Winter Spring Summer

I’d rather be blogging

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | Whatnot | No Comments

After a long summer (which continues to drag on with this ceaseless & stifling humidity), I still don’t have much time for this blog… and I’m honestly not sure I’d know what to write about if I did.

But in case you’re aching for an update, here’s the latest:

• Started a new job.  We do good work & its important & you should support it.  Come check us out on Nov. 8th to find out how.
• The series I host for the Mad Poets Society lost our venue, then got a new one (with barely a moment to spare).  Now, we’re rockin’ 1st Thursdays at Milkboy in Bryn Mawr like nobody’s biznass.  We’ve been packed for every reading — and this month we were standing room only. Be there in October for Jenn & Chris McCreary.
• I got hired to teach a college comp class and then my class got cancelled… all in the space of a month.  Que sera.
• Luckily, the workshops at Big Blue Marble are going strong, 2nd & 4th Saturdays.  We meet up next on Sept. 29 (which I think is actually the 5th Saturday… but don’t tell).
•  The Mad Poets blog is humming along… and when I dare to blog, its over there & its generally just to try and get people to promote themselves.  Feel free to join us in unabashed self advancement every Monday and read the reviews, interviews, etc. etc. all the rest of the week.
• And if you don’t have anything to do next Wednesday, you should come see me read at the Belmont Hills Library in Bala Cynwyd.  There will be free refreshments and an open mic.

this is spam, right?

Friday, April 20th, 2007 | Whatnot | No Comments

okay — check out the last comment, the one from Raymon, posted today on this FRT from like… oh… i dunno…. two full months ago. i figure its some kind of spam, right? i don’t know what kind, since it doesn’t link to cheap viagra or a low-interest mortgage — it doesn’t even link to a personal blog. but i don’t know this guy.
or do i?

this reads like a yearbook entry from when I was in the 6th grade. and that’s particularly bemusing because i’m not really sure what the point is. but i guess that’s the way i feel about yearbooks too. either way, i’m considering stealing this tactic. not that i really have anything to spam about. but i could always use a few extra hits. and i mean, have any of us really outgrown the desire for the cheerful and pointless fake friendships cultivated in the pages of our grade-school annuals? I didn’t think so.

See you next year. TTFN. Stay Sweet. LYLAS.

Sunday Geek Rant

Sunday, April 1st, 2007 | Internet Prowess, Whatnot | 2 Comments

There’s a reason why I still write my poems in a marble copybook, with a simple rolling ball pen, and only commit them to computer after several long-hand revisions. That reason: technology is goofy.

For all it’s bonuses, technology continues to befuddle me at the most unlikely turns. I spent this afternoon making simple sidebar banners to highlight my regular poetry events. You may or may not actually see those banners, and, if you do, they may or may not look the way I intended. Herein lies today’s befuddlement. You see, for some reason, the only way I can view changes made to my code is by clearing my cache, closing the browser altogether, then reopening. (Just refreshing, or clearing the cache & then refreshing won’t work). Then, maybe, the page I see will reflect my most recent updates. Sometimes, I have to restart the computer altogether.

Considering my html skills are rudimentary, at best, viewing my changes is particularly important… so I can be sure I inserted the links properly or set the alignment and margins correctly. This cache confusion has caused much cursing and fist flailing, as I’m accustomed to assuming that any problems are the result of user error (*me*) rather than an equipment glitch (stupid damned computer!!!!!). This afternoon, it got so frustrating I got the Little Mister involved. Even he was perplexed. Why, for instance, were the image paths in IE completely different than those in the code??? Regardless of how many times we cleared the cache and refreshed, it seemed that the little web elves that live inside my computer decided they preferred the old fouled code.

I *think* its okay now. I think. And hope. I can only go by what I see, and from what I see they’re fine. But if the banners are all icked up for you, please let me know. Or you could let me know if they look just fine too. A non-geek like me can use all the positive reinforcement I can get!

Surrounding yourself with beautiful things

Thursday, March 29th, 2007 | 9-5, Poetry, Whatnot | 2 Comments

In just a few weeks, I’ll end my two-year stint of working from home and return to the daily grind of having a job that actually requires I *gasp* leave the house.

I couldn’t be more excited.

Not only because I get to re-assert the much-needed separation between work & life (although, ironically, my new job is more in-line with my personal ethics/passions/ambitions/etc.), but because, in doing so, I get the joy of creating a work space — an entirely distinct and unique environment in which to spend my days. I realized this about myself when I started working from home: there are things that I will do in an office workspace that don’t work at home… for one reason or other.

For instance, I can have a plant, provided there’s adequate light, which I think there is. At home, plants are verboten because my kitties like to eat them & knock them over. …Of course, let’s not even get started on how much I’m going to miss spending my days with the wee bastards …that’s a whole other matter.

