Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Neile Graham's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
3:39 pm	To celebrate International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day and Shakespeare's birthday, here's my fourth-week story from Clarion West dawn of time edition.* This was my second published story (I don't write much short fiction). I figured people have (or could have if they wanted to) seen my poetry online, but here's some fiction for a change. Oh, and if you want to see my first published short story, it's available here. This was also written at Clarion West (a bonus fifth week flash story/prose poem). -- * 1996. Eek. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
4:45 pm	Nearest Book alphawolfguide tagged me with the Nearest Book meme Here are your rules: 1. Pick up the nearest book. 2. Open to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences here. 5. Put the meme and answer in your journal, tag five people and the madness continues. Nearest book: Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po LISTSERV, a poetry anthology I'm in. This is from "Romanian Village" by Ana Doina: Maybe a peasant or a shepherd like us. No grades, no insignias, nothing memorable, heroic or great about him was found in the mud near the corpse. So they dug a grave at the edge of the forest, in the small cemetery, in the last row. The five people I want to annoy: morgan_x, kate_schaefer, vylar_kaftan, tinaconnolly, davidjwilliams. Kind of a random assortment of friends to bother, but all people I'm curious about what they might be reading. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 21st, 2008
6:41 pm	Ye Olde Aged One Word Meme One word answers: 1. Where is your mobile phone? Backpack. 2. Your significant other? RocketMan. 3. Your hair? Long. 4. Your mother? Researching. 5. Your father? Be-dogged. 6. Your favorite thing? Books. 7. Your dream last night? Dream? 8. Your favorite drink? Mango. 9. Your dream/goal? Books. 10. The room you're in? Green. 11. Your ex? Forgotten. 12. Your fear? Wrongness. 13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Published. 14. Where were you last night? Home. 15. What you're not? Writing. 16. Muffins? Lemon. 17. One of your wish list items? Time. 18. Where you grew up? Victoria. 19. The last thing you did? Web. 20. What are you wearing? Dress. 21. Your TV? Covered. 22. Your pets? Catsups. 23. Your computer? Mac. 24. Your life? Good. 25. Your mood? Anticipatory. 26. Missing someone? Some. 27. Your car? Honda. 28. Something you're not wearing? Shoes. 29. Favorite Store? Online. 30. Your summer? Seattle. 31. Like someone? Yes. 32. Your favorite color? Teal. 33. When is the last time you laughed? Morning? 34. Last time you cried? Year. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 18th, 2008
7:31 pm	Leave Seattle, Experience an Earthquake We're in Chicago visiting nephew Mark and the Field Museum (me, for research for my grant) and I woke up this morning thinking "Jim's shaking the bed. Oh, yeah, no, an earthquake. Wild." It amuses me that I go to Chicago to feel the first earthquake since the Nisqually in what, 2001? 2000? It was the first earthquake Mark's ever felt. Jim slept through it. I had a great day at the Field. Notes galore. There again, it was the Northwest Coast First People's artifacts I was looking at. Two typical Northwest things I went to Chicago to experience. Ha! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
8:03 pm	From Les Semaines, Thursday, April 3, 2008 Quick Ketchup Sorry to have been gone so long and to leave a message that sounded like things weren't going well, and then only answer one of those question lists. Here's the short form of what has been happening. I have been working on the longer version long enough to realize that if I wait until I finish it I will never catch up. So here's what you're not reading. At least for now. Sorry. It was February and March: * in which I discovered a cure for my February blahs or anemia-induced amnesia * in which I participated in a Girl's Getaway in Victoria and played Scrabble * in which I was a bachelorette and ate much lamb * in which I celebrated Clarion West's 25th Anniversary and missed my husband * in which I was deluged with paper then divested myself of it * in which the days just disappeared * in which I encountered the Radio8ball and learned the future Someday, I hope, I will finish writing what has not been written. And really, you know, that describes my life. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
6:27 pm	Working on it I'm working on a catch-up message, but for now I have answers to a bunch of questions at my website journal. I'm still here. I'm fine. It has just been busy, and once I get behind I find it very hard to catch up. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
