Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Settling

Wallaby Organic yogurt is so delicious. I can't get over it. I think I could eat it every day, and there are very few foods that fit into that category. I've had lemon, maple, strawberry banana and vanilla. I need to start keeping this stuff in stock.

It's been a busy semester so far. I'm starting to wonder when I'm ever not going to be busy. I think I have an uneasy relationship with down time: I crave it until I have it, at which point I find myself at loose ends.

Coffeeshops are proving to be a bit of a compromise for me. Two or three mornings a week, I take a book and a notepad to either Mudhouse or Shenandoah Joe's, and I spend a couple of hours thinking about language and writing. I find these times so rejuvenating. I get my work done for my poetry class, but at the same time I get to relax and be contemplative. It satisfies that part of me that always wanted to be a nun.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Poetry

So far my plan to go to more concerts this year is working out incredibly well. Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby played last night at the Paramount, and it was an experience. I laughed, I danced, and at times I just had to close my eyes to take in all of the incredible sound that surrounded me from all sides. I'm a bit of a bluegrass newbie, but after this show, that's going to change.

I picked up a copy of Writing Metrical Poetry the other day, and I've been reading it in dribs and drabs, with my espresso in the morning. I waffle between free verse and metrical verse, but my experience with rhyme is very limited, and I usually stick to iambs. The whole reason I'm taking this poetry class is to experiment with the slightly uncomfortable. To stretch, if you will.

Which is not to say that I'll be posting villanelles, but you never know.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Dream

In my dream, girls from my middle school were everywhere. Someone had an open house, and people I had last seen when we were all eleven or twelve sprawled on beds, gathered in corridors, leaned against doorframes. Aged fifteen years, they still looked younger than I am, and uniformly beautiful, their hair still long, with no grey. I sat down on a giant bed with three of them, captivated by their loveliness, marveling at how time had rendered our former social strata irrelevant.

One of them, a girl I'd noticed in sixth grade primarily for her amazing hairsprayed bangs, looked up at me and smiled. "Oh, Gwen!" she said, clearly delighted to see me. "This is perfect. Tell us the secrets you wish you'd known about how to survive law school."

Disorientation gripped me. "You're... you're 1Ls?!" She nodded and grinned, showing perfect white teeth, no doubt the result of the braces I remembered her wearing.

What on earth was that dream about?

It woke me early, just after sunrise, and I lay in bed and listened to the rain pour down on the asphalt of the parking lot, and watched the grey-green light sneak around the corners of the curtains.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

A 3L September Evening

My one-sentence review of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA: If God drinks beer, I'm pretty sure this is the one He drinks. However, at 20% ABV, I can drink about three ounces of it before I start getting tipsy. Fortunately, I'm also pretty sure that God eats bacon cheeseburgers, and He saw fit to put a Five Guys on my street.