Gearing up for school. I want to buy my books early. I basically know what classes (two) I’m taking but I wish I had the 3:30 class because it would mean there was only 45 minutes rather than nearly two hours between classes.
I finally finished Atonement by Ian McEwan. I enjoyed the read far more than I expected to, this was sort of a snap judgment based on the reception of the movie by people I respect. Good to know that it’s almost always true that the book is better than the movie. I really enjoyed how Briony, though older and wiser, never really lets go of her need to atone. She may be dead by the time it happens but she won’t give up on it even though it would not have made a bit of difference in anybody’s life. The images, especially in the first part of the novel, are beautiful. A languorous life upset.
I think I need to get back into working on phpFan, revamping the scripts for my artwork and writing sub-sites has taught me more, it’s given me a different idea for templating, at the very least. That’s always been my stumbling block, unfortunately. I still need to work on the Gallery of Pain (yeah, the name, wince) members database/submission system.
I haven’t been writing much, the last of any good was a short story/fanfiction. Here is a poem I wrote that sort of calls attention to my annoyance with making glamorous and sophisticated speakers in poetry.
sophisticate
i could sit at a cafe
and smoke calmly,
my ribcage expanding
to hold thoughts tumbling
from each steady breath.
lipstick smeared teeth and all,
just fuck me now and get
it over with.
the vagina dentata, it swallows
men down like a fire and spit.
i could play the sophisticated city girl,
you know, being from the suburbs
and being stuck smack dab in los angeles.
the cholos smiling, their teeth yellowing
like the wallpaper in my little apartment.
flower print and the heavy trails left
from the rum i lobbed at the wall in rage.
maybe over an old boyfriend,
could have been the phone bill, you know.
i play the sophisticate,
smoking cigarettes from white and red packs,
going to poetry readings where my upheld fist
holds my head to attention.
cooing over name brands that
won’t be here in one hundred years.
remember godey’s?
you know i stomp cockroaches just as
well as any woman living in the slums,
going down there where babies
are another government check,
at least my uncle told me so.
i didn’t know because no live child
has ever passed these thighs.
i don’t pee rosewater.
the women in their condos
and nice apartments sweat into their
shoes on hot days.
i sweat into the cloth of your shirt
and you won’t take your pants off
because i never existed in this busy city.
i slip below the feet of the crowd,
all marching towards some unmet stranger.