3:40 pm	Sorry so silent I have a case of the February blahs, which I hope will be cured by a field trip to Victoria with Devin and Tamar (Jim gets to stay home and cat-sit or be cat-sat). (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
9:58 pm	From Les Semaines, Sunday, February 3, 2008 I Have Become My Parents When I was young and restless I couldn't understand why my parents spent most of their evenings alone together at home. I mean for much of the time I was growing up they had the delights of my presence (yes, I'm sure I was a charming, grouchy obnoxious adolescent who made their every hour precious and complete) but even when I was out a lot and then moved away they seemed to like to stay at home and just hang out, watching TV, drinking tea, reading, and petting and playing with the dog. Now I'm their age, whatever age that was, and guess what? What do I like most? Hanging out at home, messing about on the computer (writing and reading and all), drinking tea, reading books, and petting and playing with the cats. What? When did I become my parents? I could never figure out why they didn't hang out with their friends more. There were concerts to go to, plays to see, movies to watch, restaurants to eat in, drunken conversations to have, sleep to miss. All I wanted to be was out and about. There was some special life out there and if I hung out enough I knew I'd find it. I quickly discovered I wouldn't find it in bars, as I don't drink beer and few bars used to have cider and scotch was too damn expensive and mixed drinks were (1) expensive and (2) mostly gave me horrible stomach pains, and watching other people have drunken conversations is, well, boring. One down. I still like going to concerts and plays and movies and all, but when it's competing with sitting at home with tea, a good book, Jim nearby, and a two-cat cuddling minimum, well, these things rarely win the bet. I also have learned the value of sleep (especially now that I sometimes have trouble getting to sleep). I still like seeing friends but more and more I prefer they come to our place. I know they get tired of it, but frankly three hours on uncomfortable furniture kills me, and none of the people we hang out with that way have comfortable furniture. Not even the ones who think they do. I'm not sure what sparked this entry so much as (1) being amazed at how boring my life generally is and how happy I am that it's boring. (2) looking ahead at how busy this month is scheduled to be and dreading it, and (3) realizing that when Jim first met my parents they were pretty much the age that we are now. This getting old stuff is really weird. How can I be my parents' age? ----- For my listening, reading, writing, and excerpts from old journals, see Les Semaines. ----- (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 27th, 2008
9:42 pm	From Les Semaines, Sunday, January 27th, 2008 Peek-a-Boo View We have lived in this house for almost 14 years. I just noticed Monday morning that we can see Mount Rainier from our living room window. [Okay, that is, we can see it on those rare moments when none of the neighbourhood trees have leaves and it's clear weather.] I can't believe I never noticed it before. As the sun was rising I was sitting on the loveseat when I noticed the bump of the mountain silhouetted between houses/trees. I thought it was a hallucination, but later that afternoon I got out the binoculars to be sure. Who knew? Pretty funny. So our house has a peek-a-boo view and is worth lots more money, right? Not that we're going anywhere anytime soon. We will enjoy our silly teeny view, we will! It just seems so insane that neither of us noticed it before. I keep thinking I must have known and just forgot. This weekend was the kitten's anniversary. We adopted them a year ago and turned Sophia's world into an even more scary place than it had been, what with all the hazards of people looking at you (terrible!) and touching you (even worse!!!), now the horror of kittens. Though I still of course miss Zach--how could I not miss a cat we had for twenty years?--I can't imagine life without Titus who is the most calming presence possible in times of emotional stress (thank you for all the nights when I was too freaked to sleep when you purring by my head was the only thing that kept me from screaming) and Atia who by her wild energy and frequent nudging for attention reminded a freaked, stressed person what really matters: love and play. So thank you, too. Touch wood and thanks to better living through chemistry, Sophia hasn't peed outside the box since October. We're going to try easing her off the meds in a month or so when her prescription runs out of renewals. Do I have anything more to say? No, I don't. So, bye for now. Bye. Good night. ----- For my listening, reading, writing, and excerpts from old journals (still Jim's right now, actually) see Les Semaines. ----- (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
