Poetry Thursday: Sundays are for Folk Music and Yoga

This week's prompt for Poetry Thursday was to give a poetry reading for yourself. I could have chosen one of my favorites from Gwendolyn Brooks, but I decided to go with one of my own poems instead. My reason for participating in Poetry Thursdays was to reawaken my own creativity, so I thought it might be a good idea to look at my body of work thus far and see if there was anything worth reawakening.

My first thought as I read through my tattered notebook was, "Oy! What dreck!" I'm so glad that I had the forethought to date my poems as I wrote them; it is a comfort to look at the dates and remind myself that the bulk of this drivel was written by an 18-year-old who thought she was oh-so-cool. Still, I managed to find a few that I liked.

The one I am sharing today felt right for a couple of reasons. I like the rhymes I was able to make and the way they sound when read aloud. Also, I like the way the poem ends. In reading through my other poems, I noticed that in most of them I started strong but tacked on a simplistic closing line. This poem is one of the few where I feel that the closing line fits.

Enough navel-gazing! Here is my poem:

SUNDAYS ARE FOR FOLK MUSIC AND YOGA

Sundays are for Mary Travers
And meditation,
Contemplating the "education"
Of the young man
Down the hall.
They're for wishing to be rich
But knowing that you're poor
And liking it all the more
Because of the headaches
You don't have.
Sundays are for lovely breezes,
Cheap red wines and cheaper cheeses
Consumed while dancing barefoot in the park
Until long after the kids
Have all gone home.
You plan your next moment
Or the rest of your life
As dreamily as a bride
Choosing her trousseau.
That's what Sundays are for.
Never ask for more.

--Dani Sanders, 12 Feb 1984

What I Like: mp3 Blogs

Wednesdays here at StCL are now "What I Like" days. Each week, I will share something that I enjoy. It may be a blog or podcast or a movie -- who knows?

This week I want to talk about a blogging genre called the mp3 blog. This is a blog devoted to sharing songs that the author wants to highlight. Each post has some commentary about what the song means to the author and there is usually a link to the actual mp3 in the post. I'm not sure about the legality of that last bit, but it does make it more convenient to listen to the song right away. Most of the blogs have the standard disclaimer about linking the songs for sampling purposes only, and a few go a step further by only leaving the link up for a limited time.

One such blog that I've been enjoying lately is (sm)all ages. The subtitle of this blog is "Because no one should have to listen to the Wiggles ever". The author, Clea Hantman, puts her emphasis on grown-up songs that are appropriate for kids. I've been checking out the posts for a week and there are usually two or three songs within a post that fit a theme. I've already gotten an idea or two for playlist to put together for my kids.

Here are some other mp3 blogs. I have had a chance to investigate most of them but with this list you can do a little exploring of your own!

The Rich Girls are Weeping
Fluxblog
Said the Gramophone
Poptext
Vain, Selfish & Lazy

Sunday Scribblings: First Love

In my effort to improve my writing, I am participating in Sunday Scribblings. This week's prompt was to write about first love:

My first love was a nerve-wracking affair. He was older than he should have been, a college freshman paired with my 15-year-old self. My carriage was that of an older girl, so the age difference wasn't obvious at first glance. Still, I knew that there was a gap in our experience levels and I struggled whenever we were with his friends not to embarrass myself. There were many times that I felt he was silently chuckling at my mistakes. The moments we spent alone, however, made my discomfort worthwhile.

My first love wasn't a classically handsome man, but I caught my breath every time he walked into a room. And the letters he wrote while he was away! The language in those missives would surely have caused the mother of a 15-year-old great concern if they had gotten into her hands. Luckily, my immaturity did not give me a lack of discretion.

My first love didn't last long, a year or a little longer. Unlike most young lovers, I didn't expect us to be together forever. I knew I wasn't ready for him, and the stress of trying to grow up faster took its toll on me. I ended up the way he told me I would on our last date: married with a house full of kids, still living in the same town where I grew up. I'm happy with my life, but I wouldn't want him to see me like this. If he ever thinks of me, I want him to envision me in a city far from here, experiencing everything that 15-year-old girl had only read about.

Poetry Thursday: Portrait Sitting

Here we are together again for another Poetry Thursday. I couldn't follow this week's suggestion, so I wrote a poem of my own. I haven't written poetry in years, so this is a bit rough. It feels less like poetry and more like a statement of fact because I just had this portrait sitting on Tuesday. If it is in me to get better, perhaps Poetry Thursdays will help.

Portrait Sitting

I'm seated in the church fellowship hall,
Trying to appear serene
While my husband
Sits ever so close behind me.
The photographer,
Not knowing that we rarely sit together,
Instructs him to move closer.
I am nestled in his arms,
His inner thighs grasping my outer thighs
As we squeeze together
To fit inside the frame of the photo.
We look like proper church folks,
Perfect for the directory.
The photo doesn't show
How much I want to throw him on the floor
And satisfy my desire for flesh upon flesh.

