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Today,
Ben and I went to lunch at Goodwyn's, a small sandwich shop just up the
street. It was drizzling a bit, but I saw some construction worker plugged
into a fire hydrant, doing... something. I ended up stopping and
trying to grab a pic. I think it turned out rather well.
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Instead
of my usual post-work Bass beers, I decided to stop at Filter
and grab a large, triple-shot mocha.
:)
This
week, I've felt pretty tired after I got home, listless and unmotivated.
Which is unfortunate, since I get all these fun ideas during the day -
experiments, variations, Flash-based stuff. But I spend a lot of my energies
on getting work done for someone else, helping someone else achieve their
goals. By the time I walk into my apartment, all I want to do is eat a
bit of food, watch some television, let my brain float for a while and
then just go to sleep.
I'll
never get any work done this way.
So
today, I got a bit hoppy with the caffeine. It definitely helped, although
I'm not sure if I should make this a regular thing. At this point now,
I've broken into the beers (on #2), and I seem to be a bit tipsy and really,
really excited at the same time.
Hoping
I can fall asleep tonight.
The
way it looks, instead of cooking an actual meal, I may end up just making
a bunch of Ramen. It's the fastest thing I've got on-hand, and the easiest
to make. Having such a crappy dinner just gives me more time to muck around
with my portfolio site, to make an entry into the blog, and to write a
poem or two for Matt.
Sometimes,
I wonder if anyone else is as weird about the whole "time" thing.
I tend to try to estimate how much time any particular action/activity
will consume, and either pursue or disregard that action/activity based
on those findings. For example: doing laundry; or going to the grocery
store. Some days, I'm not sure whether to classify my behavior as efficient,
eccentric, or just plain lazy.
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I'm
listening to a copy of "These Days" by Nico, a song that Mr.
Grumpy sent to me a long while back. Getting wistful - not in a sad
way, but in more of a mellow, nostalgic sort of way.
I
remember the two of us talking about Nico's voice, and how we were both
not immediately pulled in by the song. I was almost pushed back a bit,
by her voice. But over time, her voice and the song itself has grown on
me. Now, I can't seem to stop playing it.
Dangerous
little thing, though. Given a bottle of Beam, I can see where a lot of
ugliness could arise:
I've been out walking
I don't do too much talking
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And
all the times I had the chance to.
I've stopped my rambling,
I don't do too much gambling
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think about
How all the changes came about my ways
And I wonder if I'll see another highway.
I
had a lover, I don't think I'll risk another
These days, these days.
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing so long.
La la la la la, la la.
I've
stopped my dreaming,
I won't do too much scheming
These days, these days.
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten.
Please don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.
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I've
been flipping through the Poulin
Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, and settled into one of
my favorites from Maxine
Kumin.
I'm
not sure why I'm in this mode, but I feel like sharing this poem. Even
though it's not necessarily my place to share it. The poem itself is a
bit silly, which seems at odds with the previous lines (above). But the
ending is fantastic, and overall - it meets my base criteria for poetry:
it makes sense on its own, without a primary reliance on metaphorical/literary
references, clear in its voice and meaning, and it doesn't care whether
you are "into" poetry or not. The poem stands on its own two
feet.
Maxine
Kumin is awesmoe. I mean, c'mon. The woman wrote a profound, meaningful
poem about crap.
How
much more of a badass can you be?
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by Maxine Kumin
It
is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the
least cast of worm to what must have been
in
the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of
considerable heft, something awesome.
We
eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,
or
culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.
And
wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap
coprinous
mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter
it
with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.
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