9:40 pm	from Les Semaines, Sunday, January 20, 2008 In Which I Pose a Question With No Foreseeable Answer I have a cold. Just Thursday I was thinking how Tamar had had the cold, Devin had had the cold, Jim had had the cold, but I had managed to dodge the bullet. Friday, I was sick. Luckily, it's not a horrible cold. No fever, and I don't feel like I'm going to die. I just can't write. Or I think I can't write. Or I'm letting myself think I can't write. Possibly because I haven't been sleeping well with the sneezing and the coughing. I keep waking myself up. I've been doing a hell of a lot of reading, though. Inhaling young adult novels, mostly. Most of which are pretty darn good and a few of which aren't. I've bailed on a couple. I have 36 books out from the library right now, which is insane. I've been juggling which can be renewed and which have which due dates and all. It's been pretty funny, except I have a couple of books that I own that I haven't been able to read because of this passion for putting library books on hold that I seem to have. Time to stop soon. The second check for my Canada Council grant arrived. I'm pleased with the progress I've made with the project thus far, but this arriving has made me realize that I need to figure out if I should do some more traveling to complete it. I know that I don't need to go back to Scotland however much I'd like to, and it's really expensive right now. I would like to go back to Haida Gwaii/The Queen Charlotte Islands, and Jim would really like to, but the longest I could get away would be for about two weeks, and six days of that would be eaten up with traveling there and back unless I can justifying spending the money to fly and rent a car. And just where would I need to go there? Maybe it would be better to just do some west coast touring. Vancouver Island or the coast here again (holing up at Kalaloch sounds pretty damn good). I haven't been along the Sunshine Coast since I was a kid, and oddly enough I set one of the poems for the collection there. I'm not sure why, just did. So maybe I should go there. It's hard to figure out what would really be helpful at this point. Wherever I go, it has to have woods and sea and moss. There's plenty in any of these places. So where is guaranteed to spark a dozen folkloric poems that I wouldn't have written had I not gone? There's a question. Ha! ----- For what I've been listening to, reading (a *long* list this week), writing, and for selections from my old journal (well, still Jim's) see Les Semaines. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 14th, 2008
9:45 pm	From Les Semaines, Sunday (Monday), January 13 (14), 2008 Unsuspecting Question Answerer Suspects Nothing I'm a day late, but I'm not re-dating this or anything. I'm just in a mood like that. The first week of Winter Quarter has passed and I survived it. It wasn't awful or anything, just busy. And I am daily astonished at the amount of hand-holding prospective students applying to doctoral programs seem to require. One of my favourite questions went something like "if you say you require a master's degree, does that mean that you want your applicants to already have a master's degree?" Um, yes. Another was "You only accept students for Autumn Quarter, so can I apply for Spring?" Um, no. Those are just two samples of recent questions. Most of them are like that. Only a very few are a little more complicated or subtle. Mebbe they're winding me up, but why would you wind up the person who is processing your application? I wonder at the reading comprehension of these people, and can't decide if this means they should be doctoral students or that they shouldn't. I guess shouldn't, because the students we do accept have never asked questions like that; they mostly excel at more complicated questions, which frankly I find more entertaining to answer. I don't much like worrying about people's intelligence and reading comprehensive level. Also, I don't like how crabby answering the dumb questions makes me. It's such a relief to see the students I know and trust. I also had a bunch of certificate students come by to talk to me and I always enjoy talking to them, especially the ones who are happy to know that they will be able to complete the certificate after all. I also survived the first Clarion West workshop meeting for 2008. I hate meetings. Or rather, I hate making myself get out the door to go to them. Once I'm there, I'm fine, but motivating myself to leave to get there feels impossible. I moan, I complain. I