all five horizons

I am very pleased with my tutor’s comments about my latest assignment but annoyed that I misunderstood the commentary/report section which dragged down my mark a bit.  Anyway the first of these two poems actually made me cry when I wrote it, making me feel like a real artist/writer!!!  My tutor did say the following which kind of speaks volumes:

I liked the way you broadened away from the past at the end of the poem and showed that the poet still felt a sense of bewildered hurt about the past, even with the passing of time.  This lack of resolution felt authentic.

and

Although I liked the thorny, slightly jarring tone to the end of the poem with the jagged rhythm suggesting there was still lingering anger about this relationship, it also felt that, as this poem was clearly written as an adult looking back at childhood, it also needed a little adult insight and forgiveness to give the poem some sense of perspective.

Ex- Best Friend

Blood and secrets shared by veiled lamplight,
Bracelets worn to prove the bond.
Every thought dissected
Like a biology  lesson – sliced and examined.
Pain and problems halved     
Until our midnight feast friendship,
Perfect to the point of cliché,
 Became a habit to be kicked.
Kicked  into submission, into oblivion.
I always thought I was to blame;    
Your dream boy chose me.  Twice.
But such simplification obscures
Your truly selfish strength,
My truly resentful weakness.
 But then what is true?      
If we spoke now,
we still would not agree:
Did I abandon you,
or did you abandon me?

I dream about you still, we are friends again, and yet 
I still compromise for you.  You still don’t see it.

Difficulty falling

Night stretched out     
Like a barren landscape;
Inhospitable, impassable. 
Leaden limbs writhing
On stone mattress,      
Under hessian sheets.
No pillow over the  head can block
The blinding splinter of streetlight,
The dull thud of the water pipe, 
The darkening roar of abstract thoughts   
My mind is a busy crossroads
With no traffic lights:
Horns blaring and cars crashing.
Until gradually breaths steady.
Elusive rest arrives.     
The landscape closes in,    
Legs lighten and bed softens , and
The splinter, the thud and the roar evanesce.

Mark: 69%

We T-Cut.  It made our Zizou better, along with some good old-fashioned elbow grease care of Ricardo.

Aw, Zizou is shiny again!

It is 6pm on a Saturday and I have completely wasted today by sitting on the bed watching TV, reading blogs, writing my blog, searching for flights for a holiday in which my husband has no interest yet, reading and posting in forums, watching random videos on YouTube and drinking tea. This was not what I intended when I settled into this very comfortable position. I should have writing for my end-of-course assignment but other than read some of my course book, I have done jack.

On an even more depressing note, we have just discovered our car has been scraped by some dickhead who did not leave a note. It’s very distressing. Our lovely, beautiful, blue, new(ish) car. What is up with that? Are there any decent people left? I mean, if it were me (and I had caused that much damage), I would have to leave a note. My conscious wouldn’t have it any other way.  I hope.  Well I suppose if no-one had seen….  NO I would definitely, possibly, be likely to leave a note.

Oh Zizou, you have an ouchie. (FYI, Zizou is the name of our car. It’s normal to name your car, right?)

I have been in the office for almost 2 hours and its is very quiet indeed.  I have almost cleared my desk except for two jobs that I am putting off until I really have to deal with them.  I recently coined the phrase ‘jobhobby’ (being a hobby that you have at work) and I am very grateful for my jobhobbies which are:

• Updating my blogs
• The interweb
• Making tea
• Creative writing

On days like this, these hobbies are vital as they help the day to go by without having to find some dumbass crap actual-work job to do.  My team and I have already decided to take an extended lunchbreak and have chosen our dining location.

I was inordinately excited to update my ipod last night.  We have bought loads of music over the past few months and I didn’t have any of it loaded so last night and the night before I spent ages clearing off all the crap I had on their and loading new music such as The Feeling, Orson and others.    The only problem is that I had a really cool playlist which ROCKED THE HOUSE but I didn’t save it so when I updated, it was wiped.  I need to re-make it because it literally got me to and from work all week.  The only problem with listening to music that I love on the tube is that I don’t just tap my foot, but I am practically dancing on the spot.  Which you think looks much cooler that it actually does.  I know because I have smirked at other people who do it.  The playlist was:

1. Breakout - Foo Fighters
2. Control - Puddle of Mudd
3. Cochise - Audioslave
4. Wake Up - Rage Against the Machine
5. Wherever I May Roam - Metallica
6. Fat Lip - Sum 41
7. Everytime I Look for You - Blink-182
8. In your honour - Foo Fighters

I can’t remember which others I had (if any) but now I look at the list, items 6 and 7 can come off and I need to add:

• Guns n Roses
• Institute
• Incubus
• Therapy?
• Soundgarden
• Nirvana
• Pearl Jam
• Evanescence
• Nine Inch Nails
• Bush
• Do Me Bad Things

I have also done some initial research and found some cool apartments in Wilmingon, Savannah and Charleston.  I will start to look for flights and then do some research in other areas (like Virginia, the West and Canada) so that I can make a full presentation to the hub when the time is right.

You will have to bear with me today because due to a very minor (but relatively painful) splinter-related injury, I am not able to type very easily today. 

The good things I did this weekend:

• Gave a stranger a lift home when our train terminated early on Friday evening
• Did all the washing and ironing
• Painted our nest of tables
• Had a cup of tea with my parents and old family friends from Denmark who were over to visit for the weekend.
• Watched Dawson’s Creek (for a change).
• Had dinner with our friends and our Goddaughter.
• Handed in the penultimate assignment for my creative writing course.  I ‘just’ have the end of course assignment to go.  Oh shit.

