Cupid Bow Mouth

It's been fun. It's been swell. I can't say, however, that I will miss posting nearly every single day. I think I'm more comfortable with the couple times a week deal.

I hope that you all enjoyed.

Mother Love
Rita Dove

Who can forget the attitude of mothering?
Toss me a baby and without bothering
to blink I'll catch her, sling him on a hip.
Any woman knows the remedy for grief
is being needed: duty bugles and we'll
climb out of exhaustion every time,
bare the nipple or tuck in the sheet,
heat milk and hum at bedside until
they can dress themselves and rise, primed
for Love or Glory—those one-way mirrors
girls peer into as their fledgling heroes slip
through, storming the smoky battlefield.

So when this kind woman approached at the urging
of her bouquet of daughters,
(one for each of the world's corners,
one for each of the winds to scatter!)
and offered up her only male child for nursing
(a smattering of flesh, noisy and ordinary),
I put aside the lavish trousseau of the mourner
for the daintier comfort of pity:
I decided to save him. Each night
I laid him on the smouldering embers,
sealing his juices in slowly so he might
be cured to perfection. Oh, I know it
looked damning: at the hearth a muttering crone
bent over a baby sizzling on a spit
as neat as a Virginia ham. Poor human—
to scream like that, to make me remember.

I got a Student Free Day yesterday, sort of. Cletus's car broke down on Wednesday night and because he is a very poor college student, I took his car to be repaired. I also played chauffeur and drove him to his shiny brand new job and also picked him up. See what an astonishingly good big sister I am. There should be prizes. Or chocolate at the very least.

In the interim, waiting for the mechanic to call that we could pick up his G-ride, I played Jak 3, which is unnecessarily difficult. I didn't have nearly this much trouble with God of War and it's really pissing me off. Some days I just want to chuck it out the window and wash my hands of it. Other days, I'm all -- DAMNIT! I've invested DAYS of my life into this game and I'm not stopping until I've passed it.

In other news, Drive has been cancelled. I can't say that I'm surprised. I just knew that an unusual Fox show featuring Nathan Fillion was destined for early cancellation. However, I am deeply astounded that it only took four episodes. How is a show supposed to develop and/or attract an audience if you only give it four g-damn shows to do so? I didn't start watching Buffy until S3, Roswell caught my attention when they re-ran season 1 during the following summer at like midnight or something ridiculous, and my first Farscape episode was Look at the Princess 2, half way through the second season. Firefly was already cancelled when I saw my first episode, I didn't even know that it was a show that had been MADE until it was already cancelled. Imagine my horror at discovering that it was an awesome show, too.

WTF, Fox?! WTF.

My shows are pretty skimpy these days: Medium, and Heroes are the only network shows that I watch with any regularity; and the cable stuff is all anime (Basilisk, Bleach, Eureka 7, Blood Plus).

You'd think I'd get more reading done.

***

National Poetry Month continues

( Composed Upon Westminster Bridge )

I was going to go through the weekend's posts, but I find that I really don't have the energy. I missed it and I'm moving on. However, if there's something of particular interest that I should be aware of, please, feel free to let me know.

You Begin
Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
this is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

ETA: diachrony, I checked the BatB DVD's and there was no mention of close captioning or subtitles on the box. The only mention made regarding the audio was something like "stereo mono" or some such.

ETA 2: tkp has interesting meta on dynamics of family in the Jossverse. It deals mostly with BtVS and Angel, but there's a little Firefly thrown in as well.

I am such a sucker for heartbreak. I love the tragedy and angst of thwarted love. I'm in love with passionate, doomed, star-crossed love. It doesn't help that I am jaded and cynical when it comes to romantic relationships. But I really do *want* to believe. At least mostly. Sometimes.

I like romantic comedies.

A few months ago I decided not to like ballads because they were so full of drivel. I think it was right around the height of popularity for Snow Patrol's Changing Cars and Hinder's Lips of an Angel. They were both so ridiculous that I revolted. It all sounds pretty but I am not laying on a dirty street, and I definitely refuse to condone cheating! I've stuck to my guns only, well ...

well, now I find myself totally falling in love with the sweetest little acoustic ballad I've heard in a while. I wish I had an mp3 to share. The Plain White T's, Hey There Delilah. I love it. It makes me weepy and I want to close my eyes and just sit and listen to it.

