Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

About bloody time too. I think it must be the Sylvia Plath poetry I’m reading. That and this excellent book by Steve Kowit on writing poetry - fantastic book with all these exercises for writing. I also read a few poems on a LiveJournal community I’m a member of (remember, the one that slammed my ‘KGB Dental Plan’ poem?).

So in total this week so far, I’ve written four poems. I edited two of them today, one that I wrote a few days ago, and one I just wrote this evening. They seem pretty abstract to what I usually write, I feel. Except one, which is a narrative poem, after an exercise in the Kowit book (this is the book I’m referring to. I had to order it in from the States).

In addition to reading Plath (still!) I’m also reading volume 4 of the Sandman comic by Neil Gaiman. I’m really enjoying it, positively swallowed down volume 3 yesterday. I’m also loving his blog. His new book The Graveyard Book is apparently finished and he’s down to editing it and typing it out. I don’t know what it is I find so exciting about his blog, it’s just a very refreshing read.

Oh shit, in all my writing fury I forgot about my cup of tea. Better go and rescue it.

No alarms and no surprises…

…I didn’t get any Valentines today. Hardly surprising, I wasn’t expecting any but I confess it might be nice to get one. I thought about sending one but I didn’t have the guts (besides the fellow in question is apparently getting back with his ex-girlfriend so my effort would be wasted).

I was completely useless today, watched a hideous (why is it not ‘an hideous’?) amount of daytime television (Oprah, The Bold and the Beautiful, and other assorted cooking shows), spent the whole day in my pyjamas and am now testing fragrances. I did also read some more of my book by Jasper Fforde from the ‘Thursday Next’ series called The Well of Lost Plots. I wasn’t enjoying it initially but am now, it’s got really good and engaging and all the things you want from a novel. It’s about a literary detective who’s hiding out…in a book. Yeah, in a book.

Now if I can just back into my Sylvia Plath poetry…it’s really mentally demanding to read I find. I don’t think (and this is probably showing just how much of an intellectual loser I am - after all she did posthumously win the Nobel Prize for Literature for her collected poetry) I like her mythos, her personal mythology. It could be that I don’t understand it properly (and I confess I don’t a lot of the time) but also, I find myself not caring that I don’t. I much prefer her husband Ted Hughes’ poetry (okay, so I’m a bit biased, he’s one of my favourite poets) even though I think she’s probably more talented.

Or perhaps I’m just forcing myself to read that which I do not find personally engaging and it’s okay to not like something, isn’t it? Yeah, I’m asking you, the reader a question!

My blog proper, which I should declare dead, was hijacked! I was informed of this when a friend of mine said he did a Google search for my blog because he hadn’t yet saved it as a bookmark. I did a Google search and lo and behold, it said visiting this site might harm your computer.

Turns out Snarkattack proper was hijacked and I found posts that I’d never published about stupid polyphonic ringtones.

Thankfully, I had my awesome sysadmin housie to fix all the mess that was created! Man am I ever lucky (thanks Rob!)! Guess I better get ready for work and brush all the knots out of my hair.

Ah yes, the joys of Collingwood, Smith Street. A fairly dodgy area, used to be even dodgier with its drug dealers lining the streets. It’s cleaned up a fair bit but today made me think otherwise.

I had breakfast out today for the first time in ages with a friend I hadn’t seen in eons - she had baked eggs with smoked trout whereas I had black rice (it’s sweet, in case you’re wondering, like pudding rice) with yoghurt topped with shaved coconut and chopped mango. Yummers.

So I’m heading back to my car when I see a topless man trying to break into someone else’s car. He shouts in explanation that he’s trying to get into his own car but I don’t believe a word of it. I was in a side street and all by myself so I’m a little scared to call the police. I just got out of there as quickly as I could.

As I’m driving home, a utility (for my American readers, similar to a pick-up truck) cuts in front of me. This is fine, but a moment later this massive sheet of plasterboard it is carrying in its back tray goes hurtling out and crashes to the ground in front of my car. If I had’ve been any closer it would have hit my windshield and done some serious damage to my good person I believe.

And this is all before lunchtime. People get up early why exactly? *grin*