Bad things I did this weekend:

• No exercise.  At all.
• Killed in excess of 20 daddy long-legs.  I tried other more humane ways around it but they just kept coming back.  So I killed them all.  I started off being really delicate about it and by the end I was just grabbing them and squishing them with my bare hands.  There is not much grosser than holding 10 or so half-dead crane-flies in your hand and feel them squirm.
• Watched Man Utd get beaten at Old Trafford by the Gooners.  GRRRR.
• Could not remember Danish friends children even though apparently I spent ages with the girl at my 18th birthday do.  Cannot remember it at all.  And couldn’t even fake it because the mother presented me with photos and then tested me on who everyone was. 
• Spilled some grappa on my pillow-case and sucked it out so as not to waste it.  Just to clarify, I am not an alcoholic.

Despite the fact that my official lunchhour is now over, this is what I intend to do this afternoon:

• Update my other blog
• Find out what miso soup is
• Research holiday options
• Do some work

In that order.

The most awesomest email this week.  Maybe even this year:

I am so excited.  There are 10 of us going and it’s just before Christmas.  And if a little debauched rock wont get us in the mood for Chrimbo then I dont know what will!  I have listened to the mighty D’s album on the way into work for the past couple of days and this, my friends, is a mistake.  Because yesterday I caught myself singing the following lyrics.  Out loud.  At my desk.  At work.

I love ya baby but all I can think about is
Kielbasa sausage, your butt cheeks is warm.
I check my dipstick, you need lubrication honey,
My kielbasa sausage has just got to perform.

and then a little later:

Last night two of our mates came over for the evening, one of them bringing their cute dog. We were having a nice evening, eating KFC and watching the football. The highlight of the evening for me was when I was browsing a holiday brochure and because hubbie was still pretty reticent to discuss holiday plans , I jokily invited his friend to come with me instead. I even offered to pay for him.

It was pretty obvious I was joking. I mean, Ricardo was right there in the room. At first, he was quite enthusiastic, taking the joke and playing along. However, when I took it to the next level and started to tell him how many days off he would need, he got freaked. Instead of saying “shut up, crazy bitch, and take your husband” he actually started making excuses why he couldn’t go. He actually said “well, if I were to go to America, I would probably go on my own as there is geeky stuff I would want to do.” Like I meant it. Like I was serious!!! I didn’t say anything at first because we were distracted by the football, but about half an hour later I totally called him on it. And then I laughed my ASS off. Add to that the hilarity of seeing Jazz (the dog) eating a daddy long legs… ah good times!!!

I think Wordpress are having some issues today.  First of all, I wasn’t getting the toolbar at the top for easy access to the new post links etc. and then when I went in via the wordpress.org site, it told me my blog had been suspended for violating the terms of service.  Yikes.  Since I was then able to access my blog as normal, I am thinking that my inoffensive (and let’s face it, rather dull) blog has not been suspended at all. 

I am running at about 50% capacity today and feel pants.  Not like “I am about to die” pants.  But just, “I need a duvet day” pants.

This Homer Simpson quote made me smile though:

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals … except the weasel.

Decorating is dull.  It sucks ass.  I am so over it.  Our lounge better look totally brilliant when it’s finished.

On the plus side I am looking forward to having our cool new clock on the wall:

We have just got back from a five night break at our parent’s little place in Italy - it was great.  Husband, Brother and I were there since Friday in a little Alpine village in Liguria called Carpasio.  The weather was much better than we had expected although we still didn’t make it to the beach. 

On Saturday, we went out for a run out in the car and ended up putting our poor hire car through its paces (sorry Hertz!).  Apparently, Italian maps do not distinguish between sturdy tarmaced roads and loose gravel / rock tracks.  According to this map, the road we chose was a ‘major thoroughfare’.  Now I don’t want to pick a fight about semantics with the makers of our Italian atlas, but unless they count gunrunning in the days of yore (ie pre-cars), there was nothing ‘major’ about that road.  It was barely a ‘throughfare’.  We only really realised what a pickle we were in once the road narrowed to a single track with a mountain face on one side and a sheer drop on the other.  The donkey at the side of the road hadn’t really given it away.  Neither did the herd of goats.  Admittedly, we were a bit perturbed by the looks of incredulity from the drivers of the 4×4 coming the other way.  When we finally were back on flat tarmac on the road into Triora, the Germans enjoying the view next to us as we pulled up were a bit alarmed by our overwhelming relief which manifested itself in pure hysteria.  On the plus side, it did feel like we were on top of the world:

Another day we went for a kick-ass walk which involved a lot of up-hill walking (damn those Alps) and thus, Mr Motivatior is placated.  And another day we went to the most pretty village we have seen yet, Verdedggia.  From this village, there is a walk up to the pass which we went though oun our crazy drive so one day we want to tackle that.  We spent the evenings either going out for meals (we were even brave enough to go to the neighbouring village’s pizzeria as well as Carpasio’s sole restaurant), staying in and cooking, reading, listening to tunes and playing games.  I managed to speak a bit of Italian but really wish I could do more so I am determined to learn more before I next trip out there. 

All in all we had a wicked time but the only downside is that I now have holiday-fever.  Ricardo and I have already started to discuss possible destinations.  Well, if you count the following as a discussion:

Me: So how would you like to go to the Carolinas?  I really liked it in Wilmington…
R:  *shrug*
Me: Or we could go back to Virginia.  We loved it there…
R: hmmm
Me: Or maybe Cape Cod?  We didn’t really get chance to see Boston properly…
R: *noncommital* uh-uh

My colleague just suggested I book it all up and then ’surprise’ him with it for our anniversary next year.  I like this plan.  It’s like, 1st anniversary is Paper, 2nd is Cotton, 3rd is Leather and 4th is Holidays!  Of course if you are reading this, Ricardo, then my plans are scuppered.  Oops.