*facepalm*

I have just lost so much street cred.


Sonnet XXIX by Edna St.Vincent Millay

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom that the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.

Oh, Lawd, what a weekend.

Friday got off to an amazing start when Betty's radiator cracked on the way home from work. I was *supposed* to be buying the remaining items for the BFF's baby shower games. I'd made one stop and needed to make a few more when the Check Engine light popped on. Then I noticed that little needle on the dashboard stuck up on the big red H and proceeded to panic. I pulled over immediately and took a peek under the hood. Of course, I have no CLUE about any of the stuff under the hood. Everything looked like it was where it was supposed to be. Engine. Check. Battery. Check. Radiator. Check. Coolant. Empty? How did THAT happen? I tried to make it to the mechanic who was just up the hill, but the engine started knocking so I pulled over again!

There I was, stranded at a bus stop that was temporarily shut down, thank gods, Betty blinking her hazards woefully at oncoming traffic. (I'd like to take this moment to note that three, count 'em, THREE police cars zipped past me without stopping to check if I was okay. Whatever, LAPD. Whatever!) Thankfully, Cletus was at home and brought me anti-freeze. I was literally five minutes away from the house, three minutes from the mechanic and five minutes from the radiator garage. It was frustrating. Of course, the coolant pissed its way out of my radiator before I could even get it in good. So, I had to wait for Two Hours until the engine cooled down enough for me to drive it to the mechanic -- five minutes away!!

$186 dollars and half a day later, I was only four hours late to the baby shower. I was ONLY the host/MC in charge of games and general entertainment, so no big. Everyone else was late to the shower, too, so it really did turn out okay. It was declared a resounding success by one and all. It was, however, exhausting, lemme tell you. The BFF and her honey made out like bandits. Loot, I tell you! Such Loot!!

Sunday I was useless! I spent the entire day playing board games and watching bad TV. We're talking Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School Bad TV. The baddest TV there ever was. I will not be visiting that show again. I even forgot about Drive!! I was so excited to see it and then completely forgot about it until this morning. Damn foggy brain!

I hope you guys had a shiny weekend, and few mishaps.

OMG! And if I haven't had enough of BABIES!! (my BFF is due next month, my sister and cousin are due in November.) I just got an email from a co-worker for a baby website so that I can keep track of the fetus. I know babies are cute and cuddly and generally considered adorable, but man …. I'm really not that interested. Never have been. I'm especially not interested in the babies of people I don't really know, especially when the babies aren't born yet, let alone the size of a peanut.

I'm just sayin!

( NPM: Theme for English B by Langston Hughes )

ETA: I'm going over wonderful new comments in the Adult/Adolescent Body post and I promise to respond no later than tomorrow. It's a busy Monday today! Thank you to Everyone for joining in the discussion!!

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the grand old age of 84. I’d like to feel sad that he died, and in a way I am because the world just lost an amazing human being. On the other hand, Kurt Vonnegut made an awesome run of it. His life and his work were spectacular examples of human potential realized.

lostakasha has beautiful things to say and some things that are not quite as shiny.

Thinking about KV and freedom of speech and the like I started to think about an argument I had yesterday with a book reviewer. I’m not going to go into the details except to wonder if my expectations for well written book reviews are out of line. Just because a book is beautifully written should I expect a review of the book to also be well written? Am I making a presumption when I critique the writing in your review the way that you critique the writing in the book?

Joyce Carol Oats, long ago, opted not to write negative reviews. When it comes to fanfiction I agree. This is for fun, not profit and you don’t owe me anything. Books ... well, people buy books and people make a living from writing books.

( Agreeing to listen and respecting the word: briefly, book reviews )

And we also have today's poem that is not actually a poem at all; it's a song.

