oversized scarecrow
guards the plastic pumpkin patch
on my windowsill



I was a strong person today! I confronted two personal issues directly and made difficult choices. Well, for *me* it was difficult choices. I risked saying the wrong thing to two people (one of my biggest fears) and somehow ended up not screwing things up with either of them. In fact, I think I even managed to have a deep conversation about emotions instead of staying in my comfortable shallow water areas. Go me!

Over on FB my friend Jenna has a page called Bardolatry Frivolity where she posts funny Shakespearean themed images, weblinks, videos, etc. She also periodically hosts competitions - such as the Top Ten List MashUp. She's just now posted a limerick competition. I have never ever been good at limericks, but I've attempted two and thought I'd share.


Hermia was said to be cuter.
Hence she had an extra suitor.
When Oberon conspired
To play with desires
Demetrius...saw Helana..woo'd her.

Cupid’s flower Goodfellow did pluck
To make poor Titania love-struck.
When the spell did pass
And she saw ‘twas an ass
She marveled and asked, “What the Puck?"

I guess you know which is my favorite of his plays. I was trying to come up with a Much Ado limerick - I have an idea of what I want to say, but can't find the right words.

I was also thinking about suggesting she do a double dactyl competition. Then I changed my mind and decided that I need to write a doubledactyl then suggest she do a doubledactyl competition.

But you have to go over to jocobear to read it.

The JoCoBear Theme Song

I am actually pretty darn proud of it but it makes a heck of a lot more sense if you've ever heard the Paul and Storm version of Randy Newman movie theme songs. Anyone out there a fan of Da Vinchi's Notebook? Somehow my husband had a bunch of his stuff and we had been doing impressions of the Randy Newman spoof for at least a year or more prior to the JoCo concert. So I was stunned and thrilled to discover I was getting to see them in concert.

And I love it when police shows involve geeky events. CSI:NY has some kind of Second Life murder and the slightly geeky officer is explaining something called "cosplay" and "avatars" to the other investigators. My husband just brought me a newly baked scone and said in a deep staged voice "this avatar thing of which you speak, it sounds intriguing". I married Zapp Brannigan. Although he's insisting it wasn't a Zapp Brannigan impression, it was a 50's Educational Film voice.

Yesterday I was going for my usual lunchtime walk around the campus and saw some birds skipping about chasing each other around the pavement ahead of me. It made me smile. Until I got closer and realized they were leaves. Then I felt kind of dumb but it made me giggle. And I wrote a haiku.

Whirligig wind blows.
Dried leaves flitter and swirl like
finches playing tag.

Of course, at the time I didn't think about a whirligig being a torture device. Oh, well. It’s been really cold here in the mornings. I’m even in a huge sweater as I type this. But the sun has been shining and despite the cold winds it is lovely. We don’t really have a lot of floral expression for the changing of the seasons down here in Florida but there are a few trees in bloom and the azaleas are flaming and bursting so I know despite the frost I keep having to scrape off my windshield in the mornings that Spring is coming.

Unfortunately it's followed by summer – which I hate. What is an inverted Snowbird? That’s what I want to be when I retire. I'm moving to Canada in the summers to establish a place to move to once Global Warming hits full force. (Until we get another Ice Age – unless somehow they cancel each other out.)




While searching for pictures of leaves I found a beautiful poem site:
Magnapoets

Hey! Somebody write a story for me. Or tell me if this is even a good idea for a story. I was kind of talking about this to droidgirl yesterday.

This is nothing to do with book seven. It is just about Muggles in general. So it's not spoiler cut.

I’m figuring in the HP Wizarding World there are families where wizards/witches marry Muggles. That has to be kinda hard for the Muggles.

First of all, if they are living in the wizarding world can they operate some of the technology? Without a witch/wizard there can they use Floo powder for traveling? They certainly can’t fly a broom stick or disapparate. And do the wizard houses have electricity and water through normal mechanical means or through magical means? If magical, do you need a wand to flush a toilet? That would suck if you were in the house by yourself.