The other thing I can do is set up my Magnetic Poetry stand… again, the wee bastards make this rather impractical for the home. I’m sure that I’d find all the little magnetic words scooped out of their little tray, to be eaten or strewn about the house, and all of my brilliant little magnetic poems destroyed.

But my favorite workplace design feature is to wallpaper the area surrounding my desk and computer with favorite poems. I started doing this at my very first job out of college, where I worked for a dreadful trade magazine. The office was about as lively as morgue (mostly because we were all so miserable we were silently praying for our own swift deaths). One day, I read the poem To My Twenties by Kenneth Koch — and it just made me so purely happy that I printed it out, so I could read it whenever I was feeling low (which happened regularly enough at that particular job I really needed to have a poem at the ready). When I left, after the longest 6 months of my adult life, I untacked the poem from the cubicle wall and took it with me to my next job.

I’ve had the same crinkly print out ever since. Over time, I’ve added several others — Well Water by Randell Jarrell, A Rescue by John Updike, Metamorphosis by Billy Collins, What the Living Do by Marie Howe, and more — each in various stages of crinkle, most with tears, all marred by several folded over pieces of tape, from being stuck and unstuck to my myriad workstations.

As uplifting as my “wallpaper” was, it’s problematic in my own home office. Ironically, the same scraps that have made me feel settled and inspired at work, make me feel sloppy and transient at home. Still, I’ve missed being able to just look at my wall and be transported by a good poem, the way a small framed photo can take you back to that moment when it was taken. I’ll be happy to get those little trips back.

scott doesn’t have comments turned on…

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 | Books, Theatrics, Whatnot | 1 Comment

…so, I have to comment here on how much I love the idea behind his new blog, Stalking the Bard. I, too, embrace the most unoriginal sentiment of loving all things Shakespeare. In fact, when I visited Stratford-upon-Avon during the brief time I lived in England during college, I was so overcome that I gobbled up every ridiculous Shakespearean souvenir I could get my credit-enabled hands on: quill pen, journal with quotes in the corners, socks with the Bard’s little blue head embroidered all over them. (As an aside: Those socks were worth every penny — since I still have them & still wear them fairly regularly, yet they remain hole-free. If you’re ever in Stratford looking for something fun and Bardy, go for the socks, you won’t regret it.)

Anyway, Scott’s goal is to see every Shakespeare play performed live, at least once in his life. I’ve seen at least a few plays in my time:

It’s funny, making this list, I realize I haven’t seen as many plays as I thought I had (at least not that I can clearly remember from my adult life…) I feel like I’ve seen other plays, but I’m not sure if I saw them in grade school or high school and just can’t remember clearly… or if my brain is muddied by the various on-screen representations from the likes of Branagh, Gibson, Zeffirelli, Luhrmann, etc. etc.

Either way, Scott’s project sounds like so much fun, I’m tempted to copy him. But, I won’t. Instead, I just wanted to throw my support behind the noble effort.

Live Blogging: Top 50 Chick Flicks on the Style Network

Friday, March 16th, 2007 | Whatnot | 4 Comments

Style Network is airing the most wonderful show — 50 Best Chick Flicks: Sex, Cries & Videotape, hosted by none other than Allie Sheedy & Molly Ringwald! It’s like watching all of my favorite movies without having to sit through all the boring parts.

This is perfect, “I’ve had too much to drink & I can’t concentrate” TV. Although I can’t post on the internets exactly why I’ve had too much to drink, let’s just be clear that its celebratory!

So… we’re at no. 20 12 6 and there are only five 6 7 that I haven’t seen:

1. Waiting to Exhale
2. Moonstruck
3. The Joy Luck Club
4. The Wedding Planner
5. Pride & Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth… how did I miss this??)
6. The Way We Were
7. Terms of Endearment

I’m ashamed… I should have seen all of these BUT “The Wedding Planner”… I draw the line at J Lo… sorry, a girl’s gotta have some standard.

Oh, and just in case you’re bad at math (or you’ve been drinking A LOT), that makes 31 other chick flicks that I’ve seen – and could probably recite word for word.

UPDATE:
Say Anything @ #14 — what?!!?! Not in the top 10… that can’t be right.

