going to gloat about it. It's too late to feel anything but sadness at what these pompous, arrogant, self-righteous charlatans have done to this country.

Tomatoes!

We've gone back to planting tomatoes this season after a one-year hiatus. We put them in the ground early this year, and the weather has been cooperating temperature-wise, but not rain-wise.

We planted four Cherokee Purples, a Brandywine, a Pineapple, a Black Prince, and an Early Girl.

I want tomatoes. Now. NOW. *sob*

If I could turn back the hands of time...

... I'd keep track of all the people I used to know. Yes, all of them. Every last one of you. Even the rat finks.

Jim Sheard was trying to track down a member of aapc and I realized that there are members of aapc I haven't thought about in years, people I used to "see" online every day, multiple times a day, and I couldn't name them.

That's just sad.

Snakeskin bookfair

Thanks to Rob for bringing this one to my attention. Snakeskin will be giving space to people to advertise their poetry books this June, so check it out here.

A chainsaw? Riiiiight

Over the winter, we lost part of a pine tree during a big ice storm. The tree just sort of broke in half and toppled into the yard.

Fortunately, the trunk fell without hurting anything but an astilbe.

Ever since, Steve has been claiming we need a chainsaw. This the the guy who tried to cut his own hand off with a pocketknife. And I'm the person who is constantly tripping over cracks in the sidewalk and hitting her head on things.

We are not worthy of a chainsaw.

But Steve saw doom and Steve saw gloom. He saw us growing old with a tree partially down in the backyard. He saw cheap me being unwilling to pay someone to move it. And in that he was partially right.

For I had a saw! And scrawny arms that needed the exercise.

Making a long story short, I moved the tree. Steve is grumpy, and oh-so-wrong. But he still has all his limbs.

Haha!

To the jerk who stole my shrub

I hope it had mites. And I hope you carried it really close to your crotch.

My decision may be made for me

I can't update my Wordpress blog while I'm at work because of the dialup situation. So, this probably means that I can't switch, since I tend to blog whenever the spirit moves. Or not.

Now I know why they call it blank verse

'Cause I'm staring blankly at the screen.

You know what this needs? Explosions. Big ones.

Another year, another non-attendance at West Chester

Every year I bemoan my inability (more like unwillingness) to go to poetry events like West Chester. Every year I say, "Maybe next year."

Um. Maybe next year.

The current plan

I'm bad at making decisions, so I'm keeping both blogs for the moment. That "moment" might be five minutes or two years. It's really hard to say.

In any case, there is a static page on Wordpress for my blank verse. I'll be posting the sections here, but there's where the whole mess will reside if anyone is actually willing to read the whole mess. I know that I'll be using Wordpress in November for NaNo, as well.

Scavella mentioned that one of the things she hates about Blogger is the commenting issue, and I agree. Commenting on Blogger blogs is often frustrating and futile. I have set it so that anyone may comment. If you use the "other" option, you can fill in your name and website (if you wish). Or you can post anonymously. Whatever works best for you.

Blogger vs. Wordpress

Well, until I post this, I will have identical posts here and at my new Wordpress blog. I have some complaints about Blogger. But I also have some complaints about Wordpress, and I wonder if it's worth switching.

Wordpress pros:

The biggie: Static pages for things like the blank verse challenge is way cool.
It's rumored to be more stable than Blogger.
Keeping track of my comments on other people's blogs is much easier. It's pretty much impossible on Blogger.
Support for the site is simply better.


Wordpress cons:

The biggie: I have to pay to edit my template? WHA?
Because of that, I appear to be stuck with their choice of templates--none of which I like.
And I have to lose some of my widgets, like the ChainReading widget, that I like and use.
Doing any admin work is incredibly slow on dialup, and at work I'm on dialup.
Did I mention they want me to pay them so that I can do what I do on Blogger for free?

Mimesis journal

I got my contributor copy of Mimesis this morning. Very nice.

It's funny how I react to my own work when it's in hard copy. It's different, somehow, when it's on a page. Solider. Thicker. It has a chunkiness to it.

I think I associate paper with reality. Books are real writing. Computer screens aren't.

Yet I prefer online publishing. Go figger.

Insanity is contagious

Which is why Scavella is doing the Blank Verse challenge, too.

Come in. The water's nearly tepid!

All buttoned up and ready to go

I need to come up with a way of organizing the 1000 lines of blank verse. But in the meantime, at least I have a button!

Unfortunately, the button is designed for the sidebar, so it's a little invisible over here.

Shift this, suckas!

AL defenses keep doing an aggressive shift on Travis Hafner. In Tampa, they went so far as to have the third baseman to the right of second while the second baseman played in the outfield.

In any case, David Dellucci on first. Two out. Bottom of the 11th. Hafner up. Two strikes. The pitch was terrible, way low and outside, and Pronk was completely off-balance, leaning and reaching out to cue it down the left field line--where there was nobody. It skittered into the outfield.

At some point the camera switched to Dellucci and you could tell he was going to try it. The defense was scrambling, the announcers screaming. Joel Skinner at third started windmilling his arm. Run. Run. Run. And Dellucci scored from first.

I don't know when I've laughed harder at the end of a game. There's no doubt he meant to do it. There was a big, dopey grin on many faces.

Generally, of course, a team would be happy to force Hafner to get a hit that way. He's got no speed, so it limits him to a single. But with the game on the line, with two out and the runners moving, there just has to be a better way. Not that I know what it is.

Deeee-nied

The Cleveland Indians protested the game from Saturday versus the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles should have had a 3-2 lead at the end of an inning, but the umpire made an error so the inning ended 2-2. A couple of innings later, the umpires realized they had goofed and tacked the run on. Much hullabaloo ensued. The Indians played the rest of the game under protest.

Today, we find that they lost their case.

I thought they had a 10% chance of winning, so it's only a tiny disappointment. I kinda wanted it overturned so that I could say that I had seen a protest upheld.

What a freaky season.

Am I insane? Oh, fine

Nic Sebastian is certifiable.

If I follow Nic Sebastian, who is certifiable, what does that say about me?

No need to answer. I know what it means.

It means that I'm going to try to write 1000 lines of blank verse. No time limit, but before I die. (Er, which I guess is a time limit, innit?)

I'm up to line 32.

My god.

I'm 36 years old and...

... I just got my first popped blisters on my first documented case of poison ivy.

Ow.

I'm 36 years old and...

... I just got my first confirmed case of poison ivy.

Just FYI: It kinda sucks.

If I said James Mosqueda...

... reminded me of Nick Barkley driving the buckboard filled with nitroglycerin, would you understand what I meant?