Not to mention the fact it has to make you a little jealous to see everyone around you levitate their teacup from the kitchen table to the living room couch when you have to get up and walk over there to get it. I know personally I get very frustrated when I’m trying to nail pictures to a high spot on our wall and it takes me 15 minutes to do one of them only to have John come over move the ladder and just bang the second one in with one swat of the hammer. I think that frustration would be magnified by ten if he could just wave a wand and fix just about anything while I would have to work and sweat.

Plus, like any marriage between cultures, the person living primarily in another culture (an American in England, a German in America) would have grown up w/o the traditional books, folklore, radio, educational system etc so some of the jokes or stories would go over their heads. That can feel bad sometimes but also make for some funny misconceptions. Heck, forgetting about coming from different countries/cultures - even if the person you are dating/married to is 10 or so years different in age you can have those kinds of issues. Muggles would also deal with prejudice issues similar to the interracial or gay couples deal with. I remember dealing with those when I was in an interacial relationship and sometimes it hurt but we also found some of the situations so ridiculous as to be funny.

So from all that I think it would be funny to have a story set in a sort of Muggle Spouses Support Group (MSSG – pronounced MssssssG) where they have a counselor that helps them deal with said issues. Well, actually I suppose you could even do a serious story in that setting that sheds light on the real issues faced by couples in our world – but I’d rather have funny story about not being able to operate the toilet.

What do you think, sirs?

Lalala, Tralala, Lalalala penguin

Lalala, Tralala Lobster parfait

Convertible, overtable, red-dirtable addendum

To a musical lyrical most luminous day



Up a hill, out a door, through a hedge slowly

Sing a song, ride a box, blackberry ole

Upendable, dependable, rememberable Satsuma

And a fantastical, mythical, frolicsome day



Viking hat, krispy kreme , ham and cheese omelet

Billy goats, Hall & Oats, swishy swishy sway

Artfully, fartfully, Id Zendi abandon

For a magical, mystical, cosmical day



Mandlebrot, Hot Hot Hot, Christopher’s a’Walken

Up a tree Belonely, Say (no more) Say Say

GARFunkle, bicycle, popsicle patrician

With a satirical, empirical, poetical day.

this artist does amazing work. someone sent me this link because it's alice in wonderland based but all of her work is amazing.

http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/p/i/pixiwillow/alice129b.jpg.html


And i wrote another Wonderland Double Dactyl

Snickity Snackity
“H.R.H., Queen of Hearts
Rather than cherry try
Apple instead.”
 
“Apple tarts? Knave! You cur!
Insolence! Treachery!”
(Vituperatingly)
“Off with your head!!!”

I have attempted to write a double dactyl. I've written a few before (one about the Beatles that i'm very proud of and will happily post if anyone even hints at asking...)

anyway - if anyone wants to make suggestions or critiques or better yet wants to reassure me that it's actually okay and i don't have to do anything to it please feel free to post ;)


Jabbery Wockery
Alice in Wonderland
Fed up with lunacy
Cried out "Oh Dear"

Grinning maniacally
Purred Cat, "that's unfortunate.
Incontrovertibly
we're all mad here."

which does nearly follow the correct Double Dactyl structure (purred cat doesn't quite have the right beat but otherwise i think it's right) but i don't like it as much as

Alice in Wonderland,
fed up with lunacy,
look quite askance when the
cat did appear

Grinning maniacally
purred he, "that's unfortunate
for categorically
we're all mad here"

which does not follow the correct double dactyl structure as it does not start with jibberish and the second verse doesn't contain a double dactyl but i think it is grammatically nicer and flows better.
but if the first one sounds okay than i'll just leave it at that and stop worrying about it and declare it done. opinions?

I have noisy shoes
Oh, I have noisy shoes
If you’re out there wondering
What’s all that clumping
It’s me and my noisy shoes
(there’re really loud…)
Oh yeah *i* , I have some noisy shoeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees



What do you think, sirs?!?!?