leave everything to the last minute. I slowly gather things together. Then suddenly if I don't leave right away I'll be late and I swoop up four last things and run out to the car yelling back at Jim to ask if he can (get me my glasses/bring me the thing I left out on the counter/sorry could you do the dishes I forgot). Then I race off, all anxious, and arrive a couple of minutes early. It's kind of like getting to work, though I'm nearly always a couple of minutes late there. I always stay a little late to it evens out, but somehow since morning are so much not my thing I have trouble getting out the door. Let's be honest: I really want to stay home with the cats and a good book (even if it's one I have to write), no matter whether it's work I have to go to or meetings. Or even traveling. Getting out the door when I travel is the worst. We finally had Christmas with Devin and Tamar, and they both have annoying colds that won't go away and leave them alone, so we were all tired but we had fun and cool presents. Devin gave us all sorts of cool things, including a framed copy of a hilarious photograph of Atia and Titus. I really should scan it and put it on LOL-cats with a caption like "Unsuspecting cat suspects nothing" 'cause in it Atia's relaxing into a cat-loaf while above her! where she's not looking! are four! big! heavy! paws! about to land on her. It's really funny. And Tamar got us a panini maker. Guess what we had for dinner tonight? * * * If you want to know what I've been listening to, reading, writing, and read my (Jim's) old journal, see Les Semaines. * * * And if you want to read a recent poem, there's one newly up today at Strange Horizons. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
10:11 pm	From Les Semaines, Sunday, January 6, 2008 Epiphany 2008 Today is Epiphany, Twelfth Night, the last day of Christmas. Thinking about Epiphany always makes me think about James Joyce's lovely story, "The Dead", which takes place on Epiphany and has one as its main event. I could use the latter kind of epiphany. For the capital "E" kind, we celebrated by writing, eating leftovers from our New Year's Day dinner, and taking down the meager number of Christmas decorations we'd put up. The Christmas door is undecked, the altar to the Great God Book is long emptied, the books all back in their places, various hanging balls are all packed and boxed up and resting in the basement for their next appearance. All that's left of Christmas are two gift bags, one for Devin and one for Tamar, because as they've both been traveling we haven't managed to get together yet to exchange gifts. Oh, and we do have some leftover chocolate in case of dire need and some cookies still in the freezer. My unscheduled entry summarizing last year makes me think about what I want for this year. Obviously, I don't want any bad or ugly. Duh. I want to finish all my writing projects, sell everything, keep the house perfectly clean, keep Jim (and the cats) perfectly happy, cook exquisite meals, get my study sorted out and catch up and stay caught up on my email. Ha. Well. We'll see, won't we? It should be an interesting year as it brings my mother's 80th birthday, our 25th wedding anniversary, and my 50th birthday. I'll keep you posted. I wish us all an epiphanous year, which the Oxford English Dictionary tells me means resplendent. May it be short of epiphora, which the same source describes as superabundant tears. Epiphanous. Resplendent. May it be so. -- For my reading, listening writing, and a selection from my [Jim's] 1994 journal, check Les Semaines. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
10:24 pm	2007 in Review: A Strange, Sometimes Difficult Sometimes Wonderful Year [Sorry this is long. Maybe in 2008 I'll learn to use the cut feature.] The Good: adopted Atia and Titus (kittens!) Canada Council grant how friends and family supported me during the Ugly new, faster, bigger, brighter computer + faster DSL article about me in the University Week The Malahat Review's 40th Anniversary/Robin Skelton celebration in Victoria in October The Bad: lost Zach, our nearly 21-year-old cat breaking off my longest-term, most magical but also increasingly abusive friendship Sophia's adjustment problems to the kittens keeping the kittens flea-free my not-always-excellent strength dealing with the Ugly The Ugly: The murder at work--and the after-effects Listening--my favourite musical discoveries this year: Tunng Efterklang Espers Lisa Knapp Rachel Unthank and the Winterset The McCarricks Bellowhead My favourite discs of this year: Fiery Furnaces, Widow City Noe Venable, The Summer Storm Journals Feist, The Reminder PJ Harvey, White Chalk Jesca Hoop, Kismet Tunng, Good Arrows Kristin Hersh, Learn to Sing Like A Star Two Loons for Tea, Nine