( Across the Universe by John Lennon and Paul McCarthy )

a2zmom has a response to the BtVS Season 8 debate. She makes some very good points. That said, I am feeling a little disturbed that I'll be one of those people ignoring S8 as part of canon. I always make an effort to remain true to the source material (despite the wild and wacky tangents I get off on), regardless of my feelings concerning a season, canonical pairing or event in the Jossverse. Knowing that I will be intentionally ignoring the new stuff, well, I'm feeling a little insecure and mutinous. I don't know if this new sensation will be enough to bring me on board with the comics, I guess only time will tell. As of right now, however, it's a no-go.


Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

( read the rest )

To end the week, my office is closed tomorrow for Good Friday, I thought I'd go out in style. Some of the poem's I want to include this year are not all poems in the most conventional sense. Convention, however, is sometimes just another word for format. The following is laid out like fic, but it isn't. Trust me, this is a poem from tip to toe and from the bottom of its elegant little heart.

Another piece from one of our own. tkp writes a surreal, jazzy, musical Spike/Dru love song. I really, really, really hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.



No Need for Cake or Flowers by tkp
Rating: violent.
Length: short. 350 words.
Disclaimer: Title is Jill Tracy, Diabolical Streak, "Let's Spend an Evil Night Together". Nothing gets more Spike/Dru than that song.
A/N: This isn't really a fic. It's more like stream of consciousness. You might find it fun, so I share...but it's not a fic fic.

I am astounded that it took Alanis Morrisette covering Fergie's Humps for people to realize how astoundingly bad that song is. I wonder how much longer it will take for people to realize that the entire album is so much garbage. I mean really, people. Seriously.


In other, more exciting news, I am totally coming out of my skin over Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. I'm excited cause, hello two great things potentially being great together. OTOH, the original Halloween is such classic horror goodness!! And I LOVE Halloween. It's only one of my all-time favorite horror films ever! But, hello!!! Rob Zombie!!


And finally, National Poetry Month continues ...


We outgrow love, like other things
And put it in the Drawer—
Till it an Antique fashion shows—
Like Costumes Grandsires wore.
-- Emily Dickinson

moireach did it last year and I've decided to jump onto the band wagon this year and if I don't do anything else for the rest of the month on LJ, I have to post one poem per day. I might not be able to include the weekends because I don't have internet at the house as of yet, woe. Maybe, if you're really good, I'll triple your dose on Monday. I know, I know. Sounds great, right?

Well, here is one of my favorite poems courtesy of my AP English teacher. gods was that really ten whole years ago! *sigh*

Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins
R.S. Gwynn

Good Catholic girl, she didn't mind the cleaning.
All of her household chores, at first, were small
And hardly labors one could find demeaning.
One's duty was one's refuge, after all.
And if she had her doubts at certain moments
And once confessed them to the Father, she
Was instantly referred to text in Romans
And Peter's First Epistle, chapter III.

Years passed. More sinful everyday, the Seven
Breakfasted, grabbed there pitchforks, donned their horns,
And sped to contravene the hopes of heaven,
Sowing the neighbors' lawns with tares and thorns.

She set to work. Pride's wall of looking glasses
Ogled dimly, smeared with prnts of lips;
Lust's magazines lay strewn, bare tits and asses
Weighted by his "devices"--chains, cuffs, whips.

Gluttony's empties covered half the table,
Mingling with Avarice's cards and chips,
And she'd been told to sew a Bill Blass label
Inside the blazer Envy'd bought at Gyp's.

She knelt to the cold master bathroom floor as
If a petitioner before the Pope,
Retreiving several pairs of Sloth's soiled drawers,
A sweat-sock and a cake of hairy soap.

Then, as she wiped the Windex from the mirror
She noticed, and the vision made her cry,
How much she'd greyed and paled, and how much cleaner
Festered the bruise of Wrath beneath her eye.

"No poisoned apple needed for this Princess,"
She murmured, making X's with her thumb.
A car door slammed, bringing her to her senses;
Ho-hum. Ho-hum. It's home from work we come.

And she was out the window in a second
In time to see a Handsome Prince, of course,
Who, spying her distressed condition, beckoned
For her to mount (What else?) his snow-white horse.

Impeccably he spoke. His smile was glowing.
So debonair! So charming! And so Male.
She took a step, reversed and without slowing
Beat it to St. Anne's where she took the veil.