Category: life

Poem of the Day, April 5

So far, I’m meeting my goal of writing a poem a day. Okay, I haven’t put any words down yet today, but they’re percolating. I’ll have them written before bed.

Here’s yesterday’s poem.  It’ll likely be rewritten a few times.

 

Geography by Disaster

Fukushima, Chernobyl
Geography learned by disaster
I look at an atlas
When people die
When buildings collapse
When leaders shoot their citizens
In the streets
When the fallout might land here

In tonight’s news I’d like to hear
About a place where today
Tulips bloomed
Fish swam in clean water
Families hiked
Women and men went to jobs
While children learned math
And have this continuation
Of life be amazement enough
To capture my attention

 

National Poetry Month

I’m happy to see another National Poetry Month roll around. I have been neglecting my writing, and especially my poetry for a while now. We’ve had an unusual amount of snow this year, resulting in many days out of school for my kids and lots of time spent on stuff like shoveling and sledding. I can’t say I regret the sledding, even if it was in lieu of writing. Also, I’ve been working more hours on my day job.

But now: National Poetry Month. Having an officially named month gives me a kick to do something. Ignoring those who say April is for Script Frenzy, my goal is a poem a day. I managed it last year. So far, I’m on track for this year, having written an actual sonnet today.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes about poetry:  “I was reading the dictionary.  I thought it was a poem about everything.” – Steven Wright

A Tale of Two Classrooms.

It was the best of educational experiences. It was the worst of educational experiences. It was a time in which a student could get an A on her English assignment for writing her “how-to” paper on the subject of How to Begin Your Secret Mission. It was a time in which a student could get no credit at all for writing a paper in World History with the assigned topic of “Ancient Greek Mythology” because she went beyond the rubric when she explored the sociological aspects and explained why the myths made sense in the context of the culture, when they can seem so nonsensical today. It was a time in which English teachers were lauded and World History teachers reviled within certain households. Creativity was nurtured and creativity was punished; individuality was encouraged and rigid conformity was enforced. Students were going directly on to brilliant college success because of their abilities to stretch their minds; students were headed to a life selling items that fell off of trucks because of their inabilities to follow directions to the letter. It was an American girl’s sophomore year in high school. The two classrooms were in the same building, but may as well have been on different planets.

Does any of this sound familiar? If you have a child in public school, I’ll bet it does. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from seeing my kids go through the school system, it’s that the administration can be good, bad or indifferent, and so can the curriculum. But it’s the classroom teacher who makes the most difference between a good educational experience and a bad one. If you’ve had a good teacher, remember to thank him or her.

Those are my thoughts for today.

To Do Lists

I was sorting through some of my poems, and came across this one I wrote in 2006.

To Do Lists

To be done before vacation:
Catch up all laundry
Make sure the grass is cut
And the bills are paid
Clean out the van

Upon returning:
Write a novel
Land a book contract
Transform my chronically messy house
into an aesthetically inviting
gathering place for the group of very hip
writers of which I will be a central figure
But first:
Clean out the van
Do the laundry
Pay the bills
And mow the yard

**

I’m still working my way through the line items. But I can check mark “write a novel.” And I’m making efforts at some of the others. Some photo evidence from the past year:

 

I still have a distance to go, however. One step at a time.

 

People Do Still Read

Despite the predictions made ever since the advent of television, my observation is that people do still read books. I work in a library, so I’m in a position to see this. Our circulation numbers go up every year. Okay, part of those stats come from dvd check-outs. But our book circulation is going up, too.

One thing I’ve noticed is that movies don’t necessarily supplant books. It’s not an either/or question, whether to see the movie or read the book. A lot of people do both. With the recent release of the movie, True Grit, our library suddenly has a waiting list for the book. The same thing happened with Shutter Island. When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, P1 showed up in theaters, we were left with a couple of nearly empty shelves in the “R” area of children’s fiction, as patrons were interested in all of the books in the series.

My anecdotal evidence suggests we are not living in a post-literate society and are not going to be any time soon.