Lucid Dreams St. Vincent, Marry Me Beirut, The Flying Club Cup Tara Fuki, Auris Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP Laïs, The Ladies' Second Song Not as interesting as I hoped: Björk's Volta and Christine Fellows' Nevertheless. Both are among my favourite artists and neither of these are bad albums, it's just that both have shown in previous albums how much more interesting they can be. I went to one of the best concerts I've ever seen this year: Joanna Newsom and the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. I went in not expecting much and was blown away. Reading--my favourites of the novels I read this year: Susan Palwick, Shelter (SF) Robin McKinley, Dragonhaven (YA fantasy) Jo Walton, Ha'Penny (alternative history) Scarlett Thomas, The End of Mr. Y (fantasy/SF/literary) Justine Larbalestier, Magic's Child (YA fantasy) Elizabeth Knox, Dreamquake (YA fantasy) Kay Kenyon, Bright of the Sky (SF) Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (fantasy) Ursula K. Le Guin, Voices and Powers(YA fantasy) Stephanie Meyer, eclipse (YA fantasy) Charles de Lint, Promises To Keep (fantasy) Markus Susak, The Book Thief (YA) Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, The Shadow Speaker (YA SF) Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys (mainstream/SF) Judith Lindbergh, The Thralls' Tale (historic with fantasy elements) Favourite poetic discovery: Alice Oswald, especially Dart. Writing events: the Canada Council grant the CD released 6 batches of poems submitted 5 poems accepted 4 poems published (1 in Strange Horizons, 2 in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 1 in The Malahat Review) 1 story submitted & rejected cut the novel by > 10% and submitted it to an agent (!) participated in the Clarion West Write-a-thon and met my writing goals (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
8:36 pm	From Les Semaines, Sunday, December 30th, 2007 Sorry I skipped a week. I find it difficult to write when I have house guests. My parents and their two dogs were here for nearly a week. Now they, and Christmas, have been and gone. So has the day which is Boxing Day in my country, but not much of anything in the country I live in. It's nearly New Years. The parental visit went well. The kittens did not eat the dogs or vice versa. Everyone was very polite, at least among the animals. Some housecleaning did not get done and much decorating was not done because of kittens' desire to see decorations come down. Kittens seem to believe very strongly that new decorations are designed to be taken to floor level by kittens. So. The decorating? Not so much. Besides, our decorating ambitions were few. We did do our annual Christmas door with lights and the more sturdy ornaments, and we cleared out bookshelves for our annual altar to the Great Good Book, where we stashed the presents. Christmas really was lovely. Low key and all. The turkey was an hour late (I'm beginning to hate gas ovens as much as I love gas stove tops) but everything else went well. Christmas Eve dinner was our traditional brisket, thanks to an online friend for the recipe many years ago. All the important traditions were upheld, including Dad suffering by having to carve the turkey, and the wearing of silly hats and telling of silly jokes from the Christmas crackers. Oh, and the mince pie (and a turkey pie for Jim who has never adapted to mince) and the eating too much. Urgh. One non-traditional item was the snow that fell Christmas Day, which was beauteous to see and kindly then melted out of the way of life, and let my parents drive home without fear. They were lucky enough to travel here and back on the only two sunny days we've had recently. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Back to work for a day, so I have to get up early. I confess that on Friday when I went back to work for the first time since the Wednesday before Christmas I fell asleep at my desk. I haven't done that for a long, long time. Scarily quiet at the U these days. Tomorrow will be quiet, too. I'm hoping that means I'll get a lot done. Happy New Year to all of you. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 17th, 2007
