This is to the tune of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," and it's not fully original, but I thought it was funny.

Found a peanut last night
Ate it right off the floor
Started feeling so queasy
Trip to the local ER ward

Thought that I wouldn't barf
Got as far as the door
Tried to tell them what happened
Ate a bad nut off the floor.

.... and that's all she wroye.

This teacher I have got me and some other people to write a poem including the first stanza of a poem by W.H. Davies, which went like this:

When I was once in Baltimore,

A man came up to me and cried,

"Come,I have eighteen hundred sheep,

And we will sail on Tuesday's tide."

So I responded by writing a poem that went like this[editorial note- an ovine is a sheep like a bovine is a cow, or at least I hope I'm right]:

When I was once in Baltimore
A man came up to me and cried
"Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep
And we sail on Tuesday's tide.
It ought to be a good voyage
though we'll be at sea some time
all will go well and no saltpetre needed
for we've stocked the hold with ovines."
"But what of wool rash?" I mumbled, bright red
"Think nothing of it," he smiled,
"for when we get to shore again
we'll be in Greece , where there's many a child
whose dainty rash-curing hands
will drive thoughts of sheep from our minds."
So I set out from Baltimore
I sailed on Tuesday's tide
and never mind the children
I've got goose grease on my side.


There you go.

And by this I mean more getting-up-after-three-hours-of-sleep-to-see-someone-off-and-then-going back-to-bed-at-eleven-and-sleeping-til-5.00.

It really should.

Bejesus. I'd never seen that movie before.

The scene? You know, the one where the cops are interviewing her and she uncrosses her legs? Yeah that one. Oh my. I'd heard of it before, but yeesh. "What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?"

And the ENDING, the ending. I think Beth was in cahoots (hee, cahoots) with Catherine, and Catherine killed (manipulated Beth to kill?) those Beth loved, as well as those she did, but I don't see Catherine actually killing anyone. I can picture Catherine being the catalyst for other people to commit murder, lots of it, and to die, but I don't think she ever killed anyone directly. But then there's the icepick at the end. But then- augh, I can't even get it all straight in my head.

But the women. The movie treated lesbians somewhat badly, but it was the 80s so you kind of just have to overlook that.... but the women. Beth? Those LIPS?

Giant fishes! There are giant fishes! And a boat!

... he's gonna get glomped. Mind you, catfish are bottom feeders, aren't they?

Turning and turning
chaos: nothing connects, just
falls apart, in sync.

Shouts to Yeats. Hoo-rah Second Coming. Anyways. Here you go. There.

I don't post enough. But now it's exam week, and Friday night (with which I am, typically, not doing anything Friday-night-like with) and I want to practice writing things.

Me darlings, do you ever find that there are stages in your absorption of fiction? For instance, I never used to be able to read long Russian novels, but then, earlier this year, I just picked up Crime and Punishment, and I loved it, and next on my list is either Anna Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov, and I adore Kafka's short stories, and Chekov's (I saw The Seagull not too long ago also, and thought it was pretty cool jazz). Same with Jane Austen. I'm just finishing Mansfield Park.

That's a lot of name-dropping-ey stuff. No good, sounds blowhard-esque, promise it's not and there's a point.

So my point is. So. Well, two points, one an observation. One: has anyone/everyone/someone else noticed that a period of your thinking is really defined by what they/I were reading at the time? Two: it only makes sense that one of the reasons people need fiction (of any kind, this works for other mediums) is because it draws their thoughts to new things. But is it you picking up the book and choosing to read it? Your subconcious picking things for you? I call bullshit, you have little to no idea what's in the book. So is it random happenstance? Probably. Or it could be that the thoughts the book creates/enhances are just thoughts that were already kind of there, or that a book only seems perfect for a certain time in your life and thoughts because the things it makes you think are things you would have thought, eventually, anyways.

Cool.

I wonder how much of what one (I hate the impersonal "you," but "one" seems snobby. Which is worse?) thinks is inborn, how much is there just waiting to actually conciously be thought out, and how much you have to fight for.

Know those thoughts it is necessary to really contemplate before they make any sense, sometimes for years? I guess it is, again, like books: a book you have a lot of trouble reading when you're at a certain age is just the thing you want to read at a different one.

Maturity and thoughts? Next question.

Please forgive me my pondering,
-K

It's snowing again! Yeesh man! Where's the rain?!

All the snow this winter has actually improved my take on the stuff.

(It could have something to do with my new boots.... so far my feet have been dry, warm, and able to kick through a wall.)

Can anyone recommend an annotated edition of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland? I don't want to buy just a copy of the thing if I can get one with annotations... a teacher I consulted recommended that I read Hollow Men, his Quartets, and the Wasteland in that order. Any further advice?

Home is home, she thought, and then thought better of it. It was one of those random, soft thoughts that could go sideways if unwatched. Probably better not to, although it was true.
Vanessa wiped around the metal edges and legs of the frequently bleached yellow table, chipping away bits of dried-up unidentifiable foodstuffs. They always left a mess, broken shit and busted stuff and grime, a thin ventriloquist patina of it everywhere that seemed to speak for them when they'd gone, reaffirming their existence and filling the whole place with an odd scent of yellow curry, nutmeg and candle smoke right after the candle's been blown out. She wrenched her ancient sweatshirt over over her head, wincing as dislodged glasses dug sideways into the thick bridge of her assailed nose. They always left a mess.

The three guests only came to her house infrequently, seemingly at random; Vanessa could find no discernible pattern in the times of their arrival and departure, although she'd looked at bus timetables, plane schedules, lunar charts, the esoteric calendars of long-gone societies. She was contemplating turning to weirder sources, although she didn't know what. Didn't go in for that sort of thing.

There's the last stuff. I'm sorry it's taken me a couple days: pursued by bear/me, had to take evasive action.

Her older brother did, or had: but Aaron was off being a missionary in Thailand or somewhere along those lines. It confused her, cleaning, his willingness to be dragged along by his girlfriend when he didn't even believe in whatever religion he professed this week. He'd explained this the same day he asked her to house-sit: "I'm an atheist. I just think the idea of religion is so weird that I'm more than willing to go along with someone else's, just to see what's going to happen. I'm going to-" now that she thought about it, it wasn't Thailand. Somewhere less heard of. In any event, Aaron was in on religion for the ride.

She was just glad to have somewhere to live while she went to school, rent-free. She still paid utilities, but it was a small house; and she only ever really used three rooms, two of which had fireplaces, so heat wasn't generally an issue.

I have to start actually contemplating where this is going, so that's all tonight, but enjoy anyways!-K

SO EERY.

http://www.geocities.com/orwellus/newmother.htm