Bibliophile’s Ultimate Holiday Gift

Are you looking for the ultimate holiday gift for the bibliophile in your life? How about…

http://www.dbrl.org/files/RFP-2010-12-bookmobile.pdf

Wouldn’t it be cool to own a bookmobile? I believe in some alternate universe, I do own one. I travel the continent in it. I have a writing space set up in it. I drive from book signing to book signing, reading to reading. And I can sell my books right from the bookmobile, which incidentally sounds a lot like the Batmobile, something that makes it even cooler.

Sadly, I feel the need to tack a cautionary note here: Please don’t anyone think it would be cute to contact the seller if you aren’t serious about buying. The intention of this post isn’t to create harassment for anyone.

NoQuiNaNoWriMo

That’s Not Quite National Novel Writing Month. It’s my own event. I have way too many responsibilities in November to commit to NaNoWriMo.

For NoQuiNaNoWriMo, there is no registration and no minimum word count. Only a desire to use a writers’ movement to inspire me to buckle down as much as possible. Most of my write-ins will take place in my home office, where I plan to be accompanied by a cat and a space heater. My goal is to write something every day.

If anyone else is interested in participating in NoQuiNaNoWriMo, I’d love to hear how it’s going for you.

My writing buddy

Props for Excellent Customer Service

to Kodak. I figured since I wrote at length about poor customer service with a different company, I should be fair and note when I receive excellent customer service.

I bought my teenager a Kodak Easyshare camera for her birthday several weeks ago. She uses it a lot. But one day the display was full of not much but wild psychedelic colors, and not because that’s how our house is painted. Looking at it, it seemed the lcd screen had a puncture wound of some sort, but I couldn’t be sure. The camera was still well within the warranty period, but this didn’t look like a manufacturing defect to me. It looked as if the camera had perhaps been swung from the wrist strap & hit something. My kid didn’t remember anything happening, but she is pretty active.

I called Kodak, explaining the situation. I like to think it was my honesty that paid off. I told the cs rep straight out that I thought the camera had been damaged after purchase, but wasn’t 100% sure. I asked for & received a quote for repair, worked out the financing of said repair with the camera’s owner & shipped it off.

I received an email two days later notifying me they had received the camera. The day after that, I received an email notifying me the camera had been shipped back to me. In less than a week, it was back in our hands, along with a note saying the damage was not covered under warranty but they had repaired it free of charge anyway as a courtesy.

So. Yay Kodak people!

Buy Socks at JC Penney Day

Today was Buy Socks at JC Penney Day. I celebrated. Did you?

This post has nothing to do with writing. Merely an odd happenstance I felt like sharing.

JC Penney recently mailed out coupons for $10 off any purchase of $10 or more, good from today through May something. My older child has been in dire need of new socks, but we haven’t had a chance to go shopping for them until today. Coupon in hand, off we went to purchase foot coverage.

She made her selections and we lined up at the cash register behind three other people. All holding their $10 coupon and buying socks. And I mean nothing but socks. Not socks and a swimsuit, not socks and a necktie, not socks and some slacks, only socks. Exactly like us.

I can’t decide if it was a function of the weather, which has taken a turn for the wet and chilly this weekend, or perhaps a sign of the economic times. Can people only afford socks when they have a $10 coupon? Have the tight times caused people to be practical with found money? Or it could have been sheer coincidence. But somehow I find myself wanting an explanation. What if it were intended to be a sign to me that I’d found my peeps and I totally missed it, not even striking up a conversation with anyone? Okay, I’m sure it was coincidence.

Alas, we found none this colorful.

Obligatory Cat Poem

I say obligatory because so many poets write about cats. My family’s cat, Dude, really was a cat in a million, and I loved him unreasonably.

So far, I’ve managed to write a poem every day this April. This is one of them.

Dude

Hang around cat
Amber eyes surrounded by
Orange on orange
All attached to a companionable
Nonchalance
Not a lap cat
Not a fighting cat
Not a recluse cat
But a hang around cat
If you’d been human, you’d always
Have had a light for the buddy’s
Cigarette and a six pack of beer to share
But no advice
Only a thereness for everyone
To come to depend upon
As the humans in your household did
With your catness
Some part of your thereness is still here
Even if you aren’t