Careful! Those Words Are Loaded!

Many things to talk about, and I may run out of time, but here goes:

First, I haven't written yet today, though I did get in my 1500 yesterday. I'm getting a little bogged down in the story at the moment actually. I still like it and I'm becoming dangerously attached to a certain one of my characters, but the darn thing just keeps getting longer! This is good, because it looks like my story is definitely fully novel-length (always an issue for me, the queen of the 80-page novella...), but it's also bad because I'm trying to write quickly, so I don't give up or get distracted, but as each chapter blossoms into four or five chapters, I get the sense that I will never finish. I will be writing this book forever. At least I like it.

A brief note about some changes to my profile: I added more interests to help (theoretically) people find this who might like it. I don't spend a whole lot of time online, except to write these entries basically, so it takes a while for me to find new blogs/journals and very, very rarely comment on other people's entries. I should do that more often, actually. I also added a link. I will discuss why I've chosen those links in the future, I swear, just as soon as...Well, you know. I have a dream. My dream is that someday I will live in a little house in the country. I will have a studio where I can paint and sculpt and not have to worry about moving stuff off the table when company comes over, or you know, we have to eat. And I will have lots more time to do all the things I like to do, like read books, and sleep. Yeah. ; )

( Little Rant on RDR/WB Trial )

In other news, I went to hear Mary Oliver read last night. I bought two of her books two weeks ago, but I didn't want to write anything until after I'd heard her speak, as authors sometimes give insight into their work that changes the whole way you look at and think about it. And I liked hearing Ms. Oliver read her poems. She unconsciously ADDED PUNCTUATION where it BELONGED in the poem, so it was much easier to understand what she meant when she read it than when I read it. I still don't much care for any of her poems (OK, to be fair, there are one or two I kind of liked, but not in the profoundly passionate way I love the works of certain other poets. Actually, I usually detest the modern poems I read in literary journals, etc. I like Keats and Robert Browning, and even Shakespeare. I am starting to think there's really no hope I'll ever get any of my poems published...).

Somehow, hearing the awed and thoughtful "Hmm"s of the audience as she ended each piece only made them seem triter and less important to me. Somehow, I didn't hear anything new in her words. I don't know if, forty years ago, her poetry was new and important, but not only were there no really profound thoughts for me, her own profound thoughts never really changed over that whole long career. Her recent poems express the exact same feelings her earlier ones do. I actually find it kind of sad to think a person could live such a long time and not learn anything she hadn't learned by the time she was 25. Sigh. Someone who went with me suggested that I couldn't appreciate the insights she got from the little nature of New England, because I've been jaded by the grandeur that surrounds me every day. It's hard to have a small thought in a place like this. ; ) I did find it interesting that she saw a dipper once in Colorado fifty years ago and decided then to be a poet. Something kind of like that happened to me. ; )

Indeed, I was inspired to write two poems last night. And, on the way home, I saw a black (!!) fox, and a great horned owl. The fox was a red fox, of course, (Vulpes vulpes), but it was black with white specks, not at all unlike the black form of the yellow-bellied marmot I've seen around here sometimes, or even the black form of the fox squirrel. But I didn't know they came in that color! It wasn't the "cross fox"; it was just black. And the owls were calling outside my window all evening as the horned moon set behind the mountains...It's hard not to write poetry around here, come to think of it!

And, I was very happy this morning because my two favorite bloggers had new entries...but I think I've really run out of time, and space (I've run out of space-time!! Never mind...), to write about them. And I wanted so much to mention toilets in Australia...Yes, well, I'll talk about all these things eventually, I'm sure. Let me just add that everyone should have an Italian cousin with whom they can discuss art and tax shelters, and wasn't I going to write about the art museum? And didn't I say I'd talk about my future, as dictated by very bad fast food? And it's snowing again...actually mixed rain and snow. Well, there's always tomorrow. ; ) And now the sun has come out again. And a bunch of Cassin's finches (the first I've seen this spring!) are bathing in a puddle in the driveway. And we finally got the bat box hung this morning...

-Susie