Waiting and Magnetic Tubes

Just trying to distract myself while waiting for ambulance guys to come to take Vladi for his Magnetic Resonance Testing. (gulp, gulp) It is amazing what this machine can do, since 80% of our bodies are water, apparently we are also quite magnetic and this machine can snap pictures with a body slicing effect...I think it's all related to separating atoms and seeing how quickly they can join back again and then they deduct stuff from that....amazing! I've got a stock of cakes and books and the like as usually we spend the whole day in the hospital corridor waiting for the ambulance guys to take him down the mountain and into our cosy little den again.:0)

Thanks to Arlene's blog (thanks Arlene :0)) I've come across quite a few interesting e-zines. What an incredible world of poetry is out there just now. I'm just awestruck with some of the work I've read. Got to pull the poetic socks up. :0)

Life After 30:30

I went to bed real early last night and just snuggled down like a babe in arms, it was bliss until a mosquito with a mission flew overhead. I sprayed some lethal substance, like someone possessed, and then drifted off again only to wake up with a thumping headache and mosquito bites all over!

It was strange not having to get a poem on paper before racing out to work, actually it was quite a relief. I've spent a lot of time today clearing up papers and sorting out topics, games and activities for the Summer Courses that start next week. Every single piece of furniture in the living room has got carefully bundled paper on it...and of course Puss is stretched out among the clips, scissors and felt pens.

Spain are playing France in the World cup tonight...some friends are coming to gather round Vlad's bed to watch it with him. It will be a toughie and Spain is creaking in its boots.

I'd like to get a move on with some poetry revision. First of all though, I've got to start checking out where my stuff might fit in, it seems to be a little out on a limb genre-wise and then again it may not be 'fittable in' absolutely anywhere...there are a few ezines I've checked whose work I love and I may get the gumption, at some stage, to send work out to those places.

At the moment I'm reading Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth'. It is wildly humorous yet really sensitive and thought-provoking too.

Got to get organised

Well, I'm betwixt two minds about finishing my first round on 30:30 in Inside the Writer's Studio. I sure am itching to have a few poetry free days and depending on work I'll see if I can maybe do another round between now and the 6th of August when I go on holidays until mid-September...I have a feeling I'm going to miss it but at the same time my head is in a spin and I need to get working on some revisions and maybe start subbing some work...decisions, decisions. I do feel a bit obsessed with all of this now, I think it's because I've been house-bound because of Vladi's illness, I go to work for 5-6 hours but then come home to look after him. It's been 5 weeks now and he is still bed-ridden. He is in less pain though and beginning to move a little which is fantastic. I really miss him not being up and about. 3 consecutive days of an invented version of my spaghetti bolognese a la spinach is enough to drive anyone to get better. :0) I really hope he is on the mend...he has got more tests this week...fingers crossed everything is ok.

What is a Poem? Some lines I love...

'For me, a good poem is a gust of wind in the face, ruffling the hair.
It's a stone in the shoe,
a laugh in church,
a lie in the confessional,
a fart in a perfume shop,
a pig that flies,
a small glass of urine shining on the breakfast tables of the idle rich.
It's the stone in David's sling,
the thing we don't dare say in prose, or don't know how to say in prose.
It's the hidden part of the iceberg,
the sneer or the grin on the face of death-in-life,
the twisted thought that helps straighten the crooked road of this world.
Poetry is a permanent fighting back against the hopeless odds of life itself, a simple or complicated declaration that, for the moment, one is.'

These fabulous lines were taken from the following website: http://www.virtualwriter.net/poetry/poetryexercises.php?action=3&id=12

Another Effort to Blog

OK I'll try and start afresh with this blog since my attempts to have another blog are failing miserably...(http://talknineteentothedozen.blogspot.com/)

A repairman is in the kitchen trying to open a jammed washing machine door. He is wondering aloud how it ended up in this state, I mean, I shouldn't really have used brute force to get that enormous blanket in there!! Heck, I really want my washing machine back in working order though. I've confessed to him what I did and he has been giving me a few strange looks. His topic at the moment is 'How has the world got into this state, never mind the washing machine'. A brew of tea is needed and some forbidden gooey nibbles like almond and raisin breakfast cake, complements of my lovely neighbour Lucía.