I’m trying to come up with Christmas gifts for Steve. It’s impossible.

I didn’t deliberately wait until now. I’ve just been so out of it, emotionally, that I hadn’t even come up with any ideas until today.

Ho oh no.

I have copies of pseudophakia I’d like to exchange, preferably for a book of yours, but I’m open to other offers–like frankincense and myrrh.

I was tagged with this meme ages ago, but I kept not doing it. Why? Because I’m cantankerous and antisocial!

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was:

I can’t remember any poems from my childhood. Some songs, like “It’s raining, it’s pouring,” but no poems. Poetry was foreign soil. Perhaps the “tiddly pom” rhyme from one of the Pooh Bear stories, “The more it snows, tiddly pom, the more it goes, tiddly pom, the more it goes, tiddly pom, on snowing.”

The first poem that struck me with an appreciable emotional impact was:

“High Flight,” strangely enough.

2. I was forced to memorize in school:

I never was. I did memorize “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” at one point, but that was for extra credit.

3. I read/don’t read poetry because:

I read it because I’m lonely. And when I get done reading, I’m still lonely. There’s a line about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing and expecting different results. I keep expecting different results.

Oh, on a more cheerful day I’d say I read it to learn about the world, to creep inside someone else’s skin. But I’m not feeling cheerful. I’m being grim.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is:

The answer changes all the time, and usually isn’t a “classic” in any sense.

5. I write/don’t write poetry, but:

I write poetry, but I wonder if I really respect it.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.

Poetry is hard. Lately, it hasn’t felt worth it, but when I’m not feeling so bleak, it’s the sort of churning up from the mud that I enjoy. Still, a novel is always easier.

7. I find poetry:

I find it most in broken things.

8. The last time I heard poetry:

This morning. I did some recordings and had to listen to my own, strange voice trickling through the headphones.

9. I think poetry is like:

Weight loss. It takes so much dedication, and once you stop it all disappears.

I’ve sent off a handful of emails in the past couple of days that have been ignored. I sent a request to a fellow poet that has gone unanswered. A post to a messageboard with no replies.

*tap tap* Is this thing on?

Oh, Scavella, how you tempt me with your wicked quizzing ways.

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

You change incandescent lightbulbs, and the old one jingles like a sleighbell. Burnt out.

Am I burnt out on poetry right now? I fear it. It has happened to me before.

There are times when it just seems not exactly too much work, but the wrong kind of work. As if I’m trying to build a house from a pile of leaf mold. Oh, you might get a house, but it’s still rotting.

Ooh, I’m awfully cheery, aren’t I?

In a way, it’s probably just a version of the Christmas blues. My father died three years ago just before Christmas, and he adored the season. After that, everything in my life felt impermanent. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I just realized that I have been blogging for a year.

So many days, so little worth saying!

I shall yap yap yap into the future.

The course I’m taking essentially makes you grovel in order to pass your exams. I hate that. I give myself enough grief without having to wallow in it just to get a grade. Yes, yes, I see that I did something wrong on my homework, but having to say, “Gosh, oh gee, oh golly I sure am a stupid stupid!” doesn’t make me learn any better.

Bah. My feet are cold.

On the plus side, I have a treadmill. I was going to buy it for Christmas for Steve, but it’s hard to hide a treadmill.

I’ve used it four times.

He hasn’t used it at all.

There is something wrong with this picture.

My cell phone has a dying battery, and I’m trying to replace it without having to hock a kidney to afford it. So far, no good. Someone shoot me.

If you’re not on my blog roll and you should be, tell me!

If you are over there and the link is to the wrong blog, outdated, or some other stupidity on my part, tell me that too!

Inspired by Scavella’s shuffling off to WordPress.