Billy Collins made me do it. I wrote a pome today, and it was ok.

Oh shit, maybe I'm a poet
I thought
I was reading Billy Collins
watching him make pictures out of words
and feelings out of pictures
words dovetailing around
a core of human
autumn light was spiking
and rippling the floor
while I watched the words
while I felt the words and
if I can only tell you about the light
the dog raised his head from my knee
don't worry, he said, there's no way you're a poet
oh good, I said, relieved
and the dog put his head back down.  ¶ 4:17 PM 0 Comments

  The Books! Are Com-ing! The Books! Are Com-ing! So I got up pretty ungodly early, just so I could be at the WV Book Festival's Library Book Sale half an hour early (good thing too - the line was 50 people deep by the time I got there! Insane!). Dr. Nick is out of town, and I did promise him I'd be good. Alas, I did not stay within my $10 budget. I spent $19. Here are the books that came into the house:

Louise Rennison, Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Kirsten Bakis, Lives of the Monster Dogs

Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale: A pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution

Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies

Geraldine Brooks, March

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Patrick McCabe, The Butcher Boy

Lisa Tuttle, The Mysteries

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (this one's for Dr. Nick!)

Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Hmmm, you say, "Books that came into the house", that's an interesting turn of phrase. Yes. I use it because I have decided on a project for 2009. In 2009, in attempts to 1. Cull through several bins of books 2. Read unread books 3. Decide if the books get to stay and 4. Spend less money, I will embark on a year-long odyssey of only reading books that are already in my house . That's as of Jan 1, 2009, so if anyone wants to send me books before then feel free :)

I kid. Seriously, though, I'm trying to break my habit of apparently trying to lay in stores of books in preparation for the coming Book Apocalypse that my paranoid brain insists is imminent.

Other things today: great breakfast with friends B & B, lots of walking around downtown, a good crop of books picked up from the library (I'll give those back, of course), great lunch with another friend, and an interesting panel at the Book Festival. Oh, and vegetables from local farmers and a box from Small Beer Press on the step when I got home!

I am corpulent with the written word.

Our new mail person leaves a little milk bone for the dog when she leaves the mail. Awww. Said dog snaps it right up off the box or mail as soon as I open the front door, the greedy bastard.

And, B got me this Domo Kun dj action figure . Awesome, awesome day.  ¶ 1:14 PM 0 Comments

  For lovers of the Small Beer Friends! Readers! Go on over to Small Beer Press ! And get the skinny on their October sale; 20% of the proceeds goes to Barack Obama's campain, and their offerings are luscious, luscious books, any of which one might be proud to own. Hell, I'd get 'em all if I didn't, um, already have almost all of them. The sale also includes their chapbooks and a subscription to the finest literary 'zine out there, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

And in an amazing feat of generosity, they've also go several books for download licensed under the Creative Commons, notably Kelly Link's two great books of short stories, "Magic for Beginners" and "Stranger Things Happen".

That name again? Small Beer Press

Hie thee hither!  ¶ 2:36 PM 1 Comments