10:34 am	Yesterday's (Dec. 16th) Les Semaines entry The week disappeared. Someone stole it, I swear. The evil, infected eye is almost better but still annoying in that I'm aware it's not quite back to normal. The hounding virus had one last hurrah and corralled me at home on Monday, and was like a lead ball I had to drag for the next couple of days after that (MIX those metaphors!). Bravely, however, I fought it all the way and showed up at work almost close to being on sorta time-ish for the rest of the week. I made myself walk the few blocks from my free neighbourhood parking spot every day, because my back has been acting up again (la la la what next). And really, by the time I'd done that and gotten myself home and run the errands that seem to be necessary nearly every day, I was worn out and the rest of each day disappeared in a haze. How do they do that? Anyway, I'm going to be healthy from now on, because not being is too annoying. Yesterday was our writing retreat day, which always zips past, but is so refreshing. It was my turn to choose the movie, so I brought over our newish copy of Sherman Alexei's wonderful film, The Business of Fancy Dancing. This was, I think, the third time I've seen it including once in the theatre, and I love it every time. Today, in between deep-cleaning the kitchen, we went to see (and enjoyed) The Golden Compass, though I can see how people have complained that the pace is too headlong. Really, we shouldn't have spared the time. We're way behind on all our holiday preparations still, and my parents get here in four days. FOUR DAYS! This should be interesting. See Neile attempt not to panic. Or is it attempt to make herself care? Really, I'm not sure which. -- See my Les Semaines journal site for my listening report (lame), reading report, writing report, and 1994 journal entries (lame for the day, but we are still on the Orkneys in June 1994). (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 9th, 2007
10:29 pm	from Les Semaines, December 9, 2007 I am famous amongst my friends for disliking shopping. I always have. When I was a kid and my mom had to take me shopping, I used to beg to wait out in the car. There was a time when I liked prowling CD and book stores, particularly used stores or those in cities not my own, but that was before I had such huge collections of both and there were more common gaps I was looking to fill. Once it got like looking for a needle in a haystack to find anything I wanted--well, internet shopping showed up. So I learned how to find what I wanted for myself. Ha, saved! I suffered the slings and arrows of going to places like Costco (and Target before I heard that they were allowing their pharmacists to refuse to dispense some drugs and in spite of all temptations have not entered the store again) but only go to those places with Jim and/or friends. I rarely have reason to enter a department store or shopping mall, and of course I can generally find the obscure things I'm looking by letting my fingers do the walking, through google and bookfinder.com and Deep Discount and half.com and ebay and such. [Mind you, I still do a lot of book shopping in real stores, especially Open Books (one of two poetry-only bookstores in the U.S. which we are delighted thrives here in Seattle) and the University Bookstore (which, did you know, offers free shipping anywhere in the U.S.? and which I love even more than Elliott Bay Book Company--we are so lucky here in Seattle). I also shop for music frequently at local chain Sonic Boom. But beyond those, it's online for me.] I still have to grocery shop--it's my job because Jim does the laundry and hates shopping even more than I do. But then there's the holiday season. I used to stress out SO much about the shopping. Once I'd gotten past all the books at Open Books and the University Bookstore and the music and then DVDs I could buy online, I was stuck. I really like to buy friends crafty, beautiful things. Not so much candles and picture frames (but yes, if they are funky and individual enough) but handmade earrings, pottery, paper products, etc. That all takes a powerful lot of shopping. Seattle used to have a plethora of shops that carried cool stuff, and every year I'd do my rounds. Places like Armadillo, Bizango (oh, how I miss this one!), La Tienda, Fireworks. The only ones of these that still exist are La Tienda, though they only have one store now, and Fireworks. Both of these were the most expensive of this type of shop and there I am always torn between finding the perfect thing for someone and spending too much money. Enter Etsy. Ah, Etsy, how I love you. Now I can shop online for these wonderful things, too, and mostly the prices are quite good, even with shipping. And the money goes directly to the artists! I've nearly finished my holiday shopping, thanks to Etsy, and so far everything I've bought from them has been at least as attractive as shown. For several items I've been surprised how much lovelier they were in real life. Thank you Internets! I loves you! And now, even though I'm done finding the wonderful crafty things for the people I have to shop for who like such things, I can't stop browsing the site. Oh, evil Internets! So that is what I've been doing this week. All of it? All of it. While fighting some kind of virus and suffering through an ugly eye infection bad enough