UPDATE No. 2: The Top 10
10. Thelma & Louise — okay, that’s fair… definitely top-10 worthy.
9. The Notebook — Oh. My. God. I love this movie. Makes me cry every time. Okay, I’m embarrassed now.
8. Terms of Endearment — I think its chick blasphemy to admit that I’ve never seen this… but I think I earn some grrrrl cred… if that’s even possible for me at this point.
7. Ghost — ick. Definitely could have been moved out of the top 10 for Say Anything.
6. Dirty Dancing — nobody puts Baby in a corner… so how did she miss the top 5?
5. Sleepless in Seattle — of course… although, I dunno, this one never really did it for me.
4. When Harry Met Sally — I remember seeing this when I was 10 or 12 or something… I think it was my inauguration into chickflickdom.
3. Steel Magnolias — damn straight! this is one of the greatest girlie movies of all time.
2. PrettyWoman — what can be no. 1, if it’s not this?!?!
1. Beaches — BLECH!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh! I’m so disappointed. 2 hours in front of the tv to end up with Bette frickin’ Midler. Ugh!!! They should have just stop the frickin’ countdown at Pretty Woman. Seriously. This is dumb. I hate the Style network.

UPDATE No. 3: The final countdown
Of the 50 movies, it’s only the 7 above that I haven’t seen.  So, I’ve seen 43 of the Style network’s top 50… not that it matters… the whole countdown is called into question by that number one!

My own personal moment of zen

Thursday, March 8th, 2007 | Music, Poetry, Whatnot | No Comments

so, i was just listening to Skin Radio, and I - unexpectedly - heard the last lines of my own poem, Brotherly Love. Exciting? Yes, definitely. Then, after my poem finished, the station rolled into the next song — “Rain King,” by the Counting Crows. I dig the Counting Crows very much, have seen them twice, love the Adam Duritz’s lyricism, etc. etc… and to hear myself in the same proximity, in whatever minor way, is just pretty darn surreal.

Daniel Powter is stalking me

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | Music, Whatnot | 4 Comments

Despite (or perhaps because of?) it’s inane lyrics and contrived catchiness, Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” lives comfortably atop my guilty pleasures list. (Admit it, you can’t help from singing along: You had a bad day, the cameras don’t lie….) But, although that song seemed to be all the Top 40 rage last summer, it had kind of fallen out of my life… until recently.

You see, I’ve taken to listening to the XM radio that comes through my Direct TV… and it seems like everytime I turn it on I hear “Bad Day.” And I’m not even exaggerating, it’s every time, almost every day, sometimes twice in the span of a few hours. And really, that’s been fine by me, because every time I stop whatever I’m doing to flail around my living room, sing at the top of my lungs, and scare the crap out of my cats.

But today things have gone too far. After hearing “Bad Day” at least once last night, I got in the car this afternoon and it was playing on the station I was tuned to. And just now, I got to the Bucks Co. Coffee in Manayunk, to do some focused work (see how well that’s working out), and what’s pumping through Bux’s sound system? My man, Daniel Powter. It’s un-freakin’ canny? I mean, seriously, I really think he’s following me. And right now it’s *just* following, but if I hear him one more time today, he’ll have crossed the line into stalking. And I wish he wouldn’t, because the infatuation and fun are fading the more I’m overwhelmed with the song and how bad it really is.

Sunday, Geeky Sunday

Sunday, February 18th, 2007 | Whatnot | No Comments

After a my-t-fun evening with the geeks and bloggers (many thanks to Scott for an excellent party!), I find myself enjoying a full day of geekery. Let me preface this by saying that my level of geekery is far more rudimentary than most, so it doesn’t take much for me to impress myself with my technical prowess. Minor tweaks to html code, for instance, set my wee heart aflutter. In real geek circles, it’s kind of pathetic; but, for a writer, and especially a poet, I’m pretty darned handy with the technamalogicalisms.

So, I’m pretty darned proud of how deftly I installed and applied the Joomla Flickr badge plugin on the Mad Poets Society’s website, which I “manage.” Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that I also (finally) signed up for Twitter (although I still can’t quite figure out how to make it work with AOL IM). And now I’m trying to get a Mad Poets’ blog up and running, which mean, ya know, tweaking the template design and other high level technologicalish type activities. I’m so awesome at the internets I can barely handle it!

I think next I’m going to try to add the Little Mister’s Whoomp! button to my site.

Eagles Touchdown Sundae

Saturday, January 27th, 2007 | Fanaticism, Whatnot | 1 Comment

Of course, I crave all things Eagles. And after years of drooling at the commercials for Turkey Hill’s Eagles ice cream, I finally got some tonight — surprise surprise, Acme was unloading the stuff at a deep discount now that the Eagles’ season is over.

Turkey Hill describes it as: “Vanilla flavored ice cream spiked with plenty of choco peanut butter footballs…plus, smooth swirls of peanut butter and chocolatey fudge. It’s a true team effort, and a super sundae!”

All I can say is YUMMY! Although… it is a pretty darned rich… I’m sitting here eating this ice cream with a glass of water.