Monthly Archive: March 2006

31
Mar
2006

READ THE BEST BOOKS FIRST OR YOU MAY NOT HAVE A CHANCE TO READ THEM ALL*

When you find a great new blog do you go back and read through the archives? Why or why not? Does it make you feel like a stalker if you do? I am so unmotivated at the moment I’m amazed that I finally (after sitting and staring for what felt like forever) managed to actually start writing even if it was to cheat and ask a question of my readers thereby putting the onus of providing content on someone else. I’m curious, though. When I find an author I like I want to buy every book they’ve ever written and...

30
Mar
2006

POETRY THURSDAY

This is one of the first poems I ever copied down in a journal. It made me see the world differently. It made me start paying attention to and looking for the beauty in the details. It changed the way I wrote and the way I thought about the world. Read it slowly. The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of its mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and...

29
Mar
2006

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? Did you know what you wanted to do with your life? Did you have a plan? Have you followed it or has it veered unexpectedly? I never did. I still don’t. It’s not that I don’t like who and where I am, but these days I feel I have lost a way I never knew I was on. Or else I’m veering.* Which way is the real question, though. Which way? Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: On End *or else I’m tired.

27
Mar
2006

THE SWAN OF THE SOUL TAKES FLIGHT AND ASKS WHICH WAY TO GO

Wild swans are winging by overhead; the third time in as many days. They call as they fly and I wonder if they are just having conversations with each other, like we would on a long car trip…the younglings honking, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” and the elders threatening to turn this flock around and fly home if the kids don’t behave. Are they commenting on the things they pass at 70 miles an hour, or is it the waterfowl equivalent of buzzing the natives? “HONK HONK NYAH NYAH! Can’t catch us, boo yah!” If they’re trying...

25
Mar
2006

STARTING TO SHOW

Having a work laptop at home is not good. Well, I mean it is good for getting WORK done. But here it is Saturday night at 10 p.m. and I have been working since 1 p.m., nearly nonstop. With only mini-breaks for a load of laundry, dinner and a walk to the nursery to buy potted purple tulips and a glorious golden-orange begonia, and to write this journal entry. I have had a headache for nearly 24 hours because I picked up new eyeglasses yesterday. I was not amused last November when I finally got new glasses after 4 years...

23
Mar
2006

I’M MORE OF A CUSTODIAN, REALLY

I fight my inner packrat constantly. I can’t remember if it was before or after my father died that my mom told us that he, a notorious and shameless packrat of the First Order, had refused to throw away, among other equally horrifying things, boxes of moldy college textbooks from the 60s that had been caught in a basement-flooding years ago and 10-year old road maps and box after box of computer cables and ports and parts. Boxes of pens. Boxes of paper. Boxes of old magazines. I don’t think my father ever threw anything away that he thought might...

23
Mar
2006

POETRY THURSDAY

The Animal That Drank Up Sound by William Stafford One day across the lake where echoes come now an animal that needed sound came down. He gazed enormously, and instead of making any, he took away from, sound: the lake and all the land went dumb. A fish that jumped went back like a knife, and the water died. In all the wilderness around he drained the rustle from the leaves into the mountainside and folded a quilt over the rocks, getting ready to store everything the place had known; he buried— thousands of autumns deep—the noise that had used...

22
Mar
2006

NOT A TOP TEN LIST

Some Things I Love About Sweden: 1. that tarragon is dragon in Swedish 2. Men who can wallpaper AND change diapers AND knit AND fix the car 3. Pettson & Findus 4. barnbidrag and föräldrarledighet* 5. Rebecka, Marie and Cajsa Stina 6. The pretty, pretty money 7. Rapeseed in bloom 8. Carl Larsson 9. Mazariner, lyxbiskvi and vaniljhjärta 10. that television and films are subtitled, not dubbed 11. Moose! Hey! If I bring 4 friends on a moose safari, I get to go for free! Who’s with me?? Tell me something YOU love about Sweden! *governmental dependent subsidies and parental...

21
Mar
2006

FOU RIRE

I used to wonder how people could stand it in the States, working all those crazy hours. Today I worked a 12-hour day and it wasn’t the first one this month. It wasn’t even the third one. And the scary part was that I had to tear myself away. I wanted to stay and keep working, keep getting things done, and only the knowledge that working straight through for a week wouldn’t even get all the things done that I have to get done prevented me from staying longer. That doesn’t make any sense, but I plead half-full bucket of...

20
Mar
2006

MEDIC!

I’m at the whiny stage of the cold now. It’s like the 5 stages of grief only with a bucketful of phlegm in my head. Denial: What’s that? a tickle in the back of my throat? It’s nothing. I am not getting sick. No matter that 2 of my colleagues have been swarming with germs in and out of my office, I WILL NOT GET SICK. Anger: Stupid %$#^%@! coworkers and their stupid $^#&$*!~ germs!! Bargaining: If I pop 2 Tylenol now, I’ll be fine, I’m sure. I’ll just go to sleep a little earlier, and do my walk tomorrow....