I’m watching TV. That’s not weird.

The fact that I watched the third round of the US Open (that’s golf, for those of you in the dark) and am now watching “Patriot Games” (and intend to watch “Volcano”) is the weird part.

I’m sure there are things I should be doing. I’m sure there are.

A longtime friend of Steve’s was dying of ovarian cancer. He made plans to go up next week, then got the call that she had died suddenly.

I know I can’t exactly blame a person for dying. But damn you anyway, Bev. Damn you.

Steve left this morning, so I’ll be all weird for a couple of days. Weirder. Yeah.

Poetry Live: Voices of Verse is looking for poets recording their own works for a podcast. Check it out before the owner gets all frustrated and bails.

Harry is the reason I now am posting a picture of NIZZES. And not just any NIZZES, but NIZZES in hats.

I’ve remembered.

There was a discussion on a board about journals wanting (paraphrased) “surprising turns of phrase or startling images.”

I’ve never really thought very hard about such a request. It’s a common one and, like many common things, it was just there.

But when I do think about it, I realize that I have a big problem with this request. For a turn of phrase to be surprising, or startling, it can’t feel as if it rose directly from what came before. It has to be, at least to some degree, anomalous and unsupported. This demand seems to require, in fact, that a poem be disjointed, not built up word by word to an inevitable, whole, conclusion, but scattered, jumpy, an unpredictable yappy dog.

There are times when I’ll read an image that feels so right, so perfect. But can an image be both a perfect fit and startling? I’m not sure that it can. There has to be a sense of wrongness in order to startle. Something where it shouldn’t be.

The comparison I used in that earlier thread was to a jump scene in a movie, something that is thrown in just to make you lurch or squeal. But the cat coming out of the dark room is hollow and fake. Are these “jump images” or “jump phrases” any better?

I opened a new post in Blogger because I wanted to talk about something. That was over an hour ago, and it’s gone. Whatever it was is vanished.

I hate that.

I’m hoping that as I type this, the previous point will trickle back in. Can a point trickle? Whatever.

Nope, it’s not happening.

It’s not often that I’ll bail on a book, but I’m giving up on China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun. I simply can’t take the grotesquerie. I stood it until people starting sticking pins into their heads as if they were pincushions. That simply makes me feel ill.

If I wanted to be made ill by reading, I’d go to WhiteHouse.gov.

So, it’s a giant pile of suck in Casa Carter.

A flat tire. A dead battery. A fight at Wendy’s. A canceled date with my niece to go to Dime-A-Dog night at the Clippers. Being called names in my own comment section.

Monday, Monday.

And it’s not just my imagination.

Someone planted giant pine trees along the property line on three sides. We keep taking the pines out, or at least uplimbing them, so the yard keeps growing, and growing and growing.

(Speaking of growing, we have baby tomatoes! Woot!)

Considering how much I hate yards, it’s weird that I want mine bigger. But considering that pine needles kill almost everything and work rather beautifully as mulch, well, that’s your answer. More space without more work. It’s perfect.

… what in the hell am I going to do with a 1000-line poem?

Because that’s what I’m building.

I know it’s not something I should worry about, but as I near a quarter of the way done, I can’t figure out if I should be assuming I’m going to edit it and work on it and generally fuss and rewrite, or if it’s kinda, well, not worth anything.

Opinions welcome.