--Dani Sanders, 2006

Health Update

Yes, I've gained a pound. The scale actually said 267.6 this morning. You can read this week's whining at Fit by Forty, but the basic problem is dinner. I've been making good choices this week for breakfast and lunch, but when I get home from work I just graze on whatever I can find. I've been craving stuff like veggie stir-fry but I don't keep the ingredients for that type of meal in the house. I guess I'll have to start making menu plans and stopping at the grocery store after work.

Poetry Thursday: Anne Bradstreet

In keeping with my goal to wake up my creative side, I am participating in Poetry Thursday. I'm not quite ready to post any of my own poetry; instead I am going to share one of my favorite love poems. It is almost as old as America itself, and the first four lines express the simple essence of married love for me.

"To My Dear and Loving Husband"

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cAnneot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.


Anne Bradstreet

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Health Update

My little mouse is making his way, slowly but surely. More about that at Fit by Forty.

O Pamprin, thy name is rescuer!

I grew up in a house where we didn't use many specialty medicines. Chris Rock's family relied on Robitussin for every illness; in our house, it was Nyquil and aspirin (or Tylenol as I got older). For anything that didn't respond to those two medications, I learned to ride it out. So you can imagine how much fun my menstrual cycles have been all these years. Tylenol helps a little but not much. Still, it never occurred to me to try anything different because I'd trained myself to "suck it up and drive on".

One day a few months' ago, I had menstrual cramps so bad that I could barely walk. I didn't have any Tylenol at home so I had to stop at the store. While I was on the medicine aisle, I made the uncharacteristic decision to purchase Pamprin instead of Tylenol. Oh, what relief! The pain went away so quickly. I tried it again this week when I started my period and it worked just as quickly, so it wasn't a fluke.

Why did I wait so long to try this? It's not like I didn't know that Pamprin existed. I guess I spent so many years gritting my teeth through the pain that I convinced myself it was supposed to hurt. Whenever I would be tempted to take a day off because of bad cramps, I would remind myself that millions of women all over the world were having the same pain and working anyway. Never again! This should go on my "Fit by 40" list. If there is something that is cheap and can make me feel better without hurting anyone, I'm going for it.

Lifehacker

I'm probably late to the party, but I just discovered a site called Lifehacker this weekend and I'm loving it. It is a professional blog that recommends websites, downloads, and other tips to make your life easier. Most of the information is computer-related, but not always. One post pointed me to a medical study about walking and its affect on health. That has nothing to do with technology, but it is knowledge that sedentary computer jockeys need to have.

There are lots of sites that provide similar information, but the posts on Lifehacker are written in plain English and get straight to the point. I'm not dumb, but lately I've been more appreciative of books and articles that are written on the level of the average high-school freshman; they penetrate my addled Mommy-brain better. Also, Lifehacker seems to find unique information. If you browse a lot of tech sites (or listen to a lot of tech podcasts like I used to), you run into the same articles everywhere.

My favorite thing about Lifehacker is that they have separate RSS feeds for the different categories they cover. I wish some of the other blogs I read did that. For instance, I subscribed to PDAddicts several months' ago when ABM and I got our first Palm devices. We are pretty happy with the productivity software that came with our devices, but I am always on the lookout for new games. PDAddicts has a very prolific staff, so I end up sifting through tons of e-book reviews to find the three or four game listings. If they followed the Lifehacker model, I could just subscribe to the RSS feed for Palm games and cut back on my reading time.

Go check out Lifehacker!

Health Update

Still fat. 'Nuff said 'bout that.

In other health news, my oral surgery seemed to go well. The aftermath, however, was a trial. It seemed to take several days for me to get over the effects of the anesthesia, so I walked around more lightheaded than usual. Also, the pain killers gave me a rebound headache and made me nauseous as they were wearing off. The surgery was on Tuesday and I didn't feel normal until Saturday afternoon. My mouth still hurts but I don't want to risk the side effects of the painkillers again. I'd rather live with a bit of pain.

Almost knitting content

This is my third time posting today. I am under the influence of that Coca-Cola Blak. I may have to rethink my position on that drink; it is working much better as a caffeine delivery method than my normal cup o' joe.

Anyway, this post covers knitting (which this blog was originally supposed to be about) and items from the 20th century (finally, I'm living up to this blog's title!). It is 10:15p and I am cleaning out my stashette. I have three 18-gallon Rubbermaid containers full of stuff that I've been holding onto for years. Some of it has been in my possession since 1998 but actually dates back to the 1960s. For those who don't know the story:

When I got serious about knitting eight years ago, I discovered the online knitting community. This discovery led me to the knowledge that there were other yarns than Red Heart. My yarn hunger was fierce but my budget was tight, so I bought every $20 grab bag that someone would advertise on KnitList and KnitSwap. Now that I have more knowledge and experience, I understand why these knitters were trying to get rid of these yarns. Some were difficult to knit, others were impractical for daily wear, and most of them were in quantities too small to make anything useful. I held onto these yarns thinking that I would figure out the best way to use them once I became a better knitter. Some of the yarns did get used after years of sitting in the stashette, but most of them are still here.

