Friday, October 29, 2010

How to Fail with Panache

So I get these urges every now & then to cook something extravagant (i.e. time consuming & laborious). I start out all stoked about it (homemade stock! braised haunch of saber-toothed tiger!) & then feel overwhelmed about halfway through. I am made of culinary fail. Tonight we are having a salad. Just greens & grilled chicken & a homemade vinaigrette. There is a giant vat of slow-simmering Italian gravy on the stove & it's freaking me out right now. It smells good but I don't want to finish making it.

I am still in a holding pattern regarding the new batch of poems. Empty brain syndrome. This is accompanied by a bout of profound social awkwardness. When I speak, it comes out all backwards & strange. I am pretty sure I am inadvertently offending people. When I write stuff, it comes out all stormy & full of fucked-up-ness. I need a nice, productive-style creative occupation with practical results. I wish I knew how to knit or quilt or something like that.

There are two upcoming readings in November & I'm feeling nervous.

I could just sleep for days & days.

My dog needs a haircut.

Jellyfish are fascinating. So are spiders.

Samhain approaches. There might be ghosts in your cooking pots. Be aware of the unseen.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

& etc.

My stomach has developed this strange habit of waking up very angry and knotting itself up inside for hours & hours. It might be an ulcer. Or an alien fetus, because it's possible I really was abducted by aliens & just don't remember. I am drinking black tea with honey & hoping for the best.



Recap of last ten days:

Leek-potato soup

Wasp in the house

Family drama

Knee socks

Interdimensional travel to alternate universes

Caddyshack

Buttered popcorn and Mexican Coke

Cuss words

Dirty dishes

Villainy

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I have not been abducted by aliens.

It's like I blink & ten days have passed & I don't know where they went.

I have not written anything much lately except in my head. I am mired in the mundane these days, in the lettuce & the forks & the dust motes floating in the air & driving the car to various places that are not exciting or interesting. Life is mostly about trying to cover the checks I write & making sure the dog has lots of fresh water & selling pumpkins in the rain.

I am watching Warehouse 13 via Netflix (I don't have cable channels) & cannot decide whether or not I like it. Disc 2 should be on its way soon. M continues to Netflix movies that ruin my recommendations with lists of cheesy comedies but I forgive him.

The inbox for blossombones is filling up & I must get busy with the reading of poems & the writing of emails. This is the hardest part.

There have been no interesting dreams. Just repeats, like sitcoms during summer vacation.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

ex haust ed

The weather is strange & I sleep & wake at odd hours. I dislike heat. I am ready for cooler weather. There have been dreams of alien crime scenes, with strange machinery & unidentifiable puddles of gore. I can only imagine what this says about my psyche.

I did not write this week, although I was efficient in other ways. Still, it feels like fail. I came home from work yesterday after a 6 a.m. shift & took a nap & cooked a pot of stew & some homemade soup and a bunch of spaghetti sauce. Sometimes I get a little hyper and want to have things in the fridge for the week. I sliced my thumb with the potato peeler and didn't notice until later. Now there is a tiny flap of disconnected thumb, which irritates me but I am glad to say is still attached & didn't end up in the stew, because that would be gross. I keep reading through my cookbooks & wanting to make fancy things like saffron cookies and chocolate almond gateau but who would eat it all? There are only three of us. (Speaking of cooking, the last poem I wrote was about Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd & I wonder if this has inspired the cooking marathons. Ha.)

M accidentally took BOTH of the chargers for my cell phone out of town with him & my battery ran out of juice yesterday afternoon so I am sans phone for at least another day. This is both liberating & upsetting. I am not much of a phone talker, but I like the comfort of *having* the damned thing, just in case.

I just finished reading Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman & I enjoyed it very much although it was quite similar to her earlier books. I have been making more trips to the library these days, which makes me happy.

I need to wash my floors & catch up on my reading & bake something pumpkin-flavored & write creepy poems & read the submissions in my inbox for blossombones & organize the scads of paperwork sitting in piles on my office chair. Instead I am writing about it which seems counterproductive but it helps me think.

I have the urge to do too many things at once. My horoscope says that October will be a glorious month. I am still waiting for the impending awesomeness. Maybe someone will bake me a pie.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Ghosts of Octobers Past...



October seems to be a big month for poetry readings. Yesterday I read with the amazing women pictured above at Woman Made Gallery & it was lovely.

I last read at Woman Made in October 2008 with some really wonderful women writers & it feels much more recent than that, but I still believe that time is speeding up, at least in my reality. Maybe yours is slower.

In October of 2009, I read with DGP at Flourish Bakery & I will be reading with DGP again this October here. Maybe I'll see you? There will be sandwiches.

***

Balancing the schedules of three busy adults in one household is getting more & more complicated, like juggling leaky pens and trying not to get ink stains on my blouse. I keep making rules for myself, like "always have a pot of homemade soup in the fridge" & this doesn't make it any easier, but it does make life better. I do not know how normal people do this.

I am still dreaming of carnivorous plants that eat their way inside their victims while causing them to hallucinate, kind of like The Matrix, only without Morpheus to administer the red pill & whatnot.