that I actually dragged my butt to the doctor. Or actually, Jim drove me because I couldn't see well enough to drive. Holy hand grenade, Batman. It nearly drove me insane. It might have, had the virus not laid me so low that I had no energy to go insane. I stayed home from work two days with the two annoyances, and had to ask a neighbour to help me drive Jim to the airport (he had a 48 hour business trip)--she had just come from a morning's worth of dental work and I couldn't see, but between the two of us we got him safely there and got us safely home. The weekend wasn't so bad, though. I made it through work most of Thursday and all of Friday, and by then small children didn't run screaming from the sight of my eye. Friday afternoon we even ran an errand (shopping!) and bought paper for our holiday letter. I think we were in the store seven minutes and back to the car within ten. Saturday I still couldn't write (trying to write one-eyed isn't fun) but we did go for a (halting for me--not only was I still virus-tired but half-blind) walk in Carkeek Park in lovely, clear, but cold weather. Had coffee with Tamar. Watched some Pushing Daisies which I loved and Jim was all eh about and then some Tudors, which we both were all right with, enough to keep watching. Now it's Sunday and I'm feeling well enough to start scrambling to catch up. I haven't written the holiday letter to print on the paper yet. Or started cleaning or organizing, but dammit, my shopping's done. I wonder what's new on Etsy? --- For my reading, listening writing, and a selection from my [Jim's] 1994 journal, check Les Semaines. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
10:24 pm	From Les Semaines December 2, 2007 December Brings Heavy Weather Yesterday, on the first day of December, this happened: The first snow of the year started falling.   Atia had to try to figure out what was going on. Perplexing, this white stuff. Am I supposed to chase it? She tried, a little. (Sophia and Titus slept through it.) We got about three inches (I'd stopped taking pictures, sorry) and it stuck around for a few hours then gradually went away. Today, on the second, it rained it all away. Then rained, rained, and rained. It must think it's winter around here or something because the day hardly bothered to get light at all. Jim complained about that, but I didn't care. I was deep in sloth. I have some kind of cold, or maybe it's an infection because my left eye is swollen, and my nose and throat hurt, or maybe it's just winter, but I hardly got off the loveseat today, despite a long list of things I had planned to accomplish. I didn't get much more than that done yesterday, either. I'd felt fine earlier in the week. Crazy annoying! The only thing I accomplished this weekend was a lot of online shopping for books, music, DVDs at usually suspected places, and too much stuff at Etsy (what a treasure trove!) and of course Giant Microbes and Uncommon Goods. The good news is that my holiday shopping is nearly done. Especially if everything arrives on time. I am delighted. For my reading, listening writing, check Les Semaines. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
8:14 am	Les Semaines for November 25th Had a good Thanksgiving. John (poet, editor, friend since undergraduate poetry workshops) came down to visit from Victoria. I cooked a turkey (which was strangely dry and we used a whole quart of chicken broth to baste it and John still had nothing to make the gravy with). Jim made mashed sweet potatoes, Devin's friend Jeff brought sliced and baked squash, and Devin brought pumpkin pie. Luckily, despite the problems the turkey tasted good. It was a free-range turkey, and I think had done too much ranging. After dinner, we went to Tamar's for desserts--lots of them--to see her family and some of her other friends. Friday we went to Open Books, Seattle's poetry-only bookstore and tried not to spend too much money (we let John). Saturday after my writing session at Karen's we were going to meet up in Capitol Hill for a movie but couldn't find a way to do that without spending $16 on parking (two cars) so we went to Jamjuree (one of our favourite Thai restaurants that we don't get to too often) for lunch, then to Diva's for coffee instead. Sunday we went to Seward Park for a lovely walk. We'd never been there before because it's about a 40 minute drive across town, but it's a beautiful place. We started to circumnavigate the park on a paved trail, but about when my back was screaming about walking on pavement so long with firm-soled shoes (I'd planned for walking on trails) we cut off into the woods and my back shut up and it was so beautiful and damn I love forest. After that we went to Cafe Ibex which Amy took me to about a month ago. We had bad movie