- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1943
Another busy night, home at a reasonable hour, emails, but oddly tonight I don't feel much like writing.
Transcribed my notes from the day (nothing really, the hydra sprouts more heads and things grow unmanageably in all directions), reviewed notes, don't feel much like writing. And so at this relatively early hour I'll go to bed. Better luck tomorrow.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2015
A busy night at work. Busier than the weekend in fact, with fewer staff, but we cope fine.
The owner, he's asking about my vacation plans, he's future plans for me, he asks if my benefits have been sorted yet, and it's all uncomfortable because I haven't yet told him that I'm not returning.
It's the Stockholm Syndrome, this, the false sense of loyalty to lost causes.
I don't know what to say, there's "Promotions" - of a sort, in store, increased responsibilities, and I'm loathe to accept them, I won't be here, and bloody hell I don't know what to say...
I haven't even the excuse of another, a better job, it's just the fact that I know I can't go on like this.
***
Home after work, boot computer, forgot I'd run CHKDSK. Which runs and takes half an hour to boot, the volume is dirty (and I thought it was me...), a reminder that I should be backing up my data. I'll back it up tomorrow.
The cat finds me waiting on the sofa, hops upon my chest, it's been awhile since I've petted her and so we begin, scratching her belly, playing, we have a game we play most nights when I go to bed, stupid cat game where I make a cave with the duvet and the cat crawls in to explore....Stupid cat game.
***
And the other armchair, the one that didin't sell (the first one did, if you're curious, for $20.00), it's going as well, fortunately to the same buyer, she's going to take on the challenge of reupholstering it, I didn't like to see it there, lonely in the living room, and so I'm pleased that they'll be together, matching, again.
***
I've emptied my inbox, a few shortcuts, few accidental deletes and I'm on top of my game. Well, not really, but there's something that's so pristine, pure, enviable, Zen about an empty inbox. It pleases me. And there's something about an empty inbox that begs other people to fill it with inane requests, fortunately not too many tonight. It's empty again.
And that's the day.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2124
One too many cups of coffee and the ideas flow. But flow in a meaningless, disconnected way, that flow only after standing, sitting, surfing, pacing, that flow in that interrupted - start-stop-start sort of way, a trip to 7/11 as I'm hungry and there's no way I'll make it until work, the diet of processed sugar and simulated protein makes me pace even more until I finally decide that maybe some whiskey will help to take the edge off....
These half days of work, they're dangerous. Whole days are worse.
From the current work in progress: "Chalk Circle":
"Her suspicions implicate me;
She first chides and then berates me;
She binds then interrogates me
Curses and imprecates me;
Her tongue raising welts
and blisters on my skin.
She conjectures gross transgressions
she imagines indiscretions
She conjures every vile unpardonable sin;
And while I'm wholly innocent
Her unholy tirade circumvents
Any attempts to placate her,
this fury won't abate and
frustrates all efforts to sedate her
Her wrath is senseless and drips drips driveling from her chin
Her opinions have secured my conviction."
Given that I had only planned for the entire poem to run a couple of dozen lines you can see how things get out of control. Blame it on the caffeine? Certainly I need an editor, but on the other I think I've somewhat captured the personage, the spirit, the natural language and reason of the jealous lover. And so I'll leave it for the moment, there are other verses, poems to be worked upon, and funny how problems will just solve themselves the moment you leave them alone and stop worrying them...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1979
And so the night is spent hacking at poetry.
There are brief flashes of inspiration, illumination - a clever reinterpretation of similar sounding words, a line that trips off the tongue, but that's where it ends.
Otherwise there are long lists of words and ideas that have to be integrated into the whole - a sentence isn't a stanza, a stanza isn't a poem...
The 99 % perspiration.
Flashes of illumination that might encompass, say, 4 or 5 lines, they're rare. Rarer than poems. And so you take the little flashes and assemble them like pearls on a string. There are gaps, sure, but they can be filled in, it's important that things are in order.
It's still gold, these little gems and epiphanies, but the process needs to be worked upon so it becomes more consistent, simpler.
The big flashes, they'll come, I'm new to this, or if not new it's been a while, and so the flashes so far are brief, they'll get longer, long enough to write entire verses, poems, in a sitting, for the moment I have to be patient.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2131
Another day squandered, too tired to go out, the rain justifies my laziness.
A couple of feeble garage sales yesterday, not on a mission but stumbled across in the neighborhood, a pair of speakers and subwoofer for the computer, great, these should give me the ability to sell my stereo....sadly, despite reassurances from the seller they didn't work.
A trip to the dry cleaners, sign "On Vacation until July 12...", handy, all my clean clothes are imprisoned, I do laundry and pay the roommate to iron my shirts for me.
Then work, slow but time passes and there are now a mere 4 weeks left.
The owner, he shows me his copy of National Geographic, it just came in the mail, there's a picture of some Muslims eating in a communal area, he's amazed because he thinks that they're eating with the same hand they wipe their ass with and I explain that there's a very strict etiquette about that in Muslim countries, he's doubtful, and somewhere inside I'm amazed that he purchases it, it's more-or-less as a reference to endangered animals he hasn't yet had a chance to kill, a throwback to the days when seeing a tribeswoman without a shirt was a big thrill, hardly their target audience....
The urge to go out last night, quickly thwarted by the grim bus trip home, the thought of a shower and another change of clothes is sufficient deterrent to keep me in. I'm getting older than my years at this job.
Today, flea market, thrift shops, played some more with the speakers and subwoofer *(it really doesn't work), multiple naps, late coffee, and now it's time to work on outstanding projects. So time passes.