over the cliff

So I just finished Eldest. I’ve already annoyed a bunch of yall by posting little tidbits in IMs so I won’t bore you here… but basically this book is one gigantic list of similes. And then a couple of times Paoloni made his character out to be a complete moron for no apparent reason… and of course the whole plot is incredibly derivative of every single high fantasy novel ever written… Oh and I swear to god… this was in the book:

“Barges? We don’t need no stinking barges.”

Person who tells me where that line originally came from (well once you replace barges with badges) will have my eternal gratitude. It’s been bugging me since I read it.

That being said… I did read it over the course of two days.

*hides in shame*

I don’t know why. All I can say is I’m a whore for bad fiction.

The movie JFK was filmed in my grandmother’s house. The movie is about the trial against Clay Shaw, whom Jim Garrison believed was a co-conspirator in the assassination of Kennedy.

My cousin Allison played one of Garrison’s daughters in the film.

My cousin Ellen is the granddaughter of Irvin Dymond who was Clay Shaw’s defense attorney.

I remembered Ellen telling me that years ago but I never believed her. So for fun I looked it up tonight.

Aren’t life’s little connections funny?

I wrote a poem!

I’m actually pretty happy with it. The only potential problem is the obscure reference. I tried using an epigraph but I don’t know if I found the perfect quote. We shall see.

Hmm… I could try an informal poll…

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of any or all of these things:

Loas, Petro, Rada, Erzulie, Jes Grew

Now raise your hand if you would look these things up if you saw them in a poem.

Now comment so I know if you raised your hand or not.

I tried to write poetry today. I really did. I tried yesterday too. I went through all my old tricks… going through old poems to see if I can find inspiration for a spin off or steal a line or two… I read bits from Sharon Olds, the Norton Anthology, and other volumes. I just sat down and wrote a bunch of pages of crap…

Nothing.

They were all so… conversational and not poetic. It’s really hard to force interesting language. I can’t do it. That’s why it’s so important for me to save everything I write, because those interesting phrases are so few and far between. Even if they don’t work in the poem in which they first appear, I can salvage them for future pieces. I steal from myself a lot, which makes me feel like a fake.

Ugh. Maybe tomorrow will be more inspirational.

Copied from Rumor Mill which was copied from Neil Gaiman’s blog.

Air America Public Voicemail
1-866-217-6255
Air America Radio’s Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina.

Here’s how it works:

Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn’t work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message.

You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know.

Air America Radio will leave Public Voicemail in service for as long as this crisis continues. You can call it whenever you are trying to locate someone, or if you are trying to be found.

Obviously, for this to work, people need to know about it so please forward the number to as many people as you can. You can find out more about Katrina and the affected areas at www.airamericaradio.com.

Air America Radio brings you Emergency VoiceMail in conjunction with VoodooVox.

Sold a poem to Dreams and Nightmares.

That makes me happy.

Leeny informed me that I needed to update my blog because some people were worried that no one had heard from me… Whoops? The last couple of entries have been on my LJ because… well not really sure why I put them on my LJ and not here. Anyway… here’s my obligatory post hurricane post.

All my family is safe. My grandmother, aunt, Uncle, his wife, two kids, and cat all drove up here to Carbondale to stay with my Aunt and Uncle. Since they lived uptown, they probably didn’t suffer the damage to their property that CNN has been showing.

However my grandmother’s cat is still in her condo… And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I’ve been on the phone with my mother a lot this week. Looks like William will be attending NC State this semester since there won’t be any classes on Tulane’s campus.

There’s nothing else I can say about the hurricane that’s any different than what they’re saying on CNN so I won’t. All I will say is I’m slightly worried that they haven’t shown any aerial pictures of the areas South of New Orleans… you know, where the storm came ashore?

My mother thinks they haven’t shown any pictures because there’s nothing left to show.

Thus ends my obligatory hurricane post.