karma but watched a few anyway. Talked a lot. Ate a lot. Read some. It was a very pleasant weekend. We need more four-day weekends. Now it's time to start seriously getting ready for the thick of the holiday season. It's time to put together our holiday letter (if you're not on our mailing list and would like a letter, just email me, and you'll get to see new, unpublished poems by me and Jim). Susan Palwick writes in her blog about trauma and stories/narrative: Compulsive repetition of such stories isn't just a sign of shock. It's an essential coping strategy: the speaker is desperately trying to regain control by turning the event into a known, predictable narrative. This explains a lot about me talking about the murder last spring. I knew this, but it helps to have it said flat out like this. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to mention it in my holiday letter. It seems the wrong news for a celebratory time of year, but a discussion of my year without mentioning it seems false. For summaries of my listening, reading, writing, and a piece from Jim's 1994 journal of our trip to Scotland, check out Les Semaines. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
10:53 pm	Les Semaines entry for November 18, 2007--We Are Still in the Writing Yeah, back to work. Back to the second novel. No rest for the wicked. I have to say, that it feels good to be back actively rather than only back-brain working on it. The Canada Council poetry manuscript definitely has a solid start. I wrote a bunch of poems at the start of my grant time, but recently have been concentrating on research as there are a lot of things I want to look at. I am really lucky to have a mother who knows where to find a lot of West Coast stuff--she's doing research for me amidst doing her own. She emails me with story tracks and tells me what she's found. Our friend John who lives a few blocks from her is coming down to visit over U.S. Thanksgiving, and has agreed to carry down some paper from her for me. I've also been reading all kinds of bits and pieces of Scottish folklore. I have over a shelf full of books about it, so I have a lot of reading to do in a short time, which is a problem for someone who would rather read fiction. I indulged myself and used some of the grant money to buy a set of Childe's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, which I figure will be great for both this project and for the novels, since they're ballad-based. There a new and wonderful edition out, but only three out of five volumes are completed, so I got those three and used copies of the last two volumes. Before that I made do with an all-in-one volume edition. I feel like I would love to wrap up my Scottish travelogue poetry manuscript, The Walk She Takes, but since there's a deadline for the Canada Council manuscript, it is taking precedence. I know I'm close to finishing this one, but I do have a few more poems to write for it, and I'm just not focused on them right now, even to figure out which poems I want to write. Jim also has a manuscript going out in the world, and is deep into the start of a new one. Karen's preparing her synopsis. Barry's back into his novel. It's all good for the monthly writing retreat gang. Karen and I write together once in person and a couple of times separately with phone calls at either end of the sessions each week, then once a month the four of us get together for day-long writing retreats. At the retreats we writer for forty-five minutes, take a fifteen-minute break, then repeat, taking a break for lunch. Then we have dinner together and watch a movie, which we take turns choosing because we all have such different tastes. We decided that was way more efficient than the hour-long sessions we would have standing in the video rental store together trying to come to some kind of agreement. So far we've all enjoyed (sometimes more than others, of course) seeing the movies the others have picked. Twice before in the fall we've gone for longer retreats down at Rockaway Beach in Oregon, but that didn't work out this fall. The weekend's session was in lieu of that, and the timing was perfect for me to really get my head back into this novel. Hooray! --- See Les Semaines for my recent listening and reading, and my old journal. Right now I'm typing out Jim's journal from our 1994 trip to Scotland. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 16th, 2007
4:24 pm	Puzzling... I ran the readability test, first on the most recent entry of my full journal and was told the reading level was high school, then ran it on this journal, which came up as grade school level. I speak two languages. I knew it. (However, a lot of the content is duplicated. Maybe the book reviews make the difference?) (Comment on this)