Fighting Reality

I have been participating in a haiku club. Every day, we get a new topic. It’s been the better part of my days to devote to structured verse. Today, the topic was “favorite poet or author” and am proud to have come up with this:

cummings and goings by Small one

you used sensual
imagery with the use of
lower case letters

“kissing this and that”
“i carry your heart with me”
i cried and said “yes”

your words got me en
gaged! it would have been differ
ent. another love

but they were just words
and the love did not last long
and unlike your words

floating on content
never wallowed nor depressed
i left love, steadfast

the bitter taste of
you; a film-like residue
you will always have

a place on my shelf
a reminder that what was
was not meant to be

old post, but… meh.

Amazing weekend. Dinner at Plaka, a wonderful Greek restaurant just a few blocks from our apartment. The service is fantastic, the cooks, knowledgeable and passionate. We went to bed completely full, but satisfied.

Saturday morning, I cooked a simple scramble, and Adan brewed some Vita espresso blend. By Noon, we threw ourselves into the second of two music videos for the local band Red Jacket Mine. They paid us with cold beers from their van. Very Rock n’ Roll. I was drunk by 1:30. Afterwards, I ate the seasonal cupcake at Cupcake Royale. Something with mountain berries. The night ended with dungeness crab summer pasta at the Hi Life, again, just a few blocks from home.

Today, got some laundry done, visited my parents, ate barbecue there, and by 3:00 was at Golden Gardens, helping my friends out by taking some engagement photos. It was good times.

Where are all of these great places with great food? Ballard. Word.

I visit my parents from time-to-time. My mom has been bringing out old things of mine that I need to sort out. Today, I found a bag with notebooks from college. One labeled “Winter 1999.” It was the quarter I took English 283 Creative Writing, Communications 300 Introduction to New Media, and Architecture 151. Looking back on this class lineup, it looks enchanting and edgy. The romance of words, the genius of building, and the excitement of communication in the digital age. Wow!

I think the most flattering part were comments I received from my creative writing teacher. Here is a poem I wrote for her class. The assignment was to use assonance/alliteration:

Breath

If you could breathe the breath of life
and enjoy the guilt of time
If you’ve trampled all that stand their ground
and over-ride the force put up -
You, then, can say
As you cross the drawn line:
“There is no one way to live.”

Her comments were:
re: “breath of life” and “guilt of time” – Let us feel this more concretely
re: the third line – good assonance!
re overall: Do you know the work of Rudyard Kipling? A strong mood statement! *Don’t write him off.

The funny thing is that I had typed this on a typewriter. Why? I don’t know. But, that aside, it’s fun to read things I wrote from a time when I had time to sit and think and marinate in my emotional state. I think I’ll go through these and try to make them better and make them more clear (as she had suggested, which totally makes sense).

Today, I bought a pannier for my bike to help make my commute a bit more comfortable. I tried using a backpack, but boy does it get me all sweaty and gross. Sorry for the mental image. Anyhow, I bought one at REI and brought it home and was excited to try it out. So I packed it with a change of clothes, toiletries, wallet, keys, phone, shoes, and my bike lock.

I rode out to the neighborhood Bartells (a local drug store) with little folly. Upon my arrival, I locked my bike to a bike rack that had another bike already attached to it. It belonged to the Real Change street vendor. I strolled around the store to see if I needed anything. I really felt like taking something home to try my bag out. I found a box of Portlock salmon for $7.99, so I bought that.

On the way out, I saw that I hadn’t turned off my front and back light, but next to it was the Real Change street vendor’s bike with his lights blinking and flashing. I said “Oh, no. I left my lights on.” He said “I turned my bike’s lights on so it wouldn’t feel left out.” It was very sweet, and I’m sure that he did it to get me to buy one of his papers. I had already bought the current issue of Real Change from another Vendor around the corner, and let him know that I’d have bought one if I hadn’t already (I really do buy and read this paper). I let him know this and his reply was “Or, you can buy another and read it in surround sound.” He held a couple of papers up to his ears. I laughed. He continued, “It’s okay. Sales have been good these days.” We wished each other well and I pushed off.

The last few days have been excellent.

First of all, I finally got the guts to join the company bike program. The program is pretty sweet. My work bought me a bike from a local bike store that I can use to go to work. The bike is technically theirs, but is under my care for commuting purposes for as long as I am an employee. The commitment my work wants from me is to bike a minimum of four times in two weeks. The benefits are great, but here are a few reasons why I’m doing it:

1) Reduces the carbon emissions coming from MY car
2) Gets me in shape
3) I get to enjoy the outdoors, rather than battle east-west Seattle traffic on asphalt
4) No bus transfers to catch or wait for. I’m also bad at getting to the bus stop on time.

Second, I bought a new computer (an iMac). Everything is inside this thing. I just had to plug and now I am playing. It has a huge monitor (24″), which is great for photo editing. I am still debating getting Aperture 2 or PSE7. I cannot afford a full version of CS4. For my purposes, I’m not doing heavy editing or graphic design. But I do want to be able to mess with levels, fixing clipped areas, etc.

Third, we cleaned the apartment. It seems stupid, but really, environmental stress has to be one of the biggest distractions when you want to be productive about your life’s passions and goals. It has to be done regularly or you can go slightly crazy.

So things are good. I can do photo editing work and watch a movie at the same time with no lag because the processor works well. Right now, I’m watching Sabrina (the one with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford).

All of this is motivating and I feel inspired to get my creative and physical side going. I give myself two thumbs up for taking some time out for myself and working toward some passion and health progress.

I’m going to experiment with the “Riddikulus!” spell from Harry Potter, the next time I go clothes shopping and find myself in an ill-lit dressing room where every outfit I’ve taken from the racks is nowhere near flattering.