I can't stand looking at this yarn any more. Now that there are places like KnitPicks that sell yarns I can afford, my stashette is weighing me down. Unlike many knitters who learned to buy yarn because they like it and let it inspire them, I've always purchased supplies for projects as I needed them. I don't feel free to buy yarn for a project when I have so much yarn already in the house. Combine my spending phobia with my compulsion to do things in the proper order, and you get me trying to knit up all this yarn before I buy more. Knitting has turned into a chore instead of a hobby, and for the past few months I haven't been very interested in it at all. Only the thought of giving away two-thirds of my stashette could inspire me to pick up my needles this week.

This reclaiming of my hobby is just another step in getting myself "fit by 40". I want to be fit mentally and emotionally as well as physically. That means revisiting hobbies and pastimes that I abandoned to see where they fit in my life, if at all. I don't plan to spend the next 40 years waiting for "someday" to do what I really want, the way I did with the last 40.

(NOTE: the Blogger spell-checker tried to replace "knitters" with "janitors". I guess I am a knitting janitor today, cleaning out all the junk!)

Sometimes I think I've got the hang of this

There are many, many days when I feel that I am an inadequate parent. I let them watch far too much TV, I contribute to their poor health by feeding them convenience foods, and I am convinced that they are the only children in America who aren't allowed to have LEGOs. Today, though, I have two reasons to hope that I haven't ruined them yet:

1) M is cleaning her room. True, she was sentenced to solitary confinement to do it, but she is actually cleaning. I fully expected her to lay on her bed reading all day because she has shirked her responsibilities in this manner before. If she actually finishes her task before bed tonight, I will poke ABM with a hot metal rod if he doesn't tell her she did a good job. He is so accustomed to her messing up that he fails to praise her when she gets something right.

2) C1 asked to partake in an activity that didn't involve the TV, Gamecube, or computer. She wanted to make a God's Eye. Thanks to Google, I found assembly instructions and she got started right away. I steer them to electronic entertainment a lot because I know it will keep them quiet and I have been more tired that usual lately. However, I am discovering that one of the benefits of having all my kids out of diapers is that every once in a while I can start them on something and they can entertain themselves (at least until the arguments start). This week on a no-TV night, C2 and DJ sat with me in my room and did puzzles from Games magazine and Highlights.

See? They may turn out OK despite my lax parenting.

Coca-Cola Blak

I finally got a chance to try this coffee-flavored cola drink and I have to say that I am disappointed. The work "blak" in the name should have given me a clue as to how this was going to taste. Although I am a coffee freak, I like my coffee sweet. The main reason I am not crazy about Starbucks is that I don't like paying $5 for a cup of coffee that I have to fix as soon as I get it. They don't put enough sugar in it for me.

Anyway, Coca-Cola Blak is a beverage for people who drink their coffee black. Despite the presence of corn syrup and aspartame, there is barely any sweetness in this drink. I can still taste the bitterness of black coffee. There is no creamy taste, either. I shouldn't have expected cream, but all the bottled coffee drinks I've tasted have been of the frappucino variety so I missed that element. Still, I could do without creaminess if there was more sugar. I guess I'll take a pass on this drink.

I wanna go to Tokyo!

Current TV is my favorite background noise these days. Several of their Urban Nation segments have featured different entertainment options that are popular with young adults in Japan. These segments have been so well-produced that they make me want to jump on a plane to Tokyo! Never mind that I don't speak a word of Japanese. I'm just dying to try some of the food and games that have been deemed too odd or quirky to be exported to the US.

Whenever I start feeling the desire to travel like this, my very next thought is that I haven't explored even one-third of what my own country has to offer. Since I am a bit anal, I know that I will never get to Tokyo until I make it across America. It just wouldn't seem right.

"Nintendo: Oldschool Revolution"

This short animated film, while meant to be a parody, expresses my feelings about Nintendo perfectly. There are forums all over the internet where gamers lament the fact that Nintendo still produces kids' games. Gaming is not just for kids anymore -- I get that. However, it's not just for 20-something boys, either. The hardcore gamers have Microsoft and Sony to meet their needs. Don't give Nintendo crap for catering to kids and families.

"Jamie's School Lunch Project"

TLC just started airing the show Jamie's School Lunch Project today and I am already hooked. Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef who is a big shot in his native England but not quite as well known here. He was appalled by the poor quality of the food that English children were being served in school and started a project to improve the menus, one school district at a time.

In the first episode, Jamie found that the task he set for himself wasn't going to be as easy as he may have thought. He had trouble getting the meals served on time with a staff of lunch ladies whose kitchen training stopped at opening up boxes of frozen food. He also had difficulty producing healthy meals while sticking to a budget of 35p (70 cents) per plate. I definitely could identify with that because my husband and I experienced sticker shock the first couple times that we attempted to switch to a healthier diet. There's no getting around the fact that eating healthy costs more.

I hope that a lot of people tune in to this show. This is a British show airing on American TV, so TLC took the extra step of adding boxes on the screen that show the stats for American schools. The problems in our school lunch program are very similar to what is happening in England. Parents who are relying on the school to provide the bulk of their kids' daily nutrition need to have their eyes opened. However, this may also be a wake-up call for people who don't understand why lower-income people don't just choose to eat healthier. If you only have a small amount to spend on food, grocery shopping becomes a matter of getting the best value rather than getting the most nutritious food.