Some one in my creative writing class submitted a poem with the phrase

"six kings blood" running through someone's veins. this sent the class into quite the tizzy trying to figure out the meaning. (of that phrase & the poem in general)

( long version of the story or you can just read down to what the poet meant, which was really cool )

after class I was rewarded by being shown the mystery of the six kings:

Six kings using Roman numerals gives you:
VI kings which can be written
Vikings

So the poet was saying the blood of the Vikings. This person said that was a common way of referring to them in older days but I had never heard of it and I thought it was really cool. So neat that I wanted to share.

Happy Friday!

We're still enjoying the Creative Writing class. I ought to post some of my husband's poems. They are pretty neat. I'm impressed and surprised cuz he's never written poetry (other than haiku) before so it's fun to see this side of him.

Here's my attempt at a metaphor poems. No one in my group understood my first one. They all had to ask what "Vandegraf" meant so I had to explain Vandegraf Generators. One person didn't know the word "strands". They all said they didn't understand it and that I should have more concrete images in the poem, but they didn't have suggestions for where or how. I was sad because I actually liked it better than my other poem (which oddly enough, everyone really liked). I would be interested in other opinions on it to see if it was just those five people or if it was me. It's probably me! The fact they liked my second one, even if I thought it wasn't as good, made me feel a little better. LOL! I think this class is harder than some of my Masters classes.

( Vandegraf )

( Shelf Life )

We had to have assonance, consonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, something you can smell, and a metaphor. Oh, and something called synecdoche - which I totally couldn't figure out. This was a very frustrating assignment. It was kinda fun, though. I'll have to admit that.


EDIT: I had to edit this posting because after i posted it I realized that I had just posted something so my statement about it being a while was in error. I got confused by that quiz being so long. Should have put it behind a cut or something. Sorry about monkeying around with modifying journal entries if you've read this before I corrected it. I feel like Big Brother.

Guess what! They liked my stories. I got some good advice and some comments I didn't expect but on the whole very good response and one person said they loved my writing style. Who'd have thought?!?!

New Assignment: Narrative Poetry

I didn't know how to do the heart symbol in LJ so piture a drawn heart where it says (heart) instead of the actual word. I can do it in Word but not here.

( Timekeeper )

So DON'T read the below part unless you read the poem first. You aren't supposed to explain poems but since I'm afraid I'll come across as a bad person I wanted to give a little bit of explanation.

( I don't hate her )

Okay, so when i found out the two short shorts are due on Monday I wrote a quick one (370 wordsish) just in case I wasn't able to actually write a completely made-up and original "didn't happen to me" all from my imagination story. I'm still hoping to write something not from the first person perspective but this is still practicing writing in general if not that skill in specific.

( Senior Moment )

disbandedtoastr gave me some suggestions but I haven't had time to incorperate them or process them so this is my second draft after having a writing and grammar teacher check my mechanics. She only caught three comma errors and two wrong verbs (passed/past - my nemisis homophone and spilt/spilled). I was proud!

What do you think, sirs?

So instead of music theory 2 I decided to try my hand at a creative writing class. I have never written fiction. I have never written short stories. I may really regret this. Our first assignment is two "short short" stories. That's a story in 500 words or less. For anyone out there who might want to assist me, this is my first one. Not counting the title it is 497 words so to add anything more than three words I would have to remove something. Any suggestions? Any criticisms (be kind)? Any comments? What's good or bad about it? Is it funny? Is it stupid? This really happened. I allowed myself one real event so long as the second short short is made up.

( Canada Or Bust, Eh? )

EDIT: I think it's a little choppy in a few places, but i'm only allowed 500 words.

Just a quick entry to prove that I am not totally technologically ignorant.

http://members.cox.net/franticpansy/haiku/

I did this web-page as a college project. I stole the graphics from all over the world wide web (ain't it great to be a student and not have to worry as much about copyright laws?) and my husband did the rollover bar for me but everything else I did myself.

Okay, that's all I wanted to share today.

Madladyhaiku