Year 17

Corn Moon

Corn Moon is now high in the sky and
Barkie the dog has begun her nightly soliloquy.
First day of September
seventeen years later.

The blogging life

 

This episode of Achewood just happens strike a special cord with me.

Mr. Bear's blog

Note to the future self

Don't change the template for this blog yet. I tried out the new features on one of my other blogs and found out that Blogger hasn't activated html editing yet. Very bad. They're only allowing access to templates at the moment, slick but too limited.

Beta blogger

It's been out for a couple of weeks but I just switched to the new beta Blogger format. It's a mad thing for me to do but it had to be done. Mad because I will now waste even more time screwing around with templates but there's no going back. Once you switch, that's it. No return. I haven't started fiddling yet but I'm sure I'll be down in the rat hole soon enough. My kind a fun/nightmare. There's a helpful link on the upgrade at BotHack if you're interested.




blogger beta templates

Overview

Long day. I accidentally deleted half of my blog template this afternoon. A moment's inattention. I hate it when I do that. I've have a positively lovely afternoon reconstructing things just so they look halfway the same. Another check in the "Why Bother" column but the encouraging comments from yesterday kept me going and I got through the worst of it without pulling the plug. I'd only regret it anyway.

It's evening now, the worst of that is over and it looks like rain may be on the way but you can never be sure in the desert. I watch weather moving towards me from miles away, rain trailing below the clouds like a long gray veil that never touches the earth. But the wind is up and whistling around corners, rattling the trees and sunflowers in the Bird Park and the light is yellow bouncing back from an increasingly gray sky fringed with dusty rose. And thunder overhead. It's kind of nice.

Haloscan's new free features

If you use the free version of Haloscan for your blog comments here is a little news you may not have heard but I'm sure you'll find interesting:

"The new database servers installed last week gave us more breathing room to free up some existing features for more users:

* We no longer move old comments to another database for active, non-premium users—we started un-archiving millions of old comments for users on the free plan earlier this week and all your comments (old and new) should be in your accounts by now.
* Searching of comment / trackback pages is now unlocked for non-premium users
* Mass deletion of comments / trackback pings now available for all members
* And the biggest change—email notification of new comments is now 100% free! So be sure to go and activate the free email notification if you haven’t already done so.
* Update 6/12/2006: Comment threads will always have correct comment counts now no matter how old they are or how many comment threads you have in your account (before this upgrade, the system used to be able to fetch accurate counts for the newest comment threads only)."


Another thing they've changed for Blogger and Blogspot users (others to follow) is that they expanded the blog post retrieval feature to support the comment and trackback management pages. That means that now you see human-friendly blog post titles instead of the cryptic ‘post ID’ numbers you used to see when you went there.

You have to log into your account to enable the new features so, if you haven't already done it, get going.

French Quarter storm wraiths

I love the gusto of Apocalypse N.O.", Joshua Clark's blog chronicling life in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least until the beer and Pinot Grigio run out, he and a few other storm wraiths are having a rollicking good time hold-up in the French Quarter as he says, "partying at the end of the world".

I understand Clark's revulsion at the thought of being stuffed back into a tidy, air-conditioned world. I'm not thirty and I don't drink anymore, so some of the romance of their situation would be lost on me, but I still seek ways to touch the abyss. It's not only that I enjoy it, in some intangible but critical way it's indispensable to my life as a poet and a human being. For the same reason, I see that Clark and his friends are on a necessary journey. Check it out before they get evicted.

Language Barrier birthday party #2

Life goes on, in spite of terrible disasters, in spite of friends and family writing me off ... when it seems better, when it seems worse ... no matter what, time and life dance on ... and today, for me, is a good day. It's the two year anniversary of the Language Barrier, my asylum outpost border crossing. It's lonely out here as usual but at least one old friend dropped by to celebrate with me today and that's one more than I expected. And outside my window, the crows in the bird park are enjoying a feast of big, black grapes and tasty peanuts. Plus, I submitted more poetry today, this time to Poetry Motel in Kailua-Kona. I love the name and had to send something to them. I've been mailing out submissions for a while now and am eagerly awaiting at least a damn rejection letter but so far no replies. Okay, off to the post office then a bike ride to the river.

Dread and desire

I'm doing everything possible to avoid working on the layout for the poetry journal, both of them. The other day I decided it would be a good idea to do my own publication in PageMaker before I tackle Ash Canyon Review. That way I can work the kinks out under less pressure but here I sit blogging about it rather than doing anything. Okay, here's the deal. One half hour. If I do one half hour of layout today, it's progress. Otherwise, nothing. I wonder if I should do it before or after I get Goldie? Probably after. Otherwise she won't be able to be here very long today. Plus a little walk will do me good. Get the blood up. Clear up my aspirin-soaked mind. Okay then. Thanks for helping me sort that out. Come back later for another exciting chapter of Befuddled.

Confession of the Day 2.22.05

Perhaps no one will read this post for days. After all, only an occasional visitor happens by this outpost. Perhaps it will lie unread forever in the dustless bin of the blogosphere. Nevertheless I need to tell you, my hypothetical future honored guest, that today I am cleaning my office.

World to world

I admit that blogging is part of my deeply rooted pattern of work avoidance but, don't worry. I am exploiting that weakness. Being a recovering Catholic, by divulging my plans, even to a stranger, I'm intentionally triggering my Confession Reflex. The way it works is that once I confess something, I am emotionally obliged to mend my ways.

Hypothetical future honored guest

Otherwise, I torture myself. Naturally, every time I use this technique I run the risk of a tedious and draining round of the dreaded Catholic Guilt so I always weight the worthiness of my goal against the ever-pending backlash of failure. In this case, it's worth it. My tiny office is bulging with stuff, junk, litter and clutter.

True north

I've made progress against it but now I'm taking on the Wall of Final Resistance. From here on, I'm fist to fist with my personal demons. I will spare you the details. Today I get rid of some of the books. I know. Shocking! After all, isn't a writer supposed to be surrounded by books? Aren't books the true north of the writing life? But they're going. Some of them. Ash Canyon has a poetry library so I'm "loaning" some of my poetry books to it, though I have a feeling I'll  never get them back.

Goldie

 And I'll give them the book shelf.

Valentine for the Strange

I rather hate doing a blog. It draws me into revealing more about myself than I'm comfortable with. Why not stop, you might ask but I can't give you a satisfactory answer so I won't even try. That said, I want to share part of the lovely card LP made me for Valentine's day. He included what is now my new, favorite love poem and Valentine image. I'm sorry but I don't know who the artist is. I'd love to see more of their work. It's wonderful. The poem was written by Stephen Crane. He is best known for his novel, "Red Badge of Courage", but he also excelled at the short story and was a fine poet. Unfortunately he died young, 29 (1871-1900), leaving years of writing undone. His poetry was so unusual for the time that he referred to them as lines rather than poems. I call this one of my favorite poems of all time.

In the Desert

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter – bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

- Stephen Crane

End of August.
Birds are shaking seeds out of the sunflowers.
The sky is finally clearing.
It's been a good day.